Wikipedia:Reliable sources/Noticeboard

I would like to ask a question about reliability of the sources used in the opinion polls section of the article on Iranian elections. The sources are all in Persian so I present them for non-Persian speakers.

• This source is Rasanehiran.com and the opinion polls cited here is conducted by IRIB, State TV -which is not independent. About section of the website is empty.
• [1] cites a polls conducted by Tebyan.net. Tebyan is one of the website of the Islamic Ideology Dissemination Organization which is officially under the control of the Supreme Leader of Iran.
• ie92.ir an unknown website. Here the website claims that it supports "the interests of the Islamic Republic".
• this one: Nothing about the website. Who is behind this website?
• iranelect.ir is not an official website and again nothing in the about section. Online survey.
• Tebyan see above.
• a forum.
• alef.ir is the website of Ahmad Tavakoli, a deputy of the Parliament. The polls here is conducted by "a reliable organisation" as is presented in the news article. The name of this organisation is not mentioned.
• Fars News Agency is another source.

No editorial oversight has been presented in the "about" section of these websites. Noted that all of these polls were conducted online and their methods is unknown.

Here is the disputed section:

At a number of biographies of economists and others, User:Stalwart111, User:SPECIFICO and User:Steeletrap have been arguing against using books and articles that were written by people associated with the Mises Institute, a subgroup of members of the Austrian School of economics. User:Carolmooredc started a discussion at Wikipedia:Biographies of living persons/Noticeboard#Essay WP:Walled Garden being used to challenge WP:RS policy about this issue, but I think the proper venue is right here.

So this is the crux of the matter: three editors have been saying that books, journal articles and papers written by anybody connected with the Mises Institute should not be counted as reliable sources because the writers are too closely related to each other. Carolmooredc and I have been arguing that the RS guideline says nothing about removing expert observers from the pool of reliable sources just because the observer was familiar with the subject. To me, it seems ridiculous on the face of it to exclude those sources with the most expertise, the most first-hand knowledge. As well, it is wrong to assume that scholars will misrepresent the subject.

It's like saying that no Republicans can be reliable for commenting about Richard Nixon, or that no Labour Party members could be reliable for commenting about Harold Wilson.

Here's a little history of the editors and the issue:

• Stalwart111 has been making the "walled garden" complaint about the Mises Institute since 20 April 2013, complete with a link to Wikipedia's WG essay.[2][3] The walled garden meme was continued by Stalwart111 at User talk:Stalwart111/Archive 4#Austrian/Mises walled garden/fringe social science (the thread started by Steeletrap) in July at the talk page of Gary North (economist). There's also Stalwart111 comments at User talk:Carolmooredc/Archive VIII#Re: Kitten ("a question of whether or not the sources are 'reliable sources' in the first place.")
• SPECIFICO picked up the walled garden refrain from Stalwart111 in April 2013.[4] There are also comments at Talk:Robert_P._Murphy#Murphy.27s_religious_beliefs, Talk:Murray_Rothbard#Meta-note, Talk:Gary North (economist)/Archive 1#Controversial views section, and User talk:Stalwart111/Archive 4#Austrian/Mises walled garden/fringe social science.
• Steeletrap gave voice to the walled garden complaint in April 2013 at User_talk:SPECIFICO/Archive_1#Mises_Institute and at Wikipedia_talk:WikiProject_Economics#Mises_Institute.2FAustrian_economists_walled_garden. There, Lawrencekhoo (LK) and The Four Deuces (TFD) agreed that the Mises Institute material was well organized and intrusive. Carolemooredc disagreed and brought up behavior against consensus. There are also Steeletrap comments at User_talk:SPECIFICO/Archive_1#Mises_Institute_Clean-Up, Talk:Murray_Rothbard#Meta-note, Talk:Jesús Huerta de Soto#Predictions, Talk:Gary North (economist)/Archive 1#Controversial views section, User talk:Stalwart111/Archive 4#Austrian/Mises walled garden/fringe social science, User_talk:Gamaliel#Walled_garden.2Ffringe_concerns_with_Mises_Institute_BLPs, and User talk:Stalwart111#Request for advice on Mises Scholar Ralph Raico.

Affected articles

A relatively large number of articles on Wikipedia are connected by close association with the Mises Institute.

The Mises Institute has archived, published or republished works by the above-named people as well as by others such as Ron Paul, Nicolai J. Foss, Wilhelm Röpke, Carl Menger, Clifford F. Thies, Frédéric Bastiat, Antony Flew, H. C. Engelbrecht, Roberta Modugno, George Selgin, Albert Jay Nock, Morgan Reynolds, Eugen Böhm von Bawerk, Frank Fetter, Edward Stringham, John T. Flynn, George Reisman, Leonard Read, John Wanamaker, Ernest Benn, Richard Cantillon, Frank Chodorov, Stephen Pearl Andrews and of course Ludwig von Mises.

This supposed "garden" has far too many members to be considered "walled" off from the world at large.

Mises Institute writings (many hosted at mises.org) are used as references to support facts at articles such as Herbert Hoover, the Great Depression, Hubert Humphrey, François Quesnay, Benjamin Anderson, Walter E. Williams, Richard Cobden, the Grameen Bank, William Graham Sumner, Carlo Lottieri, William Harold Hutt, Gustave de Molinari, Randy Barnett, Nikolai Bukharin, Francis Hutcheson (philosopher), Daniel Bernoulli, Herbert Spencer, John Bright, Peter Kropotkin, Lysander Spooner, Agostino Depretis, William H. Seward, Henry David Thoreau and many, many more.

If the writings of people associated with the Mises Institute are declared unreliable, a lot of Wikipedia articles will degrade or fall apart.

At User_talk:Gamaliel#Walled_garden.2Ffringe_concerns_with_Mises_Institute_BLPs, User:Gamaliel said the supposed walled garden of Mises material was probably "too prominent to qualify as WP:FRINGE", and yet it would be beneficial to introduce non-Mises sources into a few of the BLPs. I share this viewpoint: I think all the reliable sources that can be found should be used, holding to an inclusive standard rather than one which excludes Mises Institute publications. For instance, Peter Boettke is an Austrian School economist but not associated with the Mises Institute. Boettke writes objectively about the Mises Institute in his Handbook on Contemporary Austrian Economics, Edward Elgar Publishing, 2010, ISBN 9781849806473. Japanese economist Yuichi Shionoya (Emeritus Professor of Economics and former President of Hitotsubashi University, Tokyo, Japan) wrote objectively about Austrian School subjectivism (the Mises Institute viewpoint) in his chapter called "Austrian subjectivism and hermeneutical economics" in the book Subjectivism and Objectivism in the History of Economic Thought, Routledge, 2012, ISBN 9781136275173. Writings such as this can be added to the writings published by the Mises Institute. Binksternet (talk) 09:21, 6 August 2013 (UTC)[reply]

• Comment - to be frank, your crux is patently false and, like Carolmooredc attempted to do at BLP/N, misrepresents my position with regard to these articles almost entirely. Like her, you've taken a tiny, tiny portion of the thousands of bytes of discussion and debate centred around particular articles and have effectively claimed that 2 + 2 = 16.7. Where these issues have been discussed with regard to perhaps 5-10 articles, you have extrapolated your interpretation of my commentary to dozens and dozens and untruthfully claimed I hold that position with regard to them all (I don't think I've read most of those, let alone edited them, so how you could possibly draw a conclusion about my attitude toward them is beyond me). My point was then, and remains now, that there are a group of Mises Institute fellows and associates whose articles (when I first came across them after a random AFD) used sources from the same small group over and over again (those 5-10 articles) - Rothbard on Hoppe, Hoppe on Kinsella, Kinsella on himself (and he wrote his own article, for the most part), Block on Hoppe and Hoppe on Block and so forth. Add to that, many of the sources were published on websites and blogs where the subjects often had direct or indirect editorial control. We know why it happened - the same person created a large number of the articles in a short space of time while working for the Institute (honestly and openly declaring as much then and now). But the same pattern in any other academic context (or any other context entirely for that matter) would certainly be considered a walled garden (the article, not the essay), if not a walled garden (the essay, not the article). The quote you attribute to me is completely out of context, to suggest the opposite of what I was actually suggesting (that the essay was actually irrelevant because the reliability of non-independent sources was the issue). I came to the whole Austrian/Mises topic completely at random and completely by accident and have (if you actually read the many, many talk page discussions in full) been a fairly neutral voice throughout most of this debate. All I've ever done is push for the addition of reliable, independent sources. I haven't advocated the removing of existing sources (though that may be the natural result of replacing them with better ones) nor have I advocated for the deletion of any Mises-related articles (actually, quite the opposite). I said today (quite bluntly) that Carol's tendentious, IDHT, POV-pushing and personal attacks had gotten to the point where I have no desire to have anything else to do with this subject area at all. I've never had a dog in this fight and have plenty of other things to do, so I have no problem walking away from it. I'd ask you to strike your thinly-veiled personal attacks with regard to me in particular (as Carol begrudgingly did) but I really couldn't care less. Stalwart111 10:21, 6 August 2013 (UTC)[reply]

• To give you an idea...

- This is what the article Hans-Hermann Hoppe looked like as at 1 January 2013. Of the 20 sources provided, 15 are either self-published, published in Mises-related publications (LewRockwell.com, Mises.org, etc, though many of those are from Hoppe himself anyway) or are from Mises people like Block and Rothbard. The substantive commentary in the article comes from Block, Rothbard and Kinsella - all Mises colleagues

- And this is what the article Stephan Kinsella looked like at the same time - every single source is from Kinsella himself (most published by Mises) bar two - one from Rothbard, published by Mises, and another from Evers, published by Mises.

- This is Jesús Huerta de Soto looked like (edited only 25 times in 2012, mostly by bots) - 2 broken links for sources.

These are the high-quality BLPs that Carol and Co. have suggested people are "wrecking" with the addition of sources resulting from a "walled garden" argument. Stalwart111 10:49, 6 August 2013 (UTC)[reply]

No one is saying that these articles should not be improved with refs. Half the good info in Huerta de Soto was added by me once I saw User:Steeletrap was trying to remove the article. This issue is: is the fact a wikipedia article is poorly sourced evidence that the individual is not a reliable source? That assertion would be patently absurd. I haven't looked at Kinsella and have no comment on it.

I'd like to see someone source Bryan Caplan which only is sourced to Caplan articles or personal webpages and yet he is used as an expert in Wikipedia articles; but I'm not going to claim he's unreliable cause no one has bothered to come up with secondary sources. User:Carolmooredc 23:26, 7 August 2013 (UTC)[reply]

WTF? Kinsella is one of the articles "Steeletrap tried to delete" (another of your constant refrains) and you highlighted it in the diff you provided ([5]) as proof of his "excuse to AFD" articles only paragraphs below this one with this edit (you added the diff link later). Now you're telling me you didn't even look at the article to work out why he might have nominated it for deletion before you made that accusation?

Binksternet, in case you were wondering, this is the sort of thing I was talking about. You want to be associated with this sh*t? Completely wild, scatter-gun accusations in response to activity Carol hasn't even "looked at". The rest of her argument, of course, is a complete straw man now - that we have somewhere suggested that badly sourced articles make the subjects of those articles unreliable. Stalwart111 01:36, 8 August 2013 (UTC)[reply]

As OP alludes to, there is a "Walled garden" of sorts on the wiki entries of Misesian economists, meaning that the sources for the material written about the contributions and scholarly reputation of each of these economists are overwhelmingly drawn from fellow Misesians. Contrary to what OP said, my primary concern about this is rooted in my belief that Misesians are fringe sources. My basis for the belief that they're fringe is twofold. First, because they don't use the scientific method in their "economics". Second, because Misesians proudly and forthrightly identify themselves as outside of and not taken seriously by the mainstream. (much of the below is copy and pasted from what I said on Gamaliel's page.)

In regards to both of these points, please note again that Misesians openly and categorically reject the application of the scientific method to economics -- an application which characterizes all mainstream social science -- and instead apply preconceived generalizations to their analysis of the economy. Senior Mises Scholar Hans-Hermann Hoppe has summarized this distinction between the methodology of the "Austrian economists" of the Mises Institute and that of mainstream economists in a clear and lucid manner,

"It is this assessment of economics as an a priori science, a science whose propositions can be given a rigorous logical justification, which distinguishes Austrians, or more precisely Misesians, from all other current economic schools. All the others conceive of economics as an empirical science, as a science like physics, which develops hypotheses that require continual empirical testing. And they all regard as dogmatic and unscientific Mises's view." (1), (emphases mine -- steele)

On the second point specifically, please consider the following from prominent Misesian/Austrian Walter Block (2):"Mainstreamers never (to my knowledge) make such overtures [i.e., seriously examine and engage Misesian theory -- steele] in their journals, and when Austrians offer to publish in neoclassical [mainstream -- steeletrape] journals, they are for the most part rebuffed." In the same piece, Block also notes that Gary Becker and James Buchanan, two of the most prominent economists in the world (Nobel Laureates) who like the Misesians are ideological libertarians, characterize the Misesian/Austrian approach to economics as a "cult."

Per the words of Professor Hoppe, the "Misesian" approach to economics represents a rejection of economics as an "empirical science", and per the remarks of both Hoppe and Block, Misesians are not taken seriously by mainstream scholars. This means the Mises view fall under the restrictions outlined on WP:Fringe, and thus per WP:NPOV, should not be accorded the same weight on matters related to economics as mainstream scholars/scholarship. Steeletrap (talk) 10:11, 6 August 2013 (UTC)[reply]

I think you have to separate two quite distinct types of argument.

• The fact that a well-known group of economists take issue with the methodological norms of contemporary economics is a potentially valid position, which we are not here to judge as such. Certainly we can say that the normal methodological arguments used in economics by people like Becker are extremely controversial in themselves. And the argument is often made (even within economics) that economists like him and Friedman who get citations for methodology are actually themselves working way outside their field of training and expertise, playing at philosophy. So disagreeing with this particular faction, even if it is mainstream, does not make anyone "fringe" by WP policy.
• The second type of argument where you say that this group is proud of not being taken seriously by mainstream scholars is potentially more relevant, but it reads like hyperbole and will need more evidence.--Andrew Lancaster (talk) 12:27, 6 August 2013 (UTC)[reply]

Maybe just an additional remark to avoid sending anyone on a wild goose chase. Even with strong evidence the second type of argument (that the Mises followers see themselves as "fringe" within economics) is of dubious relevance according to WP norms. The problem is that it that asking for a "blanket" ban on any kind of source is always going to be quite a big ask. See below: discussing specific source quality concerns is really what this forum is meant for, and not debates about whole movements of economists.--Andrew Lancaster (talk) 12:57, 6 August 2013 (UTC)[reply]

User:Andrew Lancaster: Your comments above are exactly the sort of thing that editors who keep doing these removals need to hear. Thanks. User:Carolmooredc 13:23, 6 August 2013 (UTC)[reply]

[Insert] Rejection of the scientific method in principle, whether with respect to psychology, political science or economics, is a fringe approach, and much different than a human failure to consistently adhere to scientific standards in practice. I find it odd that we apparently think Misesians are a credible source on social science (economics) but not a credible source on how their work is regarded by mainstream thinkers (per Hoppe, as fringe dogmatism and pseudoscience).

I am also puzzled by your remark that argument #2, regarding how the work of Misesians is regarded by the mainstream, is of dubious relevance; in fact, I believe precisely the opposite to be true: that the argument is the most important in evaluating fringe claims. The wiki definition of fringe theory is "an idea or a collection of ideas that departs significantly from the prevailing or mainstream view." A discussion of how the mainstream views Misesian economics is clearly a relevant factor in judging whether they are fringe. Steeletrap (talk) 18:52, 6 August 2013 (UTC)[reply]

• No I do not think that taking a particular controversial position concerning methodology makes an author fringe by definition, at least not in economics. (Note that methodology and economics are two different things.) But anyway, as mentioned, talking about whether an academic movement is fringe or not is not what this forum is for. There is a fringe noticeboard.
• Concerning reliability of a source, the subject of this forum, if the articles concerned are about Misesians then they are not about economic theory or methodology per se anyway? I think you have to consider that in fact a source can be uncontroversially considered fringe, and still be considered notable and reliable for use in particular ways, for example when we are finding sources to explain the career of a fringe author. And if I understand correctly that is the type of article being discussed (and not for example articles concerning economic method)? It is for this reason that I said argument #2 is of dubious relevance to this board.--Andrew Lancaster (talk) 06:28, 7 August 2013 (UTC)[reply]

Steeletrap would like to paint the Mises Institute people as fringe (rather than mainstream contrarians or adherents of a minor viewpoint) and part of his/her argument is based on economics being an objective science, while the Mises Institute people generally adhere to subjective, a priori, non-scientific methods. Steeletrap's argument falls down in two ways: Economics is not an exact science—there are valid differences in methodology. And the Misesian viewpoint is analyzed and studied by other economists as a valid system of economics, one worth of study. Here is my proof:

• The Greenwood student textbook Basic Economic Principles: A Guide for Students says "Economics is considered a social science... The social sciences are not exact sciences."[6]
• Norwegian economics professor Bernt P. Stigum wrote a book published by MIT Press in 1990 titled Toward a Formal Science of Economics which argued for a more scientific approach to economics. He described how the scientific method was not so widely used in economics. He divided economists into "four almost separate groups." He said the groups were 1) the pure theorists and mathematical economists, 2) the pure econometricians and statisticians, 3) applied economists and applied statisticians, and 4) the consultants, policy makers, employees of financial companies, "all the others". In chapter 16 he covers the work of Hayek and Mises, of chance, random events and probability, to arrive at an empirical method.
• Indian economics professor Sampat Mukherjee writes in Modern Economic Theory that economics is a science only to the extent that economists use the scientific method. He continues, "However, the subject-matter of economics is human behaviour and this is much more difficult to predict than the reactions of inanimate matter. Economists, like other social scientists cannot achieve the precision of natural scientists and they cannot use many of their techniques."
• Alain Anderton writes in the Pearson student textbook Economics that economics is not one of the so-called 'hard sciences', that it is a social science akin to sociology, politics, and anthropology. Regarding the scientific method in economics, he writes, "it is usually not possible to set up experiments to test hypotheses. It is not possible to establish control groups or to conduct experiments in environments which enable one factor to be varied whilst other factors are kept constant. The economist has to gather data in the ordinary everyday world where many variables are changing over any given time period. It then becomes difficult to decide whether the evidence supports or refutes particular hypotheses. Economists sometimes come to very different conclusions when considering a particular set of data..."[7]
• Japanese economics scholars Yagi Kiichiro and ‎Yukihiro Ikeda devote a chapter to to the Mises Institute style of economics in their book Subjectivism and Objectivism in the History of Economic Thought. They discuss the subjectivism of Mises, calling it the "hallmark" of that tradition. The Japanese scholars say that the subjectivism of Mises was pure, logical, consistent, thorough and coherent. This type of subjectivism in economics is presented as a valid school of thought despite its lack of scientific method.
• The book Subjectivism and Economic Analysis was written by Roger Koppl, a professor of economics and forensics, and Gary Mongiovi, a professor of economics and finance. They describe how the scientific method is too difficult to implement in economics. They talk about how Mises denied the scientific method, how complex phenomena are "open to various interpretations." They treat Mises as a major force in economic analysis, not a minor or fringe viewpoint. Routledge, 2012, ISBN 9781134835836
• Brian Doherty, an economist with the District of Columbia Public Service Commission, writes about the Mises Institute's non-scientific, subjectivist approach to economics. The a priori style was Mises economics method which Doherty says was "requiring nothing in the way of empirical observation or verification." Doherty says this concept of Mises was "heavily derided by his critics", but it was nevertheless one of the methods applied to economics, a method worthy of study. He says Hayek eventually dropped the dependence on a priori methods to develop a Popper-style system, one which might offer "pattern prediction"; this was seen as a "betrayal" by Mises Institute people such as Rothbard and Hoppe.

Thus we can see that economics does not depend on the rigorous application of the scientific method, and we see that the Mises approach is not treated as fringe nuttiness. Binksternet (talk) 19:30, 7 August 2013 (UTC)[reply]

[Insert] Bink, your argument loses credibility when your statements about sources do not conform to who they actually are. The Brian Doherty passage you cite is from Radicals for Capitalism, written by a libertarian anarchist with a degree in journalism from University of Florida; you have confused him for another Brian Doherty, who has a B.A. in econ from William and Mary. Steeletrap (talk) 17:50, 8 August 2013 (UTC)[reply]

There are also various omissions and distortions of the textbooks you cite. Nowhere is it stated for instance that the Koppl book is written by Austrians (whose work was given a glowing review by the Mises Institute.) The book by Japanese scholars is a history of economic thought, not an economic textbook. Any history of economic thought should include disussion of the "Misesian method" since it was mainstream a century or so ago. Citing that book as a basis for their being mainstream now is like citing a history of philosophy book in justification of the claim that vitalism (which played a huge role in the history of science/philosophy and would certainly be mentioned for that reason) is mainstream science.

I could go on and on but I've got a busy day ahead of me. I probably will discuss more of the distortions later. Steeletrap (talk) 17:50, 8 August 2013 (UTC)[reply]

Thanks for the corrections regarding Doherty. His book, Radicals for Capitalism, is in itself evidence against your walled garden argument. Doherty describes the intertwining lives of prominent thinkers such as Ayn Rand, Hayek, Mises and Rothbard. Such connections are not a small, closed-off system but simply part of the gravitation of like to like, including the clash of contrasting views. The ideas of these people influenced many others. The specific example from your editing history is Murray Rothbard who you have tried to reduce and reduce. You said Rothbard is "is virtually unknown for his 'contributions' to economics", and "not notable for work as an economist", which is nonsense. You changed Rothbard from Austrian School to anarcho-capitalism, though Rothbard was a giant in the second half of the 20th century Austrian School. You removed the Austrian School section from the capitalism article. You edit-warred to reduce the importance of Rothbard's economics contributions by making him first a political theorist. You removed Justin Raimondo's book about Rothbard because he was Rothbard's "friend" (part of the walled garden argument), which was strange because you used Raimondo later to support a negative point. You removed Klein and Hayek who you later described as part of the walled garden, but you removed a tertiary encyclopedia source, too, because the text said Rothbard held an endowed chair in economics. You called two of the Mises Institute writers "cronies and co-workers" of Rothbard, one of your most pointed attempts to call such writers part of a walled garden. I stopped this discussion because there is no support for what you wanted from the guideline at WP:RS. I could continue searching your contribution history but my lunch break is at an end. Binksternet (talk) 21:03, 9 August 2013 (UTC)[reply]

Your diffs don't represent what you say they do, as anyone with the inclination to read through the surrounding context will find out. For instance, you imply that I have a problem noting that Rothbard had a chair at UNLV, with the implication being I am deleting factual content that I don't like. In reality, all I did was deleted material which falsely stated that he held a chair at Brooklyn Polytechnic, as any responsible editor would have been obliged to do. Your credibility has fallen to a preposterously low level with all of these distortions. Steeletrap (talk) 19:04, 14 August 2013 (UTC)[reply]

Binksternet, I could add more sources which question the Becker style of approach to economic methodology and even ones which effectively accuse them of being the extremists. I think we do not need to discuss this in a detailed way on this particular forum. I think it is enough to say, as I think I did, that in economics use of words like "empirical scientific methodology" would place a writer in one particular faction within economics, and that faction is not dominant enough to allow us to place other factions into the "fringe" bin.--Andrew Lancaster (talk) 20:30, 7 August 2013 (UTC)[reply]

It would be great if you guys could look at the Austrian school of economics article which needs work. User:Carolmooredc 23:29, 7 August 2013 (UTC)[reply]

An essay (WP:Walled Garden) that only is about wikilinks should not be constantly used to undermine WP:RS policy, claiming it supports the ideologically biased WP:OR assertion that all WP:RS even loosely affiliated with one group should not be used as WP:RS in articles about other individuals loosely affiliated with the group, or even for just about anything else. Declaring alleged members of any group that may be a bit out of some alleged mainstream artistic/political/economic/social grouping as being so fringe it can't be used on Wikipedia is absurd. We'd have to remove 20% of the refs on Wikipedia. Each reference has to be judged by it's own merits, related to a specific use in an article.

Note that these editors do put references from members of this loosely affiliation group in each other's articles if the comments are largely critical, for example Walter Block, Anthony Gregory and Gene Callahan quotes/material in Hans-Hermann Hoppe; Hans-Hermann Hoppe in Murray Rothbard; and Gary North and Larry J. Seacrest in Jesus Huerta de Soto.

Also frustrating is that when one does put in a reference totally unrelated to this group of individuals it often is challenged on other questionable grounds (paraphrased, things like "these professors are nobodies", "John Stossel's just a tv host", "this professor's article was removed from Wikipedia so he's not reliable", "I don't think Rothbard's notable as an economist", so editor removes seven sources supporting that assertion, etc.) Allowing such a wholesale attack on sources would lead to removal of almost all refs for these BLPs and be an excuse to AfD articles. (Steeltrap has nominated 3 related articles in his four months of editing; all were kept.) User:Carolmooredc 11:56, 6 August 2013 (UTC)[reply]

Obviously the WP:NEUTRAL policy is very clear about the fact that it is better to add counter-balancing sources rather than deleting sources, but it seems from the posts above that your interlocutors are not agreeing that they are violating this policy, and anyway it is not the subject of discussion for this noticeboard. There is a relatively clear and relevant accusation being made that the sources being removed are not proper reliable sources as per WP:RS. Can we discuss that accusation here?--Andrew Lancaster (talk) 12:33, 6 August 2013 (UTC)[reply]

To answer User:Andrew Lancaster's last specific question, after much argument, and visits to various noticeboards, all four of those examples were kept in. Just illustrating the problem. But if there's another example that we need help with someone will come here with specific problem. Thanks. User:Carolmooredc 12:47, 6 August 2013 (UTC)[reply]

Discussing specific cases would definitely be the better approach on this forum.--Andrew Lancaster (talk) 12:53, 6 August 2013 (UTC)[reply]

• I should note that I'm not deeply informed about economics so my comment quote above shouldn't be taken as a pronouncement. That said, there are definitely some concerns about these articles. For example, at Jesús Huerta de Soto there's an entire section devoted to praise from other Austrian schoolers or Misneans, including a quote from a fellow Mises Institute scholar in a Mises Institute journal. So there's definitely an echo chamber effect going on here that may create the illusion of widespread academic acceptance where there is none, the sort of tactic that has been used by fringe groups to push fringe ideas into the mainstream, such as intelligent design or Amity Shlaes' kooky ideas about the Great Depression. Or this could be simply scholars in a small sub-field commenting on the work of other scholars in a small sub-field. These articles definitely need a concerted effort to bring more opinions into them outside the Mises sphere, but at this point I see this as an NPOV issue rather than one of FRINGE. Gamaliel (talk) 16:17, 6 August 2013 (UTC)[reply]

I have not looked at the case but what you describe sounds like something to be discussed on the article pages, and more relevant to WP:DUE than WP:RS?--Andrew Lancaster (talk) 16:21, 6 August 2013 (UTC)[reply]

Gamaliel, I agree with your observation. Let's set aside the question of the Mises Institute's fringiness, on which there can be good faith disagreement. The appropriateness of the specific edit which you cite, Hulsmann's overblown and inaccurate statement about Soto's book, can be evaluated (without reference to Fringe) simply by the criteria stated in WP:RS. The Hulsmann reference is not RS because it of the association of Hulsmann and Soto, the association of both with the publisher, and Hulsmann's lack of credentials to make such sweeping statement about 88 years of economic theory and literature. The source is not independent of the subject. The more contentious the dispute, the more important it is to parse it into clear, specific examples with diffs. That's the only way to avoid the acrimonious welter of garble sprawled across the talk pages and noticeboards. SPECIFICO talk 16:34, 6 August 2013 (UTC)[reply]

What we generally do with self-promoting "vested interest" statements is that we (1) attribute them showing the conflict of interest of the source ("according to X's wife..."), and (2) we try to find sources which give another side to the story, if it is apparently controversial. Of course in some cases it is better not to use obvious promotional quotes, but in many cases it is better to add more information and not delete. Comments by people with a vested interest are sometimes useful for explaining controversial things, and our main aim as editors has to be to show the context so our readers can work it out for themselves. WP policy tells us to report controversies and not take a side.--Andrew Lancaster (talk) 06:28, 7 August 2013 (UTC)[reply]

I think you're over-thinking this matter, Andrew. The relevant criterion, per WP:Fringe, is what mainstream scholarship thinks of Austrianism; whether or not Austrianism (or Chicago School/Becker's economics) is epistemically sound is of no relevance. Wikipedia is asking us to make an appeal to authorities, according to which (per the words of virtually all Misesians and mainstreamers -- I will be soon posting to the fringe noticeobard detailing this evidence) Austrianism is fringe. Steeletrap (talk) 04:48, 8 August 2013 (UTC)[reply]

It is not normally a good sign when someone starts accusing people who expresses doubts about their position of over-thinking? Please consider whether you are not getting yourself stuck in circular discussions by over-reaching in the arguments you present. Are you truly going to try to argue that all Austrianism is fringe? (Even Hayek?) In this post you are trying to equate controversial with fringe, but in economics, all strong methodological positions that I am aware of are controversial, even though many are widely read and taken as serious or at least thought-provoking. A source can be non-mainstream, controversial, but not fringe; or even mainstream, controversial, and fringe, and so on.

Anyway, this noticeboard is about WP:RS and I think it is clear that for that policy there is no intrinsic problem using sources who are controversial in their own field. If there are specific sources being used which you think are not reliable, please bring the specific cases here for discussion.--Andrew Lancaster (talk) 05:54, 8 August 2013 (UTC)[reply]

I meant the specific Misesian strain of Austrianism. And I hardly think a remarkably polite way of telling someone his or her thinking might be mistaken is "accusing." Steeletrap (talk) 17:27, 8 August 2013 (UTC)[reply]

This is a board where advice is given. Anyway, I was wondering if you meant Mises followers specifically, but you were clearly not. That is I think part of the problem in this discussion. Both sides are tending to say a bit more than they really can defend. I state this "accusation" with best intentions, and I suspect it is just a case of building up experience with discussions in Wikipedia. Back to policy advice: my point stands I think, that no matter how fringe these authors are, in none of the articles I have seen so far are they being cited for anything other than the opinions of specific individuals who they appear to be reliable for. I think that in fact your aim of taking this to the fringe forum is therefore going to hit this same problem. In other words like RS, being "WP:FRINGE" is relative to context. The argument you are trying to pull off is complex and confusing but not working. It is something we see often on all these noticeboards, which is people thinking they can use "wikilawyering" to avoid the annoying types of discussions sometimes needed in order to reach consensus on WP.--Andrew Lancaster (talk) 18:58, 8 August 2013 (UTC)[reply]

I wish you would read through WP:Fringe; we are asked to make an appeal to authority to determine whether sources are considered to be mainstream or fringe. There is little room for lawyering with such eclear-cut policy language; the only relevant question is: Does Misesian scholarship fall under the purview of mainstream scholarship? You continue to misunderstand the relevant policy, which you appear to believe relates to whether a methodology is epistemically credible or sound. (your misunderstanding is illustrated your (OT for purposes of WP:Fringe) attempts to criticize the epistemology of (clearly mainstream) Gary Becker.. Steeletrap (talk) 19:47, 8 August 2013 (UTC)[reply]

No one may agree with me, but I think where the source comes from is less important than the statement it is being used to support. For example, if you are speaking of a Mises-supported Economist A, a Mises book stating that Economist A is "the most important and influential economist of the 20th century" would be questionable. But the same text being used for "This is what Economist A is arguing...." would be valid in my point of view. The text may not be a reliable source on what mainstream society thinks (what is important, valuable, essential, detrimental in economics, for example) but it could be a reliable source when it is explaining itself.

When I've looked at sources, I see what claim they are being asked to support. Rolling Stone would be a reliable source for claims that a musical artist is influential where a Justin Bieber's record company website Q would not be. But if the claim is that "X, Y, Z are fans' favorite Justin Bieber songs according to a poll taken on Q", then it would be a reliable source (on itself).

I'm not part of the Reliable Sources team but I think that context is everything. Mises sources would be reliable sources to use to explain the views of scholars associated with the Institute. But if they were used to back up claims on, for example, the state of the economy and what policies should be enacted, you'd have to include "according to the Mises Institute" where the political or theoretical allegiance of the source is made explicit (and not buried in a footnote) or it should not be used at all. Newjerseyliz (talk) 19:15, 8 August 2013 (UTC)[reply]

NJ, I completely agree with your assertion. Misesians are not reliable for assessing the contributions to economics of Misesians, Keynesians, etc (Per WP:Fringe) but (as honest scholars) are reliable for describing the ideas and backgrounds of themselves and their peers. Alas, the fringe point is just a defense I am invoking against OP's charges of "bias", and is not the main point of this thread. (In this regard, I will be posting to the relevant noticeboard soon.) Steeletrap (talk) 21:39, 8 August 2013 (UTC)[reply]

Steeletrap, but just to note it, none of the sourcing contexts under discussion in this whole over blown thread were about any WP economic theory as such, but only about individuals and their work and opinions. You seem to be trying to continue with this style of creating confusion about what the discussion is about in order to win something. Advice: that really sticks out on WP.--Andrew Lancaster (talk) 06:33, 9 August 2013 (UTC)[reply]

Andrew, lest anybody forget, this entire thread about "walled garden" instead of RS was not initiated by Steeletrap. The straw man "walled garden" bit was presented in great, false, and irrelevant detail by Binksternet. SPECIFICO talk 13:46, 9 August 2013 (UTC)[reply]

SPECIFICO is right. My remarks are not intended to make a definitive positive case regarding WP:Fringe, but rather are intended to show that my motivation is not bias, but instead a plausible interpretation and application of policy). This thread is about OP's (erroneous) allegations regarding the actions and motivations editors. Steeletrap (talk) 19:59, 9 August 2013 (UTC)[reply]

Looking through some of these debated articles I note one point which has not I think be mentioned here, that is relevant to RS policy. I see many cases where sentences describing a Mises follower's controversial ideas are tagged, demanding non-primary, and/or third party sources. The aim seems to be to paste in less controversial opinions in order to show our readers that these are not mainstream? In one case I saw a section about a person's beliefs having a section tag demanding more information about what other economists think. I see that this type of demand has come up on other forums here as a possible SYNTH concern, but just from an RS point of view please note that in an article or section or sentence which is clearly trying to describe the opinions of a person, and not the whole literature about an economic theory, the primary source is generally going to be quite acceptable. Exceptional cases would be where there is good reason to think a person has stated their own opinions in a misleading way, but I do not think we can claim this given that these opinions are all quite clearly "no holds barred". (I think our readers can see these ideas are controversial!) Having said that, this advice is not intended to say that third party sourcing can not improve these articles, only that there is no problem big enough here to demand tagging. Tagging is something which should be done selectively, because it makes articles ugly and harder to read.--Andrew Lancaster (talk) 09:39, 8 August 2013 (UTC)[reply]

Now you're just being speculative; I mean you're seriously claiming all of these tags are secretly intended to prove the non-mainstream point? Pro-Rothbard Carolmooredc has consistently demanded non-primary sources for statements of Misesian scholars, so this is hardly unique to one side of the "debate." In any case, non-primary sources are strongly preferred per WP:BLP. Steeletrap (talk) 17:31, 8 August 2013 (UTC)[reply]

Andrew, I don't know which tags you're looking at but there have been several recent attempts to impeach clear quotations of the views of the Mises Fellows, the complaint being that it is WP:OR to conclude that the subjects' own words are really significant in the constellation of their many beliefs, or that, who knows, the subjects' view may have changed recently, or that the quoted statements were "cherrypicked" from the cited source. In short, the RS policy is deployed as code for a certain kind of whitewashing. SPECIFICO talk 17:40, 8 August 2013 (UTC)[reply]

I have made some remarks on article talkpages, and removed or adapted some of the examples I am talking about, so hopefully that helps explain. Please note I do not see myself as being on (and certainly not against) either side of this debate, so your remarks that this was done by the "other side" does not surprise me. To be clear this looks like an experience problem. I think both "sides" have understandable concerns and show a lot of good intentions and potential to eventually work together eventually.--Andrew Lancaster (talk) 19:02, 8 August 2013 (UTC)[reply]

Um, yes you were. You said that the tags were aimed at "show[ing] our readers that these [Misesian sources -- Steele] are not mainstream" I'm glad you seem to be walking back these sort of speculations. Steeletrap (talk) 19:34, 8 August 2013 (UTC)[reply]

Yes you were what? The post you replies to does not deny any accusation. I have given advice above and I stick to it without ever having claimed full understanding of the intentions of the over-tagging. Please just take my advice in good faith and try to show some understanding of it in your future editing. I strongly advise you to tone down your argumentative style and constant deflection from topic. Try to stick to a point, and not to look like someone obsessed with winning arguments.--Andrew Lancaster (talk) 06:41, 9 August 2013 (UTC)[reply]

Much of this discussion is about Primary quote claim tag is about NPOV and WP:OR, not WP:RS and clarifying whether and how under WP:BLP "subject's own statements of the subject's own views" can be used in an NPOV way. (I changed them from POV and even incomprehensible way but left the primary source tags there to encourage other editors to find secondary sources - as well as discourage misuse of these sources. User:Carolmooredc 05:44, 10 August 2013 (UTC)[reply]

Stuck

 – Most difficult to discern what the issues are; multiple threads overlap and clash; remarks about creditability, POV, etc. prevent consensus and cooperation. I recommend closing this discussion. -- – S. Rich (talk) 20:17, 14 August 2013 (UTC)[reply]

Point to keep in mind is that whenever an issue came out of the smoke it was pretty easy to say how policy should apply.--Andrew Lancaster (talk) 20:24, 14 August 2013 (UTC)[reply]

So here we are, with a thread that opened 6 August, and now has three subthreads. WP:TLDR is the operative factor. Those issues not obscured by smoke are easily resolved, but where does the rest of the thread lead? Which mulberry bush are we spinning around? Let's closed this as {{Unresolved}}. – S. Rich (talk) 20:37, 14 August 2013 (UTC)[reply]

I think the problem we are having with pinning the questions is part of the main real problem, which is that the editors involved are working badly together, and not easy to communicate with about this subject. I am not saying whether or not I think this particular thread should be closed. I am just pointing out that it may re-open or find a new direction. It really depends on the editors involved learning to see the good faith on the "other side".--Andrew Lancaster (talk) 21:14, 17 August 2013 (UTC)[reply]

This was the original complaint by Binksternet:

"At a number of biographies of economists and others, User:Stalwart111, User:SPECIFICO and User:Steeletrap have been arguing against using books and articles that were written by people associated with the Mises Institute, a subgroup of members of the Austrian School of economics. User:Carolmooredc started a discussion at Wikipedia:Biographies of living persons/Noticeboard#Essay WP:Walled Garden being used to challenge WP:RS policy about this issue, but I think the proper venue is right here.

So this is the crux of the matter: three editors have been saying that books, journal articles and papers written by anybody connected with the Mises Institute should not be counted as reliable sources because the writers are too closely related to each other. Carolmooredc and I have been arguing that the RS guideline says nothing about removing expert observers from the pool of reliable sources just because the observer was familiar with the subject. To me, it seems ridiculous on the face of it to exclude those sources with the most expertise, the most first-hand knowledge. As well, it is wrong to assume that scholars will misrepresent the subject."

Maybe we could confine the discussion to a consideration of this query? NewJerseyLiz ^{Let's Talk} 18:20, 16 August 2013 (UTC)[reply]

• Hello Liz. OP's posting was replete with ad hominem, straw-man arguments, false generalizations, and misrepresentation of other editors' statements. Better to let the thread expire, IMO. Thanks for your interest in the matter, however. If a well-formulated question on this topic is raised in the future, I hope that you will participate. SPECIFICO talk 18:42, 16 August 2013 (UTC)[reply]

• Really? You have continued to work toward a reduction of the Mises Institute material, most recently by proposing a research method which concentrates on off-line texts when you know full well that the Mises Institute is very good at making their texts available online. The thread is Talk:Murray_Rothbard#Online_Sources_--_Survivorship_bias, and it is going nowhere, mainly because Wikipedia has a policy called WP:WEIGHT which goes against your recommendation to use off-line references which have suffered survivorship bias. Binksternet (talk) 22:35, 16 August 2013 (UTC)[reply]

• Having offered a comprehensive rebuttal to that very query and having received no substantive response, I wasn't going to post here again, but I was pinged so here I am. Liz, I have maintained, on his own talk page and here, that OP's original query was simply a summarised version of personal attacks made by another editor in about 1/2 a dozen earlier threads (none of which were supported by any evidence whatsoever and many of which included deliberate misquoting and misinterpretation). His "evidence" in the end was that we had collectively drawn attention to a long-standing academic concept (that of a closed system or walled garden) and that one of us had welcomed another to WP. That's it. While I respect your want for closure, I would urge you to read some of that other related commentary. I think you'll quickly conclude there was no evidence to support OPs original claims; if for no other reason than when challenged to provide some, OP was unable to offer any. Stalwart111 22:23, 16 August 2013 (UTC)[reply]

• Stalwart111, I think you started out on good footing back in April 2013, helping Steeletrap with Wikipedia's strange processes, but then you became too accepting of the effort by Steeletrap and SPECIFICO to diminish the Mises Institute sources. You aided Steeletrap and SPECIFICO in this effort, and you did not perform your own research to see whether they were drawing the topic too far away from its center. Binksternet (talk) 22:35, 16 August 2013 (UTC)[reply]

• If you continue to think so then you've read even less of the discussion than I originally gave you credit for (which, admittedly, wasn't much given your inability to back ad hom criticism with evidence). And by "center" I assume you mean "completely unsourced puffery", per the examples given in response to your original claims. The articles I highlighted (then and now) were either unsourced or sourced almost entirely to one small, insular group within a group, within a group. If you think providing independent, secondary, reliable sources for articles makes me the bad guy, then there's nothing I can do to help you except suggest you adjust your assume-good-faith-o-meter. Stalwart111 23:57, 16 August 2013 (UTC)[reply]

• Well, at least I can say I tried! It doesn't seem like there is AGF here any more or the possibly to talk civilly about differences of opinion (I'm not casting any blame, just reflecting what I'm seeing here). I doubt RSN will offer a resolution to you all as you need a third party to weigh the evidence, either in DRN or AN. This impasse will not be resolved with the continuation of an argument among yourself. NewJerseyLiz ^{Let's Talk} 20:32, 17 August 2013 (UTC)[reply]

By all means, have a look at the article and the talk page for Rothbard or other articles related to the Mises Institute. I have no idea whether the topic is of interest to you, but more eyes are certainly welcome there. SPECIFICO talk 20:41, 17 August 2013 (UTC)[reply]

There is some dispute as to whether AnimeCons.com is considered reliable or not for referencing attendance figures. The article that its being used on is List of attendance figures at anime conventions, and is the primary source for the article, referencing the majority of the article's attendance figures.

First of all, the website has a standing policy, to "not list any information which cannot be verified with the event's web site. This includes guest listings, programming, and registration rates." However, the website is also user-edited, and the information can be updated by anyone at anytime without a login, as evidenced at Ohayocon 2008's page which has a Update Information for Ohayocon 2008 link at the bottom of the page. So there is no way to verify if the information listed on the website came from the event's website or if it was just added by by someone else. The website has also not demonstrated a reputation for fact-checking and accuracy.--十八 21:58, 11 August 2013 (UTC)[reply]

Any updates made on that website by users need to be approved by the paid workers of that site and a source needs to be provided . Try updating the site yourself with data and with a source, it will say: "We are currently experiencing a rather significant backlog so it may take us some time to process your submission. Thank you for your patience.". They have paid people who review the information there. And all the info there that was approved was not necessarily done by users. it is therefore reliable--Misconceptions2 (talk) 22:05, 11 August 2013 (UTC)[reply]

Where's the proof that any of their staff is paid to review the information submitted?--十八 22:20, 11 August 2013 (UTC)[reply]

It is not really necessary that an editing staff be paid, although it would be an indicator of "seriousness". Another approach is to look around and see if other sources cite them in a way which indicates that they have a reputation for accuracy.--Andrew Lancaster (talk) 12:13, 13 August 2013 (UTC)[reply]

The source is reliable, it has been used by animenewsnetwork and about.com--Priti.shetty (talk) 17:26, 13 August 2013 (UTC)[reply]

I searched "AnimeCons.com" in animenewsnetwork and all relevant results concern only press releases or forum posts. As i can tell "AnimeCons.com" was never used as a source for any less than 10 times between in 2006 and 2010 for news or article in animenewsnetwork. update : i made a more refined search using this search. Sorry my googlefoo is a bit rusty --KrebMarkt (talk) 19:57, 16 August 2013 (UTC)[reply]
I also did the same with about.com and all results concern Comics & Anime Conventions where it's only mentioned in an Elsewhere on the Web paragraph. Again AnimeCons.com isn"t used a source.
Bottom line neither animenewsnetwork nor about.com use "AnimeCons.com" as a source for their news or articles --KrebMarkt (talk) 19:43, 16 August 2013 (UTC)[reply]

I also searched and found that those website do use it as a source: http://manga.about.com/b/2009/01/26/animeconscom-lists-10-biggest-anime-conventions-of-2008.htm .--Misconceptions2 (talk) 20:32, 16 August 2013 (UTC)[reply]

At the best informations coming from the AnimeCons.com staff members can be considered as reliable however this not enough to prove that their users editable conventions database is a reliable source. This is much like animenewsnetwork where staff articles and reviews are reliable while their users editable anime encyclopedia isn't. --KrebMarkt (talk) 20:43, 16 August 2013 (UTC)[reply]

• Animecons has been used multiple times as a source, as seen by Levi's citations in Cinema Anime. As always, diligence is the best practice. It is a reliable source. ChrisGualtieri (talk) 20:52, 16 August 2013 (UTC)[reply]

• Which part of the website ? The whole website or just the staff published contents ? --KrebMarkt (talk) 21:03, 16 August 2013 (UTC)[reply]

• I'll go out and say the reports are RSes because of their fact checking practices, which leads them be cited in academic works. Animecons mentions, "We verify all information with numerous sources (convention web sites, press releases, etc.) before being posted online. Submitting false or misleading information could result in your entire submission being invalidated and future submissions being ignored." It is quite clearly checked and regardless of whether or not a user can submit content to the site, things must be vetted by the staff prior to changes being made. Animecons holds an archival and historical purpose with a clear fact-checking focus that denotes it as an RS. For Knowledgekid 87's issue, see below. ChrisGualtieri (talk) 04:54, 17 August 2013 (UTC)[reply]

• The question is what's make their database more reliable than the ANN encyclopedia or MyAnimeList as all rely on users contributions ? The point being that i have the very bad feeling that in the future some editors will argue that ANN encyclopedia or MyAnimeList are reliable sources using the very same argumentation. --KrebMarkt (talk) 13:44, 18 August 2013 (UTC)[reply]

• The fact it is cited and has editorial controls shows that it is a credible source in the eyes of academica. Just because users can submit information doesn't make it unreliable by nature. Huffington Post operates in an even looser manner, and Fox News, despite being a major news agency can make errors without being called unreliable. As someone who researches anime and manga, I can clearly state that not every line in our RSes are correct. With my pointing out of Dani Cavallaro's error in Castle of Cagliostro being the most recent "on-wiki" fuss I've made. The barrier line for me is "freely edited" versus "editorial control". If some information is contentious, we go from that on a case-by-case basis with official values presented as accurate. ChrisGualtieri (talk) 14:00, 18 August 2013 (UTC)[reply]

• A pity that we don't have access to the sources backing the informations in Animecons database. Unlike ANN encyclopedia, we won't have the chance to facepalm when finding an information citing Wikipedia as source (which happen way too often). --KrebMarkt (talk) 15:30, 18 August 2013 (UTC)[reply]

• Yes, but the official con tally is what is used. Take Anime Boston 2008.[8] "13,248 paid attendees (14,339 warm bodies)" and how that is different from the estimations of media. With 15,000 being the estimation in various places.[9][10] Most of these media ones can 404, but they are typically archived by various places. Though in Anime Boston's case, even if not cited on how they got the value, please check the Anime Boston cite for that.[11] So, is it your ideal, no. Probably not any researchers ideal citation sourcing, but with a few minutes of research one can typically find an estimate or the official tally. I see no reason that it places Animecons as an unreliable source - some of the arguments seem rather nitpicky when you look objectively at the situation. ChrisGualtieri (talk) 15:42, 18 August 2013 (UTC)[reply]

• I would prefer to point directly to the original source whenever possible. Because we don't have access to their sources, we can't asses the quality of their "editorial control", unfortunately. I think we (wikipedia) have grow too dependent to Animecons as a source thus questioning its reliability is like asking for a tidal wave over the conv related articles. --KrebMarkt (talk) 16:00, 18 August 2013 (UTC)[reply]

I also think that animecons.com is unreliable take in case AM², animecons.com marked it as cancelled with no other sources stating this as fact nor the primary source saying anything about it. It is dubious at the very least. - Knowledgekid87 (talk) 04:25, 17 August 2013 (UTC)[reply]

But Animecons is correct.[12] The Wikipedia article which you linked even cites the ANN source itself. The official website may not be updated, but Animecons is correct and the source comes from the official channels as well.[13] Bad organization for a con, but it not Animecons which messed up. ChrisGualtieri (talk) 04:58, 17 August 2013 (UTC)[reply]

Animecons was correct is the point before any other reliable source said it was and the source from that information was from users. So while it may have been correct the fact is still that the site is updated by user sent information. - Knowledgekid87 (talk) 02:32, 18 August 2013 (UTC)[reply]

I'm sorry, but this is a bad argument. You first questioned its reliability by pointing out that it was incorrect based on the official website. The official Facebook page and forums say it is cancelled, but not the site, how does that make Animecons unreliable? It is completely accurate. Now that the issue is, because it is updated by user sent information it is unreliable? The editorial team determines whether or not it goes live, and while it has stricter controls than Wikipedia, this seems to be no different than your local paper which will correct mistakes or review information from its readers. If merely welcoming correcting mistakes or taking new information for editorial review is a sign of "unreliablity" than the entire media complex is unreliable by application of that view. I counter by stating it makes it more reliable instead. ChrisGualtieri (talk) 14:08, 18 August 2013 (UTC)[reply]

ANimecons is like a news website e.g cnn, bbc in the sense that they just parrot what other sources say. All their info is based on a source, if the soruce is not reliable they wont put it on their website as stated in their policy. Their info is generally correct and matches primary sources, why not leave it at that?--Misconceptions2 (talk) 20:08, 18 August 2013 (UTC)[reply]

User:MSJapan nominated Rob Wyda for deletion at Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Rob Wyda. MSJapan's comments concern me. I think there may be a fundamental misunderstandings of policy here. I want other's opinions as to whether that misunderstanding is on MSJapan's part, or mine.

In this comment MSJapan wrote:

When every substantial piece of information about the subject is supplied directly by the subject in conversation with the reporter, that material is not independent of the subject (it's likely not neutral, either). I could claim anything I wanted about myself consistently (like this actual situation). Note that independent verification found otherwise. That is why it's not really reliable - no reporter has ever done research to verify what Wyda did or said; they all spoke to him directly and used whatever he said.

Well, don't reporters, and their editors, study journalism, where they are supposed to learn how to interview people, and still maintain their neutrality, and independence, when they write about them? Isn't it the job of an editor to make sure sufficient fact checking is performed, prior to putting an article in print? Aren't they putting their reputation at risk if they get stuff wrong? Isn't this why we use newspapers as reliable sources? Isn't this why we use newspapers as reliable sources, even when they (horrors!) interviewed the people they write about?

Granted, there are some very small newspapers, with poor editorial controls, and poor journalistic standards, which will republish press releases as if they were articles written by their staff. But shouldn't newspapers, with professional reporters, and professional editors, be considered independent until proven otherwise?

MSJapan made similar comments here. I don't know how MSJapan could have any idea whether these reporters did any fact checking.

I think these are the following are the references he thinks shouldn't be considered independent. Geo Swan (talk) 06:04, 13 August 2013 (UTC)[reply]

1. Cronin, Mike (May 28, 2007). "Judge: Gitmo work 'right thing to do'". Pittsburgh Tribune-Review. Archived from the original on 2013-08-08. Retrieved 2007-05-28. From January to June 2006, Wyda helped prosecutors review the strengths and weaknesses of United States cases against some of the hundreds of the people designated "enemy combatants" and kept at Guantanamo's U.S. naval base.
2. James, Ellen (2003-12-25). "Justice takes a tour of duty". Pittsburgh Tribune-Review. Archived from the original on 2013-08-08. Retrieved 2013-08-08. For five weeks in November and December, Rob Wyda wore a gun and a bulletproof vest instead of his usual black judicial robe. {{cite news}}: Unknown parameter |deadurl= ignored (|url-status= suggested) (help)
3. Reilly, Richard Byrne (2006-03-29). "Judge tackles terrorism in Guantanamo Bay". Pittsburgh Tribune-Review. Archived from the original on 2013-08-08. Commission hearings occur once a month at the tightly guarded Camp Delta. Wyda, who attends as an observer, is primarily responsible for analyzing evidence on terror suspects captured in Afghanistan and presenting his findings to the U.S. Defense Department's Criminal Investigative Task Force. {{cite news}}: Unknown parameter |deadurl= ignored (|url-status= suggested) (help)

Those are the sources I was referring to in my comments. To me, the absence of reporting about him is the problem. All the sources above are direct interviews with the subject, where all the information is provided by the subject, and therefore I do not think these sources meet the criterion of "independent from the subject" and the timing is such that those sources occurred while he was heading for re-election to his post. If there were sources (besides the obits) where he was written about without direct involvement, I don't think I'd have an issue, but there are not. MSJapan (talk) 06:20, 13 August 2013 (UTC)[reply]

I think your description is a little black and white. When a journalist publishes an interview, then I agree with Geo Swan that the journalist becomes the source, and so we can judge the reputation for accuracy based upon the reputation of the journalist. On the other hand, note the remark of Betty Logan below, which is also correct. The facts contained within the text of an interview are not useful outside of sourcing what the interviewed person thinks. So if the original context of this discussion is about proving notability, then the only thing relevant is the notability of the journalist and the publication. (For example if Rolling Stone or Michael Parkinson decide to interview someone that is prima facie evidence of high notability, but not every published interview is that notable.)--Andrew Lancaster (talk) 12:03, 13 August 2013 (UTC)[reply]

• Interviews are regarded as primary sources (see Wikipedia:No_original_research#cite_note-3). Primary sources can be regarded as reliable sources for the accounts they provide, but as far as I am aware are discounted by GNG when considering notability, which solely depends on secondary sources. The reason for this is because the subject of an interview may not be the person being interviewed i.e. if a bunch of newspapers interview me about a bank robbery I witnessed, it's the bank robbery that is notable. Betty Logan (talk) 06:45, 13 August 2013 (UTC)[reply]

• Having looked at that policy more fully, it very clearly indicates that an article should not be based on primary sources, and that only secondary sources establish notability per GNG. All of the article sources are definitely primary. MSJapan (talk) 13:43, 13 August 2013 (UTC)[reply]

• No offense, but merely repeating your position does not make it more credible. These three references are articles where they reporters have chosen to include some quotes from Wyda. Since the reporters chose the passages they quoted, and chose the context where they used the quoted passages, those quoted passages are as much under the full editorial control of the reporter and their editors as the passages where they interpreted, summarized the other research they did to prepare the article. As such these article are secondary sources. Geo Swan (talk) 22:00, 13 August 2013 (UTC)[reply]

Unless the interview is self-published, then the interview can be considered a secondary source, at least for notability purposes. Each claim in the interview by the subject is primary, but the whole interview is secondary. That is, if the NY Times, the Guardian and Newsweek all decide to interview someone, that someone is notable, because secondary sources (the newspapers) covered the subject, even if by asking them questions. -- cyclopia^speak! 13:53, 13 August 2013 (UTC)[reply]

Being the topic of interviews (note, not necessarily the same thing as being interviewed) certainly should count towards establishing notability. Multiple interviews, or interviews in very prominent/famous places increase that effect. We should treat interviews that way because in fact those things really do indicate notability. (Reliability is another matter, that I am not discussing.) The fact that one can come to a variety of conclusions by applying the primary/secondary classification in different ways just emphasizes how useless that classification is. (I've been arguing for some time that there is no rule in Wikipedia invoking the primary/secondary classification that wouldn't be clearer and better without it.) Zero^talk 14:24, 13 August 2013 (UTC)[reply]

Right, being primary or secondary is not always clear cut.--Andrew Lancaster (talk) 14:28, 13 August 2013 (UTC) EDIT: by which I mean in the context of WP policy, where these terms are used quite often as if they were clearly defined. In fact they are not the ultimate terms used in the core of policy.--Andrew Lancaster (talk) 14:42, 13 August 2013 (UTC)[reply]

• Thanks to everyone who weighed in here. Note: MSJapan keeps referring to these articles as "interviews", which I suggest is misleading, and makes me wonder whether MSJapan understands the distinction between an article and an interview the same way the rest of us do.

The references are to articles about Rob Wyda, and his experiences being deployed in the US military, which are partly based on reporters interviews with Wyda.

The first reference also quotes "Lt. Cmdr. Chito Peppler", "Donald Guter, dean of Duquesne University's law school" and "Navy Cmdr. Rick Haupt".

The third reference also quotes "Lt. Col. Jeremy Martin", "Allegheny County Common Pleas President Judge Joseph James" and "Bethel Park police Chief John Mackey"

MSJapan has claimed that these three articles are not independent of Wyda, because the reporters in question interviewed him, and accepted everything he told them at face value, with no fact checking. I think the quotes included in the articles establish they did perform routine fact checking.

We have a principle, touted by many contributors, that "extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence". Well, surely the corollary of that is that more ordinary claims only require routine fact checking. I don't know if MSJapan really meant to suggest that Wyda had misled credulous reporters about his military service in order to get re-elected. Unfortunately, that seems to me to be the surface meaning of what MSJapan wrote. MSJapan incorrectly claims these three articles were published just prior to Wyda's bids to get re-elected. The 2003 article was clearly from the middle of his first term, and the 2007 article was clearly towards the beginning of his second term. Geo Swan (talk) 15:17, 13 August 2013 (UTC)[reply]

This is pretty straightforward. For the purpose of notability its a secondary source. For the purpose of sourcing, its a primary source. Statements sourced to the interview should be attributed to the interviewee, and not stated as objective facts. Gaijin42 (talk) 15:20, 13 August 2013 (UTC)[reply]

Excuse me, although MSJapan keeps calling the references "interviews" they are in fact ordinary newspaper articles. In an interview the subject of the interview gets to express himself or herself in their own words, as they answer the interviewers questions. Good professional journalists don't rewrite or edit the interviewees answers.

When a reporter writes an article, they may include some direct quotes from individuals. But, in doing so, they choose the quoted passage; they choose how the context in which they frame the quote; so the quote is as much under editorial control as the rest of the article.

Forgive me, my initial question was not about genuine interviews -- it was about newspaper articles where the reporter included interviewing the subject of the article in their fact gathering. Geo Swan (talk) 21:38, 13 August 2013 (UTC)[reply]

A journalist will also make choices about what answers to include in an interview piece, so it's not necessarily all that different.

I think it's something that needs to be approached with consideration to the nature of the piece and the information it is being used for. We need to be conscious that the journalist may just be regurgitating what the subject has told them unquestioningly, which may be a concern if there is a factual dispute, the information seems "puffy" or there is an issue about casting a third party in a negative light. Formerip (talk) 22:43, 13 August 2013 (UTC)[reply]

• Hmmm. I have worked on controversial topics, where I have strongly disagreed with many of the available references. I have had years of having to bear in mind the core policy WP:VER. What does one do when one personally disagrees with what all the reliable sources have to say on a topic?

In my opinion there are only two policy compliant choices:

1. Grit one's teeth, forget one's one opinion, and neutrally cover what the reliable sources say;
2. Take a time out, and let other contributors work on those topics -- which may mean leaving the topic without updates, if no one else wants to work on it.

Sorry, I think we should be very careful second guessing what professional journalists have written. It may appear obvious to us that a journalist is "unquestioningly regurgitating" what the subject told them. We don't know that "regurgitation" is unquestioning. They may have asked their colleagues for their opinion. They may not have done any homework, but may have compared what they were told with their experience. Robert Wyda, the individual whose credibility MSJapan challenged was a reservist. MSJapan implied Wyda, widely admired by his colleagues, had tricked three separate credulous reporters, and mislead them about his military service. In the 21st Century most Americans have not been in the US military themselves. But almost all Americans have known friends or relatives who have been in the military. So, as they listened to Wyda's account of his service, they are going to be comparing his account from what they know from other veterans. Further, Wyda didn't make any extraordinary claims. So, in this particular case, I see zero justification to assume reporters accepted Wyda's account "unquestioningly".

Let me share thought experiment with you that I have shared before. Image you are, in your personal life, an abolitionist, volunteering for the wikipedia in an alternate universe where the USA never outlawed slavery, and abolitionism is a fringe opinion. Would the wikipedia's rules authorize you to discount, challenge, or re-write the opinions of respected journalists who believed in slavery? No, I suggest to you it would not. I suggest to you that you would have the two choices I outlined above (1) grit your teeth; and try to fairly neutrally summarize what the RS say; or (2) take a time out. I suggest to you it would be irrelevant if you thought that slavery supporting reporter was unquestioningly regurgitating someone else's slavery supporting views. Geo Swan (talk) 01:41, 14 August 2013 (UTC)[reply]

The slavery example is not all that difficult. If its a matter of reporting someone's views, we consider whether the views are important enough to the topic to include in the article and, if they are, we include them but we also attribute them.

For matters of fact, we should assume nothing in the first instance about the history of the information getting into the source. However, this means not taking a blinkered approach that because something is in black and white it must be true. In some cases, there may be a valid reason to question the information. For instance, it may constitute an extraordinary claim or it may be contradicted by another source. We may also have reason for pause if there will be serious BLP consequences in the event that the information is wrong.

In the case in question, which I haven't looked at, I think the question is what basis MSJapan has for claiming that the journalists have been duped. Is this claimed in a reliable source, for example? Formerip (talk) 11:40, 14 August 2013 (UTC)[reply]

• Other than some (factually incorrect) hints that Wyda was up for re-election, I see no sign MSJapan has any justification whatsoever for the suggestion the reporters had been duped. Geo Swan (talk) 18:28, 14 August 2013 (UTC)[reply]

• I didn't say they were "duped" - my point is that all the information about the subject is coming only from the subject, and not from any other source not directly connected with him. For that reason, the sources are not independent of the subject. Put another way, the only one talking about what Wyda did was Wyda. No disinterested observer has reported on anything Wyda did without getting information directly from Wyda. MSJapan (talk) 20:54, 16 August 2013 (UTC)[reply]

A discussion is currently ongoing about the reliability of LtCol Robert Bateman’s book No Gun Ri: A Military History of the Korean War Incident

The book is published by Stackpole Books and has been well received. Some reviews:

• Journal of Cold War Studies
• Professor David Sneed Despite these few minor problems, Bateman has written a book that should be a valuable resource for scholars, the media, and the general public. He reveals the pitfalls of drawing conclusions from incomplete investigations and shows how true historical research should be conducted.
• James Irving Matray, The Journal of Military History Bateman skillfully uses photos, forensics, and numbers to make his case.
• Write up in Salon.com. Goes into the debate in a fairly even handed manner.

AP author, Bateman critic, and article contributor Charles Hanley claims he’s is not a reliable source for the following reasons:

• He’s active duty US Army
• He was a former company commander in the 2Bn 7th cav (the 2-7 being responsible for the killings at No Gun Ri) in the 1990’s.
• Hanley’s personal observations (not documented in any WP:RS) that Bateman’s writing on the subject are error ridden (not surprisingly a charge that Bateman makes about Hanley and the AP team)

I discount (in part) Hanley’s opinion on the subject because he seems to have a real grudge against Bateman. From a SF Gate article about the feud between the two:

Late last year, Hanley wrote a nine-page letter to Stackpole Books, the Pennsylvania publisher bringing out Bateman's book this month, saying it would be a "grave mistake" to publish Bateman's "diatribes and defamations." A copy of the letter, filled with personal attacks against the author, was made available to The Chronicle. The letter is the kind of dark threat that gives free speech experts the chills -- "an effort at prior restraint," said Bill Kovach, chairman of the Committee of Concerned Journalists -- not to mention the fact that in this case, there is a certain reversal of roles. "It's ironic for a journalist, someone whose livelihood is protected by the First Amendment, to be seemingly threatening to curtail the speech of a military person," said James Naughton, president of the Poynter Institute, a journalism school in St. Petersburg, Fla. "The way matters like this tend to get resolved over time is for people to be able to make their own judgments about which version of events holds up on examination. More access to publishable versions, rather than less, seems to be desirable."

I had actually brought this subject up at the Conflict of Interest Forum, but no one had any input.

So, the $64,000 question: Is Bateman’s book a reliable source for this article? Thanks! WeldNeck (talk) 18:33, 14 August 2013 (UTC)[reply]

Is anyone other than Hanley himself arguing that the Bateman book isn't reliable? It looks fine to me. Wait... you aren't Bateman, are you? --Laser brain (talk) 18:44, 14 August 2013 (UTC)[reply]

No, I am not Bateman. One other user on the page agrees with Hanley, but they appear to have off line communications about the article, so I think their perspectives are almost identical. WeldNeck (talk) 19:08, 14 August 2013 (UTC)[reply]

Hanley reached out through WP:OTRS for help with Wikipedia, and the article caught my interest. We did meet & have breakfast when we both happened to be in London, to discuss the article and generally chat :) As to Bateman; there is independent criticism of his work (plus objections by the AP, which are worth reading as well) on the talk page. In addition he is very closely associated with the subject (e.g. the 7th Cav). The combination of the poor quality of the work and that close association indicate to me we need to take care with his work as a source. Which is why I suggested we use *other* sources to identify usable, verified, information from his work. It's not very often cited, though, because of the poor quality & the fact he generally does not represent what we might call the 'scholarly' view of this topic. --Errant ^(chat!) 10:17, 15 August 2013 (UTC)[reply]

As for other critics, at this C-SPAN video, beginning at approx 46:50 minutes and running to about 52:00, one can observe the respected moderator of the discussion, John Callaway at the Pritzer Military Library in Chicago, upbraid Bateman on U.S. national teievision for the shoddiness of his book. On another matter, the letter to Bateman's publisher, cited by WeldNeck above, the letter simply warned the publisher that he ought to do heavy fact-checking on Bateman, because he had already been promulgating untruths and nonsense online. Clearly Bateman and the SF reporter, who I assume was an acquaintance, misled Naughton and Kovach about the nature of the letter in order to elicit the incongruous comments about a "dark threat" to freedom of expression. WeldNeck, at the article Talk page, has been asked repeatedly to review an in-depth analysis of the mountain of errors, distortions and outright fictions in Bateman's book, but he has refused. As an interested party (a former officer of the regiment responsible for the massacre), Bateman is unqualified as a source. As an incompetent and deceptive writer on the subject, he is doubly unqualified. His personal vendetta against the Associated Press should have no bearing on an article about the historic event known as the No Gun Ri Massacre. Charles J. Hanley 13:39, 15 August 2013 (UTC)

Stackpole Books are a second or third tier publisher, and I've never been convinced that they seriously fact check what they publish - my impression is that they vet manuscripts briefly for quality control purposes, but are entirely content to publish low-quality works (for instance, they've published fanboy-type books about the Waffen SS which gloss over its war crimes). Some of the books they publish are excellent, and others are rubbish, and the general standard is only OKish. My general approach in cases like this is to consider the expertise of the author (which is sometimes very high for Stackpole books, but generally isn't) and the reception the book received. If different professional reviewers say different things about this book that should be taken into account here - if it's been criticised by experts in military history, the books arguments arguments should not be presented without also noting the criticisms they've received. Nick-D (talk) 01:30, 17 August 2013 (UTC)[reply]

Military historians have reviewed the book quite favorably and I have included these links at the top. WeldNeck (talk) 13:55, 19 August 2013 (UTC)[reply]

• Source: http://www.alternet.org/activism/millions-against-monsanto-march
• Content:

  In post-march coverage, Alternet printed, "While March Against Monsanto was among the largest global efforts in history with 400 simultaneous events in 60 countries around the globe, no major corporate media outlets in the US covered the live event. CNN ran a followup short on the event on May 28, and mainstream coverage has trickled in here and there, but has been sparse."

Alexbrn ^{talk|contribs|COI} 11:46, 15 August 2013 (UTC)[reply]

• Noone is saying Alternet isn't reliable for their own opinion. The issue is one of due weight being given to partisan sources, IRWolfie- (talk) 16:32, 15 August 2013 (UTC)[reply]

"Yep, it is a political activist news service, I would not consider any of such generally reliable no matter the political sides they represent. IRWolfie" petrarchan47tc 17:12, 15 August 2013 (UTC)[reply]

Something may not be "generally" reliable even if it is reliable for its own opinion. A source would have to be pathologically bad not be reliable for its own opinion! Alexbrn ^{talk|contribs|COI} 17:19, 15 August 2013 (UTC)[reply]

Exactly! Nowhere do I say it is not reliable for it's own opinion, even the most utterly shoddy self-published source is generally reliable for its own opinion. But it sure isn't generally reliable. Perhaps you may wish to read RS in more detail. The real question is how much weight a partisan source (personally I see no reason to give it any) like this deserves, and that isn't something this board addresses. IRWolfie- (talk) 19:19, 15 August 2013 (UTC)[reply]

I note that the page no longer has this content, worded in this way, so the issue as presented here is probably no longer a matter of dispute. --Tryptofish (talk) 14:31, 17 August 2013 (UTC)[reply]

When looking for sources for Timeline of food, I stumbled across this website. I am unsure if the website can be considered a RS (probably not), but inside it cites a lot of books etc. (e.g. here) that would be undoubtedly reliable. Is it safe, in your opinion, to rely on the website as a proxy for the books quoted (which I don't have available by themselves to check)? The site apparently is run by a librarian, and I would honestly feel it's safe to assume good faith and use it, but I'd like to be sure. Thanks.-- cyclopia^speak! 13:25, 15 August 2013 (UTC)[reply]

It's definitely not good practice, although I see they quote the books so it might be Okay., just be prepared for it to be challenged :) Also, try using Google books snippet views to try and verify quotes. I wouldn't use any of the unquoted text, however, as that could well be the site owners own research/assertions etc. --Errant ^(chat!) 13:28, 15 August 2013 (UTC)[reply]

I did not plan to use the unquoted text. Verifying the quotes is a very good suggestion, will try whenever possible, to minimize the problem. -- cyclopia^speak! 13:39, 15 August 2013 (UTC) - To clarify: if I find the quote on Gbooks or the like, the problem for that quote dissolves, the website was just a useful pointer for me. But I do not expect this to be always possible. -- cyclopia^speak! 13:41, 15 August 2013 (UTC)[reply]

The author is a librarian so not an expert necessarily, but maybe a safe pair of hands with quotes.

I would be tempted to verify quotes that you can and, if they come up OK, continue to trust the site for quotes from books. But probably fold without a fuss if challenged. Include the website in the citations, not just the books. (SAYWHEREYOUGOTIT).

I can see an objection to this approach, though, in that it might create a loophole for crafty editors to generate fake sources. And there's a big caveat that I would not take this approach for any information that might be contentious. Formerip (talk) 21:08, 15 August 2013 (UTC)[reply]

it might create a loophole for crafty editors to generate fake sources. - This is a very, very good (and terrifying) point. I'll then refrain from using anything I can't verify by myself. Thanks a lot. -- cyclopia^speak! 09:30, 16 August 2013 (UTC)[reply]

Reports on two newspapers, the Irish Examiner and Irish Independent, are claimed here to be reliable sources for the statement: "The Irish Bishops Conference stated in their submission to a constitutional convention that, if the civil definition of marriage was changed to include same-sex marriage, so that it differed from the church's own definition, they would no longer perform civil functions at weddings" (bolding added). Are the two reports reliable sources for using in this statement about what the conference stated the word "would" rather than "could"? Discussion on the matter can be found here. The website of the constitutional convention gives the full text of the bishops' submission. Esoglou (talk) 07:28, 16 August 2013 (UTC)[reply]

The Cork Examiner states that "the bishops say any change to the definition of marriage would mean the Church could no longer co-operate with the civil aspect of marriage" and quotes the exact words of the bishops (given also on the website of the constitutional convention): "Any change to the definition of marriage would create great difficulties and in the light of this, if there were two totally different definitions of marriage, the Church could no longer carry out the civil element'; it nowhere attributes to the bishops the statement that they or the Church "would" no longer carry out the civil element. The Irish Independent says: "Ireland's Catholic bishops have warned that the church 'could no longer carry out the civil element" of marriage if there was any change to the legal definition of marriage" and "the Catholic bishops say any change to the definition of marriage would mean the church could no longer co-operate with the civil aspect of marriage". After thus twice making that statement in its own name, it then quotes the exact words of the bishops (with "could"). Nowhere does it say that the bishops used the form "would no longer carry out the civil element". Both articles are reliable sources for stating that the bishops spoke in terms of "could". The insistent claim that they are instead reliable sources for the "would" statement is groundless. Esoglou (talk) 14:33, 16 August 2013 (UTC)[reply]

Esoglou's claim that the sources only use "could" is false; in fact, the very first sentence of the Examiner article is "Church leaders have warned they will no longer carry out the civil functions at weddings if gay marriage is introduced" and the very first sentence of the Independent article is "Ireland's Catholic prelates are leading the charge against gay marriage, warning that they will not perform the civil aspects of weddings if marriage is extended to gay couples." Esoglou, it's a shame that you don't seem to think that your opinion can stand on its merits without saying things about the sources that aren't true. –Roscelese (talk ⋅ contribs) 15:04, 16 August 2013 (UTC)[reply]

If the two newspapers are cited, they should be cited for what they clearly say about what the bishops "stated in their submission". Each explicitly and repeatedly says that "the Irish Bishops Conference stated in their submission to a constitutional convention that ... they could no longer perform civil functions at weddings". It is not at all so clear that they say that "the Irish Bishops Conference stated in their submission to a constitutional convention that ... they would no longer perform civil functions at weddings". A journalist's comment is not a declaration of what the bishops "stated in their submission". Esoglou (talk) 15:20, 16 August 2013 (UTC)[reply]

The Guardian newspaper said that a recent document of the Holy See "described gay sex as inhuman". The document itself does not make this statement explicitly. Is the newspaper report a reliable source for saying in Wikipedia: "The document said that gay sex was inhuman", as here? Or is it only a reliable source for something on the lines of "a newspaper interpreted the document as saying gay sex was inhuman", as here? See also an initial discussion here. Esoglou (talk) 07:28, 16 August 2013 (UTC)[reply]

The document does say "Sexual relations are human when and insofar as they express and promote the mutual assistance of the sexes in marriage and are open to the transmission of new life." This follows on from a statement that emphatically makes the point (per the Holy See) that homosexual relations "lack the conjugal dimension" and also are not open to creating life. Thus to is logical to assume the latter relations are not human or "inhuman" as the Guardian states. I'm slightly uncomfortable simply having primary documentary text without a secondary source to add context. Otherwise it srikes me as bordering on original research. Contaldo80 (talk) 08:39, 16 August 2013 (UTC)[reply]

Reliable sources can make errors. If we say in text "The document said that gay sex was inhuman [footnote]" we are repeating the error: the document did indeed imply that, but it didn't say it. If we say in text "The Guardian interpreted the document as saying gay sex was inhuman [footnote]", that's fine, assuming the Grauniad's interpretation of this text is reasonably widely shared and therefore notable. Or, if other sources say essentially the same, we can say "some/many/most commentators have interpreted the document as saying gay sex is inhuman [footnote] [footnote]". Andrew Dalby 09:00, 16 August 2013 (UTC)[reply]

I doubt if many made the same mistake as the journalist of The Guardian who confused "not human" with "inhuman". (Many things are not human, but are not inhuman.) However, notable or not, it is correct, as Andrew Dalby says, to give her interpretation as what it is, without presenting it as fact. Esoglou (talk) 19:34, 16 August 2013 (UTC)[reply]

The larger problem here is Esoglou's insistence that secondary sources can't be trusted and that only primary sources (slash his own personal interpretation of primary sources, cough cough) are usable. There's no "interpretation" by the Grauniad, and to say so would be far more misleading than to follow WP policy by using reliable sources; it's just that they recognize that their purpose is not to reprint the Vatican's words verbatim and so are paraphrasing. We could stand to follow that example. –Roscelese (talk ⋅ contribs) 21:57, 16 August 2013 (UTC)[reply]

An article on The Guardian newspaper says that the document "described gay sex as inhuman". There is no need to put either "The Guardian interpreted the document as saying gay sex was inhuman [footnote]" or "The Guardian paraphrased the document as saying gay sex was inhuman [footnote]" Leaving aside remarks about Wikipedia editors rather than about edits, what The Guardian says may well be reported in Wikipedia as what The Guardian says. Andrew Dalby's statement that the document did not in fact say what the Guardian attributed to it remains uncontradicted. Esoglou (talk) 06:48, 17 August 2013 (UTC)[reply]

My dictionary describes the word "inhuman" as "Not suited for human needs" or "Not of ordinary human form". Is that not indeed the argument that the Vatican document has made vis a vis gay sex? In which case I can see simply no reason for changing the text as is, and find the discussion slightly baffling ( - and suggest it should have been handled, in the first instance, on the article talk page).Contaldo80 (talk) 07:55, 20 August 2013 (UTC)[reply]

Whether you would or would not call the moon or a kitten inhuman, just because it isn't human, you know very well that it is not for us to synthesize a meaning and attribute it to the document discussed. The document does not in fact say what you want to make it say. Esoglou (talk) 15:50, 20 August 2013 (UTC)[reply]

No-one has synthesized a meaning have they? I think you could quite reasonably make a statement to the effect that the moon offers "an inhuman terrain". The dictionary definition of inhuman is "not suited for human needs". The document sets out in great detail how sex between homosexuals cannot lead to procreation and is not conjugal and thus it is against the natural order. Gay sex is not suited for humain needs. It is inhuman. The Guardian use of the word seems logical and sensible to me. Contaldo80 (talk) 12:24, 21 August 2013 (UTC)[reply]

This last comment contains another clear example of synthesizing, on the basis also of a mistaken idea of "the" dictionary definition of "inhuman" (as can be checked here and here). In effect, you are still only proposing the same synthesis that you put forward in your edit of 08:39, 16 August 2013. The document simply did not "say that gay sex was inhuman", which is what you want Wikipedia to state about the document. Esoglou (talk) 14:32, 21 August 2013 (UTC)[reply]

I think the main problem here is the (mis)interpretation of the source. Roscelese and Contaldo perceive the Guardian article of 2003 (10 years ago), incorrectly as a secondary source. As I have insisted in a similar discussion, some contributors confuse reliability of a source with its classification into primary, secondary or tertiary. It needs to be pointed out that the effects that the source will have on wikipedia will heavily depend of this classification.

Although the article of Rebecca Allison in the Guardian is a reliable source, it is still a primary source, because according to this supplement of Wikipedia's:No original research's Primary, secondary and tertiary sources subsection, the author, does not give an analysis, evaluation of the facts, evidence, and concepts. It just reports the event and its players, but is not a distanced analysis. As we all know, primary sources should be used with care in wikipedia. Contaldo, do you honestly think that the Guardian article fullfills these criteria? --Newchildrenofthealmighty (talk) 19:01, 21 August 2013 (UTC)[reply]

I see some advice above to use Google snippets. I think there are very few instances where we should consider using Google snippets. Snippets by definition do not give their context, so a snippet with statement Y may omit statement X which says "Of course, that is nonsense". Maybe we need specific guidance on this? Dougweller (talk) 07:44, 16 August 2013 (UTC)[reply]

I think the danger is not in citing a snippet (which is better than nothing), but in an editor assuming that reading a snippet will tell them all they need to know about what the source is saying. A less-extreme but related problem occurs when using Google books and finding pages adjacent to the one beng used aren't included. Alexbrn ^{talk|contribs|COI} 07:53, 16 August 2013 (UTC)[reply]

As with all things, common sense must be used. Simples ;) --Errant ^(chat!) 09:16, 16 August 2013 (UTC)[reply]

This has come up many times before and I think it will never be possible to give a blanket ruling.--Andrew Lancaster (talk) 21:09, 17 August 2013 (UTC)[reply]

Sources identifying some "PUP's" seem hard to find online. The following statement:

The toolbars have been described as a browser hijack and are difficult to remove.

sourced to the following forum post:

• "How to Remove Conduit Search Toolbar and search.conduit.com redirect?". Anvisoft. 2013-06-07. Retrieved 2013-08-13.

... was repeatedly removed[14] [15] citing WP:RS ("The "forum" is absolutely not an RS."[16]) from the article Conduit (publisher network and platform).[17] However, the forum source is credited to "Anvisoft staff", conspicuously identified as such.

A bit of googling (not to mention a few of the links historically deleted from the Conduit article) will find Conduit's product frequently described as a deceptively-installed browser hijacker that is made difficult to remove. From client's computers I can see this is clearly the case, and I cannot figure out why this gets so little WP:RS-worthy press. Circumspect language conventions like ^{[further explanation needed]} make me think there is some litigation threat, but I've not seen evidence of one so extraordinary that seemingly every news and tech site would be so chilled.

Further discussion: Talk:Conduit (publisher network and platform)#Browser_Hijack / edg ☺ ☭ 21:21, 16 August 2013 (UTC)[reply]

I'm working on finding reliable sources for List of national symbols. Is http://targetstudy.com/qna/what-are-the-national-symbols-of-afghanistan.html a reliable source for the national symbols of Afghanistan? They don't seem to cite their sources, but they are supposedly some sort of education-ish web site in India. The info presented on their site looks legit, and I checked their page http://targetstudy.com/qna/what-are-the-national-symbols-of-india.html against reliable sources, and info there checks out. Does anyone happen to know of any (other) reliable sources for the national symbols of Afghanistan (i.e. national flower, national bird, national animal, etc., not just flag and anthem)? I can't find any mention of any such thing on their government web sites. Wilhelm Meis (☎ Diskuss | ✍ Beiträge) 02:33, 17 August 2013 (UTC)[reply]

No, they do not seem to any kind of reputation for accuracy and reliability. And I am highly skeptical of any site that claims to be India's Exclusive Education portal, and displays a picture of blonde blue eyed students. I made a brief web search and found sources claiming tulip, poppy, or none for national flower of Afghanistan, but none of them seemed to be particularly reliable. I suggest leaving it out of the list unless we find something better. --GRuban (talk) 13:31, 20 August 2013 (UTC)[reply]

While there may be a few people who have called it such, Speculative Fiction is not the first genre most would think of for the novel Lord of the Flies. Taeyebaar changed the genre to over a dozen articles last month (including this one) without discussion, which I had to revert. Now he's come back and done it again without discussion, this time using a questionable source: [18]. This was done over three edits today, starting with this edit. The third, in which the source in question was used, is here.

Here is the blockquote, which is the lead sentence:

Lord of the Flies is a speculative fiction^[14] novel by Nobel Prize-winning English author William Golding about a group of British boys stuck on an uninhabited island who try to govern themselves with disastrous results.

I am requesting an assessment of arwz.com as a RS for this genre labelling in an article lead. - Gothicfilm (talk) 03:12, 18 August 2013 (UTC)[reply]

This has all the appearances of an amateur self-published "webzine" without professional editorial control. Accordingly, I don't see it as a reliable source for a contested claim about the genre of a famous novel. Cullen³²⁸ Let's discuss it 23:42, 18 August 2013 (UTC)[reply]

A source published in 1977 is used to support statements about "recent years" [19] and how scholars "now regard theories" [20]. Should it be replaced or removed? Strangesad (talk) 06:18, 18 August 2013 (UTC)[reply]

That's a good question. If you're talking about classical studies, "modern scholarship" can mean anything from the 19th century to the present, in contrast to theories among ancient scholars, or medieval and Renaissance scholarship. WP:DATED covers this. The best solution IMO is to give a more specific time frame: "since the mid-20th century", "since the early 1990s", "at the beginning of the 21st century", "in the early 21st century", "since the groundbreaking{{cn}} study of Aldo Havel in 1989". Cynwolfe (talk) 13:34, 18 August 2013 (UTC)[reply]

It is a direct quote from the last classical scholar to say anything about the question referred to. It is not wikipedia's voice saying "recent years" , it is referenced to what Michael Grant said in 1977 and that is made clear. If you can find classical historians who have said something different to this on the matter since then Strangesad, do let us know, and you have been told that "millions of times".Smeat75 (talk) 13:42, 18 August 2013 (UTC)[reply]

The context is a survey of modern scholarship. So, does a 36-year-old source about "recent years" belong in that context? Strangesad (talk) 16:50, 18 August 2013 (UTC)[reply]

No, it is not "a survey of modern scholarship". It is a quote used in a footnote. Can people please look at the article and the way the quote is used.[21]Smeat75 (talk) 19:58, 18 August 2013 (UTC)[reply]

It depends on what happened in these 36 years. Did the field change significantly or not? In any case, if there is a dispute, avoid the words "recent" and "now" and simply say "In 1977..."-- cyclopia^speak! 17:21, 18 August 2013 (UTC)[reply]

While AGF'ing the comment by Smeat75 above, I find it somewhat difficult to believe that the last time an academic said anything about a topic relating to Jesus was 36 years ago, given the sheer volume of material on him put out every day. If it actually is the last time anyone said something on a topic relating to Jesus, then, pardon me for saying, I have to kind of question whether it merits inclusion in the main article on Jesus as per WP:WEIGHT. I tend to think that the best way to decide this would probably be through an RfC on the article talk page rather than here however. John Carter (talk) 18:07, 18 August 2013 (UTC)[reply]

Agree. This has little to do with the reliability of the sources as such. It seems more to do with undue weight and too much detail, and the use of scholars as POV proxies— which regrettably has become typical of articles pertaining to Christianity. Cynwolfe (talk) 18:31, 18 August 2013 (UTC)[reply]

I guess if we attributed the statement and dated it (In 19nn soandso said). I found the 1911 EB being quoted for 'modern scholarship' recently. I wish we could just jettison it. I've put fact tags on PD stuff a century old and had them reverted. Dougweller (talk) 18:35, 18 August 2013 (UTC)[reply]

It is dated and attriibuted, Dougweller. It does not appear in the main text of the article, but in a footnote.[22] [23]

Please look at the reference Strangesad is talking about, guys and girls. It is a quote from Michael Grant, eminent classical historian, on the subject "did such a person as Jesus ever exist?" He says in "recent years", ie recent to 1977 "no serious scholar has ventured to postulate the non historicity of Jesus or at any rate very few, and they have not succeeded in disposing of the much stronger, indeed very abundant, evidence to the contrary". [24] That is what Strangesad is objecting to (over and over and over and over.......)She has been asked(over and over, repeat as often as you like) to find a more recent classical historian who has said something different on that question only, was there ever such a person as Jesus, but she never suggests anyone and I think that is because there aren't any. But here I see some of the most knowledgeable wikipedians in this area, so let me ask you to help. Do any of you know of any historians of antiquity, not religious studies professors, or NT scholars, or bloggers, but classical historians, who have addressed the question "Did Jesus exist" since 1977? If so, pleeeeeease let us know. ThanksSmeat75 (talk) 19:49, 18 August 2013 (UTC)[reply]

"Modern scholarship" on Jesus means something rather different from modern scholarship on gene expression. Ehrman, of course, is a recent and solid source, and is probably sufficient on his own. Dropping Grant wouldn't change anything. But it does show a sort of continuity over the last several decades. Since it's a supporting quote in a footnote, not text in the main article, it should be acceptable. But adding a date to Grant's comment would remove any possible "surprise" factor, so I'd see that as an improvement. Guettarda (talk) 20:09, 18 August 2013 (UTC)[reply]

Thank you for your input Guetterda and others. Another editor has now acted on that suggestion and the footnote now reads "Michael Grant (a classicist) wrote in 1977", etc. [25] and that, I hope, will be the end of this matter.Smeat75 (talk) 22:29, 18 August 2013 (UTC)[reply]

An article belonging to policymic.com has been discussed last month (here), however I believe this case is different and is exempted per WP:SPS: Self-published expert sources may be considered reliable when produced by an established expert on the subject matter, whose work in the relevant field has previously been published by reliable third-party publications. Is this source appropriate to support this material or (any) part of it:

Less than a week before 14 August, Yousef al-Mahafdha of BCHR said the protests were highly anticipated and that he expected them to be large and widespread throughout the country, including in the capital, Manama, but he expected the government to respond with violence. "Everyone’s talking about the date, waiting for it," he added. Brian J. Dooley of Human Rights First (HRF) wrote on 10 August that the planned series of protests, expected to be the largest in 2013 had energized opposition activists and that staff at Salmaniya Medical Complex, Bahrain's main hospital had told his organization that "all leave has been cancelled from August 12-14." Dooley added that the following week was likely to be a "huge test" for protesters, the government and Bahrain's allies.

The author of the article is Brian J. Dooley, an American human rights activist who was described by United Press International as: "a specialist in the Gulf states"[26] and "a Gulf expert"[27]. He has also authored articles, reports and opinion pieces that were published by reliable sources, all belonging to the same field (they can be found in the original discussion here). The other party in the discussion (Thargor Orlando) asserts that Dooley is an activist, not an expert and that we should conciser his partisanship on the matter. We both agree that the website in question lacks editorial oversight. The relevant discussion at the talk page can be found here. Article name is Bahrain Tamarod. Mohamed CJ (talk) 20:38, 18 August 2013 (UTC)[reply]

We list Yonhap in favorable terms, but their article on the Eurofighter Typhoon is completely discarded.

http://english.yonhapnews.co.kr/national/2013/08/18/82/0301000000AEN20130818001451315F.html

Are they not a reliable source as to exact quotes from unnamed Korean defense and EADS officials? Does their level of reporting fall far below "western" standards? Hcobb (talk) 22:09, 18 August 2013 (UTC)[reply]

Hello, could I ask this group if these references, this one and this one are acceptable for an encyclopidia such as this. They could not be described as in any way academic? Would it be possible to link this page to article "talk pages" as I had to follow a number of links to get here. --Dr Daly (talk) 19:52, 19 August 2013 (UTC)[reply]

I wouldn't use either of those sites to source material being added to articles. Is there a specific article or specific information that is being questioned or having these sites used to back it up? --Malerooster (talk) 00:43, 20 August 2013 (UTC)[reply]

Thank you for your prompt response. My concern is the type of references used for an academic based encyclopedia and I'm glad that my thoughts are shared here. Could you also give me some opinion on a related topic. When a referenced source which is clearly acceptable is used incorrectly how should it be approached? I have encountered such a situation on an article I have opted to help improve. --Dr Daly (talk) 18:05, 20 August 2013 (UTC)[reply]

You can find a lot of answers to your questions here. Tom Reedy (talk) 20:27, 20 August 2013 (UTC)[reply]

Sources being used were added by me and are temporary at best whilst the article which was recently created by another editor gets better sources. Nothing controversial at all in them. Quite curious at this new account not long after another editor tried to nitpick at the creator of it SoS. Mabuska ^(talk) 20:55, 20 August 2013 (UTC)[reply]

If needs be the stuff can be removed as it is not terribly important to the article. Mabuska ^(talk) 22:02, 20 August 2013 (UTC)[reply]

Though in regards to Abebooks - it is a description of the WST organisation's own annual that they have for sale. How can that not be grounds for a good make-shift or reliable source? Mabuska ^(talk) 22:09, 20 August 2013 (UTC)[reply]

Would you use a liquor ad as a source for an encyclopedia article about alcohol? Tom Reedy (talk) 04:45, 21 August 2013 (UTC)[reply]

Those who write text on Abebooks often have expert knowledge about books. But at Wolfe Tone Societies Abebooks is being cited, not about books, but on the subject of a (controversial) political society. That's not a field in which we could expect Abebooks to be reliable. Andrew Dalby 11:58, 21 August 2013 (UTC)[reply]

Thank you all for your responses and I share your thoughts and opinions. What would one normally do now on the article with the sources? I've suggested that they be removed and replaced with acceptable references that meet the standards required for this academic encyclopedia. If the person who added them dose not agree with the opinions of this group what would one do? Dr Daly (talk) 17:50, 21 August 2013 (UTC)[reply]

Over the years, apparently unhappy with the figures from the US Census quoted in Azerbaijani American, a number of editors have tried to add other numbers, an order of magnitude larger that the Census figures, showing that there are more Azerbaijanis in the U.S. than the Census reports. Mostly these figures have come from obviously biased sources with a mission to promote the interests of Azerbaijanis, and have been removed for that reason.

The latest attempt is sourced to the a survey done in 2005 by the Iranian Studies Group at MIT. While the ISG describes itself in this manner:

The Iranian Studies Group at MIT (ISG) is a non-partisan, non-profit, academic organization with the aim of promoting Iranian civil society through conducting research on issues related to Iranian native and expatriate societies. Our research projects focus on the cultural, social, economic, and political development of the Iranian society. By actively publicizing our findings in a format that is accessible for the community at large, we aim to bridge the gap between research, public knowledge, and policy-making.[28]

it also says:

ISG is recognized by the Massachusetts Institute of Technology's Association of Student Activities

which means that it is essentially a student organization.

I'd like some opinions on whether this organization should be considered a reliable source, and on whether the online survey behind the numbers is legitimate. The Survey Team consisted of two PhD candidates, a sophomore, and an "undergraduate", and their Advisory Group consist primarily of "Community Activists" and POV organizations. My feeling is that the survey does not appear to be academically rigorous, and probably should not be considered to be a reliable source, so I've removed the material from the article, until a consensus is reached here. Beyond My Ken (talk) 21:48, 20 August 2013 (UTC)[reply]

Do any reliable publications site this census?--Andrew Lancaster (talk) 12:08, 21 August 2013 (UTC)[reply]

this source used Iranian American. Iranian Azeris over have 200,000 population in America, but 40,400 Azeris from 378,000 Iranian in America (Census United States in 2000) who volunteer say WE ARE IRANIAN. sorry there is Anti-Iranain sentiment in America, and many Iranian in America example Azeris for discrimination they hide their identity.--91.99.133.112 (talk) 12:21, 21 August 2013 (UTC)[reply]

The source is http://www.dailymail.co.uk/home/moslive/article-1207915/Rehab-drinking-Courtney-Love-Owen-Wilsons-overdose-Steve-Coogan-confesses-all.html.

This is regarding Steve Coogans personal life, and the quote is for when he entered rehab. I understand that a gossip tabloid isn't reliable and goes against the BLP rules, but if the individual person has no problem being frank and openly provides and discusses such information, isn't it reliable as a source. It isn't being intrusive or spreading a claim, it is reporting a fact, and isn't inappropriately discussing thr persons life, as they have spoken publicly about this themselves. I'd appreciate the input. Thanks - Jak Fisher (talk) 01:57, 21 August, 2013 (UTC)

The issue here isn't reliability, but appropriateness. Not every 'fact' merits inclusion in a biography. AndyTheGrump (talk) 01:03, 21 August 2013 (UTC)[reply]

But these "facts" are included in many articles on wikipedia, a point which you seem to be avoiding. So why aren't they appropriate then, if they are mentioned so often on wikipedia. - Jak Fisher (talk)

See WP:OTHERSTUFFEXISTS. On what grounds are you arguing that this particular material merits inclusion in this particular biography? AndyTheGrump (talk) 01:37, 21 August 2013 (UTC)[reply]

Note that this is also being discussed at Wikipedia:Biographies of living persons/Noticeboard#Steve Coogan (2). --John (talk) 05:34, 21 August 2013 (UTC)[reply]

This does not seem like a case for this forum?--Andrew Lancaster (talk) 12:07, 21 August 2013 (UTC)[reply]

It kind of was, but it has been solved at BLP/N. --cyclopia^speak! 16:14, 21 August 2013 (UTC)[reply]

Are sources from the American Institute of Aeronautics and Astronautics; [29],[30], Astrophysics Data System; [31] and the American Institute of Physics [32]; [33] reliable? the sources support the statement that "the theory was introduced on some conferences". please see also Talk:Heim_theory#revert_august_17th.thanks for any comments.--Gravitophoton (talk) 13:48, 21 August 2013 (UTC)[reply]

Why would we include a statement that "the theory was introduced on some conferences" in an article? Lots of things are 'introduced' at conferences. What matters (assuming that the conferences were of any significance) is whether anyone took any notice. From a look at the talk page, you seem to be trying to use this statement to imply notability. You can't do that - you need to demonstrate notability by citing sources that report on the conference, and discuss the relevant material. AndyTheGrump (talk) 14:03, 21 August 2013 (UTC)[reply]

I agree entirely. Being introduced at a conference is not something that we should normally use in an article. We also don't use conference papers as a source normally - I just found one being used in that way and asked the author if she had published a paper on it, and she said no and that it shouldn't be used as a source as it was problematic. Dougweller (talk) 14:53, 21 August 2013 (UTC)[reply]

Just for the record, it has to be said that for some disciplines (e.g. engineering, if I remember correctly) conference proceedings can have the status that normal journal papers enjoy in most other disciplines. This often baffles many (it baffled me for sure). In physics however, AFAIK, the standard is the usual: peer reviewed journal papers.--cyclopia^speak! 16:27, 21 August 2013 (UTC)[reply]

As far as I know, WP is not considered a reliable source and cannot be used to source itself. Nevertheless, User:Pigsonthewing insists that it can be "used as a reference when describing its own actions". As this is a long-time editor with many edits, I was wondering whether I was mistaken and Wikipedia can indeed be used as a reference. Comments welcome here or on the article talk page. --Randykitty (talk) 14:38, 21 August 2013 (UTC)[reply]

I see what he did there. It's actually not even used as a source, but as an example of a page featuring that particular kind of tag. It's kind of harmless in this sense, at a first glance (be free to point me I'm wrong). But it doesn't strike me as good sourcing in general, because it's not a source, just an example link, and a not very clear one at that. If he linked some WP policy about this kind of tagging, it would be better. --cyclopia^speak! 14:51, 21 August 2013 (UTC)[reply]

No, it's not a valid source for the sentence it is attached to :) It is an example of someone using that sort of ORCID, but the cited page makes no comment about how many publishers make use of this form. For example, it could only be Wikipedia using that format. To support the sentence a source is required identifying the fact that "some publishers" use this format. --Errant ^(chat!) 15:25, 21 August 2013 (UTC)[reply]

Ancestry of Elizabeth II has a section that says "Descent before Conrad the Great is taken from fabpedigree.com and may be inaccurate." Should we be using this source? Thanks. Dougweller (talk) 14:49, 21 August 2013 (UTC)[reply]

No. From the fabpedigree.com front page: "PLEASE do not treat the information in this genealogy as authoritative. Just use it for hints, and research using some of the more reputable genealogical websites which I consulted." [34] AndyTheGrump (talk) 16:06, 21 August 2013 (UTC)[reply]