Wikipedia:Reliable sources/Noticeboard/Archive 423

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Archive 420

Archive 421

Archive 422

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Journal of the Asiatic Society

Are references from the Journal of the Asiatic Society considered valid or not ?

https://www.asiaticsocietykolkata.org/publications/journal Pinkish Flowers (talk) 10:06, 19 December 2023 (UTC)

A little bit of confusion on my part at first, as there is the similarly named "Journal of the Royal Asiatic Society". This appears to be the journal published by The Asiatic Society, which would make it seemingly reliable. But note that sources are only ever generally reliable, not reliable in an absolute sense. It's perfectly possible that a reliable journal has published unreliable articles at some point in it's history. That's why context is important. Has the journals reliablity been questioned, or is there a particular article you want to use to reference specific content? -- LCU ActivelyDisinterested «@» °∆t° 20:32, 19 December 2023 (UTC)

Echoing AD's comment. This journal is cited as a reference in only six articles, and half of them are about the society itself. Is there a live question about its reliability for any specific statement in a specific article? Context matters. This journal has been around under several names for a very long time, reliability can vary, and some of the earliest editions might fall within the scope of WP:RAJ. Banks Irk (talk) 23:27, 19 December 2023 (UTC)

The journal is cited in way more than 6 articles, see WP:JCW/Target9#The Asiatic Society, which points it to be used in at least 375 articles. Other than general historical outdatedness, there's no real reason to consider this source unreliable. Headbomb {t · c · p · b} 04:07, 22 December 2023 (UTC)

Puzzle museum

I'm trying to get the Nonogram out of the sad state its in right now, but I am having difficulties in finding sources for the history of the puzzle. The problem is, every source seems to cite Wikipedia(even scholarly ones!) or a website called Puzzle Museum. Here is the self-written bio for the sites sole author, which as far as I can tell has no editorial control. Would this be enough to qualify as WP:EXPERTSPS? Ca ^{talk to me!} 15:56, 15 December 2023 (UTC)

I'd say likely yes. As well as the design and production of puzzles he was responsible for the Sunday Telegraph publishing Nonograms. -- LCU ActivelyDisinterested «@» °∆t° 21:47, 15 December 2023 (UTC)

Looks good to me in that case. Cortador (talk) 22:55, 15 December 2023 (UTC)

Yes, I agree. He has been independently published many times on the subject and would qualify as a SME. Banks Irk (talk) 17:55, 18 December 2023 (UTC)

Should be aware of the trademark dispute, and the 'O' and 'A' thing at paragraph 16, which seems pretty trivial but there is a citation needed tag in the article for that. fiveby(zero) 04:17, 22 December 2023 (UTC)

Can you tell if these sources are reliable or not?

@Sudsahab Maybe, it depends on the situation. WP:CONTEXTMATTERS and WP:AGE MATTERS may be of help to you. Gråbergs Gråa Sång (talk) 11:38, 22 December 2023 (UTC)

Footballdatabase.eu

Transfermarkt is not considered as a reliable source but Footballdatabase.eu is. Let me explain how Footballdatabase works. It works the same way as Transfermarkt does : it is user-generated. The difference is that they have no verification process, and no source is asked when adding a new information, so clearly it is even less reliable than Transfermarkt. Now for the sake of consistency, I'm therefore asking for the 64000 links to Footballdatabase to be removed. And I also ask the community to acknowledge that this is not a reliable website. Thank you. Frenchl (talk) 17:54, 21 December 2023 (UTC)

If it is user-generated, then it should not be used. Giant Snowman 18:01, 21 December 2023 (UTC)

I see that it has a forum, which is obviously user-generated, but I don't see where its other content comes from or how it is edited. If it is also UGC, it is not reliable. Banks Irk (talk) 18:45, 21 December 2023 (UTC)

I created an account and can see that users who buy credits can provide information. This is therefore UGC and is not reliable. Black Kite (talk) 19:04, 21 December 2023 (UTC)

64,000+!!!. Somebody's going to be busy removing these refs. Banks Irk (talk) 20:49, 21 December 2023 (UTC)

A bot can do it. Frenchl (talk) 20:54, 21 December 2023 (UTC)

That makes life simpler and less tedious for all human editors. Try using Wikipedia:Bot requests explaining what needs to be done, then programming it will hopefully do it quicker than us removing them all at a guesstimate of one link per minute. Iggy (Swan) (Contribs) 21:31, 21 December 2023 (UTC)

Not reliable as per above, it's WP:UGC. Joseph2302 (talk) 09:02, 22 December 2023 (UTC)

please do not mass remove the links without attempting to replace them. It will just be havoc otherwise. Giant Snowman 09:03, 22 December 2023 (UTC)
I guess that would mean my suggestion of doing a bot request will be scrapped because of the immediate above rsp. Replacing should be better if there was one available. Iggy (Swan) (Contribs) 09:14, 22 December 2023 (UTC)
It's more like 14,000. [1] Looking at the results in the first post, the search was "footballdatabase", not "footballdatabase.eu", and the majority of results were links to footballdatabase.com, which appears to be a completely different site. Still a formidable task. Banks Irk (talk) 17:01, 22 December 2023 (UTC)

NYT yet again

POINTLESS

Not worth dragging it out. LilianaUwU ^{(talk / contributions)} 19:10, 22 December 2023 (UTC)

The following discussion is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.

Are we really gonna let a newspaper whose journalists support doxxing and harrassing while firing those who are against genocide be a RS? This is like if Kiwi Farms was a RS. LilianaUwU ^{(talk / contributions)} 18:40, 22 December 2023 (UTC)

Does this affect their reputation for accuracy? Slatersteven (talk) 18:42, 22 December 2023 (UTC)

When stuff like that repeatedly happens, yes. LilianaUwU ^{(talk / contributions)} 18:45, 22 December 2023 (UTC)

That Tweet does not say any things about Accuracy. Slatersteven (talk) 18:47, 22 December 2023 (UTC)

This is a tweet about more tweets. I would expect much better sources that they e.g. truly fire people for specifically being "against genocide" to consider anything. It's pervasive in this subject area for a person to say something incredibly inflammatory, then when facing consequences claim that they were punished for a much less objectionable stance. Crossroads ^-talk- 18:51, 22 December 2023 (UTC)

The NYT themselves covered it. Don't y'all love the NYT as a source? LilianaUwU ^{(talk / contributions)} 19:04, 22 December 2023 (UTC)

Read the notices at the top of the page. Do you have an actual question about the reliability of the NYT as a reference to support a specific statement in a specific article at en.wikipedia? It appears not. Banks Irk (talk) 19:02, 22 December 2023 (UTC)

LU, your complaint doesn't inherently flow out of your link. Is there more to this story? Springee (talk) 19:04, 22 December 2023 (UTC)

LU? LilianaUwU ^{(talk / contributions)} 19:05, 22 December 2023 (UTC)

I Don't Like Them including their employment or editorial policies, is not grounds for calling into question a source's reliability. Unless some meat is added to this thread quickly, I recommend a speedy close. -Ad Orientem (talk) 19:08, 22 December 2023 (UTC)

The discussion above is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.

Is PeopleGroups.org Reliable here

Article: Miu language Source: [2] Wondering if this can be considered a reliable source. KaedenAwesome (talk) 01:13, 22 December 2023 (UTC)

Not a reliable source. It's the website of a missionary society not experts. Self published anonymous articles. Banks Irk (talk) 13:57, 22 December 2023 (UTC)

Thanks! KaedenAwesome (talk) 04:35, 23 December 2023 (UTC)

Confusion with primary source

Hello. Can I use Diplomacy, and Trade for citing "Lalitadithya was a vassal of Tang Dynasty" from After having established this kingdom, I have submitted to the Heavenly Qaghan along with other vassals and received orders to position and dispatch my forces. My kingdom has three kinds of troops, elephant(mounted), cavalry, and foot soldiers. The Tibetans on the five great routes distressed this vassal and the king of Middle India. The Tibetans blocked us from entering and exiting through these routes. Therefore, we fought and at once emerged victorious. Now, if the Heavenly Qaghan's army arrives at Palur, even if it numbers two hundred thousand, can assist with the supply of provisions. In my kingdom, there is a dragon pond called Mahāpadma (present-day Vular Lake). I am willing to let the troops of the Heavenly Qaghan encamp there. One user have claimed that this is a Primary source in the talk page of Lalitaditya Muktapida. Infact, the author made a description within the letter (check the book) which makes it a secondary source. Please look into this. Imperial ^[AFCND] 13:57, 22 December 2023 (UTC)

I would like to add this, since it is a similar case. Indian Esoteric Buddhism: Social History of the Tantric Movement Lalităditya decided to pursue and defeat Yasovarman. Using his status as a Chinese vassal and enemy of the Arabs, Lalităditya recruited from border areas and obtained his magician/general Carnikuņa from Tokharisthan. Can I use this as a reference for Lalitaditya being a vassal of the Chinese supported by the above source? Imperial ^[AFCND] 14:45, 22 December 2023 (UTC)

plz remove this for the time being , the current ongoing discussion wasn't about this .

This new sources could very well be added later when this one is resolved. Summerkillsme (talk) 14:52, 22 December 2023 (UTC)

Both refers to the same case. And I am asking about the reliability of sources from experts, as we are not the one who decides which one is "reliable" and which is "not reliable". Our personal opinion doesn't matter. Imperial ^[AFCND] 15:17, 22 December 2023 (UTC)

This is not what the edit war was about. This is a completely different and new source,

Our primary conversation was based on you using primary source to make your own conclusion

By bringing this here you are essentially persuading the other editors in different debate which should not be done Summerkillsme (talk) 15:20, 22 December 2023 (UTC)

Stop this right now. This is a noticeboard where the experienced ones shares the reliability of sources. And I never engaged in edit war (following three-revert rule). But you did removed information by your own wish and broke the three-revert rule. I am stopping the conv. And will wait for the response from the reviewer. Imperial ^[AFCND] 15:23, 22 December 2023 (UTC)

This is indeed a primary source only. The letter from Kashmiri envoy is directly taken from our primary source'Xin tang shu' which is mentioned in citation '73' . The book '

is the reference

I would like to know where you get that author says he modified

it/description ..

The author after this primary source writes his Statement where no where he uses vassal word there.

So Essentially your edit adding statement was based on primary source, completely discarding the our most important secondary source in this case.

You made your own conclusion from a primary source here , not supported by secondary one which is violation of wikipedia policy. Summerkillsme (talk) 15:16, 22 December 2023 (UTC)

No this isn't. The contemporary letters are Primary only if it is displayed without giving any explanation about that. Here, the author explains about the letter well in the letter itself. So it is indeed a secondary source. However, I am leaving the reliability for experts and I will follow this until its gets concluded. Imperial ^[AFCND] 15:20, 22 December 2023 (UTC)

ImperialAficionado, if you're citing claims made in a letter (a primary source) found in a secondary source, then you're still citing the primary source. It doesn't matter if the primary source has been edited slightly for context; you're still fundamentally citing that letter and not the secondary source. In addition, I don't believe that the secondary source (Buddhism, Diplomacy, and Trade by Tansen Sen) supports your edit at Lalitaditya Muktapida. For example, you wrote In 733 AD, he became a vassal of the Tang dynasty in China, formally submitting to their authority and During his reign, the Karkota dynasty became a vassal of the Tang dynasty, accepting their suzerainty in 733 AD. The secondary source doesn't say this happened in 733 (only that an envoy reached the capital then) and also doesn't say anything about a "vassal" or "submitting to their authority" or "suzerainty"—in fact, it says Lalitaditya was given the title "King". The most that Buddhism, Diplomacy, and Trade verifies is that Kasmir supported the Tang dynasty militarily against the Tibetans. Woodroar (talk) 16:27, 22 December 2023 (UTC)
Got it. Consider checking the earlier quote cited from "Indian Esoteric Buddhism", which is a secondary source. I will re edit the article. Imperial ^[AFCND] 16:31, 22 December 2023 (UTC)

@Woodroar, Kings could also be vassals. I took the letter as the reference as it is modified by explaining by the author himself. The letter is not just a translation, but also explanation as you can see from the words inside the square brackets. And we can see that the author is not further explaining the letter as it is already done within itself. As we can clearly see that he did mentioned things like [modern-day.....], where we can consider it as a secondary reference. Similarly we can see that [along with other vassals] added by the author himself. Imperial ^[AFCND] 16:49, 22 December 2023 (UTC)
The [with other vassals] note reads (to me) as Tansen Sen clarifying Lalitaditya's letter, but still indicating that the information comes from Lalitaditya. The citation from Indian Esoteric Buddhism does look better, yes, as his status as a Chinese vassal is in Ronald M. Davidson's voice, not that of a primary source. I would suggest working to build a consensus based on that source at Talk:Lalitaditya Muktapida. Remember that, as the editor who wants to add content, the onus is on you to build that consensus. I would also caution against calling others' edits "vandalism" as that is a personal attack. It's clear that the other editors are acting in good faith—even if you don't agree with them—and such edits are not considered vandalism on Wikipedia. You can read more at WP:VAND. Woodroar (talk) 17:40, 22 December 2023 (UTC)
Understood. I revised the article following your advice, but it was reverted. I've encountered situations before where cited sources were removed or information conflicting with current content was deleted. This often leads to edit wars without any discussion in the talk section. Unfortunately, I've found minimal assistance from MILHIST in such matters, which is why I became frustrated. I apologize for any outbursts during that time. Imperial ^[AFCND] 17:47, 22 December 2023 (UTC)
I understand it can be frustrating when there's a dispute without productive discussion, and no help from a WikiProject—which is usually one of the first places to go for informed but impartial opinions! My suggestion would be to take BusterD's advice, perhaps step away from the article for a few days, and try to start fresh at Talk:Lalitaditya Muktapida. If that doesn't resolve the issue, there are other dispute resolution options, like WP:3O and WP:RFC. There are also millions of other articles to edit; it may help to work on other things for a while, and revisit this after some time. Woodroar (talk) 19:01, 22 December 2023 (UTC)

Based on one source, you cany change the context. Other historians doesn't talk either support that Lalitaditya Muktapida was a vassal of the Tang dynasty. Shakib ul hassan (talk) 12:28, 23 December 2023 (UTC)
Also, there aren't any sources that claims Lalitaditya wasn't a vassal of the Chinese. So, there are no contradictions here. Imperial ^[AFCND] 14:24, 23 December 2023 (UTC)

Verywell Fit and Dotdash Meredith

1. I propose to blacklist Verywell Fit for at least similar reasons as its sister Verywell sites by Dotdash Meredith. The perennial sources list states:

Due to persistent abuse, verywellfamily.com, verywellhealth.com, and verywellmind.com are on the Wikipedia spam blacklist, and links must be whitelisted before they can be used.

2. I propose to change the designation of Dotdash web sites from "No consensus" to at least one of "Generally unreliable", "Blacklisted", and "Deprecated" and at least with regard to health content.

An example SEO-optimized article currently on the home page of Verywell Fit has paid referral links and claims to rate the "best acupressure mats". This article falsely claims that these mats promote "the free flow of chi (Qi) energy", "prevent imbalances", and "boost circulation". It also relies on practitioners of acupuncture pseudoscience. The page also misleadingly claims that it has been "Medically reviewed" and "Fact checked".

Since Dotdash purchased Meredith and its assets like Time Magazine, it may be a good idea to try to have separate assessments of Dotdash-associated content from Meredith-associated content. I don't think Time Magazine should be considered generally unreliable.

Given the options, perhaps we can discuss before a more focused RFC. ScienceFlyer (talk) 18:55, 20 December 2023 (UTC)

Maybe classing all Verywell 'x' the same is a start, that way it won't be necessary to discuss each new one they setup. -- LCU ActivelyDisinterested «@» °∆t° 21:19, 20 December 2023 (UTC)

@ScienceFlyer, you name multiple concerns, and I'm having trouble figuring out how this adds up. Let me give you a list:

It's blacklisted: We blacklisted it because someone(s) spammed it. However, editor/spammer behavior doesn't make a source unreliable; people have spammed excellent sources into articles. (It's not common, but it does happen.)
Verywell Fit is SEO-optimized: However, so are most commercially successful sources, including all the major newspapers (also Wikipedia, for that matter). Having competent website developers does not mean that the source doesn't have the characteristics of a reliable source, and being unconcerned about whether readers can find your site is not evidence that the source is somehow more noble or reliable. The first duty of a newspaper is to stay in business; everything else depends on that.
It has paid referral links: So what? Wikipedia:We don't care what happens to your website. The presence of affiliate links is no better or worse than the presence of advertisements.
Some pages have a POV you disagree with: Holding the right POV is not a sign of being reliable. (Also, anything that provides uneven or changing pressure on skin will "boost circulation", at least within the local area; see Intermittent pneumatic compression for a conventional medical approach to it. Or try www.verywellhealth dot com/how-pneumatic-compression-is-used-in-physical-therapy-5202654 if you want to see their take on it.)

For health-related content, very few lay-oriented websites are reliable sources. I don't think we need to have a special catalog of all the websites that aren't peer-reviewed review articles and medical school textbooks. Wikipedia:Identifying reliable sources (medicine)#Other sources already covers that. WhatamIdoing (talk) 19:10, 21 December 2023 (UTC)

Uh, yeah, what she said. jp×g 🗯️ 15:31, 23 December 2023 (UTC)

Institute for Strategic Dialogue

I'm seeing some disagreement on Aaron Mate about a paragraph in the introduction based largely on Institute for Strategic Dialogue, which to my reading looks like some sort of advocacy group. Didn't see any previous discussion and I'm wondering if anyone would like to offer an opinion. It seems certain they are not neutral, but that's not the question. Would they be considered a reliable source to make statements like: among the 28 social media accounts, individuals, outlets, and organisations which it studied, Maté was the most prolific spreader of disinformation surrounding the war, including on the use of chemical weapons by the Syrian government (through the Guardian) and including one concerning what Maté called a cover-up by the Organisation for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons regarding the April 2018 Douma chemical attack (directly from the institute). Opinions? To my eyes this looks UNDUE, but here I'm asking about the source. BusterD (talk) 14:45, 15 December 2023 (UTC)

I would attribute it, but should be usable. No comment on the due weight issue as those are outside the scope of this noticeboard. Horse Eye's Back (talk) 16:02, 15 December 2023 (UTC)

Aaron mate and Max Blumenthal are some of the most infamous conspiracy theorists in the West.

So these specific contents which you have quoted do not appear to be undue.

However, since the "Institute for Strategic Dialogue" itself is a biased think-tank affiliated with various Western governments, it should not be cited without proper attribution. Shadowwarrior8 (talk) 16:42, 15 December 2023 (UTC)

I think attribution is generally a good practice with thinktanks, it's worth noting that ISD has a good reputation for non-partisan politics and rigorous research. It is a reliable source. It is heavily used as a source by reliable sources such as the Independent,[3] New Statesman,[4] RTE,[5] BBC,[6] Irish Examiner,[7] NYTimes,[8] NBC,[9] WaPo,[10] Guardian,[11] ABC,[12] TheConversation,[13] PBS,[14] Seattle Times,[15] DW,[16] Time,[17] VoA,[18] France24.[19]

The only negative comment I could see about them on several pages of Google News hits was from Electronic Intifada, currently being debated up this page with most editors considering it unreliable.

Re ShadowWarrior saying it is "affiliated with various Western governments", it's true it has declared funding funded by various governmental and intergovernmental bodies, including UN, EU, Council of Europe, and Australia, Denmark, Finland, Netherlands, Canada, Germany, Norway, New Zealand, Sweden, Switzerland, the UK and US (along with private and philanthropic funders)[20] - but I wouldn't frame this as "affiliated with". BobFromBrockley (talk) 16:45, 18 December 2023 (UTC)

I don't think it's a government organ, but from the sources you've given here I don't really see the case for it being a reliable source in its own right. It may be "nonpartisan" in the sense that it's not affiliated with a major political party -- but neither are the Presbyterian Church or Facebook or Philip Morris or Bill's Alligator Trappers, and we don't cite their press releases as fact either. It may well be the case that Bill's Alligator Trappers Inc. is a great weal of knowledge on where the major alligator hangouts are in Placid County, and indeed maybe Bill gets invited on the news to give some explanation whenever there's a story about alligators, but I would not say that this means everything he says is just legit to cite for whatever. jp×g 🗯️ 16:12, 23 December 2023 (UTC)

The Institute for Strategic Dialogue is a political advocacy organization. The quality of the publications I've read from them is rather typical for this type of organization -- they're more like blog posts or op-eds or advertisements than scholarly papers. As an example, picked randomly from their website:

Legal frameworks must be applied consistently and law enforcement delivered evenly across ideological contexts. In the far-right context, we have not seen law enforcement applied evenly until recently in the UK and not at all in the US. Equal effort and attention must be focused on the proscription and disruption of far-right extremist groups as has been the case with Islamist groups.

[...]

Secondly, democracy promotion, cohesion work and investment in communities should all be done per se – and not under a security umbrella – but must receive the levels of funding required to make a difference.

The whole point of the document is to be a persuasive essay in favor of specific political actions and specific budget priorities. It seems somewhat facile to take their claims at face value -- any more than we'd accept and repeat claims from some random PDF named "Bill's_Alligator_Trappers_Inc._Fact_Sheet.pdf" that alligators were the number-one threat to public health in the US. If there are secondary sources that mention the ISD's analysis of a particular issue, it's worth mentioning that, but I don't think we should be citing them for claims of fact or using them to establish notability. jp×g 🗯️ 15:54, 23 December 2023 (UTC)

Classmates.com

Would Classmates.com’s yearbook section be considered a reliable source for Wikipedia? 2600:100C:A115:208A:B482:F8A9:FB78:2513 (talk) 06:35, 23 December 2023 (UTC)

Its PRIMARY Softlem (talk) 10:27, 23 December 2023 (UTC)

The digitised year books would be reliable in a WP:PRIMARY sense (if this is about a livong person you should also read WP:BLPPRIMARY), everything else on the site would be unreliable. -- LCU ActivelyDisinterested «@» °∆t° 22:38, 23 December 2023 (UTC)

The Economist reports on the New York Times

A recently published article in the Economist, When the New York Times lost its way, reports on some issues with the New York Times in the last few years, such as publishing what are essentially opinion pieces without labelling them as such, and making substantive changes to articles without notifying the readers with a note.

The internet rewards opinionated work and, as news editors felt increasing pressure to generate page views, they began not just hiring more opinion writers but also running their own versions of opinionated essays by outside voices – historically, the province of Opinion’s op-ed department. Yet because the paper continued to honour the letter of its old principles, none of this work could be labelled “opinion” (it still isn’t).

That was a weaselly adjustment – Cotton wrote about criminality, not “unrest” – but the article at least no longer unambiguously misrepresented Cotton’s argument to make it seem he was in favour of crushing democratic protest. The Times did not publish a correction or any note acknowledging the story had been changed.

I don't think this requires any immediate action, but I am posting it here as it might be of it interest to editors here. regards, TryKid ^{[dubious – discuss]} 08:24, 16 December 2023 (UTC)

One person disagreeing with a piece's conclusions (especially someone who, obviously, has a giant axe to grind with the Times on that particular issue) doesn't make a paper unreliable. --Aquillion (talk) 14:47, 16 December 2023 (UTC)

Of course it doesn't make the paper unreliable on it's own, but it's still a notable data point. It's not some one random person disagreeing, but a high-level subject matter expert, who's well-placed to make cogent criticism of the organization and how it functions, writing in a high-quality WP:RS. GretLomborg (talk) 20:46, 20 December 2023 (UTC)

It's long been my opinion that news sources are overrated and overused as sources on wikipedia. That said, I don't think an op ed published by the economist is a great source on the nyt's overall reliability. (t · c) buidhe 03:52, 22 December 2023 (UTC)

I don't agree that he's a subject matter expert in this context; simply being an "insider" who formerly worked for the company, or in the industry, that he is now criticizing is insufficient - by that definition everyone with an axe to grind within an organization immediately becomes a subject-matter expert, and any journalist who wrote any opinion-piece about journalism would be a subject-matter expert. Subject-matter experts are people who have the equivalent of a PHD worth of knowledge about a topic area, not "worked there for four years, got fired for a 'significant breakdown in the editing process', and is still angry about it." As someone who is as clearly WP:BIASED on this topic as it is reasonably possible to be, I would honestly weigh Bennet's opinions here significantly less than a random person's. Lots of people have strong opinions about the direction the Times (or any major paper) should take with its coverage, often people with far less impetus for those opinions than being publicly and humiliatingly forced to resign; and certainly no source is flawless. But the fact is that Bennet's own argument here is self-defeating. If the relevant interpretations of the facts had merit then he would've been able to get them published as factual reporting rather than as his own personal opinion. --Aquillion (talk) 10:26, 24 December 2023 (UTC)

Forbes "Subscribers"

This source is being used in the Geometry Dash article to say that Apple ranked it x and x.

However it appears to be written by a "subscriber"? I am not sure if its that's WP:FORBESCON or not. Ca ^{talk to me!} 10:12, 13 December 2023 (UTC)

As per list of perennial sources, only Forbes articles written by editor/Forbes staff are reliable. "Contributor" articles, including this one, are generally unreliable. Cortador (talk) 12:23, 13 December 2023 (UTC)

It should be noted that when this article first went up, the author was listed as a "contributor" rather than a "subscriber", so, while the latter term is not clear to me (former contributor? Someone who pays for contributor-like access?), yes, it gets treated like a contributor. However, that opens up a curious possibility: if someone who was previously a contributor gets taken on staff, do all their old posts get switched to be marked "staff"? If so, that would get unverified articles listed in aa way that we think they're reliable. Probably not a large concern, but it will nag at me... -- Nat Gertler (talk) 15:32, 13 December 2023 (UTC)

I'd say no. Qualifications aren't applied retroactively. Cortador (talk) 15:15, 14 December 2023 (UTC)

I think the concern is that Forbes might change their byline to "Forbes staff", even for stuff that they wrote as a contributor when they had no editorial controls or fact-checking applied to their work - since it seems like Forbes just has one byline for every person, which is changed everywhere (that is, retroactively on previously published works) if their status changes. Obviously we wouldn't want to consider their old work reliable, but we might not be able to distinguish them if Forbes provides no easy way to do so. --Aquillion (talk) 10:38, 24 December 2023 (UTC)

That is concerning. Unless there is evidence that all of a contributor's past articles have been fact-checked prior to the contributor being promoted to a staff writer, all of the articles that were written while the author was a contributor should be considered self-published. A web archive link to any one of an author's articles on Forbes.com or to the author's profile page (example) is sufficient to show that the author was a contributor, staff writer, or neither ("subscriber") at the time the page was archived. — Newslinger talk 15:09, 16 December 2023 (UTC) Edited 22:18, 23 December 2023 (UTC)

I would agree with Cortador and only use those listed as written by staff. Forbes has branched off and now has contributors, Forbes Council, etc., all of which are non-staff written submissions. --CNMall41 (talk) 23:55, 13 December 2023 (UTC)

The Express Tribune

Hi. Can anyone please check thoroughly how much reliable this reference is for topics where financial stake can be involved? I mean, it is publishing promo articles on non-notable topics such as [21], [22], [23], [24] with proper bylines. Just went through the site and found all these - I'm sure they are doing it regularly. It is important to discuss because it is widely cited on Wikipedia. 2400:ADCC:179:F000:9473:4AED:895B:E663 (talk) 14:18, 24 December 2023 (UTC)

I'm not sure what you mean by "where a financial stake can be involved." That aside, context matters. Is there a particular story at the site that is of questionable reliability for a specific statement in an article at en.wikipedia? Banks Irk (talk) 15:00, 24 December 2023 (UTC)

They appear to be a normal news organisations, and are an affiliate of the NYT (they republish the international version in Pakistan). However their advertising page basically only discusses advertorials and integrating them "in the most seamless manner possible". The advise at WP:NEWSORGINDIA is about Indian news organisations, but probably equally applies here. It's an issue seen in many countries where overwise reliable sources also contain dubious unlabelled paid for content. -- LCU ActivelyDisinterested «@» °∆t° 15:16, 24 December 2023 (UTC)

Siemens Ventures now in service

The Amtrak Siemens Ventures have now been in service for a few days, so the List of Amtrak Rolling Stock article should be updated to reflect this reality. There have been multiple attempts to update this by multiple users, but they keep getting undid by the same editor. They say that there is a not a reliable source to confirm this and that twitter or YouTube is not reliable enough. Given the amount of photographic and video evidence there is, it is clearly safe to say they are in service. This user says this counts as original research. This seems a little strange because a) not updating the article to fit the current reality is just lying straight to the readers face, and b) as another editor in this dispute pointed out, twitter and YouTube have completely accepted as reliable sources in other articles.

So, how can we resolve this dispute and potentially find common ground? Thanks Rckania (talk) 20:57, 23 December 2023 (UTC)

This is easily resolved. Stop adding this unreferenced information into the article until there is a reliable, secondary source to support it. Twitter and YouTube are unlikely to be reliable sources for this unless it is Amtrak's or Seimen's verified accounts. What specific sources do you propose as references? Banks Irk (talk) 21:30, 23 December 2023 (UTC)

It wasn't me specifically. There was an official announcement, but I couldn't get access to it as I don't have a facebook account. I am not the only one who is trying to change it. It is just so frustrating that this editor insists on keeping the article inaccurate for the sake of "reliable source" even with overwhelming evidence. I don't understand what makes one source reliable and another not. Video evidence seems pretty reliable. Rckania (talk) 22:41, 23 December 2023 (UTC)

Everyone trying to change it needs to read WP:BURDEN and not try to add it again unless they have a reliable source to back it up. -- LCU ActivelyDisinterested «@» °∆t° 22:49, 23 December 2023 (UTC)

Alright, guess we will have to wait. I will still have trouble sleeping at night knowing that that article isn't updated, but it is what it is. You can close the dispute now. Rckania (talk) 22:53, 23 December 2023 (UTC)

i've had problems with the same editor on other articles. at one point he even threatened to block me for trying to update an article that was horrible out of date just because of his "source required or you're out" mentality. Trimetwes fan1003 (talk) 23:05, 23 December 2023 (UTC)

Ok. I did not know how far this went. I found him a little annoying, but I didn't feel like getting in a fight with an editor that I was pretty sure had a lot more power than me. Like, I understand the reliable source rule, but come on. It's not like I was sourcing just one random guy. There are multiple videos and photos of this that provide proof. That reliable source rule was not intended for things the general public can see with their own eyes. Rckania (talk) 23:37, 23 December 2023 (UTC)

Yes it was. What I find astonishing about this edit war is that the fact of the matter is that these cars have been in service for well over a year, not a matter of days, as reported in multiple reliable news sources, but none of the disputeants apparently know to type Amtrak Siemans Ventures into Google News. Try it.Banks Irk (talk) 00:06, 24 December 2023 (UTC)

@Banks Irk: You're correct that the Venture cars have been in service for some time now, as cited to reliable sources in the article. This dispute concerns their use specifically on the San Joaquins service, for which reliable sources are not yet available, and Rckania's wholly unsourced claim of retirement of certain older cars. Pi.1415926535 (talk) 14:24, 25 December 2023 (UTC)

Again WP:BURDEN is policy, it's not optional on train articles. -- LCU ActivelyDisinterested «@» °∆t° 13:33, 24 December 2023 (UTC)

i still don't understand how youtube videos are not considered sources. I mean if the video shows the train running in service, then that should be more than enuff proof that the train cars are in service. Trimetwes fan1003 (talk) 23:37, 24 December 2023 (UTC)

Some YouTube videos are reliable some are not, it depends on who published it. A video from a respected news source saying that the train in the video is a specific model, reliable. Some random person saying that the train in the video is a specific model, not reliable. -- LCU ActivelyDisinterested «@» °∆t° 23:51, 24 December 2023 (UTC)

WP:RAJ

WP:RAJ Till when is it applicable, is it based on sources written in India before independence, is the statue available even after 1947 (independence) or not?? Sudsahab (talk) 08:38, 26 December 2023 (UTC)

My reading of RAJ is that it's about a particular theme rather than works published in a particular period. Most of the effected works were published before independence, but that doesn't mean all of them were. The issue is rather ideas and tropes propagated by the British Raj as a means of controlling the local population, propaganda in effect, but one used to "divide and control" rather than lionise the British themselves.
WP:RAJ is just an essay though, and you can always ask for more advise at Project India that has a quite an active group of editors. -- LCU ActivelyDisinterested «@» °∆t° 14:38, 26 December 2023 (UTC)

Business Insider on Lex Fridman

Re: Lex Fridman, WP:BUSINESSINSIDER has no consensus on reliability. But what about pieces such as this profile of Lex Fridman, which was written by a senior correspondent Julia Black? It appears to be good in-depth journalistic reporting on his career.

Some users have removed content [25] [26] which includes peer/expert critique of Fridman's career and work, because apparently Business Insider not reliable enough to use on a BLP.

In particular, the quote "Computational biologist Lior Pachter said "some scientists and academics fear Fridman is contributing to the 'cacophony of misinformation" seems like a reasonable assessment from a notable expert.

Given it is authored by a senior correspondent (not an independent contributor), and given the author spoke to a number of experts throughout the article, is this not an acceptable source here? Insider is reliable for culture, and this does seem to be a cross-over of tech and culture, although I guess it depends on how it is tagged on the site. Zenomonoz (talk) 06:06, 23 December 2023 (UTC)

I would agree that it seems to be a perfectly useable source in this context. Hemiauchenia (talk) 06:13, 23 December 2023 (UTC)

Thanks, I will wait for other comments too. I am regularly having to tidy up the article as Lex regularly complains about his Wikipedia page "attacking" him (usually on his podcast and on Twitter) so his fans tend to come over and demand anything critical be removed. I'm not going to revert the removal as I don't want to edit war. Zenomonoz (talk) 06:28, 23 December 2023 (UTC)

Seems like another classic case of "man upset because Wikipedia biography is not hagiography" to me. Hemiauchenia (talk) 06:32, 23 December 2023 (UTC)

Additional comments here would be appreciated. The user who is disputing the source has labelled this article a "junk source" on the talk page. I find that hard to believe given the source is/was being used to state what academic experts said of Fridman. Seems per WP:MREL it's acceptable to use the source in this case. Zenomonoz (talk) 09:37, 23 December 2023 (UTC)

BI can be an iffy source, but I agree with Hemiauchenia that in this case there is no particular concern. Bon courage (talk) 12:33, 23 December 2023 (UTC)

Agreed -- fine for this use. From what I've seen, their biggest struggle is with low effort promotional/clickbaity stuff; the higher effort pieces don't seem to be an issue. — Rhododendrites ^talk \\ 17:20, 23 December 2023 (UTC)

I also think it's fine for this particular use. XOR'easter (talk) 17:12, 26 December 2023 (UTC)

New History of the Marathas

Does the New History of the Marathas be considered as a WP:RAJ source? Despite being in the British era, the author Govind Sakharam Sardesai is a well known writer. Imperial ^[AFCND] 19:06, 26 December 2023 (UTC)

How reliable would these sources be for Scale of the Universe?

A moment ago, I decided to create a source assessment table over at the talk page of WP:BFDI listing sources for the topic of Scale of the Universe. While only one source has been determined to be definitely likely to help that topic meet GNG, there are still some sources whose reliability has yet to be determined for certain. This list excludes sources that have been ruled out as not counting towards GNG.

This source was suggested by an editor:

The Planetary Society, by Emily Lakdawalla

These sources were cited in a userspace draft from earlier this year:

"The Scale of the Universe 2 - FUSE - Department of Education & Training". fuse.education.vic.gov.au
"17.06.07: Micro Life in a Macro World: Understanding Life at the Microscopic Scale and the Spread of Disease". teachers.yale.edu
"Scale of the Universe | ALN | NT2". nt2.uqam.ca
"Miscellaneous: Fun and learning in one! Get stuck in to The Scale of the Universe 2". www.itsnicethat.com
"The Scale of the Universe". Devpost

While I already received responses for the first several sources, that was before I discovered the draft with the rest of the sources. The only relevant response I got after I added that draft's sources to the table was about Game Informer. Nothing has been said about the rest of the sources as of yet. – MrPersonHumanGuy (talk) 12:57, 24 December 2023 (UTC)

None of them are reliable sources for scientific subjects. Banks Irk (talk) 13:10, 24 December 2023 (UTC)

I am not sure of the relevance of the fitness of the sources for scientific subjects. Scale of the Universe is simply an application/video game.

That said, here are my thoughts on the sources:

- I agree that Emily Lakdawalla's "The Scale of the Universe, by Cary and Michael Huang" looks like a reliable and independent source for this. It is, more or less, a brief review of the game.

- The FUSE source does not seem to constitute significant coverage. It is essentially a curriculum landing page.

- Beth Valentine Pellegrini's "Micro Life in a Macro World: Understanding Life at the Microscopic Scale and the Spread of Disease" is a lesson plan, and the mention of Scale of the Universe seems insignificant. It is listed among the "Resources", which in the context of the other entries in the Resources section is more of a bibliography.

- The web page credited to Gabriel Gaudette (ALN NT2) I'm not sure about; I don't read or know French, so I feel unfit to weigh in on that.

- Liv Sidall, "Fun and learning in one!" from what I can gather is independent of Scale of the Universe, and it isn't making any claims that seem outrageous.

The project page you linked to also seems to have a link to a report from ABC News about Scale of the Universe, which seems to be indisputably a reliable source suggestive of the topic's notability.

None of this is to comment, per se, on BFDI, which I know nothing about. P-Makoto (she/her) (talk) 02:49, 25 December 2023 (UTC)

My apologies. Skimming over the sources as opposed to the content, it did not register that the subject was an educational game, not the underlying science itself. I agree with the comment that the first, though a bloggish post, is by a SME. Banks Irk (talk) 02:18, 27 December 2023 (UTC)

Emily Lakdawalla is a subject-matter expert; the Planetary Society item looks like a blog post that might not have had to get editorial approval from anyone else, but at worst it's still usable per WP:SPS. XOR'easter (talk) 22:44, 26 December 2023 (UTC)

Is this source Relaible

https://archive.org/details/vijaynagar-history-n.-venkataramanayya/page/118/mode/1up Sudsahab (talk) 12:12, 27 December 2023 (UTC)

We can't ask in that way. As we discussed at the talk page of Draft:Gajapati invasion of Bidar

Is the "Further sources of Vijaynagar History-1 ( N. Venkataramayya)" reliable for citing "Gajaptis achieved victory over the Bahmanis in 1461" by using the quotation from the first paragraph of the page 119?

A comment on this; the author quoted that "whatever be the true result of this attack", which showes the author is not making a reliable statement. Imperial ^[AFCND] 12:22, 27 December 2023 (UTC)

Questionable reference in Johor Bahru

The sentence Johor Bahru was also the second largest GDP contributor among the first tier cities in Malaysia in 2010 uses this reference ("Urban Regeneration :The Case of Penang, Malaysia. Putting Policy into Practice" (PDF). Khazanah Nasional: 10. 2012. Archived from the original (PDF) on 4 January 2016 – via The chart of the GDP contributor is in Page 10.).

It seemed like a Powerpoint slide of questionable accuracy and/or reliability, not to mention it is likely outdated. It was never mentioned where the data for city GDP came from. Official GDP data in Malaysia are available down to state-level only, not smaller-level divisions like cities (https://www.dosm.gov.my/portal-main/release-content/gross-domestic-product-gdp-by-state-). Seeking some review on this. Slothades (talk) 03:42, 22 December 2023 (UTC) Slothades (talk) 03:42, 22 December 2023 (UTC)

Since WP:RS requires a reputation for fact checking and accuracy, if you cannot find some evidence that this reputation exists, you should not cite the source (imo). (t · c) buidhe 11:53, 22 December 2023 (UTC)

I agree, @Buidhe: The sentence was added by some other user [27], and it just seemed questionable that there was nothing to support the data in the Powerpoint slide, not even from official Malaysian statistics. Slothades (talk) 01:36, 26 December 2023 (UTC)

Hi Slothades. You usually don't want to inform user talk pages of discussions. Diff. That can be perceived as WP:CANVASSing. Please instead only inform article talk pages or WikiProject talk pages. Thanks! –Novem Linguae (talk) 08:18, 27 December 2023 (UTC)

Ditto. Banks Irk (talk) 14:41, 27 December 2023 (UTC)

SimpleFlying revisit

I recently noticed that there's an editor who claim SimpleFlying as unreliable source based on two discussion on RSN (which are first discussion and second discussion. However, as I look up those discussion, it seems there are only one or two participants on those discussion. And I don't think discussion between two editors would be sufficient to conclude certain source as reliable or unreliable. That's why I am re-opening this discussion to seek more input.

Refer to SimpleFlying about page, it seems they claim to be news organization (The leading independent voice for aviation news and insight.). Their about page also informs us their journalist and editorial team, which indicate their contents undergo editorial process before published. They also mentioned their fact-checking policy and correction policy on their website, which I think are one of core value of journalism.

~~Therefore, IMO SimpleFlying may be qualify to be considered as News Organization and their content can be considered generally reliable.~~
Therefore, IMO SimpleFlying may still be used in WP, unless we have better source. Ckfasdf (talk) 22:08, 22 December 2023 (UTC)

What evidence is there that SimpleFlying has "a reputation for fact-checking and accuracy"? You can't assess the reputation of a website by looking at what it says about itself. AndyTheGrump (talk) 22:37, 22 December 2023 (UTC)

My take is that SimpleFlying is good for travel tips, they're generally objective, and they've published some well-sourced and accurate historical articles. That said, for aviation news, they engage in churnalism and often rehash content from other news organizations without full context and detail. Their reporting tends to lack depth. I usually use SF as a one-stop "first alert", then I do a little digging to find the source they used and work from that. If they were on WP:RSP, I'd give them "additional considerations" yellow shading. They do seem to be improving, however. Carguychris (talk) 22:52, 22 December 2023 (UTC)

The SimpleFlying 'Terms of Use' page doesn't exactly inspire confidence. The first paragraph in the section on 'accuracy' is clearly copy-pasted from a website on another subject. [28] AndyTheGrump (talk) 23:03, 22 December 2023 (UTC)

While I do not consider myself sufficiently familiar with aviation to weigh in personally, I did notice the following examples of SimpleFlying being cited by established periodicals and by academics:

By NewsWeek, in "Ukraine Refugees Encounter Chaos, Racism--and Also 'Extraordinary Humanity'" (2022)
By the academic Journal of Sustainable Tourism in "Limited Tourism: Travel Bubbles for a Sustainable Future" (2021)
Presenters at the German Air and Space Congress (Deutscher Luft Und Raumfahrtkongress), in "On the Definition of Development Objectives for Air Taxis Derived from a Holistic Stakeholder Analysis" (2021)
Economists from the University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee and Georgia Institute of Technology, in "Fly the Unfriendly Skies: The Role of Transport Costs in Gravity Models of Trade" (2023)

P-Makoto (she/her) (talk) 23:09, 22 December 2023 (UTC)

I also agree that some article in SimpleFlying do have inaccuraces or mistakes so it's may not be the best source, and if we have better source then we probably should use the better source. However, I don't think it's also appropriate to label SimpleFLying as generally 'unreliable', since as mentioned above SimpleFlying did cited by some established periodicals and by academics. Ckfasdf (talk) 23:40, 22 December 2023 (UTC)

Blocked sock arguing that Nikkei is on par with SF.

The following discussion has been closed. Please do not modify it.

Every source used on Wikipedia has an error or mistake here and there. If you find yourself second-guessing what Simple Flying says, look for another source to back it up, and if you can’t find one, remove it. Otherwise, leave it, as the overwhelming majority of their work is of citation quality. RedundancyAdvocate (talk) 23:43, 22 December 2023 (UTC)

For the record, you have undone edits even when they consisted of replacing the unreliable Simple Flying citation with a more credible citation. Care to explain? Avgeekamfot (talk) 00:33, 25 December 2023 (UTC)

That doesn’t look “more credible” by any margin. RedundancyAdvocate (talk) 16:39, 25 December 2023 (UTC)

Sorry I'm confused, are we looking at the same diff or are you saying simplyflying is more reliable than The Nikkei? -- LCU ActivelyDisinterested «@» °∆t° 17:25, 25 December 2023 (UTC)

He seems to be edit warring to include Simple Flying rather than the Nikkei source I found now. Avgeekamfot (talk) 17:34, 25 December 2023 (UTC)

Because I have no reason to believe that Nikkei is more valid than Simple Flying. This is also not edit warring. RedundancyAdvocate (talk) 02:36, 26 December 2023 (UTC)

Nikkei seems to have many of the same issues that Simple Flying does, as identified by others in this thread. If i'm wrong, great- but Nikkei doesn't look a whole lot better. RedundancyAdvocate (talk) 02:36, 26 December 2023 (UTC)

Although superficially responsible, with a sensible fact checking policy, there has to be some doubt. For example that policy states, "Before any article is written, we ensure the information is new and accurate. ... Our writers and editors are industry veterans", while at the same time their recruitment page says, "Can you explain to friends which is the best London airport for them? Do you have strong feelings about the window vs. aisle seat debate? If this sounds like you, maybe it’s time to take off with us. Simple Flying is on the lookout for enthusiastic avgeeks with a passion for writing to join its global team." which is rather less reassuring. Every wacky site gets recommended by somebody, every responsible site makes mistakes. SimpleFlying appears to be somewhere near the borderline. Unlike at least one editor here, I have no problem with sites that go back and correct their mistakes when their attention is drawn to them; I wish more RS were prepared to do that! All in all, I'd regard it as on the reliable side of the border line, but with the caveat that opinion pieces, such as which airport to go to or where best to sit, should be treated as unreliable. All the usual issues over cross-checking of conflicting sources will of course apply But from what others have dug up (see below) it does appear to be somewhat unreliable still. — Cheers, Steelpillow (Talk) 09:28, 23 December 2023 (UTC) [revised 21:39, 24 December 2023 (UTC)]

I'm glad that a wider discussion on this topic has been started -- I did try to open a wider discussion before but did not get much participation (although @Starlights99:'s reply was appreciated!) as @Ckfasdf notes. Some points regarding Simple Flying:

An entire video where they get Singapore Airlines and SAS confused.
A couple articles where they discuss the A321XLR as flying (before it started commercial operations)
Content on the 747 where the video and article contradict each other and seemingly no editing
A Bloomberg aviation reporter pointing out that when they produce news, it's " ripping off our stories and suffice it with a simple "credit" right at the bottom of the story"
Ishirion (a well-respected aviation analyst) pointing out some of their inaccuracies.
Enilria (a popular aviation Patron writer) pointing out another article with yet more inaccuracies
Their writers are not professional journalists or subject matter experts. For example: "lead journalist" for Africa, contributing since 2018, graduated from high school in 2020

They're owned by a company who's entire business model is churning out content for ad and affiliate revenue. Frankly, it's hard to read more than a few of their articles without finding glaring inaccuracies. Avgeekamfot (talk) 19:06, 24 December 2023 (UTC)

WP:RS requires that sources have "reputation for fact-checking and accuracy" and news orgs are expected to be "well established". I'm not seeing any reason to believe Simple Flying meets this standard. Its reputation is one of churnalism, plagiarism, and unreliability. In the vast majority of cases, if what Simple Flying is reporting is true, we can find an actual RS for it and in other cases, perhaps the content doesn't meet the threshold for inclusion in Wikipedia. As Gary Leff posted in response to @xJonNYC mocking their lack of fact checking: "That's just usual Simple Flying stuff, it's either ripped off or wrong, so it doesn't surprise me when both happen in the same piece." Avgeekamfot (talk) 19:41, 24 December 2023 (UTC)

RedundancyAdvocate is a blocked sock

The following discussion has been closed. Please do not modify it.

Thank you. However, next time you need to provide these details BEFORE you remove it as a source from an article. BEFORE. Not after others have gone and undone your edits and warned you. RedundancyAdvocate (talk) 16:34, 25 December 2023 (UTC)

I'm sorry, but the fact that you know how to use a warning template doesn't mean anything. Anyone can post a warning template and use all caps. Let's maybe be civil?

Whether or not this discussion concludes that Simple Flying is a reliable source or not, the onus is on the editor who is arguing for inclusion to gain consensus if it is contentious. If I remove a Simple Flying source (which I will continue to do unless there is a consensus that it is reliable), then the onus would be on anyone trying to re-add it to gain a consensus to do so. Avgeekamfot (talk) 17:32, 25 December 2023 (UTC)

I'm talking about the fact that you removed countless Simple Flying links without providing any justification for doing so other than claiming it was unreliable. The fact you've justified it now doesn't make that acceptable. RedundancyAdvocate (talk) 02:38, 26 December 2023 (UTC)

I’d suggest you leave the existing Simple Flying links in place in articles, unless you can spot any inaccuracies with them, in which case you should find other sources to replace them with. RedundancyAdvocate (talk) 16:37, 25 December 2023 (UTC)

Editors are expected to make their own judgement of sources, and need no-ones pre-approval to edit. Your comment above that Nikkei looks no more credible than simplyflying is of concern. -- LCU ActivelyDisinterested «@» °∆t° 17:29, 25 December 2023 (UTC)

Of concern? On a quick peruse of Nikkei it doesn't make me any more confident than one would be on a quick jaunt through Simple Flying. RedundancyAdvocate (talk) 02:39, 26 December 2023 (UTC)

The Nikkei is a major national newspaper of Japan, if you judgement is that a maybe reliable website is of equal credibility then yes "concern". -- LCU ActivelyDisinterested «@» °∆t° 14:42, 26 December 2023 (UTC)

Agree emphatically with ActivelyDisinterested. Nikkei is a major financial information provider - heck, it even owns the Financial Times these days - and global investors do not take inaccurate information kindly. You do not get more highly regarded news services than this. For someone to suggest that SimpleFlying is on a par with it is merely to demonstrate their own bad judgement and, unfortunately, to cast doubt on all their value judgements in this discussion. — Cheers, Steelpillow (Talk) 14:57, 26 December 2023 (UTC)

@Avgeekamfot: Thank you for your clarification, I also try to look up newer discussion on SimpleFlying to find out whether they have improved but it seems not that much. And based on discussion above, it seems we can conclude that SimpleFlying is a Questionable source. With that being said, there two next point to be discuss, firstly regarding future edit (how we can inform future editor that SimpleFlying as questionable source) and secondly about existing article that already used SimpleFlying for the source. For the first part, I think we should go to WP:AVIATION and add SimpleFlying into list of resources to avoid. For the second part, ideally, all citation that initially use SimpleFlying should be replaced with WP:RS, but we are not living in ideal world. However, I dont think replacing all SimpleFlying into {{cn}} is a good idea either, as we are removing initial reference on why certain information included in the article in the first place. Therefore I am suggesting to put {{Better source needed}} instead, as that template is designed to address questionable source in the first place. Also future editor who will replace that SimpleFlying source can still have reference on which article that is problematic. Ckfasdf (talk) 21:35, 25 December 2023 (UTC)

@Ckfasdf Appreciate the agreement regarding Simple Flying's unsuitability as a source for Wikipedia.

Based on my count now, seems as though in addition to the two of us, @Steelpillow is in agreement on Simple Flying's unreliability. In the two previous discussions cited, three other editors (unanimously) agreed on this point as well. I suppose to achieve consensus, we'd ideally hear from editors who were part of the discussion @P-Makoto @AndyTheGrump@Carguychris @ActivelyDisinterestedon on their final assessment. And I'm not exactly sure how to characterize @RedundancyAdvocate's position…

I'd suggest that beyond questionable, Simple Flying should be listed as a "generally unreliable"/WP:GUNREL source. The criteria for inclusion at WP:RSP is "two or more significant discussions about the source's reliability in the past, or an uninterrupted request for comment on the source's reliability that took place on the reliable sources noticeboard. For a discussion to be considered significant, most editors expect no fewer than two qualifying participants for RSN discussions where the source's name is in the section heading" which we will have met after this discussion along with the two previous ones you referenced when starting this discussion. Avgeekamfot (talk) 22:57, 25 December 2023 (UTC)

I agree with adding to links to avoid for WP:AVIATION as well, btw. Avgeekamfot (talk) 22:59, 25 December 2023 (UTC)

RedundancyAdvocate is a blocked sock

The following discussion has been closed. Please do not modify it.

@Ckfasdf you have the right way to go. It's certainly questionable but is not "generally unreliable"- that would require a COMMON unreliability, which has not been proven. @Avgeekamfot- you seem to have some issues understanding how Wikipedia works, seeing as you left two retroactive warns on my talk page for things that occurred prior to this discussion, which doesn't make much sense. If you continue to demonstrate that you have trouble understanding how things work, we might have a problem. RedundancyAdvocate (talk) 02:42, 26 December 2023 (UTC)

@RedundancyAdvocate I'd encourage you to review WP:CIVIL and cease from your rude behavior that has included all caps, hounding, and a seeming belief that you're entitled to instruct me on how to edit. It's ironic that the person who can't recognize that The Nikkei is far more reliable than a churnalism blog is lecturing me on how Wikipedia works or the English language. You seem to be the only person who doesn't agree that Simple Flying is generally unreliable. Given that the WP:ONUS is on those seeking to include information, if you really believe Simple Flying is reliable, you should gain consensus for it as a reliable source. Absent that, I will continue removing it as a citation when I see it. Avgeekamfot (talk) 17:40, 26 December 2023 (UTC)

Wikipedia rules do not allow you to remove a source at will without providing justification for doing so. Warning you for that is not Wikipedia:Harassment either. You seem to have misread most of what i've said. RedundancyAdvocate (talk) 21:06, 26 December 2023 (UTC)

{{Better source needed}} is the way to go. RedundancyAdvocate (talk) 02:43, 26 December 2023 (UTC)

@Avgeekamfot- regardless of if Simple Flying is indeed unreliable, you needed to provide reasoning for saying that BEFORE deleting numerous links to it. If you go and deleted dozens of links to a source without saying anything more than "It's unreliable", then I have no reason to take you seriously, and will consider your edits disruptive. Keep this in mind next time. RedundancyAdvocate (talk) 02:46, 26 December 2023 (UTC)

pinging @Jetstreamer, if you haven't seen this already. RedundancyAdvocate (talk) 02:47, 26 December 2023 (UTC)

RedundancyAdvocate, read WP:VANDAL. AndyTheGrump (talk) 02:52, 26 December 2023 (UTC)

Should have been "disruptive editing". My point, however, stands. RedundancyAdvocate (talk) 02:54, 26 December 2023 (UTC)

Thanks for pinging me out. This discussion parallels the recurrent one involving SurferSquall regarding Planespotters; they claimed the source was reliable and everyone else should demonstrate the opposite.--Jetstreamer ^Talk 11:57, 26 December 2023 (UTC)

This is interesting and made me take a closer look. I've started a discussion here referencing this discussion. Avgeekamfot (talk) 21:39, 26 December 2023 (UTC)

Again no-one has to have permission to replace a source with one they think more reliable, this definitely doesn't fall under any sort of 'disruptivd editing'. Mass reverting without any good cause could consider such though. -- LCU ActivelyDisinterested «@» °∆t° 14:45, 26 December 2023 (UTC)

i'm talking about Avgeekamfot removing dozens of Simple Flying citations without having justified that. RedundancyAdvocate (talk) 21:07, 26 December 2023 (UTC)

Just removing that many links to it with no consensus on the issue is indeed disruptive editing. RedundancyAdvocate (talk) 21:12, 26 December 2023 (UTC)

Maybe they were mistaken in doing so, maybe not this discussion isn't over. Either way it takes a complete disregard of WP:Assume good faith to call it disruptive. Either way this forum is for the discussion of reliable sources, if you wish to discuss another editors behaviour you should try WP:ANI. -- LCU ActivelyDisinterested «@» °∆t° 22:39, 26 December 2023 (UTC)

better source needed

Given the extensive issues with Simple Flying (bullet points on my user page) and seeming consensus that it is either unreliable or questionable (with the exception of the editor arguing that it is more reliable than The Nikkei, lol), I'd like to discuss the correct course of action for articles already containing Simple Flying as a citation.

Obviously, the ideal course of action for any Simple Flying citation is to impeach it by looking for reliable sources to replace it with. However, short of that, @Ckfasdf has suggested adding the "better source needed" template to any Simple Flying citation. I think this would be a reasonable solution if we had any reason to believe that a SF citation is better than nothing but based on the evidence in the conversation above regarding SF's reliability, I don't think this is the case. I think we're better off tagging anything with a SF citation as simply "citation needed".

The "citation needed" approach for questionable sources is also supported by the FAQs located at WP:CITEWATCH which suggests the following steps when a questionable source is found in an article:

“

If the source is inappropriate, you have several options depending on the situation.

Replace the source with a reliable one. (WP:FIXTHEPROBLEM, ideally)
Replace the source with a ^{[citation needed]} template. (WP:MINREF – "Any statement that has been challenged")
Remove both the source and the associated article passage. (WP:BLPSOURCE/WP:UNDUE/WP:EXTRAORDINARY/WP:MEDRS situations)

”

Given that we're talking about aviation articles, I don't think the third bullet is salient but I do think following this approach (at least the first two bullets) is appropriate. I understand wanting a "future editor who will replace that SimpleFlying source can still have reference on which article that is problematic" but I believe the article revision history is sufficient, and simply putting a "better source needed" while linking to a churnalism site that plagiarizes articles is inappropriate. This is also the approach suggested by WikiProject Aviation.

TL;DR: Should citations to questionable/spammy blogs like SF be replaced with a "citation needed" or just be tagged as "better source needed" while leaving a link to the blog in the article? Avgeekamfot (talk) 18:03, 26 December 2023 (UTC)

Pinging participants @Ckfasdf, @Carguychris, @AndyTheGrump, @ActivelyDisinterested, @Steelpillow, @Jetstreamer, et. al. Avgeekamfot (talk) 18:09, 26 December 2023 (UTC)

Refer to template documentation and Citation needed article, {{Citation needed}} is intended to request citation of unsourced claims and the usage of that template also automatically put the article into Category:All articles with unsourced statements. Meanwhile {{Better source needed}} is intended to be used when a statement is sourced but the source link to insufficiently reliable sources and the usage of that template also automatically put the article into Category:All articles lacking reliable references. Since, we all agree that existing source is questionable source, not unsourced, then IMO we should refer to the template documentation and use {{Better source needed}} instead. Ckfasdf (talk) 18:50, 26 December 2023 (UTC)

Actually, we all agree that SF is at least questionable which if added to WP:RSP would = WP:GUNREL. Going further, I think it's WP:CITESPAM and linking to it at all does more harm than good but I recognize that I don't have consensus on that point, just that SF is unreliable 😀

Reviewing the template documentation you've pointed to and given the policies/guidelines I've pointed to, it seems as though both approaches to dealing with questionable sources are valid? Perhaps, at least for purposes of this RSN discussion, we leave it at that and allow editorial discretion on how to deal with SF sources when they come up? Avgeekamfot (talk) 18:59, 26 December 2023 (UTC)

IMO neither WP:CITEWATCH or WP:GUNREL are part of Wikipedia:Policies and guidelines. But yea, let's see what's other editors thought on how to deal with existing SimpleFlying source. Ckfasdf (talk) 19:09, 26 December 2023 (UTC)

That's fair, but WP:GUNREL is on one of the absolutely most trafficked help pages as far as citations are concerned so I think if it's controversial, it would have been changed by now.

For what it's worth, another edit illustrating why I think "citation needed" is preferable to even citing SF. Thanks to misinformation from SF, we had their planned fleet size as "up to 80" when every other reliable source said half of an 80 aircraft order by Lufthansa Group would go to City Airlines. Seems like SF simply made up the "up to 80" bit of the article. SF also said had an A319 flying when the airline is not starting service till summer 2024. It would be quite tedious to fact check every single item cited to SF but I don't think it's a reason to retain links to a source with so much misinformation. Avgeekamfot (talk) 21:07, 26 December 2023 (UTC)

As Avgeekamfot notes above, the appropriate way to deal with improperly-sourced material depends on context. I'd have to suggest though that if there is a lot of material that appears only to be citeable to Simple Flying, we probably shouldn't be including such material at all. There seems to be a prevailing tendency amongst some contributors to aviation topics (and some others too) to treat the existence of a source as all the evidence needed to include content in an article. That has never been the case: articles are supposed to summarise a topic, not describe every last aspect in exhaustive detail. AndyTheGrump (talk) 19:27, 26 December 2023 (UTC)

I'm not completely convinced that it's unreliable but it's definitely marginal at best. There does appear to be some use as a source by other reliable sources, but there are also enough concerns raised to show it's not a generally reliable source.
If the content is due the best course of action would be to replace it with a different source, as with the example above that was switched for The Nikkei. As to what to do with the rest, if it is undue (trivia for instances) it could be removed, while the right way would be to add {{better source needed}} for anything else. However that's also a tag that will simply sit for another decade and go untouched, as it has done in thousands of other articles, while {{citation needed}} tends to get more attention (especially in well maintained articles).
I also agree that adding this to "links to avoid" on WP:AV/R is appropriate, I don't think adding more references to simplyflying is necessarily helpful. -- LCU ActivelyDisinterested «@» °∆t° 19:55, 26 December 2023 (UTC)

As the editor currently most involved in maintaining the list as WP:AV/R, I appreciate the advice being offered here and have incorporated some of it. As a project we do have our share of "I read it on the Internet" trainspotters and PoV pushers, but we are far from alone. I'd suggest that any specific advice for that list/section be posted at WT:AV/R, for discussion there. — Cheers, Steelpillow (Talk) 20:25, 26 December 2023 (UTC)

RedundancyAdvocate is a blocked sock

The following discussion has been closed. Please do not modify it.

@Steelpillow @ActivelyDisinterested @AndyTheGrump @Avgeekamfot @Ckfasdf Let's leave it at the above and move on. We shouldn't add more Simple Flying links, but shouldn't be blindingly deleting the existing ones either; replace them with something else or use {{Better source needed}}. @Avgeekamfot- apart from this discussion, familiarize yourself better with how WIkipedia works. I think we can all agree on this, no? RedundancyAdvocate (talk) 21:11, 26 December 2023 (UTC)

I believe this could do with more discussion, and that you shouldn't make any further comments about other editors. -- LCU ActivelyDisinterested «@» °∆t° 21:36, 26 December 2023 (UTC)

See our respective talk page histories. Not one but two baseless warns on my talk page that make zero sense given the order of events here, and reek of "revenge" for my having warned them before. RedundancyAdvocate (talk) 03:02, 27 December 2023 (UTC)

Again this noticeboard is only for the discussing the reliability of sources, not for making comments about other editors. Just stop. -- LCU ActivelyDisinterested «@» °∆t° 12:45, 27 December 2023 (UTC)

It's a poor source - just delete it and tag the info (or if appropriate just delete the text supported by it). Wikipedia is meant to be an encyclopedia and use high quality sources, not non-RS clcikbait like this - just let it go.Nigel Ish (talk) 22:44, 26 December 2023 (UTC)

I think you right about this. The issue with the better source needed tag is that editors who disagree will just leave it in place, as they don't agree, so citation needed tends to get more attention. Also as long as they remain they encourage other good faith but unaware editors to re-use the source (even with tags). -- LCU ActivelyDisinterested «@» °∆t° 23:39, 27 December 2023 (UTC)

IMO, the issue with Better source needed tag is that tag is not as widely used as Citation needed tag (557k articles vs 20k articles. So people may not understand the intended use of each tag, which actually are described in template documentation. The Citation needed template is intended for use when an editor believes that a reference verifying the statement should be provided. Other templates are available for other or more specific issues, such as Better source needed tag, which indicate existing citation that link to insufficiently reliable sources. Ckfasdf (talk) 01:04, 28 December 2023 (UTC)

Yes there is the {{circular reference}} that is for use when someone uses Wikipedia as a reference, many of these languish for over a decade without anyone removing something that should never have been used in the first place. Including many to other language Wikipedia's with completely unreferenced articles. For there intended purpose these tags work very poorly, while citation needed garners lots of attention and there's nothing in policy saying one should be used over the other. -- LCU ActivelyDisinterested «@» °∆t° 01:59, 28 December 2023 (UTC)

@Ckfasdf@ActivelyDisinterested This is why my preference is to handle SF citations by replacing with a reliable source or fully removing them (and replacing with a {{cn}} tag) or removing the sourced material entirely as @Nigel Ish has stated. It seems as though better source needed is just a cop-out that won't meaningfully reduce the number of citations to SF and encourage editors who view it as reliable to continue adding it making it everyone else's job to clean up after them. I'll probably develop the first section of my user page into an essay on this referencing this discussion once it's complete so it's easy to reference (I've never done that before so I welcome help and collaboration).

If someone wants to reference the page history, they can still see the original citation and removal in the page history (if there's a cn tag) while if someone disagrees with the removal of something sourced to cn, they can go out and find a RS to reinstate it. Avgeekamfot (talk) 18:05, 28 December 2023 (UTC)

Sojourners for book reviews

Is Sojourners reliable enough for book reviews. The reliability of this book review of The God Who Riots was briefly questioned in this diff due to a previous RSN discussion. The source seems biased toward progressive Christianity, but otherwise seems fairly reliable. TipsyElephant (talk) 17:31, 29 December 2023 (UTC)

The prior RSN discussion's observation that Publication in Sojourners doesn't in itself rule an article unreliable, but it doesn't automatically rule it reliable either. Look to the qualifications and reputations of the individual authors, to the purposes of the particular pieces seems fair. I don't think that discussion should be taken to mean Sojourners magazine can't be considered a reliable source. With an editorial board, the magazine has a process of editorial review, and many of its authors evidently have training in the subjects they write about.

As always, consider the source in context of other sources. Does the source comport with or contradict an existing academic consensus on the topic?

That book review seems to be written in a largely factual style, describing what the Garcia, author of The God Who Riots, says, and how the author describes his evidence. There is some assessment of style, which is to be expected in a book review. From the free preview I'm able to see, I would consider this review a reliable source for the book The God Who Riots. P-Makoto (she/her) (talk) 18:38, 29 December 2023 (UTC)

The Daily Telegraph (UK)

GENERALLY RELIABLE

Once again, Wikipedians reach a clear consensus that the Daily Telegraph is a reliable source.—S Marshall T/C 17:58, 8 January 2024 (UTC)

The following discussion is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.

I want to re-open the debate on the reliability score given to the Daily Telegraph as a perennial source. It's currently on "Generally reliable". Epa101 (talk) 09:59, 24 November 2023 (UTC)

Responses (The Daily Telegraph (UK))

I know that there was a debate on the Telegraph in December 2022. This will focus on rulings by the Independent Press Standards Organisation since then. I have found seven cases when either the Daily Telegraph or telegraph.co.uk was given a sanction on a point of accuracy. I feel that its "Generally reliable" status is outdated. It has drifted outwith the mainstream with its vaccine scepticism. I know that their opinion on vaccines is outwith the considerations on this board, but I mention it to illustrate that this is not the "newspaper of record" of the past. I presume that there is only a realistic chance of its going down one rank, so I'll just put two options.

Option 1: Generally reliable
Option 2: Additional considerations

Exhibit 1 They said that a court had overruled the Gender Recognition Reform (Scotland) Bill. This was not true.

Exhibit 2 They said that Sweden's spending on COVID-related interventions was less than a tenth as much as the UK's. This was not true.

Exhibit 3 They said that there is evidence that home-schooled children do not receive a good education, but then failed to produce the evidence when challenged.

Exhibit 4 They published inaccurate numbers on the number of people allowed to stay in the country under the UK's schemes in combatting modern slavery.

Exhibit 5 They said that a gas-turbine generator that was small enough to go on the back of a lorry would produce the same electricity, faster and more reliably, than 10 offshore wind turbines the size of the Eiffel Tower. This is not true.

Exhibit 6 They said that doctors and nurses were receiving 9% pay increases. This was not true.

Exhibit 7 They said that the decrease in deportation of criminals was linked to an increase in legal challenges on the grounds of human rights, but they could not back this up. You'll not be surprised to know that I vote for Option 2:. I know that all newspapers make mistakes, but I have two simple reasons: first, many of the British newspapers with lower reliability scores have made fewer mistakes in the same time period; second, the mistakes show a systematic bias towards the political right and I do not believe that this pattern could be a coincidence of simple errors. Epa101 (talk) 18:54, 23 November 2023 (UTC)

Option 2 with regard to any of its 'oppion' pieces. The issue goes beyond just making mistakes, and in Exhibits 3–7 they argued for there incorrect figures/details until IPSO rules against them. -- LCU ActivelyDisinterested «@» °∆t° 21:36, 23 November 2023 (UTC)
Option 1: Generally reliable Lukewarmbeer (talk) 10:10, 24 November 2023 (UTC)
Option 1 The source is clearly biased in terms of its right-wing perspective, but no news organisation is free of bias. However, the examples listed above do not detract from its reliability for our purposes. Rulings of this nature occur frequently for UK news orgs. I will deal with them one by one:

Ruling 1 (Sturgeon GRB): This was an opinion piece in which the columnist made a factual error. It would not be used in Wikipedia. The paper published a correction.

Ruling 2 (Covid) Opinion piece, would not be used other than for the writer's opinion. IPSO-mandated correction published.

Ruling 3 (Homeschooling) Opinion piece, would not be used other than for the writer's opinion. IPSO-mandated correction published.

Ruling 4 (modern slavery) Article quoted a minister who made inaccurate statements, and complaint was only partly upheld. IPSO-mandated correction published.

Ruling 5 (gas turbines)Opinion piece, would not be used other than for the writer's opinion. IPSO-mandated correction published.

Ruling 6 (doctors pay claim) This piece has poor use of statistics, however, the body text was accurate and the only factually false section was the headline which could not be used per WP:HEADLINE,

Ruling 7Was inaccurate, but only in part, and was corrected by IPSO.

Only two articles could have led to misleading information making it into Wikipedia, and these were later corrected. Boynamedsue (talk) 16:42, 24 November 2023 (UTC)

Does it not matter that those two were only corrected after an IPSO ruling? If we say that corrections after an IPSO ruling erase the original error, then any newspaper that's a member of IPSO (i.e. the vast majority) would become a reliable source, since they all correct their errors when IPSO tell them to. Epa101 (talk) 22:06, 24 November 2023 (UTC)

Well, not all papers are regulated by IPSO, but the two that aren't are probably more reliable in any case. I fully agree that membership of IPSO does not make a paper reliable, but I don't see significant unreliable content here. These are mostly really borderline cases, and the amount of good sourcing we would lose by downgrading the telegraph is insane. We can't compare with the Mail which is unusable given the propagandist nature of its entire output, or even something like the Jewish Chronicle which published a large number of factually inaccurate stories on a single topic over a very short period . Boynamedsue (talk) 23:44, 24 November 2023 (UTC)

Just to be clear, my suggested Option 2 does not put it on the same level as the Daily Mail. It would still be two levels above the Mail. There would be no need to delete every Telegraph reference: it just loses its golden image. On propaganda, it should be noted that its close links to Boris Johnson made it very partisan during his premiership, and it has gone outside the mainstream since Borus was ejected. It's not the Torygraph any more. Epa101 (talk) 13:15, 25 November 2023 (UTC)

No consensus. I really think it's destructive to the project to constantly be having RfCs about "do you like this newspaper? YES, everything it says is automatically true or NO, everything it says is automatically false". In the real world of normal humans, there are always "considerations" when you write something and find sources to cite. Opinion pieces reflect opinions. Why do we have to have an official stance on them? jp×g 🗯️ 23:06, 24 November 2023 (UTC)

Comment: My impression is that The Daily Telegraph is generally reliable for news reporting. As with other news sources, opinion pieces are not relevant to our evaluation of the source's reliability for factual reporting. Many news outlets do not fact-check their opinion pieces to the same standard as reporting; this is why WP:RSEDITORIAL says that "Editorial commentary, analysis and opinion pieces...are rarely reliable for statements of fact." —Mx. Granger (talk · contribs) 02:36, 25 November 2023 (UTC)

I think Boynamedsue analysis is correct here. It's totally normal for a major newspaper with a lot of content to have IPSO complaints upheld and to issue corrections. Although IPSO is very imperfect, the fact the paper succumbs to regulation and acts on findings against it counts in its favour in terms of reliability. If there were a significant number of news. Given these corrections mostly relate to opinion and a headline and/or were only partially upheld shows that there is no cause to move from the current option 1 status. BobFromBrockley (talk) 13:58, 27 November 2023 (UTC)

Option 1: no change - there seems no substantive change here to make for any change to the "Generally" reliable. IPSO issues had happened prior to the 2022 rating, and having another 7 problems among some hundreds or thousands of pieces since still seems "Generally" reliable. That they occurred in opinion pieces and were responded to by editorial staff seems further mitigation. Cheers Markbassett (talk) 22:55, 29 November 2023 (UTC)
Option 1 effectively per Mx. Granger. It seems most of the issues are with opinion pieces, which, besides having been IPSO-corrected, aren't typically relevant to our considerations of reliability. While biased, I don't see a reason to no longer consider it "generally" reliable. The Kip 08:26, 30 November 2023 (UTC)
Option 1. The issues were mostly with opinion pieces, and many cases are borderline (see Boynamedsue's analysis). Also, the initiator of the RfC failed to provide any evidence that these issues caused problems on Wikipedia. Alaexis_¿question? 09:19, 30 November 2023 (UTC)
I didn't think that I needed to. We didn't need to say that the Morning Star (opposite end of the political spectrum) is causing lots of problems on Wikipedia to give it a lower reliability score. Epa101 (talk) 21:00, 6 December 2023 (UTC)
Please see the instructions at the top of this noticeboard. Alaexis_¿question? 21:15, 9 December 2023 (UTC)

* Option 2 All media outlets are biased, but this is one that wears it on their sleeve more than the best ones do. Reliable for mundane reporting, but any summary of complex events should be considered editorial. Sennalen (talk) 15:15, 1 December 2023 (UTC)

Option 1. Only 7 IPSO complaints about mostly opinion pieces? Our policies about reliable sources are clear that they're allowed to make a few mistakes as long as they have a working corrections policy. Voluntarily joining an arms' length self regulatory organization is exactly what we want sources to do. The Guardian and The Independent aren't members of IPSO, can we downgrade them? Chess (talk) (please mention me on reply) 20:17, 9 December 2023 (UTC)

Option 1 Generally Reliable largely per the analysis by Boynamedsue. Opinion pieces are already treated differently, and the handful of errors otherwise noted are not outside of the norm for pretty much any reputable news/media source. They have a right leaning editorial slant. Big deal. MSNBC leans left and has likely produced a similar level of mistakes. When it comes to factual reporting, for the most part they seem to have their act together. -Ad Orientem (talk) 21:31, 9 December 2023 (UTC)
Option 1 Boynamedsue's analysis shows that the content provided as evidence covers material that we wouldn't use anyway and official corrections were made where necessary – it's not a flawless publication, but what is? EddieHugh (talk) 18:13, 10 December 2023 (UTC)
Option 1/BADRFC It's pretty clear to me that downgrading the Telegraph to WP:MREL over this would be holding it to a ridiculously high double-standard. They issued corrections, it's fine. If it isn't, we should have an RFC to downgrade every media organization out there. - GretLomborg (talk) 05:53, 14 December 2023 (UTC)
Option 1 is more reasonable. As stated by various editors above, all' sources require at least some 'other considerations', but there is nothing on current showing to prove that this news outlets is anything other than generally reliable. Cheers, Last1in (talk) 15:40, 18 December 2023 (UTC)
Option 1 Sources that make twice as many mistakes haven't been downgraded. I don't see how this is any different Scorpions1325 (talk) 05:49, 21 December 2023 (UTC)
This is kind of the reliable source noticeboard equivalent of WP:OTHERSTUFFEXISTS. Yr Enw (talk) 12:47, 26 December 2023 (UTC)
Option 1 As per above. Every news organisation has a political leaning, this is no different. Any errors were corrected when challenged by the appropriate authorities, just like any respectable media organisation would expect. The C of E God Save the King! (talk) 14:11, 26 December 2023 (UTC)
Option 1. Thanks to Boynamedsue’s further context, the list of complaints looks weak. If those are the worst offences, I’d say it still qualifies as generally reliable. If any future RfC is raised based on IPSO (or similar) complaints, I’d like to see those complaints contextualised - e.g. how many such complaints is typical for a similar source? Barnards.tar.gz (talk) 19:14, 29 December 2023 (UTC)

Discussion (The Daily Telegraph (UK))

You haven't set this up as an RFC, WP:RFCOPEN explains how to do it properly. That will ensure that notifications are sent out, and the discussion is listed correctly. As an aside "Exhibit 1" doesn't say that "Nicola Sturgeon resigned as a result of the Bill" was untrue but rather that it was a unprovable statement of opinion, and "Exhibit 2" has the same link as "Exhibit 1". -- LCU ActivelyDisinterested «@» °∆t° 21:30, 23 November 2023 (UTC)
Epa101, ping so you're aware. -- LCU ActivelyDisinterested «@» °∆t° 21:37, 23 November 2023 (UTC)
My apologies for not setting this up correctly. After more than 15 years on Wikipedia, I'm still making errors. Thanks also for your pointers on my mistake. Epa101 (talk) 22:26, 23 November 2023 (UTC)
Epa101, please remove all of your argumentation to the discussion section and leave a neutral rfc statement at the top before this draws responses. As it is now it's a violation of WP:RFCNEUTRAL. ScottishFinnishRadish (talk) 00:08, 24 November 2023 (UTC)
OK, I'm moving it. I don't understand why some of the other notices on this Noticeboard don't have this structure that's being required here, but I'll move it anyway. Epa101 (talk) 09:57, 24 November 2023 (UTC)
- Bad RFC Not only is this malformed, as noted above, but it is improper. The last RFC was only a year ago. All of the "evidence" consists of complaints about statements in editorial of opinion pieces, not the accuracy or inaccuracy of news reports. And none of them involved use of those opinion pieces as sources in a specific article here. A new RFC is not in order. Banks Irk (talk) 01:53, 24 November 2023 (UTC)
  First, putting evidence in inverted commas is just childish. That is robust evidence. All of it is since the last decision, so it's all new. It all says that it's a matter of fact and not of opinion. Are you arguing that the IPCC is wrong to say that these are matters of fact? If so, you need a source for that, which is stronger than the IPCC's judgement. As regards how they're not used in a specific article, I don't think that is required for a judgement on a perennial source. There wouldn't be much point in having the ratings for each perennial source if we just judged each article on its individual merits. Why say that the Mirror, Morning Star, Mail, Sun, Express, etc. is less reliable in general by the Telegraph if we can just judge each article in each publication on its own merits? When we gave lower ratings to those publications, we didn't say that their inaccuracies had to occur in an article cited in a Wikipedia article. Epa101 (talk) 10:02, 24 November 2023 (UTC)
  
  Agree it's far too soon for another RFC Lukewarmbeer (talk) 10:08, 24 November 2023 (UTC)
  Is there any time period in which you're not allowed to make another suggestion? I didn't see this in the rules. I can understand that it would get annoying if the same person keeps making the same argument again and again, but I hope that my suggestion here is substantially different to the last one. The December 2022 debate was dominated by the Telegraph's coverage of trans issues. That comes into my first exhibit, but that is only one of seven. I would also note that this newspaper has changed in recent years. It has become more alt-right (e.g. on vaccines) and less conventionally Conservative Party; a rule that a source cannot be reconsidered for multiple risks missing changes such as this. Epa101 (talk) 12:13, 24 November 2023 (UTC)
Several of these complaints appear to be with reference to opinion pieces in the Telegraph, which already would not usually be considered reliable for statements of fact per WP:RSOPINION. I think only three ([29], [30], [31]) are related to the Telegraph's news coverage, of which one ([32]) only rules that the headline was misleading: and per WP:RSHEADLINE headlines are already not a reliable source. So of the seven rulings initially cited, as far as I can make out only two are relevant to the question of the reliability of the Telegraph's news coverage. Caeciliusinhorto-public (talk) 14:36, 24 November 2023 (UTC)
Also, 4 is about false statements by a former minister that were correctly reported. Although that violates IPSO journalistic standards, rs policy does not say that news media could report false statements by politicians without fact-checking them. TFD (talk) 17:10, 24 November 2023 (UTC)
Agree per Banks Irk BADRFC, and no need for a new RFC per Caeciliusinhorto and others that the examples offered are opinion pieces, not news, whose use is already covered by other guideline. I also note criticism of the Independent Press Standards Organisation (IPSO) at that article, and wonder if there is any such body limiting freedom of published opinions in other countries (eg US). We have fact-checkers, for example, but no body that I'm aware of limiting the freedom to be wrong in your opinions. Short of defamatory publications, I wonder how many non-UK publications would by reduced to "restrictions apply" to their reliability if we included mistakes in their commentary and opinion sections; I suspect we'd be left with very few generally reliable sources if we scrutinized very opinion column in the US to the level that apparently the IPSO does. When fact-checking extends to opinion and commentary, rather than news, short of defamation, that would seem to limit freedom of expression, which includes the possibility of being wrong in your opinions. And if the UK has this IPSO body, why do they have such a horrific tabloid industry (confused)? SandyGeorgia (Talk) 15:47, 24 November 2023 (UTC)
You can search on their website for breaches, including whether a sanction was decided upon, against any newspaper that is a member (which is the vast majority). Note that the websites are listed separately from the paper, as some articles are only published online. If we compare to newspapers with a lower reliability rating in the same time period: the Daily Mirror/Sunday Mirror has 4, the Morning Star has 0, the Daily Mail/Mail on Sunday has 3, the Daily Express/Sunday Express has 3, the Sun [on Sunday] has 3 and the Daily Star [Sunday] has 0. I accept that some newspapers see the IPSO as insufficiently strict and have not joined, so we cannot compare with them. Still I think that there are enough member newspapers to make comparisons. I feel that the Daily Telegraph is living on old glory with its Wikipedia reputation. Epa101 (talk) 22:02, 24 November 2023 (UTC)

I agree that most of the complaints were about commentary pieces, which are not considered rs anyway. Also, the proposer does not provide any comparison with other broadsheets. If for example the Financial Times, Independent and Guardian had similar levels of complaints upheld against them, then we would be unfairly apply an impossible standard. In fact those papers are not even members of the IPSO, yet are considered rs. — Preceding unsigned comment added by The Four Deuces (talk • contribs) 17:16, November 24, 2023 (UTC)

The Independent is considered a bit of a fallen giant in Britain now and it is not considered alongside the other broadsheets any more, but nonetheless it has 0 rulings against it for accuracy in this time period. The Financial Times has 0 rulings in the same period. The Times has 3. Unlike other British newspapers with Sunday editions, the Sunday Times is still a very different newspaper from the Times, so I'll count that separately. The Sunday Times has 1. The Guardian is not a member of IPSO, so I cannot compare with that. These comparisons are limited, but the Telegraph has more than others considered. As you can see in my response to SandyGeorgia above, the perennial sources with lower reliability scores have had fewer sanctions for accuracy in this period. Epa101 (talk) 22:22, 24 November 2023 (UTC)

It still reflects an odd sense of press freedom, given there is no such thing in the US to my knowledge; people are entitled to errors in their opinions, as long as they aren't defamatory. And given we have no such beast in the US, it makes no sense to penalize one UK paper for a controversial guardian of the press. SandyGeorgia (Talk) 23:07, 24 November 2023 (UTC)

I suggest leaving ideas of press freedom to one side, as that is a big can of worms. There are some restrictions in the USA that don't apply in the UK, such as the rules on foreign ownership. A lot of our national papers are owned by people with little connection to the UK. On its reliability, I'm not saying to treat it worse than every other newspaper. I'm questioning why we put it on a pedestal at present. My suggested Option 2 only knocks it down one rung. Epa101 (talk) 13:15, 25 November 2023 (UTC)

I'd say we should wait and see whether The Telegraph is acquired by the Emiratis (which is currently under discussion). Once that has happened and some time is passed, a RfC is probably appropriate considering the UAE's track record regarding freedom of the press. Cortador (talk) 14:05, 29 November 2023 (UTC)
FWIW, I'd put most British news outlets under Option 2 when it comes to GENSEX issues because there is a well-known culture of transphobia in the British press that has been covered by non-British sources, but that's probably a minority opinion; I should point out that Option 1 doesn't mean always reliable, just generally reliable; there are possible times where that generality can be overridden by specific concerns. With regards to the Telegraph... it's been on a slow downward slope for a long time, but I wouldn't change it from Option 1 to 2 just yet. Sceptre (talk) 17:51, 5 December 2023 (UTC)

The discussion above is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.

Yahad-In Unum

Has this improved in recent years? It is used to source ghettoization of Jews in Ariogala. Given Wikipedia:Reliable_sources/Noticeboard/Archive_184#Use_of_Yahad-In_Unum I am tagging it as RS but am seeking comment and review of that. Thanks. Elinruby (talk) 07:53, 30 December 2023 (UTC)

Reading that old discussion, I must confess my confusion that some editors get the impression the source is not reliable. The "Historical Note" and "By Bullets in Numbers" portions are editorial portions, i. e. secondary sources, written by staff and which undergo, from available indications, editorial review. I would consider those portions of the page to be reliable, independent sources. P-Makoto (she/her) (talk) 08:56, 30 December 2023 (UTC)

No, its still mostly an ego project of Patrick Desbois not a serious academic or historical effort. I would also note that Yahad-In Unum/Desbois has a history of spamming wikipedia, that may be where some of the past negative feelings come from. Horse Eye's Back (talk) 09:28, 30 December 2023 (UTC)

Focusing on the question of its reliability, the coverage of Yahad-In Unum I have seen depicts it is a serious enough endeavor, comparable to other reliable projects of public history. It has been favorably reported on in PBS and the New York Times. When I visited the campus of Arizona State University a few years ago, their Hayden Library, an academic library institution, was hosting a museum exhibit based on the work of Yahad-In Unum. Additionally, the New York Times article I linked notes that the project registers an execution or a grave site only after obtaining three independent accounts from witnesses. This is no mere user-generated collection of primary source testimonials. There is a secondary source element of consideration, prudence, weighing and corroborating primary sources, and drawing a reasoned conclusion in the way that quality secondary source authors do. This led me to the conclusion that the secondary source content on the website being asked about (the "Historical Note" and "Holocaust by Bullets in Figures" portions of the "Execution of Jews in Ariogala" page of The Map of Holocaust by Bullets, linked in the references on the Ariogala page) is a reliable source.

Why do you conclude that Yahad-In Unum is an "ego project"? To warrant your claim, would you please cite and/or link reliable sources that describe it as such, and/or as unreliable/inaccurate? P-Makoto (she/her) (talk) 18:59, 30 December 2023 (UTC)

The question I answered was "Has this improved in recent years?" and the answer is an unambiguous no. I have no idea what you're talking about. Horse Eye's Back (talk) 22:23, 30 December 2023 (UTC)

BigThink.com

Is this a WP:RS? I stumbled upon an interesting article to help give some context to View of the World from 9th Avenue.-TonyTheTiger (T / C / WP:FOUR / WP:CHICAGO / WP:WAWARD) 07:32, 30 December 2023 (UTC)

The site is Big Think. To quote notable expert opinion, it is suitable. For example Neil deGrasse Tyson. The site is sponsored by the Koch Brothers, who are the kings of conservative dark money influence, it might require some consideration on anything political, which are a lot of things not obviously political. I'm sure the guests are free to say anything they want, not paid trolls of the right, no evidence for that level of concern. (this appears to be not real and/or not really a concern) -- GreenC 18:25, 30 December 2023 (UTC)

Thx. Ive incoporated content in the article to beef it up a bit.-TonyTheTiger (T / C / WP:FOUR / WP:CHICAGO / WP:WAWARD) 04:57, 31 December 2023 (UTC)

Resolved

While we are on this subject, earthlymission.com Has similar content related to this perception-based map. Is that an RS?-TonyTheTiger (T / C / WP:FOUR / WP:CHICAGO / WP:WAWARD) 18:10, 30 December 2023 (UTC)

It appears to be the blog of Tamàs Varga, which would make it a self-published source and I can't find anything that would show they have been previously published in reliable sources. -- LCU ActivelyDisinterested «@» °∆t° 18:46, 30 December 2023 (UTC)

Thx for the info.-TonyTheTiger (T / C / WP:FOUR / WP:CHICAGO / WP:WAWARD) 04:57, 31 December 2023 (UTC)

Is this source about Siege of Etawah (1770) unreliable and comes under WP:RAJ??

https://archive.org/details/dli.ernet.1681/page/17/mode/2up?q=Kabir Sudsahab (talk) 15:07, 27 December 2023 (UTC)

In what context are you wanting to use that source? For what claims in what article?~ ONUnicorn^{(Talk|Contribs)}problem solving 19:59, 28 December 2023 (UTC)

At the beginning of the next month Ramchandra Ganesh laid siege to Etawa, which had been taken away by the Ruhelas from the Peshwa s agents just before Panipat. This fort was now held by Kabir Khan, on behalf of Hafiz Rahmat. After a fortnight Kabir found resistance useless as there was no hope of succour. On 15th December he vacated the fort on being granted his life and property ; at noon the Peshwa’s standard was hoisted on the ramparts and a Maratha garrison put in. [CPC. in. 505, 517, 530. SPD. xxix. pp. 311-313, Shaikh Kabir is paid Rs. 50,000 as the price of the grain and stores in the fort as well as the arrears of his sebandi troops. I want to use this information from the book. Sudsahab (talk) 21:12, 28 December 2023 (UTC)

I want To use this source to provide context and information to a battle article. Sudsahab (talk) 21:15, 28 December 2023 (UTC)

What statement do you want to add to the article based on that text? Banks Irk (talk) 21:27, 28 December 2023 (UTC)

Iwant to add info like belligerents Sudsahab (talk) 08:13, 29 December 2023 (UTC)

Sudsahab, Sitush already told you that it cannot be used. Didn't he? Then what is the point of asking this again? Imperial ^[AFCND] 08:46, 29 December 2023 (UTC)

WP:RAJ is an essay, not a policy, and in context, the essay comments on caste-related writings only. Claims that a history book is unreliable on a battle because of WP:RAJ as a policy is flatly wrong. That being said, I second ONU's question. Banks Irk (talk) 20:11, 28 December 2023 (UTC)

If there is scholarship more recent than 1952, I imagine that would be better. Is there anything you find in Google Scholar? P-Makoto (she/her) (talk) 20:40, 28 December 2023 (UTC)

If it was a relatively minor incident, there probably isn't much written more recently beyond passing mentions. Sarkar had a similar attention to detail as E P Thompson's History of the English Working Class - a different philosophy & interest, of course, but he'd find and record minutiae which most people would have skipped even if they uncovered it. Not a bad approach in itself, of course, but it could elevate small stuff into big stuff. I haven't checked if this particular topic is an example of that type of history. - Sitush (talk) 16:02, 29 December 2023 (UTC)

The author of WP:RAJ User:Sitush himself told that that will fall under WP:RAJ, and thus we can't use that. Check the talk page of Siege of Etawah. Imperial ^[AFCND] 04:50, 29 December 2023 (UTC)

Nonsense. For about the sixth time on this page, RAJ is not a policy, it is just an essay about one editor's opinion, and Sitush is not the ultimate arbiter of what sources are reliable on Indian history. This source is by an eminent historian and is perfectly reliable for use in the context proposed. I've looked at the article talk page, and the one conclusion I've drawn from it is that all of you should be topic banned from India/Pakistan topics for incessant edit warring and incivility. But, that's not a matter for RSN. Banks Irk (talk) 13:44, 29 December 2023 (UTC)

I hoped for a polite and civil dicussion. Last time I got warned for editwarring was from you. Nvm, thats not the matter here. Pinging @Sitush once again. Tired of explaining this again and again. Imperial ^[AFCND] 13:53, 29 December 2023 (UTC)

Banks Irk, please ping me when you're up to speed with Indian historiography and the widespread acceptance of RAJ and HISTRS. Until then, I don't see much point in reading what you say. - Sitush (talk) 14:09, 29 December 2023 (UTC)

Heh, I notice you invoked RAJ here. I claim no expertise but find your comment above regarding me somewhat disrespectful, coming as it does from someone with so little experience of WP and even less experience of content creation or indeed the topic area in question. For some reason, you have irked me more than many prima facie more blatant PAs. The claim you make that "all of you should be topic banned from India/Pakistan topics for incessant edit warring and incivility", which includes me, is just risible. - Sitush (talk) 14:27, 29 December 2023 (UTC)

See WP:HISTRS for another widely-accepted relevant essay. We've had this discussion loads of times at RSN. As for the specific source, Sarkar was a Nationalist historian, much revered by the Hindus of India and mostly ignored by the rest of the world. I don't know for sure but it wouldn't surprise me if the current Hindu nationalist government of Modi is trying to boost his (Sarkar's) reputation, just as it has played around with revising history as taught in schools etc. Sarkar made mountains out off molehills, particularly in pursuit of glorification of his favoured themes. Minor skirmishes become major conflicts, for example. The books in question were originally published 1932-38 and their later editions had only minor changes. Sarkar himself died in the late 1950s, by which time he was a very old man. Too many people here have little clue about India but seem to love to pontificate, causing yet more problems rather than fixing any. - Sitush (talk) 13:59, 29 December 2023 (UTC)

@Sitush, thank you for looking into this. @Banks Irk, seems like you made a personal attack here without proper investigation. Just because I happened to break 3rr once in few days, doesn't make me a guy who regularly involves in edit warring. You can clearly see that I didn't made an edit dispute in the above article. So, please don't make such allegations again! Imperial ^[AFCND] 14:10, 29 December 2023 (UTC)

Thank you for proving my point. Banks Irk (talk) 14:43, 29 December 2023 (UTC)

What point was that? Are you usually this nasty? - Sitush (talk) 14:46, 29 December 2023 (UTC)

I hope its not. But see some of the irritating comments here. Also, I would like to know which of ~~your~~ their point was proved here. Imperial ^[AFCND] 14:51, 29 December 2023 (UTC)

"Gratuitous belligerence" is how someone describes it in that AfD. If I wasn't on mobile, I'd be considering a review at ANI. - Sitush (talk) 14:59, 29 December 2023 (UTC)

This would be the comment in question, which I made. As an admin, seeing someone go into two separate highly-charged areas and actively throw gasoline on things isn't confidence inspiring. The Blade of the Northern Lights (話して下さい) 15:37, 29 December 2023 (UTC)

"This is an essay. It contains the advice or opinions of one or more Wikipedia contributors. This page is not an encyclopedia article, nor is it one of Wikipedia's policies or guidelines, as it has not been thoroughly vetted by the community. Some essays represent widespread norms; others only represent minority viewpoints. ", no Raj can't be invoked to ban a source, valid objections must be raised. So why is there source not reliable? Slatersteven (talk) 14:53, 29 December 2023 (UTC)

I have explained why above. - Sitush (talk) 14:57, 29 December 2023 (UTC)

I do not see any examples of factul inaccuracy, or his not being regarded as a reputable historian, just your opinion of him. Slatersteven (talk) 14:59, 29 December 2023 (UTC)

@Slatersteven, Early Indian history books often suffered from personal biases, leading to the exaggeration of content. While WP:AGEMATTERS primarily focuses on science-related articles, it is crucial to implement regulations like WP:RAJ to uphold Wikipedia's credibility in Indian historical narratives. Imperial ^[AFCND] 15:02, 29 December 2023 (UTC)

Slatersteven knows this, I'm sure. They enjoy poking me. Try this. Plenty of other critiques out there. - Sitush (talk) 15:07, 29 December 2023 (UTC)

Wow. I didn't expect Govind Sakharam Sardesai would be a part of this. I myself used him as a reference in plenty of the articles. Imperial ^[AFCND] 15:13, 29 December 2023 (UTC)

How about we wait for new voices to have a say? Slatersteven (talk) 15:10, 29 December 2023 (UTC)

One frequently-raised criticisms of Sarkar has been that he was slapdash both in quoting from sources and indeed even citing them. Unlike modern academic historians, he often wrote pages of very lucid, even entertaining, prose without indicating from where his information was derived. He'd make a useless WP editor but had the stylist bent of, say, Gibbon. - Sitush (talk) 15:33, 29 December 2023 (UTC)

The passage in question is extensively footnoted to the author's sources, so that observation seems inapt here. In context, what specific issues do you have with the reliability of the quoted passage and its proposed use in the article? Did he misquote or mischaracterize those earlier footnoted sources? Banks Irk (talk) 15:53, 29 December 2023 (UTC)

See this; Dipesh Chakraborty quoted this in his book "The Calling Of History Sir Jadunath Sarkar And His Empire Of Truth" "Its reading has generally been preferred here to that of Sarkar’s India of Aurangzeb, which on the admission of the translator, was based on a carelessly transcribed manuscript and contains many errors in the statistical portions." This books cites several other errors quoted by Jadunath Sarkar Imperial ^[AFCND] 16:00, 29 December 2023 (UTC)

But, that is referring to a different book, not the source being discussed here, is it not? Again, is there a specific question about this passage in this book for this article? Banks Irk (talk) 16:08, 29 December 2023 (UTC)

Some sources are unreliable, period. - Sitush (talk) 16:16, 29 December 2023 (UTC)

Sudsahab here asked for the reliability of "Fall of the Mughal empire". The reason for that is, I questioned about the verifiability of the citations and asked him to quote from any sources. The only sources he found to quote were the sources of Jadunath Sarkar and Sarkharam Sardesai. Both falls under WP:RAJ. So he came here to confirm this. If he failed to quote from the reliable sources, isn't there nothing questionable about it? Imperial ^[AFCND] 16:17, 29 December 2023 (UTC)

The point is that he often did miscite and misquote, even when he attributed. This is a recognised criticism & it makes his corpus problematic. It wasn't unusual for historians of his era but this is where HISTRS kicks in. - Sitush (talk) 16:07, 29 December 2023 (UTC)

Can we please all stop wp:bludgeoning the process, you have all had your say, and let some uninvolved editors chip in. Slatersteven (talk) 16:36, 29 December 2023 (UTC)

We are being asked to elucidate and are doing so. Feel free to say nothing if you have nothing to say. - Sitush (talk) 16:40, 29 December 2023 (UTC)

I have, I am saying let others have a say, before you address points you have already addressed. \Why is it so hard for you to step back? But you are also wrong, whilst it is true "Some sources are unreliable, period" that is decided by community consensus, not the invocation of an essay. So let the community decide based on the arguments presented. Slatersteven (talk) 17:19, 29 December 2023 (UTC)

You asked a question, as did others; I responded. I won't be bullied into silence by someone who knows nowt about the issue at hand and seems to want to query without response. Further, neither RAJ nor HISTRS are just essays - they note past consensus, inter alia.- Sitush (talk) 17:45, 29 December 2023 (UTC)

Yes, you have responded, and no one is trying to silence you, you have more than had your say. It is an essay, as such it is not a policy, and can't be invoked as a policy or rule (as it is not one). And I ask you (again) to stop making this about me. By the way, the Raj ended 4 years before the publication of this book. Also WP:RAJ is about "The quality of sources on the Indian caste system varies widely", this does not seem to be about caste, so an essay about caste has no relevance. So not only are people trying to apply an essay as if its a policy, they are also misapplying it. As such I have to oppose any action based on those grounds. Slatersteven (talk) 18:05, 29 December 2023 (UTC)

I will not be silenced by some dictator. The four volumes date from 1932-38, with numerous reprints & editions containing minor changes. I've said this before but you seem to be in IDHT mode. As you are also regarding my mention of HISTRS. Contrary to what you seem to think whenever you pop up in a discussion involving me, I'm not an idiot and indeed almost certainly can wipe the floor with you on anything appertaining to Indian sources. You're entitled to your say and to ask questions but you must be prepared to receive responses, even ones which prove what you say to be incorrect. - Sitush (talk) 18:27, 29 December 2023 (UTC)

The "Fall of Mughal Empire"'s first edition wasn't published after the Raj. The later versions of that book have very minor variations. The first version was published on 1932. And yeah, I agree that we can let uninvolved people to make an opinion. Imperial ^[AFCND] 18:21, 29 December 2023 (UTC)

The link provided said 1952, this is why actually good arguments linked to sources is a good idea. Slatersteven (talk) 18:27, 29 December 2023 (UTC)

Stop this pedantry, please. It is an edition with minor changes, none of which affect the precise passage & none of which are relevant to Sarkar's unreliability. This has already been explained. - Sitush (talk) 18:31, 29 December 2023 (UTC)

Surely this isn’t the only source to write about this battle… What do other sources say about it? Can the information be cited to a different source? Blueboar (talk) 17:39, 29 December 2023 (UTC)

I'm finding little in post-19C academic sources but passing mentions. Probably for the reasons I set out earlier (16:02 above). I'm also trying, without much success, to find 21C academic sources which usefully cite Sarkar for anything. I am on mobile, which makes things tedious, but I've been down this road several times in the last 15+ years. - Sitush (talk) 17:53, 29 December 2023 (UTC)

I would like to look at other sources but there is very little information available in other sources. Sudsahab (talk) 17:55, 29 December 2023 (UTC)

If there aren't other secondary sources published after the nineteenth century that provide a significant treatment, does that indicate the event is not deemed significant/relevant in the public consensus as it has now developed, or alternatively that it is no longer understood on the terms by which Sarkar analyzed/understood it? P-Makoto (she/her) (talk) 18:29, 29 December 2023 (UTC)

Likely blown out of proportion by Sarkar, at least in the opinion of subsequent historians. Etawah was a part of a wider military campaign. The article may well fail GNG, although I haven't even read it. - Sitush (talk) 18:34, 29 December 2023 (UTC)

Well I bothered to read it, and have AFD'd it as it seems to not pass GNG. Slatersteven (talk) 18:39, 29 December 2023 (UTC)

I said that earlier and asked for quoting from the sources again and again. But unfortunately, the only development I had following this article is getting called for banning me from such topics. LOL. Imperial ^[AFCND] 18:52, 29 December 2023 (UTC)

Slatersteven: well done, you. Your sarcasm antennae may need retuning. And the general issue of the reliability or otherwise of Sarkar remains - Sarkarism rather than sarcasm, you might say. - Sitush (talk) 22:05, 29 December 2023 (UTC)

WP:RAJ is not a policy or guideline, but it does contain explanations of why our policies and guidelines, as applied to sources from the period of the British Raj, generally render those source unreliable. Sarkar was a reputed historian of his time, but we should not be using him to source minutiae of specific battles if those minutiae are not supported by other sources. Vanamonde93 (talk) 07:32, 31 December 2023 (UTC)
As with VENRS I think some of the friction comes from how it's used in edit summaries, rather than the advice itself. "The source shouldn't be considered reliable, see WP:RAJ for an explanation" is less likely to ruffle feathers than just "WP:RAJ". Addition help from the India project would also be helpful in such discussions, there have been multiple source questions recently that could have used area specific knowledge. -- LCU ActivelyDisinterested «@» °∆t° 15:04, 31 December 2023 (UTC)

Nominate Al Jazeera as RS of the year 2023

This noticeboard is for asking about the reliability of sources in context. This is off-topic. Bon courage (talk) 04:16, 1 January 2024 (UTC)

The following discussion is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.

Previous noticeboards affirm the reliability of Al Jazeera. The point of view sits at the fulcrum of international consensus, as the state media of the only nation able to broker a truce thus far during the Israel-Gaza War. Acknowledging Al-Jazeera promises to help generate editor consensus where it is otherwise challenged by other influences. https://www.haaretz.com/israel-news/security-aviation/2023-07-18/ty-article/.premium/fake-wikipedia-accounts-conservative-israeli-think-tank-behind-skewed-overhaul-articles/00000189-6945-de70-adcb-f9c77a080000 The point of view aligns with global academic consensus. The depth of reporting and diversity of perspectives aligns with our goals of inclusive international community and the quest for the sum of all knowledge. The unusual step of nominating a reliable source as source of the year is not just a selfish one to help editors edit in peace. It is also a respectful nod to the loss of life incurred by the outlet while covering a war subject to information blackouts. According to the Committee to Protect Journalists, "More journalists have been killed in the first 10 weeks of the Israel-Gaza war than have ever been killed in a single country over an entire year." Those slain include Al-Jazeera's Abdallah Alwan (voiceover contributor), Haneen Kashtan (contributor), Samer Abudaqa (cameraman), and the family of Gaza Bureau Chief Wael Al Dahdouh, who was also injured in the strike which killed Abudaqa. ClaudeReigns (talk) 04:10, 1 January 2024 (UTC)

The discussion above is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.

Michaelmaslin.com

Is there any chance that this is a WP:RS for the fact that Eustace Tilley was redrawn in 2017 by Christoph Niemann. Tilley is going to hit the main page in DYK in less than three days.-TonyTheTiger (T / C / WP:FOUR / WP:CHICAGO / WP:WAWARD) 02:05, 31 December 2023 (UTC)

The URL may be michaelmaslin.com, but it seems the publication is better understood as Ink Spill: New Yorker Cartoonists, News, History, and Events. Ink Spill is apparently a blog operated by Michael Maslin, a longtime cartoonist for the New Yorker. From what I can tell, he qualifies in this case as a subject-matter expert, making the source reliable even though it is SPS. As further evidence of his qualification as a subject matter expert, one could point out that he is the author of Peter Arno: The Mad Mad World of The New Yorker’s Greatest Cartoonist, a biography of a New Yorker cartoonist, published as a book by an imprint of major publisher Simon & Schuster.

Or, more concisely, yes, I think it seems to be a reliable source for that information. P-Makoto (she/her) (talk) 02:54, 31 December 2023 (UTC)

Thx.-TonyTheTiger (T / C / WP:FOUR / WP:CHICAGO / WP:WAWARD) 04:56, 31 December 2023 (UTC)

Blogs, even ones by experts, are not allowed as sources for living people. JoelleJay (talk) 20:37, 31 December 2023 (UTC)

Lol good one. 100.36.106.199 (talk) 12:58, 1 January 2024 (UTC)

Resolved

Cartoon Brew

Cartoon Brew is an animation newsblog dedicated to subjects related to the animation industry. Think The Hollywood Reporter, but if it was a blog dedicated to animation. It is currently considered reliable by WP:TOON/R, however I am starting to doubt that. The website occasionally uses sensationalism and does not correct errors it makes. ~~They also happened to post a now-deleted article that revealed the private residence of animator Rebecca Sugar.~~ I retract this statement.
So, is Cartoon Brew reliable for animation-related subjects in articles about animation? — Davest3r08 >:) ^(talk) 18:30, 29 December 2023 (UTC)

Writing about real estate sales of celebrities is not doxxing. The well respected magazine Variety covered the topic for years under their "Dirt" section, which was spun-off into its own website in 2019, but was later folded into the Robb Report earlier this year . The author of the piece comes from Variety as noted in the apology, which is presumably why they thought it was okay to write the piece. They apologised for running the piece and deleted it. What more could you ask for? In my experience Cartoon Brew is a perfectly reliable source for animation news. Hemiauchenia (talk) 21:48, 29 December 2023 (UTC)

Ah, I see, I mostly get where you're coming from. — Davest3r08 >:) ^(talk) 21:53, 29 December 2023 (UTC)

I am still skeptical of the reliability of the site though, as a previous discussion noted that it is run and edited by one person, so does it count as a self published source? — Davest3r08 >:) ^(talk) 22:25, 29 December 2023 (UTC)

The site has at least two writers, Amid Amidi and Jamie Lang. Given the websites 2 decade history and coverage by other sources, it seems fine to me. Hemiauchenia (talk) 22:36, 29 December 2023 (UTC)

Although it is a group (2 person) blog, and thus a SPS, one of those bloggers, Jerry Beck, is a recognized subject-matter expert widely published independently within the scope of his expertise. So, except in BLPs, this source is fine. Banks Irk (talk) 03:16, 30 December 2023 (UTC)

Banks Irk, Jerry left the blog in 2013. Are articles past that time reliable? — Davest3r08 >:) ^(talk) 15:04, 1 January 2024 (UTC)

The lack of any experienced critic in a WP:SPS is concerning. However, even in 2023, sources such as Washington Post(quick warning: it's about Skibidi Toilet) seems to cite Cartoon Brew for opinions. Ca ^{talk to me!} 12:30, 2 January 2024 (UTC)

Russian sources affected by censorship laws

After Russian 2022 war censorship laws, which resulted in a significant number of convictions, all sources published in Russia starting from 2022 do not seem to be good RS on the subjects related to wars conducted by Russia. I am asking because such sources, for example Kommersant are widely used for sourcing events related to the Russian invasion of Ukraine. Yes, perhaps Kommersant was a good source in 2021. We frequently say that such sources are OK for official statements by Russian government. But I doubt even that. They occasionally do incomplete and selective quotations and questionable interpretations even of statements by Russian government. More so when they quote and interpret comments by Ukrainian officials, etc. My very best wishes (talk) 19:18, 26 December 2023 (UTC)

Support reducing the reliability of Russian-state affiliated sources - I'm about to take a wikibreak, but just wanted to throw in early support in principle for this. Andre🚐 19:31, 26 December 2023 (UTC)
Comment - Could you back up your statement? Kommersant are widely used for sourcing events related to the Russian invasion of Ukraine "widely" really? Could you give us a numbered list? Because it seems you only brought up this complaint because an editor rightfully used it in the battle of Marinka page, where you argued that Ukrainian sources are simply "more reliable" in general. Note that that Russian citation was soon followed by loads of uncontestedly reliable western sources that went in line with the Russian source, but not with the Ukrainian (Pravda) source, which claimed that the general said that Ukrainian forces were still in Marinka (without direct quotes). Call me not WP:AGF, but I've seen My very best wishes' activity in many pages regarding the Ukraine war and I got a pretty good idea of his arguments and thought process. As such, I dispute his neutrality in this specific request/complaint and understand it only as an attempt to sanction/limit access/usage of sources from a country he doesn't like, without necessarily trying to improve Wikipedia's quality. There have already been numerous discussions about the reliability of Russian sources in the past and the WP:RSP list already restricts that POV a lot. For the sake of WP:NPOV, we should first thoroughly analyze Ukrainian sources' reliability (and I mean add them to the colored list at WP:RSP) before trying to restrict even more the more credible Russian sources. Alexis Coutinho (talk) 20:09, 26 December 2023 (UTC)
Looks like nearly 3500 citations to it, many of them on articles related to Russia's attack. I don't edit in the area but I can't possibly see how Russian sources could be viewed as reliable given that they're essentially Russian-government mouthpieces. Avgeekamfot (talk) 20:39, 26 December 2023 (UTC)
Overgeneralization. I could claim pretty much anything like that. Alexis Coutinho (talk) 21:02, 26 December 2023 (UTC)

I wonder if Ukrainian news outlets are allowed to show these videos https://t.me/rybar/55500...? Alexis Coutinho (talk) 19:15, 30 December 2023 (UTC)
These are videos posted on anonymous social media accounts linked to the Prigozhin empire. Showing them would not be an indicator of being a good source, and this is false equivalence anyway. If you want to raise issues about Ukrainian media, start a new thread. BobFromBrockley (talk) 13:01, 2 January 2024 (UTC)
These are videos posted on anonymous social media accounts linked to the Prigozhin empire. Showing them would not be an indicator of being a good source How would you know? Are you claiming that's a conspiracy theory? Alexis Coutinho (talk) 13:05, 2 January 2024 (UTC)

Just to clarify, I am not suggesting to depreciate all such sources, but only say they are "generally unreliable" about wars conducted by Russia only. Speaking on the "Kommersant", for example, it has been affected by firing of leading journalists even before the war [33], and it recently reported itself on the convictions due to the Russian censorship laws [34]. But again, these laws make it impossible to provide any honest reporting in Russia about the war with Ukraine. My very best wishes (talk) 21:12, 26 December 2023 (UTC)
Your second source would suggest that The Moscow Times and Kommersant are mostly unaffected by censorship, and are thus more reliable, since they were able to freely report on such convictions. Alexis Coutinho (talk) 22:24, 26 December 2023 (UTC)

This is the article in Kommersant they refer to. Yes, sure, they are allowed to write about convictions (it says, for example, "the number of convictions for the treason was 3 times increased"). People should know about such convictions, be afraid, and be silent - that is what Russian government wants. Even Soviet newspapers during Stalin's time wrote a lot about executing the "enemies of the people" - for the same reason. What Kommersant can not do is describing certain operations by Russian army (like Bucha) in all details and calling them "war crimes". Let's take a look at today's page of Kommersant: [35]: "Повреждения получил большой десантный корабль «Новочеркасск», один человек погиб, двое получили ранения." It says that only one person was killed during today's attack on the Russian landing ship Novocherkassk. This is almost certainly a false information, just as some other "info" in this link. That is what I am talking about. My very best wishes (talk) 04:41, 27 December 2023 (UTC)

almost certainly a false information Could be, but without further evidence (I think we only have cellphone videos) we can't say there were more casualties for sure. I would say that's pretty objective/dry journalism. Professional I might add since it doesn't engage in speculation. They don't need to portray the worst case scenario (from the little I know, they aren't Russophobes). While there could be a little bit of bias there (which isn't a problem in Wikipedia if we give proper attribution), I don't see that as an example of unreliability. Alexis Coutinho (talk) 12:48, 27 December 2023 (UTC)

The yesterday example is too fresh to discuss. But we have a big page, Disinformation in the Russian invasion of Ukraine. A lot of disinformation was promoted through Russian state-controlled media. But identifying and listing all of them one by one would be very tedious. My very best wishes (talk) 18:09, 27 December 2023 (UTC)

I dont think blanket categorisations based on nationality are either correct or possible under policy. Captain Jack Sparrow (talk) 08:49, 27 December 2023 (UTC)

It wouldn't be based on nationality, obviously. There are likely a range of different sources of the Russian language, from different locations, and within each location, a range of different political alignments and affiliations. We're only talking, in this thread, about the ones pertaining to Russian-state affiliated media. Andre🚐 09:09, 27 December 2023 (UTC)

Im fine with your vote, but the proposal states "all sources published in Russia", which I dont think is in line with policy. Just pointing that out. For state media, agree that it tends to be unreliable for matters/events that may reflect poorly on the state (obviously). Captain Jack Sparrow (talk) 11:06, 27 December 2023 (UTC)

I agree with you, that can be clarified. It wouldn't be all sources in the country but specifically ones demonstrably linked to the government organs. Andre🚐 11:08, 27 December 2023 (UTC)

This is not really about a source being funded by a government or belong to the government. A radio station can be funded by a government or even belong to a government, but have an independent editorial policy and strong fact checking, and therefore be a great RS. The issue is being controlled by a government when they publish (or do not publish) a lot of things on the instructions "from the above". For example, all newspapers in the USSR were fully controlled by the government through Glavlit and by other means, e.g. any editor who does not follow the ideological instruction by CPSU would be fired. The situation in today's Russia is not very much different: any editor who does not follow the ideological instructions about Ukrainian war will be fired and possibly put to prison. I think that Soviet newspapers can be used for many topics, but they should not be regarded as good RS on subjects related to the Soviet war in Afghanistan, for example. But OK, I got the point. Next time I will provide this in a different format: specific source X and false statements made by this source A,B,C. My very best wishes (talk) 15:42, 27 December 2023 (UTC)

Russia is not unique. There are about 15 countries with strictly worse media freedom situation per World Press Freedom Index and 40 more having the same Difficult status. They include such countries as China, Turkey and Egypt, which also have disputes with their neighbours or fight insurgencies. We as Wikipedia editors should be capable of deciding the reliability of a source on a case-by-case basis. Alaexis_¿question? 08:55, 28 December 2023 (UTC)

We should routinely and systematically deprecate bad sources from China, Turkey, Russia, Egypt, and even the US, when we need to. I won't remind you what sources I think are bad in the US. As far as Turkey - yes, for sure, there are some bad Turkish sources already deprecated, right? If not, there surely should be. Andre🚐 09:31, 28 December 2023 (UTC)

Andalou is deprecated; isn't that Turkish? Elinruby (talk) 07:36, 30 December 2023 (UTC)

Yup, that'd be a good precedent. In the 2019 RfC, editors generally agreed that Anadolu Agency is generally unreliable for topics that are controversial or related to international politics. Link's on WP:RSP. Andre🚐 07:45, 30 December 2023 (UTC)

Yes, this kind of targeted measures make sense. Btw RT and Sputnik are already deprecated already. Alaexis_¿question? 19:35, 30 December 2023 (UTC)

I agree with you that bad sources should be blocked. My point is that a blanket ban on sources from any country is probably not a good idea. Alaexis_¿question? 23:34, 28 December 2023 (UTC)

Don’t know if any are deprecated, but Anadolu Agency is marked as GUNREL for controversial political topics. The Kip 00:50, 29 December 2023 (UTC)

correct, not deprecated, but a heavy option 3 for international politics. Should probably be deprecated if anyone were actually trying to add it. Andre🚐 07:47, 30 December 2023 (UTC)

Somebody used it pretty heavily in Russian invasion of Ukraine articles. Elinruby (talk) 07:59, 30 December 2023 (UTC)

That is interesting. If you collect some examples I'd be interested to check them out later. Andre🚐 08:08, 30 December 2023 (UTC)

Censorship and political interference in Russian media took place before 2022, and I would expect many of these sources would be used with caution whether published before or after the 2022 laws. However, I'm not sure what the proposal here specifically is. Are there sources being used poorly to a significant and repeated (perennial) degree? CMD (talk) 09:20, 28 December 2023 (UTC)

Note that in Russian language wikipedia, use of sources with editorial boards located within Russia is very limited since 2022 , see Википедия:К посредничеству/Украина — Википедия (wikipedia.org) for details.

Russian sources with editorial boards located or moved outside of Russia is not limited.

This requirement greatly improved Russia-Ukraine-related articles quality. Manyareasexpert (talk) 22:42, 28 December 2023 (UTC)

Thank you! That helps. I can see that making country-wide subject-limited restrictions for sources can be a reasonable idea, and it has been already implemented on ruwiki. However, my point was not the war between the countries, but specific recent censorship laws that are unique for Russia, rather than Iran or China. This is because the reliability of all sources in the country was directly affected by such laws. This is the reason why most sources published in Russia are significantly less reliable on the ongoing war than the sources published in Ukraine, just as claims by Russian MoD significantly less reliable than claims by representatives of Ukrainian army. My very best wishes (talk) 23:28, 28 December 2023 (UTC)

The restricted use was introduced in this ARBCOM decision Арбитраж:УКР 2022 — Частичное решение — Википедия (wikipedia.org) in response to this Роскомнадзор - Вниманию средств массовой информации и иных информационных ресурсов (rkn.gov.ru) RU govt warning. Censorship laws were introduced shortly after. Manyareasexpert (talk) 23:40, 28 December 2023 (UTC)

This is very interesting and on the subject. Of course Roskomnadzor plays the same role as Glavlit in the USSR. They are censoring even WP (List of Wikipedia pages banned in Russia, Block of Wikipedia in Russia and Wikipedia and the Russian invasion of Ukraine). My very best wishes (talk) 01:30, 29 December 2023 (UTC)

just as claims by Russian MoD significantly less reliable than claims by representatives of Ukrainian army. Careful with overgeneralizations... Alexis Coutinho (talk) 04:05, 29 December 2023 (UTC)

Careful why? Because I am a subject of these censorship laws? Yes, of course they are less reliable, and I explained one of the reasons. Regardless, Russian MoD has been engaged in monstrous disinformation. The ["combat mosquitoes", etc. They destroyed Bradleys even before they were delivered [36]. Russian MoD must be "depreciated". My very best wishes (talk) 05:30, 29 December 2023 (UTC)

No. Because then you risk losing your point. The Marinka case should still be very fresh in your memory. Alexis Coutinho (talk) 19:06, 29 December 2023 (UTC)

Meduza.io is considered reliable, but didn't they relocate out of Russia? Elinruby (talk) 07:38, 30 December 2023 (UTC)

HappyWithWhatYouHaveToBeHappyWith might know. Alexis Coutinho (talk) 12:44, 30 December 2023 (UTC)

They did relocate and are considered reliable. ManyAreasExpert (talk) 12:51, 30 December 2023 (UTC)

👍 Alexis Coutinho (talk) 12:54, 30 December 2023 (UTC)

Fox news for weather and local stations

Does weather fall under the "science" category for Fox news being unreliable. Nothing in this article [37] seems too off scanning through it. Also, do Fox weather and local Fox station fall under the same category as Fox as a whole. ✶Qux yz ✶ 19:38, 21 December 2023 (UTC)

Seems fine to me. Fox News still employs editors and journalists, it's just that the bigwigs swoop in whenever the audience's beliefs do not align with reality. Ca ^{talk to me!} 17:15, 22 December 2023 (UTC)

Agreed, this particular weather article isn't scientific, the things to watch for are climate denial, transphobia, etc. Andre🚐 15:55, 28 December 2023 (UTC)

Local affiliates of news channels are generally not very strongly related to the national networks. In Detroit channel 2 is WJBK, channel 4 is WDIV, channel 7 is WXYZ, and channel 62 is WWJ-TV; one of these is ABC, one is NBC, one is CBS and one is Fox, but go watch 30 minutes of nightly news on each channel and see if you can tell which is which from the content alone. jp×g 🗯️ 22:24, 31 December 2023 (UTC)

Local affiliates are in general cool, IDK if some have issues but none of the Fox affiliates I have experience with have the same issues as corporate/cable Fox... They tend to provide solid local journalism often in collaboration with a local paper of record. My experience is largely the same as JPxG's... Their coverage is pretty much indistinguishable in content and tone from the local affiliates of the other three letter words. Horse Eye's Back (talk) 14:18, 2 January 2024 (UTC)

Rosenblatt's Deans Database at https://lawdeans.com/.

This popped up in my feed this morning, and my immediate instinct is to add it as a reference to just about every American law school dean article, since it seems rather nicely put together. I wanted to run it by this noticeboard first to make sure that this seems reasonable. BD2412 T 16:05, 3 January 2024 (UTC)

If the question is whether this source is reliable—a law school—the Mississippi College School of Law in Jackson, Mississippi—hosts the RDD. An academic host generally prompts confidence.

On the other hand, the message on the home page apparently indicates that Jim Rosenblatt, emeritus dean of the Mississippi College School of Law, runs the website himself. He asks for people to send any updated information for your law school or law school dean to me [i. e. him] directly. It's not clear if the site has other staff, such as folks fact checking and doing editorial review (I do recognize that the home page indicates corrections are made when new information arises). And since the statistics are about current law deans, the Biography of living persons policy indicates we must tread very cautiously about what sources are appropriate. This is no judgment on the quality of RDD—I get a good impression from it, too—but even very reputable self-published subject matter experts are subject to BLP policy.

Perhaps its aggregate data could be cited (e. g. "According to Rosenblatt's Deans Database, 43.2% of law deans at schools in the United States are women"), treating Rosenblatt as a subject matter expert for such, since that is not about specific living persons? But citing RDD for specific persons is something I would be cautious about.

Additionally, adding this source to every American law school dean article might verge on inadvertently seeming to other editors like one is spamming, or promoting the source. Even if it were concluded that RDD has sufficient review processes and is reliable for law dean articles, it would make more sense to cite the database as one goes about edits, rather than mass-populating it across the Wiki. P-Makoto (she/her) (talk) 17:49, 3 January 2024 (UTC)

There is so little information there about how the data are compiled, curated, revised, etc. that it's impossible to provide an affirmative answer, especially if the intent is to use this as a source in BLPs. What have other publications said about it? ElKevbo (talk) 22:45, 3 January 2024 (UTC)

That is a good question. From a rather superficial search, I find that according to Google Scholar, it is cited in about a dozen scholarly articles (excluding one by Rosenblatt himself), such as:

Patricia E. Salkin, The Role of the Dean in Ensuring a Sustainable Law School: Everything Comes Down to What I Learned in Land Use Planning and Sustainable Development Law, 46 U. Tol. L. Rev. 375 (2014-2015)
Susan Handley Duncan, Karen Lott, and Catherine Pettis, Law School Dean Wanted: A Woman for All Reasons, 65 Vill. L. Rev. 1083 (2020)
Laura M. Padilla, The Black-White Paradigm's Continuing Erasure of Latinas: See Women Law Deans of Color, 99 Denv. U. L. Rev. 683 (2022).

In books in print, it is cited in:

John C. Alessio, The Intentional Dean: A Guide to the Academic Deanship (2017), p. 204.
George Justice, How to Be a Dean (2019), p. 87.
Mari Koerner, The Successful Dean: Thoughtful Strategies and Savvy Tips for Today's Evolving Leadership (2020), p. 42.

So far as I can tell, all reference to the site is as an authority, and no critical analysis of its quality has been conducted. BD2412 T 01:59, 4 January 2024 (UTC)

Night attack at Târgoviște

There is a discussion at DRN about Night attack at Târgoviște, and the question is whether page 42 of the following source, in Turkish,

https://acikerisim.kku.edu.tr/xmlui/bitstream/handle/20.500.12587/15704/419132.pdf

supports the claim that the Ottoman army consisted of 15,000 men.

Notifying @Super Dromaeosaurus and Keremmaarda:.

Robert McClenon (talk) 15:46, 3 January 2024 (UTC)

yes, the source is Turkish Keremmaarda (talk) 20:19, 3 January 2024 (UTC)

The nationality of the source has nothing to do with whether it's reliable or not. -- LCU ActivelyDisinterested «@» °∆t° 20:28, 3 January 2024 (UTC)

The relevant section (translates by Google) appear to be:(bolding mine)
Fatih Sultan Mehmet personally went on a Wallachian expedition to punish Vlad the Impaler. Meanwhile, since the voivodes of Wallachia and Moldavia were at odds with each other, the voivode of Moldavia supported the Ottomans. The Ottoman army of 15 thousand people gathered in Plovdiv and moved towards Wallachia from there. The Sultan crossed the Danube from the Black Sea and reached Vidin with 25 galleys and 150 transport ships. Meanwhile, the Ottoman army under the command of Mahmut Pasha entered the lands of Wallachia, and Vlad the Impaler did not come across them. Evrenosoğlu Ali Bey started to raid the lands of Wallachia with his raider forces. Vlad the Impaler was applying the guerrilla warfare method. He even aimed to kill the Sultan with a night raid, but he was not successful in this. As a result, the army of Vlad the Impaler, who started to flee, could not hold on against the Ottoman raiders and was dispersed. Vlad the Impaler took refuge in Hungary. Because the Hungarian king did not want to open relations with the Ottomans. He imprisoned Vlad the Impaler. Thereupon, Sultan Mehmet the Conqueror declared Vlad's younger brother Radul the voivode of Fflak. After Radul's death in 1479, Vlad came to Wallachia again, but he was unsuccessful. He was killed two years later by one of his own slaves.
Which is referenced to "Osmanlı Ansiklopedisi, İstanbul–1996, C. 2., s. 73–74". -- LCU ActivelyDisinterested «@» °∆t° 20:26, 3 January 2024 (UTC)

The work is a doctoral thesis, which would fall under WP:SCHOLARSHIP, and appears to have at least a few citations. [38] -- LCU ActivelyDisinterested «@» °∆t° 20:47, 3 January 2024 (UTC)

Per my comment at ANI, while the source describes an Ottoman army of 15,000 men, it does not mention Targoviste or the year 1462. Even if this source does refer to the correct event, given that the source refers to a force of 15,000 in Plovdiv and then mentions a separate force under Mahmut Pasha, it is not clear that we can infer that 15,000 corresponds to the number of Ottoman troops present at Targoviste. I'm surprised that this is being discussed at DRN given the ongoing ANI case. _signed,Rosguill ^talk 20:41, 3 January 2024 (UTC)

User:Rosguill - Thank you for calling my attention to the WP:ANI proceeding. I have closed the DRN case as pending in another forum. Survivors can discuss at the article talk page. Robert McClenon (talk) 00:57, 4 January 2024 (UTC)

Actually I think it's even weaker than that. 15,000 men at Poldiv, but the article makes clear there was raiding and skirmishing going on. So there can't have been the same number later on when the night attack occured. I'm also concerned by the comment above, as it doesn't show good judgement on the reliability of sources. -- LCU ActivelyDisinterested «@» °∆t° 21:00, 3 January 2024 (UTC)

The other numbers given are not those of the night attack. These are the armies he gathered when he was going to go on a campaign. Keremmaarda (talk) 22:12, 3 January 2024 (UTC)

Yes he gathered 15,000 people for the campaign, not those present at the night attack. -- LCU ActivelyDisinterested «@» °∆t° 17:03, 4 January 2024 (UTC)

Also having read a few comments at DRN, and looked into the author İbrahim Akyol, they are a professor in Turkish language and literature not history. The thesis is similarly about language and culture not history.
I don't believe that it's reliable for the specific claim, and I don't believe the work is reliable for exceptional historical claims (one's that are in conflict with other academic works by professional historians). -- LCU ActivelyDisinterested «@» °∆t° 21:17, 3 January 2024 (UTC)

My own assessment is largely along these lines... If the thesis was about political/military history I would likely support inclusion with attribution but it appears to be largely tangential information. Horse Eye's Back (talk) 05:48, 4 January 2024 (UTC)

A non-subject expert disagreeing with subject experts should always be handled with caution, false balance could get involved. -- LCU ActivelyDisinterested «@» °∆t° 18:18, 4 January 2024 (UTC)

Thank you, RSN editors. I have closed the DRN case as being discussed at WP:ANI. I see that the conclusion is that the source in question is not reliable in this context. Robert McClenon (talk) 00:57, 4 January 2024 (UTC)

Thank you all for your help, I had stopped replying in the dispute resolution pages as the other party appears to be heading towards a topic ban, however now we have consensus for removing the source too. Super Dromaeosaurus (talk) 12:06, 4 January 2024 (UTC)

Kotaku source for GA

Article in question - Please Hold to My Hand I am reviewing a GAN and amoung the sources used is a Kotaku review from 2023. The WP:VGRS says that Kotaku from 2023 onwards is on a case by case basis. I looked at the article nothing jumped out as being AI but given that its a GA I thought it best to bring it up here. Questions? four Olifanofmrtennant (she/her) 08:16, 4 January 2024 (UTC)

There's a by-line and the author seems to have written for The New York Times, Vice and Wired. The article has a lot of concrete claims about the plot of the episode and comparisons to the video game so if it was AI-generated I'd expect it to be easily detected by someone who's watched the episode. — Bilorv (talk) 12:09, 4 January 2024 (UTC)

I would consider Kotaku a marginal source, the there is some advice on the source at Wikipedia:WikiProject Video games/Sources. However so in the Metro which is also used in that article. Ultimately in my opinion both are reliable for how they are used in context. -- LCU ActivelyDisinterested «@» °∆t° 17:49, 4 January 2024 (UTC)

Okay I'll continue the review, thanks Questions? four Olifanofmrtennant (she/her) 22:02, 4 January 2024 (UTC)

An author of a book on the movie - self published but SME?

An author of a book on a old box-office movie has a blog (wordpress) and a twitter feed. The author has tweeted that a member of the movie's cast has died. Can I cite the tweet as a source for this SME in the cast member's web page? At this time, no other media sources exist for a citation. DarkStarHarry (talk) 18:46, 4 January 2024 (UTC)

No, because that still falls under WP:BLPSPS. Even if we were to think the source is likely telling the truth, BLP extends for a short while after death. -- Nat Gertler (talk) 18:48, 4 January 2024 (UTC)

So even though the author (whose book has been cited several times in Wikipedia's entry on the movie) is apparently an SME, we cannot attribute their twitter feed as a source for the information? Do we have to wait for another source to quote that author in saying the person has died? DarkStarHarry (talk) 18:59, 4 January 2024 (UTC)

"Quoting his twitter feed" is not the only way for this news to come out, and indeed, I see a number of other sources already pointing out the claim (yes, I've figured who you are talking about), just not ones that meet our requirements for reliable sources. Death hoaxes are common, and it is to our interest to take extra care that we do not propagate them. I expect we'll see coverage in reliable sources wtihin 24 hours; patience is good at this time. -- Nat Gertler (talk) 19:05, 4 January 2024 (UTC)

This is a problem that has come up before, but no self-published source (that isn't from the subject themselves) can be used in a BLP and that extends to the recently deceased. -- LCU ActivelyDisinterested «@» °∆t° 19:06, 4 January 2024 (UTC)

And if the subject themselves posts that they are recently deceased, we should approach that with a wee bit of caution as well. -- Nat Gertler (talk) 19:22, 4 January 2024 (UTC)

I see that a usable source has now been found, and we don't have to be concerned any more. -- Nat Gertler (talk) 23:09, 4 January 2024 (UTC)