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The Jewish Chronicle

This is a still developing story worth keeping an eye on: Over the past few days, several heavyweight sources in Israel and elsewhere have impugned the reliability of The Jewish Chronicle (currently listed as green on WP:RSP), accusing the paper of publishing outright disinformation in service of a PR campaign by Israeli Prime Minister Netanyahu. Interestingly, some of the pushback is from the Israeli Defense Forces:

This may be an isolated case – it appears to be the work of a single journalist (other papers have had scandals based on a single journalist's work, including The Guardian ...) – but the tie-in with Netanyahu and the accusation of politically motivated disinformation are potentially worrying.

The Jewish Chronicle have posted a statement, saying an investigation is underway. Andreas JN466 15:29, 12 September 2024 (UTC)

Journalists sometimes don't have to reveal sensitive sources to their editors, so it's possible this reporter got played. Announcing an investigation into what went wrong is precisely what we would expect an RS to do. voorts (talk/contributions) 15:45, 12 September 2024 (UTC)
It's become clear as the story has evolved that the "journalist" involved has issues with his credentials and seemingly little background in journalism at all. It's a fairly similar case to the NYT editorial standards scandal. Iskandar323 (talk) 04:57, 17 September 2024 (UTC)
Looking back through the archives, the latest being Wikipedia:Reliable sources/Noticeboard/Archive 438#Jewish Chronicle, this publication seems to have a knack for getting itself into trouble. As I said in the linked discussion I merely want the RSP entry clarified that JC is unreliable (rather than no consensus) for topics related to the British Left, Muslims, Islam, and Palestine/Palestinians and that seems clearly to be the case and I still have that view. Selfstudier (talk) 15:55, 12 September 2024 (UTC)
Probably best to wait and see how they handle the situation. This is obviously bad, but what comes of their internal investigation will be a better indicator. -- LCU ActivelyDisinterested «@» °∆t° 17:44, 12 September 2024 (UTC)
Mounting an "investigation" after being exposed does nothing towards establishing reliability. It was forced upon them. The conclusion "While we understand he did serve in the Israel Defense Forces, we were not satisfied with some of his claims." is about as weak as it gets. Zerotalk 04:16, 14 September 2024 (UTC)
This is the new statement marking the conclusion of the investigation, in full:
The Jewish Chronicle has concluded a thorough investigation into freelance journalist Elon Perry, which commenced after allegations were made about aspects of his record. While we understand he did serve in the Israel Defense Forces, we were not satisfied with some of his claims. We have therefore removed his stories from our website and ended any association with Mr Perry.
The Jewish Chronicle maintains the highest journalistic standards in a highly contested information landscape and we deeply regret the chain of events that led to this point. We apologise to our loyal readers and have reviewed our internal processes so that this will not be repeated.
https://www.thejc.com/news/uk/conclusion-of-jewish-chronicle-investigation-into-elon-perry-daaqr8b9
I agree this is not good enough. "Has served in the IDF" – with no further details, such as rank, years of service etc. – is risible. (Military service is compulsory in Israel for everyone unless exempt for religious reasons.)
We need to deprecate this source for anything related to the Israel–Palestine conflict (and possibly anything related to the Israeli government). Andreas JN466 06:27, 14 September 2024 (UTC)

More coverage:

Quotes from The Guardian:

  • Founded in 1841, the JC – as it is familiarly known – has long been a respected institution in British Jewish life, attracting prominent Jewish journalists and writers to contribute. But the recent events have caused consternation about the direction of the paper as it has drifted further right under its editor, Jake Wallis Simons, and amid questions over who owns it.
  • In recent months, there have been suggestions in the Israeli media that stories have been placed in European newspapers, including one in the German tabloid Bild, that are based on fake or misrepresented intelligence, planted as part of an effort to support prime minister Benjamin’s Netanyahu’s negotiating position over Gaza.
  • The removal of the articles, after an investigation formally announced by the paper only the day before, raises serious questions for JC editor Wallis Simons, a former novelist who has written for the Mail, the Telegraph and Spectator. Despite being provided with a series of questions, Wallis Simons and the JC have so far declined to describe how Perry – an individual with no discernible journalistic track record, let alone as an investigative reporter – came to be writing for the paper or what due diligence had been exercised over an increasingly fantastic series of claims.

--Andreas JN466 16:05, 14 September 2024 (UTC)

It's worth noting that at the minute no consensus exists that the JC is reliable on the British left and Muslims, after an extraordinary series of false stories in a short period of time, which coincided with Jeremy Corbyn's leadership of the Labour Party. I think we need to stop using the JC, as it is in effect run for propaganda purposes and frequently publishes falsehoods. This is obviously going to happen again.Boynamedsue (talk) 16:33, 14 September 2024 (UTC)

It should already be listed with yellow, given the summary of before 2010 and the prior no consensus, so at the least, edit the listing to conform to additional considerations (and put the ongoing discussion tag up). -- Alanscottwalker (talk) 17:39, 14 September 2024 (UTC)

There should be a guideline on investigative journalism, but it is mostly covered by extraordinary claims: "Any exceptional claim requires multiple high-quality sources." As a rule, I would not use original investigative articles, but look at other publications that have picked up on them. That will establish weight and some opinion on the degree of credibility. In this case, the story was picked up, so could have been used, even if we did not use the Jewish Chronicle as a source.
The source Boynamedsue provides (Byline Times) to discredit the Jewish Chronicle has a whole series of articles where it accuses mainstream media of bias and inaccuracy called "The Crisis in British Journalism." Mainstream coverage of both the Israel-Palestine conflict and Corbyn's ties to alleged anti-Semitism have been seriously questioned in reliable sources. We cannot ban all of them. TFD (talk) 19:38, 14 September 2024 (UTC)
The British media has a strong anti-Palestine bias, this does not make it unreliable. The JC has a record of massive factual inaccuracy unparalleled in British journalism. Although the media was horrendously biased during the Corbyn years, only the JC breached IPSO's code 15 times in two years. That is one breach every 7 issues. The Mail and even The Sun are far more credible in terms of factual reliability.Boynamedsue (talk) 20:11, 14 September 2024 (UTC)
Here's the list of those 15 alleged breaches: [1] Note that only four of the alleged breaches were upheld and they took place over a period of three years. The Times had 16 complaints upheld during the same period. TFD (talk) 23:10, 15 September 2024 (UTC)
The list you give actually states 13 separate breaches are upheld, but is incomplete. The press gazette wrote in 2023 that 15 people "have won IPSO complaints or libel settlements against the Jewish Chronicle since 2018", in reality that related to people who sent a letter in 2021, so it covers 3 years not 5. The JC has along track record of extreme unreliability.--Boynamedsue (talk) 06:32, 16 September 2024 (UTC)
BTW the JC is a weekly tabloid format that is less than half the length of the times. In the time one edition of the JC comes out, the Times has published at least 12 times the number of words. The fact it is producing as many rulings as the Times is astounding.--Boynamedsue (talk) 06:42, 16 September 2024 (UTC)
There were four complaints, including 15 breaches against the paper and I could only find four breaches upheld. All of them were for inaccuracy.
20214-23 Lunn v The Jewish Chronicle: s. 36. complaint partially upheld.
11788-22 Gregson and Weiss v The Jewish Chronicle: s.24. complaint upheld.
12610-22 Bunglawala v The Jewish Chronicle: s. 13. complaint upheld.
01447-22 Rahman v The Jewish Chronicle s. 26 complaint partially upheld.
What other breaches were upheld? TFD (talk) 03:36, 17 September 2024 (UTC)
Are you only counting from 2022? If not, the results page only shows 4 cases at a time.Boynamedsue (talk) 05:41, 17 September 2024 (UTC)
I am only counting from 2022 because you wrote, "only the JC breached IPSO's code 15 times in two years." [2] [20:11, 14 September 2024] The last two years were from Sept. 2022 to Sept. 2024, during which there were four complaints with four (not 16) breaches upheld. There were also nine complaints over the previous eight years the IPSO was in operation.
I am just replying to what you wrote. TFD (talk) 19:47, 17 September 2024 (UTC)
I did not say the 15 breaches were over the last two years, they were between 2018-2019, part of the JC's long history of unreliability. I am quoting Brian Cathcart, founder of Hacked Off, former advisor to the government on press standards and Professor of journalism at Kingston university, who gives the following timeline: 2018-2019 IPSO finds that the Jewish Chronicle has breached its code 15 times.End of 2019: IPSO’s complaints panel reports the publication to IPSO’s standards department.2020-mid-2021: IPSO finds 18 more breaches.Mid-2021: The first letter is sent demanding a formal standards investigation. This is rejected (after a five months’ delay). 2021- 2023: The Jewish Chronicle is found by IPSO to have committed eight more breaches. April 2023: The IPSO complaints panel again refers it to the standards department for unacceptable conduct.Boynamedsue (talk) 20:38, 17 September 2024 (UTC)
I am unable to see 16 upheld complaints against The Times on the website you linked to. This is what I found: 4 upheld complaints against The Times in the past two years, the same number as for The Jewish Chronicle. Could you say how you arrived at your number?
A thing to bear in mind when comparing publications is publication frequency and volume. The Times is a fat daily, the JC is a weekly, publishing a rather smaller number of stories per year. Andreas JN466 06:55, 16 September 2024 (UTC)
The IPSO issues have been discussed exhaustively on the JC's talk page, and my strong view is that this is not a reason for deprecation or gunrel status. Cathcart in Byline Times is attacking JC as a way of attacking IPSO, which is indeed flawed but if we accept this as a reason to downgrade JC we'd have to downgrade all UK mainstream media and only use unregulated media in the UK.
In short, this is a red herring, whereas the new revelations raise serious concerns we need to address. BobFromBrockley (talk) 11:51, 16 September 2024 (UTC)
It's not a red herring. It points to a recent habit of editorial sloppiness and abuse, which, alongside the now lack of transparency regarding the ownership of the publication, forms a pattern of concerning information. Iskandar323 (talk) 05:07, 17 September 2024 (UTC)
Sorry, I forgot to use quotation marks and got an inflated number. TFD (talk) 03:45, 17 September 2024 (UTC)
Andreas I think you're not scrolling through the pages. There's 4 to a page. Times has 30 upheld breaches going back to 2015, JC has 13 in the same period, of which I think 4 (those you list above - the first page, of chronologically newest hits) are from the period of current ownership; I believe 9 relate to the period of 2017-20. Some of these upheld breaches are only partially upheld. They range, for both papers, from very small to more significant. 12 relate to accuracy. All 12 of those relate to the two topics of a huge proportion of JC news coverage in the period: the British left (almost all of them) and/or British Muslims.
Crucially, wherever the breach has been upheld a sanction has been volunteered or applied, meaning in the case of the JC that the inaccuracies have been corrected and the articles as they appear now are accurate.
Yes, the output of the Times is far greater than the output of the JC, so with half the breaches JC has proportionately more in relation to its content.
The discrepancy between people (a higher number, as noted by Boynamedsue) and breaches is that some breaches relate to more than one person. BobFromBrockley (talk) 15:01, 17 September 2024 (UTC)
@Bobfrombrockley I was looking at the last two years only (16 Sep 2022 to now), because TFD was referring to the JC's four most recent breaches.
  • The Jewish Chronicle had four breaches since 16 September 2022.
  • Over the same period The Times also had four.
TFD explained above that he forgot to put quotation marks around his search term and thus got an inflated number for The Times for this period.
If you look further back:
Basically, the Jewish Chronicle seems to have an order of magnitude more breaches per article than The Times, bearing in mind it is a weekly with a far smaller annual output than The Times produces as a bulky daily. I'd say that is not good enough for top-drawer treatment at RSP, even before the current scandal.
The Telegraph now has a good summary of the scandal as well:
Andreas JN466 15:22, 17 September 2024 (UTC)
@Bobfrombrockley Actually, things are even worse at The JC, because there are five additional cases since 2020 that are listed not under "The Jewish Chronicle", but under "thejc.com": [3] These are all different cases from the ones listed under "The Jewish Chronicle". The ones listed under thejc.com are:
  • 14697-23 Friel v thejc.com (published July 2023)
  • 09574-21 Gauterin v thejc.com (published July 2022)
  • 06399-21 Brace v thejc.com (published January 2022)
  • 29092-20 Holborow v thejc.com (published September 2021)
  • 28831-20 Ross v thejc.com (published June 2021)
The ones listed under "Jewish Chronicle" are:
  • 20214-23 Lunn v The Jewish Chronicle (published January 2024)
  • 11788-22 Gregson and Weiss v The Jewish Chronicle (published May 2023)
  • 12610-22 Bunglawala v The Jewish Chronicle (published April 2023)
  • 01447-22 Rahman v The Jewish Chronicle (published September 2022)
  • 29107-20 Bird v The Jewish Chronicle (published July 2021)
  • 01735-20 Downing v The Jewish Chronicle (published December 2020)
  • 00074-20 Ali v The Jewish Chronicle (published October 2020)
  • 03690-19 Davies v The Jewish Chronicle (published April 2020)
  • 05411-19 Lennox v The Jewish Chronicle (published January 2020)
I also checked for "thetimes" domains and found three additional breaches since 2020 listed under "thetimes.co.uk" (none under thetimes.com). This means JC and Times actually had 14 breaches each since 2020 – with The Times publishing an order of magnitude more articles.
Also worth mentioning: When I did the same search for "The Guardian" and "theguardian", I did not find any breaches at all that concerned The Guardian. Andreas JN466 16:11, 17 September 2024 (UTC)
Thanks that's really helpful. Good spot on the different domains. So, the questions are: 1/ are the breaches relating to articles published under the new ownership (i.e. since April 2020) serious enough for us to downgrade reliability in this period? (my take: possibly, but the real clinchers are the resignations and ownership issue rather than these breaches) and 2/ are the pre-2020 breaches serious enough for us to downgrade reliability for a longer period, and if so from when? (my take: probably not serious enough).
Re The Guardian: it's not regulated by IPSO, but has its own arrangements. BobFromBrockley (talk) 16:55, 17 September 2024 (UTC)
Thanks, that explains the Guardian's clean sheet. For another comparison, "Mail Online" had 28 IPSO rulings identifying breaches since 2020, "Daily Mail" had 14, for a total of 42. Again, I suspect that is considerably less per article than The Jewish Chronicle. I think we need to come up with some RfC options ... Any ideas how we can keep it as simple as possible? Andreas JN466 17:11, 17 September 2024 (UTC)
Do you think we should have a policy whereby if a publications exceeds a set number of breaches it should be deprecated? What would the threshold be? TFD (talk) 19:52, 17 September 2024 (UTC)
  • If I understand the nature of the complaint, the paper had a reporter filing false stories. The paper has publicly retracted the stories and fired the reporter. Isn't that what we want out of a RS? If not then shouldn't the NYT be downgraded? Springee (talk) 00:32, 15 September 2024 (UTC)
    Quoted in The Guardian: “It seems that by firing Elon Perry @JewishChron is hoping to put this whole affair to bed, as if decisions weren’t made at the very top to employ a fake journalist, publish nine fake articles without verifying sources, and use the paper [as] an active agent in a pro-Bibi influence op.” Andreas JN466 00:44, 15 September 2024 (UTC)
    That appears to be an opinion article. Certainly that quote is the opinion of the author. Springee (talk) 04:21, 15 September 2024 (UTC)
    The paper didn't do its job in the first place i.e. they didn't vet the freelance journalist properly. Cortador (talk) 05:45, 15 September 2024 (UTC)
I know nothing about this source, but through reading about the Elon Perry situation I learned that no one seems to know exactly who owns the newspaper. This made me wonder whether this incomplete-information situation is a factor in assessing reliability in Wikipedia. Clearly there is some dependency on knowledge of ownership (e.g. state owned, run by the CCP etc.) that might have an impact on a case-by-case basis, but I'm curious how not knowing who owns a source is handled. Sean.hoyland (talk) 04:53, 15 September 2024 (UTC)
When a news source refuses to divulge who owns it, I think we are entitled to assume the worst. Zerotalk 06:40, 15 September 2024 (UTC)
For the ownership question see:
  • Alan Rusbridger: Who really funds the Jewish Chronicle? Why it’s troubling that we don’t know…, Prospect Magazine, 26 April 2024
    • Quote: Well, we don’t know. But imagine a mystery foreign backer with a plausible British frontman buying the Telegraph, on condition that his identity be kept schtum. There would, rightly, be a parliamentary hue and cry about their background and motives. One of those involved in the Gibb-led consortium told me he now regretted ever being involved because of its “incredibly opaque” nature. He said he and another consortium member had asked directly who the other backers were and found it was “an absolutely closed door”.
Also, The Times has weighed in:
  • This happens sometimes even with the best sources, the NYT Caliphate debacle immediately comes to my mind [4]. What counts is the quality of the investigation and subsequent actions, so I think we should wait a bit. Alaexis¿question? 11:55, 15 September 2024 (UTC)
    Wait a bit for what? They claim to have finished their investigation. Zerotalk 12:09, 15 September 2024 (UTC)
    Lost two of their top columnists as a result ""Of course, all newspapers make mistakes and run articles that writers on the paper dislike," Freedland wrote. "The problem in this case is that there can be no real accountability because the JC is owned by a person or people who refuse to reveal themselves. As you know, I and others have long urged transparency, making that case to you privately – but nothing has happened." Selfstudier (talk) 13:26, 15 September 2024 (UTC)
    Freedland's departure is particularly devastating. As he noted in his letter, between himself and his father, a Freedland had written for the JC for 75 years – he is only departing, with regret, due to extreme mistrust in the depths to which the editorial standards have sunk, and the risk of association. Iskandar323 (talk) 05:13, 17 September 2024 (UTC)
    Ah, I didn't know that. They have therefore removed his stories from [the] website and ended any association with Mr Perry. What else should they have done? Alaexis¿question? 20:28, 15 September 2024 (UTC)
    The Jewish News of Northern California e.g. notes: "The Chronicle has not explained how Perry came to author stories that it published nor offered details about how it plans to change its editorial practices."
    Doing those two things would be a good start. Along with being transparent about who finances their operation. Andreas JN466 18:02, 16 September 2024 (UTC)
    I've seen dozens if not hundreds of discussions on this noticeboard and invariably retractions are seen as a good sign. Alaexis¿question? 20:45, 16 September 2024 (UTC)
    Retractions are important. Stealth edits and stealth non-retractions (such as Al Jazeera's recent ones) are a sign of unreliability. Andre🚐 20:56, 16 September 2024 (UTC)
    Except that it is not retractions being criticized, it's everything else. Selfstudier (talk) 20:58, 16 September 2024 (UTC)
    Speaking of Qatar-funded Al Jazeera, it's a little-known but markworthy fact that Qatar is ranked about 20 places above Israel in the Press Freedom Index ranking. Overall Qatar is now ranked freest in the Middle East region.
    Israeli government censorship is intense. Haaretz once published an article with all the censored text blacked out, just to illustrate the issue: [5] Israel should be doing better.
    Stealth edits are not great, but common across the industry. Take for example the Jewish News article linked below: its headline now reads "Five Jewish Chronicle writers quit, accusing it of prioritising politics over journalism" (the fifth is Colin Shindler, who has written for the JC for over fifty years), but there is no note marking the updates, nor a new publication time/date. You can find stealth updates even in a newspaper of record like Haaretz: compare [6] vs. [7]. Andreas JN466 22:39, 16 September 2024 (UTC)
    It is unsafe to compare archived copies for this. The style used in the English Haaretz is a sentence at the end, which might not have made the archive. I don't have a subscription to the Hebrew Haaretz, so I can't check. Zerotalk 00:49, 20 September 2024 (UTC)
    @Zero0000: If you have a Haaretz subscription, your user account works for both language versions. You simply have to log in again on the Hebrew side, using the same account details. I logged in and checked – there is no added sentence at the end of the article in the live version either. The date, too, just says 20 October 2023 (no exact time given).
    And actually, we are in luck, because you can even view this article via the Wikipedia Library: [8] Andreas JN466 08:09, 20 September 2024 (UTC)
    Yikes! I wish I knew that subscription thing years ago. Anyway, I confirm that a sentence was silently changed. Zerotalk 09:05, 20 September 2024 (UTC)
    I regularly find stealth edits of article bodies (not headlines), in top outlets like The Guardian or the NYT, with no disclosure. Not a valid signal of unreliability, regardless of how we feel about it. DFlhb (talk) 17:26, 20 September 2024 (UTC)

Resignations:

--Andreas JN466 14:43, 15 September 2024 (UTC)

Guardian as well Selfstudier (talk) 16:11, 15 September 2024 (UTC)
  • I'd say not reliable. There are too many serious problems. Most recently, and discussed here, is a whole range of fabricated stories. That is already concerning, so much so that many high-profile contributors have resigned. Perhaps even more concerning is that nobody knows who owns the JC. In my view, transparency about ownership is important for the integrity of any newspaper or media outlet. The combination of planted false stories and no insights on who finances the JC makes me doubt it could be used as a source while the ownership is not known. Jeppiz (talk) 16:45, 15 September 2024 (UTC)
  • This is likely to require a RfC, but for the time being, TJC should be considered at least unreliable regarding Israel/Palestine and related topics due to a scandal resulting in four high-profile resignations, unclear ownership structre, plus questionable reporting as noted above. Cortador (talk) 16:59, 15 September 2024 (UTC)
    The fact that a massive scandal is causing a massive shakeup is, again, exactly what one would expect out of a generally reliable source. (No source should be used without a minimum of critical judgement, mind you, and is subject to cross-verification.) I suppose in this overall time period of the scandal and shakeup -- plus+minus one year from all the reporter's articles (they span June--September 2024) say -- it's appropriate to say the source is yellow, but it's hardly become now-and-retroactively unreliable.
    Contrast to some of our unreliable outlets where an article or reporter or topic caught red-handed on serial inaccuracy/exaggeration/slop is simply tolerated and dismissed as just a normal part of their political bias or low expectations of rigor. SamuelRiv (talk) 17:24, 15 September 2024 (UTC)
    Ordinarily I would agree but with the history here plus the lack of transparency, I think there's a problem beyond the usual. Selfstudier (talk) 17:39, 15 September 2024 (UTC)
    I think we need to start a RfC here, I can't seem to find the RfC which justified the reliable rating Andromedean (talk) 17:51, 15 September 2024 (UTC)
    I would advise waiting at least a little while for the dust to settle before starting an RFC. Reliability is about a source's overall reputation for fact-checking and accuracy, so the key is to determine whether this has impacted their overarching reputation or whether it was just one incident. High-quality sources that establish that it is part of a pattern would be particularly useful; it might also be useful to find sources that help us identify a specific point in time where things changed and the source's coverage became less reliable, since it is so old. --Aquillion (talk) 13:51, 20 September 2024 (UTC)
    This is not just recent:
    • From the Jewish News article: Freedland, a columnist at the JC since 1998, began his resignation letter by stating his deep family connection to the newspaper. “My attachment to the JC runs very deep,” he wrote. “I have been a columnist since 1998. My late father started writing for the JC in 1951. That bond explains why I have stuck with it even as it departed from the traditions that built its reputation as the world’s oldest Jewish newspaper. “The latest scandal brings great disgrace on the paper – publishing fabricated stories and showing only the thinnest form of contrition – but this is only the latest. Too often, the JC reads like a partisan ideological instrument, its judgements political rather than journalistic.”
    • From The Guardian: “The coarseness and aggression of the JC’s current leadership is such a pity and does such a disservice to our community,” wrote Pogrund. “It also once again poses the question: who owns it!? How is it that British Jews don’t know who owns ‘their’ paper. Moreover, how can a paper not disclose its ownership? It’s an oxymoron. I hate having to pose the question publicly but I asked privately more than a year ago to no avail.”
    The problems seem to date back to the 2020 change in ownership. Would this make an appropriate cut-off point? Andreas JN466 18:21, 15 September 2024 (UTC)
    I agree with SamuelRiv. Andre🚐 21:03, 15 September 2024 (UTC)
    The problems predate the change of ownership in April 2020. On the 4 August 2021, barely a year later Brian Cathcart wrote
    "A slim, weekly publication, the Jewish Chronicle has been found by IPSO to have breached the Editors Code of Conduct 33 times in three years. In the same period it has admitted libel on four occasions, paying damages and publishing apologies. This is a failure of standards on a scale not witnessed by IPSO before." Andromedean (talk) 07:17, 16 September 2024 (UTC)
    I guess I should amend my comment, as it presumes the current (or recent) rating of JC is reasonably accurate. Looking through the IPSO issues a bit more I'd agree the baseline "green" rating should be reassessed by RfC, going back as far as Feb-Mar 2019 (from when the first major IPSO complaint/breach was dated, see citation (21)), but 2020 is close enough too. I hold from my comment that this current scandal is not extremely detrimental from the baseline rating since 2020, wherever that should be. SamuelRiv (talk) 16:14, 16 September 2024 (UTC)
    The 2021 Cathcart piece in RS Byline Times that you link Andromedean says 28 breaches in 3 years. The quote you give comes from the blog of campaigning organisation Hacked Off in 2022. There's an issue of the lag between the date of publication and the date of reporting the outcome, but Cathcart's arithmetic is kind of hard to fathom and is at odds with the figures on the IPSO site or given in other secondary sources such as Press Gazette or The Telegraph: The [2021] letter claimed there had been 28 breaches of the Editors’ Code in three years, and that there would be “more victims” if nothing was done. In fact, IPSO says there were eight complaints upheld in the past three years, with two not upheld and two resolved through mediation. The Telegraph piece is important to read on the agenda of the letter-writers and of Cathcart. BobFromBrockley (talk) 15:19, 17 September 2024 (UTC)
    I think we have to distinguish between IPSO cases or rulings and breaches of the Editor's Code. Each ruling can identify multiple breaches of the code, see e.g. [9]. Also note – The Committee expressed significant concerns about the newspaper’s handling of this complaint. The newspaper had failed, on a number of occasions, to answer questions put to it by IPSO and it was regrettable the newspaper’s responses had been delayed. The Committee considered that the publication’s conduct during IPSO’s investigation was unacceptable. The Committee’s concerns have been drawn to the attention of IPSO’s Standards department. Andreas JN466 16:49, 17 September 2024 (UTC)
    2019 was the Audrey White complaint, which was a whopper that caused IPSO to alert the broader issue internally (this was linked previously in this thread, which I can't find, by someone with the relevant quote; the complaint was Feb--Mar, and ruling Nov 2019; an overview from HackedOff). Either of those could be a cutoff date, or the 2020 ownership change, or the 2021 IPSO internal alert again. But a precise cutoff has not been necessary for RSP -- just saying on RSP "2020, around the time ownership change with major issues appearing the year beforehand", is plenty enough guidance for editors. Or whatever year you want, it doesn't matter -- absent a complete staff and editorial overhaul in a single day, there's never such a precise transition of reliability. SamuelRiv (talk) 19:47, 17 September 2024 (UTC)
  • A single instance of flawed reporting doesn't impugn the source's reliability unless it can be shown to be systemic. See the New York Times, which also has controversial views of their ownership (see Biden vs Trump) and it also is relevant how the outlet deals with the coverage. In this case, the outlet seems to be taking the appropriate steps but we should keep an eye on it. There are other outlets who have had similar controversies and ownership (cough Al Jazeera cough) but are considered to be generally reliable if biased on certain topics. Without a more comprehensive evaluation of any failed fact checks, this one issue isn't any more damning of the entire paper than similar issues in the New York Times. Andre🚐 21:02, 15 September 2024 (UTC)
    Systemic issues – this is a common refrain in the criticism: that the material published is not political and journalistic, but political rather than journalistic – in other words, the politicisation comes at the expense of journalistic standards. This criticism is not restricted to the now-removed set of articles, and it is something that we should take note of.
    As for the paper's owners, it is normal for newspaper owners to have views. The owners of the New York Times and their place on the political spectrum are known. What people are saying with respect to The Jewish Chronicle is that the owners are unknown – because the publication refuses to say who they are. That is unusual to say the least.
    More reporting now:
    The Times of Israel also reports on an Israeli press interview with the (pseudonymous) writer of the now-removed stories. Andreas JN466 22:22, 15 September 2024 (UTC)
    Andrevan's comment makes a false comparison with the NYT. The New York Times has almost 6,000 employees and a print circulation of 300,000, and 9 million online subscribers.
    The Jewish Chronicle has just 30 employees, a total of 3,000 digital subscribers and 3,200 paid for print circulation. There are MANY blogs out there with more employees and more readers. Onceinawhile (talk) 22:49, 15 September 2024 (UTC)
    Jayen did not. Andre made the comparison. Alanscottwalker (talk) 22:51, 15 September 2024 (UTC)
    Jewish Chronicle is an old and storied institution. Reliability is not determined by the number of employees or subscribers, or circulation. Andre🚐 22:52, 15 September 2024 (UTC)
    It went into liquidation in 2020. This is a new organization with an old brand. Onceinawhile (talk) 22:55, 15 September 2024 (UTC)
    It announced in March that it would be owned by a charitable trust. I would like to point out that a lot of horrible people have owned news media in the UK over the years.
    Also, DYK that Murdoch owns both the Times and the Sun? It does not matter who owns a newspaper but where it follows journalistic standards. And I don't get btw why the BBC should be considered less reliable than the Sun, because the Sun is owned by an individual person while the BBC is owned by the state. TFD (talk) 23:27, 15 September 2024 (UTC)
    Nor is it determined by age or whatever storiedness might be. It is determined by factual accuracy, which the JC has been proven repeatedly to lack. I would repeat, no other British newspaper has such a shocking record for slandering people and publishing false stories, not even the ones that we deprecate.Boynamedsue (talk) 22:59, 15 September 2024 (UTC)
    See TFD's comment above. It is not determined by age, true, but it IS determined by reputation. Andre🚐 23:15, 15 September 2024 (UTC)
See my answer above. TFD's comments are a good faith error on the number of breaches, and a failure to consider libel rulings and the difference in number of issues between weekly and daily titles.Boynamedsue (talk) 06:56, 16 September 2024 (UTC)
These issues should be considered separately than the new issues. In the 2015-20 period, the instances of sloppiness and zealotry led to extreme scrutiny, the led to IPSO complaints (mostly not upheld) and to corrections. Any problematic material from this period has been corrected, and we can therefore be pretty confident of reliability. There is a case for attribution of contentious claims in that period; there is no case for designation as unreliable. BobFromBrockley (talk) 12:15, 16 September 2024 (UTC)
Well its reputation is now in the gutter, so ... Iskandar323 (talk) 05:23, 17 September 2024 (UTC)
  • It has been asked above about what papers do in this situation, and it seems usual that they do extensive reporting on what went wrong, what was false or can't be confirmed, and who was involved. The reporting is in depth investigation and done by journalists (usually senior journalists) and editors not involved, but perhaps, this paper is too small or too intent on not being open about it, for whatever reason. Alanscottwalker (talk) 00:11, 16 September 2024 (UTC)
    Given the entire affair is less than 2 weeks old, correct? Maybe they will. Andre🚐 00:52, 16 September 2024 (UTC)
    JC has declared that they have "concluded" their "thorough investigation". Now they might yet again be lying, but I suggest that we believe them. TrangaBellam (talk) 07:55, 16 September 2024 (UTC)
  • Ought be treated as unreliable for anything remotely connected with Is-Pa and British Politics. TrangaBellam (talk) 07:50, 16 September 2024 (UTC)
    Why British Politics specifically? The problem articles related to Israel-Palestine. BobFromBrockley (talk) 11:57, 16 September 2024 (UTC)
  • This is quite an grotesquely major scandal for a prominent newspaper; unknown owners who are likely right-wing ideologues, publication of a fabricated story by a freelance journalist under a pseudonym who after their firing made death threats to an Israeli reporter due to the revealing of their identity, and now the resignation of the newspaper's most prominent columnists. The Jewish Chronicle should be immediately deprecated generally and on matters related to antisemitism and the Israeli-Palestinian conflict specifically. Makeandtoss (talk) 09:10, 16 September 2024 (UTC)
    So not only his credentials were fake, but also his name ... while his subsequent actions speak for themselves. The Times of Israel has also ripped down blogs by the same author, presumably fearful of possible contagion. Iskandar323 (talk) 05:31, 17 September 2024 (UTC)
  • Inclined to agree that the opaque ownership is an even bigger problem than the specific instance of false reporting. Most publications have bias, and many have disreputable owners, but at least when the owners are known we can understand and weigh that bias, and still manage to extract signal from the noise. An anonymous owner is no better than an anonymous editorial board, which would usually be a red flag. It’s a broken chain of accountability. JC articles from after April 2020 (apparently the date of the takeover) should be treated with utmost caution. No opinion on articles from before that date. Barnards.tar.gz (talk) 09:19, 16 September 2024 (UTC)
  • The response from JC has been swift and they've removed the offending articles. But it's left serious questions about their editorial controls, and several high profile columnist have severed their ties with the paper. The issues appear to stem from the takeover by an anonymous owner, and the editorialship of Jake Wallis Simons that began in December 2021. Their articles after April 2020 (per Barnards.tar.gz above) should be handled with scepticism, especially in the IP conflict area. Ownership isn't the issue, but the issues seem to stem from the change in ownership. Just to note from a technical perspective deprecation of any article ever written by the source from ever being used for anything is not a good response to this situation, the issues being raised are ones that are due to recent changes (deprecation is just unreliable with an edit filter plus bells and whistles, it doesn't work with any kind of restrictions on topic area or time). I would suggest any issues prior to these dates be handled separately, as the arguements are quite different and often backed up by other sources. -- LCU ActivelyDisinterested «@» °∆t° 12:07, 16 September 2024 (UTC)
  • The dust has not yet settled so we might still wait before an RfC, but this is definitely a major concern. Anything published under the current owners (April 2020) and especially under current editor (December 2021) should be treated with extreme caution. Anything by Elon Perry (pseudonym of Eli Yifrah) in this publication or other publications should be considered completely unreliable. In general, even without these issues, the UK-based Jewish Chronicle is unlikely to be a good source on the Middle East unless the article is provided by someone with specific expertise (e.g. by Colin Shindler, one of the writers who resigned this week). The issues are: total opacity about ownership since 2020; an editor with no prior experience of news media since 2021; extent of bias under current editor spinning into unreliability (in particular on the issues of Israel/Palestine and Muslims/Islam). I would oppose designating it unreliable for the pre-2020 period, as these issues were not present (the non-upheld IPSO complaints mentioned above are not a reason for that). I would also be wary about declaring it, even in its current incarnation, generally unreliable, because that will mean its routine coverage of UK Jewish community matters or political issues in the UK of Jewish interest will be lost, including important material relating to antisemitism which is less well reported elsewhere. BobFromBrockley (talk) 12:09, 16 September 2024 (UTC)
    As I stated previously, the record of the JC was extremely poor prior to April 2020. In the two years previous to this the IPSO upheld and sanctioned the following cases
    03690-19 Davies v The Jewish Chronicle 2 April 2020 Outcome Breach sanction: action as offered by publication
    05411-19 Lennox v The Jewish Chronicle 16 January 2020 Outcome Breach sanction: action as offered by publication
    01740-19 White v The Jewish Chronicle 29 November 2019 Outcome Breach - sanction sanction: action as offered by publication
    03222-18 Suárez v The Jewish Chronicle Published date 12 April 2019 Outcome Breach - sanction: action as offered by publication
    02822-18 Sivier v The Jewish Chronicle Complaint Summary 9 August 2018 Outcome Breach - sanction: action as offered by publication
    Even in cases where a resolution was agreed such as this, the word 'abused' a Jewish MP was changed to 'challenged', quite a change
    01612-18 Wadsworth v The Jewish Chronicle Complaint Summary May 2018 Outcome Resolved - IPSO mediation
    This seems to be a systematic failure of factual reporting irrespective of the ownership. Andromedean (talk) 13:07, 16 September 2024 (UTC)
    I had a look at the first example 03690-19 Davies v The Jewish Chronicle 2 April 2020, which relates to this 2019 article. There was no inaccuracy in the article, just a lack of context for a quote from a third party about the complainant. Nonetheless, the paper offered an apology and correction, which duly appears. This is totally normal newspaper practice.
    Here is 05411-19 Lennox v The Jewish Chronicle 16 January 2020, a partially upheld complaint where the upheld part was was promptly remedied by the paper. Slightly more serious than Davies, but nowhere near grounds for designation of unreliability.
    Unless the other examples are considerably more significant, this list adds nothing. Focusing on this trivia is a distraction from the serious issues that have emerged more recently. BobFromBrockley (talk) 14:21, 16 September 2024 (UTC)
Trivia? IPSO noted 33 individual breaches of its code over 3 years between 2018-2021. It was referred to the IPSO standards committee over its libelling of Audrey White, with IPSO stating The Committee expressed significant concerns about the newspaper’s handling of this complaint. The newspaper had failed, on a number of occasions, to answer questions put to it by IPSO and it was regrettable the newspaper’s responses had been delayed. The Committee considered that the publication’s conduct during IPSO’s investigation was unacceptable. It is worth noting that this "trivia" had already resulted in this board deciding that there is no consensus on JC's reliability on precisely the topic of its latest falsehoods.Boynamedsue (talk) 16:17, 16 September 2024 (UTC)
It should also be noted how ineffective the IPSO complaint system is. Chances are we are only seeing the tip of the iceberg because 94% of complaints are rejected, 0.3% are upheld and 5.3% are abandoned or never investigated. This isn't surprising because The Press Recognition Panel (the body which audits press regulators for independence and effectiveness) has referred to IPSO as a ‘trade complaint handling body with no independent oversight Andromedean (talk) 16:47, 16 September 2024 (UTC)
Exclusive: UK press regulator IPSO "carefully reviewing developments at the Jewish Chronicle" We'll see. Selfstudier (talk) 18:37, 16 September 2024 (UTC)
OK, "trivial" perhaps too strong a word, but I urge people here to read the rulings and see if these inaccuracies would be cause for a general unreliability ruling for another publication.
this "trivia" had already resulted in this board deciding that there is no consensus on JC's reliability on precisely the topic of its latest falsehoods. Not exactly. The IPSO rulings all relate to the British left and a couple to British Muslims, whereas the latest falsehoods relate to Israel/Palestine. I would not oppose us considering it generally unreliable on Israel/Palestine, although I would argue for exceptions in the case of expert contributors such as Colin Shindler. BobFromBrockley (talk) 15:26, 17 September 2024 (UTC)
The only reason that so many cases are being dragged before IPSO is presumably because they are not responding adequately to direct complaints. Being dragged before a trade tribunal, and then making amends only after you lose isn't contrition or commitment to editorial standards; it's simply the legal obligation at the end of a long road of stubborn editorial recalcitrance. Iskandar323 (talk) 05:40, 17 September 2024 (UTC)
Again, read the rulings; in almost all cases the correction had already been made before IPSO ruled. The most serious cases (e.g. the one relating to Rabbi Weiss) relate to a failure to make a correction, but there are only one or two such cases. BobFromBrockley (talk) 15:28, 17 September 2024 (UTC)
My concern is that we could use evidence of misconduct that is no different from any other publication to ban some publications, but not others. For example, the Jewish Chronicle has had four breaches upheld against it by the IPSO in the last two years, which is the same number as the Times, although a higher rate because it is a weekly. While no one claims that the Jewish Chronicle is in the same league as the Times, that doesn't mean it should be deprecated.
In the past, we deprecated a source because it published a false news story that had appeared in most mainstream media sources.
There should be objective and persuasive arguments before sources are rated generally unreliable or deprecated/banned. It seems that a lot of these efforts are motivated by objection to the editorial policies of the publications. And if they are downgraded, it sends a message outside Wikipedia.
There has to be a better way to evaluate sources than this process. Editors are asked to base their decisions on the comments of other editors, which may or may not be accurate, have walls of text they cannot read and have no standard with which to compare criticisms with other publications. TFD (talk) 04:03, 17 September 2024 (UTC)
It seems strange to only count the last two years. In 2021 we discussed the JC based on its record of publishing misleading content on the British left, Muslims and Palestine/Israel. We could not reach a conclusion that it was reliable, and that is the current default. Low and behold, a few years down the line the paper becomes embroiled in a scandal due to publishing false information on precisely the topics we judged it unreliable on. Why exactly are we bothering with this source?Boynamedsue (talk) 05:54, 17 September 2024 (UTC)
I would certainly agree to a more objective process. For example a table of breaches, court judgements etc so they can be examined more clearly. However, we must also allow for more subjective criteria such as transparency, ownership and journalistic reputation of staff. Substantial weight should also be given to the opinions of journalistic professionals in academia. I'm unsure if Wikipedia rules already specify this, but should an editor arriving at an opinion based on a professional or reliable source, be given more weight in an RfC than one just saying 'I agree with X' or 'I think it's unreliable or reliable'? Andromedean (talk) 07:34, 17 September 2024 (UTC)
I tried to get "in other RS" added to the policy a while ago. Also did you know according to our current policy consensus, I could cite a gravestone or a historical marker because that is technically published? I think some rigor around publication could help. Barring that, feel free to propose something at probably WT:RS or WT:V Andre🚐 07:37, 17 September 2024 (UTC)
One problem with tables of breaches is that it actually stacks our process against publications, such as the Jewish Chronicle, that are regulated (where there's an authority which records complaints, in this case IPSO). BobFromBrockley (talk) 15:31, 17 September 2024 (UTC)
  • I am not an expert at all in this subject, but I would note that the presence of a statement by the source stating that an investigation is ongoing plus resignations of staff evidences that it is an RS since they care to be neutral and take concrete steps to do so. That is all we really can ask at wikipedia. Our OR and POV on the rest of if we like a source or not is pretty hard to sort though. Again, I know nearly nothing about Israeli politics, so please take my statement with a grain of salt and due weight. Thanks! Jtbobwaysf (talk) 03:50, 17 September 2024 (UTC)
The problem comes in the fact its corrections and investigations are all forced. The British press regulator IPSO noted its refusal to engage in correction except when ultimately forced to do. This case shows effective fact-checking does not exist, as until the IDF complained, the paper was publishing random crap without asking itself any questions. So, we ask how much else has been getting through that hasn't been noticed? We can't know. In effect, we do and have deprecated for much less.Boynamedsue (talk) 06:04, 17 September 2024 (UTC)
The resignations aren't positive actions by the publication; they are actions by former staff in despair at the publication's lack of positive action. Iskandar323 (talk) 06:58, 17 September 2024 (UTC)

Idk, the part I am most bothered by is AI/IP and I think that should be gunrel, if we can agree that in this discussion then maybe we can do without an RFC? Selfstudier (talk) 16:23, 17 September 2024 (UTC)

As I said before, I think we should Deprecate The Jewish Chronicle for anything related to Israel/Palestine. I would also support deprecation for "UK politics biographies of living persons" (if other publications discuss BLP claims made in The Jewish Chronicle, they can be cited instead, with a JC ref given as a courtesy link). How does that sound? Andreas JN466 17:21, 17 September 2024 (UTC)
I have said before I'm not wild about deprecation without going through gunrel first. One would need quite a bit of "fabrication" evidence for deprecation (and it would have to be an RFC). Selfstudier (talk) 17:41, 17 September 2024 (UTC)
Sorry, my mix-up. I didn't actually mean to contradict you, Selfstudier; I'd conflated the two levels in my mind. So WP:GUNREL for anything related to Israel/Palestine, and I'd be happy to extend that to "UK politics biographies of living persons". --Andreas JN466 18:35, 17 September 2024 (UTC)
Mainstream media have run many obviously false stories in support of wars. For example, the Nayirah testimony that Iraqi soldiers removed babies from incubators, NYT journalist Judith Miller's false stories about WMDs in Iraq, and unsubstantiated stories about babies being beheaded by Hamas. For twenty years mainstream media told us we were winning in Afghanistan until one day the U.S. soldiers left and its govenment fled.
If we banned all these source there would be none left and therefore we could not cover current events at all. However using in-text attribution where appropriate and not including material that lacks weight for inclusion, these articles can be as accurate as mainstream media without a culling of news media source. TFD (talk) 20:21, 17 September 2024 (UTC)
Nobody is suggesting we ban all these sources. We are suggesting that the specfic and quite substantial problems that have been indicated for this source – very high-profile fabrications, unknown ownership, high number of adverse IPSO rulings relative to its publication volume – ought to be reflected in its RSP entry. Andreas JN466 10:17, 18 September 2024 (UTC)
As I explained above, the claim that there were 15 breaches upheld against the newspaper in two years was false. There were two breaches fully upheld and two partially upheld, which is within the norm. My point is that no one has demonstrated that the record of the newspaper is significantly worse.
We need an objective rather than anecdotal approach to banning sources. I could put together a case as strong as the one presented here against any publication. TFD (talk) 22:18, 18 September 2024 (UTC)
I agree with TFD on this Andre🚐 22:22, 18 September 2024 (UTC)
Agree as well. How often is JC been cited on Wikipedia? Do we have any examples of uses that should be questioned? Springee (talk) 22:28, 18 September 2024 (UTC)
LinkSearch finds 5517 links. Sean.hoyland (talk) 15:36, 19 September 2024 (UTC)
Scanning through the first couple of hundred of these, excluding talk page links, there are maybe two that fall directly under Israel/Palestine (one relating to food in Jerusalem, and one a commentary by Tom Gross) and one that relates to someone that might be reasonably called on the British left. The overwhelming majority relate to the UK Jewish community, so we'd gut our coverage of that if we lost the JC as a source altogether. BobFromBrockley (talk) 10:49, 20 September 2024 (UTC)
I think that is probably the case for many sources, a sledgehammer/non-surgical approach may have unintended consequences and cause unnecessary collateral damage. Sean.hoyland (talk) 16:11, 20 September 2024 (UTC)
I don't think anyone is arguing that the JC should be deemed unreliable for all topics (certainly not retrospectively, nor do I see anyone arguing it should be deemed unreliable for all topics going forward). Andreas JN466 21:08, 20 September 2024 (UTC)
There are, as I understand it, various complementary outlets, such as Jewish News, so JC hardly stands alone in any sphere of UK coverage. Iskandar323 (talk) 21:44, 20 September 2024 (UTC)
I count 10 breaches in the White case alone: https://www.ipso.co.uk/rulings/01740-19/ As mentioned above, breaches of the Code are not the same thing as rulings. And having the same number of IPSO rulings against it as The Times, which publishes a far greater number of articles, does not put it "within the norm"; it makes it about ten times worse – and considerably worse than the Daily Mail. Andreas JN466 23:10, 18 September 2024 (UTC)
IPSO has also itself been specifically accused of dragging its feet and being exposed as the rather conflicted regulator it is in relation to the JC, first in 2021 when it reacted on a two-year delay to issues in 2019,[10] and then again in 2023 and finally now – drawing past victims to issue a statement calling again on the regulator to act.[11] It's also worth remembering that only the worst and often most defamatory material tends to end up in an IPSO complaint, so such rulings/breaches are merely the tip of the iceberg of editorial failings. Iskandar323 (talk) 04:48, 19 September 2024 (UTC)
OK, so long as people reading the number of breaches are aware that multiple breaches can refer to a single article or cluster of articles. White is one of the most serious case here, and if that's 10 breaches it's 10 breaches in 4 articles, so these 4 articles are a big percentage of the total breaches. BobFromBrockley (talk) 10:54, 20 September 2024 (UTC)
The complaint was for accuracy, privacy and harassment of which only the first was upheld. However, the findings showed that a number of false claims had been made about the complainant. But that was five years ago.
According to The Electronic Intifada, which is a pro-Palestinian source, this and other cases bankrupted the Chronicle.[12] As noted above, the Chronicle has since been sold and a new editor appointed.
I cannot accept a tip of the iceberg claim without evidence. My concern is that if we set the bar low for deprecation, then no publication meets it and whether or not an outlet is deprecated becomes a popularity .
Mainstream media claims about babies in incubators in Kuwait, weapons of mass destruction in Iraq and how the war in Afghanistan was succeeding were all deliberate lies in order to support UK and U.S. government policies which haad devastating effects. They are more significant than publishing a claim that someone had been expelled from the Labour Party. TFD (talk) 11:46, 20 September 2024 (UTC)
Sorry Selfstudier but by "AI/IP" you mean antisemitism, Islamophobia, Israel and Palestine? (Personally, I think it would be a big mistake to make it unreliable for antisemitism before 2020, given that as more or less the only regular UK Jewish newspaper until 2020 it was the only media source with full coverage of UK antisemitism. The other topics make more sense, especially if exceptions are made for expert contributors, and making this ruling for post-2020 also makes more sense.) BobFromBrockley (talk) 04:00, 18 September 2024 (UTC)
I mean anything that has the usual warning notices that it is part of AI/IP conflict. The antisemitism article does not have those notices, for instance, and that for Islamophobia only for a part of it. The usual "broadly construed" is well understood by all. Selfstudier (talk) 09:27, 18 September 2024 (UTC)
More press coverage today from The Jerusalem Post, The Forward, Press Gazette, The Independent and The Times of Israel
The following discussion has been closed. Please do not modify it.
  • Further commentary in The Jerusalem Post from Hadley Freeman, Jay Rayner and others:
    • Speaking on the BBC Radio 4 "Today" program on Monday morning, [Freeman] said that, like every journalist, she does not agree with everything in her publication, but that this was a tipping point. While she acknowledged the deletion of the articles by Elon Perry - which she called "wild" - she said that for a "bunch of us, this was too little too late." "We felt that there had not been editorial standards applied to this journalist because that journalist was adhering to an ideology that perhaps was similar to that of the editorial board." Freeman said she chose to join the JC to represent the "liberal modern voice" of British Jews, who she claimed largely support a Jewish state but want a two-state solution. However, she said, "it felt increasingly that the JC represented a more ideological rather than a strictly journalistic point of view, and was becoming far more right-wing and far more in step with Netanyahu, which most British Jews are not." She also reiterated the concerns of other journalists regarding the identity of the JC's owner.
    • Jewish writer and food critic Jay Rayner reposted Freedland's resignation, saying that he had watched "with dismay the collapse in integrity and standards of the Jewish Chronicle." "It’s been a disaster for the Jewish community," he added, applauding Freedland for his decision to leave.
  • The Forward now has an article up as well:
    • Several prominent columnists have resigned from the world’s oldest Jewish newspaper amid allegations that the paper ran fabricated news stories that advanced the Israeli government’s narratives about the war in Gaza.
    • The newspaper confirmed that Perry did serve in the IDF but said it was unable to prove claims that had appeared on his website that he was a professsor at Tel Aviv University for 15 years and that he had served as a commando soldier during Operation Entebbe in 1976. His two books are both self-published.
  • Four columnists quit Jewish Chronicle over standards, secrecy and ‘bias’: Writers condemn lapse in standards, secrecy and drift to right of specialist title, Press Gazette, 16 September 2024
  • Who really funds the Jewish Chronicle? Why it’s troubling that we don’t know…, The Independent, 16 September 2024 (appears to be a republication of Rusbridger's previous Prospect piece)
  • Jewish Chronicle stalwarts bail over UK paper’s ties to alleged Gaza war fabulist, The Times of Israel, 16 September 2024
    • Quote: Perry has also faced questions about his biography, including his claims to have served as a commando soldier during Operation Entebbe and that he was a professor at Tel Aviv University for 15 years. An investigation by Channel 13’s Hatzinor news magazine found that both claims were false.
  • After peddling lies, Jewish Chronical [sic] in upheaval, Ynetnews, 16 September 2024 --Andreas JN466 14:32, 16 September 2024 (UTC)

From the Independent: Why a scandal at The Jewish Chronicle also goes to the top of the BBC Andromedean (talk) 16:35, 19 September 2024 (UTC)

I think we need an RFC at this point. Selfstudier (talk) 16:41, 19 September 2024 (UTC)
Tortoise Media also has an article out today. Essential reading.
I propose we brainstorm some possible RfC options ... Andreas JN466 16:51, 19 September 2024 (UTC)
The main contention seems to be between the broader "Unreliable since 2019 for Antisemitism, Islamophobia, Israel and Palestine" and the narrower "Unreliable since 2021 for Israel and Palestine". So maybe:
  • 1/ Reliable
  • 2/ Addition considerations
    • a/ Unreliable since 2019 for AI/IP
    • b/ Unreliable since 2021 for IP
I don't see anyone giving the opinion that it's always been unreliable so I don't think it's needed, but these are just vague ideas. -- LCU ActivelyDisinterested «@» °∆t° 18:16, 19 September 2024 (UTC)
Since the JC has been active since the middle of the 19th century, I doubt if anyone could make a convincing case for it's unreliability throughout its history. It's the the period 2017-2019 which was probably the most contentious, because even the so called 'reliable' sources were lacking in objectivity on the IHRA definition of antisemitism and the prevalence of Labour 'Antisemitism' as this academic study shows. Andromedean (talk) 20:06, 19 September 2024 (UTC)
That looks good to me. I suppose starting a RfC with those options. Cortador (talk) 06:11, 20 September 2024 (UTC)
Looks good – the only thing I am not sure about is the dates. What is the rationale for using 2019 and 2021?
Also, we should spell out the meaning of "AI/IP" – most people associate these acronyms primarily with the "Artificial Intelligence/Intellectual Property" debate. Andreas JN466 08:16, 20 September 2024 (UTC)
I think something like this is right, but might need to untangle more as it will be difficult to close. (a) Potential cut-offs are current editor (2021+), new ownership (2020+), period of Corbyn leadership, the topic of all of the IPSO complaints (2015-20), previous + current editor (2008+). (b) some people !voting for 2019+ might want to be more specific than the very broad AI/IP. BobFromBrockley (talk) 11:04, 20 September 2024 (UTC)
I only abbreviated as I had already mentioned the full descriptions in my comment already, these shouldn't be taken as final wording. The dates are also should be considered set, especially the 2019 date could be set earlier early. -- LCU ActivelyDisinterested «@» °∆t° 17:21, 20 September 2024 (UTC)
According to the column in the Independent, Sir Robbie Gibb, who says that he owns the Jewish Chronicle, has been appointed by the BBC to investigate its coverage of Gaza. By focusing on the Chronicle, we are missing the big picture. How reliable is mainstream Western media in reporting on political topics?
In fact mainstream media's reporting is often misleading and deliberately inaccurate. The problem is that it is the most accurate source we have. If we ban them, then we would not be able to cover current events. Meanwhile, singling out a small newspaper that does nothing to improve articles' accuracy.
Perhaps our time would be better spent discussing how to deal with misinformation in mainstream publications. TFD (talk) 12:06, 20 September 2024 (UTC)
Our standard for a RS is whether or not it has a reputation for fact-checking and accuracy (especailly in terms of its reputation among the highest-quality sources.) RS doesn't mean that everything a source says is perfect, or free of bias, or anything like that; it just means that they have a good reputation overall. WP:NOTTRUTH applies here. If all of mainstream coverage has issues, we do have a few options (mostly relying on even higher-quality sources, when they appear, for WP:EXCEPTIONAL / WP:BLP-sensitive things), but ultimately we're an encyclopedia. Our job is to summarize, not report. Deciding that everything that is published is misinformation and trying to correct it is outside our scope. (And what would we even replace it with?) --Aquillion (talk) 13:48, 20 September 2024 (UTC)

But yet Al Jazeera is ok when it's clearly not a reliable source. It's just the pro-Israel sources that are a problem - right? MaskedSinger (talk) 10:53, 20 September 2024 (UTC)

What has this to do with the reliability of JC? Please stay on topic. Selfstudier (talk) 10:59, 20 September 2024 (UTC)
Speaking of al Jazeera, one of its investigative journalists wrote an article accusing Western media of having"repeatedly published unsubstantiated claims, told one side of the story and glossed over violence selectively," in order to justify violations of international law.[13] My point is that no evidence has been shown that the Jewish Chronicle is an outlier. TFD (talk) 12:22, 20 September 2024 (UTC)
What you just linked is an opinion piece, not a news article. Also, AJ's owners are publicly known. They have not been found to publish fabricated stories. They have not been found to hire freelance journalists using pseudonyms. They did not have their prominent columnists resign because of any editorial disagreement. Let's stay on topic and avoid false equivalencies. This scandal obviously makes the Jewish Chronicle an outlier. Makeandtoss (talk) 12:56, 20 September 2024 (UTC)
It appears they might have [14]. Note I just found this via a web search so I don't know how valid it is. I do know that AJ has a reputation for bias in this area and there have been accusations that some of their reporters are actively involved with the anti Israel groups. Springee (talk) 13:50, 20 September 2024 (UTC)
AJ is green per recent RFC and this discussion is about the JC. Selfstudier (talk) 14:13, 20 September 2024 (UTC)
  • Reliability is about a source's overall reputation for fact-checking and accuracy; that is, we survey what high-quality secondary sources say about it and determine its reputation from that. This means that we shouldn't update a source's reliability based on one event unless coverage is such that it makes it obvious that their overall reputation has been impacted. When it come to Al Jazeera, though, most sources treat them as fairly reliable. --Aquillion (talk) 13:48, 20 September 2024 (UTC)
    Guardian today Altogether, we definitely have enough here to go with an RFC, it's not based on one event , it's a pattern over time since 2021. The only RFC for this publication was an initially sock infested affair, Wikipedia:Reliable sources/Noticeboard/Archive 361#Jewish Chronicle, that had to have its close rewritten as a result (December 2021). Selfstudier (talk) 14:25, 20 September 2024 (UTC)
    Key passage: “The Chronicle has increasingly abandoned journalistic integrity in order to champion being ‘pro-Israel’. Nine times out of 10, this is a version of Israel that resonates with the Israeli right.” In the fallout from the affair, the dearth of any meaningful answers from Wallis Simons and other senior editorial figures at the Jewish Chronicle has highlighted other transparency issues around the publication, including who actually owns it, a fact referred to by several of the columnists who resigned last week, who insisted there could be no accountability without clarity around ownership. Iskandar323 (talk) 21:34, 20 September 2024 (UTC)
    The coverage of the present scandal is awash with references to things having been out of kilter at the JC for some time.
    • The writers who have resigned have referenced their longstanding unease about the Jewish Chronicle's unknown ownership.
    • Complaints related to this have been ongoing for some considerable time. (Yesterday the Jewish News chimed in on the importance of transparent ownership.)
    • The British writers who resigned have made clear that there have been problems with politicisation trumping journalistic standards for years; what happened now was merely the straw that broke the camel's back – Jay Rayner said he had watched "with dismay the collapse in integrity and standards of the Jewish Chronicle" which had been "a disaster for the Jewish community" (see Jerusalem Post).
    • David Aaronovitch is quoted by Tortoise Media as saying about Jake Wallis Simons, the Jewish Chronicle's current editor: “He’s a very pleasant man to talk to, very nice… it took me a little bit of time to realise that Jake, I think, is really very, very much more right wing than anybody else I’ve ever worked for really.”
    We have
    • The Telegraph saying the paper has "lost credibility",
    • The Guardian saying "What has shocked close observers is how little curiosity and due diligence the Jewish Chronicle applied to Perry, a writer who “appeared out of nowhere” – and who most staff had never encountered – with a series of extraordinary “intelligence scoops” despite having no visible track record in journalism", and
    • Haaretz publishing an opinion that "The venerable British Jewish paper has increasingly abandoned journalistic integrity in order to champion causes widely associated with the Israeli right".
    I don't know how many more flashing lights and beeping alarms we should be waiting for.
    • Unknown owners – check
    • Longstanding IPSO problems, exceeding those of the Daily Mail – check
    • Plethora of complaints from Jewish/Israeli journalists, published across a wide spectrum of mainstream publications, about loss of integritry and collapse of editorial standards at the Jewish Chronicle – check
    • Recent history of wild fabrications serving ultra-right-wing government – check
    This is plainly incompatible with "green" status at WP:RSP – and plenty enough for an RfC now. Andreas JN466 15:40, 20 September 2024 (UTC)
    I initially pushed back on this for that reason, but there are many secondary sources now covering the issues and those articles aren't just limited to this one event but a express concerns with a declining standard at the paper. -- LCU ActivelyDisinterested «@» °∆t° 17:24, 20 September 2024 (UTC)

These attempts to find loopholes isn't a good look. First there's an attempt to find a cut off date. However, the Byline times provide a useful timeline

  • 2018-2019: IPSO finds that the Jewish Chronicle has breached its code 15 times.
  • End of 2019: IPSO’s complaints panel reports the publication to IPSO’s standards department.
  • 2020-mid-2021: IPSO finds 18 more breaches.
  • Mid-2021: The first letter is sent demanding a formal standards investigation. This is rejected (after a five months’ delay).
  • 2021- 2023: The Jewish Chronicle is found by IPSO to have committed eight more breaches.
  • April 2023: The IPSO complaints panel again refers it to the standards department for unacceptable conduct.
  • July 2023: A second letter is sent demanding a standards investigation – but it is brushed off after two months.

Then there's an excuse of low sales, but high numbers of complaints from low sales is worse not better because fewer people have read it to complain. Despite the reporting topic being emotive, antisemitism and Israel aren't the main contentious topics for British newspapers. Immigration, the economy and domestic political corruption are of far more interest to the average British reader and are more likely to generate complaints. The bottom line is that the JC keep making the most blatant mistakes, so they keep getting caught out. This industry is something of a revolving door. This makes the IPSO a very weak regulator and reluctant to criticise their own. They reject 99% of complaints on average. Andromedean (talk) 16:17, 20 September 2024 (UTC)

  • I would argue we wait to see the results of the internal investigation and the actions taken thereafter before we re-assess the JC as a source. Talks of deprecation are way to extreme, in the worst case it should surely be reducing the level of reliability we place on the JC either in regards to I-P, or after a set temporal point, if the community deems such action necessary. -- Cdjp1 (talk) 19:09, 20 September 2024 (UTC)
    Waiting of an internal investigation into this latest issue isn't going to change anything. It will however allow editors to continue using the JC as a credible source for an indefinite time. Andromedean (talk) 20:38, 20 September 2024 (UTC)
    @Cdjp1 I am a little surprised to see you say this – it appears you have not been paying attention. The internal investigation is over. It took one day. It ended last Friday, a week ago. This was its finding, in full:
    Conclusion of Jewish Chronicle investigation into Elon Perry
    We were not satisfied with some of his claims
    The Jewish Chronicle has concluded a thorough investigation into freelance journalist Elon Perry, which commenced after allegations were made about aspects of his record. While we understand he did serve in the Israel Defense Forces, we were not satisfied with some of his claims. We have therefore removed his stories from our website and ended any association with Mr Perry.
    The Jewish Chronicle maintains the highest journalistic standards in a highly contested information landscape and we deeply regret the chain of events that led to this point. We apologise to our loyal readers and have reviewed our internal processes so that this will not be repeated.
    End of quote
    That's it. Andreas JN466 20:55, 20 September 2024 (UTC)
    I only came across this discussion today, and worked of what others were saying which seemed to indicate that we did not have a close yet. So, as that is closed, the remainder of my previous comment outlines my position here. Deprecation of the JC in totality is way beyond what should be considered, but looking toward a GUNREL for either articles related to I-P, or more harshly, since the shift under Simons, is my suggestion. -- Cdjp1 (talk) 21:12, 20 September 2024 (UTC)
    Sounds good. (I don't think anyone was arguing for deprecation for all topics.) Andreas JN466 21:16, 20 September 2024 (UTC)
Personally, having watched it unfold, I honestly don’t think there have been many issues more emotive and generating of rage than the antisemitism allegations in Corbyn’s Labour. The trans debate is the only one I can think of. Cathcart and Hacked Off have been actively campaigning against IPSO, and groups such as Jewish Voice for Labour/Labour Against The Witch-hunt (which most of the complainants were involved in) has been actively campaigning against the JC. This generated a disproportionate amount of complaints.
Once again, I urge editors to look at these breaches themselves. A couple are serious, but many are quite trivial and we’re easily remedied.
I totally agree green status is unsustainable for the recent period, but overly sweeping general unreliability even for specific topics going back to 2018 would be too broad brush.
I guess we need some RfC wording that gives smart enough options to generate the right sanction. BobFromBrockley (talk) 11:55, 21 September 2024 (UTC)
@Bobfrombrockley: building on your comment, do you think the Jewish Chronicle has been reliable in its coverage of Jeremy Corbyn between 2014 to today? The article Antisemitism in the British Labour Party strongly suggests that the Jewish Chronicle was an involved party in the dispute. Onceinawhile (talk) 12:12, 21 September 2024 (UTC)
There’d need to be evidence it’s not reliable for that topic. Possibly it was an involved party, but so are basically all the sources we use in that article. BobFromBrockley (talk) 16:18, 21 September 2024 (UTC)
@Bobfrombrockley: I was asking for your feeling, since you said you watched it unfold. Onceinawhile (talk) 16:50, 21 September 2024 (UTC)
Personally, I am warming to the options proposed by User:ActivelyDisinterested in this post above. So this would read something like:
Which of the following best describes the reliability of The Jewish Chronicle on the topics of antisemitism, islamophobia, and the Arab-Israeli/Israel–Palestine conflict?
Option 1: Reliable
Option 2: Generally unreliable since 2019 for antisemitism, islamophobia, and the Arab–Israeli/Israel–Palestine conflict
Option 3: Generally unreliable since 2021 for the Arab–Israeli/Israel–Palestine conflict
References:
2019 marks the beginning of a string of IPSO rulings against the paper; 2021 marks the beginning of Jake Wallis Simons' editorship following the paper's 2020 acquisition by new, unknown owners.
Thoughts? Bobfrombrockley, would you like to add an additional, milder option? Andreas JN466 12:31, 21 September 2024 (UTC)
I would argue (a) for something like “use with caution and attribution for BLP-related content to do with the British left since 2018”, and (b) that AI and IP should be and/or rather than just and for 2018+, as some might consider it unreliable for one but not the other. I also think that if we go to any version of gunrel for IP we’ll need to be explicit about exceptions for authoritative contributors (eg the RSs reporting on Anshel Pfeiffer and Colin Shindler departing call them things like “respected”).
Finally, if we go to an RfC we might need agreement beforehand whether it’s covered by ARBIA and thus !voting is restricted, as there was no agreement on this in 2021. BobFromBrockley (talk) 16:27, 21 September 2024 (UTC)
I added partial Arbpia talk and edit notices to JC page for the relevant parts and I guess the RFC is obviously covered for the question about AI/IP conflict, I guess we will just have to suffer the socks regarding the rest. Selfstudier (talk) 16:47, 21 September 2024 (UTC)
Contentious topics are by definition broadly construed so any RFC about the reliability of a source in the IP area would fall under Arbpia. Maybe the RFC could be split in half. The first RFC would be something like 'is JC reliable for the British Left post 2017/2018', and the second about IP post 2021. That way only the second one would be under Arbpia restrictions. -- LCU ActivelyDisinterested «@» °∆t° 17:10, 21 September 2024 (UTC)
I'm having second thoughts on if this can be split. The previous close was in regard to British left, Muslims, Islam and Palestine/Palestinians, the details of British left politics are deeply intertwined with the other subjects. I was hoping that by having specific RFC options a difficult to close free for all could be avoided, but I don't know that clear options are available . -- LCU ActivelyDisinterested «@» °∆t° 18:42, 21 September 2024 (UTC)
Corbyn's saga was indeed intertwined with ARBPIA, as already fairly obvious at the time from many of the attack lines. And the JC was intertwined with the Corbyn saga, so intertwined. Iskandar323 (talk) 19:42, 21 September 2024 (UTC)
Would option 2 include IPSO rulings made in 2019 and later, on articles published in the JC before 2019? In addition, my position is that the IPSO is a paper tiger, and rulings in favour of the JC don't necessarily absolve them. There is also sufficient concern of the number of complaints and forced alterations made prior to 2019 before the IPSO got involved. A more suitable start date should be the 2017 GE, because the sensational and inaccurate reporting on antisemitism (IMO) mainly started to erupt from that time, not because there was increased antisemitism, but that there was a realistic chance of a Labour government sympathetic to Palestinian rights. Andromedean (talk) 16:44, 21 September 2024 (UTC)
To be fair, most of the UK media was on board that wagon even if the JC was pushing it more than most. That timeframe would also have been included in the previous RFC so I don't think we need go there again at this point, for me the issues are since 2021. Selfstudier (talk) 17:19, 21 September 2024 (UTC)
The choices must have a middle ground option. Many editors have made, in effect, caution/considerations apply comments. Presenting only "all good", "bad for X" or "bad for X and Y" is putting a thumb on the scale via a non-neutral question. Any RfC that doesn't offer a reasonable middle ground option is basically invalid. Really, it would be better if we have some examples of improper use on Wikipedia before we play the strategic game of branding yet another source as not OK according to Wikipedia. Springee (talk) 17:28, 21 September 2024 (UTC)
If you mean like the usual Option 2, I don't see why not, altho I don't really see why we need Option 1 except for antisemitism, since they were Option 2 already for the other issues since the last RFC and matters have evidently not improved since then for these issues. Selfstudier (talk) 17:40, 21 September 2024 (UTC)
How are multiple options usually assessed in a RFC, by a simple majority rule? What happens if the sum of two of the unreliable options outnumber the reliable one, or vice versa (2 reliable 1 unreliable). We have to be careful not to game the RFC to arrive at the decision we would like.:::::Andromedean (talk) 19:26, 21 September 2024 (UTC)
It's WP:NOTAVOTE, or it is in effect if all the !voters argue well wrt WP:PAG, which is not alaways the case. I think we can do the usual RFC format and ask editors to comment specifically about the troublesome issues in addition? Then leave it to the closer to figure it out as usual. Selfstudier (talk) 21:29, 21 September 2024 (UTC)
Surely we will end up with some version of option 2: nobody has suggested it's been unreliable since 1840, and there's clear consensus (I think) that the recent issues make green status untenable. So maybe we need to identify some possible specific additional considerations, unless we just let people articulate what they think and let the closer sort it out. BobFromBrockley (talk) 21:41, 21 September 2024 (UTC)
We've been trying to do that and getting nowhere, so might as well just go with the standard RFC unless there is an alternate workable suggestion. Selfstudier (talk) 22:32, 21 September 2024 (UTC)

I worry when there's no objective criteria. The number of complaints, breaches, court cases etc should have been terminal last time. Yet the JC is still shrouded in Green and deemed reliable with a note of 'no consensus' tagged on for issues relating to the Left, Palestine & Muslims. What about non-left politics and the Middle East generally and how often is the JC referenced in Wikipedia on other issues? Do Left wing publications have the benefit of editors picking out issues and periods which (may be) reliable, then tagging on the contentious part? Consider the Canary for example. Perhaps it's in a similar position to the JC in that it is regulated (by the tougher Impress in this case) and reports on enough contentious subjects to receive more upheld complaints than its peers over year 21/22 (3 in total). Yet Wikipedia classes it unreliable and biased in no uncertain terms. BTW Where is there any mention of bias for the JCs assessment?Andromedean (talk) 08:09, 22 September 2024 (UTC)

There is surely no question at this point that it should not be GREL/green past the 2019/20/21 point. The question is where it falls on the spectrum below that (additional considerations apply or other), for what/which subjects, and if the additional considerations point begins prior to 2019 or not. Iskandar323 (talk) 09:22, 22 September 2024 (UTC)

I can't currently address concerns about pre-existing patterns/complaints (which seem to be the substance of many people's contributions), but it doesn't appear to me that the very recent events are evidence of unreliability. This isn't the only publication that has been taken in by a rogue freelancer, and this seems equivalent in facts and in response (thus far, the responses may diverge in future) to a situation faced by the Guardian. I'm sure other examples of RS being taken in by fabricators can be found. Samuelshraga (talk) 12:47, 22 September 2024 (UTC)

It isn't about solely recent events, but instead about the culmination of years of editorial failings – described as "off the scale" for their frequency (for a small weekly publication).[15] Iskandar323 (talk) 13:52, 22 September 2024 (UTC)

RFC: twitchy.com

Am I Racist? is likely to be a... let's call it... frequently-edited article over the next few weeks. As of right now, its only two citations are from twitchy.com. I've seen a few mentions of it in the archives, but mostly in the context of other media properties its parent company owns. Its page Twitchy calls it a "Twitter aggregator and commentary website". That doesn't sound super reliable to me.

Is using Twitchy justified in this case? Snowman304|talk 06:59, 29 August 2024 (UTC)

Twitchy does at least have Editors, but the description ('Twitchy is a ground-breaking social media curation site powered by a kinetic staff of social media junkies. We mine Twitter to bring you “who said what” in U.S. & global news, sports, entertainment, media, and breaking news 24/7.') doesn't make it sound particularly reliable. It's also 'founded by conservative pundit Michelle Malkin' then 'sold to Salem Media Group, a conservative Christian broadcasting corporation' so bias may be a concern too.
With that said, it makes me wonder why the page has been approved at all with only two citations and from a potentially iffy source at that. It doesn't sound like it's evidenced a great deal of notability at this time. DarkeruTomoe (talk) 09:41, 29 August 2024 (UTC)
There was no approval of the page. It was a redirect, and converted into an article. Doing so skips NPP and AfC. -- LCU ActivelyDisinterested «@» °∆t° 20:42, 29 August 2024 (UTC)
The use in that article is just 'he said, she said'. It could be reliable in a primary attributed way (if the opinion is even due), but for that use you could just use the original social media post. It doesn't appear to add anything beyond the original social media posts, so using it in the way it's used in that article wouldn't be appropriate in WP:RSCONTEXT. -- LCU ActivelyDisinterested «@» °∆t° 20:47, 29 August 2024 (UTC)
That was basically my feeling too. I'm hoping this sparks a conversation that (eventually) leads to it being put on the WP:RSP list. Snowman304|talk 21:44, 29 August 2024 (UTC)
Sounds like it just scrapes content from Twitter with minimal filtering by humans. Not RS. JoelleJay (talk) 02:26, 3 September 2024 (UTC)
It's a Twitter aggregator with minimal human input, run by people on the fringe right. Not reliable. Toa Nidhiki05 19:40, 17 September 2024 (UTC)

Is Sardesai Unreliable?

Is Govind Sakharam Sardesai unreliable? Are his works considered WP:RAJ, i.e Maratha Riyasat or New History of Marathas? . Note, Marathi Riyasat is stored within Peshwa Daftar Sakharam himself was the editor in this archive on the recommendation of Sir Jadunath Sarkar another well known historian arguably the greatest in India history. More contemporarily known as the Pune Archives, Peshwa Daaftar was built during the time of Maratha Rule and was also used during the British Rule to archive historical documents. The cited source in relation to the following edit is[16] — Preceding unsigned comment added by Normstahlie (talk • contribs) 14:48, 22 September 2024 (UTC)

[Note]: the comment above replaced its original comment and reply requesting more information. SamuelRiv (talk) 16:47, 22 September 2024 (UTC)
This involves @Noorullah21:. Regarding WP:RAJ, it focuses primarily on a couple issues: a skewed or motivated bias of the caste system that is reflected in the quality of sources on populations (including quantitative surveys) and society, a general dubiousness of British East India Company sources, and various problems with turn-of-the-century ethnographers and ethnographies.
In the case of this use of Sardesai's 1929 history of the 18th century to describe a particular personal event in a battle (from primary records), I don't see any factor of WP:RAJ as applicable. Whether or not Sardesai has been generally discredited in his suitability a historian for WP's purposes (which would be outlined in WP:HISTRS), I don't know, and that is not apparent in this sourcing. It would probably better to take the debate on the nuances of this to the article Talk page, and/or to ask input from the wikiprojects WT:MILHIST and/or WT:INDIA.
More modern sources on this would of course always be preferable. I can contribute however that I did find some historiography on the influence of identity in the Sardesai-Sarkar debates, but this hardly approaches "discrediting" either historian. SamuelRiv (talk) 17:12, 22 September 2024 (UTC)
I agree, this is more something to take toward the talk page, but here are some excerpts I find relevant.
[17] - Page 222 "It does not require any detailed analysis to prove that Sardesai was not correct, and that he suffered from an anti-Mughal bias."
Sardesai has also been criticized by Jadunath: [18] "Sarkar [Jadunath] was very critical of Sardesai's use of Marathi bakhars, or historical ballads..."
I think Sarkar even in the context of this calls Sardesai a nationalist? [19] (page 133-134)
@SamuelRiv @Normstahlie Noorullah (talk) 19:13, 22 September 2024 (UTC)
I understand where you are coming from, but something I find rather contradictive is that the same author in the former post has specifically recommended Sardesai and their works, keeping them in the same regard as other modern historians such as Sarkar who is well known for their renown not only in India but in the whole world.
Quoting from the same author:- "In the light of what has hitherto been said we may examine the writings of a few modern Indian historians. Sardesai, Sarkar, Sen and Panikkar are representative historians by any standard; and it may be profitable to concentrate on their works. There can hardly be any doubt as to their contribution to Indian" [20], The author is indicatively recommending the aforementioned authors and keeping them in a high regard no matter the context.
For the second article you've given, the book itself seems to be prone to violating WP:NPOV, by calling Veer Savarkar an outright terrorist and not even giving a systematic analysis for such claims.
[21] Page 188.
Also, the criticism BY Sarkar is again a part of numerous exchanges between Sardesai and Sarkar which cannot be interpreted from a simple sentence, but from what we can infer the use of "Ballads" is the reason of Sarkar's criticality. Ballads often act as primary sources in Indian history, descriptions of historical figures (Like Nizamuddin Auliya by Amir Khusraw) hinting at their personality and accomplishments. masnavis written by Amir Khusraw's one of them being Miftah ul-Futuh written in praise of Jalal-ud-Din Khalji's victories, and another one of them being Khaza'in ul-Futuh recording Alauddin Khalji's construction works, wars and administrative services are regarded as historical sources despite being a form of poetry.
There is no doubt these ballads are often exaggerated which is the reason for Sarkar's criticism, but something to be noted here is that Sarkar himself worked with Sardesai on multiple occasions and they were close friends he was also the one who recommended Sardesai to be an editor at Peshwa Daftar where he reviewed thousands of documents and wrote his book which is in question here the "Marathi Riyasat".
From the context alone, it can be inferred that Sarkar is providing constructive criticism to Sardesai and not calling him a nationalist in any sense, he points out the recurring cycle of Nationalist Historiography which could be an outcome of Sardesai's works, Sarkar also himself admits that there is an unavoidable bias in historical narrative it is also too ambiguous to say that Sardesai committed any such blunders unless we have evidence to his bias which violates WP:NPOV, with enough contextual evidence. Normstahlie (talk) 21:49, 22 September 2024 (UTC)
The finer details of particular historians on particular subject matter is going beyond the scope of the RSN board and is a better discussion in the article Talk, or on one of the Wikiprojects I linked. I have prepared a detailed response about Sardesai's biography, but I will only post it when you choose a venue to move this discussion. SamuelRiv (talk) 22:02, 22 September 2024 (UTC)
The latter source mentioned by Samuel [22], is also the one cited by Noorullah this is a debate between the two historians and not a conclusion reached by either so I don't think this an appropriate way of discrediting or calling anything unreliable.
Quoting the article:-"The chapter ends by documenting the persistence of this tension, even between the intellectual positions held by Sarkar and Sardesai, who were otherwise united in their battles against the Puna school. The chapter thus demonstrates the early beginning of histories relating to identity-movements in colonial India and their impact on public debates about historians’ methods. On the latter questions, Sarkar had to make concessions even to his comrade-in-arms, Sardesai."
The concessions made here by sarkar makes me question the relevance of the argument made to discourse Sardesai's reliablity, it can also be inferred that they did not reach any conclusive end on either sides. Normstahlie (talk) 22:02, 22 September 2024 (UTC)

Is the Journal of Quantitative Description: Digital Media reliable?

There's a dispute on the reliability of this journal here. The journal is apparently peer-reviewed, and I don't see signs that speak against general reliability. Input is welcome. Cortador (talk) 08:05, 23 September 2024 (UTC)

A note from reading the discussion, although it might be original research to look into the reliability of a source it's not WP:OR as that only applies to article content. Editor should look into and question the reliability of apparently reliable sources. -- LCU ActivelyDisinterested «@» °∆t° 12:50, 23 September 2024 (UTC)
I'd say this is analysis, as dismissing a claim bases on another source a source cites means diverging from the conclusion the first source came to. Cortador (talk) 14:28, 23 September 2024 (UTC)
Analysis of sources is also allowed, as I've said in my comment below editors aren't as authoritive as academic sources but that doesn't mean that they can't evaluate the reliability of source - including critiquing it's use of sources. -- LCU ActivelyDisinterested «@» °∆t° 15:19, 23 September 2024 (UTC)
The journal seems reliable, that doesn't guarantee that the article is reliable but it's a strong indicator that it is. Although The Daily Beast isn't considered a great source for Wikipedia content external sources do not have to follow Wikipedia's policies. So the article writers who are academics with backgrounds in the area, and the people who peer reviewed the article (who I would expect to also have an academic background in the area) thought the source reliable enough for it's purpose in their article. However at the same time we should always be cautious of source washing, bad sources don't become good sources just by repetition.
Personally I don't see the details as overly contentious, but as with all things involved in the American culture war nothing is simple. Is the source reliable? Probably yes. But this is a contentious topic in a BLP article so it wouldn't hurt to find something else. There are quite a few reliable media sources stating the same as well as other academic sources I'm sure. Also given the content already has a couple of references does it need another? -- LCU ActivelyDisinterested «@» °∆t° 13:18, 23 September 2024 (UTC)
I think there is also a question of weight. Why should this source be included? The source was originally added to support the label "right wing" in the opening sentence. Unless there is a concern about the current sourcing, why would this additional source be needed? The same source was added later to support that someone had called Pool "extreme right". Is this a characterization that we should give weight to? Why is this specific paper being used? In the talk page discussion the paper was described as high quality but it's it? Lots of low quality papers are also published. How would we decide which papers are which? If this paper did a comprehensive study of Pool's statements and then reached this conclusion with explanation I think it would be of more value than when a paper is included seemingly because it supports a label an editor wanted to include. Including an academic paper to support the papers primary conclusions is far different than including the paper for an incidental claim made by the authors. This is especially true if the overall conclusion of the paper wouldn't change if the authors removed the quoted phrase. Springee (talk) 16:23, 23 September 2024 (UTC)
On How would we decide which papers are which? it can be useful to see if and how often the paper has been cited by others. This has been citing but not to any great extent.
On the issue of "extreme right" labels can be used but should be widely used by reliable sources to describe the subject. So if this is the only source using the "extreme" label it shouldn't be used. -- LCU ActivelyDisinterested «@» °∆t° 16:56, 23 September 2024 (UTC)
That's not relevant for general reliability - the source was originally removed for being a supposed "garbage source". Cortador (talk) 20:31, 23 September 2024 (UTC)
It seems relevant for the reliability of the source for the claim in question. Springee (talk) 20:42, 23 September 2024 (UTC)
Then it should have been removed giving a better reason. Cortador (talk) 21:01, 23 September 2024 (UTC)
All I can say is that I was not the editor who removed the source, and that I would not have classified it as garbage. This doesn't change my comment. -- LCU ActivelyDisinterested «@» °∆t° 21:31, 23 September 2024 (UTC)
The earlier comment by ActivelyDisinterested, we should always be cautious of source washing, bad sources don't become good sources just by repetition seems relevant. I am always cautious about the use of academic research for content which is not the explicit result of the research.
In this particular instance, the political categorisation of the article subject is an assumption of the academic paper, not an outcome, result or conclusion of it; carrying no greater reliability or weight (both terms plain English) than the source which the paper references. In which case, we should likewise reference that source, not the academic paper. Rotary Engine talk 23:16, 23 September 2024 (UTC)
Determining to include a claim like that in your publication based on another source is research. The DB article doesn't contain that exact statement; it is something the paper concludes from its content. Cortador (talk) 04:23, 24 September 2024 (UTC)
That sentence shouldn't be read in isolation from the rest of my comment. -- LCU ActivelyDisinterested «@» °∆t° 12:52, 26 September 2024 (UTC)
I'm reminded of a different discussion where some outlandish figures were sourced to a historian, they weren't from the historian but rather were in a quote the historian then refuted as being outlandish. This is similar to points better explained by Nil Einne below. -- LCU ActivelyDisinterested «@» °∆t° 12:59, 26 September 2024 (UTC)
Completely uninvolved in the dispute but decidedly COI as someone who has published in JQDDM. In the world of quantitative and computational social science, it has a good reputation. It provides a rare outlet for quantitative description, in contrast to a lot of social science journals that want splashy causal results. Because of that dynamic, a lot of the best data-based evidence doesn't get published because it doesn't lend to such a causal claim or, on the other end, it pushes researchers to publish statistically dodgy causal claims in order to get a paper accepted somewhere. So this exists as a place to publish bodies of evidence about a domain of digital media both for its own sake and for other people to use in their causal studies. In other words, it's a pretty conservative approach to scholarship that uses peer review to check data, methods, and descriptive statistical claims, and that outright rejects any paper that makes a causal claim. It would be expected to see new evidence and new claims based on that evidence, but it would be strange to see anything especially controversial come out of that publication.
But all that is whether it's generally reliable (the question in the heading). Looking at the particular claim, it's used for a "right-wing" label for Tim Pool. The paper, on a quick scan, doesn't look to be producing a list of people who are right-wing but rather include Tim Pool in its dataset among its right-wing sources imported from MBFC. Whether MBFC or Daily Beast (which is cited as part of the literature review), this is fundamentally a question of what to do when a detail in a generally reliable source comes from sources Wikipedia prefers not to cite directly. Usually, AFAIK, we defer to the reputation of the academic journals and involved peer review as the site of reliability. As an aside, while we don't allow citing MBFC directly [for good reason], there are hundreds of peer reviewed journal articles which do so (as well as its peers like Ad Fontes, NewsGuard, AllSides, etc.). Any study that isn't producing such a bias rating but rather wants to study differences in groups of media producers/consumers or the content of stories therein needs some ready-to-hand metric, and MBFC, et al. provide that. A while back I started an essay along the lines of "Deep down, nearly all research on media bias comes down to someone just watching and deciding" (alternately titled "media bias charts all kind of suck, actually"). I digress. — Rhododendrites talk \\ 18:30, 24 September 2024 (UTC)

I'm mostly in agreement with Rhododendrites. The point of RS is that we trust them to do their job right and ensure the claims they make are adequately supported. This includes deciding which sources they themselves trust as being sufficient to make claims. I'm unconvinced we should generally be second guessing these decisions. There will be some exceptions e.g. when there is substantial new information from when the RS we're using was published about the source they seem to be relying on but generally.

An important point is that since we don't expect RS to cite their sources generally, it becomes problematic when effectively a lot of the time we're trusting source A to have made the right decision to trust source X just because they didn't tell us they trusted source X; but not source B because they they told us they trusted source X. Especially since a lot of the time source which tell us their sources are better than sources which don't. (Although I'd acknowledge peer-reviewed primary research which would cite their sources may not be better than secondary sources like media reports which often don't.) And for a media report, I don't think it's even always accurate to assume that just because they link to some other source it's their only source. After all the stock answer when someone complains an RS is wrong because they didn't they didn't cite where the info came from is that we don't require it.

That said, I think it is important we distinguish between sources which have decided a claim originating elsewhere is correct/accurate and a source which is simply reporting it happened. So the wording the RS uses is important, especially for a media report. If an RS says "it's been confirmed" or simply makes a claim in their voice, then this surely means the RS has decided the claim is correct even if they link to the Daily Mail. By comparison, if a source says "according to the Daily Mail" or "the Daily Mail reported", this doesn't mean they've decided the claim/s in the Daily Mail are accurate just something worth of reporting. In the latter case, it's still generally fine to reject the info outright. With the former IMO we should normally not do so. Note IMO the same principle applies when it comes to anonymous sources. If some media reports something from an anonymous source as simply something an anonymous source told them, I think we have to be careful about including it. If it media organisation is clearly accepting the anonymous source as accurate or correct, that's a different thing.

Talk:Kevin Sydney#Morph is not confirmed to be Non-binary is IMO a very recent example of the application of trusting the RS. Gizmodo said "Empire Magazine, it was also confirmed". As I said in the discussion, as Gizmodo seems to be a clear RS (WP:RSPS), I don't think we actually need to worry that much about what was said in Empire Magazine. As it turns out, Gizmodo's decision is IMO fair enough since it seems Empire Magazine got the info from the people creating the source. Yes they didn't quote exactly what was said or by who for the part in question, but I think we should be trusting Gizmodo was right to feel that when Empire Magazine speaking with those two people, this means the info came from one or both of them, and their summary was accurate.

Note importantly I originally said Empire Magazine was probably an WP:RS but assuming it's the publication in our article, I'm actually starting to wonder. Or at least for reviews which this isn't. And to be fair, since the problems are they might be too beholden to large media companies and skew their coverage in their favour; it doesn't seem whether a character is non-binary is the thing we'd have to worry about. I mean the whole point is the info came from those who created the show. Either way though, I don't think Empire Magazine possibly not being an RS means Gizmodo's statement should be in doubt.

To be clear, I'm not saying we should never consider the originating source or what it said when an RS has decided to trust it. I gave the earlier example of where new info suggests the originating source is in far more doubt than it might have been when the RS decided to trust it. Besides that, if the claim made doesn't seem to even be supported by the originating source or what it the originating source says seems to be quite different from what the RS says than I think yeah perhaps the RS cannot be trusted. Although even this needs to be applied with care e.g. could there be multiple editions, if it's a very long source has the person read carefully? (A lot of the time, a full text search might not be enough given the various wordings that might be used unless the RS directly quoted the originating source but the quote is no where.) And as the Morph example IMO illustrates it can be frustrating when someone insists the claim isn't in the originating source or for some other reason isn't supported but when you actually check out the sources their claims don't add up.

Nil Einne (talk) 06:56, 25 September 2024 (UTC)

Yes. Reliable. Others have spoken at length. But, we rely on researchers who reliably publish to look at all kinds of things that we could not publish without their research. For our purposes, that's what they exist for. -- Alanscottwalker (talk) 10:47, 25 September 2024 (UTC)

vcoins.com seems to be plagiarism from wikipedia itself

On the Edict of Milan page, in the final paragraph in the Text section vcoins.com is linked to as a source. However, looking at the source, it says the exact same thing as the wikipedia page. Indeed, the entire vcoins article is taken from wikipedia, and the writings on wikipedia predate the article. I cannot find any earlier publications of this article from vcoins from other sources, so the entire thing must be plagiarized. Looking at other articles on the website, even from other authors, shows that the articles were simply taken from wikipedia. This entire site does not look particularly repubtable, and should probably not be used as a source on wikipedia. ChromiumEarth (talk) 06:22, 26 September 2024 (UTC)

Such sources are covered in general by WP:CIRCULAR, and so can be removed. The content was previously tag as {{citation needed}}, and someone tried to fix that with this source[23]. A good faith edit, but one that didn't evaluate the source very well. -- LCU ActivelyDisinterested «@» °∆t° 13:18, 26 September 2024 (UTC)

Unicorn Riot reliability

Is this website a RS?[24] Mhorg (talk) 23:15, 10 September 2024 (UTC)

I'd be cautious. Their "About Us" makes no mention of editors, fact-checking, or even who their writers are. It's a nonprofit set up to report "underrepresented stories" and present "alternative perspectives"; The New Yorker quotes one of the founders as saying they have a "reputation as a clearing house for data dumps on far-right groups".[25] Schazjmd (talk) 23:29, 10 September 2024 (UTC)
Just noticed we have an article on them. And I also see that a number of articles do cite them.[26] Schazjmd (talk) 23:40, 10 September 2024 (UTC)
They're certainly biased to the left, but they're one of the few organizations that has on-the-ground coverage of social movements/protests in the United States and engages in investigative reporting of the far right. They have both an editorial independence policy and a correction policy. I would presume they publish under the Unicorn Riot byline rather than individual names because they operate as a collective. So yes, be cautious and attribute their reporting in-text. voorts (talk/contributions) 00:28, 11 September 2024 (UTC)
A paper describing them as an "anonymous hacker and surveillance collective"[27].
A paper describing them as "activist journalism"[28].
They may have aspects that would lead us to treat them as a primary source. Barnards.tar.gz (talk) 19:50, 11 September 2024 (UTC)
Some news reporting is primary, some is not. We can't say the whole outlet is primary just because part of their work is invesitgative/on-the-ground reporting. voorts (talk/contributions) 11:40, 12 September 2024 (UTC)
Biased but reliable. Their investigations are solid and used by others. They report on topics not covered by more mainstream sources. If other more reliable sources exist for a claim, those might take precedence; if not, this source is fine. BobFromBrockley (talk) 05:35, 12 September 2024 (UTC)
If the source is widely agreed to be super biased, how could it be reliable? Seems to be Non-RS to me. These fringe left and right so called publications, which are just PR sites (think Breitbart) are not useful for us to reach NPOV, all we get is false balance. These far right and left websites are just laughable. Unicorn riot (as I type and the first time I have ever visited or heard of the site) is covering what appears to be a 4 person rally to ban astroturf. This is not what we need at wikipedia. Jtbobwaysf (talk) 04:01, 17 September 2024 (UTC)
Please review WP:RSBIAS. voorts (talk/contributions) 04:08, 17 September 2024 (UTC)
If something isn't notable (a 4 person rally), we'll not cover it, so this is irrelevant. UR is in no way comparable to Breitbart; Breitbart is (super)biased plus unreliable while UR is just biased. BobFromBrockley (talk) 09:00, 17 September 2024 (UTC)
My inclination is to agree with voorts and BFB here: Unicorn Riot is reliable for facts but biased. Loki (talk) 21:16, 20 September 2024 (UTC)
  • There is a surprising amount of academic coverage of them, which mostly seems to treat them as what we would consider "biased but reliable", eg. [29], as well as some decent WP:USEBYOTHERS that treats its coverage as reliable, eg. [30] and a lot of other cites to its databases. In addition to obviously being biased (it's an anarchist activist outlet), it is described as "alternative media", so WP:DUE issues may sometimes apply. But it's sometimes usable with attribution when those things permit it to be. --Aquillion (talk) 15:41, 26 September 2024 (UTC)

Neurotree

Is Neurotree a reliable source? I have come across it used to support the statement Leal comes from a long line of researchers that can be traced back from mentor to mentor all the way to Sir Isaac Newton in L. Gary Leal. There was a previous discussion here, but no conclusion. On the one hand it is contributed to by volunteers, but on the other hand the Wikipedia article suggests that some published sources have gone into the project. Thanks. Tacyarg (talk) 18:56, 24 September 2024 (UTC)

That it's maintained by volunteers would usually make me lean no, but the multiple journals/publications/studies/etc it's been cited in (per the lead at the Neurotree article) feels like enough to pass WP:UBO, thereby making it reliable. The Kip (contribs) 18:59, 24 September 2024 (UTC)
UBO wouldn't override SELFPUB, so we would still want assurances of some sort of editorial process. Though, I'm not sure people would consider any of this academic genealogy stuff all that contentious (of course, I could be wrong) so it could be sufficient to support these claims regardless. Then again, it could be argued that it might be undue weight, but again I don't really see the harm. Alpha3031 (t • c) 09:52, 25 September 2024 (UTC)
as someone in a neuro-adjacent field, I think its fine to fill in the gap and has enough ubiquity we should be able to use it. Agree with Kip. Bluethricecreamman (talk) 20:49, 26 September 2024 (UTC)
No. It is not reliable for us. We aren't qualified academic researchers, we rely on qualified academic researchers who reliably publish to look at things like this database and other information. And only when they do, we cite their publication for their analysis of it, not the database. Alanscottwalker (talk) 10:09, 25 September 2024 (UTC)

Comicbook.com

Entertainment news website launched in 2007, formerly owned by Paramount Global. Was mentioned in a discussion about DYKG over at VG/S, but no conclusion was reached. It's used on over 12,000 articles. That being said, is this website in any way reliable for info related to entertainment? — 💽 LunaEclipse 💽 ⚧ 【=◈︿◈=】 22:01, 26 September 2024 (UTC)

Depends on what claim it is used for. Ramos1990 (talk) 23:45, 26 September 2024 (UTC)
Ramos1990, can you please elaborate? — 💽 LunaEclipse 💽 ⚧ 【=◈︿◈=】 00:35, 27 September 2024 (UTC)
What a source is being used for matters as to if a source is reliable or not. Blogs and primary sources may be reliable sources depending on what the sources are being used for. From what I see on comicbook.com, they have an editorial team on news for gaming, anime, etc. They conduct interviews with people in industry and since a lot of news gets funneled by fans first, I don't see this as any less of a source in general. Ramos1990 (talk) 02:40, 27 September 2024 (UTC)

Institute for the Study of War

Institute for the Study of War is described on its own WP page as being an ultra-hawkish neoconservative NGO. It has been used as source by on 2024 Allenby Bridge shooting, in a report that is mostly cited to Israeli military and figures tweets at the end. Tagging @The Mountain of Eden: as the inserter of the material. Makeandtoss (talk) 11:04, 22 September 2024 (UTC)

Bias is not unreliability. Is there any evidence of unreliability? In the Institute’s talk page, the nearest claim to that is The Intercept (a biased reliable source) describing it as “of dubious objectivity”. The content is the NYT using it as a source, which is in fact evidence of use by others. I don’t know about its reporting on Israel, but having followed the war in Syria very closely I can confidently say ISW was one of the most reliable sources for facts about that conflict. BobFromBrockley (talk) 12:31, 22 September 2024 (UTC)
Yes, uncritically and exclusively reporting on claims propagated by the Israeli military, an institution known for long-term disinformation, makes it pretty unreliable for the Arab-Israeli conflict topic area. Makeandtoss (talk) 12:40, 22 September 2024 (UTC)
Can you present some evidence of this? What do RSs say about its reliability? BobFromBrockley (talk) 12:55, 22 September 2024 (UTC)
ISW's Ukraine coverage has been very good, lots of good technical analysis without much polemic. Can't speak for I/P. GordonGlottal (talk) 03:13, 24 September 2024 (UTC)
Obviously, an institution directly involved in a war is not a reliable source for information about the war due to conflict of interest concerns. Also, there has been many documented incidents in the past year about Israeli disinformation and misinformation, including the decapitated babies lie, to cite one example, which was first made by an IDF spokesperson, propagated by Netanyahu and eventually parroted by Biden.

Makeandtoss (talk) 13:08, 22 September 2024 (UTC)

How is the ISW directly involved? Why should we be particularly concerned about this specific think tank passing on IDF disinformation? Has any source suggested it has? BobFromBrockley (talk) 13:18, 22 September 2024 (UTC)
I was referring to the institution of the Israeli military which is undeniably unreliable. Propagating their claims and critically and exclusively by ISW makes it also unreliable. Not to mention it’s Hawkish neoconservative background and content which was described to be unreliable by the Intercept. Makeandtoss (talk) 14:56, 22 September 2024 (UTC)
Why are you saying ISW propagate Israeli claims uncritically and exclusively? The report you link does have a bunch of footnotes to IDF claims, but it also has footnotes to Iranian claims.
Intercept didn't say unreliable; they said "dubious objectivity". But that seems to be outweighed by the large number of RSs (including e.g. Al-Jazeera, that isn't pro-Israel) that seem to treat it with respect. BobFromBrockley (talk) 16:17, 22 September 2024 (UTC)
Because as you said the footnotes are mostly IDF tweets, which is clearly very lousy research. Makeandtoss (talk) 15:32, 23 September 2024 (UTC)
I would be wary of content that is found only on the websites of such NGOs and has not made it into any mainstream publication. Andreas JN466 13:04, 22 September 2024 (UTC)
Examples of use by RSs: [32] [33] [34] [35] [36] [37] [38] [39] [40]
These all relate to Ukraine, so refining the search to include Israel and exclude Ukraine: [41] [42] [43] [44] [45] [46] [47] [48] [49] BobFromBrockley (talk) 13:21, 22 September 2024 (UTC)
I agree the Institute is well cited by RS, and usually without caveat or criticism. Still, I question why we should go directly to such a source rather than a mainstream media source presenting information from them with attribution, as your examples do. A thinktank like that is more like a primary source than a secondary source, or rather something intermediate between the two.
Highlighting content from such a source that has not been deemed worthy of mention by any secondary sources risks straying into OR territory. YMMV. Andreas JN466 13:44, 22 September 2024 (UTC)
That's a good point, and I often ponder about that with the niche topics I'm interested in where the underreporting from mainstream sources can be frustrating and so we turn to second tier sources. I definitely agree that we shouldn't use it instead of better sources, but to determine it a bad source I'd need to see a more persuasive case. BobFromBrockley (talk) 16:24, 22 September 2024 (UTC)
I think they're very much still a secondary source (in relation to most topics). It sounds like you're getting at them being a WP:BIASED secondary source? I think that's fairly typical of NGOs though - most are reliable for facts but have political agendas of some sort. — xDanielx T/C\R 17:45, 27 September 2024 (UTC)
I don't see why a thinktank would be a primary source. I think it's a secondary source by definition, since it performs analysis of publicly available data.
Of course, not each and every study by a thinktank would get quoted by other media, so I don't see why it would be necessary to only quote other references that quote the thinktank.
I think the only question that we need to be concerned with would be: does this thinktank have a record of providing unreliale inforation? From what I am seeing so far in this discussion, the answer is "no", which means it should be listed as a WP:RS. The Mountain of Eden (talk) 02:14, 23 September 2024 (UTC)
If the best thing that can be said about a source is that they don't have a negative reputation, then that sounds at best WP:MREL. Some more context on what exactly is being supported would be helpful. Alpha3031 (t • c) 04:10, 23 September 2024 (UTC)
In this case we have evidence of positive reputation, per WP:USEBYOTHERS. BobFromBrockley (talk) 06:52, 23 September 2024 (UTC)
In this case, ISW is being used in the article linked by the OP as a secondary source for Kata'ib Hezbollah claims. That seems exactly appropriate to me. BobFromBrockley (talk) 07:01, 23 September 2024 (UTC)
@The Mountain of Eden: Thinktanks are often financed by, or closely allied with, one of the stakeholders in the events at issue, be it a government or an industry (tobacco, arms, etc.). That colours their reporting, and it distinguishes them from press sources that are – at least nominally – independent of government and industry. (That is why it is important to know who owns or finances an outlet, which is a key factor in the case in the preceding section.)
Example: The Washington Institute for Near East Policy, also cited in the article under discussion (it was actually mislabeled in the reference as The Institute for the Study of War) is, according to Haaretz, "known for its ties in the U.S. and Israeli government".
I think we would agree that government statements are primary sources, and newspaper reports are secondary sources. So I hope we can also agree that a thinktank with close ties to a government is somewhere in between an independent secondary source and a primary source.
Wikipedia articles should be based on reliable, independent, published sources with a reputation for fact-checking and accuracy (my emphasis). Andreas JN466 14:49, 23 September 2024 (UTC)
Employees of thinktanks are not government employees. Ties could be receiving grant money. By that same logic, public universities have ties to governments, as they are partially funded by the government. The Mountain of Eden (talk) 14:54, 23 September 2024 (UTC)
Well, universities traditionally have strong rules about academic freedom, and for good reason. Thinktanks do not have them. If you are working for a thinktank financed by the tobacco or oil industry, you are far more restrained in terms of what to research and publish than if you work for a university.
There are levels of academic freedom, and they are generally greater in universities than in thinktanks. Of course there are states that constrain academic freedom in universities, but that generally causes visible controversy. Not so in thinktanks – if you are not a good fit for their agenda, they won't hire you or get rid of you, and that is considered fair enough. A thinktank has a mission; it is not a university. Andreas JN466 15:00, 23 September 2024 (UTC)
Bias has to be shown. Mere connection is not sufficient. So far, I have not seen anything in this discussion saying that the Institute for the Study of War puts out tainted studies. The Mountain of Eden (talk) 15:04, 23 September 2024 (UTC)
Well, you were speaking in general terms above:
  • I don't see why a thinktank would be a primary source. I think it's a secondary source by definition, since it performs analysis of publicly available data.
So I answered in general terms. Speaking generally, there is a difference between an advocacy organisation like a thinktank, and a purely scholarly source, even though both may analyse publicly available data.
Speaking of The Institute for the Study of Wars, one of the sources in our article says:
The recent creation of the Institute for the Study of War47 is the most direct example of the strategic potential of an advocacy tank in this case. The initiative was taken in response to the 2007 stagnation in the Iraq and Afghanistan wars. A group of companies from the military sector make up the core founders and donors of the ISW, which deploys an aggressive strategy reminiscent of the defunct PNAC:
  • Direct links with political leaders thanks to the make-up of the board
  • Storytelling practices, producing, for example, the Surge: the untold story, a feature documentary on the importance of increasing the dispatch of troops to Iraq
  • Use of all possible communication techniques: rhetoric, slogans
  • Conferences and events attended by high-ranking politicians and military leaders
  • Agreements with the media
The PNAC was a neocon thinktank. So I think, in general, there may be good reasons to be wary of direct recourse to thinktanks. Media and, where available, scholarly sources provide a worthwhile filter. Andreas JN466 15:26, 23 September 2024 (UTC)
This discussion has been a little bit cross-purpose. There's no doubt ISW, like all think tanks and advocacy organisations - but probably like all sources period - has an agenda. The issue that concerns this noticeboard is whether that agenda leads it to be unreliable. To make that case we'd need to provide some evidence of unreliability, and there has been no evidence provided so far. The question of primary and secondary is a different question again. The primary sources for the involvement of KH in this incident are those in footnotes 6-7 of the ISW report: the official Telegram channel of KH and the Telegram of a KH spokesperson. ISW, passing on the contents of those Telegram channels, is a secondary source. The question for this noticeboard is can we trust ISW to be reporting them accurately. I see no reason not to. BobFromBrockley (talk) 16:33, 23 September 2024 (UTC)
I think you solved the issue well by finding a secondary source and adding a reference to that. The combined references – one Arab, one from the US – satisfy WP:DUE in a way that the thinktank reference alone did not. This also helps increase confidence in reliability. Andreas JN466 12:37, 26 September 2024 (UTC)

WP:USEBYOTHERS is a strong evidence of reliability. "Dubious objectivity" is about bias, not reliability. Btw they do a reasonably good job of covering the Russian-Ukrainian war and their materials are used extensively there as well. Alaexis¿question? 09:26, 23 September 2024 (UTC)

That is only one indicator, which clarifies: "If outside citation is the main indicator of reliability, particular care should be taken to adhere to other guidelines and policies, and to not unduly represent contentious or minority claims." There has been no other RS connecting the 2024 Allenby Bridge shooting with Iraq's Kata'eb Hezbollah; therefore, this is a minority claim as well from an unreliable source, with dubious objectivity per the Intercept. Makeandtoss (talk) 15:39, 23 September 2024 (UTC)
Are you referring to their endorsement of the attack? I see that now there is one more source for that so this became a bit of a moot point probably. Alaexis¿question? 07:35, 27 September 2024 (UTC)
WP:USEBYOTHERS is categorically not strong evidence of reliability... It is the weakest evidence of reliability which can be provided. Horse Eye's Back (talk) 16:34, 27 September 2024 (UTC)
  • Reliable with attribution but I would never use them without attribution. Their bias is undeniably large but I would argue against those who say that its significant enough to tank their reliability completely. One caveat is that I would avoid using them for anything resembling breaking news, they're just not the source you want for that... Their sweet spot is that middle ground between breaking news and when people actually get around to publishing books. Horse Eye's Back (talk) 16:33, 27 September 2024 (UTC)

Gregorian Bivolaru

How about https://www.crikey.com.au/2024/09/27/cult-misa-survivor-story/ ?

I have no specific edit in mind, but I want to know if Crikey is WP:RS. tgeorgescu (talk) 18:49, 27 September 2024 (UTC)

unless/until someone disputes it, assume its reliable..
I see no discussion about that source in the talk page. Bluethricecreamman (talk) 18:53, 27 September 2024 (UTC)
Well, the website looks like a newspaper, but I don't know if it is legit or just yellow journalism.
And since we speak of a highly controversial WP:BLP article, I don't want to take unnecessary risks. tgeorgescu (talk) 19:16, 27 September 2024 (UTC)
The Wikipedia article on the source, Crikey, gives some details. Looks like it should be treated like a standard news organisation unless there are specific concerns. -- LCU ActivelyDisinterested «@» °∆t° 19:23, 27 September 2024 (UTC)
Obviously with any BLP be cautious. For instance if the source attributes a statement you should do the same, and look out for sources 'not' saying something ("It's has been rumoured", "Sources have said", etc). -- LCU ActivelyDisinterested «@» °∆t° 19:27, 27 September 2024 (UTC)

Help confirm about book review by Dr "Philip Lewis"

  • Online publisher of the book review: The Center for Muslim - Christian Studies OXFORD
  • Book reviewed: Patel, Youshaa. The Muslim Difference: Defining the Line between Believers and Unbelievers from Early Islam to the Present
  • Reviewer: Dr. Philip Lewis.
  • Google search: 'Dr "Philip Lewis" Bradford University' suggests Dr. Lewis was lecturer or lectured at Bradford University. 1
If this is him https://www.montgomerytrust.org.uk/book-a-lecturer/lecturer-profiles/dr-philip-lewis/ he is retired. Slatersteven (talk) 13:42, 24 September 2024 (UTC)
Yes that seems to be. Bookku (talk) 13:46, 24 September 2024 (UTC)
In general, unless there is significant evidence saying otherwise, a source is probably reliable.
Please just WP:BOLDLY do the draft.
If the source isn't self-published or a blog or it's in red in WP:RSP, its probably good enough until someone throws a ruckus in your talkspace. You should not worry about getting approval for every source. Bluethricecreamman (talk) 23:58, 25 September 2024 (UTC)
Many thanks.
I suppose book reviews by academics of peer academic are positively helpful in achieving balance we expect in confirming a source as reliable sources. Bookku (talk) 06:54, 28 September 2024 (UTC)

Also Reviewer Yahya Birt @ muslimviews.co.za

Please also help confirm whether following review article @ muslimviews.co.za can be used as RS.

Bookku (talk) 10:06, 25 September 2024 (UTC)

The Music Trades

I did not encounter The Music Trades until yesterday, when I used the Wikipedia Library to access Gale ([50]) and EBSCO ([51]). The editor is a subject matter expert; it seems legit. Reliable/not reliable? (Apologies if The Music Trades has already been discussed; I couldn't find anything.) Thanks! JSFarman (talk) 21:07, 27 September 2024 (UTC)

It seems obviously reliable to me; is there a reason you think it might not be? voorts (talk/contributions) 21:11, 27 September 2024 (UTC)
Only that it was new to me and I have been reading music industry trades for a gazillion years. Thank you! JSFarman (talk) 21:27, 27 September 2024 (UTC)
JSFarman, a gazillion years?. [citation needed] Cullen328 (talk) 08:10, 28 September 2024 (UTC)
Cullen328, ok, fine, maybe not a gazillion years, but I was quoted in Billboard almost 40 years ago and that's gotta count for something. JSFarman (talk) 17:02, 28 September 2024 (UTC)
JSFarman, it certainly does. Cullen328 (talk) 17:05, 28 September 2024 (UTC)

Raksha-anirbeda

This source seems suspicious.

Claim: "The missile officially entered operational service in September 2023, as the world's longest range and most powerful extant ICBM system." in the article "RS-28 Sarmat".[1]

Jeaucques Quœure (talk) 14:07, 26 September 2024 (UTC)

The source is kinda rubbish but it also doesn't actually say it's the longest range. The closest thing it comes to saying most powerful not in the headline is that it has a an unmatched payload capacity. Alpha3031 (t • c) 04:33, 27 September 2024 (UTC)
The RS-28 is said to be liquid fueled. If that is the case, the fueling delay before launching makes it a sitting duck. A use-or-lose-it destabilizer. Disinformation. — Neonorange (talk to Phil) (he, they) 09:10, 29 September 2024 (UTC) —

References

  1. ^ Mahajan, Neeraj (2023-09-06). "Satan-II: The Deadliest Nuclear Missile in the World". raksha-anirveda.com. Retrieved 2024-05-27.

Are these sources appropriate for a private limited company specialising in Fintech?

Do these sources meet all 4 of the criteria to be considered for a private limited company: in-depth, reliable, secondary and strictly independent of the subject?

Which?

Best prepaid travel money cards 2024 Discover which are the best prepaid currency cards to save money on your trip

https://www.which.co.uk/money/credit-cards-and-loans/credit-cards/prepaid-euro-and-dollar-card-reviews-ag0Bt7D7bxKL

Finextra

Currensea smashes crowdfunding target

Travel debit card Currensea has raised over £1.7m from 760 investors in just four hours on crowdfunding platform Seedrs.

https://www.finextra.com/newsarticle/44400/currensea-smashes-crowdfunding-target?utm_medium=newsflash&utm_source=2024-7-2&member=81820

Fintech Finance

Travel Debit Card Currensea Smashes Crowdfunding Target in Just Four Hours as It Raises Over £1.7m on Seedrs

https://ffnews.com/newsarticle/funding/travel-debit-card-currensea-smashes-crowdfunding-target-in-just-four-hours-as-it-raises-over-1-7m-on-seedrs/#:~:text=In%202022%2C%20Currensea%20raised%20over,a%20total%20of%20%C2%A311m.

City AM

Fintech advised by former Amazon and Visa executives to launch travel card

https://www.cityam.com/fintech-advised-by-former-amazon-and-visa-executives-to-launch-travel-card/

https://www.cityam.com/london-fintech-currensea-launches-product-for-small-businesses/

Electronic Payments International

Travel debit card Currensea raises over £1.7m on Seedrs

Currensea smashes its crowdfunding target in just four hours raising the company's value to £28.5m

https://www.electronicpaymentsinternational.com/news/travel-debit-card-currensea-raises-over-1-7m-on-seedrs/

Yahoo Finance!

Travel debit card Currensea raises over £1.7m on Seedrs

https://finance.yahoo.com/news/travel-debit-card-currensea-raises-091509093.html

Pymnts

Currensea on Offering the Ability to Decouple From Banks While Giving Back

https://www.pymnts.com/next-gen-debit/2022/currensea-offers-ability-decouple-banks-while-giving-back SarahHunnings24 (talk) 12:36, 26 September 2024 (UTC)

That source isn't Yahoo Finance, it's an article re-listed by them. Cortador (talk) 20:16, 26 September 2024 (UTC)
Funding announcements are usually presumed routine and trivial. See WP:CORPROUTINE, and the rest of the CORP guideline. Also yeah, the Yahoo article is literally the same article as the Electronic Payments International one, it even says so at the bottom. Alpha3031 (t • c) 04:15, 27 September 2024 (UTC)
I wouldn't say it's in-depth coverage. Alaexis¿question? 20:28, 27 September 2024 (UTC)
Good to know thank you - would you say that Yahoo Finance as general source is okay or not? SarahHunnings24 (talk) 08:57, 30 September 2024 (UTC)
Yahoo publishes some original work, which is generally considered reliable, but most of what it publishes is copied from elsewhere (and a link is provided to the original at the top or bottom). Base reliability on wherever it got the material. — Rhododendrites talk \\ 13:27, 30 September 2024 (UTC)

Japan Forward

Seeking opinions on the reliability of Japan Forward, a publication by the Japanese newspaper Sankei Shimbun.

My own analysis: I suspect the source is unreliable for politics, society, history, and economics.

  • Open editorializing and downplaying of Japanese war crimes [52][53][54][55]
    • To be clear, I think there's a need for skeptical conversations about the extent of Japanese war crimes, but it's grossly inappropriate to editorialize and take "us vs. them" perspectives whilst doing so. The analysis should be detatched and not be made explicitly persuasive.
  • Editorializing on other topics as well [56][57]
  • Open nationalist bent: "We aim to reveal the true face of Japan to non-Japanese speakers in areas ranging from politics and economics to culture and society, actively reaching out to show the rest of the world the diversity of Japanese perspectives and the international efforts undertaken by Japanese people, corporations, and groups." ([58])

The source also discusses more neutral and trivial things like sports and entertainment; I don't have strong opinions on whether those articles are reliable. They seem fine. seefooddiet (talk) 20:20, 25 September 2024 (UTC)

For news, if it looks like an editorial, then you can probably treat it as WP:RSOPINION. A publication that fails to distinguish the two would probably be questionable, there doesn't need to be a discussion here to challenge and remove it where it seems appropriate, though from what I can see about half of current use seem to be for sport. Alpha3031 (t • c) 10:33, 26 September 2024 (UTC)
I'd argue the source falls under WP:QUESTIONABLE. J. Mark Ramseyer ([59]) has been widely rejected outside of Japan. That's just one example; the opinions in these articles are consistently considered fringe on contentious topics. seefooddiet (talk) 14:30, 26 September 2024 (UTC)
It is unreliable. Even aside from downplaying war crimes it self-admits to having a concerning editorial goal of propaganda ("to reveal the true face of Japan to non-Japanese speakers")[60], which additionally makes it unreliable in the general sense. It should be deprecated. Symphony Regalia (talk) 21:25, 29 September 2024 (UTC)
This looks bad even by Japan's general standard for reporting on Japanese war crimes (which is pretty low). Maybe this source could be used for something fairly harmless such as sports coverage, but Japan Forward is generally unreliable for anything approaching politics or history, and likely also social issues. Cortador (talk) 07:38, 30 September 2024 (UTC)
Unreliable and biased. The newspaper pushes right-wing propaganda including knowingly false claims. They continue to air the reactionary views of J. Mark Ramseyer about the comfort women topic even after many scholars have published scathing criticism, discrediting him. Binksternet (talk) 01:38, 1 October 2024 (UTC)

Showbiz411

Is Showbiz411 an RS for material about living persons (other than material about the person who is writing the material in question)? This was asked before, but not addressed.

Many examples across the project. But one is in the Tom Cruise article. fn 128 2603:7000:2101:AA00:14D1:B1C7:E218:EA9A (talk) 23:44, 28 September 2024 (UTC)

In general they are likely reliable with caution. Their chief editor is Roger Friedman, formally of Fox and the Hollywood Reporter. However they're use in articles about living people for anything negative should be avoided unless collaborated by other sources, as they are ultimately a celebrity gossip site.
In the Tom Cruise article it's used to verify an attributed statement from Friedman about a Vanity fair article and is further backed up by an article from CBS news, so it's use look ok. -- LCU ActivelyDisinterested «@» °∆t° 09:50, 29 September 2024 (UTC)
I don't know why we'd use a self-published gossip site for anything but the author's own opinions where it would be WP:DUE (perhaps for a movie review?). Doesn't seem like a good idea for BLP. — Rhododendrites talk \\ 02:38, 1 October 2024 (UTC)

Blocking Yahoo Finance and MSN so the actual articles have to be cited

I regularly come across articles that cite Yahoo Finance or MSN as sources, whereas those are actually just articles from other outlets they host. Citation tools like Citer also generate citations citing Yahoo Finance/MSN and won't detect the actual outlet, which is often just presented as a logo i.e. not detectable as plain text. I think both sites should be blocked as sources, not because they are inherently bad/unreliable, but to have editors cite whatever articles they host directly. Cortador (talk) 20:22, 26 September 2024 (UTC)

Yahoo Finance, at least, does publish original articles, such as https://finance.yahoo.com/news/wall-street-fears-lower-than-anticipated-iphone-demand-as-shipping-times-shrink-202345884.html and https://finance.yahoo.com/news/super-micro-computer-stock-plunges-on-report-of-doj-probe-185516211.html to pick two recent examples.
Also what do you mean by blocked as sources (like what method of blocking)? I've encountered older articles where the MSN or Yahoo source is the best URL to provide, even if the reference should probably the original source as the work= and Yahoo/MSN as the via=? Skynxnex (talk) 20:46, 26 September 2024 (UTC)
I wasn't aware that Yahoo Finance had original content. This may be the first original article I've ever seen from then. I suggested blacklisting them as a source, but if they do original reporting, that won't be an option. Cortador (talk) 05:48, 27 September 2024 (UTC)
This is annoying but a bit unavoidable. The original source should be used if possible, or do the |work= / |via= switch as Skynxnex suggests. I don't think the sites should be blocked, as they could be useful courtesy links. It's just something editor should keep an eye out for, as there's no immediate way of knowing what the actual source is without checking it. -- LCU ActivelyDisinterested «@» °∆t° 21:17, 26 September 2024 (UTC)
  • We should definitely encourage people to use the actual site, and maybe write bots that can detect those and tag or indicate them somehow so they can be fixed... but I think a technical block would be a mistake, since it could cause some newer / more inexperienced editors to dip entirely and not add something at all. An addition cited to MSN / Yahoo is still better than no source or no addition. --Aquillion (talk) 02:50, 29 September 2024 (UTC)
As Skynxnex says, Yahoo does publish some of their own, even if it drowns in a vast sea of aggregation. Citing the original is preferred, but we do have a "via" parameter in the citation templates which could be used for this. Meh. — Rhododendrites talk \\ 02:41, 1 October 2024 (UTC)

PulseSports

I'm coming to ask about the reliability of the source Pulse, specifically Pulsesports.co.ke for Sports related content on Wikipedia. Specifically, this source is being used on Armand Duplantis currently to support a statement in the lead that Duplantis is the "Greatest of All Time". The only thing I could find in the archive about Pulse in general was this brief comment Wikipedia:Reliable_sources/Noticeboard/Archive_446#Nigerian_News_Sources saying the puff prose we'd expect from PulseNG or even Vanguard if we're looking at the entertainment section. I have no experience with the website, but the content seems rather informal. There are other, better sources such as the Associated Press that are being used to support the statement that Duplantis is the "Greatest of all Time". There is currently an RfC on the Duplantis page about whether or not "Greatest of all time" can be included in the lead, which I left a comment on, but have not voted on. As I was looking through the sources, I was concerned about the reliability of this particular source and so wanted to get opinions. Brocade River Poems (She/They) 21:29, 28 September 2024 (UTC)

Pulsesports.co.ke and Pulse.ng are both parts of Pulse.africa. I would handle them the same way, they are reliable but may have undisclosed promotional articles. So the details in the article are likely reliable, but should be handled with caution. I would say that it shouldn't be used to verify exceptional statements such as "greatest pole vaulter of all time", but is that an exceptional statement in this case? There are multiple other sources saying the same, including the Olympic website itself. -- LCU ActivelyDisinterested «@» °∆t° 10:00, 29 September 2024 (UTC)
It was less a case of "it is an exceptional claim", but more just a general question about the reliability of the source. For instance, if there are better sources that make the same statement, it seems more prudent to use them, since the only other mention I had seen of something relating to this source said they were known for "puff prose". I'm not really contending whether the claim is accurate, just whether or not the source is appropriate for use on Wikipedia. A source can make a true statement and still be inappropriate for usage, as far as I know, so I just wnated to know what the opinions of the source was. Brocade River Poems (She/They) 04:16, 30 September 2024 (UTC)
In general it's appropriate/reliable in a limited way as described. As to if it should be used when other better sources are already used to support the content, that's not a reliability question. References are for the purpose of aiding verification, if the other sources already accomplish that then additional sources aren't required. -- LCU ActivelyDisinterested «@» °∆t° 12:43, 1 October 2024 (UTC)

Good source?

I asked on the help desk, and they referred me here. Is this a good source? I honestly don't have a clue.

https://orah.co/slavitza-jovan/ 3.14 (talk) 15:11, 1 October 2024 (UTC)

Maybe about cameras and photography, but not anything else. Slatersteven (talk) 15:14, 1 October 2024 (UTC)
So I can't use this for my Jovan Draft? 3.14 (talk) 16:02, 1 October 2024 (UTC)
Jovan? Slatersteven (talk) 16:09, 1 October 2024 (UTC)
Don't use it for a biography of a living person. Schazjmd (talk) 16:09, 1 October 2024 (UTC)

Buzzer Blog

Is Buzzer Blog a reliable source? Their "About Us" page suggests a small crew of writers including Cory Anotado, who seems to have some degree of bona fides in the game show industry, and I've seen many other sources cite it as a source itself. Is this sufficient for the blog to be considered reputable regarding information on game shows? I thought it had been ruled unreliable in the past, but I don't see it in the RSN archive. Ten Pound Hammer • (What did I screw up now?) 18:44, 30 September 2024 (UTC)

I not their about us page states "Our editorial content is written by individuals, and each article represents the opinion or view of the individual writers." So they are reliable in a WP:RSOPINION way, but depending on whether the opinion of that author is noteworthy it might not be due. -- LCU ActivelyDisinterested «@» °∆t° 18:53, 1 October 2024 (UTC)

Reliability of Airfleets.net

Hello. Airfleets.net, a website which tracks fleet data from airlines and aircraft information, is used in almost 600 articles. My main concerns are the website's lack of sourcing and information on editorial oversight. This topic has been discussed on the noticeboard but they haven't gained much participation: [Archive 21] [Archive 205]. A recent discussion that I had opened at Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Aviation#Reliability of Airfleets.net didn't receive many comments but agreed that it was leaning unreliable. I'm hoping that there could be more discussion to further discuss this topic. Aviationwikiflight (talk) 11:59, 28 September 2024 (UTC)

Sources should have a reputation for accuracy and fact checking. I'd agree with the project aviation discussion that it doesn't look to be user generated, but that beyond that it's difficult to tell as it doesn't state how it gets its information or what (if any) checks it does.
In some of the past discussions there was meantion that it could be self-published, but I can't find anything to show that's the case or who the author would be. Another way to show reliability is if they are considered reliable by other reliable sources. I can find a few uses as a citation in reliable academic works, but not enough to be completely convincing. -- LCU ActivelyDisinterested «@» °∆t° 20:17, 28 September 2024 (UTC)
Their contact us page says "Airfleets site is a personal hobby site on the aviation, we are not an airline, a travel agent or a broker." Horse Eye's Back (talk) 17:01, 1 October 2024 (UTC)
I missed that, clearly falls into the same category as planespotters. -- LCU ActivelyDisinterested «@» °∆t° 18:19, 1 October 2024 (UTC)
To me its pretty clearly self published, its the sort of enthusiast vanity site that was incredibly popular in the early 2000s (the operator often referred to ambiguously as "the founder" or "the webmaster")... And the parts which aren't are UGC... So the answer would be completely unreliable. Horse Eye's Back (talk) 16:53, 1 October 2024 (UTC)
@Horse Eye's Back: Regarding the user-generated content, while it is possible to submit changes, I've just found that there "may be" some sort of editorial oversight, such as this correction page. Thoughts? Aviationwikiflight (talk) 18:31, 1 October 2024 (UTC)
The editor is an amateur so it doesn't count for much, at the end of the day its a personal hobby site. Horse Eye's Back (talk) 19:31, 1 October 2024 (UTC)

mustreadalaska.com

Is mustreadalaska.com a reliable secondary source? With regards to how it's being used in end of the lede of https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/FairVote, it seems mostly to be repeating a quote from a primary source. The fact in question is whether Fairvote national opposed STAR voting in Eugene. Is a journalist quoting a non-journalist sufficient verification? https://mustreadalaska.com/voting-experiments-continue-eugene-to-decide-on-star-voting-and-ranked-choice-proponents-are-opposed/ A Tree In A Box (talk) 22:21, 30 September 2024 (UTC)

Can't find much about it on their website in terms of editorial oversight. Ramos1990 (talk) 12:02, 2 October 2024 (UTC)

The Jerusalem Post

In the past month the Jerusalem Post has repeatedly propagated a false claim in its articles several times, calling the Lebanese Ministry of Public Health, "Hezbollah-run," despite it not being affiliated with them and the fact that it is headed by an independent minister. [61] [62] [63].

It is worth noting that this is the same newspaper that propagated the false claim last year that a dead Palestinian child was a doll, which, although it retracted and apologized for, puts into question its fact-checking processes. [64] For example, on 12 October 2023, it published an article that it had confirmed seeing evidence for babies had been burnt and decapitated during the Kfar Aza massacre, that is still online with no retraction despite being debunked. Also, in 2020, Reuters revealed that the Jerusalem Post allowed an online deepfake to write bylines smearing a Palestinian couple over their activism. [65]

The JP is being used extensively in articles related to the unfolding war on Lebanon, such as in 23 September 2024 Lebanon strikes, where it has been used 11 times. Their reporting on the ongoing escalation seems to heavily propagate Israeli military figures and claims. Makeandtoss (talk) 10:30, 25 September 2024 (UTC)

Also see Talk:Gaza genocide/Archive 5#ICJ case delay sought by South Africa where JP has propagated and doubled down on what appears to be a fabrication.Selfstudier (talk) 10:43, 25 September 2024 (UTC)
At this point unclear. Andre🚐 16:06, 27 September 2024 (UTC)
Hezbollah is de facto in control of Lebanon and runs much of the hospitals in southern Lebanon. This is the Jerusalem Post showing its bias that we're all aware of.
It's worth noting that most news publications didn't remove their coverage blaming Israel for the Al-Ahli Arab Hospital explosion despite it being debunked as well.[66] Newspapers typically get stuff wrong during wars due to the nature of modern information warfare. Has the Jerusalem Post been unreliable beyond the normal standards for the area? Chess (talk) (please mention me on reply) 16:01, 27 September 2024 (UTC)
Often, it doesn't matter tho because you can usually find a better source for anything they publish. Selfstudier (talk) 16:12, 27 September 2024 (UTC)
I agree with the question Chess is asking. More to the point, are there any reliable sources that question whether JPost is reliable? Andre🚐 16:16, 27 September 2024 (UTC)
This is a good criterion. When there is a broad range of reliable sources pointing out that there is a problem with the reliability and journalistic standards of a publication, then we should take note of that. Andreas JN466 16:24, 27 September 2024 (UTC)
FWIW, I had a look what, if anything, there is on the Jerusalem Post. I found the following:
The last one is somewhat concerning but not so concerning that I would say we shouldn't cite the Post.
We do however need to be aware that at present, according to Reporters Without Borders, "Disinformation campaigns and repressive laws have multiplied in Israel." (Israel country report.) Andreas JN466 16:47, 27 September 2024 (UTC)
The Jerusalem Post wasn't involved in the deepfakes. They received an email from someone claiming to be a student at the University of Birmingham. Newspapers are not experts on state-of-the-art AI technology and I don't see how they'd foresee a scam that was literally impossible 5 years ago. Chess (talk) (please mention me on reply) 02:44, 29 September 2024 (UTC)
The “Oliver Taylor” pieces were op eds (“hot takes”) not news pieces, and 45 other publications also ran these op eds. Some of the 46 (including JP) removed them when Reuters uncovered it. Reflects badly on JP but wouldn’t affect us.
The Gaza “doll” story is more serious, however. Although that too was removed with an apology, and does not seem to be a pattern. BobFromBrockley (talk) 09:12, 29 September 2024 (UTC)
I don't like this criterion. Assuming that because there's a disagreement between reliable sources, one of those sources is no longer reliable is what promotes groupthink. Chess (talk) (please mention me on reply) 02:32, 29 September 2024 (UTC)
@Chess: Note that the article regarding the debunked myth of beheaded babies that is still online has the assertion that JP had both seen and confirmed evidence of decapitated babies. So it was not a reporting of a third-party claim, but an internal fabrication that has not been retracted yet. So I don't think this is an appropriate analogy with the hospital incident.
Also Hezbollah running most of the hospitals in the south, or Hezbollah having influence in the government, has nothing to do with the Lebanese health ministry being "Hezbollah-run." So this is clearly another false claim being propagated for political reasons. Makeandtoss (talk) 11:01, 30 September 2024 (UTC)
Hezbollah is a part of the current Lebanese government and is known for its influence on the Lebanese politics in general (some have called it "the most powerful single political movement in Lebanon").
So you can't definitely say that the ministry is *not* Hezbollah-controlled just because it's currently headed by a minister from another party. Having said that, if this is the only source that claims this, we definitely shouldn't use this characterisation on Wikipedia. I'm not sure if anyone has suggested to do it. Alaexis¿question? 20:26, 27 September 2024 (UTC)
I think a certain amount of caution is appropriate with JP. It is definitely lower tier than BBC, CNN, AFP, Reuters, etc, and should be a second preference after them. Where we use it, we should seek to triangulate with other sources. But I don’t think there’s a pattern of unreliability that would make us presume against ever using it. The whole topic is fraught with biases and we just need to always be vigilant and avoid being hasty with our article in this area. BobFromBrockley (talk) 09:15, 29 September 2024 (UTC)
Agreed. Andreas JN466 20:02, 29 September 2024 (UTC)
i think the question to ask is if the error is systemic? god knows the nytimes was a mouthpiece for bush propaganda during the iraq war including all the lies Judith Miller published. we can def sort through the unsupported and untrue articles if other reporting disproves it as long as error isn’t systematic Bluethricecreamman (talk) 12:49, 30 September 2024 (UTC)
JP is not a systemic problem, it's just nationalistic jingoism (everybody that Israeli arrests in the West Bank is a terrorist for example) and sloppy journalism in general with some reasonable stuff sandwiched in the middle. ToI is a better source for most of what you would find in JP. Selfstudier (talk) 13:33, 30 September 2024 (UTC)
Agree with Selfstudier BobFromBrockley (talk) 19:35, 1 October 2024 (UTC)
The JP is undeniably extremely biased, using very loaded, propagandistic and often racist language (mirroring the rhetoric of Netanyahu and IDF spokesmen) and propagating the Israeli regime's line. I honestly wonder why it has not been deprecated yet, as I don't see any reason to think that it is any better than the sources deprecated. It might well be that some of what it publishes is factually correct, but the same can be said of a lot of the sources on the deprecated list. RT also publishes a considerable amount of factually correct information, but that did not prevent it from being deprecated nevertheless because of its bias and history of posting misinformation and conspiracy theories. The JP is no different in my view. --Te og kaker (talk) 18:13, 2 October 2024 (UTC)

AccuWeather for damage estimates

On Hurricane Helene, I added a claim from the Associated Press that referenced an AccuWeather estimate of Helene's economic impact, that estimate being of 95-110 billion 2024 USD, into the article's infobox. One editor, @CycloneIns, reverted my edit citing unreliability, and after I reinstated, another editor, @Zzzs, re-reverted it. The estimate is currently still in the article (in section Impact#United States).

My understanding, reading through previous RSN entries, was AccuWeather was unreliable for their longer-term forecasts, which I can stand by. However, no discussion as to whether AccuWeather as a whole had come up (except for a sockpuppet's, which will be ignored). Apparently, silent consensus is that AccuWeather is generally unreliable for estimates, the discussion of which I had never been party to, and I'm opening this RSN thread to see if we can't get this sorted and set in stone for the future. Is AccuWeather reliable for damage estimates? GeorgeMemulous (talk) 01:15, 29 September 2024 (UTC)

I read the article on the associated press and not only it mention Accuweather claim, but it also mention Moody’s Analytics claim of $15-26 billion. So I get that they mention Accuweather claim, but since they mention Moody’s as well, it looks like they just showing the different organizations on what they *think* what the cost could range in. If AP just mentioned Accuweather claim then I think it would make a case on reliability, but you could argued that they mention Accuweather claim not fully on reliability but on how Accuweather is a well known weather organization. Not sure if being well known makes a good case of reliability or not. TheHumanFixer (talk) 01:28, 29 September 2024 (UTC)
Given that the source describes the Accuweather figure as a 'preliminary estimate', regardless of whether they are reliable or not there seems little reason to include it. More accurate estimates are likely to be forthcoming when people have had the opportunity to assess the damage. AndyTheGrump (talk) 01:47, 29 September 2024 (UTC)
Infoboxes are very good for displaying simple information quickly, but are very poor at giving context to information. Giving an estimate of $15–110 billion, as would seem appropriate given the information, is also so overly broad as to be uninformative. Used in the articles text where it can be contextualised, such as who is making the estimates, is a better idea. -- LCU ActivelyDisinterested «@» °∆t° 09:36, 29 September 2024 (UTC)
Some more context: The estimate was 95 - 110 billion by AccuWeather. This was an estimate of total economic loss, as stated by AP. Moody's Analytics put the 15 - 26 billion dollar estimate on property damage alone. Total economic loss is used more often and it's where we get the 100+ billion dollar cost for Hurricane Ian. It's the one used by NOAA's monthly Billion Dollar Disaster report, which, when that's issued in October, will give a more reliable estimate to the disaster's cost. GeorgeMemulous (talk) 12:56, 29 September 2024 (UTC)
Also, I'm specifically here to ask whether AccuWeather's estimates are reliable in general, not whether or not this specific estimate belongs in the article's infobox. Silent consensus is that AccuWeather isn't reliable, so I want to settle this here so a more formal decision can be made and to avoid arguments like this in the future. GeorgeMemulous (talk) 12:59, 29 September 2024 (UTC)
The problem is context is key. They could be reliable with intext attribution in the body of the article, such as "AccuWeather estimates the cost to be...", but unreliable for inclusion in the infobox. -- LCU ActivelyDisinterested «@» °∆t° 12:39, 1 October 2024 (UTC)
Accuweather damage estimates are not reliable are often bloated way out of proportion compared to other estimates. I don't see any reason why we should change our stance on the estimates now. We have not used them in articles since I started in the tropical cyclone project seven years ago. Noah, BSBATalk 00:53, 30 September 2024 (UTC)
There are two references to AccuWeather estimates I can easily find: one at Hurricane Harvey#Economic loss estimates (65 million over the NOAA estimate) and the aforementioned estimate at Hurricane Helene#United States 2. I don't exactly doubt the estimate's unreliability, moreso the fact that they are very much used in these articles in context. GeorgeMemulous (talk) 12:55, 30 September 2024 (UTC)
To be honest; I don’t think any source is necessarily going to be reliable for damage estimates when those estimates are done before the damage is actually assessed.
So in my opinion, none of the news sources “assuming” the damage to be XYZ billion dollars is going to be reliable. Because they don’t know the scale of the damage.
The only time a damage estimate is really going to be reliable is going to be after all the damage is assessed; and once we start seeing final reports.
That said; I do believe that AccuWeather should still be considered a reliable source for other things NOT pertaining to the damage estimates. Hurricane Clyde 🌀my talk page! 13:38, 2 October 2024 (UTC)
That said; I think a financial institution like Moodys is probably going to be a little more reliable than AccuWeather; but they all will be potentially inaccurate until after a final report is done. Hurricane Clyde 🌀my talk page! 13:41, 2 October 2024 (UTC)
My current understanding of the consensus built so far:
  • AccuWeather is somewhat unreliable on the efficacy of their damage costs. Their other content is generally considered reliable, with the exception of future forecasts (see WP:CRYSTALBALL).
    • AccuWeather should not be cited in infoboxes for damage costs specifically.
    • Links to AccuWeather estimates can be made in articles, provided the estimates are directly attributed in the text to AccuWeather.
This is what I gather the consensus is for now. I've bolded some parts to assist those going through archived RSN pages for information about this. GeorgeMemulous (talk) 20:53, 2 October 2024 (UTC)

IGI Global

I have never had any cause to use this as a source, I'm just curious. This publisher is flagged as a predatory publisher on all the citation scripts, but I've noticed its presence in several recent GAs and FAs, and I can't find anyone bringing it up recently. It is listed as the publisher of a citation in 1000+ articles. See, for example Education (recent GA), Knowledge (recent GA), Ethics (recent FA), Deep Blue (chess computer) (recent GA), probably more these were just the ones I noticed.

IGI Global is listed as the publisher in citations in 1000+ articles, including a lot of high level generalist ones and many vital articles. Again, have no reason to use this source myself, but if it is truly 100% unreliable then it is a big issue and we should probably make it more clear since people keep using it even in recent FAs and GAs. We seem to have declared it unreliable in 2017 or so. I tried to track down why it was declared predatory and it seemed less clear cut but I'm not an academic so who knows. PARAKANYAA (talk) 18:42, 30 September 2024 (UTC)

Pinging @Phlsph7, @Lee Vilenski, and @The4lines. voorts (talk/contributions) 22:25, 30 September 2024 (UTC)
See
Amongst others. It's a vanity press. Not reliable. Headbomb {t · c · p · b} 23:46, 30 September 2024 (UTC)
These are two blog posts from nearly 20 years ago, the root allegation of which partially stems from a wikipedia talk page. Is that enough to nuke all of it? Really? PARAKANYAA (talk) 00:13, 1 October 2024 (UTC)
There's more, it's on Beall's list of vanity presses for instance. Employees working at IGI also called it a vanity press (see Glassdoor reviews etc...). There's plenty more in forums (thought to be fair, there are also people that say they had good experiences with IGI), but the overall feeling is that IGI is at best useful for CV padding. Headbomb {t · c · p · b} 00:33, 1 October 2024 (UTC)
The Beall's list is citing the two blog posts, and notes: "note: this publisher is a member of COPE, which should mean they adhere to their ethical standards; please read this, this and this, and decide by yourself". This just feels very circular to me. We're declaring it predatory because Wikipedia users in the 2000s complained on a talk page. Odd. Tagging 1000+ pages, including FAs and GAs, with the "unreliable sources" tag is going to be very annoying I guess. PARAKANYAA (talk) 00:35, 1 October 2024 (UTC)
And also, despite the fact that it has been declared predatory for literal years, people constantly add IGI Global books as citations, to the point where it made it through FA review without comment. Is there any way to make this not happen, then? PARAKANYAA (talk) 00:46, 1 October 2024 (UTC)
The Bogost blog post isn't just repeating claims on a Wikipedia Talk page as fact. It brings other evidence: As you will doubtless agree, a letter addressed to Prof. _____ probably does not constitute a “personal invitation.” In fact, IGI’s is one of the weirdest emails I’ve received in recent memory, from the bizarre subject line about “copyright years” down to the bad English of the “perspective editor” (someone with enough foresight to delete?) and “honorary advisory board” (a board that does something only in name?). Some of my colleagues received the same message as I did, so it was clearly sent in bulk. In the other post, Wikipedia makes only a cameo appearance: Who in their right mind would pay prices like this? I surfed a little further, as I had never heard of any of the editors and authors of these books. The Wikipedia entry read just like the advertising blurb - and quoted only articles that reprint press releases by the company. I don't see how these authors' looking at Wikipedia as part of evaluating a publisher calls that evaluation into question. XOR'easter (talk) 23:09, 2 October 2024 (UTC)
IGI Global is what made me realize a lot of the sourcing to determine what's considered "predatory", other than Beall's list, pretty much comes down to someone writing a blog post saying "looks suspicious to me". In this case, it's a blog post by Ian Bogost which takes as its source... a Wikipedia talk page. And then Bogost's blog post is referenced in that first link above.
That's really where we're at? Wikipedians deprecating thousands of publications because of a blog post citing Wikipedians? It seems like ever since predatory publishing became a "known thing", we've been so desperate to root it out that the bar for what counts as evidence is really low.
Here's where I disclose that I have a COI as someone with a chapter in a book published by IGI many years ago. My own experience with them was through the two academics editing a book, whose names I recognized. I submitted a chapter (one which cited Bogost, coincidentally) and went through a long peer review process. Didn't seem anything "vanity press" about it, but I didn't deal directly with the publisher much IIRC. IGI charges a lot for the books, and I can see now they aren't particularly well respected. Obviously I didn't know at the time and I wouldn't work with them again, but charging a lot and deferring to the editors a lot is an all-too-common problem with academic publishing that isn't specific to IGI. I suppose you can ignore this opinion if you think it's based in self-interest/bad faith, or you can wonder why we're ok with disregarding an entire publisher and thousands of potential sources based on a blog post that cites a wikipedia talk page. ...Or why we would treat a book edited by respected academics in their field, with a peer review process, as somehow less reliable than an academic's personal blog. — Rhododendrites talk \\ 00:12, 1 October 2024 (UTC)
It's a vanity press, and we should treat it as such. Which doesn't mean always unreliable, but we should treat it as unreliable by default, and WP:SPS at best. Headbomb {t · c · p · b} 00:30, 1 October 2024 (UTC)
IGI Global was called a "Rogue book publisher" and a vanity press in this journal article linked by Headbomb. They cite the same blog posts again, but it did pass peer-review. I'm convinced, we shouldn't use their stuff. MrOllie (talk) 00:58, 1 October 2024 (UTC)
fwiw that is the same link posted by headbomb above PARAKANYAA (talk) 00:59, 1 October 2024 (UTC)
The argument that Bogost and that journal article present are that these are "write-only" in the sense of charging exorbitant prices such that nobody will read the material. That few will read them has nothing to do with WP:RS. That citation doesn't present evidence and doesn't even make the argument that the quality of the material they publish is bad or doesn't undergo the kinds of editorial processes we look for when determining RS on wikipedia. Only on Wikipedia is a peer reviewed article written, reviewed, and edited by academics working in their field, considered a lower quality source than e.g. People Magazine or NY Daily News on the basis of a couple people writing blog posts criticizing the publisher (and not any of the editors/authors) for the amount it charges... — Rhododendrites talk \\ 02:29, 1 October 2024 (UTC)
Yeah I don't really get how this is an unreliability question if there is proper peer review. I mean, it's scummy business practice, but that's kind of the entire publishing industry. PARAKANYAA (talk) 02:48, 1 October 2024 (UTC)

Thanks for the ping. IGI Global does probably not fulfill the requirements of high-quality sources. I'll try to find replacements for it in articles I'm working on. I'm not sure that the evidence presented so far is strong enough to categorize it as generally unreliable. Phlsph7 (talk) 11:25, 1 October 2024 (UTC)

  • If it's a vanity press then everything it 'publishes' is really self-published by the author, so WP:SPS applies. This means that IGI Global are not unreliable or reliable. They don't factor into judging the reliability of the source, instead reliability depends on the author. -- LCU ActivelyDisinterested «@» °∆t° 12:22, 1 October 2024 (UTC)
    For FA or GAs though that would make it de facto completely unusable. So if it is a vanity press it basically cannot be used anywhere. PARAKANYAA (talk) 18:29, 1 October 2024 (UTC)

MassLive

Is MassLive [67] reliable? I am unable to find a defined fact-checking policy anywhere or anything that can help me determine its overall reliability, but they are owned by Advance Publications which also owns Wired, a reliable source as per WP:RSP. Jurta talk/he/they 19:20, 25 September 2024 (UTC)

MassLive is the website of The Republican, so I'd assume so. Seems like a fairly standard city/regional paper. The Kip (contribs) 20:19, 25 September 2024 (UTC)
According to WP:RSP, "Wired magazine is considered generally reliable for science and technology", so I wouldn't assume that Wired is reliable for all types of information. I would thus not assume that MassLive is reliable because they're both owned by the same company. Based on the company's profile, I would say that MassLive is reliable for local events and issues. 23impartial (talk) 02:12, 26 September 2024 (UTC)
Of course, should've been obvious two websites with different topic coverages wouldn't share the same mutual reliability. I figured the relation would've been worth mentioning, though. Jurta talk/he/they 13:42, 26 September 2024 (UTC)
Yes, absolutely. It is important to consider the relation 23impartial (talk) 18:09, 28 September 2024 (UTC)
There has been a trend towards discounting discussions with few participants so I will note that I agree with what has been said about MassLive's relationship with The Republican and that it is reliable for local events and issues. Horse Eye's Back (talk) 18:08, 3 October 2024 (UTC)
I agree with Horse Eye's Back that MassLive should be considered generally reliable for Massachusetts and New England news. I also want to say that sources should not be evaluated based on what other media outlets their parent companies own. After all, News Corp owns the Wall Street Journal, a generally reliable source, and the New York Post, a generally unreliable source. Cullen328 (talk) 18:22, 3 October 2024 (UTC)

Unicode Discussions on Nivkh alphabets

I am mediating a dispute about the Nivkh alphabets at the Dispute Resolution Noticeboard. It appears that there is one main content issue. That is whether the letters Қ қ Қʼ қʼ Ң ң Ҳ ҳ and the letters Ӄ ӄ Ӄʼ ӄʼ Ӈ ӈ Ӽ ӽ are interchangeable (allographs) or are different letters. The question is whether a series of discussions on the Unicode discussion board are reliable sources. One of the participants writes:

Participants include linguists who specialize in the Siberian languages that use them. An example is here: L2/23-015 Comments on CYRILLIC CHE WITH HOOK’s use in Khanty and Tofa (Tofalar) (L2/22-280).

Is this a reliable source, and other related documents reliable sources?

Robert McClenon (talk) 03:37, 3 October 2024 (UTC)

I don't see any reference to Nivkh in the document you linked. In general, I think that such documents have some weight, especially if the feedback comes from experts. Alaexis¿question? 11:03, 3 October 2024 (UTC)
I didn't see any reference to the Nivkh language in the document either. One of the parties said that it was about the Cyrillization of Siberian languages in general. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Robert McClenon (talk • contribs) 15:45, 3 October 2024 (UTC)
I'd think it's straightforward that these public discussion documents from named academics are WP:ExpertSPS at face value (that is, absent judgement of quality), right? SamuelRiv (talk) 17:16, 3 October 2024 (UTC)
In general no the forum posts on the discussion boards are not reliable sources. However if they are by a verified expert (WP:SPS) then they might be. -- LCU ActivelyDisinterested «@» °∆t° 12:45, 4 October 2024 (UTC)

www.ace.hu

Is used by 11 articles. I am concerned both because of this discussion from 2020 which implies that it copies content from Wikipedia and because of a conversation I had with Elisabeth Bik on X, where she said it might be predatory. Is that really a source we should be using? JoJo Eumerus mobile (main talk) 18:24, 3 October 2024 (UTC)

Noting that I have mentioned this discussion in a conversation with her, too. JoJo Eumerus mobile (main talk) 18:26, 3 October 2024 (UTC) JoJo Eumerus mobile (main talk) 18:26, 3 October 2024 (UTC)
This is a bit complicated. Half of the uses are for a book, Hungarian Archaeology at the Turn of the Millennium, published by Hungarian Ministry of Cultural. It appears ace.hu is just hosting a pdf copy of the book. Most of the other uses are also to pdfs. If ace.hu is hosting pdf's of other reliable sources then that would be separate from its own reliability. -- LCU ActivelyDisinterested «@» °∆t° 17:41, 4 October 2024 (UTC)

LionhearTV

A few days ago, @Royiswariii raised a concern regarding using LionhearTV sources in Bini (group), saying that the source is unreliable. I have started a discussion on the article's talk page to ask for preliminary feedback before raising it here in RSN. LionhearTV was used as a reference in the article, mainly for supporting statements or events that are not largely covered by other sources, though factually accurate.

For a short background about the subject of concern, LionhearTV (established in 2008) is a blog tackling entertainment news in the Philippines. It is used in more than 300 Philippine entertainment articles here on Wikipedia.

The concern with LionhearTV is whether it is accepted as a reliable source here in Wikipedia or not. As I mentioned above, the source is a "blog", though it is unsure whether LionhearTV is a personal blog (failing WP:UGC) or a news blog (which may pass WP:NEWSBLOG). AstrooKai (Talk • Contributions) 23:21, 2 October 2024 (UTC)

It appears to be owned by eMVP Digital who run several different sites in a similar vein. However searching online it appears likely that eMVP Digital has only one employee. It's difficult to discern anything more than that. It may come down to how it's used, it maybe unreliable for contentious statement or comments about living people, but reliable for basic details. -- LCU ActivelyDisinterested «@» °∆t° 17:33, 4 October 2024 (UTC)
It's quite surprising to learn that eMVP Digital might be run by just one employee, considering the multiple sites it manages and the fact that LionhearTV has the RAWR Awards, which both GMA Network and ABS-CBN have recognized in their last annual awards (with both networks nominating works for the awards).
I agree with your point that LionhearTV could be fine for basic details, but not for contentious info about living people. I’m still open to comments from other editors. Thanks for sharing your insights. AstrooKai (Talk • Contributions) 18:30, 4 October 2024 (UTC)

Grenada

There has been a debate with User:Lord Dim 1 regarding Grenadian honours system, in particular whether King Charles III is sovereign of Grenada's orders or not.

They initially cited the claim to the Grenada Monarchist League's site [68], but being a WP:SPS the League's site is not reliable. I removed the source [69], but they quickly re-added the content [70] this time citing it to "www.gg.weboffice.gd", which claims to be the website of the Governor-General of Grenada.

Now, per the official website of the Government of Grenada (and the League website - see their contact section), the official website of the Governor-General is "www.gov.gd/index.php/government/governor-general". That weboffice site initially copied content from Canadian GG's site and has now plagiarised content from the League's site.[71][72] I challenged the source [73], but they reverted the edit [74] saying: "Been in contact with the GML, who gave permission to the GG’s Office to utilise sections of their website on a provisional basis".

This has been going on at articles: Order of the National Hero (Grenada), Order of the Nation (Grenada), and Order of Grenada.

The same user changed the website of the Governor-General from the official one to that weboffice one at the GG's article. [75]

So, I'm interested in knowing whether https://grenadamonarchist.org/ and https://www.gg.weboffice.gd/ are considered reliable sources on Wikipedia or not. Peter Ormond 💬 17:56, 29 September 2024 (UTC)

For some added context on the Governor-General’s Office’s website gg.weboffice.gd: it was previously listed on the Wikipedia article Governor-General of Grenada and removed 15 February 2024 (by myself) because the website had been taken down (evidently for remodelling). When the website was brought back online, I re-added it, as that was the previously listed official website. Lord Dim 1 (talk) 23:05, 29 September 2024 (UTC)
Regarding the Governor-General of Grenada article, here is a partial timeline of the website parameter: Changed by InternetArchiveBot in October 2017 with this edit to go from gov.gd to web.archive.org; Changed by CaribDigita in March 2022 with this edit to go from web.archive.org to gov.gd; Changed by Lord Dim 1 in June 2022 with this edit to go from gov.gd to gg.weboffice.gd; Changed by Lord Dim 1 in February 2024 with this edit to go from gg.weboffice.gd to gov.gd; Changed by Lord Dim 1 in September 2024 with this edit to go from gov.gd to gg.weboffice.gd which is the current link. It was the 'previously listed official website' because of your 2022 edit. --Super Goku V (talk) 06:47, 30 September 2024 (UTC)
Back track. The official government is always : www.gov.gd. Usually the OPM's page has a list of links to the official government sites whenever parties switch. It appears the monarchy has since removed their separate kingdoms sub pages. Grenada's was "royal.gov.uk/grenada" In terms of whether the Kingdom of Grenada vested their national honours in the Monarchy, two spots usually clears that up. The Constitution may state status on 'national symbols' vestment. The other spot is many Caribbean nations logged their national symbols into the www.WIPO.org in the E.U. so that it's legally protected under international patent in case of war or invasion(s). CaribDigita (talk) 10:13, 30 September 2024 (UTC)
Yeah. My point was that it was at gov.gd until InternetArchiveBot attempted to fix the link, which went unnoticed for years until your fix in March 2022, which was then changed in June 2022 to whatever gg.weboffice.gd is. --Super Goku V (talk) 22:46, 30 September 2024 (UTC)
gg.weboffice.gd was linked to directly by the official gov.gd website as late 10. October 2023. This was around the time the first iteration of the website was taken down, as by then it was outdated and in need of major changes. The website was brought back online some months ago, now updated. Grenada’s embassy in China continues to link to gg.weboffice.gd. There is no doubt that this is an official Grenadian government website belonging to the Governor-General’s office. Lord Dim 1 (talk) 13:11, 1 October 2024 (UTC)
So the current justification is that because the Grenada Embassy in China links to gg.weboffice.gd and because the link was used in the past more often, it should be the link at Governor-General of Grenada despite that now being the only appearance across the whole website? --Super Goku V (talk) 07:06, 3 October 2024 (UTC)
The Grenada Monarchist League website should be considered generally unreliable given that it is a WordPress.com site.
The gg.weboffice.gd site does seem to be an unusual, in more than once sense, official website. The homepage of the Web Office of the Government of Grenada at weboffice.gd/index.php apparently manages 36 Government entities, but requires a log-in to access most of them. Except gg.weboffice.gd and cbi.weboffice.gd/index.php which is the Citizen by Investment portal.
As for if the Web Office of the Government of Grenada can be counted as a source in this case when it uses text copied from a WordPress article... Presently, I am unsure. Generally, when a reliable source covers an unreliable source, we can cite the coverage by the reliable source. But this is wholesale copying of text from an unreliable website. I am concerned that using this would be in violation of WP:SPS. --Super Goku V (talk) 07:31, 3 October 2024 (UTC)
Agreed. The https://www.gg.weboffice.gd/ website is copied word to word from https://grenadamonarchist.org/ ([76][77], [78][79], [80][81]), rendering both the sites unreliable. Peter Ormond 💬 20:40, 3 October 2024 (UTC)
The copying comes from the fact the GG's office reached out to the GML and specifically asked to use sections of their website on a provisional basis, a request which was granted, as per my contact with the GML. Considering gg.weboffice.gd is an official website of the GG's office and only certain, not all, pages have been copied from the GML's website, with consent, I'd contend the GG's office website is reliable on account of them seemingly having picked out only specific paged to copy and differentiated between which sections were fitting to copy over. Lord Dim 1 (talk) 14:19, 5 October 2024 (UTC)

Zoom Earth

I recently reverted an editor who changed information on 2024 Atlantic hurricane season, changing Beryl's MSLP from 934 to 935. No inline citation was present, however the summary did contain a reference to Zoom Earth. Apparently, Zoom Earth ([82]) is a live weather map, and checking their about page states they get their data from satellites including the GOES array, as well as local and national centers such as the National Hurricane Center. The figure for Beryl's 934 MSLP was from the NHC, but apparently on Zoom Earth never got to 934. I wouldn't think Zoom Earth is a reliable source, as it is nothing more than an aggregate of other sources, and the 935 MSLP figure was synthesized by the software if I'm not mistaken.

Zoom Earth is otherwise cited only once on Wikipedia, on Grandstaff Canyon. That citation is to satellite data which backs up the claim that a notable bridge is inside the canyon, which might be a bit of WP:SYNTH, but either way the satellite and map data is taken from GOES and OpenStreetMap.

What is the status of Zoom Earth in either context? I'd say it's not a good source as it's a mirror of other reliable or semi-reliable sources that should be cited instead. GeorgeMemulous (talk) 12:57, 5 October 2024 (UTC)

I think in this case we should use the NHC value directly. JoJo Eumerus mobile (main talk) 14:33, 5 October 2024 (UTC)
The labels come from OpenStreetMap, which is WP:UGC, so they're not reliable. So in the context of the Grandstaff Canyon it's not reliable.
In the other case I would agree with JoJo, they are aggregating other sources so just use the original source. It's sidesteps any errors produced by copy and aggregating the data. -- LCU ActivelyDisinterested «@» °∆t° 19:16, 5 October 2024 (UTC)

National Football Teams

I noticed this being used in a featured list, I was going to remove it because it is just some random person's website: [83] and is obviously not within the definition of a RS; however, this source is used on more than 8,000 pages [84] which leads me wondering what on earth to do about it.

It also used in BLPs for information beyond just soccer itself which is concerning. Traumnovelle (talk) 09:06, 4 October 2024 (UTC)

From the FAQ "Your criteria are dumb and you should include Catalonia, Jan Mayen and Puntland right away. Sorry, my site.", yes it looks like a blog, not an RS. Slatersteven (talk) 09:58, 4 October 2024 (UTC)
Seems just a person's pet project. No evidence of any reliabilty. Yes some of it will be right, but we don't know what. Not a reliable source. Canterbury Tail talk 17:36, 4 October 2024 (UTC)
I've found another one: [85]
I'm aware these are not reliable, I'm more wondering how to deal with it. The amount of pages citing National Football Teams has actually gone up whilst this thread has been here. Traumnovelle (talk) 04:42, 5 October 2024 (UTC)
Could potentially be deprecated or added to the spam blacklist if it's a massive issue. Get a few examples of a few of the most problematic uses, start an RFC, and if it it's successful it could be added like WP:HEALTHLINE. Alpha3031 (t • c) 12:12, 5 October 2024 (UTC)
Yep, if it is being overused, and is just "some bloke on the internet" it may need depreciation, but at the very minimum any content sourced to it should, be removed. Slatersteven (talk) 12:16, 5 October 2024 (UTC)
As an example see the Universe Guide RFC about a similar issue. -- LCU ActivelyDisinterested «@» °∆t° 15:18, 6 October 2024 (UTC)
I guess I'll compile the worst examples (BLPs) and include them here in preparation. Traumnovelle (talk) 21:35, 6 October 2024 (UTC)
It is used in featured lists [86]
It is used in many BLPs, mostly for soccer statistics but also for some BLP info such as height, date of birth, and place of birth. [87] [88] [89]
There is even a template for it which allows and encourages one to cite it: Template:NFT player. Traumnovelle (talk) 21:53, 6 October 2024 (UTC)
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