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IMDB for some things, but not for others?

There have been many threads about IMDB on this page. I did an archive search and found some varying opinions. While I did not look through every page that mentions Imdb, I came to the conclusion that either there's no clear consensus except that it's often unreliable. But perhaps there is consensus and I'm just not seeing it.

The primary question is for what purposes do we consider Imdb a reliable source?

The specific example here is here. I removed Imdb as a reference from Mickey Rooney and Rms125a@hotmail.com reverted with edit summary "IMDB is QUITE unreliable re personal details/biodata, etc; but IMDb is QUITE reliable regarding credits, roles, etc".

I have not heard this blanket "Imdb is reliable for credits, roles, etc." argument before, and I can accept that perhaps my understanding of Imdb is incorrect but would like to make sure.

Based on some of the archived discussions, the secondary question is: what conditions, if any, must be in place for Imdb to be considered a reliable source for such purposes? For example, I saw mention of some sort of WGA certification or other indication that might exist on an Imdb page which makes it reliable? (I looked through a few profiles and haven't seen any such indicator -- perhaps it requires Imdb Pro?).

To add a little more context, there's some fishy business going on with some articles related to Warren Chaney. Many of the articles about his films and associates rely almost exclusively on user-generated content, publications for which there is no trace, and primary/self-published sources. Given the poor sourcing, I looked for pages linking to America: A Call to Greatness (the most egregiously promoted, by now-blocked sock puppets -- and indeed it was one of the socks who added the link to the Rooney article), and removed mention of the film where it only referenced Imdb and/or Americamovie.com (which was in every case). I'm going to ping a few other people not because I have any idea of where they stand regarding Imdb, but because the answer to this question would also affect their edits related to Chaney: @Tokyogirl79, NinjaRobotPirate, and Dbrodbeck: — Rhododendrites talk \\ 17:03, 12 December 2015 (UTC)

IMDB is, in essence a wiki of sorts. It is user generated and not an RS as far as I am concerned. Dbrodbeck (talk) 17:13, 12 December 2015 (UTC)
In general this is covered by WP:USERGENERATED. Then specifically there is WP:RS/IMDB. The info at IMDB can be submitted by anyone. For me there biggest drawback is that their fact checking is woefully lacking. Also their is no accountability from the site that I can find. I can never get them to explain why they wont fix or delete something that is wrong. To be fair I have used the site for over a decade but I don't think it can or should be used as a reference for Wikipedia's purposes. I also think that it can't be used for some things and not others here at WikiP as there are too many problems that arise from that. Along with the current Chenay walledgarden mess these two hoaxes Wikipedia:List of hoaxes on Wikipedia/Bucharest Film Festival, Wikipedia:List of hoaxes on Wikipedia/Yuri Gadyukin were bolstered by their entries at IMDb and they weren't removed there until they were uncovered here. MarnetteD|Talk 17:20, 12 December 2015 (UTC)
@MarnetteD: WP:RS/IMDB (which redirects to Wikipedia:WikiProject_Film/Resources#Questionable_resources) is pretty clear about it, isn't it: "IMDb content is user-submitted and often subject to incorrect speculation and rumor. The use of the IMDb on Wikipedia for referencing is considered unacceptable and strongly discouraged".
However, that page links to the essay that threw me off to begin with, Wikipedia:Citing IMDb, which does list some "appropriate uses". Yes, it's just an essay, but if it directly conflicts with consensus on the subject it should not be in the Wikipedia namespace. — Rhododendrites talk \\ 17:28, 12 December 2015 (UTC)
Thanks for the ping R. It looks like the Wikipedia:Citing IMDb hasn't had any serious updating in a couple years. It could probably use some :-) The film project used to have a large number of editors and, while it is still one of the more active wikiprojects, it does tend to have conversations that reach some form of WP:CONSENSUS but then the corresponding pages or MOS's don't get updated. I am not complaining - just trying to explain what you have encountered. MarnetteD|Talk 17:36, 12 December 2015 (UTC)
Yeah, I've noticed that, too. I don't think WikiProject Film is very bureaucratic, and it tends to let conversations go without an official close. No, I don't think the IMDb is reliable for anything, and I've repeatedly said this here. The content is user-generated, and the site itself is specifically mentioned in WP:USERG as unreliable. The filmography section of the IMDb is no more reliable than any other part of it. Besides transcription errors from users that go uncorrected, I have seen people demonstrate the unreliability of the IMDb by inserting themselves into productions as cast members. The IMDb is untrustworthy because it encourages unsupervised input from the community, just like an open wiki. It is usually correct, but so is Wikipedia. We still don't allow Wikipedia as a reliable source. NinjaRobotPirate (talk) 21:15, 12 December 2015 (UTC)
In my opinion, IMDb should not be cited on Wikipedia, but is useful for preliminary research. For example, if IMDb says a certain actor was in a certain film, a Google search including the actor name plus the film name is highl likely to uncover a superior source. Cullen328 Let's discuss it 21:50, 12 December 2015 (UTC)
Yes, that's a very good point. By the way, I should mention that there are very specific areas of the IMDb that do have consensus as reliable. When the credits of a film are signed and validated by an official body, this is reliable. This would include when the Writers Guild of America (WGA) validates the writers' credits of a film. You can determine this by a badge next to the writers' credits that says (WGA). I am not aware of any other bodies that do this, but they could exist. I sometimes forget to mention this when I go off on a rant about the IMDb. NinjaRobotPirate (talk) 22:11, 12 December 2015 (UTC)
Ah. This is what I was referring to in my original post above. I saw the WGA thing mentioned but couldn't find any example of it. I suppose that's because I was looking at just the normal film pages whereas the (WGA) tag is only visible on the "Full Cast & Crew" page. For example, The Fountain has it, but Requiem for a Dream does not. Anybody know what goes into the cast listing heading of either "awaiting verification" or "verified complete"? For example, Dancer in the Dark is awaiting verification but Moon is "verified as complete" (quite an undertaking for that movie's ensemble) :) — Rhododendrites talk \\ 22:29, 12 December 2015 (UTC)
They check credits before inclusion[1] and it is used in the industry so I see no problem in using it for that. It is the most accessible source and any errors can be corrected by comparing them with credits actually displayed in films. I would not use them for detailed biographical data because they do not provide sources. And certainly user reviews should not be used. TFD (talk) 00:43, 13 December 2015 (UTC)
@The Four Deuces: What you're saying seems at least in part at odds with what some other people are saying in this thread. For example, NinjaRobotPirate's anecdote about people demonstrating unreliability by getting themselves listed as part of a production. The impetus for this thread was a film for which verification itself is the biggest problem, with Imdb being one of the sources used most heavily to demonstrate the most basic information about it. So there's no way to correct any errors by comparing them with the credits displayed in the films, because nearly everything we know about the film comes from either Imdb or primary sources. — Rhododendrites talk \\ 04:08, 13 December 2015 (UTC)
  • They don't really check all that thoroughly. I can give you an excellent example of this: a couple of years ago some woman called Gretel Ashzinger created an IMDb profile for herself, claiming that she was going to be playing She-Hulk in the then-upcoming Captain America: Winter Soldier film. Not only that, but she also wrote that she'd given out some sort of major award, that she'd performed on multiple Disney soundtracks, and various other claims that were insanely easy to disprove because everything was fairly high profile. She was only discovered after she came on to Wikipedia to add the same hoax material on here and a bunch of us caught it fairly quickly. A couple of us reported this to IMDb and I think it still took them a few days to actually remove her profile. If they'd been properly checking credits then the profile would never have gotten onto IMDb in the first place. All they require for the profile or film creation process is a source. Her IMDb profile had some written in source but not an actual HTML link, which makes me believe that she just wrote some random thing out and whomever looked at the profile just shrugged and approved it without actually checking to see if the source was legit. (It wasn't, since it was something she tried to use on here.) Basically the TL;DNR of this is that IMDb does not have an adequate verification process to weed out fake material and it's actually not that difficult for people to sneak things past them, which is why it's taken with such a huge grain of salt on Wikipedia. Tokyogirl79 (｡◕‿◕｡) 04:43, 13 December 2015 (UTC)
  • Just revisited Ashinger's (now deleted) article. Here's one of her claims: " In 2013, she then moved back to the U.S. in Los Angeles, California, with her first on-screen appearance being as an announcer for the live Grammy Awards best actresses." If I remember correctly, this was also on her IMDb profile and a look at that sentence should tell you how badly someone failed at verifying that profile. (Given that Grammys are music awards...) She also was supposed to have been on Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D., so someone really dropped the ball on that one. Basically, there's no way that claims of this nature shouldn't have been immediately caught by IMDb, yet it stayed up for an undetermined amount of time before it was finally caught by us here on Wikipedia. Mostly though I'm just saying this as a trip down memory lane because of how outlandish her claims were. Tokyogirl79 (｡◕‿◕｡) 04:56, 13 December 2015 (UTC)
As you say, they corrected the error. That is what makes it a reliable source. Unreliable sources do not do that. The top movie today, according to IMDB, is The Hunger Games: Mockingjay - Part 2. IMDB says it stars Jennifer Lawrence and Josh Hutcherson. Woody Harrelson, Donald Sutherland, Philip Seymour Hoffman and Julianne Moore are also given top billings. It came out 20 November, cost $160 million, has taken in $232 million, runs 137 min., is in color and has an aspect ratio of 2.35:1.[2] Does anyone doubt that is probably true? TFD (talk) 05:27, 13 December 2015 (UTC)
  • They only corrected the error after several people pointed it out to them - I was one of the people who did this and it took them quite a while to actually remove it. In the meantime various places were reporting on this and openly saying that they thought that the claim was bogus. That they caught on to this and IMDb didn't doesn't really say great things about their overall quality checking, that they need someone to point out hoaxes like that. They don't really require much to create a page when it comes down to it and I've created a couple myself, to be honest. They only required one source and they didn't ask to see the source in question. As long as someone can create a legitimate sounding source name, they'll take it, as evidenced by Ashinger's profile and it won't be challenged until someone else points it out as problematic. Now when it comes to extremely high profile things, they're like Wikipedia - the higher profile something is, the more likely that any incorrect or false information will be detected. However with smaller things that get little to no information, it's more difficult for those to be caught. Until we hear back from the National Archives or until someone can find a good, authoritative source that doesn't rely on information from Chaney, we have to assume at this point that it could potentially be a hoax, given that people have made very persuasive arguments as to why it could be false. Tokyogirl79 (｡◕‿◕｡) 11:40, 13 December 2015 (UTC)
  • Ultimately, that users correct each other's user-generated content doesn't change the fact that it's user-generated content -- and that the odds are pretty good that a fact it contains is probably true doesn't change that it's often enough demonstrably untrue. (Especially, as Tokyogirl79 points out, for lesser known subjects.) If a UGC project being decent at catching its own errors creates an exception to WP:UGC, that needs to be reflected in the guideline, but it seems unlikely that's the case.
  • I'll play devil's advocate for a moment here. I can't argue that Imdb is a reliable source, but I can appreciate how very useful it is. I think it's a problem we would face if we were talking about another database project that relied on UGC like Discogs or something (though I hope that doesn't send us off on a tangent). Technical details, extended cast and crew lists, release variations, runtimes, etc. are not the sort of thing that typically get covered in reliable secondary sources (and when they do, I imagine they're not subject to the same editorial oversight). So it's best to get them from the primary material. Imdb makes it so only one person needs to have some obscure film in order for everybody to have access to those details. So for older and lesser-known movies especially, it does seem like we limit the amount of information we can reasonably expect to include. But if we're willing to accept a primary source and willing to assume good faith that a user on Wikipedia is telling the truth when he/she says "I have this, here's the information", what's the difference between that user and the user who added the information to Imdb? If, on the other hand, we say we'll only rely on secondary sources, we have to accept that there's a lot of information in movie that would go unfilled....hence linking to Imdb.
  • Is there precedent for a type of source that we use by default but which can always be challenged with reason and must be removed/replaced if challenged? I mean, "low quality sources" in general, I guess, but more specific? — Rhododendrites talk \\ 16:07, 13 December 2015 (UTC)

It is not like Wikipedia where anyone can add anything. IMDB requires completion of a "New Title Submission Form." Normally films in production are not accepted unless proof is submitted. While registered users submit changes they are checked by IMDB staff before inclusion. There is a process for requesting corrections.[3]

Errors will occur in the most reliable sources. The New York Times has reported errors in their reporting every day this week. Today alone they reported 20 errors. Yet we consider them reliable because they have standards for fact checking and correcting errors. Sometimes editors will find errors in reliable sources before they are corrected and we can challenge them. It does not mean we reject the source, otherwise we would have no sources for articles.

TFD (talk) 00:38, 14 December 2015 (UTC)

@The Four Deuces: I opened this without certainty, but had not seen (oops) that Imdb was specifically listed at WP:USERGENERATED and also at WP:RS/IMDB. Are you arguing for existing consensus not being accurately reflected there, or are you arguing to change the guidelines? — Rhododendrites talk \\ 15:08, 14 December 2015 (UTC)
FWIW - the NYT has zero fact checkers employed. None. The newspaper used to do fact-checking, but now, like almost all other papers, they rely on press releases rather than using actual reporters. This can lead to stories about "amphibious baseball pitchers" and the like. Collect (talk) 02:54, 14 December 2015 (UTC)
FWIActuallyW, I'd like to see the slightest proof of that obviously bullshit claim. --Calton | Talk 14:46, 14 December 2015 (UTC)
@Collect: What is this, a random derailing of a discussion you have heretofore not participated in just to take a baseless jab at a publication you don't like? — Rhododendrites talk \\ 14:48, 14 December 2015 (UTC)

See [4] for the discussion.

I suggest you note that press releases are used by just about every major newspaper now - recall that staffing levels at newspapers in general are down more than 40% in less than a decade. Revenues for newspapers are down about 60% in the same general time period. For medical press releases see [5] back in 1998 - " Of the 1060 newspaper stories analyzed, 142 referred to journal articles; of these, 119 (84%) referred to articles mentioned in press releases and 23 (16%) referred to journal articles not mentioned in press releases (comparison of proportions, P=.03). Articles described first or second were referenced in more newspapers than articles described later in the press release (P=.01 by chi2 analysis." Yep - newspapers even back I 1998 relied very heavily on those press releases, an did not do too much work as journals not mentioned near the top of the release did nit get mentioned in articles.
[6] 2003 "Maryland.—In a breakthrough discovery that may change the face of scientific communication forever, a researcher has found that, although journalists rely on press releases to bring important discoveries to their attention, they do not write news stories about every press release they receive. Even more striking is the discovery that press releases from scientific journals sometimes present incomplete information about scientific findings.
“I’m shocked, just shocked”, said the author of the article, which appears in the current issue of Science Editor. “I never would have guessed that journalists would have such blatant disregard for what they are told is news, and I never would have suspected that journals aren’t neurotically meticulous in their press releases.” ("fake" press release used for real article following)
(actual finding) Woloshin and Schwartz found that 23% of the press releases mentioned study limitations, and 65% quantified study results. (JAMA study)
In short - often the fault is in the press release sent out by the actual medial journal, and something an editor would not normally call back on. (read the full article - it also deals with specific newspapers)
[7] (covering the Guardian, Independent, Daily Mail, and Times) In 2008, researchers at the Cardiff School of Journalism, UK, discovered that 60 percent of the articles in British newspapers the Daily Mail, the Guardian, the Times, the Daily Telegraph and the Independent had been copied from wire reports and press announcements issued by various corporations, businesses and universities. Three out of four such stories had also gone to print without being fact-checked, a trend that seems widespread: in 2012, an audit sponsored by the European Observatory of Journalism found factual errors in approximately half of all news stories published in Switzerland, Italy and the United States
60% - and including the "elite" newspapers in the same group. [8] "Most newspaper articles (72%) were written by named journalists (the unnamed journalist category refers to labels such as ‘Daily Mail Reporter’) and in nearly a quarter of cases were there was no clear identification of who had written the story (as is often the case with Nibs). Only 1% of stories were directly attributable to PA or other wire services (see Table 2.4). At first glance, then, these data suggest that the newspapers give the impression that they depend on their own journalists rather than wires or other outside sources." then " Indeed, 30% of the stories in our press sample replicated wire service copy almost directly, and a further 19% were largely dependent on wire copy. In other words, nearly half of all press stories appeared to come wholly or mainly from wire services. " Even where a "journalist" gets a by-line.
DM gets a hit "So, for example, a story about the health risks of eating oily fish (‘Why oily fish might not be so good for your health after all’, Daily Mail Reporter, Daily Mail, March 24th 2006, p7) directly replicates facts and quotations taken from two Press Association stories, and another from the regional news wire Mercury." but not for being "inaccurate" but for copying inaccurate material from what Wikipedia would normally accept as a "reliable source."
"Despite the covert nature of much PR activity, we expected to find examples of PR playing an agenda-setting role. However, in many cases the influence of PR goes much further. We found that nearly one in five newspaper stories and 17% of broadcast stories were verifiably derived mainly or wholly from PR material or activity (Table 2.6) – which suggests that the practice is rather more typical than John Lloyd’s critique suggests."
"For example, a Times story headlined ‘George Cross for Iraq War Hero’ (Michael Evans, The Times, 24th March 2006, p27) is an almost verbatim repetition of a press release issued by the Ministry of Defence. " also from The Times "An example of a print story that mainly consists of information from a single source of PR material is an article in The Times about a new league table of UK Heart Surgeons (‘Hand on heart, who is the best surgeon?’, Nigel Hawkes, The Times, 27th April 2006, p16). The article is almost wholly derived from a press release issued by the Healthcare Commission," uzw.
In short - even a decade or more ago, newspapers were dominated by press release material - and the situation is worse today by far (noting that US newspaper employment is down over 40% - and the number of actual newspaper journalists is down much more as the total "newsroom" count includes the "web editors.") Back in 1998 [9] " Like most news organizations, Business Week has no choice but to put its trust in the fairness and accuracy of its reporters, because neither money nor time allows for writers' work to be formally fact-checked. ", then "At the same time, newsmagazines are curtailing their fact-checking budgets and requiring their writers to verify those details once double-checked by others. And at many newspapers, those traditional sentinels of accuracy, editors and copy editors, are expected to focus more than ever on presentation of stories, less on their content." then " One more fact-checking caveat. Most researchers rarely trust newspaper clips. Not formally fact-checked before publication, say magazine staffers, they're just too prone to contain errors. "We're not going to trust that the New York Times has been fact-checked," says Forbes' Kroll. " Clear?
[10] from Forbes is fun to read - managing to note a newspaper which ran a headline "Amphibious Pitcher Makes Debut" But wait, there's more!
[11] The Times again " Karol Wojtyla was referred to in Saturday’s Credo column as “the first non-Catholic pope for 450 years”. This should, of course, have read “non-Italian”. We apologise for the error." In 2015 they should have caught it earlier. And delightfully The New York Times "An earlier version of this column misidentified the sea that God parted in the Book of Exodus. It is the Red Sea, not the Dead Sea." Although I suppose Lot parted the Dead Sea ...
What we have left? No newspaper is as assiduous in fact-checking as it was even 15 years ago. Even "elite" papers routinely use press releases without actually looking t the studies puffed. Silly proof-readers are no longer used at newspapers - they rely on automated spill chuckers. And thus the theoretical belief that "good newspapers always check facts" is gone with the wind. Sorry to burst everyone's bubble - but papers that used to have a dozen (low paid) fact checkers now generally have zero. Their old group of actual proofreaders - gone forever. One newspaper (?) [12] offers zero money for "volunteer proofreaders"! In 1909, New York City alone[13] had on the order of 1000 compositors and proofreaders. Many "working" proofreaders get well under $25K p.a. (bottom 10% get under $19K) In New York. A person at the proposed new minimum wage for fry cooks there will make over $30K p.a.
I trust the points are clear - so will leave with [14] The New York Times got rid of all its remaining 125 Linotype operators and proofreaders (many did both due to cutbacks) - by 1990. In short - "elite" papers also run press releases. The main and substantiated difference is down to headline witing - and the job of the headline writer is the same as the "clickbait" writer - no more, no less. If anyone uses a newspaper article, note that the real journalist does not write the headlines. Until we have genuine amphibious pitchers in baseball. Collect (talk) 15:33, 14 December 2015 (UTC)
I would hope the Times has removed the linotypes by now. The book you cited talking to removal of proofreaders appears to just make stuff up. For example, they gave the quote: “I have a friend who was a newspaper proofreader. Each knight, he wood read a pre-edition copy to correct errors.” The author followed this up with the absurd statement: “The point is that spell-checkers can’t recognize the context of a word.” I typed the quote into Word, and it caught both errors. The amphibious pitchers quote you kept making fun of is from a small paper serving two East Oregon counties with a circulation of 7,000. The NYTimes has a circulation of 1,380,000. BTW, average salary for a proofreader/copy editor in NYC in $44K-46K. Objective3000 (talk) 17:02, 14 December 2015 (UTC)
I used the figures given in the reliable sources. Might you proffer a source saying that the average proofreader in New York makes $45K p.a.? And how many proofreaders are employed by the NYT? That you dislike the reliable sources I cite does not make me "wrong" here, as far as I can tell. The Hilary campaign said the NYT made "egregious errors" in articles just a few months ago. See also CJR [15] "But six errors in a story she had ample time to work on and check is not acceptable, especially for a reporter with such a troubling history of error" about a NYT article. Cheers - but you have not shown the sources just "made things up" at all. AFAICT, the NYT currently has about 3,500 employees. In 2012, it had 5,300 employees. And pretty much every newspaper - from the Guardian on has the exact same problems. Collect (talk) 21:23, 14 December 2015 (UTC)
You are the one that made the absurd claims the NYTimes has no proofreaders, just creates headlines and copies all its news instead of having reporters, and proofreaders make an absurdly low salary (easily disputed by a simple search). The onus is on you for making statements that are seriously strange. Objective3000 (talk) 22:45, 14 December 2015 (UTC)
@Collect: Are you kidding me? This is a thread about whether Imdb is a reliable source. You saw mention of NYT and decided to use the opportunity to take a shot at the NYT, entirely unrelated to this thread and only serves to entertain your own POV. Then when you spammed the thread with a mountain of copy/pasted text continuing your derailment (in addition to pointing to the thread where that text already exists), I collapsed it as off-topic. But you reverted with edit summary: "you made an accusation so you wish to hide the proof your accusation was utterly wrong? sheesh!" ...WP:POINT much?
It's almost besides the point, but, of course, the wall of text in no way backs up what you said. Where is there "proof" that "The newspaper used to do fact-checking" (which, of course, implies that they no longer engage in the activity of fact-checking)? Are you trying to say that because they don't have a proofreading department or someone with the title of "fact-checker", they don't "do fact-checking"? And where is there "proof" that they "rely on press releases rather than using actual reporters", which, of course, would mean they don't use actual reporters (or don't "rely" on them, I guess?) Regardless, I'll again reiterate this is a complete tangent that adds nothing to the discussion, and should still be hatted (I'll leave that to someone else, though). — Rhododendrites talk \\ 17:36, 14 December 2015 (UTC)
Um -- if the newspaper no longer has any fact checkers as the sources clearly state, that is a clear implication that the newspaper no longer uses fact checkers. I would note, as a matter of simple fact, that I was not the person who first mentioned the NYT in this thread (The Four Deuces was the one who did), so your accusation that I somehow chose to aim barbs at the NYT when the "barbs" hit every single major newspaper, and the stats about use of press releases were done by well-qualified persons. The proof about using press releases is in the scholarly studies cited. As for your seeming wish to make personal charges here - I suggest that this noticeboard deals with facts and not personal attacks that someone is pushing a POV (when the POV is simply that the Guardian, Daily Mail, New York Times etc. all are guilty of sloppier practises than in the past about fact checking). Collect (talk) 21:23, 14 December 2015 (UTC)
If a newspaper no longer employs people with the job title "fact-checker" that obviously doesn't preclude having "a reputation for fact-checking and accuracy" ("fact-checking" being an activity that is not the sole domain of those whose business cards say "fact-checker"). In fact you replied to a statement about NYT issuing corrections. As per WP:RS: "One signal that a news organization engages in fact-checking and has a reputation for accuracy is the publication of corrections."
Four Deuces did mention NYT, yes ..... in the context of the current discussion. He/she also mentioned infoboxes. That doesn't mean it's time to jump in to dump 10,000 bytes of unrelated WP:POINT about infoboxes.
If you want to talk about Imdb, go for it. If you want to attempt to discredit the New York Times, start a new thread. If you want to distract from your own disruption by accusing me of making personal attacks, take it to ANI. Otherwise, would you please concede to hat this tangent? — Rhododendrites talk \\ 22:17, 14 December 2015 (UTC)
I was specifically accused of lying about the facts. I take it you feel giving actual sources showing my statements to be well-sourced is "improper" when your mind is already made up? <g>. Collect (talk) 21:12, 15 December 2015 (UTC)

Rhododendrites, RS/IMDB is not a guideline, and it links to an essay explaining how to use IMDB (Wikipedia:Citing IMDb). RS/IMDB says data can be used if it "is labeled as originating from credentialed members of the sites' editorial staff, rather than users." Clearly we should not use reader postings in discussion threads, storyline, biography etc. But then we should not be using tertiary sources for that type of information anyway.

As a general rule, this board should be used to enquire about specific text rather than sources in general, since most sources are reliable for some things but not for others. So I will provide an example, the upcoming Sisters (2015 film). The infobox provides basic details on directors, producers, writers, stars, release dates, budgets, etc. No other source provides all that information. I imagine all this detail was taken from IMDB, yet it is not cited. There are cites for only three facts: music, running time and budget. Yet the music writer could have changed since it was reported, the running time in the UK may not be the same as the rest of world and there is no reason why the budget info should be taken from Box Office Mojo, which is owned by IMDB, rather than IMDB.

So what should we do? Use IMDB as a source and not cite them? Or delete most of the information in the infobox?

TFD (talk) 20:18, 14 December 2015 (UTC)

WP:RS/IMDB is not a Guideline, no. I linked to it because WikiProject notability guidelines (lowercase g) tend, in my experience anyway, to carry a little more clout than user essays. So no, neither WP:RS/IMDB nor WP:Citing IMDb are guidelines. But WP:USERGENERATED is.
Personally, I think it's reasonable to say that the (WGA)-tagged cast lists could be considered reliable, but otherwise the argument in favor of citing Imdb seems on shaky ground.
You could substitute any site for Imdb in the infobox argument. Should we remove [certain information] if it's only available on [some user-generated content site]? More content is generally good, but it's not a question of "is the content useful, regardless of where it came from" -- it's about "can we point to a reliable source for this content". We could get a lot more information in infoboxes if we did away with WP:RS altogether, after all. (An extreme example, I know, but I think the point holds). — Rhododendrites talk \\ 20:45, 14 December 2015 (UTC)
Cast lists, credits, filming locations, release dates, running time, box office etc. are all reliable. Beyond that the issue of reliability is moot because we should not be using tertiary sources for more extensive information. As for information in the infobox, could you please tell me where else the one could find it for Sisters? TFD (talk) 22:05, 14 December 2015 (UTC)
I think you missed my point regarding the infobox. I don't know where else you can find particular information that you found on Imdb. That's not the point. The point is there's a lot of information we could include if we have no standards for sources whatsoever. We sacrifice content to have WP:RS. According to WP:USERGENERATED, user-generated content is part of what we should eschew as unreliable. In other words, that a poor source has certain content and it's not available anywhere else, that means we shouldn't have it either, no? Or would you say that that's true in all cases except for movie credits? — Rhododendrites talk \\ 22:26, 14 December 2015 (UTC)
Just to reiterate something, though: I don't have strong feelings about using Imdb. I have strong feelings about guidelines being clear. This started when I removed Imdb as a source and was reverted by someone who said it was, in fact, a reliable source in the way it was used. That conflicts with what our guidelines say and what WikiProject Film says (and what the majority of people in this thread have said). If there's established precedent, I'd like to see that somewhere, otherwise WP:USERGENERATED should be the default. — Rhododendrites talk \\ 22:32, 14 December 2015 (UTC)
So are you going to get Sisters deleted because it is almost entirely sourced to IMDB? TFD (talk) 04:53, 15 December 2015 (UTC)
... Eh? I opened this thread to get a better idea of what the guidelines say (and what the consensus interpretation is) concerning whether Imdb is considered a reliable source. As it turns out, it was more straightforward than I thought because it's explicitly named not just at WP:RS/IMDB but at WP:UGC. I took your disagreement with that characterization as an indication that you might have known something others don't, but I'm getting the impression you just don't like Imdb being considered unreliable. That's a perfectly fine perspective -- I'm sympathetic in many ways and said as much above -- but if you're going to turn this into some kind of appeal to "deletionism" or something because I asked you for a policy/guideline basis for your position, I think this may have run its course. I certainly did not intend to offend, and no, of course I won't be "getting Sisters delete because it is almost entirely sourced to Imdb" (which, incidentally, it isn't). — Rhododendrites talk \\ 05:52, 15 December 2015 (UTC)
The point is that it is used extensively and most editors consider it reliable for basic information such as credits and release dates. TFD (talk) 00:48, 16 December 2015 (UTC)
  • TL;DR - I've never had any problem with using IMDb as a reliable source for filmography-type credits in the past. Obviously, there can sometimes be better, even more reliable sources for this kind of info though. IMDb is generally not a reliable source for biographical information though, and the awards/nominations section of IMDb can sometimes not be very comprehensive in my past experiences with it. I've also found in the past that it's actually pretty difficult to get something added or fixed (even obvious typos) on IMDb, so they definitely do have some sort of editorial supervision about what actually gets posted on IMDb. Guy1890 (talk) 05:21, 15 December 2015 (UTC)
  • My understanding is that some areas of the IMDb are RS (or were considered RS at one time), for instance the Awards pages are not self-sourced.Example These are obviously taken from the primary sources, I've found them (the awards pages) to be very accurate and in many cases their archives are more extensive than the primary.009o9 (talk) 07:13, 15 December 2015 (UTC)

Is Donald Trump a RS for Donald Trump's political positions? Is his *campaign staff* a RS for his political platform?

The question arises from a friendly discussion on the Donald Trump page. I am not including diffs as there really is no dispute at the moment and the failed verification templates I put on two references in the political campaign section are likely to be amicably resolved. However the same sort of issue may be elsewhere on the page; I found it the first place I checked for it.

Assuming that there does in fact exist a first-hand link to an audio clip of Donald Trump "clarifying" something he said several days earlier, would this be RS for saying that subsequenty he said that of course he had said no such thing?

In other words, Trump was initially reported to have said that all Muslim travel to the United States must be shut down. In the referenced article is a link to a film clip with an embedded phone-in from Donald Trump saying well of course US citizens are different. Yes I did listen to it that far, a voice does say that. It also talks about 9-11 and no-go zones in Paris and....you don't want to know, really you don't. In other words, the publisher is RS, it's a respectable talk show, I think, broadcast news, it's RS that he *said* it but otherwise...speechless. Surely this statement can be found somewhere in print? This is the Republican frontrunner, discussing a matter of national security and human rights. You'd like to think it would get covered.

Yet two days earlier another publication reported a named staffer saying "Mr Trump says everyone". That sounds pretty definite. I don't know that "clarify" is the right word here. My personal opinion is that we should document each pronouncement with RS, as opposed to buying into the idea each time that there was simply some misunderstanding. Do people agree? Also, what is the best documentation (video? audio? analysis?) of what Donald Trump did or did not say or might or might not favor as a candidate? Elinruby (talk) 23:33, 13 December 2015 (UTC)

Determining political positions is not straight forward. What is meant and how it is phrased may differ, and pronouncements may be contradictory. Analysis is required, which is why we should use reliable secondary sources. Readers do not want every pronouncement listed, they just want to know what the positions are. TFD (talk) 23:52, 13 December 2015 (UTC)
Thanks. So if campaign staff says on Friday that the policy is x and the candidate says on Sunday that the policy is not-x, as appears to be the case here, though? Again, there is no current dispute, but since we seem to have a pattern of subsequent disavowals, and I anticipate running into this elsewhere on the page. My point is that in my opinion it is still relevant what the staff said on Friday about the candidate's platform, especially considering the space devoted to the candidate's hair. The question about video vs text also remains.~
If it's unclear what the policy is because Trump said x and his staff said y, it's probably best, for that issue, to write exactly that: "Trump stated x, his campaign staff stated y." -Darouet (talk) 22:49, 15 December 2015 (UTC)
If something is relevant then it will be found in reliable secondary sources, because they - not Wikipedia editors - determine what is relevant and analyze various statements to determine what his policy positions are. There are dozens of reporters on the case. TFD (talk) 00:53, 16 December 2015 (UTC)

manowar

Is a reliable source? 2A02:582:C74:6C00:A436:91E7:2A35:6D9A (talk) 19:37, 15 December 2015 (UTC)

Sorry, I′m trying to ask about a website but I got an error all three times I tried to post the link. Anyway, I′m talking about ref no. 3 at Joey DeMaio. 2A02:582:C74:6C00:A436:91E7:2A35:6D9A (talk) 19:40, 15 December 2015 (UTC)

Is this the source you are referring to? Meatsgains (talk) 23:09, 15 December 2015 (UTC)
Yup! 2A02:582:C74:6C00:9C91:3120:9F5:4A55 (talk) 16:51, 16 December 2015 (UTC)

The Daily Mail: When are we finally going to decide that enough is enough?

This isn't the first time The Daily Mail has straight-out fabricated a news story. Even if they had guessed right on the verdict, the story was pre-written and was in no way an actual report of what happened. When are we finally going to say that we have had enough of this and declare The Daily Mail to be an inherently unreliable source? When are we going to decide once and for all that if something is in The Daily Mail the editor must find another source, and that if it is only in The Daily Mail we have no idea whether it actually happened as reported? --Guy Macon (talk) 14:11, 10 December 2015 (UTC)

I agree, it should not be considered an RS source herein. Kierzek (talk) 14:31, 10 December 2015 (UTC)

Sorry - no newspaper is a good source for celebrity gossip at all ("instant analysis" included)-- but that does not mean the DM is to be ruled out as a reliable source otherwise. This has been discussed it seems dozens of times - and the consensus here has never been to blacklist the newspaper. Cheers. Collect (talk) 18:24, 11 December 2015 (UTC)

Have to agree with Collect. I hate the Daily Mail, but they do sometimes have real reporting - e.g. sending reporters on patrol with units in Afghanistan [16]. -Darouet (talk) 18:51, 11 December 2015 (UTC)
As Greenslade's article notes, four UK newspapers, including The Guardian, initially reported the verdict incorrectly. To generalise this as evidence that the Mail specifically can't be trusted is to stretch a point.Martinlc (talk) 18:56, 11 December 2015 (UTC)
[Edit Conflict] I don't think it is stretching a point at all.
"As Knox realised the enormity of what judge Hellman was saying she sank into her chair sobbing uncontrollably while her family and friends hugged each other in tears. A few feet away Meredith's mother Arline, her sister Stephanie and brother Lyle, who had flown in especially for the verdict remained expressionless, staring straight ahead, glancing over just once at the distraught Knox family. Prosecutors were delighted with the verdict and said that 'justice has been done' although they said on a 'human factor it was sad two young people would be spending years in jail'." --The Daily Mail
Did The Guardian or any other source other than The Daily Mail provide a totally fabricated detailed eyewitness description of the reaction to the verdict that never happened? Did they fabricate a direct quote from the prosecutors? Remember, that fake direct quote would still be up on the web if not for them getting the verdict wrong, and Wikipedia could have used that direct quote as if the prosecutors had actually said that -- supported by a "reliable source" that flat out lies about things.
"Following the verdict Knox and [Raphael] Sollecito were taken out of court escorted by prison guards and into a waiting van which took her back to her cell at Capanne jail near Perugia and him to Terni jail, 60 miles away. Both will be put on a suicide watch for the next few days as psychological assessments are made on each of them but this is usual practice for long term prisoners." --The Daily Mail
Did The Guardian or any other source other than The Daily Mail provide a totally fabricated ride in a van and a totally fabricated suicide watch?
No, this is not the same thing as getting the verdict wrong and reporting that wrong verdict. This is hard evidence that The Daily Mail fabricates quotes and events, and an excellent reason why we should never allow The Daily Mail as a source.
To all: I am considering posting an RfC on this. Where would you suggest as the best place for that RfC to be posted? --Guy Macon (talk) 23:42, 11 December 2015 (UTC)
It shows that breaking news is frequently wrong. In this case the reporter heard she was held guilty of slander and assumed she was held guilty of murder. In the Obamacare verdict, most media heard that Roberts CJ had written the opinion and determined that it ruled against the U.S. government. In 2000, news media declared Gore had won the U.S. presidential election. These errors however get corrected, which is why these sources are reliable. TFD (talk) 23:34, 11 December 2015 (UTC)
Do you really believe that if The Daily Mail hadn't gotten the verdict wrong they would have corrected the fabricated reactions to the verdict or the fabricated direct quote by the prosecutors? --Guy Macon (talk) 23:45, 11 December 2015 (UTC)

More fabrication by The Daily Mail:

And yes, I did puposely include several non-reliable (but better than The Daily Mail!) sources in the above list. I wanted to see if any of the DM supporters could point that out without imploding from the irony. :) --Guy Macon (talk) 00:23, 12 December 2015 (UTC)

In your first link, George Clooney said a false story was "picked up by hundreds of other outlets citing the Daily Mail as their source." You need to either get these sources to stop using the DM or persuade us to eliminate any news media that uses DM. We get back to how news media are not 100% accurate but they are the most reliable sources for what happened five minutes ago. I never can understand why editors want to update articles with what happened five minutes ago, when reporting may change moments later and readers are more likely to go to news sources for breaking news. But at least errors soon found are corrected. TFD (talk) 06:49, 12 December 2015 (UTC)

PCC Censures UK Daily Mail for Fabricated Amanda Knox Story

by Sydney Smith, writing for iMediaEthics

"UK print regulatory body the Press Complaints Commission “censured” the Daily Mail for its October 3 fake story reporting the wrong verdict in American student Amanda Knox’s trial, the Guardian’s Roy Greenslade reported. As we wrote at the time, soon after an Italian court found Knox not guilty in the murder of her roommate, the Mail published a story with the wrong verdict saying she had been found guilty. Shortly after publication, the Mail pulled the story from its website. The Mail published a story with the correct verdict (not guilty) and apologized for the error.

According to Greenslade, in response to the incident, the Mail started an internal review into the incident and “disciplined the person responsible for the error.” We wrote Oct. 5 about the announcement of the Mail’s internal review. The Mail claimed that the article was up only for 30 seconds, however, Seattle Weekly said the article was up for about half an hour.

Possibly most egregious, the Daily Mail’s article included quotes from prosecutors on the (fake) guilty ruling and reported on Knox’s reaction to the (fake) guilty ruling. The PCC’s ruling (see here) said that complainants questioned those quotes from prosecutors about the verdict of guilty, and a description of what happened after the guilty verdict. According to the PCC, the complaints were made by “members of the public.”

The PCC’s ruling noted that the Daily Mail claimed the quotations “had been obtained from the prosecution in advance of the trial.” However, even if that is true, iMediaEthics notes that there is no possible way for the Mail to explain away its claim that Knox “looked stunned” in response to the phony guilty verdict. That part of the story was clearly fabricated and a guess on behalf of the Daily Mail as to how Knox would react."

Source: http://www.imediaethics.org/pcc-censures-uk-daily-mail-for-fabricated-amanda-knox-story/ (emphasis added)

--Guy Macon (talk) 00:23, 12 December 2015 (UTC)

Wasn't there some discussion of creating a list of perennial sources, similar to WP:ELPEREN? DM should be on it, with strong cautions against using it, especially in BLPs. --Ronz (talk) 00:39, 12 December 2015 (UTC)
I have no motivation to get embroiled in this again. But, what I would like to say is that content editors must have strong guidance here. I used the Daily Mail as a source a while ago, I was criticised for it, then decided to discuss this on the RS talk pages. This was a HUGE time-sink for me and others. And I only found out after that I was one of a string of editors who had similarly raised such questions. A clear decision (whichever way that goes) and guidance for editors would be a massive step forward. Please do this.DrChrissy (talk) 00:47, 12 December 2015 (UTC)

This has been discussed far too many times - and the answer remains the same - the Daily Mail and all newspapers have problems with celebrity news, but the statistics show that for other news the Daily Mail is just about the same as all newspapers - the desire to blacklist this source is simply contrary to the intent of WP:RS. And like all sources, any given claim may be given weight depending on the nature of the claim, but not on a bias that one does not like the source - I hold the same for "Russia Today", the "New York Daily News", "Huffington Post" etc. and basically all printed or media sources. And one major problem is that virtually none of them do any fact-checking at all, and most rely heavily on press releases. Perhaps we should say "no newspapers are actually reliable sources if they have no fact-checkers working at the newspaper" but that would mean we dump the New York Times etc. as well. Recall that major newspapers reported on an "amphibious" baseball player ... Collect (talk) 03:28, 12 December 2015 (UTC)

  • I agree with Collect. Yes, there are some ridiculous publications in Daily Mail, and I have seen some ridiculous publications in Nature (journal). Yes, Daily Mail is a much less reliable source than Nature, sure, but that does not make any of these sources inherently/completely unreliable. One must simply use multiple sources, especially with regard to sensational, controversial or unusual claims. My very best wishes (talk) 06:00, 12 December 2015 (UTC)
So they are a member of the PCC which investigates all claims of inaccuracy against them. I would agree that in cases where the DM changes a story or the PCC finds it inaccurate that we should not use the original article. Otherwise there is no problem. TFD (talk) 06:57, 12 December 2015 (UTC)
There's a difference between "inaccurate" and "invented whole-cloth". This article covers why what the Daily Mail did here was so much worse than the errors you're listing. Someone working for them sat down and deliberately concocted fake quotes to pad out the article. Someone else approved and uploaded it, in advance, getting it ready for publication even though the quotes in it could clearly only have been falsified. Pre-writing articles for key events that can go one way or the other is normal (such as for an obituary or election victory, where you can cover major past events in the timeline without having to invent any facts and can therefore easily have something ready for publication the moment the core question is decided); but deliberately inventing facts for them is different, and the way it happened here clearly throws the Daily Mail's reputation for fact-checking and accuracy into question. Everyone makes simple factual errors now and then, but for a paper with obviously concocted quotes to be ready for publication the instant the verdict came down heavily implies that the Daily Mail is either performing no editorial oversight whatsoever, or that its editorial oversight is hopelessly inadequate. While of course reliability is contextual, either one would mean that it is generally not usable as an WP:RS. No one event can decide these sorts of things, of course, but can you honestly say that the Daily Mail has a "reputation for fact-checking or accuracy?" --Aquillion (talk) 20:55, 13 December 2015 (UTC)
Aquillion has correctly identified and commented on the specific problem I have with The Daily Mail -- deliberately inventing "facts" and reporting on them as if they actually happened. Many of the other comments in this thread appear to address other issues that other editors have had with The Daily Mail in previous discussions. For anyone who wishes to claim that other media outlets "do the same thing" I would ask for examples of them "doing the same thing" when the "same thing" is the specific problem I am complaining about, which is The Daily Mail fabricating events and direct quotes and then reporting on them as if they actually happened. The other media outlets don't, as a rule, do that. The Daily Mail does.
Clearly I need to post an RfC on this. Again I ask, where would be the best place to post it? --Guy Macon (talk) 19:44, 14 December 2015 (UTC)
Probably reliable sources. And to attract wide participation, you should add similar middle market tabloids. But before you do that, I suggest you read up on how newspapers actually work to see whether the DM falls outside normal practice. If you show in secondary sources that their standards fall below normal levels it would help your case. But providing a list of bad reporting in the past is not persuasive because the same can be found in all newspapers. "Dewey Defeats Truman" was a bigger error than anything you mentioned. TFD (talk) 04:22, 16 December 2015 (UTC)
As multiple people have pointed out already, there is no evidence that any "similar middle market tabloids" do what The Daily Mail does. And I am well aware of "how newspapers actually work". Hint: they don't publish wholly fabricated stories. --Guy Macon (talk) 00:34, 17 December 2015 (UTC)

Comment We are not just talking about a newspaper getting some facts wrong, or even about a rogue reporter, we are talking about a newspaper that knowingly published a wholly frabricated story. What makes a source reliable is its editorial oversight, and there is clearly something very wrong with the editorial oversight at the Daily Mail. Yes, they carry out rock solid journalism in some cases but how can we have confidence in their editorial oversight to weed out errors and poor journalism when they knowingly publish fabricated stories? Personal blogs may publish accurate stories but we don't permit them on the basis that they are usually correct; we prohibit them because there is no reliable editorial oversight and this is the case for the Daily Mail now. Betty Logan (talk) 13:13, 16 December 2015 (UTC)

I think we need to start considering it an unreliable source, and any exceptions need consensus. --Ronz (talk) 01:20, 17 December 2015 (UTC)

Are they reliable sources

http://www.sps-automotive.com/en_sps/track/07Nt_zonda.html http://twinrev.com/cars/Fastest-Production-car-supercars-20.6km-Nurburgring-lap-times-under-9-03.30-7119945 http://www.mobisux.com/ubbthreads.php?ubb=showflat&Number=3096509 http://fastestlaps.com/tracks/nordschleife http://www.zeperfs.com/en/classement-ci1.htm I have verified nurburgring laptimes in those site all the laptimes existing there seem to be correct.

Bijeljina massacre RfC

Your input is requested at Talk:Bijeljina massacre#RfC: Should this article make reference to the Bosnian Serb politician Biljana Plavšić stepping over the body of a dead Bosniak to kiss the Serb paramilitary leader Željko Ražnatović (aka Arkan) Thanks, Peacemaker67 (crack... thump) 00:57, 18 December 2015 (UTC)

Analog Man's Guide to Vintage Effects

http://amgtve.formusiciansonly.com/

Is this a reliable source that could be used to create content? — Preceding unsigned comment added by Kirk Leonard (talk • contribs)

Looks like a decent book. Although the publisher is little known, the book has been cited by several other sources. utcursch | talk 21:10, 17 December 2015 (UTC)

OK, so can I add content sourced to the book and also start new articles based on pedals described in the book?

A new article should be about a subject that is written about extensively in several reliable sources. This could be one of them, but if it's the only source the subject may not be notable enough for a separate article.—Anne Delong (talk) 22:17, 18 December 2015 (UTC)

Are two sources enough for a topic, or should it be three or more?

Humor article about RT

Cracked.com has a humor article titled "6 Reasons You've Probably Read Russian Propaganda Today".[17][18] Key quote: "Because of the way Facebook works, if you find yourself clicking on a lot of articles from a website -- say Russia Today or Sputnik -- because it had one of those headlines you just had to check out, new articles from that same site will show up more frequently in your news feed. And they won't all look instantly crazy." The same is true of Google, and any number of other sites that customize content according to what (they think) interests you. Clearly this works the other way as well: if someone only looks at legitimate news sites they will see more links to legitimate news sites, which would lead to underestimating the amount of crazy out there. The "fun" begins when members of those two groups each try to edit the same Wikipedia page according to the sources Facebook or Google spoonfeeds them, often followed by a trip here. --Guy Macon (talk) 15:04, 17 December 2015 (UTC)

Yep, that's what I hate extremely: search engines trying to second-guess my interests. I remember I took part in a wikipedia discussion about notability of porn industry awards and naturally did some research. A couple of weeks later I had a not so small talk from my wife after she did some browsing under my microsoft account I did not log out :-) Staszek Lem (talk) 02:00, 19 December 2015 (UTC)

Agte, Patrick (2000): "Jochen Peiper: Commander Panzerregiment Leibstandarte"

The source in the subject, published by J.J. Fedorowicz Publishing, is used heavily in Joachim Peiper, currently linked from the main page "On this day" section. There has been some doubt voiced at Talk:Joachim_Peiper#Agte about the use of this source (which, honestly, I share). Some more input would be appreciated. --Stephan Schulz (talk) 22:20, 17 December 2015 (UTC)

This was discussed here recently and the there is a strong argument to be made that his writing is pov driven, not objective and carries undue weight for the subject matter. Kierzek (talk) 17:36, 19 December 2015 (UTC)

How are non-provable sources of "divine revelation" ever fact-checked with reliable sources?

There is a dispute over allowable content on "divine revelations" concerning the biblical messenger Gabriel. Wikiisawesome is using specious boilerplate arguments to violate my First Amendment freedom of religion beliefs, for not being considered reliable, by him, under personal bias. Under the scapegoat that the II Revelation isn't reliable source, according to policy. Citing various policies which may apply to "reliable sources" when there is an authentic debatable factual dispute over quality of sources. He is not able to point me to one "provable source of information on Gabriel." Yet, he says that this is the reason why my post is disqualified. He then attempts to use "self-publishing" source as the chancellor's foot, even though in the book itself, the divine revelation was that it could not be published for commercial use. And with no offer to potential offer to publishers (to gauge its religious/literary value), this would be extremely arbitrary to say that it is not a quality work (having in the very least artistic, educational, and literary value, on the subject matter).

I feel the bottomline is that there is no way to truly apply reliable source policies on coherent works of literature that describe spiritual beings. Because the book is published on Amazon.com and is coherent, and has literary value on the subject matter; it should be included in public discourse to determine its relation within the Wiki-content by the individual reader. This is more on point with the content neutral perspective of Wikipedia, to offer perspectives from all angles, that is not showing bias towards a particular religious belief.

If the II Revelation were not a high quality biblical work, and had no literary or educational value, then I would find that sufficient to say that it lacks relevance to the serious educational content of the Wikipedia page. But, since it is a high quality, well written work, that is written in a style similar to the Young's Literal Translation of the Bible, quoted often therein; it certainly is of educational value on the subject matter, and of strong relevance. Even though it is a noncanonical work, and is not ancient. Hungarywhitebear (talk) 16:26, 16 December 2015 (UTC)

Good day, the II Revelation document in question is here. I suggested that Hungarywhitebear read WP:RS and WP:SELFPUB, and to come here for a neutral third party's opinion if they still had doubts as to the unreliability of that document, which appears to be a self-published work by one Jason Koda. /wia🎄/tlk 16:47, 16 December 2015 (UTC)
I agree that this is not an RS. The first line I read is 1 A second revelation of Jesus Christ, that God gave to him, to show his servants the secret of God, and he did signify, having sent through his messengers to his servant Jason Steven Koda, So is this not a Primary source as well as failing the self-published rule?Johnmcintyre1959 (talk) 16:58, 16 December 2015 (UTC)
Though individual "divine revelations" may be impossible to fact-check, we can conclude from the sheer quantity of mutually contradictory "divine revelations" that "divine revelations" must be frequently non-factual. And very unreliable. ~ Röbin Liönheart (talk) 16:47, 18 December 2015 (UTC)

The Revelation given to John of Patmos starts in a similar manner?

Rev 1:1 A revelation of Jesus Christ, that God gave to him, to shew to his servants what things it behoveth to come to pass quickly; and he did signify `it', having sent through his messenger to his servant John, Rev 1:2 who did testify the word of God, and the testimony of Jesus Christ, as many things also as he did see.

Does it violate the Reliable Source rule?

There is no per se rule against self-published sources, as you are trying to interpret it. And, when the source of information is not provable, as there is no way to prove the revelation given to John was real; then there is no way to say that there is a reliable source or not. The revelation given to John is more commonly accepted and known, because of its age; not because it presents provable testimony. Hungarywhitebear (talk) 17:56, 16 December 2015 (UTC)

The concept behind the II Revelation, is that it is the fulfilment of I Revelation 10:11 Rev 10:11 and he saith to me, `It behoveth thee again to prophesy about peoples, and nations, and tongues, and kings -- many.' That John of Patmos must prophesy again in the future, and write a second revelation. And, the fulfilment of the gospel of John words, that John would somehow remain until the second coming.

John 21:21 Peter having seen this one, saith to Jesus, `Lord, and what of this one?' John 21:22 Jesus saith to him, `If him I will to remain till I come, what -- to thee? be thou following me.' This word, therefore, went forth to the brethren that that disciple doth not die, John 21:23 yet Jesus did not say to him, that he doth not die, but, `If him I will to remain till I come, what -- to thee?'

Thus, the II Revelation, has credence for allegedly fulfilling these prophecies, and whether it did or not, is open to endless debate; as is the rest of the bible. But, the arguable basis alone, is sufficient to make it of educational value on the subject matter. Hungarywhitebear (talk) 18:02, 16 December 2015 (UTC)

As far as I can see none of the RS on the wikipedia page John of Patmos are written by John of Patmos.Johnmcintyre1959 (talk) 18:06, 16 December 2015 (UTC)

Then where exactly does the RS for these writings come from? If they are not based on writings from John? Hungarywhitebear (talk) 18:13, 16 December 2015 (UTC)

(edit conflict)First of all you have no First Amendment rights here as we aren't the US government or even a state or local government. I also agree that this isn't a reliable source. Additionally, I note that an edit of yours says "that is virtually unknown to the general public." Wikipedia is not a venue for new ideas, which this appears to be. Doug Weller (talk) 19:24, 16 December 2015 (UTC)

The last is the real issue: this is apparently not notable given that the only sourcing on it comes from the promulgator's own website. Mangoe (talk) 22:05, 16 December 2015 (UTC)

All of your arguments are complete nonsense. They are fundamentally illogical. You are saying that a self-published author who recently wrote a noncanonical biblical book, in which he describes his vision of Gabriel; cannot be relevant or posted onto an article on Gabriel. Because there is no way to verify the author had this vision, or that it actually was Gabriel, and his book was not published by a commercial corporation putting their reputation behind the allegation that it was Gabriel, and that there is no reliable source to prove that it was Gabriel; and also that there is a blanket restriction on the inclusion of citation to newly published material on Wikipedia. Hungarywhitebear (talk) 20:12, 16 December 2015 (UTC)

That is not what we are saying. We are saying that statements on Wikipedia have to be verifiable. That means they have to be backed up by secondary sources, reliably published. That doesn't mean we won't exclude primary sources. Wikipedia covers a vast plethora of holy books, fiction, and other material that is not based in fact. The point is that everything in Wikipedia is either notable or covered in reliable sources with commentary and analysis. This alleged "II Revelation" is something nobody has heard about, nobody cares about, and nobody has commented on, and that's why it doesn't belong in Wikipedia. Elizium23 (talk) 20:30, 16 December 2015 (UTC)

Well, according to another user, II Revelation would count as a primary source. And, people obviously care about the subject matter, because it discusses Gabriel. People may not be aware of the primary source because it was just published last month. Citing facts from such a primary source without basing the entire article on it, is permissible according to the policy. Hungarywhitebear (talk) 23:41, 16 December 2015 (UTC)

WP:ONEDAY is of application. Tgeorgescu (talk) 01:42, 17 December 2015 (UTC)

As stated on Gabriel edit page: I don't see how the link is relevant, when I am not writing an entire article about II Revelation; I merely quoted a few verses for an article on Gabriel, of relevance. Second of all, I am not promoting a new word, idea, or invention. Notoriety is only relevant, when it involves writing an entirely new article on a topic; that it must be considered of value by someone (representative of the public at large). Information on Gabriel, historic, and how it is evolving in recent literature and media, is all relevant to the topic of the Gabriel article, which has well-established notoriety. I think your getting too deep into the commercial value of the book and saturation into media, rather than its relevance, as a modern noncanonical primary source work briefly cited on point of the topic. Hungarywhitebear (talk) 03:10, 17 December 2015 (UTC)

Only reliable sources may be used to verify information added to Wikipedia. As you have yourself admitted above, II Revelation is not a reliable source, and therefore may not be used as a reference. It is not written by a reputable scholar, it has not been published in reputable peer-reviewed journal, it has not been published by reputable academic publishing houses, it is just stuff made up one day in some basement. You may want to know that even the Book of Revelation is not regarded as authoritative for anything inside Wikipedia, since that is prohibited by no original research rule. In analysing that book we rely upon secondary sources written by reputable scholars. They make the call about the Book of Revelation and its characters, Wikipedia editors don't make the call, instead they simply render viewpoints expressed by academics. Tgeorgescu (talk) 03:28, 17 December 2015 (UTC)

Every other breath there is some new angle, to say that II Revelation doesn't meet the standards for inclusion. My time is more precious than to waste it arguing with close-minded people. You can interpret the policies any way you like, apparently if you all gang up saying that new users are wrong; it seems fine. But, the record is against you; by your own words, how you have changed your specious reasoning at least thirty different times; it stinks of fraud. Hungarywhitebear (talk) 11:07, 17 December 2015 (UTC)

Hungarywhitebear, I think it's clear that experienced editors here agree that using II Revelation as a source is inappropriate for many reasons. It is not "changing" reasoning to mention different relevant policies at different times. It will be difficult for you to contribute productively to Wikipedia if you continue to refuse to listen to other editors; see WP:IDHT. --Macrakis (talk) 14:45, 17 December 2015 (UTC)

I do not believe any of your myriads of mercurial excuses are valid. But, like I said, it is not worth my time to argue. Upon retrospection, it is probably better that I keep knowledge of the book underground; because that is what ruined the original Christian movement, with too many fake Christians. Besides, it makes the rest of the article sources look patently fraudulent/not very compelling/fragmented/etc. Hungarywhitebear (talk) 23:12, 18 December 2015 (UTC)

I am now watching Hungarywhitebear's edit history. We may have to block him per WP:NOTHERE and WP:POLEMIC. --Guy Macon (talk) 00:05, 19 December 2015 (UTC)
such a long debate about such a simple decision? WP:OR clearly forbids this kind of shenanigans. However I am more concerned with WP:IDHT issues here seeing the long preaching style posts made here. Perhaps an admin can put a warning on the said users TP. FreeatlastChitchat (talk) 03:43, 21 December 2015 (UTC)

Yasser Hareb

Hello, I just would like to check whether the sources provided in Yasser Hareb article are reliable or not? could you please advise in this regard?. The article is proposed for deletion for unreliable sources reason, but I don't know what is wrong with the sources that I've provided. He has his own page for his weekly articles on the official websites of official newspapers from the UAE and Middle East region. In addition to that, I've provided some sources about his tv show on the official website of official channels in the UAE as well as some sources about his books. Badis1988 (talk) 19:57, 16 December 2015 (UTC)

First off - I see that the first source listed is a blog written by Yasser Hareb himself (http://paulocoelhoblog.com/2011/09/10/the-desert-editar/) In this case, this would be a self-published source which is not reliable, as the information in a blog is usually not fact checked nor cited, especially when used in a BLP. See WP:BLPSPS. Comatmebro User talk:Comatmebro 02:01, 17 December 2015 (UTC)

Hello [[User:Comatmebro|Comatmebro] what about the other sources used in the article? are they reliable or not? you just advised me about one source, thanks. Badis1988 (talk) 17:53, 17 December 2015 (UTC)

My personal opinion is that the entire article should be deleted, non of the sources are reliable enough. FreeatlastChitchat (talk) 03:47, 21 December 2015 (UTC)

Before I get bitey ;-)

Checking to see if I am correct that this source is a commercial, for-profit site and hence not an RS for articles about horse bits. It was proposed as a source at bit mouthpiece and the same editor is currently working on a draft at Draft:Dr. Bristol (Horse Bit). The topic meets notability for horse bits, and it was kind of my idea that the writer try to create a new article, but now I'm getting concerned that there is a COI going on. So anyway, before I go bite a newbie, thought I'd get some feedback. There are plenty of other sources out there about horse bits. Montanabw(talk) 00:29, 21 December 2015 (UTC)

COI aside, The Academy by Neue Schule would not be considered a reliable source. It is an enrollment course/training site. Meatsgains (talk) 00:34, 21 December 2015 (UTC)
Nice thread heading ;-) I am no expert in these matters, but it does look rather like someone trying to get a for-profit site in the encyclopaedia. If it is notable enough, I would have thought there would be a more "scholarly" source.DrChrissy (talk) 00:41, 21 December 2015 (UTC)
Yes, there is a lot of other material out there from better sources. I wanted to have someone assess the commercial/for-profit stuff because I smelled a bit of COI there... but I get called a lot of bad things when I tell someone with a COI that they can't do something and then they are so mad at me... meh! So thanks! ;-) Montanabw(talk) 08:18, 21 December 2015 (UTC)

Foreign language sources

An editor has been adding Indonesian sources to some articles with questionable notability. One of them is this source being used at Cemre Melis Çınar. My language skills don't extend this far but it appears to be an anonymous blog and so would not be a reliable source. Am I correct in assuming this? The editor in question has used similar sources at Isabella Damla Güvenilir, Selin Sezgin and Volkan Çolpan. --AussieLegend (✉) 07:26, 21 December 2015 (UTC)

The home page through Google translate supports the blog theory. -- Ricky81682 (talk) 07:31, 21 December 2015 (UTC)
tabloidbiodata.blogspot.co.id - I would not call something on a website of such name "the home page". - üser:Altenmann >t 06:13, 22 December 2015 (UTC)

Bruce Eder

Bruce Eder writes many articles I come across. He has written music and movie criticism for not only AllMusic, but also the Criterion Collection, the most prestigious DVD label, as well as a host of other publications.[1] He also wrote the liner notes for the Rolling Stones' Singles Collection (deluxe box set). He seems to be a writer of impeccable professional credentials and that his work, regardless of whatever venue it appears in, should be considered reliable. would I be correct? Garagepunk66 (talk) 03:42, 19 December 2015 (UTC)

References

  1. ^ "Bruce Eder: Biography". AllMusic. All Media Network, LLC. Retrieved December 18, 2015.
Your question is very broad, so the answer to that question would be, no. WP:RS looks not just to the author, but to the identity of the publisher and method of the publication - then too, there is specific text and context, which cannot be answered in a general way. Alanscottwalker (talk) 14:54, 19 December 2015 (UTC)
One editor told me that we look not only at the publication but also the author. For instance, whatever criticisms one has about AllMusic, there are still some noted writers who contribute there, such as Richard Unterberger and Steve Erlewine. Eder is one such writer. He has written in several publications. He was chosen to write the liner notes for a box set for the Rolling Stones--I would imagine that he had to be highly thought of to be given that honor. He has also written liner notes for the Criterion Collection DVD's. They usually feature liner notes and commentary from the worlds most esteemed experts. That is one of the reasons people pay twice as much to buy a Criterion DVD. He has written extensively there. [[19]] Garagepunk66 (talk) 17:14, 19 December 2015 (UTC)
Can you give us an example of where a citation to Eder is in dispute? Gamaliel (talk) 21:45, 19 December 2015 (UTC)
"He seems to be a writer of impeccable professional credentials " - If you concluded this from his allmusic profile, I would advise you to be careful. Who, in your opinion, wrote this long, detailed bio? - üser:Altenmann >t 06:25, 22 December 2015 (UTC)

Pride of Tamil Cinema

This Indian National Award winning book by G. Dhananjayan, besides many factually incorrect claims, contains considerable plagiarism from our articles. I have not read the whole book, but some examples include the chapters about Karnan, Pavalakkodi and Vallinam. Those who have read the book to any extent, like Vensatry and Ssven2 (when your internet improves) are encouraged to participate in this discussion. Kailash29792 (talk) 16:41, 6 December 2015 (UTC)

If you prove lots of plagiarism from Wikipedia I would say no because Wikipedia itself is not a reliable source. It wouldn't have a reputation for fact checking. DreamGuy (talk) 17:37, 6 December 2015 (UTC)
DreamGuy, "no" to what? The book being reliable or not? Kailash29792 (talk) 08:11, 8 December 2015 (UTC)
You never even gave us the name of the book, just the author, a claim that it's inaccurate and plagiarizes and some chapters. No one is going to be able to make an opinion without some details and some examples of what it's being used for. What specific claims are you questioning? -- Ricky81682 (talk) 23:41, 9 December 2015 (UTC)
  • At Karnan (film) now, it's being cited for his opinion that it's "only Tamil film which portrayed the mythological character Karnan in a grand manner." (footnote 40) which is closer to puffery than particularly enlightening. It's also cited for a view that the performance was from another film and "not well received" (probably could just cite author directly), for a quote by another critic and for the writers, and editor. Is the quote inaccurate? Are the writer and editor inaccurate? The two opinions could be kept or cut, as I don't know how his personal opinion would be inaccurate of himself. No citations to Pavalakkodi (either version) nor at Vallinam so I'm just puzzled here at this. -- Ricky81682 (talk) 23:49, 9 December 2015 (UTC)
The author has written two books: The Best of Tamil Cinema (in 2 volumes) and Pride of Tamil Cinema, a single book. Right now we are dealing with the latter book, which can be viewed through Google preview. Kailash29792 (talk) 08:28, 10 December 2015 (UTC)
Ricky81682, can you see how much of the book is available on Google books preview? Or should I photograph each suspected chapter and show you? Kailash29792 (talk) 11:42, 14 December 2015 (UTC)
Kailash29792 I'd rather you start with evidence of factually incorrect claims, evidence of plagiarism and responding to my question about what in particular are you against using this book for. Simply you pointing out the book sections and saying "it's wrong" will just be circular arguing until we have some idea what statement is the problem here. Again, is the "grand manner" that's bothersome? Is the writer or editor inaccurate? Are the quotes of other critics wrong? Do you disagree on his personal opinions about films? I'm not sure where you're going with this. -- Ricky81682 (talk) 17:59, 14 December 2015 (UTC)
I'll photograph the suspected pages and share them with you by tonight. Kailash29792 (talk) 12:18, 18 December 2015 (UTC)
Ricky81682, here is Karnan and here is Vallinam. Vensatry, please tell me more chapters from the book you caught red-handed. I'll upload them too, and the book's credibility will be judged. Kailash29792 (talk) 10:07, 19 December 2015 (UTC)
Kailash29792 I don't get your point here. Ok, that's pages from the book. Where is the evidence that it is plagiarism or factually incorrect? -- Ricky81682 (talk) 21:27, 19 December 2015 (UTC)
Irrespective of whether it's plagiarized or not, the book cites Wikipedia articles as references. It's not an acceptable as per WP:CIRCULAR. utcursch | talk 21:42, 19 December 2015 (UTC)
utcursch, how do you know? Did you read it fully? The Karnan chapter copied the whole production section from us. The Vallinam chapter has the quote "ensure that he lived the role rather than act", which we also use. Kailash29792 (talk) 09:27, 22 December 2015 (UTC)

Request for comment at ExxonMobil

You are invited to join the discussion at Talk:ExxonMobil#Request for comment: ExxonMobil among most vocal climate change deniers. Issues of reliability of sources have been raised. Thanks. Hugh (talk) 15:45, 22 December 2015 (UTC)

McKinsey Global Institute

I would like to request some feedback on whether the McKinsey Global Institute (MGI) is a reliable source, because I am considering helping them contribute to business/economics topics with a self-citation COI. MGI publishes data-based, peer-reviewed, papers on business/economics topics. I would compare them to reports published by industry analysts.

For example, lets say I were to add this MGI report to the Gender pay gap page with something like "According to a study by The McKinsey Global Institute, global GDP would be increased by $28 trillion if the gender gap was closed." Articles in The Wall Street Journal and TIME Magazine that covered the report could also be cited. However, lets say I also wanted to add freely licensed diagrams from page VII and 28 showing gender gap breakdowns by region and by industry respectively. Those aren't covered by press sources and could only be added by relying on MGI alone as an RS.

The type of stuff I would like to add to Wikipedia is their data on market-sizes, demographics, projections, etc.

David King, Ethical Wiki (Talk) 16:57, 22 December 2015 (UTC)

CorporateM, can you clarify whether McKinsey & Company is paying you to do this? Adding company links to articles on behalf of a client would be SEO/spamming. See Wikipedia:Spam: "adding references with the aim of promoting the author or the work being referenced."
If independent third parties (secondary sources) have used McKinsey as a source, they can be used instead. Using high-quality secondary sources means the McKinsey material will have been evaluated in some way. SarahSV (talk) 17:39, 22 December 2015 (UTC)

Scientific opinion on climate change

Re-posted from User_talk:EdJohnston#Scientific_opinion_on_climate_change at the request of User:NewsAndEventsGuy Biscuittin (talk) 16:35, 22 December 2015 (UTC) strikeout added by me since this is part is untrue. NewsAndEventsGuy (talk) 16:41, 22 December 2015 (UTC)

I didn't say you added it. I said you requested me to add it, so I did. Biscuittin (talk) 16:58, 22 December 2015 (UTC)
If you still don't understand why I objected, we have a problem, but I'm not going to compound it by naming it. NewsAndEventsGuy (talk) 17:53, 22 December 2015 (UTC)
Is this a concealed slur on me? Biscuittin (talk) 18:01, 22 December 2015 (UTC)
I assume you're here to get an answer to the original question, so a better question might be "After reading all the stuff at the top of the page, and reviewing other threads to see how things work on this board, what is your own self assessment of the approach you have taken with respect to your original RS-related question, thus far?"NewsAndEventsGuy (talk) 18:09, 22 December 2015 (UTC)
No comment. Biscuittin (talk) 18:53, 22 December 2015 (UTC)

There is another edit war in progess at Scientific opinion on climate change. The point at issue is whether two scientific papers are, or are not, reliable sources. Could you please advise how I can get an independent opinion on this. Biscuittin (talk) 09:46, 22 December 2015 (UTC)

Hopefully, this isn't going to degenerate into another conflict. But I'd like to draw your attention to (a) [20], in which B is displaying distinctly battleground-type mentality; and (b) a spate of controversial edits and reverts having just come off a 3RR block. Hopefully, B will see sense and back off a little William M. Connolley (talk) 10:32, 22 December 2015 (UTC)
It is precisely because I wish to avoid a battleground that I have asked for advice here. Biscuittin (talk) 11:21, 22 December 2015 (UTC)
A battleground describes a venue, which is not what we're talking about here. Instead, the expression "Battleground" is short for each editors private state of mind.... are we here with "battleground mentality"? You have already been alerted that DS applies to discussions of climate change as a result of ARBCC. Everyone is going to assume that you have taken time to read that, especially the principles section, which explicitly bars battleground mentality.NewsAndEventsGuy (talk) 11:57, 22 December 2015 (UTC)
So I have been found guilty of "battleground mentality" before the trial even starts. I'm not going to respond to any more of these slurs. I will wait for EdJohnston to respond. Biscuittin (talk) 12:26, 22 December 2015 (UTC)
As the discussion has strayed off-topic, I would remind people that it is not about me, it is about whether or not these two papers [21] [22] are reliable sources. Biscuittin (talk) 13:16, 22 December 2015 (UTC)
This thread started off with a request for process advice, with respect to determining whether some sources are RS. My advice, step 1, eds are most effective when they do not attempt to "rescue" articles from other eds they think of as a "Cabal". Step 2, if unsatisfied at article talk, go to the reliable sources noticeboard. NewsAndEventsGuy (talk) 13:28, 22 December 2015 (UTC)
@Biscuittin:, please go to the section I opened on the article talk page and notice the question isn't about whether or not your sources are reliable, but if your text belongs in the article. Since we have various pages on the topic, I myself was thinking for a moment your text was pertinent, but it's not. Editor Dmcq politely and succinctly explained the matter on the talk page:
Putting in those violates WP:WEIGHT. The rest of the article is based on scientific society statements and surveys not individual views. The article would have to be absolutely huge to include all individuals who have stated their views. We are able to cover the scientific controversy side better in Global warming controversy. Dmcq (talk) 02:03, 22 December 2015 (UTC)
YoPienso (talk) 18:11, 22 December 2015 (UTC)
I thought the same thing, but he's the one defining the issue that he is prosecuting, no matter the advice/response from other editors. NewsAndEventsGuy (talk) 18:15, 22 December 2015 (UTC)
You just keep moving the goalposts. Biscuittin (talk) 18:56, 22 December 2015 (UTC)
  • Comment - So, there are two papers for consideration. One of them appears to be a study and the other one seems to be a written opinion presented to a state government. Studies are considered primary sources, and we typically prefer tp use reliable secondary sources when writing articles. There are plenty of reliable secondary sources that cover this topic, so there is no reason for primary sources to be used, especially when attempting to present a dissenting viewpoint. The study was commissioned by the GWPF which is known to be a climate denial think tank. This means they have conflict of interest concerns and would be a questionable source. The second paper isn't even published and just appears to be a written summary, which even the author regards as his own "views". I don't see this meeting any of WP:RS criteria, especially when multiple peer reviewed articles and studies are currently supplied in the article. Scoobydunk (talk) 21:07, 22 December 2015 (UTC)

An article from khamenei.ir

The content I added to Iran-Iraq war was removed by a user. I'd like to know if the article is not reliable. I thought the article was well sourced bedsides being written by a scholar, so it seemed reliable to me. Mhhossein (talk) 07:27, 20 December 2015 (UTC)

I do not think that such a website can ever be called a reliable source. I think you are assuming that because biased sources are allowed, no matter how heavy the bias, we should allow this. However you should understand that a source must first fall under WP:RS and that is taking a hit when we examine this source. Khamenei.ir is almost laughable as a reliable source for anything to be frank, except perhaps the opinion of Khamenei, but I am not sure if even that will be allowed seeing that there are dedicated fatwa websites around. So basically a very poor source which should be avoided at all costs, especially in controversial articles. If we started using them as a source then we will be including the laughable and ridiculous theory that USA created boko Haram and they work for US, and that Isreal benefittid from the 2015 Zaria Shia Massacre. so please do not include this highly unreliable source in wiki. FreeatlastChitchat (talk) 03:54, 21 December 2015 (UTC)
Thanks but I'd rather receive responses from other users, not you. Mhhossein (talk) 06:35, 21 December 2015 (UTC)
Mhhossein lol why? no I do mean seriously. Why don't you want to receive a response from me on a public noticeboard? On a side note, almost 100% of other users will agree with me, so you are basically accepting "my response". FreeatlastChitchat (talk) 07:04, 21 December 2015 (UTC)
This page exists to get outside viewpoints, though of course participants can state their own position up front. The khamenei.ir piece does not seem to be reliable for the statement expressed. It seems to be an opinion piece by a non-scholar (they seem to have an MA in international relations, that's basically it).
That said, the claim, suitably modified, is well-supported. One can find many good sources here. Just look at the footnotes. Basically the US removed Iraq from the list of states sponsoring terrorism in 1982, and dual-use technology was allowed. Most of the support did not directly come from the US, which concentrated on providing intelligence and giving funds and credit. A lot of the weaponry came from the Soviet Union and Europe. Kingsindian ♝ ♚ 13:54, 21 December 2015 (UTC)
Kingsindian: Thanks for your civil and informative response. Yeah this board is open for all the editors while no one excepts uncivil comments (the so called "colorful language") from an editor with harsh and annoying language. Besides, he fails to judge the sources correctly. Anyway, thanks for linking to that useful article. I think a substitute can be found there. Mhhossein (talk) 16:19, 21 December 2015 (UTC)
@Mhhossein you seem to start blaming me every time something like this happens. I told you earlier that this source is hilariously bad, rather its more than bad, its just a Shi'ite Ayatollah mouthing off without rhyme or reason. but you did not want to accept my view. Now you have been told my KingsIndian that this source IS bad so you should not blame me to be frank. Saying that I fail to judge sources seems to a personal attack and a blatant lie in this context to be frank, seeing that I actually judged the source to be WP:BULLSHIT and it actually was. Perhaps next time you can be kind enough to not engage in personal attack if my judgement is corroborated by someone else, its kinda not my fault that the source sucks, blame the Ayatollah if you want for spewing this kind of stuff. Regards FreeatlastChitchat (talk) 05:26, 22 December 2015 (UTC)
Be careful about accusing others of lying because it is considered personal attack. I did evaluate your failing to judge the sources based on your participation in talk page of different articles. your background shows that you can't evaluate the sources correctly. For example, here you rejected the source in a biased approach only due to being related to khamenei and expressed yourself in a harsh and uncivil manner while Kingsindian tried to say that the article although being well sourced is not written by a scholar. Can you figure out the difference? Mhhossein (talk) 12:36, 22 December 2015 (UTC)
@Mhhossein I will just copy paste wjat I wrote, I think you did not read it. The sequence of what happened is this.
  1. I told you earlier that this source is hilariously bad, rather its more than bad, its just a Shi'ite Ayatollah mouthing off without rhyme or reason, Israel made the boko Haram, Hamerica is bad, The jews fathered every bad thing in the world, including the Ayatollahs firstborn.
  2. you did not want to accept my view.
  3. Now you have been told my KingsIndian that this source IS bad
  4. you should not blame me
  5. Saying that I fail to judge sources seems to a personal attack and a blatant lie in this context to be frank, seeing that I actually judged the source to be WP:BULLSHIT and it actually was.
  6. Perhaps next time you can be kind enough to not engage in personal attack if my judgement is corroborated by someone else,
  7. its not my fault that the source sucks, blame the Ayatollah for spewing this kind of stuff if you want.
PLEASE can you let go of this issue? There is not even a need to reply to me. I gave my opinion, you did not like it, other people liked it, the source is bad. Whats there to talk about now? FreeatlastChitchat (talk) 03:28, 23 December 2015 (UTC)
I don't know why you tend to enlarge the threads in which you enter. can you hear me?. Just be civil! Mhhossein (talk) 05:47, 23 December 2015 (UTC)

Is ScrewAttack an RS?

I came across this when editing Foster's Home for Imaginary Friends. I cited video game/film/television website ScrewAttack, specifically this link: [23]. The content in the article reads: "ScrewAttack.com placed the series among the top 20 greatest Cartoon Network shows of all time, praising its "fleshed out" and "memorable" characters, as well as its comedy style, stating that it "not only appealed to younger audiences, but to all age groups"." Cheers, Katástasi (κατάσταση) 03:49, 17 December 2015 (UTC)

After going through ScrewAttack's website, they have one editor and folks reporting on events but it doesn't look like they have systems in place for fact checking. Not sure if fact-checking is needed for a site like this but I'm hesitant on deeming it reliable. To support the information you are wanting to add, I'd definitely provide additional context along the lines of: "According to ScrewAttack, the series was among the top 20 greatest Cartoon Network shows of all time..." Meatsgains (talk) 03:59, 17 December 2015 (UTC)
Nope. The original text is correct. "According to ScrewAttack, the series was among" means the series actually "was among the best". The original text says correctly, "Screwttack thinks it was among the best" , i.e., website's judgement only. Now, the question is whether this website has any authority for that. Staszek Lem (talk) 01:49, 19 December 2015 (UTC)
P.S. The website clearly says " But nonetheless the following is my opinion on what have been the best shows to have been shown on Cartoon Network, oh and in case you missed the first part, just click the link below to get caught up.". Now, again, who the heck this guy his opinion is important for wikipedia? Staszek Lem (talk) 01:54, 19 December 2015 (UTC)
I didn't catch that, good find. In that case, ScrewAttack would not be reliable and the publication's "opinion" holds no weight. Meatsgains (talk) 18:21, 19 December 2015 (UTC)

Just to make a comment, it looks as though this article was user-submitted so obviously this shouldn't be considered reliable. This shouldn't be used to figure out Screwattack's reliability. Besides, the user hasn't posted there since 2013. GamerPro64 04:46, 23 December 2015 (UTC)

That is a good point obviously the user submitted material is not reliable though I agree that the site allows user submitted material does not mean that everything written on the site it automatically unreliable.--67.68.209.88 (talk) 06:35, 23 December 2015 (UTC)

Obama chmo!

This is an article about a Russian insult to President Obama. There's one reliable source, the Times of London, that mentions it in passing. There are a couple of other sources that sorta talk about the insult, but not about Obama. Most of the sources are blogs, joking websites, or at about the intellectual level of "Entertainment Tonight". Or just plain propaganda. You probably need to know a bit of Russian to judge what's happening here, but any help appreciated. Smallbones(smalltalk) 04:15, 22 December 2015 (UTC)

  • There are blogs and blogs, you know. Please list specifically items you object. Some of by reply is in Talk:Obama chmo!. - üser:Altenmann >t 04:24, 22 December 2015 (UTC)
  • There is no joking websites. What's wrong Entertainment Tonight describing events? - üser:Altenmann >t 04:24, 22 December 2015 (UTC)
  • As for propaganda, you you must be kidding. What exactly propaganda in the article you have in mind? Of course the article is about Russian propaganda; you should not look for love to America in it. - üser:Altenmann >t 04:24, 22 December 2015 (UTC)
  • There are a couple of other sources that sorta talk about the insult - How without this "sorta talka about insult" the English speakers are expected to undertand the topic? (And in case you didn't notice, the article is about insult, similar to Putin khuilo) - üser:Altenmann >t 04:27, 22 December 2015 (UTC)
  • Not about Obama - You surely must be kidding. Do you really expect [Obama chmo!|this article]] to be about Obama? - üser:Altenmann >t

Russian sites I dont care, but I don't see why this newspice about a French moron governor visiting Russia from Romanian website Reporter virtual is unreliable. This news was all over Europe. Starting from France itself- üser:Altenmann >t 04:38, 22 December 2015 (UTC)

P.S.@Smallbones: I believe the issue is moot now; I will not contest the deletion of text, because I added a couple of ironclad sources to demonstrate the notability of the subject in Russian propaganda war. - üser:Altenmann >t 05:01, 22 December 2015 (UTC)

I've removed a couple more unnotable facts. This part was even funny: [24] ("Professor Sergei Zhuk gives a yet another another plausible explanation. [end of paragraph]" citing a source that is actually a blog post by Sergei Zhuk. Who is the person, what's his explanation, and did he refer to himself in the third person or something?) --Moscow Connection (talk) 13:56, 22 December 2015 (UTC)

I wrote in third person because I was lazy to copy this explanation into the article. "Who is the person" may be found in the blog. FUI "blog" is no longer a dirty word. This is a blog of professionals, as I explain in the article talk page. I find this ridiculous behavior: instead of discussion in article talk page, you both ignore it and jump right away to cry mama to policy boards. - üser:Altenmann >t 23:57, 22 December 2015 (UTC)

Help! The author continues reverting. My only explanation is that he can't read Russian and doesn't understand what he uses as sources and he wants to save his article at all costs. (It was nearly deleted at AfD just a few days ago.)
Look at this, this is what he restored:

  1. 1 — A blog is used as a source. The sentence is "Professor Sergei Zhuk gives a yet another another plausible explanation." (and that's all, the etymology section ends here) and the source cited is a blog post by someone named Sergei Zhuk!
  2. 2 — The transliterations are not in the source cited.
  3. 3 — Not relevant, Wikipedia is not a dictionary.
  4. 4 — As I explained in my edit summary, the comedian (Mikhail Zadornov) doesn't rap. The YouTube video is made by someone else, surely without his permission. The comedian's words are simply looped to music. Moreover, neither of the sources say anything about rapping. The first source just says something vague about Zadornov and his "Americans are stupid"-themed jokes and something about the answer being "in the short and offensive motto [...]" and links to the YouTube video for everyone to see. The second source simply cites a random person who has the motto on his car. He says he bought the car sticker with the motto after he saw a video by Zadornov that was titled like that. He says nothing more about the video. (And he doesn't even get that the video wasn't "by Zadornov", it was created by someone else. It's normal cause a random person from the streets is an unreliable source.)

I personally think the article should have been deleted at AfD. --Moscow Connection (talk) 00:29, 23 December 2015 (UTC)

Once again, please discuss article content in article talk page. - üser:Altenmann >t 01:12, 23 December 2015 (UTC)
You revert unreliable sources (a blog and an interwiew with a random person) back in. I think I need help from other people. This is a good place to discuss the problem. --Moscow Connection (talk) 01:19, 23 December 2015 (UTC)
  • "Blog" is not a dirty four-letter word. As a have already explained several times in several places, it is common blog of a bunch of professors from solid academia. - üser:Altenmann >t 01:33, 23 December 2015 (UTC)
  • "Interview with random person" - I did not cite an opinion of this random person. I cited the text from the preamble by a journalist. Clearly a journalist is a reliable source within the area of his occupation, namely, news. 33 1/3 % of citations in wikipedia cite journalists from newspapers. - üser:Altenmann >t 01:33, 23 December 2015 (UTC)
    • Where exactly does the preamble mention the YouTube video? Just copy and paste the exact quote here. --Moscow Connection (talk) 03:25, 23 December 2015 (UTC)
      • This is the fist time you ask the direct and specific question. The YT video is mentioned in the second, better ref. The interview may be safely removed from the footnote, if you object to quoting a random interviewed guy saying "I bought the sticker after watching Zadornov's video with the same name". Once again, if instead of angry generic rants, you discussed the issue in article talk page, many issues could have been resolved quickly and amicably. - üser:Altenmann >t 03:37, 23 December 2015 (UTC)
        • 1. The ref doesn't say Zadornov raps in the YouTube video. (It's probably because he doesn't.)
          By the way, I find the video rather scary. But if you watch the original comic monologue, you'll see that it sounds quite different. Cause Zadornov's words are taken out of context and are abruptly edited.
          2. You said the video was mentioned in the preamble and now it appears that you knew it wasn't. Why did you say it? Why did you refuse to acknowledge that your sources didn't support the claims you were making? Why did you revert several unsupported claims back?
          3. Now you've added some very strange stuff from the professor's article. I mean, you are not to blame for his ideas, but it's just nonsense what he says. You should remove it.
          3. The article was fine at this point: [25]. Now it's simply terrible.
          4. Do these so-called scientists who you cite in the etymology section know the exact meaning that the word in this motto conveys? What the word means in this particular usage? Do they? Surely they don't. Simply because they don't even mention the motto. Since they don't know and you don't know, the whole "Etymology" section must be moved to Wiktionary. --Moscow Connection (talk) 05:36, 23 December 2015 (UTC)

And here (here)

*(cur | prev) 11:38, December 20, 2015‎ Moscow Connection (talk | contribs)‎ . . (4,086 bytes) (-748)‎ . . (The sources don't say it.) (undo | thank)
**Yes they say. Anway, I deleted the second one, since it is just an advert. - üser:Altenmann [[user talk:Altenmann|>'''t''']] 23:11, 21 December 2015 (UTC)}}

Where exacly do the sources say, "It is usually used as a sticker for cars". Where? (It's just an example why this whole deal is just too frustrating.) --Moscow Connection (talk) 05:36, 23 December 2015 (UTC)

Third and last time I am not talking to you in this page (It's just an example why this whole deal is just too frustrating.) Follow the freaking rules of discussion please. Article contens is to be discussed in article talk page. This page is for dispute resolution after talk in talk page fails. - üser:Altenmann >t 07:18, 23 December 2015 (UTC)

Is the UK paper The Guardian a reliable source for feminist smear campaigns?

The Guardian frequently prints articles by feminist campaigners which contain claims which are later proven to be untrue, and which are not corrected or retracted. One of the more notable examples is the false claim against Tim Hunt, which revolves around whether Hunt was speaking in jest or sincerely, and whether the audience reaction indicated that Hunt's statement was being taken as jest. The false claim by Connie St Louis is still on the Guardian's website right now: "They were deeply offended and didn’t get Hunt’s “jokes”. Nobody was laughing."

For further information, Wikipedia's own article is an excellent resource (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tim_Hunt). I urge readers to look at the article's talk page and take note of the editors who grasp at every straw possible to retain the defamatory claims against Hunt in the article, in Wikipedia's voice, despite excellent secondary sources confirming that an audio recording proved the audience laughed at Hunt's jokes. "The recording shows Sir Tim's concluding remarks were followed by laughter and appreciative applause." The article even includes the audio recording, which captures the laughter with crystal clarity.

The Guardian is not unaware that their defamation of Mr. Hunt is problematic; see this article referring to it: http://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2015/jul/13/responding-to-criticism-of-our-coverage-of-the-tim-hunt-affair

Regardless, Connie St Louis' defamatory lie is still on the Guardian's website at the time of writing. It's headline is the blunt order "Stop defending Tim Hunt" http://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2015/jun/23/stop-defending-tim-hunt-brian-cox-richard-dawkins?CMP=share_btn_fb

One defamatory article is bad enough, but it is rather a pattern with this newspaper, which has printed unfounded rape allegations by Emma Sulkowicz and Dylan Farrow as fact, despite the fact that both of the accused men have been exonerated by the justice system.

I am certain that on other matters, the Guardian has some wish to maintain a reputation for fact checking and accuracy, but in matters which pertain to smear campaigns by feminists, the Guardian's reliability is surely no better than Rush Limbaugh's.— Preceding unsigned comment added by 109.78.228.124 (talk • contribs)

The name "Emma Sulcowicz" appears a grand total of once in the entire Guardian archive, in this piece which is clearly marked as "opinion" at the top rather than a news story. ‑ Iridescent 19:51, 22 December 2015 (UTC)
The Guardian has a political bias, like most newspapers. One should of course not rely on a single source for any claim of any significance. Also, news and opinion pieces should be distinguished. The commentisfree piece is opinion. Kingsindian ♝ ♚ 21:13, 22 December 2015 (UTC)
Kingsindian is mistaken. The defamatory article linked above is listed under Home → Science and not opinion or comment. Also, the banner motto from the Guardian's commentisfree is a quote from former editor CP Snow which states "Comment is free... but facts are sacred". This clearly implies that factual assertions, such as St Louis' defamatory lie that laughter was absent, are to be taken as factual assertions unless immediately qualified by "in my opinion" or "my impression is" or similar. The fact remains that the Guardian is the primary source for many Wikipedia articles about feminist smear campaigns. The Guardian stands by its assertions by saying "facts are sacred", even when the assertions are proven, in reliable secondary sources, to be counterfactual. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 109.78.228.124 (talk • contribs)
Firstly, you should sign your posts, by using four tildes. Secondly, the commentisfree articles are indeed opinion pieces. The Connie St. Louis article was indeed news, but that has been dealt with in the Wikipedia article using other sources. They were incorrect in this instance, but many newspapers are incorrect occasionally, often in ways related to their political biases. If your point is that the Guardian is not reliable for anything dealing with feminism, you'll not get much traction here. By the way, the Observer is published by the same company as the Guardian, the Wikipedia page quotes that article (an interview with Hunt) as well. Kingsindian ♝ ♚ 21:31, 22 December 2015 (UTC)
Your use of the past tense for the Connie St. Louis article is inappropriate. It is in news; it has not been modified or had a note appended explaining that Ms. St. Louis' assertion was incorrect. Are you seriously claiming that the Guardian only printed one story containing Sulkowicz' unfounded allegation? I have read at least three entirely separate Guardian articles all published on separate days about her. How many more utterly inaccurate assertions do you think you can make before we start to waver in our rock-solid belief in your good faith? — Preceding unsigned comment added by 109.78.228.124 (talk • contribs)
This is why you should sign your posts, and read other peoples' signature. I said nothing about Emma Sulkowicz: that was another editor, Iridiscent. I don't have anything to add to what I said before. If you want to open a formal RfC asking people whether the Guardian should be treated as unreliable on feminist matters, you can do so. Otherwise you are wasting your time. Kingsindian ♝ ♚ 21:32, 23 December 2015 (UTC)

In short: Opinions may be used properly sourced and cited as opinions. Using opinion columns as "statements of fact" is improper on Wikipedia, and especially with regard to living persons. Collect (talk) 21:38, 23 December 2015 (UTC)

In this instance and for this content, the Guardian is not a reliable source. I do t know that you can make a broader conclusion that would include any Guardian article touching on feminism though Minor4th 22:32, 23 December 2015 (UTC)
It would have helped if you had included specific articles used for claims, and the claims they were supposed to support. In general, articles in The Guardian or any other reputable newspaper are reliable sources for facts. Opinion pieces are not. The fact that Guardian stories contain inaccuracies is irrelevant - all newspapers do. And they publish retractions. So I would not use "facts" that a paper has subsequently retracted. TFD (talk) 19:55, 24 December 2015 (UTC)

Opinion pieces are always opinion pieces, I have no idea what the controversy is here. If you can't tell the difference between a sourced article and Opinion blather, you should probably do more background work before editing Wikipedia. Lipsquid (talk) 22:52, 24 December 2015 (UTC)

I have now read the Tim Hunt article. It seems to me this is really mostly a problem of weight - how much of the article should be about the controversy. Also, I think the approach is wrong. We should begin by saying what the accusations are and how they were seen, rather than beginning with a lengthy recital of his comments. Neutrality does not mean neutrality toward the subject, but presenting the views in secondary sources according to their degree of acceptance. The current approach invites readers to examine the evidence and draw their own conclusions. Readers who want to do that are free to follow the external links, but most just want to know what informed commentators said about them. TFD (talk) 23:24, 24 December 2015 (UTC)

Reaxxion

On the doxing article defunct gaming site Reaxxion is being used as a source, for the claim that the use of doxing is used by people associated with feminism (diff.) I don't believe Reaxxion meets WP:IRS. It was founded in Nov 2014 and does not have a reputation of fact checking. The article being cited also makes some pretty serious claims about a living person. Is Reaxxion a reliable source? — Strongjam (talk) 03:02, 25 December 2015 (UTC)

I'm the editor attempting to use Reaxxion. A small news site is not automatically unreliable just because they are small. Additionally, the article in question draws on known WP:RS in its writeup for supporting content. Lithorien (talk) 03:08, 25 December 2015 (UTC)
Contest withdrawn per the statements below. Lithorien (talk) 05:29, 25 December 2015 (UTC)
  • Unreliable. Neither the author nor the editor/publisher appear to have backgrounds in journalism or any relevant field, they aren't affiliated with publishers that we would consider reliable, and they dn't appear to be considered experts for their individual opinions. The author bio even suggests that he's new to journalism. Perhaps more importantly, I am unable to find any instances of reliable sources citing Reaxxion articles or even reusing their content, pointing towards the lack of a reputation for fact-checking and accuracy. There are even a small number of sources criticizing Reaxxion as a whole, though I'm not sure how many of them would be considered reliable sources themselves. In short, BLP claims require impeccable sources, and this doesn't come close. Woodroar (talk) 04:24, 25 December 2015 (UTC)
Just so I can get some clarification, you're stating that an article publisher that compiles information from reliable sources can be considered unreliable in spite of that fact? Lithorien (talk) 05:08, 25 December 2015 (UTC)
Assuming you're talking about this link, I'm not seeing the reliable sources this article is based on. It looks like a bunch of screen shots, and links to Brietbart and Medium, neither of which are very reliable. This is not a reliable source for much, especially not a broad claim with WP:BLP implications. Grayfell (talk) 05:24, 25 December 2015 (UTC)
Ah, ok. I think that is my misunderstanding of exactly what a reliable source is. I've read the WP:RS page, but apparently I need to go read it again and reevaluate what I think it says. As well as WP:BLP. Lithorien (talk) 05:29, 25 December 2015 (UTC)
Just to explain the reasoning: there are plenty of sources out there with reputations for quoting out of context, misreading or misrepresenting others, suggesting a false balance between sources, and so on. The type of things that WP:NOR and WP:NPOV warns against here. As an example, we wouldn't use a moon landing conspiracy theorist source even if it extensively cites NASA. Woodroar (talk) 05:45, 25 December 2015 (UTC)

RfC - Aloysius Stepinac

Your input is requested at Talk:Aloysius_Stepinac#RfC:_What_honorific-prefixes_should_be_included_in_the_infobox.3F. Thanks, Peacemaker67 (crack... thump) 08:50, 25 December 2015 (UTC)

SFFWorld usable?

I usually come across this site whenever I look for sources on sci-fi or fantasy related items. From what I can see they do have staff and they were mentioned in this book by Libraries Unlimited and this one by Routledge, both academic publishers. A further search brought up other academic coverage, where they'd been used as a RS or mentioned as a large, influential site. ([26], [27], [28], [29])

My thought is that they should be considered usable. I figured that it'd be good to ask and get a bit of a consensus, though. Tokyogirl79 (｡◕‿◕｡) 09:24, 22 December 2015 (UTC)

I don't see any reason why SFFWorld wouldn't be reliable and usable. Thanks for provided a link the website's staff! Makes it much quicker for users. Meatsgains (talk) 03:39, 23 December 2015 (UTC)
Not a problem. Let me know if you face any resistance! Meatsgains (talk) 17:40, 26 December 2015 (UTC)

List of game theorist

List_of_game_theorists has no sources and may violate original research guidelines and may not meet notability requirements. WikIan -(talk) 23:08, 26 December 2015 (UTC)

Considering the page does not have a single source for verification, all individuals listed as a "game theorist" would be original research/opinion. Meatsgains (talk) 18:49, 27 December 2015 (UTC)
Notability isn't really a concern for this noticeboard, but I also don't think it's an issue here. Lists commonly include links to other Wikipedia articles which, in turn, cite sources to verify appropriateness for inclusion in the list. In fact in my experience it's more common to see list items without sources than with. Not ideal, of course (living persons in particular should have a source to be included in a list), but it's not necessarily original research. After all, it's verifiable -- you just have to click the name (and while you're at it, you might as well copy in the appropriate citation :) ). — Rhododendrites talk \\ 04:34, 28 December 2015 (UTC)

Arab Philosophers and Arab World Books for a literary critic's biography

I'm currently working on expanding the page for Abbās al-Aqqād, an Egyptian poet, journalist and literary critic from the first half of the 20th century. There is an acceptable number of sources out there, but I just found two more about which I am unsure. One is from a website called Arab World Books and the other is from a site called Arab Philosophers. The former boasts a diverse Board of Trustees, while the latter has what it calls a "Board of consultants" which looks to be the same thing.
My main issue is that the web design is a bit dated, so it doesn't look...modern, I suppose? Professional? I'm not sure how to describe it. Anyway, the information both sites contain about al-Aqqad is mostly standard bio stuff but I wanted to check about these two sources here before using them. MezzoMezzo (talk) 03:45, 23 December 2015 (UTC)

They are tertiary sources which have limited value. Articles should be based primarily on secondary sources. Among the problems with tertiary sources is that they do not provide sources for their claims. If you cannot find English sources, try Arabic ones. TFD (talk) 01:31, 26 December 2015 (UTC)
@The Four Deuces: thanks for responding! There are a boatload of sources on the subject in Arabic (I'm a fan of his biographies of poets and retrospectives of literature) but I was hesitant to resort to that until now. I guess it's allowed per WP:NONENG, so I guess what we can do is put the above links aside, and then I'll run a Googlebooks search (which I haven't done yet) for any reliable second party sources from Brill or any university publishers. Then, after that, I'll turn to the Arabic biographies. Would this be a good plan for developing the article? (General question open to anybody else as well...more help is always a good thing.) MezzoMezzo (talk) 05:24, 27 December 2015 (UTC)
Glad to help. English is preferred because it is easier to editors to check that text is cited correctly and it provides further reader for readers who speak English. Also, the best sources are often translated into English. Al Jazeera for example has an English section. But where there are better sources in Arabic, it makes sense to use them. Your approach seems good. I would mention that tertiary sources are useful in assessing the weight to be applied to different aspects of an topic and can sometimes be listed in "Further reading" sections. TFD (talk) 16:24, 28 December 2015 (UTC)

Página 12

Página/12 is an Argentine newspaper. During the presidencies of Néstor Kirchner and Cristina Fernández de Kirchner it has become a propaganda tool for the government. Having an editorial line favourable to a certain government does not make an unreliable source: the problem is that they give priority to advance their political views, even when that means distorting information, concealing information (even with self-censorship), using slander against politicians that oppose the government, etc.

  • The government benefits the aligned press with huge ammounts of money from state advertisments. Página 12 received 33.9 millions of pesos, the 26.5 of the total ammount of money invested in all the media (see here). In contrast, the government tries to push the non-aligned press to bankrupcy, by pressuring the standard advertisments to stay away from those newspapers (see the WSJ article next).
  • As described by the Wall Street Journal here, when Jorge Bergoglio (who was so far against the government) was appointed as Pope Francis, Página 12 started a defamation campaign against him, linking him to alleges crimes during the dirty war. Their lead journalist, Horacio Verbitsky, was a member of the Montoneros guerrilla, a band that used terrorist tactics in the 1970s in a failed attempt to establish a communist dictatorship in the country. The WSJ points that this is not limited to the pope, the newspaper has a routine of making similar defamations against anyone who does not endorse the Kirchner's authoritarianism.
  • In line with this, Página 12 published in the front page an alleged photo of Bergoglio giving the sacramental bread to dictator Jorge Rafael Videla (see here). Actually, that photo has another priest, and it was taken a pair of decades later, as detailed here.
  • Eventually, Cristina Kirchner made a copernical shift towards the Pope, suddenly treating him as a saint beyond criticism. In line with that shift, Página 12 removed several articles by Verbitsky from the Página 12 web page (see here).
  • Journalist Julio Nudler wrote an editorial in 2004, denouncing a corruption case that involved the chief of cabinet of ministers Alberto Fernández and the head of the Sindicatura General de la Nación, Moroni. The newspaper used self-censorship, and refused to publish his editorial (see here for the editorial, retrieved by another newspaper).
  • The newspaper published a comic strip mocking victims of the holocaust. Even the Simon Wiesenthal Center had to call them on the outrage, forcing them to make apologies for it (see here
  • Jorge Lanata, who established the newspaper a pair of decades ago, is no longer part of its staff. Even he rejects the current newspaper's credibility (see here), and calls them the "anti-journalism".
  • Cristina Kirchner made a speech in the 25º anniversary of the newspaper. She said that "there is a true cultural battle. We will wage it on all fields, and Página 12 as well". (see here). Translated: Página 12 is indeed used by the government as a propaganda tool to impose their ideas.
  • Some weeks before the 2011 elections, the newspaper published that one of the candidates of the rival party was the son of a colonel that commited human rights violations during the dirty war (see here). He was actually the son of someone with a name similar to the aforementioned colonel (see here).
  • The major Mauricio Macri, who is against the Kirchners, vetoed a law that allowed abortion. Página 12 published a controversial front page, with his face and the words "Violador serial" in big fonts (see here). The smaller subtitles then clarify that they talk about alleged repeated violations of women rights. Still, in Spanish language, the title may be easily misunderstood as "serial rapist".
  • It is not a major newspaper. According to here, they are not among the top ten of the most sold newspapers. According to here, they sell just the 17th part of the sales of Clarín, the highest sold newspaper. Cambalachero (talk) 18:58, 28 December 2015 (UTC)
Tend to agree with you that its not a reliable source for basic facts, since as you note it is very much a politicised polemic in favour of one narrative in the Argentine political discourse. As a source it should be used only with the greatest of caution. Newspapers are generally not favoured as sources for that reason. Was there a specific usage you had in mind? WCMemail 19:08, 28 December 2015 (UTC)
It's a bit worse than a specific case: The page is being used at more than 500 articles (see here). I think I should have some previous consensus before going on with that massive clean up. Cambalachero (talk) 19:18, 28 December 2015 (UTC)
I think that rather than removing en masse all citations to this source, we'd need to decide on a case-by-case basis whether Pagina 12 is reliable for the specific content being sourced to it. I'd like to respectfully disagree with WCM, above, in that for basic facts, even a politically leaning source is, IMO, usually reliable. Issues with reliability would (IMO again) come up when content is being sourced that the source has an opinion on, such as, in this case, value judgments concerning Argentine politics. Pagina 12 is referred to by reputable sources, such as the BBC, BBC again and Le Monde. That could be an indication we could consider referring to it also, keeping as always the known leaning in mind. Cheers, --Dailycare (talk) 20:38, 28 December 2015 (UTC) edit: Here the Financial Times cites Pagina 12 concerning a poll. --Dailycare (talk) 21:12, 28 December 2015 (UTC)

revival of "Non-peer-reviewed paper used as sole source for two paragraphs of empirical content"

Could someone please tell me how to revive the thread "Non-peer-reviewed paper used as sole source for two paragraphs of empirical content". This is now archived in archive#200, however, editors are claiming consensus has not been reached and therefore the thread should still be active so that edits can be made. I hope this makes sense.DrChrissy (talk) 23:40, 28 December 2015 (UTC)

It's easy to link to pages at Wikipedia: Wikipedia:Reliable sources/Noticeboard/Archive 200#Non-peer-reviewed paper used as sole source for two paragraphs of empirical content.

Given this remedy with a topic ban regarding "genetically modified plants and agricultural chemicals, broadly interpreted" it would not be wise to push to re-open an archived discussion on genetically modified fish. The TBAN probably does not apply, but the desire to continue hard-to-follow discussions on a related topic may not end well. Regardless of that, reading the opening post at the archived discussion should be sufficient to see the point. Johnuniq (talk) 00:33, 29 December 2015 (UTC)

Thank you for your help.DrChrissy (talk) 00:47, 29 December 2015 (UTC)

3G Boss

3G Boss (edit | talk | history | protect | delete | links | watch | logs | views) is a TV show, apparently, though I can't find any evidence that anybody outside Walthamstow has watched it. The sourcing on the article looks appalling to me, can someone who has some knowledge of the Bengali British community please review it because right now it reads like a blow-by-blow commentary written by the producer and his mate. Guy (Help!) 19:06, 29 December 2015 (UTC)

Can we use a genetic study not aimed at the DNA history of Egypt in that article?

For some time now editors and socks have been inserting material into articles from a BMJ article, eg today "According to a genetic study in December 2012, Ramesses III and the the famed mummy "Unknown Man E" (probably Pentawer), belonged to Y-DNA haplogroup E1b1a.[1]" The article can be read at [30] and [31] which appear to be non-copyvio links. The stated objective is "To investigate the true character of the harem conspiracydescribed in the Judicial Papyrus of Turin and determine whether Ramesses III was indeed killed." The only mention of the haplogroup is in the paragraph which reads "Genetic kinship analyses revealed identical haplotypes in both mummies (table 1?); using the Whit Athey’s haplogroup predictor, we determined the Y chromosomal haplogroup E1b1a. The testing of polymorphic autosomal microsatellite loci provided similar results in at least one allele of each marker (table 2?). Although the mummy of Ramesses III’s wife Tiy was not available for testing, the identical Y chromosomal DNA and autosomal half allele sharing of the two male mummies strongly suggests a father-son relationship." Our article is about the genetic history of the demographics of Egypt. This bit of data has been placed in the section on Ancient DNA. Other studies there are described "Consequently, most DNA studies have been carried out on modern Egyptian populations with the intent of learning about the influences of historical migrations on the population of Egypt.[9][10][11][12] One successful 1993 study was performed on ancient mummies of the 12th Dynasty, by Dr. Svante Pääbo and Dr. Anna Di Rienzo, which identified multiple lines of descent, some of which originated in Sub-Saharan Africa.[13]" In another the DNA of ancient mummies is compared to modern Egyptians. All the studies are comparative over time and or space. The Hawass study was not designed to look at these aspects of genetics and I do not think it is a reliable source for this specific use. Without interpretation the haplogroup is just raw data picked out of the study and dropped into this article. If it had been designed to look at lineage over time and/or space it would have had different results.

Every time this is inserted it's clear that it is to argue a case for the race of Egyptians. At one point it even included a statement that the haplogroup's origin was East Africa. The BMJ is without a doubt a reliable source, but the issue here is if it is a reliable source for this bit of data in this particular article. The discussion at Talk:DNA history of Egypt is going nowhere. I and another experienced editor believe it doesn't belong, but it's being argued that because a 2nd editor with about 20 edits thinks we shouldn't hide it from the world it belongs. Doug Weller talk 15:02, 30 December 2015 (UTC)


References

  1. ^ Hawass (2012). "Revisiting the harem conspiracy and death of Ramesses III: anthropological, forensic, radiological, and genetic study". BMJ. 345: e8268. doi:10.1136/bmj.e8268.

“Reliable”, “Notable”, and “Encyclopaedic” Sources for Automated Solvers for FreeCell

Hi all,

in case you don't know, FreeCell is a single-player card game, that became popular after being included in some versions of Microsoft Windows. Now, the English Wikipedia entry about it used to contain during at least two times in the past, some relatively short sections about several automated solvers that have been written for it. However, they were removed due to being considered "non-notable" or "non-Encyclopaedic".

Right now there's only this section - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/FreeCell#Solver_complexity which talks about the fact that FreeCell was proven to be NP-complete.

I talked about it with a friend, and he told me I should try to get a "reliable source" news outlet/newspaper to write about such solvers (including I should add my own over at http://fc-solve.shlomifish.org/ , though the sections on the FreeCell Wikipedia entry did not exclusively cover it.).

Recently I stumbled upon this paper written by three computer scientists, then at Ben-Gurion University of the Negev:


The solver mentioned in the paper can solve 98% of the first 32,000 Microsoft FreeCell deals. However, several hobbyist solvers (= solvers that were written outside the Academia and may incorporate techniques that are less fashionable there, and that were not submitted for Academic peer review) that were written by the time the article published, have been able to solve all deals in the first MS 32,000 deals except one (#11,982), which is widely believed to be impossible, and which they fully traverse without a solution.

Finally, I should note that I've written a Perl 5/CPAN distribution to verify that the FreeCell solutions generated by my solver (and with some potential future work - other solvers) are correct, and I can run it on the output of my solver on the MS 32,000 deals on my Core i3 machine in between 3 and 4 minutes. (Verification note below).

Now my questions are:

1. Can this paper be considered a reliable, notable, and/or Encyclopaedic source that can hopefully deter and prevent future Deletionism?

2. Can I cite the fc-solve-discuss’s thread mentioning the fact that there are hobbyist solvers in question that perform better in this respect - just for "Encyclopaedic" completeness sake, because the scientific paper in question does not mention them at all.

Sorry that this post is quite long, but I wanted to present all the facts. As you can tell, I've become quite frustrated at Wikipedia deletionism and the hoops one has to overcome in order to cope with them.

Regards, User:Shlomif.

Verification note: one note is that all these programs were not verified/proved as correct by a proof verifier such as Coq , so there is a small possibility that they have insurmountable bugs. Note that I did write some automated tests for them.

Shlomif (talk) 17:34, 30 December 2015 (UTC)

Use of dissertation

Could someone familiar with the use of a scientific dissertation as a source weigh in at [32]. It's not an area I'm very familiar with, and I reverted the addition pending a discussion of the suitability of the material. BMK (talk) 04:57, 31 December 2015 (UTC)

http://drsusanblock.com/eros-day-wedding-orgy for List of ministers of the Universal Life Church

Is this a genuine reliable source for stating as a fact that Susan Block is an "ordained minister in the Universal Life Church"? To me it looks more like fantasy islanding with a mix of fact and (erotic) fiction with no line separating the two. Other opinions? Collect (talk) 22:59, 1 January 2016 (UTC)

List of ministers of the Universal Life Church

Relies very extensively on a source published by the Church or Ashmore ... "Ashmore, Lewis (1977). The Modesto messiah: The famous mail-order minister. Universal Press. ISBN 0-918950-01-5"." "Universal Press" is not an outside publisher which would be consider to produce "reliable source" material.


I find no outside sources for all of the "ordained ministers" even being aware they had been "ordained" by that group, and suggest this "source" be deprecated, the "list" deleted, and those names as "ordained ministers" be removed. Collect (talk) 17:57, 31 December 2015 (UTC)


The list also uses sources which say the Church "claims" people as ministers - but do not say they are true claims <g>. Collect (talk) 18:00, 31 December 2015 (UTC)


[33] shows one person simply reverts to keep the SPS material and the nndb.com material (see Wikipedia:Reliable_sources/Noticeboard/Archive_26#NNDB "NNDB is not a reliable source by any stretch of the imagination. Worse than that, it was actively spammed to countless articles by people behind the site, as discussed on the WP:EL talk page several times in the past.", Wikipedia:Reliable_sources/Noticeboard/Archive_101#NNDB " Agreeing with the above. NNDB is run by the people behind Rotten.com and has a distinctive bend towards sensationalist information (from the article on NNDB here: "one-night stands ... illnesses, phobia, addictions, drug use, criminal records") often with dubious sourcing, sometimes purely speculative. Basically not at all suitable for BLP sourcing ", Wikipedia:Reliable_sources/Noticeboard/Archive_3#NNDB "Having looked further... there is some indication that they pull material from... Wikipedia! For us to use it as a source might result in a circular reference.... and as such, I can not call it reliable.", Wikipedia:Reliable_sources/Noticeboard/Archive_155#http://www.nndb.com "In a word, no. "Our standard is correctness over verifiability (the reverse of Wikipedia)".[76] Previous discussion from this noticeboard has some more info", and so on. I am not allowed to remove this material at all right now - but will someone please tell the reverter that WP:RS does count still? Thanks. Collect (talk) 22:42, 1 January 2016 (UTC)

A Request for Comments has been started at Talk:List_of_ministers_of_the_Universal_Life_Church#RFC:_Reliable_sources. Me-123567-Me (talk) 23:17, 1 January 2016 (UTC)

And my position is iterated there despite that RfC suggesting that NNDB is now "reliable" despite it having used Wikipedia as a source as noted in past RS/N discussions. Sigh. Collect (talk) 13:09, 2 January 2016 (UTC)
The RFC hasn't decided anything yet, as you and I are are the only ones to give feedback. Me-123567-Me (talk) 17:10, 2 January 2016 (UTC)

http://taylormarshall.com/

Is http://taylormarshall.com/ a reliable source for statements about what the Torah proscribes? It seems like a self-published web site or blog, by a media personality. Specifically, this blog entry - http://taylormarshall.com/2012/01/why-did-god-order-death-of-gentile.html is being used to claim that the Torah required the Hebrews to exterminate the people of Canaan , at the gentile article. When Other Legends Are Forgotten (talk) 01:27, 1 January 2016 (UTC)

Although the author has some relevant qualifications, I'd judge the source as unreliable. A better source would be something like this. Zerotalk 04:53, 1 January 2016 (UTC)
Or this. (I'm not commenting on what content is appropriate for the article, just on what type of source can be reliable for the subjects being mentioned here.) Zerotalk 05:01, 1 January 2016 (UTC)
Being famous and on TeeVee does not make someone stupid (though it helps). Witness Bill Nye or Hawking. Marshall is famous for knowing his subject and for founding a correspondence Bible college with more than 2,000 students.[[34]] He is the author of six published books on Catholic theology (not self published).[[35]] Bible study is not an objectively verifiable field, such as science or engineering, where the knowledge of the practicioner can be demonstrated. If Billy Graham convinces 20,000 of a certain doctrine, that is the only test there is. If a rabbinical scholar like Jacob Neusner makes a statement on the Torah, he is an authority. Grammar'sLittleHelper (talk) 19:07, 2 January 2016 (UTC)
One of those six books is a work of fiction, and two others are 50-page pamphlets. As to "not self published" - could you elaborate on that ? As far as I can tell "Saint John Press" only publishes Marshall's books, and is , in all likelihood, his private vanity press. See http://www.barnesandnoble.com/s/%22Saint%20John%20Press%22?Ns=P_Sales_Rank&Ntk=Publisher&Ntx=mode%20matchall , or do a Google search on "Saint John Press". When Other Legends Are Forgotten (talk) 00:12, 3 January 2016 (UTC)
Saint John's Press has published books by other authors, try this Amazon search. Most are religious books, but not all. However, I still argue against using this web page as a source. The subject is one for which multiple strong sources exist and in such cases one should go for the most (generally) reliable class, namely peer-reviewed journals. Zerotalk 00:29, 3 January 2016 (UTC)
That search yields exactly 36 items, 28 of which are by Taylor Marshall. There is no information to be found about it on Google. If ever there was a vanity press, this is it. When Other Legends Are Forgotten (talk) 01:08, 3 January 2016 (UTC)
Fair enough. The statements are otherwise supported. We can remove that footnote. Grammar'sLittleHelper (talk) 00:47, 3 January 2016 (UTC)

Drop the Pilot

I was wondering. Does this count as a reliable source? Interview on Jacaranda FM about the meaning of "Drop the Pilot" Difficultly north (talk) Simply south alt. 01:00, 26 December 2015 (UTC)

An interview on Soundcloud, I don't think so. Meatsgains (talk) 17:39, 26 December 2015 (UTC)
After some cursory research, I'd say it's not a reliable source. JacarandaFM doesn't list anything about a soundcloud account or this interview with Joan on their official website. So there's no way to verify that the soundcloud account belongs to JacarandaFM or if the person interviewed is Joan Armatrading.Scoobydunk (talk) 02:20, 29 December 2015 (UTC)
Not a reliable source. Comatmebro User talk:Comatmebro 18:29, 31 December 2015 (UTC)
From initial inspection, it appears to be an "unreliable source" according to the Guidelines. The opinion directly above mine should read "[Probably] not a reliable source," btw. There's no reasoning for his judgement, and it's stated as if it's a concrete fact as opposed to his view of the source. Absolutes in anything not completely factual are very rarely accurate, including anything with "all, every, always", etc. Having said that, though, I personally agree with the commenter. 2602:306:CE20:9900:4D06:6520:9599:A089 (talk) 21:16, 3 January 2016 (UTC)

Pak101.com

Hi all, I'd really like to get some input from the community about the perceived reliability of Pak101.com. To me, it's a no-brainer that this is another faceless, meaningless blog-style site that doesn't belong at the project, but it's also moderately cited in Pakistani entertainment articles, which causes me concern. As of this note, I see 50 uses here (although that may change since I have also floated a query about this site past the spam blacklist people, and links may start disappearing) The site looks to me to be a typical content-scraping site that may actually be mirroring Wikipedia itself. For instance, this Pak101 article with its infobox and standard Wikipedia sections like "Early life", "Career", "Personal life", etc. looks like it was scraped from Wikipedia. This March 2010 version of the Noor Bukhari article introduces the phrase "She left the film industry due to family issues" which we also find verbatim at the Pak101 article. And the earliest archive of the Pak101 Noor Bukhari article is from April 2013. That doesn't definitively prove that Pak101 scraped Wikipedia, but it may be consistent. Contrarily, we might notice an article at Pak101 like this, which doesn't say too much, but doesn't quite mirror Uroosa Qureshi. So it's possible that Pak101.com scraped Wikipedia once upon a time, but lately has stopped doing that. But there is also a real concern that casual editors might be using old Pak101 Wikipedia scrapes as references, thus creating a problematic self-referencing feedback loop.

Anyhow, the real question is whether or not they are a reliable published source with an established reputation for fact-checking, and I don't see any indication that this is the case. There is no About us page from which we could glean such information. From one of its earliest archives it looks like it was intended as a discussion forum and general whimsy site, not as a reliable news source or entertainment publication. The articles aren't attributed to specific writers. It's also unclear who owns the site, and so forth. I'm going to invite members of Wikipedia talk:Notice board for Pakistan-related topics to this discussion. Thanks all, Cyphoidbomb (talk) 00:34, 2 January 2016 (UTC)

I agree. It's not reliable and shouldn't be used. --Ronz (talk) 22:48, 3 January 2016 (UTC)

Jewish Encyclopedia is RS on Gentile history??

We have an disagreement on the Gentile page that is not resolving between the editors, pertaining to RS. The most recent edit by user:When Other Legends Are Forgotten uses the 1905 Jewish Encyclopedia as an RS, based on the Torah as an RS, to state in the Encyclopedia's voice that the Canaanites engaged in idolatry. The most recent edit is here [36]. This wording has gone back and forth over the last few days. My position (argued on the talk page) is that JE is an RS on the content of the Torah/Bible, but not on the history or practices of Gentiles, and that the wording should reflect that position (as was intended by the previous version). Hoping someone will step in on this issue. Grammar'sLittleHelper (talk) 05:04, 3 January 2016 (UTC)

Please ignore this issue. It was solved when user:When Other Legends Are Forgotten was recognized and banned, above. Grammar'sLittleHelper (talk) 03:12, 4 January 2016 (UTC)

Euromaidan Press

Euromaidan Press is used as an RS in a number of articles, including 2014–15 Russian military intervention in Ukraine, Media portrayal of the Ukrainian crisis, and others. However, it actually is an extremist website, which published a number of editorials in support of the Right Sector and the Azov battalion (([37], [38]), [39]), as well as calls to "kill... close relatives of the members of Putin regime", "shell Belgorod" and "disperse uranium to Russia" (i. e. actually propagandizing terrorism). Given all of this, I'm asking to estimate the legitimacy of using it as an RS. --Buzz105 (talk) 12:57, 30 December 2015 (UTC)

This is very obviously a partisan source and should not be used unless there are exceptional reasons for including it. Guy (Help!) 14:12, 30 December 2015 (UTC)
I completely agree with JzG! Having reviewed the Website specified, I realized it literally is an extremist Ukrainian Site with little factual information and more propaganda than an Isis member on Twitter. Goebbels would be envious. It's clearly not a reliable source in any sense of the word IMHO.
The controversial articles are published in Opinnions section and clearly marked as 3rd party opinnions. The Belgorod article actually has a huge disclaimer in the beginning stating "The views expressed in this article are those of the author and do not necessarily represent the views of, and should not be attributed to, Euromaidan Press as an organization". Banning Euromaidan Press based on a few cherry picked articles is like banning Rossiya One for Dmitry Kiselyov warning about Russia turning US into "radioactive ashes". Kravietz (talk) 19:37, 4 January 2016 (UTC)

Universal Life Church

[40] was ungraciously restored by an editor who templates me as a near-vandal <g> for removing what is clearly self-published stuff from the church's own website.

Is "http://www.ulchq.com/%7Ctitle=Welcome to the official website for Universal Life Church" a reliable source to comprise entire swaths of the article thereon?

The following was also restored:

Both of these beliefs have always been false, as merely being ordained does not exempt a person from compulsory military service, and ministers as individuals receive no tax benefit; only churches themselves are tax exempt. Ministers do have the option of applying for exemption from Social Security taxes; however, this may limit eligibility for Social Security benefits. Also, this exemption applies only to ministers whose income comes from religious services and applies only to such income.

Only problem is that the church was legally ruled not to be tax-exempt and paid $1.5 million in back taxes in 2000.


And to add insult to injury - the editor then removed

The IRS sued starting in the 1970s, saying the ULC was not actually a religious group. The lawsuits were settled in 2000 with the church paying $1.5 million in back taxes.[1]


Which appears to be absolutely RS-sourced in my opinion -- which looks alas more like a ULC desired result than a Wikipedia NPOV RS result. Collect (talk) 22:12, 2 January 2016 (UTC)

The 1.5 million claim does not seem to be reliably sourced. The only thing the articles cites is The Kernel and they don't attribute a source for that information either. I'd stick to Google Scholar for finding reliable sources, for all parties involved or at least something that directly references court rulings.Scoobydunk (talk) 12:27, 3 January 2016 (UTC)
Actually backed by multiple strong sources [41], [42], [43], [44] and so on. I used the clearest reliable source - but surely all these others could provide quite nice citation overkill <g>. Collect (talk) 14:23, 3 January 2016 (UTC)
There is no such thing as citation overkill. :-) Me-123567-Me (talk) 17:09, 3 January 2016 (UTC)
I didn't see anything in those sources saying anything about 1.5 million being repaid in back taxes. Maybe you can give the exact quote that substantiates that claim. Furthermore 1 of those links doesn't work, 2 of them are primary sources which are not generally strong sources, and the abc news site doesn't list any references whatsoever. So, none of those are strong sources for the statement in question.Scoobydunk (talk) 07:53, 4 January 2016 (UTC)
Caselaw, openjurist etc. are generally accepted as sources for statements of direct fact, so I do not understand your cavil there. CBS News is also generally accepted as a reliable source. ("In 1984, the IRS yanked Universal Life Church's tax-exempt status. In 2000, the church finally settled with the government and paid a million dollar-plus fine.") The initial source given, which meets WP:RS does state the figure you question. Other sources say "over $1 million" if that is your only real concern. Orlando Sentinel: "I think the jury saw through the scam and sent a message to the Universal Life Church that it is not welcome in Central Florida, said Assistant U.S. Attorney Bruce Hinshelwood. The verdicts show that this so-called church is entirely bogus, and that there wasn't a thing going on here but blasphemy and tax fraud. They told the bishop of Florida to lay his burden down." Valparaiso University Law Review: "Hensley has stated publicly that the principal purpose of the Universal Life Church is to avoid the payment of taxes by his mail-order "ministers." He hopes thereby to eventually force the elimination of the tax-exempt status of all religious organizations. See Whelan, 'Church' in the Internal Revenue Code: The Definitional Problem, 45 FORDHAM L. REV. 885, 927 (1977)." ULC itself states: "Modesto was wrong in the 70’s and 80’s when it challenged the IRS and fought against them. It took many years and a final $3.5 million dollar settlement by the Modesto church to bring the IRS matters to a final conclusion. Information about out past is available openly at our ULC case law website.". So what is the problemwhen the ULC itself says the Modesto group had to pay out $3.5 million for its unusual view of taxes? Collect (talk) 14:05, 4 January 2016 (UTC)
Regarding case law and primary sources in general, they are fine if they directly support what's being said. I don't see you quoting where a case summary supports the 1.5 million number. You just repeated the source in question, which ultimately gives no source for that information and is mostly just a copy and paste of The Kernel, which also fails to provide a source for the information. Hence, they are not very reliable. Also, a simple google search shows 3-5 different domains claiming to be official websites in some capacity of the ULC. You even list a different domain in your first post, and are now trying to cite information from a different website as the ULC's own stance. Clearly the other editor doesn't think your source is reliable and I agree because that figure remains unverifiable. I will say the CBS source is reliable enough for a "million dollar-plus" but that doesn't mean it supports the "1.5 million". WP:RS discusses using caution with news cites because many times they borrow information from WP, and the information becomes circular. This is the problem with the CBS source and the source currently in the article, we don't know where this information came from.Scoobydunk (talk) 06:35, 5 January 2016 (UTC)
Mainstream press sources should be obvious RS'. Primary sources should almost always be avoided, especially in law. Many court documents are advocacy pieces by one of the lawyers and even the judge's opinion is often overturned several times in appellate courts or ignored in favor of a compromise/settlement after the hearing. There is no way to tell if any particular document represents the final outcome. The press also often mis-reports on legal issues, due to a lack of expertise. The best possible secondary sources would be law journals. This might help. I have no COI with this page. David King, Ethical Wiki (Talk) 07:47, 5 January 2016 (UTC)

References

  1. ^ Inside the Universal Life Church, the internet's one true religion theweek.com, Andrew Sankin, April 3, 2015

Use of TV Tonight website as source

I had cited this article as a source regarding the closure of Bio (Australian TV channel) on the FYI (U.S. TV channel) article (specifically this section), that Bio channel in Australia had indeed closed.

Another Wikipedia user questioned the validity of using the website [45] as a source because the website "describes itself as a blog", the site's about page describes itself as "the personal blog of Commentator, David Knox" and per WP:BLOGS the website isn't "attached to a news website, which there for indicates that per WP:BLOGS it is not to be used".

My counter argument is that also per WP:BLOGS, the quote ends "..are largely not acceptable as sources", indicating there are exceptions. Additionally, it continues "self-published expert sources may be considered reliable when produced by an established expert on the subject matter, whose work in the relevant field has previously been published by reliable third-party publications". Accepting the website describes itself as a blog, I don't think it is an unreliable source. In the afforementioned about page of the website, it describes the author David Knox's career and qualifications, and both he and the website are quoted in mainstream media articles, for example: in News Corp and Sydney Morning Herald. Mr Knox also holds a regular radio position as a television commentator with the ABC and makes comment in media industry publications.

While there are opinion pieces on the website, they are minimal and most content in news based from industry sources, press releases, etc. I don't think they are outlandish claims or self reporting that would make it an unreliable source for Wikipedia.

I should also state that the source is still used in the FYI article, as the editor decided to allow it, but still takes issue with it in a talk page discussion. I would also note TV Tonight is widely quoted across Wikipedia as a source, including by myself on other articles, however note that isn't a reason to keep or exclude it alone.

I have no COI here; it does say he is a "commentator" and merely appearing in the news is not that significant. His credentials do not look that impressive and do not appear to include real investigative journalism experience as far as I can tell. He does offer advertising, which is sometimes a factor in distinguishing between a personal blog and a commercial news-reporting website. However, this is a very non-controversial claim, which is supported by other sources. The source material is never as good when something is discontinued, compared to when it is introduced/announced. I don't think this is a very good source, but weight and NPOV are not an issue here and it seems pretty obvious that the fact is indeed true and belongs in the article. The only thing I see that could be debated might be which source is the best to use, if a better one can be found, because this one is not great, but I don't see the value in debating which source to use if the content is undoubtedly accurate and belongs in the page anyway. David King, Ethical Wiki (Talk) 07:31, 5 January 2016 (UTC)
@CorporateM: Thanks for your input. I take your points, and agree that NPOV, weight, etc. aren't issues with this particular edit. In a more general sense however, I disagree it is not a very good source generally. As I said in my original posting, I accept the site describes itself as a personal blog and the author as a commentator, but the relevent definitions for Wikipedia use as a source should see this website as a commercial news website focusing on Australian television news. The other website you used, Decider TV, also describes its authors as commentators. I accept any articles posted to TV Tonight that were obvious opinion or not neutral should not be used on Wikipedia, but obvious news based stories/post similar to this one should be acceptable. -- Whats new?(talk) 07:55, 5 January 2016 (UTC)

Bryan Cranston

Also uses a link from the "Universal Life Church" as a source that a specific person is an "ordained minister" of that church. [46] shows the re-use of the ULC "facts" with the comment that claims by an organization are automatically "perfectly acceptable". (Again, a link to an organization's website to support claim about THE SAME ORGANIZATION is a perfectly acceptable primary source) Thanks. Collect (talk) 14:16, 5 January 2016 (UTC)

McKinsey Global Institute (again)

I posted previously asking for input about whether the McKinsey Global Institute is a reliable source, but the only response was from an editor that has been following me around after an editing dispute, so I was hoping to get more input. The McKinsey Global Institute publishes peer-reviewed reports on business and economics topics. Their reports are often cited/covered in publications like TIME and The Wall Street Journal. I would consider it similar to an industry analyst firm, where the main thrust of their reports are often covered in the media, but the reports themselves have extensive data about things like market-sizes, demographics within a profession, main imports/exports of a country, etc. that could be useful to an encyclopedia if the reports are considered reliable. McKinsey is not affiliated with the topics it covers (not primary) and the reports are not sponsored by any particular interest (advocacy); it's the research arm of McKinsey, a management consultancy.

I was considering working with them in my usual COI role for self-citation COI, and am trying to get feedback on what is appropriate. In my opinion it is actually much more reliable than the mainstream sources we see more routinely, but I would need to be cautious to avoid weight and un-encyclopedic issue with some of the subject-matter. Open to hearing potentially different opinions from polite, thoughtful, neutral editors and appreciate your time in advance. David King, Ethical Wiki (Talk) 07:13, 5 January 2016 (UTC)

  • I don't see any reason why McKinsey would not be considered a reliable source and agree with everything you said here. Of course there may be specific exceptions but I think in general it would be quite reliable. FuriouslySerene (talk) 14:49, 5 January 2016 (UTC)

http://thedevilanddanvojir.blogspot.ca/2009_07_02_archive.html et al

Used to support claims that specific notable persons were "ordained ministers of the Universal Life Church".

http://afinalcurtaincall.blogspot.ca/2015/09/cyd-charisse-1922-2008.html

http://www.myspace.com/lop_magazine/blog/208179804

http://debaclypsenow.blogspot.com/2006/07/im-joiner.html

http://ca.eonline.com/uberblog/b189118_jason_segel_pronounces_couple_husband.html

http://www.blokesontheblog.co.uk/hunter-s-thompson-and-the-universal-life-church

http://www.creativeminorityreport.com/2010/11/tony-danza-shut-up-about-god-already.htm

http://www.wonderwall.com/celebrity/where-are-they-now-girl-groups-23410.gallery?photoId=102845

http://law.jrank.org/pages/3595/John-Wayne-Lorena-Bobbitt-Trials-1993-1994-John-Bobbitt-s-Troubles-Continue.html (self-identified as a "free encyclopedia" by the way)

Which of these meet the requirements of WP:RS please? Thanks. Collect (talk) 20:56, 2 January 2016 (UTC)

These all look quite obviously unreliable at-a-glance. David King, Ethical Wiki (Talk) 19:32, 5 January 2016 (UTC)

Business.com Writers/Bloggers as a Reliable Source for "Best of" Lists

On the Adland article, user:Grayfell's removal of the following text from the Adland article's Reviews section:

In September 2015, Business.com listed Adland as one of their "Top 10 Advertising Blogs You Must Follow Now".[1]

The reason given was "The Business.com bit is clickbait, not journalism. This is just a puff-piece, and is only presented as the blogger's personal opinion, not a representation of the entire site". I checked the Reliable Sources Noticeboard and found nothing about Business.com one way or another. It does not seem to be clickbait to me, but I recognize that that is a matter of opinion. As for a "the blogger's personal opinion", again, this is a review, and as such is going to be personal opinion. If the objection is that writer is a blogger, and thus not a reliable source, WP:NEWSBLOG states that "These may be acceptable sources if the writers are professionals, but use them with caution because the blog may not be subject to the news organization's normal fact-checking process."

Grayfell's point is not without merit; I am not restoring this sentence, but instead, I'm submitting Business.com (and the specific reference) to see what the consensus here is. Is Business.com "clickbait"? Does the specific Business.com article cited above fall under those listed as reliable sources under WP:NEWSBLOG? Is Business.com known to exercise sufficient editorial control over their writers/bloggers such that stating "Business.com listed Adland as..." is appropriate?

Thanks for your help with this. Carl Henderson (talk) 04:14, 2 January 2016 (UTC)

References

  1. ^ Schmidt, Timothy (1 September 2015). "Top 10 Advertising Blogs You Must Follow Now". Business.com. Retrieved 22 December 2015.
I stand by my use of clickbait here. If the description were phrased as "Timothy Schmidt, writing for Business.com, called the site blahblahblah..." then at least it would be clear that this is not a front-page story giving the Business.com stamp of approval to Adland. The hyperbolic article title should not be used to imply that this is anything other than a routine mention in a brief article of low significance. The article itself makes it very clear that he only intends to present this as his own personal opinion ("I love the way it's completely image-driven...") Who is Tomothy Schmidt, and how did he become a writer for Business.com? I get the impression browsing the site that Business.com is about as discriminating in its content production as Forbes' Sites or Huffington Post Blogs, which is to say not very. Their "become a contributor" page implies to me that it's more about shoveling out articles than journalism, but maybe I'm being too harsh. Grayfell (talk) 05:22, 2 January 2016 (UTC)

Glenn Beck usable as a RS?

I'm somewhat involved with the AfD Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Barack Obama and the Enemies Within. So far there are only two sources on the article: one from the New American and one from Glenn Beck. The NA source isn't usable since there's a very clear consensus that the NA can only be used to back up information about the John Birch Society and not establish notability.

The Beck one is a bit more unclear. Sourcing from Beck has occasionally been problematic because of some of the claims he's made via his shows and other media. This author and the book appears to have been featured on his book show, but I don't know if this would be the type of thing that we could use as a source to establish notability. I haven't watched the source yet, so I don't know how in-depth it goes or if the author was interviewed about his book or about other material, but I figured that there does need to be a discussion about whether or not material by Beck could be used as a RS, since I don't really see where this has truly been discussed before. (It could be after viewing the video that it was only mentioned briefly in relation to something else, which has happened in a related Loudon article, where the book was mentioned offhand in relation to a larger topic. My main concern here is whether or not Beck is a RS.) Tokyogirl79 (｡◕‿◕｡) 08:29, 6 January 2016 (UTC)

validity of a site as a source

I want to write an article about a popular and original book namely Kitab Al Irshad. when i searched the secondary sources i found out that this site http://islamichouseofwisdom.com/al-serat-journal-archives/ , there i could find good sources and information about shia scholars and their books. i want to know that this site and archive could be considered as valid in wikipedia?--m,sharaf (talk) 12:50, 7 January 2016 (UTC)

The site itself probably is not useful as a source, but the list of publications might be. Each one must be evaluated on its merits. The first author mentioned for example is I.K.A. Howard, whose works have been published in the academic press. Anything published there would be considered rs. As an expert his writings for other publishers would probably be considered rs, but that would depend on the type of writing. I am unfamiliar with this writer's books, but will speak generally. Books written for religious education of believers tend to treat religious views as facts and are therefore not rs. For example if a book says Jesus was God's prophet would not be acceptable, but one that said according to the Koran, Jesus was God's prophet might be. TFD (talk) 16:36, 7 January 2016 (UTC)

BetaNews

xplorer² is at AFD, and it looks like there are some sources in Google News. One of the better(-looking) ones is this. It's not in the article yet, but it looks like it would be used to support a statement like:

xplorer2 contains dockable panes, dual bookmanks, and a shell context menu.

.

Does anyone have more info? Discuss-Dubious (t/c) 22:26, 7 January 2016 (UTC)

Richest.com

I'm sure everyone knows of the net_gross field in the infobox for BLP articles. Now one user I have been encountering, Special:Contributions/Tobydrew8, has been adding a source called Richest.com, especially this url, to update the net worth of the Lady Gaga article. I have reverted it thrice now since I believe this is not even a remotely reliable source, and fails accountability or any credibility. I have invited the editor also, since it seems he/she kind of pays no attention to any warnings or any explanation and is refusing to refrain from adding this url. So need input from the community here on this website and its credibility. —Indian:BIO [ ChitChat ] 10:12, 8 January 2016 (UTC)

  • Offhand I'm a little leery about all of the broken html on the about us page. That's usually not a good sign of quality. Tokyogirl79 (｡◕‿◕｡) 10:56, 8 January 2016 (UTC)
  • And then there's this, where Goodluck Jonathan threatened legal action against them for listing him in the article “Africa’s Richest Presidents 2014", which he stated wasn't based on any factual data. When you've got one of the people on your lists saying that your information is wrong, that's not good. It also doesn't help that the article states that the website based their information on CelebrityNetWorth's content. A quick look at the archives shows that there's been a lot of discussion about whether or not that site is reliable, with a general consensus that it isn't reliable often enough for it to be considered usable. (March 2014, 2013) I'd say that it's unusable. Tokyogirl79 (｡◕‿◕｡) 11:02, 8 January 2016 (UTC)
  • A look at the editor's past activity shows a history of a prior case of edit warring and some pretty openly hostile behavior towards other editors. I've given them an indef block with the requirement that they can only be unblocked if they can show that they can edit responsibly and neutrally. Tokyogirl79 (｡◕‿◕｡) 11:25, 8 January 2016 (UTC)

Are Google Scholar and NASA ADS h indexes reliable sources for a BLP?

They are being used, as raw data, at Michael Efroimsky. I didn't think we normally include these, although perhaps as I can't find anything discussing him they might be intended to show notability. Doug Weller talk 14:45, 10 January 2016 (UTC)

I would say no. People use GS simply because it's easier than Web of Science. But it has some well known problems. On the one hand, it tends to lack coverage in journals that aren't available electronically; on the other, it includes lots of citations in gray-literature sources such as tech reports or conference proceedings. Shock Brigade Harvester Boris (talk) 14:54, 10 January 2016 (UTC)
(ec) Well, Google Scholars h-index is usually significantly inflated compared to e.g. the Web of Science h-index. On the other hand, it reflects practice in e.g. computer science (where we rarely write journal articles but have seriously peer-reviewed conferences) better than WoS. I've increasingly seen the Google h-index used in resumes, but rarely in independent discussions. As for reliability: In an absolute sense, the value is not reliable (Google is far from perfect in matching articles to authors), but with attribution to Google scholar, it should be ok. I'm less sure about notability. --Stephan Schulz (talk) 14:56, 10 January 2016 (UTC)
It's one thing to discuss a scholar's h-index ratings on the article's talk page, or in an AFD discussion (should it come to that)... but to actually highlight them in the scholar's bio article seems UNDUE to me. Better to discuss what earned him the rating... rather than the rating itself. Blueboar (talk) 15:21, 10 January 2016 (UTC)

Sources not used for citations in MILHIST articles

There are a number of military history/biography articles that list sources either in Further reading or in References that are not used for citations. I'm seeking input on whether they should be kept or removed.

Author: Gordon Williamson

Article: Herbert Otto Gille

Book in question:

Williamson is considered an "admirer" of Waffen-SS, who "sought to restore [its] tarnished reputation in the West and reiterate its superb fighting qualities by letting the veterans tell their stories. The results are predictably positive." [1]. Cited to: MacKenzie, S.P. (2014). Revolutionary Armies in the Modern Era: A Revisionist Approach. Routledge. ISBN 978-0415867771. {{cite book}}: Invalid |ref=harv (help)

Author: Karl Alman, aka Franz Kurowski

Articles: Adelbert Schulz; Hans-Detloff von Cossel; Hermann Bix; Hermann Hoth

Books in question:

  • Alman, Karl (2008). Panzer vor - Die dramtische Geschichte der deutschen Panzerwaffe und ihre tapferen Soldaten (in German). Würzburg, Germany: Flechsig Verlag. ISBN 978-3-88189-638-2.
  • Kurowski, Franz (2004). Panzer Aces: German Tank Commanders of WWII. Mechanicsburg PA, USA.StackPole Books. ISBN 0-8117-3173-1.

Karl Alman is a pseudonym of Franz Kurowski; the translated title of the 1st book is Panzers: The dramatic history of German armored forces and their brave soldiers.

In their work The myth of the Eastern Front: the Nazi-Soviet war in American popular culture, historians Smelser and Davies characterize Kurowski as a leading "guru" (gurus, in their definition, are "authors popular among the readers who romanticize the German army and, in particular, the Waffen-SS"). Franz Kurowski, a veteran of the Eastern front, saw his two major works released in the U.S. in 1992 (Panzer Aces and 1994 (Infantry Aces). Smelser & Davis write:[2]

Kurowski, like all true gurus, ignores the charges of serious misdeeds leveled against the German military and provides a heroic context for the men he describes in his many works.... [He] gives the readers an almost heroic version of the German soldier, guiltless of any war crimes, actually incapable of such behavior... Sacrifice and humility are his hallmarks. Their actions win them medals, badges and promotions, yet they remain indifferent to these awards.

Kurowski's accounts are "laudatory texts that cast the German soldier in an extraordinarily favorable light", they conclude.[3]

Also see: Kurowski on De Wikipedia

(Citations are from Smelser, Ronald; Davies, Edward J. (2008). The myth of the Eastern Front: the Nazi-Soviet war in American popular culture. New York: Cambridge University Press. ISBN 9780521833653. {{cite book}}: Invalid |ref=harv (help))

Author: Günther Fraschka

Article: Herbert Otto Gille

Book in question:

  • Fraschka, Günther (1994). Knights of the Reich. Atglen, Pennsylvania: Schiffer Military/Aviation History. ISBN 978-0-88740-580-8.

I don't have a secondary source for Knights of the Reich but I believe some original research is permitted when evaluating sources for inclusion. Title speaks for itself (IMO), but here's an Amazon review:

That Gunther Fraschka is a hero worshipper, not a biographer and certainly not a scholar, is painfully evident in this collection of sketches purporting to commemorate the deeds of Hitler's greatest heroes. Worse, his writing style is atrocious (or Johnston's translation is), consisting of prose more appropriate to a high-school essay than a serious study of the essence of heroism.

Author: Florian Berger

Article: Hermann Hoth

Book in question:

  • Berger, Florian (1999). Mit Eichenlaub und Schwertern. Die höchstdekorierten Soldaten des Zweiten Weltkrieges [With Oak Leaves and Swords. The Highest Decorated Soldiers of the Second World War] (in German). Vienna, Austria: Selbstverlag Florian Berger. ISBN 978-3-9501307-0-6.

I don't have access to the book, but here's a sample of his writing in Face of Courage, The: The 98 Men Who Received the Knight's Cross and the Close-Combat Clasp in Gold: link. The tone and the narrative does not sound like that of an objective, reputable historian.

References

  1. ^ Mackenzie 2011, pp. 140.
  2. ^ Smelser & Davies 2008, pp. 173–178.
  3. ^ Smelser & Davies 2008, p. 251.

I therefore question the inclusion of the works by these authors in the bibliography as biased and not written by reputable historians.

More, they serve no purpose in the articles as they are not used for citations.

Per WP:MILMOS:

Policy requires that articles reference only reliable sources; however, this is a minimal condition, rather than a final goal. With the exception of certain recent topics that have not yet become the subject of extensive secondary analysis, and for which a lower standard may be temporarily permitted, articles on military history should aim to be based primarily on published secondary works by reputable historians. (Emphasis mine)

I earlier had two separate discussions on this topic on other (separate) articles, where the issue was resolved quickly. Here are the discussions in question:

Disagreements arose as to whether keep the books I listed (and similar) in several other articles (above), so I'm seeking further input in this matter. K.e.coffman (talk) 20:47, 9 January 2016 (UTC)

I don't have the time to check all of these. But "Selbstverlag Florian Berger" means "Self-published by Florian Berger", the author, so WP:SELFPUB applies. --Stephan Schulz (talk) 15:29, 10 January 2016 (UTC)

Request for input: Overtime Politics RfC

Input would be appreciated on an RfC on the inclusion of Overtime Politics polls here. 108.2.58.56 (talk) 15:19, 10 January 2016 (UTC)

I don't think the RFC asks the right question... the question shouldn't be whether the poll is reliable or not... but whether mentioning it gives it WP:UNDUE weight. The Overtime Politics poll a new and fairly obscure poll - rarely (if ever) discussed by notable political commentators or by the broader media... as such, I think there is a legitimate question as to whether it has enough of a reputation (good or bad) to merit being included. I will copy this comment over to the RFC, so no need to respond here. Blueboar (talk) 15:47, 10 January 2016 (UTC)

GSL lead section

  • Original Source; [47]
  • Source in question; [48]
  • Content;...

Original Diff/Edit [49] "The term refers to the fact that, 'Any person may sell a firearm to an unlicensed resident of the State where he resides as long as he does not know or have reasonable cause to believe the person is prohibited from receiving or possessing firearms under Federal law.'"

Most recent Diff/Edit [50] "The term refers to the viewpoint that there is an inadequacy in federal law, under which '[a]ny person may sell a firearm to an unlicensed resident of the State where he resides as long as he does not know or have reasonable cause to believe the person is prohibited from receiving or possessing firearms'."

My concern is that the ATF source [51] isn't specifically referencing, nor does it mention, GSL, and the "ATF top ten FAQ" feels a bit inappropriate in it's capacity as an RS in this context for the lead in this article. Darknipples (talk) 01:38, 7 January 2016 (UTC)

In addition, the original source (which was removed/excluded) [52] contains this reference, originally used in the GSL article lead. "The perceived gap in the law is the source of a commonly used, albeit somewhat flawed term — “the gun-show loophole.” Darknipples (talk) 01:50, 7 January 2016 (UTC)

Darknipples, ATF basically can't call it a "loophole" because "loophole" is such a loaded/biased term. The source refers to the concept (private sellers selling things without recordkeeping or background checks), which is as close as we're ever going to get with some sources. It's like a biased (but still reliable) source calling the American Civil War "the War of Northern/Southern Aggression" (except in this case Wikipedia is the one using the biased term because it's the WP:COMMONNAME). Just because the term doesn't appear in a source doesn't mean the source doesn't discuss the concept (though of course it's going to be a bit more confusing/challenging to work with). That being said, I don't yet have an opinion on which lead is better. Faceless Enemy (talk) 01:55, 7 January 2016 (UTC)
Even if it is true the "ATF basically can't call it a "loophole" because "loophole" is such a loaded/biased term", I don't think we should "interpret" it (verbatim or not) in the GSL article to say what the source in question only "suggests". It is reminiscent of WP:SYNTH. Using the term "he" for example suggests it only refers men. It seems inappropriate that it should be in the LEAD in this context. Not to mention this source is already used in the lead in an entirely more appropriate context, referring to;
  • "Under federal law, private-party sellers are not required to perform background checks on buyers, record the sale, or ask for identification. Federal law prohibits private individuals from selling a firearm to a resident of another state, or anyone they have reason to believe is prohibited from owning a firearm"
To insert this type of content twice in the lead is redundant. Darknipples (talk) 02:21, 7 January 2016 (UTC)

This is on the wrong board. This is a content dispute not a question of reliability. J8079s (talk) 18:01, 10 January 2016 (UTC)

Discogs

Can Discogs be used for album credits, track length ect on an albums page as a RS?Teddy2Gloves(talk)(contribs) 22:31, 5 January 2016 (UTC)

Officially no, I think, as no "editorial oversight". But you could also try asking at Wikipedia:WikiProject Albums. Or search the archives here for previous discussions. Martinevans123 (talk) 18:03, 10 January 2016 (UTC)
@Teddy2Gloves: Discogs is covered by WP:UGC (user-generated content). Thus it's not a reliable source, but I think there's a sense that it can be used for a limited amount of non-controversial details (e.g. basic album metadata). However, it should never be used to add contentious sources and can always be trumped by other, better sources where conflicts occur. If the material it is used to add is challenged in good faith, it should likewise typically be removed if another source cannot be found. — Rhododendrites talk \\ 19:43, 10 January 2016 (UTC)

The use of self-published sources in cue-sport articles

I have started a RFC to discuss the proliferation of personal blogs and fansites in cuesport articles, usually to source sporting statistics. The RFC isn't gaining much traction so I am bringing it to the attention of this noticeboard. The RFC is at Wikipedia_talk:WikiProject_Snooker#RfC: Does the use of self-published sources in snooker articles violate BLPSPS and SPS?. A huge number of articles are affected (i.e. hundreds) so it would be great if we could get some community input to settle this for once and for all i.e. when does a good blog become a "reliable source"? Does BLPSPS still apply to sport stats and so forth? Betty Logan (talk) 07:47, 11 January 2016 (UTC)

Communities Directory - A Guide to Cooperative Living by the Fellowship for Intentional Community

Is this entry in the 'Communities Directory' by the Fellowship for Intentional Community a reliable source for the subject Manitonquat, which is a BLP currently throwing up a number of interesting reliable source questions? It's a wiki, but there's a solid-looking org behind it. It's currently the subject of a kickstarter. The site does do a good job of linking to both positive and negative materials about the subject. Thoughts? Stuartyeates (talk) 00:41, 12 January 2016 (UTC)

It's an article from a wiki. It appears to be largely mirrored from a previously deleted version of this en-wiki article it is being used in. There's not enough info to know if it's a completely open wiki, but that's one of the problems: Who wrote it? Was there any review or accountablity or oversight? With wikis we usually don't know, so they are almost never useable as inline sources. - CorbieV ☊ ☼ 00:52, 12 January 2016 (UTC)

Bullfrogspond.com

An editor is adding dubious record chart information to song articles citing a web site bullfrogspond.com (see example diff). The chart information being added to Wikipedia is variously described as "Billboard year-end chart" or "Whitburn rankings". The web site in question appears to be a hobbyist web site created by an "avid music lover" who "threw this site together just for a few friends to use." This is obviously the creator's own rankings as they don't match the actual Billboard year-end charts, nor do they appear in Whitburn's books. It also appears this web site represents a copyright violation as it contains copyrighted research from Billboard (magazine) or Joel Whitburn, which he apparently has run afoul with. How can this be considered a reliable source? Piriczki (talk) 14:20, 12 January 2016 (UTC)

The source is question is far from reliable. I reverted the user's most recent contribution and watchlisted the page to keep an eye on it. Meatsgains (talk) 15:28, 12 January 2016 (UTC)

Can we use a genetic study not aimed at the DNA history of Egypt in that article?

I brought this up duing the holidays, bad timing. Resurrecting it now. Doug Weller talk 15:25, 10 January 2016 (UTC)

For some time now editors and socks have been inserting material into articles from a BMJ article, eg today "According to a genetic study in December 2012, Ramesses III and the the famed mummy "Unknown Man E" (probably Pentawer), belonged to Y-DNA haplogroup E1b1a.[1]" The article can be read at [53] and [54] which appear to be non-copyvio links. The stated objective is "To investigate the true character of the harem conspiracydescribed in the Judicial Papyrus of Turin and determine whether Ramesses III was indeed killed." The only mention of the haplogroup is in the paragraph which reads "Genetic kinship analyses revealed identical haplotypes in both mummies (table 1?); using the Whit Athey’s haplogroup predictor, we determined the Y chromosomal haplogroup E1b1a. The testing of polymorphic autosomal microsatellite loci provided similar results in at least one allele of each marker (table 2?). Although the mummy of Ramesses III’s wife Tiy was not available for testing, the identical Y chromosomal DNA and autosomal half allele sharing of the two male mummies strongly suggests a father-son relationship." Our article is about the genetic history of the demographics of Egypt. This bit of data has been placed in the section on Ancient DNA. Other studies there are described "Consequently, most DNA studies have been carried out on modern Egyptian populations with the intent of learning about the influences of historical migrations on the population of Egypt.[9][10][11][12] One successful 1993 study was performed on ancient mummies of the 12th Dynasty, by Dr. Svante Pääbo and Dr. Anna Di Rienzo, which identified multiple lines of descent, some of which originated in Sub-Saharan Africa.[13]" In another the DNA of ancient mummies is compared to modern Egyptians. All the studies are comparative over time and or space. The Hawass study was not designed to look at these aspects of genetics and I do not think it is a reliable source for this specific use. Without interpretation the haplogroup is just raw data picked out of the study and dropped into this article. If it had been designed to look at lineage over time and/or space it would have had different results.

Every time this is inserted it's clear that it is to argue a case for the race of Egyptians. At one point it even included a statement that the haplogroup's origin was East Africa. The BMJ is without a doubt a reliable source, but the issue here is if it is a reliable source for this bit of data in this particular article. The discussion at Talk:DNA history of Egypt is going nowhere. I and another experienced editor believe it doesn't belong, but it's being argued that because a 2nd editor with about 20 edits thinks we shouldn't hide it from the world it belongs. Doug Weller talk 15:02, 30 December 2015 (UTC)

This is a primary source. It can't be used to support these claims. Stuartyeates (talk) 21:21, 10 January 2016 (UTC)
I also agree that it shouldn't be used since it's a primary source. Usually that's a weight issue, but this case seems to be a reliability issue in trying to potentially cherrypick some technical language to support something not intended by the authors. Whatever specific conclusions that can be made from the study will be reflected in secondary sources citing it and then those conclusions will be considered reliable. Otherwise, we're getting into potential issues of editors synthesizing a technical source where editors' interpretations are likely not reliable. Kingofaces43 (talk) 15:58, 12 January 2016 (UTC)

References

  1. ^ Hawass (2012). "Revisiting the harem conspiracy and death of Ramesses III: anthropological, forensic, radiological, and genetic study". BMJ. 345: e8268. doi:10.1136/bmj.e8268.

famouskin.com

I'm helping a new editor, Kirk Leonard, who is writing his first article about an early settler in Massachusetts (Draft:Isaac Stearns). He's wanting to include a paragraph about notable descendants, and is sourcing that paragraph, in part, to this website. I tend to be wary of using genealogy websites as sources in Wikipedia, as a lot of them rely on user-generated content. I've not heard of this one before. They have this disclaimer on some (but not all) pages:

Please note: The ancestor reports on this website have been compiled from thousands of different sources, many over 100 years old. These sources are attached to each ancestor so that you can personally judge their reliability. As with any good genealogical research, if you discover a link to your own family tree, consider it a starting point for further research. It is always preferable to locate primary records where possible. FamousKin.com cannot and does not guarantee the accuracy and reliability of these sources.

So, is this website a reliable source for listing notable descendants of this early settler? ~ ONUnicorn(Talk|Contribs)problem solving 16:00, 12 January 2016 (UTC)

Use the sources that site gives to see what does and does not meet RS requirements. Collect (talk) 16:24, 12 January 2016 (UTC)
The website wouldn't be reliable, especially with the disclaimer that it's there to let users decide how reliable it is. Similar to how we say that Wikipedia isn't a reliable source, but that's it's good for finding sources, the same can be done here. If a source listed is reliable and a secondary source, it should be fine instead. Kingofaces43 (talk) 18:52, 12 January 2016 (UTC)

OK. Thanks for the help everybody. I'll remove that source as unreliable. Kirk Leonard (talk) 20:20, 12 January 2016 (UTC)

Is this a reliable source for an article

http://www.toptenz.net/10-abandoned-malls-around-world-change-title.php

I would like to create an article for the Greeley Mall in Greeley, Colo. Is this a reliable source? — Preceding unsigned comment added by Puppy9000 (talk • contribs) 20:03, 12 January 2016 (UTC)

@Puppy9000: I wouldn't start with that one. Going through the results from a Google News Archive search on Greeley Mall there seems to be many other sources, most of which will have a better reputation for fact-checking and accuracy (nothing against toptenz.net, just saying there's plenty that are better). Be sure you've read the pages at the following links: WP:RS, WP:V, WP:N and WP:NOR. - Scarpy (talk) 20:38, 12 January 2016 (UTC)
As noted above, the source can most definitely be used but there are far better and more reliable sources out there that you can use to start a page for Greeley Mall such as: The Washington Post, Denver Post, and The Coloradoan. Meatsgains (talk) 02:51, 13 January 2016 (UTC)

High Country News

What do you folks think of High Country News? Disclaimer - I did add some glowing praise to that article before posting here Earlier today, Somedifferentstuff (talk · contribs) decided to challenge a large edit I made, and in the edit summary he questioned the RS quality of that source. To be clear, the ping to SomeDifferentstuff is my first communication about this to him/her, and we're not at loggerheads. I just thought this would be a reasonable place to involve additional eds in the discussion.

Comments on this source anyone? NewsAndEventsGuy (talk) 00:48, 13 January 2016 (UTC)

It is certainly reliable, in my opinion. It has won serious journalism awards, and for many years (For example, it won a Polk Award in 1987) and in 2007). It has editorial control. In 2000, Oregon State University Press published an anthology of articles published in the HCN, "the newspaper that sets the standard for coverage of environmental issues in the West." This indicates reliability. Neutralitytalk 02:46, 13 January 2016 (UTC)
Absolutely reliable. It is a longstanding, mainstream publication (paper and ink) covering public affairs, environmental, and land use issues in the American West. In addition to the previously mentioned awards, it's also won a Hillman Prize. [55] LavaBaron (talk) 04:04, 13 January 2016 (UTC)
100% reliable. Highly-respected and long-standing non-profit, non-partisan regional newspaper with particularly strong coverage of issues relating to the environment, growth, sustainability, cultural change and natural resources management. Has clear editorial controls and a reputation for accuracy and fairness. [56] NorthBySouthBaranof (talk) 07:51, 13 January 2016 (UTC)

Reliable for coverage regarding western Colorado only.[57]. Anything beyond that area will e covered by national news (or outside western Colorado local news) if it's notable. --DHeyward (talk) 08:07, 13 January 2016 (UTC)

You have the wrong link - that's the Grand Junction Daily Sentinel's website, not High Country News, which does not only cover western Colorado. The relevant link on HCN's site would be here. The organization covers the entire Western United States, but particularly the Rocky Mountain and Great Basin regions. You may wish to peruse their recent issues for examples of articles discussing paleontological finds in Nevada, the campaign against coal mining in Wyoming and the rise of Alaska Sen. Lisa Murkowski. Through in-depth reporting, High Country News covers the American West's public lands, water, natural resources, grazing, wilderness, wildlife, logging, politics, communities, growth and other issues now changing the face of the West. From Alaska and the Northern Rockies to the desert Southwest, from the Great Plains to the West Coast, High Country News’ coverage spans 12 Western states and is the leading source for regional environmental news, analysis and commentary -- an essential resource for those who care about this region. NorthBySouthBaranof (talk) 08:10, 13 January 2016 (UTC)

Noting the usual caveat - the source includes opinion and commentary - and, as ever, opinions should be cited and sourced as opinion, and not stated as fact in Wikipedia's voice. And this is true of every source pretty much across the board - opinions are not "facts." Collect (talk) 17:23, 13 January 2016 (UTC)

Discussion at BLP regarding meaning of "tabloid journalism"

Please see ongoing discussion at Wikipedia_talk:Biographies_of_living_persons#Clarification_question_on_the_policy which is entirely relevant to this noticeboard. --ℕ ℱ 00:10, 14 January 2016 (UTC)

Freiewelt.net

There is some disagreement over at Men Going Their Own Way (on talk page at 1 and 2) about the use of freiewelt.net as a source. Below is the statement and reference in question. Is this source a reliable source for this statement? (Note: I don't have any stake in this, I'm just sick of the bickering about it)

The German periodical Freie Welt compared MGTOW to the trend of Herbivore men in Japan and the overall decline of American men choosing to become married as described in Helen Smith's book, Men on Strike.[1]

References

  1. ^ "Feminismusdebatte: „Men On Strike"". Freie Welt (in German). 2015-03-05. Retrieved 2016-01-08. Das Phänomen MGTOW lässt sich in Europa und der gesamten englischsprachigen Welt beobachten. Das japanische bzw. ostasiatische Pendant dazu sind die „Herbivore Men". In Japan trägt dieser Trend erheblich zum Bevölkerungsschwund bei.... Eine neues Buch zu diesem Thema ist von der US-amerikanischen Psychologin Dr. Helen Smith unter dem Titel „Men On Strike: Why Men Are Boycotting Marriage, Fatherhood, and the American Dream – And Why It Matters" (Encounter Books: New York 2013) erschienen.

EvergreenFir (talk) Please {{re}} 09:13, 9 January 2016 (UTC)

FreieWelt.net is not an appropriate source for an article that is WP:FRINGE. It’s a partisan website that promotes an extremist* agenda and also appears to be a blog with little or no editorial oversight or fact checking. The argument being used in favor of including this source is based on WP:BIASED: “Sometimes non-neutral sources are the best possible sources for supporting information about the different viewpoints held on a subject.” But this source is being used to support a contentious claim (MGTOWs are comparable to Japanese herbivore men) that has not been made by a single reliable independent source and lends undue weight to an exceptional claim in an article about a fringe view. These are just some the policies that preclude using FreieWelt.net as non-neutral source in this context:
  • WP:QUESTIONABLE: Such sources include websites and publications expressing views that are widely acknowledged as extremist...Questionable sources are generally unsuitable for citing contentious claims about third parties.
  • WP:ONEWAY: Fringe views, products, or the organizations who promote them, may be mentioned in the text of other articles only if independent reliable sources connect the topics in a serious and prominent way.
It’s hypothetically possible that Freie Welt could have a limited, appropriate use as a non-neutral source on MGTOWs, but it cannot be used to connect MGTOWs with other topics since similar views have not been expressed by any independent reliable sources “in a serious and prominent way.” I've only seen the comparison made between MGTOW and herbivore men in questionable and primary sources, most of which are self-published, usergenerated and/or biased (AKA not exceptional sources).
*I changed my wording from saying Freie Welt promotes a "specific agenda" to "extremist agenda" to be more precise about why exactly I don't think it's an appropriate source for this context. I believe that this extremist viewpoint is promoted throughout the whole Freie Welt website, not just the entry being debated for MGTOW's article, although I'm not sure if that's relevant to this discussion. IMHO "right-wing" doesn't accurately describe Freie Welt's agenda, which is why I'm deliberately not using that term. (I added the last few things to address Scarpy's questions from TALK:Men Going Their Own Way.)
One more thing re:Freie Welt's reference to MGTOW and Helen Smith's book, Men on Strike,... The phrases "Men going their own way" and "MGTOW" don't get any hits in a text search of that book. Helen Smith also presents a biased, fringe view. Freie Welt should not be used as a stand-alone source to connect Men on Strike with MGTOW for all of the same reasons mentioned above re:herbivore men. Permstrump (talk) 20:04, 9 January 2016 (UTC)
At first glance Die Freie Welt appears to be an online news website with authored articles,comparable to the Huffington Post. I don't think it's reasonable to characterise it as a whole as having a specific extremist agenda. Rather there is one article on this topic making the links which you object to. I may be missing something but the suggestion that these phenomena may be related doesn't seem to be critical or negative. To my mind the main issue here is WP:UNDUE, but since there is relatively little discussion of the topic I would include a short neutral statement cited to the author. Martinlc (talk) 22:23, 9 January 2016 (UTC)
Discussing this with @Permstrump: on the MGTOW talk page my three concerns were (1) that when discussing the the "source" we should distinguish whether were discussing the specific article on it vs the publication as a whole (as I'm not seeing anything specifically WP:FRINGE in that article) and (2) further that if we're going to characterize a source in any sense as biased/fringe/extreme we need to have better evidence for such claims (I haven't seen much presented so far) and (3) lastly that the information cited from the specific article on Freie Welt is specific non-contentious expository information about MGTOW and regardless of any overall bias in the publication, it's not reflected in the information supported by it in the MGTOW article. For this discussion I would only add that characterizations of Men on Strike as biased/fringe/extreme need to be supported with evidence as well. - Scarpy (talk) 01:39, 10 January 2016 (UTC)
Looking now, there are other sources making the comparison to Herbivore Men Vice (also cited in the MGTOW article), and a Lithuanian source (just found this, haven't done any checking). But in both cases they seem serious and prominent enough. - Scarpy (talk) 17:29, 11 January 2016 (UTC)
"Freie Welt" is definitely a fringe publication with an extreme editorial bias and questionable to non-existent fact-checking. It seems to mostly regurgitate Alternative for Germany talking point, with no separation between news and opinion. Not WP:RS. --Stephan Schulz (talk) 18:04, 11 January 2016 (UTC)
Thanks. Good to hear from a native. - Scarpy (talk) 15:20, 12 January 2016 (UTC)

Contentiousness of comparing MGTOW to Herbivore Men

@Permstrump: I'm in agreement now that Freie Welt a biased source, so it would seem the only disagreement is how contentious it is to compare MGTOW to herbivore men. Just going from the first sentence in the Wikipedia article on herbivore men (e.g. they are "...men who have no interest in getting married or finding a girlfriend") in that regard both groups are virtually identical. On the other hand, I can see a few subtle differences. For example some self-published MGTOW sources discuss having short-term relationships (e.g. which would entail finding a girlfriend) and it could be argued that the phenomenon of herbivore men is more emergent based on socioeconomic changes (the same could be said about the decreasing trend in marriage in America) where as MGTOW is more deliberate. That being said, there are still obvious similarities between them. Would you still have an objection to these comparisons if the similarities and differences where explained in a less ambiguous way? - Scarpy (talk) 15:45, 12 January 2016 (UTC)

There has been some other discussion of this here: Talk:Men_Going_Their_Own_Way#Edits_in_the_spirit_of_compromised_offered_on_RSN. - Scarpy (talk) 18:50, 14 January 2016 (UTC)

12 Years a Slave

There's been a dispute going on in the article White savior narrative in film which revolvers around the inclusion of the film 12 Years a Slave. This dispute involves myself, 70.190.188.48, Erik, and Betty Logan. We've taken this to WP:DRN, where it was more or less agreed that this was the right venue to take the dispute after it turned out that the dispute revolved mainly around the sources. The sources in question are presented here (see agreement on sources [58], [59]) and a RfC is humbly requested, as per [60]. Apologies if anything is unclear.

Sources in question
  • [61]
  • [62]
  • [63]
  • [64]
  • Houston, Shannon M. (March 4, 2014). "12 Years a Slave Versus Lee Daniels' The Butler: What the Academy Still Needs to Get Right About Black Narratives in Film". Paste. But we watch 12 Years knowing that Solomon's only way home is to gain the ear of a good-hearted white man. This is absolutely not a critique of the narrative, which is, for one, based on Northup's own memoirs. And as our own critic Annlee Ellingson notes, there really was no other way: 'As nuanced as Cumberbatch and Fassbender are in their performances, though, their respective archetypes as kindly and cruel are clear-cut, and when producer Brad Pitt shows up on the scene as a Canadian abolitionist, he's positively angelic, a downright savior—and white. (But then what other honest outcome could there be? This isn't a Quentin Tarantino revenge fantasy, after all.)'
  • Joseph, Peniel E. (January 15, 2015). "If You Think Selma's Snubbing Is a Fluke, Think Again. The Oscars Have Stiffed Lots of Black Films". The Root. For the kind of white protagonist (read: hero) that enables white voters to identify with films presenting black subject matter. Even 12 Years a Slave provided white characters that allowed contemporary mainstream audiences to relate, even if simply through an act of personal revulsion that allowed 21st-century liberals a measure of moral superiority.
  • Johnson, Gregory (January 17, 2014). "Opinion: On '12 Years A Slave', 'The Butler' And Hollywood's 'White Savior' Obsession". Vibe. Hollywood has become obsessed with revenge tales of bondage and servitude like 12 Years a Slave and The Butler. But why aren't depictions of blacks removing their own chains getting the big-screen treatment? ... Well, no knock on Quentin Tarantino, Brad Pitt, Christoph Waltz and the like for directing or portraying decent, redeemable white characters. But those films still require a sympathetic Caucasian hero to justify their existence.
  • Seewood, Andrew. "Black Film Theory: Fighting the Illusions of White Supremacy in Cinematic Narration - Part Two". Shadow and Act. Indiewire. ...Solomon is liberated from slavery through the benevolence of a White carpenter named, Samuel Bass (Brad Pitt); a White savior.
  • Hobson, Janell (October 24, 2013). "Healing from Historic Trauma: '12 Years a Slave'". Ms. We are fortunate to have McQueen's honest eye and take-no-prisoners approach to filmmaking on this subject, not to mention the willingness of Brad Pitt, doubling as 'white savior' in both his minimal role in the film and his role as a film producer, to finance it.
  • Moore, A. (September 7, 2014). "8 Memorable Films About Slavery: What They Got Right and What They Got Wrong". Atlanta Black Star. The film's use of actor Brad Pitt to satisfy Hollywood's desire for a 'white savior,' came off as self-serving. 'It's all so credibly enacted that once Brad Pitt (whose Plan B productions produced the film) arrives in a bit part as a kind-hearted Canadian who visits the plantation and speaks out against slavery, the character's messianic qualities seem like a bit much,' wrote Indiewire film critic Eric Kohn.
  • Anthony, Iva (February 5, 2014). "Classic White Savior Movies: 12 Years a Slave". Madame Noire. In 1841, New York-born freeman Solomon Northup was kidnapped and enslaved for 12 years before finally earning his freedom. His memoir was turned into Steve McQueen's biopic 12 Years A Slave. Northup tried over and over to prove who he really was but it fell on deaf ears until a Canadian carpenter risked his life to help him out.
  • Gittell, Noah (December 24, 2014). "'Selma' and Saviors". Los Angeles Review of Books. Too many of these films continue to rely on a regressive archetype known as the 'white savior,' a character who uses his or her elevated position of power to help blacks escape from poverty, servitude, or outright slavery. It's Emma Stone in The Help, Sandra Bullock in The Blind Side, or Harrison Ford as Branch Rickey in 42. Even a film as progressive as 12 Years a Slave cannot escape the trope. In the end, Solomon Northup becomes free due to the actions of a white contractor who visits his plantation and takes up his case.
  • Couch, Aaron; Washington, Arlene (February 22, 2014). "NAACP Image Awards: The Winners". The Hollywood Reporter. David Oyelowo, who won a supporting actor award for The Butler, said this year's field of African-American centered films was incredibly strong. 'To have films like The Butler, 12 Years a Slave, Fruitvale Station and Mandela -- all that have black protagonists with no white savior character holding their hand through the movie is a huge stride forward,' he told THR. (This is the only contrasting source I found. I don't mind including it, but other sources would need to be referenced too to ensure due weight.)
  • Mozaffar, Omer M. (August 13, 2014). "History of Film: 'Lawrence of Arabia'". Movie Mezzanine. Speaking of the White Saviors of Hollywood cinema, many will recognize its obvious influences on such films as Avatar and Dances with Wolves. To be fair, as frequently as the film praises his endeavors leading the Arabs, it also critiques it, commenting that a British foreigner came in and created a mess of the Arabs. But, that recurring thread of the Caucasian elite helping the vulnerable persons of color streams through such modern films as Elysium, The Blind Side, and Django Unchained. Even 12 Years a Slave finds its White Savior in Brad Pitt. But even then, these were all, to varying degrees, emotionally successful films.
  • Holman, Curt (December 25, 2014). "A confident historical drama, 'Selma' doesn't waste a second". Creative Loafing. On the other hand, the out-of-nowhere celebrity appearances, like Cuba Gooding Jr. and Martin Sheen as a lawyer and a judge, respectively, feel kitschy and distracting, if not as obtrusive as Brad Pitt's white-savior turn at the end of 12 Years a Slave.
  • Sneed, Timothy. "A Year After Trayvon Martin, Who Is Leading the Race Conversation?". U.S. News & World Report. '12 Years a Slave' won the Academy Award for best picture. However, doubts still lingered about its ability to truly bring about a newfound racial consciousness among a national, mainstream audience... The film also was a period piece that featured a happy ending ushered in by a 'white savior' in the form of Brad Pitt's character.

Dschslava (talk) 00:16, 13 January 2016 (UTC)

Apparently I can't make a proper collapse box properly. Unfortunately, I have to go, but do note that the discussion is not closed. Dschslava (talk) 00:17, 13 January 2016 (UTC)
Fixed. Dschslava (talk) 05:07, 13 January 2016 (UTC)
When the dispute started, the film 12 Years a Slave was listed at white savior narrative in film with three sources. I added a fourth source, an academic publication that identified the criticism in retrospect. None of these satisfied the IP editor. I went on and found many more sources (listed above, after the first four) that identified the white savior in 12 Years a Slave and reinforces its inclusion. We as editors need to cite reliable sources and not our personal opinions, which do not override such sources. We can implement counter-arguments from such sources (such as Oyelowo's statement that the film does not have a white savior throughout), but there are many sources discussing how Brad Pitt's character is perceived as a white savior. I see no grounds for excluding 12 Years a Slave in its entirety from the article. Erik (talk | contrib) (ping me) 00:44, 13 January 2016 (UTC)
I'd first like to commend Dschslava for a neutrally worded post. I had no idea who was on which side of the argument until I read Erik's post. That being said, there are clearly numerous reliable sources that discuss 12 years a slave as a movie with a "white savior" aspect. I see no reason for it not to be included in the article. Even Oyelowo's statement doesn't contradict what's being said here. Just because there wasn't a white savior throughout the film, doesn't mean there wasn't one at all. Here's a peer reviewed source, "The White Savior Film: Content, Critics, and Consumption by Matthew W. Hughey" by Kocurek that also mentions 12 Years a Slave: "In the concluding chapter, Hughey turns to the larger cultural frame of the white savior film and in particular the genre’s implications in contemporary culture. Pointing to the critic James Hoberman’s question of when we might see “an Obama-inflected Hollywood cinema” (165), Hughey argues that this cinema, marked by films like 12 Years a Slave (2013), Belle (2013), and The Keeping Room (2013) has already emerged; its key characteristic is a desire to look backward to our racist past in part to subtly frame our present with a certain hopefulness."Scoobydunk (talk) 17:18, 13 January 2016 (UTC)
Wait, where did you get "12 Years a Slave is a white savior film" from that quote? 70.190.188.48 (talk) 22:59, 13 January 2016 (UTC)
I agree with the IP editor that the Hughey statement does not apply here (I have the book). He does not comment on 12 Years a Slave directly. I would definitely be interested in hearing what he has to say, but I did not find any commentary from him anywhere about the film. Erik (talk | contrib) (ping me) 04:25, 14 January 2016 (UTC)
Kocurek clearly explains how Hughly refers to 12 Years a Slave as one of the "Obama-inflected Hollywood cinema" which Kocurek believes is part of the larger cultural frame of the "white savior" narrative. Note that I didn't quote Hughly, I quoted Kocurek who has a scholarly analysis of Hughly's work.Scoobydunk (talk) 07:40, 14 January 2016 (UTC)
Looking at this passage, it looks to be about racial films vs. post-racial films. Will quote the passage at length here: "In 2012 film critic James Hoberman of the New York Review of Books wrote, 'I've been wondering for a while now when we were going to see an Obama-inflected Hollywood cinema.' While Hoberman wrote that he expected such cinema to circulate around color-blind themes of community organizers and messengers of abstract qualities such as hope and change, I take a different tack. Coinciding with Obama's reelection, such inflected films might be better understood as stories that highlight the racist past to make our racial present seem hopeful and progressive simply by comparison. For example, 2012-2013 bears witness to the release of at least nine films on the question of slavery: 12 Years a Slave (2013, directed by Steven McQueen), Belle (2013, directed by Amma Asante), The Keeping Room (2013, directed by Daniel Barber), The North Star (2013, directed by Thomas K. Phillips, Something Whispered (2013, directed by Peter Cousens), Tula (2013, directed by Jereon Leinders), Savannah (2012, directed by Annette Haywood-Carter), and the aforementioned Lincoln (2012) and Django Unchained (2013). Never before has Hollywood embraced this theme, and at the sesquicentenntial of the emancipation proclamation (and Obama's embrace of the iamge of Lincoln), these films trade on belief in the racial and national mythology of linear progress." Hughey analyzed Lincoln and Django Unchained in the book, hence him saying "the aforementioned" films. I don't find that Hughey is talking about any of the others as white savior films because at the start of the next paragraph, he says, "Moreover, Lincoln and Django Unchained fall within the genre of white savior cinema." I would love to have Hughey's insight on 12 Years a Slave (as well as these other films), but I don't find that this commentary applies. I think we need to look at the more timely sources instead. Erik (talk | contrib) (ping me) 12:34, 14 January 2016 (UTC)
Wow, for once we actually agree on something. Thanks for backing me up. 70.190.188.48 (talk) 22:35, 14 January 2016 (UTC)
And thanks for staying quite civil guys :P Dschslava (talk) 22:38, 14 January 2016 (UTC)
The problem here is that it seems you're quoting Hughey, when the source I supplied is Kocurek. The misunderstanding might be part of my mistake because I didn't include "a review" at the end of the title I gave. However, even looking at the Hughey source, in the preceding section titled "An Iron First in a Velvet Glove: The White Savior in a Postracial World" Hughey lists 5 characteristics of the cultural frame in which white savior films are produced. The first one is "prevalent hope and desire for a societal change" and thus, the following section is titled "Hope and Change: Toward a Racial Utopia". So this following section directly pertains to the first characteristic of the white savior film. You can continue down the list because each following section follows the characteristics in the same order. The second characteristic is the "embrace of individualist explanations and solutions" and the second following section starts with "Second, the discourse of a postracial society is now marked by individualist explanations for the causes of, and solutions to, racial inequality." The third characteristic is "belief in the cultural or moral dysfunctions of people of color" and the 3rd following section starts with "The third aspect of the postracial worldview is the belief in cultural dysfunctions of people of color." Each of the following sections correlate to the 5 characteristics of white savior films that Hughey outlines. This is probably the reason why the scholarly review of Hughey's work done by Carly Kocurek lists "12 Years a Slave" as one of the examples of the white savior film. I'm not the one making this interpretation, a scholarly peer reviewed source is making this interpretation and it's accurate, though it's none of my business to comment on such. I will say that there might be some ambiguity in what Kocurek says, as it's not clear if the author is directly referring to the white savior film, or the larger cultural frame in which white savior films exist. So, if you don't want to use it, that's fine. However, I think the passage could be read either way. Scoobydunk (talk) 14:17, 15 January 2016 (UTC)

Looking at the entirely of the sources listed above, I see no reason to exclude this film from that article. Gamaliel (talk) 17:32, 15 January 2016 (UTC)

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