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Is this a reliable source for the statement: "The Soviet Union entered WWII in September 1939"

"The Soviet Role in World War II: Realities and Myths, " Mark Kramer, Director, Cold War Studies Project, Davis Centre, Harvard Univeristy. Particularly the following quote: "Another myth is that the Soviet Union’s role in the Second World War began on 22 June 1941, when the Wehrmacht attacked the USSR. In reality, the Soviet Union was a leading participant from the very start, colluding for nearly two years with Nazi Germany."[1]

Context is this discussion about a compromise proposal in relation to a RfC for the article Allies of WWII.Talk:Allies_of_World_War_II#Proposal_for_compromise,_straw_poll)

Thank you Aemilius Adolphin (talk) 01:17, 24 April 2023 (UTC)

The statement is far too blunt to be used at all. Instead, we should provide more details as to the USSR's overall involvement in the war, from the Molotov–Ribbentrop Pact through to the German invasion you note in 1941. Avoid speaking in such absolutes, and instead just describe their involvement as to what it was. --Jayron32 12:28, 24 April 2023 (UTC)
The problem is this (all of these threads About Russia's entry into Ww2) are about the info box, where we can't have nuance. Slatersteven (talk) 12:57, 24 April 2023 (UTC)
Which is one good reason for not using infoboxes in such contexts. AndyTheGrump (talk)
But also a different argument, and one nor for this forum. Slatersteven (talk) 13:04, 24 April 2023 (UTC)
We can have nuance in the infoboxes Marcelus (talk) 13:20, 24 April 2023 (UTC)
An infobox should be a summery of a summery. Slatersteven (talk) 13:21, 24 April 2023 (UTC)
And nothing should appear in an infobox that isn't an accurate summary of what relevant sources have to say on a subject. If nuance is necessary to cover this, and the infobox can't summarise this, it shouldn't go in at all. AndyTheGrump (talk) 13:54, 24 April 2023 (UTC)
Difficult to get nuance in an infobox and probably shouldn't try. Selfstudier (talk) 14:31, 24 April 2023 (UTC)
@Slatersteven So would you suggest that we simply list the Big Three in the info box without any dates? There are no dates listed for the other Allies (except those who were former Axis Powers and that's a separate argument.)? If so, would you like propose this on the Article Talk page? I don't want this page to turn into another forum for discussing this issue. Aemilius Adolphin (talk) 22:33, 24 April 2023 (UTC)
Actually, the scope of the dispute seems to be broader. The point AA is advocating seems to be as follows:
  • In contrast to other Big Three members, the USSR was fighting on the German side since September 1939.
  • In contrast to other Big Three members, the USSR joined the Allies not immediately after it declared a war on the Axis, but after it signed an alliance with Britain. Therefore, the starting date of the "Allied" status of the Soviet Union should be linked not to Barbarossa, but to signing of the Molotov-Cripps agreement.
If I understood AA's position incorrectly, I respectfully request them to correct me.
In contrast, I argue that these statement were not found in the sources used by AA, but they were inferred from them by AA, which is explicitly prohibited by NOR. Paul Siebert (talk) 00:19, 25 April 2023 (UTC)
Far too complicated for an infobox, which is bound to be misleading. Johnbod (talk) 00:32, 25 April 2023 (UTC)
And that is why we should add only non-controversial facts to the infobox and discuss nuances elsewhere. What fact is non-controversial? The declaration of war date. Did USSR declare a war on the European Axis in June 1941? Yes. Therefore, that is the information that should be in the infobox. Paul Siebert (talk) 01:17, 25 April 2023 (UTC)

RfC: PrivacyTools.io or PrivacyGuides.org websites reliability?

Which of the following best describes PrivacyTools.io or PrivacyGuides.org technology articles?

  • Option 1: Generally reliable
  • Option 2: Additional considerations apply
  • Option 3: Generally unreliable

Disclaimer: I may have previously cited either or both of these. Mea Culpa. Summary: Option 3: Generally unreliable for both. Background: As far as I know, neither website has been discussed here previously, but PrivacyTools was previously mentioned (by me) to support a different source. Privacy Guides is a "fork" of Privacy Tools circa 2021. There was Wikipedia:Articles_for_deletion/PrivacyTools in 2019, result: Delete. Oddities: The PrivacyTools article creator, User:UnnamedUser, was blocked for puppetry. The only Keep came from User:JonahAragon, who requested Draft restore in 2021 Special:Diff/926083267, and has recently worked on Draft:Privacy Guides (with declared COI). They also cited Privacy Guides to add critical comparative statements (negative towards CalyxOS) to CalyxOS and GrapheneOS, and cited or mentioned PrivacyTools or PrivacyGuides elsewhere: Special:Diff/1146474677, Special:Diff/1146473478. Privacytools.io has been cited a few times[2]. Summary: Both websites are group (or individual) blogs (and advocacy sites) without evidence of editorial oversight, and as such are unreliable. -- Yae4 (talk) 19:16, 4 April 2023 (UTC)

  • A RFC seems unnecessary. Of the articles in which it shows up on Wikipedia per the search lined above, one article references a blog, another references Reddit, the third uses it as an external link, not a reference, and the fourth is a false hit - the reference is actually to a similarly-named site on Harvard.edu. Clearly the blog and the Reddit references should be removed. The external link isn't an issue. There isn't really a live question as far as I can tell. Banks Irk (talk) 20:20, 4 April 2023 (UTC)
    Reaching consensus on the sources and nipping future problems in the bud is one option. Procrastinating until later is another. The other article issues have been fixed. -- Yae4 (talk) 17:43, 11 April 2023 (UTC)

Eater (website)

As a food website, would this be considered a reliable source for establishing the notability of a restaurant? As an example it is used around 30 times in this article Genoa (restaurant). LibStar (talk) 16:50, 21 April 2023 (UTC)

I mean, reliable for what? Facts about the restaurant or reviews of the restaurant? Of course, it is a reliable source for its own opinions. It also isn't a fly-by-nite publication, as a Vox Media property, it's got serious backing, and the article about the website indicates that other reliable sources consider it "required reading" and it's won four James Beard Awards. Given all of that I would say that the facts reported by the website should be considered reliable, and the opinions of the website (which is NOT a reliability issue, sensu stricto, and as such, are not really the purview of this board) are WP:DUE. --Jayron32 19:09, 21 April 2023 (UTC)
I agree that Eater is a reliable source for basic facts about a restaurant, and for its own opinions about restaurants. It should also be regarded as a reliable source on notability. I'm a little concerned that its use in the linked article is overdone per WP:DUE. What was on the menu on a particular date is probably a little non-encyclopedic. But that's for the article talkpage. Banks Irk (talk) 20:56, 21 April 2023 (UTC)
I'd say it's reliable enough, per Jayron32 and Banks Irk. Andre🚐 20:59, 21 April 2023 (UTC)
Eater has a national site and sites for a bunch of cities. The city sites are probably the ones that will come up most, and they're more or less going to be of similar quality to [and a bit bigger than] the food section of a large newspaper (dedicated staff, editorial oversight, etc.). A tricky thing in the case above is that many of the citations are for articles from before it was purchased by Vox. I don't know what it was like back then, but the existence of so many single-paragraph announcement-like articles (which I don't see in the current version of the site) indicates it was pretty different. It was undoubtedly smaller, too, with one person writing nearly all of the cited articles (although that person happens to be a James Beard Award winning writer/editor apparently). Probably fine, but of course those one-paragraph tidbits don't really add anything to notability. — Rhododendrites talk \\ 12:59, 25 April 2023 (UTC)

Do these sources support the claim: "During WWII, USSR was neutral until June 1941"?

Some editors argue that the sources listed below do not support this claim. The sources (and quotes) are as follows:

  • "After Hitler's attack on the Soviet Union, Stalin abandoned his attitude of pro-Axis neutrality and joined the Allies" (Jan T. Gross. A Note on the Nature of Soviet Totalitarianism. Soviet Studies, Jul., 1982, Vol. 34, No. 3 (Jul., 1982), pp. 367-376. [3])
  • "It is interesting to note that Graff Werner von Schulenburg, the German Ambassador in Moscow, regretfully informed his government in early 1940 that the Soviet Union was genuinely determined "to cling to neutrality [...] and avoid as much as possible anything that might involve it in a conflict with the Western Powers""
"The fall of France bolstered rather than altered the British concept. True, the loss of their allies on the Continent momentarily inspired the British to close ranks with the Russians. But the measures taken were too little and too late." (Gabriel Gorodetsky. The Impact of the Ribbentrop-Molotov Pact on the Course of Soviet Foreign Policy. Cahiers du Monde russe et soviétique , Jan. - Mar., 1990, Vol. 31, No. 1 (Jan. - Mar., 1990), pp. 27-41. [4])
  • "The Soviet Union formally declared its neutrality on 17 September 1939, the same day that Soviet armed forces entered eastern Poland." (Geoffrey Roberts. Stalin, the Pact with Nazi Germany, and the Origins of Postwar Soviet Diplomatic Historiography. Journal of Cold War Studies, Fall 2002, Vol. 4, No. 4 (Fall 2002), pp. 93-103. [5])
  • " The underlying message seemed to be that Moscow had acted to protect its own interests, was distancing itself from Berlin, and was concerned not to become involved in any wider conflict. One scholar [Gorodetsky] has written that the Soviets, in the ensuing days and weeks, 'resorted to strenuous efforts to placate Berlin and consolidate their own neutrality' '""
"British policy towards Soviet Russia did lurch and waver over ensuing months, notably during the Winter War. It is true, for example, that the British Government was much closer to declaring war on the Soviet Union during the Finnish campaign some four months later than it was over the Soviet invasion of Poland." (Keith Sword. British Reactions to the Soviet Occupation of Eastern Poland in September 1939. The Slavonic and East European Review , Jan., 1991, Vol. 69, No. 1 (Jan., 1991), pp. 81-101. [6])
  • "Even before Soviet entry into the war the British had hinted at or proposed some kind of general settlement. For example, in October 1940 London had proposed an agreement that in return for the USSR’s benevolent neutrality there would be consultations on the postwar settlement, de facto recognition of Russian territorial acquisitions in Eastern Europe and British economic assistance to Soviet defence preparations" (Geoffrey Roberts. Ideology, calculation, and improvisation: spheres of influence and Soviet foreign policy 1939–1945. Review of International Studies (1999), 25, 655–673. [7]
  • "In Britain at least, it is customary to say that the Second World War began in September I939. Yet what actually began then was a limited European war, confined to Britain, France, Germany and, briefly, Poland. Since the mid-I930s. British military planners had worked with the nightmare worst-case assumption of a three-enemy war-against Germany, Italy and Japan-but the latter two powers remained neutral, albeit malevolent, in September I939. On the sidelines too were the Soviet Union, which signed a non-aggression pact with Germany in August, and the United States, whose stance was one of neutrality tilted benevolently towards the Allies.. " (David Reynolds. 1940: Fulcrum of the Twentieth Century? International Affairs (Royal Institute of International Affairs 1944-) , Apr., 1990, Vol. 66, No. 2 (Apr., 1990), pp. 325-350. [8])

Thank you in advance. --Paul Siebert (talk) 21:18, 23 April 2023 (UTC)

@Paul Siebert, it is customary to mention and tag the users, which are concerned.
Our discussion wasn't about neutrality of USSR until June 1941, but about the date when USSR entered WW2. As far as I'm concerned, I don't think these sources confirm that the Soviet Union entered WW2 in 1941, as you claimed. This is what our discussion is about (Talk:Allies_of_World_War_II#Proposal_for_compromise,_straw_poll). Basically, none of them address the issue of SU entrance to WW2. Marcelus (talk) 22:16, 23 April 2023 (UTC)
Actually, no. I would like to know opinia of uninvolved users, and I am NOT going to continue the Allies of WWII dispute on this noticeboard.
Here, I am asking a very simple question:
Some users believe the above sources do not say that the USSR was neutral until 22th of June, 1941. And I am asking whether these sources support the claim about Soviet neutrality or not? Paul Siebert (talk) 12:36, 24 April 2023 (UTC)
You said "some users believe", specify which users and where. Also this board is to check if sources are reliable, not if they support certain statements, so it's misuse of the noticeboard. Also "opinion", not "opinia". Marcelus (talk) 12:41, 24 April 2023 (UTC)
Well, it is to check if sources are reliable in context. The problem is that the statement isn't really well considered; for example the term "neutral" can have far too many definitions in historical context. We would need to define what we mean by "neutral" (neutral as in "not involved in any treaties or pacts with others? Neutral as in declared neutrality? Neutral as in not actively fighting? Etc.) If you define what you mean by "neutral", you can just avoid the term altogether. You can say things like "Do these sources support the statement that the USSR signed the Molotov–Ribbentrop Pact on 23 August 1939" or "Do these sources support the statement that the Soviet Union invaded Poland on 17 September 1939" or "Do these sources support the statement that the Soviet Union signed the Anglo-Soviet Agreement on 12 July 1941". --Jayron32 14:26, 24 April 2023 (UTC)
I think you need to adress it to @Paul Siebert rather than me Marcelus (talk) 14:28, 24 April 2023 (UTC)
I was addressing your incorrect statement "not if they support certain statements, so it's misuse of the noticeboard" We actually usually ask for context when discussing sources, reliability in context (as in, alongside of the Wikipedia text that the source is being asked to verify" is very much what we do at this board, and not in any way a misuse of it. It is, in fact, using it exact as it is intended. If you read the instructions at the top of the page, it specifically asks for "The exact statement(s) in the article that the source supports." So, no, I was not addressing it at Paul Siebert. I am addressing it directly, and unambiguously at you, Marcelus, for the blatantly false claim you made at 12:41, 24 April 2023 (UTC), when you said "not if they support certain statements, so it's misuse of the noticeboard." which is a direct contradiction of the clear instructions at the top of the page. --Jayron32 15:50, 24 April 2023 (UTC)
Please change your tone. This noticeboard exists to verify the reliability of a source, in the context of the content it is supposed to support. It does not exist to verify that a source supports specific content.
@Paul Siebert is not asking whether Gorodetsky's book is reliable as a source for the claim that the Soviet Union was neutral before 1941. Which would be the correct use of the noticeboard. Paul Siebert is asking whether Gorodetsky's book (and other sources) supports the statement that the Soviet Union was neutral. Which is incorrect use of the noticeboard.
This is not a question of reliability, it is a question of the proper selection of sources and the correctness of their interpretation. This is a fairly simple difference, expressed directly in his question (Do these sources support the claim...), I'm surprised you didn't catch it.
Leaving that aside. The instructions clearly ask for information such as the Wikipedia article in which the source is being used ( in this case Allies of World War II) and the exact statement in the article that the source supports. The absence of the latter is particularly problematic. Because contrary to what PS says in the submission he does not want to use these sources to support the statement about the neutrality of the Soviet Union in 1939-41, but to support the statement "Soviet Union: at war from Jun 1941", that he is trying to put in the article.
So this is not only a bad use of noticeboard, a badly worded request, it is also an attempt to manipulate the participants in this discussion, in order to "win" the RFC on another t/p. Marcelus (talk) 16:38, 24 April 2023 (UTC)
Regarding: this is not only a bad use of noticeboard, a badly worded request, it is also an attempt to manipulate the participants in this discussion, in order to "win" the RFC on another t/p. I pre-agreed with you on that, by already saying as much several times. I don't see where any statement I've made in this discussion indicates that I think something differently than that. Perhaps you can tell me where I made a statement to make you think i would have disagreed with you there, so I can clarify myself. I would not like to be misunderstood. I clearly think (and as far as I can tell, already stated several times) that the OP was wrong to start the discussion here. --Jayron32 18:25, 24 April 2023 (UTC)
t. I am addressing it directly, and unambiguously at you, Marcelus, for the blatantly false claim you made at 12:41, 24 April 2023 (UTC), when you said "not if they support certain statements, so it's misuse of the noticeboard." which is a direct contradiction of the clear instructions at the top of the page.
The claim wasn't false, as I explained it to you above. Marcelus (talk) 19:37, 24 April 2023 (UTC)
  • Like below, the statement is far too blunt to be useful in understanding the nuance of the relationships between the parties involved. Don't make such blunt statements and instead merely describe the events and relationships directly. --Jayron32 12:29, 24 April 2023 (UTC)
    I am not discussing nuances here. I just want to know if these sources say the USSR was neutral. Paul Siebert (talk) 12:37, 24 April 2023 (UTC)
    Matter for concerned editors to determine, assuming those sources are reliable. In which article does the disputed phrase appear? Selfstudier (talk) 12:52, 24 April 2023 (UTC)
    (ec)This is a 'discussing nuances' noticeboard. Context matters when it comes to assessing whether a source can be cited for a statement. AndyTheGrump (talk) 12:54, 24 April 2023 (UTC)
    The statement "During WWII, USSR was neutral until June 1941" is not a statement that should appear in any article, because it glosses over the events of the time, and is far to broad a brush to paint those events with. The sources themselves are reliable enough for describing the events they describe. The statement is not even wrong, in the sense that it oversimplifies the relationships between the USSR and the other countries participating in World War II. I'd avoid making it altogether, and instead merely describe the events in question. --Jayron32 13:09, 24 April 2023 (UTC)
    @Selfstudier, @AndyTheGrump, @Jayron32: In the Allies of World War II article t/p, there is a discussion about how the date when the Soviet Union joined the Allies should be indicated in the infobox. The main discussion was between 22 June 1941 (the date of the German attack) and 12 July 1941 (the first British-Soviet agreement). @Paul Siebert argued in favour of the first date. A compromise proposal was made to write "Soviet Union: at war with Germany from Jun 1941", Paul Siebert in favour of the version "Soviet Union: at war from Jun 1941", claiming that the SU was neutral before this date. Some users, including myself, believe that this wording ignores Soviet aggressions in 1939-41. Marcelus (talk) 13:18, 24 April 2023 (UTC)
    That's not a reliable source issue. That's merely an issue of how to describe the events in an infobox (as others have noted, infoboxen are terrible devices for conveying nuance). This forum will not be able to provide any help in resolving the issue. You're just going to need to talk it out on the article talk page and arrive at a consensus. You cannot short-circuit the consensus-building discussion by throwing sources at the issue. --Jayron32 13:21, 24 April 2023 (UTC)
    I agree, that's what I said in my other comment here Marcelus (talk) 13:36, 24 April 2023 (UTC)
    @Jayron32: WRT The statement "During WWII, USSR was neutral until June 1941" is not a statement that should appear in any article... seems to be a straw man argument. Some people may believe I want to add the statement about Soviet neutrality in that or other articles. Actually, the situation is opposite. Of course, it would be incorrect to say that the USSR was strictly neutral during that period (similar to e.g. Sweden). However, it would be equally incorrect to describe it as the Axis co-belligerent, similar to Germany or Japan. We have a historical fact: before June 1941, the USSR was considered a neutral power by all future Allies, therefore, it would be incorrect to say it was "at war".
    The truth is somewhere in the middle, and it would be equally misleading to claim the USSR was "totally neutral" or it was "The Axis ally". Ironically, I never proposed to add the explicit claim about USSR's neutrality. In contrast, the OP insists the USSR was a combatant in the same sense as Nazi Germany. Paul Siebert (talk) 01:12, 25 April 2023 (UTC)
    Of course, it would be incorrect to say that the USSR was strictly neutral during that period, if you think so why do even make this request? Just to trick people in confirming something you don't believe is true?
    In contrast, the OP insists the USSR was a combatant in the same sense as Nazi Germany, who is OP you talk about? And where did he made such claim? Marcelus (talk) 08:56, 25 April 2023 (UTC)
    @Jayron32:@Selfstudier:@AndyTheGrump: I see that some additional explanations are needed.
    This my question was caused by the fact that I was accused of spreading false information that was not supported by RS here and here. Actually, the question I asked at the top of this section was a not completely accurate summary of four statements. These statements are as follows:
    1. The USSR declared neutrality in 1939;
    2. From Sept 1939 till June 1941, the USSR was officially considered as a neutral power by Britain, France, and other major powers.
    3. The USSR officially abandoned its neutral status in June 1941, immediately after Barbarossa
    4. At the beginning, the war that would later be named "World War II" was a local European war between Poland, France, Britain, on one side, and Germany on another, whereas the USSR (as well as the US) were neutral.
    I am not asking if the source support these claim in some context, because these claims are true or false irrespective to any concrete context.
    So far, I am leaving beyond the scope NPOV or relevance issues. I perfectly know our policy, and I know that verifiability does not warrant inclusion. I also KNOW that a context does matter. However, all of that should be discussed later, after WP:V and WP:NOR issues have been resolved.
    Therefore, I am rephrasing my question more accurately:
    Leaving NPOV and similar issues beyond the scope, do the above mentioned sources contain the claims ##1-4, and do they explicitly say that? Paul Siebert (talk) 23:59, 24 April 2023 (UTC)

So it is a question of interpreting whether those sources contain or explicitly say a particular wikipedian-written statement. And a statement which is inherently ambiguous unless one specifies the definition-at-hand for "neutral". IMHO in cases like that it is best to avoid such characterizations which have multiple meanings. IMHO either way that it a judgement call that is outside the scope of this board. This board would determine whether or not it is considered a reliable source with respect to the text which cited it. Sincerely, North8000 (talk) 01:23, 25 April 2023 (UTC)

I see no ambiguity here.
The statement "The USSR declared neutrality in 1939" is not ambiguous, because it is absolutely clear WHO declared (the USSR, a state), WHEN did it do it (in 1939), HOW the declaration was made (in the same way as other official statements made by a state), and what exactly "neutrality" meant (not Coulomb neutrality, not gender neutrality, but, obviously, a neutrality in political and military sense).
The statement "From Sept 1939 till June 1941, the USSR was officially considered as a neutral power by Britain, France, and other major powers" allows no double interpretation, and it is absolutely unambiguous: The USSR was officially (in terms of the international law) considered neutral by absolutely concrete states: France, Britain, as well as Japan, Italy, the US etc.
The statement "The USSR officially abandoned its neutral status in June 1941, immediately after Barbarossa" is absolutely unambiguous: it abandoned neutrality by declaring a war on German and all its allies except Japan.
The "At the beginning, the war that would later be named "World War II" was a local European war between Poland, France, Britain, on one side, and Germany on another, whereas the USSR (as well as the US) were neutral." was almost verbatim taken from the cited source, and it should be understood in the very same context that the author of that article used.
Therefore, I have no clue what kind of a judgement call do you mean. Paul Siebert (talk) 01:59, 25 April 2023 (UTC)
@Paul Siebert you keep WP:BLUDGEON the dispute, and now you are moving it here, for no good reason, other than to cause more confusion, and only because you were "losing" the dispute on Talk:Allies of World War II.
The matter is very simple. Your proposed text: "Soviet Union: at war from Jun 1941" is false. Because SU was at war before Jun 1941. Alternative text: ""Soviet Union: at war with Germany from Jun 1941" is much better, because it short, correct, and conveys the most essential information in this context.
The rest of the things you are talking about are political buzz, gestures that have little relevance to the reality of events. We are interested in facts, not political declarations. The Soviet Union proclaimed its neutrality in 1939, just as it proclaimed that it had not attacked Poland, that Finland had attacked it, that the Baltic states had democratically become part of it, and so on. These were all lies. We are interested in how historical reality is described by contemporary, independent scholars.
Also, most of what you say is completely unrelated to the topic. It is strawman after strawman. You say: The statement "The USSR declared neutrality in 1939" is not ambiguous, but nobody claims otherwise. Yes the USSR declared neutrality, but that does not mean it was in fact neutral. The statement "From Sept 1939 till June 1941, the USSR was officially considered as a neutral power by Britain, France, and other major powers"}, ok maybe other powers considered them as a neutral, but that doesn't mean they were in fact neutral. That is a completely different topic. The statement "The USSR officially abandoned its neutral status in June 1941, ok the USSR stopped declaring itself neutral at that time, but that doesn't change the fact that they were in fact neutral before that. We are still dealing with a political declaration, not the actual state of affairs. Similarly, today Russia continues to claim that it is not at war with Ukraine. And prior to 2022, it claimed to be a neutral state vis-à-vis "internal fighting in Ukraine". This is an important historical fact. But it does not mean that it is true.
At the beginning, the war that would later be named "World War II" was a local European war, ok but that does not change the fact that according to today's scholars World War II started in 1939. At the beginning of the Hundred Years' War nobody knew either what it would be called or how long it would last or what its size would be. And to say that Edward III's claim to the French throne was the cause of the Hundred Years' War is not false.
This is my last comment on this forum on this topic. Because I get the impression that you are only here to drag this discussion out, move it to the next place, hoping to exhaust the other side. Marcelus (talk) 09:26, 25 April 2023 (UTC)
I thought I explained myself quite clear. I am here for one simple and concrete reason. The whole story is very simple.
Step 1. Some users accused me of making t/p statements that are ostensibly unsupported by reliable sources.
Step 2. I provided several sources that I believe are reliable, and these sources say, almost verbatim, exactly what I say.
Step 3. The users who previously accused me of making false claims continue to do so.
In that situation, it is quite natural to come here and to ask the question that I asked.
Let me reiterate it: this question was caused by the accusation of spreading false information that is not found in any reliable sources. I provided several sources that, imo, clearly and unequivocally say exactly what I say. In that situation, we either come to consensus that these sources do not say that (... see ##1-4), or you should apologise and concede "well, I was not right, your claims are based on whet RS say. However, that is just one side of truth, and we need to think how to present information in a correct and unbiased was".
And, at that point, it would be my turn to agree with you. And I would have said: "Yes. You are absolutely right. The USSR cannot be described as a fully neutral state during 1939-41. Let's think together how to adequately present this information.".
THAT is how normal, intellectually honest people conduct a discussion.
Remember, the whole conflict started not with my attempt to introduce the claim that the USSR was neutral in 1939-41 (I believe such an explicit claim would be an oversimplification, at least, because one source presented by me describes its status as "pro-Axis neutrality"). However, the explicit claim that it was non-neutral would be an oversimplification too.
Therefore, I was pretty satisfied with the current version of the infobox. It provides no controversial details and contains no claims that contradict to what majority RS say. I proposed a new wording because other people decided to make the infobox more specific (thereby making it more misleading).
All of that can and should be discussed (and easily resolved) in a calm and respectful discussion. However, to continue this discussion you should either prove that my sources do not say what they (in my opinion) say, or apologise for claiming that I am spreading false facts. Paul Siebert (talk) 14:02, 25 April 2023 (UTC)
So you are chosing WP:ICANTHEARYOU approach. Marcelus (talk) 14:16, 25 April 2023 (UTC)
This is more applicable to you: in this thread, I am trying to separate a minor issue (accusation of spreading false information) from the bigger issue (which doesn't belong to this page).
Actually, I've just left a detailed responce to your post at the "Allies... " talk page, which addresses your general concern in more details. I hope I was able to clarify my vision of the roots of our disagreement. Paul Siebert (talk) 15:01, 25 April 2023 (UTC)

RFC: Russian defence ministry as source for ceasefire violations in Azerbaijan

Is the source mil.ru a reliable source to support a table of ceasefires?

 —Michael Z. 16:51, 24 April 2023 (UTC)

It's a primary source, so if there are reliable secondary sources which describe the violations we should use such secondary sources. From what I see in the article, most of the *other* sources used for ceasefire violations are Armenian and Azerbaijani media and official bodies, which are likely to be biased and possibly not reliable (Azerbaijan is somewhere near Russia when it comes to press freedom). If this is all we have at the moment, I think it's worth retaining the list, considering that the information is clearly attributed.
There is also a question of due weight (not for this noticeboard) - is the list of ceasefire violations actually necessary for that article? Alaexis¿question? 19:58, 24 April 2023 (UTC)
Russian Ministry of Defence is biased and possibly not reliable (this is not UN peacekeeping). See the article section on #Criticism.  —Michael Z. 21:12, 24 April 2023 (UTC)
Well, being criticised by both sides is a good sign :) Alaexis¿question? 19:21, 25 April 2023 (UTC)
And yes, the list is WP:NOTREPOSITORY, WP:NOTDIRECTORY. Please join in the article’s talk page.  —Michael Z. 21:20, 24 April 2023 (UTC)
I would honestly just remove that entire table. The major violations are covered right above in prose, where some of the Russian claims can also be included with attribution. It seems a little out-of-scope to include a list of every little scrap. Curbon7 (talk) 21:20, 24 April 2023 (UTC)
I would oppose to usage of ANY information obtained from the governments of the states involved in an open military conflict. In addition to the fact that that would be against WP:NOR, such sources can contain a deliberate misinformation. I am pretty sure the same is true for Ukrainian Ministry of Defense (they also engage in disinformation, which is absolutely correct and justified). All information of that type must be analysed by experts and summarised in some good secondary source, and only after that we can use it. Paul Siebert (talk) 00:10, 25 April 2023 (UTC)
That's a legitimate approach, but if in this specific case only Ru MoD information is removed, the article will not be improved as what will remain would be just Armenian and Azeri accusations (this is one of the references: Armenians commit terror act in Nagorno-Karabakh region - are we sure that is more reliable that RuMoD reports?). I would support overhauling the section using reliable secondary sources (if they exist). Alaexis¿question? 19:21, 25 April 2023 (UTC)

Infobase publishing

There are 2 threads in archives so far regarding Infobase publishing. One is from 2011 and another is from 2014.

The issue was raised after Talk:Pakistan/Archive 22#Paleolithic.

Publishing company still describes itself as "Infobase Publishing is one of America's leading providers of supplemental educational materials to the school and library markets." I don't think that makes it reliable. Aman Kumar Goel (Talk) 16:12, 25 April 2023 (UTC)

Not sure why resources for education markets would be a bad thing; it means it's not popular crap: "With thousands of titles and numerous award winners, Infobase provides students, librarians, and educators with authoritative, reliable resources supporting the curriculum across a wide variety of subject areas, from history, science, and literature to careers, health, and social issues." Iskandar323 (talk) 19:25, 25 April 2023 (UTC)
  • Can you specify exactly what Infobase publication is being used and for what? The specifics will matter since the main concern with Infobase is that their target audience is school children and therefore the works are written by non-specialists with an eye towards comprehensibility rather than precision. Abecedare (talk) 19:44, 25 April 2023 (UTC)
  • Not Reliable As pointed out in the prior linked discussions, Infobase publishes for elementary, middle school and high school markets. They are tertiary sources. Moreover, WP:RS states that university level textbooks might be used as reliable sources. It does not list primary and secondary school texts as reliable. Banks Irk (talk) 00:56, 26 April 2023 (UTC)
  • Depends on the publication. There are some publications that indeed focus on high school and below, but they also do publish works for undergraduate students and for general purposes (such as several editions of The World Almanac prior to 2020). Those sorts of publications seem to be of the same reliability of those introductory-level university textbooks, almanacs, and encyclopedias that are noted as citeable in WP:RS, as they are published more professionally and have a higher standard of rigor relative to their K-12 materials. That being said, we should not be using their content that is targeted at primary school or middle school students. Painting the publisher with one broad brush is an oversimplification given their diversity of product offerings; it would be like declaring McGraw Hill's college textbooks unreliable because they also sell middle school history books. — Red-tailed hawk (nest) 03:33, 26 April 2023 (UTC)

Northern BC Backroad Mapbook

I've been gathering sources to rewrite an article and I came across this Northern BC Backroad Mapbook. I'm uncertain if it would be considered a reliable source for Wikipedia. Any thoughts? Volcanoguy 16:29, 25 April 2023 (UTC)

I mean, maybe? On the one hand, the author, Russell Mussio, is the same name as the publisher, Mussio Ventures Ltd., which makes this likely a self-published source, which means we need to look and see if others consider it a reliable source. Is Russell Mussio a well respected cartographer or geographer or expert in a field related to the material in the atlas? Is the specific source in question frequently cited by other reliable sources? That's how you'll want to go about analyzing it. Not all self-published sources are unreliable, but it does mean that other hallmarks of reliability need to be quite a bit extra to make up for that. --Jayron32 18:08, 25 April 2023 (UTC)
I poked around the corporate website and this doesn't feel like a self-publishing venture: [9]. What were you planning to use it for? Mackensen (talk) 01:41, 26 April 2023 (UTC)
I plan on using it for describing routes that can be used to gain access to Mount Edziza in northwestern British Columbia, Canada. Three routes are shown in this map book on page 88: Yukon Telegraph Trail, Buckley Lake Trail and the Buckley Lake to Mowdade Lake Route. Volcanoguy 07:48, 26 April 2023 (UTC)
I think the information is likely to be non-controversial, and that the maps you've cited should be sufficient absent any controversy. --Jayron32 12:16, 26 April 2023 (UTC)

Shout Out UK

Is Shout Out UK a reliable source? I want to use this article from them for a draft about commentary YouTube, but looking at their wiki article, they seem to be some sort of advocacy organization? — VORTEX3427 (Talk!) 10:04, 26 April 2023 (UTC)

That article you cited not a work of scholarship or journalism, but one of opinion, as can be seen from the disclaimer at the bottom of the page, as such WP:RSOPINION applies here; basically it should be used only to report attributed opinions of the writer only, and should not be used in Wikipedia's voice. Furthermore, even when citing it and giving proper in text attribution, we need to also assess if this person's opinion is worth even citing in an attributed manner: Are they widely recognized as an expert in the field for which you are citing their opinion? Do their opinions carry such weight that other reliable sources cite them or give them credence? That sort of thing. --Jayron32 12:20, 26 April 2023 (UTC)

Is the credibility and usefulness of the sources for the Alan Singh article in tatters?

Do the sources for this article lack credibility? -- Karsan Chanda (talk) 03:06, 19 April 2023 (UTC)

I came across this article while fixing errors, there's a lot of background detail in the article's talk page. -- LCU ActivelyDisinterested ∆transmissions∆ °co-ords° 11:38, 19 April 2023 (UTC)
@ActivelyDisinterested: Will this article be removed from Wikipedia? -- Karsan Chanda (talk) 12:01, 19 April 2023 (UTC)
That will be resolved at AFD, not here. If you believe that your article should not be deleted, you need to make your best argument at its discussion page there. Banks Irk (talk) 12:07, 19 April 2023 (UTC)
@Banks Irk: [10], [11] Are both these sources useful for the Alan Singh article? -- Karsan Chanda (talk) 12:19, 19 April 2023 (UTC)
No. They are not reliable sources. Banks Irk (talk) 12:32, 19 April 2023 (UTC)
@Banks Irk: This article has been reviewed. So will it not be considered important? -- Karsan Chanda (talk) 14:32, 20 April 2023 (UTC)
@Karsan Chanda: There is a deletion discussion herewhich you are invited to participate in, do not open discussions anywhere else, it is there that you need to contribute. It is not that the article is not considered important, we need "significant coverage" of Alan Singh in a good source. Significant coverage means a couple of paragraphs about Alan Singh at least. Boynamedsue (talk) 04:34, 21 April 2023 (UTC)

Twitter and WP:ABOUTSELF, again

We'll see what happens, I guess. Gråbergs Gråa Sång (talk) 08:20, 25 April 2023 (UTC)

Ok, that happened: Twitter Blue verification controversy. Wikipedia, you gotta love it. Gråbergs Gråa Sång (talk) 08:40, 25 April 2023 (UTC)
I think Twitter can still be used for ABOUTSELF comments, what's changed is how to check that the account is legitimate. Before it was possible to rely of twitter verification to ensure the account was the actual individual, now it seems suggestable to verify that from a secondary source. With mistakes likely due to a much reduced team doing the verification, and the system changing on Musk's daily whims, it seems best not to rely on twitter alone to ensure the account is actually the subject in question. -- LCU ActivelyDisinterested ∆transmissions∆ °co-ords° 10:02, 25 April 2023 (UTC)
No checkmark:[12] Gråbergs Gråa Sång (talk) 10:20, 25 April 2023 (UTC)
  • ABOUTSELF requires that there be no reasonable doubt as to the comment's authenticity; part of the reason Twitter was frequently used for ABOUTSELF stuff while eg. Reddit was not was because of its verification process. So it should probably be used less. (Even if an editor is like "oh, I personally know this is their real account based on previous coverage", it's easy to miss a slight difference in the name.) And generally speaking, situations where there's no reasonable doubt as to a particular tweet's authenticity are also going to be ones where there is secondary coverage anyway, making citing them via ABOUTSELF unnecessary. --Aquillion (talk) 12:52, 25 April 2023 (UTC)
  • As we have a number of fake accounts (it seems), no Twitter is no longer usable for about self. Slatersteven (talk) 12:54, 25 April 2023 (UTC)
Well idk, if a subject has publicly stated hey this is my Twitter then its still ABOUTSELF. Dont forget that this applies to blogs, and we didnt require the blogging platform to say we have verified the person claiming to be whoever. What has changed is we relied on Twitter saying this is actually such and such's Twitter feed. Now we have to rely on some other reliable outlet, like a news source reporting its such and such's Twitter or the subject publicly stating it elsewhere. nableezy - 14:20, 25 April 2023 (UTC)
But we should use caution with outstanding claims even when reported by a normally reliable source, as there have been problems with them confusing parody accounts for the real thing. -- Nat Gertler (talk) 22:17, 25 April 2023 (UTC)
  • If an account is confirmed to be run by a particular person it should still be usable as WP:ABOUTSELF, but twitter's own verification systems seem increasingly unreliable for such confirmation. It may be worth updating WP:RSPTWITTER to reflect this? Perhaps simply: Twitter is a social network. As a self-published source, it is considered generally unreliable and should be avoided unless the author is a subject-matter expert or the tweet is used for an uncontroversial self-description. In most cases, Twitter accounts should only be cited if they are verified accounts or if the user's identity is confirmed in some way. Tweets that are not covered by reliable sources are likely to constitute undue weight. Twitter should never be used for third-party claims related to living persons. Caeciliusinhorto-public (talk) 15:55, 25 April 2023 (UTC)
    As per my comment I'd support that change. -- LCU ActivelyDisinterested ∆transmissions∆ °co-ords° 21:41, 25 April 2023 (UTC)
  • Now that Twitter Blue is only indicative of subscribing to a service, rather than actual verification (in fact, numerous trolls and fake accounts have gotten Twitter Blue), it isn't worthy as a way to establish identity anymore. It is a completely different functionality that happens to share the same icon. With or without Twitter Blue, anyone can claim being someone else on Twitter, making using it for ABOUTSELF risky. I also support the proposed change to WP:RSPTWITTER, and the use of other sources to confirm the identity of a Twitter account. Chaotic Enby (talk) 21:36, 25 April 2023 (UTC)
    "Anyone can claim being someone else on Twitter"
    I'm not sure that there's evidence, supporting that, though I'm willing to be proven wrong if you can provide some. But even so, long before Elon Musk, checkmarks were often taken away from confirmed users for ideological reasons. Harry Sibelius (talk) 04:40, 26 April 2023 (UTC)
    When you buy a checkmark, with the new Twitter Blue system, there's no verification involved except for giving your phone number for the payment. As seen just below in the conversation, even a gold tick (for which the process is slightly more involved) got given to the fake "Disney Junior UK". Your other sentence is pretty much a red herring, as we're not talking about verification pre-Musk, but Twitter Blue post-Musk, two entirely different processes (and even if Twitter did really take away some checkmarks, it didn't make other checkmarked users less verifiable). Chaotic Enby (talk) 07:42, 26 April 2023 (UTC)
  • note by the way that the other new tick colours, gold and grey, aren't trustworthy either. Twitter gave "Disney Junior UK" - a spoof name - a verified gold tick. We just need to note that the ticks can't be relied on any more and you'll need some off-Twitter way to verify who it's run by - David Gerard (talk) 21:48, 25 April 2023 (UTC)

Can't we do better than "verified in some way" on the twitter entry in WP:RSTWITTER. How about "verified by a reliable source (such as a responsible news article)" or something like that. Alanscottwalker (talk) 22:14, 25 April 2023 (UTC)

Agreed. Twitter's own verification instantly lost all merit the second Twitter Blue rolled out. casualdejekyll 23:41, 25 April 2023 (UTC)
  • Actually, yeah. At an absolute bare minimum, we ought to remove ...if they are verified accounts or... immediately, since Twitter no longer provides account verification as such. Does anyone object to that removal? It seems uncontroversial to me, since it refers to a service Twitter no longer provides. --Aquillion (talk) 04:29, 26 April 2023 (UTC)
    Yep, I support that change as a bare minimum. Twitter Blue is not account verification, despite a similar icon, and they were even distinguished on Twitter itself (in the period when both were still present) by clicking on the icon on the profile. Chaotic Enby (talk) 07:45, 26 April 2023 (UTC)
    I've removed the clause about verified accounts; we can revise the wording further if necessary. Caeciliusinhorto (talk) 19:26, 26 April 2023 (UTC)
    Maybe "verified by a reliable source or by the person themselves (e.g. on their official homepage)? -- Random person no 362478479 (talk) 04:22, 27 April 2023 (UTC)
    Good idea - I was thinking about a way to word the fact that Twitter Blue isn't sufficient for verification anymore, as people might still mistake it for the old "verified" icon. Chaotic Enby (talk) 11:24, 27 April 2023 (UTC)

Buzzfeed News shutting down - what now?

With Buzzfeed News shutting down[1], should we be thinking about removing it from the list or is it still too early to do so? At the very least, I'm thinking of making a bot request at WP:BOTREQ for the IABot so as to archive all Buzzfeed News citations.

Thoughts? — That Coptic Guyping me! (talk) (contribs) 18:30, 20 April 2023 (UTC)

I don't think it would be removed from the list (even well after it shuts down) but I do think its a smart idea to archive the citations. Horse Eye's Back (talk) 18:32, 20 April 2023 (UTC)
Older Buzzfeed articles are still valid sources, so there is no reason to strip it from the list. Masem (t) 18:35, 20 April 2023 (UTC)
Should keep in list and note when the shutdown occurs, and maybe mention that after shutdown BuzzFeed will focus on all news efforts in WP:HUFFPOST instead. WikiVirusC(talk) 18:39, 20 April 2023 (UTC)
The News of the World was added to the list many years after its closure. There's no reason to remove defunct sites from the list, as they can still be cited by archive. Hemiauchenia (talk) 18:54, 20 April 2023 (UTC)
Doesn't affect the reliability of old stories. But let's see what they do now, hopefully they won't ditch the team but "keep the brand", and start pumping out bad stories under the Buzzfeed News property. Doubtful IMO, but something to watch out for.
Would be nice to have a bot that archives all BN links though — DFlhb (talk) 18:58, 20 April 2023 (UTC)
Filed a bot request. Hopefully an admin can look at it soon. — That Coptic Guyping me! (talk) (contribs) 19:07, 20 April 2023 (UTC)
Following up at WP:URLREQ. -- GreenC 19:26, 20 April 2023 (UTC)
  • It doesn't really change anything. The entry in the list is still important because we continue to have a lot of citations to their archived reporting and because (due to the associations of the Buzzfeed name outside its news division) it's a source that is frequently challenged, something that will probably only get worse now that Buzzfeed News is historical (and therefore people will steadily become less familiar with it and the fact that it was independent from the rest of the company.) A source shutting down doesn't affect the reliability of their past reporting, and "don't cite any future reporting from a source that no longer exists" is not usually a problem we have to worry about. --Aquillion (talk) 16:48, 22 April 2023 (UTC)
  • Media companies shut down all the time; when a Newspaper stops printing, the back-issues don't really change their status. If something printed in a defunct newspaper was reliable at the time of publication, it doesn't become suddenly unreliable because the newspaper doesn't exist anymore. --Jayron32 12:20, 27 April 2023 (UTC)

References

  1. ^ https://variety.com/2023/digital/news/buzzfeed-news-shutting-down-layoffs-1235589751/

Arabia GIS and UNDP (Repost)

This is a repost as my previous one got no responses

I am thinking of create a bot request to automate some coordinate addition to lebanese towns articles. See this TH discussion for more info. The source for the coordinates is listed as UNDP/Arabia GIS. I was wondering if this is a reliable source for the coords of all LB towns. I'd say the UNDP is reliable but not sure about Arabia GIS. Their website went offline in 2011. Here's the last archive before that.

Edit:Seems they actually recreated their website but it has since gone offline again. See this PalauanReich🗣️ 01:14, 27 April 2023 (UTC)

After checking the link I figured out that "TH" means Teahouse but I still don't know what LB means here. I remember (from WP:History of Wikipedia bots) that this topic of using bots to create articles for every single town they can come up with has arisen before early in Wikipedia's history, and I'm not sure what the conclusion to that was as far as whether it would be allowed again. —DIYeditor (talk) 09:05, 27 April 2023 (UTC)
It's not really the same thing. We had the last discussion about using bots to create articles for each town a few days ago, and turns out there's a big risk of mislabelling random features as towns and creating useless articles that way. But here it appears that the goal isn't to create the articles, but to fill already-existing town articles with coordinates, which seems more reasonable. Chaotic Enby (talk) 11:30, 27 April 2023 (UTC)
Ok. Had a bit of trouble understanding the way it was worded.
I have seen coordinates listed in such databases be far too specific as to the location of municipalities (false precision issues), or not actually correspond to the center or administrative building (false accuracy issues). Without some human oversight it does seem possible that entirely erroneous locations will be added. —DIYeditor (talk) 11:49, 27 April 2023 (UTC)
I think the bot could reduce the precision, the main thing I want is a consensus on the reliability. That's what they want over at BOTREQ. PalauanReich🗣️ 13:50, 27 April 2023 (UTC)
Personally I would prefer to see them manually verified if from either of these sources, again not just due to false precision but due to possible inaccuracies. Would it be an insurmountable task to have it be semi-automated and have a human (you) compare the coordinates to a satellite image and map (overlayed or not) for each town? This really may be more of a discussion for Wikipedia:Bots/Requests for approval than can be given a firm answer here. —DIYeditor (talk) 19:19, 27 April 2023 (UTC)
@DIYeditorSounds good, so if manually verified, would you support their reliability. PalauanReich🗣️ 23:58, 27 April 2023 (UTC)
LB means Lebanon here, by the way Chaotic Enby (talk) 11:31, 27 April 2023 (UTC)

Primary and unreliable sources on Singaporean crime articles

Via Tangaraju Suppiah, I've come to realise that there is an issue with articles worked on by @NelsonLee20042020 relying excessively on primary (mainly court documents), self-published and otherwise dubious sources in articles related to crime in Singapore. Random examples below:

Article Primary sources Self-published or dubious sources
Tangaraju Suppiah Public Prosecutor v Tangaraju s/o Suppiah, Muhammad Ridzuan bin Md Ali v Public Prosecutor and other matters Substack article now removed
Execution of Nagaenthran K. Dharmalingam Public Prosecutor v Nagaenthran a/l K Dharmalingam, First appeal, Second appeal, Third appeal, Mathavakannan s/o Kalimuthu v Attorney-General YouTube video, Twitter, LITIGATION CONFERENCE 2022: Keynote Address, CNB press release, Opinion piece
Anthony Ler Ler Wee Teang Anthony v Public Prosecutor, Public Prosecutor v Anthony Ler Wee Teang and Another Memoir of a lawyer who was involved in the case, True crime TV show, Facebook post
2010 Kallang slashing Public Prosecutor v Micheal Anak Garing and another, Prosecutor v Micheal Anak Garing and another (sentence), Micheal Anak Garing v Public Prosecutor and another appeal, EU Local Statement, Swiss embassy statement A forum publication by Singapore Police Force

Additionally the use of these sources creates some WP:BLPPRIMARY issues.

I believe this editor is acting in good faith which is why I have brought this here (please move the discussion if there is a better place for it). I tried to address this locally at the Suppiah page but after getting my maintenance template reverted three times, I did a bit of digging and realised this was a larger issue than just that article. I have no interest in this topic so am probably not the right editor to sort it out. (I'm useless at this noticeboard stuff so throw me the Wiki acronyms to show me if/where I've gone wrong.) Vladimir.copic (talk) 01:01, 28 April 2023 (UTC)

I think it would have been better to just post this on the user's talk page. This page is more for content issues rather than conduct. If the user in question does not fix the articles under reasonable amount of time, you should post at Wikipedia:Biographies of living persons/Noticeboard. Carpimaps (talk) 11:52, 28 April 2023 (UTC)

theodora.com

I've requested blacklisting for this, because it's WP:REFSPAM, but I thought people here might also want to look into it - the site scrapes content from public domain sources, wraps it around with adverts, and asserts its own copyright. I have not had time to dig in and find out who added any of the links. Guy (help! - typo?) 12:56, 28 April 2023 (UTC)

A video from 24 Horas

https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=zVmTQN1ZfcY

It is the official account of a Peruvian news medium. It is part of the Panamericana Televisión network. I am citing it as a reference in the article about the recent protests in Peru. Alfredo18elguapo (talk) 15:08, 27 April 2023 (UTC)

What specific Wikipedia text is going to be sourced to this news report? --Jayron32 15:44, 27 April 2023 (UTC)
In the section on "Government Response", it is on a specific issue. Alfredo18elguapo (talk) 18:17, 27 April 2023 (UTC)
@Jayron32 If you want a broader answer, it is about the trafficking of weapons (bullets) between the borders of Peru and Bolivia. Alfredo18elguapo (talk) 18:22, 27 April 2023 (UTC)
I looked over the Spanish Language Wikipedia article you gave, and checked out their website. They have all of the hallmarks of a legitimate news organization, and I see nothing to give me pause. According to their website, they are a member of this organization, which seems to be committed to independent broadcasting in Peru. If someone else knows more about 24 horas as a news organization personally, they may have more to add, but my quick 5-minute glance indicates to me they are likely reliable. I would say, so long as you stick to what the source actually says, it's a reliable source in this context. --Jayron32 18:36, 27 April 2023 (UTC)
OP blocked as a sock – dudhhr talk contribs (he/they) 22:31, 28 April 2023 (UTC)

Heritage Times (India)

Is this site: https://www.heritagetimes.in/about-us/ reliable specifically some of the biographical content at https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tQjXELpSrlU for use in the article Imdad Sabri. The content would be neutrally selected and worded ie. real name, education, etc... -- GreenC 15:45, 24 April 2023 (UTC)

I would say: reliable enough for those basic facts, yes. I would say overall this is kind of an option 2 situation, since the outlet's stated mission is to "dispel the false and semi-true stories being fed to the people in the name of History". On the one hand, it has editorial staff and procedures for corrections (contact us). On the other hand, it has a stated POV bias and thus should probably not be used for matters of analysis, opinion, commentary, etc. Anything slightly controversial (even controversial facts) probably needs to be covered by other additional RSes.
Overall, given the editorial policy and correction mechanism, it is reliable enough for matters of fact that you describe. I think it would be better if at all possible to not link to youtube, but it is an okay last resort given that it is connected to the outlet. — Shibbolethink (♔ ♕) 15:51, 24 April 2023 (UTC)
Makes sense, thanks.-- GreenC 01:52, 25 April 2023 (UTC)

Fascist-era censuses

Hello. Data from the 1942 and 1943 censuses in Fascist-occupied Albania has been added to many settlement articles recently by @Alltan:. Links:

The sites are apparently owned by a "Tim Bespyatov" and I'm not sure where the source documents are to confirm the charts this individual has created. There are also many notes in the margins such as "disputed value" - it may be impossible to know what the dispute is exactly; Alltan also doesn't know what is disputed.

There's also a note at the bottom of each page: "the data contain errors in almost every geographical name, but these names are presented in forms in which they appear in the original document and are sufficient to identify corresponding settlements."

At quick glances, many of the stats don't seem too farfetched. However, at least one major problem I've noticed is that there is no category for Turks (among other groups), which are and were a significant population in rural western Macedonia. A good example is Kodžadžik where, as a result of Turkification during the Ottoman-era, there has been a solidly Turkish population for a long time - this is confirmed in late 19th/early 20th studies by Kanchov and in Ethnographie des Vilayets d'Andrinople, de Monastir et de Salonique. Yugoslav and Macedonian census (1953-present) also show an exclusively Turkish population (Selishchev shows a mixed Bulgarian-Turkish population). Yet, now we have a Fascist-era census from 1942 showing a pure Albanian population, where "Turk" apparently wasn't even an option.

Per Pandelejmoni (2001), these WWII censuses' "results were only approximate and a complete and a modern population census could not be carried out."

How do we best proceed with this? Thanks. --Local hero talk 03:48, 24 April 2023 (UTC)

This source appears to be self-published and therefore not reliable. The exception might be if Tim Bespyatov is a subject expert who has been published on subjects relating to WWII in the Balkans or the demographics of Macedonia or similar. Even if this were the case, raw census data from this period would have to be attributed, and I would be very uncomfortable using it unless quoted in a secondary source by a subject expert able to analyse its reliability. Boynamedsue (talk) 05:48, 24 April 2023 (UTC)
BTW, when setting up section here, you should include the name of the page which the source is being used for, and also some details of the claim it is being used to source. Boynamedsue (talk) 05:51, 24 April 2023 (UTC)
Apologies, first time posting here. The source has been added to dozens of articles within the past week. For example: Kodžadžik, Jelovjane, Tetovo, Struga, Padalište, Čajle, etc. --Local hero talk 13:51, 24 April 2023 (UTC)
This appears to be someone's personal server on which they publish things they're interested in, see for example saktransporti on the same server where Tim Bespyatov has galleries of trams, buses, and metro lines. I can't find anything definitive on Tim Bespyatov to show they would pass the requirements of WP:SPS. So the links should be considered unreliable. If the site is reposting census data a better source should be found. As to raw census data from fascist sources in general they should be used with extreme skepticism, given the racial ideologies they believed in. -- LCU ActivelyDisinterested ∆transmissions∆ °co-ords° 13:26, 24 April 2023 (UTC)
Local hero's objection seems to be related to the inclusion of the census itself. Tim Bespyatov's pop-stat-mashke was used as an easy way for readers who want to examine the census. The same website is widely used in articles about the Balkans as an easy way to cite censuses because it functions as a repository of census data. Offline sources can be used and I can search for other online sources which may be paywalled.
The inclusion of a census regardless of the era it was produced, may be useful to readers. The manipulation of censuses for political goals didn't begin or end in World War II. Kanchov is considered to have been writing under a Bulgarian nationalist bias, while Afanasy Selishchev explicitly changed his theories depending on what Soviet foreign policy dictated. They're not removed from the article despite their flaws. The bias which is embedded in every publication is itself useful in understanding the politics behind identity categorizing. Inclusion becomes a problem only when the source of a publication is being hidden from readers. This is not such a case because readers are being informed that it is a census which was conducted during WWII when the area became part of the Italian protectorate over Albania. Alltan (talk) 13:48, 24 April 2023 (UTC)
This is not the place for debating the inclusion of census data, but my position is that I can see no justification for including raw data from fascist era censuses in the pages of present day towns/villages. If this data is mentioned in a reliable secondary source discussing the town's demographic history, it should be fine to include as long as it reflects the overall perspective of the source in question. Otherwise, we would have to put the primary source in context by outlining the defects in the census data in every single article. Leading to the question, if the data is misleading, why use it? Boynamedsue (talk) 14:37, 24 April 2023 (UTC)
As it stands, we don't even need to discuss the above, as at the moment we do not have a reliable source for the census data. Boynamedsue (talk) 14:41, 24 April 2023 (UTC)
This appears to be a disagreement of how census data should be used. The best solution would be not to use it unless it's included in secondary sources that have already analysed it. -- LCU ActivelyDisinterested ∆transmissions∆ °co-ords° 14:42, 24 April 2023 (UTC)
Content disputes need to focus on specific issues. Census figures are usually cited as raw data in sections about demographics. The question is whether this 1942 census is used in reliable sources in any form. The answer is yes.
Kolstø, Pål (2016). Strategies of Symbolic Nation-building in South Eastern Europe. Taylor & Francis.There have been few systematic studies of the country's socioreligious landscape, and the last reliable and recognized figures are some 70 years old. In the Italian census in 1942, 68.9 per cent of Albania's population were Muslims (among them 21.5 per cent Bektashis), 20.7 per cent were Orthodox, and 10.3 per cent Catholic (...) Later estimates have been guesswork or heavily politicized. The census needs to be attributed openly but it's not fundamentally more politicized than any other census and it is not excluded in relevant bibliography.--Maleschreiber (talk) 19:24, 24 April 2023 (UTC)
That still doesn't answer the question bof whether this site is reliable for republishing the data. It is, after all, not hosting original documents but publishing tables based on them. If the data is going to be used it should be referenced to a reliable source. -- LCU ActivelyDisinterested ∆transmissions∆ °co-ords° 22:13, 24 April 2023 (UTC)
Further to this, Fascist era census data should only be used in cases where a secondary source explicitly discusses it with reference to the topic of the specific article. Otherwise synthesis is a very real danger. But as stated above, the raw data is not yet available from a reliable non-self-published source, so as of now the whole question is moot. Boynamedsue (talk) 17:59, 25 April 2023 (UTC)

Thanks a lot for the input @Boynamedsue: and @ActivelyDisinterested:. --Local hero talk 04:05, 29 April 2023 (UTC)

Any reason CBS News is not listed in the RS/P?

I was surprised to see that CBS News is not listed in WP:RS/P. Any reason for this, or just never happened? Searching through the archives here, I didn't see any focused discussions on it. There are a number of passing mentions whose implication is that CBS News is generally reliable. There are also some mentions that group it together with its closest analogues, ABC News and NBC News, both of which are listed in RS/P as generally reliable. There are also a couple of mentions that point to well-known CBS News screw-ups, such as Dan Rather and the Killian memos. All news organizations have a few such disasters, and in the end CBS News owned up to that one. So in my view, CBS News should be listed in WP:RS/P as generally reliable. Wasted Time R (talk) 21:40, 21 April 2023 (UTC)

I'd have said "obvious GENREL", but it looks like they merged their TV and online news divisions in 2021 (with the usual "opportunity that positions CBS for the future" corporate crap to downplay cost-cutting). That concerns me because most TV news is heavily biased towards superficial coverage (notably on science topics), and against the kinds of deeper analysis that makes a source truly secondary. Will need to keep an eye out. DFlhb (talk) 22:57, 21 April 2023 (UTC)
CBS News is generally reliable IMHO. Andre🚐 22:58, 21 April 2023 (UTC)
  • WP:RSP isn’t a list of every media source… only the ones we frequently have discussed. The reason CBS is not listed is because we have not discussed it all that often. It hasn’t been a perennial issue (That’s the “P” part of RSP).
You don’t need a source to be listed at RSP to determine whether it is reliable or not. Blueboar (talk) 23:09, 21 April 2023 (UTC)
The irony of WP:RS/P is that to get on the list a source has to be discussed here a lot. So to get listed as generally reliable a lot of people have to have questioned and/or challenged their reliability. -- Random person no 362478479 (talk) 12:32, 22 April 2023 (UTC)
I agree that CBS News is generally reliable. —pythoncoder (talk | contribs) 23:58, 23 April 2023 (UTC)
Not every source gets listed. If you think it is reliable, you can just use it and don't need permission. RSP is mainly for sources which have been controversial enough to attract significant debate as to its reliability. Lots of scrupulously reliable sources have never been so discussed, and don't need to be listed here. --Jayron32 12:31, 24 April 2023 (UTC)
I get what you all are saying about the mechanics of how WS/P works. Still it's a bit odd that this one is missing. If you look at the top 25 U.S. news websites for March 2023, the only other two that are missing from WS/P are CNBC and Yahoo! Finance, both business-focused. Anyway, thanks for the responses. Wasted Time R (talk) 12:24, 28 April 2023 (UTC)
I agree that WS/P is a bit odd and it is counter intuitive that some of the most reliable sources are not listed. A lot of people seem to be very reluctant to extend the list and only want to add to it when it is really necessary. I think the fear is that people look at the list, see that a source is labelled as generally reliable and they take that as meaning that everything the source publishes is automatically reliable and no longer do their due diligence when evaluating individual articles from the source. -- Random person no 362478479 (talk) 17:51, 28 April 2023 (UTC)
And (on the other side) people see a source listed here as “generally unreliable” and take that to mean it is always unreliable… neglecting the due diligence to examine whether it could be reliable in a specific context. Blueboar (talk) 18:26, 28 April 2023 (UTC)
The reason is very simple: nobody has ever thought to challenge it, so no RfC was ever held. Guy (help! - typo?) 12:36, 29 April 2023 (UTC)
It says, "This is a list of repeatedly discussed sources." It's useful because it summarizes previous discussions. It's useful to know for example that articles in Jacobin are rs, while articles in CounterPunch have to be assessed on their individual merits. Incidentally, you could add CBS news citing this discussion and any others you can find. There's no need for an RfC. TFD (talk) 13:18, 29 April 2023 (UTC)

RfC: Infobae

As a source it is widely used in articles that imply something from the Spanish-speaking world. However, I wanted to clear up the doubt. Is it reliable in most cases? Note: In the Spanish Wikipedia it is also used a lot Alfredo18elguapo (talk) 13:54, 27 April 2023 (UTC) Struck as a sock of Armando AZ. — Red-tailed hawk (nest) 19:00, 29 April 2023 (UTC)

I'm a little worried as they have a section offering advertorial/branded content, but I can't find any policies on how (or if) they maintain a separation of that from other reporting. Is there any specific usage you are interested in using in a particular article? It might be helpful. -- LCU ActivelyDisinterested ∆transmissions∆ °co-ords° 19:50, 27 April 2023 (UTC)

eurogamer.net - potential issues

from 'the history of Ninja Gaiden' article (2008):

> In revamping the series, Itagaki first of all cemented Ryu's place in his established Dead or Alive universe, drawing from the back-story developed through the fighting series to come up with a new take on a character that had always been rather vaguely defined. Ayane, the pink-haired jailbait from Dead or Alive, also crossed over to the new Ninja Gaiden, providing a tangible bridge between the series and also offering a way to at least feature some of Itagaki's beloved jiggling boobs without turning Ryu into a she-male. Some-ASCII (talk) 13:08, 25 April 2023 (UTC)

It's unclear what your point is here. Is this article referenced anywhere? Searching suggests no. Eurogamer is generally considered reliable for video game content (see e.g. Wikipedia:WikiProject Video games/Sources#General gaming; searching the RSN archives doesn't bring up many results but wherever it has been mentioned it seems to have been accepted as reliable for video game reporting). Presumably your objection is to the transphobic and misogynistic language – if so, I would agree with you, but Wikipedia doesn't judge reliability of sources on the basis of how objectionable we find their contributors. I would make the editorial decision to avoid citing articles like that wherever possible, but in this case we don't appear to be citing it anywhere. Caeciliusinhorto-public (talk) 14:47, 25 April 2023 (UTC)
Keep in mind the article is from 2008. Such humor may have been considered acceptable back then. ❤︎PrincessPandaWiki (talk | contribs) 20:11, 29 April 2023 (UTC)
Regardless there isn’t much to do here. Since the particular article isn’t being used in any of our articles that isn’t up for discussion and we are going to need much more than questionable content in an almost 15 year old article to seriously question the reliability of the publication.--65.93.193.94 (talk) 22:22, 29 April 2023 (UTC)

WeChat/Weixin

Forgive me for my lack of knowledge of Chinese WP:RS but I feel the need to post here as there is an active AfD Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Zhu Yijun (badminton) (2nd nomination) where the reliability or lack thereof of WeChat/Weixin is pivotal. I always thought that it was just a social media site where anyone can post a 'news article', a bit like Medium. However, User:Timothytyy argues that Most news reports in China occur in WeChat, that's why you can't search for them on the web. WeChat is a big platform, it is not only a social media, so you have to determine whether a source is reliable or not. Removing all WeChat sources is equivalent to removing all Chinese local sources. Therefore can WeChat be considered acceptable as a basis for notability for a BLP? Secondly, can we trust it to provide reliable and accurate information for a BLP or should it only be used for completely uncontroversial things only? Spiderone(Talk to Spider) 07:47, 27 April 2023 (UTC)

No, pretty sure that is just a social media/messaging app, not a reliable publisher by a long stretch. AFAIK it should be treated like Twitter or such at most (if the given source can be verified). Lack of reliable sources isn't an excuse to use unreliable sources. —DIYeditor (talk) 08:54, 27 April 2023 (UTC)
Do you have evidence that it is only a social media app? Do you know all the functions of it? It has a news platform where official accounts post news articles. Evidence: Tencent pushes into news feed and search in challenge to Baidu (italics part is just Wikipedia-like, not reliable). WeChat is just like Google (and Baidu) in China now, why can't the articles searched in WeChat be considered as reliable? Timothytyy (talk) 09:23, 27 April 2023 (UTC)
What are these "official accounts" posting news articles (I can't access the FT article)? Pavlor (talk) 10:11, 27 April 2023 (UTC)
"The news feed and search tools pull content only from within WeChat’s walls rather than from the open web, including updates posted by individual users called moments, corporate accounts and an immense collection of WeChat accounts which are used by newspapers and independent bloggers. ... Even though articles published on WeChat have their own web pages, Baidu is blocked from indexing them. This means they do not appear in the company’s [Baidu's] search results." -- from the FT article. Softlavender (talk) 10:54, 27 April 2023 (UTC)
@Timothytyy: As I said, if the identity of the poster can be verified, it would be like Twitter. Each individual source would have to be reliable on its own and its identity known without any reasonable doubt. What source are you using from WeChat? —DIYeditor (talk) 10:41, 27 April 2023 (UTC)
See nom's AFD. I agree that we have to assess each source individually. Timothytyy (talk) 13:15, 27 April 2023 (UTC)
WeChat is a place where things are posted, so by itself it is not reliable. However as others have said, the account posting could be reliable. Each post would need to be checked separately. -- LCU ActivelyDisinterested ∆transmissions∆ °co-ords° 19:32, 27 April 2023 (UTC)
Notability is a separate issue, and would need to be judged individually again. But looking at the article posts from the Shanghai Sports Bureau or Shanghai Competitive Sports Training Management Center are press releases and wouldn't contribute. -- LCU ActivelyDisinterested ∆transmissions∆ °co-ords° 19:40, 27 April 2023 (UTC)
  • Depends on the source, of course, as others have said above. WeChat is more like an aggregator or social media site, and it includes works from both reliable sources and unreliable sources. —Mx. Granger (talk · contribs) 01:30, 28 April 2023 (UTC)
  • Not reliable - no editorial oversight.Onel5969 TT me 13:02, 29 April 2023 (UTC)
    Can you prove that all publishers don't have editorial oversight? In fact some accounts belong to professional journalists or big companies. The "news feed" function should be differentiated from "moments". "Moments" is a place where users post their own articles, but "news feed" contains articles written by certain news publishers or secretaries from companies. Normal users cannot post articles there. Timothytyy (talk) 13:39, 29 April 2023 (UTC)
    Timothytyy You're not listening. If anyone publishing on this service is reliable, it is on their own merits, and not because of WeChat. WeChat is not a publisher from anything you have shown, and has no editorial oversight of its own. This is equivalent to Twitter, or Google News, or at most Facebook News. Please drop the WP:STICK and don't WP:BLUDGEON the process here. Can you prove that all publishers don't have editorial oversight? The onus is on you to "prove" that there is editorial oversight at WeChat. —DIYeditor (talk) 17:57, 29 April 2023 (UTC)
    I did not say anything about WeChat is reliable, I just said that you cannot conclude that all publishers don't have editorial oversight, in response to a user's stance. I don't agree that WeChat itself should be considered as unreliable; whether a source has editorial oversight or not should be assessed separately. Timothytyy (talk) 01:23, 30 April 2023 (UTC)

More royalcruft

We have over 600 uses of this site as a source or external link, but I don't think it is authoritative - does anyone know better? Guy (help! - typo?) 12:00, 30 April 2023 (UTC)

Per the now removed about page, the maintainer is François R. Velde, a published economist with the Federal Reserve Bank of Chicago. This isn't his field, it's his hobby, and so far I haven't found evidence that would establish him as an expert sufficient for WP:SPS purposes. Mackensen (talk) 12:56, 30 April 2023 (UTC)
I replace it with CN tags whenever I come across it during my semi-regular bad nobility ref purges, although it's not listed on the linked page due to being slightly beyond the scope of my project. There are a lot of these types of SPS used on nobility pages, and they are especially common in "titles and honors" sections (which are also rife with citations to bare images and pinterest...). JoelleJay (talk) 17:09, 30 April 2023 (UTC)
I'm aware - see the "royalcruft" section on my userpage :-) I removed all the references to royalark, for example. Guy (help! - typo?) 19:30, 30 April 2023 (UTC)
Just another hobby site. -- LCU ActivelyDisinterested ∆transmissions∆ °co-ords° 19:49, 30 April 2023 (UTC)
"Heraldry is a hobby of mine, and I maintain and improve this site in my spare time." "Originally, the material available at this site came from discussions on the newsgroup [...]".[13] Clearly unreliable -- Random person no 362478479 (talk) 19:53, 30 April 2023 (UTC)

Militaryland.net

militaryland.net is a website that gives a day by day update of the Russian invasion of Ukraine, as well as developments of military formations in the Ukrainian army. Most of the articles for the Ukrainian Air Assault Forces are wholly reliant on their information and I would like to know if they are a reliable source or not. they describe themselves as "an independent project" and is largely curated by one Jerome who founded the website in 2017 and doesn't give their last name. There is another contributor, and two prior contributors, but they all use usernames as opposed to their real name. My gut instinct tells me this is little more than a glorified Blog that fails WP:BLPSPS, but also the information shared on the website has yet to be disproved or factually incorrect. However, of the information articles use from the website is largely trivial such as where units are headquartered out of and when they where founded. I would like to know if anyone else has an opinion on this. Scu ba (talk) 18:24, 30 April 2023 (UTC)

It's come up twice before, in archive 378 and archive 401. It's a self published website, which is not reliable as the author isn't recognised as an expert in other published sources. If it quotes any reliable sources then use those instead. -- LCU ActivelyDisinterested ∆transmissions∆ °co-ords° 20:02, 30 April 2023 (UTC)
Thanks, ill see if I can't remove their citations wherever I see them. Scu ba (talk) 20:04, 30 April 2023 (UTC)

Is this article an rs for a BLP?

The article is Bill Warner (writer) - an anti-Islam writer, and the source I'm asking about is [[14]]. Doug Weller talk 12:56, 1 May 2023 (UTC)

I think probably not. The article doesn't have a byline, as far as I can see, so we don't know who wrote it, we just know that the website is operated by the Islamic Foundation in Slovakia, which doesn't strike me as a go-to source for an American polemicist. I can't find anything about their editorial policy. We should be using better sources than this for BLPs. Girth Summit (blether) 13:14, 1 May 2023 (UTC)
@Girth Summit I was afraid of that. I wanted to use the same source to quote two experts:
The Czech branch distributed one of Warner's books to the Slovak National Council in 2016. Luboš Kropáček, a Czech Islamologist at Charles University stated that "As far as I know, no Orientalist, Arabist or Islamologist pays attention to this man, he has no business in our field of science."
Bronislav Ostřanský, a researcher at the Oriental Institute, ASCR, said that his apparently scientific approach impresses many people "including otherwise educated and politically influential personalities" but that he should be quoted "in a professional work in only one context, namely as relevant source material for the study of contemporary Islamophobia."[1]

References

  1. ^ "Does Bill Warner understand Islam? We asked Islamologists in the Czech Republic and Slovakia". ISLAMONLINE.sk (in Slovak). 23 November 2016. Retrieved 1 May 2023.

Doug Weller talk 13:58, 1 May 2023 (UTC)

Doug Weller:Ah - I see the connection with Slovakia now. Well, I wouldn't use anything the sources says itself to support biographical content, but if it's just being used to support attributed quotes from notable scholars in a relevant discipline critiquing his work, it's probably OK. Girth Summit (blether) 14:14, 1 May 2023 (UTC)
That's what I thought so only used it for that. Doug Weller talk 14:17, 1 May 2023 (UTC)

Beepworld.de

I am deeply suspicious of any source with this name, of course, but the link goes to what looks like a newspaper clipping from a possibly reliable source, except I can't tell where it's from.

I am hoping someone is familiar with Albanian periodicals. This is used as a source in Albanian Army for the statement that Italy had been funding the Albanian Army for several years prior to WW2.

Alternately, another source that says so would solve my issue; there is no dispute here at the moment, just an attempt to improve the explanation of World War 2 in the area. Thanks Elinruby (talk) 22:18, 1 May 2023 (UTC)

The article purports to come from "Gazets Shqiptare Online", it's reposted in this forum (see the end of the post for accreditation). However I can't find it online at that site, or anywhere else reliable. Neither Beepworld.de or the forum post is reliable, so the source probably shouldn't be used. If there's no argument over the details it might be best to mark it as {{bsn}} for the moment. -- LCU ActivelyDisinterested ∆transmissions∆ °co-ords° 10:21, 2 May 2023 (UTC)
Weirdly everything from the "?" onwards in that link has nothing to do with that particulatly article. It's instead transposed from the reference above it at Royal Albanian Army, and is part of a link to Google books (Something I spotted as I spend a lot of time fudging Google book links). See my edit to that article for details of what I mean. -- LCU ActivelyDisinterested ∆transmissions∆ °co-ords° 10:46, 2 May 2023 (UTC)
The article is posted here at Zemra shqiptare, which may be an Albanian newspaper but I'm not sure. It's reliability may have to be confirmed by someone with more knowledge of Albania. -- LCU ActivelyDisinterested ∆transmissions∆ °co-ords° 10:58, 2 May 2023 (UTC)

Is Rich Swier aka Dr Rich a reliable source at all?

As you can see on his website, he works with the "Geller Report Staff"[15] run by Pamela Geller.[16] We use him in several articles, eg Alberto M. Carvalho where we cite his website, The 500 Most Influential Muslims where we cite Watchdog Wire which he used to edit[17], Adam Fletcher (speaker) where an article by him in something called Red County is used as a source and Jim Murphy which uses his website as a source. Doug Weller talk 12:53, 30 April 2023 (UTC)

Reading through those articles, no he should be removed on sight. What isn't conspiracy theories are just outright lies. -- LCU ActivelyDisinterested ∆transmissions∆ °co-ords° 19:57, 30 April 2023 (UTC)
The guy once claimed that food companies use aborted fetus cells for flavour...[18] -- Random person no 362478479 (talk) 19:57, 30 April 2023 (UTC)
No, obviously not. You can remove the citations you found already (and any others) on sight. --Jayron32 14:18, 1 May 2023 (UTC)
Not reliable, neither is the Geller Report. Horse Eye's Back (talk) 17:38, 2 May 2023 (UTC)

Egypt as a belligerent in the 2023 Sudan conflict

Article:2023 Sudan conflict

Sources: [1][2]

References

  1. ^ Faucon, Benoit; Said, Summer; Malsin, Jared (19 April 2023). "Libyan Militia and Egypt's Military Back Opposite Sides in Sudan Conflict". The Wall Street Journal. Retrieved 27 April 2023. Egyptian military have sent military support to rival generals...Egypt, which has officially called for an end to the fighting, sent jet fighters just before the fighting started and additional pilots soon after to support Gen. Burhan
  2. ^ Rickett, Oscar (18 April 2023). "Sudan and a decade-long path to turmoil". Middle East Eye. Archived from the original on 18 April 2023. Retrieved 18 April 2023. The Egyptians are already heavily involved," Cameron Hudson, a former CIA analyst, told MEE. "They are actively in the fight. There are Egyptian fighter jets that are part of these bombing campaigns. Egyptian special forces units have been deployed and the Egyptians are providing intelligence and tactical support to the SAF.

Claim: These two sources are being used in the infobox of this article to claim that Egypt is an active belligerent in the 2023 Sudan conflict. They certainly endorse that Egypt supports one faction and sent aircraft before the conflict, but neither IMO is adequate to claim Egypt is an active party in the fighting.

Prior discussion: here and here Pincrete (talk) 11:20, 28 April 2023 (UTC)

Both Middle East Eye and the Wall Street Journal are reliable sources. The statement in MEE is attributed by direct quote to Cameron Hudson, and thus the Wikipedia article should do the same. Otherwise, not much else to add. --Jayron32 12:30, 28 April 2023 (UTC)
The issue is whether they say that Egypt is actively engaged (ie a belligerent) - rather than that they in general terms support one or other side. I agree both sources are RS. Pincrete (talk) 13:05, 28 April 2023 (UTC)
The Middle East Eye source contains a quote from Cameron Hudson that says "The Egyptians are already heavily involved," which is a reliable source for that quote from that person. If the Wikipedia article says "Former CIA Analyst Cameron Hudson stated "The Egyptians are already heavily involved," and then cited MEE, that may be okay. Neither source is sufficient for making the statement in Wikipedia's own voice, but the second one is a sufficient source for an attributed quote. Whether the attributed quote is WP:DUE is a matter that is outside the scope of this board, and needs to be discussed on the article talk page. --Jayron32 13:36, 28 April 2023 (UTC)
I wholeheartedly agree that the attributed claims from Hudson/MEE can be (and are) used in text, but the unqualified inclusion in the infobox, is effectively a WP:VOICEd assertion of undisputed fact. Thanks for the response. Pincrete (talk) 17:33, 28 April 2023 (UTC)
Is Middle East Eye a reliable source actually? A 2015 discussion was inconclusive but leaned to no. This 2018 discussion and this one both concluded it was, with few participants and dissent from a now banned sock puppet. This 2020 discussion leaned to unreliable but had very little participation. This 2021 discussion reached no consensus. So it seems like a weak reliable source to me, which we should take on a case by case basis.
However, if we take it on a case by case basis, this particular article seems solid to me, and the author a decent journalist. BobFromBrockley (talk) 14:46, 3 May 2023 (UTC)

United Authors Publishing

Mihailo Tolotos cites Constable Colgan's Connectoscope, published by Unbound (publisher). It looks to me like unbound is effectively a vanity press; it's not that the author pays to have the book published, but it looks like they'll publish anything that gets enough funding through a crowdsourcing process. I'm inclined to say that anything published by Unbound is not a WP:RS. -- RoySmith (talk) 12:54, 3 May 2023 (UTC)

Any particular reason that it should be branded as inherently unreliable when we don't do so for self-published sources? It would be unusable for WP:BLPs not about the author, but Stevyn Colgan happened to be an acknowledged expert on connectoscopography, then it could be used appropriately. --Nat Gertler (talk) 13:16, 3 May 2023 (UTC)
It would be rather difficult to be a recognised expert on something that has zero hits on Google, I'd have thought. [19] There seems to be nothing to suggest that Colgan (a "former Scotland Yard criminal intelligence officer "[20]) has any particular expertise regarding the specific thing the book is being cited for (Mount Athos during the Byzantine Empire), so no, probably not RS for that specifically, regardless of the publisher. AndyTheGrump (talk) 13:27, 3 May 2023 (UTC)
Agreed, but that was not the question at hand. Nat Gertler (talk) 15:52, 3 May 2023 (UTC)
Unbound calls itself a crowdfunding publisher, but effectively it's a vanity publisher. So anything published by them is WP:SPS, and as Colgan is not a expert recognised in other published work Constable Colgan's Connectoscope is not a reliable source. -- LCU ActivelyDisinterested ∆transmissions∆ °co-ords° 18:58, 3 May 2023 (UTC)

Charles Fisk and ClimateStations.com

Is Mr. Fisk[1] a reliable source in Minneapolis#Climate to say The snowiest winter on record was 1983–84, when 98.6 inches (250 centimeters) of snow fell.? I believe his site has been used in this article for fifteen or more years and that its use is non-controversial. I am checking for an upcoming featured article review in which sources are under the microscope. Thank you in advance.

References

  1. ^ Fisk, Charles (February 11, 2011). "Graphical Climatology of Minneapolis-Saint Paul Area Temperatures, Precipitation, and Snowfall". ClimateStations.com. Archived from the original on April 20, 2021. Retrieved February 18, 2011.

-SusanLesch (talk) 22:06, 3 May 2023 (UTC)

Arabia GIS and UNDP (2nd Repost)

This is a 2nd repost as I still did not get any consensus after 2 separate discussions. I am looking for consensus because that will be need at BRFA. Here is the previous discussion

I am thinking of create a bot request to automate some coordinate addition to lebanese towns articles. See this TH discussion for more info. The source for the coordinates is listed as UNDP/Arabia GIS. I was wondering if this is a reliable source for the coords of all LBN towns. I'd say the UNDP is reliable but not sure about Arabia GIS. Their website went offline in 2011 but then revived it but it went offline again. Last archive. PalauanReich🗣️ 22:59, 3 May 2023 (UTC)

More on the reliability of BtVA

The Anime and Manga Wikiproject does not consider Behind the Voice Actors to be a reliable source. Can the perennial sources list stop calling it reliable now? Eldomtom2 (talk) 15:20, 2 February 2023 (UTC)

Do you have a link to the discussion where the reliability was discussed? The most recent such discussion here, From March, 2022 concluded that it was reliable. While such discussions don't have to happen here; they need to happen somewhere and if there is a new consensus, we all need to see what discussion came to a new consensus. --Jayron32 15:48, 2 February 2023 (UTC)
Near as I can tell, the discussion is in Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Anime and manga/Online reliable sources/Archive 1 and consists of two users. It's from more then a decade ago and as mentioned has only two participants, including the person who asked if it's a RS. --(loopback) ping/whereis 16:10, 2 February 2023 (UTC)
Per WP:LOCALCONSENSUS and also per WP:TIMETRAVELISN'TPOSSIBLEASFARASWEKNOW, an older discussion in a less-broadly-attended corner of Wikipedia cannot override an existing consensus which was established later. If Eldomtom2 wants to start a new discussion over the reliability of the website in question, they can feel free to do so, but unless and until someone does that, it appears the March 2022 discussion is the prevailing one.--Jayron32 16:40, 2 February 2023 (UTC)
The second one is a red link. Emir of Wikipedia (talk) 20:40, 2 February 2023 (UTC)
It's a blue link if you're browsing from before 2015. After The Fracture happened and Dr. Nixon broke the timeline with her first trip we deleted it. When there's a timeline collision we sometimes get people from 2008 linking to it when we try to warn them about the snakes. --(loopback) ping/whereis 21:26, 2 February 2037 (UTC)
Don't tell people about the snakes. It destabilizes the time loop and every time it happens we have to revdel the entire 2040s. jp×g 10:54, 9 April 2051 (UTC)
It won't be if you go back in time and fix it. --Jayron32 13:31, 3 February 2023 (UTC)
I have made multiple attempts at starting discussions here and they have failed to receive attention.--Eldomtom2 (talk) 21:47, 2 February 2023 (UTC)
I think a lot of that has to do with the fact that there was a well attended RfC for it here less then a year ago. It seems the community here largely doesn't feel like it needs to be reopened at this time. Is there something that's changed about the source in the last year, or do you just disagree with the conclusion? Because the former may catch more discussion but the latter is likely to elicit crickets if editors don't feel anything is substantially different to when we did this before. --(loopback) ping/whereis 06:42, 3 February 2023 (UTC)
I disagree with the conclusion. It was waved through with little investigation.--Eldomtom2 (talk) 22:34, 3 February 2023 (UTC)
I'm sorry, are we looking at the same RfC? I would like to draw your attention specifically to Compassionate727's fairly exhaustive dive into their structure and editorial methods. That is exactly the the type of examination we expect around here, and it did seem to hold quite a bit of weight with participants. If you were talking about a different RfC that's understandable, but if you meant the March 2022 one and think there was 'little investigation' then I don't think you are quite on the level. --(loopback) ping/whereis 06:02, 4 February 2023 (UTC)
If you think it was an "exhaustive dive" you can think that, but I don't think "they say they have some sort of standards (that they won't clarify) that they apply to user submissions" is good enough to say something is a reliable source.--Eldomtom2 (talk) 20:49, 4 February 2023 (UTC)
Just want to point out that WP Anime does consider Behind the Voice Actors to be reliable in most circumstances. You would see this if you actually read the entry at WP:ANIME/ORS#Situational. Link20XX (talk) 00:30, 14 February 2023 (UTC)
It actually says "Roles and lists that are not check-marked (covered by a screenshot), despite being listed under that actor, cannot be used", which means that BtVA is unreliable, since the only thing it is considered reliable for is providing screenshots of the primary source that is a show's credits.--Eldomtom2 (talk) 11:25, 21 February 2023 (UTC)

Bruce Fein (2009). Model Indictment for Genocide Against Gotabhaya Rajapakse and Sarath Fonseka Proposed to the U.S. Justice Department. Washington DC: Tamils Against Genocide.

At present an edit war is taking place at this page:

List of attacks on civilians attributed to Sri Lankan government forces

One of the main editors of Sri Lankan Armed Forces related pages is repeatedly removing content supported by the above citation, claiming that it is not reliable (the source documents war crimes committed against Tamil civilians). This is despite two previous conversations where a majority of respondents deemed it reliable (including on this notice board):

Wikipedia:Reliable sources/Noticeboard/Archive 382#Reliability of Tamils Against Genocide

Talk:List of attacks on civilians attributed to Sri Lankan government forces#Unreliable Source

He is not engaging in discussion on the respective talk page and is claiming that the above conversations were "inconclusive". I would appreciate the community's involvement in this issue to finally bring closure. Oz346 (talk) 06:57, 2 May 2023 (UTC)

There seems to be some misunderstanding in the last conversation at RSN, this isn't a report commissioned by TAG. It a court document written by Bruce Fein to be submitted by TAG. I doubt Fein was commissioned to investigate the details, more likely they were supplied by TAG. What is detailed is the criminal counts that TAG are filing, so even it is reliable it would still be WP:PRIMARY. -- LCU ActivelyDisinterested ∆transmissions∆ °co-ords° 11:15, 2 May 2023 (UTC)
on pages 2-4, its says its source for evidence are case documents and affidavits, eye witness accounts (none of which have been reproduced verbatim, so there are no primary sources reproduced in this document word for word), news and NGO reports etc. So it seems to be a synthesis of various primary and secondary sources with editorial oversight.
"a secondary source is a document or recording that relates or discusses information originally presented elsewhere."
So isn't this not more consistent with a secondary source? Oz346 (talk) 11:38, 2 May 2023 (UTC)
It says in the title it is a "model indictment". It's a court document being prepared by lawyers for use in a court case. It should not be used in these contexts, except alongside actual secondary sources (works by historians, etc.) which discuss it. For the purpose you are trying to use it, as the sole source of information on the topic in question, no it should not be used. --Jayron32 12:35, 2 May 2023 (UTC)
There are other secondary sources on that page which document other attacks. However, this source is the only one to compile a comprehensive list. While I understand that scholarly, peer reviewed academic sources would be the best to cite, there currently exists none. Hence, why these sources (as well as news reports, other NGO reports) are used. If this is not allowed to be cited, then what about the other non-scholarly sources (such as news reports.) which are used in wikipedia on this and other articles? Do they all have to be culled too? Oz346 (talk) 12:46, 2 May 2023 (UTC)
It doesn't matter what it does, it matters what kind of source it is. "There currently exists none" means Wikipedia is then silent on the matter. Full stop. We don't settle for unreliable sources if we can't find reliable ones. We instead don't include the information at all. --Jayron32
(ec) The source actually being cited is a PDF on the pptsrilanka.org website. It contains text that it states was submitted to the US DoJ as a 'proposal'. That doesn't make it a court document. At best, it could be cited only for statements that it's author made certain claims. And to justify that, we'd need comment from independent sources indicating significance. The 'People’s Tribunal on Sri Lanka' may or may not have legitimate grounds for alleging genocide, but Wikipedia certainly can't treat documents sourced to them as reliable for every allegation they make to support such claims. AndyTheGrump (talk) 12:54, 2 May 2023 (UTC)
I have the physical copy of the book from 2009, the PPT later incorporated into their tribunal years later. So the primary authors are Bruce Fein and TAG not PPT. There are no independent sources on this topic, that is the problem. Oz346 (talk) 13:00, 2 May 2023 (UTC)
None of that alters the requirement for Wikipedia not to treat allegations as fact - which seems to be a broader problem in the entire 'List of attacks...' article. If there is a problem with independent sourcing, I have to suggest that maybe we shouldn't be trying to compile such a 'list' anyway. AndyTheGrump (talk) 13:12, 2 May 2023 (UTC)
Well 'allegations' refers to something said without proof. these are claims based on affidavits, eye witness accounts from the victims etc. So strictly speaking they are not allegations. However, there is no 3rd party truly independent body which has documented or verified all of these accounts. Human rights organisations like Amnesty and HRW have very limited resources and coverage on this topic for example. And there was complete censorship of foreign media and banning of international human rights groups from these areas by the Sri Lankan government to prevent these crimes from coming to light (amnesty were deported in the 1980s for example). Oz346 (talk) 13:30, 2 May 2023 (UTC)
If claims aren't documented by the sources Wikipedia requires, Wikipedia does not include such claims in articles. AndyTheGrump (talk) 13:43, 2 May 2023 (UTC)
Out of interest what would be regarded as acceptable Independent sources? One comment in the talk page which supported the inclusion of this source as RS said this:
"Most literature on Sri Lanka is partisan and biased, especially sources from the island itself. Foreigners may be closer to neutral, but even assuming they strive to be so, they too have to rely on local sources which have biases."
If this is deemed not suitable, then virtually all the local news sources and local reports used in a similar manner on wikipedia are also unacceptable. This has a huge bearing on most of the wikipedia pages regarding this topic. It would mean huge amounts of current wikipedia sources would need to be culled. Oz346 (talk) 13:44, 2 May 2023 (UTC)
You may very well be right. It seems self-evident that partisan contributors (from both 'sides') have been using Wikipedia articles as a platform to argue their case in regards to this topic, sometimes using questionable sourcing and/or making questionable use of legitimate sources. This is sadly hardly unusual, and not something to encourage. AndyTheGrump (talk) 13:50, 2 May 2023 (UTC)
Does this mean that all citations from the said source should be removed from the said article, or are they acceptable with qualifications such as "according to Tamil advocacy group"? Petextrodon (talk) 02:12, 5 May 2023 (UTC)

CSQ

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

I've never heard of the site, so just curious if anyone else thinks it would be reliable for referencing a birthplace for David Agus (the exact source for that is here)? A insource search shows we use them around 40 times in various other articles. Thoughts? —Locke Cole • t • c 05:43, 1 May 2023 (UTC)

Their LinkedIn page suggests a minimal editorial team. Though, their about-us page does not strike confidence in me. I think it can be used with uncontroversial facts such as birth date. Carpimaps (talk) 14:47, 5 May 2023 (UTC)
Ehhh, this strikes me as a pay-for-coverage, puff-piece business magazine, and their Services page confirms it. It's where companies pay for cover placement so they can share the story on LinkedIn and frame the printed magazine in their corporate offices. On the plus side, all of the personal details were probably provided by the subject, but I highly doubt they were ever fact checked. Any editors at these sites are there to fix typos, that's all. I wouldn't consider it a reliable source, especially for BLP details or to establish notability. Woodroar (talk) 15:08, 5 May 2023 (UTC)

John 1:1

I think that extremely poor sources are advanced at Talk:John 1:1#Edit war. Please chime in. tgeorgescu (talk) 14:45, 30 April 2023 (UTC)

E.g. Commentary of the Roman Catholic Bible Translation to Hungarian by György Káldi, revised in 1937. Or Oxford, 1209; Encyclopedia of Religion, 54—I have no idea who wrote those and when. Or Eastern/Greek Orthodox Bible translation with no mention of its language, publisher and year of printing. tgeorgescu (talk) 14:56, 30 April 2023 (UTC)

"Commentary of the Roman Catholic Bible Translation to Hungarian by György Káldi, revised in 1937."
publisher: Szent István Társulat, this is the official publisher (printing house) of the Hungarian Catholic Church.
The other encyclopedias can be found on the Internet.
The Orthodox Bible translation is in English, there is also a Wikipedia page:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eastern-Greek_Orthodox_Bible
At the bottom of the page is the text in PDF, you can find the quotations and footnotes there as well. 84.1.18.182 (talk) 18:00, 30 April 2023 (UTC)
Sorry, I have absolutely no idea what Oxford, 1209; Encyclopedia of Religion, 54 even mean. The terms "Encyclopedia of Religion" do not seem to appear in that PDF, regardless of how you spell the word "encyclopedia".
I feel like a KGB interrogator who needs to extract information by the use of repeated questions. tgeorgescu (talk) 19:20, 30 April 2023 (UTC)
The only thing that comes to mind for "Oxford, 1209" is the lynching of some university scholars by townspeople and ensuing riots that lead to an exodus of scholars and the founding of Cambridge University. -- Random person no 362478479 (talk) 20:06, 30 April 2023 (UTC)
Again, my points were: the sources are biased (religious apologetics) and reflect the state of WP:SCHOLARSHIP from the 1920s, not the 2020s. tgeorgescu (talk) 20:47, 30 April 2023 (UTC)
And the Eastern Orthodox Bible was published at CreateSpace, which by our book isn't a publisher of WP:RS. If they copy/pasted correctly from the Patriarchal text of 1904, then PT should be WP:CITEd instead. And if they didn't, then the source is not reliable. tgeorgescu (talk) 06:11, 1 May 2023 (UTC)
It is an English translation of the Patriarchal text which is in Greek. -- Random person no 362478479 (talk) 06:29, 1 May 2023 (UTC)
And why would we be citing that Patriarchal text? Horse Eye's Back (talk) 17:37, 2 May 2023 (UTC)
Why wouldn't we? Jahaza (talk) 22:08, 2 May 2023 (UTC)
Generally we limit citations to reliable sources. Horse Eye's Back (talk) 22:20, 2 May 2023 (UTC)
That's not really how Bible citations work. They're not usually right/wrong, you just have to be explicit about which redaction/recension/translation you're citing. The Patriarchal text is one version among many others. Jahaza (talk) 22:49, 2 May 2023 (UTC)
And unless this one version among many others is featured in a WP:RS why should it be in the article? Horse Eye's Back (talk) 22:54, 2 May 2023 (UTC)
"I feel like a KGB interrogator"
Your analogy is apt, approx. I really feel like you are a strict guardian, keeping track and watching me so that I don't change anything anywhere... Really disturbing... 84.1.18.182 (talk) 23:04, 3 May 2023 (UTC)
Yup, because on 1 May you explained what "Encyclopedia of Religion" means, but I still don't know what "Oxford" means. tgeorgescu (talk) 17:45, 5 May 2023 (UTC)

shootermcgavin.com cited in Lewis Manly

There seems to be some consternation about whether shootermcgavin.com constitutes a reliable source as used in the article Lewis Manly. BeanieFan11 seems to think so, but I'm now seeking a consensus to determine if it's reliable or not. As mentioned at Template:Did you know nominations/Lewis Manly, "Shooter McGavin was the villain in the Adam Sandler film Happy Gilmore". There's no visible editorial oversight on the website and no indication it was copy-pasted from anywhere. Accordingly I think it should be removed from the article. Therapyisgood (talk) 23:20, 5 May 2023 (UTC)

  • The website is run by the "W" Association of the College of Wooster, consisting of former varsity athletes at the school ([21]). It helps run the athletics and is what chooses the members for the Wooster Hall of Fame. Wooster College also publishes articles by the association on their website (see [22]/[23]). If we consider universities reliable, we should consider this website reliable. BeanieFan11 (talk) 23:26, 5 May 2023 (UTC)
Some wild leaps your logic makes... The leap from an informal association of ex-college athletes to "If we consider universities reliable, we should consider this website reliable" is breathtaking. No thats not a reliable source. Horse Eye's Back (talk) 03:21, 6 May 2023 (UTC)
The university publishes the athletic association's articles on their website... BeanieFan11 (talk) 14:29, 6 May 2023 (UTC)
Of course they would... On their website... Not in a journal of sports history... Thats how university alumni associations work. Its not intended to be academic or reference work, its just fun for alums. Horse Eye's Back (talk) 18:38, 6 May 2023 (UTC)
I'm not seeing your point. Basically, my logic is this: if A (us, Wikipedia) considers B (College of Wooster) reliable, and B considers C (athletic association) reliable, so much that they'd even publish C's articles on their website, wouldn't that make C reliable? BeanieFan11 (talk) 18:45, 6 May 2023 (UTC)
No, reliability has never been directly transferable like that on wikipedia. We don't use formal logic. Horse Eye's Back (talk) 18:46, 6 May 2023 (UTC)
If B is reliable and B hosts articles from C, which is apparently unreliable, then would that mean B is also unreliable? They're either both reliable or neither, and from my experience we just about always consider universities reliable. BeanieFan11 (talk) 18:49, 6 May 2023 (UTC)
Again, there is no consensus to apply formal logic of that sort to source reliability (its actually been repeatedly rejected by the community). We evaluate them individually. Horse Eye's Back (talk) 18:51, 6 May 2023 (UTC)
Where has using logic and making sense been "repeatedly rejected by the community"? BeanieFan11 (talk) 18:56, 6 May 2023 (UTC)
You're conflating formal logic (e.g. A>B and B>C therefore A>C) and "using logic and making sense" in a way which appears intentionally insulting. I'm not trying to have an argument with you, we appear to be going in circles so I will leave this here. Horse Eye's Back (talk) 19:24, 6 May 2023 (UTC)
shootermcgavin.com is just a webhosting service. It's just a platform, not a publisher. We can't make any blanket statement about reliability based on a group hosting their website through that service. The editorial control belongs to the athletic alumni association that uses the webhost to run their site. Reliability should be judged on that.
Though I will say that the reference is misformatted, as it does not accurately state the name of the website. The website is not named "shootermcgavin.com", that's just part of the url that comes from the webhost. It should be fixed. oknazevad (talk) 23:55, 5 May 2023 (UTC)
A "webhosting service" which appears to host just two websites, the "Wooster Hall of Fame" and a "Temperature Monitor/Alert System" for South Lyon, MI. Seems more like someone named Matt's person webpage rather than a webhosting service. Horse Eye's Back (talk) 03:17, 6 May 2023 (UTC)
  • The question obviously is in regard to the Wooster Association, not ShootersMacGavin.com as that's just hosting the website. ShootersMacGavin is not reliable in the same way AWS is not reliable. Second the Wooster Association is not Wooster College, but an association of alumni of Wooster College. As to its reliability it's a concern there are no editorial details for the biographies, but I don't see any real reason it wouldn't be reliable more other considerations apply. It certainly shouldn't be used for anything contentious. Also this isn't an independent source as the subjects would have been members of the association. -- LCU ActivelyDisinterested ∆transmissions∆ °co-ords° 21:34, 6 May 2023 (UTC)

Rfc on Irish Central

We use this website in a number of articles.[24]. Its own article was deleted via Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/IrishCentral. My latest encounter with this was at [25] where it uses a reliable source to push the idea of Egyptians in Ireland by using it alongside a fringe video. I think at best this should be classified generally unreliable. Doug Weller talk 08:44, 29 March 2023 (UTC)

Meh. People shouldn't be using a light news source for such material in any event. Do you have evidence that the website willfully or negligently has a habit of publishing known falsehoods, or is this one story (which shouldn't be used in any event, even if it covered things that weren't WP:FRINGE, because this is not that kind of source) the only thing that makes you want to eradicate the source from Wikipedia? --Jayron32 11:19, 29 March 2023 (UTC)
@Jayron32There's this:John F. Kennedy's uncanny coincidences with Abraham Lincoln]. See Lincoln–Kennedy coincidences urban legend. [26] claims ancient Irish culture was polygamous and implies gender equality, but see Ancient Celtic women (maybe some but not much polygamy). No time for more, sorry. Doug Weller talk 16:10, 29 March 2023 (UTC)
Like I said, it's a light reading source. The "Kennedy-Lincoln" coincidences are a cultural meme that predates the internet by some years, I remember it from the 1980s for goodness sake, so much so that we have the Lincoln–Kennedy coincidences urban legend article. As I said, the source shouldn't be used in places where obviously better sources do, but that's not special to this source that makes it different from other fluffy listical-y websites. There's thousands of such websites, and I'm not sure this board's resources are well spent discussing each and every one. Go ahead and remove the bad uses, WP:SOFIXIT means you don't need permission to do so. It is not the sort of thing that we need to have a formal vote on or anything like that. Self-evidently bullshit articles can be removed from Wikipedia without any prior permission or discussion about the publisher of those articles. --Jayron32 16:16, 29 March 2023 (UTC)
For better or worse that seems like the road things are going down. Emir of Wikipedia (talk) 21:36, 6 May 2023 (UTC)

Reliability of the Daily Telegraph for politics?

What do we think of the reliability of this story[27]? Full text is available here[28]. An editor is arguing that the DT is not reliable for politics. See the discussion hereTalk:COVID-19_lab_leak_theory#Telegraph:_"Covid_pandemic_sparked_by_accidental_leak_from_Wuhan_lab,_US_investigation_concludes". Adoring nanny (talk) 01:04, 19 April 2023 (UTC)

The source is reliable for what it is saying: a Republican-backed study by the US Senate concluded that COVID likely came from a lab leak. The Telegraph is clearly not trying to say this report is true, just that the news is that this report from the Senate is making this claim. In other words, we have to be careful how to word in within WP, but there's no reason not to consider using the Telegraph as the source for the information about this senate report. Masem (t) 01:10, 19 April 2023 (UTC)
Oh I think the Telegraph is trying to say it's true. It's not as bad as the Brexiter Beobachter, but it's pretty far gone by now. My mother subscribes (for the crossword). There's some serious parallel-universe stuff going on there these days. Guy (help! - typo?) 09:02, 26 April 2023 (UTC)
Reliable for saying what the Telegraph pieces says, that the US senate report claims that the source was most likely a "research-related incident". I'd also not how couched the language used by the Telegraph is "claimed", "claims", "argued", this is hardly surprising as as they stated in the article However, the report did not offer a "definitive" conclusion on the origin of the pandemic. -- LCU ActivelyDisinterested ∆transmissions∆ °co-ords° 01:41, 19 April 2023 (UTC)
It's an OK source for what is being presented. I would assume the backlash on this is that its reporting on opinions ...something that is not peer reviewed by experts in the field. Moxy- 01:53, 19 April 2023 (UTC)
Or "its reliable for the fact it was said, not for that being true". Slatersteven (talk) 16:57, 19 April 2023 (UTC)
The thing to remember is that politicians are not scientists. Per https://www.science.org/doi/10.1126/science.abp8715 and many other sources, it's difficult if not impossible to rule out a lab leak, but to describe it as anywhere close to wet market origin in terms of probability is to contradict a mountain of genetic and epidemiological evidence.
We should not be in the business of drawing false equivalence. The correct statement is that the virus is viewed by most scientists as zoonotic and having originated at the wet market, which is the epicentre of the initial outbreak. So the question here is not WP:RS but WP:UNDUE: by quoting a right-wing newspaper with an anti-lockdown agenda, are we giving undue weight to a view contradicted by scientific consensus. I think we are. Guy (help! - typo?) 09:08, 26 April 2023 (UTC)
Politicians not scientists but the media still report on them. It is a question of whether things pass the WP:FART test. Personally I think a lot of stuff does not but it still ends up here because it is "political" or "scientific". Emir of Wikipedia (talk) 21:41, 6 May 2023 (UTC)
An observation on the Telegraph's biases. It "has endorsed the Conservative Party at every UK general election since 1945." It has a reputation of being "a mouthpiece for Boris Johnson" whose columns were allegedly published with "no fact-checking at all". It keeps attacking transgender people with headlines such as "The tyranny of the transgender minority has got to be stopped". It was criticized by the regulator Independent Press Standards Organisation for systematically publishing COVID-19 misinformation. It regularly publishes texts with "pseudoscientific views on climate change", and published a false story about a predicted "mini-ice age" instead of global warming. Does that sound like a reputable publication? Dimadick (talk) 05:46, 19 April 2023 (UTC)
A lot of UK media outlets have been going downhill in recent years (eg see the debacle around the Jewish Chronicle). Unfortunate. (t · c) buidhe 06:15, 19 April 2023 (UTC)
I don't think consistent political endorsements are relevant for WP:RS. For example, I believe here in the US, the NYT has endorsed the D candidate in every election since 1960. We still consider them a first tier source. Adoring nanny (talk) 16:53, 19 April 2023 (UTC)
Unfortunately, while the Telegraph employs "journalists" like transphobe and Covid fake news-peddler Allison Pearson, it is always going to be somewhat mistrusted. It does appear to have dialled the climate change denial nonsense back a bit in recent years, however. Black Kite (talk) 21:05, 19 April 2023 (UTC)
I do not see how having different views on trans and Covid affects someone's reliability outside those spheres. Emir of Wikipedia (talk) 21:42, 6 May 2023 (UTC)
Actually, the NYT has endorsed Republicans for governor, Senator, NYC mayor, and other positions since the 60s. O3000, Ret. (talk) 00:03, 20 April 2023 (UTC)
Some consider them a first tier source but others like myself prefer better source where possible. Emir of Wikipedia (talk) 21:41, 6 May 2023 (UTC)
It also (and relevantly) has an anti-lockdown agenda, and follows the Tufton Street (read: Great Barrington Press Release) line on COVID. Guy (help! - typo?) 09:13, 26 April 2023 (UTC)
Why was this article brought up on the of COVID-19 lab leak theory talk page? Editors are using it to advocate for a rewrite of the lead, despite the fact that (a) it's a single news article, (b) it's not a MEDRS, (c) it's an old story about the October 2022 partisan Senate report, which is only back in the news because Axios just obtained the full report. The article is a breaking news (primary) source that simply summarizes the full report. If the author provides any analysis or opinions of his own, I can't discern them. It is a reliable source for what the Senate Republicans think, which is all it covers. Bringing up the article on the lab leak talk page is non-productive. DFlhb (talk) 21:44, 19 April 2023 (UTC)
I'm not sure why the query is about the papers reliability for politics and then goes on about coronavirus. It isn't quite such a politically divided issue like it has been in America, though conservatives do tend to follow republicans more on things like covid and climate change. It definitely is biased on politics but it's nowhere near the worst in Britain for that. On this matter what it did was basically publicise something that was out of date and with no medical input when the space could have been used for something better. My normal response when seeing something like that in a newspaper is to just curse them and move on to something else. NadVolum (talk) 23:11, 19 April 2023 (UTC)
  • It appears concerns here regard due weight rather than reliability. The DT's politics coverage is usually reliable for simple factual information, but editorial choice of content follows a political line, so, like every paper, it is often necessary to attribute. This report is true, a US senate report DID make this claim. However, that doesn't necessarily mean it should appear in the lead, and perhaps not even the article unless peer-reviewed information is also given due prominence. --Boynamedsue (talk) 04:26, 21 April 2023 (UTC)
There's a distinction between editorial policy and the accuracy of news reporting. Editorials, columns, analyses, etc., are not considered reliable sources wherever they are published. We should not judge a news outlet reliability based on its editorial position. The Wall Street Journal is a good example where the two parts of the publication are totally separate.
The Republicans lab leak conclusion was reported in other publications such as ABC[29] and all media covered that the FBI has concluded that coronavirus originated in a lab.
Should the media refuse to report on what the majority party says because they are (probably) wrong? I don't think so. It's very important for readers to know what the debate in Washington is.
TFD (talk) 04:50, 21 April 2023 (UTC)
I believe the Telegraph's news articles remain a reliable source for politics. It is obviously biased and anything controversial should be attributed and also triangulated with other reliable sources biased differently. (Its opinion pieces are obviously not similarly reliable, although opinion in the Telegraph is more likely to be noteworthy than opinion in more marginal publications.) It is not, of course, reliable for medical matters. On this particular article, I agree with the above comments: the issue is weight not reliability. Politicians' views about medical matters (accurately reported or otherwise) are not particularly noteworthy in most contexts. BobFromBrockley (talk) 16:58, 21 April 2023 (UTC)
  • Facts in its news coverage are probably facts. Its opinion pages do not appear to be fact checked. The opinions may be noteworthy, but they should not be used without attribution (and should probably be avoided) - David Gerard (talk) 14:04, 22 April 2023 (UTC)
So just like all other papers in the UK, and probably the world, then. Johnbod (talk) 15:24, 22 April 2023 (UTC)
That's bad news about those papers, because RSes have no excuse not to fact-check the opinion columns too. And it certainly doesn't apply to the world. (e.g. I write for Foreign Policy occasionally, in the opinions section, and I can assure you their fact-checkers are vicious and have saved my arse more than once.) If a paper runs nonsense in its opinion columns, that counts against that paper - David Gerard (talk) 09:53, 23 April 2023 (UTC)
The reason they provide little if any fact-checking is cost and time. If you had to write an opinion piece for tomorrow's paper about something that happened today, there wouldn't be a lot of time to fact check it. That's why columns, editorials, anaylses are rarely reliable sources according to rs policy.
All news media btw run nonsense in opinion pieces. TFD (talk) 03:44, 25 April 2023 (UTC)
David Gerard - If I wrote for an outlet that is at least a peripheral commercial rival of the DT, I would hesitate to !vote in matters related to it. Maybe that’s just me. FOARP (talk) 12:54, 29 April 2023 (UTC)
do you even know what Foreign Policy is - David Gerard (talk) 11:06, 30 April 2023 (UTC)
Drop the attitude. Obviously yes, I do. People ought to have at least a degree of judgement about what they advocate on here when they’re arguably involved professionally. FOARP (talk) 06:29, 2 May 2023 (UTC)
  • The Daily Telegraph employs people with ghastly and abhorrent opinions, but it's reliable for statements of fact, and its journalists have seriously embarrassed the Conservative party in the past with accurate and devastating revelations about expenses.—S Marshall T/C 16:37, 24 April 2023 (UTC)
    Unless they are statements of "fact" about Brexit. Or the Labour Party. Or climate change. Guy (help! - typo?) 21:44, 3 May 2023 (UTC)
  • The Daily Telegraph is a reliable and important top-tier newspaper. The DT is correct that the US Senate report contained this info, it is report on what the Senate report contained. Whether the US Senate report is reliable or due for inclusion is separate entirely from the reliability of the DT. StellarNerd (talk) 20:08, 24 April 2023 (UTC)
  • Reliable - This - moving to ban a top-tier broadsheet as a source - is exactly the kind of slippery slope warned about when the Daily Mail was effectively banned. Every source has some kind of bias, every source has some kind of position, most sources make errors or even fabrications at least occasionally. The Telegraph is no different.
And, yes, it can hardly escape anyone’s notice that the most likely western media sources to get this kind of treatment are 1) British and 2) right-leaning. This is particularly grotesque given the more strict standard that British media outlets are held to compared to those in eg the US. FOARP (talk) 12:54, 29 April 2023 (UTC)
  • I don't think anyone's saying that the Telegraph is unreliable for politics in general. However it has previously published very dubious (and, indeed, false) pieces on climate change, gender issues and Covid conspiracies, and using the DT for an article on the latter subject was the one that sparked this discussion. Black Kite (talk) 13:00, 29 April 2023 (UTC)
    Exactly so. It's not quite the Brexiter Beobachter, but it has a long line of pushing the 55 Tufton Street line on contentious topics, including giving uncritical voice to climate change denialism, misleading and downright transphobic reporting on trans issues, etc. Classic old-school reflection of proprietor bias, as so notably described in Evelyn Waugh's Scoop.
    So, no, we should not regard the Telegraph as blanket reliable. And we should be especially careful not to mistake its Comment articles for news. Guy (help! - typo?) 12:16, 30 April 2023 (UTC)
    Almost like we should not take sources as gospel for every single matter. Sources are generally reliable or not, they are not perfect. Emir of Wikipedia (talk) 21:44, 6 May 2023 (UTC)
FOARP@ the Daily Telegraph is pushed through my letterbox every morning. Would you like some specifics over the next few days? Like every right-leaning source (see: Network Propaganda) it is increasingly giving editorial bias preference over factual accuracy. This is most prevalent in stories about the economy, where they rarely mention the B word unless it's to claim that it's either being sabotaged by the woke markets or delivering stunning victories like a trade deal worth 0.02% of GDP over five years. The crossword, however, is good. Guy (help! - typo?) 21:47, 3 May 2023 (UTC)

New York Post sports coverage

We rightly have the New York Post marked as "generally unreliable", especially for politics. I want to make a carve out for their sports coverage, which is pretty good.

Some of their columnists have wiki bios. For instance, Jon Heyman and Joel Sherman (sportswriter) are NY Post baseball columnists who are also on MLB Network. They're both members of the BBWAA and have votes for the National Baseball Hall of Fame. Mike Vaccaro is also a NY Post sports columnist. They have previous work experience at RSP publications.

There is only one error in their coverage that I can recall, and that was Heyman's "Arson Judge to the Giants" tweet this offseason. He deleted the erroneous tweet within minutes. This is of course why we have an essay on handling sports transactions properly. The error was only on Twitter, not nypost.com.

Is there anything else I'd need to demonstrate to show it as reliable for sports? Pinging David Gerard, who has removed some NY Post sports citations, and Yankees10, who I saw restoring some of them. – Muboshgu (talk) 00:51, 21 April 2023 (UTC)

Yeah this was my thinking with the reversion. NY Post may not be reliable in general but as Muboshgu stated they employ notable baseball columnists/reporters. I believe an exception should be made for these.-- Yankees10 01:07, 21 April 2023 (UTC)
There's a common claim that unreliable newspapers should get a pass for their sports coverage - mostly on an ILIKEIT basis. This was commonly brought forward for The Sun (also a News Corp publication) and the Daily Mail - and yet, when I checked those two and actually looked at the sports coverage that we were using in Wikipedia, I kept finding egregious careless errors, wrong years, and claims that were not verifiable in any other source at all. It turns out bad sources can't be trusted.
(Martin Samuels won awards for his coverage at the Mail and is now at News Corp, so good individuals exist - but the paper's tendency to error and claims that can't be verified anywhere else remain. And a Mail piece being bylined "Martin Samuels" wouldn't give it a pass.)
I don't think ILIKEIT is a reason to make a carveout for a paper like the New York Post that keeps being caught in fabrications and was nearly deprecated; it's already been shown that they tend to lying way too much for Wikipedia use.
Note also that this is a pitch for a carveout on WP:BLPs in particular - I've been hitting specifically NYP on BLPs (and PageSix anywhere, 'cos it's a lying gossip rag and shouldn't really be used anywhere on Wikipedia) - and GU sources are really just not appropriate at all on BLPs except in remarkable circumstances, "sports" or not - David Gerard (talk) 08:57, 21 April 2023 (UTC)
Carve-outs like this should ONLY be done on a necessity basis. What necessary information is only available in the New York Post that would not be available in other sports journalism sources? Can you provide some examples of information you think needs to be added to Wikipedia, but which can only be found in the Post, and not elsewhere? --Jayron32 12:33, 21 April 2023 (UTC)
and - note - is so important to NPOV that it can only be achieved by adding a GU source to a BLP - David Gerard (talk) 16:26, 21 April 2023 (UTC)
Sure, allow, generally it's WP:NEWSORG. Specifically for sports: after the New York Times pretentiously declared they'd authenticated the Hunter Biden laptop story, the New York Post editorial ended: "Readers of The Post have known this since October 2020. We also have a much better sports section. We’ve authenticated it." Peter Gulutzan (talk) 20:21, 21 April 2023 (UTC)
The NY Post is not generally WP:NEWSORG, it was specifically found GUNREL in an RFC - David Gerard (talk) 14:02, 22 April 2023 (UTC)
I'm inclined to support the carve-out for sports only, unless there's concrete evidence of issues in their sports area. I think sports is generally low stakes and I also think the Post's sports section is indeed better than somere of their other sections. While I respect and agree with David Gerard and Jayron32, on many things, I can see why sports editors might want more sources to support content and I can see the Post's sports content by default doing no harm absent evidence otherwise. If there is indeed evidence that the Post's sports content is as bad as their political or general news reporting as far as being accurate and factual, I would change my view. Andre🚐 20:34, 21 April 2023 (UTC)
Sounds like something I can support. Nice to see people looks at sources more holistically. Emir of Wikipedia (talk) 21:44, 6 May 2023 (UTC)

Gender-related sports coverage should not be cited. SPECIFICO talk 16:53, 22 April 2023 (UTC)

  • Support, and edits like this are so incredibly stupid that the person who makes them should be treated as though he were a normal disruptive editor. Erasing something as trivially easy to source as one of the world's most famous entertainers performing at one of the world's most famous events under the guise of removing an unreliable source (hey, I wonder if there is video of her singing the anthem, like would it be possible such a thing would have been recorded). The NYPost is an absolutely reliable source on sports on sports-related topics. And there has never been evidence that it is not. nableezy - 20:48, 22 April 2023 (UTC)
    Nothing is "absolutely reliable", and we should be very wary of citing the NYP for anything other than scores, because of the heavy (and heavily politicised) editorial overlay. Guy (help! - typo?) 12:05, 30 April 2023 (UTC)
    Conjecture based on absolutely zero evidence (and yes, *absolutely* zero evidence). Where there is evidence to the contrary, from reliable sources. nableezy - 17:15, 30 April 2023 (UTC)
    What conjecture? If you go to the Post website for sport, you will be on the Post website. That is rife with fabrications, distortions and propaganda (see above). No different from visiting the Daily Mail website, where every story carries the "sidebar of shame", replete with "all grown up" stories perving on newly-pubescent children of celebrities. Guy (help! - typo?) 21:42, 3 May 2023 (UTC)
  • The sports section of The New York Post is a well-established WP:NEWSORG that has had a long reputation for having some of the best sports reporting in New York. Even as far back as 1985, when the NY Post was unambiguously still a tabloid, New York magazine note that [f]or years, The New York Post has excelled at this demanding pasttime, and has had no serious challengers to its reputation for the best sports section in town (it faced competition for this role from the New York Daily News for a bit in the 80s and 90s, but it still holds that crown; see this book from Fordham University Press for more info). There's also some evidence of explicitly higher ethical standards being applied specifically to the sports section of the paper than other sections (for example, a time where ran on the gossip pages when the sports section killed a story due to journalistic ethics), so I don't think describing a carveout for the sports section as merely being ILIKEIT has any firm basis in reality. The headlines can be quite sensational, but WP:HEADLINE covers that well enough. I also would urge caution with respect to how this is construed: the Sports editorial vertical is the operation that's got a good reputation; stories published in other sections of the newspaper that are merely tangential to sporting should not be confused with content coming from that vertical. — Red-tailed hawk (nest) 18:11, 23 April 2023 (UTC)
  • Support a carve-out for sports, which is sufficiently well respected to use in general. Two exceptions: (1) nothing from the prurient/scandalous side of the Post (e.g. objectifying female athletes), and (2) nothing with any overlap with politics (transgender and/or gender issues and sports, national anthem protests, athletes with opinions, city policies affecting stadiums or transportation to games, crimes committed in connection to a game, etc.). — Rhododendrites talk \\ 19:24, 26 April 2023 (UTC)
    I think the sports section itself is pretty clean. We just need to differentiate front-of-the paper sports-related news coverage that has all the problems associated with their other content. SPECIFICO talk 19:51, 29 April 2023 (UTC)
  • I do not think we should be too quick to allow a carve-out for sports coverage. While sports may seem like a low-stakes area, it is actually a major source of BLP information. Is the sports section really free of the pervasive sexism and bigotry that otherwise is found everywhere in the Post? At a minimum, I would not support a rating any higher than that additional considerations may apply to sports coverage. John M Baker (talk) 20:07, 29 April 2023 (UTC)
  • You really should be providing evidence of such pervasive sexism and bigotry, not asking others to provide evidence of its absence. nableezy - 17:17, 30 April 2023 (UTC)
    Are you suggesting that the existing finding that the Post is unreliable needs to be relitigated? I would argue that the burden is on those who seek a special exemption for sports coverage. Nor, frankly, do I think that there is much of an argument for the view that the Post is not sexist or bigoted. Do I really need to go through specific examples, when this should jump out at anyone who even looks at their homepage? John M Baker (talk) 21:51, 2 May 2023 (UTC)
    Im suggesting that the existing finding didnt focus on its sports coverage at all, and as usual single-minded editors are removing things where the paper is obviously reliable and correct about. And it's stupid. nableezy - 21:55, 2 May 2023 (UTC)
  • Is their sports coverage any less gossipy than the rest? Just today on nypost.com/sports:
Lukas Van Ness’ dad slaps son’s girlfriend on backside during strange NFL Draft celebration with tabloid-style screenshots.
Tales from Wandy Peralta’s popular Yankees clubhouse antics: ‘He’s a freaking clown’, which alternates endearing and patronizing.
Jackson Mahomes quietly returns to social media after being accused of forcible kissing, a republished Fox News piece.
Golfers get chippy over foursome’s slow pace of play, throwing wild kicks and punches on Florida course, another republished Fox News piece.
Do we need a carveout when it would still allow this kind of trash? Even if we (rightfully) exclude the Fox articles, there's still an awful lot of junk. Woodroar (talk) 17:36, 30 April 2023 (UTC)
What exactly are any of these supposed to show in terms of NY Post's sports section's reliability? None of that is even sports coverage, except the story about Peralta, and why do you doubt its reliability? nableezy - 17:44, 30 April 2023 (UTC)
Of course they're sports section articles. They're linked from nypost.com/sports and they have NFL, Sports+, and Golf headers, all of which appear under the "Sports ⌄" drop-down menu. As for reliability, they're just as trashy as everything else on the site—gossipy, sexist, etc. Woodroar (talk) 17:57, 30 April 2023 (UTC)
Please dont misquote me. I said it isnt sports coverage. Not that it isnt in the sports section. I dont see how gossipy relates to reliability. nableezy - 18:33, 30 April 2023 (UTC)
If it's in the sports section it's sports coverage. That's kinda definitional. And the whole point of shunning gossip is that it's unsubstantiated. oknazevad (talk) 23:51, 30 April 2023 (UTC)
What was unsubstantiated in any of those pieces? Theres video in each of them? nableezy - 21:55, 2 May 2023 (UTC)
lol yes, "the sports section" or "sports coverage" is not going to be a usable criterion. Perhaps there are good sports articles - but as I noted above, you can say the same about the Daily Mail, and we don't use those either. We're talking about a paper that was nearly deprecated for its history of fabrication, remember. We can't really put in place a carveout that says "you can use NY Post articles on BLPs as long as they mention sports and they don't suck", any more that we do for any other source found generally unreliable in an RFC - David Gerard (talk) 15:23, 1 May 2023 (UTC)

Good-enough sources on food storage

Say I wanted to update the article on lettuce to include information about the shelf life of lettuce in the refrigerator. Is a page such as this one from The Spruce Eats or this one from Epicurious be a good-enough source? I've looked at more conventional sciences sources such as the USDA but the information I can find from them is much less detailed.[30] For context, I'm planning an editathon in which participants may be updating articles on various food ingredients, to say how they should be stored. Pinging Zefr - if you have thoughts on this question I would appreciate your views. Clayoquot (talk | contribs) 15:08, 29 April 2023 (UTC)

I know it's a little off-topic, but if you're covering lettuce will you include an aside on the Liz Truss lettuce? That was all about shelf-life. Philh-591 (talk) 21:43, 30 April 2023 (UTC)
I could try to work it in :) Clayoquot (talk | contribs) 16:39, 1 May 2023 (UTC)
I found This one from Purdue University, which looks like it might be a better source than either of yours. --Jayron32 15:24, 1 May 2023 (UTC)
That's a great source Jayron32, thanks! A single institution like Purdue University will talk about a narrow range of foods, e.g. "crops grown in Indiana", which still leaves me wondering about what else I can use for other foods. To be honest, when I am looking for this kind of information I trust popular sites like the ones I mentioned as much or more than university and government websites. If I'm looking for information on how to store paneer I would personally trust the Times of India. To me I see it as common sense; I'm wondering if the community sees it the same way. Clayoquot (talk | contribs) 16:53, 1 May 2023 (UTC)
You may be able to find academic studies on the shelf life of various foods. See for example these Google Scholar results for "shelf life of lettuce". ~ ONUnicorn(Talk|Contribs)problem solving 16:58, 1 May 2023 (UTC)
So, the deal is, there are thousands upon thousands of different foodstuffs eaten around the world. I doubt any one source deals with storage of every possible foodstuff. You're going to either deal with broad and general categories of food (raw vegetables, raw meats, cooked meats, breads, grains, etc.) or if you need to get more granular than that, you're going to need to bring together information from lots of disparate sources. --Jayron32 12:38, 2 May 2023 (UTC)
I agree. I'm not asking for a source that will cover everything. I'm just wondering what kinds of sources people consider to be acceptable. Clayoquot (talk | contribs) 16:37, 2 May 2023 (UTC)
stilltasty.com? 100.1.122.195 (talk) 02:37, 7 May 2023 (UTC)
You're looking to include information about the shelf life of lettuce in the refrigerator or you're looking to include information about the shelf life of a particular variety of lettuce in the refrigerator? One of those is doable and the other is more or less a fools errand. Horse Eye's Back (talk) 16:50, 2 May 2023 (UTC)
There are variable criteria for shelf life. And many variables which affect it. Anything that you would say would need context and probably attribution in the text. North8000 (talk) 17:37, 2 May 2023 (UTC)
Lettuce itself is a variable criteria, its almost as useless as asking how long the shelf life of Brassica oleracea is. Horse Eye's Back (talk) 22:59, 2 May 2023 (UTC)

To recap the discussion thus far, I asked whether popular websites would be acceptable sources on how to store particular types of food. The idea is to update the article on lettuce with content about storing lettuce, update the article on cucumbers with content about storing cucumbers, etc. I am not planning to write about the shelf life of particular varieties of lettuce. Jayron32 suggested the Purdue University website as a better alternative to popular websites. This looks like a great source and I'll recommend it to editathon participants who are interested in updating food articles. I am also getting the sense that we are not sure about how popular websites would be received in this particular topic area - nobody so far has said either that they are acceptable or that they are unacceptable. It's useful for me to know that we're not sure on this, and that scholarly sources would be a safer bet. Thanks everyone for your thoughts so far. Clayoquot (talk | contribs) 22:55, 2 May 2023 (UTC)

It would actually be much more helpful to write about the shelf life of particular varieties of lettuce. Horse Eye's Back (talk) 22:59, 2 May 2023 (UTC)
Interesting idea. We can work that out with the regular WP:BRD cycle on the relevant article(s). Clayoquot (talk | contribs) 21:28, 3 May 2023 (UTC)

Vishwakarma are the brahmin as per vedic text.

In Vishwakarma (caste) page, there is a statement "having no general connection to the Brahmins" this needs to be removed. We have provided many citation in the Vishwakarma (caste) page Talk section that supports the fact that Vishwakarmas are the Vedic brahmin.

Please provide any citation or reference from Hindu scriptures which supports this statement "having no general connection to the Brahmins" that mentioned in the wiki page else modify it. 115.97.188.254 (talk) 11:40, 5 May 2023 (UTC)

Please see WP:RSPSCRIPTURE. Also, this post looks more fitting for Talk:Vishwakarma (caste). USS Cola!rado🇺🇸 (C⭐T) 12:32, 7 May 2023 (UTC)

Rotten Tomatoes reliabilty

This may have probably been discussed in the past, but should this be used as a source to confirm an actor's DOB if there's no other sources anywhere? Because I just deleted a DOB from an article because it didn't seem reliable enough. However another editor reverted claiming it's been used for film/TV pages without any issues.

I'm asking because I'm looking at other celebrities that have age disputes on Wikipedia and what RT has listed are most certainly incorrect because other info for those actors such as what year they graduated high school or college are on their pages(with legit cited sources) and those years don't match up to what the DOB that are listed on RT.

To give a couple more examples, the singer Ric Ocasek's birth year listed as 1949. However when he passed in 2019, it was confirmed that he was five years older.

https://www.rottentomatoes.com/celebrity/ric_ocasek

And over a year ago John Leguizamo's birth year was confirmed to be 1960. It still has 1964 listed.

https://www.rottentomatoes.com/celebrity/john_leguizamo Kcj5062 (talk) 17:17, 26 April 2023 (UTC)

  • Comment The previous discussion here was not well attended but all two (!) of the editors that commented claimed RT to be reliable. However, if there are clear examples of their information being wrong, perhaps this is a discussion that needs to be had again. Black Kite (talk) 18:37, 26 April 2023 (UTC)
2022 discussion: Wikipedia:Reliable_sources/Noticeboard/Archive_386#Rotten_Tomatoes_celebrities_section. Perhaps it's time for a WP:RFC? Gråbergs Gråa Sång (talk) 18:43, 26 April 2023 (UTC)
  • Comment So far as I know, Rotten Tomatoes merely aggregates information from elsewhere, and I am unaware of any fact-checking processes in place (honestly, I would be surprised--it's just a different kind of site). I would definitely be in favor of revisiting. Cheers, all. Dumuzid (talk) 18:48, 26 April 2023 (UTC)
    • Comment Yeah, that's what makes this dubious to me. Especially if there aren't any stronger sources out there. It seems Rotten Tomatoes gets info for celebrity birth dates on other sites and don't really do any fact checking. As a matter of fact, a lot of sites just web scrape info nowadays. On the reliable sources list it says can be used for stuff like movies and TV, but nothing about DOB. And looking at past discussions, someone brought up a good point. Their main business is film criticism, not actor biographies. Rotten Tomatoes doesn't seem anymore of a WP:RS for WP:BLP than IMDB is.
    Kcj5062 (talk) 22:03, 26 April 2023 (UTC)
  • I would be leary in using Rotten Tomatoes for anything except opinions, reviews, or ratings. It really isn't a scholarly or journalism site, it doesn't do research or reporting in the real sense, and any factual information reported there is likely scraped from elsewhere. --Jayron32 12:18, 27 April 2023 (UTC)
  • I don't think Rotten Tomatoes should be used for anything other its core purpose: review aggregation. Just because we stick their aggregation statistics into every film article doesn't mean that they have any reliability when it comes to talking about biographical details. That should be left to sources that engage in clear fact checking, editorial control, and error correction. NinjaRobotPirate (talk) 16:12, 27 April 2023 (UTC)
  • I favor not using Rotten Tomatoes to support dates of birth (or any other biographical information). Other posts above have pointed out good reasons for questioning that aspect of the site. Eddie Blick (talk) 20:50, 27 April 2023 (UTC)
  • Who uses Rotten Tomatoes as a source for anything? It is a useful aggregator of critical responses to movies, but that's about it. Guy (help! - typo?) 13:11, 28 April 2023 (UTC)
  • The user SNUGGUMS claims it's a " quite trustworthy" source(his words). For movies/TV yes, but it shouldn't be used as a source for actor biographies for aforementioned reasons. Kcj5062 (talk) 15:06, 28 April 2023 (UTC)
  • Per the above comments. Rotten Tomatoes should not be used for biographical claims about people. Its principal purpose is aggregating reviews. I wouldn't be surprised if they just got dates and stuff like that from IMDB. Betty Logan (talk) 15:16, 28 April 2023 (UTC)
I don't see any reason to think that they fact check birth dates, although they invite readers to provide them with corrections. I am always reticent anyway about using sources that don't say where they get their information. TFD (talk) 13:12, 2 May 2023 (UTC)
Is that not the majority of sources? Emir of Wikipedia (talk) 21:45, 6 May 2023 (UTC)
I do not actively agree with using Rotten Tomatoes as biographical data. It is a website that can only refer to review reviews of the film itself. GeonwooLee (talk) 07:42, 8 May 2023 (UTC)
  • I consider it only as a reference but not as a reliable source. A lot of the content here is relatively subjective, so you need to be very careful to distinguish the true from the false when used as a reference.Ddccxl (talk) 08:09, 8 May 2023 (UTC)

AI content mill pseudo-news sites

NewsGuard writes about pseudo-news sites generated by AI. "NewsGuard has identified 49 news and information sites that appear to be almost entirely written by artificial intelligence software. A new generation of content farms is on the way." A few are linked in the article. I did like this way of detecting them:

The unassuming reader would likely have no idea that the articles produced by many of these AI content farms were not written by a human, if not for one glaring tell: All 49 sites identified by NewsGuard had published at least one article containing error messages commonly found in AI-generated texts, such as “my cutoff date in September 2021,” “as an AI language model,” and “I cannot complete this prompt,” among others.

Obviously no such site should ever be used in Wikipedia for anything, but we'll want to keep a look out for such things, particularly in the spammier articles - David Gerard (talk) 20:51, 1 May 2023 (UTC)

I know I normally say I am against deprecation but this seems like a case where it fits. Emir of Wikipedia (talk) 21:49, 6 May 2023 (UTC)
  • We should blacklist them globally. I know, Roko's basilisk, but these are not only unreliable, they are also potentially a source of unchecked defamation. Guy (help! - typo?) 21:36, 3 May 2023 (UTC)

Statista - April 2023

Statista, a business website collecting statistics, self-described as a "statistics portal for market data", is not a reliable source. The original sources of the statistics collected by the website are often not clear, and some of the statistics are clearly invented by the website itself. Yet, I am beginning to see it uncritically used as a source here and there throughout Wikipedia. For instance, these data on the ethnic makeup of France are currently used in the article "France", in the country's main infobox.

Foregoing discussions about Statista already found it to be unreliable: 2019, 2020, 2022a, 2022b. I think it is time for a tougher action, and to consider a deprecation. Æo (talk) 12:52, 28 April 2023 (UTC)

Support deprecation Unreliable source that has been disproven many times. Sometimes they get data from Wikipedia itself, sites like VGChartz etc Timur9008 (talk) 13:08, 28 April 2023 (UTC)
  • I misunderstood this initially. This isn't a for-profit research firm, it's a database or aggregator of statistical information. Universities subscribe to it like they do other databases, and to that extent it could be a useful tool for those who have access. But the end result shouldn't be a citation to Statista; it should be a citation to whatever the actual source of the information is. We don't deprecate JSTOR just because some people might credit JSTOR for a paper that JSTOR is simply hosting, so why would we deprecate this? It may be useful to have an RSP entry which clarifies this, though. — Rhododendrites talk \\ 14:12, 28 April 2023 (UTC)
    Just an example but Statista copied this word for word [31] (August 2021 revision) and their source [32] Timur9008 (talk) 14:21, 28 April 2023 (UTC)
  • Deprecation is not necessary at this point. I think a case could be made for adding it to the RSP list as Generally Unreliable, but I don't think the drastic step of deprecation is yet justified. That being said, it doesn't actually need to be on the list to be removed. You're allowed to go through Wikipedia and remove it from articles all on your own, without seeking prior approval. It's doubtful anyone adding it to the Wikipedia articles even knows RSP exists. --Jayron32 13:59, 28 April 2023 (UTC)
  • Following on what I wrote above, I've boldly added a line to RSP based on the four conversations which have taken place thus far. Anyone who disagree can feel free to revert. — Rhododendrites talk \\ 14:25, 28 April 2023 (UTC)
    Well done. In the future I will file a request for adding also these sources, which have similar (yet maybe worse) problems, to RSP. Æo (talk) 11:08, 1 May 2023 (UTC)
They are not just a database or aggregator. That's a big part of what they do and probably the biggest part of the free content, e.g. their many info graphics. But they also do a lot of analyses and report writing and they do research for clients, too. I think calling them generally unreliable or even deprecating them is unwarranted. To me this is a case of "additional considerations apply", information has to be evaluated on a case by case basis and where they just report data from other sources, the original source should be cited if possible. -- Random person no 362478479 (talk) 18:07, 28 April 2023 (UTC)
I agree, Statista is considered an unreliable source of information for several reasons. First, information is often limited to select groups who can afford to pay for it. Second, collection, analysis, or distribution processes can lead to errors or distortions in the data. Third, some information may require stricter journalism validation. Finally, the commercial interests of informants can lead to bias or selective reporting. Therefore, when using Statista, it is important to identify the source and take measures to ensure the accuracy of the information. CHO woohyuck (talk) 07:53, 8 May 2023 (UTC)
information is often limited to select groups who can afford to pay for it - This has nothing to do with reliability (e.g. academic journals). — Rhododendrites talk \\ 12:43, 8 May 2023 (UTC)
@Random person no 362478479: Do you have access to any of those original reports so we can take a look? Preferably one that seems like a reliable source? — Rhododendrites talk \\ 12:43, 8 May 2023 (UTC)
Oppose deprecation I am still against this "deprecation"/"deprecation" system, especially when it results in silly cases like this. If a source is generally unreliable then just say so. Emir of Wikipedia (talk) 21:47, 6 May 2023 (UTC)

Are these sources reliable for use in an entry of the EOKA terrorist organisation in the List of designated terrorist groups

International Encyclopedia of Terrorism. Routledge. ISBN: 978-1-135-91966-5.[1]

CYPRUS OUTRAGE. British Movietone. 19 December 1955.[2]

TERRORISTS ON TRIAL IN CYPRUS. British Movietone. 23 January 1956.[3]

Securing the base: fighting EOKA terrorists in Cyprus. Manchester Scholarship Online. 23 May 2013.[4]

CYPRUS: Making Progress. Time Magazine. 26 January 1959.[5]

Press Release Regarding the 66th Anniversary of EOKA. Republic of Türkiye Ministry of Foreign Affairs. 2 April 2021.[6]

The Cyprus cause belongs to the entire Turkish nation. The Presidency of the Republic of Türkiye. 19 July 2021.[7]

Turkey slams Greek Cypriots for commemorating terrorist group. Daily Sabah. 2 April 2021.[8]

Reaction from Turkey for celebration of establishment of EOKA on Greek Cypriot side. TRNC Public Information Office. 5 April 2021.[9]

Letter dated 86/03/11 from the Permanent Representative of Turkey to the United Nations addressed to the Secretary-General. United Nations Digital Library. 14 March 1986.[10]

President Tatar: “I condemn all terrorist organisations and EOKA”. TRNC Public Information Office. 1 April 2021.[11]

Annual report of the Secretary-General on the work of the Organization, 16 June 1955-15 June 1956. United Nations Digital Library. 1956.[12]

Regards and thanks in advance, Nargothronde (talk) 15:40, 8 May 2023 (UTC)

Any source which describes one faction in an armed conflict as "terrorists" is a bit suspect. The word terrorist in the 21st century means 'people we do not like'. The History Wizard of Cambridge (talk) 16:09, 8 May 2023 (UTC)
It is unclear exactly what you are proposing. The article in question is for groups officially designated by national or international organizations as "terrorist groups", not by groups referred to as such, but which are officially designated as such in a formal way. Your long list of references is hard to parse, and does not make clear when and who have officially designated (rather than merely referred to as) them as a terrorist group. I'm not saying they have, or have not been, so designated, but the citation overkill actually makes it harder to determine if they have, or have not, been so designated. A simple, singular, solid reference that shows that a national government, or international organization, have officially designated them as such would be sufficient. What isn't sufficient is any source where a person just calls them a terrorist group or uses the word terrorist in relation to them. --Jayron32 18:03, 8 May 2023 (UTC)
extended references
The following discussion has been closed. Please do not modify it.

References

  1. ^ Crenshaw, Martha; Pimlott, John (22 April 2015). "Terrorism in Cyprus". International Encyclopedia of Terrorism. Routledge. ISBN 978-1-135-91966-5. In 1954, Greece had tried and failed to persuade the UN to take up the case for Cyprus... Then, on April 1, 1955, the same day it issued pamphlets, EOKA began its terrorist campaign. Using explosives stolen from the British army and weapons smuggled from Greece, EOKA bombed British government offices in Cyprus and murdered British subjects and Cypriots. Attacks often took place in broad daylight, killing women, children, and members of the clergy. ... By November, the situation was so serious that the British declared a state of emergency on Cyprus. ... On November 26, the day the emergency was declared, EOKA terrorists hurled a grenade into the ballroom of the Ledra Palace Hotel in Nicosia (Lefkoşa). ... Principal towns in Cyprus, and the locations of major EOKA terrorist attacks. ... In its terrorist campaign from 1954 to 1958, EOKA exploded 1,782 bombs, causing damage in the millions of dollars. ... The EOKA campaign cost the lives of at least 104 soldiers, 50 police, 238 civilians, and 90 EOKA operatives.
  2. ^ "CYPRUS OUTRAGE". British Movietone. 19 December 1955. Retrieved 20 April 2023. Now the scene in Ledra Street, Nicosia, a few seconds after a terrorist outrage. Our cameraman made this on the spot record of the riot squad and the pursuit of terrorists...
  3. ^ "TERRORISTS ON TRIAL IN CYPRUS". British Movietone. 23 Jan 1956. Retrieved 20 April 2023. A special emergency session of the closely guarded courthouse at Nicosia. Alexandros Pantazis, faces a capital charge, another man who may have to face the sentence of death is Renos Kyriakides, brother of the Bishop of Kyrenia, he too was wounded while trying to escape the commandos.
  4. ^ Edwards, Aaron (23 May 2013). "Defending the realm: The politics of Britains small wars since 1945. Securing the base: fighting EOKA terrorists in Cyprus". Manchester Scholarship Online: 126-151. Retrieved 20 April 2023. The terrorist group EOKA... {{cite journal}}: Cite journal requires |journal= (help)
  5. ^ "CYPRUS: Making Progress". Time Magazine. 26 January 1959. Retrieved 20 April 2023. ... the Greek Cypriot underground EOKA offered on Christmas Eve to change its terroristic course on Cyprus... British tommies scoured the mountains for EOKA terrorists...
  6. ^ "No: 131, 2 April 2021, Press Release Regarding the 66th Anniversary of EOKA". Republic of Türkiye Ministry of Foreign Affairs. 2 April 2021. Retrieved 20 April 2023. EOKA, of which 66th anniversary was celebrated with commemoration ceremonies by the Greek Cypriot Administration of Southern Cyprus, is a terrorist organization for Turkey and the Turkish Cypriot people. The pain caused by the inhumane massacres carried out by this terrorist organization between 1963-1974, with the aim to eliminate the existence of the Turkish Cypriots on the Island, remains fresh in the memories. Despite all this, the fact that the Greek Cypriot Administration of Southern Cyprus still celebrates EOKA's founding anniversary and issues stamps in its memory is yet another proof that the Greek Cypriot mentality that ignores the very existence of the Turkish Cypriots and views them as a minority, still prevails today. Turkey, as in the past, will always continue to stand by the TRNC and our Turkish Cypriot brothers and sisters, for their security and prosperity.
  7. ^ "The Cyprus cause belongs to the entire Turkish nation". The Presidency of the Republic of Türkiye. 19 July 2021. The Greek Cypriots, who have not refrained from targeting the honor, life and property of the Turks, their neighbors, by the hands of the EOKA terrorist organization...
  8. ^ "Turkey slams Greek Cypriots for commemorating terrorist group". Daily Sabah. 2 April 2021. Turkey's Foreign Ministry strongly condemned the Greek Cypriot administration for celebrating the 65th anniversary of a far-right terrorist group, which was responsible for carrying out a massacre against Turkish Cypriots. Noting that Turkey and the Turkish Cypriots consider Ethniki Organosis Kyprion Agoniston (EOKA) as a terrorist organization, the ministry said it has caused irreversible damage to the latter.
  9. ^ "Reaction from Turkey for celebration of establishment of EOKA on Greek Cypriot side". TRNC Public Information Office. TRNC Public Information Office. 5 April 2021. Retrieved 22 March 2023. EOKA... is a terrorist organisation for Turkey and the Turkish Cypriot people. The pain caused by the inhumane massacres carried out by this terrorist organisation between 1963-1974 with the aim to eliminate the existence of the Turkish Cypriots on the island remains fresh in the memories.
  10. ^ "Letter dated 86/03/11 from the Permanent Representative of Turkey to the United Nations addressed to the Secretary-General". United Nations Digital Library. 14 March 1986. Retrieved 20 April 2023. ... the notorious EOKA terrorist organisation... As is well known and fully documented, the Greek Cypriot EOKA organization began its campaign of terror in 1955 with the active participation of the Greek Orthodox Church and with the full military and material backing of Greece... EOKA became one (of) the most ruthless terrorist organizations of the time and, over the years, perpetrated countless crimes ranging from armed intimidation to cold-blooded murders, rape and robbery... There is nothing in its abhorrent history that would justify the description of this organization as a national liberation organization... It will be clearly apparent from these facts that EOKA's violent campaign, which started in 1955 and cost hundrds of Turkish Cypriot, British as well as Greek Cypriot lives, was neither national nor for liberation... The bloodshed and violence caused by this terrorist organization and its successor constitute such a shameful page in the recent history of Cyprus that even those who have had remote association with it should remember it with horror and a sense of guilt... The present attempt by the Greek Cypriot House of Representatives... to posthumously turn the EOKA terrorist organization into a national liberation organization is not only a sign of the unrepentant attitude which prevails on the Greek Cypriot side, but is also an unfortunate and futile effort aimed at re-writing the recent history of Cyprus... It should not be forgotten that one aspect of the bitter legacy left by the terrorist EOKA organization was the deep division caused between the Turkish and Greek Cypriot peoples of Cyprus accompanied by a strong sense of fear and mistrust.
  11. ^ "President Tatar: "I condemn all terrorist organisations and EOKA"". TRNC Public Information Office. 1 April 2021. TRNC President Ersin Tatar condemned the EOKA terrorist organisation and all terrorist organisations that have caused trouble to Motherland Turkey. ... Stating that Greek Cypriot attacks still continue by changing shape and method, with the aim of isolations, embargoes, subversive activities to the economy, abolition of Turkey's guarantorship, removal of Turkish troops and destroying the state, Tatar indicated that they will continue to struggle against them, as in the past.
  12. ^ "Annual report of the Secretary-General on the work of the Organization, 16 June 1955-15 June 1956". In it is a memorandum that was not at all shy in scathing the UK but, in clear inference to Greece's EOKA terrorist campaign, had stated: "in Cyprus... a powerful military machine of about 20,000 troops had been set up... with the official pur-pose of establishing "law and order" against terrorism..." That was in response to when Greece submitted an "Application, under the auspices of the United Nations, of the principle of equal rights and self-determination of peoples in the case of the population of the Island of Cyprus", which the United Nations further condemned and justified not supporting with the following statement: "Greece was seeking to establish its own sovereignty over Cyprus through a campaign of incitement to violence and subversion. The United Na-tions would be taking a dangerous course if it supported such ambitions."

Is "In God They Trust? The Religious Beliefs of Australia's Prime Ministers, 1901-2013" by Roy Williams and Kim C. Beazley, 2013 a sufficient source for a name to be included in a list of people with a specified mental illness?

Hi all, going through https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_people_with_bipolar_disorder to try to tidy up the entries with insufficient sources. Looking at the entry for John Curtin, it is referenced to "In God They Trust? The Religious Beliefs of Australia's Prime Ministers, 1901-2013" by Roy Williams and Kim C. Beazley, 2013. Curtin's Wikipedia article makes no mention of mental illness. Both authors appear to be legitimate scholars in the field of religion, but I'm not sure it's a sufficient source for inclusion on the list. Opinions gratefully received. Red Fiona (talk) 23:35, 6 May 2023 (UTC)

No as it doesn't appear to be a book about mental illness, by a professional in the relevant field. Slatersteven (talk) 11:33, 7 May 2023 (UTC)
Thanks, that was pretty much my thought but I wanted to check my logic was sound. Red Fiona (talk) 10:42, 8 May 2023 (UTC)
Agreed entirely. Diagnosing someone with a particular mental illness is the kind of thing where we should require the highest quality sources; scholars of religion are not qualified to diagnose someone with bipolar disorder. Caeciliusinhorto (talk) 18:46, 8 May 2023 (UTC)

Reliability of CNA (TV network)

Is CNA (TV network) reliable source? Refer to previous discussion on The Straits Times, I think the same conclusion can be applied to CNA, which are generally reliable so long as the Singapore government is not involved in its coverage. Please confirm my understanding. Thx. Ckfasdf (talk) 14:14, 7 May 2023 (UTC)

I would agree with applying the previous judgement of The Straits Times to CNA. Afaik it is generally considered reputable in the region? - nathanielcwm (talk) 14:59, 7 May 2023 (UTC)
Particularly in Southeast Asia, very much so. The channel has a major established presence in the region. 121.171.252.22 (talk) 21:09, 7 May 2023 (UTC)
However, CNA is state owned - so a greater emphasis on it only being reliable for non governmental affairs might be in order. - nathanielcwm (talk) 15:02, 7 May 2023 (UTC)
Yes, but with the clarification that "involved" is on the coverage side (the next sentence in the consensus summary makes that clear). So generally reliable as long as the coverage isn't of the Singaporean government or any contentious social issue in Singapore (corruption, death penalty, basic human rights etc). Horse Eye's Back (talk) 15:48, 7 May 2023 (UTC)
I'd have to argue that CNA is actually much more reliable than ST and should not be branded as one of the same. CNA is an established news channel with a presence in multiple countries, including regional brand recognition in the region, something that ST lacks – the latter of which is mostly confined domestically and lacks a news channel. I've also seen CNA even being somewhat analytic and critical on some of the Singaporean government policies, something of which would be much rarer on ST. In addition, CNA reporting on the region and the rest of the world is pretty much identical to DW, CNN or the BBC. If the South China Morning Post per WP:SCMP could somehow be given a green tick despite constant interference by the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) especially after the Hong Kong national security law, a government which is way more critical, oppressive and violent of dissent and criticism and engages in more propaganda than Singapore's, there's no reason to assume CNA is just as reliable, if not more. 121.171.252.22 (talk) 21:23, 7 May 2023 (UTC)
I think you're getting it backwards its the The Straits Times which has international renown, its CNA which is almost unknown in the wider world. Horse Eye's Back (talk) 15:18, 8 May 2023 (UTC)
I think you have that wrong. CNA is definitely not "unknown" in Asia, especially ASEAN, being a cable news channel in various Asian countries in addition to their YouTube channels having millions of subscribers. Just because it may not be as prominent as other news channels in Northern America and Europe does not make it unknown. In comparison, ST is hardly known outside of Singapore, being just a broadsheet/online newspaper. I've hardly heard of ST until recently. 49.228.70.60 (talk) 20:41, 8 May 2023 (UTC)
Don't know how you get from "almost unknown in the wider world" to "CNA is definitely not "unknown" in Asia, especially ASEAN." Might I suggest that your experience is an outlier? Horse Eye's Back (talk) 21:12, 8 May 2023 (UTC)
  • This is a wrong-headed discussion. You want to use an opinion expressed by the author of a CNA piece as a statement of fact, but this has already been addressed in WP:NEWSORG, which states that such pieces are reliable primary sources for statements attributed to that editor or author, but are rarely reliable for statements of fact. So, whatever you think the reliability of CNA is, and whatever the conclusion here, it won't change the fact that such opinion or analysis pieces are rarely considered reliable for statements of fact, and it would be wrong to use this discussion to support a contested statement of fact. Hzh (talk) 07:54, 8 May 2023 (UTC)

RfC: Adding Stacker to list of reliable sources

Should Stacker be added to WP:RSP as a reliable source? Random person no 362478479 (talk) 23:30, 3 April 2023 (UTC)

Stacker is a newswire and "storytelling platform" focussing on data-driven journalism. The Editor-in-Chief is Micah Cohen, the former Managing Editor of FiveThirtyEight.[33][34] Their "full-time newsroom includes over two dozen data journalists, editors, and writers who have worked with and been published in leading national publications."[35]

For more information see:

Random person no 362478479 (talk) 23:30, 3 April 2023 (UTC)

Survey

  • Oppose This isn't to say Stacker is or isn't a good source. Instead, we simply don't have enough discussions about it. It should still be handled on a case by case basis with no presumption that it is or isn't acceptable for what ever specific claim it is being used for. Springee (talk) 23:37, 3 April 2023 (UTC)
    My hope was to have that discussion here. This was not just intended as a vote. I have now split this into a Survey and a Discussion section to make that clearer. Random person no 362478479 (talk) 23:47, 3 April 2023 (UTC)
  • Agree with Springee. This is not how RSP works. If it turns out that there are multiple discussions about Stacker in the future, those discussions will resolve if, how and when it is listed at RSP. At this point there isn't even a single dispute, let alone a perennial dispute A RFC is not the correct path to RSP. Banks Irk (talk) 01:19, 4 April 2023 (UTC)
    "For a source to be added to this list, editors generally expect two or more significant discussions about the source's reliability in the past, or an uninterrupted request for comment on the source's reliability that took place on the reliable sources noticeboard." (WP:RSPCRITERIA)
    I think it is significantly more efficient to establish a source's status once, instead of discussing it several times before coming to a result. Why have multiple discussions when one will do? Random person no 362478479 (talk) 01:33, 4 April 2023 (UTC)
    I think that's a bad way to handle RS questions. First we need to remember that no source is considered always reliable and few are considered never reliable. Second, we really need to be looking at a case by case basis. One of the big issues with the RSP page is it leads to a level of gaming where it becomes important to get this site listed as "green" vs "yellow". Certainly a passing mention at the bottom of a "green" article is more important than a well crafted discussion in a "yellow" article. How dare an editor would try to use a yellow article to show that my green article is wrong! Also, people tend to think "green" means DUE vs just, "generally reliable". Part of the benefit of having multiple discussions about specific uses of a specific source is we get a better feel for the source over time. We also avoid the case, where just a few discussions result in a "conclusion" that is then enshrined in the RSP list. Personally, I think the standard should be at least 5 discussions but certainly not when we don't have any previous discussions. Springee (talk) 02:15, 4 April 2023 (UTC)
Further, there is no actual dispute over the use of the source in any article. I can find only one article in which it is currently being used as a reference. There is zero context for an RFC. Banks Irk (talk) 02:21, 4 April 2023 (UTC)
  • Oppose, not only has there not been enough discussion on the site, but they don't have a page of their own and are known for making listicles and sponsored content so it fails to pass WP:SPONSORED. Scu ba (talk) 03:33, 6 April 2023 (UTC)
  • Oppose I am bothered by the use of this discussion board and of RSP to "pre-approve" a canonical list of sources. It is not intended for such. This board is to resolve genuine disputes over the use of a source, not really a place to get something preemptively approved or preemptively banned. Apply the criteria at WP:RS and decide for yourself if using any particular source (including this one) is appropriate. --Jayron32 16:13, 17 April 2023 (UTC)

Discussion

  • Support this only because I was confused by searching for Stacker in the chart at WP:RSP and hitting only Stack Exchange. Don't know if anybody else would have the same problem. I'm not impressed by the site's content but only by the editor, Mr. Cohen. -SusanLesch (talk) 15:36, 4 April 2023 (UTC)
    RSP is not a canonical list of sources. It only list those which have generated repeated controversy (they are perennially discussed). --Jayron32 16:13, 17 April 2023 (UTC)
If someone is searching and not finding things then it could be helpful to have an entry. --Emir of Wikipedia (talk) 21:37, 6 May 2023 (UTC)

Determining the reliability of Max Arthur Maculiffe and "Guru Ki Saakiyan"

There is currently a disagreement on the talk page of the Second Siege of Anandpur [36]. Input regarding the reliability of Max Arthur Macauliffe's works and this book [37] would be greatly appreciated. Please consult the talk page for information about these 2 sources + additional context.

My position is that I'm unsure of whether or not Macauliffe's stature as an academic scholar would supersede concerns regarding the age of his works (which were all published in 1909) and whether Guru Ki Saakhiyan, which was a text written by a bard in 1790, that was later republished, revised and re-edited, is appropriate for inclusion. Southasianhistorian8 (talk) 11:21, 9 May 2023 (UTC)

Edit: Pinging CanadianSingh1469 for his input. Southasianhistorian8 (talk) 12:22, 9 May 2023 (UTC)

Vishwakarma Brahmins are Brahmins!!!

[38] The book clearly describes of Vishwakarma being Brahmins but still somehow people are spreading the other way round. Where the authors themselves cannot prove of Vishwakarma not being Brahmins. Request yo go through the articles of Vishwakarma actually being Brahmins. Nehasharma999 (talk) 19:11, 7 May 2023 (UTC)

Or maybe Wikipedia should just delete all articles on caste entirely, on the basis that this is the 21st century, and we shouldn't be perpetuating this nonsense... AndyTheGrump (talk) 19:19, 7 May 2023 (UTC)
If this works, then I propose we delete all of the articles on war. Worth a shot, right? Thebiguglyalien (talk) 14:54, 8 May 2023 (UTC)
Deletion won't work in either cases. Articles on castes should be redirected to here and articles on wars there. So instead of reading about some bullshit, people would read about how it should be. USS Cola!rado🇺🇸 (C⭐T) 16:13, 9 May 2023 (UTC)
@Nehasharma999: The book you link to is just a reprint of a 1857 treatise on the origins of brahmins. That alone would disqualify it as a usable source an castes on wikipedia but fwiw I could not find any information about the author, or any reviews or even citations to the work. Somewhat related: see my reply to your post at Talk:Vishwakarma (caste). Abecedare (talk) 20:16, 7 May 2023 (UTC)

Dubiousness of Indian sources w.r.t Pakistan

In summary: Indian sources peddle unverified misinformation to paint Pakistan in a bad light - whether this is out of maliciousness or incompetence, we should consider deprecating or deeming them generally unreliable for Pakistan-related matters.

Indian sources (especially nowadays) have a bad track record of reporting on matters related to Pakistan, to put it lightly.

Last week, Indian media and bigots on social media were peddling a false troll post which claimed Pakistanis have to lock their graves in cages to stop necrophiles from raping the corpses.

A twitter user, who worryingly seems to have put more effort into verifying this than the collective Indian media, debunked[ this false claim - the grave was from India. Fact checkers have, in the last 24 hours, started picking up on this.[1][2][3]

Indian sources which peddled this misinformation include seemingly "reliable" sources - Hindustan Times, NDTV, ThePrint, India Today, News18, Firstpost, Wion, IndiaTV, Times of India, DNA India, OpIndia, News24, ABP News, Amar Ujala, Jagran, and Mirror Now.[4]

The claim origniated from ANI, an Indian source which is part of a massive Indian propaganda campaign against Pakistan. This isn't the first time Indian sources have spread misinformation. A while back they (again, including "reliable" sources like Hindustan Times, News18, India Today, etc.) published a doctored video of a Pakistani official - these fabricated Indian reports were cited on high traffic pages on Wikipedia as well.

The fact that Indian sources, including supposedly reliable ones, don't bother to verify the content they publish to their massive audience - be it due to malice or incompetence - seriously brings into question their credibility. Solblaze (talk) 16:57, 1 May 2023 (UTC)

There may be reasons to doubt some Indian sources on Pakistan, and other topics in view of the deterioration of democratic norms in India, but I think this is probably presented too generally to be useful. Boynamedsue (talk) 02:55, 3 May 2023 (UTC)
That happens a lot here, especially around topics where there are "sides". Emir of Wikipedia (talk) 21:48, 6 May 2023 (UTC)
One shudders at the thought of how much unverified junk these sources peddle unnoticed. Solblaze (talk) 11:31, 7 May 2023 (UTC)
Solblaze, some of the sources you have brought up are not considered reliable already, for other there has been not been much discussions. OpIndia (RSP entry) is not only considered generally unreliable, it is deprecated and blacklisted, and is not being used anywhere. Then there is The Times of India (RSP entry) and the news agency Asian News International, i.e ANI (RSP entry) which are considered poor sources and can only really be used in uncontroversial areas if at all.
If you believe a source is unreliable and yet is being used, then bring them up individually. We can not classify all or a large number of Indian sources as not reliable carte blanche without any attempts to be discerning. Tayi Arajakate Talk 05:08, 8 May 2023 (UTC)
I agree with you. Apart from the weakening of India's democracy, Pakistan and India have been at odds over religion. In this political situation, I do not think that India's media will provide reliable news about Pakistan, and I should not trust it. Kloyan.L (talk) 07:30, 8 May 2023 (UTC)
  • Comment I think these sources are relatively unreliable. For example, the source of information is Hindustan Times, which is controlled by the Birla family, India's largest capitalist. And the newspaper supports the Congress (Indira Faction) government. And in the history of this newspaper, a lot of information appeared false news. is not trustworthy. And there is some promotional information in the source, which goes against the characteristics of reliable sources on Wikipedia.Hhhh2 (talk) 07:41, 8 May 2023 (UTC)
?? Birla family is not "India's largest capitalist" neither is that relevant to reliability, India doesn't even have a Congress government and "Congress (Indira faction)" hasn't existed since the 80s. Looking at the specific incident brought up by OP, the source of information is also not Hindustan Times, it's an ANI feed. Tayi Arajakate Talk 09:28, 8 May 2023 (UTC)
  • Comment ANI seems to have posted a follow up clarifying that the image was not from Pakistan. The ultimate origin of the story is Pakistani newspaper Daily Times’ report. The entire story isn’t fake—according to the report there is a rise in necrophilia in Pakistan forcing some people to put fences around their daughters’ graves, the particular image however most certainly was used in a very misleading way, the padlock claim is false and comes from the tweet whose poster seems to have taken great liberty in modifying the story for twitter virality. Not sure if this incident could be used to categorise all or a large section of Indian media as “unreliable.” UnpetitproleX (talk) 21:31, 9 May 2023 (UTC)

References

  1. ^ [Altnews]
  2. ^ [Geo.tv]
  3. ^ PakObserver
  4. ^ [Altnews]

Reliability of theafricareport

While looking at WP:BEFORE for the AfD of Abed Chaudhury, I came across an article about him from a website called https://www.theafricareport.com.

Do any others have any experience or knowledge regarding this website ? Is it a reliable source ? Jack4576 (talk) 14:23, 10 May 2023 (UTC)

The Africa Report is a notable publication, issued by the Jeune Afrique group which is a major media outlet in Africa and producer of quality publications. It's not a scientific journal, but clearly a mainstream publication with indepth coverage of topics. --Soman (talk) 14:32, 10 May 2023 (UTC)
Thank you Soman Jack4576 (talk) 15:40, 10 May 2023 (UTC)
Agree with Soman, The Africa Report and the larger Jeune Afrique network are reliable. Jeune Afrique does some of the best reporting on the continent. Horse Eye's Back (talk) 16:58, 10 May 2023 (UTC)
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