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The Advertiser (Adelaide)

Hello, this is my first time posting on this particular page. I was wondering whether or not this source was considered generally reliable. I did not find many discussions about it in the archives, none of which went in-depth about its reliability. From what research I have done it appears to be a tabloid affiliated with News Corp, whose New York Post is considered generally unreliable at Wikipedia:Reliable sources/Perennial sources. It also appears to have a conservative slant, but that of course doesn't make a source unreliable. There also appears to be some regional difference in the use of the word "tabloid" that I, as an American, may just not fully understand.

For context, I have raised my concerns about the source at Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Angela Fimmano and Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Stella Rigon. My arguments were generally more concerned with the significance of the coverage for the former, but I still wanted additional input on the use of this source generally. I appreciate the input! Jay eyem (talk) 16:13, 28 November 2020 (UTC)

IDK, it doesn't seem to be mentioned in surveys of trust in the press[1] (t · c) buidhe 16:30, 28 November 2020 (UTC)

The Australian Murdoch tabloids print a lot of the same stories and have a fairly standard company editorial line, so it should be ranked as they are. I'm really not sure how reliable this group of papers would be for news content. As far as I know, they aren't given to straight-up fabrication like The Sun does in the UK. They run a lot of tabloid personal attacks on public figures who are out of favour with News Corp; I'm not sure that content is specifically lies as such, but I'm also not convinced it's encyclopedic. The opinion articles (Andrew Bolt, etc) contain a lot of trash I wouldn't want near Wikipedia - science denialism and so on.

So I'd treat the lot of them with attributed caution - David Gerard (talk) 19:41, 28 November 2020 (UTC)

Tabloid format, not tabloid. Reliable for news content. Opinion content should be attributed. - Ryk72 ^talk 20:59, 28 November 2020 (UTC)

No, I'd say they're unequivocally tabloid by content too - David Gerard (talk) 22:50, 28 November 2020 (UTC)

I'm reliably informed that the apropos Antipodean phrase is "yeah. nah.". It's just not tabloid in the same sense as the British tabloids, Daily Mail & Sun, the NY Post, or Germany's Bild.- Ryk72 ^talk 03:55, 29 November 2020 (UTC)

Reliable for the football scores. News is very selective. When its beloved Liberal Party does something really bad and embarrassing, it will ignore that and have a banner headline sensationalising something minor the Labor Party did some time in the past fifty years as a disastrously negative event. HiLo48 (talk) 22:47, 28 November 2020 (UTC)

Broadly agree with HiLo48 and David Gerard. The opinion stuff is just nonsense and shouldn't be used for anything on Wikipedia. The news (on political matters at least) is highly selective and biased in favour of the conservative Liberal Party incumbent in South Australia, as is generally the case with all Murdoch papers in Australia. Generally, for the last couple of decades the general news content is only "generally reliable" and for anything controversial at all, especially politics, it should be attributed as "the Rupert Murdoch-owned The Advertiser newspaper". Peacemaker67 (click to talk to me) 23:47, 28 November 2020 (UTC)

Selectivity in coverage is not the same as unreliability of coverage. If it were, we would have to exclude a large range of sources. Are there any examples of the Advertiser having produced false or erroneous content, which was not later retracted? - Ryk72 ^talk 02:42, 29 November 2020 (UTC)

• Reliable - I am an Australian so am familiar with this. I don't see why this can't be treated in exactly the same way as Wikipedia:Reliable sources/Perennial sources#The Australian, Australia's national Murdoch-owned newspaper. The Advertiser is a newspaper with a long history and is Adelaide's main newspaper. For news articles there are generally no concerns, opinion articles and contentious political issues need to be treated with caution (as they do in lots of papers) - I think putting it as "nonsense" is too harsh. Deus et lex (talk) 02:39, 29 November 2020 (UTC)

I to am an Australian and I agree with Deus et lex. --Bduke (talk) 03:09, 29 November 2020 (UTC)

• The Australian is rated middle of the pack for trust, around 56% trust it[2] The trust of Advertiser is not rated so it can't be established to be of equal reliability. (t · c) buidhe 03:41, 29 November 2020 (UTC)

Consumer trust, as measured in this survey, is not the same as reliability of sources in the Wikipedia sense. Notwithstanding this, The Australian is rated as the most trusted named Australian newspaper, comparing favourably with such bastions of reliability as BBC News 66% & The Guardian online 49%. The category of local & regional newspapers, which includes The Advertiser, actually scores higher at 63%. - Ryk72 ^talk 03:50, 29 November 2020 (UTC)

It's as reliable in the same way The Australian is reliable. I'm Australian. It's not tabloid in the same sense as the UK tabloids, as it's tabloid-format. And it's the only statewide and city wide print publication for this capital city. So removing it from RS's would seriously restrict citable wiki content relating to Sth Aust. CatCafe (talk) 05:30, 29 November 2020 (UTC)

You have perfectly emphasised the problem I outlined BELOW, before you moved this comment away from this response. Thank you. It's from Murdoch, who controls 70% of Australia's media, and 100% of SA's print media. We still have every right to say it's unreliable. HiLo48 (talk) 05:36, 29 November 2020 (UTC)

not related to reliability of source

HiLo48, I was not discussing this issue with you. You're looking argumentative, and no one said you didn't have the right to say it's unreliable. As such, goodbye. CatCafe (talk) 06:11, 29 November 2020 (UTC) What's with the antagonism? You are making public comments on a public page of a site on the WORLD WIDE Web. Pretty sure anyone can respond. HiLo48 (talk) 06:41, 29 November 2020 (UTC) And HiLo48, you're suggesting/accusing others of saying you don't have the right to say it's unreliable. No one said that and thus you're being antagonistic. Take it up with someone who actually said that about you - i.e. no-one. Goodbye. CatCafe (talk) 06:49, 29 November 2020 (UTC) I did not say that, but YOU said "I don't converse with HiLo48" and "I was not discussing this issue with you. You're looking argumentative..." I can't reember interactions we've apparently had in the past. I didn't have any negative thoughts about you, so I have no idea what your issue is. I shall leave it to others to judge, and recommended that you talk about the topic rather than me. HiLo48 (talk) 04:26, 30 November 2020 (UTC) HiLo48, you started on me with "We still have every right to say it's unreliable" as if I (or someone else) had said you couldn't claim unreliability - you imagined that. You think every comment on this thread is made toward you - you're simply not that compelling. Thanks for proving my claim that you're argumentative, and please stick to the subject and stop making faux-victim, ridiculous claims. CatCafe (talk) 08:23, 30 November 2020 (UTC) "We" referred to Wikipedia. You are the only person who has made this about me. HiLo48 (talk) 21:07, 30 November 2020 (UTC)

• As is the case in general with Murdoch's Australian publications, and as other Australian editors have pointed out, The Advertiser has a noted conservative slant and thus their politics and opinion content should be treated with that slant in mind.

Media Watch, a media-criticism program by the publicly-funded Australian Broadcasting Corporation, critiqued The Advertiser in 2010 for its uncritical republication of PR fluff (transcript), and noted a 2009 analysis, run jointly by Crikey and students from the Australian Centre for Independent Journalism, that examined the proportion of PR-driven content in about 2000 articles from Australian newspapers, including 181 pieces from the print edition of The Advertiser.

It found that about 34% of these articles were PR content "where no significant journalism work was done" – the highest percentage of any newspaper examined, above the overall Australian average (around 25%), and significantly above some other News Corp publications such as The Australian (19%), the Australian Financial Review (20%) and the Herald Sun (23%). For AfD purposes, this implies a need to carefully check articles in The Advertiser for independence before they can be used to satisfy WP:GNG or WP:NCORP.

Media Watch has also run two other segments critical of the accuracy of The Advertiser (transcript 1, transcript 2), but they are relatively old, and in one case the newspaper ran a more accurate piece the next day (although the earlier article was not explicitly noted and corrected).

As is the case for many newspapers nowadays, articles and headlines can be sensationalist or gossipy, but The Advertiser isn't incredibly poor in this regard – when comparing its website to e.g. the Daily Mail Australian edition, it seems fairly restrained.

For articles unaffected by these issues (general news, sports etc.) I don't see any particular reason to avoid The Advertiser. – Teratix ₵ 05:07, 29 November 2020 (UTC)

It's worth noting that NewsCorp controls around 70% of Australia's mainstream media, meaning both that its consumers are unlikely to see conflicting perspectives on the world (this includes what editors choose to promote as important), and that it's hard to find sources telling us its outlets are poor sources. HiLo48 (talk) 05:07, 29 November 2020 (UTC)

I can find sourcing for NewsCorp having a reach of 70%, and controlling about 58% of newspapers,[3] but not for 70% of Australia's mainstream media, a field which would also include a strong state-owned media presence. Is there a source supporting the 70% figure? - Ryk72 ^talk 06:28, 29 November 2020 (UTC)

I'm happy to go with "reach", although my point stands. HiLo48 (talk) 06:39, 29 November 2020 (UTC)

I went back through the sources, looking to see how that reach compares to other publishers, and it looks like I actually misread this source in Sydney Morning Herald.[4] A mistake for which I sincerely apologise. The 70% was for Nine, not NewsCorp. NewsCorp claims 14-16 million, which would be about 55-62% reach. State owned broadcaster ABC reaches 68% across its platforms. It's a very concentrated media market, but it's by no means a monopoly; and consumers don't appear to be only exposed to NewsCorp's perspective. - Ryk72 ^talk 09:50, 29 November 2020 (UTC)

Many are, because thy choose to be. One only has to read what Liberal Party voters say about the ABC to know that. And it's worth noting that Nine Entertainment is owned by a company chaired by Peter Costello, former Federal Treasurer from the Liberal Party. This is NOT a balanced media market. HiLo48 (talk) 04:29, 30 November 2020 (UTC)

Reliable Australian tabloids are not UK tabloids. Nor are they US tabloids. While they're more focused towards entertainment and sport than the broadsheets and they have a predilection for SHOCKING HEADLINES they don't make stuff up. Certainly biased but that generally isn't considered relevant to reliability; with the possibly exception of the AFR all Australian newspapers are partisan. --RaiderAspect (talk) 23:58, 29 November 2020 (UTC)

I'm sorry, but they DO make stuff up. See Herald Sun#Greens and drugs for one example that went to the Australian Press Council. I have seen many more examples. And the AFR is almost as bad. HiLo48 (talk) 04:34, 30 November 2020 (UTC)

I'm... honestly not sure what to say to that. You believe that the Australian Financial Review fabricates stories? --RaiderAspect (talk) 06:41, 30 November 2020 (UTC)

I cannot find a source for the claim "And the AFR is almost as bad". And I recall that all major papers in Australia have at one point in time or another have been reported to the Press Council and had to correct the record. CatCafe (talk) 08:37, 30 November 2020 (UTC)

Reliable I'm from Adelaide, where The Advertiser is the local metropolitan daily newspaper; it's also the owner of Messenger Newspapers, 9 free suburban weekly newspapers together covering the Adelaide metropolitan area, which used to be printed, but are now digital-only due to the COVID-19 economic downturn. I have a long-standing interest in press clippings, which I've previously reported elsewhere. I gave up my subscription the The Advertiser a number of years ago, in part because of the biased content of its opinion pages - the platform it gives to not only Andrew Bolt, but also other conservative commentators such as Alexander Downer, Nicolle Flint, etc. The forerunner of The Advertiser commenced in the mid-19th Century and during that time was more progressive, but this changed after ownership passed to the Bonython family, who were prominent members of the conservative Adelaide Establishment. Rupert Murdoch acquired full control in 1987, and in 1997 the format of The Advertiser was changed from broadsheet to tabloid format. From 2013 most of its digital content went behind a paywall, which also includes access to its digital archives. News Corp.'s declining revenues have resulted in job losses. Overall, IMHO, quantity and some quality of news (and sport) content have declined to some extent, but are still relatively reliable. Due to News Corp.'s Adelaide media monopoly, the only alternative local news sources (apart from TV networks and their associated websites) are online - ABC News (Australia), the public broadcaster, and InDaily. I prefer to use these two websites as refs for article I edit on Wikipedia, not least because their articles are not paywalled; however, due to their more limited resources, they don't have the breadth of coverage that The Advertiser still retains. Bahudhara (talk) 07:25, 30 November 2020 (UTC)

Nice, irrelevant history lesson, but breadth of coverage and having a monopoly say nothing about whether it's reliable. HiLo48 (talk) 21:10, 30 November 2020 (UTC)

Many of The Advertiser's articles are sourced straight from the Daily Mail.

I guess it's old, but on 4 Feb 2010, the headline was "Hole in Abbot's ozone layer plan". The article was about Abbot's greenhouse gas plan. Adrian J. Hunter^{(talk•contribs)} 13:41, 30 November 2020 (UTC)

Headlines are not reliable... no matter what paper we are talking about. Blueboar (talk) 21:30, 30 November 2020 (UTC)

• Reliable It's not a 'scholarly' newspaper at all (I don't mean left or right-wing) but in the sense that they report on lots of gimmicky topics eg random fashion/feel-good stuff, too much weight on sports content, acts as though AFL is the most important thing ever, but the reports on infrastructure projects, schools, new roads etc are pretty standard stuff. There is a difference between the standard news and pundits. Bumbubookworm (talk) 00:16, 3 December 2020 (UTC)

Fox News on Marjorie Taylor Greene

Does this Fox News article, which states "Her goals include outlawing abortion, protecting gun rights and fighting "big tech censorship" of conservative viewpoints.", support the statement "Greene supports criminalizing abortion." for the Marjorie Taylor Greene article? Fox News is yellow for politics, and Greene is a living person, but if Fox is simply repeating what Greene told them, it's probably accurate, right? feminist (talk) 04:00, 2 December 2020 (UTC)

Outlawing and criminalizing are synonyms so I don’t see an issue with accuracy... I’d say that BLP wise this is on the edge, abortion is both a social and political issue although it seems that Greene focuses on it as a political rather than a social issue so I would say this falls under politics and I would look for a stronger source for the statement. Horse Eye's Back (talk) 15:20, 2 December 2020 (UTC)

https://www.marjorietaylorgreene.com/why-marjorie/ "DEFEND THE UNBORN Every life is precious — period. Unborn children should not be condemned to a painful death for the mere crime of being “inconvenient.” Marjorie will fight to end abortion-on-demand by co-sponsoring the Life at Conception Act and stop taxpayer funding of abortion." Primary source to verify plus Fox to show that an important independent source cares about it.--GRuban (talk) 00:27, 3 December 2020 (UTC)

Thanks, I'll restore this to the article. "Supports outlawing abortion" is much stronger than "opposing abortion" and should be mentioned to give it adequate weight. feminist (talk) 13:13, 3 December 2020 (UTC)

Circumcision Information and Resource Page

The "Circumcision Information and Resource Page" (cirp.org) has a "reference library" (cirp.org/library/) which is linked 750 times from the English wikipedia.[5] It hosts third-party publications such as book extracts and journal articles on the topic of circumcision.

Some issues:

• The third-pary material seems to be re-presented to conform to cirp.org's look & feel, which raises the question of whether it's a correct copy. As a self-published site, cirp.org is itself not WP:MEDRS, but are re-purposed articles reliable copies?
• Probably more importantly, there is no sign the site has permission to reproduce the copyrighted materials of third-parties, which it carries. So for example this seems to be a clone of the paywalled article here, with the activist talking points usefully highlighted in the cirp.org re-presentation.

Thought on what to do about this? An entry in WP:RSP and/or blacklisting? Whatever, it seems like some cleanup is needed. Alexbrn (talk) 08:06, 2 December 2020 (UTC)

• NOPE, do not use. There's no way this site is MEDRS compliant. Always cite the published final version of papers whenever possible. (t · c) buidhe 12:46, 2 December 2020 (UTC)
• Looks like a fringe advocacy group pushing some questionable science. I would say thats a hard no, they appear to be highly unreliable. We’ve had this issue with similar fringe groups like the anti-vaxxers and the race-human intelligence folks. In general the sources they gather are on the outermost edge of mainstream academia, an attempt to build an article using primarily sources they’ve cherrypicked (as appears to have happened at Circumcision controversies) will always lead to serious WP:DUE and WP:NPOV issues. Horse Eye's Back (talk) 14:53, 2 December 2020 (UTC)
• It appears to me that the right course of action is to redirect references from cirp.org to the scientific publishers' own websites. For example, all the content in the Ridged band article was recently deleted and the article made into a redirect. But it would have been trivial to just change the urls in the references to the publishers' websites. ImTheIP (talk) 15:21, 2 December 2020 (UTC)
  • There were other problems at Ridged band (namely that it's a borderline fringe concept rather dismissed in the WP:MEDRS I could find, although it had been woven into many Wikipedia article as though it was an accepted anatomical fact). Most of the material copied at the cirp.org site is not WP:MEDRS - but that is a separate problem. Alexbrn (talk) 15:55, 2 December 2020 (UTC)
    • Really? A "borderline fringe concept" I can easily verify the existence of at my own leisure (and pleasure)? In this edit, the claim "The prepuce, including the ridged band, is a specific erogenous zone." was deleted because its www.cirp.org source was not WP:MEDRS-compliant. But the same article is also published on the National Library of Medicine's website and it would have been trivial to update the link. ImTheIP (talk) 16:40, 2 December 2020 (UTC)

      ImTheIP, Even if the link were updated, that is still using a source from 1959 for biomed content. MrOllie (talk) 16:45, 2 December 2020 (UTC)

Which is WP:MEDRS-compliant. A more industrious editor could, of course, have spent some time and found a more recent source attesting to the fact that the "ridged band" indeed is an erogenous zone. For example [6], [7], or [8]. ImTheIP (talk) 17:03, 2 December 2020 (UTC)

ImTheIP. WP:MEDRS sources generally need to be secondary and recent. This is getting off-topic but yes, the term "ridged band" seems to have been taken up by John Taylor in the 1990s and became part of the circumcision activist lore (another vital anatomical structure that circumcision destroys!). Indeed on the front page of cirp.org viewers are encouraged to visit the "Ridged Band" web site. Yet, if we get up-to-date, the term seems to have no lasting mainstream currency and the only recent WP:MEDRS secondary independent source I can find (Cox et al. 2015. PMID 26185672) had this to say:

The “ridged band” seems to be a name used for the concertinaed distal skin that becomes stretched for retraction over the glans. We consider that such a conformation is merely a matter of individual idiosyncrasy and not a universal feature. Furthermore, different illustrations of the so-called “ridged band” do not appear to show the same structure ...

So presenting it as a fact in Wikipedia, even identifying it (as something different even from the sources) on the opening image caption of our Foreskin article (before I zapped it) was, to put it mildly, problematic. Alexbrn (talk) 17:08, 2 December 2020 (UTC)

@ImTheIP: are you really suggesting we use "Bodily Integrity and the Politics of Circumcision” or did you not do any due diligence on those sources? Horse Eye's Back (talk) 17:31, 2 December 2020 (UTC)

• Anyway, this is getting way off-topic. While I'm sure something brief and WP:DUE could be said in Foreskin about the "ridged band" (aka "Taylor's Band") both from Taylors' and other sources, this does not answer the question about what we do about cirp.org, and the evident crapload of WP:COPYLINKS we've got. Alexbrn (talk) 17:37, 2 December 2020 (UTC)

There is nothing in the WP:MEDRS guidelines that prohibits using a source published in 1959. And as demonstrated, finding more recent sources for the statement in question was trivial. It took me 15 minutes but I'm sure an expert could have gotten it done even quicker. Here are three more sources that reference the ridged band:

• The forgotten foreskin and its ridged band (Taylor 2007)
• Vital or vestigial? The foreskin has its fans and foes (Collier 2011)
• Circumcision of newborn boys (Van Howe & Cold 1999)

The three pro-circumcision authors Alexbrn cites, Guy Cox, Brian J. Morris, and John N. Krieger, who denies its existence, appears to be in the minority. Regardless, the correct course of action is to "upgrade" links to cirp.org to links to publishers' websites. Perhaps some would instead prefer to delete every statement sourced to cirp.org. I strenuously object. ImTheIP (talk) 18:55, 2 December 2020 (UTC)

ImTheIP: you're wrong about source age; see WP:MEDDATE. I'm not sure quite how you decided that the authors of PMID 26185672 were "pro-circumcision"; generally we reflect sources rather than carry out amateur peer-review to try and undercut them. But in any case, to repeat: this does not answer the question about what we do about cirp.org, and the evident crapload of WP:COPYLINKS we've got. Alexbrn (talk) 19:05, 2 December 2020 (UTC)

No, I'm not. WP:MEDDATE refers to surveys and similar in areas where scientific consensus changes rapidly. It is not applicable in this situation. With the risk of running afoul of WP:BLUDGEON: "Regardless, the correct course of action is to "upgrade" links to cirp.org to links to publishers' websites." Is that solution unsatisfying? ImTheIP (talk) 19:16, 2 December 2020 (UTC)

Now you're making it up. WP:MEDDATE is not about "surveys", but says "In many topics, a review that was conducted more than five or so years ago will have been superseded by more up-to-date ones, and editors should try to find those ...". We want up-to-date reviews, such as PMID 26185672. We don't sources from 1959, or - what you listed - old letters, which are never WP:MEDRS. When a hosted source on cirp.org is not WP:MEDRS is needs to go and/or be updated. But this still does not answer the question. Do the WP:COPYVIO links need to be WP:REVDEL'd for instance? Alexbrn (talk) 19:24, 2 December 2020 (UTC)

Speaking of amateur peer-review with reference to at least B J Morris: he very much is an advocate of circumcision. His website is a bit of a clue, as is the fact he has published pretty much nothing but a a string of papers, or signed onto such papers. His personal testimony has to be said to be at the very least self promotional. He is also the founder of Circumcision Academy of Australia which is (to quote) "The Only Australian Medical Organisation Devoted to Male Circumcision". Cox is in the same boat. No idea about Krieger, but at least he has credentials in the right subject matter. In short, reliance on B J Morris articles would be a concern just because he effectively runs a paper-mill of self referential articles and mates of his. Koncorde (talk) 19:55, 2 December 2020 (UTC)

That was a topic of much discussion at the Circumcision article, not least on its progress to WP:GA and the general consensus was, per policy, that Wikipedia follows sources and does not allow editors to think they know better than reputable journals how to cope with any WP:COI of academics (that way madness lies). And in any case in science terms the framing of "pro-circumcision" is somewhat skin to "pro-vaccine" in that the science seems clear and the controversy (such as it is, since RS is generally never absolutely "pro" circumcision) in enacted mostly within a cranky unscientific milieu, rather than in the WP:BESTSOURCES. But this is all wildly off-topic for this noticeboard question. Alexbrn (talk) 20:04, 2 December 2020 (UTC)

Penis vaccination? That's a patently absurd comparison. Morris's positions are extensively out of line with the consensus of Western medical organizations. Not even the American AAP — by far the most positive of any on the issue — does not recommend routine neonatal circumcision of newborn males. I know about the ridged band. I personally have one. It's personally very sensitive. It's indisputable that this erogenous area is removed in pretty much any form of circumcision. How does this impact sexual pleasure? The impact probably varies pretty significantly. Some men may have extremely sensitive bands. Some men may have pretty dull ones. But the fact that it's generally an erogenous zone for most men (like the frenulum) is out of the question. As for the science? It can not give a position on circumcision. It may show there is erogenous tissue (and zone) loss. It may show that it prevents against certain diseases. But "science" can not give an ethical framework on whether it is ethical to routinely deploy on newborns. It seems pretty clear that the position of medical organizations are influenced significantly by their circumcision status. But European medical organizations (or even American ones) generally don't refer to circumcision as an overwhelmingly effective vaccine against UTI's, penile cancer, and most sexually transmitted diseases. The only current promotion has been for HIV prevention in Sub-Saharan Africa: which has little relevance for a developed country such as the United States, Spain, United Kingdom, et al. Is every medical organization in the world except the United States wrong? Opposition to routine neonatal circumcision in the developed world is a pretty clear majority among Western medical organizations. So the comparison to vaccines (which are known to be extremely effective in the prevention of disease) is absurdly ridiculous. AttaAx (talk) 20:20, 2 December 2020 (UTC)

So far as I know we don't use Morris's web site (it would be as problematic - in the other direction - as cirp.org), but try to stick to WP:MEDRS. Personal opinions are similarly irrelevant. This still does not answer the question of what happens to this stack of copyright-violating links we seem to have accumulated. Alexbrn (talk) 20:40, 2 December 2020 (UTC)

Yeah, I don't really have a strong opinion on CIRP. But I think there's a good argument for keeping the frenular/ridged band page. It's indisputably a highly erogenous area of the penis. And it's been referenced in multiple pieces of scientific literature. Morris's position on it is extremely, extremely fringe. AttaAx (talk) 20:44, 2 December 2020 (UTC)

I'm not suggesting we don't follow sources. I am suggesting the denial of Morris (and others) as being "circumcision advocates" if we don't like "pro" is kinda misleading. And by "kinda" I of course mean entirely. I don't deny the other named authors work that he cites (and would advocate using), usually in their very specific analysis of a specific question, but I also see WP:MBIAS as definitely a factor with Morris presentation of such work as a cohesive argument to circumcise every male at the optimum time. And there is criticism of his stance and at least one editor resigned and there's who joyfully describes Morris as a "long-standing advocate of mass circumcision" (albeit quoting someone else) which make quite charged allegations. Koncorde (talk) 20:50, 2 December 2020 (UTC)

There's no denying it's a bitter and fraught area, that researchers take different positions, and that Morris is a bogey man for some. However, once we start setting aside peer review and replacing it with what Wikipedia editors believe they can tell about the reliability of published science through their investigations into the views of the authors, we are lost. Alexbrn (talk) 04:57, 3 December 2020 (UTC)

Bitter and fraught is irrelevant; I am not making any emotional appeal, however WP:MBIAS is clear. It's not a case of reliability of published science (the underlying sources he routinely uses are sound, though of limited utility). It is his advocacy in writing his own papers and association (and founding membership) of groups with the intent of milling his own papers theough the peer review process routinely taking other peoples science to create a new synthetic conclusion (even down to re-citing himself). But I digress as that isn't even my point.

All I am making clear is that in the end you said he isn't a pro-circumsion advocate. This is incorrect even by his own Primary Source statements of fact, and then his entire body of work and own advocacy group. Using Morris as exemplary recent science is at best questionable. Koncorde (talk) 13:39, 3 December 2020 (UTC)

Except I didn't say that, but I do question how a three-author paper is written off on the basis that the three authors are labelled "pro-circumcision". Nor did I invoke "exemplary" science. We are bound to use high-quality sources and not do opposition research to try and supplant the peer-review process or the publisher's decision to publish. Going down that rabbit hole could then lead to deciding Taylor's work was a ruse to back his own anti-circumcision advocacy, or that the people criticising Morris are maligning him as he thwarts their agenda. We are not here to WP:RGW, all we can do in such cases is to cite what Wikipedia considers to be RS, and hope that adequately presents the state of knowledge on the matter. Alexbrn (talk) 14:24, 3 December 2020 (UTC)

Alexbrn, This reminds me of lenr-canr.org, which is a site advocating for the existence of cold fusion and which was hosting a lot of copyright-violating copies of papers. If memory serves it was blacklisted for a while and the links purged, and after some time was removed from the blacklist again. MrOllie (talk) 20:42, 2 December 2020 (UTC)

The Daily Dot, what qualifies as internet culture, and whether it's only reliable for that.

There has been disagreement over whether and how to use this source on Andy Ngo, as well as, to a lesser extent, this and this. The basic dispute has been over whether those fall under "internet culture", what internet culture means in an era where everything is online, and so on; but I wanted to ask a more general question of whether the WP:RS/P statement that The Daily Dot is considered generally reliable for Internet culture is meant to be exclusive or whether it merely means they are particularly reliable for internet culture but still reliable in general and, if the latter is the case, whether the RSP entry should be edited to indicate that they are generally reliable. --Aquillion (talk) 21:40, 1 December 2020 (UTC)

• What defines internet culture is a good question. Perhaps we need to ping some of the editors who were involved in the previous discussions that resulted in the RSP summary. Perhaps we should also ask if this is a good source for making a controversial claim about a BLP. In this case DD is being used to make/support two claims in the article. One is that Ngo issued a misleading tweet because, according to the source, he didn't provide the full background regarding violence he witnessed.[[9]] So part of this claim is the source's opinion that Ngo witnessed yet decided not to report the background to the event. The second article effectively re-reports the claims of the Portland Mercury Blogtown report (PM is a local, alternative paper) [[10]]. The article strongly implies Ngo was aware of plans to attack a bar yet chose not to mention this. Both articles make controversial claims about a BLP subject. Do we consider the DD both reliable for such claims and to have sufficient weight to establish those claims as due? Note that much of this overlaps with an above Andy Ngo discussion. Springee (talk) 22:17, 1 December 2020 (UTC)

• Being "brutally assaulted" (Bellingcat wording) on the streets is not internet culture. Something like that needs very careful scrutiny for blp reasons and now low-tier sources. Although Ngo was not on the streets, the source is making a judgment who was the instigator in an alleged assault. --Pudeo (talk) 22:47, 1 December 2020 (UTC)

• My interpretation of that RSP entry combined with some of the other entries on RSP and what I know about the Daily Dot is not so much that the Daily Dot is reliable when they report on internet culture but not when they report on other things, but that the Daily Dot only reports on internet culture, and so while their reporting is reliable it should be interpreted in the context of internet culture even if it doesn't seem like it at first. (It's much like other sources marked as "reliable for" a particular topic like Ars Technica or The AV Club in this way.)

So for example, take this article about Ajit Pai stepping down. This seems in principle like it could be written about any administration official, but the fact that the source is the Daily Dot means it couldn't have: they're writing about Pai because he's the guy in charge of the organization that regulates the internet, not just as a government official. Loki (talk) 03:20, 2 December 2020 (UTC)

• What Loki says in the comment above generally aligns with my read of the earlier discussions and what I know of the Daily Dot: their reporting is generally reliable within the niche where they operate, though we shouldn't forget that they are niche rather than wide-interest. XOR'easter (talk) 20:11, 3 December 2020 (UTC)
  • So the question here is where is the limit of that niche. The question related to the FCC and say net neutrality, are very net specific. A discussion related to the rise of a new social media platform, a new web centric trend (planking), the way the web is shifting as people move from computers to smart phones as their primary interface with the web, etc seems like something that would be internet culture. However, would we accept it as a source if they ran an article claiming "Mr A has a long history of doxing critics in hopes they get attacked by the mob. Mr A doxxed Ms B because she said X"? I would argue that is no longer internet culture (even if doxxing is largely, but not exclusively, a web based thing) and instead is something about people. Or would we consider the DD reliable if they ran a story about how X Motor Company tried to hide a safety defect? How does it impact our opinion of the source if they are the originator of the story vs if they simply re-report what another source found ("Car Motor News reported that X Motor Company..."). Springee (talk) 20:28, 3 December 2020 (UTC)

• They are reliable for internet culture, which in the situation around Ngo would include right-leaning extremism but they should be recognized as a biased source as they are very much liberal leaning (this established well before considering these Ngo events). So where they talk about Internet things in general where there's no political slant ("hey cute cat videos are popular!") they're reliable, but when that wades into the online culture war, we should be a bit careful on their coverage and likely make sure any material is attributed to them and not said in wikivoice. --Masem (t) 20:21, 3 December 2020 (UTC)

Crunchbase News

I've seen ongoing discussions about using Crunchbase as a source, because it is a popular industry investor site for funding info. But none of the archived discussions distinguish between Crunchbase's user generated content, particularly their company databases and funding news collections, and their independent news reporting group, Crunchbase News.[[11]] I'd like to add a new entry at Wikipedia:Reliable sources/Perennial sources for Crunchbase News, just below Crunchbase, to distinguish the two, and would like to generate a consensus before choosing a status. While I've found their news reporting to be reliable, it would be fine to even start with a no consensus, similar to how TechCrunch is treated. This would at least keep the news sources from being dismissed outright, if they are considered guilty by association with Crunchbase's deprecated status, which also seems to have impacted the AfD perception of TechCrunch, due to the similar names. TimTempleton ^{(talk) (cont)} 23:13, 2 December 2020 (UTC)

news.crunchbase.com   is only used around 80 times, no opinion on content. 23:39, 3 December 2020 (UTC)

Daily Mail part 874

Could someone clarify the extent to which Some editors regard the Daily Mail as reliable historically, so old articles may be used in a historical context applies? Specifically, roughly how far back do "historically" and "old" mean? FDW777 (talk) 14:53, 3 December 2020 (UTC)

It's never been defined. The examples in WP:DAILYMAIL1 are St Paul's Survives (which it's used in) and the Ideal Home Exhibition (which it isn't). There were a couple of claims of historical usefulness in WP:DAILYMAIL2, from people who wanted the present-day version un-deprecated, so I'd question the usefulness of said claims for clarifying a consensus they were expressly opposed to.

Even then, in St Paul's Survives, arguably that's an WP:ABOUTSELF, as much as the big front-page picture on Enemies of the People (headline).

The era when it was supposedly good has never been defined in the three years since. I'd question whether it should have been included in the original RFC finding. Someone recently tried applying it as of 2013, which lol no - but DM advocates have tried it on with every applicable excuse, and inapplicable ones.

Some eras were arguably even worse than others, but that doesn't necessarily make the case that the other eras were actually good. Like the editors who made out that the Mail on Sunday was not the Daily Mail, therefore was a first-class generally reliable paper - when no it isn't, it's also a trashy lying tabloid and is now firmly deprecated also.

So I'd still apply the utmost of caution. 'Cos you know that the very first thing that will happen is a DM advocate trying to get the paper back into Wikipedia as broadly as possible through the hole in question, whether it's applicable or not - David Gerard (talk) 16:09, 3 December 2020 (UTC)

First, please note that we cannot trust any statements in the Daily Mail about the content of previous editions of the Daily Mail. They are known to lie about the contents of their own publications, even going so far as to photoshop real-looking pages with the old dates.

In my opinion, the unreliability goes back at least as far as 1970, when Vere Harmsworth, 3rd Viscount Rothermere relaunched the Daily Mail as a tabloid. Not sure about pre-1970. --Guy Macon (talk) 16:16, 3 December 2020 (UTC)

Please compare these headlines:

"Titanic Sunk. No Lives Lost. Collision with an Iceberg. Largest Ship in the World. 2,358 Lives in Peril. Rush of Liners to the Rescue. All Passengers Taken Off."

-- The Daily Mail, 16 April 1912

"The Titanic Sinks with 1,800 on Board; Only 675, Mostly Woman and Children, Saved."

--The New York Herald, 15 April, 1912

Source: www.paperlessarchives.com/titanic_newspaper_archive.html

If Wikipedia had been around in 1912, which of the above sources would you prefer that we had used? --Guy Macon (talk) 16:52, 3 December 2020 (UTC)

There is a reasonable issue of doubt here due to the communications level between US + UK, though, as pointed out that page: "Though not an uncommon mistake, the London Daily Mail ran the unfortunate headline on April 16, 1912, "Titanic Sunk. No Lives Lost. Collision with an Iceberg. Largest Ship in the World. 2,358 Lives in Peril. Rush of Liners to the Rescue. All Passengers Taken Off." Compare this to the New York Herald April 15, 1912 headline, "The Titanic Sinks with 1,800 on Board; Only 675, Mostly Woman and Children, Saved". Did the DM later correct that error? (Which we know today's DM does not do). We're talking print so obviously the time factor has to be considered here that the correction may have been in the 17 April paper. --Masem (t) 17:06, 3 December 2020 (UTC)

That said, if we were writing the Titanic article on 16 April and had all the sources that that archive gives, clearly the DM would be an outlier compared to the NYTimes and several of the other papers that page presents, and we'd simply use the majority "facts". We're still in the area of question of older information sources only to the DM well prior to 1970 (and affirming all future corrections/etc.) This [12] is an interesting pre-1940 history that points out, broadly it has had a conservative bent through that part of history and engage in political attacks, but nothing necessarily saying its factual reporting was false or made up, as compared to today. I fully agree that the 1970 conversion to tabloid format is at the bare minimum the point where post-1970 we should consider the work tainted. --Masem (t) 17:18, 3 December 2020 (UTC)

The first transatlantic telegraph cable was laid in 1858. The Daily Mail could have checked and seen what the New Your papers published the previous day. That being said, I agree that the Titanic report is not the smoking gun that shows them making things up before 1970 It was simply sloppy reporting, which we see in many sources. Given the information I have seen so far, I would classify the pre-1970 DM as biased but not unreliable.[13] We use biased sources all of the time. --Guy Macon (talk) 17:28, 3 December 2020 (UTC)

Yes, definitely at least biased in the area of British and European politics in late 19th-early 20th century period, that should be a careful warning to use without attribution. But there's still a post-1940, pre-1970 period I'm not clear on yet. --Masem (t) 17:36, 3 December 2020 (UTC)

FWIW, Erik Larsen's latest The Splendid and the Vile documents how the British government controlled the press and how the US had to break negative stories during Churchill's early years as PM. TimTempleton ^{(talk) (cont)} 18:20, 3 December 2020 (UTC)

On the specific question of Titanic reporting, see [14]. Any number of newspapers besides the Daily Mail got it wrong at first. Mackensen (talk) 01:03, 4 December 2020 (UTC)

CNBC / Cryptocurrency

I raised this briefly on the talk page, but it does not look like a determination has been made regarding the reliability of CNBC. More specifically, I'd like to cite an article covering cryptocurrency such as the following: Link

Related sources NBC and MSNBC have been determined to be reliable. David Gerard raised concerns because it is cryptocurrency coverage. There are currently community wide sanctions on all cryptocurrency-related sources under WP:GS/CRYPTO that were put in place in 2018. However, nearly three years later, cryptocurrency seems to be in a different place (less mania now and more institutional and regulatory buy-in). I can understand keeping these sanctions in place for a majority of smaller cryptocurrencies, but well known ones such as Bitcoin and Ethereum are receiving consistent coverage in perennial reliable sources such as Bloomberg, the NY Times and Forbes.

So my question: is CNBC a reliable source? If so, can it be used as a reliable source for cryptocurrency articles? If not, why the distinction? Thanks. HocusPocus00 (talk) 14:48, 2 December 2020 (UTC)

I treat CNBC as equivalent in reliability to its sister channels NBC News and MSNBC. I am not well-versed enough in the topic of cryptocurrency to comment on that, but I don't see why CNBC would be inferior to any other reputable general news source in the US. feminist (talk) 15:21, 2 December 2020 (UTC)

They ran a lot of blatant and terrible shilling for cryptocurrencies through 2017 and 2018, particularly courtesy Ran Neuner telling people to buy the shitcoin of the week on his segment. It was so bad that every crypto advocates made fun of it, and when they featured Bitcoin's recent price rise the joke was "oh no, guess it's gonna crash now." So yeah, I'd normally say it's a normal WP:NEWSORG, but on that topic I'd advise caution - David Gerard (talk) 15:39, 2 December 2020 (UTC)

Okay, so I think the concern regarding reliability comes in when they seemed to have been shilling cryptos in the past as opposed to covering just the news regarding them. I understand this concern. I've seen them do this with stocks also, and I think it's mostly present on their television shows like Mad Money. Regardless, it sounds like we are all in agreement that their news coverage overall is reliable. I think the articles like the one in my original post are fine, but let me know if anyone has any concerns. HocusPocus00 (talk) 14:35, 3 December 2020 (UTC)

References

Today we had the host stating "You’re not going to get fired anymore if you had some Bitcoin, but you might get fired if you didn’t." Echoing what the bitcoin-shilling guest "expert" was saying, but phrasing it better for him in her own words. Goodness me - David Gerard (talk) 19:57, 3 December 2020 (UTC)

Seems like generic commentary from the host and something you'd see most reporters from WP:NEWSORG do while conducting interviews. Regardless, I don't intend to cite to videos/shows like the above but rather their published news articles. HocusPocus00 (talk) 23:13, 3 December 2020 (UTC)

@HocusPocus00: I just read the article from start to finish twice. There are still things in it that make no sense to me, like the "sharded blockchain" quote. Overall, the entire article seems like either summations of press release material, or quotations from various Etherium or cryptocoin evangelists. My main question or concern on the particular article is that the list of interviewees or mentions is:

1. "proponents of Ethereum 2.0"
2. "Some crypto evangelists"
3. Konstantin Richter, CEO of blockchain software firm Blockdaemon
4. Jerome de Tychey, co-founder and president of Ethereum France

I don't know that it's crossing into the realm of unreliable, but I definitely feel after reading the article as if "Tech Reporter for @CNBCi" (per his Twitter self-description) Ryan Browne didn't give the reader a full or well-balanced view of the subject? IHateAccounts (talk) 23:32, 3 December 2020 (UTC)

@IHateAccounts: I agree with all of your points. The quotes in the article to explain sharding were terribly confusing. I think this is a result of the reporter speaking with folks who couldn't articulate complicated subjects in an easy to understand way. I think the reporter did a good job throughout the rest of the article explaining fairly difficult subject-matter however. HocusPocus00 (talk) 23:52, 3 December 2020 (UTC)

Is it possibly a wider problem of what happens when serious reporters try to cover what is historically a WP:FRINGE topic in general? The last I really saw of cryptocurrencies was John Oliver's segment [15]. IHateAccounts (talk) 04:02, 4 December 2020 (UTC)

@IHateAccounts:No, it's not WP:FRINGE, just new and esoteric. Other news outlets don't have issues. I don't even think the CNBC article above is that bad- the analogies they just used in the article were confusing. HocusPocus00 (talk) 05:01, 4 December 2020 (UTC)

Ahval

Is Ahval reliable? It is supporting the following statement on Antony Blinken:

In 2015, Blinken said judging between Turkey and the Syrian Kurdish YPG was "not even a matter of discussion" since Turkey is "an important U.S. ally".

Thanks, all, for any input. AleatoryPonderings (???) (!!!) 13:57, 3 December 2020 (UTC)

This seems to be only reported in media directly or indirectly controlled by Turkish government, so I question whether it is WP:DUE. (t · c) buidhe 06:59, 4 December 2020 (UTC)

Ahval is not directly or indirectly controlled by the Turkish government, but is in fact censored in Turkey for its anti-government stance. It has been linked by various critics to the UAE, the Gulen movement and the Muslim Brotherhood. I don't know it well enough to know how reliable/unreliable it is though, or on which topics. My hunch, from looking at it now, is that it is probably reliable on Turkish politics where it might be a good corrective to some Turkish-based state-controlled media, but perhaps less so on geopolitical issues related to the UAE. BobFromBrockley (talk) 15:17, 4 December 2020 (UTC)

References

Fox News

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

---

I am not aware of any current citations for Fox News. However, there has never been an extensive discussion on this noticeboard that focused exclusively on Fox News. Fox News should be deprecated. Neel.arunabh (talk) 17:57, 4 December 2020 (UTC)

Notified: Wikipedia:Current events noticeboardNeel.arunabh (talk) 17:57, 4 December 2020 (UTC)

If you go over the RSN archives you will see this is not gona happen.Slatersteven (talk) 17:56, 4 December 2020 (UTC)

(edit conflict) Have you never been here before? We generally have a discussion about Fox News every week or so for the past 10 years. Wikipedia:Reliable sources/Perennial sources cites at least 39 discussions on the topic; it's the second most discussed source here after the Daily Mail. Seriously. We've had the discussions. I'm not sure what you think the 40th such discussion is going to accomplish, but okay... Carry on, I guess. Have fun. --Jayron32 17:59, 4 December 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.

tanks-encyclopedia.com

Is Tanks Encyclopedia a reliable reference? The "Powered by WordPress" means it's a blog with a domain name. They have authors such as Gareth Lynn Montes and Marisa Belhote who don't appear to have any degreee of expertise in the subject area. FDW777 (talk) 19:50, 4 December 2020 (UTC)

• Definitely not a source Wikipedia should use, having none of the attributes we look for in a WP:RS. The only thing I think that could somewhat redeem it is if multiple other RS's referred to it in glowing terms. Do they? Alexbrn (talk) 20:32, 4 December 2020 (UTC)

Republic TV

Republic TV is an Indian-news channel. It is at present the most popular news channel and website in India. It is my personal ideology, that it isn't politically reliable, but is reliable in all other cases. I think it deserves to be in this list.--Atlantis77177 (talk) 09:55, 12 November 2020 (UTC)

• The network has been identified as a source of false or misleading claims about Islam[16] and "fake news" 10.1109/CSPA48992.2020.9068673 Obviously it is known for right-wing, pro-BJP and Hindutva stance[17] (t · c) buidhe 11:12, 12 November 2020 (UTC)
  • I am unconcerned about bias, it is not a reason to reject a source, but if more evidence can me made for falsification that would render it unreliable.Slatersteven (talk) 11:21, 12 November 2020 (UTC)

What is it being used for? Itsmejudith (talk) 12:05, 12 November 2020 (UTC)

It is my opinion that the channel is not politically 100% reliable, but it is not also 100% unreliable. So it should be shown as 'Generally Unreliable' in political status. But for non-political reliability. It should come as 'Generally Reliable'.--Atlantis77177 (talk) 12:36, 12 November 2020 (UTC)

It should be considered unreliable in most other cases as well. It's reporting around Sushant Singh Rajput would be one major instance of it. There is also a thin line between what's political and what is not. A channel which wouldn't even refrain from fabricating quotes (see [18]) is not usable for anything, imv. Tayi Arajakate _Talk 13:18, 12 November 2020 (UTC)

OK if it fabricate quotes its not an RS.Slatersteven (talk) 13:19, 12 November 2020 (UTC)

I agree with the Sushant Singh Rajput point. But, that was close to politics as it aimed at the Maharashtra government. But the other news on entertainment, sports, biography's, non-political headlines etc.. are 99.9% reliable. So non-political should be presented (in my opinion) as 'Generally Reliable'. --Atlantis77177 (talk) 13:40, 12 November 2020 (UTC) Tayi Arajakate I would like to point out that they had produced fake news on the Karnataka Home Minister's comments, as it was political. I wouldn't mind the politically unreliable statement. But the non-political matter is the matter. The Sushant Singh Rajput case, was related to politics. Even otherwise it was just 1 issue. Rliable sources like The Guardian also have shown unreliability in some issues. But their other articles were fair.--Atlantis77177 (talk) 13:48, 12 November 2020 (UTC)

Atlantis77177, If the Sushant Singh Rajput case was political then anything can be turned political, the case is also a very good reason why it should never be used in any biographies of living people. It's not possible to separate the junk from what's good without relying on other sources, at which point there is no legitimate uses anymore. This is the case with most of our deprecated sources. The Guardian (RSP entry) in comparison may have a political leaning but you will never find them outright manufacturing quotes for example, it's more comparable to the Daily Mail (RSP entry) if not anything else, perhaps even worse than it.

By the way, please don't copy my sign. Instead use Template:Reply to or Template:User link to notify me. Tayi Arajakate _Talk 14:41, 12 November 2020 (UTC)

Tayi Arajakate (talk), the Sushant Singh Rajput case is just an example. It just happened once, and could happen to any reliable source. But the other incident is 100% political, and I have accepted that they are politically unreliable, but what I suggested is that every NEWS website, would have presented their own view on a topic, and campaigned for it, as Republic did in the Sushant Singh Rajput case. One case shouldn't alone affect their reliability in non-political matters. I expect more comments on the topic.--Atlantis77177 (talk) 15:17, 12 November 2020 (UTC)

It's not something "that happened" but rather something they deliberately do, persistently and consistently. The Sushant Singh Rajput case is also not the "only non-political case", although the case should be enough. See the list of examples below, there is a political twist to these but as it goes with Republic, anything can be turned political or manufactured for political purposes.

• [19] Fabricated story about Lara Worthington accusing Imran Khan of sexual harrassment.
• [20] Fabricated story about non-payment of dues by Jama Masjid, Delhi.
• [21] [22] Misinformation related to Covid-19 pandemic.
• [23] Editing tweets to sanitisize the image of another fake news site (see Postcard.news)
• [24] Fabricated quote, attributed to the journalist Rana Ayyub.
• [25] Hosting an entire debate on the basis of a fabricated quote.

I have listed this on the noticeboard for India-related topics which should bring in more comments. Tayi Arajakate _Talk 16:46, 12 November 2020 (UTC)

The misinformation on the Covid-19 pandemic were on Republic Bharat TV, which is another channel, though they are the same brand. Also the rest are all either political, or about famous people in different field, who have a strong political career. For example- check out Arundathi Roy and also the fact that Rana Ayyub has been critical of the illegal encounters in Gujarat, which was ruled by BJP. Also see [26] on BBC doing fake news. Yet, they are considered to be politically reliable, as they generally are. That is by considering the general case. The same should go for Republic as they are generally reliablr for non-political matters.

I am asking the other editors about factors like entertainment, sports and such non-political events where Republic TV is reliable.--Atlantis77177 (talk) 17:17, 12 November 2020 (UTC)

One of them is about Republic Bharat, the other is about Republic TV. Both of them fall under the same editorial hierarchy and republish each other's content. The Al Jazeera article is about BBC's historical use of propaganda in service of British foreign interests which doesn't apply to its current standards, the corporation became editorially independent from state interests around the 80s and 90s. We can't use British Raj era material from BBC for example. Tayi Arajakate _Talk 18:06, 12 November 2020 (UTC)

Please recheck the website you stated on the fake news on the pandemic, it is by Republic Bharat TV and not by Republic TV. It is true that they are of the same brand, but they have different editorial offices and employees, which is the reason that they can't be related in this discussion. I just can't understand, on why can't you accept that a channel is reliable in non-political matter, when it is the largest NEWS channel in India. The political case is valid, and I have accepted the fact from the beginning, but in the case of non-political matters, the case is different. If you would like to clear the Arundathi Roy matter, please watch today's NEWS, on how a University declined her book, due to her political influence.

The Times Of India is considered unreliable in non-political matters also, as it publishes unreliable work, if it is paid.. But Republic TV is clean there. So I would like to stress on the point that it should be politically shown as "Generally Unreliable", and non-politically as "Genrally Reliable." Thank You.--Atlantis77177 (talk) 05:07, 13 November 2020 (UTC)

Is there a specific article in which you want to use Republic TV? The Times of India (RSP entry) is considered close to generally unreliable for much less. As for why "I can't accept that the channel is reliable in non-political matter" is because a network which deliberately engages in fabrications is not one that is reliable for statements of fact, there is no reason to reproduce material which is possibly misinformation from that channel. Its reputation doesn't satisfy WP:RS and causes a whole lot of WP:BLP issues, if you want something like cricket scores or weather reporting, there are much better sources than this.

I have also cited two references for Covid-19 misinformation, the first of which is about Republic TV and the second one is about Republic Bharat, both of which share the same editorial staff; Arnab Goswami is the editor-in-chief of both, Gaurav Arya is the defense consultant on both, Aishwarya Kapoor is the political editor on both, etc etc. Tayi Arajakate _Talk 06:17, 13 November 2020 (UTC)

This discussion leads us nowhere.Let me end it. Without any conflict, let's just state that Republic is 'Generally Unreliable'. Problem solved. Now the question is - how does that work.--Atlantis77177 (talk) 09:04, 13 November 2020 (UTC)

WP:GUNREL explains how generally unreliable sources should be used. Although, I'd keep the discussion open for other editors (as in other than just us two) to comment on if they are interested, there's potential for more discussion. There's also barely been any time since the discussion was started. Tayi Arajakate _Talk 14:13, 13 November 2020 (UTC)

I request more editors to join the discussion.--Atlantis77177 (talk) 17:11, 14 November 2020 (UTC)

• There is no dearth of authentic newspapers in India. The only reason to even consider Republic TV would be to peddle their opinions. It is not the purpose of Wikipedia to peddle anybody's opinions. -- Kautilya3 (talk) 13:59, 15 November 2020 (UTC)
• Generally unreliable. Republic TV is comparable to One America News Network (RSP entry), in that it is a new television network (3.5 years old) that has a tendency to broadcast misinformation and conspiracy theories with a strong political bias. Tayi Arajakate provided a list above, and there's one more topic not in the list that I'd like to highlight: Republic TV has been one of the most prominent promoters of the Love Jihad conspiracy theory. Affective Politics of Digital Media: Propaganda by Other Means, published by Routledge, includes a case study detailing how Republic TV (and Times Now) used "sensational" and "provocative" messaging to falsely portray the Love Jihad conspiracy theory as a real phenomenon. Examples include:

• "Both channels [Republic TV and Times Now] harnessed the power of repetition by incessant tweeting of the words 'Love Jihad' along with some negative and/or leading words (e.g., 'forced conversion,' 'reality'). [...] This constant repetition suggests that the channels aim to diffuse this idea to viewers that 'Love Jihad' is less of a myth and that Muslims are conspiring to annihilate the Hindu population and culture."
• "Both channels' [Republic TV's and Times Now's] news anchors encourage viewers to tweet using hashtags like #HinduGirlsHunted, #HinduGirlsForISIS, #LoveJihadNailed. Persuading audiences to use hashtags in their messages may give a false impression to viewers to see 'this media-fed thought process as ... [their] own' (Drabu, 2018, p.17)."
• "Deploying Twitter during its shows, Republic TV claims that it is 'the first ever TV' to 'expose' 'Love Jihad,' inviting audiences to watch 'The Debate' on its channel."
• "The prevalence of erotophobia and the perceived threat of Muslims (Berlant & Greenwald, 2012) reproduced by media outlets like Republic TV and Times Now facilitate actions and policies that are otherwise unjustifiable. In other words, the assailant took the responsibility of 'saving' Hindu girls from Muslim men and he believed that it would only be possible by enacting violence against them."

The above applies primarily to Republic TV's news reporting. Republic TV's talk shows, particularly The Debate with Arnab Goswami, are highly exaggerated versions of Fox News talk shows (RSP entry) that include an incredible amount of shouting. The New Yorker (RSP entry) explains: "Modi's supporters often get their news from Republic TV, which features shouting matches, public shamings, and scathing insults of all but the most slavish Modi partisans; next to it, Fox News resembles the BBC's 'Newshour.'" Fox News talk shows are considered generally unreliable even without the additional shouting, so I can't see any reason to consider Republic TV talk shows any more reliable than that. Altogether, there are enough issues with both the news coverage and talk shows of Republic TV that the channel as a whole is generally unreliable. — Newslinger talk 12:22, 16 November 2020 (UTC)

Comment: More reviews please.

The result till now is 'Generally Unreliable'. --Atlantis77177 (talk) 06:05, 18 November 2020 (UTC)

I have seen Republic Bharat through my TV and found that the news reporters are enthusiastic supporters of BJP and Hinduism. They criticise the Muslims for almost anything. So, I can say that Republic Bharat is a right-wing pro-BJP pro-Hindu anti-Muslim news channel. But I don't disgrace the reliability of the news channel in non-sociopolitical topics. So I can rate the sociopolitical portion generally unreliable and non-sociopolitical portion generally reliable. --Soumya-8974 ^talk _contribs ^subpages 07:01, 18 November 2020 (UTC)

Comment: I thank @Soumya-8974 for her review, even though it is about Republic Bharat and not Republic TV. Yet as Tayi Arajakate stated that they republish each other's work and have almost the same editorial staff, the point is valid. She and myself have shared the same opinion on the matter. I look forward to more views as the present situation is still- "Generally Unreliable" in both political and non-political NEWS. The non-political reliability margins are narrow, so a result can't deduced. More comments needed.--Atlantis77177 (talk) 16:46, 18 November 2020 (UTC)

@Atlantis77177: I am a male person, not female. Please use "he" to refer to me. --Soumya-8974 ^talk _contribs ^subpages 18:26, 18 November 2020 (UTC)

I meant sociopolitical, not political. See political sociology if you're unfamiliar with the term. --Soumya-8974 ^talk _contribs ^subpages 18:32, 18 November 2020 (UTC)

@Soumya-8974:I apologize for my confusion with the name, but in the end our points are the same. Please continue editting.--Atlantis77177 (talk) 03:56, 19 November 2020 (UTC)

• Unreliable for KPop and Kdrama related news: Republic TV's website –republicworld.com reports about Korean dramas and Korean pop based on the information given by Soompi and Allkpop, which is considered unreliable by Wikiproject Korea (Link: WP:KO/RS#UR). Hence, Republic TV's websites are unreliable for K-dramas and K-pop related news. Examples include:

1)EXO's Chanyeol embroiled in cheating scandal, SM Entertainment issues statement "as detailed by All Kpop" "translated by Soompi"

2)Suzy and Nam Joo Hyuk starrer 'Start-Up's ‘dreamy’ second poster released by the makers "as per reports in Soompi"

3)EXO's Chen is all smiles for his first military photo since enlistment; See picture "According to a report by Soompi"

Closure: I was informed about this discussion on my talk page by Atlantis77177.

-ink&fables «talk» 11:06, 21 November 2020 (UTC)

@-ink&fables: Thank you for giving your opinion. The result at present is unreliable, please continue editing. We need more opinions.--Atlantis77177 (talk) 10:54, 23 November 2020 (UTC)

The present result is 'Generally Unreliable'. Need more comments.--Atlantis77177 (talk) 09:03, 24 November 2020 (UTC)

• Reliable For non-socio political content. But can be used with attribution for socio-political content. Tessaracter (talk) 08:51, 26 November 2020 (UTC)
• Non-socio political content is by Republic TV is generally reliable. Socio-political content could be used with attribution. Having political bias cannot disqualify a news channel as fake. NDTV has also been caught for peddling fake news [27], [28] [29] . Similarly, Al Jazeera was exposed for peddling fake news about popular Palestinian-Israeli video blogger Nuseir Yassin [30] and Al Jazeera journalists too have engaged in spreading fake news [31]. However, these are largely considered as Reliable for socio-political content. — Preceding unsigned comment added by TheMoonShadow (talk • contribs) 19:53, 26 November 2020 (UTC)

TheMoonShadow, if you want to discuss the reliability of NDTV or Al Jazeera, you should open a new discussions about them. Republic TV outright fabricates stories and quotations, without corrections and retractions and pushes fringe conspiracy theories which is much worse than simple bias in source. Most other equivalent sources are usually subjected to deprecation, and I don't see a reason why this should be exempt from it.

I was looking at their "science news", since even entertainment and sports news have socio-political context. And even that's a bunch of nonsense yellow journalism pieces. For instance, see the following:

• [32] According to Republic TV, apparently a "wearable Covid-19 killing device" has been developed.
• [33] Apparently, ageing reversal has been discovered as well!
• [34] Earth is having a "laser battle with a nubela" because a telescope uses lasers.
• [35] We are also apparently teleporting brains, this is cited to the Daily Star (UK), a deprecated source.
• [36] What if a chicken nugget Is sent into space?

Tayi Arajakate _Talk 02:18, 27 November 2020 (UTC)

I agree with TheMoonShadow. Republic TV publishes thousands of articles everyday. If there are few fake news articles referenced then those specific articles must be weeded out. Every news portal has some fake news/biased news today. Fact checking websites like AltNews, BoomLive and Poynter have brought up these articles to public. It is much easier to remove the specific article rather than blacklisting the entire domain. Tessaracter (talk) 09:47, 5 December 2020 (UTC)

Tessaracter, if they publish thousands of articles everyday, it is unlikely that any organisation would be able to keep track of all their falsifications. We can't presume that a source which demonstrably pushes conspiracy theories and fabricates stories, is a reliable one. Tayi Arajakate _Talk 10:24, 5 December 2020 (UTC)

Absolutely unreliable for politics, celebrities, science and religion (alternate news sources can be used) but may be used strictly with attribution for other topics (if any do exist)- clearly Republic is too bad to be used for the four aforementioned topics, but I still haven't seen any clear evidence that the news company is completely bonkers for everything. IMO, the assessment should apply to the entire "Republic TV" group (including Republic Bharat) since I can tell from experience that Hindi news channels and websites tend to be less reliable here in India than English ones. By the way, can someone give an example of an article that doesn't touch on the four aforementioned topics? 45.251.33.2 (talk) 09:02, 27 November 2020 (UTC) Last rephrased at 10:10, 27 November 2020 (UTC)

• Unreliable : Republic Network is highly unreliable and propaganda driven. Here is a compilation from fake news checking website Altnews

• [37] Related to serious matter: India-China Ladakh standoff
• [38] Related to Corona
• [39] Related to Election Manifesto of parties
• [40] Related to Political Leaders

That being said I believe editors must be carefull when using News Channels as a source as they are more opinionated than the Print Media. Newspapers and Print Media should be given priority as a source. defcon5 (talk) 17:41, 27 November 2020 (UTC)

How can you challenge a claim with articles from other unreliable sources like altnews ? Because Republic has exposed a lot of scams made by political parties in India.It is under attack by those parties to discredit republic TV.— Preceding unsigned comment added by 68.228.242.25 (talk • contribs) 22:43, 28 November 2020 (UTC)

Allow me to ask these questions:

1. Did you click on any of the Republic TV website links given as evidence of Republic TV's unreliability?
2. Are you aware that AltNews is a fact-checking website certified by the Poynter Institute?
3. Can you name at least one scam that has been exposed by Republic TV as you claim?
4. Can you explain how a "news" source that peddles a conspiracy theory can be reliable?

45.251.33.67 (talk) 11:14, 30 November 2020 (UTC)

Reliable sources for unrecognised states

There is now a discussion on whether Donetsk People's Republic and Luhansk People's Republic should appear in the list of unrecognised states. Several users provides multiple examples of these entities being referenced as de facto states and unrecognised states in scholarly articles and this what is written in the book Unrecognized States and Secession in the 21st Century by Riegl and Bobos:

“ However, it has become clear that de facto states are not simply ephemeral phenomena that will collapse on their own (Broers 2013); they have demonstrated their longevity. The four de facto states in the former Soviet space have all existed for more than two decades, as has Somaliland, while Northern Cyprus has been a de facto state for four decades. Moreover, new contested territories that could be described as de facto states have emerged, most notably the Donetsk People’s Republic and the Luhansk People’s Republic in Ukraine. These two newest additions to the universe of de facto states have started to create some of the trappings of statehood, although the extent of ‘indigenous roots’ is still debatable ”

I think this is quite sufficient to include them in the list, noting differing opinions. I would love to hear outside feedback on this, along with suggestions of reliable sources which can through additional light on this. Alaexis_¿question? 09:10, 3 December 2020 (UTC)

To be clear, the question here is, does this source demonstrate that the Donetsk People's Republic and Luhansk People's Republic are widely considered in the academic or legal community to meet the requirements of the declarative theory of statehood (possibly as articulated by Montevideo Convention)?

This is a fairly strict standard, but it's there for a reason. Wikipedia should not be the first independent source to declare that a state exists. In cases where the international diplomatic community universally holds that no state exists, we need good evidence to the contrary from the academic or legal community or else we fail the standard of WP:UNDUE.

Editors at Talk:List of states with limited recognition and Talk:List of sovereign states have traditionally rejected sources such as that cited above. The problem is not that the source is unreliable for what it says. The problem is that it doesn't support the claim that Alaexis wishes to make by including Donetsk and Luhansk on the list. Kahastok talk 22:57, 4 December 2020 (UTC)

I wasn’t aware that WP endorsed the declarative theory of statehood or any other Political Science theory for that matter. Where in our policy or guidelines does it say thats our standard? Horse Eye's Back (talk) 15:12, 5 December 2020 (UTC)

We don't. If Donetsk or Luhansk were recognised by a UN member state (per the other theory, the constitutive theory of statehood) then that would be fine. But the source doesn't say that either. Kahastok talk 16:48, 5 December 2020 (UTC)

Reliability of Arcadia publishing

Obviously, it's hard to lump books by a publisher as all reliable or all unreliable but I was wondering about the general quality of Arcadia Publishing. I see the opinions that the quality of books published through Arcadia is essentially the same as if they were self-published (2009) and "Arcadia Publishing" and "academic source" have a very tenuous relationship. Some of their stuff is excellent; some complete crap, but I've been unable to either confirm or disprove those opinions. Eddie891 ^Talk _Work 14:30, 5 December 2020 (UTC)

Eddie891, I would say use with caution, and probably avoid. (Hypocritically, since I've used them a few times myself.) This helpful article about their local history photo-album-style books says (referring to photo captions, but presumably generalizable):

The authors are highly respected and knowledgeable on the local lore and history, but the volumes rarely, if ever, provide a bibliography or suggested readings. So readers should always verify and corroborate the names, dates, and places described in the captions. All told, the volumes serve as carefully selected visual anthologies and starting points for further scholarship and investigation AleatoryPonderings (???) (!!!) 16:21, 5 December 2020 (UTC)

Generally, they are usable with caution and verification. If a controversial claim sourced solely to one of their local history books is challenged, it should probably be removed unless or until a better source is found. Eggishorn (talk) (contrib) 18:31, 5 December 2020 (UTC)

I've used their Images of rail books a number of times but, like others, I would say that they shouldn't be used for controversial claims. I suspect in most cases they're being used for the kind of local minutiae where accuracy is somewhat beside the point, though it's better to get it right. Mackensen (talk) 18:36, 5 December 2020 (UTC)

What qualifies someone to be a professional film or television critic?

A fellow editor started a discussion not here but over at Wikipedia:Village pump (policy)#Professional critics. I invite you to join that discussion. (Perhaps it should have been held here, not sure). Regards, CapnZapp (talk) 00:05, 6 December 2020 (UTC)

RfC: Daily Sabah

What is the reliability of Daily Sabah (dailysabah.com  )?

• 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?

Survey (Daily Sabah)

• Option 4. A 2020 PhD thesis states: "The new propaganda outlet’s purpose was to consolidate Erdoğan’s power, cultivate anti-Western sentiment in the population, and legitimize government’s policies." The same thesis compares Daily Sabah with RT, stating that they are both propaganda but Daily Sabah is more blatant about it. According to the thesis, Daily Sabah has made many false or unproven statements about the 2016 coup attempt and the post-coup purges, including the claim that Fethullah Gülen "commanded the death of hundreds of people through a reactionary coup" (in fact, there is basically no evidence that Gülen was behind the coup), and that US taxpayer money is "funding Gülenist terror-cult FETÖ".
• According to Poynter Institute "Turkey’s English-language media outlets, such as public broadcaster TRT World TV and the pro-government newspaper Daily Sabah pursue the same objective — improving Turkey’s image abroad— said Koray Kaplıca, also an editor at DogrulukPayi. But in the name of “national interest” these outlets can turn into pure propaganda tools for the ruling party." According to a 2014 article in Foreign Policy, Daily Sabah is "Essentially composed of thinly veiled government press releases".[41]
• Daily Sabah refers to recognition of the Armenian genocide as a "defamation campaign"[42][43]
• We deprecated RT and if Daily Sabah is like RT or worse, it should be deprecated as well. (t · c) buidhe 12:42, 30 November 2020 (UTC)
• Option 3+ I'm not sure it's absolutely unusable, but for just about anything touching Turkey's politics, its foreign relations, its wars, and its president Daily Sabah is worse than useless. Same for TRT. Sometimes the "criterion of embarrassment" can be applied for non-controversial statements. GPinkerton (talk) 13:05, 30 November 2020 (UTC)
• Option 3+ Yep pretty much agree with GPinkerton. Option 3 and always attribute.Slatersteven (talk) 13:10, 30 November 2020 (UTC)
• Option 3+ Seems to be generally unreliable, per GPinkerton. Flalf^Talk 04:17, 1 December 2020 (UTC)
• Option 3 to 4. Generally unreliable, only reliable for what Erdogan&friends have to say, really. Vici Vidi (talk) 07:12, 2 December 2020 (UTC)
• Option 3+ as per GPinkerton. For controversial topics not suitable.Paradise Chronicle (talk) 18:15, 2 December 2020 (UTC)
• It should be considered reliable for the POV of the Turkish government and used with attribution.VR _talk 19:43, 2 December 2020 (UTC)
• Option 2+ or 3+ as per above it should be never used on controversial topics. Shadow4dark (talk) 22:33, 2 December 2020 (UTC)
• Option 2+ wording similar to Anadolu Agency e.g. "Daily Sabah is frequently described as a mouthpiece of the Turkish government that engages in propaganda, it is not generally reliable for topics that are controversial or related to international politics. It should never be used on controversial topics. It should be considered reliable for the POV of the Turkish government." Also a note could be added that this should be reviewed if/when the government changes hands in future.Chidgk1 (talk) 07:45, 3 December 2020 (UTC)
• Option 2+ or 3+ No strong preference between the two, but this source does not seem to be generally credible (especially about politics). jp×g 19:56, 3 December 2020 (UTC)
• Option 2 as per Chidgk1. While it is a mouthpiece for the AKP, it should be considered reliable as a source for government statements etc and for uncontroversial Turkey-related facts (e.g. the current front page article about a new Turkey-China freight rail line would probably be fine to use as a source on a relevant topic), while avoided for controversial topics where the Turkish government has an interest. I have found it generally reliable on Syrian matters. BobFromBrockley (talk) 15:22, 4 December 2020 (UTC)
• Option 2 agree with Chidki's wording as concerns politics and controversial topics. It is preferable to use international media sources such as Reuters, AP, and AFP on such topics. The Daily Sabah can be useful for noncontroversial Turkish-related topics. For example from today's edition: Magnitude 5.2 earthquake shakes Turkey's Antalya, Turkish-made helicopter engine to cut import bill by $60M, Being a Turk in Europe is a game of patience, and fashion is no exception, and Sivasspor, Başakşehir endanger Turkey’s bid in Europe with losses. However, on political and controversial topics, it is important to remember that the Daily Sabah is owned by Çalık Holding, which was founded by Ahmet Çalık, who is a close associate of Turkish Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdoğan. --Guest2625 (talk) 09:29, 6 December 2020 (UTC)

Discussion (Daily Sabah)

• I was prompted to ask this question because of this dubious edit on the Armenian Genocide article, in which, among other issues, another user cited the AK Party website for the assertion that the party is responsible for "ending the century-long censorship on Armenian genocide in Turkey"[44] There are 1,200 citations to this government propaganda outlet currently cited in mainspace articles. (t · c) buidhe 12:42, 30 November 2020 (UTC)
  • The source has come up in prior discussions, for example Spudlace stated that "Daily Sabah or Kathimerini are not the best sources for the Greek-Turkish relations page." and in Archive 266 where both Slatersteven and Icewhiz express doubts about its reliability. (t · c) buidhe 12:42, 30 November 2020 (UTC)

buidhe I am also of Option 3, which has been summarized well by GPinkerton. I don't know if the claim is dubious - the government's local supporters, mostly Muslim, seem to reward them more for religious actions, like praying in hagia Sophia, that support their narrative of being free in their homeland. But, I don't think Daily Sabah is an independent WP:RS for this claim. With Daily Sabah and Kathimerini, it's common sense to not attempt balancing biased sources against each other in contradistinction without a secondary source, and accordingly, I would not give this claim from a political party more weight than independent sources have. because politically biased primary sources like political parties are selective in their claims and analysis, it should be on the list with all the other similar sources. Spudlace (talk) 05:27, 1 December 2020 (UTC)

• There are few instances where Anadolu Agency is not a better substitute. It's less lurid and more official. I used it for Hagia_Sophia#International_reaction this year for the thinly-spaced positive reaction to developments there. (Jubilation in Mauretania etc.) GPinkerton (talk) 13:18, 30 November 2020 (UTC)
• In a discussion about Turkish greenhouse gas emissions, Chidgk1 and I agreed that DS could be used for attributed statements. For these articles, DS tended to support their statements by references to international media or official reports, providing some assurance regarding their claims. Jlevi (talk) 13:26, 30 November 2020 (UTC)

@Jlevi: Looking over the website, the first article I clicked attributed Macron to making "remarks characterizing Islam as a problematic religion that needs to be contained," which didn't seem to be backed up by any reliable sources and other reliable sources such as Al Jazeera say the complete opposite. Flalf^Talk 04:10, 1 December 2020 (UTC)

I don't say any more than that DS would reliably report the AKP government's views or selected Turkstat statistics. So pretty similar to "Anadolu Agency" in my opinion.Chidgk1 (talk) 14:17, 1 December 2020 (UTC)

Sounds good! Just figured I'd bring up our use case for discussion, and I defer entirely to Chidgk1 based on their higher level of familiarity. Jlevi (talk) 21:56, 1 December 2020 (UTC)

@Chidgk1: So you propose similar to An Phoblacht it should only be used in cases like WP:ABOUTSELF? Flalf^Talk 03:59, 2 December 2020 (UTC)

I don't have very strong views but I see Anadolu Agency is listed in Perennial sources as both yellow and red. So perhaps something like that. But on the other hand readers tend just to see the first color so that is not user-friendly. Sorry to be wishy-washy - maybe red/yellow stripes?! Chidgk1 (talk) 07:39, 2 December 2020 (UTC)

Flalf DS's claim that Macron made "remarks characterizing Islam as a problematic religion" is probably a reference to Macron saying "Islam is a religion that is in crisis all over the world today", which is a fact.VR _talk 19:46, 2 December 2020 (UTC)

@Vice regent: That's still bending the quote, he said that it is IN crisis not that is causes crisis as well as he said nothing about 'containing' Islam. The DS article is written in a way that is POV pushing. Flalf^Talk 21:25, 2 December 2020 (UTC)

Flalf, I quite agree. Moreover, the Turkish president is heavily involved in a battle over militant Islamism in France and is taking up the ISIS campaign to shut down Charlie Hebdo (either because they published cartoons mocking that megalomaniac believes to be God's greatest prophet, or because they mocked the 7th-century preacher Muhammad ...) GPinkerton (talk) 22:37, 2 December 2020 (UTC)

Vice regent, I'm glad you agree it's a fact; you seemed to suggest otherwise in discussions of those remarks elsewhere. GPinkerton (talk) 23:02, 2 December 2020 (UTC)

• I'll admit that I long thought this were just an English-language news publication based in Sabah. I didn't realize its Turkish ties the few times I clicked to it through Google. feminist (talk) 13:24, 3 December 2020 (UTC)
• None of the editors arguing that it can be used for some topics have cited any sources indicating that it has a "reputation for fact-checking or accuracy", per WP:RS. I cited multiple sources to show the opposite. I hope that the closer takes that into account when weighing comments. (t · c) buidhe 11:35, 6 December 2020 (UTC)

Oh, boy

Twitter Wants to Use Wikipedia to Help Determine Who Gets a Blue Checkmark

This could lead to some interesting WP:CIRCULAR situations, or it may turn out mostly ok. Anyway, for RS-interested editors. Gråbergs Gråa Sång (talk) 10:42, 5 December 2020 (UTC)

I don't think so. We use Twitter only to source uncontroversial facts provided by a subject who is already notable due to non-Twitter sources, so the presence of a blue check does not affect whether a subject has a Wikipedia article. -- King of ♥ ♦ ♣ ♠ 00:30, 6 December 2020 (UTC)

No, it's that Twitter (and other social networks) are asking users to have a Wikipedia article in order to get verification. Once you get verified, your content gets elevated & promoted, you get more followers and that can lead to sponsorships, money, fame, etc. I've already run into an editor earlier this year stating that they needed their draft autobiography moved into main space so they could get verified. But I don't see how social networks putting that additional pressure on Wikipedia NPP reviewers would affect our policy on reliable sourcing. Liz ^{Read! Talk!} 00:35, 6 December 2020 (UTC)

The WMF should make it clear to Twitter that if they're going to put this into their standards they should support the Foundation monetarily. It's rather disgusting to take advantage of volunteer work without supporting it in some way. Eggishorn (talk) (contrib) 01:01, 6 December 2020 (UTC)

Well, part of the point of this volunteer project is to give folks something they can take advantage of without paying. However, in this case, they're putting additional weight on our effort, due to those who will likely campaign for a page in quest of a blue checkmark. Some support would be nice. --Nat Gertler (talk) 01:16, 6 December 2020 (UTC)

According to the link, it's not specifically having a Wikipedia article - an account may be verified if the subject has a Wikipedia page about them with three “external references to distinct, unaffiliated sources.” It's described as basically adopting a version of WP:N. Sunrise (talk) 03:01, 6 December 2020 (UTC)

@Sunrise: Not really. It does not need to verify whether the sources are reliable or have significant coverage. Username6892 05:35, 6 December 2020 (UTC)

I don't like this idea at all. I can see the pitfalls, and they do not look good for us. — Javert2113 (Siarad.|¤) 01:24, 6 December 2020 (UTC)

This seems like more of a future WP:PAID/WP:COI problem than a WP:CIRCULAR problem. The only thing that they're relying on us for is whether someone gets a blue check, which is a rather trivial point for any article (Even Donald Trump on social media) unless the PAID/COI problem or something related starts getting RS coverage (someone gaming Twitter's system with paid articles). This does increase the likelihood of paid editors trying to claim legitimacy with an article (they can get the check), which is why I think this is more suited as a message for New Page Patrollers/AfC reviewers. Username6892 01:29, 6 December 2020 (UTC)

Looks like we need to raise the notability bar higher and/or easier to evaluate for us. MER-C 11:36, 6 December 2020 (UTC)

Medscape

Despite its popularity among professionals, I've noticed that Medscape is, as of now, still not listed on WP:RSPSOURCES. Its historical precedent, eMedicine, was only briefly mentioned in WP:MEDRS as usually acceptable source for uncontroversial information. Also, a previous discussion was started here 11 years ago, but didn't gain enough traction to build consensus. To the best of my knowledge, drugs and diseases articles on Medscape are peer-reviewed and compatible with WP:MEDPRI. Even though an RfC would be more appropriate to establish this sort of recognition for the source, I said I'd first collect some thoughts on its reliability. Assem Khidhr (talk) 16:41, 29 November 2020 (UTC)

• Comment, pinging Doc James for their input. Assem Khidhr (talk) 16:41, 29 November 2020 (UTC)
• Doc seems to be busy elsewhere ATM. Why should Medscape be considered MEDRS when it not a type of source we look for for WP:MEDRS? I'd have thought it would be okay for uncontroversial information but for anything at all weighty (e.g. harms and benefits of a drug) we'd need the usual high-quality WP:MEDRS. The current mention in MEDRS looks about right to me. Alexbrn (talk) 08:12, 2 December 2020 (UTC)
  • @Alexbrn: Would you please point me to the aspects where Medscape doesn't correspond to the characteristics of WP:MEDRS? Assem Khidhr (talk) 11:59, 2 December 2020 (UTC)
    • It's kind of in your face at WP:MEDRS - what we ideally want is: review articles (especially systematic reviews) published in reputable medical journals; academic and professional books written by experts in the relevant fields and from respected publishers; and guidelines or position statements from national or international expert bodies. Medscape is something else. What's it maybe good for, I already said. (Add: checking our Medscape article I see it's now owned by WebMD, which is certainly not a good WP:MEDRS either.) Alexbrn (talk) 12:08, 2 December 2020 (UTC)
      • @Alexbrn: I see. What I was basically calling for is merely including Medscape (Drugs & Diseases) in WP:RSPSOURCES. As you can notice, the list is nuanced enough that concerns and stipulations like yours can be addressed properly, especially the fact that it isn't a secondary source and that it isn't owned by a highly trusted scientific body, all of which we seem to agree on. Assem Khidhr (talk) 18:15, 2 December 2020 (UTC)
• Oppose as a physician scientist who has nothing against Medscape (they've include content quoting/citing my work e.g. [45] [46]) I oppose inclusion of Medscape as a MEDRS source generally - Medscape is a very heterogeneous platform with lots of sponsored content, republication of various sources, news, etc. Of course, any source can be a reliable source for some purpose, but appearance on Medscape doesn't consistently rise to the level of peer-reviewed publication (and certainly not a high-quality secondary source). When Medscape republishes from a reliable peer-reviewed publication, it's the latter (not Medscape) that is the basis of credibility. — soupvector (talk) 15:15, 2 December 2020 (UTC)
  • @Soupvector: I do agree with the question of heterogeneity, especially that I spoke of the site as a whole. Medscape Drugs & Diseases, however, is, afaic, standardized in terms of article structure and methodology as well as peer-reviewed and conforming to general academic conventions. With its compendial hierarchy, it surely isn't a secondary source, but I think it might be recognized and utilized as indicated in WP:TERTIARY: Reliable tertiary sources can be helpful in providing broad summaries of topics that involve many primary and secondary sources, and may be helpful in evaluating due weight, especially when primary or secondary sources contradict each other. Assem Khidhr (talk) 18:15, 2 December 2020 (UTC)
• Why bother? Assem Khidhr, Wikipedia:Reliable sources/Perennial sources is supposed to be about sources that are regularly disputed on this noticeboard, not for every single source that might get used more than a few times. That's why the title says "perennial", not "popular" or "comprehensive". There is absolutely no need to have this discussion at all. WhatamIdoing (talk) 18:12, 2 December 2020 (UTC)
  • @WhatamIdoing: Well, judging by my own experience as a pharmacy grad and by the concerns raised above by a practicing physician and a member of WikiProject Medicine, the site's scope of reliability is likely to be disputed. It's also rich enough in content that adopting a formal position on its reliability might reduce the formal barriers against users to develop a lot of stubs and start-level articles out there. I'm wondering, what harm could be incurred by simply probing the community's stance of a notable source? If anything, it would render the list more informative and help newbies be aware of consensus. Assem Khidhr (talk) 18:33, 2 December 2020 (UTC)

    Please see Wikipedia:Reliable sources/Perennial sources#Inclusion criteria. This doesn't qualify.

    As to harms:

    • Unnecessary discussions waste people's time.
    • Putting sources on this list results in editors thinking in binary terms: yes/no, good/bad, reliable/unreliable. It teaches editors to ignore WP:RSCONTEXT and to believe that if a source is on the list as "generally reliable", then it's okay for any claim.
      • This problem is especially relevant here, because the best practice for Medscape is to use it only uncontroversial and unchanging basic content (e.g., anatomy, whether a heart attack is a medical emergency), and never for controversial content or most Wikipedia:Biomedical information, especially content that can be expected to change as more research is done.
      • On the other side, if we say it's generally not reliable, then some editors just go blank it, even when the source actually is reliable for the specific statement being made.
    • When we're talking about "ongoing" sources (like magazines or websites that get updated, as opposed to books that get printed once), our perception of their reliability changes over time. Sometimes that reflects our changing standards, and sometimes it reflects changes to the sources. For example, Red Herring (magazine) was a great source... 20 years ago. That magazine is a lousy source now. So if we write down "Sure, ____ is okay now" and the actual facts on the grounds change, or if our standards change, then the virtues of that source will be recorded in the list for posterity, and it will be very hard to change it.
    • The larger the page gets, the less useful it is. A list focused on important disputes is better than a list of every possible source.
    • The larger the page gets, the harder it is to edit and maintain the page.
    • The larger the page gets, the more inexperienced editors start thinking that this is the entire list of approved sources, and that they should only use the "GREL" sources, or that any source is acceptable unless and until it's listed at "GUNREL".

    RSP is not a good model for "medium-quality" sources, and we do not need Medscape listed in it. WhatamIdoing (talk) 19:03, 2 December 2020 (UTC)

    @WhatamIdoing: Thanks for taking time to expand on your position. I'd like to re-iterate that I'm not here to argue that Medscape is all-set to be included in WP:RSPSOURCES. That would've been absurd. In fact, I've already said that such claim would need an RfC, exactly like the criteria you referred to. Again, I stated the purpose of this section as the collection of thoughts from interested users. It certainly isn't compulsory. What I'm getting from the rest of the points is subjective perceived inherent limitations of WP:RSPSOURCES in particular and policy documentation in general. I don't think such view reflects consensus in the project, especially when the current list is already not anywhere near binary and when matters of contextualization and exahustiveness are showcased in the lede and frequently cited in relevant discussions. IMHO, this sort of preventionist deletionism might hinder the evolution of the encyclopedia. Assem Khidhr (talk) 21:31, 2 December 2020 (UTC)

    The inclusion criteria specify that you're not supposed to start RFCs to add anything to that list unless there have already been multiple significant disputes at RSN about this source. Medscape has not been the subject of multiple significant disputes here. Therefore it does not qualify for an RFC or for inclusion anywhere in RSP. WhatamIdoing (talk) 22:56, 2 December 2020 (UTC)

• oppose agree w/ soupvector rationale--Ozzie10aaaa (talk) 15:20, 6 December 2020 (UTC)

Background discussions

1. Wikipedia:Reliable sources/Noticeboard/Archive 52#Is Medscape considered a RS?
2. Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Medicine/Archive 35#Medscape reference?
3. Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Medicine/Archive 36#Sourcing question
4. Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Medicine/Archive 39#Frequently-updated Sources

Assem Khidhr (talk) 03:42, 3 December 2020 (UTC)

• So, four mild discussions and nothing in the last seven years: this does not amount to "multiple significant disputes". Alexbrn (talk) 05:03, 3 December 2020 (UTC)
  • Agreed, but please note this is WhatamIdoing's own wording. The policy literally reads:
    • Editors generally expect two or more significant discussions about the source's reliability in the past, or an uninterrupted request for comment on the source's reliability that took place on the reliable sources noticeboard.
    • Contrarily, she said you're not supposed to start RFCs to add anything to that list unless there have already been multiple significant disputes at RSN., even though no conditions were given to start an RfC.
    • If we pay more attention, some items on the list only cited a single brief discussion for inclusion (e.g. Debrett's). This is not to sound WP:POINTy, but to emphasize the distortive interpretation of policy.
    Further, the definition of significant wasn't left for editors' appraisal. It is clearly put as having two or three editors [according to whether or not the source is in the title] commenting on the source's reliability. #3 above, for example, would definitely amount to this. In short, the wording you cited is more of a personal reflection on policy than an accurate paraphrase. Assem Khidhr (talk) 14:21, 3 December 2020 (UTC)

    The rules have changed over time, and people starting needless RFCs just to expand the list when there is no actual dispute involving a real article is one of the reasons that's happened. WhatamIdoing (talk) 17:22, 3 December 2020 (UTC)

How to judge credible sources like The Lancet when they publish opinion pieces by non-experts about other fields of science?

This is a general question but because it came up repeatedly during a heated debate on the Talk page of this article: [In_Praise_of_Blood] I will use that example to illustrate my question. I hope that discussing this topic here will lead to a general guideline about this apparently difficult to grasp concept and perhaps even help towards resolving the discussion I'm highlighting. In the example two book reviews are used as major reliable sources to inform the article: [47] and [48]. However, the book's subject falls outside the expertise of the reviewers and of the journal editors who published the reviews so they should be read with caution. These authors are journalists who are notable for their work on specific health crises in Africa; Helen C. Epstein for HIV/AIDS [Helen_Epstein_(HIV/AIDS_journalist)] and Laurie Garrett for Ebola [Laurie Garrett] whereas the book is about genocide and war crimes in Rwanda. Their reviews were subsequently criticized [49], [50]. Because the book is controversial, reliability matters even more in my opinion. I would compare it with the hypothetical situation of journalists without any relevant competence in the field of medicine reviewing a contested book about immunology in a journal like Genocide Studies and Prevention [51]. To demonstrate the confusion among editors and even administrators I will use a diff about quoting an expert scholar commenting on a reviewer "not having great credentials as a Rwanda expert" [52] which was rejected as an offending remark [53]. Saflieni (talk) 11:21, 6 December 2020 (UTC)

Without looking at specifics yet, here is the general case. Opinion pieces are not WP:RS (specifically WP:MEDRS) for stating or implying anything in the realm of WP:Biomedical information. If the "view" is notable in itself (i.e. gets discussed in RS), then it could be included so long as there was qualifying context from a good source, per WP:GEVAL, and that any fringe views were loudly identified as such per WP:PSCI. Alexbrn (talk) 11:39, 6 December 2020 (UTC)

Anyone is advised to take a look at Talk:In Praise of Blood and WP:ANI#Saflieni's personal attacks and other disruption before giving them any more oxygen. (t · c) buidhe 11:42, 6 December 2020 (UTC)

I am addressing a serious issue here. If you can't think of any solutions than at least don't swamp it again with your campaign to discredit me, please. Saflieni (talk) 15:38, 6 December 2020 (UTC)

Our World in Data ( ourworldindata.org ): What do we do when a file is based upon an unreliable source?

• File:Microprocessor clock speed, OWID.svg
• https://ourworldindata.org/grapher/microprocessor-clock-speed

I am about to remove this as a reference from Clock rate because it is obviously wrong. Nobody has ever clocked a processor at 10Ghz or over, even with liquid nitrogen cooling.[54]

What do we do when a file is based upon an unreliable source? --Guy Macon (talk) 04:37, 7 December 2020 (UTC)

I removed the image from the article, tagged the Commons file with {{Factual accuracy}} and reported the issue to Our World In Data. Hopefully Our World in Data will correct the chart, and we can re-insert the new version, since the article really ought to have a chart, but missing information is better than wrong information. Vahurzpu (talk) 06:49, 7 December 2020 (UTC)

Lead Stories fact checker - reliable?

Hello everyone, could I get a weigh-in on the reliability of this source: https://leadstories.com

• They are a fact-checking website established in 2015, and they focus on trending content on social media.
• They are a signatory to the International Fact-Checking Network, and they have passed IFCN's external vetting in 2018, 2019, and 2020, with their most recent vetting being nearly flawless.
• Facebook uses them as a fact-checker, not sure if you can see this, but the Related Articles below the post shows me a link to a Lead Stories fact-check.
• They have named their staff and their stories credit the authors.
• They explain their methodology here.
• They have a corrections policy, and a list of corrected articles.
• They differentiate between false stories and satire.
• They are contactable for rating appeals from original publishers.

Hope to hear your input! starship.paint (talk) 09:02, 7 December 2020 (UTC)

Appears to be reliable to me, did not see any red flags on the website. Note, there is a consensus that International Fact-Checking Network (RSP entry) is reliable for accessing the reliability of fact checking organisations. Tayi Arajakate _Talk 10:09, 7 December 2020 (UTC)

Small, local news sources

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.

---

With the Gypsy Taub article, I am trying to assert that small, local news sources like SFist and Berkeleyside are just as WP:RS as The New York Times. All three are ongoing businesses that can be sued for libel and such. All three are highly motivated to be reliable. In particular, I have a contentious editor who is owning the GT article who is saying that Berkeleyside is a blog because it won an award as a blog and so we cannot refer to it by the more general term "website" in the SFist article and has reverted me there. The contentious editor refuses to discuss the matter on the talk pages and is owning these articles. The relevant stories are https://www.berkeleyside.com/2019/12/20/public-nudity-activist-from-berkeley-charged-with-attempted-abduction-stalking-of-teenage-boy and https://sfist.com/2020/06/19/noted-bay-area-activist-gypsy-taub-in-jail-for-six-months-on/ The sfist.com story was in the GT article for a long time but now the contentious editor has removed it and is reverting my attempts to restore it, threatening me with WP:3RR and such. We are having a related discussion over at WT:BLP. Please help.--Sa57arc (talk) 20:44, 6 December 2020 (UTC)

This is probably better addressed at Wikipedia:Biographies of living persons/Noticeboard. In general I think that we should use small, local news sources for small, local information. They are most likely going to be highly reliable when it comes to local weirdos/notables but much less so when it comes to say a political scandal half the world away. Horse Eye's Back (talk) 23:37, 6 December 2020 (UTC)

I believe that SFist and Berkeleyside are reliable sources for local San Francisco Bay Area news. I used Berkeleyside as a reference in a biography recently. However, no reliable source can justify attempts to defame Taub in violation of BLP policy. Cullen³²⁸ Let's discuss it 00:24, 7 December 2020 (UTC)

Again this sounds like an issue for the BLP noticeboard not the reliable sources noticeboard. Horse Eye's Back (talk) 00:31, 7 December 2020 (UTC)

The Taub BLP is being discussed at many places already, including WP:ANI. Cullen³²⁸ Let's discuss it 00:34, 7 Deceme ber 2020 (UTC)

The contentious editor has created quite a distraction. Let us stick to the topic at hand. I find that we have consensus that the two sources at issue are WP:RS. Thank you very much.--Sa57arc (talk) 00:57, 7 December 2020 (UTC)

Sa57arc, if the behavior of any editor involved with the Taub BLP is "contentious", it is your behavior. Cullen³²⁸ Let's discuss it 01:14, 7 December 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.

Red flag traffic laws

In 2019, on the article Red flag traffic laws, I tagged the section "Red flag laws in the United States" as a hoax because it made claims which seem quite doubtful in my opinion. The tag was later removed by another editor who claimed that the citations (citing books) did indeed verify the contents of the section. I am not sure if this is the case, so I would like to request here that a neutral party verify the claims, if possible. The citations are here and here. Please be warned that these are Google links.

The claim has existed since the article's creation: Diff

Thank you.

DesertPipeline (talk) 07:22, 29 November 2020 (UTC)

The sources in question may be reliable for some purposes, but context matters and I see no evidence that they were written or edited by anyone familiar with verifying statutory law. For the second source you mention, Munger, which makes the more extended and more controversial claims, it appears that Munger’s own source, Karolevitz, does not support the claims made, at least from what I can tell from the Google snippet view, [55]. The first source, Vesilind & DiStefano, does describe a real statute, but it has accuracy issues and misses the important point that the law in question applied only to steam-propelled vehicles, see [56]. So I would not accept either of these sources. John M Baker (talk) 02:55, 30 November 2020 (UTC)

Hello John, thanks for your response. Just to make sure we're on the same page, this means that it would probably be best if the section were removed? DesertPipeline (talk) 03:10, 30 November 2020 (UTC)

Addendum: Or at least to remove everything except "In the United States, the state of Vermont passed a similar Red Flag Law in 1894, only to repeal it two years later."? DesertPipeline (talk) 03:12, 30 November 2020 (UTC) I have struck this addendum because upon re-reading your comment I only just noticed you say not to accept either source. DesertPipeline (talk) 06:57, 30 November 2020 (UTC)

I would revise the Vermont law discussion to use the authoritative language of the statute itself, linked above. You could still use Vesilind & DiStefano for the noncontroversial claim that the statute was repealed two years later. Since you don't have a reliable source for the Pennsylvania proposed legislation, I think that discussion needs to go. John M Baker (talk) 15:29, 30 November 2020 (UTC)

Sorry for being stupid, but I don't understand what you mean by "use the authoritative language of the statute itself". Also, due to the fact that I wish to avoid the large-scale surveillance of many computer technology sector-related companies, I'm unable to view the link that you provided. Can you advise on what I should be writing in the article? Thank you, and sorry for the inconvenience. DesertPipeline (talk) 04:46, 2 December 2020 (UTC)

DesertPipeline, I mean that you can just summarize what the statute said. It was pretty short. For a non-Google link, look here. John M Baker (talk) 05:45, 2 December 2020 (UTC)

John M Baker, I feel uncomfortable visiting the link you have provided because I unfortunately suffer from paranoia regarding visiting websites I've never visited before. I know it's silly, but I can't seem to get over this fear. Perhaps you could contact me on IRC, or some other non-Wikimedia channel, and provide a copy of the text in the link(s) so I can attempt to write a summary? I apologise for the inconvenience. DesertPipeline (talk) 13:55, 7 December 2020 (UTC)

DesertPipeline, I will just give you the information here, so you won't need to worry about accepting an email from me (I don't use IRC). The text of the statute was as follows:

"The owner or person in charge of a carriage, vehicle or engine propelled by steam, except road rollers, shall not cause or permit the same to pass over, through, or upon any public street or highway, except upon railroad tracks, unless he sends, at least one-eighth of a mile in advance of the same, a person of mature age to notify and warn all persons traveling upon or using the street or highway with horses or other domestic animals; and at night such person shall, except in an incorporated village or city, carry a red light. A person violating the provisions of this act shall be fined not more than ten dollars for each offense."

The citation for this source is Vt. Stat. tit. 21, § 3526 (1894) (citing 1894 Vt. Acts & Resolves ch. 85). I don't have a good citation for the repeal of this statute, but it is not to be found in the next compilation of the Vermont Statutes, in 1906, and I have no reason to doubt that it was repealed in 1896 as Vesilind & DiStefano indicates. John M Baker (talk) 16:42, 7 December 2020 (UTC)

Thank you. I was concerned about it being posted verbatim here due to the copyright violation policy, which is why I suggested it being sent to me elsewhere. Presumably that isn't a problem on a page like this? DesertPipeline (talk) 17:10, 7 December 2020 (UTC)

DesertPipeline, It could be in other circumstances, but official texts such as statues aren't protected by copyright in the US. MrOllie (talk) 17:16, 7 December 2020 (UTC)

Not a comment on the validity of these specific sources(so possibly irrelevant), but there do currently exist laws requiring red/orange fluorescent flags to be displayed behind vehicles carrying oversize loads: Per CVC Section 24604, whenever the load upon any vehicle extends, or whenever any integral part of any vehicle projects, to the rear four feet or more beyond the rear of the vehicle, as measured from the taillamps, there shall be displayed at the extreme end of the load or projecting part of the vehicle: a single solid red or fluorescent orange flag or cloth not less than 18 inches square if the projecting load is two feet wide or less. Two warning flags or cloths are required if the projecting load is wider than two feet. Flags or cloths shall be located to indicate maximum width of loads that extend beyond the sides or rear of the vehicle (emphasis mine). jp×g 19:52, 3 December 2020 (UTC)

With the article in question, the issue is that part of it suggests that in Vermont, in the United States, a law was passed, then repealed two years later, which required vehicles (unspecified type) to be disassembled on encountering livestock or cattle, then hidden from sight until the livestock/cattle was pacified. DesertPipeline (talk) 13:52, 7 December 2020 (UTC)

My previous comment was incorrect. It was in Pennsylvania, not Vermont. My apologies. DesertPipeline (talk) 14:01, 7 December 2020 (UTC)

It also never took effect, according to the article. DesertPipeline (talk) 14:05, 7 December 2020 (UTC)

User-generated content website, which explicitly asks for user contributions

"Iran Chamber Society" (http://www.iranchamber.com/) is a user-generated content blog-style site with a number of pages relating to Iranian culture and history managed by anonymous individual(s) calling themselves the Iran Chamber Society. Many of the pages within are unattributed like this or this (this particular page is frequently used on Wikipedia, and lacks any attribution, references, etc.). Those pages that actually have attribution simply include a name and appear to been copy-pasted from existing works such as this one which copies from a book called The Sacred Books and Early Literature of the East by Charles Horne. However, I've only seen the unattributed, unreferenced pages like this one get used on Wikipedia articles like this.

The "About Us" page (http://www.iranchamber.com/about_us/about_us.php) is very revealing, as they specifically ask for user contributions.

Since our resources are limited we need your support, feedback and advice not only to maintain the content of this site on the net but also to help it grow. All suggestions and corrections are deeply appreciated and will go under the thoughtful consideration. Our achievement up to now is relied on the generosity and commitment of our contributors. Herewith, Iran Chamber Society sincerely invites all Iranian and non-Iranian scholars and researchers to become contributing members and publish their articles and research papers on this platform and share them with the rest of the world.

From looking through most of the website, the articles appear to be either non-attributed user contribution, copy-pasted from someone else's published work, or in several cases an attributed user contribution.

For reference, the user-generated content section of WP:RS states: "Content from websites whose content is largely user-generated is generally unacceptable. Sites with user-generated content include personal websites, personal and group blogs (excluding newspaper and magazine blogs), content farms, Internet forums, social media sites, video and image hosting services, most wikis, and other collaboratively created websites."

Thank you. Saucysalsa30 (talk) 00:44, 4 December 2020 (UTC)

Saucysalsa30, Has anyone claimed the source is RS? If not you can just axe it, without a discussion. (t · c) buidhe 04:05, 4 December 2020 (UTC)

Buidhe Not really, only 1 user claiming that it's not my place to decide if it's RS or not, hence why I'm here. Thanks for your response. Saucysalsa30 (talk) 08:26, 4 December 2020 (UTC)

By itself, "publishes user-submitted content" isn't terribly informative. What's really important is what happens with the submitted content i.e., what are their editorial practices? Peer-reviewed journals, for example, publish content submitted by "users" but their high quality editorial and review practices (generally) make them reliable. If this particular source does little or no review and editing of submitted content then of course that is a huge red flag. ElKevbo (talk) 04:21, 4 December 2020 (UTC)

ElKevbo Thanks for your input. There isn't evidence of an editorial review process, nor is this a peer-reviewed journal or periodic. They overstate themselves in their "About Us" page, as the majority of pages are unattributed and likely self-written, which I would assume the individual(s) who manage the site wrote themselves.

As far as "attributed" pages go, each one I've looked at are copy-pasted from an existing published work, meaning it wasn't submitted to the website. For example, the Charles Horne book in my opening comment. That book was published in 1917, and Horne died in 1942. Evidently he couldn't have submitted something to a website. Or for example the text for this Iran Chamber page is a direct copy-paste from a short post called "A Brief History of Iranian Jews" by Massoume Price, which I was able to find as early as Jan 2001 via Wayback Machine on another site. The copyright at the bottom of that page is 1996.

These are just 2 of several Iran Chamber pages with a name I looked into, but from what I'm seeing, 1) the Iran Chamber site manager(s) self-published many of their own pages, and 2) for pages with attribution, they copy-pasted existing published material from books, other websites, etc. to their website. Basically it looks like someone's hobby website on which they created most of the content themselves and copy-pasted the rest from existing writings, but misleadingly make the site sound like a bigger deal than it actually is in their "About Us" page. There is nothing to indicate it is like any actual academic resource or journal. Saucysalsa30 (talk) 08:26, 4 December 2020 (UTC)

Ultimately the WP:ONUS to prove RS is on the party seeking to use the source, and there's zero evidence that this really is a RS (and plenty to the contrary). (t · c) buidhe 08:44, 4 December 2020 (UTC)

@Buidhe: Thanks for your feedback. I think that settles this matter then. Saucysalsa30 (talk) 01:23, 7 December 2020 (UTC)

Iran Chamber Society seems to be widely used on Wikipedia articles related to Iran and its history; for example, I count at least six references to Iran Chamber on the main article Iran. It would appear that most of us here are, to be blunt, not familiar with this source, its editorial policies, or its reputation for fact-checking and accuracy; I see only one previous RSN discussion of Iran Chamber, which did not elicit many comments or reach any sort of consensus. I have reached out to WikiProject Iran for any insights that its members might have, although I do not know how active the project is.TheTimesAreAChanging (talk) 22:41, 7 December 2020 (UTC)

Hello, I see you've followed me here now. :) Just teasing, but the fact that this source is used so commonly on Wikipedia as you mention is cause for concern. Really all it takes is one user to use this as a source on a Wikipedia, and it can stick and propagate as a source from that point, as has evidently happened. It's one of a substantial number of occasions I've seen blogs used on Wikipedia as sources, but at least some of them admitted that they were a person's or group's personal blog. So far, Iran Chamber Society falls in the WP:UGC blog camp. The content is either written anonymously (presumably by the site's administrator(s)), or is copy-pasted from existing works (which includes other random websites). As previously discussed, there simply isn't evidence that this isn't a textbook example of non-RS. Just make a website, write lots of things yourself and copy-paste the rest from other websites and books, ask for "contributions" in an About page, and voila, you've created the same thing as Iran Chamber Society. Saucysalsa30 (talk) 05:41, 8 December 2020 (UTC)

Discrediting Academic Source

I would like to get opinion from the Admins about Academic Source, printed in 1968 in Macedonia. The book deals with a specific matter the Drama Uprising (not general World War II view). Since it is specific event there are not many academic sources outhere (only 3-4 Academic supported publications). One user is discrediting this source as beeing irrelevant dated from Communistic Era. Macedonia (therefore Yugoslavia), did their huge reforms and changes in early 60es and this book is printed in 1968, supported by the State Institute of National History. The user wants to misinterpret that Yugoslavia was under USSR pressure at that time (which is totally untrue) and therefore the discrediting the source. All the economical, political and social analyses and books are there to support that theory. So, can anyone assisst me what should I do when a user is constantly discrediting my Academic source and labeling it as unrelevant? Thanks. --Forbidden History (talk) 11:32, 7 December 2020 (UTC)

I would be very careful when using this source. WW2 was a highly politicized topic back then and Tito regime had really high stake here. It could be used for some basic facts, but there certainly are newer and better sources for this purpose. Pavlor (talk) 13:43, 7 December 2020 (UTC)

Pavlor, thanks for your feedback - but that is what I'm trying to explain you. This event happened in Greece (the book is not about Tito and world war II, I'm not trying to source out info on World War II), but for specific event called Drama Uprising, that happened in Greece (not in Yugoslavia), in which Greeks and local Macedonians under organization of Greek Communist Party raised an uprising against Bulgarian occupiers. The book is of Academic institution in Macedonia, from 1968.--Forbidden History (talk) 11:30, 8 December 2020 (UTC)

Note ties between Yugoslav and Greek (Communist) partisans (during and after WW2) is one of the mojor points of the Tito-era propaganda. I recommend not to use this source for stated purpose. Pavlor (talk) 11:38, 8 December 2020 (UTC)

COURIER

Apologies for the allcaps, but that's how they style themselves. Are they reliable? One of their articles is being used to support the following statement on Chad Wolf. I don't subscribe to WaPo so can't verify whether it alone would be sufficient. AleatoryPonderings (???) (!!!) 16:16, 5 December 2020 (UTC)

Agents also used unmarked vehicles to detain and remove protesters, and the protesters later produced several videos showing that the agents did not identify themselves as law enforcement, although DHS said the agents identified themselves.

References

I've never heard of it, but it puts itself forward as having the structure of what we accept as a WP:NEWSORG, FWIW. Is the claim likely true, not contradicted, etc? - David Gerard (talk) 20:53, 7 December 2020 (UTC)

David Gerard, Likely true, not contradicted (that I know of?). It's probably a moot point since this content isn't really about Chad Wolf anyway, and is better suited for George Floyd protests. I may just remove it … I was more interested in figuring out what COURIER was in general. AleatoryPonderings (???) (!!!) 17:55, 9 December 2020 (UTC)

The Independent, again

The Independent, last revisited 1.5 years ago, but the last large discussion being 2013, its RSP entry currently reads: The Independent, a British newspaper, is considered a reliable source for non-specialist information. In March 2016, the publication discontinued its print edition to become an online newspaper; some editors advise caution for articles published after this date. What is the 2020 (coming into 2021) consensus on this source? Is it generally reliable, are there topics in which it is iffy, does it have any notable biases, is it generally reliable for controversial claims about BLPs / entities? ProcrastinatingReader (talk) 13:51, 8 December 2020 (UTC)

It's a highly respected perfectly normal WP:NEWSORG. Did any particular dispute lead you to ask? - David Gerard (talk) 14:48, 8 December 2020 (UTC)

@David Gerard: Kinda; there's an RfC on whether Parler is filled with anti-semitic content (amongst other things. came across it at AN/RFC). Most (but not all) of the sources presented for the term are ones we require attribution for such claims, or themselves attributing to a source we say should be attributed for such claims. Most top RS at my glance seem to be attributing to the ADL, with the exceptions of NYT and (now) The Independent. The comments about this source on RSP, and the peculiarity of the disparity, made me curious on what position consensus has on the source (not the first time I've ran into a situation like this). I have personally considered the source generally reliable, but I'm not sure of its biases or 'editorial scrutiny' when making controversial claims. Do you have any thoughts on if it's acceptable for this kind of remark? ProcrastinatingReader (talk) 15:13, 8 December 2020 (UTC)

Given that Parler is known to be the alt/far-right equivalent of Twitter due to Twitter's moderation on that type of content, it would be no surprise to see some editors trying to question any source that is critical of Parler, but like most alt/far-right entities, these works are going to have a negative reputation in the media period, and WP can only neutrally/impartially cover that per UNDUE. Independent is clearly reliable, and just because they may be criticizing Parler has no bearing on being an RS, only the caution of what should be attributed as opinion vs statements of fact related to the service. --Masem (t) 16:41, 8 December 2020 (UTC)

My question is the other way around. I'm just asking for some opinions on the source: does The Independent have a good track record for these kinds of remarks, and is it an acceptable source to use, without any attribution, for them? Further, does The Independent have any notable biases to be aware of? ProcrastinatingReader (talk) 17:01, 8 December 2020 (UTC)

I guess I was saying The Independent is unquestionably reliable, and it does not have an extreme bias (like Fox News' political coverage) to warrant concern for its factual reporting for this are. Its may not be the BBC or NYTimes as pinnacle reliability, but it is far and away a much stronger reliable source than most. But like nearly all media today, it is a more liberal paper that likely is going to take a more critical view of the alt/far-right, and caution should be used in separating fact from opinion from what it publishes (per WP:YESPOV) just to make sure its opinion is attributed outside of Wikivoice. --Masem (t) 17:23, 8 December 2020 (UTC)

The Independent used to be pretty liberal, but it's probably more centrist these days, especially economically. Anyway, it's undoubtedly a reliable source. Black Kite (talk) 19:24, 8 December 2020 (UTC)

The Independent is not biased in the Wikipedia policy sense of the word. In the real world sense, it has a social liberal (leaning classical liberal) bias in that it is slightly to the right economically but liberal on cultural issues. Party wise, it has backed the Liberal Democrats more often than any other party and has regular contributions from Vince Cable former Lib-Dem leader. This bias is not particularly extreme and can largely be discounted. ~ El D. (talk to me) 18:10, 9 December 2020 (UTC)

Being online is not an issue, its reputation would be. As far as I know, it has a good one.Slatersteven (talk) 16:43, 8 December 2020 (UTC)

I assume when fellow editors use the term 'liberal', they are using the modern US sense of the word, rather than in any sense associated with the UK's Liberal Democrats or Liberalism in general. The only obvious political leaning that I can see is that it has been consistently anti-Brexit, as are about 50% of voters and its market position would be to that demographic (ABC1). As far as the criteria for WP:RS are concerned, I have never seen any evidence of fabrication such as with the Mail, Express and Sun but then I don't follow celebrity gossip. --John Maynard Friedman (talk) 11:38, 9 December 2020 (UTC)

The Independent is, at best, an exercise in contrarianism. It has been documented in Private Eye (and other sources) for the last decade that it has been used as a venue for less than independent journalism, with puff pieces for the Lebedevs and various friends. Coverage of Boris Johnson may be clouded by the relationship he enjoys with the man he made a peer (for example). Meanwhile investments by a Saudi investor also caused concern for its independence. It drifted further away from its broadsheet roots year by year, and started down the route of clickbait titles for its print edition which gradually got more awkward to read as there were so many throw away paid (but undeclared) advertisements, and faux "journalism" dressed up as news (most of which was just promotion of celebrity).

However, its journalists are generally well regarded, the content has shown repeated accuracy - if littered with bias to support Johnson - and they don't (to my knowledge) fabricate quotes, interviews, events, people etc to push certain narratives. In short: they are old school bias much like The Guardian and The Times are. Their coverage of science and health very much depends on if they are presenting a POV. They have a bad habit, as many media sources do, of giving disproportionate print to fringe views. Koncorde (talk) 13:15, 9 December 2020 (UTC)

I think since moving online the Independent has largely devolved in clickbait reporting targeted at certain social groups. It is probably at this stage the left wing equivalent of the Daily Mail.

Several sentence opinion blog post on The Telegraph

A several sentence opinion blog post that adds no value except a writer calling for a deportation. It's not a published news article on The Telegraph, but the writer's personal opinion blog blurb. For example, it is being used as a source on Iraqi_invasion_of_Iran for this sentence: "The most notable of such events was the Iranian Embassy siege in London, in which six armed Khuzestani Arab insurgents took the Iranian Embassy's staff as hostages,". It stands in stark juxtaposition to the other source cited, a published book on the embassy siege and British SAS operation.

Should an angry-sounding short blog post that reads like certain political Twitter tweets be treated as a reliable source? Saucysalsa30 (talk) 01:42, 7 December 2020 (UTC)

Broadly agree that this is not an ideal source but this should not be treated as akin a self-published opinion: it is the newspaper's own blog platform and the piece is by their Defence editor so it should be treated as broadly reliable, as well as perhaps of evidence of something being notable. BobFromBrockley (talk) 11:09, 7 December 2020 (UTC)

@Bobfrombrockley: Thanks for the feedback. Could you please clarify how a very brief Twitter-style blurb that says nothing more than "My plan is to deport X", written in the first-person and second-person is not akin to a self-published opinion? There isn't editorial oversight on that as there is on the published articles. I think what you're getting at though is that it's one step better than using Twitter, for example. A personal appeal is not very fitting here either, especially since Con Coughlin is well-known for being controversial and for pushing already disproven/wrong claims on various matters. Arguably one of his more embarrassing examples: [57] His articles are generally poor political opinion pieces rather than defense-related, e.g.[58] [59] and personal attacks [60]. Broader, The Daily Telegraph tends to fare poorly in academic studies on media reliability, even worse than The Daily Mail surprisingly.[61] [62]

At best we can see it's an example of WP:RSOPINION, and should be attributed properly. As important, WP:NEWSBLOG also warns about using such sources, in particular "use them with caution because blogs may not be subject to the news organization's normal fact-checking process." Given the lack of fact-checking or editorial process on the blog, it directly falls under the purview on this warning. Furthermore, the Daily Telegraph did away with their blog altogether. While the reason was not publicized, it was likely due to problems posed by its writers using it as a freeform soapbox as in the case of the blog post in question. Overall, it's a questionable source to use when far better ones exist and are already cited on the Wikipedia article noted in the opening comment. Saucysalsa30 (talk) 20:00, 7 December 2020 (UTC)

I agree with the OP about Con Coughlin being a polemical source and have actually been trying to cut down on references to Coughlin's work in Iraq-related articles in favor of academic sources, but I wouldn't expect RSN to reach a finding that Coughlin is generally unreliable. Determining how much weight to afford Coughlin's commentary is really a content dispute, which RSN cannot resolve.TheTimesAreAChanging (talk) 22:10, 7 December 2020 (UTC)

Yeah I think I'd agree with a general use-with-caution approach. Saucysalsa30 are saying the claim it is being used for false (which might suggest a disputed tag and discussion on the talk page) or undue (Coughlin mentioning it would be an argument for its noteworthiness, but weak by itself), or that there are better sources (in which case adding a better source tag or simply replacing with a better source would be fine)? BobFromBrockley (talk) 14:49, 10 December 2020 (UTC)

@Bobfrombrockley: Yes I agree with use-with-caution, and further, it's not necessary to be included in the first place considering a much better source is already cited, too. If the source was a published article on the news site, that would be a different story, but that's not the case here. Rather, this was ("was" because the Telegraph's blog for its writers no longer exists) a no-value short blog post that adds no news coverage or scholarly value. As previously stated, it's just one step above posting personal opinions on Twitter, if that. The second (undue) and third (better sources) things you stated are what are most applicable, particularly the latter. Considering a much better source already exists on the linked Wiki article on the same exact cited text, there really is no need for including this blog blurb. All it does really is degrade the scholarly value of the Wiki article. Saucysalsa30 (talk) 21:50, 10 December 2020 (UTC)

Anne Carlini magazine

Can an RS-guru please take a look at Anne Carlini for vetting as a reliable source? — Fourthords | =Λ= | 23:52, 10 December 2020 (UTC)

New York Times article on paid reporting

Not sure if this belongs here or on the talk page. This New York Times article article mentions many items that are of interest to us. For example:

Maine Business Daily is part of a fast-growing network of nearly 1,300 websites that aim to fill a void left by vanishing local newspapers across the country. Yet the network, now in all 50 states, is built not on traditional journalism but on propaganda ordered up by dozens of conservative think tanks, political operatives, corporate executives and public-relations professionals, a Times investigation found.

ThatMontrealIP (talk) 22:47, 18 October 2020 (UTC)

Look at what happened to Newsweek on WP:RSP after International Business Times bought it in 2013. It's certainly possible for the newspaper to have different reliability depending on era. Graywalls (talk) 23:09, 18 October 2020 (UTC)

And that article is published by the NYTimes? The same NYTimes that endorsed Joe Biden for US president? No way! ^[stretch] Atsme 💬 📧 00:19, 19 October 2020 (UTC)

You know better than that on this page. O3000 (talk) 00:22, 19 October 2020 (UTC)

Better than what? Trying to point out that a competitor is concerned about opposition to their POV? What's your point? Atsme 💬 📧 00:25, 19 October 2020 (UTC)

Don’t even start... We don’t need to hear it all again. We know that your personal opinions on what constitutes a reliable source differs greatly from the current consensus, you don’t have to keep reminding us when its only vaguely on topic. Horse Eye's Back (talk) 03:05, 19 October 2020 (UTC)

CJR reported on this back in 2019: https://www.cjr.org/tow_center_reports/hundreds-of-pink-slime-local-news-outlets-are-distributing-algorithmic-stories-conservative-talking-points.php (t · c) buidhe 06:28, 20 October 2020 (UTC)

I suggest that we view all Metric Media sites as, at best, questionable sources. This reporting indicates that the sites have minimal editorial controls, are directed by people buying articles, and are generally content farms. This clearly fails WP:RS and WP:V standards. NorthBySouthBaranof (talk) 02:45, 19 October 2020 (UTC)

Right, just as we wouldn't want to consider Courier Newsroom sites to be reliable sources of news, it doesn't sound like these Metric Media sites would qualify either. --Metropolitan90 (talk) 03:00, 19 October 2020 (UTC)

• Good work by the Times there, I'd say. This looks like an open and shut case: these sources should not be used. In fact if anyone has a full list of domains there should probably be an edit filter. Guy (help! - typo?) 11:35, 19 October 2020 (UTC)

Here is a start. Metric Media.ThatMontrealIP (talk) 17:39, 19 October 2020 (UTC)

• Here is a list with over 1,000 domains belonging to Metric Media: https://github.com/MassMove/AttackVectors/blob/master/LocalJournals/sites.csv (t · c) buidhe 06:25, 20 October 2020 (UTC)
• New York Times has now published the complete list of the fraudulent "news" sites on Google Docs. I believe this these should be added as deprecated sources on WP:RSNP (do we need an RFC for that?), and a bot may be needed to create a list of wikipedia articles where they are currently used. Abecedare (talk) 18:43, 20 October 2020 (UTC)

• Does that mean they will be added to a filter of sorts? I can imagine that it will be hard for editors to keep up with all the different sources. Might be better to just block the URLs like a spam filter to pretty users from accidentally adding these pseudo-news sites. Snooganssnoogans (talk) 21:32, 22 October 2020 (UTC)

• As noted above, we need to be careful about blanket removal because these papers existed before being subsumed by 'pink slime'. -- GreenC 18:55, 20 October 2020 (UTC)
• Though it's certainly far too common among established media, it's also fair to note that they violate the copyright of Wikipedia contributors (see this talk page message I left one user whose CC-BY 3.0 image of a local school wasn't attributed) Vahurzpu (talk) 05:43, 21 October 2020 (UTC)
• @ThatMontrealIP and Abecedare: I happened to be looking into this and came across this discussion. I've published a table with the number of article-space links to URLs identified by NYT from the Google Doc linked above at User:Samwalton9 (WMF)/Metric Media links. I only list URLs that had a non-zero number of mainspace links. Samwalton9 (WMF) (talk) 19:11, 2 December 2020 (UTC)

The Canary

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.

---

Would editors mind having a look at the designation of The Canary as 'generally unreliable' after the most recent discussion in April 2020? [63] The summary says "Most editors criticize the accuracy of The Canary". I counted 6 editors voting for GU and 4 editors for GR with appropriate attribution. As far as I can tell the editors who considered Canary as GU didn’t raise any significant specific examples of how it was unreliable. My feeling is that the GU tag does not adequately represent the views of the editors who participated in the discussion. I would suggest 'no consensus' would be a closer summary. What do other editors think? Burrobert (talk) 16:27, 18 November 2020 (UTC)

• Always unreliable except as a primary source. For anyone who's unaware, The Canary is the house journal of the British lunatic fringe. I can see no circumstances in which they'd ever be a reliable source for anything other than as a primary source for their own writers' opinions; on those occasions where they're correct then a legitimate source will have published the same story and we can use that instead; if no legitimate source has covered the story, it's a good indication that either the story isn't notable in Wikipedia terms or that The Canary has made it up. ‑ Iridescent 16:39, 18 November 2020 (UTC)

I wasn't asking for a rerun of the discussion about the reliability of The Canary. I was asking editors to look at the previous discussion and determine whether GU accurately reflects the content of that discussion. Burrobert (talk) 17:12, 18 November 2020 (UTC)

All discussions on this noticeboard are open to new arguments, which will be factored into a source's entry on WP:RSP after the discussion is archived or closed. To call for a reassessment of previous discussions on a source without new arguments, the correct venue would be WT:RSP. — Newslinger talk 18:03, 24 November 2020 (UTC)

• A mere difference of 2 participating editors + zero clear examples provided of unreliability ~ hardly seems = justify the current GU tag. Just because you do not like a source's political stance is entirely irrelevant. The only relevant question here on this board is the source reliable. Basic Stuff. ~ BOD ~ ^TALK 16:48, 18 November 2020 (UTC)
• Doesn't look like the 'generally unreliable' statements provided significant proof (though perhaps they were based on consensus from the two previous discussions that were linked). Mostly GU arguments came from bias/POV, rather than reliability--not a valid argument in this venue. Supporters of 'reliable' put forward a couple of points that didn't land, including some statements about audience size or audience trust. They did describe indicators of a stable editorial staff and editorial policy, which is good for their position. The arguments in general were not very convincing either way, and I'd probably discuss the results only of that conversation as 'no consensus' based on the existence of basic editorial processes. Jlevi (talk) 23:33, 18 November 2020 (UTC)
  • Before we run away with effusions over the wrong done The Canary by prejudice, let's peruse:
    • "Pro-Corbyn website The Canary denies it is antisemitic, then blames 'political Zionists' for forcing it to downsize". Jewish Chronicle. 2 August 2019. Retrieved 2020-11-19.{{cite news}}: CS1 maint: url-status (link)
    • Topple, Steve (27 September 2017). "We need to talk about Laura Kuenssberg. She's listed as an 'invited' speaker at the Tory Party conference". The Canary. Retrieved 2020-11-19.
    • Lewis, Helen (27 September 2017). "The Canary is running a sexist hate campaign against Laura Kuenssberg for clicks". New Statesman. Retrieved 2020-11-19.{{cite news}}: CS1 maint: url-status (link)
    • Collins, John; Mills, Tom (29 September 2017). "The BBC versus The Canary: two experts have their say". The Conversation. Retrieved 2020-11-19.
    • "Canary's story about Laura Kuenssberg 'breached press code'". BBC News. 20 December 2017. Retrieved 2020-11-19.

Another complaint in 2018 was also upheld. See here. Now that their darling Jeremy Corbyn has been deposed and ostracized, they've gone completely off the rails, and continue to be wholly partisan. See, for recent example, here. GPinkerton (talk) 00:34, 19 November 2020 (UTC)

I wasn't asking for a rerun of the discussion about the reliability of The Canary. I was asking editors to look at the previous discussion and determine whether GU accurately reflects the content of that discussion. Burrobert (talk) 03:57, 19 November 2020 (UTC)

Please stop writing the words "I wasn't asking for a rerun of the discussion...". You were answered the first time: "All discussions on this noticeboard are open to new arguments". We are going to discuss the reliability of The Canary whether you like it or not. --Guy Macon (talk) 19:50, 1 December 2020 (UTC)

The Kunesburg article 1. never claimed that she would be speaking, 2. was updated 5 hours later to be clear that she wouldn't be speaking, and 3. was only ruled in need of correction because of a lack of 'due prominence' of the previous update. The only problem was the headline and as per WP:RSHEADLINES headlines are not a reliable source from any source regardless of reliability. Bad headline writing? yes; reason against being a RS? no. El komodos drago (talk to me) 11:48, 1 December 2020 (UTC)

The were a rough consensus that the source in unreliable and the examples brought by GPinkerton is only make it clear.The WP:ONUS for these source was never met so it cannot be used in WP --Shrike (talk) 05:00, 19 November 2020 (UTC)

Your wording is a bit odd but I think I know what you are trying to say. WP:ONUS talks about when a specific item of information can be added to an article. That isn't relevant to the determination of a source's general reliability. Pink didn't take part in the discussion on The Canary's reliability but the Laura K. incident, which Pink provides four links to, was mentioned in the discussion. In regards to achievement of a "rough consensus", if you referring to the 6-4 vote, my question was in part whether the 6-4 vote did indicate that "Most editors criticize the accuracy of The Canary" or whether 'no consensus' is a more accurate description of the discussion. Burrobert (talk) 06:03, 19 November 2020 (UTC)

I participated and said attribute and use with caution. The discussion got a bit mixed I thought, with evolve and squawkbox, 2 other left leaning sites. I think generally unreliable is not really an accurate reflection of the convo. No con would be better, maybe rerun it by itself?Selfstudier (talk) 16:15, 19 November 2020 (UTC)

• Unreliable due to bias and free mixing of opinion and fact. Guy (help! - typo?) 00:27, 20 November 2020 (UTC)

I wasn't asking for a rerun of the discussion about the reliability of The Canary. I was asking editors to look at the previous discussion and determine whether GU accurately reflects the content of that discussion. Burrobert (talk) 11:19, 20 November 2020 (UTC)

Please stop writing the words "I wasn't asking for a rerun of the discussion...". You were answered the first time: "All discussions on this noticeboard are open to new arguments". We are going to discuss the reliability of The Canary whether you like it or not. --Guy Macon (talk) 19:50, 1 December 2020 (UTC)

• I'm skeptical that it really has a "reputation for fact-checking and accuracy" per WP:RS. What's the evidence that such reputation exists? (t · c) buidhe 04:26, 20 November 2020 (UTC)

I wasn't asking for a rerun of the discussion about the reliability of The Canary. I was asking editors to look at the previous discussion and determine whether GU accurately reflects the content of that discussion. Burrobert (talk) 11:20, 20 November 2020 (UTC)

Please stop writing the words "I wasn't asking for a rerun of the discussion...". You were answered the first time: "All discussions on this noticeboard are open to new arguments". We are going to discuss the reliability of The Canary whether you like it or not. --Guy Macon (talk) 19:50, 1 December 2020 (UTC)

I read the first three examples posted by GPinkerton, and I frankly don't see how they support the "generally unreliable" label. The first example is a criticism of The Canary's criticism of Israel. The second is a Canary article criticizing a BBC journalist for agreeing to speak at a Tory conference fringe event. This article was corrected after publication (to make clear that it was a fringe event), which is exactly what we want to see reliable sources doing. The third example is an opinion piece in the New Statesman that criticizes The Canary's criticism of the BBC journalist. The author in the New Statesman claims The Canary's criticism was sexist (the only ground given by the author for this accusation is that the BBC journalist is a woman - make of that what you will). This looks like completely normal back-and-forth between publications with different political leanings: a publication that supports Israel criticizes a publication that supports the Palestinians, a publication that opposes Corbyn criticizes a publication that supports Corbyn, etc.

A determination of "generally unreliable" has to be based on stronger stuff than that. There has to be actual unreliability, not just differences of political opinion with other magazines. -Thucydides411 (talk) 10:03, 21 November 2020 (UTC)

It appears that the discussion has petered out. There are some editors who have reiterated their previous position that The Canary is GU. However, of those who commented on the previous discussion, most seem to believe that 'no consensus' is a more accurate description of that discussion. Does anyone have any objections to me updating the list to reflect this? Burrobert (talk) 15:32, 24 November 2020 (UTC)

Yes, I object. The discussion has only been open a few days and there are contributions here dated yesterday. The last discussion referenced two or more previous discussions and taken together these three discussions indicate a strong consensus that it should not be considered generally reliable. Give me a few minutes and I'll try to show that more clearly. BobFromBrockley (talk) 16:12, 25 November 2020 (UTC)

The April 2020 discussion[64] included 6 editors who argued that it is generally unreliable or has been deemed such in prevous discussions (Buidhe, Shrike, myself, Hippeus, JzG, Iridescent) (plus arguments against the policy basis of the reliability case put forward by and Hemiauchenia & JungerMan Chips Ahoy! who didn't themselves express a position), vs 3 editors who argued it was generally reliable (Burrobert, Bodney, Jontel), plus 1 editors who argued for a "use with caution" approach (Selfstudier).

The April discussion in turn referenced two earlier discussions. In September 2019, a question about The Canary and other similar sources elicited responses from 9 editors for unreliability (The_Land, Bondegezou, Bangalamania, Icewhiz, Sitush, Kirbanzo, Sceptre + JzG, Shrike, already mentioned) vs 2 editors for reliability (ZScarpia, + Jontel, already mentioned), plus ambivalent or "use with caution" responses from David Gerard, Newslinger, Bellowhead678, Selfstudier.

In July 2018,[65] 2 editors argued for unreliability (Ritchie333, + Icewhiz) and 0 for reliability.

The September 2019 in turn referenced two more local discussions on the Antisemitism in the UK Labour Party talk page. In February 2019,[66] the debate was more about due weight and included The Canary along with other sources but 5 editors specifically commented on the unreliability of the Canary (Alssa1, + Icewhiz, Bondegezou, Bangalamania,me) although 2 arguing for inclusion who seemed didn't express doubts about reliability could be counted on the reliability side (RevertBob and Deb.

In July 2018,[67] 5 editors argued for unreliability (Absolutelypuremilk, Dweller, ThatMove + Icewhiz, Bangalamania) vs 2 for reliability (Jonjonjohny, G-13114).

Removing duplications from those who expressed an opinion more than once, that's 17-19 arguing for general unreliability vs 8 for general reliability, plus 4 ambivalent or "use with caution". The discussion above has brought 1 additional unreliability advocate (GPinkerton) and 1 additional reliability advocate (Thucydides411). This seems to me like a fairly strong consensus for unreliability generated over multiple discussions. If this isn't enough, I think there are further examples of unreliability not mentioned yet which I can outline. BobFromBrockley (talk) 17:06, 25 November 2020 (UTC)

While I was unaware of this particular discussion, I can stand by position regarding the Canary and its reliability as a source. The Canary is repeatedly criticised by prominent figures across the political spectrum as being other the 'purveyor of fake news'; and is recognised as such by organisations like Stop Funding Fake News (which is itself a project of the Center for Countering Digital Hate). I know we don't make a habit of using twitter as a source, but as of 18 August 2020, the Canary (as well as another organisation that will remain nameless) was still referred to as a "fake news site" (source: here). Alssa1 (talk) 18:16, 25 November 2020 (UTC)

Alssa1, Stop Funding Fake News is, however, a fake group set up by people criticised by The Canary specifically in order to attack it. Guy (help! - typo?) 18:25, 25 November 2020 (UTC)

@JzG: do you have a source for that? Because the evidence actually is that "Stop Funding Fake News" is a project by Center for Countering Digital Hate, which in itself is supported by a number of celebrity figures (though I know they're not particularly relevant) as well as Sadiq Khan and former Home Secretary Alan Johnson. As well as this, the CEO of the Center, Imran Ahmed sits on the steering committee of the Commission for Countering Extremism (source: here). So frankly I don't really buy the suggestion that this is somehow a 'fake group' that purely exists to attack The Canary. When can I expect you to provide some evidence backed up by reliable sources to support what you've said? Alssa1 (talk) 18:42, 25 November 2020 (UTC)

Alssa1, SFFN have never, so far as I'm aware disclosed their criteria for declaring The Canary as "fake news", so we are in the dark as to how or why they may have reached that conclusion, it may be that they simply dislike it. Given that The Canary is fully regulated by IMPRESS and has been given a pass rating by NewsGuard. One could well regard the claims of it being a "fake news" website as being at best completely baseless, and at worst an open smear campaign by political opponents. G-13114 (talk) 20:33, 25 November 2020 (UTC)

@G-13114: Firstly, simply being a regulated publication on IMPRESS does not in itself make it a reliable source. It was during its of membership of IMPRESS that it broke the rules. As well as this it was during this time that it made the claims about "political Zionists", which is not a statement made by a reliable source on Wikipedia. As for NewsGuard, I inform you that Guido Fawkes passed all the conditions of NewsGuard's assessments (The Canary failed one on “Handles the difference between news and opinion responsibly”) and yet according to many, including our very own Guy (among others), "Paul Staines is not a reliable source." (source: here). So I ask again, where is the evidence of a "smear campaign" and/or why are the claims "baseless"? Alssa1 (talk) 21:13, 25 November 2020 (UTC)

@Alssa1: Stop Funding Fake News is a political organization, which took a clear stance against Corbyn. The fact that an anti-Corbyn group campaigns against a publication seen as friendly to Corbyn is not surprising. It doesn't tell us anything about the reliability of The Canary, unless Stop Funding Fake News actually gave concrete examples of The Canary publishing fake news. -Thucydides411 (talk) 00:21, 26 November 2020 (UTC)

@Thucydides411: is not a political organisation, it is a campaign/project conducted by Center For Countering Digital Hate this is a fact that is not hidden. As for the claims about Corbyn and SFFN, please provide evidence of this. Alssa1 (talk) 00:47, 26 November 2020 (UTC)

The difference between what constitutes an "organization" and what constitutes a "campaign/project" is not really important. According to our own Wiki article about the campaign, it's led by Rachel Riley and Tracy Ann Oberman, both of whom have publicly campaigned against Corbyn and the Labour Party over the issue of alleged antisemitism. Stop Funding Fake News and Center for Countering Digital Hate are engaged in political advocacy. We can't take their criticism of The Canary as evidence that The Canary is unreliable - it's just evidence that there are people who don't like the publication for political reasons. -Thucydides411 (talk) 08:51, 26 November 2020 (UTC)

@Thucydides411: I don't know which article you're referring to, because neither the Wiki pages on Stop Funding Fake News or Center for Countering Digital Hate say that they are "led" by Riley or Oberman, nor does their website. All it says is that Riley and Oberman are supporters of the organisation, supporting an organisation is not the same as leading it. You keep saying it's engaged in 'political advocacy', but where's the evidence for this? Alssa1 (talk) 10:54, 26 November 2020 (UTC)

The body of the article begins, The campaign began in March 2019, and was backed by Rachel Riley and Tracy-Ann Oberman. The website for "Stop Funding Fake News" gives no information about who is actually behind it, so the only people I'm aware of that are involved in it are Rachel Riley and Tracy-Ann Oberman. Both of them are known for opposing Corbyn and criticizing Labour for alleged antisemitism. -Thucydides411 (talk) 11:08, 26 November 2020 (UTC)

This might be moving too far into a tangent but hucydides411} your suggestion that the SFFN website gives no information about who is behind it is incorrect. The front page of the site states: Stop Funding Fake News has been a project of the Center For Countering Digital Hate. Company Number: 11633127. Registered Address: Langley House, Park Road, East Finchley, London, United Kingdom, N2 8EY. That Centre names people involved online here: https://www.counterhate.co.uk/our-people The campaign primarily targets right-wing websites as well as a couple of alt-left ones so is certainly not primarily anti-Corbyn. BobFromBrockley (talk) 17:35, 26 November 2020 (UTC)

• Comment. I don't actually recall participating in any discussion on this topic; if I did, it would have been without any in-depth knowledge of this website. If you look at it in the context of the general right-wing bias of the British press, I think it would be hard to demonstrate that it's any more unreliable than, say, the Express or even the Telegraph. We accept citations from those papers for items such as obituaries and the reporting of non-political events such as disasters, murders, etc. Where we are generally more careful is in accepting their political reporting as impartial, because we know it's not. I don't think any of the evidence produced above is conclusive, but it does not preclude further discussion of the topic. Unfortunately, Burrobert, it is normal on Talk pages for any attempt to revert a decision to be met with reiterations of previous arguments by the same people whose opinions contributed to that initial decision, regardless of how many or how few participated first time round. I think you will have to wait a little longer if you are hoping that people will be ready to take a fresh view of the topic. Deb (talk) 18:27, 25 November 2020 (UTC)

Re I think it would be hard to demonstrate that it's any more unreliable than, say, the Express: RSP says The Daily Express is a tabloid with a number of similarities to the Daily Mail. It is considered generally unreliable. I agree it is in the same category. BobFromBrockley (talk) 14:13, 10 December 2020 (UTC)

It seems to me that there is confusion between reliability and a strong political opinion. It is partisan, but so is much of the UK quality press. The Canary article references two inaccuracies, one minor (the headline on Kuenssberg, which was soon corrected and where the article text was correct) and another adverse adjudication has been mentioned whereas, for example, the article on the Jewish Chronicle, widely quoted on Wikipedia, lists a dozen adverse adjudications and law suits. In the previous discussion on The Canary, I did not see examples of inaccuracies, but expressions of dislike for its political line. I think I am right in thinking that we should go on the evidence rather than have a simple vote. There is a campaign to shut down The Canary and some editors may be influenced by that. Moreover, it has a distinct political viewpoint so is likely to provide information for articles not available from the generally conservative mainstream press. I agree that No consensus is the best description of the outcome. Jontel (talk) 18:43, 25 November 2020 (UTC)

"There is a campaign to shut down The Canary and some editors may be influenced by that." Where is the evidence to back up this claim? Alssa1 (talk) 18:50, 25 November 2020 (UTC)

The "Hit list" for SFFN makes it clear that it attempts to shut down The Canary. In one tweet, the organization even gloated about The Canary having to downsize. Given that so little is known about SFFN, such as who runs it and who funds it, I think its credibility is close to zero. In the UK, there has been a long-running incredibly infected debate about Jeremy Corbyn which the British press has eagerly fanned the flames on. The Canary is in the "Corbynista" camp and SFFN and a whole host of other media orgs (The Jewish Chronicle f.e.) is in the anti-Corbynista camp and you can't trust their opinions about each other. ImTheIP (talk) 00:19, 26 November 2020 (UTC)

This supposed "Hit List" gives some pretty good examples of fake news, such as "promoting conspiracy theories about the Syrian civil war" and includes writers who seem to believe the ECHR is controlled by "pro-Israel political agents" (among other stories). I'm not sure how it's controversial for an organisation that puts things out like this to be considered a 'purveyor of fake news', perhaps you'll explain? As for the credibility of the organisation, why is it "close to zero"? We actually know a fair amount about the organisation, the SFFN is a campaign/project conducted by Center For Countering Digital Hate and is lead by Imran Ahmed and includes among its supporters Sadiq Khan and former Home Secretary Alan Johnson. Its board members are available here and we know that Mr Ahmed sits on the steering committee of the government's Commission for Countering Extremism (source: here). Can you please provide some evidence of the of the SFFN and The Canary being in some political war between pro-Corbyn and anti-Corbyn groups? Alssa1 (talk) 00:59, 26 November 2020 (UTC)

In looking at previous discussions about The Canary, we should restrict ourselves to discussions which occurred on the Reliable Sources Noticeboard. The guide says: "For a source to be added to this list, editors generally expect two or more significant discussions that mention the source's reliability, or an uninterrupted request for comment on the source's reliability that took place on the reliable sources noticeboard". So we should not include discussions which occurred on an antisemitism talk page for example. Contributions by Junger in the April 2020 discussion should be ignored as Junger was blocked as a sock. The discussion that occurred in September 2019 was affected by considering three sources in the one discussion (The Canary, Evolve Politics and Skwawkbox). The verdicts of editors in that discussion rarely discriminated between the three sources. Overall, it is clear that more than half of editors who have expressed an opinion on The Canary have considered it GU. However, there is a significant minority of editors who either consider it GR or who believe that context matters or that it can be used with caution. Burrobert (talk) 03:10, 26 November 2020 (UTC)

If we don't consider the RfCs at the Labour page "significant discussions" (although that's a page where we might expect those with knowledge of the Canary to be editing) then I think my numbers above would be amended to 14-16 generally unreliable, 4 generally reliable, 4 use with caution, rising to 16-18 generally unreliable vs 5 generally reliable to include those who have weighed in in the current discussion. I'm not sure about the perennial sources criteria, but I don't think there's any way to argue that more than a small minority think it is reliable. BobFromBrockley (talk) 15:41, 26 November 2020 (UTC)

• There's no justification for a label of "generally unreliable". In order to establish unreliability, there have to be actual examples of unreliability, which nobody here has yet provided. The only thing approaching an example that's been presented is a case in which The Canary said that someone had been invited to speak at a Tory conference, and it turned out they had been invited to speak at a fringe event at a Tory conference. The Canary subsequently corrected this fairly minor error. However, reading more about The Canary, it's become clear to me that this publication has come under significant political attack because it has generally favored Corbyn and been critical of accusations of antisemitism in the Labour Party. That is no reason, however, to label a publication "generally unreliable". I also see no evidence that The Canary represents the lunatic fringe of British politics. It appears to represent a position similar to Jeremy Corbyn, who was, until recently, the leader of the second largest political party in the UK. In any case, the objections to The Canary appear to be almost entirely political, and I strongly object to it being labeled "generally unreliable". -Thucydides411 (talk) 11:20, 26 November 2020 (UTC)

Re there have to be actual examples of unreliability, which nobody here has yet provided. There have been examples provided here, but at any rate here are some: as well as the misleading story about Laura Keunssberg,[68] and conspiracy theories about Portland Communications,[69] it published articles by Max Blumenthal (editor of Grayzone, a deprecated source) on a Nicaraguan-based journalist that were described by the Committee to Protect Journalists as a “targeted online harassment campaign” after which the journalist was detained, interrogated and deported, leading to the National Union of Journalists protesting against The Canary's editor.[70][71][72][73]; as well as Grayzone it has contributors who write for outlets like MintPress and American Herald Tribune;[74] it published deceptive claims about Labour Party funding that promote antisemitic conspiracy theories;[75] it publishes conspiracy theories about Syrian chemical warfare;[76] one of its regular contributors (best known for his antisemitic tweets[77]) was recruited to write for a fake news site set up by the Russian government;[78] it published a Daily Mail style misleading story about story about a junior doctor's suicide;[79] it took 3 years to update a fake story about ISIS;[80] it published Russian government sponsored fake news about the Salisbury chemical attack;[81][82] before setting upt the Canary its editor promoted the Zeitgeist conspiracy theory movement[83] and worked with Davide Icke on his People's Voice;[84]and I think it published Pizzagate style fake news about Seth Rich's murder and later deleted the article without correction.[85][86] While comments above suggest that it is being criticied because it is anti-Corbyn, it has been criticised by several Corbyn supporters such as Corbyn biographer Richard Seymour,[87] or Owen Jones[88] (Note: I appreciate that not all my sources here are RSs by WP article standards, but should give enough information for un-involved editors to come to a view.) BobFromBrockley (talk) 16:54, 26 November 2020 (UTC)

Could you actually break down exactly what was false about these stories? In your first example, "the misleading story about Laura Keunssberg", we're talking about an extremely minor inaccuracy (she was invited to speak at a fringe event at a Tory conference, instead of the main conference itself), and The Canary corrected it. So when you claim that The Canary published other false claims, without further elaboration, I'm skeptical. Please explain a) exactly what The Canary claimed, b) how those claims were false and c) how The Canary failed to retract or correct those claims. The problem is that your list does not explain any of this. Did the Canary make false claims about the Nicaraguan journalist? What false claims? When you write that, it published deceptive claims about Labour Party funding that promote antisemitic conspiracy theories, what deceptive claims did it make, and what antisemitic conspiracy theories did they serve? Your source for this is a Medium blog post that admits that The Canary's claim is true - it just argues that its antisemitic to point out that a pro-Israeli lobbyist gave a large donation to a politician (judge that argument how you will, but it's irrelevant at WP:RSN, which is concerned with accuracy). Be specific. -Thucydides411 (talk) 17:42, 26 November 2020 (UTC)

Just a few points. Whether something is a conspiracy theory or just a non-mainstream point of view is often in the eye of the beholder, and irrelevant from a RSN standpoint so long as there are no obvious factual errors. From what I remember the details of the Portland Communications story were correct, whether the story could be interpreted as a 'conspiracy theory' or not is a matter of opinion. And the Sailsbury poisoning thing was before any firm facts were known about the case, and there were still reasonable grounds to question it, so it can't be described as 'fake news' because the facts weren't known. You're repeating the Steve Topple tweets controversy, but conveniently leaving out that he had publicly repudiated and apologised for his views before he became involved with The Canary. The rest of your blurb seems to consist of guilt by association type arguments, which have little bearing on The Canary and its accuracy. From what I'm aware, when they have made mistakes (which every publication has) they have always gone on to correct them and apologise. G-13114 (talk) 18:21, 26 November 2020 (UTC)

As I've been pinged here. Short of time, so I'll just reiterate my opinion that The Canary is generally unreliable. Our own article is a good place to start with assessing this. --Dweller (talk) Become old fashioned! 16:10, 26 November 2020 (UTC)

From Our own article:

• IMPRESS upheld two of the 58 complaints they received during 2017/18 about The Canary's news reporting.
• The Canary was given an overall pass rating and a pass on eight out of nine factors (it failed on 'handles the difference between news and opinion responsibly') by NewsGuard, an organisation which evaluates news outlets for trustworthiness.
• A 2018 study by the Reuters Institute for the Study of Journalism described The Canary as "a left-wing partisan site" and an example of "alternative and partisan brands" which have "a political or ideological agenda and their user base tends to passionately share these views". Its trust rating was given as 4.69 where 10 is fully trusted, making it more trusted than the Daily Mail, Buzzfeed News and The Sun, but less than The Daily Mirror, the regional press or any broadsheet newspaper, although its trust level among its own users was at 6.65 (a similar level to The Independent, The Daily Telegraph and the regional press).

The rest of that section is an interview with the editor-in-chief of The Canary and criticisms from people who dislike The Canary's pro-Corbyn / pro-Palestinian stances. I don't see anything in that section that would justify the label "generally unreliable". I hadn't looked into The Canary much before it came up on RSN, but the more I read about it, the more it appears that the criticisms are almost all about the political direction of The Canary, and not about actual concrete falsehoods. -Thucydides411 (talk) 17:49, 26 November 2020 (UTC)

Indeed, I think a strong precedent here was set by the Morning Star which some people argued shouldn't be used as source because of its political bias. However a RFC decided two years ago that it was a RS as there was no evidence of general inaccuracy. Unless it can be shown that The Canary is generally inaccurate, then its political stance shouldn't be an issue about whether it is RS or not. G-13114 (talk) 18:44, 26 November 2020 (UTC)

Thinking about the Morning Star precedent, I would emphasise the contrast between it and The Canary: it is deemed highly partisan like The Canary but nonetheless reliable because it has editorial oversight, including an editor who had prior editorial and journalist experience (albeit less than previous editors) and a team of sub-editors; it has reporters who have serious journalistic experience; it is a print newspaper with a long reputation and also assets to protect; it attracts serious figures on the left and trade union movement as opinion contributors making its opinion pieces noteworthy in many contexts - in all of these ways it contrasts to The Canary, which has minimal editorial oversight, an editor whose previous journalist experience was a writing a pro-Zeitgeist blog, does not really have reporters or journalists in any meaningful sense, and has a business model based on clickbait. (Incidentally, if a local consensus at the Jeremy Corbyn talk page counts as significant discussion for the purposes of defining a source as reliable, then that might contradict Burrobert's reading of the perennial sources policy above?) BobFromBrockley (talk) 12:46, 27 November 2020 (UTC)

Thucydides411 you are again repeating your assertions that the criticism of The Canary is politically-motivated without a single shred of evidence to support that claim. You keep asserting a lack of evidence of general unreliability when it has been repeatedly presented to you. In our little tangent earlier on about SFFN/CCDH, you made a series of demonstrably false statements about its leadership, organisational structure and aims and even continued them even if when the evidence was copied to you and the links given. I don't understand how you can keep making these claims... Alssa1 (talk) 10:00, 27 November 2020 (UTC)

You keep asserting a lack of evidence of general unreliability when it has been repeatedly presented to you. I've asked for specific false claims that The Canary has made and failed to correct/retract. Anyone is free to look at the above thread and verify that nobody has yet provided a clear case of that sort of behavior.

earlier on about SFFN/CCDH, you made a series of demonstrably false statements about its leadership What false statements? You're staking your claim that The Canary is unreliable on the say-so of Center for Countering Digital Hate (CCDH), without giving any reason why we should treat CCDH as credible. It looks like a small political group aimed at lobbying American tech firms (hence the use of the American spelling "Center" by a British organization) and advertisers to dump certain outlets. Why should Wikipedia trust CCDH's judgment? -Thucydides411 (talk) 10:32, 27 November 2020 (UTC)

I've asked for specific false claims that The Canary has made and failed to correct/retract. Anyone is free to look at the above thread and verify that nobody has yet provided a clear case of that sort of behavior. You've had the examples from myself, from BobFromBrockley and others. No other potential reliable source used on Wikipedia has claims against them of the nature that the Canary has.

What false statements? I'll list them: "The website for "Stop Funding Fake News" gives no information about who is actually behind it" This was false. "According to our own Wiki article about the campaign, it's led by Rachel Riley and Tracy Ann Oberman..." This was false. In addition you made a number of assertions about the organisation without providing a shred of evidence to support your claims: "Stop Funding Fake News and Center for Countering Digital Hate are engaged in political advocacy." Evidence please "Stop Funding Fake News is a political organization, which took a clear stance against Corbyn." Evidence please Also you said "Stop Funding Fake News actually gave concrete examples of The Canary publishing fake news." This was posted to you as well.

You're staking your claim that The Canary is unreliable on the say-so of Center for Countering Digital Hate (CCDH), without giving any reason why we should treat CCDH as credible. I'm not staking my claim on what the CCDH/SFFN at all, my position towards The Canary is based on its activities which have already been stated by others. By mentioning the CCDH, I'm simply providing a prominent organisation that takes a similar attitude to the reliability of the Canary. In regards to the credibility of the CCDH, I've given information about them multiple times in discussions which you have been privy to. However for the benefit of those reading: The CCDH is supported Sadiq Khan and former Home Secretary Alan Johnson. As well as this, the CEO of the Center, Imran Ahmed sits on the steering committee of the Commission for Countering Extremism (source: here). The CCDH is not some fringe organisation but a prominent organisation that has a role in advising the British government. To give a bit of information of the support the British government has for the CCDH, I quote from Steering Committee website (previously cited): "CCDH have run a number of innovative campaigns, the most recent being the #DontSpreadtheVirus campaign, endorsed by the government, which aims to counter misinformation around the coronavirus." Alssa1 (talk) 11:33, 27 November 2020 (UTC)

"The website for "Stop Funding Fake News" gives no information about who is actually behind it" This was false. If you go to their website and click on "Our Story", there is nothing about who "we" are. I can't find a single name anywhere on their website of who runs the campaign. The only thing they say is, From 4th May 2020, Stop Funding Fake News has been a project of the Center For Countering Digital Hate. That implies that a year after they were founded, they somehow became connected to the "Center for Countering Digital Hate". Who at the CCDH runs SSFN? Or is SSFN still run by the people who founded it (whoever they are)?

"According to our own Wiki article about the campaign, it's led by Rachel Riley and Tracy Ann Oberman..." This was false. Literally the first sentence of the body of the Wikipedia article on Stop Funding Fake News reads, The campaign began in March 2019, and was backed by Rachel Riley and Tracy-Ann Oberman. Those are the only two people I've seen be associated by any publication with SSFN. Maybe there are other people involved with SSFN, but it's not immediately apparent, either from their website or the Wikipedia article.

"Stop Funding Fake News and Center for Countering Digital Hate are engaged in political advocacy." Evidence please The only people that I've seen connected with SSFN, Rachel Riley and Tracy Ann Oberman, have campaigned against Corbyn and alleged antisemitism within the Labour Party.

The CCDH is supported Sadiq Khan and former Home Secretary Alan Johnson. The CCDH is not some fringe organisation but a prominent organisation that has a role in advising the British government. Those facts doesn't help to convince me that the organization is anything other than political. You've just written that CCDH is supported by a Tory government and prominent figures in the anti-Corbyn wing of the Labour Party. -Thucydides411 (talk) 22:31, 27 November 2020 (UTC)

What frustrates me is that it is incredibly easy to throw out allegations but it takes an enormous amount of effort to debunk them. I've spent the whole day going through yours and BobFromBrockley's allegations (will write about my findings later). While I haven't even gotten halfway, none of those I've investigated have had any substance. Here is some evidence that SFFN is indeed engaged in political advocacy:

1. Mendoza tweets that someone of colour serving in a far-right government is a "turncoat of colour". SFFN replies that "she denies members of the new government their identities & their humanity". Did SFFN also criticize Joe Biden's "You ain't black"? 2. Mendoza tweets that she is "done being lectured on racism by wealthy white centrists." SFFN replies that she denies "Jewish people their identity". 3. Mendoza states that it is "not anti-semitic to compare Israel to Nazi Germany". SFFN replies that "To compare Israel to the Nazis is a specific example of antisemitism included in its international definition." SFFN is referring to the contentious Working Definition of Antisemitism and is in effect calling Mendoza an antisemite. 4. Tweet by SFFN accusing the Canary of "racial divisiveness". 5. SFFN again tweets that Mendoza's comparision of Israel with Nazi Germany is antisemitism. 6. SFFN complains that Canary writers are paid peanuts. Quite hypocritical coming from an organization trying to ruin their business model! 7. SFFN doesn't like that Mendoza has defended Naz Shah's infamous relocate-Israel-to-the-U.S. Facebook post.

The above tweets have absolutely nothing to do with fake news and one would be forgiven for assuming that SFFN's campaign against the Canary is not primarily driven by a desire for stopping fake news. ImTheIP (talk) 19:08, 27 November 2020 (UTC)

The CCDH is supported Sadiq Khan and former Home Secretary Alan Johnson. They're both establishment figures though. How surprising is it that they would oppose an anti-establishment left-wing publication? G-13114 (talk) 19:16, 27 November 2020 (UTC)

They're both establishment figures though. How surprising is it that they would oppose an anti-establishment left-wing publication? I wondered how long it would take before someone made the supposed 'anti-establishment' argument... Tell me, what's the difference between the 'anti-establishment' and fringe? Alssa1 (talk) 19:24, 27 November 2020 (UTC)

Focusing exclusively on SFFN is a bit of a red herring given that criticisms of The Canary come from many others, including Corbyn supporters Owen Jones, Richard Seymour and David Osler, but just a comment on the above: Khan is a Muslim former human rights lawyer, Johnson a working class man who entered politics late after years of trade union activism, both member of Corbyn's party, but OK whatever, "establishment". SFFN has never criticised Corbyn, and at the majority of the websites it targets are on the far right. Among the advertisers that took action on the basis of their work are The World Transformed (a pro-Corbyn group), Oxford and Bath Universities, and the Law Society. Of course it is fine to question the basis of their designation but it is clear that they are a serious organisation. I'm not sure if their briefing on the Canary has been linked here yet: https://www.stopfundingfakenews.com/the-briefing (also follow the link from there to their Twitter content on The Canary which has a lot more detail) BobFromBrockley (talk) 10:03, 30 November 2020 (UTC)

Re ImTheIP the seven SFFN tweets you mention (which I don't think are among those which anyone arguing for "generally unreliable" has posted on this board?) are part of longer threads, and don't themselves make the case that The Canary publish fake news but give context for the claims in the threads. For example, you don't link to the tweet where they link to this left-wing feminist describing The Canary's Kuenssberg campaign as a "sexist hate campaign"[89] or the tweet where they point out the Canary editor's closeness to David Icke[90]. The point about the paying peanuts is that the business model creates a style of journalism that favours sensationalist clickbait over accuracy (a bit like some of the tabloids deprecated by Wikipedia).[91] You didn't take on the fact that The Canary published the Trump machine's Seth Rich fantasies[92] or the issues about the smear on Goette-Luciak.[93] To be clear: my own position is not that The Canary regularly deliberately publishes fake news such that it should be deprecated, but simply that a large enought number of reliable sources have raised alarm bells such that we should designate it as generally unreliable. BobFromBrockley (talk) 10:24, 30 November 2020 (UTC)

@Bobfrombrockley: I linked to the tweets to demonstrate that SFFN engages in political advocacy. Alleging that The Canary's editor-in-chief, Kerry-Anne Mendoza, is an antisemite for comparing Israel with Nazi Germany is, given the brohauha about pro-Corbynite antisemitism, to engage in political advocacy. SFFN's tweet about The Canary paying peanuts is innuendo irrelevant to its reliability. It's not like Mendoza invented clickbait journalism and there is no basis for the claim that its compensation model affects its journalistic qualities. All journalists are living with tight deadlines, X-hundred words thresholds, and are measured by the advertising revenue (i.e clicks) they generate.

As I wrote in my previous comment, it takes an enormous amount of time to research and respond to each and every allegations and my gut feeling is that most just scroll past it anyway so that's why I didn't bother.

The Canary published two articles by Max Blumenthal about Carl David Goette-Luciak in 2018. The first one on September 28 and the second one on October 4. The backstory is that since April 2018 there had been violent clashes between supporters of President Daniel Ortega and supporters of the opposition party, the Sandinista Renovation Movement (MRS). Blumenthal alleges that Goette-Luciak was a "novice reporter" who published pieces littered with falsehoods that reinforce the opposition’s narrative promoting regime. That's a smear if it isn't true. However, Blumenthal presents much evidence demonstrating that Goette-Luciak indeed promoted MRS's narrative.

For example, Goette-Luciak cited an MRS leader saying: With 200 political prisoners and [new] murders every day. But according to Blumenthal, most murder victims were Ortega supporters. He reported on violence committed by Ortega's police forces but not on violence committed by MRS supporters. Blumenthal writes: In a separate incident this June, Goette-Luciak appeared momentarily in a highly disturbing video filmed by 100% Noticias. He could be seen taking photos of a mob of opposition thugs in the act of kidnapping and beating an ageing Sandinista member they had found squatting on a local oligarch’s abandoned property. Oddly, Goette-Luciak published no photos of the incident and did not report on it. Blumenthal also links to photos showing Goette-Luciak speaking to MRS leaders.

Days after Blumenthal published his article, Goette-Luciak was deported. A reporter at BuzzFeed News claimed that Blumenthal's article caused the Nicaraguan government to deport Goette-Luciak. A laughable and unsubstantiated claim. In the follow-up article, The Canary included a letter written by Goette-Luciak's former colleague in Nicaragua stating that their work was not very objective: I must be extremely clear: in the six months we lived and worked together in Nicaragua we were both very open about our plan to use our friendships with Nicaraguan opposition figures to push for the end of the Sandinista government and create careers for ourselves as journalists or consultants in the process.

It should be emphasized that this not a left vs. right kind of thing; both Blumenthal and Goette-Luciak are left-wing voices. Goette-Luciak has, as far as I can tell, not responded to Blumenthal's allegations. ImTheIP (talk) 07:47, 1 December 2020 (UTC)

Comment I just want to make it clear that although I said "use with caution", by that I did not mean that I thought Canary to be unreliable, merely that they might overegg the pudding on occasion, nothing more. For what it is worth, my impression is that the majority of attacks on Canary are politically motivated.Selfstudier (talk) 22:50, 27 November 2020 (UTC)

• Generally unreliable. As Iridescent points out, this website houses the lunatic fringe of British politics. It has a downright awful reputation. 11Fox11 (talk) 06:55, 28 November 2020 (UTC)

Wikipedia is WP:NOTCENSORED. This is about factual reliability, not politics. Whether anyone considers the left wing of the Labour Party to be the "lunatic fringe" is irrelevant here, and no basis for a determination of "generally unreliable". -Thucydides411 (talk) 09:38, 28 November 2020 (UTC)

I went through all the Canary articles that have been mentioned by editors in the discussion. I found three articles where an identified error had been made by The Canary. They were the Laura K and fracking stories that went to IMPRESS and the story that was described as "it took 3 years to update a fake story about ISIS". The Canary acknowledged the error in the first 2 cases and took appropriate action. It appears that The Canary itself identified the third error and made the correction which related to The Canary's description of a pilgrimage as a march. The other stories involve innuendo, opinion, guilt by association and other diversions that don't impact on reliability. The story titled "The Canary Deleted A False Viral Story About The Sun's Coverage Of The Manchester Attack" was discussed by Press Gazette which stated: "The Canary story remains live on its website with an update at the foot of the article that reads: "The Sun contacted The Canary to request that we update the piece to reflect that The Sun went to print prior to the concert bombing. The paper issued an updated front page subsequently. We’re happy to do so" ". Burrobert (talk) 11:07, 28 November 2020 (UTC)

https://mediabiasfactcheck.com/the-canary-uk/ I'm not saying that we should necessarily accept this as some kind of gold standard but nor do I think we should ignore it. Their list of questionable sources seems not so bad either.Selfstudier (talk) 14:51, 30 November 2020 (UTC)

Yes that is an interesting assessment. We seem to have ruled MBFC as an unreliable source mainly on the basis that it is self-published. Anyway, we can toss its opinion into the pot and stir to see what comes out. Is it too early in the discussion to ask an uninvolved editor to look at what has been said and decide what effect it should have on our rating of The Canary? Burrobert (talk) 15:05, 30 November 2020 (UTC)

That and NewsGuard, so that's two independent fact check sites that have said it's reliable. G-13114 (talk) 19:36, 30 November 2020 (UTC)

• Reliable - per MB/FC and Newsguard. Also per IMPRESS regulation. And per everything else in the lengthy 'why you can trust us' section. El komodos drago (talk to me) 11:17, 1 December 2020 (UTC)

I will further note that Stop Funding Fake News is a liberal/centrist organisation that seems to be focused on driving independent internet news sites that are outside of the traditional political spectrum out of business. I think that literally any other critic of The Canary is a better source to make a judgement on. Ideally we'd look at specific articles/instances as some have posted above. El komodos drago (talk to me) 12:37, 1 December 2020 (UTC)

• Generally reliable per my previous comments. Objections seem to stem from from opposition to The Canaries political stance and innuendo, rather than any clear demonstration of unreliability. The fact that The Canary has voluntarily signed up to be regulated shows that they take accuracy seriously, as any breaches could have a serious financial cost which could be crippling to a small publication. And as noted, where there have been inaccurate stories, they have generally been corrected quite swiftly. As stated earlier. I think a precedent was set by the Morning Star which is a publication of similar political leanings. G-13114 (talk) 16:57, 1 December 2020 (UTC)

True or false? :) https://www.thecanary.co/exclusive/2020/12/01/exclusive-labour-right-linked-to-campaign-to-shut-down-the-canary/ Selfstudier (talk) 16:51, 1 December 2020 (UTC)

There's also this from Jacobin. So it appears that CCDH and SFFN are run by people linked to the anti-Corbyn faction of the Labour Party. Who would have guessed! G-13114 (talk) 17:34, 1 December 2020 (UTC)

G-13114, at this point the anti-Corbyn faction of the Labour Party consists of basically everyone in the Labour Party minus whoever lost their job with the change in leadership and Corbyn himself. GPinkerton (talk) 20:01, 1 December 2020 (UTC)

Actually this is a good example of why The Canary is not a generally reliable source. Article is billed as an "Exclusive" and opens with "The Canary can now reveal that" but the information they are "exclusively" "revealing" is the SFFN's own publicly available Companies House listing, plus a listing of the "associations" Imran Ahmed, plus a mention of the fact that Rachel Reeves is connected to it (a fact already in our Wikipedia article as it's "revealed" in previous, reliable reports), a nudge-nudge-wink-wink dressing up of the fact they know nothing about SFFN's funding to make it seem suspicious (now why on earth would donors to a campaign against fake news suppliers such as Westmonster and Tommy Robinson not want their names to be in public?). The "associations" they "reveal" are essentially that some of the people involved are also connected to Labour Party organisations, which is not really shocking. They note the fact that "CCDH also shares its address with “Blue Labour” campaign group Labour Together", not mentioning that 116 businesses on Companies House share this address.[94] (And in fact Labour Together is not a "'Blue Labour' campaign group"; it involves some people who are in Blue Labour, but others (e.g. David Lammy) who aren't.) In short, the mix of innuendo, guilt by association and sensationalism in this article show why most people consider it generally unreliable. BobFromBrockley (talk) 13:15, 3 December 2020 (UTC)

@BobFromBrockley: Hang on a second: you've just listed a set of true statements made in The Canary. Whether or not you like the tone of the article ("The Canary can now reveal that") or think that the facts are unsurprising (some of the people invovled are also connected to Labour Party organisations, which is not really shocking) has nothing to do with whether or not The Canary is reliable. If anything, what you've illustrated above is that The Canary's articles are generally factually sound, and that The Canary has a generally left-Labour point of view. WP:RS policy doesn't prohibit the use of left-Labour sources (just as it doesn't prohibit the use of right-Labour sources). It's concerned with accuracy, which appears to be fulfilled here. On political issues, we should, of course, keep in mind the political leanings of the sources and present a range of views. But generally unreliable means that a source publishes false or fabricated information, not that it tends to lean left or right. -Thucydides411 (talk) 10:50, 4 December 2020 (UTC)

@Thucydides411: No, I think what I've shown is that even where it's content isn't actually untrue, it is misleading and sensationalist and inappropriate for an encyclopedia (although even here there was one factual error, about Labour Together). It is not quite right that generally unreliable means that a source publishes (only) false or fabricated information: we define GU as "Editors show consensus that the source is questionable in most cases. The source may lack an editorial team, have a poor reputation for fact-checking, fail to correct errors, be self-published, or present user-generated content." I'm not arguing for deprecation, but simply that the clickbait model, lack of editorial oversight, Daily Mail style sensationalism, conspiracy theories, poor grasp of facts and frequent inacccuracies leaves it insufficently reliable for non-exceptional use. BobFromBrockley (talk) 15:04, 4 December 2020 (UTC)

• Generally unreliable. I would go into details but Dweller and others have covered the reasons. --Guy Macon (talk) 19:54, 1 December 2020 (UTC)
• Generally reliable per Thucydides and G-13114. --NSH001 (talk) 21:06, 1 December 2020 (UTC)
• I would also ask certain editors (you know who you are) to read WP:BLUDGEON. I'm just saying. --Guy Macon (talk) 22:29, 1 December 2020 (UTC)
• Generally unreliable. Known for being hyper-partisan and pushing conspiracy theories.[95] An alt-left website closely associated with the Corbyn campaign (an "outrider" according to Corbyn,[96] to the point that a Corbyn aide said that they were providing scripts for it.[97] Compared to InfoWars in terms of promoting conspiracy theories.[98] Vici Vidi (talk) 07:11, 2 December 2020 (UTC)

Is InfoWars independently regulated and given a rating as reliable by two independent media fact checking sites? No thought not. A ridiculous comparison. G-13114 (talk) 16:59, 2 December 2020 (UTC)

• Generally reliable - we like "reliable, independent, published sources with a reputation for fact-checking and accuracy" here at wikipedia and having gone through this discussion and checked the Canary's About, I'm satisfied it's a reliable left-wing source Mujinga (talk) 17:41, 2 December 2020 (UTC)
• Generally unreliable. While it's obviously okay for its own views (if this is ever WP:DUE), this is a rather silly partisan source and miles away from the kind of respectable mature ones Wikipedia wants to be using. Alexbrn (talk) 17:45, 2 December 2020 (UTC)

Partisanship does not necessarily mean unreliability. A classification of "generally unreliable" requires an established pattern of publishing false information, which is not the case here. -Thucydides411 (talk) 00:23, 4 December 2020 (UTC)

• Generally reliable per Thucydides411 and Mujinga and G-13114 and others. Talk of the political nature of the source is irrelevant. We are only concerned with a news sources reliability on the Wikipedia:Reliable sources/Noticeboard. ~ BOD ~ ^TALK 02:46, 10 December 2020 (UTC)

What happens now? Burrobert (talk) 10:09, 9 December 2020 (UTC)

Can't be closed as not an RfC. Wait till it gets archived then have the discussion you were trying to have on RSP talk. We could have an RfC on reliability to get a clearer answer but I'm not sure another discussion on a small independent news source is really worth anyone's while. ~ El D. (talk to me) 14:39, 9 December 2020 (UTC)

That seems reasonable, the idea is only to get it out of GU and into nocon instead, right?Selfstudier (talk) 15:18, 9 December 2020 (UTC)

That was my intention in raising the issue. Can that be done based on the discussion here? I note that The Canary was classified as GU based on discussions which were not RfC’s. Also, as far as I can tell, anyone can update the Perennial Sources list based on their interpretation of past discussions. I didn’t want to do that without first seeing what others thought of previous discussions. Burrobert (talk) 01:01, 10 December 2020 (UTC)

I don't see a reason to think things have changed; rather, this discussion has confirmed the status quo. Bearing in mind that votes alone wouldn't determine a decision and that a couple of editors on both sides have given non-policy based reasons for their votes, we now have had three discussions in which a total of 21 editors have argued for generally unreliable (or 23 including Hemiauchia and JungerMan Chips Ahoy! who refuted reliability arguments without explicitly opting for general unreliability), 4 editors have argued for a use-with-caution approach, and 8 editors have argued for generally reliable (or 11 including JzG, Deb and ImTheIP who refuted unreliability arguments without explicitly opting for general reliability). And this doesn't include the local consensus at the Labour article noted above. BobFromBrockley (talk) 11:58, 11 December 2020 (UTC)

That sounds like no con to me? Anyway we can go again on RSP talk as was suggested.Selfstudier (talk) 12:10, 12 December 2020 (UTC)

• Generally unreliable; while not as unhinged as the Skwawkbox, The Canary has a general tendency to mix opinion and news without the type of delineation one would expect from more reputable sources. It really doesn't help that the Canary is firmly in the "we're the real journalists" crypto-conspiracy theorist view too. Sceptre (talk) 18:43, 15 December 2020 (UTC)

They have managed an interview with Corbyn just now. Of course some may think that just proves it's bad:) Still, this source is definitely on the way up, afaics.Selfstudier (talk) 12:59, 16 December 2020 (UTC)

• Generally unreliable A racist web site that under investigation for anti-Semitism [99] that employs people that share anti-Semitic conspiracy theories [100] whos editor was suspended from twitter[101] --Shrike (talk) 13:17, 16 December 2020 (UTC)
• Its also guilty of "denial of racism." as per this scholarly article [102] --Shrike (talk) 13:46, 16 December 2020 (UTC)

The Canary and the website of the Israel-critical organisation, Jews for Justice for Palestinians, presented the research positively but reported it selectively in order to create the false impression that the finding was that only those on the political right were likely to be a problem for British Jews (see JFJFP, 2017, Micner, 2017). This was in effect a denial of racism.

Wait for this to get archived and then if you disagree with the result have an RfC

This is not and was not intended to be an RfC and so cannot be closed. I do not think that any of us want an on going debate over a small online news outlet stuck for the rest of eternity on the top of RS/N so if people wouldn't mind, I propose that we wait for it to get archived, have a discussion on WT:RSP and if it is still unclear or if other people think they have something important to add, then we can go back and have an RfC. I think we are seriously over egging this, we've probably devoted fewer words to the RfC on the Mail on Sunday then we have devoted to a news site with maybe a thousanth of the readership. Look, I'll happily discuss this until the cows come home but I think that is a disservice to people who want to finish this up and get on to discussing useful things. ~ El D. (talk to me) 14:54, 16 December 2020 (UTC)

El komodos drago, Then go ahead and close the discussion I am sure that no one object Shrike (talk) 15:00, 16 December 2020 (UTC)

If I understood the situation which is by no means a certainty, he says he can't do that, it will scroll off when people stop making new comments. Pity I can't mark the whole thing as ARBPIA4 then things would be crystal.Selfstudier (talk) 15:24, 16 December 2020 (UTC)

I could manually archive it, what I wanted to do was to let it get archived automatically (which happens after a section has received no posts for 5 days) so that no one would dispute the archiving. I am probably going to archive it manually anyway but I am going to have to re-read the relevant policies and guidelines. ~ El D. (talk to me) 16:05, 16 December 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.