Wikipedia talk:Reliable sources/Archive 35

This is an archive of past discussions about Wikipedia:Reliable sources. Do not edit the contents of this page. If you wish to start a new discussion or revive an old one, please do so on the current talk page.

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Archive 33

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Debbie Reynolds

If you have any questions that I can answer I would be happy to. My name is Tina Diamond aka Tina Karl. I am the only living daughter of Harry Karl. Debbie Reynolds is my step-mother. She raised me. I lived with her and shared a room growing up with Carrie Fisher. Todd Fisher is also my step- brother. if you need any additional important information that I know I would be happy to provide it. You have been a wonderful source of information for me and my son Michael Diamond. Thank j Tina Diamond 12/02/2010 — Preceding unsigned comment added by Fame912 (talk • contribs) 16:26, 2 December 2011 (UTC)

Unfortunately, personal knowledge is forbidden as a reference source, mainly because it's unpublished and unverifiable; see also WP:SPS and WP:PRIMARY. --Redrose64 (talk) 17:07, 2 December 2011 (UTC)

Help needed

Please help me. I have created a Profile of Engineer Jameel Ahmad Malik and I know too much reliable references to be quoted in favour of this article but I don't know how to enter in citation and reference in (1), (2) and (3) so that it should also appear at the footnotes of the profile. Waiting for your guidance. With regards. Jaro1980. Jaro1980 (talk) 17:38, 3 December 2011 (UTC)

As advised at the top of this page, questions of this nature should be posted at the Wikipedia:Help desk. But in general, see WP:CITEBEGIN. --Redrose64 (talk) 17:54, 3 December 2011 (UTC)

Reliability of news...

Due to reading a series of news stories on the same local incident, I discovered something that I felt was necessary to mention, and is likely true in other markets. Most local news originates at one source (generally, point of incident). However, every news outlet writes the story differently, and certain bits of information change (for some reason), I would imagine in the interest of being "different" and avoiding showing that said news all came from the same place.

However, that brought me to thinking about reliability. If an account of the same incident differs in every outlet covering it, somebody's clearly unreliable, so what do we do about RS with conflicting sources? Since this is a common situation, does the RS policy need to be clarified to indicate what's usable and what's not? My thought is that there are certain things that will not change (names, addresses, etc.) but there's always some speculation on other things (like "body found on sidewalk. might have fallen off roof/out of window/down stairs/off of chair" sort of stuff). I don't mean to focus solely on crime, but it's an easy speculative area for example purposes. Clearly, we want the former factual material, and not the latter speculative items. As we do not base an article on one source, would it make sense to say that reliable sources should agree with each other? MSJapan (talk) 21:18, 5 December 2011 (UTC)

If an account of the same incident differs in every outlet covering it, somebody's clearly unreliable -- No. It is not at all uncommon for multiple reliable sources to conflict. If reliable sources conflict, we report the conflict. Dlabtot (talk) 21:40, 5 December 2011 (UTC)

The differences mean that the reporters got their information from different people and/or on different days. It's not at all unusual to get conflicting reports from eyewitnesses, and if I interview "Alice" for my newspaper article, and you interview "Bob" for yours, we're almost guaranteed to hear different things. This is why we want to use secondary sources rather than primary sources. (See WP:PRIMARYNEWS). WhatamIdoing (talk) 01:26, 10 December 2011 (UTC)

Hank Garland

Jingle Bell Rock was written by Hank Garland and Bobby Helms, as witnessed by Garland's brother Billy Garland. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 24.158.37.96 (talk) 22:41, 9 December 2011 (UTC)

Thank you for your suggestion. When you believe an article needs improvement, please feel free to make those changes. Wikipedia is a wiki, so anyone can edit almost any article by simply following the edit this page link at the top.
The Wikipedia community encourages you to be bold in updating pages. Don't worry too much about making honest mistakes—they're likely to be found and corrected quickly. If you're not sure how editing works, check out how to edit a page, or use the sandbox to try out your editing skills. New contributors are always welcome. You don't even need to log in (although there are many reasons why you might want to). WhatamIdoing (talk) 01:28, 10 December 2011 (UTC)

Gyan Books

Gyan Books is considered to be not a WP:RS, as it is on the WP:MF list. So it seems clear that it should be removed on sight from any footnotes. However what about when a Gyan reference is used in one of the following ways:

listed in the "Further Reading/See Also" section, as here: [1]
listed as one of the article subject's written works, as here: [2]
listed as a source for the article, but without specific footnoting, as here: [3]

Opinions/advice would be much appreciated. JanetteDoe (talk) 17:46, 12 December 2011 (UTC)

Does Gyan Books publish both Wikipedia mirrors and other stuff? We wouldn't exclude any completely non-wiki-realted "other stuff" merely because on some other day, they happened to re-publish Wikipedia content. WhatamIdoing (talk) 21:26, 12 December 2011 (UTC)

Yes. See threads here [4] and here [5]. JanetteDoe (talk) 23:40, 12 December 2011 (UTC)

The New York Times should not be used as an example of a reliable source

The reliability of the NYT is hotly disputed. As such, it should not be used as an example of a "reliable source"[6][7][8][9] — Preceding unsigned comment added by William Jockusch (talk • contribs) 03:12, 15 December 2011 (UTC)

It is a reliable source per our guidelines. Does it always get the story straight? No. Does it contain bias? Yes. But the same is true for every news source whether it is the Wall Stree Journal, Fox News, MSNBC, The Guardian, etc. That is why use of news sources has to be weighed/evaluated on a case by case basis.---Balloonman ^{Poppa Balloon} 03:47, 15 December 2011 (UTC)

Other reliable sources treat is as reliable. There is no genuine controversy. LK (talk) 03:52, 15 December 2011 (UTC)

Well, if the paragraph said the NYT and Fox News were examples of reliable sources, I would not have an issue. Then we would have one left-wing and one right-wing source, both of which routinely publish distortions, and both listed as "reliable." So at least it would be even handed. But no, it says the NYT and the Cambridge University Press. William Jockusch (talk) 04:09, 15 December 2011 (UTC)

Sure looks like a genuine controversy to me. Here are more examples:

Lobbyist linked to McCain sues NY Times for $27 million [10]

Why Does The New York Times Love Hamas? [11]

New York Times Anti-Israel Bias in Editorials As Bad As Ever [12]

Occupy the New York Times [13]

Journalistic Fraud: How the New York Times Distorts the News and Why It Can No Longer Be Trusted [14]

Tom Friedman, hitting rock bottom[15] William Jockusch (talk) 04:29, 15 December 2011 (UTC)

Unreliable?? Hmm... what about the fact that the NYT has picked up more Pulitzer Prizes than any other news organization? Tabercil (talk) 05:11, 15 December 2011 (UTC)

Oh for emphatic-adjective sake; no source is universally reliable which is why we have WP:RS/N. I don't read my MEDRS content out of the NYT. I don't rely on the NYT for HISTRS or SCIRS content. Nor do I expect the NYT to accurately critique Shakespeare, or provide central insight into Simpson's episodes or contemporary Papua New Guinean politics. Fifelfoo (talk) 05:21, 15 December 2011 (UTC)

Agreed... but I think the point that good Mr. Jockusch is trying to make is that the NYT cannot be considered a reliable source at all. Personally, I think WP:TROLL probably best fits the circumstance here... Tabercil (talk) 05:31, 15 December 2011 (UTC)

Concur. Fifelfoo (talk) 05:33, 15 December 2011 (UTC)

+1 --Kmhkmh (talk) 05:57, 15 December 2011 (UTC)

No, my point is that by identifying the left-wing NYT as "reliable" but not doing the same for a right-wing source, the article is itself biased.William Jockusch (talk) 13:22, 15 December 2011 (UTC)

Well, any suggestions for one? Throw a name out there so folks know who you're considering to be reliable. Tabercil (talk) 13:48, 15 December 2011 (UTC)

Sure, how about the Heritage Foundation. I won't pretend that they don't get things wrong at times, but saying "the NYT or the Heritage Foundation" would make things balanced in my opinion. William Jockusch (talk) 00:33, 17 December 2011 (UTC)

Wikipedia is not a soapbox for your american politics. Fifelfoo (talk) 21:56, 15 December 2011 (UTC)

More importantly, William needs to go read that sentence again. This guideline does not list The Gray Lady as an example of a reliable source. It lists it as an example of a publisher. The New York Times is a publication, not a publisher. Arthur Ochs Sulzberger, Jr. is the publisher of The New York Times, just like Random House (under their Broadway imprint) is the publisher of Bush's Decision Points. This is wrong and should be fixed. WhatamIdoing (talk) 05:56, 15 December 2011 (UTC)

Isn't it effectively both a publication and its own publisher? I think it is a distraction to think of Sulzberger, though he may be named "publisher", as comparable to Cambridge University Press - the ongoing institution is the Times (and to a less important extent, for the purposes of this discussion, the company that owns it). Barnabypage (talk) 14:40, 15 December 2011 (UTC)

The New York Times is published by The New York Times Company. Somehow this is not considered "self published" even though if I formed "The Sbharris Company" and published a blog on the net with myself and one editor, I think people would have wp:selfpub problems with things I said that were not explicitly about my company, but rather (say) the war in Iraq. Face it, the comments made at the end of the section above [16] are spot-on. The difference is in size and number of lawyers hired, not particularly (or necessarily) in a qualitative difference that is attached to size. Essentially, WP policy here is struggling against the sorites paradox. When does a collection of sand become a heap? Or a pebble become large enough to be a rock and a rock become large enough to be a boulder? When does a fetus become a baby or a drarf planet become a full planet? When does the child become the adult? Or a growing cult become a religion? That last is the same answer as for what we regard as reliable publications: size, age, money, number of lawyers. But actually, what we really want, is not some stupid WP:selfpub policy, but rather to identify the truthiness problems (or lack of problems) that selfpub is a marker for. Otherwise, we're just operating on a sort of prejudice that larger "publishers" are more honest or true ("realiable") than are smaller ones. Which of course is not always the case. S B H arris 20:29, 15 December 2011 (UTC)

American periodicals distinguish between the publisher and the owner. Sulzberger is the publisher of the newspaper. The New York Times Company is the owner of the newspaper. Because this quirk of the industry is confusing to most people, it would IMO be far better to name a non-American periodical, or to name a non-periodical publisher, like Random House (which I believe is the largest English-language book publisher).

(The legitimate reason your new publication would be considered self-published (e.g., by non-Wikipedia people) is because new outfits do not qualify for the "established publisher" exemption from the dictionary definition.) WhatamIdoing (talk) 21:54, 15 December 2011 (UTC)

Ha, good one about the number of lawyers. I'm sure they're well-connected, expensive lawyers, too.

I'm a lefty; but all news outlets are suspect. See the following columns and comments about NYT's relationship with PR agents: (oops, links don't work: search on brisbane 2011/07/06 NYT, and brisbane 2011/07/14 NYT). Nice that they stepped in when Pogue went overboard in exploiting the revolving door between journalism and PR, but look at the parts about the reliance of the newspaper of record on PR pros. I knew that the PR agent's job is to generate favorable "publicity" that appears to be objective third-party information about a client, whether it's a person or an organization. This implies that PR agents are, essentially, marketing their contacts among the people who write and publish (or broadcast) the news. Which means that the news must be (clandestinely, I had assumed) influenced by paid, um, informants. I guess they're called flacks, and the journalists who write the stories are called hacks. The reader usually never knows that a PR agent was involved.

What I didn't know is that newspapers, including the NYT, are not at all embarrassed to get and publish stories from PR agents, on behalf of their clients. It's business as usual, or as Brisbane puts it, a "role they [PR professionals] play in the everyday machinations of The Times". In other words, if you can afford a well-connected PR agent, then you can greatly increase your chances of having your story published in the ultra-prestigious NYT. I'm not sure if the fee is adjusted depending on the results, as I've heard medical ghost-writing fees often are, with the highest fee for NEJM or JAMA, lower fee for specialty journals, etc. I haven't figured out (yet) who typically pays the journalist, if it's a freelancer rather than a staff reporter on salary. Probably not the client directly, that would look really bad. (But doesn't it look bad, no matter who pays?) Maybe the PR agent, who adds it onto their bill. Possibly the newspaper, if the story seems sufficiently entertaining to its particular readership. Maybe the prestige of a byline in the NYT is sufficient to lower the monetary fee the writer charges. Or maybe it's some combination of the above.

To me, this seems as unethical as our system of allowing wealthy individuals or corporations to donate to election campaigns, and to pay Washington insiders to lobby Congress, cabinet members, and government regulatory agencies. As Lily Tomlin said, No matter how cynical I get, I can't keep up. Cheers, Postpostmod (talk) 23:14, 15 December 2011 (UTC)

There are two debates here. One is about newspapers in general, and the fact is that we are stuck with the press that we have. If you want to use newspapers as sources in articles it does help if you know a little about how they work. Yes, they do sometimes print press releases verbatim. Yes, they do often print stories from the newswires verbatim. Also, they have reporters who go out in the field. They also do their own desk-based fact-checking and research, and they publish corrections of errors. If you read the story carefully it is usually obvious where it came from. I'm talking about quality newspapers here, not the tabloids; it seems that nobody guessed how many stories had come from phone hacking. The second issue is what examples of papers are given. These are only examples, we don't need to balance 50-50 right and left. In the UK, we regard the Daily Telegraph (right wing) as equally reliable as The Guardian (left wing). Itsmejudith (talk) 14:30, 16 December 2011 (UTC)

Thanks Judith, I'm curious about the British press. What about the London Times? With the caveat that I'm not an avid student of the news, I wonder if the Wall Street Journal would be the appropriate US right-leaning counterpart to the NYT. Unfortunately they're both based in NYC, which gives the same regional biases to them both. However, ideological biases are balanced by WSJ's explicit service to the big-business (right-leaning) community, while the NYT performs a balancing act between (1) not upsetting its sources of money, (2) maintaining its left-leaning reputation on social and intellectual issues, and (3) occasional forays into deep investigative reporting, often with an international focus, resulting in the Pulitzers mentioned by Tabercil, above. Incidentally, the WSJ has won 33 Pulitzers. (And again, I'm a lefty, so I'm not interested in promoting the WSJ - just responding to questions of balance and NPOV). Postpostmod (talk) 18:00, 17 December 2011 (UTC)

Postpostmod - the London Times (and also The Independent and the Financial Times, the other two so-called "quality" national daily papers in Britain) would be considered by most people to be as reliable as the Guardian and Telegraph, although a few conspiracy theorists will point to Murdoch's ownership of The Times or Lebedev's of The Independent as prima facie evidence of unreliability. A few of the better non-national papers, such as The Scotsman, would probably be considered of equal reliability though naturally they have significantly fewer resources than the nationals and therefore their coverage of most stories is more limited. The tabloid press can probably be considered reliable on certain kinds of specifics - if they say that a 28-year-old person was killed in a car accident in Birmingham, we can be fairly confident it wasn't actually a 35-year-old in Belfast - but quite unreliable on others, which makes using them as sources more trouble than it's worth. Barnabypage (talk) 14:12, 18 December 2011 (UTC)

I just have to shake my head... about once a year (if not more often) some account which has virtually no edit history comes along and starts a thread about some media source not being a reliable source. And before we know it, that user sparks a fury of edits and possible RfC. The account which started this thread has fewer than 100 edits total... and had about 5 edits in the past 4+ years before starting this thread. The major media outlets are "self published" in the fact that the publisher publishes the magazine/newspaper. But in reality, they aren't... they have appropriate editorial oversight and are generally considered reliable (if not neutral or 100% accurate.) But that goes with every news sources whether the NYT, WSJ, Guardian, Washington Post, Time Magazine, etc. I just find it amazing that virtual newbies can come here at apparent will and stir such controversy over a long settled issue. Just like the Fox News RfC from a year ago or so, this is a non-issue non-starter.---Balloonman ^{Poppa Balloon} 23:46, 17 December 2011 (UTC)

Historical revisionism and Political Correctness hurts when its personal, doesn't it. --Mike Cline (talk) 00:26, 18 December 2011 (UTC)

The reason you are seeing that, Balloon, is that there a large number of people out there who understand the bias of the NYT. They come here, notice it, run into the fact that the majority here appears not to see it, get frustrated, and disappear. I find it interesting that there are a lot of posts in this discussion dismissing me, but none taking a hard look at my evidence. — Preceding unsigned comment added by William Jockusch (talk • contribs) 19:30, 21 December 2011 (UTC)

Your 'evidence' is spurious at best, and there is no reasonable way to suggest that 5 (or 10 or 20 or 100) articles that you perceive as biased should have any effect on the New York Times, their 106 Pulitzer Prizes, and their 160 years of journalistic integrity. Achowat (talk) 19:42, 21 December 2011 (UTC)

Thanks, Barnabypage, that's helpful. Balloonman, I empathize with your frustration. I'm not very patient with repetition, myself. It seems to be built into the structure of Wikipedia, sort of the way a professor or teacher has to deal patiently with the same student questions year after year. They're new to the students, but not to the professors. This WT:IRS project is just too big to go back to the beginning and read it through, before raising an issue. However, I take your point, and will be more careful in the future to choose suitable places for broaching my concerns. Best wishes to all, Postpostmod (talk) 15:48, 19 December 2011 (UTC)

In an effort to solve the actual problem, which is the erroneous identification of a publication as being a publisher (not the new editor's incorrect belief that Wikipedia's guidelines are required to be NPOV), I have removed the name of the publication and substituted the name of the largest English-language book publisher.

Perhaps if people want to keep chatting about whether there are sources that are "always reliable" or sources that are "always unreliable", they'll go read the /FAQ and pick another page for continuing the discussion. WhatamIdoing (talk) 19:57, 21 December 2011 (UTC)

Self-published and questionable sources as sources on themselves

In this section of this guideline, when it lists five criteria that must be met in order to use a self-published source about the same self, I think it needs to clarify which (if any) of the criteria are meant to apply only to the information inserted into an article, and which (if any) are meant to apply to the source itself in its entirety. EverSince (talk) 09:48, 15 December 2011 (UTC)

I've edited it, hope this clarifies to your satisfaction. LK (talk) 04:00, 16 December 2011 (UTC)

Thanks, that does seem clearer. I still think it might be open to confusion by editors maybe, as to whether 'material' refers to the source material or to the statement put into a Wikipedia article. EverSince (talk) 06:24, 16 December 2011 (UTC) (I should clarify I'm not 100% sure myself or I might have had a go at editing it) EverSince (talk) 16:39, 16 December 2011 (UTC)

HMS Phoebe

I "Stood By" HMS PHOEBE for seven months when she was being built at Stevens Yard,Linthouse,Glasgow.Then served on her for two years.She was NOT built at Vickers. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 121.223.72.156 (talk) 12:30, 22 December 2011 (UTC)

school list

dear sir, please include the the name Presidency International School, 51 Panchlaish R/A, Chittagong. which offer O/A level graduatio nunder the University of Cambridge International Examinations.

Md. Ziaul Alam Head, Department of Economics.Presidency International School Chittagong — Preceding unsigned comment added by 180.234.142.174 (talk) 09:05, 3 January 2012 (UTC)

Please explain just what you want Wikipedia editors to do. Should we create an article, add this school to a list somewhere, or what? Of course, the issues of notability and sources will naturally arise in any response to your request. --DThomsen8 (talk) 14:17, 11 January 2012 (UTC)

Proposed wording on snippet and abstract links in citations

FYI

– Just a link to a relevant discussion elsewhere.

Help talk:Citation Style 1#Proposed snippet and abstract wording is discussing something – guidance about linking to snippet views and abstracts – that would eventually need to be integrated into WP:MOS if acted upon, and probably also be mentioned at WP:V and/or WP:RS, as well as WP:CITE. The parent thread above it provides some background, but may be "TLDR" for some. — SMcCandlish Talk⇒ ʕ(^Õل^ō)ˀ Contribs. 00:39, 12 January 2012 (UTC)

Additional information Treasure Hunt UK TV series

The article is good, however it misses the fact that the camera man Graham Berry received a BAFTA for the photographic work in 1985, see article: http://www.imdb.com/name/nm0077556/ — Preceding unsigned comment added by 81.155.81.230 (talk) 21:54, 14 January 2012 (UTC)

piparia

Piparia is a village situated in kaimur district of bihar under mohanian police station.Village situated at the bank of durgawati river.Rajput ( NAGVANSI)dominated village.Durgawati railway station in north about 4 km and in between Grand Trunk Road. Sri Badri Singh a resident became M.L.A.in 1957 and 1969. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 117.197.75.27 (talk) 13:08, 15 January 2012 (UTC)

Mr Fzeeze

you have not mentioned Eli Wallach as Mr Freeze, : Wallach played Mr. Freeze in the 1960s Batman television series. He wrote in his autobiography that he received more fan mail about his role as Mr. Freeze than about all of his other roles combined. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 81.107.186.138 (talk) 22:08, 20 January 2012 (UTC)

Wallach's appearance as Mr. Freeze is mentioned in both the Eli Wallach bio article, and the article on the Batman character... so I assume you are talking about some other article? Was there an RS question? Blueboar (talk) 22:21, 20 January 2012 (UTC)

I think the article in question is List of Batman television series characters. Freeze was played by multiple actors in the series and Eli Wallach is not mentioned there.--69.159.111.241 (talk) 19:58, 22 January 2012 (UTC)

Um... actually, yes... he is mentioned there (and has been for quite a while). In any case, this isn't an IRS issue, and so not within the scope of this page. Blueboar (talk) 19:35, 24 January 2012 (UTC)

Roman success rates of military

the roman military was one of the best of romes time — Preceding unsigned comment added by 74.73.235.82 (talk) 01:48, 25 January 2012 (UTC)

British actor - Kenneth Haigh

Don Anderson rruggles@cogeco.ca

Possible missing info about British actor Kenneth Haigh- Twilight Zone - "The Last Flight", Very dangerous scene without a stuntman, Kenneth hand started an old Bi-Plane.Where did he get the experience?" There was no scene break for a stuntman. Starting an old Bi-Plane by hand turning the prop is very dangerous and among those trained to execute the technique many have lost their lives. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 67.193.208.199 (talk) 14:31, 25 January 2012 (UTC)

Steve Currie/ T Rex

Steve Currie also worked with me at Taplows wines and Spirits in South St.Marys Gate Grimsby in 1963/64 before going on to join T Rex! — Preceding unsigned comment added by 95.149.168.84 (talk) 09:35, 28 January 2012 (UTC)

kingdom animalia

can you please give me the sub phylums of vertibrates? — Preceding unsigned comment added by 112.135.74.68 (talk) 02:51, 29 January 2012 (UTC)

Try asking your question at the Wikipedia:Reference desk. WhatamIdoing (talk) 04:47, 1 February 2012 (UTC)

Disclaimers on websites

A trip through RSN's archives shows a lot of discussions in which people ask whether the presence of standard liability disclaimers on the website make the source unreliable.

For example, the website for The New York Times says "NYT does not represent or endorse the accuracy or reliability of any advice, opinion, statement, or other information displayed, uploaded, or distributed through the Services". This is pretty typical, and yet few of us would say that a major newspaper is an unreliable source.

So my thinking is that we should expand the ==Questionable sources== section to add a single sentence along the lines of "The presence of a boilerplate liability disclaimer, such as seen on the websites of many major newspapers, is not an indication that a source is questionable."

What do you think? WhatamIdoing (talk) 04:10, 1 February 2012 (UTC)

Except that it is regularly indicative that a source is questionable, when it is used in place of an editorial policy. Fifelfoo (talk) 04:33, 1 February 2012 (UTC)
Can you give an example of a source that you would have been happy to accept as if they didn't have such a disclaimer, but have rejected because they do? WhatamIdoing (talk) 04:46, 1 February 2012 (UTC)
This entire thread is being discussed with the implication that sources are globally reliable or unreliable. Reliability is contextual depending on what's being claimed. If anything, we should change the policy to emphasize that few sources are totally reliable or totally unreliable, and that it's all contextual. Gigs (talk) 22:03, 10 February 2012 (UTC)
Certainly reliability is contextual. We have a problem with people declaring that boilerplate disclaimers like the one at the The New York Times website make the contents of those websites fall into the "totally unreliable" category. For the narrow problem that I'd like to fix, I think that addressing the issue of website disclaimers directly will be more effective than another generalized, vaguely worded round of "it's all contextual". WhatamIdoing (talk) 03:06, 21 February 2012 (UTC)

Counterpunch, Antiwar.com

Can they be considered reliable sources for statements of opinion? If, for example, I find that a criticism against a prominent civil society organization, made by an antiwar.com or Counterpunch writer, fits the entry for that organization, should I include it? Can they be used as reliable sources, not for facts, but instead for opinions, criticism, etc.? Guinsberg (talk) 15:42, 1 February 2012 (UTC)

This kind of question is best asked at WP:Reliable sources/Noticeboard. WhatamIdoing (talk) 05:05, 4 February 2012 (UTC)

Are interviews reliable sources?

Are interviews published by a source independent of the interviewee considered reliable sources? CüRlyTüRkey^Talk_Contribs 21:26, 10 February 2012 (UTC)

They are intrinsically only reliable sources of what the subject said in the interview; in that case they are also primary sources (which, for quotations, are preferred). As far as content, they are only as reliable as the person being interviewed (e.g. I once found Loudon Wainwright III misstating his own father's name). If someone were an expert in the field, they might be considered reliable for that. All of this depends on the reliability of the publisher of the interview. Mangoe (talk) 21:37, 10 February 2012 (UTC)

So...if the article were a bio, and the only source for the subject's father's name were in an interview, would it be best to leave it out entirely? CüRlyTüRkey^Talk_Contribs 23:21, 13 February 2012 (UTC)

Er ... I think you're misunderstanding. Mangoe is citing that as an extreme example. In general, most people are reliable sources for their own father's name. Now, it may well be that their father's name isn't important for purposes of the article, and the fact that only one interview mentions it seems like evidence that it's not very important, but that's a different issue, one of weight, not one of reliability. --GRuban (talk) 23:43, 13 February 2012 (UTC)

Okay, what I'm getting at is: in what way and to what degree are interviews acceptable as sources for a biography? A few months ago, I was doing a lot of work on Chester Brown's article, and a lot of the sources I included were from interviews with him. It only occurred to me recently that that might be an issue, and I haven't been able to find anything about it in the guidelines. CüRlyTüRkey^Talk_Contribs 23:54, 13 February 2012 (UTC)

There is a discussion regarding ethnographic and oral history interviews conducted by amateurs and professionals respectively ongoing on RS/N at the moment. Fifelfoo (talk) 00:31, 14 February 2012 (UTC)

Thanks for pointing that out, but the discussion seems to revolve around whether oral history can be used to show notability. Chester Brown is an award-winning, best-selling cartoonist and politician. He's got notability coming out his ears. What I wanted to know is to what degree details of his life can be included from what he has said in interviews. CüRlyTüRkey^Talk_Contribs 00:56, 14 February 2012 (UTC)

My two pence is that if the interviewer asked questions about or discussed particular aspects then that shows that the answer has some weight, however bits which the interviewee just offered up without prompting would need some other secondary sources mentioning it to show interest. Dmcq (talk) 09:03, 14 February 2012 (UTC)

For supporting content in an article, an interview is at least as reliable as as the subject's official website. Technically, interviews are defined by policy as being primary sources, and you may WP:USEPRIMARY sources (carefully). WhatamIdoing (talk) 03:09, 21 February 2012 (UTC)

SO, those external links...

I'm going through the articles which cite TMZ.com (mentioned here as both unreliable in it's own right, and as plagarisng WP without citing, leading to WP:CIRCULAR). What do the panel think about the site used in Extremal links, for example A Public Affair. Rich Farmbrough, 21:23, 13 February 2012 (UTC).

New essay link

I notice User:Fifelfoo has added a new essay link to an essay that has been worked on for some time now: Wikipedia:Identifying reliable sources (history). Now that it is being linked into mainstream policy, I would suggest some broader discussion should be had about this. Here are some remarks for comment:

In general, articles about history tend to sometimes use non-academic sources, but this essay basically says that this is actually original research. While I do not question the need for a preference for the best sources, I honestly doubt that this wording reflects consensus on Wikipedia? In any case calling one type of problem something else hurts my logic organ. "Poor sources" are not "original research"?
I am also somewhat concerned with the general idea of different fields having different rules, especially when those rules are clearly being qualification driven. Of course common sense and consensus have always meant that different fields require different approachs to sources, and in some cases, even some rules (for example concerning medical information or concerning living people). But there does seem to be a non-consensus movement within Wikipedia which wants to create academic "territories" within Wikipedia. It is like a guild-based version of article ownership isn't it? (I have seen articles about ancient languages being patrolled by linguists who fight against any material published by geneticists or archaelogists about those languages, no matter how frequently cited, and I have have seen it argued that scientific articles should never have sections devoted to popular culture subjects, no matter how obviously notable or linked. Such things can lead to forking in a way which can distort how WP presents a subject so that is no longer neutral and similar to how a reading of mainstream sources would present it.) Apart from WP:NEUTRAL I also think it grinds a bit with the whole concept of WP being the encyclopedia anyone can edit, as opposed to Nupedia?

Anyway I think there should be some broader discussion. --Andrew Lancaster (talk) 10:26, 17 February 2012 (UTC)

Please notice that the page in question starts with:

This is a project to work towards guidelines equivalent to WP:MEDRS for History related articles.

therefore it is not an essay, but rather something similar to new policy proposal. Aren't there a rules how to format and present such policy-work-in-progress pages? AFAIU, any policy/guideline works must be announced for a broader audience, to avoid possible bias hinted at by Andrew.

Second, Andrew, IMO the proper place for the discussion you started is Wikipedia talk:Identifying reliable sources (history). Therefore I suggest to move this section there, while leaving here an invitation to join the discussion.Lovok Sovok (talk) 17:30, 17 February 2012 (UTC)

My impression is that discussion on that page is within a small group, and this should get broader discussion.--Andrew Lancaster (talk) 20:01, 17 February 2012 (UTC)

You may wish to notify those editors. HISTRS is mainly used as a representation of hundreds of RS/N responses regarding history articles. As HISTRS mostly represents a situation specific implementation of WEIGHT, RS and V it isn't aiming at policy status—if policy status isn't necessary why require it?

Andrew, I'm going to respond in detail to some of your points:

"different fields having different rules" is actually what happens on wikipedia already. And the suggestion in HISTRS is primarily practice based rather than qualification based; qualifications are used as a proxy indicator of practice; but, regular publication in the scholarly mode is another indicator of practice.
This isn't a non-consensus movement; I'd suggest you read RS/N's back catalogue. It isn't like a guild based version of ownership and your suggestion is more than a little offensive—HISTRS includes a fairly obvious sequence of both interdisciplinary and non-academically qualified methods for peering the quality of the standard of publication. But the people who do history have an established system of knowledge and publication.
In particular, their epistemology, at the highest level "historiography" in general, indicates that stitching together a variety of sources is the conduct that is the production of raw history. We don't accept argumentum ab initio in maths, we don't accept demonstration by statistical calculation in mass sociology or economics, nor do we accept demonstration by original synthesis of primary sources in history—because we do not conduct original research on wikipedia.
And doing so with sources that are "secondary" to wikipedia, but are of an appallingly poor quality, such as opinionated op-eds from newspapers published 75 years ago, is another attempt to demonstrate by the production of original knowledge.
The failure to present what the mainstream sources say is a core issue here: the suggestion that Albanian history ought primarily be sourced from late 19th century generalist tertiary works—primarily because these mirror a populist narrative of some kind of southern european ethnic nationalism—the sheer level of avoidance of scholarly works in the area of history is a deep problem.
Supplementing fundamentally good behaviour (scholarly weighting, structure, narrative) with individual factual points that lie clearly within such claims, or with illustration of a point by reference to a primary source is good. But as I recently read on a major war article, suggesting that the article be rewritten to conform to a collection of primary sources compiled by an involved government, some types of suggested editing break OR quite badly in the field of history. Fifelfoo (talk) 00:54, 18 February 2012 (UTC)

Hi Fifelfoo. I probably should mention that I intended to post on that talkpage also a long time ago but had a problem with an ipad. I then forgot about it. The inclusion of the link on a policy page is the trigger for asking for broader discussion.

I agree that in practice different fields do require different approaches, of course. See my own bullet points. My concern is to make too many rules, or rules which are over-simplistic, might in fact make it impossible to use different approaches in different types of cases.
Whether there is a non consensus movement or not is something that would need to be tested.
Of course I agree that we do not accept synthesis of primary sources, and we already have policy pages which say this. If this new page simply repeated that, then there would be no issue. What it does is that it states that usage of non academic, non specialist sources can generally be safely equated with original research. That is an extreme position in my opinion? That is the bit I think needs discussion.

I want to point out that I do see the good faith in this. You and I often contribute to RS/N and although we come from different directions I do believe we tend to come up with the same advice in practice even if we explain it differently. My concern is about making inflexible rules which might over-ride common sense consensus finding. I think we have a different approach to rule making.--Andrew Lancaster (talk) 07:50, 18 February 2012 (UTC)

The central issue around the "movement" is describing it as a "movement;" it is one of those "cabal"ly type descriptors that indicate a level of separate coordinator. Saying "a bunch of people who edit at RS/N have edited a draft" is clearer—at least in part because there's active debate around the construction of that draft anyway.

The issue of rules creep is a serious one, but for many years we had a long winded explanation of how to identify good historical sources based on the summarising of high quality secondary sources, we also have had WP:MILMOS#SOURCES which the History project incorporated. HISTRS both respecifies these, and respecifies the many exceptions given in practice at RS/N.

Regarding non-expert sources, and the synthetic conflation of these to produce predominantly ethnic-nationalist, but occasionally religious-sectarian or political-sectarian POVs on History articles—as sources such as newspapers grow older, the essential context that allows a non-specialist to summarise them disappears. Words change meaning, tone and context. Interpretations that appeared as progressive now appear reactionary. Moreover, the fundamental absence of interpretive quality in most non-specialist works, the commercial and militaria presses in particular, makes these works useless. They are so little esteemed in the literature that they are not even reviewed. (Religious and political presses seem to do a little better in this regard). The commercial press regularly generates "unique" interpretations of little value, they are broadly FRINGE. Editors have the habit of effectively cherry picking facts without interpretation from these works to produce new and unique historical narratives by synthesis. We can't do this.

Guides to writing and sourcing history articles on wikipedia have had the long term habit of specifying a "best practice" and then forgiving editors. Often this is a good decision, as conflicts between editors over appropriate editing escalate towards epistemological and interpretive issues surrounding sourcing in history articles. Specifying a non-best-practice standard, such as an every-day practice standard doesn't work—because when the ethnic identity dispute X hits RS/N, it is always about people incorporating less than scholarly sources to synthesise a POV, and we always end up saying "WEIGHT and structure from scholarly field reviews, take the narrative and fact from scholarly secondary sources, fill in primarily from scholarly secondary sources though you can have recourse from elsewhere if the incidents you cite meet the weight, structure and narratives..." It ends up being a mantra.

Sometimes it isn't good to encode interpretive case related rules. In this situation, however, the repetition of core sourcing practices suitable to defuse history articles in conflict is so tiresome for editors that relief is needed. And the structure of the writing is exception laden. While the standard is "Texts published by scholarly press by historian," all three elements are structured around equivalency rather than normativity. We know someone is a historian because their work has been repeatedly reviewed as a historical work by historians; we know a scholarly press is scholarly because it has been repeatedly reviewed in the scholarly press. This is fairly effective because it allows the "peering in" of non-standard researchers; it also allows non-Anglophone traditions considerable freedom, as the standard isn't review in the AHA (though they review a lot, and broadly), but any system of historical scholarly publication reviewing.

Finally, anyone looking at HISTRS might note that the section on supporting specific "facts" in the wikipedia sense is blank. I can't imagine how to write that many exceptions, and actually appropriately sourcing "facts" isn't the problem—it is always weight structure and narrative. Fifelfoo (talk) 22:33, 19 February 2012 (UTC)

Thanks Fifeloo. I still don't see any good reason to equate non-best practice sourcing with OR and SYNTH. I do see that writing such rules is difficult, and that is in a sense my point.--Andrew Lancaster (talk) 11:11, 20 February 2012 (UTC)

I see your point clearly now! Historians generate an essential knowledge of the past they call "narrative"—this is the complex causal analysis and ordering of the interaction of causes. It is an analytical behaviour which non-historians do not conduct very well. Popular works, such as journalist's accounts of past events, or the recollections of involved figures, do not produce this form of knowledge. Attempts to rely upon this kind of source for complex causal structures produces original research. However, relying on works of lesser quality, where otherwise trustworthy, for descriptions, facts within an interpretive frame derived from elsewhere, or other such material is usually valid. Compare from source A being historical writing, and sources B and C being popular writing: A, thus: A1 A2 A3; A, thus: A1 B2 C3; B1 C2 C3, thus this. I would suggest that the first two are legitimate encyclopaedism, but the third is synthesis, and because it is synthesis it is making an argument about causal structure which does not and cannot adequately lie within the sources B or C. The appropriate journals are quite adequate at spotting historical works written by people not professionally accredited as or employed as historians, and reviewing them to indicate their usefulness. The issue isn't drawing a fact from a popular source, it is much more "writing out of" popular sources—as this writing out of duplicates what is original research in history. Fifelfoo (talk) 11:39, 20 February 2012 (UTC)

Sounds about right, although I may need to read that again. :) But that is not what the proposed page says. It makes much more simplified rulings and you can bet that if it comes to be seen as policy it will be abused heartily? So is it possible to get more subtility into this effort? --Andrew Lancaster (talk) 12:03, 20 February 2012 (UTC)

One of the issues is that since about 2002 we've had a relatively excellent essaylette Wikipedia:Reliable_source_examples#History. This is so subtle that it isn't an effective tool in sourcing disputes. One complaint from editors with a mentality of "specify and reduce" is that HISTRS is unfortunately vague. Obviously I'll have to reread and rework after this discussion. The underlying context here is RS/N though. I feel like I want to test the concepts into the ground with RS/N or some major sourcing disputes as an effective way to clarify the limitations of the document? Fifelfoo (talk) 20:24, 20 February 2012 (UTC)

Lovok, the answer to your question above about how to present a proposed guideline is at WP:PROPOSAL. WhatamIdoing (talk) 03:14, 21 February 2012 (UTC)

About Fifelfoo's page: it decries "Any non-scholarly tertiary source; scholarly tertiary sources written by or aimed at non-historians". This is basically a fancy way of saying that Fifelfoo does not want textbooks intended for use in university history classes to be considered reliable sources, despite textbooks being named on this page as good sources specifically for history-related articles since 2006. WhatamIdoing (talk) 23:24, 1 March 2012 (UTC)

Except I've been rejecting textbooks at RS/N and winning consensus around this for an extended period of time. As you might know that section of IRS got hived out to an essay years ago. And what was wrong then is still wrong now. Undergraduate textbooks, particularly US mass market undergraduate textbooks are useless in field. MILMOS#SOURCES is a great deal more stringent, and a universal B criteria in history btw thanks to adoption by projects. Fifelfoo (talk) 20:26, 6 March 2012 (UTC)

Southwestern College

I am not quite sure what constitutes "Reliable Sources" or "References" for a College and its founders and officers. We are accredited by the Higher Learning Commission and that can be easily verified, as well as the Americn Art Therapy Association. I can link to the college web site, to the web sites of the primary people involved, but I am not sure how to VERIFY that we are Southwestern College, or where we were founded without referring BACK to our own website again. Any advice on this one? 71.228.116.157 (talk) 01:24, 21 February 2012 (UTC)Jim Nolan docwahoo@yahoo.com

Hasn't the history of your college been written up in the local newspaper or some other WP:Independent source like that? Sources do not need to be online. WhatamIdoing (talk) 03:12, 21 February 2012 (UTC)

Actually, the college's website can be considered a reliable (Primary) source for certain very basic facts (such as the college's location or when it was founded). The key is to use it sparingly, and in conjunction with independent secondary sources. Blueboar (talk) 14:54, 26 February 2012 (UTC)

Individual opinion pieces versus editorials from the newspaper's editorial board

I thought at one point this guideline differentiated between an individual signed editorial position, and an (unsigned) editorial written by a newspaper's editorial board. One would assume that the latter would be more reliable than the former, since it would have to go through the exact same legal and fact checking process as any news story in the newspaper. Jayjg ^(talk) 17:55, 26 February 2012 (UTC)

Partisan sources

It might be worth mentioning something (perhaps as a new paragraph under ==Questionable sources==) that sources are not required to follow NPOV, and merely being partisan is not enough to make a source unreliable, although it might be enough to necessitate WP:INTEXT attribution, e.g., "According to Fox News..." or "According to Mother Jones (magazine)..."

What do you think? WhatamIdoing (talk) 00:33, 18 March 2012 (UTC)

I think a source should be considered reliable if it has "reputation for fact-checking and accuracy". Most sources are more or less biased, so being a biased source does not make one unreliable. Many editors think partisan sources are not reliable. So your suggestion seems to be a good one. But we should make clear distinction between a biased source and a fringe source. --SupernovaExplosion ^Talk 02:27, 18 March 2012 (UTC)

According to WP:RS "Articles should be based on reliable, third-party, published sources", ("a third-party source is one that is entirely independent of the subject being covered"). It would seem to me that if a source is partisan (some sort of activist organisation, pressure group, watchdog ect), then it would automatically fall foul of the third party requirements on subjects related to the organisation's agenda. Thus biased sources could be technically RS, but would not be suitable in topics related to their bias due to the third party source requirement. Dlv999 (talk) 14:17, 18 March 2012 (UTC)

It is important to note the difference between "articles and information. The bulk of an article should be based on third party sources... but specific information within an article can be based on (potentially biased) first-party sources. When discussing a specific group or individual's political opinion, for example, the most reliable source possible is a statement from the group or person in question. When discussing the reliability of sources, context is important. Even something as biased as Mein Kamph can be reliable in certain limited contexts.

That said... I don't think this is what WhatamIdoing is talking about (correct me if I am misunderstanding, WAID). He seems to be talking about reliable third party, independent sources that might have a bias... such as major media outlets. We all know that many (if not most) media sources have an obvious political bias (some with liberal bias, others with conservative bias). When dealing with such, I think adding in-text attribution is often a very good idea. When we attribute, we are not saying that the source is unreliable... but we are acknowledging that it may not be neutral. Just make sure you are even handed (attributing all media sources - including those with biases that are the same as your own). Blueboar (talk) 15:19, 18 March 2012 (UTC)

If the Flat Earth Society were to publish a series of creation myths from various cultures in an encyclopeadic manner, is there any harm in using that material in Wikipeida (assuming of course that the material is of an appropriate quality and the Flat Earth Society intepretation of the myths can be split off from the myths themselves)? Martinvl (talk) 15:54, 18 March 2012 (UTC)

It isn't obvious to me that there is one true "Flat Earth Society". No literate adult could put forward flat earth as a serious theory, so publications of a flat earth society must be regarded as works of fiction and jokes. So how is one to judge where the fiction leaves off and the serious material begins? It's like trying to use a Tom Clancy novel as a source for a military weapon system fact. Sure, there are some real facts in those novels, but how is the reader to distinguish between fact and fiction? Jc3s5h (talk) 16:06, 18 March 2012 (UTC)

I used "The Flat Earth Society" as a euphamism for any society whose views are open to dispute. Martinvl (talk) 16:22, 18 March 2012 (UTC)

Let's make it more realistic... various religious denominations have widely differing beliefs as to what is "sinful" and what isn't. A particular denomination's publications are reliable for statements as to what that denomination believes. Since others dispute their beliefs, they can not be considered reliable for statements as to what actually is "sinful". Thus, the need to attribute. Blueboar (talk) 16:54, 18 March 2012 (UTC)

There is a deeper implication of what Bluenboar has written - the rationale as to why something is sinful. There are many situations that have the sequence: "Statement of fact" -> "Implications of fact" -> "Statement of Point of View". Offten the dispute lies in the "Implication of fact", rather in the "Statement of fact". In such cases, I think it quite appropriate to quote the "Statement of fact", checking it for both factual accuracy and completeness. Martinvl (talk) 18:20, 18 March 2012 (UTC)

My view is that Wikipedia should implement two different sets of criteria for 1. social science and humanities, and 2. natural science. Since natural science depends on laboratory observation, establishing the truth is not difficult in natural science . This is why we can safely say Flat Earth Society is a fringe source. Why? Because from any satellite picture it become clear the Earth is round. Analyzing fossils, we can safely say creationism is bullshit. The truth in natural science is observable.

But this does not apply to social science, except for history or archeology. We cannot say free market is bullshit, mixed economy is the truth. Or animal rights is bullshit, animal rights advocates are analogous to creationists. "Euthanasia is morally wrong" - the truth of this statement depends on interpretation. Do capitalists exploit workers, or capitalists are exploited by the state? Marxists and libertarians will say different things. There is no way to observe the truth in a laboratory condition. Since social science largely depends on interpreting the truth in different ways, a large number of contradictory views emerge. So bias is social science is not analogous to bias in natural science. A source may be pro-liberal, pro-conservative, pro-libertarian, pro-anarchist, pro-Marxist, pro-Objectivist, pro-environmentalist, pro-nihilist. No matter what their political orientation is, if they have "reputation for fact-checking and accuracy", they should be considered reliable source. In case a source is well-known for its bias, it should be attributed. --SupernovaExplosion ^Talk 05:29, 19 March 2012 (UTC)

The reliability and neutrality of sources are two separate things. If a source is reliable we can use it. Neutrality is a requirement of Wikipedia articles not of sources. Or are we going to write articles beginning, "Barack Obama is president ot the United States, according to Fox News". TFD (talk) 05:46, 19 March 2012 (UTC)

Blueboar correctly interprets every point except my gender.

Martin, the Flat Earth Society would be an example of "views that are widely acknowledged as extremist," which the guideline (and WP:V) already deal with. What I'm interested in are the perennial "But isn't Fox News always unreliable" kind of concern. Think about this in terms of relatively mainstream sources that talk about politics, economics, and such: Fox News has generally been pro-Republican Party, but not actually unreliable as a result. The Guardian has generally been pro-Labour Party, but not actually unreliable as a result. They are partisan—they directly and indirectly support specific parties—but they aren't questionable or unreliable sources. In both cases, if they say that Political Polly gave a speech about immigration last night, you can be pretty sure that Political Polly really did give a speech about immigration last night. WhatamIdoing (talk) 05:52, 19 March 2012 (UTC)

Deepak Shimkhada

This is reliable source. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Sushil2020 (talk • contribs) 14:59, 19 March 2012 (UTC)

RfC on {{More footnotes}}

You are invited to join the discussion at Template talk:More footnotes#RfC: Should this template be used only in references section, at page top, or on talk page?. — SMcCandlish Talk⇒ ɖ∘¿¤þ Contrib. 21:45, 24 March 2012 (UTC) — SMcCandlish Talk⇒ ɖ∘¿¤þ Contrib. 21:45, 24 March 2012 (UTC)

Question

Are Facebook/Twitter pages of artists and record labels reliable for Wikipedia? Oz ^talk 06:20, 25 March 2012 (UTC)

If you can be reasonably sure that the account is authentic, i.e. the page belongs to the artists or the label and is not a fan page or similar, you could use them as a "reliable" primary source (with the usual restriction applying for primary sources). Essentially you can treat it as a regular web representation/website of the artist. So you can use it to reliably source an opinion of the artist or self description (attributed as such).--Kmhkmh (talk) 22:08, 25 March 2012 (UTC)

In addition to being a primary source (see WP:USEPRIMARY), such sources are also self-published (see WP:SPS) and non-independent (see WP:INDY). But they can still be reliable for supporting article content, although they won't be useful for establishing WP:Notability. WhatamIdoing (talk) 00:22, 26 March 2012 (UTC)

Thank you. You've both been very helpful. Oz ^talk 03:11, 26 March 2012 (UTC)

Assessing reliability

Reading this guideline, I want to request a clarification. Is a source deemed reliable if it has a reputation for being trustworthy, or if the Wikipedia editor thinks the source is trustworthy? I have read, for example, in AfD debates, editors debating about why a source is or is not reliable for reason X, Y, and Z, but isn't it just a matter of public reputation? NTox · talk 03:09, 9 March 2012 (UTC)

Whether a source has a reputation for trustworthyness needs to be established. We have a noticeboard established for that purpose (WP:RS/N), and we have become exceedingly good at it. Fifelfoo (talk) 03:46, 9 March 2012 (UTC)

Sounds good. Thank you. NTox · talk 05:58, 9 March 2012 (UTC)

Although, I've got to ask. . .at the bottom of it, is this really the widespread consensus? It does not seem like the idea of reputation is the first concern when the average editor attempts to identify the reliability of a source. i.e., the reasoning usually seems to be 'they have an extensive editorial process, therefore they are reliable', as opposed to 'humanity at large trusts this source; they have received many awards for being accurate'. NTox · talk 08:14, 12 March 2012 (UTC)

I think it's both. The publication needs a reputation for reliability, and there also needs to be an editorial review process for the particular work being cited. For example, an otherwise reliable publication may have letters to the editors or reader forums that have very little editorial oversight. Jc3s5h (talk) 15:09, 12 March 2012 (UTC)

Humanity at large rarely reads the peer-reviewed Accounting History, but, I would trust Accounting History and its system of peer review more than The Australian which is read by a large number of persons and believed to be not untruthful. Public reputations for veracity normally follow on from a source having procedures to verify and demonstrate veracity to a standard accepted by an information community. Fifelfoo (talk) 20:58, 12 March 2012 (UTC)

"Reputation for reliability" is not to be understood as being democratic. When we are talking about a specialist field, it is the reputation amongst specialists that is most important. This is a difficult point to interpret and balance in some cases - hence the need for this noticeboard. For example for a "scientific subject", maybe for example an article about a well-known species of animal like a cat, there can be some facts worth reporting which are just general knowledge, and no problem to cite from a newspaper, or even a publication about cat shows or something like that - as long as it is notable and so on. I do not fully agree with Jc3s5h that all reliable sources have to have an editorial review process. Some authors are considered notable and to have a reputation for fact checking which justifies publishing their un-reviewed published remarks on their own. See WP:SPS.--Andrew Lancaster (talk) 12:21, 26 March 2012 (UTC)

Newspapers as sources of history

I want to add the following to the section "News organizations".

Newspapers are designed for reporting on current events and in general must be treated cautiously as sources of information about events that occurred many years earlier. Mentions in passing of historical events in articles primarily on another topic are especially likely to be unreliable. This concern does not apply to articles written by historians or articles that directly cite the opinions of historians.

There are two reasons. One is that newspaper articles are one of the main sources of erroneous information in Wikipedia's history articles. Another is that the use of Wikipedia by journalists without attribution is extremely widespread (ask any journalist) and we are just begging for circular logic if we admit material from journalists who have no historical expertise. I think this is consistent with current policy, but having it spelt out will certainly help those of us who endeavor to raise the quality of sourcing in historical articles. Zero^talk 21:28, 15 March 2012 (UTC)

Well... the thing is, this isn't just a problem about history. Ask any scientist, accountant, physician, or technologist, and you'll get the same complaint: journalists make mistakes, rely on lousy sources (whether Wikipedia or a crackpot who diligently returns phone calls from the media), overlook important nuances, turn out to be so ill-informed about the basics that they can't even ask the right questions, etc. So I think it inappropriate to single out historians as the true source of all information vs newspapers, when the problems are generally much more severe in other academic fields.

(By "much more severe", I mean both that real people die when a journalist gets things wrong about, say, alternative cancer treatments or HIV transmission, and also that there are many academic studies like PMID 19118299 that confirm the serious nature and pervasive scope of the problems with healthcare coverage in the popular press.)

It might be worth pointing out that once they leave the realm of "what happened last night", the popular press often gets it wrong, and it might be worth pointing out that most of them are WP:PRIMARYNEWS sources rather than secondary sources, but I don't think we should say that they're poor sources solely for history. History might well be one of the areas that a journalist is less likely to make a serious error. WhatamIdoing (talk) 23:21, 15 March 2012 (UTC)

I agree that the problems described above (which I don't dispute) is far from unique to reporting on history. We either stop allowing the use of newspapers as reliable source altogether, or allow their use on all topics - from hard science to social science, incl. history. Jeff Song (talk) 23:46, 15 March 2012 (UTC)

The discussion so far misses an important point... there is no such thing as a 100% always reliable or 100% always unreliable source... you have to look at sources in context. We can say that newspapers are usually reliable for certain kinds of statements, and that they are usually unreliable for other kinds of statements... but even there, we have exceptions once we get to specifics. We have to look at whether a specific newspaper report is reliable for a specific statement, made in a specific context. This is true of any source... ultimately reliability needs to be examined on a case by case basis. Blueboar (talk) 00:29, 16 March 2012 (UTC)

Personally I think newspapers should be treated by default as unreliable for anything not within the function of the newspaper (reporting on current events) or expertise of the journalist, since that is a closer match to reality. But I don't know if I could get acceptance for that. The next best thing would be more precise guidance on when to be confident of a newspaper's reliability and when not to be. I don't mind if it is expanded to include subjects other than history (WhatamIdoing is quite right about that). Zero^talk 07:49, 16 March 2012 (UTC)

I don't agree at all with Jeff Song's comment. There are some things respectible newspapers are quite reliable for, such as what happened yesterday, summaries of the course of recent events, and accurate reporting of interviews. These are the things journalists are trained for and we should rely on their expertise even while recognizing that they get it wrong sometimes. When they write about things they are not trained for, there is no reason we should rely on them. Zero^talk 08:09, 16 March 2012 (UTC)

I am not happy with lumping all newspaper reprots together. Rather, we shoudl be aware of how nrespoapers get their news - their own reporters, news vendors (such as Reuters, Bloomberg etc) and most importantly of all, press releases by those who are trying to make a point. I think that ant change should emphasise the need for a WIkiepdia editor to be aware of where the journalist concerned got their information and to be particularly aware of "press releases". Martinvl (talk) 09:17, 17 March 2012 (UTC)

I'm not sure that helps. If the journalist cites a source for the information, we can judge the information on the basis of the reliability of that source. The problematic case is when the journalist doesn't give a source. Zero^talk 10:18, 17 March 2012 (UTC)

Maybe our note should warn against journalists who use press releases - one of the big giveaways is a quote by somebody who is closely associated with the press release, especially if an opposing viewpoint is reasonbly well-known but is not published. Martinvl (talk) 13:37, 17 March 2012 (UTC)

An important caveat: Press releases are not necessarily unreliable... it depends on what we are using them for... indeed for an attributed statement as to the views of the person or group issuing the press release, they are the most reliable sources possible. They are primary sources, and need to be used as such. Blueboar (talk) 14:24, 17 March 2012 (UTC)

Additionally, I'm leery of anything that suggests editors should pick apart our source's sources. I had a very frustrating time a while ago with an editor who asserted that a newspaper story that was obviously written locally (it was about a new retail store opening up in a fairly small town) was not reliable because the particular sentence in question was "obviously" taken from a press release. How did he know that the sentence came from a press release? As far as I could make out, the editor had psychic powers that permitted him to divine the original source of a fact (a fact not contradicted by any other source he could find, and he did search diligently).

We also have a problem with editors wrongly rejecting perfectly good sources solely on the grounds that the reliable source does not end with a bibliography. I would not want to encourage that error, either, and I don't see any way to recommended that we consider the journalist's source for the information without seeming like we approve of picking apart our source's sources. WhatamIdoing (talk) 20:22, 17 March 2012 (UTC)

I agree with these comments but I don't think they are relevant to my proposal. I am not suggesting that we query the ability of a journalist to report correctly. If a journalist writes "a press release by XYZ" says "ABC", then we are entitled to write "according to XYZ, ABC is true" and give the journalist as the source. If a journalist quotes subject expert EXP as saying "PQR" then we are entitled to write "PQR", though if it is controversial we would consider writing "according to EXP, PQR". Similarly, if a journalist writes "in the past week SHT happened twice", we are entitled to put that into an article. These are all examples of treating a journalist as reliable for what journalists are trained to do, namely report accurately. My concern is only with the other cases, information written by a journalist which is well outside the expertise of the journalist or a mentioned source. This is a serious problem that many times leads to false information getting into articles. Zero^talk 01:15, 18 March 2012 (UTC)

Well though the problem is for real and warning hint might help, the subject or original question is too general to allow meaningful answer for newspapers as such. "newspapers as sources" is like "books at sources" and there is no yes or no answer. You simply have to do with a newspaper article what you would with any book (or in fact any source). Check qualification and reputation of author and the publisher, the content for internal consistency and consistency with other sources and domain knowledge and similar. Even if we only stick to "pure" journalists and exclude guest articles by external experts, the quality and reliability can vary strongly from journalist to journalist and newspaper publication to newspaper publication. Journalist may or may not have other formal educations than journalism. You can have historian by education who started to work as a journalist or a scientist who became a science journalist. You can have investigative journalist performing well rounded and extensive background research and you can some yellow press reporter making up things as he goes along. So there is no shoe that fits them all, but in doubt you need to judge the individual case.--Kmhkmh (talk) 02:16, 18 March 2012 (UTC)

And if the news article says just "ABC", then what would you do? Leave it up to editors to decide what the journalist's source probably was? WhatamIdoing (talk) 02:12, 18 March 2012 (UTC)

No, but the editors needs to assess the reliability of the article saying "ABC" (see posting above) and if he feels it might not be reliable she shouldn't use it. Now if several editors disagree about a (newspaper) source, that is having different assessments regarding its reliability, they need to work it out like content dispute and in doubt they may have to move "better" sources such as scientific/academic publications. Also for using the information accuraely in doubt you don't have to know, where the information originated from. You simply can write "newspaper X/journalist y claim ABC" (assuming you assessed it as trustworthy or notable at least).--Kmhkmh (talk) 02:24, 18 March 2012 (UTC)

User:WhatamIdoing, press releases from publicly traded companies should be evaluated based on the content the editor is extracting from them for use in an article. Clearly promotional language like "leading supplier" or "outstanding results," which is common for corporate press releases, needs to be filtered out; but information on M&A, product release dates, financial figures, appointments, etc. should be fine. Really it's more a question of notability than of reliability in this case – i.e. if the information in the press release is worthy of coverage in the article, why haven't secondary sources reported it? But that's a separate question. Bottom line, press releases from companies subject to regulation from securities exchange commissions should be ok as far as reliability goes for mundane facts about the company's operations.—Biosketch (talk) 09:27, 18 March 2012 (UTC)

We have WP:HISTRS that reflects the standards administered by community consensus at WP:RS/N. Such standards are against using contemporaneous newspapers for history, as they're "primary" sources, and are against using current newspapers retrospectives for history, as journalists both lack the training of historians and the systems of peer review that restrain historians to write reasonably. If you have a particular issue with the use of a newspaper as a source for history, take it to RS/N and watch the use of a newspaper to draw historical conclusions be rapidly pulled apart. (I have seen some valid use of newspapers as primary sources, particularly where they're "filling in" trivium or militaria where the narrative is chiefly sourced from appropriate secondary sources). Fifelfoo (talk) 10:05, 26 March 2012 (UTC)

While I agree that most newspaper articles are primary sources, not all of them are. Specifically, the articles about historical events (e.g., on the 60th anniversary of the end of WWII) are usually not. They are at least secondaries, and they might even be tertiaries. That doesn't mean that they're good sources, and they're certainly not the best sources for such information, but "primary" is not another way of spelling "bad source". Such sources should be rejected for being inappropriate, not for being primary.

Additionally, you are allowed to WP:USEPRIMARY sources (carefully), so we can't just say "it's primary, so it's unusable". The policy explicitly permits the use of primary sources. If you think it a poor choice for a source, you need to come up with a better reason for rejecting it than solely "it's primary". WhatamIdoing (talk) 19:30, 26 March 2012 (UTC)

Tertiary sources

The policy states, "Tertiary sources such as compendia, encyclopedias, textbooks, obituaries, and other summarizing sources may be used to give overviews or summaries, but should not be used in place of secondary sources for detailed discussion". I find that tertiary sources are undesirable because the authors often make sweeping generalizations, there are no footnotes and since they do not enter academic discourse there is no way to establish their claims. A specific example is that the Reagan administration may be called liberal or conservative depending on how the writer uses these terms. I suggest that we disallow encyclopedias, and high school and introductory level college textbooks. Note that there are useful sources that "give overviews", but ones that are useful meet the criteria of secondary sources. TFD (talk) 22:42, 22 March 2012 (UTC)

Please see the penultimate question in the FAQ. WhatamIdoing (talk) 00:53, 23 March 2012 (UTC)

Absolutetly not! There is no good reason to disallow (reliable) tertiary sources in general. Also note that some tertiary sources do have sources/footnotes and that often footnotes are not necessary if for instance in the case of textbook developing claims from first principles and/or common domain knowledge. Overall various tertiary sources are almost an indispensable source for WP, since they include standard university level textbooks (introductionary or advanced and often the difference doesn't really matter anyhow) and (scientific) special subject encyclopedias (authored by experts). If you have an issue with a particular low level tertiary source or a too general statement in a tertiary source, just replace it by a better secondary source, such individual cases are however no good reason to block the use of tertiary sources in general. Also it might be worthwhile to not that many of our articles (or their first versions) are written by laymen and those laymen might be better off using reliable tertiary sources rather than few secondary sources without being able to judge whether they are representative for the secondary sources on the subject as a whole.--Kmhkmh (talk) 02:58, 23 March 2012 (UTC)

Whatamidoing. What does one do when a statement in a tertiary source happens to be wrong? It is all very easy to say then replace it, but editors will often choose this type of source because it supports their view. There is no way to investigate where the source obtained its information and searching Google Scholar will not turn up articles critiquing the source. It is a gold-mine for POV-pushing. TFD (talk) 03:22, 23 March 2012 (UTC)

I am not Whatamidoing. Editors who are trying to push POV rather than a neutral, fair, reasonable assessment will do so with any source primary, secondary or tertiary. So you are not solving that problem with a broad ban on tertiary sources. Also it is clear that higher quality sources trump lower quality sources, so again if there's an inappropriate by tertiary source just replace it by a better (secondary source). If the other editor insists on a mediocre source, request a third opinion or pursue other (content) conflict resolution schemes.--Kmhkmh (talk) 03:41, 23 March 2012 (UTC)

Here is a concrete example. EB Online provides a defintion of socialism in an unsigned unsourced article.[17] The introduction to the Historical dictionary of socialism, 2nd edition, Rowan and Littlefield, 2006, pp. 1-3, says that there is no agreed definition but explains different approaches that have been taken.[18] Citing existing policy, how should we decide which source to use? TFD (talk) 04:24, 23 March 2012 (UTC)

First of all the EB article is not quite unsigned but it states 2 primary contributors/authors (Terence Ball, Richard Dagger). Then you simply should do what you would do with sources anyhow check their claims for consistency with (your) general domain knowledge and other external sources. Check the reputation and expertise of authors and publisher and possible reviews. Based on that pick either the better source or consider using both. At first glance (without being an expert of the subject) Lamb/Docherty seem to be the better choice, also they are a special subject encyclopedia rather than a general encyclopedia, so usually its expertise should be better. However I'm a bit puzzled in connection with your question as both tertiary sources and neither of them does exactly look like one of the top scholarly sources (secondary or tertiary) on such well known subject.--Kmhkmh (talk) 04:59, 23 March 2012 (UTC)

The "Introduction" seems to meet the criteria for a secondary source. It clearly distinguishes between facts and the opinions of the authors and explains where its information was obtained. Regardless, if one follows your advice one would always choose a good secondary source over a tertiary source. However there is nothing in policy to support your approach. Over a wide range of articles on social sciences, some editors will present high school and college textbooks and online encyclopedias where they support their views, and there are no policy reasons to reject them. A perusal of discussions at noticeboards shows that this type of dispute is quite common. TFD (talk) 15:24, 23 March 2012 (UTC)

The problem is that the nature of being a secondary doesn't make it a better source per se. In fact the tertiary versus socondary is probably the least important aspect when assessing sources. Correctness and reputation are far more important and in many case a high quality tertiary source might be preferable to mediocre secondary source. Also the policy is not just for covering social sciences issues, but it needs to apply and be workable in all fields of WP. And again you POv pushing problem in social or political sciences won't go away by blocking tertiary sources. Authors can play the same game with secondary sources, possibly even more so, because it is often easier to source a fringe or outlaying opinion with a secondary source.--Kmhkmh (talk) 18:31, 23 March 2012 (UTC)

re: "there are no policy reasons to reject them"... correct... in fact, there are multiple policy reasons to accept them. Please read WP:Neutral point of view for the most relevant. When two reliable sources disagree, we are supposed to remain neutral and present both viewpoints ... without inserting our own judgements as to which is "correct". So, if EB says socialism is defined as "X", but some other reliable source defines it as "Y", we should mention both definitions. Blueboar (talk) 15:54, 23 March 2012 (UTC)

NPOV says that we should represent "fairly, proportionately... all significant views that have been published by reliable sources." The problem with using the textbook from the Ozarks Christian Bible High School is that we cannot establish the significance of its viewpoint. Books and articles from academic publishers do not comment on tertiary sources. I cannot think of any case where any of these sources should be used. TFD (talk) 17:45, 23 March 2012 (UTC)

Nobody suggested to use a "textbook from the Ozarks Christian Bible High School", which is most likely not a reliable source to begin with. The issue of this discussion was to block tertiary sources in general and original examples where the EB and that dictionary by Lamb/Docherty. And of course there academic reviews of tertiary sources as well.--Kmhkmh (talk) 18:38, 23 March 2012 (UTC)

No the textbook example is typical of tertiary sources - introductory level textbooks that simply concepts and do not explain the source of facts provided. And no, academic sources will not review the definitions provided by EB Online. Again you cannot provide any policy reasons not to use it as a source, only logical reasons. In fact you are defending a policy that supports its use. TFD (talk) 22:11, 23 March 2012 (UTC)

So, if that's a "typical" example, then do you want to tell us why you specified "from Ozarks Christian Bible High School" rather than, say, "from the Advanced Placement history class at Stanton College Preparatory School" or even "from a typical high school"? WhatamIdoing (talk) 00:26, 24 March 2012 (UTC)

You are jumping back and forth between completely different tertiary source of which only 2 would be considered a somewhat reliable source and none of them would be considered a top scholarly tertiary source nvm a scholarly secondary source. So make up your mind for which tertiary source you actually want a reason to exclude it. Arbitrary high or middle school textbooks are usually not a reliable source to over simplification and inaccuracies. But they are primarily excluded because they are unreliable not because they are tertiary. In fact you own examples illustrate why we cannot treat all tertiary sources in the same manner.--Kmhkmh (talk) 01:12, 24 March 2012 (UTC)

The example I provided would provide obvious problems, for example regarding history and earth sciences, while mainstream high school textbooks would provide less obvious ones. However, see Texas Education Agency#Curriculum controversies. The new textbooks will not be reliable sources (in layman's terms) yet will qualify as such under Wikipedia policy. So when one editor presents one of these textbooks and another presents an advanced university textbook, policy provides no guide for which to choose. What benefit is there in the existing policy and what would be lost were it changed? TFD (talk) 01:31, 24 March 2012 (UTC)

WHat exactly do you want to change? And why do you think highschool textbooks will per se qualify as reliable sources under current policy?--Kmhkmh (talk) 01:37, 24 March 2012 (UTC)

Additionally, even a weak tertiary is going to be a perfectly adequate source for some purposes. I expect that even the most biased and oversimplified American history textbook will have the correct dates for Civil War battles, and the correct names for US Presidents, and so forth. As the FAQ says, reliability depends on context, i.e., the exact statement that you're trying to support. If you're making a lightweight claim, then a weak source is adequately reliable. (The ideal definition of socialism doesn't count as a lightweight claim.) We shouldn't be trying to rule out whole classes of sources simply because they aren't useful for every single purpose. WhatamIdoing (talk) 01:54, 24 March 2012 (UTC)

Banning tertiary sources is such a lame idea that there is a vast pool of opposition that have not yet bothered to respond because this proposal does not have a snowball's chance in hell of succeeding. Jc3s5h (talk) 02:24, 24 March 2012 (UTC)

And you're evading the point. The recent spate of uses of pedagogical textbooks aimed at children, which are vastly and absolutely inferior to the scholarly literature is reliant only upon some users at RS/N consistently making an argument that pedagogical sources are fundamentally inferior because their purpose is not to accurately represent external reality in the social sciences, but, to educt children towards adult behaviour in particular societies. There is currently no policy grounds to prefer one source over another other than the HQRS concept, that only resides at FA articles. Correspondingly, there is no way to reject less good sources in policy. Fifelfoo (talk) 02:41, 24 March 2012 (UTC)

But you are somewhat evading the point as well, so it seems to me. The request was not to ban "pedagocial sources" but to ban tertiary sources (as such). So far nobody here suggest that such pedagocial sources are to be treated as reliable sources per se nor do I see right now why they couldn't be rejected based on policy.

What is the HQRS concept?--Kmhkmh (talk) 04:51, 24 March 2012 (UTC)

Featured Articles need to be primarily based on high quality reliable sources; this is because there's no policy preferring, for example, scholarly sources over pedagogical sources where scholarly sources are available. The concept of "escalation of quality of sources" if there is a dispute is fairly restricted and is a custom or practice not supportable by policy other than continuously and locally formed consensuses. Fifelfoo (talk) 00:01, 26 March 2012 (UTC)

ok, but there is no claim regarding secondary/tertiary in there, but a preference for highquality//scholarly sources as it should be. This prefers however is imho implicitly at least already policy anyhow.--Kmhkmh (talk) 02:39, 26 March 2012 (UTC)

(←) Again, you all need to read the /FAQ, which addresses the underlying problem directly:

Are there sources that are "always reliable" or sources that are "always unreliable"?

No. The reliability of a source is entirely dependent on the context of the situation, and the statement it is being used to support. Some sources are generally better than others, but reliability is always contextual.

Even a school textbook—even a school book aimed at young children—can be perfectly reliable for certain limited uses. Reliability is not a black-and-white condition for a source. Fifelfoo's favorite scholarly history sources will be considered unreliable for details about nuclear physics, even if the source is directly discussing nuclear physics. That doesn't mean that these scholarly sources are unreliable sources; it only means that they fail to meet the requirement in the second paragraph of the lead, i.e., that sources "should be appropriate to the claims made". A history textbook for ten year olds may be appropriate and sufficient for very simple material. It is going to be inappropriate for complex or contentious material (e.g., a good definition of socialism).

The community is not going to ban any class of source merely because it's not appropriate for every possible use. We are not going to ban textbooks for schoolchildren or scholarly history sources. Instead, we're going to keep telling editors to use those sources only when they're appropriate—which means not using the school textbook to support complicated matters, and not using scholarly history publications to support claims about the hard sciences. Your source needs to be appropriate to the material, not merely meeting some category requirement. WhatamIdoing (talk) 00:19, 26 March 2012 (UTC)

There's almost no traction on this concept "out there" in articles. For example, I'm watching an editor wade up hill through a river of shit because devotees of a dead practicioner refuse to accept that devotional publications regarding that practicioner are widely considered to be insufficient for biographical content. Similar walled gardens of inappropriate sourcing delight exist, defended by editors plunging their fingers firmly into their ears regarding broader community consensus. Fifelfoo (talk) 00:37, 26 March 2012 (UTC)

Well, but what is the point here? That we have misguided editors, who are unwilling to listen to common sense or rational arguments - yes we do and we will have them no matter what policy we're going formulate. Could a much more restrictive policy help to deal with them more easily - yes it could. But it would also block reasonable authors from writing good articles and open them up to Wikilawyering by other misguided folks. More importantly there is no foolproof way of stating policy (to enforce common sense). No matter how you formulated, misguided editors will always find a way of reading it, that was unintended and not in the spirit of the policy in particular or project goals in general. Regarding your example such "devotee publications" (depending on their exact form) might still be sufficient enough to establish some basic data (date/location of birth and death, educational background, work and career positions, living locations) in the case that is currently not at hand in high quality sources.--Kmhkmh (talk) 03:13, 26 March 2012 (UTC)

The FAQ says that some sources are better than others, but that provides no direction for editors. To use the Civil War example, a tertiary source will say, "The causes of the war were...." A HQRS would say, "scholars generally consider the causes of the war were...." and would then explain the degree of acceptance for the various causes. Quoting policy, how would we choose one source over the other? TFD (talk) 00:51, 26 March 2012 (UTC)

That you prefer high quality over low quality is common sense and current policy clearly shows a preference for scholarly sources. So contrary to you I see a rather clear direction for editors here. Obviously one should prefer the HQRS source providing more detail and potentially being more authoritative. Nevertheless this has little to do or nothing to do with a formal tertiary versus secondary argument (scholarly/HQRS can be secondary or tertiary). Furthermore your "source examples" lack information about the intednded purpose. If you only want to give a short list of the war reasons without any detailed information a reliable source stating "The causes of the war were...." can be sufficient, if you want to provide greater nuances and detail that source is obviously of no use to begin with. Generally if you have both available you may cite both for information they have in common or simply cite the better one (i.e. the second).--Kmhkmh (talk) 02:58, 26 March 2012 (UTC)

Kenneth M. Stampp wrote in The Causes of the Civil War, "And yet, in spite of all the attention given to the Civil War, historians seem to be nearly as far from agreement about its causes as were the partisans who tried to explain it more than a century ago." Yet About.com has an article "Top Five Causes of the Civil War", written by a former social studies teacher.[19] (Whether or not this source is reliable, it is typical of introductory textbooks.) How does existing policy tell us which source to use? TFD (talk) 04:36, 26 March 2012 (UTC)

About.com is no reliable source period, the same goes for priavte opinion/analysis that comes without any scholarly reputation or (peer) review! High school textbooks often are not a reliable or well suited source either. A scholarly source usually has, as mentioned several times already, precedence over a non-scholarly source. That is almost literally stated in the current policy. So I'm not sure what your problem is. Moreover your last posting was essentially about scholarly versus non-scholarly and not about tertiary versus secondary.--Kmhkmh (talk) 11:29, 26 March 2012 (UTC)

What you do depends on the needs of the article. If the article is Causes of the American Civil War, then you need to take the detailed approach: here are the top dozen theories, here is the criticism of each, here are the theories popular in each time period since then, here's why the outdated theories were rejected, and so forth. In this case, you'd want to cite the top scholarly sources whenever possible.

But if the article needs just a sentence or two, to introduce the concept in passing, then you'd be perfectly justified in writing something like "The American Civil War had multiple causes, including economic and social differences between the North and South, political tension over slavery, and divergent opinions about states' rights and the role of the federal government" and citing a basic textbook for support.

Again: no properly published source is always unusable. The kind of source that you should use depends on what you're trying to accomplish in the article. WhatamIdoing (talk) 19:40, 26 March 2012 (UTC)

@TFD. You raise some eternal points of discussion, which are good to go over regularly. You write:

"What does one do when a statement in a tertiary source happens to be wrong?" What do we do when any statement in any source is wrong? This rhetorical question has been very well debated on the talk page of our WP:V policy. We do not use our own judgements of truth to defend putting material in WP. But if a source disagrees with other sources, we may be called upon to show good reasons for including it. (As per Blueboar above, one of those reasons could be to do with WP:NPOV.) Anyway, this is definitely not a special problem for tertiary sources.
"Again you cannot provide any policy reasons not to use it as a source, only logical reasons." Exactly. And we should always remember that we are supposed to use our judgement as editors. We are not just transcription monkeys. No one should be embarrased to say that their argument relies on logic, and that their editing decisions can not be fully predicted just by reading policy. See WP:IAR, which is a serious policy.

I agree with WhatamIdoing that "The community is not going to ban any class of source merely because it's not appropriate for every possible use." There has been lots of discussion and the consensus after each discussion I have seen is very evident. But that does not mean we should not keep having such discussions regularly of course!--Andrew Lancaster (talk) 12:14, 26 March 2012 (UTC)

I had another thought about this discussion this morning: The instant case is the definition of socialism. That's a modern economic and political system. Some editors have been insisting that the view of academic historians should dominate. In this case, neither the history textbook nor the scholarly historical sources should be the dominant source. Our best sources for information about modern economic and political systems will actually be written by political scientists and economists, not by historians. WhatamIdoing (talk) 19:10, 29 March 2012 (UTC)

Not quite... One must understand that the same term may have very different definitions, depending on the context in which they are used... so, historians are best for defining the the term "socialism" as used in an historical context... political scientists are best for defining it as used in a political context, and economists are best for defining when as used in an economic context. All three definitions should be given and explained. Blueboar (talk) 01:22, 30 March 2012 (UTC)

new mtv hits logo

I like the old mtv hits logo back on march 24th and the theme before the commercials and after the commercials better easier to read the names of the songs can you please go back to the old way. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 174.69.68.209 (talk) 05:59, 30 March 2012 (UTC)

Dr Carl Degler is a founder of NOW , the National Organizsation for Women

Please include this in his bio. Dr Degler was one of the first to urge Betty Friedan to start an " NAACP for women" He is listed as a founder of NOW. Check out the NOW website. He is also on the Honorary Board of Veteran Feminists of America. Jacqui Ceballos - President, VFA — Preceding unsigned comment added by 72.208.59.60 (talk) 18:24, 30 March 2012 (UTC)

Thank you for your suggestion. When you believe an article needs improvement, please feel free to make those changes. Wikipedia is a wiki, so anyone can edit almost any article by simply following the edit this page link at the top.
The Wikipedia community encourages you to be bold in updating pages. Don't worry too much about making honest mistakes—they're likely to be found and corrected quickly. If you're not sure how editing works, check out how to edit a page, or use the sandbox to try out your editing skills. New contributors are always welcome. You don't even need to log in (although there are many reasons why you might want to). WhatamIdoing (talk) 02:49, 2 April 2012 (UTC)

Catholic Encyclopedia and other religious encyclopedias (this has nothing to do with April Fools!)

I wonder if we should consider the public domain Catholic Encyclopedia a reliable source. One can argue that it shows information from a pre-Vatican-II Catholic point of view, and is thus biased in that regard. To its credit, it does cite its sources; its scanning on Google Ebooks makes that clear (although copies of it in HTML do not necessarily do so). Also, it clearly gives a large amount of information about many of its subjects. That's another point in the Catholic Encyclopedia's favor. However, there are still the biases. — Rickyrab. ^{Yada yada yada} 19:55, 1 April 2012 (UTC)

For example, at least one edition, in its article on avatars, notes that "any remarkable man is liable to be regarded as a more or less perfect avatar of Vishnu, and the consequence - one of the worst features of Hinduism - has been the offering of divine homage to men, especially the founders of religious sects and their successors". — Rickyrab. ^{Yada yada yada} 20:11, 1 April 2012 (UTC)

I am extending this question to include all encyclopedias written from the POV of one religion or another. — Rickyrab. ^{Yada yada yada} 20:19, 1 April 2012 (UTC)

You are asking too broad a question. As with most sources, we can not answer the blanket question "is it reliable?"... because we have to ask: "reliable for what?" We can only answer "is it reliable for <insert specific statement here>?"...

The CE is a very dated source... and that affects its reliability. There is a lot that it is not reliable for. However, it is certainly reliable for some things... such as statements as to what Catholic views were at a particular point in time (in this case... a hundred years ago, which is when it was written). Beyond that we have to be more cautious. The same can be said of other religious POV works... they can be reliable for explaining the specific religious POV that their authors had at the time they were written, but should (at best) be used with caution for other things. Blueboar (talk) 21:14, 1 April 2012 (UTC)

Please see the question in the /FAQ: "Are there sources that are "always reliable" or sources that are "always unreliable"?"

If you have a specific question about reliability (that is, a question about whether CE can be used to support a specific passage in a specific Wikipedia article), then you should post that question at the WP:Reliable sources/Noticeboard. WhatamIdoing (talk) 02:52, 2 April 2012 (UTC)

It seems to me baldly obvious that the CE is not to be taken as an authoritative voice on Hinduism. As a rule I would take such works as authoritative on doctrinal points with their own tradition (I would for instance not take the CE as an authority on Protestant doctrine), and I would tend to trsut them on matters of historical fact unless contravened by other sources. One should also consider that, for all its biases, the CE was written as a scholarly book, which many other superficially comparable works were not. Mangoe (talk) 03:07, 2 April 2012 (UTC)

Re: "As a rule I would take such works as authoritative on doctrinal points with their own tradition"... exactly... but with the caveat that older editions may be outdated even for that. Religious denominations exist in the real world, and do (slowly) change their doctrinal points. Once we get down to specifics reliability becomes murkier...A scholarly text that was authoritative a hundred years ago (when written) may not be authoritative today. This is true for all scholarly works, not just those with a religious focus... the 1911 Encyclopedia Britannica, while extremely authoritative back in 1911, is (today) outdated on many of its specifics. Blueboar (talk) 13:20, 2 April 2012 (UTC)