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True Finns -- political positions

Over at True Finns we've been discussing how to best characterize this political party. Everyone seems to agree that they are nationalistic, populist, and that their fiscal policies are best described as "center left", but we're having a hard time determining how their social policies should be characterized, due to source issues. There are a fair number of English language news sources that characterize them as "far-right", "right-wing", "right-wing" and "xenophobic", and "far-right". English language scholarly sources vary somewhat in their characterizations: "nationalistic", "far-right" and "anti-immigrant", "populist radical right" but not "extreme xenophobic", and "right-wing" (from a Finnish scholar in English). Another user has stated that the mainstream view, particularly in Finland, is that they are not far-right, stating in part:

Political scientist PhD Erkki Railo from the University of Turku and Centre for Parliament Studies specifically answered those foreign papers with that "the True Finns are populist, not far-right" [2]. ... The biggest newspaper in Finland published an article called "Soini is leading a left-wing party" after the last parliamentary elections [3]. ... [M]ost political scientists say the True Finns is centre-left conservative party with a right-wing anti-immigration faction

Other arguments put forth to support this tend to rely on Finnish language sources (quoting from the talk page):

PhD Political sociologist Tuomas Ylä-Anttila of the University of Helsinki [4] "centre-left conservative party" ... Head of research of Taloustutkimus Juha Rahkonen [5] "most left-wing of the non-socialist parties; a centre-left party, not right-wing" ... A new one: YLE study: [6]: "True Finns are 5.4 on the 0–10 scale (far-left – far-right). The average Finnish voter is 5.5"

The lead of the article as it currently stands makes what I consider a questionable statement by implying a consensus among Finnish researchers and attributing the right-wing and far-right characterizations to foreigners.

Finnish researchers have generally considered the party socially conservative,[17] a "centre-based populist party" or the "most left-wing of the non-socialist parties", whereas some foreign scholars and media commentators have described them as radically right-wing populist,[6] or far-right.[18][note 2]

The infobox currently lists their social position as "conservative". This is a tricky, since any editor who doesn't speak Finnish (like myself) may have a hard time evaluating the Finnish sources. Thoughts? a13ean (talk) 20:47, 18 October 2012 (UTC)

Well, I'll say it again, as it's a Finnish party most of the research is in Finnish. Why is there some variation between "foreign" and Finnish sources? I believe this is because most foreign papers are in the context of studying "rise of the European radical right". True Finns is put to this because of convenience and because they really do represent parts of the same phenomenon. But we can't handle all these parties as a monolith, thus I brought up comments from Finnish political scientists that are quite familiar with it. Generally they say it's economically a centre-left conservative party as I provided a few sources. Another problem is that the party is currently the third largest in Finland, and the anti-immigration faction is only a part of it, so the radical right-wing seems like an overstatement for eurosceptic populists. But there most likely are far-right people in such a party too. It's hard to put such a party on a left-right axis, economically it's centre-left but socially consevative. I'm thinking maybe it's a good thing to remove the political position from the template, but leave "centre-left conservative" as the main description in the lead but have the "radical right" views too as sourced by RJFF. But it might be due to the flaws of the left-right –political spectrum that it's so hard to position this.
I'm almost willing to guarantee you can't find any Finnish political scientist (whether writing in Finnish or English) describing them as "far-right" because I've never heard of such description. --Pudeo' 21:13, 18 October 2012 (UTC)

An IP editor at the article's talk page quotes van Spanje's article (diff) more clearly and it seems the article doesn't refer True Finns as "far-right" either – only as anti-immigrant. So not even English-language scholar articles use "far-right". Only newspaper articles from the Guardian and Economist and the like seem to, so I don't think the "far right" term has much credibility here. Eurosceptic, right-wing populism and anti-immigration (to a degree) do have credibility, however. Right-wing populism with left-wing economic policies is the deal. --Pudeo' 01:43, 19 October 2012 (UTC)

Sounds reasonable to me, as it is more prevalent in any case. a13ean (talk) 03:06, 19 October 2012 (UTC)
So you admit that the party is both left-wing and right-wing at the same time. Which encourages me in my suggestion to get rid of the simplistic "Political position" field altogether, and rather describe the party's ideology in full sentences. Please agree with me that PS's ideology is too complex to be placed in a unidimensional political spectrum. It is neither a typical centre-left, nor a typical right-wing or even far-right party. --RJFF (talk) 09:47, 19 October 2012 (UTC)
Is this really a suitable question for this relatively busy noticeboard? There seems to be no dispute about what kind of sources are appropriate, just how to use them? It seems an interesting discussion, but...--Andrew Lancaster (talk) 10:53, 19 October 2012 (UTC)
I brought it here because an IP user continues to assert on the talk page that English-language RS are inferior to Finnish-language ones on this point, and had removed several of them from the article because there were Finish-language ones which reached a different conclusion. I guess NPOV/N or DR/N would have also been applicable, but since it centered on the relative quality of reliable sources I brought it here. a13ean (talk) 15:10, 19 October 2012 (UTC)
I think that this is a matter of what weight to give different reliable sources. The sources themselves do not seem to be disputed as being unreliable?--Andrew Lancaster (talk) 20:33, 19 October 2012 (UTC)

Games Nostalgia source

There is a discussion happening here (Broken Sword) about whether Games Nostalgia (Gamnos) is a reliable source. In particular, there is a statement here that is in the Broken Sword article. The claim is sourced a french print magazine (Génération) on this page (#15). In the Broken Sword article, the Génération source is used instead of the Gamnos article. Just looking at the (Gamnos) site makes it seem like a personal blog of sorts, but the links I've posted above are from a twenty page article that is extremely well cited. Is that enough evidence of fact checking to use it? The Gamnos article was admittedly used to find the Génération source in the first place. —Torchiest talkedits 16:43, 19 October 2012 (UTC)

I, the one who used the Gamnos site for research believed it was a reliable source first, but this was not confirmed anywhere yet. So I posted a question at the WP:VG talk page, and the answer seemed to be No. So I didn't include it as a source. However: I think I've never seen something this well-researched in my life, for real. Also, the website is a website for which Charles Cecil (Broken Sword creator) and other developers were consulted and informed with the consent of Cecil. - And it actually includes sources, which is rarely ever seen. So I think it should really be considered a good source, or at least it should be left as a source, without GA reviewers FA voters making a bunch of hu-hah/big problem out of it. --Khanassassin ☪ 16:57, 19 October 2012 (UTC)

Scientific Research Publishing

I'm finding quite a few articles in journals published by Scientific Research Publishing used as references within Wikipedia (search for "10.4236" or for links to scirp.org). Given their recent history of publishing scandals (see our article on them) should they count as reliable? And if not what should be done about these references? —David Eppstein (talk) 00:21, 20 October 2012 (UTC)

This is tricky and thanks for bringing it up here. I think that we should not throw out the "journals" from this publisher altogether, but rather apply whatever standard relates to retracted sources or sources which have been reliably documented to be unreliable. I've actually not seen a discussion about this topic, and I think it is relevant across the gamut of sources; for instance, manufactured facts have appeared in newspapers, magazines, books, journal articles, etc. In short, I suggest that we presume reliable source status unless or until at the individual publication level it is documented to the contrary. How to make sure that the sources are not re-inserted by someone who is unaware of the un-reliable status of a source is another matter altogether. This would be less of an issue for manuscript retractions as it would for significant errata which often go unnoticed by readers (in particular in newspapers). --User:Ceyockey (talk to me) 00:57, 20 October 2012 (UTC)
Their journals aren't particularly reliable. They have been around for just 3 years, and the Nature article on them is damning. Just one journal is mentioned as possibly legit. But we accept self-published information from experts in the field, under certain restrictions. A paper published in their journals can't be worse than a self-published paper; so if the author is a certified expert, and if the restrictions are not a bar, then that author's paper can be cited. But I don't think we should go beyond that. These aren't isolated retractions we are talking of. And I guess they don't even have an impact factor we could look at. Churn and change (talk) 01:03, 20 October 2012 (UTC)
This is really tricky. I examined a sample of their longer-published journals for a few hours today, and I examined also many of the WP articles using them. The negative comments about them are correct: they will pretty much print anything that appears respectable, which of course means that they have published more than their share of bad material. But other journals of the highest respectability have published plausibly sounding false work also; I consider myself a skeptic about the general level of quality control in scientific publishing, but even I would not have expected such a deluge of retractions as has appeared in the last year or two of papers published in excellent journals. At this point, there is no journal whose imprimatur I consider altogether reliable--we should probably go also by the institutional affiliations of the authors--not that that is necessarily any better--& there is of course a strong correlation-- but it gives us a second parameter. The general level of acceptance at WP of "peer-reviewed" material as being of automatically reliable quality is naive. The reliability of sourcing at WP is affected detrimentally by two opposite tendencies: the tendency of amateurs to put in what they happen to find in Google Scholar, and the tendency of professionals to do a complete bibliography without sifting out the unimportant. Looking today, I've found some borderline papers from these journals in both those sort of WP articles, just as would be expected.
But there's a good side. The authors here are divided into several categories. The first group are respectable main-stream scientists from major US and European universities, such as Irvine, publishing here because it is cheap and convenient--this seems to be particularly the case for at least some of the neuroscience journals. The second group are main-stream scientists from good third world universities, publishing important well-done work, often local examples of general phenomena; some of it in the social sciences I think very good, but the sort that would generally have been directed to a national audience. The third and largest group is people from all countries publishing minor work, at the competent graduate student level, or the sort of work which people good people can do at a college lacking full research capabilities, which has nothing wrong with it but unimportance. The fourth group, which is the problem, is people publishing unduly speculative of just off-mainstream material.
As for the WP articles using them, some of them seem to be articles on borderline notable scientists, who have published mainly or significantly there. These will all repay re-exmination. Others are the sorts I mentioned above--people taking the first specific reference they find on whatever subject, or people adding some very minor work to extensively referenced journals. There is probably no need to re-examine them. (Myself, I think most biomedical articles here are over-referenced considering the audience, but my view is not shared by most the academically qualified people writing here.)
The problem will get worse. This is just the beginning. This is the general problem that first became evident when indexes and package-journal deals started making the low quality work as available as the better: the uninformed will not be able to tell the difference. It used to be that only the most comprehensive universities had the really minor journals, but these were where people could and did tell the difference. (This may just be my Berkeley/Princeton snootiness, of course)
But at any rate these journals are not bad enough to be blacklisted; one must go article by article. Only the experts can tell, and we all know how little we can trust the experts. DGG ( talk ) 04:03, 20 October 2012 (UTC)
The problem with relying just on the credibility of the author is that even Nobel laureates have their biases, need their funding, and hence push their own agendas. A strong peer review process puts a brake to the more ambitious efforts to appropriate the entire field. One could look at citation metrics to gauge quality of a paper (though at times people cite papers to refute them), but for these new publications that doesn't work either. Also, fields like neuroscience and genetics are especially prone to one-off results, even in publications like Nature, so this idea of bending the rules to use primary sources is even worse for those fields. I am not sure why I would want to use a Science Research journal as a secondary source. Churn and change (talk) 06:31, 20 October 2012 (UTC)
I very much agree with DGG's assessment. Being very much involved in science and editing myself, I can but confirm his analysis: a lot is wrong with science at the moment. There's a huge pressure on scientists to publish in the highest impact journals, leading people to make all kinds of unfortunate shortcuts. Apart from outright data fabrication, the most frequent problem is selective publication: people only report those experiments that "worked" (or, as I have heard it described by one high-profile researcher, the "most important" ones), i.e., that gave the desired result. It is easy to see how that would lead to reporting incorrect results and explains why nowadays pharmaceutical industry basically has lost its trust in results from academic labs because, more often than not, it turns out that they cannot reproduce effects reported in the literature. A large proportion of this kind of studies never get retracted... Much of the problem would be avoided if we kept very strictly to WP's requirement for secondary resources: very few review articles get retracted and a good review is, o course, basically a second tier of peer review. Unfortunately, good reviews are not available for every subject, so we sometimes have to cite primary sources (especially in biographies of scientists). --Guillaume2303 (talk) 09:17, 20 October 2012 (UTC)

Photograph?? Does it depend if it appears in an "RS"?

I was looking for photos of Jack Yates when I found this:

Which photo of Yates should I use? Thanks WhisperToMe (talk) 03:02, 20 October 2012 (UTC)

Well, first, you can't be sure the photo is PD just because Yates died in 1897. It is the year of first publication that matters, not the year the photo was taken. If one of those publications is before 1923, that is the one you should use (assuming reasonable people can agree the photo is the same as one found in an RS published after 1923). If no such exists, look for one between 1923 and 1964, check if that pub. has extended its copyright (www.copyright.gov); in most cases it wouldn't have, and then the photo is again PD. If even that doesn't hold, try fair use. This is a case where copyright and RS issues intersect, leading to difficult solutions. But for a photo probably not a big deal since reliability is easy to verify. Churn and change (talk) 06:24, 20 October 2012 (UTC)
Ah, ok. http://www.copyright.gov/circs/circ23.pdf says that the copyright card catalog is non-electronic until 1978. For records in 1978 and later, it is electronic and is searchable online. It also says "Alternatively, Copyright Office staff can search copyright records for you. Upon payment of an hourly fee, the Office will conduct a search and provide a factual, noninterpretive report." http://www.copyright.gov/forms/search_estimate.html is asking for things like approximate year of creation, author, copyright claimant (name in "C" notice), registration number (if known) and other identifyinf information, and for this picture I do not know all of the details WhisperToMe (talk) 11:12, 20 October 2012 (UTC)
Concerning what this noticeboard is supposed to be for I think the only thing to say is that a photo source is reliable if it is sure that the photo is really what it claims to be. If that criteria is met, then I think that your concern involves other policies and norms?--Andrew Lancaster (talk) 19:40, 20 October 2012 (UTC)
This discussion belongs on WikiCommons (http://www.wikipedia.org and "Commons" and then go to "Commons:Village pump/Copyright"). Things are somewhat more complicated than published before 1978/after 1978 (it is renewal date that matters for whether record is online), but that needs to be thrashed out at the Commons site. Churn and change (talk) 19:56, 20 October 2012 (UTC)

Sanskrit and Science - Edit request - Verifying source

Hello, I recently requested the page owner to include an article on SANSKRIT AND Science. For which the author claimed it to be Bullshit. Hence, I would like to prove the authenticity . Please authenticate this : 

Source: Title: Physiological patterns during practice of the Transcendental Meditation technique compared with patterns while reading Sanskrit and a modern language.
Travis F; Olson T; Egenes T; Gupta HK; The International Journal Of Neuroscience, 2001, vol. 109, issue 1-2, p 71, ISSN 00207454. ISBN 00207454

Article: Sanskrit

Content :

Sanskrit and Science

. The physiological effects of reading Sanskrit are similar to those experienced during the Transcendental Meditation® technique, according to research recently completed by Dr. Fred Travis, director of the ERG/Psychophysiology lab of Maharishi University of Management in Fairfield, Iowa, USA. Dr. Travis asked his test subjects to read passages from the Bhagavad-Gita in Sanskrit and in modern foreign languages (Spanish, French, or German). In each case they could pronounce the sounds but did not know the meaning. He measured brain wave patterns (ERG), heart and breath rate, and galvanic skin resistance during two reading sessions and during a 15-minute session of the Transcendental Meditation technique. He found that while they read Sanskrit their physiology was similar to those measured during the Transcendental Meditation technique, but significantly different from reading a modern language. Their skin resistance steadily increased during reading Sanskrit and during practice of the Transcendental editation technique (showing greater stability in their physiology) but remained the same during the reading of a modern language.

Their ERG alpha power and coherence during reading Sanskrit were also similar to that during the practice of the Transcendental Meditation technique, and both of these were higher than when the subjects read a modern language. [1] Travis, F.T., Olsen, T., Egenes, T., & Gupta, H.K. (2001). Physiological patterns during practice of the Transcendental Meditation Technique compared with patterns while reading Sanskrit and a modern language. International Journal of Neuroscience, 109, 71-80. Rockthemind (talk) 04:58, 17 October 2012 (UTC)

Rockthemind (talk) 19:53, 20 October 2012 (UTC)--Rockthemind (talk) 19:53, 20 October 2012 (UTC)

Several problems. First, this is a primary source and we look for WP:SECONDARY sources. The study could be a statistical fluke. The source itself is a journal with an impact factor of 0.84, which as you can see from this Elsevier ranking is too low to be on the chart for neuroscience. The authors are from the Maharishi University of Management, Fairfield, Iowa (one from the psychology department), and that is not a highly regarded institution, even more so for neuroscience. Churn and change (talk) 20:08, 20 October 2012 (UTC)

Int. J. of Design & Nature and Ecodynamics

The aim of the journal is to be a channel of communication for researchers from around the world working on biomimetics and a variety of studies involving nature and its significance to design in engineering. The editorial board consists of respectable scientists and engineers (including a noble prize winner) from over 15 nations and 40 institutions including world leading Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Duke University and The University of Bristol etc... [1]

I came across a problem with editing this article on a wiki-page about the bombardier beetle. Whilst the editor agreed with the inclusion of the link, he felt we could not refer to it as a "scientific journal" or even a "journal" because he considered it unreliable. However, I bring this up here with a view that other might want to reference articles for other pages.

The following claims are made against journal’s reliability:

  1. An article on the web which provides evidence that the review process for one of WIT's conferences in 1995 was not good. (WIT is the publisher of the journal) [2]
  2. The journal has published a couple of papers which are sympathetic towards [ID] (intelligent design)

I agree that the review process for this conference, which WIT was directly responsible for, was unsatisfactory. WIT ran the conference and chose the reviewers. This shouldn’t affect the reliability of the journal, however, as the content of a journal is decided by its editorial board and not its publishers. It is the editorial board who decide what content gets published, who reviewers are and the addition of any further editors to the board. The publisher takes care of the printing and distribution not the content. As the editors (see above) are respected scientists, I have no issue for including this journal as [WP:R].

The ID argument isn't by itself a good argument because there is no direct evidence that these journal editors themselves are friendly to ID. The journal itself actually carries an editorial comment before these papers saying that the editorial board does not agree with *all* the conclusions of these papers. However, it has published them because the editors believe they present scientific problems of our current understanding of some aspects of evolution.[3]

In fact, the scientific community takes the publications in this journal seriously. For example, Bejan, who is no friend of ID, publishes in this journal and refers to it on his webpage [4]

See contents page of journal for more examples.

Refs:

  1. ^ "Journal Author List". Retrieved 17 October 2012.
  2. ^ "Critism of VIDEO Conference (1995)". Retrieved 17 October 2012.
  3. ^ "Notice msg on paper which could be seen as sympathetic to ID" (PDF). Retrieved 17 October 2012.
  4. ^ "Bejan page". Retrieved 17 October 2012.


WikiJonathanpeter (talk) 13:17, 17 October 2012 (UTC)

The journal is carried by the institutional subscription of a major university, so it is not total junk. However if you go to this site, you can see a bunch of citation metrics for the journal. If you combine that with the rankings for journals in the environmental sciences here, you can see this one is ranked 200th or so. With other metrics it may rank better, but clearly it is low quality. Note that, at least in psychology, credible journals do publish papers on things like parapsychology (supporting, not opposing). The problem is credible researchers at times find statistical flukes supporting such stuff and journals then accept the paper, sticking to the letter of their criterion for acceptance. Churn and change (talk) 17:12, 17 October 2012 (UTC)
  • First, you're being a bit disingenuous about what brought you here. Although there's plenty of editor conflict over at bombardier beetle regarding the creationists' stance, this reference hasn't been inserted there, and you haven't edited that article. Rather, what's going on is a sort of slow-motion edit war over the section title of a list of articles published by intelligent design advocate Andrew McIntosh. Are they "journal articles"? "Scientific articles"? Just plain "articles"? I note that IRWolfie- has already attempted to solve this problem by formatting the publication listings somewhat differently. An alternative, and what I would recommend, is to simply strike the list of papers and patents entirely; while consensus tends to include lists of published books for academics, there is rarely an onus to include full lists of articles ("journal" or otherwise). Wikipedia is not, after all, an full index of published research. Squeamish Ossifrage (talk) 18:04, 17 October 2012 (UTC)

Citation score comparison at this stage isn't completely fair as the journal is relatively new (5 years old). It takes time for articles to be referenced. Remember, the peer-review process can take from months to even years. The fact of the matter is that the journal is a peer-reviewed journal by a high quality scientific community. Squeamish Ossifrage, your comments are unfair - I stated above that the reasons for bringing it here wasn't about the article you mentioned but because of references and possible future references elsewhere. I'm not asking for a recommendation on the paged entiled Andrew McIntosh, I'm asking whether we can regard the journal as WP:R. As the scientific community do, I struggle to see why we can't. Please provide evidence. WikiJonathanpeter (talk) 09:03, 18 October 2012 (UTC)

See page header. We need to know the precise source you are thinking of using, and the statement you want to source from it. We don't do the kind of general yes/no you seem to be looking for. Itsmejudith (talk) 09:13, 18 October 2012 (UTC)
The issue at stake here isn't whether the content of the article or the journal is accurate. The issue isn't even whether the journal can be regarded as 'scientific'. The issue is whether or not it can be regarded as a 'journal'. If it's carried by a major university then surely it has that right? Whether or not I agree with the premises and conclusions of the papers published in it is irrelevant. Saying that, the way that the page is laid out currently looks like a reasonable compromise to me. --PalavaNet (talk) 09:42, 18 October 2012 (UTC)

OK, I notice that the subject of the article tried to add a referenced statement regarding another paper from the same journal (see discussion page of article). Was that really unacceptable? WikiJonathanpeter (talk) 10:16, 18 October 2012 (UTC)

To add clarity. The following comment was added under the dawkins statement: "The issue at stake is that the second law of thermodynamics concerns entropy increasing in an isolated system. The proponents of evolution insist that because the earth is in an open system (where heat and mass transfer are allowed through the boundary) that entropy could readily decrease in such a system since outside there will be a compensatory overall increase, and that this could lead to the development of the necessary sophistication for living systems. Those scientists arguing against this hypothesis maintain that even in an open system, random energy input will not produce complex and mutually dependent systems required for life without there being an existing or embryonic system there to begin with. A full discussion is in the paper Information And Entropy – Top-down Or Bottom-up Development In Living Systems?[7]".
The comment was reverted because this journal was considered unreliable. Is this really reasonable? WikiJonathanpeter (talk) 10:46, 18 October 2012 (UTC)
When and where was this? Diff please, as your contributions going back to April 2007 don't appear to include Bombardier beetle. . dave souza, talk 11:19, 18 October 2012 (UTC)
It was another users contribution. This is a separate issue from the Bombardier beetle. Diff Here WikiJonathanpeter (talk) 11:30, 18 October 2012 (UTC)
The article is reliable for describing what stances McIntosh has taken. It's a primary source, but this is a valid use of a primary source. On no account must we endorse any of the article's arguments in Wikipedia's voice. This particular article is fringe science although other articles in the journal might not be. Write it up as "In an article of (date) McIntosh wrote that...". By the way, the section headed Biography contains little biography. Most of the material should be in a section Views. Itsmejudith (talk) 11:43, 18 October 2012 (UTC)
I agree that this a way forward and will edit article accordingly. Have you read the paper and come to the conclusion that the individual paper is a fringe science? I've personally read the paper and its a bit more tricky than to simply state its a fringe science. The majority would disagree with the conclusion of the paper but the main article itself presents a very valid problem with the current understanding of evolution. I think it is a valuable contribution to the field and so do the editors of the journal. WikiJonathanpeter (talk) 12:01, 18 October 2012 (UTC)
"The majority would disagree with the conclusion" = fringe science of some kind. It doesn't really matter what kind. Itsmejudith (talk) 12:26, 18 October 2012 (UTC)
Sorry, I should restate that. "The majority would disagree with some conclusions". Yes a sentence or two in the conclusion could be considered as "fringe science". However, the rest of the article isn't fringe science and would be acceptable to most scientists. Indeed, this is the reason for the notice on the paper but at the same time, letting the article be published. I hope my edits are acceptable. WikiJonathanpeter (talk) 12:29, 18 October 2012 (UTC)
Tweaked the edit to avoid giving undue weight to McIntosh's fringe view equating thermal physics with "the necessary sophistication for living systems", a common creationist misunderstanding of the second law of thermodynamics. Ok as a primary source, but not to be given undue weight. . dave souza, talk 12:45, 18 October 2012 (UTC)
OK, I think we can close this discussion. Thank you for everyones contributions. Will copy this over to the talk page of the article in due course WikiJonathanpeter (talk) 13:22, 18 October 2012 (UTC)
Well, the RS aspect seems handled, but please do keep in mind that there might be other very valid editor concerns with using this source. Consider WP:NOTE, and WP:DUE. WP does not aim to include summaries of every paper ever published of course.--Andrew Lancaster (talk) 11:05, 19 October 2012 (UTC)
Indeed. I do resent the fact that the article was orginally written with the intent to discredit the professor i.e. a personal attack. It's also very bad that the two editors dealing with the original discussion did what the could do belittle the prof in their discussion with rather than dealing with it as it was done here (see article talk page). What's wikipedia's policy on dealing with people writing/editing articles for this kind of reasons? WikiJonathanpeter (talk) 12:56, 20 October 2012 (UTC)
Relevant articles can be found at WP:BLP and WP:AGF. In general, of course, WP:NPOV applies. --Stephan Schulz (talk) 13:06, 20 October 2012 (UTC)
I think I am saying the same thing, but edits which belittle a theory, should not be deleted just because such edits can be construed as insults to living people who agree with that theory. Some theories are controversial, and we must report controversial ideas as controversial ideas (if we report them). In such cases, WP:BLP should not be abused so as to protect controversial theories.--Andrew Lancaster (talk) 19:52, 20 October 2012 (UTC)
Belittle a theory - absolutely fine. Belittle a person - that's got to be wrong. WikiJonathanpeter (talk) 20:53, 20 October 2012 (UTC)
Well, right and wrong are things people disagree about in this type of situation. For WP, it depends on how well sourced and notable the belittling is. We just report it. For controversial ideas we have a responsibility to make it clear that they are controversial. If that can be argued as belittling someone who associates with such theories, then for better or worse that is just part of being involved in controversy. WP itself tries to avoid creating controversies, but we do report them.--Andrew Lancaster (talk) 09:13, 21 October 2012 (UTC)

Encyclopedia Titanica

Encyclopedia Titanica is being used as a source on Edward Smith (sea captain) as seen in this edit] by 92.15.171.215, which moved the previously existing statement & reference to another location. The Titanica reference appears to be supporting the initial claim that appeared in two newspapers from the Titanic survivors Gretchen Longley and Mrs. Washington Dodge that Captain Smith committed suicide. I actually don't doubt that these survivors' statements appeared in the two newspapers following the sinking, I want other editors opinions as to whether or not the Encyclopedia Titanica is a reliable source for this assertion of fact and other possible assertions about the Titanic. Shearonink (talk) 15:34, 21 October 2012 (UTC)

No almost certainly not reliable per WP:USERGENERATED. If these claims appeared in those papers, then there must be reliable books over the years that have repeated the claim and identified who made them and where and these should be used instead. Stuart.Jamieson (talk) 08:53, 23 October 2012 (UTC)

Brighton Magazine usable as a RS?

I'm trying to find sources for the article 4 a.m. (novel) and I'm really running across a big shortage of sources. I have one from Brighton Magazine, but it just doesn't seem all that reliable. Can anyone say if it's usable as a RS? If it isn't then that'd make a decision of whether or not to bring it to AfD a lot easier. [7] As it is, the three sources on the article have me thinking I might AfD it but knowing if this is usable would help out a lot.Tokyogirl79 (talk) 05:51, 23 October 2012 (UTC)

Currently it's used to source the fact that, it reviewed the book - it's a reliable source for that fact. However as a source to confirm the book as notable, I would say not - it's a magazine with local scope and like reviews of restaurants, entertainment, shops and services within the local area it does show that it has significant notability out with that small geographical area. An AfD would not be unreasonable with the sources given. Stuart.Jamieson (talk) 08:34, 23 October 2012 (UTC)
I'm guessing that you're thinking about notability, and not reliability per se. It's a local newsletter, and does little to establish notability outside of the local community, at best. The Guardian source is slightly better, but also does little to establish notability. If these are the best sources you can find, an AfD does seem in order. Dominus Vobisdu (talk) 08:48, 23 October 2012 (UTC)
Notability isn't our field here, but I notice that the publisher's page quotes a review in the Glasgow Herald: that, the Scottish Review of Books and The Guardian are all highbrow titles and I'd consider the three together a strong indication of notability.
About reliability, I'd agree with others that Brighton Magazine is only borderline reliable: it serves to some extent as a vehicle for press releases. Andrew Dalby 12:04, 23 October 2012 (UTC)

iFixit

Is iFixit as a source for components in a phone such as the iPhone 5 a reliable, from what I read, they have a history of being mentioned by other known reliable sources such as Reuters and Engadget. Also, if anyone has any light on this, would you consider the scale used by iFixit in their teardowns as "arbitrary"? YuMaNuMa Contrib 00:10, 20 October 2012 (UTC)

In the example I said the author provided his opinion as "7 out 10" which is an arbitrary scale. iFixit sells tools used for working on product repairs. What is the community's thought on including it as a source to reference something like "battery capacity is xxx mAh" where there's more commercially neutral and credible source available? The site has commercial interest to pull traffic from links it generates and the traffic that turn into leads. While Wiki is no follow, it is traffic for them no less. If the author is making commission on products purchased(if..) then permitting these kind of sources further encourage these authors to insert them for their gain, sometimes through addition of extraneous information that's not exactly informative rather than to improve encyclopedia. Cantaloupe2 (talk) 02:46, 20 October 2012 (UTC)
The source that you provided to replace iFixit could well be basing their claims on iFixit's teardown as it didn't disclose where it located its source on the capacity of the battery from. By the way, if you haven't notice the teardown was conducted by a team not an individual. As stated before on the talk page, most websites are commercially motivated and pure neutrality generally doesn't exist. We cannot simply assume an ulterior motive is present when it hasn't been proven, for all we know iFixit may have a sponsorship contract with Apple. Similarly since most news website host Google Ads, do we assume that any content regarding Google is biased due to their reliance on their ad system to generate revenue? When I first added that scale I didn't remotely mention the score that the reviewer gave, I simply stated that it received a higher score than its predecessor which is valid and the reasons for such a conclusion is stated throughout the review. The process of teardown is also very transparent and would shed light on why such a score was given. Reviews and reception of a device are subjective by its very nature but that doesn't mean it has no place on Wikipedia, we are not here to run hundreds of test to prove a point as done in laboratories. We try to do what we can to make the article appear as neutral as possible and one way of doing so is removing the scores and only including reasons for the score, if necessary reasons for why the repair-ability score was higher than its predecessor can be included in the prose. I honestly don't see why it should be seen as a less reputable source due to the website marketing other goods. I don't want to be offensive here, but your last statement is quite cynical and clearly doesn't show your will to assume good faith in other editors. I've been frequently editing technology articles for about 2 years and iFixit has always been seen as a reliable source for component information on Wikipedia and elsewhere. YuMaNuMa Contrib 03:13, 20 October 2012 (UTC)
I consider them reliable for information about products, as much so as any other review site except a major magazine. They don't sell the products. The suppliers of tools and infrastructure of various sorts have every interest in providing reliable material about the products for which their products are relevant, and in printed form too, have a long history of reliability. I wouldn't trust them for a comparative review of small tool-kits, or of apple replacement parts, but as for apple products, certainly. Every site in the world has a purpose to pull traffic--even we at WP consider it a sign of our own importance, and use it to advertise to raise money from donors. That's too indirect. Technical sites aiming for a technical audience have every reason to be accurate, or nobody would use them. DGG ( talk ) 04:20, 20 October 2012 (UTC)
I replaced the source for battery info to [8]. Someone reverted back to iFixit. How does it get determined which source is more credible? Also wuould you respond to my general question your talk page? Cantaloupe2 (talk) 04:33, 20 October 2012 (UTC)
  • If that's settled, I'll restore the iFixit source for information on the capacity of the battery. Can't reasonably see a conflict of interest existing in such a simple non-subjective claim. In addition, clear indisputable images of the battery have also been provided. 1YuMaNuMa Contrib 04:29, 20 October 2012 (UTC)
Settled? Not just yet. I asked if iFixit constitutes higher credibility source than TechdigestTV. That question has not been answered. Don't jump the gun. Cantaloupe2 (talk) 04:35, 20 October 2012 (UTC)
Jump the gun? What more do you want, they provided visual images and TechDigest provided absolutely nothing on where they got their source from in regards to iphone 5 battery info. YuMaNuMa Contrib 04:37, 20 October 2012 (UTC)
"as much so as any other review site except a major magazine" in DGG's view. So now, we need to wait a bit before you just determine that iFixit's in-house research trumps that of other review site's information. Also, as a general practice, you saying "if no reply, I'll revert", doing so six minutes later is unreasonable. Cantaloupe2 (talk) 04:43, 20 October 2012 (UTC)
Read the reply on my talk page, I explained very clearly why I made the changes - it wasn't a revert. I'm being as patient as possible here, from what I can make of your conversions with them not one out the 2 other editors in the iPhone 5 article agree with your interpretation of what constitutes a reliable source and whether the sources inserted are considered reliable. We have already substantiated that ExtremeTech and iFixit are reliable sources for the statements and claim they support in the article. Correct? YuMaNuMa Contrib 04:52, 20 October 2012 (UTC)
RN hasn't commented on ET. RfC on ET and other sources are still in progress. It has not been concluded. Why couldn't you just wait a few days before doing anything else? Cantaloupe2 (talk) 04:55, 20 October 2012 (UTC)
Simply put, I didn't think it would still be a problem after the changes for a reasonable person. I also never said our dispute was settled, I said this dispute was settled because photographic evidence in most if not all reasonable situations overrides textual evidence by a secondary source with no further reliance on another primary/secondary source. YuMaNuMa Contrib 05:00, 20 October 2012 (UTC)
It became an issue when it was contested by someone that another source said 1400mAh. Cantaloupe2 (talk) 05:05, 20 October 2012 (UTC)
This conflict of sources and content was never put forth before and it's the first that I'm hearing of it in our debate. The information that you're relying on is an assumption predicted by a firm that conducted a survey on the cost of the iPhone 5 components. That information was published before the actual release of the phone and this source which is relying on information from eeTimes also clearly reports that the estimate is an assumption of the components. YuMaNuMa Contrib 05:16, 20 October 2012 (UTC)
  • I'm going to post this comment as often as I can - stop editing content that is in question. The summarising of similar ideas such as "The iPhone 5 received mainly positive/favorable reviews from commentators and reviewers" is not considered WP:Synthesis from I can conclude from reading DGG's comment on the iPhone 5 talk page. YuMaNuMa Contrib 05:35, 20 October 2012 (UTC)
I would say that so far this discussion is going nowhere. Neither of you are following the guidelines at the top of the page. Please slow down and have a look.--Andrew Lancaster (talk) 19:45, 20 October 2012 (UTC)


Arbitrary means that its a subjective scale. "comparitively, it has taken 25minutes to repair the iPhone4 while the iPhone5 took 10 minutes under all else being equal" is simple reporting. If the editor "gives" it "7 out of 10" that's arbitrary scale which is more or less pulled out of his butt based on his personal experience. Your statement that "photographic evidence trumps it" has a problem in that its only representative of the sample they tore apart. Electronics have variation between production lot. For example, someone can take a picture of a component on the car and say "the MY2006 make model uses this clutch plate, as shown in photo", therefore the MY2006 car uses that part." the clutch plate used can vary depending on build date. So, its only accurate if it was attributed "the unit disassembled by reviewer contained 1440mAh" as opposed to "the model uses 1440mAh" which paints a generalized assumption that it holds true for all revisions. You'll also see that official specs often reads "specifications subject to change". It's a speculation to assume that review sample's component specs represents all. Cantaloupe2 (talk) 02:07, 21 October 2012 (UTC)

We've been over this already... A lengthy debate that covers most if not all possible points has been provided to responders, let them decide. Move what you just said to the section above and I'll reply to it as I don't want to turn this section into another seemingly purposeless debate that moves in some circular flow. Add your own view below mine if you wish. YuMaNuMa Contrib 02:19, 21 October 2012 (UTC)
Reply If it's properly attributed and said "iFixit found its product sample to contain 1440mAh battery" as opposed to quoting it in info-box as if its form the official specification, I have no issue with it. Variation from one revision to another is common in electronic products. These two Philips shavers I've got laying around contains NiMH in one, Li-Ion in the other. Different production codes.It would be incorrect to Assume and say "the xx model contains xx type", but if it read "the sample that was torn apart contained" it is clearer. Cantaloupe2 (talk) 02:25, 21 October 2012 (UTC)
Find me a source that differs from iFixit's claim and is not an assumption and we'll start from there. What you're saying now is absolutely absurd and I don't want to entertain such nonsense. This is simply another example of your ridiculous assumptions that have absolutely no basis whatsoever. It's clear indication of wanting to win an argument for the sake of it. YuMaNuMa Contrib 02:30, 21 October 2012 (UTC)
You're making a personal attack. I replaced it with Apple's official spec, which makes no claim of specs, which should be uncontroversial, but you claim that "its disruptive". There's no rule that says "If source B says the same thing as source A, source A prevails." Cantaloupe2 (talk) 02:41, 21 October 2012 (UTC)
No, I'm attacking your absurd assertions, there's a difference. It's controversial because I have an issue with it that was made known to you half an hour ago and ultimately an issue with how you view Wikipedia's policy and your interpretation of it. iFixit has clear evidence that allows editors to add information, you're claiming it's incorrect - prove it, "the onus is on you" or whatever. As DGG previously said, common sense and good judgement is needed, the situation here is pretty self explanatory. YuMaNuMa Contrib 02:45, 21 October 2012 (UTC)

Let's start over

Given the information provided above and on Talk:iPhone 5#Do not revert removal of synthesis and Talk:iPhone 5#Bias in wording, is iFixit a reliable source for information on the components of the iPhone 5 such as the battery capacity AND are repair-ability review scores given by iFixit considered arbitrary? Also since iFixit has provided photographic evidence of their claim of the iPhone 5 battery having a capacity of 1440mah, is iFixit more reliable than TechDigest in this situation? YuMaNuMa Contrib 01:58, 21 October 2012 (UTC)

  • My view - iFixit is a reputable that has been quoted and referred to by many other known reliable sources. Despite us not knowing their rating scale, it cannot be assumed as arbitrary. In addition, reasons for why the rating was given has also been mentioned throughout the review and the process of teardown is transparent. In the iPhone 5 article, I simply stated that the iPhone 5 is easier to disassemble and repair than its predecessor based on what the source says. YuMaNuMa Contrib 01:58, 21 October 2012 (UTC)

I still think that the way this discussion is being presented makes it very difficult to locate any clear point for anyone else to discuss as an RSN question.--Andrew Lancaster (talk) 12:50, 24 October 2012 (UTC)

Reliable sources in other languages

Hey, I want to contribute to ENWIKI writing good historical articles, but I just wanted to know if reliable and academic sources and Encyclopedia in other languages are allowed in here or no? e.g. Encyclopædia Islamica is one of them. I don't want to put efforts which may be nullified later. --Scholarphil (talk) 20:58, 24 October 2012 (UTC)

Generally, see WP:NONENG concerning use of non-English language sources on the English-language Wikipedia. Fladrif (talk) 21:07, 24 October 2012 (UTC)
If the content can be sourced to reliable English language sources, that is prefered. But yes, it is acceptable to use sources that are not in English, IF they meet the same requirements of having a reputation for fact checking and accuracy and providing content from a neutral point of view. See WP:NONENG and WP:RS. About that specific website, I am unfamiliar and will not comment if it meets the criteria. -- TRPoD aka The Red Pen of Doom 21:08, 24 October 2012 (UTC)
Foreign language sources are acceptable but bear in mind that we are supposed to use the best sources for the topics covered. Typically the best non-English sources for major topics will be translated into English and in this case The Institute of Ismaeli Studies is translating the encyclopedia. I would use the translation if available because readers may want to look at the sources for additional information. For lesser known topics, for example local history, foreign language texts may be the only available sources. TFD (talk) 21:24, 24 October 2012 (UTC)
Regarding this source, it might be ok for some descriptive factual information, but I'd be dubious about it in general. It is too much of a religious rather than scholarly work (they would deny the distinction, which illustrates the problem). I'd be especially cautious about citing them on anything controversial regarding Sunni Islam. Where there is overlap, Encyclopedia Iranica is more scholarly. Zerotalk 21:32, 24 October 2012 (UTC)
Actually this is not only about religious things but also about islamic world and is written by scholars. But in general I try to be careful using it. Scholarphil (talk) 21:56, 24 October 2012 (UTC)
Non-scholarly encyclopaedias are generally not acceptable for historical articles. Please read WP:HISTRS regarding the source quality expected in historical articles. (Note that there are such things as _scholarly_ encyclopaedia, written by and for scholars, these are usually acceptable). General reliability questions should go to Wikipedia talk:Identifying reliable sources. (The language of publication doesn't matter. However, please note, that some languages of scholarly publication have poor scholarly publication cultures, and this does matter. But this isn't to do with the language they publish in. I carefully check Indian or Pakistani sources from small presses when they're publishing in English). Fifelfoo (talk) 23:47, 24 October 2012 (UTC)
Thanks all. Scholarphil (talk) 23:59, 24 October 2012 (UTC)

YouTube reference in Good Neighbor policy (LDS Church) article

1. Source: [9]

2. Article: Good Neighbor policy (LDS Church)

3. Content:

In 2012, hidden camera footage revealed, that the Oath of vengeance against the US is still taken during the traditionally secret Mormon marriage ceremony. [1]

–– Anonymouse321 (talk • contribs) 05:44, 25 October 2012 (UTC)

That appears to be a video posted by some random YouTube user claiming to depict the secret practices of Mormons. It's obviously not even close to being a reliable source. Nick-D (talk) 07:29, 25 October 2012 (UTC)
That's what I thought, and there has been an edit war on the page about it. I guess I will delete it again... –– Anonymouse321 (talk • contribs) 07:33, 25 October 2012 (UTC)

Ancient historians - do we treat their accounts of events as primary or secondary sources?

Resolved
 – They're primary sources, so not good enough to depend on for Featured articles. --Dweller (talk) 12:47, 25 October 2012 (UTC)

I'd be grateful for some guidance, thanks. --Dweller (talk) 10:16, 25 October 2012 (UTC)

Do you have any specific examples in mind? If you search the archives of this page the topic appears to have been discussed in the past; my suggestion is to treat them as primary sources (most of them have been picked clean by secondary sources which place the original publication in context and critically discuss its contents). Nick-D (talk) 10:34, 25 October 2012 (UTC)
As primary. I can't think of any cases where it would be otherwise. But please do bring any particular examples here. Itsmejudith (talk) 10:41, 25 October 2012 (UTC)

Perhaps I shouldn't have been so obscure. I'm currently auditing "old" FAs that have yet to appear on Main Page to see if they're good enough quality for Main Page. (The audit can be seen here - help from other reviewers welcomed!) The specific article that made me raise this question is Cretan War which is largely sourced from ancient texts - Polybius and Livy. If consensus is that these sources are primary, not secondary, the article in my view is definitely not of sufficient quality because our core policy WP:V says "Base articles largely on reliable secondary sources." I note that the article itself calls those sources "primary". --Dweller (talk) 11:57, 25 October 2012 (UTC)

I doubt the usefulness of the term, but in cases like this, ancient sources tend to be considered as "primary sources" in the sense of being raw data and not commented upon by any modern reliable source, which is what we prefer. Of course such classical sourcing for basic classical events is widespread in WP, and not considered wrong, even if it is not considered best practice. A simple way to improve such cases (but time consuming and of debateable value for many types of classical information) is to find a good modern edition of commentary and cite it as well as the original classical source, with of course reference to any modern doubts or hypotheses when they are relevant, that being the whole point of trying to make sure modern secondary sources are checked. But I would argue that removing good quality classical sources, even if you have nice modern ones to add, is not to be encouraged.--Andrew Lancaster (talk) 12:24, 25 October 2012 (UTC)
Thanks, Andrew. I'm not considering removing the content, just whether it'd still be regarded by the community as Featured quality, given the higher standards we apply today. --Dweller (talk) 12:27, 25 October 2012 (UTC)
Yes. Just for clarity, I know that people look to this noticeboard for precedents, so I wanted to try to help define the limits of applicability a little. Two misunderstandings to avoid: using classical sources is acceptable even if not best (questions about what is best for an FA sometimes create confusion here), and secondly, deleting mention of classical sources is not normally going to be a good idea at all, even if good modern sources can be found in order to improve our article.--Andrew Lancaster (talk) 12:38, 25 October 2012 (UTC)

Thanks all. Now reviewed, with your help. --Dweller (talk) 12:47, 25 October 2012 (UTC)

Edward de Vere

Resolved
 – Unquestionably reliable source, recognized expert published by respected academic pressFladrif (talk) 15:34, 26 October 2012 (UTC)

Source: Nelson, Alan H. (2003), Monstrous Adversary: the life of Edward de Vere,17th Earl of Oxford, Liverpool University Press, ISBN 978-0-85323-678-8

Article: Edward_de_vere
Content: (1) "In November he matriculated as an impubes, or immature fellow-commoner, in Queens' College, Cambridge, and in January 1559 he was admitted as a fellow commoner in St John's, while still remaining resident at Queens'. In March 1559 his name disappeared from the Queens' college registers; he did not graduate with his classmates in the Lent term of 1562."[16] [Nelson p. 26]
Cambridge University Archives Matriculation Book 1:169 -- please verify Edward Bulbeck(e) and H. Crane are listed an impubes per Nelson's book. Also verify John Jobsonne is not listed as impubes on same list (Queens' Michaelmas 1558). John Venn et al per both *Book of Matriculations* (1913) and *Alumni Cantabrigienses* (1922) neither lists Bulbeck(e) nor Crane as impubes but both books list Jobsonne as impubes whom Nelson omits from his book.
(2) "In May 1565 she wrote to Cecil, urging that the money from family properties set aside for Oxford's use during his minority by his father's will should be entrusted to herself and other family friends to protect it and ensure that he would be able to meet the expenses of furnishing his household and suing his livery when he reached his majority; this last would end his wardship though cancelling his debt with that Court, and convey the powers attached to his title.[25]" [Nelson p. 43]
The National Archives SP 12/36/47, ff. 110-111: In May 1565, Oxford's mother wrote to Cecil, etc. Please verify date of letter as "some time before October 1563" Oxford's mother married Charles Tyrrell. The letter in question is signed "Margery Oxenford" and endorsed "The Countess of Oxford".
Am challenging Nelson's ability to accurately intrepret Elizabethan documents and am also asking why Wikipedia would consider a book written by a non-expert to be [WP:RS]. Thank you! Knitwitted (talk) 18:43, 23 October 2012 (UTC)
Have you looked at Professor Nelson's profile at UC Berkeley: [10]? And if you have, what grounds do you have for describing him as a 'non-expert'? AndyTheGrump (talk) 18:48, 23 October 2012 (UTC)
I have. The discrepencies between his and Venn's assessment of the matriculation record and the fact that Mrs. Tyrrell shouldn't be signing her name as The Countess of Oxford should start an inquiry. I suggest Venn would be the expert regarding Cambridge matriculation records. But at the very least, let's please have an independent examiner review these 2 documents before further discussions. Perhaps Venn is wrong. Perhaps Mrs. Tyrrell had a brain fart. Until proof is provided that Nelson's interpretations are correct, I would like his book tagged as a possible non-RS. Knitwitted (talk) 19:21, 23 October 2012 (UTC)
Re Lady Ox/Mrs Ty. The Lady/Mrs is writing to make requests to Cecil, so there is no question of having 'authority'. Are you saying that mother should express no opinions about the welfare of her son? I look forward to your book on absentee child rearing. As for whether she "shouldn't" be signing her name as The Countess of Oxford, well, maybe she shouldn't have, but still used her title as it sounded better than Mrs Tyrell; maybe she was entitled, as a courtesy, to still use her title; maybe she hadn't married Tyrell by then (the first reference to the marriage is in '66); maybe the letter was misdated by someone in the last 400 years; and yes, maybe there was a transcription error on someone's part, maybe even Nelson, or a typeseeting error that wasn't spotted, or.... Paul B (talk) 20:32, 24 October 2012 (UTC)
Paul, you're sounding a lot like the typical Strat-person... maybe maybe maybe. Knitwitted (talk) 14:56, 25 October 2012 (UTC)

And in your haste to condemn an honourable scholar you're sounding like a typical anti-Stratfordian, which explains your shoddy "scholarship". Countess Margery styled herself as such because that was the custom. Tom Reedy (talk) 17:14, 25 October 2012 (UTC)

Honourable? Are you serious? Quit pretending to be such a British bumpkin. Knitwitted (talk) 17:49, 25 October 2012 (UTC)
I'll give it up as soon as you drop the moron act. But just FYI, when editing on British topics it is house style on WP to use British English, and it becomes habit. And I notice you have no comment on the link that disproves your fantasy (or should I write phantasie?). Tom Reedy (talk) 18:31, 25 October 2012 (UTC)
The book is clearly a reliable source, by our standards. It is published by an established expert in this area (tenured at a major research university in the subject the book is on), published by a reliable publisher, etc. This is not to say that it is perfectly accurate, only that it meets the standards here for what a reliable source is. To counter any flawed analysis that might be sourced to it, you need to find other similarly reliable sources, and in that case the article should neutrally describe the differences between the sources rather than using one of them as an excuse to ignore the other. Your own speculations about what certain historical people should or should not have signed themselves are not particularly relevant, unless they are reliably published. —David Eppstein (talk) 20:06, 23 October 2012 (UTC)
The book includes a huge amount of detailed material based on archival sources. In any undertaking as vast as that the odd slip-up will inevitably occur (not that I am accepting that these specific assertions are slip ups. I wouldn't know). Individual mistakes in obscure matters of detail do not make a source unreliable in Wikipedia's sense. That's not to say we should slavishly repeat factual errors if we know them to be so. We can prefer other sources for specific points if they are more authoritative, or simply omit information if we have good reason to believe it to be erroneous. Frankly the points that you, apparently chanelling the spirit of Nina Green, are making are so utterly obscure they are are barely intelligible. How is it remotely relevant whether or not Bulbeck(e), Crane or Jobsonne were "impubes", a topic in which the article, along with every sane person in the world, has no interest? Paul B (talk) 21:52, 23 October 2012 (UTC)
This discussion has been closed. Please do not modify it.
The following discussion has been closed. Please do not modify it.
Paul, I brought up the issue of impubes to show discrepencies between Nelson and Venn; not to show proper content for the article. Researchers use Venn et al's books as the authority for Cambridge matriculation records. If Nelson was correct in his assessment, then he being a trained historian, should have pointed out mistakes in Venn's books. That is what historians do. They don't, as Nelson has done, neglect evidentiary boo-boos. Knitwitted (talk) 14:36, 26 October 2012 (UTC)
Nelson is *not* a credentialed historian. It is not just about transcribing documents and giving your interpretation per document; it is about reviewing prior research and documenting any discrepencies found. It is also about reviewing *all* documents as a whole... meaning finding and pointing out any inconsistencies between 2 or more documents. Nelson fails to do any of the above. Furthermore, is Nelson an expert Latin translator? As to Mrs. Tyrrell's letter, since she resigned her executrixship on 22 Jul 1563 [per Earl John's second will], she hardly had the authority to write such a letter on May 1565 regarding his will. Knitwitted (talk) 14:26, 24 October 2012 (UTC)
This is frankly idiotic. For how much longer do we have to put up with absurd arguments that bear no relation whatever to either Wikipedia policy or the realities of academic research? The article on De Vere nowhere mentions the issue of whether or not Messrs Bulbeck(e), Crane or Jobsonne were "impubes", for the simple reason that it is a matter of no importance whatever. All that Knittwitted is doing is latching onto utterly obscure slip-ups in matters of detail that have no relevance to the overall reliability of the book, as if a single error in hundreds of pages of text somehow invalidates everything written in a whole book. Has Knitwitted even looked at the policies and guidelines on reliability and original research? I see no evidence it, given her bizarre claim that we should find an "independent examiner [to] review these 2 documents". So, she wants us to send for someone to compare historical documents and reach a decision? I'm fairly sure I know who's the one having the "brain fart". Paul B (talk) 18:21, 24 October 2012 (UTC)
Ditto. This is just more example of her disruptive tactics. Her entire talk page is full of warnings about it, yet she seems unaffected to the point where she spends her time making spurious categories and bringing up specious bullshit like this. You can count the useful edits she's made on one hand. She's a minor nuisance, but if she's allowed to stick around you can expect nothing but more of the same from her. (I'm constantly amazed at why Oxfordians consider these kinds of tactics to be useful in promoting their candidate, but I suppose when starting out with an illogical argument further logical deviations should be expected.) Tom Reedy (talk) 19:22, 24 October 2012 (UTC)
I think it is a clear consensus on WP that we do not try to second guess experts in their debates. Consider WP:OR and WP:SYNTH. We summarize what is published in "reliable sources" by which we pretty much mean sources that would be expected to be correct. Undoubtedly many such sources are wrong, and undoubtedly Wikipedians are often smart people who might be smart enough to publish things themselves in public debates, but neither of these points is relevant to this project. Concerning the question of what to do when we find an apparent error, such as a typo or obvious problem like that, is that we should use common sense. As far as policies which we can write in a general way, the only RS-relevant one is that we simply do not have to use all reliable sources. Most difficult to judge in such cases is generally the question of whether removal of a source might make our coverage un-balanced, but that is not the subject of this noticeboard. --Andrew Lancaster (talk) 07:59, 25 October 2012 (UTC)
Nelson p. 40: Edward is a minor age 14; sister Mary is a minor age 14. Per The National Archives SP 12/29/8, ff. 11-12: "Dominum Comitem fuisse et esse minorem quatuordecem Annorum" = Edward is a minor age 14; "Dominam Mariam sororem dicti Comitis fuisse et esse minorem etiam quatuordecem Annis" = Mary is a minor under the age of 14. Note I'm only up to p. 40 in Nelson's tome. And then there's the LMAO "white-herrings" letter (Nelson p. 432) where Dr. Nelson, Professor Emeritus UC Berkeley, mistakes a person for a fish. Knitwitted (talk) 15:11, 25 October 2012 (UTC)
See Monstrous Adversary errata. You're free to do whatever you wish with your life, including wasting your time, but please stop wasting ours. Tom Reedy (talk) 16:55, 25 October 2012 (UTC)
So far I see no serious reason to question the reliability of the source. In fact the discussion really seems to be about where to draw the line on an WP:OR issue, so probably not for this forum. Or am I missing something?--Andrew Lancaster (talk) 19:04, 25 October 2012 (UTC)
No, this is mainly about incompetence on the part of the editor who brought this up. Nelson isn't citing Venn, his citation is to the primary source, i.e. Cambridge's actual record book. The entry appears on page 112 of Venn's book. The number one rule when dealing with Oxfordians is to check their citation, because usually they're blinded by their bias, incompetent, or dishonest, because their main intentions are promotional rather than scholarly. I made the error of not doing so because by the time I knew the discussion was going it was already pretty far along. I finally took a look this morning while having my coffee. Tom Reedy (talk) 12:17, 26 October 2012 (UTC)
Tom, that was the whole point. Venn et al are the authorities on Cambridge matriculation records, not Nelson. Why couldn't Nelson point out *he* found substantially new information? Knitwitted (talk) 14:37, 26 October 2012 (UTC) Tom, I also supplied Cambridge University Archives Matriculation Book 1:169 as quoted from Nelson's book when I first made my point. Knitwitted (talk) 14:41, 26 October 2012 (UTC)
You are verging on the edges of incomprehensibility and it is obvious that you don't understand Wikipedia policies nor scholarship. Tom Reedy (talk) 15:13, 26 October 2012 (UTC)
Would the moderators please review a few of the choice expressions used by Tom Reedy and Paul B regarding my points: "utterly obscure" (used twice), "barely intelligible", "frankly idiotic", "bizarre", "specious bullshit", "minor nuisance", "illogical", "bias" "incompetent", "dishonest". Thank you for your attention to this matter. Knitwitted (talk) 14:30, 26 October 2012 (UTC)
So far as I have noted, none of them is applied to you, Knitwitted. Most of them are applied to your arguments, and, as such, seem fair enough. ("Specious" was perhaps a bit over the top.) But I see that Tom Reedy generalises about "Oxfordians" above: are you one of those? Andrew Dalby 15:06, 26 October 2012 (UTC)
Nope, not an Oxfordian. Am an independent researcher. Thank you for asking! :) Knitwitted (talk) 15:14, 26 October 2012 (UTC)

David Hicks claims of torture

In Guantanamo Bay detention camp, editor User:NinaDownstreet insists that our article contain the words David Hicks also made allegations of torture… and uses three articles in support:

However, the source used by all three articles is an affidavit by Hicks:

Hicks does not actually claim that he was tortured. His exact words (repeated several times throughout the affidavit) are: This Affidavit provides an outline of the abuse and mistreatment I have received… I maintain that if Hicks does not say that he was tortured, our article cannot claim that he said so. It is simply not true. User:NinaDownstreet here removes the affidavit as a source and reinserts the torture claim. My question is whether we must stand by what Hicks actually said by relying on his exact statement, or whether we should accept the reinterpretation offered by the newspaper articles, all of which use the affidavit as their only source for Hicks' claims. --Pete (talk) 06:29, 25 October 2012 (UTC)

These mainstream news sources are reliable for the fact that Hicks has claimed he was tortured. Even if he doesn't use the word himself, they have applied judgement and the normal definition of the term. Itsmejudith (talk) 07:01, 25 October 2012 (UTC)

Here are the relevant quotes from each of the secondary sources (words and interpretations from secondary sources) :

1) "Australia's Hicks alleges torture"

2) "Allegations by Australian terrorist suspect David Hicks of torture at Guantanamo Bay..."

3) "David Hicks has renewed allegations of torture at Guantanamo Bay,..."

We can not evaluate and interpret primary source material this is against WP:PRIMARY and WP:OR. All three secondary sources that i have provided say and verify "David Hicks made allegations of torture"' NinaDownstreet (talk) 07:18, 25 October 2012 (UTC)

Points 5, 6, 8, 9, 10, 11, 12, 14 and 15 from the affidavit are obviously claims of having been tortured, and as Nina notes reliable sources interpreted them as such at the time, so there's no problem here. Nick-D (talk) 07:25, 25 October 2012 (UTC)
Of course it's an interpretation, and we can state it as such, but it isn't "obvious" that Hicks was claiming torture, because obviously he would have said as much. Obviously he did not, instead selecting a more specific - and entirely reasonable - claim of abuse and mistreatment. There is a difference between Wikipedia stating that Hicks was tortured, using media articles as sources, and Wikipedia stating that Hicks claimed he was tortured, which in point of fact he did not. I don't think it's too fine a distinction to miss - if we know that Lincoln said, government of the people, by the people, for the people, shall not perish from the earth, we can certainly summarise it as "democratic governance shall endure", but we cannot honestly state as fact that Lincoln said those exact words. It would be untrue. As with Lincoln so with Hicks, at least to my feeble grasp of truth and logic. --Pete (talk) 11:35, 25 October 2012 (UTC)

Pete, Wikipedia is a mirror of what secondary sources say. There are good reasons for this. A rigorous treatment of this issue, which it's possible editors might agree on, would be for the article to footnote Hick's actual words. But that's a matter for the article talk page, not here. --Dweller (talk) 12:16, 25 October 2012 (UTC)

There is fairly widespread acceptance that we can sometimes use primary sources to argue that secondary sources should not be used, because they made some obvious error such as a typo. However, in this case you essentially have a good representation of the most important newspapers in Australia making the same interpretation. Such journalists should have been familiar with the context in ways which we can not be. That is what we would generally expect them to have a good reputation for checking. So I see no reason to propose not using their interpretation as the preferred one, because it is the mainstream interpretation amongst people who write about such things. To tweak away from that mainstream would not be in the spirit of WP:DUE or WP:OR.--Andrew Lancaster (talk) 12:32, 25 October 2012 (UTC)
Indeed. In regards to the affidavit, it's quite likely that Hicks' lawyer didn't use the word 'torture' as it has a specific legal definition which he or she didn't wish to invoke in a formal legal document such as this ('torture' may not even be something which can be alleged in legal documents given how imprecise the term is - I am not a lawyer though!). On the basis of what was contained in the affidavit, I'm not seeing any reason to consider the reporting of it in a range of reliable sources problematic. If other reliable sources interpreted the affidavit differently, this should be noted in the article. Nick-D (talk) 22:33, 25 October 2012 (UTC)
I may be slow, but I still cannot see how we can state that Hicks - or anyone - said something that they did not. It is not factual. --Pete (talk) 22:45, 25 October 2012 (UTC)
You are a bit slow. Your analysis of Hick's statements as given in your post of 22:45 25 October 2012 is original research. The analysis of Hick's statements given in the Australian and SMH are verifiable and reliable. Fifelfoo (talk) 22:59, 25 October 2012 (UTC)http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Wikipedia:Reliable_sources/Noticeboard&action=edit&section=17
Thanks. See above for my comments on that. Could you address the point that puzzles me, please? The discussion here seems to be saying that even if we know somebody said X and not Y because we have the exact wording, if a reliable source reports he said Y, we can state as a fact that he said Y when we actually know he didn't? --Pete (talk) 23:43, 25 October 2012 (UTC)
Maybe we've answered in a way which is too "coded" by wiki jargon. Let me try again. Your logical approach is logical, but it is what we refer to under WP:synthesis as something we do not normally aspire to when editing WP. Such reference to primary material can sometimes be used to justify removing words from Wikipedia, but only in special cases, such as if (a) the primary information you use is very simple to interpret (see WP:BLUE) and (b) the material proposed for removal is not itself very widely cited, discussed, and apparently representative of what is mainstream thinking (see WP:NPOV which is one of our most important policies). So as I mentioned an example case might be an obvious typo in a newspaper. The problem in this case (and most such cases) is that (a) legal wording is clearly not something everyone can interpret in the same way, like "1+1=2", and (b) there are several sources we would need to ignore, and they are all quite eminent and mainstream. If we ever want to propose edits which do not seem mainstream, we must be prepared to give very strong reasons. (Consider WP:REDFLAG, WP:FRINGE.)--Andrew Lancaster (talk) 08:34, 26 October 2012 (UTC)

Note that the third article, Hicks in fresh torture claims is not based on that 2004 affidavit, but a later one. "A new document written by Hicks in support of his bid for British citizenship expands on previous claims and details new allegations of abuse. ... The document forms part of an affidavit in a British court in which he is seeking to over-ride a Blair government decision to deny him citizenship." Extracts from the later document ; Full document behind a wall . The 'new document' extract does contain one use of the word "torture". Also on that site, are extracts from Hicks's book, and an interview about it where he repeatedly uses the word "torture" for his & others' treatment. I agree with the other responders above about the abstract question. We should just try to craft the sentence to avoid the inference that it is an exact quote, as much as possible, and of course OR is OK to keep stuff out of the encyclopedia - e.g. if the affidavits had said he was playing cards with Dick Cheney in an undisclosed location all that time.John Z (talk) 22:17, 26 October 2012 (UTC)

Many thanks for all the responses above, especially the last. We should be able to work out a coherent wording and reference fit on the talk page now. --Pete (talk) 06:17, 27 October 2012 (UTC)

Google search result

An IP added a Google search result to Rebel Wilson's article and I was wondering if it was reliable? If a user types in "When is Rebel Wilson's birthday" Google gives February 3, 1986 as her birth date. This search result was used as a source in Wilson's article, but where do they get their information from? - JuneGloom Talk 00:21, 26 October 2012 (UTC)

A google search report is not a source... it is a means to find sources. Take it to the next step and look at the hits. Find ones that are reliable and cite them. Blueboar (talk) 00:28, 26 October 2012 (UTC)
No, not reliable, not a source.--Anonymous209.6 (talk) 02:31, 26 October 2012 (UTC)
Not even acceptable as an external link. See WP:ELNO #9. —David Eppstein (talk) 04:18, 26 October 2012 (UTC)
Everyone is agreeing on the basic point but Blueboar's advice is best: there is no need to be too "hard" about this error, because the work done can very likely be fixed up. WP:NEWBIES, WP:FIXTHEPROBLEM. --Andrew Lancaster (talk) 08:37, 26 October 2012 (UTC)

Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung as a source

The Houla massacre page has been subject to a slow-motion edit war, over whether or not to include an alternative account of events for the massacre as provided primarily by the Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung. Opponents of including the alternative account have called it "poorly sourced... undue weight... a conspiracy theory... proven false." I fear that editing of the page has become less an issue of encyclopedic content, and more an issue of turning the page into a proxy war (for the real war). If anyone considers themselves knowledgeable regarding source reliability and has comments on the legitimacy of the FAZ as a source, please consider commenting here and also on the Houla Massacre talk pages. Thanks. -Darouet (talk) 17:07, 26 October 2012 (UTC) Moved to bottom of list for comment, -Darouet (talk) 06:28, 28 October 2012 (UTC)

Is an introduction to the Black Book of Communism a reliable source for the estimates of Communist mass killings?

In his introduction to the Black Book of Communism, Courtous presents the following "rough approximation" of the toll of Communism:

U. S. S. R.: 20 million deaths
China: 65 million deaths
Vietnam: 1 million deaths
North Korea: 2 million deaths
Cambodia: 2 million deaths
Eastern Europe: 1 million deaths
Latin America: 150,000 deaths
Africa: 1.7 million deaths
Afghanistan: 1.5 million deaths
The international Communist movement and Communist parties not in power:
about 10,000 deaths.

Ronald Aronson it his article "Communism's Posthumous Trial. The Black Book of Communism: Crimes, Terror, Repression by Stéphane Courtois; The Passing of an Illusion: The Idea of Communism in the Twentieth Century by François Furet; The Burden of Responsibility: Blum, Camus, Aron, and the French Twentieth Century by Tony Judt; Le Siècle des communismes by Michel Dreyfus" (History and Theory, Vol. 42, No. 2 (May, 2003), pp. 222-245.) expresses the following opinion on that:

"But most of these problems (problems with the BB proper -PS) pale in significance compared with the book's opening and closing chapters, which caused enormous controversy and even occasioned a break among The Black Book's authors.

Commenting on the above figures, Aronson continues:

Courtois's figures for the Soviet Union, Vietnam, and Latin America go far beyond the estimates of the authors themselves, as does Courtois's final body count."

In connection to that, my question is:

Can the introduction to the Black Book be used as the source for facts about the death toll of Communism?
Concretely, is the introduction to the BB a reliable source for this general claim:
"Mass killings occurred under some Communist regimes during the twentieth century with an estimated death toll numbering between 85 and 100 million."

--Paul Siebert (talk) 19:34, 15 October 2012 (UTC)

  • No, Courtois' introduction is not reliable since the authors of the book condemned him for misrepresenting the numbers in the book. This is succinctly summarized in Jon Wiener's How We Forgot the Cold War, published this month:

    Of course the book received both praise and criticism. Notable among the critics were two important contributors to the volume who publicly rejected its thesis: Nicolas Werth, who wrote the key chapter on the Soviet Union, and Jean-Louis Margolin, who wrote the other key chapter, on China, Vietnam, and Cambodia. After seeing the introduction, the two "consulted a lawyer to see if they could withdraw their respective contributions from the book. They were advised they could not."

    So Werth and Margolin took their criticism to Le Monde, writing that Courtois was obsessed with reaching a total of one hundred million victims despite the best evidence showing a lower total. Werth also insisted Nazism and communism were qualitatively different. . . . The book was especially controversial in France because it was published during the 1997 trial of Nazi collaborator Maurice Papon for crimes against humanity for his role in the deportation of Jews from Bourdeaux to Hitler's death camps. Papon's lawyers introduced the book as evidence for the defense. (Wiener, Jon. How We Forgot the Cold War: A Historical Journey Across America. University of California Press. pp. 37-38)

    Wiener also notes that J. Arch Getty rejected the attribution of famine deaths to mass killing, and still other reviewers "objected to the way The Black Book lumped together vastly different societies on the grounds that their leaders claimed to be Marxists-Leninists" (p. 38). On p. 39, Wiener says that "Courtois, in his argument for the hundred million figure, was explicitly attacking what he called 'the international Jewish community' for emphasizing the crimes of Hitler in a way that displaced the much greater crimes of communism. Blame the Jews: that argument leaves The Black Book tainted (p. 39; see also p. 37). Wiener's next paragraph mentions that the book "nonetheless received an enthusiastic reception in the United States," but the fact that at least two of the co-authors publicly denounced Courtois and his introduction, and sought to legally distance themselves from the book is most salient feature of the uproar. Zloyvolsheb (talk) 20:28, 15 October 2012 (UTC)

The BBoC has been discussed here before - it is published by a major university press, and has been used in many other references as a source itself. The query really at hand is whether the estimates given as a range, and which are curently inthe body of an article appropriately referenced, should be presented as estimates in the lede of the article, or whether the estimate should be described as "tens of millions" or just as "millions" per some editors prior edits. A fair reading of multiple sources indicates that the numbers do, indeed, range as estimates from a low of about 60 million to a high of well over 100 million. Consensus in the past reached the "65 to 100 million" as a valid compromise, and the validity of the BBoC was not the issue, just the validity of individual numbers. Aronson's book review, is, moreover a book review. Not an article on death tolls. The "Holocaust denial" subtext injected above is not valid in discussions on this noticeboard IMO, and at best muddies the waters utterly. See reviews from Canadian Journal of History [11], other reviews at [12], [13], [14]. All strikingly positive in their reviews. The BBoC was written by former Communists and left-wing intellectuals, who would not be expected to over criticise the communist regimes mentioned, but who still came up with large numbers of deaths. Try on the order of a hundred positive references per Highbeam. Of course we could use The Specter of Genocide: Mass Murder in Historical Perspective By: Robert Gellately; Ben Kieman; Cambridge University Press 2003. The Soviet persecutionof kulaks inthe 1930s took millions of lives etc. the exceptional and paroxysmal nature of Ezhovshina: executed during these two years (1937–38) were more than 85 percent of all people sentenced to the “supreme measure of punishment” by extrajudicial organs between the end of the civil war (1921) and Stalin's death (1953)–at least 682,000 out of a total of 800,000. which is just a small fraction of the deaths noted in the 2003 book. China Under Communism by Alan Lawrance, Routledge, 1998: Less publicized at the time was the fact that in certain regions there was famine, now reckoned to have accounted for 20 million deaths, leading to sporadic outbursts of cannibalism during a single 3 year period (the "Great Leap Forward" etc. Others, for example Jacques Guillermaz, diplomat and historian, suggest five million in 1949 a single year. The Lesser Evil: Moral Approaches to Genocide Practices By: Helmut Dubiel; Gabriel Motzkin, publisher Frank Cass, 2003, has The phenomenon is partly connected to China's huge population (around 700 million at the beginning of the Cultural Revolution in 1966). Taking 58 million unnatural deaths as an average estimate would put the death toll over three decades, from 1946 to 1978, at 8 per cent of the total Chinese population. This figure is not much different from the one recently established for the three decades of the Lenin-Stalin period. (Margolin). So the real issue is not the BBoC as a reliable source - it is. It is whether we ought to minimize estimates below the lowest reliably sourced estimates of deaths. I fear that is not the topic for this noticeboard, however. Collect (talk) 20:53, 15 October 2012 (UTC)

I don't know why you provide sources for things like "supreme measure of punishment" by extrajudicial organs between the end of the civil war (1921) and Stalin's death (1953)–at least 682,000 out of a total of 800,000" – we're dealing with the question of whether the introduction by Courtois is a reliable source for 100 million victims. Zloyvolsheb (talk) 21:29, 15 October 2012 (UTC)
  • The number isn't used as a fact but as an upper estimate. While Courtois may have his critics, he is not alone. Benjamin Valentino cites other authors like Matthew White estimating 81 million and Todd Culberston estimating 100 million. Valentino concludes that these estimates be considered at the high end of the plausible range of deaths attributable to communist regimes[15], and that is the way it is used in the article. --Nug (talk) 20:32, 15 October 2012 (UTC)
  • We should not use the estimate of one author and claim that that is the generally accepted range. We need a secondary source that explains the ranges used by various authors and how widely accepted the various ranges are. Adding up Courtois' numbers btw I get 95,360,000, not 100 million (20+65+1+2+2+1+0.15+1.7+1.5+0.01=95.36). TFD (talk) 20:51, 15 October 2012 (UTC)
A reason to say "65 to 95 million" then. Collect (talk) 22:31, 15 October 2012 (UTC)
  • Yes, this book certainly qualify as RS. According to WP:RS, there are three components to consider: (a) the creator of the work, (b) the publisher, and (c) the piece of work itself. Speaking about (a), this is written by mainstream researchers. For example, Stéphane Courtois, who contributed a couple of chapters of the book and introduction, is a French historian, expert in communism history and research director at French National Centre for Scientific Research, (according to page about him), not a fringe writer. Speaking about (b), it was published by Harvard University Press. Speaking about (c), I suggest to actually read the book, and not only the introduction, but at least some chapters from the book. After reading the book and being familiar with the subject, I think this is actually the best secondary source on the general subject of communist repression. There are better sources on specific countries like Russia, but not on the communist repression in general. If there are better books on this general subject, please tell what they are, and I would like to look at them. Every notable book on political subjects has a lot of critics and supporters, but this does not invalidate the source.
As about the numbers of victims, no one knows them exactly for many reasons, as explained in this and other books. There are only rough estimates, such as this one. But discussion about the numbers belongs to talk page of the article, not here. P.S. Speaking about numbers for the Soviet Union, 20-25 million of "killed" (including people killed by man-made hunger) is an estimate provided, for example, by the Soviet Politburo member Alexander Nikolaevich Yakovlev in his book "Sumerki" ("Twilight"), and I saw much higher numbers in other books. My very best wishes (talk) 21:22, 15 October 2012 (UTC)
Well, following your logic, Courtois' introduction is reliable because it was published in Harvard. However, the major contributor of this book is Nicolas Werth, whose chapter on the USSR was highly commended. This chapter is arguably the major factor that forced us to treat the BB with due respect (and, probably, the main reason for re-publishing the BB by Harvard). And this author publicly disagreed with Courtois' dishonest play with figures, and with his attempt to equate Communism and Nazism. In connection to that, I do not understand why did you decide that the opinion of Courtois has greater weight than that of Werth. By the way, Aronson's opinion was published by Wesleyan University, and it by no means has lower weight.--Paul Siebert (talk) 22:04, 15 October 2012 (UTC)
Werth's review is specifically titled Review Article and cpvers four separate and distinct books. Thus it is a "book review" as the term is generally used. Book reviews are not "peer reviewed" and generally are, indeed, given "lower weight" as a result of them being "book reviews." Werth, in fact, devotes only a very small part to criticising Courtois, and that only for the numbers (specifically Werth has no problem with 65 million Chinese deaths) - he mainly has praise for the BBoC, even though Werth says that, as a devoted Communist himself, hoping for a "Soviet Solidarity movement" as late as 1987. If we were to use Werth as the "source", we would still have a "lower bound" of 65 million! His major criticism is on Le Siecle des Communismes actually being the exact opposite of the BBoC - to the extent that it sought to excuse the problems rather than admitting them. Weth ens by questioning whether the vast number of deaths under Stalin and Mao were related to communism or to the "brutal tyrant"s in his words. The WP article at hand simply ascribes the killings to the time of the regimes in power, avoiding that issue. Collect (talk) 22:31, 15 October 2012 (UTC)
Regarding "Review Articles" in history, they are normally peer reviewed. "Reviews" or "Notes" or "Short Reviews" are normally not peer reviewed. The things to check are if it is a multiple work or field review with citation of its claims and of a similar length to articles in that journal. Review Articles are normally highly esteemed for analysing the current (or then current) state of research in a field. Fifelfoo (talk) 02:18, 17 October 2012 (UTC)
Firstly, you probably meant Aronson, not Werth.
Secondly, as an author of many peer-reviewed articles, including reviews, let me assure you that the reviews are peer-reviewed. Moreover, as a rule, an invitation to write a review is being usually send to highly reputable authors. In addition, in contrast to research articles, which may be sometimes seen as primary sources, the reviews are pure secondary sources. In any event, since the BB didn't pass peer-reviewing procedure, your argument is totally insatisfactory.
Re "Werth, in fact, devotes only a very small part to criticising Courtois, and that only for the numbers (specifically Werth has no problem with 65 million Chinese deaths) - he mainly has praise for the BBoC" What do you mean? Werth is a major contributor of the BB. How can he praise his own work?! Re China, Werth is a specialist in Russian history, and he simply leave China beyond the scope.
Regarding the rest, I simply do not understand you. Which source are you talking about?--Paul Siebert (talk) 03:05, 16 October 2012 (UTC)
Paul says "as an author of many peer-reviewed articles, including reviews, let me assure you that the reviews are peer-reviewed.", while various libraries state:"Peer-reviewed journals also contain items such as editorials and book reviews, and these are not subjected to the same level of critique"[16]. "book reviews are usually not peer-reviewed even when they appear in peer-reviewed journals."[17]. --Nug (talk) 08:34, 16 October 2012 (UTC)
Look at the Fifelfoo's responce. Aronson's review is not a page-long book review, but a full-length article, which, obviously, was peer-reviewed (in contrast to the BB).--Paul Siebert (talk) 05:34, 20 October 2012 (UTC)
  • I just would like to notice that "Black Book" is not a collection of unrelated chapters. The chapters are related and book includes "Introduction" and "Conclusion" by Courtois, which summarize content of the book, after an explicit approval by all other authors of the book including Werth. The publisher always make sure that all authors read and approved the book prior to the publication (an they usually even sign a form about it). There was no disagreement at the time of publication. Of course, there could be disagreements later. My very best wishes (talk) 14:43, 16 October 2012 (UTC)
Probably. However, Hiroaki Kuromiya (Journal of Contemporary History, Vol. 36, No. 1 (Jan., 2001), pp. 191-201) called it a "collection of research essays" and noted that two major contributors "'publicly dissociated themselves' from the conclusions drawn in the book by Stephane Courtois,". Later disagreements simply reflected the fact that the introduction directly contradicted to Werth's and Margolin's chapters.--Paul Siebert (talk) 22:18, 16 October 2012 (UTC)
The estimates in The Black Book of Communism are more or less accurate under some sort of "You broke it; you bought it" theory which ascribes responsibility for all disasters which befall a communist state to its rulers. User:Fred Bauder Talk 22:29, 16 October 2012 (UTC)
You missed the point. Which estimates? Courtois or Werths?
In addition, "You broke - you bought" does not work for Civil war and devastation it caused, or for the WWII and its consequences. Moreover, "to be responsible for mass death" and "to be engaged in mass killings" are two different things. For example, what do you think about situation when all victims of Angolian civil war of war in Vietnam?
Application of your logic would mean that we must attribute all WWII deaths to Nazism (btw, this argument was used by Werth of some other author).
It's not my logic, it's simply the logic of that method which is to ascribe the consequences of whatever happens to the ruling ideology rather than to actual causes. For example in China, there would have been disasters regardless of who ruled. Frantic struggles to escape traps produce their own casualties, as they did in the Soviet Union. As to the Nazis, well, yes tens of millions of deaths resulted from the decision to attempt conquest of Europe; without German nationalism 20th century history would have been a dull thing; Czarist Russia would still be stumbling along in endless squalor. User:Fred Bauder Talk 15:09, 17 October 2012 (UTC)
Regarding China, it is a long story (I recently started to read about the GLF famine, and, to my big surprise, I realised that Mao's responsibility is not as obvious as Stalin's responsibility for Soviet famine of 1932-33. I can respond more in more details eslewhere if you want). Regarding Hitler, I fully agree. However, the problem is, as Ronald Grigor Suny correctly noted, that Courtois does not attribute all WWII deaths to Nazi, despite the fact that Nazi started the WWII. He accuses Hitler in killing of only 25 million people, whereas, as Suny argued, the real death toll of Nazism, if calculated according to the same approach, would be 40–60,000,000. Moreover, about a million prisoners died in Gulag during the WWII famine (when the food shortage was desperate in the USSR as whole). Was this famine organized by Communists, or that was a result of German invasion? Were all the victims of the Civil war in Angola the victims of Communist mass killings? Aronson argues they weren't: it would be totally incorrect to blame Communists for resistance against foreign invasion. However, the BB attribute all of them to Communism. And so on and so forth.
Again, a situation is too complex to allow simplistic and superficial approaches.--Paul Siebert (talk) 05:31, 20 October 2012 (UTC)
One more quote on the BB:
"Yet one should not assume, at least in the case of the Soviet Union, and probably in other cases, that the figures represent actual executions."
"At least in the Soviet case, the scale of terror presented in The Black Book seems to be deliberately inflated. 'Indirect' deaths are indiscriminately lumped together with deliberate political killings."(Hiroaki Kuromiya. Journal of Contemporary History, Vol. 36, No. 1 (Jan., 2001), pp. 191-201)
Therefore, we must choose, either we speak about the victims of political repressions, and call it "mass killings", or we discuss the total death toll (which usually includes, for example, tens of millions of unborn infants), and use different terminology.--Paul Siebert (talk) 04:04, 17 October 2012 (UTC)
  • As someone who actually read the book, I did not see any serious contradictions between Werth and Courtois. In particular, Werth counted in his chapter ~8-9 million killed civilians (including by man-made hunger) in the Soviet Union only between 1933 and 1941. Obviously a lot more civilians were persecuted before (Civil War, Red Terror, rebellions, "Great Break") and after (repression during in the aftermath of WWII including Victims of Yalta, "Doctor's Plot", and so on). Now, speaking about the Introduction, it was intention of Courtois to count the number of victims in exactly same manner as would be counted Holocaust victims. Hence the numbers only include direct executions, deaths in labor/concentration camps, and man-made hunger. The latter is different from Holocaust, but it was included because what had happen was forcefully taking all resources of food from the people and then preventing their movement from the affected areas by NKVD troops. My very best wishes (talk) 15:51, 17 October 2012 (UTC)
  • I too have read the book; in fact, I own a copy. It can be used, but only with great care. It's an overtly biased political polemic, wholly unreliable for interpretations, and in factual matters prone to exaggeration, using every possible negative evidence, resolving all doubts in favor of worst possible view of the Soviets, and amassing figures to give the most damaging possible final statistic. None the less, all or what it reports did take place, though not necessarily for the reasons or in the context specified, and by any estimate the actual numbers are horrific. All statistics for the USSR are subject to great uncertainties, especially population figures. Quite apart from the numbers, there is difficulty in assigning the motives for any one individual or group murder. Whether the deaths in a particular famine were deliberately in order to destroy a particular population, or the willingly accepted consequence of more general problems, or the careless treatment of undesirables, or the inevitable results of a struggling social system is not something to be very precise about--the available sources indicate a variable combination. (it's the difference between We must destroy the economic power of the kulaks, and if this inevitably will result in killing many of them it will unfortunately be worth it; and The best way to reduce the economic power of the kulaks will be to kill as many as possible; or even We hate the kulaks & they hate us so let's kill them--it will also remove them as an economic obstacle.) The numbers given tin the BB are not outside the range of possibility, and can be included as one of several estimates--and indeed should be, to show the range of variation. Or to take Fred Bauder's example, deaths in the USSR during WWII can be assigned at will to either party to the conflict: the Soviets did adopt a policy involving the sacrifice of enormous numbers of soldiers, but at the beginning, it was all they had. Or while most of Stalin's purge victims were innocent of even doubts about the regime, some did want to if not destroy Communism, at least replace Stalin--I am inclined to see them as martyrs, but it is reasonable that Stalin thought otherwise. And whether the Lithuanian and Ukrainian resistance against the Soviets during & after WWII was patriotism of fascist-inspired terrorism (or both) depends very much on one's point of view. Modern scholarly studies are of course preferable. DGG ( talk ) 02:11, 20 October 2012 (UTC)
  • MVBW, you write: "it was intention of Courtois to count the number of victims in exactly same manner as would be counted Holocaust victims". You simply didn't read the literature you comment on. The quote has been provided on this talk page that confirms that Courtois' figures seem to be "deliberately inflated. 'Indirect' deaths are indiscriminately lumped together with deliberate political killings."(Hiroaki Kuromiya. Journal of Contemporary History, Vol. 36, No. 1 (Jan., 2001), pp. 191-201) That directly contradicts to what you say.
Moreover, Suny argues that Courois' approach, if applied to Nazi killings would give 40-60 millions (all WWII) death, which again directly contradicts to your unsubstantiated claim that there was a direct analogy between 6 miooin Holocaust victims and 100 million Communist victims. You seem to be unfamiliar with the subject you are writing about.--Paul Siebert (talk) 05:31, 20 October 2012 (UTC)
  • I think you are missing the point. The book is not about Nazi. But this book qualify as a secondary scholarly RS per policy, the numbers are consistent with official Soviet sources, the book is not a collection of unrelated chapters, and I did not see any disagreements between authors in the book. This is all. Yes, I have the book at home for a few years. This is 800+ pages of a highly condensed text reviewing and summarizing a lot of other published sources, a serious work by professional historians... But once again, if you know any better books on the general subject of Communist represiions, please tell what they are, and let's use them. But if you can not find other good books on the subject, it means this is the best available academic book on the subject. My very best wishes (talk) 00:07, 22 October 2012 (UTC)
    • I think that is you who is missing the point. We are discussing not the book, but the introduction, and I asked quite clearly about that in the very beginning. Each part of this book should be judged based on its own merit, and, e.g., Werth's "State against its citizens" neither adds not diminishes credibility of the introduction. Therefore, your arguments are totally fallacious: that is as if you argued that X is good because his colleague is a decent man. In that concrete case, the situation is even more clear: the co-authors of Courtois themselves disagreed with the statement, so your references to 800 pages are totally misleading: how can it serve as an argument if we have a solid evidence (see Aronson) that Courtois did not summarise the volume adequately?
    • Secondly, and more importantly. If we have no better sources, but the existing source has been seriously challenged, the information from that source should be presented as an opinion, not as the fact. In other words, even if this source meets WP:V, it fails WP:NPOV, and you, being an experienced editor, should have to know that.--Paul Siebert (talk) 00:51, 22 October 2012 (UTC)
So, you do agree that the book as a whole qualify as a secondary RS? No one, including authors of the book, describes these numbers as "the fact", but rather as an approximate estimate. Sure. My very best wishes (talk) 01:24, 22 October 2012 (UTC)
This your question demonstrates either lack of understanding or the lack of good faith. The title of the current section is:
Is an introduction to the Black Book of Communism a reliable source for the estimates of Communist mass killings?
That means that the question of reliability of the BB as whole is beyond the scope of current discussion. We are discussing just an introduction here, and the discussion is about one concrete statement (quoted above). I provided reliable secondary source that seriously challenges this statement. In connection to that, the question is simple: do you have anything to contrapose to that?
Re "describes these numbers as "the fact", but rather as an approximate estimate" Our policy says nothing about "approximate estimates", it operates with two terms: facts and opinia. If some statement has been contested, it cannot be presented as a fact, just as an (attributed) opinion. From the point of view of our policy there is no difference between "Our Earth rests on approximately three whales" and "Our Earth rests on three whales": both statements have been contested, and the fact that the first one gives just an estimate of the number of whales changes nothing.
--Paul Siebert (talk) 23:33, 26 October 2012 (UTC)
Edit by an obvious sock of banned User:Jacob Peters was removed. My very best wishes (talk) 16:03, 27 October 2012 (UTC)

Iowa Source

I question whether a free weekly monthly called the Iowa Source[18] is a reliable source. It is used extensively, almost to the point of plagiarism, in the WP:BLP John Hagelin, and is relied upon pretty much exclusively, without corroboration, for much of the biographical information. According to its website, Iowa Source is a free arts and entertainment weekly monthly in Fairfield Iowa, with no full time staff writers, and publishes reader submissions as articles.[19] The particular article being used as a source, [20] was written by one Neil Dickie, was employed in PR office of the Maharishi University of Management[21] where the BLP subject is a department chairman (to say nothing of being head of the TM Organization in the US), and the article appears to be a transparent PR flak piece placed with a sympathetic local tabloid with no editorial oversight. This publication in general, and the cited article in particular appear to have none of the indicia of a reliable source and wildly inappropriate as a source for a BLP. Thoughts? Fladrif (talk) 20:08, 24 October 2012 (UTC)

The editor and publisher seems to be a serious person: http://www.linkedin.com/pub/claudia-mueller/54/b55/a43. If anybody has questions about the content, I guess she can answer them directly. Sincerely, GeorgeLouis (talk) 20:37, 24 October 2012 (UTC)
You can tell that by a LinkedIn page which has no content whatsoever except a photograph and this: "I founded The Source in 1984 as a means to publicize all the great things going on that weren't being covered by other media."? Really? That the editor and publisher seems from a LinkedIn profile to be a "serious person" is hardly sufficient to meet WP:NEWSORG.

Fladrif (talk) 20:47, 24 October 2012 (UTC)

Added information:

  • Some of Fladrif's information seems to be inaccurate. For starters the website indicates this is a monthly publication. I think its clear who Hagelin is in the Wikipedia article, and the Source as a source :) is being used for the most part for biographical information as Fladrif says, so I'm not sure there's a problem, however I am cleaning up that article right now so will be happy to go with uninvolved editor's views on this issue.(olive (talk) 22:10, 24 October 2012 (UTC))
  • Unfortunately, Faldrif did not suggest he saw problems with this source on the John Hagelin article talk page where editors could have probably come to some agreement, nor did he notify editors he'd brought this concern to a Notice Board.
  • The Source is 28 years old.
  • As well, the Source says they accept submissions, which is of course different from publishing submissions verbatim, and also invites people to submit articles to the editor. This clearly implies editorial control.

With this added information I'll leave this now to uninvolved editors. If Fladrif would like to take this back to the article talk page that would be fine by me, too. And thanks for the comments, all. (olive (talk) 00:12, 25 October 2012 (UTC))

It looks adequate to support the non-controversial biographical material for which it's cited. It may be a bit over-used, but that's a question for the article talk page. Tom Harrison Talk 13:31, 28 October 2012 (UTC)

Mystery source shows up in many Soccer/football articles. Need help locating

There's several Wikipedia articles which all use the following as their primary source:

  • Blakeman, M (2010) The Official History of the Eastern Counties Football League 1935-2010, Volume II ISBN 978-1-908037-02-2

I can't find any information on this book, even if it exists. I literally find zero references to this book outside of Wikipedia. Its ISBN number shows up on none of the major catalogues, and the source is used in GOBS of wikipedia articles, see [22] for a list. The reference is always formated exactly the same way, always specifically "volume II" and always with that exact ISBN number. I find it odd to find a source cited exactly the same way in such a wide swath of articles, and yet also find absolutely ZERO non-Wikipedia mentions of this book. It doesn't exist in a single library, it isn't for sale anywhere, and I can find no other online reference to this work, or to M. Blakeman as a football historian or journalist in any context. For a book published in 2010, this is amazing. Can anyone else find a copy of this book, confirm of its existence, or indeed, figure out how it became such a widely-used source at Wikipedia, like who keeps adding it to articles and how it gets there? Something smells very fishy. --Jayron32 13:17, 25 October 2012 (UTC)

Urgh. I didn't give time for my Google-fu to develop. Mick Blakeman appears to be a legitimate football historian, per this. And I finally found a copy of the correct book here. Still, for such a rare book, it shows up a lot. Does anyone have access to the book and can confirm anything being cited to it? It would be good just to spot check its usage a bit. --Jayron32 13:24, 25 October 2012 (UTC)
My guess is that if you look through a few of the article histories, you'll find the citation was first placed by the same editor in all instances. That editor could probably answer all your questions if they're still around and/or have email enabled. --Dweller (talk) 13:35, 25 October 2012 (UTC)
Admin Number 57 (talk · contribs), who is quite active, has been adding at least some of these refs. Someguy1221 (talk) 08:40, 26 October 2012 (UTC)
You might be better off asking for the book at WP:RX. Since you don't have page numbers, you could just ask if somebody could get the book, and then try a talk-page discussion to figure out which page numbers you would need. Churn and change (talk) 03:10, 29 October 2012 (UTC)

Ohio Media Watch

I have posted here following an administrator's suggestion.

Ohio Media Watch is an amateur blog currently located at http://www.ohiomediawatch.wordpress.com/ and formerly at http://www.ohiomedia.blogspot.com/ Presumably, there are only two contributors to this site: an anonymous primary contributor who refers to him/herself as "Ohio Media Watch", and a secondary contributor named Nathan Obral. The blog itself covers local broadcast media in Northeast Ohio; coverage began in June 2005.

I do not feel this blog meets the criteria for a reliable source per WP:SELFPUBLISH. The primary contributor is anonymous. Neither the primary nor the secondary contributor are subject to any editorial oversight. Although the blog has been mentioned by local media in the Cleveland market, neither contributor could be considered an "established expert" using any reasonable definition of the term. The secondary contributor edits on Wikipedia as User:Nathan Obral; in the past, he has failed to declare conflict of interest with radio station articles (e.g. WYCL, where he serves as a webmaster). I suspect the primary contributor has also reported on him/herself on the blog, another conflict of interest (if necessary, I can share my suspicions off-site). I first raised my concern late last July at Talk:WMMS#Reliable_sources. A second user agreed with my position, and based on that discussion, I removed the roughly 30 Ohio Media Watch citations throughout the main namespace.

The discussion on the WMMS talk page stemmed partly from observations I made on the Radio-Info.com message boards (now RadioDiscussions.com). At the time, I had only posted there three times, all relating to Cleveland Browns football coverage. Since then, I have started posting with more regularity. Others on the RadioDiscussions.com message boards have asked just who exactly the primary contributor of Ohio Media Watch is. I often scour the Internet (and sometimes microfilm) to find sources for Wikipedia; recently I stumbled upon information online which I think reveals who the primary contributor is. Following a recent local radio station podcast, I shared that info on the message board (two public Blogspot entries, a public news site profile, and a Wikipedia page at its creation). This upset User:Nathan Obral, he chose to revert my July/August edits as some kind of retaliation, and that led to a dispute. Currently there is a related discussion on my own talk page at User_talk:Levdr1lostpassword#Ohio_Media_Watch.

On Wikipedia, I myself choose to remain anonymous. I am young adult living in Northeast Ohio with no connection to the radio industry, professional or otherwise. I simply have an interest in radio; consequently, I tend to edit local radio/media articles. If necessary, I am willing to reveal my real-life identify to an administrator via email or other means to verify my status, provided this is done in confidence. Levdr1lostpassword (talk) 06:57, 26 October 2012 (UTC)

The source is patently unreliable for just about any information here on WP. It's an anonymous blog with no editorial oversight and zero reputation for fact checking. This isn't even in a gray area. It may be a good idea to blacklist the source, as there seems to be active self-promotion going on here. Dominus Vobisdu (talk) 08:54, 26 October 2012 (UTC)
  • I am pleased that Levdr came here at my suggestion to discuss OHM's reliability as a source at Wikipedia. That said, and as I commented at Levdr's talk page, the discussion here should remain focused on that issue, not issues of editor conduct, on or off-wiki. If there's a conflict issue, then take it to WP:COIN. Dominus's response is helpful. It's concise and sticks to the standards we use for evaluating sources. The back stories per the involved editors are much less helpful.--Bbb23 (talk) 10:54, 26 October 2012 (UTC)
This source does not appear to meet Wikipedia guidelines for verifiability, per WP:BLOGS, or external links, per WP:ELNO #4 and #11. Piriczki (talk) 14:40, 26 October 2012 (UTC)

This is self-published, and would not be a reliable source unless for material about itself. Tom Harrison Talk 13:13, 28 October 2012 (UTC)

Gay Christian 101: Spiritual Self-Defense for Gay Christians - What the Bible Really Says About Homosexuality

An editor has repeatedly added this book to Jonathan (1 Samuel). The author's website here suggests that it is self-published. Could someone please take a look? The dispute seems to revolve around a difference in interpretation of WP:SPS. StAnselm (talk) 23:50, 28 October 2012 (UTC)

Not RS, and I think that problem is now gone? I don't think the Journal of the History of Sexuality, with its impact factor of 0.324 and low ranking in sociology, should be given much weight either, even if it can pass as an RS. And there is the question of whether what is quoted is primary-sourced material. Churn and change (talk) 02:13, 29 October 2012 (UTC)
Yes, I am very suspicious of the same text being added back in, but with a different reference. I have started a discussion on the article talk page. StAnselm (talk) 02:15, 29 October 2012 (UTC)

Churn and change I am not sure you understand impact factors? Most sociology journals do not have high impact factors. The way impact factors are worked out is quite complex but is not at all a reflection on the relevance or reliability of a peer reviewed journal. Impact factors preference certain fields above others and are often used for working out an academics remuneration - it does not diminish their reliability Lgbtoz (talk) 07:00, 29 October 2012 (UTC)

Reliability is hard to measure, and so we sometimes look for indicators of reliability. A high impact factor would be positive evidence that a source is considered reliable and/or notable. It is indeed possible for an important source not to do well concerning such indicators, but do you have any other evidence of the reputation for reliability of the source?--Andrew Lancaster (talk) 08:16, 29 October 2012 (UTC)
The journal is ranked 100th or so in sociology. I have hosted a link to the 2011 JCR rankings for sociology; that particular page gets to rank 80 and the impact factor is well above the 0.324 we are talking about. So, yes, it is low-ranked. A journal can be usable even with a low impact factor, but that is somewhat unlikely, and particularly not for something controversial. Churn and change (talk) 02:28, 30 October 2012 (UTC)

Gay: The tenth anniversary collection

I don't normally post here, but now I'm posting something for the third time today, all because of interactions with an editor who, it seems to me, doesn't understand the reliable sources guidelines. The article Carl Robert Katter contains the following statement: In the preface of author and journalist Steve Dow's latest book, Dow states his hope for Carl to run for the Australian Parliament. The reference is to Gay: The tenth anniversary collection by Steve Dow. Is this a reliable source, and is the opinion cited noteworthy? The book is published by Telemachus Press, which seems to be a vanity press. The original edition of the book was published by Common Ground Publishing, but the opinion cited is only in the most recent edition. StAnselm (talk) 07:01, 29 October 2012 (UTC)

Just want to put my case forward. The author is a notable commentator within the Australian LGBTI community and this is why his view was originally stated. Regarding the edition of the book - The 2nd edition is an ebook of the original published work. Many traditional print publishers are unable to make ebooks but will organize for authors works to be published electronically by specialist in this field (more often than not a vanity press). The preface quoted did appear in this electronic edition as it was his comment on contemporary happenings - an update on what has been happening since the first publication. The book is very highly valued within the community it is from. It was for this reason i felt that it was a reliable source and followed guidelines. Lgbtoz (talk) 07:13, 29 October 2012 (UTC)

This seems to be more of a notability question than an RS question. In terms of RS issues, even though the publication is from a vanity press, it could be acceptable as a source for the opinion of that particular author. (Unless there are suspicions that the book is fake.) Concerning notability though, I think you have to convince fellow editors about why this person's opinions are so notable.--Andrew Lancaster (talk) 08:13, 29 October 2012 (UTC)
I'm surprised to hear you say this, to be honest. This is an opinion about a living person. Doesn't it come under WP:BLPSPS? StAnselm (talk) 09:39, 29 October 2012 (UTC)
Well maybe I am missing something but this is not exactly the type case envisioned by that policy I think? "Rules" like that are always generalizations. The intention of BLPSPS the way I read it is that we should be careful about reliability when it comes to living people. Or to put it another way, self publication is interesting to us as an indicator of potential lack of reliability. In this particular case (if I understand correctly) the SPS is actually reliable because it is because only being used to supply the opinion of the self-published person. But whether or not the opinion of this self-published person is notable enough to justify our mentioning it is another question. Hope that makes sense.--Andrew Lancaster (talk) 10:03, 29 October 2012 (UTC)
Yes, that does make sense. It's the notability that (might) distinguish this from, for example, my own opinion of Katter. But where do I go from here, if we have reached a stalemate on the article talk page - WP:3O? StAnselm (talk) 10:22, 29 October 2012 (UTC)
I am not so sure about the details of the disagreement, but it may help to know that there is a Notability noticeboard.--Andrew Lancaster (talk) 10:29, 29 October 2012 (UTC)
(edit conflict) Given that the book is only being used to reference its author's opinion (eg, that Steve Dow thinks Katter should run for parliament) it's an acceptable source, especially as the material isn't at all contentious. It can't be considered a reliable source for statements of anything other than the author's opinion, however. Whether this is sufficiently notable to belong in the article is another question altogether; if this view hasn't been reported in secondary media (eg, the mainstream media and the gay and lesbian press) it's probably not worth including in this article. Nick-D (talk) 10:09, 29 October 2012 (UTC)

WRMEA

Is this non-profit foundation which pursues an educational mission of “Interpreting the Middle East for North Americans; Interpreting North America for the Middle East." and boasts of having told "the truth for 30 years..." a notable source when not referred to by independent sources. Can it be used for third-party claims? Ankh.Morpork 19:25, 27 October 2012 (UTC)

These policy think-tanks are quintessential self published sources that should not be used unless referred to by reliable secondary sourcing per WP:SPS. Aside from that, a brief Google search shows that their objectivity is questioned, and they should be avoided per RS. Opportunidaddy (talk) 20:44, 27 October 2012 (UTC)

I'll just note here that it's come up before, Wikipedia:Reliable_sources/Noticeboard/Archive_48#Washington_Report_on_Middle_East_Affairs, and thankfully no sockpuppets of people involved in the CAMERA lobbying fiasco thought it was appropriate to comment. Sean.hoyland - talk 21:14, 27 October 2012 (UTC)

Yes, just a handful of the usual Palestinian boosters on that page, doubtless some of the dozen or so members of the (now) underground WP group Wikipedians for Palestine. Opportunidaddy (talk) 22:35, 27 October 2012 (UTC)

Clearly not RS and a self-published biased organization. Let's start with what they prominently write at the top of their website, "Telling the truth for 30 years." That should set off red flags.

Or just have a look at some of their articles. For example:

  • [23] - Writes about "Jewish bigots" causing prejudice in Israel (Freudian slip?)
  • [24]- Writes about how William Kristol and Rupert Murdoch allegedly use the media to "advance Israel's interests" (remind you of anything?)
  • [25] - Writes about how Romney needs to pander to "the Israel lobby" for the election.
  • [26] - alleges that Zionists targeted Germany for destruction and questions the #s of the Holocaust, while reducing the significance of Jews being killed in the Holocaust.
  • [27] - Refer to American pro-Israel supporters as "cancer."

Items on their website:

  • They have a whole archive dedicated just to the USS Liberty, and is proudly displayed on the side as 1 of 2 sidebars - apparently, they don't accept the conclusions of both governments, and have made this a major issue where they write their own narrative.
  • Their resources tab, besides for stuff like writing letters to Congress or joining their email list, features 2/2 political issues that target Israel - "Congress & US aid to Israel," and "Support UN recognition of Palestinian state."
  • Or let's head over to their videos section, where 4/6 of the videos deal with AIPAC ("AIPAC Political power," "AIPAC and the media," Exposing, challenging, and stopping AIPAC," and "The Rise of AIPAC"), and another video is an interview with Gilad Atzmon, who theAnti-Defamation League says is anti-Semitic, and so does the anti-Israel website Electronic Intifada,among others.

Agree or disagree with their views, that's not the important part. I could probably find much more biased and worse articles, these are only four examples, taken from links on the bottom of their page, and an uninvolved person can look through their articles and decide for themselves whether they're completely one-sided or not. The facts are, they are extremely biased.

It's clear where their view stands, and what their purpose as an organization is. Just a brief look at their website reveals this to any uninvolved person. They have a bias, and that's fine, but that doesn't make them RS.

Criticism of them (not including groups like CAMERA, AIPAC, etc):

  • Dr. Rafael Medoff, a founding director of the David S. Wyman Institute for Holocaust Studies, describes the institute as a "strongly pro-Arab magazine."
  • David Bernstein, Foundation Professor at the George Mason University School of Law, has described them (and quoted in the atlantic) as "extremist anti-Israel publication."
  • The Anti-Defamation League cited an article in The Washington Report published by Paul Craig, who they said promotes anti-Semitism and hardly any news outlet now publishes him, and the ADL has said that the group that publishes the Washington Report is anti-Israel and has been a "longtime promoter of the myth that the so-called "Israel/Jewish lobby" has too much power.". The ADL has further stated that it "frequently defended Muslim American groups advocating anti-Semitism and support for terrorism."
  • The Jewish Virtual Library writes that the group is "publishes many articles that are considered to be anti-Israel and Anti-Zionist. the WRMEA supports the false accusation that there was a coverup regarding the USS Liberty incident. They openly oppose AIPAC, foreign aid to Israel. They oppose Israel's security fence and link to numerous Islamic websites without linking to a proportionate amount of Christian, Jewish, or non-ecumenical websites."

To repeat - agree or disagree with their views, they have extremely one-sided views and a clear purpose. They are not RS. --Jethro B 01:56, 28 October 2012 (UTC)

Having a purpose or bias is generally not a reason to say that a source can not be used. Such arguments come up here all the time, and if we took them as good reasons for not using sources then wp:compromise and editing would become impossible. Of course Israel-Palestine discussions often involve sources which are offensively biased to the other side, but I do not think there is any easy to way to avoid that just by saying we should only use sources everyone likes. (Are there any?)--Andrew Lancaster (talk) 08:05, 28 October 2012 (UTC)
@Jethro, I don't know anything about the source in question, but it is odd that you have cited one sided advocacy sources to claim that another source is a one sided advocacy source and therefore not suitable as an RS. Dlv999 (talk) 08:07, 28 October 2012 (UTC)
For the sake of the argument, let's ignore Jewish Virtual Library from the list. A director of a Holocaust institute, a professor at a respectable university quoted in The Atlantic, and a rights organization aren't "one sided advocacy sources." If you wanted to reference them on Wikipedia, no doubt they'd be accepted (and they are). --Jethro B 17:05, 28 October 2012 (UTC)
Just for my own understanding, in what sense is "strongly pro-Arab magazine" or indeed any statement of the form "strongly pro-<insert panethnicity/ethnicity>" a criticism. Sean.hoyland - talk 17:24, 28 October 2012 (UTC)
As I said before, you can agree or disagree with their views, but the point is, they have specific one-sided views. --Jethro B 17:32, 28 October 2012 (UTC)
it is clear that they are one-sided. but what bothers me more is that there is no editorial process, review of journalistic standards, etc. - it looks like it should go more into the think-tank/fancified blog category of things and not straight-out RS, as news. Soosim (talk) 11:44, 28 October 2012 (UTC)
Please explain further on this point, as it may even be relevant to WP:RS. BTW there are no straight out reliable sources. Everything is context dependent.--Andrew Lancaster (talk) 20:18, 28 October 2012 (UTC)

The article on Murdoch, by the organization's executive editor, is full of insinuation. Murdoch's mother was a Jew; Murdoch's tight with a buck; Murdoch prints "sensational photographs and so-called 'juicy' material." And there's Murdoch's connection to Israeli encryption technology; what's that about, hmm? WRMEA might be reliable for something in some context, or might be useful in conjunction with a reliable source, but I would not use it as a source for any controversial material. Tom Harrison Talk 12:59, 28 October 2012 (UTC)

Before too much more time is wasted, can sometimes perhaps please explain the edits being sourced from this source. Please, everyone involved, see the procedure at the top of this page. All RS questions are context relative. Please do not abuse the purpose of this noticeboard.--Andrew Lancaster (talk) 20:18, 28 October 2012 (UTC)
Anything other than using them to describe their own organization, with attribution. It's the same exact thing regarding using AIPAC's website as a source for content not related to describing themselves, with attribution. Since the Washington Report will have many reports on their website, there isn't one specific incident. Rather, the nature of this association - of which it is one-sided and biased and has a clear agenda - should disqualify it from being considered reputable. --Jethro B 21:06, 28 October 2012 (UTC)
I agree with Jethro B and Tom Harrison. This site is clearly intended for advocacy, so it doesn't qualify as a Reliable Source for statements of fact or third party claims. Plot Spoiler (talk) 23:10, 28 October 2012 (UTC)

WRMEA is an activist organization and should not be used as a source for factual information. It might be admissible as a source for the opinion of a named person if the opinion appears under the name of that person (not as an indirect report of that opinion). It is definitely admissible as a source for its own opinion. I agree with Shrike that WRMEA and CAMERA ought to be treated in the same way. Unfortunately, this balance is woefully rare. Zerotalk 01:37, 29 October 2012 (UTC)

as i thought i said earlier: wrmea (and camera) are good for their own opinions. they are not bona fide fact finders, per se. camera can be used to show an original source for information (a video clip, newspaper article, etc.), but their writing is their own. Soosim (talk) 06:13, 29 October 2012 (UTC)
The postings above which say that an advocacy organization should not be used to cite things as facts sounds reasonable in a vague and general (but definitely not absolute) way, but it is worrying that the whole discussion above never explains the context. Is anyone arguing that this source should be used for statements of simple fact? If so then if this discussion is to be meaningful, please give details.--Andrew Lancaster (talk) 08:21, 29 October 2012 (UTC)
If it's a simple fact, we should be able to get RS references for it, so I can't imagine that being an issue. There's so much information out there regarding I-P, that if there's a necessary simple fact found in WRMEA, we can undoubtedly find it elsewhere. --Jethro B 15:37, 29 October 2012 (UTC)
You seem to be pushing for a broad generalised statement about this source and resisting any discussion of context. But I think regulars on this board are against that type of thinking, and have seen this all before many times. (See the procedure at the top of the page.) To have a useful discussion about sourcing you should explain the context of a real case. Please remember that a style of argument that works for you one day might be used against you another day.--Andrew Lancaster (talk) 16:28, 29 October 2012 (UTC)
I can't possibly do such a thing, because I did not open this discussion, I simply commented that it seems clear they are a one-sided biased advocacy organization and thus shouldn't be accepted RS, like other organizations that some people mentioned here, and as some people agreed, unless it's discussing themselves. --Jethro B 17:34, 29 October 2012 (UTC)
I think you are then misunderstanding the community's normal consensus by demanding that level of generalization. We do not normally declare any publication to be un-usable in an absolute way. On RSN we need context. What's more, being a source with bias is arguably normal, and does not make a source unreliable or un-usable. There is no way around the need for context.--Andrew Lancaster (talk) 18:21, 29 October 2012 (UTC)
Seems like there's been a lot of comments here that WRMEA is generally not reliable, unless for their own opinion, regardless of where we're discussing it. There have been similar threads for general inquiries, such as here, here, here, etc, and many times sources have been dismissed outright as non-RS (unless in a few exceptions, such as about themselves). That seems to be the outcome here as well, based on editor's responses. You said "We do not normally," but it looks like here this isn't a normal case, and most editors support it as not being RS. --Jethro B 18:53, 29 October 2012 (UTC)
Well, you and some other usual suspects from the IP topic area certainly advocating that position, but it would also be interesting to here the comments of uninvolved regular contributors to RSN such as Andrew Lancaster. Dlv999 (talk) 19:47, 29 October 2012 (UTC)
Div - A glance at their website does not fill me with much confidence. I must admit I've never heard of the group before. It's clearly a highly-partisan group, which is not a problem per se, but I don't see the kinds of individuals and credentials there in general that would lead me to a default position of trusting them. Rather the opposite. There is a shrill tone to much of what I see on their front page. A real analysis would need some knowledge about their track record vis accuracy. If it turns out they're a partisan group with a similar relationship to the facts as CAMERA's (a willingness to distort/fabricate in service of the cause) then they should be only used sparingly and rarely for more than attributed opinion. If it turns out they're highly partisan, but are careful with facts (and their research carries the hallmarks of quality work -- attribution to good source and accurate reflection of what they contain) then some of it might be used. I would be especially cautious of claimed facts that appear nowhere else but in their own work (if there are any). Generalities aside, the only workable approach is to consider an actual piece of work from this group, and consider it in the context of a specific article and specific edits made based on it. Absent specifics, or strong evidence of an overall track record of fabrication/disregard for accuracy (like, say, The Daily Mail) there isn't anything fruitful or responsible that can be determined here.Dan Murphy (talk) 20:10, 29 October 2012 (UTC)
Jethro, you may be right that they are generally not reliable. But please see the procedure at the top of the page, which also appears when you post on this page.--Andrew Lancaster (talk) 21:08, 29 October 2012 (UTC)

Dan, where exactly do you find CAMERA "fabricating in service of the cause"? Opportunidaddy (talk) 15:43, 30 October 2012 (UTC)

Michel Chossudovsky

Tell us, is Michel Chossudovsky reliable source in wikipedia? --WhiteWriterspeaks 22:31, 28 October 2012 (UTC)

Depends. He is a reliable source for a statement which says Chossudovsky stated so and so. He is also a credible economist, but whether a specific statement from him is reliable depends on other context too (publication, field the statement falls in and so on). Churn and change (talk) 02:17, 29 October 2012 (UTC)
WhileWriter, please see the procedure at the top of this noticeboard. RS questions should not be framed as general questions because most sources can be useful for something, but never everything. We rarely agree with people proposing general bans on the use of particular sources, nor general acceptance of particular sources. The context is critical.--Andrew Lancaster (talk) 08:18, 29 October 2012 (UTC)
Well, i asked about this sentence here. What do you think, can we include it in this form in the Goals section? It can be useful oppinion... --WhiteWriterspeaks 20:21, 30 October 2012 (UTC)
Looks a bit like you are asking this noticeboard to take a side in an edit war. Other editors may question whether the edit you mention is good editing judgement, irrespective of whether it comes from an RS author. Saying that NATO bombed Yugoslavia with the aim of bringing Yugoslavia into economic influence is something which can probably be argued carefully using good sources, and careful wording, as a notable but non-mainstream opinion. But this particular sentence has no explanation of what it even means. I think you need to work on this in a lot of ways including finding proof that this position is notable. If you think it is important, try starting to collect your information and then try putting into a clear proposal on the article talkpage. We do not have to report every opinions that can be reliably sourced, and unusual positions require editors to be ready to explain themselves very carefully. See WP:NPOV.--Andrew Lancaster (talk) 21:18, 30 October 2012 (UTC)
Looking at the bottom of the page, I see this: "© Copyright by Michel Chossudovsky, Ottawa, May 2001" That, to my mind, implies the information is self-published. For a claim this unusual, self-published information looks insufficient. Even Nobel-prize winners have a tendency to be highly imaginative with their self-published statements on political issues. If the information is cited by other reliable sources, that would be a positive for it. I don't think it has been cited except by a minority agreeing with the view. Churn and change (talk) 01:57, 31 October 2012 (UTC)

Judaism: The oldest monotheistic religion

A brief history of Judaism

Judaism

It is one of the oldest monotheistic religions,[9] and the oldest to survive into the present day.[10]

I included the entire sentence which cites two different sources for context. The source being questioned is [10]for the statement "and the oldest to survive into the present day."

It's my understanding that a source is three things and any of those three things can effect it's reliability. A source is the writer, the work it's self and the publisher. On this source I have a problem with all three.

1) There is no author attributed to the work. So there is really no way to examine the authors academic credentials that establish him/her as an authoriy on this subject and that there is more to this than an expression of personal belief or opinion.

2) The work it's self - This is essentially an unsupported statement. There is nothing that shows how this conclusion was arrived at or a methodology showing how the determination was made. There are two generally accepted contenders for being the oldest Monotheistic religion. They are Judaism and Zoroastrianism. Which is the oldest has been a long run running debate in academia. It's also a lot like the question, which came first the chicken or the egg? It's a question to which an answer may never be found. So for this author to have solved this age old conundrum and state that Judaism is the oldest. That's an exceptional claim that should require multiple sources for a Wikipedia article citing the claim.

3)PBS is not a fact checking publisher per se. They are actually more of a distributor of content. Their only involvement in producing content is funding it. Other than that they rely on their producers integrity. I also don't think they are living up to their oversight obligation because the digital content contains opinion or commentary that is not clearly labeled as such and who is responsible for the views being presented has not been identified.

PBS Editorial Standards and Policies

Page III. Roles and Responsibilities

A. Producers PBS content is produced by a diverse group that includes public television stations and organizations, independent producers (ranging from individual filmmakers to major studios), foreign producers and broadcast organizations, individuals or organizations not normally in the content production business, and, to the extent that it produces Digital Content, PBS itself. Primary responsibility for content necessarily rests with the producer; generally, producers create the content, particularly on television, and are uniquely positioned to control its elements. Not only would it be impractical for PBS to second-guess the producer's decisions at each step of the production process, but respect for that process demands that producers be allowed the freedom required for creativity to flourish. Thus, in selecting content for distribution, PBS must rely heavily on the producer's honesty, integrity, talent, skill, and good faith.

Producers of content for PBS have an obligation to inform themselves about and adhere to these Standards and Policies and all applicable PBS production and funding guidelines.

B. PBS

PBS is actively involved in encouraging and otherwise fostering the production of quality content. PBS does not itself produce any television Program Content. Instead, Program Content and often other content distributed by PBS, is produced by people who are not employed by PBS. While producers bear responsibility for content production decisions, PBS, on behalf of member stations and ultimately the audience, exercises oversight of the integrity of the content. In that role, PBS is the arbiter of whether content meets these Standards and Policies and whether it is appropriate for distribution as part of PBS's national services. PBS bears responsibility and discretion for deciding whether to accept and distribute content, as well as deciding when to schedule it for national distribution, link to it or otherwise make it available. Acceptance of Program Content by PBS is signified by the placement of the PBS logo at the conclusion of a program, while acceptance of Digital Content by PBS is signified by the availability of the content on www.pbs.org or on another PBS digital application, such as the “PBS for iPad” app.

C. Objectivity

Opinion and commentary are different from news and analysis. When a program, segment, digital material or other content is devoted to opinion or commentary, the principle of transparency requires that it be clearly labeled as such. Any content segment that presents only like-minded views without offering contrasting viewpoints should be considered opinion and should identify who is responsible for the views being presented.

MagusAmathion (talk) 10:02, 29 October 2012 (UTC)Magus Amathion

The two sources mentioned, BBC and PBS are sources which we could sometimes use for "general knowledge" because they have a reasonable reputation for fact checking. But clearly in this case we are dealing with general knowledge which is controversial, and so better sources should be found. And if those better sources disagree (as I think they will) then we should report the disagreement. WP:NPOV. In the meantime I would suggest weakening the language to something that editors can agree upon more easily such as "one of the oldest" instead of the more absolute statement in the article.--Andrew Lancaster (talk) 10:10, 29 October 2012 (UTC)
Also note the general rule that strong wordings require strong sources.--Andrew Lancaster (talk) 10:10, 29 October 2012 (UTC)

I disagree that this general knowledge is controversial, I myself thought it was common knowledge. Here's a source that says it's the oldest religion in the West, at least. Here the author says it's probably the oldest religion, because of X, Y, and Z. Here is a reference that says it's the oldest religion. This reference says it's known as the world's oldest monotheistic religion.

If you're going to change the text while this discussion is taking place, I'd recommend changing it to "one of the oldest..." Since that is definitely supported. --Jethro B 15:36, 29 October 2012 (UTC)

Just because sources can be found which say X, does NOT mean that al sources agree. This sort of situation is not so complicated and happens a lot, and WP:CONSENSUS has to guide us in a practical way. It is not going to be easy for anyone to prove that all sources agree on this point is it? And I think that it is true that we can also find sources which say Zoroastrianism is the oldest surviving monotheism? So I tend to think you need to find a compromise, such as "one of the oldest" or (if you have lots of good sourcing) "considered by many to be the oldest".--Andrew Lancaster (talk) 16:24, 29 October 2012 (UTC)
I understand that, but I don't know if that's the case. If someone can bring refs that show there is a dispute over this, then by all means, I will have a look. But as far as I'm aware, this is widely accepted. And if it's not, as I said, we can write "one of the oldest." --Jethro B 17:31, 29 October 2012 (UTC)
Do you mean you are doubting whether there are sources which claim Zoroastrianism is an older monotheism? That would be a reasonable question.--Andrew Lancaster (talk) 18:17, 29 October 2012 (UTC)

I don't want this to go the way of the talk page. There 8 sources for Zoroastrianism being the oldest have been posted. There has been some what of a discussion on the reliability of those sources. One source was said to be unreliable because the Author's Phd is in medicine. But the source of work cited in the article is Anonymous. So how can you say that an anonymously authored work is not only reliable but also more reliable than a source by an author who is willing to take credit for his work? If a Phd in theology, archaeology or some other science is a prerequisite for reliability. We don't know if this anonymous author has a Phd or even a high school diploma.

I'm not going to edit at this point. It's futile. The statement has been removed by one editor and summarily restored by another editor. This places burden of evidence on the restoring editor. The restoring editor is also sumarily dismissing verification requests on the reliability of the source by saying "it's been discussed." I have done some research in the page archives. It has been discussed several times in the first archive alone. But if there ever was a real consensus that had been reached. That consensus has changed.

So at this point I would like to focus on the reliability of the source cited in the article. Begining with, how can an anonymous source be a reliable source? I'll also begin to prepare sources for the work it's self part.

MagusAmathion (talk) 19:31, 29 October 2012 (UTC)Magus Amathion

JethroB, your sources state, oldest in the West and Probably the oldest. The third source omits Zoroastrianism from the analysis. I also have to say that if this claim appeared on the Zoroastrianism page. I would oppose it for the exact same reason. The debate has no basis in fact. Case in point. Who is the older of the two Pharaoh's, Ramesses III or Tutankhamun? Egyptologists are in possession of the mummies of both Pharaoh's. They can subject both to carbon dating. This will scientifically prove the age of both. So you can state that Tutankhamun is the older of the two Pharaoh's as fact. That fact can be reproduced in a lab setting. You cannot do this with Judaism and Zoroastrianism. So the debate is completely removed from the relm of fact and exists entirely in the relm of belief. So this debate can only produce an opinion. That opinion cannot be stated as fact such as, the grass is green and Judaism is the oldest montheistic religion.

MagusAmathion (talk) 20:02, 29 October 2012 (UTC)Magus Amathion

No, PBS would not be an acceptable source for a statement like this. It is an RS, but we can do far better since this issue is covered by many scholarly books. As to the question itself, please discuss it on the article's talk page; dig up books on the issue (there are any number referring to this), see what they say, and debate on the talk page how to present the statement. Books from academic publishers are the most reliable source, and those from UPs like Harvard, Berkeley, Stanford, Yale and the like are the best. You probably won't need journal articles, since I don't believe there is much new research in the field overturning all prior discussion. Churn and change (talk) 02:03, 30 October 2012 (UTC)

Churn and change, I agree that the debate as to which is the oldest is not something to be continued or resolved here. I felt that it was important to mention it to show that there is an unresolved academic debate on the subject. The issues arising from of the academic debate it's self would be better suited for the Neutrality Board. Here I'm merely trying to determine the reliability of the source. So can I assume that the group is begining to build a concensus towards PBS not being a reliable source for a strong statement of this nature for this subject matter? MagusAmathion (talk) 06:38, 30 October 2012 (UTC)Magus Amathion

You are probably right that by definition most sources which make absolute statements are going to be "popular" in tone, and not the best sources for this type of claim. So if we stick to academic sources we will probably automatically end up with a less extravagant claim. I tend to think that this whole quesiton is only partly an RS issue and more a question of practical editing judgement concerning strong claims made by weaker sources. Consider WP:DUE. All in all I think there are many reasons to simply weaken the wording, as I have said above.--Andrew Lancaster (talk) 09:14, 30 October 2012 (UTC)
The Wikipedia guideline is not just to use a reliable source, it is to use the best reliable source available. Often there are practical issues blocking this, such as highest-quality sources being prohibitively costly and difficult to access. Even accounting for those concerns, I would say PBS is not the best reliable source one can find which addresses the issue. Of course the better sources may qualify the above statement; if so, the qualified statement is what we should use. Churn and change (talk) 17:55, 30 October 2012 (UTC)
Andrew, I can't really think of a way to soften the oldest claim that doesn't feel weaselly. I think the best statement that would avoid the sourcing and neutality issues is to say, Judaism is one of the oldest monotheistic religions to survive to present day. I think that statement is indisputable by any academic sources and is therefore highly defensible.

MagusAmathion (talk) 19:51, 30 October 2012 (UTC)Magus Amathion

I would tend to agree but we are no longer discussing an RS question as such (although RS judgement comes into it).--Andrew Lancaster (talk) 21:06, 30 October 2012 (UTC)

jobstreet.com

Does anyone know if JobStreet.com [28] is a reliable reference or not? Specifically, I am considering using this page [29] as a reference for mentioning that the number of animators hired to work at Digital Eyecandy during the production of Hoodwinked! reached 60 at one point. I want to be absolutely certain that this would be an acceptable reference if I include it, since Hoodwinked! is a Featured Article. --Jpcase (talk) 00:02, 30 October 2012 (UTC)

I've found another source that is definately reliable, so I do not need to use the jobstreet.com source. --Jpcase (talk) 01:50, 30 October 2012 (UTC)
Glad you've resolved the issue. For posterity, it seems that the page you linked to (and presumably others like it) are populated with information supplied by the company being profiled. I'd say treat as a self-published, or as a primary source.Homunculus (duihua) 09:25, 30 October 2012 (UTC)

Mayday (TV series)

Hi! The Aviation WikiProject Aircrash task force started a discussion about the use of a television documentary series, Mayday (TV series) (also known as Air Crash Investigation, Air Crash Investigations, Air Disasters, and/or Air Emergency) at this page Wikipedia_talk:WikiProject_Aviation/Aviation_accident_task_force#Mayday_.28TV_series.29_vs_WP:RELY

Among the issues are:

  • Would a Wikipedian take into account a decline in quality/rigor of a long-running television series in determining whether this is a reliable source?
  • This program contains interview material of various people. Some are individuals belonging to accident investigation agencies who worked on the aircraft investigations mentioned on the series. Some are pilots, crew, and passengers of the flights mentioned on the series. Some are in neither category and are consultants/"experts"/etc. How and when should the interview footage be used in articles?
  • Would a TV interview of an individual by this series be counted as a primary source or a secondary source?

WhisperToMe (talk) 12:50, 30 October 2012 (UTC)

This is a quite general question. I guess you are look for general answers, but it would be better to have real examples. Going through the 3 questions:-
  • In what way would we take account? In a common sense way editors do of course have to make judgements about how to report a balanced representation of what reliable sources in general would say. And we do not have to cite all possible sources. Having said that, is there a chance that this type of decision will skew our reporting and mean that we are giving a different twist to things? In other words, consider WP:NPOV. If we do anything which creates a surprising or controversial balance of sources, then there is a risk of being blamed for being too original as per WP:OR.
  • I've never had much to do with citing from a TV show. But in general I suppose it is like a transcription of an interview in a magazine, with the added benefit in some cases that perhaps the TV show gives some editorial guidance about whether or not such and such an opinion is typical or unusual or represents a particular movement or whatever. In any case we should be cautious of cherry picking, as with any interviews.
  • I think the primary/secondary thing is sometimes messy, but basically raw interviews are kind of primary, whereas some forms of collections of interviews are obviously actually the results of an editing process intended to show more general tendencies.--Andrew Lancaster (talk) 13:41, 30 October 2012 (UTC)
The interviews on this show are edited and selected, with interview segments split up in different parts of the documentary program. Some examples of elements of this show that can be good are:
  • Aeroperú Flight 603 - The NTSB officials and the Peruvian officials involved in the investigation of the accident are interviewed on the show, and they discuss aspects of the case such as the NTSB's original reluctance to accept the Peruvian choice of the head investigator and the sentencing of an uneducated man in the Peruvian criminal system (the Peruvian investigator expresses his disapproval of this)
  • Air France Flight 8969 - French government officials and the involved Air France pilots and cabin crew are interviewed and discuss aspects of how the events unfolded. This was a criminal event (airliner hijacking) and to my knowledge there is no report on it)
Some elements that may be bad are:
  • South African Airways Flight 295 - An editor expressed concern that the Mayday episode on this show gives too much weight to conspiracy theories, and that one editor in the past had used the Mayday episode as a standard bearer of what should be included when that should not be the case
  • The narrator of the episode about PSA Flight 182 (a fairly recent episode) said that the PSA pilots had engaged in discussion not strictly about aviation, and that the accident had lead to the implementation of sterile cockpit rules below 10,000 feet. However the editors on here have not been able to find information from the final accident report discussing the PSA crew conversation, and we have not yet encountered another source that makes the same claim. - I had never heard of Mayday doing something like this before, so I wonder if there is a fairly recent change in quality in the program.
When I do use Mayday as a source I try to distinguish between what the narrator said and what the interviewees said. I.E. in the program about Aeroperú Flight 603 a lawyer representing the families of the passengers said that many of the passengers drowned after the impact. I made it clear in the Wikipedia text that the Miami lawyer, and not the accident report (I have not found portions of the accident report which state how the passengers died), had stated that.
WhisperToMe (talk) 14:56, 30 October 2012 (UTC)
A Mayday episode with serious issues is 'Crash of the Century', about the Tenerife disaster. Crash of the Century was made by cineflix, the producers of Mayday. I'll use COTC as shorthand when referring to Crash of the Century.
COTC showed scenes of cockpit conversations on the KLM plane that have no basis in any reports. The conversations deservedly or undeservedly, portray the pilot of KLM as the villain. Someone might point out COTC is a dramatization and the producers have leeway so far as presenting what happened. Then that makes the show a non-reliable source. Other episodes have problems, but I don't recall which ones.
COTC was filmed 5 years ago. So this isn't a recent issue....William 17:08, 30 October 2012 (UTC)
Was "Crash of the Century" originally a Mayday production? It is listed as a "spinoff" at List of Mayday episodes, but it may be good to investigate who originally made the episode, and if it was re-branded as Mayday in countries other than its country of origin. That statement made me realize why people fear that editors would use actor scenes; in that instance I can see why people are cautious about people using it as a source in that way, because they don't want editors to take actors' dialog as what really happened in the CVR. The solution is to add a pagenotice on the Tenerife article saying "Don't use the actors' dialog as actual CVR conversation because it is not. Use the CVR transcripts in the final accident report by the Spanish authorities as the basis of actual statements by the pilots. If the transcript says it is CVR dialog, check the Spanish report to confirm this."
In regards to "Then that makes the show a non-reliable source." - It can be a reliable source in some ways, but not in others. One shouldn't use actors' dialog as what people really said, but in that instance it can be confusing since some other shows do base dialog on what is said in the CVR (many original Mayday episodes do just that, or use translations of the CVR dialog). You can say "use the interview footage of passengers/crew/etc but don't use what the actors say" - Many sources do have bias, and the editors need to understand how to get material from the source without painting the article with a POV from that source, maybe they need to be reminded to use multiple sources when possible.
WhisperToMe (talk) 17:33, 30 October 2012 (UTC)
The Discovery Channel (US) has a page on Crash of the Century; in the US it is not branded as a "Mayday/Air Crash Investigation" program: http://press.discovery.com/emea/wrld/programs/crash-century/ - The page says "Producers for "Crash of the Century" Galaxie Productions Cineflix Adélaïde Productions" and "Crash of the Century © Galaxie Production / Near-Miss Productions Inc./ Adélaïde Production, 2005" - That means it is a French-Canadian co-production, and Cineflix (company that makes Air Crash Investigation) was involved, but it wasn't 100% produced by Cineflix. The original Mayday episodes are 100% produced by Cineflix, and is produced in association with two Canadian channels (one is Discovery Channel Canada) and National Geographic in the US: http://www.cineflixproductions.com/shows/28-Mayday - COTC is not originally a part of the Mayday series and was made with only partial Cineflix involvement, but may have been branded as "Air Crash Investigation" in other countries.
There is also "The Deadliest Plane Crash" which seems to be a derivative production of COTC produced for NOVA http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/nova/space/deadliest-plane-crash.html - Again, here it is not branded as a Mayday episode. WhisperToMe (talk) 17:38, 30 October 2012 (UTC)
COTC video at Youtube[30], the very last thing shown is the cineflix logo. Also the Cineflix website has a page[31] for COTC....William 18:06, 30 October 2012 (UTC)
Yes. As stated above Cineflix was one of the companies involved, but it is not the only company. Unlike regular Mayday episodes, it was co-produced with two French companies. The Cineflix page on the program at http://www.cineflixproductions.com/shows/43-Crash-of-the-Century does not refer to it as a Mayday episode, so this television program should be treated separately from Mayday episodes (and even then each episode should be treated on its own merits or failings) WhisperToMe (talk) 18:13, 30 October 2012 (UTC)
The task force consensus(Three editors including myself disagree with Whisper and so far no one has expressed support for his view) is that Mayday isn't a reliable source. By coming over here, the issue of forumshopping could be raised. I suggest he go back to the task force page. There are a half a dozen other editors at least(Milborne One, Jetstreamer, YssYguy, mjroots to name a few) with lots of aviation/plane crash edits. See what they think and maybe he can change consensus but at the moment consensus is not to use Mayday as a source....William 18:22, 30 October 2012 (UTC)
William, please read over the discussion that occurred at Wikipedia_talk:WikiProject_Aviation/Aviation_accident_task_force#Mayday_.28TV_series.29_vs_WP:RELY. Firstly the previous discussion failed to consider several aspects that I brought up in the new discussion and here. The editors of the old discussion will have to consider the various new points I brought up. Secondly one of the editors who had argued against using Mayday said "Maybe a tall order, but let's have a go - happy for you to invite more comment as you see appropriate." so that was a signal for me to start this post. I linked to the original discussion but new discussion happened here anyway. Thirdly consider this passage from Wikipedia:CONSENSUS#Level_of_consensus: "Consensus among a limited group of editors, at one place and time, cannot override community consensus on a wider scale. For instance, unless they can convince the broader community that such action is right, participants in a WikiProject cannot decide that some generally accepted policy or guideline does not apply to articles within its scope." - Fourthly it is good to have a record of Mayday in the archives of this noticeboard since it's a place for people to check on the reliability of various sources. I made the notice board post for all of these reasons, and such posts should be welcomed. WhisperToMe (talk) 21:21, 30 October 2012 (UTC)
RE PSA 182, I got an e-mail back, but so not to take away from the general discussion I brought up the specific issue of PSA 182 at Talk:PSA_Flight_182#PSA_182_and_non-essential_conversation - The Cliff Notes: It turns out that the PSA 182 report does refer to irrelevant conversation in cockpits; in this case the conversation is not a causal factor but the report discusses the potential harm WhisperToMe (talk) 20:29, 31 October 2012 (UTC)
Another thing is it may be good to investigate other people interviewed on these shows to see if they are notable for Wikipedia articles. One figure on the South African 295 episode who was interviewed often was Debora Patta. I Googled her to see if she was a notable figure. Turns out she's one of South Africa's top journalists, and I wrote an article about her: Debora Patta. The whole time the Afrikaans Wikipedia had one about her too: af:Debora Patta WhisperToMe (talk) 05:09, 31 October 2012 (UTC)

Türk-İsrail müşterek askeri tarih konferansı by Genelkurmay Basımevi

Is this book from google book search [32] a reliable source for Fehime Sultan's birth and death date and the fact that she supported the Young Turks? It is listed with the publisher being the same as the author. -- TRPoD aka The Red Pen of Doom 21:29, 31 October 2012 (UTC)

This source confirms the birth and death years and you could probably use it (a fairly reliable source). The source says she supported the nationalists; not sure whether that would be the Young Turks (more likely Ataturk). I think the book you are citing is the proceedings of the Turkish-Israeli Military History Conference (see, for example this link on the second conference: [33]). The publisher being the same as the author may just be an issue with how those who scanned the Google book decided to list it, struggling with the Turkish. I don't read Turkish either, but wouldn't reject it as an RS just because of that publisher snafu. Churn and change (talk) 22:37, 31 October 2012 (UTC)
It might be good to transcribe the relevant text (try to get the whole sentences so context is there) and post them on the talk page, so Wikipedians can make informal translations WhisperToMe (talk) 00:57, 1 November 2012 (UTC)
Thanks for that source! -- TRPoD aka The Red Pen of Doom 02:09, 1 November 2012 (UTC)
As to translations from RSes, I am not quite sure what WP convention is. The last time I asked for a translation of an encyclopedia entry, admin Jac16888 replied, as seen at this link that it wasn't a good idea to ask people to translate an encyclopedia :-)

Haaretz and poll results

Is this news article in Haaretz reliable for reporting the results of a poll without inline attribution to Haaretz or should it be attributed to Haaretz? nableezy - 22:37, 26 October 2012 (UTC)

It should be noted that every other RS that reports on it attributes it to Haaretz. No More Mr Nice Guy (talk) 22:48, 26 October 2012 (UTC)
NMMNG's statement is not correct. See for instance the Sydney Morning Herald news article that independently reports the poll with no attribution or even mention of Haaretz. Dlv999 (talk) 23:12, 26 October 2012 (UTC)
Crediting Haaretz as having first published the results is not equivalent to attributing it to Haaretz. For example, The Globe and Mail says the results were published in Haaretz, the leading Israeli newspaper. It later calls it the Dialog survey, attributing it to Dialog, not Haaretz. nableezy - 23:58, 26 October 2012 (UTC)
If you look at the Globe and Mail article, you'll see that it's full of "Haaretz said" and "Haaretz noted" and other stuff that makes it quite clear that they got their information from Haaretz and not the poll itself.
Here's a list of sources from the article talk page. Except for SMH which I missed, they all attribute the information about the poll to Haaretz. I didn't mean to say they claim Haaretz conducted the poll, but that they got the information from Haaretz. No More Mr Nice Guy (talk) 00:14, 27 October 2012 (UTC)
Okay, and then what? The question is if we need to explicitly attribute a well-regarded newspaper for what they report as the results of a survey conducted by a third-party. nableezy - 00:34, 27 October 2012 (UTC)
The Globe and Mail, Guardian, Independent and everyone else who reported on it (except SMH) attributed it to Haaretz, why shouldn't we? No More Mr Nice Guy (talk) 00:37, 27 October 2012 (UTC)

If I may, the Haaretz article is currently paywalled and I don't have a password at home. It looks as if it was conducted by a firm named "Dialog." Typically when reporting polling data, it's responsible to say who conducted the poll and on whose behalf. If dialog was hired by Haaretz, then it's appropriate to say "A poll by Israeli firm Dialog, contracted by Haaretz, found tktktk." If Haaretz was simply reporting the poll, no need to mention their name, though it's reasonable to say who the poll was paid for (if it wasn't simply conducted by Dialog on its own, as sometimes happens). If Haaretz were the first to publish a poll they didn't commission, that's irrelevant; don't mention Haaretz (the other papers are saying "according to haaretz" in that case because they haven't seen the poll themselves. If there's a question that Haaretz lied about the contents of the poll, that's another matter. I see no indication that's being asserted).Dan Murphy (talk) 01:01, 27 October 2012 (UTC)

Haaretz did not commission the poll, it was commissioned by the "Yisraela Goldblum Fund". nableezy - 01:35, 27 October 2012 (UTC)
It seems that Haaretz has been accused for manipulations with the poll results. There are sources which testify that many of the conclusions reflected by journalist articles are not based on any poll itself, rather on original research of Haaretz journalist Gideon Levy who reported this poll. [34]--Tritomex (talk) 15:40, 27 October 2012 (UTC)
Oh good grief. Could you please read WP:OR, and not apply it to what journalists do with their news sources? Thank you.Nishidani (talk) 15:58, 27 October 2012 (UTC)
Using a blog to attack an actual RS? Seen that once or twice before. nableezy - 16:34, 27 October 2012 (UTC)
I "did not used a blog to attack reliable source" I wanted to point out that there are other opinions on this issue. Here is the articlkle from CAMERA-Committee for accuracy in Middle East reporting that states "Unsurprisingly, Levy’s article was full of omissions and distortions. He apparently ignored the data that did not suit him and emphasized those that were in accord with his own well-known anti-Israel world view. At times, he completely reversed the survey’s findings. The sensational headline represents, at best, Levy’s interpretation of the survey and does not represent objective, factual reporting. " Goldflam further explaines manipulations with both the results and with the question itself. Beyond Levy’s ignoring of the survey’s nuance, with his blanket assertion that Israel "practices apartheid against Arabs," are the problems inherent in the survey question itself – which Levy similarly ignores. What is "apartheid in some areas" or "apartheid in many areas"? The term "apartheid," contrary to its superficial use in the survey, and contrary to the concept of "discrimination" has a very clear and precise meaning: According to the 2002 Rome Statute of the International Criminal Court, it refers to "an institutionalized regime of systematic oppression and domination by one racial group over any other racial group or groups and committed with the intention of maintaining that regime."There is no such thing as "some" apartheid. There is either apartheid or no apartheid. Apartheid is not simply discrimination – the sort that exists in almost every country around the world including Israel, which is precisely why the term was created specifically to describe South Africa’s regime."[35] In fact average people nowhere on earth have political education and the usage of foreign political terminology is always avoided in polls which are intended to be neutral. Considering the results ,Goldflam accuse Levy with serious manipulations and with direct misquoting of the results "Does the overall picture obtained from these results support Levy’s characterization of most Israeli Jews favoring discrimination against Israeli-Arabs? On the contrary. Most people reading these results would perceive just the opposite, that a majority of Israelis do not support discrimination against Arabs."

So the question is now, should Wikipedia quote an article which was described by other articles as misquoted and manipulative, present it as "absolute fact" without balancing this in order to achieve NPOV with the opinion from other sources like CAMERA. Or should this newspaper article which present entire nation as racist be avoided due to very serious allegations against the main editor of this sources. --Tritomex (talk) 18:47, 27 October 2012 (UTC)

Giggle. CAMERA wants to attack a media outlet. Wopdee do. Haaretz on one side, CAMERA on the other. I wonder which is "reliable". You brought a blog and CAMERA, neither of which are reliable sources. No reliable source that I am aware of has said Haaretz has misrepresented the poll in any way. nableezy - 20:05, 27 October 2012 (UTC)
No, the question is, "is this news article in Haaretz reliable for reporting the results of a poll without inline attribution to Haaretz or should it be attributed to Haaretz?" On the article talk page you wrote that CAMERA are "a highly specialized institution with a defined aim to promote journalistic accuracy", which is like saying Liu Yunshan's aim is to promote freedom of the press. This is meant to be an encyclopedia based on reliable sources and organizations like CAMERA don't get to decide which newspapers are reliable. Sean.hoyland - talk 20:30, 27 October 2012 (UTC)
I see no reason why we would not cite this source, but I lean towards attribution in such cases. My reasoning is that interpretations of such polls by journalists is often controversial and variable. There is often no "gold standard" single interpretation. So when editors find it hard to agree, then that seems a good enough reason to attribute.--Andrew Lancaster (talk) 08:09, 28 October 2012 (UTC)
If you suggest we attribute in this case, what about where two or more independent news reports agree on the details. For instance, the Sydney Morning Herald and Haaretz agree on details - do you think it is still necessary to attribute? Dlv999 (talk)
It depends on the case. I think no sensible general rule can be formulated for this.--Andrew Lancaster (talk) 08:24, 29 October 2012 (UTC)
  • Update - Haaretz issued a clarification stating: The original headline for this piece, 'Most Israelis support an apartheid regime in Israel,' did not accurately reflect the findings of the Dialog poll. The question to which most respondents answered in the negative did not relate to the current situation, but to a hypothetical situation in the future: 'If Israel annexes territories in Judea and Samaria, should 2.5 million Palestinians be given the right to vote for the Knesset?' In light of this amendment which makes clear the article relates to a very particular hypothetical situation, and not as first depicted across a variety of sources that were based on the original Haaretz story, attribution is a must, assuming that this material is considered notable enough for inclusion in the first place. Ankh.Morpork 20:33, 28 October 2012 (UTC)
The hypothetical situation to which Israeli Jews responded on the negative — whether Palestinians should be given equal rights in case their ancestral lands were annexed by Israel — does imply that most of Jewish respondents support an apartheid policy, as affording unequal rights on account of ethnicity undoubtedly constitutes apartheid. The content should is therefore relevant for the entry. As there's no question as to whether "this material is considered notable enough for inclusion in the first place". Haaretz is itself a RS, and the story was picked up by a number of other notable, reliable sources (The Guardian, SMH, Christian Science Monitor, Times of Israel, and many non-English sources as well.) Guinsberg (talk) 21:15, 28 October 2012 (UTC)
Note that A) This is a personal opinion B) This is an incorrect personal opinion C) The editor in question has been blocked for 72 hours. --Jethro B 22:39, 28 October 2012 (UTC)
An editors block log in an unrelated matter is totally irrelevant to this discussion, please stick to discussing the source. Dlv999 (talk) 22:58, 28 October 2012 (UTC)
The salient points of the poll can be summarized as e.g. 1) most of the respondents said Israel practices apartheid, 2) most said Palestinians should be denied the vote if the WB were annexed and 3) 30% said Israeli Arabs ought to be denied the vote, these can be sourced at least from the Independent, Guardian and Telegraph sources. (The Telegraph doesn't have the last one, but does say most support preferential treatment to Jews in Israel). As far as I can see these can go in simply on the force of these three sources, with the criticism of the poll being handled as a separate manner when it's settled which criticism sources are reliable and which are opinion pieces. Point 2) is in-line with the new headline of the Haaretz piece, sidestepping the whole issue. I don't see a problem in saying the poll was published in the Haaretz. Cheers, --Dailycare (talk) 20:33, 29 October 2012 (UTC)

Is this issue still live? I see no reason why the findings should have to be attributed to HaAretz -- it wasn't HaAretz's poll. This newspaper is unquestionably a reliable source for this sort of thing. Nomoskedasticity (talk) 18:25, 1 November 2012 (UTC) :I see no problem with using the poll,it comes from a reputable Israeli newspaper.No need for attribution either. Kabulbuddha (talk) 18:48, 1 November 2012 (UTC) blocked sock

Atlas Shrugged - Rotten Tomatoes user rating

I was asked to defer to here after going to WP:DRN.

As an easily skewed user poll, the user ratings of Rotten Tomatoes, which is considered RS as a critic rating aggregator, is explicitly discounted as a reliable source under MOS:FILM#Audience_response for film articles.

Except for the recently released Atlas Shrugged: Part II. Two editors, User:Jonathan Hemlock and User:Rahmspeed, have put in a lot of work to try and get that rating included. The whole thing looked like the fruit of political partisans - the user rating as much more charitable than the critics - so I went to DRN first. There was some feedback before I was sent here on the article talk page, but there's hardly the consensus that JH claims there is.

Most of the defense seems to revolve around this Fox News article that purportedly references the user rating. It doesn't. --Lenin and McCarthy | (Complain here) 05:46, 27 October 2012 (UTC)

Additional comments

I'm an editor brought in by another noticeboard. I'm unsure this is the appropriate venue for this discussion. Nobody in the discussion surrounding RT's user reviews are asserting that RT is a legitimate third party source nor that RT is supposed to be used as a general indicator of popular opinion. Instead the RT score is being highlighted by interested editors, along with the RS at Fox, as an unusual outlier in the review panorama of the film. It's essentially being used as a primary source on itself and carries the precedence of thousands of other Wikipedia film articles who routinely mention RT popular scoring. It should also be noted the the "prohibition", if you can call any guildline or manual of style such, against inclusion of RT user ratings is new and without established consensus, as indicated by the discussion page at the relevant MoS page. TomPointTwo (talk) 07:07, 27 October 2012 (UTC)

I hate to repeat myself, but the quote from the article is "Part II has managed to pique the interest of the general public, with a 72 percent audience interest rating on Rotten Tomatoes." Personally, I feel that the box office gross says otherwise, but the main thing is it does not discuss the user rating. The way this is used as a source in the article is fine, but it does not justify the user rating, which is something different entirely.
As for the user rating conventions being controversial, they've been around for a couple years without too much of a fuss. --Lenin and McCarthy | (Complain here) 07:30, 27 October 2012 (UTC)
One last thing - regarding a consensus to ignore the rule, as JH keeps insisting we do in this case, I couldn't find more than three editors really pushing for it before I put out notices, and editors more active in film articles did step in to try and remove the rating. I asked JH to point out the people supporting him...I think he's too mad at me right now to talk. --Lenin and McCarthy | (Complain here) 07:33, 27 October 2012 (UTC)
Is the discussion on the film MOS you're referring to this? If so, it looks like the discussion didn't go very far, and it seems that they pointed out a alternative, and reliable, means to report user ratings is CinemaScore. Jonathanfu (talk) 12:18, 27 October 2012 (UTC)
I'd be fine with that. --Lenin and McCarthy | (Complain here) 19:09, 27 October 2012 (UTC)
The siteshows scores for many recent releases, but Atlas Shrugged 2 is not one of them. I wonder if anyone on Wikiproject Film would have a subscription to their service. Jonathanfu (talk) 15:47, 29 October 2012 (UTC)
RT scores are frequently mentioned in entertainment news and could be mentioned, as well as any comment on the score in reliable sources. TFD (talk) 08:21, 1 November 2012 (UTC)
  1. Numbered list item

Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung as a source, redux

Sorry, I didn't mean for people to have to weigh in on what they think happened in Houla. Briefly: should the Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung be considered an important or reliable source in Wikipedia? Thanks in advance, -Darouet (talk) 06:30, 28 October 2012 (UTC)

It's one of Germany's leading newspapers, and is clearly a reliable source. Nick-D (talk) 07:02, 28 October 2012 (UTC)
It's slightly on the conservative side of the spectrum, but has one of the best reputations of any newspaper in Germany, and a strict policy of separating reporting from opinions. I'd accept it as a RS comparable to the New York Times or Le Monde. The usual caveats apply (don't use opinion pieces, every source can make occasional errors, check for retractions...). --Stephan Schulz (talk) 09:29, 28 October 2012 (UTC)
For political issues, which yours is, as others have already mentioned it is an RS. However, for political stories in a war often the first version reported changes are reporters and others learn more. This rarely ever is published as a correction or a retraction; newspapers just print new articles containing the new facts they know and their new perspective. The disconnect between the Zeitung and other sources may partly be from that. Der Spiegel has published a report here. Personally, I would say an encyclopedia should not include this material until we have enough secondary sources covering the issue, and that will take time. These newspaper reports based on witness accounts are primary sources by our definition. I realize there is little chance of stopping people from putting current events in, so the primary/secondary source debate is useless. Churn and change (talk) 02:56, 29 October 2012 (UTC)
In general FAZ is a RS, but I agree with C&C above as per it's specific usage here. a13ean (talk) 16:47, 29 October 2012 (UTC)
I see no problem with Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung as it is a main stream German newspaper.Kabulbuddha (talk) 07:19, 1 November 2012 (UTC) Blocked sock
Yes, it is rs, in the same category as the NYT and English broadsheets, and you should use it in the same way as other high qualitiy newspapers. TFD (talk) 08:16, 1 November 2012 (UTC)

Carl Robert Katter as a political advocate

The lead of the Carl Robert Katter article currently states that he is a "political advocate for many issues including LGBT rights, better education, public transport, sustainable development, access to housing, protection of our environment, a low carbon economy and better health services." The reference provided[36] is from The Age, but it is quoting Katter himself. "I'm not a one issues person. I'm very passionate about access to public housing," etc. My question is, is he a reliable source for the issues on which he is an advocate? It seems that everyone in the world would be an advocate of "better education", and that this is just political rhetoric. But I've discussed it on the article talk page with the article creator and haven't seemed to get anywhere. Please help. StAnselm (talk) 21:43, 28 October 2012 (UTC)

The lead needs no citations because it is a summary of the body text, and the citations should be in the body text. That Katter is an advocate of LGBT rights is substantiated in the text. That he advocates the rest is not, and the citation in the lead can only be used to support the attributed statement "Katter states he is an advocate for better education, public transport . . ." Churn and change (talk) 02:29, 29 October 2012 (UTC)
From the brief quote, he does not say that he is an advocate of anything other than LGBT rights, just that he is "not a one issues person". Presumably all he means is that he has opinions on various issues, not that he advocates for them. TFD (talk) 08:13, 1 November 2012 (UTC)

Is Hansard the UK parliaments minutes a reliable source?

I have used Hansard the UK parliaments minutes as a source to a piece that I added to the History of Cambodia page.I added it under my IP address as I forgot to sign in 1. I had removed the word allegedly from a sentence and added the link to,Hansard. The statement that I feel the source is supporting is "The British government trained the Khmer Rouge" there is slightly more to the sentence than that as can be seen in the link(there is another source for that I believe) but that is the part that the source supports.The piece that I added was reverted twice by an editor who claimed that the "Source fails verification" and in his second revert his excuse is " But it says the UK only supported Sihanouk". I am of the opinion that he did not even read the source because if he did it states " British advisers are, however, still to be found training Khmer Rouge terrorists in Thailand." and " I shall add to what my hon. Friend is saying by quoting from a letter written by Susan Eliot, who has worked for many years with Cambodian refugees. She has evidence that in Malaysia, British advisers have helped to train Khmer Rouge guerrillas. She states :

"The training was conducted by Malaysian army officers, through the medium of English language, with British and American trainers acting as advisers. Not only were the troops trained together but they travelled to and from Bangkok."

The quotes are from members of the British parliament from a debate in 1990 in parliament. So is this a reliable source for the information in the article? Thank you.Kabulbuddha (talk) 07:00, 1 November 2012 (UTC) Blocked sock

Of course, there are lots of quotes in the source, many of which say the opposite, or make far weaker claims. We use academic sources for historical articles, not political rhetoric taken from primary source government documents by means of original research. The history of Cambodia article already gives wildly undue weight to such politicized issues, and the allegations did not hold up in court when they were challenged. Even the quotes he cites often contain many qualifiers or uncertainties regarding the details of the alleged training. The source hardly replaces the academic one currently being used.TheTimesAreAChanging (talk) 07:12, 1 November 2012 (UTC)
(ecx2)Hansard is indeed a perfectly reliable source for what British MPs said, but that is all. You should write something like "In a parliamentary debate Joe Blogs, MP for Lower Puddlesley on the Marsh, said "British army advisers are....."<ref>Hansard... Roger (talk) 07:18, 1 November 2012 (UTC)
Yes,thanks, it can be backed up by newspaper reports from main stream UK papers that reported the same thing including the Telegraph also there is a John Pilger main stream UK TV documentary on the subject which states the same.I believe also that former member of the SAS Chris Ryan has stated that he was there training the Khmer Rouge.Kabulbuddha (talk) 07:28, 1 November 2012 (UTC) Blocked sock
Too bad Pilger's claims didn't hold up in court! Anyway, if you "believe" there are other sources, provide them. Just remember that this controversy probably does not deserve more than a sentence in the article.TheTimesAreAChanging (talk) 07:44, 1 November 2012 (UTC)
Hansard is only a reliable source for what members say in Parliament. It should only be used to express the exact wording of comments that are mentioned in reliable secondary sources, i.e., rarely. TFD (talk) 08:04, 1 November 2012 (UTC)

Alan Jones (radio broadcaster)

Alan Jones (radio broadcaster) has the following presented as a source for a contentious claim: http://www.smh.com.au/news/national/alan-joness-demons/2006/10/20/1160851142104.html?page=fullpage#contentSwap1 which appears to simply be an excerpt from an "unauthorised biography" without any comment from a reviewer etc. Thus I thought it was equivalent to citing the book for information about the book (that is - a primary source remains a primary source if it is copied without any comments at all indicating a normal secondary source report). Is the printing of excerpts different from the book itself? And where the book makes contentious claims about a person, does citing a publication of excerpts become a stong source for such claims? (I am here asserting the claims about a living person to be "contentious using the normal Wikipedia usage of that term). Collect (talk) 15:30, 1 November 2012 (UTC)

Well, the original book is a secondary source. A primary source would be a book by Jones, or papers of Jones. The fact that the SMH serialises parts of the book does not change this classification. It does, however, strengthen the claim that the book is RS - it was not only accepted by the publisher, but also by the editorial staff of the newspaper. --Stephan Schulz (talk) 15:46, 1 November 2012 (UTC)
The book is a secondary source, and the excerpt can be thought a convenience link, because the citation would be to the original book . I found one review here and it is positive. Australian BC canned the book, but that seems to be from worries about legal liability than about content quality. I notice we have a separate article on the book. Since the author is an investigative journalist, we probably have to attribute his statements, but he is likely notable enough for his statements to be included. Churn and change (talk) 16:09, 1 November 2012 (UTC)

Hollywood Reporter

I had thought the Hollywood Reporter was a basic trade paper for the film industry, but it appears that it has changed focus a bit to include "sizzling entertainment". Is this article [37] about a lawsuit and some related "sizzle" a reliable source for the information about the lawsuit? i initially used it to support these claims [38] now i am not sure how much to trust it.-- TRPoD aka The Red Pen of Doom 03:20, 2 November 2012 (UTC)

That is stale news, the lawsuit has been tossed out: [39]. They link to the primary documents in that report, but those briefs are as hard to read as you can imagine. If you still want to source the old news for whatever reason, there is a report in the San Diego Union Tribune, which is the main San Diego paper, and hence a major regional publication. Churn and change (talk) 04:16, 2 November 2012 (UTC)

Robert Payne's biography of Hitler

The 1973 biography of Hitler The Life and Death of Adolf Hitler by Robert Payne is used on the page Adolf Hitler's vegetarianism to support the claim that Hiter's vegetarian diet - and ascetic lifestyle overall - was propaganda invented by Goebbels. As far as I am aware this is the only biography that makes this claim, and is therefore possibly problematic per WP:REDFLAG WP:DUE and other guidelines. However, beyond this is the fact that the biography has been widely condemned for its many inaccuracies. In favour of its reliability is the fact that the author was an academic (though not a historian) and that it was published by a respectable publisher (Praeger). There has been a debate on the talk page of the article Talk:Adolf_Hitler's_vegetarianism#Robert_Payne about the use of the source. The debate itself has been somewhat confusing, with references to WP:BLP and other, to my mind irrelevant, policies. Any input on the reliability issue would be welcome. Paul B (talk) 18:54, 1 November 2012 (UTC)

I should add that this book is regularly used by vegetarians to "scotch" the "myth" that Hitler was a vegetarian [40] [41], so the case might be made that its use for this purpose should be discussed irrespective of its reliability as such. Paul B (talk) 18:58, 1 November 2012 (UTC)

Hitler probably ranks as one of the most-studied people ever. We can do better than cite a biography written in 1973[a] by an English professor at the University of Montevallo (a good institution but not top-tier). I think the books on Hitler's vegetarianism per-se are unlikely to meet WP:NPOV (for some reason vegetarians seem to think the association denigrates them, and write books to prove Hitler was not one[b]), but his general biographies, and books on World War II, Nazism, and German history, would contain references to this well-known issue. Churn and change (talk) 19:27, 1 November 2012 (UTC)
I remember reading extensive notes on this a few months ago in Andrew Robert's relatively recent history of WW2. I think it was called "Storm of War"? Must be lots of sourcing possible.--Andrew Lancaster (talk) 09:26, 2 November 2012 (UTC)

Notes

  1. ^ Academic consensus on these issues does undergo revisions. Note that many documents were released after the fall of Communism in East Germany.
  2. ^ One such is covered here: [1].

Sourcing Bradley Manning's Motion to Dismiss

Do the sources removed in this diff need to be verified by third parties? Paum89 (talk) 07:48, 3 November 2012 (UTC)

Resolved
 – Per [42]. Paum89 (talk) 09:50, 3 November 2012 (UTC)
Sorry. Not resolved at all, if you are claiming that the Courthouse News Service can be used as a source for this story. From their 'About Us' page: "Courthouse News Service is a nationwide news service for lawyers and the news media. Based in Pasadena, California, Courthouse News focuses on civil litigation, from the date of filing through the appellate level." [43] The Bradley Manning case is emphatically not 'civil litigation', and is thus outside their scope of expertise. In any case, the material linked doesn't support the material added in the diff anyway. AndyTheGrump (talk) 16:29, 3 November 2012 (UTC)
Given the considerable media coverage of Manning, why is there a need to cite a primary source? Surely this will have been covered in a secondary source. Nick-D (talk) 00:03, 4 November 2012 (UTC)

Rolling Stone Magazine

I will try to keep this short, I have sort help before to resolve the issue but believe my post was too large, and it also required Japanese language skills (which is no longer necessary) Many articles relating to Japanese musicians (possibly 100 articles) are receiving the following type of sentence in their lead "Rolling Stone Japan rated their album at "##" in their top 100 list of the greatest albums" as a form of achievement or an award. One article is Bow Wow, however Rolling Stone Japan is not being referenced, the reference is from an English language blog/web journal called neojaponisme, there is no actual evidence of the Rolling Stone list, the one at the blog could be fabricated. That is my first basis for being unacceptable for the wikipedia, now onto a second point, the cover of the issue does mention a list, although the contents of which are not actually known. According to the blog that is being referenced the list was not written by Rolling Stone but is actually freelance work by a person named Kawasaki Daisuke. On the cover for the issueRolling Stone call the list arbitrary and biased, that is another point I feel makes the list unacceptable for the wikipedia. Thirdly the claimed author for the list is not a notable person (as there is no information available about them on the internet) and the website the blog says he owns sells "beauty drinks", and it has nothing to do with music. Even if there was evidence to prove the list was actual and correct, I don't feel that just because Rolling Stone Japan agreed to print his list, that it is acceptable for the wikipedia, because he is not a notable person (he's a who is that?) and Rolling Stone themselves called his list arbitrary and biased.27.33.143.93 (talk) 12:16, 3 November 2012 (UTC)

For background, see this within User:Bbb23's talk page, and this within Talk:Bow Wow (band). -- Hoary (talk) 13:33, 3 November 2012 (UTC)
Looks like this is not reliable enough for us to use. The list was pooh-poohed on the cover by Rolling Stone Japan, not featured, and the list was not repeated annually. It appears to come not from RSJ central but a throwaway freelancer. The freelance writer is not notable. Binksternet (talk) 14:01, 3 November 2012 (UTC)

Suicide of Amanda Todd

At Suicide of Amanda Todd is the following news item a Reliable Source for her date of birth as I attempted in this edit but was reverted?

I would appreciate any general remarks about the need to cite her date of birth. As discussed by me Talk:Suicide_of_Amanda_Todd#Date_of_birth! on the Talk page it is cited multiple times (literally hundreds of times) in remembrance pages, inluding her family's remembrance page. Generally DOBs are not cited unless they are challenged. Barack Obama's is not cited for example, despite an entire conspiracy theory centered on his birth. In other cases standards are not high, as for example at James Blunt where a blog and a primary source for its quarter is used. FrontBottomFracas (talk) 04:43, 2 November 2012 (UTC)

To round out the matter, the article in question is about a news event, not a biography. WWGB (talk) 04:48, 2 November 2012 (UTC)
Well, really not relevant to the discussion here. For the sake of completness we can say that was the central issue in its AfD and the moderator left it unresolved. One can easily cite hundreds of close parallels, such as Mohamed Bouazizi and Malala Yousafzai where the date of birth is noted. FrontBottomFracas (talk) 05:02, 2 November 2012 (UTC)
This may be a news event, nevertheless, considering the recency of her suicide, this is a BLP issue per WP:BDP. WP:BLPSOURCES allows editors to remove non-RS material, even when neutral, at once and multiple times. I don't think a shot of some other source flashed on a TV show is a reliable source. The remembrance pages too are unlikely to be RSes. Any public records, such as a police report mentioning her date of birth is unacceptable as per WP:BLPPRIMARY. These are all policies, not guidelines, and so are not subject to editorial consensus. If you want to include a birth date, you have to find a newspaper or a magazine reporting one. Yes, President Obama's birth date is cited. Churn and change (talk) 05:11, 2 November 2012 (UTC)
Thanks for this. Regarding Barack Obama I did see the ciation later. I note one of them is a primary source. In he case of Amanda Todd I trust a book will do as well. As soon as I find one I shall cite it. FrontBottomFracas (talk) 23:24, 3 November 2012 (UTC)

Find A Grave source

While we're on the topic, Find A Grave is currently added at external links section. Note at the bottom that burial=unknown. Doesn't that mean that the contributor at Find A Grave did not find the birdthate from her stone? So, his sources are as reliable as ours. I think he got the date from her memorial site. Plus, Find A Grave contributors are like IMDB contributors. So, should that be linked anywhere in the article? Anna Frodesiak (talk) 06:36, 4 November 2012 (UTC)

Well, WP:ELNO point 12 does allow external links to "Find A Grave" as it is a stable site with a large number of contributors. WP:ELBLP requires higher standards in BLP articles, which this one is. It specifically asks editors to respect the spirit of BLP, which, in this case, is that of avoiding harm to those once close to the subject. I don't know the Todd case well enough to judge whether linking to a site with her birthdate could harm her friends or family. News sources haven't published it, though it is clearly available. Churn and change (talk) 01:12, 5 November 2012 (UTC)

YourEntertainmentNow.com

I'm reviewing a television episode article for GA and the editor added a citation to this website, specifically this article on ratings. Is this a reliable source? I'd never heard of it before and cannot find an "about" section. Comments would be appreciated. Ruby 2010/2013 00:57, 4 November 2012 (UTC)

All the postings on that site are by one person, Rosario T. Calabria. Looks to me a glorified blog. Not an RS, since I don't see any evidence of "expertise"; seems more a hobbyist. Churn and change (talk) 01:25, 5 November 2012 (UTC)

The History Files [ http://www.historyfiles.co.uk/ ]

Hey Does Wikipedia considers The History Files (http://www.historyfiles.co.uk/) as a Scholar work; of-course on history? 117.211.84.74 (talk) 12:16, 18 October 2012 (UTC)

It seems to be tertiary. You could probably drill down to the sources using this. - Sitush (talk) 12:21, 18 October 2012 (UTC)
InddedIndeed, it is? From the very first swift look, the main sources mentioned by The History Files are worthy. Allow me to say that your comments under-explain what your're looking to highlight?

Thanks to you, I've just had a good look at WP:TERTIARY, and I end up concluding that Wikipedia encourage the use of scholarly tertiary sources.

Again, we're struck over the same -- Does Wikipedia considers The History Files (http://www.historyfiles.co.uk/) as a Scholar work; of-course on history? 117.211.84.74 (talk) 12:41, 18 October 2012 (UTC)

(edit conflict) Can you be more specific regarding how you would like to use the source? Which article? For what statements? Etc. My point was that although tertiary sources are ok, if we can provide a secondary source then that could be better. - Sitush (talk) 12:45, 18 October 2012 (UTC)
Not reliable for history. The articles are introductory overviews, and there is no indication that they are all scholars. That's the general principle; if per Sitush you want to make a more specific enquiry we will consider it. Itsmejudith (talk) 12:50, 18 October 2012 (UTC)
It's about page also notes that it accepts contributions from anyone.--Brianann MacAmhlaidh (talk) 12:52, 18 October 2012 (UTC)
Yes, tertiary sources are acceptable; obituaries are commonly used in GA articles (and probably FA ones; didn't check). Whether they can be used depends on author, publisher and content cited. In this case the publisher is not an RS (seems pretty much close to user-generated content based on strong sources). I think we should directly use the sources they mention; the site is useful for research purposes, and looks good enough to be used in the external links section. Churn and change (talk) 15:53, 18 October 2012 (UTC)

Easy guyz, easy! Sitush, thanks for the clarification; but, when content broadcasting is involved encyclopedia-wise, it has to be either way -- definitely not MUST but SHOULD (because the website is focused on a very single subject, History; unlike Wikipedia, which has a wider scope); at-least, I'm asking you to be specific.... let me explain, it's like whether the work is scholarly or not? We cannot apply dichotomy with subsets:- scholarly and fringe. The website is a single entity, and what I've asked is quite an easy one!

Itsmejudith, thanks for commenting; but when was the last time you read WP:TERTIARY? The article says, "Tertiary sources are publications such as encyclopedias and other compendia that summarize primary and secondary sources.... (contd).... Reliably published tertiary sources can be helpful in providing broad summaries of topics...." 117.212.43.201 (talk) 05:33, 19 October 2012 (UTC)

Well, the content seems quite updated! The job appears to be worthy, and the sources aren't unworthy; as Churn and change also end up observing. 117.212.43.201 (talk) 05:43, 19 October 2012 (UTC)
The questions of whether it is tertiary or not, or academic or not, areless important than the question of whether the source can be shown to have a reputation for fact checking, concerning the subject matter it is being cited for, therefore (1) the context IS important and (b) the most important point made so far is that this source seems to allow anyone to contribute. Is there any sign that controbutions are vetted in any way, and/or that the source is respected and cited by people who can be reasonably expected to know something about history?--Andrew Lancaster (talk) 10:59, 19 October 2012 (UTC)
Yes, needs a bit exercise! Just a little disagreement Andrew, whether it's scholarly or fringe does matters; but so does the reputation for fact checking! Their about page mentions three points:- 1. "First, and least, many are drawn from news media and contain archaeology or science-based news on historical or prehistoric topics."....(contd).... 2. "Secondly, a few are reproductions of previously published material.".... (contd).... 3. "Thirdly, and most importantly, many features are contributions from individuals with an interest in, and some knowledge of, history. Anyone is welcome to submit material. Submitted material will be highlighted on the front page as a banner feature for at least seven days, and the author will be fully credited for their work, with their name appearing on the appropriate features index page, something that only happens for original material. The work must be your own, and not a direct copy of something that already exists." Now, it's very much evident from point 1 and 2 that the reputation of the sources does matters to them, and they take the job seriously by keeping things updated; so fact checking should be fine. But, point 3 is a bit tricky to resolve here? I think they does expect the chap to be familiar with the subject if he/she looks forward to ask for kind of an an edit request. Point 2 backs up that the work is definitely reviewed; so yes, there is sign that the contribution are vetted. 117.212.46.75 (talk) 12:50, 21 October 2012 (UTC)
Concerning your second sentence, I did not say that being fringe does not matter. Being reliable matters more. We report fringe theories under some circumstances. Concerning your bigger point this situation can approached by asking whether any other sources treat this source seriously. That a source sees itself as serious is not enough.--Andrew Lancaster (talk) 19:08, 21 October 2012 (UTC)
Well, a number of the the sources used by them are good (as WP:PROF + WP:BIO may not be equal to WP:RS), and rest of the sources used by them are very good (WP:RS); though, not all the sources used by them are WP:RS, but no any such fringe theorists are cited.

The content remains updated, and the contributions are vetted if in case kind of an edit request is made.

BUT as Andrew asked, "whether any other sources treat this source seriously", I admit that I'm kind of struck here!

And, it would be real nice if we may some more participators, or else the good source may be derailed here? 117.212.42.125 (talk) 13:39, 23 October 2012 (UTC)

Per Andrew Lancaster, there does not seem to be much editorial oversight. Tom Harrison Talk 13:42, 28 October 2012 (UTC)

So, as per the consensus, this source fails to qualify under WP:Reliable; Hence, it cannot even be WP:ELYES; but, does the source qualify for WP:ELMAYBE? 117.207.190.151 (talk) 13:35, 31 October 2012 (UTC)

Well, if the section is archived with the continued silence of the admins over the WP:ELMAYBE issue; one may be inclined to assume that the source may have missed out on WP:ELMAYBE? 117.207.51.103 (talk) 11:58, 5 November 2012 (UTC)

The Foundation for Medieval Genealogy

When checking Good articles with old cleanup tags I came across Sibyl de Neufmarché, which has had sources to the above website tagged as unreliable since November 2010 August 2012. I found an old discussion here Wikipedia:Reliable sources/Noticeboard/Archive 77#Foundations - Journal of the Foundation for Medieval Genealogy regarding a journal from the same group. The links are [44] [45] [46] [47] and they are used to source seven different statements. The author is cited as Charles Cawley and some other citations from the same author from a different source have also been tagged. It has been brought up at the talk page, but it would be good to get an opinion from someone who knows a bit more about reliable sources so we can either remove the tags, find new sources or delist the article. Thanks AIRcorn (talk) 10:36, 30 October 2012 (UTC)

As you mention, this has been discussed a few times. I think there was no simple consensus, and generally we should consider exact examples of sourcing not generalize about all possible uses of a source. But perhaps the following is an acceptable summary of positions I recall from various people including myself:
  • The website itself is clearly a bit more than just someone's personal website. It is connected to a journal, and no one seems to have clear complaints about the quality of information on it. Nor do I recall anyone proving that this type of information is easily available somewhere else.
  • Because the journal and its associated database of medieval genealogy is a not an academic one, but rather one run by volunteers, and contributed to people who are not all historians by training, it is not considered an extremely strong source. (I think further study could be done to see whether the journal gets much citation, but OTOH, medieval genealogy is not necessarily a big academic subject to begin with. So I doubt much will be found. But to name an academic in this field: "Keats Rohan".)
  • The typical advice in such cases is that such sources are better than nothing, but caution should be exercized for anything unusual and surprising or controversial.
  • The information is largely collections of primary material. While this can certainly be useful in many editing contexts, especially if you also have secondary information to add to it, this is a disadvantage in the sense that we have no modern historian helping us understand how to interpret the old documents. This means that we should tend to attribute the raw data rather than take as clear and obvious "according to a medieval document from a Coucher Book of the Abbey of Furness...". Many old records are simple, but for any that are a bit complex, and really needing interpretation, caution should be exercized as usual with any primary material.
  • A useful thing about this source is that it provides reasonably clear referencing to primary sources. This can help people to find not only the primary sources, but also perhaps any stronger secondary sources. It is always going to be better to add secondary sources to any discussion using primary sources. (Medieval sources are not obvious and simple to interpret.) But remember WP:SAYWHEREYOUGOTIT, and also remember that deleting mention of primary sources is not required by WP:RS.--Andrew Lancaster (talk) 10:57, 30 October 2012 (UTC)
I think that's an excellent summary, Andrew. Andrew Dalby 12:42, 30 October 2012 (UTC)
I cannot believe this is being brought up again. Haven't editors better things to do than conduct witchhunts against GA articles. Mayhap work on improving all the pathetic little stubs that litter Wikipedia like drowned mushrooms. FFS, Wikipedia is cutting off one testicle to pander to the other.--Jeanne Boleyn (talk) 15:10, 30 October 2012 (UTC)

Thanks for that, very comprehensive. So from a practical point of view we should look for better sources first, if none are found and the statement is not deemed too controversial attribute it to Cawley (or to the source he is using) or for controversial statements possibly remove the source and information altogether. There of course will be differing opinions on what is considered too controversial, but that could be worked out on the talk page. AIRcorn (talk) 23:50, 30 October 2012 (UTC)

I do not think it is a reliable source. Also if any of the facts mentioned on the site have been overlooked by historians, then they are too unimportant to include, per WP:WEIGHT. We should not use primary sources without validation from secondary sources, because it is often a matter of judgment whether the person mentioned in the source is the same person as the subject of the article, i.e., it requires original research. TFD (talk) 00:23, 31 October 2012 (UTC)
Oh so we then remove information which is useful to readers just because some professor with a PhD hasn't given it his or her royal seal of approval. At this stage trying to write anything longer than a stub here is like attempting to fly a fighter jet on cat piss. And the train wreck rolls on.............--Jeanne Boleyn (talk) 06:43, 31 October 2012 (UTC)
TFD. Whether to have an article about an historical person is another subject. I would tend to agree that if we have an article and the notability of the subject is contended, that editors defending the existence of the article should be able to point to more than just primary sources. But I do not know if this is really a concern in any actual examples? My general remarks above assume that we have a valid article and someone is asking whether the named webpage can be used to give it more material. I think the answer will often be yes, but it depends on the case. I see no problem using primary sources in many types of article, and indeed focusing artificially on secondary comments could end up turning an article about a minor figure or event into a literature review about whatever fringe essayists have said about them. But we should really discuss practical examples.--Andrew Lancaster (talk) 06:59, 31 October 2012 (UTC)
You are welcome to leave our community if you find yourself unable to abide by the consensus. Fifelfoo (talk) 07:05, 31 October 2012 (UTC)
Who is this invitation directed at Fifelfoo? I see that for once your comments are refreshingly brief and you've spared us the lengthy drivel you are normally wont to post here.--Jeanne Boleyn (talk) 07:38, 31 October 2012 (UTC)
Thank you for not resorting to personal attacks. Fifelfoo (talk) 08:06, 31 October 2012 (UTC)
OT: Jeanne and Fifelfoo I am confident both of you have similar goals here, but just hitting the subject from different directions. It is of course very easy to get worried about the intentions of others, and very understandable. Of course we do not want "witch hunts" which delete material just because of anything unusual about a source, and of course we do not want editors just ignoring reliability of sources as an aim of all editing on this project.--Andrew Lancaster (talk) 11:37, 31 October 2012 (UTC)
I don't think notability of the whole article is a concern. If I am reading TFDs comment correctly I think they are saying that if the only source of information for a particular fact comes from these sources then they are not important enough to mention in the article. My current concern largely lies in making sure articles rated as Good are at the required standard. Any article, rated good or not, with sources tagged as unreliable deserves further investigation, not to be ignored (especially as these have been tagged as such for two years). So we can either decide here that the sources are reliable for the information they present and remove the tags or decide that they are not and look for replacements. I don't actually want to delist the article, otherwise I would have simple opened up a reassessment and be done with it. However, it would be much easier to sort this out if there was a bit more of a collaborative effort from the main authors. AIRcorn (talk) 01:51, 1 November 2012 (UTC)

There are seven sources which are attributed to Cawley published by either the Foundation for Medieval Genealogy or Medieval Lands (although one has no publishing details - something that needs to be fixed up as a minimum). They are used to support thirteen statements. Some of these have other citations that appear beside them, although whether they alone are enough to support everything cited will have to be investigated. I was hoping for some general advice on how to approach this, but if you want we can list individual cases here and work our way through them one-by-one. AIRcorn (talk) 01:51, 1 November 2012 (UTC)

Having a look at the 7 references it does seem that not all the tags are equally well justified or difficult to fix, so generalization beyond the above is not necessarily the highest priority. For example one points out concerns an incomplete citation which should certainly be improved. Another questions a basic fact about an historical figure with his own WP article that seems to have its own list of sources and seems to concur. In normal editing I would suggest that some talk page discussion is likely to be fruitful.
Sorry to go off topic a bit, but I just want to express a difficulty I have, because maybe others share it and someone can help me find the right approach. I personally find discussions about what is RS for a GA article often get a bit distracting/difficult on this noticeboard, because there is no RS policy especially for GA articles. As a result, our standard of reference often tends to become a bit unclear in practice.
  • If the standard is simply the normal RS policy then the implication of questioning the RS status of a source is that a source is unacceptable in a simple and general way, which I think would be a controversial call in this case, as explained above.
  • If the question is "can the sourcing be improved" then obviously it nearly always can.
Of course in theory GA judging uses the normal policies as a reference point, but in reality, (at least the way it seems to me) the GA process is something quite separable from normal WP editing, and in practice often working according to different aims. In this particular case, for example, I guess it would imply that we should be more critical of tags themselves, and not only sources. From the point of view of normal editing I would not normally think it a good idea to delete either those tags (at least some of them) or the sources they question. From the point of view of judging this article as GA or not, it is perhaps more of a dilemma. --Andrew Lancaster (talk) 09:32, 1 November 2012 (UTC)
The application of the Good article criteria is a bit subjective and reviewers will interpret the criteria slightly differently. According to the criteria references are only needed for "direct quotations, statistics, published opinion, counter-intuitive or controversial statements that are challenged or likely to be challenged, and contentious material relating to living persons". The "likely to be challenged" part allows a lot of leeway to the reviewer to ask for references. However, one of the criteria is also that there should be no valid maintenance tags. As not all tags are valid to the criteria this can be a little contradictory (tagged deadlinks is one I usually ignore when cleaning up articles). From reading the above there could be an argument made in this case that the sources themselves don't strictly fall foul of the GA criteria, but the presence of the tags themselves may. AIRcorn (talk) 22:05, 1 November 2012 (UTC)
[Edit conflict:] As you can see, this source raises emotions on both sides. It is a great resource for beginning articles, especially on medieval women and on other family members whose notability has in the past slipped under the radar of historians. There are very many such people, and because Wikipedia isn't paper we can begin such articles and watch them develop from there. I would strongly disagree with anyone who argues we shouldn't, and I could cite many cases of articles begun in that way that have blossomed.
I'd say that by the time an article reaches "good" or "featured" it should be citing other sources (including the ones that Cawley cites) and the reference to Cawley should be in the external links. There may be exceptions, and there may be cases where Cawley's opinion on an issue needs to be mentioned in the notes, but that would be my general rule of thumb. Andrew Dalby 09:38, 1 November 2012 (UTC)
Now commenting on one of Andrew Lancaster's points: the tagging issue is crucial because references to Cawley's work have been unified by a bot and they all carry a tag. It took me some weeks of dogged argument to change the tag [to "better source needed"] and make the change stick, and even the revised tag makes it unlikely (I suspect) that an article referring to Cawley would pass GA. One can see why Jeanne, in an earlier discussion, called this a "crusade", though to the bot owner I guess it was just a bit of tidying up. The whole painful business certainly put me off working on en:wiki (but I can just go back to Vicipaedia and lick my wounds).
Looking again at Sibyl de Neufmarché, however, I see that the "self-published source" tags are separate from the precise (or not-precise-enough) references to Medlands pages. The "self-published source" tags can be removed. An earlier discussion here concluded, touch wood, that this is not a self-published source. That might help slightly! Andrew Dalby 10:07, 1 November 2012 (UTC)
Yes and after looking at it just VERY quickly the article sourcing can easily be improved by anyone worried about high standards, and if everyone working according to WP:FIXTHEPROBLEM then this discussion would seem a little silly. I will prepare some notes on it, but it does not take long to confirm that whoever added the Cawley references did improve Wikipedia.--Andrew Lancaster (talk) 10:03, 1 November 2012 (UTC)
I would like to get the article to a stage where the tags are not needed. I agree about the self published tags and will remove them. AIRcorn (talk) 22:05, 1 November 2012 (UTC)
@Andrew Dalby. I think the only way to be certain if an article with tagged sources should pass GA is to open a discussion there. I think most would say no. However my understanding was that a sources reliability depends on the information it cites and how it is presented. For example an official blog could be used as long as it is attributed to the author. Would this problem go away if we just attributed these sources to Cawley? I don't have time right now to look at the examples below (I will hopefully get to them tonight). Thanks both of you for all your advice. AIRcorn (talk) 22:18, 1 November 2012 (UTC)

Just found Wikipedia:Reliable sources/Noticeboard/Archive 131#Medieval Lands by Charles Cawley (2). It appears I have inadvertently stepped into a hornets nest here. It explains some of the antagonism above and the not this again response that initially confused me. To be honest, I am seriously thinking that opening up a community reassessment for this article is the best approach. It should at least give an answer as to the GA suitability of articles with similar sourcing issues. AIRcorn (talk) 01:57, 2 November 2012 (UTC)

Your proposed action just proves that it really is a waste of time working one's backside off to get an article up to GA or FA. This is sure one hell of a smart move to attract new editors to the project. Wikipedia keeps shooting itself over and over in the balls.--Jeanne Boleyn (talk) 07:07, 3 November 2012 (UTC)
Quit the hyperbole why don't you. I have no intention of working with you to fix this article. I have got other GAs to witchhunt improve you know. See you at the reassessment. AIRcorn (talk) 07:43, 3 November 2012 (UTC)
Hyperbole? I see Aircorn has got the dictionary out and taken a "hardman" stance as well. Well, I am suitably cowed and accordingly reduced to a quivering wreck but may I ask just one question before I'm taken before the Inquisition? Isn't Wikipedia supposed to be a team effort?--Jeanne Boleyn (talk) 15:00, 3 November 2012 (UTC)
@Jeanne, I might be missing something but see nothing in Aircorn's posts here or on the article talkpage which is taking a strong position one way or the other. Aircorn saw tags, and then asked what they were for. Aircorn is correct that the fact that these tags have been posted around WP is at least a sign of "something" not going right.
@Aircorn, I think that in terms of asking for more community discussion on this subject it would be good to define what the discussion would be about. To me, the main issue you have hit is coming from the use of bots or some sort of automatic rule in order to post tags in a general way (not looking at the contexts at all) against one source, which, as you have seen, is to say the least not the type of source that would normally be given any sort of general ban or black listing, if it were ever discussed properly. Generally speaking RS policy, and this noticeboard's policy, is that determining good sourcing requires looking at the exact case. There is a clear community consensus on that. General clean ups which do not look at each edit are rare, and are only initiated only after there is a clear consensus that there is a general problem, and even then such clean ups normally require a lot of work, not just a bot. That does sometimes happen for good reasons, for example when we get one bad editor posting something from their favorite pamphlet all over the place, or whatever. That did not happen in this case. And it is also not a case were we have one or two bad editors posting something on some mission. Instead we see this source is being widely used by experienced editors in a variety of contexts.
What do I suggest? I am guided by the aim of being practical, and of trying to make sure edits always improve WP, even if incrementally. I have also shown below how using this source can be to the great benefit of WP even for people with the strictest standards, aiming at GA standards for example, by detailing the sourcing a bit more and adding to this source with supporting sources - something which it helps us do very well. (It is in fact in my opinion a great source. No one has seriously been able to give any reason to think otherwise. All complaints have been in terms of formalities such as the qualifications of the editor. I have to say I doubt there is any better source for this type of thing.) Also, for those who think the source should only be plundered and then not mentioned, deliberately and knowingly, this would normally be WP:Plagiarism and a violation of the guideline to WP:saywhereyougotit. Practical: I think in all or most cases reading the source and adding a bit more sourcing can resolve any serious doubts of WP editors whose main interest is improving WP. I think trying to start a community discussion is not likely to give a much clearer proposal than that? --Andrew Lancaster (talk) 15:32, 3 November 2012 (UTC)
What I have been doing for the last few weeks is going through Good articles with various clean up tags on them. Sibyl de Neufmarché can be found as the oldest one under accuracy disputes (Agnes von Mansfeld-Eisleben and Gebhard Truchsess von Waldburg are remarkably similar - citing different websites - although they have only been tagged for a few months). My general protocol has been to remove or fix the tags if I can, leave a note on the talk page or open a reassessment if the articles are very bad or if no one responds to the talk page request. Apart from here and another editor currently facing a community ban, the rest have at least been receptive to the issues.
I don't really want anything more to do with this article, but would be interested in fixing up some of the other ones. To be honest I still don't really know what to do from a GA point of view. While I know you don't wish to generalise, it might be helpful to give suggestions using the current article. That way I can use my own judgement on similar articles, only coming back here if necessary. This is my understanding (using examples from Sibyl de Neufmarché):
  1. If we can link to a primary source we should, as long as we say where we got it from (cite 34)
  2. If there is a secondary source that supports the statement we can either leave up the unreliable one as well, remove it, or put it in the external links. Would depend on what extra, if any, information it provides (most instances of cite 15)
  3. If it is the only source of information then it can be used provided it is marked as needing better sources. (the last two 41 & 42)
Do we only really need the tags for the third instance? I think I might start a discussion at WT:GAN focused more on the general question; if articles with "better source needed" tags can be considered Good? AIRcorn (talk) 06:24, 5 November 2012 (UTC)
The direction of your thinking sounds reasonable to me. Let me make an attempt in the same spirit. But this is specific to Cawley's website, because I have not looked at the others you mention. I know there are a lot of websites around which are really more classic cases of what I would call self-publication.
  • The links to Cawley should be completed properly. In many cases they are incomplete, making it harder to verify.
  • Sources cited by Cawley will generally be a good thing to ADD to the Cawley citation. (Perhaps we can use a format of citation which mentions "cited in" or "Cawley, citing...")
  • Where verification fails, which is what has basically happened in 41 and 42, because unless I am wrong Cawley and his named sources do not say what our article says, then indeed it is recommended to try to find better sourcing. (But I think that in both those cases what needs to be sourced is going to be easy to source. So perhaps the intention of the original editor was to add further reading also, which future editors might be able to work with?)
Concerning your second point I do not really see an easy general rule. You are talking about cases where several sources support each other. Technically you can be minimalist and go to whichever is the best single source, as long as it says exactly what it should say, and is a very strong source no one will complain about, but practically this is not always a good idea.--Andrew Lancaster (talk) 10:00, 5 November 2012 (UTC)

going through the examples

Maybe this should be copied to the article talk page, but for more general interest here are some notes about the 7 uses of this source on the article mentioned:-

1. Note b says that Richard Fitz Pons was brother-in-law of Miles FitzWalter de Gloucester, being the husband of his sister, Matilda. It references Charles Cawley, Medieval Lands, English earls 1067-112. But the English earls link is not included and is here: http://fmg.ac/Projects/MedLands/ENGLISH%20NOBILITY%20MEDIEVAL.htm#_Toc321390470 . Note that specifically it is in the section concerning the Earls of Hereford. The relevant passage about Mathilda gives as its source

  • Ancient Charters (Round), Part I, pp. 21-2, citing Cotton Charter, XI, 60, and Regesta Regem Anglo-Normannorum (1956), Vol. II, Appendix, CXXXIV, p. 341.

2. Footnote 15 refers to the same Cawley URL and is actually a footnote for 5 places in the article. The sentences in our article which link to this:-

(1.) "the outcome of Nest's declaration was that Sibyl (whom Nest acknowledged as Bernard's child) became the sole lawful heiress to the vast lordship of Brecon, one of the most important and substantial fiefs in the Welsh Marches"
(2.) "Henry's maritagium referred specifically to Sibyl's parents' lands as "comprising Talgarth, the forest of Ystradwy, the castle of Hay, the whole land of Brecknock, up to the boundaries of the land of Richard Fitz Pons,[b] namely up to Brecon and Much Cowarne, a vill in England"; the fees and services of several named individuals were also granted as part of the dowry."
(3.) Sometime in April or May 1121, Sibyl married Miles (or Milo) FitzWalter de Gloucester, Sheriff of Gloucester and Constable of England.
(4.) The listing of Sibyl's 8 children. This listing also shows other sourcing for the first 3 children and 7 of these children have their own WP articles.
(5.) In about 1136, Stephen granted Sibyl's husband the entire honour of Gloucester and Brecknock; afterward appointing him Constable of England, whereby Miles became known as one of Stephen's "henchmen".

The first three above are about Sybil's inheritance and marriage. Cawley cites these sources for this:

  • Dugdale Monasticon III, Brecknock Priory I, Quædam de Loco, et Dominis eius Historica, p. 263.
  • Dugdale Monasticon IV, Priory of Bergavenny or Abergavenny in Monmouthshire, Cartæ I, p. 615.
  • Ancient Charters (Round), Part I, 6, p. 8.
  • Dugdale Monasticon VI, Lanthony Abbey, Gloucestershire, III, p. 136.
  • Collectanea Topographica et Genealogica, Vol. I (1834), XX, p. 168.

These same sentences are also already backed up in our article by two other sources, currently 13, 14 and 16. These back up Cawley but Cawley gives a reader a more complete list of primary sources. I think that is something we do not want to delete.

Concerning the listing of children, 2 have other sources already attached in order to back Cawley up, (footnote 26 cites Cawley again, see below 3.) and 7 have their own Wikipedia article. NOTE: I am not going to list all the dozens of sources given for these children, just for practical reasons. There are all here: http://fmg.ac/Projects/MedLands/ENGLISH%20NOBILITY%20MEDIEVAL.htm#_Toc321390470

The last use of footnote 15 is also backed up by another source already, although once again Cawley gives a much more complete biography of the true sources. NOTE: but I see no source for the word "henchmen".

3. Footnote 26 is an incompletely finished reference to Cawley, but in a section (the listing of children) which already cites him. It appears to be intended to be a citation for "Walter [of Hereford, so on Sybil] departed for Palestine on Michaelmas 1159,[26] and died shortly afterwards without leaving legitimate issue.". Cawley gives a citation for this to Keats-Rohan Domesday Descendants, p. 512. Keats-Rohan is probably the strongest source we could ask for in modern academic medieval genealogy. But the bigger listing of information by Cawley adds a lot of colour not yet reflected in our article.

4. Footnote 32. Used to source "Sometime after 1137, Sibyl, together with her husband, made a further endowment to Llanthony Secunda." It cites Wales Lords of Brecknock, October 2010 {{citation}}: Cite has empty unknown parameter: |1= (help). Cawley in turn cites

  • Dugdale Monasticon VI, Lanthony Abbey, Gloucestershire, III, p. 136.

But once again Cawley gives interested readers a lot more information and other sources.

5. Footnote 34. Used to source "Matilda [the Empress] gave her permission for the transfer" of "the honour of Abergavenny from Brien FitzCount, the (likely illegitimate) son of Duke Alan IV of Brittany". The URL should be added, which would be http://fmg.ac/Projects/MedLands/BRITTANY.htm#_Toc284059583 . However I do not immediately see the right information there. Perhaps better is the Hereford URL again where Cawley gives the following sources:

  • CP VI 453. (Concerning Mathilda's grant to Miles.)
  • CP I 20. But Cawley notes of this source that "it is said that the relationship between Brien FitzCount, or his wife, and Earl Miles (if any) has not been proved."

Note that according to Cawley's Bibliography, CP stands for

  • The Complete Peerage (Cokayne, G. E. revised and edited White, G. H. (1959) The Complete Peerage of England, Scotland, Ireland, Great Britain and the United Kingdom, extant, extinct and dormant by G. E. C, revised edition 1910-59, Vols. I to XIII (microprint edition, Alan Sutton, 1982)

6. Footnote 41. Used to source "Eleanor and Humphrey's son, Humphrey de Bohun, succeeded his grandfather to the titles in 1275" This Humphrey has his own Wikipedia article with its own sourcing. The URL given is http://fmg.ac/Projects/MedLands/ENGLISH%20NOBILITY%20MEDIEVAL.htm#HumphreyBohunHereforddied1298A. What Cawley supplies here is a record that Humphrey was indeed heir to these titles in 1266/67, but apparently he was too young to take up the titles at that time. Reference he gives is a primary document:

  • Inquisitions Post Mortem, Vol. I, Henry III, 654, p. 205.

I would suggest looking to Humphrey's own article for a source for 1275, but I see no big reason to remove reference to the further information in Cawley.

7. Footnote 42. Used to source "By way of Edward's daughter, Elizabeth of York, every monarch of England and, subsequently, the United Kingdom, from Henry VIII up to and including Elizabeth II, descended in a direct line from Sibyl de Neufmarché, as did the various royal sovereigns of Europe who shared a common descent from Mary, Queen of Scots." The URL given is http://fmg.ac/Projects/MedLands/ENGLAND,%20Kings%201066-1603.htm

Maybe a more exact URL would be http://fmg.ac/Projects/MedLands/ENGLAND,%20Kings%201066-1603.htm#_Toc321390528

The basic point being made here is about Elizabeth of York, a member of the royal family. Elizabeth married Henry VII of England, the founder of the Tudor dynasty. Often such information is not even sourced, because it is widely known, uncontroversial, and easy to check if anyone has a concern.

Overall the sourcing seems good. Simple improvements should be made, but deleting a source which gives readers more leads would not seem to be a way of improving WP?--Andrew Lancaster (talk) 11:16, 1 November 2012 (UTC)

I am going to take the initiative and copy this to the talk page like you suggested. That way it will not be lost in the archives and if the tags are kept it can be used as a basis to keep the article as Good. This is much more detail than I was expecting and I want to thank you again for taking the time to look into this. AIRcorn (talk) 01:23, 2 November 2012 (UTC)
Yes thank you Andrew for going to all the trouble to read and post the sources.--Jeanne Boleyn (talk) 06:47, 2 November 2012 (UTC)
  1. ^ Anonymous, "Behind the Veil", @4:00
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