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Please consider whether the NYT article should have its Epstein coverage demoted to "reliable but not independent" based on some or all of the following points is sufficient sourcing for the claim highlighted in point #5. (Striking original request per Newslinger’s comment). petrarchan47คุก 00:15, 5 October 2019 (UTC)

^_Bold 185.156.72.9 (talk) 06:44, 23 January 2023 (UTC)

^_Bold 185.156.72.9 (talk) 06:47, 23 January 2023 (UTC)

^_Bold 185.156.72.9 (talk) 07:55, 23 January 2023 (UTC)

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1) NPR calls out NYT for dropping the ball on Epstein coverage

NPR describes how 3 media outlets whitewashed Epstein coverage for various reasons. One of them was the New York Times: How the media fell short on Epstein

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2) Current NYT CEO Mark Thompson & the BBC pedophile scandal and alleged coverup

• Telegraph Nick Pollard, former head of Sky News and lead investigator into the Savile inquiry claimed that former BBC boss Mark Thompson lied over Savile evidence"

• Vanity Fair examines Thompson's role and seemingly conflicting statements Vanity Fair

• "Thompson is now attempting to reconcile two apparently contradictory statements over what he knew about a TV report into Savile by the BBC's Newsnight programme." Guardian

• Thompson confronted about his contradicting statements about what he knew, stumbles through interview Channel 14

• Front Page Mag concludes in Mark Thompson: From Pedophile Cover-Up to the New York Times: "As long as Mark Thompson holds the Old Gray Lady’s reins all the news that’s fit to print may not include exposing elite pedophile rings. It didn’t at BBC under Thompson’s leadership and there is no reason to believe this has changed."

• Background on the scandal:

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3) Joi Ito - NYT BOD (2012-2019)

MIT Media Lab director Joi Ito and colleagues concealed Epstein donations and affiliation with the program. Ito knew Epstein donations were disallowed and created a coverup at MIT of the source and amount of donations. He also sought Epstein donations of $1.7 million for personal projects. Ito stepped down (but was not fired) from the NYT board of directors, as well as several other boards and the MIT Media Lab, on the heels of the New Yorker piece.

• a good summary of the controversy for those unfamiliar

• bombshell New Yorker report that led to Ito's resignation

Apparently the NYT had the scoop but sat on it. WaPost: "Before Ito’s resignations, prominent women in the media world such as Xeni Jardin had spoken out on social media against his ties to Epstein"

Xeni: "I told the [New York Times] everything. So did whistleblowers I was in touch with inside MIT and Edge. They printed none of the most damning truths..."

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4) Soft, almost romantic description of Epstein's abuse:

• New York Times summary of the complaint by Jane Doe 1: "the massages quickly became sexual"

Compare with other media:

• WSJ "repeated rapes and assaults"

• CNN "pressured into giving him massages that transitioned into sexual abuse"

• CBS "sexual battery and sexual assault"

• VICE "The massages ...turned into several instances of sexual assault"

___

5) Possibly inaccurate coverage of Epstein-related court documents

Two thousand pages of previously sealed court documents were released the night before Epstein was declared dead. The New York Times makes a claim that no one else (except Alan Dershowitz and Ghislaine Maxwell) has, a claim now mirrored in our Jeffrey Epstein article:

NYT "The documents unsealed Friday also include an acknowledgment from one of Mr. Epstein’s accusers, Virginia Giuffre, that an earlier claim she made about Mr. Clinton visiting Mr. Epstein in the Caribbean was untrue."

Wikipedia: "The unsealed court documents also showed that Giuffre later acknowledged her previous claim about Clinton visiting the island was false."

The claim was made midway through a fluff piece about Trump-fueled conspiracy theories involving Bill Clinton. Besides this brief mention, the NYT has not reported on the documents. WP editors have taken its statement to mean that Guiffre admitted Clinton was not on the island, contrary to her earlier testimony. They have decided that because it was printed in the Times, it must be true, and lack of corroborating reports, and the presence of contradictory reports, are seen as irrelevant because the NYT is considered to be reliable.

• Law and Crime reported on the documents: Underage girls present when Bill Clinton visited Jeffrey Epstein's island

In transcripts of Giuffre’s deposition released by the court Friday, Bill Clinton‘s relationship with Epstein is expounded upon. Giuffre alleges that Clinton was around when she was with Epstein on his island. Giuffre claims that she “flew to the Caribbean” with Epstein when she was 17, and that while she was there, Maxwell bragged that she picked Clinton up in a "black helicopter that Jeffrey [Epstein] bought her". Giuffre further says that she had spent time with Clinton and that while his secret service agents were there, they weren’t "where [everyone] was eating." ... While the details of the alleged helicopter trip were, thus, unclear, Giuffre’s other statements in the deposition, if true, confirm Bill Clinton was on Jeffrey Epstein’s island while underage girls were present. This runs contradictory to Clinton’s claims that he has never been to Jeffrey Epstein’s private island.

The documents say Guiffre was directed to have sex with former New Mexico governor Bill Richardson, among other powerful men. NYT mentions this nowhere in its reporting. Those who do cover the Richardson allegations include but are not limited to:

vice, Reuters, wapo, vanity fair, daily beast, cnbc, nbc, Rolling Stone, cbs, NY Mag, Bloomberg, Wapo.

Most media did not mention Clinton at all; I've included the text from those that did because it shows how vastly different the NYT report is from all other accounts. No other media mentions any lie or misstatement whatsoever from Guiffre in their coverage:

Thanks for your help. petrarchan47คุก 22:25, 3 October 2019 (UTC)

I've read this several times and frankly I'm a little flummoxed. The NYT is pretty ironclad as far as RS go, it's one of the most respected and trusted papers in the world. Are you really trying to argue that it's somehow not "independent" in covering Epstein (ie, that it's somehow pro-Epstein?) That's a pretty bold claim to make and not one that is particularly well at all supported by what you've linked here. And I'm pretty uncomfortable with what you seem to be implying about Thompson... Fyddlestix (talk) 03:45, 4 October 2019 (UTC)

I'm absolutely not making implications here, I'm providing data points with varying degrees of relevance. Thompson's move to the NYT was very controversial, even by fellow NYT employees: N.Y. Times Columnist Questions New Boss' Handling of Pedophilia Scandal. petrarchan47คุก 15:19, 5 October 2019 (UTC)

Also, what edits/articles is this even about? There's no point debating the NYT's reliability/independence on this story in a vacuum, what specific content is at issue here? Fyddlestix (talk) 03:48, 4 October 2019 (UTC)

I believe this is about whether the New York Times is a reliable source for a statement about Virginia Guiffre retracting a statement about Bill Clinton visiting Epstein's island. The statement in the article is "The unsealed court documents also showed that Giuffre later acknowledged her previous claim about Clinton visiting the island was false." which is cited to a New York Times article which includes the statement "The documents unsealed Friday also include an acknowledgment from one of Mr. Epstein’s accusers, Virginia Giuffre, that an earlier claim she made about Mr. Clinton visiting Mr. Epstein in the Caribbean was untrue.". At the risk of seeming like I am not assuming good faith, I think it is important to point out that previous attempts by Petrarchan to remove this statement from the article include attempting to contradict the Times' reporting with both semantics and original research ("'an earlier claim she made about' could mean anything. Maybe she claimed he had a striped shirt on at the island, but later remembered it was a Hawaiian shirt. You should be able to find this admission of a lie in the documents by using the word search option. If indeed you find it, I will make a donation to the NYT for their fantastic reporting. Because apparently they're the only ones to uncover this, which strikes me as odd."). I see this as little more than a further attempt to discredit what is undoubtedly a reliable source, and am wholly unswayed by the "evidence" being presented. AmbivalentUnequivocality (talk) 04:23, 4 October 2019 (UTC)

• Looks like a raving conspiracy theory to me - and Wikipedia editors need to be very careful about saying people are "linked to" a pedophile scandal and spinning implications about that. Might need a BLP-savvy admin to look at this posting. Alexbrn (talk) 04:31, 4 October 2019 (UTC)

I was hoping for a BLP-savvy admin (or editors) as well. I was thinking Slim Virgin might be of some help. I've changed "linked to" to "&" because I didn't mean to go beyond what sources say, and "linked" is probably too strong, as you say. petrarchan47คุก 23:31, 4 October 2019 (UTC)

• Caution, none of them are infallible. ^Atsme _Talk 📧 06:28, 4 October 2019 (UTC)

If, but and maybe, speculation should never really be RS, when its this speculative.Slatersteven (talk) 08:49, 4 October 2019 (UTC)

• "Falling short" isn't the same as "not reliable." The NYT isn't infallible (no source is), but if you want to cast its reporting into doubt or keep it out of the article, you need a source contradicting it directly on that particular point, not a source bemoaning its coverage of the topic in general. Even with such a source, I'm skeptical that you could exclude a major, relevant statement in an article by the NYT - at best you can say "the NYT said X, while [other source] disagreed" or some similar construction making the disagreement between sources clear. That is to say, the Times is such a widely-read and high-quality source that when they get something wrong, that itself usually becomes part of the story that we need to cover. But even then you'd need the disagreement to be direct and obvious to avoid WP:SYNTH - you can't just say "the NYT said [specific thing X], but their general coverage of the topic was questioned by Y." Also, as an aside, I'm fairly sure Front Page Mag doesn't pass WP:RS, so you're not helping yourself by citing it disagreeing with the NYT (of all sources.) --Aquillion (talk) 16:24, 4 October 2019 (UTC)

You might want to read this. I'd say Columbia Journalism Review is a pretty decent source about reliability, wouldn't you? ^Atsme _Talk 📧 16:39, 4 October 2019 (UTC)

Oh, I'm very aware of that (no source is perfectly 'neutral', either.) But that says that the NYT's bias (from the perspective of the left) is largely one of focus and emphasis - none of the stories there are described as wrong or even individually misleading; and even when the overall focus gives the wrong impression it's not intentionally misleading its leaders the way some other sources might - that piece is pretty clear that the problem, from the author's perspective, is that the Times genuinely sees the world through the lens they use to report things. It's just that the NYT's particular perspective (which has, as it says, always been a thing - and is always a thing for any source) is becoming more obvious and attracting more commentary because there's fewer readers who share it. That doesn't make the NYT unreliable for a simple statement of fact like this, and (for the better or worse) it doesn't yet change the fact that the NYT is the paper of record. --Aquillion (talk) 21:01, 5 October 2019 (UTC)

But what is the NYT actually saying? If you look at Newslinger's comment, you'll see our interpretation doesn't have support in the source material. Also, WP:CONTEXTMATTERS Information provided in passing by an otherwise reliable source that is not related to the principal topics of the publication may not be reliable; editors should cite sources focused on the topic at hand where possible. If I'm reading this right, an article about the documents and their contents would be preferable to this one from the NYT that is focused on conspiracy theories and mentions the documents only in passing. petrarchan47คุก 23:50, 4 October 2019 (UTC)

• An examination of the five points listed above:
  1. The NPR story states that The New York Times editors "benched [correspondent Landon Thomas Jr.] instantly from any professional contact with Epstein" when they discovered his conflict of interest, and then "By early January 2019, Thomas was gone from the Times". The NPR piece condemns only the correspondent (Landon Thomas Jr.), but not the NYT as a whole. I would exercise caution when using Thomas's coverage of Epstein (e.g. his 2008 profile of Epstein) in any source, not just the NYT. The NYT's rapid removal of Thomas is a positive indicator of its reputation.
  2. The Jimmy Savile sexual abuse scandal has nothing to do with Epstein. Mark Thompson is not even mentioned in the Jimmy Savile sexual abuse scandal article, although I see that Mark Thompson (media executive) § Jimmy Savile sexual abuse scandal states that "Thompson departed the BBC before public exposure of the Jimmy Savile sexual abuse scandal and is not noted in the BBC chronology of the unfolding coverage". A short mention of Thompson's media responses might be warranted in the Jimmy Savile sexual abuse scandal article if due, but this scandal involves the BBC personality Jimmy Savile, and is unrelated to the NYT's coverage of Epstein.
  3. The NYT's coverage of Joi Ito is non-independent and should be attributed in-text, as Ito is a former board member of The New York Times Company. Because Ito was removed on September 7 after his conflict of interest was revealed, NYT's coverage of Epstein (outside of his interactions with Ito and the MIT Media Lab) after this date is unaffected. Coverage before this date falls into a gray area. Since the main concern is that the NYT may have resisted reporting some of the allegations against Epstein while Ito was a board member, editors should seek to supplement NYT coverage on Epstein with coverage from other reliable sources to ensure that all available information from reliable sources is considered.
  4. The NYT article also used the subheadline "The woman said her life was permanently scarred by the sexual abuse that started when she was 14." Your quote, "the massages quickly became sexual", does not exist in the article. The actual quote was "That first massage quickly turned sexual", and the next paragraph elaborated that 'she returned to Mr. Epstein’s home “countless times” until she was 17, with the visits becoming more frequent and the abuse becoming more severe.' The NYT's coverage here is in line with the descriptions from other reliable sources.
  5. I traced the NYT claim to pages 1910–1917 of the Epstein documents (387MB PDF version; linked from the article):

 7 Q Okay. You have mentioned a journalist by
 8   the name of Sharon Churcher.
 9 A Yes.
10 Q You are aware that Sharon Churcher
11   published news stories about you?
12 A Yes.
13   MS. MCCAWLEY: Objection.
14   Go ahead.
15 Q (BY MS. MENNINGER) Is anything that you
16   have read in Sharon Churcher's news stories about you
17   untrue?
18 A I think Sharon did print some things that
19   I think she elaborated or maybe misheard. But, I
20   mean, if you have a specific document to show me, I'd
21   love to look at it and read it and tell you what I
22   think.
23 Q Is there anything, as you sit here today,
24   that you know of that Sharon Churcher printed about
25   you that is not true?
 1 A Not off the top of my head. If you show
 2   me, like, a news clipping article or something, I can
 3   definitely read it for you.
 4 Q Is there anything that you know of that
 5   Sharon Churcher has printed about Ghislaine Maxwell
 6   that is not true?
 7 A No, not off -- no, not off the top of my
 8   head.
 9 Q Is there anything that you recall saying
10   to Sharon Churcher that she then printed something
11   different than what you had said to her?
12 A Yeah, I've read stuff. I mean, I just --
13   I can't remember what, but I read something that I
14   think was, Oh, she got that wrong. I can't remember
15   an exact example off the top of my head.
16 Q Did you ever complain to Sharon Churcher
17   about things that she got wrong?
18 A I didn't see a point. I might have, but
19   I -- I didn't see a point really because it's already
20   printed, you know.
21 Q You had a fairly voluminous set of
22   communications with Sharon Churcher by e-mail,
23   correct?
24   MS. MCCAWLEY: Objection.
25 A Voluminous, like a lot of them?
 1 Q (BY MS. MENNINGER) Yes.
 2 A Yes.
 3 Q And during any of those communications, do
 4   you know whether she printed things about you after
 5   you had any of those communications?
 6   MS. MCCAWLEY: Objection.
 7 A I don't know. I know a lot of stuff was
 8   printed, and I never really stopped to read who
 9   printed the article, or wrote the article, I should
10   say. Sorry.
11 Q (BY MS. MENNINGER) Okay. I'll show you
12   Defendant's Exhibit 7.
13   (Exhibit 7 marked.)
14   THE DEPONENT: Thank you.
15 Q (BY MS. MENNINGER) I'll let you read
16   through the statements on the first page there, and
17   if there is anything that is not absolutely true,
18   just put a check by it and we'll come back to it.
19 A It's not very clear how she wrote it. "I
20   flew to the Caribbean with Jeffrey and then Ghislaine
21   Maxwell went to pick up Bill in a huge black
22   helicopter that Jeffrey had bought her."
23   That wasn't an eyewitness statement.
24   Like, I didn't see her do it. Ghislaine was the one
25   who told me about that; that she's the one who flew
 1   Bill.
 2 Q All right. If you just want to put a
 3   check by it, then we'll just come back and talk about
 4   each one.
 5 A Okay.
 6 Q Just to move things along.
 7 A Okay. I have made three checkmarks.
 8 Q All right.
 9   MS. MCCAWLEY: And I just -- before you
10   continue, I just want to identify for the record,
11   since this doesn't have any identifiers on it, are
12   you representing that these are statements from
13   Sharon Churcher?
14   MS. MENNINGER: I'm not representing
15   anything. I'm asking the witness questions about
16   these statements. I asked her is anything on here
17   not true. That's all I asked her.
18 Q (BY MS. MENNINGER) So which ones did you
19   put checkmarks by, Ms. Giuffre?
20 A I'd have been -- I'm sorry. "I'd have
21   been about 17 at the time. I flew to the Caribbean
22   with Jeffrey and then Ghislaine Maxwell went to pick
23   up Bill in a huge black helicopter that Jeffrey had
24   bought her."
25 Q Okay. And what else did you put a check
 1   by?
 2 A "I used to get frightened flying with her
 3   but Bill had the Secret Service with him and I
 4   remember him talking about what a good job" --
 5   sorry -- "job she did."
 6 Q Okay. And what else did you put a check
 7   by?
 8 A "Donald Trump was also a good friend of
 9   Jeffrey's. He didn't partake in any sex with any of
10   us but he flirted with me. He'd laugh and tell
11   Jeffrey, 'you've got the life.'"
12 Q Other than the three you've just
13   mentioned --
14 A Yeah.
15 Q -- everything else on here is absolutely
16   accurate?
17   MS. MCCAWLEY: Objection.
18 A Yes. Well, to the best of my
19   recollection, yes.
20 Q (BY MS. MENNINGER) All right. What is
21   inaccurate about, "I'd have been about 17 at the
22   time. I flew to the Caribbean with Jeffrey and then
23   Ghislaine Maxwell went to pick up Bill in a huge
24   black helicopter that Jeffrey had bought her"?
25 A Because it makes it kind of sound like an
 1   eyewitness thing.
 2 Q Okay. Did you say that statement to
 3   Sharon Churcher?
 4 A I said to Sharon that Ghislaine told me
 5   that she flew Bill in the heli- -- the black
 6   helicopter that Jeffrey bought her, and I just wanted
 7   to clarify that I didn't actually see her do that. I
 8   heard from Ghislaine that she did that.
 9 Q You heard that from Ghislaine, and then
10   you reported to Sharon Churcher that you had heard
11   that from Ghislaine.
12 A Correct.
13   MS. MCCAWLEY: Objection.
14 A I heard a lot of things from Ghislaine
15   that sounded too true -- too outrageous to be true,
16   but you never knew what to believe, so...
17 Q (BY MS. MENNINGER) Okay. And after
18   Sharon Churcher printed what she said you said, did
19   you complain to her that it was inaccurate?
20 A I might have verbally with her, but again,
21   I didn't see a point in making a hissy over it
22   because what was done was done. She had already
23   printed.
24 Q What was inaccurate about, "I used to get
25   frightened flying with her but Bill" said -- "had the
 1   Secret Service with him and I remember him talking
 2   about what a good job she did"?
 3 A I just don't remember saying that to her.
 4   I don't remember saying I remember him talking about
 5   what a good job she did.
 6 Q All right.
 7 A I just don't remember that at all.
 8 Q Okay. And I guess, just to be clear, my
 9   questions wasn't do you remember saying this to
10   Sharon Churcher; my question is, is that statement
11   accurate?
12   MS. MCCAWLEY: Well, objection.
13 Q (BY MS. MENNINGER) Did you used to get
14   frightened flying with her?
15 A Yes.
16 Q Okay. Did Bill have the Secret Service
17   with him?
18 A They were there, but not like on the --
19   not where we were eating.
20 Q Do you remember Bill talking about what a
21   good job she did?
22 A I don't remember that.
23 Q So what is inaccurate about that
24   statement?
25 A I just -- it's inaccurate because I don't
 1   remember him talking about what a good job she did.
 2   I don't remember that.
 3 Q Does it inaccurately suggest that Bill had
 4   the Secret Service with him on a helicopter?
 5   MS. MCCAWLEY: Objection.
 6 A Well, not being an eyewitness to it, I
 7   wouldn't be able to tell you. I can't tell you what
 8   I don't know.
 9 Q (BY MS. MENNINGER) And do you believe you
10   said that statement to Sharon Churcher?
11 A I mean, Sharon and I talked a lot, and if
12   she misheard me or just wrote it in the way that she
13   thought she should, I have no control over that. So
14   I'm not too sure.
15 Q Did she record your interviews?
16 A Some of them. Some of them she didn't. I
17   mean, we, like -- we, like, met for like a week, and
18   we spent a lot of time together, and then even after
19   that we just continued, like, kind of a friendship.

I agree with you on all counts [EDIT 10/6: regarding point #5 (I did not mean to agree that there are no concerns with the other points)], and thank you for digging up the source material. Having read the section from the transcript, I still don't see how it can be interpreted as 'Guiffre admitted she never saw Clinton on the Island". It looks like they are quibbling over the helicopter aspect. Guiffre again states that he was there, with Secret Service. The wording from the Times isn't clear to me; they could be referring to Guiffre admitting she hadn't seen evidence that Clinton arrived on Maxwell's helicopter, but certainly there is no justification from the transcript for the claim we're making in WP's voice.

Extraordinary claims require extraordinary sourcing. To claim both that Clinton wasn't on the Island, and that Guiffre is known to make gross misstatements about incredibly powerful people, is a serious matter if not properly sourced. That is why I've taken issue with the whole thing. Guiffe has never been credibly accused of lying or making inaccurate statements. The FBI is preparing to interview Prince Andrew based on Guiffre's testimony and evidence (photographs, corroborating flight logs) alone. If she had been discredited in the way WP is now suggesting, we would have heard about it. It would impact much of the ongoing investigations and court cases, no? Alan Dershowitz is trying to get out of a defamation suit brought by Guiffre (one he invited only months ago), but in his defense he has never brought up the 'fact' that Guiffre has admitted to, essentially, lying about an ex President. He's brought up everything he can think of (Yes, I had a massage at Epstein's but I kept my underwear on and did not enjoy it*), but not that?

If Guiffre had admitted in the documents to lying about Clinton being on LSJ, why did no other media pick that up? Why did journalists who focused on the documents (unlike the NYT piece which focused on Trump and Clinton) actually reiterate that Clinton was said to have been on the Island?

As I've said at the talk page, I do think this statement sourced only the to NYT should be removed until corroborating sources can be found. (I'm not sure why this makes me the bad guy...)

Right now, WP is both calling Guiffre a liar, and exonerating Clinton based on this one single line from the NYT, a line which is either inaccurate or being misinterpreted by WP editors. The NYT has printed serious inaccuracies before, like the entire time they claimed WMD's existed, so this attitude that they are infallible strikes me as odd. petrarchan47คุก 23:31, 4 October 2019 (UTC)

You're right in that a single sentence from an NYT article ("The documents unsealed Friday also include an acknowledgment from one of Mr. Epstein’s accusers, Virginia Giuffre, that an earlier claim she made about Mr. Clinton visiting Mr. Epstein in the Caribbean was untrue.") is not enough to substantiate the exceptional claim that Giuffre made a false statement. I can't be certain that the NYT was wrong, since the NYT article doesn't specify which "earlier claim" Giuffre allegedly made, and because I only performed a text search on the Epstein documents instead of a thorough review of the entire 2024-page PDF. However, if I were a reporter, I would not accuse Giuffre of making a false statement based on the excerpt of the transcript I posted above, which is the most relevant portion of the documents I was able to find through a text search. — Newslinger talk 01:15, 5 October 2019 (UTC)

That was the only section in the transcripts I found to be relevant, also. The NYT says "a claim", indicating there were several. But it was actually the journalist who got the facts wrong, and the transcripts show Guiffre was merely correcting the record (about seeing the helicopter first hand vs hearing about it from Maxwell). Wikipedia changes it to "the claim", and has been calling Guiffre a liar for over a month. The NYT couches their statement in a paragraph about Clinton and the island, so even though they don't specify, they are guiding the reader surreptitiously, I believe, to read this as WP editors have done, contrary to the documents they cite. It is inconceivable that out of at least 20 media orgs that covered or mentioned the documents, the NYT were the only ones to discover this supposed admission by Guiffre. There are only two possibilities: NYT fact-checkers are incredibly inept, or this was an act of deceptive journalism. In either case, I don't see how this can be ignored going forward. This is fake news, and not inconsequential. The subjects could hardly be more famous and influential people. petrarchan47คุก 15:10, 5 October 2019 (UTC)

I wouldn't use the term fake news here since it takes more evidence to show deliberate disinformation than negligence (or just ambiguity), and I don't think the burden of proof for the former is met. There's not enough detail in that one sentence to be certain whether it is correct or incorrect. This case does illustrate that passing mentions in articles tend to be less reliable than claims that are substantiated with longer and more detailed explanations. (Perhaps WP:CONTEXTMATTERS could be expanded to include this principle.) I'll submit a correction to the NYT. If I get a response, I'll share it here (if the discussion is still open) and at Talk:Jeffrey Epstein. — Newslinger talk 17:17, 5 October 2019 (UTC)

You read my mind about writing to NYT. I so appreciate all your responses and the effort of contacting them. I trust we will be as discerning about them as we would say, Fox News, with regard to their response. I have followed this Epstein story extremely closely and can assure you that in those 2,000 pages, Guiffre is not found to admit to what NYT suggests. I cannot see the placement of their ambiguous statement as anything but a deliberate attempt to mislead. The entire paragraph is in defense of Clinton and about the Island. So we have really no choice but to assume that was the subject, however the sloppy wording gives them an out - "Oh we meant the detail about the helicopter, we just didn't think readers needed to know" - except for the fact that they got even that one detail wrong, it was the journalist and not Guiffre who misspoke.

One reason I think it's important to consider the bigger picture via points 1-4 is because of the attitude here in general towards the NYT, namely that they are somewhat saintly and infallible, and it's impossible to imagine they would purposefully mislead. However I've discovered that regarding Epstein coverage, in short, they hide or ignore damning evidence and facts (Xeni and whistleblower's Ito info, Richardson allegations), they report that which isn't true (point 5); they use softened language to describe child abuse as consensual (even once is too much, and placed at the beginning of the article means more readers are likely to see it); they were fine with Ito until he was outed; and it cannot be ignored that their current CEO was at the helm of the BBC during the entire Savile scandal when the BBC shelved an investigation into the pedophile and instead aired two Christmas specials celebrating him - this is a CEO who claimed not to know anything about any of it and has been credibly accused of making conflicting statements in his defense. petrarchan47คุก 02:26, 7 October 2019 (UTC)

• Newslinger, I believe, just wrote something similar to what I was going to note: the NYT discovered something wasn't right with one of their reporters and so they benched him. Good! I am not aware that anyone here is saying that the NYT or any other outlet is fallible. Moving right along. Drmies (talk) 23:38, 4 October 2019 (UTC)

  Yes, I don't think the NYT's general reliability is in question here (although I think you meant to say "infallible"). The motivation for this discussion appears to be a specific case where the NYT's coverage needs to be corroborated with additional reliable sources to support an exceptional claim. — Newslinger talk 01:15, 5 October 2019 (UTC)

• The NYT article is Michael Crowley, "Trump Shares Unfounded Fringe Theory About Epstein and Clintons", The New York Times, 10 August 2019: "The documents unsealed yesterday also include an acknowledgment from one of Mr. Epstein's accusers, Virginia Giuffre, that an earlier claim she made about Mr. Clinton visiting Mr. Epstein in the Caribbean was untrue." But which claim exactly? The Jeffrey Epstein article (permalink) cites this in support of: "The unsealed court documents also showed that Giuffre later acknowledged her previous claim about Clinton visiting the island was false." The WP article discusses "her previous claim" as though there was only one claim—that Clinton visited the island—and therefore that must be the claim that is false. I agree that we can't infer this from the NYT article, and their source contains over 2,000 pages. The NYT needs to introduce a "((page needed))" template. SarahSV ^(talk) 21:02, 5 October 2019 (UTC)

Seems like an easy fix to change "her previous claim" to either "a previous claim she made" or (although it nudges up against original research) "a previous claim attributed to her" (also I think discussions of content, other than for frame of reference, probably belong on the article's talk page, and not here where the focus is/should be about the reliability of NYT as a source) AmbivalentUnequivocality (talk) 06:01, 6 October 2019 (UTC)

Thank you, Sarah. I agree with the general sentiment here that without corroborating sources, this NYT mention of an ambiguous claim should not be in the article per:

• WP:CONTEXTMATTERS Information provided in passing by an otherwise reliable source that is not related to the principal topics of the publication may not be reliable; editors should cite sources focused on the topic at hand where possible.

• WP:EXTRAORDINARY Any exceptional claim requires multiple high-quality sources.

I'll remove the statement from the Epstein article until we can satify sourcing requirements. Calling Guiffre a liar in WP's voice is unacceptable and mustn't continue. petrarchan47คุก 02:26, 7 October 2019 (UTC)

I don't understand why you keep saying we can't call her a liar; by my reading, the (carefully-worded) line you object to does not do so. It says The unsealed court documents also showed that Giuffre later acknowledged her previous claim about Clinton visiting the island was false; a claim being false does not mean it was a lie, especially given that the context makes it very easy for Giuffre to have simply been mistaken. Furthermore, the statement that she was mistaken is not exceptional - numerous other sources in the article support that, eg. The Secret Service told Fox News in 2016 it had no record of agents being on the island. Giuffre claims Maxwell told her she flew Clinton to the island on her helicopter, although she conceded, "I heard a lot of things from Ghislaine that sounded too true – too outrageous to be true, but you never knew what to believe." Maxwell denied Guiffre's claim that Clinton visited the island. In fact, it is Giuffre's accusation that is WP:EXCEPTIONAL here. Furthermore, reporting such an exceptional claim about a living figure without covering exculpatory reporting in a high-quality WP:RS clearly violates WP:BLP. --Aquillion (talk) 02:56, 7 October 2019 (UTC)

She made a previous false claim - that is another way of saying she lied, as Newslinger notes as well (However, if I were a reporter, I would not accuse Giuffre of making a false statement). I'm sorry I have to disagree with you here on numerous points. Guiffre's claims are peppered throughout the Epstein article with no problems. It's only when it comes to Clinton that problems arise. Jimmy Wales had to come in and add the bit about the flight logs himself because editors kept whitewashing Clinton coverage. Guiffre's claims have not been considered a BLP issue heretofore and I don't see why Clinton becomes the exception. Guiffre's claims have RS to back them, but the reference to it being a false or mistaken claim DOES NOT, therefore we don't add the latter until it does. That does not justify removing all of it. The NYT piece was never RS for this statement, there is nothing to clear up. The guidelines are clear on this.

"The Secret Service told Fox News in 2016 it had no record of agents being on the island" does not mean Guiffre was wrong. These two claims can exist together - Guiffre says they were there, they say they have no record. Wikipedia records conflicting facts all the time, and properly cited, as out article has done, it's fine. If Clinton did arrive on a helicopter, there would be no flight logs; perhaps the SS doesn't record helicopter rides. I am only interested in recording what RS says, I'm not interested in determining the "truth" if that's not possible given the facts at hand. There are no claims in the article that support the notion Guiffre made serious mistakes in her account at any point. We have back and forth between the official stance of the SS, we have Maxwell claiming it's all false (but she is an accused so there is a COI issue). We also have official flight logs showing that actually Clinton's claims about how many flights he took are at odds with the truth.

I am going to restore all but the NYT piece since that is the only source that is problematic. No, it is not a BLP issue. Guiffre's claims are just that - they don't represent the official truth since they have not been in court, we are simply recording what is in RS.

Your demand at the Epstein page not to restore any of this until the NYT debacle is "cleared up" makes no sense. It was never a proper source for this to begin with, and there is no question posed to them to clear up, there is simply a note for them to make a correction since their claim has no support. We aren't going to await around to hear from them. You can't make up rules, or create ultimatums as amorphous as this. Once you find proper RS to refute or further explain, we will add it immediately. petrarchan47คุก 19:12, 9 October 2019 (UTC)

• Another RS which directly contradicts the NYT: But she did not refute other details of the Daily Mail story, including that Epstein hosted a dinner on his Caribbean island for President Bill Clinton shortly after Clinton left office.*. petrarchan47คุก 20:26, 9 October 2019 (UTC)

NYT has not responded - Compromise

The NYT may not respond at all, so Aquillion's decision to remove the details about Clinton until the NYT responds is untenable. He is insisting that the NYT piece must be mentioned if the claim about Clinton and the island is mentioned. I compromised with the following:

In court documents unsealed August 9, 2019, one night before Epstein was found dead, Virginia Guiffre claims to have seen Clinton on Little Saint James where she said Epstein threw a party for the former president. FORBES Guiffre noted also that Ghisllaine Maxwell told her she and Clinton flew in a "huge black helicopter." TIME The New York Times reported that in the documents, Guiffre admits she was wrong about a claim she made regarding Clinton, but they did not specify which claim.NYT

This edit was reverted by Soiblanga who states that there is no ambiguity in the NYT statement, contrary to what Newslinger and Slim Virgin state above. He also states that Guiffre's claim "has been exhaustively debunked".

I would appreciate some help as I can't seem to reason with editors and don't quite know what else to do. petrarchan47คุก 03:14, 13 October 2019 (UTC)

I did not say that Giuffre's claim has been exhaustively debunked. I said that your assertion that the NYT sentence is ambiguous as to which claim she later acknowledged as false has been exhaustively debunked. Either you have serious reading comprehension problems or you are not behaving in good faith. And if you're gonna misrepresent what I said, you could at least have the common courtesy to ping me on it. I would appreciate some help as I can't seem to reason with editors and don't quite know what else to do. Oh. The. Irony. soibangla (talk) 18:06, 13 October 2019 (UTC)

I arrive at this looong discussion belatedly and have read parts of it, primarily related to the NYT sentence reporting unambiguously that Guiffre later acknowledged her earlier claim Clinton visited Epstein's island was untrue, and here's my bottom line. None of us are in the position of second-guessing reliable sources on a selected basis, especially if it debunks a years-long narrative that some may have embraced as established fact, only to see it debunked years later, and they just can't accept it. "A lie gets halfway around the world while the truth is still getting its shoes on," and now the truth has finally caught up to the lie. The NYT is one of the best sources of information on the planet, and that's not by accident: it's because they employ seasoned, vetted journalists/editors who catch things others miss, or others choose not to report for reasons that may include space/time constraints. The fact no one else reported that particular nugget of information does not mean the NYT got it wrong. The moment we start second-guessing highly reliable sources on a selected basis is the moment we step into a slippery slope resulting in every reliable source falling into question, until we conclude nothing is reliable anymore, and at that point Wikipedia might as well just shut down. soibangla (talk) 18:47, 13 October 2019 (UTC)

Soibangla, you pinged me elsewhere, but I'll leave a comment here instead as I see this has started up again. This is my final comment because I'm not following this. Obviously, you should err on the side of caution. There must be another source that supports what the NYT said; if there isn't, then it's best left out. Also, are all the unsealed documents available; if so, can you find the claim yourselves? Sorry, that's all I can contribute. SarahSV ^(talk) 18:58, 13 October 2019 (UTC)

SlimVirgin, thank you for your response. I note that you did not address the question I pinged you about. The NYT sentence is absolutely unambiguous. soibangla (talk) 19:05, 13 October 2019 (UTC)

soibangla The key point that you're missing is that the NYT exact phrasing is: an earlier claim, they unambiguously state that one of the claims she made was untrue. They do not, however, state acknowledged her earlier claim, as you have stated above, and that is why you're not understanding this issue.

Petrarchan47, I am missing nothing here. The sentence is absolutely unambiguous. It's not an earlier claim of just anything, it's "an earlier claim she made about Mr. Clinton visiting Mr. Epstein".

SlimVirgin, we did look through the source material cited by the Times (see Newslinger's lengthy comment above). The claim is found nowhere in the documents. The closest we can find is in a Q&A about a Daily Mail article, where Guiffre is questioned about claims attributed to her in the piece. She makes several comparatively minor corrections (one clarifying that Trump did not in fact flirt with her, as the DM piece hd stated), and the closest we can find to what the NYT ended up printing was Guiffre clarifying that although the DM article stated that Guiffre said she saw Clinton arrive to the Island in a helicopter, Guiffre did not see it happen fist hand, but reiterated what Maxwell told her. This was "a claim" about Bill and the Island that needed correction, but the misstatement came from the DM author, not Guiffre. So the NYT got this story wrong on multiple levels. petrarchan47คุก 23:59, 15 October 2019 (UTC)

Petrarchan47, Daily Mail is not a reliable source and analysis of legal documents is original research, which is unacceptable and overruled by a reliable source. soibangla (talk) 00:12, 16 October 2019 (UTC)

The Daily Mail is a complete and utter joke, and they got wrong a few claims they attributed to Guiffre. In the documents she clarifies statements made by the DM. I am deeply concerned by simple statements being misread and misunderstood, like that "an earlier claim" = "the one claim", as well as claiming that from what I wrote above, I am somehow trying to use the DM as a source. petrarchan47คุก 00:22, 16 October 2019 (UTC)

"deeply concerning comprehension issues," indeed. soibangla (talk) 00:32, 16 October 2019 (UTC)

Is this actually a Twighlight Zone episode? petrarchan47คุก 00:48, 16 October 2019 (UTC)

The insistence on keeping the Clinton bit out of the article unless we have (or can create) a rebuttal is a NPOV violation. I've opened a thread here. petrarchan47คุก 00:48, 16 October 2019 (UTC)

You can’t just keep hopping from forum to forum until you find one that agrees with you. Stop it. you did this on the Talk:Sharyl Attkisson page, this is a recurring trend and it needs to end. Toa Nidhiki05 02:18, 16 October 2019 (UTC)

Please see WP:HOUNDING. It's frowned upon and can result in a block. Cheers, petrarchan47คุก 22:22, 17 October 2019 (UTC)

You mean this part?

Making accusations of harassment can be inflammatory and hence these accusations may not be helpful in a dispute. It can be seen as a personal attack if harassment is alleged without clear evidence that the others' action is actually harassment, and unfounded accusations may constitute harassment themselves if done repeatedly. The result is often accusations of harassment on your part, which tends to create a nasty cycle.

This makes more-instructive reading: WP:FORUMSHOPPING --Calton | Talk 06:40, 18 October 2019 (UTC)

Request for comment on Talk:Jeffrey Epstein

There is a request for comment that aims to resolve the above content dispute. If you are interested, please participate at Talk:Jeffrey Epstein § RfC: Virginia Giuffre and Bill Clinton. — Newslinger talk 21:34, 17 October 2019 (UTC)

I would like to know if Halopedia would be considered a reliable source when it comes to Halo-related articles. It isn't currently cited in any article, but I know that among the Halo community, it is considered to be very accurate. Jeb³_{Talk at me here}^{What I've Done} 12:54, 18 October 2019 (UTC)

No user generated content.Slatersteven (talk) 12:57, 18 October 2019 (UTC)

Alright. Just making sure. Thanks! Jeb³_{Talk at me here}^{What I've Done} 12:59, 18 October 2019 (UTC)

It wouldn’t be inappropriate to have it as an external link, however, provided the site has a substantial history of stability and a large number of editors. Toa Nidhiki05 13:20, 18 October 2019 (UTC)

In the last comment in this section (archived while I calmed down), Guy said "Well that's a remarkable bit of selective reading: you choose to interpret the replies in a way that gives you permission to reinsert the trivial crap back into the article." If that's a concession, it's a rather strange one—mixed with abuse.

Assuming it's not a concession allowing a modified roll-back to before the first of Guy's September edits, it's time for Guy and Scope_creep and Pavlor to provide a good faith explanation of why the Retrospect (software) article as of 19:11, 12 September 2019 "was bloated with trivia", "really horrible", a "product manual", and "a marketing piece". To focus the discussion, I've done some appropriate rough counting of items in that article and in two WP articles about competing enterprise client-server backup applications—plus FYI item counts for a competing personal "push" backup application.

The Retrospect (software) article as of 19:11, 12 September 2019 had 46 mentions of distinct features in 1.2 screen-pages. 12 of the cites for those features were to first-party references; these were to 2 User's Guides, a cumulative Release Notes, and a Web-linked collection of Knowledge Base articles. There never was a version history section; the Fall 2016 version was historically-structured with some how-to, but JohnInDC eliminated all that in Fall 2017.

The Backup Exec article as of 00:14, 9 October 2019 had 49 mentions of distinct features in 1.6 screen-pages. 36 of the cites for those features were to first-party references—only one of which was cited more than once. There's a version history section, but it only contains release numbers and dates.

The NetBackup article as of 16:59, 3 September 2019 had 38 mentions of distinct features in 1.0 screen-pages. All 16 of the cites for those features were to first-party references—only three of which were cited more than once. There's a version history section, but it only contains release numbers and dates.

FYI the Acronis True Image article as of 02:47, 27 September 2019 had 30 mentions of distinct features in 1.25 screen-pages. 7 of the cites for those features were to first-party references—none of which was cited more than once. There's a version history section that includes mentions of features, so I've counted its length as part of the feature screen-pages. As I pointed out to Scope_creep early in the now-archived Discussion of a September 2017 RfC (here's the diff, but it includes earlier and later sections whose comments were interspersed), he may have considered this "an ideal article to determine how to structure this [Retrospect] one"—but "Acronis is a 'push' backup system in which each individual conceptual 'client' pushes data to a backup 'host' (which may not be a full-fledged computer) at its non-'host'-controlled option". That fact explains why the Acronis True Image article, which is about a personal backup application, lists fewer (sparsely-referenced) features than the above-discussed 3 articles about enterprise client-server backup applications.

The 4 paragraphs directly above show that the Retrospect article listed about the same number of "trivial" features—mostly the same ones with better-linked names—as the articles for the other two enterprise client-server backup applications. I put in the better-linked names at the insistence of Scope_creep in Fall 2017; he said using the developer's own feature names was "marketing". IMHO the other reason the feature sections of the Retrospect came across as "marketing" is because—greatly shortened at the insistence of JohnInDC in fall 2017—I included brief descriptions of the features. By contrast, the other two client-server articles don't include any descriptions; almost all the links for feature names in those two articles are ones I added myself in January 2019.

The Retrospect article actually had an "anti-marketing" item—staying within the limits of WP:NPOV—in the first and third paragraphs of the History section until Guy deleted it. The Windows variant of the application suffers to this day from the absence of a true Administration Console, which the Mac variant and the other two enterprise client-server applications have, but there's no second-party reference that says so. I used to have a link to a section of the Windows Vista article that explains the absence, but that was deleted in Fall 2017 and probably violates WP:Synthesis. Since I intend to put the features sections back into the Retrospect article with no first-party references (at the cost of two or three feature items), that "anti-marketing" item will stay out because its references were a Retrospect Knowledge Base article and the Retrospect Windows cumulative Release Notes (improvements to a poor Console substitute).

Can anyone point to a Wikipedia rule that says a specification of a software application's non-trivial features is ipso-facto "a "product manual" or a "marketing piece"? Can anyone specify which are the trivial features I listed in the Retrospect article? — Preceding unsigned comment added by DovidBenAvraham (talk • contribs) 13:02, 14 October 2019 (UTC)

As near as I can tell, this is a dispute over whether, and to what extent, to rely on a WP:PRIMARY / non-independent source for software features, right? That question might be a better fit for WP:NPOVN, especially if the disagreement is over whether it's trivia or has a promotional tone, but generally speaking... a small amount of uncontroversial technical details can be cited to such sources, but it's always important to avoid citing too much of the article to them; entire paragraphs or sections cited to them are supposed to be avoided. It's also important to avoid self-serving claims or a WP:PROMOTIONAL tone, which seems to have been the main objection here (another reason why WP:NPOVN might be a better place.) Also, if you do post this elsewhere, it might be best to narrow it down to the one major question under dispute - few people are going to read a massive multi-paragraph essay like that, and the back-and-forth of the dispute isn't really important. Things like WP:AGF (if that's actually a problem there) are editor-conduct issues, not things WP:RSN or WP:NPOVN can help you with. --Aquillion (talk) 22:03, 14 October 2019 (UTC)

No Aquillion, if you read this section (archived while I calmed down) linked to in the section's lead paragraph, it's not about a primary source. This section is intended to be a a continuation—see the section title—of an archived (my fault for taking 6 days to calm down) dispute of whether the secondary source TidBITS is a blog. Guy had claimed TidBITS is a blog; when in the archived section I demonstrated conclusively that it isn't a blog, Guy's last comment started out with what I quoted in the first paragraph of this section. His comment went on to describe the Retrospect (software) article as of 19:11, 12 September 2019 with further insults. After 6 days, which is how long it took me to look at those insults with more detachment, I decided to continue the discussion to find out whether Guy had conceded the TidBITS point while concealing his concession with "sour grapes".

Guy's insults to the article were that it had a promotional tone, so I decided that a continuation should refute that as well. I'm well aware that the promotional question by itself is not suitable to this page, but Guy—who as an administrator should know better unless he was trying to bait me (WP:AGF in fact bothers me as far as Guy is concerned)—raised that question with his insults in a section which did belong on this page. If Guy forthrightly admits that TidBITS is not a blog unsuitable as a reference, I'll move this section to WP:NPOVN.

My "anti-marketing" paragraph alludes to the separate question of whether "a small amount of uncontroversial technical details can be cited to such [ primary] sources". I can re-find a statement from Guy in which he says basically that "because you used some primary sources, all your sources are now subject to review". That was another part of his Edit Summary explanation (I assume WP:AGF there) for deleting all the features sections in the article. I intend to raise the "a small amount of uncontroversial technical details ..." question in a separate section on this page, since I've gotten hints that some WP editors (Guy too?) tried several years ago to revise the WP rules to prohibit even that "small amount"—and had their attempt rejected. DovidBenAvraham (talk) 01:39, 15 October 2019 (UTC)

I have nothing to add to our previous discussion. If you wrote only one (I mean really only ONE, not two or more) small features section mentioning most important features (in best case balanced by POV of independent reviews), nobody would object. Pavlor (talk) 05:42, 15 October 2019 (UTC)

Thank you, Pavlor, for a helpful—non-insulting—comment. I could certainly eliminate a few less-important Small-group features mentions (non-multithreading of previous Desktop versions, volume-to-volume duplicates onto LTFS with verification, Avid Media Composer backup, elaboration of e-mail notifications).

However the real sticking point for you folks seems to be the separate former Enterprise client-server features section. IMHO you need to know a bit of history about this section. The features listed in it were all developed after 2006, initially at EMC management's orders, in order to upgrade Retrospect for enterprise users. From Fall 2016 to Fall 2017, those features used to be part of major-version sections of the article. Then, at the insistence of JohnInDC and other editors participating in an RfC, I deleted them from the Retrospect article to make it much shorter. I immediately put them in a new "Enterprise client-server backup" section at the rear of the Backup article, adding references to the competing Backup Exec and NetBackup and IBM Tivoli Storage Manager applications' mostly-first-party documentation of equivalent features—so that section was no longer explicitly about Retrospect. Although I had new-section content disputes with JohnInDC on its Talk page continuing for about 3 months, average pageviews of the Backup article increased. In November 2017 I added a short "Enterprise client-server features" section to the Retrospect article, consisting basically of feature names with links to the descriptions in appropriate sub-sections of the "Backup" section.

A new problem arose in late May 2019, when another editor—whose name I will not mention here to avoid embarrassing him further—decided to merge feature paragraphs from the new Backup section into similar-sounding feature paragraphs in preceding sections of that article. That other editor also merged two other related articles into the Backup article; he did not discuss any of the three mergers in Talk pages. His massive deletions made it clear that the other editor did not understand the content of the articles he had merged, and I deduced from his Contributions that his secondary education was in private schools run by a sub-culture in which boys after the age of 13 are taught almost exclusively in certain non-modern languages rather than in English. I confronted the other editor in an ANI with his inability to read technical English at a 12th-grade (British sixth-form) level, and he then promised in an already-underway RfC that—if I split off the rear section of the Backup section into a separate Enterprise client-server backup article—that he would temporarily refrain from editing that split-off article. I had started the ANI because, having noticed that he had followed his "urge to merge" other articles (technical but unrelated to backup) every January from 2016 on, I did not trust the other editor to follow through on any promises he might make. However, partly because my first version was "a wall of text", the ANI did not result in restricting the other editor in any way.

The point of these two bits of history is that I live in fear of what the other editor may do to the Enterprise client-server backup article in January 2020. Therefore I am extremely reluctant to create a substantially-shortened Enterprise client-server features Retrospect section that would be even-more-dependent on links to the Enterprise client-server backup article. If you want me to merge the former "Enterprise client-server features" section with the existing very-short descriptions into a somewhat-shortened "Small-group features" section of the Retrospect article I can do that, but IMHO there will be a stylistic clash unless I make the descriptions substantially longer—which duplicates the situation which the RfC in Fall 2017 said I couldn't preserve. I think a consolidation of two features sections that at most would save 6 screen lines in the article isn't justified.

As for the former Editions and Add-Ons section, that was only 0.25 screen-pages. By contrast the Backup Exec "Add-on Components" section is longer than that—at 0.35 screen-pages, and no editor has ever seen fit to merge it. DovidBenAvraham (talk) 02:39, 16 October 2019 (UTC)

On further thought, merging the former "Enterprise client-server features" section with the existing very-short descriptions into a somewhat-shortened "Small-group features" section—renamed "Standard features"—of the Retrospect article wouldn't be such a stylistic clash. Some of the merged-in paragraph headings would have to have "enterprise client-server" added for clarity, but the combined features section would be somewhat shorter than the old two sections. I'll add the combined section to the article tonight or tomorrow.

Getting back to the original topic of this section and its archived predecessor, I noticed Agen Schmitz has written a short review of Retrospect Mac 16.5 on TidBITS, but skipped writing anything for Retrospect 16.0—which was scheduled to be a major release but ended up adding just a preview of the Web-based Management Console and a couple of truly minor features. IMHO that proves Agen Schmitz—following in the footsteps of Adam Engst in previous years—has not been blindly copying Retrospect "Inc." press releases, so it's OK to use his articles as second-party references. DovidBenAvraham (talk) 02:43, 17 October 2019 (UTC)

I cut the article by about 0.5 screen-pages, and the combined Standard features" section by 0.3 screen-pages. It's still in my Sandbox; I'll move it Sunday night when I have time to write an explanatory comment on the article's Talk page. DovidBenAvraham (talk) 15:22, 18 October 2019 (UTC)

I think there is an undisclosed Wikipedia:Conflict of interest here. Judging by the editing pattern it seems like Ch.Davis (talk · contribs) is Paul Andrews (producer) or someone closley associated. All the edits have beens self-promotion. // Liftarn (talk) 11:23, 17 October 2019 (UTC)

Um. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Special:Contributions/Ch.Davis that person made two edits back in 2016. "Patterns"? When? Beyond "stale" is an understatement. This is not a "reliable source" issue. Collect (talk) 12:07, 17 October 2019 (UTC)

I'm talking about edits like [1][2][3][4][5][6][7][8][9][10] Notice a pattern? // Liftarn (talk) 12:50, 17 October 2019 (UTC)

Collect, I dare suggest that you need new glasses :-) ∯WBG^converse 16:53, 17 October 2019 (UTC)

The claim was made about Paul Andrews - and the fact is this person had made precisely two edits related to that BLP. And when one makes charges about an editor one well ought be sure there are enough edits to attract attention. I find nothing strange going on. Collect (talk) 21:40, 18 October 2019 (UTC)

• I will leave a note .... ∯WBG^converse 16:53, 17 October 2019 (UTC)

I notice a few record label articles using https://labelsbase.net/ as a source for artist lists. I noticed the risk of incorrect listings on the websites just today after the recent redirect overwrite of Nicole Bus, which previously redirected to Bitbird based on LabelsBase, after which I could not find any reliable sources establishing the artist's connection with the record label. A quick look at the website's About page shows the possibility that the website falls under WP:UGC. Other articles using this source include NoCopyrightSounds, Stmpd Rcrds, and Musical Freedom. See also Special:Search/Labelsbase. Jalen Folf (talk) 00:46, 19 October 2019 (UTC)

• See also: MediaWiki_talk:Spam-blacklist#zoominfo.com

I've reverted almost identical WP:REFSPAM from at least a dozen IP/users in the last month or two. XLinkBot was given the parameter a couple of days ago and has reverted a dozen or so SPAs with one-edit accounts. General M/O is to add an unnecessary WP:REFSPAM with an edit summary like: "adding a reference for the Job Title / Company Name". There's often already a perfectly valid reference there. There may, I suppose, be occasions where this is a valid source for a reference, and there are a few hundred existing links, but I haven't seen any occasions where it's an irreplaceable, reliable source, and this looks like a campaign to use us to drive traffic to the site. They are a commercial company who makes money out of selling access to their database

Beetstra raises the valid question as to whether the spamming is a "joe-job". Perhaps, but a pretty determined one if that's the case - and for what reason? Determined competitor? Ex-employee with a grudge and a lot of spare time?

We decided that bringing it here for an overview on how we view these links was the best plan. -- Begoon 06:53, 18 October 2019 (UTC)

I was just thinking of opening such a thread. A couple of weeks ago I reverted and reported Kimmydora8 for the same CITESPAM. per their page, they would seem to be a mirror anyway.

Zoominfo acquired and maintains its database by copying data from the internet using a proprietary web crawler called NextGenSearchBot,^[1] analyzing the copied data to extract information, and storing the information in a database.^[2]

also note that their content is a paid subscription service, so it's behind a paywall.

searching for which pages link or cite them, many appear to be in terrible shape. Some just include a plain link to the website.

I'd vote they be deprecated or at least somehow heavily discouraged. Hydromania (talk) 07:55, 18 October 2019 (UTC)

examples: Theodore Roosevelt High School (New York City), Andrew Scott (museum director) - where apparently correctly used as a source, should be verifiable if you have a subscription. The Baker Street Irregulars, Justin Kutcher, Terry Taylor - where it supposedly sources something, but is just a link to zoominfo.com. Abhash Kumar, Shiv Pratap Shukla, Onikwu articles in bad shape and/or zoominfo just in external links. Hydromania (talk) 08:19, 18 October 2019 (UTC)

Heh. That's actually quite amusing... If they built their database by "copying data from the internet using a proprietary web crawler called NextGenSearchBot, analyzing the copied data to extract information, and storing the information in a database" then they quite probably got a decent amount of it from wikipedia in the first place. Now they are spamming links here to drive traffic back to their paid service? Hmm.... Doesn't sound very "reliable" to me... -- Begoon 08:35, 18 October 2019 (UTC)

Not an RS, and maybe deprecate.Slatersteven (talk) 15:42, 19 October 2019 (UTC)

Bellingcat - please can we ensure this site is not taken as a credible source on WP? This outlet is funded by The National Endowment for Democracy - a right-wing corporate think tank who essentially help the CIA and other western nations to overthrow other countries that don't allow themselves to be bullied by the WTO and IMF. Nothing less than propaganda and anyone accepting funding from them has seriously tainted any credibility they already had. Here's an e.g. from Consortium News (the outlet that broke the Watergate scandal before someone automatically assumes "they can't be credible because I've never heard of them")
https://consortiumnews.com/2019/01/28/the-dirty-hand-of-the-national-endowment-for-democracy-in-venezuela/ Apeholder (talk) 00:39, 20 October 2019 (UTC)

Bellingcat is generally considered reliable; its reporting on the Syrian and Yemeni wars, among other international issues, has been acclaimed around the world. Your personal opinion that its receipt of funding from NED renders Bellingcat non-credible is just that - your personal opinion. The article you linked does not mention Bellingcat at all whatsoever, so it's irrelevant for our purposes. If you have reliable sources which question Bellingcat's credibility and reporting, please present them here. NorthBySouthBaranof (talk) 00:49, 20 October 2019 (UTC)

Consortium News was founded in 1995 (yet broke the Watergate story?), and frequently publishes fringe rubbish. A very recent RFC concluded Bellingcat was generally reliable. Snooganssnoogans (talk) 01:00, 20 October 2019 (UTC)

@Snooganssnoogans: Robert Parry (journalist) created Consortium News, obviously he didn't create this website during the Iran-Contra affair as the WWW wasn't really a thing then was it?

Other examples of Bellingcat not using due dilligence and being fake news:

https://consortiumnews.com/2016/11/30/relying-on-unreliable-syrian-sources/

https://consortiumnews.com/2015/10/20/mh-17-case-old-journalism-vs-new/

https://www.spiegel.de/international/world/expert-criticizes-allegations-of-russian-mh17-manipulation-a-1037125.html

https://www.commondreams.org/views/2016/04/05/corruption-propaganda-weapon

https://www.commondreams.org/views/2018/11/29/guardian-escalates-its-vilification-julian-assange

And the sources Bellingcat use should be enough to at least raise doubt about their credibility. I really don't understand the arbitrary ways in which WP classes some sources as reliable and other not Apeholder (talk) 03:27, 20 October 2019 (UTC)

The criticisms published in Der Spiegel do present a significant reason for doubt, even if we are dismissing the other sources publishing criticism as being too politically expedient. _signed, Rosguill ^talk 03:47, 20 October 2019 (UTC)

@The Four Deuces: FYI Apeholder (talk) 03:52, 20 October 2019 (UTC)

Robert Parry (journalist) created Consortium News, obviously he didn't create this website during the Iran-Contra affair as the WWW wasn't really a thing then was it?

Uh huh. And yet, what you actually wrote was "Consortium News (the outlet that broke the Watergate scandal before someone automatically assumes 'they can't be credible because I've never heard of them')", which bears no resemblance to your follow-up attempt at a back-pedal. Your factually wrong attempt at resume inflation -- Watergate? -- is still wrong, since Perry didn't "break" Iran-Contra, he broke some stories ABOUT Iran-Contra. --Calton | Talk 00:00, 21 October 2019 (UTC)

• You may want to consult this recent and extensively discussed RfC on the reliability of Bellingcat, which was closed a month ago with the message "I am seeing a numerical as well as weighed consensus to treat the site as generally reliable and use it, preferably with attribution." I don't think that discussion needs to be reopened at this time. - GretLomborg (talk) 04:18, 20 October 2019 (UTC)

Reliability in Wikipedia has a very low bar. All it means is that there is a reasonable expectation that the information presented will be factual. Most highly biased sites such as bellingcat do not fabricate information but selectively search for negative information about individuals. In this case it is probably true that a Syrian-American group donated $3,500 to the Jimmy Dore show. Their president also contributed $2,800 to RO FOR CONGRESS INC, $552.50 to ActBlue and $100 to BERNIE200 in this campaign cycle. (Nothing to accused Assad apologists Tulsi Gabbard and the Green Party.)[12] However, WP:WEIGHT presents a higher bar, since only significant facts and opinions hat have been published by reliable sources on a topic may be presented in articles. "[D]iscussion of isolated events, criticisms, or news reports about a subject may be verifiable and impartial, but still disproportionate to their overall significance to the article topic."

In order to properly address weight, I have always avoided using investigative journalism as a source. If it is noteworthy then mainstream sources will pick up on it and determine what aspects of it are noteworthy and allow the victims of their coverage to provide their side, while experts will be consulted to provide their opinions. The main problem comes from right-wing media that target Democrats such as Obama and Hillary Clinton. Mostly these stories bounce around the right-wing echo chamber but occasionally make it into mainstream news media. It is only then that we can know the whole story, based on their reception. If we were to present stories that only Fox News had reported, then we would elevating their significance beyond what the mainstream viewed noteworthy and Wikipedia would become part of the echo chamber, rather than a neutral encyclopedia.

TFD (talk) 18:08, 20 October 2019 (UTC)

Our policy on exceptional claims is an effective stabilizer for controversial reports that are accurate, but one-sided. Multiple high-quality reliable sources are required to substantiate exceptional claims, which helps ensure neutrality. — Newslinger talk 21:42, 20 October 2019 (UTC)

Please could we consider Reveal News (http://www.revealnews.org)? They are an online outlet but also air their radio show / podcast on various radio stations across the USA. They have been around since 1977 and have won a truly staggering amount of awards and nominations, most recently Pulitzer, Peabody, etc:

https://www.revealnews.org/awards/
https://awards.journalists.org/organizations/reveal/

Not sure how to properly propose this as a RS? Apeholder (talk) 01:23, 21 October 2019 (UTC)

They seem to be accepted as a RS here. Their content seems good. -- BullRangifer (talk) 01:43, 21 October 2019 (UTC)

Apeholder, You don't need to. If you think it's reliable just cite it, if someone disagrees that's when the RSN discussion comes in. Fiamh ^{(talk, contribs)} 01:43, 21 October 2019 (UTC)

It's fine to ask tho IMO. Shouln't be discouraged. Herostratus (talk) 14:58, 21 October 2019 (UTC)

Is [13] by Dr. Ursula B. Göhlich of the Naturhistorisches Museum in the Proceed. 8th Internat. Meeting Society of Avian Paleontology and Evolution a reliable source for Cécile Mourer-Chauviré? Lopifalko raised some concerns but is unsure at Talk:Cécile Mourer-Chauviré, and I am now unsure too. They referred me here. Eostrix (talk) 10:39, 22 October 2019 (UTC)

The source is not independent, since Mourer-Chauviré was former secretary of SAPE. Additional sources are needed. That being said, I think it is usable for the essential facts. Avoid using self-serving passages such as She significantly impacted paleornithological research in and out-side of Europe for the last 50 years and is in high demand as an expert and favored collaborator for researchers all over the world, but especially for the next generation of paleornithologists. --MarioGom (talk) 10:47, 22 October 2019 (UTC)

Indymedia is an anarchist-oriented open publishing platform for "citizen journalism" and crowdsourced content. They have several chapters and local sites. It has been discussed just once in 2008: Wikipedia:Reliable sources/Noticeboard/Archive 23#indymedia.

The site has been blocked in Germany for content that incites violence, and it is controversial in left-wing activist circles as well:

• The New York Times: Germany, in a First, Shuts Down Left-Wing Extremist Website
• Naomi Klein: Every time I log onto activist news sites like Indymedia.org, which practice "open publishing," I’m confronted with a string of Jewish conspiracy theories about 9-11 and excerpts from the Protocol of the Elders of Zion. [14]

Now, I think this would quite clearly be unreliable as WP:SELFPUBLISHED, but the source is actually very much used in article space: indymedia.org   (792 uses), indymedia.ie   (151 uses), indymedia.org.uk   (222 uses), indybay.org   (209 uses). Do you reckon that a RfC and phasing out would be warranted? --Pudeo (talk) 07:39, 16 October 2019 (UTC)

• Yes. This source should not be used per WP:SPS. Just checking some of their US sites, such as their version for Portland (portland.indymedia.org), it's all announcements of events, petitions, and advocacy. The fact that it's described as "open publishing", contributors are called "volunteers" and obvious lack of professionalism mean that there's no way this is a reliable source for almost anything. Deprecate all indymedia sites stat. Fiamh ^{(talk, contribs)} 08:59, 16 October 2019 (UTC)

I´ve come across numerous self-published sources in this noticeboard that are deemed reliable if attributed to a ´reliable´ author (source such as those published in Think tanks). I think there´s something to iron-out here. I don´t think self-published sources should meet WP:RS. Stefka Bulgaria (talk) 09:38, 17 October 2019 (UTC)

Stefka Bulgaria, SPS can be reliable when the writer is an established expert in his/her field. However, indymedia is the sort of low-volume, low-quality site that is highly unlikely to attract that kind of writer. Think tanks are not usually an SPS because the think tank has editorial control over its writers, not unlike a newspaper. Fiamh ^{(talk, contribs)} 10:53, 17 October 2019 (UTC)

Since there is no fact-checking, each article must be evaluated on its own merits. In practice however few if any articles published would meet rs, since reliable writers are unlikely to contribute and even if they did, the article would lack weight for inclusion of any of the facts presented. TFD (talk) 02:03, 19 October 2019 (UTC)

It is slightly more complex than that because Indymedia isn't just one organization, but a category of them (each with their own editorial board and policies); the name Indymedia is more of a "brand", like Antifa or somesuch, so the amount of (and existence of) fact-checking can differ from group to group. See here. (Certainly Indymedia journalism is a radicalway of sharing and selecting news. But it is not that much different fromestablished forms of journalism in the kind of problems, issues and editorialdiscussions it faces in the practice of everyday publishing. That said, it's reasonably clear that the vast majority of groups using the term, at least, wouldn't pass WP:RS for a variety of reasons - the converse of them being many scattered groups is that most of them individually lack reputations, even before you get to the fact that many of them just publish anything sent to them with only limited editorial control. This does mention that some have editorial boards that perform fact-checking, but, well, read for yourself: These differing interpretations of the purpose of Indymedia were further reflected incollectives’ editorial policy. Despite being based on the premise of open publishing it has been necessary at times to edit some postings. Spam is sometimes removed in order to retain newswire quality. Additionally there is an element of fact-checking that occurs for postings. This is done by the websites editorial collectives when they feel it is appropriate, but more commonly is undertaken by other participants and contributors in the form of comments posted after each newswire submission. Big yikes on the last part. A lot of the academic coverage (eg. here) strikes me as something that would be good for establishing reputation (they treat it as a usable news source), but which makes it sound unusable due to the way it interacts with our policies; that said, I would generally want to look at the reputation and policies of individual Indiemedia collectives rather than blanket-removing all of them, though with the assumption that they have a hard climb to illustrate reputation, fact-checking, and editorial controls, as well as a sufficiently well-defined editorial collective to avoid being WP:USERGENERATED (which seems like something else that varies from group to group?) I do think that they are not always a WP:SPS (at least, the academic papers listed there seem to give the editorial collectives some degree of weight), and some of them have actual editorial-board fact-checking, but there's a lot of other concerning things. --Aquillion (talk) 18:22, 19 October 2019 (UTC)

• I agree with Fiamh: The following quote from the Portland Indymedia makes in clear that these sites consist of WP:UGC and this are "generally unacceptable" on Wikipedia. [15]:

Like all IMCs, Portland Indymedia hosts a website with an open publishing newswire to which anyone can post text, images, audio and video using the online publish form. Unlike a newspaper or other form of media, anyone is free to post their news and experiences (there are some exceptions, see the editorial policy. Articles posted to the site come from people in the community, and their words are never edited by IMC volunteers. The articles that are featured in the center column are taken right from the newswire, thus highlighting original content and reporting. This system empowers anyone to become the media for the purpose of sharing information and views that are blocked out or misrepresented by the corporate media; that is, to stand with the oppressed against the oppressors. - GretLomborg (talk) 04:32, 20 October 2019 (UTC)

• The newswire sections are crowdsourced and inherently unreliable (WP:UGC). I recall at least one instance where an Indymedia post was the subject of a news piece published in a reliable source. For that narrow case, it may be useful to add the primary source as a supplement to the secondary source. Some of its editorial sections are usually a curated digest of the newswire, so I wouldn't bet on its reliability either. I guess some Indymedia sites might be reliable in narrow contexts, such as determining the exact date and location of a protest. --MarioGom (talk) 12:12, 22 October 2019 (UTC)

Is The Conversation (website) considered a reliable source? Eg: [16]. I searched in WP:RS/P and the archives here but did not find anything relevant. Thank you in advance --Signimu (talk) 18:44, 18 October 2019 (UTC)

It's definitely being treated as reliable across the over 2,000 articles where it's being used.

The article you give as an example might be considered reliable simply because of the expertise of the author, Melissa Wdowik.

It would be helpful to find examples of how other publishers use it, but it seems fine at a glance. --Ronz (talk) 21:27, 18 October 2019 (UTC)

Thank you very much! --Signimu (talk) 05:15, 20 October 2019 (UTC)

• Generally reliable for news and uncontroversial topics. The Conversation's content is most frequently encountered in syndicated form, since all of its articles are released under the Creative Commons CC BY-ND 4.0 license. Many reliable sources republish these articles, including Snopes (RSP entry), The Washington Post (RSP entry), Fox News (RSP entry), PBS NewsHour, the BBC (RSP entry), the Scientific American, Fast Company, and ABC News (Australia). The Conversation has a robust editorial team and is affiliated with a large number of universities. Articles are written by authors who are vetted for expertise (mostly university professors). Authors provide disclosure statements that reveal their funding sources and conflicts of interest in their articles. — Newslinger talk 07:45, 21 October 2019 (UTC)
• Generally reliable as the majority of articles are written by academics who are subject-matter experts. However, this appears to be mainly an opinion source rather than one for reportage. feminist (talk) 13:47, 22 October 2019 (UTC)

Taking a wiki walk, I stumbled across some stange, hard to believe information sourced to "Celebitchy.com", which I then removed because It didn't seem like a reliable source. Seeing how it doesn't seem to have been discussed before, I'm now bringing the site here- should "Celebitchy.com" be considered a reliable source? Articles used in. 💵Money💵emoji💵^{Talk💸Help out at CCI!} 15:05, 22 October 2019 (UTC)

Not reliable:

https://www.celebitchy.com/advertise/ Celebitchy is a gossip and entertainment blog...

https://www.celebitchy.com/legal_disclaimer/ Celebitchy, LLC makes no claims that content is valid, accurate, or true. --Ronz (talk) 15:43, 22 October 2019 (UTC)

The family of websites that celebitchy is a part of includes blacklisted justjared.com, and TMZ. They all look very poor if not outright unreliable. --Ronz (talk) 16:26, 22 October 2019 (UTC)

• Generally unreliable. Celebitchy describes itself as "a celebrity gossip site". It should generally be avoided per WP:BLPGOSSIP and WP:NOTGOSSIP. We've previously blacklisted gossip blogs (such as Just Jared, mentioned above), so if editors are repeatedly adding Celebitchy to articles in an inappropriate way, a spam blacklist request may be warranted. — Newslinger talk 17:49, 22 October 2019 (UTC)

It's main page is here and there's a disclaimer here that says "Pakpedia is a Pakistan’s biggest Encyclopedia where you can find all the information in detail about Pakistan related to all the categories including personalities, locations, cities, government sectors, tourist places and many more. All the content provided in the articles has been taken from different sites as the articles are written with many references which you may check in the article so if you find that the content is wrong or the content is too old which needs correction or something too negative written about any personality or anything then you are most welcome to do tell us on the provided email and please give us maximum 72 hours for the correction." I see it's used for Khalil-ur-Rehman Qamar but I came here via Hassan Hayat. I guess while I'm here I should ask about Diva Magazine also.[17] Thanks. Doug Weller talk 15:41, 21 October 2019 (UTC)

I would say not, as we may have circular referencing issue.Slatersteven (talk) 16:41, 21 October 2019 (UTC)

Per "All the content provided in the articles has been taken from different sites" I wouldn't use it for anything except checking if they have useful refs, possibly as EL on a case-by-case basis. Unclear what Diva is so I wouldn't use it for anything remotely controversial/BLP-ish. Gråbergs Gråa Sång (talk) 08:56, 22 October 2019 (UTC)

• Not RS, as far as I can tell. None of the indicia of reliability. "If you want your desire article should be publish on pakpedia then mail us on our given email id we will publish your article on pakpedia." Guy (help!) 10:34, 22 October 2019 (UTC)

• • Thanks. User:JzG, User:Slatersteven, any comments about Diva? Doug Weller talk

"LATEST POSTS" worries me, and I am having trouble finding out if they have an editorial policy. At this stage I am erring towards not RS.Slatersteven (talk) 16:13, 22 October 2019 (UTC)

DIVA looks to be a clickbait site. No evidence of reliability that I can see. Guy (help!) 21:41, 22 October 2019 (UTC)

Citation no. 49 in NordVPN#Tesonet_court_case cites an article at vpnpro.com (https://vpnpro.com/blog/why-pwc-audit-of-nordvpn-logging-policy-is-a-big-deal/) which in my opinion sounds like a sponsored advertisement. The website also contains a large amount of irrelevant articles, which makes it appear to me like a paid promotional website. In my opinion, such a website shouldn't be considered a reliable source, since it puts paid content above the goal of creating an encyclopedia. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Oldosfan (talk • contribs) 11:33, 22 October 2019 (UTC)

Clearly not a reliable source. It is a blog in the business of profiting from affiliate links to NordVPN, ExpressVPN and Surfshark VPN. --MarioGom (talk) 11:37, 22 October 2019 (UTC)

• Blacklist as sponsored content. Almost all of the content on VPNPro is native advertising with calls to action, and is generally unreliable. VPNPro's group blog is a self-published source with no little to no details on the authors and no indication of any editorial process. — Newslinger talk 11:54, 22 October 2019 (UTC)

agreed. since the consensus at this time seems to be that it's unreliable/sponsored, I think it would be prudent to remove that link and paragraph from the NordVPN article. Would (oldosfan) 03:20, 23 October 2019 (UTC)

This was added to the People's Mujahedin of Iran:

"UK Border Agency describes MEK in a 2009 report as "cult-like terrorist organisation"".

This was the source used for this: [18]

It just doesn't look right to me, so brining it here for your comments. Barca (talk) 00:06, 23 October 2019 (UTC)

• I don't see what's wrong with this source. It's a legitimate UK government website, and the UK government is a good source for its own views per WP:ABOUTSELF. Whether or not it's due weight to include is not a question for this noticeboard. Fiamh ^{(talk, contribs)} 00:32, 23 October 2019 (UTC)

Yes. Additionally, I don't see why the official views of a major world power on a political organization would be WP:UNDUE. feminist (talk) 02:25, 23 October 2019 (UTC)

Well regardless, the use of the source is off: The UK Border Agency isn't themselves describing the MEK as such in the document, they are quoting a report from the US State Department. 199.116.171.94 (talk) 07:14, 23 October 2019 (UTC)

If you look closely, the comment that they are a "cult-like terrorist organisation" is an interjection inserted by the the UK agency into the quote from the United States agency. Fiamh ^{(talk, contribs)} 07:20, 23 October 2019 (UTC)

I'm not sure that's the intent; in the USSD source the paragraph just above the one being quoted begins 'By mid-1982, the clergy had won a succession of post-Revolution power struggles that eliminated first the center of the political spectrum and then the leftists, including the communist Tudeh party and the cult-like terrorist organization Mujahedin-e Khalq (MEK or MKO).' so I'm inclined to see it less as an interjection by the UKBA and rather a transposition of text to restore context to the acronym being used. 199.116.171.94 (talk) 07:48, 23 October 2019 (UTC)

A Stuff.co.nz article entitled 'I survived a Krishna cult' has been cited on the Science of Identity Foundation page by Localemediamonitor and 207.233.45.12.

The 'stuff' article is based on assertions by Rama das Ranson. He is obviously very troubled, so I hesitate to post an excerpt here that might subject him to ridicule. But a quick check of Ranson's website raises serious doubts about the suitability of this as a source. Humanengr (talk) 19:50, 22 October 2019 (UTC)

Bevan Hurley wrote the article you're referring to in Stuff.co.nz, and that publication's editors published the article. That is a separate issue from Rama das Ranson's remarks in a self-published website. WP:SYNTHESIS says we can't look at what Ranson says or how he says it anywhere but reliable secondary sources like the article you're asking about. That article "I survived a Krishna cult" confines itself to reporting what Rama das Ranson said about his experiences, and related events and statements by others. The article even gives the group's response to Rama das Ranson's comments about them.

I do see a problem with the statement in our article which the Stuff article is cited to support, however:

"Former members of the group describe it as a cult."

The Stuff article mentions Ranson's accusations and those of a Member of New Zealand's Parliament (which the article says were later retracted after a lawsuit) of cultism. These accusations may be given undue weight in our article's text, even though the Stuff.co.nz article meets WP:SECONDARY guidelines for a reliable secondary source.

I would suggest altering the text citing that article to say something like "Former Science of Identity Foundation member Rama das Ranson describes the group as a cult, based on his personal experiences with the group".

There's no reason not to use the article you're asking about. It is part of published comment in secondary sources on the subject of our article. It may be possible to find other secondary sources balancing Rama das Ranson's perspective. --loupgarous (talk) 11:14, 23 October 2019 (UTC)

Hi all. An interesting conundrum came up at Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Ironclaw (2nd nomination). I found a doctoral theses published at NYU that relates to this AFD. Should it be considered reliable (since doctoral theses are peer reviewed by their faculty), and can it be used towards WP:SIGCOV? Thanks.4meter4 (talk) 20:45, 22 October 2019 (UTC)

Doctoral theses are only considered reliable if they result in the awarding of a doctorate. They've been approved by the thesis adviser and possibly others. In addition, writings by PhD holders in their subject of expertise are typically considered reliable even if self-published, per WP:SPS. Fiamh ^{(talk, contribs)} 20:58, 22 October 2019 (UTC)

@Fiamh: Does this indicate that? [19].4meter4 (talk) 21:11, 22 October 2019 (UTC)

4meter4, I don't see any reason why not. Since he is now a lecturer, it's safe to assume that the thesis was accepted. Thesis review is more robust than many other academic peer review processes. Fiamh ^{(talk, contribs)} 21:18, 22 October 2019 (UTC)

Acceptance of a dissertation or thesis in partial fulfillment of the requirements for awarding of a Doctorate of Philosophy (and some other doctoral degrees) shows that not only has the author added significantly to the sum of human knowledge in researching and writing the work, but has successfully defended the ideas in the document before a commitee of other scholars in the field of study. As Fiamh says, that process is usually more demanding and intellectually robust than peer review of research papers published in professional journals (one well-recognized example of reliable source for our articles). --loupgarous (talk) 10:08, 23 October 2019 (UTC)

In academic publishing we typically took the view that it was better to cite the journal articles vs the thesis when possible. Typically a thesis is comprised of work previously published in several journal articles. Thus typically you can cite the same author via their journal article (or conference article) on the same subject. While I agree it's harder to get a thesis published vs journal article, an individual journal article is going to be narrower in scope and thus the arguments within are more likely to be scrutinized more carefully. When considering cited by others journal articles are more likely to be cited vs a thesis. Finally, the thesis can be seen as a work that is created and published by a single university. The author and reviewers all being from the same institute (not always but in many cases). A journal article will have passed through the hands of uninvolved reviewers and an uninvolved publisher. Yes, there have been legitimate concerns about conflict of interest and bias etc but those issues are no different inside of the university vs out. As it relates to the question here, I would say first, we should try to find the underlying papers on which the thesis is based rather than citing the thesis. Second, I would generally consider a thesis to be expert opinion and then we have to look at the background of the author when deciding how much weight to apply to their opinions. Springee (talk) 13:27, 23 October 2019 (UTC)

I'm checking WP:RS/P#Morning Star, which currently lists the MS as a "No consensus" source and cites that the New Statesman described it as "Britain's last communist newspaper". This seems rather to understate things - it's actually the house organ of the Communist Party of Britain. It's linked from their site. It lists its editorial policy as being in accord with their manifesto "Britain's Road to Socialism", and that manifesto states "On the economic, political and ideological fronts, the Morning Star as the daily paper of the labour movement and the left, with its editorial policy based on Britain’s Road to Socialism, plays an indispensable role in informing, educating and helping to mobilise the forces for progress and revolution.".

The MS itself states that "while the Morning Star’s editorial line may be guided via an annual democratic endorsement of Communist Party of Britain strategy document Britain’s Road to Socialism ... the paper is in fact a co-op owned by its readers for its readers", and describes itself as "often a lone voice reporting the stories that other media refuse to touch", which has WP:N implications.[20]

I'm not necessarily arguing for a change in its status, it's certainly possible to cite it with caution, but maybe the list entry should be updated to reflect this? Vashti (talk) 11:11, 9 October 2019 (UTC)

• Being communist to my mind is not a reason to change its status.Slatersteven (talk) 14:25, 9 October 2019 (UTC)

Being the official publication of a fringe (they have 775 members, and are one of about a dozen "Communist Parties of Britain") political party isn't something that should be highlighted at WP:RS/P? Vashti (talk) 15:07, 9 October 2019 (UTC)

No, as size of membership (or even staff) is not an RS criteria. Even SPS (one person publishing their own material) can be an RS. We need more then "but communists".Slatersteven (talk) 15:13, 9 October 2019 (UTC)

Hmm, fair enough. Vashti (talk) 15:17, 9 October 2019 (UTC)

• It is kind of nutty, if you Google image search their front pages: "LABOUR VOWS TO TAKE ON GLOBAL ELITE", "BLOOD ON HIS HANDS", "TAX THE RICH - DON'T ROB THE POOR", "WAR CRIMINAL NOT WELCOME", "A SHOCKING CONSPIRACY", "BANKERS' PM PLOTS NEW ATTACK". It combines hard-left WP:PARTISAN viewpoint with British tabloid-journalism, so I would not consider it reliable but I would not deprecate it either. --Pudeo (talk) 23:06, 11 October 2019 (UTC)
• From looking at their website today, all of the most inflammatory headlines appear to use quotes from individuals or groups interviewed in the article (e.g. "'Major safety failings' at prison holding Julian Assange", "XR demands BBC tells the whole truth of climate change"). It's questionable as a visual editorial style, but I'm not sure that it necessarily tells us much about the reliability of their coverage.

On another note, as it is a partisan publication, its choices of who to interview are very much grounded in its partisan perspective, and we should assess DUE accordingly. For example, when covering this week's Turkish invasion of Syria, the Communist Party of Turkey's opinion is unlikely to be the most important one for us to report. On the other hand, if we ever are in a situation where we specifically want communist (and specifically Marxist-Leninist parties') perspectives on an issue, Morning Star seems like a good resource. _signed, Rosguill ^talk 23:24, 11 October 2019 (UTC)

• Marginally better than the Daily Mail, but not much better. In all cases where the Morning Star publishes something that's both important and accurate, the same information will also be published by a better source.—S Marshall T/C 19:36, 15 October 2019 (UTC)
• It should be treated the same way we treat all confirmed media-organs of political & religious organizations. And if we have no blanket rule for every one of those, it's probably high time we have one. -The Gnome (talk) 11:57, 19 October 2019 (UTC)

I agree, we need a blanket rule, and yes I would say ban on all such bodies. What we cannot do is ban some and not others.Slatersteven (talk) 12:02, 19 October 2019 (UTC)

• I read the MorningStar regularly and haven’t seen any problem with reliability. If I were using it as a source of information on Wikipedia I would generally attribute the information. If the article was an interview then I would generally use statements made by the interviewee without attribution. The MorningStar is published by is a readers' co-operative called the People's Press Printing Society. It does have an historical connection with the Communist Party (various flavours). The current relationship between paper and party seems unclear. I haven’t seen any declaration that there is an official or legal connection. The two do seem to share some personnel. Here is an excerpt from a 2015 New Statesman article (Ben Chacko is the paper's editor and Robert Griffiths is the Communist Party of Britain's general secretary):

"The People’s Press Printing Society is now run by a management committee that includes representatives of nine national trade unions, each of which contributes £20,000 to the paper’s costs and "they wouldn’t do that if it was a communist front". Griffiths maintains that the involvement of non-communists is "genuine and substantial", though he concedes that the relationship between paper and party remains strong: he was in William Rust House on the same day as I was, to attend the monthly meeting of the CPB’s political committee. Chacko is also a committee member and he was attending the meeting, though Griffiths said he wouldn’t be "taking orders"".

Burrobert (talk) 15:00, 19 October 2019 (UTC)

I would rate it as reliable. S Marshall above makes the point, "where the Morning Star publishes something that's both important and accurate, the same information will also be published by a better source." I generally agree. However, the value of the left-wing press is that they often provide more extensive coverage or topics that receive little attention in mainstream media. For example, the Morning Star's article on the end of the Matalan strike[21] contains information not included in the BBC article,[22] such as information about the company's original offer and that the new offer includes a £90 one-off payment for all employees and backdated pay for all staff on core shifts.

I am not worried about editorial policy or headlines since opinion pieces are rarely reliable sources for facts and headlines are never reliable sources. The Wall Street Journal for example runs lots of editorials against climate change science, and even mainstream publications publish headlines such as "Americans Are Dying Younger, Saving Corporations Billions" (Bloomberg, August 8, 2007).

TFD (talk) 21:16, 23 October 2019 (UTC)

• Should we agree to halt the use of RFCs containing four options for "general (un)reliability" of a source, particularly when said RFC contains no specific instances of claims or citations?
• While it may be useful to deprecate heavily-used and clearly-unreliable sources, the corollary is not true: Wikipedia is unable to promote a source to "reliable for any assertion about any topic whatsoever"; reliability is always assessed based on the nature of the claims being made.
• With these parameters in mind, is it futile for us to continually open RFCs here on WP:RSN if an outcome of "generally reliable for everything" is counter-productive and misleading?
  • Sub-question: should such RFCs be permitted as long as they include at least one concrete example of an assertion of fact, such as one which is currently in dispute on an article's talk page?

Elizium23 (talk) 00:53, 14 July 2019 (UTC)

Survey (moratorium)

Workshop

Some editors have suggested restrictions on when an RfC on the general reliability of a source would be appropriate, as well as changes to the commonly used 4-option RfC format. For more coordinated discussion, please list your suggestion in a new subheading under this "Workshop" section, so other editors can comment on them individually. ​​​​​​​​— Newslinger talk 21:01, 15 July 2019 (UTC)

Emir of Wikipedia's proposal

I still oppose option 4 of the "commonly used" format. In my view an RfC on reliability is only appropriate if there has not been a discussion here which generated clear consensus, or if there has been discussion scattered around Wikipedia which needs centralising in an easily referable place. --Emir of Wikipedia (talk) 21:07, 15 July 2019 (UTC)

Alsee's proposal

Alternate proposal - define and restrict General Reliability RFCs to cases where they actually make sense:

• A General Reliability RFC is useful for adding a source to the list of perennial sources.
• A General Reliability RFC is only appropriate if there have been at least 3 previous RSN discussions on the same source, each linked in the General RFC. This establishes that there is a genuine purpose for a generalized discussion, and it ensures at least previous three disputed cases for examination as well as that previous ground work of research and analysis. A general RFC on a source no one ever heard of, which no one will ever bring up again, and with no substantial evidentiary basis, is a bad use of other people's time.
• The instructions and documentation should prominently state that that the outcome of a General Reliability RFC does not resolve any open dispute about any particular usage at any particular article. RSN already lays out separate instructions and requirements for that.

Alsee (talk) 13:43, 15 July 2019 (UTC)

• Support some combination of this with GMG's proposal below being added to instructions at top of this noticeboard. —DIYeditor (talk) 00:06, 18 July 2019 (UTC)
• Support. Alsee's proposal ensures that general reliability RfCs are decided on at least four rounds of examination (three previous discussions plus the RfC itself), and directs attention to sources that need the most input from editors. It delineates the difference between the general case and specific cases, and does not place undue weight on any single use of a source. RfCs are most useful for reducing the volume of discussions on sources that are discussed too often. This proposal is likely to make the greatest reduction on editor workload by ensuring that there are not too many RfCs nor too many discussions on this noticeboard. (A requirement of 4–5 discussions instead of 3 also sounds reasonable to me.) — Newslinger talk 00:59, 18 July 2019 (UTC)
• Oppose, too WP:CREEP-y. An essay to this effect might make sense, but these discussions are useful to gauge the general temperature of the community's views on a particular source, which helps people decide whether to open specific discussions and how to word them if they do (eg. letting people know the starting point and whether they need to argue a particular usage is an exception to the general community opinion on a source in one way or another.) More specific RSN discussions are useful but not sufficient for our purposes on their own, since they usually have very little participation and can therefore produce extremely swingy results between similar sources based on who happens to weigh in. --Aquillion (talk) 18:58, 18 July 2019 (UTC)
  • Fair enough, maybe best left for an essay (or some mildly worded friendly advice at the top of this page). I think that formal RfCs exacerbate the problem of these swingy results because if there are 10 active RfCs on here all the time, people watching for RfCs may just start to ignore them. So while it being an RfC may give the impression of being authoritative or representing general consensus, the flood of them may make that not true. Or is that off base? —DIYeditor (talk) 19:20, 18 July 2019 (UTC)
• Support. François Robere (talk) 18:04, 22 July 2019 (UTC)
• Support if original proposal not passed - This is a good alternative since it would still address the problem of people simply treating this page as a forum for discussing which sources are, in their view, "bad" in some contextless sense. FOARP (talk) 07:24, 23 July 2019 (UTC)
• Supt.-2nd Choice if "GreenMeansGo's proposal" below does not pass, see my reasoning there. Alanscottwalker (talk) 14:45, 23 July 2019 (UTC)
• Oppose - The list of perennial sources should have its own inclusion criteria based on past RfCs. Assuming that were based on multiple past discussions, it's unclear what this proposal would allow for in the case of general reliability RfCs. I generally support the idea that we shouldn't jump to one of those RfCs without previous discussions of a source, but I'm reluctant to suggest codifying that rule or, as I've already implied, the necessary involvement of RSP, which should remain a meta resource rather than play a role in the consensus process. — Rhododendrites ^talk \\ 02:32, 26 July 2019 (UTC)

GreenMeansGo's proposal

You shouldn't open threads about a source unless there is a specific content dispute. You shouldn't open a thread about the universal reliability of a source unless there is a preponderance of threads dealing with specific content disputes where they have decided the source is unreliable. GMG^talk 23:07, 15 July 2019 (UTC)

^^^^ !!!! Volunteer Marek (talk) 01:34, 16 July 2019 (UTC)

Yes - though I'd loosen this somewhat. I think it is OK to discuss a widely used source prior to article level discussions (however that shouldn't be a RfC - but a request for input - and should have specific examples - e.g. source W is used for X, Y, and Z. I have concerns because of A, B, C. In any case not universal). A blanket deprecation RfC should only be opened if there is an indication of a problem on Wikipedia (e.g. Daily Mail - was widely used). Icewhiz (talk) 05:28, 16 July 2019 (UTC)

• Support --GRuban (talk) 19:43, 16 July 2019 (UTC)
• Support – This should become policy. – Levivich 02:25, 17 July 2019 (UTC)
• Support CThomas³ (talk) 03:08, 17 July 2019 (UTC)
• Support adding to instructions at top of noticeboard. —DIYeditor (talk) 23:48, 17 July 2019 (UTC)
• Oppose, too WP:CREEP-y. Perhaps as a general suggestion, but not as a rule - as discussed above, it is useful for editors to gauge the general "temperature" of opinion on a particular source, and I don't think we should have any hard restrictions on them doing so. --Aquillion (talk) 18:55, 18 July 2019 (UTC)
  • Full disclosure, I didn't add the header above and keep getting surprised when I see this section pop up on my watchlist. But I'm not sure I at all understand the reference to CRUFT, which you seem to have made twice now. GMG^talk 19:08, 18 July 2019 (UTC)
    • Oops, I meant WP:CREEPy, not WP:CRUFTy. --Aquillion (talk) 19:12, 18 July 2019 (UTC)
• Oppose per Aquillion. And honestly there are sources out there that people try to use that are beyond the pale in basically any circumstance. So while no source is always reliable, being able to find out if a source is always unreliable is useful. Simonm223 (talk) 18:59, 18 July 2019 (UTC)
  • A more specific issue, which came up for the Newsweek RFC below, is that the precise wording of this suggestion would bar people from making general RFCs when a source is frequently discussed and frequently found reliable. (It would also bar RFCs when a source is frequently discussed with no consensus, which is utterly absurd, since those are the situation that most desperately requires a broader high-participation RFC that might reach some sort of consensus.) Having a broad RFC to settle perennial discussions of all sorts is general policy. I'm not sure we even can bar future RFCs of that nature per WP:LOCALCONSENSUS and WP:CCC. The whole idea of "let's have an RFC to set the rules under which people can make future RFCs" seems both WP:CREEP-y and sketchy. --Aquillion (talk) 19:09, 18 July 2019 (UTC)
    • 100% on the issue of perennial discussion and general policy. Simonm223 (talk) 19:11, 18 July 2019 (UTC)
    • That makes sense, we cannot change the rules for RfCs without an RfC advertised as doing such. I was thinking more along the lines of "advice" at the top of this page. Something to the effect that starting a formal RfC for every question about a source may overload the RfC process and limit participation. —DIYeditor (talk) 19:15, 18 July 2019 (UTC)
  • The problem is... no source is ever “always unreliable”... if nothing else, every source will be reliable for citing a quote from that source (and is, in fact, the MOST reliable source for that purpose). Blueboar (talk) 19:26, 18 July 2019 (UTC)

I disagree with the exception for quotes and opinion statements that is often trotted out. If a quote hasn't been repeated by reliable sources, it fails W:WEIGHT; if it has, why not just cite the reliable source? –dlthewave ☎ 17:51, 19 July 2019 (UTC)

If we're at a point where we're discussing whether a source is "always unreliable" or just "mostly unreliable", then we shouldn't use that source. François Robere (talk) 19:10, 22 July 2019 (UTC)

• This is incorrect on two points. First, there are, in fact, "always unusable" sources, ones that can never be cited in any context; in particular, WP:USERGENERATED sources can never be cited, fullstop - no context exists under which it is ever appropriate to cite one. But more generally, most of these RFCs and discussions are asking about whether a source can be used for anything except the opinion of its author. There are a huge number of sources that are clearly not usable outside that extremely specific context. Context matters for some aspects of WP:RS, but not all of them - there are ways to fall RS severely enough to render a source totally unusable in any situation. --Aquillion (talk) 02:13, 6 August 2019 (UTC)

• Strong oppose for the following reasons:

1. There's value in discussing the general reliability of a source - be it a writer, a publisher, or a specific creation - which may or may not have a reputation for reliability among experts. Do musicologists often cite Peter Schickele? No (though not for lack of talent), and the current rules allow me to reflect that with an RfC if the question arises.
2. The proposal assumes general RfCs are wasteful in terms of editors' time and effort, but the fact of the matter is that one general RfC is much less wasteful than a whole bunch of specific ones. If one is only allowed to bring fourth a general RfC after a "preponderance" of specific threads have been opened, then how much time would we have we wasted on those threads? And this is assuming good faith.
   1. BTW, how much is "a preponderance"? Is five a preponderance? Ten? Do you really want an editor to be "legally" able to open five threads on a bogus source in five different articles before someone is able to bring them here?
3. The purpose of RfCs is to resolve disputes, but by requiring that previous threads "have decided the source is unreliable" we'd be preventing disputes from ever reaching the RfC stage. After all, what's the point of an RfC if we already have a consensus? Just ban RfCs altogether.

Bottom line: if you really believe there's a problem with too many general RfCs being brought in, then there's a much better proposal on the table by Alsee. François Robere (talk) 19:07, 22 July 2019 (UTC)

• Support It's the closest thing that approaches the purposes of WP:V judging in context, and it would tend to avoid the WP:NOTAFORUM stuff these open ended queries get. Alanscottwalker (talk) 22:34, 22 July 2019 (UTC)
• Oppose Seems to not only be about RFCs; too bureaucratic for a noticeboard. —PaleoNeonate – 01:05, 23 July 2019 (UTC)
• Support The note at the top of this noticeboard clearly says that discussions should be about whether sources are reliable for specific purposes. Also, WP:V and other sourcing policies clearly state that reliability can only be judged in context. I don't think these general RFC should be completely banned, but people are opening them on sources that have never been discussed on the noticeboard, or for sources that are essentially never used in articles anyways. That just clutters up the noticeboard with useless junk. Red Rock Canyon (talk) 01:30, 23 July 2019 (UTC)
• Oppose. Prefer Alsee's proposal, which applies the same treatment to the entire reliability spectrum. — Newslinger talk 01:49, 23 July 2019 (UTC)
• Oppose "preponderance" - some level of prior consideration might be worthwhile, but the phrasing indicates that a more significant number is needed, perhaps unnecessarily restrictive Nosebagbear (talk)
• Mixed (mostly support Icewhiz's modification): I agree that opening an RFC in the absence of any indication that anyone has ever attempted to use a source is kind of waste of time, but asking editors to open multiple WP:RSN discussions about an obviously unreliable source before finally having an RFC would be an even bigger waste of time. If I have a dispute over a source Rense.com that reaches a point where it's necessary to open a noticeboard discussion, then why not just go ahead and deprecate to save everyone the trouble of revisiting a clearly terrible source in the future? Specific content disputes should be the starting point, but maybe we should make allowances for editors (emphasis on the plural) to agree to broaden a discussion if a particular source looks like it warrants it.Nblund ^talk
• Support - absolutely! It's in our PAGs. ^Atsme _Talk 📧 02:38, 14 August 2019 (UTC)

Aquillion's proposal

I suggest discouraging any repetitive objections to such general-purpose discussions and RFCs that aren't clearly backed up by whatever outcome we reach here. If there's no consensus to remove them, or if we've agreed to allow them under certain circumstances, then posting near-identical comments to several of them at once objecting to them in identical terms, like this is WP:POINTy. (Not to call that one set of edits out - it's the most recent example, but others have done similar things in the past.) The reality is that such discussions have been accepted practice for a long time, and absent an actual RFC against them or some other indication that that practice has changed, trying to shout them down by responding to all of them at once with identical objections isn't constructive. The appropriate way to halt a common practice you find objectionable is to first try and establish a centralized consensus against it, not to try and force through an objection that lacks such clear consensus through disruptively repeating your interpretation as fact even when after it's failed to reach consensus. Posting identical "bad RFC!" messages on a whole bunch of discussions at once isn't the way to move forwards, especially if there isn't really a clear consensus backing that objection up. Merely having a strong opposition to particular sorts of discussions, or strongly believing that they're against some policy, isn't sufficient justification for disrupting them like that if there's no clear consensus backing you up. Obviously this would just be a general guideline - people could still object to individual ones they feel are particularly unhelpful, but mass-copy-pasting an otherwise off-topic objection to every single RFC of a particular type that you think we shouldn't be having ought to require at least some consensus to back you up. --Aquillion (talk) 01:09, 23 July 2019 (UTC)

• Support as proposer. The whole point of this centralized discussion is to settle this in a clean fashion so it doesn't constantly spill out and disrupt other discussions with meta-arguments. --Aquillion (talk) 01:09, 23 July 2019 (UTC)
• Support. The constant obstruction caused by these objections, written into multiple unrelated discussions without consideration of the sources being discussed, is indeed disruptive. The results of this RfC should settle this matter definitively. — Newslinger talk 01:40, 23 July 2019 (UTC)
• Bad question. You refer to use of the words "bad RfC" (in this case by FOARP but I have done it more often). You are alleging that saying that is "disruptive" and that someone has tried to "shout down" others. These are conduct accusations. Replying "oppose" to a conduct accusation is (I believe) an error, since it implies acceptance that the proposal is legitimate in this context. Peter Gulutzan (talk) 01:54, 23 July 2019 (UTC)
• Bad Proposal If the outcome of this RfC is that we shouldn't have those types of RfCs, then that objection is the correct objection to make. It doesn't matter if you're objecting to 1 bad RfC or 10 - they would all be bad RfCs. If the outcome of that RfC is that we should have those types of RfCs, then that objection shouldn't be made even once. Galestar (talk) 02:01, 23 July 2019 (UTC)

• Right, but what happens if (as seems extremely likely at this point) this RFC is closed with no consensus? Those discussions keep happening, and the same few people keep posting the same few identical objections on all of them? I don't think that that's a reasonable way to proceed. --Aquillion (talk) 04:22, 23 July 2019 (UTC)

Your proposal starts with Regardless of the outcome of this RFC. This proposal is only even possible if 1 of the 3 outcomes is arrived at... Galestar (talk) 04:24, 23 July 2019 (UTC)

And ends with ...that aren't clearly backed up by whatever outcome we reach here. Most of the proposals above would allow them under certain circumstances, so I worded it broadly in the sense of ie. obviously comments reminding people of a clear outcome here would be fine. (And, obviously, you are incorrect about 1 of the 3; there's also the situation where none of the options reach a clear consensus.) Nonetheless, I'll remove the first bit to avoid confusion. --Aquillion (talk) 04:29, 23 July 2019 (UTC)

Okay I guess I didn't quite understand some of the nuance at first. I still think that this proposal should only be considered once its decided what kind of objections are allowed/disallowed/undecided. Maybe I just think too linearly and don't want to jump ahead to the part where we decide how many objections at a time are okay when we haven't yet decided (or failed-to-decide?) which objections are okay. Galestar (talk) 04:47, 23 July 2019 (UTC)

• Bad proposal - WP:NOTAFORUM is a pretty basic rule on Wikipedia, and if people on this page want to repeatedly flout it by engaging in context-free, discursive "Which media sources do you feel are bad?" style discussions, then you betcha I'm going to point that out. It also clearly states what should and should not be RFC'd on this page right at the top, pointing out that an RFC flouts this can be no more wrong than pointing out that an AFD nomination fails WP:BEFORE, or that an RFC is wrongly factored (both of which are very common). FOARP (talk) 07:16, 23 July 2019 (UTC)

Support as per proposer. Bacondrum (talk) 23:00, 27 July 2019 (UTC)

• Oppose as consensus can change and the proposal to disallow further RfCs about past RfCs doesn't allow for CCC. --RightCowLeftCoast (Moo) 11:04, 11 August 2019 (UTC)

  This proposal does not "disallow further RfCs about past RfCs". It discourages "repetitive objections to such general-purpose discussions and RFCs". — Newslinger talk 11:19, 11 August 2019 (UTC)

Adoring Nanny's Concern and proposal

Is NewsGram.com reliable so that it can be used in a BLP article? Recently added in this though it doesn't serve any purpose as of now. If it is reliable, then some important things in the Wiki article can be sourced from it. The editor-in-chief is some Munish Raizada [23], his twitter handle. - Fylindfotberserk (talk) 15:23, 23 October 2019 (UTC)

The Times of India describes the Editor in Chief thusly: [24] He's described there as a medical practitioner and sociopolitical activist. All of the articles are either republications of articles originally printed elsewhere, or have bylines of "Newsgram desk". I can find no list of employed or free-lance journalists that work with them, I can find no editorial staff, nothing. That does not have the hallmarks of a reliable source. --Jayron32 16:46, 23 October 2019 (UTC)

Smacks of SPS, no not an RS.Slatersteven (talk) 08:17, 24 October 2019 (UTC)

Does this journal look reliable? ∯WBG^converse 10:38, 20 October 2019 (UTC)

Winged Blades of Godric, it claims to be peer reviewed and I didn't find it on a couple lists of predatory journals. However, it's very new and I would exercise some caution until it builds up a reputation. Fiamh ^{(talk, contribs)} 10:43, 20 October 2019 (UTC)

The publisher, CSC Journals (Computer Science Journals) is on Beall's list, though. Someguy1221 (talk) 18:57, 20 October 2019 (UTC)

Got a link for the version of Beall's list (which Beall is no longer updating according to some reports) you found CSC Journals on? I ask because this "list of possibly predatory journals" which uses Beall's list as a "core" only lists "Computer Science Journal", probably a predatory journal based in Pakistan. Predatory scientific publishers frequently adopt names similar to reputable scientific publishers. "Science Publishing Group", an infamously predatory publisher, is easily confusable with Science, the journal of the American Association for the Advancement of Science. Are you sure you saw CSC Journals and not Computer Science Jouirnal on your version of Beall's list? Just curious. --loupgarous (talk) 23:30, 24 October 2019 (UTC)

This is supposed to start with Beall's original list right before he took it down. It contains "Computer Science Journals" and lists their website as cscjournals.org, which is the one this new journal belongs to. Honestly as I look it it, it does seem to have certain red flags indicative of a predatory publisher, although admittedly I cannot find anyone to directly accuse them with an explanation. But anyway, it's weird to me that their journals mostly list American and European editors, but the corporate side and founder are located in Malaysia, with absolutely no information on their website that I can find even discussing the nature of the company behind the publications. And even their oldest journal, published for over 12 years, does not seem to be listed any high quality indexes that I recognize. As far as I can tell these journals are only indexed by services that are aiming for exhaustiveness, not quality. Someguy1221 (talk) 02:38, 25 October 2019 (UTC)