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David Price writing in Counterpunch in Edward Said

Counterpunch was deprecated in this RFC, a decision that is being discussed up above in #De-deprecate_CounterPunch. But at Edward Said, David Price is used in writing in about his finding FBI surveillance of Said. Price is the author Threatening Anthropology: McCarthyism and the FBI’s Surveillance of Activist Anthropologists published by Duke University Press, and he is professor of anthropology and sociology at Saint Martin's University and author of a number of peer-reviewed journal articles (see his ResearchGate profile for examples). This specific Counterpunch article is also cited in academic journals, for example this article in Third World Quarterly published by Taylor & Francis discusses Price's findings at length (page 753). The citation has been removed and then tagged as unreliable. Is this article by David Price, an established expert published on specifically the topic of the US government surveillance of academics, writing in Counterpunch a reliable source for his finding the FBI surveilled Edward Said in the article Edward Said? I would like to avoid the wider discussion on deprecation being right or wrong here, and focus on if this source is reliable in this context? nableezy - 21:24, 21 December 2021 (UTC)

I don't want to discuss the deprecation of this particular source (in general I think we err on the side of deprecation too much) but I'd like to note that you can use other sources for this claim, for example The Nation, which is green now: [1]. Alaexis¿question? 21:34, 21 December 2021 (UTC)
Yes, Price's findings are covered in the Nation as well, which references his Counterpunch article (where it says "David Price is a professor of anthropology at St. Martin’s University in Washington State. As anyone glancing through his excellent book Threatening Anthropology: McCarthyism and the FBI’s Surveillance of Activist Anthropologists will know, Price is expert at getting secret government documents through the Freedom of Information Act. Last year, on behalf of the newsletter CounterPunch (which I co-edit), Price requested the FBI’s file on Said."). Just like the Third World Quarterly article. My question is if Price's article itself is a reliable source for Price's findings. nableezy - 21:37, 21 December 2021 (UTC)
Yes. The appropriateness of his CounterPunch piece can't be seriously contested (except as an inference from the deprecation designation, i.e. by ignoring the fact that he fits the best criteria advised by WP:RS). We need the deprecation review context to avoid the time-consuming bother of repeatedly coming here to justify the inclusion of fine scholarly sources because some editors are taking deprecation as holy writ and Price is merely one recent victim of that holy war of blanket good riddancy.Nishidani (talk) 21:42, 21 December 2021 (UTC)
No, instead use the source that Alaexis provided. It seems to be an example of depreciation working in practice, where information that does not belong on the encylopedia is kept out, while information that does can be found elsewhere; if the information in question is suitable for inclusion, someone else will probably have published it in independent, reliable sources. BilledMammal (talk) 21:48, 21 December 2021 (UTC)

We literally have Generally Reliable sources for the specific claim. There is absolutely no necessity to add a deprecated source to an article to achieve full NPOV coverage. You don't want to accept the broad general consensus to deprecate, but you don't get to enforce your personal lack of acceptance - David Gerard (talk) 21:50, 21 December 2021 (UTC)

Your edit is obscene. Generally unreliable or even deprecated does not mean blacklisted and to be removed on sight. Honestly, you should be ashamed of yourself for removing a source cited in a number of peer-reviewed works. nableezy - 21:54, 21 December 2021 (UTC)
It does, however, presume that the source is bad, and overcoming that is not achieved by revert-warring and personal attacks - David Gerard (talk) 21:59, 21 December 2021 (UTC)
Yes, and if you had even pretended to read this section you would see evidence to overcome that presumption. You are removing things you are not even looking at, and you should be stopped. nableezy - 22:01, 21 December 2021 (UTC)
That you put a claimed justification is insufficient to overcome the presumption. Also, you're literally declaring an intent to be an edit warrior here - is that what you meant to do? - David Gerard (talk) 22:07, 21 December 2021 (UTC)
Excuse me, what? Where did I declare any such intent? And did you even pretend to read any of the sources you just removed? Or are you going to ignore our policies, which require that each source use be examined in context. nableezy - 22:10, 21 December 2021 (UTC)

Since apparently the only way to cite works published by scholars is to de-deprecate Counterpunch, and because we now have an editor in David Gerard going on an editing rampage removing unquestionably solid sources, I will start an RFC to that effect. nableezy - 21:57, 21 December 2021 (UTC)

Yes it is a rampage that is disturbing because it is taking place while the de-deprecation review is current and not closed. No need to complicate this by opening a third venue. The gravamen of this spate of reverts while we are reviewing this, preempting the review conclusions, should be noted in the section above on de-deprecation.Nishidani (talk) 22:07, 21 December 2021 (UTC)
No, that's not how it works. The source is deprecated. As has been pointed out already, you'd need to rerun the RFC to reverse it - David Gerard (talk) 22:09, 21 December 2021 (UTC)
WP:DEPS says exactly the opposite. nableezy - 22:11, 21 December 2021 (UTC)
If it was "unquestionable", multiple editors wouldn't be questioning it - David Gerard (talk) 22:09, 21 December 2021 (UTC)
Where exactly is there any response to David Price writing in Counterpunch being a reliable source here? Who has questioned that? nableezy - 22:17, 21 December 2021 (UTC)
You have already admitted in this section we already have an RS for the claim that isn't Counterpunch. You don't need Counterpunch at all for this. You're just attempting to get a deprecated source in even when it's redundant - David Gerard (talk) 22:20, 21 December 2021 (UTC)
No, I am attempting to use the actual source here. David Price is the person who uncovered the FBI surveillance of Said. He is an expert on the topic of the US surveilling academic activists. Why would he not be cited by us when he is cited in peer-reviewed journal articles? nableezy - 22:21, 21 December 2021 (UTC)
And we have editors in the other discussion saying it's OK (including myself) and up there and down here saying it's not. We can't go on like that. The deprecation "policy" needs an add.Selfstudier (talk) 22:24, 21 December 2021 (UTC)
The deprecation guideline already disallows the indiscriminate removal, despite the bluster of David when he says No, that's not how it works. The source is deprecated. It actually is how it works, WP:DEPS requires each use be examined, not indiscriminately removed. nableezy - 22:28, 21 December 2021 (UTC)
As I already pointed out to you at WP:ANI - your fourth thread on literally the same dispute - DEPS is an information page, listing the results of deprecation RFCs. It specifically disclaims being even a guideline, let alone a policy. It cannot require anything whatsoever. You're citing the explanatory text for an information listing as if it's hard policy. It is not - David Gerard (talk) 22:51, 21 December 2021 (UTC)
ANI is about your editing, not about any one source. Kindly dont muddy the waters here. nableezy - 22:54, 21 December 2021 (UTC)

RFC: Counterpunch

Should articles published in CounterPunch be treated as WP:SPS? Nableezy 22:54, 21 December 2021 (UTC)

initial question was phrased Should articles written by established academic experts (as discussed in WP:SPS) writing in Counterpunch be de-deprecated and treated as WP:SPS?

Notified: [[centralized discussion]]. Selfstudier (talk) 12:40, 23 December 2021 (UTC)

Removed from CENT on 24 December.Selfstudier (talk) 13:53, 4 January 2022 (UTC)

*No It's impossible to de-deprecate specific articles, deprecation applies to the medium the articles appear in. And Counterpunch as medium has already been deprecated for lack of editorial control and for pushing fringe articles. If the author is an established expert, it should be incredibly easy to find other actually reliable sources for the same claime. --Mvbaron (talk) 23:05, 21 December 2021 (UTC) EDIT: struck because the RFC question changed. --Mvbaron (talk) 23:41, 21 December 2021 (UTC)

CP's ideological agenda--conspiracism, genocide denial, antisemitism, etc

Thanks. That gives the game away. Such a vapidly inane recalcitrantly contrafactual claim hardly needs rebuttal, though it should figure in any new edition of a work by the CounterPunch founders and editors Alexander Cockburn and Jeffrey St. Clair, their edited volume The Politics of Anti-Semitism as one more of the endless instances of the abuse of anti-Semitic accusations in order to silence critical dissent. As for what Cockburn who ruled the roost there for most of the period your 'data' is hacked from, he wrote The 9/11 Conspiracy Nuts, where conspiracy mongers are dissected and mocked. Genocide denial was its 'ideological agenda'? Odd that its Jewish writers never noticed, and mourned the passing of the greatest historian of the Holocaust on CounterPunch. This is real sleaze smearing, a simpleton's approach to analysis, and should be ignored.Nishidani (talk) 21:04, 22 December 2021 (UTC)
it only "gives the game away" that they read the extensive sourcing for that claim in the previous RFC. If you can rebut it, you should, because at present it's well-backed - David Gerard (talk) 21:20, 22 December 2021 (UTC)
Oh, sure. We must pay attention to others, as they ignore our comments. No one troubled to answer my detailed remarks in the RfC point by point. I'd be quite happy to pull his patchwork case apart if some effort was made to answer the point above, regarding the contrafactual fatuousness of their generalization, which only tells me Swag googled the odd piece of crap out of over 60,000 articles and came up with his short list. It is contrafactual to use the terms he used when offspring of holocaust victims or camp survivors cannot see what his skimpy screed insinuated, since they publish there. It is profoundly obscene for an anonymous wiki editor to assert that specialist Jewish scholars of that Holocaust background cannot see what our singular Wikipedian caught, just as none of the several hundred writers or scholars broadly identified as of the left contributing to it are aware, that according to a 2015 blog of far greater pretensions to comprehensive analysis ( Cited by BobfromBrockley above), that they are all being 'suckerpunched' into supporting the radical far right which is, conspiracy again, the hidden agenda apparently of Cockburn and co. Nishidani (talk) 22:51, 22 December 2021 (UTC)
"Gives the game away" is right on the money.Selfstudier (talk) 22:39, 22 December 2021 (UTC)

Swag’s swag re Counterpunch was a shabby Potemkin Village charade of googled diffs which, if checked, collapses its compiler's agenda. It was so poorly shaped that I never troubled to reply. I thought it wasn't worth the effort and that most editors could see through it. Nope.In the earlier RfC many voters were influenced by Swag's evidence. Over 2 decades, extrapolating from figures given Jeffrey St.Clair in 2015, CounterPunch has published over 70,000 articles. Swag's case consisted of the following skerricks and tidbits:

As Jovan Byford notes in a https://link.springer.com/book/10.1057/9780230349216worthy and comprehensive study of the phenomenon: ‘conspiracy theorists, by definition, deal with imperfect evidence: they are concerned with matters that are inherently secret and which the most powerful forces in the world are working hard to suppress. Conspiracy theories can, therefore, never offer incontrovertible proof’. Tony McKenna Anatomy of a Conspiracy Theory CounterPunch 27 September 2019

If you actually trouble yourself to check Jovan Byford, Conspiracy Theories: A Critical Introduction, Springer 2011 978-0-230-27279-8 p.148 he writes

It is therefore enough to glance at any contemporary conspiracy theory purporting to explain 9/11, the origins of HIV and AIDS, the New World Order, or the machinations of ‘the Lo0bby’, to realise that post-modern tongue-in-cheek playfulness and the ‘self-reflexive’ ironic tones are few and far between. On the contrary, the ideological single-mindedness of the conspiracy tradition, whether expounded on Russia Today, in yet another best-seller from Jim Marrs or on the pages of CounterPunch remains firmly entrenched in the realm where tales of clashes between civilisations, the implementation of truth, and battles between moral extremes are elaborated without even the smallest dose of post-modern irony.’

That is not an argument buttressed by any evidence. It is a throw-away line, which fails to address the consistent dismissal of conspiracy theories in CounterPunch’s record, cites no evidence from the mag and essentially redefines conspiracy as rigid viewpoints lacking post-modernist irony. Really? Most political statements about one’s party’s adversaries are conspiratorial by that definition. Useless as tits on a bull.
Swag didn’t read his own link. Counterpunch is included in a short list, of hundreds, if not thousands, of websites, blogs, and newsgroups that promote, discuss, debunk, lament, praise, and vilify conspiracy theories.
In short another owngoal.
The article asserts Counterpunch made a cause célèbre of Holocaust denier Ernst Zundel, No citation given where this occurred on Counterpunch. All I can find is this which examinees problems with his judicial record.
Alexander Cockburn’s Support Their Troops? 15 July 2007 is spun there for instance as an example of him acting as a cheerleader for 'mass-murdering Islamic Terrorists in Iraq'. Read the fucking article. The insinuation is crap, faked news etc.etc.etc.
Swag's proof therefore is just montage and sham, whose persuasiveness relies on editors not reading up and checking the supposed evidence, and the evidental skerricks are used to deprecate Counterpunch as antisemitic, genocidal, holocaust denying website. There are in all those diffs two to three possible cases of execrable judgement, in a record of 70,000. No doubt there are many more but the above doesn't prove it. Nishidani (talk) 22:14, 24 December 2021 (UTC)
This is a highly personalised attack (see WP:AGF) on an editor who is not even pinged. Can I take up the Paul Craig Roberts point? The passage on Counterpunch from the journal article[8] continues after the quote is cut: "the well-known leftwing newsletter Counterpunch strayed from traditional policy by allowing one of its most popular contributors, Paul Craig Roberts, to air his Truther arguments on their website... Roberts...is a regular a contributor to infowars.com as well as Counterpunch. From 2004 to 2017, Roberts, a right-winger, was one of the most published writers in CP, contributing weekly or more.[9] Our article about him says "Since retiring [i.e. in the period he wrote for CP], he has been accused of antisemitism and conspiracy theorizing by the Anti-Defamation League, Southern Poverty Law Centre and others... In the 2000s Roberts wrote a newspaper column syndicated by Creators Syndicate.[1] Later, he contributed to CounterPunch, becoming one of its most popular writers.[2] He has been a regular guest on programs broadcast by RT (formerly known as Russia Today).[3] As of 2008, he was part of the editorial collective of the far right website VDARE.[4] He has been funded by the Unz Foundation and he contributes to the Unz Review.[5] His writings are published by Veterans Today, InfoWars, PressTV and GlobalResearch, and he is frequently a guest on the podcasts, radio shows and video channels of the Council of Conservative Citizens, Max Keiser and 9/11 truther Kevin Barrett.[3] His own website publishes the work of Israel Shamir and Diana Johnstone.[3] In other words, not one exceptional article, but a large part of the publication's content, is authored by someone who writes almost exclusively for deprecated websites. While there may be an argument for some case by case use of CP, we should clearly proceed with the presumption of unreliability. BobFromBrockley (talk) 09:29, 30 December 2021 (UTC)
The "editorial policy" thing is bothering me a bit: Every submission to our website is checked for accuracy, libel, copyright and style before it is posted. Any posted article that is subsequently found to contain factual inaccuracies, potentially libellous material or material that violates copyright is either amended or removed as soon as we become aware of this. For editorial style, we follow the Economist Style Guide. is obviously an editorial policy but it seems to be that just deciding what will and won't publish is not an "editorial policy" worthy of the name.Selfstudier (talk) 11:32, 23 December 2021 (UTC)

haha your comparison is quite apt! We need more policy exegesis! :D But, let's be honest, Price at al only chose CP because they knew they couldn't or didn't want to publish such less rigorous and more blog-y pieces in an actual academic journal. Let's not pretend a column in CP is anything like a peer-reviewed article, top academic or not. --Mvbaron (talk) 17:01, 29 December 2021 (UTC)

I don't think anyone is pretending that, I think Nishidani is saying the expert opinion is frequently better and I agree with him. Because it's an opinion, we attribute rather than saying it in Wikivoice and honor is thereby satisfied. It's not an accident that more and more sources are blurring the line between fact and opinion.Selfstudier (talk) 17:55, 29 December 2021 (UTC)
Thats nonsense, he published there because he is on record as believing in the site, see here. nableezy - 21:51, 29 December 2021 (UTC)

Comment: I note this discussion is currently at 11-11, i.e. no consensus. It should now pause while the Deprecation RfC plays out below, so I am commenting here to keep it from auto-archiving. If the Deprecation RfC reaches a consensus for "No", this RfC becomes irrelevant. But I presume if the RfC reaches a consensus for "Yes", we'd need to return to this discussion to see if we can reach consensus that CounterPunch should be treated differently from other deprecated sources. Have I got that right? — Preceding unsigned comment added by Bobfrombrockley (talk • contribs) 09:59, 12 January 2022 (UTC)

sounds right to me --Mvbaron (talk) 10:02, 12 January 2022 (UTC)

References (Counterpunch)

  1. ^ "Washington Murdered Privacy at Home and Abroad, by". 25 March 2010. Archived from the original on 2015-09-23.
  2. ^ Marmura, Stephen (2014). "Likely and Unlikely Stories: Conspiracy Theories in an Age of Propaganda". International Journal of Communication. 8: 2388. Archived from the original on 2018-05-03. Retrieved 2019-01-20.
  3. ^ a b c Holland, Adam (April 1, 2014). "Paul Craig Roberts: Truther as Patriot". The Interpreter. Archived from the original on January 20, 2019. Retrieved January 19, 2019.
  4. ^ "VDARE". Southern Poverty Law Center. Retrieved 2021-07-14.
  5. ^ Cite error: The named reference Anti-Defamation League 2014 was invoked but never defined (see the help page).

The History of the Medieval World: From the Conversion of Constantine to the First Crusade by Susan Wise Bauer

Is The History of the Medieval World: From the Conversion of Constantine to the First Crusade by Susan Wise Bauer a reliable source. The book was published by W. W. Norton, and its homepage does not indicate that it publishes peer-reviewed books ([11]). I understand the author is not a professional historian. She writes popular books mainly about education. Borsoka (talk) 16:52, 22 January 2022 (UTC)

History books do not receive peer reviews as such. At the level of detail an article like Middle Ages can go into, the book is probably reliable, but more specialized sources would be better. Johnbod (talk) 16:57, 22 January 2022 (UTC)
It's a popular history from a responsible publisher. I'd say it's an RS, though perhaps not for more controversial topics. Having listened to the audiobook, I daresay there's precious little controversial material in it. Cheers! Dumuzid (talk) 16:59, 22 January 2022 (UTC)
Yes, at least there's a lot of it - the last citation used covers up to p. 431, for the year 840. The material cited to it is pretty basic facty stuff. Johnbod (talk) 17:04, 22 January 2022 (UTC)
I largely agree with Johnbod & Dumuzid, I think. Norton aren't a primarily academic publisher (though I think e.g. the Norton Critical Editions tend to get proper academics to write their supplementary materials?), but they are well-known and respected. Added to that Bauer isn't a subject-matter expert, and I wouldn't want to cite her for anything too controversial, and suspect that better sources are probably available, but for basic facty stuff I don't think it's likely to be a major problem. Caeciliusinhorto-public (talk) 20:36, 22 January 2022 (UTC)
Thank you for your answers. There are hundreds of reliable academic sources about the medieval period which are ignored in the Middle Ages article. Are we sure that a book written by an author who "isn't a subject-matter expert" and published by a primarily non-academic publisher adds value to an article about Middle Ages? Borsoka (talk) 02:45, 23 January 2022 (UTC)
Generally I agree with you – if you have a better source to hand, absolutely replace it. But by the standards of questionable sources used on wikipedia, I'm not super worried about it – I wouldn't revert an edit to an article purely for using it as a source, or scour the literature to find out whether any given claim sourced to it is nonsense just on general principle. Caeciliusinhorto-public (talk) 11:46, 25 January 2022 (UTC)
Not entirely, no. You should suggest better sources (in English). For most of these basic factual statements, no change in the text is likely to be necessary. Johnbod (talk) 18:50, 25 January 2022 (UTC)
Use it to understand the basic facts, but then use a better source to back it up. Just like college students use Wikipedia. JBchrch talk 22:19, 23 January 2022 (UTC)
Agree with everyone here, and just wanted to briefly chime in again. In my opinion, the work is a well-written surface-level overview that can be enjoyed even by someone with a fair degree of familiarity with the subject (like me). One of the reasons I am comfortable saying it is a reliable source (if not in the highest tier) is something I alluded to earlier: the author is cognizant of her remit and does not (to my memory) exceed it. That is, while she sometimes makes mention of more controversial theories, the structure of the book is almost entirely an uncontroversial recitation of basic fact. So, this leaves me where everyone else seems to be -- if a cite can be replaced with a more academic source, it's probably best to do so. But when cited to establish basic facts and chronology, there's no reason to be overly concerned. Cheers, all. Dumuzid (talk) 14:23, 25 January 2022 (UTC)

Barstool Sports

Is Barstool Sports reliable for entertainment/film/pop culture news? I am bringing it up as no one else has before. ― Kaleeb18TalkCaleb 03:35, 28 January 2022 (UTC)

I would doubt it. Has anyone tried to cite it as a reliable source? Calidum 03:47, 28 January 2022 (UTC)
And, unlike some old Gawker or Gizmodo Media sites, they don't seem to do any in-depth reporting with editorial oversight to provide an exception to their general unreliability as a self-pub blog/podcast. Bakkster Man (talk) 14:47, 28 January 2022 (UTC)

Is a preprint quoted in an article by someone not a DNA specialist ok as a source for DNA?

The text I'm concerned about is "Also, Gourdine et al conducted short tandem repeat's (STR's) analysis of samples from royal mummies of the Eighteenth Dynasty and Nineteenth Dynasty, including Rameses III, which determined the genomes had a 41.7% to 93.9% affilitation with sub-Saharan African populations.[1]

"Gourdine et al", quoted in the source above, is the preprint at [12], the link is in the text of the article as you can see if you read it. Also of some concern is that the author of the article in African American Archaeological Review turns out to be a pharmacology and infectious disease specialist.[13] Pinging User:WikiUser4020 who I think has been adding this is good faith. Doug Weller talk 08:17, 26 January 2022 (UTC)

References

  1. ^ Crawford, Keith W. (1 December 2021). "Critique of the "Black Pharaohs" Theme: Racist Perspectives of Egyptian and Kushite/Nubian Interactions in Popular Media". African Archaeological Review. 38 (4): 695–712. doi:10.1007/s10437-021-09453-7. ISSN 1572-9842.
The journal is African Archaeological Review to be correct. A preprint is essentially a scientific paper prior to public server. The author is an academic and his work has been published in a peer-review journal. Keita and Bard are also referenced in the wider article despite their backgrounds as historians/bio-anthropologists. The issue is the unbalanced weight of work. Serological evidence from Paoli and Diop were edited out, despite being peer-reviewed evidence due to the view that this evidence was out of date. Yet, the opposing view permits blood group evidence from 1981 from Paoli which links ancient and modern Egyptians without reference to the fact the latter has shared blood group linkages with West African populations in a separate study conducted by the same author. — Preceding unsigned comment added by WikiUser4020 (talk • contribs)
Sorry, no idea how "American" got there. The problem is that the preprint after several years hasn't been published and is not peer reviewed. The authors may have decided not to publish it for various reasons, including discovering problems with the data or methodology. Crawford being an academic in one field does not make him a reliable source in a different field. Doug Weller talk 09:25, 26 January 2022 (UTC)
As for WP:PREPRINTS, preprints aren't reliable sources for anything. Plus, one can only wonder why is an infectious disease specialist allowed to write an ancient history article, moreover using as sources scholars who were/are frequently accused of pseudo-historicism like Cheikh Anta Diop and Martin Bernal, the latter more likely to be entirely WP:FRINGE. Lone-078 (talk) 09:49, 26 January 2022 (UTC)
Yep, per PREPRINT, this can't be used. Not a reliable source. And bizarre that it hasn't been published in 4 years, and was only edited in 2019. This smacks of something very possibly wrong with the methodology that peer reviewers really didn't like. At the very least, they could get it published in a really crappy journal! But preprints are even worse than PRIMARY sources. So we really need a secondary source citing a legitimate primary source. — Shibbolethink (♔ ♕) 11:29, 26 January 2022 (UTC)

Dio wrote the initial Chapter on UNESCO History of Africa, an authoritative text on African historiography and was noted for his "painstakingly contributions"(General History of Africa II,pp55) in comparison to other scholars The consensus among Egyptologists, anthropologists and historians have reinforced his findings based on archaeological, linguistic, climatic, historical and cultural evidence.WikiUser4020 (talk) 10:18, 26 January 2022 (UTC)Critics accusing him of pseudo-historicism have themselves been criticised of misrepresenting his work.

The text is still in Ramesses III, Ancient Egypt and Ancient Egyptian race controversy (which is a mess with a lot of stuff not about the controversy itself but material that belongs in the articles discussing Egypt's population and DNA). Let's not get off-topic arguing about Diop (and this "consensus" is based on original research, ie not on an agreement among all those people about Diop). The issue still is that it's a preprint. Doug Weller talk 11:02, 26 January 2022 (UTC)
Another problem is that such DNA studies are controversial as well as often misinterpreted, not only prone to confirmation bias but also quote mined from to support particular positions. Unless reputable secondary sources put them in context, their use on Wikipedia tends to result in original research or potentially flawed conclusions; accumulating them in an article fails to meet the objectives of a tertiary source like Wikipedia: presenting a concise summary of the history of prominent views and the current scientific consensus (if any)... —PaleoNeonate – 12:07, 26 January 2022 (UTC)
WP:PREPRINTS is very clear about this: we can only use preprints as an OA resource for papers that were subsequently peer-reviewed and published . Otherwise, WP:SPS applies. We also have a consensus against using genetic primary research papers in such contexts as mentioned above, even if they have gone through peer-review and are published in respectable journals. Such sources are constantly misread or cherry-picked especially when ethnonationalist, pan-ethnic or other identity-related POVs come into play. –Austronesier (talk) 16:57, 26 January 2022 (UTC)

Yet, Gourdine et al are referenced in the article in the Ancient Egypt race debate ?.[1] In relation to the consensus, I can provide several sources. This consensus is mirrored among Egyptologists such as Frank Yurco who see the Nile Valley peoples as "basically a homogeneous African population [that] had lived in the Nile Valley from ancient to modern times."[2] Similarly authoritative anthropologists such as Nancy Lovell outlined in the 1999 Encyclopedia of the Archaeology of Ancient Egypt outlined ”There is now a sufficient body of evidence from modern studies of skeletal remains to indicate that the ancient Egyptians, especially southern Egyptians, exhibited physical characteristics that are within the range of variation for ancient and modern indigenous peoples of the Sahara and tropical Africa. The distribution of population characteristics seems to follow a clinal pattern from south to north, which may be explained by natural selection as well as gene flow between neighboring populations. In general, the inhabitants of Upper Egypt and Nubia had the greatest biological affinity to people of the Sahara and more southerly areas"[3]. All racist, competiting hypothesis including the Dynastic and Hamitic hypothesis have been discredited in the historiography[4] and the consensus is that Ancient Egypt emerged from a Sudanic-Sahran context[5] WikiUser4020 (talk) 21:40, 26 January 2022 (UTC)

I would suggest that this discussion highlights the need for an official policy statement on genetics sources, as expressed in my recent RfC. Hunan201p (talk) 14:57, 27 January 2022 (UTC)
"All racist, competiting hypothesis including the Dynastic and Hamitic hypothesis have been discredited in the historiography" is from a 1966 source. I'm afraid that doesn't work for me. Doug Weller talk 17:59, 27 January 2022 (UTC)

References

  1. ^ "Ancient Egyptian race controversy". Wikipedia. 26 January 2022.
  2. ^ Lefkowitz, Mary R. (2014). Black Athena Revisited. The University of North Carolina Press. ISBN 978-1-4696-2032-9.
  3. ^ Encyclopedia of the archaeology of ancient Egypt. London. 1999. pp. 328–332. ISBN 0415185890.((cite book)): CS1 maint: location missing publisher (link)
  4. ^ MacGaffey, Wyatt (1966). "Concepts of Race in the Historiography of Northeast Africa". The Journal of African History. 7 (1): 1–17. ISSN 0021-8537.
  5. ^ Davidson, Basil (1991). Africa in history : themes and outlines (Rev. and expanded ed.). New York: Collier Books. p. 15. ISBN 0684826674.

No serious academic work would discount peer-reviewed evidence, irrespective of publication dates. This reflects your judgement rather than the quality of evidence provided.— Preceding unsigned comment added by WikiUser4020 (talk • contribs)

Per WP:PREPRIMT, it would require exceptional circumstances to use this source, which there aren't. TFD (talk) 22:50, 27 January 2022 (UTC)
@WikiUser4020: can you clarify what you mean by No serious academic work would discount peer-reviewed evidence, irrespective of publication dates. The point about the Gourdine Preprint is that it wasn’t peer reviewed. DeCausa (talk) 22:55, 27 January 2022 (UTC)

That was directed at Doug Weller’s latter comments about the academic consensus on African historiography. On a separate note, the Gourdine references have been removed for the current time.

In that case, if it’s accepted that the Gourdine paper is not a reliable source, this thread has no further purpose?
@WikiUser4020: So you think that a 1966 work can be used to reflect academic consensus? Besides the fact that it's not clearcut that the source backs the text - I think it's too much of a stretch. Please explain why you think such an old source is appropriate and give quotes backing the text. I've read it. You brought up some new sources, so the thread is still appropriate. And please sign your posts. Doug Weller talk 07:44, 28 January 2022 (UTC)


WikiUser4020 (talk) 13:25, 28 January 2022 (UTC)The work and context of W. MacGaffey summarises the shifting trends and concepts of race in African historigography. He clearly outlines:

p4: In reference to the Hamitic hypothesis promulgated by Charles Seligman as "Hamitic is to be rejected as a racial label"[1]

P4: He acknowledges that Diop's position was "very nearly right"[2] that the “term Mediterranean is an anthropologists euphemism for the term Negroid”[3]

P16: These hypothesis have based in racialist rather than historicial thinking. “Certain authors speak of the Brown race. This concept is without scientific evidence, and must be regarded as a myth with specific ideological function related to the colonial situation”[4].

Toby Wilkinson in his 1999 work, Early Dyanstic Egypt notes that "change in perception"[5] among scholarship from the "discredited Dynastic race theory"[6] and its view of a "master race"[7] to "recognition of indigenous roots"[8].

This view is echoed by authoritative Egypologist, Frank Yurco that a "The peoples of Egypt, the Sudan, and much of East African Ethiopia and Somalia are now generally regarded as a Nilotic continuity"[9]

I have provided extensive evidence and sources from Egyptologists, historians and anthropologists about the current consensus about Ancient Egypt as emerging from localised, homogenous African context and the discredited racist hypothesis. This thread should be closed as the Gourdine references have been removed for "the current time".— Preceding unsigned comment added by WikiUser4020 (talk • contribs)

@WikiUser4020: I know one of them discusses Diop but without full backing. In fact McGaffey clearly states that Diop's attempt to explain why Egyptian civilization didn't spread all over Africa by claiming that tall Negroes didn't arrive in West Africa until 500 BC is unlikely. My post asking about Dio's chapter in the UNESCO volume seems not to have been saved. But I see you said "Dio wrote the initial Chapter on UNESCO History of Africa, an authoritative text on African historiograph". His chapter is clearly not a reliable source, do you understand why? I think it should be mentioned in his article with comments. I assume you've read it his chapter in the UNESCO volume and know what the problems are? And please, again, sign! Doug Weller talk 13:46, 28 January 2022 (UTC)

The post is in relation to Diop which was mentioned in a separate talk section and can be discussed there. McGaffey contests one aspect of Diop's theories. However, his core theories that early humankind began in East Africa and it was likely that people were black skinned and people populated other continents by moving either through the Sahara or the Nile Valley is correlated with a range of evidence. How are his contributions "clearly not a reliable source" ?. UNESCO is an authoritative, publication featuring a range of scholars and he was on the science committee. The historical, anthropological, archaoelogical evidence and geographic which Diop provides has a wealth of supporting, secondary evidence. Can you provide specific sources refuting the arguments presented in Chapter I of UNESCO History of Africa since you have not listed any range of sources ?14:13, 28 January 2022 (UTC)WikiUser4020 (talk).

I don't need to do that. I can just quote a review of the volume that says of his chapter that the volume "is marred by a shrill chapter by Cheikh Anta Diop arguing once again his idiosyncratic view of the bases of ancient Egyptian civilization. (The editor, G. Mokhtar, takes the unusual step of warning the reader that Diop's views are not accepted by all experts in the field - surely still something of an understatement - and of printing the lengthy report of a symposium on the matter." The review is by Ivor Wilks in the The International Journal of African Historical Studies.[14] On page 51 you can see "»NOTE BY THE EDITOR OF THE VOLUME The opinions expressed by Professor Cheikh Anta Diop in this chapter are those which he presented and developed at the Unesco symposium on 'The peopling of ancient Egypt' which was held in Cairo in 1974. A summary of the proceedings of this symposium will be found at the end of this chapter. The arguments put forward in this chapter have not been accepted by all the experts interested in the problem (cf. Introduction, above). Gamal Mokhtar " But you surely knew that? Doug Weller talk 15:11, 28 January 2022 (UTC)

References

  1. ^ MacGaffey, Wyatt (1966). "Concepts of Race in the Historiography of Northeast Africa". The Journal of African History. 7 (1): 1–17. ISSN 0021-8537.
  2. ^ MacGaffey, Wyatt (1966). "Concepts of Race in the Historiography of Northeast Africa". The Journal of African History. 7 (1): 1–17. ISSN 0021-8537.
  3. ^ MacGaffey, Wyatt (1966). "Concepts of Race in the Historiography of Northeast Africa". The Journal of African History. 7 (1): 1–17. ISSN 0021-8537.
  4. ^ "Concepts of Race in the Historiography of Northeast Africa on JSTOR". www.jstor.org.
  5. ^ Wilkinson, Toby (1999). Early dynastic Egypt. London: Routledge. p. 15. ISBN 0415186331.
  6. ^ Wilkinson, Toby (1999). Early dynastic Egypt. London: Routledge. p. 15. ISBN 0415186331.
  7. ^ Wilkinson, Toby (1999). Early dynastic Egypt. London: Routledge. p. 15. ISBN 0415186331.
  8. ^ Wilkinson, Toby (1999). Early dynastic Egypt. London: Routledge. p. 15. ISBN 0415186331.
  9. ^ Black Athena revisited. Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press. 1996. pp. 62–100. ISBN 0807822469.

are these sources fine?

hello, im trying to find reliable sources for this heated dicussion [[15]]... i added my source findings regarding in the article itself [[16]] but (if not against policies, ill post them here as well)

here are the sources to prove my argument that this topic COULD be worthy of WP:NMUSICIAN / WP:NACTOR. (i will use google translate because the topic is regarding Indonesian manner as i understand not everyone speaks Indonesian) - any thought ?

Any thoughts? Yes. 'Profiles' and 'biographies' that look like either paid promotion or just tabloid fluff do nothing to establish notability. And you should probably read WP:BADGER. AndyTheGrump (talk) 23:58, 28 January 2022 (UTC)
  • thanks I did read it, and apologized already for sounding aggressive and gave my reasoning on the talk page. Amoeba69th (talk) 00:13, 29 January 2022 (UTC)

AccuWeather and The Weather Channel

Since I didn't see AccuWeather (accuweather.com) and The Weather Channel (weather.com) on the perennial sources page, are these weather-related sources reliable so you could add them to that page? These website sources are mainly about weather forecasts with generally accurate temperature measures for every location and news from posts of significant weather and even natural disaster events. --Allen (talk / ctrb) 17:28, 24 January 2022 (UTC)

WP:RSP is for sources that are frequently discussed. It's meant to be a reference guide for sources that can be contentious. As far as I can tell I don't see a point to adding them to RSP if there's no actual dispute. That being said, maybe there is an argument for adding AccuWeather as a yellow entry given that they publish long-term forecasts based on what meteorologists generally agree is bs. [17] [18] I'd say we should declare their forecasts for more than 7 days out as unreliable, given that their long-term forecasting abilities are questionable. Chess (talk) (please use ((reply to|Chess)) on reply) 22:11, 24 January 2022 (UTC)
Allen2, you might ask at WP:WikiProject Weather to see what their views of those two sites are. Schazjmd (talk) 22:23, 24 January 2022 (UTC)
Chess – in general, I think we probably shouldn't be including weather forecasts on Wikipedia at all, whether they are speculative long-term forecasts or more reliable short-term ones by the respected organisations like the Met Office or National Weather Service. If the predicted movements of really major weather systems (like, Hurricane Katrina major) are being discussed in reliable sources outside of just weather forecasts, that might be acceptable, but in general it seems dangerously close to WP:CRYSTAL and WP:NOTNEWS Caeciliusinhorto-public (talk) 11:38, 25 January 2022 (UTC)
Personally, I don't edit in weather related subjects that often, so I'm unaware whether or not these sources would ever need to be cited or how typical including weather forecasts are. I more or less got the info about AccuWeather's long term forecasting from our Wikipedia article on them and not my own in depth research/knowledge. Chess (talk) (please use ((reply to|Chess)) on reply) 02:31, 29 January 2022 (UTC)

Principality of Wales research

This book : Burton, Robert (1730). The history of the principality of Wales. : In three parts. Paternoster Row, London. - A history of the Principlaity of Wales at Google Books, written in 1730 is specific for the era of the Principality of Wales spanning the centuries of 1216 - 1542. There is very little information available regarding the historical era of the Principality of Wales in the UK, and this book seems to be the missing work in completing the article which I've specified. Any consensus regarding the authenticity of the book and whether it is a reliable source please ?? Cltjames (talk) 17:20, 28 January 2022 (UTC)

@Cltjames It's not per se forbidden, see WP:OLDSOURCES, but obviously it's not optimal, you should try hard to find something more recent. I'd say use carefully, and with in-text attribution, like according to the 1730 The history of the principality of Wales. : In three parts by Robert Burton etc. Gråbergs Gråa Sång (talk) 19:49, 28 January 2022 (UTC)
btw, my advice on researching this topic would be to consult any good general history of Wales. The Prince of Wales was simply a title and lands bestowed on the eldest son of the English king, Wales during this period is covered in History of Wales, Wales in the Late Middle Ages. Its political institutions are already covered in the article, and could easily be sourced from general Welsh history sources.Boynamedsue (talk) 08:05, 29 January 2022 (UTC)
The issue with the Principality is there isn't much to read about this time period, for instance, South Wales was not in the Principality. I have done enough research to know there not many books available on this time period and literally this book seems the perfect fit (you just have to observe the relevance of the title - Principality of Wales). So we have the issue of WP:OLDSOURCES, however the author and it's authenticity is not in question, which makes it a reliable source surely ? Cltjames (talk) 12:42, 29 January 2022 (UTC)
Have you actually looked at the book? It’s not usable. It isn’t even about the feudal Principality, which the article is about. It’s using the name “romantically” to just mean Wales, and it starts from the “flood”! It’s a collection, as would be expected from an early 18th century “history”, of antiquarian tales…Brutus, Arthur etc. “The author and ts authenticity is not in question”. Isn’t it? Who is he? I’m not sure why you say South Wales wasn’t in the principality. Griffiths work mentioned by Zero, The Structure and Personnel of Government. Vol. i: South Wales, 1277-1536 is about the two shires in the South that were within the principality: Cardigan and Camarthen. Griffiths was going to do an equivalent volume on the Principality’s remaining 3 shires which were in the North, but unfortunately never got round to it. There’s a great deal on the Principality in modern scholarship which you seem to have missed. DeCausa (talk) 13:49, 29 January 2022 (UTC)
I'd have to concur with DeCausa. The book in question isn't about the Principality of Wales and it is not by any standard a reliable source. There is some history in it, but it isn't history. Boynamedsue (talk) 14:35, 29 January 2022 (UTC)
Out of curiosity I’ve done a bit of digging on “Robert Burton” and it seems he didn’t exist (“the author and its authenticity is not in question”). It’s a pseudonym for a London bookseller called Nathaniel Crouch who repackaged other works he found and sold them under this name, like an 18th century Reader's Digest, apparently. DeCausa (talk) 15:33, 29 January 2022 (UTC)

Dun & Bradstreet

I see no RS policy regarding Dun & Bradstreet (a database of information about corporations, such as revenue, # of employees, etc.) though I see that it's used to source facts about companies (see infobox for this company). It is clearly a large database with the appearence of institutional "credibility", but I'm not clear on how the information is sourced, other than it appears companies can claim their page and add info, and other data is sourced from "third parties", and revenue estimates. But that would seem to align it with something like ZoomInfo, which I'm pretty sure is not RS, as it's a scraper, and also allows orgs to add info, I believe. Is there any precedent for this source? Here's an example of company info on the site. Pyrrho the Skipper (talk) 19:31, 26 January 2022 (UTC)

What exactly do you want to use and in which context? Things like revenue come from (public) companies' financial statements. In general, D&B is a well-known company and their data is used by many financial and non-financial institutions. Using D&B proprietary ratings and estimates is not a question of their reliability - we know for sure that if it's published on their site it's their estimate - but due weight. Alaexis¿question? 19:54, 26 January 2022 (UTC)
Yes, I agree with what you're saying. The reason I brought it here is because I was researching revenue and number of employees for an edit request, and saw it listed at D&B however, the company (Accuride) is not a public company, and thus I have no idea where the figures come from. I assume they are self-reported, but according to the COI account that made the request, the figures were not public. Essentially, the edit request was to remove the info that was in the infobox, and in doing that, I attempted to track down the potential source of the unsourced info, and came across D&B as one potential source. But my decidion was to remove the info (as requested) because D&B did not disclose where this supposedly private data came from. Pyrrho the Skipper (talk) 21:08, 26 January 2022 (UTC)
No idea where D&B get their information, but they are certainly a reliable source for such figures--as such, we don't need to know where the information comes from, at least in my view. Cheers. Dumuzid (talk) 21:11, 26 January 2022 (UTC)
I would be extremely hesitant to use Dun & Bradstreet. When I've tried to use D&B to research companies in the past (for my day job, not Wikipedia), I've found their information to be outdated and unreliable. It might still be useful for their target audience, credit managers, who are using it as just one source of information in reaching a credit decision, but I have trouble thinking of a situation where I would want to cite them for Wikipedia. John M Baker (talk) 23:47, 26 January 2022 (UTC)
The database consists of self-reported information, so it comes under Self-published or questionable sources as sources on themselves. I would assume it to be accurate unless there is evidence to the contrary. Bear in mind that accounting is not an exact science and auditors do not guarantee the accuracy of financial statements. A great number of blue chip companies in the U.S. have turned out to be worthless. All we can provide is the information available. TFD (talk) 22:16, 27 January 2022 (UTC)
The problem with this approach, which otherwise sounds appealing, is that companies often fail to update their D&B information, so it often is information that was true, or claimed to be true, in the indeterminate past. John M Baker (talk) 01:47, 28 January 2022 (UTC)
This is absolutely true, and I have had this experience as well; I still think that it's such a widely used source that we can use it with attribution. But, as ever, happy to go with consensus. Cheers. Dumuzid (talk) 01:53, 28 January 2022 (UTC)
Seconded. D&B is as close to an authority on the figures they house as currently exists, and has been for decades; if a company is going to update records outside of official filings or their website, it's most likely to be with their D&B profile. The accuracy of other sources that state 'y had x employees as of date z' typically have questionable accuracy and frequently refer to out of date data anyway. When an employee count (or other noncontroversial figure) is not listed with a year, it should be assumed by readers to not necessarily be up to date. Star Garnet (talk) 23:53, 29 January 2022 (UTC)
IME it often has outdated information. In the UK it gets information from Companies House (which itself isn't an RS) upon registration, but apparently doesn't regularly update. To double check, I just looked up a UK company and even the basic info on D&B has been out of sync with the latest updates on Companies House for years. ProcrastinatingReader (talk) 00:40, 30 January 2022 (UTC)

Websites used as sources, Battle of Montgisard

AND,


Historyonthisday.com says it is written by 'amateur historians', so not RS. AndyTheGrump (talk) 09:51, 30 January 2022 (UTC)
The Thoughtco.com article seems to cite some sources (bottom of the page). And there seems to have been some prior discussion of Thoughtco on WP:RS/N, though it is rather inconclusive. [19] Personally, I'd be wary of citing the article in question for anything controversial. And looking at the article in question (Battle of Montgisard), I've got to agree with comments on the talk page that there seems to be a whole lot of questionable content. If websites like these are the best we can come up with for some rather astonishing casualty figures, we should be looking for much better ones. AndyTheGrump (talk) 09:51, 30 January 2022 (UTC)

Dozens of scraper-plagiarism websites

Lengthy list of plagiarism sites

I have found a collection of websites which steal content from other websites and then use some kind of automated process to change them enough to make them appear original to search engines. All of these websites are connected by the same boilerplate in their "about" pages, with only superficial changes. None of these appear reliable. While looking into this, I found this news story from Monterey County Weekly about this group.

These are cited hundreds of times on Wikipedia. I haven't look at all of them, but so far, every source I've seen has been plagiarized from some other website. Only some of those original sources are reliable. Some are press releases, and some are tabloids like the Daily or niche blogs. Most (but not all) appear to include a link to the original story at the end, but they do not indicate that the story was a barely paraphrased copy of that story. They also do not credit these stories to the original authors.

Even the ones which come from reliable outlets have been modified in ways which makes them unreliable. As an example I've already fixed, one of these sites copied a story about runner Michał Rozmys losing his right shoe in mid-race and still finishing. This was changed to him losing his right leg in mid race and still finishing. What an athlete! That's indicative of the total lack of quality. This is more than plagiarism, it's just bad.

I posted an explanation of this to Wikiproject Spam. There, Beetstra recommended that I post this to Meta:Talk:Spam blacklist since some of these websites are being cited at other Wikipedias. Billinghurst in turn said that this needed consensus here, as these sites have been added as references by experienced editors and admins. Many editors have added these in good faith, but that's exactly the problem. Every experienced editor has mistakenly cited a bad sources, and these websites are designed to trick people.

As I said The Daily Mail seems like a popular source, as do sites with a paywall such as Financial Times. It's obvious why they are being cited on Wikipedia, but it doesn't change the problem. I cannot confidently say these are legally WP:ELNEVER copyright violations, but they sure look like it to me. Regardless, they are plagiarism, and they should all be removed. To prevent further confusion, they should also be blacklisted. Grayfell (talk) 00:47, 29 January 2022 (UTC)

I have blacklisted these on meta: scraper sites with plagiarized (copyvio?) material, likely properly marketed (SEOd) to appear high in google searches as to outperform the original source (and hence unknowing editors, including admins, are likely to use them), and possible spammed to Wikipedia (yes, we have nofollow, but that is easily solved with proper webbugs). Dirk Beetstra T C 12:33, 29 January 2022 (UTC)
Billinghurst has reverted the blacklisting of these sites. Meta:Spam blacklist/About says Domains hosting copyright violations, or other legally problematic may be blacklisted on a case-by-case basis, provided there is strong justification and consensus to do so exists. Since Billinghurst has reverted, perhaps they will explain more clearly, here on this board, why this is necessary and why the justification is not strong enough.
This is not the first time these kinds of malicious spam sources have been discussed here. Wikipedia:Reliable sources/Noticeboard/Archive 357#Fr24 News, and synonym-spam sites in general is the most recent time I am aware of. As far as I can tell, nobody is defending these sources on their own merits. How could they? They plagiarize other outlets without attribution, and modify the content to avoid detection. This process also introduces significant errors. These sites act as a laundering service to allow editors to cite unreliable sources, including sources which are already deprecated. This is not a good thing! Further, as these sites closely paraphrase copyrighted content for non-archival purposes, there is little legal justification for these websites even existing. Grayfell (talk) 02:23, 30 January 2022 (UTC)
Interesting. Content might also contain harmful disinformation eg. support conspiracy theories, culture war memes, practical jokes ("left leg"), or embarrass political enemies. It would be great to see this given a classification ("usurped sources" ie. WP:USURPSOURCE per WP:USURP dab), and a tracking page where the domains can be listed, a description of the problem, links to previous discussions and history of actions taken. It will be ongoing indefinitely, presumably. -- GreenC 03:08, 30 January 2022 (UTC)
Yeah, I've been slowly cleaning these up, but I've only made a dent. I haven't noticed any signs that these are being intentionally used for harmful purposes, but its so sloppy and weird that it would be easy to abuse. If there's a name for this phenomenon, I haven't found it. If nothing else, having a simple wikilink to explain this would make writing edit summaries much easier. Grayfell (talk) 04:15, 30 January 2022 (UTC)
Example. Do you want help? I have a bot that does this. It won't get them all, due to free form cites outside ref pairs or bundled cites but could get the bulk of them. I ran a search, the domains exist in (up to) 177 articles. -- GreenC 05:02, 30 January 2022 (UTC)
Thank you, I would appreciate the help. That example is one, but a more typical one might be this one where I replace the plagiarized source with the original. (I don't know if fightnews.com is reliable, but it cannot be any worse than a source which mangles and plagiarizes it for SEO manipulation.)
Unusually, this particular collection of spam sites often includes links to the real source at the end, so manually checking has been very helpful. They don't always include a link, but there's always been some sign of where they got the article. I've been using these links to replace or evaluate each reference case-by-case. I think it might be better to just get rid of them and clean up afterward, so a checking a log generated by a bot would be fantastic.
Also, it might be better to have a wikilink or similar in place for these edits before mass-removing them. That way editors who see a CN tag will have some clue what the problem is when they're looking for replacements. Grayfell (talk) 06:16, 30 January 2022 (UTC)
OK we now have WP:USURPSOURCE feel free to modify as you like. I'll start on the bot slow, a dz or so pages so you can check them out. Will use the USURPSOURCE page for tracking bot activity and logging. -- GreenC 15:52, 30 January 2022 (UTC)

Wikipedia talk:Reliable sources#Stronger warning against using predatory journals as source

I want to add stronger warnings against the use of predatory journals / explanations for why those should not be cited on Wikipedia. Others disagree. Please comment. Headbomb {t · c · p · b} 16:51, 29 January 2022 (UTC)

Excellent idea. I can't imagine why anyone would disagree with having an explicit stance against predatory journals. Either Wikipedia clearly takes a stance for reliable sources, or it doesn't. Editors can't speak WP:WEASEL in the Wikipedia, so why should the content guideline? Hunan201p (talk) 08:30, 30 January 2022 (UTC)
@Hunan201p: you might want to say that there rather than here, since that's where the discussion is. Headbomb {t · c · p · b} 18:19, 30 January 2022 (UTC)

Extensive use of a primary source from Cryptologic Quarterly, an internal NSA document, on Gulf of Tonkin incident

Our article on the Gulf of Tonkin incident makes use of extensive cites to a single primary source, [1] - Cryptologic Quarterly, an internal publication distributed by the NSA for use within the US government (available today via FOIA requests, but not intended to be published outside the government.) It seems obvious to me that this source, as a primary source within the US government that can clearly be presumed to be WP:BIASED when it comes to US government policy, shouldn't be cited without attribution and shouldn't be relied on extensively; yet the majority of key facts in that article are cited to it, in the article voice, with no attribution or in-text indication as to the fact that this comes directly from the NSA. I attempted to tag this issue a while back but recently noticed it was reverted; since the article is low-traffic I figured it made more sense to raise the issue here. It is certainly true that some of these statements are uncontroversial in the sense that they can be cited elsewhere, but the precise tone and framing we get from the source matters, and we clearly cannot use internal NSA sources (which are clearly primary documents) without attribution in this context - if it is uncontroversial, that means that secondary sources are available, and they ought to be used, for which tagging citations as primary so people know to correct the problem in the future is an obvious first step. Note that I am not saying that Cryptologic Quarterly is entirely unreliable (it seems decent as far as plainly-biased primary sources go), but it obviously cannot be used in the fashion, and to the extent, that it is being used in that article - when discussing the actions of the US government, it can only be used with attribution, and ought to be used more sparingly to reflect the NSA's attributed position, never to establish facts in the article voice. Yet the article currently cites it twenty-two times, largely as a sole, unattributed source for statements of fact. --Aquillion (talk) 07:26, 21 January 2022 (UTC)

Support attribution in all instances of its use on the article for anything beyond the most trivial details. This is a context where this particular source cannot be taken at face value. Cambial — foliar❧ 08:33, 21 January 2022 (UTC)
It's not a "primary source" in the same way the Pentagon Papers aren't a primary source about the Vietnam War despite the creator (US Government) being involved in it. A corporate author that was involved in the events doesn't mean the person who's actually writing the work is drawing on their own personal experiences. While the source is likely to be biased in favour of the US government (and I would agree with attributing it, but I believe in attribution in general wherever possible), it is still very clearly a secondary source on the Gulf of Tonkin incident. The author is synthesizing the facts and providing their own original analysis of what occurred, providing in-depth inline citations to the sources that they used in creating the piece. The quote in particular that you've provided demonstrates this excellently, as the author is providing "for the first time ever" the assessment that individuals in the US Navy cherry-picked accurate signals intelligence to mislead the Johnson administration about the incident, while discounting the theory that there was a conspiracy within the Johnson administration to create entirely falsified signals intelligence to lie about the Gulf of Tonkin incident. Chess (talk) (please use ((reply to|Chess)) on reply) 15:04, 21 January 2022 (UTC)
Per the above, this is NOT a primary source. A primary source would be, say, a video of the incident, or the ships logs from that day, or the transcripts of the communications that occured as the incident was happening. What makes a primary source primary is that it is of the event itself and does not provide meaningful analysis. It is the raw data of the thing, not the after-the-fact analysis of the thing. This is clearly a secondary source as it is an after-the-fact analysis of the event. As a not-entirely-neutral source, it may be worth citing with attribution (i.e. say "According to the NSA... before quoting or paraphrasing), but it is NOT a primary source. --Jayron32 17:46, 25 January 2022 (UTC)
In agreement. TrangaBellam (talk) 21:19, 30 January 2022 (UTC)

References

  1. ^ Robert J. Hanyok, "Skunks, Bogies, Silent Hounds, and the Flying Fish: The Gulf of Tonkin Mystery, 2–4 August 1964"; Quote: This mishandling of the SIGINT was not done in a manner that can be construed as conspiratorial, that is, with manufactured evidence and collusion at all levels. Rather, the objective of these individuals was to support the Navy's claim that the Desoto patrol had been deliberately attacked by the North Vietnamese [on Aug 4]... Archived 31 January 2016 at the Wayback Machine, Cryptologic Quarterly, Winter 2000/Spring 2001 Edition, Vol. 19, No. 4 / Vol. 20, No. 1.

Dhaka Post is a bogus news portal, they publish news without fact checking

Dhaka Post has published multiple articles a few weeks ago regarding a high school student winning some SARK awards. But fact checking team exposed that it all were a hoax. Read in details here.

This website should not be used as reference in wiki articles, it is a bogus online news portal that publishes promo content that are straight made up garbage.-- Tame (talk) 08:34, 31 January 2022 (UTC)

Is Opencorporates a reliable/legitimate source?

Would it be appropriate to use in articles about organizations or individuals?

https://opencorporates.com/

It looks like they gather data from official records, such as state corporate filings. So it provides access to primary sources that can be easy to misinterpret. In addition, to the extent that those records are suitable sources for us, it usually would be preferable to cite to the original source, rather than to opencorporates.com. It may occasionally be suitable to use, but only with great caution. John M Baker (talk) 02:09, 30 January 2022 (UTC)
Do not really think Open Corporates requires anymore of a greater caution than the source it is pulling the data from itself. The project is based on openly available corporate registration data that too directly from government records and has been used as ubiquitous corporate relationship mapping tool. It is very useful in cases where govt. reg. data cannot directly be linked. The only policy that would/should apply to it is WP:PRIMARY. Gotitbro (talk) 12:24, 31 January 2022 (UTC)
Indeed, the sources themselves should be used only with great caution. They are extremely easy to misunderstand. John M Baker (talk) 15:59, 31 January 2022 (UTC)

Heterodox Academy

Not quite sure where else to post this -- an IP over on this page has been adding information about a podcast associated with the subject, with some cites, although about which I have qualms. They have now added cites to college syllabi -- which causes more qualms. This is not a case where the IP is wildly wrong, but if people wanted to go have a look and weigh in (and my qualms might well be unwarranted), I would appreciate it. Cheers. Dumuzid (talk) 21:05, 25 January 2022 (UTC)

At a glance, it looks like the dispute is largely over someone trying to use ListenNotes as a source. Their pages on individual podcasts are WP:USERGENERATED (I'm definitely seeing an edit button there.) The statistics seem to be automated somehow but given that the site itself plainly isn't an WP:RS I don't think it's a usable source for them. They just describe their Listen Score vaguely as a mathematical model and there is no indication that anyone else cares about it. I would classify it as remove-on-sight. --Aquillion (talk) 23:43, 28 January 2022 (UTC)
I'm pretty dubious. I can find [20] and [21] from Chartable.com. Doesn't back the listennotes claim.. Doug Weller talk 15:48, 30 January 2022 (UTC)
Chartable and Listennotes provide different information. Listennotes shows the lifetime ranking of a podcast, so a podcast could be in the top 1% in lifetime rankings without being in the top 300 this month. For a podcast to be in the top 300, it has be somewhere in the top .0001%, which is also different from top 1%.70.251.211.77 (talk) 13:45, 31 January 2022 (UTC)
And that doesn't solve the problem of Listennotes reliability. I can't find anything about that, but I did find how to improve your ranking."To boost your podcast's ranking in the search results, Wenbin suggests focussing on quality content, creating show notes, and posting audio transcripts." Doug Weller talk 14:26, 31 January 2022 (UTC)
As I pointed out on the Heterodox Academy talk page, the impression I get from comparing Listennotes's use in articles vs talk pages is that it gets removed whenever it's discussed.
Given the number of podcasts it claims to have in their database, I'd assume that automation and user submission are the primary ways that any information is placed in their database.
WP:RS states: Articles should be based on reliable, independent, published sources with a reputation for fact-checking and accuracy. I don't see how Listennotes could have a "reputation for fact-checking and accuracy" for anything beyond their numbers, which are being questioned above. Some of the numbers may be reliable, but that doesn't mean other information is, or that numbers from Listennotes give due weight to any other information (a topic of WP:POV, not WP:RS). --Hipal (talk) 16:30, 31 January 2022 (UTC)

insidethegames.biz

Is insidethegames.biz a reliable source for sports related content? Xoltered (talk) 21:34, 31 January 2022 (UTC)

I do not think so but i would like to see what other editors think. Xoltered (talk) 21:34, 31 January 2022 (UTC)
Their current usage on wikipedia has no bearing on whether they are reliable. Xoltered (talk) 21:46, 31 January 2022 (UTC)
Very true, but their status as a major international source for sports and their reputation for accuracy and fact checking have a considerable amount of bearing on whether or not they are reliable. Care to explain why you think they aren't reliable? There isn't actually any justification, argument, or reasoning in your opening statement. Horse Eye's Back (talk) 21:49, 31 January 2022 (UTC)

Heroic Hollywood

Is Heroic Hollywood reliable? Heroic Hollywood is an entertainment/film news website. They have been cited/mentioned by The Washington Post, Variety, and Grantland. I cant tell if their staff has any editorial experiance, but it is definitely not a self-published source. Here is the past conversation on it, but it gives you basically nothing. ― Kaleeb18TalkCaleb 01:48, 1 February 2022 (UTC)

Rfc for deprecation of pre-print repositories

The following discussion is an archived record of a request for comment. Please do not modify it. No further edits should be made to this discussion. A summary of the conclusions reached follows.
There will never be a consensus for this proposal, so I am closing per WP:SNOW. (non-admin closure) (t · c) buidhe 08:30, 1 February 2022 (UTC)


There has been much discussion about pre-print repositories, such as bioRxiv, here at RSN. Several times, people have come here asking if they are reliable sources, and in each instance, most people seem to agree that they are not:

Example 1 2

Despite the widespread acknowledgement among elite editors that we should rely on peer-reviewed secondary sources, citations of bioRxiv content remain hugely popular, particularly at articles relating to human ethnicity or human genetic origins. Most of these articles are patrolled by smart people, who simply aren't noticing the problem.

By no means is it my intention to single out bioRxiv. I have nothing against them or their mission, and there are definitely other pre-print repositories just like them which are also cited on Wikipedia. Websites like preprints.org, thesiscommons, peerj.com, and the osf.io repository should be considered here as well.

The only point I am trying to make is that these types of sources evidently fail WP:RS, yet are widespread on Wikipedia. It looks to me like deprecation is a viable solution, so I'd like to hear all of your thoughts. Hunan201p (talk) 01:52, 29 January 2022 (UTC)

Although pre-prints are sometimes the only accessible sources of published articles thst passed review, these pre-prints also occasionally contain information that was omitted from the reviewed articles. That's a huge red flag. The difference between a pre-print and a published study can be significant. -- Hunan201p (talk) 14:00, 29 January 2022 (UTC)
And oh, here's example 3 for you: Talk:Corded_Ware_culture#Expansion_of_lede_section_based_on_a_preprint. –Austronesier (talk) 12:49, 29 January 2022 (UTC)
Amending WP:PREPRINT sounds like a great idea. It would also bypass the need to discriminate between the peer reviewed papers hosted by the repositories, as mentioned below. -- Hunan201p (talk) 13:55, 29 January 2022 (UTC)
Lastly, sometimes preprints do acquire enough WP:USEBYOTHERS that they gain some degree of reliability, even though they are still not academic sources. Adoring nanny (talk) 13:25, 29 January 2022 (UTC)
Providing open-access links is preferred, but we can do that in the form of a convenience link without referencing to a preprint service. If we reference to a preprint service, it's harder to verify whether the work was peer-reviewed and published. So from that point of view, it is not that unreasonable to expect references to published work. Cheers, Pyrite Pro (talk) 14:06, 29 January 2022 (UTC)
See also the advice in WP:VANPRED#Use in the real world vs use on Wikipedia. Headbomb {t · c · p · b} 14:07, 29 January 2022 (UTC)
BTW, it's deprecate, not depreciate. Minor typo, yes, but pet peeve of mine. Headbomb {t · c · p · b} 21:19, 30 January 2022 (UTC)
The discussion above is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.

RfC: Srivastava Group

The following discussion is an archived record of a request for comment. Please do not modify it. No further edits should be made to this discussion. A summary of the conclusions reached follows.
There is consensus to blacklist all urls operated by Srivastava Group, including those mentioned in the RfC. (non-admin closure) (t · c) buidhe 08:36, 1 February 2022 (UTC)


Srivastava Group is a holding company registered in India which was found to be operating a disinformation network with at least 265 identified fake news websites. The websites either use bought out domains of defunct news publishers, domains pretending to be associated with newspapers that don't exist (e.g timesofgeneva.com) or misleading domains which are pretending to be websites of mainstream newspapers (e.g timesoflosangeles.com). To provide more credibility to their websites and to inflate their content, they also plagiarise from other news publishers in violation of copyright. Read these articles for additional context; BBC 1 BBC 2 CBC Quint 1 Quint 2 (Primary sources: EU Disinfo Lab, Interactive Map)

The main websites of the network are newdelhitimes.com HTTPS links HTTP links, eptoday.com HTTPS links HTTP links, timesofgeneva.com HTTPS links HTTP links

I propose the following:

Tayi Arajakate Talk 02:44, 15 January 2022 (UTC)

Survey (Srivastava Group)

Discussion (Srivastava Group)

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

Kotchoubey.com

Is this site [22] reliable or not? The site is supposedly maintained by an descendant of an aristocratic Russian family, i landed on that site after searching sources about an Ethiopian Tekle Hawariat Tekle Mariyam time in Russia, where he was adopted by the kotchoubey/volkonsky family [23] & [24]

This website contains far more in depth information about his time in Russia than in any other sources i have seen. My concern is whether the site is reliable and can be used in the article?

Other reliable sources are very short about his time in Russia; [25], [26], [27] Dawit S Gondaria (talk) 02:18, 30 January 2022 (UTC)

Dawit S Gondaria, it looks like a self-published site and the author is not an expert. However, the interview with Tekle published there comes originally from the 1965 documentary film Burnt by the Sun (Обожжённые солнцем) - not to be confused with Mikhalkov's much more famous Burnt by the Sun (Утомлённые солнцем) - which can probably be considered a reliable source in this case. Alaexis¿question? 08:15, 1 February 2022 (UTC)
@Alaexis: Thank you for responding! The interview was the first thing what made me doubt in favor of the site's reliablity, gratitude for mentioning it's origin. There is so much info and details in the supposed biography, i'm going to mail - Alexander Kotchoubey - to see whether he can point to online Russian sources, since i couldn't find them in English. Dawit S Gondaria (talk) 12:39, 1 February 2022 (UTC)

Official policy regarding genetics sources

Wikipedia does not currently have any language in existing policy or guidelines that addresses human genetic information, or more broadly, the origin of species and ethnic groups.

This is puzzling, because there are lots of articles about genetics and human ancestry on Wikipedia, and most articles about human ethnic groups contain "genetics" sections. And this content often generates edit wars and lengthly talk page battles.

As an example, see an archive of Talk:Recent African origin of modern humans. Sections 6, 8, 9, and 10 were created by people who claimed to have "debunked" the Out-of-Africa theory. One user cites a New York Post article with a sensationalist headline: "Humans Came From Europe Not Africa". In these talk page discussions, the respectable users went to great lengths to communicate against these trolls, including exhausting quotations of other sources to debunk the sensationalist source.

This is sad. Respectable editors should not have to waste time going through the minutia of the material to write summaries for the cranks.

The closest substitute for a policy or guideline that specifically mentions genetics is found at WP:SCIRS. It contains the following statement (from Respect primary sources):

[...] primary sources describing genetic or genomic research into human ancestry, ancient populations, ethnicity, race, and the like, should not be used to generate content about those subjects, which are controversial. High quality secondary sources as described above should be used instead. Genetic studies of human anatomy or phenotypes like intelligence should be sourced per WP:MEDRS.


The above text was added to WP:SCIRS as a result of this RfC. However, there's a caveat. WP:SCIRS is still an essay - it's not a policy or guideline. This is despite the fact that it has existed for over 10 years, with continuous improvements and relevance, as demonstrated by the above RfC. See also -- the very high linkage to WP:SCIRS across the Wiki itself.

Consequently, whenever someone references WP:SCIRS, a user will sometimes retort that that WP:SCIRS is 'just an essay', and that we do not, therefore, have to respect the statements regarding genetics sources -- even though they clearly reflect a consensus. Thus, with WP:SCIRS still stuck in its current status as an essay, the utility of the statement rests on shaky ground - despite being more necessary than ever.

Thus, I propose that we insert the consensus about genetics information in explicit language in to a a Wikipedia policy page. This could be accomplished by two actions:

  1. Upgrade WP:SCIRS to official policy; or,
  2. Orphan the WP:SCIRS statement to WP:MEDRS or similar page.

I understand this is a big proposal, but it is by no means a new one. There has been much talk of upgrading WP:SCIRS to official status for years. As always, I appreciate your time and input. Hunan201p (talk) 14:54, 27 January 2022 (UTC)

There are cranks writing aqbout many different issues, I don't see why this topic merits a special guideline. MEDRS was brought in because of the harm that could be caused to readers who relied on false and misleading information in articles. But there is a trade-off. It limits the sources to ones that are often inaccessible to editors and readers, and usually rules out the inclusion of new information.
Take for example Dragon Man (Homo longi). Scientists have conducted DNA research on its skull, which came to attention in 2018. Should we report their preliminary finds, even if we don't have MEDRS compliant sources? I don't see a problem with reporting what scientists say, even though their findings are preliminary. Also, even if the genetics information gets reported in reliable secondary sources, it may still fail MEDRS if the writers are not geneticists. They may be for example anthropologists who rely on expert research by geneticists.
There are already many policies and guidelines against entering unreliable information.
TFD (talk) 15:22, 27 January 2022 (UTC)
My thoughts: see WP:SBST. Wikipedia's main policy objective is to provide content with reliable, high quality sources. It is not to provide by-the-hour information, which is a task better suited to Wikinews.
Correcting the crisis of low-quality genetics sources on Wikipedia, which can range from pre-print papers to Tweets, is a much more urgent priority than providing around-the-clock updates about whatever pet-theory pops up in the news or on forums. Hunan201p (talk) 16:08, 27 January 2022 (UTC)
I'm pretty sure pre-print papers and tweets are already considered unreliable under existing policy. I don't see why we need another policy to explain this. We really don't need a science specific policy statement to tell people that synthesizing primary sources is wrong and that due weight should be given to secondary sources. This is encompassed at WP:DUE and WP:SYNTH and endless other policies. In my opinion just make the page WP:SUPPLEMENTAL since that's what WP:SCIRS really is. Then it's a pseudoPAG and everyone is happy. Chess (talk) (please use ((reply to|Chess)) on reply) 16:36, 27 January 2022 (UTC)
@Chess:Thanks for your comment. However, I would like to point out that we do have science-specific policy statements about this. See WP:MEDPRI. Policy pages like this are needed because certain sciences, particularly bioscience, are affected by the reproducibility crisis. And, as also noted at WP:MEDPRI, "... findings are often touted in the popular press as soon as primary research is reported, before the scientific community has analyzed and commented on the results."
I really believe another viable solution may be to orphan the genetics RfC statement to WP:MEDRS, because many people will argue that MEDRS only applies to medicine.
My concern is not so much that WP:SCIRS isn't policy, it's that an important consensus is in limbo as long as it's attached to an essay only. Hunan201p (talk) 17:01, 27 January 2022 (UTC)
  • @The Four Deuces: I'll note that neither WP:MEDRS nor WP:BMI explicitly state their purpose as limiting harm from people taking medical advice from Wikipedia. Even WP:WHYMEDRS (an essay) doesn't give it top billing. The more direct concern has to do with primary studies on these topics most often not reflecting the mainstream accepted knowledge, and thus unreliable for an encyclopedia. The consensus around human genetics seems to fit within that same general category: primary studies on human genetics do not accurately reflect current knowledge. Whether their use results in bad medical advice or bad racial/ethnic stereotyping matters less than their not being WP:RS (particularly WP:SCHOLARSHIP), and seems a reasonable suggestion that elevation to policy would be appropriate here.
I'll add, Wikipedia:WikiProject Medicine should probably be consulted as well if the target is MEDRS rather than SCHOLARSHIP. Personally, I think adding examples to WP:SCHOLARSHIP where secondary sources are required (not just recommended) might be a cleaner solution. Bakkster Man (talk) 17:03, 27 January 2022 (UTC)
MEDRS became a guideline as a result of an RfC where it was argued that it was necessary in order to protect readers from misleading and false medical information they might rely upon. It's caused its fair share of tendentious editing too, as some editors try to expand its scope beyond its intended purpose.
Certainly in medicine there are primary studies that cannot be replicated, but that is true of other fields as well and therefore there are policies to deal with them.
If you want to add new policies and guidelines, you need to explain why you think the existing ones are insufficient. Give us an example of a false or misleading statement that is reliably sourced and does not violate weight.
The real problem is that many people edit in bad faith and should be banned.
TFD (talk) 18:52, 27 January 2022 (UTC)
@The Four Deuces: I disagree. The argument for including the genetics RfC statement in Wiki policy is explained in the RfC itself. The RfC was the first step, policy is now the second step.
Banning people is not a viable solution, because we've tried it since day 1, and it hasn't worked.
Here is a table of Wikipedia sockpuppet activity supplied to me by Tamzin, an SPI clerk. Year after year, sockpuppet activity has increased, even as Wikipedia's active userbase declined.
Banning people has been like trying to stop a roach infestation with a BB gun. You can never stop the problem by picking them off one-by-one. Wikipedia must increase its content standards. Hunan201p (talk) 19:05, 27 January 2022 (UTC)
You can't eliminate roaches from existence. They exist and fester as long as there's a food supply to feed on. Chess (talk) (please use ((reply to|Chess)) on reply) 19:27, 27 January 2022 (UTC)
@Chess:That's true, but I think you'll agree that this is no excuse to not call pest control when a house is literally crawling with roaches. Improving content standards, e.g., WP:SCHOLARSHIP, is like our roach bomb. - Hunan201p (talk) 06:48, 28 January 2022 (UTC)
If we're going to keep stretching this simile/metaphor to the breaking point, improving content standards is preventative and is trying to stop the roaches from getting inside in the first place. Calling pest control is reactive and is designed to kill the roaches already inside. Chess (talk) (please use ((reply to|Chess)) on reply) 07:54, 28 January 2022 (UTC)
  • @The Four Deuces: It sounds like your disagreement is purely about WP:MEDRS being the destination. Are you in agreement some other home in WP:PAGs would be appropriate for this consensus on sourcing? Bakkster Man (talk) 19:12, 27 January 2022 (UTC)

Although it may not show in the current version, MEDRS used to begin, "Wikipedia's articles are not meant to provide medical advice. Nevertheless, they are widely used among those seeking health information. For this reason, all biomedical information must be based on reliable, third-party published secondary sources, and must accurately reflect current knowledge." That's the only reason why the guideline was created.

Bakkster Man, If editors are not following current policy, I don't see how a new guideline would fix it. All it would do would be to provide ammunition for tendentious editors. You could sum up Wikipedia policy very briefly: use the best sources and summarize them accurately. We now have dozens of pages of explanations. So if someone tries to use a book on racial theory written in 1900, I can find a specific sentence that explains why it should not be used. But anyone with common sense, acting in good faith and knowledgable about the topic wouldn't do that anyway. We don't need yet another guideline to explain this to them.

As for you comment that Wikipedia is not a newspaper, we already have a policy for that so don't need a guideline specific to genetics. But articles are created and updated for important events. Joe Biden's article for example was edited to say that he was president as soon as he was sworn in. If we had a MEDRS like guideline, some editors would be arguing not to say that until reliable secondary sources say he was actually the president.

Also, MEDRS is only a guideline. Guidelines are routinely ignored when editors agree they don't apply, because "Editors should attempt to follow guidelines, though they are best treated with common sense, and occasional exceptions may apply."

TFD (talk) 19:46, 27 January 2022 (UTC)

Obviously, some topics needs higher standards for reliability than others. As noted at WP:MEDPRI, bioscience information has a low reproducibility rate. However, something like Biden's Presidential election result, is not so impoverished. By the time Biden was sworn in, multiple high-quality, third-party sources had already inicated that he was president-elect. Presidential elections are a subject where the high quality sources come in quickly and most tend to support eachother. Genetics is not. - Hunan201p (talk) 06:48, 28 January 2022 (UTC)
@Bakkster Man: I think you've got a good idea and that WP:SCHOLARSHIP is the path of least resistance. - Hunan201p (talk) 06:48, 28 January 2022 (UTC)
My main concern about the use of genetics is editors cherry-picking data from the main text of the article to use to proved some sort of point or just to add to an article. Eg. there's a study comparing two Egyptian mummies where they are linked together by their haplogroup. I've seen several editors use that to argue that the mummies must come from a sub-Saharan population, although the research was not designed to find a relationship with populations nor does the source mention sub-Saharan. Doug Weller talk 10:52, 28 January 2022 (UTC)
@Doug Weller:Indeed, and this isn't the first time you and I have been embroiled in such a dispute. This happens constantly on Wikipedia and it would be best if we could orphan the WP:SCIRS quote to something official in order to set precedent for future disputes -- because it apparently still isn't clear to ethnocentric cranks that you can't use primary sources for genetics articles.
As of now, citing WP:SCIRS is always met with retorts of "it's just an essay" despite the fact that this it has been consensus for years. We can't afford to have people duking it out with an uneding barrage of cranks on hundreds of different pages without any kind of standards. - Hunan201p (talk) 12:48, 28 January 2022 (UTC)
Doug Weller, there is already a policy (no synthesis) that says, "Do not combine material from multiple sources to reach or imply a conclusion not explicitly stated by any source." Using high quality sources doesn't address that.
If there is a significant problem in genetics related articles, the best approach would be to bring them under Wikipedia:Arbitration Committee/Discretionary sanctions, place a notice on each affected article, provide notices to each involved editor and take violations to AE.
TFD (talk) 15:12, 28 January 2022 (UTC)
That would of course require an ARBCOM case, which I think is unlikely. You are right that there is a policy, I'm simply supporting the idea of a specific guideline based on policy. Doug Weller talk 15:17, 28 January 2022 (UTC)
I mentioned this below, but if there are a bunch of people advocating something that is clearly and unambiguously fringe, holding an RFC to establish that it is fringe could help. After that WP:PROFRINGE applies to anyone who is plainly editing to advocate it. This approach was reasonably successful on Fascism and Race and intelligence, which were plagued by people advancing fringe views for a long time. --Aquillion (talk) 06:21, 29 January 2022 (UTC)
@ProcrastinatingReader:Really? What about this: "Information that is not typically biomedical may still require high-quality sourcing if the context may lead the reader to draw a conclusion about biomedical information, as can occur with content about human biochemistry or about medical research in animals."? -- Hunan201p (talk) 15:04, 30 January 2022 (UTC)
eh.... if the humans in question are mostly dead, then I don't think this argument holds up. I'm typically very expansive about what I personally consider BMI, but I don't think this qualifies, if the "human health" in question is mostly about dead people from many thousands of years ago who arguably were not "modern humans". Perhaps MEDRS applies only where it is interpreted to affect the health of living humans. Such as the shrinking Y chromosome hypothesis. — Shibbolethink (♔ ♕) 15:47, 30 January 2022 (UTC)
Right. Applying MEDRS to typical food and drink makes more sense than applying it to archaeology/anthropology. The effects of a drinking a martini has more relevance to present-day human health than how modern humans came to be. Not to mention, as a practical matter, afaik info on archaeology/anthropology usually isn't published in medical journals. ProcrastinatingReader (talk) 15:52, 30 January 2022 (UTC)
@ProcrastinatingReader:@Shibbolethink: No, this doesn't just apply to archaic humans. It applies to genetic information about living human groups as well, including their links to ancient historical populations. However, even the archaic human DNA stuff can have indisputable biomedical relevance. See the Neanderthal article which describes how Neanderthal ancestry in modern humans is related to viral immunity, hair and skin texture, skin color, genetic fitness, etc. -- Hunan201p (talk) 17:47, 30 January 2022 (UTC)
Explain to us how e.g. this paper is supposed to carry any biomedical information... –Austronesier (talk) 18:44, 30 January 2022 (UTC)
How does the genetic information about living human groups' connections to ancient populations have to do with the health of living humans? If we are talking about a specific mutation or haplogroup being more or less likely to have X, Y, or Z disease, then that specific fact about modern humans may be BMI, but everything else related to this is not. And this would not apply to vague notions like "immunity", "fitness", and "skin texture [or color]". Such things are far too vague to be characterized as a "disease." They are several steps removed. — Shibbolethink (♔ ♕) 19:16, 30 January 2022 (UTC)
Wow, learned some great stuff about how Neanderthal genes contribute to modern human body fat distribution from the linked reference. Thank goodness no one has decided to remove all the primary sources from that article. Yet.  Tewdar (talk) 19:25, 30 January 2022 (UTC)
@Tewdar: @Shibbolethink: As far as I can tell, WP:MEDPRI exists because of the nature of primary biomedical sources being frequently conflicting. It does not exist because primary sources are misleading people about drugs or disease; it's there because of the reproducibility crisis itself, which points to the unreliability of primary biomedical research.
Hence while something might not be biomedical in nature, if the research is still conducted using biomedical science, it is arguable that it should be treated the same as biomedical information. From my perspective.
@Austronesier: You have a point that this paper does not contain biomedical information. But primary genetics research is created using biomedical science and technology, in a clinical setting, which seems to be prone to generating conflicting research. Much of the primary research even uses medical ethics like informed consent to obtain DNA from living people, which is food for thought. - Hunan201p (talk) 21:45, 30 January 2022 (UTC)
My motivation is exactly this: reduce original research and synthesis by promoting secondary sources rather than primaries. I shouldn't have to explain that. It's what everyone in that RfC said. It's consistent with the WP:SCHOLARSHIP guideline. Genetics attracts a lot of malicious editors who promote their favorite primary sources and ideas over more comprehensive secondary sources.
Western Steppe Herders would not have to be deleted with a new guideline. At most, we might give it a trim. And that's not a bad thing. There are enough secondary sources available to maintain an article that sufficiently explains the Western Steppe Herders. However, how long and detailed does this article really need to be? It's a mid-class importance article, about an aDNA abstract population, at 49,000 bytes.
Wikimedia pays millions of dollars per year to host this tertiary source. We shouldn't WP:HOARD this much info from primary sources for articles about dead people and the molecular going-ons of different human ethnic groups. Some of these articles are so large they take 10-15 seconds to load for some users. -- Hunan201p (talk) 12:05, 30 January 2022 (UTC)
You are aware that there is something in between indiscriminate hoarding of primary sources and categorically not using them at all? It's called good encyclopedic writing. –Austronesier (talk) 12:19, 30 January 2022 (UTC)
Of course. That's what the WP:RS guideline says to do, for most subjects in general. But genetics is another issue. It is bioscience, the primary sources often conflict, and I'd argue that the efforts of various racist and ethnonationalist groups to propagandize the genetic ancestry research, as noted by Frieman and others, merit a WP:MEDRS-related guideline. - Hunan201p (talk) 12:44, 30 January 2022 (UTC)
If we apply WP:MEDRS to the WSH article, we probably only have one or two sources left. The secondary sources in this field often misreport the findings of the primary study they discuss, which would leave us, if your proposal gains consensus support (which I really hope it doesn't) in the absurd position of being compelled to cite secondary sources, which we know to be wrong, and being unable to provide correct information from a misrepresented primary source. This cannot be a good thing.  Tewdar (talk) 12:57, 30 January 2022 (UTC)
What you are describing is outside the bounds of Wikipedia's editing policy. It's not our job to pick and choose which sources are accurate and which are not, and we explicity cannot use primary sources for this purpose (AEIS).
See AEIS. Wikipedia is often WP:NOTRIGHT.
Anyway, I disagree that there are only one or two primary sources in Western Steppe Herders. There are a few more than that, but regardless there are others that can be added. The article would be trimmed a bit but that's okay; the tertiary source shouldn't be more comprehensive than the secondary sources will allow. Hunan201p (talk) 13:52, 30 January 2022 (UTC)
Agree, the tertiary source shouldn't be more comprehensive than the secondary sources as well as the primary sources (selected and used in accordance with WP:SCHOLARSHIP) will allow. –Austronesier (talk) 18:38, 30 January 2022 (UTC)
Archeogenetics is a powerful tool (some would say: the key) for our understanding of prehistory, but its results are complex and require competence to be read properly. Often its results are cited at face value as facts (e.g. "population A is an admixture of xx% from population B and yy% from population B"). Everything in archeogenetics, however, is based on simplified best-fit models, whether it is broad sample-based trees for hundreds of populations (without admixture), or broad admixture analysis for hundreds of populations (without any temporal depth), or complex admixture models of selected samples which have to model gene flow as discrete events, even though the reality is obviously more complex.
As a result, archeogenetic research is constantly misread out of sheer incompetence, or misinterpreted and cherry-picked for ethno-nationalist or racialist agendas. This happens all to often in WP, and of course also in all those amateur websites which also have been discussed in RSN.
So will WP:SCIRS and the rigid reduction of the range of citable sources will bring the remedy? I don't think so. Secondary sources can also be misread and misused; "policy-enforcing" cleanups can be done in a biased and selective way by purging only those primary sources that run against one's POV. One of the most prolific and shameless LTAs in this topic area regularly cites secondary sources (without even noticing that they are review articles and presenting them as new findings!) and reads any kind of shit into them that isn't there. Policies like WP:UNDUE and WP:FRINGE are much more powerful, provided we have a base of competent and responsible editors willing to tackle the issue. And there's the rub: don't leave us alone playing whack-a-mole with LTAs and actively editing POV-pushers. Look e.g. at the trainwreck of a CIR-fest in Ainu people, and you'll see what I mean. –Austronesier (talk) 11:50, 30 January 2022 (UTC)
@Austronesier: thank you for this clear explanation of the issues. Alice Roberts gives an example concerning a 2018 paper that we use in various articles, eg Bronze Age Britain.[28] This raised a big fuss in the media when it came out, with comments such as ‘Ancient-genome study finds Bronze Age “Beaker culture” invaded Britain’, and another asked, ‘Did Dutch hordes kill off the early Britons who started Stonehenge?’ Nonsense of course, and here's where the "archaeo" bit comes in which shows no increase in violence during this period. She also mentions the issue about using genetic data for ethno-nationalist or racialist agendas. No "rule" about which sources are automatically reliable will solves these problems, and I agree that the policies we have need to be used more in these areas but a lack of competent editors with enough time is a problem. Doug Weller talk 13:07, 30 January 2022 (UTC)
This is a nice example. There's hardly an archeogenetic paper that has stirred up so much rubbish like this one, but at the same time, it has had a high impact in the broader field of prehistory, with 400+ citations. Yes, it's a primary source. We can't blame the pearls for the swine. –Austronesier (talk) 21:47, 30 January 2022 (UTC)

Request for comment on citing Patheos

Moved from Wikipedia talk:Reliable sources/Perennial sources § Request for comment on citing Patheos
 – Tayi Arajakate Talk 13:07, 28 December 2021 (UTC)


Can Patheos be cited on Wikipedia? Who decides which columnists on Patheos may be cited? (This topic was last visited in 2015.) RoyLeban (talk) 11:12, 28 December 2021 (UTC)

Discussion (Patheos)

Background: Editor Hammersoft has argued here that Hemant Mehta, one of the top 6 columnists on Patheos, cannot be cited on Wikipedia. In the same talk page, editor Cullen328 has asserted (incorrectly) that Mehta is "affiliated with a Satanic group" and is trying to "promote a contrived controversy". I believe that Mehta is a well-written, independent columnist who writes well (and fairly neutrally) on a variety of topics. I would guess that the fact that this topic concerns religion accounts for the strong disagreements.
This query shows that Patheos is cited 911 times on Wikipedia. I'm going to hazard a guess that the vast majority of those references are to columnists that are not in the top 6. So where is the line and who gets to decide? The guidance given here, last updated in 2015, has two problems. 1) It is very vague — vague enough that an editor can exclude references to a respected, independent columnist, citing this policy; and 2) IMO, "cited together with a source that is more reliable" is an unreasonable standard — a reference is either reliable or it is not (and note: it was not hard to find articles whose only citation is to Patheos).
I believe the guidance from 6 years ago should be revisited, updated, and clarified. RoyLeban (talk) 11:18, 28 December 2021 (UTC)
Its not an RS, so should not really be used. It is a blog, so it maybe that its use is to cite the views of an expert, who is Hemant Mehta?Slatersteven (talk) 13:15, 28 December 2021 (UTC)
I see no evidence that anything has changed about Patheos in the past 6 years that would affect how we treat it. AFAICT, it's still a collection of blogs with little editorial oversight i.e. which are basically self published so it's not a reliable secondary source in general. When it comes to the specific individual blogs they should be treated like any self published source. They cannot be used for any claims about living persons except in cases where WP:ABOUTSELF applies. For other situations, they can only be used where the author is a subject matter expert. I don't know what the OP means by "top 6" but I guess either this is view count or number of articles published. But it's sort of moot since both cases are largely irrelevant in determining whether someone is a subject matter expert. I'm guessing the number of authors on Patheos is large enough and changes enough that it's not useful for us to analyse every single author there. But to give specific examples, I'm not sure if Hemant Mehta can really be considered a subject matter expert of anything going by a quick read of their article. However Daniel C. Peterson is potentially a subject matter expert on some aspects of Islam and the Arabic language, but possibly not on anything related to the LDS. Nil Einne (talk) 16:19, 28 December 2021 (UTC)
Ahh, no I do not see any indication they are an acknowledged expert on Satanism.Slatersteven (talk) 16:30, 28 December 2021 (UTC)
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