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My presumption was that they were covered under the reasoning "organizations/companies are not independent of their membership". In my opinion this is regardless of whether the newspaper is/calls itself "independent" of the university, since that applies to editorial and/or funding independence but not independence from the interests of the university nor from its student body. This seems consistent with community consensus alleged by DGG in this AfD close, and by Bearcat in numerous AfD comments, but has there been a more formal discussion anywhere? JoelleJay (talk) 19:45, 8 January 2022 (UTC)

• See WP:RSSM BilledMammal (talk) 19:48, 8 January 2022 (UTC)

  Thank you, I didn't think to search "student media" in wikipedia space, just "student newspapers". However, the section is mainly on whether student media is reliable; the part on whether it can be used for notability doesn't cite a prior discussion. Was it also covered in the cited reliability discussions? Or is it just considered a clear extension of the instructions at WP:INDY? JoelleJay (talk) 21:29, 8 January 2022 (UTC)

• Generally speaking, it's fine to sparingly use student media, so long as WP:GNG has already been covered off by stronger sources, to source a few stray facts that you really can't find anything better for; for instance, a student media outlet might sometimes be the only source you can find for the matter of where a notable person actually attended school. But you're correct that they aren't viewed as independent sources when it comes to topics relating to the university or college they serve, and they definitely aren't enough to bring the GNG all by themselves if a topic has no non-trivial coverage in general market media — for instance, the president of a university's or college's student government or a collegiate athlete is not going to clinch inclusion in an international encyclopedia just because they can show some coverage in their school's student newspaper, and student media isn't necessarily enough in and of itself to justify a standalone article about every individual building on campus, if there's no coverage in conventional commercial media to supplement it with.
  We treat student media as acceptable for sourcing additional facts after notability has already been fulfilled by stronger sources, but not contributing anything toward the initial question of whether a topic has cleared the notability bar in the first place. Bearcat (talk) 19:57, 8 January 2022 (UTC)
• I'd use them very sparingly. I wouldn't use them to connote notability - David Gerard (talk) 00:28, 9 January 2022 (UTC)

  SInce I was mentioned, I think Bearcat and David Gerard see it the same way I do. DGG ( talk ) 01:38, 9 January 2022 (UTC)

• My opinion is that coverage in student newspapers does nothing toward establishing notability of students at the same university where they are published, because those newspapers are inherently focused toward coverage of their own university, and internal matters at the school (including its students) would not necessarily be of note to the rest of the world. In addition, I would also be reluctant to use a student newspaper as a reliable source for anything controversial. --Metropolitan90 (talk) 04:48, 10 January 2022 (UTC)
• I would say no for fellow students. For alumni they can be used sparingly. If a student is so exceptional that they become notable before graduation, it will surely be covered in other sources. --SVTCobra 05:09, 10 January 2022 (UTC)

Now that it's closed, could people here perhaps address the "student media is independent" claims made in this AfD more directly? I think the confusion demonstrated here indicates more explicit instruction at RSP or RS or INDY is warranted. BilledMammal, Bearcat, David Gerard, DGG, Metropolitan90, SVTCobra. JoelleJay (talk) 21:24, 14 January 2022 (UTC)

• I don't fault the closer exactly but that's the sort of outcome that discredits the entire concept of subject notability guidelines. Mackensen (talk) 21:37, 14 January 2022 (UTC)
• I would place student newspapers in the same category as local small town papers. They might be reliable for specific facts, but coverage in them does not indicate notability. Perhaps we need WP:Big fish in a small pond to deal with people who get lots of local coverage, but nothing beyond that. Blueboar (talk) 21:48, 14 January 2022 (UTC)

• I am of this mindset as well. Sergecross73 msg me 18:24, 19 January 2022 (UTC)

  @Blueboar & @Sergecross73 Please see Draft:Big fish in a small pond and feel free to help write it. I have just put down a few initial thoughts, it needs a proper structure and flow as well as wikilinks to relevant P&G pages.Roger (Dodger67) (talk) 14:39, 23 January 2022 (UTC)

• My comments above cover this situation exactly. A profile of a student-athlete in a student newspaper at her own university doesn't count toward establishing her notability. --Metropolitan90 (talk) 18:56, 15 January 2022 (UTC)
  • An additional thought… in much of the English speaking world, university level athletics are (often) covered by at least regional news outlets. So, if a student run paper has covered a student athlete, there is a good chance that there is also at least some coverage of that athlete in non-student media. I would not necessarily expect this for other aspects of campus life (such as student dramatics or student government)… but the point is still valid: WP:BEFORE applies. Check for other sources. Blueboar (talk) 20:50, 15 January 2022 (UTC)

    Are you commenting specifically on the Dennis AfD, or just in general? JoelleJay (talk) 23:50, 15 January 2022 (UTC)

• I would generally consider that student publications wouldn't be applicable for general notability of subjects at their own university (and, arguably, related universities. For example: student newspapers covering the athletes of a conference rival's team). If a topic is actually generally notable, it should have coverage beyond those publications. Once it's deemed notable, WP:RSSM suggests those student publications can be reliable for describing the topic. Bakkster Man (talk) 16:25, 20 January 2022 (UTC)
• Not reliable for the context at AfD as these sources cannot be considered truly "independent" for the purposes of establishing notability. I would consider them reliable if we already have established notability using outside and wider-readership sources. But these outlets are too small and hyper-focused on these campuses to be useful for establishing wiki-worthy notability. This is most readily detailed in WP:RSSM — Shibbolethink ^{(♔ ♕)} 14:07, 23 January 2022 (UTC)
• Student media does not confer notability in practice, regardless of if student media is a reliable source for facts. Something is most likely not notable when the only source covering that thing is student media + one other independent non-trivial RS. Student media can be independent of a particular entity associated with its university, but not all are. At the University of Notre Dame, for instance, The Observer and The Irish Rover exert full editorial independence from the University's administration, but Scholastic has seen at least one story banned from publication by Notre Dame's administration in recent years. I'm fine citing reliable collegiate newspapers for basic facts (and even facts about controversies at the school) provided that the article has parity of sources and that we're abiding by due weight so as to not overemphasize the student perspective, but that isn't really an RS question. And obviously, while there exist reliable student newspapers, there also exist unreliable ones—these should be evaluated just like we would evaluate other local newspapers: for their fact-checking and editorial control, as well as editorial independence in the context for which the newspaper is being used as a source for facts. — Mhawk10 (talk) 04:52, 26 January 2022 (UTC)
• Comment - This is a difficult case. Student papers are like interest magazines in that they can be reliable and fairly independent, e.g. Yale Daily News, but often aren't. Consider that if the general class of student media includes any student-edited publication then most law reviews count. But if the strongest claims to SIGCOV come from student papers, that raises a question mark. I generally think the alleged consensus has been applied reasonably, and I don't recall any times I !voted keep in an AfD where the student papers put my opinion past the mark (I recall Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Srini Kumar, where one of the strongest sources cited in the article when it went to AfD was a student paper, but I didn't settle on keep until enough other sources found), but I'd rather we treated this class with caution rather than outright dismissal. — Charles Stewart (talk) 12:45, 1 February 2022 (UTC)

  I think there is a big difference between editorial independence and independence in the sense Wikipedia uses (no vested interest in a given Wikipedia topic and Sources by involved family members, employees, and officers of organizations are not independent.), and that student newspapers certainly fail the latter when covering subjects associated with the school. This is also reflected by the guidance at WP:INDY where it discusses how sources can be considered "indiscriminate" even if independent: A newspaper in a small town might write about the opening and closing of every single business in the town, or the everyday activities of local citizens. An enthusiastic local music reviewer may pen a review of every single person who comes on stage in their town with a guitar and a microphone, whether it is an amateur garage band playing for the first time or a major touring group. Student newspapers are obviously even more closely-affiliated with their school (and its interests) than a local newspaper is with its town (to the extent that the author of the Amanda Dennis profile reports on essentially every new development involving PSU athletes, including profiles of numerous teammates of Dennis and even the women's soccer assistant coaches; in fact, Collegian journalists have written profiles of 10 different 2017–2019 team members and 3 trainers), so for the purposes of notability should definitely be dismissed for anything related to their school. JoelleJay (talk) 20:50, 1 February 2022 (UTC)

• I guess the bar is one that most student papers don't reach, but to pursue the Yale Daily News example a bit further, while it's a sure thing that the paper will give any major production of the Yale Repertory Theatre substantial coverage, I would expect their coverage of the performance to be fair, i.e., there's nothing unreliable about them as a source from the point of view of verifiability. If we see the purpose of the notability criterion as the ability to write well on the topic, then the source's existence helps us have confidence we can do it. The problem is that we want to go further and say that the existence of some fixed number of sufficiently good sources shows the topic to be significant enough for us to be bothering with; that it's encyclopedic. I have to say I am rather disillusioned with this part of our deletion process: we've gone all-in on an unfit proxy. From that point of view, the fact of all-but-automatic coverage is problematic, but problematic is what you get when you put your faith in these kinds of rules. — Charles Stewart (talk) 22:23, 1 February 2022 (UTC)

  I'm only concerned about student newspapers with regards to notability, not verifiability or reliability. Notability should reflect broader interest in a topic beyond that of people affiliated with it, otherwise we would have biographies on every single student of the week announced in an elementary school newsletter. Plenty of things have enough verifiable info to write a seemingly neutral article from, but that doesn't mean they are of encyclopedic interest. JoelleJay (talk) 23:41, 1 February 2022 (UTC)

• I understand this. To make the SIGCOV criterion fit this end, at AfD we twist the meanings of the five subcriteria this way and that so that it accords with our intuitions about what is encyclopaedic. It would seem to make more sense to use WP:NOT to do this, but the policy we have evolved there isn't so well-suited to winning arguments at AfD. — Charles Stewart (talk) 23:56, 1 February 2022 (UTC)

Is The Annotated Alice a reliable source for statements about the meaning of Alice's Adventures in Wonderland? It is popular and went through many editions, but at the end of the day might just be thought of as the musings of Martin Gardner, a particularly enthusiastic Alice fan. AleatoryPonderings (???) (!!!) 03:36, 30 January 2022 (UTC)

It seems like a statement as to “meaning” would just be a statement of opinion. It could be included with attribution. The book should be reliable for statements of fact. John M Baker (talk) 17:45, 30 January 2022 (UTC)

The boundary is somewhat porous. I'm thinking in particular about statements like "this part of the Alice story is an allusion to/parody of/reference to" such-and-such other thing. For instance I currently have a ref to Annotated Alice for the following claim: "the Duck refers to Robinson Duckworth, and the Lory and Eaglet to Alice Liddell's sisters Lorina and Edith." Wondering if I should invest the energy in switching refs to claims like this from Annotated Alice to another source. AleatoryPonderings (???) (!!!) 17:53, 30 January 2022 (UTC)

@AleatoryPonderings, have you read the reference itself, or is this just your own opinion of the author? Gardner was more than an Alice fan, he was a serious researcher when it came to his writing. The Kirkus Review of the book says With a dedication rare even among scholars, Gardner has tracked down origins and meanings of the wordplay and mathematical puzzles the sly Carroll embedded in his texts. It sounds like Gardener includes his sources and would be a fine secondary source. Don't remove it as a reference without reading what the book actually says! StarryGrandma (talk) 18:25, 30 January 2022 (UTC)

I added and/or confirmed previous references to Annotated Alice during an overhaul of Alice's Adventures in Wonderland, so I know what Gardner says. As the title of Annotated Alice suggests, it's mainly the text of the Alice books with copious footnotes by Gardner. I had second thoughts because he isn't known as a literary scholar and the book wasn't published by an academic press, so it probably wouldn't have been peer reviewed. But Kirkus's point is taken. AleatoryPonderings (???) (!!!) 19:22, 30 January 2022 (UTC)

I would tend to expect Gardner to know what he's talking about, and I would be comfortable treating his annotations as a reliable source by a relevant expert. But also any particular use you're uncomfortable with could be "According to Gardner"ed. (This seems to be nicely done at present in the section Alice's_Adventures_in_Wonderland#Character_allusions, where the bulk of the Gardner references occur.) --JBL (talk) 19:48, 31 January 2022 (UTC)

Well, we know that ‘’Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland’’ is not, in this regard, an allegorical or symbolic work. Regardless of what Dodgson may have been thinking when he first told the story to the Liddell sisters, he did not intend readers to think of Robinson Duckworth, Lorina, or Edith, so it is not really the case that the characters “refer” to them. It may be the case that they inspired the characters, or that Dodgson had them in mind when he wrote that portion of the book. That would in concept be a factual statement for which a cite to Gardner would be appropriate. If the association of those characters with the real life people is instead a matter of conjecture, even if conjecture supported by good circumstantial evidence, then that would be a matter of opinion requiring attribution. John M Baker (talk) 02:44, 31 January 2022 (UTC)

I own at least six books in the "Annotated" series and would comfortably cite and attribute them as the opinions of subject matter experts. -- Valjean (talk)

Agree, this is a book of expert opinion, and a fine source.--GRuban (talk) 01:28, 2 February 2022 (UTC)

The following discussion is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made in a new section.

There appears to be a consensus for option 1, the status quo. Beeblebrox (talk) 20:59, 2 February 2022 (UTC)

rfcid=3D8F739

The Counterpunch deprecation RFC appeared to have multiple contributors who were fresh editors/accounts. WP:RFCs have conventionally allowed all contributors, including IPs. Is this appropriate to deprecation RFCs?

• Option 1: Keep open to all contributors, as per WP:RFC.
• Option 2: Require autoconfirmed status from contributors.
• Option 3: Similar requirements to extended confirmed protection: 30 days, 500 edits.
• Option 4: something else.

- David Gerard (talk) 18:40, 11 January 2022 (UTC)

Survey: Should deprecation RFCs be open to all users or restricted?

• Option 3 for ALL RfCs and AfDs. -- Valjean (talk) 18:47, 11 January 2022 (UTC)
  • This is specifically for deprecation RFCs, but the latter might be an idea - David Gerard (talk) 19:01, 11 January 2022 (UTC)
• Option 1: If deprecation RfCs are the first type of RFC in the 20 year history of this site to require ECP to prevent disruption, I feel like that says more about deprecation RfCs than it does about non-EC editors. (That's excluding topical discussions, i.e. ARBPIA ones.) In the Jewish Chronicle RfC, the sockpuppets were all EC editors. Clearly there's some disruption going on in deprecation RfCs currently, but I don't think this sweeping restriction is a good way to manage it. And frankly there are many other issues with deprecation and its RfCs, as outlined in Wikipedia:Requests for comment/Deprecated and unreliable sources, that should be tackled rather than disenfranchising even more editors. ProcrastinatingReader (talk) 18:48, 11 January 2022 (UTC)

  Also what is a "deprecation RfC"? Any RfC that has deprecation as a possible option, i.e. the modern standard format for RSN discussions? So an RfC started on the reliability of the BBC (i.e. clearly generally reliable) would also prohibit EC editors, since it would likely contain an option 4 option, even though no editor would seriously vote for it. ProcrastinatingReader (talk) 18:50, 11 January 2022 (UTC)

• Option 3 - this is deep nuts and bolts of Wikipedia stuff. Views of fresh editors might be appropriate to the discussion, but not to the survey - David Gerard (talk) 19:01, 11 January 2022 (UTC)
• Option 1. RfCs are not a vote, so closers should evaluate consensus based on quality of arguments rather than pure vote counts. Moreover, restricting participation in discussions to autoconfirmed users goes against the founding principles of Wikipedia. – Anne drew 19:17, 11 January 2022 (UTC)
• Option 1. But obvious SPAs should be tagged and that should be considered at closing, as Wikipedia:Single-purpose account already advises. - MrOllie (talk) 19:20, 11 January 2022 (UTC)
• Weak option 1 - While RfCs are not votes, votes do have unconscious effects on those reading threads. I don't like the idea that editors without ample experience using sources should be able to influence the discussion on the depreciation of sources. However, I'm not entirely convinced of such a heavy restriction, at least for now.A. C. Santacruz ⁂ Please ping me! 19:24, 11 January 2022 (UTC)
• Option 1 - shocker I know, but ECP is meant to deter socking, or at least that is why it was developed. And things like the CP RFC show why that is needed, especially for any source even tangentially related, as it allows, as another editor wrote in the AC clarification request, ECP-prohibited editors from the IP area can easily skew a discussion on sourcing when it is a general review rather than a close look at what the sources are being used for, because you can argue the broad review of a newspaper isnt covered by broadly construed, but you cant do so when the topic is specifically about IP. So for discussions on sources that are largely used in affected topic areas covered by ECP that prevention of socking basis for implementing ECP holds. But for anything else it does not. Lets say I, newbie editor adding a source to an article that interests me, finds that the source is challenged here and it devolves, as sadly too many threads here do, in to a deprecation RFC. Why shouldnt I be able to participate? The only basis for ECP is to prevent throwaway socks from swaying the content, and for some topic areas it is needed. Largely it is not. nableezy - 19:28, 11 January 2022 (UTC)
• Option 3 - I got your point Nableezy, but I believe an option 3 is still a correct approach under the current circumstances. That may change with time but not now. - GizzyCatBella🍁 21:16, 11 January 2022 (UTC)

@GizzyCatBella: What circumstances? Why is it correct? Pabsoluterince (talk) 05:48, 21 January 2022 (UTC)

• Options 1 or 2 - My impression is that an experienced closer would take in consideration SPAs and IP addresses, although it's admitedly common for them to generate a lot of noise during discussions. 2 might mitigate it slightly without being too restrictive. This may also be unnecessary since a page can occasionally be protected when required after significant disruption. —PaleoNeonate – 01:04, 12 January 2022 (UTC)
• Option 1, but note exceptions such as ARBPIA. Under the ARBPIA General Sanctions, non-ec editors are not allowed to participate in RfCs in the ARBPIA area. This is an Arbcom ruling that we can't change here. The same goes if there are similar Arbcom rulings in other areas. Zero^talk 01:25, 12 January 2022 (UTC)
• Option 2 - While I recommend that new users get involved in as much as they can, I doubt that a reader or a user with almost no experience regarding Wikipedia's running would have anything major - yet constructive - to say about it. Some kind of loose boundary may be appropriate for our inner workings. Liamyangll (talk to me! | My contribs!) 02:55, 12 January 2022 (UTC)
• Option 1 as per Nableezy. I understand the rationale for a change, but I think it would have negative un-intended consequences. Often discussions, including RfCs, on this noticeboard concern sources used in specialist areas, where specialist knowledge rather than experience of WP policy is useful. For example, if we were discussing Czech sources, an inexperienced, non-ECR editor who reads Czech and knows about Czech scholarship or Czech media may make a more useful contribution than an experienced ECR editor who doesn't. Excluding the former might lead to a less well informed decision, and also bake in our systemic biases. A decent closer isn't counting !votes anyway, but giving more weight to evidence-based and policy-based comments in determining consensus, so any less well-informed contributions of less experienced editors shouldn't harm the discussion. BobFromBrockley (talk) 12:57, 12 January 2022 (UTC)
• comment Not much more to add, often a new user will waste our time on arguments that are not policy based. This may not be an issue on normal talk pages. But here we really need policy-based arguments. I was going to go for one, but 3 will save a lot of time in explaining why an argument is flawed. But there is also the argument that a lot of experienced editors are not much better (especially where NPOV is concerned). So I am torn between 1 and 3. I guess I lean to 1 as I do not want to see cabals being able to force through what they want.Slatersteven (talk) 13:06, 12 January 2022 (UTC)
• Nope its Option 1 as I am unsure that this thread is a good example of how much better experienced editors are at behaving.Slatersteven (talk) 18:16, 12 January 2022 (UTC)
• Option 3 will weed out the off-site trolls who only have an interest in the supporting/opposing Counterpunch (and future ones), and no interest in its usage in the Wikipedia. ValarianB (talk) 13:09, 12 January 2022 (UTC)
• Option 3 - this is an area where the quality of our discussions will improve if the editors participating are required to have a modicum of experience. Levivich 14:34, 12 January 2022 (UTC)
• Option 3 - with sadness. But as said previously, I think it will improve discussions, and I hope, lessen the "deprecation-as-political-proxy-war" feeling that sometimes pervades the place. Cheers. Dumuzid (talk) 14:36, 12 January 2022 (UTC)
• Option 1 but also Option 4 - If we must have these general RSN RFCs then they should be open to as many commenters as possible and it is the job of the closer to weigh the !votes cast per Wikipedia:NOTAVOTE. However, it is very obvious that these general RFCs are very often simply opened to declare a source "bad", unconnected to any article-content, and this is the real problem that needs to be addressed. Editors should not be surprised that when they try to declare a source as effectively unusable, often as part of a "political proxy war" where they try to "kill" a source "with fire" (to quote a particularly prominent advocate of these general reliability RFCs), that their supporters come here to defend them. Option 4 is simply to stop having general reliability RFCs unless there is clear evidence of an actual existing article-content problem that is widespread in the encyclopaedia (e.g., the source is cited on more than a certain number of articles, for example 1000). FOARP (talk) 16:01, 12 January 2022 (UTC)
• Option 1 Wikipedia should not become a bubble restricted to those with certain qualifications. I strongly oppose option 3 for that reason. Unproductive comments will simply be ignored by the closer; there is very little harm in allowing ips and new accounts to participate, while openness in our processes and decisions is of the utmost importance. Zoozaz1 (talk) 17:59, 12 January 2022 (UTC)
• Option 3 Per David, Dumuzid and Levivich._signed, Rosguill ^talk 18:47, 12 January 2022 (UTC)

  Having read others' arguments and reflected on it more, while I think that Option 3 is preferable to the status quo (or perhaps more accurately, the status quo ante counterpunchum), I'm swayed by arguments that it doesn't make sense to codify essentially unprecedented bureaucracy around RSN RfCs while the very definition of deprecation remains up in the air. We may well want to consider removing the deprecation option from the "standard" reliability RfC, and would suggest that if we're going to keep deprecation as a process, it only be considered in cases where a source has already been subject to multiple discussions (perhaps: multiple discussions with consensuses for general unreliability) and where it's clear that a source cannot be trusted even for basic journalistic integrity (e.g. falsifies its own contributors' work) _signed, Rosguill ^talk 13:47, 13 January 2022 (UTC)

• Option 1 - RFCs should be open to all, including this subset of them. An issue that one finds particularly important might drive them to create an account or chime in without one. Discussions always have and should be open to all. — Godsy ^(TALK_CONT) 19:46, 12 January 2022 (UTC)
• Option 3, or failing that option 2. There is too much of an indication that they're being targeted by ban-evaders and the like, especially for RFCs on sources that cover controversial areas that are themselves under ECP protection. While it's certainly true that it is not a vote, the reality is that most closers are reluctant to close an RFC against a clear numerical consensus; and many people will not even want to bother to weigh in on an RFC where the numerical consensus seems clear (the sharply different results we're seeing in the previous vs. current Counterpunch RFCs point to this effect.) Yes, we have tools to limit the impact of socking or offsite canvassing; but those require significant time and effort on the part of both contributors and closers. The ability to take overwhelming results as a general indicator is important to avoid wasted energy; if socking and meatpuppetry and the like are at a level where RFCs regularly require laser-tight attention from everyone to prevent shenangians, that's not a sustainable situation. ECP exists specifically to prevent us from wasting energy and effort in those circumstances. --Aquillion (talk) 21:52, 12 January 2022 (UTC)
• Option 1. This seems like a bad idea to me, because it basically amounts to official formalization of a process that isn't even a policy or guideline. Wikipedia:Deprecated sources is an information page. The deprecation process itself is currently under discussion regarding what it actually means, how it should work, and what the outcome of deprecation should be -- if we don't know what the heck a process should be, it hardly seems like an appropriate time to be talking about how to more effectively gatekeep it. As ProcrastinatingReader mentioned above, if deprecation RfCs are truly such a cesspit that we need to adopt some bizarre practice that isn't done for any other type of RfC on the entire project, we should at least consider that it may be the process which needs to be changed, and not the type of editor allowed to participate in it. jp×g 05:28, 13 January 2022 (UTC)
• Option 1: Slatersteven says that often a new user will waste our time on arguments that are not policy based. Unfortunately, such is true of people with over 10,000 edits. ProcrastinatingReader makes a pretty compelling argument that this is not a clear/enforceable question, as "deprecation RfC" is not a particularly well-defined term: the problematic CounterPunch RfC had the same format as ones used to add uncontroversially reliable sources like The Mail & Guardian, which a non-ECP editor may plausibly be able to start. When it comes to disruption like socking at RfCs or AfDs, the problem is not in lacking rules to be able to enforce the situation, but in detection, or possibly in correct assessment of consensus by closers. It has become clear over the last few years that those who go all in with the goal of damaging Wikipedia can pass any new hurdle added (except—that we know of—adminship). — Bilorv (talk) 22:02, 13 January 2022 (UTC)

  I also said ". But there is also the argument that a lot of experienced editors are not much better (especially where NPOV is concerned".Slatersteven (talk) 12:43, 14 January 2022 (UTC)

• Option 1: consensus isn't a vote, and so bad arguments by new editors shouldn't carry much weight. Tol (talk | contribs) @ 05:29, 14 January 2022 (UTC)
• Option 4 A "Deprecation RFC" should be a straight yes or no open to all following a prior process discussing the source.Selfstudier (talk) 12:40, 14 January 2022 (UTC)

  No, it shouldn't. See WP:NOTAVOTE. There's no good reasons why this kind of RfC should follow any other format from the usual, time-tested one. RandomCanadian (talk / contribs) 14:06, 14 January 2022 (UTC)

  Well, if you define the "the usual, time-tested one" as a "Deprecation RFC", no there isn't.Selfstudier (talk) 14:16, 14 January 2022 (UTC)

  RfCs in general (what I was referring to), at RSN or elsewhere, have a well-defined format, and like all other discussions on Wikipedia, it is expected that contributors be able to back-up their "yes" or "no" with proper arguments. RandomCanadian (talk / contribs) 14:19, 14 January 2022 (UTC)

  I agree that whether it is a choice of 2 or a choice of 4, its not a vote. I am also aware of Wikipedia talk:Reliable sources/Noticeboard#RFC questions Selfstudier (talk) 14:25, 14 January 2022 (UTC)

• Option 1 IPs are humans too, and people making bad arguments (in RfCs or anywhere else) is not a problem unique to IPs or even to inexperienced users (see this, from an admin with no less than a 100000 edits!!), nor are canvassing or sockpuppetry concerns unique to anywhere (and when they do happen, it is usually not too hard to address them). This is WP:CREEP based on seemingly one current example (and making rules to address current "problems" is rarely a good usage of time, especially if it is not truly a widespread problem) which serves no useful purpose. RandomCanadian (talk / contribs) 14:06, 14 January 2022 (UTC)
• Option 1. Aside from the fact that this blatantly flies in the face of Wikipedia's standard that discussions are WP:NOTAVOTE, WP:ANYONECANEDIT, and the whole ideas that editors are equal, I could very easily abuse this process against non-ECP users by just starting a 4-option discussion/RfC whenever I am disputing the quality of source with a non ECP editor, rather than making a regular posting to RSN. Presto chango their opinions don't matter as when I go back to the discussion on the talk page I can point to the "global consensus" they weren't allowed to participate in. There's a saying called "hard cases make bad law" and it's highly applicable here. If we view this in the context of Counterpunch, an extreme outlier, I can see the urge to vote for Option 3. But we're really just telling editors to fuck off from any and all 4 option RfCs on sources and that's the majority of meaningful discussions here.

I also hate this idea that "new editors shouldn't start with internal Wikipedia processes". I started editing through countervandalism and NPP and all the complicated internal policy stuff. Maybe I'm an outlier, but I'd hazard a guess that there are others like me. So what if a new editor wants to start editing by commenting at RSN or AfD? There are other ways to help this encyclopedia than content creation. If they make bad votes the closer can easily disregard them in current practice. Chess (talk) (please use ((reply to|Chess)) on reply) 02:23, 15 January 2022 (UTC)

• Option 1. See my comment in the section below. Let's not get too focused on regulating a process that governs a process. Trust the judgement of the editors making discussions. An editor closing a discussion can discount arguments based on their strength. feminist (talk) 08:04, 15 January 2022 (UTC)
• Option 1 Closers are bright folks. They can assess the consensus and take into account SPA's and new accounts, and decide in context what weight to give their votes. If we are to exclude new editors from engaging in our central discussions, we hasten our demise. How else will we create new editors able to carry the project into the future? CaptainEek ^{Edits Ho Cap'n!}⚓ 19:55, 15 January 2022 (UTC)
• Option 1. IPs and new-to-enwiki users may well have considerable expertise with esoteric or non-English sources. The closer should be able to discount or underweight comments that appear solicited or are unsupported by policy. Espresso Addict (talk) 23:17, 17 January 2022 (UTC)
• Option 1. Closers can appropriately weight contributions when necessary if there's a need to do so. Stifle (talk) 14:18, 18 January 2022 (UTC)
• Option 1 I understand the concern regarding off site sock/meat !votes but I have faith in our closers to keep that in mind. Additionally, a strong argument presented by an IP is still a strong argument and shouldn't be outright blocked even if we should discount unregistered "shows of support". Springee (talk) 14:46, 18 January 2022 (UTC)
• Option 4. Deprecation RfCs should end. Unfortunately in 2019 RFC: Moratorium on "general reliability" RFCs did not result in any restriction, but I think more people are starting to realize they're bad, so eventually I'm hopeful we can end them. It won't happen here, but if/when it does this RfC won't matter. Peter Gulutzan (talk) 15:35, 18 January 2022 (UTC)
• Option 4. I agree with Peter above. It's time to deprecate deprecation RfCs. This has gotten totally out of control. – wbm1058 (talk) 04:33, 19 January 2022 (UTC)
• Option 1 Counterpunch is an outlier because a large portion of its use on this website is in relation to PIA. The vast majority of sources are not, so putting restrictions on all source deprecation RFCs just to address a single outlier seems like trying to fit a square peg into a round hole, except that the square peg is actually a sledgehammer. Many, if not all of the !votes here for option 3 are in the context of Counterpunch, either explicitly or implicitly. If socking was a serious problem at the Counterpunch RFC (which it may have been, I don't know), then surely there must be another way to address it that doesn't involve banning IPs and new users from all source discussions. Mlb96 (talk) 04:36, 19 January 2022 (UTC)
• Option 1 - leave it open. I am also of the mind that common sense and knowing when to use IAR applies to deprecated sources in certain circumstances. Atsme 💬 📧 08:23, 19 January 2022 (UTC)
• Option 1. We don't restrict participation in other RFC types, so why start here? If problems arise in future RFCs here, we have tools to address them. Calidum 17:05, 19 January 2022 (UTC)
• Option 1. What specific issue would this solve? We have policies against sock-/meatpuppetry, vandalism, trolling, general uncivility, etc.; RfCs are not majority vote affairs, and why should (auto-)confirmed users make better arguments/be more knowledgeable about sources than new or IP users? The description of this RfC does not clarify why it should be appropriate to restrict participation in deprecation RfCs. TucanHolmes (talk) 09:38, 20 January 2022 (UTC)
• Option 1 We already have ways to handle SPAs and such, I see no need to restrict participation. — csc^-1 13:22, 20 January 2022 (UTC)
• Option 1 Flies in the face of WP:NOTAVOTE, WP:ANYONECANEDIT. RFCs are not votes. Closers should evaluate the strength of the arguments presented, not sure how socks and new editors can interfere with that. Especially don't like the diminishment of the contributions of new (or just low edit) editors. Pabsoluterince (talk) 16:22, 20 January 2022 (UTC)
• Option 3. Submitting any meaningful RfC does require some experience. My very best wishes (talk) 00:18, 21 January 2022 (UTC)

@My very best wishes: Did you see what Bobfrombrockley wrote above? That specialist knowledge can be more valuable to the discussion than experience on Wikipedia. Pabsoluterince (talk) 05:48, 21 January 2022 (UTC)

Imo, the main reason to go for option 3 is the unclarity around deprecation, otoh that is the main reason why I went for option 1, either way, it needs clarification.Selfstudier (talk) 11:02, 21 January 2022 (UTC)

Option 3 as we want to avoid the influence from canvassing, off-wiki coordination, political proxy battles, etc. Do we have means to contextualize these? yes. Are these means perfect or even all that good? No, not really. I think we need more precise ways to keep these Deprecation discussions on point, measured, and principled. I respect the contributions of anonymous editors or extremely new editors, but no one can deny these are vehicles for spurious input which may harm the project in these instances. We have demonstrated examples of this happening (e.g. IceWhiz alts, etc) where bad actors have used the system to their advantage, to make a mockery of the project. We must do all we can to avoid such things. — Shibbolethink ^{(♔ ♕)} 14:43, 23 January 2022 (UTC)

• Option 1 / weak Option 2 RfC's are not a vote. If it's really just that bad, maybe Option 2 could be used, but it seems that RfC's should be open to everyone, should we restrict them just because it's annoying to deal with certain people? TheGEICOgecko (talk) 20:04, 27 January 2022 (UTC)
• Option 3 - This seems to me to be the best option. Beyond My Ken (talk) 14:51, 31 January 2022 (UTC)
• (edit conflict) Option 4: Abolish this "deprecation" system. Emir of Wikipedia (talk) 20:59, 2 February 2022 (UTC)

Discussion: Should deprecation RFCs be open to all users or restricted?

• I filed this because it seems a good idea to me and some others, but it's a major change in how we approach RFCs, which have long been open to all comers - David Gerard (talk) 19:00, 11 January 2022 (UTC)
• Oppose per WP:CREEP We don't need to have a new policy that ban WP:SOCKs and WP:MEATs from specific RFCs. We already have those policies. Headbomb {t · c · p · b} 18:55, 11 January 2022 (UTC)
• Comment Per above, "Deprecation RFC" is an undefined term. We should have a deprecation policy or at least a formal guideline before any more tinkering.Selfstudier (talk) 19:12, 11 January 2022 (UTC)
• Comment I think this discussion should be listed in WP:CENT because it is a drastic change. – Anne drew 19:15, 11 January 2022 (UTC)

  Agree. A. C. Santacruz ⁂ Please ping me! 19:28, 11 January 2022 (UTC)

  Feel free - David Gerard (talk) 20:59, 11 January 2022 (UTC)

  Added to WP:CENT. ScottishFinnishRadish (talk) 14:43, 12 January 2022 (UTC)

• I should note also, there was also discussion asking to retrospectively declare that ECP applied to the CounterPunch deprecation RFC on the basis of WP:ARBPIA - David Gerard (talk) 20:59, 11 January 2022 (UTC)

Yes, discussions in topic areas covered by ECP should have ECP applied to the noticeboard discussions, including RSN RFCs. And the fact that those RFCs have such heavy socking demonstrates why. But outside of that I cant think of a basis for it. nableezy - 21:17, 11 January 2022 (UTC)

That gets really complicated in its own way, though, in that... to use Counterpunch as an example, say. Clearly it has taken a strident side on the ARBPIA issue, and clearly (based on, if nothing else, Icewhiz's focus) at least some of the sockpuppetry and the like was from editors whose opinion on the source was decided solely by that ARBPIA issue, which meant they were using the RFC to weigh in on an ECP topic area by proxy. At the same time, though, it's not like that's the sole defining feature of Counterpunch's coverage - people who were only vaguely familiar with the source might not realize it, and even when quickly going over secondary coverage of it it might not come up (eg. when I was searching for academic reactions to and discussions of Counterpunch, their position on Israel rarely came up directly.) There are absolutely situations where editors will eg. judge an entire source based on a handful of things related to an ECP topic area that are not necessarily actually that important in the grand scope of the source as a whole; and that is going to be tricky to apply ECP for on a case-by-case basis. Especially since (for example) Icewhiz is going to be smart enough to not mention Israel when saying why he's taking a position on a source with his latest sock, even if that's actually the only reason he's weighing in at all. Unless we already know it's him (in which case he'd just be banned), how would we prove an editor is taking a position on a source for its stance on an ECP topic? Especially if it's an editor in good standing, who we otherwise AGF about? --Aquillion (talk) 22:00, 12 January 2022 (UTC)

I dont think it actually is that complicated. The topics covered are, on purpose, defined to be very broadly construed. But just look at the threads IW has been having 4-6 socks at a time involved in. They are sources that are widely used in the topic areas that are restricted. Those topic areas are restricted because of the pervasive socking of people like NoCal100 and Icewhiz. By opening this well its a general review and not specifically about a topic area you are getting played. If you look at many of the past discussions on CP you will find they were often focused specifically on ARBPIA topics. For example, Wikipedia:Reliable_sources/Noticeboard/Archive_181#What_is_the_verdict_of_the_2008_discussion_on_Counterpunch, Wikipedia:Reliable_sources/Noticeboard/Archive_10#CounterPunch, Wikipedia:Reliable_sources/Noticeboard/Archive_110#CounterPunch_reliability. Yes it covers other topics, obviously, but the reason you have IW and NoCal100 involved is to affect the topics that are EC-restricted. The entire point of EC, when it was first created, was to make sockpuppetry less of an issue in topic areas that have suffered sustained abusive sockpuppetry (and two NoCal100 socks being banned in one AC case is a pretty good example of that sustained issue). I dont think we need to prove anything about any users particular motivation. If the source is widely used in an ECP topic area, the noticeboard discussions should be treated as requiring EC to participate. Because we have seen, over and over, the impact of sockpuppetry has been significantly more disruptive than the positives of allowing unrestricted access. And CP, as well as the Jewish Chronicle RFC, demonstrate that better than I could ever try. That is two RFCs that IW by himself has been able to be a deciding factor in the outcome. There are a bunch of discussions on sources in the WP:APL topic area where the majority of commentators were IW socks. And I for the life of me cannot understand how users are supposedly in "good faith" making it easier for him to do so again. There is a reason "broadly construed" and not "narrowly construed" is how we determine what is or is not covered. nableezy - 16:28, 14 January 2022 (UTC)

Comment: Just to note that GizzyCatBella has applied this policy on this page below, although we have not reached a conclusion. Editors may think this is necessary to protect the integrity of that discussion, which I guess makes it a good example to think with in informing a decision here. BobFromBrockley (talk) 15:08, 12 January 2022 (UTC)

Thats a comment specifically about ARBPIA, and pretending like it does not fall under it is just silly. That has nothing to do with the wider question of should all RFCs be treated as such. So no, GCB did not apply this policy, GCB applied existing policy there. nableezy - 15:32, 12 January 2022 (UTC)

The policy is in effect as per ArbCom ruling until conclusion is reached. (why are we trying to overturn ArbCom’s ruling again?) - GizzyCatBella🍁 15:33, 12 January 2022 (UTC)

Although I support this RFC, I've unstruck the struck comment, because neither the comment nor the RFC it was made in are covered by ARBPIA. More detailed explanation in the thread. Levivich 16:23, 12 January 2022 (UTC)

That is absurd, the comment is specifically about an ARBPIA topic. Ill take this to AN. nableezy - 16:28, 12 January 2022 (UTC)

Here, let me get the diff for you: Special:Diff/1065201226. I'm looking forward to reading your explanation of which of the words in that diff relate to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. Or are you gonna try and argue that if a non-ECP editor links to a source that mentions the conflict, they should have their entire comment struck, even if the comment doesn't mention the conflict, and it's made in an RFC that's not about the conflict? Like, you think 30/500 in ARBPIA means that a non-ECP editor can't even link to a source that mentions the conflict anywhere on Wikipedia without having the comment struck? I don't think that interpretation is gonna fly. Levivich 16:37, 12 January 2022 (UTC)

The words Israel Shamir. The RFC largely focuses on sources in the Arab-Israeli topic area. See for example my comments about Edward Said or Uri Avnery or Zero's list of sources. The RFC is covered, and I dont want to waste another keystroke discussing with people who so blatantly stick up for obvious socks and meatpuppets. nableezy - 16:54, 12 January 2022 (UTC)

No one here is defending socks and such accusation is not productive to say the least but more general question should be discussed does CP RFC covered by the restriction or no Shrike (talk) 17:00, 12 January 2022 (UTC)

Well besides users restoring comments by people they say no doubt is a sock then yeah maybe nobody else is defending socks. Maybe. nableezy - 17:30, 12 January 2022 (UTC)

"The words Israel Shamir": Are you saying it falls under ARBPIA because the word "Israel" is in his name? Because the quote was about the concept of genocide in an article about Russia, and the overwhelming majority of Shamir's CounterPunch articles are about Russia and Ukraine. This is extending the scope of ARBPIA to extraordinary lengths. Also, I was not "pretending" anything and am getting quite frustrated at the assumptions of bad faith going on here. BobFromBrockley (talk) 18:09, 12 January 2022 (UTC)

Im going to assume that this is a serious question and not a bad attempt at trolling, but no, not because his name is Israel (wtf???). See Talk:Israel Shamir for why discussing Israel Shamir is covered under ARBPIA. The topic of Israel Shamir is in the ARBPIA topic area. nableezy - 18:21, 12 January 2022 (UTC)

If you think there is a sock report them, but do not use just your assumptions or accusations to strike users comments. Launch a wp:spi and let admins do it.Slatersteven (talk) 17:07, 12 January 2022 (UTC)

lol. Maybe pay attention, the reason it was struck was because it is in the ARBPIA topic area. As far as obvious sock, do you mean I should strike something? Or Levivich saying no doubt the editor is a sock? Or maybe Shrike? jfc. nableezy - 17:29, 12 January 2022 (UTC)

I mean you do not get to decide who is a sock. There is a procedure for that.Slatersteven (talk) 17:40, 12 January 2022 (UTC)

And who said I did? nableezy - 17:55, 12 January 2022 (UTC)

I'm honest about obvious socking, and you're using that against me. Had I said "can't be sure if it's a sock", you would have used that against me, also. If I disagree with you, that's "defending a sock" or "sticking up for a sock". Can't win with you. It's either agree with you, or else I'm "demanding", "abusing process", "defending socks", etc. etc., ad hominem, ad hominem, ad hominem. Levivich 18:02, 12 January 2022 (UTC)

This is being discussed as AN can we drop this now, and also if you have an issue with users please just report them.Slatersteven (talk) 18:04, 12 January 2022 (UTC)

• Commenters may wish to review this discussion that is likely related. --Izno (talk) 18:14, 12 January 2022 (UTC)

  Closed version of that Selfstudier (talk) 18:21, 12 January 2022 (UTC)

  I have a hard time discerning what the consensus of arbs was in that discussion, but if it's summarized in this comment by L235: But a source that covers many things including some things that are related to an ECR topic is not covered (unless the RSN discussion substantially relates to the ECR topic). Again, this should be determined case-by-case. I think CounterPunch is such a source, and I personally don't think that the RSN discussion "substantially relates" to ARBPIA (because it's about general reliability, not about a specific use of a source in a specific article about ARBPIA). But if it's case-by-case, and this is a case, then I don't know how that ARCA helps us figure out if this RSN discussion is covered by ARBPIA? (And if it is, that's a whole separate grounds for enforcing 30/500, than the fact that a particular comment linked/quoted a particular person whose BLP is tagged with ARBPIA.) Levivich 18:29, 12 January 2022 (UTC)

  It doesn’t help. ArbCom didn’t answer the bigger question, the problem I posed in my statement. The general statement they did give wasn’t under dispute or subject to any confusion in the first place. ProcrastinatingReader (talk) 07:33, 13 January 2022 (UTC)

• Here we have an RfC discussing who can participate on a subset of RfCs which concern a relatively recently-created internal process (WP:RSP) where the implications remain difficult to understand for many editors. Frankly, it's ridiculously meta and we are better off pondering why we got to this stage altogether. Do editors use bad sources for articles out of ignorance, incompetence, or because it helps the promotion of a particular point of view? And are we starting RfCs on reliability of sources to aid editors in citations, or as a backhanded approach of making the representation of certain viewpoints more difficult? feminist (talk) 08:03, 15 January 2022 (UTC)

This whole thing got started by a desire to "kill" the Daily Mail "with fire" (in the words of one of the main drivers of the DM ban). It was always political and never really about assisting editor in decision-making about sources. You can see this most prominently in the kind of stuff that gets brought to RSN for general reliability RFCs - it's always the subject of a political dispute and has no relation to the number of times its cited on Wikipedia. Indeed often there's no content dispute indicated at all, and no reason at all why we should be applying a blanket ban to that source. FOARP (talk) 21:17, 17 January 2022 (UTC)

• WP:CREEP applies. We already have a long-running and well-understood principle that closers can give appropriately reduced weight to contributions of new users when that is justified. Stifle (talk) 14:20, 18 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.

Is the source is reliable for caste-related articles?? source The Tribes and Castes of West Bengal Nobita456 (talk) 10:11, 31 January 2022 (UTC)

It has almost certainly been superseded by more recent scholarship, but it might be occasionally useful about situations which existed in the past, when used with attribution and a specific past date. Boynamedsue (talk) 07:28, 1 February 2022 (UTC)

No; by longstanding consensus, all books published in the days of British Raj are not treated as reliable sources for S. Asian history. That being said, it might be used with attribution for certain cases - read WP:DUE. TrangaBellam (talk) 17:05, 1 February 2022 (UTC)

TrangaBellam it is not a raj era source.Nobita456 (talk) 17:20, 1 February 2022 (UTC)

Apologies. Census documents are typically not much reliable but provides an insight into mainstream discourse. TrangaBellam (talk) 17:22, 1 February 2022 (UTC)

No problem. TrangaBellam Boynamedsue can I use it to describe the current status of a caste,which is disputed???Nobita456 (talk) 17:25, 1 February 2022 (UTC)

I, for reasons unknown, did this at Baidya; have removed it. However, it might be covered in an end-note, census being among the foremost tools of knowledge-production employed by the state. TrangaBellam (talk) 18:51, 1 February 2022 (UTC)

TrangaBellam I Have seen that,thanks. I will also do some edits regarding baidya notables as advised by you. and I am also requesting you to check that talk page of that article, where I started a new discussion regarding Raja-Rajballabha. Nobita456 (talk) 19:15, 1 February 2022 (UTC)

• Given that caste is a controversial topic, it is good that you are going cautiously. What can you tell us about the author? Blueboar (talk) 19:20, 1 February 2022 (UTC)

I was not sure about the source,that's why I asked here.I don't know anything about the author.Thanks Nobita456 (talk) 19:36, 1 February 2022 (UTC)

Here are two articles about Asok Mitra: a short newspaper obituary[1], and a longer one[2] that appeared in the Economic and Political Weekly. –Austronesier (talk) 21:27, 1 February 2022 (UTC)

• Just in reply to @Nobita456:, the way I would use it is something along the lines of "Writng in 1953, Asok Mitra stated that...{sentence using past tense}". In that way we are clearly stating that this regards a perspective from the past about the past. What is the exact phrase you wish to support? Boynamedsue (talk) 06:40, 3 February 2022 (UTC)

Hellow Boynamedsue,have gone through this,as the author is not historian or anthropologist, and the source is a census report, hence it should not be used to construct the history or origin of a caste.btw thanks for your concern. Nobita456 (talk) 08:11, 3 February 2022 (UTC)

This is controversial. Which, if any, of these are reliable sources which could be added to the Babbitt article?

• https://americanmilitarynews.com/2022/01/air-force-vet-ashli-babbitt-tried-stopping-jan-6-capitol-vandalism-before-fatally-shot-report/
• https://www.ntd.com/video-shows-babbitt-tried-to-stop-vandalism-in-the-capitol_729763.html (considered not reliable here)
• https://www.christianitydaily.com/articles/14667/20220121/newly-released-jan-6-video-shows-moments-leading-to-ashli-babbitts-death-at-the-hands-of-michael-byrd.htm

These were ones I found; they are discussed on Talk:Shooting_of_Ashli_Babbitt#Manufactured_MArtyr, but none are listed at Wikipedia:Reliable_sources/Perennial_sources. All of these sources discuss a controversial video of Babbitt which has prompted questioning, reinterpretation, or rejection of the narrative provided shortly after her death. Specifically I ask for an evaluation of their reliability for a discussion about the video which some want to see described on Shooting of Ashli Babbitt.--Epiphyllumlover (talk) 05:02, 2 February 2022 (UTC)

I wouldn't use any of those on a BLP/BDP and would be very unlikely to use them at all. EvergreenFir (talk) 05:49, 2 February 2022 (UTC)

Are the first and last sources too unknown? What should I tell an editor who thinks one of them might work?--Epiphyllumlover (talk) 06:16, 2 February 2022 (UTC)

Have to concur with EvergreenFir -- controversial/FRINGE opinions with BLP implications requires good source, and these aren't good. Feoffer (talk) 06:59, 2 February 2022 (UTC)

Two of the websites listed above are citing the Epoch Times as their source in turn. Per Wikipedia:Reliable sources/Perennial sources this is deprecated as "a biased or opinionated source that frequently publishes conspiracy theories". None of them look even remotely appropriate for anything controversial. AndyTheGrump (talk) 07:38, 2 February 2022 (UTC)

Special interest venues without traditional editorial accountability are a twilight zone even when they don't address culture war issues. If these are the best sources, I don't think we can document the claims verifiably. Of the three, Christianity Daily seems the most interesting to discuss, but given their COVID-19 coverage, an RfC on them is not going to be pretty. — Charles Stewart (talk) 14:59, 2 February 2022 (UTC)

• Pile on with the above; none of these sources are particularly great for BLP-type sourcing, especially with controversial content. If you believe this is a matter worth covering in a Wikipedia article, find something that is trustworthy. --Jayron32 17:47, 3 February 2022 (UTC)

Can we use this source to know and add cast of any film? ... २ तकरपेप्सी _talk 11:55, 1 February 2022 (UTC)

Not sure on specifics, but their about us page has a clear editorial policy, and extensive editorial staff, and it looks solid as a source. However, I don't see where it is a source for a cast of a film? It seems to be a technology publication, akin to cnet or something like that. The cast of a film is normally cited to the film credits itself; that is usually sufficient. According to WP:FILMCAST, only uncredited roles (which are not listed in the film credits) normally need outside sourcing. Which Wikipedia article are you trying to provide sources for, and which article from Digit are you using to provide the information? That's really what we need to assess this. --Jayron32 17:52, 3 February 2022 (UTC)

(obligatory warning for potential of content inappropriate for anyone under 18 years; this is a personal preference) Furry fandom contains a statement about a YouTuber (a version of it is found in this diff) that is stepping on WP:BLP lines and the following two sources are given: Input and Inven Global. Are they reliable, especially for this? ❤︎PrincessPandaWiki (talk | contribs) 16:09, 2 February 2022 (UTC)

I think you have wrong diff. I assume you mean the content concerning YouTuber 'Hypnotist Sappho'. In my opinion, the sourcing is poor, but that isn't really relevant, since the whole section is grossly undue. The claim that 'the internet' had any view on this at all is ludicrous, and the opinions of 'several furries' are of no significance whatsoever. If the Furry fandom article is to include content on zoophilia, it needs to be much better sourced than this, and based around a broader discussion of the topic. AndyTheGrump (talk) 10:01, 3 February 2022 (UTC)

AndyTheGrump I just picked a diff referring to a version of the article containing the statement since I thought I could do that. If that's wrong, then I'm sorry. I've found the diff with the statement being added with the WikiBlame tool. Anyway, yeah, I agree it is WP:UNDUE. ❤︎PrincessPandaWiki (talk | contribs) 17:27, 3 February 2022 (UTC)

I've now removed the content in question. AndyTheGrump (talk) 12:08, 4 February 2022 (UTC)

I can't figure out why weatherbase.com is so widely used on Wikipedia. The site itself is so heavily loaded with advertising that it's almost impossible to scroll down to the footers on a data page like this one. The About page describes the team as a "self-described nerd" and someone looking to "hone her business school chops".

I'm really not sure what makes this our go-to site for climate data. Guettarda (talk) 01:00, 29 January 2022 (UTC)

What makes it our go-to site for climate data is that someone in the past decided to use it on some of our articles. If you feel it should be replaced, you're allowed to do so. There is no editorial board, no approval process, just a bunch of independent people doing the best they can. --Jayron32 15:01, 31 January 2022 (UTC)

I'm aware of that. I just can't see what makes it an RS at all. I was hoping to get a second opinion on it. Guettarda (talk) 19:59, 31 January 2022 (UTC)

Yeah, no. It isn't a reliable source. There are other good sources on climate data, NOAA for example. There's no need to us a hobbyist page for information that is clearly available on scrupulously reliable sources instead.--Jayron32 13:42, 4 February 2022 (UTC)

While i generally agree that the site isnt reliable, we have to note that it claims to take its data from the Norwegian Meteorological Institute, which like NOAA is a meteorological service and reliable. However, I would personally prefer us to take the statistics straight from the countries meteorological service than a thrid party.Jason Rees (talk) 13:49, 4 February 2022 (UTC)

Indeed, if it gets its information from the Norwegian Meteorological Institute, we could be too, and not using them as an intermediary. --Jayron32 13:56, 4 February 2022 (UTC)

Invisible_Oranges is a long-running American online music magazine dedicated to heavy metal news, and I would like to have it accepted as a Reliable source.

Any thoughts/opinions or opposing views? H8eternal (talk) 09:45, 31 January 2022 (UTC)

What do you want to use it for? Has anyone objected to your attempts to use it before? --JBL (talk) 19:41, 31 January 2022 (UTC)

@JayBeeEll I need to have it accepted as a reliable source for the new media section "music" we want to create on the Jeffrey_Dahmer page. it's an article of the Invisible_Oranges about Dahmer's impact on metal music, mentioning the American Thrash metal band Slayer and the Amcerican Death-metal band Macabre songs [we have to skip the Soulfly then] we can to cite as reliable source:

https://www.invisibleoranges.com/metal-and-jeffrey-dahmer/

H8eternal (talk) 16:56, 1 February 2022 (UTC)

Well it self-describes as a blog, which is a mark against, but it has a long publishing history, and identifiable editors exhibiting oversight (so it's not user-generated content). I personally would be inclined to accept it for non-contentious claims. However, if you read the talk-page discussion at Talk:Jeffrey Dahmer, I think you'll find that the objections to including content about music on that page focus (correctly) on questions of due weight -- even accepting Invisible Oranges as a reliable source for the information in the article, I'm skeptical that it should be mentioned on Dahmer's biography. --JBL (talk) 12:38, 2 February 2022 (UTC)

well the article per-se is not the main subject of my contribution to the page. it is about the impact that his life story had on music (new category) I'm trying to bring to the media paragraph. they have film, books, theatre etc. there. but not music. which seems incomplete to me tbh.

this would be the new category-paragraph I'm working on:

start-----------------------------------------------

Music

• 213 (1994). Song by the American Thrash metal band Slayer (album: Divine Intervention)
• Dahmer (2002). Concept album by the Amcerican Death-metal band Macabre
• Jeffrey Dahmer (2010). Song by the metal band Soulfly (album: Omen)

end-----------------------------------------------

the Invisible_Oranges article would be just used as a reliable source for the above. thank you.

H8eternal (talk) 09:48, 3 February 2022 (UTC)

You've now shifted away from your specific question (about whether the source is reliable) to the original discussion (of whether or not to add content to the article). This is not the right venue to settle that, the article talk-page is. You can certainly go back there and say, "I asked at RSN, it didn't generate a lot of discussion, but the one user who replied said he was inclined to treat the source as reliable for non-exceptional claims like the ones in my proposed addition." --JBL (talk) 22:56, 3 February 2022 (UTC)

thank you so far @JayBeeEll I will let you know if they ask for more. H8eternal (talk) 17:04, 4 February 2022 (UTC)

What do people think about Streetsblog (and its sister, Streetfilms) as a RS? The obvious shallow answer is, "Blogs are not RS", but the name notwithstanding, this isn't really a blog in the typical WP:UGC sense. They do appear to have at least some editorial oversight. It's clear that they exist for advocacy, but that makes them not neutral, which isn't quite the same as being not reliable. I'd be interested in hearing other points of view.

My apologies if this is a repeat; I have a vague recollection of bringing this up before, but can't find it in the archives. -- RoySmith (talk) 18:15, 4 February 2022 (UTC)

Despite the “blog” title, Streetsblog is edited journalism and should be evaluated as such. Caution is warranted, since so much of what it says is opinion, but it seems like it could be used for noncontroversial statements of fact. John M Baker (talk) 19:06, 4 February 2022 (UTC)

In this matter, I contend a statute is a primary source subject to interpretation, which explains why we have countless lawyers and judges, and cannot be used as a reliable source because it could be qualified in myriad ways by other statutes, regulations or exemptions that are not readily apparent. In a case that involves government officials or lawmakers, like this one, they may enjoy certain immunities that the statute doesn't mention, but are mentioned elsewhere. I contend editors cannot reliably make such a determination.

I don't see this discussed in policy. Can I get a ruling? Pinging Kkeeran and Boxer Brick. soibangla (talk) 22:03, 27 January 2022 (UTC)

Agree with you in general, but I see WP:SYNTH as the primary issue; my quick scan didn't find the statute name-checked in any of the sources, which would at least help the argument. As it stands, I would say that bit does not belong. Cheers, all. Dumuzid (talk) 22:07, 27 January 2022 (UTC)

Statutes are primary sources. Court Decisions can be both primary and secondary. Primary for new matters discussed, secondary for discussions included on previous decisions rendered. Given the statute seems to be used in that article to make a point not supported by secondary sources, its inappropriate as WP:SYNTH/WP:OR.Slywriter (talk) 22:16, 27 January 2022 (UTC)

I agree with Dumuzid about WP:SYNTH. Unless a secondary source states that specific law applies to the matter, citing the law is establishing an unsupported relationship. Schazjmd (talk) 22:29, 27 January 2022 (UTC)

It is implicit synthesis because it implies the law was broken. But there are legal questions whether a subpoena within the meaning of the act had been issued and whether anyone had refused to obey it. TFD (talk) 23:10, 27 January 2022 (UTC)

Statutes and court decisions are only WP:PRIMARY. They can be cited for factual statements as to what they say, but cannot be used for any interpretation. I think that’s rather clear-cut and axiomatic. As far as the linked to text is concerned, WP:SYNTHNOTJUXTAPOSITION. DeCausa (talk) 23:17, 27 January 2022 (UTC)

The linked text is unambiguously using a WP:PRIMARY source (the statue) to insinuate that the The Maricopa Board of Supervisors broke the law in the article text; doing so is clear-cut WP:SYNTH. --Aquillion (talk) 01:05, 5 February 2022 (UTC)

• It would be acceptable to quote the text of the statute in an article about the statute… and we can cite the statute itself (as a primary source) to reliably verify that quote.

However… per WP:No original research, any analysis of the statute, or interpretation of it, or conclusionary statement based upon it needs a secondary source. This is what is happening in the linked article. Blueboar (talk) 00:09, 28 January 2022 (UTC)

I would say that, normally, the text of a statute is a good primary source for what the statute says. But here I just don't see the relevance. It's a single sentence from the statutory scheme for legislative subpoenas, taken out of context and without any explanation of how it fits into the larger dispute. By itself, it adds nothing to our understanding of what happened. John M Baker (talk) 01:38, 28 January 2022 (UTC)

Everyone in this discussion should also take a look at Wikipedia:Administrators'_noticeboard/Incidents#Steven_Crowder_YouTube_video. (Also it is extremely difficult to imagine a statute text being used legitimately as a source in an encyclopedia article.) --JBL (talk) 13:54, 28 January 2022 (UTC)

• We absolutely cannot cite the primary text of a statue or law in a way that carries legal implications (ie. the implication that action X was or was not legal) without a secondary source overtly stating that interpretation - that is textbook WP:SYNTH. And this is obviously intended to lead the reader to such a conclusion. --Aquillion (talk) 19:15, 31 January 2022 (UTC)

I'm not sure if I think statutes should always be disregarded as appropriate sources in all contexts but absolutely agree with @Soibangla: that it should not be used in this matter-up to and including for the reasons provided by editors above. I do have to say I have been informed in the past that Citations to case law are also considered primary sources not to be used on wiki and find that this reasoning heavily conflicts with the logic that a statute effective/practical/applied meaning requires a secondary source to ensure accurate interpretation. Often the best most accurate source for this would be the controlling case law-at least for common law jurisdictions like the United States. OgamD218 (talk) 05:53, 4 February 2022 (UTC)

Re: ”… primary sources not to be used on wiki” - note that primary sources CAN be used on wiki, but their use is limited with caveats and cautions applied. Blueboar (talk) 13:28, 4 February 2022 (UTC)

Yes, my problem is that this use is clearly WP:SYNTH (and frequently when someone uses one as a source like this it's SYNTH.) If we're writing an article about a law, we could cite a statue to quote the text of that law in a neutral context. But in an article about a person, event, controversy, or the like, we absolutely cannot cite a statue in a context that implies "this specific real-world action was against the law" or "this specific real-world action was not against the law", since that's WP:SYNTH - the applicability of a statue to any particular situation always requires a secondary source unambiguously making the connection. This "Person X did Y" (cite to newspaper source saying they did Y, with no legal assessment) "Doing Y is illegal" (cite to a statue, which makes no mention of person X or their action) sort of thing is extremely common and is textbook revert-on-sight synthesis. --Aquillion (talk) 01:01, 5 February 2022 (UTC)

This matter has been going on for a couple of months now, and is regarding Pakistan's supposed involvement in the Panjshir conflict, more specifically to do with the sources which are being cited.

I believe these references (which are primarily Indian Media [3], [4], [5] quoting a single Iranian newspaper, quoting an Iranian politician, without even providing any sort of proof, or without even referencing the original Iranian article!) are weak and should not be used to support such a claim, considering that no international media outlet, like BBC, Aljazeera, TRT, NYT etc made these claims at a time when global outlets were present in Afghanistan. During the Panjshir conflict, it was known that Indian Media had rushed to publish these articles and started using all sorts of nonsense 'proof' to try and prove these claims, such as quoting a fake twitter account, [6], (by India Today, a source that was used multiple times on the page), using fake video game footage on their TV broadcasts, [7], [8], [9], [10], and showing a video captured in Wales as a Pakistani fighter jet in the Panjshir valley [11].

Other non-Indian sources mentioned, like TOLONews [12] just repeat the claims of the NRF but provide no proof, whereas the European parliament is being presented as if it is meant to be source, whereas it is only a motion that doesn't discuss the proof/references or whether such events actually occurred. It's quite clear that this is now being used as a circular reference, where it is likely quoting the Indian sources above, but Wikipedia is using the European parliament motion, to somehow 'verify' the claims of the Indian references.

In my opinion, this was all a misinformation campaign to try and attribute links between the Pakistani Air Force and the Taliban during the Panjshir conflict :
>> Taimoor Ahmed^{(Send a Message?)} 21:40, 29 January 2022 (UTC)

You can personally disagree with their report but The Week (Indian magazine), India Today, TOLOnews and Hindustan Times are reliable sources for this matter. The report in question from India Today[13] remains undisputed. As the talk page already noted, India Today is itself IFCN certified thus there should be no question about their reliability unless the particular claim was proven to be false. Abhishek0831996 (talk) 17:59, 30 January 2022 (UTC)

@Abhishek0831996: It's not about my opinion! It doesn't matter how many 'awards' or certifications Indian Today has, when it has a history of publishing misinformation on subjects relating to Pakistan! India Media is overall unreliable when it comes to Pakistan-related topics! :
>> Taimoor Ahmed^{(Send a Message?)} 04:11, 1 February 2022 (UTC)

• Reliable per above. It is a gross misrepresentation to say that only Indian sources made these claims. European parliament acknowledged it as well.[14] Georgethedragonslayer (talk) 03:41, 31 January 2022 (UTC)

Of course, you would you state this. "gross misrepresentation". And by the way, I've already explained the European Parliament thing. :
>> Taimoor Ahmed^{(Send a Message?)} 04:11, 1 February 2022 (UTC)

• Can you be clearer about what you're trying to say here? There has been misinformation and sensationalism among certain Indian sources over recent developments around the Taliban but most of these aren't used in the article from what I can see. If you are using this to broadly consider any Indian source to be unreliable for this area (or reliable for the matter?) then that's certainly not going to fly. If you want to dispute the reliability of individual sources, you can bring them up otherwise this is unactionable.

Regarding "India Today", it can refer to either the India Today magazine or the India Today television channel, which are editorially independent of each other. It is also not IFCN certified. Its fact checking arm AFWA is, which is editorially independent from either of them and has at times fact checked reports that were broadcasted on the television channel itself. The India Today website is largely an extension of the television department but hosts content from the magazine and AFWA which are present under the sections marked as "magazine" and "fact check" respectively. The report in question is from the website and not marked under either of these two sections, so it should probably be replaced with a better source considering that the television channel has in fact engaged in sensationalism regarding the Taliban. That however does not make everything else unreliable. Tayi Arajakate _Talk 08:34, 31 January 2022 (UTC)

@Tayi Arajakate: My point was that these claims shouldn't have been mentioned in the section or the infobox, unless some other reliable and credible source could verify these claims through a different source, as of yet I haven't been able to find these, nor have they been given. Again, it keeps getting mentioned that India Today is IFCN-certified, that doesn't mean it can't publish dubious reports or misinformation? :
>> Taimoor Ahmed^{(Send a Message?)} 04:11, 1 February 2022 (UTC)

Taimoorahmed11, why shouldn't they be mentioned? The policy on neutral point of view states that we must represent "all the significant views that have been published by reliable sources on a topic." The claims themselves have been covered by multiple reliable secondary sources and made by the NRF itself (not to mention CENTCOM, a former Afghan parliamentarian, etc). As long as the sources are accurately represented in the article, the claims can be included. At no point did the article assert it as fact. In any case, this is a question of whether the inclusion has due weight or not and not that of the reliability of sources, i.e this noticeboard isn't the place for it.

Also if it keeps getting mentioned that "India Today" is IFCN certified then those mentioning it don't understand what they are talking about. India Today is a brand name that's owned by Living Media, which operates a number of distinct media outlets, some of which carry the name "India Today". Two of their outlets, namely Lallantop and India Today Fact Check (which is also called AFWA) are IFCN certified. That does not make everything else that carries the brand name, IFCN certified. And yes, even if a specific organisation had an IFCN certification, it isn't the be all end all of assessing its reliability. It would give indication of a reputation for fact checking and accuracy but if there is misinformation from the same organisation then that would need to be taken into account as well. Tayi Arajakate _Talk 13:45, 1 February 2022 (UTC)

• To focus just on the EP dimension of the story, de dicto citation of news stories in a democratic parliament shows that there is attention on the story but it does not turn an otherwise unreliable source into a reliable one. The kind of thing that would be needed to turn such events into something usable by us is news media or a scholarly coverage of the debate that includes evaluation of the claim. Otherwise, the mere fact of citation is not something that we should even mention. If the politician actually asserted they have knowledge that the coverage is true, that is something we might be able to cite but that does not seem to be the case here. — Charles Stewart (talk) 17:33, 1 February 2022 (UTC)
• Reliable per Abhishek0831996 as well as being a loaded RfC. Reliability of news can be challenged individually, not through a gross generalisation of sources from a country. Captain Jack Sparrow (talk) 09:44, 5 February 2022 (UTC)

In particular, is Cause of Cambrian Explosion - Terrestrial or Cosmic? (PDF) suitable for use as a source in our Cosmic ancestry article? 11:06, 5 February 2022 (UTC)2600:1700:D0A0:21B0:BCB8:477C:92DF:DE56 (talk)

No. Headbomb {t · c · p · b} 23:40, 5 February 2022 (UTC)

To be clear, that particular article is fringe nonsense. PBMB can be reliable elsewhere. Headbomb {t · c · p · b} 23:55, 5 February 2022 (UTC)

Thanks! I found the list of authors and their qualifications to be...interesting. But not is a good way. School of Veterinary and Life Sciences? History of Chinese Culture Foundation? Pestalozzi Gymnasium? Metallurgical & Materials Engineering IIT? Toronto General Hospital? School of Dentistry and Health Sciences? How are those related to Cosmic ancestry?

Related: Polonnaruwa (meteorite)

02:10, 6 February 2022 (UTC)2600:1700:D0A0:21B0:BCB8:477C:92DF:DE56 (talk)

Sorry about this: at Lurcher, are (1) the text of this law of 1389 and (2) this dictionary from 1779 sufficient reliable sources for the text "The distinction in England between a greyhound and a lurcher was both legal and biological. Greyhounds and other hunting dogs could only be used to hunt legally by the privileged upper class who could show qualification by sufficient income or estate. Anyone else with a lower income was, from 1389, prohibited from hunting with any type of dog including the lurcher specifically named in the law as "lerce".?

In fairness, I should also also ask if the second paragraph of the History section in this revision is adequately supported by this:

Thanks for any input. Justlettersandnumbers (talk) 12:19, 5 February 2022 (UTC)

• I think that Cambridge University Press is adequate source for the history section, and references to online tertiary sources are neither necessary or helpful. Actually, any Cam Un Press book is RS per WP guidelines. As for the first question, ancient laws or texts are not sufficient to back the specific text or almost any text in WP. I would suggest remove the sources. If there are editors opposing this suggestion, my next suggestion would be to or add a ((bcn)) template and keep it for a month or so. If no one finds a better source, then remove the text and the ancient source. Cinadon36 13:35, 5 February 2022 (UTC)
• I tend to think not. The accuracy of Kelham has clearly been questioned as early as the mid-19th century when the word "lerce" was considered to more likely mean a hound bitch.^[1] I would tend towards what modern texts say over primary sources that are possibly mis-translated or misunderstood. I have two more modern sources that state the lurcher has been known since the 17th century.^[2][3] Cavalryman (talk) 02:39, 6 February 2022 (UTC).

I would like to point out that the law of 1389 concerns *types* of (hunting) dogs, not *gender*. The sex of any of these dogs would be immaterial to the practice of hunting. Please note my remarks on (some of) the inaccuracies of Russell's Greyhound Nation on the Talk page of "Lurcher". --Richard Hawkins (talk) 17:05, 6 February 2022 (UTC)

[15]

I saw this website, and thought that their contents are made by their own investigation, being appropriate to use to Wikipedia resources. But I would like to listen to other's opinion; I have little confidence whether my interpretation on WP:RS is right. Reiro (talk) 05:57, 6 February 2022 (UTC)

The website claims to derive its content from a book of the same name, written by a man who claims to be an investigative journalist. (He doesn't appear to be notable, so I don't see a way to investigate the claim further.) Normally, I would assume that such works are reliable. My one reservation is that if you scroll down to the very bottom, it solicits "corrections or additions" and provides an email address, which is unusual. —Compassionate727 ^(T·C) 15:53, 6 February 2022 (UTC)

Striking portion after further reflection. —Compassionate727 ^(T·C) 20:55, 6 February 2022 (UTC)

This is in regards to Goji berry.

I wanted to add in nutritional information like how much iron, vitamin a, Melatonin etc in a serving of Goji. As the current article has absolutely zero information on nutritional profile. But my edit got removed as I was told my sources was unreliable.

https://www.webmd.com/diet/foods-high-in-melatonin

https://www.healthline.com/nutrition/goji-berry

I was told that "WebMD and Healthline are not reliable sources, especially for nutrition analysis, as they are written by bloggers and are not peer-reviewed or subjected to editorial scrutiny."

However I don't agree with that claim as they're large reputable companies with articles written by real professionals. And we are not even arguing over soft sciences like whether or not vitamin C is healthy or not. We are arguing on more straightforward hard sciences on whether Goji has a certain level of vitamin C, etc and I highly doubt sources like WebMD and Healthline can get this basic thing wrong. As they are written by professional experts and reviewed by other experts.

There's no credible motive for WebMD and Healthline to go fake the nutritional macronutrient profile of goji. Especially When it's likely top labs have analysed it and published the information in journals which are referred to by these professional dieticians and scientists. Additionally a strong source - USDA database also supports all their statements (that Goji is high in fibre, iron, vitamin a, etc,) as being true. However the other editor told me that USDA is unreliable because it measures "commercial packaged" goji and they can lie. I find that claim absurd as USDA is the one that is responsible for measuring and ensuring that the correct nutrition label is given, and they're not corrupt or incompetent.

https://fdc.nal.usda.gov/fdc-app.html#/food-details/173032/nutrients

On talk, we had debated in whether Healthline and WebMD are correct about the basic nutrition found in goji. I think they're correct and reliable but the other editor has disagreed and has not replied to the Talk discussion for over a week and why I am here for advice on whether Healthline is a reliable source.

The general information I want to add, is very simple. And as of below. No more and no less. I don't see the problem. .....

That they are a rich source in melatonin

https://www.webmd.com/diet/foods-high-in-melatonin

And 5 tablespoons (28 grams) of dried goji berries pack (3Trusted Source):

Calories: 98 Protein: 4 grams Fat: 0.1 grams Carbs: 21.6 grams Fiber: 3.6 grams Sugar: 21.8 grams Iron: 11% of the Daily Value (DV) Vitamin A: 501% of the DV Vitamin C: 15% of the DV

A small serving of this fruit is loaded with fiber, iron, and vitamins A and C

https://www.healthline.com/nutrition/goji-berry

• Healthline and WebMD are not good sources. Saying a fruit is "rich in .." or "loaded with.." some substance isn't particularly informative either (if it's even correct). Alexbrn (talk) 05:01, 6 February 2022 (UTC)

@Alexbrn: Okay. Thanks for the reply but straight to saying they're bad source without fair reasoning? Does that also apply to UDSA database? Are they also a poor source for Wikipedia too? They practically say the very same thing as Healthline and in fact, it's precisely what the Healthline article relied on.

And why is Healthline even a poor source? The authors in my source themselves are real people who have professional degrees in the field. And also finding out the nutritional content in a Goji berry, is hardly even rocket science. It's straightforward stuff that any competent food scientist Is able to measure reliably with modern technology. The Information is most likely correct.

Healthline uses the USDA database and even links to it transparently. So what proof do you even have that USDA database itself doesn't have the expertise or credibility to reliably measure the nutritional content in Goji berries?

If I cannot use Healthline because apparently editors have some distrust against them. What about USDA? https://fdc.nal.usda.gov/fdc-app.html#/food-details/173032/nutrients 49.186.66.28 (talk) 05:40, 6 February 2022 (UTC)

Also how is adding the nutritional information of a fruit, not informative? This is an encyclopaedia and it should inform people what the nutritional profile of a particular fruit is. People want to know how much sugar, fiber, iron, etc in a particular food item and they go to places like Wikipedia specifically to look that info up. 49.186.66.28 (talk) 05:50, 6 February 2022 (UTC)

Wikipedia is meant to reflect "accepted knowledge" so it's important trustworthy sources are used. USDA is of course reliable but they don't have any information on this berry to tell, so are just relaying (as they say) label claims. From other sources we know a lot of false claims about these berries have been made, so extra caution, if anything, is warranted. Can you find a good source? Alexbrn (talk) 08:53, 6 February 2022 (UTC)

@Alexbrn: Again I disagree. They don't 'relay" info. They're not bloggers but are legally responsible for delivering and regulating accurate nutrition labels to the public. FSIS is the one responsible for the food products and their Nutrition labeling. The FDA themselves (guarantees) that majority of prepared foods sold in USA, such as packaged dried Goji berries are tested for safety and properly labeled for nutrition.

https://www.nal.usda.gov/legacy/aglaw/food-labeling

FSIS are the ones who "issue" any nutritional info label. If it has a label, it's been tested by them. They don't just take companies word for it but are the ones who test and inspect themselves. Did you expect differently? We can just give proper attribution to USDA as they are very unlikely to lie about this. Also the sources are not bigly claiming it can cure Diabetes in a week. Simply finding out what compounds are inside it. It is not even a huge overblown claim. I look at banana article and it had USDA database.

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Banana

Here are other direct scientists sources published in science journals. It also confirms the fruit is a good source in specific vitamins, etc

https://www.researchgate.net/publication/321007006_Nutritional_evaluation_of_fresh_and_dried_goji_berries_cultivated_in_Italy

https://www.hindawi.com/journals/omcl/2019/2437397/

49.195.81.81 (talk) 01:15, 7 February 2022 (UTC)

• The European Pharmacopoeia Supplement 10.7[16] has an entry for Goji ("Barbary wolfberry fruit"). This might have the nutrition info you are seeking, but I don't have access so cannot tell. I would avoid Chinese research into TCM as it is well-documented as being problematic. Alexbrn (talk) 02:05, 7 February 2022 (UTC)

I don't have access too. But I had a look at the "peaches" and "Bananas" Wikipedia page and they also have a nutrition chapter with the USDA database. Should we remove all that info? I don't get why there seems to be a prejudice against Goji berries where there are double standards for wiki 'manual of style'. They should also have a professional USDA Analysis database for it too like other fruits. (USDA are publicly available to everyone).

Hence I propose roughly this:

Well, you'd need a reliable source. The USDA only relays "label claims" for a specific form of dried berry and so is not suitable. (By contrast, their entry for "banana" has their own analysis, so can be safely relayed as accurate). You came here to ask about the reliability of the source, and you have your answer. Maybe try the European reference. Alexbrn (talk) 02:22, 7 February 2022 (UTC)

Where does it say on USDA it's a very specific form of dried goji berries. They were talking about dried goji berries in general and not in reference to any particular commercial brand. Similar to how they measure banana. No specific brands but just in general. 49.195.81.81 (talk) 02:30, 7 February 2022 (UTC)

Against each entry where it says "label claim". This appears to be from a legacy database and it does not say which specific label made this claim. The entry for "banana" is not based on label claims but largely on USDA analysis. You may need to visit a library to access that European reference. It may help. Alexbrn (talk) 02:47, 7 February 2022 (UTC)

You are the one claiming they test a specific brand but USDA doesn't say they only test a specific brand. And that's not what legacy means. It just means up to 2019, the data for Dried Goji Berries is updated up to that time and won't change.

"SR Legacy has been the primary food composition data type in the United States for decades. It provides a comprehensive list of values for food components, including nutrients derived from analyses, imputations, and the published literature. (SR Legacy, released in April 2018, is the final release of this data type and will not be updated.)

They are not some juvenile database but the most authoritative source for food nutrition information. They don't say they pick information from word of mouth but all info are carefully published from analyses, imputations, and the published literature. You seem to not be arguing in good Faith. Also in addition to USDA, you haven't really said anything on this Euro source I gave earlier. They do an in-depth study analysis of Goji berries and do support USDA analysis. Are they not reliable? https://www.researchgate.net/publication/321007006_Nutritional_evaluation_of_fresh_and_dried_goji_berries_cultivated_in_Italy

The fact is USDA never said anything about a specific brand only. They measured dried goji berries in general. There's no reason why they would measure a very specific brand and not tell people about it. 49.195.81.81 (talk) 03:03, 7 February 2022 (UTC)

"They measured dried goji berries in general" ← explicitly, they did not measure anything. The "Euro source" you mention doesn't appear to be in PUBMED, which is worrying. I have proposed a source which may help. I suggest you try that. I will not respond further. Alexbrn (talk) 03:13, 7 February 2022 (UTC)

There is a news agency called HinduPost. Recently my edit from the Anti-Hindu sentiment page was reverted stating that it is unreliable. I wanted to understand the reason. This is the article in question and I would also like to understand the general status of reliability for this website for future use. The statement requiring citation is "In 2019, Swaminarayan Temple in Kentucky was vandalised by miscreants. They sprayed black paint on the deity and sprayed 'Jesus is the only God’ on the walls. The Christian cross was also spray painted on various walls."Extorc (talk) 20:12, 5 February 2022 (UTC)

HinduPost definitely looks reactionary. There's a lot of that in India. For this particular story there are other more reliable sources, one is linked in the article. -- GreenC 20:31, 5 February 2022 (UTC)

Not much more than a more obscure OpIndia (RSP entry), so certainly not RS and should not be used anywhere. The website is rife with conspiracy theories, take for instance "global left-Islamist anti-Hindu cabal", Love Jihad ([17], [18]), conspiracy against Ayurveda ([19]), the 2020 Delhi riots being a "sinister anti-Hindu conspiracy", anti-vax nonsense, etc etc. Tayi Arajakate _Talk 01:40, 6 February 2022 (UTC)

Allright, Thanks. Extorc (talk) 03:49, 6 February 2022 (UTC)

The About us page seems to be one which says that the publication provides the correct perspective on issues concerning Hindu society. I'm not exactly sure what the correct perspective is, but the site appears to at minimum really not like the perspective provided in traditional media. Traditional media doesn't always get things right, but that doesn't make every piece of alternative media worthwhile. I'm not really convinced that this is a WP:NEWSORG with a reputation for fact-checking and accuracy. It's also not very clear that opinion pieces (see here) are labeled in a way to indicate that they are opinion, while HinduPost makes no claims of factual accuracy for pieces they publish. Their official stance is that HinduPost will not be responsible for the accuracy, completeness, suitability, or validity of any information, or assume any responsibility or liability for the same. With that sort of disclaimer, I'd be hesitant to cite it for anything. — Mhawk10 (talk) 07:21, 7 February 2022 (UTC)

• Links to past discussion of the source on this board: No past discussions were found

• Source: [20].

• Article: Draft: Karoll Marquez.

• Content (The exact statement(s) in the article that the source supports):

  According to El Pilón, the couple portrayed by Karoll Márquez and Diana Hoyos in Oye bonita was "iconic within Colombian television".

  .

A reviewer of the draft on singer Karoll Marquez said the draft had problems with unreliable references, but they did not mention which of the 35 refs they consider "unreliable". After checking every citation I could only come up with 1 definitively unreliable ref (It is already removed, it was a link to the unofficial page of the singer) and 1 ref (the one I am asking here in this Noticeboard, the local Colombian newspaper "El Pilón").

The two most respected newspapers in Colombia are El Tiempo and El Espectador, with national circulation. Then, one can find in descending order the medium range newspapers, corresponding to the large cities (i.e. El Colombiano is from Medellín) and the local newspapers (i.e. El Heraldo from Barranquilla, or El Pilón, from Valledupar). Please check out the source on El Pilón and comment on whether it can be reliably used for the article (currently draft) of Karoll Marquez. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Forich (talk • contribs) 04:22, 2 February 2022 (UTC)

Forich, I've no significant concerns related to the reliability of this local newspaper within this context. However, quoting the article (which is little more than entertainment fluff) as describing this specific couple as "iconic within Colombian television" when in reality, they were mentioned as part of a list and seemingly only because they just so happened to show up at this event makes this clearly WP:UNDUE. You're attempting to write a BLP about an at the very best borderline notable actor, but trying to wring individual drops of notability from sources like this won't lead you to success. AngryHarpy‍^talk 10:31, 7 February 2022 (UTC)

I don't think we've ever made a definitive decision about Allsides. I ran into just now being used at Talk:Great Barrington Declaration‎, specifically this post Is Wikipedia biased. I saw it said that "Studies have found Wikipedia employs left-wing bias in its word choice, relies more on left-wing news sources for its citations, and sanctions conservative editors at a 6 times higher rate" so I looked at the studies. They are a Wikipediocracy post[21] by Sashi, presumably the ArbCom banned SashiRolls, a Fox News hitpiece[22] and a Breitbart article {can't link to it}authored by none other than The Devil's Advocate, also banned. That article is based on something in The Critic (modern magazine)[23] which some people here may have seen, by two anonymous Americans. Anyway, if this is a typical example of Allsides research, I don't think we should ever use it. Doug Weller talk 10:40, 7 February 2022 (UTC)

I don't have any opinion, for or against, on the reliability of Allsides. That said, I think that using a source's evaluation of us, and our opinion as to whether or not their sources, authors, or methodology are fair, as a way to determine whether or not the source is WP:RS, is a terrible approach. Everyone has bias, and people, including Wikipedians, are notoriously bad at noticing their own biases. So if source X says we are biased, it's simply the wrong starting place for evaluating the source. Adoring nanny (talk) 13:15, 7 February 2022 (UTC)

I disagree. It's using unreliable sources that have been deemed unreliable by the community. But in any case, reliability is not the default. The issue is whether Allsides is a reliable source. Doug Weller talk 14:22, 7 February 2022 (UTC)

I would look at Allsides like the other media bias/reliability sites. They ultimately produce an opinion based on some method that may or may not be good to decide what is ultimately a semi-subjective/subjective answer. We should be willing to use those sites during RSN type discussions but shouldn't use them in the article space (ie, we shouldn't include Allsides's assessment of Huffington Post in the HuffPo article. We can use their assessment when discussing HuffPo's RSP entry. BTW, I think the same should apply to Adfontes, MediaBiasFactCheck etc. If they say something bad about Wikipedia it's not bad to check even if ultimately we don't agree (or do agree) with the concern raised. Springee (talk) 14:27, 7 February 2022 (UTC)

Looking briefly at Talk:Great Barrington Declaration‎, I don't see how it is useful there. Even if we all 100% agree that Wikipedia is generally biased, heck, if we say it is badly biased, how does that help editors decide on article level changes to that article? I don't see how. Using the hypothetical 100% agreement, that should motivate changes to NPOV/IMPARTIAL related policies and possibly RS/V related policies/rules. I don't see how it would be readily applied at the article level. Springee (talk) 14:39, 7 February 2022 (UTC)

Coverage of Wikipedia aside Allsides does not have a reputation for fact checking and accuracy, their opinion may be notable when mentioned by a WP:RS but they are not themselves a reliable source. Horse Eye's Back (talk) 16:53, 7 February 2022 (UTC)

There seem to be three types of Allsides content. The first is their news stories (pages beginning with allsides.com/story) that follow a regular pattern: a single sentence description of the topic, a paragraph discussing the incident in more detail, and a paragraph characterizing each political side's news media's responses to that incident, followed by links to left-, center-, and right-leaning news article on the topic. Having read a small sample of these, I see no reason to doubt that these blurbs are reliable, although because they are so short, I see no reason why anyone would ever cite them. The second part of their content is rating the media bias of each website on a five-point scale (left, lean left, center, lean right, right). Clicking on the rating pulls up an article describing how this rating was reached. Having read a couple of them, these seem RS too. The third part is their perspectives blog (allsides.com/blog); the article DougWeller is asking about is part of this. Like all such articles, they should be governed by WP:NEWSBLOG. —Compassionate727 ^(T·C) 17:46, 7 February 2022 (UTC)

I know I was the closer of the recent Rolling Stone RfC that determined it unreliable for politics post-2011, but I want to have some clarification regardless. I have been expanding the Lauren Boebert article and stumbled across this piece. The gist of the article is that two people (identified here, as they were summoned to the January 6 commission) that were involved in organising the January 6 attack apparently told the Rolling Stone that they were coordinating the rally with the Trump White House and with some of the representatives which may together be reasonably described as crème de la crème of the far-right faction of the GOP. I've looked at the details, but the devil was nowhere to be found, and in general the article didn't seem to be off. This was reprinted by The Independent, PBS, Politico (unsure), The Chattanooga Free Press and other sources.

In short, the question is, may the Rolling Stone/derivative article be used for the claim that Boebert was among the people coordinating efforts to disrupt the electoral process on Jan. 6? Szmenderowiecki (talk) 21:00, 5 February 2022 (UTC)

The RfC seems to have addressed this quite definitely in terms of whether we can/should use Rolling Stone as a source on this topic. But it seems fine to potentially use the other sources that have reprinted or otherwise referenced the RS article as they have staked their credibility on their work and presumably employed their editorial practices to what they have chosen to publish. ElKevbo (talk) 22:38, 6 February 2022 (UTC)

I'd be a bit hesitant to use it and I'd push back on the notion that other sources are putting the reporting from Rolling Stone fully in their own voice. The Politico report notes that the allegations aren't really proven true (though it's in the abbreviated form of a newsletter) and it won't put the allegations in its own voice. The particular report from The Independent is sloppy; it says that the allegations were refuted by Taylor-Greene's staff member (the word is ambiguous upon first reading, but it really means "denied" when you read the quote) and it also attributes almost all of the stuff to the original Rolling Stone report (though it interestingly does not attribute that the organizers claimed to be in tough with a bunch of reps to Rolling Stone), while the piece from The Chattanooga Times Free Press is a labeled opinion piece (not exactly the best for this sort of thing). The PBS segment is just an interview with the freelancer who wrote the report; even the freelancer hedged on the truth of the claims made by the people he interviewed when he said the highest-level people in the White House were allegedly in contact with these organizers when describing the implications of his own reporting. There are a few places of overlap between this story and the sorts of stories that damaged the reliability of Rolling Stone: a freelance journalist reporting on a topic with significant sociopolitical implications where the key facts in the report haven't been confirmed by other outlets and the sources used when writing the story clearly feel aggrieved in some way by the subject of their allegations. The reporter himself has a decent track record—Hunter Walker was the Yahoo! News reporter for the White House during the Trump years—though I'd personally stay away from this particular report until there's a second report that can confirm the relevant details. If nothing else comes out that substantiates the allegations, then they probably aren't due for inclusion anyway unless there's a super large amount of coverage around these that persists further than other sorts of January 6 questions. If another report comes out from a reliable source and substantiates the allegations in its own voice, then I'd say to go for it. — Mhawk10 (talk) 07:51, 7 February 2022 (UTC)

Per Mhawk, these other sources are not cosigning the Rolling Stone report with their own information; they are merely reporting on the allegations themselves; which is to say they are reporting that Rolling Stone made the allegations, not that the allegations have validity. I'd be wary of using them in any way that confirms or supports the Rolling Stone reporting. --Jayron32 17:28, 7 February 2022 (UTC)

• Once a secondary source reports on something, reliability depends on the secondary source and not the source they relied on. This is extremely standard - if we could second-guess sources by saying "well, I don't think they should have trusted X", then we could never use any source at all, because all reporting ultimately comes down to unpublished primary sources or studies. If the sources attribute their source then we should consider reflecting that attribution, but if they broadly treat it as fact in the article voice then we must do the same. --Aquillion (talk) 20:59, 7 February 2022 (UTC)

• Except, the second source is not saying that the event happened. The second source is saying that Rolling Stone is reporting that the event happened. Those are different things. --Jayron32 11:55, 8 February 2022 (UTC)

There's a bunch of entries at RSP that are kind of useless and just serve to clutter up the list. I think we can safely remove them as they're so uncontroversial as to not need an entry. To list a few I'd liket o remove:

• Weather2Travel.com. In 2012 we had two discussions over this. In the first one someone pretty much said the equivalent of "seems legit"[24] and in the second it was revealed after examining the ToS that it wasn't super legit because they expressly disclaim reliability.[25] In almost 10 years nobody has cared enough to bring it up again since it's obviously unreliable. It's not "perennial" by any means.
• ProPublica. In 2019 we had a "discussion" on whether or not this Pulitzer Prize winning entity was generally reliable, because somebody wanted to add it to WP:RSP.[26] Almost everyone agreed it was generally reliable. We also had an interesting thread in 2016 where someone misinterpreted a press release and said that a laundry list of reliable sources are now unreliable because of it. [27] There is no real reason to list ProPublica at RSP since everyone agrees that it is reliable and we haven't had any actual disputes over its reliability. There's no purpose to listing generally reliable sources that aren't the subject of discussion.
• MyLife. We've had three discussions on this. The first time was in 2017 when not much was known about the source and people still didn't like using it.[28] In 2019 it was re-discussed and literally everyone in the discussion agreed that it was unreliable. [29] Then the third "discussion" was when someone requested adding it to the spam blacklist, which was done with no discussion.[30] Is this really a perennially discussed source that needs its own entry? Everyone agrees it's unreliable and its entry at RSP likely benefits no one.
• Agence France-Presse. We have supposedly had two discussions on this. The first one [31] someone asked if wire services such as AFP ever report false information. This wasn't really a discussion about AFP but a question about the reliability of wire services in general. Likewise, another discussion happened when someone brought up an interestingly worded statement from AFP that sounded like they were taking payment to write sponsored content. People replied and said why they didn't believe it was an issue. Does this need an RSP entry given that it's only really been discussed once?
• HispanTV. There was a 4 option RfC on this in 2019. [32] Everyone agreed it's unreliable. It was used in a few articles at the time but it wasn't being perenially pushed or argued. For the record, I'd like to see this undeprecated and removed from RSP. It's plainly unreliable and nobody has seriously argued for it being included in years. [33] Someone listed it in a laundry list of similar sources in a dispute over Falkland Islands related pages several years ago. [34] [35] Some guy brought it up in 2015 to accuse Israel of doing certain things in a totally unrelated point to the actual article subject. [36] Then another person who didn't sign their comment linked it in a list of related sources saying "I found this information". [37] The rest of the discussions are bot messages from cyberbot II about modifying external links and someone asking for help to remove links to it. Exactly one person in this entire encyclopedia has appeared to have discussed HispanTV in the context of actually wanting to include it as a source in an article. Deprecation serves no purpose here but to just create more bureaucracy for a source nobody seriously wants to use and nobody seriously thinks is reliable.

Anyways, what do you guys think about removing these? HispanTV might need another RfC I guess but the first four we can probably get rid of through consensus here. Chess (talk) (please use ((reply to|Chess)) on reply) 06:34, 27 January 2022 (UTC)

Re HispanTV: The majority of participants !voted "bad question" or "option 1" or "option 2" or "option 3 or 4" or "between option 3 and option 4" in RfC: HispanTV], which was closed by El C as "The result was option 3 and 4. ..." I believe that a different closer might have found a different consensus, or in the best case agreed that the question was bad, but that's not enough for WP:CLOSECHALLENGE so I don't see a way to overturn now except via a new RfC. Peter Gulutzan (talk) 14:29, 27 January 2022 (UTC)

It's been a few years, so no objection to running a new RfC to gauge the current consensus. El_C 14:33, 27 January 2022 (UTC)

I don't really see it as clutter, as I generally just hit CTRL-F and look for whatever source I'm wondering about. I think having a centralized list is pretty handy, and theres no reason to really pull things off, even if it's just linking to the existing discussion/s on the source. ScottishFinnishRadish (talk) 14:45, 27 January 2022 (UTC)

Agreed. I would say that there is more risk of cluttering the Noticeboard than there is of cluttering the well-organized list at RSP. I don't think there is any need to remove any of them. If you want to undeprecate HispanTV, that's a different matter; there is a much better argument for limiting the number of deprecated sources. (I have no views as to whether HispanTV actually should be deprecated or not, but it seems like an issue that might appropriately be raised.) John M Baker (talk) 01:44, 28 January 2022 (UTC)

• If we're going to remove ProPublica why not also remove ABC News, the BBC, CNN, the New York Times and Washington Post, among others? (I'm not necessarily opposed to remove such entries, just throwing it out there). Calidum 04:01, 28 January 2022 (UTC)
• I don't think RSP should be "decluttered," and I find some of the "obvious" entries useful to demonstrate things that *should* be obvious but someone is still having difficulty with. Also it makes it more explanatory to have examples of all the different kinds of sources we've discussed, not just a distorted window presenting a few controversial ones. - GretLomborg (talk) 13:35, 28 January 2022 (UTC)
• Strongly disagree with the idea of "decluttering" the list. Like others have said, the list is best used via CTRL-F anyway so clutter isn't really a thing and its size is not a concern as long as the page still loads. The list isn't intended to be comprehensive by any means (nor can it ever be), but having more entries there is generally a good thing, especially in terms of providing an at-a-glance gauge of the community's general temperature on more obscure sources. If you don't think a particular source has been discussed enough to support its entry in the list you should start a discussion about that specific source, but the premise of that would have to be you asserting "I don't think there's actually a consensus to support this entry and I believe further discussion will show that fact" - ie. inviting people to argue otherwise by supporting the current entry. --Aquillion (talk) 23:24, 28 January 2022 (UTC)
• I don’t think “clutter” is the issue here. The issue is more “definition”. RSP is supposed to be for listing a narrowly defined subset of RS discussions - sources that have been repeatedly discussed… over and over and over again (ie perennial).

If there are sources listed that don’t fit that definition, then we probably should remove them from the list. Doing so won’t change the consensus on whether they are reliable or unreliable (it just means that the consensus isn’t recorded here, on this page). Blueboar (talk) 23:41, 28 January 2022 (UTC)

Blueboar has made the points I was going to make. Horse Eye's Back (talk) 23:43, 28 January 2022 (UTC)

• If the issue is just going to be over the name, I would prefer to just rename WP:RSP rather than remove things from it. Having an at-a-glance list that summarizes prior discussions of obscure sources in particular (which may not have a ton of discussion) is extremely useful and I don't see any benefit to removing them from it. If people don't feel that the amount discussion is sufficient to justify inclusion on such a page, that's a different story and we could talk about that (though again, the solution is probably "raise a discussion about sources you object to so a sufficient threshold is met", or possibly tweaking its wording / presentation to make it more clear when discussions are limited in number and scope), but removing them entirely because of the word "perennial" seems like pointless quibbling. Maybe the list was once intended solely to avoid repeated discussions on WP:RSN, but it has clearly grown in purpose beyond that and I would be strenuously opposed to any attempt to box it back into that original concept, at least unless someone gave a really, really convincing explanation for why we should and how doing so would benefit the wiki. --Aquillion (talk) 06:08, 29 January 2022 (UTC)

• Even perennials die, eventually. It's fine to have a list that includes items which were perennial flashpoints along with those which still are. If individual items in the list were under-discussed, or the summaries don't accurately describe the discussions that took place, then that's a problem with those specific entries in the table, which we can fix through ordinary conversation. XOR'easter (talk) 20:01, 3 February 2022 (UTC)

• Comment strongly opposed to removing sources that come up frequently, regardless of whether or not we think something is obvious. However, the question about weather2travel.com is interesting. I know there is a way to see how often a source is used. Could someone who knows how to do that run the check for them and post the results? Adoring nanny (talk) 11:37, 5 February 2022 (UTC)
• Removing any entries from RSP seems like a terrible idea. It's a tool for editors, not readers; anyone who lands on that page ought to be able to use ctrl-f to find what they need. That page currently serves to summarize the results of RSN discussions, and by doing so, saves a lot of time that would otherwise be spent hunting through the RSN archives. As such I no downside, and considerable benefit, to keeping all the entries. Vanamonde (Talk) 23:44, 8 February 2022 (UTC)

  In agreement. There is no upside to removal. TrangaBellam (talk) 05:58, 9 February 2022 (UTC)

There is discussion at Talk:Kamloops Indian Residential School#The Dorchester Review regarding the reliability of The Dorchester Review (website).

Editors have used it as a source at Kamloops Indian Residential School, where it was reverted.

A direct quote from this article is:

• "It is hard to believe that a preliminary search for an alleged cemetery or mass grave in an apple orchard on reserve land near the residential school of Kamloops could have led to such a spiral of claims endorsed by the Canadian government and repeated by mass media all over the world....Imaginary stories and emotion have outweighed the pursuit of truth."

That particular article was mentioned in this opinion piece in Canada's National Post. Thank you. Magnolia677 (talk) 08:46, 1 February 2022 (UTC)

Seems to me like you've already received good answers on the talk-page. --JBL (talk) 11:32, 1 February 2022 (UTC)

In other words, fails as a reliable source. Walter Görlitz (talk) 22:15, 6 February 2022 (UTC)

Yes, in addition to all the valid criticism found at the talk page, I'll add this [38], where the Review is apparently unable to grasp that pictures provided by residential schools themselves of smiling children are obviously not definitive proof of a lack of abusive conditions and is likely to just be propaganda. Also from that article:

"Chris Champion is the editor at the Dorchester Review and had a key role in writing the social studies portion of Alberta’s K-6 draft curriculum, which has been widely criticized for its inaccuracies and lack of representation of First Nations, Metis and Inuit people."

So even if the Review was reliable in some cases, it would not be in areas involving Indigenous peoples in Canada. ---- Patar knight - ^chat/_{contributions} 13:43, 9 February 2022 (UTC)

Editors trying to keep up with the latest earthquakes (on list of earthquakes in 2022 and list of earthquakes in 2021) have recently been making use of two new online sources. These are Risklayer Explorer and Erdbeben news. Risklayer is, as it says, "an independent think tank based in Karlsruhe, Germany. The Risklayer team is born out of the Center for Disaster Management and Risk Reduction Technology at the Karlsruhe Institute of Technology (KIT) in Germany as well as the General Sir John Monash Foundation in Australia." It also says "Risklayer Explorer is a collaboration between Risklayer GmbH and the Karlsruhe Institute of Technology's Center for Disaster Risk Management and Risk Reduction Technology (CEDM)" One of Explorer's products is the "Earthquake Impact Database", which usefully lists levels of damage, number of casualties and number of displaced people for all recent earthquakes of magnitude 4+ (as far as I can make out). This source, in my view is probably safe to use generally, particularly soon after the event. It would be good to track how they update information over time, though, as what they list could become outdated quickly. If you look at the staff, they have a "Disaster reporter" called Jens Skapski, who also runs "Erdbeben news", his own German language project. I can only presume that he is the one searching out the information on the recent events, which then appears in both sources. My suggestion is to continue to use Risklayer Explorer, but keep an eye on it, but to use that rather than Erdbeben news, which most users will have to translate anyway. I would be interested in any other views on these websites, thanks. Mikenorton (talk) 22:19, 4 February 2022 (UTC)

Is there a reason that anyone is using these sources preferentially to the USGS Earthquake Catelog, which as far as I know is scrupulously reliable? --Jayron32 17:30, 7 February 2022 (UTC)

The ANSS catalog does not always provide details of damage and casualties, although they are of course a great source for earthquake parameters, such as magnitude, intensity, location, depth etc. We're particularly talking about events that appear in the list articles of earthquakes by year (such as those mentioned above) that are not sufficiently damaging or deadly to justify their own articles. I note, however, that the two sources are now being used in some recent earthquake articles, such as the 2022 Afghanistan earthquake. As Erdbeben news is a personal project, I think that we (as in WikiProject Earthquakes) should argue against its use; the same information unsurprisingly generally appears in Risklayer Explorer, so we really don't need it, assuming that we're comfortable with that source of course. Mikenorton (talk) 20:11, 7 February 2022 (UTC)

@Mikenorton: Well, as long as Erdbeben is being run by a subject matter-expect, which you indicate it is, there seems to be no reason to doubt that it's also reliable. The question of whether one should be preferred over another for various content or other reasons sounds like a conversation to have at the WikiProject level. —Compassionate727 ^(T·C) 23:06, 7 February 2022 (UTC)

@Compassionate727: I'm not sure that we should regard Skapski as a "subject matter expert" - he holds a Geoscience BSc and has coauthored a number of technical reports and at least one conference abstract, but that's it as far as I can tell. However thanks to you and @Jayron32: for your responses - I'll continue this discussion with colleagues in WP Earthquakes. Mikenorton (talk) 16:32, 9 February 2022 (UTC)

Brought up on the GAR for Russia. I would consider this generally unreliable, and a case where a bare citation doesn't cut it. The sources are only viewable for logged in users. I don't want to register an account, so I'm not sure if they charge the $39/month subscription to see where the data is from, or if the free tier is good enough. From what I've seen, they sometimes use lower quality research from market research farm companies (they generally all use SEO tactics, have generic names like "Persistence Market Research" and seem to be based in Pune, India) and they seem to combine sources without disclosing methodology.

However, if a single source is used and it's from a reputable company or peer reviewed research, it might still be an useful aggregator if the actual source is included as a postscript in the Wikipedia citation. RoseCherry64 (talk) 23:47, 9 February 2022 (UTC)

As noted in this discussion an editor is attempting to use a bachelor's thesis as a source, in violation of WP:SCHOLARSHIP. Beyond My Ken (talk) 00:00, 6 February 2022 (UTC)

Is there a particular question that this RSN thread is supposed to help answer, or is this just an invitation to look at the underlying discussion on Talk:Induced demand? — Mhawk10 (talk) 07:01, 7 February 2022 (UTC)

• WP:SCHOLARSHIP does allow some (cautious) use of doctoral theses, but it mostly excludes Master's theses unless they have significant scholarly influence. A Bachelor's thesis would be worse than that, and this doesn't even seem to meet the criteria for a Master's thesis anyway. So I don't think it's likely to pass RS for summarizing an entire topic. --Aquillion (talk) 07:10, 10 February 2022 (UTC)

Myself and @UnbiasedAgent: have reached an impasse at Talk:Marty Makary#Semi-protected edit request on 30 January 2022 over whether the reliability of a source depends on the accuracy of claims other than the claim the source is used to cite. There are related concerns about neutrality, but I'm hoping to narrowly address the question of source reliability.

This diff includes the disputed claim The article's estimates of population immunity were criticized for being higher than the best available data supported, source, and editor's rationale for removal: Removed out reference to HealthFeedback article. That article quotes public health figures in regards to T-Cell immunity not being protective and that has not been borne out by the data. Suggest editor find another source of information. @UnbiasedAgent: also described their view on the talk page as I don't mind critiques, but you can't use critiques from people who also got a lot of things wrong in the pandemic. Jha, Faust, Fauci, etc...they have all been wrong on various things and using critiques from them really doesn't seem neutral or unbiased. Happy to hear how you think the critique should go, but what was there just doesn't cut it. It reeked of an attack.

I disagree that an otherwise notable and accurate critique of the accuracy of a specific claim should be dismissed because the critic was incorrect about another topic. This seems to be a case of WP:OR and WP:SYNTH in analyzing sources. Perhaps there is another WP:PAG that applies here, but I have not seen one mentioned yet. My support for the source is primarily based in WP:PARITY that the disputed claim was made in an op-ed, rather than a peer-reviewed study, so a WP:SECONDARY source referring to peer-reviewed science is a suitably roust source for rebuttal. Bakkster Man (talk) 15:51, 8 February 2022 (UTC)

Opinions are not subject to reliability tests, since they are not statements of fact in Wikipedia's voice (or should not be). They are subject to WP:UNDUE and other such discussions. --Jayron32 13:45, 9 February 2022 (UTC)

I disagree with this to an extent. An opinion piece still has to be published in a reliable source (though sometimes we allow a slightly lower bar, the bar still exists); we could not normally cite opinions on blogs or Reddit or the like unless the author is a verified expert sufficient to pass the much higher requirements of WP:SPS. Most of the reliability of an opinion piece normally comes from the publisher and not the author (which is true for most things); but as in other contexts, it's not necessarily invalid to consider the reputation of the author if there's reason to believe it is starkly worse than the publisher to the point where the publisher's reputation isn't enough to make up the deficit. Both the author and publisher matter for WP:RS, especially in contexts (like opinion-pieces) where the publisher might not have exerted the full rigorous fact-checking process they use elsewhere. --Aquillion (talk) 07:46, 10 February 2022 (UTC)

• Generally speaking a source's reliability depends on their reputation for fact-checking and accuracy, so what matters isn't whether editors think they are wrong (or even if editors can turn up situations where they've been incontrovertibly wrong), but to what extent that has impacted their reputation. An additional concern I would have regarding those arguments is similar to the issues with WP:OR - simply saying "they got this wrong" isn't sufficient even on a logical level, because some errors are widespread, and in some fields a high accuracy rate simply isn't possible (ie. no economist can predict the economy with perfect accuracy.) If eg. Fauci was giving advice that reflected the widespread consensus of the medical establishment at the time, and that advice later turns out to be wrong, it seems absurd to suggest without clear evidence that this affected his personal reputation - sources are required to have a reputation for fact-checking and accuracy, not to never make mistakes ever. Relying on secondary sources to gauge the impact on their reputation avoids this problem. But if we're considering an opinion piece by Wrongo, The Guy Whose Reputation is that he is Always Wrong, I think it's fair to count that against their reliability to an extent and to consider whether the publisher's reputation is strong enough to make up for it. --Aquillion (talk) 07:46, 10 February 2022 (UTC)

I added this Daily Mail article as a reference to the page Filet-o-Fish as a reference to support the claim that Australians consider the McDonald's Filet-o-Fish to be a "burger" (unlike for example American English, where the word "burger" has a different definition and Filet-o-Fish would not generally be included in it.) I know Daily Mail is generally deprecated, but I think for this particular kind of fact it (or should I say its Australian edition) is actually quite reliable. Mr248 (talk) 08:39, 9 February 2022 (UTC)

• But it doesn't say that "Australians call it a burger", it's a story about an Australian YouTube video that just uses "burger" to describe it (which a lot of people do, not only in Australia). Effectively all we get from that story is that a Daily Mail journalist calls it a burger. Black Kite (talk) 09:23, 9 February 2022 (UTC)

@Mr248 What you have seems to be a source that calls this "McDonald's Filet-O-Fish burger." Fair enough, but that isn't that same as "is considered." Swedes also refers to it as fish burger/fiskburgare (at least I do). IMO, including this fails WP:PROPORTION, especially in the WP:LEAD. With a better source, you can mention it under "Society and culture", but I see no reason to "allow" DM for this. Gråbergs Gråa Sång (talk) 09:57, 9 February 2022 (UTC)

My point is this – Americans define "burger" differently from some other English-speaking countries. Definitely differently from how Australians do; actually now I am looking at various website, I think in the UK they call it a "burger" too? I think the lede should not simply call it a "fish sandwich" when in British and Australian English (and probably other English variants) it is not a sandwich, it is a burger. So I think this is important enough to go in the lede. (What it is called in Swedish is far less relevant – this is the English Wikipedia, so we have to pay attention to how the words we use are used in different national varieties of English; what it is called in Swedish belongs in the lede in Swedish Wikipedia but not in English Wikipedia.) Maybe Daily Mail is not the best source, but it a source I could find, no problem to swap it for a better one. And while sources saying it is a burger in Australian English or British English or whatever would be the best, sources calling it that in those language varieties obviously support the point that those national varieties of English define "burger" in such a way so as to include it. Mr248 (talk) 10:25, 9 February 2022 (UTC)

In the british language Venn diagram, burger and fish do not intersect. -Roxy the dog. wooF 10:56, 9 February 2022 (UTC)

They do in the Daily Mail. Gråbergs Gråa Sång (talk) 11:04, 9 February 2022 (UTC)

@Roxy the dog: you say that, but here's an article from the UK Daily Star saying "And after 11am when the lunchtime menu is served, foodies can save a £2.20 overall on the Filet-O-Fish burger, which has been reduced to only 99p - how good is that?" – so it seems like some people in the UK do consider the Filet-O-Fish burger, and not just The Daily Mail. Here's an article from The Daily Mirror which says "the woman shared her thoughts on the Filet-O-Fish burger" (and the woman to whom it refers is obviously British, if you look at her Tiktok.) And here's an article from The Sun: "McDonald’s diner left fuming after being given FISH FINGERS in his filet-o-fish burger". (Which was also published in the in the Irish Sun, suggesting the filet-o-fish may be a fish burger in Ireland too.) And I know these are all crappy tabloids, but I think you will find McDonald's food items is a topic to which more serious outlets rarely pay much attention. Mr248 (talk) 03:09, 10 February 2022 (UTC)

I think it's more "call" than "define," consider this opinion (found it at hamburger):

"Expect a blank look if you’re in the States and ask for a chicken burger ‘cause they ain’t got a clue what the hell you’re talking about. We might both speak English but we speak a different language, if you know what I mean. Don’t start jumping up and down and throwing a hissy saying they’re wrong and I’m right rubbish. It’s just what we call burgers, Americans call sandwiches. Unless it’s minced beef, then we’re on the same page."

Anyway, I made this edit:[39]. Gråbergs Gråa Sång (talk) 11:02, 9 February 2022 (UTC)

And to confuse American burger even more, see [40]. Gråbergs Gråa Sång (talk) 11:08, 9 February 2022 (UTC)

I've just discovered that the French MacDs put ketchup on their fish sandwich instead of tartare sauce. That's awful. -Roxy the dog. wooF 11:12, 9 February 2022 (UTC)

Fish burger is about 50% linguistics. Do we need arbcom to declare "burgers" under discretionary sanctions? ;-) Gråbergs Gråa Sång (talk) 11:22, 9 February 2022 (UTC)

Discretionary sanctwiches? 😉 SN54129 11:32, 9 February 2022 (UTC)

@Mr248 I'm afraid you are sorely mistaken about the scope of the English Wikipedia (and the Swedish one too). We are interested in everything that is notable in the entire universe, the language the information is published in, or even about, is not a relevant criterion for inclusion or exclusion. The English Wikipedia is absolutely not only intetested in "English" topics. Roger (Dodger67) (talk) 14:42, 9 February 2022 (UTC)

Hrm, to a degree. When we have a topic that has applicability to multiple cultures in multiple languages, we generally only focus on how that topic is handled in English speaking countries, or when English based sources provide information for that in the foreign culture. Eg our article on burger likely winn not include 100+ different terms and definitions for it, though i would expect diffs between US, UK, Canada, aussie, major EU and Asian countries to be listed if any. But not exhaustive. --Masem (t) 14:51, 9 February 2022 (UTC)

• Given that the Daily Mail is deprecated, I would say no. This definitely is NOT one of the very rare cases where the DM is acceptable. Blueboar (talk) 12:59, 9 February 2022 (UTC)

  It's also not one of the very rare cases where a Filet-o-Fish is acceptable. ScottishFinnishRadish (talk) 13:01, 9 February 2022 (UTC)

  Deprecation was based on history of fabrication, so anything in the DM might be fabricated, idk why not just blacklist and be done with it.Selfstudier (talk) 13:05, 9 February 2022 (UTC)

• No, and I fail to see why we would use a UK source for a claim about Australian popular culture anyway.Slatersteven (talk) 13:07, 9 February 2022 (UTC)

  @Slatersteven: it is worth pointing out that Daily Mail actually is an Australian source. They have an "Australian edition", which is basically just a different page on their website with the story selection targeted towards the interests of Australian readers. The Australian edition is run by their Australian subsidiary (Daily Mail Australia Pty Ltd) and has Australia-based employees writing it (it has its own editor, Barclay Crawford, who is based in Sydney.) The writer of the article I cited, Carina Stathis, is Daily Mail Australia's lifestyle reporter, she is also based in Sydney and she primarily writes articles targeted at Australian audiences rather than UK ones. The Daily Mail is not the only British newspaper to attempt to expand into Australia in this way – The Guardian has done the same thing. Mr248 (talk) 02:57, 10 February 2022 (UTC)

• I haven't found a strictly reliable source, but this confirms the concept. There are dictionaries of Australian English available through Oxford; someone with a membership could check one of those. On the question of using Daily Mail to verify this, the answer is no. The Daily Mail should not be used, full stop. Find a better source. Even so, why are we using newspapers to define words? Dictionaries exist. Use those instead. --Jayron32 13:43, 9 February 2022 (UTC)

  Yeah, but you're unlikely to find something about McDonald's Filet-o-Fish specifically in a dictionary. The topic is not hamburger or fishburger. Gråbergs Gråa Sång (talk) 14:11, 9 February 2022 (UTC)

  If you want the real answer, this is WP:TRIVIA and should be burned with fire, even if a reliable source could be found. Reliable sourcing means that we could include some information. It never means we MUST. The information is completely trivial and doesn't belong in the article regardless. --Jayron32 14:13, 9 February 2022 (UTC)

  That is of course one way to look at it. Another is that exclusion is culturally insensitive, there are other views than the American one. But since this is an American thing, the first view has some merit. Gråbergs Gråa Sång (talk) 14:19, 9 February 2022 (UTC)

  [41] would disqualify the Filet-o-Fish since it's not in a round shape. Gråbergs Gråa Sång (talk) 14:15, 9 February 2022 (UTC)

• The Australian website for McDonalds calls it a "Filet-o-Fish® Burger" in their webpage title; it's not an ideal source, but it is reliable for this. Alternatively, Nine News calls it a burger, as does News.com.au. BilledMammal (talk) 14:20, 9 February 2022 (UTC)

  I was going to post the Mcd link, but the problem is the page itself does not use the word burger, so unsure what that implies. But I am unsure it is enough to be used as a source.Slatersteven (talk) 14:25, 9 February 2022 (UTC)

  I don't see "burger" at the McD website. Gråbergs Gråa Sång (talk) 14:26, 9 February 2022 (UTC)

  It is in the title, which makes it a less-than-ideal source, but it does still verify the concept. BilledMammal (talk) 14:29, 9 February 2022 (UTC)

  If you say so, but I can't see it by looking at or ctrl-f-ing on the page. Gråbergs Gråa Sång (talk) 14:47, 9 February 2022 (UTC)

  As I said its not in the page, its in the address, almost as if its a redirect. As such I think Headline kind of counts.Slatersteven (talk) 14:56, 9 February 2022 (UTC)

  There is a PDF on McDonald's Australia website which speaks of a "$3 Filet-O-Fish burger offer". See page 4. There is also a page on the McDonald's New Zealand website which says "The hoki fish fillets we use to prepare our super-delicious Filet-O-Fish® burgers are renowned for their succulent moist texture, white flesh and great mild taste... We use only skilled professionals to fillet our fish before it’s formed into the crumbed, delicious portions we serve you on your favourite Filet-O-Fish burger." So I think that establishes that McDonald's Australian and New Zealand subsidiaries officially consider the Filet-O-Fish to be a burger. Mr248 (talk) 03:14, 10 February 2022 (UTC)

  Also, on McDonald's India website it says "FILET-O-FISH MEAL Includes Filet-O-Fish + medium fries + medium Coke (Enhance your taste buds with soothing taste of Filet-O-Fish burger. Devour this fishy delight with medium sized Coke and crispy fries.)" suggesting McDonald's India officially considers the Filet-O-Fish to be a burger as well. (Which in turn suggests it probably is considered a burger in Indian English.) Mr248 (talk) 03:21, 10 February 2022 (UTC)

Discussion can continue at the Filet-O-Fish article, where I just made this edit [42]. Gråbergs Gråa Sång (talk) 10:07, 10 February 2022 (UTC)

This is a repeat episode of an issue that I hope to address with some greater finality. In this edit, Donald Kornfeld as a notable at Weequahic High School. The only source provided was a link to a yearbook available via Classmates.com here. Before the editor added the same information to the Donald Kornfeld article, there had been no mention of the high school, nor of his year of birth or hometown. Even if someone named Donald Kornfeld is listed in the yearbook provided in the source, it's unclear that this is the same person; we have no date of birth or hometown that would help make a convincing case that the Donald Kornfeld who graduated from Weequahic High School in 1946 is one and the same. I had searched multiple times in Google and Google Books and found nothing. Nor could I find any connection to the school in a very thorough search in Newspapers.com, which I have found very effective as a tool in confirming homeAmnesty and high schools.

I had raised this issued previously here and the conclusion appeared to be that a yearbook was not sufficient. I raised the previous discussion as an argument for why the source was reliable. In this edit, the editor argued that "Per Wikipedia, 'A primary source may be used on Wikipedia only to make straightforward, descriptive statements of facts that can be verified by any educated person with access to the primary source but without further, specialized knowledge.' Anyone with access to the primary source can confirm, as statement of fact, that Donald S. Kornfeld went to Weequahic High School, class of 1946."

Are yearbooks acceptable as the lone source for such information? In this case, is the yearbook a reliable source? Should the entry be removed from the high school article and / or from the article for Kornfeld without a reliable and verifiable source? Alansohn (talk) 16:31, 9 February 2022 (UTC)

Do we have images of Kornfeld in the yearbook we can compare? I would say it's just this side of useful if we can confirm through known images of Kornfeld to confirm they are the same person. If not, then a name alone is not sufficient to say it is the same person; images would be needed for that. --Jayron32 16:45, 9 February 2022 (UTC)

Squinting at images to compare them strikes me as WP:OR-y. It isn't a terribly exceptional point or anything so it's not a huge deal, but unless there's a source that is unambiguously talking about the article's subject I would omit it, both for WP:V / WP:OR reasons and because it's probably not due at that point anyway. --Aquillion (talk) 07:05, 10 February 2022 (UTC)

And yet, we not only allow, but encourage people to take their own photographs, upload them to commons, and add them to articles. If we can trust editors to take pictures of people and correctly identify who they are photographing, we can trust them to compare two photographs. I'm sorry that you're eyesight requires you to squint, but the rest of us are perfectly capable of identifying a person by looking at them. --Jayron32 13:41, 10 February 2022 (UTC)

But do we allow, ney encourage, people to claim a picture they did not take represented something they were not a witness to? AGF means that iof a user says "I took this picture off this" we have to assume they are not lying, but AGF does not mean I have to accept "I think this is a picture of..." as fact.Slatersteven (talk) 13:47, 10 February 2022 (UTC)

The point is, if people can identify the person they are taking a picture of, they can also identify the people that someone else has taken a picture of. The skill set of "identifying people by their facial features" is not different in the two situations. --Jayron32 14:30, 10 February 2022 (UTC)

If a Primary document requires an assumption than it can not be used as a straight-forward, descriptive statement of fact. The fact set above seems to require an assumption that the yearbook entry and subject are one and the same.Slywriter (talk) 16:49, 9 February 2022 (UTC)

If it can be shown they are one and the same person, maybe. But then why not use a source that is being used to show they are one and the same person? Without that this is wp:or analysis of a wp:primary source.Slatersteven (talk) 16:52, 9 February 2022 (UTC)

Several subproposals have been added to the NSPORT RfC that would welcome input from the community.

Subproposal 1: "All athlete biographies must demonstrate GNG when notability is challenged at AfD". Potential exceptions/clarifications/amendments are also offered.

Subproposal 3: "Remove all simple or mere "participation" criteria in NSPORT, outside of ones related to Olympics and equivalent events. This would eliminate several sections on specific sports where this is the only type of criteria given (such as for NGRIDIRON), while merit-based ones, like several in NTRACK, would be left."

Subproposal 4: "Modify all provisions of NSPORTS that provide that participation in "one" game/match such that the minimum participation level is increased to "three" games/matches. This raises the threshold for the presumption of notability to kick in."

Subproposal 5: "All sports biographies and team/season articles must, from inception, include at least one example of actual SIGCOV from a reliable, independent source. Mere database entries would be insufficient for creation of a new biography article."

Subproposal 6: "Conditional on Subproposal 5 passing, should a prod-variant be created, applicable to the articles covered by Subproposal 5, that would require the addition of one reference containing significant coverage to challenge the notice?"

Subproposal 8: "Rewrite the introduction to clearly state that GNG is the applicable guideline, and articles may not be created or kept unless they meet GNG. Replace all instances of "presumed to be notable" with "significant coverage is likely to exist"."

Subproposal 9: "Rewrite the lead of WP:NSPORTS to ... cut the confusing sentence in the middle which is at odds with the rest of the guideline and which leaves itself open to lots of wiki-lawyering." JoelleJay (talk) 18:35, 10 February 2022 (UTC)