Misplaced Pages

Revision as of 19:13, 22 September 2011

Before posting, check the archives and list of perennial sources for prior discussions. Context is important: supply the source, the article it is used in, and the claim it supports.

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Additional notes:

• WP:RSN
• WP:RS/N
• WP:V/N

• RFCs for deprecation, blacklisting, or other classification should not be opened unless the source is widely used and has been repeatedly discussed. Consensus is assessed based on the weight of policy-based arguments.
• While the consensus of several editors can generally be relied upon, answers are not policy.
• This page is not a forum for general discussions unrelated to the reliability of sources.

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References to soure material added for James Palumbo

Reliable references to souce material have now been added to the James Palumbo Misplaced Pages page...

How do we go about having the notice requesting reliable sources removed from the top of the page?

Alex Jones' Infowars.com

Would Alex Jones' infowars.com website be considered a WP:RS as regards conspiracy theories? I'm thinking in particular of this article, a "New World Order Report" by Jonathan Elinoff. It has been cited in the Conspiracy theory article. Jayjg 08:19, 30 August 2011 (UTC)

For obvious reasons it can be quite difficult to get impeccably reliable sources on one side of a conspiracy theory. :-)

Infowars is not something I would consider reliable for statements of fact about the real world, but it should be mostly OK to use them for statements about their own position or about groups/ideas they're connected to, and the Conspiracy theory article seems to be doing that (more or less), so I can live with it. I think the "Alex Jones InfoWars list itself shows the problem..." paragraph has some serious textual problems but the best answer there could be rewording rather than removing it. bobrayner (talk) 09:39, 30 August 2011 (UTC)

No, it is not rs. However, the website contains mostly links to publsihed articles which may be rs, for example if they are from mainstream media. TFD (talk) 13:41, 30 August 2011 (UTC)

If it isn't, then WP:RS is broken (in the ways I specified here). It would definitely be preferably to have a third-party, non-conspiracist, academic or mainstream media source to establish the existence of a particular conspiracy theory, using sources like Infowars/Prisonplanet/Alex Jones as a primary source for their summations. When that isn't available, treat it like a self-published source: it establishes that an opinion is held by some segment of the conspiracy theory community, but it doesn't show it is true or considered important outside that community. —Tom Morris (talk) 17:47, 30 August 2011 (UTC)

Could be a RS to confirm that a conspiracy theory exists, but not prove the theory itself. Q:Is the website a blog?--JOJ 17:54, 30 August 2011 (UTC)

Alex Jones and his outlets are definitely not RS (not watter what format (blog, website, radio).--Kmhkmh (talk) 18:01, 30 August 2011 (UTC)

Jayjg is omitting how Alex Jones is being used so here is the context to better judge it:

An article in the New York Times points out "Other historians argue that past government lies, particularly in the past half-century, have helped fuel conspiracy theories, by giving Americans reasons to suspect their leaders. (“See, I’m not paranoid, I’m right.”)" using Alex Jones InfoWars list “33 Conspiracy Theories That Turned Out to Be True” as an example. (Zernike, Kate (April 30, 2011) "The Persistence of Conspiracy Theories" The New York Times)

Alex Jones InfoWars list itself shows the problem with trying to group all conspiracy theories together because in addition to the fully documented conspiracy theories of the Dreyfus Affair, Sicilian Mafia, Project MKULTRA, Operation Mockingbird, Watergate, Tuskegee syphilis experiment, Operation Northwoods, Nayirah (testimony), Iran-Contra Affair, CIA drug trafficking, Business Plot, Project Valkyrie, 1953 Iranian coup d'état, Operation Snow White, Operation Gladio, and Black Sox Scandal there are several often regarded as tin foil hat nonsense such as the New World Order (conspiracy theory).

How that you can actually see the context of how it is being used how do you evaluate the reliability of Alex Jones given it is used as an example of how conspiracy theory is defined by the New York Times?--BruceGrubb (talk) 21:55, 30 August 2011 (UTC)

Actually, a New York Times article is used as an excuse to coatrack in the Infowars material. That doesn't make the Infowars website reliable. Jayjg 23:32, 31 August 2011 (UTC)

I think it is an editorial not an article. In any case it does not refer to Watergate, etc. as "conspiracy theories". That is Alex Jones' writer trying to present a parity between his conspiracism and rational thought. The effect is that we are promoting Jones's viewpoint, rather than presenting it as his opinion. TFD (talk) 01:08, 1 September 2011 (UTC)

So is this more of a wording and weighting issue?--Andrew Lancaster (talk) 06:50, 1 September 2011 (UTC)

Yes, I would agree with that. bobrayner (talk) 07:22, 1 September 2011 (UTC)

Peter Knight's Conspiracy theories in American history ABC-CLIO has the following in it: Sicilian Mafia (pg 451), Project MKULTRA (pg 490), Operation Mockingbird (pg 486), Watergate (pg 725), Tuskegee syphilis experiment (pg 38, 45, 538), Operation Northwoods (pg 117), Iran-Contra Affair (pg 349), CIA drug trafficking (pg 237), Business Plot (pg 625), and Operation Gladio (pg 231) and even flat out states "Watergate is a Ur-text of US conspiracy theory, evidenced by the ubiquitous use of the suffix “-gate” to denote any major conspiracy." on page 725.--BruceGrubb (talk) 08:14, 6 September 2011 (UTC)

That infowars article by Jonathan Elinoff is terribly sourced, one-sided and wrong. There is no way it can be used at Conspiracy theory. Binksternet (talk) 08:49, 6 September 2011 (UTC)

Infowars is not a RS. None of his sites are reliable. Just because they get it right sometimes doesn't equal reliability, broken clock twice a day and all that. Niteshift36 (talk) 15:19, 7 September 2011 (UTC)

No, it's not a reliable source. At best, it's a primary source which - generally speaking - should be avoided especially for contentious content such as this. A Quest For Knowledge (talk) 02:38, 20 September 2011 (UTC)

User:Binksternet did that and I did this. Do read my edit summary. Apart from a mistaken date (publication instead of event?), the obliterated information had been reasonably accurate (as the 'diff' before/now proves). In case Binksternet's edit would not have been spotted quickly, without the inadvertently wiped content, it would have been impossible to do a search on sufficiently specific sub phrases or terms and have prevented finding a proper source - thus de facto having vandalized decent content.

I am not going to run behind the long list of Binksternet's edits that refer to this here section, but expect all those pages' content for which there is no clear and urgent reason to delete, to become restored. While a {{cn}} tag should be placed, the RS-questionable source needs to remain (e.g. in a hidden <!--...--> comment that also refers to this here section) to assist helpful editors in finding useful phrases/terms for their productive internet searches.

WP:RS clearly asks for common sense. I found it lacking in that systematical quick-and-dirty series of apparently tendentious and disruptive edits, which all too drastic action had not found consensus in this here section.
​▲ SomeHuman 2011-09-20 07:33 (UTC)

You followed my "citation needed" tag with the proper citation and the proper quote, for which you should be thanked. I removed the direct quote of infowars, "A criminal act for security personnel to touch a person’s private areas without probable cause as a condition of travel or as a condition of entry into a public place", which was not useful as it was not the text of the legislation. I think we both improved the article.

In chasing down infowars references on Misplaced Pages, I'm keeping all the information that is attributed, and deleting the stuff that is simply using infowars as a supposedly neutral news source, without attribution. You can follow along behind or not, as you wish. Binksternet (talk) 13:13, 20 September 2011 (UTC)

Infowars.com, in general, is a terrible source. But I'm not so sure about this edit. Self-published or questionable sources may be used as sources of information about themselves, especially in articles about themselves. In this particular case, we have a film made by Jones and we are citing a web site run by Jones about that film. OTOH, I wonder if "The Obama Deception: The Mask Comes Off" meets our notability policy and if the article should be deleted.

BTW, if you're going after infowars.com, don't forget about prisonplanet.com and the other sites Jones runs. (For example, the use of infowars.com in Paul Craig Roberts is probably OK from a verifiability standpoint.) A Quest For Knowledge (talk) 13:54, 20 September 2011 (UTC)

I will search for prisonplanet on Misplaced Pages. Thanks for the note! Binksternet (talk) 14:10, 20 September 2011 (UTC)

Just be sure never to immediately delete content that became supported by Infowars, Prisonplanet or any other unRS: The reliability of sources being questioned does not make those sources and all that these ever stated blatant lies or wild fantasies. The content having been supported by such source must not be assumed wrong, in fact it will often be supported by WP:RS if one bothers to look for such, which often takes only a moment. Whomever found and cited a source that later became questioned or of which the contributor is most likely not aware that its reliability had been questioned, did not add something without a reference and thus that content needs to remain and only tagged by {{cn}} for at least as long a time as it takes on average, for probably some incidental other editor to become interested and, to provide a more reliable reference, or to fail at finding such upon which he/she should delete the unattributable content. Until then, as I explained yesterday at 07:33 (UTC), the UnRS needs to remain as a hidden comment to facilitate finding a replacer RS.
​▲ SomeHuman 2011-09-21 09:34-10:51 (UTC)

I'd suggest a rule of thumb: Never delete unattributed or to an unreliable source attributed content that already survived article edits by at least five different contributors. Such content requires a {{cn}} tag. In case this tag survives for a duration equal to the timespan between the first of these five edits until the tag was inserted, and also newer edits by at least five different editors have occurred since the tag was inserted, only then one can assume the questioned content to be incorrect, hard to prove, or too trivial for anyone to care; and it should then be deleted. But not earlier. I think this combines highest article quality with least controverse.
​▲ SomeHuman 2011-09-21 12:46 (UTC)

Except for WP:BLPs, of course. Binksternet (talk) 13:08, 21 September 2011 (UTC)

A rule of thumb typically recognizes exceptions. Here: following WP policies (which override all guidelines), or after careful consideration while using all the common sense one can grab and then still realizing that one's motivation for a deletion is free from POV. If in any doubt and yet unable to accept the rule of thumb, tag it, and open a WP:RfC or if less urgent put it up on the article's talk page.  ;-)
​▲ SomeHuman 2011-09-21 13:32-13:45 (UTC)

The Dating Guy and Least I Could Do

Someone please remind the editors of The Dating Guy about WP:SPS and claims about third parties. Elizium23 (talk) 04:10, 31 August 2011 (UTC)

Someone please tell Elizium to cut it out and get over his WP:OWN issues with this article. He doesn't bother debating on the talkpage and all he does is run around revert-warring and making claims that everyone is a "meatpuppet" while he goes against consensus. WP:IAR, WP:SPS, we've been through all this on the article talkpage, Elizium is just not willing to man up when he's wrong.

Elyzium is now stalking me.

Elyzium is now revert warring over on the LICD page as well.

Drama aside, there is dispute about the definition of "third party" as it is used in WP:V policy. Anyone? Elizium23 (talk) 05:17, 2 September 2011 (UTC)

Eliziun23, your behavior has been unacceptable and a complaint has now been filed against you at WP:ANI for violations of WP:BITE, WP:BEAR, WP:CANVAS, deliberately filing false allegations of vandalism at WP:AIV, tendentious editing, and inappropriate refusal to behave in a collegial manner in talkpage discussions. HAND.

The drama continues on Talk:Least I Could Do where we are still debating the same self-published sources and whether they are proper reliable sources for a plagiarism allegation. More eyes would be appreciated. Elizium23 (talk) 20:46, 14 September 2011 (UTC)

Sources being proposed are this forum post and this Kickstarter page. Elizium23 (talk) 20:48, 14 September 2011 (UTC)

• I've been asked to point out that it's not actually allegations of plagiarism - rather, it's allegations of misappropriation of intellectual property, a subtle distinction. Anyway, the point is not whether or not to consider the allegations as valid, but whether or not to mention that they were made. Sohmer has explicitly stated, officially, that his rationale for doing the Kickstarter project was his dissatisfaction with his former corporate partner. A corporate representative has disputed Sohmer's allegations; Sohmer then posted a rebuttal -- and then admitted that "commenting on pending litigation isn't the smartest thing to do". Which I guess means that neither party will be willing to provide further details. Anyway, when X posts -- as "X Webforums Administrator" on the official X webforums -- a statement to the effect that "I performed Action Y for Reason Z", I think that's a reliable source for X's motivations. Where it becomes more complicated is statements along the lines of "I performed Action Y because Z is a cheating thieving bastard who stole from me". DS (talk) 22:50, 14 September 2011 (UTC)

Plagiarism is defined in dictionaries as the "wrongful appropriation," "close imitation," or "purloining and publication" of another author's "language, thoughts, ideas, or expressions," and the representation of them as one's own original work - if this isn't to be called plagiarism then what is the word for it? Elizium23 (talk) 22:53, 14 September 2011 (UTC)

I have been pointed to this resource, which seems informative. I'm frankly not too interested in this particular drama, but fairness and accuracy are important. DS (talk) 20:35, 16 September 2011 (UTC)

International Business Times

I am seeing this news company come up a lot in the Google news aggregator, and after a little research on my part, i am suspicious that it has a somewhat hidden conservative agenda, thus making it an unreliable source for any subjects related to the political spectrum. this article, this article, this commentary on the last article are what i have so far. I want to alert people so we can do proper research, then decide if they qualify as a reliable source. for a news org with so little info on them, including their publisher, Jonathan Davis (journalist), Im concerned they have found a way to inflate their web presence beyond their actual importance. I do think they are notable. anyone that can get into googles news aggregator so quickly and thoroughly is notable. 336 appearances of the company's name on Misplaced Pages, almost all of them in the last month. Oh, and Misplaced Pages:Articles for deletion/Thomas James Ball includes comments from an editor suggesting that IBT is written by users, without a real staff of writers.this article was cited at Misplaced Pages:Dispute resolution noticeboard/Archive 1, section on Sri Lankan Civil War, and it appears to be an editorial column and not an article. User talk:MER-C/archives/29#Your warning to Ramillav describes some research into IBTimes. Talk:Rebecca Black#My Moment reaction has another mention of IBT as a dubious source. Mercurywoodrose (talk) 07:30, 2 September 2011 (UTC)

The fact that our article about it is based solely on the company's own website isn't encouraging. Looking at the articles you cited, the number of typos and grammatical errors calls their editorial review into question. If it's truly user-supplied content with minimal editing or oversight then it would not qualify as a reliable source.   Will Beback  talk  08:39, 2 September 2011 (UTC)

• They have been cited by Fox 1 (the most reliable news org in the world) 2, Forbes, the new pillar Christian Science Monitor, HuffPo 1 2, The Times of India, USA Today, and many others (I only looked at new stories from the past few weeks to find those). Of note, CBSNews.com does not appear to trust them; they only use IBT for interview reporting and for directly quoting IBT. CNN won't touch them with a ten foot pole. NYTimes only allows IBT to be referred to in journalists' blog posts. The Chicago Tribune does not trust them either. They are a very iffy news source, and I would be very careful about citing them for any fact-based articles on Misplaced Pages. --Odie5533 (talk) 19:42, 2 September 2011 (UTC)

WP:RS does not deprecate "online newspapers" as long as they have a presumption of fact-checking. They are cited by many clear RS sources in news reports, so I suspect they actually meet WP:RS sufficiently. was used in NYT so it is likely that the NYT considers the IBT reliable. Remeber WP:RS != WP:INFALLIBLE Collect (talk) 22:38, 2 September 2011 (UTC)

I would argue that the mainstream media are being duped into using them. We may not be able to prove this (and i wont edit the article on them to show this unless a mainstream source presents this argument), but if we cannot find evidence that they are reliable, and suspect that they are bending the rules of news reporting to gain legitimacy, we dont have to go along.Mercurywoodrose (talk) 02:21, 3 September 2011 (UTC)

I don't think that the IBT can be considered as a reliable source, even on itself "The International Business Times is the leading source of analysis on international business and world affairs" . Really, says who? I'd also recommend reading this: "Your newspaper / website can take advantage of our strong international editorial presence through our affiliate program. If you need to include original content on foreign stories and issues you can work with us and, as a syndication partner, receive the following benefits: - Customized, co-branded coverage from IBTimes correspondents..." . And their 'Advertise' page seems to imply that you can pay them to write editorials to suit your needs: "By leveraging and focusing on the delivery of international business news in each of its markets, IBTimes.com is able to offer to marketers an unmatched audience quality". Evidently, their website etc is funded solely by their advertisers, and as such, hardly the neutral, detached source that they claim. AndyTheGrump (talk) 02:42, 3 September 2011 (UTC)

I just read that too, and I only hesitated to post it here cause it sounds like what everyone does nowadays. but i guess news sources are not supposed to do that if they want to be considered neutral observers.Mercurywoodrose (talk) 03:11, 3 September 2011 (UTC)

I think the key issue is that they are blurring the distinction between a PR agency and a news agency. Neither can be expected to be truly 'objective' (nobody ever is), but established news agencies have a reputation to uphold, and as such need to at least try to look neutral. Likewise the rest of the mainstream media - they may be largely funded by advertising, but they have an established audience which expects at least a degree of honesty, and they won't retain this audience if they spin things to much. IBN seems to have no significant audience of its own, however, so they are under no obligation to do anything other than publish whatever stories maximise their revenue. Not a business plan to inspire confidence. AndyTheGrump (talk) 03:44, 3 September 2011 (UTC)

This of course has nothing to do with reliability, but I would say that being a top 1000 site means that one has a significant audience (though once again, this has nothing to do with reliability). Also according to Alexa, the BBC, Der Spiegel, and CNN link to them very often. Besides the NYT and CNN, which have already been mentioned, NPR has cited them as well. I admit that I do not read it regularly outside of Misplaced Pages-related activities, but I have found their reporting relating to LulzSec and Operation AntiSec to be of high quality and ahead of other news outlets while maintaining those articles. かんぱい！ Scapler (talk) 15:57, 9 September 2011 (UTC)

iTunes and Amazon for television series verification

I know there have been discussions in the past in regards to the two, but they seem to be geared towards their distribution of music. Now that they are selling television show episodes online before they are released on DVD and at times even before they broadcast on television, one has to wonder if they can be used to cite information on episode list articles. I know they can't verify broadcast dates, but could they verify certain vital information like episode title and season numbering? Sarujo (talk) 23:35, 4 September 2011 (UTC)

What was the conclusion about them in the past? TimidGuy (talk) 11:06, 6 September 2011 (UTC)

Well, on at least one case for iTunes, it seems that it was immediately ruled as no on the grounds that it was a retailer. Then this case for Amazon states that it could verify certain tibits. But I'm not sure what the conclusion is, as these discussions are geared towards their music department. Sarujo (talk) 01:20, 7 September 2011 (UTC)

In the iTunes posting you linked to, the specific usage was questionable -- the ranking of a song in iTunes -- but it's not self-evident to me that iTunes can't be used for series verification. How would one cite iTunes? And the thread that mentioned Amazon supported its use for basic info. I think you can use it for things such as episode title and season numbering. TimidGuy (talk) 10:54, 7 September 2011 (UTC)

What I was considering was using one among the two to cite episode titles and numbering both by series and season. While leaving the information regarding broadcast dates to TV Guide.

The reason I bring this up, is in regards to the situation that I've been putting up with the List of Mad episodes article. Right now it's relying TV Guide to source information. However, there are some problems with their information regarding episode titles and totaling between first and current seasons, while listing the correct broadcast dates. Keep in mind that while do post error here and there, they do eventually correct these errors, just after the episode's broadcast has long since past. I find this both frustrating and discerning, as 1) they've been a vital source for television information almost a century, 2) to my knowledge this is the only series by which they are making such mistake, and 3) they are taking so long to realize their mistakes with their listing. Here, here, and their guide you can see how TV Guide is listing them versus listings one and two on iTunes and one and two on Amazon.

If you'll look on the talk page and it's archive, you can see that I have had numerous disputes with from newbie, sock, and anonymous IP alike over the confirmed content of the list. With editors insisting that it be changed and TV Guide be removed in favor for established unreliable source because of the typos. Declaring that this makes them unreliable. However, this discussion I had back in February concluded that such typos did not discredit TV Guide's reliability. This confusion is somewhat understandable seeing as the fact that starting back last November Cartoon Network promoted episode 13 as the season two premier. Still I have refrained from making any changes as I had my suspicions seeing as the series only had a mere twelve episode under it's belt, plus the fact that TV guide was not reporting nor reflecting this news. I chalked it up as a mere ratings boosting scheme on Cartoon Network's end. A similar situation occurred where Comedy Central advertised a first mid-season episode of South Park as a season premier. I don't remember which one. Fortunately, my suspicion was correct, as 1) TV Guide has listed episode 19 as the season premier, and 2) the first DVD release Mad Season 1 Part 1 contains the first 13 episodes instead of twelve. However, TV Guide appears to be wrong as episode 27's cold opening - the Mad News sketch, declares itself the be the real season 2 premier. Apologies for posting a link to an unauthorized YouTube link.

So from the long explanation, I really need a reliable source that can verify the correct information, and get these disputes under control. Sarujo (talk) 17:56, 7 September 2011 (UTC)

I admire your studious and thorough attention to these details. In the face of these contradictory sources, I think it's fine to exercise judgment. And given that your examination suggests that Amazon and iTunes are more accurate, I'd say go ahead and use them, and give a detailed explanation on the Talk page. TimidGuy (talk) 10:18, 8 September 2011 (UTC)

torah.org

Is torah.org RS? It is run by Project Genesis (organization). Chesdovi (talk) 13:33, 5 September 2011 (UTC)

It is important to say what it is being proposed to be used for.--Andrew Lancaster (talk) 13:39, 5 September 2011 (UTC)

This disruptive and tendentious editor is asking because he want to continue an edit war with new arguments, after my last edit. Debresser (talk) 13:41, 5 September 2011 (UTC)

To support my claim that Rabbi Meir was of the (five) leading Jewish sages of his generation. Debresser (talk) 13:42, 5 September 2011 (UTC)

That is a very big claim. I would personally like to see a book citation for something like that. And if he truly was one of only five leading Jewish sages of his generation, I would imagine there would be at least a couple books stating this or a very similar claim. --Odie5533 (talk) 14:22, 5 September 2011 (UTC)

I take back the number 5. That was another generation. Just that he was among the leading rabbis of his generation. This is stated in the sources I provided in the aforementioned edit, and many others. Debresser (talk) 14:31, 5 September 2011 (UTC)

Note that the torah.org source calls him the "foremost" pupil of his teacher, making him the foremost sage of the next generation, which is also true, while the other source mentions him together with another two sages as being the leading sages of their generation, which is slightly lesser claim, and which is the claim being supported. Debresser (talk) 14:34, 5 September 2011 (UTC)

The torah.org source was written by Rabbi Aron Tendler of Shaarey Zedek Congregation, Valley Village, CA, and Assistant Principal of YULA. Surely a RS. Debresser (talk) 14:40, 5 September 2011 (UTC)

Rabbi Meir may have been the “most famous student” (not “foremost”) of Elisha ben Avuyah and be described as “Prominent” (not “the leading sage of the generation”). That is not the issue. The issue is do we cite to non-peer reviewed articles which seem to be taken from a sort of blog page. Chesdovi (talk) 15:02, 5 September 2011 (UTC)

PS. He could be the "most famous", but that does not mean due to his scholarly leraning he led the generation. EbA was also the "most famous" - heretic! Chesdovi (talk) 15:04, 5 September 2011 (UTC)

Thanks for the PS, which evoked a smile, and is must surely correctly argued. As to the quality of the source I have already commented that I think it is of good quality, using expert writers. See also Project Genesis' staff. Debresser (talk) 15:17, 5 September 2011 (UTC)

It's a reliable source. --Dweller (talk) 15:59, 5 September 2011 (UTC)

If it is RS in all circumstances, there is another support for the stance that Israel was "formerly known as Palestine." . Chesdovi (talk) 17:09, 5 September 2011 (UTC)

Yawn. --Dweller (talk) 09:13, 6 September 2011 (UTC)

In regard to Rabbi Aron Tendler, how is being a Rabbi or an Assistant Principal make him an expert for such a sweeping statement? And are there any other sources supporting the statement? I was the foremost pupil of my mentor in graduate school, but turned to a different path, and I think asserting that because he was an outstanding pupil he was thus an outstanding sage in the following generation would be OR. http://cojs.org/cojswiki/ does not seem to me to be inherently reliable, I see no evidence of editorial staff. Unless there are better sources, it seems unnecessary to rank Rabbi Meir using peacock terms. --Nuujinn (talk) 11:15, 6 September 2011 (UTC)

Although his own article, Rabbi Meir, calls him "one of the greatest of the Tannaim of the fourth generation" (unsourced), the JE mentions nothing of this: . Chesdovi (talk) 12:05, 6 September 2011 (UTC)

The line “was one of the leading sages of the Land of Israel” appears in the article, but neither “famous” or “prominent” imply he was “one of the leading” rabbis. Per Odie5533 and the comment of Nuujinn querying the reliability of the two given sources and use of peacock terms; and taking into account the Jewish Encyclopedia does not make the claim, together with a lack of other more reliable sources, I think it necessary to remove this clause. Chesdovi (talk) 13:58, 8 September 2011 (UTC)

What do you think "prominent" means? Please revert yourself. Debresser (talk) 19:16, 12 September 2011 (UTC)

Screwattack

• "Top 5 features of Majoras Mask". ScrewAttack.com.
• Skull Kid was ranked fourth the "Top 5 Villains that weren't the final boss" by ScrewAttack."Top 5 Villains that weren't the final boss".

There is some debate on whether Screwattack is a reliable source. The paid staff have to review anything submitted to them and approve it to be on their website(see their Frequently Asked Questions). So its not something anyone can submit something to and have it hosted. Therefore, I believe it is a reliable source. Its not something that allows anyone to submit things to. Whether you are paid or not for your contribution isn't relevant. They are selectively, and don't just do a token glance and approve things, they make certain the quality level is high. Since it goes through a valid editorial process, doesn't that make it a reliable source? Dream Focus 15:58, 6 September 2011 (UTC)

From what I can tell the site offers a user blog service and the post in question is on one of those. There's no indication that there's been any editorial oversight and the poor quality of the writing sort of speaks for itself. WikiProject Video Games maintain a comprehensive list of VG-related sources which would always be the first place I'd check in these cases, and even ScrewAttack's non-user-generated content is listed as unreliable there (in the big list at the bottom). So I would say this is unambiguously not a relaible source. There are plenty of reliable sources for video game criticism out there, readily accessible, and so I see no need to fall back on poor quality ones. joe•roe 20:11, 7 September 2011 (UTC)

Screwattack is not "listed as unreliable" there. That list is quite audaciously an index of past discussions which puts a symbol by the sources to indicate the outcome of said discussion. The link provided sums up general consensus of Screwattack's reliability: "...any Screwattack show published on GameTrailers.com is acceptable. But generally they should be avoided.". So basically, no, things published by their users should not be used.AerobicFox (talk) 20:33, 7 September 2011 (UTC)

My impression was that that gist of that conversation (and thus previous consensus), was that Screwattack, with the exception of certain videos, was unreliable ("should be avoided"). Hence, "listed as unreliable". Sorry if I was unclear what I meant. joe•roe 20:55, 7 September 2011 (UTC)

Perhaps I should be more clear also, my last statement was directed towards OP and agreeing with what you said. I can understand the confusion though since my first sentences addressed you, but then switched to OP without any indication.AerobicFox (talk) 22:17, 7 September 2011 (UTC)

Thanks for the input. The general consensus on the talk page for the article the sources were trying to be used in, was that they should be avoided as well, but it's good to see that people not associated with that article agree. Thanks. Sergecross73 msg me 12:47, 8 September 2011 (UTC)

I believe it was two for and two against. Anyway, found the discussion at Wikipedia_talk:WikiProject_Video_games/Sources/Archive_2#Screwattack.21.21 where three people talked about this two years ago. Dream Focus 15:54, 8 September 2011 (UTC)

It was three to two, and one of the 2 people thought we should use it "because the Birdo article uses it for a ref too", or some sort of flawed logic like that. But anyways, as long as we've arrived at an answer now. Thanks again. Sergecross73 msg me 18:23, 8 September 2011 (UTC)

Note ScrewAttack is now being discussed at Misplaced Pages talk:WikiProject Video games/Sources#Screwattack_again. --Odie5533 (talk) 09:59, 11 September 2011 (UTC)

About.com article on the Superman Curse

Is this About.com article reliable as a source for the Superman curse article? Nightscream (talk) 19:32, 6 September 2011 (UTC)

Not for statements of fact. It might be appropriate for text along the lines of ""paranormal researcher" Stephen Wagner says that...". Under no circumstances would I trust about.com articles on fringey subjects for anything more than a claim of the writer's own belief. For examples see . , . I'd go so far as to say that some about.com writers use it as a platform for pushing deeply fringe views. bobrayner (talk) 16:18, 7 September 2011 (UTC)

About.com is really equivalent to a primary source, since there is virtually no editorial oversight. Reliable for the what the author thinks/believes, but then it's a question of whether what the author thinks is suitable for inclusion in a Misplaced Pages article. Betty Logan (talk) 16:28, 7 September 2011 (UTC)

Okay, because I did rely on it both for the author's arguments against the curse, but also for some factual statements, like what Bob Holliday did after playing the character. Can you guys look over the seven passages in the article where I cited that source, and tell me which you think are inappropriate? I'd really appreciate it. Thanks. Nightscream (talk) 17:02, 7 September 2011 (UTC)

Hello? Nightscream (talk) 08:10, 16 September 2011 (UTC)

All of them. About.com does not guarantee the expertise of its authors, "guides". Stephen Wagner's main claim to fame seems to be a book published by PublishAmerica. Read our article, or Atlanta Nights, about the quality of PublishAmerica. The source you're using is actually by Brian McKernan - I have no idea who he is, but I can't find any evidence he's a reliable source published expert on the topic. Without that, your source is basically one guy writing something and another guy putting it on the web. Not RS. --GRuban (talk) 13:58, 21 September 2011 (UTC)

That said, the IP posting in Misplaced Pages:Articles_for_deletion/Superman_curse_(2nd_nomination) seems to have a reliable source or two for you. ABC News is a fine source. --GRuban (talk) 14:02, 21 September 2011 (UTC)

And I posted more sourced in the AFD. --GRuban (talk) 14:17, 21 September 2011 (UTC)

Application of reliable sources standards to internet marketing/search engine optimization related articles

My interpration of WP:RS and WP:SPS is that first hand blogs from people within the relevant field does not pass the requirements for reliable source and multiple, brief coverage of a sentence or two such as "so and so said this and that" does not establish them as expert opinion of the credibility needed for encyclopedia references. Another issue with citing blogs is that there is no way of knowing it isn't used to make edits by these authors or their associates to advance their interest by citing these sources. What do you guys think?
Here is the discussion Cantaloupe2 (talk) 23:49, 6 September 2011 (UTC)

As I have argued with you on the linked talk page, the sources you are tagging as inappropriate self-published sources are all experts. Falcon8765 00:15, 7 September 2011 (UTC)

Where does a line get drawn between self promotion and original idea vs valid, unbiased, expert opinion? Cantaloupe2 (talk) 03:22, 7 September 2011 (UTC)

Who is the person and what is the nature of his expertise? Has he been published on the topic of SEO by third-party sources? TimidGuy (talk) 11:00, 7 September 2011 (UTC)

The problem here is that by it's nature SEO is spammy, so they all cite each other to give a veneer of expertise to their snake-oil. So when we say 'third-party sources', I'd want to see reliable third-party sources such as notable tech magazines and website not simply cross-links between Seo spammers. --Cameron Scott (talk) 11:06, 7 September 2011 (UTC)

Perhaps Eric Goldman could be reliable source, but you hit the nail right on the head. Some sources such as seachenglineland.com, searchenginejournal.com, searchenginewatch.com etc that are commonly cited in the topics of SEO appears to have something in common. The articles the authors write help drive traffic to them. The placement gives authors a place to advertise. Cantaloupe2 (talk) 13:09, 8 September 2011 (UTC)

The sources contested are the one's from Danny Sullivan and Eric Goldman. Eric Goldman is cited for a summary about a Google legal case, and I think him being a law professor qualifies him as an expert. Sullivan has been quoted by the NYT several times about SEO related subjects. Falcon8765 17:13, 7 September 2011 (UTC)

WP:SPS is fairly explicit on this: "Self-published expert sources may be considered reliable when produced by an established expert on the topic of the article whose work in the relevant field has previously been published by reliable third-party publications." An author of a self-published source is considered an expert if he has previously been published on the topic in a reliable third-party source. TimidGuy (talk) 10:29, 8 September 2011 (UTC)

Windows 8 News

• (link)

I think this site is nothing but unconfirmed speculation, and should not be used as it was used here.Jasper Deng (talk) 03:54, 7 September 2011 (UTC)

The about page says:-

The site is run jointly by Everton and Martin:

EVERTON BLAIR

Everton is based in London and has worked in the internet and mobile space for over ten years now, and before that worked in corporate strategy and consulting. He has a degree in Economics from Cambridge University, and currently runs the Portal and online operations for one of the largest ISPs in the UK. He also writes for Windows 7 News, Connected Internet and One Tip A Day.

You can read all of Everton’s posts here.

MARTIN BRINKMANN

Martin Brinkmann is an Online Journalist from Germany who discovered his love for technology in high school. He is currently working as a freelancer for several publications and runs his own Internet website Ghacks

You can read all of Martin’s posts here.

So it is a two man show. But two man shows can be RS sometimes. I think you need to check whether they have any reputation for fact checking and reliability. Does anyone cite them?--Andrew Lancaster (talk) 14:50, 7 September 2011 (UTC)

Much of their writing is speculative, especially given their "screenshots of Windows 8."Jasper Deng (talk) 17:33, 7 September 2011 (UTC)

Is the speculation notable speculation that other sources can be shown to follow?--Andrew Lancaster (talk) 18:47, 7 September 2011 (UTC)

No - it's obviously not notable to be synthesizing fake screenshots of a non-existant software (Windows 8 is nowhere near usability by the general public).Jasper Deng (talk) 23:47, 8 September 2011 (UTC)

I would think that this qualifies as an WP:SPS (with all the usual caveats), but this might be one of those situations where Misplaced Pages's rules are out of step with the rest of the world. Most of the best information on current technology is now found on blogs. I'm not sure where the impression that these are fake screenshots or this is non-existant software is coming from. Windows 8 was released to the public 4 days after the last post and I'm now running it on two of my PCs at home. A Quest For Knowledge (talk) 18:29, 19 September 2011 (UTC)

RollingStone (Argentina)

Onlineversion (translated), the article was also part of the printed issue. Is it a reliable source for

In 2003 she married the Argentine Marcelo Cabuli, whom she had met on tour while staying in Buenos Aires in 2000

and

In December 2003 she was invited by Finnish president Tarja Halonen to celebrate the Finnish Independence Day at the Presidential Palace together with other local celebrities.

in Tarja Turunen? --Pass3456 (talk) 18:07, 7 September 2011 (UTC)

Almost. Rolling Stone has a fine reputation as a reliable source about musicians, so it can certainly be cited for the fact they married. But unless I'm wrong (my Spanish is weak at best) the linked-to article doesn't actually say they married in 2003, merely that they met in 2000, and were married by 2003. --GRuban (talk) 18:39, 12 September 2011 (UTC)

About.com a reliable source?

Is About.com a reliable source? Especially Simon Baker interview which user, by the name, Spanglej signifies as a unreliable source? Thank you.--89.164.135.174 (talk) 19:40, 7 September 2011 (UTC)

It depends on what it's being used for. Reliability is not boolean, least of all with about.com!

In this case, an interview with the subject is being used to support a claim that the subject was raised catholic. I cannot imagine how the "interviewer" could have misinterpreted this point. Looks fine to me; use it. bobrayner (talk) 20:21, 7 September 2011 (UTC)

Unless there is some concrete reason to doubt it's authenticity as an interview with Simon Baker by an accredited journalist, the source can be used to support a statement by Baker about himself. I don't see any problem with the fact that the interview appeared on About.com per se. As Bobrayner said, the reliability of material on About.com is highly variable. This seems pretty reliable to me, though. Dominus Vobisdu (talk) 20:37, 7 September 2011 (UTC)

Not especially - it sometimes uses Misplaced Pages etc. as the source. For interviews, go to the actual sources. Collect (talk) 21:00, 7 September 2011 (UTC)

I think in this case Dominus Vobisdu has a point, the the interview seems to have decent credentials. --Nuujinn (talk) 22:05, 7 September 2011 (UTC)

Movie was 2006. I found no publication for the interview back then - all I can find is the sudden appearance in 2011. And no identity at all for any interiewer. It reads like the "instant interview press release" for the new DVD - some companies put out for small town papers who then pretend the local guy asked the questions <g>. Collect (talk) 16:44, 9 September 2011 (UTC)

Yes, I agree with that, but I do not see that as undermining the reliability of the source for a statement made by Baker about his upbringing. The interview appears under Murray's byline, and she looks reasonable legit, and interviews with celebrities are generally self-serving, as SPS. Baker is the real source of the statement, and unless there's some reason to suppose that he didn't say what he said, this seems reliable to me. Now, whether or not the statement should be included in the article is a different question. --Nuujinn (talk) 11:06, 11 September 2011 (UTC)

Sourcing enquiry

Hi .I would like to begin by asking a broad question :if a certain degree of (academic) controversy exists about a subject, then does Misplaced Pages policy support the use of more up-to-date, more detailed "specialist" literature than older, "generalist" sources ? Slovenski Volk (talk) 06:13, 8 September 2011 (UTC)

I would say it's a bit of a grey area. You have to avoid doing WP:SYNTH, but WP:PSTS allows the use of primary sources if done with care. Did you have a specific circumstance in mind? joe•roe 07:08, 8 September 2011 (UTC)

It is usual to present all sides, with a neutral point of view, with reliable sources in the case of controversial subjects, especially if the controversy itself is discussed in independent reliable sources. You may find WP:FLAT to be interesting reading. Note that Misplaced Pages is not a battleground, so the article should not look like a debate, argument, or fight; the positions may be fairly stated, especially if the development of diverging ideas is, as you say, chronological. In my opinion. --Lexein (talk) 08:09, 8 September 2011 (UTC)

I believe old theories should be reported if they are still widely discussed, even if they are no longer mainstream. I think the most important thing is that if they are no longer mainstream then caution has to be exercised to avoid implying otherwise. Sometimes it will not be clear whether a theory is still a mainstream option or not, and then we should, in the same way, avoid saying whether it is or not. Our aim is to write something which gives the same overall effect that someone would get if they read the literature of the field. The relevant policy you want to check is actually not WP:NOR but WP:Neutral.--Andrew Lancaster (talk) 09:00, 8 September 2011 (UTC)

Thank you all, for the advice. It certainly clarifies things. However, should this not be accepted by other parties, then does it become a content dispute, or a "conduct" matter ?

Perhaps, it would be best if I provided the very case I am concerned about - might be the best way you chaps can guide me

It concerns the Ancient Macedonians article, specifically the issue of Identity. Even to those uninterested in history, the controversy both, academic and political, is known Im sure

I personally have been involved in performing a massive re-do of the article body, with both cooperation and resistance from other parties. However, the current body is a marked improvement on the heavily slanted version from 1 yr ago. The current issue now is the lede which states Generally described as an ancient Greek people (ie the Ancient Macedonians were)

This might intuitively be correct from their names, or that they erected Doric columns, etc. However, identity is a far more complex issue, as discussed adequately in the body of the article . In essence - the Macedonians as a whole, evident from the ancient sources - were not accepted as Hellenes until the 3rd century BC. This is a major qualifier, and this complexity is not adequately represented in the lede.

Whilst I have attempted to remedy this - ie to make the lede more reflective of the article body by changing it to something like The Macedonians became consistently veiwed as Hellenes from the 3rd century onward - or something to that effect, which has received a flat rejection from the other editors (at bottom) & . The particular editor in question believes he has the backing of a large body of evidence to leave the lede as is, in an unqualified state that Macedonians were simply and straightforwardly Greek.

Indeed, a large corpus of references are provided for this (^ Ehrenberg 1969; Errington 1990; Fine 1983; Hall 2000; Hammond 1986; Jones 2001; Osborne 2004; Pirenne 1962; Sage 1996; Starr 1991; Thylander 1985; Toynbee 1981; Worthington 2008, pp. 8, 219; Chamoux 2002, p. 8; Cawkwell 1978, p. 22; Perlman 1973, p. 78; Hamilton 1974, Chapter 2: The Macedonian Homeland, p. 23.)

One has to merely observe here to come to two conclusions. (1) virtually all these works are from over two decades old (!) (2) They are all very general, and do not deal in any length the discussion of Maceodnian identity, but a generic works about "The Life of Phillip", or "A history of Greece". Moreover, even in these works used to (allegedly) support the Greekness of Maceodnian identity, they themselves quantify that, whatever language Macedonians spoke, they were not regarded as true Greeks

On the other hand, my body of literature is more recent, and derives from a more recent school of cultural anthropology and post-modernist discourse on identity construction, etc. MOreover, they are no general overviews of Ancient Greece, or what have you, but are entire essays/ chapters devoted to the issue of ethnicity and identity. They all highlight the evolving view of Greek perceptions (ie the ancient sources) on Macedonians from an early denial to gradual acceptance acceptance as Hellenes. (see references in body of work .

This is moreover corroborated by archaeological evidence: here , or Ian Morris (1998) Sindos and other Macedonian cemeteries have much more in common with the Illyrian burials than they do with Corinth or Athens, and we should accept Palavestra's suggestion that the Balkans (including Macedonia) formed the southeastern tips of a central European pattern in the late 6th century (p 45), and Macedonians, Epirots, ... ..their material culture often has more in common with the Balkans than with the Aegean world (FN 15).

I could go on from the vast volumes of work on, both, the archaeological discoveries and anthropological discourse. The specialist literature is clear on the matter - Macedonian's were only eventually accepted as Greeks, and for the lede to also reflect this should not be problematical given the wealth of scholarly support for such a position.

In the end it amounts to a minor amendment, however, it is receiving great opposition on the grounds that it is "denialist" or 'complicating" things. If stating facts is those things, then, guilty Slovenski Volk (talk) 10:13, 8 September 2011 (UTC)

1. (I added {{outdent}} and {{hidden end}} to your comment). To answer content or conduct, my advice is, per WP:BRD, be bold, but don't be surprised at reverts, and seriously, courteously, discuss without further changes until discussion produces consensus.
2. My very first gut and intellectual response to identity, is that the topic of any group's identity over time belongs in its own section or separate article, not throughout the general article about Ancient Macedonia, unless it's done with a very light touch, respectful, and doggedly neutral-point-of-view. Keep in mind the general Misplaced Pages reader who is interested in learning the flow of history: actions, timelines, places, effects, influences, and gross motivations, (in my opinion), not to get bogged down (my gut reaction) in identity issues. Wars are fought over identity, and Misplaced Pages is no place for passion. In the general article, a light touch is best - heavy theory and analysis belongs, and I hope you agree, in a section or separate article. Of course, if there are historical, factual (who, what, where, when, how) inaccuracies present in old sources, which new sources attempt to correct, those should be addressed, also with a light touch, as "historians previously reported..., though later work by ... suggested ...", if you know what I mean. If this doesn't help, ignore it. --Lexein (talk) 11:01, 8 September 2011 (UTC)

I have to say I disagree. The issue of who a given people were sort of precedes everything else about what they did in history etc. Saying "these people were Greek" (or otherwise) immediately relates them in even the casual reader's mind to everything else they know about "the Greeks". So it's important to get identity right, and get it right at the beginning of the article. joe•roe 17:40, 8 September 2011 (UTC)

I see. Fair enough. My personal discomfiture is based on observing dozens of edit wars and worse bad behavior based solely on ... wait for it ... group identity, in mainspace articles which were uncontroversial until identity was introduced, above and beyond the simple historical who, what, where, when, how and sometimes why reportage. I'll leave it to others. --Lexein (talk) 08:32, 9 September 2011 (UTC)

(edit conflict)Thanks for that summary SVolk. Still sounds more like a job for WP:NEUTRAL. You are trying to get the right balance of sources, right? It is not that you are saying those older sources are bad sources, but just not quite right for being used for this particularly important sentence. Correct? This reminds me a little of the wording needed for describing whether the Eburones were Germanic or Gaulish. (Answer: everyone agrees they were in the cultural sphere of both, but there is no consensus on the final answer.) I think you'll probably end having to concede something like "Generally described as an ancient Greek people because there is a mass of "reasonable" sources which describe them this way. You would be right to say that these are not always deeply thoughtful on the matter, but it is true, literally, that this type of description is "general". Logically, there is not really a difference between what you want, and what the others want, and I would propose having something from both sentences? Perhaps however, this is also what you are already proposing (i.e. having both positions) and that it others who want to delete mention of the doubts? Deleting mainstream and well sourced ideas is generally a no-no on WP, again because of WP:NEUTRAL.--Andrew Lancaster (talk) 11:10, 8 September 2011 (UTC)

I think you're absolutely right to go with the specialist literature in that case, but as Andrew Lancaster has pointed out there's also a neutrality issue. "Describe the controversy" is a very good rule of thumb for those which can resolve a lot of conflicts. So basically you can keep the same conclusion (since that is as you've well argued the current consensus), but just get to it with some more verbiage, e.g.

The ancient Macedonians were classically considered a Greek (Hellene) people . However, recent research has stressed their ties to the Balkan world, rather than the Aegean, and neighbouring peoples such as the Illyrians , especially in the early period (6th C-??). They were not considered "true Greeks" until as late as the 3rd century, .

Perhaps mention something about language too, since that's usually an important aspect of identity that's readily understandable in modern terms. joe•roe 17:40, 8 September 2011 (UTC)

All great suggestions, thanks guys. I'm sure we'll take this on board somehow. Slovenski Volk (talk) 23:22, 8 September 2011 (UTC)

Palm oil needs MEDRS rewrite

I've started a third talk page discussion on the need to rewrite the Palm_oil#Health section per WP:MEDRS. A number of editors have worked on bits and pieces over the years, but that's as far as it's gone. There is coatracking and what appears to be improper synthesis as well. --Ronz (talk) 15:58, 8 September 2011 (UTC)

changingthetimes.net

This website, which is apparently devoted to alternate history, is being used as a source in The Godfather Part III article, specifically, in a section speculating about what a possible Godfather Part IV film might have been structured.

This site's homepage states the following:

Changing The Times is an Alternate History Electronic Magazine dependent upon contributions from its readers. Please email articles, comments and feedback to the Editor.

Therefore, I do not believe this is a reliable source by WP's rules. The editor who added it says that, since it is only backing up what Coppola says in the DVD extras, it does not matter if it is reliable. I would like to hear opinions from other editors on this matter. ---RepublicanJacobite_TheFortyFive 17:52, 8 September 2011 (UTC)

TopTenReviews

Hi, does anyone have any view about the independence and objectivity of TopTenReviews and consequent suitability for use as a Misplaced Pages source? I found a somewhat negative assessment in an old discussion here, but I wondered if there had been any further movement. 86.181.205.2 (talk) 23:38, 8 September 2011 (UTC)

It appears to be a news aggregator, and those are generally not considered reliable. --Nuujinn (talk) 23:44, 8 September 2011 (UTC)

It looks unreliable. I found it being cited for some porn statistics, but then I saw an article in the The Guardian which called the site's statistics into question. I would recommend not using it for anything. --Odie5533 (talk) 02:38, 10 September 2011 (UTC)

Is a legal decision a verifiable source?

I would like to add controversial content to wikipedia article in regards to background information on a company. While it seems that both sources are considered verifiable I think there will be some issue in regards to the interpretation of "published". The sources are:

1. Breach Notices - several Breach Notices have been issued to a company by a government authority in regards to specific breaches of federal laws. The Notices have been sent to relevant parties and is also available to the general public. However they have not been published online or in paper press and must be specifically requested by a member of the public if they wish to view it.

2. a request for a legal opinion (in regards to the above) - prepared by the government authority for their legal department. As above it is not published online but is available to the general public on request.

It would probably be easier if I described the issue. I was awarded compensation and the company was issued several breach notices by the relevant government authority in regards to my matter. The government agency has also detected and stated in writing that thousands other people are affected by the same matter and would be entitled to the same compensation but that these people need to follow due process by lodging a claim. Obviously the company does not want the general public to become aweare of the matter and for other victims to lodge a claim as the potential compensation amount is A$500 million in Australian and may have significant legal and regulatory ramifications and possible similar actions in several of the countries where this company is present. (not signed)\

In general, Misplaced Pages strongly prefers information which has been published by outside reliable sources, rather than using material in court decisions and documents ("primary sources"). Cheers. Collect (talk) 01:11, 9 September 2011 (UTC)

I would go further and say (1) it doesn't sound like these primary sources can be used for these kinds of assertions and (2) it sounds like the IP has a conflict based on his own involvement in the matter, not to mention his motives, which appear to be to use Misplaced Pages as a forum for "getting the word out".--Bbb23 (talk) 01:17, 9 September 2011 (UTC)

I appreciate that you're trying to help others by making them aware of this issue, but Misplaced Pages is not for advocacy. WP:BLPPRIMARY specifically states that "trial transcripts and other court records, or other public documents" should not be used. I don't think it's much of a stretch to extend the reasoning to a company. If a significant company is involved in a significant court decision, it will be covered in the news and other secondary sources. joe•roe 08:03, 9 September 2011 (UTC)

Friedrich Ebert Foundation

Source: "Contemporary Far Left Parties in Europe from Marxism to the Mainstream?" (Friedrich Ebert Foundation, 2008, p. 3): ""Far left" parties are those that define themselves as to the left of... social democracy".

Articles: far left, various articles about left-wing political parties, Category:Far-left politics

Comment: The article is published by a Social Democratic Party of Germany think tank. The paper does not provide sources to support its definition. No subsequent literature uses this paper as a source for its definition. An editor believes that the article should be used to provide a list of "far left" parties and for information in the infoboxes of parties this paper calls "far left".

TFD (talk) 01:40, 9 September 2011 (UTC)

• The scholar Luke March, who wrote the 2008 paper mentioned above, stated the exact same definition in an earlier 2005 paper co-authored with Cas Mudde "What’s Left of the Radical Left? The European Radical Left After 1989: Decline and Mutation" published in the academic journal Comparative European Politics, 2005, 3, (23–49). --Martin Tammsalu (talk) 02:08, 9 September 2011 (UTC)
  • Then why are you using this article instead of his paper published in an academic journal? At least then we would be able to assess the WP:WEIGHT of his views. TFD (talk) 02:24, 9 September 2011 (UTC)

Not quite sure what the question is here. Is the Friedrich Ebert Stiftung a somehwat reliable (main stream) think tank unlikely to put out shoddy stuff - yes it is. But of course as with any (reliable) think tank or institute a publication in reputable journal or with an academic publisher is preferred/superior.--Kmhkmh (talk) 03:28, 9 September 2011 (UTC)

Here is the difference. Both articles provide definitions, but in the academic article it says, "First, we will offer a clear and comprehensive definition of the term ‘radical left’, which is sorely lacking from most studies in the field." Martin is using the Foundation article to show that there is an accepted definition, while the academic journal article clearly states that there is not. That is the difference between the media used for the two articles. TFD (talk) 04:10, 9 September 2011 (UTC)

you're addressing the wrong person--Kmhkmh (talk) 05:02, 9 September 2011 (UTC)

IMO, where the author is reliable and the publisher is known, this is a league more RS than a "Huffington Post blog". But tendentious insistence that sources one likes are RS , and those one does not like are not RS, is an endemic problem for many on Misplaced Pages. Cheers. Collect (talk) 16:32, 9 September 2011 (UTC)

Collect, are you will to use Socialist terminology for all Misplaced Pages articles, or just where you agree with them? TFD (talk) 02:08, 10 September 2011 (UTC)

Analysis of documentary

Mehmet Emin Hazret (edit | talk | history | protect | delete | links | watch | logs | views)

This stub article states that the subject is a terrorist engaged in criminal activities. It is supported by only one source, an article by a fellow at the Central Asia-Caucasus Institute & Silk Road Studies Program who analyzed/reviewed a documentary. It is the author's interpretations of that documentary that provide the support for the Misplaced Pages article. If the souce is not deemed reliable for these kinds of assertions about a BLP, the Misplaced Pages article falls apart. It's an odd situation, but my belief is this is simply not good enough, that we need more to support such damning statements.--Bbb23 (talk) 22:02, 9 September 2011 (UTC)

Maybe I missed it, but I didn't see where the article calls him a terrorist. Jesanj (talk) 22:09, 9 September 2011 (UTC)

You're right, I was being imprecise, my apologies. However, the article states he "ordered Hamid Mehmetjan, an Egyptian ETLO member, to go to China to recruit members, receive a delivery of weapons on 6 April, and to compile a list of targets for assassination and bombings in Xinjiang." Even without the label, my original question is still valid.--Bbb23 (talk) 22:12, 9 September 2011 (UTC)

Hmmm... The source doesn't cite any sources in those sentences, and it attributes some related claims to Wang Mingshan... Digging around with Amnesty International sources or others from the article East Turkestan Liberation Organization may help out. Jesanj (talk) 22:35, 9 September 2011 (UTC)

Frankly, my only interest at this point is deciding whether certain information on the Hazret page needs to be removed because it is not reliably sourced and it therefore a BLP violation. If another editor wants to find reliable sources to support reinsertion of the material, that's up to them.--Bbb23 (talk) 22:57, 9 September 2011 (UTC)

I don't think the source of the claims were the documentary. They appear to be uncontroversial fact to the journal. I'd guess it is reliable for the statement. Jesanj (talk) 23:16, 9 September 2011 (UTC)

I can't say I agree. The article's title is "Fact and Fiction: A Chinese Documentary on Eastern Turkestan Terrorism", the statements regarding Hazret come from the transcription of This rare documentary reflects Beijing's representation of "Eastern Turkestan terrorism,” and its efforts to spread this message through the author and the media. In the conclusion the author notes: The bottom line is that Beijing has been trying to manipulate public opinion – at home and abroad – by exploiting the remoteness of Xinjiang as well as the cultural distance and the restricted information, to influence foreign governments (primarily the United States), international organizations (primarily the United Nations), various NGOs, the media and even some academics using the emerging and fashionable unity in the fight against "terrorist threats.” The documentary discussed above is one of the means used, but it missed the target. So we have some statements from Mingshan, a government official, about Hazret leading a terrorist organization from the transcript of a documentary which the author of the article basically labels as propaganda. I think we can use the article as a reliable source for statements made by the Chinese government about Hazret, but not directly for statements about him. --Nuujinn (talk) 11:45, 11 September 2011 (UTC)

infoplease.com

I am citing the website infoplease.com as I am using this link: http://www.infoplease.com/ce6/us/A0859985.html in order to provide sourcing for New York metropolitan area#Demographics. However I am concerned on whether or not this website is a reliable source.OpenInfoForAll (talk) 06:00, 10 September 2011 (UTC)

Yes, it appears to be reliable. Infoplease has been around since 1938 (though not always as a website), and that entry appears to be from the Columbia Encyclopedia as well. --Odie5533 (talk) 06:17, 10 September 2011 (UTC)

Also take a look at WP:PSTS, since it is a tertiary source (encyclopedia). If you can find another source that would be great, but I'd still say it's reliable and can be added to the article. --Odie5533 (talk) 06:24, 10 September 2011 (UTC)

Communist crimes against humanity

Is this source "Boldur-Lăţescu, Gheorghe (2005) The communist genocide in Romania Nova Science Publishers ISBN 978-1594542510" reliable for this content inclusion?

The Piteşti Experiment has been described as a crime against humanity.

The editor who has removed it has not used the talk page although I have started a section for this The Last Angry Man (talk) 12:05, 10 September 2011 (UTC)

Boldur-Lăţescu is an expert in cybernetics, and has no formal training in humanities, only in engineering. At best, the book can be considered a memoir, thus it can only be used to source attributed opinions (uninformed opinions, for that matter). Nova Science Publishers is a rather dubious publisher (see also our WP article before being whitewashed ).Anonimu (talk) 12:47, 10 September 2011 (UTC)

That seems reasonable. However a formal training is not necessarily needed, more important would reviews of the book itself (by trained historians). If there are any that is.--Kmhkmh (talk) 12:55, 10 September 2011 (UTC)

I wasn't able to find any review in the usual places.Anonimu (talk) 13:43, 10 September 2011 (UTC)

At first glance I can see no reason to exclude it. The book is published with an academic publisher (not the best though) in English and of course in Romanian as well. The author seems to be a normal well qualified academic (see , ) The Pitești-Experiment has an extensive well sourced article in the German wikipedia, that looks reasonably sourced with a number of differend sources (de:Pitești-Experiment). If somebody wants to exclude the book as source, he needs to bring a convincing specific argument. If some somebody wants to get a feel for the books itself, some parts are available at Google as preview ().--Kmhkmh (talk) 12:51, 10 September 2011 (UTC)

The Romanian publishers can't be considered academic, as it published mostly belletristic, and occasionally some pop science books. Also, I have serious doubts about the reliability of the German article. Besides Boldur, a major source used by the article is published by "Soldiers of the Cross, Englewood", a white supremacist organization associated with Christian Identity and written by a "poet and publicist" condemned for membership in the anti-semitic fascist Iron Guard (and assumed as an Iron Guard supporter by the people claiming the legacy of the movement nowadays, see ).Anonimu (talk) 13:43, 10 September 2011 (UTC)

Guilt by association is pointless, this is not the german wiki, the publisher is from the academic press and you need to put forth an argument as to why it may not be used as suggested. The Last Angry Man (talk) 14:22, 10 September 2011 (UTC)

It was just a side note so that uninformed editors don't start translating indiscriminately from the German article. As I said, Boldur has no expertise in this topic, we have no reason to present his partial opinion as fact.Anonimu (talk)

Actually the German article uses a large variety of sources, many of them definitely ok. But it is true some of the sources for inline citations are questionable indeed.--Kmhkmh (talk) 14:43, 10 September 2011 (UTC)

WP:RS does not say "only approved correct articles are reliable" that I can find. Academic press = reliable source. Nor does WP:RS state "books printed in the wrong country are not reliable" either. Rather than exclude the source, those who dispute its words should find other reliable sources per WP:NPOV. Cheers. Collect (talk) 14:53, 10 September 2011 (UTC)

Could you please comment on my arguments instead of attacking a straw man? Nova Publisher is far from being the standard reliable academic (i.e. like T&F, Brill or major university presses). RS says "The reliability of a source depends on context. Each source must be carefully weighed to judge whether it is reliable for the statement being made and is the best such source for that context." Is a book written by an engineer a reliable source for making a political and legal judgement? I doubt so.Anonimu (talk) 15:09, 10 September 2011 (UTC)

1. WP:AGF 2. Misplaced Pages does not say "some academic publishers are more equal than others" - in fact, Misplaced Pages does not require all sources to be from academic publishers in the first place. 3. Yes - an "engineer" can absolutely write about other topics. And be published by a reliable source. And be cited in Misplaced Pages articles. 4. The proper mode is to add reliable sources with other points of view - not to remove a point of view because IDONTLIKEIT. Cheers. Collect (talk) 15:40, 10 September 2011 (UTC)

You replied to arguments that nobody here supported, there's nothing to AGF. Read again the quote from RS: context matters. We're not in the Renaissance anymore, homo universalis can't exist nowadays. The fact that someone is an expert on a certain topic does not make him a reliable source on everything. An engineer writing about legal topics is about as reliable as a rocket scientist writing about brain surgery. per WP:FRINGE: "A fringe theory can be considered notable enough for a dedicated article if it has been referenced extensively, and in a serious manner, in at least one major publication, or by a notable group or individual that is independent of the theory". Boldur claim is unique, his book was not reviewed in any major publication 6 years after its publication, and Boldur, as the only author putting up the claim, is not independent of the theory. Also, per WP:UNDUE, "Generally, the views of tiny minorities should not be included at all". One guy, even if he is an expert in cybernetics, qualifies as a tiny minority regarding the legal views presented in the article.Anonimu (talk) 16:18, 10 September 2011 (UTC)

What you need to do is find reliable sources saying there was nothing legally wrong. That is how WP:NPOV works. We use the cards we are dealt, we do not discard a Jack because we only accept Aces in our hand. And assertions that a view is "fringe" is frequently a matter of "IDONTLIKEHISVIEWS and not a matter of finding people who disagree with him, as is required by WP:NPOV. Cheers. Collect (talk) 23:41, 10 September 2011 (UTC)

As Boldur opinion is unique, and he has no expertise whatsoever in the field, we don't need a source to explicitly say he is wrong. Serious scholars don't go writing books just to reject claims made by some obscure non-specialist. We have WP:DUE to deal with such cases. And Boldur is such a case.Anonimu (talk) 09:30, 11 September 2011 (UTC)

Actually depending on the context WP might very say (indirectly) that one academic publisher might be better than another (similarly for authors, journals), essentially that's what reputation is about. Anonimu has made a fairly reasoned point, why we should not rely on Boldur as a primary source for the article. That doesn't mean he can't be used at all (nor did Anominu claim that), but more reputable sources are preferable and Boldur should essentially be treated as a journalistic source (not more not less).--Kmhkmh (talk) 19:24, 10 September 2011 (UTC)

seems fairly clear - comparing the acts to executions. does not view it favourably either. etc .... I find not a single cite which could conceivably be used to attach any "nice" adjectives to the experiment. But heck -- the NYT is generally accepted as RS . The final report is long and occasionally lurid. One chapter recounts the chilling Pitesti experiment, in which young political prisoners were systematically tortured and subjected to brainwashing techniques by other prisoners in order to destroy their sense of self and replace it with loyalty to the state. The report charges the Communist authorities with crimes against humanity and puts responsibility for the misdeeds primarily on the party and its secret service, the Securitate. Seems that would be a nice item to insert in the article, no? Cheers. Collect (talk) 23:49, 10 September 2011 (UTC)

I don't think the Piteşti Experiment as such is in question. This discussion here is merely about suitability of Boldur as a source and what has to be considered there.--Kmhkmh (talk) 00:36, 11 September 2011 (UTC)

Exactly. It's about a book written by a guy with no expertise in the matter that makes some extraordinary claims, which no scholar cares enough about to confirm or reject. Nobody here wants to present the Pitesti "experiment" as a nice summer camp, but this doesn't mean we must take a legal judgement by an expert in cybernetics at its face value. If making legal decisions was so simple, people wouldn't spend years in law schools.Anonimu (talk) 09:45, 11 September 2011 (UTC)

Let me point your attention at the fact that the Crime against humanity, like genocide is a legal term, therefore, we can speak about some misdeed as about this type of crime only if some court will make such a decision. This is a difference between this term and, for instance, the term "atrocity", or "torture". Therefore, the statement we discuss is incomplete. It is supposed to contain a name of some concrete court that come to such a conclusion. In other words, the statement should look like this:

"The Piteşti Experiment has been recognized as a crime against humanity by (the name of the court)."

In connection to that, does the source we discuss contain the reference to any court decision? --Paul Siebert (talk) 00:34, 11 September 2011 (UTC)

Balderdash. Where an official government commission in a report termed the "experiment" as a crime against humanity, that is sufficient. There is no need for an official "court decision" where an official government report makes the statement, and is a reliable source thereon. Cheers. Collect (talk) 12:24, 11 September 2011 (UTC)

Please, be polite. "Official court decision" or "official government report", whatever. If such a document is available, then we can speak about anything. However, I doubt if a scholar, whatever reputable he is, is in position to give such a characteristic to any event (unless he uses this term just as an allegory).--Paul Siebert (talk) 18:21, 12 September 2011 (UTC)

I don't think you have to see it that way. Correct is that we should not mix the legal term with a more general meaning but as long as the article is not mixing them and makes painstakingly clear what it is referring to, it doesn't have to be exclusively about the legal term here. Moreover even the legal term is not simply confined to actual court decisions, but it can also refer to the opinions/assessments of reputable of (legal) scholars about incidents or cases that have never seen any court (due to whatever reasons). However one way (and maybe) to avoid confusion and any mixing of legal and non legal meanings is of course to simply use different terms if possible.--Kmhkmh (talk) 11:39, 11 September 2011 (UTC)

I think, we have here the same problem as we have had with the term "genocide". There are loose and strict definitions of genocide. The latter (a legal definition) can be applied (by courts or other judical bodies) to just certain types of mass murders and other examples of brutal treatment of population. However, the attempts (of some authors) to arbitrary apply this term (broadly defined) to the wider range of events makes this term to be too common to be useless. In that case it would become just an allegory, an another synonym of brutal treatment of peoples.--Paul Siebert (talk) 18:21, 12 September 2011 (UTC)

There appear to be problems with this publisher and I have asked User:DGG, who is familiar with them, to comment. This source is not an academic book and the opinions expressed have no notability. TFD (talk) 03:49, 12 September 2011 (UTC)

• On the question of the reliability of Nova Science Publishers, a recent paper by Arno Tausch "On the Global Impact of Selected Social-Policy Publishers in More Than 100 Countries" published in Journal of Scholarly Publishing, Volume 42, Number 4, July 2011, pp. 476-502, ranks it as one of the top 20 social-science publishers in the world. --Martin Tammsalu (talk) 05:48, 12 September 2011 (UTC)
  • You have taken that from the Nova Publishers article, and neither you nor I have read the article so we cannot know what it actually says. TFD (talk) 14:54, 12 September 2011 (UTC)
    • You should refactor your baseless accusation, I have a copy of Arno Tausch paper "On the Global Impact of Selected Social-Policy Publishers in More Than 100 Countries" published in Journal of Scholarly Publishing in front of me. --Martin Tammsalu (talk) 14:57, 12 September 2011 (UTC)
      • Well, that puts the publisher reliability issue and related WP:RS issue to rest, then. PЄTЄRS J V ►TALK 15:23, 12 September 2011 (UTC)

Arno Tausch is not necessarily a fully reliable source for anything, but the judgement is this case matches the reality--Novas is a medium grade academic publisher in the social sciences, although of low quality in some of the sciences It's good enough for the purpose of ordinary referencing However, I see from Worldcat that the book in question is held in only 98 Worldcat libraries which is not that great, indicating lack of general scholarly interest in it. But all publishers have better books and not all that good books; I'm a little more concerned at the possible bias of the author , who has published on only thisgeneral. But it's usable, but not for extraordinary claimsd. what is it being used to source? If we're quibbling over the wording "crime against humanity", that;s a very flexible term, and I 'd look for multiple sourcing for that. Any one author can call it anything that in hyperbola. To me this is ordinary this is ordinary Socviet-era political repression, and while ordinary political repression in one sense is a crime against humanity, nothing presented is actually extraordinary for the period. There is no point in hyperbola. It's especially important to have at least one english language reference in the article & if there's nothing else, I'd use it. I would not use it in preference to one of the truly first rate publishers, but if there aren't any on the subject , it will do. DGG ( talk ) 16:04, 12 September 2011 (UTC)

IP editor as reliable source or professional opinion

Hi,

we have in Talk:War of the Pacific a long standing discussion about the Bolivian Declaration of War at the beginnig of the war. The current last section of the discusion is Talk:War_of_the_Pacific#One_last_Compromise.

A person has made a contribution () and allegadlly wants to remain anonymous. The editor says he is a professor. Some editors considered it a "professional opinion" and as a deciding voice in the discussion.

Is this a "professional opinion"?, can be considered as a "reliable source"?.

I want to remark that the board should comment here only whether his contribution is a reliable source or a professional opinion or not. We do not discuss about the person but about his contribution.

If you want to participate in the discussion about the Bolivian Declaration of War, I beg you, do it in the Talk Page.

--Best regards, Keysanger (what?) 16:27, 10 September 2011 (UTC)

No, not reliable. If he has published articles or books about the topic then he can direct you to them, and in principle they will be reliable. Otherwise, we only have his word that he is an expert. If he really is an expert, then he knows the academic literature well and should be able to help you find good sources. Expert editors can be really helpful in that way. Itsmejudith (talk) 16:43, 10 September 2011 (UTC)

Keysanger is WP:GAMING in order to get one of you to discard the professional opinion. We are not using the contribution as a "source". It simply is an opinion (expert opinion) on how to resolve the issue. Nothing more and nothing less.--MarshalN20 | 17:56, 10 September 2011 (UTC)

It could be a valid professional opinion, but I don't know how people would verify that. Maybe the IP traces to a location where someone has been corresponding with a professor via email. If people are using it as a reason to make an editorial decision, and are not using it as a source in the article, then asking if it is a reliable source is the wrong question because we couldn't cite it anyways. Jesanj (talk) 18:09, 10 September 2011 (UTC)

This US university professor seems to have an imperfect grasp of English. Of course any editor can give an opinion, and the input may well be useful, but it cannot be presented as a "professional" opinion unless we have independent means of confirming authorship. Frankly, I can see no good reason why an expert on this topic would insist on anonymity. Such claims just create unhelpful suspicion. Treat the text as if it were written by any other editor. Paul B (talk) 18:12, 10 September 2011 (UTC)

• The only "WP:GAMING" I see here is trying to get around WP:RS and WP:V. Could the editor be a professor? Yes. Does that post meet RS or V? Not by a long shot. Further, simply being a professor doesn't make them an expert. No way this can be used as a RS. Niteshift36 (talk) 18:26, 10 September 2011 (UTC)

If the professor wants to keep his anonymity, then it is his personal decision and no reason exists as to why we should force him to do otherwise. Tracing his IP address could be a solution, but that's also quite a harsh decision considering (1) We are not using him as a source and (2) His opinion is just one more out of 5 editors (Cambalechero, Marco Polo, Tagishsimon, Cloudaoc, Alexh). No valid reason exists for this question to have been posted here, and responses that go as far as to insult a professor's English are anything but helpful.--MarshalN20 | 18:28, 10 September 2011 (UTC)

"responses that go as far as to insult a professor's English are anything but helpful". A remarkably silly comment. If we knew he were genuinely a professor, it would be irrelevant to comment on his English. His idiosyncratic use of language is circumstantial evidence concerning his claims to academic status. Those claims are without foundation as far as Misplaced Pages is concerned, so continuing to refer to the unknown anonymous editor as "a professor" as if it were fact is misleading and anything by helpful. Paul B (talk) 20:11, 10 September 2011 (UTC)

Please stop insulting people.--MarshalN20 | 20:20, 10 September 2011 (UTC)

Please stop ignoring the actual problem by diverting to irrelevancies. Paul B (talk) 18:03, 12 September 2011 (UTC)

EDIT: Cambalechero, Marco Polo, Tagishsimon, Cloudaoc...should they be forced to reveal their names or are we assuming their parents tought such fancy names for them?--MarshalN20 | 18:31, 10 September 2011 (UTC)

We don't need to know whether he's a distinguished professor or a 5-year old (strictly speaking we might not even care). The only thing that matters is the correctness/accuracy and verifiability (i.e. there are reputable published external sources that provide confirmation) of his contribution.--Kmhkmh (talk) 19:17, 10 September 2011 (UTC)

Yes, reliable sources do exist which back him up. Those sources have been present for a long time in the discussion. As I mentioned, his opinion is just one more out of that of 5 editors who have expressed their support for the compromise text. The only user who opposes the compromise text is Keysanger. Even if we discard the professor's opinion, the majority of users have already expressed their support for the same position.--MarshalN20 | 19:26, 10 September 2011 (UTC)

Well if the content is properly sourced, there isn't anything to discuss here. As far as general editorial assessment, discretion and disagreement goes that needs to be solved elsewhere (article's discussion page, 3rd opinion, review, mediation, etc.)--Kmhkmh (talk) 19:35, 10 September 2011 (UTC)

Exactly. I completely agree with you.--MarshalN20 | 19:52, 10 September 2011 (UTC)

Thank you for your advice. --Best regards, Keysanger (what?) 20:14, 10 September 2011 (UTC)

• I'd like to note that this is the wrong place to have posted this request. This board is to determine the reliability of a specific source, not mediate disputes. See WP:DISPUTE. I didn't read the whole discussion, but it looks like you should have gone to RfC with the problem. I'd also like to note that Misplaced Pages deals with consensus, not !votes. --Odie5533 (talk) 11:44, 11 September 2011 (UTC)

Source Check

I was wondering if this source would be deemed reliable for Rangers FC statistics and Records. Rangers FC History. Monkeymanman (talk) 22:37, 10 September 2011 (UTC)

It's a great resource but I don't think it's a RS because it's a blog and the editorial supervision is not clear. It could be used as a starting point to find newspaper articles, etc. The exception would be if the blog owner is a renowned expert on the subject, and even then I like to know where they got their information. Brmull (talk) 23:07, 10 September 2011 (UTC)

• No, it is definitely not reliable. --Odie5533 (talk) 11:31, 11 September 2011 (UTC)

to check the reliability of web source

Burhanuddinv.elec (talk) Hi, I have to edit a page in wikipedia for my assignment and since i am new to wiki editing and I hence I cant be sure about a particular reliability of a web page here is the url of my citation please confirm me its reliability http://www.ece.utep.edu/courses/ee3329/ee3329/Studyguide/ToC/Fundamentals/CAction/diffusion.html

That's a study guide for a class. It's not really that reliable. See WP:IRS for how to find reliable sources. I am curious, what university or class are you taking that requires you edit Misplaced Pages? --Odie5533 (talk) 11:28, 11 September 2011 (UTC)

I agree. I think this kind of source is more what you are looking for. Please feel free to post any questions you have here, or if you have other questions, feel free to ask on my talk page--thing can be somewhat complicated here if you're not familiar with the ropes. --Nuujinn (talk) 13:43, 11 September 2011 (UTC)

Need peer review with respect to a source - whether it's primary or secondary

This source is in German. I wanted a peer feedback from editors conversant in German whether this source (especially the page numbered 400 onward, titled Hinduism in the Modern World) is a primary source (does it contain the author's personal viewpoints?) or a secondary source (does it simply contain a synopsis of what happened in the conference?)? The feedback will be highly appreciated. Thanks.Wifione 12:40, 11 September 2011 (UTC)

What's it being used to source? That would affect whether it is primary or secondary. --Nuujinn (talk) 13:39, 11 September 2011 (UTC)

It's being used to source the designation of an individual called Ashok Chauhan. You'll see his name on page 401 along with his designation. The source is not being used for anything else.Wifione 14:12, 11 September 2011 (UTC)

Which article? Blueboar (talk) 14:35, 11 September 2011 (UTC)

Ashok Chauhan Wifione 15:08, 11 September 2011 (UTC)

Thanks... I am still a bit confused... when you say the source is being used to support a "designation", are you referring to the statement that Mr. Chauhan is one of the "directors of the Amity group of institutions"... if so, then regardless of its primary/secondary nature, the citation should be moved up to that sentence. At the moment it appears to be supporting the last sentence: "The Union Minister for External Affairs in India has accepted that Germany wishes to prosecute Ashok Chauhan and Arun Chauhan and that they have sought legal assistance for extraditing the two.").

Also... the pdf you link us to is part of a larger source... what is that larger source? Blueboar (talk) 16:11, 11 September 2011 (UTC)

Thanks for the pointers. The pdf is being used to support the statement that Ashok Chauhan is the Chairperson of VHP's (Vishwa Hindu Parishad's) European Central Committee. The reliable source link which previously supported this statement is currently dead. I'm still in the process of finding an archived copy of that link. So wanted to find out what is the the actual designation with respect to VHP mentioned in the pdf. Once it's clear, then I'll shift the link to the exact line. Also, I don't have the larger source. I could get my hands on only this part of the source from the Heidelberg archives. Thanks again. Wifione 17:04, 11 September 2011 (UTC)

OK... I think I understand. My call is that the source is "good enough for now"... use it (moved to the appropriate sentence) but keep looking for a better source that will replace it. Blueboar (talk) 17:09, 11 September 2011 (UTC)

Alright. Thanks and I'll close this discussion. If there's any other editor with pointers, kindly do contact me on my talk page. It'll be appreciated. Best. Wifione 17:24, 11 September 2011 (UTC)

Reliable source?

Is this link reliable to know the sales of an album? note: there is more “t” in the “.net” because it marks it as spam, but no, it's just a question.--NicolásTM (talk) 17:56, 11 September 2011 (UTC)

It's an interesting blog, but not a RS. The blog contains a "methods" section which explains where they got their data so it should be possible in many cases to find primary sources that are reliable. Brmull (talk) 18:27, 11 September 2011 (UTC)

• No, that is not a reliable source. The reason Misplaced Pages marks it as spam is to ensure no one uses it as a source and thus any attempt would be spam. --Odie5533 (talk) 23:52, 11 September 2011 (UTC)

Tamil Tigress

• The article name; Tamil Tigress

I want to add content to the above article. I am asking advice on Source A and Source B. Note that both sources cover the same article by the same person, but they are given as two sources because it is published in two different media. Source A is an online forum subject to editor control and discretion. It offers scope for interaction through editor moderated comments and verifiability and fact checking through links and citations. Source B is a mainstream leading newspaper without the extra scope offered by the online source.

• A Full citation of source A;

Michael Roberts (31 August 2011)"Forbidden Fruits: Niromi de Soyza’s “Tamil Tigress”, Noumi Kouri and Helen Demidenko?", Groundviews

• The Link;

Forbidden Fruits: Niromi de Soyza’s “Tamil Tigress”, Noumi Kouri and Helen Demidenko?

• Full citation of source B;

Michael Roberts (September 2011) "Forbidden Fruits? Niromi de Soyza, Noumi Kouri and Helen Demidenko?", The Island.

• The Link

Island Part 1 Island Part 2

Source A and B cite and quote two primary sources, Title at Allen and Unwin and, With Niromi de Soyza Thursday 21 July2011 and I have used those quotes too(with inline citations) in order to clearly summarize the relevant arguements contained in Sources A and B.

• The most relevant parts contained in Sources A and B that support the statements in the article. (The sources A, B in entirety and overview also support these statements. But I am including these most relevant and specific parts for convenience because the source article is very long)

Market Pitch, Fundamental Error

The dramatic beginning via “The Ambush” is geared to the book’s market pitch. Both the back cover and the cyber-world notices advertising the book tell us that “two days before Christmas 1987, at the age of 17, Niromi de Soyza found herself in an ambush as part of a small platoon of militant Tamil Tigers fighting the government forces that was to engulf Sri Lanka for decades (emphasis mine).” The appeal here highlights the pathos of her journey in life by underlining her youthfulness and placing the encounter just prior to the natal day of Jesus Christ.

But within this little tale within a biographical tale lies a fundamental error. Once the uneasy relationship of ‘alliance’ between the LTTE and the Indian government (the LTTE’s ‘mentor’) unravelled in September-October 1987, the Tigers were engaged in a guerrilla war with the Indian Peace Keeping Force (IPKF) in the northern and eastern parts of the island. As the details below reveal, the armed services of the Sri Lankan state (GoSL) were not directly engaged in this war and did not have joint operations with the Indians on the ground. In brief, the December skirmish could NOT have been against Sri Lankan soldiers.

It is not an Allen & Unwin mistake. When de Soyza was interviewed by Margaret Throsby, she remarks “when I joined, the Indian forces had arrived and the Tigers had chosen to fight the Indian forces as well as the Sri Lankan forces.” Such profound ignorance suggests that she was not in Sri Lanka then and that her tale is a fabrication fashioned without adequate homework.

Dramatic Shifts in the Year 1987

...

Implications

The setting that I have traced above is pertinent to the embellishments in Tamil Tigress, notably the use of Thileepan’s photograph with Muralie beside him – both prominently highlighted in the book as the Tiger officers who enlisted Niromi (Tigress, 66-69), while Muralie was the platoon leader during her first experience of battle. These touches in turn provide a possible explanation for the reasons that induced de Soyza to obscure the fact that this fire-fight was against the IPKF. The alleged autobiography was finalized in 2010/11 in a context where the Western media has targeted Sri Lanka as an Ogre guilty of war crimes. To place Indian troops behind the guns that threatened her platoon would tarnish her goals. These goals include an explicit desire to show Australians that the boat people who had begun to arrive off the coast of their continent were not economic refugees, but worthy asylum seekers fleeing persecution. She told Throsby that her tale was in line with the revelations provided by the Channel Four documentary Killing Fields and the Moon Panel of Experts. “I knew that when the Tamil Tigers were caught by the soldiers those things would happen they would be shot in the head, raped, tortured all of those things …It was nothing new.” To complicate this propaganda pitch by placing the IPKF in the first chapter would spoil her intent.

Trivial Errors? Ethnographic Howlers of Profound Import?

While it was the foundational error in describing the context of her first battle experience that raised questions in my mind about the authenticity of de Soyza’s autobiography, there are other tell-tale signs that added to these doubts – as I have remarked in my initial essay on this topic. These were minutiae. Again, a range of minute points of error are listed by Arun Ambalavanar when he recently made the suggestion that Tamil Tigress was a “farce.” ...

Some of the questions from Ambalavanar which the publishers may regard as trivial objections have the character of “ethnographic queries” in an anthropological sense.

• The exact statements in the article the sources are supporting;

Then another Sri lankan born Australian academic further questioned the appropriateness of classifying Tamil Tigress as Autobiography

The book's classification as Memoir is challenged on ethnographic grounds as well as on the grounds of a foundational error.The foundational error consists of the author's apparent ignorance, persisting to date,of the identity of her adversaries in Combat during the fighting tenure(late 1987 to 1988) attributed to herself in Tamil Tigress. From late July 1987 to early 1990, the signing of the Indo-Sri Lanka Accord and the consequent arrival of the IPKF ensured the withdrawal of the Sri Lankan troops from the Battlefield.

That the Sri Lankan forces stayed clear of direct combat with the LTTE during this period, apart from the limited operations undertaken at sea by the Sri Lankan Navy,is a basic fact, that would have been known to contemporary Tiger fighters of all ranks.

In contrast the blurb of Tamil Tigress announces, “Two days before Christmas in 1987, at the age of 17, Niromi de Soyza found herself in an ambush as part of a small platoon of militant Tamil Tigers fighting government forces in the bloody civil war that was to engulf Sri Lanka for decades…”

In her Margaret Throsby Interview(between 18.45 and 19.02)Niromi says; “…when I joined, the Indian forces had arrived and the tigers had chosen to fight the Indian forces as well as the Sri Lankan forces”

In the same interview(between 35.56 and 36.23),she responds to a question regarding a film, which claims to be a documentary covering the atrocities committed by the Sri Lankan Government Forces during the final stages of the Elam War ;

“Were you able to watch the four corners documentary? “

“I watched it. I forced myself to watch it… It distressed the whole time….I couldn’t sleep that night… but at the same time it wasn’t new. This was something that I knew had happened. I mean I had witnessed much of it and I knew when… the Tamil tigers were caught by the soldiers those things would happen …they would be shot in the head, raped, tortured all of those things. It was nothing new.”

There is thus an attempted projection of Sri Lankan Forces into her fighting experiences, from which they should in reality have been absent. A possible motive for creating this imagined context is given by by Niromi in her Throsby interview(between 35.21 and 35.54);

“…in 2009 when the war …had ended in Sri Lanka and Tamil refugees were still arriving in Australian Shores by the boat and there was a complete misunderstanding , everyone labeling them as economic refugees because, the war had ended. But I knew different… So I thought somebody has to say something… At that time… the UN panel report wasn’t there…, the four corners documentary hadn’t been shown so I thought I needed to put this story out …despite the fact I didn’t want to...I’d felt there was a need….”

• Links to relevant talk page discussion.

my reverted revision diff from current

I hope this is enough information or that it's not too much. Gettingthere (talk) 08:57, 12 September 2011 (UTC)

These are not reliable sources, but there are already servicable sources in the article that are not being utilised. The Sri Lanka Guardian article has details that can be used to make many of these points about inaccuracies in the book. Paul B (talk) 12:45, 12 September 2011 (UTC)

Thanks. In terms of forum though I tend to rate The Island and Groundviews higher than SLG also in terms of source Author expertise MR'd rate higher than AA. But the point is AA/SLG challenges on ethnographic(subjective) grounds while MR/GV/Island challenges on foundational error grounds(objective). So one can't really substitute MR/GV/Island source with the AA/SLG.Gettingthere (talk) 13:46, 12 September 2011 (UTC)

You can make a case for Michael Roberts under WP:SPS, but you have to provide independent evidence that he is an expert on the topic in question. However there is the caveat that this cannot apply to BLPs. This article is actually on a book, not a person, so its uncertain whether BLP rules apply, especially as the author is nothing more than a name, not an identifiable individual. But that's a question for the BLP noticeboard. Paul B (talk) 16:06, 12 September 2011 (UTC)

Further clarification on the sources I am going to use to expand Tamil Tigress

Thanks Paul B But I no longer want to make a case for Michael Roberts under WP:SPS. Because the self published source which was challenged Roberts Michael, 21August2011, Another Demidenko? Niromi de Soyza as a Tiger Fighter, Thuppahi's Blog has now been rendered unnecessary as that article is now available as a reliable source, in Roberts Michael, 27August2011, A Captivating Fiction with a Political Slant? Niromi de Soyza as Tiger Fighter, Sri Lanka Guardian. It is at present available in Tamil Tigress as a reference. Perhaps as an embellishment I will use Roberts Michael, 21August2011, Another Demidenko? Niromi de Soyza as a Tiger Fighter, Thuppahi's Blog as an external link.

But my querry was not about that. To develop Tamil Tigress further , adding a Controversy section, I claim the following as reliable secondary sources, which analyses the statements contained in the Throsby interview and Tamil Tigress blurb, contrasts them with the actual circumstances prevailing in Sri Lanka due to the Indo Lanka Accord and and forms conclusions i.e.;Market pitch/Fundamental Error, profound ignorance suggestive of non-residence in SL during the relevant period, a fabrication fashioned without adequate homework.

• A- Michael Roberts (September 2011) Forbidden Fruits? Niromi de Soyza, Noumi Kouri and Helen Demidenko? The Island Part 1, Part 2 .

• B- Michael Roberts (31 August 2011) Forbidden Fruits: Niromi de Soyza’s “Tamil Tigress”, Noumi Kouri and Helen Demidenko?, Groundviews

The word "source" in Misplaced Pages has three meanings: the work itself (a document, article, paper, or book), the creator of the work (for example, the writer), and the publisher of the work (for example, The New York Times). All three can affect reliability.

Policy WP:SOURCES

The word "source" as used on Misplaced Pages has three related meanings: the piece of work itself (the article, book), the creator of the work (the writer, journalist), and the publisher of the work (for example The New York Times, Cambridge University Press, etc.). All three can affect reliability. Reliable sources may be published materials with a reliable publication process, authors who are regarded as authoritative in relation to the subject, or both.

Guideline WP:IRS

According to the above policy and guideline, A and B count as two sources, because even though it's the same article by the same author two different publishers are involved.

Confusion about sources

There is some confusion about these sources. Roscelese and Loonymonkey have accused me of original research and synthesis, of using personal analysis of interviews with author to prove she is lying. I think they only went through Roberts Michael, 21August2011, Another Demidenko? Niromi de Soyza as a Tiger Fighter, Thuppahi's Blog, saw no interview excerpts or analysis there and assumed OR.

Since, "Reliable sources may be published materials with a reliable publication process, authors who are regarded as authoritative in relation to the subject, or both", let me estasblish Michael Roberts as an authority or expert on the subject. Specially as in accordance with "When taking information from opinion pieces, the identity of the author may help determine reliability. The opinions of specialists and recognized experts are more likely to be reliable and to reflect a significant viewpoint. If the statement is not authoritative, attribute the opinion to the author in the text of the article and do not represent it as fact."-WP:NEWSORG guideline, I want to present his arguements as authoritative statements, not merely as intext attributions.

Michael Roberts as specialist and recognized expert

Michael Roberts was educated at St. Aloysius College, Galle and his B.A degree with honours in History at the University of Ceylon at Peradeniya. He received a Rhodes Scholarship to Oxford and attended Merton College while completing his D.Phil in History. He taught at the Department of History at Peradeniya in 1961-62 and from 1966-75. He was Director Dogsbody of the Ceylon Studies Seminar during its halcyon days and one part of the engine room for Modern Ceylon Studies in its early years. He secured an Alexander von Humboldt Fellowship to Germany in 1975 and subsequently joined the Department of Anthropology at the University of Adelaide in 1977, where he is now an Adjunct Associate Professor. He was the founding Editor of Social Analysis in 1979. His Major works include Elites, Nationalisms and the Nationalist Movement in British Ceylon(Colombo: Department of National Archives, 1977); Caste Conflict and Elite Formation: The Rise of a Karava Elite in Sri Lanka, 1500-1931(Cambridge University Press, 1982); People Inbetween: The Burghers and the Middle Class in the Transformations within Sri Lanka, 1790s-1980s, Vol 1 (Colombo:Sarvodaya Press, 1989); Exploring Confrontation. Sri Lanka: Politics, Culture and History(Reading:Harwood Academic Publishers, 1994); Crosscurrents: Sri Lanka and Australia at Cricket, (Sydney: Walla Walla Press, 1998)…

-Taken from the book jacket of Sinhala consciousness in the Kandyan period, 1590s to 1815 with inline citations added by me where appropriate.

While Roberts can be described as a historical anthropologist, the fact remains that all his work engages the political relations of power and that he straddles the disciplines of Politics, Sociology, Anthropology and History.He is a prolific writer and contemporary political commentator on a wide range of subjects.

Michael Roberts on Politics of Identity

• The burden of history: Obstacles to power sharing in Sri Lanka Michael Roberts, Contributions to Indian Sociology, 2000
• Roberts, Michael, and International Centre for Ethnic Studies. Firstness, history, place & legitimate claim to place-as-homeland in comparative focus/ Michael Roberts, International Centre for Ethnic Studies, Colombo: 2005
• Michael Roberts Language and national identity: the Sinhalese and others over the centuries, Nationalism and Ethnic Politics, Volume 9, Issue 2, 2003
• Roberts, Michael, and Pieris, Jeronis, Facets of modern Ceylon history through the letters of Jeronis Pieris/Michael Roberts, Hansa Publishers, Colombo : 1975
• Roberts, Michael, and Ceylon National Congress. and Sri Lanka. Jatika Lekhanaraksaka Departamentuva. Documents of the Ceylon National Congress and nationalist politics in Ceylon, 1929-1950 / edited by Michael Roberts, Dept of National Archives, Colombo : 1977
• Roberts, Michael, Collective identities, nationalisms, and protest in modern Sri Lanka/ edited by Michael Roberts, Marga Institute, Colombo : 1979
• Michael Roberts, Of traditions, memories and ideological blockages Asian Studies Review Volume 18, Issue 2, 1994
• Michael Roberts, The cultured gentleman: The appropriation of manners by the middle class in British Ceylon Anthropological Forum, Volume 7, Issue 1, 1994
• Michael Roberts, Studying Collective Consciousness over Time in Sri Lanka: Questions for Post-Orientalism, Part I, lines magazine, May 2006 /August 2006
• Michael Roberts, Apocalypse or accommodation? Two contrasting views of Sinhala‐Tamil relations in Sri Lanka South Asia: Journal of South Asian Studies Volume 12, Issue 1, 1989
• Michael Roberts (1978). Ethnic Conflict in Sri Lanka and Sinhalese Perspectives: Barriers to Accommodation. Modern Asian Studies, 12, pp 353-376 doi:10.1017/S0026749X00006193
• Michael Roberts, ESSAY Narrating Tamil Nationalism: Subjectivities and Issues, South Asia: Journal of South Asian Studies, n.s. Vol.XXVII, no.1, April 2004
• Roberts, Michael, and Marga Institute. Sri Lanka : collective identities revisited/ edited by Michael Roberts, Marga Institute, (Colombo) : 1997

Michael Roberts on Politics of Knowledge

• Michael Roberts Modernist theory : trimming the printed word : the instance of pre-modern Sinhala society Colombo : International Centre for Ethnic Studies, 2002
• Roberts, Michael. and Brown, Kenneth. Using oral sources : Vansina and beyond / edited by Kenneth Brown & Michael Roberts Dept. of Anthropology, University of Adelaide, Adelaide : 1980
• Michael Roberts, A tale of resistance: The story of the arrival of the Portuguese in Sri Lanka Ethnos, Volume 54, Issue 1-2, 1989
• Michael Roberts Potency Power & People in Groups Marga Institute, ISBN 9789555821292, 2011

Michael Roberts on Politics of Cricket

• Roberts, Michael, Essaying cricket : Sri Lanka and beyond/ Michael Roberts Vijitha Yapa Publishers, Colombo : 2006
• Michael Roberts, John Howard: Cricket Australia's misjudged power-play, The Drum Opinion Australian Broadcasting Corporation, 5 July 2010
• Michael Roberts, Landmarks and Threads in the Cricketing Universe of Sri Lanka, Sport in Society, Volume 10, Issue 1, 2007, Special Issue: Cricket, Race and the 2007 World Cup
• Michael Roberts, Wunderkidz in a Blunderland: tensions and tales from Sri Lankan cricket Sport in Society, Volume 12, Issue 4-5, 2009, Special Issue: Cricket: International and Interdisciplinary Approaches

Michael Roberts on Politics of Conflict and Confrontations

• Roberts, Michael, Confrontations in Sri Lanka : Sinhalese, LTTE & others / Michael Roberts, Vijitha Yapa Publications, Colombo : 2009
• Michael Roberts, BLUNDERS IN TIGERLAND: PAPE’S MUDDLES ON “SUICIDE BOMBERS” IN SRI LANKA Heidelberg Papers in South Asian and Comparative Politics, Working Paper No. 32, November 2007
• Michael Roberts Understanding Zealots and Questions for Post- Orientalism IIAS Newsletter 7 International Institute for Asian Studies
• Michael Roberts Fire and Storm, Vijitha Yapa Publications ISBN 9789556651348, 2011

Michael Roberts as a Contemporary Political Commentator

• Michael Roberts, Crude reasoning The Drum Opinion, Australian Broadcasting Corporation 17 Nov. 2009
• Michael Roberts Taken in by Tamil tall tales The Australian, November 04, 2009
• Michael Roberts, Realities of war, A response challenging the calls for ceasefire as a solution to the hard realities around the LTTE’s endgame. FRONTLINE, Volume 26 - Issue 10 :: May. 09-22, 2009
• Michael Roberts Some pillars for Lanka’s future FRONTLINE, Volume 26 - Issue 12 :: Jun. 06-19, 2009
• Michael Roberts A Verbal Joust between a Tamil Nationalist and a Thuppahi Mongrel 12 September 2011, Melbourne, Sri Lanka Guardian

Double barreled reliability

...Reliable sources may be published materials with a reliable publication process, authors who are regarded as authoritative in relation to the subject, or both

-Guideline WP:IRS

Accordingly I claim A-Michael Roberts (September 2011) Forbidden Fruits? Niromi de Soyza, Noumi Kouri and Helen Demidenko? The Island Part 1, Part 2 . as a source which is reliable on both counts(author+publication) and B-Michael Roberts (31 August 2011) Forbidden Fruits: Niromi de Soyza’s “Tamil Tigress”, Noumi Kouri and Helen Demidenko?, Groundviews as a source which assumes reliablity beacause of the author.

Misrepresentation of Groundviews

Roscelese has wrongly represented Groundviews as a source falling within WP:NOTRELIABLE

Questionable sources are those with a poor reputation for checking the facts, or which lack meaningful editorial oversight. Such sources include websites and publications expressing views that are widely acknowledged as extremist, or promotional, or which rely heavily on rumor and personal opinion. Questionable sources should be used only as sources of material on themselves, especially in articles about themselves; see below. They are unsuitable for citing contentious claims about third parties.

Groundviews Funding and support

Groundviews was set up under the Voices of Reconciliation Project, conducted by the Centre for Policy Alternatives (CPA) from 2005 – 2006 and funded by CIDA and AusAID. From February 2007 to late 2009, Groundviews did not receive any funding from local or international sources. From late 2010 to date, core operational costs are met by funding from Ford Foundation. The Centre for Policy Alternatives is the institutional anchor for Groundviews, since its inception.

Groundviews Awards

In December 2007, Groundviews was awarded an Award of Excellence in New Communications from the Society for New Communications Research. It is the first and to date only civil society and media web initiative in Sri Lanka to have won a competitive international award for excellence in journalism and media. “Groundviews exemplifies the mission of this awards program: the successful and innovative use of new communications solutions and social media practices to enhance communications and relationships” commented Mike Manuel, SNCR Best Practices committee chairman.

In 2009, Groundviews won the prestigious Manthan Award South Asia. The grand jury’s evaluation of the site noted, “What no media dares to report, Groundviews publicly exposes. It’s a new age media for a new Sri Lanka… Free media at it’s very best!” oops forgot to signGettingthere (talk) 07:08, 17 September 2011 (UTC)

References

1. ^ Michael Roberts Papers, mainly on Sri Lanka. University of Adelaide Library
2. ^ Personhood and Suicidal Devotion to Cause: Kamikaze, Jihadist, Tiger. University Scholars Programme, 19 October 2006
3. Roberts, Michael, Caste conflict and elite formation : the rise of a Karava elite in Sri Lanka, 1500-1931 / Michael Roberts Cambridge University Press, Cambridge ; New York : 1982
4. Reviewed work. S.Arasaratnam, 1984
5. Roberts, Michael, and Raheem, Ismeth. and Colin-Thome, Percy. People inbetween / Michael Roberts, Ismeth Raheem, Percy Colin-Thome Sarvodaya Book Pub. Services, Ratmalana, Sri Lanka : 1989
6. Roberts, Michael, Exploring confrontation : Sri Lanka--politics, culture and history/ Michael Roberts, Harwood Academic Publishers. Chur, Switzerland: 1994
7. Roberts, Michael, and James, A. B. M. Crosscurrents: Sri Lanka and Australia at cricket/ by Michael Roberts and Alfred James Walla Walla Press and Mobitel, Petersham, N.S.W. : 1998
8. Sinhala consciousness in the Kandyan period, 1590s to 1815. Roberts Michael, 2004
9. Reviewed work. Alan Strathern, 2005
10. Michael Roberts. The Drum Opinion(Australian Broadcasting Corporation)

Daily Dot revisited

The prior discussion on this board about the Daily Dot can be found here.

I'm bringing this subject up again not to comment on the news site itself, which has blossomed since the prior section about it into a full news resource for online topics. No, I would like to instead revisit whether the author of certain articles, specifically ones on Encyclopedia Dramatica, can still be considered independent enough to be secondary and whether they might be slightly biased by fraternization. The author in question is Fruzsina Eordogh, who recently made a new article about ED.ch, which can be found here. One of Eordogh's IRC chats on ED.ch was recently unearthed (for full disclosure, by Eric Barbour on Misplaced Pages Review) and can be found here. Note: Eordogn is the user Zardoz in that IRC chat.

The issue I have with it is that one would expect some amount of professionalism from a reporter trying to write a news story. At some points in that IRC discussion (which appears to not have all comments from other parties in it) she does seem to have that respectability, but at many other points, she seems to be acting rather unprofessional and close to the subjects she's interviewing. It's one thing to be making a joke here and there while conducting an interview, which journalists do a lot of the time, but this seems to be a step beyond that.

What do the editors of RSN think? Silverseren 15:07, 12 September 2011 (UTC)

You said you don't want comments on the site itself. The IRC user appears to be 14 years old. That is my comment. --Odie5533 (talk) 10:16, 13 September 2011 (UTC)

I think you're watching the sausage being made. Reporters are people, with all people's quirks and foibles and flaws. They get to post stupid things on IRC without being automatically disqualified from being able to produce accurate unbiased content. --GRuban (talk) 13:14, 13 September 2011 (UTC)

Does it change things if I note that it is that same IRC channel, and likely an extension of that conversation there, where she is conducting her interviews? It's not like this chat is a separate thing she's doing in her free time. This is how she's acting while she's doing her job. Silverseren 16:05, 13 September 2011 (UTC)

What is your point? --Odie5533 (talk) 17:06, 13 September 2011 (UTC)

If I'm right, Silver seren's point is that in that transcript she's acting like one of the Encyclopedia Dramatica crew: immature. That makes for two possibilities: 1) It's a clever put-on to make her fit in. In which case she's a brilliant reporter. 2) She actually is immature, and a kindred soul to the Encyclopedia Dramatica crew, and is instead faking it when she writes sober prose. In that case, maybe we could view her reporting with a bit of a grain of salt, but only a bit, and only for the most controversial issues. Reporting on the site going down for a while doesn't seem to be that controversial. Consider that most of the reporters reporting on presidential elections plan to vote in those same elections, and many will have quite strong opinions if you catch them in a bar with a few drinks. Separating your personal views from the subject you're reporting on in what you write is a part of being a good reporter. That doesn't extend to behaving as if you have no personal views in general. Unless you believe she is actually an important contributing member of Encyclopedia Dramatica, merely sympathizing with them doesn't disqualify her from reporting on them for an otherwise reliable source. --GRuban (talk) 17:32, 13 September 2011 (UTC)

Is the idea here that user Silver seren believes articles written by Eordogh are not appropriate for use in Misplaced Pages articles? Silver seren has not properly stated his or her views or the possible outcomes of this discussion. --Odie5533 (talk) 20:39, 13 September 2011 (UTC)

I wouldn't comment on all of Eordogh's articles on the Daily Dot (or elsewhere, if she writes articles for other reliable sources), but at least in the instances of her articles on Encyclopedia Dramatica, it appears that she is not conducting herself or her interviews in a manner that one would consider them to be sufficiently reliable for use in our articles. The quotations, perhaps, but certainly not the information. And, as said below, the info in her ED articles is either stuff covered in other more reliable sources or is information that is not sufficiently important to ED's history and shouldn't be in the article anyways. Silverseren 00:42, 14 September 2011 (UTC)

I can't say that the IRC chat inspires much confidence in the neutrality of the reporting, but let's look at the specific of the article in question. First, some context - User:Michaeldsuarez is an ED admin and is using this Daily Dot article to insert information about Daniel Brandt into Encyclopedia Dramatica despite Brandt's off-wiki requests that he not do so. The Daily Dot article states "Brandt had filed repeated false abuse reports with ED’s perspective hosts" and "ED community says they think Brandt may be behind this outage as well". The only source for these claims is Encyclopedia Dramtica's owners, who themselves say they are not sure Brandt had anything to do with it. The piece also says that Brandt "writes for" an anonymous blog whose focus appears to be the former owners of ED. Brandt has stated elsewhere that his only connection to that blog is having communicated with the anonymous author(s). Michaeldsuarez knows this. Ignoring all of that, the fact remains that Daily Dot piece is about a temporary site outage. There is no need to include any of this in Misplaced Pages. Reliability aside, the type of thing covered by the Daily Dot is generally too specific and too "of the moment" to be likely to be useful. Delicious carbuncle (talk) 20:17, 13 September 2011 (UTC)

I think Brandt making a request for us to not include detail about him is fucking rich. But I'm inclined to agree that the content Michael wants to add is pretty marginal, irrespective of the reliability issue. I think we can wait for another source to corroborate the claim before adding it. Protonk (talk) 21:01, 13 September 2011 (UTC)

I didn't include any information about either outage in the article. I did include the line: "Moore reported difficulties in securing a host for the website," which is a reference to Moore's "We are blacklisted from most major hosts, because they know how shitty it is to host us" statement from the first article. I later add the second article as a reference as well, since Moore's "They just locked us out " comment reinforces the "hosting difficulties" concept. Using my editorial judgment, I decided not to discuss each specific incident. I did not include the Daily Dot's "Brandt had filed repeated false abuse reports with ED’s perspective hosts" or their "ED community says they think Brandt may be behind this outage as well." Again, this is due to my editorial judgment. Delicious carbuncle, you're complaining about information I didn't add.

The statements included in the Misplaced Pages article about josephevers.blogspot.com and Daniel Brandt are verifiable beyond Eordogh's own observations. The bulk of this material is in the last paragraph of the "Reception" section. Adrien Chen noted the blog's existence in January 2011. The next sentence in the paragraph is how the blog's operator describes his blog in his own words. The third sentence is the anonymous blogger's claim that he helped those who are harmed by ED. I can verify this with secondary sources, but I do have primary sources: , . There's also a comment by "Kevin Provance" in the second Daily Dot article's comments section (JavaScript is needed) that shows that josephevers.blogspot.com has been helping others. Although I used the word "claims" in the third sentence, it's more of a fact. The fourth sentence says that Moore considers josephevers.blogspot.com to be a "stalker blog". The first Daily Dot article includes a screenshot of the former "Wall of ED Administers" page once hosted by josephevers.blogspot.com, and that page included photos, locations, and birth dates.

The fifth and sixth sentences concern Brandt's role in the blog. In his own words that he submitted to Eordogh, Brandt denies being the operator, but he admits doing research for the blog's true operator. Brandt's own words shouldn't be considered unreliable. The seventh and eighth sentences concern the blog's role in shutting down the original ED. The "Wall of ED Administrators" screenshot shows the leverage the blogger had in pressuring ED. The ninth and tenth sentence can be verified by posts by Brandt on the Misplaced Pages Review (not linked to for privacy reasons). If you view the deletion log for the Daniel Brandt article on encyclopediadramatica.ch, you'll see that that article was indeed temporarily deleted. I only included creditable claims and statements in the Misplaced Pages article. The statements in the Daily Dot article that I merited inclusion in the Misplaced Pages are verifiable.

In addition, statements from both Daniel Brandt and josephevers.blogspot.com's anonymous operator are included in the first Daily Dot article (Brandt didn't comment for the second article). Unless there's a reason to believe that Brandt is lying, his statements in the article should be considered reliable for reference.

Delicious carbuncle suggested that I have a COI. My affiliation with ED isn't a secret. I edited at encyclopediadramatica.com under "Michaeldsuarez" from October 2009 to April 2010. I started to use a pseudonym in preparation to becoming a sysop in May. There's a message on my user page concerning my affiliation, and I've recently left a message at the top of Talk:Encyclopedia_Dramatica. I waited until reliable sources appeared and started a discussion before adding information on encyclopediadramatica.ch to the article. I was even in favor of blacklisting encyclopediadramatica.ch. I've told Delicious about my affiliation, yet he used "Fuller disclosure might be useful here" as an edit summary as if it were some major revelation he discovered. I have the feeling he used that line to grab the attention of watchers of this page.

I've been transparent, but how about you, Delicious carbuncle? You're a member of the Misplaced Pages Review, and members of that forum tend to idolize Brandt. You came to Talk:Encyclopedia_Dramatica several hours after Brandt began complaining about the Daily Dot and say "I don't want my name in Misplaced Pages." Delicious carbuncle was also one of the accused parties in the "Maniulation of BLPs" case. Perhaps someone else has a COI. --Michaeldsuarez (talk) 00:51, 14 September 2011 (UTC)

You are an admin on ED - your conflict of interest here is obvious. Your suggestion that I have a conflict of interest because I post on a public forum, along with many other Misplaced Pages editors and admins, seems far-fetched at best. Yes, it was the discussion on Misplaced Pages Review that lead me to look at the article in the first place but that is only relevant in that I am aware of what both you and Brandt have said there. I think your little rant here does a pretty good job of demostrating that you have no objectivity when it comes to ED, so I won't bother to add anything. Delicious carbuncle (talk) 02:14, 14 September 2011 (UTC)

That may be best. This exchange between you two is basically a diversion. If you want to continue it, take it to your talk pages. Protonk (talk) 03:39, 14 September 2011 (UTC)

A diversion from what, exactly? Why do you think Silver seren started this thread? It is all about the ED article. Delicious carbuncle (talk) 12:28, 14 September 2011 (UTC)

You and Michael arguing over who has the most lurid connection to some group outside wikipedia. That's the diversion. If you think the central issue at stake is Michael's admitted connection to ed, then go to the COI noticeboard and complain. I suspect you'll find precious little agreement. The issue here is the reliability of the source and more generally the value of the claim in our article. Protonk (talk) 16:20, 14 September 2011 (UTC)

Silver seren: What sort of outcome are you looking for from this discussion? Are you requesting that articles written for Daily Dot by Fruzsina Eordogh are not reliable? --Odie5533 (talk) 04:50, 14 September 2011 (UTC)

I suppose so, yes. Or, at least, they shouldn't be cited so extensively throughout the article. Silverseren 06:13, 14 September 2011 (UTC)

I can make neither head nor tail of this discussion, and I find it astonishing that anyone can draw conclusions from the (apparently incomplete -- maybe Zardoz replied publicly to private messages?) IRC log. So I looked at the ED article and searched for the name Brandt. I was shocked to find the server name of a blog mentioned there that contains crass outing information which at least borders on the criminal. There seem to be no explicit rules for dealing with this situation, but IMO this is little better than a link to the blog. I am therefore going to remove it per the spirit of WP:BLP. Hans Adler 06:40, 14 September 2011 (UTC)

For the record, that edit removed five instances of the blog's url from a single paragraph. Delicious carbuncle (talk) 12:35, 14 September 2011 (UTC)

I felt that it was best to use a concise name rather than wishywashily calling it "the blog". --Michaeldsuarez (talk) 14:58, 14 September 2011 (UTC)

There seems to be many issues here, most outside the scope of this board. I don't see the IRC log as having much, if any, bearing here. Misplaced Pages editors digging into the primary sources used by secondary sources reeks of WP:OR. If a reporter acting chummy with the locals to get information is all that has been found, this newspaper would seem to be well within the boundaries of ethical behavior. It seems more that the problems here lies in how the source is used on Misplaced Pages rather than the source itself. The overly detailed coverage of events seems to fall under both WP:WEIGHT (the level of detail gives undue weight to one event within the article) and WP:NOT (the level of detail borders on WP:INDISCRIMINATE and the echoing of hearsay clashes with both WP:GOSSIP and WP:SOAP) as well as WP:BLP issues with hearsay and accusations against named individuals. Siawase (talk) 11:01, 14 September 2011 (UTC)

As I've said on Talk:Encyclopedia_Dramatica, where this discussion belongs, the information is hardly trivial. I replaced "harassing" with "calling". Brandt doesn't deny calling her workplace in his statement to the Daily Dot and he even gave the interviewer his motivation for making the call (this motivation is repeated in WR posts), and he admits to calling her workplace on the Misplaced Pages Review. Perhaps I should remove "Moore also accused" part of the sentence, since Brandt did in fact make a call. Garrett's fiancee is also on Brandt's Misplaced Pages hivemind page, along her private information. If Delicious carbuncle wishes to point out which information is trivial, he may do so on Talk:Encyclopedia_Dramatica, and then consensus will decide what stays or goes. --Michaeldsuarez (talk) 15:52, 14 September 2011 (UTC)

The only reason the article doesn't have both parties is because Daniel Brandt refused to get back to them in time for publishing. Daniel Brandt is blackmailing us, stalking us and even harassing our families. Everything written in the DailyDot article is 100% truth. Brandy spends his days stalking and digging private information on other people, but when someone mentions his name on the Internet suddenly it is a violation of privacy. What's good for the goose is not good for the gander. He uses sites like Hivemind, Josephevers.blogspot and others to publicly invade the privacy of others and has been doing so for years. I can be reached using the email user function if anyone wants to know more. The Daily Dot is a reputable source, they just use a more humorous approach at journalism that is appealing to the Internet generation, while keeping the facts straight. This whole discussion is because Brandt didn't like the facts that were written in the article, so he asked silversion or whatever his name is to dispute it. It's all on Misplaced Pages Revue (Or at least it was, I am sure it has been deleted by now, as that is Brandts MO). --Zaiger (talk) 03:17, 15 September 2011 (UTC)

The Misplaced Pages Review discussion in question is here, though the current conversation starts a little bit down the third page. Earlier stuff is about Ryan Cleary, though Brandt does jump in pretty quickly. Do note that ED.ch is also getting information on Brandt, "doxing" him, and are doing the same thing back, so it's not like this is all one-sided with Brandt attacking them.

And i'm not following what Brandt asked of "any Misplaced Pages editor", since he wants someone to remove his name from the article and, apparently, to get the article deleted. The article is clearly not going to be deleted and I don't care at all about his name being in the article. All I care about is the IRC discussion that he linked that showed what I consider to be unprofessionalism by Eordogh and a lack of reliability in her reporting.

Oh, and do note that Zaiger above is an Administrator on Encyclopedia Dramatica.ch, which he was meaning by saying us, if someone didn't catch that. I'm not calling you out, Zaiger, since I know you meant to reveal this anyways. I'm just making sure no one else gets confused. Silverseren 03:56, 15 September 2011 (UTC)

I'm not sure how comfortable I am disqualifying a source because of some external communication. I don't think a parallel to JournoList is completely appropriate, but we ought to draw some lessons. Not all communication channels are created equal or imbued with the same sets of expectations. Protonk (talk) 04:54, 15 September 2011 (UTC)

I'm not quite clear on what you mean by an external conversation. I presume you aren't speaking in the Wiki meaning of it, since there isn't going to be an internal conversation Eordogh had. If you mean that her IRC chat was independent of her reporting, that would be incorrect, that exact chat was where she was conducting her interview for the second, new article she wrote. That right there IS her reporting. And the communication channel isn't the issue, it's the professionalism of a person while working as party for a news site. She appears to not have that while conducting her interviews, which brings into question her reliability in reporting information. Silverseren 16:44, 15 September 2011 (UTC)

I mean the IRC conversation. I'm not advocating mypoia, but our scrutiny should focus on the work itself (that is to say the daily dot). Further, I'm going to go on a limb and suggest that the IRC logs were published on WR and hosted on wikipedia watch for a reason and we would be remiss if we didn't consider that. Are we inventing a new standard for reliable sources here? Does the author have to "act professional" at all times now? Can we (again, just picking an inflammatory example a la JournoList) dismiss a book as a reliable source because the author is revealed to be a dick in emails with sources? Walking a little further with that hypothetical, what if those emails are leaked by a source/subject who is treated critically in the book? Can we trust that those emails represent the preponderance of the authors correspondance? Should we be worried about rewarding tactical posting of ex parte communication? Protonk (talk) 16:58, 15 September 2011 (UTC)

When they are in the midst of conducting their interviews? Yes, I would expect a reporter to be professional. A better example would be if a reporter was writing a story on two opposing companies. And it was later revealed that the transcript of the interview with one of those companies indicated a sort of fraternization that raised the question of whether the articles said reporter had wrote were biased toward one of those companies. I feel that that's true for these articles in question as well. Silverseren 16:17, 16 September 2011 (UTC)

Silver_seren, why haven't you objected to my participation in the Misplaced Pages article? Why am I meeting your standards, yet you're saying that Eordogh doesn't? --Michaeldsuarez (talk) 00:31, 17 September 2011 (UTC)

Were you a part of the interview she conducted? You editing the article doesn't mean you are referencing yourself for info. So I don't understand the comparison. Silverseren 16:03, 17 September 2011 (UTC)

No, she didn't interview me. I just concerned about a possible double standard. Why am I fit to edit the Misplaced Pages, yet you believe that Eordogh's articles are unfit for inclusion? What standards do you use to gauge the neutrality of my revisions? --Michaeldsuarez (talk) 17:55, 17 September 2011 (UTC)

You're comparing an editor and a reference, which are two completely different things. We expect you to follow WP:COI and properly utilize sources without violating NPOV or putting in original research. However, the reliability of a reference is tied to several things, one of which is the neutrality of the author in terms of the subject the reference is about. If the author is not neutral, then that brings into question the reliability of the source for the reported information. Silverseren 19:40, 17 September 2011 (UTC)

http://www.dailydot.com/ethics-policy/ – The Daily Dot has similar expectations for its journalists (with the exception of original research, of course). Eordogh restrains herself the same way I restrain myself. Everyone has personal views and tastes, as expected of any human being. I'm not a neutral editor, but the content I add to Misplaced Pages follows NPOV. Can't the same be said of Eordogh? Is the content of her articles not neutral? Isn't the way information is presented in those articles more important than how the information was obtained? Right now, you're only arguing about some IRC discussions and not about the content of the Daily Dot articles. --Michaeldsuarez (talk) 20:53, 17 September 2011 (UTC)

Just to clarify on Solver_seren's post: the discussion concerning the first Daily Dot article begins on the second page of the thread and continue into the third page (posts #24–#52). Posts concerning the second Daily Dot article begin on the third page and end on the fourth page (posts #60–#71). @Silver_seren: The Misplaced Pages article and the Daily Dot article already say that Moore posted Brandt's contact information on an IRC channel. Neither the Misplaced Pages article nor the first Daily Dot article (Brandt didn't wish to give a statement for the second Daily Dot article) is claiming that only one side is doing the doxing. If there's a perceived imbalance, then it's because Brandt refuses to open himself up to reporters; Brandt doesn't give reporters much material to work with. --Michaeldsuarez (talk) 18:40, 15 September 2011 (UTC)

East Azerbaijan

• Article: East Azerbaijan Province, Ardabil Province, ‎Hamadan, West Azerbaijan Province etc. ( )
• Source: http://www.azeri.dk/en/articles/summay_of_azerbaijan_history.pdf
• This is a paper without sources. I think this paper was prepared for the purpose of realizing Azerbaijani nationalist propaganda.

-- Takabeg (talk) 15:09, 12 September 2011 (UTC)

The paper is not a reliable source, it is clearly selfpublished and have comparable authority to a blog post.·ʍaunus·snunɐw· 01:39, 13 September 2011 (UTC)

• The paper appears unreliable. --Odie5533 (talk) 09:51, 13 September 2011 (UTC)

GameFAQs and Gamespot shared database

I am bringing this here as there seems to be a double-standard applied to the reliability of these at WikiProject video games. Both sites allow for user submissions and both require credible evidence to be shown before any changeds will be made aside from very obvious mistakes (like a video game remake being released in 1892 when its original was in 1988). However, recent the project found that GameFAQs was unreliable inspite the evidence of this critiera. However, inspite info from GameFAQs itself that they share the same database and evidence found by other members that Gamespot uses similar practices in asking members to find evidence for data, Gamespot is still considered reliable. The argument given by Odie5533 is that one cannot confirm that GameFAQs uses all the same material. My contention is that if they say they share databases, you should assume they do, unless stated otherwise. (I'll note that Odie5533 says we shouldn't use either, but both sources have been used to support many feature articles and lists, especially Gamespot and their seems to be community conensus there that Gamespot is reliable, but not GameFAQS inspite very clear evidence from the horses mouth that they share the info.

So I'd like to get this ironed out, are they both reliable or are neither reliable for that info?陣内_Jinnai 14:29, 13 September 2011 (UTC)

Could use some opinions here, especially as this could affect numerous feature articles and feature lists.陣内_Jinnai 19:47, 19 September 2011 (UTC)

Syfy.com

There is a dispute at the dispute resolution noticeboard about the Haven (TV series) article, in particular the references to the works of Steven King that are found in it. At the moment syfy.com is being used to source many of these claims. For instance, "http://www.syfy.com/haven/stephenking", "Derry and the titular Haven are both fictional cities in Maine previously used in the author's stories", and "one of the main characters receives a copy of a novel written by a character from King's novel, Misery". The videos on these pages are being used to back up the claims. From our article on Syfy, it seems that Syfy.com is more notable for publishing original science fiction than for journalism, although I think the fact that Syfy also runs Sci Fi Magazine is a good sign that they have an editorial board which checks facts. I can't find anything about the editorial process at their website though. I would be very grateful for other editors' input on this. Regards — Mr. Stradivarius 10:44, 14 September 2011 (UTC)

Syfy produces Haven (TV series), so they're clearly an authoritative source on it. --GRuban (talk) 11:38, 14 September 2011 (UTC)

• I found to back up the claim about Haven and by Brian J. Robb which backs up the claim about the prison. You should probably include both references to these reliable sources and references to the videos. I would try to find references to back up their little videos. I couldn't find a single author on the website anywhere which does not bode well for the site's reliability. --Odie5533 (talk) 11:42, 14 September 2011 (UTC)

Syfy is acting as a WP:PRIMARY source here (as they are publishing material on their own show) so the requirements for secondary sources do not apply (editorial factchecking etc) but the limitations within Misplaced Pages on the use of primary sources are what should be considered. Siawase (talk) 12:22, 14 September 2011 (UTC)

Aha, I missed the fact that they were the producers of the series. That's what comes of not reading the article properly before posting here - thanks for pointing it out. In that case I agree we can use it with the restrictions in WP:PRIMARY. — Mr. Stradivarius 12:49, 14 September 2011 (UTC)

music magazines

Two traditional german online music magazines: whiskey-soda and laut.de a reliable source for Tarja Turunen: "This deeper "rock"-sounding voice on Once—as well as on the song "In the Picture" of the album Into the Light—was welcomed by critics as a refreshing change."? --Pass3456 (talk) 19:24, 14 September 2011 (UTC)

Self pub clarification

Any help in explaining self-pub problems on Talk:Marian_apparition#Our_Lady_of_Good_Success will be appreciated. I am getting tired of reading policy pages to newbies. Thanks. History2007 (talk) 08:28, 15 September 2011 (UTC)

Can a biased author who lost a libel suit be a RS?

The author in question is the late Russian-American journalist Paul Klebnikov who wrote a highly critical article in Forbes about the Jewish-Russian tycoon Boris Berezovsky entitled 'Godfather of the Kremlin?' with the kicker 'Power. Politics. Murder. Boris Berezovsky could teach the guys in Sicily a thing or two.' In response, Berezovsky sued Forbes in the UK. The case was settled after Forbes agreed to publish the following retraction: 'On 6 March 2003 the resolution of the case was announced in the High Court in London. FORBES stated in open court that (1) it was not the magazine's intention to state that Berezovsky was responsible for the murder of Listiev, only that he had been included in an inconclusive police investigation of the crime; (2) there is no evidence that Berezovsky was responsible for this or any other murder; (3) in light of the English court's ruling, it was wrong to characterize Berezovsky as a mafia boss.(http://www.forbes.com/forbes/2003/0331/022.html )

When Klebnikov was murdered in 2004 obituaries in the Guardian (http://www.guardian.co.uk/news/2004/jul/16/guardianobituaries.pressandpublishing ) and Independent (http://www.independent.co.uk/news/obituaries/paul-klebnikov-550099.html ) noted a strain of anti-semitism in his reporting of prominent Jewish figures such as Berezovsky. Anna Isakova wrote in Haaretz: 'In Klebnikov's book, Berezovsky is depicted as a leech that depleted the homeland of all its riches. He represents absolute evil and is the primary enemy of the people... Klebnikov sees malicious damage in Berezovsky's every action. Although Klebnikov assiduously avoids the word "Jew," an aroma of old, almost religious, anti-Semitism emerges from each page in the book.'(http://www.haaretz.com/weekend/week-s-end/ogling-the-moguls-1.144261)

The question, which has been hotly debated in the talk page of the Berezovsky article and led to an edit war and the article being locked, is whether Klebnikov's writings can be considered to be a RS on Berezovsky.--Kolokol1 (talk) 16:12, 15 September 2011 (UTC)

• The fact that someone is accused of antisemitism does not make it true, and even if it were it would somehow invalidate everything that person ever wrote. any number of scholars and journalists get accused of being anti x y and x. Isakova's argument seems to be that if you severely criticise someone who happens to be Jewish you must be doing it because they are Jewish. the issue is is credibility as a journalist, not this obfuscation. Paul B (talk) 16:44, 15 September 2011 (UTC)
• I'm a bit of a mixed mind. English libel law is notoriously problematic, so the fact that Forbes decided to settle the case with a (very) partial retraction is not particularly significant (on the other hand, that a Russian citizen sued a US Magazine in English court is at least suggestive). The Guardian article does not make allegations of anti-semitism, it reports that "some Moscow reviewers alleged an anti-semitic bias" without endorsing this opinion. The same is true for the Independent. And Klebnikov has been recognized with a number of honors. --Stephan Schulz (talk) 16:47, 15 September 2011 (UTC)

In a case like this we risk being non-neutral, and so our concerns about a source's bias can best be balanced by also reporting, as neutrally as possible, some of the context that might put the source in doubt. The aim is to let the readers know as much as we know (and can verify).--Andrew Lancaster (talk) 17:01, 15 September 2011 (UTC)

• Koloko11, I suggest more caution regarding the labeling of someone as "anti-semitic," especially labeling a living person in that manner (though this individual is no longer living as I just found out). "Someone accused of antisemitism" would be preferable for many reasons, including the lessening of apparent bias in your view of this individual. Cheers.Griswaldo (talk) 17:02, 15 September 2011 (UTC)

Accepted. I changed the tite--Kolokol1 (talk) 10:14, 18 September 2011 (UTC)

Klebnikov as murdered in 2004, so WP:BLP concerns do not apply. I agree with the rest of the statement, though. --Stephan Schulz (talk) 17:05, 15 September 2011 (UTC)

Doh. Yes of course, I'll amend.Griswaldo (talk) 17:40, 15 September 2011 (UTC)

comment: If the article was retracted, I would be very careful about citing significant content to it. It's not up to us to sift through the reasons for retraction and determine that such was done for illegitimate reasons. If the content in the article is worthy of inclusion, there should be other secondary sources which discuss it. Those should generally be used instead. If there are no such other sources, it may be possible to include the fact that such an article was written and retracted, with a one sentence description of what the content covered. aprock (talk) 17:09, 15 September 2011 (UTC)

Apparently, only one claim of the article was retracted, the rest still stands. But I think this discussion is about Klebnikov in general, who also wrote at least two books, at least one of which seems to be germane. --Stephan Schulz (talk) 17:12, 15 September 2011 (UTC)

If Klebnikov is the only one writing about the topic, it raises issues of due weight. It would be much better to find multiple secondary sources on which to base the content. If the same content is discussed in the multiple sources, then citing it to them sounds fine, as long as the retracted stuff is not cited. aprock (talk) 17:24, 15 September 2011 (UTC)

• A retracted article cannot be a reliable source - the article was retracted for a reason by the publisher. Basically wikimedia foundation would open themselves up to lawsuits by repeating material that had already been retracted by another publisher. The article can not that the article was published, followed by a lawsuit and the outcome of the lawsuit. But we cannot base characterizations of living persons on retracted articles.·ʍaunus·snunɐw· 17:12, 15 September 2011 (UTC)

I concur, and Boris Berezovsky is alive, so there is a BLP issue in regard to him--any material retracted by the publisher is out of bounds as a source. As for books by Klebnikov, they may be reliables sources, but if bias is established, care would need to be taken to distinguish facts from opinions and due weight observed for all of the material. --Nuujinn (talk) 17:16, 15 September 2011 (UTC)

In response to the matters raised:

• Klebnikov repeated the retracted allegations in a book (which came out before the case was settled). Berezovsky sued in regard to the article but not the book, so my question concerns not so much the article itself but the retracted content.
• No one else, except Klebnikov made these allegations, so they cannot be sourced elsewhere.
• IMO, It is not relevant whether or not Klebnikov was an ant-semite. What's important is that there is a notable record of concerns about that.

BTW, I should say that I am connected to Berezovsky and, since the libel issue is involved, at the request of a WP administrator I have declared that I have no intention of taking any legal actionAgainst WP or its editors over this matter, per WP:NLT#Perceived legal threats.--Kolokol1 (talk) 10:50, 18 September 2011 (UTC)

Change.org

Is an article from Change.org considered to be a reliable source? The specific article in question is . Angryapathy (talk) 16:16, 15 September 2011 (UTC)

Change.org's posts appear to be primarily of the opinion type - and, at best, citable as the opinion of the author. Cheers. Collect (talk) 17:27, 15 September 2011 (UTC)

Is this a reliable source

Is anthonyflood.com a reliable source for this content:

Conservative, libertarian and neoliberal arguments against property redistribution consider the term a euphemism for theft, and argue that redistribution of legitimately obtained property cannot ever be just.

Somedifferentstuff (talk) 20:14, 15 September 2011 (UTC)

• Probably not, as it seems to be a personal site. On that specific claim there are dozens of published books making similar claims, many available on google books. Protonk (talk) 22:53, 15 September 2011 (UTC)

Oxford University Press Academic Insights for the Thinking World blog

Is the Oxford University Press's Academic Insights for the Thinking World blog acceptable as a reliable source? In particular, content from this contribution which is being discussed at Talk:Teribus ye teri odin. 91.5.39.201 (talk) 21:11, 15 September 2011 (UTC)

As ever - it apears all etymlogies are is opinion, and sourced and attributed opinions seem fair game. No living person involved, to be sure <g>. Collect (talk) 21:21, 15 September 2011 (UTC)

Political Research Associates

Political Research Associates (Website)seems to be a WP:SPS by Chip Berlet. While his work may be WP:RS when published by a third party, his site is another story. I am somewhat dubious about his reliability when one of the pages labels an individual as a "Fascist Demagogue." Usually highly derogatory labels like that indicate unreliable opinionated websites with agendas. That being said... Looking through the archives here at RSN, there seems be some Misplaced Pages politics here as well. It seems Mr. Berlett was a Wikipedian at one point and previous discussions in 2007 either included him or a certain banned user. Needless to say Berlett found his site reliable and the banned user found it dubious.

Neither discussion seemed conclusive on the Political Research Associates and mentioned them tangentially rather than specifically. Since 2007, We have tightened many policies involving living person and both editors have left thus the topic seem relevant to raise again. I have ask ya'll is it reliable for our purposes in general and specifically BLPs? The Resident Anthropologist (talk)•(contribs) 01:54, 16 September 2011 (UTC)

This source is certainly questionable but I don't like blanket bans based on ideology rather than editorial standards. In the archive discussion Berlet claimed he has editorial supervision. Is there a specific quote under consideration? Brmull (talk) 02:28, 16 September 2011 (UTC)

I agree, ideological stance does not invalidate a source. I merely noted the "Fascist Demagogue" comment as unusual for a WP:RS. I am unfamiliar with the organization or their editorial polices and am seeking guidance. The Resident Anthropologist (talk)•(contribs) 02:52, 16 September 2011 (UTC)

You missed one.

• Misplaced Pages:Reliable_sources/Noticeboard/Archive_11#EIR_vs_PRA

In those discussions, note that user:Niels Gade, user:Marvin Diode, and user:Terrawatt were all later blocked as socks of the same banned user. In regard to the discussion here, Chip Berlet has said here, and the website supports him, that he is an employee of the organization, not its founder or head. It is not an SPS. Of course, questions about reliable sources may depend on the details and context. What assertion is being cited from which publication, written by whom?   Will Beback  talk  06:36, 16 September 2011 (UTC)

As for "fascist demagogue", the subject in question is called "fascist" by many who study him. Here's a book which seems to endorse Berlet and Bellman's analysis: On the edge: political cults right and left. It's a fairly mainstream view. "Demagogue" is rarer, but I see this this book uses the entire term: Socialist feminism, the first decade, 1966-76.   Will Beback  talk  06:45, 16 September 2011 (UTC)

Interviews with directors/producers performed by maintainers of fan sites

For My Little Pony: Friendship is Magic, the key maintainers of the show's largest fan blog/news site Equestria Daily secured two exclusive interviews with the show's director and associate director. As an SPS, I would normally consider the site unreliable in regards to news posts even though they are accurate (I tried to find collaborating info from more reliable, non-fan sites), but here is material that likely is not going to be found elsewhere (we're talking about a cable show normally for kids that has found a strange internet following, not something on broadcast prime time) and would be useful for expanding the show's development. The interviews as given by the site do have some facts that we know to collaborate with other sites (for example, the interview with creative director Lauren Faust has her tell of how she got involved with the show, which matches 100% in accuracy from a similar statement she made to another, more reliable interviewer/news source several months ago. There is no reason to doubt the ED folks themselves (eg: I don't think they faked the interview, as they have been trustworthy of info in the past, marking rumors/speculation as such, but that's it for their history of fact checking). --MASEM (t) 11:46, 16 September 2011 (UTC)

Sounds fine to use the interview. Most news sites won't use factual information from less trustworthy sites, but they make an exception for interviews since unless the site is really low and faked it, the interview is the similar to SPS from the person that was interviewed. Also, My Little Pony? Really? --Odie5533 (talk) 16:06, 16 September 2011 (UTC)

It *is* a surprisingly good cartoon (the creative people behind it are veterans of cross-generational animated shows like Powerpuff Girls and Foster's Home..., and it shows in this cartoon. This has, as you'll noted in the WP article, created a massive following of adults that love this show; ergo, it is getting some mainstream attention, but detailed interviews like this would normally go the wayside...) --MASEM (t) 17:40, 16 September 2011 (UTC)

What makes an interview (assuming it's not a hoax) be "reliable" is really the person being interviewed. (What makes it an indication of notability, on the other hand, is the journalist doing the interview: Half an hour with a fan is zero out of ten points; half an hour with Barbara Walters is a perfect ten.)

Look at {{Cite interview}} to see a typical way of citing interviews. WhatamIdoing (talk) 23:23, 16 September 2011 (UTC)

Equestria Daily has come up here several times before (look in the archives.) If I recall correctly previous consensus was basically that given the history of the creators of the show giving exclusives to Equestria Daily (and Equestria Daily being cited by news outlets) the material the site gets directly from the creators can be taken at face value (there is no reason to believe Equestria Daily is misrepresenting it) and used as WP:PRIMARY material. Siawase (talk) 23:51, 16 September 2011 (UTC)

Conversion to uncited calendar in Hebrew calendar

In this edit 86.135.240.243 has restored a section which shows conversions between the Hebrew calendar and Exigian calendar (whatever that is). There is no citation showing that the Exigian exists, or if it exists, that it is sufficiently widely used to preferred over the Gregorian calendar as a target for conversion. Jc3s5h (talk) 17:55, 16 September 2011 (UTC)

See WP:DISPUTE. This board is to determine the reliability of sources. It looks like User:Elockid is handling it. --Odie5533 (talk) 18:28, 16 September 2011 (UTC)

The Daily Mail?

Just wanted to ensure that this is a reliable source. - Jack Sebastian (talk) 19:16, 16 September 2011 (UTC)

The Daily Mail is a tabloid with a reputation (deserved) for making crap up. Only reliable for the day of the week: . AndyTheGrump (talk) 19:25, 16 September 2011 (UTC)

A slight exaggeration. As it says right at the top of this page, a source usually isn't either reliable or not (with the possible exception of the Weekly World News), it depends what it's being cited for. While it does have some reputation for making up sensational stories, it is a newspaper with real journalists working there. It should not be used unconfirmed for anything controversial, but if you want to use it for something not controversial or in dispute, such as the city someone was born, I don't see why that should be ruled out out of hand. What's the fact it's being used to cite, and what's the context? --GRuban (talk) 19:38, 16 September 2011 (UTC)

It's a newspaper, therefore it's not reliable. See Andrew Marr, My Trade for examples of journalists making shit up on a regular basis.

ALR (talk) 19:40, 16 September 2011 (UTC)

All together now. ******This question has come up before.****** See the archives, or per GRuban give us some details. Itsmejudith (talk) 19:53, 16 September 2011 (UTC)

I had checked, Itsmejudith - and it was rpetty much a macrocosm of what was presented here - people either disenchanted with news in its entirety or specific examples being reliable or not. The item in question appears to be a story about Karen Gillian wandering about naked in a NY hotel or some such. I am having trouble finding independent corroboration. - Jack Sebastian (talk) 20:28, 16 September 2011 (UTC)

It is WP:RS. That said, I find almost so source which is always reliable when it comes to "celebrity gossip" etc. - even the New York Times is errant on such fluff. In fact, I think "sensational gossip' in toto whould be bareed from any BLP articles. Period. Collect (talk) 21:04, 16 September 2011 (UTC)

See also Evening Standard , and Daily Express if this is the issue? I think they corroborate the Daily Mail bit, and the Daily Mail is likely the most respectable of the group. Collect (talk) 21:10, 16 September 2011 (UTC)

It's time to look at how these newspapers get their news. Top story on the DM website right now is the miners' tragedy. Virtually identical to the BBC, not surprising, all comes from the police reports and/or the wires. Such stories account for about 25% of the DM content. Totally reliable but then there is no reason why not to source the same story to a broadsheet or broadcast. Next comes the stories that are 100% reliable, based on press releases or the wires, but more trivial and more prominent than they are in the broadsheets. That's the next 25%. Then the next 25% is stories that are reliable but are even more trivial gossip; some of them are clearly features or op-ed rather than news. Finally 25% that are junk celebrity tittle-tattle and per Andy may be actually invented. Basically, proper investigative journalism costs money, a lot of money. It costs very little to carry the main stories of the day in the same way as the other papers. It doesn't cost much to pick up minor stories and spin them. And it doesn't cost much to write up fluff as if it were important. DM never reliable for science or medicine. Evening Standard does carry some London-specific stories and can be excellent for arts reviews, brilliant for restaurant reviews, slightly less trivial than DM even as a freesheet. D Express is a joke. Itsmejudith (talk) 21:59, 16 September 2011 (UTC)

I think there are two main issues. The first is that much of what appears in the newspapers is "single sources", essentially they're all regurgitating the same story from the same place. So whilst there are "multiple, independent sources" in practice they're neither.

The second issue is the evidence that journalists make stories up. I mentioned Marr above, he's talked about a number of instances where stories were fabricated, and given recent revelations about the conduct of journalists it's pretty clear that newspapers really can't be trusted.

ALR (talk) 22:12, 16 September 2011 (UTC)

Unfortunately, if your point is that all newspapers can't be trusted, it's not a very good one. We've decided to cover politics and current events and celebrities, and you'd be surprised how few peer-reviewed science magazines write about those. If you have an argument about the Daily Mail specifically, we'll be glad to hear it, but if your only argument is one that would serve to disqualify the Times and the Washington Post and the Wall Street Journal in the same breath, it may be true, but won't really be useful for most of our topics. --GRuban (talk) 22:44, 16 September 2011 (UTC)

I think you capture the issue in your final sentence. It may be true that newspapers can't be trusted, but we use them anyway.

The question then becomes, "are we interested in volume of sources or quality of sources"? Personally I'd be more interested in quality, and how they're used, than numbers. That said, there has never been the appetite in the segment that frequent this area of Misplaced Pages to actually address source assessment; Are we looking at a source that's corroborated, or are we looking at multiple instances of the same information. Worse, are we looking at multiple instances of the same press-release and treating it as a secondary assessment.

We have a very simplistic approach to sourcing, and as ou point out it provides the basis for many articles. I don't anticipate any appetite to actually treat sourcing as a tool when it's a perfectly "adequate" crutch.

ALR (talk) 08:39, 17 September 2011 (UTC)

As we say in Misplaced Pages talk:Identifying reliable sources/FAQ, there is no source that is always unreliable. In addition to the fine example of use that Andy gives above, I add that The Daily Mail is a perfectly fine source if the question you are answering is something like, "What was the headline at the top of page 3 in The Daily Mail on such-and-such date?" Additionally, its masthead will be a reliable source of the names of at least some of the people who should be blamed for its content.

So that's three entirely separate uses for which that newspaper could be considered a reliable source. WhatamIdoing (talk) 23:15, 16 September 2011 (UTC)

You should provide the specific context where you wish to use the paper. If a story is only covered in the Daily Mail, then it lacks notability. Editorials do not have the same standards as news articles. Opinions expressed by reporters in news articles should not be considered facts. Reliable sources may contain errors. Articles written decades ago may be too old to be used. Newspapers should not be used as sources for medical claims. TFD (talk) 18:41, 17 September 2011 (UTC)

That would be a notabiltiy issue, but as its been copverd by oterh sources its irrelevant. Anotehr source , lwts have a non-UK source, so yes its notable, yes its accurate, yes (in this instance) the Mail is RS.Slatersteven (talk) 19:23, 17 September 2011 (UTC)

Patrin and Hammer to Nail

• Is Hammer to Nail a reliable source for commentary on indi movies? The site is prominent in the indi circuit. It was co-founded by Ted Hope, one of the prominent figures in the scene Its editors are notable enough to have pages in indieWire too. In particular, Michael Nordine, who wrote the review for Korkoro, also writes for LA Weekly and Slant Magazine(LA, Slant and indieWire). Another indi movie magazine, Filmmaker (magazine) quite often features Hammer to Nail reviews such as this. I was also able to find this review published in Film Independent's website, which presents the Independent Spirit Awards. It is also not so uncommon to find Hammer to Nail's comments listed in the press releases of movies along with mainstream magazines. So, can we use Hammer to Nail for indi movie articles?

• Patrin is widely recognised as a reliable source by the academics for Roma studies. With google, I was able to find lots of academic papers using Patrin as a source, such as this University of Arizona paper and this Oxford paper. Stanford university lists Patrin as a reliable source for information on ethnic conflicts. Lots of books on the Roma have used Patrin as a source. (1, 2, 3, 4 and 5). United Nations High Commission for Refugees recognises this as a reliable source. There have been articles on BBC and Natgeo too, using Patrin as a source. So, is Patrin a reliable source for articles on Roma history?

Thanks _morelMW 02:18, 17 September 2011 (UTC)

I see no problem with Patrin's credentials as a source. From what I can see, Hammer to Nail has a fixed staff and editorial oversight, which would elevate above being considered a blog/fansite. That would satisfy me as to its reliability. Though, to be fair, I'm not exactly an expert so another opinion might also be useful if anyone wanted to agree with me or dispute me. GRAPPLE X 05:04, 20 September 2011 (UTC)

Poll: Should Equestria Daily be fully considered as a legitmate source?

I'd like to take a moment and ask you to look at this poll concerning the use of Equestria Daily as a legitmate source.

Thanks, Rainbow Dash !xmcuvg2MH 00:48, 18 September 2011 (UTC)

Why? Polls are of no relevance when determining the reliability of a source. AndyTheGrump (talk) 00:56, 18 September 2011 (UTC)

Rainbow has also posted this at WP:ANI. I can't figure out what he's trying to achieve. The "essay" feels more like a hoax than anything else.--Bbb23 (talk) 01:03, 18 September 2011 (UTC)

PopCrush and Ultimateclassicrock.com

• Im starting a discussion here to determine these article's reliability before i start using them in articles; as ive seen Popcrush being used a number or times recently. The intended use is in "What Baby Wants".

Matthew Wilkening

"He's previously written for the Cleveland Scene, AOL Radio Blog and Asylum.com. Before that, he worked most of his adult life at indie label What Are Records?" So he has established credits and Music knowledge.

Matt Wardlaw

"a music lifer with nearly 20 years of experience in the industry. His byline has appeared in the Riverfront Times (St. Louis), Popdose, Cleveland Scene" Again, good credentials and experience in the music scene itself.

Amy Sciarretto

"Amy Sciarretto has enjoyed 17 years of bylines in print and on the web for Kerrang! Spin, Revolver, Alternative Press, Noisecreep, Spinner, ARTISTdirect and Teen People, to name a few. Google her and you'll see she's an expert on rock, metal, pop, movies and cosmetics." Same as the two above.

Sara D. Anderson

Sara D. Anderson is a deputy editor residing in Manhattan. Previously, she was Editor-in-Chief for AOL Radio Blog and wrote for Fast Company.

Now i have brought this here because not every author on both websites list their credentials, the four above are reliable but I'm not sure if their credentials are enough to deem both websites reliable. They cross promote each other because one is a pop website and the other is rock. I also brought this here because they are self published, they have no backing like The New York Times as their publisher. So with all that said, please share your thoughts and lets get a consensus. (FYI these sources need to meet WP:GA standard if you agree with me that they are reliable.) - (CK)Lakeshade - talk2me - 07:58, 18 September 2011 (UTC)

ChannelAPA.com

Is ChannelAPA.com a reliable source, particularly http://www.channelapa.com/2011/04/to-whom-it-may-concern-ka-shens-journey-nancy-kwan-documentary.html? Cunard (talk) 09:43, 18 September 2011 (UTC)

This looks like a reliable source for information about the film and biographical information related to Nancy Kwan. --FormerIP (talk) 19:55, 18 September 2011 (UTC)

My only qualms are that (1) there is no author listed and (2) ChannelAPA.com accepts press releases. Is this article a press release? Cunard (talk) 20:08, 18 September 2011 (UTC)

An RS doesn't have to have a byline, and all news organisations accept press releases. If there's particular content you feel needs a stronger source then that might raise a new issue, but I think this passes basic RS requirements. --FormerIP (talk) 20:11, 18 September 2011 (UTC)

Okay. As the information there is uncontroversial, I'll use the source in an article about the documentary. Cunard (talk) 20:15, 18 September 2011 (UTC)

• ChannelAPA.com has no indication that it has a reputation for fact-checking and accuracy and does not appear to be a reliable source. From here, they appear to not staff any editors making them fall under self-published sources which can not be used for facts. Please do not use this site on any Misplaced Pages article for factual content. --Odie5533 (talk) 22:04, 18 September 2011 (UTC)

• I agree that a lack of editorial oversight indicates that the source is unreliable. In that case, since it's a self-published, questionable source, I will have to remove it from my draft. Cunard (talk) 00:00, 19 September 2011 (UTC)

Does labeling an article a "Fact Sheet" make it one?

Is Galili, Shooky (July 4, 2007). "Falafel fact sheet". Ynet News. Retrieved February 6, 2011 considered to be a reliable source to support and conclude the statement, “Israeli entrepreneurs brought falafel to Europe and the United States sometime in the 1970s”, found in the article Falafel? The source itself does not cite any studies, scholarly consensus, or historical fact. Moreover, the writer of the article has no expertise in the field of the expansion of cuisine into other counties. From Galili, Shooky‘s own bio, he is rather a Content Specialist & SEO Consultant with a background in IT and a BA, Bsc, in Political Science & Computer Science. This concerns a discussion to strike the sentence from the article as argued in the discussion page Talk:Falafel - Subheading "Dispute over statement, "Israeli entrepreneurs brought falafel to Europe and the United States sometime in the 1970s." and citation". Please weigh in. Thanks. Veritycheck (talk) 12:33, 18 September 2011 (UTC)

It does seem to be an artciel published in a news orgnaisation. The source however does not say 'entrepreneurs', so that is a mis-representation.Slatersteven (talk) 13:15, 18 September 2011 (UTC)

If it was up to me, I'd modify WP:RS to exclude history appearing in newspapers unless the article is written by a historian or quotes a historian. I've seen far too many newspaper claims about history that are wrong, and also these days journalists tend to look up Misplaced Pages for history instead of doing real research. Unfortunately (or fortunately, if you prefer), it isn't up to me and this one counts as a reliable source according to the rules. However, (1) Slatersteven is correct that introduction of "entrepreneurs" is original research, (2) since people seem to have found evidence contrary to this newspaper article, it would be safer to cite it as an opinion of the author. Zero 14:22, 18 September 2011 (UTC)

What Veritycheck failed to mention about the author, Shooky Galili (whose name he reversed), is that he was a culture reporter for Yedioth Ahronoth, one of Israel's largest newspapers and the publisher of Ynet. He wasn't writing as a computer consultant. — Malik Shabazz /_Stalk 20:47, 18 September 2011 (UTC)

This is the sort of journalistic overview on history of a foodstuff that would normally constitute a good source for a food article. However, the national identity of some foods in the Middle East has become grossly overpoliticised. This author actually refers to obliquely to that, and he's clearly at pains to be quite even handed. It's still not ideal, not because of any bias or bad faith by the author, but because it is rapid, unsourced, and could recycle errors. I would like to see better sources found, i.e. works by historians. Historians of food is perhaps too much to ask for? Itsmejudith (talk) 21:05, 18 September 2011 (UTC)

I've made a comment on the talk page. I agree with Zero above, newspapers are normally unreliable when they do history -- it's not their job -- and a good encyclopedia will eventually recognise the fact :)

This is an extreme case, because we're relying on a newspaper that's on one side of a political divide, and we're relying on it for history that any journalist might find it hard to research properly (the history of the food trade in two other continents 40 years ago). If our rules tell us that such a source is reliable, our rules are our weak point here. Andrew Dalby 09:16, 20 September 2011 (UTC)

The question is always "reliable for what". Food historians or anthropologists would be better sources, and a newspaper article should have little weight by comparison. I'm not familiar with Israeli newspapers, but the culture sections of most US newspapers are very weak in terms of quality of reporting. --Nuujinn (talk) 10:42, 20 September 2011 (UTC)

Mustangs Mustangs

This source is given in the The Galloping Ghost (airplane) article, along with another one from the same website. I can find no reason why this website would be considered reliable, unless it's somehow a primary source for the Air Show, which I missed somehow? Silverseren 17:50, 18 September 2011 (UTC)

its an anonymous site. I can't find any information on it about who they are. At this time its a bit suspect. http://www.fantasyofflight.com/mustangs-and-mustangs/ its an aor show it would appear.Slatersteven (talk) 18:40, 18 September 2011 (UTC)

Did the Galloping Ghost compete in the show though? It doesn't appear to be the same show as the Reno Air Show, so it wouldn't count as a primary source for the information. I still question it's reliability. The source for its information about the history of the Galloping Ghost since WWII is in question. Silverseren 19:21, 18 September 2011 (UTC)

I suspect its RS only for information abvoutitslef.Slatersteven (talk) 19:50, 18 September 2011 (UTC)

I don't believe that the "Mustangs and Mustangs" show has anything to do with MustangsMustangs.com. MustangsMustand.com belongs to Curtis Fowles, who may be the owner of C.F. Fowles Construction. --Michaeldsuarez (talk) 20:28, 18 September 2011 (UTC)

...which I assume has absolutely nothing to do with an air show, so it's essentially like a hobby website? I think that would definitely disqualify it from being a RS. Silverseren 20:37, 18 September 2011 (UTC)

http://www.mustangsmustangs.com/p-51/contact.php – You could try contracting him for the straightest answer. --Michaeldsuarez (talk) 20:50, 18 September 2011 (UTC)

If this were the case I would agree, It seems to be an SPS..Slatersteven (talk) 20:51, 18 September 2011 (UTC)

Dog Whisperer

An editor has deleted the information that I added from these sources, saying they are all "self published".

• Walsh, Froma (2009). "Human-Animal Bonds II: The Role of Pets in Family Systems and Family Therapy". Family Process (Family Process Institute) 48 (4): 462–480. doi:10.1111/j.1545-5300.2009.01296.x.

Walsh, Froma Family Process:

• Greenebaum, Jessica B (2010). "Training Dogs and Training Humans: Symbolic Interaction and Dog Training". Anthrozoos (International Society for Anthrozoology (ISAZ)) 23 (2): 129–141. ISSN 0892-7936.

Jessica Greenebaum Anthrozoos

• Jackson-Schebetta, Lisa (2009). "Mythologies and Commodifications of Dominion in The Dog Whisperer with Cesar Millan". Journal for Critical Animal Studies (Institute for Critical Animal Studies (ICAS)) 7 (1): 107-130. ISSN 1948-352X.

Jackson-Schebetta, LisaJournal for Critical Animal Studies

• Herron, Meghan E.; Shofer, Frances S. , Reisner, Ilana R. (2009). "Survey of the use and outcome of confrontational and non-confrontational training methods in client-owned dogs showing undesired behaviours". Applied Animal Behaviour Science (International Society for Applied Ethology (ISAE)) (117): 47–54. ISSN 0168-1591.

Meghan HerronApplied Animal Behaviour Science

Can I please get another opinion on whether they are reliable sources? Thanks Marj (talk) 20:26, 18 September 2011 (UTC)

These do not appear to be self-published sources. The editor that has told you that research papers come under WP:SPS is not correct. I can see from the talkpage that there may be other issues, such as whether the papers actually mention the Dog Whisperer show, which is another matter. But the material passes RS. --FormerIP (talk) 21:15, 18 September 2011 (UTC)

Thank you. The papers do all specifically mention the Dog Whisperer. The material cited is accurate and contains no original research Marj (talk) 21:21, 18 September 2011 (UTC)

Yes, my statement that the sources were under SPS may have been in error, however, sources that 'guess' about the respondent's statements is the real issue. Dreadstar ☥ 06:10, 19 September 2011 (UTC)

The report that said that while only one respondent named the Dog Whisperer, the authors assumed all people reporting on using the "schhhtt" sound were referring to it. This is not contentious - Millan is closely associated with this technique, and even releases it as a ring tone. In any case I edited the entry to report only the one definite connection before it was deleted. This was one of four articles referenced, all of which were deleted.Marj (talk) 19:11, 19 September 2011 (UTC)

As was said above, these papers aren't self-published and should qualify as reliable. The fact that the authors made an assumption on one detail would (a priori) have been noted, and accepted as reasonable, by the editors and reviewers of the journals before they passed the papers for publication. We would normally rely on their judgment, at least to the extent of citing the papers and noting that the assumption was made. So I can't see the justification for deleting this material from our article. Andrew Dalby 19:46, 19 September 2011 (UTC)

Yes, it's been agreed that the source isn't SPS, but instead a primary source, so the discussion has moved on to how or if we need to use the source in the article; it isn't "one" detail, it is 'the detail' in how the subject of the article is referenced. A major "detail". The discussion has moved on. Dreadstar ☥ 22:58, 19 September 2011 (UTC)

Except, of course a journal article is not a Primary Source. The researcher uses primary sources, which is quite a different matter. Marj (talk) 23:22, 19 September 2011 (UTC)

Of course it's a primary source. It's a research paper that asks questions and gathers data, it is not a secondary reliable analysis of that data. Dreadstar ☥ 23:27, 19 September 2011 (UTC)

• This looks like a job for Misplaced Pages:Fringe theories/Noticeboard. --Odie5533 (talk) 14:43, 19 September 2011 (UTC)

Involved editor: In fact the content was moved to the talk page pending discussion which is ongoing. There were several concerns with the content and the best way to deal with that seems to be to take each source separately and check it. (olive (talk) 22:50, 19 September 2011 (UTC))

Reference for year when Edward Feigenbaum received his Ph.D

Hi, Based on a recent change of the year when Prof. Feigenbaum received his Ph.D in the article on Edward Feigenbaum, I found some conflicting references. So I send an email to the Mathematics Genealogy Project how they came to their year 1960, although different other good references mentioned 1959. I received a confirmation from their source that "Prof. Feigenbaum received his degree in 1960 although he completed and likely defended his thesis in 1959", based on checking the two copies the Hunt library has of the Ph.D dissertation of Prof. Feigenbaum.

Dougweller (talk) suggested to check here if the used sources are ok. Mitch Keller from the Mathematics Genealogy Project was mentioning in his email the primary sources ProQuest Dissertations and Theses and the Carnegie Mellon University Library Catalog. Both are telling 1960 as the year for Feigenbaum's Ph.D. Are this considered reliable sources for Misplaced Pages? If yes, has somebody of you access to the ProQuest database to provide me the full reference details? I have no access :( So I can update the article. -- SchreyP 18:01, 19 September 2011 (UTC)

Yes, ProQuest Dissertations and Theses shows a publication year of 1960 for his dissertation/thesis. That seems sufficient to me unless this is a contentious issue. If it is contentious, simply state that some sources state 1959 and others 1960. It doesn't seem very likely to me that someone would be awarded a degree prior to the acceptance of their final thesis or dissertation but I don't know how the publication date is established and if it differs from the date on which the document was accepted by the university. If other authors have looked into that and established 1959 as the year in which he was awarded his degree then that seems more reliable than going by the date of publication because of the assumptions involved. ElKevbo (talk) 18:13, 19 September 2011 (UTC)

I'm not sure if this is a contentious issue. The email I received from Mathematics Genealogy Project mentions also:

"We have two copies of his dissertation at the Hunt Library both dated October 9th, 1959. However, one of the copies includes an additional page that includes signatures of acceptance and approval by the thesis supervisor as well as the dean of the school dated September 9th, 1960 and January 26th, 1960 respectively. The first copy was published in 1959 and the second in 1960. It is safe to say that Prof. Feigenbaum received his degree in 1960 although he completed and likely defended his thesis in 1959. ... Sincerely, Hunt Reference."

Based on this, the Mathematics Genealogy Project keeps the Ph.D year on 1960. Is this considered contentious?

Next could you provide a referenceID for his dissertation/thesis in ProQuest Dissertations and Theses that I can use as reference? Thanks, SchreyP 18:46, 19 September 2011 (UTC)

The ProQuest Document ID is 301899261 and the Document URL is http://ezproxy.lib.indiana.edu/login?url=http://search.proquest.com/docview/301899261?accountid=11620Oops - didn't see that the URL requires a login. Sorry! ElKevbo (talk) 19:34, 19 September 2011 (UTC)

There's nothing unusual in this. There is usually a gap of some months between submission, assessment, acceptance and then the final award of the degree - preferably all dressed up at the award ceremony. Paul B (talk) 19:31, 19 September 2011 (UTC)

Thank you all, I have updated the article with available references and I have put an extract of this discussion on its talk page. -- SchreyP 20:27, 19 September 2011 (UTC)

Applying WP:MEDSCI to Ashkenazi Jewish intelligence

An editor who joined a talk page discussion through a request for a third opinion has suggested that the reliable sourcing guidelines for medical articles is appropriate for Ashkenazi Jewish intelligence (see talk page discussion here: ). In particular, the editor is suggesting that WP:RSMED#Use_up-to-date_evidence is applicable. That guideline states: "Here are some rules of thumb for keeping an article up-to-date, while maintaining the more-important goal of reliability. These instructions are appropriate for actively researched areas with many primary sources and several reviews and may need to be relaxed in areas where little progress is being made or few reviews are being published." The subject area of Jewish IQ is generally a sparsely studied one with significant papers on the topic being published at a rate of 1-3 per decade.

It seems to me that this is not an appropriate use of WP:RSMED. Do others agree? aprock (talk) 21:58, 20 September 2011 (UTC)

As the 3O respondent, can I encourage editors who wish to comment to do so at the article talk page rather than here. MEDRS has been talked about there (Aprock and I disagree about its application) but it is not really a material issue in terms of any content dispute. Additional contributors to discussions about the article would be welcome, though. --FormerIP (talk) 23:33, 20 September 2011 (UTC)

This is the perfect place for getting outside feedback on the scope of WP:RSMED, especially since the general answer affects many articles besides just this one. Likewise, since this matter is very tangentially related to the actual content of the article, having the discussion on the appropriate noticeboard makes sense. aprock (talk) 00:42, 21 September 2011 (UTC)

OK, it's a fair point that it is tangential to the article talk page. But, since there is no real content issue, maybe posting at WP:RFC/POLICY would be a better bet than here if you really want the issue to be discussed. --FormerIP (talk) 14:03, 21 September 2011 (UTC)

It seems perfectly applicable, especially the part about "need to be relaxed in areas where little progress is being made". If I may be so bold, I suggest writing something like "modern science doesn't study ethnic intelligence differences that much any more, since that smacks of racism, but here is what people wrote in the bad old days". I suspect a reliable source or twelve may be found for that. --GRuban (talk) 14:25, 21 September 2011 (UTC)

Could you clarify this please. When you say "this is what people wrote in the old days", how should we apply this to the issue of sourcing? In particular, how do we determine what the "old days" are? aprock (talk) 16:27, 21 September 2011 (UTC)

I'm sorry, I was speaking colloquially and imprecisely. The answer to your original question is just my first sentence: yes, WP:RSMED does seem to apply, and even have a specific exception for this case. The rest was an encouragement to find sources that would say that the study of the correlation of intelligence to ethnicity should be viewed as historical, rather than an active area of modern study, then write what those sources say. --GRuban (talk) 14:05, 22 September 2011 (UTC)

Opinions on "ArchDaily" as a RS

Hi folks. I'm working on an article for the new library in Surrey, British Columbia and I came across an article on the above site that has a lot of good info. Was hoping to get some input on "ArchDaily" before I used it, perhaps someone is familiar. Article: About page: Thanks, The Interior (Talk) 22:34, 20 September 2011 (UTC)

I am not a frequent reader but so far found to be reliable. Is however always a good idea to cross-check the facts with other sources you can find, and see if there are any inconsistencies. --Elekhh (talk) 05:52, 21 September 2011 (UTC)

• I'd say no. I don't really see other reliable sources referencing ArchDaily despite the website's enormous amount of content. Give how much content they have and the fact that no one else is drawing on them as a reliable source, I don't think Misplaced Pages should use them as a reliable source either. They also don't include a proper byline in the article you link to: "Amber P." --Odie5533 (talk) 08:45, 21 September 2011 (UTC)

The byline did worry me a bit. But there is some claim of editorial control on the about page. The Interior (Talk) 09:27, 21 September 2011 (UTC)

The article is essentially the same as a press release issued by the architects http://surreycitycentrelibrary.files.wordpress.com/2009/12/bing-thom-press-release-const-begins-070610.pdf but unless there's anything really contentious here, I think that release would be okay as a self-published source speaking of itself, per WP:SPS. Barnabypage (talk) 14:50, 21 September 2011 (UTC)

I would prefer the primary source, depending on what is being discussed. But if the primary source says something like "this is the best library in the world", I would prefer a secondary source for something like that. --Odie5533 (talk) 16:03, 21 September 2011 (UTC)

Har har, I'll try to avoid using phrasing like that:) Thanks for finding the original, Barnaby. While we're all here, I've found an article at fastcodesign.com, which is apparently a offshoot of Fast Company (magazine), which I'd like to use to cite Bing Thom's social media effort during the design phase. The layout is a bit bloggish, but at least we have an identified author. Article: The Interior (Talk) 16:38, 21 September 2011 (UTC)

Fast Company is certainly a RS so I would think fastcodesign.com is fine, per WP:NEWSBLOG if not WP:NEWSORG itself. Barnabypage (talk) 16:43, 21 September 2011 (UTC)

IMDB and a sex tape

I know, IMDB is sometimes reliable and sometimes not. So, specifically, an editor wants to use this IMDB entry to add info to the Dustin Diamond article to verify that he released a sex tape. My feeling is that this particular IMDB entry is so sloppy and incomplete it's not good enough, especially given that this is a BLP. The editor provided other sources, but the rest all seem to be blogs and wikis; you can see them in this diff. For me, none of those sources rise to the level needed to include negative info in a BLP. But I invite other eyes. Qwyrxian (talk) 23:58, 20 September 2011 (UTC)

I agree about the IMDB article being insufficient. But this can be sourced, see the Dirty Sanchez article for somewhat more reliable sources. That being said, it's gossip, and I'm not sure it is worth mentioning in the article, and if it is, brevity would seem to be well-advised. --Nuujinn (talk) 00:16, 21 September 2011 (UTC)

VentureBeat

One editor claimed to me that VentureBeat, though it describes itself as a blog, qualifies more as a "news blog". Specifically, the question is whether it is okay as a reliable source for reviewing the quality of another website (see this edit, where I self-reverted my removal of the source). I found a discussion in the RSN archives from March 2011 that indicated that it may be reliable in some cases. Any opinions? Qwyrxian (talk) 03:50, 21 September 2011 (UTC)

I think it is ok because the site has an editorial board and the author is a journalist. Zero 08:58, 21 September 2011 (UTC)

Tarbut V' Torah

Hi, I just restored an edit of a critisim section regarding a California Jewish day school. The section sources to the series of articles on the blog of a rabbi in that community. As a prominent community leader I think that Fisher's statements regarding the school are notable but I'm unsure of the use of his blog as the source. What are thoughts here? Joe407 (talk) 04:11, 21 September 2011 (UTC)

I just removed it - you shouldn't add it and then come here, first get clarification for the addition/blog external as reliable - the content was removed with the edit summary of - "Removed defamatory criticism, which did not maintain a "neutral, unbiased POV" - the content this query is about is below. I note that the D. S. Wyman institute have Dov Fischer as on their "academic council", one of fifty three names on that list, not as in the desired addition, the Assistant director.Off2riorob (talk) 10:44, 21 September 2011 (UTC)

Howdy, I have no beef with the school at hand. The section has been there for a while and the account that removed it looked like an account associated with the school (same name, single edit). As such, I first restored the edit (what had been the consensus) and then considered if the section should be removed under RS grounds. The subject of an article removing critical statements is a common problem and that's why it caught my eye. If the conclusion is that Fischer's statements should not be included, that's fine, but I think the section should remain in place until a better reason for removal than the institution saying "We don't like it" is found. A question that someone familiar with the community in question might be able to answer is who is Fischer and how prominent a persona is he? Joe407 (talk) 13:46, 21 September 2011 (UTC)

Criticism

In July 2010 Rabbi Dov Fischer, in his role as Assistant Director of the David Wyman Institute for Holocaust Studies , published an extensive analysis criticizing the school's academic program. In his analysis, Fischer continued expressing the deep dismay he published in 2008 regarding the school's "institutional failure to achieve the results charted at leaner, more modestly funded Jewish Day Schools operated throughout America under Reform, Conservative, and Orthodox auspices." Fischer's critique criticized the school's ongoing track record, claiming that it does not meet its mission as a community Jewish Day School because of failures in inculcating grade-appropriate Hebrew reading-and-writing skills, meaningful student acquaintance with the Jewish prayer book, and a foundational knowledge in Chumash and Bible studies.

• - http://www.rabbidov.com
• - http://rabbidov.com/TVTfailure.htm/TVT%20-%20Tarbut%20v'Torah%20and%20the%20Crisis%20of%20Failure.htm
• - http://ravfischer.blogspot.com/2008/09/when-i-was-ordained-in-march-1981-with.html

This is self-published and not a reliable source for information about the quality of education offered by the school. --FormerIP (talk) 11:19, 21 September 2011 (UTC)

But if it's the author's blog then it's certainly a reliable source for his opinion. ElKevbo (talk) 15:01, 21 September 2011 (UTC)

Only if he were "an established expert on the topic of the article whose work in the relevant field has previously been published by reliable third-party publications", per WP:SPS. --FormerIP (talk) 15:11, 21 September 2011 (UTC)

But "self-published and questionable sources may be used as sources of information about themselves." When it comes to personal opinions and judgments, "reliability" is a pretty low bar. (Note that I distinguish "personal opinions and judgments" from "professional judgments and opinions" for which the bar is higher for obvious reasons.) The real issue, as Arxiloxos gets at below, is whether the opinion is notable. If the opinion isn't notable or expert then it doesn't matter if it's reliable. ElKevbo (talk) 17:46, 21 September 2011 (UTC)

Well it isn't notable, but it also isn't reliable. "Information about themselves" does not include their opinions about educational establishments (i.e. per the guideline "it does not involve claims about third parties"). Either way, it seems like we have our answer. --FormerIP (talk) 18:06, 21 September 2011 (UTC)

How is "I think that..." a claim about a third party? And how can you assert with a straight face that an individual's blog is not a reliable source for that person's opinion? Barring weird circumstances - hacking, mental illness, compulsive lying, etc. - a personal blog is a de facto reliable source for a person's opinion. ElKevbo (talk) 19:18, 21 September 2011 (UTC)

• I can't find any evidence that Fischer's critique of the school has been covered by third party media such as The Jewish Journal of Greater Los Angeles or by news organizations in Orange County. As such, either based on WP:RS or on WP:WEIGHT, it doesn't seem to me that it merits inclusion in the article. --Arxiloxos (talk) 15:25, 21 September 2011 (UTC)

Unless a blog is formally linked to one's employ, it's generally polemical in nature; and there are instances where "personal" blogs are actually written by teams of employed pundits. That said, if the blog is the only instance of mention of something by someone and there's no wider press coverage of what that someone said, then WP:WEIGHT probably applies, not to mention claims regarding third parties which have not undergone formal review. PЄTЄRS J V ►TALK 19:32, 21 September 2011 (UTC)

Conversation not done above

Is there some reason why, after asking an initial question or starting a discussion on this board, some editors just disappear, and follow-up questions don't get answered before the discussion is shuffled off to the archives? Can someone please respond to my question from September 7 above? The discussion is not closed, and it's been two weeks. Nightscream (talk) 13:06, 21 September 2011 (UTC)

You actually did get an answer, but I don't think you understood it. I'll answer above. --GRuban (talk) 13:59, 21 September 2011 (UTC)

NYT blogs-Krugman specifically

Going by Misplaced Pages:NEWSBLOG, blogs can be varying in their reliability. How should this apply to New York Times blogs? It's coming up for me now with Paul Krugman's blog. Certainly, most of his blog posts should be considered opinion pieces, and referenced as such if they're used at all. But, are they under the editorial control of the NYT, or does the NYT just provide the platform that Krugman uses? I don't see an easy way to identify that on the blog page itself. CRETOG8(t/c) 20:06, 21 September 2011 (UTC)

All NYT blogs have the same fact checking and editorial control as the regular newspaper. They are RS, but as always opinion should never be stated as fact in Misplaced Pages. Brmull (talk) 20:41, 21 September 2011 (UTC)

I don't know where NYT states this explicitly but I verified it personally through correspondence with Times reporter/blogger David M. Herszenhorn. Brmull (talk) 20:49, 21 September 2011 (UTC)

Unless I get a disagreement, I'll have to go with that. Thanks. (Still kinda hard to believe, though. The blogs can be so bloggy.) CRETOG8(t/c) 22:24, 21 September 2011 (UTC)

David Shulman

This book, is written by David Dean Shulman who is an academic and the book is published by an academic press. But it is written as a first person memoir, not an academic work with citations and footnotes, and is not in Shulman's academic area of expertise. Can it be used unattributed for statements of fact? The relevant article is Ezra Nawi. No More Mr Nice Guy (talk) 08:18, 22 September 2011 (UTC)

The issue is not if this is a RS (it is) but that even RS can be wrong. If someone presents another RS that has different factual information then both should be included, unless it can be demonstrated through primary sources that one of the RS is wrong. If this is the sole source for factual information that is disputed, then it should be attributed. Brmull (talk) 09:05, 22 September 2011 (UTC)

'Can it be used for statements of fact?'

The contested text reads:

According to Shulman, Palestinians at Um al-Kheir, which lies a few meters from rows of red-roofed settler villas at Carmel, require building permits for any house construction or extensions to their tents or shacks. Such permits are almost impossible to obtain since on average, in the West Bank area administered by Israel, Area C, only one is released per month by the Israeli Civil Administration for the hundreds of thousands of Palestinian residents there.

One per month = 12. The author is writing in 2007. This is what Amnesty International reported a year later.Israeli NGO, Bimkom, calculated in 2008 that only 13 building permits were issued to Palestinians in the West Bank per year.Nishidani (talk) 09:45, 22 September 2011 (UTC)

Given that Shulman uses 'on average', the official datum from Israeli government statistics cited by the Israeli NGO corresponds with the figure cited by Shulman. Therefore, Shulman's figure is a fact, and I don't even know why 'According to Shulman', which I've conceded, should be there.Nishidani (talk) 09:50, 22 September 2011 (UTC)

But the plaintiff has phrased the issue more broadly, asking if anything that is factual in Shulman can be cited as factual because he is writing a' memoir'. I'll recapulate the 'facts' of Shulman's reliability as an expert source for the area.

In short, we can use articles from Haaretz, Ynet and theNew York Times, written by journalists, to document a page on an activist most of them meet once or twice for an interview, if ever, whereas if we have a 'memoir', actually pages from his diary (an important distinction, since memoirs may suffer from the fragility of memory: diaries are written day by day immediately in the aftermath of events, dealing with Ezra Nawi, stretching over several years, meticulously dated, and written by (a) a scholar with over a dozen major publications to his name (b) a world-ranking expert on Indian and, 'above all, in the relevant Middle Eastern languages (he graduated in Farsi, is fluent in Hebrew and Arabic) unlike most journalists covering the Middle East, (c) who has published studies on Islam (Tamil Islam), witness his article, 'Muslim Popular Literature in Tamil: The Tamimaṉcāri Mālai,' in ed. Y. Friedmann (ed) Islam in Asia, , vol. 1 (Jerusalem: Magnes, 1984); (d) who has a thorough grounding in, and espouses, Gandhian pacificism, and (e) a decade of work, anthropological and activist, among the Bedouin people of the South Hebron Hills (f) whose memoir, here contested as a RS, was published by the peer-reviewing University of Chicago Press, to acclaim, with Emily Bazelon evaluating it as one of the best books of the year (2007), A. B. Yehoshua and Avishai Margalit, world-class Israeli intellectuals appraising it in glowing terms, cannot be used to document what the book is specifically written about!!!!!!

Why because, technically, it is a 'memoir'. What's that mean? It means that Shulman presents, exactly as the many journalists we use on the article whose RS status is not under challenge, a book of his direct, first-hand experiences as activist and witness to the events desribed.

The implication here is, that the taxonomic classification of a book as 'memoir', which lacks footnotes, downgrades a first-class documentary testament by a world-ranking academic with direct knowledge and academic background in what he describes, beneath the level of newspaper pieces written by journalists who have had a visit or two to the area, often lack knowledge of the relevant languages being spoken by the participants, and who never 'footnote' their articles.

This ia a no-brainer. And the question should never have been raised here, where borderline issues of reliable sourcing from websites, blogs or selfpublished books are mostly evaluated.Nishidani (talk) 09:45, 22 September 2011 (UTC)

Nishidani seems correct based on the information presented above. Seems to have covered all angles.--Andrew Lancaster (talk) 13:08, 22 September 2011 (UTC)

Zee News

This link from Zee News, a notable Indian channel says that Bodyguard is the second highest grossing Indian film. As per general agreement, the Indian film industry is divided into the Bollywood (North) and the Southern film industry (though there are many more) and the majority of the sources say that the top three highest grossing films are Enthiran ($60-90 million), 3 Idiots ($70 million) and Dasavathaaram ($55 million), out of which Enthiran and Dasavathaaram are south Indian films. Then Bodyguard, with a gross of $52 million must be naturally fourth. Zee News is credible, I agree, but no source is 100% perfect and this is a mistake they have made. It should state that "Bodyguard is the second highest grossing Bollywood film" and not the second highest grossing Indian film. I'll try contacting the site and ask them to change it, but for now this source is not reliable. I tried changing the sentence, but User:Scieberking doesn't seem to accept the statement. Accept with good faith, but please accept the facts and get it right. Secret of success 12:12, 22 September 2011 (UTC)

I only said Zee News, by all means, is a reliable source. And of course I realize that there are several film industries in India, including Hindi, Tamil, Telugu etc. I've changed it to "Bollywood's second", instead of "India's second", which was not even my edit, addition or selection of words anyway. Just misleading and an unfortunate attempt. Scieberking (talk) 14:01, 22 September 2011 (UTC)

Forgetomori.com

The above site was used as a source on the article Time travel urban legends Particularly relating to the section Modern man at 1941 bridge opening however it has recently been removed on the basis that the site is Self Published. Whilst the site appears self published, it is regularly cited as an expert source in the field of pseudo science and a quick google reveals that magazines and journals on both sides of the Pseudo Science debate cite the site regularly. More importantly, Knowyourmeme states that the forgetomori article was an important article both in bringing the legend to a wider audience (such as the specialist press), and Fortean Times (normally regarded as an RS, but used with care) not only cites forgetomori but repeats the conclusions that forgetomori draws (issue 263, May 2010, "Future Imperfect", Bob Rickard). Whilst I could use FT as a *reliable* source, here it is only tertiary with Forgetomori being the secondary source and carrying out a far more detailed investigation. Furthermore a published research paper into this case (Harkness, D., et al., The Mystery of the "1940s Time Traveller": The Changing Face of Online Brand Monitoring. In J. Trant and D. Bearman . Museums and the Web 2011: Proceedings. Toronto: Archives & Museum Informatics. Published March 31, 2011. Consulted March 31, 2011.) specifically cites Forgetomori as authoritative about the subject in question. From this I would consider that the site is considered expert per the allowances of the self published sources section of Verifiability. The source is only being used to reference the fact that the items regarded as anachronistic in the case did actually exist at the time, it does this by citing primary sources from the period which we cannot directly use without engaging in original research and we repeat no hard (fringe or otherwise) conclusions about the case from forgetomori. The removing editor has replaced the source with {{fact|date=September 2011}} templates which do little to improve the article or benefit the project in comparison to use of this source, yet he refuses to allow the source in on Self Published grounds - some independent consideration of this source and it's usage would be helpful. Stuart.Jamieson (talk) 14:22, 22 September 2011 (UTC) Further to Above: Link to Article Source The source was used to support the following statements:

Further research suggests that the modern appearance of the man may not have been so modern. The style of sunglasses first appeared in the 1920s, and in fact Barbara Stanwyck can be seen wearing a similar pair in the film Double Indemnity three years later. On first glance the man is taken by many to be wearing a modern printed T-shirt, but on closer inspection it seems to be a sweater with a sewn-on emblem, the kind of clothing often worn by sports teams of the period. The remainder of his clothing would appear to have been available at the time, though his clothes are far more casual than those worn by the other individuals in the photograph.

and

Debate centers on whether the image genuinely shows a time traveler, has been photomanipulated, or is simply being mistaken as anachronistic.

Discussion on a number of sources related to this legend including the source above can be found at Stuart.Jamieson (talk) 17:48, 22 September 2011 (UTC)

AllRovi

The article List of avant-garde films of the 1990s uses the website http://www.allrovi.com/ as its only source. Is this site considered reliable for determining film genres? In particular, is it a reliable enough source to justify calling Delicatessen a "surrealist film"? Is it a reliable source for defining what is and is not an avant-garde film? ---RepublicanJacobite_TheFortyFive 16:59, 22 September 2011 (UTC)

Reference to RSA debate in article on The Spirit Level

Participants in the Spirit Level mediation would like an opinion from RSN on the inclusion of a citation about a debate concerning the book The Spirit Level: Why More Equal Societies Almost Always Do Better held by the Royal Society of Arts (RSA). Participants in the mediation have been unable to agree on whether or not to include a citation about this debate. A third opinion was requested, but two of the three participants disagree with the 3O. As mediator, I consider that a ruling from RSN would be helpful in resolving the dispute.

1. The source in question, including link: Royal Society of Arts (22 Jul 2010) RSA Debates the Spirit Level.
2. The article in which it is being used: The Spirit Level: Why More Equal Societies Almost Always Do Better
3. The exact statement in the article that the source is supporting:

In July 2010, a debate hosted by the RSA (Royal Society for the encouragement of Arts, Manufactures and Commerce), took place between Christopher Snowdon, Peter Saunders, Richard Wilkinson and Kate Pickett, and was subsequently uploaded to the internet.

4. Links to relevant talk page discussion:

• Information about the debate was added to the article on 30 June 2011
• There has been considerable discussion about adding a link to the RSA debate on the article talk page
• A third opinion was requested and provided on 26 June 2011
• The mediation began on 7 September 2011
• The objection to the third opinion, that neither WP:Notability nor multiple sources are relevant to this addition, was summarized by one of the participants
• The counter argument, that there is no reliable third party source to establish notability (WP:V#notability) is summarized by another participant

All three participants in the mediation have signed their agreement with the above request to RSN and will take a considered opinion from RSN seriously. We ask that any reference by RSN to "notability" be supported by directly citing the relevant wording in policy. Thank you very much for your consideration. Sunray (talk) 17:24, 22 September 2011 (UTC)

Thank you for filling out the template properly, but it doesn't appear as if anyone is questioning the reliability of this source. Instead, the debate seems to be centered on:

1. Weight - whether the content belongs in the article. Are secondary sources required to establish weight?
2. Value - Does this content actually provide the reader with any useful information?

Both issues are debatable and I don't think there are any easy answers. First, let me clarify one point: WP:WEIGHT and WP:NOTABILITY are two different policies. Editors frequently confuse the two. In fact, it happens so often, I usually just ignore it and focus on the substance of what an editor is trying to say. But since it seems to be a point of contention in the debate and editors are quoting from policy verbatim, I'll spell out the difference:

1. WP:NOTABILITY applies to an article's existence. Should an article be deleted or not?
2. WP:WEIGHT applies to content inside an article. The article exists, but does this content belong in it?

So, to address the issue of weight, the central question is whether secondary sources are required to establish weight. Some editors insist that primary sources also be covered by secondary sources to establish weight. Some don't. In my own editing, when an editor wants a secondary source, I try to honor that request. Unfortunately, the wording of WP:WEIGHT doesn't specifically state "secondary" but I think that meets the spirit of what that policy is trying to say. (Just so this isn't taken out of context, that doesn't mean primary sources should never be used. I can and do cite primary sources, but for non-contentious content.)

The second issue is about value. Does the reader gain any useful information from this content? I'm sympathetic to the argument made by Sunray that simply saying "The RSA held a debate" doesn't really tell the reader anything informative. Somedifferentstuff does a nice job explaining why they think the content is important, and if the content actually contained this analysis, it might be a different story. But it doesn't. In order to include this analysis, we would need a secondary source to do it for us. That said, I don't think that it doesn't necessarily hurt the article to keep it. It's not as if the article is too long and content needs to be trimmed. A Quest For Knowledge (talk) 19:13, 22 September 2011 (UTC)

Mohammad Ala promotional entry

User MehranVB and user In_fact, have been trying to add questionable and self-published sources to Mohammad Ala entry, which is also nominated for deletion. Please remind them that websites such as persiangulfstudies.com and www.stiltij.nl are not reliable sources. One is a shady "martial arts" / "meditation" site and the other is a questionable, self-published site. Thanks. -- Marmoulak (talk) 18:56, 22 September 2011 (UTC)

1. http://www.thisislondon.co.uk/lifestyle/esmagazine/article-23985088-how-karen-gillan-went-from-sexy-sidekick-to-super-siren.do
2. http://articles.timesofindia.indiatimes.com/2011-06-28/news-interviews/29712340_1_ny-hotel-security-personnel-guest

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