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Editors can post questions here about whether given sources are reliable, and editors interested in sourcing issues will answer. The reliability of sourcing is heavily dependent upon context, so please include not only the source in question, but the article in which it is being cited, as well as links to any relevant talk page discussions or article diffs. Please post new topics in a new section.

The guideline that most directly relates to whether a given source is reliable is Reliable sources. The policies that most directly relate are: Verifiability, No original research, and Neutral point of view. For questions about the sourcing policy, please go to the Verifiability talk page.

This noticeboard is not a place for general discussion of issues or for disputes about content.

If your question is about whether material constitutes original research, please use the No original research notice board.

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Asking Jimbo his birthdate

A discussion at the Talk:Jimmy_Wales#.22Sources_differ_about_whether_he_was_born_on_August_7_or_8.2C_1966.22Jimbo Wales article raises the question of reliable sources for a subject's birth. I don't believe asking the subject makes sense when sources differ, but what if the subject did produce a birth certificate?

Um..why we cant ask someone (especially Jimbo) what his/her birthday is and trust them? Ok, now we've taken RS waaaay too seriously.Camelbinky (talk) 03:11, 25 December 2009 (UTC)

Because even notable people sometimes lie about their ages? Don't let the identity of the individual make a difference to you (it certainly doesn't to me, and I think you'd find it doesn't to him, either) - I'm just asking what kinds of reliable sources can be used to determine someone's age. Asking people things isn't considered reliable in any context, so far as I understand.--otherlleft 18:22, 31 December 2009 (UTC)

This is particularly true about models and musicians, I have found. Their publicity agents will lie about their age in order to make them seem to be younger than they actually are. I have no comment on Jimbo Wales specifically, but we should not be asking people directly what their age is and then publishing it on Misplaced Pages, generally speaking. JBsupreme (talk) 18:37, 5 January 2010 (UTC)

This is actually a good example why the topic can't necessarily be trusted about this, see all the confusion found at Talk:Jimmy Wales/Birthdate. Amalthea 16:37, 7 January 2010 (UTC)

So Wales can not write in Misplaced Pages what his birthdate is, but has to tell the news media who will write it down somewhere so that someone else can write what his birthdate is? This operates under the assumption that the news media verifies birthdates. Let us say they do, for Argument‘s sake, all of the time. How do we know that Jim Wales was born Jim Wales though? If he is really John Doe, but looked up and memorized some guy's information, used that name and birthdate, then a birth certificate really does not verify anything. So a DNA test is required. However, what if his parents are part of the scheme, and his parents dropped the Doe name and took up the Wales name to further this plot? A DNA test is useless then. How far back must one go to verify with absolute certainty? Sure, a subject lies sometimes, but to deny someone as an expert on himself seems odd. If you can not quote the subject himself for his birthdate, then how could you quote him for his opinions and other details unless it is verified through such rigor as well? Either reliable source is to be used with reasonable discretion or it will be taken to an extreme in which nothing can be absolutely known. XANDERLIPTAK 06:12, 10 January 2010 (UTC)

Xanderliptak, any information that is generally accepted as a fact may be introduced into an article. If you read the thread Amalthea posted you'll see that this is not the case here - his family claims the date is not the one on the birth certificate, there are numerous contradictions, and so on. Step back and ignore who the subject of the article is and apply the reliable sources policy and then let us know if it's really ridiculous. If there wasn't confusion introduced by the subject this wouldn't be a topic of discussion.--otherlleft 15:21, 10 January 2010 (UTC)

Then just write all that in there and leave it at that. It's OK to write that he claims his birthdate it something other than what his parents claim. We don't need to figure out who is right, we can just report what has been said. Gigs (talk) 19:42, 11 January 2010 (UTC)

Yes, there are discrepancies. So note what the certificate says, and note what the family says. Record keepers can make mistakes, so citing paperwork as absolute fact operates under the mistaken assumption that bureaucrats are infallible.

My mother was born on a naval base in Japan on July 14, which means had my grandparents been back home here in Illinois, my mother's birthday would have been July 13. What if a subject and his family marked the date that was accurate to their hometown's local time zone, regardless what a birth certificate says when they were traveling? Then again, parents would likely be more fascinated with their new born child than paperwork, and may not have noticed a slight error in the paperwork. What if the family simply never bothered with the bureaucratic process to change the date being it was so miniscule a thing?

Whatever the reason, a person should be a reliable source unto himself unless it is known or there is reason to believe he is misleading with the information he gives. You can find records that contradict other recorded accounts more often than would be liked, so there is no reason to use one reliable source over another reasonable one because the accounts do not validate each other. Use both, at least until one is found to be unreliable. XANDERLIPTAK 01:52, 12 January 2010 (UTC)

The Indian Institute of Planning and Management

Can be used to source this statement: However, Stanford has stated "Neither the Stanford Graduate School of Business nor the office of Stanford Executive Education has ties of any kind with IIPM." --NeilN 04:24, 29 December 2009 (UTC)

Has that document been uploaded to MBA Channel by the site's publishers/editors (in which case it is a reliable source), or by some user (in which case it is not) ? Do you know of a page on the website that links to the document ? Abecedare (talk) 04:34, 29 December 2009 (UTC)

Thanks for prodding me to investigate further. It's linked from here --NeilN 04:41, 29 December 2009 (UTC)

Since that article is written by Bärbel Schwertfeger, an employee of the publication, and is not some user-submitted content, I think it is reliable for the claim. Abecedare (talk) 04:53, 29 December 2009 (UTC)

The article is written by Bärbel Schwertfeger who is the part owner of the site. Her web site in question is a commercial career portal whose main aim is to be an MBA Directory (see the web page description on the main page at the top). Even if it is a self-published career portal (as Barbel is the part owner), "self-published material may, in some circumstances, be acceptable 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.". But Misplaced Pages:Reliable_sources/Flaws#OS:_Self-publication would advise us to wait in this case as the attribution of Stanford backing out is an exceptional claim, and if it is reported, then it should have been printed by other sources. Having said that, I'll also on the other hand suggest that a secondary source that might have reported the same could be used.▒ Wirεłεşş ▒ Fidεłitұ ▒ Ćłâşş ▒ Θnε ▒ _―Œ 07:37, 29 December 2009 (UTC)

You say the Stanford claim is exceptional, I say it isn't. Plus, the website hosts a Stanford's document refuting IIPM's claim which can now be used since it's referred to by a third party reliable source. --NeilN 14:46, 29 December 2009 (UTC)

The claim here is not that Stanford backed out, BTW. The claim is that they never had a partnership in the first place, contradicting what IIPM said in their ads. As I recall, the only place where a partnership with IIPM and Stanford has been reported is in IIPM's advertisements and websites. Isn't that a primary source of the school talking about a third party?(retracted, see below) Schwertfeger is a respected journalist with many publications about MBAs and business training; she is an expert in the field where IIPM provides education. Her reporting is what led me to Stanford's statement. I see no reason to believe that she fabricated the Stanford document.

Just so everyone here is clear on my involvement--I'm the editor who originally used MBA Channel as a source, and who replaced it with Stanford's direct statement after Wifione challenged MBA Channel and removed it. I want to be transparent so you can all take my potential bias into account. WeisheitSuchen (talk) 14:57, 29 December 2009 (UTC)

NeilN, you say the career portal MBA-Channel source is a third party reliable source. I have shown how it is a self published source as Barbara is the co-owner. Under Misplaced Pages:Reliable_sources/Flaws#OS:_Self-publication, we should consider the fact that "editors should exercise caution for two reasons: first, if the information on the professional researcher's blog (or self-published equivalent) is really worth reporting, someone else will have done so; secondly, the information has been self-published, which means it has not been subject to any independent form of fact-checking. In general it is preferable to wait until other sources have had time to review or comment on self-published sources. " Given that, as mentioned I would suggest a search for secondary sources that quote Stanford's association with IIPM, like this. Or on Stanford's site, like these.. Given that you consider Barbara as a respected journalist, WP:SPS would suggest we maximum include the link as an op-ed column in the IIPM article than as a straightforward reliable source. I'm alright with that. What do you say to that? ▒ Wirεłεşş ▒ Fidεłitұ ▒ Ćłâşş ▒ Θnε ▒ _―Œ 17:39, 29 December 2009 (UTC)

You're right that the Tribune India report, which is cited in the article already, is a secondary source; I had forgotten about that and retract my earlier statement about it only appearing in primary sources. However, the CV and faculty bio of professors at Stanford do not support the already-cited Tribune India report that Stanford is partnering with IIPM as an institution. They support that individual professors who teach at Stanford have taught seminars, but that doesn't constitute an institutional partnership.

I'll let others weigh in on whether respected journalists constitute self-published sources. Wifione and I have already gone round and round on this topic regarding another source, and I'm interested in what others think. WeisheitSuchen (talk) 18:03, 29 December 2009 (UTC)

You're quoting an essay not a guideline. The guideline states: "Self-published material may, in some circumstances, be acceptable 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". The material in this case is directly supported by a primary source. --NeilN 19:05, 29 December 2009 (UTC)

NeilN, an essay is a guiding thought which has some weight and defines guidelines in examples. I'm ok with the self published article's Stanford point being included if even one external secondary source has confirmed the same. In case you are saying that we can use a self published article's statements without even one external reliable secondary source confirming the same, then it'll be a critical move away from suggested styles of editing Misplaced Pages articles.▒ Wirεłεşş ▒ Fidεłitұ ▒ Ćłâşş ▒ Θnε ▒ _―Œ 03:22, 31 December 2009 (UTC)

Please do not put words in my mouth. I'm saying the source fulfills the guideline. Again (since you haven't seemed to address it): "Self-published material may, in some circumstances, be acceptable 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" --NeilN 03:28, 31 December 2009 (UTC)

NeilN, I agree with your interpretation of the guideline (which, of course, has much more weight than an essay). But I think perhaps User:Makrandjoshi has provided us with a secondary source stating the same thing in Der Spiegel. It is by Schwertferger, but I think anyone would have a hard time arguing that Der Spiegel isn't a reliable source. That article states: "Bereits 2007 distanzierte sich die Stanford Graduate School of Business deutlich von falschen IIPM-Angaben." In English (my translation), this says "Already in 2007, the Stanford Graduate School of Business distanced itself from clearly false IIPM statements." Wifione, does this meet your request for "one external reliable secondary source confirming the same"? Can we agree that this source is reliable now? WeisheitSuchen (talk) 12:46, 31 December 2009 (UTC)

A google search on Schwertfeger's name is enough to establish her credentials as an expert. She regularly writes articles in major newspapers on business education. And as WeisheitSuchen pointed out,. I have given a link for the same fact from Der Spiegel, which is undeniably WP:RS. Makrandjoshi (talk) 13:17, 2 January 2010 (UTC)

The Der Spiegel article is an opinion piece by Barbara who doesn't work at that magazine. Can we therefore reach a consensus then that both her self published MBA-Channel news and the Der Spiegel source are RS opinion pieces? In other words, if they're used, we'll have to use them as opinion pieces clearly mentioning her name. Acceptable? ▒ Wirεłεşş ▒ Fidεłitұ ▒ Ćłâşş ▒ Θnε ▒ _―Œ 08:22, 3 January 2010 (UTC)

Neither of these are opinion pieces; it would not be appropriate to label them as such. In major news magazines like Der Spiegel, opinion pieces and editorials are clearly labeled. This is a regular article, not an editorial. Her name isn't necessary in either case. WeisheitSuchen (talk) 13:49, 3 January 2010 (UTC)

It is not an opinion piece. If it were, it'd be labelled as such on the Spiegel website. And if you read it, it is more of an investigative column, where she has contacted different schools and gotten their reactions on tie-ups with IIPM. It is very clearly not an opinion piece. Makrandjoshi (talk) 22:21, 3 January 2010 (UTC)

• As we've accepted the MBA-Channel article is a self published "RS" source, it automatically becomes equivalent to an opinion piece as the common sense assumption would be that it would not have undergone an "independent fact check", irrespective of how investigative the article might seem. A quick look at the RS discussion that Makrandjoshi raised on Maheshwer Peri's column in his own publication would clarify this thought. Therefore, the MBA-Channel article should surely be considered an opinion piece.

• The Der Spiegel article by her would also become an opinion piece as she's an 'autoren' (author) in Spiegel and not an editorial reporter. . ▒ Wirεłεşş ▒ Fidεłitұ ▒ Ćłâşş ▒ Θnε ▒ _―Œ 19:07, 6 January 2010 (UTC)
• WS, You could also compare the current opinion writers in Speigel and check whether their names come in the Autoren section. That could support/reject this context. ▒ Wirεłεşş ▒ Fidεłitұ ▒ Ćłâşş ▒ Θnε ▒ _―Œ 19:25, 6 January 2010 (UTC)

The Peri article is an opinion piece because it is specifically labeled as "opinion." Look at the heading right above the article title for that source. That's what we don't have in either case with Schwertferger's sources. We should not conflate opinion pieces and editorials with self-published sources, contradicting Misplaced Pages policy. In addition, the fact that she is a freelance journalist does not imply that her article did not go through editorial review with Der Spiegel. There's nothing in Misplaced Pages policy that demands treating freelancers in reliable sources any differently than staff writers. Do you have any arguments from Misplaced Pages policy or guidelines that say these sources should be considered opinion pieces? WeisheitSuchen (talk) 22:42, 6 January 2010 (UTC)

WS, maybe this link helps WP:ASL. One line could be helpful from this, "By value or opinion, on the other hand, we mean a matter which is subject to dispute". Also, can you please show the place where Speigel puts its opinion articles? As it's a German site, I'm not able to traverse properly. If I get the link, I can check the authors who are mentioned there and compare the points. Thanks ▒ Wirεłεşş ▒ Fidεłitұ ▒ Ćłâşş ▒ Θnε ▒ _―Œ 09:42, 7 January 2010 (UTC)

Wifione. It is not an opinion piece. It is a news article. Go to the google-translated version of the page here Look at the top left under the banner and tabs how the article is classified: News -> UniSpiegel -> Study -> India. Spiegel classifies it as "News". Hope this is enough to put your mind to rest. Makrandjoshi (talk) 15:46, 8 January 2010 (UTC)

Wifione, if we labeled this as an opinion piece when the source labels it as news, wouldn't we be engaging in WP:OR or WP:SYNTH? When Der Spiegel publishes an opinion piece, they label it clearly at the top to differentiate it from their normal news reporting, as they do here. In German, the word is "Meinung." I don't see a section just for Meinung at Der Speigel the way I do at Zeit Online, which may mean that Der Speigel just doesn't regularly publish opinion pieces, only news and investigative reporting like this example. I am strongly opposed to labeling a source an opinion piece in direct contradiction to the source itself. WeisheitSuchen (talk) 16:33, 8 January 2010 (UTC)

WS, thanks for the links. Do pl note.

• That MBA Channel is self published has been already accepted. Therefore it directly becomes an Opinion piece. A self-published piece (if RS) will have to be considered for the author's statements as opinion rather than as fact.

• I repeat a line that's there in WP:ASF, which says "By value or opinion, on the other hand, we mean a matter which is subject to dispute". If you visit the section link I've given, you'll see why the dispute heavy statements of Schwertferger's in Spiegel should be considered an opinion to avoid a non-npov bias. ▒ Wirεłεşş ▒ Fidεłitұ ▒ Ćłâşş ▒ Θnε ▒ _―Œ 06:26, 14 January 2010 (UTC)

You say that self-published sources must automatically be considered opinion pieces. Please do not confuse the meaning of "opinion" as a general word, like you quoted from ASF, with an Op-ed or editorial, which are specific genres within journalism. The Peri article is an editorial; these are not. If we label them as op-eds, that would be in direct contradiction with what the sources themselves say.

If you have a source that disputes what is said in Der Spiegel, you are welcome to add it to the article for NPOV balance. I understand that you dispute it as an individual editor; do you have a reliable source that disputes it? We can't include content in articles based on the opinions of a single individual, only what's in sources. Wouldn't you agree? WeisheitSuchen (talk) 12:25, 14 January 2010 (UTC)

How can Quackwatch be considered a "reliable source"?

Yes, there are medical organizations that say it's a great site (most of which are companies/organizations that rely on drugs or drug sales), but the only thing that Quackwatch does is bash alternative medicines. It has no positive information about alternative medicines and is completely biased against them. I'm thoroughly confused as to how this can possibly be considered a reliable and unbiased source whereas almost every other biased website that I've seen cited here has been shot down as "not RS". Can anyone explain this to me? —Preceding unsigned comment added by Burleigh2 (talk • contribs)

See Quackwatch and the numerous refs cited there. LeadSongDog come howl 22:26, 31 December 2009 (UTC)

I see all the citations as I mentioned in my original question and that's already been covered. Most of those may be praising certain aspects of the website (eg. uncovering fraudulent companies), but the site in general bashes virtually all alternative medicines regardless of effectiveness, verifiability, or usage of the various categories. I have read articles on their site before that were practically ranting about certain supplements that they claimed didn't work and were ripping off people who used them, but they didn't mention a thing about the dozens (or in some cases, hundreds) of studies that have been done and published by various organizations (many of which have been published in PubMed, the Lancet, JAMA, and other reputable organizations). That spells the very definition of "biased" to me... am I missing something? Burleigh2 (talk) 22:55, 31 December 2009 (UTC)

I'm not familiar with Quackwatch. However, in principle, the fact that a site dedicates itself to finding medical quacks and fraud does not automatically make it unreliable, just as an attorney general who dedicates himself to finding criminals and does not bother to praise good people is not automatically unreliable. The real question is whether or not Quackwatch does a good job of identifying quacks and frauds or not. --Jc3s5h (talk) 22:32, 31 December 2009 (UTC)

True, it does some good things like exposing frauds, but then it also bashes all the rest including some of the most well respected doctors not only in their field, but even in their local areas in some cases. Burleigh2 (talk) 22:55, 31 December 2009 (UTC)

I think we try to be fairly careful and circumspect about Quackwatch as a source, but consensus has repeatedly held that it is acceptable under certain circumstances. Is there a specific usage that concerns you? MastCell  23:10, 31 December 2009 (UTC)

I pointed the editor to this noticeboard on their talk page after undoing their edit on Alternative medicine. --NeilN 07:22, 1 January 2010 (UTC)

Virtually every source has some kind of bias. If we insisted that reliable sources have no bias, we'd have no sources left. What we require instead is that sources be verifiable, and that they have a reputation for accuracy and fact checking. If an established publisher in the modern world starts publishing junk (about people, products or organizations), they will quickly be sued or fined out of existence. In the case of Quackwatch, when using them as a source, we should be sure to wiki-link the first instance, and use in-text attribution ("According to Quackwatch, ... "). If there are other reliable sources which contradict Quackwatch, they should be mentioned too, unless they represent a tiny minority. Crum375 (talk) 23:15, 31 December 2009 (UTC)

That's true that every source will have some sort of bias... even saying the sky is blue would be biased based on the time of day. The reason I even ask this is that Quackwatch is very overly biased against any alternative options. After too many searches to want to count, the only "alternatives" I have seen in a remotely positive light are multivitamins and I think only prenatal ones were shown exclusively in a positive light (while some of the articles said multivitamins in general were useless). I would hardly call such an overly-biased website "reliable", even if they do some good work to expose frauds, which is what most of the lauding of the site comes from... does that really mean everything on there is reliable? Burleigh2 (talk) 16:33, 6 January 2010 (UTC)

All good points. NPOV requires we cover all significant sides of an issue using reliable sources, and reliable sources will usually be biased from some particular POV. That doesn't exclude them from eligibility as sources.

This issue has been discussed to death in many venues here at Misplaced Pages. The conclusion is that the use of Quackwatch be judged on a case by case basis, just like every other reliable source we use. There is no RS that's allowable in every situation, so context is important. It would be rather odd to allow positive sources in an article on alternative medicine and exclude the largest, best known and most highly recommended (and hated!) database on the internet for skeptical information on the subject. That would violate NPOV. Nearly any article without negative or controversial content likely violates NPOV. Lack of such content is a red flag for possible policy violations.

Here are a couple places to read up on the subject:

• Usage of Quackwatch as RS in medical quackery

• Request to amend prior case: Misplaced Pages:Requests for arbitration/Barrett v. Rosenthal

As to the reasons why QW criticizes alternative medicine, they just happen to be right. They don't work, otherwise they'd be called "medicine". Read this section carefully, especially the part about where the NCCAM hasn't found evidence for efficacy after ten years of large studies:

• Relation to evidence-based medicine

Happy reading, and Happy New Year! -- Brangifer (talk) 02:09, 1 January 2010 (UTC)

I agree with most of this. I totally agree that Quackwatch should be judged on a case by case basis. After all, if there was a great humanitarian that robbed a bank just once, would he get off because of all the other good stuff he did or would he be tried based on that robbery? I think the point of being judged on a case by case basis should be mentioned on the RS entry for it, but I'm not sure if that is implied for all RSs or not. There have been a number of articles I've seen on Quackwatch that were bashing certain treatments, saying they shouldn't be used and/or didn't work, but they are some commonly recommended treatments by more Naturopathic doctors because they work... just one example of why not all of it would be a RS. Burleigh2 (talk) 16:33, 6 January 2010 (UTC)

Use on a case by case basis applies to all RS, not especially to QW. As to your mention of certain unnamed treatments that you believe NDs recommend because they "work", well, if they really work, then they're EBM and Quackwatch and Barrett wouldn't be criticizing them. Note two points: (1) Not everything that is recommended by an ND is quackery. They actually do some good things. (2) Being recommended by an ND is a red flag, since they also recommend many things that are unproven or even disproven. Some of their most used methods are horrendously pseudoscientific, such as homeopathy. Whatever the case, your objections on this basis really have nothing to do with the use of QW as a RS, but only are a difference of opinion as to whether QW is wrong and NDs are right. The mainstream EBM position, IOW the evidence, sides with QW, which again shows that QW is a notable source that backs up whatever is current mainstream science and opinion. If the evidence changes, so does QW, and that's the way it should be. Barrett and the other authors who write there are educated in thinking using the scientific method, and they judge things through that prism, which is a good thing. -- Brangifer (talk) 03:11, 7 January 2010 (UTC)

That's what I figured (and was hoping), but I've come across a few instances within Wiki where the argument was made that QW as a RS for statements that could be seen as completely unnecessary for the context. One example is in Alternative Medicine where the statement is listed "Many CAM methods are criticized by the activist non-profit organization Quackwatch" (and cited the general website, not an article on it)... in other articles, that could be seen as spam/advertising for that website, but when I removed it saying it wasn't appropriate, another editor put it back saying Quackwatch was RS so it belonged (which was the main reason I asked the question here).

Obviously, that example could be argued on both sides of keeping/removing it depending on your bias, but listing the website in general and no specific article is definitely not RS material from what has been said thus far (case-by-case basis and all). It's the potential edit-wars like this that bring to mind the old quote "can't we all just get along?"... but if it was removed again, I'm sure the same member would undo the removal without something more than "that's the intent" stated. Is there somewhere that says RS is on a case-by-case basis that I can point to for inappropriate citations like this? Burleigh2 (talk) 20:18, 7 January 2010 (UTC)

As is mentioned in the links provided by BullRangifer, Quackwatch is supposed to be evaluated on a case by case basis. The problem is that the majority of articles are written by Barrett, and they are not peer reviewed. So, it should not have the same weight as an article published in a peer reviewed journal. stmrlbs|talk 09:21, 1 January 2010 (UTC)

Exactly. Many of the articles written by Barrett himself are opinion articles based on his opinion, but a number of them are exposing frauds which some feel gives more weight to his opinion about everything else. Regardless of how good my mechanic might be with my car, I wouldn't ask him what medical treatment I should take just because he's so good with my car. Burleigh2 (talk) 16:33, 6 January 2010 (UTC)

Barrett's opinions are notable opinions from that POV and are used as opinions, not scientific facts. Some articles are much more scientific in their nature and can be used to source facts. Others are commentaries on various issues related to consumer protection and fighting health fraud. Most use extensive sourcing and sometimes we choose to use those sources, rather than the article itself. All its articles and documents are different in their nature and should be used in the appropriate situations. No rule at Misplaced Pages would consider the use of a source to be reliable in every situation. No one has ever argued that QW is somehow immaculate or unlike other reliable sources we use. It's just the most notable website of its type, the largest database of skeptical sources related to its subject matter, and thus not to be excluded as an often usable source. Just use common sense. -- Brangifer (talk) 03:11, 7 January 2010 (UTC)

Of course. That should go without saying to anyone who understands our sourcing policies, as you should by now. When dealing with the nitty gritty details of scientific facts, the WP:MEDRS guidelines take priority. They prefer scientific research, so Quackwatch isn't normally used for such details (except for the scientific articles it hosts), although it always agrees with them. Since it usually agrees, it thus demonstrates that it truly is "reliable" in the traditional sense of the word. So, per MEDRS, we still prefer scientific studies for such details, while QW is usually used for other aspects of the subjects.

As far as it not being "peer-reviewed", that's a red herring. Websites aren't expected to be peer-reviewed, and QW never pretends to be a scientific journal, so that argument doesn't have a leg to stand on. Only one website is peer-reviewed, and that happens to be a medical journal that is only published on-line. We still allow the use of myriad websites as RS for information, even though they aren't peer-reviewed. It all depends on which details are being tied to which sources. Just connect the dots properly.

While numerous articles are primarily written by Barrett, he does have a very large group of experts who aide him and review as necessary the articles. While this isn't exactly the same as the peer-review process used for journals, it's still far better than for most websites. Vetting, fact checking and review by multiple experts is a good thing. Many articles are also written by other authors. There are definitely articles at QW that wouldn't be suitable as sources here. That's why the use of QW is already done on a case by case basis. Just use our normal sourcing rules and common sense. -- Brangifer (talk) 09:48, 1 January 2010 (UTC)

Very true... but unfortunately, not many people in the world understand the sourcing policies here. Yes, those who edit a lot here would likely understand and know most/all of them, but the common man typically doesn't. I also note in the "Usage of Quackwatch as RS in medical quackery" part that was referred to above, it points out that Quackwatch has been sourced in reliable 3rd party publications... but does that automatically mean that everything he posts on his site is reliable? I mean, by that standard, you could use a magazine or newspaper source and make a quote from the opinion section as being reliable because the paper/magazine is so well respected... that's basically what people are citing because Quackwatch is listed as RS (not necessarily just on Wiki, but on other sites as well). Am I the only one that sees that as more than disturbing? Burleigh2 (talk) 16:33, 6 January 2010 (UTC)

The principle on which organizations such as Quackwatch operate is the Scientific Method, and all of its umbrella principles (falsifiability, testability, the Peer Review Process, predictability, etc.) which is the method utilized to evaluate the empirical validity of scientific claims. Organizations like Quackwatch do not "bash" or have a "bias" against alternative medicine; They simply evaluate them based on whether they follow proper empirical methodologies. Personal belief systems aside, so-called alternative and complementary medicines do not have any scientific validity. Those that do aren't called "alternative" or "complementary" medicine; they just called medicine. This is a point that is not only unknown by the general public, it is also unknown by many who work in these fields, which is why they are advocated even by people with PhD's after their name. But whether someone of repute advocates an idea does not mean it has empirical validity. To argue it does is a logical fallacy called Argument by Authority.

As for unbiased, Misplaced Pages's policies on Reliable Sources do not, and cannot, gauge such a thing, because all sources, even reliable ones, from the New York Times to the Village Voice to FOX News, have biases. Reliability is predicated on criteria such as whether the organization in question has proper editorial controls for its content, whether its staff has the pertinent expertise, etc. Complete lack of bias cannot be a criterion, because no source exists (nor any writer working for one) that lacks some type of bias. Nightscream (talk) 04:29, 1 January 2010 (UTC)

An excellent summary of the situtation. Thanks. -- Brangifer (talk) 14:41, 1 January 2010 (UTC)

No, it is not. It is a generalisation arrived at without consideration of the arguments on this page or the article about Quackwatch or Quackwatch itself. To assert that Quackwatch is an organisation operationally adhering to the scientific method and all of it's umbrella principles is not only unfounded but demonstrably wrong. The discussion in this section already shows that Quackwatch is to be evaluated on a case by case basis, and shows the reasons why. Attempts to elevate Quackwatch to the standard of a scientific institution adhering to all the principles of the scientific method are unfounded and a clear attempt to imbalance the situation by introducing the "Argument of Authority" the author wishes not to see in Misplaced Pages. Weakopedia (talk) 15:05, 1 January 2010 (UTC)

I agree with Weakopedia here. QuackWatch is basically the blog of Stephen Barrett, and it is wild to suggest the the blog adheres to the scientific method. It has already been determined that QuackWatch should be used on a case by case basis, and should usually be balanced with an opposite viewpoint. DigitalC (talk) 16:10, 1 January 2010 (UTC)

I agree with these two as well. Is there an option of listing a caveat on the Quackwatch listing on the RS page that it should be reviewed on a case-by-case basis, not as gospel truth? Or is that implied on everything on the RS page (so others take it as gospel truth if they don't know about that implication)? Burleigh2 (talk) 20:06, 6 January 2010 (UTC)

The default implication in the RS policy is that all sources be judged on a case by case basis. QW is no exception, nor under any special scrutiny. Most sources are written from some POV or other and we just have to use common sense. -- Brangifer (talk) 03:11, 7 January 2010 (UTC)

I think you're picking and choosing to find something you can object to, rather than noticing I repeatedly state things we both believe. Note that it was myself who clearly stated that it should be (1) used on a case by case basis, and (2) that scientific research is preferred to Quackwatch when dealing with the nitty gritty details of scientific and medical facts. Other editors agreed. That's in agreement with the MEDRS guideline. Do you disagree with that? I don't think we really disagree on that. -- Brangifer (talk) 06:40, 2 January 2010 (UTC)

I have indeed considered the arguments on this page, and you have not provided any evidence or line of reasoning that I have not. The original comments that I was specifically responding to were the notions that it "bashes" alternative medicine, has a "bias" against it, and that it does this even despite the advocacy of some of these ideas by "well-respected doctors", and my response was sound: Pointing out that alternative and complementary medicine is without empirical validity is a fact, and is not a "bias", nor "bashing", and the degree to which a doctor advocating an idea is respected is not the basis upon which ideas in science are properly vetted. If you can invalidate this, then do so.

Burleigh mentioned studies published in Lancet, but he never provided any examples, nor did he mention whether these studies survived Peer Review or have achieved wide acceptance in the scientific community. (Remember that the vaccine-autism hysteria, for example, began with a 1998 study by Andrew Wakefield published in Lancet that was later found to be bogus.) And again, if these studies have been validated by Peer Review and widely accepted, then they're no longer complementary or alternative medicine. They just medicine. Complementary and alternative are essentially just euphemisms for "non-scientific" or "ineffective to any degree greater than placebo." Have any of the ideas criticized by Quackwatch been so accepted? If so, where are the examples? If Quackwatch's adherence to the Scientific Method is "demonstrably wrong", where's the demonstration? The determination that it should be used on a case-by-case basis? I assume that's not the demonstration you're referring to, since that's a Misplaced Pages editorial decision, and in no way makes a statement about whether Quackwatch understands and accepts the SM. I haven't considered the arguments here? How so? Which ones? And how do you know this? Nightscream (talk) 08:00, 2 January 2010 (UTC)

If you'd like an example, the link for one has already been given. One of the last times this was brought up (at http://en.wikipedia.org/Wikipedia:Reliable_sources/Noticeboard/Archive_32#Usage_of_Quackwatch_as_RS_in_medical_quackery ) that cited http://www.villagevoice.com/1999-06-22/news/doctor-who/ "Barrett depends heavily on negative research and case studies in which alternative therapies do not work, but he says that most case studies that show positive results of alternative therapies are unreliable. Former adviser to the National Institutes of Health's Office of Alternative Medicine Peter Barry Chowka states that: He seems to be putting down trying to be objective... Quackwatch.com is consistently provocative and entertaining and occasionally informative... But I personally think he's running against the tide of history. But that's his problem, not ours. In a critical website review of Quackwatch, Joel M. Kauffman evaluated eight Quackwatch articles and concluded that the articles were "contaminated with incomplete data, obsolete data, technical errors, unsupported opinions, and/or innuendo..." and "...it is very probable that many of the 2,300,000 visitors to the website have been misled by the trappings of scientific objectivity. -- Levine2112" Burleigh2 (talk) 20:35, 6 January 2010 (UTC)

Brangifer has stated a workable compromise that is in line with the consensus reached in previous discussions. If someone wants to suggest a different general guideline for the use of Quackwatch, then do, but otherwise we need to move on to improving the various articles. Following a question on WP:NPOVN I had a look at the Quackery article. It has multiple problems quite independent of any perceived bias. So there is work to be done and people need to be able to work together. Itsmejudith (talk) 15:29, 4 January 2010 (UTC)

The link you mention, Burleigh, shows the vast majority of editors agreeing that it is reliable, and should be vetted on a case-by-case basis, which I agree with. As for Peter Chowka, the fact that he is an advisor to an "Office of Alternative Medicine" makes it clear he too, may not understand the scientific skepticism with which scientific ideas are properly distinguished from non-scientific ones. It seems odd to argue that Barrett has a "bias", but that someone who works in capacity promoting A&CM does not. I would find a scientifically-informed "critical website review" that reported on numerous errors fundamental to Quackwatch's abilities to be more reliable, but you did not link to that one, interestingly enough. I agree that unless such information can be provided, each bit of material from Quackwatch should be examined on a case-by-case basis, and that we should move on. Nightscream (talk) 08:47, 11 January 2010 (UTC)

I never said that the link wasn't biased, I said it points out how overly biased Barrett is. I also said it was just one example (of many I've read over the years). The fact that you are ignoring the article based on the man's title would be exactly the same as me ignoring all of Quackwatch (or at least any article that Barrett writes) because he's a psychologist and knows nothing about drugs or supplements... most of your statement is completely biased to ignore any facts or information presented to you, which does seem quite similar to Barrett's position. I have seen numerous reports about Quackwatch that it conveniently ignored studies that showed the effectiveness of a supplement/herb and only uses those that show it in a negative light. I have seen some of the studies first-hand that have reported certain supplements/herbs in a negative light and many of them were flawed (whether funded by a drug company or whether it was testing something completely different; I can give more information on that via E-mail as this would take too much space on an already crowded page), but those seem to be the only ones that Barrett uses to push his ideals against natural options and "alternative medicines". Oh, and please don't twist my words for your own purposes... that does seem to be one of the main attacks of the skeptics and it really doesn't show you in a positive light.Burleigh2 (talk) 19:31, 12 January 2010 (UTC)

Burleigh, you can exclude a source by showing its publisher has a poor track record for fact checking and accuracy, and for that you'd have to provide reliable mainstream sources which have so concluded. Unless you can do that, your own personal knowledge and personal opinions of a source are not relevant for WP. Crum375 (talk) 19:40, 12 January 2010 (UTC)

That's completely understandable, but there are two different sides to this... there's Quackwatch's valid and helpful information that points out fraudulent companies and false items (which is what's being praised on all those sites), but then there's Dr. Barrett's personal articles that are entirely his opinion and bias and many have nothing to do with what the rest of the research did. If Dictionary.com had an opinion section, would the opinions posted all be automatically reliable?

Yeah, it's really hard to separate them since they are on the same website and his name is on both of them, but that's what is so difficult about saying the site is completely RS. After going through this, I know it should be on a case-by-case basis and I totally agree that is the best compromise... but not everyone on Wiki (and most people who don't edit here) have no idea that it should only be used on a case-by-case basis and that not all of them are appropriately RS. I can't recall if I mentioned it yet in this, but in the Alternative Medicine article, Quackwatch is mentioned saying "Many CAM methods are criticized by the activist non-profit organization Quackwatch" and then gives a citation to their general website... in any other article/example, that would likely be seen as spam for the website (since it doesn't cite any specific article), but when I deleted it and said the citation had nothing to do with that statement, my edit was undone because "QuackWatch is a RS". If I went to the GOP (Republican party) article and referred to Fox News or another RS that is very Democratic and said this site disagreed with many Republican ideals, it would be removed within minutes as spam or defamation... how is this any different based on what we've already covered and agreed on?Burleigh2 (talk) 21:04, 13 January 2010 (UTC)

Note that the old discussion had RS saying that QuackWatch was a reliable website: JAMA, Lancet and NEJM. And if you are going to use a review from the Village Voice, then you shouldn't forget using also the review from the Time magazine, which is very favorable. And also all the other stuff that I bothered to compile in the compressed text here. Otherwise you are picking only the negative reviews while leaving out the positive ones.

I also agree with Brangifer's compromise. --Enric Naval (talk) 19:52, 12 January 2010 (UTC)

Again, this was only one example that was listed on the last time this was brought up... there are many more examples I've come across that point out how biased against alternative medicines he is regardless of the available research he seems to ignore. This is not just my opinion, but has been verified in many places that I've read over the years. If you'd like a few more examples, a quick search on Yahoo brings up 163,000 hits for "Quackwatch biased" (most of which are not praising Quackwatch, but pointing out their bias and "attack articles" for lack of a better term).Burleigh2 (talk) 21:04, 13 January 2010 (UTC)

"The fact that you are ignoring the article based on the man's title..." I am not ignoring the article based on the Peter Chowka's title. I responded to your presentation of it (kinda hard to do if I'm "ignoring" it) by pointing out that the person who criticized Quackwatch promotes a/c medicine himself, thus illustrating that he, like any other promoter of it, does not follow scientific skepticism. This has nothing to do with "ignoring" or his "title". It is a response based on the same criteria I've maintained in this discussion: Proper adherence to scientific skepticism, the same criteria that properly informs all scientific knowledge, and critical examination of it.

If you had instead presented, as an example of criticism of Quackwatch, a person (Michael Shermer, Robert L. Park, James Randi) or organization (Center for Inquiry, Skeptics Society, American Medical Association) that found "incomplete data, obsolete data, technical errors" in Quackwatch's work, as you alleged, that would've been different. But aside from merely cutting and pasting material from an old version of Misplaced Pages's Quackwatch article (or a site mirroring it) about Joel M. Kaufman, you did not do this. I tried looking through the Skeptic's Dictionary, randi.org and Google to see if Kaufman is regarded as an adherent of proper scientific methodologies, but could not find anything at a glance to this point. Kaufman, it should be pointed out, is a critic of mainstream medicine, and a promoter of low-carb diets, which doesn't say much about him regarding this point.

"would be exactly the same as me ignoring all of Quackwatch (or at least any article that Barrett writes) because he's a psychologist and knows nothing about drugs or supplements..." Wrong. As aforementioned, my response to your mentioning Chowka was based on whether he promotes ideas that are considered pseudoscience, which is a valid scientific criterion. By contrast, ignoring Barrett because he's a psychologist and not a nutritionist is an ad hominem argument, and therefore, a logical fallacy. Not the same thing.

"most of your statement is completely biased to ignore any facts or information presented to you" I have responded to each line of reasoning and evidence that you have presented, and have done so directly, in order to explain why they do not support the conclusion that you believe they do, which flies in the face of this assertion. But if I'm wrong, please name one of these facts or bits of information presented to me, and please explain, by pointing to my replies to them, how I "ignored" them. If you'd like, I'll provide an example of how you have done precisely this:

I pointed out, at least twice, that there is no form of alternative or complementary medicine that has been scientifically shown to work any better than a placebo, that such medicines that are found to work thus are no longer called "alternative" or "complementary", but simply "medicine", and that this is why skeptic organizations like Quackwatch conclude thus. As far as I can remember from reading this entire thread, you did not respond to this point. If this "herbal supplement" you mention has passed the Peer Review Process, clinical trials, etc., then how is it "alternative" or "complementary"? (If you did and I missed it, I apologize; can you please point it out to me?) If I'm right, then isn't this an example of you ignoring information presented to you?

"I have seen numerous reports about Quackwatch that it conveniently ignored studies that showed the effectiveness of a supplement/herb and only uses those that show it in a negative light." Yet you have consistently refused to link to any of them, making it impossible to discern whether any of these studies are scientifically reliable, or just criticizing Quackwatch because they themselves promote a/c medicine. If you did, and it showed this, then I'd be in greater agreement with you. But feel free to link to one that's been peer reviewed, and prove me wrong.

"If you'd like a few more examples, a quick search on Yahoo brings up 163,000 hits for "Quackwatch biased" (most of which are not praising Quackwatch, but pointing out their bias and "attack articles" for lack of a better term)." Which is a poor method to verify that Quackwatch is biased, since Google hits can be generated by those promoting the exact same pseudoscience that we're talking about. This is like pointing to a survey showing that half of Americans reject evolution or accept creationism in order to argue that evolution is scientifically questionable, or that creationism is scientifically valid. I'm sorry, but anyone arguing that Google hits indicate anything other than the popularity of an idea (as opposed to its being "verified" scientifically) obviously does not understand the proper standards by which scientific knowledge is properly examined. Nightscream (talk) 23:21, 13 January 2010 (UTC)

Challenging DEFSOUNDS.COM as a reliable source

There are, as of this moment, 167 pages linking to DEFSOUNDS.COM according to LinkSearch I roughly estimate that 30% of the links found are being used as sources in biographical articles, the remainder being using in album articles or discussed on a talk page for either. My question is this: is DEFSOUNDS.COM a reliable source? When I visit their main page and click on "Who is Defsounds?" it says NOT FOUND BITCH. Wow, really? Then why are we citing this ANYWHERE on Misplaced Pages? JBsupreme (talk) 18:42, 5 January 2010 (UTC)

I guess it's possible they were hacked, or that an RS can have a bad attitude, but apart from that, indeed it doesn't appear to be an RS. It looks like a blog site anyone who becomes a member can post to. The couple articles from the linked list I looked at it was being used for CRYSTALBALL-type articles about unreleased albums. I did a cursory search to see if there were Google Books, Scholar or News citing defsounds.com, which might speak to their notability or reliability, but didn't find any. Шизомби (Sz) (talk) 23:57, 5 January 2010 (UTC)

I do not believe they were hacked, I think this is how they have their HTTP 404 configured, tasteless as it may be. Some of the other links do actually work, but they're mostly credited to pseudonyms like "Miss Information". So, what should be done with all these links? Remove them? JBsupreme (talk) 05:23, 6 January 2010 (UTC)

Probably so, though the editor(s) who added them might not like it. Misplaced Pages:Preserve#Try to fix problems: preserve information would suggest trying to find a RS for the same information, or adding a citation needed tag, I think (is there an RSbot that can do that kind of thing?). Or if the info is more questionable, removing it to the talk page, or deleting it entirely. I looked at another case where it was cited, Eminem#Shady Records and D12; that article states Bizarre did an interview with DefSounds, which might make them more notable or reliable... but then when one checks the reference, it doesn't indicate an interview was done with him by "Jokesta" for defsounds.com, just quotes from an unnamed, undated interview by an unnamed interviewer from an unnamed source or perhaps just invents it. Шизомби (Sz) (talk) 06:28, 6 January 2010 (UTC)

DefSounds is a user-generated content site with no editorial oversight or anything else WP:RS. The linked pages appear to be nothing more than users posting and discussing rumors, the latest Dynastyesque feud or news reported elsewhere. The existing links should be reviewed and removed/replaced as discussed above, and the website limited so only experienced users may add a link. Flowanda | Talk 07:00, 6 January 2010 (UTC)

The wiki software isn't capable of preventing the adding of certain links, is it? I'd never heard that it could. Шизомби (Sz) (talk) 14:43, 6 January 2010 (UTC)

Actually we do have a "blacklist" of banned websites, and I believe the software gives you some sort of error message saying so if you try to link to them. I am not sure of the exact criteria for inclusion in the list, but I do know that simply being unreliable is not one of them. So if DefSounds is deemed unreliable, then it would be up to individual editors to remove citations to it by hand... both currently and in the future. Blueboar (talk) 02:23, 7 January 2010 (UTC)

Right! Yes, I discovered that blacklist recently. It doesn't make sense to me that unreliable sources would not be added to it; what a waste of time not to do so! Шизомби (Sz) (talk) 17:17, 12 January 2010 (UTC)

Strict reliability of defsounds.com apart, I guess WP:DEADLINK is a relevant how-to in this regard. In short: Do not remove information or links only because the link is currently dead. --Cyclopia 19:47, 7 January 2010 (UTC)

That's fine and well Cyclopia, but you are going off topic (see header). If the link was deemed to be unreliable in the first place, the website is still up, and the 404 tells you "NOT FOUND BITCH" that is a different question. That is what we're discussing here. Not what to do with dead links. JBsupreme (talk) 22:51, 7 January 2010 (UTC)

• Regardless of their silly wannabe gangsta error message, the site does not look reliable. Their "news" is written by site members who recap stuff they've read/heard elsewhere. I don't see anything indicating that they are journalists or employees or vetted in any legitimate way. Niteshift36 (talk) 18:02, 12 January 2010 (UTC)

• Is this required for a RS? Note, I'm not pushing the view that the site is reliable, I wonder if it is a meaningful argument for reliability. --Cyclopia 18:05, 12 January 2010 (UTC)

Not sure what you're asking. Self-published sources are a problem, and expertise and editorial oversight are important; that can all be found at WP:RS. Шизомби (Sz) (talk) 15:12, 13 January 2010 (UTC)

Likelike Dolls Magazine

This was originally submitted to the Reborn doll article. I trimmed it down a bit. But now I am unsure if it can be considered a reliable source at all. Their "About Us" page can be found here: and they describe how they handle submissions here:. Any opinions? Thank you. Siawase (talk) 07:07, 7 January 2010 (UTC)

Newspapers and magazines are generally considered RS, and shouldn't be any problem for an article about dolls. This seems to be an actual print magazine, while it will obviously have a point of view towards doll collectors, it should be fine. I'd suggest a very trimmed-down version of the wording, something like "people have the dolls for reasons ranging from A to B to /therapy for Alzheimer's patients/(cite) to C," and so on. The article doesn't need to dwell too much on the fact that there were special issues about reasons given for doll collecting, a simple citation will do. Squidfryerchef (talk) 15:12, 10 January 2010 (UTC)

Thanks for your reply, that was pretty much exactly what I was leaning towards. The reason I asked was that I don't have experience in dealing with these types of niche hobby magazines. The editors are hobbyists and appear knowledgeable in their field, but with no other publishing experience, and from what I can find, no backing from any larger publisher. But I guess as long as I only use the magazine as a source about the hobby itself it should be ok? Siawase (talk) 20:33, 11 January 2010 (UTC)

Rejection of reliable secondary sources based on alleged inadequacies in primary research

There is a debate ongoing at Talk:Sinn Féin about numerous secondary sources which say that the current party known as Sinn Féin was formed following a split in the original party in 1970. (I'll list the sources below.)

One editor (Scolaire) is arguing that the sources should not be used because "a reliable source in relation to a particular fact can only be accepted if it is clear that the author had reasonable grounds for stating the fact, which means that he or she had access to primary documents.

I, on the other hand, say that it is not the role of Misplaced Pages to reject what secondary sources say because some of us believe the primary research engaged in by the author is inadequate. Rather, if we are not happy with what the secondary sources say, we ought to find other secondary sources which disagree.

I'd be interested in some views on this interpretation of policy.

For information, these are the sources in question:

• Richard English (2004), Armed Struggle: The History of the IRA, Oxford University Press
• Jonathan Bardon (2005), A History of Ulster. Blackstaff Press Ltd
• Brendan O'Brien (2007), O'Brien Pocket History of the IRA: From 1916 Onwards, O'Brien Press Ltd
• Ed Moloney (2007), A Secret History of the IRA, Penguin Books
• S. J. Connolly (ed.) (2007), The Oxford Companion to Irish History, Oxford University Press
• Thomas Hennessey (2005), Northern Ireland: The Origins of the Troubles, Gill & Macmillan
• Brian Feeney (2007), O'Brien Pocket History of the Troubles, O'Brien Press Ltd
• W.D. Flackes and Sydney Elliott (1994), Northern Ireland: A Political Directory 1968-1993, Gill & Macmillan Ltd
• CAIN Abstracts on Organisations
• BBC Fact Files
• Agnes Maillot (2007), New Sinn Féin: Irish republicanism in the twenty-first century, Taylor & Francis
• Marianne Heiberg, Brendan O'Leary, and John Tirman (2007), Terror, Insurgency, and the State: Ending Protracted Conflicts, University of Pennsylvania Press
• Jonathan Tonge (2006), Northern Ireland, Polity, pp.132-133
• Sheldon Stryker, Timothy J. Owens and Robert W. White (2000), Self, Identity, and Social Movements, University of Minnesota Press
• John Plowright (2006), The Routledge Dictionary of Modern British History, Routledge
• Kevin Rafter (2005), Sinn Féin 1905-2005: In the Shadow of Gunmen, Gill & Macmillan

Mooretwin (talk) 15:59, 7 January 2010 (UTC)

Often you do find editors who jump to merit based decisions to save the reader from confusion or deception. However, a prominent opinion is likely to be one that the reader will encounter and it seems in line with wikipedia and reader objectives to present all prominent POV's which means citing many sources that may be of questionable intellectual or moral value to us. So then the question is just how you cite them and make sure they are reliable for the claim made. At this point, you end up with a merit diecussion unless you write everything as "he said but she said etc ". At that point, you are probably back to the article talk page. So, even a source based on fantasy, if it describes a prominent view on a relevant issue, probably gets mentioned somewhere. Nerdseeksblonde (talk) 16:05, 7 January 2010 (UTC)

I have suggested an edit which I believe will give Mooretwin's sources due weight: "Many authors say that a new party, which they refer to as 'Provisional Sinn Féin', was founded by the Caretaker Executive at this time .<ref>For instance, English (2004), p. 107; O'Brien (2007), p. 75; Moloney (2007), p. 72</ref>". Would you consider this a fair enough use of the quoted sources? Scolaire (talk) 16:27, 7 January 2010 (UTC)

If it said that "Most neutral commentators{insert ref} say that the party known today as Sinn Féin, was founded in 1970 by the 'caretaker exective' of a breakaway faction associated with the Provisional IRA, whereupon it became widely known as 'Provisional' Sinn Fein", then we might have a version that is verifiable. --Red King (talk) 18:35, 7 January 2010 (UTC)

This isn't the place to discuss re-wording. The question is whether my proposal constitutes reasonable use of RS or not. Scolaire (talk) 18:46, 7 January 2010 (UTC)

Numerous reliable secondary sources have been presented which Mooretwin seems to be ignoring, this is not an issue for this page none of the sources provided by both sides in this content dispute are disputed as unreliable. BigDunc 19:58, 7 January 2010 (UTC)

This is not what the Reliable sources/Noticeboard is for at all. This is not an issue on weather a source is reliable or not but a simple case of forum shopping. --Domer48_'fenian' 20:16, 7 January 2010 (UTC)

Domer48 is right, this is not the place to be discussing content, so Scolaire's, RedKing's and BigDunc's contributions here aren't relevant. The question being asked is about Scolaire's own policy re. reliable sources, i.e. he wishes to reject secondary sources because - in his opinion - he is not satisfied with the primary material upon which secondary sources are based. So far, Nerdseeksblonde is saying that all secondary sources ought to be taken into account, and therefore Scolaire's attempt to rule out those with which he doesn't agree based apparently on his own personal assessment of their research methods is not in compliance with policy. Other views welcome. Mooretwin (talk) 10:35, 8 January 2010 (UTC)

Scolaire has made a documented attempt to rule in those sources, in line with Nerdseeksblonde's comment that such a source "probably gets mentioned somewhere". Please can we keep the infighting at Talk:Sinn Féin? The chances of us getting another neutral response are falling with each attempt at point-scoring. Scolaire (talk) 10:53, 8 January 2010 (UTC)

Nerdseekslonde made no comment about any particular sources, so there is no basis for you to imply that his reference to sources that may be of questionable intellectual or moral value referred to those sources with which you wish to disagree. He was talking in general terms. It's curious that you don't apply the same standards to the sources with which you do agree! Mooretwin (talk) 13:16, 8 January 2010 (UTC)

Thanks to all the uninvolved editors who gave views on this question. It's been overwhelming. Mooretwin (talk) 08:58, 11 January 2010 (UTC)

counterjihadeuropa.wordpress

Is this site wikipedia reliable in this case presently it has been used in a BLP to support this comment .. Littman is one of the people listed as an expert at CounterJihad Europa , a website acting "as a clearinghouse for national initiatives to oppose the Islamisation of Europe, with a focus on policy initiatives, legislation, legal test cases and political activism.the conference website —Preceding unsigned comment added by Off2riorob (talk • contribs) 17:24, 8 January 2010

The website, CounterJihad Europa, is hosted by wordpress.com. Wordpress.com is a weblog hosting provider. Thus, one can assume that CounterJihad Europa is a blog. According to WP:SPS, material found in blogs can only 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. However, caution should be exercised when using such sources: if the information in question is really worth reporting, someone else is likely to have done so.

Prima facie, then, the material at CounterJihad Europa would not generally be considered to be from a reliable source.

However, on a case-by-case basis, it may be that certain publications there may be acceptable, as per WP:SPS. That is, an individual essay/paper/article published at CounterJihad Europa that is from an established expert in the relevant field, notwithstanding being essentially self-published, could satisfy WP:SPS. Conversely, an individual essay/paper/article published at CounterJihad Europa by someone who is not an established expert in the relevant field would not satisfy WP:SPS. Finally, if all the writings at CounterJihad Europa are by one author, and that author is not considered an established expert in the relevant field, then the writings would not satisfy WP:SPS. — SpikeToronto 09:11, 9 January 2010 (UTC)

Many thanks for the comments Spike. Off2riorob (talk) 20:09, 9 January 2010 (UTC)

No, CounterJihad Europa is not a reliable source. Also note that the WP:SPS exception for experts does not extend to WP:BLP issues. --Stephan Schulz (talk) 10:13, 13 January 2010 (UTC)

Actually, this appears to be a "primary source for information about itself" issue, not an SPS speaking about a third-party BLP. You're basically citing an organization for the fact that somebody spoke at a conference; this is very different from citing their opinion about third parties. The question is whether Counterjihad Europa is relevant enough to mention in the article, and whether the blog itself is indeed controlled by that organization. As far as importance, there's a little bit written in secondary sources about the Counterjihad Europa conference that was held in 2007 in Brussels, though it appears to be a project of the Center For Vigilant Freedom(spinprofiles.org), which has also gotten attention from secondary sources. Looks like it's possible to cite, though with attribution. Squidfryerchef (talk) 13:19, 13 January 2010 (UTC)

The article Aircraft in fiction has multiple issues with sourcing

This article, aside from other problems, relies very heavily on some questionable sources. If this were one or two sources, I'd just remove them and handle it. But this article cites 50 "sources" and I think that at least 29 of them don't pass RS. So I wanted to get some other opinions before I removed them. One of the primary sources is Counter-x.net . Another that I find questionable is TFU.info . The article also uses imdb.com for a reference about aircraft types. IIRC, imdb can be used for things like credits, but not for trivia, as this is user added info. Other questionable ones are mastercollector.com , cliffbee.com , gamespot.com, a tripod.com site , cobraislandtoys.com , robot-japan.com , toyarchive.com , vimeo.com , Ben's World of Transformers and concordesst.com . He also uses other Misplaced Pages article as references. Does anyone find ANY of these pass WP:RS? I'm also not terribly comfortable with Hasbro.com being used as the source for their own products. Niteshift36 (talk) 08:06, 9 January 2010 (UTC)

Referencing other Misplaced Pages articles is definately a no-no, as far as reliable sources go. The others you mentioned (aside from Hasbro) don't appear to pass in my point of view. ArcAngel (talk) (review) 08:11, 9 January 2010 (UTC)

Although it is a website, concordesst.com, does appear to do some fact checking. It would not be my preference for a source, but I wouldn't call it inherently unreliable. Its forum does provide for feedback on its site. Some of the toy sites might be reliable, just as a person's own resume might be reliable, about facts about their own toys. It depends upon how they are used. --Bejnar (talk) 13:49, 9 January 2010 (UTC)

• Since we don't allow one to use their own resume as a source, I'm not sure that example bolsters their credibility a lot. Lol. I'm ok with leaving Hasbro, as they are a large, established company with no motive to lie about a toy they stopped making. That's why I mentioned it totally seperate frome the other list. I'm not as comforrtable with concordesst.com though. Niteshift36 (talk) 21:30, 9 January 2010 (UTC)

Maybe one more opinion? Could use the help. Niteshift36 (talk) 20:00, 11 January 2010 (UTC)

For such details as what aircraft a toy or game piece is modeled after, I would accept any well-recognized hobbyist source as well as any game or toy producer's site. There probably are some cases of controversy, but I would guess that for those in this sort of subject the hobbyist/producer sources are more likely to be correct than most published books, unless theauthor is a recognized expert. DGG ( talk ) 00:20, 12 January 2010 (UTC) .

• The problem is, these don't appear to be well-recognized hobbyist sites. Like I said, the manufacturer site would fly (no pun intended). Niteshift36 (talk) 00:27, 12 January 2010 (UTC)

Pioneers of genocide studies

In order to remove material from wikipedia it has been claimed regarding

• R. J. Rummel (2002). "From the Study of War and Revolution to Democide—Power Kills". In Totten, Samuel; Jacobs, Stephen L. (eds.). Pioneers of genocide studies. Transaction Publishers. 153-178 at 168-169. ISBN 0765801515. {{cite book}}: Unknown parameter |nopp= ignored (|no-pp= suggested) (help)
  

that "Transaction is not an acceptable publisher as it pushes an ideological line with a direct connection to the article's purpose. This work is not acceptable as it is..." . Any comments? Thanks!--Termer (talk) 15:52, 9 January 2010 (UTC)

And instead inserted an extremely pov edit with original research. I see no evidence for his claim, and if he wants to make it he'll have to find a good source and get consensus on the talk page. Dougweller (talk) 17:32, 9 January 2010 (UTC)

Having a POV is not a reason to reject a source- indeed most experts have opinions and research groups get funding by advocating opinions. The hope would be that tenuous but notable opinions have been refuted in other usable sources. Nerdseeksblonde (talk) 19:21, 9 January 2010 (UTC)

Both the author and the publisher satisfy Misplaced Pages's reliability requirements. The author is an expert in the field, and the publisher is a respectable publishing house that specializes in this kind of material. Jayjg 06:49, 10 January 2010 (UTC)

Yup. There's some pretty disruptive editing going on in that article. It might be exhausting to deal with, but hang in there, we're with you. Squidfryerchef (talk) 14:53, 10 January 2010 (UTC)

Transaction Publisher publishes on the basis of putting forward a political line which is directly related to issues in communist studies, and does so to the detriment of quality of works. Citing them in relation to an article on communist studies would be as credible as citing the International Communist League on this matter. Fifelfoo (talk) 02:44, 11 January 2010 (UTC)

Termer failed to notify appropriate editors and the article of this RS/N request. Fifelfoo (talk) 03:43, 11 January 2010 (UTC)

The full quote was, "Transaction is not an acceptable publisher as it pushes an ideological line with a direct connection to the article's purpose. This work is not acceptable as it is, at best, a practice reflection collection, and at worse, a stable of hobby horses. Finally, Termer, three paragraphs in an unrelated article is not an adequate theorisation and does not relate to the object at hand: the expression is not relevant. He's published Monographs which have received appropriate review. Go to your library and read one in its entirity. Also, you have been repeatedly warned about the quality of your citations, and until you can realise that separately authored chapters in edited works should be cited as such, I strongly counsel you against editing the article. Fifelfoo (talk) 05:24, 4 January 2010 (UTC)"

I also draw RS/N editors to WP:MILMOS#SOURCES which governs the acceptability of sources in the article in question. Fifelfoo (talk) 03:50, 11 January 2010 (UTC)

This source is clearly reliable by WP's standards. All sources have a POV, and if having a POV disqualified a source, we'd have no sources. There may be a question of WP:NPOV or WP:UNDUE if there is consensus that its views are those of a tiny minority, but after a casual inspection I would consider that unlikely. Crum375 (talk) 04:12, 11 January 2010 (UTC)

Transaction has, "a poor reputation for checking the facts, or with no editorial oversight." It "expressing views that are widely acknowledged as extremist, or promotional in nature, or which rely heavily on ... personal opinions." and is a Questionable Source. Fifelfoo (talk) 04:17, 11 January 2010 (UTC)

Can you cite a mainstream source which has classified Transaction as having "a poor reputation for checking the facts, or with no editorial oversight"? And can you cite a mainstream source which has classified it as "extremist"? Crum375 (talk) 04:48, 11 January 2010 (UTC)

Euan Hague, Edward H. Sebesta "Neo-confederacy and its conservative ancestry." In Neo-Confederacy: A Critical Introduction Euan Hague, Heidi Beirich, Edward H. Sebesta eds., University of Texas Press, 2008: 33-34 at endnt62 (p44); 23 at endnt1 (p40); 25 at endnt12 (p41); particularly in the context of Sebesta's blogged claim regarding his practice as a historian, Transaction Publishers is one of my major sources of Neo-Confederate books. is the best general discussion of Transaction's poor quality I've located. Neo-confederacy's position as FRINGE should be self obvious. Other discussions of quality are work specific. Fifelfoo (talk) 08:56, 11 January 2010 (UTC)

So you are using a blog as source to evaluate a publisher? Is that your definition of "mainstream source"? Please review our sourcing policies carefully. Crum375 (talk) 12:56, 11 January 2010 (UTC)

No, I was using a chapter in an edited collection from a University press to evaluate a press, and clarifying the point by reference to a summarising quote from a blog. Please read, "Euan Hague, Edward H. Sebesta "Neo-confederacy and its conservative ancestry." In Neo-Confederacy: A Critical Introduction Euan Hague, Heidi Beirich, Edward H. Sebesta eds., University of Texas Press, 2008: 33-34 at endnt62 (p44); 23 at endnt1 (p40); 25 at endnt12 (p41);" carefully. Fifelfoo (talk) 13:02, 11 January 2010 (UTC)

Can you please quote from your source what they say about Transaction? Crum375 (talk) 13:08, 11 January 2010 (UTC)

1. Endnote 1. " A sampling of paleoconservative views can be found in Sotchie, Joseph, ed. The Paleoconservatives: New Voices of the Old Right. (New Brunswick, NJ: Transaction Publishers, 1999). Sotchie is a neo-Confederate sympathizer, has been a League of the South member, and is closely associated with paleoconservativism. He has published essays in Southern Partisan that are hostile towards immigrants In a positive Southern Partisan review of Scotchie's The Paleoconservatives 19 (4th Quarter 1999): 37-39), William J. Watkins Jr. explains that the book "is part history and part manifesto"."

   In the opinion of Hague and Sebesta, Transaction publishes FRINGE views, and have demonstrated that holders of these FRINGE views consider Transaction Publisher books to be manifestos, ie: FRINGE opinion.

2. p25 en12 is a passing quote of Scotchie from the same on standard paleoconservatism, as opposed to neo-Confederacy, and is used as a primary withing Hague and Sebesta
3. p33-34 discussing a joint conference between Mises Institute and neo-Confederates on the theme of secession in 1995, "Secession, State and Economy," at Charleston SC is discussed through sources at en62. "This information comes from a pamphlet distributed to Mises Institute supporters. Another pamphlet contained a review of the "seminal and auspicious" secession conference (p. 9). The conference's papers were collected into a book: Gordon, David, ed. Secession, State and Liberty. (New Brunswick, NJ: Transaction Publishers, 1998), which contained essays by prominent neo-Confederates Clyde Wilson and Donald Livingston."

   Same basic argument: they publish FRINGE opinion for ideological reasons.

4. Later in the same edited collection Euan Hague and Edward H. Sebesta's "Neo-Confederacy and the Understanding of Race" contains an en88. "Rushton, J. Philippe. "Race, Aids, and Sexual Behaviour," Chronicles, 20.1 (1996): 39-40. Rushton advises readers to examine his book, Race, Evolution and Behavior (New Brunswick, NJ: Transaction, 1995). He also states that as a result of his findings, he has been subjected to "ferocious attacks," criticism by Canadian authories and his employer, the University of Western Ontario."

   Sadly I ran out of Google book previous before being able to cite that end note in context; but, I think this substantiates my argument that members of the Academic community view Transaction Publishers as a press associated with and dedicated to the publication of FRINGE views which fail to meet academic standards such as those of the University of Western Ontario and that the community served by Transaction Publishers views the publication of these views as a "manifesto" in attributable sources. Fifelfoo (talk) 13:53, 11 January 2010 (UTC)

The only way an academic publishing house could be "black listed" by WP as non-RS would be if there were a clear consensus among multiple mainstream sources that it is an "extremist" outlet or has a reputation of publishing inaccurate and erroneous information. I see no quotes above which establish this even from one mainstream source, let alone a consensus. You can't declare a source non-RS because you don't like what it says. You could potentially show that its views represent a minority, or even a tiny minority, per NPOV and UNDUE, but that's not a RS issue and does not belong on this page. Crum375 (talk) 21:11, 11 January 2010 (UTC)

Transaction Publishers is not only RS, I would point out with a Keep result. ". The publisher, Transaction Publishers, is likewise an established and reputable academic publishing house." operating internationally with other academic publishers. Cited as RS in about a thousand WP articles. And most editors who have themselves used RS/N keep it on their watchlist. Collect (talk) 14:11, 11 January 2010 (UTC)

Transaction is run by Irving Louis Horowitz, a notable and influential sociologist. From a 1988 New York Times feature on Horowitz and Transaction: "Today, the name Transaction identifies a leading publisher, based on the Rutgers University campus in Piscataway, of social-science books and periodicals." --JN466 22:55, 11 January 2010 (UTC)

• I consider Transaction a reputable publishing house, with a tendency towards publishing politically controversial material of various sorts. I do not consider them extreme or incompetent or careless; though they are not one of the very highest quality academic publishers, they are not among the dubious ones. Their material is not primarily Fringe, though some few of their books may well be Fringe; as is true with most publishers, they include a range of views. To blacklist it as a RS , one would have to show that essentially all their titles were disreputable. Their books would have to be judged individually on the merits. \.. This is not my own personal opinion: most librarians feel the same way, as shown by the record of their books in WorldCat--the first few books I checked at random , , have from 500 to 1000 library holdings each in worldCat. Any claim that they as a publisher are not accepted in the academic world is contrary to fact. DGG ( talk ) 23:40, 11 January 2010 (UTC)

I'm happy to accept the opinion that Transaction does not have a general taint for Misplaced Pages's purposes on the basis of the above argument. The issue is, in Mass killings under Communist regimes are two paragraphs from, R J Rummel (2002). "From the Study of War and Revolution to Democide—Power Kills". in Totten, Samuel; Jacobs, Stephen L.. Pioneers of genocide studies. Transaction Publishers. 153-178, reliable for either this claim, with a qualification that Rummel's methodology and competence to draw ideological conclusions have been attacked, that Rummel claims, "that all communist killing is a result of the marriage between absolute power and an absolutist ideology in the context of millenial utopianism which placed the Communist Party of the Soviet Union above the law" (this diff would obviously need to lose the opinion on Transaction); or for this claim, without qualification of the attacks on Rummel, that Rummel claims, "the killings done by communist regimes can be explained with the marriage between absolute power and an absolutist ideology - Marxism.. (Please note that the later diff is Termer's words, with a correct citation). The subject of Rummel's chapter is a self-reflection on methodology, its topic isn't the structure of causation in genocide, and the line is an undemonstrated throw-away line. Additionally, the text, "Pioneers of genocide studies." explains its purpose in xiii, xv-xvi in the Introduction, "In order to emphasis the fact that we were interested in a personal versus an academic essay, we informed our contributions that "All authors should approach the questions in a personal way, thus crafting an essay that reveals one's individual voice, passion(s), writing style, scholarly perspectives, and the most relevant details of one's life. In doing so, each author should include personal stories that illuminate his/her thinking, experiences and work. Indeed, each essay should epitomize scholarly autobiographical writing at its best." The concerns are: the source is focused on Rummel's personal practice, not an assessment of genocide in Communist societies (a throw away line), that the work is not checked by its editors (commissioned essays, "should epitomize" not checked, basic subediting problems "emphasis" in the Introduction), and thirdly, that its an autobiography not scholarly research. Fifelfoo (talk) 01:14, 12 January 2010 (UTC)

Transaction Publishing is used by academics who wish to push a neoconservative point of view without submitting their "reasoning" to academic scrutiny. If you believe that Saddam Hussein had weapons of mass destruction and was behind the 911 attacks then this is the publisher for you. Otherwise, it is just another publisher of fringe theories. The fact that it is located on Rutger's campus means nothing. The Four Deuces (talk) 01:24, 12 January 2010 (UTC)

I think there is no question Transaction is a RS. There is a question of how mainstream the opinions of the authors are, and whether they are a minority or tiny-fringe minority, per NPOV and UNDUE. These are issues which need to be resolved by a consensus of editors on the article's talk page, not on the generic RSN page. Crum375 (talk) 01:46, 12 January 2010 (UTC)

Just for the record, a conclusion made by Fifelfoo on this thread here is that the source & the statement by R. J. Rummel need to be removed from wikipedia: .--Termer (talk) 03:36, 12 January 2010 (UTC)

Fifelfoo's conclusion is the exact opposite of the conclusion of this discussion. The source is considered reliable by Misplaced Pages standards, and can be used for the material in question. Jayjg 03:46, 17 January 2010 (UTC)

Thanks Jayjg for spelling it out.--Termer (talk) 03:26, 18 January 2010 (UTC)

Brain & Mind "magazine"

I'd like comment on the "online magazine" Brain & Mind http://www.cerebromente.org.br/. The articles carry little or no sourcing, and where sources are listed they are in bibliography form and it's impossible to tell what statements come from which sources. Some articles are simply copied from elsewhere (e.g. ). There is no evidence of peer-review or other quality controls.

Several Misplaced Pages articles are largely copy-pasted from Brain & Mind (e.g. compare EEG_topography and ). This was apparently done by the author of the articles, Renato Sabbatini, who was an "editor" of Brain & Mind and wrote most of its material. The "editor-in-chief" of Brain & Mind turns out to be Sabbatini's wife, Silvia Helena Cardoso (). It was "a publication of e*pub" (see bottom of http://www.cerebromente.org.br/) and in his self-written Wikipeida bio () Sabbatini says he "created and acted as technical director to the first Brazilian project of scientific electronic publishing, the e*pub Group." Elsewhere in his bio Sabbatini describes Brain & Mind as a "website."

Sixteen "issues" (online only) were posted between 1997 and 2002 and though the lights are still on at http://www.cerebromente.org.br/ nothing has been added since. Although the "magazine" has been completely defunct for eight years, Sabbatini continues to describe himself in his bio as "associate editor of the section on the history of neuroscience in the Brain & Mind magazine...," and this is consistent with his longstanding habit of using Misplaced Pages to inflate his image as a scientific "pioneer" ( ) and to promote his commercial ventures (e.g. ). I believe everything on the Brain & Mind website should be considered self-published and unreliable. Any comment?

(In the past Sabbatini has tred to use his credentials to strongarm other editors into accepting his violation of guidelines and policies, which is why I'm asking for comment from others before going to work on the existing material based on Brain & Mind.)

Upsala (talk) 19:53, 9 January 2010 (UTC)

Quick initial point: EEG topography includes "reproduced with permission". I believe something official needs to be on the talk page to verify a claim like that. I do not know the details, but see WP:DCM. Johnuniq (talk) 04:18, 10 January 2010 (UTC)

At the moment it is pure copyvio, we will need something formal, nothing on the talk page will do. You've linked to the appropriate guidance needed to get permission. Meanwhile I'll see if the whole article needs blanking or if we can just remove anything copied or closely paraphrased. Dougweller (talk) 15:17, 10 January 2010 (UTC)

I've put a copyvio speedy tag on it although I could have deleted it myself, and a note on Sabbatini's web page. He seems to have a problem with copyvio images. If you want to start a new article I'd suggest a subpage in your user space. Dougweller (talk) 15:33, 10 January 2010 (UTC)

You guys are focusing on the copyvio problem, and yes it's serious. But I'm more worried that, if articles are deleted for that, Sabbatini will recreate them by just paraphrasing his Brain & Mind material to avoid the copyvio problem. That's what I want to prevent, because I believe Brain & Mind is not reliable, and that's why I'd like you to look at the Brain & Mind reliability question specifically. Upsala (talk) 21:05, 10 January 2010 (UTC)

Sorry, you are of course correct. There's a journal by that name but the references I found to that are obviously not to the website, but a possible cause of confusion. I would say no, although individual cases might be made for individual articles if they are written by people who are reliable sources, ie published in peer reviewed journals, etc. Reliability is not the default, and I can't find the evidence to call it a reliable source. Dougweller (talk) 11:22, 11 January 2010 (UTC)

Ulrich's does not list the publication. It is not academic, nor peer reviewed in a meaningful sense because of editorial board SELF. Not an RS: avoidance of available academic publication channels; SELF. Fifelfoo (talk) 11:49, 11 January 2010 (UTC)

OK, thanks everyone. I just wanted to be sure I wasn't missing something. Upsala (talk) 21:41, 12 January 2010 (UTC)

Sources for lists

I created the List of unofficial observances by date, and it was then tagged as needing sources. At the moment, all the list members are linked to the actual articles, where the sources of the dates for the observances are available. I'm of the opinion that it's really only necessary to put citations for list items that aren't cited elsewhere, but Ironholds disagrees. I'd appreciate opinions and policy commentary at Talk:List of unofficial observances by date. --Slashme (talk) 09:00, 10 January 2010 (UTC)

Or here, as per the normal working of a noticeboard. Essentially, I believe each list should have standalone references, per WP:LIST, which says list info must be verifiable - Slashme interprets this as saying it must be verifiable somewhere on the wiki, which I don't agree with, but we'll see. Thanks, Ironholds (talk) 09:30, 10 January 2010 (UTC)

Verification for list articles remains an unresolved issue. I would argue that the contentiousness of the list's topic is the most important factor in determining whether a list needs citations or not. If inclusion in the list could be controversial, then a citation (or even multiple citations) should be given to show that the item should be included (even if some other article already has such citations). If inclusion in the list is not controvercial, then (as long as there is proper citation at a linked main article) I don't think we need to clutter up the list article with citations. Blueboar (talk) 15:37, 10 January 2010 (UTC)

The list is "unofficial observances" - things like talk like a pirate day, for example. Would you consider inclusion contentious or not? Ironholds (talk) 15:51, 10 January 2010 (UTC)

There are two types of information in that list: the date of the observance, which is cited in the main article, and therefore not particularly contentious, and inclusion as an unofficial observance, which is also not a particularly contentious issue - if it's notable enough to have its own article, and that article is categorized as an unofficial observance, the categorization is a good enough reason to have it in the list.--Slashme (talk) 16:34, 10 January 2010 (UTC)

Hmmm... I could see the arguement that this list would be better handled as a wikipedia category (Cat:Unoffical observances), and I could definitely see questioning the notability of at least some of these "unofficial observances" (but that would be argued individually). But, as for citation, if you accept my "is it contentious" concept, I would say that since this is not a contentious topic, there would be no need to include citations in the list... as long as the dates are cited at the individual main articles. Blueboar (talk) 17:51, 10 January 2010 (UTC)

That category exists, but it doesn't contain the dates, so I created the list so that you could see when the next interesting holiday was coming up. --Slashme (talk) 19:37, 10 January 2010 (UTC)

I agree with Slashme in that verifiable in the links is technically enough, in the meaning it is enough to check that it's not OR or a hoax, but for sure having sources for the date in the article is strongly preferred, if anything else for maintainability and ease of consultation. --Cyclopia 15:01, 15 January 2010 (UTC)

Journal of Social, Political, and Economic Studies

Would this article published in this journal by this man Volkmar Weiss be considered a reliable source for this article Programme for International Student Assessment?

As an addendum, alerted by an edit war, I am now concerned that this article has been the target of POV editing related to the whole race-intelligence issue. If any editors felt like helping disentangle the issue I would be grateful.--Slp1 (talk) 21:32, 10 January 2010 (UTC)

The item being supported is that the PISA is an IQ test. The source reads, "In 2002, after the publication of “IQ and the Wealth of Nations” (Lynn and Vanhanen, 2002) and the preliminary reports of PISA 2000, Weiss became aware that PISA tests can be understood as IQ tests (Weiss, 2002) and that the transformation of PISA scores into IQ results in very similar numbers (Weiss, 2005, 2006)." (74). The journal (The Journal of Social, Political and Economic Studies) is listed as refereed by Ulrich's. The source is therefore reliable as used. Fifelfoo (talk) 02:40, 11 January 2010 (UTC)

Your quote only increases my concerns, unfortunately (!); it seems to me that this whole area (including the journal) is a walled garden of very controversial, highly disputed publications about race and intelligence. See our article about the “IQ and the Wealth of Nations” book cited by Weiss above. But you are right that as currently used the citation only cites that some people think that PISA scores may be measuring IQ, for which Weiss may be adequate. There was some suggestion on the talkpage that the two sources covered more of the material in that paragraph. I'm still quite uncomfortable as a source for unattributed facts given the reputation of the author and the publication. I'd be glad to hear the opinions of others. --Slp1 (talk) 04:13, 11 January 2010 (UTC)

Its hard to find people willing to attack the foundations of walled gardens, in part, because much academic practice is walled gardens containing wonders cultivated faithfully, where the walls are formed by accidental mutual interest. Better to determine if the other sources support the point more adequately or more specifically on topic, and indicate. Or phrase the opinion, "Foo and Bar of the controversial and much attacked Baz school believe..." Or if you've got attacks on the faithfulness of the Journal or its community of practice, to note these and remove it as FRINGE if the attacks are sufficiently substantive or go to methodological honesty. Reliability does not protect us from unpalatability, unfortunately. Check to see if there aren't any other standards of reliability for sources covering the point? Fifelfoo (talk) 11:41, 11 January 2010 (UTC)

I don't think it's necessary to decide right now whether or not it counts as an academic source. What I see is a problem with pulling out one sentence that seems to support "PISA is an IQ test". If you read the whole article, you can see that the author knows that PISA is a test of school achievement. He is saying that: even though it is not an IQ test the results are similar to those that are obtained from IQ tests, so for practical purposes it can be treated as an IQ test. If he were an econometrician, he might call it a "proxy" for IQ. He is not trying to present what PISA is, so OECD should remain our source for that. There is a large body of academic literature that draws on PISA data, published in journals of comparative education and journals of economics of education. It would be useful if the article made reference to that literature. This article is on the margins of that academic literature and editors will have to decide whether under WP:WEIGHT it needs to be mentioned at all. Itsmejudith (talk) 18:40, 11 January 2010 (UTC)

David Littman_(historian)

Can I report content regarding David Littman_(historian) from this citation ? Off2riorob (talk) 23:51, 10 January 2010 (UTC)

Note that there is an AfD nomination for the article in question here: Misplaced Pages:Articles_for_deletion/David_Littman_(historian).

My view is that this is an RS for purely factual claims about Littman. However, because it comes from the website of an organisation of which he is an active member, it is not sufficient on its own to demonstrate his notability.

I also think it would be advisable to find collateral sources if possible, because there is a clear NPOV issue otherwise. --FormerIP (talk) 00:43, 11 January 2010 (UTC)

What does that mean that in your view it is a RS for purely factual claims about Littman? Off2riorob (talk) 00:57, 11 January 2010 (UTC)

Yes. Not for anything that might be a matter of opinion or which is contradicted by another source, although as far as I can see this is not an issue at present. --FormerIP (talk) 01:04, 11 January 2010 (UTC)

Nothing there is contradicted by another source, more or less its the only source for all the content. Off2riorob (talk) 01:08, 11 January 2010 (UTC)

Since I am involved, other opinions would be welcome, though. --FormerIP (talk) 01:39, 11 January 2010 (UTC)

No. WUPJ Newsletter Issue #372 – 10 December 2009 / 23 Kislev 5770 is not a reliable source for an award received by its spokesperson, "David G. Littman, the World Union’s spokesman to UN bodies in Geneva" due to SELF. Fifelfoo (talk) 02:34, 11 January 2010 (UTC) Similarly, the other contents of the document are SELF (and read in the mode of self-aggrandisement). If its sufficiently significant, then it'll be written up in an RS eventually. Fifelfoo (talk) 13:34, 11 January 2010 (UTC)

Although it might not make much of a difference to the principle, the main claim here is that he was involved in something called Operation Mural (see the source for details), rather than that he won an award.

Does anyone else have an opinion? It would be really good to get a clear, no quibbling answer on this. --FormerIP (talk) 13:26, 11 January 2010 (UTC)

Seems pretty clear to me, none of the content there is reliable source for information about littman. Off2riorob (talk) 13:35, 11 January 2010 (UTC)

Sorry, I didn't mean to say that Fifelfoo was being unclear, just that if a few more editors comment then we would be able to either confidently make the amendments or confidently know that there is no way we can do that. Also it is likelt to be relevant in the AfD, so even if the amendments can't be made, at least it can be reported that this has not been determined an RS without people then saying "but only one person commented". --FormerIP (talk) 13:47, 11 January 2010 (UTC)

To Fifelfoo - http://en.wikipedia.org/Wikipedia:Reliable_sources#Self-published_and_questionable_sources says self-published sources can be used in articles about the subject - which this is. Nick Fitzpatrick (talk) 15:20, 11 January 2010 (UTC)

True, but notability may depend on the existence of multiple independent sources, and this seems now to be an AfD question. Itsmejudith (talk) 17:22, 11 January 2010 (UTC)

You are right about the AfD, but it is (unexpectedly IMO) attracting some keep votes. So one way of putting this is: can this material be included assuming the article stays. --FormerIP (talk) 01:44, 12 January 2010 (UTC)

This is the reliable source notice board, not Afd. A question was asked about reliability , and Fifelfoo inocorrectly answered it saying self published sources are not reliable. Nick Fitzpatrick (talk) 22:25, 11 January 2010 (UTC)

As far as the reliablility issue goes... A self-published source might be reliable... or not... depending on what the source is, and and how you are using it. Blueboar (talk) 22:32, 11 January 2010 (UTC)

I'll restate. A promotional newsletter from an organisation clearly self-aggrandising is a clear instance of why SELF published materials are untrustworthy, particularly for extraordinary claims involving security apparatus of states. This is not a reliable source. Fifelfoo (talk) 00:12, 12 January 2010 (UTC)

Thanks to everyone who has commented so far.

"Might" may well be right in this case, Blueboar, but the most useful conclusion to an RSN would be anything but that. Perhaps that is all you feel able to say, but here is some more info...

The source is indeed content from a the newsletter of an organisation in which Littman is a very active member. Specifically, can this source be used to state that David Littman was a key figure in Operation Mural and to give an outline of what that Operation involved? I am less concerned to include the fact that Littman was given an award by Mossad, although other users may wish to do this.

PS Fifelfoo, I completely follow your logic, but would add that the claim does not seem to me to be extraordinary. I think it is probably true, even if it is not in fact verifiable. --FormerIP (talk) 01:28, 12 January 2010 (UTC)

I'm pretty sure its true as well. Just not verifiable from this source due to source reliability. An appropriate academic could use this source to make the claim, and then it would be reliable: that's their job as Original Researchers. Fifelfoo (talk) 01:39, 12 January 2010 (UTC)

Yes, it may be a reliable source for the biography. WUPJ ( World Union for Progressive Judaism ) seems to be a pretty important organization and a quick peek at Google Books shows that its proceeds are cited fairly often. Appears to be a secondary source to me. If the subject of the biography is an officer of the organization, that makes it close to a primary source, but still a reliable source. If deemed a primary source WUPJ wouldn't count towards notability in an AFD, but the award itself from the Israel Intelligence Heritage organization would. However, the strongest claim towards notability would likely be his accreditation to the UN and work on behalf of Soviet Jews in the 1970s, which has recently been removed from the article.

It's surprising that we don't have an article about Operation Mural itself. It was a program in the early 1960s to smuggle Moroccan Jewish children to Israel, and movies have been made about it. At any rate, if other sources are desired for the subject of the biography with relation to Mural, here is Haaretz, and in relation to the intelligence organization here is New English Review. Squidfryerchef (talk) 02:48, 12 January 2010 (UTC)

Many thanks SFC. Think the Haaretz article you found may make this discussion beside the point now, since it contains the essential information sought. Can this discussion now be marked resolved, or do others disagree (eg because there is additional important information in the WUPJ source)? --FormerIP (talk) 11:54, 12 January 2010 (UTC)

I'd suggest keeping the WUPJ citation even if we use Haaretz, after all WUPJ was the organization he did the UN work with. Squidfryerchef (talk) 12:18, 12 January 2010 (UTC)

Snippets from PPV archives at are fairly clear. Jerusalem Post: "The Mossad, with the Jewish Agency and a humanitarian children's organization, sent David Littman, a British volunteer, to Morocco." Seems to establish notability per se. Collect (talk) 12:12, 12 January 2010 (UTC)

Is Who's Who a reliable source?

Another editor has raised a question about Who's Who (UK), the British list of biographies. She queries whether it's a reliable source as its content is generated by the individuals it lists; as our article on Who's Who says,

Occasional problems arise with the publication's reliability as a reference source because the entries are compiled from questionnaires returned to the publisher by the featured subjects. Some checks are made by the editors but subjects may omit anything they wish and such errors of omission can be difficult to identify. Examples that have been spotted include: the playwright John Osborne did not acknowledge an estranged daughter in his entry, Carole Jordan does not mention any marriage in her article, although her ex-husband, Richard Peckover, does in his. Paxman has also calculated that only 8% of new entrants in 2008 make any reference to marital breakdown, which is far below the national average.

Who's Who therefore effectively appears to be a compilation of mini-autobiographies. How should we approach it - as a de facto self-published source subject to the usual constraints therein? -- ChrisO (talk) 00:12, 11 January 2010 (UTC)

Yes. WP:SPS applies. It is not a reliable source "with a reputation for fact-checking and accuracy" as WP:RS requires. --Ronz (talk) 00:25, 11 January 2010 (UTC)

Marquis Who's Who has usually been considered as more or less an SPS. Not enough to prove notability in an AfD, for instance. Usually reliable on the usually minimal facts needed, but not good for extraordinary or unduly self-serving claims. Who's Who (UK) looks better, more careful and selective; something in between SPS and RS. The errors pointed out above are ones of omission, not outright lies. The article at issue seems to be Christopher Monckton, 3rd Viscount Monckton of Brenchley.John Z (talk) 03:31, 11 January 2010 (UTC)

Agree with that assessment by John Z. SPS-ish. --JN466 22:57, 11 January 2010 (UTC)

John Z's assessment seems accurate. Jayjg 03:40, 13 January 2010 (UTC)

Daniel Goldhagen

The following sentence keeps on being deleted (5 times in 1 day last week , once just now), based on the claim that Daniel Goldhagen - a fomer Harvard Associate Professor with an international bestseller in the area and a PBS series forthcoming - is not a reliable source. I've asked the deleters to come here and explainwhy they don't think he is reliable, but they won't do it.

Daniel Goldhagen states that, as a result of their communist ideology and their knowledge of Soviet experience, Chinese Communist leaders, as early as 1948, planned for the destruction of 80 million people, including peasants and landlords. This destruction included mass executions, mass incarceration, mass population movements, and other eliminationist policies.

• Goldhagen, Daniel (2009). Worse Than War: Genocide, Eliminationism, and the Ongoing Assault on Humanity. PublicAffairs. p. 608. ISBN 1586487698, 9781586487690. {{cite book}}: Cite has empty unknown parameter: |coauthors= (help) p.344.

1. Goldhagen, Worse than War, p. 344

P. 344 is not that long. Would somebody look at Goldhagen's credentials, and verify that my summary is accurate? Smallbones (talk) 01:50, 11 January 2010 (UTC

I don't know the definitive answer to the question, but would note that the word "controversial" appears in the second sentence of Goldhagen's WP entry. --FormerIP (talk) 02:22, 11 January 2010 (UTC)

The publisher's reliability is moderate. Their about page indicates that aggressive commercial marketing is their primary business, their back catalogue indicates that they are not an academic publisher. Similarly, they're an independent affiliate of a publisher's network that works on a marketing basis only. Not the best, nor the worst, within WP:MILMOS#SOURCES schema. Certainly a work from another publisher would be preferable. Regarding Goldhagen's reliability, Goldhagen is a historian known for his speciality in assignment of guilt in relation to the European holocaust. His assignment was controversial, but the level of criticism was within the standards of acceptable academic conduct. The book is too new to have yet been reviewed academically. One commercial review discovered at Washington Post is not generous, "His ambitious new book, "Worse Than War," springs from an immersion in their sufferings and the heartfelt desire to end it. But even victims -- or, perhaps, especially victims -- deserve books that are clearly argued and clearly written. "Worse Than War" is not that book." (First unnumbered web page.) And goes Goldhagen for academic failures, "But by conflating so many incidents, movements and events -- all of which are (or were) very bad, yet all of which are very different -- he makes the eliminationist concept virtually meaningless. He's like a doctor who thinks it doesn't much matter whether you have cancer or AIDS." (Second unnumbered web page.). However, I'd counsel waiting on academic reviews, strongly counsel this. Goldhagen's specialty is not Chinese history, so he's probably using other sources for those claims of intention and number. 1) Use with caution, if at all. 2) Return to WP:RS/N in six months when the academic reviews have been published for a proper opinion on the reliability of this text. 3) Immediately: seek Goldhagen's footnotes for the claims of intentionality and volume; if non primary, use these instead as they're probably more reliable than Goldhagen. Fifelfoo (talk) 02:23, 11 January 2010 (UTC)

I consider reinstating the unsourced figure of 80 million as a blatant disruption by Smallbones. I raised this issue here and Smallbones has simply ignored it while continuing to edit-war instead. (Igny (talk) 02:24, 11 January 2010 (UTC))

PS I can't see the material on Google books. Would it be possible to type out the relevant extract?--FormerIP (talk) 02:42, 11 January 2010 (UTC)

In 1948, Mao in "agrarian reform" study materials conveyed to the party membership that his schemes for restructuring overpopulated China required that "one-tenth of the peasants would have to be destroyed" One tenth of half a billion is fifty million. In 1948 Jen Pi-Shih of the Communist party's Central Committee declared in a speech to the party cadres that "30,000,000 landlords and rich peasants would have to be destroyed" The communist leadership's intention already well formulated (and communicated to their ideologically like-minded followers), they began, upon taking power, to implement their elimionist policies in programs of population movement, mass executions, and mass incarcerations of landlords, rich pesants, and other class enemies in the vast camp system they created. The communists exterminated Chinese on the order of magnitude that Mao and Jen had foretold well before they had begun.

Thanks. That doesn't seem to support "...as a result of their communist ideology and their knowledge of Soviet experience..." in any way, and Smallbones also seems to have resolved a conflict between two figures by adding them together, which is creative but not a good use of the source, I think. --FormerIP (talk) 03:26, 11 January 2010 (UTC)

The 3 sentence immediately before "In 1948" "For Mao and the Chinese communist leaders, the ideal of a transformed and purified communist society derived from Marxism. The knowledge that they must use violence to achieve it derived from the experience of their mentors, the Soviets. Therefore, the intention to practice thoroughgoing eliminationist politics took shape much earlier than it had with the Soviets, crystallizing in mass-murderous thinking as the communists’ victory over the nationalists and the assumption of power neared." As far as adding Goldhagen's fifty million and 30 million together, yes I can add, and WP:SYNTH specifically allows such simple addition.

Fifelfoo's "WP:MILMOS#SOURCES schema" is irrelevant here. A sub topic of the manual of style on Military History simply doesn't over-ride WP:RS on a genocide article. Fifelfoo has earlier stated that Goldhagen was a very good scholar. Whether somebody calls him controversial or Fiflefoo counsels waiting until all the reviews are in is also irrelevant. Is a Harvard scholar with an international best seller in the area and a forthcoming PBS series based on the book cited, a reliable source or not? By the standards stated in WP:RS, I'd say there is no question that he is. Smallbones (talk) 04:07, 11 January 2010 (UTC)

Also see . Smallbones (talk) 04:18, 11 January 2010 (UTC)

If you're putting it in those stark terms, then no, this book isn't an RS. His publisher is crap and the reviews available to date indicate that this work fails to meet expected academic standards. Reliability primarily inheres in the publisher, not the author. Fifelfoo (talk) 04:23, 11 January 2010 (UTC) Which is why I'm counselling to wait on academic reviews, which will take about six months from now. Fifelfoo (talk) 04:30, 11 January 2010 (UTC)

I think that it is most likely a misreading to add the 50 million and the 30 million together. The dates for the two speechs study materials and the speech are not given. So, either the number shrank from 50 million to 30 million with the target becoming more focussed from peasants in general to landlords and rich peasants in particular, or vice versa.

As for using Goldhagen or not, we have to remember that we are not writing PhD dissertations here. Thus, it is not up to us to determine the source material used by the authors and then vet the authenticity of same. Rather, we are supposed to be writing undergraduate level papers wherein we present articles that survey the literature on a given topic. Thus, whether to use Goldhagen or not depends on how one intends to present his material. Does his analysis fly in the face of accepted scholarship? Then it should be presented as such, presented as an alternative, not-widely-subscribed-to view, and fully cited accordingly. While I truly respect Fifelfoo’s caution, I am not altogether certain that one need wait for reviewers to vet the book prior to our being able to use it. It’s out there. And it presents an (alternative?) viewpoint that ought to be presented to wikireaders to maintain the article’s neutral point of view by surveying the spectrum of scholarship in the subject area. Finally, Goldhagen is notable enough that he qualifies for a wikiarticle, so why would a book by him, a book that is not self-published, not be notable enough to be cited so long as it is cited with due caution? — SpikeToronto 05:44, 11 January 2010 (UTC)

Yes, it is obvious that Goldhagen is a reliable source. He is also fairly mainstream - even if controversial in his own way. Mainstream: Chinese Communists killed 30-50 million. Goldhagen: because of their Communist beliefs, Chinese Communists planned to "destroy" 80 million. Note that the 30 million and 50 million are not alternative numbers, they are separate numbers that can be added together. Mao - "destroy" 50 million peasants - one class of people according to Communist theory. Jen Pi-Shih - "destroy" 30 million "landlords" and "rich peasants" (i.e. Kulaks) (two other classes in Communist theory). "Destroy" includes mass executions, mass internments, and mass population movements Smallbones (talk) 14:25, 11 January 2010 (UTC)

To be honest, had he been published by an academic publisher, or a commercial publisher with a statement of purpose that was less marketing oriented, I wouldn't be worried. But the combination of an extremely hostile review going to the credibility of the research methodology (claiming it isn't credible research) combined with the publisher issues has me worried. The article in question has a number of issues with academics who publish credible work in academic spaces and FRINGE work in unreliable publishers, or SELF spaces. Checking reviews in academic journals for arbitration would be my normal next step, but the work is sufficiently new to be within the publication cycle of humanities / social science journals in the field. Fifelfoo (talk) 07:34, 11 January 2010 (UTC)

If you are looking at reviews, you might as well look at the New York Times review "In this magisterial and profoundly disturbing “natural history” of mass murder, Daniel Jonah Goldhagen calls for an end to such willful blindness. As he did in his celebrated and controversial “Hitler’s Willing Executioners,” Goldhagen insists that even the worst atrocities originate with, and are then propelled by, a series of quite conscious calculations by followers as much as by leaders. " Smallbones (talk) 14:11, 11 January 2010 (UTC)

Thanks Smallbones, I attempted to access that review but got channelled into blog territory. I'd still prefer waiting for full academic reviews before stabilising my opinion, but getting a magisterial out of NYT is sufficient to swing the presumption back in favour of Reliability. Fifelfoo (talk) 00:15, 12 January 2010 (UTC)

Source is RS by WP standards, and as long as the numbers are cited to the author, it is properly in the article. repeatedly cited by the NYT as an American scholar, so the author is notable as well. It is moreover, not up to us to decide which figures we like or do not like - as long as the numbers are sourced, we have to deal with it. Collect (talk) 14:47, 11 January 2010 (UTC)

• The "80 million" are nowhere present in Goldhagen and fall foul of WP:SYN. Goldhagen himself cites Rummel, p. 223, which is visible in google books. Rummel quotes Mao's instruction mentioning the 10% (or 50m), and then adds that "Jen Pi-shih, a party Central Committee member, had also said in a 1948 speech to cadres that '30,000,000 landlords and rich peasants would have to be destroyed'" (emphasis mine). The placement of the word "also" reinforces my impression that neither Goldhagen nor his source, Rummel, meant for these two figures of 50m and 30m to be added to each other.
• Rummel is much the better source to use here. Goldhagen moves from Hitler to Mao to Serbia in the space of two paragraphs. It is a high-level survey, whereas Rummel's book is actually dedicated to the topic of China. Rummel puts the figure of those killed as a result of these policies at an estimated 4.5 (not 80) million. --JN466 19:58, 11 January 2010 (UTC)

As for Goldhagen discussing all of this in summary while Rummel deals with the material in detail, I do not think that that is relevant. We are not doing investigative journalism here. Nor are we writing graduate theses and dissertations. We are charged with writing undergraduate level articles that survey the literature. We are only to vet the sources for verifiabilty and reliableness.

I think that both Rummel and Goldhagen can be used so long as they are presented as differing views. My understanding of WP:NPOV is that the article must, on balance, be neutral. To leave out one author’s differing calculations is to choose one view over another, which is not our job as neutral wikieditors. However, it is one thing for the Party to have made estimates of between 30 and 50 million, it is quite another if the subsequent reality is an entirely different figure. I would suggest that Goldhagen’s quote be used to illustrate the Party’s pre-genocide estimates, while Rummel’s numbers be used as a measure of the ensuing genocide. However, I think that one can find many sources that would disagree with Rummel, that his number is too low. I seem to recall reading back in the dark ages when I was at university that the number in reality was much nearer Mao and the Party’s estimate than Rummel’s calculation.

Finally, I still maintain, and agree with Jayen, that the 30 million and 50 million figures are not intended to be added together, regardless of whether WP:SYN would permit it or not. To do so is to misread, to misunderstand, the source. — SpikeToronto 20:34, 11 January 2010 (UTC)

I believe there is no point of fact on which Goldhagen and Rummel differ. Goldhagen simply repeats material from Rummel, citing him. --JN466 20:51, 11 January 2010 (UTC)

Note that Goldhagen's book has the searchable preview in amazon enabled: --JN466 20:54, 11 January 2010 (UTC)

Note that Rummel's estimate of 4.5m is for land-reform-related killings only. Rummel himself says that estimates vary widely and gives examples. --JN466 21:59, 11 January 2010 (UTC)

Fine, both can be cited, Goldhagen for 50 million planned "destructions" and Rummel for 4.5 million actual killings during the land reform program. The "basic addition" exception to WP:SYNTH only applies when it is obvious to everybody that the numbers can be added together. While I think that it should be obvious that Communists would never conflate "peasants" and "landlords" in the same category, I'll bow out on this one (as I made clear on the talk page), so 50 million is the number Mao PLANNED to destroy according to Goldhagen. Does anybody have problems with this? Smallbones (talk) 22:12, 11 January 2010 (UTC)

It is unfortunate that this section was titled using the name of a writer rather than a reference to the source cited. Goldhagen's academic writings are reliable sources. His popular books are not. The same with all other writers. Smallbones, do you understand what this difference is and why it is important? The Four Deuces (talk) 00:54, 12 January 2010 (UTC)

An interesting claim - but not one founded in WP policy nor guidelines, nor in any articles on WP. Books which one does not like are automatically not RS just "because"? Nope. Books by academic presses by recognized scholars are RS for WP. Collect (talk) 01:07, 12 January 2010 (UTC)

Partially seconding Collect here (The press isn't academic). Yes he's gone through a high intensity marketing popular press. No, this doesn't mean he's avoiding appropriate review (though in this case its commercial rather than academic review). Popular press reviews located so far are split (NYT: magisterial, Washington Post: not clearly written and argued). This would be different had he gone to a less reputable press, or a small press, or a press where this would be their money spinner for the year on the basis of it having his name on it: all methods of avoiding review. However, its rather obvious Goldhagen's book will be peer reviewed in journals, Real Soon Now. Given that the press isn't shocking, the reviews are split, and he's deliberately bringing his views into a public domain commercially, presumption favours reliability. Avoidance behaviour which would mean he's avoiding academic publication review would be a website, vanity press, micro press who doesn't normally publish in that area, a popular magazine or newspaper etc. Fifelfoo (talk) 01:37, 12 January 2010 (UTC)

• Goldhagen is generally considered to be a reliable source. If the publisher were a university press, that would weigh in favor of increased reliability, but that doesn't mean the book is unreliable. Jayjg 03:38, 13 January 2010 (UTC)

Goldhagen is a notable expert in the field, but some of his original statements are not undisputed in academia. They can be used, but should be used with inline attribution. For the non-disputed facts presented by Goldhagen, in most cases other, less controversial sources, are available, and should be used instead.  Cs32en  12:53, 19 January 2010 (UTC)

Famous Why

Is this source reliable for the biographical info on Ace Amerson? The prose does not look professionally written (referring to a season on a reality TV show as a "TV serial"; referring to him as a "famous actor" when he's a reality TV personality whose fame is relegated to MTV viewers; referring to his alma mater as "the Georgia Southern University."; etc.), but I wanted to be sure. Nightscream (talk) 08:39, 11 January 2010 (UTC)

At the top of that page, there's a link titled "edit biography." Any remaining questions? Hullaballoo Wolfowitz (talk) 19:42, 11 January 2010 (UTC)

Whoops. Sorry, I missed that. Nightscream (talk) 16:25, 18 January 2010 (UTC)

Skanderbeg

These books :

• The World's History: South-eastern and eastern Europe, By Hans Ferdinand Helmolt ()
• Chambers's encyclopaedia: a dictionary of universal knowledge, Volume 7 ()
• The Ottoman dynasty: a history of the sultans of Turkey from the earliest authentic record to the present time, with notes on the manners and customs of the people, by Alexander W. Hidden ()
• The International cyclopedia: a compendium of human knowledge, rev. with large additions, Volume 13, by Charles Francis Richardson, Selim Hobart Peabody ()
• The Book of History: Eastern Europe to the French revolution, by Viscount James Bryce Bryce, Holland Thompson, Sir William Matthew Flinders Petrie ()
• The Standard American encyclopedia of arts, sciences, history, biography, geography, statistics, and general knowledge, by John Clark Ridpath ()
• ...

And these authors:

• Alexander W. Hidden
• Hans Ferdinand Helmolt (Already used as source in Misplaced Pages)
• Charles Francis Richardson (Already used as source in Misplaced Pages)
• Selim Hobart Peabody (Already used as source in Misplaced Pages)
• Robert Elsie (Already used as source in Misplaced Pages)
• Harry Thurston Pech
• Viscount James Bryce Bryce (Already used as source in Misplaced Pages)
• Holland Thompson
• Sir William Matthew Flinders Petrie (Already used as source in Misplaced Pages)
• ...

Tell us that Voisava was Serbian princess. Information in Skanderbeg article was deleted, as sources are old.

Did some of those may not be RS, or can be used? --Tadija (talk) 18:08, 11 January 2010 (UTC)

Authors aren't sources. Please supply a citation including work title, year of publication, place of publication, and publisher. If a reprint or translation, please supply the original work's information. If commonly reprinted, please supply the first impression's information.

Not reliable, non expert tertiary:

Chambers's encyclopaedia

The International cyclopedia

The Standard American encyclopedia

Heinemann's World history is 1907, appears to be a chronicle or cyclopedia by another name, and isn't specific. Not really RS.

Hidden's Ottoman dynasty is a rev ed from 1912. It is specifically focused on the aristocracy of the area. A reliable source. But terribly old. Consult modern scholarship as Hidden is not representative of current scholarly consensus. Privilege modern scholarship over Hidden if available. Fifelfoo (talk) 01:29, 12 January 2010 (UTC)

@Tadija: That authors are cited in other WP articles isn't a good argument that they are RS; maybe that should be explicitly mentioned on the WP:RS page. See WP:Verifiability#Misplaced Pages and sources that mirror or source information from Misplaced Pages and WP:Other stuff exists.

@Fifelfoo: Granted, one can't cite just to a person without indicating what text, but authors are supposed to be a consideration: "The word "source" as used on Misplaced Pages has three related meanings: the piece of work itself (the article, paper, document, book), the creator of the work (for example, the writer), and the publisher of the work (for example, The New York Times or Cambridge University Press). All three can affect reliability. Reliable sources may therefore be published materials with a reliable publication process; they may be authors who are regarded as authoritative in relation to the subject in question; or they may be both." That wording is not ideal, and might contribute to some editors' confusion, possibly like Tadija above.

What's the problem with Chamber's Encyclopedia? Шизомби (Sz) (talk) 17:12, 12 January 2010 (UTC)

Its an encyclopedia. Fifelfoo (talk) 22:33, 12 January 2010 (UTC)

Tertiary sources such as encyclopedias are not inherently unreliable as Fifelfoo's comment might suggest, but they are certainly not preferred. Chamber's Encyclopedias, especially the earlier editions, were not well fact-checked. They basically repeated whatever they found, uncritically, and without citation. If it is in Chamber's then usually another source can be found, but not always a reliable one. --Bejnar (talk) 23:30, 12 January 2010 (UTC)

Thanks. RS and OR do state (reputable) encyclopedias "may be used to give overviews or summaries, but should not be used in place of secondary sources for detailed discussion." What's the source of your knowledge regarding the quality of Chambers's Encyclopaedia? I'm only slightly familiar with it myself. Right now the WP article says it was "generally excellent," something Apwoolrich wrote in the first edit of that article (not that I'm taking that for granted as true!). Шизомби (Sz) (talk) 02:42, 13 January 2010 (UTC)

Referencing the nobility of an early south eastern european aristocrat to a generalist encyclopedia is not an "overview or summary". I'd say establishing the nobility of a pre-modern individual is very much so detailed discussion. I would say the same regardless of the quality of the generalist encyclopedia. Could you please list the publishers and works of the named individuals if you'd like them determined as RS, what you're using them for, and where in the texts that supports your use. Fifelfoo (talk) 02:49, 13 January 2010 (UTC)

I'm not the OP and am not involved with editing that article, I was asking a more general question about Chambers. Шизомби (Sz) (talk) 15:09, 13 January 2010 (UTC)

Comment: This appears to be part of some sort of nationalistic Serbian/Albanian edit war, over whether a person should be considered Serbian and over the spelling ( or transliteration ) of her name. The spelling should be a no-brainer; if two different spellings are common, even in old encyclopedias, then they should be presented as alternates in our article. I don't think the matter of nobility is in dispute, only of nationality. As far as nationality, there's already two conflicting but sourced accounts of her ancestry in the article. The question is whether there is enough weight to justify adding a third alternative, for Serbian ethnicity. Squidfryerchef (talk) 04:22, 14 January 2010 (UTC)

poker-babes.com

Is it a reliable source? See . It's used as a source for a number of articles. Dougweller (talk) 18:29, 11 January 2010 (UTC)

I hadn't realised it had been raised as a spam issue at Misplaced Pages:Administrators' noticeboard/Incidents#Poker-Babes.com Spam but they are assuming it's being used as an EL, but the only articles I've looked at use it as a source. Dougweller (talk) 18:41, 11 January 2010 (UTC)

Might be because I just removed it from about 100 articles as an external link across the various languages of Misplaced Pages. I was given administrator approval to remove it as an external link in all instances, and I believe I have done so. Now on to whether or not it is a reliable source. I say no. I could be argued that for Shirley Rosario and Steve Badger it is a reliable source, since it is listed as her official site and he is listed as the owner of the domain via a WHOIS search, so they probably co-own the site. Beyond that, I do not find it to be reliable, especially when compared to BluffMagazine, CardPlayer, PokerListings and others who have full time reporters covering the poker world - and Poker-Babes.com is the first hand account of a former Bicycle Casino employee. I request permission to remove this site as a source Misplaced Pages-wide. DegenFarang (talk) 19:25, 11 January 2010 (UTC)

User:DegenFarang has engaged in extreme wikihounding regarding me including making up blatant lies. The Poker Babes links have been added by numerous users, with tens of thousands edits between them, including those who added a single one like Absolon and Awinkler, along with a bunch added when when first creating articles like Sirex98 and more often by the two editors most responsible for building out the poker section of the Misplaced Pages Essexmutant and again and again and again and , as well as CryptoDerk and again and again and again and again and again for starters. These editors alone have over 40,000 edits between them, and needless to say all these editors are not me. In addition to The New York Times and Times of London the owner and writer of most of the content of the site has been quoted as knowledgable source by the Associated Press and Cardplayer Magazine. Additionally she has won major poker tournaments, been interviewed by poker websites like Pokernews.com and appeared in the Poker for Dummies DVD with Chris Moneymaker and Barry Shulman. The owner of the site author of most of the articles, and it is plainly obvious she meets the criteria as an expert source on poker gameplay and the poker industry. She is referenced as an expert by general authoritative reliable sources like The New York Times, Times of London, the Associated Press, and also by the top poker industry reliable sources, Cardplayer magazine and Pokernews.com. 2005 (talk) 22:54, 11 January 2010 (UTC)

She may be an expert source for some of the specific games articles, however she is not an expert source on so many different poker players. I have repeatedly stated that you are not the only editor to have included poker-babes.com links - I have simply stated that you are responsible for at least 90% of the total number of links. That other people included a link here and there is well established and we agree on that fact. The source is still not relevant in the majority of places it is used. DegenFarang (talk) 23:08, 11 January 2010 (UTC)

Multiple editors have added it as a reliable source. I have added refs to dozens of websites, more to thehendonmob.com and pokernews.com and others than poker-babes! In the first dozen links listed Annied Duke was added in by administrator CryptoDerk in 2004 the day he made the article, Barry Greenstein was added by CryptoDerk, Chip Reese was added by administrator Cantthinkofagoodname in 2006, was added by CryptoDerk again at initial page creation in 2004, Gus Hansen added by CryptoDerk again at article creation. Etc Etc Etc. Sure I have added some, but so have many other editors with tens of thousands of good faith edits between them. 2005 (talk) 23:48, 11 January 2010 (UTC)

It appears to me to be a reliable source. According to the site map pages it contains articles on poker strategy, player profiles, book reviews and a list of contributing writers.-- — Kbob • Talk • 23:42, 11 January 2010 (UTC)

We are tighter on reliable sources now than we were 3 years ago, let alone 5 years ago. Lists of people who added it are irrelevant. I should have been more specific and asked if it was a reliable source for people. I'm fine with it being a source for poker strategy. Dougweller (talk) 08:20, 12 January 2010 (UTC)

Lists of who added links is relevant if it is asserted the links were not added by multiple editors when in fact they were. But I agree with you that there is a distinction between people articles and strategy, and wiki guidelines have changed over time. Strategy/rules/industry type articles is where it is suited for citations. While it is only ever cited for interesting but uncontroversial facts about a person, BLP articles have the general criteria to not use expert/personal websites as citations. So in some cases, say obscure people with little coverage, they could be used as external links instead. For well-known people with a dozen citations I don't think we ever need external links to non-official sites. The problem with removing the source citation of course is the content being cited needs to be removed too. We can't just take down cites and leave the info. So again, I agree this site is a fine cite for strategy/game content, but like all expert websites it should not be used as a cite in BLPs (except of course any article written by the subject of the BLP article). 2005 (talk) 09:16, 12 January 2010 (UTC)

2005 it would seem then as if me and you are in agreement. I question Poker-Babes.com both as a reliable source and it's use as an external link only in articles about poker players. You said that it should not be used as an external link for well known players, however yesterday I removed it as one for at least 50 articles of well known poker players across various languages of Misplaced Pages. I'm glad to see you agree that this was the correct action. Regarding it's use a a reference/source for well known poker players, it seems you also agree that it should not be used, your only objection appears to be what to do with the content - I will take responsibility for either removing the content that cannot be verified by other sources or finding other sources for the content which can be verified, along with making any appropriate changes to the content in the articles, as dictated by the new sources. If I can get an administrator or a couple of editors to agree with this I will begin immediately removing poker-babes.com as a source/reference from articles on all well known poker players. DegenFarang (talk) 12:30, 12 January 2010 (UTC)

(edit conflict)

No we do not agree. You have been labeling removing the links as "spam". It is not spam and continuing to refer to it that way is inappropriate both in terms of the domain and the many editors who added it as a link. So stop it. As mentioned by Jayen466, it is an expert self-published source, and self-published sources should not be used in biographies. The links were added over a period of years and are not spam by any definition. Additionally when you have removed the links in a few cases you added non-expert self-published sources. This is of course worse than an expert source. Something like bankroll boost is totally inappropriate for a living person article. Cardplayer, Bluff, pokernews, USA Today... those are non-self-published sources. 2005 (talk) 01:18, 13 January 2010 (UTC)

• It's essentially a self-published site by an acknowledged poker expert. WP:SPS applies; biographical information for players should rather be sourced to published magazines. --JN466 12:35, 12 January 2010 (UTC)
• It's a WP:SPS from a sort of expert, but generally not an expert in the Misplaced Pages sense. Jayjg 03:32, 13 January 2010 (UTC)

Theplayr.com

user:DegenFarang has been Wikihounding me as noted here. And has opened numerous absurd attacks on me largely due to an orininal conflict over his repeatedly adding nonsense to the to the Amarillo Slim article. As you can see he repeatedly added a link to theplayr.com, insisting a bio movie would be made in 2009. Of course no such movie was made, and there were no plans for it. The movie had been in development for six years but nothing was made. Still, User:DegenFarang repeatedly claimed this theplayr.com knew what it was talking about. Obviously it was unreliable. User:DegenFarang is the only editor to add links to this unreliable website, and it represents most of his minimal content editing. Theplayr.com is an unknown, unreliable, anonymous website that got all of NINE unique visitors in December 2009. The website additionally is horribly mainteained as even most of the links added by DegenFarang are 404 pages. I would remove these myself as obvious junk, but given how he is stalking me I wanted to bring it up here. In contrast to his complaint above about an expert, authority website added by many editors, theplayr.com is a nearly abandoned blog-like site with anonymous, unreliable content, including some attack content Misplaced Pages:Articles_for_deletion/Constant_Rijkenberg that has only been added by one user whose edits are largely only to add this site. 2005 (talk) 23:27, 11 January 2010 (UTC)

• Not reliable as a source of news. I have reviewed some of the articles published as news by the website. Some material it sources from other websites. Its self-published material is not reliable as plainly it does not have a reputation for fact-checking and accuracy. I don't see how this article could possible be cited as a reliable source. --Mkativerata (talk) 01:27, 12 January 2010 (UTC)
• 2005 has been warned to disengage from this personal dispute with me. I ask that this post be removed or at least edited, removing everything in it which attacks me personally. That said, I agree that ThePlayr.com has seen it's better days. I, however, have not used it as a reference for nearly a year other than on Constant Rijkenberg, a site which is part owned by Rijkenberg and to which he is signed as a 'Team ThePlayr.com Pro' as reported by ThePlayr and PokerNews.com (see article). Given the excellent reporting ThePlayr.com did of the EPT Sanremo and the multiple long interviews they did with Rijkenberg at that event (see ThePlayr.tv and blogs.theplayr.com/eptlive/category/ept-san-remo/) I think they are a very credible source for information on Rijkenberg and the 2009 EPT Sanremo in general. If other editors find places where ThePlayr.com is used a a source on other articles that do not seem reliable, I have no problem with their removal. I would ask that 2005 not be the editor to decide that as 2005 clearly has an agenda against me that goes far beyond a few citations of ThePlayr.com DegenFarang (talk) 12:23, 12 January 2010 (UTC)

No Degen you were both warned and you have both ignored that warning. Please, both of you, stop bringing the personal issues of your arguments to policy noticeboards. If either of you want to use these board please restrict your comments on them to the material (ie the links) and the policy (in this case WP:V and WP:RS). Leave out the 'he's been doing this'. This is a second warning to both of you--Cailil 18:14, 12 January 2010 (UTC)

Also please stop creating multiple posts for very closely related topics. This could have been placed in the section on poker-babes.com - directly above this one--Cailil 18:16, 12 January 2010 (UTC)

• I was unable to find any publisher info on the site and see no grounds to assume that this site is an RS. JN466 13:42, 12 January 2010 (UTC)
• No indication that this source is reliable. Jayjg 03:28, 13 January 2010 (UTC)

Help! Source dubious @@?

Hi,

This problems regarding the articles Banbi and Beizi

These two articles are about Chinese clothings but most of us or Chinese wikipedians don't understand korean, I'm doubt the legitimacy of his source so i came here for help. Cydevil38 provided 4 sources which are either unfindable, korean language source, non-english books without an specify page, and didn't mentioned Banbi or Beizi in them. I requested him to provide some links to his sources at Oct 2009 and not until lately that he start to reply but with only a few sentences. Yet if you see his contributions, he's pretty much active and ignoring my request.

Please check out my dispute with him here and please someone give me some advise or join the discussion. It's pretty unbearable since he keeps avoiding it. Thx :) --LLTimes (talk) 02:32, 12 January 2010 (UTC)

As a general note, editors aren't required to produce a source in a form that is easily consumable on demand. Most people can't access academic journals easily for example, yet it is fine to use them. The same is true for foreign language sources. It is nice to have sources in English or in a language that you can read, but we don't require people to produce them. The other editor should put specific pages in the citation though. Other than that, we generally assume good faith for inaccessible sources, unless there is evidence to the contrary. Gigs (talk) 15:49, 12 January 2010 (UTC)

Thanks you're nice, unlike some admin who only reply with "what part of academic journal....do you not understand" Thanks :)--LLTimes (talk) 16:05, 12 January 2010 (UTC)

You could try approaching a , but I think yor first step is to find out if the books cited can be tracked down in a library or if they are available on the internet. Itsmejudith (talk) 16:21, 12 January 2010 (UTC)

aahh okay :3 I just need the page number now --LLTimes (talk) 20:40, 12 January 2010 (UTC)

When a book is cited the page number should be added if at all possible. That helps both editors and readers to check the source out (even if you have to pay to access the source, even if it is not in English). The person who originally added the reference to this book should be able to find the page number. Itsmejudith (talk) 17:24, 13 January 2010 (UTC)

whaling in Japan

hello, I am trying to edit Whaling in Japan, however editor "Swift" seems to insinuate my changes may be reverted if the consensus on the talk page is that my changes are unpopular. However I feel quite strongly that many of the references the page uses are completely unsatisfactory. for example 1) does not work 5, 46-50, 62-84, 106, 118, 119) not public published work/non peer reviewed 6 and 8) biased because of vested interest due to opportunity to profit from whaling activity 85) biased due to greenpeace's interest in animal protection

Will I be in the wrong if I edit these references out? Because if the gist of the article is correct, there must be far more reliable sources which state the same facts. Shuggyg (talk) 14:17, 12 January 2010 (UTC)

5 is a publication of the consulate of Japan and should be authoritative for Japan's position on whaling which is how it is being used. 46 is being used appropriately as a primary source. 1 and 47,48,49 etc is a primary source as well and must be used with care. It looks like there may be some problems with the open letter... it's used as a citation over and over for lots of different things. The IWC seems like it would be a good source for the sort of numbers its being cited for, but again it's a primary source and must be used with care not to extrapolate any conclusions that aren't in the source. 6 and 8 are not being used to support controversial claims, but rather mundane historical facts, which they are probably OK for. 85, greenpeace, is OK as well, because it's simply cited in order to support what Greenpeace claims that Greenpeace's position is. All in all, I don't see any major problems here with the sources you have questioned. It's important to keep in mind that while a source may be suitable for one kind of information, it may not be suitable for another. The way a source is used is important when considering reliability. Gigs (talk) 15:38, 12 January 2010 (UTC)

thanks Gigs, youre a champ. The history of whaling is, I believe, quite important as it creates a context from where to base an opinion on the controversial issue of modern day whaling. From what I have been taught (although at the moment I dont have the time to sort out the reference) Japan does have a history and culture of small town local Whaling, however it could be that this history has been played up significantly by the post war whaling industry which has promoted the history of Whaling in Japan as a reason not to accept a ban on whaling, thus saving their own jobs/industry. its briefly written about in this article from the toronto star http://www.commondreams.org/views06/0622-32.htm

its a very contentious issue, all this whaling!Shuggyg (talk) 17:13, 12 January 2010 (UTC)

Coast to Coast AM

Routinely cited as a WP:RS in paranormal articles, this radio show is the audio equivalent of Weekly World News. I have strong misgivings about the regular use of this unreliable talk show as a reliable source by Misplaced Pages - it is a constant source of misinformation on MANY articles. Furthermore it is frequently used to establish notability of fringe subjects that would otherwise not meet the bar. I mean... unless we want Misplaced Pages to remain swamped with Bat Boy style cruft. Simonm223 (talk) 16:13, 12 January 2010 (UTC)

It's only a reliable source for what someone has said, ie. interviews. The show makes no attempt to present research or news, simply providing interviews and personal anecdotes. I wouldn't rely on it as a source any more than I would The Tonight Show. — The Hand That Feeds You: 19:08, 12 January 2010 (UTC)

I hope that we don't get into the habit of using this show as a bellwether for notability. Just because something appears on this show doesn't make the thing notable. ScienceApologist (talk) 19:24, 12 January 2010 (UTC)

I entirely agree with ScienceApologist. This is my main concern; that this show is not used as an indiator of notability. Simonm223 (talk) 18:23, 14 January 2010 (UTC)

Multidisciplinary Association for Psychedelic Studies a reliable publisher or pseudoscience POV advocacy press?

Is Jansen, Karl (2001). Ketamine: Dreams and Realities. Multidisciplinary Association for Psychedelic Studies. p. 89. ISBN 0966001931. considered a reliable source for D. M. Turner - both as a source and to establish notability.

There is a review of the book .

MAPS is not an academic publisher, but publishes to promote an agenda. The book is directly inline with the agenda. Presumption against. However, the review (in a Journal whose articles are peer reviewed, reviews of books aren't traditionally peer reviewed), considers the work as part of academic experience, if off to a side, "Despite these shortcomings, there is no other book on ketamine as exhaustive and thorough as this one. The reference list contains 635 citations, and it is well-indexed. The full gamut of ketamine’s subjective effects appear here, and anyone with an interest in why people take mind-altering drugs will find Jansen’s book indispensable."

Okay to use for social use of Ketamine, subjective effects, drug culture, etc. Not okay for medical.

Seek JOURNAL OF NEAR-DEATH STUDIES, "Jansen published a paper outlining his theories relating ketamine and the near-death experience in this Journal’s Fall, 1997 issue (Jansen, 1997)" which was peer reviewed in preference to this work. Fifelfoo (talk) 02:30, 13 January 2010 (UTC)

Jansen is published, among other journals, in BMJ, which is a very respectable mainstream peer-reviewed academic medical publication. Given the scarcity of other sources, I see no reason to discredit his book. Note that, according to the wikipedia guidelines, if the competence of the author can be established, the reputation of the publisher is not relevant (even self-published material is acceptable in such cases).

PS: The same book serves as a crucial reference in the article on Marcia Moore. InMemoriamLuangPu (talk) 06:01, 13 January 2010 (UTC)

An argument from "essentialness" isn't a valid argument here. Could you point out the guideline which says, "if the competence of the author can be established, the reputation of the publisher is not relevant"? Fifelfoo (talk) 06:27, 13 January 2010 (UTC)

From here: "Self-published material may, in some circumstances, be acceptable 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." In other words, a 3rd party publisher reputation does not have to be evoked in such cases to establish the suitability of the source (I do not see why this guideline should not apply to the case at hand, given that it applies to self-publishing).

After all, it seems a bit ridiculous to relegate the ultimate authority in claim verification to the publisher (they print, it's the authors who think and find out!). It *is* a very useful criterion in many cases, but not an end in itself. InMemoriamLuangPu (talk) 11:00, 13 January 2010 (UTC)

I am in no way persuaded that this is such a circumstance, the difference between the monograph and the journal article, and some of the specific criticism of the monograph's usefulness in academic review points to this. The book having been reviewed as acceptable for the sociology of ketamine use in an academic setting, should be reliable for this, "Turner died on New Year's Eve 1996 after injecting an unknown quantity of ketamine while in a bathtub." but due to academic review approving of its reliability, not because of authorial expertise. Fifelfoo (talk) 11:09, 13 January 2010 (UTC)

Given that we agree on the particular use of this book as a source in the articles on D. M. Turner and Marcia Moore, I see no reasons to delve into further subtleties of how one can interpret the various clauses in the wikipedia guidelines. I totally agree with the significance of reputable 3rd party reviews, and I think they are in fact considerably more important than which publisher agreed to print a particular book (such decisions are driven by the market first and foremost, not by concerns of verity). InMemoriamLuangPu (talk) 13:34, 13 January 2010 (UTC)

Snowball Earth vs. Snowball Earth hypothesis

There is currently a debate between User:Viriditas, User:Dragons flight, and User:Awickert (myself) on whether the article name should be Snowball Earth or Snowball Earth hypothesis. The debate is here. The debate as I can see it boils down to:

• Dragons flight and I say that it should be "Snowball Earth" because this is what the majority of peer-reviewed scholarly sources call it.
• Viriditas says that it is the 2ndary sources (digests of science, newspaper articles) that should be used to determine the title of the article.

Which is it?

Thanks, Awickert (talk) 07:00, 13 January 2010 (UTC)

I just want to make a much belated clarification to Awickert's statement. I don't see RSN is the right way to frame the issue, because I don't agree that one class of sources prefers "Snowball Earth Hypothesis" while another class prefers "Snowball Earth". In my opinion both the academic literature and popular literature significantly lean towards "Snowball Earth" as the common name, but I will happily acknowledge that both sides of the argument have reliables sources from both the popular and academic sphere. In my opinion deciding the article's title is an issue of style and WP:COMMONNAME and consensus, and not really something that could be resolved here simply by considering the reliability of sources, since both types of usage are supported by many reliable sources. Also, my prior argument with Viriditas is archived here if anyone wants to see it. Dragons flight (talk) 13:07, 13 January 2010 (UTC)

I would like to point out that the comment by Awickert above is a misrepresentation and distortion of the discussion and my position, and that a proposed move discussion has not yet been initiated. Although I have spent the last five years here supporting and promoting SPOV and the highest standards of sourcing possible, Awickert has been reduced to making unsupported attacks, accusing me of "devaluing scientific sources" when I point out that that the term "Snowball Earth hypothesis" meets the naming convention and sourcing guidelines while the nickname "Snowball Earth" does not. I have never at any time argued that "digests of science" or "newspaper articles" should be used as a sole criterion for deciding on the name, and that's yet another fiction that Awickert has invented. Viriditas (talk) 07:30, 13 January 2010 (UTC)

I'm sorry; this is what I thought your position was (and indeed what I thought you meant in terms of secondary sources), as it was what you pointed me to as "secondary sources" on the user subpage you created. Please strike what I wrote and fix it.

My statement about "devaluing scientific sources" is in response to what Viriditas said about not using what this is called in scientific sources. In particular, when I did a search of journal article titles, I found a massive bias towards the use of "Snowball Earth" without the "hypothesis" attached. If this is again a misrepresentation of Viriditas' position, then I'm thoroughly unable to understand his argument.

Finally, I will point out that I was very put off by his accusatory tone early in the conversation, which led me to respond in kind. I apologize for escalating the argument. However, his continued statements about me are equally grating, so I think I will abandon the issue for the moment to the judgment of the community. Awickert (talk) 07:39, 13 January 2010 (UTC)

When I point out that current tertiary sources like the Encyclopædia Britannica and the Encyclopedia of Paleoclimatology and Ancient Environments use the term "Snowball Earth hypothesis" as the entry title, I am met with accusations of devaluing science. For the record, the Encyclopedia of Paleoclimatology and Ancient Environments is written by and for scientists, and the Britannica entry is considered authoritative. When I point out that secondary sources like the journal Science repeatedly and consistently refer to the topic as the "Snowball Earth hypothesis" (for two small examples see v. 302, no 5646, p791-792 and v. 310, no. 5747, p. 471-474) I am accused of devaluing science. When I point out that secondary treatments in New Scientist and Scientific American use the term "Snowball Earth hypothesis", I am accused of devaluing science. When I observe that the Geological Society of America describes articles on the topic covered in the journals Geology and GSA Today as the "Snowball Earth hypothesis", I am accused of devaluing science. Finally, when I point out that Joseph L. Kirschvink, the very scientist who invented the term calls it the "Snowball Earth Hypothesis" on his website, I am accused of devaluing the science. Can someone put a stop to this obvious nonsense perpetrated by Awickert and Dragons flight? Thanks. Viriditas (talk) 07:42, 13 January 2010 (UTC)

For the articles, I was afraid that you weren't finding a representative distribution with such a small sample size, which is why I performed the GeoRef search which gave strong (order of magnitude difference in usage) weight towards the non-hypothesis argument. Much of your argument at the talk page for the article was around not looking at the scientific sources themselves, but rather to secondary sources, and that was what I was responding to. I'm having some trouble getting at what you're saying in general because there seems to be some fluidity to your argument (is it about not using primary journal sources, or is it about using just a few, or what?) and I work best on the internet when I can categorize and resolve.

That statement of mine was not directed towards the encyclopedia or towards the founder of the term. However, I like to be thorough, so let's look at the other issues you bring up.

I can assume that you're correct about Brittanica, so that's that.

For Professor Kirschvink's website, the term is actually used both with and without "hypothesis" (and more often without, though the main link has it). But after clicking on the main link (which inlcudes "hypothesis"), the page that I arrive at does not use "hypothesis". So before you (Viriditas) continue to accuse me of "obvious nonsense", I'd like to note that there is some overall ambiguity in the issue. And this is why I looked at what was used more often in the sum of all peer-reviewed journal titles, because it seemed to be a very simple way to resolve the issue. Awickert (talk) 08:04, 13 January 2010 (UTC)

The primary link to the subject on Kirschvink's website says, "The Snowball Earth Hypothesis: (Possibly the worst climatic disasters in Earth history)". You can't get more unambiguous than that. Viriditas (talk) 08:30, 13 January 2010 (UTC)

I'll copy/paste what I said for extreme convenience. ...though the main link has it . But after clicking on the main link (which inlcudes "hypothesis"), the page that I arrive at does not use "hypothesis". I do acknowledge exactly what you say, but in addition, I examine every other piece of information around it. If you don't have the common courtesy to read what I write, then there is little point in my writing it. Awickert (talk) 08:41, 13 January 2010 (UTC)

I read it, and his top-level link to the subject on his main website says, "The Snowball Earth Hypothesis". Why would his subsite, which is entirely devoted to the hypothesis, have to use the word? And, do you understand that the majority of sources on the subject use the term "Snowball Earth" in quotes, because it is a nickname for the hypothesis? We don't use nicknames as article titles; We use the full name of the topic. Viriditas (talk) 08:49, 13 January 2010 (UTC)

Yes, I see that. My only point is that his scientific papers and that webpage do not use it, so there is some degree of wishy-washiness. One may also argue that if the "hypothesis" part were so important, it would be included everywhere. As it is, saying that he definitively calls it "hypothesis" is cherry-picking if he doesn't call it "hypothesis" in other places. I don't understand that the majority of sources on the subject use the term in quotes, as I'm only familiar with the scientific sources, which (in my experience) do not. Awickert (talk) 16:16, 13 January 2010 (UTC)

Using Google scholar "Snowball Earth" returns 3160 hits, with the highest cited papers at (690,396,288). Whereas "Snowball earth hypothesis" returns 819 with the highest cited papers at (396,192,40). The paper with 396 citations is the same one. Eliminating all papers that also use SEH from the first search gives 2340 hits (690,288,125). From this it seems clear that the most used phrase in the scientific literature is "Snowball Earth" (without hypothesis attached). --Kim D. Petersen (talk) 08:14, 13 January 2010 (UTC)

The underlying problem is that "Snowball Earth" is used to refer to different things, not just the hypothesis. What is the most unambiguous use of the term and to what does it refer to? Does the term "Snowball Earth" refer to one thing, or does it refer to many things? The term "Snowball Earth hypothesis" refers to the parent topic, which is an explicit, unambiguous name stipulated by naming conventions and found in the secondary and tertiary literature without having to interpret its multiple uses in the primary sources. The subtopics, includes the proposed Snowball Earth period/event, which is a subset of the primary hypothesis which discuses different types of evidence, hence the reason "Snowball Earth hypothesis" is used first and foremost by secondary and tertiary sources. This is why your search results are not a good indicator of the primary topic, as you did not sort by usage. I get the feeling that this is another example of editors who are too close to the topic and who seem unable to see the forest for the trees. There's a reason the secondary and tertiary literature relies upon the full name. "Snowball Earth" is an ambiguous nickname that is not necessarily used to refer to only the hypothesis, but is inclusive of all subtopics that use the name, such as the period and/or the event., all of which depend on the hypothesis. Viriditas (talk) 08:27, 13 January 2010 (UTC)

I think I see our disjointedness. So tell me if I'm wrong: what you're saying is that there should be two articles: one that postulates the event, and another about evidence for the event itself and the debate over if it could happen. I'm tying everything together because this is how it have been historically in the scientific literature, from Hoffman on, and because this is how the article is currently written. So this is why I think my search was valid: I do not know of a single "snowball Earth" article since Hoffman's work that doesn't consider the event and the hypothesis simultaneously. Going to bed though, good night, Awickert (talk) 08:29, 13 January 2010 (UTC)

You are arguing the exact opposite position of what I have said. There should be only one article called "Snowball Earth hypothesis", of which everything else (proposed period/event/evidence) is a subset. This is how reliable secondary and tertiary sources cover it. Viriditas (talk) 08:34, 13 January 2010 (UTC)

Well, I hope you can understand my misunderstanding; I think it must be somewhere back in the multiple edit conflicts when you were talking about the hypothesis and the evidence. But never mind, I get it now. But I still disagree based on the primary sources I've read, the scientists with whom I've talked, and my not-insubstantial knowledge of the field. User:Smith609 would be a better one to ask than me for knowledge on the field, however. Awickert (talk) 08:48, 13 January 2010 (UTC)

Per naming conventions and PSTS, the correct, unambiguous, full name of the topic is "Snowball Earth hypothesis". But, please, answer me this question: Why do two of the top encyclopedias on the subject, and the majority of secondary sources (excluding primary specialist research that uses the term ambiguously to refer to either the period, event, or hypothesis) use "Snowball Earth hypothesis"? Viriditas (talk) 08:53, 13 January 2010 (UTC)

I don't know. But I can say that the specialist literature usually uses "Snowball Earth" to mean all three at once. Awickert (talk) 09:05, 13 January 2010 (UTC)

I strongly disagree. The sources I've read clearly differentiate between the explanation (hypothesis) and the "Snowball Earth" period it explains. I also suggest that the primary research you and others are using to support your contention that the article should be named "Snowball Earth" refers primarily to the cooling events and not to the hypothesis. The problem as I see it, is that the cooling events are explained by the hypothesis, such that the evidence for the hypothesis explains the cooling events, not the other way around, which is why the current article title is inaccurate. Viriditas (talk) 09:25, 13 January 2010 (UTC)

But if the sources you've read "clearly differentiate between the explanation (hypothesis) and the 'Snowball Earth' period it explains", why do you want to put the article (which is about both) inside an article entitled, "Snowball Earth Hypothesis"? I don't get it. Argh. Awickert (talk) 09:27, 13 January 2010 (UTC)

The hypothesis is the primary topic. Read the article. The hypothesis describes evidence for the proposed cooling events, nicknamed "Snowball Earth" events/periods. Viriditas (talk) 09:33, 13 January 2010 (UTC)

That could be in part due to my only-partially-finished work in starting to rewrite the lede before getting sucked into this discussion. But I can't argue with you: "Hypothesis" is a term with some leeway involved, and it's at one's discretion to include (or not) evidence in support of it, so it may (or may not) involve the specific examples. So it's not a matter of reading the article (I have, FYI). It's a matter of defining "hypothesis".

And I'm honestly having a hell of a time just trying to figure out what you want: first you say (on the talk page) that we should base the name on secondary sources (your quote, "We're interested in how the subject is described in secondary sources, most of which call it the "Snowball Earth hypothesis""), and then you get mad at me for saying you say so and then you bring up (a couple) primary sources and take my "devaluing science" comment out of context and imply that I'm talking about them. Then you say that everything should be under "hypothesis", after which you say that articles clearly differentiate between the period and hypothesis, after which you say that I need to read the article and everything is indeed under hypothesis. I really can't have a coherent debate because your position is so unclear. And I'm sorry for sounding frustrated last night; this was the source of my frustration. Awickert (talk) 16:16, 13 January 2010 (UTC)

Nothing could be farther from the truth. I've said the same thing consistently for days on end (here and here), none of which is mutually exclusive. And, your claim about the source of your frustration above completely contradicts what you claimed yesterday. I've also recently informed you on your talk page that due to your continuing distortions and misrepresentation of my position I'm putting you on permanent ignore. Viriditas (talk) 04:04, 14 January 2010 (UTC)

My source of frustration evolved :-). I'm truly sorry that I continue to be unable to parse your arguments, so I'll stop trying and drop out of this unfortunate argument. I also think I understand what you say here below, but that seems to be dangerous, so I'll let others weigh in... I've written enough here anyway. Awickert (talk) 04:36, 14 January 2010 (UTC)

Would "Snowball Earth (hypothesis)" work? Collect (talk) 11:31, 13 January 2010 (UTC)

Not really, not unless one wants to have multiple articles on different aspects of the topic, and I don't think any of us are arguing for that. Dragons flight (talk) 12:46, 13 January 2010 (UTC)

Just use the shortest name that can't cause confusion.... That's why we use:

• Expanding Earth instead of Expanding Earth hypothesis
• Cold fusion instead of Cold fusion hypothesis
• General relativity instead of General theory of relativity

--Enric Naval (talk) 13:40, 13 January 2010 (UTC)

Agree, just use "Snowball Earth" for the title as the most common and concise name available. The alternate title of "Snowball Earth Hypothesis" can be mentioned in big bold print in the first sentence of the lead so everyone knows that it is a hypothesis. Blueboar (talk) 14:13, 13 January 2010 (UTC)

Absolutely! This isn't a matter of the quality of sources, it's a matter of Misplaced Pages article naming conventions. The title "snowball earth" contains the two words that are necessary and sufficient to define the topic. Remove anything and it's unclear, and add anything, and it's unnecessarily specific. --Slashme (talk) 14:19, 13 January 2010 (UTC)

This has been my other major thought; I've just shied away from mentioning it as I felt it unlikely to get Viriditas' support. Awickert (talk) 16:16, 13 January 2010 (UTC)

I cannot see the point of using a longer name when the shorter name specifies the exact nature of the theory/hypothesis/whatever. MalcolmMcDonald (talk) 19:31, 13 January 2010 (UTC)

Thank you, that touches upon the problem I've raised. Does the short name specify the exact nature of the topic? Look at the primary sources, then look at the secondary sources. You'll see that in the former, the term is used to refer to specific glacial periods, while in the latter, it is used primarily to refer to the hypothesis itself. So, tell me, why do other encyclopedias use the full term? I think it is obvious. "Snowball Earth" is an ambiguous nickname for proposed frozen periods, for example during the Neoproterozoic Era and the Paleoproterozoic Era. The primary sources show that the term is used to refer to specific global glaciation events (also known as "episodes" or "periods") not to the general hypothesis that explains them. The secondary and tertiary sources, on the other hand, point to and describe the hypothesis. WP:PRECISION is important, but not if it means introducing ambiguity. Looking at the secondary sources, we see the term "Snowball Earth hypothesis" over and over again, in use by multiple scientists. For example, multiple authors in The Precambrian Earth (2004) talk about the origin, formation, and development of the hypothesis, but also discuss the conditions and events that are a part of it. However, when we look at the primary sources referred to by Dragon's flight and Awickert in defense of the current title, we see a discussion of the hypothesis and the specific global glaciation periods referred to as "Snowball Earth", all of which are part of the parent topic, "Snowball Earth hypothesis". So, when we use the term "Snowball Earth" we are not necessarily referring to only the hypothesis, but actually to specific, proposed periods of global glaciation that the hypothesis predicts, such as the Neoproterozoic snowball Earth or the Paleoproterozoic snowball Earth. This is why the full name is important, and it is the reason why most secondary sources use the full name (SEH) to talk about the hypothesis and the nickname (SE) to refer to specific periods or proposed episodes. Viriditas (talk) 04:29, 14 January 2010 (UTC)

I have to agree with the consensus above - that is the current name is best for the article. Seems it's something like 7 to 1. Time to wrap it up. I would also encourage Viriditas to reread WP:AGF. Vsmith (talk) 04:51, 14 January 2010 (UTC)

Thanks for addressing my points directly. See also: Echo chamber. Viriditas (talk) 04:55, 14 January 2010 (UTC)

News sources

Question: What should the policy/guideline be about the use of questionable, but not totally unreliable sources like Xinhua, Pravda, Granma, etc. ? 76.117.247.55 (talk) 22:29, 13 January 2010 (UTC)

You mean, secondary but official sources. They'd be reliable secondary sources for many topics. They may require attribution "The state-owned nespaper XYZ says ....", and for information about the government itself or related controversies they would become primary sources. Squidfryerchef (talk) 00:21, 14 January 2010 (UTC)

I think that's a particularly culturally specific answer. The issue isn't that they're state owned (The BBC is state owned), the issue is that they're government controlled. Fifelfoo (talk) 01:09, 14 January 2010 (UTC)

The BBC isn't state owned. --FormerIP (talk) 02:09, 14 January 2010 (UTC)

I'm sorry. Its a public corporation acting in trust on the basis of a renewable state charter establishing its nature as a result of the actions of the government, and in receipt of recurrent funding enforced by acts of parliament and criminal law; but, it isn't "owned" by the state despite being dependent upon the state for its establishment, terms of operation and right to operate, and for a significant revenue stream. Fifelfoo (talk) 02:55, 14 January 2010 (UTC)

That's a lot of words, but you are correct, I think. --FormerIP (talk) 03:04, 14 January 2010 (UTC)

The BBC is state owned, just not state controlled. It's probably the least biased mainstream news source in the UK. It was recently censured for anti-Israeli reporting, but because it is subject to independent review at least we know when its coverage has not been neutral. If you ask me BBC News is the most reliable news source there is in Britain, if not the world. Betty Logan (talk) 17:03, 15 January 2010 (UTC)

As well-written as the BBC's reports are, it would still become a primary source for, example, disputes over Northern Ireland. Squidfryerchef (talk) 03:37, 14 January 2010 (UTC)

That's nonsense.

To answer the original question, I what SFC originally said was not nonsense. State-controlled media will often be perfectly acceptable, but in may cases may not, or they may need to be attributed. It would need to be worked out on a case-by-case basis. I think there is no easy rule-of-thumb that can be applied. --FormerIP (talk) 01:17, 15 January 2010 (UTC)

Squid... you are off base here. The BBC is considered one of the most reliable news sources in the world. It is a reliable secondary source, even for reporting on the UK and Northern Ireland. Blueboar (talk) 18:13, 15 January 2010 (UTC)

Can I restate my question? I don't claim the BBC is untrustworthy, or that it should be avoided because of its relationship to the government, the same for RTE, AFP, DW, PBS, and others of similar quality/reputability. My question was just on the ones that are run by countries whose news outlets' editors have direct line from the presidential palace on their desk, so to speak. 76.117.247.55 (talk) 22:19, 16 January 2010 (UTC)

They're as reliable as an official statement from the government in question itself. Jayjg 03:50, 17 January 2010 (UTC)

Cit and C citation templates at TfD

The following citation templates have been nominated for deletion for lack of use and redundancy to the existing templates:

• {{C web}}
• {{C news}}
• {{C journal}}
• {{C book}}
• {{Cit news}}
• {{Cit journal}}
• {{Cit book}}
• {{Cit web}}

All are listed at Misplaced Pages:Templates for discussion/Log/2010 January 14.-- Collectonian (talk · contribs) 07:10, 14 January 2010 (UTC)

The Sun

Is the Sun a reliable source for this quoted comment from Anjem Choudary , it is being rejected as low quality and tabloid. Off2riorob (talk) 13:47, 14 January 2010 (UTC)

when asked why he lived on Social security benefits, Choudary said, "The money belongs to Allah and if it is given, you can take it. You don't lie and you don't cheat - that is what the prophet said. I am not doing anything illegal." http://www.thesun.co.uk/sol/homepage/news/2805768/Mad-Moolah.html

Yes. The Sun is a reliable source for news-bites like this one. It is listed here and here as an example of reliable source on news. Be sure to comply with this when editing a direct quote.--LexCorp (talk) 14:56, 14 January 2010 (UTC)

Thank you for commenting, I had suspected as much for quotes like this. Off2riorob (talk) 19:37, 14 January 2010 (UTC)

Generally, newspapers are always reliable sources when it comes to news. This is especially the case when they are directly quoting the subject of an article, an expert in a field, etc. The reporter is not being presented as an expert, nor is the newspaper being presented as an expert, academic source. Rather, the emphasis is on that which is being presented. In this case, unless the periodical is shown to repeatedly fail in maintaining acceptable standards of journalism — which include presenting direct quotations correctly and printing timely corrections when necessary — the newspaper can be considered a reliable source for that which it is presenting, without the reporter/publication being required to have specific expertise in the subject area under discussion.

Specifically as relates to The Sun, you cannot do better than LexCorp’s response above. — SpikeToronto 20:43, 14 January 2010 (UTC)

Context is very important. The Sun are not claiming that he made that statement in response to a question in interview, they don't describe anything around what was said. It can only be stated that the Sun claims that this was said.

Bear in mind that tabloid journalists don't report the transcriopt, only selected highlights.

ALR (talk) 23:14, 14 January 2010 (UTC)

I don't understand it. The snip above say that when this guy was asked as to why he lived on Social security benefits, he said "bla bla bla". What context do you need?. Are you implying that The Sun is reporting incorrectly or out of context?. Sadly it is not for me or any other wikipedia editor to make such judgement.--LexCorp (talk) 23:32, 14 January 2010 (UTC)

No, that's not what the article says. It says that he said something after the Sun exposed, it doesn't identify whether that was said to the Sun reporter or not. That places enough ambiguity around the attribution that it should be caveated.

And I would take the position that no media outlet is inherently reliable, they should all be challenged, the tabloids in particular.

ALR (talk) 23:40, 14 January 2010 (UTC)

OK I after reading the article I see what you mean. The leading clarification "when asked why he lived on Social security benefits," is not supported by the article. The most that can be said is something like "reacting to the handouts scandal, Choudary recently stated that "bla bla"--LexCorp (talk) 00:03, 15 January 2010 (UTC)

(out) Although the Sun may be a reliable source, I question whether the information can be considered sufficiently notable to be included in the article if the only source was a tabloid. If the broadsheets have not picked up on the story then it is probably trivial. However the Mail also carried the story so it appears to be more notable. It is interesting that the sequence of the sentences is different. The Mail is a more respectable source. Better still, try and find out who the statement was actually made to. The Four Deuces (talk) 00:31, 15 January 2010 (UTC)

I have a question regarding the use of the terms broadsheet and tabloid as they relate to the British press. Technically, there are almost no broadsheets left in Britain since most of them have switched to the tabloid format, a different response to expenses than was taken by North American broadsheets who merely shrunk the dimensions of their respective papers while maintaining the broadsheet format. So, when one refers to the the daily Times, for instance, does one still call it a broadsheet despite its new format? After all, its style of reporting did not become that of a tabloid. Thanks! — SpikeToronto 00:49, 15 January 2010 (UTC)

P.S. I know the above might seem like a silly question, but I want to understand the terminology as it relates to the U.K. Thanks! — SpikeToronto 00:51, 15 January 2010 (UTC)

It's more a style and heritage point.

Grown up papers: Telegraph, Financial Times, Guardian, Independent, Times (ish it's gone downhill recently)

Mid market: Daily Mail.

Comics: Daily Express, The Stun

ALR (talk) 06:05, 15 January 2010 (UTC)

It's an absolute joke that The Sun (and its sister paper Screws of the World) is considered a reliable source. If it were remotely notable it would be published elsewhere. I nominate that it's struck off as a reliable source. I doubt you could find a single person in the UK (and that includes the editorial team of The Sun!) that would trust what is printed in it. How can something be a reliable source if no-one in the country has any faith whatsoever in its accuracy??Betty Logan (talk) 10:38, 15 January 2010 (UTC)

It depends what for as ever, for a direct quote froma subject like this The Sun is sufficiently relaible, they are under the regulation of the Press Complaints Commission and so could be forced to print a retraction if the supposed quote was blatanly untrue. As to the distinction between tabloid and broadsheet, the main issue is witht he so-called red-top tabloids (from the colour of their banner), Sun/News of the World, Mirror as againt the former broadsheets like The Times and Independent which are now published in the tabloid paper format. Strictly I suppose The Telegraph is the only remaining broadsheet, and The Guardian has gone its own way with the so-called Berliner format, between tabloid and broadsheet in size. David Underdown (talk) 10:47, 15 January 2010 (UTC)

• The Sun may be considered a reliable source for the odd quote, but it is certainly not a neutral or unbiased source. It is a despicable publication. Parrot of Doom 14:43, 15 January 2010 (UTC)

All sources are biased (I grant you The Sun is more than a bit biased). On the question, Is The Sun a reliable Source on news? The answer is yes. This does not means that everything published by The Sun is notable or that they enforce a unbiased editorial policy. Editors when citing news from The Sun must be careful to just transfer the news to the article and not the biased comments and analysis from the reporters. So in essence The Sun is a RS for news but is NOT a RS for comments or analysis of the news.--LexCorp (talk) 14:59, 15 January 2010 (UTC)

Exactly. The Sun is no more likely than other papers to be wrong on many clearly-defined concrete facts: three people were killed in the car accident, the defendant was sentenced to five years in prison. Its interpretation, however, is more likely to be suspect. (Though, as an aside, when Trevor Kavanagh was political editor its page 2 political coverage was actually quite well-regarded.) Barnabypage (talk) 15:22, 15 January 2010 (UTC)

The relevant sentence in WP:RS is "Material from mainstream news organizations is welcomed, particularly the high-quality end of the market.". The Sun is clearly not the high-quality end of the market. Nevertheless it is useable in many circumstances. For the dates a television show aired The Sun would be a good source. For a whether a starlet is expecting a baby, not so good - watch out for "friends revealed" and other tell-tale phrases that let you know when gossip is being spread. For science stories - no way. Most of the news that The Sun carries is also in the other papers, so they should be preferred as sources. Itsmejudith (talk) 15:10, 15 January 2010 (UTC)

I'd trust the Sun to tell me the date, if I could corroborate it...

ALR (talk) 16:39, 15 January 2010 (UTC)

Hitoshi Doi's seiyuu database

I'm trying to find sources to cite for the Kumi Miyasato article. The problem is she was active in the 1980s, so any interviews and biographical information would be contained solely in the Japanese print media of the time.

I was wondering if it would be sufficient to reference links at this site that contains lists of Japanese print sources.

books:

http://www.usagi.org/doi-bin/seiyuu-lookup.pl?DB=books&value=Kumi+Miyasato

anime roles:

http://www.usagi.org/doi-bin/getdbinfo.pl?DB=anime&T=Megazone+23

drama CD roles:

http://www.usagi.org/doi-bin/getdbinfo.pl?DB=drama&T=Mugen+Chitai+Megazone+23+Image+Album+

live events:

http://www.usagi.org/doi-bin/seiyuu-lookup.pl?DB=event&value=Kumi+Miyasato&N=

radio appearances:

http://www.usagi.org/doi-bin/seiyuu-lookup.pl?DB=radio&value=Kumi+Miyasato&N=

Tuxedo Mark (talk) 01:27, 15 January 2010 (UTC)

How are you using the RS in the article? Are they supporting edits? There is nothing in the RS policy stating that RS should be online. You can use ANY source as long as it is a Reliable Source on the subject of the article. Thus, instead of using the database, you can use the original sources.--LexCorp (talk) 02:01, 15 January 2010 (UTC)

After looking into the matter I see that what you are after is supporting claim of notability. I believe the database entries do imply that. After all wikipedia is foremost a detailed list of Pokemons wrapped around an online encyclopedia. :). What you need is to solicit help from dedicated Anime expert editors, based on Japan, on the WikiProject Anime and manga, asking them for help on digging up sources supporting a few statements in the article or importing some with translation from the Japanese article.--LexCorp (talk) 02:13, 15 January 2010 (UTC)

News article published somewhere else.

Manila Bulletin's official website didn't archive their articles until only recently, so looking for past MB';' articles can be hard. However, some other websites do archive news articles from other sources. For example, does this link reliable enough to be trsuted that came from the MB? –Howard the Duck 02:20, 15 January 2010 (UTC)

If Manila Bulletin is a reliable Source then source the article directly to them. On-line accessibility is not a requisite for RS. Just make sure that the article was from the RS and the citation information is complete so that other editors can check it by, for example, phoning the Manila Bulletin and requesting a copy of the article.--LexCorp (talk) 02:33, 15 January 2010 (UTC)

OK. Thanks. –Howard the Duck 02:39, 15 January 2010 (UTC)

Life and Style Mag/drug abuse charges

This is being used as the source for an allegation of drug abuse against Drew Pinsky http://www.lifeandstylemag.com/2010/01/1004-cover-inset---dr-drew.html. Source is owned by Bauer Media Group I just want to get the reliability of this source relative to the charge nailed down.Jarhed (talk) 07:18, 15 January 2010 (UTC)

When these relatively mainstream (if gossipy) American celebrity/entertainment magazines clearly say they have directly spoken to a named person and have direct quotes (no "a source close to the star said that he said...") you can usually take it at face value. From what I have seen, these magazines (including Life&Style) do not have a track record of making up direct quotes, unlike say, British daily tabloids, which sometimes do. If/when adding it to the article, I would very carefully spell out in full in the prose where these allegations come from, ie "former colleagues who worked with Pinsky at KROQ in the 1980s said in a 2010 interview with Life & Style that..." Also, with this being a pretty contentious allegation, if possible I would wait to see if other more reliable/mainstream sources pick this up, and if there is any fall out and/or respons from Pinsky, to better gauge the weight of it and if applicable get more well rounded and neutral coverage in the article. Siawase (talk) 10:12, 15 January 2010 (UTC)

Joint Publishing

Interesting problematic I'd like to share hear and hear opinions about. I'd like views on to what extent, if any, we should rely on this article.

Joint Publishing is a Chinese publishing house with offices in Hong Kong. Its PRC bureau in Beijing publishes a weekly 'living' magazine entitled " 三联生活周刊", from the cover of which one can tell is destined for the mainland marketplace. Very recently, it published an article in Chinese, for which there is no equivalent nor translation, which was carried by major Chinese web portals, for example Sina and official sites such as Gansu provisional government and elsewhere.

We are discussing the use of this article as a source on the controversial execution late in December 2009 or a British national Akmal Shaikh by the Chinese authorities for drug trafficking. The article has a number of interesting revelations which is making me question it, and the possible existence of selective under-reporting in London. Firstly, it states at the top that it is written by a trainee reporter. The article is quite comprehensive account of the man's life, but does not make clear how the early part is sourced, but it looks like parts of it (mostly before Poland) are directly translated from recent press articles about his story. However, there is divergence with the story in Poland. A number of details of his life in Poland, as apparently told to the magazine's reporter by one of the people he knew in Poland - a Briton named Gareth Saunders and a photographer named Luis Diaz which is considerably richer than what I have read in Western reports. For example, Diaz is mentioned nowhere in British press reports; the article includes, for instance a whole paragraph where Saunders describes attending a wedding where Akmal sang his 'rabbit' song. However, there was some very contentions material. Shaikh was quoted as saying something rather incriminating: 桑德斯說他曾在華沙市中心的一家書店裡遇見過阿克毛，阿克毛指著坐在樓上看書的一個黑人對桑德斯說他是個毒販子。(Saunders said he once met Akmal in a bookshop in the centre of Warsaw, where Akmal pointed to a black man seated upstairs reading and told him he was a drugs trafficker). There are passages where the reporter cites a court employee, without citing the name or capacity of same, and some details from the defence attorney which might be considered privileged in the west. Whilst I am not surprised that a Chinese reporter will obtain more information from official Chinese sources, it surprises me somewhat that the picture painted by this portrait is pretty much at odds with anything in the western press. The other side of this to bear in mind are the interests of Reprieve, a charity opposed to the death penalty and which lobbied for Shaikh's release and who supplied much of the background to the British press, and a British government facing election year. For further information, please refer to discussion on the article's talk page. Ohconfucius 07:25, 15 January 2010 (UTC)

Can Google hit counts ever be cited as a reliable source?

I'm having a bit of a disagreement with a user over this edit to National Public Radio. I don't think I'm wrong in this case, though I'm not aware of anything specific in policy or guidance that I can point this editor to. Any assistance would be appreciated. older ≠ wiser 19:48, 15 January 2010 (UTC)

Google hits only represent majority opinion- not expert judgment and analysis. Google SCHOLAR hits are a different story. Every moron excreting opinions on their blog turns up as a google hit for those opinions. It doesn't mean they're right.

And in your specific example, attempting to insert that into the article itself would introduce further problems. The raw numbers would be outdated information almost immediately, and any analysis gleaned from them would be inextricable from WP:SYNTH. Also, WP:GOOGLETEST --King Öomie 20:00, 15 January 2010 (UTC)

Google hits don't even represent majority opinion, they just represent words used together. "PBS has a conservative bias" and "PBS does not have a conservative bias" would be counted equally. --Jc3s5h (talk) 20:03, 15 January 2010 (UTC)

That's true as well. --King Öomie 20:07, 15 January 2010 (UTC)

Delayed due to edit conflict. There's several problems with the edit that I can see. Saying "Google reports" (emphasis mine) suggests that Google Inc. reported it somehow in the news or something, rather than a user-initiated search making use of the Google search giving that as a search result. Which is a second problem: the search itself and putting the search result in the article would seem to be WP:Original research and arguably WP:Self-references to avoid. S-R2A because essentially it is saying " reports that 8,350 web pages associate the term 'NPR' with the phrase 'conservative bias.'" That number will also only be true for the moment GPS Pilot did it; it will change over time, possibly quickly (not least because mirrors would start picking up the WP page that says this and start inflating +NPR +"conservative bias" (as might this talk page, if mirrored). If a scholarly paper were going to make use of such a search (I'm not sure that would ever happen), it would probably have to archive the search results somehow. Additionally, it's hard to construct a search that avoids mirrors, and finally as the others point out above, how many of the search results are actually reliable sources is questionable. Additionally, the search is misleading: a page that said "NPR does not have a conservative bias and all the people who say it does are idiots" would count under that search as a page which does "associate" NPR with having a conservative bias . See also WP:GOOGLETEST. I'd have to disagree about Google scholar hits, though. I find some things in there like self-published books and undergraduate student papers for classes. Likewise, Google news sometimes goes to self-published websites and not newspapers or newspapers' websites. Шизомби (Sz) (talk) 20:18, 15 January 2010 (UTC)

Ghits are an entirely irrelevant category of data on Misplaced Pages. Again should not be confused with google scholar hits. Simonm223 (talk) 20:19, 15 January 2010 (UTC)

Unfortunately, doing the search for "google hits" on Misplaced Pages turns up a number of pages, many of which probably should not have it. Some of the uses might be proper (e.g. if there were an article on Barbara Wallraff's Word Court, it might mention that she sometimes references the number of hits for certain spellings or phrases), and I see "ghits" also turns up in the text of some Prods, which is perhaps OK. Шизомби (Sz) (talk) 20:42, 15 January 2010 (UTC)

Just for laughs: "npr" "no liberal bias" (64,500, strangely enough about twice the number of hits without "no") and "npr" "no conservative bias" (3,760, about half of the version without "no"). --Stephan Schulz (talk) 20:51, 15 January 2010 (UTC)

ghits isn't a valid argument in AfD and Prod. It's used anyway. Simonm223 (talk) 20:52, 15 January 2010 (UTC)

Just for laughs, the title of my not-yet-published debut novel, Walking the Radiant Trail gets 864,000 ghits. Not bad publicity for a book with a current readership of five.Simonm223 (talk) 20:55, 15 January 2010 (UTC)

Sorry, but if queries properly, it gets 2. ;-) --Stephan Schulz (talk) 08:35, 16 January 2010 (UTC)

LoL Good Job. Simonm223 (talk) 03:49, 18 January 2010 (UTC)

Yes, I'm aware of the essay on WP:GOOGLEHITS which is a sensible one. It doesn't say it should never be mentioned at all; as it states, as a supplement to other arguments, it might have some validity; in helping to indicate something is made up or a protologism, etc. Шизомби (Sz) (talk) 21:02, 15 January 2010 (UTC)

It's both inaccurate and original research. Google doesn't "report" these results, they happen to be the results seen when an individual has done a specific search at a specific time on a specific regional google site. There are no guarantees these results will be the same when done by a different person, or at a different time/date, or on a different regional google site. In essence the editor him/herself is saying "I saw this when I did a google search", so the source is the Misplaced Pages editor, and it fails WP:V. It's also OR, since it's effectively a conclusion an editor has drawn based on his/her own actions. If the google hits are notable, then they'll have been noted by a reliable source. Jayjg 03:57, 17 January 2010 (UTC)

Rulings of Mufti as a source

Askimam.org is a website run by Mufti Ebrahim Desai. Can i use the content of his fatwas as a reliable source? See this and this for further information on him and his institution. Hamza 08:22, 16 January 2010 (UTC)

Only about the content of his own fatwas. As I'm sure you're aware Islamic Jurisprudence does depend on the context one speaks from.

ALR (talk) 10:50, 16 January 2010 (UTC)

So i CAN use it. Right? Hamza 16:31, 16 January 2010 (UTC)

There's no indication that these fatwas are notable or authoritative, so they should not be used in articles. If they've been noted in reliable secondary sources (e.g. reliable books, reliable newspapers), then they can be cited, using the secondary source. Jayjg 04:01, 17 January 2010 (UTC)

Is Turtle Bunbury reliable?

I was wondering if I could get some opinions on whether this website is a reliable source. I haven't read any of his books, but he does seem to be a published author. Would that make individual articles within this website reliable? Cheers, Ranger Steve (talk) 11:58, 16 January 2010 (UTC)

The author Turtle Bunbury is certainly notable for having coverage in mainstream reliable sources . Now, the source you mention, i.e. this website is the personal website of the author. Thus it falls under WP:SELFPUBLISH. Self-published sources should generally be avoided, however it can certainly be used if the author is an expert in the field. If you use this source, make sure to attribute. --Defender of torch (talk) 13:09, 16 January 2010 (UTC)

Thanks for the links Defender. Basically its one of the latter paragraphs of this page that I'm interested in - The Game Warden. All of the info about Digby Tatham-Warter is easily verifiable with the plethora of sources I already have, especially the war service. However, this is the only place where I've been able to find him linked to Belinda Tatham-Warter (her dob and marriage is also found at the peerage), except this one and I'm not too sure about it.... I am hoping to find his Telegraph obituary soon, which might have some of this stuff too if I'm lucky. Just don't want to get into Synth or OR. Ranger Steve (talk) 13:48, 16 January 2010 (UTC)

A slight correction; self-published sources by topical experts can be used, but they are not preferred. It's best to use them only for non-contentious information. Jayjg 20:30, 17 January 2010 (UTC)

Institute for Historical Review

An editor on Gas chamber is trying to use the Institute for Historical Review as a credible source. I have checked the archives of this noticeboard, and it has been tangentially dismissed as an unreliable source. I'd like confirmation one way or the other. Hohum (talk) 15:54, 16 January 2010 (UTC)

Institute for Historical Review is a pseudohistorical source and addition of such source falls under WP:REDFLAG and WP:UNDUE. --Defender of torch (talk) 16:30, 16 January 2010 (UTC)

Hohum, the Institute for Historical Review is a Holocaust denial organization. If the article on that organization is insufficient, you can read more about it in the book Why People Believe Weird Things, by Dr. Michael Shermer, the founding director of the Skeptics Society. It covers topics on pseudoscience, pseudohistory, etc. You can also read Michael Shermer and Alex Grobman's book Denying History: Who Says The Holocaust Never Happened and Why Do They Say It?, in which the topic is given the more central focus. Both are excellent books that show, as Defender stated, that it's not considered reliable, except perhaps for non-controversial information like its members, its stated beliefs, etc. Nightscream (talk) 19:53, 16 January 2010 (UTC)

Not a RS. And it's not even funny that someone would believe otherwise. --Stephan Schulz (talk) 00:34, 17 January 2010 (UTC)

Well, it's possible that some people are not familiar with the IHR. Nightscream (talk) 01:36, 17 January 2010 (UTC)

Not a RS, for the obvious reasons stated above. Jayjg 04:02, 17 January 2010 (UTC)

If its RS for its views, then can it be used in that context. i.e. “according to IHR ect…”?Slatersteven (talk) 15:39, 17 January 2010 (UTC)

Per WP:UNDUE and WP:QS, as an extremist site representing a tiny minority, it can only be used to describe itself, typically in its own article. This would be similar to using the Flat Earth Society website as a source for Earth. Crum375 (talk) 17:23, 17 January 2010 (UTC)

Exactly as Crum375 says, it could only be used in an article about the IHR itself, and even then with extreme caution. To be frank, it's not even a RS for its own views. Jayjg 20:23, 17 January 2010 (UTC)

Turn of the Century postcard collections on Blogspot

Are any of the areas on Blogspot reliable, even for images? Is this page reliable for the image of the 1907 post card shown, or do even images need their own separate authentication? Nightscream (talk) 19:53, 16 January 2010 (UTC)

Unfortunately, no, blogs aren't reliable for images either. Jayjg 04:40, 17 January 2010 (UTC)

Okay, thanks.

Just a clarification, please. I don't have a dog is this fight (if indeed there is a fight) but I'd like to understand the principle. I'd think the text on the blogspot that describes the postcard could not be considered a reliable source, but would think the image itself would be a primary source. Misplaced Pages:Public_domain_image_resources#Historical_images states "Any postcard first published in the U.S. before 1978 without an explicit copyright notice is PD." and I believe that that is correct. In most cases that means that you have to see both sides of the postcard before you can use it. Good dates are very often given on the postcard itself, e.g. the postmark, or the writing date. On the postcard above, you only have the picture side of the card, but it is dated "07" and obviously not 2007. So I'd a thunk the picture of the postcard could be used as a primary source, but the text from the blog would not be reliable. Am I mistaken? Smallbones (talk) 17:23, 18 January 2010 (UTC)

With Photoshop and the like so readily available and easy to use, we have rely on editorial oversight. Jayjg 06:09, 19 January 2010 (UTC)

http://www.ondarock.it/

This page is used as a source in the article System of a Down. Is this in any way reliable? (Ibaranoff24 (talk) 20:48, 17 January 2010 (UTC))

Broadly speaking, it's one of the most known Italian musical web magazines, kinda like of an Italian Pitchfork Media, but with a broader focus. The founder is a music journalist who collaborated with several magazines. It is no less (and no more) reliable than many print music magazines. --Cyclopia 23:39, 18 January 2010 (UTC)

Mega Genius reference

Request for additional opinions if the source of information is considered reliable in its given context to satisfy notiability guidelines for the creation of the article.

Here is an acticle draft, which uses the referenced source and a related talk page on a deletion review with an adminstrator.Deadalus821 (talk) 22:31, 17 January 2010 (UTC)

This seems to be the website of the subject of the biography. It does nothing to establish notability. For notability you want independent mentions, not anything created by the article subject. Itsmejudith (talk) 10:36, 18 January 2010 (UTC)

americans for fair taxation response to factcheck.org, RS?

Hi, this figure File:UStaxprogressivity.png appears in this article. The provided source is a similar figure at which I see as a self-published op-ed. Another editor claims that the figure is produced by two authors that I can't find reference to on the page ("Economist Karen Walby, Ph.D., and Economist Laurence Kotlikoff, Ph.D."). But it is not clear to me how he comes to that conclusion. It looks to me like the linked page cites a self-published adendum to an NBER working paper by Kotlikoff and Rapson that does not appear to support the claim made by factcheck.org (specifically, the table they cite does not calculate gini coefficients.

For existing discussion, see Talk:Taxation_in_the_United_States#gini_as_measure_of_progresivity.

Thanks in advance for any help! 0 (talk) 01:06, 18 January 2010 (UTC)

There's a dead link there, O18. Is there a typo or is it a deleted file? --FormerIP (talk) 01:16, 18 January 2010 (UTC)

I just happen to talk to the economists about it at some point. I've spoken to Kotlikoff a few times. They're the primary economists over there. I argue that it's a primary source with material published from respected economists. The table does not calculate the gini coefficients because they calculated them. We're not using it as a secondary source for the NBER data, it's used as a primary source as an example of tax system progresivity. 74.235.115.34 (talk)

I made that last edit... didn't realize it jumped to http and it logged me out. Morphh 1:20, 18 January 2010 (UTC)

I'd say that the section in question has insufficient cites at present. The figures may be all perfectly okay, but where do they come from? --FormerIP (talk) 01:23, 18 January 2010 (UTC)

Here is a link to the primary source: http://www.fairtax.org/PDF/ResponseToFactCheck-UnspinningTheFairTax.pdf for that image. The figures they present come from math using the coefficient based on the data they reference. They're the primary source for the graph or the calculation of that math. The data is secondary. I have no issue with balancing such data if alternate points of view are available or using other sources if we have them. I just don't see any reason to remove this particular one - it's difficult to find publications (particularly secondary sources) giving an easy comparison on the relative progressivity of the different tax systems. Not all that interesting a topic to most. Morphh 1:31, 18 January 2010 (UTC)

I'll also add that University of Maryland Professors David Burton and Dan Mastromarco worked on it. Identified by the initials at the bottom of the publication. Morphh 1:48, 18 January 2010 (UTC)

So I guess the question is this: is a memo published by fairtax.org self published? I think that the quote from WP:RS, "this means published in reputable peer-reviewed sources or by well-regarded academic presses." Is fairtax.org reputable and peer-reviewed? apparently factcheck.org found them to be unreliable (hence this piece which is a response to, "Unspinning the Failrtax" ). But getting in a tussle with factcheck.org can't really be the end all. However, I would propose that any advocacy group, commenting on its topic of advocacy should be considered similar to a person writing on them self for BLP, that is reliable only if they don't have a dog in the particular fight or are reporting on themselves (i.e. who their CEO is, et cetera). 0 (talk) 02:28, 18 January 2010 (UTC)

Oh, there is a test. "The scholarly acceptance of a source can be verified by confirming that the source has entered mainstream academic discourse, for example by checking the number of scholarly citations it has received in citation indexes. A corollary is that journals not included in a citation index, especially in fields well covered by such indexes, should be used with caution, though whether it is appropriate to use will depend on the context." I have never seen a tax paper cite fairtax.org's memos. Morphh could prove me wrong by finding some journal articles that cite fairtax.org. 0 (talk) 02:31, 18 January 2010 (UTC)

Memo? What would you define as advocacy... every site has bias, every publisher has bias. And it only makes sense to use them as sources for their main professional focus. Factcheck's Joe Miller (political science degree with a known political bias) should not be used to determine the reliability of University Economists regarding taxes. Nothing against Joe, debate is good, but it's not the bases for source dismissal. Your test is not a test for determining RS. It's used for Scholarship sources, which are among the best sources and primarily used in science fields with significant publication. This is not one of those source - if we have some of those, then great, bring them forward and we'll update the image with something else. But as far as publication... Tax Analyst Tax Notes has published their research, though not usually as FairTax.org. They commission Economists to do research, which then sometimes gets published in those scholarly journals and they publish this on their site. Also, the image is not being used to promote FairTax.org or any tax reform. It's just an example to give readers an idea of which taxes are the most/least harmful to the poor. If O18 has a better image or source, then we can use that. I really don't care what source we use - it just happen that this one was easy to find and did the graph work for us. If O18 feels it's bias, we can give better attribution to the opinion but we should have something that contradicts it at least. Morphh 3:32, 18 January 2010 (UTC)

To give others an idea... one of the lead economists for AFFT (fairtax.org) is Laurence Kotlikoff. He's the William Warren FairField Professor at Boston University, a Professor of Economics at Boston University, a Fellow of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences, a Research Associate of the National Bureau of Economic Research, a Fellow of the Econometric Society, and a former Senior Economist, President’s Council of Economic Advisers. Another lead economist is David Tuerck, executive director of the Beacon Hill Institute Department of Economics at Suffolk University. I've seen several of the economists employed by them testify before Congress on taxes and economic matters. My point being they employ respected economists. I'm not saying it's a great source for our purposes, it's not. But it's not an unreliable self-published source. It's sufficient until we can find something better. Morphh 3:46, 18 January 2010 (UTC)

Morphh, I don't understand what you are saying when you write, "It's just an example to give readers an idea of which taxes are the most/least harmful to the poor. If O18 has a better image or source, then we can use that." Wouldn't you agree that if there is no reliable source writing on a topic then it is just not something that should be included in Misplaced Pages? Until we can find such a source, material should not be included. As for your Argument from authority, this is not the basis of WP:RS, it is the source itself, not the author that is weighed. 0 (talk) 04:35, 18 January 2010 (UTC)

Like I said, it is a reliable source for certain aspects of tax policy, just not a great one. If you have a better reliable source, then I'm fine with replacing it. You say it's unreliable, but I see no bases for that conclusion. It's not a personal website, open wiki, blog, personal page on social networking site, Internet forum posting, or tweet. They're a non-profit organization spending millions on research for tax reform, employing respectable economists. They publish that research and tax articles on their site. Like them or not, they're one of the largest tax reform organizations in the country (with a good bit of focus in the last U.S. election). So I'm not sure where you get the idea that such a site is unreliable for tax research. It's like saying that you can't use AARP to source something on Medicare. Certainly they publish a point of view, but that's not the issue here. We're not interpreting the graph or making any claims about it. Morphh 5:41, 18 January 2010 (UTC)

Summary

Here is what we have for anyone who would like to comment:

• Agreement:
  • Morphh and I agree that fairtax.org does not produce scholarly works. update O18 points out fairtax.org's memos are not generally cited in scholarly works, Morphh replied, "Your test is not a test for determining RS. It's used for Scholarship sources, which are among the best sources and primarily used in science fields with significant publication. This is not one of those source..."

Disagreement:

• • I claim an advocacy group can not be a reliable source and that their memos are inherently self-published
  • Morphh claims that they are a primary source and reliable because the writers are faculty at universities.

I hope I summarized our points correctly, if briefly but I'll allow Morphh to update his claim if he likes. 0 (talk) 16:57, 18 January 2010 (UTC)

Keep in mind that I don't actually know what spin on taxation fairtax.org has and so I am not acting out of my own POV on taxation issues. I Would tend to agree that they are not a reliable source as A) they are an advocacy group and B) No academic oversight. A professor operating outside of peer review channels does not necessarily retain reliability when they are advocating for a specific cause. Simonm223 (talk) 17:06, 18 January 2010 (UTC)

It really shouldn't matter what spin they have. Since when is an advocacy group dismissed as reliable and since when is academic oversight required? It's not a personal website - it's commissioned research. Your A & B have no basis in policy. Advocacy groups are used all the time to present a point of view on particular issues for which they have focus, they're even used in biographies (which have stricter RS requirements) when they are critical of or praise a person. I also disagree that FairTax.org doesn't produce scholarly works (they commission universities to do their research) and are operating outside of peer review channels. They try to publish as much as they can in peer review journals and they make their research and methodology available to anyone that wants to study/review it. Morphh 19:13, 18 January 2010 (UTC)

If they do, a claim I would have to check before I'd be willing to comment, it still doesn't mean they operate with proper academic oversight. Sorry but my position remains unchanged. Simonm223 (talk) 19:37, 18 January 2010 (UTC)

I'd be fine with providing links, but academic oversight is not a requirement for RS. So what is your point.. you're position is not based on anything that is founded in policy. It would be great if all sources had academic oversight... but really what does that mean? Peer-reviewed in research journals? Passed around the ivory halls? Again, what are you basing this on? Morphh 19:57, 18 January 2010 (UTC)

The fact is the much research is done by interest groups or advocacy groups of some kind on various topics. Most controversial articles in Misplaced Pages contain references that present a point of view from one side or another from such sources. No where in WP:RS does it even mention the word "advocacy group", "interest group", or otherwise. This claim that an advocacy group can not be a reliable source is not based on policy or even any sense of consensus. In fact, it is in opposition to wide consensus and policy. It could very well be a violation of NPOV to exclude such sources. In addition, the site does not fit the description of a self-published source as defined by our policy. Morphh 19:57, 18 January 2010 (UTC)

Maharishi_University_of_Management

There has been some discussion at the Fringe Theories noticeboard about the Transcendental Meditation article group. Some claims have been made about the purported effects of TM to affect things such as frequency of car crashes, crime rates, etc.

These strike many of us as being classic examples of File Drawer Effect, Data dredging and a failure to differentate between correlation and causation however some editors who focus almost exclusivey on TM articles have claimed that there are "peer reviewed studies" demonstrating a causal link between TM and various phenomena.

It would appear these studies originate from the Marharishi University of Management, a school founded by Maharishi Mahash Yogi, the yogi responsible for TM. My question is if anyone here has any information on the reliability of these studies. Simonm223 (talk) 16:14, 18 January 2010 (UTC)

A large number of journals mentioned in that article. I'll check out the status of each but it will take a while. I think we will need a reference for each, i.e. that someone associated with the MUM authored it while they were at MUM, not before or after Itsmejudith (talk) 17:31, 18 January 2010 (UTC)

(ec) The sources used to support statements about the "Maharishi Effect" are indeed published in peer-reviewed journals and I believe would generally meet the minimum Misplaced Pages standard for being "reliable sources" so I'm not sure that's the relevant issue here. The issue is that all of the research is conducted by people affiliated with MUM or TM in some way, either MUM faculty, people who got their PhD at MUM, people who got their BA at MUM and went elsewhere for their graduate degree, and so forth. No research corroborating this effect has been done by any independent researchers completely independent of the movment. The published research is flawed in ways that should have been picked up by any competent peer review process (and yes, there are reliable sources that say exactly that, for example:

The Orme-Johnson et al research has flaws which should have been evident to the reviewers. Publication of the article indicates a failure in the review process rather than a failure in the standards by which social scientific research is evaluated. I will focus on the JCR article, but most of these criticisms also apply to the subsequent research on this theory.

but it is very difficult to get these criticisms into the article.) I agree that it's a problem but I'm not sure addressing it from the standpoint of reliability of the sources is the best approach. Woonpton (talk) 17:39, 18 January 2010 (UTC)

Exactly so. The problem is exacerbated by the fact that the articles are being vigorously edited by current and former employees of MUM. Several editors have admitted as much. Others are more circumspect about their ties to the TM Movement organizations, but have posted comments which suggest that they have close personal and/or professional relationships with MUM officials, with the authors of many of these studies. Some of them may very well be the authors of these studies. From a reliability standpoint, an initial fundamental question is whether these studies are primary sources, and whether they should be utilized at all in these articles. It has been strongly suggested that the studies themselves should not be used as sources because they are primary sources, and also that they do not qualify as reliable sources because, even if peer-reviewed and published in a journal independent from the TM Movement, they are not independent studies. The analogy between the Maharishi's "Science of Creative Intelligence" and Creationism has been raised by reviewers outside these talk pages; is this really all just religion masquerating as science in an effort to gain mainstream acceptance and access to government funding and avoid the separation of church and state issue?Fladrif (talk) 19:05, 18 January 2010 (UTC)

• At the very least, there should be clear attribution as to the provenance and authorship of these studies. And if there are 25 peer-reviewed studies by TM followers saying one thing, and no corroboration by neutral researchers, then the weight given these 25 studies should be reduced accordingly. Criticism of the studies' methodology, where available, should be represented in the article.
• On the other hand, I wouldn't go so far as to say the studies should not be used at all; if it's a peer-reviewed journal, it's a peer-reviewed journal, if the author is a follower or not. (That's assuming we are talking about reputable peer-reviewed journals.) --JN466 01:36, 19 January 2010 (UTC)
• Over at WP:MED we try not to use primary research and instead try to use reviews. As a review of this topic exists it trumps the primary research which cannot than be used to discredit the review. Misplaced Pages:Reliable sources (medicine-related articles) Doc James (talk · contribs · email) 12:01, 19 January 2010 (UTC)

Thank you for a comment that seems unbiased and helpful . I would add that these studies of which there are about 50 (of course only a sample is being included) are not being used to make claims but are examples of the range of the research that has been done on a particular topic, so one review probably is not enough. Thanks your mature comment is a breath of fresh air a since it didn't contain any negative attacks on either editors or the studies whatever you may think of them.(olive (talk) 15:05, 19 January 2010 (UTC))

Sentence in Maharishi University of Management about journals their scholars have published in

There is a long list of journals that I promised to check up and have done so now. They are mostly listed by the ISI and reputable. Disciplines are jumbled up. If we're to include such a statement I think each needs to be referenced independently. An article would normally carry the institutions that the authors are affiliated to and that would be a sufficient reference. The institute's own journal isn't listed at ISI.

This is a separate issue from claims about the effects of TM which also need to be referenced properly. Doc James' point about reviews of the topic is particularly helpful. Itsmejudith (talk) 15:18, 19 January 2010 (UTC)

Reliable?

hi, I'm quite new to referencing. so ehh..i have few question.

Can these sources be used? reliable?

• A celebration of the Hanbok fashionfreak.de Retrieved 2010-01-18

• Features of Hanbok actakoreana.org Retrieved 2010-01-18

• Clothing, Traditional—Korea bookrags.com Retrieved 2010-01-18

Can you point out which can be used or which can't?--LLTimes (talk) 20:38, 18 January 2010 (UTC)

I would avoid the first and the third. The first is an editorial and the third is Bookrags, which IIRC mirrors Misplaced Pages. Simonm223 (talk) 23:00, 18 January 2010 (UTC)

The first one actually contains a disclaimer of the accuracy of any information contained on it, so it is definitely not a reliable source. The second one is a University-published e-journal with an editorial review panel, so it is OK. The third one isn't a Wiki mirror, but is an article from an encyclopedia - The Encyclopedia of Modern Asia, published by McMillian. That is a reliable source, but is a tertiary source, and so should be given only limited use, per WP:PRIMARY for things like broad background information.Fladrif (talk) 14:54, 19 January 2010 (UTC)

Fair enough about the Bookrags article. Regardless, #2 is definitely your best bet. Simonm223 (talk) 14:59, 19 January 2010 (UTC)

RfC on authoritative sources for citation totals and inclusion in articles

The following RfC has been raised after inconclusive discussion about whether to include citation totals or statistics (from Google Scholar, Web of Knowledge or MathSciNet) in an article in order to support notability — Talk:Steve Shnider#RfC Using citation totals in articles on academics.

This was raised after asking for a third opinion and searching for policy. Your comments or recommendation as to which policy applies would be welcome.—Ash (talk) 11:36, 19 January 2010 (UTC)

YouTube video on 9/11 Truth movement

An editor has used a YouTube video in the article 9/11 Truth movement. Is this a reliable, secondary, and independent source?  Cs32en  11:54, 19 January 2010 (UTC)

Depends what point it is being used to support.Doc James (talk · contribs · email) 12:02, 19 January 2010 (UTC)

It is being used to introduce Noam Chomsky's viewpoint on the September 11 attacks and on 9/11 conspiracy theories into the article. It's not clear when or where Chomsky spoke, and Chomsky does not comment on the 9/11 Truth movement, but on 9/11 conspiracy theories. The findings of the 9/11 Commission and of NIST are already described in the article to provide context, so adding Chomsky's views on 9/11 there is coatracking. The uploader of the video apparently runs a blog here, and it's not clear whether that blog can be considered independent. It's certainly not a reliable source. No indication of any secondary source referring to Chomsky's comments has been given.  Cs32en  12:32, 19 January 2010 (UTC)

I would say you would need something more reliable to comment on a figure as prominent as Chomsky. But can you provide that exact quote it is used to support? Youtube is like Misplaced Pages. It is based on user added content. It is not peer reviewed. I am behind a firewall and cannot view the video. Doc James (talk · contribs · email) 12:36, 19 January 2010 (UTC)

The editor has added the following paragraph to the article, based on the YouTube video.  Cs32en  12:43, 19 January 2010 (UTC)

Noam Chomsky "the academy’s loudest and most consistent critic of U.S. policies at home and abroad" stated, regarding US government involvement in the 9/11 attacks, "the evidence that has been produced is essentially worthless" and while the American government stood to benefit from the incident, "every authoritarian system in the world gained from September 11th." He argues that the enormous risk of an information leak, "it is a very porous system and secrets are very hard to keep", and consequences of exposure for the Republican party would have made such a conspiracy foolish to attempt. He dismisses observations cited by conspiracy proponents saying, "if you look at the evidence, anybody who knows anything about the sciences would instantly discount that evidence," arguing that even when a scientific experiment is carried out repeatedly in a controlled environment, phenomena and coincidences remain that are unexplained.

1. "Prospect/FP Top 100 Public Intellectuals Results". Slate Group, a division of Washingtonpost.Newsweek Interactive, LLC. October 2005. Retrieved 19 January 2010.
2. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TwZ-vIaW6Bc

The quote sounds correct / true but it would be nice to have a better source. The quote is here in Salon Doc James (talk · contribs · email) 12:52, 19 January 2010 (UTC)

It's an opinion column, but it would be a secondary source that references what Chomsky said. Thank you for finding the text!  Cs32en  13:02, 19 January 2010 (UTC)

I can't view YouTube at work. The question is 1) where is the video from and 2) is it clear that the uploader had permission to upload it (ie. they are the copyright holder)? Because we don't link to copyvios. — The Hand That Feeds You: 14:59, 19 January 2010 (UTC)

Copyright is a red herring in that we can use a source even if it is a copyvio (just then not link to it). However, it seems clear that youtube videos of questionable provenance are not reliable sources. If this were from a channel of a known news organization or something like that it might be different. But as it stands this isn't reliable. JoshuaZ (talk) 15:12, 19 January 2010 (UTC)

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