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RfC: Is People magazine a reliable source for BLPs?

The following discussion is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.

A number of biographies use People magazine for sourcing various statements. Prior limited discussions on this board have held People to be generally reliable. , , However, concerns have been raised that People does not meet the sourcing standards laid out by WP:BLP. The full discussion outlining these concerns can be found here.

1. Can People continue to be used as a reliable source in BLP's?
2. If the answer to 1 is Yes, under what circumstances should People not be used as a source in BLP's?

--NeilN 00:11, 21 September 2013 (UTC)

Survey (first question "Can People continue to be used as a reliable source in BLP's?")

• Yes, it can be validly used. I don't have any new arguments, so I'll repeat some of what I stated in the above linked WP:BLP noticeboard discussion: People is generally not considered tabloid journalism, at least not by Misplaced Pages, which means that use of it for biographies of livings persons (BLPs) is generally not in violation of WP:BLPSOURCES. It has become standard practice to use it as a source in BLPs; editors often have especially felt that it is fine to use for uncontentious material. It is also used as a source in many WP:Good (GA) and WP:Featured (FA) BLP articles during those nomination processes (where the sources are usually extensively analyzed, especially with regard to WP:Featured articles), without any problems. I wouldn't put People in the same category as the National Enquirer or the Daily Mail, especially not the former, and of course neither has the Misplaced Pages community generally done so. Flyer22 (talk) 01:24, 21 September 2013 (UTC)
• Yes. I mean, it can be used; it'd be pretty silly to say it can never be used. This doesn't mean that it can always be used for everything, that everything that appears in People must be true, or that People is the gold standard for journalistic veracity on this planet. But it can be used. Am I understanding the question correctly? Of course it can. (BLP's can be fraught; there's some material that should be redacted even if we have an excellent ref, there's usually lots of harmless and uncontested material that doesn't really have anything to do with why WP:BLP was created and the spirit of BLP, and then there's some borderline material where we want to be really careful. Those need to be looked at on a case-by-case basis, and things like the reputation of the author of the piece and other factors might come into play. You can't really have a strict rule that covers all these cases.) Herostratus (talk) 01:51, 21 September 2013 (UTC)
• Yes People is a magazine that has a major emphasis on reporting celebrity news. If terms such as "gossip" and "tabloid" are defined broadly, then People is a gossip tabloid. Defined more narrowly, it isn't. It has a reputation for fact checking, accuracy and professional editorial control. Therefore, it is a reliable source in specific contexts. Certainly, a book published by a reliable publisher would be a better source, or even an article published in a respected newspaper. But we are not debating whether or not People is the best source ever published, but rather, whether it is generally reliable for biographical information about notable celebrities. Even the New York Times can be unreliable, for example, Judith Miller's articles about the runup to the Iraq war. I believe that People is generally reliable for biographcal details regarding celebrities. Cullen Let's discuss it 03:23, 21 September 2013 (UTC)
• Yes, to be used for uncontentious biographical information from interviews, as per WP:SELFSOURCE, and possibly for other information relevant to People as per Context matters. Dkriegls (talk to me!) 07:24, 21 September 2013 (UTC)
• Yes. Longstanding consensus is that People may be used as a reliable source (obviously in BLPs, since LPs are their focus), and it is already used in a large number of well-written, well-sourced articles, including GAs and FAs. It is a mainstream magazine published by one of the oldest, most reputable magazine publishers in the world, it employs experienced editors to oversee a staff of qualified journalists, it has a reputation for fact-checking, and because of its good name in the business it enjoys an enviable level of trust among its readership and among the celebrities it covers. We would be hard pressed to replace it because no other source with its specific focus is as reliable. In discussions leading up to this RfC, the term "tabloid" was bandied about, but it seems unfair to tar People with that broad and woolly brush; the magazine's style may verge on the lurid at times, but the same can be said of much celebrity coverage in other sources, including various daily newspapers and broadcast news programs. Besides, the substance matters more than the style, and no evidence whatsoever has been presented that People 's substance is generally less reliable than that of any other source. Rivertorch (talk) 07:39, 21 September 2013 (UTC)
• Yes. It is particularly useful for interviews and announcements from BLPs and their representatives, which they have a good track record of rendering faithfully. Siawase (talk) 09:01, 21 September 2013 (UTC)
• Yes, especially in interviews of LPs and statements they make regarding themselves, their lives and careers. Liz 14:36, 21 September 2013 (UTC)
• No as it is a gossip magazine; as someone put it below, accuracy is not important for its business model. However good its fact-checking, it is, by its nature, prone to use less encyclopedic rigour in what it does and doesn't print than we require for sources on a BLP. There are also well-founded concerns about it being used by celebrities for what amounts to product placement. We should perhaps adopt similar, but even stricter, guidelines to using sources like this and Hello to those we already have for sourcing from autobiographies. A Featured Article should never be sourced to gossip magazines, as their editorial values are so different from ours; even if, on occasion, they contain useful material (and I have seen little evidence of this), it should always be possible to find a better source for something that is going into one of our encyclopedia articles, particularly those on living people. --John (talk) 17:13, 21 September 2013 (UTC)
• Yes - From looking at the edit which started this discussion, yes it can be a reliable source. And as stated above, context matters. Garion96 (talk) 20:10, 21 September 2013 (UTC)
• Yes, but cautiously. People is not utterly unreliable, but it's not the gold standard of journalism either. If the claim is unlikely or potentially contentious, I'd want to see corroboration from other sources, but if it's pretty unremarkable, I think People would be sufficient. Seraphimblade 20:23, 21 September 2013 (UTC)
• Yes And this has been discussed enough times to make it a simple answer. It uses fact checkers, etc. which makes it reliable enough for Misplaced Pages purposes. It is not a "gossip magazine" and calling it one does not make it one. Does it use information from press agents? Yes. So does the New York Times. So that argument is simply disposed of as not relevant here. Would I use any single source for an extremely contentious claim? "George Gnarph is HIV-positive and has had thousands of sex partners" (hypothetical claim) surely requires extremely strong sourcing - beyond even the New York Times. Collect (talk) 20:28, 21 September 2013 (UTC)
• Yes. No question here, it's an excellent, perhaps the best, source for what it does cover, the celebrity world. It is a long-standing and well-regarded publication ad is ubiquitous in libraries and library databases, and is frequently cited in sources that no editor would think twice about using in a BLP, such as biographies from mainstream, reputable publishers and biographical library databases. It is not the ideal source for things outside its area of expertise (for example, medical, legal, and historical issues.), but what source is ideal used in that manner? Gamaliel (talk) 15:14, 22 September 2013 (UTC)
• Yes. There should never be a blanket ban of this magazine in BLPs. It can be used to support a wide variety of facts. Binksternet (talk) 16:30, 22 September 2013 (UTC)
• Yes, with caution. It can be used carefully to add or confirm basic facts or opinions that more reputable news sources leave out because it is not in their remit, particularly when dealing with highly notable celebrities whose fame is in part derived from this media coverage. I would not touch it for anything negative, or for anyone else other than the article's subject (most obviously their spouse(s) and children). Ritchie333 10:33, 23 September 2013 (UTC)
• Yes, for standard material, with the same disclaimers as everyone above: requires editorial judgment (as does everything else), and not as the single source for a highly contentious claim". --GRuban (talk) 16:17, 23 September 2013 (UTC)
• Yes, but it depends very much on what is being sourced, the article etc. "X gave an interview to People", usually. "Rumours say Y did this." definitely not. There is a whole grey area in between. Martin451 (talk) 17:55, 23 September 2013 (UTC)
• Yes People magazine can be used as a reliable source in many cases. It still publishes a certain amount of gossip which is unreliable content but among all the popular publications on celebrities People is among the most reliable. Blue Rasberry (talk) 18:17, 23 September 2013 (UTC)
• Yes there are at least some conditions under which it may be used, and the arguments and conditions for its use have been laid out pretty well above. My view is along the lines of Seraphimblade's. Zad68 03:47, 25 September 2013 (UTC)
• Yes As shown by other editors People does fact checking and publishes corrections. It has no reputation for deliberately publishing incorrect material. It is certainly reliable for sourcing uncontentious biographical facts and its subject interviews can be used to source material dealing with the subject's thoughts and opinions. --NeilN 16:46, 28 September 2013 (UTC)

Survey (second question "If Yes, under what circumstances should People not be used...")

• I'll assume it's not a question of the material itself being problematic (e.g., it's unnecessarily defamatory, trivial, nobody's business, subject has requested redaction, etc.) where we might remove the material regardless of how well it's sourced. So we're talking about anodyne (harmless) material that does belong in the article. In that case, we should treat it like any other source: If there's reasonable grounds for suspecting the material isn't true (such as when there's another source saying something different) then we should probably not include the material. Otherwise, treat it like any other medium-level source, I guess. Herostratus (talk) 01:05, 21 September 2013 (UTC)
  • Yes, Herostratus, we are not discussing problematic additions. Thank you for asking. --(AfadsBad (talk) 01:08, 21 September 2013 (UTC))
    • OK. Just to expand a little, suppose the material is not defamatory but is maybe a little embarrassing. It's something we want to be sure to get right. If it's in a book the subject wrote himself, we're pretty sure of that. If it's in Der Spiegel we're pretty sure of that. If its most other places, we're maybe not quite so sure. I don't think we can give a set rubric and each case needs to be looked at. How about this for a rule of thumb: treat People about the same as a news story in the Los Angeles Times. Times news stories aren't fact-checked but they have a rep for veracity to uphold; People is fact-checked but rigorous veracity is not as important to their business model; so maybe it's a wash. Just a thought. Herostratus (talk) 01:39, 21 September 2013 (UTC)
      • Do you have a source establishing that LA Times reporters aren't trained in fact checking? --(AfadsBad (talk) 03:18, 21 September 2013 (UTC))
        • I'm sure they are. What I meant by "not fact-checked" is that newspaper news stories generally aren't checked by an independent fact-checker because there's no time. It's only hours between an event and the publication of the story. (New stories are copy-edited for errors (spelling, grammar, house style) and the copy editor might flag a dubious fact, but not usually.) Instead, news reporters are expected to check their own facts and keep copious accurate notes and not make errors, and they will be fired if they make too many mistakes. Imagine being called J. Jonah Jameson's or Perry White's office to explain an error in your story, if you will. This varies very much between papers, but big famous papers like the LA Times have a strong business incentive to not be perceived as being riddled with errors. At People, on the other hand, you have an actual person calling Scarlet Scarlett Johansson and asking "We have you down as saying such-and-such. Is that an accurate quote?" and so on. I don't know how vigorous their fact-checking is, but just because "The sort of person who reads People" is I thing I don't think it's accurate to assume they don't care about that or that being lax with fact-checking (which is pretty low-wage and cheap) would be a good business model for them. "The sort of person who reads Cosmopolitan" is also a thing, but see here for a description of their reasonably rigorous fact-checking operation, for instance. Herostratus (talk) 16:50, 21 September 2013 (UTC)
          • Please don't say newspaper stories aren't fact checked because reporters are expected to check their own facts. It has no meaning. --(AfadsBad (talk) 05:21, 23 September 2013 (UTC))
            • It has some meaning. "Fact-checker" is a real job. "Fact-checking" is what a fact-checker does. If a professional fact-checker hasn't vetted a piece, it's not been fact-checked in this formal technical sense, which is what I meant. Herostratus (talk) 12:37, 23 September 2013 (UTC)
              • Please stop being disingenuous. Journalists are professional fact checkers as part of their job. Why does People require such tortured support, that an intern at People is a better qualified fact checker than a professional journalist? Says who besides you? Cite it or cut it out. --(AfadsBad (talk) 17:27, 23 September 2013 (UTC))
                • Lighten up, willya? I explained myself already: "What I meant by 'not fact-checked' is that newspaper news stories generally aren't checked by an independent fact-checker" Quote is directly above. Note the word "independent". What you're saying is "No, 'fact-checked' carries no implication of a second person needing to be involved" and I gather you also think it doesn't much matter. It's a debatable point, and you might be right (or not), and we'd need people working in the field to enlighten us on usage, and even they'd probably disagree, and of course word meanings depends on context. Language! It's imprecise. I could use the term "independently fact checked" in future, but then someone will doubtless take that to imply that the facts have been checked by an external consulting firm or something. So I dunno.

I'm not dumping on the LA Times or anything. Dailies are generally mediocre sources for facts, mainly because of deadline pressure I suppose. If there's a notable car crash in the middle of the night, they have to get a story with lines such as "Smith, 37, was killed when..." into print in a couple of hours. So how did the reporter know Smith was 37? He probably asked his wife or something. 99+% of the time that'll do ya, but there's that <1%: maybe he had a recent birthday and his wife forgot to account for that, or maybe he's been lying to her all these years, or maybe she's lying for some obscure reason, or whatever, so there's that. That's part of the reason the Times prints corrections (mostly trivial stuff) most every day. There's nothing shameful about any of that -- dailies are great for what they are, and the good ones are pretty darn reliable. Herostratus (talk) 23:02, 23 September 2013 (UTC)

That is not how you get the age of a crash victim for a newspaper traffic fatality report. You don't have a clue, so lighten up yourself with the loose and clueless information. You obviously have no basis for what you are saying, so lighten your load by not providing misinformation in order to get People accepted as a BLP source. Fact-checking by People interns is not superior to trained professionals fact-checking at newspapers.. --(AfadsBad (talk) 23:10, 23 September 2013 (UTC))

Well, enlighten us. How does a does a newspaper traffic fatality report get the age of the victim? You apparently know something about this, and it's important to know this, so please share. I mean, it's 2:00 AM. The paper hits the newsstands in a few hours. All I can think of is the reporter using something like LexisNexis, is that done? If that's it, why not just say so? Herostratus (talk) 00:26, 24 September 2013 (UTC)

It depends on the jurisdiction. However, big clue is that traffic fatalities are accompanied by formal procedures and records, formal identifications, and formal notification of kin. See this for one example in one jurisdiction of records associated with a traffic fatality. Eyewitness testimony is reported as that, the words of a witness in newspapers, not as factual evidence from a single source. People, unlike other sources in the one article I cited on the last board, gets >75% of its information from personal interviews, under 20% for others. Don't get ticked off at me because you stated your wild guesses as information, newspaper reporters are experts at fact checking. It is a requirement of the job. The article cannot run if it is not verified; so don't say they have too little lead time. You don't know that any more than you thought you knew they got victim ages from next of kin. They get next of kin names from official records after the next of kin have been notified after preliminary then final identifications of victims. Formal identification is recorded, and this information includes age of victim. It is so extraordinary and rare to get this wrong, officially, that it really makes the news when it happens. This information is not necessary to this discussion, but neither is your misinformation that newspapers don't fact check. --(AfadsBad (talk) 05:26, 24 September 2013 (UTC))

Oh OK, Coroner's report. I didn't know these were published that quickly. Thanks, this is useful info! You're right, there's a lot I don't know, and I'm trying to feel my way through to some useful data and conclusions, which I why I started this discussion with How about this... just a thought. We work together to work through these things, and advancing a proposition is one way to start that process, right? I only know what I can glean from what I read, and there's not a lot. (For instance, "Cautionary tales circulated about errors that originated in The New York Times or The Washington Post, only to be replicated and memorialized forever by lazy magazine fact-checkers relying on single news stories. Proper protocol was to consult microfilm of the paper but then to check the next few days’ papers, also on microfilm, on the chance that a correction had been published" () and so on. You have knowledge of the inner workings of dailies, and this is very useful. Why didn't you say so, for goodness sakes? (And you still haven't said so; we're left to infer it.) Given that, I'm interested in your statement "People, unlike other sources... gets >75% of its information from personal interviews, under 20% for others" This is useful info! How do you know this? I'm not asking this in (or my other questions) in a adversarial "how the the hell do you know this" manner, OK? Finding hard data on this stuff is hard, I just want you to share your knowledge. Herostratus (talk) 14:16, 24 September 2013 (UTC)

• As noted in the linked WP:BLP noticeboard consensus discussion, the appropriateness of its use varies, but editors especially agree that it is fine to use for uncontentious information. Flyer22 (talk) 01:24, 21 September 2013 (UTC)
  • I don't agree and did not agree that it i fine for uncontentious information, and I mentioned specific problems with the uncontentious examples posted, and your final posts indicated that discussion was manipulative, and I request you not to draw conclusions for me from it. Thank you. --(AfadsBad (talk) 03:10, 21 September 2013 (UTC))

Like I noted in that discussion, I don't see how my post you are referring to "indicated that discussion was manipulative." You drew a conclusion that I did not state or imply. As for not drawing conclusions from you, noted. What I stated still applies to the other editors, as seen in that discussion. Collect, one of Misplaced Pages's strictest WP:BLP-compliant editors, even told you: "It meets WP:RS and is generally acceptable for Misplaced Pages articles, including BLPs. I believe this has been stated forcefully by many above. AFAIK, it is not the Weekly World News or the like, and is not a 'tabloid.' It does not promote specific special interests, and is about as innocuous as is imaginable. It does, in fact, cover people other than film and tv actors, and I seriously doubt the about long discussion affects the opinions of a clear consensus here. And since the consensus is so crystal clear here, I consider the issue quite sufficiently settled. Cheers." So the exceptions from that discussion are you and John, which is where "generally" comes in with regard to the other editors and what I've seen in various discussions on Misplaced Pages regarding People. Flyer22 (talk) 03:19, 21 September 2013 (UTC)

I provided evidence that it does promote specific interests, that of the celebrities it works with. The consensus of that discussion is completely bogus. Please do not continue speaking for that discussion. --(AfadsBad (talk) 04:21, 21 September 2013 (UTC))

And per above, I fail to see how the "consensus of that discussion is completely bogus." I will continue to refer to that discussion as having achieved consensus on this matter because, as others agree there (and at WP:ANI), it did. Flyer22 (talk) 04:28, 21 September 2013 (UTC)

The consensus at BLPN is to continue to use People as a reliable source. Binksternet (talk) 16:34, 22 September 2013 (UTC)

• People should not be used as a source for medical, scientific, historical or other academic topics. It can be a reliable source, when used judiciously, in celebrity biographies and other articles about popular culture. It should be used with caution in articles about notable legal cases. When sources from publications with a better reputation for accuracy are available, they should be used to supplement or replace citations to People. As always, editorial judgment is called for. Cullen Let's discuss it 03:43, 21 September 2013 (UTC)
  • I think Cullen's got it about right. WhatamIdoing (talk) 20:45, 21 September 2013 (UTC)
• I think People should not be used in most cases. Most of the content of the magazine is produced under no well-regarded standards of rational inquiry. So largely it is not a reliable source. There are of course exceptions, but these would be few and far between. I think a lot of people respond to considerations like these with their arguments like "discussion of these aspects of pop culture are not covered by sources which follow academic standards, and so reliable sources for these aspects do not have to approach the quality of reliable sources for academic subjects." I say to this, one man's modus ponens is another's modus tollens. I would say that this only goes to show that such aspects are not worthy of inclusion in the encyclopedia. Some people also may reason that it is harmless to allow such sources in for pop culture articles, because the serious articles will not be affected. I would ask anyone who thinks that to look at the evidence and reconsider. It is often that a nonetheless serious topic becomes popular. In such cases, if there are editors who promote non-academic quality material, they end up treating these serious topics the same way. For example, Zealot: The Life and Times of Jesus of Nazareth is a recent book about the historical Jesus which became very popular. The article is currently greatly a commentary on a Fox News interview by a Lauren Green, including the question whether this was "The Most Embarrassing Interview Fox News Has Ever Done?", as if any of this has any importance to the study of history. But by tolerating and incubating such treatments of non-serious, popular topics, this is the sort of spillover that happens. --Atethnekos (Discussion, Contributions) 05:39, 21 September 2013 (UTC)
• What Herostratus said, more or less. I wouldn't support a blanket rule about when not to accept People as an RS; I think we need to use our judgment on a case-by-case basis, as we would with any source, when exceptional claims or particularly sensitive content are involved. Rivertorch (talk) 07:45, 21 September 2013 (UTC)
• I don't think People should be used when it speculates about the future, specifically regarding pregnancies, marriages, affairs, divorces, weight issues or substance abuse problems of LP, any statement that comes from unnamed sources that aren't the individual concerned. I think that any newspaper, magazine or website article that makes these unsupported, speculative statements is veering into "tabloidish" behavior and should be avoided. But I don't see that as a consistent pattern with People magazine.

Luckily, WP:BLP guards against this kind of speculation being included in articles on Misplaced Pages We don't have to write up special guidelines for each media source because WP:BLP is adequate protection against this kind of media coverage. Liz 14:36, 21 September 2013 (UTC)

• I'm largely in agreement with the above. If the claim is speculative, extraordinary, or likely to be contentious, People is not sufficient by itself. If the claim is in the area People is normally known to cover (celebrities and pop culture, largely), and is relatively mundane, using it is likely to be acceptable. Ultimately, "Is this a reliable source?" always requires the followup question "A reliable source for what claim or statement?". There is no source which is unquestionably reliable in all cases and for all subjects, so examining the context is always critical. Seraphimblade 00:08, 22 September 2013 (UTC)
• People can be used whenever the facts it presents appear to be well-founded and not controversial. Binksternet (talk) 16:34, 22 September 2013 (UTC)

• I more or less agree with Cullen's comments above, with perhaps an added caveat. There will be times when some material in such a source is a matter of some contention to the person involved, but we as editors might not know that. As one possible example, someone might use it to indicate that they were present at a wild party they themselves want to deny being at, whether they were or weren't there probably doesn't really matter, and in some cases there may be no apparent "contention", perhaps because of lawyers working unseen in the background. I don't know how often such "I was somewhere else" or "S/he was here" statements appear in such sources, but I imagine they do exist. On that basis, honestly, much as some others might not like it, I personally would be really, really hesitant to use People at all on a lot of material, other than perhaps direct or indirect quotes from individuals and similar material which can be directly ascribed to some person involved in the story. Particularly for most of the people in People, there are other sources, like the person's own website, newspapers, TV, and other media, which might be preferable. Yeah, they might have the same problems once in a while too, but their reputations for seriousness are also a bit heavier, and I'm going to assume that they possibly exercise greater care in covering what we might call "questionable" material. John Carter (talk) 18:15, 22 September 2013 (UTC)

• Editorial judgment, avoiding undue weight and general WP:BLP concerns ought to constrain us from mentioning "wild parties" in biographies, no matter what the source, unless some dramatic event occurred there. We simply can't concern ourselves with the machinations of invisible lawyers. If People says that actor so-and-so was born in Altoona, Pennsylvania in 1961 to a tool-and-die maker named George and a hairdresser named Harriet, I trust them. It may well be that this information has not been reported in the New York Times or the New England Journal of Medicine. As for "TV", do you really think that "AM Altoona" has fact checking capabilities comparable to those of People magazine? Because I don't. I think that local entertainment TV talking heads pretty much read what is placed in front of them, and that journalistic standards for that type of reporting are low. Cullen Let's discuss it 06:30, 23 September 2013 (UTC)

• Let me ask about a couple of examples of borderline data:
  • "Schmoe, a devout Christian Scientist...." (Keep in mind that some people think Christian Scientists are kind of nutty, so this could be, if not defamatory, deprecatory to some. That applies to really any religion -- some people think Catholics are any kind of Christian are kind of loopy, and so forth.)
  • "Schmoe turned down the role of X in film Y..." (Nothing else is stated, but let's assume that X turned out to be a plum role, and turning it down might indicate lack of savvy or following bad advice on Schmoe's part (probably just bad luck though), so a deprecatory vibe could be inferred.)

Assuming the only source is People, what would you my fellow editors do? I don't know. It's a hard question! My inclination would be: 1) it's quite likely true, since People wouldn't just make something like at up or publish it without a fact-checker confirming it it wit the source, but 2) "quite likely" isn't good enough for arguably deprecatory material in a BLP. But if I'm not going to accept it, I also wouldn't accept Time or the New York Times as a sole source, either -- same deal applies, and I have no reason to believe that Time or the New York Times is any better on this sort of thing than People. Herostratus (talk) 12:20, 23 September 2013 (UTC)

I'd use them if it isn't highly contentious, there isn't a source to the contrary, and (for the second case) it's judged to be important to the person's notability. The "arguably deprecatory" case seems weak - there are few facts that aren't "arguably deprecatory": just for an example, see just above, "arguably" being born to a hairdresser and tool-and-die maker is a sign of lower-middle-class origins. If we excluded everything that is this weakly "arguably" deprecatory, we couldn't write anything. For the second case, it might well not matter enough to be included - actors turn down roles all the time, and it's very rarely a big deal; maybe he just wanted to spend the time with his family or something. It would be highly contentious if there are sources to the contrary, or implications to the contrary (for example, if the alleged Christian Scientist is known for advocating blood donation, or their close relatives are well known or proselytizing members of some other faith); then we'd probably want other sources as well, not just this one, though this one could be used as one of several. --GRuban (talk) 16:31, 23 September 2013 (UTC)

The turned down role would be out on WP:UNDUE alone for the reasons GRuban stated. That factoid would need more meat on its bones or it's just trivia. The Christian Scientist assertion I would lean towards excluding on WP:BLP/WP:REDFLAG grounds, but that's in part because the scenario as presented seems unlikely and would raise redflags because of that. Who would this person be where the only mention of their religion is one unattributed sentence in People? If this People profile is some of their most extensive media coverage, they might not qualify for WP:WELLKNOWN and we should stick to only covering their work. On the other hand, if they are well known and there is extensive media coverage available, it raises a redflag that no one has touched on their religion elsewhere. Siawase (talk) 18:07, 23 September 2013 (UTC)

• Not if it's the single source for a highly contentious claim; and not for the sorts of gossipy or celebrity trivia things we generally leave out (currently dating X; attended movie premiere Y dressed in fashion by Z; etc.), not because of unreliability, but because they're a celebrity mag, and we're an encyclopedia. --GRuban (talk) 16:20, 23 September 2013 (UTC)

We generally leave gossipy or celebrity trivia things out? I wish! Rivertorch (talk) 17:43, 23 September 2013 (UTC)

• Leave circumstances ambiguous If information is published in People and the information is non-contentious then the magazine should be considered a reliable source. I have no opinion about what should be done with contentious information from this magazine. Perhaps it should not be on Misplaced Pages or perhaps it should. Supplement claims with other sources. Blue Rasberry (talk) 18:19, 23 September 2013 (UTC)

Threaded discussion

Here's an odd thing. The question is "...for BLPs". But if People is reliable, it's reliable. If it's not, it shouldn't be used anywhere. Granted there are special BLP considerations for some material, which can get complicated I guess, but we can probably dispense with that because:

• People is probably mostly used in BLPs. It's not much used as a ref in articles on quantum physics or medieval plainsong and so forth. If People is no good for BLPs it's probably not much use to us at all and blacklisting it would not be much of a loss.
• If it is reliable, then it's probably most reliable for material on living people, because that's their area of expertise (note that the name of the publication is "People"). If I wanted to learn about the current state of exoplanet research, I'd turn to Astronomy, but if I want to learn what movie Kristen Stewart is currently filming, I would not turn to Astronomy. That would be silly! Even if if they did mention it (doubtful, but let's suppose they did) I wouldn't consider them reliable for information about Kristen Stewart, because that's not their area of expertise. They might get Kristen Stewart confused with Jennifer Lawrence. A reporter from People would never do that, but might get R136a1 confused with Cygnus OB2-12, which a reporter from Astronomy would never do, and so on. (At the ref vetting checklist I used the more formal term "standing to address the material".)

Summary: If People can't be used for BLP's, is there any reason to not just blacklist it? Can't see one. Herostratus (talk) 02:04, 21 September 2013 (UTC)

Data is good. Here's what I got from a quick web search:

• here's a recent instance where they screwed the pooch. This doesn't speak to well of People. On the other hand, photos are particularly hard to verify (maybe with Google Images and TinEye and whatever, though, that's not longer so true). It's easier to call someone up and ask "Did you really call Brad Pitt a poltroon?" than it is to say "I have a photo here, is it you?". Also, this was apparently a big enough deal for the Post to write a story about it, so maybe it's not that common. It's one instance, but it's a data point. If People does this a lot it should leave a paper trail, and we should look for more of these.
• here, People itself says that fact-checking is done by interns. (That's not necessarily that damning; they didn't say "only by interns", its a very entry-level job, and "intern" != "lazy moron". I'd be interested to know how this compares to other publications, though.)
• I see a couple references to People's "$3-million-a-year fact-checking department" but in ads that're probably sourced to People itself and I can't put that in context anyway. If there's anything to it, $3 million sounds like a lot to me, but I'd have to have other publications' budgets to compare.
• Heh, I found an article where an actress screams at a People reporter "Do your fucking homework, you cunt!" which I suppose could be taken as criticism of the rigor of their fact-checking (I can't cite the source cos it's not reliable, and WP:BLP standards apply here too; it's probably true, but then the actress is one of the lidda-bit-crazy ones, so that's maybe a wash).
• Now this is interesting: according to an old version of our article Fact checker, there was an article at the Medill School of Journalism website where an erstwhile People fact-checker writes "f more than four mistakes are later found in articles checked and passed by a fact-checker in the course of a year, the magazine would fire him or her. To protect their jobs, fact checkers try to identify three separate sources for any claim." If true, that's a useful data point, but the link doesn't resolve. But it's a direct quote; it seems unlikely that they'd just make up something like that. Why would they do that? I'm pretty confident the article exists and was quoted correctly. Would like to get my hands on it. A year's a long time. Four is a small number. Getting fired is pretty harsh. Add it up and it sounds like a reasonably rigorous fact-checking operation. (Update: realized that the (dead) link points to a folder named /1999/, so probably too old to be very useful.) Herostratus (talk) 02:25, 21 September 2013 (UTC)

I think all newspapers and magazines make mistakes, so I think we have to have reports of comparing how many they make, anecdotes won't cut it. --(AfadsBad (talk) 03:28, 21 September 2013 (UTC))

It is perhaps just as important whether they publish corrections, openly acknowledging the mistakes they do make, and it appears they do: Siawase (talk) 09:59, 21 September 2013 (UTC)

It looks like they do publish corrections, and that's good for two reasons: 1) they care about that on at least some level, and 2) if data sourced to People is challenged by another editor, she can point to the correction (if there is one and she can find) as proof of nonveracity. Anecdote's don't cut it, but each little thing is a data point. If someone can show me scores of these, I would change my mind about People. (I note that the picture screwup was widely reported (even in India and so on), and that further indicates that this is not something People does with every issue. It's still a black eye though.) Herostratus (talk) 00:26, 22 September 2013 (UTC)

• The comment a little above "But if People is reliable, it's reliable. If it's not, it's not usable for any purpose" is a misunderstanding about the nature of sources. There is no source that is 100% reliable. There is no source that is unusable for all purposes. People is not the sort of reckless irresponsible source that we blacklist. It cab be used properly for clearly uncontested facts that do not deal with possible negative aspects of a person;s life. It cannot be used for negative BLP, or for evaluations of merit. (There is a potential problem that for many of the individuals it covers, even the apparently uncontested facts of their life tend to be in dispute.) Whether it can support notability depends. Extensive coverage there shows something is a matter of substantial comment, but if the comment is tabloid0-style gossip, we wouldn't include it in any case. DGG ( talk ) 06:02, 21 September 2013 (UTC)
  • Right, that's all correct, and deciding which sources are OK for which material in which articles is a tricky and subtle thing. All I mean was this: if you accept the proposition "At no time may the Reference section of a BLP contain a link to People, ever, for any material" (the assertion of which is why we're having this exercise, I think), then what good is People to us? Everything except the activities of living people is outside their area of expertise. I suppose old articles might be used to ref facts on people who were formerly living. But WP:BLP doesn't imply "if the person's dead, screw it, just source your material to any old gossip rag". So I dunno. Herostratus (talk) 21:03, 21 September 2013 (UTC)
• We must not confuse reliability with weight. While the information in People may be reliable, it may also be too trivial to warrant inclusion. Generally if the information is significant it will be carried in more reliable sources, which we should use in preference. TFD (talk) 06:25, 21 September 2013 (UTC)

• I'd say reliability depends on the nature of the material, and how People attribute it in the first place. If it's straight from the horse's mouth so to speak, it's reliable with possible WP:SELFSOURCE concerns. Direct reporting where People were present for an event or similar, also generally reliable. The really questionable material is when they attribute to "a source close to the star" or similar. And this is probably a good chunk of their reporting (see google search.) When it comes to celebrity news media like People, their primary fact checking concern is whether they risk being sued or not. So they may publish good news or a flattering puff piece with very loose backing, since there is basically zero risk in doing so. But with lawsuits in mind, and their track record for accuracy and fact checking, I would actually trust them to have substantial evidence for any negative or potentially damaging reporting, even when attributed to unnamed sources. All that said, when People is the "heaviest" source a particular piece of information is found in, that's a pretty good indicator it does not carry the WP:WEIGHT to be included in Misplaced Pages. For contentious claims, I would also say WP:REDFLAG kicks in, and even if we trust People to be reliable, that is not sufficient to satisfy verifiability without corroboration from several highly reliable sources. Siawase (talk) 10:16, 21 September 2013 (UTC)
• My understanding is that the reason we're going through this exercise is that some editors are asserting that People cannot be used to ref anything in a BLP, even anodyne material such as place of birth and so on. OK so far -- that's a reasonable (if wrong IMO) position which reasonable people can work out -- but some editors are pretty adamant about it, so we're working through this. It's been a particularly fruitful and interesting discussion so far, BTW.

So anyway, regarding the position "People? Never in a BLP, period". Well, look. I understand the spirit of WP:BLP pretty well I think. The guiding principle is "The Misplaced Pages does not exist to make people sad". Sometimes we have to, but let's minimize that and be sure it's for very good reason. We're very very careful with defamatory material, for instance, and other types of material. But there's a reasonable limit. Consider the following assertion:

• In our article on Evanston, Illinois, we can state "Evanston is a suburb of Chicago..." and source the assertion that Evanston is a suburb of Chicago to a normal source describing it as such, per WP:RS and so forth.
• But in our article on Joe Shmoe, we cannot use that same source to say "Shmoe was born in Evanston, a suburb of Chicago...". It's a WP:BLP! Normal reliable sources won't do. We have to have extremely rigorous proof that Evanston is indeed a suburb of Chicago -- the same level of proof we would need to assert "Shmoe is an alcoholic and wife-beater..." for instance. Just a line in some magazine or newspaper describing Evanston as a suburb of Chicago is not sufficient. We need AAA-level sources here.

This seems odd to me. The word "nonsensical" comes to mind.

But wait. Suppose the subject is (let's say) a musician who projects the persona of an inner-city tough-guy fuck-da-police type, and maybe his career depends on projecting this persona. He doesn't want people to think he came from a suburb.

So let's not have things "...born in X, a suburb of Y..." for anybody, absent AAA-level sources. Actually, since anyone can easily look up the nature of any town, let's redact place of birth altogether, absent very rigorous proof. Same for pretty much everything. Month and day of birth? It's possible that some article subject somewhere doesn't want their astrological sign known, so let's redact month and day of birth for every article, absent a copy of the birth certificate. And so on.

But look. We are not mindless pencil-pushers here. Great Darwin gave us brains to work these things out. Obviously things such as birthplace and birthdate are just anodyne harmless facts for 99.99 percent of article subjects. In a case where the matter is raised, that's different: "Look, based on such-and-such data, it's reasonable to infer that he's ashamed of his hometown/birthdate/mother's maiden name/whatever and would prefer people not to know it. So let's treat this as contentious defamatory material and make sure we're as close as humanly possible to 100% confident that it's true (and also carefully consider whether it's necessary even if we're sure it's true)." That'd be both reasonable and kind, and in that case it'd be reasonable to throw out not only People but any source which is not AAA-level (and there are very few of those). But absent data to the contrary, there's a lot of material that we can assume is harmless and can be sourced to AA- or A-level publications such as People. That's in the spirit of WP:BLP. Pointless pettifoggery isn't. Herostratus (talk) 21:21, 21 September 2013 (UTC)

Agree with Hero. --GRuban (talk) 17:38, 23 September 2013 (UTC)

• Question If we are agreed that People and its cohort (Hello etc.) allow "celebs" to pick and choose what they place in the publication, wouldn't we need to treat it the same way as we treat commercial links like Amazon and user-generated ones like IMDB? --John (talk) 09:24, 22 September 2013 (UTC)

• People does publish negative/contentious information without confirmation from the subject, but they do so sparingly. Siawase (talk) 12:16, 22 September 2013 (UTC)

• • Wait, tell me more about this. People allows people to choose what they place in the publication? I'm not disputing this (or accepting it without more info), but what do you mean? Is article space bought and sold? Do subjects sign off on articles before publication, or are they involved in the writing of the articles, do they have the right to refuse to have an article published, or to demand that one be published, or what? Or is it more of a symbyotic thing where there's an implicit agreement in some areas? Would people not publish an article that would increase sales, or publish articles that readers don't want, at the behest of a third party, and why? Again, all this could be so, but what exactly is going on here? Herostratus (talk) 16:44, 22 September 2013 (UTC)
  • As we are not agreed that subjects have final control over articles, please provide evidence to back your assertion. --NeilN 16:51, 22 September 2013 (UTC)

Yes, I wouldn't agree that article subjects (or their staff) have final control over articles. Yes, there is a dependent relationship (access to actors in exchange for not embarrassing them) but the same relationship exists between financial reporters and the companies they cover, between Washington reporters and politicians, between small town editors and municipal government and local businesses. I worked for several years for an entertainment publication that accepted no advertising so it could be seen as completely neutral but the subscription price was outrageous.

So, for most newspapers, magazines, TV/radio programs, websites there is always a trade-off. Without a link to some sort of expose of payola at People magazine, I don't think we can accept as true that there is some quid pro quo. Meaning? We need a reliable source for that claim. Liz 20:32, 22 September 2013 (UTC)

Heck no. The only evidence that I've seen that John's presented is that celebrities sometimes either agree to interviews or send publicity photos of themselves out to be used in articles. That is not the same thing as controlling article content. Consider - I wrote our article Barnaby Conrad III (in response to a request from the person that our article Barnaby Conrad in several places confused him with his father, also a notable author). I emailed the person, asking him to release a photo. He did. I put it in the article. Does that mean he controlled the article content? Heck no. I assume that means he didn't disapprove of it, since there's a good chance that if he was unhappy he wouldn't have released and mailed the photo - but that's not nearly the same as control. He didn't tell me what to write, and if I didn't like the photo he sent, I wouldn't have used it. --GRuban (talk) 17:46, 23 September 2013 (UTC)

• • Regardless, the answer to John's question is still no. WP:SELFSOURCE clearly states that "Self-published or questionable sources may be used as sources of information about themselves, especially in articles about themselves". So again, no, self serving publication of information about yourself, used in a Misplaced Pages article about yourself, is fine as long as it is not "unduly" self-serving nor an "exceptional claim". Regular old self-serving is just fine for basic biographical information. On the other hand, we have little clue who writes content for Amazon reviews and IMDB, so these are not "Selfsources" Dkriegls (talk to me!) 17:00, 22 September 2013 (UTC)

Time to assess consensus?

NeilN, this RfC has been open for 12 days (since Sept. 21) and the last comment was made 4 days ago (Sept. 28). Time to weigh the comments and determine a consensus? Liz 20:36, 2 October 2013 (UTC)

A RfC usually runs for 30 days at which time it is closed and consensus is determined by an uninvolved editor (i.e., not me or you). I have no objection to this one closing early if everyone had had their say but others may feel differently.--NeilN 21:02, 2 October 2013 (UTC)

Thanks for letting me know, NeilN. I didn't know what was standard for an official RfC. I'm not sure how to gauge whether everyone has had their say. But, at least, I raised the question so let's see if anyone objects. Liz 03:04, 3 October 2013 (UTC)

Yeakley, Flavil (1988). The Discipling Dilemma. Gospel Advocate Company.

1. Source. Yeakley, Flavil (1988). The Discipling Dilemma. Gospel Advocate Company. p. 206. ISBN 0892253118.

2. Article. International Churches of Christ

3. Content. In the past, its focus on evangelism, high commitment expectations of members, and use of "discipling" partnerships have caused some researchers, observers, and ex-members to label the organization a ‘cult,’

https://en.wikipedia.org/search/?title=International_Churches_of_Christ&diff=574506497&oldid=574446969

4. Discussion. The Gospel Advocate Company's publishing of Flavel Yeakley's 1988 book is being used, among other sources, to make some weighty claims about the ICOC in the lead section of this article. I am not concerned about the other references in this case, as there is a lively discussion already ensuing over those references and what they actually say and do not say at the Talk page. However I would like to know if Gospel Advocate is a RS for these type of claims in the lead section of this article?

The Gospel Advocate Company is found here: http://stores.homestead.com/GospelAdvocateCompany/Page.bok?template=about JamieBrown2011 (talk) 13:38, 3 October 2013 (UTC)

JamieBrown2011 left out the fact that he made a request to the DRN about this source. The advice that we received from the DRN was the while Yeakley's publisher--The Gospel Advocate Company-- is not a reliable source, we may directly cite the Yeakley text so long as secondary sources cover the same ground. The section JamieBrown2011 quotes from the ICOC article is not in fact in the article. It's currently being discussed on the article's talk page. The other sources to the proposed material cover the same ground Yeakley does. So I would think that referring to Yeakley, even considering the proposal is for the LEAD, is okay. -Nietzsche123 (talk) 16:21, 9 October 2013 (UTC)

@Nietzsche123, that would not be an entirely accurate summation of the ruling. The DRN discussion can be found here . Which resulted in significant changes being made to a section in the body of the article. My understanding is that it is preferred that we use reliable secondary sources. In this case, @Nietzsche is proposing to use a primary source that has "no evidence of fact checking" according to the DRN in the LEAD section. JamieBrown2011 (talk) 07:35, 10 October 2013 (UTC)

JamieBrown2011, what's not "entirely accurate" about my summary? The fact that significant changes were made to the article in light of the DRN is not relevant, here, at least. When you specifically pushed for not citing Yeakley at all, the advice we received from the DRN was to go ahead and cite Yeakley directly, since high quality secondary sources covered the same ground. What I'm proposing to do is insert a section in the LEAD that is supported by seven sources, one of which is the Yeakley text. (And I only suggest doing so because the other six sources cover the same ground Yeakley does.) -Nietzsche123 (talk) 19:48, 10 October 2013 (UTC)

@Nietzsche, at the DRN mentioned above you argued extensively (for 30 days) for the inclusion of Gospel advocate on the basis that the reliable secondary sources "do not cover enough ground", now in a complete about-face, you are arguing for the inclusion of Gospel Advocate because the "secondary sources cover the same ground". My understanding is that the LEAD section should "be carefully sourced" and that using primary sources making weighty claims, that have no editorial board are not widely regarded as RS. JamieBrown2011 (talk) 08:07, 11 October 2013 (UTC)

My understanding is the Flavil Yeakley's research is primary source material, and that WP does not normally permit the use of primary source material, but prefers reliable secondary sources filtered through editorial boards.Markewilliams (talk) 20:41, 18 October 2013 (UTC)

Markewilliams (talk) Does that apply to both the body and the LEAD section of a Misplaced Pages article?JamieBrown2011 (talk) 21:09, 18 October 2013 (UTC)

Markewilliams, Yeakley's research is primary source material. But if you read the DRN in question--found at: --you'll see that two editors on behalf of the DRN advised us that citing Yeakley directly was fine so long as secondary sources cover the same ground. Of course I agree that introducing material that Yeakley is the only source for is against WP policies. But the statement in question has six other sources. I'd like to add Yeakley as the seventh source. The other sources cover the ground Yeakley does. JamieBrown2011, it doesn't matter what I argued at the DRN. What matters here is that editors on behalf of the DRN advised us that citing Yeakley directly was fine when reliable secondary sources cover the same ground. If we're permitted to cite Yeakley directly in the body of the article when secondary sources cover the same ground, why wouldn't we be able to cite him directly in the LEAD when secondary sources cover the same ground? -Nietzsche123 (talk) 22:37, 20 October 2013 (UTC)

@Nietzsche, please quote the section you are referring to where the DRN advised us that using a primary source with "no evidence of fact checking" is fine to be used in Misplaced Pages? In the above DRN ruling @Cabe said this The primary source isn't "legitimised" by being quoted in reliable secondary sources, rather because the secondary sources are reliable we can use their commentary on the primary source. JamieBrown2011 (talk) 08:24, 21 October 2013 (UTC)

JamieBrown2011, I already quoted the relevant section before for you on another occasion. Here it is again, from Mark: "Nietzsche123, you may only cite YGA directly if a secondary source as already advanced the information. If the secondary sources fail to sufficiently cover enough ground, we would really need further research and additional sources to fill that in. JamesLappeman, there is no actual reason to exclude the use of the primary source. For example, it may be placed third in line to the two secondary sources as inline citations to illustrate the commentary mentioning YGA". And again, you misrepresent my words. No one is arguing that it's fine to just willy-nilly cite primary sources published by companies that have no reputation for accuracy or fact-checking. Rather, I'm pointing out that in the specific case of Yeakley's research we received advice from editors at the DRN that citing Yeakley directly is fine so long as secondary sources cover the same ground. -Nietzsche123 (talk) 23:42, 21 October 2013 (UTC)

Hawkeye cast in The Avengers sequel

1. Source: http://splashpage.mtv.com/2013/05/20/update-jeremy-renner/
2. Article: The Avengers: Age of Ultron (edit | talk | history | protect | delete | links | watch | logs | views)
3. Content: https://en.wikipedia.org/search/?title=The_Avengers:_Age_of_Ultron&diff=575702120&oldid=575684304
4. Discussion: Would like some additional opinions regarding this source. I also have some alternate sources (or additional, if multiple sources would make a difference). These other sources are:

• http://screenrant.com/avengers-2-age-of-ultron-hawkeye/
• http://www.cinemablend.com/new/Avengers-2-What-We-Know-So-Far-About-Age-Ultron-32405.html
• http://splashpage.mtv.com/2013/07/25/avengers-age-of-ultron-black-widow-hawkeye/
• http://www.mstarz.com/articles/16836/20130723/avengers-2-news-jeremy-renner-s-hawkeye-receiving-bigger-role.htm
• http://metro.co.uk/2013/10/03/elizabeth-olsens-age-of-ultron-casting-confirmed-by-samuel-l-jackson-4133029/
• http://www.digitalspy.com/movies/news/a519517/james-spader-on-avengers-age-of-ultron-itll-be-a-lot-of-fun.html

Thank you for your opinions. —Locke Cole • t • c 04:50, 5 October 2013 (UTC)

The Metro citation seems decent. Shii (tock) 19:31, 7 October 2013 (UTC)

Splashpage would be reliable if it were sure of itself, but in the linked-to article it specifically says it's reporting a rumor. We don't do that. --GRuban (talk) 15:50, 8 October 2013 (UTC)

The Metro source says that Renner is "expected" to return. That sounds like a prediction based on conventional wisdom, instead of fact-checked and verified information. I don't think that's good enough. Cullen Let's discuss it 05:51, 21 October 2013 (UTC)

Can we use press releases to write an encyclopaedia?

1. http://xcor.com/press/
2. Lynx (spacecraft) - a concept under development by xcor.com
3. Basically the entire article is sourced either directly from XCOR or obvious press releases - such as the article in Popular Mechanics. First announced in 2008 with "flights within two years", the project still has nothing beyond a mockup and a few pieces of equipment such as a nosewheel. The article looks to be little more than advertising for XCOR, with the aim being to maximise the number of links to their site that they can cram into a single Misplaced Pages article. --Pete (talk) 15:43, 13 October 2013 (UTC)

The short answer is that while we can use press releases to support specific facts ... we should not build the entire article on them. We need more than just obvious press releases. I don't know enough about this specific topic to know whether such sources exist... but if not, I would suggest discussing the article at WT:Notability. Blueboar (talk) 15:55, 13 October 2013 (UTC)

Press releases should be used sparingly. However even though business writing bases a lot on press releases, these articles are reliable sources if the publication is. Presumably their journalists are sufficiently knowledgeable to determine what is significant and authentic. TFD (talk) 19:17, 13 October 2013 (UTC)

^This; Popular Mechanics, although not what it used to be, is a WP:RS; looking at the article in question, Air & Space Smithsonian is another "blatant RS", as is AW&ST. Space.com has also been determined to be a RS in the past; while The Wall Street Journal and MSNBC also require little to no questioning. Even if they themselves based their writing off press releases, it doesn't change the fact that it's reporting in a third-party source (therefore clearing the WP:N issue). - The Bushranger _{One ping only} 21:47, 13 October 2013 (UTC)

...also a serious {{trout}}ing for the OP here, who started the discussion here then without waiting nominated the article being queried at AfD... - The Bushranger _{One ping only} 21:52, 13 October 2013 (UTC)

The trade press uses press releases a lot. And why shouldn't it? Say you are the editor of The Widget Magazine. Widget manufacturers send you press releases on their new kinds of widgets. You don't distrust their factual content. You just tone down some of the most exaggerated language. Everyone happy. Itsmejudith (talk) 22:50, 13 October 2013 (UTC)

I'm not sure whether you are arguing in support of more liberal use of press releases, or making some other point. I think the original advice, they can be used, but sparingly, is on point. There is no question that many RS sources use press releases to create their material. I have no doubt that they are sometimes used with scant fact checking, however the difference is that they are professional journalists, responsible for their content, while we are not professional journalists. While I am sure some editors have developed a radar for creative press release wording, we do not distinguish between levels of editors so we ought to use them sparingly, for uncontentious facts, and information not likely to be made up (location of operations, etc.) The fact that a professional journalist has chosen to reprint the material provides us with a sort of safe harbor, which we wouldn't have is we used it directly.--SPhilbrick(Talk) 19:51, 16 October 2013 (UTC)

Patrick Leigh Fermor - unreliable author?

Is Between the Woods and the Water a professional work when talking about the history of the town Alba Iulia?. I am asking this because an editor just added it to the article (Alba_Iulia#cite_note-Fermor-6) and I am not convinced that this is a good source (he does not seem to have an academic recognition as a historian) 79.117.168.132 (talk) 11:50, 16 October 2013 (UTC)

The source given only includes part of the book. The final section "Notes" is not visible in the preview. Before any comment is made about the historic accuracy of the book, one should look at that section - the author himself might let readers know of the limitations of the work. If the author asserts that he has accurately represented the history of Alba Iulia, it might be appropriate for somebody who knows about the subject to check whether or not this book is reasonable. If it is, then in my view it is worth keeping the citation, but flagging in "Better citation needed". Martinvl (talk) 12:42, 16 October 2013 (UTC)

Well, obviously what Paddy Leigh Fermor is famous for is kidnapping Heinrich Kreipe with Billy Moss, and carting him off Crete in a small boat. However, he was also an erudite and well-respected writer, though not a professional historian. I think it's safe to assume that what he wrote is based on sources he regarded as reliable; he might perhaps have seen something like this. Is there anything contentious about what is sourced to him in the article? I have the book, if that is any help; my copy doesn't have a Notes section, just a brief appendix. He spells it Bălgrad not Balgrad, by the way. Justlettersandnumbers (talk) 16:02, 16 October 2013 (UTC)

Well, etymology of Alba Iulia is a very specific subject and I could not find better source than this. Any helpful contribution is greatly appreciated. Fakirbakir (talk) 16:12, 17 October 2013 (UTC)

"Better source needed" is correct, I'd say. It's quite likely Patrick Leigh Fermor has got it all right, but he isn't a historian or an etymologist. I don't suppose Coriolan Suciu, Dicţionar istoric al localităţilor din Transilvania, 1967, is available on line? Andrew Dalby 15:37, 18 October 2013 (UTC)

After the Prophet: The Epic Story of the Shia-Sunni Split in Islam By Lesley Hazleton

Is this a reliable secondary source? I am interested in the story that she narrates in this page.--Kazemita1 (talk) 19:39, 16 October 2013 (UTC)

Never mind. I found a lot of positive reviews here including one from Professor Wilferd Madelung.--Kazemita1 (talk) 21:22, 16 October 2013 (UTC)

Gabre Gabric

There is an issue with Italian Olympian Gabre Gabric, whose year of birth has been listed as both 1914 and 1917. Until recently, we listed 1917 based on the explanation at Sports Reference, a site whose data and biographies are provided by a team led by Olympic historian Bill Mallon, as well as an Italian report where the athlete herself explains how 1914 came about as an error. User:Kasper2006, however, who claims to know the family personally, has changed it back to 1914 based on a blog run by a family member. I suggested that Kasper2006 submit anything relevant from the family to WP:OTRS but, considering that the last time I sent something from a family member there they told me to get an account and do it myself, I can't really fault Kasper2006 for not wasting their time on that. So, the main question is is there are a consensus that the sources added by Kasper2006 are reliable enough to change her year of birth (with maybe a footnote about 1917)? If there is, then I'm fine with that, but I would like some clarification, as they don't seem reliable enough to me (but I admit that it can be construed as a grey area). Canadian Paul 22:07, 17 October 2013 (UTC)

Her doughter and her son i law explained this. See here --Kasper2006 (talk) 07:02, 18 October 2013 (UTC)

Now I have created a section where everything is explained better Question about the date of birth - Documents proving the birth in 1914. --Kasper2006 (talk) 07:15, 18 October 2013 (UTC)

But the most wonderful thing is that, beyond what it will obtaine Canadian Paul, there is a real life. ;) Look at this picture, please ;) --Kasper2006 (talk) 07:41, 18 October 2013 (UTC)

Chomsky

Is the famed linguist Noam Chomsky a reliable source for historical facts about the Phoenix Program?TheTimesAreAChanging (talk) 00:09, 18 October 2013 (UTC)

IMO, no. He's a polemicist, whose opinions are notable only as his opinion. WeldNeck (talk) 01:05, 18 October 2013 (UTC)

what source for what claim in what context? he is unlikely to have gotten facts wrong, but his interpretations are probably not representative of the mainstream, although as a noted opinionista, his opinions may be worthy of including, attributed in the article as "Chomsky called this X" -- TRPoD aka The Red Pen of Doom 01:35, 18 October 2013 (UTC)

Chomsky is a reliable source for theories of linguistics, and only for his own opinions outside that field. Though I haven't read his work on the Phoenix Program, I assume that he references or mentions work by professional historians or other reliable sources. Reading and citing those other sources is probably a better approach. Cullen Let's discuss it 01:50, 18 October 2013 (UTC)

Chomsky is cited for the following claim: "After Phoenix Program abuses began receiving negative publicity, the program was officially shut down. However, another program of a similar nature, code-named "F-6", was initiated as Phoenix was phased out." I believe this should be removed unless a better source is provided.TheTimesAreAChanging (talk) 03:39, 18 October 2013 (UTC)

Chomsky is known for his meticulous footnoting and sourcing of all his assertions. In this case, he cites Earl S. Martin, Reaching the Other Side, Crown, 1978, p82. So perhaps somebody could check this work, to see if it confirms Chomsky's citation of it. RolandR (talk) 09:56, 18 October 2013 (UTC)

OK, instead of removing it, I'll just tag the statement with "better source needed".TheTimesAreAChanging (talk) 17:22, 18 October 2013 (UTC)

Perhaps you can see it here on p. 82. Sean.hoyland - talk 17:38, 18 October 2013 (UTC)

The text should probably be rephrased to better reflect that source; namely, this is an allegation from "several antiwar journals".TheTimesAreAChanging (talk) 01:56, 19 October 2013 (UTC)

Yes, it probably needs tweaking, given that it's a personal account. Earl Martin was apparently a Mennonite conscientious objector who volunteered for service in Vietnam, worked with refugees and helped clear unexploded land mines. He's still doing MCC work. Sean.hoyland - talk 05:49, 19 October 2013 (UTC)

It's probably better to use Chapter 28 in Douglas Valentine's The Phoenix Program (ISBN 978-0595007387), for this. It seems F-6 was just a procedural change to Phoenix/Phung Hoang authorized on 21 April 1972, to make it easier to arrest people on the basis of 1 report instead of 3 reports. It was cancelled in December 1972 and the 3 report requirement was reinstated. Sean.hoyland - talk 07:10, 19 October 2013 (UTC)

Yahoo Contributor's Network

Is Yahoo Contributor's Network a reliable source for this? My contention it is not as it is essentially composed of anonymous authors signing up here and writing with no editorial oversight or independent fact checking (no matter what references are listed at the bottom of an article). --NeilN 03:01, 18 October 2013 (UTC)

And getting paid for it. "Performance Payments are payments made to the contributor based on the amount of traffic that a piece of content receives." It isn't a reliable source. If something written there is correct and significant it will be sourceable elsewhere. Dougweller (talk) 09:38, 18 October 2013 (UTC)

I actually opened a discussion about this as well, just a few days ago (see here - Misplaced Pages:Reliable Sources/Noticeboard#Yahoo! Voices). There actually is editorial oversight; everything submitted to the website has to be reviewed by a professional editor, who then decides whether to publish an article or reject it, providing feedback on how it can be improved. According to the Submission Guidelines, anything published by the site is required to include reliable references for all information that is not common knowledge. Articles are also generally expected to be within a certain word count, are supposed to follow a specific format, and cannot be unfair (no ranting, cheerleading, misleading, name-calling, or gratuitously attacking). Yes, as Dougweller pointed out, the writers are paid for their articles; I don't see how that makes them unreliable though. To the contrary, that makes them professional freelancers. All of this had led me to the opinion that the site meets Misplaced Pages's reliability criteria (it certainly is much more reliable than self-published sources like blogs); the one thing that is making me unsure is NeilN's claim that the authors are anonymous. Technically, the author of the article in question is not anonymous (it was written by Adam Hornbuckle), but no information about him is provided whatsoever, so his identity is still somewhat unclear. I don't know whether all reliable sources provide some kind of information on their writers, so I don't know how much of an issue this is, but I can see how it might be a concern. I should mention though, that the author of the article that I had been interested in using does provide information on himself. It doesn't seem to me that the reliability of this website is a clear call, so I would be interested in getting the opinions of several editors on it. --Jpcase (talk) 16:47, 18 October 2013 (UTC)

Very interesting points Jpcase. By anonymous, I meant Misplaced Pages-like anonymity in that my author (editor) name can have no real-world connection to who I actually am. Regarding the review process, I'd be a lot more comfortable if it said, "A trained editor will read and review content for subject matter, clarity, and accuracy". We need more opinions from Misplaced Pages editors on this. --NeilN 17:01, 18 October 2013 (UTC)

I am not at all convinced that the 'editorial oversight' is anything like we'd expect from say a newspaper. "A trained editor will read and review content for subject matter, clarity, and adherence to our Submission Guidelines. Depending on the quality of the topic and content, the editor may decide to make an Upfront Payment offer based on the projected number of page views the piece will receive as well as the shelf life of the topic." The submission guidelines to ask that material be accurate and cited, but I would be surprised if there is that much content checking, let alone by experts in the field. I read 'review content' as making sure that the content is something that will interest readers and get as many hits as possible. Their page on promotional tools is interesting. I agree that the authors might be called "professional freelancers". But I don't think we should treat them as we might treat a freelancer's article in the New York Times. Maybe we should just fall back to the author needing to be a recognised authority in their field. And if the author is anonymous, not use it. Dougweller (talk) 17:46, 18 October 2013 (UTC)

Of course Yahoo! Voices won't be interested in publishing something that is unlikely to attract readers, but that's no reason to assume the editors don't check for accuracy. The Submission Guidelines say that they do and that they require reliable references for anything that isn't common knowledge. If someone can point to several (even the most reputable sources are bound to make a few mistakes) instances in which the website has published inaccurate information, then it would be fair to say that their editorial oversight isn't up to par. But otherwise, that's just a hunch. My personal opinion is that the site's reliability should be determined on a case-by-case basis. In instances where the author does not provide any kind of background information on him or herself, then I would be hesitant to use their articles. But I'm not sure that an author on the site should necessarily have to be a recognized authority in their field (Though this should probably be a requirement for certain topics). For example, the article that I had been interested in using is an album review by an author named Jonathan Frahm, who has provided detailed information on himself; he is a published author of fiction novels and has written one hundred and twenty articles for the website, most of which seem to be related to music. Although I don't believe that he has ever written a music review for any other publications, I don't see why he shouldn't be viewed as a qualified music critic. --Jpcase (talk) 19:57, 18 October 2013 (UTC)

Le Monde and Jobar chemical attacks

At Ghouta chemical attack (edit | talk | history | protect | delete | links | watch | logs | views), is this news story a reliable source for the following statements?

After clandestinely spending two months in Jobar, Damascus, several reporters for the French news media Le Monde personally witnessed the Syrian army's use of chemical weapons on civilians in the Jobar chemical attacks. French intelligence later said that samples from the Jobar attack in April had confirmed the use of sarin.

The French newspaper Le Monde reported in the months before the Ghouta attacks that its journalists embedded among opposition fighters had personally witnessed several chemical attacks on a smaller scale by the Syrian Army against rebel positions.

Additional discussion can be reviewed at Talk:Ghouta chemical attack#Jobar. VQuakr (talk) 03:12, 18 October 2013 (UTC)

Hmmm I dont think it is. Blade-of-the-South (talk) 05:13, 18 October 2013 (UTC)

We know. -Kudzu1 (talk) 06:16, 18 October 2013 (UTC)

To elaborate on Kudzu1 (talk)'s comment, Blade-of-the-South (talk) is extremely active on the Ghouta chemical attack and related pages. Rolf H Nelson (talk) 03:20, 22 October 2013 (UTC)

And has made no effort to hide his personal POV, nor any effort to edit in an NPOV way, openly admitting that he seeks out sources that contradict "al Qaeda" and "Western" "bias". So I find this "hmmm I don't think so" act to be highly disingenuous. -Kudzu1 (talk) 04:16, 22 October 2013 (UTC)

VQuakr: When seeking outside opinion, please represent both sides of the discussion. No one is disputing that the quote you gave is enough to back the claim. The problem is that it comes from the article summary and not from its full text. The full text never describes such an event. The only thing it has is one reporter witnessing people with symptoms. There is no way to know these are chemical weapons, whether they were used by the Syrian Army, and were they used on civilians (a claim made elsewhere). The question is whether a full text is a more reliable source than its summary. That's all.--Swawa (talk) 11:17, 18 October 2013 (UTC)

Swawa Thats my view also. Its biased. Thats what the hmmm meant. BTW Kudzu1 dial down the hysterics Blade-of-the-South talk 05:53, 22 October 2013 (UTC)

@Swawa and Blade-of-the-South: I provided the source and the two sections of article text it is used to support, without commentary and certainly without misrepresentation. I find both of your accusations that I presented any "sides" of the discussion completely spurious. VQuakr (talk) 00:44, 23 October 2013 (UTC)

Your opinion is noted Blade-of-the-South talk 06:11, 24 October 2013 (UTC)

An eyewitness account by Le Monde journalists is reliable, and not only that, it is an important source and should not be ignored. What is much more dubious is the juxtaposition of this with the statement about French intelligence confirmation of sarin. That would need its own source anyway, and should not be placed next to the summary of the Le Monde report in such a way as to advance the argument that the Le Monde report is necessarily correct in all details. Itsmejudith (talk) 06:45, 22 October 2013 (UTC)

Thanks for the input. I actually oversimplified in my quote above; the French intel portion is separately cited but I see your point about the implied cause/effect in their order. I will see if there is a way to make clear that these are very intellecutally independent reports. VQuakr (talk) 00:44, 23 October 2013 (UTC)

Thank you Itsmejudith. Note that the question is not whether Le Monde journalists accounts are reliable. The question is should we use a summary of the article which describes events that are not found in the full text of the article.--Swawa (talk) 01:37, 23 October 2013 (UTC)

No, the question is whether the source provided is a reliable source for the statements quoted from the article. VQuakr (talk) 02:58, 23 October 2013 (UTC)

You mean, can we use the introduction to the report, written in Paris by Le Monde editors. Yes, but it is better to use the precise information from the report body. Use direct quotation if necessary. If the report is doubted in reliable sources, you must use them too. Itsmejudith (talk) 06:39, 23 October 2013 (UTC)

Thank you Itsmejudith. What do you think we should do if the introduction describes events in a manner that is not supported by the full text? Specifically - the intro says reporters witnessed an attack by the Syrian Army with chemical weapons on civilians, but the full text only describes the militants and the reporter suffering respiratory irritation and vomiting (i.e. no indication it was the Syrian Army, no indication it was not a riot-control agent, and no mention of civilians).--Swawa (talk) 12:52, 23 October 2013 (UTC)

The editorial voice of Le Monde - in this case the introduction - is reliable for news. (Headlines, on the other hand, are not generally reliable). If the introduction were inconsistent with the report, we would have a problem, but there does not seem to be an inconsistency, only that the introduction makes a more definite claim. These are recent events and there may be inconsistencies and debatable points. We follow the debates; we don't lead them. Itsmejudith (talk) 21:11, 23 October 2013 (UTC)

I'm new to WP so not always sure what's acceptable and what's not. Knowing how papers work and their strong incentives for outrageous stories, my common sense tells me to always prefer the full text to the summary, especially in such a sensitive subject. Can you explain what in WP guidelines goes against this? Thanks. --Swawa (talk) 21:35, 23 October 2013 (UTC)

Know your Meme

I appreciate queries have been raised about the site knowyourmeme.com previously and can see it is generally not accepted as a reliable source, which is my re-action to it. However, it would be helpful if it could be confirmed as it was inserted in the Shiba Inu article last night (despite the discussion on the talk page). I have just removed it pending thoughts from editors here. The article keeps being protected to prevent the constant changes of the word 'dog' to 'doge' or 'dogge' etc as can be seen in the article history. It is being used to support the following insertion:

The Shiba Inu has also received internet popularity in 2013, with "doge" and "shibe" becoming an internet phenomenon. This spurned forth from a picture of a particular Shiba Inu reaching out with its left paw, and similar images of Shiba Inu in various poses with text in the Comic Sans MS font overlaid has spread through the internet (as an internet meme). Although the term "doge" afterwards began to be used broadly towards dogs in general, the Shiba Inu breed has gained popularity since.

The ref being used is here. Comments and opinions would be very welcome! SagaciousPhil - Chat 10:38, 18 October 2013 (UTC)

I think knowyourmeme.com is a reliable source for explanations of the origins of viral online content. However, this particular article is still in "research" mode and being evaluated by website staff. So, I'd say the page is still in a transitional state and shouldn't be used until the article is evaluated by the website editors. Liz 15:30, 19 October 2013 (UTC)

WikiLeaks webpage as reliable source on exiled persons

WikiLeaks is referenced as a source of information on its founder and Chief Editor, Julian Assange, and Edward Howard. The referenced content is more like a rant on a blog and is not balanced and objective. Please remove them as a reliable source on articles that are directly related to their agenda.Patroit22 (talk) 16:52, 18 October 2013 (UTC)

Sorry, I had my Edwards wrong. I meant Edward Snowden.Patroit22 (talk) 16:56, 18 October 2013 (UTC)

Could you please be more specific about your concerns? We don't expect the references we use to comply with WP:NPOV. We expect our contributors to use allreferences in a way that complies with WP:NPOV. So, if, for the sake of argument, WikiLeaks itself covers Assange and Snowden in a biased way, why should that matter if the contributors who reference that coverage, comply with WP:NPOV?

If you think material from the WikiLeaks site is being referenced in articles here in a way that you think is biased, is there a reason you aren't voicing your concerns about that apparent bias on those article's talk pages? Geo Swan (talk) 18:17, 18 October 2013 (UTC)

I have. Pro WikiLeak editors,in my opinion, stick to their agenda that parrots the WikiLeaks web position.Patroit22 (talk) 23:39, 19 October 2013 (UTC)

You still haven't learnt to indent your posts, despite many attempts by others to get you to do it. HiLo48 (talk) 06:25, 20 October 2013 (UTC)

I know how to indent but I choose not to use this strange optional process.Patroit22 (talk) 14:23, 20 October 2013 (UTC)

If you seek respect in this community, following our conventions might be wise. HiLo48 (talk) 09:08, 21 October 2013 (UTC)

The Wikileaks website should be used very sparingly, if at all, on articles relating to its content and organisation. OK for uncontroversial facts, if there are any, and as a primary source to illustrate a point made by a good secondary source. Itsmejudith (talk) 16:41, 21 October 2013 (UTC)

Looking at the lead in the Wikileaks article, there are 4 instances where wikileaks website is used as source:

1. URL
2. Wikileaks own slogan
3. Non-profit status
4. Which person Wikileaks themselves blame for release an encryption key in their conflict with an guardian reporter.

Out of those 4, not one reliable source can be find that puts out an conflicting opinion or point of view. The statement regarding the encryption could be improved by switching to a secondary soruce, as Wikileaks statement has been reported by reliable third-party sources. Looking at the whole article of Julian Assange:

1. List of WikiLeaks advisory board members (used as the second source).
2. An 2012 interview with Hezbollah leader Hassan Nassrallah on The World Tomorrow uses a transcript as source, which is published on wikileaks website.

Out of those 2, neither has any reliable sourced opinion or point of view that is in conflicting with the article. The second one was originally published by a reliable third-party network, if the RT network is considered as such. It might be better to replace the text-based transcript source with a direct source to the episode itself, as it was publish by RT rather than wikileaks website. Belorn (talk) 08:33, 24 October 2013 (UTC)

Official government publications, from unrecognized states -- are they not eligible to be considered "reliable sources"?

Official government publications, from unrecognized states -- are they not eligible to be considered "reliable sources"?

Misplaced Pages:Articles for deletion/Armen Ohanyan is a mass nomination of articles about individuals that assert they are members of the legislature of the breakaway state of Nagorno-Karabakh. The nominator claimed, first, that these individuals wouldn't meet the criteria of WP:POLITICIAN; second, that there were no references to document these individuals were legislators.

I didn't trust that the nominator had been diligent enough in whatever attempt they may have made to comply with WP:BEFORE. My own web search found that Vardges Ulubabyan had lead a diplomatic mission to the Pridnestrovian Moldavian Republic. Press releases from the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of the Pridnestrovian Moldavian Republic confirmed he was a legislator in the Nagorno-Karabakh legislature.

Well, the nominator at the {{afd}} is asserting that press releases from unrecognized states shouldn't be considered Reliable Sources.

There are coups, uprisings, that are mere flashes in the pan. When a coup or uprising has just occurred, and some hither-to shadowy or completely unknown group claims to be the new legitimate government in that region, I agree we should treat their press releases with great caution. Such groups can disappear overnight, without anyone even learning who had been in charge of the group.

Both Nagorno-Karabakh and the Pridnestrovian Moldavian Republic, and South Ossetia, for what it is worth, date back to the breakup of the old Soviet Union, over 20 years ago. While these governments may not be recognized internationally, they provide the same kinds of services to their citizens as other countries. They build roads, run schools, operate Foreign Ministries. Is it possible their official press releases contain untruths? Sure. But (1) so do the official press releases of well-recognized countries, like the USA; (2) our material complies with WP:VER "verifiability, not truth". Press releases from a foreign ministry that has been in operation for over 20 years should be considered verifiable, IMO. Geo Swan (talk) 18:07, 18 October 2013 (UTC)

If the editor who believes that breakaway states official information can not be RS then anything by the PRC before 1971 can not be used and anything from the ROC after 1971 can not be used, and by that editor's logic all legislators from the ROC are not notable because they don't meet WP:POLITICIAN. Oh, and of course don't forget the Confederate States of America, mass deletions of sources from the Confederacy used in Jefferson Davis and any Civil War politician from the Confederacy, they barely lasted 1/5 the time Nagorno-Karabakh has. Down with the South (as a source on Misplaced Pages)!! (joking, calm down hillbillies).Camelbinky (talk) 17:42, 19 October 2013 (UTC)

RS policy on WP is not like being recognized by the UN, so of course we can report the announcements of organizations not recognized by the UN - as do other types of publications such as news organizations. To start, with nearly any source is reliable for its own opinion. The key things to check are:

• Is the organization notable? For example do news media mention it?
• Is the publication we are using really from that organization? Again, seeing if news media cite it might help if there is any debate.
• How are we using it? For example we should not be using a self-published source in order to say overly positive things about them (self promotion).--Andrew Lancaster (talk) 09:06, 21 October 2013 (UTC)

Using a well-respected and reliable expert as a source. The expert himself posted, in a linguistics forum , his opinion on a language. Is it usable in an article?

This is the discussion:

Comparanda used by Koch

The comparanda used for translating Tartessian by Koch in Celtic From The West, Tartessian 2 and Celtic From the West 2 are the oldest attested forms of the Celtic languages concerned not Medieval Irish as was claimed by one editor for example he uses Oghamic ("Primitive") Irish then Old Irish if this is not available likewise with the other Celtic languages. I have removed the claim made by another editor that was not in the reference cited.Jembana (talk) 03:11, 6 October 2013 (UTC)

Actually, Jembana, Dr. David Stifter said that about the Medieval Irish innovations..."I do not share Joe's complete scepticism, but I can't see anything particularly Celtic at all. A lot of the features that John Koch needs to identify the text as Celtic are very specifically medieval Irish, and require a whole lot of very special developments, which I a priori wouldn't expect to see so early at that remote place." . It was linked above in case you did not see it. A.Tamar Chabadi (talk) 00:20, 17 October 2013 (UTC)

Your source is a discussion forum not a reliable source as per Misplaced Pages standards. It also isn't a published peer-reviewed source.Jembana (talk) 01:03, 17 October 2013 (UTC)

I reiterate the statement I made in my first sentence which comes from reading the three peer-reviewed reliable sources named. They are observations as per WP:VERIFY.Jembana (talk) 01:14, 17 October 2013 (UTC)

I must respectfully disagree, Jembana. Professor Dr. David Stifter is a highly reliable and respected source. He posted the very statement himself. His expertise is in the very area on which this topic is based. I read WP:VERIFY and your claim not solid. If you disagree, this can be posted on the noticeboards and they can decide.

His credentials:

Roinn na Sean-Ghaeilge/Department of Early Irish

Staff

Professor Dr. David Stifter

Professor David Stifter is the professor of Old Irish since 2011. He studied Latin, Russian and Indo-European linguistics in Vienna, and received his Mag. Phil. in 1998 for a thesis on the Old Irish influence on the Latin of the Nauigatio Sancti Brendani Abbatis. He spent the year 1995/6 in Maynooth studying Old and Middle Irish with Prof. Kim McCone. In 2003 he was awarded the doctorate for a thesis on the didactics of Old Irish. From 2000–2008 he was contract assistant at the Department of Linguistics at the University of Vienna. During this time, he played a major role in establishing and developing the Celtic studies programme at the University of Vienna. He is secretary of the Societas Celtologica Europaea (http://www.celtologica.eu/). From 2006, he directed and worked in three different research projects, devoted to a dictionary of the Old Irish glosses in the Milan manuscript Ambr. C301 infr. (http://www.univie.ac.at/indogermanistik/milan_glosses.htm), an interactive etymological dictionary plus edition of texts of Lepontic (http://www.univie.ac.at/lexlep/Main_Page), and a study of the linguistic remains of Celtic in Austria.

He has published widely on the Old and Middle Irish language and literature, and on the Continental Celtic languages (Celtiberian, Gaulish and Lepontic). His introductory handbook Sengoídelc. Old Irish for Beginners (Syracuse University Press 2006) has been adopted for teaching Old Irish in universities world-wide and was awarded the 2006 Michael J. Durkan Prize for Books on Language and :::Culture of the American Conference for Irish Studies. He is founder and editor of the interdisciplinary Celtic-studies journal Keltische Forschungen (Vienna 2006–) (http://www.univie.ac.at/keltische-forschungen/) and of its accompanying monograph series (Vienna 2010–). He co-edited several volumes in Celtic and Indo-European linguistics, among them the four-volume collection The Celtic World. Critical Concepts in Historical Studies (Routledge 2007).

His research interests are comparative Celtic linguistics (esp. Old Irish and Continental Celtic) and language contact in the ancient world and on the early medieval British Isles. A.Tamar Chabadi (talk) 12:28, 17 October 2013 (UTC)

Can the statement be used since Professor Dr. David Stifter posted the comment himself? His credentials are about as excellent as one can have on a specific issue. I hope I formatted this correctly. A.Tamar Chabadi (talk) 23:17, 18 October 2013 (UTC)

A.Tamar Chabadi did not include the following replies from me on this:

Stifter's credentials are not the issue A.Tamar Chabadi. I personally hold his work in high regard as I do for Koch - I equally admire his work on Lepontic as I do Koch's on Tartessian. The problem is with using a brief off-the-cuff reply from a discussion forum as a source as per WP:RS. There are wiki editors (including admins) weeding out such self-published web sources as we speak. They are not reliable sources and your assurances cannot make them so.Jembana (talk) 23:36, 18 October 2013 (UTC)

As far as WP:VERIFY, A.Tamar Chabadi, there is a further issue with this source - it says: "A lot of the features that John Koch needs to identify the text as Celtic are very specifically medieval Irish, and require a whole lot of very special developments, which I a priori wouldn't expect to see so early at that remote place.". Note that this has no examples given and therefore is just a bald statement that cannot be peer-reviewed. Now to verify that Koch's use of other Celtic languages does not indeed rely heavily on Middle Irish developments (strange the ambiguous term "Medieval Irish" is used instead of Middle Irish in the post, but anyway), I need only read the basis for each inscription's translation in the 3 peer-reviewed texts that Koch has contributed to on Tartessian: Celtic From The West, Tartessian 2 and Celtic From The West 2 and I can only see from this that he has used Primitive Irish, Celtiberian, Hispano-celtic languages, Old Irish, Gaulish as a basis BEFORE looking for later comparanda to add to these. So the statement does not verify. Since you are in contact with Dr. Stifter, maybe you can get some examples from him that we can verify ?Jembana (talk) 23:55, 18 October 2013 (UTC) Jembana (talk) 00:41, 19 October 2013 (UTC)

As a point of fact- self-published sources and statements by experts CAN and are indeed legitimately used and if there is indeed some "cabal" going around deleting them as implied above that editors and some admins "as we speak" are doing so... I suggest they quit it. It wasn't that long ago we had this debate and those that had the mistaken belief of what RS stood for were slapped down in the discussion. I suggest everyone reread the relevant policies instead of thinking it says that all RS must be third party, NO THEY MUST NOT!Camelbinky (talk) 17:35, 19 October 2013 (UTC)

The source in question is a post on an electronic mailing list by someone purporting to be Stifter and on the personal say so of A.Tamar Chabadi. Are you saying he can use this source despite the fact that the bald statement concerning Koch's work contained therein doesn't pass WP:VERIFY on the material it is critical of ?Jembana (talk) 22:24, 19 October 2013 (UTC)

Thank you, Camelbinky!

Actually, Jembana, you are being highly misleading. I posted the above question here before you posted those comments on the "Tartessian" language talk page...anyone can see the timestamp. I, only today, saw your comments on the "Tartessian" Language talk page and here. A.Tamar Chabadi (talk) 18:24, 19 October 2013 (UTC)

Accusation rejected. It appears from the timestamps that you pre-emptively posted here when you saw I was online and answering your reply on the Tartessian language page. As I pointed out in the reply you had missed the point.Jembana (talk) 22:40, 19 October 2013 (UTC)

Hahahaha, I am sorry, Jembana, that is one of the most absurd things I have ever seen on Misplaced Pages. How am I to know when you are online? Please enlighten me as to how that would work? Does Misplaced Pages have a green light like Yahoo! Messenger? If so, you are not my friend on here, so how would I then know that you are online? I am not on Misplaced Pages 24/7. I may check in every 12 hours or so. So you are obviously lying. You treat every one like an enemy out to get you. A.Tamar Chabadi (talk) 09:21, 20 October 2013 (UTC)

I would be very loathe to use anything from a mailing list (or Usenet). Not that I wouldn't love to as I am on several academic lists, but I think that the problems in verifying that the text is without a doubt by the expert are too great. The off-the-cuff issue is another one. A blog by said expert would normally be fine. Dougweller (talk) 12:54, 20 October 2013 (UTC)

Thanks Dougweller, so using anything a source from mailing list (or Usenet) like the one cited is not allowable then ?Jembana (talk) 21:19, 20 October 2013 (UTC)

Firstly, Jembana, I am she, not he. Secondly, It is clear that Professor Dr. David Stifter wrote the post. He even signed it as David. Ms. Lenore Fischer, even acknowledges him and the person who originally posted the question about Tartessian 2 @ the Celtic conference at Maynooth, acknowledges him. Maynooth is where Professor Dr. David Stifter works and has worked for some time now.

He states in the post that it is clear that he made as it comports very well with his credentials:

"As for Celtic continuity and typical traits of "Celtic ethnicity", Patrick Sims-Williams (Aberystwyth) gave a wonderfully entertaining and elucidating paper in the session that I chaired. He made the point that none of the classic topoi that are usually adduced to bolster up the cultural continuity between ancient and medieval Celtic cultures (e.g. headhunting, champion's portion, etc.) holds up to any kind of close inspection. His conclusion was that the only connecting factor between the various Celtic cultures is the fact that they are derived from a common linguistic ancestor, but that's it. A point that I am pretty much prepared to subscribe. I talked briefly to John Collis at some stage. He seemed to make a kind of disparaging remark about the linguistic definition of Celtic, which I found a bit surprising. But maybe I misunderstood him there; as I said, the chat was very brief, another thing that inevitably happens at such large venues."

Jembana wants this removed (not because the source is wrong or unverifiable) because he wants, by hook or crook, for "Tartessian" to be Celtic (it is not and the academic majority clear agrees with me or vice versa). In fact, Jembana, has been admonished for vandalizing the "Tartessian" page by loading it up with massive, undue amounts of materials from Koch's book, to the point that it looked like an advertisement for the book, with no dissenting academic opinions (which existed and are the majority) represented and also vandalizing other pages associated with the "Tartessian" topic. Just look at the "Tartessian" language talk page to see the admonitions.

Professor Dr. David Stifter's credentials are from the official page of the National University of Maynooth. For, Jembana, to do this type of thing is, apparently, not unknown. Pettily calling into question, the expertise, of legitimate experts that disagree with his notion of how things should be. "Oh, how can we know that this is Professor Dr. David Stifter? It can't be him because he would never post in an academic forum dedicated to and moderated by academicians like himself. That would never happen. So the source cannot be reliable." That is absolute rubbish and Jembana knows this, at least, he and others should. John Koch publishes a book representing a distinctly minority and largely academically rejected opinion and Jembana eagerly wants to crazily load up the Misplaced Pages article with nothing but that. He is not concerned with accuracy, only with the promotion of his wrong-headed Celticist ideology. Being a Celticist is not bad at all, but being the type that Jembana is, is utterly deplorable to say the least about it.

Also the links are above within this discussion if anyone needs to see them. I am mentioning this just in case people overlooked them. A.Tamar Chabadi (talk) 08:37, 21 October 2013 (UTC)

I tend to think that Camelbinky and Dougweller have between them pointed to the only policy guidance we can give on this one, and the balance will need to be found between editors. We can use online postings of obvious experts, especially if it is clear it was something thought-through, which seems to be the case. But Doug is also right to say that we normally say that this is not something to do too often. In favor of using it, my understanding is that this is a subject where there is not a lot published and the figures involved are the ones experts would be watching. It would be good if Stifter published his thoughts somewhere else though! As a compromise you could consider, what about writing in such a way that it is clear that the source is an online forum? Then at least our readers can be warned.--Andrew Lancaster (talk) 08:55, 21 October 2013 (UTC)

Thanks for the suggestion, Andrew, I propose the following change in wording then:

FROM:

Since 2010, John T. Koch and Francisco Villar Liébana have argued that Tartessian is a Celtic language and that the texts can be translated. However, their proposals have been largely rejected by the academic community; the identification as Celtic relies on features specifically Middle Irish rather than Celtic in general and the script, which is "hardly suitable for the denotation of an Indo-European language leaves ample room for interpretation."

TO:

Since 2010, John T. Koch and Francisco Villar Liébana have argued that Tartessian is a Celtic language and that the texts can be translated. However, their proposals have been largely rejected by the academic community and the script, which is "hardly suitable for the denotation of an Indo-European language, leaves ample room for interpretation.". In 2011, in the Old Irish message list, David Stifter claims that the identification as Celtic relies on features specifically Middle Irish rather than Celtic in general but gives no details.

Jembana (talk) 00:14, 23 October 2013 (UTC)

I am fine with either one, Jembana. You and other editors can "edit-war" about the specifics. My contention was that Professor Dr. David Stifter's comment not be removed as it IS a valid and verifiable source. Also, the link to his comment is referenced or cited in the article. One has but to click the reference/ citation number to see where his comment came from. Again, either one seems quite fine. A.Tamar Chabadi (talk) 05:48, 23 October 2013 (UTC)

OK, thanks A.Tamar Chabadi. We will use Andrew's suggested change then.Jembana (talk) 06:03, 23 October 2013 (UTC)

Religious demographic data in Russia

In the article Russia's infobox, statistics on religious affiliations in Russia from the CIA World Factbook have twice been replaced by statistics from the following two sources:

• sreda.org (the Independent Research Service, a Russian NGO founded in 2011)
• Kommersant (a series of maps, their legends all in Russian, published on the web site of a Russian newspaper)

I make no claim that the new figures aren't accurate, but I am not persuaded that their reliability has been adequately assessed. Note that the new figures are significantly different from the previous ones. I opened a discussion on the talk page but the user reinserting the content has not replied thus far. Additional opinions would be much appreciated. Rivertorch (talk) 05:54, 20 October 2013 (UTC)

It hardly matters. Religious demographic data is notoriously unreliable at the best of times. Even the CIA fact book has to use local, widely differing sources, depending on self identification in response to wildly differing census or other questions the book has no control over. HiLo48 (talk) 06:31, 20 October 2013 (UTC)

I'm sure you're right. However, I think it does matter. Just because the best sources on a particular topic are flawed doesn't mean we might as well throw up our hands in despair and use any old sources. Using the most reliable sources available to us goes some way towards safeguarding articles from insertion of content based not only on misinformation but also on disinformation. (Not that the CIA is above peddling the latter, but that's rather beyond the scope of this thread.) Rivertorch (talk) 06:59, 20 October 2013 (UTC)

Would anyone else care to offer an opinion? Pretty please? Rivertorch (talk) 03:51, 22 October 2013 (UTC)

I see no reason to take the CIA World Factbook as any more reliable than the other sources cited. As HiLo48 says, they don't do research on such things, they merely cite whatever they can find. If we don't have reliable sources, we should tell the reader so, rather than citing questionable ones. AndyTheGrump (talk) 03:57, 22 October 2013 (UTC)

All right, then. The only way I can think of to "tell the reader so" is by way of inline maintenance tags, which I have now added (and noted on the talk page). My sense about it was that the CIA source, warts and all, is at least a known quantity, whereas sreda.org is very new, which makes it hard to tell where they're coming from. I hope the tags will inspire someone with bilingual skills and a knack for checking foreign-language sources to look into this more closely someday. Thanks much to both Andy and HiLo for their input. Rivertorch (talk) 20:54, 22 October 2013 (UTC)

My opinion was asked by the person who added the new sources, and I'll repeat the pertinent part of it here as well. Personally, I don't have a problem with the sources being added—they both are reliable in the WP:RS sense. Kommersant in particular is a well-known publisher of various regional stats. I do, nevertheless, lean to using the CIA Factbook figures, since that's what's used most often in the articles about other countries, making it possible to directly compare the stats across different articles. As HiLo48 said, the religious demographic stats often vary wildly from one source to another, so the least we can do for our readers is to use the same source consistently.—Ëzhiki (Igels Hérissonovich Ïzhakoff-Amursky) • (yo?); October 22, 2013; 20:59 (UTC)

Good point. However, without making some major changes to the section, which I won't undertake at present, I don't see any way to put the Factbook figures back in. Rivertorch (talk) 05:01, 23 October 2013 (UTC)

Rightpundits

Rightpundits appears to be a blog with low standards of fact checking. It describes itself as a "a political gossip and news organization focusing on election information and editorial opinion" but writes about “blogger diversification” and "other blogs" on their "About us" page. It repeats uncritically an article from the European Union Times about how Obama Orders 15,000 Russian Troops to Occupy America. It should be noted that the EUTimes is called a conspiracy site by Snopes.com and according to RationalWiki "strays deeply into tinfoil hat territory". Rightspundits is used as a source or an external link in a number of articles. It's not always obvious what the link is suppused to contribute, such as a biography of Ruth Madoff in the Participants in the Madoff investment scandal. Sjö (talk) 11:02, 20 October 2013 (UTC)

Fails WP:RS, except possibly as a primary source for verifying information about itself or one of its writers. I'm also having trouble imagining a scenario where it would meet WP:EL. As for its presence in Madoff, I wouldn't care to guess about the motives of the user who added it, but my first inclination is to consider the last sentence of the "biography" and think "guilt by association". Rivertorch (talk) 16:45, 20 October 2013 (UTC)

Source for Cambodian genocide denial

Is this undergraduate dissertation good enough for the idea that there was a (pro Khmer Rouge) "Standard Total Academic View" on Cambodia in the late 1970s? Itsmejudith (talk) 14:05, 21 October 2013 (UTC)

Isn't this excluded by WP:SCHOLARSHIP i.e. "are considered reliable only if they can be shown to have had significant scholarly influence" ? It's an interesting source though. "an unequivocal record of complicity existed between a generation of academics who studied Cambodia and the Khmer Rouge."...ouch. Sean.hoyland - talk 14:23, 21 October 2013 (UTC)

Thanks. The thesis is only talking about 1975 to 1979, so not really a generation, and the author identifies fewer than ten academics. The complicity he talks about was real, that's for sure. Itsmejudith (talk) 14:43, 21 October 2013 (UTC)

Ouch indeed. But I agree, an undergraduate dissertation seems to be ruled out by WP:SCHOLARSHIP criteria, unless it can be demonstrated that it been cited as a credible source by more qualified academics etc. AndyTheGrump (talk) 14:52, 21 October 2013 (UTC)

Tip of the complicity iceberg... Luckily a simple solution to the complexities of history seems to have been found in contemporary Cambodia, in my experience, by just blaming Vietnam for everything. Sean.hoyland - talk 14:54, 21 October 2013 (UTC)

I've read a lot of the books in the dissertation, the quote bothers me "Standard Total Academic View" (there were several non-academics that disagreed, one of which was given lots of publicity in Reader's Digest) but the source is pretty good (I added it to my webpage about Pol Pot). I agree with Andy about WP:scholarship. No solid numbers about how many were killed by Nixon's illegal bombing of Cambodia and, blaming Vietnam for invading is a good excuse for never finding out the truth. Raquel Baranow (talk) 15:03, 21 October 2013 (UTC)

Yes, I don't think that STAV term should be employed using the encyclopedia's voice without attribution. See The Genocide Debate: Politicians, Academics, and Victims p. 56 or Refugee Workers in the Indochina Exodus, 1975-1982 p. 131 for examples of how secondary sources handle it (and I guess secondary sources should be used rather than the thesis). Sean.hoyland - talk 15:45, 21 October 2013 (UTC)

Thanks for these sources, a distinct improvement. It is even murkier than I remembered when I used to read about it. Scholars who are still publishing are being accused. Are we dealing properly, with the record of Ben Kiernan, in the article I mentioned above and in this aspect of his biography? Itsmejudith (talk) 16:34, 21 October 2013 (UTC)

The Ben_Kiernan#Criticism_of_Kiernan.27s_scholarship section looks like it might have the imprint of an editor hostile to the subject i.e. wiki-editor sampled quotes rather than secondary source sampled quotes. I guess they should probably go. Sean.hoyland - talk 19:02, 21 October 2013 (UTC)

I took out the cherry-picked quotes as BLP violations. The rest has secondary sources but I don' think they're strong enough. If an academic's work has been criticised in academic sources, we should cover that. I'm not sure that even the WSJ is an appropriate source here. Further comments would be appreciated. Itsmejudith (talk) 20:45, 21 October 2013 (UTC)

The heading is misleading. The section as I read it now (I haven't checked whether Judith was the last person who edited it) is not about criticism of scholarship, it's about criticism for having previously been "on the wrong side" politically. Andrew Dalby 08:53, 22 October 2013 (UTC)

For a start, "The dispute is significant because it highlights the intellectual rifts in the post Vietnam War period in which the ideological convictions of anti-war academics often seemed to outweigh rational analysis" needs to go as POV editorialising. The Murder of Malcolm Caldwell section seems to have been added as some sort of morality tale - or at least, it is off-topic. Frankly though, the title is questionable, and I have to query whether it is normal for sources to discuss this episode in isolation, rather than in the broader context, where other Western players in the Cambodia saga don't always come out smelling of roses either. AndyTheGrump (talk) 20:57, 21 October 2013 (UTC)

Without regarding the merits of undergraduate "honours" theses in various academic systems, I do not believe jim.com is a credible mirror for any source. Reject as republished through jim.com. In relation to Ear (1995) The Khmer Rouge Canon 1975-1979: The Standard Total Academic View on Cambodia: Ear has had 18 years to seek journal publication of this work; and not having done so the work has not received appropriate scholarly oversight fit for its claims. The work itself ought be rejected as failing to meet the criteria for scholarship. Review Articles are readily published. This is a non-expert publishing outside of appropriate forums, in a SELF grade mirror. Reject. (I'd encourage Ear to seek publication though). Fifelfoo (talk) 07:15, 22 October 2013 (UTC)

For the record, he's not a non-expert any more though, he's an Assistant Professor of National Security Affairs at the Naval Postgraduate School in Monterey. Sean.hoyland - talk 07:32, 22 October 2013 (UTC)

For the record, that's very interesting :) In 1995, though, he was an undergraduate, and we would only cite an undergraduate essay if it has meanwhile been cited with approval in RS publications by experts in the subject (which is, in a sense, post-publication peer review). Setting aside that case, I agree with Fifelfoo that we shouldn't treat this as RS. Andrew Dalby 08:47, 22 October 2013 (UTC)

I should say, just to be clear, that I haven't advocated using this source and there's secondary source coverage citing his work that can be used in its place. Everyone appears to agree that the source is ruled out by policy, although I'll happily admit that if I were asked to demonstrate that something has had a "significant scholarly influence", I wouldn't exactly know how to go about doing that in a way that would produce a reliable and repeatable result (other than via a very reliable meta-source that said it has a "significant scholarly influence"). Sean.hoyland - talk 16:59, 22 October 2013 (UTC)

Thanks, guys. He has published on a number of topics subsequently, which should make us wonder why he hasn't published this particular work. He cites someone called Bruce Sharp as his "friend" and that is even more frustrating because Sharp has a website with a number of essays that are, actually, very good scholarship. Everything about his website screams advocacy publishing, just some old website, but as an account of the genocide denial (not the genocide) it's thorough and nuanced. Sean, what I think we would normally do is count the citations in top-quality academic sources, although sometimes you see a wording like "like every scholar in the field I will rely on Blogg's blog". Itsmejudith (talk) 17:58, 22 October 2013 (UTC)

Kindly Check Sources

1. Source

Al Azhar Islamic Studies Scholars Expose Dr. Tahir Qadri as Imposter, Fake Sheikh and Demand: Prove Your Claims

Al-Azhar scholars expose Tahirul Qadri

The Head of the Qadri Tariqa Publicly Denounce Dr Tahir Qadri

2. Article Muhammad Tahir-ul-Qadri http://en.wikipedia.org/Muhammad_Tahir-ul-Qadri

3. Content

On 12 April 2012, it was reported that Muhammad Tahir ul Qadri had been challenged and refuted by scholars of eminent Islamic institute, Al Azhar Islamic University, Cairo, Egypt regarding his self proclaimed title of Shaikh ul Islam. This refutation was also published in leading newspapers of Pakistan. In another development, he was also refuted as Sheikh ul Islam by head of Qadri Tariqa (Qadri sufi way of worship).

— Preceding unsigned comment added by Omar Farooq 78 (talk • contribs) 17:01, 21 October 2013 (UTC)

This has already been addressed on the biographies of living persons noticeboard: Regardless of the reliability or otherwise of sources, we do not report opinions as fact. AndyTheGrump (talk) 17:06, 21 October 2013 (UTC)

Similarities between Avatar (2009 film) and Firekind

Sources:
1. Lazer, Eddie (January 28, 2010). "Did Avatar Completely Rip Off An Obscure British Comic Called Firekind?". Heavy.com. Retrieved October 13, 2013.
2. Lazer, Eddie (29 January 2010). "Avatargate: The Case for the Prosecution". Heavy.com. Retrieved 13 October 2013.
3. Goellner, Caleb (29 January, 2010). "Is Avatar a rip-off of 2000AD's 1993 story Firekind?". Comics Alliance. Retrieved 13 October 2013. {{cite web}}: Check date values in: |date= (help)
4. Anders, Charlie (11 February 2010). "The Complete List of Sources Avatar's Accused of Ripping Off". io9. Retrieved 13 October 2013.

(Note: sources 1 and 2 are the same person; and sources 3 and 4 cite them.)

Article: Firekind.

Content:

"James Cameron's Avatar has a number of parallels with Firekind:

• A human goes to a jungle world with deadly plant and animal life, as well as poisonous air.
• Floating rocks fill the sky.
• Aliens inhabit the planet and are not understood by the humans.
• A human goes to the natives and lives among them.
• The aliens ride dragons.
• The protagonist eventually helps the aliens defeat the humans with help coming from the planet itself, which turns out to be 'aware'.
• The native species and their environment are interconnected by some sort of "neural net". "

Request: Following an earlier discussion at Talk:Firekind, another editor (User talk:Betty Logan) and I failed to agree about whether the above sources were good enough to justify including the above material. Having reverted each other three times each and not wanting an edit war, I wonder if anyone else could offer their views? Many thanks. Richard75 (talk) 18:21, 21 October 2013 (UTC)

Comment I would like to point out that I am not disputing the reliability of these publications for factual claims. I am questioning the WP:WEIGHT that is given to non-notable reviewers. These fanzine style websites are two a penny on the internet, and Richard has so far failed to convince me that the opinions of these people are relevant. We don't really have any WP:FRINGE guidelines for media reception, but the same principle applies: if a view isn't shared by mainstream reviewers should we really be including it in our articles? Charlie Anders seems qualified to speak on the subject, but what qualifies Eddie Lazer and Caleb Goellner? None of these reviewers have had reviews accepted at Rotten Tomatoes which has a basic "prominence" criteria for critics to be included. At the end of the day we are not a fan wiki, and any "expert opinion" whether it is scientific research or critical opinion should meet basic peer review criteria. Just because someone somewhere writes an opinion on the internet doesn't mean we have to register it here. Betty Logan (talk) 18:56, 21 October 2013 (UTC)

Comment The text was too long but I tried a compromise. Will this work for involved editors? QuackGuru (talk) 19:12, 21 October 2013 (UTC)

Comment (1) QuackGuru's compromise works for me. (2) My reading of WP:WEIGHT is that it says that if 99% of people say one thing and 1% say the opposite, then don't give undue prominence to the 1% as they are likely to be extreminsts -- the example given is the Flat Earthers. That doesn't really describe the situation we are dealing with here (the analogy is if 100 people reviewed Firekind and only one of them saw a similiarity with Avatar -- but just about any review of Firekind post-2009 compares it with Avatar). Richard75 (talk) 19:51, 21 October 2013 (UTC)

Your comment seems correct to me: this is not a classic weight issue if concerning the subject of the sources (claims of plagiarism) you do not have counter claims from other sources, just a lack of claims. So looking at Betty Logan's comment it is not an RS matter, and based on the point of Richard75 it is not a black/white NOTE or WEIGHT matter. It seems to be a matter for editors to argue in terms of what makes a good article.--Andrew Lancaster (talk) 20:07, 21 October 2013 (UTC)

You'd find more sources that believe Avatar is a ripoff of Dances with Wolves than you will this British movie... and the conspiracy theory on it is more believable. In fact South Park did an episode on it.Camelbinky (talk) 22:58, 21 October 2013 (UTC)

The article isn't about Dances With Wolves, or Avatar per se. Richard75 (talk) 09:26, 22 October 2013 (UTC)

Timmerman of Daily Caller: "sources with access to intelligence reports had told him that intelligence reports from French and Jordanian military intelligence show..."

Source: http://dailycaller.com/2013/09/09/the-evidence-for-syrian-chemical-weapons-use-crumbles/

Article: Syrian opposition chemical weapons capability

Content:

According to former defense correspondent Kenneth R. Timmerman, writing in September 2013 regarding the August 2013 Ghouta attack, sources with access to intelligence reports had told him that "intelligence reports from French and Jordanian military intelligence show that the jihadist al-Nusra Front rebels acquired similar rockets and chemical agents earlier this year when they overran a chemical weapons depot in Aleppo on May 17 and captured a rocket unit in Daraa no long afterward".

Is this suitable for inclusion in Misplaced Pages? Rolf H Nelson (talk) 03:11, 22 October 2013 (UTC)

he source is an opinion piece and hence fails rs for facts, in this case what Timmerman said. While it may be possible to find an rs, it should not be included unless included in mainstream sources, because of weight. If his claims are generally ignored then they should not be included. TFD (talk) 06:19, 22 October 2013 (UTC)

Nelson knows full well that Timmerman isn't just some random blogger mouthing off; he's a respected former defense correspondent and his claims about the US misrepresenting the key intercepted phone call for the Ghouta chemical attack were picked up as the sole specific intelligence issue mentioned by Rep Alan Grayson in his critical NYT op-ed about the U.S. Government Assessment of the Syrian Government’s Use of Chemical Weapons on August 21, 2013 (). As such, Timmerman's comments are clearly significant and it is beyond absurd to try to exclude them from an article to which they are so fundamentally relevant. Furthermore, this is entirely the wrong notice board: the claim is clearly attributed in the text and there can be no doubt that Timmerman is a reliable source for what Timmerman says. Podiaebba (talk) 12:12, 22 October 2013 (UTC)

TImmerman is an expert whose opinion is noted, not cited as fact. That's appropriate here, as commentaries from experts are encouraged, in certain situations, if they are contextualized. -Darouet (talk) 15:04, 22 October 2013 (UTC)

After the Prophet: The Epic Story of the Shia-Sunni Split in Islam By Lesley Hazleton

Is this a reliable secondary source? Thank You.--Kazemita1 (talk) 23:32, 22 October 2013 (UTC)

You did not mention which edit it is supposed to support. It meets rs because it is by a mainstream writer on religion and published by Random House. However, professional writers get their information from academic writing, which is better to use. Hazleton provides sources at the end of her book. TFD (talk) 00:47, 23 October 2013 (UTC)

Thank you for your response. I meant for the following two edits: 1 & 2.--Kazemita1 (talk) 02:52, 23 October 2013 (UTC)

It's a fictionalised account, so not usable in articles. Great for the Further reading section. Itsmejudith (talk) 06:17, 23 October 2013 (UTC)

Yes, I saw one review by an Academic (named Joseph Albert Kechichian of Princeton University) stating that the author makes assumptions not based on historical facts. However, I found 3 other Academic reviews that praise the work without such allegations:

• "A fine, highly readable history of Islam"

Harvey Cox, Professor of Divinity, Harvard University (link for this quote)

• "The general Western reader will come away from this book with a newfound respect for the depth and power of the early schism in Islam."

Professor Wilferd Madelung, Oxford University, author of The Succession to Muhammad (link for this quote)

• "In terms of historical trade-craft, Hazleton has done something quite remarkable: she's told a complicated story in writerly, yet concise way." Marshall Poe, Assistant Professor in History, University of Iowa

--Kazemita1 (talk) 08:55, 23 October 2013 (UTC)

I can't see any evidence that the book is "fictionalised". Itsmejudith seems to be reacting to the fact that is written in a Carlylean style with dramatic narrative energy. But saying, for example, "Nobody was sure if the miscarriage was a result of her being knocked down by Omar or whether she was so frail that it would have happened regardless", is not fictionalisation. It's just a summary of responses. Obviously, it is not an academic book in which the sources for each statement are clearly defined as different interpretations are weighed, but a narrative history: so not the best source to use, but not unusable. I do question the insertion of a very long quotation as a dramatic narrative. Paul B (talk) 09:25, 23 October 2013 (UTC)

The quotes taken from the books website are probably paid endorsements and if so are meaningless to establish this books worthiness. To call them academic reviews they must be sourced to a suitable academic journal.78.105.23.161 (talk) 09:34, 24 October 2013 (UTC)

Don't be absurd. It would be completely unprofessional for a professor at Oxford University to write endorsements for money. The only very slight sense in which this actually connects to the real academic world is that books are sent out before publication to experts for review. Academics are paid for writing a report on the book, to say wehether or not it is good enough to be published, and, if it is, to point out any corrections or other alterations that need to ber made before publication. If the reports are positive, then sometimes the comments by experts can be published as endorsements of the book. But these are not "paid endorsements". The experts are being paid for their time and effort in reading and writing a report. They are paid the same whether they write a good report or a bad report. And they don't usually get paid all that much. Paul B (talk) 10:06, 24 October 2013 (UTC)

I think you're mistaken here, Paul. First, I have never known a report on a manuscript to a publisher (or a report on a submission to a journal editor) to be mined afterwards for a quote on a website or book jacket. Those are private communications, not even to be shown to the author unless the writer of the report agrees. So it's highly unlikely that the comments quoted above would be from that kind of source. Second, it is suddenly the fashion for publishers to ask not-eminent-but-possibly-relevant academic authors to write blurbs as quoted above from (assistant) professors. Yes, 78.105.23.161 is wrong (in my experience :) to suggest that any payment is offered. You maybe get a copy of the finished book: that's it. And I did on one occasion gather that if I couldn't be bothered to read the damn thing in proof, I could instead take the publicity person's own well-chosen words in the publisher's email, put them in my own reply, and allow them to attribute those words to me. (God knows what good it would have done to anyone.) But it is quite conceivable, as the anonymous says, that something of this kind is the origin of those favourable comments.

We wouldn't use them, of course. Book jackets are not reliable. Andrew Dalby 20:00, 25 October 2013 (UTC)

is this a reliable sources ?

Source : http://pib.nic.in/newsite/erelease.aspx?relid=14444

Article : B.R.Ambedkar

Content : “In 1942-46 he (Ambedkar) created for the first time a department of power at the national level. The present Central Electricity Authority owes its existence to Dr. Ambedkar”. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Premknutsford25 (talk • contribs)

A website which describes him as "emperical philosopher" does not inspire confidence. It appears to be a legitimate government site, which does not mean that it's good for matters of history, but should be usable for uncontroversial facts. Is there some dispute abourt whether or not he did these things? Paul B (talk) 14:04, 23 October 2013 (UTC)

Google books for some person

I am asking this question about the references which have been used on hiwiki. Since we don't have such test or so many users so I want to put this question here. On hiwiki, we have a article named गयासुद्दीन गाजी

(Ghiyasuddin Ghazi) which is recognized as Gangadhar Nehru (Grandfather of first Indian prime minister Jawaharlal Nehru).

To prove above statement, few people gave the links of few book given below. I want to know whether these are reliable source?

1. Google books M K Agrawal. From Bharat to India. p. 459.
2. The Last Mughal, by William Dalrymple, Viking Penguin, 2006, ISBN 0-670-99925-3, page xxiii

Other then these two there are few links such as http://www.mjakbar.org/book_chapter_nehru.htm

Please let me know so, we can take a decision on the corresponding page.☆★Sanjeev Kumar (talk) 19:02, 23 October 2013 (UTC)

Not sure about the first source, but William Dalrymple is an internationally recognized historian. If he makes this claim, it's probably safe to include. TheBlueCanoe 03:26, 24 October 2013 (UTC)

Thanks TheBlueCanoe! Can some one tell me about first link of book and third link.☆★Sanjeev Kumar (talk) 04:46, 24 October 2013 (UTC)

Quick notes:

• The From Bharat to India book is junk; it is "published" by iUniverse, which is a self-publishing outfit, ie anyone can publish anything through it by paying the cost of publication. If memory serves me right, some books published by iUniverse have be known to have content plagiarized from wikipedia itself.
• As TheBluecanoe said, The Last Mughal is perfectly good as a source
• The book by M. J. Akbar should be okay but is non-ideal for a history article. He is a prominent journalist and should be expected to get basic facts right, but sometimes there may be issues with separating plian facts of history from his interpretation/reading of those facts. In short: use it if you need to, but with care.

Do you know which source is being used to support the claim that Gangadhar Nehru was actually named Ghiyasuddin Ghazi? I suspect that is simply a politically motivated claim meant to suggest that the Nehru/Gandhi family were actually Muslim (we often see such attempts here on English Misplaced Pages, especially on the Feroze Gandhi page). Abecedare (talk) 05:51, 24 October 2013 (UTC)

Thanks for your suggestions, I am discussing on these points on hiwiki. There was no such comment. Some IP made a page with name "Ghiyasuddin Ghazi" and clam that this was the name of Gangadhar Nehru. I nominated that page for deletion. After few days one another guy agreed with me. After there were a long discussion came in picture and gave many blog links and many wiki links and books link to prove above claim. I discarded all other claim (such as blogs and wiki-links). In case of books, I can't discard without reading the book, so I tried to get books which are given in references. In most of them there is nothing about Ghiyasuddin Ghazi. Few of them are talking that Gangadhar's dress in a picture is same as Muslims, but it is natural in Kasmiri Pandits, so it doesn't prove such things. Now only one "From Bharat to India" proves above, which has been discarded by you.

You are talking about Feroze Gandhi, but that case is a bit different because his name looks like a Muslim and till last year I was also thinking that he was a Muslim. Last year I searched on many places and found that he was a Persian. I heard stories at my childhood which says that Indra Gandhi married with a Muslim. But I haven't hear about Above incident before that page on hiwiki. Now one guy have transferred all this non-sense at Gangadhar Nehru, I am in the process to remove all such bad things from hiwiki.☆★Sanjeev Kumar (talk) 12:18, 24 October 2013 (UTC)

Please, everyone! This board can't give advice on sources for Wikipedias in other language. They have different rules. Anything we say here could be misleading. Itsmejudith (talk) 14:22, 24 October 2013 (UTC)

Itsmejudith, I don't understand what are you trying to imply here? Do other Wikipedias have "different rules" for the reliability of sources? Sanjeev Kumar has asked to check "whether particular sources are reliable", and this board is supposed to do that. — Bill william compton 17:11, 24 October 2013 (UTC)

That's exactly what I'm saying. All the Wikipedias set their own rules and guidelines. They all have discussion forums or helpdesks where people can go for advice. Itsmejudith (talk) 19:44, 24 October 2013 (UTC)

Itsmejudith, it's rare that disagree with your opinion, but this is one instance:

• The concept of reliable sources was not invented de novo on wikipedia or English wikipedia. The particulars of the policies may differ on other language wikipedias but the gist does not. So any advice we give can be useful and I trust editors like Sanjeev Kumar to be able to interpret and apply it in line with the applicable policies.
• If needed this is an obvious case for "ignoring all rules": the question posed here and the replies are obviously consonant with the fundamental goals of the Misplaced Pages project. And I for one will not hesitate in responding to such queries here in any instance that I think I can be of help. If there were to be a deluge of such non-en-wiki queries on this board, I would suggest splitting the board to deal with that "welcome problem" rather than suggest that editors from other non-English wikis, and those trying to help them, go away.

Hope you'll reconsider your position. Abecedare (talk) 01:40, 25 October 2013 (UTC)

Judith is right. It wouldn't usually be helpful for people on the German or French wikis to rule on whether a particular source was reliable in context on en:wiki. In the same way, it isn't a good idea for us to rule on reliability for the Hindi wiki.

Having said that, the topic is relevant to us because we, too, have brief articles on these people. So no harm in saying :) that I agree with Abecedare on all three sources that Sanjeev names. If asked about sources for our articles, I wouldn't touch the Agrawal book; I would happily cite or quote Dalrymple; the Akbar book looks very good too (he's not an academic historian but definitely merits being regarded as an expert) and I would happily cite or quote him. And of course if there have been comments/reviews on Dalrymple and Akbar on this matter, they might be worth citing too. Andrew Dalby 15:16, 25 October 2013 (UTC)

Thanks to Bill, Abecedare and Andrew, for your help.☆★Sanjeev Kumar (talk) 06:18, 26 October 2013 (UTC)

TM-Sidhi

Talk:TM-Sidhi_program#Studies_in_peer-reviewed_journals have a stonewalling editor insisting that WP:PRIMARY studies on the effects of transendental meditation, which were performed by those associated with TM, are reliable sources, because WP:MEDRS and WP:SCIRS don't apply to social sciences (and somehow, the effect of meditation on the real world is a social science, and not some unknown physics or energy based science. Gaijin42 (talk) 00:56, 24 October 2013 (UTC)

Nicaragua - The Threat of a Good Example?

1. Source: Dianna Melrose, "Nicaragua: the threat of a good example?", Oxford (U.K.): Oxfam, 1985 (preface 1989)
2. Article: Contras
3. Content:

   "On the one hand, US officials warned that Nicaragua could actively export leftist ideology by training radical union and peasant leaders of its neighboring countries. On the other hand, Oxfam titled its report about Nicaraguan development reforms of the early eighties "Nicaragua - The Threat of a Good Example?" as the reforms undertaken by the Sandinistas to improve the condition of the people (which had already received praise not just by Oxfam, but also by the World Bank and Inter-American Development Bank) started to succeed."

4. Discussion: User:CJK wants to ban mention of Melrose's/Oxfam's book from this article, as he claims it is not relevant in the context of the contras#political background section , . Please find the (lengthy) discussion between CJK and me at Talk:Contras#"Threat of a good example?". Thanks. --Mallexikon (talk) 03:41, 24 October 2013 (UTC)

Oxfam is a respected source in their area - poverty and development. So the article is a fine source for the effect of the Contra war on the population. Oxfam is not, however, particularly privy to the political reasoning behind the US funding of the Contras. Also, of course, as CJK writes, the report never actually specifically states "The US is funding the Contras because of the Nicaraguan development reforms"; it's a long report, and if they had wanted to state that clearly, they had plenty of room to. So while it's perfectly fine to use the report in the article, I wouldn't recommend using it in the political background of the funding. If there is a section on the effects of the war on the population, great. If there is a section on international reaction to the war, still OK, as they are a fair example of that. --GRuban (talk) 19:05, 24 October 2013 (UTC)

That discussion appears to contain several violations of WP:BLP that should probably be removed. I think it would probably be more accurate to say that CJK regards the way you have used the title of the source as original research. I would agree with that view. It looks like you are essentially trying to employ Chomsky's argument from his "The Empire and Ourselves" article without sourcing or attribution. Sean.hoyland - talk 15:51, 24 October 2013 (UTC)

I understand. I've not read Chomsky, but you seem to point in the right direction, as CJK mentioned him too... Would you say that Chomsky could be regarded a reliable source for this article's section? --Mallexikon (talk) 06:25, 25 October 2013 (UTC)

Misplaced Pages seems to have a complex stance on citing Chomsky that I won't pretend to know much about. You could consider the following scholarly source.

• Cummins, J. (1994). The discourse of disinformation: The debate on bilingual education and language rights in the United States. In R. Phillipson & T. Skutnabb-Kangas (Ed.). Linguistic human rights. Berlin: Mouton de Gruyter. ISBN 978-3110148787

See p. 169 which says

• "The destabilization of the Sandinistra government in Nicaragua by the Reagan Administration in the 1980s was, according to Chomsky (citing Oxfam reports), largely a response to the "threat of a good example" posed by the constructive social programs and absence of widespread torture in Nicargua; this example contrasts dramatically with many of the military regimes supported by the United States in the region (e.g. Chile, El Salvador, Guatemala)."

Sean.hoyland - talk 17:15, 25 October 2013 (UTC)

Worldstatesmen.org

I have used this page as a source in List of chief ministers from Bharatiya Janata Party, but I am not sure if it is completely reliable or not. Please help. ♛♚★Vaibhav Jain★♚♛ 09:58, 24 October 2013 (UTC)

Skull Tower

At the moment there is a discussion at the talkpage at the Skull Tower article where a user is attempting to include information on the basis that Vox "is an extremist Muslim magazine from Sarajevo", a description in contradiction to a number of reliable sources. There are in total six sources that claim Vox was a satirical and/or youth magazine:

1. Ivo Žanić, a Croatian professor from the University of Zagreb, writing in Flag on the Mountain: A Political Anthropology of War in Croatia and Bosnia, a book published by Saqi (a publisher of academic works), stating "Vox‘s constructions contained enough elements for anyone who approached them with minimal common sense to be able without difficulty to realise that this was satire" and whose jokes are "clear to anyone with half a brain".
2. Marko Attila Hoare, a British historian with numerous books published by Oxford University Press writing in his Greater Surbiton blog, endorses Zanic's view that it's satire and makes the observation that it "was a satirical magazine of the alternative youth movement in pre-war Sarajevo, similar in character to the US’s The Onion, or to the satirical news sections of the UK’s Private Eye"
3. Mark Thompson, a British historian, stating Vox is a "satirical monthly" in Forging War: The Media in Serbia, Croatia, Bosnia and Hercegovina published by Indiana University Press.
4. David Bruce MacDonald, a Canadian political science professor, writing in Balkan Holocausts? Serbian and Croatian Victim-Centred Propaganda and the War in Yugoslavia for Manchester University Press, stating Vox is a "youth magazine".
5. Mladina, a Slovenian weekly current affairs magazine, stating Vox is a "satirični časopis" (satirical magazine).
6. BH Dani, a Bosnian weekly magazine, stating Vox is a "satiricni prilog" (satirical contribution).

These were all dismissed as unreliable by Zvonko for one reason or another. Either it being "in passing", containing "tangential references", or some other nonsense all while the sole academic source actually claiming Vox to be "extremist" (Tim Judah, The Serbs: History, Myth and the Destruction of Yugoslavia) is also "in passing". To bring uninvolved users up to speed, to date Zvonko has:

• Dismissed Žanić for being "tendentious and misleading" citing himself as some authoritative figure and his original research because he remembers "holding and leafing through several of the Vox issues". Thus presenting his opinions as superior and reliable facts and followed by berating others for not blindly accepting them.
• Dismissed Hoare, at the same time claiming I present "falsehood after falsehood", all while lying that "the only bit about Vox in Hoare's post that does come from Hoare himself" being "Vox was published by an alternative youth movement" when in fact it's verifiable he clearly states Vox "was a satirical magazine of the alternative youth movement in pre-war Sarajevo, similar in character to the US’s The Onion, or to the satirical news sections of the UK’s Private Eye". Zvonko again voiced purely his own opinion with no reliable source to back it up and claimed that Hoare saying was an "alternative youth movement" is "factually false" and the Onion parallel is "preposterous".
• Incessantly brought up Party of Democratic Action (SDA) connections, apparently believing it establishes it as "extremist", and continuously claiming its a "classic fascist pamphlet of the Bosnian Muslim provenance", "SDA-sponsored fascist garbage garnered with sophomoric yucks", and "SDA's youth wing gazette". Again an opinion voiced by no one, but himself.
• Continuously touted a personal rant contained in the autobiography of Emir Kusturica, a "protagonist" director, as the most authoritative on the matter and as establishing it as "extremist" while basing his reliability on being "internationally renowned" and on the number of Palme d'Or awards he won.
• Brought in the weeklies Mladina and BH Dani when confronted on his claims and then quickly retracted on them when it was pointed out they too consider Vox satire.
• Recommended that the work of the three sources below be considered if Mladina and BH Dani were to be admitted, implying a similarity in reliability between the two sets.
  • Carl Kosta Savich, a Serbian historian writing in a piece for Serbianna, a Serbian nationalist organization, that was specifically proven inaccurate by Hoare. He writes for many other Serbian nationalist and neo-Chetnik backed organizations (Serbian National Defense Council of America, American Serb Defender, Pogledi) and was criticized for genocide denial.
  • Julia Gorin, a American conservative political writer publishing in her blog and a member of a Serbian-American lobby group for Kosovo.
  • Darko Trifunović, a Serbian writer publishing in a "iReport", who was discredited and criticized by the International Criminal Tribunal for the Former Yugoslavia for writing some of the "worst examples of revisionism" about the Bosnian War and by the International Commission on Missing Persons for committing historical "manipulation" for "political purposes".

Some input on what other users consider reliable would be highly appreciated as the current discussion has become a WP:TL;DR contest repeating the same things. --◅ PRODUCER (TALK) 17:56, 24 October 2013 (UTC)

Here's some more sources to throw into the mix

• Serbian writer Danielle S. Sremac who calls it "a popular Bosnian Muslim youth publication".
• Novi Vox is mentioned in an International Court of Justice case which says "...it has incited acts of genocide by the 'Novi Vox', paper of the Muslim youth".
• Swanee Hunt described it as "the atypical but incendiary Bosniak youth newspaper, Novi Vox"

Sean.hoyland - talk 19:50, 24 October 2013 (UTC)

I have to point out Sremac belonged to the Serbian Unity Congress and was an "official representative" abroad for Radovan Karadžić and Republika Srpska during the Bosnian War , so for even her to fail to use the term "extremist" I think says a lot. Also Hoare, in a review of Zanic's book for Democratiya, a British online journal , states :

When current politics are automatically interpreted on the basis of popular legend, the borders between fantasy and reality are inevitably fluid. Zanic recounts the darkly comic events surrounding the publication in Sarajevo, on the eve of the recent war, of a satirical article by the independent Muslim youth paper Vox, entitled the ‘Agenda for the Immigration of Bosniaks from Turkey.’ It was presented as a Bosnian parliamentary plan to resettle in Bosnia four million Anatolian Muslims of South Slavic origin, so as to create a Bosnian population of ten million. The purpose of this article was to lampoon both the pretensions of the Bosnian nationalists on all sides, as well as the scare stories that they put about concerning each other’s alleged agendas. But the joke turned sour when activists of Karadžić’s Serb Democratic Party printed hundreds of thousands of copies of the article and distributed them to the Serb population of Bosnia and beyond, presenting it as an authentic document. It was seriously discussed in the media of the Bosnian Serbs and of Serbia as evidence of a Muslim plan to destroy the Serbs: the satirical ‘Agenda’ entirely confirmed the Serb-nationalist paranoid fantasies of the time.

--◅ PRODUCER (TALK) 20:29, 24 October 2013 (UTC)

Lest anyone think most of PRODUCER's mendacious drivel holds any water, I have to set these noxious distortions straight. After accusing me of engaging in original research and making other disqualification attempts such as implicitly referring to me as a Serb propagandist on the Skull Tower talk page, PRODUCER has taken his distortion practice here, engaging in more personal attacks, this time accusing me of lying.

Misrepresentation through insertion of peacock/weasel terminology, artificial induction of meaning that isn't there into other people's writing have been staples of PRODUCER's discussion technique on the Skull Tower talk page and he's in quite a form here as well.

PRODUCER says: "All my sources were dismissed as unreliable by Zvonko for one reason or another"

Untrue, I clearly said 2 are valid - Zanic and Thompson. A look at the Skull Tower talk page confirms this and reveals PRODUCER's falsehood. One of many. Let's keep going.

PRODUCER says: "Zvonko dismissed Zanic for being "tendentious and misleading"...

What I actually said was: "Zanic's dismissive statement about "the joke being clear to anyone with half a brain" is tendentious and misleading". Quite a difference between what PRODUCER says and reality.

PRODUCER says: "Zvonko cited himself as some authoritative figure and his original research because he remembers "holding and leafing through several of the Vox issues".

Another misrepresentation. I certainly did not "cite myself as some authoritative figure". Here's what I actually said: "I remember holding and leafing through several of the Vox issues. It was a classic fascist pamphlet of the Bosnian Muslim provenance, garnered with a few juvenile bits here and there such as the above "bukva example". The fact that it occasionally threw in a joke or a wink, did nothing to negate its clearly fascist and anti-Serb overall tone."

I clearly stated my own opinion about the Vox magazine. An opinion based on reading it and informing myself who's behind it (source present on the talk page). My personal assessment of Vox is not part of the Skull Tower article nor am I trying to make it a part of the Skull Tower article. I stated it in the interest of having an open and intellectually honest discussion. Something that turned out to be impossible to have with PRODUCER. All the while feigning neutrality and objectivity, due to being unable to come up with rational objections to the actual sources I presented, PRODUCER resorted to misrepresentation by mixing my clearly stated personal assesment of Vox with the data from the sources in an poor effort of discrediting them via poison the well technique.

PRODUCER says: "Zvonko dismissed Hoare, at the same time claiming I present "falsehood after falsehood", all while lying that "the only bit about Vox in Hoare's post that does come from Hoare himself" being "Vox was published by an alternative youth movement" when in fact it's verifiable he clearly states Vox "was a satirical magazine of the alternative youth movement in pre-war Sarajevo, similar in character to the US’s The Onion, or to the satirical news sections of the UK’s Private Eye". Zvonko again voiced purely his own opinion with no reliable source to back it up and claimed that Hoare saying was an "alternative youth movement" is "factually false" and the Onion parallel is "preposterous"."

Hoare's blog post coverage of Vox is 99% taken from Zanic which was already included as a source. PRODUCER is trying to use Hoare's blog post (99% consisting of Zanic's duplicated material) as a separate source in an effort of padding his argument by artificially increasing the number of sources that support his argument. Not to mention the fact that PRODUCER dismisses Emir Kusturica's (a protagonist and a first-hand witness of the events in question) autobiography that covers Vox on 4 pages as a valid source because he says that an autobiography isn't academic, however, a at the same time a 99% duplicated blog post with two cursory observations one of which is factually incorrect is perfectly fine. A duplicated blog post with 2 cursory observations one of which (that of Vox being "published by a youth movement") is a factually incorrect, which I proved with dozen sources establishing a clear link between Vox and SDA, an Islamist political party in Bosnia that was part of the ruling coalition in the country at the time of Vox's run. I invite you to go to the Skull Tower talk page and inspect all the sources listed for the above.

The fact that in the rush to complete the post I failed to notice the other cursory observation made by Hoare (I thought it was Zanic's like most of the post) in Hoare's 99% duplicated blog post is being used by PRODUCER for a personal attack on me to call me a liar.

PRODUCER says: "Incessantly brought up Party of Democratic Action (SDA) connections, apparently believing it establishes it as "extremist",

SDA is being brought up a.) because its fingerprints are all over Vox and becasue its financial and logistical support is a key reason why Vox even existed, b.) because PRODUCER dismissed all the connections between SDA and Vox as my "personal SDA-Fascist-Kresevljakovic conspiracy theory nonsense" until I presented him with a number of links on the Sjull Tower talk page, and c.) because the SDA-Vox link, which is supported by numerous sources clearly disproves Hoare's blog post observation (one of two not duplicated from Zanic) that "Vox was the publication of an alternative youth movement".

PRODUCER says: "Zvonko continuously claims Vox is a "classic fascist pamphlet of the Bosnian Muslim provenance", "SDA-sponsored fascist garbage garnered with sophomoric yucks", and "SDA's youth wing gazette". Again an opinion voiced by no one, but himself."

Another, poison the well attempt. All of the claims PRODUCER says I'm making continuously, I made only once when I clearly stated my own personal opinion of Vox as I explained earlier in this post.

PRODUCER says: "Continuously touted a personal rant contained in the autobiography of Emir Kusturica, a "protagonist" director, as the most authoritative on the matter and as establishing it as "extremist" while basing his reliability on being "internationally renowned" and on the number of Palme d'Or awards he won."

Yet another distortion by PRODUCER. Let me repeat one more time. Kusturica is a protagonist of the events in questions as a political activist and and a well-known film director. His autobiography offers valuable insight into the 1990-1992 period in Sarajevo in Bosnia, including details about Vox which he discusses on 4 pages.

PRODUCER says: "Zvonko brought in the weeklies Mladina and BH Dani when confronted on his claims and then quickly retracted on them when it was pointed out they too consider Vox satire."

Another distortion. I didn't retract them. I simply pointed out that both are interviews with the Kresevljakovic brothers who worte and published Vox. The claims that Vox is satire were made in the interview intro by the person interviewing them as a summary of sorts of what the interviewees said. In Mladina case the person making that claim is Amir "Lunjo" Talibečirović (Googling him yields nothing), In BH Dani case the persons are Mile Stojic and Senad Pecanin (admittedly they have a more glowing CV, and seem to have a bit of a record behind them). All I pointed out is that if we're this inclusive that we accept observations made in interview intros then Carl Kosta Savich's, Julia Gorin's and Republika Srpska commission findings are just as acceptable.

It was a clear if-then conditional.

PRODUCER says: "Zvonko is implying a similarity in reliability between the two sets"

How do you establish reliability of Amir "Lunjo" Talibečirović (the man seems to be a tour guide (judging by the his tour guide web sites' layout and graphics this was a while ago), but basically he doesn't exist on the internet?Zvonko (talk) 05:53, 25 October 2013 (UTC)

PRODUCER says: "I have to point out Sremac belonged to the Serbian Unity Congress and was an "official representative" abroad for Radovan Karadžić and Republika Srpska during the Bosnian War , so for even her to fail to use the term "extremist" I think says a lot. "

With a doubt it says a lot. It says that PRODUCER doesn't even click on the link to read the entire sentence. I mean, saying "Hostility towards Bosnian Serbs was evident on the front cover of a popular Bosnian Muslim youth publication, which showed a Muslim wearing traditional dress worn in the days of the Turks stepping on the head of the Bosnian Serb leader, Radovan Karadzic." to you means "not extremist"!? Have you even opened the link?

Also since we're being so diligent with the personal and professional backgrounds of the sources, Hoare's mother Branka Magas is Ivo Zanic's collaborator. This is probably why Hoare reuses Zanic's stuff so much. They got themselves an extended family business.Zvonko (talk) 06:26, 25 October 2013 (UTC)

But despite the rest of that page saying what it says, Sremac described it as "a popular Bosnian Muslim youth publication". It doesn't mean "extremist" or "not extremist", it means what it says, "a popular Bosnian Muslim youth publication". You seem to be convolving your views with what sources say. The fact is that the sources contain a variety of descriptions, "popular", "satirical", "alternative", "youth publication", "extremist", "atypical", "incendiary" and there are probably more descriptions out there. Transforming that data into "an extremist Muslim magazine" is not a transformation supported by policy. Sean.hoyland - talk 07:51, 25 October 2013 (UTC)

"But despite the rest of that page saying what it says, Sremac described it as....."

The rest of that SENTENCE, not the rest of that page.

The fact is that the sources contain a variety of descriptions, "popular", "satirical", "alternative", "youth publication", "extremist", "atypical", "incendiary" and there are probably more descriptions out there. Transforming that data into "an extremist Muslim magazine" is not a transformation supported by policy.

Agreed. And may I once again remind you that this all started because PRODUCER decided to blank the entire paragraph.Zvonko (talk) 14:06, 25 October 2013 (UTC)

Or another way of looking at it is that it all started with this edit at 2013-10-07T00:49:53 which added the description "an extremist Muslim magazine from Sarajevo" to the article. Sean.hoyland - talk 14:43, 26 October 2013 (UTC)

So, you think it's "extremist" to depict Radovan Karadzic, a notorious war criminal, being trodden on. Perhaps you also think this British cartoon from World War II depicting Hitler and Mussolini getting kicked is "extremist" too. Or this one, in which Hitler's squashed into a dustbin. It is often difficult to place satirical publications, especially when they are also linked to a particular world view - satire always comes from point-of-view. But it is clear that this simply cannot be labelled "extremist" given the range of views about it and the cultural context. That does not mean that a passage about the magazine's references to skull towers should not appear in the "Skull tower" article, but that it should be characterised as a satirical publication. Paul B (talk) 10:54, 25 October 2013 (UTC)

"So, you think it's "extremist" to depict Radovan Karadzic, a notorious war criminal, being trodden on."

First of all, you fail to account for the timeline and context. The issue in question was published in October 1991. The Bosnian War began in Mirch-April1992. In October 1991 Radovan Karadzic was not a "notorious war criminal" he was just a political leader of the Bosnian Serbs. Furthermore, I think what the link says: "Hostility towards Bosnian Serbs was evident on the front cover of a popular Bosnian Muslim youth publication, which showed a Muslim wearing traditional dress worn in the days of the Turks stepping on the head of the Bosnian Serb leader, Radovan Karadzic" and I'm wondering how one goes from that to "not extremist".

"But it is clear that this simply cannot be labelled "extremist" given the range of views about it and the cultural context.

I'm not disputing that. PRODUCER was blanking the entire paragraph and that was the initial problem.

"That does not mean that a passage about the magazine's references to skull towers should not appear in the "Skull tower" article, but that it should be characterised as a satirical publication".

Referring to it just as "satirical" ignores all the other sources that characterize it otherwise.Zvonko (talk) 13:56, 25 October 2013 (UTC)

It is so laughable to hear Zvonko refer to Karadžić, whose party was infamous for its "ultranationalist rhetoric before, during and after the war" , as "just a political leader" when in October alone he infamously said, in the Bosnian parliament of all places, that independence will "drive Bosnia-Herzegovina to hell, and the Muslim people into extinction". Zvonko says this all while readily claiming Vox "extremist" and "fascist" in the face of numerous reliable sources. Hilarious. The entire reason Vox is of any significance in the Tim Judah source is because he claims its a "extremist Muslim magazine from Sarajevo". You're either knowingly or blindly endorsing a paragraph that claims the Skull Tower held "such significance in Serbian national consciousness" that Vox "sought to provoke ethnic Serbs" when in fact Judah simply says it "helped the cause of Serbian propagandists", an observation shared by MacDonald. Again this is evidence of the level of source distortion we are dealing with. --◅ PRODUCER (TALK) 15:02, 25 October 2013 (UTC)

I don't think anyone is trying to go to "not extremist". There's no data from RS that says "not extremist" at the moment. Also, the absence of something obviously isn't the same as its negation. The presence of "popular" and the absence of "extremist" from a description doesn't mean "not extremist". Sean.hoyland - talk 15:45, 25 October 2013 (UTC)

The issue here is what relevant sources have to say about Vox. I merely pointed out thaat Peul B's statement about Karadzic being a notorious war criminal in October 1991 is not factually accurate. As for the PRODUCER distortions, the fact that I'm not supporting your blanking of the entire paragraph is NOT an endorsement of its current version. Despite your personal attacks and best efforts to present me as a Serb propagandist, the only thing I'm doing on the Skull Tower page page is trying to come up with an acceptable version of the paragraph that reflect what all relevant sources say about Vox, something in direct contrast to your action of simply blanking the paragraph.Zvonko (talk) 15:47, 25 October 2013 (UTC)

By dismissing academic reliable sources, insisting on the inclusion of directors, genocide deniers, lobbyists, and historical revisionists, and continuously reinserting false and unverifiable data to prove a point? Okay whatever you say buddy. --◅ PRODUCER (TALK) 15:58, 25 October 2013 (UTC)

You're continually misrepresenting my activity and pushing your own agenda.

I covered all your distortions and accusations in great detail, both here and on the Skull Tower talk page.

Zvonko (talk) 05:53, 25 October 2013 (UTC)

Use of wikipedia talk page as primary source on Chelsea Manning

An editor is insisting on using a Misplaced Pages talk page as a source! Yworo (talk) 00:27, 25 October 2013 (UTC)

I reverted someone here because I thought the idea of replacing a reliable source with a Misplaced Pages talk page source was ridiculous. Am I missing something? I thought we should never use Misplaced Pages referencing itself. Sportfan5000 (talk) 00:45, 25 October 2013 (UTC)

Per Misplaced Pages:V#Wikipedia_and_sources_that_mirror_or_use_it, when talking about Misplaced Pages, it is perfectly reasonable to use wikipedia as a primary source for itself. In this case, the edit in question is finishing the story about the Manning page move - we have secondary RS about the first page moves but no RS for the final page move (the source from the Guardian which some editors are edit-warring to use incorrectly states that the move was the result of an ARBCOM decision, and as such that source is unreliable and miseleading for the claim being made.). The best source for now to support the claim that the page was moved is the page move discussion itself, and this is clearly permitted under the policy I cited above. Per WP:PRIMARY, there is no interpretation of the source being performed; anyone who reads the Manning move request can see that the decision was made to move the page. As such, I don't think this is in violation of any policies or causes a sourcing issue.--Obi-Wan Kenobi (talk) 01:48, 25 October 2013 (UTC)

• Question... is the fact that Misplaced Pages had an internal debate (changing the article title back and forth a few times) really relevant enough to mention in the article? It seems a bit odd. The article is supposed to be a BIO article about Manning, after all. I could see mentioning it if Manning herself had commented on our debate, but otherwise, no... I think we should cut it. Blueboar (talk) 02:07, 25 October 2013 (UTC)

Thanks but offtopic here; suggest you bring that suggestion there. The question for this board is, can we legitimately cite a wikipedia RM discussion to make a claim that a wikipedia RM discussion happened? I think, clearly, yes - as a primary source, its the most primary of sources for that claim.--Obi-Wan Kenobi (talk) 02:11, 25 October 2013 (UTC)

Sure... my point was that if we don't discuss Misplaced Pages's debate in the article, then we don't need to cite Misplaced Pages as a primary source for that debate. But as long as we do, I would agree with your take on it. Blueboar (talk) 02:34, 25 October 2013 (UTC)

Understood. I would be happy if we could compress the wikipedia story to 1 sentence, but I do think it's relevant given the visibility of WP and the coverage it garnered.--Obi-Wan Kenobi (talk) 02:36, 25 October 2013 (UTC)

Origins of Attitudes towards Animals (2009) PhD Thesis from University of Queensland

Some editor unsure about the reliability of the source For more detail please see

• https://en.wikipedia.org/Talk:Animal_welfare#Meng.27s_thesis_.3D_hundreds_papers
• https://en.wikipedia.org/User_talk:Anthonyhcole

124.168.63.167 (talk) 00:50, 25 October 2013 (UTC)

Dissertations and theses

Presently, WP:RS says "completed dissertations or theses written as part of the requirements for a PhD, and which are publicly available, are considered publications by scholars and are routinely cited in footnotes. They have been vetted by the scholarly community..." Should this language be modified or expanded in any way? See the discussion at Misplaced Pages talk:Identifying reliable sources#PhD Theses. --Anthonyhcole (talk · contribs · email) 06:20, 25 October 2013 (UTC)

What a good efforts. I saw the most recent revision of the text. The work still satisfy all the requirements.

Any other excuse to exclude it? 124.168.46.132 (talk) 08:54, 25 October 2013 (UTC)

WP:BLPN#Larry Klayman

1. Source. Krepel, Larry (August 9, 2012). "Larry Klayman, Failed Lawyer". conwebwatch.com..
2. Article. Larry Klayman.
3. Content. none yet - but something regarding the subject's "inappropriate behavior with his children" or "inappropriate touching" of his children.

PLEASE DO NOT DISCUSS THIS TOPIC HERE. This is just a notice that I've started a discussion on the topic at WP:BLPN#Larry Klayman. As this is a combined RS/BLP issue, it could equally be discussed here or there. I arbitrarily chose there but thought editors who patrol this noticeboard might also be interested in participating. --Dr. Fleischman (talk) 06:40, 25 October 2013 (UTC)

Volokh Conspiracy

1. Source. Bernstein, David (January 8, 2008). "More Trouble for Ron Paul". Volokh Conspiracy..
2. Article. Ludwig von Mises Institute.
3. Content. The source is used to describe the views of George Mason University Law Professor (and libertarian) David Bernstein regarding the Ludwig von Mises Institute. Specifically, the source is used to note that Bernstein believes the Institute is associated ("plays footsie") with racists, anti-semites, and conspiracy theorists. No particular person, living or dead, is mentioned, and these views are specifically attributed to Bernstein.

The basic question is: Is the Volokh Conspiracy a reliable source to establish that Bernstein made the statement attributed to him above?

I ask that editors involved in the Mises Institute page offer their views as to whether it is an RS on a separate thread below. With so many problems and allegations of bias/edit warring on the Mises pages, we need the input of uninvolved editors. Steeletrap (talk) 17:59, 25 October 2013 (UTC)

Clarification question

Are asking about:

1. With respect to establish the statement being made, or to
2. establish (per the RS-based wp:npov requirements) that rs's have covered it in relation to the article topic for inclusion in that particular article?

North8000 (talk) 18:09, 25 October 2013 (UTC)

North, thank you for asking for this clarification. It has compelled me to form the question in a more specific and made way. However, I ask that you delete this post (or move it down to the "involved users" thread) because it is cluttering the thread.— Preceding unsigned comment added by Steeletrap (talk • contribs)

The clarification moves it a step towards resolution which is to show that it is now somewhat self-conflicting because you are still referring to presence in the Ludwig von Mises Institute article which is a different (higher) standard than how you have framed the question. North8000 (talk) 18:52, 25 October 2013 (UTC)

Uninvolved editors

The source is certainly reliable for his own statements, but a throwaway comment like this is unsuitable for use in an article in my opinion. The post is about Ron Paul, and only mentions LVMI in passing. Certainly this is too weak to be used on any individual BLP page, where you would be causing a WP:SYNTH/WP:OR to link the statement to that person, where they are obviously not mentioned in the source. Additionally, as a WP:SPS, the statement would be a brightline BLP violation for any BLP article. In the context of the LVMI article itself, it is less objectionable, but still so, because of the throwaway nature of the statement, and there is no evidence that Bernstein's opinion on LMVI is notable (is he known for writing about them? no.), and selection of this quote out of context, creates a WP:OR WP:POV issue. Why is this quote selected, out of the thousands or millions of other possible quotes about the LMVI? and is still a WP:SPS which should be used exceedingly sparingly. Gaijin42 (talk) 18:30, 25 October 2013 (UTC)

(reply to uninvolved editor by OP) Concerns about notability of the source are off-topic as far as the reliability of a source goes. I do strongly disagree with your view in that regard, however. That a major libertarian legal scholar refuses to publish with the Institute bc of its association with racists/anti-semites seems very notable, even if Bernstein's mention of this was cursory in an article about Ron Paul. Steeletrap (talk) 20:52, 25 October 2013 (UTC)

The source may be reliable, but after reading what the source actually says and the way it is (was) used in the article is a clear BLP violations. The sentence included says ".view that the Institute "play footsie" with racists, anti-Semites and conspiracy theorists." This goes beyond what Bernstein said and is a BLP violation. Bernstein did not directly associate LVM with any specific group other than general conspiracy theories. He listed a number of conspiracy theories along with racists and anti-Semites, but did not make a direct connection. Also he said "Mainstream libertarian groups like Cato and Reason have nothing to do with the latter types, but other self-proclaimed libertarian groups, like the Ludwig Von Mises Institute, play footsie with them." A direct reading of "latter types" per his previous paragraph would be "to newer racist theories; to novel conspiracy theories about 9/11, the pharmaceutical industry, etc." but even that is Original Research. The question of RS is really moot because the source, as was used, was a clear violation of BLP via Synthesis of Material. I have removed it as a BLP violation. Arzel (talk) 01:08, 26 October 2013 (UTC)

• Unreliable and a BLP violation. This appears to be a self-published source. You can't use an SPS as a third-party source about living people. Period. See WP:SPS. A Quest For Knowledge (talk) 17:18, 26 October 2013 (UTC)

Involved Editors

• I am somewhat involved, having recently edited at the article's talk page but not about this source. The "plays footsie" connection is very weak. I think too much is being made of the Bernstein source—it is thin soup, with no absolute statements made, just implications. Binksternet (talk) 18:20, 25 October 2013 (UTC)

Binksternet, the only reason "too much" is being made of this RS citation is because of the unfounded attempt to impeach it, contrary to policy, to deny the associated text. "Played footsie" is quoted in the text, so there's no question the source said it. If the RS said "facilitated" or "enabled" instead of this quirky but clear figure of speech, the meaning would be identical. SPECIFICO talk 23:13, 25 October 2013 (UTC)

• Having initiated the BRD at Talk:Ludwig von Mises Institute#Blog & law student commentary, I'll briefly restate: The source is a group blog, Bernstein is actually commenting about Ron Paul & the Mises.org comment is incidental, Bernstein is a professor of law and the subject of "Mises.org", its' history or philosophy is not within his area of expertise. Also, I note that Bernstein said "Congrats to the Mises Institute on this project a staggering array of libertarian literature on-line...." – S. Rich (talk) 18:44, 25 October 2013 (UTC) Added comment: WP:CONTEXTMATTERS says cited material should "directly support the information as it is presented". The blog posting fails in this regard. 19:12, 25 October 2013 (UTC)

Srich, you're wikilawyering again but your claims as usual, are tenuous and transparent. Suppose you were a trial attorney and Bernstein were an expert witness in the field of entomology. Suppose he testified that he saw an African killer honeybee sting the plaintiff, your client, in the ass. Do you think you could get the judge to strike the testimony because the entomologist doesn't have academic training in human anatomy? Your argument, which you use to contest source after source here, is specious. SPECIFICO talk 23:21, 25 October 2013 (UTC)

My client is a strawman, so killer bees can't harm him. In any case, your analogy to trial practice does not help in this discussion. Testimony from a percipient witness is always admissible evidence if the witness is competent and the evidence is probative. So if the witness saw the bee sting someone, that testimony is admissible. The bee-keeper expert witness might be competent/qualified to testify about bee behavior, but may not be competent to testify about the effects of bee venom on humans. (As a percipient witness, s/he could say s/he saw the bee sting someone on the ass.) In this case Bernstein can testify that he did not accept an invitation to publish with Mises.org, but cannot testify as an expert that Mises.org had any particular characteristics. His lay opinion about Mises.org would not be admissible. Along the same lines, his blog comment about turning down an invitation to publish is not encyclopedic even if he gives an opinion on why. – S. Rich (talk) 00:23, 26 October 2013 (UTC)

@Srich - You managed to completely misrepresent my example and question, which was so brief, to the point, and carefully worded that your evasive reply (I do assume you understood my words) only strengthens the obvious inference that you are wikilawyering and throwing up specious and unfounded theories. Please re-read my message and you will see that your remark above concedes and affirms my rejection of your argument. You have made no credible or even coherent argument for rejecting what is manifestly a Reliable Source for the content on which it's cited. Case closed, as Judge Judy would say. SPECIFICO talk 00:46, 26 October 2013 (UTC)

• (OP) It seems to me that Volokh Conspiracy, one of the most widely-viewed websites in the legal world (regularly cited by the NYT, WP, and other mainstream news sources), whose writers are tenured professors at second-tier, first-tier, and elite law schools, is a reliable source for the views of Bernstein (which is the only thing it is used to source in the article). It seems to me that a major libertarian scholar's refusal to publish with the Institute bc of its alleged association with bigots is notable. But concerns regarding notability are off-topic; this thread is about reliability of sources. Steeletrap (talk) 19:03, 25 October 2013 (UTC)
• This www.volokh.com search shows only a few uses of the site . This WP:RSN found it not appropriate for WP:BLPs. Since the institute is made of individuals, a number of whom are mentioned in the article, I don’t think it should be used to make a blanket accusation of “racists, anti-semites, and conspiracy theorists”. If it's used it should be within the context of being written during the Ron Paul newsletters revelations period (because a lot of people panicked and disassociated selves or were far more critical than today). So, in addition to comments above, another reason not to use it. User:Carolmooredc 20:26, 25 October 2013 (UTC)

Thank you for your thoughtful reply, Carol. Two points. 1) BLP isn't applicable here because no particular person is mentioned. Broad statements about institutions are not BLP statements. If I say something like "BYU is full of homophobes", "Brooklyn Polytechnic students don't do their homework", or "The Mises Institute is full of racists", I won't be accused of libel even if I provide no evidence (and indeed even if the statements are false), because that's not the same as making those statements about a living (or dead) person. This is an important logical distinction.

2) Volokh has been used 203 times in WP articles. I have never heard the term "a few" applied to such a huge number. Steeletrap (talk) 21:03, 25 October 2013 (UTC)

Clarified above - uses of the site as a reference. User:Carolmooredc 21:56, 25 October 2013 (UTC)

• Volokh is RS for this content This is a straightforward statement which is directly supported by the source, I see no problem with this one. SPECIFICO talk 23:30, 25 October 2013 (UTC)

This is fatally flawed The question is posed as merely supporting the statement, but but context is a totally different standard. 01:06, 26 October 2013 (UTC)

Yes, the setup question – The basic question is: "Is the Volokh Conspiracy a reliable source to establish that Bernstein made the statement attributed to him above?" – is flawed. It is safe to assume that Bernstein made the statement posted in the blog. (And thus meets requirement #4 in WP:ABOUTSELF.) But editors are commenting about the appropriateness of using Bernstein's comment in the context of the article. – S. Rich (talk) 01:21, 26 October 2013 (UTC)

Three sources on Ludwig von Mises Institute article

I’ll make each a subsection. While these are in different stages of debate, we might as well address the repeated use of questionable sources in one thread. (Volokh Conspiracy originally was on the list.) User:Carolmooredc 22:05, 25 October 2013 (UTC)

Gene Callahan personal blog

• This sentence: In a discussion about alleged racism in the Institute, former Institute Scholar Gene Callahan noted that the Institute had sought to appeal to racists for years, citing Neo-Confederate causes, but also said that "I think the truly racist time at LVMI had passed by the time ... I got there" in in the early 2000s.
  • Ref: Gene Callahan’s blog “La Bocca della Verità”, article “Murphy on LVMI”, January 2, 2012

• Discussed here:

1. Misplaced Pages:Reliable_sources/Noticeboard/Archive_156#Gene-callahan.blogspot.com Recent WP:RSN discussion ruled not usable for another statement.
2. Talk:Ludwig_von_Mises_Institute#Callahan_personal_blog_material_.28BRD.29 discusses this use in more detail.
   

• Uninvolved editors:

• Involved editors:

• Originator opines: It's self-published, he's making a throw-a-way comment about his past experience, not a reasoned analysis from specific incidents/statements/etc. from a libertarian "expert" perspective.
• RS for this content It's preposterous to assert that only "a libertarian expert" is able to recognize what, in his opinion, is racist. Anyway, Callahan happens to be one of the foremost living libertarian experts and was a key Mises Institute scholar on site for many years. So it's a no-go double whammy trying to impeach this source. This issue has already been vetted, shredded, sliced and diced on the article talk page. Callahan's blog is RS here. SPECIFICO talk 22:38, 25 October 2013 (UTC)
• RS for this content This falls under WP:ABOUTSELF as the assertions of Callahan are attributed to him, and not presented as if they were facts (nor are there any statements about people dead or alive). Callahan was one of the Institute's most high-profile scholars, so his criticism of the Institute is particularly notable. Steeletrap (talk) 22:51, 25 October 2013 (UTC)
• Non-RS – This is Callahan's personal reflections on what might have occurred before he came to Mises.org. The statement he makes does not directly support the information presented in accordance with WP:CONTEXTMATTERS. It violates WP:ABOUTSELF #3 because he is commenting on "about events not directly related to the source ". – S. Rich (talk) 23:31, 25 October 2013 (UTC)

Srich, that's the sixth different reason you've trotted out to quash Callahan. None have been valid, and the cumulative effect of swinging blindly at the perceived pinata is making it hard for readers even to give each new assertion serious consideration. (Of course we do, but it's difficult. SPECIFICO talk 23:38, 25 October 2013 (UTC)

• RS for this content It's WP:ABOUTSELF by an expert witness. Callahan is fully qualified to comment on the organization that he was a member of. MilesMoney (talk) 01:28, 26 October 2013 (UTC)

• Even if he was not a member at the time he refers to? - Sitush (talk) 08:40, 26 October 2013 (UTC)

Bleeding Heart Libertarians web blog

• This sentence: In a discussion of the paleolibertarian period of the Mises Institute, Austrian economist Steven Horwitz criticized what he describes as the Institute's "numerous connections with all kinds of unsavory folks: racists, anti-Semites, Holocaust deniers".
  • Ref: Steven Horwitz, "How Did We Get Here? Or, Why Do 20 Year Old Newsletters Matter So Damn Much?", Bleeding Heart Libertarians website, December 23, 2011.

• This sentence: Horwitz and political scientist Jacob Levy state that Rothbard identified the need to attract social and religious conservatives to establish a libertarian-conservative fusion constituency, distinct from the more socially progressive followers of Cato and the Koch Brothers.
  • Ref: Jacob Levy, "Ron Paul continued." Bleeding Heart Libertarians website, December 23, 2011.

• Discussed here: Talk:Ludwig_von_Mises_Institute#Several_unreliable_sources.3F but no response on this specific source.
  

• Uninvolved editors:

• Involved editors:

• Originator opines: These both are self-published blog entries on an advocacy site, as discussed at the about us page. "All of us who blog at this site are, broadly speaking, libertarians." Just negative personal self-published opinions that don't belong on Misplaced Pages. User:Carolmooredc 22:05, 25 October 2013 (UTC)
• RS for this content An author's being "broadly speaking, libertarian" doesn't disqualify the author. If it did, we couldn't use sources involving any of the Mises Fellows, its Founders, or even Mises himself. Horowitz is a distinguished Austrian economist, and this statement is credible RS for the WP content it supports. SPECIFICO talk 22:49, 25 October 2013 (UTC)
• RS for this content Non-libertarians don't tend to write much about libertarians, especially not at the same level of detail. BHL is a perfectly good source. MilesMoney (talk) 01:30, 26 October 2013 (UTC)

The Remnant (newspaper)

• This paragraph: The Catholic journalist Christopher Ferrara responded in the "The Remnant" newspaper to Mises Institute scholars Llewellyn Rockwell and Mises Fellow Thomas Woods' criticism of his 2010 book "The Church and the Libertarian: A Defense of the Catholic Church's Teaching on Man, Economy, and State". Ferrara criticized the Institute's outreach efforts to Catholics and its attempts to persuade them that anarcho-capitalism is compatible with Catholicism. He wrote that part of the "Institute’s mission is to sell Catholics an outrageously phony bill of goods: that a school of thought dedicated to the legacy of , a radically laissez-faire liberal agnostic who defended the legal right to starve unwanted children to death" and as being compatible with and even congenial to Catholic principles.
  • Ref: Christopher Ferrara, Fury in the Cult of Rothbard, The Remnant, September 4, 2013

• Discussed here: Talk:Ludwig_von_Mises_Institute#Several_unreliable_sources.3F but no response on this specific source.
  

• Uninvolved editors:

• Involved editors:

• Originator opines: According to its Misplaced Pages article, The Remnant (newspaper) is an extremist advocacy site which Southern Poverty Law Center calls a hate site; it doesn't call Mises Institute one, FYI. This sort of publication not usually considered WP:RS, even if articles seem to be passed by the editor Michael J. Matt. User:Carolmooredc 22:05, 25 October 2013 (UTC)

• One can be hateful while still having solid/reliable scholarly standards (see most famous Western philosophers); do not conflate the two. Ferrara is a well educated guy, attended a top 30 law school (Fordham), has had a fairly prolific career as a journalist, and has published academic works with mainstream publications. He's an RS. Steeletrap (talk) 23:23, 25 October 2013 (UTC)

• Reliable source for the opinion, but placement/emphasis is undue. In an earlier edit I put the Ferrera comments into a footnote . Later on they were restored to the text. A full paragraph for his comments, and a second footnote to his book which does not provide page numbers for criticisms of Mises.org (which may or may not exist), does not further WP:BALANCE. – S. Rich (talk) 23:43, 25 October 2013 (UTC)

1. Kenneth R. Timmerman, The Daily Caller, 9 September 2013, The evidence for Syrian chemical weapons use crumbles

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