Misplaced Pages

Revision as of 19:20, 28 September 2020

Archives

2008: Jan Feb Mar Apr May Jun Jul Aug Sep Oct Nov Dec 2009: Jan Feb Mar Apr May Jun Jul Aug Sep Oct Nov Dec 2010: Jan Feb Mar Apr May Jun Jul Aug Sep Oct Nov Dec 2011: Jan Feb Mar Apr May Jun Jul Aug Sep Oct Nov Dec 2012: Jan Feb Mar Apr May Jun Jul Aug Sep Oct Nov Dec 2013: Jan Feb Mar Apr May Jun Jul Aug Sep Oct Nov Dec 2014: Jan Feb Mar Apr May Jun Jul Aug Sep Oct Nov Dec 2015: Jan Feb Mar Apr May Jun Jul Aug Sep Oct Nov Dec 2016: Jan Feb Mar Apr May Jun Jul Aug Sep Oct Nov Dec 2017: Jan Feb Mar Apr May Jun Jul Aug Sep Oct Nov Dec 2018: Jan Feb Mar Apr May Jun Jul Aug Sep Oct Nov Dec 2019: Jan Feb Mar Apr May Jun Jul Aug Sep Oct Nov Dec 2020: Jan Feb Mar Apr May Jun Jul Aug Sep Oct Nov Dec

This page has archives. Sections older than 30 days may be automatically archived by Lowercase sigmabot III.

War of 1812

There is currently a discussion at Misplaced Pages:Neutral point of view/Noticeboard regarding an issue with which you may have been involved. Elinruby (talk)<

Selfpublished

Hey, I saw your comment at WP:RSN and thought I'd ask for help here. I'm a bit unclear on the meaning of "self-published" even after going through Misplaced Pages:Identifying and using self-published works. I understand that blogs and forum posts are obvious examples of selfpub. I understand that articles published in predatory journals, books published by vanity press are selfpub because the publisher does little or no fact checking and/or relies on the author to do the fact checking. So it seems that in order for something to not be self-published there needs to be some people other than the author that do a meaningful overview of the author's work before publishing. Is my understanding correct?

Also what if the author and the body that does the fact checking belong to the same organization? For example, the author is a reporter in a news org, and the oversight is done by the editorial board in that very news org. Does that have any impact on the status of selfpub? VR _talk 02:18, 16 August 2020 (UTC)

Self published merely means the author has published his own work. In that case we determine if the work is reliable by determining if the author is an expert. So for example a professor may have a website dedicated to their field of specialization.

Books and articles published by reputable publishers are considered reliable because we trust the publishers to only accept works that they know are reliable. That may include fact-checking the work or it could be that they respect the author and expect that they have ensured accuracy.

While blogs are generally unreliable, per WP:BLOG, a blog by reporters that is part of a reliable news website may be reliable if it follows the same standards as news articles.

Bear in mind that there are errors in all types of sources and we should always pick the best sources. Things to keep in mind are the quality of the publisher, the relevance of the source to the topic and when it was published. A book about astronomy from 1980 for example might be out of date. It might mention ancient civilizations as part of its history of astronomy section, but would not be a good source for ancient history. Finally, an upper level university textbook would be a better source than a book written for the general public.

Most of this is common sense. But what causes frequent dispute is when an editor wants a certain fact inserted into an article and searches for a source. The proper approach is to identify good sources and summarize what they say.

TFD (talk) 03:17, 16 August 2020 (UTC)

Thanks for the above response. I understand your comments about books and blogs, they makes sense. I'm still wondering how we determine the status of self-published for things like websites. It seems that most websites are considered self-published. What about pew research? The authors and editors are all employees of the same organization. Is it not considered self-published by the virtue that an editor exists who provides meaningful oversight? If so, would government websites where anything published is overseen by someone whose not the author also be considered not selfpublished? VR _talk 03:33, 16 August 2020 (UTC)

Vice regent, we know that Pew Research is reliable because it is frequently cited in reliable sources. If you want to read discussions about this you can search for them at RSN. (There's a search box at the top.) Also, Pew is on the list of Misplaced Pages:Reliable sources/Noticeboard as reliable, and there are links to two RSN discussions. i don't know what procedures they follow before releasing reports for publication, but I assume they have some sort of fact-checking and error correction.

A government website where content was written and overseen by different people would still be self-published. But it's a moot point, because if the oversight was the same as a reliable publisher, we would treat it in the same way.

It's important to bear in mind that reliability depends on the use one wants to make of the source. An article in an astrophysics journal for example may be reliable for articles about distant stars but should not be used for articles about modern art. While think tanks are generally considered reliable, there is little reason to use them except in highly specialized articles. Suppose you were creating an article about the education system in Chicago. You would first search for books written about it, preferring academic and more recent writing. You would supplement this (since events have occurred since the books were published) with academic journal articles and news reports. You would chose journal articles that were relevant to the topic, in other words devoted substantial space to education in Chicago, rather than mentioned it in passing. The same with news articles. And the papers you used would be either from Chicago or quality newspapers that had a national or international focus. So you wouldn't use a local paper from Spokane, Washington, even if it was a reliable source.

The wrong approach is to decide that something belongs in an article and find a source for the information. For example, one editor wanted the article on the U.S. to say that Puerto Rico was part of the country, rather than an external territory and used the Post Office website as a source. Of course it is not reasonable to use the Post Office website as a source for constitutional law. In my experience, this type of approach is the cause of the vast majority of discussion on talk pages and noticeboards.

TFD (talk) 16:33, 20 August 2020 (UTC)

Kamala Harris

This edit violates the BRD restriction in effect on that page, which reads "If an edit you make is reverted you must discuss on the talk page and wait 24 hours before reinstating your edit." Please self-revert. – bradv🍁 02:08, 21 August 2020 (UTC)

Thanks, I missed the notice. TFD (talk) 02:23, 21 August 2020 (UTC)

Thanks for that. For what it's worth, I think you may be right, at least in your initial edit summary. The 23rd Avenue Church of God is part of the Church of God (Anderson, Indiana), which doesn't call itself Baptist per se. However, the article would be better with a source explaining that, rather than just casting doubt on Harris' interpretation. It's probably best to bring it to the talk page for more input. – bradv🍁 02:35, 21 August 2020 (UTC)

Bradv, we should never challenge what people say in text. On the other hand we should never report what they say as fact, if it is in conflict with facts. The church Harris says she attended is definitely not Baptist and we only have her word that she attended it regularly. Maybe she thinks that all black churches are Baptist. TFD (talk) 03:19, 21 August 2020 (UTC)

You are putting your own personal opinion into this, both here and on the talk page, rather than arguing from sources. Please try to contribute from a neutral perspective. – bradv🍁 05:14, 21 August 2020 (UTC)

Not at all, bradv. Dumuzid said, "I take it that you mean African Americans don't vote based on issues or personal qualities?" I never said that and explained why I do not believe that. TFD (talk) 05:25, 21 August 2020 (UTC)

Falkland Islanders

Hi TFD, thanks for your edit on the talk page of Falkland Islanders, it was really helpful. I took on board your comments and searched again for more academic references to the Argentine offer of citizenship to the Falklanders and have added them to the page. All the best. --Boynamedsue (talk) 09:29, 31 August 2020 (UTC)

Lee Harvey Oswald

Since you mentioned Ted Bundy and that eliable sources have also determined that Ted Bundy's membership in the Republican Party is significant enough to mention in books about him and yet there is no mention on it of the lead, but the first thing we say about Lee Harvey Oswald is that he was an American Marxist . Not only is that false, because the only mention of Marxist was some original research and synthesis stating that By age 15, he considered himself a Marxist according to his diary: "I was looking for a key to my environment, and then I discovered socialist literature. I had to dig for my books in the back dusty shelves of libraries." (again, no mention on Marxist in the quote, so I took the liberty to at least change it to socialist which is what the quote mention; it should say communist or socialist because I could find no other mention of Marxist or Marxism), but the bottom line is, what is its relevance? Was it Marxism that prompted him to assassinate Kennedy? Are his political views actually discussed in books about him and Kennedy's assassination? Because if they are not, it is undue; and even if they are, there are better ways than having that as the very first thing stated or even being in the lead at all. I thought this could be of interest to you, so I wanted to share it with you and hopefully learn more about it, if it is due and so on. Davide King (talk) 00:15, 7 September 2020 (UTC)

I removed it. It was added by Wikimcquack 17:53, 26 October 2017. TFD (talk) 02:03, 7 September 2020 (UTC)

Mass killings under communist regime

I found this old thread opened by Paul Siebert interesting and persuasive, not only for doubting whether the topic actually exists but also for being impossible to adhere to NPOV for the discussion has been both "extremely extensive and ideologically biased". So I write you this to hear your thoughts, especially since I think you are good at identifying a topic and what is the actual consensus among sources, regarding Siebert's points, whether you think they are accurate and if they still stands or if things are changed. I actually could not find anything for "mass killings under communism" and only 25 results for "mass killings under communist regimes". I think quotation marks are especially important because without them you get misleading picture, showcasing a bunch of results, but that is because Communists have been victims of mass killings, especially by the Nazis. Cft. mass killings under communism (60.500 results) and mass killings under communist regimes (52.000 results) with mass killings under capitalism (67.300 results) and mass killings under colonialism (58.800 results), yet we have not one but two articles about 'Communist regimes' only (crimes against humanity and mass killings).

So I think Siebert is still right and that "no 'Mass killings under Communist regimes' as a specific type of mass killings existed in actuality". Indeed, some scholars highlighted the differences between 'Communist regimes' such as the Soviet Union and Afghanistan and Cambodia (for the latter, along with North Korea, I would not be surprised to find scholars that exclude both as they were ethno-nationalist more than 'Communist regimes'), so how can we easily lump all those together? I think it would be better to simply take well-sourced information of the article and at best move it to relevant articles, for example Stalinism, the countries' history articles, etc., although this counts also for Crimes against humanity under communist regimes, not only this one. Secondly, I think that what you wrote here is especially relevant not only to this article but most, if not all, 'Communist' and Soviet-related articles. This is not a matter of 'apologism', as I am sure some critics would label us, but, as you wrote, "All these writers are anti-Communists. Anti-Communism does not mean opposition to Communism, but opposition to an extreme degree. That doesn't mean that their books are unreliable but that they present one view of events".

You also wrote "the term holodomor has been adopted by anti-Communists because of its similarity to the word Holocaust and to promote the narrative that the Communists killed 10 million Ukrainians while the Nazis only killed 6 million Jews. Notice that none of the sources Timothy cites use the term holodomor in their titles", so perhaps it is The Black Book Communism that popularised this lumping of 'Communist regimes' under crimes against humanity and mass killings types and that it does not actually reflect the consensus or research among scholars and historians. So at the very least, if those articles are going to stay, as I assume they are going to be, even though I believe Siebert was right and it would be better to delete and move all information to relevant, related and mentioned articles themselves, we need to improve the sourcing and wording to avoid exactly what you described and make it clear that, even if "their books are unreliable", "they present one view of events". Speaking about this, what is the current consensus in Communist and Soviet studies? We still have some criticizing 'revisionist' historians such as Getty as "apologetics for Stalin" and "accused them of downplaying the terror", or calling another respected, mainstream British historian, whose name I cannot remember right now, in similar words, I think for defending the Soviet Union on something related to World War II? There are Sarah Davies and James Harris, who "note that with the collapse of the Soviet Union and the release of the archives, some of the heat has gone out of the debate", but is this true?

I also found this other thread by Beland which highlights the issue "his article appears to have a strong anti-communist bias, and an academic bias in favor of historians who believe that communism is unusually prone to or inevitably leads to mass killing or autocracy", which is why we simply are not going to have an article that respect NPOV; and if Siebert's argument about NPOV is not enough, synthesis and original research may be. For example, the article still relies, or relies too much, on Rummell, Cortuois (no mention of criticism; and if there is much criticism, perhaps it should not be used?) and in general anti-Communists or for higher estimates. We report:

In 1994, R. J. Rummel's book Death by Government included about 110 million people, foreign and domestic, killed by communist democide from 1900 to 1987. Due to additional information about Mao's culpability in the Great Chinese Famine from the work of Jung Chang and Jon Halliday, in late 2005 Rummel revised upward his total for communist democide between 1900 and 1999 to about 148 million, using their estimate of 38 million famine deaths.

Who were those 'Communist' governments before 1917 (The Black Book of Communist states that 'Communism' started in 1917) and why even starting from 1900? We also still have the capitalisation issue on which, by the way, I think you were spot on. The Black Book of Communist explicity capitalises Communism when talking about 'Communist regimes'. So I wrote to you because I am especially curious if Siebert's argument is convincing and if there actually is agreement among scholars that a topic regarding crimes against humanity and mass killings under 'Communist regimes' actually exists and is also agreed among them. Davide King (talk) 00:05, 9 September 2020 (UTC)

GMO DS alert

This is a standard message to notify contributors about an administrative ruling in effect. It does not imply that there are any issues with your contributions to date.

You have shown interest in genetically modified organisms, commercially produced agricultural chemicals and the companies that produce them, broadly construed. Due to past disruption in this topic area, a more stringent set of rules called discretionary sanctions is in effect. Any administrator may impose sanctions on editors who do not strictly follow Misplaced Pages's policies, or the page-specific restrictions, when making edits related to the topic.

For additional information, please see the guidance on discretionary sanctions and the Arbitration Committee's decision here. If you have any questions, or any doubts regarding what edits are appropriate, you are welcome to discuss them with me or any other editor.

Template:Z33

Crossroads 19:20, 28 September 2020 (UTC)