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This is an old revision of this page, as edited by Jc3s5h (talk | contribs) at 01:09, 2 May 2013 (→Don't use the best source, and doesn't have to be appropriate to the claims made: comment). The present address (URL) is a permanent link to this revision, which may differ significantly from the current revision.

To discuss reliability of specific sources, please go to Misplaced Pages:Reliable sources/Noticeboard.

view · edit Frequently asked questions Questions Where should I ask whether this source supports this statement in an article? At Misplaced Pages:Reliable sources/Noticeboard. Don't forget to tell the editors the full name of the source and the exact sentence it is supposed to support. Do sources have to be free, online and/or conveniently available to me? No. Sources can be expensive, print-only, or available only in certain places. A source does not stop being reliable simply because you personally aren't able to obtain a copy. See Misplaced Pages:Reliable sources/cost. If you need help verifying that a source supports the material in the article, ask for help at Misplaced Pages:WikiProject Resource Exchange or a relevant WikiProject. Do sources have to be in English? No. Sources can be written in any language. However, if equally good sources in English exist, they will be more useful to our readers. If you need help verifying that a non-English source supports the material in the article, ask for help at Misplaced Pages:Translators available. I personally know that this information is true. Isn't that good enough to include it? No. Misplaced Pages includes only what is verifiable, not what someone believes is true. It must be possible to provide a bibliographic citation to a published reliable source that says this. Your personal knowledge or belief is not enough. I personally know that this information is false. Isn't that good enough to remove it? Your personal belief or knowledge that the information is false is not sufficient for removal of verifiable and well-sourced material. Is personal communication from an expert a reliable source? No. It is not good enough for you to talk to an expert in person or by telephone, or to have a written letter, e-mail message, or text message from a source. Reliable sources must be published. Are there sources that are "always reliable" or sources that are "always unreliable"? No. The reliability of a source is entirely dependent on the context of the situation, and the statement it is being used to support. Some sources are generally better than others, but reliability is always contextual. What if the source is biased? Sources are allowed to be biased or non-neutral; sometimes these are the best possible sources for supporting information about the different viewpoints held on a controversial subject. However, the resulting Misplaced Pages articles must maintain a neutral point of view. Does every single sentence need to be followed by an inline citation? No. Only four broad categories of material need to be supported by inline citations. Editors need not supply citations for perfectly obvious material. However, it must be possible to provide a bibliographic citation to a published reliable source for all material. Are sources required in all articles? Adding sources is the best practice, but prior efforts to officially require at least one source have been rejected by the community. See, e.g., discussions in January 2024 and March 2024. Are reliable sources required to name the author? No. Many reliable sources, such as government and corporate websites, do not name their authors or say only that it was written by staff writers. Although many high-quality sources do name the author, this is not a requirement. Are reliable sources required to provide a list of references? No. Misplaced Pages editors should list any required sources in a references or notes section. However, the sources you are using to write the Misplaced Pages article do not need to provide a bibliography. Most reliable sources, such as newspaper and magazine articles, do not provide a bibliography. Does anyone read the sources? Readers do not use the reference list extensively. This research indicates that readers click somewhere in the list of references approximately three times out of every 1,000 page views.

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Visual material

Some editors feel that the prohibition on using self-published sources also extends to visual material such as videoclips and photographs, despite these not being listed. Let's say for example that I have a photograph or a video of a distinctive fruit published as part of a blog. If I describe the fruit on the basis of such imagery (assuming that the ID of the plant is unequivocal and uncontested) then I find it difficult to see how that could be regarded as Original Research. As I commented above, there is no mention of visual material in the guideline, and perhaps intentionally so. Should the guideline be modified to clearly mention and permit the use of such material? Paul venter (talk) 07:42, 11 March 2013 (UTC)

TL;DR: "Visual material" needs expert commentary. —— I think an important issue here is that interpreting the visual material is best done by a reliable source, eg. a peer reviewed journal, etc. Let's use a concrete example. Calappa calappa contains (right now) this content: "The claws are large and flattened, also with a wavy line pattern, fitting snugly under the carapace and providing armoured protection for the crab's front." Then, there is a <ref> inline as if to support this content simply consisting of a link to this image on Flickr. The Flickr page does not contain any commentary or description at all, let alone by an established expert, explaining, for example, how the claws provide protection to the front of the animal. So while we non-experts may infer from the photograph that the claws are protecting the front of the crab, since that is what they appear to be doing, (and I don't doubt that they are) we don't really have any reliable source at this point to justify the claim. In that sense, we as Wikipedians concluding this functionality of the claw from looking at a photograph is original research. So I think it is clear that we'd rather have a journal article or something of that nature to justify the content, not a picture of the claws. But this raises another question—until such a proper reliable source is found, should the image link be included as a reference? It's a pretty good image, after all. I think no. Using the image as a reference says to the readers, I think, that this is a proper reliable source, so it is a bit misleading. It kind of makes us look unprofessional, too, since our sources that we use for all-important WP:V are just flickr pictures lacking expert commentary. Maybe it should be an external link. But WP:ELNO says we should only include external links that are to content we wouldn't on the article itself, and this doesn't qualify as that, either. It's a great picture. But it just doesn't fit in a Misplaced Pages article, since it isn't freely licensed. ErikHaugen (talk | contribs) 17:26, 11 March 2013 (UTC)

WP:ELNO forbids

• 1 Any site that does not provide a unique resource beyond what the article would contain if it became a featured article.
• 2 Any site that misleads the reader by use of factually inaccurate material or unverifiable research, except to a limited extent in articles about the viewpoints that the site is presenting.
  

and even though it doesn't say so explicitly, the gist seems to be about textual content. Also I agree that only incontestable conclusions should be drawn from visual material, whether video or still. Paul venter (talk) 09:22, 12 March 2013 (UTC)

ELNO doesn't "forbid" anything. ELNO is about what "one should generally avoid providing external links to" (emphasis added). WP:ELNEVER is about what's forbidden.

Additionally, the External links guideline has absolutely nothing to do with reliable sources that support article content, as it says in at least six separate places. WhatamIdoing (talk) 21:02, 13 March 2013 (UTC)

There are actually slightly different rules for including images. See WP:PERTINENCE and WP:OI.

What editors are not allowed to do is to look at a picture and draw conclusions from the picture, e.g., I can see in this picture that the crab has claws (that much is likely permissible), and therefore the crab uses the claws to eat/defend itself/engage in interpretive dance/whatever (definitely not permissible). WhatamIdoing (talk) 01:18, 12 March 2013 (UTC)

Agreed that speculating about function based on a still is OR, but if the visual material is a video clip, TV documentary or film clearly showing behaviour which is unambiguous in its interpretation, then I think that should be allowable. Paul venter (talk) 09:04, 12 March 2013 (UTC)

There isn't anything hugely qualitatively different between a still or a video. An expert can learn or determine things from stills, too. We still rely on expert interpretation where we can. See WP:SECONDARY. ErikHaugen (talk | contribs) 16:27, 13 March 2013 (UTC)

'Function' is about movement. One cannot tell, for example, from a still that a horse's teeth are used for eating, but a video would provide clear proof of this. Paul venter (talk) 07:25, 14 March 2013 (UTC)

PERTINENCE and OI aren't really relevant here, we're talking about links to eg. an image on Flickr, used as references. This is not a question about what images are ok to include in the article. ErikHaugen (talk | contribs) 05:53, 12 March 2013 (UTC)

Whether the link is used as a reference or external link should depend only on relevance and verifiable factual content. Paul venter (talk) 12:23, 12 March 2013 (UTC)

I'm not sure how to parse this. Are you saying whether to use it at all should depend on those things, or are you saying that picking between EL or ref should depend on those things? ErikHaugen (talk | contribs) 16:24, 13 March 2013 (UTC)

Right - I should have been clearer in saying that if a source of visual material is to be used it shouldn't matter whether it's used as an EL or ref as long as the material is relevant AND verifiable. Paul venter (talk) 07:17, 14 March 2013 (UTC)

If you have a reliable source that obviously shows a particular type of crab with claws (still or video, drawing or photography), you can use that source to make a claim that this crab has claws. If you have a source that obviously shows a crab using those claws to eat something, then you can use that source to make a claim that that the crab uses its claws to eat.

This isn't that hard, guys. Maybe you should put the sticks down for a minute and think about what we want. We want accurate, verifiable information in articles, right? Does anyone here honestly believe that crabs don't use their claws for eating? So if we all already know this, then why are we getting so worried about whether the cited source is text or video? WhatamIdoing (talk) 21:51, 13 March 2013 (UTC)

The Reliable sources/Noticeboard should be used when in doubt about the advisability to linking to a particular external image. Bus stop (talk) 22:09, 13 March 2013 (UTC)

The point here is that these were not reliable sources. A flickr image, youtube videos, a gallery on a website with user uploaded content - not taken by or accompanied by expert commentary. Beyond that, in this particular instance, there are original observations made in Calappa calappa that are attributed only to the gallery or image. For example, the gallery contains an image of the underside of the animal and the sentence it's a source for in the article refers to the appearance of this and likeness to horseshoe crabs. Visual material wouldn't be a terrible reference - it just depends on the author and publisher and what information we cite from it, avoiding WP:SYNTH. A BBC film narrated by David Attenborough is an OK reliable source, just as the many NOVA PBS videos are fine reliable sources. But a Youtube video, flickr image, or gallery of images with an unknown author where the information divined from it is an original observation or synthesis seems to be unacceptable when there are likely so many other great reliable sources out there for the exact same information.

FYI, another example of a current discussion along this same topic is the article sandfall where it was brought up at AfD: Misplaced Pages:Articles for deletion/Sandfall, where it was noted there weren't any reliable sources to verify the article's topic when it was brought to AfD. Cheers, Rkitko 22:29, 13 March 2013 (UTC)

Let me take this a step further. Can I assume that information taken from Google Street View is reliable (assuming of course that I can reasonably expect that the object to which that information relates will be there for the foreseeable future and that no interpretation of the object is needed - for example stating that there is a speed restriction sign at location X)? Martinvl (talk) 23:00, 13 March 2013 (UTC)

I think there are cases in which there is little likelihood of visual misrepresentation therefore I think this should be decided on a case-by-case basis with recourse to the Reliable sources/Noticeboard as appropriate. Bus stop (talk) 23:18, 13 March 2013 (UTC)

Let's get back to the original question. The OP specifically asked about the omission of any mention of visual media from WP:USERGENERATED, taking the omission as a sign that it was permitted because it wasn't specifically mentioned. Should we add a phrase also cautioning against the use of user generated unreliable visual media as references? Rkitko 00:50, 14 March 2013 (UTC)

It is already understood that "user generated unreliable visual media" would not be permissible. We find at WP:OI that we are "encouraged to upload … own images, releasing them under the GFDL, CC-BY-SA, or other free licenses", and that "Original images created by a Wikipedian are not considered original research, so long as they do not illustrate or introduce unpublished ideas or arguments, the core reason behind the NOR policy." I think that in some instances an image linked-to would be no different from an image uploaded as concerns its potential to "illustrate or introduce unpublished ideas or arguments". Bus stop (talk) 01:35, 14 March 2013 (UTC)

Quite - I think that if one uploads an image clearly showing a crab species with claws, then one shouldn't be surprised if the casual reader goes away with the impression that a certain crab species has claws, no matter what the text may say. Bottomline - the information imparted by visual material may be a rich source of original research without having to go to the trouble of spelling it out. Paul venter (talk) 14:10, 18 March 2013 (UTC)

I think you've hit on one of the key arguments against allowing such interpretations. You can't upload an image of a crab species. You can only upload an image of an individual member of that species. If you uploaded an image of a snow crab with only one claw, could we say that snow crabs have a single claw? We leave it to experts to identify and describe the characteristics of a species; we don't engage in such original research ourselves. Pburka (talk) 00:00, 19 March 2013 (UTC)

I don't think that "reliability" is the real problem here. You don't need a source at all to claim that a crab uses its claws when eating. Your average 12 year old already knows this. So who cares whether this video is "reliable"? No policy requires any source at all (unless, of course, some user was WP:POINTy or silly enough to officially challenge the statement.

Martinvl, you could use a Google Street View image to support a statement that the speed limit sign (or any sign, saying whatever) was posted at that location. I'm not sure that it would always be acceptable to claim that the speed limit sign is automatically accurate or up to date. WhatamIdoing (talk) 03:47, 19 March 2013 (UTC)

I respectfully disagree. There are many things that your average 12 year old knows which are plain wrong. When I was 12 I knew that scientists can't explain how bees fly. If something is so well known, it ought be to be easy enough to find a reference in a reliable source. Pburka (talk) 01:06, 20 March 2013 (UTC)

If the material is uncontested—and I do seriously hope that you have not challenged material that can be found in children's books—then no citation is required at all, and thus whether this or that citation would be reliable is unimportant. WhatamIdoing (talk) 22:03, 20 March 2013 (UTC)

If I may, the issue is not as simple as you're making it out to be. The OP specifically asked about using visual material as references to describe aspects of the subject -- behavior in a video or detail of a plant's fruit. At best it would appear that you're saying those references are unnecessary since things like that could be verified by visual material that we can trust don't need references. Ok, so let's remove the youtube links, flickr image link, and gallery link from Calappa calappa as I had done before but was reverted. More broadly, though, visual material has its limitations. A description of a plant's fruit written by an expert botanist has the advantage of being written by someone who 1) has seen many, many specimens and not just a single individual so that the final description is based on variety within the species and 2) has been able to examine these specimens in three-dimensions instead of a two-dimensional photo. I think Pburka hit on the right argument here - visual material is far inferior because it represents a single individual, in most cases, and to take data from an image or video and present it as fact about the species at large could be a gross misrepresentation. The inferences and extrapolations bit (WP:OR or WP:SYNTH) from user-generated visual material is another issue, but of course that is prohibited on Misplaced Pages. --Rkitko 22:08, 24 March 2013 (UTC)

Agreed that visual material which is not representative and is abnormal or unusual in its depiction should not be used - unless the abnormality itself is being described. One does not need an expert to analyse every image, some of which fall well within everyday experience (such as the colour of the sky or the number of yolks in a double-yolk egg) - at the other end of the range images may well need expert commentary (such as whether the radicle growth of a pine seedling is abnormal in shape, or whether the way in which a left ventricle contracts reflects a healthy heart). Common sense should prevail and unless challenged, interpretations should not automatically be termed original research. Paul venter (talk) 19:40, 25 March 2013 (UTC)

Rkitko, I think that you have confused "reliable" with "best". We only require that sources meet the absolute, rock-bottom, minimum level for reliability. We do not require that the best source be used. If you want to use the best possible sources, then more power to you—but that doesn't mean that you get to challenge material that you know is accurate (e.g., crabs use their claws when they're eating) or blank someone else's barely-good-enough sources. WhatamIdoing (talk) 00:30, 28 March 2013 (UTC)

Images aren't "barely-good-enough". They're simply not good enough. Using a photograph, especially a self-published one, is no different than referring to a blog where someone describes having seen crabs eat with their claws. They're fundamentally unreliable sources. We have no way of verifying that the image is representative or unmanipulated, nor can we verify the interpretation of the image. We cannot use them as references. Pburka (talk) 02:44, 28 March 2013 (UTC)

WhatamIdoing: I certainly have not; I fear that you have have misinterpreted what I've suggested above. How, exactly, can a user-generated image or video be considered a reliable source when it has not been evaluated, edited by, or published by an expert in that field? That has always been the standard for user-generated material. That is the example we've been working with here at Calappa calappa - unknown authors of user-generated material. Earlier in this discussion it was suggested that the authors of these materials could have equally likely uploaded it to Commons. True, but would it ever be appropriate to use material uploaded to Commons as a reference? I have never seen this done and indeed I would not think these could be reliable sources, especially in the case of taking images of individuals of a species and applying that description to an entire species. At Calappa calappa, we have a flickr image that is serving as the source for the statement that the species has claws with a wavy lined pattern. Is that true of all individuals? Is that true of females and males in the species (sexual dimorphism)? Perhaps there's a polymorphism in the species where some populations do not have the wavy line pattern. Is the wavy line pattern only present in adults or is it also seen in juveniles? This is not just a case of the image being a poor source -- it is a case of the image being wholly unreliable because you are entirely unable to extrapolate any information beyond the level of the individual in the visual material. Further, I am also challenging Paul's use of sources on that page for original research. For example, he used a gallery of images, one of which included a photo of the underside of the animal, to describe it this way: "covering the eight ambulatory legs in a design similar to that of horseshoe crabs." The comparison to horseshoe crabs is a novel one as far as I know and appears to be Paul's original thought based on this image gallery. It, along with these rotten excuses for sources, should go. This is why relying on user-generated visual material as a reference is a dubious practice - there is no valuable information in the content that can be applied to the subject of the article. User-generated visual material illustrates an article (ours, from Commons), but I don't think it can be a reference for it. --Rkitko 02:46, 28 March 2013 (UTC)

I don't think there is a qualitative difference between using an image for illustration and using it as a reference. As I've mentioned before in this discussion the moment an image accompanies an article the reader draws his own conclusions. Writing "covering the eight ambulatory legs in a design similar to that of horseshoe crabs" suggests nothing more than that the one resembles the other, a resemblance that is obvious to anyone with normal eyesight, and should fall under WP:BLUE. To suggest that ANY inference made from an image is original research is going to ludicrous extremes and I'm sure was not the intention of the framers of OR. Let's apply a bit more common sense here instead of hysterically wanting to label ideas with labels they don't deserve. Paul venter (talk) 20:56, 29 March 2013 (UTC)

WP:OI states "Original images created by a Wikipedian are not considered original research, so long as they do not illustrate or introduce unpublished ideas or arguments". Does this mean that one may publish as many images as one likes on WP showing wavy lined patterns on the claws of Calappa calappa as long as the wavy lines are not mentioned in the text? Paul venter (talk) 21:08, 29 March 2013 (UTC)

You missed the point. There is a deep and important difference between drawing inferences from an individual photo for the entire species and uploading a photo to Misplaced Pages, using it to illustrate an article, and casually describing the individual photo in the caption. The former requires extrapolation that you, the editor, cannot possibly do unless you are making certain assumptions, e.g. "the individual in this photo is representative of all members of this species." The latter requires no assumption and no original research -- it's just an image that illustrates what the text (supported by actual reliable sources) describes. Further, when you go on to make the leap to say something about what you, the editor, thinks the subject of the image looks like, this requires your own knowledge. You may think it's WP:BLUE but does everyone know what the underside of a horseshoe crab looks like? And what, exactly, would an expert in this field say about this sentence if they were happen upon it? Would it be misleading to infer from this photo that the underside of these two species is arranged similarly? Perhaps there are obvious differences. Regardless, this comparison was your original observation, and Misplaced Pages is not a publisher of original thought. User-generated visual media serves to illustrate articles, not as a references or source of information for it. Rkitko 00:41, 30 March 2013 (UTC)

@Rkitko You write "You missed the point. There is a deep and important difference between drawing inferences from an individual photo for the entire species and uploading a photo to Misplaced Pages, using it to illustrate an article, and casually describing the individual photo in the caption. The former requires extrapolation that you, the editor, cannot possibly do unless you are making certain assumptions, e.g. "the individual in this photo is representative of all members of this species." The latter requires no assumption and no original research -- it's just an image that illustrates what the text (supported by actual reliable sources) describes." Well, no....WP:OI does not recognise any difference and states quite clearly "Image captions are subject to this policy no less than statements in the body of the article." Paul venter (talk) 08:02, 15 April 2013 (UTC)

The photograph illustrating Drosera trinervia has been taken from this site. The photographer's credentials are unknown and therefor his ID of the plant is suspect. His note (in Czech) on the page states "This plant has not yet been processed, the data listed here are far from complete". Is this ID original research by the photographer or by Rkitko, or both? and is the photograph representative of the species as a whole or does it illustrate an aberrant form? We have no authoritative support that it is what it says. Paul venter (talk) 14:14, 12 April 2013 (UTC)

This discussion reminds me of a joke (parable?):

An engineer, a physicist, and a mathematician were on a train heading north, and had just crossed the border into Scotland.

•The engineer looked out of the window and said "Look! Scottish sheep are black!"

•The physicist said, "No, no. Some Scottish sheep are black."

•The mathematician looked irritated. "There is at least one field, containing at least one sheep, of which at least one side is black."

Putting this into the Misplaced Pages context vis-a-vis visual material, we need first to ascertain whether or not the original editor was being honest - did the three passengers in question really see a black sheep in the field just after crossing the border into Scotland? If we are satisfied that they were being honest in what they saw (a 2 year-old can identify a black sheep and a 12 year-old can reliably identify a black sheep), then we can quote the mathematician's view on the basis of the visual image, but we need an expert in order to quote the physicist's or the engineer's views. Martinvl (talk) 13:00, 15 April 2013 (UTC)

Bogus open access scholarly journals

We need to include a section on phoney scientific journals, see Criteria for Determining Predatory Open-Access Publishers (2nd edition), this New York Times article, this "Sham journals scam authors: Con artists are stealing the identities of real journals to cheat scientists out of publishing fees." by Declan Butler 27 March 2013 in Nature. Obviously this information may be added to appropriate articles also. User:Fred Bauder Talk 11:24, 8 April 2013 (UTC)

And "Predatory publishers are corrupting open access" an editorial in Nature. User:Fred Bauder Talk 11:29, 8 April 2013 (UTC)

Is this really any different from any other source? "But it's a journal" is no more convincing than "But it's a newspaper". Reputation matters. Type of publication is not a guarantee of suitable reputation. WhatamIdoing (talk) 23:07, 8 April 2013 (UTC)

Actually, a list is being published of "journals" with particularly bad reputations. I suggest a brief note and a link to Criteria for Determining Predatory Open-Access Publishers (2nd edition) User:Fred Bauder Talk 11:29, 9 April 2013 (UTC)

Agree to some kind of link/note. Don't we also compile a list of self-publishing "publishers"? Alanscottwalker (talk) 11:53, 9 April 2013 (UTC)

Can we agree that "journals" that aren't even notable enough to be rated by SOA there are also not reliable? I witnessed a lengthy debate involving Haibun Today: A Haibun and Tanka Prose Journal going on on English Misplaced Pages a while ago, and that and a lot of other online "literary journals" seem to just publish anything. We should probably specify that these are not acceptable as reliable sources. Konjakupoet (talk) 15:11, 21 April 2013 (UTC)

In discussions on what constitutes a reliable source, the point is often made that while a publication may be categorised as 'reliable', portions of it may not be. Conversely, an 'unreliable' publication may contain undeniable truths. The bottom line is that the information world is full of grey areas and that it is extremely misleading to label a source as wholly reliable or unreliable. Paul venter (talk) 14:15, 30 April 2013 (UTC)

Scrambled item embedded in talk page header

IMO the "I personally know that this information is true (or false). Isn't that good enough to include it (or remove it)?" scrambles two two completely different topics (inclusion and removal) together and implies some incorrect advice. It mistakenly implies that there is a verifiability requirement restriction against removal of material. I plan to semi-bold / BRD edit it. Sincerely, North8000 (talk) 11:48, 8 April 2013 (UTC)

Did it. Narrowed it to inclusion, i.e. what is in wp:ver and wp:nor. North8000 (talk) 12:05, 8 April 2013 (UTC)

Hmm... not so sure about that. I agree that we should separate the questions, but we should answer the question: "I personally know that this information is false. Isn't that good enough to remove it?" I would answer that question with: "Not necessarily"

It really depends on whether the material in question is supported by a reliable source or not. For example, a creationist could not go to the Evolution article, say "I personally know all this is false (my Pastor said so)" and gut the article.

I think this needs more discussion. Blueboar (talk) 16:49, 8 April 2013 (UTC)

A perfect answer would take pages to write out, but for now, I've started a parallel question that says only that personal knowledge or beliefs are not enough. WhatamIdoing (talk) 23:11, 8 April 2013 (UTC)

I remember an instance where there was a source, not the best, but a source, that said that someone was dead. As he lives near where I do and I sometimes saw him and talked to him some I challenged that. I got some static over that, but as I had followed his "career" such as it was, for years I was not inclined to just let it go. He had a listed number in the local phone book but people still wanted to argue. User:Fred Bauder Talk 11:41, 9 April 2013 (UTC)

@ WhatamIdoing I think that that is a straw man version of the actual situation, and is creating something that is not in any policy. In any debated item, it's never going to happen that one person can force something to come out based on their personal belief. What you wrote is more likely to get misused in a realistic situation to say that falseness isn't a valid consideration / can't be taken into consideration in a conversation about potentially taking the material out.

On a secondary note, if I'm the only editor on some obscure article, and I see something that I think is obviously wrong, you are saying that policy forbids me from taking it out? Where is this policy that forces material to stay in in that case?

IMHO the real answer takes not even one word. It is to "do no harm" here, and not to try to get into that, and leave it to the other Misplaced Pages practices and mechanisms to determine what happens on those cases. Sincerely, North8000 (talk) 11:51, 9 April 2013 (UTC)

Re: "if I'm the only editor on some obscure article, and I see something that I think is obviously wrong, you are saying that policy forbids me from taking it out?" It depends on whether there is a citation to a source or not. We actually have three scenarios to deal with:

1. The information is completely unsourced - WP:BURDEN explicitly allows you to simply remove it.
2. The information is sourced, but you think the source is less than reliable - WP:BURDEN allows you to challenge the material (or the source). If your challenge is not responded to after a realistic amount of time has passed, you may remove it.
3. The information is sourced to a reliable source - Per WP:NPOV, you may not remove it. However, you can edit it, to better indicate that there are opposing view points. Blueboar (talk) 13:42, 9 April 2013 (UTC)

I'll add a rare #4: The information is sourced to a reliable source, but that source unfortunately contains an error, and you can demonstrate it with other reliable sources. Then per WP:DUE you are free to remove the error.

What we don't want is to have people gutting articles because "I just know that it's wrong". For example: I've got someone over at Alternative cancer treatment that "just knows" based on her personal experience that a water fast is shrinking her cancer. Shall we permit her to remove sourced statements that dietary changes don't kill cancer cells, because she has personal beliefs to the contrary? WhatamIdoing (talk) 00:08, 10 April 2013 (UTC)

Respectfully and friendly-ly (is that a word?), I think that you are both making up policies that don't exist, and that doing that unilaterally via things embedded in the talk page header is not correct. I think that using Whatamidoing's example is a useful way to discuss this at this time. My answer is that the editors at the article discuss that proposed removal, and with such an incredibly weak argument, the person trying to make the removal would "lose" that debate. And if that doesn't resolve it, use the other Misplaced Pages methods (RFC etc) to resolve it, rather than misleading people into thinking that there is a policy against that removal. Sincerely, North8000 (talk) 09:58, 10 April 2013 (UTC)

Are there any objections to me removing that? And is so, let's discuss. Sincerely, North8000 (talk) 15:50, 11 April 2013 (UTC)

Removing what? Blueboar (talk) 15:55, 11 April 2013 (UTC)

This item from the FAQ's "I personally know that this information is false. Isn't that good enough to remove it? No. Your personal knowledge or belief is not enough." While well-intentioned it is having the effect of using a straw man example to imply a policy that does not exist. North8000 (talk) 16:53, 11 April 2013 (UTC)

Sure, let's use that example. She says that she personally knows that it works. Do you agree that her personal belief alone would be enough justification to remove a verifiable statement that diets do not cure cancer? WhatamIdoing (talk) 20:02, 11 April 2013 (UTC)

Yes, it's a good example. But you're going to have to hang in there while I split logical hairs. First let me answer what I think should happen at that article. The editors there should discuss it and be free to decide. And if I were in the discussion, my thoughts would go like this. On one side we are getting the opinion of one anonymous editor, saying something that conflicts with reliable sources, and an editor, who even if they are doing their best to be accurate, in reality has no clue has no basis (other than a wild guess on a cause-effect relationship). The weight of their argument for removal of the material is approximately ZERO. They will certainly lose the "argument". It would be a inconceivable travesty if the material got removed.

But that is not the question. The question is: should we put something in a major guideline (faq's on wp:rs) which mistakenly implies that a policy or guideline (rather than editor discussions) dictates the results of that discussion. My answer to that would be "no". Sincerely, North8000 (talk) 20:36, 11 April 2013 (UTC)

So the answer actually is no, but you object to us telling people that the answer is no? We should just keep the answer a secret? WhatamIdoing (talk) 23:10, 11 April 2013 (UTC)

But WAID, the answer to the question isn't a flat "No"... the answer is more nuanced: a) if the "false" statement is sourced, then the answer is "No, your personal knowledge or belief is not be enough to remove it - you need to raise your concern on the talk page and gain a consensus before you remove."... However, b) if the "false" statement is completely unsourced, then the answer is "Yes, your personal knowledge or belief is enough remove it". Blueboar (talk) 00:58, 12 April 2013 (UTC)

First I think that we should acknowledge that we are coming at this from two different angles. I think that you two (WhatamIdoing and Blueboar) are coming at this as say what should happen in a situation such as the one described. And we should note that all three of us are in agreement on what should happen in that particular situation. But where we disagree is on putting a statement in the header which falsely implies that there is a policy restriction against such a removal.

Let me give you a real example to explore this further. There is an article about a (now deceased) famous person where (other than a few tweaks in one-time visits) I have been the only editor for years. I visited this person in their cabin at location "A". When they died, they moved their cabin to location "B",and I visited their cabin at location "B". Then they moved their cabin to location "C" and I visited their cabin at location "C". There was an old statement (cited to an off line source which I don't have access to) (by a long-gone editor) which said that there was one move of the cabin, which was from location "A" to location "C". I deleted that statement. There is NO Misplaced Pages policy that prevented me from doing that. (as an irrelevant sidebar (because we are talking about the removal),in full disclosure, I added the location "B", I admit that the addition violated policy, and later a major biography was published I bought and which described the move from "A" to "B" to "C" and I was able to source my previously added statement) North8000 (talk) 14:53, 12 April 2013 (UTC)

Blueboar, do you mean "sourced" or "verifiable" in your answer? I have already specified that the statement is verifiable. WhatamIdoing (talk) 22:44, 12 April 2013 (UTC)

I mean "sourced" (ie a citation has been provided). Per BURDEN, if there is no source provided, the information can be challenged (and removal is a legitimate form of challenge). Now... since you stipulate that the statement in question is in fact verifiable, then it probably should be returned... with a citation. At which point the question changes... it becomes "I still think this information is false, can I re-remove it?" And the answer to that question is now: "a) Since the "false" statement is sourced, the answer is 'No, your personal knowledge or belief is not enough to remove it - you need to raise your concern on the talk page and gain a consensus before you remove it a second time'." Blueboar (talk) 14:24, 16 April 2013 (UTC)

I plan to take it out. If anyone objects, that's cool, we can discuss further. North8000 (talk) 12:30, 16 April 2013 (UTC)

I object to taking it out completely... The question ("I personally know that this information is false. Isn't that good enough to remove it?") is an important one that needs to be answered... the hard part is reaching a consensus on how to answer it. The reality is that it can not be answered by a simple "Yes" or "No" ... like so much in Misplaced Pages, the actual answer is "Sometimes Yes, but at other times No". Blueboar (talk) 13:16, 16 April 2013 (UTC)

Well, to take a close look at that statement, we need to dissect it. And then it comes down to it being ambiguous in two ways:

• Being in the FAQ's on the talk page of a guideline page, are we implying that the answer is policy/guideline, or that it is just advice?
• By saying no, such is not "good enough to remove it" do we mean:

1. Such is not always enough to remove it?
2. Such is insufficient to win a debate / override others to remove it?
3. Such is never sufficient reason to remove it?

Sincerely, North8000 (talk) 13:53, 16 April 2013 (UTC)

Re: implying that the answer is policy/guideline, or that it is just advice?... neither. It is simply the answer to a Frequently Asked Question (put on the talk page so we don't have to repeat ourselves by answering the same question over and over again). Our answer should be based on policy/guidance... but it isn't policy or guidance in itself. It's similar to the answers we give to questions at RSN. Blueboar (talk) 14:24, 16 April 2013 (UTC)

But, Blueboar, (assuming that you meant policy/guideline not policy/guidance) this is not based on policies or guidelines. If you feel otherwise, could you point me to the applicable item? Sincerely, North8000 (talk) 16:56, 16 April 2013 (UTC)

I agree... the simple answer "No" isn't backed by any policy or guideline (our policies and guidelines are more nuanced than that). Which is why I keep saying that we need to amend the answer (so that it is based on policy statements and guideline guidance).

Look, this should be simple... We have a frequently asked question: I personally know that this information is false. Isn't that good enough to remove it?

We need to answer this frequently asked question. So... based on what our policies and guidelines say... what do you think the answer to that question should be? Blueboar (talk) 17:12, 16 April 2013 (UTC)

I believe the answer is accurate—your personal knowledge or belief is not enough to remove any verifiable statement. Personal knowledge is insufficient. It is, essentially, irrelevant: If I know—really, truly, deeply, undoubtedly know—that X is ___, Misplaced Pages just doesn't care. The only thing that matters is what the sources say, not what individuals believe.

An expansion might be better than the bare statement that belief is insufficient. It might be better to say "No. Your personal knowledge or belief is not enough. You must be able to demonstrate that reliable sources have published your personal knowledge, or that no reliable sources have published the material that you believe to be erroneous." WhatamIdoing (talk) 01:13, 17 April 2013 (UTC)

OK... but what if I not only personally know the information is erroneous, but also suspect that it is unverifiable? Can I remove it in that situation? Blueboar (talk) 01:36, 17 April 2013 (UTC)

Assuming that by "remove it", we mean "remove it and have a reasonable expectation of it staying removed", not just "remove it temporarily to indicate a CHALLENGE that will probably result in the material being restored along with a citation to a reliable source, assuming any knowledgeable person notices the removal":

• If it is uncited and a reasonable preliminary search produces no evidence to support it, then you may remove it.
• If it is uncited and a reasonable preliminary search produces some evidence to support it, then you may not remove it.
• If it is cited (to a passably reliable source that actually says what it's purported to say), then you may not remove it.

Of course, if by "remove" you mean "formally CHALLENGE the material", then you may remove anything uncited whenever you want, up until someone decides you're being disruptive and POINTy. You just shouldn't expect most of the challenged material to remain removed, since most uncited material. WhatamIdoing (talk) 03:09, 17 April 2013 (UTC)

OK... but that means that the answer to the original question ("I know it's false, can I remove it?") isn't a simple "No, you can not" (nor is it a simple "Yes, you can")... it means that the answer is a much more nuanced: "It depends". (It depends on whether the information is reasonably verifiable or not). Blueboar (talk) 13:58, 17 April 2013 (UTC)

The FAQ doesn't say "No, you cannot". It says "No, your personal knowledge or belief is not enough." That's "not enough", meaning that it depends on other factors, including verifiability and neutrality. WhatamIdoing (talk) 15:57, 18 April 2013 (UTC)

Ok... I see what you are saying... in which case we still need to amend the answer... to explain why it is "not enough"... we need to tell the reader (briefly) what some of the other factors that have to be considered actually are. Blueboar (talk) 12:09, 19 April 2013 (UTC)

I agree that a brief expansion would be helpful. Perhaps a link to WP:VNT or a similar essay would work. WhatamIdoing (talk) 17:16, 19 April 2013 (UTC)

I think that the fact that we are trying to answer an ambiguous question (what do you mean by "good enough to remove it") is preventing moving forward. So it must be answered which of these meanings of the ambiguous "good enough to remove it" are we trying to answer:

1. Such is weak or insufficient to win a debate / override others to remove it?
2. Such is never sufficient reason to remove it?

Sincerely, North8000 (talk) 12:39, 19 April 2013 (UTC)

I think that the inevitable answer will be that policy / guidelines do not dictate the answer, and so other Misplaced Pages processes (discussions, RFC's etc.) are free to decide whether or not to remove it under the zillions of possibilities. North8000 (talk) 12:54, 19 April 2013 (UTC)

This isn't addressed to groups of editors in discussions or RFCs. It's addressed to lone newbies: "I personally know", not "a bunch of people have looked into the sources and determined". I think you are trying to answer a completely different question. WhatamIdoing (talk) 17:16, 19 April 2013 (UTC)

Again, it's clear that we are viewing this from different angles. You two are approaching it as (excellent) good advice and general theme which is applicable 99% of the time. I am approaching it from a "logical dissection"/ structural analysis type view and the impact of such on some bigger picture items outside of those cases. I might try a tweak to resolve this. North8000 (talk) 20:58, 20 April 2013 (UTC)

I did a tweak. IMHO it would be better to leave it out (for above reasons) but this is a possible compromise. Sincerely, North8000 (talk) 19:05, 24 April 2013 (UTC)

Was subsequently modified by WhatAmIDoing, and then tweaked by me to include a point from the question which it answered. IMHO it would still be better to leave it out. North8000 (talk) 11:17, 26 April 2013 (UTC)

Biased or opinionated sources

WP:RS#Biased or opinionated sources

I find this section confusing. If a source is reliable for facts then there should be no need for in-text attribution. If it is not reliable for facts, then it is not a reliable source. The examples provided are also confusing. The policy already says that opinion pieces, even in reliable newspapers, are not reliable sources for facts. Does this section add anything? Can anyone provide an example where this section would apply? TFD (talk) 17:19, 11 April 2013 (UTC)

It gives us an official "guideline" to point at when <insert a nice word for POV pushers here> demand that we ban all use of (pick all that apply: Fox News, The New York Times, anything published in Israel, anything not published in Israel, anything that supports the use of psychiatric medications, etc.).

Furthermore, a source can be "unreliable for facts" and still be a reliable and useful source. See, e.g., anything sourced to a work of fiction. Twilight is "unreliable for facts" (e.g., about whether vampires exist), but it's a perfectly useable primary source for what that novel's plot is. WhatamIdoing (talk) 20:00, 11 April 2013 (UTC)

Four Deuces, consider the following two sentences and how they are referenced...

• Jews caused Germany to lose World War I <cite: Adolf Hitler, Mien Kampf>
• Adolf Hitler believed that Jews caused Germany to lose World War I <cite: Mien Kampf>

I hope you would agree that Mein Kampf is not a reliable source for the first sentence. Mein Kampf is, however, a reliable source for the second sentence (despite the fact that it is extremely biased and opinionated). Hope that example clarifies the situation. Blueboar (talk) 01:36, 12 April 2013 (UTC)

I think I agree in general with Blueboar, but the example is poor. Mein Kampf is a primary source for Hitler's views and Nazi ideology. There are shedloads of secondary sources that comment and interpret. Itsmejudith (talk) 17:50, 20 April 2013 (UTC)

RS already says that sources written by subjects are rs for the views of the subjects. Contrary to what WhatamIdoing says, the only time I find editors quoting the section is to say that a source is unreliable because it is biased. For example, they may claim that all the books that are negative on Hitler are written by anti-nazis, therefore unreliable. TFD (talk) 19:17, 20 April 2013 (UTC)

Overview clarify

we only publish the opinions of reliable authors

Could we clarify what a "reliable author" is defined as here? Is there another section we can link to? Is this synonymous or different from "reliable source"? I am not sure if there is a situational context to 'reliable'. Reliability is very subjective so we need to clarify what it means to Misplaced Pages for people to understand this policy.

reliable publication process

What distinguishes a publication process as reliable?

authors who are regarded as authoritative

Regarded by whom? When does regard become "regarded" by Misplaced Pages standards?

These qualifications should be demonstrable.

What is Misplaced Pages's standards for demonstrability?

audio, video, and multimedia materials that have been recorded then broadcast, distributed, or archived by a reputable party may also meet the necessary criteria to be considered reliable sources

What is a 'reputable party' by Misplaced Pages definition? Reputable to whom? Ranze (talk) 03:41, 15 April 2013 (UTC)

The second sentence of WP:RS#Overview would normally read "reliable sources", except that it's a little silly to say that a document, rather than its creator(s), has an opinion.

As for the rest, if you honestly can't glork it from context and an application of common sense, then it seems to me highly unlikely that any explanation will suffice. WhatamIdoing (talk) 22:58, 15 April 2013 (UTC)

propose adding as questionable: children's, adult new reader, and maybe large-print sources

I propose to add to the subsection Questionable Sources that websites and publications written for children and adult new readers are included as questionable. (Adult new readers are adults learning how to read, for whom books are often simplified or oversimplified just as are children's books, so they'll understand content by retaining as they read despite difficulty and slowness with the process of reading.) They are often so simplified to ensure comprehension by readers that accuracy is sacrificed and to ensure acceptability by parents and schools more concerned about avoiding controversy.

This seems to have been touched on significantly only once in this guideline's talk archives, and at that somewhat tangentially. This proposal would not bar use where appropriate, such as in reporting on what children's books say on popular culture and labeling such sources as such. But it would reduce a problem I saw recently when editors disputed whether content was adequately sourced when sourcing was (allegedly) written for children, where the article was about a fairly advanced legal controversy mainly discussed among adults.

I'm also thinking about adding large print publications, although not websites. Of course, by itself, font size does not matter. However, because publishing in larger print generally requires more paper and more costs for shipping and handling and is for smaller audiences, it's likely some large print publications are edited to have less text and readers are probably not told this, lest they feel cheated; and I suspect the editor is often not the editor of the regular-font edition, but a cheaper, less-skilled, editor, who may edit more for style than to preserve, say, intellectual subtlety. The concern about large print does not apply to websites because the cost of enlarging a displayed fontsize is between negligible and zero, inclusive, and is unlikely to lead to chopping of content.

I'll wait a week for any comments, especially respecting large print physical publications.

Nick Levinson (talk) 16:41, 19 April 2013 (UTC)

I think your proposal to include large-print editions, based on nothing more than speculation that someone might go to the significant expense of abridging the text to save a trivial amount of money on paper, is offensive.

I don't believe that children's books or adult new reader texts are unreliable. They are relatively lightweight sources, so they should only support relatively lightweight claims, but they are fully reliable for those claims. Even this little children's book is a good enough source for something simple at Whale shark, like 'Whale sharks live in warm water' or 'Whale sharks are the biggest fish in the ocean'. There are far better sources, but the purpose of this guideline is to help editors differentiate between a (perhaps barely) acceptable source and an unacceptable one, not to identify the best possible sources. WhatamIdoing (talk) 17:24, 19 April 2013 (UTC)

I don't agree that this is the purpose of the guideline. It should do what it says on the packet, give guidance on "identifying reliable sources". Not "identifying barely acceptable sources". More generally, I think we spend too much time trying to ensure fairness between editors of different points of view and not enough focusing on sourcing quality in the encyclopedia. Itsmejudith (talk) 18:26, 19 April 2013 (UTC)

The definition of a reliable source is one that meets the standards put forth in this guideline, even if it only barely meets those standards. A barely acceptable source is a reliable source. A barely unacceptable source is an unreliable source.

More pointfully, we don't really need a guideline to tell editors how to figure out the obvious cases. The best and worst sources are obviously reliable or unreliable. The guideline exists for the purpose of helping people figure out whether or not a marginal source (e.g., a children's science book or a gossip rag) is good enough to be acceptable. WhatamIdoing (talk) 20:28, 19 April 2013 (UTC)

One problem with enumerating unreliable sources is that some editors may treat the list as exhaustive. Any source not listed as unreliable will be assumed to be reliable. Instead of a largely arbitrary list of unreliable sources, we should clearly describe what makes a source reliable so that editors can evaluate any work for reliability. Pburka (talk) 03:58, 20 April 2013 (UTC)

I think children's books are a large category and listing it would not turn the guideline into a list of sources.

My two local libraries don't have the book on whale sharks and Amazon didn't show, for the copy I checked, the author's qualifications in their back-cover image. The author has a degree in English (as probably self-reported), but that's for his ability to write, and I don't see a credential or background that suggests he's knowledgeable about whale sharks or any more general field. I'm not sure I'd count that as equivalent to, say, a well-known encyclopedia, which would usually be tertiary but at least likely credible.

We already accept almost any source as potentially useful for very particular uses. The guideline, which is not as restrictive as a policy would be, is meant for general guidance, not to preclude all exceptions. That context matters is already in the guideline.

Being offended is reasonable; I agree, except that I think it's directed it at the wrong target. I've been involved in publishing and I saw that production and distribution costs are sgnificant and that they're higher for unabridged large-print editions. If paper and distribution costs were not substantial, prices of e-books would generally be close to those of physical books and physical newspapers would not be going out of business. Whether abridgement occurs is a reasonable question to raise and it is unreasonable to discourage it from being raised. It may be that publishers tend not to abridge but in the U.S. freedom of the press generally means publishers can unless constrained by contract or laws on misrepresentation and each publisher can approach the problem in their own way. A public librarian thought they probably tend not to be abridged but was not sure. I took three nonfiction books off of library shelves and found that two (in self-help and history) said they were not abridged although they said other aspects of the books might vary. The third (in sports) was about 750 pages long when the library's catalogue listed the regular edition as 502 pages, so it might be unabridged, although it didn't say so and the publisher was one of the best known (Random House), so why they don't say so if it is unabridged, that being an obvious selling poimt, is puzzling. I have not searched for industry discussion or whether anyone has criticized such a practice. Nor do I need to unless I have to establish the problem's prevalence. If large print abridgements are too rare, then we simply need not include them as unreliable.

If children's books are now agreed upon as being at or near the margin of reliability, then I argue that we should treat them as normally unreliable (even if barely so), not as normally barely reliable. Without more to support it, the whale sharks book, for example, should usually be considered unreliable for a discussion of whale sharks, although it may be reliable as an indicator of what children are taught about them.

I'm not concerned with media directed at all age cohorts, just those directed mostly at children. If a TV program (with a published transcript) is about whale sharks, it may be for children and adults. And it may be assumed that any children's book has to be readable by adults, who otherwise may refuse to let their child have it. But when it's unlikely that, say, a marine biologist even looked at it before publication because it's only a children's book, I doubt it's reliable. I recall Richard Feynman volunteering to review school science textbooks for a Los Angeles school district and finding things like a list of stars with their temperatures with a directive to students to add up the temperatures but not to average them so that the sum might be useful. (If ice cream is 32 degrees Fahrenheit and you scoop it into 10 bowls, the temperature is not 320 degrees F.) He found lots of these problems, found that reviewers often accepted what publishers told them (some reviewers managed to review books that hadn't been published or delivered yet), and that his method of working probably had or would have no lasting effect on reviews performed after he left. The New Yorker a few decades ago had a long article on school history textbooks; one of the problems was that Texas might buy 50,000 copies and specify what will be said in the textbook and another problem was that the authors listed on the cover or title page were not the real authors, who usually were not historians but simply professional writers given specifications. And that's for high schoolers, not toddlers. Allowing for rare exceptions, I don't see reliability there.

Nick Levinson (talk) 17:39, 20 April 2013 (UTC)

I'm sure we've talked about textbooks a lot before. We certainly have on RSN. Generally, the level of textbook that you can be sure is reliable is introductory postgraduate. Having said that, some undergraduate textbooks are excellent, and so are some for the final years of high school. Below that the aim is simplification and whetting the young reader's appetite. Itsmejudith (talk) 17:46, 20 April 2013 (UTC)

By the way, would anyone care to venture a guess on what perentage of children's books rely on fact research performed in Misplaced Pages? I'm just speculating on that, but if many high school students use Misplaced Pages for writing their assignments and since children's books are for readers less demanding than most high school teachers, then we can guess. If the percentage is high, chidren's books as a class are not reliable. Nick Levinson (talk) 18:52, 20 April 2013 (UTC)

• "We already accept almost any source as potentially useful for very particular uses"—but you are proposing that children's books not be considered potentially useful, even for simple facts like the name of the current US President or the temperature at which pure water normally freezes. Why do you want to exclude non-fiction books aimed at school children? This 700+ page reference work is officially a "children's book". It's call number at most libraries is JR 578.76 AQU—"JR" as in "Juvenile reference". The recommended categorization is "Aquatic biology -- Juvenile literature.". Do you really want to say that's an "unreliable source" for basic information about fish and other animals in the ocean?
• Why are you checking an author's qualifications for a children's science book, but not for newspapers? Haven't you heard the definition of "journalism" as being the career chosen by people who thought science and math is too hard? Reliability is not wholly determined by the author's formal credentials on Misplaced Pages.
• My guess for why unabridged large-print books are not listed as being unabridged is because people now assume that works are unabridged unless told otherwise. As you (should) know, the cost of the paper is minor compared to the overhead of printing and distributing it at all. Furthermore, why do you assume that "abridged" means "unreliable"? Do you expect an abridged dictionary to get its definitions wrong? Do you think that an abridged history of WWI will say that Britain lost, or that the treaty was signed in Moscow?

The main point is this: a source must be strong enough to support its claims. A children's reference work is strong enough to support lightweight claims. It's not the best possible source, but it is strong enough for that purpose. WhatamIdoing (talk) 19:21, 20 April 2013 (UTC)

We accept self-published sources for a few purposes; we accept blogs on occasion. I added a Twitter tweet, it was deleted with a challenge, I replied with why it had been there, I put it back, and it's still there. All of these are exceptions. Children's books should be similarly classed. We probably cite autobiographies that are not self-published and I can imagine that someone wrote an autobiography as a children's book only; perhaps that's reliable. The facts you suggest (the current President's name or the freezing point) are reasonable cases (I sometimes misspelled "Barack" when he was running) but I probably wouldn't use one children's book; I might use a few children's books as cross-checks on each other or else I'd find one adult reference, and we hardly want to cite in a Misplaced Pages article a bunch of children's sources to prove that we cross-checked. I'm finding it hard to think up a fact of the sort you mention for which we could rely on children's books and for which adult sources would be hard to locate. Cheap year-old well-known almanacs would often serve well enough. Using children's books is just too risky. I didn't look up the 700-page work you mention because I'll take your word arguendo that it would be reliable; presumably it would be one of the exceptions we should recognize. But children's books almost never list references; a few might suggest a handful of further readings for the entire subject but not to prove a paragraph's content. At best, they're tertiary, and we don't want to depend too much on tertiary sourcing.

I didn't hear that about journalism but it is often said that it is the first draft of history. I probably wouldn't take an eyewitness contemporary description of a WWII battle from the N.Y. Times unless it was better than one in a modern book because newspapers tend not to provide retrospective editing of the sort that books regularly incorporate. Granted that Misplaced Pages uses journalism often, and I've cited it. But major news media often, I think typically, especially broadsheet print, hire as journalists people who know a subject besides journalism; if they cover science they probably studied science and did not find it too hard, and if they found it too hard and are journalists they probably practice journalism in another field that was not too hard to learn. Maybe I'm more selective than are other Misplaced Pages editors; I often check credentials before reading a book. And I edit controversial articles. But we only need sourcing for points that might be challenged; for everything else, sourcing just has to exist. For the kinds of facts you suggest, perhaps no source need actually be cited and we can rely on knowing that an almanac could be cited in the future if someone does challenge a statement.

Which of paper, printing, or distribution is the biggest share of the higher cost is something I have not checked and it doesn't matter here, because a publisher doesn't incur one without the other two. I use unabridged dictionaries and almost always avoid abridged ones except when I have confidence in the abridged one for a particular purpose; and when I cite dictionaries in Misplaced Pages or Talk it's usually or always the unabridged. That a work is assumed unabridged unless otherwise labeled is a good reason for excluding the large print books that don't affirmatively say they're unabridged for text.

I wouldn't require that only the best sources may be cited; we only need a floor. We're just discussing where the floor should be. And, overall, exceptions may apply. The guideline is meant to express a norm. Within a norm, children's books serve very limited purposes. I wouldn't say that we should say "must not use"; I'd probably say "should not use".

Nick Levinson (talk) 21:30, 20 April 2013 (UTC) (Added a sentence: 21:41, 20 April 2013 (UTC))

Sources must be judged on their individual merits. Trying to broadly classify them is a mistake. I suspect that it's easy to find children's books which are more reliable than, say, the New York Post, to pick a timely example. Of course editors should try to find the best possible sources, but let's not categorically exclude sources based on their target audience or choice of typeface. Particularly, excluding books aimed at young readers could inadvertently end up excluding a large number of potential editors. If a student adds a sentence, or a topic, sourced by one of their school text books, should we delete that as being improperly sourced? We need to encourage these editors. Blacklisting the sources to which they have access is counterproductive. Pburka (talk) 21:50, 20 April 2013 (UTC)

Agree with Pburka, every sentence of that last paragraph. --GRuban (talk) 22:03, 20 April 2013 (UTC)

I also agree with Pburka. I also suspect that this proposal would be relatively harmless in certain areas, e.g., modern history of the Middle East, but just imagine trying to apply it to articles like Skateboarding. Most of the sources published about that sport are intended to be read by kids. If you take out all the sources "for kids", then you're going to be left with medical reports on injuries and not much else. WhatamIdoing (talk) 01:17, 21 April 2013 (UTC)

Skateboarding is an interesting example. There are various kinds of claims in our article. Medical claims have to meet WP:MEDRS; statistics for injuries should be taken from official sources. The development of skateboards should come mainly from specialist magazines, supplemented with manufacturers' technical information sheets and such like. If those magazines are read mainly by under-18s that is not a problem, because the magazine editors and their young audience form a knowledge community that is obsessed with accuracy around details that outsiders find trivial. On the aesthetic grounds, we already have a principle for sourcing of subjective judgements about cultural forms. We look for film reviews in the magazines, newspaper and websites that regularly review films. So we look for reviews of developments in skateboarding styles in those sources that cover skateboarding as an artistic form. Again, it doesn't matter if those are mainly read by under-18s.

Claims about science or history are different. Yes, there are basic facts that are so well known that they are in all the textbooks. In that case, choose a good textbook and not a poor one. I don't see any point in discussing whether a basic textbook is better than a newspaper for science or history claims. We use news sources for news, and replace them with better sources when those become available. We are aware that there can be problems with news sources; see WP:RECENT. Itsmejudith (talk) 08:45, 21 April 2013 (UTC)

On this particular proposal I am more in agreement with Pburka. That does not mean that I think, it would not be good to more fully explain, here, we prefer better sourcing to less better sourcing. I proposed such additions in this edit that were gone over in this discussion . More general wording along these lines, then the present proposal, would be appropriate and helpful, (and replacing with better sourcing is the way these things are done on the Pedia). Alanscottwalker (talk) 09:46, 21 April 2013 (UTC)

Subjects mainly of interest to children and that are covered mainly in children's literature make a good point. They should be an exception, which can be stated, and that would effectively leave children editing articles for their age cohort undisturbed as to how they source, in that this guideline would remain essentially the same as it is now for sourcing their subjects. That also would preserve their role in contributing to Misplaced Pages and encourage them to continue, but if anyone writes about the speed of light or neutrinos both children and adults should use more suitable sourcing, which amply exist.

Type size was not the key issue; rather, it was abridgement, which likely results from a larger type size driving costs up. This probably would not affect e-books and no one has objected to using unabridged sources in any readable type size. Invidious discrimination occurs against people with visual impairments and it is partly in the availability of literature, in that many books are probably not available in large print and the costs of for them accessing literature are higher on average, but that doesn't affect what we should use for sourcing.

I mostly don't use the N.Y. Post but most editors would assume it is generally reliable, so, unfortunately, it'll generally be considered as above the floor. Children's books that are reliable should continue to be allowed, because they'd be exceptions. The older the evident subadult audience of the source, the more that reliability should be imputed, if all else about it apparently qualifies it.

The Feynman story came from a book by him.

I can imagine a world-class physicist relying on Misplaced Pages for the speed of light and then publishing replicable research in which that velocity is essential, and even that another physicist replicates the research successfully, but that would likely be because the first physicist either verified the data in Misplaced Pages's source or already had known the speed of light but had forgotten it momentarily and, upon checking Misplaced Pages, recognized Misplaced Pages's figure as correct. In either case, we wouldn't want a children's book to have been the source.

Nick Levinson (talk) 17:52, 21 April 2013 (UTC) (Corrected spellings and syntax: 18:02, 21 April 2013 (UTC))

It seems to me that it boils down to this: children's books are generally less reliable than books for lay adults, which are generally less reliable than academic sources; abridged books are generally less reliable than unabridged books; and we should always strive to use the best available sources. One would hope that editors don't need to be told this, as it seems self evident. Pburka (talk) 21:06, 21 April 2013 (UTC)

Not quite. The main point is that children's sources are generally too unreliable for use in articles, with exceptions already discussed, and some of the posts above show that this is not well understood. And we don't always use the best available sources; we often use sources that are just good enough, and that's permitted now, nor is anyone proposing to require the best for every statement, or most of Misplaced Pages would have to be deleted. But the floor should be raised a bit or, if that's consistent with what's already understood, the floor should be clarified.

Abridgements are acceptable, by the way, when they're cited as such. Implicitly they already are, when, for example, an unabridged dictionary and a collegiate dictionary from the same publisher have different titles and are cited accordingly. The problem with abridgements comes with works unknown as abridgements because two works have the same bibliographic data and the fact of abridgement occurred but is not stated.

Nick Levinson (talk) 21:41, 21 April 2013 (UTC)

It's been my experience that children's books are very well checked by the publisher and almost completely reliable, particularly if they have been accepted into school libraries. I wonder what evidence the proposer has that this is not true. GeorgeLouis (talk) 22:35, 21 April 2013 (UTC)

(edit conflict) Well, probably none. There are occasionally some simplifications, although modern science books for kids tend to avoid the "Lies to children" type of simplification in favor of simply omitting complex material or glossing over something with weasel words ("most fish..." rather than "all fish..."). Things have changed in the almost five decades since Feynman encountered the first crop of New Math textbooks.

Simplification also happens in sources for adults. A magazine article or a pop science about HIV testing is not likely to explain that the positive predictive value for an HIV test depends on your demographics (with the practical result that a positive screening test for a straight Caucasian-American woman is dramatically less likely to be accurate than the same result, produced by the same test, received by an African-American gay man), and a children's book on HIV is not likely to get into that, either. But in all of these cases, that's really a matter of skipping over details that the editor considers tangential, rather than providing factually inaccurate information. WhatamIdoing (talk) 00:11, 22 April 2013 (UTC)

We can not answer this in generalities. Reliability really all depends on the specific book that someone wishes to use as a source, the specific author who wrote the book... and the context in which the source is used in particualr article (does it appropriately support what is said in the article). The same children's book can be reliable for one statement, and completely unreliable for another statement. If there is a problem with a specific source (as used in a particular context), that problem can be raised on the article's talk page of the article and discussed, or raised at WP:RSN. Another option is to try finding another source that supports the information (it is never wrong to simply swap one source for another that you think is even more reliable). Blueboar (talk) 23:58, 21 April 2013 (UTC)

The argument that "e can not answer this in generalities" and that "eliability really all depends on the specific book ...." is an argument against almost everything in this guideline and a call to repeal almost all of it, leaving only a generality, namely, that editors should use only reliable sources, with no specific definition of reliability. If that was meant, anyone may go ahead and propose it, but I think the result will be far more arguments over which sources may be used. Companies, for example, would happily cite their own websites as authority for everything about themselves.

I think we've all agreed that exceptions in either direction can be accommodated. Also, I think we all agree that some adult sources normally highly reliable sometimes have errors we should not repeat and I think we all agree that some normally subminimal sources are reliable for particular content. Evidently, however, we're now talking about whether there should be any minimum standard at all. I don't think there'll be consensus that there sould be no minimum more specific than that people should apply an undefined reliability. Please, let's try to stay on the specific topic that was proposed.

The Feynman case was, I think, about astronomy and not about new math and the error was not an error mostly limited to new math. I mentioned the article in The New Yorker, although beyond that I didn't provide a citation. I can look it up but it was several decades ago and if you think that disqualifies it (analogously to the dispute of the Feynman case posted above) then I guess we'd need fresh evidence of unreliability. But that's like arguing that we can use self-statements for any claims because evidence of their unreliability is old.

Doubtless adults check every book in a school library or bookstore but they're far more likely to check for legal liabilities like defamation of character, readability, lessons to be gleaned, and the most obvious errors (probably only very few misspell Obama's first name and a book on care of kittens probably has at least minimally acceptable advice not likely to lead to lawsuits or anti-cruelty protests). If they're not giving authors' credentials, they're unlikely to hand a biology book to a professor of biology for verification of biology (if they did, they'd likely say so). I'm unaware that industry practices have changed other than for legal standards or concerns about adult objections likely to impede sales.

I recently saw a young children's biographical book about a fast Olympic swimmer who, it said, eats nearly 10,000 calories a day, a lot of it in vegetables (and a drawing showed a vegetable truck). Fast Olympic swimmers tend to be thin and so is this one. If most of us consumed nearly 10,000 calories a day we'd probably get quite thick in the middle, but it's possible his exercise regimen and physical practices kept him thin. Without another source, should I believe this book? Is it likely a publisher checked the figure? Or would it pass adult scrutiny because it teaches a good lesson for children even if it's not true? Children are not going to check; most wouldn't know how. Should I add the claim as a fact to Misplaced Pages (if it's not there from another source or contradicted by another source)? I think if I did there's a good chance it would get challenged on the ground that it's only a claim and, if to remain, needs an in-text attribution (as in, "according to ..."). The fact if true is certainly interesting but I'd hate to have to defend a children's book as reliable for that. In general, we should not be using children's books except for, say, children's games and other subjects almost no other source will cover. Exceptions aside, are children's books reliable enough to cite for facts? We on this talk page seem to be split on that.

Nick Levinson (talk) 15:51, 22 April 2013 (UTC)

• The Feynman story is about a story problem in math texts he reviewed in 1964.
• Most libraries rely on various types of library review services to identify books that they want to include. School Library Journal is the biggest that I've heard of. Different services have different strengths, but libel isn't important: weeding out libel is the publisher's job, because the publisher is the one who'll have to pay for the lawsuit. WhatamIdoing (talk) 23:07, 22 April 2013 (UTC)

I read Feynman. It was about stars, and that's astronomy. The book he reviewed and to which I indirectly referred said to add up temperatures. The math was not the problem. The lack of a reason to do that math was a problem. The misleading of students (into believing that adding up temperatures when not averaging is useful) was a problem. Maybe you're referring to another Feynman story, and that would make sense, since he reviewed multiple books and found problems were not rare.

Agreed, libel is not important for our purposes. I didn't say it is. I said essentially that libel is one reason why adults review books and that therefore we cannot depend on that kind of review for our purposes. The fact that adults in libraries and schools review books before inclusion does not mean they do so to determine intellectual reliability, which is what Misplaced Pages needs. Which of the reviewers would have checked the caloric intake? Most children's books I've seen don't tell us the authors' credentials and don't tell us whether a subject expert has reviewed subject content; only a few do. That makes a difference in whether the content is reliable. We don't need a publisher or editor to check every fact but if the author is not reliable as an author then the publisher or editor should check factuality or we have not much to rely on. Someone has to be reliable in creating the work on which we plan to rely. Otherwise, anything in print becomes a reliable source, and we know where that would get us.

Misplaced Pages "only publish the opinions of reliable authors".

Nick Levinson (talk) 15:05, 23 April 2013 (UTC) Added the last paragraph, corrected a misspelling, and clarified a phrase: 15:15, 23 April 2013 (UTC))

You've provided anecdotal evidence about an an anecdote Feyman told (you haven't identified where Feyman told this or the text Feyman reviewed) and about a children's book you read (you haven't identified the book). Is there any research published in reliable sources supporting your claim that children's books are generally unreliable? Pburka (talk) 15:35, 23 April 2013 (UTC)

It's in his autobiography, Surely You're Joking, Mr. Feynman! - a great book, but an anecdote. The problem with anecdotes is that only the unusual ones are memorable. If a hundred physicists are asked to review a hundred textbooks, and 99 are found mostly correct, but basically uninteresting, and 1 is found riddled with errors, which gets the press? There is no class of sources that can't have some errors found in them. Yes, I absolutely believe Feynman, and loved the book (though am not sure I would enjoy Mr. Feynman - even writing about himself he comes off as rather harsh). But that was one set of texts in the 1960s. We have no evidence that applied to other texts, or is still true now. --GRuban (talk) 16:56, 23 April 2013 (UTC)

As I recall, Feynman gave that as an example of what he found, an eye-catchng one but not an isolate. He would have known the difference between a formal observational study and a single anecdote and what he wrote came in between. He was reviewing the books passed to him by the schools, reflecting the schools' presumptive willingness to rely on the books and reducing his role in selecting books and therefore in bias in himself. He wrote of multiple problems. The article in The New Yorker was to like effect for history. I'm unaware that the school textbook publishing industry has had a methodological overhaul since then and would appreciate evidence of that. And, regardless, authors have to be reliable and merely having authored any book is already not sufficient. Nick Levinson (talk) 16:24, 24 April 2013 (UTC)

The burden is the other way. The guideline already requires that authors be reliable, as I've quoted above. Merely having two hard covers around an author's writing is not enough. Most children's books do not establish reliability. And Feynman found a general pattern. I can go look for his book again but there isn't much need (and he may not have given the title of the book with the bad summing), since the burden is on those who want to use sources with no known author reliability to show their reliability. That's usually impossible for children's books. I don't want to look for the book with the calories and supply the citation because I suspect someone would go cite it in Misplaced Pages on my say-so when I'm saying that children's books are categorably not reliable, exceptions aside. Can anyone show their general reliability and thereby meet the guideline? Nick Levinson (talk) 15:51, 23 April 2013 (UTC)

I propose we ban all sources written by lefthanded redheads. "Sinister gingers" as they are euphemistically known, are commonly known to be disgruntled members of society, just itching to inject false information into the world's main if not only free online encyclopedia. The burden of proof is now on anyone who wants to use sources written by left handed redheads to prove that they are generally reliable. --GRuban (talk) 16:49, 23 April 2013 (UTC)

We're discussing primarily children's literature. Instead of going off point, please consider whether all types of sources are presumed reliable or only those by reliable authors and excluding some types enumerated in the guideline. If your view is the former, you disagree with the guideline and you may wish to propose amending it. Most children's books I've seen make no effort to show the reliability of their authors. Please advise on how we determine the reliability of an author relevant to content if not from the book or other information about an author. Nick Levinson (talk) 16:24, 24 April 2013 (UTC)

We determine the reliability of an author the same way we always do, by looking at their experience, education, other writings, publisher, and how other reliable sources treat them, all with relevance to the exact statement we are trying to cite. (Oh, and we should also look at their dominant hand and the colour of their hair.) --GRuban (talk) 18:29, 24 April 2013 (UTC)

Then determine it. (The last sentence is already answered.) Nowhere did any of us claim that we should reject reliable children's literature. We should, however, look for reliability and should presume that books for children lack it until found. Nick Levinson (talk) 14:28, 25 April 2013 (UTC)

I picked three books from a library children's department shelves.

• One had a relevant credential for a consultant. It could be generally reliable; I'm not sure but I'll grant it arguendo.
• Walker, Kathryn, Mysteries of the Bermuda Triangle (St. Catherines, Ont.: Crabtree Publishing (Unsolved! ser.), 2008/2009) (original text by Brian Innes) (32 pp.), which tries to present both sides with facts, has a Further Reading section at the end, listing four titles but not as referents for any specific part of the book. It has a glossary and an index. Various people are credited with involvement with it. However, no statement is supported with a citation and no credential of any kind is given for Walker or Innes. It is possible to use it to inspire further research; one could take statements and Google them. But, if successful, that would lead to sources that would obviate any need to cite this book.
• More advanced is Parker, Steve, with Census of Marine Life, Ocean and Sea (Schlastic (Scholastic Discover More ser.), 1st ed. 12?] January 2012 (ISBN 978-0-545-33022-0)). It has a glossary and an index. Parker's credentials are not stated. The Census is cited for why one person became a biologist and that it catalogues species and their whereabouts. Various people are credited with involvement with it, including as a consultant Darlene Trew Crist, Director of Communications, Census of Marine Life; a communications director is likely mainly a publicist or a manager of publicists. Skimming it, I found no citation for a fact. It, too, can be used as inspiration for research, but again that would lead to more useful sources obviating this one. A statement at p.  says, "bout 250 million years ago, there was just one ocean, a superocean called Panthalassa." The book by itself is, in my opinion, not reliable for that statement.

Nick Levinson (talk) 16:24, 24 April 2013 (UTC)

OK, you listed three, and granted the first one. I'm going to disqualify the second, since it's about the paranormal, an inherently dubious topic, so the most reliable book imaginable would be dubious at best; we might as well demand that fiction authors be proven to be reliable. That leaves the last one. A bit of research seems to indicate http://www.scholastic.com/teachers/book/ocean-and-sea - correct? If so, that page at least gives at least some of Parker's credits: "Steve Parker works at Britain's Natural History Museum, is a Scientific Fellow of the Zoological Society and is author of "The Encyclopedia of Sharks."" I don't see the book itself, but are you not sure that blurb isn't on it, perhaps on the back cover? While it's not perfect, but clearly at least indicates there might be something there. A few more minutes research finds Mr. Parker's web site. It's loaded. http://www.steveparker.co.uk/about: "STEVE PARKER is an author, editor and consultant specializing in information about the natural world, biology, technology and general sciences. Steve has a First Class Honours BSc in Zoology and is a Senior Scientific Fellow of the Zoological Society of London. He worked on the staff at London’s Natural History Museum, and in house at various publishers including Dorling Kindersley and Haymarket." He seems to have the necessary training and on the job experience to write a basic book about ocean and sea. http://www.steveparker.co.uk/books "Steve’s title list as author has now topped 250 – all illustrated non-fiction books. Some focus on individual areas such as sharks, space or Others cover general-interest sciences for the younger and family markets." He certainly has plenty of experience writing children's books. (Even if not proofreading his web site. :-P ) http://www.steveparker.co.uk/publishers: "Steve’s publishers include Dorling Kindersley (more than 30 titles including various Eyewitness series), BBC, Smithsonian, Open University, Encyclopaedia Britannica, Science Museum, WWF, Oxford University Press, Heinemann, Reader’s Digest, Gareth Stevens, Rodale, Grolier and A&C Black. Award nominations include BBC Blue Peter Book of the Year, Times Educational Supplement Information Book of the Year (twice), and Rhône-Poulenc Junior Science Book of the Year." So quite a lot of respected publishers seem to think a lot of him. If I ran into an author with those qualifications being brought up on WP:RSN I'd unequivocally say he meets WP:RS for this simple overview of this topic. We have an article for Panthalassa that says much what Mr. Parker does, just in more detail. If that's the typical example, I'm afraid you haven't done a very good job of proving your case for unreliability. --GRuban (talk) 18:06, 24 April 2013 (UTC)

The second book is partly intended to debunk the mystery (I said it "tries to present both sides with facts") and therefore, to that extent, is not categorizable as fiction, and I was not presenting it for the parts that would have been intended as fictional. However, I could have offered it for both, since Misplaced Pages has an article on the Bermuda Triangle, for which sources would be needed for both sides if they weren't cited already. Just for the factual side, many writers specialize in debunking the paranormal; they often oversimplify but they intend to be factual and they should not be classified as fiction writers, and Walker should not be, either. Stating that which one is criticizing as fiction does not make one an author entirely of fiction. The libbrary's call number for Walker's book is J 001.94 W, which is among nonfiction. I am reading a college-level economics textbook that debunks some misunderstandings; it is not thereby a book of fiction (it's Krugman, Paul, & Maurice Obstfeld, International Economics: Theory and Policy (Reading, Mass.: Addison-Wesley, 5th ed. 99?] copyright 2000), and debunking is offered at p. 23).

The third book: Such a blurb wasn't found on the cover (a small library label may have covered what it was stuck to but nothing appears in Amazon's rendition of the back cover). The credential you pointed to is fine but you thereby made my point: you found a credential. You established the author's reliability, which is what is required. That's my point: If that is not done, the source should not be relied upon. And the Panthalassa article does not rely upon Ocean and Sea or Parker, thus making our related point that reliable sources can be found without relying on children's books.

If you'd like to try again on the two boks, please do. So far, the second is published partly as a factual authority and you have not addressed that part of it and the third was not acceptable as reliable until shown otherwise and you did so by not dismissing the need to show it. Please tell us how even the third book should be used in Misplaced Pages's Panthalassa article if reliability had not been shown.

Nick Levinson (talk) 14:28, 25 April 2013 (UTC)

Oh great. You list a book to prove your claim that publications for children should be viewed as questionable. I do research to prove it's fine. "Aha!" you cry. "You did the research, thereby proving my point!" Tell you what. Tell me what I should have done with that book to disprove your point. Otherwise it seems like you're offering a tautology - the book is questionable unless someone proves it isn't, but once someone proves it isn't, that proves your point anyway. --GRuban (talk) 14:48, 25 April 2013 (UTC)

Probably many editors look at a book to decide whether to use it in Misplaced Pages and don't research the book's authority elsewhere. If you had looked only at the book (and perhaps also considered whether your prior knowledge of the subject was agreed with by the book) to show its reliability, you'd have done what many or most editors already do. For children's books, that's generally not enough. By putting it as questionable, we wouldn't bar its use, we'd just emphasize or strengthen the using editor's obligation to find the reliability of a referent that's so often lacking in the genre. Nick Levinson (talk) 15:28, 25 April 2013 (UTC)

Let me repeat the question. You gave a specific example of a book, presumably intending to use it as specific evidence for your proposed addition: "publications for children are questionable". I did my best to find evidence that that same book was fine. You then said that actually proved your point. So, is your proposal falsifiable in any way? You don't give convincing evidence for your proposal, and you refuse to accept evidence against it. What is your purpose here? You're trying to convince us? How? With what evidence? With what argument? Just repeating your proposal over and over? Children's books are questionable because you say they're questionable, and because you once read somewhere (that you couldn't remember at the time) that someone else once said a children's textbook was questionable? And if someone tries to show that they can be fine, well that proves your point too, because all you're trying to do is bring more attention to the subject? Which is fine, because we can always have more rules, they don't hurt anything? I'm hoping I'm mistaken, but the number of logical fallacies in that summary is impressive. --GRuban (talk) 16:02, 25 April 2013 (UTC)

Falsifiability would mainly be by showing that for most children's nonfiction books reliability is evident in or on each book. That would mean that editors wanting to cite such a book need not take time to do research into an author's credentials that they wouldn't need to do for most adult-level books. For instance, if a book about the moon says on p. 10, "hey, kiddies, I'm an astronaut and I flew to the moon", and the author is not someone like Captain Kangaroo, it's probably at least minimally reliable, and that meets the guideline.

Where we disagree seems mainly to be on the norm on these books. I think most are unreliable on their face, i.e., till shown otherwise from research elsewhere; whereas you think most are, if I understand you correctly, self-evidently reliable. While I plucked three books off shelves and found two wanting, three are a very small sample and you could validly argue that a much larger sample is needed. I'd counter that the norm is so obvious that it's unlikely anyone would in recent years have spent a few thousand dollars on wages to study it scientifically with double-blinding and only a small margin of error or journalistically by interviewing authors, editors, publishers, and reviewers across enough of the industry to be reasonably representative to discover what I think almost any adult already knows. Maybe someone has; if you know of any such study either pro or con, please let us know. Misplaced Pages is sometimes compared for accuracy to Encyclopedia Britannica. Misplaced Pages would look quite superior if compared to a roomful of children's books but, to my knowledge, not one has praised Misplaced Pages that way. High school students looking for shortcuts for writing an overdue term paper on, say, China today would hardly turn to a 6-year-old sibling's books on that very subject even if handy; and if they did their grades would almost certainly suffer.

Respecting the second book in the trio, I add that a nonfiction book about fiction can be useful for Misplaced Pages if it does not invent new fiction but relays widely-recognized existing fiction. This one apparently purports to, so we would need to evaluate its reliability even for the reporting of the myths. Pretend the Bermuda Triangle article was new and had no sources and you undertook to find sources. That a myth is widespread does not make the myth a fact but it does make its being widespread a fact and for that you'd need a nonfiction source that stated the myth. Unless someone can refute my point about the second book, it supports my point and the count is two out of three were unreliable until shown otherwise from external research satisfying WP:RS, external research not usually needed when citing sources by grownups.

Logical fallacies were not mine; most of your questions are not my statements, so criticizing them as logically fallacious does not mean that my statements were logically fallacious. The evidence against my proposal that I "refused", as you characterize my response, includes that you chose not to review one book (please try to review it if you can refute my argument about it), you made my case for another, and someone said that some of what I said was old or anecdotal but where there's no evidence of the industry having changed or, I think, needing a systematic study. On that last point, significant disagreement might be reasonably grounded but I think almost no academic or parent would agree that books for 6-year-olds are even nearly as reliable as books for adults.

We're not merely repeating. We're responding to different things said and trying to arrive on what is agreeable among most of us.

The quantity of guideline provisions would hardly change percentage-wise by stating this one. Add policies and the percentage drops.

Nick Levinson (talk) 15:06, 26 April 2013 (UTC) (Clarified a phrase and corrected a missing period and two misspellings: 15:19, 26 April 2013 (UTC))

A large public library's children's department senior librarian just told me today that they select books to buy on criteria such as listing further readings and agreed that probably many libraries have similar criteria, so one could argue for Misplaced Pages's purposes that a children's book being available at a public library leans toward the book's being reliable. (This library discourages the public from donating books, which would keep shelves oriented toward those criteria, but I don't know how many libraries have similar discouragements.) She also suggested a couple of search terms for finding research on comparative reliability, and I plan to follow up on that soon. Nick Levinson (talk) 19:56, 27 April 2013 (UTC)

I searched for articles likely to be relevant (my search term was "accuracy in children's nonfiction" without quotation marks, on the librarian's recommendation) in education journals from 2005 to the present (with the caveat that the latest journal issues are often excluded in databases). My concern goes beyond whether the books have features that support research by students, although that's a good sign, and my concern doesn't include picture quality even though pictures inform, since we don't copy them into Misplaced Pages so they don't matter here, but books' textual content needs to be accurate and we're talking about being able to judge that by looking only at the book, not authors' or publishers' websites or reviews published elsewhere. What I found: A review of prize-winning children's books (most, of course, are not prize-winning and prizes are often awarded after publication so that first editions usually will not reveal having won a prize) suggests that accuracy is increasing but that significant problems persist. Another article described a method for teachers in choosing books for accuracy in science that depended largely on external evidence, such as asking an expert or searching for reviews; criticized judging books by their availability in libraries or bookstores; and raised a concern about teachers who themselves are not expert enough in science to judge books' accuracy. (Sources in order of discussion here: Prize-winners: Gill, Sharon Ruth, What Teachers Need to Know about the "New" Nonfiction, in The Reading Teacher, December, 2009–January, 2010, esp. pp. 262–264 (in JStor & Eric); Science: Atkinson, Terry S., Melissa N. Matusevich, & Lisa Huber, Making Science Trade Book Choices for Elementary Classrooms, in The Reading Teacher, March, 2009 (in JStor).)

Whether books are in libraries that choose carefully is only external evidence, since Misplaced Pages editors are not guided by our views of availability as a guide to reliability, since we haven't stated any such consensus views. Whether reviews are positive on point or prizes were won is only external evidence. External evidence can be valid, but editors need to look for it or in some other way judge the reliability of children's books before citing them, and not simply assume the presence of two covers is proof of reliability. That's what the proposal is for.

Nick Levinson (talk) 20:40, 28 April 2013 (UTC) (Corrected hard-space markup: 20:47, 28 April 2013 (UTC)) (Corrected hyphen to en-dash: 20:52, 28 April 2013 (UTC))

Here's the Feynman anecdote, for those that don't have the book. It is preceded by a discussion of the pointlessness of converting numbers from base 7 to base 5, and followed by a discussion that hints at his doubts that other commission members bothered to read the books, and then by an explanation that he resigned because after a year of distress over math books, he couldn't bring himself to risk next year's review, which would have been all science books. WhatamIdoing (talk) 19:27, 24 April 2013 (UTC)

I'm glad to see I correctly characterized what Feynman said even roughly 20 years after reading it. As I noted, it is somewhat beyond an anecdote, although no one said it was a full-sczale observational study. Thank you for researching and providing the text for others to see. Nick Levinson (talk) 14:28, 25 April 2013 (UTC)

Mr. Feyman has convinced me that we shouldn't use maths texts as sources for astronomy articles. Pburka (talk) 23:52, 25 April 2013 (UTC)

Especially not story problems in math texts. They also shouldn't be used to discuss how many candies a child has after giving some to his friend, how many holes for fenceposts the farmer needs to dig, or when two trains traveling at different speeds will pass each other. WhatamIdoing (talk) 02:15, 26 April 2013 (UTC)

I don't see any support here for Nick's idea that juvenile reference works should be treated any differently from any other non-fiction book. We could keep beating this dead horse, but given the complete lack of support, I think we should just stop. WhatamIdoing (talk) 02:15, 26 April 2013 (UTC)

There is no "complete lack of support". Roughly speaking, Itsmejudith and I appear to agree, WhatamIdoing, Pburka, GRuban, Blueboar, and GRuban disagree and GeorgeLouis disagrees but with a question that someone else disrupted before I answered, and Alanscottwalker has a split view. The purpose of discussion includes seeing if we can persuade each other and I think I'm answering points raised with the possibility of arriving at something consensus can agree on, and there has been movement, especially on subjects written of mainly to children. I understand the convenience of using first reactions as the decising factor and the desire to disrupt efforts that may take a week or so but let's try to see where else more of us can agree. Nick Levinson (talk) 15:06, 26 April 2013 (UTC)

Nick: are you aware of cases where editors have added questionable material using children's books as sources? If so, please give examples. If not, is the purpose of this proposal simply prophylactic? Pburka (talk) 06:53, 28 April 2013 (UTC)

Yes, I know of one that occurred recently, as I noted in the opening post of this topic/section, in the second paragraph, with a link. The editor Itsmejudith wrote in this topic/section, "I'm sure we've talked about textbooks a lot before. We certainly have on RSN." The first matter seems to have settled down satisfactorily, but this discussion shows a split by which some editors clearly believe such sources are reliable in most cases for matters beyond children's subjects and apparently RS/N is to like effect. To see how often children's sources are cited in Misplaced Pages would require sampling articles and checking for that, a very time-consuming trek. As shown by another editor, Feynman found severe problems in the books he looked at; I already mentioned that The New Yorker wrote of history books for high schools; I suppose some editors now would dismiss both as decades old. While I consider the claim of general reliability an extraordinary claim requiring proportionate proof, I plan as I noted above to see whether there's recent research in either direction on the general reliability of such sources, especially for subjects normally of interest to adults (e.g., not childrens hobbies). My proposal would only require or recommend that reliability be established, not that children's books be barred for any subject even if reliable. Nick Levinson (talk) 18:24, 28 April 2013 (UTC)

That link is to another discussion. No evidence has been presented that there is a persistent problem of editors adding questionable information sourced from children's books. You've simply presented your assumptions with little evidence to support them nor any explanation of the problem you're trying to solve. Can you provide even one example of a questionable edit which used a children's book as a source? Pburka (talk) 07:56, 30 April 2013 (UTC)

Don't use the best source, and doesn't have to be appropriate to the claims made

WhatamIdoing, can you please link to the discussion before this change to WP:RS? In ictu oculi (talk) 15:09, 27 April 2013 (UTC)

I changed this:

"Each source must be...the best such source for that context."

to this:

"Each source must be...an appropriate source for that content."

How does adding the word appropriate turn into "doesn't have to be appropriate to the claims made"? How does this become "Don't use the best source"?

There is no prohibition on using the best possible source. However, we don't actually require the best possible source. We require (NB the difference between "prefer" and "require") a source that is at least minimally reliable for the content. We do not, for example, say tell people that they have screwed up because they sourced the sentence "Abraham Lincoln was the president of the USA during the American Civil War" to a pop history book or a government-run history website, when "the best such source" would be a major history text. We don't require "the best such source". We do require appropriate sources. WhatamIdoing (talk) 20:28, 27 April 2013 (UTC)

WhatamIdoing,

Thanks for reply, but can you please link to any discussion first so we can see what was already discussed before going further. In ictu oculi (talk) 18:28, 28 April 2013 (UTC)

• The difference between "the best possible source" and "an appropriate source" may be that In ictu oculi thinks that only he is qualified to specify what is "the best possible source", and that all the zillion other sources that say something different are wrong, and are not permitted to be cited. ;-)  i.e. only Specialized Sources that he selects should be permitted. LittleBen (talk) 01:50, 28 April 2013 (UTC)

Nice personal attack. It's not just IIO: it's all good-faith Wikipedians. You are trying to force your sources on every article on Misplaced Pages, allowing Britannica and the New York Times to determine how we write our articles on all subjects, regardless of whether those subjects get any significant coverage in your sources. Konjakupoet (talk) 10:28, 28 April 2013 (UTC)

Additionally, the guidelines should not specify that we are looking for "adequate" sources. If an article is "adequate", we can still replace barely adequate sources with better ones. The proposed change to the guideline would effectively ban such replacements. By the way, LBW: how did you find this discussion? It wouldn't be that you are "stalking" In ictu oculi? Konjakupoet (talk) 10:36, 28 April 2013 (UTC)

BenW may not have said it well, but he actually raises a valid point... editor's can get into huge arguments over whether source X, source Y or source Z is "the best possible source" for some bit of information - and that is a needless debate when all three sources would be appropriate. "Best" is often a matter of opinion.

WhatamIdoing's point is also valid. We are not required to reach perfection in our articles, especially when they are just starting out. ANY source that appropriately supports a given statement is OK. Sure, if someone thinks some other source would be better, they can always swap it in... but that is not a "must"... it's more of a "should".

Perhaps there is a middle ground... start with WAID's "Each source must be...an appropriate source for that content." then continue with something like "Editors are encouraged to cite the highest quality sources that do so." Blueboar (talk) 22:54, 30 April 2013 (UTC) (forgot to sign when I wrote this).

That still implies we're not encouraged to change an "adequate" source to a better one, but rather that the initial editor is encouraged to use the best source possible. Konjakupoet (talk) 11:19, 30 April 2013 (UTC)

Although I personally prefer to use the highest-quality source, I'm not fully convinced that it's entirely appropriate, even if we completely agree on what "highest-quality" means. For example: is it actually better for our readers to exclusively use expensive or print-only medical journal articles, even when we're sourcing simple statements ("The common cold is caused by viruses, not by bacteria") that could be adequately sourced to free, online sources that they can understand? We have people fuss about using only scholarly writings about history (in particular), but why not use something simpler and more accessible for simple statements, like "Abraham Lincoln was the 16th president of the USA"? "Fanciest source" might not always be best for our readers or for our future editors. The "highest-quality source" in some instances might actually be harmful to maintenance and less helpful to our readers than a second-best source or a good-enough source. WhatamIdoing (talk) 22:49, 30 April 2013 (UTC)

Realistically, though, statements like "The common cold is caused by viruses, not by bacteria" or "Abraham Lincoln was the 16th president of the USA" are not going to get challenged based on the relative reliability of their sources (in the latter case, I wouldn't even expect an inland citation). The proposed change is much more likely to affect more controversial statements where a barely adequate source contradicts respected, reliable sources. Konjakupoet (talk) 14:10, 1 May 2013 (UTC)

Realistically, requiring "the best such source" has been used by some POV pushers and perfectionists to remove even basic statements because the first source supplied wasn't perfect. We're not writing this guideline for people who are already good at this. We're writing it for people who need to be told these things, which means both people who are providing lousy sources (nearly all of us when we were new) and also people who are insisting on extremely high standards. See, e.g., multiple RSN discussions over whether all claims about historical events must be supported by sources written by a card-carrying, paid-up member of some mythical professional historians club, or whether it's just possible for basic and undisputed historical facts to be sourced to a biography or (far more shocking) to sources written by a journalist. We have to solve both problems here, not just the simple one. WhatamIdoing (talk) 21:30, 1 May 2013 (UTC)

Exactly right... using the "best" sources is a goal... not a requirement. The requirement is for "appropriate" sources. Blueboar (talk) 21:48, 1 May 2013 (UTC)

If someone tries to remove the statement that Lincoln was the 16th president because it is poorly sourced, please take it to WP:DRN or perhaps WP:RSN. Changing the guideline here is just going to provide more ammo to people who want to push a POV via the use of "adequate" sources. We as Wikipedians should be allowed to remove information that is backed up by barely adequate sources and replace it with (contradictory) information found in the best possible sources. I don't understand Blueboar's argument here: of course the best sources are a goal: why should we change the guideline to effectively ban the insertion of the best possible sources?? Konjakupoet (talk) 00:10, 2 May 2013 (UTC)

Konjakupoet, I am not sure where you get the idea that anyone is talking about "banning" use of the best possible source. If two sources both support the same material, then it is absolutely OK to replace an "only adequate" source with a "better" one. I think WhatamIdoing's proposal supports that. All he is saying is that this is not a requirement. Now, you raise the issue of replacing one source with a contradictory source. You argue that people "should be allowed to remove information that is backed up by barely adequate sources and replace it with (contradictory) information found in the best possible sources". Absolutely NOT... our WP:NPOV policy explicitly says we should NOT do this. If two sources are reliable (but contradictory), we must present both viewpoints. While we can add what the "best" reliable source says, we can not remove what the "only adequate" source says. We can give the better source a bit more weight (assuming we can agree on which source is "better"... but we can not replace one with the other. Blueboar (talk) 00:37, 2 May 2013 (UTC)

I'm concerned with what happens when two sources don't support the same material, because one is written by an expert and published by a university press, and the other is a simplified text written by a layman. I have already linked to the relevant dispute above. Basically, I don't want people to be able to say "WP:RS says we don't need to cite your 'scholarly' sources if we have adequate ones already. And you're not allowed remove material that is backed up by a reliable source." This would, effectively, ban the use of the "Your source is wrong, and is contradicted by these more reliable sources. Therefore, it should be replaced by the more reliable ones." argument. Further, WhatamIdoing has already stated that the purpose of the proposed amendment is to ban the use of obscure scholarly sources for simple statements where "adequate" sources will do, so your statement that it would still be okay to replace an adequate source with a better one is flawed. Konjakupoet (talk) 00:57, 2 May 2013 (UTC)

I think that the above-described change made by WhatAmIDoing is good and fixed a significant problem. The difference is that what they wrote is structurally sound, vs. just putting "generally (but not always) good advice" put in a place that will get used and misused as being policy. North8000 (talk) 11:33, 30 April 2013 (UTC)

WhatamIdoing, what on earth do you mean by "some mythical professional historians club"? Of course there are professional historians. There is a scholarly community of historians with its journals, academic publishers and courses at reputable universities. Maybe you think all that stuff is elitist, but you're not going to wish it away. I also object strongly to "POV pushers and perfectionists". Good sourcing is an essential weapon for those of us committed to NPOV. We have seen that time and again in disputes around nationalism. Itsmejudith (talk) 21:42, 1 May 2013 (UTC)

I agree completely. Konjakupoet (talk) 00:10, 2 May 2013 (UTC)

I wonder whether In ictu oculi was reading "best such source" as (1) the best source that appeared in recent revisions of the article or has been mentioned on the talk page, or (2) the best source available in the world. Some editors will interpret it as the best source in the world, and be discouraged from editing because they can't afford a $200 book, can't afford to fly to Europe to inspect a particular archive, or can't read Russian and instead rely on a translation. If it means "best source in the world" editors of modest means or who are mono-lingual will be unable to edit certain articles. Jc3s5h (talk) 01:09, 2 May 2013 (UTC)

Request to scrutinize sources

There is a request to scrutinize sources on Transcendental Meditation by neutral parties. Thanks. (olive (talk) 02:42, 28 April 2013 (UTC))

Again? Blueboar (talk) 19:15, 28 April 2013 (UTC)

source for Slender Man

Found a source (originally here) that is academically vetted; however it is a graduate student's paper, so I'm not sure if it qualifies. Serendious 04:07, 30 April 2013 (UTC)

It can be reliable, it can be accurate, it can even be really, really good. But college papers generally are only published in an online format on the whim of the author, which means WP:USERG sets in and we can't use it. I'm not exactly sure about the links above, though... Konjakupoet (talk) 11:32, 30 April 2013 (UTC)

So it is still possible that this source might be useable? Serendious 22:58, 30 April 2013 (UTC)

Context (of which I know nothing) and what kind of statement needs a source are what really matters, I would think. Konjakupoet (talk) 14:13, 1 May 2013 (UTC)