Misplaced Pages

This is an old revision of this page, as edited by Blethering Scot (talk | contribs) at 18:58, 7 April 2014 (→Daily Mail: r). The present address (URL) is a permanent link to this revision, which may differ significantly from the current revision.

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

Sections older than 5 days archived by lowercase sigmabot III.

Additional notes:

• WP:RSN
• WP:RS/N
• WP:V/N

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

Current large scale clean-up efforts

Large scale clean-ups/answersingenesis.com

Large scale clean-ups/evolutionnews.org

Large scale clean-ups/independentpoliticalreport.com

Large scale clean-ups/kavitakosh.org

is PWInsider.com a reliable source?

Hello, after a recent discussion, we over at WP:PW would prefer a second opinion on whether PWInsider is a reliable source for professional wrestling. Frankly, our style guide's list of reliable secondary sources for professional wrestling is quite few, so we would like to add more sources to it. starship.paint (talk | ctrb) 08:10, 24 March 2014 (UTC)

Here is some background information, the site is run chiefly by Dave Scherer and Mike Johnson, who have an extensive history in professional wrestling. Scherer - webmaster for the Extreme Championship Wrestling (3rd largest American wrestling company at the time) website until 2001. Penned the Saturday pro wrestling column at the New York Daily News for two years. Founder of "The Wrestling Lariat" newsletter in 1995. Joined 1Wrestling.com in 1997. Started PWInsider in 2004. Also rote for the now-defunct WOW and ECW magazines. Johnson - was Extreme Championship Wrestling's official website historian and researcher on International talents... and helped with DVD / action figure / video game lines in ECW. Wrote for Wrestling Lariat, 1Wrestling and PWInsider. Consultant for Capstone Press on a series of children's books about professional wrestling. Co-hosts "The Mouthpiece Wrestling Show" - a radio show.

PWInsider has incentive to provide accurate information due to its paid subscription service "Elite", featuring exclusive access to news, interviews with wrestlers, podcasts and newsletters.

PWInsider has interviewed numerous wrestlers like Doug Williams, Billy Robinson, Bret Hart, Daniel Bryan, Triple H and Jeff Jarrett. starship.paint (talk | ctrb) 08:10, 24 March 2014 (UTC)

The site is primarily a "content aggregator" and blog AFAICT, existing primarily to provide many ads (more than twenty per page) and very little actual factual content. It cites reliable sources where it does have content, and it is those sources which ought to be cited, not an ad site. Collect (talk) 15:05, 24 March 2014 (UTC)

Eh, I'm going to have to disagree. Personally, I would use PWInsider for its television and pay-per-view recaps of various professional wrestling programmes. Like this report of the WWE Main Event show on March 25 and another report of the Impact Wrestling show on March 13. Such TV/PPV reports are surely original content. starship.paint (talk | ctrb) 03:44, 26 March 2014 (UTC)

The material written by Scherer specifically should be citeable per WP:SPS, but I'm not seeing any indication of editorial oversight, fact checking or corrections when it comes to the site at large. Do established reliable sources ever cite the site? That could help. Siawase (talk) 09:33, 26 March 2014 (UTC)

• @Siawase: - how am I supposed to prove editorial oversight or fact checking? Could you perhaps show me how BBC News does editorial oversight or fact checking as an example? starship.paint (talk | ctrb) 02:14, 27 March 2014 (UTC)
• However, corrections do occur. starship.paint (talk | ctrb) 02:14, 27 March 2014 (UTC)
• On whether established reliable sources cite the site, I can tell you honestly that given that professional wrestling is a lot less mainstream now than it was ten years ago and before, I don't see why any major mainstream news organizations would cite virtually any professional wrestling news website to publish information. This is the nature of the field. However, I found Latino Post and Multichannel doing so. starship.paint (talk | ctrb) 02:14, 27 March 2014 (UTC)
• However, within the wrestling news websites, those we already consider reliable such as slam.canoe.ca, pwtorch.com and f4wonline.com have cited PWInsider. starship.paint (talk | ctrb)

Mike Johnson claims to fact-check results from this site (its own accuracy disclaimer here). I'm sure he has others, too, but it's evidence of some checking. InedibleHulk (talk) 20:44, April 1, 2014 (UTC)

notifying WP:PW editors who contributed to previous discussion @HHH Pedrigree: @Wrestlinglover: @STATicVapor: @GaryColemanFan: @LM2000: @InedibleHulk: (Hulk, if you get this ping, please remove your name from here) starship.paint (talk | ctrb) 05:08, 2 April 2014 (UTC)

Why? InedibleHulk (talk) 05:13, April 2, 2014 (UTC)

Nvm, it was to test if you got the second ping. starship.paint (talk | ctrb) 06:36, 2 April 2014 (UTC)

Based on http://www.pwinsider.com/contact.php it doesn't meet the criteria to be considered a RS. If you want to review the other sources, that's a separate discussion. This one doesn't appear to be. Walter Görlitz (talk) 06:29, 2 April 2014 (UTC)

Why? Could you elaborate? starship.paint (talk | ctrb) 06:36, 2 April 2014 (UTC)

Um-- you posed a question here, and usually one expects to get replies. When a reply does not agree with the poser's position, then the poser clearly was not asking for responses, but seeking only agreement with his own position. I rather think that no one here has agreed with you, and you likely should take that as a sign that you might actually be wrong in your opinions. Cheers. Collect (talk) 15:51, 2 April 2014 (UTC)

Maybe he's just looking for something more than a basic "No, sorry, move on". You yourself did give an explanation, but i have to give a few rebuttal to it. You called it a "content aggregator" and said that it "existing primarily to provide many ads". That is false. Yes, PWInsider has ads; however, there are two PWInsiders. The free one has ads similar to ads on a free phone app, in that it's not meant to get you to buy a bunch of products, but to annoy you into signing up for the paid service (which is http://www.pwinsiderelite.com/). As for being an aggregator, yes they pull information from other websites and sources, just like CNN.com, NBCnews.com, Foxnews.com, etc. If they get a tip, they research it to find out if it is genuine or BS. When they're not doing that, they're interviewing people and companies in or involved with professional wrestling. If a large promotion such as WWE or TNA holds a press conference, they specifically invite PWInsider to cover it. Within the realm of professional wrestling, and form on entertainment notoriously known for having its members protect it and keeping outsiders out, they have been entrusted with inclusion by the wrestlers and the various promotions around the world. Furthermore, if i may come at this from another direction, when a less than reputable wrestling news site has a story that is that is completely made up or a rumor stretched out the with logic that 1+1=3, it will almost always be "cited" to one of two "sources": the Wrestling Observer and PWInsider. Why? Because people will more readily believe it based on the credibility those two sites have built up over the years bot with those in the wrestling industry and from the wrestling fans. Now, as for Walter Görlitz dismissing it as a reliable source because of that one section of the website, what specifically on there disqualifies? The only thing i can really see would be the "Send us news items and show reports" (which is poor wording, its actually "news tips"), but if that's the case here is the exact same thing for CNN and Fox News . 99.43.175.19 (talk) 03:30, 3 April 2014 (UTC)

I did not dismiss it as a reliable source but rather stated that it was unreliable.

The criteria is that the authors of the website are not professionals in this area. There is no editorial over-site. You asked an opinion and based on what I know about RSes, the site isn't one. I'll offer two others, without being asked: read Misplaced Pages:Identifying reliable sources and read the discussions here about RSes. I don't need to be summoned again. It was obvious, as stated by Collect, that the person who posted the question didn't want disagreement with their opinion that the site met RS and is willing to argue against any contrary position. Walter Görlitz (talk) 03:42, 3 April 2014 (UTC)

Full disclosure: I came here to get PWInsider approved as a reliable source. I am willing to argue against any contrary position, and I don't think that's wrong at all. Let's face it, while you all are more familiar with RS criteria, I am more familiar with the source itself. When I see you all make what I think to be wrong presumptions about the source (because you are unfamiliar) and then say it is unreliable, of course I will challenge your opinion. I don't think I'm being unreasonable to expect people to back up their own opinions and respond to counter-arguments. starship.paint (talk | ctrb) 04:53, 3 April 2014 (UTC)

Walter Görlitz - I'm not sure what's your criteria to consider that they "are not professionals in this area" - then who is? The authors have work experience with (at the time) the third largest pro wrestling company in the United States, and they've been writing newsletters on pro wrestling since 1995. Dave Scherer was even called an expert by SLAM! Wrestling, which WP:PW already considers a reliable source - "who the experts picked". Somebody wrote a book on pro wrestling and credited Scherer as a journalist for pro wrestling. Mike Johnson was credited as a consultant for a book for a "kid's guide to pro wrestling". Hell, I just found out even WWE uses PWInsider as a source. As for editorial oversight, WP:IRS does not really explain it. But, I have found cases of "editor's note" appearing in PWInsider. Likewise above I have posted links to "corrections" made by PWInsider, which points to some fact-checking. starship.paint (talk | ctrb) 05:43, 3 April 2014 (UTC)

OK -- three outsiders state it is not WP:RS on a prima facie basis (one says it may fall under SPS for limited use -- but that only applies to statements about that person writing). Zero agree that it is fundamentally WP:RS. As for why you claim that was I said was "false" - you concede that it is a "content aggregator" and that it has a huge number of ads - for which your claim is that they are there to annoy people <g> (to annoy you into signing up for the paid service). In short -- it is a content aggregator with lots of ads. As stated. Cheers -- but when no one agrees with your position, accept the fact that your position might be wrong. BTW, I am unsure that "slam.canoe.ca" meets RS either as it appears to be primarily blogs not associated with a newspaper or the like. It subscribes to CMI (whatever that is - it is not apparently findable on Misplaced Pages or Google) and Reuters, but appears to have no' actual "reporters" of its own (checking major stories). Collect (talk) 13:19, 3 April 2014 (UTC)

Unreliable self published sources used as reference in a succession dispute

The users MD.ET, MUFADALQN are using following sources for the article Mufaddal Saifuddin

1. http://www.badremuneer.in/62%20Reasons/53%20Reasons%20NOT.htm

1. http://believesyednaqutbuddin.com/

The http://www.badremuneer.in/62%20Reasons/53%20Reasons%20NOT.htm is an exact duplication of the self published blog http://believesyednaqutbuddin.com/ both of which are rather propoganda sources which work towards forwarding personal opinions on a heavily disputed and succession issue of Burhanuddin Summichum (talk) 09:01, 26 March 2014 (UTC)

Respected admins User:CallaneccSam Sailor Anup Mehra User:Ftutocdg, the current version of the above wiki article is based on citations from badremunir which is one of the claimants own publication and the other fatemidawat.com is another claimants own publication, you can imagine the dubious nature of above source as they have duplicated the above blog on their domain to get accepted on wikipedia hence I request all statements citing the highly biased references of badremuneer be removed and remove all the claims which dont have the citations to support the claim. Also note that this is a very serious controversy and media is closely following this case as billions of dollars worth property is at stake and both the claimants are using all means possible to get control over it. hence Wiki as a champion of neutrality should not allow biased claims from sources published by both the claimants. Persisting the article with stale claims shows poor quality of the article and I request the admins to do a cleanup operation and remove superfluous,dubious claims ref: WP:RS self published source Summichum (talk) 14:17, 26 March 2014 (UTC)

• Comment: believesyednaqutbuddin.com (used 7 times), It is indeed an unreliable source and should immediately be removed from the article including contents for which it is being used as inline citations. It is a blog written by a follower of Saifuddin (see "About" of the blog). The article is fully-protected to be edited only by administrators. I've submitted an edit-request on talk page regarding the same. Anupmehra -Let's talk! 00:47, 27 March 2014 (UTC)

•  Done. Callanecc (talk • contribs • logs) 01:15, 27 March 2014 (UTC)

• • • thanks Callanecc, but those references and higly misleading statements remain in the article from the source http://www.badremuneer.in/62%20Reasons/53%20Reasons%20NOT.htm which is an exact duplicate of the blog source you removed and this badremunir is not even a blog , but specially created to act as a placeholder for the contents of the other blog , in hort both are duplicates of each other. Anup Mehra Please remove http://www.badremuneer.in too . Summichum (talk) 11:09, 27 March 2014 (UTC)

  Badre Muneer is independent publication of Dawoodi Bohra and not "another self published source of one of the claimants". This magazine has vide circulation all over the countries where Dawoodi Bohra lives and act as mouthpiece for Dawoodi Bohra;

Details: The Internationally Acclaimed Monthly Magazine of The Dawoodi Bohra Community

BADRE MUNEER Neelam Publications, 2nd Floor, Nagindas Chambers, Dhebar Road, RAJKOT - 360 001 (INDIA). Phone : +91-281-2226517 / 2235056 Fax : +91-281-2223944 Mobile : +91 93757 45252

Follow them from wherever you are:

On Web: www.badremuneer.in On Facebook: www.facebook.com/badremuneer On Twitter: www.twitter.com/badremuneer On Buzz: www.google.com/profiles/badremuneer On Grouply: http://badremuneer.grouply.com On Orkut: http://www.orkut.co.in/Main#Profileuid=14396410947135118255 the-magazine-issue-with-the-highest-number-of-pages --Md iet (talk) 14:08, 1 April 2014 (UTC)

• • BADREMUNEER is a sloppy work and not even journalistic and is self published souvenir by Mufaddal Saifuddin group. I acquired some copies of it and it is sloppy piece of work full of advertisements everywhere like an ad souvenir. You can see their desperation that they have duplicated another sloppy blog into their own website domain as explained above to promote a person as a dai. Hence this is why the admins have disqualified its use as a reference Summichum (talk) 11:46, 6 April 2014 (UTC)

Partisan group self published source Destruction of early Islamic heritage sites in Saudi Arabia

The article has a lot of citations from a single partisan self published source which reflects only a fringe standpoint of history. Many of the names of the graves mentioned are not even verified , here is the source:

http://www.al-islam.org/history-shrines/history-cemetery-jannat-al-baqi

It looks more like a blog presenting personal opinions on a matter and that too by a fringe group which accuses a Jewish conspiracy in the destruction.

Hence proof of the graves from reliable independent, non sectarian sources should be added. Relevant tag: WP:BIASED,WP:FTN (fringe theory).

partisan base self published source

in article Mufaddal Saifuddin

However, Muffadal Saifuddin's succession has not been accepted by Khuzaima Qutbuddin, who claimed the title of the 53rd Dai of the Dawoodi Bohras Himself. Khuzaima Qutbuddin claims that Syedna Mohammed Burhanuddin performed nass on him 49 years ago, a ritual during which he appointed him as his successor in private, just before he was publically appointed as Mazoon, second-in-command in Bohras hierarchy. After the death of Syedna Mohammed Burhanuddin he claims that the succession was not done in London as Mohammad Burhanuddin suffered from a full stroke at the age of 100, that made it difficult for him to write, speak, or move. Khuzaima Qutbuddin explains that he never claimed to be the rightfull successor, as per Mohammed Burhanuddin's instruction to keep it secret. It is further claimed that former CJI upheld the validity of Khuzaima Qutbuddin as the rightful successor.

1. http://fatemidawat.com/

Citation of Wikiversity articles as sources in articles.

See here: . It appears that having instituted some sort of 'peer review' process, it is now being claimed that Wikiversity meets WP:RS and/or WP:MEDRS. Frankly, I see no reason to see this as remotely compatible with WP:RS policy. AndyTheGrump (talk) 19:33, 30 March 2014 (UTC)

For an indication of the validity of the 'peer review' see this example being cited: . A high-school project taking the average weight of 19 teaspoons. As to the remainder of citations, since the articles are medically-related (with the corresponding need for higher standards), I have raised the matter at Misplaced Pages talk:WikiProject Medicine. AndyTheGrump (talk) 19:41, 30 March 2014 (UTC)

Incidentally, I note that all the articles so far linked from Wikiversity seem to have been written by the same person - User:Mikael Häggström. I shall inform him of this thread. AndyTheGrump (talk) 19:49, 30 March 2014 (UTC)

At best only "marginally reliable" clearly - I would demur on actually using any of them as a real cite. Collect (talk) 19:53, 30 March 2014 (UTC)

I'd be surprised to see any content on Wikiversity that was near RS. Certainly the vast majority of it is garbage and there is no way that we can have any sort of blanket approval of the site as being reliable overall. Andy Dingley (talk) 20:04, 30 March 2014 (UTC)

This is probably an aside, but the sources we describe as "reliable" are notionally reliable, and they often include garbage as well. The quality of Wikiversity content will depend, like the quality of everything else, on who wrote it. I do not however mean to suggest that any of it should be cited here. James500 (talk) 20:16, 30 March 2014 (UTC)

'Who wrote it', in an open Wiki like Wikiversity, amounts to 'more or less anyone' - which is one reason we don't cite open Wikis as sources. As for the supposed 'peer review' process, see - it clearly doesn't comply with what we would expect from a reputable peer-reviewed journal. AndyTheGrump (talk) 20:21, 30 March 2014 (UTC)

I do not dispute that. James500 (talk) 20:23, 30 March 2014 (UTC)

That's a useful list, we need to make it empty. Dougweller (talk) 20:50, 30 March 2014 (UTC)

Lol. Immunosurgery cites - in other words, an editor creates an article here, then creates one at Wikiversity years later and uses it as a source. All of the Wikiversity articles were created by Mikael Häggström (talk · contribs) and the two articles of ours I've checked were either created or heavily edited by him. Ah, Andy knows that, I've just seen Misplaced Pages talk:WikiProject Medicine#Citation of Wikiversity articles as sources in medical articles. Also see . Not good. COI? Dougweller (talk) 21:00, 30 March 2014 (UTC)

Yup. And the 'Wikiversity:Peer review' article which claims that "A major reason of having a work peer reviewed in Wikiversity is the possibility to summarize it in Misplaced Pages..." was written by Häggström too. AndyTheGrump (talk) 21:04, 30 March 2014 (UTC)

(ec) While I can applaud Mikael Häggström's enthusiasm, sympathize with his intentions, and appreciate the value of many of his efforts...Wikiversity just isn't the right venue for publishing the information in a way that Misplaced Pages can or should rely upon. As an editor, it is frustrating to have to acknowledge that the content in question here (dubious judgement about teaspoons aside) is likely correct, but has been 'published' in such a way that we cannot use it.

Given the way Wikiversity functions, there's no significant practical difference between 'publishing' in one's own 'journal' on Wikiversity and posting the same material on a personal website or blog. I get very twitchy about the tail wagging the dog when v:Wikiversity:Peer review#Usage as a reference in Misplaced Pages talks so explicitly about using Wikiversity publication as a way to gain access to Misplaced Pages's large audience. TenOfAllTrades(talk) 21:22, 30 March 2014 (UTC)

I see this discussion has basically asserted the Misplaced Pages guideline at Misplaced Pages:Wikiversity#Using a Wikiversity page as reference in Misplaced Pages, saying "Wikiversity content is generally not identified as a reliable source in Misplaced Pages. Therefore, usage of Wikiversity as a reference in Misplaced Pages is generally not advisable.". Yes, Wikiversity inclusion does not automatically mean it is a reliable source for inclusion in Misplaced Pages. Yet, I still think such inclusion is possible, as can be judged on a case-by-case basis. Mikael Häggström (talk) 04:35, 31 March 2014 (UTC)

For self-published websites, we can look at the reputation of the author. For wikis, any other editor can change the pages to a biased version. There are simply no guarantees of quality. --Enric Naval (talk) 05:06, 31 March 2014 (UTC)

There is a page history and it is possible to link to a particular revision. I am fairly certain that the ability of persons other than the original author to (harmfully) edit a page on a wiki is not the issue here. James500 (talk) 08:02, 31 March 2014 (UTC)

Generally agree. The problem I see here is that the publisher, the editorial board, the principal (and often sole) author of every single paper, the person who solicits and considers the referees' comments, and even the fellow who registered the domain (wikiversityjournal.org) is all one man.

Also worth a glance is v:Wikiversity:Publishing in Wikiversity Journal of Medicine. Lest we be unclear on the point, the stated purpose of this project is to create material to be cited in Misplaced Pages—which is a rather unusual scope for a journal. In practice, what we have is one person deciding which sources (primary, secondary, and tertiary) should be used, summarizing and synthesizing them along with some admixture of his own personal knowledge and opinions, and packaging it all together in such a way that Misplaced Pages might cite the resulting composite article and be insulated from considering the quality or reliability of the underlying sources. Unfortunately, the project's process – ultimately, the endorsement of Mikael – just isn't sufficiently robust and rigorous to justify that insulation.

The fact that he happens to be hosting his journal project on Wikiversity (or on any wiki) doesn't have to be a big deal—though it is additionally problematic that he has been linking to a 'live' version of each page in citations rather than to a nominally-approved static revision. (That said, I can also foresee some potential challenges with ensuring the perpetual validity of embedded figures....)

(Incidentally, the local page Misplaced Pages:Wikiversity here isn't an accepted editing {{guideline}}. It was written essentially entirely by Mikael Häggström and has received very little attention, so should not be considered in any way authoritative.) TenOfAllTrades(talk) 13:06, 31 March 2014 (UTC)

Indeed, only me and above user have edited the "Using a Wikiversity page as reference in Misplaced Pages" section so far, and my optimism about the Wikiversity Journal is obviously a potential conflict of interest in editing the guidelines in this matter. Mikael Häggström (talk) 16:08, 31 March 2014 (UTC)

• Comment-- this material is certainly better quality than we find on many articles. They are reviews rather than primary sources, which is good. They have inline citation to reliable scientific sources, and the material has been through a peer review. On the negative side, the journal is not currently MEDLINE indexed (this is apparently a work in progress). The best way to describe this is an open access journal ... and this in itself does not make it an unreliable source. On the whole, I would say that they are reliable sources, and this would be strengthened once it is listed in MEDLINE. When citing one's own publications, WP:CITESELF is worth a read if the editor in question has not already read it. Lesion 12:26, 31 March 2014 (UTC)
• Comment I acknowledge that there are a huge number of problems with the Wikimedia community writing articles in one Wikimedia project and then using them to cite content presented in Misplaced Pages. In this case, however, there are no plans to scale up this project anytime soon and the Wikiversity project exists as a proof of concept. I feel that information from whatever source should be considered critically to judge its reliability. Undoubtedly without a respected peer review process no publication can have the respect of a medical journal. What is on Wikiversity does not have a respected peer review process, but I see no problem with people speculating as to whether it could be possible to develop one which meets standards equal to all others. Of course this is a wild idea.

I have no comment about the citation of anything published in this way on Misplaced Pages. It seems like a dubious prospect at this point due to lack of established and respected peer review, but since it is happening on a small scale for the sake of discussion, I think nothing is harmed by judging this on a case-by-case basis and that no serious burden is put on the Wikimedia community by exploring this. Blue Rasberry (talk) 13:06, 31 March 2014 (UTC)

I think we'll have a better idea of how Wikiversity Journal will turn out once articles from other authors will turn up. I haven't announced the opening of the journal to any of my colleagues yet, because I want to arrange for doi codes first, because I believe such a standardized citation format is a major drive for researchers to submit articles. Next week, however, I'm going to present the project for my colleagues at Gävle Hospital and later, if all seems to go well, to doctors at other hospitals as well.

I think it is impossible to decide whether to forbid or accept the entire idea of using Wikiversity Journal articles in Misplaced Pages, just like with most scholarly journals out there. Therefore, I think the actual discussions should be centered at each Wikiversity Journal article talk page, or the talk pages of the Misplaced Pages articles where they are used as references, as clearly linked from each Wikiversity Journal article. Several issues are identical across the articles so far, such as the journal creator and article author being the same person, but consideration should also be taken to the context in which the information is presented in each Misplaced Pages article. After all, not 100% of peer reviewed work in Wikiversity will make it to the Wikiversity Journal, and in the same way I fully understand that not 100% of Wikiversity Journal articles will make it to (or remain in) Misplaced Pages after community discussions. Mikael Häggström (talk) 16:27, 31 March 2014 (UTC)

Thus, the worst thing that can happen, as I see it, is that some Wikiversity Journal articles will eventually get a shameful tag that says something like "This article was previously used as a reference in Misplaced Pages, but was removed." I think the fear of ending up like that will be a motivation for authors to put serious effort into Wikiversity article creation. Mikael Häggström (talk) 19:29, 31 March 2014 (UTC)

Any discussion regarding the validity of citing Wikiversity material on Misplaced Pages must take place on Misplaced Pages - what goes on in Wikiversity Journal article talk pages is of no relevance here. And since this is clearly a contentious issue, I would request that, until the issue is resolved, no citations to Wikiversity articles be added to Misplaced Pages articles without prior discussion, either on this noticeboard, or, in the case of medically-related material, at Misplaced Pages talk:WikiProject Medicine. I would also request that the 'Wikiversity:Peer review' page which states "A major reason of having a work peer reviewed in Wikiversity is the possibility to summarize it in Misplaced Pages..." be edited to remove any implications that Misplaced Pages will accept Wikiversity-sourced material until such time as this matter is resolved. AndyTheGrump (talk) 20:44, 31 March 2014 (UTC)

I have now removed the cited statement at Wikiversity:Peer_review. Mikael Häggström (talk) 04:53, 1 April 2014 (UTC)

I think Misplaced Pages:Wikiversity is the most appropriate target for having centralized discussions in Misplaced Pages about usage of Wikiversity articles as references. If there is a need of supervision of such usage, there could be a rule that the author must make an entry at Misplaced Pages talk:Wikiversity that links to each Misplaced Pages article with such usage. Thereby anyone who wants to keep track of it can simply add Misplaced Pages:Wikiversity to the watchlist. Mikael Häggström (talk) 10:00, 1 April 2014 (UTC)

• Comment I do not support using Wikiversity articles here: --LT910001 (talk) 05:28, 2 April 2014 (UTC)
  • Articles present a clear COI of the community in general and also the authors.
  • Am not in favour of supporting this journal just because is slightly better than the worst example journal we can think of.
  • Journal is new, has an authorship of 1 and a readership limited to tens so the opportunity to catch errors is minimal.
  • Journal is used by any practitioners outside of the creator and/or direct contacts. If, for example, anatomy articles (my primary focus of editing) were published in this venue instead of a reputable journal, the utility would be laughable.
  • Without a track record this journal may be dominated by "power users" who pump out articles and then cite them here, or users who have been rejected from professional journals
  • At this point is it likely that all reviewers know the authors of the articles or have been contacted by them personally, which is not ideal.
  • This discussion needs to take place on Misplaced Pages as well, as we will be affected by any edits that cite the Wikiversity data.
  • I would, however, think that this is a good place for Misplaced Pages articles to be published and used for continuing professional development purposes if necessary.
  • There are also a lot of worst-case scenarios. How can we defend if article is released on the journal, and the author then uses the majority of the journal paper article in the Misplaced Pages article, citing the journal article? This is similar to the point raised above that we are essentially relying on a single person to synthesise and create data, and then citing that in the collaborative venue of Misplaced Pages.
  • This may be idealistic, but are any of the same ethical, legal and contractual obligations on researchers as with those that release data to actual journals, which (along with the funding institutions), have a degree of reputation to uphold?
  • In conclusion, am not usually pro-guidelines, but I think a moratorium for at least a year, or until the journal has some veneer of respectability, may be in order. --LT910001 (talk) 05:28, 2 April 2014 (UTC)
  • Mikael Häggström, I'm not sure what you mean when you say "Wikiversity is the most appropriate target for having centralized discussions in Misplaced Pages about usage of Wikiversity articles as references." There is no centralised place for all of the many Wikipedias, and the centralised place for this Misplaced Pages is here. Decisions about sources to be used on this Misplaced Pages cannot be made elsewhere. Dougweller (talk) 13:08, 2 April 2014 (UTC)

To make it clear, I suggested Misplaced Pages:Wikiversity and not Wikiversity. Misplaced Pages:Wikiversity is the article in the Misplaced Pages namespace whose subject is Wikiversity. Surely there are Wikipedias in many languages, so with Misplaced Pages I mean English Misplaced Pages in this case, and there are no plans as far as I know to make any Wikiversity Journal in any other language, so I think we can practically keep English Misplaced Pages and Misplaced Pages as synonyms for now. Also, I totally agree that decisions about sources to be used on this Misplaced Pages cannot be made elsewhere. Mikael Häggström (talk) 19:25, 2 April 2014 (UTC)

Discussions regarding the reliability of sources, where they do not take place on article talk pages, are generally carried out on this noticeboard. I see no obvious reason why we should make an exception to this regarding Wikiversity material. AndyTheGrump (talk) 19:38, 2 April 2014 (UTC)

In any case, it seems necessary to add a note both here, at Misplaced Pages talk:Wikiversity, as well as any other closely related WikiProject (in this case WP:MED). As an example, I've now added the following "nomination": Misplaced Pages talk:Wikiversity#Using steroidogenesis article as reference. Mikael Häggström (talk) 16:19, 6 April 2014 (UTC)

World Tribune

Is this paper reliable for this reverted edit? The paper has reported that the government forces now control 80% of Aleppo. But it is being removed for no good reasons that I can see. Darkness Shines (talk) 22:07, 31 March 2014 (UTC)

See The New Yorker article about it. It fails rs. TFD (talk) 23:01, 31 March 2014 (UTC)

That's pretty much the most efficient response I've seen around here lately. What a take-down that New Yorker piece is, eh? Good find.— alf laylah wa laylah (talk) 01:15, 1 April 2014 (UTC)

I disagree. Though I've never heard or WT before now, it does appear to have the bona fides for being a RS. The staff is composed of experienced journalists. However, it does trouble me that none of the articles I looked at used any sort of byline. Perhaps that might related to the mobile browser I'm using.Two kinds of pork (talk) 02:00, 1 April 2014 (UTC)

You've never heard of it before now but your first impression after glancing on it on your phone is that it appears to "have the bona fides for being a RS" even though we have an article in the New Yorker explaining that even though it appears to have to bona fides, it actually does not? And while the staff may or not be composed of experienced journalists, it's composed of people "who still have their day job" according to the publisher. The publisher admits that they have to keep their day jobs to write for the website. And they don't sign their pieces. All in all, the evidence is strong that this is not reliable for anything whatsoever. Although I will grant that they seem to have a sense of humor, given that they list Roy Cohn as their legal counsel.— alf laylah wa laylah (talk) 13:52, 1 April 2014 (UTC)

Perhaps you didn't see the composition of the editorial board? Bill Gertz is about a heavy hitter as they come. While I'm not surprised the New Yorker would try and find a problem with an organization whose membership all have close ties to the Washington Times, the dated article complains that the WT isn't really a newspaper (well,the distinction 10 years ago might have been important) but that they weren't even UK based. I'm not sure about where the last part came from, or where he was going with it, but I'm assuming he was making some sort of point. More of a smug shove than a takedown. In fact the only valid complaint I see is the one I mentioned; the lack of a byline.Two kinds of pork (talk) 15:16, 1 April 2014 (UTC)

Ah, sigh. The main point of the NY-er article is that they report stories based on a network of anonymous informants and they're like WorldNetDaily and a number of their stories, reported as fact, don't appear in legit newspapers. Like the one at hand. The Ny-er article doesn't seem so dated when you consider that it's about a story in 2003 that ended up not being reported by legit newspapers, and here we are in 2014 with a story about how the Syrian government controls 80% of Aleppo, also not being reported in legit newspapers. One assumes that if the reporting were reliable Gertz would be printing it in the Washington Times rather than on a website whose lawyer is Roy Cohn.— alf laylah wa laylah (talk) 15:26, 1 April 2014 (UTC)

Assumptions.... In any case the proposed edit wasn't a good one not because of the source, because it didn't reflect what the source said; Diplomats made this claim. The WT wasn't making this case.Two kinds of pork (talk) 16:02, 1 April 2014 (UTC)

They are not unreliable because they are right-wing, they are unreliable because they report things that are not true. A good standard to follow in articles about current events that are widely reported is to use sources that are widely known and respected, such as the New York Times.

Also, the source does not say 80% of Aleppo is occupied, but that "it is believed." IOW it is someone's opinion, not a fact.

TFD (talk) 16:46, 1 April 2014 (UTC)

Wether it is someone's opinion or fact is beside the point, we write what is in the sources. In ongoing war-related articles we write exactly what is claimed in the sources and we attribute those claims to the person that is claiming it per the source. This was done with the edit in the Battle of Aleppo article. The New Yorker's assesment of the World Tribune from 11 years ago by all intents and purposes can be considered out-dated. There is no proof provided that the World Tribune is still an experiment news website as it was more than a decade ago. EkoGraf (talk) 09:32, 2 April 2014 (UTC)

Wasn't the World Tribune website more recently a nest of Birther conspiracy theory nonsense? This isn't a generally reliable source. (It still seems to be promoting its "Cosmic Tribune" website.) As for this edit, we don't "write exactly what is claimed in the sources", we write what is found in reliable sources, if it deserves due weight. Rumor and speculation from a generally unreliable source shouldn't be given weight.__ E L A Q U E A T E 10:49, 2 April 2014 (UTC)

You know very well that I ment what is found in reliable source, because that is the point of this discusson. And I am still not seeing any factual proof provided that the World Tribune is today considered an unreliable source by other reliable media, except the personal opinions of some editors based on an article from over a decade ago and their personal observations. EkoGraf (talk) 11:11, 2 April 2014 (UTC)

The conspiracy theory stuff and Cosmic Tribune stuff aren't from ten years ago. The fact that you don't see proof that it's unreliable is also not proof that anyone actually considers it reliable. The fact that no other reliable source vouches for or mentions this source is not somehow proof it is credible. We aren't supposed to give undue weight to fringe viewpoints. Looking at their archives, if we relied on the World Tribune, we would have added many unsourced reports that Bin Laden died multiple times over the years, that Obama's birth certificate was "100% forged" and other patent nonsense.__ E L A Q U E A T E 11:59, 2 April 2014 (UTC)

The main point here is its fringe viewpoints in your personal POV, not in any provided opinion of established experts who have spoken out about World Tribune. But back to the matter at hand, like Two kinds of pork said, its not WT who made the claim about Aleppo, its the diplomats. Unless you think western diplomats are now making fringe claims. EkoGraf (talk) 13:55, 2 April 2014 (UTC)

But you are missing the main point. We do not know if diplomats have made any claims about Aleppo, because we have no reliable sources that they have. TFD (talk) 14:46, 2 April 2014 (UTC)

ALL we have is an established reliable source that claims the World Tribune website is not a reliable source. They've also put put articles based on the premise that outlandish conspiracy theories deserved serious consideration. This works against taking them as reliable. You haven't provided anything to suggest they're trusted by anyone, anywhere. (Reporting that the people who claim Obama's birth certificate is a forgery are "forensic experts" is a fringe view; that's not my POV.) Adding unattributed speculation from an anonymous source not known for reliability is not appropriate here. If you find anyone who vouches for this website we could review that.__ E L A Q U E A T E 15:09, 2 April 2014 (UTC)

To put it another way, the thing that's missing here is the reputation for fact-checking and accuracy. If the World Tribune website doesn't have this, then it's not likely to be considered a reliable source. "No reputation at all" is not a substitute.__ E L A Q U E A T E 15:24, 2 April 2014 (UTC)

• Reliable sources are those with a reputation for fact-checking and accuracy. This website has no such reputation and is therefore not a reliable source. Moreover, it is "a Web site produced, more or less as a hobby" and it has no dedicated staff (). Its operating principle has been described thus: "a story may not be based on knowable facts, but it nevertheless may occasionally turn out to be right", and its content often "resembles a Bat Boy update in the Weekly World News (). Anyone seriously arguing that this is a reliable source for a serious reference work needs to stop and rethink their understanding of our policies. MastCell  19:24, 2 April 2014 (UTC)

I am once again pointing out that you are basing your claims about the World Tribune on a more than a decade old article. So once again my question is - Do you, or do you not have a more recent reliable source saying WT is unreliable? EkoGraf (talk) 07:56, 3 April 2014 (UTC)

one does not go from a reputation for crap to a reputation for fact checking and accuracy without doing stuff that gains you a reputation for fact checking and accuracy. you keep providing zero evidence that their reputation has changed. That is NOT a reputation for fact checking and accuracy. thats evidence that their reputation has not changed. -- TRPoD aka The Red Pen of Doom 10:12, 3 April 2014 (UTC)

And EkoGraf is clearly ignoring the other stated objections that aren't based on the New Yorker article in a case of WP:IDIDNTHEARTHAT. This source has neither a present day or historical reputation for fact checking and accuracy, and present day indications (conspiracy theory-promoting and reliance on anonymous crowd-sourced news) that it shouldn't be considered generally reliable.__ E L A Q U E A T E 10:54, 3 April 2014 (UTC)

About.com poll in comfort food article

Is this About.com page on comfort food reliable for the list of American and Canadian comfort foods in this section of the comfort food Misplaced Pages article? The author of that About.com page is indicated to be a "food service industry professional" (which could mean that she could be anything from a head chef at a four-star restaurant to a burger flipper at McDonald's), but the list of comfort foods is indicated to be derived from a poll that isn't specified or linked to. Nightscream (talk) 01:11, 1 April 2014 (UTC)

No. I like some About.com stuff but this poll is inevitably far too limited for us to use. Dougweller (talk) 09:21, 1 April 2014 (UTC)

Tend to disagree. Most of About.com content is not reliable, or just a random reposting of bot-generated material. This is content written and edited by their professional staff, and Peggy Trowbridge Filippone probably DOES meet, as lifestyle and cooking editor, the WP:N. Would probably be more comfortable, since she is interpreting reader feedback to determine what is a comfort food, if it were treated not as a statement of fact, but as WP:RS of OPINION, aka, sourced as opinion.--Anonymous209.6 (talk) 16:23, 1 April 2014 (UTC)

I understand that she simply looked at the replies she got on the forum (281 replies but not all of them about the writer's favorite food and not 281 different people), and added them up to get a result. So not opinion, but a tiny poll on a website that doesn't have a huge audience used to list 25 comfort foods. The numbers involved to get that 25 are really quite tiny. I really don't think we can use that. Even if it were her opinion I'd question whether it would be significant enough for the article. And of course it's 10 years old - food fashions change. Dougweller (talk) 20:58, 1 April 2014 (UTC)

a reputation for understanding food is not a reputation for understanding and conducting a valid poll. -- TRPoD aka The Red Pen of Doom 10:14, 3 April 2014 (UTC)

Absolutely understand your points on whether this is a "scientific" poll, and would be valid generally in other contexts, perhaps would be best not to refer to the article AS a poll, BUT.... also have to consider "what would an actual scientific poll look like" in this context, and whether the non-normalization or insufficient statistical sampling really matters - it is really a general survey or something that is a matter of taste or personal opinion. Were this presented as a man-on-the-street interview through which people across the country were asked, and a skilled WP:RS columnist fashioned an article on "comfort food", that would be acceptable. Again, you have to consider context.--Anonymous209.6 (talk) 15:34, 4 April 2014 (UTC)

Deepwater Horizon Oil Spill

There are some sources used in the Deepwater Horizon Oil Spill that I'm not sure are up standards for context. I'd like feedback from the larger community.

• In the lead, we have the statement: "Due to the months-long spill, along with adverse effects from the response and cleanup activities, extensive damage to marine and wildlife habitats, fishing and tourism industries, and human health problems have continued through 2014."

I've bolded the part of that statement I have concerns with. The source for that is here: . Since we have claims of ongoing human health issues, shouldn't this meet MEDRS standards? Is this source good enough? And shouldn't we have a source more recent if the statement applies to 2014?

• The next sentence says: "In October 2013, Al Jazeera reported that the gulf ecosystem was "in crisis", citing a decline in seafood catches, as well as deformities and lesions found in fish." The source is here: . Fishermen and seafood industry people are interviewed, but are these anecdotal reports enough to establish facts of marine biology and fishery science? Shouldn't SCIRS apply here? Geogene (talk) 15:42, 1 April 2014 (UTC)

I removed the copy and human health problems have continued through 2014. from the article. Gandydancer (talk)

I guess I'd be concerned that the article calls propylene glycol "a known animal carcinogen". The FDA has designated propylene glycol as "Generally Regarded as Safe" (GRAS), and states that no toxicity is observed when it comprises up to 5% of the diet by weight. Its not only widely used as a solublizing agent in drugs, its a permitted food additive. And his/her statement that propylene glycol bioaccumulates in the food chain is just plain incorrect. Not only is there no data supporting this, but as a small, hydrophilic compound it has exactly the opposite physical properties from those that are known to lead to bioaccumulation. Given these misstatements of fact, it is very unlikely I would trust the reporter's comments on any other chemical toxicity issue. Formerly 98 (talk) 21:04, 1 April 2014 (UTC)

MEDRS is a guideline not a policy and it is intended to ensure that information about health is properly sourced. But I do not think that the guideline is broad enough to cover this article. We are allowed to say for example that people were injured in an earthquake without waiting for a meta-analysis of peer-reviewed studies of the health impact, which would never come. Of course even the most reliable sources may contain errors which should not be included. Unless there are sources that say human health problems stopped at some point, then there is no reason to exclude that information. TFD (talk) 06:00, 2 April 2014 (UTC)

I didn't notice the propylene glycol issue in the article (good catch), I was more concerned about the jump from correlation --> causation in the source. But Formerly 98 makes a good point below that it could simply be sourced to local residents as an opinion. There is a longitudinal health study coming down the pipeline that hopefully will illuminate these issues at some point in the future. I also found the explanation of MEDRS helpful. Geogene (talk) 15:28, 2 April 2014 (UTC)

I think its a complicated issue. I have little difficulty believing that residents are still experiencing health issues, but I don't think the article is a reliable source for any of the details such as which health problems are plausibly related to the exposure. Given that it quotes individuals who state that their health issues are exposure-related, I think it can certainly be used as a source for a statement that "Residents state that they are still experiencing health problems that first arose in the weeks following the spill", or something along those lines. Anyway, don't mean to be overbearing, that's just my thought. Its a pity that its so difficult to find good sources for some things. Formerly 98 (talk) 07:32, 2 April 2014 (UTC)

I have been working on the spill article for a long time and I appreciate the feedback from both Formerly 98 and TFD. Two new 2014 peer reviewed studies are out and I have replaced the Al Jezeera copy with that information. Hopefully this will settle the problem. Gandydancer (talk) 14:35, 2 April 2014 (UTC)

It does. Thanks Gandydancer, Formerly 98, and TFD. Geogene (talk) 15:28, 2 April 2014 (UTC)

Formerly 98 - could you please clarify who claimed that polypropylene glycol was bio-accumulating, and where you found this? I'm looking at what we have for bioaccumulation:

From the Nation investigation:

Then there’s Corexit, two types of which were used in the Gulf: Corexit 9527A and 9500. The first type contains 2-BTE (2-butoxyethanol), a toxic solvent that can injure red blood cells (hemolysis), the kidneys and the liver. The CDC has reported chronic and acute health hazards associated with it. Corexit 9500 contains propylene glycol, which can be toxic to people and is a known animal carcinogen. Both can bioaccumulate up the food chain. Toxipedia Consulting Services, a moderated wiki run by the Institute of Neurotoxicology and Neurological Disorders, has found “reports among Gulf residents and cleanup workers of breathing problems, coughing, headaches, memory loss, fatigue, rashes, and gastrointestinal problems match the symptoms of blood toxicity, neurotoxicity, adverse effects on the nervous and respiratory system, and skin irritation associated with exposure to the chemicals found in Corexit.”

NOAA admits the dispersant can bio-accumulate.

BIOACCUMULATION POTENTIAL from Corexit safety sheet

Component substances have a potential to bioconcentrate.

From Plos One:

Our experiments indicate zooplankton are especially vulnerable to acute crude oil exposure, showing increased mortality and sublethal alterations of physiological activities (e.g., reduced egg production and delayed hatching). We also found that the chemical dispersant Corexit 9500A was highly toxic to coastal mesozooplankton communities, more toxic than oil alone. Bioaccumulation of certain polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons (PAHs) was observed in natural mesozooplankton communities. petrarchan47tc 23:48, 4 April 2014 (UTC)

Polypropylene glycol is not propylene glycol. And nobody said that nothing in Corexit bioaccumulates, nor did anyone claim that it is nontoxic. Please step away from your WP:ACTIVISM long enough to understand what was said. Geogene (talk) 00:09, 5 April 2014 (UTC)

I addressed my question to someone else, and would like to avoid another confrontation with you where I am called names, as you did yesterday telling me to get a blog. Adding to the encyclopedia facts that are well-sourced is now the equivalent of "activism" to WP:SPAs. Audacity abounds.petrarchan47tc 00:18, 5 April 2014 (UTC)

That was WP:SOAPBOXING, not a sincere question. Add by edit: this board is not the place for it. A good place would be a personal blog. Geogene (talk) 00:39, 5 April 2014 (UTC)

This board is for discussing content, and my spell-check changing propylene (which clearly I was referring to) to Polypropylene should not have earned me a tongue-lashing. If one is interested in creating an informative article, they could take these great links and set about to add what is usable yet missing (with gratitude for my help not whatever the hell you're dishing out). petrarchan47tc 00:59, 5 April 2014 (UTC)

I'll take my leave and I hope that your question above is answered. Geogene (talk) 01:06, 5 April 2014 (UTC)

First let me say I apologize for misreading the article. It does say "polypropylene glycol" and not "propylene glycol".

But my statement essentially still stands. While the reporter states that PPG is carcinogenic, there are no studies that establish this according to EFSA and PAN.

Organic compounds that bioaccumulate do so because they are extremely water insoluble (and thus do not migrate out of fat tissues) and because they are resistant to metabolism. Chemically, these properties tend to be associated with chemicals whose structures contain a lot of halogen atoms and few or no oxygen or nitrogen atoms. Every 4th atom in polypropylene glycol is an oxygen atom. It is no more likely to bioaccumulate than a rock is to float. I listened to the entire video cited above, and nowhere in it does the EPA "admit" that PPG bioaccumulates. Formerly 98 (talk) 08:37, 7 April 2014 (UTC)

Amazon.com, Target.com and Itunes sales pages as reference for discography

From time to time I use advanced searches to try to locate spam links. Today I looked for Amazon.com and came across a page I would like some advice on before taking further action. Here is the basic information:
1.Source.62 separate Amazon.Com product pages (and 1 Itunes + 1 Target sales page). Here is one example (they are all the same, different songs): http://www.amazon.com/What-Makes-Beautiful-Glee-Version/dp/B007YO6ZUO
2.Article.List_of_songs_in_Glee_(season_3)
3.Content.Here is one example:
! scope="row" | "Bamboleo" / "Hero" | Simon Diaz / Enrique Iglesias || Sam Evans and New Directions males || 12. "The Spanish Teacher" || style="background:#9EFF9E;color:black;vertical-align:middle;text-align:center;" class="table-yes"|Yes || The Complete Season Three || <!!ref!!cite!!web|url=http://www.amazon.com/Bamboleo-Hero-Glee-Cast-Version/dp/B0072T976K/ref=sr_1_1?s=music&ie=UTF8&qid=1327797395&sr=1-1%7Ctitle=Bamboleo / Hero (Glee Cast Version)|publisher=amazon.com|accessdate=January 28, 2012

Summary: This is a discography for the Third Season of the TV show Glee (Disclosure: I have never seen the TV Show). The page is entirely sourced by sales pages fro various retailers for individual MP3 download pages. The use of the pages is not necessary: Although the third season page is almost entirely sourced based on these sales pages, articles for seasons 1 and 2 are not. Further, a small number of the links for the season 3 article are not to sales pages. I performed a brief Google search and was able to find a number of alternative sources; although most of what I found had some sort of COI problem, almost none of them were selling something directly on the page containing the information that would need to be referenced. For example, see:

• http://www.gleethemusic.com/us/episode/purple-piano-project
• http://www.allmusic.com/artist/glee-mn0001790434
• http://www.discogs.com/artist/1667953-Glee-Cast
• http://www.billboard.com/artist/302914/glee

The Problem: This is the first time I have approached the Noticeboard for advice. Typically in this situation, I would change the references an note the changes on the Talk page. In this case, I checked the talk page before making changes, in order to determine what happened to allow the article to get into its current state. You can view the Talk page here. Amazon and Itunes show up in various discussions with a number of different users going back to 2012. All of the discussions seem to take it for granted that Amazon and Itunes are non-controversial, reliable sources. I am concerned that if I simply remove these links my edit will simply be reversed as soon as I stop watching the page. I do not want to watch a page; I find it leads to emotional investment/stress, prevents me from working on more constructive things, and is not a long-term solution any way.

Proposed Solution: I will be frank. While there may be some scenarios in which linking to retail sales pages is considered a legitimate reference for this encyclopedia, I have never seen a legitimate use of such a link in an actual article. 99% of the Amazon links I have seen is someone too lazy to use Template:Cite_book. The other 1% are on these Glee pages that I am consulting with you about now. IMO, they should be removed immediately and replaced with citations from the sources I listed above. These sources are widely known and respected for listing and tracking music production, or it is a list produced by the distributor of the music.

Anyway, that is the problem and my proposed solution. This seems to be the place to go to get consensus from people not involved with any specific page. I look forward to your feedback and will respect whatever the consensus decision here happens to be. Thanks. Jay Dubya (talk) 20:50, 1 April 2014 (UTC)

I think major retailors like Amazon.com can be considered reliable for basic information such as what is being used on that Glee list page. As a major company selling the product, they can generally be expected to have the basic information about the product correct. I also don't think the fact that they are selling the products is enough of a concern that they should never be used if another source isn't available. However, if reliable sources are available that aren't selling the product, then I think using them would be preferable. Discogs.com is not a reliable source per Misplaced Pages:Reliable_sources/Noticeboard/Archive_48#Discogs, but as far as I know allmusic.com and billboard.com are reliable sources (I don't know about gleethemusic.com). So I would say go ahead and change the sources to use allmusic.com or billboard.com if the same information being cited is available there. Calathan (talk) 22:05, 1 April 2014 (UTC)

(ec) I've run into exactly this problem. While I think that amazon and itunes are sufficiently reliable for uncontroversial information such as track listings, I think their use for this purpose is problematic as we're linking to a site that sells the item in question (see WP:ELNO #5). Where there is a physical artifact, I prefer citing the artifact for track listing just as I would cite a book. I don't have a good solution for material that this download-only and is only found on pay sites. I could argue that, as the track listing information is unlikely to be challenged, a citation isn't required (until a challenge occurs, at least). I think a stronger argument is that if the track listing info is only available on the site selling the music, there's no particular reason we need to include the track listing info in the article. Hope that helps. Lesser Cartographies (talk) 22:07, 1 April 2014 (UTC)

In some cases though when it comes to things released in North America the only things that have these reliable release dates are sources like amazon or the primary source for the company selling the product, this is not just confined to things sold in the United States. - Knowledgekid87 (talk) 00:02, 2 April 2014 (UTC)

See musicbrainz for why Amazon's dates aren't particularly reliable. Lesser Cartographies (talk) 05:01, 2 April 2014 (UTC)

That link doesn't say anything that Amazon's dates are unreliable. It just warns that caution should be used when more than one date is given. 24.149.117.220 (talk) 10:24, 2 April 2014 (UTC)

Jay when it comes to removing amazon.com as a reliable source then you are talking about a huge deal, there are a lot of article on Misplaced Pages that use amazon as a source for release dates, and I feel it would require a broad consensus from the community. There have been discussions in the past regarding amazon and consensus has been so far that it is okay. - Knowledgekid87 (talk) 00:07, 2 April 2014 (UTC)

Previous discussions about using Amazon.com as a reference

• Misplaced Pages:Reliable sources/Noticeboard/Archive 56#Amazon.com for digital music release info
• Misplaced Pages:Reliable sources/Noticeboard/Archive 21#Is_Amazon.com a reliable_source?
• Misplaced Pages:Reliable sources/Noticeboard/Archive 43#Amazon.com as an RS for unreleased material
• Misplaced Pages:Reliable sources/Noticeboard/Archive 114#Amazon.com
• Misplaced Pages:Reliable sources/Noticeboard/Archive 7#Amazon.com as a RS for merchandise?
• Misplaced Pages:Reliable sources/Noticeboard/Archive 115#Amazon.com for publication/release information

The general consensus of all of these past discussions have been that Amazon.com is a reliable source to prove that certain items exists and for release/publication dates after the fact. However, upcoming dates are generally viewed as a crystal ball. But there is absolutely no consensus that the links to Amazon.com are "spam" when used as references as the OP did here, here, and here. Unilaterally removing these reference without a consensus is disruptive. 24.149.117.220 (talk) 10:24, 2 April 2014 (UTC)

I appreciate everyone's feedback so far; with the exception of the "background check" ran on my contributions above, which I do not appreciate. I came here to *avoid* finger pointing and ad hominem. I fail to see how removing references and proposing more reputable replacements without touching content is more disruptive than, for example, trying to shame other editors who have asked for advice in good faith.

I would like to clarify my prior summary. This is a situation in which Amazon, Itunes and Target.com are to be used as factual sources to determine whether music was used in a television show. The article is not about a specific soundtrack album. The retail references establish that such music exists on the show through a sales page for an MP3 that lists the name of the song and the name of the show. In this instance Amazon references are not the only source of information, I have listed four other possible un-used sources that are not sales pages (in the Summary section in my original post) that could easily be used instead (there are other options for the diffs provided above, also). My objection is not that Amazon and Itunes are "commercial" sites as such. In fact, one of my proposed sources is from the record company that releases the soundtracks for the show. I do not think of reliability as a black and white proposition; I think of it as a continuum of various shades of gray. IMO, music sales analysts, journalists and the record company that produced the music are all more reliable than a retail outlet who sells music. In a situation where no other sources exist and retail outlets are the only option, I am not sure what the correct course of action would be. Fortunately, that is not the issue in this case.

I am not claiming that Amazon can never be used as a reliable source, or that any reference with Amazon.com included should be deleted on an automated basis.

I have reviewed the archives provided for reference in the links above above and what they seem to indicate is that this is has remained a controversial topic. That said, when the archives do show agreement, they seem to indicate that Amazon is to be used with some explicit provisos that I do not believe apply in this case.

For example Archive_21 is mostly a flame war, but when it calms down three users state: "Amazon cites should be replaced by non-commercial reliable sources where possible"; "For basic facts, it can be seen as a source of last resort", "My gut says: 'don't cite'". Archive_7 asks if Amazon is a reliable source for the existence of merchandise which is not what we are talking about here - we are looking for whether Amazon is a reliable source for songs used in a television show, not whether a soundtrack album exists. Archive_115 only has two editors respond, not enough to establish a consensus, and both of whom disagree: "Until something is released, it falls into the "crystal ball" category" and "perhaps notable enough that we could use them with an 'According to Amazon.com'".

Misplaced Pages:Reliable_sources/Noticeboard/Archive_56#Amazon.com_for_digital_music_release_info appears to be directly related to this issue; but it isn't. This archive deals strictly with the issue of release dates as provided by retailers. In this context, the consensus is not to use Amazon: "None of the sites are reliable for release dates." "Amazon often list items (such as books) that they say will be published then are not". Archive_114 again does not have enough responses to merit a consensus claim. Only two editors responded, and both of them speak to very different issues. Once again the notion that Amazon is only a reference-of-last-resort makes an appearance: "Much to my reluctance I'd say that if you can't find a better source it should remain" while also putting a number of other restrictions on use, as part of already published policies: "You may certainly cite an advertisement as a reliable source, under the same sorts of circumstances that you would cite a business's own website, press release, or other marketing materials. All advertisements and other marketing materials are considered self-published."

To summarize, I respect all views listed here, however I have found no indication of a broad consensus at least as evidenced by the links provided above. All evidence so far seems to indicate either controversy or that retail sites should only be used in situations where no other references are available. I look forward to further comment and appreciate any further citations to prior discussions that might fit the circumstances of this discussion more closely. Jay Dubya (talk) 13:27, 2 April 2014 (UTC)

there is nothing that can be reliably sourced from a commercial sales site like amazon that cannot be sourced from a more reliable source such as the primary source item itself. -- TRPoD aka The Red Pen of Doom 04:25, 3 April 2014 (UTC)

I've never seen a book, DVD, Blu-ray, or an album give its own release date anywhere on the jacket cover or inside. Copyright dates—which is typically only a year—are not a substitute for publication/release dates. 24.149.117.220 (talk) 10:22, 3 April 2014 (UTC)

if there is no reliable source for a particular claim then we dont use not reliable sources just so that we can make a particular claim. we only include what we can appropriately source. -- TRPoD aka The Red Pen of Doom 12:03, 3 April 2014 (UTC)

The issue is that you removed citations to reliable sources by calling them "spamlinks" simply because they were to a retail website. While non-retail sources are generally preferred, that does not mean that retail websites are unacceptable as sources. If the citation is already there, it should not be removed like you did here, here, and here. You did not replace a single one of those citations. There has been no dispute that the retail websites lacks accuracy and there has been no consensus that they are spam when used to cite a release/publication date. And finally, removing citations to reliable sources without replacing them IS disruptive regardless of what the source is. 24.149.117.220 (talk) 10:22, 3 April 2014 (UTC)

I don't see a consensus that removing these links is disruptive. You think it is, I don't, so let's talk about it. As best I've been able to tell, the record labels aren't putting out press releases containing release dates. I've not been able to find that information in music publisher databases or at the record companies. The information isn't recorded in worldcat or Library of Congress. As best I can tell, this information doesn't matter to anyone outside of the retailers. Would you give me a rationale as to why it's important that we have this information, and why that importance outweighs the specific guidance at WP:ELNO? Why isn't the copyright year sufficient? Thanks. Lesser Cartographies (talk) 10:43, 3 April 2014 (UTC)

Misplaced Pages:RS#Questionable_sources "Questionable sources ... include websites and publications ... that are promotional in nature,.. The proper uses of a questionable source are very limited." You can hardly get more promotional than a commercial site dedicated to selling products. -- TRPoD aka The Red Pen of Doom 12:00, 3 April 2014 (UTC)

I agree it's better to simply omit the data than to link to online stores – or, if you're adamant about including the release date, leave it unreferenced. You could also try to reduce your precision. "April 2014" or "Spring 2014" may be easier to source than a specific date. If you still can't find any reliable sources, press releases, or even documentation at the official website, then maybe nobody cares? NinjaRobotPirate (talk) 03:24, 4 April 2014 (UTC)

Patheos blogs

Hello! MjolnirPants (talk · contribs) has added two Patheos blog articles (Exhibit A and Exhibit B) to the article God's Not Dead (film) in order to prove his point that the film is based off of an urban legend. Are Patheos blogs acceptable as reliable sources on Misplaced Pages? Furthermore, my assessment was that adding in a link to that urban legend in the article as a reference violated WP:OR and WP:SYNTH because this website does not even discuss the film. It seems to be used only to support the user's claim that the film is based off of an urban legend. The sentence that User:MjolnirPants is using these sources for reads as follows (diff):

Numerous sources have cited the film's similarities to a popular urban legend. The basic structure -that of a Christian student debating an atheist professor and winning in front of the class- has been the subject of at least two popular legends and a popular Chick tract".

I would appreciate any comments and feedback. I look forward to hearing from you soon. With regards, Anupam 04:52, 2 April 2014 (UTC)

I feel compelled to point out that it is not a claim about the origins of the film's plot in the above block quote taken from the article, but a claim that a comparison of the film's plot to a common urban legend has been frequently made. I agree that patheos blogs are not a reliable source for the inspiration behind the plot, but I contend that they are a reliable source for the claim that the comparison is frequently made, and by notable persons. MjolnirPants Tell me all about it. 16:31, 2 April 2014 (UTC)

I have to agree that Anupam's characterization of the sentence is inaccurate. I'm not all that happy about the theory that bloggers on Patheos are necessarily notable, and I don't know about "Numerous sources". But I don't see the reliability problem here. Mangoe (talk) 17:28, 2 April 2014 (UTC)

menaopportunities.info

I'd like more input on the use of the website menaopportunities.info as a source. This page has been used to support the inclusion of two people on the page List of Lebanese by net worth ; what makes it especially problematic is the fact that one of the main contributors to the menaopportunities.info website is the person who has repeatedly used it as a source in the Misplaced Pages article, and there is a very clear conflict of interest in that the editor is repeatedly adding the name of a relative against consensus. Even discounting the COI issue, the website does not appear to meet WP:RS at all, to me, but I would welcome other opinions and insights on this. --bonadea contributions talk 10:39, 2 April 2014 (UTC)

no evidence of a reputation for fact checking and accuracy. -- TRPoD aka The Red Pen of Doom 04:29, 3 April 2014 (UTC)

Daily Mail

I'd like feedback on any prior debate regarding dismissal or not of the UK's Daily Mail newspaper into the bin of tabloid journalism - Can this be considered a reliable source? Some of my fellow editors and I are in disagreement with others on the pages for Cara Delevingne and for Michelle Rodriguez, where some have noted information now bubbling out from a variety of sources about the nature of their relationship. The UK's Telegraph has been cited as reliable, whilst the Daily Mail has not. To me, clearly, the "Red top" UK tabloids are not reliable. But what of the DM, in a full-blown article (not just their celebrity gossip columns)? This is a fluid situation. Every day, it seems, more ink is spilled on this story, and because of the notoriety of the two women involved, more and more media sources are picking it up. Thank you. Jax MN (talk) 15:03, 2 April 2014 (UTC)

I suggest that you look through the archives for the extensive discussions that have already taken place regarding the Daily Mail. Its reliability has certainly been disputed by many, and there is a widespread view that it should not be used as the sole source regarding controversial matters. Frankly though, I suspect that this discussion might be better directed to WP:BLPN - even if reliable sources assert that individuals are in a relationship, it is often questionable whether such details belong in an article. Few people are notable for such relationships, and we have an obligation to respect their privacy. AndyTheGrump (talk) 15:18, 2 April 2014 (UTC)

For general use other than really contentious claims about living persons, where its reliability has been questioned especially for "lurid details" about people, it meets WP:RS. It is a strong source for UK news in general, especially politics and sports. It is, in truth, more accurate than the "Red Tops." One should note that the bar on "tabloid journalism" refers to a "style" and not the format of the publication, and specifically is aimed at "sensational supermarket publications" more than at major newspapers. Collect (talk) 15:46, 2 April 2014 (UTC)

Thank you. As the Americans say, I stepped in that one. Moments after my last post I did find that extensive discussion in the archive, and was reading it when you responded. Your own comments there were helpful. I was interested to read that some of the ire that some editors have about the "DM" may be due more to its nationalist or centrist or conservative perspective, where these same persons give more left-leaning UK papers, like the Guardian or similarly sensationalizing (but reliable) papers a pass. Jax MN (talk) 16:23, 2 April 2014 (UTC)

Contrary to what Collect claims, the bar on 'tabloid journalism' very much includes major newspapers - in the UK, the Sun and Daily Mirror are archetypal tabloids - and regardless of Collect's personal opinion, there is no general consensus that the Daily Mail should be treated as a reliable source, as archived discussions make clear. And no, it isn't just about its political stance - it has a deserved reputation for concocting 'science' stories for example out of thin air. AndyTheGrump (talk) 16:30, 2 April 2014 (UTC)

The Daily Mail "a strong source for UK news in general" ? I don't think so, not for the purposes of writing an encyclopedia anyway, where I think it's more appropriate to treat it as a rather weak source to be avoided or replaced. There will usually be better sources available, and if there aren't, the content probably doesn't merit inclusion in an encyclopedia. Sean.hoyland - talk 18:35, 2 April 2014 (UTC)

The issue invariable is, "would we repeat a claim that appeared only in the Daily Mail?" I certainly wouldn't. And if we expect corroboration from some other source, then we can use that other source in the DM's place. Mangoe (talk) 17:31, 2 April 2014 (UTC)

The English tabloids meet rs. The issue though is whether something covered in one tabloid meets WP:WEIGHT, although the same thing applies to any news source. If only one source mentions something then chances are it lacks significance for inclusion, at least for articles about well known subjects. Columns in news sources are not reliable for facts, merely for the opinions expressed. The best approach is to use the best sources available, which in the U.K. would be the quality papers.

The Guardian is not "left-leaning", and no one has suggested that the reliability of English newspapers is a function of their editorial policy.

TFD (talk) 18:17, 2 April 2014 (UTC)

Reliable sources are those with a reputation for fact-checking and accuracy. I think it would be difficult for anyone to argue with a straight face that the Daily Mail has such a reputation. Its medical and scientific coverage is justly notorious for its sensationalism and inaccuracy. Its "straight news" is likewise untrustworthy, as exemplified by the Amanda Knox fiasco in which the Mail published a false story complete with fabricated "color", an entirely fictitious description of Knox's reaction to the "verdict", and faked quotes (, ). At the time, I thought we'd agreed on this noticeboard that it would extraordinarily foolish to treat such an outlet as a reliable source, but here we are again. I suppose if one is committed to the idea that celebrity gossip is encyclopedic material, then the Mail's celebrity gossip is no worse than that of various other tabloids, but... MastCell  18:45, 2 April 2014 (UTC)

I'm sorry, Four Deuces: To rebut this, I simply refer you to look at WP's own heavily-cited listing regarding the leftist POV of the Guardian.

While reliability is a separate assessment vis-a-vis one's acceptance of a paper's opinions, where it DOES come in to play is that some papers will give less weight or simply ignore points of view that disagree with the paper's political view. The most glaring example is whether one agrees or disagrees with the highly politicized concept of "Catastrophic Anthropogenic Global Warming", i.e: that mankind is causing dreadful harm to our climate. It is a fact that some left-leaning papers will no longer print a contrary view on this subject. The Los Angeles Times is the example that first comes to mind, and there may be UK papers that have also taken this stance. I think this makes them less reliable, and shows bias; I for one desire to read contrary opinions, and because "the Deniers" are a large group and not just a handful of nutters, I would suggest that the responsible thing to do for a paper is to at least address and summarize their views, majority or minority, and to allow dissenting opinion. PLEASE NOTE: This is not an attempt to troll the legions of partisans on both sides of this issue, merely an example among many of how newspapers manipulate public view based on their agenda. Jax MN (talk) 19:10, 2 April 2014 (UTC)

Your comments about climate change have no relevance to the reliability of the Daily Mail (the ostensible subject of this thread, remember?). They look more like standard-issue flamebait, and thus best ignored. Do you have anything substantive to say? MastCell  20:13, 2 April 2014 (UTC)

Actually, there is a relevance. A publication that flouts the overwhelming scientific views is essentially establishing that they are willing to throw out facts and fact checking to present the story and views they want to present; hence, they may be site that carries opinions, but for Misplaced Pages purposes as something that we would rely on to do our fact checking, the topic establishes that their credentials as a fact checker are not something they value and not something that we should either. -- TRPoD aka The Red Pen of Doom 13:46, 3 April 2014 (UTC)

In short -- any publication which does not exactly follow the TRUTH is now declared to be unusable? Sorry -- there is room enough for disagreements not to be treated in that manner, and Misplaced Pages, of all places, should be first to accept that if all sources which do not have the TRUTH are unusable, there is a slight chance that we shall toss out the baby with the bathwater. Cheers. Collect (talk) 13:50, 3 April 2014 (UTC)

The Press Complaints Commission publishes statistics on breaches of the UK-wide Editors' Code of Practice. From 2011-2013, the Daily Mail was the worst offender in the entire UK by far—it had more beaches of the code (47) than the next three newspapers combined (The Sun-19; The Daily Telegraph-17; Evening Standard-10) (). --Atethnekos (Discussion, Contributions) 19:21, 2 April 2014 (UTC)

Um -- The Guardian was sanctioned much more recently by the PCC (10-2103) -- the DM was sanctioned in 12-2011. Over the entire period, each had precisely one "adjudication upheld" result from the PCC which rather implies that (within an order of magnitude) they have similar rates of "adjudication upheld" results. Clearly your mileage varies. When using statistics, one well ought to count the cases which the PCC found problematic. One is not all that far from One. Collect (talk) 13:29, 3 April 2014 (UTC)

All complaints listed are those ruled by the PCC to be confirmed breaches of the Code. Whether a complaint is adjudicated as "Upheld", and whether it is adjudicated as "Sufficient remedial action", says absolutely nothing about the substance of the complaint. --Atethnekos (Discussion, Contributions) 18:48, 3 April 2014 (UTC)

Oh, no, NOT the Mail again. Please, OP, look through all the archives of this page then if you're still stuck, ask again. Itsmejudith (talk) 20:40, 2 April 2014 (UTC)

to jump on the bandwagon, there is clearly NO consensus that the Daily Mail is a generally reliable source, in fact if anything the general consensus is the opposite, that it for anything other than sports it is generally a questionable source at best and that where it may be basically reliable, there are going to be other MORE reliable sources that should be used instead .-- TRPoD aka The Red Pen of Doom 04:34, 3 April 2014 (UTC)

I agree very strongly with TRPoD -- it is difficult to imagine a situation in which it would be both possible and necessary to cite the Daily Mail. Nomoskedasticity (talk) 13:48, 3 April 2014 (UTC)

It could be used as a reference for its own claims about its editorial positions, as it is used here, Daily Mail. That doesn't make it necessarily relevant anywhere else or redeem its reputation for shoddy fact-checking and misleading failures to inform, of course.__ E L A Q U E A T E 14:10, 3 April 2014 (UTC)

If the Bolshevik Broadcasting Corporation is accepted I can't see what's wrong with accepting Daily Mail (gossip stories excluded). Lokalkosmopolit (talk) 19:11, 3 April 2014 (UTC)

For the umpteenth and final time, the objections to the Mail are NOT about its politics. They are not about the BBC, Guardian or Huffington Post either. (WP:OTHERSTUFF). It's about fact-checking and the gossip to news ratio. See that last time i spent time trying to determine how far it can be reasonably used in sports or cultural coverage. And yet here we are again as if none of the previous discussions ever happened. As far as the query goes here: who's dating whom is gossip and we don't cover it unless or until it becomes news. Itsmejudith (talk) 05:56, 4 April 2014 (UTC)

• Comment. This is an inappropriate query because this board is for asking about specific sourcing concerns. AFAICT there is no proposed edit nor a specific article from the Mail to support said edit. I suggest someone archive this and get back to work.Two kinds of pork (talk) 06:11, 4 April 2014 (UTC)
  • True, but these threads do serve some purpose: see rule #21. MastCell  17:43, 4 April 2014 (UTC)

Note: In the past some editors have called it the "Daily Fail" and "Daily Heil" and have suggested that its political orientation be "extreme right wing." The fact is that the paper - like almost every newspaper which prints "celebrity news" - has been sued in the past for defamation, but that most of the PCC complaints are such stuff as (specific example) DM asserting that a great deal of waste from the UK ends up in foreign landfills, but did not properly state that the practice is illegal. For most routine matters of fact, it is just as reliable as any newspaper -- they all are fallible, but when one removes "celebrity" stuff, they all tend to be in the same field. Cheers. Collect (talk) 18:10, 4 April 2014 (UTC)

In its decision for Jones v Daily Mail concerning waste ending up in foreign landfills, the PCC ruled that the Daily Mail's breach of the Accuracy clause occurred because the Daily Mail misreported a statistic from the . The decision cites nothing about the newspaper not properly stating that the practice is illegal. --Atethnekos (Discussion, Contributions) 20:51, 4 April 2014 (UTC)

... it was wrong to draw a connection between illegal exports of separated waste and the 12m tonnes of “green list” recycling – from both household and commercial/industrial sources – that was lawfully exported for reprocessing seems to be from the report. Then Furthermore, the Commission noted his position that the total annual amount of recycling collected from UK households is just 10.7 million tonnes. That is, they did not properly differentiate between illegal and legal export of waste, and overstated waste by over 10%. And I suggest that differentiation was what I stated the problem had been -- I did not also add the 10% error as well. Then the conclusion: However, the Commission noted that the “around 12 million tonnes” figure referred to all “green list” recyclables exported from the UK annually, and there were no specific figures available to support the newspaper’s assertion, as fact, that 12 million of tonnes of waste sorted for the purposes of recycling sorted by UK families is being dumped in foreign landfill. While the Commission accepted that the Environment Agency recognises illegal waste exports as a problem requiring investigation and prosecution, it had not provided figures relating to household waste alone or, indeed, showing the final destinations of exported recyclables (which both parties had acknowledged could not possibly be traced). Allof which looks very much like the DM was given the 12 figure from someone, and told it was the export total, and their chief sin was not making the legalistic dichotomy between legal and illegal exports. sorry -- that is not egregious IMHO. Collect (talk) 21:46, 4 April 2014 (UTC) .

It says exactly how the Daily Mail breached the Accuracy clause: Because its "assertion about the amount of domestic recycling ending up in landfill abroad was inaccurate and misleading" because "there were no specific figures available to support the newspaper’s assertion, as fact, that 12 million of tonnes of waste sorted for the purposes of recycling sorted by UK families is being dumped in foreign landfill" because "it had not provided figures relating to household waste alone or, indeed, showing the final destinations of exported recyclables (which both parties had acknowledged could not possibly be traced)." It was given the export total, but then reported the export total as if it only consisted of sorted household recyclables and as if all of the export total went to foreign landfills. The distinctions between "all exported recyclables" and "only household exported recyclables", and between "all exported recyclables" and "only exported recyclables that go to foreign landfills" are not examples of just a "legalistic dichotomy", but are distinctions in material reality. Whether or not, e.g., an aluminium can is processed at a recycling factory is a material distinction. --Atethnekos (Discussion, Contributions) 22:31, 4 April 2014 (UTC)

There has never been a consensus the daily mail should not be used in fact it was shot down the last time was brought up to be banned. Should be used for non controversial issues. Fact checking is an issue at the BBC & others we consider reliable. Its editor judgement pure & simple. Blethering Scot 18:58, 7 April 2014 (UTC)

Category:Reportedly haunted locations - do articles need a mention/source to have this category added?

Disclaimer - I brought up the addition of this category to articles at WP:FTN. It was only after the editor justified his addition of this category to articles that have no mention of reported hauntings stating that "I would also ask you to read WP:REF, which nowhere states that the reference needs to be in the same article that is being categorised - only that there need to be references in Misplaced Pages articles. Which there are. Basically he has added over 630 articles to this category "semi-automatically" on the basis they the articles are in a poorly sourced article List of reportedly haunted locations. He is being reverted by myself and at least one other editor but continues to reinsert, and for Great Wall of China the best source he can come up with is About.Com. I think that it is up to the editors of the articles in the list to decide whether a category belongs in an article they edit, not the list compiler, and that there must be well-sourced mention of the subject of the category in the article, eg if Giza Necropolis has a mention of hauntings that manages to stick, only then should it be in the category. This issue probably involves three areas or Wikipedai - fringe, reliable sources and I guess categorization, although I don't know of a venue where this particular type of problem should be discussed. Dougweller (talk) 11:17, 3 April 2014 (UTC)

1) According to WP:REF, of course articles need sources. However, WP:REF also makes it clear that those references have to be in Misplaced Pages, but not necessarily in the article. This is the reason why we are able to have category listings for redirects (for example), even though a redirect never has a reference within it.

2) In the case of the Reportedly haunted location articles, I have been adding categories based in references at List of reportedly haunted locations. As I have already explained, I intend to go back and add refereences to the individual articles, once I have completed the semi-automated task of categorising - it is far quicker to add the categories first in one batch, and then go through the category to see which articles require references, rather than to individually check and categorise the articles one at a time (at an apprioximate estimate, this should reduce the time taken to complete the task by over 50%, probably nearer 75%).

3) In all, of the articles I have added, six have been undone - only one of them more than once, and none of them more than three times (it seems Dougweller does not believe that WP:3RR is strict enough).

4) Saying that "the best article I can find" is from about.com is disingenuous - it was a random source I suggested when the other undoer was not happy with the listed source, and was simply the first one on a list of several thousand sources on google. This is, however, the first time I've ever heard anyone querying the use of an about.com reference as reliable for Misplaced Pages.

5) It is also disingenuous to refer to me as a "list compiler" when I have edited several of the articles comprehensively and have made it clear I intend to further edit many of the articles I am categorising. Grutness...wha? 11:40, 3 April 2014 (UTC)

In all but a very few cases, this would be both a trivial characteristic and a non-notable one, per the advice at Misplaced Pages:Overcategorization. It also doesn't matter if it's sourced or weakly sourced if it's not a strongly defining characteristic of how the place is described. It has to be a noted by reliable sources that the location has that folkloric reputation, not by all the goofy tabloids at List of reportedly haunted locations. An example of an exception would be Winchester Mystery House, where the reported nonsense is a defining aspect of how the is place described, and sources could be easily found even if they weren't directly in the article. This list, List of reportedly haunted locations, is not sufficient a source by itself as it stands to base category inclusion on, as it's based on non-reliable silliness and obviously dodgy sourcing. We should not base anything on it unless the list is purged of self-promotional sources and non-notable sources.__ E L A Q U E A T E 11:53, 3 April 2014 (UTC)

More simply: Beyond the ephemeral sourcing, "haunted" would roughly have to be the within the first fifty words someone would use to describe the Great Wall of China. It's not and shouldn't be categorized that way based on outlying and trivial sourcing, regardless of any inclusion in another Misplaced Pages article.__ E L A Q U E A T E 12:04, 3 April 2014 (UTC)

Most simply: You're admitting you're adding categorization based on unreliable sources like this. Please stop it.— Preceding unsigned comment added by Elaqueate (talk • contribs)

Ok, I will qualify my comment about the "best article you could find" - it was the best you could find when challenged by another editor. "List compiler" was just shorthand, it wasn't meant as any sort of job. AGF, ok? And you have said that you think About.com is a reliable source because it is used in so many articles - that's not the case, read through the archives or look above. Thanks to User:Elaqueate for the response. Dougweller (talk) 13:01, 3 April 2014 (UTC)

Ah, I misunderstodd something Grutness said, he did not compile the list in question. However, he is adding categories based on a very badly sourced article. If he wants to add these he needs to properly source the relevant part of the list, then add something to the article itself about it being reportedly haunted. That needs to include the sources. Dougweller (talk) 13:12, 3 April 2014 (UTC)

• comment In some cases, as a matter of accepted practice, we include things in categories even if they aren't WP:DEFINING - these sorts of categories I term "all-inclusive". For example, Category:Companions of the Liberation - and many other such award categories - if someone won the award, even if it's barely ever mentioned (like for Paris, for example), we add them to the category (or, ice the cat, but I don't usually do that - other eds love going after those cats, I couldn't really care less) - "year of birth" cats are another example - when RS talk about Paris Hilton, they almost never mention what year she was born in, but by convention everyone gets put in those cats. For other categories, my favorite example being Category:Restaurant staff, we do not include everyone who ever worked as a waiter. Now, if wikipedia someday created List of actors who worked as waiters (shudder), that would STILL not mean we could fill the category accordingly. As such, lists can sometimes be larger than categories, since some/most categories need to follow the DEFINING rule. Thus, if some paper somewhere said "X is purportedly haunted", but it's the friggin' Great Wall of China, it doesn't belong in the category - the only things that belong are things which one would describe as haunted in the lede, things which are KNOWN and FAMOUS for being haunted, things where most RS mention the haunted-ness of it - not just where haunted is one of many things people have said about the place. Thus, in short, lists need not replicate categories and vice versa, and sometimes cats will be shorter than lists because of DEFINING rule - if it's one of the cats where we apply such a rule.--Obi-Wan Kenobi (talk) 18:45, 3 April 2014 (UTC)

Can publications by analyst firms Forrester or Gartner be considered Reliable Sources

in some articles on Computer Science or Information Technology, such as Application Portfolio Management, Automated Document Factory, Big data, and Mobile enterprise application platform, there are references to articles written by analyst firms like Gartner or Forrester. These firms specialize in creating research for the consumption of subscribers. Access to the articles is generally not available to non-subscribers. However, for any subscriber, it is fairly easy to verify that the articles do, in fact, exist and have the content indicated.

Are citations made to articles written by these firms considered to be reliable sources?

Also, in some cases, through prior arrangement with the analyst firm, a company or individual may be allowed to make an article available for examination by the general public. The organization making the article available usually has to pay for that right (although universities and government institutions often do not have to pay). Clearly, firms that make the article available are hoping to benefit because their firm was reviewed favorably by the analyst firm in their report. Those articles usually appear on the web site of the vendor or company that licensed them. In these cases, 100% of the content of the original article, and the logo of the analyst firm, is retained. They are simply "reprints" in an electronic form.

Are these articles to be considered reliable sources? Nickmalik (talk) 11:57, 3 April 2014 (UTC)

Yes. People regularly cite Gartner or Forrester reports so no reason we shouldn't.--Obi-Wan Kenobi (talk) 18:53, 3 April 2014 (UTC)

Restricted or paid-only access to sources says nothing about the reliability of a source. ElKevbo (talk) 21:03, 3 April 2014 (UTC)

Verifiability and Popular Culture: Korean TV Dramas: Last time?

Hmmm, this archiving thing is getting annoying. This continues (and hopefully concludes) part one and part two. I'm going to quote the latter some; essentially, I was addressing two topics, one is clearly more or less finished , the other isn't.

Newcomers I have made a concerted argument against the verifiability policy as presently applied, and it's been answered by silence. This may be because this is an inappropriate venue for such arguments; but nobody's pointed me towards a more appropriate one. Is it simply unacceptable for newcomers to be told reasons for Misplaced Pages's policies at all?

I participated for a decade in a Usenet newsgroup dedicated to Usenet policies that lots of people had issues with, and already within a year I'd spearheaded this, meant to provide newcomers a one-stop shop for our side. Nor was I exceptional there, at that time. I'm unimpressed by what I'm seeing as a newbie here; I'm getting some pointers, especially but not only from WhispertoMe (apologies if there's a spelling mistake - I don't know how to get to the archived discussion), but only to Misplaced Pages policies and methods, not to Misplaced Pages explanations, let alone places to argue.

The most I've been able to come up with as a result of this discussion is that Misplaced Pages verifiability (at least) is a set of rules for a game, and you win the game by writing Misplaced Pages-verifiable articles. When I started posting to news.groups I was already in my late 20s, and the reward for playing that game was the creation of newsgroups. This game has far more complex rules, information about which is far harder to find, for less of a prize, and I'm a lot older now. I learned from my news.groups experience not to take oaths, but if the response to this post is as I expect, I doubt I'll be throwing much effort into Misplaced Pages in the future.

Third, if you make a user account, then people can follow what you're doing on Misplaced Pages. Just now, for example, I clicked on your IP address link to see if I can find the specific argument you're having (since you didn't link to it) and couldn't find anything since your IP must have changed since your argument. --GRuban (talk) 18:28, 24 March 2014 (UTC)

3) I've always put off becoming a registered Wikipedian because I didn't want to take the time to read the rules, which I estimated would be about 40-200 hours. Now for the first time I've spent a significant amount of that time, and this is basically my last attempt to postpone my decision never to become a registered Wikipedian; I'm really unhappy with a fair amount of what I found in that reading.

As for links? You participated in that discussion ("my uncle Al" - so hey, is javabeans still our uncle Al?). Anyway, I found it: here. But the argument there is mostly pretty diffuse. Its core is something I didn't write in one sentence - The existing verifiability policy makes significant areas of interest excessively hard to document on Misplaced Pages, because it rules out whole classes of communication that are primary ways those areas are documented. - and something I did - It's also an engine of hostility between Misplaced Pages and communities. Which is what made me think of news.groups, whose policies were often accused of being such engines, and where a bunch of us spent a lot of time dealing with such accusations.

As witness the plagiarism.

3) Yes, are a lot of rules (and what's more, they keep changing, from discussions like this one, in fact!), but you're no less bound by them by editing from an IP than from a user account. There are no disadvantages of registration, only advantages. --GRuban (talk) 19:23, 27 March 2014 (UTC)

I figure - obviously counterfactually, but I don't care - that registration is more or less an agreement to support the policies. So I've previously put it off, and now don't want to. What I'm trying to do is find out whether anyone here, or elsewhere in Misplaced Pages, thinks the person who wrote State income tax#History or Half of Asia, for a Thousand Years is worth giving the kind of elementary attention to newbies that could change my mind on this. (Much of the length complained about in the second discussion's first post was requests for pointers, e.g. to *how I could find out* why DramaWiki is blacklisted. Most went unanswered; GRuban at least pointed me to some documents, though mostly ones I'd already read.)

And if the rules change from discussions like this one, I'm not seeing how. I haven't been told what's inadequate in my arguments (except that they're long); instead they get refuted by appeal to the very policies I'm arguing against. So I'm not saying that my arguments are good enough to change policies, but am saying that I don't see a mechanism here that gets policies changed.

Joe Bernstein joe@sfbooks.com

I continue to think verifiability policy is essentially insane, but it's quite clear by now that my arguments are not going to be addressed, and my requests for justifications for the policy are not going to be answered, except to the limited extent already provided by GRuban. But a couple of detail notes:

Rosenbaum would probably be fine specifically because he is a former film critic and author of several books, as per WP:SPS which I linked to above. If you want to nominate some of the KDrama articles for deletion for lack of notability, feel free to follow those link too. Except, of course, you'd need a user account. --GRuban (talk) 18:50, 28 March 2014 (UTC)

Presumably this relies on this sentence: "Self-published expert sources may be considered reliable when produced by an established expert on the subject matter, whose work in the relevant field has previously been published by reliable third-party publications." I note that the following sentence reads: "Exercise caution when using such sources: if the information in question is really worth reporting, someone else will probably have done so." So where GRuban sees Rosenbaum's critical work as still OK thanks to his established bona fides, I see the specious claim that his views, if worth "reporting", will be stated by someone else. Hence citing his actual blog, as opposed to third parties mentioning it, is "discouraged", as I wrote and GRuban apparently objects to. Evidently, and this is part of what I consider insane, critical ideas are in fact judged by the same standards as scientific ones.

2) In general, if it's a blog written by a reliable author (one who's written a reliable source before on the topic), then it's a reliable source, and if it's written by an unpublished amateur then it's not. I strongly doubt that Korean television dramas are only covered by amateurs, and never in professionally published books, newspapers, or magazines. They may only be covered by amateurs in English, and you may not be able to read the Korean, but that's no more an excuse than saying that we should allow you to write an article on high-energy physics based on some guy's blog because you can't read the math used in real high-energy physics texts.

Does "amateurs" refer to Dramabeans writers as unpaid (which is factually untrue, as I've already mentioned) or as uneducated? If the latter, I note that Gene Siskel and Richard Roeper, neither of whom were educated in film criticism or in film, are widely cited in English Misplaced Pages. Just to pick critics active in Chicago when I lived there. (Huh. Neither was Jonathan Rosenbaum, nor Pauline Kael.) Oh, but wait, they were paid. Oh, but wait, so's Dramabeans. Oh, but wait, Dramabeans is self-published, and we're back in circularity!

Your most obvious way out is to point out the role of the editor; editors hired those film critics, while javabeans hired herself. So I assume much of Charles Dickens's non-fiction work, which appeared in various magazines he edited, is just as untouchable as Dramabeans? And again as to William Morris: we should rely on his works published in third-party publications, not on News from Nowhere, to get at his real views, right? because he was the latter's only editor. Oh, and again: the one thing a Wikipedian on William Blake must not do is consult the original editions, because those were self-published, right?

javabeans and girlfriday are editors to the other writers at Dramabeans. So are those writers OK to cite, just not the two who run the site?

Sigh. Morris was editor and publisher of Commonweal, where the serial version of News from Nowhere began appearing in January 1890, until May of that year, when David Nicoll replaced him as editor but not as publisher. Morris and Nicoll disagreed considerably, and it isn't at all obvious to me that Nicoll would have edited News in any meaningful way while it continued, until October. It appeared, revised, in book form May 1891. Sources: pp. 580ff in William Morris: A Life for Our Time by Fiona MacCarthy, 1995, and relevant entries in A Bibliography of William Morris by Eugene LeMire, 2006. Does this mean that if News is cited as representing Morris's views, it should only be to the May-October 1890 issues of Commonweal, and not to the book version or the first part of the serial?

128.95.223.129 (talk) 04:38, 4 April 2014 (UTC)

This is a lot to try and digest, what are you getting at? What source are you seeking comment on from this noticeboard? Are you asking about Dramabeans? If you know of reliable sources about Dramabeans, that would be very useful. There are many reasons blogs are avoided as sources here. One is that relying on self-published sources makes it almost impossible to assess due and undue weight. There are a ton of opinions out there, and without these guidelines it becomes almost impossible to determine which ones are significant and which ones are not. As for Chuck D, I'm pretty sure all of Dickens' work has since been republished with vast amounts of commentary, making the comparison moot, but regardless, I doubt there is much direct citing of Dickens non-fiction outside of historical contexts where it can be given appropriate context, or as a WP:PRIMARY source about Dickens. Grayfell (talk) 05:47, 4 April 2014 (UTC)

I'm getting at two things.

One: Dramabeans: On-Topic Dramabeans's reliability as a source, especially as regards founder javabeans and #2 girlfriday. Footnote above concerns this. I previously cited what I knew about Dramabeans; none of it is what y'all consider "reliable". This discussion started after I cited javabeans at Dramabeans in a K-drama Misplaced Pages article, and the relevant sentences were then deleted because of self-published sources.

So OK; thanks for the suggestion; now to look for "reliable sources" about Dramabeans, primarily online since it's a website started in 2007. Not much at The New York Times or other journalistic sites; scholar.google.com turns up mostly writing in Vietnamese, plus some master's theses (oops; by the way, these consistently describe Dramabeans primarily as a "fan" site, which is, um, unreliable evidence against my claims).

But at www.google.com the search 'Dramabeans -site:dramabeans.com/' puts a possibility at the bottom of the first page of results. Asia Pacific Arts is an edited online magazine published by several bits of USC. It's a student publication; USC owns one of the two significant collections of K-drama on VHS known to Worldcat. Betty Bong, who's published a lot of articles there, interviewed javabeans and girlfriday of Dramabeans as The Gurus of Korean Drama. Later Google results are less helpful: a blogger on CNN's "Geek Out" quotes both javabeans and girlfriday as sources re K-dramas; someone at Dramafever, the main streaming site for K-dramas, calls them "experts" and "queens of the K-drama blogosphere"; Dramafever is called out, slightly earlier, for issuing a DMCA takedown notice to Dramabeans over the still photos their recaps use - the blog post in question certainly isn't reliable, even by my standards let alone Misplaced Pages's, but gets at stuff I deal with below.

As to "due weight". Thanks for using that term; now I know what y'all call what I've been trying to talk about. See, my actual concern isn't with Dramabeans's reliability at all. Of course someone is reliable as to their own critical opinions, even if self-published. Verifiability is simply the stick I've been hit with, and I've been using 19th-century writers mainly to illustrate its lunacies. Throughout this discussion I have not been defending Dramabeans as a factual source for news and gossip about K-dramas, although they offer a lot of that, and that's the main purpose for which European-language Wikipedias cite Dramabeans. What I've been defending is the due weight of their viewpoints on K-drama; I've produced evidence for this, to which the above minimally adds. My pessimism about this discussion is partly because this evidence hasn't been disputed or disparaged, but ignored.

Two: Newbies: Partly Off-Topic Nobody's told me a more apposite place, so I'm also talking here about Misplaced Pages's care and feeding of newbies. The stuff above footnote above is related to that; a majority of it is quotes from the previous round, now archived. There are two prongs to this:

General I claim verifiability policy operates as a source of discord with newbies in general, in particular in popular culture areas that may not come to the attention of the sorts of publications Misplaced Pages considers reliable. I give an example, Misplaced Pages's persistent and copious plagiarism of DramaWiki, to which Misplaced Pages blacklists links even at archive.org. I claim the plagiarism is probably driven by people's desire to document for English Misplaced Pages things that verifiable sources in English don't cover. It has resulted in hostility towards Misplaced Pages documented on DramaWiki's home page. (Note also that the best resources in English about K-dramas are Dramabeans and DramaWiki: English Misplaced Pages is two for two in telling K-drama fans "No!" And although English and Korean Wikipedias each have uses for the K-drama researcher, this is really rather like a kid declaring the unreliability of his tutor.) This is also where the blog post cited above is relevant.

Hey, what do you know? Misplaced Pages policy hasn't changed, but a Misplaced Pages essay agrees with me! See in WP:RSUW "Depending on the topic at hand, certain sources otherwise seen as unreliable may be highly appropriate. ... Articles on popular culture sometimes rely on less academic sources for their information."

Specific I claim that I'm personally experiencing Misplaced Pages's care and feeding of newbies as inadequate, over the weeks I've been dealing with this, and in contrast to the care and feeding of newbies I used to do in a Usenet newsgroup usually understood as exceptionally newbie-hostile. See, for example, the ignoring of my evidence; the fact that it's taken a month for "my uncle Al" to turn into "due and undue weight"; and my now thrice-stated, unanswered, request for information on how to find out why Misplaced Pages blacklists links to DramaWiki. I acknowledge that WhisperToMe, in the first round, gave me as much help as someone solely concerned with complying with verifiability policy could have asked, and that GRuban has given a little in both rounds.

Joe Bernstein joe@sfbooks.com

128.95.223.129 (talk) 17:46, 4 April 2014 (UTC)

I agree Misplaced Pages has a newbie problem. There isn't a clear-cut consensus on how to deal with it, but many people have noticed it and commented on it. Part of the issue is that Misplaced Pages is much more purpose-oriented than Usenet. Usenet is about discussion, Misplaced Pages is about building an encyclopedia. I had the habit of wikilinking to every policy that I mention (WP:WEIGHT, WP:SPS, etc.) but I've been trying to avoid that lately, because I was afraid it came off as condescending. It's not an easy problem, and we're all doing the best we can, y'know? (WP:ASSUME) Pop-culture subjects are often areas of contention (WP:POKEMON is an infamous example) and compromises that come out of that often leave everybody frustrated. I think 'due weight' and WP:VERIFIABILITY are the policies at hand. DramaWiki might be a great resource for people interested in the subject, but it looks like it has different goals and guidelines than Misplaced Pages, and by design it's going to contain a level of detail that doesn't belong here. There's a mess of WP:COPYVIO issues at hand, too, which makes it so complicated that there's no easy resolution. Adding wikis as sources is a nightmare that I don't think any experienced editor is eager to revisit.

As for your question, go here: MediaWiki talk:Spam-blacklist and search for "d-addicts" to find the discussions that lead to DramaWiki being blacklisted. It sounds like you've already got this, but one additional point is that Misplaced Pages sources do not need to be English (WP:NOENG). Korean-language sources can be used to build articles, but for obvious reasons English language sources are preferred. Grayfell (talk) 23:36, 4 April 2014 (UTC)

DramaWiki Thanks much for answering my question. DramaWiki was indeed, as one error message hinted, blacklisted (in November 2008, both in English Misplaced Pages and in Wikimedia) for "spamming", but this turns out to mean that it was for being externally linked in too many articles; the complainants themselves attested that the links were placed by lots of individuals. None of the examples given were inappropriate if one assumes DramaWiki an appropriate external link, and ironically your "level of detail" remark points to a reason it is one. If more English Misplaced Pages K-drama articles were like Dae Jang Geum (if not as long as that special case), heavy on text, light on data, the world would be a better place. Unable to link to DramaWiki, many K-drama articles instead point to Hancinema, which also has its own English Misplaced Pages stub, and which (like English Misplaced Pages) I've consistently found inferior to DramaWiki for information. Biased much?

As for copyright violation, um. If English Misplaced Pages could link to DramaWiki it would be much easier to find plagiarism from DramaWiki. Flipside, DramaWiki has not in my experience linked to illegal downloading sites, and is heavily supported by the legal near-monopoly streaming site Dramafever. It is, of course, a sub-site of D-Addicts, which is itself an illegal downloading site. I have in the past seen Hancinema linking to illegal download sites, but something seems to have changed, and it now ostentatiously boasts legality and its own ties to Dramafever.

GRuban made a convincing case against using DramaWiki, *as* a wiki, as a source. My concern is primarily with the blacklist, which is of course off-topic here.

Dramabeans You started out by focusing on the most on-topic bit of my complaint, but you haven't actually addressed my evidence either. Is this because you take for granted that I can see it isn't good enough, or because I've only offered one piece in this particular segment of the discussion?

Verifiability I didn't expect I was saying anything new, but it still isn't getting answered. Don't y'all *document* FAQs, somewhere in the insanely voluminous Misplaced Pages documentation? "Verifiability policy helps turn Misplaced Pages into a snotty ivory tower." "BTDT. See WP:NIT#Ver." How hard is that?

Thank you for informatively replying to me. But I'm still not seeing a route to either changing, or becoming reconciled to, the policies I object to.

Joe Bernstein joe@sfbooks.com

66.212.78.59 (talk) 22:20, 6 April 2014 (UTC)

Calling fellow editors "snotty", even obliquely, is not helpful. Misplaced Pages:FAQ index and Help:Contents might be what you want. Typically, you would be presented with links like this after creating an account. You might also find WP:TV and WP:KDRAMA specifically useful.

It sounds like the issue with DramaWiki should be dealt with elsewhere. I would not use HanCinema as a WP:SECONDARY source in an article.

One very rough rule-of-thumb about self published sources is to determine if it has an article, or could have one. Looking through the sources, I don't think Dramabeans has been covered enough for an article. There's the student paper you mentioned, and a CNN blog post, but that's all I could find. I would say the same thing about Hancinema, actually. Grayfell (talk) 00:23, 7 April 2014 (UTC)

I'm sorry you felt insulted by my wording. In these three linked threads, I've repeatedly reified Misplaced Pages when referring precisely *not* to individuals but to things that I think systemically result from policies. (E.g. no individual intended that plagiarism would result from blacklisting DramaWiki, but it sure seems to have, so I blame "Misplaced Pages".) Admittedly "snotty" is shorter than "engine of hostility", which is what I called verifiability policy last time, and shorter still compared to more detailed exposition. Anyway, since you don't cite the rest of my claimed evidence re Dramabeans, I'm concluding that you did *not* read the previous iterations. So to repeat: 1) Blurb usage. 2) Individuals encountered. 3) Lecturer.

To expand: 1) YA Entertainment has issued probably the majority of all Region 1 K-drama DVDs marketed in North America. (Their total is 87. I know of 14 from Tai Seng, their only independent competitor. Each major Korean network has also sold some Region 1 discs more or less on its own; I have little info about these, but they sure don't seem to be numerous.) I've seen nearly all the resulting YA packaging. I claim that Dramabeans is the most-quoted source of blurbage for them. Note that this isn't just because Dramabeans is routinely complimentary (which they aren't); it's because instead of saying "Best drama ever!" (a fairly typical blog remark about a particular drama), Dramabeans writers say things like "Superb plotting, with appealing leads" as lead-ins to (not blurbed) "wasted on a thoroughly unoriginal story." I've repeatedly offered to go actually compile the numbers. I suppose the fact that nobody's taken me up on it is because it's irrelevant, but considering that YA discs are probably *the* most common way anglophones first encounter K-dramas (though streaming video certainly outweighs DVD for viewing over all), I'm not seeing why.

2) Last fall, I called an office on the campus from which I write, to volunteer for a research study. The long conversation that resulted didn't get me into the study, but I did mention that I was watching a Korean drama, and it turned out the person interviewing me was Korean-American. She said she no longer had time, being in grad school, to keep up with dramas, and mostly just read the recaps on Dramabeans. A couple of months ago, I was at Scarecrow Video looking at their K-drama section, and a white woman came by, reminiscing about K-dramas she'd seen. She mentioned that she no longer really watched them much, for lack of time, and instead read Dramabeans recaps, and enthused about a recent Dramabeans "meetup" in Seattle.

3) A week or two ago, I attended a lecture on K-dramas given at the Seattle Asian Art Museum. The lecturer was Bonnie Tilland, who's ABD at the University of Washington in anthropology; her dissertation seems to be about how Korean women interpret K-dramas and interpret their lives through K-dramas; she's defending it this summer. She taught a class on K-dramas last fall, which I'm sorry I hadn't heard about. The audience was mostly white, and obviously there as museum members rather than as K-drama fans, so she kept the talk pretty introductory. She said she'd been asked by the museum to recommend a book on her subject, and apologised that she couldn't offer a physical one (that the museum could sell...), but the e-book she suggested is the (self-published) Why Do Dramas Do That? by javabeans and girlfriday.

In other words, in my experience as an anglophone viewer of K-dramas, not only in the K-drama blogosphere but in lived life, Dramabeans is pretty prominent. Whether or not any of these is what Misplaced Pages would consider a reliable source. I do note that I tried to refute your search (which sounds like the same search I mentioned above) by putting "Dramabeans" into Hangul and searching for that, but got nothing from it; the Korean press is not going to support me either.

By the way, DramaWiki gets nowhere near this level of attention from any of these sources.

Joe Bernstein joe@sfbooks.com

128.208.76.107 (talk) 04:39, 7 April 2014 (UTC)

Does a blurb on a DVD validate the use of a blog as a reliable source for a review? That's an interesting question, but lacking any other info on the site's editorial process, I would say no. There's still no oversight or independant validation of the expertise of the reviewers.

The personal examples you give are not really anything we can work with. Nobody else has any possible way of knowing what you're saying is true. I'm sure you're tired of hearing this, but it's not verifiable. Hostile, snotty, infuriating, call it what you want: verifiability is a critical part of Misplaced Pages, and you're going to have a hard time convincing anyone otherwise at a reliable sources noticeboard! Nobody has taken you up on your offer to count blurbs, because Misplaced Pages has a policy against original research (WP:OR). Personal conversations are both original research and unverifiable. Grayfell (talk) 08:21, 7 April 2014 (UTC)

Are these sources sufficient for making the claim suggested by this edit?

Does a reliable source reporting a story make them part of the story to the point we should specifically note their involvement? The Brendan Eich article, currently has the following text (emphasis added in bold):

In March 2012 it was publicized that in 2008 Eich had donated $1,000 to the campaign for California Proposition 8 with his employer identified as Mozilla Corporation. This revelation was controversial in the tech sphere, the gay press and in social media, particularly Twitter.

The 1st sentence is the subject (Eich made a political donation) and the 2nd sentence states that "This revelation was controversial" in the "tech sphere", the "gay press" and "social media". No one here is denying that A) the donation was made and B) that the donation was the subject of some controversy. However out of all the inline sources proffered none of them appear to make the claim that in particular, this controversy was of specific concern to the "tech sphere" or the "gay press". This source which is indeed from a "tech sphere" based (probably) reliable source makes due note that the donation caused a "shitstorm" on Twitter, but does not make, or even approach to make the claim that the this controversy was of any particular interest amongst the tech sphere. Similarly this and this source, both from the "gay press" report the donation, but these two sources don't even note any controversy whatsoever, much less note there was any ire from members of the "gay press".

Since none of the offered sources make note that this donation is the causing a controversy with members of the tech sphere abuzz or the gay media, I modified this text to simply read This revelation was controversial in social media, and in particular Twitter with an inline reference that directly supports this. Apparently another editor has a problem with this. My feeling is that just because a tech-oriented site and a gay-focused site report on the donation does not make them part of the story. Now if we were to have a RS reporting that the Gay Press Club (im just making this up btw) protested the donation, that would be a different story. But at the moment we don't have that. Two kinds of pork (talk) 13:03, 4 April 2014 (UTC)

A nicely badly written series of claims which should better read:

In March 2012, his 2008 donation to the campaign for California Proposition 8 generated substantial controversy, especially in the gay press and in online social media. The donation records identified him as am employee of the Mozilla Corporation

rather than the current:

In March 2012 it was publicized that in 2008 Eich had donated $1,000 to the campaign for California Proposition 8 with his employer identified as Mozilla Corporation. This revelation was controversial in the tech sphere, the gay press and in social media, particularly Twitter.

As the amount is not of any significance in the discussions, and the word "revelation" implies that it was in some way a "secret" before. There is no actual definition of "tech sphere" and the mention of "Twitter" is not actually important here. So let's try the simple wording - I think no one contests the coverage in the "gay press" or would feel it needs a separate cite. Collect (talk) 13:46, 4 April 2014 (UTC)

Is this however, superfluous? One would expect coverage of this issues for inclusion in the first place. Tiny Tim is really tall. This was reported by TimMagazine.com. Two kinds of pork (talk) 14:00, 4 April 2014 (UTC)

I can't quite understand your specific concern about reliable sources here. Although Collect's text seems reasonable to me, I can't tell whether it addresses your concern. It's worth noting that much of the pressure which led Eich to resign was internal, from within Mozilla, although reliable sources also cite opposition voiced on Twitter as well as a protest by OKCupid as factors (, ). MastCell  17:28, 4 April 2014 (UTC)

This issue has been resolved, however my main problems were the sources were mischaracterized, and then editorial opinion was inserted into the article by establishing the origin of the sources (tech sphere and gay press) were somehow significant. They might be significant, but we would need another source to actually state this, no?

"Nomination" of Wikiversity article to be used as reference

As discussed above, it seems appropriate to have a discussion in Misplaced Pages before any usage of a Wikiversity page as reference in Misplaced Pages. I think such "nomination" can be done at Misplaced Pages Talk:Wikiversity and leaving a note here, as with this one: Misplaced Pages talk:Wikiversity#Using steroidogenesis article as reference. Mikael Häggström (talk) 16:29, 6 April 2014 (UTC)

No... the entire point of Wikiversity was to give people who wanted to do their own Original Research a venue to play in. Wikiversity is not considered a reliable source... and a "peer review" by anonymous editors is not worth anything. Blueboar (talk) 17:22, 6 April 2014 (UTC)

Discussions regarding the reliability of sources, when not conducted on the relevant article talk page, should be conducted here. AndyTheGrump (talk) 17:30, 6 April 2014 (UTC)

Definitely. I'm sure we've told Mikael that before. He doesn't seem to be listening. Dougweller (talk) 18:25, 6 April 2014 (UTC)

I thought the issue of location itself deserved additional discussion, and I did leave a clear note here as well. In any case, discussions will not be started at Misplaced Pages Talk:Wikiversity in the future. Mikael Häggström (talk) 18:53, 6 April 2014 (UTC)

RT news and Crimean status referendum, 2014

There is a dispute at Talk:Crimean status referendum, 2014#Observers and legitimacy, whether many citations of RT news (a source biased in favor of Russian government) can be removed from the article without explaining each particular instance removal. For example, one of the statements that some editors are trying to remove completely, is this:

A day before the election, the Crimean election spokesman Mikhail Malyshev said that 135 international observers from 23 countries were registered to monitor the referendum,

1. Crimean ‘referendum at gunpoint’ is a myth – intl observers — RT News
2. "135 observers from 23 countries are registered in the Crimea". News from Armenia. 2014-03-15. Retrieved 2014-04-02.
3. "Over 130 Observers from 23 Countries to Monitor Crimea Referendum". CrimeaInform. 2014-03-15. Retrieved 2014-04-02.

— Petr Matas 20:26, 6 April 2014 (UTC)

Why do you refer to RT as biased in favour of the Russian Government? Would you say that the BBC is in favour of the British Government? How about CNN as in favour of the American Government? Look at all these sources and identify which impartially reported on the US - Iraq war and the claim of weapons of mass destruction. If you are claiming that RT's reports regarding the Crimean crisis are non-factual then provide evidence. In particular look at the activity of Volunteer Marek on the Crimea pages - removes anything which puts some balance in the article.

— equilibrado 7 April 2014

Every medium has its opinion, including CNN and BBC, and biased articles appear everywhere from time to time. It seems to me that facts reported by RT can be trusted, but their evaulations can't. But that does not really matter here. The question is, whether RT can be declared universally unreliable and your answer to that is obvious. — Petr Matas 04:38, 7 April 2014 (UTC)

There are controversial facts and there are non-controversial facts. For controversial facts RT is most certainty not a reliable source: . It could be used for non-controversial facts (indeed on the Crimean Referendum where RT was used to cite non-controversial facts I left it alone). The thing is, if a fact really is non-controversial, then 99 times out of a 100 one can find a more solid, really reliable source. And replace.

Additionally, there's really no reason to try and include more than at most two citations to any piece of text. You know, don't do cite-padding like this "blah blah blah ". That just looks bad and betrays a certain kind of desperate attempt to push some POV. Hence if there's already solid, reliable sources used to cite something, an additional source such as RT is simply not necessary.Volunteer Marek (talk) 05:29, 7 April 2014 (UTC)

I agree that more than two refs can be excessive but it may be appropriate to have RT as one of them. My personal rule, not particularly for wikipedia, is that if a 'Western' source and RT agree then something is likely to be true, for everything controversial I have to choose between them. We should bear in mind that Russian sources were highlighting the involvement of Pravy Sektor for some weeks before 'Weestern' Sources really picked up on this. Sceptic1954 (talk) 06:15, 7 April 2014 (UTC)

Maybe if RT says something and others neither agree nor oppose, then we shoud write "RT says...," as their report may be unreliable, but it is surely notable: There are zillions of people who believe it. — Petr Matas 17:45, 7 April 2014 (UTC)

I'm not seeing anything controversial in the statement being removed that isn't backed up by the claim. Your not saying there was your saying he said there was. Would strongly object to anyone removing content without a valid reason provided each time. Editors shouldn't have to second guess why you feel something requires removal. Your reasons may be totally invalid. Plus more than three refs being provided as inline is def excessive, would prefer two but three max. However see no reason why can't that source be one of them. Plus we shouldn't not be using that source at all, the points they make are one sided of course and need to be used in context but that does not make the source unreliable. The Crimean side should be as equally represented in the article as others. It's all about context and I'm not seeing common sense applied here. Blethering Scot 18:24, 7 April 2014 (UTC)

The content being taken from RT - that "a Crimean official stated that international observers had arrived" - is not particularly controversial, as the official's statement is notable, but neither endorsed nor refuted by being recorded in the article. -Darouet (talk) 18:54, 7 April 2014 (UTC)

Ukrainian Revolution 2014

The same issues are coming up at Ukrainian Revolution with references from RT removed without consideration of context. Sceptic1954 (talk) 06:17, 7 April 2014 (UTC)

As explained right above, there is in fact "consideration of content".Volunteer Marek (talk) 06:51, 7 April 2014 (UTC)

I'm not ploughing through it in hope of finding what you refer to because I don't edit that page. You certainly haven't 'consideration of context' thus far on the Ukrainian Revolution 2014 page. Sceptic1954 (talk) 07:07, 7 April 2014 (UTC)

Looking from outside altogether I agree with Sceptic. Blethering Scot 18:31, 7 April 2014 (UTC)

Policy on using a Wikiversity article as a reference

At Wikiproject Medicine, AndyTheGrump has claimed that Misplaced Pages has specific policies which currently rule out using Wikiversity material as sources for article content, but I don't see such a policy. Both wp:citing sister projects and wp:Citing a wiki are just red links at this time. wp:Identifying reliable sources states that "When available, academic and peer-reviewed publications... are usually the most reliable sources", and peer-review is mandatory for articles in Wikiversity:Wikiversity Journal of Medicine. I suggest that we come to a consensus about what to write at Misplaced Pages:Wikiversity#Using a Wikiversity page as reference in Misplaced Pages, and I suggest adding "A Wikiversity page cannot be used as a reference for Misplaced Pages content without first having reached consensus at the reliable sources noticeboard or at the relevant WikiProject for each individual case". Mikael Häggström (talk) 04:46, 7 April 2014 (UTC)

"Articles should be based on reliable, third-party, published sources with a reputation for fact-checking and accuracy". So far we have seen no evidence that the 'peer review' process used on Wikiversity has any validity whatsoever. Likewise, we have seen no evidence that this 'journal' has ever been accepted as a valid source by any credible outside party. Given that material on a wiki is by definition self-published, and given the complete lack of evidence that this journal has any 'reputation' at all, never mind one for accuracy, it seems to me self-evident that such material cannot be used on Misplaced Pages - even more so when one considers the fact that these are articles on medical topics, where reliable sourcing is absolutely critical. Before Misplaced Pages can even consider including such material, it will be necessary to prove that the journal has the necessary trustworthiness and status to merit citation - it would be entirely inappropriate to apply a lower standard to a journal just because it is from a sister project.

Incidentally, I note that yet again, Mikael Häggström has failed to indicate that it is his material on Wikiversity that he is pushing for inclusion as source material in Misplaced Pages - indeed he has already included such material, citing himself in what I consider an entirely inappropriate manner. I am currently in the process of removing such invalid citations as clearly contrary to policy. AndyTheGrump (talk) 05:10, 7 April 2014 (UTC)

Andy is pretty much right. If you really want to push it then maybe something like the Village Pump would be a better place.Volunteer Marek (talk) 05:32, 7 April 2014 (UTC)

Mikael, this is nothing more than vanity publishing. This material cannot be used anywhere on enWP. Lesser Cartographies (talk) 05:40, 7 April 2014 (UTC)

So, as I understand, we do not establish any policy on this issue right now, but wait for evidence of being accepted as a valid source by credible outside parties, as well as having other authors publish in the journal first. Mikael Häggström (talk) 07:53, 7 April 2014 (UTC)

Nope. The policy already exists: "Articles should be based on reliable, third-party, published sources with a reputation for fact-checking and accuracy". The Wikiversity Journal has no reputation for anything. And until it does, policy says we can't cite it, end of story. AndyTheGrump (talk) 07:59, 7 April 2014 (UTC)

WP:USERGENERATED is a subsection of our reliable source guideline. It states, Anyone can create a personal web page or publish their own book, and also claim to be an expert in a certain field. For that reason self-published media—whether books, newsletters, personal websites, open wikis, blogs, personal pages on social networking sites, Internet forum postings, or tweets—are largely not acceptable. This includes any website whose content is largely user-generated, including the Internet Movie Database (IMDB), CBDB.com, content farms, collaboratively created websites such as wikis, and so forth, with the exception of material on such sites that is labeled as originating from credentialed members of the sites' editorial staff, rather than users. @Mikael Häggström: this seems more in "not even close" territory than "borderline case." VQuakr (talk) 08:02, 7 April 2014 (UTC)

These guidelines do not clearly say that such content must always be removed, so my impression of this issue remains the same as above; This journal needs time to develop some evidence of reputation first. Mikael Häggström (talk) 09:00, 7 April 2014 (UTC)

Mikael, vanity journals are created by researchers who can't get their work published anywhere else. There are plenty of them out there and, unless they're causing a bother, they're ignored, both at enWP and in the wider research community. If you want to consign your work to oblivion, I can't think of a more efficient way of pulling that off. Lesser Cartographies (talk) 10:21, 7 April 2014 (UTC)

Mikael, the policy says that such material should not be cited in the first place. That is all that needs to be said. AndyTheGrump (talk) 10:41, 7 April 2014 (UTC)

• It hardly needs saying, but since there is some pushback on the issue perhaps it does need saying—Andy is correct, and no page at Wikiversity is suitable for use as a reliable source at Misplaced Pages. Johnuniq (talk) 11:03, 7 April 2014 (UTC)

Absolutely. And I'm getting tired of these repeated attempts to get this through. Dougweller (talk) 12:26, 7 April 2014 (UTC)

100% not a reliable source. We should not be citing ourselves or that at all. Blethering Scot 18:53, 7 April 2014 (UTC)

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