Wikipedia:Reliable sources/Noticeboard

"WP:RSN" redirects here. For "Wikipedia will be ready real soon now", see meta:Eventualism.

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

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

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Latin Americans in the UK population estimates

Some time ago, I posted here asking about the suitability of a source which estimates the number of people from various Latin American countries living in the UK. The source itself uses the term "guesstimates" to describe these figures. It was agreed that it was OK to use the figures, providing that they were flagged as guesstimates. However, there are two current problems with the use of these statistics at present.

Firstly, a number of articles (such as Colombians in the United Kingdom) are using the figures to describe the Latin American population "regardless of birthplace", which I take to mean including UK-born descendents of immigrants from Latin America, despite the fact that the source does not make clear whether the estimates include these people or not.

Secondly, the Office for National Statistics has recently published population estimates for the largest 60 foreign-born groups in the UK (summarised at Foreign-born population of the United Kingdom) which are significantly lower than the "guesstimates". This source is surely more reliable (it includes 95 per cent confidence intervals, for instance) and only Brazilians feature in the top 60, with 56,000 Brazilian-born people as the central estimate, compared to a guesstimate of 200,000.

Any thoughts on this? I'm inclined to think that the guesstimates are now redundant. Cordless Larry (talk) 11:52, 4 October 2009 (UTC)

Agreed using the Office for National Statistics is a far more reliable and accurate. Official stats should always be given priority. BritishWatcher (talk) 11:57, 4 October 2009 (UTC)

So what about an article such as Colombians in the United Kingdom? There are no statistics from the ONS to quote, but the very fact that there aren't means that there are fewer Colombians in the UK than the guesstimates suggest. Do we remove the guesstimate from the article? Cordless Larry (talk) 12:33, 4 October 2009 (UTC)

I'd say leave them out. The article already has plenty of detail of the official figures. Itsmejudith (talk) 09:25, 5 October 2009 (UTC)

What is the actual source that's being debated? Also, I wouldn't get too worked up over the term "guesstimate". Perhaps it's more common in the US than the UK, but describing it as an "estimate" is just fine. Squidfryerchef (talk) 23:57, 5 October 2009 (UTC)

The source is Sofia Buchuck. "Crossing borders: Latin American exiles in London". untoldLondon. Cordless Larry (talk) 07:08, 6 October 2009 (UTC)

It's technically RS, though it's kind of an "off the cuff" figure. The article also says there are 800,000 salsa classes happening in the UK every night(!). You may be able to find other estimates, perhaps from where that article got its figures from. "These numbers are guesstimates from embassies, community centres and refugee groups" So you might see if the Brazilian embassy publishes a figure of their own that contradicts the UK figure. I'm not aware of all the issues involved. Does the UK not ask about ethnicity or nationality on its census? - "there has never been a precise census of Latin Americans in the UK" And are there many undocumented immigrants in the UK? Squidfryerchef (talk) 00:37, 9 October 2009 (UTC)

Thanks for the reply. The UK census does ask about ethnicity, but when published the data is categorised into what most of use would understand to be races, not ethnicities (white, black, Asian etc.), albeit with some differentiation (i.e. white British, white Irish, white other). There is no way to tell if anyone has Latin American ancestry from this question. The census also collects data on country of birth, but again this does not help with identifying people with Latin American ancestry. It's clearly the most reliable source for statistics on Latin American-born people though. I've tried to find the original statistics used in the article but to no avail. I guess the author just called up the embassies and community organisations and asked them to take a guess. Cordless Larry (talk) 16:21, 10 October 2009 (UTC)

As for the Office for National Statistics statistics quoted at Latin Americans in the United Kingdom, these just cover country of birth and nationality. Cordless Larry (talk) 16:25, 10 October 2009 (UTC)

Does anyone else have a view on this? Cordless Larry (talk) 09:53, 16 October 2009 (UTC)

Russell Blaylock

Is this an acceptable source to provide information that Russell Blaylock is an author and lecturer as well as being a radio guest? Thanks.163.1.147.64 (talk) 08:30, 14 October 2009 (UTC)

As it's an anti-vacc site, and that is a BLP, I'd say no. Verbal chat 09:34, 14 October 2009 (UTC)

Is being an an "anti-vacc" site relevant? If it is, does that matter for a BLP when none of the information the source is suggested to support pertains directly to vaccination, it pertains to his being an author, a lecturer and a radio guest, nowt to do with 'anti-vacc' specifically. Comments from editors who have not previously expressed an opinion on the article's AfD and/or been involved in edits and reversions to the article would be most welcome.163.1.147.64 (talk) 10:07, 14 October 2009 (UTC)

Whatever it is, its a WP:SPS and not reliable, especially not for a BLP. --Stephan Schulz (talk) 12:56, 14 October 2009 (UTC)

This seems to be a private charity run by two persons [[3]]. It appears to be Self Published, and an advocacy organisation. it also does not appear toi have been given much in the way of medai attention (thus raising doubts in my mind as to exactly well respected the organisation is with regards to fact checking (see its own artcile here [[4]]. As it is not making any contentious claims (with regards to this question) its use is not that serious, but I would say that other sources ae preferable and that it certainly has issues.Slatersteven (talk) 13:22, 14 October 2009 (UTC)

Thanks, I will continue looking, bearing this in mind. Other sources have stated his radio appearances, but none so far so clearly as this one.163.1.147.64 (talk) 13:27, 14 October 2009 (UTC)

What do users think of this? It’s self published, and it has no province, but if we assume it’s by the person it claims to be it should be fine[[5]].Slatersteven (talk) 13:34, 14 October 2009 (UTC)

Thanks, this is already being used in the article and I think isn't up to date with the radio stuff - the generationrescue source mentions more named shows and has "over 100" syndicated shows for example, whereas Blaylock's own and other sites still have "over fifty" syndicated radio shows. The intial intro line is what I'm trying to get a better balance on - for some time it was "health practitioner, author, lecturer, and newsletter editor." but was changed to "...who writes and gives interviews on talk shows." but when I changed that this morning to "...author, newsletter editor and radio show guest." this morning (on my home ip), the newsletter editoring and radio show appearances, as "neither verifiable from current sourced material nor noteworthy", which, regardless of one's view on whether they add any notions of notability, is not entirely true - his newsletter is mentioned and referenced to his own site and the radio shows are mentioned, again using his own site for reference - so I did wish to improve on using his own site for those if possible. If after another good look about, I still find no better I will re-introduce this ref (which was removed and the general college site used instead to add words about the college) and also use the generationrescue source for his being an author, a lecturer and a radio guest.163.1.147.64 (talk) 14:45, 14 October 2009 (UTC)

Wouldn't Amazon confirm that he is a published author? Unomi (talk) 12:13, 21 October 2009 (UTC)

Slate magazine as a reliable source for the Taliban website

An IP editor has asked to this link to the "official" Taliban website to the Taliban article.

* Taliban's website (English)

He supplied this link to a Slate (online magazine) article as a source for the information. Another editor remarked that Slate is not a reliable source for information about the Middle East. The discussion is here. I looked at Slate and it has the appearance of a reliable news magazine, but I wanted to get some other opinions here. What do you think of this as a source for the official Taliban website? Celestra (talk) 15:36, 14 October 2009 (UTC)

I see no problem with it. Slate is a reputable and well-established online magazine with a decent reputation for reporting. -- ChrisO (talk) 20:58, 14 October 2009 (UTC)

As an update, this same info is now being reported by Wired Magazine.[6] -- 209.6.238.201 (talk) 07:38, 15 October 2009 (UTC)

Couple of reliability issues

In the following diff, I've had a few concerns with sources ignored and reverted. I'll keep this note in regards to one of the concerns and expand to others if necessary:

-- Jaakobou^{Chalk Talk} 17:41, 14 October 2009 (UTC)

www.humiliationstudies.org

I've removed a link to www.humiliationstudies.org from the article and ChrisO has returned it.[7] As far as I can tell, the link (http://www.humiliationstudies.org/news/archives/2005_10.html) is to a dead archive page in a blog. As such, it would seem like an unreliable source and I figure that ChrisO made a mistake here. Jaakobou^{Chalk Talk} 17:41, 14 October 2009 (UTC)

What makes you think that it's a blog? It looks like a group of academics that publish various materials. ← George ^talk 18:06, 14 October 2009 (UTC)

Ah, I kind of see the issue with it after clicking your link. Why not just remove the source, without making any other changes in the same edit? That sentence already has another source, so I doubt it will be controversial if that's the only change you're making. ← George ^talk 18:46, 14 October 2009 (UTC)

Thank you for your support, I'll wait on another comment or two before moving ahead with the edit. Jaakobou^{Chalk Talk} 20:12, 14 October 2009 (UTC)

I've already taken that link out of the article, even before you posted this, so there was actually no need to raise it here. -- ChrisO (talk) 21:02, 14 October 2009 (UTC)

Ok. I guess that at least part of my edit is agreed upon then. I've started a discussion about some of the other issues but you've yet to respond. If necessary, I have no qualms about opening those points to community review as well. I just noticed that you also agree that the commondreams.org source failed to verify the statement that "The deaths of al-Durrah, the ambulance driver, and a Palestinian policeman were confirmed a few hours later by the Shifa hospital." good to see we're not in disagreement on everything. Jaakobou^{Chalk Talk} 23:37, 14 October 2009 (UTC)

Resolved

Seems resolved. Jaakobou^{Chalk Talk} 23:37, 14 October 2009 (UTC)

Time of report based on article time-stamp

I've removed the following text as I believed it (a) contradicted several reliable sources that say the boy was shot at around 3pm, and (b) the time stamp assertion is based solely on the time stamp registered on the article, and it is not uncommon to update an article after the initial time-stamp was given. This is the only source that clearly makes the time of the event to be earlier than 12pm (if you consider the shooting went on for 45 minutes) when the cameraman, as well as other involved make it out to be a later hour. I believe ChrisO has disregarded the general opinion and made an error in reverting this issue.[8]

• His death was reported by an Associated Press correspondent, Karin Laub, at 12:35 pm local time.<ref>{{cite news|last=Laub|first=Karin|title=Twelve killed in Israeli-Palestinian clashes; worst violence in four years|agency=Associated Press}}</ref>

I'd appreciate some perspectives on this on top of the few people who already commented on the talk page.

• Sample: I don't think its a question of the validity of LexisNexis or its source, but of the relevance of the timestamp. We can all agree that sometimes articles are filed, are given a timestamp, and then are expanded as events progress. So the timestamp may not refer to the final article available on LexisNexis - the question is whether LexisNexis discusses the nature of the timestamps and how they can be used. I imagine they might not, since few lawyers and academics will use that level of detail in their work; even so, a question worth asking when the timestamp is being used as evidence on the same level as the rest of the article's content. Nathan ^T 03:46, 4 October 2009 (UTC)

Warm regards, Jaakobou^{Chalk Talk} 23:39, 14 October 2009 (UTC)

I already weighed in on the talk page discussion on this a couple weeks ago, but I'll do so again here. I see no reason to doubt the timestamp associated with the articles in LexisNexis. While you've (repeatedly) cited "several reliable sources" that contradict the time, I've only see one that I consider reliable (Enderlin), while quite a few more reliable sources agree with the general time (around noon, before 1pm, and the like). Questions about the reliability of LexisNexis timestamps seems to me nothing more than grasping at straws for anything to validate conspiracy theories surrounding the event. ← George ^talk 23:57, 14 October 2009 (UTC)

The whole premise of this claim is fundamentally wrong. Jaakobou is attempting to use non-contemporaneous sources to dismiss contemporaneous sources pinpointing the time of the incident reported in the article. The incident, which occurred on 30th September 2000, was reported by contemporaneous sources to have occurred on the morning of that day, between about 11.30 am - 12 pm local time. One contemporaneous source broadcast only in France stated - apparently in error - that the incident occurred at 3 pm, a statement that none of the contemporaneous English sources supports. Sources of questionable reliability published several years later advocate a conspiracy theory revolving around the incident occurring at 3 pm rather than the time reported on the day itself. This has been discussed at great length on the article's talk page. Xavexgoem summed up the issue in a (discontinued) informal mediation: "All the sources for the articles are pre-dating the events after-the-fact. All the aggregators, like LexisNexis, are pre-dating the events after-the-fact. All the sources, and all the aggregators, have roughly the same timestamps, and report the events as being around the same time." He eventually gave up in the face of Jaakobou's obstinacy, commenting: "I'm closing this mediation down. "Loose Change" did not turn 9/11 into an article about a conspiracy. The implications here are doing precisely that, and tearing a hole in the space-time continuum." Since then Jaakobou has attempted to delete contemporaneous sources that contradict his non-contemporaneous conspiracy theory sources.

The specific claim being made above is equally wrong. Jaakobou is attempting to dismiss (and now to delete) an Associated Press report datelined 12:35 pm, reporting the incident. The dateline is part of the report itself - it's nothing to do with LexisNexis. The dateline is an integral part of the report, just like the headline or the body text. LexisNexis does not add anything to the report. Jaakobou hypothesizes (on the basis of nothing more than mistaken personal belief) that the report "may have been expanded" following its initial filing. There is no indication of this whatsoever. Multiple reports were filed by AP on the same day, each with a different headline, serial and timestamp, indexed in the sequence in which they were sent on the newswire. The sentence that "His death was reported by an Associated Press correspondent, Karin Laub, at 12:35 pm local time" is no more than what the AP report itself states. It is attributed to Karin Laub, it is credited to AP, and its dateline is 10:35 GMT (12:35 pm Israel time). Jaakobou has already been told this in great detail but is doing the old WP:IDONTHEARYOU shuffle yet again. -- ChrisO (talk) 00:01, 15 October 2009 (UTC)

The reliability of LexisNexis and AP can't be seriously questioned, so it is not much of a question for RS/N. Doubting the timestamp enough to eliminate the source seems to be quite speculative OR. There is nothing here or on the talk page to support taking it at other than face value. As ChrisO points out, Karin Laub filed another version of the story later the same day, with a different timestamp, so what is being suggested is a practice of making major changes in a story and sometimes randomly changing the time, sometimes not. This is a rather dubious doubt. It's more a question of neutrality, but the principle, as always, should be to let the readers decide. Rephrasing to say "His death was reported in a story by Associated Press correspondent, Karin Laub, timestamped/datelined 12:35 pm local time" is even closer to the facts, but anyone would read both versions as saying the same thing, so it is an "improvement" of doubtful necessity.John Z (talk) 01:00, 15 October 2009 (UTC)

Why do we need to note when the story was filed? Blueboar (talk) 01:04, 15 October 2009 (UTC)

Long story. The short version is that conspiracy theorists assert that the boy reported killed in the 12:35 pm AP report was somehow switched for a hypothetical second dead boy whose identity is unknown, supposedly killed a few hours later, and that the first boy is not in fact dead but has been kept in hiding for the past nine years. This conspiracy theory (which Jaakobou apparently favours) relies on the claim that the shooting incident in question happened in mid-afternoon. However, reports such as this one from AP were filed before the time claimed by the conspiracy theorists. Jaakobou is trying to eliminate this report from the article; it doesn't fit with the conspiracy theorists' timeframe. -- ChrisO (talk) 01:14, 15 October 2009 (UTC)

Note: I believe the reason ChrisO is insisting on this time stamp as crucial and accurate content is his strong concerns about fringe conspiracy theorists. I'm not sure he's approaching the content even handedly though as sources that state 3pm as the time of the event include James Fallows, Charles Enderlin, and Esther Schapira among others. Ad hominem aside, there seems to be some confusion between sources mentioning clashes (which, reportedly, escalated from Molotov cocktails and tear gas to live ammunition only at around 2pm) with sources that report on the boy and father, of which, only one has a time-stamp this early. Is there any other source, apart from Associated Press, specifically mentioning the boy and father prior to 2pm (let alone 12:35pm)? Do we have any sources other than this time-stamp that contradict later WP:RSs? News agencies tend to publish stories and change them a bit as they develop, then publish again with a rewrite that refocuses the earlier article and change earlier versions, adding further input. Considering this time-stamp is contradicting other reliable sources and, thus, is making an exceptional claim - it would take perhaps a secondary source or some other measure, such as a clear clarification that the article wasn't changed since it was originally posted at 12:35pm. I don't believe we have anything of the sorts. Jaakobou^{Chalk Talk} 01:37, 15 October 2009 (UTC) fix 03:22, 15 October 2009 (UTC)

I'll say this once again, and I hope it gets through this time. Sources written years after the event (Fallows, Schapira, and conspiracy theorists) got 3pm from Enderlin. No other report from the year 2000 uses this time. The AP source, as well as the person who shot the video (Talal Abu Rahma in his interview with Schapira) and the doctors who declared the boy dead (in their affidavits) all gave times that would fall between 12pm and 1pm Israel time. I've explained this on the article talk page already, and I'm not sure why I have to explain it again. The Associated Press article was sent over the newswires two and a half hours before 3pm. Time machines aren't real. ← George ^talk 01:46, 15 October 2009 (UTC)

We've been through this already on the article talk page, Jaakobou, and nobody agreed with your speculations there. This is just forum-shopping. -- ChrisO (talk) 01:47, 15 October 2009 (UTC)

There's really nothing other than the one report that gives a time other than 12pm-1pm. In a circumstance like this, with a source going up against several alternate contemporary reports, there's no real option other than to go with the majority of sources. WP:WEIGHT applies here clearly.

I'm rather unhappy with the way that these discussions have gotten personal between editors, but- as stated before- mere speculation about follow up reports are not good enough. We need sources that give other times, and so far there's only the one source that has been noted. George is absolutely right. The Squicks (talk) 01:55, 15 October 2009 (UTC)

As you say, only one contemporary report - which was not picked up by other news outlets - gives a different time. All the others give the same time period and the AP report disputed above falls right in the middle of that time period. Is there any reason why we should not simply dismiss this as an obvious reporting error and move on? -- ChrisO (talk) 02:02, 15 October 2009 (UTC)

This issue ought to closed, yes. The Squicks (talk) 02:12, 15 October 2009 (UTC)

I'm sorry but George mentions three sources, not one. Where are we coming up with the assertion that reliable sources got their time from Enderlin and/or that Enderlin was wrong to begin with and that everyone is wrong except for ChrisO's assumption that the AP article was unchanged throughout the day? The time-stamp of AP leads to an exceptional claim that is not supported by any other sources. Best I can tell, there hasn't been produced a single source, other than AP, that mentions the boy and father were shot at prior to 3pm. Anyways, please provide the source that says reliable sources got their time from Enderlin and/or that Enderlin was wrong to begin with.

With respect, Jaakobou^{Chalk Talk} 03:22, 15 October 2009 (UTC)

p.s. would someone please provide the relevant quote from the source that includes the described scene on top of the source that says Schapira and Fallows got their time-line from Enderlin? Jaakobou^{Chalk Talk} 03:38, 15 October 2009 (UTC)

Editors should note that this has already been discussed at great length on the article talk page, from Talk:Muhammad al-Durrah#Coverage timeline, and has gone through an informal mediation. There is literally nothing that can be said on this issue that has not already been said on the article talk page. Since the discussion here has produced a clear consensus that the AP article is a reliable source and that there are no grounds to discard it on the basis of an unsourced personal hypothesis, I don't think anything useful can be achieved by continuing the discussion here. Could someone please mark this as resolved? -- ChrisO (talk) 08:15, 15 October 2009 (UTC)

Here's my opinion on this issue. Firstly, both sides are assuming something. Jaakobou is assuming that a primary-stamp isn't reliable while ChrisO and George is saying that secondary sources are unreliable and inaccurate. Secondly, a Wikipedia policy here states:-

Our policy: Wikipedia articles usually rely on material from secondary sources. Articles may include analytic, synthetic, interpretive, explanatory, or evaluative claims if they have been published by a reliable secondary source.

and

All interpretive claims, analyses, or synthetic claims about primary sources must be referenced to a secondary source

Hence, in an article like this, I would say that the secondary sources is more reliable than the primary source. BejinhanTalk 12:35, 15 October 2009 (UTC)

It's not an interpretive claim - it's purely descriptive. The citation is being used to support three facts - that the report was (1) written by Karin Laub, (2) published by AP and (3) is datelined 10:35 GMT (12.35 pm local time) on 30 September 2000. All three of these facts are verifiably included in the AP article. Note that the policy you cite goes on to say: "Without a secondary source, a primary source may be used only to make descriptive claims, the accuracy of which is verifiable by a reasonable, educated person without specialist knowledge."

The issue with the secondary sources is not so much that they are unreliable and inaccurate (though they are) but is more to do with the problem that they are non-contemporaneous and not only contradict the contemporaneous reports, which all agree on the timing, but overlook the existence of reports filed before the time stated in those secondary sources. If you had a non-contemporaneous secondary source that said "D-Day happened on 7 June 1944" and various contemporaneous reports, some actually filed on D-Day itself, which said "D-Day happened on 6 June 1944", which would you go with? The bottom line is that the assertion about timing made in the non-contemporaneous secondary sources is not only not reflected in any of the contemporaneous English-language reports, but it would actually require contemporaneous reports to have been filed before the events on which they were reporting - a logical impossibility. As George says above, time machines aren't real. -- ChrisO (talk) 13:36, 15 October 2009 (UTC)

The policy clarifies that it is improper to contradict secondary sources based on conclusions derivative from a primary one. The policy is that "[Primary sources] may be used in Wikipedia, but only with care, because it is easy to misuse them."[9] Saying the event was initially reported on at 12:35pm amounts to using a primary source in a way that contradicts "non-contemporaneous" sources (a.k.a. evaluative secondary sources that are one step removed from an event). Also, the time-stamp as qualifier that the boy was shot in that time is weak considering no other "contemporaneous" sources (a.k.a. Primary Sources) mentions the boy and father scene prior to 3pm. In fact, I think it was more like 6pm for the first report from other networks and agencies that mention the scene of boy and father... quite a stretch from 12:35pm when networks often copy stories from one another. We don't have any official statement from AP that articles are not changed after they are initially filed and all interpretive claims -- such that because a time-stamp is given, that is the first time someone mentioned the boy and father -- must be referenced to a secondary source let alone could be used to contradict multiple, independent secondary sources. Jaakobou^{Chalk Talk} 14:42, 15 October 2009 (UTC) cite from policy. 14:46, 15 October 2009 (UTC)

Added note: I haven't seen another source, other than Associated Press, reporting about the boy and father being hit after hiding behind a barrel prior to Reuters report on 19:25 (7pm) local time (17:25 UTC). This is a considerable time gap from 12:35pm IMHO. Jaakobou^{Chalk Talk} 15:16, 15 October 2009 (UTC)

This is a red herring:

1. No honest editor can question the integrity of the timestamp on an Associated Press report going out across the newswires.
2. Regardless of if the source is primary or secondary, it could not have been printed before the event occurred.

This discussion is bordering on the absurd. ← George ^talk 17:25, 15 October 2009 (UTC)

That is an Argumentum ad lapidem. You disagree with Jaakobou's position therefore it "is bordering on the absurd". In fact, including the timestamp as part of the source is a clear sense of original research and an interpretive claim. As User:Nathan stated, we don't know how Lexis-Nexis's method of timestamping works and cannot independently verify it. Therefore, we shouldn't assume that the timestamp is relevant, because as several editors have correctly pointed out, news sources often update the story without changing the original timestamp (i.e. this is standard practice).

Now, this wouldn't be such a big deal if this source didn't contradict other reliable secondary sources. When there is a choice between using reliable secondary sources and the interpretation of one or two editors, it is clear which path should be taken on Wikipedia. User:Bejinhan also correctly stated this in his comment. —Ynhockey ^(Talk) 23:05, 15 October 2009 (UTC)

No, this is an argumentum ad ignorantiam. Jaakobou is claiming that the timestamp is inaccurate because we can't prove that the timestamp was dated to the exact moment the article went out across the newswires. In fact, no one on earth will ever be able to prove that—for this article, or any other. Perhaps you're new to the discussion, but other editors have pointed out that whenever an update to an article goes out over the newswires, it has its own timestamp. Looking through the records of what went over the newswires that day, this article was sent out twice—once at 10:35 GMT, and once later in the day. They both include mention of the boy being shot. That point was in the first and second version; not only in the update.

This source only contradicts Enderlin in 2000, a single, primary source. Fallows in 2003 specifically cites Enderlin for the 3 p.m. claim, and says: "But according to the photocopy I saw, the report also says that the boy was admitted at 1:00 P.M."—confirming Enderlin's mistake. Schapira's television documentary from 2009, a centerpiece of the conspiracy theorist movement, is not a reliable source (per discussion on this very page) for anything factual and controversial, which includes the time of the killing.

There are no reliable, secondary sources that confirm Enderlin's time. There are primary sources that give a time between 12pm and 1pm (Abu Rahma, the cameraman, in the video interview, and the affidavit of the doctors who pronounced the boy dead at the hospital), as well as secondary sources, including the AP article in question, and well as a Xinhua article also from 2000: "The crossfire took place at about 11:30 a.m. local time (0930 GMT)." The secondary sources support the approximate 12pm to 1pm timeline, not the 3pm claim.

This is a clear case of when editors need to use some WP:COMMONSENSE. ← George ^talk 23:46, 15 October 2009 (UTC)

Notes:

A) Charles Enderlin is not mentioned by James Fallows anywhere on the article. Fallows says, "around 3:00 P.M."..."The time can be judged by later comments from the father and some journalists on the scene, and by the length of shadows in the footage."

B) Xinhua does not mention Muhammad al-Durrah and no one argues about there being clashes throughout the day.

C) I haven't seen another source, other than Associated Press, reporting about the boy and father being hit after hiding behind a barrel prior to Reuters report on 19:25 (7pm) local time (17:25 UTC).

Cordially, Jaakobou^{Chalk Talk} 00:53, 16 October 2009 (UTC)

A) Fallows wrote "At around 3:00 P.M. Mohammed al-Dura and his father make their first appearance on film." If he's not talking about Enderlin's film, what film do you propose he's talking about?

B) Xinhua states that fighting took place at 11:30am, local time. Numerous sources state that the gunfire lasted about 45 minutes. Is your claim that the gunfire instead lasted for 4 hours, and if so, what source says that?

C) See (B). ← George ^talk 00:58, 16 October 2009 (UTC)

• Ok, first off guys... WP:CIVIL. Calm down. Cite to what the RSes say. Is this up at Wikipedia:Accuracy dispute as well? RSes are RSes. If there is reliable source-based discussion of this conspiracy theory or whatever, it deserves a subsection of the article and a mention whenever the time comes up. If there isn't, get it off of Wikipedia. Staxringold _talk^contribs 00:15, 16 October 2009 (UTC)

Apologies; dealing with several weeks of tedious editing can cause civilized patience to wear thin. I'm not sure if this is a reliability, accuracy, or content dispute. The statement in question is: "His death was reported by an Associated Press correspondent, Karin Laub, at 12:35 pm local time, 10:35 GMT." It's cited to an AP article, timestamped at 10:35 GMT, which states: "Among those killed was a 12-year-old boy who was caught in the cross fire. Cowering behind his father, he screamed in panic as shots hit a wall just inches above their heads. Seconds later, the boy was fatally shot in the abdomen." This is the earliest report of the boys death, which is why it's mentioned in the article. Some editors would like to remove this line, saying that the timestamp on the AP article isn't reliable. Based on what other editors view as those editor's... shall we say, past prevalence for promoting a conspiracy theory that relies on the boy being killed at a later time, such attempts to remove the statement are quite contentious. I guess a key question would be what kind of dispute is this, and where does that dispute belong? ← George ^talk 00:45, 16 October 2009 (UTC)

To say "His death was reported ... at 12:35 pm local time" is an interpretation of primary source material which does not say "the boy was reported dead at 12:35". That there is a time-stamp, which is contradicted by reliable secondary sources, has lead to this interpretation - but it is still an interpretation. This is an example for why the policy says that "it is easy to misuse [primary sources]".[10]

Regards, Jaakobou^{Chalk Talk} 01:00, 16 October 2009 (UTC)

How would you characterize the timing of the report that says the boy died, that was published at 12:35pm? Do you have some proposal for a rewording? How about "An Associated Press report by Karin Laub, published at 12:35pm local time, mentioned a 12-year-old boy being 'caught in the crossfire'."? ← George ^talk 01:03, 16 October 2009 (UTC)

Your suggestion is not written anywhere. Not in the AP primary source or any other primary source or any secondary sources. AP's report does mention the 12-year-old boy (unlike Xinhua) but the article time stamp is not a clear clarification that they didn't change the text between 12:35pm and a later time. There is a common practice to rework articles at later hours and you're assuming something that is not stated in the text. To top it off, it is also an exceptional claim considering reliable secondary sources give 3pm as the time the event occurred (no time stamp used) and the first primary source to mention the boy aside form AP is Reuters, at 7:25pm. The best way to deal with this is either find a secondary source that supports that '12:35pm is the time that Muhammad and Jamal were reported on' or at the very least find someone other than AP mentioning the boy and father at such an early time. Jaakobou^{Chalk Talk} 01:28, 16 October 2009 (UTC)

With all due respect Jaakobou, I'm just tired of WP:IDIDNTHEARTHAT. Maybe some other editors will have better luck explaining this to you. ← George ^talk 01:56, 16 October 2009 (UTC)

• (from the talk page) I have just spent a good while searching LexisNexis News, what ChrisO is claiming gave him these timestamps. NONE of the articles I pulled have timestamps. NONE. I have two versions of an article titled "Twelve killed in second day of clashes; worst violence in four years" (one 1013 words, one 1043 words), an article titled "12 Palestinians Killed in Clashes" (1047 words). None have timestamps. The only things with timestamps that even mention this story by Laub are two AP News Digests, one timestamped 0000 GMT September 30, another 0600 GMT September 30. Staxringold _talk^contribs 03:16, 16 October 2009 (UTC)

• It's in the database, like it or not. I'm sorry to hear you're having difficulty finding it but that doesn't mean it doesn't exist. I found it readily enough. And it's not a "timestamp", it's a dateline. -- ChrisO (talk) 04:01, 16 October 2009 (UTC)

• As this issue keeps being raised, I've added a section describing the discrepancies to the article. I tried to do it a way that avoids OR. The current version of the section is here. SlimVirgin ^{talk|contribs} 03:57, 16 October 2009 (UTC)

This discussion has gone way off course for the reliable sources noticeboard. As such, I'm marking the substantive issue - the AP report as a reliable source - as resolved. Please take editorial discussions to the article talk page - this is not an appropriate place for them. -- ChrisO (talk) 04:01, 16 October 2009 (UTC)

Reopened by Jaakobou on 04:19, 16 October 2009 (UTC) following premature closure by ChrisO on 04:01, 16 October 2009.

Note: from what I can see, an article version that is word for word with the version ChrisO cited for 12:35pm, September 30, 2000 is registered at Lexis-Nexis for having LOAD-DATE: October 1, 2000. To clarify, the article says "More than 500 Palestinians were injured, the Palestinian health minister said." and it doesn't appear to have any time stamp other than 'September 30, 2000, Saturday, BC cycle' at its top and October 1 at its bottom as a load date. I'm suspecting a possible confusion with ChrisO's original listing. I still can't see where he got his time stamps from. Perhaps, ChrisO can give a link to an image file (preferably a PDF) of the entire relevant information+article? Jaakobou^{Chalk Talk} 04:19, 16 October 2009 (UTC)

The load date is when it is put onto the Lexis-Nexis system. The dateline (not a "timestamp") is when the report was actually filed. It is part of the report itself. -- ChrisO (talk) 04:25, 16 October 2009 (UTC)

The dateline would be "GAZA, Sept 30 (Reuters)", for example. I think we're safer sticking to "timestamp" to describe the time the computer recorded the story. SlimVirgin ^{talk|contribs} 04:42, 16 October 2009 (UTC)

I've asked another editor, User:Awadewit, to look into the Lexis-Nexis thing and she didn't see any time stamp either on any of the dates. ChrisO, I still can't see where you got the time stamps from. Perhaps you could please give a link to an image file (preferably a PDF) of the entire relevant information + full article text?

With respect, Jaakobou^{Chalk Talk} 05:38, 16 October 2009 (UTC)

No, I can't, because the network I use for Lexis-Nexis access doesn't allow that. It would be pointless anyway since it's a text-only database. What you see is what you get. -- ChrisO (talk) 06:18, 16 October 2009 (UTC)

Since Wikipedia policy states that secondary sources should be used in an article, I would suggest that we stick to the timestamp of the 3 secondary sources. Unless, of course, the AP report timestamp is backed by another secondary source. BejinhanTalk 06:09, 16 October 2009 (UTC)

• Once again, I cannot find this timestamped article. Neither could Awadewit. ChrisO appears to be the only person able to find this source, and I feel uncomfortable maintaining information that clearly is not in the source right in front of me. Staxringold _talk^contribs 14:11, 16 October 2009 (UTC)

• I've removed from the article any reference to the Karin Laub Associated Press report, timestamped 10:35 GMT, and filed Saturday, September 30, 2000. We have been assuming this is a 24-hour clock, because the other AP timestamps are, which would make it morning GMT, either 12:35 pm or 1:35 pm in Israel.

  Reading the story, it says: "Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Barak spoke to Palestinian leader Yasser Arafat by phone late Saturday" (my bold). The article therefore can't have been written at 10:35 a.m. GMT. That's not "late Saturday" in Israel, the Palestinian territories, the U.S., or Europe.

  Either this is a PM timestamp, or it's the timestamp of an earlier version of the article, the contents of which we don't have. The other details in the article would seem to confirm that it was written later than 10:35 a.m. GMT. There is too much official confirmation of the numbers killed for this to be such an early report. I've therefore removed it from the article, because the truth is that we currently don't know when it was written. I've left a similar note on Talk:Muhammad_al-Durrah#Time_discrepancy_again. SlimVirgin ^{talk|contribs} 01:55, 17 October 2009 (UTC)

NOTICE: Apparently, another part of the initial edit I've mentioned here, where I've had a few concerns with sources ignored and reverted (per "these changes are hopeless"[11]) -- is now agreed upon as correct (per "I concur."-George, "I agree too."-ChrisO[12]). Jaakobou^{Chalk Talk} 12:56, 17 October 2009 (UTC)

Resolved

Seems resolved. Jaakobou^{Chalk Talk} 12:56, 17 October 2009 (UTC)

Benjamin Walker's Hindu World as a source for articles on Indian history

Referenced in several Kamboja-related articles. Anyone know how is it regarded by recent historians? Itsmejudith (talk) 09:07, 15 October 2009 (UTC)

NO its an encyclopedia from 1968. It is not an acceptable source for history. Fifelfoo (talk) 11:00, 15 October 2009 (UTC)

To expand, even given FUTON bias against the subcontinent, the citations in Scholar since 1990 are not connected to disciplines and investigations that are considered credible in historical practice. "1968" publication by Praeger and the subcontinent should trigger serious warning bells if you're asking about historical veracity. Subcontinental history has changed dramatically since the 1970s. Fifelfoo (talk) 11:05, 15 October 2009 (UTC)

Very useful, many thanks. Itsmejudith (talk) 11:19, 15 October 2009 (UTC)

The work was reviewed in Religious Studies, Vol. 5, No. 1 (Oct., 1969) and the review was positive overall, calling the books "a survey which will prove a most useful reference book, provided it is used critically, for anyone concerned with the Hindu tradition. Mr Walker is to be commended for his staggering achievement." The main "minor blemishes" that the review pointed out were that the encyclopedia relied mainly on secondary sources; should have had more maps and illustrations; the Romanization scheme was somewhat old fashioned; the treatment sometimes passed value-judgments; and the topic selection was sometimes idiosyncratic. These are not significant issues as far as our use is concerned.
So while I understand that this is a 40 year old one-person tertiary source, I think it is reasonable to use it as a source as long as it is is done "critically" i.e., don't use it for redflag claims, and keep in mind that things that were true in or upto the 1960s may no longer hold. And as usual, use a better, more recent source, whenever one is available. Abecedare (talk) 12:11, 15 October 2009 (UTC)

Being old doesn't make it unreliable. But its use probably requires more care because of that. - Peregrine Fisher (talk) (contribs) 17:18, 15 October 2009 (UTC)

Is divine revelation a reliable source?

I don't think so but am having a little run-in with a user who does seem to think so. I would be grateful if people who care about this policy could comment here:[13]. This is a very short description. The other editor suggests I consult other articles, which I think he wrote - and which seem to be based on "divine revelation" too. It might be a good idea of some people who participate in this page check out those linked articles. Just follow the link here, it will be obvious to you. This is not an edit conflict, no conflict over the article, yet - just a strange conversation about what is a good source for our articles. Thanks, Slrubenstein | Talk 13:23, 15 October 2009 (UTC)

It does look very problematic to only use Scripture or Saints' diaries as sources for articles, because those must be considered primary sources in this situation. The mainstay of an article should be based on citations from secondary sources, and primary sources should only be used as quotes or to illustrate how the subjects themselves perceived it. However, as theology is not really my field, it would be nice to have some more opinions from other editiors on this. --Saddhiyama (talk) 19:47, 15 October 2009 (UTC)

When good sources go bad

Resolved

 – The Washington Post is RS.

The following discussion is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made in a new section. A summary of the conclusions reached follows.

please refrain from adding spurious comments or disccusions to this noticeboard

---

I understand from previous discussions here that it is possible for a source to be generally reliable, but unreliable in a specific instance. I believe that I have come across a case where a newspaper which is normally regarded as an iron-clad reliable source has made an error, and the error should not be used in the article LaRouche movement. It concerns a quoted passage from LaRouche's 1979 autobiography.

Here is the quote in context:

Only the individual who is totally committed to public life from a Neoplatonic humanist standpoint, and who has thus superseded the infantile self-image of individual sensuous, family-centered life as a primary moral reality, can locate his or her sense of personal identity in respect to universal acts which are concretely universal acts and consciously motivated as intended universal acts.

The "silver soul" is a person whose rule by scientific knowledge (in the sense of a specific system) awards his public life so governed a certain determined universality of importance and corresponding moral qualities. However, the dichotomy between public and personal life represents the lodestone of his infantile, family-centered personal self, apart from public life, attached to his public self in such a way that the sense of personal identity which bridges the two conditions must be agreeable to both conditions, and hence cannot be the sense of identity of a "golden soul."

This does not mean that the "golden souls" have no personal life, but rather that their personal lives are ordered as a sharing among persons of their dedication to a Neoplatonic-humanist ordering to public life. Personal life is exemplified by activity such as Beethoven's music, or other art of persons who were "golden souls" in the governing and internal features of their art. It means that there is no moral dichotomy between the standards and interests of public and personal life, that the Neoplatonic standards and interests of public life rule in personal life.

At the lowest level, below the "silver souls," are the "bronze" or "iron" souls, the poor donkeys, the poor sheep, whose consciousness is dominated by the infantile world-outlook of individual sensuous life.

The objective of my life is to contribute to bringing men and women out of the wretched condition of sensuous donkeys and incompletely human "silver souls," to contribute to making of our species a race of "golden souls." To this end, I, like all my city-builder predecessors, work to commit our race to Neoplatonic humanist policies of generalized scientific and technological progress, and to policies of education, culture, and opportunity for realizing contributions of the creative individual powers to the general benefit of humanity.

The war in which I am presently engaged against the forces of the Whore of Babylon, against the heirs of Aristotle, is not a war merely for some particular policy, but a battle for that Great Design under which sovereign nations dedicated to generalized scientific and technological progress form a powerful alliance to crush the remaining power of the oligarch-ist faction, to rid our planet of that faction. This is but a necessary precondition for securing the humanity of ourselves and our posterity. It is a necessary step which must prevail if man is to acquire that environment of policy and institutions he requires to rid himself of bestiality, to rise above donkeyness and the wretched arrogance of mere learning, to becoming truly human, a "golden soul."

(If editors want an even larger context, look at this site and do Ctrl+F for the word "sheep." The site is not a reliable source, but I have no reason to believe that the archived transcription of the book in question is inaccurate.) Now, here is what a Washington Post article says about the quote, out of context. We have no link to the article, but the editor who added the material provided this excerpt:

"We represent the only efficient moral, intellectual and political force capable of saving human civilization." LaRouche echoes this notion in his 1979 autobiography, in which he describes his followers as the world's "golden souls," and the rest of humanity as "the poor donkeys, the poor sheep, whose consciousness is dominated by the infantile world-outlook of individual sensuous life." LaRouche continually describes the world as oozing with lasciviousness and sexual depravity.

This contemptuous view of non-members, and grandiose thinking about their own historical mission, is at the root of the criminal charges facing them, former members and law enforcement officials say. [Inside the Weird World of Lyndon LaRouche John Mintz. The Washington Post (pre-1997 Fulltext). Washington, D.C.: Sep 20, 1987. pg. c.01]

Here is what the Wikipedia article presently says:[14] I believe that the Post writer has taken a quote which discusses a philosophical concept taken from Plato's Republic and misrepresented it as a disparaging comment directed at all who are not members of his movement. I think that the misrepresentation is sufficiently obvious that that this article should not be taken as a reliable source on this particular subject. --Leatherstocking (talk) 15:20, 15 October 2009 (UTC)

There is always the possibility that an otherwise reliable source will make an error. When this happens, you should raise the issue on the article talk page (as these are where you will find people who know the subject and can best assess whether an error has indeed occured.) Blueboar (talk) 15:33, 15 October 2009 (UTC)

Yes. Well, in this case, there are only two regular editors, and we are embroiled in a dispute about how the WP:RS policy ought to apply to this instance. --Leatherstocking (talk) 16:51, 15 October 2009 (UTC)

There's also a larger issue here, in that there is a reason to suspect that reliable sources are "error prone" in regards to the article subject. Would you suggest that the best course of action is to still assume that a "paper of record" is reliable and only look into each source if there's a reason to suspect an inaccuracy, or would it be better to look at each source critically even if it's from a publisher with a good reputation? -- Atama頭 17:14, 15 October 2009 (UTC)

Regarding that "larger issue", LaRouche has said that the entire U.S. news industry has conspired against him. IIRC, all the major newspapers, including the New York Times, the Washington Post, the Washington Times, the Boston Globe, the Los Angeles Times, and the Wall Street Journal, are viewed as having vendettas against him, not to mention NBC, Murdoch, and all the British newspapers. Are we accepting that view of reality? So far, it isn't clear that the Washington Post has made any significant errors in what they've printed about LaRouche. It'd take more than a partisan assertion that they're biased to stop regarding them as a reliable source.   Will Beback  talk  22:37, 15 October 2009 (UTC)

Well, it's each editor's choice what he or she wants to look into. What is of interest is if they find a discrepancy. Then we have to proceed on a case by case basis. In this case it does seem the Post went a little beyond LaRouche's text. People are reliable sources for their own words, so it must be taken seriously. He engages in soul classification, but doesn't describe his followers as "golden souls". The closest he comes in the ref cited seems to be "The objective of my life is to contribute to bringing men and women out of the wretched condition of sensuous donkeys and incompletely human 'silver souls,' to contribute to making of our species a race of 'golden souls'. " He says that he is a golden soul (see "innermost secrets of the apostles"), but he doesn't tell us whether he has ever been successful in his objective, whether he believes any of his followers is a golden soul. Our text should be changed a little to make it consistent with both the secondary WaPo and primary autobio sources, it seems pointless to me to highlight this minor discrepancy for the reader in the article. As the autobio does support the idea that most of us are sensuous donkeys, silver souls at best, nothing wrong with using the Post for that.John Z (talk) 18:52, 15 October 2009 (UTC)

It should also be mentioned that this is not the only occasion in which LaRouche or his top aides have used the term "golden souls". It is used several other places in the book, and we have a primary source of a speech given by an aide the year before the book was published using the term. More can be found at Talk:LaRouche movement/Sources#"Golden souls". If this were a clear mistake about a simple fact then it'd be different. I don't think that this purported misinterpretation is clear enough to discount a highly reliable source. Otherwise we'd be in the business of interpreting primary texts, which we should avoid. The Washington Post view is reasonable, and in our Wikipedia article their interpreation of the quote is attributed to them. See LaRouche movement#Members.   Will Beback  talk  19:28, 15 October 2009 (UTC)

I've taken the liberty of adding the next two paragraphs to the material Leatherstocking quoted. LaRouche says: The objective of my life is to contribute to bringing men and women out of the wretched condition of sensuous donkeys and incompletely human "silver souls," to contribute to making of our species a race of "golden souls." That makes it pretty clear that he believes most of humanity are "sensuous donkeys" and "silver souls", and that his objective is to elevate those who will listen to him.   Will Beback  talk  19:51, 15 October 2009 (UTC)

Neither this source, nor any of the other sources you have assembled, is sufficient to justify the claim in the present version of LaRouche movement, that LaRouche is contemptuous of non-members. We should particularly avoid, under BLP, falsely attributing an opinion to the subject by the misrepresentation of the subject's published writings. --Leatherstocking (talk) 15:28, 16 October 2009 (UTC)

There is no question that the Washington Post has correctly quoted LaRouche. There is no question that we are correctly quoting the Washington Post. The only dispute here is about the Washington Post's interpretation of the LaRouche quotation. In the article, that interpretation is attributed to the Post. I've shown above that LaRouche says that those who aren't "golden souls" are in the "wretched condition sensuous donkeys and incompletely human 'silver souls'." There's no reaqson to delete this material, as you've done repeatedly. It is well-sourced and attributed, and the the assertion itself does not represent a red flag. Unless a majority of uninvoled editors here feel differently, the material hold be restored.   Will Beback  talk  19:35, 16 October 2009 (UTC)

The father of an NCLC member, who was attempting to persuade his daughter to leave the organization, was greeted one morning by a hearse whose driver and attendant had been told "to pick up the body," an unmistakable threat.

— "U.S. LABOR PARTY: The Swarmy Life and Times of the NCLC" GREGORY F. ROSE. National Review March 30, 1979 P. 409-413

According to former members and incidents described in party publications, a frequently used tactic--particularly when members are selling the group's literature or distrupting meetings of other organizations--is to try to incite violence though insults. "Those guys are maniacs," said one former member. "I've seen them. If you don't buy a paper, you're a pig or smell bad or they call you a Nazi. They two inches from a person's face and cut them to pieces. They can get anybody to hit them in a second. They love it, getting bloddy. They talk about it all the time." When members do elicit a reaction, they file assault charges and include the incident in accounts of "assassination attempts."

— "U.S. Labor Party: Cult Surrounded by Controversy," Howard Blum and Paul Montgomery, New York Times, October 7, 1979

Two weeks ago in Rochester, N.H., a young woman from the University of New Hampshire was verbally abused by an angry LaRouche campaign worker after she asked the candidate critical questions and talked to a reporter at a rally. The LaRouche aide called her a "prostitute" and re¬fused to let her ride a bus back to the campus with the other students who had attended the rally.

— "LaRouche Trying to Lose Splinter Label" ELLEN HUME Los Angeles Times Feb 16, 1980; pg. A20

Ex-members said that the organization brands as traitors those who quit the group. Former members said they know of several dropouts who have received threatening phone calls from supporters. The LaRouche-tied New Solidarity newspaper in 1974 ran an obituary for three associates who it said had been murdered by federal agents. The three, who were still alive, had recently quit the group. The group's internal memos in the 1970s and early 1980s referred to individual dropouts variously as a liar, a thief, "psychotic," a KGB pawn, "a scummy dupe," "a witting agent," "a pathological liar," "a zombie" and "virtually paranoid." The organization has used a range of other unorthodox methods.

— "Critics of LaRouche Group Hassled, Ex-Associates Say" By John Mintz Washington Post Staff Writer January 14, 1985

However, a number of letters and telephone calls protesting harassment by the signature gatherers came in to the secretary of state's office, officials said. According to one complaint, a youth yelled at a Catholic priest in Camarillo, accusing him of being a homosexual, when the priest would not sign the petition. In Huntington Beach, a woman coming from a Post Office was accosted for her signature and when she refused to sign, the petition pusher yelled, "You are going to get AIDS!" according to her letter to the secretary.

— LaRouche is linked to petition , Initiative proposal would quarantine AIDS patients; [1,2,3,4,5,6 Edition] Don Davis. The San Diego Union. San Diego, Calif.: May 23, 1986. pg. A.3

Election officials, charging followers of extremist Lyndon LaRouche are bullying people into signing candidate petitions, Monday warned voters to scrutinize petitions before jotting down their names. [..]

The incidents, which took place at a downtown Rochester shopping mall and several other locations, ended with "abusive language" aimed at people who refuse to sign petitions, Toole said. "This is just one more harassment to the voter," Toole said. "It just discourages people from participating in the electoral process, including signing petitions and getting out to vote in primaries."

— "LAROUCHE BACKERS ACCUSED OF 'BULLYING'" AP, Albany Times Union (Albany, NY) July 8, 1986 pB11

Under questioning from Mr. Markham, [former security aide Charles] Tate said he quit the LaRouche organization four years ago because the movement had contempt for decent, ordinary humanity.

I had witnessed Mr. LaRouche lie to the membership again and again, Mr. Tate testified. I had seen revolting actions.

I had seen members of the organization insulted and humiliated, he said.

Mr. Tate told the jury Tuesday that Mr. LaRouche's chief fund raiser, William Wertz, had told the staff to try to have loans converted into contributions and, if unsuccessful, to not repay them unless there was a political downside or threatened lawsuit.

In his testimony today, Mr. Tate said the organization harassed political figures, from liberals to conservatives, and Mr. LaRouche's followers assumed false identities to gain information on their enemies.

— WITNESS IN TRIAL FAULTS LAROUCHE, AP, Nw York Times, Nov 24, 1988

A description of Lyndon LaRouche as a paranoid, lying drunkard who believed the American public was not morally fit to survive highlighted the first week of testimony in the government's mail fraud case against the political extremist and his followers. [..]

Money was a constant worry, with LaRouche regularly pressuring his fund- raisers to get tougher with the public, especially during the Democratic presidential primaries in 1984. Unless he raised enough money to get into the White House, he often reminded staff members, "there was no hope for mankind," Tate testified. [..]

It was LaRouche's responsibility, he often said, to act for mankind because the public lacked the moral fitness to survive such disasters as a KGB takeover or nuclear war, Tate testified over two days.

Tate also depicted his former boss as a paranoid schizophrenic who repeatedly lied, humiliated and insulted staff members and often made decisions while drunk.

Defense attorneys engaged in sometimes testy exchanges with Tate under cross-examination but did little to rebut his assertions about life at LaRouche residences on New York's upper East Side, in West Germany and his sprawling estate in Leesburg. [..]

Testimony from former LaRouche insiders disclosed a contempt toward would- be contributors. Higher-ups often yelled at telephone solicitors for being too soft on the public, for listening to their problems and for not pressuring them to give money.

"You have to have only one thing on your mind -- get the money," former fund-raiser Chris Curtis said he was told. "The minute you listen to their excuses, you're dead."

Curtis had the last word under questioning from the prosecution before the trial recessed for the Thanksgiving holiday. He said one of the defendants, fellow fund-raiser Michael Billington, referred to lenders as "pigs and swine" when they insisted they be repaid.

— LAROUCHE LIFESTYLE IS FOCUS OF TRIAL United Press International. Richmond Times - Dispatch. Richmond, Va.: Nov 27, 1988. pg. A-8

Susan is hardly the only protestor with an abrasive personality. Like most people, I first encountered followers of Lyndon LaRouche in an airport, when one shouted at me, "Even guys with beards can support nuclear power." In my case he was wrong. But I was strucke by how unconcerned he was with making a favorable impression on others. So sure of the scientific correctness of LaRouche's weird economic analyses, his followers were just waiting for their vindication. They displayed the arrogance of certainty in addition to the irritation of difficult personalities.

— The Art of Moral Protest: Culture, Biography, and Creativity in Social Movements By James M. Jasper University of Chicago Press, 1999 ISBN 0226394816, 9780226394817 p. 222

Trader Joe's wants Lyndon LaRouche's Political Action Committee enjoined from protesting outside its stores. The company claims LaRouche acolytes have harassed customers outside 60 of its California stores while protesting health-care reform, calling Trader Joe's patrons "Bitches" and "Hitler Lovers."

— Trader Joe's Wants LaRouche PAC Barred By ELIZABETH BANICKI Courthouse News Service [11] September 04, 2009

Neither LaRouche nor his movement are known for showing respect to outsiders, or even insiders. Above are reports spanning three decades indicating contempt or outright harassment of outsiders, and it's just a tiny portion of the evidence for that. In light of the overall world view of LaRouche, I don't think that the Washingtopn Post is misinterpreting his writings.   Will Beback  talk  20:16, 16 October 2009 (UTC)

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

Christian Research Journal a reliable source

Is the Christian Research Journal [15] a reliable source for an article on Maharishi University of Management, Reception section here? [16] (Final paragraph Roark)

It seems to be simply a collection from self-published websites (including anonymous websites), the type of source that Wikipedia doesn't value. The journal is affiliated with this site and organization [17]

The site as well advertises and sells "Christian products" so may also be a spam site. [18] (olive (talk) 17:44, 15 October 2009 (UTC))

I wouldn't consider it reliable in the slightest, it's a Christian apologetic site and should only be used in narrow circumstances about itself. --Cameron Scott (talk) 17:48, 15 October 2009 (UTC)

Olive, you have seriously, and I expect, deliberately, mischaracterized what this journal is. It is most certainly not a collection of self-published and anonymous websites, but a bi-monthly journal published in hard-copy form, and also with articles available online, with an extensive set of guidelines for submissions, and a comprehensive editorial review policy that requires research and sourcing of submissions. [19] Whether or not it, or the website of the organization that publishes it, sells advertising or sells any other product, is irrelevant to whether or not it is a reliable source. And, Cameron Scott appears to have relied upon that mischaracterization in making his comment.Fladrif (talk) 18:06, 15 October 2009 (UTC)

Fladrif. I have linked to the site in question and assume the editors replying here are intelligent enough to click on the links, and to evaluate what they see. I made this post as neutral as possible and prefaced my comment about the "collection" with "seems". I am asking for neutral input from neutral editors who did not use this source in an article , and who will evaluate the situation for themselves. Thanks.(olive (talk) 18:16, 15 October 2009 (UTC))

I went across and looked at the editorial guidelines. I don't consider it a reliable source for anything but it's own views on that basis as its POV and purposes is apologetics as it clearly notes itself. --Cameron Scott (talk) 18:18, 15 October 2009 (UTC)

From the website link: "Our goal is to equip Christians with the information they need to discern doctrinal errors, evangelize people of other faiths, and provide a strong defense of Christian beliefs and ethics." No, as already stated that does not look like a reliable source for anything else than the views of the organisation it represents. --Saddhiyama (talk) 18:43, 15 October 2009 (UTC)

A good "rule of thumb" to generally go by is this- if it is a publication regarding a religion best to only use attribution "so and so says x" or as a source for what that religion believes "the Catholic religion believes in Original Sin, the Jewish religion does not". Religious publications should never be used for FACT.Camelbinky (talk) 20:20, 15 October 2009 (UTC)

In this case, that is exactly how it is being used, as a citation for the statement that

"MUM's former Dean of Faculty and Chair of the Department of Physics, Dennis Roark, is critical of the university’s “crackpot science” protocols, meritless claims concerning the relationship between physics and consciousness, and the suppression of negative data in research that is then widely quoted as “scientific” proof by MUM of the benefits of Transcendental Meditation

One can independently verify that Roark did indeed say and write these things about the Maharishi University.[20] MUM acknowledges this, as David Orme-Johnson of MUM published a response to it on his website [21]So, I would think that this use would fall within the scope of appropriate and acceptable use of a publication that, notwithstanding an unapologetic POV, has editorial and publication standards that insist on proper research, citation and attribution. Fladrif (talk) 14:10, 16 October 2009 (UTC)

Fladrif, as a commenter notes, Christian research journal is useful only as a source for what that religion believes. If you want to use this letter written by someone who hasn't stepped on campus in 30 years you'll need to find it in the context of a secondary source, ideally one that gives the letter proper scholarly or journalistic treatment. That would mean, for example, an attempt to corroborate the hearsay that Roark includes in his letter. The fact that someone said something to Roark 30 years ago about research shouldn't be used in Wikipedia to suggest that the entire body of research on TM over the past 40 years conducted at over 200 institutions worldwide has been subject to suppression of data, which is what your addition to the article implies. The Trancenet site is hardly a reliable source for this letter. It incorrectly says, for example, that he was head of the physics department and dean of faculty 1975-1980. TimidGuy (talk) 15:19, 16 October 2009 (UTC)

Nonsense. The argument being made against the use of this journal as a source is an extremist version of an argument I read over and over here that is basically this: "Source X can't be reliable because it promotes a particular POV on subject Z." That argument is ill-conceived and fundamentally wrong. Every source promotes a POV of one kind or another. Peer-reviewed science and medical journals promote the POV that the scientific method is a correct way of analyzing questions of science; or promote modern western medicine over alternative medicine. Do promoters of various flavors of woo woo get to argue that you can't cite them because they are promoting the POV of science instead of neutrally giving Woo equal treatment? The balance of TG's argument has nothing to do with whether this is a reliable source or not.Fladrif (talk) 14:12, 19 October 2009 (UTC)

Unreliable source. Even worse the website is designed ask for donations. The Four Deuces (talk) 22:50, 15 October 2009 (UTC)

Hey now, just because a website asks for donations that's not a reason to throw it out. That's a bad precendent to set Four Deuces. I agree its not reliable though, but for the reason that religious websites arent for anything other than their own opinion.Camelbinky (talk) 01:40, 16 October 2009 (UTC)

Government source for picture of massacre

There's a discussion[22] going on about this picture on the Ethnic cleansing of Georgians in South Ossetia article. The picture is sourced to the government of South Ossetia's website, and depicts "South Ossetian civilians killed by Georgian forces in May, 1992".

Some people are arguing that a government source is no good for a controversial picture like this, and that the picture might be from a different, unrelated incident. I say if a similar situation involved American, German or British government websites, no one would be making a fuss, and their arguments are fueled by their own personal opinions about the reliability of the South Ossetian government while trying to find technicalities to hide it. I would like some unbiased opinions please. LokiiT (talk) 05:57, 16 October 2009 (UTC)

The website in question obviously cannot be considered a reliable source - it is the website of a government of one of the belligerents involved in the conflict. If there is independent confirmation from a reliable source that in fact the photo is what the website says it is then of course it's a different matter. But no such confirmation has been provided - rather assertions have been made that "any official state agency is a reliable source". Special care needs to be taken given the very graphic nature of this photo.radek (talk) 06:05, 16 October 2009 (UTC)

Note: Radeksz is involved in the dispute and therefore has a conflict of interest. Precisely the reason I came here instead of continuing the argument on the talk page. LokiiT (talk) 06:11, 16 October 2009 (UTC)

Involved in dispute yourself LokiiT. I'm just presenting the other side, as is my right to do.radek (talk) 06:19, 16 October 2009 (UTC)

He's being accused by Biophys of being a sockpuppet. I've been accused by Biophys of being a sockpuppet too, an accusation which was proven to be completely false. You and Biophys on the other hand, are part of the biggest ArbCom case to hit Wikipedia. Don't equate the two. HistoricWarrior007 (talk) 07:01, 16 October 2009 (UTC)

This is a WP:RS. Is there a reason to dispute the picture's authenticity? If you want to dispute it, you need to give a source which supports your view—your personal opinion is not enough. Offliner (talk) 06:14, 16 October 2009 (UTC)

Yes, there is a reason - it comes from the website of a government involved in the conflict. Provide a source which confirms the photo is what it is. Like, for example, has it ever been used by any independent (and no, Putinite sources don't count) outlet, with that or similar caption?radek (talk) 06:19, 16 October 2009 (UTC)

Additionally (though this is a separate issue), in one of the articles that the photo is being used it's also UNDUE.radek (talk) 06:23, 16 October 2009 (UTC)

WP:Verifiability, not truth. Materials from government websites are widely used as references all over Wikipedia—even in articles about wars the governments participated in. If the picture really is not genuine, then it should be easy for you to come up with sources (such as Georgian ones) which tell precisely that. Offliner (talk) 06:22, 16 October 2009 (UTC)

Sure, verifiability, not truth. So we need to verify if this photo comes from reliable sources or partisan government websites. In *some* cases - mostly where the info is non-controversial or can be independently verified - government websites are used to source ... view of government agencies. Sometimes to cite some statistics and the like. But there is no blanket rule that *any* government website is a reliable source. If the picture really is genuine, then it should be easy for you to come up with independent sources (such as non-Ossetian or non-Russian government ones) which verify (as in "verifiability") that the photo is what the website claims it is.radek (talk) 06:27, 16 October 2009 (UTC)

Can you find a major (non-Ossetian, non-Russian government) news agency which used the photo for example? If so, I'll be happy to withdraw my objections.radek (talk) 06:28, 16 October 2009 (UTC)

This is your opinion. Great, but not really, considering we already know your biases and conflicts of interest. Now can you please cite a wiki policy that backs your views up about government sources and the circumstances of when they're allowed and when they're not? Note that it's not our job to prove the reliability of a notable source. It's your job to disprove it. LokiiT (talk) 06:37, 16 October 2009 (UTC)

And you have your opinion, which we also know, given your biases and your conflict of interests. There's no wiki policy which says that any government site is a reliable source. And yes it is your job to prove a reliability of a source.radek (talk) 06:46, 16 October 2009 (UTC)::::::And you have your opinion, which we also know, given your biases and your conflict of interests. There's no wiki policy which says that any government site is a reliable source. And yes it is your job to prove a reliability of a source.radek (talk) 06:46, 16 October 2009 (UTC)

I don't think that's necessary. It's clearly a reliably published source. Whether it is true is a different matter; obviously it's been published for propaganda purposes, so it should be treated with some caution. It can legitimately be used to represent the S.O. government's viewpoint and should be cited as such. However, it should not be presented as an established fact. It is reliable only in so far as it is a statement of the government's POV. That POV is, clearly, a notable one, so it should be represented in the article. -- ChrisO (talk) 06:39, 16 October 2009 (UTC)

What makes you say that it is a reliably published source (published "somewhere" is not the same as reliably published)? Would info from the website of the Sudanese government be reliable in regard to say, Darfur? I can see it being presented as an opinion of the Ossetian government... if the picture wasn't so graphic and included in interest of obvious POV pushing.radek (talk) 06:46, 16 October 2009 (UTC)

The same arguments made for deleting the picture, can be made for deleting the article. Yet I don't see you making those arguments Radek. Actually if you think about it, the article's even worse. It cites sources that think that ethnic cleansing is a form of genocide. HistoricWarrior007 (talk) 06:56, 16 October 2009 (UTC)

Thanks for the input ChrisO, I agree with what you're saying and it's consistent with wiki policy. Radekz: Yes, a picture from the Sudanese government would be reliable insofar as being a picture produced by the government of Sudan. I think the same logic would apply. LokiiT (talk) 07:01, 16 October 2009 (UTC)

It's a reliable source. Considering the impact a picture can have though I question wether or not it's use falls within our guidelines on due weight. Also it's use needs to be attributed, if used it needs to be made clear that the source of the image could be biased. Taemyr (talk) 08:56, 16 October 2009 (UTC)

While this refers to article information, not pictures, I balieve this can shed some light on the issue. Questionable sources: "Questionable sources should only be used as sources of material on themselves, especially in articles about themselves. (See below.) Questionable sources are generally unsuitable as a basis for citing contentious claims about third parties." As long as the material (the picture) is being used to illustrate the section, without making a claim, I see no reason to not include it.

Fact is, if it is a legitimate government source, I see no policy that states that it cannot be used, no matter whether true or reliable. Remember, it is not our job to decide what is right or true, only to report the information. I would suggesting including the picture, with a note that is from a source involved in the conflict. Sephiroth storm (talk) 14:57, 16 October 2009 (UTC)

I for one think it is a mistake to automatically lend credulity to governments where those same governments have reason to falsify or exaggerate evidence. We try to (as seen above) partition this into WEIGHT and RS and what-not, but I'm uncomfortable just declaring that "this is a reliable source for the gov't of Georgia's opinion of what this picture is" and carting people off to another noticeboard. Does the government of Georgia have a record for reliable presentation of facts on this issue? Is there evidence that they have falsified documents or manufactured controversies before? Is the information corroborated anywhere? I'm also really uncomfortable treating this as "illustration" rather than "support" for a claim. I feel that is a false distinction in general and is especially so with visual images. The Revolution Will Not Be Televised (documentary) offers a good example of (on both sides) the use of selective visual presentation in order to deceive and manipulate. We should do here what we do with any source, hold it to the standards demanded by RX and V. Protonk (talk) 15:52, 16 October 2009 (UTC)

I agree with ChrisO about this photo. There doesn't seem to be any particular controversy about it, and the facts expressed by the photo - the deaths of a number of civilians - are consistent with reliably sourced information, and apparently not disputed. It should be attributed and it is. Neutrality and undue weight are issues, but it doesn't seem unacceptable in that regard either. As always, let the reader form his or her own opinions.John Z (talk) 18:29, 16 October 2009 (UTC)

Wikileaks?

IS wikileaks a reliable source? They accept user uploads, but they do appear to have some sort of vetting process. Sephiroth storm (talk) 14:14, 16 October 2009 (UTC)

Depends. See archive 45. Squidfryerchef (talk) 15:10, 16 October 2009 (UTC)

Thanks. Sephiroth storm (talk) 15:43, 16 October 2009 (UTC)

Reality TV and reliable sources

I keep an eye on a number of reality tv series articles such as The Apprentice Australia and Australia's Next Top Model, Cycle 5. The majority of these articles are unreferenced. I would like to know if episode summaries (and all these "call-out" tables) can be fully referenced by using the tv episode itself with a {{cite episode}} citation. Is it better than nothing?  florrie  00:55, 17 October 2009 (UTC)

Yes, but if there is a place somewhere, preferably online, that you know of that has these episodes "saved" where people can access them easily it would be good to use that url and put that in the citation (something similar to Hulu). Others may say "no", but as we've gone through before on here and even had to write an essay about it- verifiability does not mean verified by YOU, this instant, from your computer, for free, without any effort. If the information does in fact exist in the episode then it exists and is verifiable (anyone can look at the episode). Of course keep your "summaries" short, use a NPOV manner of writting, dont over analyze or write your own commentary. It is better than nothing to have this type of citation, the article would be lacking if this information was not cited to anything or worse- removed. This is a clear example of where IAR comes in handy, you want to improve the encyclopedia and have to break or bend general policy in order to to it. Have at it.Camelbinky (talk) 22:39, 17 October 2009 (UTC)

If the episode is not on Youtube, and is not being re-broadcast, how would a reader verify the information?   Will Beback  talk  22:45, 17 October 2009 (UTC)

I am assuming it exists somewhere (Youtube is not the only thing of its kind, do you think it is unique? In case you didnt know Google also has competitors!) Unless the film has been burned in a pile or put through a woodchipper it exists somewhere. I dont care if YOU cant verify it yourself. Someone, theoretically can. It is the same as using as a source a one of a kind book that exists only in an archive in a museum in St. Petersburg, Russia. Yes, you cant go to Russia right now and verify it says what the article says it says, but it can still be used, you might not even be able to read what language it is in, but it is still a verifiable and reliable source. It never matters how difficult it is for an individual themselves to verify something. That is not the purpose of verifiability to make it where anyone and everyone can verify something immediately. It is that SOMEONE could verify it if they had the opportunity. That is why this noticeboard decided to write the essay that clarified that point because of the continued questions about "instant gratification". Oh, and of course there's IAR, we dont need to go by the letter of WP:V because we are adhering to the spirit of it and indeed improving the article. As long as you have good faith and are actually improving the article, using a subpar citation is better than removing the information. WP:PRESERVE.Camelbinky (talk) 23:14, 17 October 2009 (UTC)

the article would be lacking if this information was not cited to anything or worse- removed - Considering these are reality programmes, with commentary on real people, I'd have thought WP:BLP would be of importance and a little more care taken with verifying events. Your advice makes me uneasy, but I thank you for your opinion.  florrie  01:45, 18 October 2009 (UTC)

I disagree with Camelbinky. Presuming that a copy of a broadcast must exist somewhere does not make its contents verifiable. I agree that material doesn't have to be easily accessible, but it has to be accessible in some practical form. Otherwise we're leaving the door open to hoaxes and other false information. "Just because you can't find a copy of 'Lives of the Swedish Saints' in any library or bookshop doesn't mean it's not a reliable source. I read it ten years and I am faithfully citing it. The burden is on you to track it down and prove I'm wrong." Broadcasts are no more verifiable than live speeches unless there is a recording.   Will Beback  talk  23:55, 19 October 2009 (UTC)

armscontrolcenter.org & independent.org

An editor on the article Military budget of the United States appears to be using information from the following websites as a way of expanding the information on the article that is outside of its scope. Would these articles be considered politically neutral reliable sources of information? --RightCowLeftCoast (talk) 13:00, 17 October 2009 (UTC)

Sungazing RS

hi, this topic (sungazing) was already posted some time ago and had only one response from an outside editor. i feel it is important to list some reliable sources so the page can progress and not rely on incorrect information about what sungazing is (and is not). There are certain practise guidelines listed on many! different web pages that seem to get no credit on the page. and hence the page suffers from lack of proper information about the practise.
this was the original post...
"i was wondering if i can use the source Hira Ratan Manek Sungazing DVD to support information about the actual practise of sungazing. ie. guidelines, rules, safety precautions etc... on the Sungazing page. Sungazing is a practise and there needs to be some form of defining a "safe" practise in order to distinguish it from staring at the noon sun for hours. For example, the DVD states one should only sun gaze during "safe" times when UV levels are below 2. Usually within one hour after sunrise and one hour before sunset. The practise also entails a very gradual start. One begins with sungazing for 10 seconds (during a safe time) and each day increases the time by ten seconds, to a limit of 45 minutes.

there is also information here... http://www.sungazing.com/652.html http://phoenixtools.org/sungazing/practise.htm

youtube has copy of the DVD http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zlCJPxxKoaY these sources are just for the facets of the practise itself. Thanks!"

the only conclusion from the last discussion was not if the sources were reliable but if wikipedia should discuss the details of the practise, for safety reasons. there are many web sites that share the exact same information for the safe practise of sungazing. these safety guidleines are not currently on the wiki page for sungazing as i'm guessing some reliable sources need to be established in order to present the information properly.
for example can this book (found at the website listed) be deemed as reliable source ...

http://www.scribd.com/doc/378210/The-Art-and-Science-of-Sun-Gazing-Living-on-Sunlight

wondering on how to proceed...

Thanks

J929 (talk) 20:18, 17 October 2009 (UTC)

Blimey, the sources in that article are terrible, simply terrible... let me get my flamethrower. --Cameron Scott (talk) 20:29, 17 October 2009 (UTC)

J929 completely misrepresents the last discussion at this noticeboard. Here's the link. The one editor who commented agreed with my position. Hira Ratan Manek's self-published works are unreliable sources that should not be given equal weight with medical journals, which invariably conclude that staring at the sun is bad for you. Skinwalker (talk) 21:54, 17 October 2009 (UTC)

Hi! I am indeed that one "outside editor" who commented last time. How are you?! "If at first you dont succeed, try try again". I'm sorry that this time I have not changed my mind. My opinion stands, for safety reasons and reasons of "what Wikipedia is NOT" this information can not be put in an article. We arent a "how-to guide" and this information puts in a liability legal issue. Here is a copy-paste of my comment from last time-

• I agree with Skinwalker, plus Wikipedia is not a "how-to" guide, it is beyond the scope of Wikipedia to outline how to do something and when it safe to do so and how to do it safely, especially something that is so complicated you have to start with a predetermined safe time and you can increase your time over time. We dont want to be held liable if we are (or our source) is wrong and damages someone, nor do we want someone to get damaged if a vandal should change the wording or time allotments on a page even for just an hour or day before before the correct information is reverted back. Better safe than sorry I think. Sorry, but really you shouldnt put the information is, even though I think it is very interesting information.Camelbinky (talk) 22:07, 17 October 2009 (UTC)

Per Fringe theories, the independent sources commenting on a practice should be our guide to the level of detail appropriate to devote to it. This form of inedia has attracted very little outside notice that I can find. It is inappropriate to source medical claims to those self-published sources. - 2/0 (cont.) 02:44, 18 October 2009 (UTC)

the request is a question of, are the sources reliable in presenting the parameters of the practise of sungazing, itself. i understand wikipedia is not a how-to guide (and agree with camelbinky on the concerns of liability) but the practise of sungazing does require certain safety guidelines to be followed. Sungazing, as a practise does have criteria that define it. ie. standing barefoot on loose dirt or sand, gradual increase of time gazing (not staring) at the sun etc etc ... the sources i'm asking about define the practise.
Most sources do agree on certain guidelines that define sungazing as a practise (as opppsed to staring at the sun to recreate a vision of the Virgin Mary, as one source refers to) such as gazing at the sun in low levels of UV, sunrise or sunset, (not staring into the 3pm sun as the current medical journals are discussing), gradual increase of time spent sungazing, where after over 9 monthes does a "sungazer" reach 45 minutes of gazing, etc... there are ample websites that state these guidelines and parameters. as it stands now these sources are not allowed in the article and therefor the practise of sungazing is inferred as staring at mid day sun. (and all the consequences therein)
the page now holds statements such as "The practice of sungazing is dangerous." (with out a reference or source to this statement) and "Solar retinopathy, damage to the eye’s retina due to solar radiation, and blindness to varying degrees and persistence frequently result from sungazing during a solar eclipse." i would like the author of this statement to produce ONE source that promotes sungazing during an eclipse. every source i have read clearly states (with common sense as a guide) that gazing (or looking) at a solar eclipse is harmful. why then is this considered "sungazing"?
hence i have posed the question of reliable sources for this topic.

Hira Ratan Manek states the guidelines for sungazing. many websites share these parameters. Skinwalker states these "should not be given equal weight with medical journals". i think that may somewhat off topic as medical journals dont really ever present the guidelines of sungazing. (i understand medical journals will not write about the guidelines or specifications of what is "sungazing" but there is concensus among many sources on the guidelines for the practise of sungazing.) the guidelines and parameters of sungazing will most likely be discussed by a sungazer.

"staring at the sun is bad for you", sungazing is not staring at the sun.

J929 (talk) 17:11, 22 October 2009 (UTC)

Look, you can repeat yourself until you're blue in the face, but Manek's self-published material will not be given equal weight with medical articles. The consensus is clearly against you here and at the article. I suggest you move on. Skinwalker (talk) 22:22, 22 October 2009 (UTC)

IMDB?

Is IMDB suitable as an external link vis a vis TV shows? Prior to air, people there submit cast that aren't actually in the show, or are miscredited, as determined when the show actually airs. They also use tentative or non-existent air dates that have not been reliably confirmed elsewhere. As a site with minimal editorial oversight, where everybody can contribute, they seem to fail the verifiability and reliability standards. I'll be glad to provide examples as necessary if folks feel this warrant further discussion (and if as a non-editor I'm posting in the right place :) ). Or relate this to individual pages where they are listed for more specific details. And please note, I'm talking about their suitability as an external link. As a source for articles, obviously their reliability should be judged on a case by case basis. --Gadflyr (talk) 20:25, 17 October 2009 (UTC)

Oh gee, another IMDB question. We dont get enough of these. (sarcasm) Gadflyr is correct to say their reliability should be judged on a case by case basis when talking about being a source. I would say the criteria for being an external link would be less than that of being used a source and therefore IMDB could be a suitable EL. By providing external links we arent saying "this is fact", we're simply saying "other information we didnt use in this article, for whatever reason, can be found here-". I do think this warrents further discussion and is actually a welcome different take on the perennial IMDB question. I would like to hear lots of opinions.Camelbinky (talk) 22:00, 17 October 2009 (UTC)

I like them as an EL, because they can provide directory type info we're prohibited from providing per WP:NOT. - Peregrine Fisher (talk) (contribs) 05:12, 21 October 2009 (UTC)

Sunday Times of South Africa

This article, which contains the sentence Known in the Arab world as the Gaza Massacre, Operation Cast Lead left more than 1 000 Palestinians dead earlier this year. is being used to source The conflict has been called the Gaza Massacre (Template:Lang-ar) in the Arab world in the Gaza War article. A number of sources have been provided showing the use by various Hamas officials and spokespersons using "gaza massacre" as the name used in English and Arabic but it was argued that was not sufficient to say Hamas has called it the Gaza massacre. Is this a reliable source and is it sufficient to source the sentence cited? nableezy - 17:03, 18 October 2009 (UTC)

The concern is not that "massacre" cannot be used but that it was not a primary title or description to be boded in the lead while not mentioning others. Proposals for inclusion without it being used as the primary title in the Arab world or by Hamas have been rejected. In an attempt to reach consensus, a proposal was even made to remove the well sourced Israeli operational title from the lead all together while still keeping the term "massacre" in the opening.

The accuracy of this source in particular is disputed for the following reasons:

• It is the only news organization who has stated that it was called the Gaza Massacre in the Arab world. Al Jazeera uses the term "War on Gaza" for its special report. Al Arabiya and others reporting from the region yield 0 results or very few for "Gaza Massacre" when searched.
• It could easily be a circular reference.
• There has not been any response to multiple emails to accuracy@thetimes.co.za
• There have been 10 instances of the term "Gaza massacre" being used by Hamas officials that we have found. It was used as a description a few times and maybe asserted as a title a couple but not enough to give it prominence in the lead.
• Google news searches for other titles and descriptions result in hundreds or thousands of results wile "The Gaza Massacre" results in less than a hundred. Caps are not searched so many of these are descriptions (the Gaza massacre).

Cptnono (talk) 17:35, 18 October 2009 (UTC)

This is a reliable news source and it does support the idea that the description "Gaza massacre" has been used in the Arab-speaking world. Unfortunately, that is not the end of the argument in relation to this article. It is only one source, and even the best newspapers can be mistaken on occasion. If you cannot find any use of this phrase in Arabic-language media (not directly tied to Hamas), then it wouldn't seem to be appropriate to mention it. An English-language source is to be preferred, but one or two further sources in another language would be acceptable, even desirable, here. Maybe there are some in the google hits, even if they are relatively limited in number. We wouldn't expect an Arabic phrase to get numerous hits when searched for in English. I would disregard the capitalisation issue given that we are talking about translated text.

Say you do find further sources, you will still have to reach consensus about whether to mention this description (not everything that can be reliably sourced is worth including in the encyclopedia). And if you do agree that it is worth including you also have to reach consensus about how much prominence to give it. Finally, don't forget that you can attribute the source ("According to The Sunday Times of South Africa ... "). Itsmejudith (talk) 18:03, 18 October 2009 (UTC)

No question that the newspaper itself is reliable. No question either that "massacre" material will be included in the article. It is just a question of whether it will be included in the lede. The issue really falls on the use of capitalization and English grammar. When dozens of sources specifically do not indicate that it is a proper name and one reporter uses capitalization that indicates that it is a proper name, it can be supposed that the writer made an error. Whether the reporter is reliable for everything he writes is another question. The writer is a bloggist The sickie joke's on me and writes "fluff pieces" for the Times such as It's official --handbags are the new shoes,Youngsters' hot salsa wows showbiz bigwigs, Calendar boys strut their stuff, Saving electricity begins in your home, I'll be back, says celeb chef. I don't see this source as sufficient for the issue at hand.Stellarkid (talk) 19:32, 18 October 2009 (UTC)

Nonsense, the writer also publishes news pieces like this or this or this or this. That the writer also has a blog is irrelevant. nableezy - 20:41, 18 October 2009 (UTC)

All very local stuff at best. We are talking international conflicts and he or she is talking local cellphone tariffs.Stellarkid (talk) 01:20, 19 October 2009 (UTC)

There is use in the Arabic media, such as this program on Al-Arabiya, or this and more from a Palestinian source, or this piece in al-Jazeera. nableezy - 18:23, 18 October 2009 (UTC)

Three sources. "yada yada Gaza massacre" in the title of an article is not good enough. Have you tried finding ones that say "Gaza bombing/assault/insert juicy term here"? Are we going to list them all? We certainly can't assert that it was the primary title with what has been provided. Al Jazeera clearly labels its special report section "War on Gaza". Is that going in, too? "الحرب على غزة" gets 3,140,000 standard google hits. It also yields 7,170 hits in a google news search since the start of the conflict. "مجزرة غزة" receives 182,000 (millions less) in a standard search and 833 (thousands less) in a news search. No one is arguing that it wasn't used. Was it a title in each instance is argued and even if it was a title, does it deserve prominence as a bolded title in the lead? Mentioning "there were calls of it being a massacre" was a fantastic proposal in my opinion. I also think it has been demonstrated through what we have found that the news source (the Times) in question is fine but they may have made a mistake in the individual article or it might even be circular. Cptnono (talk) 20:07, 18 October 2009 (UTC)

Those were just three random sources, and the problem is you keep saying "not enough" while never saying what is enough. nableezy - 20:39, 18 October 2009 (UTC)

Also there was this source, also in the South African Sunday Times, but by a different writer that says More than a thousand Palestinians were killed while 13 Israelis died in what the Arab world has called "the Gaza massacre". It was likewise argued because this foreign editor for the paper also has a blog, even though this was published in the Sunday Times that this source is likewise not suitable nableezy - 20:48, 18 October 2009 (UTC)

We've had that conversation. Someone said there were press releases that made it clear that Hamas used "Gaza Massacre" as their official title. You also said there were a dozen but so far the 10 you have provided indicate it as a description as well. They said other things ("Gaza victory" is just one) so it doesn't look like their primary description or title. I am past the point of believing you can provide enough sources to prove it is the main title used by Hamas or in the Arabic world with all of the sources we have both found. I simply believe the Times in South Africa is incorrect and potentially a circular reference to Wikipedia from a blogger who didn't do their homework. If you had other sources saying "It was called the Gaza Massacre" we would certainly have to look at them but they don't seem to exist. It took less than a minute to find a source that verified both "War in Gaza" and "War in the South" ([23]). Use of the term as a title has been disputed for months. I said some time ago that I was OK with keeping it in and time will tell. Time has told that it is a term used sparingly (most often by bloggers) and massacre is often used as a description like "victory" (much less), "attack", "bombing" and so on. Its use as a title is so little and so contradicted by what else is out there that I don't believe it is possible anymore. That is why I made a proposal to use the term massacre but not give it prominence.Cptnono (talk) 20:54, 18 October 2009 (UTC)

Edit conflict: Both are the same paper. Both are by bloggers for the paper who got it published as a main article. Cptnono (talk) 20:55, 18 October 2009 (UTC)

Neither of those people's primary job is "blogger". nableezy - 01:04, 19 October 2009 (UTC)

<edit conflict>The second source] given from the Times is much worse than the first. The second article, called "Seeking the brutal truth" doesn't even have an author associated with it but is by someone know (or not known) as "unknown" claiming that someone else we don't know, named Jackie May, says something. For all we know this is a blog or opinion piece. A search for Jackie May yields no results and obviously "unknown" is really useless. Anyway, "unknown" or "Jackie May" calls it "the Gaza massacre." Unknown and/or Jackie May indicate through the use of capitalization that the Arabs do not use the expression as a proper name. Further, as has been shown on the article talk page, Arabs have also called events in 1994, 2002, 2003, 2004, and 2008 "the Gaza massacre" so unknown's comment demonstrates this is not a name specific to or equal to the Gaza War. The whole issue is a red herring, as no one disputes that the paper is probably a RS. The question is really if the initial author (Lauren Cohen) should be taken over other sources such as the BBC, NYT, that do not capitalize the term. And Nableezy, we are only arguing the RS issue here; it is not necessary to be trying to make your WP:POINT in other ways with other sources. Stellarkid (talk) 01:16, 19 October 2009 (UTC)

Uninvolved editors should know that some editors have been pushing for months to find any way they can to try and remove or relegate the term that Hamas/Gaza has used to describe the Gaza War. These attempts to delegitimize a journalist and newspaper that reported the term represent the latest effort. Sorry for the time-wasting, clearly the SA Sunday Times is a reliable source and no amount of wikilawyering will change that. But the system allows editors to try try try. RomaC (talk) 01:28, 19 October 2009 (UTC)

Whether that's true or not, there is little more ot be said on this page unless anyone has a further question or opinion about the Sunday Times of South Africa or another source. Whether a point is important enough to include in the lede is not a sourcing issue to discuss here. The "circular reference" question I think has come up before. If it is only a supposition that a journalist may have used WP, and the source meets normal fact-checking requirements, we cannot discredit the source on that basis. And the fact that a journalist runs a blog as well as publishing in a newspaper is not relevant either. Hope this helps and that you can continue to discuss, hopefully in a more civil tone than I saw in the talk-page discussion to date. Itsmejudith (talk) 09:07, 19 October 2009 (UTC)

I note that a search on the exact phrase "the Gaza massacre" brings up many articles on google search and google news. The inclusion of the word 'the' in the phrase shows that the term "Gaza massacre" is being used as a noun to refer to a particular incident. However, this is conversation is irrelevant.

The Sunday Times of South Africa article is a reliable source for it's description of the use of the term "Gaza Massacre" in the Arab world. That is all RS/N should concern itself with. End of story. Let's not get sidetracked here by other issues. LK (talk) 18:19, 20 October 2009 (UTC)

Nableezy neglected to mention the fact that this citation is supposed to be sufficient to include the reference to a massacre in the lead of the article. WP:LEADCITE specifically says Complex, current, or controversial subjects may require many citations; others, few or none. Contentious material about living persons must be cited every time, regardless of the level of generality. A Google search does indeed bring up the phrase, but not for reliable sources. Google News searches bring it up also, though much fewer and many fewer reliable sources. One needs to look carefully at the phrasing without jumping to conclusions since most of the usages are not from RS, and most of the reliable ones carry quotation marks : 'Ahmadinejad Blasts Gaza "Massacre"' [24]. The fact that there is no capitalization is relevant as it demonstrates that it is a descriptive term, ie "the massacre in Gaza" not "The Gaza Massacre". If it were accepted as a "descriptive name," WP dictates it should be neutral and by consensus. Considering that this is the only source out of thousands of sources that refer to a large "m" and considering the author is not of international repute and mostly writes fluff pieces, (It's official --handbags are the new shoes,Youngsters' hot salsa wows showbiz bigwigs, Calendar boys strut their stuff. This may be reliable and sufficient for inclusion in the body of the article, but not in the lede. Stellarkid (talk) 20:40, 20 October 2009 (UTC)

It is simply not true that the author "mostly writes fluff pieces" as a simple google search will show, and it is also irrelevant. The "the" in "the Gaza massacre" clearly makes it a noun phrase referring to a specific thing, also known as a proper noun. But the point of this board is to determine the reliability of the source and there is agreement here that the source is reliable to source the statement "known in the Arab world as the 'Gaza Massacre'". nableezy - 20:45, 20 October 2009 (UTC)

You should have made it clear in the beginning that this was about putting something controversial in the lede, not simply in the article. As such it is misleading, implying as it does that some of us are attempting to keep something out of the body of the article, which is not so. You are attempting to use this source to add an alternative name to the first sentence or two of the lede. The lede has even greater verifiability issues than the rest of the article. Why didn't you explain this thoroughly at the top? Stellarkid (talk) 21:26, 20 October 2009 (UTC)

No. I came here to ask if this source is a reliable source for that statement. That is all I came here to do as one of the arguments has been the reliability of the source. I was trying to get answers that address that argument, not the entire argument. nableezy - 21:39, 20 October 2009 (UTC)

This type of thing comes up at RSN all the time. You've got a reliable source, but you've also got a dispute. You can try an RfC or Wikipedia:Dispute resolution if you want. We try to not get drawn to far into these thing here. - Peregrine Fisher (talk) (contribs) 04:52, 21 October 2009 (UTC)

Tried that, I'm just trying to get each of the arguments resolved one at a time. It is too difficult to arrive at any sort of consensus when 7 different arguments are bundled together. nableezy - 04:59, 21 October 2009 (UTC)

I did not read the article closely, since we were only dealing with one particular aspect of the article. On a close reading, I see that this article fits in with the assumption that Ms Cohen is a local interest writer for the So Africa Times. She is covering a story about a local upcoming (controversial) and event and it appears she has interviewed Mr Achmat and one or two other local individuals for her article. She is either mouthing Mr Achmat's opinion or her own in this story. It is unlikely that an article about upcoming events would have editorial oversight or be reliable for international and controversial issues. WP:V also says that just because a source is reliable does not mean it should be included. This is particularly true for controversial POVs. Could I get an opinion on that? Stellarkid (talk) 14:30, 22 October 2009 (UTC)

Hermann Rauschning

On the talk page of world war II (Nr. 16 "Poland wants war with Germany..") Paul Siebert proposed to me to start a discussion whether Rauschnings books are reliable sources that can be cited in this major article. In particular it is the question whether his book "Die entdeutschung Westpreußens und Posens", Berlin 1930 could be cited. The passage about this book in the rauschning article has been deleted, but I will try to create it again, so, that You can get a notion of its contents. user:Jäger 01:45 19 October 2009 (CET)

Please paste the proposed content here if there is currently a dispute on the article involving reverts and changes. Fifelfoo (talk) 01:03, 19 October 2009 (UTC)

Could You please tell me, how this can be done? The "save paste" function is not active after editing of the section.user:Jäger 22,13, 20 October 2009 (UTC)

Article Page -> History -> find the diff, copy the diff link, paste the diff link. OR History, find a version you "like", copy the text in question and the full citation in question, paste here. Fifelfoo (talk) 00:13, 20 October 2009 (UTC)

I will try to give a short overview over the discussion. The question is whether the book "Die Entdeutschung Westpreußens und Posens" by Hermann Rauschning

File:Rauschning.JPG

can be looked at as a reliable source for Wikipedia. In this book Rauschning presents reports and newspaper-articles collected by him since january 1919 about atrocities against the german population in the territories which had become under polish control as a consequence of the treaty of Versailles. He sais that until 1930 more than 800.000 germans had been expelled from their homes by the polish govenment and certain militias. In the course of the discussion on the talk page of world war II (Nr 16 "Poland wants war ..") several other sources were presented which consent with Rauschnings thesis that there was a systematic ethnic cleansing policy of the polish govenment in that time. Some discutants said that Rauschnings book contained nothing but Nazi-propaganda because he was a Nazi when he published it. But they disregard that he became a member of this party in 1926 when Hitler was far away from having absolute control over it and when large parts of the SA were dominated by pure socialists like Otto Strasser and Gregor Strasser who were exiled later - as Rauschning himself -because of their opposition against Hitler and his inhuman policy. user:Jäger 01:45, 21 October 2009 (CET)

"Rauschning presents reports and newspaper-articles collected by him since january 1919 about atrocities" => PRIMARY => Not OR. You can quote Rauschning's commentaries on the sources, but you need to make that clear, and only if he's commented, "Rauschning on "Article X, Daily Newspaper, 1919" p XX". And given that he's politically contentious, I'm sure people would expect a Verbatim quote and translation on Talk: Fifelfoo (talk) 23:06, 21 October 2009 (UTC)

Thank You for this note! It is absolutely no problem to make verbatim quotations e.g. the the geman original and the english translation. The problem is that everything what is written in the Rauschning article or elsewhere about this book is deleted immediately. Newspaper-articles are very rarely quoted in this volume. Rauschning used principally the depositions of eye witnesses. He began to collect these reports after he had been made a "Reichkommissar für die besetzten Gebiete" (Imperial commissioner for the occupied territories) by the democratic geman government of that time. This work has absoutely nothing to do with the Nazi-party. user:Jäger 00:00, 22 October 2009 (CET)

Climate data

On my user page I have evidence for my belief that there is no reliable source for climate data available for use on Wikipedia. My evidence consists of links to climate data hosted on various websites that to me is obviously false. Most of this data is not currently being used on Wikipedia, but we are using other data from those same websites. If my understanding is correct, a website which is correct most of the time but can be shown to have some false information on it cannot be considered a reliable source. If my argument that there no reliable sources for climate information is accepted, I would like to know what we should do about it. Is it possible to make an exception to the policy in order to allow climate data to stay on Wikipedia so long as the people who watchlist the articles are assumed to be checking the data on a case-by-case basis? Or should all climate data be removed?

Note that weatherbase.com has the most links to bad data because it has the most data; it is not, in my opinion, the "worst" source; in fact I would say it's the best source for anyone who can spot bad data like that. Also note that there are some sites I haven't yet included links to, but that does not mean I believe they are 100% correct. This is still a work in progress. -- Soap ^Talk/_{Contributions} 03:30, 19 October 2009 (UTC)

Please see the top of this page about how to use Reliable sources/Noticeboard. We are unable to act on broadly scoped suppositions. Fifelfoo (talk) 04:44, 19 October 2009 (UTC)

The sites mentioned on your user page are about weather, not climate. You must provide examples where these sites are used to show e.g. average temperatures where you believe them to be inaccurate. The Four Deuces (talk) 04:55, 19 October 2009 (UTC)

They are about climate ... most of the data I link to is average temperature data, and a few others are record high and low temperatures ... but those are all considered aspects of climate. However, in response to Fifelfoo, I don't know where else to bring this up. There is no WikiProject Weather, believe it or not ... I suppose I'll ask for advice from members of the hurricane and severe weather projects. -- Soap ^Talk/_{Contributions} 10:17, 19 October 2009 (UTC)

Well if you are right and there really is no accurate source of accurate temperatures available either on paper or on the web, then it is still OK to use the sources that are most often cited. See WP:V - we are aiming for verifiability. It is a bit similar to the situation for language groupings, where it is known that sometimes there is no agreed group that a language belongs to. If you spot an average temperature that it obviously daft, then you could add a "dubious" tag and then discuss it on the talk page, i.e. resolve on a case-by-case basis. Itsmejudith (talk) 10:45, 19 October 2009 (UTC)

DVDverdict and ALLmovie

Are dvdverdict.com and allmovie.com reliable sources? My gut tells me no, but I'd like a second opinion. These keep popping up at AfC. --Kraftlos (Talk | Contrib) 08:51, 19 October 2009 (UTC)

Context please. As RS indicating Notability for AfC purposes? Fifelfoo (talk) 00:12, 20 October 2009 (UTC)

Right, are the reviews on these sites reliable enough to contribute to notability? I don't really can't get a gauge on their reputation or editorial process. --Kraftlos (Talk | Contrib) 04:57, 20 October 2009 (UTC)

Thanks, as far as I can tell neither site has an editorial policy equivalent to the RS standards of a newspaper (the equivalent type of reviewing body for popular works). Not RSes for notability. Fifelfoo (talk) 05:03, 20 October 2009 (UTC)

Alright, thank you. That will help a lot! --Kraftlos (Talk | Contrib) 05:26, 20 October 2009 (UTC)

I'm not so sure. I think they both have editorial staffs and policies.[25][26] - Peregrine Fisher (talk) (contribs) 06:00, 20 October 2009 (UTC)

Ok, so they have editorial staffs and appear to be at least 10 years old. Are these experts though? Do I needs to do a cass-by-case basis with the author of whichever review I'm looking at to see if the author has been published elsewhere? --Kraftlos (Talk | Contrib) 20:04, 20 October 2009 (UTC)

Reliability comes from the publisher, not the author. Fifelfoo (talk) 20:43, 20 October 2009 (UTC)

Then that comes to the question, is this a reliable source by virtue of it having an identifiable editorial staff? What distinguishes this from other self-published review sites? --Kraftlos (Talk | Contrib) 23:40, 20 October 2009 (UTC)

The big difference is that the writers get paid, and what they write is looked at by an editor. DVDVerdict has that weird way of calling writers and editors legal names, but they have been referenced by other RSs a bit.[27][28] I've seen them accepted a lot at GA reviews, although I haven't seen a thorough look at them beyond what we're doing here. I don't do music stuff, but I think allmusic is considered really good for that field, so I'd assume that allmovie is pretty good too. - Peregrine Fisher (talk) (contribs) 04:42, 21 October 2009 (UTC)

Encyclopedia of Earth (eoearth.org)

I'm trying to gauge the reliability of the Encyclopedia of Earth, and the weight it should be given, particularly in economics articles. It's a wiki, but in theory its contributors are limited to experts, requiring approval, and its content is controlled by (likewise expert) topic editors. I've been somewhat uncomfortable with it as a source, but haven't excluded material from it yet.

One striking example is this section of an article on environmental and ecological economics. As the concluding section of an article on those topics, this is a fairly freeform bashing of mainstream economic practice. I'm not saying that the bashing is undeserved (that's a different topic). I'm saying that this matter of poor composition (both within the section and the placement of the section within the article on something different) is a bad indicator of the editorial control that goes into eoearth.

While eoearth is a wiki, the information on who added what when is hidden from public view, so it's impossible to judge if the article has been "corrupted" from some earlier state. I'll assume the topic editor has approved it in its current state.

Yes, I think you can assume that it is authored by the topic editor. If that person is a practising economist, then it could be reliable. The critique of mainstream economics that you linked to is a fairly common minority viewpont, although there are some idiosyncracies in this particular version. There should really be better stuff in textbooks on ecological economics (distinguished from environmental economics). A bit more context would be useful. Itsmejudith (talk) 17:07, 20 October 2009 (UTC)

So, if I understand correctly, something written by a 'topic editor' can be inserted into articles in that topic editor's area, essentially without review. This makes it seem like some of the articles, or some parts of them, are essentially the same as blogs. Blogs by experts in a field perhaps, but since they are unnamed, there is no way to verify. I believe that means that they fail as a reliable source. LK (talk) 19:02, 20 October 2009 (UTC)

LK, I don't think that's right. The article I linked above has as "Lead author" Robert Nadeau and as "Topic editor" Cutler J. Cleveland. (Both appear to me from those little bios to be the kind of experts we'd recognize as appropriate editors of academic journals.) As I understand it, any number of editors could edit the article, but their edits wouldn't "go live" without the topic editor's approval. So, possibly Nadeau's done most of the work on that article but if there's someone "responsible" for the article, it would be Cutler. I do gather that Cutler could do as you say, and insert material into an article under his own review, but he would still be identified as the one responsible. So I'm sorta OK with that, if I stopped there and took it at face value. The trouble for me is that there's this mess in an article, which to me clearly violates their own "commitment to objectivity" as well as simply being low-quality. That makes me think that content isn't actually being reviewed before going live, or that the standards being applied are very low. CRETOG8(t/c) 19:14, 20 October 2009 (UTC)

I stand corrected on the bit about 'unnamed' editors, but you're actually agreeing with me about the blog like nature of the site when you say that Cutler can insert material freely into articles under his own purview. This makes it similar to an academic's blog, say, Brad deLong's blog[29] from UC Berkeley (at least for those parts written by Cutler himself). LK (talk) 05:54, 21 October 2009 (UTC)

I agree w/ cretog, it is a fair step above a blog, but well below a peer reviewed resource. Equivalent collaborative references have been established by non-profits and advocacy organizations. I don't know how many of the articles are written by subject matter experts or whether or not they are venues for advocacy, though. Protonk (talk) 19:16, 20 October 2009 (UTC)

No, I would not use these articles as sources because they are tertiary. Good secondary sources have footnotes and are reviewed by other academics. I would suggest going to the "Further Reading" section of the article,[30] and using the sources listed there. The Four Deuces (talk) 17:53, 20 October 2009 (UTC)

• As much as I would love to see a source for information debunking the myth of the self-regulating market I have to agree with The Four Deuces. Go to the "further reading" section of that article for sources certainly but it is not, itself, a RS. Simonm223 (talk) 17:59, 20 October 2009 (UTC)
  • If Encyclopedia of Earth is not a reliable source then there is no such thing as a reliable source ;). It is beautifully done, and it is peer reviewed and topic edited and the largest reliable information resource on the environment in history. See this page for more information. Economics in regard to environment is just one of many subjects published there. The Environmental Information Coalition (EIC) is comprised of a diverse group of respected scientists and educators, and the organizations, agencies, and institutions for which they work. The EIC defines the roles and responsibilities for individuals and institutions involved in the Coalition, as well as the editorial guidelines for the Encyclopedia. -------The Secretariat for the EIC is the National Council for Science and the Environment (NCSE), Washington D.C., USA. NCSE is a 501(c)(3)non-profit organization with a reputation for objectivity, responsibility, and achievement in its promotion of a scientific basis for environmental decision-making. The Department of Geography and Environment and the Center for Energy and Environmental Studies at Boston University also provide editorial support. skip sievert (talk) 18:15, 20 October 2009 (UTC)

• • • As it doesn't suit peer-review criteria, there are actually a lot more varieties of reliable sources. Just because something calls itself an "encyclopedia" doesn't automatically grant WP:RS. Take Wikipedia itself as an example. As discussed by others there seem to be plenty of other viable sources around that could be used. Datheisen (talk) 22:24, 20 October 2009 (UTC)

• • there are plenty of sources debunking the myth of the self-regulating market. :P Protonk (talk) 18:51, 20 October 2009 (UTC)
  • The problem with tertiary sources is that there is no way of resolving a conflict between information found in them and information found in other sources. You cannot follow the footnotes and you cannot read learned papers commenting on their contents. BTW the Encyclopedia of Earth is not "peer reviewed" and does not claim to be. It is not an academic journal. (Of course peers review the articles but that is not the same thing.) The Four Deuces (talk) 18:55, 20 October 2009 (UTC)

I'm not sure about the rest of the site, but that section on economics is pretty slapdash. It conflates classical with marginalist with neoclassical economics, for one. Then it proceeds to complain about general equilibirum as though Arrow and Debreu's blackboard economics comprise the sum total of economic knowledge in the 20th century. There are much better (and even more strident) criticisms of neoclassical economics, namely by McClosky or Mirowski (I could name a dozen others). Protonk (talk) 18:59, 20 October 2009 (UTC)

That's a good example of why these sources should be avoided. It requires expert ability by editors to review them. The Four Deuces (talk) 19:35, 20 October 2009 (UTC)

Dog doesn't eat dog. Encyclopedia of Earth is an encyclopedia and thus tertiary. Even though it has signed articles by experts which leads towards RS; the purpose is to produce a general encyclopedia, not a specialist work. Not RS: General Purpose Tertiary Source. Fifelfoo (talk) 20:47, 20 October 2009 (UTC)

I'm not quite comfortable with that. We can think of other tertiary sources that are reliable (e.g. the new palgrave). A source's level of analysis and distance from an event plays a role in how we might choose among sources, but it doesn't really impact how we might choose whether or not to use a source. Nothing in RS or V demands that we avoid tertiary sources (to the best of my understanding). We might be better off trying to grapple with the questions of authorship, accuracy and advocacy for this source. Protonk (talk) 21:32, 20 October 2009 (UTC)

I feel strongly about this. Palgrave is an academic press, the publishers of Encyclopedia of Earth (the EIC) aren't. Palgrave commissioned academics to produce articles on specialist topics. EIC appear to have worked up a collaborative group of people just kicking around. Palgrave aimed to produce a specialist encyclopedia aimed at the academic community. EoE is a general encyclopedia. That's the difference between RS and non RS tertiaries. (of course, RS tertiaries also must be signed, but in this case both instances are signed). An example of another RS Tertiary would be Oxford Dictionary of National Biography (for the United Kingdom), for the same reasons. Fifelfoo (talk) 01:26, 21 October 2009 (UTC)

Well, with respect, both the new palgrave and EoE are (relatively) specialist encyclopedias, but you are offering reasons why new palgrave would be a reliable source. Those reasons have to do with accuracy, accountability and editorial control. They don't have to do with the subject matter. Protonk (talk) 03:06, 21 October 2009 (UTC)

Fantastic well done information and all peer reviewed at Encyclopedia of Earth. Just an example of new articles from their RSS feed... fantastic scholarship/credentials and most interesting variety here and and the peer review is top notch. skip sievert (talk) 04:36, 21 October 2009 (UTC)

(out) It is not "all peer reviewed". Your link shows that they reprinted an article, "Environmental factors in birth defects" that "appeared first in Environmental Health Perspectives—the peer-reviewed, open access journal of the National Institute of Environmental Health Sciences." The Four Deuces (talk) 04:55, 21 October 2009 (UTC)

How is that wrong. A peer-reviewed source decides that another peer-reviewed source meets it's standards. EHP is a reputable journal of high standards. That it is open access is a plus, if anything. o.a. does not mean reader-contributed blog. DGG ( talk ) 18:27, 22 October 2009 (UTC)

I don't feel it is wrong (though I may disagree w/ others), but it presents a problem. A number of the articles listed contain some template at the bottom which says "some of this article has been taken from XYZ PD source". By itself that is fine but it obscures the authorship and one of the strengths Skip and others are leaning on is the status of the "topic authors" within the field. How much of the articles are effectively pass-through filters? How much of the articles are original? How does the topic author function? We don't need answers to all of these questions but I should hope we have answers to a preponderance before we declare the site to be eminently reliable. Protonk (talk) 18:38, 22 October 2009 (UTC)

Wrong. Encyclopedia of Earth unlike Wikipedia is peer reviewed. See this page for more information. - skip sievert (talk) 05:01, 21 October 2009 (UTC)

Look at the current DDT article, it states that some of it is copied from a PD open access source. I don't think it is peer reviewed in any sense that we consider at RS. Protonk (talk) 05:12, 21 October 2009 (UTC)

Indeed. Even if a source has some material is deemed appropriate and we find to fit RS it does not automatically mean all contents meet standards. There is a substantial list of persons at the high end of that field listed and I've no doubt there is a lot of good information there. Since it does literally call itself a Wiki-- just a reviewed Wiki-- that means that in order to best directly qualify as reliable that their editors and peer list would have to adhere to the same WP:RS WP:N and WP:V procedures we have. There is no evidence whatsoever that is carried out. There is no way to view thoughts on articles from reviewers or look at citations in the articles. If something is copied from a PD open access source and left there, then the filtering and review process can't be that entirely deep or detailed. If it wouldn't hold up here, it wouldn't hold up somewhere that claims to hold higher standards. Really, I don't think the entire site should be disqualified, but at no time is article-specific review inappropriate. It openly admits that 2 of its 3 general information sources are original research and open content ... both of which being inappropriate here. We'd have to really narrow down what would qualify there as reliable per our guidelines by determining what content comes from the third category. Datheisen (talk) 06:32, 21 October 2009 (UTC)

The standards on E.O.E. are much higher than standards on Wikipedia. No comparison really. All of their material is peer reviewed or under supervision of topic editors that have to approve any or all of what ever material goes on the site. Their information articles are published in academic journals and university publications. That is the main source of information there. The academic credentials of the topic editors is beyond question, as in notable contributors to mainstream academic thought with many leading researchers and educators being the group responsible for the information there. skip sievert (talk) 16:17, 21 October 2009 (UTC)

"Main" source of information and source of "all" information are different things. As in my last comment, I'll remind that 2 of the 3 sources the organization says it uses for information are almost entirely not permitted on Wikipedia under WP:RS guidelines. Could you please address the comment by The Four Deuces above about how a specific article was copied from an open access journal? We're looking for answers and not progressively more detailed statements about the same part of one opinion. Datheisen (talk) 18:33, 21 October 2009 (UTC)

You should read the Wikipedia article on peer review. Encyclopedias and textbooks are not peer-reviewed and are not criticised in academic writing. The trouble with these sources is that there is no way to resolve conflict between claims made in them and those in other sources. The Four Deuces (talk) 18:31, 21 October 2009 (UTC)

I'm puzzled by the use of Gross Domestic Project, abbreviated GDP. If it isn't an error, I would think it deserves some mention. I've found a few sites that use the term, some of which were obvious typos, but I haven't found a site discussing the distinction, which would seem to be an important topic if the term is a legitimate one in economics. Has anyone heard the term?--SPhilbrickT 22:20, 21 October 2009 (UTC)

Actually, major flag against reliability and I feel silly I didn't spot this sooner. The article in questions is using GNP, which is a lightly-favored version of GDP. Though it does have a specific definition and is a completely usable statistic for things, the definition used in the article is completely different than any other definition I could find and is not the same as the definition used in Wikipedia's article. Honestly, that substantially raises the burgeon of reliability as a source if it's using a fringe definition at best. The fact it doesn't itself use other sources for the data and doesn't explain why it's using a different formula than the "normal" GNP tags it as original research and subject to WP:SYNTH. There needs to be other uses of GNP in this same way given to reach a consensus that what they use is an appropriate definition, as a consensus cannot be reached on only 1 suggestion. Consensus can of course change over time, but a stand-alone fringe definition which stands in contradiction to Wikipedia's normal definition and other usage in what has been proved under RS standards here is a million miles from new consensus... especially with only one editor speaking out strongly in favor of the source. Unless more information or other diverging opinions come forward that can add to this discussion, it should be closed per WP:CONSENSUS as more doubts continue to arise. Datheisen (talk) 08:36, 22 October 2009 (UTC)

Some comments about GDP/GNP: The use of GDP vs. GNP is mostly an accounting concern (some countries GNP and GDP are basically the same, some countries skew one way or the other, it depends greatly on measures not captured in GDP and GNP along like expatriation and immigration/emigration). The 'commons' criticism of GDP in the linked article is a little overblown but recall that Kuznets made very similar points in his remarks to congress arguing for the use of national accounts. I suspect that author/authors of the article in question are incorrectly using GDP/GNP interchangably, but their stances on how we should measure national accounts don't make the piece an unreliable source. From an advocacy standpoint, the piece has problems, but not all sources are neutral. I still submit that the eoe is not generally a reliable source but please try to disambiguate our feelings about claims the source makes with the reliability of the source. Protonk (talk) 18:03, 22 October 2009 (UTC)

(outdent) I don't suppose anyone comes and formally "closes" these threads, but based on this discussion, I'm going to work from the place that Encyclopedia of Earth is not a WP:RS. I don't agree with some of the stronger statements some have made here-for instance, I think (some) other encyclopedias are reliable sources. I had leaned toward accepting eoearth also, until recently. I think that the way they're set-up in principle could lead to a RS, it's just they haven't gotten it ironed out yet. CRETOG8(t/c) 17:24, 22 October 2009 (UTC)

Cretog8 your original protest was that you did not like the sentiment in the link to the article you gave. That is the gist of what is going on here not whether this E.o.E. is a reliable source... it is a reliable source by neutral standards, and a reliable source can not be voted out of usage here. Your original comment was this One striking example is this section of an article on environmental and ecological economics. As the concluding section of an article on those topics, this is a fairly freeform bashing of mainstream economic practice. end quote Cretog.

So... what is going on here? More insistence that mainstream views are good or truthful views and any thing questioning those views... even done by the Establishment via - Encyclopedia of Earth is up for tearing down? This discussion is not good. I see problems. When leading scholars of subjects are discounted by editors on Wikipedia because of differences of opinion. Not good. skip sievert (talk) 18:40, 22 October 2009 (UTC)

I'm not discounting that section (BTW you are better off pointing to some better article on eoe as the exemplar) because I disagree with it. Some of the points I agree with. I'm discounting that section because it is shoddily written and factually inaccurate. And the reasons I (and others here) are discounting eoe as a reliable source have nothing to do with that section itself. Protonk (talk) 18:50, 22 October 2009 (UTC)

Maybe, but I fail to see how the points I have made of who is producing this material and how it is being produced, and the quality of the scholarship and people involved... is not the first and foremost thing to be looked at. As said there is no comparison to the standards there and here, as to those standards being peer reviewed and top notch... all around. And yes I do think this is over-spill as in contesting material as regards the current debate on issues on the Econ project page. skip sievert (talk) 19:03, 22 October 2009 (UTC)

Again. You keep using the words "peer reviewed". As we define it "peer review" is not a process that occurs at eoe. Second, comparing eoe to wikipedia favorably only gets you so far. Third, my point about the source and editing process is critical. If we are relying on the authority of the "topic author" to lend credence to the source, then discussion of articles which appear to have been copied in whole or in part from some other source is important. Lets say we have a topic X with some distinguished "topic author", but all articles in that topic have been copied from a government website. What happens then? Protonk (talk) 19:07, 22 October 2009 (UTC)

I also don't see the (essential) difficulty of articles copied from other sources. If they are truly carefully vetted by the topic editor, then the topic editor is claiming responsibility for them (in my view), and therefore could be considered (part of) a reliable source to the extent that the topic editor is considered the sort of editor who makes for a reliable source. My use of the example snippet was to show that (in spite of my previous expectations) it appears that topic editors might not be exercising the kind of care we'd expect. I do admit that the section in question initially struck me because if its POV, but if it had been part of another, more appropriate article, I might have overlooked it. As the conclusion of an article on a very different subject it was conspicuous in its low-quality, and apparent violation of EoE's own editorial principles. CRETOG8(t/c) 19:25, 22 October 2009 (UTC)

The issue is (for me) not articles which are copied wholesale from PD reliable sources, but articles which are copied piecemeal. Permit me to make an analogy to WP (with the obvious caveat, for the analogy hawks out there, that there are other differences between eoe and WP). We use PD sources in articles as text (sometimes as whole or parts) without direct attribution (in some cases). Where direct inline attribution does not exist, we don't know where the pd source ends and the article begins. Obvious problems crop up w/ old PD sources like the 1911 Britannica or the Catholic Encyclopedia, but new PD sources like Dictionary of American Naval Fighting Ships can generate errors as well, and we can't retrace those errors as well. Second, (less analogous now) if I am relying on the credentials of the topic editor to justify the reliability of a source, then the source ought to be written or supervised by the topic editor. Where that appears not to be the case, we should be concerned. In other words, the NYT is a reliable source without question. But we can't use the imprinteur of reliability from the NYT to give status to a wire report that they reprinted. We report it as coming off the wire. Same idea should apply here. Protonk (talk) 19:35, 22 October 2009 (UTC)

OK, I think I get it. But I still think that, in principle it's OK. I'm imagining a topic editor, let's call her Amy, who everyone would agree is an expert in the subject and is unrushed, devoting serious time to the editing duties. And she's looking to create an encyclopedia of fairly complete, noncontroversial articles. If there's material chopped from outside sources and inserted, Amy carefully vets that material in just the way she would vet original material an author adds to the article. If there's an article imported whole from another source, Amy looks over the article and accepts or rejects it based on the same criteria she would a brand-new article. Or, she doesn't approve it in the same way, but marks it as essentially, "Here's an extended quote, which is significant, but maybe would not have been approved for publication here." It seems to me we give editors (and authors) that much respect on reliable sources regularly, on to things like textbooks. CRETOG8(t/c) 23:19, 22 October 2009 (UTC)

Sleep to Live Institute: Establishing notability through international media and industry journals

Would appreciate some feedback on a few sources to establish notability for a research and development organization (Sleep to Live Institute):

Is an interview featured on the Mornings with Kerri-Anne, a popular morning show on the Australian's Nine Network that bills the head of the Sleep to Live Institute as an American Sleep Expert reliable for establishing notablility from an international presence for an research facility based in Joplin, MO, USA? Airdate on feature from show's homepage referenced here.

Do additional Australian radio interviews (interview 1, interview 2, interview 3, interview 4, interview 5) further add as reliable sources for establishing international media sources? One of which is also referenced by ABC here

Are industry publications reliable in adding to notability such as the feature on the trend of combining sleep research and bedding companies, where the Director of Sleep Research for the Sleep to Live Institute is pictured in this article (electronic pages 24-25 on the spreads; print page 22)?

Are product awards useful for establishing the notability for those research and development organizations that develop them as is the case with the Sleep to Live Institute and the DormoDiagnostic/BodyDiagnostic system?

For context sake, these are some of the sources used in support of this userfied article.

Thank you Cronides2 (talk) 18:06, 20 October 2009 (UTC)

It's been userfied, I don't see the issue... unless... did you userfy it during an active AfD? Simonm223 (talk) 18:19, 20 October 2009 (UTC)

Xymmax chose to delete and userfy it based on the limited amount of discussion given on the AfD that was relisted once already, and directed me here to get a more wide spread analysis of the sources reliability for notability purposes, and will restore it if they are found to be reliable. Cronides2 (talk) 18:26, 20 October 2009 (UTC)

I understand. Give me a chance to review. Simonm223 (talk) 19:06, 20 October 2009 (UTC)

Here's the thing... If I were responsible for deciding the fate of the page I would probably keep it based on newsmedia references suggesting the company is a notable one... and stub it because that's about all you've got. Your CoI shows rather clearly and the article reads like an ad for the company which employs you according to your own user page. Simonm223 (talk) 19:10, 20 October 2009 (UTC)

So you would be fine with the reliability for notability sake... but stub it with concerns of advertising? I am in the company's employ, and have attempted to write it in a NPV carefully for that reason. This organization does not itself sell or market anything and wouldn't have reason to advertise; it is completely a sleep research and product development facility. Not to deviate terribly from the purpose of establishing the reliability of the sources; but, would you have any suggestions regarding the way it's written to better adhere to NPV in your opinion? Thanks for taking the time. Cronides2 (talk) 19:42, 20 October 2009 (UTC)

Your lede and history paragraphs look basically fine. The rest of the article has to go.Simonm223 (talk) 19:44, 20 October 2009 (UTC)

I read the text in that publication, and I do not consider it a significant mention; just one in a group of places, each mentioned in a single paragraph. There would need to be more than just that to prove notability. DGG ( talk ) 18:24, 22 October 2009 (UTC)

Thanks for the additional feedback DGG. There are additional sources of a similar nature on the userfied article. For the sake of brevity (which I struggle with :) ), I was only presenting one of them as an example. Do you have thoughts regarding the international media attention with the TV interview and 5 radio interviews? Cronides2 (talk) 12:47, 23 October 2009 (UTC)

Atheism source.

Hi, this is used as a source at the Atheism article. Can it be considered a reliable source regarding definition and use of the word 'Atheism'? Unomi (talk) 11:45, 21 October 2009 (UTC)

404, Not an RS. Fifelfoo (talk) 12:01, 21 October 2009 (UTC)

Sorry, all my wikimarkup foo has abandoned me, link should now be fixed Unomi (talk) 12:07, 21 October 2009 (UTC)

No. Its engaged in promoting a religious polemic, and is not in the business of publishing. Fifelfoo (talk) 12:26, 21 October 2009 (UTC)

Would you say that this points to having site removed as a source from the articles which reference it? Unomi (talk) 12:32, 21 October 2009 (UTC)

Could the same be said of other 'promoters of religious polemic' ? Unomi (talk) 12:42, 21 October 2009 (UTC)

Could this be resolved by just citing the OED? I can check what they say later today. The definition from that source does not seem particularly contentious to me on the face of it, but I would also be leery of citing them in that article. As a general principle, broadly neutral sources are preferred to trying to attain balance through opposing polarized sources, though Criticism of atheism is obviously a bit of a special case. The incoming links and GNews hits do not give me confidence that they are a particularly major player, though, so I would avoid it. - 2/0 (cont.) 13:57, 21 October 2009 (UTC)

Dog breed sources

I have begun reviewing Alsatian Shepalute for GA, but I am not a dog expert. I wonder which online dog breed websites are reliable sources. Are folks happy with dogbredinfo and rightpet? Be nice to get some more independent sourcing....Casliber (talk · contribs) 19:57, 21 October 2009 (UTC)

I'd be extremely wary of the fact that the breed isn't recognized by any major kennel association.--Ramdrake (talk) 20:47, 21 October 2009 (UTC)

There's nothing to indicate reliability on their about pages.[31][32] I didn't look too hard, but I didn't see anything that would make the authors experts and their sites allowable per WP:SPS either. - Peregrine Fisher (talk) (contribs) 14:33, 23 October 2009 (UTC)

Pink News

Is Pink News [33] a reliable source for this edit [34], which creates innuendo about a living Polish politician's sexuality? I'll note the Pink News' editorial policy which states that their pro-gay stance is reflected in the "tone that we use to describe homophobic politicians", a category to which the politician might easily be said to belong, unfortunately. To complicate matters, a Daily Telegraph article mentions related rumours,[35], but doesn't address them per se or provide any of the details in the Pink News report. And this San Francisco Bay Times also mentions rumours, but states that they are unsubstantiated.[36] --Slp1 (talk) 21:45, 21 October 2009 (UTC)

No, it is not reliable source because is biased.--Jacurek (talk) 01:37, 22 October 2009 (UTC)

Is Pink News sufficiently reliable by itself? No. This is an extreme claim, and would require multiple sources of proof. Pink News is merely acting as a wireservice with trapping for an actual report in the newspaper "Rzeczpolita." So for an adequate RS go to "Rzeczpolita", they broke the story in Polish. Go look it up. Is Pink News generally reliable? Yes. They have an editor. Additionally Pink News is drawing an editorial inference from "Colonel Jan Lesiak is reported to have said: "It is advisable to establish if Jaroslaw Kaczynski remains in a long-term homosexual relationship and, if so, who his partner is."". I have to agree with Jacurek: Pink News editorial policy regarding homophobic politicians means that they are not RS for this item. Fifelfoo (talk) 01:56, 22 October 2009 (UTC)

Thanks. I agree with the analysis, including the thought that the original Polish article might be worth looking at. However, I would have more confidence in summary in the Pink News if they didn't mispell the name of Polish newspaper, which is apparently Rzeczpospolita not Rzeczpolita. I am, however, still concerned about the RS guidelines that we are not here to repeat rumours: "While the reporting of rumors has a news value, Wikipedia is an encyclopedia and should only include information verified by reliable sources. Wikipedia is not the place for passing along gossip and rumors." As reported in the Pink News, it seems to me that it's all rumour, and that the leaked reports might actually say more about those in the secret police than anything else. .--Slp1 (talk) 02:26, 22 October 2009 (UTC)

LOL : sorry, my browser is lagging terribley again, thought I was on EARS...

History texts by Chandra Chakraberty

These are referred to frequently in our articles on Kambojas and related. I am getting publishing dates from the 1940s and 1950s onwards but I wonder if they are reprints of earlier publications. Could it be the same person who wrote about Indian medicine in the 1920s? Relevant books include The Racial History of India, Literary History of Ancient India in Relation to its Linguistic and Racial Affiliations and Racial Basis of Indian Culture. Anyone know what their status is in relationship to current scholarship? Itsmejudith (talk) 13:37, 22 October 2009 (UTC)

User:Fowler&fowler might be able to help, I've invited them to contribute on their talk. My understanding is that Indian history improved dramatically in the 1970s, 80s and 90s. Fifelfoo (talk) 13:44, 22 October 2009 (UTC)

Thanks Fifelfoo. I have put on the talk page of the main Kambojas article a to-do list that includes agreeing a cut-off date before which sources are to be regarded as primary, but have not had any responses to that. In the current state of the articles, primary source Sanskrit and Pali texts are cited pell mell with 19th century British Raj writers, early 20th century Indian scholars and recent authors. And when the given publication date is recent in fact the text is often a reprint of a much earlier book. So it is hard to work out which are the best sources to cite. Itsmejudith (talk) 20:05, 22 October 2009 (UTC)

open ended question on sources that could best be labelled as misleading or "hoax"

Hi, this is a rather open ended request for more people to look at a bit of a mess on a thermodynamics topic- one that often attracts perpetual motion machines and other odd ideas. We've been debating this page for a while now, http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Law_of_maximum_entropy_production and got a consensus to merge. However, part of the issue is a content dispute between a small group ( conjectured one person) or "Team Swenson" contributors and all other parties. Team Swenson wants to make this an article about Swenson. If you look at the talk page, now redir into my user space, you can see some of the issues. This isn't so much about a POV any more as much as questioning the validity of the sources. One editor was unable to confirm with a journal that an article existed, another seems to be from a "journal" controlled by Swenson. If anyone is interested please help discuss at talk page. Thanks.

Aubane Historical Society - Not Reliable Source

(related to) Irish Bulletin (edit | talk | history | protect | delete | links | watch | logs | views)

I've opened a section on this subject so as to leave no doubt as to the singular unsuitability of it's publications. The "publisher", Aubane Historical Society, is a small group of amateur historians that has received exceptionally critical treatment from the press and academics. "It often presents itself in populist terms as a group of amateurs speaking for the plain people of Ireland as against academic historians, whom it presents as elitist snobs with sinister political agendas.The Aubane interpretation of Irish history has also been criticised by Irish academics."

• The criticism of the group is brutal, "published and promoted by the cranky and cult-like Aubane Historical Society (Google the phrase, "From Peking to Aubane" to follow Aubane's strange evolution from super-revisionism to super-nationalism)..." "Their (Aubane's) campaign seems designed merely to sow doubt, create confusion and muddy the waters..." "the Aubane Historical Society, and its allies, bombard the media with a massive mailbag of tendentious and tediously argued letters. These create so much fog around the facts..."[37]

• Or from this article:[38] " decent local people were not wise in accepting the dubious assistance of the Aubane Historical Society" ..."The latest lunacy..." "I can see why naff Irish nationalists need to believe the fiction..."

• And still more:[39] "The Aubane Historical Society seem like a group of people genuinely interested in Irish history, but with some strange and contentious opinions. They also seemed like a very introspective group – felt like I’d walked in on a group of very close friends where I didn’t know anyone. I’ll let my relative’s comments be the last word: “I don’t know about these “Aubane” people, they sound like very strange folk indeed!”"

• The Irish Times has published various opinions on the Aubane Historical Society like, "Conspiracy theorists display narrow notions of Irishness"..."Diehards reveal true colours - The amateur historian in Ireland is often little more than a propagandist masquerading as an expert, writes David Adams" ..."Most people would consider that an act of outrageous vandalism - though these obviously would not include some members of the Millstreet based Aubane Historical Society,"

No doubt, a voice will be available -somewhere- praising their fearless revisionism or the relative merits of amateur historians unshackled by the restrictive binds of academia, but frankly it appears that the source and it's publications are simply not suitable for our purposes in building a Reliably Sourced encyclopedia using neutral references.99.135.170.179 (talk) 02:24, 23 October 2009 (UTC)

SELF published and Vanity press? Not RS. Fifelfoo (talk) 02:45, 23 October 2009 (UTC)

Hold on... Self-published sources can be RS... although their use is limited. A lot depends on what information you are taking from the source and how you phrase it in the article. Blueboar (talk) 13:31, 23 October 2009 (UTC)

Rebuttal

• I am not aware of the 'Aubane Historical Society', a publishing concern, as having been cited here as a source for anything. It is the authors of their various publications that are invariably the source. It is a critical distinction. RashersTierney (talk) 02:47, 23 October 2009 (UTC)

The source in this specific instance is Dr. Brian Murphy, a graduate of Oxford University, University College, Dublin and Trinity College, Dublin. Among his publications are;

• John Chartres: mystery man of the treaty Irish Academic Press, 1995

• The Catholic Bulletin and republican Ireland, 1898-1926: with special reference to J. J. O'Kelly Athol Books, 2005

• St. Gerald's 1918-1998: An Educational Initiative Kestrel Books, 1999

• The Canon of Irish Cultural History: Some Questions concerning Roy Foster's Modern Ireland Studies: An Irish Quarterly Review, Vol. 82, No. 326 (Summer, 1993), pp. 171-184

His credentials as a reliable source on Irish history cannot seriously be disputed. RashersTierney (talk) 03:39, 23 October 2009 (UTC)

Discussion

Agree. There is no discussion worth having on this subject. The source, Dr. Brian Murphy is both a WP:RS and as such is WP:V. --Domer48_'fenian' 09:10, 23 October 2009 (UTC)

Actually no, the source is the publisher. The lack of publisher location for the Kestrel Books example leads to a small Welsh Vanity publisher, which doesn't advertise the text. Vanity => Self => Not RS. If the work cited is published in an appropriate forum, that's fine, if the work published is in an inappropriate forum (vanity, self, self-established journal), that's not fine. The Author's background doesn't come into it. Fifelfoo (talk) 09:25, 23 October 2009 (UTC) Athol is also Vanity. Irish Academic Press has a misspelling in the HTML title of its landing page, "Irish Acdemic Press", despite claiming to be an academic publisher, it looks like a very very small press, more work would be required to determine if its a Vanity press or not. Fifelfoo (talk) 09:31, 23 October 2009 (UTC) Studies: An Irish Quarterly Review is an RS, it has an editorial board and policy. Closer inspection via Ulrich's periodical index indicates Studies is refereed and must be considered as the Highest Quality Reliable Source. 10:49, 23 October 2009 (UTC) It isn't a Highest Quality RS in Feature Article terms, as its publication method doesn't include peer review, and its audience is popular, not academic. Fifelfoo (talk) 09:34, 23 October 2009 (UTC)

Irish Academic Press, a vanity publisher? I agree entirely with the qualification 'more work is needed'. The dismissal of Studies in Wikipedia will no doubt have prospective Irish history PHds scurrying for alternatives. RashersTierney (talk) 10:35, 23 October 2009 (UTC)

Wikipedia's criteria aren't Academic criteria. "Studies" might want to more clearly voice their status as a peer reviewed journal, instead of making me go to Ulrich's... "ISSN 0039-3495" issues of Studies is referee'd according to Ulrich's, and is the highest quality Reliable Source type. Irish Academic Press might want to a) correct their spelling error and b) voice more clearly their editorial policy, history, etc. to back up their one line para in the top section of their catalogue. Fifelfoo (talk) 10:49, 23 October 2009 (UTC)

I endorse everything Fifelfoo has said, and have a few more points that may help. For history articles, especially those that relate to nationalism of any kind, the bar for sourcing is set high. Since Dr Murphy appears to be a qualified historian with a record of relevant publication, this source falls into the category of a scholar's self-published work. It can be used, but other sources should be preferred if possible. What I can't see immediately looking at the article is whether the statements this source is used for are controversial in any way. And are there any alternative sources that could be used for the same details? Itsmejudith (talk) 11:15, 23 October 2009 (UTC)

The specific issues are corroborated by my main source which is Ian Kenneally's The Paper Wall. I introduced Murphy as a secondary source to avoid any contention that there was over-reliance on a single authority. Regarding whether there have been any specific objections or contested points, the answer is no. RashersTierney (talk) 11:29, 23 October 2009 (UTC)

The Collins Press is a small commercial publisher based in Ireland, which reviews manuscripts (it appears more commercially than academically) and also commissions writers (obvious indication of commercial press). It meets wikipedia's criteria for a RS. For a High Quality RS (ie: Featured Article quality), I'd suggest, on the talk page of an article where Collins was used for history, linking to academic reviews of the work in question from peer reviewed journals to indicate the work is esteemed by relevant historians. Fifelfoo (talk) 11:51, 23 October 2009 (UTC)

OK. Thanks for the advice and time taken. RashersTierney (talk) 11:56, 23 October 2009 (UTC)

No worries. Collins might be run by the guy with the name on the cover, and he's the contact, but he runs Collins as a commercial publisher. And discovering that kind of stuff is what RS/N is here for. Fifelfoo (talk) 12:00, 23 October 2009 (UTC)

Murphy's day job is as a Monk. His education would appear to be chiefly religious, and there is a possibility that an earlier academic thesis of his was on the Flute. His credentials are no more than any amateur historian, and the publisher here is not at all reputable - quite contrary, they have been well considered by multiple Reliable Sources and rejected with Cause. _99.135.170.179 (talk) 12:04, 23 October 2009 (UTC)

On the specific issue of Aubane, barring any overturning of the apparent consensus in the academic world, here at Wikipedia, and as reported in national papers in society at large, I intend to shortly tag this as resolved that Aubane's pub's are not a Reliable Source. ..-99.135.170.179 (talk) 12:37, 23 October 2009 (UTC)

Whatever about lack of consensus in the 'academic world', which is most emphatically the case, there is no consensus here that all publications by Aubane are to be considered unreliable as sources. RashersTierney (talk) 12:55, 23 October 2009 (UTC)

Aubane is quite clear on their amateur status, "This Society was founded by a number of local people in Aubane in 1985. It aims to contribute to the growing body of local history publications being produced across the country." For more on how they feel that Aubane alone holds the torch of Truth - read this Polemic from them, "Aubane Versus Oxford"[40] which reads in part, "We were rather surprised to see a number of references to the Aubane Historical Society in Professor Roy Foster's recent book, "The Irish Story: Telling Tales and Making It Up in Ireland." Foster is the Carroll Professor of Irish History at Oxford University and the doyen of the revisionist school of Irish history."...-99.135.170.179 (talk) 13:12, 23 October 2009 (UTC)

Ya' know, being the center of a chaired Oxford University professor of Irish history's book titled "The Irish Story: Telling Tales and Making It Up in Ireland.", on top of the mountains of criticism from Ireland based academics and national Irish newspapers really does close the issue. Tagged as resolved. _99.135.170.179 (talk) 13:19, 23 October 2009 (UTC)

Aubane have been sharply critical of what is often described in Ireland as the Revisionist school, epitomised by academics such as Roy Foster ant Peter Hart, and newspaper correspondents Kevin Myers and Eoghan Harris. The views of these individuals are important and cannot, and should not, be dismissed lightly. However, their particular take on Irish history is far from universal and among their most consistent critics are a number of historians who publish through Aubane. Vociferous attempts to dismiss or trivialise them as a group is nothing new. I sincerely hope Wikipedia editors are not seduced into appearing to give definitive support to one side or the other in this ongoing cat-fight. BTW, how and where is this tagging done, and what is the review process? RashersTierney (talk) 13:41, 23 October 2009 (UTC)

Historians publishing through Aubane should know better than to publish monographs central to a major debate in a vanity press. I suggest you write an article on the Revisionist school of Irish history where Aubane texts would be PRIMARY but be acceptable for descriptive use. As far as using Aubane texts elsewhere, they are not Reliable Sources, and a Reliable Source would be required to establish any claim, and such claims would have to be appropriately WEIGHTed and characterised. Aubane texts could be used as a second source not going to verifiability, after a RS had established the point in question. But even then, the question would be, why go to a second source? ... As far as any "tagging" process. The process is generally to remove non-RS citations, and add {{cn}} where required, and then after a reasonable amount of time, delete uncited claims. But that's something to take to individual article Talk: pages. Fifelfoo (talk) 13:55, 23 October 2009 (UTC)

Do I understand correctly that the references can be retained if also backed up by a recognised Reliable Source? RashersTierney (talk) 14:10, 23 October 2009 (UTC)

No. See WP:RS for an overview. 99.135.170.179 (talk) 14:18, 23 October 2009 (UTC)

There are no historians publishing through Aubane. The club member mentioned above, although educated at notable schools, is employed as a Monk. His degree's are unknown but possibly include a thesis on the Flute.99.135.170.179 (talk) 14:14, 23 October 2009 (UTC)

This man's vocation is a total red-herring. Many religious work as full time historians and researchers. RashersTierney (talk) 14:41, 23 October 2009 (UTC)

It depends. It needs to be in good faith, and not advertspamming. So for instance, "Milksales in Australia grew by 50% in the 1930s. [reliable source] [non-reliable source "History of the Australian Milkman in the 1930s"]." That looks in good faith, because the non-RS is dead on the topic of the assertion. Whereas if it was something like, "Milkmen shot babies,[rs] and everyone nice hated them[non-rs]" is obviously bad faith, its working in an opinion from a non-RS in, as if it was RS. Care, slowness, goodfaithg, double citation, avoiding advertspamming. For instance, history articles often also cite Full Text On Net newspaper articles, even though they're not really RS for history. Fifelfoo (talk) 14:21, 23 October 2009 (UTC)

Essentially articles should rely on reliable, third-party, published sources with a reputation for fact-checking and accuracy. This is precisely the opposite of the situation here are of a widely documented case of a group constantly rebuked in multiple countries from academia to the daily papers for its poor accuracy, scholarship and fact-checking.99.135.170.179 (talk) 14:22, 23 October 2009 (UTC)

Also note the real difference between those who are not a Reliable Source due to uncertainty, many cases exist of unknown reputation --- and those who are not Reliable Sources for cause. It's one thing for a local history club to publish an oral history of Lobstermen, which we could use here in a restricted fashion under WP:RS and quite another to do full battle with multiple professors of Irish history and the popular press which we cannot use outside of an article on the subject of say, "Irish History Revisionism" itself. But even then it would technically be "subject" and not "source" outside of a circular reference to itself. -99.135.170.179 (talk) 14:28, 23 October 2009 (UTC)

Ah, it seems we have now crossed over into the realm of WP:NPOV... presenting differing accademic opinions in a neutral tone. The key is avoid engaging in "full battle" (ie choosing which view of Irish history is "correct"), and instead to present the different views on Irish History (the traditional and the "revisionist") neutrally, with attribution as to who says what.Blueboar (talk) 14:42, 23 October 2009 (UTC)

Actually no. The issue is Irish Historical Practice in all its variety, versus, a group of non-historians acting outside of acceptable historical practice, and driving a particular line rather than acting faithfully in terms of disciplinary practice. And that's not weight and npov at all. See Historical revisionism versus Historical revisionism (negationism) Fifelfoo (talk) 14:47, 23 October 2009 (UTC)

These are not differing academic opinions. Aubane is not academia, its members are neither historians nor scholars. Aubane is a local club which self-publishes it's 30 some odd members from about the northern half of one small county. It's notoriety is as a polemicist. _ 99.135.170.179 (talk) 14:48, 23 October 2009 (UTC)

The assertion that Dr. Murphy is not a scholar is too much (POV). The fact that this publisher is based in a small town in a small county and in a small country is irrelevant. Polemics? There is certainly a lot of it about. RashersTierney (talk) 15:32, 23 October 2009 (UTC)

He is employed professionally as a Monk. That he is not employed as a scholar is simply a neutral observation. Frankly, I doubt whether we even have a RS to say whether the Dr. you've placed in front of his name (which I don't doubt he has) was for Medicine, Religion, Music or P.E. --- 99.135.170.179 (talk) 15:53, 23 October 2009 (UTC)

He studied history at Oxford '58-'61, HDip at Trinity and the PhD thesis (Modern Irish History, UCD, '84-'85) was on the subject of JJ O'Kelly and the Catholic Bulletin. RashersTierney (talk) 16:28, 23 October 2009 (UTC)

"Employed professionally as a Monk"? That sounds awfully like an oxymoron to me. Guy (Help!) 15:54, 23 October 2009 (UTC)

(unindent). I'm removing the "resolved" tag because there seems to be a misunderstanding about how this board works. We weren't asked to rule on whether the Aubane Historical Society is RS in all circumstances. Obviously it is as a general rule not RS. Instead we were asked about a specific case and have given advice tailored to that case. This query will be resolved when the original poster is happy that all his/her questions have been answered. I do hope that editors on the Irish Bulletin article will now get back to the article and work together to improve it. Neither this board nor the article talk page are appropriate places for general discussion of Irish historiography, or of scholarship and the religious life. Itsmejudith (talk) 16:13, 23 October 2009 (UTC)

I too would be glad to get back to the article. This has been exhausting, but Murphy's book is worthwhile as, at the very least, a corroboration of Kenneally, and for that reason I would be reluctant to see it deprecated. The personal attacks on Murphy for being a monk and the questioning of his academic credentials, without foundation, I could not let pass without comment. RashersTierney (talk) 17:00, 23 October 2009 (UTC)

There were no attacks. It's an observable fact that he's a Monk - as opposed to say a Reader of Irish history and this was presented neutrally as such. The request for a RS regarding your repeated assertion that his matriculation from notable institutions seemed to endow him with presumptive RS status was legitimate and still unmet with a cite. I was quite clear that I did not doubt his attendance or degree at the named schools.99.135.170.179 (talk) 17:29, 23 October 2009 (UTC)

Aubane is not a Reliable Source. That's really unquestioned, as such it is resolved - and yes, in this as in all RSN matters you rule on the source - not on the content debate. (also note that the "related to" tag was added by an uninvolved editor with a drive by edit - it is the source itself that has been specifically discussed and thoroughly impeached here.) I see no reason to now declare it Reliable outside of a single page - there is no basis for your action. The source is directly involved in 2 articles currently under contention and at least one other that links to them. 99.135.170.179 (talk) 16:22, 23 October 2009 (UTC)

Do you require that a separate section to discuss be opened for each one? Is this one-at-a-time method also in place for IMDB, Answer.com or Palladin Press? .. __99.135.170.179 (talk) 16:34, 23 October 2009 (UTC)

All right, if you like, there is a consensus among uninvolved commentators here that the AHS source is as a rule not reliable. But there may be a few cases in which it can be used and we need context to be able to advise further. "Thoroughly impeached" is not the most helpful language. We don't say that of IMDB. Itsmejudith (talk) 17:49, 23 October 2009 (UTC)

Agree, IMDB is not the same. AHS is in a separate class owing to the specific, notable, and Reliable Source refutations of its veracity as an institution. The most readily communicated being it's central place in a chaired Oxford University professor of Irish history's book titled "The Irish Story: Telling Tales and Making It Up in Ireland."[41], on top of the mountains of criticism from Ireland based academics and national Irish newspapers regarding its lack of accuracy, reliability or scholarship. (of which perhaps a dozen more are quoted and linked to above)

May I request that you reconsider your removal of the tag in recognition of consensus? Thank you. --99.135.170.179 (talk) 18:05, 23 October 2009 (UTC)

As a matter of basic courtesy I think it should be the original poster who says that the matter is resolved. Itsmejudith (talk) 18:21, 23 October 2009 (UTC)

I am the original poster, sorry if I did not indicate that.99.135.170.179 (talk) 18:24, 23 October 2009 (UTC)

Foster's take on Irish history is critiqued by an Aubane published author here too:

• The Canon of Irish Cultural History: Some Questions concerning Roy Foster's Modern Ireland Studies: An Irish Quarterly Review, Vol. 82, No. 326 (Summer, 1993), pp. 171-184

Having the temerity to criticise an Oxford academic on a different perspective on historical events does not of itself indicate a marginal or unreliable view. RashersTierney (talk) 18:41, 23 October 2009 (UTC)

No, and that's not why academia and the press have criticized them. Terms used include, propagandist masquerading as an expert, Conspiracy theorists, Diehards, cranky and cult-like Aubane Historical Society, strange and contentious opinions, very strange folk indeed, The latest lunacy, naff Irish nationalists,...etc...etc...etc - and those are just from Ireland. --99.135.170.179 (talk) 18:50, 23 October 2009 (UTC)

Please quote your sources. Name names! Irish newspapers have some very eccentric contributors - occasionally. RashersTierney (talk) 18:59, 23 October 2009 (UTC)

As you well know - each of those is included in the possibly dozen or more references the quotes are attached to above from numerous notable academic text's and Reliable Source newspaper reports.99.135.170.179 (talk) 19:14, 23 October 2009 (UTC)

Also, we are still waiting to see you challenge a single ref. from this source at the Article. RashersTierney (talk) 19:07, 23 October 2009 (UTC)

In case you haven't recognized this, I am challenging a ref from this source in the article.99.135.170.179 (talk) 19:13, 23 October 2009 (UTC)

Come back to the Talk Page and we'll see if we can work it out there. You haven't said what specifically was disputed. RashersTierney (talk) 19:18, 23 October 2009 (UTC)

As you know, being the Ed. involved - I was sent here from the talk page. If the Ed. that removed the tag would respond or replace the tag I'd head straight back. The debate has been factual and civil, but I do believe it is resolved now that AHS is not a RS.99.135.170.179 (talk) 19:26, 23 October 2009 (UTC)

You are still avoiding saying what it is in the Article you find factually questionable. Most of Dr. Murphy's book is footnoted to primary sources. Are you suggesting he is just making it up? RashersTierney (talk) 20:07, 23 October 2009 (UTC)

This is not the appropriate venue per policy. Note: "This noticeboard is not a place for general discussion of issues or for disputes about content." _-99.135.170.179 (talk) 20:16, 23 October 2009 (UTC)

What is at question is the reliability of Dr. Murphy as an authority in this area of study. I was no wiser than anyone else on this board as to his credentials before today, so I took the liberty of contacting him directly. He was utterly bemused by this debate, and answered all questions I put to him regarding his studies. His PhD in modern Irish History was under the supervision of Donal McCartney at UCD. Are you seriously suggesting that unattributed sources, such as you have used from the BBC website should somehow take precedence as an authoritative source on the Article? RashersTierney (talk) 20:30, 23 October 2009 (UTC)

Note: We do not, as a rule, telephone people and ask them if they are Reliable Sources - nor is it a proper cite for their academic record whilst in school. I thought there was a reason you didn't link to a reference for this info earlier when asked for the cite. Will we need to credit ASH for this or do you want the research under your name? _99.135.170.179 (talk) 20:37, 23 October 2009 (UTC)

When asked for what cite? If this is just a matter of verifying his credentials then there may be alternative sources. The above was for your information. If you are disputing it, please say so directly. RashersTierney (talk) 20:58, 23 October 2009 (UTC)

AHS is simply not a Reliable Source, we have ample evidence of Historians like Irving who've done both Reliable Source work with standards for accuracy and as well as work that is not RS. These are often cases of professionally trained and employed scholars whose work is simply not a RS - no matter their training, position or pedigree. This is true right up to Hawking, we don't report what he say's unless it comes from a Reliable Source. _99.135.170.179 (talk) 21:05, 23 October 2009 (UTC)

international-divorce.com

A recent change to the article International parental abduction in Japan, included significant material from this website. Although it appears that the individual maybe an expert, as the link is to an international divorce lawyer, it appears that it maybe original research or maybe a work of the lawyer himself. Would this be appropriate for this article? --RightCowLeftCoast (talk) 06:53, 23 October 2009 (UTC)

Mike Royko

Mike Royko was a Pulitzer-Prize winning columnist whose syndicated columns were carried by hundreds of newspapers. He was particularly known for his work on Chicago politics. His biography of Mayor Richard J. Daley is, according to Wikipedia, "a principal book about Mayor Daley and the City of Chicago under his mayoralty".

Royko also wrote about the LaRouche movement. In the 1970s he wrote about a group that was distributing almost pornographic posters of mayoral candidate Jane Byrne and uncovered them as a front for Lyndon LaRouche. In response, according to Royko, members of the movement left a note on the door of his assistant threatening to kill her cat. He wrote about this in four different columns over a three year-period, and also referred to a widely reported case in 1980 when a reported covering LaRouche had three of his pet cats killed on successive days. Here are excerpts from the columns:

• To fully appreciate LaRouche and his followers, you have to have had dealings with them. Which I have. A few years ago, something that called itself Citizens for Chicago took a frenzied dislike to Jane Byrne and began selling posters of her that bordered on the pornographic. I became curious and looked into Citizens for Chicago. Its leader lied and lied, but I established that it was one of the many LaRouche front organizations. When I wrote a column exposing it, their response was to distribute handbills and posters claiming that I had undergone a sex change operation. That didn't bother me, since I had evidence to the contrary. But they somehow tracked down the address of my assistant, a female reporter. They managed to get into her high-rise building and find her apartment. And on the doorknob they left one of their handbills. On it was drawn a bull's-eye. And there was a message. "A warning," they said. "We will kill your cat." So let us hope that the primary is the last election this crowd wins. If not, no cat will be safe.
  • 2 WINNERS FROM THE TWILIGHT ZONE; Mike Royko. Chicago Tribune : Mar 20, 1986. pg. 3
• Letters, calls, complaints and great thoughts from readers: Dorothy Sullivan, Chicago: Were you serious or just kidding us when you said some LaRouche people once threatened to kill your assistant's cat? If you were kidding, that is nothing to joke about. Just the thought of cruelty to helpless animals is enough to make me sick. But if you were serious and it actually happened, then these LaRouche people are even sicker and more dangerous than I had thought. Comment: Yes, they did threaten to kill my assistant's cat because they didn't like what I had written about them, but they never followed up on the threat. However, cat-killing is not unknown to the LaRouchites. The Wall Street Journal recently reported that a newspaperman in New Hampshire, who wrote a series of articles about the LaRouchites, found a dead cat on his front porch each day the articles appeared. Fortunately, the series eventually ended, so cats can still be found in that state.
  • LAROUCHITES KEEP FUR FLYING; Mike Royko. Chicago Tribune : Mar 31, 1986. pg. 3
• The best way to understand the LaRouchites--how they think and operate --is to get them mad at you. In that sense, I've been fortunate because they've been mad at me for years. [..] Long before their fluke victories in the Illinois primary made them well known, I was writing about their sleazy attacks on public figures--labeling certain female politicians as prostitutes and their husbands as pimps--and the way they conned people into giving them money. Their response was to threaten to murder a cat belonging to a reporter who worked for me. They never followed through on the threat, possibly because they discovered that the cat had not been declawed. Of course, they are capable of cat-killing, as they demonstrated in New Hampshire, where a reporter wrote a series of articles on their lunacy. Every day that an article appeared, a dead cat was dropped on his doorstep.
  • LAROUCHITES TEST POSITIVE FOR FLEECE; Mike Royko. Chicago Tribune : Jul 25, 1986. pg. 3
• But what I dislike most about the LaRouchies is that they have bumped off cats. I'm not a great cat lover, although I provide food and shelter for two of them. However, I think it is cowardly to murder them. And that's what LaRouchies did. When a reporter in New England wrote about some of their antics, they killed several of his cats. The killings didn't stop until his articles did. Later, when I wrote something about them, they sent a cat death threat to the young female reporter who was my assistant. I figured that anybody who threatens cats is basically a coward and a wimp. So I phoned the LaRouchie office here and said that if they threatened harm to any more cats, I would come there with some large, violent friends and we would break their furniture, their legs, and maybe a few fingers and noses, and jump up and down on their chests. They shouted and sputtered that those would be criminal acts. I agreed but said we'd do it anyway and take a chance on getting a cat-loving jury. And that was the last I heard from the creeps. I don't know which prison LaRouche and his associates will be sent to. But I hope that this column finds its way to his fellow inmates. They should know that they have a cat-killer in their midst. And I hope any cat-lovers among them do whatever they feel is appropriate.
  • LaRouche getting what he deserves; Mike Royko.. Chicago Tribune : Jan 30, 1989. pg. 3

When the 1989 column was printed LaRouche sued to prevent its publication in newspapers near the prison where he was confined, claiming that it was an incitement to violence against him, but the judge rejected the suit as moot since it had already been printed in local newspapers. The suit brought further attention to the matter.

• Jailed political extremist Lyndon LaRouche has filed a lawsuit to stop distribution of a newspaper column that he says could incite other inmates to harm him because it calls him a "cat killer," a lawyer said. The column by Mike Royko, syndicated through the Chicago Tribune, contends that LaRouche followers have killed cats of LaRouche opponents - a claim LaRouche followers deny. "I hope that this column finds its way to his fellow inmates," Royko wrote in the column, printed Monday in the Chicago Tribune and distributed to about 500 newspapers. "They should know that they have a cat-killer in their midst. And I hope any cat-lovers among them do whatever they feel is appropriate."
  • LAROUCHE SUIT TRIES TO STOP ROYKO COLUMN Associated Press. Orlando Sentinel. Orlando, Fla.: Feb 4, 1989. pg. A.3

LaRouche was known for filing libel suits frequently, but there's no evidence that Royko was sued or even that a retraction or correction was requested. So this widely disseminated claim was never disputed.

The other day I added this text to LaRouche movement:

• After writing about a LaRouche front group called "Citizens for Chicago", his assistant found a note attached to her apartment door that had a bullseye and a threat to kill her cat.

Another editor deleted the information, with the edit summary: "remove rumors, anonymous allegations, and innuendo per WP:NOTSCANDAL, WP:REDFLAG and WP:BLP" [42]

The question here is whether the text is properly sourced, and whether it violates any other Wikipedia policy.   Will Beback  talk  21:02, 23 October 2009 (UTC)