Wikipedia:Reliable sources/Noticeboard

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RfC: Deprecation and blacklisting process

To increase transparency and robustness of the process for classification of sources, increase the review requirement for actions that prevent use of a source. Guy (help!) 17:17, 21 February 2020 (UTC)

Detail

Proposal 1: Add the following to Wikipedia:Reliable sources/Perennial sources/Instructions:

A project-level RfC is required for the following:

• Any source that is proposed for deprecation (see also the list of deprecated sources);
• Any source that is widely used in articles (per {{insource|$SOURCEDOMAIN}}) that is proposed as generally unreliable (see also the list of perennial sources).

RfCs should be registered at Wikipedia:Reliable sources/Noticeboard using {{rfc|prop}}.

Proposal 2a: Add the following to the instructions for editors at MediaWiki talk:Spam-blacklist:

You must initiate a project-level RfC when requesting blacklisting of any entry that is widely used as a cited source in articles (per {{insource|$SOURCEDOMAIN}}) other than those added by the spammer(s). The RfC may be initiated concurrent with after requesting blacklisting where there is ongoing abuse. RfCs should be registered using {{rfc|prop}} at Wikipedia:Reliable sources/Noticeboard.

Proposal 2b: Add the following to the instructions for admins at MediaWiki talk:Spam-blacklist:

A project-level RfC is required when blacklisting any entry that is widely used as a cited source in articles (per {{insource|$SOURCEDOMAIN}}) other than those added by the spammer(s). The RfC may be initiated concurrent with after addition to the blacklist where there is ongoing abuse, with the expectation that it will be removed if the RfC decides against blacklisting. RfCs should be registered using {{rfc|prop}} at Wikipedia:Reliable sources/Noticeboard

Proposal 3: Add the following to Wikipedia:Reliable sources/Noticeboard:

Requests for comment for deprecation, or for blacklisting or classification as generally unreliable of sources that are widely used in articles, should be registered here using {{rfc|prop}} and should run for at least 7 days. Contentious RfCs should be closed by an uninvolved administrator and consensus assessed based on the weight of policy-based argument.

This does not affect existing classifications or blacklisting. Guy (help!) 13:24, 21 February 2020 (UTC)

Opinions

1. Support 1, 2a, 3 (first preference); 1, 2b, 3 (second preference) as proposer. Discussions on source classification at WP:RSN typically have few participants, but may have substantial impact if problematic sources are widely used. This also applies to spammed sites that are targets for blacklisting. Guy (help!) 13:24, 21 February 2020 (UTC)
2. Support the proposal in principle, but I can't comment on the particulars simply because I don't have much experience of this area. Deprecating and/or blacklisting a widely used source can have long-term effects on the verifiability of content in the relevant topic area and it should be done with a stronger consensus that one achieved by one or two editors. The one case that I've been involved in in the past didn't leave me with the impression that the process was a sane one: a website used in a few hundred articles was blacklisted on the strength of opinion of three editors (with a fourth one disagreeing), where the major issue appeared to be not any demonstrable unreliability, but those editors' dislike for the fact that the website was generating a profit from running ads while using public domain data. If a discussion is more widely advertised (like with an RfC), then the impact of personal whimsy should be less noticeable, and the outcome better defensible. – Uanfala (talk) 11:45, 24 February 2020 (UTC)
3. Support per Uanfala, the basic principle that deprecating a source is a sufficiently significant step to take that it needs many more eyes on the discussion to do so. Otherwise a walled garden dictates. Is the occuramce also uncommon enough to warrant a notice at CENT? ——SN54129 11:54, 24 February 2020 (UTC)
4. Support all: significant steps ought not be taken without discussion. But this is not my area of expertise, and so I am also unable to comment on the particular mechanisms of each proposal. — Javert2113 (Siarad.|¤) 12:29, 24 February 2020 (UTC)
5. Support Like Uanfala I was involved in a case where a website was blacklisted on ideological grounds. In addition to the benefits list above, this proposal will provide us with an audit trail detailing when and why a site was blacklisted. Hawkeye7 (discuss) 01:38, 25 February 2020 (UTC)
6. Oppose - because I cannot in clear conscience fully support it. I'm also of the mind that such a proposal should go to VP for wider community input. There would have to be clearly defined parameters before blacklisting/deprecating any source in an effort to eliminate potentially harmful ideologically based decisions. --^Atsme _Talk 📧 01:23, 28 February 2020 (UTC)
7. Oppose Based upon the village pump suggestion only, such drastic measures need to be more fully discussed with a wider audience.Slatersteven (talk) 08:51, 19 March 2020 (UTC)
8. Support per Uanfala and SN. Deprecating a source and similar actions affect many articles and should follow our usual procedures for establishing consensus for proposals that have such broad effects (i.e., well-advertised RfC, left open for a minimum period of time, etc.). Prefer 2a over 2b. Since this proposal has been advertised on CENT and elsewhere, I don't see a problem with it being here as opposed to VP or another page. Levivich ^{[dubious – discuss]} 18:34, 19 March 2020 (UTC)
9. Going on a segue here but feel free to count it as "Neutral" or rather, "why is this instruction creep needed?" vote: there are already discussions that take place on RSN and they are handled just fine (not seeing the demonstration of a problem). Similarly, if something is blacklisted by unilateral discretion, it can easily be removed from the blacklist before or after discussion (and again, not a demonstration of a problem). There's no need to add more instruction when we already have WP:ANRFC backlogged and tons of RfCs ending up with no result. The current approach of solving blacklisting with WP:BRD (make an edit, take issue, discuss!) and the fact that RSN handles these with/without "formal" RfCs is just fine. No point drawing a line in the sand, imo. --qedk (t 心 c) 20:39, 19 March 2020 (UTC)
10. Support for all this. Regulations of websites is serious business over time it can have big impacts across the project. Also RfCs should be broadly advertised not just in RS/N which can become insular. -- GreenC 22:02, 23 March 2020 (UTC)
11. Support,with the possible modification that sources of general interest require a community-wide AfC, not just one at the project level. We need a more realistic approach to RS: No source is entirely reliable, almost no source is totally unreliable. The best news sources, such as the NYTimes, have on occasion carried invented stories; the worst, like the Daily Mail, have on occasion carried genuine news that they were the first to report. The scientific journals of the highest prestige, such as Nature, have sometimes carried nonsense, such as the discovery of Polywater, or Duesberg's denial of HIV. Thesame goes for book publishers, and television networks, and almost anything else.. We properly take a skeptical approach to priary sources, for they need itnerpretation; the same is true for secondary sources as well. There is no substitute for intelligence and impartial investigation ofindividual cases. DGG ( talk ) 09:24, 25 March 2020 (UTC)
12. Support Per above. --Puddleglum^2.0_{(How's my driving?)} 14:11, 1 April 2020 (UTC)

Discussion

I believe we should also tighten up the guidance on the conduct of RfCs, e.g. to ensure that they primarily address reliability of a source. This is especially important for politics articles, where there is asymmetric polarization in the media that causes frequent and heated arguments on Wikipedia. There are also credible reports of a repeat of the 2016 Russian social media and disinformation campaigns whose very existence is denied by previously mainstream conservative sources. It's not Wikipedia's problem but it's a problem for Wikipedia, and I think we should be ready for the heightened scrutiny we are likely to receive even when it is from bad-faith actors. Guy (help!) 13:24, 21 February 2020 (UTC)

• I would generally oppose any language that imposes arbitrary cut offs. There is nothing special about "100", but if you include that type of language, people are going to treat it like gospel, as if there is something substantive that separates sources with 99 and 101 citations. GMG^talk 13:34, 21 February 2020 (UTC)

  GreenMeansGo, I thought about that. I don't mind adding an option to strike the numerical example. Guy (help!) 17:17, 21 February 2020 (UTC)

• @JzG: what is your brief and neutral statement? At over 3,500 bytes, the statement above (from the {{rfc}} tag to the next timestamp) is far too long for Legobot (talk · contribs) to handle, and so it is not being shown correctly at Wikipedia:Requests for comment/Wikipedia policies and guidelines. The RfC will also not be publicised through WP:FRS until a shorter statement is provided. --Redrose64 🌹 (talk) 14:13, 21 February 2020 (UTC)

  Oh, heaven forfend that a complex issue could not be rendered in a way that pleases the bots. Guy (help!) 17:17, 21 February 2020 (UTC)

  Thank you this is the effect. --Redrose64 🌹 (talk) 19:33, 21 February 2020 (UTC)

• I think proposals 2a and 2b should be restricted in scope to apply only to blacklisting domains for reasons related to reliability. An RfC would be unnecessary to blacklist a domain that was widely spammed in clear violations of the external link spamming guideline (excluding the reliability criterion). — Newslinger talk 03:29, 22 February 2020 (UTC)

  ^This. After having manually removed almost 1000 occurrences of "lepidoptera.eu" from articles before having it blacklisted. It rarely happens, but it does. ~ ToBeFree (talk) 05:42, 22 February 2020 (UTC)

  I also agree with this. We should put as much emphasis on verification and reliability as we can as some users can easily be confused with bias vs. reliability.----ZiaLater (talk) 08:26, 22 February 2020 (UTC)

OK, so lepidoptera.eu was spammed. So was ZoomInfo (and I nuked all links). Playing devil's advocate, should we not blacklist and then have an RfC, as I propose, to ensure that there is broad support for removal? At least if it's used in pre-existing (clarification added) reference tags (which could have been more explicit, so I fixed that). External links is different. 1,000 articles is a big impact on the project. Even if the source is clearly unreliable, it's going to be better to have solid consensus for any automated removal. And in fact if we do it right we can probably get approval for a bot to remove all references to a site that has been through this process, which will save a massive amount of time. Guy (help!) 10:06, 22 February 2020 (UTC)

I agree with this. Let's not give spammers a target to meet. Being used in reference tags is not particularly relevant, WP:CITESPAM is the default nowadays I believe. MER-C 12:12, 22 February 2020 (UTC)

This sounds backwards to me... I would think we would need an RFC prior to placing a site on the blacklist (whether due to reliability or some other reason) To determine whether the site should be added to the blacklist or not. Once a site is on the blacklist, however, we can automatically remove (and I don’t see a need to have additional RFCs before automatically removing).

Deprecated sources, on the other hand, are a different issue... these are discouraged, but NOT blacklisted (as they often have nuanced exceptions and carve outs attached to the deprecation)... so automatic removal is not the best solution. These need to be examined on a case by case basis, and additional RFCs may be needed. Blueboar (talk) 12:58, 22 February 2020 (UTC)

Blueboar, MediaWiki:Spam-blacklist has over 8300 entries. Having an RFC "prior to placing a site on the blacklist" in 15 years would have required an RfC more frequently than every 16 hours. ~ ToBeFree (talk) 13:24, 22 February 2020 (UTC)

I am confused... How do you determine if something is spam vs legit sourcing without an RFC? Is there some alternative process? Blueboar (talk) 15:32, 22 February 2020 (UTC)

Counter-question: How does one determine if a user needs to be blocked without an RFC? Or if a page needs to be protected? The point of electing administrators is to let some people enforce the community's policies in uncontroversial situations without having an RFC for every single action. The spam blacklist is primarily used to deal with the worst and most obvious cases of spam reported at MediaWiki talk:Spam-blacklist, just as WP:RFPP and WP:AIV are used for simple protection and blocking requests. ~ ToBeFree (talk) 20:41, 22 February 2020 (UTC)

ToBeFree, not that it's especially relevant but actually it's analogous to the proposed blacklisting response. Abuse is dealt with expeditiously but is then subject to review either by the user appealing the block (up to ArbCom if necessary) or by the admin posting the block for review on WP:ANI, one of the most watched pages on enWP. Guy (help!) 12:34, 23 February 2020 (UTC)

Blueboar, the default for a deprecated source is to remove it. My standard approach would be to tag with {{deprecated inline}} and then after some time go back and remove the tagged sources. We should not raise enormous bureaucratic obstacles to removal of a source we have decided is crap. My issue is that the process for deciding it's crap is vulnerable to groupthink. And I say that as one of the group.

The reason for blacklist then RfC when there are significant numbers of references is to control abuse. We should not allow a spammer to run rampant for a week while we think about it. The blacklist controls abuse, most abuse does not involve substantial numbers of references in mainspace, because it's usually a simple matter of rolling back the edits of the spammers. The example that clarifies this for me is ZoomInfo. This was absolutelt spammed. I then checked the existing references and found a mix of good and likely bad faith additions, including what was almost certainly their people adding their archive url to a lot of references. Those archives are all now defunct, according tot he checks I did, so are worthless. The rest of the information cited to ZoomInfo was generally trivial and likely to be self-provided. I still think, in retrospect, an RfC would have been a good idea. It was discussed here in some detail, but only the usual suspects show up.

Bear in mind that the existing process for deprecation is a short discussion here, often with few participants. The default for blacklisting is even quicker. Turnaround can be close to real time and in some cases the person proposing addition, also actions it (not best practice but necessary to control spamming, same as speedy deletion nominations by an admin are sometimes done in one step rather than being tagged and left for a second pair of eyes).

It seems to me that best practice is to be more deliberative when significant numbers of existing references are affected. And recent experience, for me at least, backs that up. As an aside, I would also like to see a parameter in the {{cite}} templates to link to any discussion showing consensus to include an apparently dubious source (e.g. specific self-published books). A small and discreet checkmark could be displayed to say it's a qualified reference despite appearances to the contrary. Guy (help!) 12:45, 23 February 2020 (UTC)

• This is confusing two different things - whether a source is reliable and whether a source is being spammed. Sources which pass all the requirements of reliable sources can still be spammed (whether by/on behalf of the owner/creator of the source or by unrelated third parties), and not all unreliable sources are spammed or otherwise added maliciously. The Spam Blacklist should concentrate on sources that are being spammed - the determination of which does not require an RFC as it depends on behaviour here (and on other Wikimedia projects) rather than the quality of the source. If we on en:wiki want to keep a separate blacklist covering sources that are unwanted for reasons other than spamming (such as unreliability or copyvios, then that is a different thing entirely.Nigel Ish (talk) 16:50, 22 February 2020 (UTC)

  Nigel Ish, no it's not, it's handling two scenarios whereby sources might be rejected: blacklisting (which can happen due to spamming but may affect large numbers of references if the site has been abused, as was the case with ZoomInfo), or deprecation / "Generally Unreliable". Both of these can happen as of today with virtually zero input. I think that's a bad thing if the site has been widely used. Given your decision to reinstate vanity presses and blogs lately, I think you are of the same view: we should not be adding a site to a list which qualifies it for large scale removal from Wikipedia without some more input than we currently get. Guy (help!) 12:32, 23 February 2020 (UTC)

Updated

Since I am the only one to !vote so far I have updated the proposals per comments above:

• Removed the number of references per WP:BEANS etc.;
• Clarified that links added by the spammer(s) don't count when blacklisting, so only pre-existing links.

Does this help? Guy (help!) 12:57, 23 February 2020 (UTC)

Are you essentially proposing that we expand the scope of the blacklist to cover deprecated sources as well as spam? If so, I would oppose. While deprecated sources ARE usually removed, there are nuanced exceptions when they should not be... and thus deprecated sources must be dealt with on a case by case basis. Blueboar (talk) 13:37, 23 February 2020 (UTC)

Blueboar, no, I am saying that when a site has been spammed but is widely used as a source, we should follow up with an RfC to decide what o do about the existing uses, part of which will be to assess whether it was, in fact, reliable in the first place. Guy (help!) 20:13, 23 February 2020 (UTC)

Ok... my confusion stemmed from the fact that your proposal #3 focused on deprecated sources, and not spammed sources... but if you are now limiting the discussion to just spammed sources I can shift from opposition to neutrality. Blueboar (talk) 02:31, 24 February 2020 (UTC)

• I agree with Guy's statement We should not allow a spammer to run rampant for a week while we think about it. In this regard, I think that 2b is a bit better than 2a; I like the sound of The RfC may be initiated concurrent with addition to the blacklist where there is ongoing abuse more than The RfC may be initiated concurrent with requesting blacklisting. But, to me, neither option really seems clear about the chronology that is being envisioned here. XOR'easter (talk) 19:02, 23 February 2020 (UTC)

  XOR'easter, sure. And I am happy to tweak it, but I think you understand my intent: blacklist then discuss. Controlling abuse comes first. Guy (help!) 20:14, 23 February 2020 (UTC)

• My concerns are that it opens the door to POV creep, inadvertent or otherwise, and it does so in a big way, particularly in controversial topic areas like AP2, climate change, religion, etc. Perhaps if there was stricter adherence to including only the facts rather than opinions, and we paid closer attention to RECENTISM, NOTNEWS and NEWSORG, we'd be just fine. All of WP should not be run on the same premise as Project Med; i.e., strict adherence to WP:MEDRS. ^Atsme _Talk 📧 13:47, 19 March 2020 (UTC)

The number of RFCs

My main concern is about the number of RFCs we've been holding, and the relatively poor justification for most of those RFCs. I'd like to see rules that focus attention on sources that have both of these qualities:

1. are actually being used (including proposed uses, e.g., on the talk page), and
2. the resulting disputes (please notice my intentional use of the plural) have been difficult to resolve.

That means that we have RFCs on Daily Mail and similar sources, but that we use our long-standing, normal, non-RFC discussion processes for whichever website popped up last week. If that means that they don't end up on the source blacklist, that's okay with me. We do not actually need a list of what editors thought, generally at a single point in time, about hundreds and hundreds of sources.

This RFC doesn't address any of my concerns, and I'm concerned that it will have even greater Tragedy of the commons-like effects on the overall RFC process. Y'all need to use the sitewide RFCs when they're important, not as your first approach to resolving a dispute. WhatamIdoing (talk) 21:42, 23 March 2020 (UTC)

We often spend more time and energy debating a single AfD. I'd rather get it right than worry about a relatively small number of consensus discussions. Regulating entire websites is serious business it can impact thousands of articles and even result in articles being deleted if their sourcing is knocked out. -- GreenC 21:56, 23 March 2020 (UTC)

RfC: Is The Green Papers a generally reliable source for reporting election-related information?

Is The Green Papers [1] a generally reliable source for election-related information? - MrX 🖋 20:53, 6 February 2020 (UTC)

• Current usage: [2]
• Previous discussion: [3]
• Related discussion: Talk:2020 Iowa Democratic caucuses#Poll: Should The Green Papers estimates for pledged delegates be used in place of those from major sources like the New York Times?

---

• Should not be used in preference to established RS like the New York Times and other newspapers which cover this topic in sufficient detail. buidhe 21:00, 6 February 2020 (UTC)
• Yes. The days and weeks after a primary/caucus is over, there can still be updates to votes totals and delegates from official sources until the final results are certified. The Green Papers always keeps up with these updates, while other reliable sources like the New York Times, USA Today, and CNN often do not. --Spiffy sperry (talk) 21:51, 6 February 2020 (UTC)
• Yes, but...: The site provides high quality information, but it's essentially a self-published website by two politics geeks, with no editorial oversight (nor any web designer to speak of). It can be used, but if The Green Papers say one thing and mainstream media outlets say another, report what the mainstream outlets say, even if you believe the Green Papers are "more accurate". MaxBrowne2 (talk) 01:42, 7 February 2020 (UTC)
• Yes. per above. --Enos733 (talk) 04:28, 7 February 2020 (UTC)
• Yes. Based on a read of their 2020 Iowa results article, the source is reliable (display official election result data imported both from the primary official result website in each state and from the New York Times) and it is also of a unique high quality (as it transparently outline how national pledged delegates have been calculated while explaining the underlying math, so that the reader himself can check and verify that the calculated results indeed are correct).
  • When used along with a primary official result website source (i.e the IDP website), then The Green Papers source add quality to wikipedia. Newspaper sources and even the offical website result websites, tend to skip publication of the calculations behind the allocation of national pledged delegates, and instead just jump on to display only the final results.
  • Another quality of The Green Papers source is that it continue to track subsequent developments for the calculated final result of allocated won "national pledged delegates", both when "certified final results" are published by the official result website roughly one month after the election, and in those cases where the initial won "national pledged delegates" subseqently transfers to other candidates (i.e. check how the source was used to keep track of the final results in this 2008 Iowa Democratic cacucuses wikipedia article, where it should be noted that most newspapers at the time in comparison failed to update their several month old result articles to keep track of the subsequent developments happening months later for the Iowa national pledged delegates). Danish Expert (talk) 15:14, 7 February 2020 (UTC)
• Yes and no. Yes in that its data is probably accurate; no in that it doesn't really qualify as RS in the usual Wikipedia sense, though IAR may apply. I largely agree with what Buidhe and MaxBrowne2 said above. This site reminds me of Kworb for music data. feminist (talk) 16:59, 8 February 2020 (UTC)
• No - It is a self published website with unknown editorial oversight. It may be usable in some contexts, but when major news organizations routinely report election results, there is no real value in citing a self published source. - MrX 🖋 13:50, 23 February 2020 (UTC)
• No - I agree with feminist that the data might be accurate, but it is a self published Blog so its reliability is questionable. I don't think it should be used as a main reliable reference, maybe a secondary in some cases. ContentEditman (talk) 19:08, 23 February 2020 (UTC)
• No SPS blog by people who do not seem to be recognised experts.Slatersteven (talk) 10:22, 24 February 2020 (UTC)
• No - Self-published blog. They probably get it right most of the time but I see no reason to rely on them when there are ample better sources (official reports, AP, NYTimes) to cite. Neutrality^talk 20:26, 24 February 2020 (UTC)
• No I notice a disclaimer on the Nevada Democrats caucus page: "These pages contain a combination of official, unofficial, and estimated data. The information posted here is subject to change."[4] If something is an estimate, that must be mentioned in the text. But there is no reason in reporting their estimates since they have no claim to expertise. However, journalists are supposed to have the expertise to weigh sources, so we can use their info if it is reported in news articles. TFD (talk) 20:54, 24 February 2020 (UTC)
• No Where more reliable sources agree with their data, use the more reliable sources. Where more reliable sources disagree with it, then we can't trust this one. There's no good reason to use it. --Jayron32 15:14, 26 February 2020 (UTC)
  • Comment: I suspect that all those who replied "No" from 23-26 February most likely lack some experience on what this source is really about and how Wikipedia article's previously chose to use it (as a supplementing secondary source along with the primary source being the "official election result webpage") for most US presidential elections (including primaries and caucuses) over the past 20 years.
    The Green Papers is not a traditional source, but more of a factual election result database, which collected and documented all official election results (with its primary data-input being identical to the imported results from the primary official website result webpages, and adding several important additional calculation details - plus some sourced comments on all potential subsequent changes to the count of pledged national convention delegates happening after the election date itself) for all Democratic/Republican presidential races from 2000-2020 in their database. It can simply not just be replaced by any other reliable source.
    Besides of being the most complete and accurate historic database for final results (i.e the created wikipedia article about the source features this line: "During the 2016 presidential election, many journalists started paying attention to the site's delegate counts, and Quoctrung Bui of the New York Times noted that the site "...does something very few media organizations are willing to do: accurately and independently tabulate delegates in real time."), it also like CNN+AP trade in the business of calculating a projected preliminary count of won pledged national convention delegates based on the ongoing preliminary partial count before 100% of the voting places reported their result (hence they also added their "data disclaimer" on the top of the page, warning readers that their page features preliminary data subject to change). Whether or not these preliminary calculated data for pledged national convention delegates (based on partial less than 100% counted results) should be added to Wikipedia articles by AP/CNN/TGP or none of them at all, is a second very seperate ongoing debate, where my own position is, that infoboxes should completely refrain from displaying these calculated preliminary data figures delivered by any source, meaning that we should instead just opt to display a "TBD" - at least until 100% of the vote has been counted.
    Contrary to AP/CNN, the The Green Papers however nevertheless is the only source that transparently display how this calculation of pledged national convention delegates is performed (first based on preliminary unofficial results and later based on final official certified results being imported by the source-linked primary official result webpage), and The Green Papers is the only available source that provides a full explanation of how this calculation math is working, and moreover it has a historic track record of doing these calculations both faster and more accurate compared to AP/CNN. We have no source to replace it, because as you can see this alternative AP source do not deliver the same amount of data details compared to The Green Papers. Finally, it is similar to all alternative newspaper sources being updated very frequently several times per day, so it never features outdated data. Danish Expert (talk) 17:15, 26 February 2020 (UTC)

References

• Where the source collates information from electoral officials, we can follow Say where you read it. For example in a 1948 congressional race in Idaho, we could cite that electoral board and mention in the footnote that we got the info from The Green Papers. But there is no reason to report their calculated results if they have been ignored by mainstream sources. Bear in mind too that we are not preventing readers from going to The Green Paper if they wish to do so. It is not the role of Wikipedia to incorporate everything available on other sites on the internet. TFD (talk) 17:58, 26 February 2020 (UTC)

• You accidently missed the point of my stated comment above. MrX started this "reliable source RFC" because he want to use AP/CNN instead of TGP as a reliable source for the preliminary calculated number of "pledged national convention delegates" election results. My position is, that neither AP/CNN/TGP should be used as sources for a display of this preliminary data (based on less than 100% of the votes being counted), as per WP:NOTNEWS. However, there is absolutely no reason to change how Wikipedia has previously used TGP as a reliable supplementing secondary database source for US election articles in the past 20 years, as it provides this important valuable additional info not reported by ordinary newspaper sources:
  1. Number of pledged national convention delegates based on the election result itself (while providing all verifiable math and explanation for this calculation, which competing sources tend to skip).
  2. Subsequent changes to the number of allocated pledged national convention delegates due to events from candidates pulling out of the race - or subsequent changes due to subsequent election system developments at the state's district convention or state convention.
  3. Display exactly how many pledged delegates each candidate won within respectively each of the 6 election races that form part of a states overall election event (i.e. congressional district 1+2+3+4 delegates, plus the PLEO delegates per statewide total and at-large delegates per statewide total).
  4. Finally TGP also keep track on how each states unpledged delegates finally vote on the floor of the Democratic Partys' National Convention.

All of the above 4 additional data points are not provided by alternative newspaper sources. Once certified results are published by the primary official election source (which TGP link to), they then finally also remove their data disclaimer about "preliminary data subject to change" (i.e. see the 2016 Iowa election result article). This is why Wikipedia shall continue to use TGP as a supplementing data source (along with a primary official election webpage source), without enforcing any changes to how Wikipedia previously up until today has opted to use this TGP source. Danish Expert (talk) 18:51, 26 February 2020 (UTC)

There are reasons. We are an encyclopedia whose credibility is based on adherence to referencing to sources with reputations for fact checking, editorial oversight, and making corrections when necessary. Your argument is based largely on the mechanics of the information that TGP publishes and your own assessment of its value and quality. We should not use questionable sources simply because they publish information that reliable sources don't. We have always done it that way is a poor argument for elevating this source. I would be careful about making declarations like "Wikipedia shall continue to use TGP as a supplementing data source" that may run contrary to consensus. - MrX 🖋 13:03, 28 February 2020 (UTC)

We are however experience editors who (generality) understand policy, an SPS is an SPS accuracy is irrelevant. If this was produced by A recognised (BY other RS) it might be usable, no evidence has been produced it is. can tell you (exactly) what the weather is like outside my house, that does not make me an RS on it (no matter how accurate I am).Slatersteven (talk) 13:17, 1 March 2020 (UTC)

Hi MrX, would you mind adding an {{rfc}} tag to this discussion to make this a formal request for comment, or removing "RfC:" from the section heading? — Newslinger talk 12:45, 1 March 2020 (UTC)

Wait, I see that Legobot removed the {{rfc}} tag in Special:Diff/940712018 after this RfC was prematurely archived. I restored the tag. — Newslinger talk 13:01, 1 March 2020 (UTC)

Yeah, I should have caught that. - MrX 🖋 13:06, 1 March 2020 (UTC)

• Yes, it is an RS. It could be contradicted by even more reputable outlets, but should still be considered an RS. It is widely cited by RS's, as well. --MaximumIdeas (talk) 17:29, 7 April 2020 (UTC)

Adding generally reliable sources to the CAPTCHA whitelist

Should generally reliable sources on the perennial sources list be added to CAPTCHA whitelist, so that new and anonymous users can cite them in articles without needing to solve a CAPTCHA? — Newslinger talk 19:37, 7 March 2020 (UTC)

Background

Wikipedia uses the ConfirmEdit extension, which is an anti-spam feature that requires IP editors and newly registered users to solve a CAPTCHA before they can add a citation or external link, unless the linked website is on the CAPTCHA whitelist. The CAPTCHA whitelist makes it easier for new editors to add content that references "known good sites", which are likely to be appropriate citations or external links, and unlikely to be spammed.

There are currently 103 domains operated by 76 sources that have been designated as generally reliable on the perennial sources list after being reviewed on this noticeboard:

103 domains operated by 76 generally reliable sources

aljazeera.com aljazeera.net arstechnica.com arstechnica.co.uk ap.org apnews.com theatlantic.com avclub.com bbc.co.uk bbc.com bellingcat.com bloomberg.com buzzfeednews.com csmonitor.com climatefeedback.org cnet.com cnn.com theconversation.com thedailybeast.com dailydot.com telegraph.co.uk deadline.com deadlinehollywooddaily.com deseretnews.com digitalspy.co.uk digitalspy.com economist.com engadget.com ew.com ft.com foxnews.com theguardian.com guardian.co.uk theguardian.co.uk haaretz.com haaretz.co.il thehill.com hollywoodreporter.com idolator.com ign.com independent.co.uk ipsnews.net ipsnoticias.net ipscuba.net theintercept.com jamanetwork.com latimes.com metacritic.com gamerankings.com motherjones.com thenation.com nymag.com vulture.com thecut.com grubstreet.com nytimes.com newyorker.com newsweek.com people.com pewresearch.org people-press.org journalism.org pewsocialtrends.org pewforum.org pewinternet.org pewhispanic.org pewglobal.org playboy.com politico.com politifact.com propublica.org theregister.co.uk reuters.com rollingstone.com rottentomatoes.com sciencebasedmedicine.org slate.com slate.fr snopes.com splcenter.org spectator.co.uk spiegel.de thewrap.com time.com thetimes.co.uk thesundaytimes.co.uk timesonline.co.uk torrentfreak.com tvguide.com tvguidemagazine.com usatoday.com vanityfair.com variety.com venturebeat.com theverge.com vogue.com vox.com wsj.com washingtonpost.com weeklystandard.com wired.com wired.co.uk zdnet.com

The above excludes:

• Forbes (RSP entry), which shares a domain with the generally unreliable Forbes.com contributors (RSP entry)
• buzzfeed.com, which is no longer used for BuzzFeed News (RSP entry) after it moved to a separate domain

Some of these domains are already on the CAPTCHA whitelist, and would not be added again.

Another request concerning this whitelist was made just over a week ago at "CAPTCHA exemption for reliable domains". — Newslinger talk 19:37, 7 March 2020 (UTC)

Survey (CAPTCHA whitelist)

• Support as proposer. The CAPTCHA whitelist improves accessibility for new and anonymous editors. The listed sources have already been vetted through this noticeboard. — Newslinger talk 19:37, 7 March 2020 (UTC)
• Support to improve accessibility and remove unnecessary red tape, these captcha processes are particularly difficult for visually impaired people, imv Atlantic306 (talk) 20:48, 7 March 2020 (UTC)
• Support to improve the user experience and therefore editor retention. Clayoquot (talk | contribs) 21:57, 7 March 2020 (UTC)
• Sorry if this seems like a stupid question, but what's stopping users from editing WP:RSP to bypass this restriction? feminist (talk) 04:48, 8 March 2020 (UTC)
  • OK I see that this proposal doesn't actually add RSP links to the CAPTCHA whitelist in real time, but rather involves manually adding the links to the whitelist. Support. feminist (talk) 06:14, 8 March 2020 (UTC)
• Support - and I will consider to add this capability to User:Beetstra/Gadget-Spam-whitelist-Handler (well, I will likely copy-and-paste it to a next handler) to make it easier to handle these requests. IMHO, they should just be added with a rather low bar - as long as they are properly logged and tracked it should not impose many problems. --Dirk Beetstra ^{T C} 12:57, 8 March 2020 (UTC)
• Support per nom. Adding my late support as well if it's still needed. I don't see any objections to this, so I'd go ahead and implement. {{u|Sdkb}} ^talk 08:25, 3 April 2020 (UTC)
• Support no brainer that would make it much easier to cite good sources. buidhe 02:54, 4 April 2020 (UTC)
• Support, it's a no-brainer really and just makes sense. >>BEANS X2t 13:05, 4 April 2020 (UTC)
• Support, per Newslinger's comments above. ~mitch~ (talk) 13:26, 4 April 2020 (UTC)
• Support the principle, oppose the list as given unless there's significant further pruning. A lot of those are "generally reliable" in a particular topic but I wouldn't trust them to give me the time of day outside their specialist area. (Do you really want the newspapers gleefully running "Wikipedia considers Playboy a more reliable source than most national newspapers" headlines? That's what all you supports above are voting for, and I guarantee that at minimum the Daily Mail is eagerly watching this discussion.) ‑ Iridescent 13:44, 4 April 2020 (UTC)

Discussion (CAPTCHA whitelist)

Notified: MediaWiki talk:Captcha-addurl-whitelist, Wikipedia talk:Reliable sources/Perennial sources, Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Reliability, Wikipedia:External links/Noticeboard. — Newslinger talk 19:42, 7 March 2020 (UTC)

• @Beetstra: If there should be a low bar for the whitelist, we could also add domains of sites classified as "no consensus, unclear, or additional considerations apply" to the list. Should I create a separate proposal in this RfC for the "no consensus..." domains? — Newslinger talk 13:18, 8 March 2020 (UTC)
  • @Newslinger: that list is endless, especially when knowing that we have likely never discussed 99% of the reliable sources (we discuss for being perceived not reliable, not the other way around). --Dirk Beetstra ^{T C} 13:40, 8 March 2020 (UTC)
• Sources listed as reliable on WP:VGRS and WP:A/S should be added as well. I'm currently compiling a list of potential additions on User:Feminist/CAPTCHA exemptions. Feel free to use it and work on it as you wish. feminist (talk) 08:02, 9 March 2020 (UTC)
• There are also some lists over at WP:New pages patrol/Source guide discussions about reliable sources for specific regions/contexts. However, these pages are quite early in development and don't yet have much discussion. Might be useful in the future. Jlevi (talk) 03:01, 4 April 2020 (UTC)

RfC: Poynter Institute's International Fact-Checking Network (IFCN)

Is the Poynter Institute's International Fact-Checking Network (IFCN) a reliable source for determining the reliability of fact-checking organizations? — Newslinger talk 14:35, 16 March 2020 (UTC)

The IFCN's website (ifcncodeofprinciples.poynter.org) includes a list of signatories that have been certified by the IFCN. — Newslinger talk 14:51, 16 March 2020 (UTC)

Survey (IFCN)

• Yes. The IFCN evaluates sources for compliance with a code of principles (summarized here, detailed here) that are in line with what is expected from reliable sources. The assessments (example: Snopes in 2018) are in-depth, and include examinations of the fact-checker's article quality, methodology, funding, staff, commitment to nonpartisanship, and track record of performing error corrections. Although the Poynter Institute has never been discussed in detail on this noticeboard, past discussions indicate that the Poynter Institute is not questioned as a reliable source when it is mentioned, similiarly to the Columbia Journalism Review. — Newslinger talk 14:35, 16 March 2020 (UTC)

• No. Some of the financial backers are neutral but some appears to be for-profit and political influencers and have controversial backgrounds.

Here's what I have found. Poynter (IFCN) have had received major funding from some controversial entities as follows.

• Facebook is a highly controversial entity that is alleged of stealing and selling the private user data to advertisement agencies and political parties and have also tried to influence the political views of users.
• Open_Society_Foundations whose founder and chairman is George Soros, who according to the his Wikipedia page is "a well-known supporter of progressive and liberal political causes" and a controversial figure.
• Charles Koch Foundation is another controversial entity backing IFCN. According to Political_activities_of_the_Koch_brothers, the Koch brothers have made significant financial contributions to libertarian and conservative think tanks and have donated primarily to Republican Party candidates running for office.
• Google News Initiative is an entity created by a for-profit and controversial company, Google.
• Open Society Foundations, Omidyar Network | Luminate Omidyar, Tides Foundation are funds managed by tycoon Luminate Omidyar who is alleged of having given large sums of money to causes that are active in left-wing politics

Looking at the past backgrounds of these investors/backers, the neutrality of the IFCN is in question since it is an entity that accredit news portals as verified news fact-checkers globally via some middlemen (who again are politically influenced by some means). This is a serious issue and some of the accredited fact-checkers in question (whose founders/associates are actually involved in publicly bashing out other-side political leaders or ideologically/religiously different groups of people) are involved in publishing targetted and one-side political write ups. Ironically, IFCN is also involved in rejecting requests from the sources which are politically/ideologically have different views than its existing verified fact-checker signatories. Because Wikipedia treats IFCN and its verified signatories as reliable sources, this is a serious threat which is deliberately being used as a powerful weapon whoever talks against them even with the valid evidences. Also, whatever is being published or circulated by such IFCN verified signatory fact-checker websites is considered as a final truth which is a dangerous thing, in my opinion. I would like to propose that IFCN (and its verified fact-checker signatories) should not be treated as reliable sources of the news. If this is not possible, then at least allow other news websites to be considered equally reliable which have been targettedly called as black-listed by these IFCN verified fact-checker websites. This decision can ensure that there is no monopoly of IFCN on judging the fact-checkers as it posses the power of being one today since Wikipedia (editors) trust all those IFCN-verified fact-checkers and doesn't trust at all those who are rejected or have been bashed out targettedly by the IFCN-verified ones. Vishal Telangre (talk) 17:42, 16 March 2020 (UTC)

References

The Poynter Institute lists 22 major funders. The widely discredited George Soros conspiracy theory, which is often described as antisemitic, has no bearing on the reliability of the Poynter Institute or the IFCN. Additionally, you've listed funding from both liberal (e.g. George Soros) and conservative (e.g. Charles Koch) entities, showing support across the political spectrum. For-profit companies donate to nonprofit organizations all the time, and a nonprofit organization does not become a less reliable source by accepting funds from a for-profit company, especially when a vast number of commercial publications run by for-profit companies qualify under the reliable sources guideline. It is true that OpIndia has been rejected by the IFCN, and considering OpIndia's propensity to publish false or misleading information, the rejection is a positive indicator of the IFCN's reliability. — Newslinger talk 18:01, 16 March 2020 (UTC)

Rejecting an applicant doesn't make IFCN reliable rather it make it more questionable. The IFCN's credibility becomes untrustworthy when the its verified signatories have one-sided idelogical views rather than fact-based neutral views. An example is AltNews who is owned by by Pratik Sinha who has anti-Modi, anti-BJP, anti-Hindutva and anti-right-wing, pro-leftist views and is a member of a political organisation (mentioned in his Twitter bio) that is involved in targetted bashing of current prime minister of India and is inclined towards left-wing political parties and individuals. Just makes all connections fishy. This is one of the examples of the specific-agenda views of the entities associated/verified by IFCN. Vishal Telangre (talk) 18:59, 16 March 2020 (UTC)

References

So they're biased because they're funded by non-profits, and businesses, and progressives, and conservatives, and libertarians I guess. That's certainly a unique analysis. GMG^talk 19:03, 16 March 2020 (UTC)

Your false allegation that Pratik Sinha is "anti-Hindu" is a violation of the biographies of living persons policy unless you can back that up with a reliable source. OpIndia, a site that is essentially the Indian version of The Gateway Pundit (RSP entry) (which was deprecated in a 2019 RfC), is not reliable and the IFCN is correct to reject it. — Newslinger talk 06:49, 17 March 2020 (UTC)

No false allegations. I have attached reference to the website (it redirects to altnews.com now) run by the same man which had published articles expressing similar views. Vishal Telangre (talk) 08:47, 17 March 2020 (UTC)

The false "anti-Hindu" allegation is not the same thing as the term anti-Hindutva. — Newslinger talk 09:32, 17 March 2020 (UTC)

Seems like you missed my edits. Vishal Telangre (talk) 09:51, 17 March 2020 (UTC)

I see that you've changed "anti-Hindu" to "anti-Hindutva" in Special:Diff/945975817. Thanks. — Newslinger talk 09:54, 17 March 2020 (UTC)

Pratik Sinha himself spread fake news amid COVID-19 pandemic to disturb the situation from his official Twitter account and later when authorities found out that it was indeed a fake news, he tweeted with an apology.

Pratik Sinha

@free_thinker

I retweeted a tweet earlier of an account claiming to be a medical professional and stating that they're out of supplies. Turned out that it was an imposter account, and wasn't a medical professional. Such people are de-legitimizing a genuine issue faced by medical professionals.

Mar 24, 2020

References

Vishal Telangre (talk) 12:35, 24 March 2020 (UTC)

It is commendable that Sinha apologized for retweeting someone after he realized the original tweet was from an "imposter account", especially considering that the retweet was done on Sinha's personal Twitter account, not Alt News's Twitter account. Using Sinha's retweet correction as "evidence" against the IFCN-certified Alt News is a very long stretch of an argument; it is unsurprising that the IFCN-rejected OpIndia published an article along the same lines as your argument. Even if the retweet were done from Alt News's Twitter account, the correction would be a positive point: the IFCN expects its signatories to publish error corrections, as outlined in its code of principles. — Newslinger talk 07:44, 25 March 2020 (UTC)

Vishaltelangre, That's... novel. In the real world, a body that never rejects any applicant is not thought to be terribly discerning. As to Sinha, I don't know if you've realised it, but critical analysis of the government of the day is a core function of journalism. Failure to do that is one reason why Fox News is not reliable. Guy (help!) 08:11, 17 March 2020 (UTC)

Regarding Pratik Sinha, as cited above, he do not have neutral idelogical and political views. He rather have published articles only targetting a specific person (to be specific, India's current PM, Narendra Modi), related ideology and that person's political party. That makes him and his organization (AltNews) an unreliable source since the published articles show the similar views. If someone is a hater of a specific ideology then how can his organization be trusted as a reliable source which published most news stories that majorly targets a specific community? Vishal Telangre (talk) 08:47, 17 March 2020 (UTC)

You have not established that Alt News is biased, especially considering that Alt News was found to be compliant with the IFCN's nonpartisanship policy when it was accredited in 2019. Wikipedia articles are generally allowed to use biased or opinionated sources, but generally not allowed to use questionable sources. OpIndia is a questionable source because it regularly publishes false and misleading information, not because it is a far-right pro-Hindutva publication. — Newslinger talk 09:40, 17 March 2020 (UTC)

Vishaltelangre, he doesn't have to have unbiased views. Alan Rusbridger is not a fan of the Tory Party, but he ran a highly respected newspaper that comments with some authority on what the Tory government does. Guy (help!) 20:28, 17 March 2020 (UTC)

• Yes. IFCN is an authority widely used and cited by other reliable sources. Reuters, CJR and others cover it as a positive contribution to factual reporting. It's not for us to second-guess those sources, especially when the motivation is that we like a source it says is unreliable. Guy (help!) 08:07, 17 March 2020 (UTC)
• Yes as it is considered reliable by sources such as Reuters, imv Atlantic306 (talk) 18:50, 17 March 2020 (UTC)
• Yes they appear to have a good reputation for reliability and fairness. I view their broad base of donor support as a positive. Glendoremus (talk) 20:53, 18 March 2020 (UTC)
• Yes, good reputation for reliability and fairness, strong WP:USEBYOTHERS. Neutrality^talk 19:28, 19 March 2020 (UTC)
• Yes agree with what Newslinger said.--SharʿabSalam▼ (talk) 19:33, 19 March 2020 (UTC)
• Yes per above. Alanscottwalker (talk) 01:43, 20 March 2020 (UTC)
• Yes Reliable sources have "a reputation for fact-checking and accuracy." The fact that the IFCN has given a positive assessment of a factchecker is evidence they have a reputation for fact-checking and accuracy. That does not mean that it is conclusive evidence, but that without evidence to the contrary we would accept their findings. I don't think it matters who funds the project. We should look at the reputation of the sponsor, which is a journalism school. TFD (talk) 04:57, 21 March 2020 (UTC)
• Yes - I'd venture to say far more reliable than several of the fact checking sources we're using now, particularly those fact-checking sources founded by individuals whose backgrounds didn't provide one any comfort in knowing who was checking the facts. ^Atsme _Talk 📧 21:42, 22 March 2020 (UTC)
• Yes per Newslinger, and the lack of credibility in the arguments against. GirthSummit _(blether) 09:29, 25 March 2020 (UTC)
• Yes they are reliable, IFCN is one of the best in the business. If they don’t meet the bar for WP:RS I don’t think anyone in the space does (which would be a problem for us). Horse Eye Jack (talk) 18:59, 27 March 2020 (UTC)
• Yes clearly. Beyond My Ken (talk) 08:28, 29 March 2020 (UTC)
• No. Yes, but with concerns. I've been skeptical (cough) about Poynter/IFCN for a while, and previously had some discussion in context of another "fact check" (blog) site.[5] In my view, Poynter/IFCN is another "news" publisher, similar to many others. While they may be "non-profit," they still have to cover their expenses, and that creates obligations, and lack of independence, just like with other publishers. For context, I feel Wikipedia's blacklist approach should abandoned in favor of a more metric-based approach, used article by article. Unfortunately, objectively rating each individual article proposed as a source takes more effort. So, Poynter is a publisher, and IFCN is their "fact check" arm, to take advantage of a current trend, but it doesn't make everything they publish, or every rating by IFCN, a "gold standard." Some other comments:

• Reuters is a "signatory." [6] Thus Reuters citing IFCN is not independent, but more like conflict of interest. They have mutual interest in endorsing each other.

• Snopes withdrew from both Facebook and Poynter/IFCN. According to Poynter/IFCN, this was due to "bandwidth" and using "a manual system." According to snopes, it was due to the compensation being inadequate.[7][8] Poynter/IFCN published an article on Snopes.[9] The point is Poynter/IFCN is not a disinterested party.

• Poynter/IFCN published an article about DARPA disinformation efforts, and questioned their ability to use software for more automated fact-check type efforts.[10] Could it be Poynter is concerned about competition with their business?

• Poynter uses wordpress, as well as associated plugins and advert/tracking networks. This reflects poorly on their capabilities, and may indicate a conflict in some opinion publishing (see criticism of DARPA above).

• Poynter re-publishes PolitiFact publications. It's with attribution, but it demonstrates lack of independence in operation.[11]
• -- Yae4 (talk) 14:54, 31 March 2020 (UTC)

  This RfC does not seek to make the IFCN the sole arbiter of whether a fact-checker is reliable; the RfC statement asks whether the IFCN's assessments are generally reliable (and should be used in conjunction with other available reliable sources) when determining whether a fact-checker is reliable. The IFCN is not independent from PolitiFact (RSP entry), since both are operated by the Poynter Institute; however, editors are free to assess the evidence presented in the assessment for PolitiFact on its own merits. Snopes (RSP entry) was previously paid by Facebook (not the IFCN) to fact-check content on the social network; Snopes ended the partnership with Facebook because Snopes did not consider it to be the best use of resources. WordPress powers many reliable sources, including the websites for Time (RSP entry), Variety (RSP entry), and NiemanLab; a website's content management system is not related to its reliability. Most of the top million websites use web tracking, including the sites of many reliable sources, and the presence of web tracking has nothing to do with reliability. — Newslinger talk 07:37, 1 April 2020 (UTC)

I'm changing my "vote" to Yes, with concerns, because in balance they seem about as "good" as other "reliable" publishers, and better in some ways. It is predictable, however, when IFCN is on the RSPS list, they will become the default primary arbiter. It's also concerning there were zero "Not Compliant" issues in Opindia's archived review, but somehow they were "rejected" in the end, for being partisan. Everyone is partisan... I think they lack independence too much, and they have been misleading or contradictory, despite their transparency efforts. For example, in one place they say, "The IFCN does not publish fact checks and is therefore not eligible to be a signatory of its own code of principles..."[12] However, in another place they acknowlege, "Poynter also houses the Pulitzer Prize-winning PolitiFact, which is the largest political fact-checking news organization in the United States."[13] So, one side of the house does not fact check, but the other side does, and they don't hesitate to review and endorse their own fact check arm. The technology issue was raised to point out they (1) are comfortable with criticising DARPA, a potential creator of a competing technology for IFCN business, while they are criticized by Snopes for relying on manual methods (poor technology); (2) By being one of the million who use typical website monitizing methods, they are one of the million who are motivated to "drive" eyeballs to their site(s), rather than being unique and completely preventing those conflicts of interest. So, a site's CMS technology isn't the only indicator, but it is an indicator, and "advert infested" (which is implemented with site CMS technology) has been used as a criticism. -- Yae4 (talk) 09:05, 1 April 2020 (UTC)

Discussion (IFCN)

• The International Fact-Checking Network's evaluations are commonly used as a metric for determining whether fact-checking organizations (such as Snopes (RSP entry), Alt News, Boom, and OpIndia) are reliable. Recently, some editors who argue in favor of the reliability of certain pro-Hindutva publications (including Swarajya and the IFCN-rejected OpIndia, which are also being discussed in the "OpIndia and Swarajya" noticeboard discussion) have criticized the IFCN and IFCN-certified fact checkers on a variety of grounds. (See Talk:OpIndia § IFCN Rejection in the Lead Section and Talk:Swarajya (magazine) § Neutrality of the article in question for details.) This RfC aims to resolve the question of whether the IFCN should be used to evaluate the reliability of fact-checkers, which are in turn used to source claims in articles. — Newslinger talk 14:35, 16 March 2020 (UTC)
• Is there some serious debate about this source? GMG^talk 15:28, 16 March 2020 (UTC)

  Yes, see the following:

  • Talk:OpIndia § IFCN Rejection in the Lead Section
  • Talk:Swarajya (magazine) § Neutrality of the article in question

  ​— Newslinger talk 15:32, 16 March 2020 (UTC)

Spiked

Spiked is currently used in 268 articles  , the publication has a somewhat confusing political history as it was originally founded as "Living Marxism" but the magazine is considered to have a right-libertarian slant. Media Bias/Fact Check rates their fact checking record as "mixed" while also stating that there are "many articles featuring anti-feminist tones" and that "they are fiercely pro-Brexit and when covering USA politics they report favorably on President Donald Trump",it has also recieved significant funding from the Charles Koch Foundation. The source has been discussed a couple of times before 1 2. It seems similar to Quilette, with it essentially being a right-wing opinion magazine, and therefore an inherently unreliable source. Hemiauchenia (talk) 14:13, 30 March 2020 (UTC)}}

No comment on Spiked (spiked-online.com), but I need to point out that Media Bias/Fact Check (RSP entry) is considered generally unreliable because it is self-published. I would rely on more reliable sources to gauge Spiked's reliability. — Newslinger talk 06:19, 31 March 2020 (UTC)

My bad on that one, Spiked seems to be covered far less by reliable sources than Quilette, so I retract my comment for the moment, and will reformulate it at an opportune time. Hemiauchenia (talk) 12:08, 31 March 2020 (UTC)

I am not sure why Spiked would be used as a source for anything here. It is purely a platform for (contrarian) opinions, and so if it is used as a source for anything other than the opinions of its contributors that would be worrying. BobFromBrockley (talk) 12:13, 1 April 2020 (UTC)

It's being used in the Neoliberalism article to back the statement: "In the 21st century, the term has increasingly been used to denote the free-market economics of Austrian economists Ludwig von Mises and Friedrich Hayek, including their criticisms of government intervention in the economy, which has tied the school to neoliberal thought." So it is being used as a source other than for opinion. Hemiauchenia (talk) 13:04, 1 April 2020 (UTC)

I don't think that Spiked is reliable for that claim, or much anything else. I would look to see if you can find a stronger source for the claim or else remove it. buidhe 03:02, 3 April 2020 (UTC)

My sense is that Spiked is an RS, with full editorial staff and procedures. Is there an example of their reporting that was inaccurate and not corrected? I do not see one given above. --MaximumIdeas (talk) 17:23, 7 April 2020 (UTC)

Unpublished ridership numbers

Several editors have been adding ridership data to Metro-North Railroad station articles (for example, East Norwalk station). The source is an internal document that was obtained with a FOIA request; it was never officially published, and the only publicly-available copy is hosted on a personal Google Drive account. I believe that this does not meet WP:PUBLISHED, and as an unpublished source with no official public availability it is not a reliable/verifiable source and should not be used in articles. Pinging @Lent and Kew Gardens 613: who have been adding these over my objections. Pi.1415926535 (talk) 19:02, 1 April 2020 (UTC)

I was not adding them, and was going to bring it here, but @Lent: went ahead and added them.--Kew Gardens 613 (talk) 19:19, 1 April 2020 (UTC)

Apologies, User:Lent here: I didn't see this until now. I will stop now. I just finished the New Haven Line and its branches.

As I was recently chided about liking to use sources available online, as per Verifiability#Access to sources: "Do not reject reliable sources just because they are difficult or costly to access.", I guess I was too eager to get the numbers up. So I assumed the FOIA document, once online, was sufficient. Again my apologies. This is how I learn :)

Thinking back, I guess I misinterpreted our conversation on this subject.

Please let me know what changes, including reverting back, need to be made.Lent (talk) 21:21, 1 April 2020 (UTC)

BTW: the old passenger numbers, posted by others, do not always have obvious sources, like this edit to Fordham, and some are calculated yearly figures (though sometimes the assumptions are in the comments) like this in the wikicode for Pennsylvania Station (New York City):

<!--117180 daily weekday arrivals, 116160 daily weekday departures, 48960 Saturday arrivals, 48470 Saturday departures, 36950 Sunday arrivals, 40700 Sunday departures. This gives us a yearly total of ((117180+116160)*5+(48960+48470)+(36950+40700))*52 = 69,722,560-->

Thanks for your patience with me. Lent (talk) 21:21, 1 April 2020 (UTC)

Unless a reliable third-party source has requested the FOIA, or is republished or discussed FOIA numbers, these are inappropriate. Eg NYTimes does FOIA all the time, that's fine, but a random person is not a RS. --Masem (t) 19:16, 1 April 2020 (UTC)

Why does it make a difference who requested the FOIA, when the information would be the same?--Kew Gardens 613 (talk) 19:21, 1 April 2020 (UTC)

It's the reliability. If the NYTimes published the net result of the FOIA, I know the information is not doctored, etc. If a random person publishes it, I do not know that, though if a third-party reliable sources reviews that and publishes their own summary, that gives a bit of review to say they don't think the documents were doctored. --Masem (t) 19:25, 1 April 2020 (UTC)

I got sent an email from the MTA. Is there a way I could show that I got the information from the MTA and that it was not doctored?--Kew Gardens 613 (talk) 19:26, 1 April 2020 (UTC)

@Pi.1415926535 and Masem: I went back to the email I received and just realized that the files are also on an mta sub website here:

• https://mta-nyc2.custhelp.com/ci/fattach/get/591171/1572463095/filename/2018_Weekday_Station_Boardings.pdf
• https://mta-nyc2.custhelp.com/ci/fattach/get/591172/1572463095/filename/2018_Weekend_Station_Boardings.pdf
• https://mta-nyc2.custhelp.com/ci/fattach/get/591170/1572463095/filename/2018_Inbound_Station_Boardings.pdf

These are from an MTA sub-website, and unless you hacked into the website, there is no way to alter the documents. Given that this is hosted on the MTA website, is it okay to use this as a source? Thanks so much.--Kew Gardens 613 (talk) 19:36, 1 April 2020 (UTC)

No, those links only work for you logged into your account. They 403 for anyone else. Pi.1415926535 (talk) 19:38, 1 April 2020 (UTC)

This become a WP:PAYWALL issue. As long as those aren't "hidden" files, in that a logged in user can find their way there by some link or search, then yes they can be used. Being a paid user is not a limitation against those sources. But they need to be non-hidden links. --Masem (t) 19:42, 1 April 2020 (UTC)

Yeah, I just tried them in a private window and saw that they do not work. If I provided evidence that the MTA actually made the document, and that I did not alter it, could it work?--Kew Gardens 613 (talk) 19:51, 1 April 2020 (UTC)

no if its not been published it cannot be verified as not being edited or doctored. A source is not the document, it is the publisher of the document. Thus the publisher must be an RS.Slatersteven (talk) 09:39, 2 April 2020 (UTC)

The publisher is the MTA, who made it available on their website to subscribers (i.e. Kew Gardens 613). This is a paywall issue, not an issue of whether these were ever published. epicgenius (talk) 19:46, 2 April 2020 (UTC)

It being handed over publicly as part of a FOIA request, I believe, should consider being "published". --MaximumIdeas (talk) 17:25, 7 April 2020 (UTC)

Sources for Bo Winegard

Notified: Talk:Bo Winegard, Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Sociology, Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Psychology. — Newslinger talk 03:30, 2 April 2020 (UTC)

Areo magazine for Bo Winegard

Is "The Firing of Bo Winegard: When Academic Freedom and Outrage Collide" from Areo magazine (areomagazine.com) a reliable source for the Bo Winegard article? After I added in-text attribution, the source is currently being used to claim that "Christopher Ferguson of Areo contended that the talk explicitly denounced racism and urged people to treat others as individuals, not tokens of some group or another." — Newslinger talk 03:19, 2 April 2020 (UTC)

Not sure it's an RS, and FWIW I'm entirely unconvinced of due weight - it's a polemical opinion piece in a (non-notable) polemical source, not something I'd look to factual content of anything for. The Rod Dreher definitely needs attribution by name and publication, or perhaps it should be removed too. I see there's the Washington Times and Inside Higher Ed also covering the issue, and they're non-polemical general publications - did any other non-polemical general publications cover the talk?

(I should probably note that Winegard claimed RationalWiki was somehow involved in his firing, and I've been ragging Winegard over this claim, which I think is basically silly, on the @rationalwiki Twitter, so take my opinions accordingly.) - David Gerard (talk) 05:47, 2 April 2020 (UTC)

The Washington Times definitely has an editorial slant worth noting; I don't know whether it should be called "polemical" in an absolute sense, but I think it's on a different tier than Inside Higher Ed. XOR'easter (talk) 18:37, 3 April 2020 (UTC)

Areo is very similar to Quillette, which is considered "generally unreliable" (Areo is a bit more left leaning). It's a new, online only publication which publishes mostly commentary from non notable individuals. buidhe 02:56, 3 April 2020 (UTC)

Aero is an academic online magazine, run by academics; is there any reason to think it's NOT an RS? --MaximumIdeas (talk) 17:21, 7 April 2020 (UTC)

Areo describes itself as "an opinion and analysis digital magazine focused on current affairs". The editor-in-chief, Helen Pluckrose, is best known for her involvement in the grievance studies affair, and none of the listed staff members have disclosed any academic credentials. Based on this, Areo does not appear to be "an academic online magazine, run by academics"; that kind of description is reserved for sites like The Conversation (RSP entry), which features articles from actual subject-matter experts. Buidhe makes an apt comparison between Areo and Quillette (RSP entry). — Newslinger talk 11:21, 9 April 2020 (UTC)

The Crimson White for Bo Winegard

The Bo Winegard article also cites "Evolution Working Group on hosting Bo Winegard: ‘It was our mistake’" from The Crimson White for the claim "The talk, which addressed the possibility that human populations may have evolved different psychological tendencies, stirred a controversy at the University because of the perceived “racist implications” of the research." Is this student newspaper article reliable for the claim? — Newslinger talk 04:24, 2 April 2020 (UTC)

Erm, I'd use anything better if available. It's possible the talk itself wasn't really that worth noting, and this is dredging the available sources a bit - David Gerard (talk) 05:49, 2 April 2020 (UTC)

• I don't think that university newspapers count as RS, especially when there are better sources on Winegard. buidhe 02:56, 3 April 2020 (UTC)

The Post Millennial for Bo Winegard

"Professor fired from his tenure track job for wrongthink" from The Post Millennial (thepostmillennial.com) is used in the Bo Winegard article for the single word "wrongthink" in the context of the claim "Some sources suggested that Winegard may have been fired for his [...] 'wrongthink'". Is this website a reliable source for this claim? — Newslinger talk 04:43, 2 April 2020 (UTC)

An opinion piece in a non-notable publication seems an immediate "no", I'd think - David Gerard (talk) 05:49, 2 April 2020 (UTC)

• Fails WP:DUE. buidhe 02:56, 3 April 2020 (UTC)

Generally a dubious-quality publication. See the previous RSN conversation, which describes it as both unreliable and undue (in the context of Dave Chappelle). See two articles that discuss false coronavirus coverage and poor news-opinion separation, respectively. Jlevi (talk) 16:57, 4 April 2020 (UTC)

A third article (by Buzzfeed News) on post millenial highlighting the opaque connections between its advocacy and its news.Jlevi (talk) 17:43, 4 April 2020 (UTC)

IUPAC for Clarice Phelps

Source:

https://iupac.org/100/chemist/clarice-phelps-es/

Text:

The International Union of Pure and Applied Chemistry (IUPAC; which, among other responsibilities, coordinates with laboratories and the public for the naming of new chemical elements), recognizes her as the first African-American woman to be involved with the discovery of a chemical element.

Other than the fact it is the IUPAC website, and in recognition of all the controversy and indeed fraud that has surrounded previous attempts to get this claim included in Wikipedia, what reason is there for anyone to really believe that this one single web page is meant to be seen as the definitive resolution to the question of what role Phelps has played in the history of element discovery? No other reliable independent sources state this first claim as an unqualified fact, all cast some level of doubt or uncertainty. I am unconvinced that something that wasn't even fact checked was meant to carry such significance, and believe it is more likely that either the text has been lazily accepted simply on the basis of who submitted it without being fact checked, like so many of the press releases around this issue have been, or worse, the fraud has extended to this website somehow. Which is why it would be helpful if it named names, because nobody is named here at all, not the nominator or anyone who might have fact checked their submission. Clearly this doesn't rise to the level of a journal or book, but it doesn't even really meet the same standards as say, a news release. All of which shows the IUPAC couldn't possibly have meant it to have the same significance that Wikipedia editors apparently attached to it, first using it to recreate the article, then using this exact claim to promote her on the Wikipedia front page. Crash Dennis (talk) 05:36, 3 April 2020 (UTC)

Previous discussions at Talk:Clarice_Phelps/Archive_3#Weighting_and_accuracy and Talk:Clarice_Phelps#Possible_case_of_Wikipedia_rewriting_history. Gråbergs Gråa Sång (talk) 08:14, 3 April 2020 (UTC)

Looks reliable for the purpose to me (and accusations of "fraud" are way out of line). The IUPAC are literally the people who decide what the names of the elements are; they do not move lightly. XOR'easter (talk) 13:19, 3 April 2020 (UTC)

I can quite easily demonstrate fraud, at least insofar as what people did with Chapman's book, how they tried and failed to use it as a source. It is actually pretty blatant once all the edit logs, Tweets and media statements are compiled and looked at together, in the round. Whether the appearance of this source, which finally achieves their apparent goals, is a more artful and less traceable continuation of the fraud, or an innocent mistake they had no part in, that is what I am hoping to clear up here. Cast iron reasons to believe this specific web page or website section should carry equivalent gravitas to say, a journal article, would do that. Have you any? I certainly did not need reminding what the IUPAC do or that in most cases they probably do apply full academic rigour to their publications, that is all a given in the above, but your comment doesn't address why there is still good reason to believe that in this case, they might not have. Crash Dennis (talk) 15:13, 3 April 2020 (UTC)

This is not an RS issue it is a wp:undue issue. Yes they are RS for what they say.Slatersteven (talk) 13:08, 3 April 2020 (UTC)

How do you intend to prove this, other than the circular argument that they are the IUPAC? Do you assume infallibility on their part, for example? I have already accepted that for most things, they could be assumed to be reliable, but there are specific reasons to doubt it in this case. Hence this review exercise, a thorough review of this specific source for use in this specific manner. The issue of prominence and indeed the parallel omission of all the other reliable sources which cast doubt on this one, can be raised as a proposed change of text, as suggested there, if that is not rendered moot here. Crash Dennis (talk) 15:13, 3 April 2020 (UTC)

As I said this is a wp:undue issue, not an RS issue.Slatersteven (talk) 15:16, 3 April 2020 (UTC)

As to the rest, we do not claim it is a fact, we claim they have said this. They are an RS for what they say, they may not be an RS for it being true, but then we are not claiming it is.Slatersteven (talk) 15:20, 3 April 2020 (UTC)

See below, and previous statements. You are misusing attribution as a get out of jail free card, not as a means of identifying who believes what in cases of source disagreements or sparcity of coverage. The fact this source was published by the IUPAC did not stop Wikipedia editors correcting their obvious spelling mistake, they applied critical thinking to weight the possibility that was an error. This same principle applies here, you are discounting any and all evidence that this might have been an erroneous statement, on the mere basis of who is making it, but instead of fixing that error, you're attributing. Stating who said it does not absolve you of responsibility of what can happen if you end up repeating a false claim based on merely who said it, because like it or not, no reader will ever read that text and assume you're wanting them to apply their own critical thinking as to whether the IUPAC might not be a reliable source for what they have said. The text pretty blatantly tries to persuade people they should be taking them as the authority in such matters, without of course telling them the sort of things I have identified that cast doubt on it for use in this context, including the fact all other independent reliable sources use qualifiers. Crash Dennis (talk) 16:43, 3 April 2020 (UTC)

Crash Dennis, As Slatersteven says, this is a reliable primary source but cannot establish the significance of the content (per WP:UNDUE). That would be a matter for editorial consensus via the Talk page, or an additional secondary reliable source noting the recognition. This is not especially controversial I'd say, so even a story based on a press release from the lab should be enough. Guy (help!) 15:21, 3 April 2020 (UTC)

This cannot be a primary source in that sense, the people who have believed it was a true fact all along seized on it to recreate the biography precisely because it is their hope the magic initials IUPAC, without any other critical examination of what it is and how it is being used, means this makes it an entirely more believable claim than when it was simply coming from Phelps' employer and nobody else presumed reliable for such a claim would touch it with a bargepole without qualifiers. They want people to believe IUPAC have independently verified it as if it were a journal paper on the history of element discovery, rather than as I suspect, they perhaps have simply taken Kit Chapman at his word as a recognized expert, having maybe not realised that the guy who said he "literally wrote the book" didn't ultimately say this about Phelps in his book, or anything close to it. If the claim cannot reasonably be assumed to have been fact checked, then attribution is in effect, merely a case of Wikipedia choosing to duck responsibility and perhaps hope IUPAC carry the can if or when someone realizes their mistake. It is my belief that IUPAC would kick that can right back into Wikipedia's court, on the basis Wikipedia clearly hasn't taken full account of the likelihood of an error, and they would presumably point them to their website disclaimer and remind them that it is really only their peer reviewed journals and books that should be used for claims like this, certainly when the claim stands alone as an historical fact in their wheelhouse. Crash Dennis (talk) 16:43, 3 April 2020 (UTC)

Chapman said, Hi. I literally *wrote the book* on the history of transuranium element discovery. I've met all the teams. That's using "wrote the book" in the sense of "I've done the research", not "if you look at page 216 of my book you will see a verbatim statement of the following claim". He goes on to elaborate (it's an interesting bit of science history, and a glimpse back to when experimental teams were small; not the worst use of Twitter, actually). And his book does mention Phelps in the context of African-American researchers in the field. No deception, no fraud, no grounds to think the IUPAC were less than conscientious. XOR'easter (talk) 18:12, 3 April 2020 (UTC)

To answer the last part first, nobody has any idea who the IUPAC consulted, or even if they consulted anyone, in cases where no published records were available, and that is rather the point. As for the Tweet, that's one interpretation sure, but not the only one. And it doesn't really make sense, since you end up wondering why he chose to mention Phelps, but not this historical first claim, if he had apparently discovered this while researching the book. Nor does it explain why Wade was apparently among those who had assumed the claim was going to be in the forthcoming book. Most importantly of all, why no subsequent clear and unambiguous clarification from Chapman or Wade? They have had ample opportunity, certainly once they realised their early private communications and decision to publish on Wikipedia first before his book was published, were the source of much of the confusion on Wikipedia and the media at large. Frankly, more clarity all round is needed, stuff that explains all these supposed miscommunications, before I drop my belief there was deception here, because the result of all of it, certainly for a time, was exactly what they were trying to achieve with their activism, namely to get something into Wikipedia they believed to be true, and hope the media would then write about Phelps because she was in Wikipedia. As it turned out, they wrote about her because of the inevitable back and forth, because of their failure to provide verification. Crash Dennis (talk) 19:20, 3 April 2020 (UTC)

The attribution argument is totally irrelevant. I don't even need to look to know I won't find a single word of advice on Wikipedia that tells me to use a source I know is inaccurate for a specific claim, if I simply state their name and rest on their overall record of reliability. I would be expected to do what is required to remove unreliable information from Wikipedia, the same way I am expected to use my judgement to fix the more minor issue of known innacuracies, such as typos. If this argument held any water at all, if attribution was the only reason people here are deciding this claim for this purpose is reliable, they would be able to explain the contradiction in the early history of this very article. Kit Chapman is, as far as I know, still generally considered a reliable source. His specific claim about Phelps however, no longer appears on Wikipedia, because it has been found to be innacurate, or rather, unverifiable, which for Wikipedia, is assumed to be equivalent, much to the annoyance of the activists. But because he said it in a Tweet first, it's still out there, Wikipedia can still include it with attribution. Maybe some people did argue that it could still be included in the article if the text attributed Chapman as the source, but thankfully for the reputation of Wikipedia, they don't seem to have prevailed, and he has been removed as a source for that specific claim, because they know what he said about his book wasn't true. Critical thinking in action. In short, you do not knowingly mislead readers, or fall back on attribution when what you're supposed to be considering is reliability of the specific claim and the source in general. For the purposes of this noticebaord, thinking about whether or not this specific claim has undergone the fact checking you would assume to be applied by IUPAC, is part of that critical thinking process. I await arguments that speak to that issue, rather than trying to avoid it, including the circular argument that says it is reliable because it is the IUPAC. Crash Dennis (talk) 18:33, 3 April 2020 (UTC)

I have blocked Crash Dennis for harassment and making implicit threats against an editor (on another page but involving this same issue). Newyorkbrad (talk) 11:23, 4 April 2020 (UTC)

Axios.com as a generally reliable source?

Axios.com has been used many times in Wikipedia.[14] However, it has only been discussed on RSN a little, once.[15][16] I also brought it up here, but there was approximately zero discussion. My opinion is Axios.com should be avoided because the Axios_(website) uses Native_advertising, which is a deceptive practice, and Wikipedia should avoid being complicit in sending users to be subjected to that practice. Their About highlights "Smart Brevity®" with mission: "Axios gets you smarter, faster on what matters," and says (long) "Stories are too long or too boring."[17] As promised, their articles (really more like short blog posts) lack depth, and as a result provide little useful insight. (Aside: However, because of the site practices, the site causes my slower devices' CPUs to be overloaded, and my network traffic to stay high the entire time the site is viewed. So they fail on the "faster" promise.) -- Yae4 (talk) 07:19, 3 April 2020 (UTC)

Hmmm, they claim to have some ethics and presumably review ([18]). I think they are reliable just like a small newspaper, through they do try to look like 'new media'. --_{Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus| reply here} 12:15, 3 April 2020 (UTC)

Yes, it's reputable and generally reliable. As a google search for "Axios reports" shows, the news source is used by many other reputable RS (NPR, NBC News, CBS, CNBC, QZ, U.S. News, Haaretz, the Atlantic, Star Tribune, The Hill, Daily Beast, KFF), substantiating its reliability. Furthermore, the people behind the website are all reputable journalists from other recognized RS. I see no RS about how the website engages in deceptive practices, so I cannot take a position on that, and other users shouldn't unless OP can actually substantiate it. Snooganssnoogans (talk) 12:32, 3 April 2020 (UTC)

@Snooganssnoogans: See the wiki articles linked above: Axios_(website) ("Axios generates revenue through short-form native advertising") and Native_advertising ("probably deceptive under federal law"), and their sources, and others, like this and this. -- Yae4 (talk) 15:09, 3 April 2020 (UTC)

Yae4, reputable, but with an agenda so attribution may be advisable. Guy (help!) 15:18, 3 April 2020 (UTC)

Good point, they do admit to having an agenda, so attribution for any controversial content is indeed a good idea. --_{Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus| reply here} 02:16, 4 April 2020 (UTC)

Looks like it's willing to offer clarifications and retractions, based on the example in this Axios article as discussed in this NYT story.

Another detail from the NYT piece: The founder of Politico (VandeHei) supports the short style of Axios, saying, "Journalists have a bad, bad habit of equating length with substance and depth."

Here's a [NYT piece] that uses an Axios interview very heavily.

Finally, what is the specific form of the native advertising? If it is clearly marked, would it necessarily impact reliability? Jlevi (talk) 02:40, 5 April 2020 (UTC)

Thank you, Jlevi, for the examples. The Axios "article" is a perfect example of a very short, twitter-like post, and even that needed correction. Also, it links to NY Times. You seem to be supporting NY Times as a reliable source, but against Axios. Your first NY Times example is a detailed discussion of how these Axios posts go wrong.

Another detail from the NYT Piece, in the NYT author's own voice, criticizes Axios: "That Mr. Swan works for Axios, the rapid-fire news site founded by the Politico creators Mike Allen and Jim VandeHei, brings its own complications. Its stripped-down version of journalism (motto: “smart brevity”) means its articles are presented as bullet points that can negate nuance, with headlines that can hype."

The second NYT piece lowers my view of both NYT and Axios. Do I really need NYT to write articles about an Axios post, and Twitter tweets, with links to youtube?

The form of native ads? You tell me. My browsing PC melts down if I try to see them. According to the Adweek source for the Axios_(website) article, excerpt: "Those native items, which have featured messages from brands like AT&T, Anheuser-Busch and Facebook, borrow the formatting of Axios news bulletins—headline, image and a short block of text—and take up the full screen of a mobile device when they appear in newsletters or on the website. Axios says its short-form native ads have engagement rates that are, on average, four times that of a traditional banner ad, and Schwartz is quick to compare Axios’s native ads to social media advertisements." Based on that, the ads look deceptively like "news."

Adding another example: Axios longer article with an appalling error "Correction: A previous version of this article incorrectly stated that Science Feedback does not have a website." How hard is it to check whether they have a website?! That IS what Climate/Health/Science Feedback does - operate a website. -- Yae4 (talk) 18:16, 5 April 2020 (UTC)

• Unreliable. -- Yae4 (talk) 15:41, 5 April 2020 (UTC)
• Usable - Reputable; retractions and errata notices are also part of good journalism. May need attribution. —PaleoNeonate – 08:15, 7 April 2020 (UTC)

www.venciclopedia.org

1. Source. [19]
2. Article. It is widely used in various articles about Venezuela [20]
3. Content. Its a circular reference, that is to say, the content in venciclopedia is from Wikipedia and wikipedia refers to venciclopedia, which means that it is referring to itself

This [[21]] tells me no it is not an RS.Slatersteven (talk) 12:29, 3 April 2020 (UTC)

Slatersteven Sorry, I cant underestand --Wilfredor (talk) 12:32, 3 April 2020 (UTC)

It seems to just be a place to post user generated articles.Slatersteven (talk) 12:36, 3 April 2020 (UTC)

• Unreliable Classic WP:USERGENERATED -- GreenC 12:47, 3 April 2020 (UTC)
• Unreliable Same reason as above, UGC Thepenguin9 (talk) 15:03, 3 April 2020 (UTC)
• Unreliable. $RANDOMWIKI. Guy (help!) 15:17, 3 April 2020 (UTC)
• Unreliable and not usable for anything per WP:UGC. Should be immediately removed from all 21 articles in which it is cited. buidhe 07:25, 5 April 2020 (UTC)

Youtube

YouTube is not always unreliable. It is reliable in cases where YouTube is its actual proof of existing, or the fact is related to YouTube. I want to hear other people's concerns. Pikachu6686 (talk) 01:01, 4 April 2020 (UTC)

If you could find a specific example to which you can relate this discussion, that would probably be helpful. Otherwise, I'm not sure this statement can be meaningfully addressed.

Consider looking at WP:YOUTUBE or reading the WP:RSP entry to see the conditions under which Youtube is clearly acceptable. Do you feel that there are examples where something beyond what is discussed in those locations should be accepted? Jlevi (talk) 01:54, 4 April 2020 (UTC)

It is always unreliable because (1) the information in clips is not fact-checked by youtube and (2) we don't know it the statements people make on youtube have been edited. It normally goes against good scholarship to use it. If you are editing an article about corona virus for example, there is no reason to reject what the World Health Organizations says or major media reports and instead use a youtube clip. TFD (talk) 04:04, 4 April 2020 (UTC)

We can't judge reliability of a YouTube clip simply by being on YouTube, though 99% of the material on YouTube will be considered unreliable or unusable as either we have no clear idea of whom the uploader actually is, or that the material will likely be a copyright violation of the actual work. We can use YouTube videos where the channel is clearly identified as the entity it presents itself has (verified), that they are an appropriate expert for the material in the video, that they own the copyright on the video and materials within it, and otherwise thus relevant. (For a quick example this video from AMC that's behind the scenes on Better Call Saul meets all those requirements) But most other videos are not like that and thus cannot be used. We're not judging YouTube itself, since they don't actually publish the works. --Masem (t) 04:10, 4 April 2020 (UTC)

Because Youtube is user-generated content, I don't think that it could be an RS. >>BEANS X2t 13:01, 4 April 2020 (UTC)

What if the fact was how many likes a video had? Like if you were stating how many likes a video had, it would be reliable, right? Pikachu6686 (talk) 04:37, 4 April 2020 (UTC)

Technically things like view counts, likes, etc are reliable, but because these are gameable numbers, it is always better to let a third-party source report on them. --Masem (t) 05:35, 4 April 2020 (UTC)

Because of the above concern, and because a Youtube video's view count is a primary source, view counts will probably not be due in an article mentioning a Youtube video/channel unless a secondary source has commented on it. _signed, Rosguill ^talk 06:00, 4 April 2020 (UTC)

We also want to avoid the inevitable minute-by-minute view count updates that will spam the watchlists and new edits patrols. Mr rnddude (talk) 06:34, 4 April 2020 (UTC)

If the fact of how many likes a video had is only found on YT (the WP:PRIMARY source), it's very very likely out of WP:PROPORTION to mention it in a WP-article. If a CNN-article or something like that mentions it, that's different. See also WP:RSPYT. Gråbergs Gråa Sång (talk) 07:08, 4 April 2020 (UTC)

Since there seems to be a discussion about YouTube, I wonder if it's okay to say that you can add an external link in articles to a documentary video produced by a reliable source. For example, this Video on YouTube in Jambiya article.-SharʿabSalam▼ (talk) 06:20, 4 April 2020 (UTC)

Again less of an RS than an undue issue.Slatersteven (talk) 07:30, 4 April 2020 (UTC)

• • There was an RFC on this not long ago that determined that views and subscribers should be included on youtube related articles, imv Atlantic306 (talk) 19:50, 4 April 2020 (UTC)

Interesting, can you link to the RFC? Gråbergs Gråa Sång (talk) 09:05, 7 April 2020 (UTC)

Is LiveWire a reliable source for Pinjra Tod?

It's been deleted here.[22] The actual source involved is this. LiveWire is part of The Wire network. I'd attribute it if I reinstated it. Thanks. Doug Weller talk 18:04, 4 April 2020 (UTC)

• Not sure. The Wire is a reliable source, as it has won three Ramnath Goenka Excellence in Journalism Awards and an array of other notable awards. LiveWire is The Wire's "space for young writers and creators", and contains both staff-written and contributed content. This particular piece was written by "LiveWire Staff", which might inherit the reliability of The Wire under WP:RSOPINION. Some articles from LiveWire are syndicated to The Wire, although this one is not. I am not certain whether the contributed articles on LiveWire are reliable, because I am unsure of the quality of the editorial process for contributed articles. — Newslinger talk 13:23, 9 April 2020 (UTC)

Reliability of claims of Ai Fen's disappearance?

60 Minutes Australia ran a segment on 29 March, in which it states that the doctor Ai Fen has disappeared. This claim has been disputed by Fan Wenxin, a journalist for the Wall Street Journal in Hong Kong. He tweeted that he has been in contact with a 60 Minutes Australia producer, and that the producer promised to amend the program. The program aired without the corrections Fan Wenxin asked for. See this thread. Complicating this is the fact that Ai Fen continues to post on her social media, including pictures of herself, and that she participated over video in an online conference this Thursday ([23]), after her supposed disappearance. The claim of her disappearance has been picked up by a number of tabloids, including The Daily Mail and the The New York Post (ironically, the New York Post put a picture of her posted to her social media on 1 April, after her supposed disappearance, at the top of the article). It's also been picked up by Radio Free Asia, which is funded by the US government and was founded by US intelligence.

I personally think this claim is quite doubtful, given that it's disputed by a WSJ reporter and given that Ai Fen has appeared publicly (at the online conference) since her supposed disappearance. I have to admit that this is a somewhat awkward situation, given that the claim made by 60 Minutes Australia appears to be false, but that the sorts of information that cast doubt on it come from the Twitter feed of another journalist and a video recorded from an online conference. Then again, 60 Minutes Australia doesn't provide any details on how they know that she's disappeared. My impression, in general, is that 60 Minutes Australia tends to be a bit sensationalized. I'd really like to see a reliable newspaper pick this story up before including it at Ai Fen, but I want to hear what others think about this situation. -Thucydides411 (talk) 22:13, 4 April 2020 (UTC)

Yeah, tricky. 60 Minutes is the 'serious' show in its network line up (as opposed to ACA), but its been a week and other than RFA the outlets that have picked up on the story are pretty poor. They might have a source they don't want to reveal who knows something Fan Wenxin doesn't. Or they might not. Wait and watch seems like the least bad solution.

Tangential, but there's actually been two different Radio Free Asias. The first was CIA run and existed for a couple of years in the '50s before the plug was pulled. The modern RFA was set up forty years later during the Clinton administration's first term. --RaiderAspect (talk) 04:07, 5 April 2020 (UTC)

To what extent has 60 Minutes Australia been accepted as a citable source for other Wikipedia articles? To what extent has its credibility been called into question? Acone (talk) 17:29, 5 April 2020 (UTC)

Reliable sources?

Are www.islamicstudies.info, jstor.org, politicalislam.com, alislam.org, abdullahandalusi.com, thesunniway.com, danielpipes.org and haribhakt.com reliable sources for the Wikipedia article on Kafir? Can we cite any of them as a reference? Which of them are unacceptable?—Souniel Yadav (talk) 04:52, 5 April 2020 (UTC)

@Souniel Yadav: islamicstudies.info appears to be one Sayyid's blog, so unless that particular sayyid is notable (i.e. if we had an article about him and he has other professionally-published works), it's not reliable by our standards.

Jstor.org is a place that hosts sources. It is not a source but a resource for finding sources (like Google). What sources did you find there to cite?

alislam.org might be primary sources for those particular groups' views on the matter.

I can't find who is behind thesunniway.com so I can't say if that's the case for them.

abdullahandalusi.com doesn't work when I try to load it.

Daniel Pipes's website hosts Barack Obama religion conspiracy theories, so I'm inclined to distrust anything that site has to say and to revert any edit citing it.

Politicalislam.com is run by the Center for the Study of Political Islam, which makes the ridiculous claim that "Only the political system is of interest to kafirs (non-Muslims)." Even as a Christian, I'm far more interested in other religion's metaphysics and folklore than some worldly politician's hijacking of any religion.

I can't find who is in charge of haribhakt.com either. While we are allowed to use partisan sources with attribution, calling that site "partisan" is a gross understatement. I'm inclined to not trust anything it has to say about Islam, and would be hesitant to cite it for anything except for uncontested claims about itself. Ian.thomson (talk) 05:37, 5 April 2020 (UTC)

My views are the same as Ian.thomson's. I also cannot reach abdullahandalusi.com and have to conclude it's not an RS. I looked at thesunniway and see that "hte aim and mission of this website is to propagate the correct Áqaýed (beliefs)" which is unpromising. Worse, one of the two people cited as answering questions for anyone is "Mufti Zahid Hussain al-Qadri" who lives in Preston England and is described as a hate preacher here. Doug Weller talk 06:12, 5 April 2020 (UTC)

Okay, thanks!—Souniel Yadav (talk) 17:45, 5 April 2020 (UTC)

Sources of biography of living person

While creating the biography of living person I have found that there are few interviews on television with expert advice on the news. But the news become older and miss placed on Google. I found that it is on YouTube not on Google is the source called reliable? and those source are from best tv channel. Kashish pall (talk) 14:53, 5 April 2020 (UTC)

That depends on whose Youtube channel it is. Care to show us what it is?Slatersteven (talk) 14:54, 5 April 2020 (UTC)

Slatersteven, guessing it's Sandeep Maheshwari (edit | talk | history | protect | delete | links | watch | logs | views). Guy (help!) 22:42, 6 April 2020 (UTC)

Could not care less about which article its the youtube channel I am concerned about.Slatersteven (talk) 09:48, 7 April 2020 (UTC)

Rindermann, Intelligence

There is disagreement over at Wikipedia:Fringe_theories/Noticeboard#RfC_on_race_and_intelligence whether the following source is reliable as an assessment of the fringe nature of the opinion that there are "genetic differences in intelligence along racial lines".

• Rindermann, Heiner. Survey of expert opinion on intelligence: Intelligence research, experts' background, controversial issues, and the media Intelligence, 2020.

Some have said that Rindermann himself is inherently unreliable due to other sources he has written for in the past (e.g. Mankind Quarterly), though I have seen no reliable source directly criticising Rindermann or this paper, and the journal itself seems to meet WP:RS.

Could I please get some comments regarding the reliability of Rindermann in general as well as the reliability of the Journal itself? Thanks. — Insertcleverphrasehere ^{(or here)}_{(click me!)} 22:53, 5 April 2020 (UTC)

@Insertcleverphrasehere: FYI, there was a very similar discussion (about Rindermann in general, but not this particular paper) in February. 2600:1004:B151:58B1:9DDF:E91F:7217:39A7 (talk) 00:39, 6 April 2020 (UTC)

I am aware. This particular source has a different publisher, and much of the previous discussion focused on Hunt. — Insertcleverphrasehere ^{(or here)}_{(click me!)} 02:24, 6 April 2020 (UTC)

Comment the paper has been subjected to peer review by a reputable journal. Wikipedians are not qualified to second guess the peer review process. Therefore I think it is a reliable source.--Literaturegeek | T@1k? 16:23, 6 April 2020 (UTC)

Is Intelligence really a reputable journal? They had two of the editors of Mankind Quarterly on their editorial board until quite recently. And, of course, Rindermann himself is currently on the board so this isn't really independently published. - MrOllie (talk) 16:30, 6 April 2020 (UTC)

Authors of journal papers are never allowed to review their own papers, so the fact that he's on the journal's editorial board isn't relevant here. If a paper's author being on the editorial board of its journal means that the paper is not independently published, we'd have to reject a huge number of journal papers as reliable sources - probably about a quarter of the journal papers that are cited at Wikipedia. 2600:1004:B120:B574:307B:E61E:9775:FA3B (talk) 17:01, 6 April 2020 (UTC)

MrOllie, Do you have a reliable source saying that Intelligence is not a reputable journal or is this just OR? MQ has a bad reputation but I don't think that means that everyone ever associated with them caries guilt by association to any other place they work. — Insertcleverphrasehere ^{(or here)}_{(click me!)} 19:28, 6 April 2020 (UTC)

See the cites on Intelligence (journal). And we're not talking about 'everyone ever associated with them', we're talking about this guy. - MrOllie (talk) 19:48, 6 April 2020 (UTC)

MrOllie, well my comment above stands. Of the citations in the "criticism" section at the Intelligence (journal) article, The New Statesman article says "The ISIR is home to many great scientists, and its journal Intelligence is one of the most respected in its field." The Independent doesn't mention the journal at all and seems mainly a citation discussing Lynn and Meisenberg. The Guardian article is an opinion piece and the author seems rather critical of the entire research field, but it does specifically go into quite a lot of detail on the editorial process of the Journal itself, and it seems as rigorous as other high quality journals. — Insertcleverphrasehere ^{(or here)}_{(click me!)} 20:08, 6 April 2020 (UTC)

• This source[24] makes the point that despite questionable figures on its board, the journal Intelligence itself is respected. As to Rindermann, this posting fails to follow the noticeboard instructions - what content are we talking about?. He is obviously reliable for his own view, but whether that's due is more in the realm of WP:NPOV. Alexbrn (talk) 19:51, 6 April 2020 (UTC)

  Alexbrn, whether this particular journal article has any bearing on whether the opinion in the scientific community that there may be "genetic differences in intelligence along racial lines" is a fringe viewpoint or not (per the Linked RfC that is ongoing). Of particular note is the section in the discussion that discusses the experts' opinion on "the cause of past and current US Black-White differences in IQ test results".

  In the current study, EQCA experts were asked what percentage of the US Black-White differences in IQ is, in their view, due to environment or genes. In general, EQCA experts gave a 50–50 (50% genes, 50% environment) response with a slight tilt to the environmental position (51% vs. 49%; Table 3). When EQCA experts were classified into discrete categories (genetic, environmental, or 50–50), 40% favored an environmental position, 43% a genetic position, and 17% assumed 50–50. The difference in the average versus discrete results may seem contradictory (average results tilted to the environment and discrete categories tilted to genes), except when extreme positions are considered. 16% of experts who favored an environmental perspective assumed a 100% environmental position, whereas only 6% of experts who favored a genetic perspective assumed a 100% genetic position (Fig. 3). That is, the opinion of “environmentalists” was more extreme than the opinion of “geneticists.”

  Some have stated in the RfC that Rindermann is not reliable, or that the journal is not reliable to be taken credibly when trying to assess what opinions are fringe in the intelligence research community. — Insertcleverphrasehere ^{(or here)}_{(click me!)} 20:14, 6 April 2020 (UTC)

  Whether the views are fringe or not is a discussion at WP:FT/N, not here (and a tar pit I am avoiding). Whether this guy is reliable ... well he is obviously reliable for a report of what he states. But Wikipedia obviously isn't going to WP:ASSERT his views because they are not accepted knowledge, so how much exposure he gets is really a neutrality question. Alexbrn (talk) 20:52, 6 April 2020 (UTC)

  Alexbrn, What I'm asking, specifically, is whether this journal article is a reliable source to be cited in said RfC discussion (how much weight it is given is up to commenters there of course). It sounds like you are saying that, yes, it is. — Insertcleverphrasehere ^{(or here)}_{(click me!)} 21:23, 6 April 2020 (UTC)

  Alex said, two comments above, that yes according to a source, it is a respected journal and he said that Rindermann is reliable for his own view but you cannot assert in Wikipedia’s voice that his view is a fact or the truth.--Literaturegeek | T@1k? 23:49, 6 April 2020 (UTC)

  Literaturegeek, I'm not talking about his view. That's not what I'm citing here. I'm citing the results of his survey. — Insertcleverphrasehere ^{(or here)}_{(click me!)} 00:23, 7 April 2020 (UTC)

• Comment: Rindermann has been a frequent contributor (from his BLP) to a journal that has been described as a "cornerstone of the scientific racism establishment", a "white supremacist journal",[1] an "infamous racist journal", and "scientific racism's keepers of the flame"[2][3][4] (from the 1st sentence of the article Mankind Quarterly). His survey was published in the official journal of the International Society for Intelligence Research, which is described in New Statesman as an organization that promotes "racist pseudo-science". There are many ways someone with a strong POV can skew an opinion survey (biased sample selection, biased wording of questions, biased framing of results, etc.). Would we regard as reliable a survey of "expert" opinion on abortion conducted by someone with an extreme anti-abortion POV and published in an anti-abortion journal? Would we regard as reliable a survey of "expert" opinion on homeopathy conducted by a homeopath and published in a homeopathy journal? NightHeron (talk) 01:32, 7 April 2020 (UTC)

  Your broad-brush condemnation of the International Society for Intelligence Research, and its journal Intelligence, which you have done repeatedly, is not appropriate. First, academic sources take priority over journalistic ones per WP:SCHOLARSHIP. You can't use a single article in the political and cultural magazine New Statesman to say a peer-reviewed journal and academic society are totally illegitimate. Now, there are supposed peer-reviewed journals and academic societies that are not legitimate, but this illegitimacy is established by actual academic sources. This is how it is with your example of homeopathy. Secondly, and more to the point, New Statesman does not say what you are claiming it does. It is nowhere therein described...as an organization that promotes "racist pseudo-science" as you claimed. Quite the opposite. It says that a certain person pointed out that the conference at which he actually spoke, that of the International Society for Intelligence Research (ISIR), was “super-respectable” and attended by “numerous world-renowned academics”. The article continues: He is entirely correct. The ISIR is home to many great scientists, and its journal Intelligence is one of the most respected in its field. True, towards the end of the article, there is a vague statement that Journals and universities that allow their reputations to be used to launder or legitimate racist pseudo-science bear responsibility when that pseudo-science is used for political ends, but at most this could be taken to mean that ISIR has allowed itself to be used to launder/legitimate racist ideas. This doesn't negate the other statement I quoted, however. Instead of your current approach, I suggest making more use of sources that show that environment can cause group differences in IQ test performance, including those published by ISIR and in Intelligence. Disclaimer: this comment should not be taken as in favor of Rindermann or the survey in question, nor as a blanket endorsement of any particular paper or author. Some of these in this topic area are indeed fringe. Crossroads ^-talk- 06:11, 7 April 2020 (UTC) updated Crossroads ^-talk- 06:20, 7 April 2020 (UTC), Crossroads ^-talk- 06:52, 7 April 2020 (UTC)

@Crossroads: I urge you to immediately withdraw Rather than continuing to argue that all scientific research into intelligence is ipso facto racist, as it is an entirely baseless accusation made against another Wikipedia editor. Onetwothreeip (talk) 06:16, 7 April 2020 (UTC)

@Onetwothreeip: Fine, I see the issue; and I was still re-reading and adjusting the comment when you commented. But I ask that you also remove this comment and this reply I am writing to honor my rewrite, because it's not needed anymore, and so this isn't a distraction from the actual subject. Crossroads ^-talk- 06:23, 7 April 2020 (UTC) tweaked Crossroads ^-talk- 06:44, 7 April 2020 (UTC)

I think it would have been more appropriate to strike out the comments rather than remove it, but I'm not concerned anymore. It's more a matter for whom the accusation was made against. I appreciate your withdrawal. Onetwothreeip (talk) 06:57, 7 April 2020 (UTC)

Crossroads: You're splitting hairs. The sentence that contains the words "racist pseudo-science" refers to "journals and universities," and the journal that the article discusses in detail as promoting racist pseudo-science is Intelligence, which is the journal that published the article we're discussing. After the comment about "great scientists" the article says that when people such as Stephen Pinker speak at ISIR-sponsored events this "threatens the reputation of respectable scientists." The same paragraph that uses the phrase "great scientists" goes on to criticize ISIR by listing eugenicists and white supremacists who play important roles in ISIR: Richard Lynn, Gerhard Meisenberg, Linda Gottfredson -- and Heiner Rindermann: Two other board members are Heiner Rindermann and Jan te Nijenhuis, frequent contributors to Mankind Quarterly and the London Conference on Intelligence. Rindermann, James Thompson, Michael Woodley of Menie and Aurelio Figueredo, all heavily implicated in the London Conference on Intelligence, helped to organise recent ISIR conferences. That is, Rindermann is one of the people specifically mentioned in the article as promoting racist pseudo-science.

My point was that someone who has an extreme POV on an issue is not a reliable surveyor of "expert" opinion on the same issue. That should apply whether Wikipedia regards the POV as fringe (homeopathy), regards it as not fringe (opposition to abortion), or is still debating whether it's fringe at WP:FTN, as in this case. NightHeron (talk) 12:53, 7 April 2020 (UTC)

The problem is that you are making it sound like ISIR and Intelligence are unreliable sources, full stop. They're not. This is WP:RSN after all. Put another way, if it was attempted to put that statement with that source into an article, it would be reverted as original research. Now, the extreme flip side, that anything they put out is automatically reliable (or WP:Due) is not the case either, but this is true for many other academic societies and journals as well. Note, too, that the article says "journals and universities", talks about the "London Conference on Intelligence", and says this was hosted at University College London (which also supported Francis Galton and had a Galton Chair in National Eugenics until 1996 (!)). Is UCL now, as a whole, a "promoter of racist pseudo-science" as well? I still feel your characterization of ISIR is highly misleading. Instead, you could say that some of what has come from ISIR is pseudoscience, and therefore that being published by them is not an automatic stamp of reliability. Crossroads ^-talk- 16:17, 7 April 2020 (UTC)

• I concur with Crossroads, Alexbrn, and Literaturegeek. How many times, and how many different places, will this be discussed? YES, a peer-reviewed journal is an RS. Not only that, but this is a generally-respected journal with an above-average "impact factor", measuring how often its papers are cited by other academics: https://www.journals.elsevier.com/intelligence . Yes, Rindermann's papers published by RS outlets are also RS. He is also a reliable source regarding his own views. If the allegation is that he is "fringe", that should be discussed on the other board. --MaximumIdeas (talk) 17:38, 7 April 2020 (UTC)

The issue being discussed here is not whether Rindermann is a reliable source for his own views, but rather whether he is a reliable source for other people's views. Both the author of the "survey" in question and the organization whose official journal published it have an extreme POV on race and intelligence. NightHeron (talk) 17:53, 7 April 2020 (UTC)

The Elsevier journal Intelligence is probably the largest and highest-impact journal in the world for intelligence research specifically. I would say that the vast majority of intelligence researchers in general have published it in or have cited it. It is no more or less reliable than the majority of Springer, Elsevier etc journals (some of the MOST mainstream of which have published literal hoax articles). Moreover, if you find yourself in the position of having to scrub the dozens and dozens of citations to Intelligence papers from Neuroscience and intelligence, Flynn Effect, and others, good luck replacing all of that information with citations you approve of.

This feels like a significant rehash of a very similar topic that arose recently, and, in fact, some identical arguments are being made here. Should we really reject a major scientific resource's reliability based on a single New Statesman opinion piece? I commented in February about the same tactic being used to axe research by ISIR members, and much of the same rebuttal applies here. [25] -Ferahgo the Assassin (talk) 23:51, 7 April 2020 (UTC)

Like the previous commenter, you're ignoring what the question under discussion is. It's whether or not a specific "survey" by Rindermann is reliable. No need to rehash your arguments about other matters that were/are being debated elsewhere. Rindermann is a frequent contributor to Mankind Quarterly. Would a reputable scholar publish repeatedly in a white-supremacist rag? Can such an author be relied upon to conduct an unbiased "survey of expert opinion" about a matter on which he holds an extreme opinion? NightHeron (talk) 00:42, 8 April 2020 (UTC)

NightHeron, I think he is saying the same thing that others have said, the journal that this article is published in is reliable. The article in question has been subjected to rigorous peer review. Unless we have other sources questioning the validity of the results, it's results should be regarded as reliable. You have one source that literally just says that the author contributed to MQ, and nothing else. Implying that his previous contributions to a MQ means he is unreliable is OR; unless you have a source that actually says so. There is no source that I have seen criticizing any of his work, even previous articles that he published in MQ. Your argument basically boils down to "The Daily Mail is bad, therefore everyone who ever wrote an article for the Daily Mail is unreliable". That is the association fallacy and neither WP:RS nor WP: SCHOLARSHIP supports this method of disqualifying sources. Ultimately, the Rindermann journal article presented here gives us insight into the academic consensus on whether experts believe to what degree environment or genetics play a role in group differences, and it seems that they believe that the impact is somewhat 50/50. It is far from a fringe view that genetics play some role. — Insertcleverphrasehere ^{(or here)}_{(click me!)} 01:31, 8 April 2020 (UTC)

Additionally, I've spent quite a bit of time looking through Google Scholar search results, and the only article that I can find in which Rindermann was an author in Mankind Quarterly is this article published 8 years ago, for which he is not even the primary author (or the correspondence author). — Insertcleverphrasehere ^{(or here)}_{(click me!)} 01:46, 8 April 2020 (UTC)

I did not independently try to locate Rindermann's contributions to Mankind Quarterly, but rather cited the New Statesman (cited in his BLP) referring to him as a "frequent contributor." The article you found is from 2017, not 8 years ago, and I'm not sure where to find much earlier articles, since fringe journals are not always extensively catalogued.

You're misrepresenting my point. My point in this discussion relates only to his "survey." Remember, that's all you asked to be discussed here. My point is that a "`survey of expert opinion" on a certain question by someone with an extreme POV on that question is not reliable, especially if it's published in the official journal of a society that promotes that same POV. NightHeron (talk) 02:25, 8 April 2020 (UTC)

NightHeron, I'm not sure that it is established fact that he has an "Extreme POV". Do you have a source for that? I've struck the 8 years ago bit; I misread the date of publication on Google Scholar. Google Scholar does indeed index MQ, you can find the search I did here. — Insertcleverphrasehere ^{(or here)}_{(click me!)} 05:54, 8 April 2020 (UTC)

It's possible to search specifically for papers authored by Rindermann that were published in the journal. I don't know why I didn't think to check this before. You're correct - he's only published a single paper there, of which he was the co-author. [26]

The fact that the New Statesman article described being the co-author of a single paper as being "frequent contributor" does not speak well to that article's reliability. This was an easily researched fact that the New Statesman apparently got wrong, and we should discuss whether a source with that low a standard of fact-checking is appropriate to use for statements about living people. 2600:1004:B16A:B73E:5813:B854:6438:A623 (talk) 07:31, 8 April 2020 (UTC)

I knew there must be some way to search by author and journal... I tried looking that up but couldn't figure it out so I just ended up digging through 314 results lol. Well, your search is a bit cleaner to say the least. Not sure about the New Statesman, It's not listed at Wikipedia:Reliable_sources/Perennial_sources, though it does cite them as a source about someone else, so it seems to be taken seriously. The note at the bottom of the page says "Ben van der Merwe is a student journalist." Maybe he and the editorial team just didn't fact check this particular comment as well as they should have. Even good sources slip up sometimes. While I can't find any page on their editorial policy, I saw plenty of references to the editorial team and various "senior editors" so they definitely have one. Reading their outside contributor guidelines indicates to me that van der Merwe might be one of these outside contributors (if he is a student journalist he obviously isn't staff). Still, the editorial team should be checking this sort of stuff. — Insertcleverphrasehere ^{(or here)}_{(click me!)} 11:29, 8 April 2020 (UTC)

Insertcleverphrasehere: Evidence of extreme POV of Rindermann: (1) in 2016 speaking before the rightist Property and Freedom Society claiming cognitive and cultural inferiority of immigrants; (2) publishing in 2017 in the Mankind Quarterly; (3) being on the "review team" for OpenPsych (set up in 2014 by white supremacists Emil Kirkegaard and Davide Piffer, described as a "pseudojournal" by the Southern Poverty Law Center); (4) attending the London Conference on Intelligence, originally held secretively at the University College London and then moved after a scandal arose over UCL unknowingly hosting such a conference. NightHeron (talk) 12:14, 8 April 2020 (UTC)

NightHeron, Again, do you have a reliable source saying that any of these are evidence of an "extreme POV" that discredits his research published in a reputable peer-reviewed journal? Or is this just synthesis on your part? I get that you don't like him, but that isn't a policy based reason for excluding a source. If that's all you got, we are done here. — Insertcleverphrasehere ^{(or here)}_{(click me!)} 12:20, 8 April 2020 (UTC)

The Wikipedia articles on Mankind Quarterly, OpenPsych, the Property and Freedom Society, and the London Conference on Intelligence have much well-sourced evidence that they represent the extreme right of the spectrum of opinion on this issue. NightHeron (talk) 12:37, 8 April 2020 (UTC)

That's basically WP:SYNTH and guilt by association as your only arguments then. — Insertcleverphrasehere ^{(or here)}_{(click me!)} 12:59, 8 April 2020 (UTC)

It's a misapplication of WP:SYNTH to say that editors can't look at the evidence and conclude from it that a source is not reliable. We don't need to find an RS that says "this source is unreliable."NightHeron (talk) 17:35, 8 April 2020 (UTC)

• The journal is clearly suspect--as would any journal be that tried to publish primarily on the subject of "intelligence" which is so derided a backwater as to be essentially blocked out of most of the rest of the profession (compare phrenology). I've seen this sort of thing play out before. Elsevier, closest to a devil if there could be said to be one when it comes to academic publishing, will gladly host your pocket journal if it means they make a profit -- and it is clear the "intelligence academics", such as they are, have some money to throw around. (I'll let the SPLC explain where some of it comes from). Is there legitimate data that can be gleaned from some of the work published in Intelligence? No doubt. There are probably legitimate pieces of data that you can find in the ludicrous amounts of noise that were published by phrenologists as well. But to rely on this journal as some sort of standard of reliability would be to ignore the legitimate critiques that have been raised against it. That the people who believe in intelligence rally round the flag is not particularly surprising, but the sad fact is that independent evaluators almost entirely find fault with this journal. It should be used only with extreme care. jps (talk) 16:53, 8 April 2020 (UTC)

the sad fact is that independent evaluators almost entirely find fault with this journal Do you have a source for that, aside from the (somewhat dubious) New Statesman article? You and NightHeron tend to make sweeping assertions like this without offering much in the way of support. The citations to this paper published in Intelligence (By Linda Gottfredson, no less) show about 1,700 results, including citations to the paper in the most prominent current textbook of Behavioral Genetics, as well as in papers published in Nature and Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences. This certainly does not look like the journal being "so derided a backwater as to be essentially blocked out of most of the rest of the profession". 2600:1004:B167:8D2A:68F1:5069:EA1A:D617 (talk) 18:08, 8 April 2020 (UTC)

The fact that you think the New Statesman article is "somewhat dubious" is all I need to read. I stopped there. jps (talk) 18:17, 8 April 2020 (UTC)

When you refuse to provide sources that support your statements, you shouldn't expect other people to listen to you. 2600:1004:B167:8D2A:68F1:5069:EA1A:D617 (talk) 19:53, 8 April 2020 (UTC)

When racist sockpuppets like you casually dismiss sources as "dubious", we don't need to pay attention to you at this website. jps (talk) 20:38, 8 April 2020 (UTC)

ජපස, He is calling it dubious because a previous fact from that specific article was already found to be false. The source itself may be generally reliable, but this particular article's reliability seems in question. — Insertcleverphrasehere ^{(or here)}_{(click me!)} 20:46, 8 April 2020 (UTC)

Previous false facts, eh? If the writer had omitted the word "frequent" it would have been entirely accurate, right? I'm not impressed. jps (talk) 22:20, 8 April 2020 (UTC)

ජපස, The implication made in the New Statesman article is that he often and repeatedly writes articles published in MQ; that simply isn't true. The fact is that a single article was published there, largely written by someone else and then critically reviewed by him (the author contributions are clearly stated in the article in question). In any case, having your name credited on one paper in a less-than-reputable place does not taint all of your work published in high quality journals. — Insertcleverphrasehere ^{(or here)}_{(click me!)} 23:34, 8 April 2020 (UTC)

That New Statesman article is in the education section and by a student journalist as was pointed out to NightHeron 4 or 5 discussions ago, wish he would quit splashing it all over talk pages. fiveby(zero) 00:04, 9 April 2020 (UTC)

Even RS sometimes have errors. The error (the only one found) in the New Statesman article was the word frequent. As soon as this error was found (by two other editors), I struck the word frequent from my earlier comments. The fact remains that recently, in 2017, Rindermann wrote an article for Mankind Quarterly, which is a disreputable white-supremacist journal. That's enough to call his reliability into question, since it shows that he has an extreme POV on the issue that was the subject of his "survey". NightHeron (talk) 00:15, 9 April 2020 (UTC)

NightHeron, You are just repeating yourself at this point without addressing any of my previous points. This method of disqualifying a source you just don't like is wildly inappropriate and not in keeping with our core policies on Reliable sources. — Insertcleverphrasehere ^{(or here)}_{(click me!)} 00:54, 9 April 2020 (UTC)

On the contrary, I'm strictly following policy, as stated in WP:RS: The reliability of a source depends on context. Each source must be carefully weighed to judge whether it is reliable for the statement being made in the Wikipedia article and is an appropriate source for that content. The question concerning the "survey" by Rindermann is whether it is an appropriate source for that content. Is a "survey of experts" on the race-and-intelligence question an appropriate source for that content if both the journal and the author have an extreme POV on that question? NightHeron (talk) 01:02, 9 April 2020 (UTC)

NightHeron, Saying that everyone on the Intelligence editorial board has the same POV and that their opinions are "extreme" is not correct and not supported. There is no evidence that the entire board of Intelligence are radical right wing extremists or something. The best you have is one article in the New Statesman which also says "The ISIR is home to many great scientists, and its journal Intelligence is one of the most respected in its field.". What we are talking about is this journal with an impact factor of 2.6, and counts on its editorial board James Flynn. Is Flynn also one of those "extreme POV" people that is unreliable? You can't take a few examples and then expand it to apply to everyone associated. I've asked you repeatedly to stop using the association fallacy, but it appears that you don't understand how not to. — Insertcleverphrasehere ^{(or here)}_{(click me!)} 01:40, 9 April 2020 (UTC)

I didn't say that everyone on the Intelligence editorial board has the same POV. Please stop distorting and caricaturing what I say. The journal Intelligence has an overall rightist orientation on race and intelligence, meaning that a strong POV dominates the editorial board, and hence the journal favors articles by authors with that POV.

It's unfortunate that you opened this parallel discussion on RSN to the one on FTN, since it means that you and I are carrying on an exchange at two places at once, which becomes repetitious, time-consuming, and tedious. NightHeron (talk) 01:57, 9 April 2020 (UTC)

You said, quote, "Since the editorial board at Intelligence is dominated by the same extreme POV on race and intelligence, Rindermann did not have to somehow got past peer-review at Intelligence. The "peers" were biased in the same way that he was." — Insertcleverphrasehere ^{(or here)}_{(click me!)} 02:15, 9 April 2020 (UTC)

Can't you see the difference between saying that "everyone" in a group has the same POV, and saying that the group is "dominated" by the POV? You were trying to make me look foolish by misquoting me as saying the former, when I really said the latter. (The US Supreme Court, Senate, and Executive branch are dominated by Republicans, but a large number of people in all three groups are Democrats.) NightHeron (talk) 11:45, 9 April 2020 (UTC)

NightHeron, And yet, you claim that his paper could not have been peer reviewed properly, based on this "dominated by" claim, with no evidence. I've pointed out that there are experts on the peer review panel that have essentially the opposite POV from him. In any case your claim of the Editorial board being dominated by the same POV is original research based on... I'm not sure. The New Statesman says there were a couple people that have a strong POV there (or at least, they were there, they are not any more). However, that can't be taken as evidence that the entire board is skewed towards one POV, or even that a majority are. — Insertcleverphrasehere ^{(or here)}_{(click me!)} 19:50, 9 April 2020 (UTC)

Editors of the journal Intelligence have been claiming that their POV is mainstream for a long time. In 1994, Linda Gottfredson (who was funded by the white supremacist Pioneer Fund) wrote a statement published in the Wall Street Journal titled "Mainstream Science on Intelligence." Its purpose was to defend the book The Bell Curve by Herrnstein and Murray, and it was signed by 52 university professors described as "experts in intelligence and allied fields," including around one third of the editorial board of the journal Intelligence[2] (from the Wikipedia article on the statement). The current editor-in-chief of Intelligence, Richard J. Haier, was one of the signatories.

Typically, when an author submits a paper, the editor-in-chief assigns it to someone on the editorial board, who chooses reviewers. If the editor-in-chief has a strong POV and the author is a crony who shares that POV, it will likely be assigned to someone on the board who shares the POV, and he'll choose likeminded reviewers. Thus, while from a naive standpoint it's theoretically possible that Rindermann's article was peer-reviewed by neutral or skeptical reviewers, there's no reason to think that that happened. NightHeron (talk) 20:29, 9 April 2020 (UTC)

• Not reliable - not really, but this thread is a couple layers of improper. First, it's explicitly started solely to influence an ongoing RFC. That's not cricket. It's not like if Rindermann is found to be "reliable", that means the RFC must close with a "no" result. "It can't be fringe because RSN found it reliable! Ha! Gotcha!" That's just not the way consensus works. We shouldn't use RSN to "trump" an RFC. This is an attempt at gaming consensus in my opinion and a misuse of this notice board. Secondly, "reliable"/"not reliable" is the wrong rubric. We shouldn't (and really can't) make these pronouncements in a void for an entire work. As mentioned above, the question is "reliable for what? Reliable to support what edit/language"? Rindermann is reliable for his own opinion, but his opinion is not the same thing as scientific consensus. His opinion about what consensus is, is still his opinion. Bottom line, Rindermann may believe people of certain races are somehow genetically inferior to or different from other people, but that doesn't mean we present his view as the mainstream. Levivich ^{[dubious – discuss]} 14:04, 9 April 2020 (UTC)
• Per Levivich, I believe Rindermann is reliable for his own opinion and probably many ancillary facts brought up to support his argument. However, that says nothing about whether his opinion is mainstream or how it should be weighted in articles. buidhe 18:42, 9 April 2020 (UTC)

Levivich, Buidhe, Again, the material being cited was the results of his survey, as published in Intelligence, not his opinion. The source provided does not give Rindermann's opinion on this issue, but rather the opinions of the experts that were surveyed as they self reported them. What Rindermann believes is irrelevant and in fact was not cited by me anywhere. This source came up in the RfC and its reliability was in question, so I came to RSN to ask for comments. — Insertcleverphrasehere ^{(or here)}_{(click me!)} 19:38, 9 April 2020 (UTC)

Rindermann conducted the survey, decided how questions would be worded, decided who the "experts" are, decided not to be bothered if most of the experts who opposed Rindermann's POV or disliked his wording of the questions threw the questionnaire in the trash, etc. That's why the article is unreliable for the purpose for which it was cited on Wikipedia, namely, to attempt to show that views on race and intelligence of Rindermann, Lynn, Rushton, Gottfredson, and likeminded authors are not fringe. NightHeron (talk) 20:00, 9 April 2020 (UTC)

ICPH, I get that, let me address the survey directly. I do not think that we should state, in wikivoice, the results of Rindermann 2020, for these reasons:

1. The survey was performed in 2013–2014, but published in 2020.
2. It's an internet survey.
3. It's an anonymous survey; we don't know who the respondents were.
4. The response rate was 20%, so the vast majority of invited "experts" didn't participate. This makes the above point all the more important. We don't know whether the 20% of "experts" who actually took the survey were simply Rindermann's fellow hereditarians. Call me crazy but I think that's pretty likely.
5. In the survey, Rindermann says the methodology is justified, citing to... Rindermann's own earlier work.
6. It's published by Intelligence, where Rindermann sits on the board
7. It was published like two months ago, so it's too soon to tell if this one survey is revered or ridiculed by the scientific community

Bottom line, I am not at all swayed by the fact that Rindermann conducted an anonymous internet survey seven years ago to see if people agreed with Rindermann, using methodology devised and approved by Rindermann, and the results were that half the people agreed with Rindermann. And then he published it not at the time, but only after Intelligence got into hot water for who it had on its Board... including Rindermann. I mean, come on. This isn't a scientific paper, it's propaganda. The "point" is to be able to say that, secretly, half of scientists agree with hereditarians. Well, I say, BS. Levivich ^{[dubious – discuss]} 20:10, 9 April 2020 (UTC)

Levivich, I'll address your points one by one.

1. This is irrelevant, it is still the best data we have for that period. Other data from the survey was used in previous journal articles he wrote Survey of expert opinion on intelligence: Causes of international differences in cognitive ability tests, and Survey of expert opinion on intelligence: The FLynn effect and the future of intelligence (2017). He hasn't been doing nothing with the data.

2. It was sent to very specific individuals and open to members if ISIR, not open to anyone, so the fact that it is an internet survey is irrelevant.

3. Yes. That was sort of the point. Anonymity gives them the freedom to actually say what they think without reprisal.

4. This is a somewhat fair point, but the response rates of surveys are always low, even when people sign up beforehand. The self-reported liberal-conservative ratio was balanced towards the liberal end however. It is still the best we have. It also generally agrees with previous surveys done decades previously.

5. He cites a previous paper because he has used other results of the same survey in previous papers. His methodology was outlined in the earlier articles so didn't feel the need to repeat himself.

6. Irrelevant, authors on the editorial board of journals are not allowed to peer review their own work.

7. His previous two reports using data from the EQCA survey (in 2016 and 2017) have been cited 33 and 27 times, respectively (not counting his own citations still gives a respectable number). I've looked at some of these citations and the work seems to be taken seriously. No criticism of his methodology could be found. Note in particular that the 2016 study also discusses expert's opinions on cross national differences in intelligence, and similarly, many experts believed that genes play some role. There has been plenty of time to discredit or write rebuttals of the previous surveys, yet no one has, instead choosing to cite their results.

Your paragraph at the bottom amounts to little more than a conspiracy theory. This is a scientific paper, published in a reputable peer-reviewed journal. Note that all three of the above reports on the results of this survey were published in different journals. — Insertcleverphrasehere ^{(or here)}_{(click me!)} 20:47, 9 April 2020 (UTC)

ICPH, one man's "conspiracy theory" is another man's "damn perceptive analysis", right? ;-) We're talking about a survey of 71 people, which Rindermann admits is actually more people than the total number of scientists in the world studying international differences in intelligence. Further, the entire pool was drawn from people who published in "specific journals" (Intelligence (journal), Cognitive Psychology (journal), Contemporary Educational Psychology, New Ideas in Psychology, and Learning and Individual Differences... none of these have impressive impact factors) or who were affiliated with the International Society for Intelligence Research. And it was publicly posted at the website of International Society for the Study of Individual Differences. Not exactly a randomized sample.

By the by, Rindermann's admission that there are less than 50 scientists in the world studying this sort of suggests it's fringe. (Because this field of study is definitely not cutting edge.)

Here's an excerpt from the 2016 paper, describing this survey's limitations:

One limitation of the study can be seen in the small sample and low response rates. The sample consisted of 71 respondents, which is small compared to Snyderman and Rothman's sample of 661 respondents (of 1020 invitations). In addition, self-selection of experts could have biased the results.

We attempted to increase response rates by using an Internet survey, emailing invitations (and reminders), and announcing the survey at intelligence conferences. Despite these measures, response rates were still low. The low response rates may be attributed to the length of the survey (which took about 40–90 min to complete), self-censorship, or fear of addressing a controversial subject (despite assurances of anonymity). The low response rates may also reflect a paucity of experts on intelligence and international differences in cognitive ability. There may be 20–50 scientists who study international differences in intelligence. Based on this estimate, the number of respondents (71 people) may exceed the number of scientists who study the topic! Because the aim of the survey was to obtain expert opinions on the research questions, our view is that participation of people with only tangential knowledge of the subject matter could distort answers more than low response rates attributable to self-selection by experts.

One researcher suggested in an email that only politically biased researchers would respond to the questionnaire, especially given its length. In contrast to the speculation, three researchers sometimes labeled as “conservative” in Internet articles and Wikipedia refused to participate due to lack of expertise, survey length, or disapproval of opinion surveys as a way of finding truth. Based on several comments of researchers with diverse political backgrounds we have no hint of biased participation or refusal of participation.

Levivich ^{[dubious – discuss]} 21:12, 9 April 2020 (UTC)

Levivich, So now you are saying that the entire field of study is fringe? His point is that there are 50 or more people who actually publish research in this field. It was not posted publicly online for anyone to join, it was only open to members of the ISIR and people who published journal articles in those papers (and Cognitive Psychology has an IF of 4.5, how is this not impressive?). An announcement was published on the website and ISIR members were invited to participate. This is made clear in the methods section of the article. Yes there are less researchers in the field than there were 30 years ago, I thought that was pretty obvious. We are looking to see what the consensus is amongst experts in the field of intelligence research, this is still the best we have. All studies have limitations, but when 90% of your respondents say they agree that genetics plays some role, it is pretty obviously not a fringe view. — Insertcleverphrasehere ^{(or here)}_{(click me!)} 21:39, 9 April 2020 (UTC)

ICPH, that the survey was only open to members of ISIR and those who published in those five journals is one of the top reasons why we should not state the conclusions of the survey in wikivoice. Yes, I think the entire field of "genetic differences in intelligence between races" is fringe. 4 isn't an impressive impact factor; 40 is. Also, when it came to the question of whether there were genetic-based differences in intelligence between whites and blacks, I thought the number of respondents who said yes was 40%, not 90%... and that's 40% of the hand-picked 71 ISIR members who volunteered to participate. Based on this, we can't say that it's the mainstream view. We can't say it in wikivoice. It's the opinion of less than 30 scientists apparently. All this says is that there is 30 hereditarians out there. And this is definitely, definitely not "the best available". We have consensus statements from AAPA and other organizations. We have stuff from Nature (impact factor 43). We have "cracking the Bell Curve", heck we have Cofnas 2019 in which he admits that hereditarianism isn't the mainstream view. We have Lynn 2019, in which he says the same thing. That's the one that ends with "Someday it will be accepted" or something like that. There is an overwhelming amount of evidence out there that the belief that black people are genetically stupider than white people, is fringe. It's not accepted by mainstream scientific consensus. And Rindermann's internet survey doesn't disprove that (though it tries). I mean, the only way he could get 30 scientists to say that genetics is the reason for differences in intelligence between whites and blacks is by hand-selecting them, AND promising anonymity, and then still going through their responses to select the final sample. And still less than half agreed with him! Levivich ^{[dubious – discuss]} 21:58, 9 April 2020 (UTC)

Levivich, you're misunderstanding the results of the survey. When the survey found that 43% favored a genetic explanation, that means 43% thought genetics accounted for more than 50% of the black/white IQ gap. However, only 16% took the view that genetics play no role. These results are shown clearly in the diagram on the paper's fourth page. So that is 61 respondents who felt that genetics played some role in the gap, not 30, out of a sample of 71.

Also, saying that the hereditarian view can only be "fringe" or "accepted by mainstream scientific consensus" is a false dichotomy. There are many shades of gray between those two extremes, for theories that are not truly mainstream but still receive a significant amount of support. Papers like Cofnas 2019 acknowledge that the hereditarian view is not the mainstream view, but that is not the same as saying it's a fringe view. The view is one of those shades of gray. 2600:1004:B14C:5FEB:A5C7:A31D:F041:4AE2 (talk) 22:21, 9 April 2020 (UTC)

I'm glad we agree that hereditarianism is not the mainstream view. When I say "fringe", I mean WP:FRINGE, which begins: In Wikipedia parlance, the term fringe theory is used in a very broad sense to describe an idea that departs significantly from the prevailing views or mainstream views in its particular field (emphasis in original). "Black people are genetically less intelligent than white people" is an example of an idea that departs significantly from the prevailing views or mainstream views in its particular field. "There are genetic differences in intelligence along racial lines" is another example. Levivich ^{[dubious – discuss]} 22:32, 9 April 2020 (UTC)

Wikipedia:Neutral_point_of_view#Due_and_undue_weight describes three categories of viewpoints: majority views, significant minority views, and views held by a small minority (that is, fringe views). What I'm saying is that the hereditarian view is a significant minority view, not a fringe view. The criterion mentioned there for identifying significant minority views is that it's possible to name prominent adherents, and that standard is easily met in this case. See the article quoted by Sinuthius's vote in the RFC, as well as my own comment here. 2600:1004:B105:E59:893E:5FA4:4B48:5668 (talk) 23:28, 9 April 2020 (UTC)

Isn't it absurd to ask in a questionnaire what percent of the IQ difference between blacks and whites do you think is due to blacks being genetically inferior in intelligence? Since there's no scientific evidence whatsoever for racial differences in genes for intelligence --- assuming the notion of races and the notion of genes for intelligence had biological definitions (which they don't) --- the question asks for pure speculation. An equivalent question would be: Give a percent figure for how superior you think you are to black people. Hopefully Wikipedia can reach a consensus that such bigotry is fringe. NightHeron (talk) 22:40, 9 April 2020 (UTC)

References

I don't really want to argue the RfC here, we are discussing the source specifically and its reliability. When they say the "hereditarian view" is not mainstream, they are referring to the view that "most of the difference is genetic". That may be a fringe view, and probably is. That's not what just what the RfC wanted to label fringe though. It also wants to say that the view that "some" of it is likely genetic is fringe. That simply isn't the case. In any case, lets not get off topic. — Insertcleverphrasehere ^{(or here)}_{(click me!)} 22:41, 9 April 2020 (UTC)

Official documents for tunnel project as a primary source

The article on Melbourne's $6 billion West Gate Tunnel project has a section on its Business Case and another on its Environment Effects Statement (EES), a mandatory inquiry process prior to government approval. The article contains a summary of key points in the 10,000-page EES produced by a government body (the Western Distributor Authority) plus several submissions by local city councils. Its accuracy has not been challenged, but almost all of that material cites the official documents and submissions themselves (see here) as a PS rather than any secondary sources, of which there seem to be few. The tunnel project is the subject of hundreds of news stories, therefore supporting notability for the overall topic, but there is disagreement on the talk page about whether those sections on the EES and Business Case should be retained if they lack secondary sources. External guidance would be appreciated. BlackCab (TALK) 12:21, 6 April 2020 (UTC)

ASCAP as a source for artist names

Hi! I'm not sure if this is the right place to ask, but I have a question regarding ASCAP as a source for artists' real names. More specifically, this is about the band members of Dir En Grey, whose real names are (except for two first names) officially unknown. However, on ASCAP, they are listed with their (supposed) real names and their PKAs, their artist names. I'd like to know how trustable ASCAP is as a source for real names and if it would be alright to add these names to their respective articles with ASCAP as the reference. Thanks! Seelentau (talk) 12:51, 6 April 2020 (UTC)

I am not sure, I suspect not as they do not seem to have an editorial board or policy.Slatersteven (talk) 12:54, 6 April 2020 (UTC)

This feels like it straddles a line between self-published sources and legal records. ASCAP, as a performance-rights organization, would have a record who is registered as the copyright holder of a work. The names would be provided by the creator of the work. So, on the one hand, we have a record created by the artist showing their legal and performing names, which we could rely on the same as we would a statement by them about their date of birth. On the other hand, is this the kind of legal record that the privacy guidance in WP:BLP says we shouldn't be using? —C.Fred (talk) 13:06, 6 April 2020 (UTC)

I'm unsure as well, exactly do to the reason you mentioned: If an artist can provide the name, what stops them from providing a false name, right? Seelentau (talk) 15:29, 6 April 2020 (UTC)

C.Fred has the correct analysis. The name that ASCAP shows is the one the artists provide. They will usually provide their legal name, but they don't have to, they just have to be able to cash a cheque by whatever name they provide. Walter Görlitz (talk) 16:21, 8 April 2020 (UTC)

So that would be a no to adding them then? Seelentau (talk) 12:12, 9 April 2020 (UTC)

ASCAP (American Society of Composers, Authors and Publishers) is a primary source for this information. ASCAP listings are reliable for an artist's officially credited name for a specific work (e.g. in an {{Infobox song}} template for a song), but I would avoid using ASCAP for an artist's real name. A high-profile example is "This Is What You Came For": songwriter Taylor Swift was temporarily credited in the song's ASCAP listing under the pseudonym "Nils Sjöberg" to divert unwanted attention from the song. — Newslinger talk 12:25, 9 April 2020 (UTC)

Twitter account of the Ministry of Health of Poland

Is the verified Twitter account of the Ministry of Health of Poland ([27]) reliable for COVID-19 statistics (confirmed cases and deaths) attributed to the Ministry of Health? (example). We are using their Twitter updates as a source to update case counts on {{2019–20 coronavirus pandemic data}} or 2020 coronavirus pandemic in Poland. However, at least one user states that it cannot be used because they are published in a California-based server, using proprietary software, the feasibility of tampering by a third-party, etc. Here's the main discussion for context: Talk:2020 coronavirus pandemic in Poland § Table New confirmed cases of SARS-CoV-2 in Poland by voivodeship. --MarioGom (talk) 12:57, 6 April 2020 (UTC)

As a verified twitter account I would say yes, usable with attribution (PS).Slatersteven (talk) 13:00, 6 April 2020 (UTC)

• Note that there is no report or evidence of this account being compromised or tampered with. The mere possibility of Twitter tampering with the Ministry of Health of Poland daily tweets without Poland government or the press to say anything is extremely far-fetched. --MarioGom (talk) 13:05, 6 April 2020 (UTC)

• @MarioGom: I'm sure your error was in good faith, but please do not misrepresent my words. I'm fairly sure that I did not at any point say that the MOH data "cannot be used". I stated reasons why we cannot literally describe the data as "valid" or "reliable", and why it's absurd for a governmental agency in Europe to publish critically important health data on a server in California instead of in Poland (or at least in the EU). "The best source of data that we have" does not mean we can "assume" that the data is correct. We use the data, fine, that's not disputed. That's not the same as "assuming" that the data is correct. We know of at least one straight-out arithmetic error (see the talk page) where the Ministry (MOH) calculated 19+6+8 (three individual, archived MOH tweets) = 14 (MOH sums per day). The consensus was to add a note and put "14" in the cell. So we know that there is at least one error of internal inconsistency in the data; we also know of at least three COVID-19 deaths that the MOH has ignored, based on reliable sources. These errors don't stop us from using the MOH data. Boud (talk) 14:37, 6 April 2020 (UTC)

Boud: If the issue is some error in some of the updates, we can discuss that. But then, I would ask you to stop deflecting the discussion to points like where servers are hosted, the GDPR, privacy concerns of users visiting US-hosted website linked from Wikipedia, Twitter's ability to tamper with tweets, data integrity issues related to software being proprietary, etc. --MarioGom (talk) 14:45, 6 April 2020 (UTC)

Errors in the MOH have already been discussed on the talk page, in various places for the various errors. This page (RS/Noticeboard) is not the place to deal with those. In-depth discusion is not "deflection". I would rather ask you to accept that there is no opposition to using the MOH tweets as the main source for the PL COVID-19 data (not from me anyway). In-depth discussion of issues is normal on Wikipedia. Here are some quotes to clarify the misunderstandings. You (MarioGom) wrote: I think it can be assumed that the information is valid. That is disputed. But that is not a practical problem. It is independent of using the MOH as a "reliable source" in Wikipedia terminology; a "reliable source" is not necessarily reliable in the ordinary sense of the word. It has a Wikipedia-specific meaning. You also wrote The mere possibility of Twitter tampering with the Ministry of Health of Poland daily tweets without Poland government or the press to say anything is extremely far-fetched, while what I wrote was we can assume is ... that hidden editing of individual tweets is unlikely (I've never heard claims of Twitter doing that). Since we agree that tampering is unlikely, there's not much point debating whether it's an event with a 10^{-3} or 10^{-6} Bayesian probability. Boud (talk) 15:15, 6 April 2020 (UTC)

Boud: Please, stop the gaslighting. You even questioned that this Twitter account is run by the Ministry of Health at all:

• we are in the situation where we have to speculate whether or not these two accounts on servers run by Twitter, an authoritarian, secretive, non-democratic, centralised organisation, which is not even in the EU, are really under the control of the MOH and of KPRM. [28]
• PL - we have no serious evidence that the Ministry of Health data are "reliable"; what we do know is that they are regular and frequent and well-formatted, but published in California instead of in Poland [29]
• Plus several instances where you used "the California point" to cast doubt about the reliability of the source.

However, if you agree that all of these points are irrelevant to determine the reliability of the source, as it seems you do in your last comment, I guess this thread is kind of solved at this point. --MarioGom (talk) 15:38, 6 April 2020 (UTC)

In referring to gaslighting, let's look at the lead of Gas Light, which says psychological abuse in which false information is presented to the victim with the intent of making them doubt their own memory and perception. That's a violation of WP:AGF: it seems that you are accusing me of having negative intent by pointing to uncontroversial facts and that I am psychologically abusing other Wikipedians. The uncertainties of obtaining knowledge may be psychologically uncomfortable to some people, but in Wikipedia, as in scientific study of the real world, these uncertainties are inevitable, and we have to live with them. Referring to context is the contrary of making people doubt their memory and perception. Being suspicious of knowledge managed by authoritarian organisations is healthy for encyclopedic and scientific knowledge. I do not say that the context is irrelevant in judging whether the MOH tweets qualify as a reliable source for Wikipedia purposes. What I do say is that overall, keeping the context in mind, it is reasonable to let the MOH tweets have the Wikipedia status of a reliable source. You might also wish to withdraw your accusation that by talking about Twitter as a secretive authoritarian organisation that is in California, not in the EU, I have tried to psychologically abuse Wikipedians. Boud (talk) 16:13, 6 April 2020 (UTC)

Please do not rehash this argument here.Slatersteven (talk) 15:41, 6 April 2020 (UTC)

Sorry, I just saw your note after I saved my edit. I agree that the issue is closed. I can survive without an apology from MarioGom. :) Boud (talk) 16:17, 6 April 2020 (UTC)

carrierecalciatori.it

There are quite a many website which was used as a reference for Italian football stats. However, i wanna ask , the site content itself probably reliable, but the site also flagged by anti-virus for a possible javascript related problem. So, how should treat this site? Matthew hk (talk) 14:06, 6 April 2020 (UTC)

Matthew hk: I didn't get any warning on Google Chrome or Firefox, even with a couple extensions enabled to block dubious stuff. It seems to have just the usual ads-related tracking code. Maybe others can check with other software. --MarioGom (talk) 14:28, 6 April 2020 (UTC)

I use Norton BTW. Matthew hk (talk) 14:30, 6 April 2020 (UTC)

n5ti.com fake coronavirus news

• n5ti.com: Linksearch en (insource) - meta - de - fr - simple - wikt:en - wikt:fr • Spamcheck • MER-C X-wiki • gs • Reports: Links on en - COIBot - COIBot-Local • Discussions: tracked - advanced - RSN • COIBot-Link, Local, & XWiki Reports - Wikipedia: en - fr - de • Google: search • meta • Domain: domaintools • AboutUs.com

The site n5ti.com doesn't appear to have cropped up on Wikipedia yet, but a lot of the heavily trending fake news stories about coronavirus are coming from this site, for example, https://n5ti.com/health/1233/ and https://n5ti.com/italy-07099/. Is there any way that we can take preventative action against this site, or do we have to wait until people are actually citing it? Kaldari (talk) 19:09, 6 April 2020 (UTC)

That you opened this thread is already a good thing, as it'll be in searchable RSN archives. I agree it's not usable as a source for anything. It'd also be possible to request that it be blacklisted but I doubt it'd be accepted without prior use. Maybe easier at XLinkBot's revertlist though... And probably a good idea to keep this link ({{sl|insource:"n5ti.com"}}) and occasionally check. —PaleoNeonate – 08:53, 7 April 2020 (UTC)

Plant Based News

Plant Based News is a promotional vegan website. I believe it fails WP:RS. The website described itself as "The very latest plant based vegan news from around the world" [30].

I removed it from the Vegan school meal article, but it is used on a few other articles as well. Thoughts? Psychologist Guy (talk) 20:37, 6 April 2020 (UTC)

From their about page, they do seem to have an editing staff (though that doesn't mean the staff does anything, necessarily). The about page describes them as " multi-award-winning," and if those are the right kinds of awards, then that could be a positive indicator for reliability. The page notes that they're goal is "creating awareness," and it seems fair to describe them as WP:POV, so if they are used, then their statements should be attributed (not in Wikipedia voice).

They say that they use this code of conduct and make corrections. It would be useful to see if they actually have made corrections. They use affiliate links, but they say they use clearly marked notices for WP:SPONSORED content. WP:RS says, "Reliable publications clearly indicate sponsored articles in the byline or with a disclaimer at the top of the article." They seem to meet this requirement. In addition, I haven't hit too many sponsored pages, so there may be useful material here.

Huh. On the other hand, this article certainly feels like an advertisement, but it's not marked.

I looked at a few example articles, and from what I can see this site tends to rely on a single source for each of their articles. An example is this article about UK meat consumption. It uses one specific source for all the content in the article, and they add little analysis or commentary. For this reason, it's unlikely that this site would be useful for establishing notability, since a lot of the articles don't seem to be independent of their subjects, failing to add new information/analysis. Please note that I'm fairly new to making this kind of evaluation, so I may be misunderstanding this feature. In addition, I may be looking at an uncharacteristic collection of articles, so this statement should be evaluated on an article-by-article basis. This does, however, appear to be a trend.

I haven't found too many examples of this source cited by reliable sources. For what it's worth, it's cited in this Fox Business story which has been reprinted on Yahoo! News, but in the version on the fox site, the link is replaced with a BBC link. A food network article cites it, too. That's about all I can find. Jlevi (talk) 00:36, 7 April 2020 (UTC)

I would opt for more information required, what is their reputation (and no just "winning awards" is not a sign of anything, it could be The BAttly town women guilds award for the best floral reenactment of Pearl Harbour).Slatersteven (talk) 09:51, 7 April 2020 (UTC)

Is demographia a reliable source?

Demographia [31] is a website run by one person, Wendell Cox and is used as the source of urban population of cities in List of largest cities among others.

I'm wondering if it is reliable, as Cox is an anti-public transit lobbyist and generally creates research articles that favour car-based development (like suburbs). In itself, this doesn't disqualify the source, however, in determining what constitutes an "urban area", there is criticism based largely on his unique definition of density. Articles such as "Why demographia is fundamentally wrong" have been published [32] online with a similar criticism for his unique definition of density. His work is not peer reviewed, and his definitions are his own creation. One specific example of what I would call bizarre: he lumps Providence, Rhode Island as part of Boston, Massachusetts. I would say that those are two difference cities, as would most people, I assume. He would say, I imagine, that because they are drivable in an hour they are the same city, because of his car-centric bias.

What do you think? I'm not an expert in this field, but the lack of peer review and single person determination of standards such as density is fishy to me. Mattximus (talk) 20:45, 6 April 2020 (UTC)

• Bloomberg News: Demographia, a research firm, has just released its fourth annual international housing affordability survey, and it’s worth a look.[33]
• CNN: A recent report by Demographia, an international urban planning policy consultancy, ranked Hong Kong as the least-affordable housing market for the ninth straight year, ahead of New York, London and Sydney.[34]
• The Japan Times: More than 27 million people live in and around Delhi, with about 700,000 more joining them each year, according to research firm Demographia.[35]
• Sydney Morning Herald: Late January every year for the past seven years, the annual Demographia International Housing Affordability Survey is released.[36]
• The New York Times: Vancouver was ranked the third most unaffordable city in the world, after Hong Kong and Sydney, in a study published this year by Demographia, a consulting firm.[37]
• BBC: The Demographia survey, which focuses on the middle of the market across nine nations, found the price of a home is now more than seven times the average household income.[38]
• Reuters: A study by U.S.-based firm Demographia of international housing affordability in six nations found that while the United States had the top 5 least affordable cities, along with Canada it had all the affordable housing markets.[39]
• Wall Street Journal: An average home in Sydney now costs more than 12 times the median income there, according to research firm Demographia..[40].
• The Daily Telegraph: Demographia’s annual Housing Affordability Survey, which calculates median house prices divided by median incomes by region, suggests a ratio of 8.5 in London, 6.8 in Cambridge, 6.4 in Oxford and 7 in Bournemouth.[41]
• The Straits Times: The city was named the least affordable real estate market in the world for an eighth year by Demographia, an urban planning policy consultancy.[42]
• The Guardian: According to the Demographia research group, the world’s most populous country boasts 102 cities bigger than 1 million people.[43]
• Time: The sales price, per square foot, is three times more than the median square foot price for homes in Hong Kong, which has been ranked by the Demographia International Housing Affordability Survey as the world’s most expensive housing market for the ninth straight year.[44]

The amount of major news services citing the Demographia data say it all. I'm not in a position to judge a work by an "urban consulting firm", because I have no background education in urban planning whatsoever. But one thing for sure is that there's no accurate and definite "urban area", because simply there's no official boundary of it. Demographia explains their methodology in their publication. There's always flaw in every study, let alone urban study. That's all I can say. Bluesatellite (talk) 02:41, 7 April 2020 (UTC)

Can you link to his methodology? The methodology section on his website is very vague and not scientific at all. Also because newspapers pick up his publications doesn’t make them true because it’s not a peer review. Mattximus (talk) 13:32, 7 April 2020 (UTC)

• I would expect better sources to be available. At best, we should attribute as the news services do, because of obvious partisan lean. buidhe 11:18, 7 April 2020 (UTC)

If official census data is available for urban area populations, would that be the preferred source? There are users that argue against this. Mattximus (talk) 13:32, 7 April 2020 (UTC)

I would use either the actual censuses or news media reporting the data. Also, you should use intext citation (that is, mention the source in the text), which is what the publications do. TFD (talk) 14:13, 7 April 2020 (UTC)

Is Jadovno.com an RS?

Is http://www.jadovno.com an RS? OyMosby (talk) 02:52, 7 April 2020 (UTC)

I wouldn't use it. It looks like it is published by "Jadovno 1941 Association", which appears to be legit. However, for historical topics it's best to rely on good quality print publications, such as academic articles and books. The Balkans, unfortunately, seem to be plagued by nationalist historical revisionism which makes it extra important to be cautious. buidhe 11:15, 7 April 2020 (UTC)

There is no indication of an editorial board, it appears to be just a registered public association for those connected to survivors of the camp. No academic qualifications are claimed for the supposed editor-in-chief and contributors are often not identified. It is effectively a self-published source. Most of the stuff on there is heavily biased towards a Serb perspective. Definitely not an RS in my view. Peacemaker67 (click to talk to me) 06:52, 8 April 2020 (UTC)

Tennessee Star, Michigan Star, etc.

I keep coming across the Tennessee Star and its sister papers, Michigan Star, Ohio Star, and Minnesota Sun. We cite more than a few times in our articles, and there's a lot of cause for concern here. For starters, they seem to have connections to, and reprint material from, a couple other sites that are already deprecated: the Daily Caller and Breitbart. This Politico article mentions that "The site doesn’t have the traditional separation of editorial and business interests". This Snopes investigation characterizes them as basically fake local sites that really just push content by ideologically aligned national sites with a lot of problems. Is this worth an RfC? — Rhododendrites ^talk \\ 04:27, 7 April 2020 (UTC)

If they cannot be honest about themselves I doubt they can be honest about anything else.Slatersteven (talk) 11:24, 7 April 2020 (UTC)

A general discussion leading to some sort of evaluation on the perennial sources list at the very least would be very valuable. So yeah, some sort of RFC. Editors need to be able to get information on companies such as Star Media which according to that snopes report appear to be disguising propaganda as local news. Curdle (talk) 12:30, 8 April 2020 (UTC)

"Journal of Mason Graduate Research"

Is this a reliable source? Specifically, at Yuz Asaf an article by "Alexa Brand" which doesn't seem to have been cited[45] but can be downloaded, used for the statement "These views are considered to be blasphemous by the majority Sunni Islamic scholars and authorities who assert that Jesus is presently alive in Heaven." Her article is also source 110 at Prophets and messengers in Islam. It might be used elsewhere linked through Semantic scholar. Doug Weller talk 11:21, 7 April 2020 (UTC)

Well it claims it is peer reviewed [[46]], so I suspect this is less about RS than it is about undue.Slatersteven (talk) 11:23, 7 April 2020 (UTC)

it's a publication of George Mason University and therefore reliable. I don't see anything controversial with the statement. Bear in mind that by scholars and authorities they are referring to religious leaders. TFD (talk) 14:09, 7 April 2020 (UTC)

Agree with Slatersteven and TFD. It is an RS -- whether it warrants citation in that article is another question. --MaximumIdeas (talk) 17:18, 7 April 2020 (UTC)

@Slatersteven, The Four Deuces, and MaximumIdeas: I'd agree if it had been frequently cited. Using an uncited or rarely cited source to state what the majority of scholars in any field seems dubious. Doug Weller talk 18:00, 7 April 2020 (UTC)

If it were an exceptional claim perhaps. I don't think that one would need multiple reliable sources to establish that the position of the Catholic Church is that Jesus is in heaven. It's even in the Bible. He ascended to heaven on the third day and sits beside the Father. TFD (talk) 18:11, 7 April 2020 (UTC)

@The Four Deuces: Good point. As I mentioned WP:BLUESKY earlier today I concede the point. Doug Weller talk 18:54, 7 April 2020 (UTC)

Eupedia

Currently, the following articles appear to cite Eupedia, some including trivia like the number of castles in Belgium, but a number concerning human genetics. Specifically, many citations from Eupedia appear to connect specific Haplogroups with specific ethnic groups. My question, prompted by a discussion here, is whether Eupedia is a reliable source or whether this sourcing should be removed. It's unclear to me whether the website is user-created content or not. --Ermenrich (talk) 15:47, 7 April 2020 (UTC)

It seems there was a previous discussion that reached no consensus/only a weak consensus here. @Doug Weller, Slatersteven, Wnt, and Iridescent: who were involved last time.--Ermenrich (talk) 16:03, 7 April 2020 (UTC)

My opinion has not changed.Slatersteven (talk) 16:11, 7 April 2020 (UTC)

Just to make sure everyone is aware, there may be a complication in that a lot of the use is likely to be their graphics. They clearly have people who are good at making scientific style graphics (e.g. maps showing frequencies), and for better or worse we have a slightly different ways of approaching illustrations. It is a while since I looked but undoubtedly some of the illustrations will be straightforward presentations based on a specific bit of published research, like our users also might do. Unfortunately they won't all be like that. The one Ermenrich and I came across (on a talk page) is clearly outside our norms, because it was a map showing frequencies of "Germanic DNA" (i.e. something no scholar is going to have defined). I am not sure if that is being used on any WP article though.--Andrew Lancaster (talk) 16:55, 7 April 2020 (UTC)

It's a personal website run by someone who uses the name Maciamo Hay and you'll find him described as "a researcher in genetics, as well as a futurist, philosopher, historian, linguist, and travel writer." So, "master of none"? You can see my comments in the earlier discussion. His Facebook page still doesn't claim any qualifications.[47] He runs another travel type guide, Japan Reference (JREF}[48] which we use as a source.[49] I found him cited in these two self-published books [50] [51] and this odd book.[52]

This source says "As we've noted before, there are a bunch of charlatans in the world of Ancient DNA. The worst offender, perhaps, is a pseudonymous Belgian named Maciamo Hay, who runs a site called Eupedia. This uneducated man knows just enough to sound knowledgable, and to delude himself and some of the similarly ignorant. In the world of Ancient DNA, he is probably the best example of Dunning-Krueger effect out there."[53] But I know nothing about snplogic. I'd like to see both sites deprecated. Doug Weller talk 17:43, 7 April 2020 (UTC)

Seems to be a Nordic race-bent fringe source, definite depreciate. Hemiauchenia (talk) 17:55, 7 April 2020 (UTC)

What Doug Weller said. An obvious crank site, and given its obvious inaccuracies in even its most non-contentious content like the tour guides, shouldn't be taken as a reliable source for anything. ‑ Iridescent 18:50, 7 April 2020 (UTC)

• Do not use, and Deprecate Just a perusal of the website and clicking a handful of articles, I was able to identify dozens upon dozens of inaccuracies. I only checked the articles on Classics and Anthropology, but honestly, nearly every other statement was factually inaccurate, or just convoluted. This isn’t just an unreliable source. It shouldn’t be used to cite anything on Wikipedia. Symmachus Auxiliarus (talk) 02:23, 8 April 2020 (UTC)
  • • Do not use and deprecate per Symmachus Auxiliarus. The Drover's Wife (talk) 06:47, 8 April 2020 (UTC)
      • No question in my mind that this needs blacklisting, I've found some dreadful stuff. See[54]] as a recent edit adding junk to junk, and [55] which is where I started my cleanup. Doug Weller talk 15:16, 8 April 2020 (UTC)
        • I agree with Doug. Especially for human genetics this is a terrible source and should be blacklisted.--Ermenrich (talk) 15:34, 8 April 2020 (UTC)
• I agree there is no doubt that this source is not RS according to WP norms. I do still wonder what this discussion means in practice though, because I think Ermenrich and I have not seen examples of this site being used, only heard a report from an IP editor that WP uses some of the same maps. Potentially we may even have over-lapping users with this website. So things like maps uploaded to WP might need to be looked at case-by-case? The one map we were shown was clearly OR/SYNTH and inconsistent with our content policies, but I doubt this one is being used on Wikipedia.--Andrew Lancaster (talk) 10:13, 9 April 2020 (UTC)

  It's being used as a source on numerous articles, on topics as varied as Watney Combe & Reid, Haplogroup U (mtDNA), Cannabis in Estonia and Belgian nobility. This isn't just a hypothetical problem. ‑ Iridescent 10:38, 9 April 2020 (UTC)

Thanks. I did not know how to do a link search. (Never looked I guess.) I see a lot of these are on talk pages, or external links section, but I eventually found at least one in a footnote, so you are right.--Andrew Lancaster (talk) 13:27, 9 April 2020 (UTC)

Andrew Lancaster, if you look at my search for Eupedia in the first comment in this thread you'll see a bunch of links to EUpedia used as citations.--Ermenrich (talk) 13:29, 9 April 2020 (UTC)

RfC: Is Global News generally a reliable source for news and current affairs coverage?

Is Global News [56] a generally reliable source for news and current affairs coverage? --TheSandDoctor ^Talk 17:56, 7 April 2020 (UTC)

• Current usage:[57]

Generally reliable a well regarded mainstream news source from a country with high press freedom. Reliable for both Canadian and international news. They made a minor error in misattributing three seconds of footage, but nothing to indicate a systematic issue (according to Columbia Journalism Review) since they apologized + issued a correction. buidhe 20:46, 7 April 2020 (UTC)

---

A normal news site as far as I know. Per instructions at the top of the page "Please be sure to include examples of editing disputes that show why you are seeking comment on the source: how did you come to consider it worth questioning? - David Gerard (talk) 19:41, 7 April 2020 (UTC)

Homeland Preparedness News

• homelandprepnews.com: Linksearch en (insource) - meta - de - fr - simple - wikt:en - wikt:fr • Spamcheck • MER-C X-wiki • gs • Reports: Links on en - COIBot - COIBot-Local • Discussions: tracked - advanced - RSN • COIBot-Link, Local, & XWiki Reports - Wikipedia: en - fr - de • Google: search • meta • Domain: domaintools • AboutUs.com

I noticed that this was used in around 77 articles lately (an example at Orthopoxvirus), and saw this question by Ancheta Wis when investigating. Since there never was an RSN discussion yet about it, I decided to create an entry. My initial impression is that it seems usable: the publication is not anonymous (Macallan Communications) and also has a team of qualified editors. More input welcome, —PaleoNeonate – 02:27, 8 April 2020 (UTC)

Fox News and COVID-19

Yes I know but this time its serious.

There is one (and they appear to be preparing for more) lawsuits over deliberate misinformation over the corona virus [[58]]. Given this I think it is our duty to only use the best and most respected sources over this issue I would like to propose a (at least) temporary and partial ban on Fox as a source for any news relating to the Corona Virus.Slatersteven (talk) 09:23, 8 April 2020 (UTC)

Sounds sensible. There's general sanctions on COVID-19-related articles for the same obvious reason. What's the correct Wikipedia bureaucratic mechanism to declare a source not usable on a particular topic - can it be done as part of the general sanctions?

General news sources are not great WP:MEDRSes already, and I'd think Fox News would be a hard fail in that regard on their COVID-19 coverage.

Local Fox affiliates running news stories, they're not quite the same thing as the main organisation (except when they are) - not sure how to deal with those.

(I've put a note on the wikiproject page pointing here.) - David Gerard (talk) 09:27, 8 April 2020 (UTC)

No... Fox’s NEWS coverage is fine. It is no worse (or no better) than that of the other networks. The problem lies with their opinion and analysis shows, which are sensationalist and biased (but that is also true for the other networks). I could agree to restrictions targeting specific shows, but not a blanket ban on the entire network. Blueboar (talk) 10:54, 8 April 2020 (UTC)

Problem is just how easy would such a selective restriction be? How easy is it to separate their "news" from their "opinion" pieces?Slatersteven (talk) 12:34, 8 April 2020 (UTC)

I agree with Blueboar on this. Fox News' news reporting is generally fine. I would be very wary of their opinion shows, just as I would be with opinion shows on MSNBC and CNN (or the opinion/editorial section of any newspaper). US cable news opinion shows are highly partisan, ergo not a good source of factual content. However, absent a good reason, I'd be wary of ruling out an entire news network, including their news reporting. Do you have a specific concern with a particular claim made in Fox News' news (not opinion) programs? -Thucydides411 (talk) 12:42, 8 April 2020 (UTC)

I am just pointing out others do have specific concerns that Fox "...acted in bad faith to willfully and maliciously disseminate false information denying and minimizing the danger posed by the spread of the novel Coronavirus, or COVID-19, which is now recognized as an international pandemic.”, that is a pretty damning condemnation (and yes it is Fox news). However they (and thus we) should also include AT&T and Comcast. (my emphasis)Slatersteven (talk) 12:47, 8 April 2020 (UTC)

Does this concern Fox News' news programs, or its opinion programs? Can you give a specific example in which using news reporting from Fox News would damage an article? -Thucydides411 (talk) 12:51, 8 April 2020 (UTC)

I did not file the complaint to the courts I am just pointing this out. It is enough for me to say we should not use them on this subject. This is too important to take chances with. (wp:soapbox alert) people may well have died because this kind of misinformation was not tackled early enough. It is down to us to make sure the the information (on any aspect of this topic) is of the best kind. We cannot allow even the possibility of misinformation entering any of or articles on this topic. See my rant [[59]].Slatersteven (talk) 13:08, 8 April 2020 (UTC)

It's not enough for me to draw that conclusion. If there are specific concerns with news reporting from Fox News, then that's one thing. What Hannity says on his talk show is a different matter. -Thucydides411 (talk) 13:28, 8 April 2020 (UTC)

I'll also add that I agree with David Gerard that general news sources are not great for medical subjects. For the medical aspects of CoVID-19, as opposed to its economic/political/social aspects, we should lean heavily on the recommendations of WP:MEDRS. This is very different from ruling out Fox News' news reporting for other (i.e., non-medical) aspects of the CoVID-19 pandemic. -Thucydides411 (talk) 12:49, 8 April 2020 (UTC)

I can agree that news outlets are poor sources for the medical aspects of CoVid... But that applies to ALL news outlets. Blueboar (talk) 13:06, 8 April 2020 (UTC)

And how many are being sued?Slatersteven (talk) 13:09, 8 April 2020 (UTC)

First, this is only just the start of a lawsuit, nothing has been proven. Second, as many legal experts have stated eg [60] its unlikely this suit will end up with any resolution, as the lawsuit specificly focuses on Fox's statement of opinions, nothing out of their news departments. So this is a non-starter for us in any case. As others have said, MEDRS already takes precedence for any medical-based discussions. --Masem (t) 13:38, 8 April 2020 (UTC)

NY Daily News on NYC coronavirus outbreak

NY Daily News seems to have broken a story about nurses infected with COVID-19 working at several NYC hospitals due to insufficient paid sick leave policies. [61]

I believe we can cite the Daily News in 2020 coronavirus pandemic in New York City, although in my experience (and per WP:RSP) I know it has a less-than-stellar reputation. I generally would avoid the source for anything of political significance. On the other hand, I believe in this case the Daily News would not publish this local story without sufficient strong evidence; in fact several sources are identified in the article, some by name.

I believe this would be OK to include with attribution, e.g. "According to the NY Daily News reporting on 04/08/20, several nurses at different New York City hospitals stated that nursing staff were not allowed sufficient paid sick leave and that nurses presenting symptoms of coronavirus continued to work."

Comments? Zloyvolsheb (talk) 02:46, 9 April 2020 (UTC)

Yes I think we should use it.Slatersteven (talk) 10:09, 9 April 2020 (UTC)

With attribution, I think it can be used. Blueboar (talk) 12:40, 9 April 2020 (UTC)

Using The Washington Free Beacon in politically related BLPs - is it an RS?

I decided to raise my concerns about an edit at WP:BLPN#Use of The Washington Free Beacon for what looks like a BLP violation on an article about a political candidate but there are also RS issues, particularly about using it in BLPs. It's not mentioned at perennial sources. Doug Weller talk

For BLP information no. Its salacious and would need a top line source.Slatersteven (talk) 10:09, 9 April 2020 (UTC)

Seeking Alpha

As a crowd-sourced website, Seeking Alpha may be listed in WP:deprecated sources?--Marc Lacoste (talk) 07:06, 9 April 2020 (UTC)

I've moved this discussion from WT:RS to this noticeboard, as it is a discussion on the reliability of a specific source. — Newslinger talk 14:03, 9 April 2020 (UTC)

Reads more like an SPS, it may not be reliable those who contribute may be.Slatersteven (talk) 14:18, 9 April 2020 (UTC)

As a Seeking Alpha reader I would protest if someone used it as a RS for fact. Some articles are great others are trash. The site does have editors so this isn't quite self published. But it is effectively a collection of editorials. As such I would treat it only as reliable for the statements of the authors. Springee (talk) 14:19, 9 April 2020 (UTC)

Media blackout#Contemporary

At Media blackout#Contemporary I added sources for the following claim. (The claim was already in the article; I just added citations). Because this involves a BLP, I would like to ask that the citations I added be reviewed here so that I can remove any that don't meet our standards for reliability. Here is the claim and the citations:

"In March 2020, Tara Reade, a former Joe Biden staffer, came out accusing Biden of having sexually assaulted her in 1993. The lack of any news coverage from major news outlets like CNN, The Washington Post, The New York Times, and NBC news regarding the accusations were considered by some as a media blackout."

References

--Guy Macon (talk) 18:07, 9 April 2020 (UTC)

WP:RSP lists The Daily Wire as generally unreliable for factual reporting. Linking to such a site in a BLP would be unadvisable, and I do not think that particular reference belongs in this spot either, since what we have is basically a slice of BLP under a topic heading. Even if all we are doing is noting that an opinion has been voiced, we are implicitly saying that the site is worth reading, and as it stands the text is not providing any cautions that claims of fact made in the source should be taken advisedly. XOR'easter (talk) 19:35, 9 April 2020 (UTC)