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Is http://microformats.org/wiki/ a reliable source for information about microformats? It appears to be an open wiki (I made an account and made an edit), yet with some kind of overseeing authority. Thoughts? OrangeDog ( τ • ε) 20:46, 17 August 2010 (UTC)
For the purpose of added someone to the list of alumni of a particular school, is the person's LinkedIn profile a good enough source for the fact of their attendance? The person is Jay Hodgson , who seems to be a stellar young Canadian academic in the field of music, and the school is Upper Canada College (UCC), a prestigious private boy's school in Toronto. An IP-editor (not me) added Hodgson to the list lately, twice, but the addition was reverted as unsourced, twice. By some quick-and-easy googling, I turned up a fair amount of material on Hodgson, but among the online sources I thus found, his attendance of UCC is given only by
his own LinkedIn profile. It seems to me that this should be a good enough source for the purpose of adding Hodgson to the list of UCC alumni, according to "Self-published ... sources as sources on themselves", within
Wikipedia:Identifying reliable sources. (It would be most unreasonable to suppose that Hodgson has lied about attending UCC, in his own LinkedIn profile, or that the profile is really the work of an impostor who is otherwise accurate but gives wrong information on that one point!) However, the incipient edit-war over the adding of Hodgson to the list points to a need for care, so please give your expert opinions. Thanks.
--
205.250.69.234 (
talk) 05:05, 19 August 2010 (UTC)
[1] is presented as a reliable source because "Ben Goldman is an expert" (presumably on the newspaper? On Climate? On what?) I noted that badscience.net is a blog not under the editorial control of any newspaper per WP:RS. The edit does not qualify tghe claim as an opinion, but states it is a "notable mistake" on the part of the newspaper. The queries are: Is the blog a "reliable source" for a claim under WP:RS and WP:BLP (as it impacts "living people")? Ought the claim be presented as an opinion of the author if the source is relaible? Is the claim, if it is proper, properly worded as a "notable mistake" including the part about "despite allowing other comments"? Thanks. Collect ( talk) 11:56, 17 August 2010 (UTC)
Considering that the protagonist has now stated that I am not a "rational person" and since he has not given any actual reliable source for his claims, I consider this more a WQA type of situation than anything else. Collect ( talk) 10:43, 19 August 2010 (UTC)
I'm currently in a dispute with other editors regarding content (one line) I would like to include in Maharashtra, Marathi (lead), and Pune. At an early stage in the dispute, the sources I presented were attacked for not being RS. I responded by providing the reasons that qualify them as reliable sources. But since then, despite 2-3 reminders, editors who are opposing my viewpoint have refused to say whether they consider the sources I am presenting as RS. The sources can be found in the table in this section [4] and the entire dispute starts on the same page. [5] I am seeking outside judgment validating or invalidating the sources. Detailed content from one of sources can be found at User:Zuggernaut. Please disregard the first row in the table as that is not being claimed as a RS. Thanks for your help. Zuggernaut ( talk) 23:47, 20 August 2010 (UTC)
Thank you for your time, -- Cirt ( talk) 04:00, 21 August 2010 (UTC)
I prefer to use Box Office Mojo, and I have not really scrutinized The Numbers in the past. This is what I found, though. First, Bruce Nash and The Numbers is referenced on the Wall Street Journal website several times, with this explaining the The Numbers operator after an article about Box Office Mojo: "Bruce Nash, a Los Angeles software designer who spends up to four hours a day updating site with help from two contract assistants." This from The Times apparently considers The Numbers "Hollywood researchers" and quotes Nash a few times in the article. This from MovieMaker says, "Bruce Nash runs The Numbers Website (www.the-numbers.com), which serves up a comprehensive breakdown of weekly, monthly and yearly box office totals. Box office totals for new and old titles are archived all the way back to the heyday of three-strip Technicolor. Nash says that tracking the blockbusters is more science than art these days, with all the focus centered on a movie’s opening weekend." He's then quoted multiple times in that article. On its own, I do not think that The Numbers is that poor of a source. It is worth comparing to Box Office Mojo, though, which I think is more prominent and better staffed.
For comparison's sake, let's compare the websites on some films in the past few years.
Suspecting The Numbers's weakness with foreign numbers, I checked:
With this admittedly small sample, it may be worth assuming that The-Numbers and Box Office Mojo are pretty close when it comes to domestic (United States and Canada) figures. Considering Box Office Mojo's prominence, it may be better staffed than The-Numbers and be able to report overseas grosses more accurately. Its prominence is reflected in a search engine test (in Google News Archive Search) where mention of Box Office Mojo is easily in the thousands, where The Numbers barely reaches 100 with the various keywords I tried. So for Knight and Day, I would recommend Box Office Mojo as a reference instead but still caution that international (outside the United States and Canada) figures for both websites will tend to be estimates until the film's entire theatrical run is complete. In addition, I think The Numbers has a potentially useful difference from Box Office Mojo in having DVD sales figures, where the latter just has DVD rental rankings. Erik ( talk | contribs) 14:48, 21 August 2010 (UTC)
Can we only Use Google Book Review / Sales ,the website I use is a book Review ????? -- Kimmy ( talk) 17:53, 21 August 2010 (UTC)
Is this a better source link -- Kimmy ( talk) 18:03, 21 August 2010 (UTC)
Slater that is because the source I listed is the original "Book Review" form Robert M. Grooms - The same Review is used In another Wiki page exactly how I used it link .
Sorry this is hard as the truth is hardly main steam thinking in this case - - Thank you -- Kimmy ( talk) 18:59, 21 August 2010 (UTC)
It is Strange how "Daivd Duke" pops up on Google with Grooms - You are correct "Grooms" is A ghost ? I did read the books he list though - They are good works - Thank you -- Kimmy ( talk) 19:44, 21 August 2010 (UTC)
Thank you for taking your time - Great detective work - Grooms, uses good Literary works to Justify his Article - Got you - Thank you -- Kimmy ( talk) 20:00, 21 August 2010 (UTC)
"Barnes_Review, Willis Allison Carto (July 17, 1926) is a longtime figure on the American far right. He describes himself as Jeffersonian and populist, but is primarily known for his promotion of antisemitic conspiracy theories and Holocaust denial
-- Kimmy ( talk) 20:15, 21 August 2010 (UTC)
The Barnes Review - sourcewatch link -- Kimmy ( talk) 20:25, 21 August 2010 (UTC)
I have been editing the article Day of the Dumpster. I am in dispute with the user User:Ryulong as he believes sources like this [9] are useful. I believe the website Rangers fails as a reliabe source because its a fansite does anyone have an opinion. Is it a reliable source or not? 82.25.105.18 ( talk) 06:00, 19 August 2010 (UTC)
Seeing as I was blocked for the entirety of this discussion and could not weigh in at all, I would like to point out that in the case of Power Rangers, as well as many other children's television shows which are notable in their own right, there will not be many non-trivial mentions in reliable third-party sources. As such, the only thing that editors of these articles have to get their information from is either directly reporting what happens in the show itself, or relying on self-published fan-created websites. As no one is going to be writing on the unaired pilots of Day of the Dumpster other than the fans, we should use their knowledge, even if it is below Wikipedia's standards of quality.— Ryūlóng ( 竜龙) 18:37, 20 August 2010 (UTC)
There is a question that came up in a discussion on the NOR noticeboard in regard to use of a video from Youtube, specifically one, which is linked from an article from the Guardian. We're still wrestling with the OR issues, but at this point it seems to me worth asking for clarification as to whether the youtube video can be considered a reliable source. Editor Nazar has argued that the video is "used together with the Guardian article and is a constituent part of it, which makes it a special case". My view is that the video is of unknown origin (it appears to be footage from more than one source which has been subtitled in two different language and shown on news or discussion TV show, which has then been further edited prior to the upload to youtube) and should not be used. The article is a BLP, and it seems to me there may be copyvio issues as well. Any guidance would be appreciated. -- Nuujinn ( talk) 00:17, 17 August 2010 (UTC)
@ Johnuniq: Do you think that using a con to discredit an exceptional claim is an acceptable option? Thanks. -- Nazar ( talk) 12:07, 18 August 2010 (UTC)
See for instance [10] which is used as a source for Antineutron, or [11] which is used in Bicycle and motorcycle dynamics. Kurtus's own information about himself is at [12] and linked pages. Thanks. Dougweller ( talk) 11:06, 21 August 2010 (UTC)
(This section was archived by a "bot" before a significant number of opinions (compared to other requests) were offered. CAN the article described below be used as a secondary source for various primary sources?)
The peer reviewed interdisciplinary science journal
Naturwissenschaften has published a number of articles on
cold fusion over the past five years, some of which are used in that article. However, Hagelstein, P.L. (2010)
"Constraints on energetic particles in the Fleischmann–Pons experiment" Naturwissenschaften 97(4):345-52 is the first review they have published on the subject, being based on a search "through more than a thousand papers in the published and unpublished literature on the Fleischmann–Pons experiment to find results we could use to develop estimates for upper limits of particle emission per unit energy" (p. 346; PDF p. 2.)
Is that review a reliable secondary source in the context of the cold fusion article for the following claims, which appear verbatim earlier on the same page:
Thank you for considering this question. Ura Ursa ( talk) 03:25, 1 August 2010 (UTC)
Whether a source is reliable or not is one thing, but when have editors ever before contradicted a respected, peer-reviewed journal as to whether a paper is a review or not? This whole topic has been the bizarro-world stinking armpit of wikipedia for years. 208.54.14.57 ( talk) 04:11, 3 August 2010 (UTC)
HELLO? Only one editor above has indicated that the newly published Hagelstein paper can be used as a secondary source, for allowing certain primary sources to be used in the cold fusion article. Given all the controversy at the cold fusion pages, that is not enough, by far! V ( talk) 15:17, 17 August 2010 (UTC)
Dear ladies, dear Sirs,
I have been blocked in the Ten Commandments article because my analysis of the 2nd Commmandment did not appear authorized enough with a pubication by Salem-News (Oregon internet press), another by the Editor of the British medical journal as an e-letter, and, eventually, a lecture given in the University of Keele (RU). I'm coming back with the support of one of the greatest modern scholars of the Bible: Professor Thomas Römer (Chair Biblical circles of the Collège de France, the highest academic French institution) who wrote me ( http://intact.wikia.com/wiki/File:R%C3%B6mer.jpg):
"..., you are right asserting that Gn 17 presents another vision of circumcision than Gn 15 or the Deuteronomy. The "lay" writers were apparently less interested by this practice, and even opposed to it. The expression "circumcision of the heart" could even contain a polemic stand against "circumcision of the flesh."
Will this be enough to support my thesis inside the article Ten Commandments? —Preceding unsigned comment added by 83.202.136.139 ( talk) 15:15, 23 August 2010 (UTC)
Professor Römer may be willing to provide you with relevant scholarly published literature on the issue if you ask him again nicely. Then the significance of your views can be verified. Paul B ( talk) 16:39, 24 August 2010 (UTC)
Is http://www.green-life-innovators.org/tiki-index.php?page=SunAlign+Qbasic+version an adequate source for the QBasic program recently added to Equation of time? Jc3s5h ( talk) 21:11, 24 August 2010 (UTC)
I reverted an edit to Nicole Alexander which says that she is engaged to Shaquille O'Neal, sourced to [14]. On face value, it seems to be a reliable source, but it's a gossip blog, and the source itself is just reporting rumors. Was I correct in doing so? Everard Proudfoot ( talk) 00:26, 25 August 2010 (UTC)
It seems that there are reports concerning Hitler's DNA, which assert thsat he had Jewish ancestry. This has been a popular claim since the 30s, but now journalists are making sensational assertions based on haplogroups supposed to be found lurking in the depths of the nasty Nazi's body - or rather of his relatives, since Hitler's DNA is reconstructed from relatives. Journalists play up the Jewish and North African ancestry claims. What reliable information can we derive from these reports? One editor wants to add this material with the claims of the journalists, others think it should be wholly excluded. (see Talk:Adolf_Hitler#Hitler.27s_DNA).
The article in question is Adolf Hitler.
Paul B ( talk) 23:56, 24 August 2010 (UTC)
I'm going to remove everything on this page which is sourced directly to a LaRouchie, rather than to a WP:RS about the LaRouchies. Thoughts? BillMasen ( talk) 23:16, 24 August 2010 (UTC)
Is this a reliable source for a death? It appears to be an official personal one and is already linked from the article http://graal.co.uk/index.html article is Laurence_Gardner Off2riorob ( talk) 11:10, 16 August 2010 (UTC)
Yes indeedy, the guys dead, its in his article a couple of days now. Off2riorob ( talk) 18:00, 17 August 2010 (UTC)
It strikes me that if someone succeeded in hacking an individual's web site, one of the first bits of mischief that might occur to the hacker would be to post a false death notice. Jc3s5h ( talk) 18:15, 17 August 2010 (UTC)
According to WP:SPS personal website are not considered reliable sources, and the web site in question is still a personal web site, even if the original author has passed on to the great wiki in the sky. We could call it a secondary source or a primary source, but it's still not a reliable source. "Articles should be based on reliable, third-party (independent), published sources with a reputation for fact-checking and accuracy", and this personal web site fails those criteria. Nuujinn ( talk) 21:36, 20 August 2010 (UTC)
First, the specific point is moot; The Independent has reported on Gardner's death. [18] In general, though, I would side with Jrod2 here. We accept someone acting as an agent for a person as part of self-published; after all, when someone puts a notice on their web site, do we require that they have personally edited the actual HTML, and brought up the server? When someone self publishes a book, are they expected to manually push the buttons that set the type and bind the paper? Surely not. Surely half the time they ask a secretary or spokesman or publisher or someone else to do it for them. The web server is maintained by yet another person, or even an independent web hosting company. We accept it as self-published as long as the orders come from them. In this case, I would argue that the person who put up the notice on the web site was acting as an agent for the person himself; yes, even though the person himself is dead. Whoever put up the notice is almost certainly the same person who put up all the other information on this website. -- GRuban ( talk) 16:17, 24 August 2010 (UTC)
is a breakfast eaten in South India for thousands of years. Pat Chapman in his cook book claims Dosa orginated in Udupi, Karnataka. Thangappan Nair, an Indian writer also argues the same in his book.
However, both authors do not attribute their claim. It is also possible Pat Chapman used Thangappan Nair's book as reference. Considering the venerable tradition among Indian writers to document hearsay as history, I am just urging editor User:Gnanapiti to be more careful.
it would be impossible to determine and definitely say Dosa or any traditional Indian food originated anywhere. First, there is no way the first person who made the first Dosa left any evidence behind and/or it is more than likely Dosa evolved from something else which had existed. For these reasons, wikipedia is better served if we attribute the use of the food "Dosa" in some old literature.
I have proposed either the removal of this information or attribute the opinion to the authors and the lack of citations in their book. English food writer Pat Chapman and Indian writer Thangappan Nair argue Dosa originated in Udupi, Karnataka. However, both books do not mention the source of their claim.
Any suggestion will be appreciated. -- Car Tick 13:08, 21 August 2010 (UTC)
I will tell you why I think Thangappan Nair whose 2004 book which predates Pat Chapman's 2007 book (so i believe Chapman bases his reference on Thangappan Nair) can not be considered a serious history book. T. Nair categorically says, " Idli (another south Indian food similar to Dosa), Dosa and Rasam all originated in Karnataka in prehistoric times" without any of the nuances you see in this article which reviews the book written by K. T. Achaya
To provide you some context here, steam vessels are required for Idli making. From the article,
“ | Indeed, the Chinese chronicler Xuanzang (7th century AD) categorically stated that there were no steaming vessels in India. Achaya writes that the cooks who accompanied the Hindu Kings of Indonesia between 800-1200 AD, brought fermentation and steaming methods and their dish Kedli to South India | ” |
so, how did south indians make Idli if they didnt have steaming vessels?
please compare the nuanced writings of A. T. Acharya with absoluteness of T. Nair. besides, the weasel word prehistoric is generally used by fake historians who hasnt done their research well.
If my words carry any weight, I have never heard of T. Nair being an Indian historian let alone authoritative. -- Car Tick 23:35, 21 August 2010 (UTC)
Okay, I'm in a dispute over a link and I want to bring it up to the larger community. The specific link in question is this one:
http://www.hustlermagazine.com/features/band-interviews/wendy-lisa-women-of-the-revolution
This link is being used as source for the article on Lisa Coleman (musician), specificly for this statement: "Coleman introduced her girlfriend Wendy Melvoin". It has been removed by User:Hullaballoo Wolfowitz on the grounds that it is not a reliable source. I contend that it is a reliable source in that it is clearly an interview done with the people in question. Additionally, the website has a number of other interviews with bands.
And just to be upfront, the only other debate I could find to Hustler magazine as a source was Wikipedia:Reliable sources/Noticeboard/Archive 24#Hustler magazine a reliable source for World Affairs? where the debate (to my eyes) ended up as no decision.
So... what does the community in general think? Tabercil ( talk) 18:15, 24 August 2010 (UTC)
The only qualm I have is that the word "girlfriend" is not necessarily an indication of sexuality, since it's frequently used (although perhaps less so than earlier) between two female friends with no connotation of a sexual relationship. So, if the quote is being used as a source for a subject being a lesbian, I think that could problematic. Beyond My Ken ( talk) 19:17, 24 August 2010 (UTC)
I disagee. I cannot believe that if this were non-porn magazine that we would having this debate. Reputations are defined precicely by such matters as legal history. You are, I think, confusing respectability with reliabilty. The Daily Telegraph, for example, is deeply respectable, but has a reputation for tendentious unreliability in the reporting of some matters (eg global warming). I dont know if has been sued more or less often that Hustler, but it certainly has been sued. This is not a matter of having "higher" standards, but of relevant and appropriate ones. Paul B ( talk) 12:45, 25 August 2010 (UTC)
Read more: http://vlex.com/vid/guccione-hustler-magazine-flynt-distributing-37113881#ixzz0xd1z1fkm
But it's an interview with two people, and it's them talking about stuff they did. Doesn't that fall under WP:SELFPUB - "Self-published or questionable sources may be used as sources of information about themselves, especially in articles about themselves..."? — HelloAnnyong (say whaaat?!) 21:13, 24 August 2010 (UTC)
So.... in summary then: can it be used or not? Tabercil ( talk) 16:10, 25 August 2010 (UTC)
A while back I asked for a re-assessment of Iyer because I noticed many of the sources cited were either inaccessible or did not have good editorial oversight (no reputation of fact checking, no details of who the editors were, etc). One of the websites often used as a source in the article Tamilnation.org is now defunct.
Perhaps this board can help in determining if the sources listed are relable or not. Details at: Talk:Iyer/GA1 Thanks. Zuggernaut ( talk) 20:28, 24 August 2010 (UTC)
Hello. Recently, several editors have been discussing on on the talk page of the Conservapedia article regarding the correct interpretation of a source. The statement in the Conservapedia article that is in question is the following:
Vandalism edits by both RationalWiki members and vandals from elsewhere have included the addition of errors, pornographic photos and satire.
The statement is sourced by this LA Times article, in which the following statement is where the statement in the article is derived from:
In recent months, Conservapedia's articles have been hit frequently by interlopers from RationalWiki and elsewhere. The vandals have inserted errors, pornographic photos and satire [...]
The problem that has been brought up is whether or not the source backs up the statement that RationalWikians have vandalized Conservapedia by inserting errors, pornographic photos, and satire. The article states that members of RationalWiki have vandalized Conservapedia, and the article states that vandals have introduces errors, pornographic photos, and satire, but the question lies in whether the latter includes RationalWiki members or whether it does not. Thanks for you time. ~ Super Hamster Talk Contribs 00:11, 25 August 2010 (UTC)
It's not totally clear, so use a quote. - Peregrine Fisher ( talk) 01:07, 25 August 2010 (UTC)
How reliable would you say chattahbox.com is? It is clearly a news website, and although it seems to have a left-leaning political viewpoint, it is written as one would expect a news site to be. Any thoughts? Throwaway85 ( talk) 09:48, 25 August 2010 (UTC)
Can it be considered a reliable source? It has been used by an editor. In a previous discussion here another user said that "it's an open wiki with seven users and 21 articles. It's not a reliable source and we shouldn't be using it directly for biography information." The editor, however, persists in including the info. Please kindly advise. Thanks. -- Nazar ( talk) 17:19, -- Cameron Scott ( talk) 08:51, 27 August 2010 (UTC)25 August 2010 (UTC)
Anonymous closed wiki. Fails WP:RS. Jayjg (talk) 01:24, 26 August 2010 (UTC)
Thanks everyone for participating. I agree with the view that we can not use any means just to debunk exceptional claims. All the reasoning suggested by the detractors of Jani's claims above is their own reasoning, based on their own analysis, outlook and personal logic. We do not even know if it can be trusted outside of their own imagination, because they have absolutely no credible proofs to support their views, except for the fact that the claims they oppose are rare and exceptional, and don't fit into their own understanding of how the things should be. If we start bending the neutrality principle based on such feelings of individual editors we never get a reliable encyclopedic reference, because everyone will try to push his/her own understanding, imagination and views into the article. Thanks. -- Nazar ( talk) 07:45, 27 August 2010 (UTC)
Having said that, that article is shocking - I'll take a closer look after the bank holiday. -- Cameron Scott ( talk) 08:51, 27 August 2010 (UTC)
There has been a near-perpetual conflict on Aquatic_ape_hypothesis concerning a single source - www.aquaticape.org [24] by Jim Moore. The conflict is "resolved" only when one group or another simply gets tired of arguing and the page lapses into stasis, only to re-emerge with the next editing activity. The problem is that AAH is, depending on how charitable you are, at best an unverified hypothesis which is not taken seriously by the scholarly community and at worst pseudoscience/fringe completely lacking in coherent hypotheses, testable predictions or any substantial evidence. The entire origin of the theory (which we cannot ignore, obviously) is from a non-peer-reviewed science magazine article (spawned from a purely speculative lecture at a non-technical setting) and a non-scientific text by a non-academic publisher, so right there the bar gets set fairly low - all scientific, peer-reviewed sources are either inconclusive, extremely brief, or critical of the idea, including a prominent paper by Langdon which basically tears the theory apart bit by bit. Unfortunately, several claims are not addressed by Langdon, and other sources must be found. Myself and other users have included and argued for the inclusion of the above website due to its extensive nature (printed out, it would take hundreds of pages), excellent use of citations (as much as possible is properly cited to legit scientific papers), prominence (I've never seen a debate on the topic where it *isn't* cited, in part due to the fact that, as a website, it's far more accessible than journal articles), and detailed criticism. Opponents object based on the fact that it's not a peer-review publication (ignoring that the original texts of the idea aren't either), that the author isn't an anthropologist (ignoring that the great recent popularizer of AAH isn't either), that it's unfairly biased against AAH, and simply that it's a website. In the context of this topic (a theory most reputable scientists consider too laughable to bother with), I contend that those who oppose it are simply looking for an excuse to exclude it. However, any argument about it inevitably devolves into the same argument between the same 4-5 people. Requests for help at numerous Wikiprojects have met with either total silence or drive-by opinions.
Frankly, I'm sick of the whole argument, and I'd like a final ruling on whether http://www.aquaticape.org/ is a reliable source or not, especially given the fringe nature of the page topic as a whole. Mokele ( talk) 19:22, 25 August 2010 (UTC)
What I came here for was actual explanations, and if it turns out that Moore really isn't a reliable source even under the relaxed WP:fringe rules, fine. What I did NOT come here for was yet another argument with you, kwami; I can have that on the AAH page. You've managed to once again drown out any other conversation in a torrent of bias. Now please, shut the hell up and let someone who ISN'T INVESTED IN THE ISSUE get a word in edgewise. I hoped for a discussion on this topic and outside opinions, not the same old fight with the same old person, something more sophisticated that blindly reading the rules to me.
OK, discussion reboot: AAH is a WP:fringe idea not taken seriously by any reputable scientist. However, it is also notable enough to warrant it's own page. This creates a problem in terms of sources - most only mention it in passing (a few lines here and there), with the entire origin of the theory in two sources (neither of which meets WP:RS), and only a single substantial critique that does meet WP:RS.
So, when a WP:Fringe subject clearly warrants an article, but sources are thin on the ground, what then? Is it acceptable to use a potentially non-RS website to address a claim from a non-RS book? Especially when leaving the claim unaddressed leads to problems with WP:UNDUE and WP:PARITY? —Preceding unsigned comment added by Mokele ( talk • contribs) 03:03, August 26, 2010
OK, so we've got some more No responses and more Limited Use responses. Anyone else? I'm hoping for some stronger level of consensus, to forestall future arguments on the page. Mokele ( talk) 15:09, 28 August 2010 (UTC)
Can the Islamic Quarterly, and more specifically this [26] be considered a reliable source in history of science-type articles? My own feeling is that it isn't, but I would like a second opinion. It is not a scholarly, peer-reviewed publication on the subject, nor do its articles provide bibliography. It was heavily used by User:Jagged 85, subject of this RfC/U [27] for using shoddy sources for agenda-based editing, among other things. As part of a proposed cleanup following the RfC/U, I would like to know if this source should be allowed to stand or be removed. Athenean ( talk) 19:57, 25 August 2010 (UTC)
This appears to be a website authored by an English professor, an Arabic translator/Qur'an teacher, and someone who has written several "How to" books on Islam from obscure publishers. It would not qualify as a WP:RS for science or history (or history of science) topics. Jayjg (talk) 01:21, 26 August 2010 (UTC)
I made
this revert on the basis that it was wasn't sourced correctly. The source is a reproduction of an Irish Daily Mail article in blog. The paper itself doesn't reproduce online. Could this info be re-introduced in the basis of the current source?
GainLine
♠
♥ 21:15, 25 August 2010 (UTC)
An editor recently added a POV tag to the top of the Somalia article based on a few sentences in the economy section, which he suggested advanced an 'Austrian economic' agenda. Although the statements in question were actually factual assertions and not value judgements, after much arguing back and forth, I nonetheless attempted to accommodate the user's concerns by replacing those sentences altogether with material from the Central Bank of Somalia, among other reliable sources. However, according to the user, the Central Bank of Somalia itself is now apparently also an unreliable source. In his words, it represents a "source with a conflict of interest in describing Somalia's economy" and is "also not an organization of economists, not necessarily reliable". Basically, it's like arguing that the Federal Reserve is not a reliable source on the US economy; it's a tall order. I have tried reasoning with the editor, and explained to him that the Central Bank of Somalia is actually the nation's monetary authority and that the former Governor of the Bank [28] is also the Alternate Governor of the Islamic Development Bank Group. However, to no apparent effect. I would therefore like to know what is Wikipedia's policy on this issue, and whether economic material from a country's own central bank indeed qualifies as unreliable. Middayexpress ( talk) 01:35, 26 August 2010 (UTC)
This is not directly about what is a reliable source, but rather where in an article a reliable source may be considered to be cited.
There is a proposal to alter the Template:No footnotes from
to
The request was initially made back December 2009 in Template talk:No footnotes#Clarification. I made a bold edit to remove "related reading or external links," but it was reversed.
The conversation is split over two talk pages and a user's talk page
It would be most useful if people who regularly contribute to this talk page were to discuss on Template talk:No footnotes#Clarification whether the string "related reading or external links," should or should not be removed from the template. -- PBS ( talk) 09:40, 26 August 2010 (UTC)
The Security Council Resolution 242 article contains a subsection, about a common law maxim "Expressio unius est exclusio alterius" which is sourced to Danielle R. Sassoon, "The Unmaking of U.N. Resolution 242: The Story of how Resolution 242 was Undone Before it was Even Finished", New Society, Harvard College Student Middle East Journal, September 7, 2007. [31]
The author was an undergraduate (class of 2008) majoring in history and literature. The article was posted to the student blog by the founding editor of the "New Society, Harvard College Student Middle East Journal", Julia Bertelsmann, a junior at Harvard College studying Economics. [32] I think the article gives undue weight to the legal opinions of an author with no apparent qualifications.
Sassoon says "The legal principle “expression unis et exclusion alterus” affirms that excluded terms must be understood as deliberately excluded and the document’s interpretation must be tailored correspondingly." She cites an Abba Eban quote from Sydney Bailey, The Making of Resolution 242. Boston: Martinus Nijhoff Publishers, 1985. page 155. Neither Bailey nor Eban mention the common law maxim "expressio unius est exclusio alterius". Many UN member states do not have legal systems that incorporate the maxims of English common law. In addition, many legal scholars have written that the inclusion of explicit clauses about the inadmissibility of acquisition of territory by war, and the requirement for respect of territorial integrity and sovereignty of every state in the area demonstrates that the Security Council did not intend to create loopholes in the norms of international law for Israel's benefit. See The Impact of Peremptory Norms on the Interpretation and Application of United Nations Security Council Resolutions', by Alexander Orakhelashvili, The European Journal of International Law Vol. 16 no.1 [33]
Sassoon incorrectly claims "the condemnation of territorial acquisition is confined to and separated in the preamble, detached from the actual outline of principles for a negotiation." The official 'Repertoire of the Practice of the Security Council' [34] contains an analytical table of Security Council decisions (Chapter 8) for 1966-1968 which explicitly states that the preamble of resolution 242 contains several substantial measures that govern the settlement. See for example "IV Measures for Settlement" - "E. Provisions bearing on issues of substance including terms of settlement" - "1. Enunciation or affirmation of principles governing settlement" - "(a) Inadmissibility of acquisition of territory by war, Situation in the Middle East(II): decision of 22 November 1967 (resolution 242 (1967)) preamble", on page 5, column 2: [35]
Sassoon argues that the French version of the resolution is not authoritative: "As the official document, the English text holds the authority, but the French and Soviets maintained otherwise." In fact, US Secretary of State Rusk and UK Foreign Minister Brown both stated the French version was equally authentic and legitimate. Brown said that he had discussed that issue with the Israeli government, and that they were aware of it. See Rusk "As I Saw It", Dean and Richard Rusk, W.W. Norton, 1990, ISBN 0393026507, page 389; and Palestine and the law: guidelines for the resolution of the Arab-Israel conflict, by Musa E. Mazzawi, Ithaca Press, 1997, ISBN: 0863722229, page 209 [36]
Sassoon argues that the omission of the definite article in the English version makes the intention clear and that Ambassador Goldberg's remarks to the Security Council on 7 November 1967 confirm that fact. However, Goldberg was instructed on 9 November 1967 to make a statement to the Security Council on behalf of the US government that the text of the resolution would not prejudice the position of those directly concerned, See the verbatim minutes of the Security Council, para 190, page 22: [37] and Foreign Relations of the United States, 1964–1968, Volume XIX, Arab-Israeli Crisis and War, 1967, Document 521, para 5 & 6 [38] harlan ( talk) 10:07, 26 August 2010 (UTC)
Doesn't look like a RS to me - I would remove it myself but that would then involve me with batshit crazy I/P mentalists and I try and avoid that at all costs. -- Cameron Scott ( talk) 10:09, 26 August 2010 (UTC)
The online literary magazine Literateur publishes interviews with poets, novelists, etc. containing biographical material that is often not available elsewhere. As per WP:IRS, it seems to me that these interviews would be an acceptable external link or reference for author biographies in Wikipedia as long as (quoting here from the policy)
In the course of an editorial dispute resulting from the publisher of Literateur adding links to some interviews, later links made from other accounts were dismissed as spam and the site listed for blacklisting.
To quote one contribution to the discussion there, "This might meet the requirements of Wikipedia:Identifying reliable sources#Self-published and questionable sources as sources on themselves. Even then, I think any decision to use an interview from such a site should be only made by trusted, established, neutral editors after a talk page discussion as to how that source uniquely benefits the article in providing information not otherwise available." I feel that such a requirement presents an unnecessarily high hurdle. I would prefer to see "trusted, established, neutral editors" discuss the matter here, and reach a decision. The following thread also references this source: [39] Questionic ( talk) 17:28, 26 August 2010 (UTC)
I know the headline is confusing, but hear me out. I primarily edit video-game articles on Wikipedia, and I've found that a lot of the articles contain info about "unofficial" content, whether it's unofficial patches or "mods". Most of the time, such content has not received any coverage in by independent, reliable sources, while some do, but in a way that I'm unsure about, like the article Precursors. This link [www.gamebanshee.com/news/99349-the-precursors-and-white-gold-war-in-paradise-english-translation-patches.html] was used to support keeping mention of a translation patch in the article, and I see three problems here: The editor who added mention of the patch, is the patch's creator. The next one is the most important: The source, GameBanshee, has been listed as reliable, but the article was written about a week ago, and says that the creator contacted them. Having had disputes with the same guy on other pages about similar patches he has produced and added mention of to other articles, I'd say that disqualifies the source because he himself contacted them to get attention for the patch, and, most probably, to get a chance to re-add the patch with a reliable source. Am I off-base when I think this is a violation of WP:SPS? I don't think that's fair play when you cite a reliable source that you yourself contacted to get your content listed/noticed, in connection with a content dispute. This might seem awfully specific for this section, but this is a situation that I find myself in often when I clean up video-game articles, and that's why I'm drawing on this particular example: I need to know if coverage similar to the article above -- very short article with mostly info from the patch/creator -- acceptable? And does it make a difference if the author of the content is shown as having contacted the site/source? Another example of what I mean can be found here [40], and [41]. These are sources that are currently being discussed in the Vampire: The Masquerade - Bloodlines, and I'd like to get some feedback on these kinds of sources -- short mentions in reliable sources, often instigated by the authors themselves. I'm gonna run into this situation again, so I need to clear this up first. Sorry if this was written in a confusing way, but it is a confusing issue. Eik Corell ( talk) 20:39, 26 August 2010 (UTC)
Is the Christian news publication World (magazine) a reliable sources for reporting facts about another Christian publication, Sojourners? It reported on issues of the funding of Sojourners by outside groups. An editor has challenged its reliable source status. Drrll ( talk) 23:40, 26 August 2010 (UTC)
Over at Ghanaians in the United Kingdom, this book is being used as a source for a statement that there are 1.5 million Ghanaians in the UK, according to the Ghanaian High Commission in London. That's a very high figure. The Office for National Statistics estimates that there are 93,000 Ghanaian-born people in the UK, and the total number of black Africans in the 2001 census was only 485,277. Moreover, the source states that there may be 850,000 Ghanaians in London alone. If this were true, they'd make up 10 per cent of the capital's population. I'm a bit suspicious of these figures, to say the least. It seems odd to me that the source states "estimates suggest that the number of Ghanaians who are officially registered with the Ghana High Commission...". Surely this isn't something that would be estimated? People are either registered or not, so no estimate needs to be made. What are people's thoughts on this? Cordless Larry ( talk) 09:37, 27 August 2010 (UTC)
Is the imfdb considered a reliable source? My guess is that it is not, considering that it is a Wiki, with entirely user-generated content. I removed it from the external links of a film article, and wanted to get some opinions from other editors about its appropriateness. --- RepublicanJacobite The'FortyFive' 01:32, 28 August 2010 (UTC)
Is this source reliable for this birth information? Another editor has opined that it is not, and that it may have simply gotten that info from Wikipedia itself. Nightscream ( talk) 03:03, 29 August 2010 (UTC)
I'm considering bringing an NFL article to FA, and many of the existing cites are to Pro-Football-Reference.com. Here is a link to the "about" page.-- Wehwalt ( talk) 14:08, 29 August 2010 (UTC)
[46] for this edit, In their book Climate of Extremes, Patrick J. Michaels and Robert C. Balling wrote "For our money the best climate blog out there is Climate Audit" mark nutley ( talk) 18:29, 29 August 2010 (UTC)
It has been suggested at Talk:Master_of_Magic#RPG.net that rpg.net site is not a reliable source. User:Jappalang wrote: "rpg.net has nothing to demonstrate its reliability in the Wikipedia sense. It is simply "an independent web site about tabletop roleplaying games" with no editorial policy nor heavy reliance by academic, scholarly, or media sources." I agree with Jappalang second sentence, but I do wonder if this makes the site unreliable? It is a notable website that posts game reviews; in fact our article on the website even has a section dedicated to their reviews :) Sure, it is not peer reviewed, but is it not a valid source of uncontroversial game information? PS. If the consensus is that it is not a reliable source, those links need to be checked. -- Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus| talk 19:00, 29 August 2010 (UTC)
The creator of this article has asked if the 'notability' tag can be removed, and I'm not sure; they've added lots of references, but most are probably not reliable sources, and e.g. the BBC reference really is the barest of passing mentions; it will take some time to check through, hence asking for input from others here. Thanks, Chzz ► 19:43, 29 August 2010 (UTC)
I think it has been asked already, but I have to ask this question: Is Joshua Project project reliable? It does not seem to be neutral. Can it be used as a source? For example, White Argentine and Kurdish diaspora articles use this project for finding the numbers of particular ethnic groups. Kavas ( talk) 21:44, 29 August 2010 (UTC)
There is a mass nomination of Transformer related articles such as Buzzsaw (Transformers), Alice (Transformers) and a few others. My concern is some article use websites such as [47] and [48] as third person sources. Surely these websites aren't considered reliable or independent sources of information are or they not is the question. Dwanyewest ( talk) 01:23, 30 August 2010 (UTC)
This article (not a BLP, the subject died in 1979) has been flagged for notability. The only source used in it is http://nobelprize.org/nobel_prizes/medicine/laureates/2001/hunt-autobio.html, which is the autobiography of the subject's son, Nobel Prize winner Tim Hunt. Would that count as a reliable source given the author's reputation, or does WP:NOTINHERITED still apply regardless? -- Blanchardb - Me• MyEars• MyMouth- timed 02:53, 30 August 2010 (UTC)
I want to use this Swedish language source on the List of best selling music artists article. The source which is on Norrköpings Tidningar's (newspaper) website states Roxette has sold 60m records. How reliable is this source ? thanks. Mattg82 ( talk) 13:40, 30 August 2010 (UTC)
This magazine is now defunct but is used as a source in the lede here Old Souls. It is a review of the book [49] and appears to me to be ok, but one user has tagged it so we need a consensus on it`s reliability mark nutley ( talk) 17:17, 30 August 2010 (UTC)
Would the following two articles be reliable sources in a WP:BLP article of an American individual about his connections to American political groups?
What the articles are used to source is the fact that the individual has financed certain organizations. -- Petri Krohn ( talk) 18:13, 30 August 2010 (UTC)
As always, if the matter is clearly opinion, WP:BLP requires it be clearly stated as opinion. Also if the claims are contentious, an opinion piece is likely unsuitable at all. Collect ( talk) 18:40, 30 August 2010 (UTC)
Opinion pieces should not be used as citations for facts. Dlabtot ( talk) 19:12, 30 August 2010 (UTC)
I have a general question concerning sources. It relates to a problem with certain page I am dealing with. Here is the situation:
Please kindly advice if the site in heading can be used as a source of information about the tests and investigations performed by a group of researchers, of which Dr. Sudhir Shah was one of the participants. The tests were to verify the ability of Prahlad Jani and Hira Ratan Manek to survive healthily without food and eventually water for the period of testing. http://Sudhirneuro.org has been used to publish official updates and press releases from the team of researchers on both cases. I'm bringing the issue up here per advice of Nuujinn, as expressed in this discussion. Thanks. -- Nazar ( talk) 12:17, 31 August 2010 (UTC)
Looks like garbage to me (typical content Can you imagine a human being staying alive & doing all routine activities even at age of 70, just by Sungazing – i.e – Surviving on cosmic – Solar energy. Aren’t you excited?), I wouldn't consider it a reliable source for... well anything. -- Cameron Scott ( talk) 12:20, 31 August 2010 (UTC)
My feeling is that this site is essentially a case of self-publishing. If you read the about us page, there's no mention of anyone but Dr. Shah. I can't find any other contributors to the site, there's apparently no editorial review of the material, and the impression I get is that the purpose of the site is to promote Dr. Shah and his clinic. Without peer review (as would be the case in a scientific journal), we have no way to evaluate the validity of his experiments or claims, and I think this would be considered pseudoscience. -- Nuujinn ( talk) 13:59, 31 August 2010 (UTC)
Ok. I see the trend, and it does make some sense to me, though, as I said, I doubt that the press refs we can use are of any better quality. In this connection Nuujinn suggested to remove the refs to a few more sites, based on the same reasons as Sudhirneuro.org. I'm bringing them up below to have a future reference in case of any doubts. -- Nazar ( talk) 15:30, 31 August 2010 (UTC)
The reasoning for them to be unreliable is the same as in the above discussion about Sudhirneuro.org, as suggested by Nuujinn. Please kindly comment. -- Nazar ( talk) 15:30, 31 August 2010 (UTC)
Follwing an aborted attempt at an index, I created a template to cover the articles revolving round the Festiniog Railway, in N Wales, UK. Template:Festiniog Railway Company That was back in 2008, and seemed acceptable at the time. This template containing links to other related wikipedia articles, and external sites, sits at the bottom of related articles on wikipedia. It also replaced a number of individual external links within the "See also/External links" sections of articles.
An editor has now decided that he feels this does not meet with current wikipedia policy, as it contains a number of external links. On reading the quoted documentation, I feel it does meet the guidelines, and uses commonsense.
The fact the edits made now make the panel look ludicrous by 2 major edits: The first made all links internal - even though by titles they wernt meant to be - obvious under a second edit = such as
Whilst he has also tidied up some articles, on some there are no related external links, so additional information is not available.
Comments please -- Keith 15:12, 31 August 2010 (UTC)
The convention (as far as I am aware) has always been that this type of navigation should be for internal purposes. I would also be against using them for external links. -- Cameron Scott ( talk) 16:52, 31 August 2010 (UTC)
I have now also looked at the related pages, and far from just cleaning, there has been a wholesale deletion of external references for more information, and pictures which are not available to wikipedia WHY? -- Keith 22:12, 31 August 2010 (UTC)
Just as a note to this, I did not remove references which were pointing to information on this site. However, since the reference points to an open wiki, those probably all be checked and maybe replaced by a reliable source. I am not too worried about the commercial part of this story (if there is any), just that these links are, in most cases where they were used, inappropriate.
Note about the comparison with the templates in Category:External link templates; those link directly to information about the subject, not to the generic homepage; the external link templates are different from the templates discussed here. Note, that I would on many occasions, also remove {{ wikia}}-external links per our WP:EL; the existence of such templates does not mean that they should be used without looking at the relevant policies and guidelines. Moreover, please be aware that 'arguments to avoid'/ 'comments about other links' are not inclusion arguments, they may even be arguments to exclude others. -- Dirk Beetstra T C 07:46, 1 September 2010 (UTC)
I note that far from holding off, you have continued to remove any references to our wiki for no other reason than you belief that it is wrong to have external references, which is definitely against Wikipedia policy. -- Keith 12:02, 1 September 2010 (UTC)
I will make one last point, based on your comment "External links are not supposed to be in the body of the text per WP:MOS". I would agree, but contend that placing them at the end of the article under either a "See Here" or "External Links" subset, does meet WP:etc criteria as per previous messages. Otherwise, if you were to contend placing there is still within the body of text, then no external links would exist within Wikipedia, as they wouldnt be allowed!!. Seperately, I would also agree that links to the external wiki relavent article would be better than links to its home page. However, that would be infinitely more reasonable then systematic removal from all articles, irrespective if they pointed to a related article or home page. At least then a researcher may then use a search box to get information. If there is no link, they cannot do that. -- Keith 19:29, 1 September 2010 (UTC)
I have answered to most points on WP:EL/N. -- Dirk Beetstra T C 14:06, 3 September 2010 (UTC)
There is a dispute on the assessment section of The Epoch Times article. The quote in particular relates to Michael Savage (commentator):
"In June 2010 the controversial radio host Michael Savage spoke extemporaneously about The Epoch Times for about five minutes of one of his broadcasts. He said, in part: "the journalism is on the highest level, the writing is better than The New York Times, the analysis is superior, and the stories are astonishing... I don’t read anything like this..." He read excerpts from articles for several minutes. He continued: "It says 'Chaos plagues China today...corruption is rife', I couldn’t believe that someone is telling the truth about China."
The editor who added it argued that Savage is inherently notable, thus his opinion matters. I differ, based on the fact that:
1) Michael Savage is not expert on Chinese politics nor Falun Gong and the Epoch Times. According to the source he admitted that he never read the paper until June 2010 - his comment sticks out like a sore thumb amongst others professional journalists and academics
2) According to WP:SPS, "Questionable sources are those with a poor reputation for checking the facts, or with no editorial oversight. Such sources include websites and publications expressing views that are widely acknowledged as extremist, or promotional, or which rely heavily on rumor and personal opinion. Questionable sources should be used only as sources of material on themselves, especially in articles about themselves; see below for the restrictions on using self-published sources in this way. Questionable sources are generally unsuitable for citing contentious claims about third parties." Even on his own article, Savage has been widely criticized exactly for such behaviors. -- PCPP ( talk) 07:50, 1 September 2010 (UTC)
![]() | This is an archive of past discussions. Do not edit the contents of this page. If you wish to start a new discussion or revive an old one, please do so on the current talk page. |
Archive 70 | ← | Archive 72 | Archive 73 | Archive 74 | Archive 75 | Archive 76 | → | Archive 80 |
Is http://microformats.org/wiki/ a reliable source for information about microformats? It appears to be an open wiki (I made an account and made an edit), yet with some kind of overseeing authority. Thoughts? OrangeDog ( τ • ε) 20:46, 17 August 2010 (UTC)
For the purpose of added someone to the list of alumni of a particular school, is the person's LinkedIn profile a good enough source for the fact of their attendance? The person is Jay Hodgson , who seems to be a stellar young Canadian academic in the field of music, and the school is Upper Canada College (UCC), a prestigious private boy's school in Toronto. An IP-editor (not me) added Hodgson to the list lately, twice, but the addition was reverted as unsourced, twice. By some quick-and-easy googling, I turned up a fair amount of material on Hodgson, but among the online sources I thus found, his attendance of UCC is given only by
his own LinkedIn profile. It seems to me that this should be a good enough source for the purpose of adding Hodgson to the list of UCC alumni, according to "Self-published ... sources as sources on themselves", within
Wikipedia:Identifying reliable sources. (It would be most unreasonable to suppose that Hodgson has lied about attending UCC, in his own LinkedIn profile, or that the profile is really the work of an impostor who is otherwise accurate but gives wrong information on that one point!) However, the incipient edit-war over the adding of Hodgson to the list points to a need for care, so please give your expert opinions. Thanks.
--
205.250.69.234 (
talk) 05:05, 19 August 2010 (UTC)
[1] is presented as a reliable source because "Ben Goldman is an expert" (presumably on the newspaper? On Climate? On what?) I noted that badscience.net is a blog not under the editorial control of any newspaper per WP:RS. The edit does not qualify tghe claim as an opinion, but states it is a "notable mistake" on the part of the newspaper. The queries are: Is the blog a "reliable source" for a claim under WP:RS and WP:BLP (as it impacts "living people")? Ought the claim be presented as an opinion of the author if the source is relaible? Is the claim, if it is proper, properly worded as a "notable mistake" including the part about "despite allowing other comments"? Thanks. Collect ( talk) 11:56, 17 August 2010 (UTC)
Considering that the protagonist has now stated that I am not a "rational person" and since he has not given any actual reliable source for his claims, I consider this more a WQA type of situation than anything else. Collect ( talk) 10:43, 19 August 2010 (UTC)
I'm currently in a dispute with other editors regarding content (one line) I would like to include in Maharashtra, Marathi (lead), and Pune. At an early stage in the dispute, the sources I presented were attacked for not being RS. I responded by providing the reasons that qualify them as reliable sources. But since then, despite 2-3 reminders, editors who are opposing my viewpoint have refused to say whether they consider the sources I am presenting as RS. The sources can be found in the table in this section [4] and the entire dispute starts on the same page. [5] I am seeking outside judgment validating or invalidating the sources. Detailed content from one of sources can be found at User:Zuggernaut. Please disregard the first row in the table as that is not being claimed as a RS. Thanks for your help. Zuggernaut ( talk) 23:47, 20 August 2010 (UTC)
Thank you for your time, -- Cirt ( talk) 04:00, 21 August 2010 (UTC)
I prefer to use Box Office Mojo, and I have not really scrutinized The Numbers in the past. This is what I found, though. First, Bruce Nash and The Numbers is referenced on the Wall Street Journal website several times, with this explaining the The Numbers operator after an article about Box Office Mojo: "Bruce Nash, a Los Angeles software designer who spends up to four hours a day updating site with help from two contract assistants." This from The Times apparently considers The Numbers "Hollywood researchers" and quotes Nash a few times in the article. This from MovieMaker says, "Bruce Nash runs The Numbers Website (www.the-numbers.com), which serves up a comprehensive breakdown of weekly, monthly and yearly box office totals. Box office totals for new and old titles are archived all the way back to the heyday of three-strip Technicolor. Nash says that tracking the blockbusters is more science than art these days, with all the focus centered on a movie’s opening weekend." He's then quoted multiple times in that article. On its own, I do not think that The Numbers is that poor of a source. It is worth comparing to Box Office Mojo, though, which I think is more prominent and better staffed.
For comparison's sake, let's compare the websites on some films in the past few years.
Suspecting The Numbers's weakness with foreign numbers, I checked:
With this admittedly small sample, it may be worth assuming that The-Numbers and Box Office Mojo are pretty close when it comes to domestic (United States and Canada) figures. Considering Box Office Mojo's prominence, it may be better staffed than The-Numbers and be able to report overseas grosses more accurately. Its prominence is reflected in a search engine test (in Google News Archive Search) where mention of Box Office Mojo is easily in the thousands, where The Numbers barely reaches 100 with the various keywords I tried. So for Knight and Day, I would recommend Box Office Mojo as a reference instead but still caution that international (outside the United States and Canada) figures for both websites will tend to be estimates until the film's entire theatrical run is complete. In addition, I think The Numbers has a potentially useful difference from Box Office Mojo in having DVD sales figures, where the latter just has DVD rental rankings. Erik ( talk | contribs) 14:48, 21 August 2010 (UTC)
Can we only Use Google Book Review / Sales ,the website I use is a book Review ????? -- Kimmy ( talk) 17:53, 21 August 2010 (UTC)
Is this a better source link -- Kimmy ( talk) 18:03, 21 August 2010 (UTC)
Slater that is because the source I listed is the original "Book Review" form Robert M. Grooms - The same Review is used In another Wiki page exactly how I used it link .
Sorry this is hard as the truth is hardly main steam thinking in this case - - Thank you -- Kimmy ( talk) 18:59, 21 August 2010 (UTC)
It is Strange how "Daivd Duke" pops up on Google with Grooms - You are correct "Grooms" is A ghost ? I did read the books he list though - They are good works - Thank you -- Kimmy ( talk) 19:44, 21 August 2010 (UTC)
Thank you for taking your time - Great detective work - Grooms, uses good Literary works to Justify his Article - Got you - Thank you -- Kimmy ( talk) 20:00, 21 August 2010 (UTC)
"Barnes_Review, Willis Allison Carto (July 17, 1926) is a longtime figure on the American far right. He describes himself as Jeffersonian and populist, but is primarily known for his promotion of antisemitic conspiracy theories and Holocaust denial
-- Kimmy ( talk) 20:15, 21 August 2010 (UTC)
The Barnes Review - sourcewatch link -- Kimmy ( talk) 20:25, 21 August 2010 (UTC)
I have been editing the article Day of the Dumpster. I am in dispute with the user User:Ryulong as he believes sources like this [9] are useful. I believe the website Rangers fails as a reliabe source because its a fansite does anyone have an opinion. Is it a reliable source or not? 82.25.105.18 ( talk) 06:00, 19 August 2010 (UTC)
Seeing as I was blocked for the entirety of this discussion and could not weigh in at all, I would like to point out that in the case of Power Rangers, as well as many other children's television shows which are notable in their own right, there will not be many non-trivial mentions in reliable third-party sources. As such, the only thing that editors of these articles have to get their information from is either directly reporting what happens in the show itself, or relying on self-published fan-created websites. As no one is going to be writing on the unaired pilots of Day of the Dumpster other than the fans, we should use their knowledge, even if it is below Wikipedia's standards of quality.— Ryūlóng ( 竜龙) 18:37, 20 August 2010 (UTC)
There is a question that came up in a discussion on the NOR noticeboard in regard to use of a video from Youtube, specifically one, which is linked from an article from the Guardian. We're still wrestling with the OR issues, but at this point it seems to me worth asking for clarification as to whether the youtube video can be considered a reliable source. Editor Nazar has argued that the video is "used together with the Guardian article and is a constituent part of it, which makes it a special case". My view is that the video is of unknown origin (it appears to be footage from more than one source which has been subtitled in two different language and shown on news or discussion TV show, which has then been further edited prior to the upload to youtube) and should not be used. The article is a BLP, and it seems to me there may be copyvio issues as well. Any guidance would be appreciated. -- Nuujinn ( talk) 00:17, 17 August 2010 (UTC)
@ Johnuniq: Do you think that using a con to discredit an exceptional claim is an acceptable option? Thanks. -- Nazar ( talk) 12:07, 18 August 2010 (UTC)
See for instance [10] which is used as a source for Antineutron, or [11] which is used in Bicycle and motorcycle dynamics. Kurtus's own information about himself is at [12] and linked pages. Thanks. Dougweller ( talk) 11:06, 21 August 2010 (UTC)
(This section was archived by a "bot" before a significant number of opinions (compared to other requests) were offered. CAN the article described below be used as a secondary source for various primary sources?)
The peer reviewed interdisciplinary science journal
Naturwissenschaften has published a number of articles on
cold fusion over the past five years, some of which are used in that article. However, Hagelstein, P.L. (2010)
"Constraints on energetic particles in the Fleischmann–Pons experiment" Naturwissenschaften 97(4):345-52 is the first review they have published on the subject, being based on a search "through more than a thousand papers in the published and unpublished literature on the Fleischmann–Pons experiment to find results we could use to develop estimates for upper limits of particle emission per unit energy" (p. 346; PDF p. 2.)
Is that review a reliable secondary source in the context of the cold fusion article for the following claims, which appear verbatim earlier on the same page:
Thank you for considering this question. Ura Ursa ( talk) 03:25, 1 August 2010 (UTC)
Whether a source is reliable or not is one thing, but when have editors ever before contradicted a respected, peer-reviewed journal as to whether a paper is a review or not? This whole topic has been the bizarro-world stinking armpit of wikipedia for years. 208.54.14.57 ( talk) 04:11, 3 August 2010 (UTC)
HELLO? Only one editor above has indicated that the newly published Hagelstein paper can be used as a secondary source, for allowing certain primary sources to be used in the cold fusion article. Given all the controversy at the cold fusion pages, that is not enough, by far! V ( talk) 15:17, 17 August 2010 (UTC)
Dear ladies, dear Sirs,
I have been blocked in the Ten Commandments article because my analysis of the 2nd Commmandment did not appear authorized enough with a pubication by Salem-News (Oregon internet press), another by the Editor of the British medical journal as an e-letter, and, eventually, a lecture given in the University of Keele (RU). I'm coming back with the support of one of the greatest modern scholars of the Bible: Professor Thomas Römer (Chair Biblical circles of the Collège de France, the highest academic French institution) who wrote me ( http://intact.wikia.com/wiki/File:R%C3%B6mer.jpg):
"..., you are right asserting that Gn 17 presents another vision of circumcision than Gn 15 or the Deuteronomy. The "lay" writers were apparently less interested by this practice, and even opposed to it. The expression "circumcision of the heart" could even contain a polemic stand against "circumcision of the flesh."
Will this be enough to support my thesis inside the article Ten Commandments? —Preceding unsigned comment added by 83.202.136.139 ( talk) 15:15, 23 August 2010 (UTC)
Professor Römer may be willing to provide you with relevant scholarly published literature on the issue if you ask him again nicely. Then the significance of your views can be verified. Paul B ( talk) 16:39, 24 August 2010 (UTC)
Is http://www.green-life-innovators.org/tiki-index.php?page=SunAlign+Qbasic+version an adequate source for the QBasic program recently added to Equation of time? Jc3s5h ( talk) 21:11, 24 August 2010 (UTC)
I reverted an edit to Nicole Alexander which says that she is engaged to Shaquille O'Neal, sourced to [14]. On face value, it seems to be a reliable source, but it's a gossip blog, and the source itself is just reporting rumors. Was I correct in doing so? Everard Proudfoot ( talk) 00:26, 25 August 2010 (UTC)
It seems that there are reports concerning Hitler's DNA, which assert thsat he had Jewish ancestry. This has been a popular claim since the 30s, but now journalists are making sensational assertions based on haplogroups supposed to be found lurking in the depths of the nasty Nazi's body - or rather of his relatives, since Hitler's DNA is reconstructed from relatives. Journalists play up the Jewish and North African ancestry claims. What reliable information can we derive from these reports? One editor wants to add this material with the claims of the journalists, others think it should be wholly excluded. (see Talk:Adolf_Hitler#Hitler.27s_DNA).
The article in question is Adolf Hitler.
Paul B ( talk) 23:56, 24 August 2010 (UTC)
I'm going to remove everything on this page which is sourced directly to a LaRouchie, rather than to a WP:RS about the LaRouchies. Thoughts? BillMasen ( talk) 23:16, 24 August 2010 (UTC)
Is this a reliable source for a death? It appears to be an official personal one and is already linked from the article http://graal.co.uk/index.html article is Laurence_Gardner Off2riorob ( talk) 11:10, 16 August 2010 (UTC)
Yes indeedy, the guys dead, its in his article a couple of days now. Off2riorob ( talk) 18:00, 17 August 2010 (UTC)
It strikes me that if someone succeeded in hacking an individual's web site, one of the first bits of mischief that might occur to the hacker would be to post a false death notice. Jc3s5h ( talk) 18:15, 17 August 2010 (UTC)
According to WP:SPS personal website are not considered reliable sources, and the web site in question is still a personal web site, even if the original author has passed on to the great wiki in the sky. We could call it a secondary source or a primary source, but it's still not a reliable source. "Articles should be based on reliable, third-party (independent), published sources with a reputation for fact-checking and accuracy", and this personal web site fails those criteria. Nuujinn ( talk) 21:36, 20 August 2010 (UTC)
First, the specific point is moot; The Independent has reported on Gardner's death. [18] In general, though, I would side with Jrod2 here. We accept someone acting as an agent for a person as part of self-published; after all, when someone puts a notice on their web site, do we require that they have personally edited the actual HTML, and brought up the server? When someone self publishes a book, are they expected to manually push the buttons that set the type and bind the paper? Surely not. Surely half the time they ask a secretary or spokesman or publisher or someone else to do it for them. The web server is maintained by yet another person, or even an independent web hosting company. We accept it as self-published as long as the orders come from them. In this case, I would argue that the person who put up the notice on the web site was acting as an agent for the person himself; yes, even though the person himself is dead. Whoever put up the notice is almost certainly the same person who put up all the other information on this website. -- GRuban ( talk) 16:17, 24 August 2010 (UTC)
is a breakfast eaten in South India for thousands of years. Pat Chapman in his cook book claims Dosa orginated in Udupi, Karnataka. Thangappan Nair, an Indian writer also argues the same in his book.
However, both authors do not attribute their claim. It is also possible Pat Chapman used Thangappan Nair's book as reference. Considering the venerable tradition among Indian writers to document hearsay as history, I am just urging editor User:Gnanapiti to be more careful.
it would be impossible to determine and definitely say Dosa or any traditional Indian food originated anywhere. First, there is no way the first person who made the first Dosa left any evidence behind and/or it is more than likely Dosa evolved from something else which had existed. For these reasons, wikipedia is better served if we attribute the use of the food "Dosa" in some old literature.
I have proposed either the removal of this information or attribute the opinion to the authors and the lack of citations in their book. English food writer Pat Chapman and Indian writer Thangappan Nair argue Dosa originated in Udupi, Karnataka. However, both books do not mention the source of their claim.
Any suggestion will be appreciated. -- Car Tick 13:08, 21 August 2010 (UTC)
I will tell you why I think Thangappan Nair whose 2004 book which predates Pat Chapman's 2007 book (so i believe Chapman bases his reference on Thangappan Nair) can not be considered a serious history book. T. Nair categorically says, " Idli (another south Indian food similar to Dosa), Dosa and Rasam all originated in Karnataka in prehistoric times" without any of the nuances you see in this article which reviews the book written by K. T. Achaya
To provide you some context here, steam vessels are required for Idli making. From the article,
“ | Indeed, the Chinese chronicler Xuanzang (7th century AD) categorically stated that there were no steaming vessels in India. Achaya writes that the cooks who accompanied the Hindu Kings of Indonesia between 800-1200 AD, brought fermentation and steaming methods and their dish Kedli to South India | ” |
so, how did south indians make Idli if they didnt have steaming vessels?
please compare the nuanced writings of A. T. Acharya with absoluteness of T. Nair. besides, the weasel word prehistoric is generally used by fake historians who hasnt done their research well.
If my words carry any weight, I have never heard of T. Nair being an Indian historian let alone authoritative. -- Car Tick 23:35, 21 August 2010 (UTC)
Okay, I'm in a dispute over a link and I want to bring it up to the larger community. The specific link in question is this one:
http://www.hustlermagazine.com/features/band-interviews/wendy-lisa-women-of-the-revolution
This link is being used as source for the article on Lisa Coleman (musician), specificly for this statement: "Coleman introduced her girlfriend Wendy Melvoin". It has been removed by User:Hullaballoo Wolfowitz on the grounds that it is not a reliable source. I contend that it is a reliable source in that it is clearly an interview done with the people in question. Additionally, the website has a number of other interviews with bands.
And just to be upfront, the only other debate I could find to Hustler magazine as a source was Wikipedia:Reliable sources/Noticeboard/Archive 24#Hustler magazine a reliable source for World Affairs? where the debate (to my eyes) ended up as no decision.
So... what does the community in general think? Tabercil ( talk) 18:15, 24 August 2010 (UTC)
The only qualm I have is that the word "girlfriend" is not necessarily an indication of sexuality, since it's frequently used (although perhaps less so than earlier) between two female friends with no connotation of a sexual relationship. So, if the quote is being used as a source for a subject being a lesbian, I think that could problematic. Beyond My Ken ( talk) 19:17, 24 August 2010 (UTC)
I disagee. I cannot believe that if this were non-porn magazine that we would having this debate. Reputations are defined precicely by such matters as legal history. You are, I think, confusing respectability with reliabilty. The Daily Telegraph, for example, is deeply respectable, but has a reputation for tendentious unreliability in the reporting of some matters (eg global warming). I dont know if has been sued more or less often that Hustler, but it certainly has been sued. This is not a matter of having "higher" standards, but of relevant and appropriate ones. Paul B ( talk) 12:45, 25 August 2010 (UTC)
Read more: http://vlex.com/vid/guccione-hustler-magazine-flynt-distributing-37113881#ixzz0xd1z1fkm
But it's an interview with two people, and it's them talking about stuff they did. Doesn't that fall under WP:SELFPUB - "Self-published or questionable sources may be used as sources of information about themselves, especially in articles about themselves..."? — HelloAnnyong (say whaaat?!) 21:13, 24 August 2010 (UTC)
So.... in summary then: can it be used or not? Tabercil ( talk) 16:10, 25 August 2010 (UTC)
A while back I asked for a re-assessment of Iyer because I noticed many of the sources cited were either inaccessible or did not have good editorial oversight (no reputation of fact checking, no details of who the editors were, etc). One of the websites often used as a source in the article Tamilnation.org is now defunct.
Perhaps this board can help in determining if the sources listed are relable or not. Details at: Talk:Iyer/GA1 Thanks. Zuggernaut ( talk) 20:28, 24 August 2010 (UTC)
Hello. Recently, several editors have been discussing on on the talk page of the Conservapedia article regarding the correct interpretation of a source. The statement in the Conservapedia article that is in question is the following:
Vandalism edits by both RationalWiki members and vandals from elsewhere have included the addition of errors, pornographic photos and satire.
The statement is sourced by this LA Times article, in which the following statement is where the statement in the article is derived from:
In recent months, Conservapedia's articles have been hit frequently by interlopers from RationalWiki and elsewhere. The vandals have inserted errors, pornographic photos and satire [...]
The problem that has been brought up is whether or not the source backs up the statement that RationalWikians have vandalized Conservapedia by inserting errors, pornographic photos, and satire. The article states that members of RationalWiki have vandalized Conservapedia, and the article states that vandals have introduces errors, pornographic photos, and satire, but the question lies in whether the latter includes RationalWiki members or whether it does not. Thanks for you time. ~ Super Hamster Talk Contribs 00:11, 25 August 2010 (UTC)
It's not totally clear, so use a quote. - Peregrine Fisher ( talk) 01:07, 25 August 2010 (UTC)
How reliable would you say chattahbox.com is? It is clearly a news website, and although it seems to have a left-leaning political viewpoint, it is written as one would expect a news site to be. Any thoughts? Throwaway85 ( talk) 09:48, 25 August 2010 (UTC)
Can it be considered a reliable source? It has been used by an editor. In a previous discussion here another user said that "it's an open wiki with seven users and 21 articles. It's not a reliable source and we shouldn't be using it directly for biography information." The editor, however, persists in including the info. Please kindly advise. Thanks. -- Nazar ( talk) 17:19, -- Cameron Scott ( talk) 08:51, 27 August 2010 (UTC)25 August 2010 (UTC)
Anonymous closed wiki. Fails WP:RS. Jayjg (talk) 01:24, 26 August 2010 (UTC)
Thanks everyone for participating. I agree with the view that we can not use any means just to debunk exceptional claims. All the reasoning suggested by the detractors of Jani's claims above is their own reasoning, based on their own analysis, outlook and personal logic. We do not even know if it can be trusted outside of their own imagination, because they have absolutely no credible proofs to support their views, except for the fact that the claims they oppose are rare and exceptional, and don't fit into their own understanding of how the things should be. If we start bending the neutrality principle based on such feelings of individual editors we never get a reliable encyclopedic reference, because everyone will try to push his/her own understanding, imagination and views into the article. Thanks. -- Nazar ( talk) 07:45, 27 August 2010 (UTC)
Having said that, that article is shocking - I'll take a closer look after the bank holiday. -- Cameron Scott ( talk) 08:51, 27 August 2010 (UTC)
There has been a near-perpetual conflict on Aquatic_ape_hypothesis concerning a single source - www.aquaticape.org [24] by Jim Moore. The conflict is "resolved" only when one group or another simply gets tired of arguing and the page lapses into stasis, only to re-emerge with the next editing activity. The problem is that AAH is, depending on how charitable you are, at best an unverified hypothesis which is not taken seriously by the scholarly community and at worst pseudoscience/fringe completely lacking in coherent hypotheses, testable predictions or any substantial evidence. The entire origin of the theory (which we cannot ignore, obviously) is from a non-peer-reviewed science magazine article (spawned from a purely speculative lecture at a non-technical setting) and a non-scientific text by a non-academic publisher, so right there the bar gets set fairly low - all scientific, peer-reviewed sources are either inconclusive, extremely brief, or critical of the idea, including a prominent paper by Langdon which basically tears the theory apart bit by bit. Unfortunately, several claims are not addressed by Langdon, and other sources must be found. Myself and other users have included and argued for the inclusion of the above website due to its extensive nature (printed out, it would take hundreds of pages), excellent use of citations (as much as possible is properly cited to legit scientific papers), prominence (I've never seen a debate on the topic where it *isn't* cited, in part due to the fact that, as a website, it's far more accessible than journal articles), and detailed criticism. Opponents object based on the fact that it's not a peer-review publication (ignoring that the original texts of the idea aren't either), that the author isn't an anthropologist (ignoring that the great recent popularizer of AAH isn't either), that it's unfairly biased against AAH, and simply that it's a website. In the context of this topic (a theory most reputable scientists consider too laughable to bother with), I contend that those who oppose it are simply looking for an excuse to exclude it. However, any argument about it inevitably devolves into the same argument between the same 4-5 people. Requests for help at numerous Wikiprojects have met with either total silence or drive-by opinions.
Frankly, I'm sick of the whole argument, and I'd like a final ruling on whether http://www.aquaticape.org/ is a reliable source or not, especially given the fringe nature of the page topic as a whole. Mokele ( talk) 19:22, 25 August 2010 (UTC)
What I came here for was actual explanations, and if it turns out that Moore really isn't a reliable source even under the relaxed WP:fringe rules, fine. What I did NOT come here for was yet another argument with you, kwami; I can have that on the AAH page. You've managed to once again drown out any other conversation in a torrent of bias. Now please, shut the hell up and let someone who ISN'T INVESTED IN THE ISSUE get a word in edgewise. I hoped for a discussion on this topic and outside opinions, not the same old fight with the same old person, something more sophisticated that blindly reading the rules to me.
OK, discussion reboot: AAH is a WP:fringe idea not taken seriously by any reputable scientist. However, it is also notable enough to warrant it's own page. This creates a problem in terms of sources - most only mention it in passing (a few lines here and there), with the entire origin of the theory in two sources (neither of which meets WP:RS), and only a single substantial critique that does meet WP:RS.
So, when a WP:Fringe subject clearly warrants an article, but sources are thin on the ground, what then? Is it acceptable to use a potentially non-RS website to address a claim from a non-RS book? Especially when leaving the claim unaddressed leads to problems with WP:UNDUE and WP:PARITY? —Preceding unsigned comment added by Mokele ( talk • contribs) 03:03, August 26, 2010
OK, so we've got some more No responses and more Limited Use responses. Anyone else? I'm hoping for some stronger level of consensus, to forestall future arguments on the page. Mokele ( talk) 15:09, 28 August 2010 (UTC)
Can the Islamic Quarterly, and more specifically this [26] be considered a reliable source in history of science-type articles? My own feeling is that it isn't, but I would like a second opinion. It is not a scholarly, peer-reviewed publication on the subject, nor do its articles provide bibliography. It was heavily used by User:Jagged 85, subject of this RfC/U [27] for using shoddy sources for agenda-based editing, among other things. As part of a proposed cleanup following the RfC/U, I would like to know if this source should be allowed to stand or be removed. Athenean ( talk) 19:57, 25 August 2010 (UTC)
This appears to be a website authored by an English professor, an Arabic translator/Qur'an teacher, and someone who has written several "How to" books on Islam from obscure publishers. It would not qualify as a WP:RS for science or history (or history of science) topics. Jayjg (talk) 01:21, 26 August 2010 (UTC)
I made
this revert on the basis that it was wasn't sourced correctly. The source is a reproduction of an Irish Daily Mail article in blog. The paper itself doesn't reproduce online. Could this info be re-introduced in the basis of the current source?
GainLine
♠
♥ 21:15, 25 August 2010 (UTC)
An editor recently added a POV tag to the top of the Somalia article based on a few sentences in the economy section, which he suggested advanced an 'Austrian economic' agenda. Although the statements in question were actually factual assertions and not value judgements, after much arguing back and forth, I nonetheless attempted to accommodate the user's concerns by replacing those sentences altogether with material from the Central Bank of Somalia, among other reliable sources. However, according to the user, the Central Bank of Somalia itself is now apparently also an unreliable source. In his words, it represents a "source with a conflict of interest in describing Somalia's economy" and is "also not an organization of economists, not necessarily reliable". Basically, it's like arguing that the Federal Reserve is not a reliable source on the US economy; it's a tall order. I have tried reasoning with the editor, and explained to him that the Central Bank of Somalia is actually the nation's monetary authority and that the former Governor of the Bank [28] is also the Alternate Governor of the Islamic Development Bank Group. However, to no apparent effect. I would therefore like to know what is Wikipedia's policy on this issue, and whether economic material from a country's own central bank indeed qualifies as unreliable. Middayexpress ( talk) 01:35, 26 August 2010 (UTC)
This is not directly about what is a reliable source, but rather where in an article a reliable source may be considered to be cited.
There is a proposal to alter the Template:No footnotes from
to
The request was initially made back December 2009 in Template talk:No footnotes#Clarification. I made a bold edit to remove "related reading or external links," but it was reversed.
The conversation is split over two talk pages and a user's talk page
It would be most useful if people who regularly contribute to this talk page were to discuss on Template talk:No footnotes#Clarification whether the string "related reading or external links," should or should not be removed from the template. -- PBS ( talk) 09:40, 26 August 2010 (UTC)
The Security Council Resolution 242 article contains a subsection, about a common law maxim "Expressio unius est exclusio alterius" which is sourced to Danielle R. Sassoon, "The Unmaking of U.N. Resolution 242: The Story of how Resolution 242 was Undone Before it was Even Finished", New Society, Harvard College Student Middle East Journal, September 7, 2007. [31]
The author was an undergraduate (class of 2008) majoring in history and literature. The article was posted to the student blog by the founding editor of the "New Society, Harvard College Student Middle East Journal", Julia Bertelsmann, a junior at Harvard College studying Economics. [32] I think the article gives undue weight to the legal opinions of an author with no apparent qualifications.
Sassoon says "The legal principle “expression unis et exclusion alterus” affirms that excluded terms must be understood as deliberately excluded and the document’s interpretation must be tailored correspondingly." She cites an Abba Eban quote from Sydney Bailey, The Making of Resolution 242. Boston: Martinus Nijhoff Publishers, 1985. page 155. Neither Bailey nor Eban mention the common law maxim "expressio unius est exclusio alterius". Many UN member states do not have legal systems that incorporate the maxims of English common law. In addition, many legal scholars have written that the inclusion of explicit clauses about the inadmissibility of acquisition of territory by war, and the requirement for respect of territorial integrity and sovereignty of every state in the area demonstrates that the Security Council did not intend to create loopholes in the norms of international law for Israel's benefit. See The Impact of Peremptory Norms on the Interpretation and Application of United Nations Security Council Resolutions', by Alexander Orakhelashvili, The European Journal of International Law Vol. 16 no.1 [33]
Sassoon incorrectly claims "the condemnation of territorial acquisition is confined to and separated in the preamble, detached from the actual outline of principles for a negotiation." The official 'Repertoire of the Practice of the Security Council' [34] contains an analytical table of Security Council decisions (Chapter 8) for 1966-1968 which explicitly states that the preamble of resolution 242 contains several substantial measures that govern the settlement. See for example "IV Measures for Settlement" - "E. Provisions bearing on issues of substance including terms of settlement" - "1. Enunciation or affirmation of principles governing settlement" - "(a) Inadmissibility of acquisition of territory by war, Situation in the Middle East(II): decision of 22 November 1967 (resolution 242 (1967)) preamble", on page 5, column 2: [35]
Sassoon argues that the French version of the resolution is not authoritative: "As the official document, the English text holds the authority, but the French and Soviets maintained otherwise." In fact, US Secretary of State Rusk and UK Foreign Minister Brown both stated the French version was equally authentic and legitimate. Brown said that he had discussed that issue with the Israeli government, and that they were aware of it. See Rusk "As I Saw It", Dean and Richard Rusk, W.W. Norton, 1990, ISBN 0393026507, page 389; and Palestine and the law: guidelines for the resolution of the Arab-Israel conflict, by Musa E. Mazzawi, Ithaca Press, 1997, ISBN: 0863722229, page 209 [36]
Sassoon argues that the omission of the definite article in the English version makes the intention clear and that Ambassador Goldberg's remarks to the Security Council on 7 November 1967 confirm that fact. However, Goldberg was instructed on 9 November 1967 to make a statement to the Security Council on behalf of the US government that the text of the resolution would not prejudice the position of those directly concerned, See the verbatim minutes of the Security Council, para 190, page 22: [37] and Foreign Relations of the United States, 1964–1968, Volume XIX, Arab-Israeli Crisis and War, 1967, Document 521, para 5 & 6 [38] harlan ( talk) 10:07, 26 August 2010 (UTC)
Doesn't look like a RS to me - I would remove it myself but that would then involve me with batshit crazy I/P mentalists and I try and avoid that at all costs. -- Cameron Scott ( talk) 10:09, 26 August 2010 (UTC)
The online literary magazine Literateur publishes interviews with poets, novelists, etc. containing biographical material that is often not available elsewhere. As per WP:IRS, it seems to me that these interviews would be an acceptable external link or reference for author biographies in Wikipedia as long as (quoting here from the policy)
In the course of an editorial dispute resulting from the publisher of Literateur adding links to some interviews, later links made from other accounts were dismissed as spam and the site listed for blacklisting.
To quote one contribution to the discussion there, "This might meet the requirements of Wikipedia:Identifying reliable sources#Self-published and questionable sources as sources on themselves. Even then, I think any decision to use an interview from such a site should be only made by trusted, established, neutral editors after a talk page discussion as to how that source uniquely benefits the article in providing information not otherwise available." I feel that such a requirement presents an unnecessarily high hurdle. I would prefer to see "trusted, established, neutral editors" discuss the matter here, and reach a decision. The following thread also references this source: [39] Questionic ( talk) 17:28, 26 August 2010 (UTC)
I know the headline is confusing, but hear me out. I primarily edit video-game articles on Wikipedia, and I've found that a lot of the articles contain info about "unofficial" content, whether it's unofficial patches or "mods". Most of the time, such content has not received any coverage in by independent, reliable sources, while some do, but in a way that I'm unsure about, like the article Precursors. This link [www.gamebanshee.com/news/99349-the-precursors-and-white-gold-war-in-paradise-english-translation-patches.html] was used to support keeping mention of a translation patch in the article, and I see three problems here: The editor who added mention of the patch, is the patch's creator. The next one is the most important: The source, GameBanshee, has been listed as reliable, but the article was written about a week ago, and says that the creator contacted them. Having had disputes with the same guy on other pages about similar patches he has produced and added mention of to other articles, I'd say that disqualifies the source because he himself contacted them to get attention for the patch, and, most probably, to get a chance to re-add the patch with a reliable source. Am I off-base when I think this is a violation of WP:SPS? I don't think that's fair play when you cite a reliable source that you yourself contacted to get your content listed/noticed, in connection with a content dispute. This might seem awfully specific for this section, but this is a situation that I find myself in often when I clean up video-game articles, and that's why I'm drawing on this particular example: I need to know if coverage similar to the article above -- very short article with mostly info from the patch/creator -- acceptable? And does it make a difference if the author of the content is shown as having contacted the site/source? Another example of what I mean can be found here [40], and [41]. These are sources that are currently being discussed in the Vampire: The Masquerade - Bloodlines, and I'd like to get some feedback on these kinds of sources -- short mentions in reliable sources, often instigated by the authors themselves. I'm gonna run into this situation again, so I need to clear this up first. Sorry if this was written in a confusing way, but it is a confusing issue. Eik Corell ( talk) 20:39, 26 August 2010 (UTC)
Is the Christian news publication World (magazine) a reliable sources for reporting facts about another Christian publication, Sojourners? It reported on issues of the funding of Sojourners by outside groups. An editor has challenged its reliable source status. Drrll ( talk) 23:40, 26 August 2010 (UTC)
Over at Ghanaians in the United Kingdom, this book is being used as a source for a statement that there are 1.5 million Ghanaians in the UK, according to the Ghanaian High Commission in London. That's a very high figure. The Office for National Statistics estimates that there are 93,000 Ghanaian-born people in the UK, and the total number of black Africans in the 2001 census was only 485,277. Moreover, the source states that there may be 850,000 Ghanaians in London alone. If this were true, they'd make up 10 per cent of the capital's population. I'm a bit suspicious of these figures, to say the least. It seems odd to me that the source states "estimates suggest that the number of Ghanaians who are officially registered with the Ghana High Commission...". Surely this isn't something that would be estimated? People are either registered or not, so no estimate needs to be made. What are people's thoughts on this? Cordless Larry ( talk) 09:37, 27 August 2010 (UTC)
Is the imfdb considered a reliable source? My guess is that it is not, considering that it is a Wiki, with entirely user-generated content. I removed it from the external links of a film article, and wanted to get some opinions from other editors about its appropriateness. --- RepublicanJacobite The'FortyFive' 01:32, 28 August 2010 (UTC)
Is this source reliable for this birth information? Another editor has opined that it is not, and that it may have simply gotten that info from Wikipedia itself. Nightscream ( talk) 03:03, 29 August 2010 (UTC)
I'm considering bringing an NFL article to FA, and many of the existing cites are to Pro-Football-Reference.com. Here is a link to the "about" page.-- Wehwalt ( talk) 14:08, 29 August 2010 (UTC)
[46] for this edit, In their book Climate of Extremes, Patrick J. Michaels and Robert C. Balling wrote "For our money the best climate blog out there is Climate Audit" mark nutley ( talk) 18:29, 29 August 2010 (UTC)
It has been suggested at Talk:Master_of_Magic#RPG.net that rpg.net site is not a reliable source. User:Jappalang wrote: "rpg.net has nothing to demonstrate its reliability in the Wikipedia sense. It is simply "an independent web site about tabletop roleplaying games" with no editorial policy nor heavy reliance by academic, scholarly, or media sources." I agree with Jappalang second sentence, but I do wonder if this makes the site unreliable? It is a notable website that posts game reviews; in fact our article on the website even has a section dedicated to their reviews :) Sure, it is not peer reviewed, but is it not a valid source of uncontroversial game information? PS. If the consensus is that it is not a reliable source, those links need to be checked. -- Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus| talk 19:00, 29 August 2010 (UTC)
The creator of this article has asked if the 'notability' tag can be removed, and I'm not sure; they've added lots of references, but most are probably not reliable sources, and e.g. the BBC reference really is the barest of passing mentions; it will take some time to check through, hence asking for input from others here. Thanks, Chzz ► 19:43, 29 August 2010 (UTC)
I think it has been asked already, but I have to ask this question: Is Joshua Project project reliable? It does not seem to be neutral. Can it be used as a source? For example, White Argentine and Kurdish diaspora articles use this project for finding the numbers of particular ethnic groups. Kavas ( talk) 21:44, 29 August 2010 (UTC)
There is a mass nomination of Transformer related articles such as Buzzsaw (Transformers), Alice (Transformers) and a few others. My concern is some article use websites such as [47] and [48] as third person sources. Surely these websites aren't considered reliable or independent sources of information are or they not is the question. Dwanyewest ( talk) 01:23, 30 August 2010 (UTC)
This article (not a BLP, the subject died in 1979) has been flagged for notability. The only source used in it is http://nobelprize.org/nobel_prizes/medicine/laureates/2001/hunt-autobio.html, which is the autobiography of the subject's son, Nobel Prize winner Tim Hunt. Would that count as a reliable source given the author's reputation, or does WP:NOTINHERITED still apply regardless? -- Blanchardb - Me• MyEars• MyMouth- timed 02:53, 30 August 2010 (UTC)
I want to use this Swedish language source on the List of best selling music artists article. The source which is on Norrköpings Tidningar's (newspaper) website states Roxette has sold 60m records. How reliable is this source ? thanks. Mattg82 ( talk) 13:40, 30 August 2010 (UTC)
This magazine is now defunct but is used as a source in the lede here Old Souls. It is a review of the book [49] and appears to me to be ok, but one user has tagged it so we need a consensus on it`s reliability mark nutley ( talk) 17:17, 30 August 2010 (UTC)
Would the following two articles be reliable sources in a WP:BLP article of an American individual about his connections to American political groups?
What the articles are used to source is the fact that the individual has financed certain organizations. -- Petri Krohn ( talk) 18:13, 30 August 2010 (UTC)
As always, if the matter is clearly opinion, WP:BLP requires it be clearly stated as opinion. Also if the claims are contentious, an opinion piece is likely unsuitable at all. Collect ( talk) 18:40, 30 August 2010 (UTC)
Opinion pieces should not be used as citations for facts. Dlabtot ( talk) 19:12, 30 August 2010 (UTC)
I have a general question concerning sources. It relates to a problem with certain page I am dealing with. Here is the situation:
Please kindly advice if the site in heading can be used as a source of information about the tests and investigations performed by a group of researchers, of which Dr. Sudhir Shah was one of the participants. The tests were to verify the ability of Prahlad Jani and Hira Ratan Manek to survive healthily without food and eventually water for the period of testing. http://Sudhirneuro.org has been used to publish official updates and press releases from the team of researchers on both cases. I'm bringing the issue up here per advice of Nuujinn, as expressed in this discussion. Thanks. -- Nazar ( talk) 12:17, 31 August 2010 (UTC)
Looks like garbage to me (typical content Can you imagine a human being staying alive & doing all routine activities even at age of 70, just by Sungazing – i.e – Surviving on cosmic – Solar energy. Aren’t you excited?), I wouldn't consider it a reliable source for... well anything. -- Cameron Scott ( talk) 12:20, 31 August 2010 (UTC)
My feeling is that this site is essentially a case of self-publishing. If you read the about us page, there's no mention of anyone but Dr. Shah. I can't find any other contributors to the site, there's apparently no editorial review of the material, and the impression I get is that the purpose of the site is to promote Dr. Shah and his clinic. Without peer review (as would be the case in a scientific journal), we have no way to evaluate the validity of his experiments or claims, and I think this would be considered pseudoscience. -- Nuujinn ( talk) 13:59, 31 August 2010 (UTC)
Ok. I see the trend, and it does make some sense to me, though, as I said, I doubt that the press refs we can use are of any better quality. In this connection Nuujinn suggested to remove the refs to a few more sites, based on the same reasons as Sudhirneuro.org. I'm bringing them up below to have a future reference in case of any doubts. -- Nazar ( talk) 15:30, 31 August 2010 (UTC)
The reasoning for them to be unreliable is the same as in the above discussion about Sudhirneuro.org, as suggested by Nuujinn. Please kindly comment. -- Nazar ( talk) 15:30, 31 August 2010 (UTC)
Follwing an aborted attempt at an index, I created a template to cover the articles revolving round the Festiniog Railway, in N Wales, UK. Template:Festiniog Railway Company That was back in 2008, and seemed acceptable at the time. This template containing links to other related wikipedia articles, and external sites, sits at the bottom of related articles on wikipedia. It also replaced a number of individual external links within the "See also/External links" sections of articles.
An editor has now decided that he feels this does not meet with current wikipedia policy, as it contains a number of external links. On reading the quoted documentation, I feel it does meet the guidelines, and uses commonsense.
The fact the edits made now make the panel look ludicrous by 2 major edits: The first made all links internal - even though by titles they wernt meant to be - obvious under a second edit = such as
Whilst he has also tidied up some articles, on some there are no related external links, so additional information is not available.
Comments please -- Keith 15:12, 31 August 2010 (UTC)
The convention (as far as I am aware) has always been that this type of navigation should be for internal purposes. I would also be against using them for external links. -- Cameron Scott ( talk) 16:52, 31 August 2010 (UTC)
I have now also looked at the related pages, and far from just cleaning, there has been a wholesale deletion of external references for more information, and pictures which are not available to wikipedia WHY? -- Keith 22:12, 31 August 2010 (UTC)
Just as a note to this, I did not remove references which were pointing to information on this site. However, since the reference points to an open wiki, those probably all be checked and maybe replaced by a reliable source. I am not too worried about the commercial part of this story (if there is any), just that these links are, in most cases where they were used, inappropriate.
Note about the comparison with the templates in Category:External link templates; those link directly to information about the subject, not to the generic homepage; the external link templates are different from the templates discussed here. Note, that I would on many occasions, also remove {{ wikia}}-external links per our WP:EL; the existence of such templates does not mean that they should be used without looking at the relevant policies and guidelines. Moreover, please be aware that 'arguments to avoid'/ 'comments about other links' are not inclusion arguments, they may even be arguments to exclude others. -- Dirk Beetstra T C 07:46, 1 September 2010 (UTC)
I note that far from holding off, you have continued to remove any references to our wiki for no other reason than you belief that it is wrong to have external references, which is definitely against Wikipedia policy. -- Keith 12:02, 1 September 2010 (UTC)
I will make one last point, based on your comment "External links are not supposed to be in the body of the text per WP:MOS". I would agree, but contend that placing them at the end of the article under either a "See Here" or "External Links" subset, does meet WP:etc criteria as per previous messages. Otherwise, if you were to contend placing there is still within the body of text, then no external links would exist within Wikipedia, as they wouldnt be allowed!!. Seperately, I would also agree that links to the external wiki relavent article would be better than links to its home page. However, that would be infinitely more reasonable then systematic removal from all articles, irrespective if they pointed to a related article or home page. At least then a researcher may then use a search box to get information. If there is no link, they cannot do that. -- Keith 19:29, 1 September 2010 (UTC)
I have answered to most points on WP:EL/N. -- Dirk Beetstra T C 14:06, 3 September 2010 (UTC)
There is a dispute on the assessment section of The Epoch Times article. The quote in particular relates to Michael Savage (commentator):
"In June 2010 the controversial radio host Michael Savage spoke extemporaneously about The Epoch Times for about five minutes of one of his broadcasts. He said, in part: "the journalism is on the highest level, the writing is better than The New York Times, the analysis is superior, and the stories are astonishing... I don’t read anything like this..." He read excerpts from articles for several minutes. He continued: "It says 'Chaos plagues China today...corruption is rife', I couldn’t believe that someone is telling the truth about China."
The editor who added it argued that Savage is inherently notable, thus his opinion matters. I differ, based on the fact that:
1) Michael Savage is not expert on Chinese politics nor Falun Gong and the Epoch Times. According to the source he admitted that he never read the paper until June 2010 - his comment sticks out like a sore thumb amongst others professional journalists and academics
2) According to WP:SPS, "Questionable sources are those with a poor reputation for checking the facts, or with no editorial oversight. Such sources include websites and publications expressing views that are widely acknowledged as extremist, or promotional, or which rely heavily on rumor and personal opinion. Questionable sources should be used only as sources of material on themselves, especially in articles about themselves; see below for the restrictions on using self-published sources in this way. Questionable sources are generally unsuitable for citing contentious claims about third parties." Even on his own article, Savage has been widely criticized exactly for such behaviors. -- PCPP ( talk) 07:50, 1 September 2010 (UTC)