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I was reading some quotes cited to the Committee for Accuracy in Middle East Reporting in America, and I found a few problems related to the ongoing "Jewish lobby" headache.
This speech from Bishop Desmond Tutu was also reported by the BBC. Interestingly, CAMERA appears to have dropped a line from the middle of the quote. The BBC quotes him as saying:
CAMERA dropped the bolded text, which distorts the meaning a bit. Tutu was speaking against Israeli apartheid at the time.
So I'd suggest that using CAMERA as a reliable source for quotations is somewhat iffy. What comes out of CAMERA may not be what went in. CAMERA may be useful as a finding tool (they're powered by Google), but actual quotes should come from a less partisan source. CAMERA's output is mostly derived from other press sources, so if CAMERA has something, there's probably another source for it. -- John Nagle ( talk) 17:39, 4 March 2008 (UTC)
"CAIR can be quoted on itself and Muslims..." -- Would that were true -- See, e.g. "The 8-Million Muslim Lie," INVESTOR'S BUSINESS DAILY, http://www.investors.com/editorial/editorialcontent.asp?secid=1501&status=article&id=253930273179676. Just because "major news outlets" believe them doesn't make it so. [Nor will you find any comparable lies from CAMERA.]
CAMERA cannot possibly be considered a reliable source, and they have been caught collaborating secretly with existing Wikipedia editors to subvert Wikipedia editorial processes. See [
EI exclusive: a pro-Israel group's plan to rewrite history on Wikipedia]. The linked article includes primary source emails from CAMERA staff and Wikipedia users.
Bangpound (
talk) 14:44, 21 April 2008 (UTC)
We should use sources that speak of "Palestinian duplicity" the same day we use sources that speak of "Jewish duplicity". Using CAMERA for "facts" about the I-P conflict is directly equivalent to using the Communist Party of the US for "facts" about the Cold War or the US in Vietnam. It's not that they've got a POV (we've all got one) - the problem with the CP and CAMERA is that they're in lock-step with the governments they support. In CAMERA's case, it's even worse, since they're the angry wing of Israeli POV-pushing. While I'm here, let me state that I've never seen a critic of Israel cheating (eg removing good information for entirely partisan reasons, as we've seen a huge amount of), and nobody has ever tried to recruit me into any kind of cheating enterprise. CAMERA (even worse than the CP) behaves, and has always behaved, like a source that nobody would want to trust. It's bad enough when the protecting of cheats was happening from established editors, lets not encourage this stuff! PR talk 09:37, 28 April 2008 (UTC)
We've been through a number of clashes regarding quotes by CAMREA; esp. regarding the Jenin "massacre" hoax. When it came down to verifying the quotes, approx. 46-47 out of 50 were already found and the issue still would not go away with Eleland and PalestineRemembered insisting that the Washington Post (who were behind a couple of the quotes) is controlled by a cult. At the time I asked Eleland to pick two of the quotes that he wants me to find in order to alleviate his source concenrs - and he did - and I verified both. I think that CAMERA has proven itself far more reliable about quotes from Arabs and Israelis or stories on Israel related topics than the BBC, the Guardian and the Independant, and I have examples to show for this statement. I do however, fully agree that when possible (adequate replacement is found) CAMERA should not be used, since it is a biased source and if it is used, it should e attributed as the used source. Jaakobou Chalk Talk 14:54, 30 April 2008 (UTC)
In the article on " orthomolecular medicine" also commonly known as "megavitamin therapy", it is disputed whether a statement from the AMA Council on Scientific Affairs dealing with Alternative medicine section on Diet/nutrition is a reliable source to which we can attribute criticism of alternative medical systems that use diet and nutrition: particularly the discussion of systems that, as the report says, "promote dietary supplements beyond the Recommended Dietary Allowances". Tim Vickers ( talk) 17:15, 2 April 2008 (UTC)
← I would caution against the approach that Wilk v. American Medical Association invalidates the AMA's position on everything. Jayson Blair's fabrications don't make the New York Times an unreliable source. The question is not so much whether the AMA is infallibly correct, but whether it is a useful representation of mainstream medical/scientific opinion, which for the most part it is. Hence it is a reliable source, as Wikipedia defines the term, regardless of our personal opinions of its reliability. MastCell Talk 18:19, 2 April 2008 (UTC)
The AMA is unquestionably a reliable source (as per wikipedia's use of the term), and in most instances also a noteworthy source. Just need to be careful that any AMA opinion/recommendation is properly attributed to the organization in the main text itself. Abecedare ( talk) 18:57, 2 April 2008 (UTC)
The American Medical Association is an excellent RS for describing the mainstream POV in medical science. The different wording (orthomolecular vs dietary supplements in excess of RDA) is not troubling: the former is an "in-term" among those who ascribe to high-dosages, while the latter is a more mainstream description of the same phenomenon. Therefore, the AMA is not only a reliable source in general, but it is also reliable in the context of this article. Antelan talk 20:15, 2 April 2008 (UTC)
I am trying to understand the concept of the policy here. Is the AMA "most definitely a reliable source" because they are big and famous? No. We should look to third-party published sources with a reputation for fact-checking and accuracy and I think that the Journal of the American Medical Association just sometimes meets that policy standard. Considering the criticisms that the AMA at times acts as a guild would violate our policy because in those cases they would fail the third-party threshold. SaltyBoatr ( talk) 18:13, 3 April 2008 (UTC)
May I suggest that saying "the AMA" is too broad a term to judge RS? Offhand, I can think of several levels of reliability/verifiability:
I would suggest that the first is reliable, and in all probability the second. The third and fourth are more questionable, although some journals are very careful about #4, such as the (non-AMA) New England Journal of Medicine, where an editorial is almost always supplementing original research reports in the same journal issue.
The last two are indeed questionable. Going back to the more reliable sources, there are research reports that are more or less strong in their methodology. For example, a randomized controlled trial, with double blinding, crossover, and a statistically significant population is pretty much the platinum standard. Meta-analyses that purely compare other original studies can be meaningful, but have to be read much more carefully.
A report that challenges the methodology of another study may indeed point out deficiencies in that study, but that doesn't mean that the position of the challenger is RS and V -- only that the challenge is RS and V.
Howard C. Berkowitz ( talk) 16:36, 4 April 2008 (UTC)
I added this Table to summarize some relative weight criteria, and to link discussions, to the different references that concern the Lede.-- TheNautilus ( talk) 08:29, 10 April 2008 (UTC)
Beyond the adversarial, non-scientific way JAMA has allowed its authors to treat not-so-pharmaceutically-oriented orthomolecular medicine or nutritionally-oriented doctors, let's look at more recent criticism of JAMA in the last 10 years.
New York Times Magazine, 1998
on JAMA, and others:
JAMA's (then) editor-in-chief on an example of JAMA's declining Journal standards in response to wide criticism on an article by Quackwatch and NCAHF authors: While admitting that five years ago the article "wouldn't have made it into peer review"
NYTM on partiality and conflict of interest: Medical journals represent scholarship, of course, but they are also businesses, and most are beholden to drug makers for their economic viability. N.E.J.M. and JAMA had display advertising revenues last year of $19 million and $21.4 million respectively, the vast bulk of it from drug companies. and ...JAMA has yet to shed completely its poor-cousin status, or its eagerness to please.
NYTM on authors' fears:...JAMA has also adopted this policy, albeit selectively, as have other journals, with the practical effect that the journals enjoy an exclusive franchise on the medical information they purvey. As a result, many scientists are loath to speak publicly of their work for fear of jeopardizing their chances of publication.
Certainly this article suggests a problem: Richard Smith (former editor of BMJ). "Medical journals are an extension of the marketing arm of pharmaceutical companies." PLoS Med 2005;2: e138 The evidence is strong that companies are getting the results they want, and this is especially worrisome because between two-thirds and three-quarters of the trials published in the major journals—Annals of Internal Medicine, JAMA, Lancet, and New England Journal of Medicine—are funded by the industry
Also this 2005 BMJ editorial implies that JAMA seems to think that there have been previous problems with JAMA's own reliablity (and credibility) "Extra scrutiny for industry funded trials" editors at JAMA have recognised the potential for a problem—perhaps bias, fraud, or shoddy work—in submissions funded by industry. Interesting that BMJ with an even higher percentage of ad revenue thinks JAMA's late found reforms are a too "draconian solution".
"In Search of the Truth or Jerry Springer", Nursing Forum Vol 33, No 2, April-June, 1998 Controversial issues must be presented fairly, without animosity. When authors include bias of personal opinions or prejudiced language, editorial reviewers usually red-flag these indiscretions. In fact, this style of writing often raises questions of the research validity to reviewers. Should authors’ bias be overlooked, however, by reviewers, in-house JAMA editorial staff most certainly would remove inflammatory and biased words. When a journal as prestigious as JAMA publishes a research article ...Was the usual review process of JAMA bypassed, or were reviewers’ concerns ignored? Inflammatory language on the “Jerry Springer” show serves to ignite an audience-the show’s exclusive motive. What was JAMAs motive?
Of course, most recently in the 16 April 2008 NY Times: JAMA itself published one of the Vioxx studies that was cited in Dr. Ross’s article...in 2002, ...the journal’s editor..."I consider that being scammed" and "Journal editors also bear some of the responsibility for enabling companies to manipulate publications." Especially some predecessors.
Seems JAMA, and others, may have some serious house cleaning to catch up on. [23] [24] We need to try carefully consider WP:V, NPOV, BALANCE, WEIGHT, FACTCHECKING and RS. Biases, of many flavors have been shown, where AMA and the journals (including JAMA) are still struggling with them today, much less the fallout from in their past.-- TheNautilus ( talk) 03:47, 22 April 2008 (UTC)updated 24 April 2008
I added [25] to Neil Strauss to give at least some balance. Several attempts have been made to remove it (or sabotage it by editing the url). It's been removed again, in good faith I believe, on the basis that it is from a blog. It isn't, it is from the Seduction Community's main website (they also have a blog), but I said I'd check that it was ok to use it. Any reviews of 'Stylelife Academy' are likely to be on sites like this one, and I think it is an appopriate site to use, but I'm open to correction. Thanks.-- Doug Weller ( talk) 08:59, 10 May 2008 (UTC)
firstly it is not the seduction community's main website, secondly while just maybe and perhaps it might be allowed in an article if worded right in this case as it is about a living person much more care should be taken ( WP:BLP) so I'll have to agree that it shouldn't really be here. Mathmo Talk 09:10, 13 May 2008 (UTC)
Please see Talk:First Vision#Mormonism Research Ministry for a discussion regarding the reliability of a video ( Search for the Truth (video)) that was linked to the First Vision article and has since been the subject of an editing dispute (not yet a full-blown edit war; see that article's recent history). I ask for input from the community in this discussion, since the few editors involved in the discussion there can't agree on whether the video is a reliable source for the First Vision article, and past bad blood between those editors makes it unlikely that we will be able to reach agreement cordially on our own. Thanks in advance for helping resolve this dispute. alanyst / talk/ 23:20, 10 May 2008 (UTC)
I want an opinion about the boxofficeindia site. It has being used extensively by a group of editors on Indian cinema related articles. is being touted as the "OFFICIAL SITE FOR INDIAN FILM STATISTICS" on this FAC. However, I see no evidence whatsoever of any such thing anywhere on that site or anywhere else. Admittedly, some sources do quote from this site here and there, but then that isnt enough to qualify any source as RS. For that matter, even wikipedia and several popular blogs are quoted quite often in the media. That does not automatically make wikipedia or those blogs RS. I will appreciate some outside views. Thanks. Sarvagnya 16:42, 9 May 2008 (UTC)
BOI is a self published source and the policy in question is WP:SPS. This is what WP:SPS says --
“ | Anyone can create a website or
pay to have a book published, then claim to be an expert in a certain field. For that reason, self-published books, newsletters, personal websites, open wikis,
blogs, forum postings, and similar sources are largely not acceptable.
Self-published material may, in some circumstances, be acceptable when produced by an established expert on the topic of the article whose work in the relevant field has previously been published by reliable third-party publications. However, caution should be exercised when using such sources: if the information in question is really worth reporting, someone else is likely to have done so. Self-published sources should never be used as third-party sources about living persons, even if the author is a well-known professional researcher or writer; see WP:BLP#Reliable sources. |
” |
So, now tell me --
What are the credentials of those who run BOI? Are they expert statisticians? Are they film experts? What exactly are their qualifications? Has their work in the relevant field been published (note: "Published" is not the same as "quoted") in independent third-party sources? If so, where? When? By whom? Unless you can answer these questions convincingly, I do not see how this source can qualify as a reliable source. Sarvagnya 18:10, 9 May 2008 (UTC)
If we can't verify who is behind boxofficeindia.com, then it cannot be used as a reliable source. Unfortunately, a whois reveals the domain is registered through a third party domain seller, so the site owner cannot be verified. The only domain contact given in the registration is a hotmail account, not typically used by companies and organizations, making it questionable that there is a real organization behind the website. Is there any other source that someone can provide verifying who is actually behind this website? -- MPerel 20:09, 9 May 2008 (UTC)
(unindent) What surprises me is the disclaimer in their website which says: "You acknowledge that BOXOFFICEINDIA.COM and its affiliates do not control, represent or endorse the accuracy, completeness or reliability of any of the information available on the web site". With such a disclaimer saying that the website cannot vouch for the accuracy of the contents, I am not sure if we can consider the site as reliable. Thanks -- ¿Amar៛ Talk to me/ My edits 03:45, 10 May 2008 (UTC)
Fresh eyes to the above discussion are needed. Objectivity thus far appears a bit compromised due to the fact that there is a related FAC at stake, and emotions seem to be running a little high on both sides. The removal of this source from the related article would likely gut it (note: I overstated that a bit, see below), though leaving it in perhaps compromises policy regarding reliable sources. This is a discussion that deserves wider input as some of the interpretation of policy being suggested has broader implications than the particular FAC (is a source made reliable because other reliable sources regularly cite it, and is there ever reason for leniency in this?). I was invited to weigh in on the above discussion and I in turn am inviting a variety of established editors to weigh in, if they can be coaxed, who as far as I know, have no connection to the affected FAC or any of the editors on either side, and who have particular experience and demonstrated wisdom dealing with reliable sources. Here is a briefing of the facts as I understand it:
2, 3, and 5 may lend merit to leniency in RS interpretation, while #1 and 4 appear problematic. Thoughts? Disclosure: the following editors are receiving specific invitation for input by me via their talk pages, though all feedback is encouraged please: JzG, G-Dett, Vassyana, SlimVirgin, Fred Bauder, Viriditas, Shirahadasha, DGG, Jossi, Piotrus, Avraham, Keeper76, Risker, Erik, El C. -- MPerel 03:46, 11 May 2008 (UTC)
ABOUT US - Boxofficeindia.com is the premium boxoffice site for hindi films. The site is by far the largest box office site in India and the second largest box office site in the world in terms of reach and viewership. After years of hard work, Boxofficeindia.com has been able to get a team of reporters and representatives to give the most up to date and authentic news related to the business side of hindi films.
SOURCES -All data prior to 1954 is estimated depending on the how long a film ran as actual collections were not published. After that the data has been estimated from what has been given in trade journals. Many figures from 2004 onwards are what the distributor or producers have declared. As corporates are entering the industry, box office figures have become much more transparent and most corporates issue collections of their films. When collections are not issued for films, the network of Boxofficeindia.com is today big enough and is able to get collections from most centres around India through our various representatives.
Unless the source is used for contentious claims, I see no reason why not to use it. And if we do use the source, we can simply attribute the figures to the source: According to site XYZ ..., as to not to assert these figures as facts. ≈ jossi ≈ (talk) 03:55, 11 May 2008 (UTC)
The removal of this source from the related article would likely gut it, ... No idea where this notion comes from. Unless the article has changed dramatically since the last time I looked, the source in question is used to source four short clauses. This situation seems to be turning into a tempest in a teapot, and I suggest that if the actual text being cited is examined, solutions may emerge.
SandyGeorgia (
Talk) 03:58, 11 May 2008 (UTC)
Sarvagnya asks "which policy or guideline?" says that "The fact that this is used [by reliable sources] is a direct evidence of its reliability." Mperel asks "is a source made reliable because other reliable sources regularly cite it"?
As Relata refero points out, this idea has a long history here at Wikipedia. The phrase "Find out what other people say about your sources" and the suggestion "to cross-check with an independent source" appear in Beland's original version of the page and Radiant!'s first guideline version
But the idea that "cit[ation] by other reliable sources ... is indeed the best possible sign (and our original standard!) that it is reliable" is still there, hiding in plain sight, implicit in our basic guideline, our lex generalis:
Articles should rely on reliable, third-party published sources with a reputation for fact-checking and accuracy.
The rest of the WP:RS guideline and parts of WP:V is lex specialis explicating this sentence, but as WP:RS wisely states, not exhaustively, as some editors seem to argue. The dictionary meaning of "reliable" - able to be relied on (by whom?) is clearly relevant. (And the source at hand, BOI seems prima facie reliable and making unexceptional claims - Would we be having this discussion if it contradicted known reliable sources?) That accepted source A in fact does rely on source B is evidence of nonzero weight that B is reliable in the ordinary sense, and I and many others hold, according to Wikipedia rules. Look at "with a reputation for fact-checking and accuracy". How do we evaluate reputation? Our practice is not to only use sources for which we could find another source explicitly saying this is a great source with great fact-checking and accuracy - and how do we evaluate "the another source" then?
No, the action of citing and using a source speaks louder (and more frequently) and directly about "reputation" than the rarer, but implied, words "this source is good (accurate, fact-checking), we've checked it out." And citations are easy to mechanically google and find, objective and practical.
As Sarvagnya says "a source doesn't become reliable by 'proclamation' or from editors' assurances or 'judgement' that they are reliable." But he is wrong when the he states that "this exercise" of determining a source's reputation "starts by telling us precisely who runs a site, a newspaper, a journal etc." That is simply not what the key word "reputation" means. Reputation doesn't mean "biographical" "credentials" information about a person or institution, which is a useful but indirect means of establishing reputation. Reputation means what other people or institutions think about him, her or it. Were Michael Scheuer's books unreliable sources when he was still anonymous?
Indeed, reputation of a journal, person or text is often based on mechanical computation of citation indices based on the raw fact of citation alone, and not only here at Wikipedia, where it is often used as a criterion of notability. We should not be reinventing the wheel when we think about source reliability. Looking at "who cites it" is second nature and best practice in source evaluation in many fields, in academia, journalism, law (where there's even a word for it - Shepardizing), to many editors and in the real world in general.
This idea is entirely in line with how other core policies and practices work at wikipedia like NOR - we should endeavor as far as is possible not to substitute our own judgment for that of published sources. Avoiding it would mean we put our "objective" and changing wiki-criteria above published reliable sources' opinions. That isn't the wikipedia way. Another parallel example is notability. Recently at AfD, two of the most acute and respected editors (who argue here pro -BOI) argued to delete, or only weakly to keep Sara Roy - she's only a Research Associate at Harvard (biographical, credentials, objective info) - why have an article on her? But it turned out that she is citably well known as the world's #1 expert in her field. "Reputation" data does and should trump "objective" data, and citation clearly can speak for reputation.
However, it might be a good idea to make this more explicit and less reliant on talmudic/jesuitical disputation.
So my proposal is a line in WP:RS like
"That an accepted, high-quality RS uses a source is evidence for the source's reliability for use in the same manner as the accepted RS." The "in the same manner" and "high-quality" parts are there to satisfy Nishkid64's and Sarvagnya's "RS-hood by association" concerns.
And maybe we should also have a sentence somewhere, or an agreement, to the effect that we are not trying to reinvent the wheel, but just to adapt the best and standard academic, journalistic, legal, real world practices in source evaluation, which certainly includes this "shepardizing" idea, to the wonderful world of Wikipedia. John Z ( talk) 10:42, 14 May 2008 (UTC)
Clarification requested Is there a dispute over a specific asserted fact at the base of this? If so, that particular matter should be discussed in context. DGG ( talk) 23:11, 11 May 2008 (UTC)
Note: Also posted to AN and Village pump. SandyGeorgia ( Talk) 01:00, 12 May 2008 (UTC)
All data prior to 1954 is estimated depending on the how long a film ran as actual collections were not published. After that the data has been estimated from what has been given in trade journals. Many figures from 2004 onwards are what the distributor or producers have declared. As corporates are entering the industry, box office figures have become much more transparent and most corporates issue collections of their films. When collections are not issued for films, the network of Boxofficeindia.com is today big enough and is able to get collections from most centres around India through our various representatives. - If figures from 2004 onwards are publicly declared by the producers, then these primary sources need to be discovered and used instead. As for pre-1954 material, I personally am not comfortable relying on what are explicit estimates by a site run by someone with no pre-existing credentials or public methodology to his estimations. (This is not a judgment of the data itself.) If 1954-2004 films have been estimated from trade journal data, then the trade journals presumably can be researched and discovered as well. It would be very nice and convenient for BOI to be a RS, but unfortunately, as much as we may all wish for this to be the case, I see a lot of circular reasoning. Finding some primary sources would settle the question definitively for all, I think everyone can agree. Girolamo Savonarola ( talk) 08:24, 12 May 2008 (UTC)
I'm beginning to think there's an excessive amount of noise about this. There do not appear to be any other sources of equivalent or better reliability on the subject of trade returns; there do not appear to be any stated questions about this site's numbers; there do not appear to be any inherently extraordinary claims cited to this site. (Whether it should be used to cite crucial parts of an FA is another matter, and not the province of this noticeboard. WP:FA? nowhere says that sources should be of impeccable quality. It should, of course, but it doesn't.) -- Relata refero ( disp.) 08:46, 12 May 2008 (UTC)
I've been asked to comment here by editors on both sides of the discussion. This is a long thread, and I've only skimmed it, so I can't be sure my comments will be particularly helpful. I was prompted to comment here because of this comment I made at the FAC for Preity Zinta which uses boxofficeindia.com as a source for nine or ten box office figures/comparisons. The main points of that comment are that attribution, not truth, is fundamental to Wikipedia, and that the ultimate arbiter on reliability is the reader, so (just as with our neutral point of view policy) our slogan should be "let the reader decide", and we should provide the reader with the information necessary to make that decision. I don't think I need to develop that argument further, so I will focus on a separate misleading aspect of reliable sources policy. The misleading aspect is that the policy seems to refer to a source as an object/entity (a book, a website, a news agency) and ask us to judge the reliability of that entity. While this simplification sometimes causes no problems, it is a simplification. A source is not an entity, but a source for a particular piece of information, and when we discuss a source of information, the information is just as important as the entity in assessing reliability. For instance, a Veganism society may be a reliable source for the fact that Vegans don't eat eggs, but it is not a reliable source for the health benefits (or otherwise) of Veganism. If boxofficeindia.com is being used to provide opinions on the quality of movies, then the case for reliability is extremely weak or non-existent. If it is being used to provide (comparative) box office figures, the case for reliability (with caveats about attribution) is much stronger. Geometry guy 17:54, 13 May 2008 (UTC)
Blofeld, to use the argument that we should use one source unless we find a better source, you will have to change policy first. Per existing policy, sources dont become RS simply because better sources dont exist. That simply is not the way WP:RS works. Also, if you find any sources that are suspect during the course of your work on geo articles, by all means question it. You can bring it to this board for more eyes to look at. But, just because you choose to ignore something elsewhere does not mean others should not question sources like BOI. And talking of BOI, unless the identity and credentials of those running the site is known, we cannot take their words at face value. For all we know, they may be lying when they tell us that they're getting their numbers from "trade journals". Like User:Stephan Schulz says in another discussion below -- "Reliability is not the default assumption, it must be positively established." Sarvagnya 16:10, 14 May 2008 (UTC)
But even if we knew who compiled the data personally we would still be having the same conversation because it is more about the reputation of the site. Meanwhile as 100kb of comments are posted here articles on entire Indian states like Bihar are unreferenced and are in serious trouble. Perhaps its high time priorities underwent change on here ♦Blofeld of SPECTRE♦ $1,000,000? 17:59, 14 May 2008 (UTC)
{{ RFCpolicy}} This is mainly from WP:RS and WP:V -
1. Articles should rely on reliable, third-party published sources with a reputation for fact-checking and accuracy. - there is no evidence of fact-checking
2. Material that has been vetted by the scholarly community is regarded as reliable; this means published in peer-reviewed sources, and reviewed and judged acceptable scholarship by the academic journals. - has not been vetted
3. Items that are recommended in scholarly bibliographies are welcomed. - not referenced to any bibliographies
4. Items that are signed are preferable to unsigned articles. - completely unsigned; we have no idea who is running the site
5. Material from mainstream news organizations is welcomed, particularly the high-quality end of the market, such as the The Washington Post, The Times of London, and The Associated Press. - not a mainstream news organization
6. Self-published material may, in some circumstances, be acceptable when produced by an established expert on the topic of the article whose work in the relevant field has previously been published by reliable third-party publications. However, caution should be exercised when using such sources: if the information in question is really worth reporting, someone else is likely to have done so. - there is no evidence otherwise given that the author of the site has prior expertise in the field, that his writing has been published prior to his work on the site by reliable publications, or that the site's information can be independently verified.
7. In general, the most reliable sources are peer-reviewed journals and books published in university presses; university-level textbooks; magazines, journals, and books published by respected publishing houses; and mainstream newspapers. As a rule of thumb, the greater the degree of scrutiny involved in checking facts, analyzing legal issues, and scrutinizing the evidence and arguments of a particular work, the more reliable it is. - the site gives no evidence of any editorial control processes.
8. Academic and peer-reviewed publications are highly valued and usually the most reliable sources in areas where they are available, such as history, medicine and science. Material from reliable non-academic sources may also be used in these areas, particularly if they are respected mainstream publications. - does not meet this standard
9. Questionable sources are those with a poor reputation for fact-checking. Questionable sources should only be used in articles about themselves. - as per above, there is no evidence of fact-checking.
The source fails for all of the above reasons, not just one of them. No amount of argument or rhetoric will make all of these disappear - so I would encourage the editors to do any of the following: a) continue to research the site to find more information about how they operate, b) do some real-world research to find other sources that may be indicated to exist on paper, and c) drop this source and cease the semantics which others may misinterpret as Wikilawyering.
Lastly, as per Shahid's wishes expressed to me for more editors, I am putting this up for RfC. Girolamo Savonarola ( talk) 17:50, 14 May 2008 (UTC)
Comment - I've said this before (like several months before) I've been saying it all along and I say it now.. this site, as Girolamo demonstrates above (something which I've done without luck for months now) is not a Reliable source per existing policy. The only claim that is being repeated ad nauseum is that this source is used widely in Reliable sources. Not only is that claim not true, it is also of no consequence as it finds no support in either WP:V, WP:RS or WP:SPS. Unless the defenders of this source care to address the specific policy concerns listed above (and above and above and way above), their semantics will not be misinterpreted, but rather interpreted rightly as wikilawyering and disruption. This has been going on for months and I am being hounded with ANIs and RfCs and it has to stop now. Sarvagnya 18:47, 14 May 2008 (UTC)
Relata, thank you. That is exactly what I have been waiting to see. I will concede the point. Girolamo Savonarola ( talk) 21:59, 14 May 2008 (UTC)
Could anyone inform me whether the following sources are reliable as I'm having trouble explaining how they are reliable at this FAC:
Thanks, D.M.N. ( talk) 13:31, 10 May 2008 (UTC)
Are there any other comments regarding this? D.M.N. ( talk) 16:22, 11 May 2008 (UTC)
Comment -- ChicaneF1.com and F1DB.com are good to go and are reliable sources. BBC/ITV/SPEED Channel telecasts are reliable (that's a source I use). Don't know about galeforcef1 or gpracing.192net.com -- Guroadrunner ( talk) 00:33, 15 May 2008 (UTC)
First off, I do think that www.boxofficemojo.com is a reliable source for many things. For movie gross, opening weekends, max number of theatres etc, etc, it is reliable.
However, the films in its database do not go back before 1980, so the RANKINGS surely cannot be used to make sweeping statements like "X is the 12 highest grossing documentary" - there were some major documentaries on the Beatles, Rolling Stones, etc, with substantial mass market appeal. Box office mojo does not include them.
In short, the limits of the source are being roundly ignored throughout Wikipedia. What should we do? Shoemaker's Holiday ( talk) 12:47, 13 May 2008 (UTC)
This is an article which by its very nature is going to have fringe stuff in it, which is as it should be. But given that we can't use notability as a criterion for inclusion, and presumably we don't want to just include everyone who can write something on a web page, presumably we have to ask for some sort of RS? And if so, what? In some cases it's easy, they've been mentioned in an academic journal, no problem. But that bar is probably too high. Is attending a conference on Atlantis enough? A self-published book (which several have) surely isn't enough, but I don't know what is. Right now I'm discussing this about someone named Franke, and for the life of me I can't figure out what would be a reliable source for him. Any assistance would be much appreciated.-- Doug Weller ( talk) 21:14, 13 May 2008 (UTC)
I wrote a very detailed, well-researched section using about eighteen newspaper articles in Jedi census phenomenon. The newspaper articles came from google news. Then someone without even a userpage came trolling in the article. A bot even reverted the person one time. The writing on the article is a mix from all these sources, sometimes pulling a single fact unique to each one as many of the news articles repeat the same information while other news articles include facts not mentioned by the others and they all must be included or certain parts are removed as unreferenced. I included them at the bottom of the paragraph for readability. The articles are done in the ref name="" tag as at the top the news articles also cite that a real church exists in Jedi census phenomenon as before it was just a joke so they are referenced at the top and the bottom using ref name="" tags to avoid duplication.
I would like a neutral party to come help out on this. William Ortiz ( talk) 20:05, 14 May 2008 (UTC)
Since past few days, User:Singh6 has been adding references from ihro.in to a number of articles.
Does http://www.ihro.in classifies as a reliable source? The website supposedly belongs to "International Human Rights Organisation", but surprsingly the activities of this "International Human Rights Organisation" are limited to the Punjab insurgency. This seems to be more of a Khalistani propaganda site. The "Discussion board" of this "international" organization is situated on Yahoo groups.
While there were undoubtedly human rights violations during the Punjab insurgency, this site greatly exaggerates them. Surprisingly, inspite of being a "Human Rights Organisation", it does not talk about atroicities committed by religious militants during the Punjab insurgeny. It only criticises the Indian government, while glorifying the fanatic religous militants.
There are many neutral sources on the Khalistan crisis and this site doesn't seem to be one of them.
According to whois information, the domain is registered by an individual Tanveer Singh, not some international NGO.-- 202.54.176.51 ( talk) 12:41, 15 April 2008 (UTC)
NPOV Site- Respected Wikipedia community, as per my analysis, IHRO is not Khalistani Propaganda Site. Being normal humans, we also have a responsibility to keep the true history intact. We should not let our national affiliation over-ride our unbiased reporting. It appears that Punjab Police and other Indian security forces had simply crushed the Khalistan Movement, but it is not true. Thousands of Boys were killed in fake encounters and then cremated secretely. Even innocent family members of militants and others were tortured and killed by Govt of India. "Human Rights watch" has indicated that even world famous "Amnesty International" was not allowed to visit state of Punjab by Government of India. Please note that the related news always appeared on "The Tribune", one of north-Indian newspapers and Ajit, a regional newspaper of India etc. Since The Tribune (a 125 years old newspaper group) did not have online editions prior to 2001 and Ajit didn’t have any online editions untill very recently, hence eliminating the very few NPOV available sources will be equivalent to murdering history as well. Yes! we are proud Indian citizens, but while suppressing information about thousands of murder and rape victims, we should not forget that the victims idintified by www.ihro.in were also citizens of our respected nation. Please throughly read "Amnesty International", "Amnesty International, "Human Rights watch" where it says that "Thousands of mothers await their sons even though some may know that that the oppressor has not spared their sons’ lives on this earth. A mother’s heart is such that even if she sees her son’s dead body, she does not accept that her son has left her. And those mothers who have not even seen their children’s dead bodies, they were asking us: at least find out, is our son alive or not?" and "ENSAAF". I beg you, please do not murder history by suppressing the already extremely less availibility of online sources of information regarding Punjab. I will never add any Khalistani propaganda sites as references, but I have personally seen the crimes committed by govt security forces and I strongly beleive that IHRO is not biased. Singh6 ( talk) 07:37, 22 April 2008 (UTC)
The source in question is probably partisan source. However a little query. "While there were undoubtedly human rights violations during the Punjab insurgency, this site greatly exaggerates them" - How did you know this? Otolemur crassicaudatus ( talk) 07:25, 30 April 2008 (UTC)
202.54.176.51 ( talk) 09:42, 30 April 2008 (UTC)
And now, User:Singh6 is using Wikipedia:Canvassing to turn wikipedia into a Khalistani propaganda site (few examples: [43] [44]). Congrats. Now, anybody with a website and friends to support your terrorist propaganda can write anything on Wikipedia. 202.54.176.51 ( talk) 10:09, 30 April 2008 (UTC)
I have already mentioned the Archive issue with other 125 years old north-Indian Newspaper group, i.e. [ The Tribune which does not have archive records prior to year 2001 and Frontline does not have archive prior to 1997. Further, HRW clearly states that Punjab government institutions have equated human rights activists with terrorists and consistently used the insurgency to justify their actions and The Punjab police have also associated human rights activists with Pakistan’s Inter-Services Intelligence [ISI]. I beg you to not to follow Punjab/Indian government’s criminal path, Please don’t get influenced by Indian extremism, Please keep Human Rights Organization IHRO as "NPOV" to support several articles with valid references. Singh6 ( talk) 09:59, 1 May 2008 (UTC)
Of course, this has nothing to with IHRO.IN being a reliable source. You are again deviating from the topic and not mentioning what is the credibility of this site. This site is registered by an individual who is urging people to abandon Indian constitution and who is hailing Khalistani terrorists as martyrs. HOW can this be a reliable source for any topic related to Khalstan? 202.54.176.51 ( talk) 07:47, 2 May 2008 (UTC)
NPOV site - www.IHRO.in is definitely a reliable and NPOV site. This is a well known human rights organization in India.
Chair IHRO: IHRO- A unique body -- IHRO is a unique body among NGOs for it is an organisation of principally legal professionals that has a special legal point of view in its approach to human rights issues.
Its professionalism naturally entails the IHRO to take the mandate one step further in becoming a source of reference for governments, intergovernmental organisations, such as United Nations, as well as local and international human rights NGOs.
We believe that regular public reporting and documentation can help to ensure that human rights concerns are not subordinated to any political or other questionable considerations.
We call upon all those committed to protecting human dignity to join this important movement to make the 21st Century, a century of Human Rights with a motto:
“Human Rights is my property, no one can take it away from me.”
Is there a policy about citing another Wikipedia article as a source? In my opinion, given the no OR policy, Wikipedia can't be considered a reliable source. Instead, the editor should cite the original source cited in the other article. If the other article doesn't cite a source, then it can't be a reliable source itself, correct? ThreeOfCups ( talk) 20:00, 10 May 2008 (UTC)
Not only does this look like an unreliable source, it contains copyright articles. [45] I'm under the impression that such sites get blacklisted, or am I confused about this? Thanks.-- Doug Weller ( talk) 11:00, 15 May 2008 (UTC)
There seems to be no way to view this source unless you have an account at eurolang.net and, as far as I can see, there seems to be no way to get an account. Wikipedia:Citing sources states that one purpose of citing sources is "to ensure that the content of articles can be checked by any reader or editor" and this citation seems to fail that.
The citation is used at Mac OS X#Lack of Language Provision and there has been some opposition to the source while other editors seem to be OK with it however I think there may be a little bit of bias involved in some of the opinions. For this reason I think it needs to be addressed here, away from the bias. -- AussieLegend ( talk) 11:45, 12 May 2008 (UTC)
Can anyone advise whether or not SportsBook Review can be referenced? 96.238.40.131 ( talk) 21:22, 15 May 2008 (UTC)
There's an edit-war at Noelia, here is the diff: [46]
The concern is that the references in the deleted section were unreliable because they are press releases. Here are the individual links:
Thoughts? JeremyMcCracken ( talk) ( contribs) 03:10, 17 May 2008 (UTC)
I recently had a debate about whether online stores and media databases are reliable sources. Are they? Here are the specific links that were discussed: AOL Music, Windows Media Guide, AOL Video, MTV shop, FYE store. Thanks in advance! -- Fatal Error 01:42, 18 May 2008 (UTC)
Er, yeah, I didn't actually mean "self-published". Wrong word. xD I meant "secondary". Okay, thank you. -- Fatal Error 05:52, 18 May 2008 (UTC)
Hi! A vigorous - and now somewhat nasty - debate has emerged over the article Chilean Australian over the size of the Chilean-Australian population. The sole protagonists are myself and User:TeePee-20.7, and much of the discussion is on Talk:Chilean Australian.
TeePee is referring to an essay, written by a student intern and published on the website of the Chilean Embassy in Australia, that details the history of the Chilean-Australian population. Much of the article is quite informative and reasonably well written. However she estimates the Chilean-Australian population to be 45,000 without explaining how she arrived at this number.
In other articles that look at ethnic groups in Australia, Australian Bureau of Statistics 2006 Census data is used to present the number of persons (a) born in a particular country, and (b) declare to have ancestry to a particular country (either alone or in combination with one other ancestry).
TeePee is strongly opposed to using this data, and instead insists on solely referring to the essay reference. I do not think the essay's estimate is accurate.
There is one limitation to the ABS data - somebody who has a Chilean ancestry might only choose to declare themselves according to their new Australian identity, or their European heritage. However I have included a caveat which draws attention to this minor flaw, as well as a statistic on how Chilean-born Australians defined their ancestral backgrounds in 2001.
I believe this version should be used.
TeePee has adopted a highly aggressive posture (and has been previously blocked), and has claimed I do not adequately cite references (even though six out of the seven references in the version above go to my ABS sources). No amount of compriming, humouring, reasoning or exercising of a time-out has worked. Wikipedia would benefit from a third party opinion on this page.
And by all means, seek his side of the story. Kransky ( talk) 10:46, 14 May 2008 (UTC)
1st point: True
2nd point: False, very vaguely True - I am not referring to the essay written by the intern who was at the Chilean Embassy. I am referring to the data published by the Chilean Embassy on their website! There is no indication that the intern provided this information as she is not credited to it on the page but Kransky fails to fathom this.
3rd point: True
4th point: False - This is completely false and once again Kransky is lying! If you read the discussions between us you will be able to see this and infact you can even certify that the data has been used so once again Kransky has chosen to act inappropriately and lie once more.
5th point: True - This one took him a while. I had to tell him this because he could not comprehend it before hand but then he adds the caveat trying to shut me up hoping I would not revert his edit where he sneaked in unreferenced information which he has constantly been doing. Only he is not able to comprehend that just because you're Chilean doesn't mean you will put down your ancestory as Chilean as Latinos in general are very multiracial and might wish to put down European, Native American or even specific countries such as Germany in which to indentify as their ancestory.
I believe the current version as of 20:41, 12 May 2008 should be used.
Once again he is disparaging me and behaving inappropriately. I will not even attempt to put into words the patients I have displayed with him you can see this when you intervine in our dispute.
Thankyou for your time and I hope we aren't too much of a burden on you. TeePee-20.7 ( talk) 16:42, 14 May 2008 (UTC)
Are you asking if the report found here is a reliable source for population statistics? I'm assuming this is specifically in regards to the conclusion they reach: "Adding to this second and third generation Chileans living in Australia, we arrive at a Chilean-Australian population of around 45 000 persons." I'm afraid that embassy conclusion is nothing but an educated guess and I see nothing to say otherwise. That said a couple questions to ask are: 1) Does this "educated guess" include children and if so 2) does the census data include children for these particular questions (which I highly doubt, but I'm not a demographer so I'm not entirely sure). If the embassy is including children in their guess, as second and third generation people of Chilean ancestry then their guess doesn't seem at odds with the census data. There may be other problems with the census data reporting ancestry, but that should be dealt with through reliable sources. In the end I think you need to keep the census stats in the info box, discuss whether or not an educated guess from the embassy is worth mentioning in an attributed fashion, and perhaps clarify any notable facts or problems that can be reliable sourced about the census data. PelleSmith ( talk) 19:19, 14 May 2008 (UTC)
Yes as I have already made mention of I am a Chilean Australian and what you are saying is true. The census is completely anonymous and if you live on the east coast what are you doing up at 2:39am? TeePee-20.7 ( talk) 16:39, 18 May 2008 (UTC)
This question isn't about verificability, but it's about reliable sources in some way, and so it belongs here (or at least it seems the most correct place to ask for this help).
The article Key (company) has a fair use image, Image:Key's booth at Comiket 71.jpg. It says it has been published at a site linked: I don't understand a word of it, I'm not even sure of the languaje (japanese, perhaps?) but the design seems like that of a blog. Surely a photo published in a blog would fail the policies of non-free content (wich would be a whole different issue I would work myself), but for that I need to know if the site is a blog or not.
I checked the official page linked as such in the article. Visually, it's similar, but domain does not seem to be the same: t is key.visualarts.gr.jp, while the linked site is motto.product.co.jp. However, I'm not dead sure if that means anything about being unrelated sites or not. Again, my zero-knowledge of that languaje prevents me from getting this clear Benito Sifaratti ( talk) 01:28, 17 May 2008 (UTC)
Yes, it is. If you translate it, you can see the "comments" and "trackbacks" links. -- Fatal Error 01:45, 18 May 2008 (UTC)
Can someone take a look at this set of statements and the associated sources.
Concerns are discuss on the talk page already, here.
Grateful for some views.
ALR ( talk) 22:56, 17 May 2008 (UTC)
Above editor insists on removing text with multiple citations. It basically says that The Economist recruits young Oxford grads, which is not a contested fact. The text reads: A disproportionate number of Economist scribes graduated from the same school, Magdalen College, Oxford. [51] [52] [53] Many are recent graduates. [54] [55]
This editor has been repeatedly reminded of policy and that the sources are reliable, yet to no avail. I would prefer to avoid a revert war and just leave alone the cited non-negative material. Shivering Vacancy ( talk)
Can anybody provide reliable sources for Ichabodcraniosaurus? The third link is dead and the other two go to a mailing list. I looked it up in Google and am not sure which of the hits which come back are reliable sources. Corvus cornix talk 21:31, 19 May 2008 (UTC)
[ www.gamersglobal.com] is a website that lets literally any registered user post news on games. Some of these articles have been quoted in wikipedia articles. Policy says that this would be unreliable, but there is a decent amount of valuable information here too. I'd appreciate it if someone could clarify.
Also, if this does turn out to be unreliable, I'd like to know how to establish that for future discussions. Is there a list of unreliable sources somewhere? Randomran ( talk) 18:21, 20 May 2008 (UTC)
I would like help with an ongoing disagreement at the 'Yuz Asaf' page. For past few years the names of Professor Fida Hassnain and Suzanne Olsson have been synonymous with Jesus in India theory, bloodlines of Jesus, Roza Bal tomb, and Yuz Asaf. Their books were self-published but have met all Wiki criteria to be included as reliable resources. They have been quoted internationaly, reviewed in international newspapers and magazines such as Fortean Times and Times of India, been the basis for films and documentaries and interviews. And yet after recent problems with one editor, this has snowballed into many opinions from editors around Wiki. The pages have become blocked and mention of their books has been severaly limited or eliminated. The reason given is that they are either 'fringe' research or outside self-published guidleines (which they are not). And yet while deleting these references, others of extremely dubious sources have been permitted to remain. These include channeled information from UFO's as reported by a very small fringe group (Jmanuel) , complete self-published fiction books such as 'The Roza Bal Line' and other problematic sources left on Wiki pages. In the last edit, Doug Weller claims the Hassnain and Olsson books are fiction, therefore subject to deletion and the page is apparently blocked from further editing. A seriously impartial administrator is requested to review the pages where this topic and these authors are being discredited or deleted. Thank You. NewYork10021 ( talk) 22:44, 20 May 2008 (UTC)
Sophia Collier joined the Divine Light Mission (DLM) of Guru Maharaj Ji (Prem Rawat) in 1971 at age 16 and left the movement four years later. During her stay in one of the movement's ashrams she used a considerable amount of LSD. Immediately after leaving she wrote her memoirs which recount in great detail her experiences with the movement, its members and officials, and even its leader. The book, " Soul Rush (book)", was published by a mainstream publisher and received some critical praise. Editors of articles related to Prem Rawat and the DLM would like to use the book as a source for various assertions concerning the woman's emotional perceptions of the movement and its methods, objective facts concerning the management of the movement, and the words and deeds of other people, both named and unnamed, some of which include material that could be regarded as derogatory or exceptional. The question is under what circumstances and for what material can this book be considered a reliable source? ·:· Will Beback ·:· 09:23, 19 May 2008 (UTC)
Question: Is someone able to look at this, and give their thoughts on it? While I know that Prem Rawat related articles are somewhat contentious, I really need an editor to have a look at this source and give their thoughts on it, as to how reliable the source may be. Feel free to post it on my talk page, or by email. I'm overseeing this mediation. Many thanks. Steve Crossin (talk) (review) 08:02, 21 May 2008 (UTC)
G'day, I've run into an issue regarding an external link to some translations of the lesser known works of Baha'u'llah. I noticed that the main page did not have any information about translations that have been undertaken by the scholarly community, so I added a link to Who is Baha'u'llah, which provides forty such translations and links to other pages with such translations.
My edit was removed due to the site being personally owned by an individual (Alison Marshall). So, I compromised and edited the link to point to the specific translations page at Baha'u'llah explore.
However, it's still being bumped as personal.
As far as I can see, it's a valuable inclusion into the article, but it's not main enough to go into the article itself. But, the question of reliability keeps popping up.
The translations she has collected and made available on the site (along with links to other translation sites) are not her own, but have been published by Professor Juan Cole. On his page, he lists the publication details of the translations (largely H-Bahai and Baha'i Studies Review). The reason I don't just link to Juan Cole's site, is because Baha'u'llah explore also contains links to translation pages eg. by Dr Stephen Lamden, Khazeh Fananapazir Jonah Winter's Baha'i library and so on (each of these provides publication details on their websites). Also because these other pages contain materials other than just the translations of Baha'u'llah's works, whereas Baha'u'llah explore is devoted solely to these.
To me, these are reliable sources?? .o0o.Sufisticated.o0o. ( talk) 06:54, 21 May 2008 (UTC)
Hi, I turned up two sources while working on List of Sega 32X games that really helped to complete the list, but I'm not sure if either one of them is a reliable source. The first one comes from www.sega-16.com and the second comes from new.guardiana.net. Both lists have been helpful in pinpointing all of the 32X's games (and CD 32X games), but I'm not sure if either source is reliable. The two sources under the appropriate section in the list itself have the exact links to the sites. Thanks in advance for your comments. Red Phoenix flame of life... protector of all... 23:37, 21 May 2008 (UTC)
See the article Bob Barr. Reference 63 cites the Wikipedia article on Borat. Is that allowed, can you really do that? -- Coasttocoast ( talk) 00:36, 22 May 2008 (UTC)
Impasse on Talk: Jizya about whether the above professor is always unreliable or whether (my viewpoint) he is a distinguished scholar albeit one whose views are sometimes disputed by other scholars. Itsmejudith ( talk) 09:41, 20 May 2008 (UTC)
We are currently sifting through some sources at an FA article, trying to determine which ones are reliable. Many are currently redlinked lesser-known sources in the Bluegrass music industry and local Michigan publications, and we could use some help determining which sources meet Wikipedia standards. Additional opinions requested at Talk:Elderly Instruments#Sources. -- El on ka 05:27, 23 May 2008 (UTC)
I searched that term and Wikipedia:Reliable_sources/Noticeboard and didn't find any reference. I have an old report by Drudge (before he archived) of a conversation he had with a notable person who already has an article here. It's a BLP allegation against a living person which I'd use on a couple BLPs. Useable? Or only if I repeat from a more reliable source that this person told Drudge that? Thanks. Carol Moore 23:42, 19 May 2008 (UTC) Carolmooredc {talk}
I know nothing about this site; it claims to represent a widely-syndicated radio programme and has been used for this diff. It seems rather more polemical than analytical to me. Any ideas? Thanks. -- Rodhull andemu 23:32, 22 May 2008 (UTC)
The book in question is A History of the New Thought Movement by Horatio W. Dresser First published by Thomas Y. Crowell Co., New York, 1919. Dresser was a prolific writer/editor of New Thought works (e.g. this list), and was the child of two of its founders (see Phineas Quimby for details on his parents). In at least two books ( Self-help and Popular Religion in Early American Culture: An Interpretive Guide p 196, The Village Enlightenment in America p145) give accusations of partisan historical revisionism against him. Can he be considered a WP:RS for the history of the movement in International New Thought Alliance? Hrafn Talk Stalk 04:07, 23 May 2008 (UTC)
The 'claim' is an absurdity:
Upon INTA's creation, it also absorbed the International Metaphysical League (founded in 1900), which claimed a membership connection to The Metaphysical Club. Thus, at the time of its official "founding", INTA claimed an unbroken membership history that stretched back 42 years.
Appropriating The Metaphysical Club's history because they "absorbed" another organisation that "claimed a membership connection" to it is ridiculously tenuous.
Here is what the description says:
The convention held at San Francisco, in connection with the Panama-Pacific International Exposition, 1915, was called The First International New Thought Congress. It began August 30, and continued until September 5, with three sessions daily and noon healing meetings. The meeting place was Moose Auditorium, Jones St., near Golden Gate Ave. The convention was preceded by New Thought Day, August 28, at the Panama-Pacific Exposition. The program for that day was as follows: Assembling of all New Thought people at Fillmore St. entrance, to be escorted by officials and band to the Court of Abundance, to receive commemorative bronze medal; Science and Demonstration of Mind Reading by The Ellises, Pompeiian Room, Inside Inn; banquet-lunch at Inside Inn; music and reading, Recital Hall; interpretation of Dante's La Divina Comedia, Rev. Lucy C. McGee; choral and organ recital, Mr. A. L. Artigues, Festival Hall.
It should be excluded as irrelevant detail per WP:INDISCRIMINATE: "Wikipedia is not an indiscriminate collection of information", even were Dresser not an unreliable source. Hrafn Talk Stalk 04:37, 23 May 2008 (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 10 | Archive 11 | Archive 12 | Archive 13 | Archive 14 | Archive 15 | → | Archive 20 |
I was reading some quotes cited to the Committee for Accuracy in Middle East Reporting in America, and I found a few problems related to the ongoing "Jewish lobby" headache.
This speech from Bishop Desmond Tutu was also reported by the BBC. Interestingly, CAMERA appears to have dropped a line from the middle of the quote. The BBC quotes him as saying:
CAMERA dropped the bolded text, which distorts the meaning a bit. Tutu was speaking against Israeli apartheid at the time.
So I'd suggest that using CAMERA as a reliable source for quotations is somewhat iffy. What comes out of CAMERA may not be what went in. CAMERA may be useful as a finding tool (they're powered by Google), but actual quotes should come from a less partisan source. CAMERA's output is mostly derived from other press sources, so if CAMERA has something, there's probably another source for it. -- John Nagle ( talk) 17:39, 4 March 2008 (UTC)
"CAIR can be quoted on itself and Muslims..." -- Would that were true -- See, e.g. "The 8-Million Muslim Lie," INVESTOR'S BUSINESS DAILY, http://www.investors.com/editorial/editorialcontent.asp?secid=1501&status=article&id=253930273179676. Just because "major news outlets" believe them doesn't make it so. [Nor will you find any comparable lies from CAMERA.]
CAMERA cannot possibly be considered a reliable source, and they have been caught collaborating secretly with existing Wikipedia editors to subvert Wikipedia editorial processes. See [
EI exclusive: a pro-Israel group's plan to rewrite history on Wikipedia]. The linked article includes primary source emails from CAMERA staff and Wikipedia users.
Bangpound (
talk) 14:44, 21 April 2008 (UTC)
We should use sources that speak of "Palestinian duplicity" the same day we use sources that speak of "Jewish duplicity". Using CAMERA for "facts" about the I-P conflict is directly equivalent to using the Communist Party of the US for "facts" about the Cold War or the US in Vietnam. It's not that they've got a POV (we've all got one) - the problem with the CP and CAMERA is that they're in lock-step with the governments they support. In CAMERA's case, it's even worse, since they're the angry wing of Israeli POV-pushing. While I'm here, let me state that I've never seen a critic of Israel cheating (eg removing good information for entirely partisan reasons, as we've seen a huge amount of), and nobody has ever tried to recruit me into any kind of cheating enterprise. CAMERA (even worse than the CP) behaves, and has always behaved, like a source that nobody would want to trust. It's bad enough when the protecting of cheats was happening from established editors, lets not encourage this stuff! PR talk 09:37, 28 April 2008 (UTC)
We've been through a number of clashes regarding quotes by CAMREA; esp. regarding the Jenin "massacre" hoax. When it came down to verifying the quotes, approx. 46-47 out of 50 were already found and the issue still would not go away with Eleland and PalestineRemembered insisting that the Washington Post (who were behind a couple of the quotes) is controlled by a cult. At the time I asked Eleland to pick two of the quotes that he wants me to find in order to alleviate his source concenrs - and he did - and I verified both. I think that CAMERA has proven itself far more reliable about quotes from Arabs and Israelis or stories on Israel related topics than the BBC, the Guardian and the Independant, and I have examples to show for this statement. I do however, fully agree that when possible (adequate replacement is found) CAMERA should not be used, since it is a biased source and if it is used, it should e attributed as the used source. Jaakobou Chalk Talk 14:54, 30 April 2008 (UTC)
In the article on " orthomolecular medicine" also commonly known as "megavitamin therapy", it is disputed whether a statement from the AMA Council on Scientific Affairs dealing with Alternative medicine section on Diet/nutrition is a reliable source to which we can attribute criticism of alternative medical systems that use diet and nutrition: particularly the discussion of systems that, as the report says, "promote dietary supplements beyond the Recommended Dietary Allowances". Tim Vickers ( talk) 17:15, 2 April 2008 (UTC)
← I would caution against the approach that Wilk v. American Medical Association invalidates the AMA's position on everything. Jayson Blair's fabrications don't make the New York Times an unreliable source. The question is not so much whether the AMA is infallibly correct, but whether it is a useful representation of mainstream medical/scientific opinion, which for the most part it is. Hence it is a reliable source, as Wikipedia defines the term, regardless of our personal opinions of its reliability. MastCell Talk 18:19, 2 April 2008 (UTC)
The AMA is unquestionably a reliable source (as per wikipedia's use of the term), and in most instances also a noteworthy source. Just need to be careful that any AMA opinion/recommendation is properly attributed to the organization in the main text itself. Abecedare ( talk) 18:57, 2 April 2008 (UTC)
The American Medical Association is an excellent RS for describing the mainstream POV in medical science. The different wording (orthomolecular vs dietary supplements in excess of RDA) is not troubling: the former is an "in-term" among those who ascribe to high-dosages, while the latter is a more mainstream description of the same phenomenon. Therefore, the AMA is not only a reliable source in general, but it is also reliable in the context of this article. Antelan talk 20:15, 2 April 2008 (UTC)
I am trying to understand the concept of the policy here. Is the AMA "most definitely a reliable source" because they are big and famous? No. We should look to third-party published sources with a reputation for fact-checking and accuracy and I think that the Journal of the American Medical Association just sometimes meets that policy standard. Considering the criticisms that the AMA at times acts as a guild would violate our policy because in those cases they would fail the third-party threshold. SaltyBoatr ( talk) 18:13, 3 April 2008 (UTC)
May I suggest that saying "the AMA" is too broad a term to judge RS? Offhand, I can think of several levels of reliability/verifiability:
I would suggest that the first is reliable, and in all probability the second. The third and fourth are more questionable, although some journals are very careful about #4, such as the (non-AMA) New England Journal of Medicine, where an editorial is almost always supplementing original research reports in the same journal issue.
The last two are indeed questionable. Going back to the more reliable sources, there are research reports that are more or less strong in their methodology. For example, a randomized controlled trial, with double blinding, crossover, and a statistically significant population is pretty much the platinum standard. Meta-analyses that purely compare other original studies can be meaningful, but have to be read much more carefully.
A report that challenges the methodology of another study may indeed point out deficiencies in that study, but that doesn't mean that the position of the challenger is RS and V -- only that the challenge is RS and V.
Howard C. Berkowitz ( talk) 16:36, 4 April 2008 (UTC)
I added this Table to summarize some relative weight criteria, and to link discussions, to the different references that concern the Lede.-- TheNautilus ( talk) 08:29, 10 April 2008 (UTC)
Beyond the adversarial, non-scientific way JAMA has allowed its authors to treat not-so-pharmaceutically-oriented orthomolecular medicine or nutritionally-oriented doctors, let's look at more recent criticism of JAMA in the last 10 years.
New York Times Magazine, 1998
on JAMA, and others:
JAMA's (then) editor-in-chief on an example of JAMA's declining Journal standards in response to wide criticism on an article by Quackwatch and NCAHF authors: While admitting that five years ago the article "wouldn't have made it into peer review"
NYTM on partiality and conflict of interest: Medical journals represent scholarship, of course, but they are also businesses, and most are beholden to drug makers for their economic viability. N.E.J.M. and JAMA had display advertising revenues last year of $19 million and $21.4 million respectively, the vast bulk of it from drug companies. and ...JAMA has yet to shed completely its poor-cousin status, or its eagerness to please.
NYTM on authors' fears:...JAMA has also adopted this policy, albeit selectively, as have other journals, with the practical effect that the journals enjoy an exclusive franchise on the medical information they purvey. As a result, many scientists are loath to speak publicly of their work for fear of jeopardizing their chances of publication.
Certainly this article suggests a problem: Richard Smith (former editor of BMJ). "Medical journals are an extension of the marketing arm of pharmaceutical companies." PLoS Med 2005;2: e138 The evidence is strong that companies are getting the results they want, and this is especially worrisome because between two-thirds and three-quarters of the trials published in the major journals—Annals of Internal Medicine, JAMA, Lancet, and New England Journal of Medicine—are funded by the industry
Also this 2005 BMJ editorial implies that JAMA seems to think that there have been previous problems with JAMA's own reliablity (and credibility) "Extra scrutiny for industry funded trials" editors at JAMA have recognised the potential for a problem—perhaps bias, fraud, or shoddy work—in submissions funded by industry. Interesting that BMJ with an even higher percentage of ad revenue thinks JAMA's late found reforms are a too "draconian solution".
"In Search of the Truth or Jerry Springer", Nursing Forum Vol 33, No 2, April-June, 1998 Controversial issues must be presented fairly, without animosity. When authors include bias of personal opinions or prejudiced language, editorial reviewers usually red-flag these indiscretions. In fact, this style of writing often raises questions of the research validity to reviewers. Should authors’ bias be overlooked, however, by reviewers, in-house JAMA editorial staff most certainly would remove inflammatory and biased words. When a journal as prestigious as JAMA publishes a research article ...Was the usual review process of JAMA bypassed, or were reviewers’ concerns ignored? Inflammatory language on the “Jerry Springer” show serves to ignite an audience-the show’s exclusive motive. What was JAMAs motive?
Of course, most recently in the 16 April 2008 NY Times: JAMA itself published one of the Vioxx studies that was cited in Dr. Ross’s article...in 2002, ...the journal’s editor..."I consider that being scammed" and "Journal editors also bear some of the responsibility for enabling companies to manipulate publications." Especially some predecessors.
Seems JAMA, and others, may have some serious house cleaning to catch up on. [23] [24] We need to try carefully consider WP:V, NPOV, BALANCE, WEIGHT, FACTCHECKING and RS. Biases, of many flavors have been shown, where AMA and the journals (including JAMA) are still struggling with them today, much less the fallout from in their past.-- TheNautilus ( talk) 03:47, 22 April 2008 (UTC)updated 24 April 2008
I added [25] to Neil Strauss to give at least some balance. Several attempts have been made to remove it (or sabotage it by editing the url). It's been removed again, in good faith I believe, on the basis that it is from a blog. It isn't, it is from the Seduction Community's main website (they also have a blog), but I said I'd check that it was ok to use it. Any reviews of 'Stylelife Academy' are likely to be on sites like this one, and I think it is an appopriate site to use, but I'm open to correction. Thanks.-- Doug Weller ( talk) 08:59, 10 May 2008 (UTC)
firstly it is not the seduction community's main website, secondly while just maybe and perhaps it might be allowed in an article if worded right in this case as it is about a living person much more care should be taken ( WP:BLP) so I'll have to agree that it shouldn't really be here. Mathmo Talk 09:10, 13 May 2008 (UTC)
Please see Talk:First Vision#Mormonism Research Ministry for a discussion regarding the reliability of a video ( Search for the Truth (video)) that was linked to the First Vision article and has since been the subject of an editing dispute (not yet a full-blown edit war; see that article's recent history). I ask for input from the community in this discussion, since the few editors involved in the discussion there can't agree on whether the video is a reliable source for the First Vision article, and past bad blood between those editors makes it unlikely that we will be able to reach agreement cordially on our own. Thanks in advance for helping resolve this dispute. alanyst / talk/ 23:20, 10 May 2008 (UTC)
I want an opinion about the boxofficeindia site. It has being used extensively by a group of editors on Indian cinema related articles. is being touted as the "OFFICIAL SITE FOR INDIAN FILM STATISTICS" on this FAC. However, I see no evidence whatsoever of any such thing anywhere on that site or anywhere else. Admittedly, some sources do quote from this site here and there, but then that isnt enough to qualify any source as RS. For that matter, even wikipedia and several popular blogs are quoted quite often in the media. That does not automatically make wikipedia or those blogs RS. I will appreciate some outside views. Thanks. Sarvagnya 16:42, 9 May 2008 (UTC)
BOI is a self published source and the policy in question is WP:SPS. This is what WP:SPS says --
“ | Anyone can create a website or
pay to have a book published, then claim to be an expert in a certain field. For that reason, self-published books, newsletters, personal websites, open wikis,
blogs, forum postings, and similar sources are largely not acceptable.
Self-published material may, in some circumstances, be acceptable when produced by an established expert on the topic of the article whose work in the relevant field has previously been published by reliable third-party publications. However, caution should be exercised when using such sources: if the information in question is really worth reporting, someone else is likely to have done so. Self-published sources should never be used as third-party sources about living persons, even if the author is a well-known professional researcher or writer; see WP:BLP#Reliable sources. |
” |
So, now tell me --
What are the credentials of those who run BOI? Are they expert statisticians? Are they film experts? What exactly are their qualifications? Has their work in the relevant field been published (note: "Published" is not the same as "quoted") in independent third-party sources? If so, where? When? By whom? Unless you can answer these questions convincingly, I do not see how this source can qualify as a reliable source. Sarvagnya 18:10, 9 May 2008 (UTC)
If we can't verify who is behind boxofficeindia.com, then it cannot be used as a reliable source. Unfortunately, a whois reveals the domain is registered through a third party domain seller, so the site owner cannot be verified. The only domain contact given in the registration is a hotmail account, not typically used by companies and organizations, making it questionable that there is a real organization behind the website. Is there any other source that someone can provide verifying who is actually behind this website? -- MPerel 20:09, 9 May 2008 (UTC)
(unindent) What surprises me is the disclaimer in their website which says: "You acknowledge that BOXOFFICEINDIA.COM and its affiliates do not control, represent or endorse the accuracy, completeness or reliability of any of the information available on the web site". With such a disclaimer saying that the website cannot vouch for the accuracy of the contents, I am not sure if we can consider the site as reliable. Thanks -- ¿Amar៛ Talk to me/ My edits 03:45, 10 May 2008 (UTC)
Fresh eyes to the above discussion are needed. Objectivity thus far appears a bit compromised due to the fact that there is a related FAC at stake, and emotions seem to be running a little high on both sides. The removal of this source from the related article would likely gut it (note: I overstated that a bit, see below), though leaving it in perhaps compromises policy regarding reliable sources. This is a discussion that deserves wider input as some of the interpretation of policy being suggested has broader implications than the particular FAC (is a source made reliable because other reliable sources regularly cite it, and is there ever reason for leniency in this?). I was invited to weigh in on the above discussion and I in turn am inviting a variety of established editors to weigh in, if they can be coaxed, who as far as I know, have no connection to the affected FAC or any of the editors on either side, and who have particular experience and demonstrated wisdom dealing with reliable sources. Here is a briefing of the facts as I understand it:
2, 3, and 5 may lend merit to leniency in RS interpretation, while #1 and 4 appear problematic. Thoughts? Disclosure: the following editors are receiving specific invitation for input by me via their talk pages, though all feedback is encouraged please: JzG, G-Dett, Vassyana, SlimVirgin, Fred Bauder, Viriditas, Shirahadasha, DGG, Jossi, Piotrus, Avraham, Keeper76, Risker, Erik, El C. -- MPerel 03:46, 11 May 2008 (UTC)
ABOUT US - Boxofficeindia.com is the premium boxoffice site for hindi films. The site is by far the largest box office site in India and the second largest box office site in the world in terms of reach and viewership. After years of hard work, Boxofficeindia.com has been able to get a team of reporters and representatives to give the most up to date and authentic news related to the business side of hindi films.
SOURCES -All data prior to 1954 is estimated depending on the how long a film ran as actual collections were not published. After that the data has been estimated from what has been given in trade journals. Many figures from 2004 onwards are what the distributor or producers have declared. As corporates are entering the industry, box office figures have become much more transparent and most corporates issue collections of their films. When collections are not issued for films, the network of Boxofficeindia.com is today big enough and is able to get collections from most centres around India through our various representatives.
Unless the source is used for contentious claims, I see no reason why not to use it. And if we do use the source, we can simply attribute the figures to the source: According to site XYZ ..., as to not to assert these figures as facts. ≈ jossi ≈ (talk) 03:55, 11 May 2008 (UTC)
The removal of this source from the related article would likely gut it, ... No idea where this notion comes from. Unless the article has changed dramatically since the last time I looked, the source in question is used to source four short clauses. This situation seems to be turning into a tempest in a teapot, and I suggest that if the actual text being cited is examined, solutions may emerge.
SandyGeorgia (
Talk) 03:58, 11 May 2008 (UTC)
Sarvagnya asks "which policy or guideline?" says that "The fact that this is used [by reliable sources] is a direct evidence of its reliability." Mperel asks "is a source made reliable because other reliable sources regularly cite it"?
As Relata refero points out, this idea has a long history here at Wikipedia. The phrase "Find out what other people say about your sources" and the suggestion "to cross-check with an independent source" appear in Beland's original version of the page and Radiant!'s first guideline version
But the idea that "cit[ation] by other reliable sources ... is indeed the best possible sign (and our original standard!) that it is reliable" is still there, hiding in plain sight, implicit in our basic guideline, our lex generalis:
Articles should rely on reliable, third-party published sources with a reputation for fact-checking and accuracy.
The rest of the WP:RS guideline and parts of WP:V is lex specialis explicating this sentence, but as WP:RS wisely states, not exhaustively, as some editors seem to argue. The dictionary meaning of "reliable" - able to be relied on (by whom?) is clearly relevant. (And the source at hand, BOI seems prima facie reliable and making unexceptional claims - Would we be having this discussion if it contradicted known reliable sources?) That accepted source A in fact does rely on source B is evidence of nonzero weight that B is reliable in the ordinary sense, and I and many others hold, according to Wikipedia rules. Look at "with a reputation for fact-checking and accuracy". How do we evaluate reputation? Our practice is not to only use sources for which we could find another source explicitly saying this is a great source with great fact-checking and accuracy - and how do we evaluate "the another source" then?
No, the action of citing and using a source speaks louder (and more frequently) and directly about "reputation" than the rarer, but implied, words "this source is good (accurate, fact-checking), we've checked it out." And citations are easy to mechanically google and find, objective and practical.
As Sarvagnya says "a source doesn't become reliable by 'proclamation' or from editors' assurances or 'judgement' that they are reliable." But he is wrong when the he states that "this exercise" of determining a source's reputation "starts by telling us precisely who runs a site, a newspaper, a journal etc." That is simply not what the key word "reputation" means. Reputation doesn't mean "biographical" "credentials" information about a person or institution, which is a useful but indirect means of establishing reputation. Reputation means what other people or institutions think about him, her or it. Were Michael Scheuer's books unreliable sources when he was still anonymous?
Indeed, reputation of a journal, person or text is often based on mechanical computation of citation indices based on the raw fact of citation alone, and not only here at Wikipedia, where it is often used as a criterion of notability. We should not be reinventing the wheel when we think about source reliability. Looking at "who cites it" is second nature and best practice in source evaluation in many fields, in academia, journalism, law (where there's even a word for it - Shepardizing), to many editors and in the real world in general.
This idea is entirely in line with how other core policies and practices work at wikipedia like NOR - we should endeavor as far as is possible not to substitute our own judgment for that of published sources. Avoiding it would mean we put our "objective" and changing wiki-criteria above published reliable sources' opinions. That isn't the wikipedia way. Another parallel example is notability. Recently at AfD, two of the most acute and respected editors (who argue here pro -BOI) argued to delete, or only weakly to keep Sara Roy - she's only a Research Associate at Harvard (biographical, credentials, objective info) - why have an article on her? But it turned out that she is citably well known as the world's #1 expert in her field. "Reputation" data does and should trump "objective" data, and citation clearly can speak for reputation.
However, it might be a good idea to make this more explicit and less reliant on talmudic/jesuitical disputation.
So my proposal is a line in WP:RS like
"That an accepted, high-quality RS uses a source is evidence for the source's reliability for use in the same manner as the accepted RS." The "in the same manner" and "high-quality" parts are there to satisfy Nishkid64's and Sarvagnya's "RS-hood by association" concerns.
And maybe we should also have a sentence somewhere, or an agreement, to the effect that we are not trying to reinvent the wheel, but just to adapt the best and standard academic, journalistic, legal, real world practices in source evaluation, which certainly includes this "shepardizing" idea, to the wonderful world of Wikipedia. John Z ( talk) 10:42, 14 May 2008 (UTC)
Clarification requested Is there a dispute over a specific asserted fact at the base of this? If so, that particular matter should be discussed in context. DGG ( talk) 23:11, 11 May 2008 (UTC)
Note: Also posted to AN and Village pump. SandyGeorgia ( Talk) 01:00, 12 May 2008 (UTC)
All data prior to 1954 is estimated depending on the how long a film ran as actual collections were not published. After that the data has been estimated from what has been given in trade journals. Many figures from 2004 onwards are what the distributor or producers have declared. As corporates are entering the industry, box office figures have become much more transparent and most corporates issue collections of their films. When collections are not issued for films, the network of Boxofficeindia.com is today big enough and is able to get collections from most centres around India through our various representatives. - If figures from 2004 onwards are publicly declared by the producers, then these primary sources need to be discovered and used instead. As for pre-1954 material, I personally am not comfortable relying on what are explicit estimates by a site run by someone with no pre-existing credentials or public methodology to his estimations. (This is not a judgment of the data itself.) If 1954-2004 films have been estimated from trade journal data, then the trade journals presumably can be researched and discovered as well. It would be very nice and convenient for BOI to be a RS, but unfortunately, as much as we may all wish for this to be the case, I see a lot of circular reasoning. Finding some primary sources would settle the question definitively for all, I think everyone can agree. Girolamo Savonarola ( talk) 08:24, 12 May 2008 (UTC)
I'm beginning to think there's an excessive amount of noise about this. There do not appear to be any other sources of equivalent or better reliability on the subject of trade returns; there do not appear to be any stated questions about this site's numbers; there do not appear to be any inherently extraordinary claims cited to this site. (Whether it should be used to cite crucial parts of an FA is another matter, and not the province of this noticeboard. WP:FA? nowhere says that sources should be of impeccable quality. It should, of course, but it doesn't.) -- Relata refero ( disp.) 08:46, 12 May 2008 (UTC)
I've been asked to comment here by editors on both sides of the discussion. This is a long thread, and I've only skimmed it, so I can't be sure my comments will be particularly helpful. I was prompted to comment here because of this comment I made at the FAC for Preity Zinta which uses boxofficeindia.com as a source for nine or ten box office figures/comparisons. The main points of that comment are that attribution, not truth, is fundamental to Wikipedia, and that the ultimate arbiter on reliability is the reader, so (just as with our neutral point of view policy) our slogan should be "let the reader decide", and we should provide the reader with the information necessary to make that decision. I don't think I need to develop that argument further, so I will focus on a separate misleading aspect of reliable sources policy. The misleading aspect is that the policy seems to refer to a source as an object/entity (a book, a website, a news agency) and ask us to judge the reliability of that entity. While this simplification sometimes causes no problems, it is a simplification. A source is not an entity, but a source for a particular piece of information, and when we discuss a source of information, the information is just as important as the entity in assessing reliability. For instance, a Veganism society may be a reliable source for the fact that Vegans don't eat eggs, but it is not a reliable source for the health benefits (or otherwise) of Veganism. If boxofficeindia.com is being used to provide opinions on the quality of movies, then the case for reliability is extremely weak or non-existent. If it is being used to provide (comparative) box office figures, the case for reliability (with caveats about attribution) is much stronger. Geometry guy 17:54, 13 May 2008 (UTC)
Blofeld, to use the argument that we should use one source unless we find a better source, you will have to change policy first. Per existing policy, sources dont become RS simply because better sources dont exist. That simply is not the way WP:RS works. Also, if you find any sources that are suspect during the course of your work on geo articles, by all means question it. You can bring it to this board for more eyes to look at. But, just because you choose to ignore something elsewhere does not mean others should not question sources like BOI. And talking of BOI, unless the identity and credentials of those running the site is known, we cannot take their words at face value. For all we know, they may be lying when they tell us that they're getting their numbers from "trade journals". Like User:Stephan Schulz says in another discussion below -- "Reliability is not the default assumption, it must be positively established." Sarvagnya 16:10, 14 May 2008 (UTC)
But even if we knew who compiled the data personally we would still be having the same conversation because it is more about the reputation of the site. Meanwhile as 100kb of comments are posted here articles on entire Indian states like Bihar are unreferenced and are in serious trouble. Perhaps its high time priorities underwent change on here ♦Blofeld of SPECTRE♦ $1,000,000? 17:59, 14 May 2008 (UTC)
{{ RFCpolicy}} This is mainly from WP:RS and WP:V -
1. Articles should rely on reliable, third-party published sources with a reputation for fact-checking and accuracy. - there is no evidence of fact-checking
2. Material that has been vetted by the scholarly community is regarded as reliable; this means published in peer-reviewed sources, and reviewed and judged acceptable scholarship by the academic journals. - has not been vetted
3. Items that are recommended in scholarly bibliographies are welcomed. - not referenced to any bibliographies
4. Items that are signed are preferable to unsigned articles. - completely unsigned; we have no idea who is running the site
5. Material from mainstream news organizations is welcomed, particularly the high-quality end of the market, such as the The Washington Post, The Times of London, and The Associated Press. - not a mainstream news organization
6. Self-published material may, in some circumstances, be acceptable when produced by an established expert on the topic of the article whose work in the relevant field has previously been published by reliable third-party publications. However, caution should be exercised when using such sources: if the information in question is really worth reporting, someone else is likely to have done so. - there is no evidence otherwise given that the author of the site has prior expertise in the field, that his writing has been published prior to his work on the site by reliable publications, or that the site's information can be independently verified.
7. In general, the most reliable sources are peer-reviewed journals and books published in university presses; university-level textbooks; magazines, journals, and books published by respected publishing houses; and mainstream newspapers. As a rule of thumb, the greater the degree of scrutiny involved in checking facts, analyzing legal issues, and scrutinizing the evidence and arguments of a particular work, the more reliable it is. - the site gives no evidence of any editorial control processes.
8. Academic and peer-reviewed publications are highly valued and usually the most reliable sources in areas where they are available, such as history, medicine and science. Material from reliable non-academic sources may also be used in these areas, particularly if they are respected mainstream publications. - does not meet this standard
9. Questionable sources are those with a poor reputation for fact-checking. Questionable sources should only be used in articles about themselves. - as per above, there is no evidence of fact-checking.
The source fails for all of the above reasons, not just one of them. No amount of argument or rhetoric will make all of these disappear - so I would encourage the editors to do any of the following: a) continue to research the site to find more information about how they operate, b) do some real-world research to find other sources that may be indicated to exist on paper, and c) drop this source and cease the semantics which others may misinterpret as Wikilawyering.
Lastly, as per Shahid's wishes expressed to me for more editors, I am putting this up for RfC. Girolamo Savonarola ( talk) 17:50, 14 May 2008 (UTC)
Comment - I've said this before (like several months before) I've been saying it all along and I say it now.. this site, as Girolamo demonstrates above (something which I've done without luck for months now) is not a Reliable source per existing policy. The only claim that is being repeated ad nauseum is that this source is used widely in Reliable sources. Not only is that claim not true, it is also of no consequence as it finds no support in either WP:V, WP:RS or WP:SPS. Unless the defenders of this source care to address the specific policy concerns listed above (and above and above and way above), their semantics will not be misinterpreted, but rather interpreted rightly as wikilawyering and disruption. This has been going on for months and I am being hounded with ANIs and RfCs and it has to stop now. Sarvagnya 18:47, 14 May 2008 (UTC)
Relata, thank you. That is exactly what I have been waiting to see. I will concede the point. Girolamo Savonarola ( talk) 21:59, 14 May 2008 (UTC)
Could anyone inform me whether the following sources are reliable as I'm having trouble explaining how they are reliable at this FAC:
Thanks, D.M.N. ( talk) 13:31, 10 May 2008 (UTC)
Are there any other comments regarding this? D.M.N. ( talk) 16:22, 11 May 2008 (UTC)
Comment -- ChicaneF1.com and F1DB.com are good to go and are reliable sources. BBC/ITV/SPEED Channel telecasts are reliable (that's a source I use). Don't know about galeforcef1 or gpracing.192net.com -- Guroadrunner ( talk) 00:33, 15 May 2008 (UTC)
First off, I do think that www.boxofficemojo.com is a reliable source for many things. For movie gross, opening weekends, max number of theatres etc, etc, it is reliable.
However, the films in its database do not go back before 1980, so the RANKINGS surely cannot be used to make sweeping statements like "X is the 12 highest grossing documentary" - there were some major documentaries on the Beatles, Rolling Stones, etc, with substantial mass market appeal. Box office mojo does not include them.
In short, the limits of the source are being roundly ignored throughout Wikipedia. What should we do? Shoemaker's Holiday ( talk) 12:47, 13 May 2008 (UTC)
This is an article which by its very nature is going to have fringe stuff in it, which is as it should be. But given that we can't use notability as a criterion for inclusion, and presumably we don't want to just include everyone who can write something on a web page, presumably we have to ask for some sort of RS? And if so, what? In some cases it's easy, they've been mentioned in an academic journal, no problem. But that bar is probably too high. Is attending a conference on Atlantis enough? A self-published book (which several have) surely isn't enough, but I don't know what is. Right now I'm discussing this about someone named Franke, and for the life of me I can't figure out what would be a reliable source for him. Any assistance would be much appreciated.-- Doug Weller ( talk) 21:14, 13 May 2008 (UTC)
I wrote a very detailed, well-researched section using about eighteen newspaper articles in Jedi census phenomenon. The newspaper articles came from google news. Then someone without even a userpage came trolling in the article. A bot even reverted the person one time. The writing on the article is a mix from all these sources, sometimes pulling a single fact unique to each one as many of the news articles repeat the same information while other news articles include facts not mentioned by the others and they all must be included or certain parts are removed as unreferenced. I included them at the bottom of the paragraph for readability. The articles are done in the ref name="" tag as at the top the news articles also cite that a real church exists in Jedi census phenomenon as before it was just a joke so they are referenced at the top and the bottom using ref name="" tags to avoid duplication.
I would like a neutral party to come help out on this. William Ortiz ( talk) 20:05, 14 May 2008 (UTC)
Since past few days, User:Singh6 has been adding references from ihro.in to a number of articles.
Does http://www.ihro.in classifies as a reliable source? The website supposedly belongs to "International Human Rights Organisation", but surprsingly the activities of this "International Human Rights Organisation" are limited to the Punjab insurgency. This seems to be more of a Khalistani propaganda site. The "Discussion board" of this "international" organization is situated on Yahoo groups.
While there were undoubtedly human rights violations during the Punjab insurgency, this site greatly exaggerates them. Surprisingly, inspite of being a "Human Rights Organisation", it does not talk about atroicities committed by religious militants during the Punjab insurgeny. It only criticises the Indian government, while glorifying the fanatic religous militants.
There are many neutral sources on the Khalistan crisis and this site doesn't seem to be one of them.
According to whois information, the domain is registered by an individual Tanveer Singh, not some international NGO.-- 202.54.176.51 ( talk) 12:41, 15 April 2008 (UTC)
NPOV Site- Respected Wikipedia community, as per my analysis, IHRO is not Khalistani Propaganda Site. Being normal humans, we also have a responsibility to keep the true history intact. We should not let our national affiliation over-ride our unbiased reporting. It appears that Punjab Police and other Indian security forces had simply crushed the Khalistan Movement, but it is not true. Thousands of Boys were killed in fake encounters and then cremated secretely. Even innocent family members of militants and others were tortured and killed by Govt of India. "Human Rights watch" has indicated that even world famous "Amnesty International" was not allowed to visit state of Punjab by Government of India. Please note that the related news always appeared on "The Tribune", one of north-Indian newspapers and Ajit, a regional newspaper of India etc. Since The Tribune (a 125 years old newspaper group) did not have online editions prior to 2001 and Ajit didn’t have any online editions untill very recently, hence eliminating the very few NPOV available sources will be equivalent to murdering history as well. Yes! we are proud Indian citizens, but while suppressing information about thousands of murder and rape victims, we should not forget that the victims idintified by www.ihro.in were also citizens of our respected nation. Please throughly read "Amnesty International", "Amnesty International, "Human Rights watch" where it says that "Thousands of mothers await their sons even though some may know that that the oppressor has not spared their sons’ lives on this earth. A mother’s heart is such that even if she sees her son’s dead body, she does not accept that her son has left her. And those mothers who have not even seen their children’s dead bodies, they were asking us: at least find out, is our son alive or not?" and "ENSAAF". I beg you, please do not murder history by suppressing the already extremely less availibility of online sources of information regarding Punjab. I will never add any Khalistani propaganda sites as references, but I have personally seen the crimes committed by govt security forces and I strongly beleive that IHRO is not biased. Singh6 ( talk) 07:37, 22 April 2008 (UTC)
The source in question is probably partisan source. However a little query. "While there were undoubtedly human rights violations during the Punjab insurgency, this site greatly exaggerates them" - How did you know this? Otolemur crassicaudatus ( talk) 07:25, 30 April 2008 (UTC)
202.54.176.51 ( talk) 09:42, 30 April 2008 (UTC)
And now, User:Singh6 is using Wikipedia:Canvassing to turn wikipedia into a Khalistani propaganda site (few examples: [43] [44]). Congrats. Now, anybody with a website and friends to support your terrorist propaganda can write anything on Wikipedia. 202.54.176.51 ( talk) 10:09, 30 April 2008 (UTC)
I have already mentioned the Archive issue with other 125 years old north-Indian Newspaper group, i.e. [ The Tribune which does not have archive records prior to year 2001 and Frontline does not have archive prior to 1997. Further, HRW clearly states that Punjab government institutions have equated human rights activists with terrorists and consistently used the insurgency to justify their actions and The Punjab police have also associated human rights activists with Pakistan’s Inter-Services Intelligence [ISI]. I beg you to not to follow Punjab/Indian government’s criminal path, Please don’t get influenced by Indian extremism, Please keep Human Rights Organization IHRO as "NPOV" to support several articles with valid references. Singh6 ( talk) 09:59, 1 May 2008 (UTC)
Of course, this has nothing to with IHRO.IN being a reliable source. You are again deviating from the topic and not mentioning what is the credibility of this site. This site is registered by an individual who is urging people to abandon Indian constitution and who is hailing Khalistani terrorists as martyrs. HOW can this be a reliable source for any topic related to Khalstan? 202.54.176.51 ( talk) 07:47, 2 May 2008 (UTC)
NPOV site - www.IHRO.in is definitely a reliable and NPOV site. This is a well known human rights organization in India.
Chair IHRO: IHRO- A unique body -- IHRO is a unique body among NGOs for it is an organisation of principally legal professionals that has a special legal point of view in its approach to human rights issues.
Its professionalism naturally entails the IHRO to take the mandate one step further in becoming a source of reference for governments, intergovernmental organisations, such as United Nations, as well as local and international human rights NGOs.
We believe that regular public reporting and documentation can help to ensure that human rights concerns are not subordinated to any political or other questionable considerations.
We call upon all those committed to protecting human dignity to join this important movement to make the 21st Century, a century of Human Rights with a motto:
“Human Rights is my property, no one can take it away from me.”
Is there a policy about citing another Wikipedia article as a source? In my opinion, given the no OR policy, Wikipedia can't be considered a reliable source. Instead, the editor should cite the original source cited in the other article. If the other article doesn't cite a source, then it can't be a reliable source itself, correct? ThreeOfCups ( talk) 20:00, 10 May 2008 (UTC)
Not only does this look like an unreliable source, it contains copyright articles. [45] I'm under the impression that such sites get blacklisted, or am I confused about this? Thanks.-- Doug Weller ( talk) 11:00, 15 May 2008 (UTC)
There seems to be no way to view this source unless you have an account at eurolang.net and, as far as I can see, there seems to be no way to get an account. Wikipedia:Citing sources states that one purpose of citing sources is "to ensure that the content of articles can be checked by any reader or editor" and this citation seems to fail that.
The citation is used at Mac OS X#Lack of Language Provision and there has been some opposition to the source while other editors seem to be OK with it however I think there may be a little bit of bias involved in some of the opinions. For this reason I think it needs to be addressed here, away from the bias. -- AussieLegend ( talk) 11:45, 12 May 2008 (UTC)
Can anyone advise whether or not SportsBook Review can be referenced? 96.238.40.131 ( talk) 21:22, 15 May 2008 (UTC)
There's an edit-war at Noelia, here is the diff: [46]
The concern is that the references in the deleted section were unreliable because they are press releases. Here are the individual links:
Thoughts? JeremyMcCracken ( talk) ( contribs) 03:10, 17 May 2008 (UTC)
I recently had a debate about whether online stores and media databases are reliable sources. Are they? Here are the specific links that were discussed: AOL Music, Windows Media Guide, AOL Video, MTV shop, FYE store. Thanks in advance! -- Fatal Error 01:42, 18 May 2008 (UTC)
Er, yeah, I didn't actually mean "self-published". Wrong word. xD I meant "secondary". Okay, thank you. -- Fatal Error 05:52, 18 May 2008 (UTC)
Hi! A vigorous - and now somewhat nasty - debate has emerged over the article Chilean Australian over the size of the Chilean-Australian population. The sole protagonists are myself and User:TeePee-20.7, and much of the discussion is on Talk:Chilean Australian.
TeePee is referring to an essay, written by a student intern and published on the website of the Chilean Embassy in Australia, that details the history of the Chilean-Australian population. Much of the article is quite informative and reasonably well written. However she estimates the Chilean-Australian population to be 45,000 without explaining how she arrived at this number.
In other articles that look at ethnic groups in Australia, Australian Bureau of Statistics 2006 Census data is used to present the number of persons (a) born in a particular country, and (b) declare to have ancestry to a particular country (either alone or in combination with one other ancestry).
TeePee is strongly opposed to using this data, and instead insists on solely referring to the essay reference. I do not think the essay's estimate is accurate.
There is one limitation to the ABS data - somebody who has a Chilean ancestry might only choose to declare themselves according to their new Australian identity, or their European heritage. However I have included a caveat which draws attention to this minor flaw, as well as a statistic on how Chilean-born Australians defined their ancestral backgrounds in 2001.
I believe this version should be used.
TeePee has adopted a highly aggressive posture (and has been previously blocked), and has claimed I do not adequately cite references (even though six out of the seven references in the version above go to my ABS sources). No amount of compriming, humouring, reasoning or exercising of a time-out has worked. Wikipedia would benefit from a third party opinion on this page.
And by all means, seek his side of the story. Kransky ( talk) 10:46, 14 May 2008 (UTC)
1st point: True
2nd point: False, very vaguely True - I am not referring to the essay written by the intern who was at the Chilean Embassy. I am referring to the data published by the Chilean Embassy on their website! There is no indication that the intern provided this information as she is not credited to it on the page but Kransky fails to fathom this.
3rd point: True
4th point: False - This is completely false and once again Kransky is lying! If you read the discussions between us you will be able to see this and infact you can even certify that the data has been used so once again Kransky has chosen to act inappropriately and lie once more.
5th point: True - This one took him a while. I had to tell him this because he could not comprehend it before hand but then he adds the caveat trying to shut me up hoping I would not revert his edit where he sneaked in unreferenced information which he has constantly been doing. Only he is not able to comprehend that just because you're Chilean doesn't mean you will put down your ancestory as Chilean as Latinos in general are very multiracial and might wish to put down European, Native American or even specific countries such as Germany in which to indentify as their ancestory.
I believe the current version as of 20:41, 12 May 2008 should be used.
Once again he is disparaging me and behaving inappropriately. I will not even attempt to put into words the patients I have displayed with him you can see this when you intervine in our dispute.
Thankyou for your time and I hope we aren't too much of a burden on you. TeePee-20.7 ( talk) 16:42, 14 May 2008 (UTC)
Are you asking if the report found here is a reliable source for population statistics? I'm assuming this is specifically in regards to the conclusion they reach: "Adding to this second and third generation Chileans living in Australia, we arrive at a Chilean-Australian population of around 45 000 persons." I'm afraid that embassy conclusion is nothing but an educated guess and I see nothing to say otherwise. That said a couple questions to ask are: 1) Does this "educated guess" include children and if so 2) does the census data include children for these particular questions (which I highly doubt, but I'm not a demographer so I'm not entirely sure). If the embassy is including children in their guess, as second and third generation people of Chilean ancestry then their guess doesn't seem at odds with the census data. There may be other problems with the census data reporting ancestry, but that should be dealt with through reliable sources. In the end I think you need to keep the census stats in the info box, discuss whether or not an educated guess from the embassy is worth mentioning in an attributed fashion, and perhaps clarify any notable facts or problems that can be reliable sourced about the census data. PelleSmith ( talk) 19:19, 14 May 2008 (UTC)
Yes as I have already made mention of I am a Chilean Australian and what you are saying is true. The census is completely anonymous and if you live on the east coast what are you doing up at 2:39am? TeePee-20.7 ( talk) 16:39, 18 May 2008 (UTC)
This question isn't about verificability, but it's about reliable sources in some way, and so it belongs here (or at least it seems the most correct place to ask for this help).
The article Key (company) has a fair use image, Image:Key's booth at Comiket 71.jpg. It says it has been published at a site linked: I don't understand a word of it, I'm not even sure of the languaje (japanese, perhaps?) but the design seems like that of a blog. Surely a photo published in a blog would fail the policies of non-free content (wich would be a whole different issue I would work myself), but for that I need to know if the site is a blog or not.
I checked the official page linked as such in the article. Visually, it's similar, but domain does not seem to be the same: t is key.visualarts.gr.jp, while the linked site is motto.product.co.jp. However, I'm not dead sure if that means anything about being unrelated sites or not. Again, my zero-knowledge of that languaje prevents me from getting this clear Benito Sifaratti ( talk) 01:28, 17 May 2008 (UTC)
Yes, it is. If you translate it, you can see the "comments" and "trackbacks" links. -- Fatal Error 01:45, 18 May 2008 (UTC)
Can someone take a look at this set of statements and the associated sources.
Concerns are discuss on the talk page already, here.
Grateful for some views.
ALR ( talk) 22:56, 17 May 2008 (UTC)
Above editor insists on removing text with multiple citations. It basically says that The Economist recruits young Oxford grads, which is not a contested fact. The text reads: A disproportionate number of Economist scribes graduated from the same school, Magdalen College, Oxford. [51] [52] [53] Many are recent graduates. [54] [55]
This editor has been repeatedly reminded of policy and that the sources are reliable, yet to no avail. I would prefer to avoid a revert war and just leave alone the cited non-negative material. Shivering Vacancy ( talk)
Can anybody provide reliable sources for Ichabodcraniosaurus? The third link is dead and the other two go to a mailing list. I looked it up in Google and am not sure which of the hits which come back are reliable sources. Corvus cornix talk 21:31, 19 May 2008 (UTC)
[ www.gamersglobal.com] is a website that lets literally any registered user post news on games. Some of these articles have been quoted in wikipedia articles. Policy says that this would be unreliable, but there is a decent amount of valuable information here too. I'd appreciate it if someone could clarify.
Also, if this does turn out to be unreliable, I'd like to know how to establish that for future discussions. Is there a list of unreliable sources somewhere? Randomran ( talk) 18:21, 20 May 2008 (UTC)
I would like help with an ongoing disagreement at the 'Yuz Asaf' page. For past few years the names of Professor Fida Hassnain and Suzanne Olsson have been synonymous with Jesus in India theory, bloodlines of Jesus, Roza Bal tomb, and Yuz Asaf. Their books were self-published but have met all Wiki criteria to be included as reliable resources. They have been quoted internationaly, reviewed in international newspapers and magazines such as Fortean Times and Times of India, been the basis for films and documentaries and interviews. And yet after recent problems with one editor, this has snowballed into many opinions from editors around Wiki. The pages have become blocked and mention of their books has been severaly limited or eliminated. The reason given is that they are either 'fringe' research or outside self-published guidleines (which they are not). And yet while deleting these references, others of extremely dubious sources have been permitted to remain. These include channeled information from UFO's as reported by a very small fringe group (Jmanuel) , complete self-published fiction books such as 'The Roza Bal Line' and other problematic sources left on Wiki pages. In the last edit, Doug Weller claims the Hassnain and Olsson books are fiction, therefore subject to deletion and the page is apparently blocked from further editing. A seriously impartial administrator is requested to review the pages where this topic and these authors are being discredited or deleted. Thank You. NewYork10021 ( talk) 22:44, 20 May 2008 (UTC)
Sophia Collier joined the Divine Light Mission (DLM) of Guru Maharaj Ji (Prem Rawat) in 1971 at age 16 and left the movement four years later. During her stay in one of the movement's ashrams she used a considerable amount of LSD. Immediately after leaving she wrote her memoirs which recount in great detail her experiences with the movement, its members and officials, and even its leader. The book, " Soul Rush (book)", was published by a mainstream publisher and received some critical praise. Editors of articles related to Prem Rawat and the DLM would like to use the book as a source for various assertions concerning the woman's emotional perceptions of the movement and its methods, objective facts concerning the management of the movement, and the words and deeds of other people, both named and unnamed, some of which include material that could be regarded as derogatory or exceptional. The question is under what circumstances and for what material can this book be considered a reliable source? ·:· Will Beback ·:· 09:23, 19 May 2008 (UTC)
Question: Is someone able to look at this, and give their thoughts on it? While I know that Prem Rawat related articles are somewhat contentious, I really need an editor to have a look at this source and give their thoughts on it, as to how reliable the source may be. Feel free to post it on my talk page, or by email. I'm overseeing this mediation. Many thanks. Steve Crossin (talk) (review) 08:02, 21 May 2008 (UTC)
G'day, I've run into an issue regarding an external link to some translations of the lesser known works of Baha'u'llah. I noticed that the main page did not have any information about translations that have been undertaken by the scholarly community, so I added a link to Who is Baha'u'llah, which provides forty such translations and links to other pages with such translations.
My edit was removed due to the site being personally owned by an individual (Alison Marshall). So, I compromised and edited the link to point to the specific translations page at Baha'u'llah explore.
However, it's still being bumped as personal.
As far as I can see, it's a valuable inclusion into the article, but it's not main enough to go into the article itself. But, the question of reliability keeps popping up.
The translations she has collected and made available on the site (along with links to other translation sites) are not her own, but have been published by Professor Juan Cole. On his page, he lists the publication details of the translations (largely H-Bahai and Baha'i Studies Review). The reason I don't just link to Juan Cole's site, is because Baha'u'llah explore also contains links to translation pages eg. by Dr Stephen Lamden, Khazeh Fananapazir Jonah Winter's Baha'i library and so on (each of these provides publication details on their websites). Also because these other pages contain materials other than just the translations of Baha'u'llah's works, whereas Baha'u'llah explore is devoted solely to these.
To me, these are reliable sources?? .o0o.Sufisticated.o0o. ( talk) 06:54, 21 May 2008 (UTC)
Hi, I turned up two sources while working on List of Sega 32X games that really helped to complete the list, but I'm not sure if either one of them is a reliable source. The first one comes from www.sega-16.com and the second comes from new.guardiana.net. Both lists have been helpful in pinpointing all of the 32X's games (and CD 32X games), but I'm not sure if either source is reliable. The two sources under the appropriate section in the list itself have the exact links to the sites. Thanks in advance for your comments. Red Phoenix flame of life... protector of all... 23:37, 21 May 2008 (UTC)
See the article Bob Barr. Reference 63 cites the Wikipedia article on Borat. Is that allowed, can you really do that? -- Coasttocoast ( talk) 00:36, 22 May 2008 (UTC)
Impasse on Talk: Jizya about whether the above professor is always unreliable or whether (my viewpoint) he is a distinguished scholar albeit one whose views are sometimes disputed by other scholars. Itsmejudith ( talk) 09:41, 20 May 2008 (UTC)
We are currently sifting through some sources at an FA article, trying to determine which ones are reliable. Many are currently redlinked lesser-known sources in the Bluegrass music industry and local Michigan publications, and we could use some help determining which sources meet Wikipedia standards. Additional opinions requested at Talk:Elderly Instruments#Sources. -- El on ka 05:27, 23 May 2008 (UTC)
I searched that term and Wikipedia:Reliable_sources/Noticeboard and didn't find any reference. I have an old report by Drudge (before he archived) of a conversation he had with a notable person who already has an article here. It's a BLP allegation against a living person which I'd use on a couple BLPs. Useable? Or only if I repeat from a more reliable source that this person told Drudge that? Thanks. Carol Moore 23:42, 19 May 2008 (UTC) Carolmooredc {talk}
I know nothing about this site; it claims to represent a widely-syndicated radio programme and has been used for this diff. It seems rather more polemical than analytical to me. Any ideas? Thanks. -- Rodhull andemu 23:32, 22 May 2008 (UTC)
The book in question is A History of the New Thought Movement by Horatio W. Dresser First published by Thomas Y. Crowell Co., New York, 1919. Dresser was a prolific writer/editor of New Thought works (e.g. this list), and was the child of two of its founders (see Phineas Quimby for details on his parents). In at least two books ( Self-help and Popular Religion in Early American Culture: An Interpretive Guide p 196, The Village Enlightenment in America p145) give accusations of partisan historical revisionism against him. Can he be considered a WP:RS for the history of the movement in International New Thought Alliance? Hrafn Talk Stalk 04:07, 23 May 2008 (UTC)
The 'claim' is an absurdity:
Upon INTA's creation, it also absorbed the International Metaphysical League (founded in 1900), which claimed a membership connection to The Metaphysical Club. Thus, at the time of its official "founding", INTA claimed an unbroken membership history that stretched back 42 years.
Appropriating The Metaphysical Club's history because they "absorbed" another organisation that "claimed a membership connection" to it is ridiculously tenuous.
Here is what the description says:
The convention held at San Francisco, in connection with the Panama-Pacific International Exposition, 1915, was called The First International New Thought Congress. It began August 30, and continued until September 5, with three sessions daily and noon healing meetings. The meeting place was Moose Auditorium, Jones St., near Golden Gate Ave. The convention was preceded by New Thought Day, August 28, at the Panama-Pacific Exposition. The program for that day was as follows: Assembling of all New Thought people at Fillmore St. entrance, to be escorted by officials and band to the Court of Abundance, to receive commemorative bronze medal; Science and Demonstration of Mind Reading by The Ellises, Pompeiian Room, Inside Inn; banquet-lunch at Inside Inn; music and reading, Recital Hall; interpretation of Dante's La Divina Comedia, Rev. Lucy C. McGee; choral and organ recital, Mr. A. L. Artigues, Festival Hall.
It should be excluded as irrelevant detail per WP:INDISCRIMINATE: "Wikipedia is not an indiscriminate collection of information", even were Dresser not an unreliable source. Hrafn Talk Stalk 04:37, 23 May 2008 (UTC)