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Certainly not everyone ever born has their birth announced in newspapers or other media, but my thought is that a birth certificate held in public records would itself be generally accessible to to verify a birth date... just as might old hard-copy news sources not available online. I am wrting a BLP, and asked the subject to confirm a birth-date and was sent copies of birth records without myself having to travel to New York City to conduct a personal records search. So we have a public record created by someone other than the subject. Are such records tertiary, secondary, or primary? WP:RS tells us "While specific facts may be taken from primary sources, secondary sources that present the same material are preferred", Large blocks of material based purely on primary sources should be avoided. But in the lack of a published secondary source actually giving her birth-date, and so long as I am giving one non-controversial, but verifiable specific fact, not a fact denoting or confirming notability, and not a large block of information, the actual birth-date is not a "controversial" item, and proof is available offline to substantiate it, what is the best way to handle including it in a BLP. Schmidt, MICHAEL Q. 23:38, 27 January 2013 (UTC)
This question is about a living person; and thus using this primary source is not permitted at all per BLP:PRIMARY. "Do not use trial transcripts and other court records, or other public documents, to support assertions about a living person". I'd also note that multiple other discussions on this and the BLP noticeboard have noted that the use birth/death certificates/census records, even for historical records, are fraught with OR danger and even outright error. Slp1 ( talk) 12:35, 28 January 2013 (UTC)
A difference of opinion regarding the reliability of the documentary series The Men Who Killed Kennedy has led to an edit war between two editors in Jack Ruby. (Some discussion on the dispute can be found in Talk:Jack Ruby#The Men Who Killed Kennedy.) All three of the above sentences are also cited to Seth Kantor's Warren Commission testimony and as well as his 1971 book. Is the documentary reliable? Is it even necessary if there are two other sources? Do the statements require attribution since they are "according to Seth Kantor"? Thanks! Location ( talk) 00:46, 28 January 2013 (UTC)
I removed the citation from the evil, conspiratorial documentary, The Men Who Killed Kennedy ... just too much whining to listen to. BrandonTR ( talk) 08:52, 28 January 2013 (UTC)
The unreferenced BLP Sarah Blacker is currently at risk of WP:BLPPROD. The bio makes mention of references in the The Boston Globe and Performer Magazine, but provides no citations to back up these claims. I searched around and found this link to the latter source [5]. However, I noticed this in the page footer:
WHO WE ARE Performer has been in print for over 20 years. We are a nationally distributed musician’s trade publication, with a focus on independent musicians, those unsigned and on small labels, and their success in a DIY environment. We’re dedicated to promoting lesser-known talent and being the first to introduce you to artists you should know about.
So would this trade publication be considered a reliable source? If not, then I may have no choice but to nominate the article for deletion. Thanks.-- Drm310 ( talk) 06:19, 28 January 2013 (UTC)
07:54, 28 January 2013 (UTC)
Hi. Im wondering if I can get some feedback here regarding a Canadian think-tank type site that I wish to use in a radical reshaping of a contentious section in Falkland Islands sovereignty dispute and its suitability as a WP source. here is the specific piece. War or Diplomacy?-Geopolitical Monitor http://www.geopoliticalmonitor.com/falklands-2012-war-or-diplomacy-4701 It appears to be a respectable site, a specialist site with rich material on geopolitical subjects, which also provides specific reports for paying subscribers, although much of its content is open source. Among its contributors is Anne Applebaum, so there is intellectual notabilty present on the site. The actual author of the piece appears to have sufficient Notability, see http://www.geopoliticalmonitor.com/about/people/ he is listed under his full name, Christopher S Ljungquist. I need it to break a source Weight conflict logjam which has developed at the aforementioned FI article. I note that material from the site has been used at least 3 times on othe WP pages, and has not been challenged as to its veracity as a RS. I would like to use the material as it appears sober (as does the entirity of the site content) and rich in material. I have managed to achieve a broad consensus regarding the material with the relevant editors, and just require the nod to go ahead and deploy it. It would also sort a major issue in an otherwise good article. I would greatly appreciate any feedback on this. Thanks Irondome ( talk) 01:34, 29 January 2013 (UTC)
Note that this has also been cited in this discussion and is a direct rehash of this blog post. So, I think we need to be cautious. Kahastok talk 22:54, 29 January 2013 (UTC)
The front page of r/TIL claims that in 1916, a US constitutional amendment was proposed that would require all acts of war to go to a national popular vote, and people who voted yes would be required to register as a volunteer for service in the United States Army. [constitutionfacts 1] I searched Google for this and even posted to r/askhistorians, but all I keep hearing is that it "was proposed". I was thinking of adding something to List of proposed amendments to the United States Constitution, but I'm beginning to suspect that constitutionfacts.com is inflating some obscure political statement that was never taken seriously. Do they have a reputation for accuracy, or are they completely full of it? PraetorianFury ( talk) 22:34, 29 January 2013 (UTC)
Tageo.com describes itself as "a database of geographic coordinate information. Tageo.com provides information about 2,667,417 cities in the whole world !! [ sic]" I was hoping to use this as a source for List of Somali citites by population (the country conducted one census in 1975). But " Somalia City & Town Population" does not specify any source(s) for its figures. The CIA? The UN? On-the-ground research? As far as I can tell, Tageo doesn't provide sources for any of its data (see " Greece City & Town Population" for another example). In absence of such sources, the website would fall under WP:SPS. To me, Tageo.com does not appear to be a reliable source, but it is used rather widely throughout Wikipedia ( link). -- Gyrofrog (talk) 15:21, 27 January 2013 (UTC)
I have seen the book, "The War Chronicles", [9] by Joseph Cummins being used as a reference on a number of articles.( Battle of Navarino, Greek War of Independence, Crimean War) A cursory search for Joseph Cummins' qualifications brought up nothing. A look through, "The War Chronicles", indicates no footnotes of any kind throughout the book. Thoughts? -- Kansas Bear ( talk) 18:07, 30 January 2013 (UTC)
I expect this was discussed before but is the TheFreeDictionary a reliable source?
When I search RSN archives unfortunately I just get all the discussions that User:The Four Deuces (TFD) was involved in, which is a lot. Volunteer Marek 02:23, 31 January 2013 (UTC)
There is not much in reliable sources to be found about the Habilian Association, but The National Interest states that it is a fake human rights organization. [10] I am wondering if I could get some input regarding three primary source passages from www.habilian.ir/en/ and a fourth from www.americanfront.info/ . Thanks!
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Location ( talk) 20:57, 31 January 2013 (UTC)
The Iranian regime is obnoxious, its human rights record is appalling, and it's hard to believe that it would countenance a human rights organization dedicated (as is, say, Amnesty International) to the impartial investigation and publicizing of human rights abuses by any and all. That said, it is plausible that the enemies of the Iranian regime include organizations that themselves have appalling human rights records, and whose separate investigation isn't necessarily improper. But all in all, my own opinions, and yours, and those of anybody here, should carry little weight. Rather, what has been said about this Habilian Association by/in reliable sources? I'm unimpressed by an article in The National Interest, as this appears to be a pretty solidly right-wing US publication and thus can be predicted to demonize anything sanctioned by the Iranian regime. Has anything been written about the Habilian Association in sources that can be expected to have approached it without prejudice? -- Hoary ( talk) 02:52, 1 February 2013 (UTC) PS I find that the article about the association is at AfD. -- Hoary ( talk) 03:08, 1 February 2013 (UTC)
Bin Baz was a controversial Muslim cleric from Saudi Arabia (died 1999) who issued a " fatwa" in 1966 claiming that the sun orbited the earth. Multiple mainstream well-known sources have also said he believed the "earth is flat" (but they are not in the article, with the exception of Lacey) with two sources saying he didn’t say this (that is in the article). Details of these sources are here. Lacey, in his book, discusses Bin Baz's position and acknowledges that Bin Baz didn't issue a fatwa saying the "earth is flat" but gives an explanation (over 2 pages) for why, notoriously, the view has been attributed to Bin Baz i.e. because, says Lacey, he said it in a 1966 interview even though he didn't include it in the fatwa. As discussed in his article, Robert Lacey is a journalist and a well-known and respected commentator on Saudi Arabia. The Washington Post described Lacey as a "trusted source" in its review of the book. [11]. Is Lacey a reliable source for the the "According to Lacey" statements in the article? DeCausa ( talk) 11:34, 29 January 2013 (UTC)
@Wiqi, yes Lacey gives his sources, they are in the "notes" section in the back of the book. In my edition the endnotes for "Chapter 10: Stars in the heavens" are on p. 352:
88 'seemed to be flat' Memory of someone who read Bin Baz's writings
and
90 felt beneath his feet: These paragraphs are based on Bin Baz's fatwa of Shaaban 1389 and on conversations with his son Ahmed Bin Baz; with Dr Sheikh Mohammed Al-Shuwayl, the sheikh's close friend and assisstant,; with Prince Turki Al-Faisal; with Prince Sultan bin Salman; with Dr Abdullah Al-Muallimi; with Dr Ghazi Algosaibi; and with Fouad al-Ibrahim--whose differing perspectives I have sought to reconcile in this narrative.
There is more about the fatwas and translations and so forth. — Neotarf ( talk) 13:21, 31 January 2013 (UTC)
Robert Lacey is certainly a reputable author, and much read in the diplomatic community. The other citations are from the Judith Miller book. While I'm not aware of anything negative about the 99 Names book, her subsequent reporting of WMD in Iraq was totally inaccurate. She found WMD when there weren't any. [24] Certainly her ties with various members of the Bush administration and with neo-conservative politics are cause for concern about NPOV issues. — Neotarf ( talk) 21:49, 30 January 2013 (UTC)
Please bear with me, as this is a fairly verbose and mildly caustic analysis, but the outcome of this discussion could be substantial enough to justify a thorough discussion. I don't want to proceed on an intended course of action without getting a definitive answer about this book and some of its associated commentary. From what I have seen from the last six+ years of editing on Wikipedia, the general topic is one which receives disproportionate interest from the WP community in comparison to the general public as a whole; since the WP community is the final arbiter of notability and inclusion standards, I want to make sure that I'm not tilting at windmills here. Please don't make one argument here, and then argue against it in other fora.
This book, which (contrary to its appearances) is not a travel guide, is a look at the concept of Micronations, written more as an entertaining armchair read than as a scholarly treatise. The three authors are all freelance writers who have worked with Lonely Planet in the past, but a cursory search indicates that only one has an advanced degree in *any* field (Sellars has a PhD in Comparative Literature and Cultural Studies, awarded three years after the publication of this book, according to his CV from his personal site. Dunford does not have a CV at his personal site, and John Ryan's consultancy business biography does not list anything that would indicate an expertise, other than as a travel guide editor).
The reason that this discussion could be of substantive importance is that it is the primary source for a whole host of articles on the various micronations here on Wikipedia. Some of these micronations such as Sealand or Talossa are notable on their own merits (the former has been the primary subject of many articles from reliable sources, and the latter's constructed language just received an ISO 639-3 language code last week, which is an exceptionally notable accomplishment). However, quite a few of the other "nations" rely heavily on this book (or related content, such as reviews of the book or information from the personal websites of the authors) to establish their notability. See this AFD as an example of this single source being spun into a whole host of references; the book, a review of the book, a Wikipedia scrape from Business Insider and essentially the same material from the book from Simon Sellars' website became "sufficient" coverage to justify retention. There are plenty of other micronation articles which rely on equally flimsy sourcing, and if this book is in fact not a reliable source, then it stands to reason that these articles should be discussed individually, rather than having this book brandished as a talisman against the evil eye of requiring adequate sourcing. Some of them may have adequate sourcing to justify retention, but I suspect that tragic articles such as List of anthems of micronations will not make the cut. Horologium (talk) 02:16, 31 January 2013 (UTC)
Anyone tried merging the insignificant ones into something like List of Micronations? That might be a good compromise, and eliminate articles like Empire of Atlantium, which seems to be large chunks of trivia from the Atlantium website. Gamaliel ( talk) 22:23, 31 January 2013 (UTC)
I found an new and good source that lists best selling Xbox360 and PS3 games. Here are the links ( http://www.statisticbrain.com/playstation-3-best-selling-game-statistics/) and ( http://www.statisticbrain.com/xbox-360-best-selling-games-statistics/). I think this source is reliable maybe. It's not totally up to date but still better than VGchartz. Can it be used as a valid source. KahnJohn27 ( talk) 09:59, 31 January 2013 (UTC)
Source This page from the Ridenbaugh Press Northwest Wiki. Before the project went offline, the wiki's homepage compared it to Wikipedia and made it clear that anyone could contribute content.
Article Frank L. VanderSloot
Content User:Rhode Island Red added the source and the following accompanying text: " In 2006, Ridenbaugh Press listed VanderSloot as the fifteenth most influential person in the state of Idaho." I removed it but the user reverted my removal. dif
Andrew 327 06:48, 1 February 2013 (UTC)
I volunteered to review Karma in Jainism recently. Towards the end of the article, there is a section titled Scientific interpretation. It uses the following two authors as sources for most of the content in that section:
This author is an accomplished statistician writing on karma and Jainism, primarily because he is a Jain by religion and is the chairman of at least two Jain organizations. My conclusion after reading his theory (which talks about sub atomic particles called karmons, karmic matter, a karmic force-field emanating from the soul causing karmic fusion, karmic decay, etc) is that this is a WP:FRINGE theory.
The other author is:
I could find only the following information about this author online:
For both authors I was not able to find or access any papers or articles or books by these authors which have been accepted by or reviewed by the peer community in fields such as South Asian studies, journals on Indian religions, peer reviewed conference proceedings.
Based on the information I've gathered, I feel these sources are not reliable and should not be used to substantiate claims being made regarding the scientific interpretation of karma in Jainism. However, I would like others to comment on this as I may be wrong.
GA review and related discussion is on the talk page Talk:Karma_in_Jainism#GA_Review. Articleye ( talk) 09:11, 1 February 2013 (UTC)
Nothing good is likely to come out of this thread, so I'm going to NAC it. A document that is certainly reliable has been brought up, and it seems to be citable for much of the same information the questionable document was being used for. Interested editors are encouraged to replace the questionable document with the one that is certainly an RS where possible. If it turns out that the questioned document does contain important information that cannot be found in the indubitably reliable document, then interested editors should feel free to open another section about the questioned document, highlighting particular instances where it will be used, and paying much closer attention to decorum then was paid here. I can't enforce a waiting period, but would suggest that any future thread about this wait at least 7 days so that everyone can cool off.
Kevin Gorman (
talk) 03:56, 3 February 2013 (UTC)
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A document apparently originating from the U.S. National Gang Intelligence Center concerning supposed 'Juggolos' gang members has been cited as a source in multiple articles (see search results: [29]). Though there are several possible issues concerning the use this source has been put to, I would first of all like for it to be determined as to whether the document can be cited as a source at all. The document was originally cited as being sourced to publicintelligence.net, [30] which as a previous WP:RSN discussion noted, [31] is a tertiary self-published source, based on user's submissions, and as such possibly shouldn't be cited at all. Having discussed this with User:Niteshift36 on my talk page [32], the suggestion has been made that the U.S. Department of Justice be cited as the publisher - but Niteshift has provided no further details, and suggested that it may be necessary to "file a FOIA request" to access it. Given this response, and given that the document (or at least the document as presented on publicintelligence.net') states that it is "FOR OFFICIAL USE ONLY", I have to query whether the document could be described as 'published'? Accordingly, I'd like some guidance as to whether either the DoJ or publicintelligence.net can be cited as a source for the document. AndyTheGrump ( talk) 22:12, 29 January 2013 (UTC)
Without taking too close of a look at what the document was being used to support, I suspect that this published report by the FBI could be used to cite a decent bit of the material that the FOIA'ed document was previously being used to cite. Kevin Gorman ( talk) 05:48, 30 January 2013 (UTC)
A simple request for Niteshift36. You claim that the document we are discussing has been published. Prove it. Provide evidence that the document is directly available to members of the public, without such members of the public having to file a FOIA request. Give us all the necessary details by which the document can be obtained from a government department. The onus is on you. Vague handwaving and contradictory comments don't cut it - if it has been published, it must be available to the public somewhere. Tell us where. Specifically. AndyTheGrump ( talk) 15:22, 30 January 2013 (UTC)
Ahem. A perfectly good reliable source published document that backs up the information that we need to be backed up has been presented. That means you two can stop arguing over the other one now. It's moot. -- GRuban ( talk) 16:28, 30 January 2013 (UTC)
Niteshift, I see that you have now admitted that you don't know whether it would take a FOIA request to obtain the document. Which amounts (per Johnuniq's comment above) to a statement that you don't know whether the document has been published. The burden of proof is on you, as it always has been. Provide evidence that the document has been published, and can be obtained without a FOIA request, or accept that, as an unpublished document, it cannot pass WP:RS. AndyTheGrump ( talk) 17:45, 31 January 2013 (UTC) And incidentally, Niteshift writes above: "I don't know if it takes a FOIA or not. I never claimed that it did." This is untrue. On Jan 29, Niteshift wrote on my talk page "As for being verifiable....well, file a FOIA request". [35] A clear statement that a FOIA request would be needed to access the document. AndyTheGrump ( talk) 18:10, 31 January 2013 (UTC)
Ok, put your money where your mouth is, and propose an explicit clarification/amendment to WP:OR policy which states that if a contributor can obtain a document under the FOIA, it is considered as 'published' for our purposes. See how far that gets you... AndyTheGrump ( talk) 23:27, 31 January 2013 (UTC)
Break from more of the sameIt would be best if Andythe Grump and Niteshift36 did not participate past this point except to answer specific questions from other editors. Is there any information in the original document in question that can't be sourced to the obviously published PDF I linked previously? Unless any major facts can be cited to one but not the other, then this is an utterly pointless argument. Regardless of the fact that it wasn't the document originally brought to question in this section, if the same information can be sourced to the obvious acceptable document that has been linked here, there's no point arguing about the first source. Kevin Gorman ( talk) 00:11, 1 February 2013 (UTC)
Sorry, I've been off wiki for few days, just coming to this thread. Official United States government documents are usually highly reliable. But I don't think we have been shown any such document. I don't see any source mentioned in this thread that seems like a reliable source at all. Itsmejudith ( talk) 08:49, 2 February 2013 (UTC)
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Online Etymology Dictionary by Douglas Harper is reliable? official website Zheek ( talk) 09:17, 1 February 2013 (UTC)
It looks like good information. It's tantalising, but it doesn't meet WP:RS criteria. The author is a Pennsylvania local historian, not a historical linguist (which you have to be, to be an expert on etymology). The Wikipedia articles about him and his dictionary give no reason to suppose he's an expert: note the Chicago Tribune quote, it's one of the "best resources for finding just the right word" -- nice, but nothing to do with etymology. He himself doesn't claim expert status: he says that he has compiled the material from certain sources. Well, those are good sources, but unfortunately, articles in Online Etymological Dictionary do not specify which source was used in each case. So, we should go to reliable sources, including those that Online Etymological Dictionary used. Andrew Dalby 11:01, 1 February 2013 (UTC)
The success of the Hunter, of which nearly 2000 were built, seemed to be the foundation of a secure future for Hawkers. The 1957 UK Government White Paper contained the devastating pronouncement that the defence of the country would in the future be achieved with guided weapons rather than piloted fighters. Hawkers were then proceeding with a private venture design of a mach 2+ fighter designated P.1121. The White Paper was the death knell of that project. The cancellation of the P.1121 led to increased emphasis on another project which soon became the P.1127. In 1959, Chaplin became ‘Chief Designer’ and an Executive Director on the Hawker Board.
In 1939 ... Chaplin was formally promoted to ‘Assistant Chief Designer’. In 1940 Chaplin and most of the Hawker Design Office moved down the Portsmouth Road from Kingston to Claremont, an 18th century mansion at Esher. From 1937 and on until after WW2, Chaplin was involved with the design of the Typhoon, Tempest and Sea Fury aircraft. In 1946 Chaplin’s share in the design and development of the Hurricane was acknowledged when he was awarded the Order of the British Empire
A new editor,
Jonathan Chaplin (
talk ·
contribs), is preparing a draft of
his father's biography. I recognise the
conflict of interest which is why I am assisting. As I do not have access to the source, I am unable to confirm which parts of the above paragraphs are being attributed to it. The source is currently cited at the end of each of those two paragraphs. If the source is being used as attribution for the whole of the sentence in paragraph 2 beginning and ending thus: "In 1946 Chaplin ... was awarded the
Order of the British Empire", then there is no issue; that sentence can be sourced to
"No. 37412".
The London Gazette (Supplement). 9 January 1946. p. 277. {{
cite magazine}}
: Check date values in: |date=
(
help) If the source is being used as attribution for all the quoted content above, then there may be cause for concern. Please direct us to the Wikipedia policy or guideline that specifically addresses such
ephemeral sources --
Senra (
talk) 15:33, 1 February 2013 (UTC)
Our article on Opposition to Freemasonry within Christianity starts with the sentence "While the majority of Christian denominations are either supportive of Freemasonry or take no stance on it, there are a several that are outwardly opposed to it, and either discourage or outright prohibit their members from joining the fraternity." The first part of this sentence (about the majority of denominations) has been challenged as needing a source. I am not sure how to go about doing so... how does one cite a lack of a stance. We can cite those who have been actively supportive... and we can cite those who are actively opposed... but how can we cite those who make no comment at all (who take no stance either for or against)? It is important to Neutrality that the article not give the impression that the majority of denominations oppose the fraternity... so some sort of comment about the majority needs to be made here... but any comment we make without sources is make is bound to be challenged as unverifiable. Advice? Blueboar ( talk) 20:46, 28 January 2013 (UTC)
Having read the article I think any numbers statement is really problematic. Of the big three communions, the Catholics are loudly against the Masons, the Orthodox (from what I can see) are similarly opposed, and only the Anglicans don't express a negative opinion (and it wouldn't surprise me that, if pushed, the African Anglican churches might give a negative statement). The evangelicals and fundamentalists appear to be generally opposed. That pretty much leaves the Methodists and Lutherans giving a mixed message and the Presbyterians saying nothing, and maybe the historic black churches in the USA (I don't recall where they stood). Sorting that out differently, the mainline Protestant groups are the only ones who aren't negative. Counting denominations is pretty hopeless because there are many, many, many more conservative Baptist polity groups and weird African fusion sects (for whom this is probably not an interesting question) than there are organized mainline denominations. If you count heads, then the Catholic/Orthodox opposition swamps everything else. I think we really need a secondary source to state any assessment. Mangoe ( talk) 14:33, 29 January 2013 (UTC)
I have encountered several articles using the Gatestone Institute web-site as sources for, often quite radical, claims diff. Looking at the web-site of the institute it claims to be independent and impartial. Looking at its subject matter and published articles it is quite clearly highly partisan with very strong and uni-directional political views. I have concerns about the wisdom of using this as a source in Wikipedia unless it is balanced by other more mainstream views. It is most commonly used as a source in the context of Israeli/ Palestine issues and getting the balance right in Wikipedia seems very important. I would welcome views or a direction to take my query. Thanks Velella Velella Talk 09:55, 1 February 2013 (UTC)
In a thread above someone pointed out that there are already multiple references to whatdotheyknow.com, a website that publishes requests under the Freedom of Information Act UK, perhaps other Freedom of Information acts as well, and the responses to those requests.
It seems to me that those documents are definitely going to be primary sources, and usually not reliable sources for WP, but I think we should have a full discussion, possibly amend WP:IRS and WP:NOR to give guidance on these cases, and if necessary launch a clean-up campaign. What do people think? Itsmejudith ( talk) 16:44, 2 February 2013 (UTC)
Is the image from a high school yearbook a reliable source to show that someone attended a high school to be listed as a notable alumni on the school page? It is a primary source which should be used with caution, but what we have is a reliable primary source showing an image of the person in 1976, easily compared with their modern image online. And of course their online Forbes biography stating that they were born in that town, and doing the math for confirmation. Born in 1958 + 18 = 1976 graduation. So, are yearbooks reliable sources, even though they are primary sources? We use the social security death index, which are primary sources to find birth dates all the time. -- Richard Arthur Norton (1958- ) ( talk) 02:49, 3 February 2013 (UTC)
It sounds like everyone is saying something like "not a good source, but possibly useful in particular cases"? But if that is the consensus then it is obvious we need to discuss particular cases?-- Andrew Lancaster ( talk) 12:13, 4 February 2013 (UTC)
On Talk:Masturbation#Endorphins an editor wants to include the idea that masturbation is addictive by quoting http://www.yourbrainonporn.com/rethinking-wonders-adult-masturbation and other yourbrainonporn.com resources. This is what I found about the website:
* ''Your Brain on Porn,'' which weaves together Biblical themes and information from scientific studies about the effects of pornography on one's beliefs.<ref>[http://www.prweb.com/releases/2011/12/prweb9034565.htm “Smut in the Sanctuary: New Guide From Covenant Eyes Blends the Bible and Scientific Research to Teach Christians About the Threat of Pornography ”]. PRWeb.com. 2011-12-13. Retrieved 2011-12-13.</ref>
Since the website is neither mainstream science nor mainstream medicine website, but a faith-based initiative against theologically perceived sexual perversity, I see also a problem with quoting it in respect to Wikipedia:Advocacy. Please help us settle the issue whether yourbrainonporn.com passes WP:MEDRS requirements.
The edits which have been reverted are at [42]. The reverted editor said hopes to reinstate his edits through quoting yourbrainonporn.com as a reliable source. Tgeorgescu ( talk) 22:01, 3 February 2013 (UTC)
Zad
68
22:26, 3 February 2013 (UTC)This ref seems reliable and references other medical studies, and I was going to use it to cite the content.
Does anyone see anything in this article that isn't OR? Note that if the link to Book of Jasher is meant to refer to Book of Jasher (Pseudo-Jasher), that's a hoax. And the first footnote is a note but not in English. Dougweller ( talk) 18:45, 4 February 2013 (UTC)
Is this source [45] reliable for this statement "The Media Watch report did not include a response from Boost Mobile and the report did not indicate that Media Watch had ever contacted Boost Mobile for comment." which an IP editor has been adding to the 'Marketing controversy' section of the article Boost Mobile. I am under the impression that this edit is original research, as the article does not mention that they did not contact Boost mobile, rather the IP has just noted that they do not mention contacting them, and on these grounds I have now removed that sentence from the article twice. Just wanted your opinion on the matter as I believe this issue will be contested further unless a third party intervenes. Freikorp ( talk) 01:27, 5 February 2013 (UTC)
Source: Gupta, Gupta, K.R , Amita (2006). Concise Encyclopaedia of India - Volume 3. Atlantic Publishers & Dist..
p. 1104
Article:
Etymology of Assam (
diff)
Content: "The word asama or assama was used during the time when
Bhaskar Varman ruled
Kamarupa. At that time the present Assam used to emit poisonous gases and was uninhabitable. Some of the
Kamrupi criminals used this land as shelter to hide and avoid punishment. Those people were also called asama or assama."
Discussion: Is the book mentioned above reliable source? The question arises because:
I may add that I have not found these claims in the other references I have examined, listed at end of Etymology of Assam. Chaipau ( talk) 15:53, 28 January 2013 (UTC)
This source is being used to support that Barry Manilow is a crunkcore artist at both of those articles. Dallas News is usually a reliable source, but in this case is either mistaken or this is somebody's idea of a joke. I doubt there are any other sources out there that identify Manilow as a crunkcore artist. This seems to be a case of gaming the system. Gobōnobō + c 09:38, 1 February 2013 (UTC)
Movie Review Intelligence is a film review aggregator website like Rotten Tomatoes and Metacritic. A few years ago, the domain was added to the spam blacklist because there was an effort to spam the website across multiple film articles. I endorsed the listing at the time. Recently, I started a general discussion about film aggregator websites (seen here) and remembered that MRI was blacklisted. I requested for it to be removed from the spam blacklist recently (seen here). Hu12 originally declined for a variety of reasons, though the request is reopened due to Amatulic seeing a potential case. The most pertinent reason to address here is reliability. Here is relevant coverage from other sources to review: Yahoo! and 1 and 2 from the Associated Press. The Wikipedia article has additional references. Hu12 says the Yahoo! article indicates lack of reliability: "Anybody working for a large-circulation publication – even someone with no previous experience – would be considered especially important in Movie Review Intelligence's formula." I think that this is not clear-cut since the Associated Press references this website. In addition, Rotten Tomatoes aggregates a wide range of reviews (not just ones found in print) and determines what is "Fresh" and "Rotten" (though we avoid using such bland labels in Wikipedia articles per WP:RTMC). Per the general discussion I mentioned earlier, I think that Movie Review Intelligence should be available to offset the duopoly of Rotten Tomatoes and Metacritic. (Arguments for and against likely abuse can be seen at the blacklist request link.) I am wondering what other editors think of MRI as a reliable source, especially in the context of RT and MC being accepted and used. It may also be worth considering its acceptability as an external link per WP:ELMAYBE #4 to be removed from the blacklist. Erik ( talk | contribs) 20:01, 4 February 2013 (UTC)
I seeking input regarding whether or not a particular legal document justifies a specific claim. There is an ongoing heated discussion on the Frank L. VanderSloot BLP regarding whether or not his company uses multilevel marketing, and this is a small part of that discussion. In the '90s, the BLP subject signed an "Assurance of Voluntary Compliance" with the Idaho Attorney General. Mother Jones posted a copy of the Assurance which reads, in part, "The Attorney General is informed and believe that Melaleuca sells various nutrition, personal care, and homecare products, pursuant to a multi-level marketing plan, in Idaho."
Rhode Island Red has repeatedly made claims similar to this: "Vandersloot acknowledged that his company is an MLM when he signed the consent agreement with the Idaho AG [46] -- why are you ignoring this fact?"
HTownCat provided a response: "As for the legal document you've linked above, it says 'The Attorney General is informed and believes that Melaleuca sells various nutrition, personal care and homecare products, persuant to a multi-level marketing plan, in Idaho.' I will leave it to the attorney general to have any 'belief' that he or she wants, but VanderSloot isn't admitting to an MLM in this 'assurance of voluntary compliance.'"
The question: is this a reliable source for the claim that Frank VanderSloot has stated that his company, Melaleuca, is a multilevel marketing company? Andrew 327 01:28, 5 February 2013 (UTC)
Hi there,
I've currently nominated a few Good Articles, and a question has come up over the referencing of Code of Honor (Star Trek: The Next Generation). The reviewer has questioned whether TrekNation and also "Jammer's Reviews" (which is hosted by TrekNation) are reliable. TN has previously been used in the Featured Article These Are the Voyages..., and was directly mentioned in the nomination paragraph for that article with it being described as " TrekNation is a long-standing website owned by UGO Networks and the Hearst Corporation". TrekNation is a collection of sites, including Jammer's Reviews. The main site is TrekToday, which is here, Jammer's Reviews is here.
Jammer's Reviews has not been used in any GAs previously (my initial Star Trek related articles did not include it as I was concerned that it was simply a fan site). However upon investigation, I discovered that the opinions of the writer and editor of the site was held in such esteem by the Star Trek: Voyager crew that they flew him out to Los Angeles to pitch story ideas to them at one point. Admittedly they didn't use any of his ideas, but they cared about his opinions enough to do that, and so I think that he can be considered a reliable source due to that context (in this case, he went back afterwards and reviewed each episode of The Next Generation after the series ended - I believe he started with Voyager).
Would it be possible to get some opinions on whether or not you think these would meet the criteria to be considered reliable? Thanks. Miyagawa ( talk) 14:52, 5 February 2013 (UTC)
The site eeggs.com had been brought here twice. Once in 2010 and again in 2011. The latter only resulted in one opinion. Currently, dispute is regarding its use in
Easter_egg_(media). The editor who I am in disagreement with was the one who created the 2011 discussion. I don't. believe that the site does not meet
WP:RS for direct sourcing. We're having another debate over this on article page, where you can also find the links to the two RSNs
Talk:Easter_egg_(media)#Third_opinion current debate here. I raised a concern that contents of the websites are user generated and there's no evidence that the contents are positively accuracy checked before its allow to go online. The disputing editor says it the other way around... that I don't have evidence that they DO NOT fact check. The about page says they're a husband and team website. They do hold a degree, but per our
WP:SPS, the authors must meet secondary publication as expert guideline to be considered anything other than he said, she said statements. I'm aware that they've been cited by reliable sources; however the editors of publisher's reliable source that cites them most likely fact checked the information they obtained from eeggs.com before publishing it. Say NY Times news article cites them. I think its ok to cite them along with the said NY Times article, but I find that the site should not be used to support examples not also covered in secondary source. There's also another concern that adding things from that site to article with no logical reasoning for choosing the examples that were chosen could be
WP:COATRACK or
WP:INDISCRIMINATE matter. I believe examples should have been covered in reliable secondary source before they're even considered as worthy line item.
Cantaloupe2 (
talk) 10:53, 25 January 2013 (UTC)
Reviewed by: David Wolf
; results: 382. Search for Reviewed by: Webmaster
; results: 6782. The lowest-numbered item I found,
http://www.eeggs.com/items/3.html, from 1999, was reviewed by "webmaster". I wonder who the
webmaster might be. So much for "only moderated by other screen named editors". Also, in
Easter egg (media) five out of the six eeggs.com citations were reviewed by . . . webmaster. Not that that makes one shred of difference to the as-established-by-independent-reliable-sources reliability and notability of the site as a source, as noted by GRuban. --
Lexein (
talk) 18:31, 26 January 2013 (UTC)
You're the only one who is vigorously defending this source, so far. We should be clear that it is not THEIR work that was cited, but that of some of their contributing anonymous internets editors and I feel that we can't really conclude "if host A's source A's work had been cited by a reliable source, source B on the same domain must be reliable". Do any other Wikipedians have input? Cantaloupe2 ( talk) 06:00, 27 January 2013 (UTC)
So, you mentioned in talk that its "vetted" process, but that process is through users. How exactly is it different from wiki with many editors overseeing it? Here, we don't usually allow other wiki pages. On eeggs.com many user submissions are posted in verbatim, therefore does that not make individual contributors the author and WP:UESRG? I think it does. Cantaloupe2 ( talk) 20:51, 6 February 2013 (UTC)
— Preceding unsigned comment added by Alexbrn ( talk • contribs)
I'm coming at this from the point of view of having reviewed mostly sourcing for biomedical statements, and in that domain we're looking for secondary sources. This appears to be a primary source research result. I'm not saying that's a problem, but more asking if it's usual to use primary research results in this area? I think the content would need to be localized to very clearly say Swedish schools, and not 'Waldorf pupils' in general, as the study compared Swedish Waldorf schools to Swedish mainstream schools.
Zad
68
19:17, 25 January 2013 (UTC)
Zad
68
19:20, 25 January 2013 (UTC)
Zad
68
19:22, 25 January 2013 (UTC)
Zad
68
19:26, 25 January 2013 (UTC)
OK... I'm not really following the article Talk page. Of course a publication that can demonstrated to be produced by the source it's attributed to can be a reliable primary source for something that person said per WP:SELFPUB as discussed. But even in this case "Waldorf pupils" is a larger scope than the study cited, which is Swedish Waldorf pupils as compared to Swedish traditional education pupils.
The question is whether it's important to cite in a general encyclopedia article on
Waldorf education what Waldorf insiders say to each other about Waldorf education - I'm sure they think it's great. It probably is important to have the article state what Waldorf proponents believe is good about Waldorf education. But again we need a secondary source - who says Dahlin's voice is the most important on this topic, and who says that these particular beliefs of his are the most important things? Getting out of here... have a good one.
Zad
68
21:13, 25 January 2013 (UTC)
If "expert opinion" is the case, then that brings up the question of whether that expert's opinion is notable, and to establish that we would like to see (once again) some independent notice of that expert's opinion, and using a primary study produced by such an expert will be a case of using a WP:PRIMARY source, which is difficult to do without interpreting it and introducing your own original research. What independent sources have reported on these findings?
Another way this rule of "reputation for fact-checking" might be applied is (and I have seen this for some Wikipedia articles I've worked on): A group working for a prestigious academic institution produces and publishes a primary study in that institution's own journal, and then over the years that study is so well-accepted by other experts in the same field that it is cited by them over and over again. Here the fact-checking might not be a formal pre-publication journal peer review, but rather the independent peers in the field find the work acceptable so they cite it. In this example, we'd be looking for non-Waldorf education researchers to generally accept and use the results of this study. Has this happened?
Zad
68
03:07, 27 January 2013 (UTC)
What I hope is my final comment on this RSN request: hgilbert and jellypear are both saying it's an "empirical study", but to that Wikipedia says, "So what? That's not enough." Getting published in a peer-reviewed journal is a good step toward being
WP:RS but even that is not enough, because many journals have disreputable peer-review processes, or somehow the study ended up in a decent journal but not one directly relevant to the field of study. Even when you have a study produced by a PhD and published in an appropriate, reputable peer-reviewed journal, that's not enough, because the study may have had undetected confounding problems or just be a statistical outlier. It's not until the study has been picked up in a review article or meta-analysis and combined with many other high-quality studies in a good secondary source that you can finally have some confidence in using it in a Wikipedia article. The Dahlin study is really at the very bottom of this hierarchy, as it appears to be a primary research study not published in any journal and not subject to any kind of peer review, and it was done by someone with a signficant conflict of interest. As such, the answer is: Dahlin's report is only useful as attributed to Dahlin for Dahlin's own opinions, and without an independent secondary source picking up on Dahlin's findings, it's a very open question as to whether Dahlin's findings are notable enough to be quoting as suggested in the "Content" line at the top of this RSN request.
Zad
68
03:25, 27 January 2013 (UTC)
Controversial statements such as the findings reported by Bo Dahlin are not allowed at the Waldorf education article after the 2006 ArbCom ruling against Waldorf-related sources. Dahlin is Professor II at the Rudolf Steiner University College in Sweden, and he is a supervisor of the master's thesis students who want a degree in Eurythmy, a Steiner/Waldorf topic. In 2006, the Arbitration Committee gave this final decision: Wikipedia:Requests_for_arbitration/Waldorf_education#Final_decision. It said, in part, "Editors of these articles are expected to remove all original research and other unverifiable information, including all controversial information sourced in Anthroposophy related publications." Also, "As applied to this matter, except with respect to information which is not controversial, material published in Anthroposophy related publications, especially by persons deeply involved in the movement such as teachers or theoreticians, are considered self published and thus not reliable sources." Dahlin is "deeply involved" in Steiner matters and is thus not reliable for Wikipedia purposes. His findings are controversial and thus fall afoul of the 2006 ArbCom ruling. Binksternet ( talk) 12:55, 27 January 2013 (UTC)
Zad
68
01:16, 29 January 2013 (UTC)
I'm glad the input was well-appreciated!
Zad
68
01:12, 29 January 2013 (UTC)
Here (archive 95, late 2011) is what I think is the most recent discussion of wisegeek.com as a source. Quite why it needed discussion isn't obvious to me; it clearly lacks credibility. Anyway, the discussion -- in which I didn't participate (I first heard of wisegeek.com only today) -- seems to conclude that wisegeek.com is junk.
That had little or no lasting effect. Today, dozens of articles cite wisegeek.com.
Of course wisegeek.com is but one of a fair number of content/essay farms. Consider the little article on Johann Theodor Jablonski. It currently sports five footnotes, each to a different source. The first source is not problematic. Here are the second to fifth:
After my laughter had subsided, it occurred to me that these were such obvious crap that I should simply add
to the spam blacklist. But though this stuff is garbage, it's not spammed garbage. Stuff may be added to the list if it simply violates Wikipedia's policies or guidelines. However, this may just mean copyright violations, porn, goatse, etc; I'm really not sure. How about worthless sites that aren't being spammed, whose content won't shock, but that have no credibility and that a lazy, naïve or slow-witted editor could link to in any of a huge range of articles and thereby impress the naïve or slow-witted reader? Can these be added to the spam blacklist, and if they can't, shouldn't they be addable? Or is there some other solution that I am overlooking? -- Hoary ( talk) 10:18, 31 January 2013 (UTC)... slight alteration 08:12, 6 February 2013 (UTC)
Here are the blacklist rules. I quote (italics), with my own comments:
And what follows is irrelevant. (It's about deliberate debasement of WP, whereas I'm asking about unwitting [I'd hope] debasement of WP.) -- Hoary ( talk) 12:35, 31 January 2013 (UTC)
I just spent an hour trying to remove wisegeek.com links from articles, and I only barely dented the list. We definitely need to be more proactive in preventing these kinds of sites from being added in the first place so not create so many problems trying to clean them up later. We could also use a bot or special project to remove the ones already there. DreamGuy ( talk) 21:40, 3 February 2013 (UTC)
Lady Borton was an active Quaker member and one of the few Americans to work in both South and North Vietnam during the war. In one of her work, "After Sorrow" the role of Vietnamese women was described, and I want to bring it to the Vietnam War article.-- Zeraful ( talk) 07:04, 2 February 2013 (UTC)
Sorry, it seem that I did not make my point clear here. For the time being, I only want to use Borton's book as a reference for the Woman section in the Vietnam War article, since the whole thing currently didn't have any sources added into it.-- Zeraful ( talk) 06:36, 3 February 2013 (UTC)
There has recently been an ongoing discussion at WP:AIRPORTS on whether or not http://www.airlineroute.net should be used as a reliable source for listing new destinations/services for an airline. We are trying to reach to a consensus on whether or not we should use that as a source and the discussion has gone stale or lot of editors are having different opinions about. I don't know if this is the appropriate place to put it or we should continue discussing? Here is the link to the discussion: Wikipedia_talk:WikiProject_Airports#Airlineroute.net.2FRoutesonline.com. Thanks! Snoozlepet ( talk) 20:36, 6 February 2013 (UTC)
The National Hockey League maintains an official website www.nhl.com that maintain team and player profiles, game scores, statistics, etc for their league. Clearly it is a reliable publication maintained by the governing body of their respective competition.
My question is whether the website www.eurohockey.net can be regarded equally as reliable as the NHL site. The provenance of their data is unknown and the site describes itself as staffed by "around 50 volunteers" [57]. It seems to be run by a group of amateur enthusiasts and thus may not have the rigor of the official NHL site. -- Nug ( talk) 19:15, 4 February 2013 (UTC)
Off topic discussion
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Hi all,
We have a question at PROUT as to whether or not Crovetto [1] is a reliable source. This article was originally published in the peer-reviewed [2] journal "Nova Religio" as "Ananda Marga and the Use of Force" [3] and a revised version (which is at issue here) appeared in James R. Lewis's book Violence and New Religious Movements (OxfordUP, 2011). Crovetto is a recognized scholar [4] in this area with several peer-reviewed publications [5] despite not having a university affiliation. As best I can tell, this is exactly the kind of citation we want in our articles.
Abhidevananda has called the reliability of this article into question several times, most recently here. I don't think I can summarize the objections fairly so I'll let the talk page speak for itself.
Opinions from any disinterested editors would be appreciated.
Thanks,
Garamond Lethe 20:04, 4 February 2013 (UTC)
This doesn't appear to be a substantial objection to the unreliability of the source, it's just an unsubstantiated charge of bias. The passage quoted by Abhidevananda which supposedly demonstrates "obvious" bias demonstrates no such thing, and Abhidevananda alludes to other problems but does nothing to substantiate those claims either. Unless a serious effort is made by Abhidevananda to lay out the unreliability of this source beyond a mere longwinded claim of bias, all I see is smoke but no fire, and certainly no reason to toss out a peer-reviewed journal article, which is pretty much the top tier of sources.
Gamaliel (
talk) 20:21, 4 February 2013 (UTC)
A new editor has asked me about this, and I don't know the answer... so I am bumping this up the chain... Take a look at our article on Low-energy electron diffraction... specifically the section on "Historical perspective"... I know it is not normal to put a citation in the section header, but is there anything particularly wrong with doing so? (And if there is something wrong with doing so... are there any suggestions on where to put the citation? Blueboar ( talk) 02:56, 8 February 2013 (UTC)
Non-RSN discussion
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The following four sources have been removed from the tax choice "Further reading" section. They've all been published by credible organizations and are relevant to the concept of giving taxpayers more of a say on how their taxes are spent. None of the content from these sources has been referenced in the actual article. I've included the editors who removed the sources and their edit summaries.
Are these sources suitable to be listed in the "Further reading" section? Thanks. -- Xerographica ( talk) 01:20, 7 February 2013 (UTC)
RS is a threshold question – if a source is not reliable, it should not be used in the article text. To compare, please consider WP:NOTNEWSPAPER – journalists write in mainstream RS media all the time. We do not include their stories simply because the are RS. Sometimes FR & EL items can be included in those sections even if they are not RS. For example, the Open Directory Project will have lots of non-RS links, but it is appropriate to include {{ dmoz}} in the EL section. Likewise, musical scores or song lyrics might come from a RS, but they are not appropriate to use anywhere in an article because of COPYVIO concerns. As for your listing of 4 items, they are problematic. If you can find some support for your concerns on this noticeboard (or better yet, on the tax choice talk page), then fine. But I think the best COA is to collapse this RSN posting as off-topic. – S. Rich ( talk) 02:47, 7 February 2013 (UTC) Orangemike, the quoted policy clearly states that they are reliable sources...with reasonable limits to their use. Everything that an organization publishes is published "according to the whim and/or policy" of the organization. -- Xerographica ( talk) 02:51, 7 February 2013 (UTC)
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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 135 | ← | Archive 140 | Archive 141 | Archive 142 | Archive 143 | Archive 144 | Archive 145 |
Certainly not everyone ever born has their birth announced in newspapers or other media, but my thought is that a birth certificate held in public records would itself be generally accessible to to verify a birth date... just as might old hard-copy news sources not available online. I am wrting a BLP, and asked the subject to confirm a birth-date and was sent copies of birth records without myself having to travel to New York City to conduct a personal records search. So we have a public record created by someone other than the subject. Are such records tertiary, secondary, or primary? WP:RS tells us "While specific facts may be taken from primary sources, secondary sources that present the same material are preferred", Large blocks of material based purely on primary sources should be avoided. But in the lack of a published secondary source actually giving her birth-date, and so long as I am giving one non-controversial, but verifiable specific fact, not a fact denoting or confirming notability, and not a large block of information, the actual birth-date is not a "controversial" item, and proof is available offline to substantiate it, what is the best way to handle including it in a BLP. Schmidt, MICHAEL Q. 23:38, 27 January 2013 (UTC)
This question is about a living person; and thus using this primary source is not permitted at all per BLP:PRIMARY. "Do not use trial transcripts and other court records, or other public documents, to support assertions about a living person". I'd also note that multiple other discussions on this and the BLP noticeboard have noted that the use birth/death certificates/census records, even for historical records, are fraught with OR danger and even outright error. Slp1 ( talk) 12:35, 28 January 2013 (UTC)
A difference of opinion regarding the reliability of the documentary series The Men Who Killed Kennedy has led to an edit war between two editors in Jack Ruby. (Some discussion on the dispute can be found in Talk:Jack Ruby#The Men Who Killed Kennedy.) All three of the above sentences are also cited to Seth Kantor's Warren Commission testimony and as well as his 1971 book. Is the documentary reliable? Is it even necessary if there are two other sources? Do the statements require attribution since they are "according to Seth Kantor"? Thanks! Location ( talk) 00:46, 28 January 2013 (UTC)
I removed the citation from the evil, conspiratorial documentary, The Men Who Killed Kennedy ... just too much whining to listen to. BrandonTR ( talk) 08:52, 28 January 2013 (UTC)
The unreferenced BLP Sarah Blacker is currently at risk of WP:BLPPROD. The bio makes mention of references in the The Boston Globe and Performer Magazine, but provides no citations to back up these claims. I searched around and found this link to the latter source [5]. However, I noticed this in the page footer:
WHO WE ARE Performer has been in print for over 20 years. We are a nationally distributed musician’s trade publication, with a focus on independent musicians, those unsigned and on small labels, and their success in a DIY environment. We’re dedicated to promoting lesser-known talent and being the first to introduce you to artists you should know about.
So would this trade publication be considered a reliable source? If not, then I may have no choice but to nominate the article for deletion. Thanks.-- Drm310 ( talk) 06:19, 28 January 2013 (UTC)
07:54, 28 January 2013 (UTC)
Hi. Im wondering if I can get some feedback here regarding a Canadian think-tank type site that I wish to use in a radical reshaping of a contentious section in Falkland Islands sovereignty dispute and its suitability as a WP source. here is the specific piece. War or Diplomacy?-Geopolitical Monitor http://www.geopoliticalmonitor.com/falklands-2012-war-or-diplomacy-4701 It appears to be a respectable site, a specialist site with rich material on geopolitical subjects, which also provides specific reports for paying subscribers, although much of its content is open source. Among its contributors is Anne Applebaum, so there is intellectual notabilty present on the site. The actual author of the piece appears to have sufficient Notability, see http://www.geopoliticalmonitor.com/about/people/ he is listed under his full name, Christopher S Ljungquist. I need it to break a source Weight conflict logjam which has developed at the aforementioned FI article. I note that material from the site has been used at least 3 times on othe WP pages, and has not been challenged as to its veracity as a RS. I would like to use the material as it appears sober (as does the entirity of the site content) and rich in material. I have managed to achieve a broad consensus regarding the material with the relevant editors, and just require the nod to go ahead and deploy it. It would also sort a major issue in an otherwise good article. I would greatly appreciate any feedback on this. Thanks Irondome ( talk) 01:34, 29 January 2013 (UTC)
Note that this has also been cited in this discussion and is a direct rehash of this blog post. So, I think we need to be cautious. Kahastok talk 22:54, 29 January 2013 (UTC)
The front page of r/TIL claims that in 1916, a US constitutional amendment was proposed that would require all acts of war to go to a national popular vote, and people who voted yes would be required to register as a volunteer for service in the United States Army. [constitutionfacts 1] I searched Google for this and even posted to r/askhistorians, but all I keep hearing is that it "was proposed". I was thinking of adding something to List of proposed amendments to the United States Constitution, but I'm beginning to suspect that constitutionfacts.com is inflating some obscure political statement that was never taken seriously. Do they have a reputation for accuracy, or are they completely full of it? PraetorianFury ( talk) 22:34, 29 January 2013 (UTC)
Tageo.com describes itself as "a database of geographic coordinate information. Tageo.com provides information about 2,667,417 cities in the whole world !! [ sic]" I was hoping to use this as a source for List of Somali citites by population (the country conducted one census in 1975). But " Somalia City & Town Population" does not specify any source(s) for its figures. The CIA? The UN? On-the-ground research? As far as I can tell, Tageo doesn't provide sources for any of its data (see " Greece City & Town Population" for another example). In absence of such sources, the website would fall under WP:SPS. To me, Tageo.com does not appear to be a reliable source, but it is used rather widely throughout Wikipedia ( link). -- Gyrofrog (talk) 15:21, 27 January 2013 (UTC)
I have seen the book, "The War Chronicles", [9] by Joseph Cummins being used as a reference on a number of articles.( Battle of Navarino, Greek War of Independence, Crimean War) A cursory search for Joseph Cummins' qualifications brought up nothing. A look through, "The War Chronicles", indicates no footnotes of any kind throughout the book. Thoughts? -- Kansas Bear ( talk) 18:07, 30 January 2013 (UTC)
I expect this was discussed before but is the TheFreeDictionary a reliable source?
When I search RSN archives unfortunately I just get all the discussions that User:The Four Deuces (TFD) was involved in, which is a lot. Volunteer Marek 02:23, 31 January 2013 (UTC)
There is not much in reliable sources to be found about the Habilian Association, but The National Interest states that it is a fake human rights organization. [10] I am wondering if I could get some input regarding three primary source passages from www.habilian.ir/en/ and a fourth from www.americanfront.info/ . Thanks!
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Location ( talk) 20:57, 31 January 2013 (UTC)
The Iranian regime is obnoxious, its human rights record is appalling, and it's hard to believe that it would countenance a human rights organization dedicated (as is, say, Amnesty International) to the impartial investigation and publicizing of human rights abuses by any and all. That said, it is plausible that the enemies of the Iranian regime include organizations that themselves have appalling human rights records, and whose separate investigation isn't necessarily improper. But all in all, my own opinions, and yours, and those of anybody here, should carry little weight. Rather, what has been said about this Habilian Association by/in reliable sources? I'm unimpressed by an article in The National Interest, as this appears to be a pretty solidly right-wing US publication and thus can be predicted to demonize anything sanctioned by the Iranian regime. Has anything been written about the Habilian Association in sources that can be expected to have approached it without prejudice? -- Hoary ( talk) 02:52, 1 February 2013 (UTC) PS I find that the article about the association is at AfD. -- Hoary ( talk) 03:08, 1 February 2013 (UTC)
Bin Baz was a controversial Muslim cleric from Saudi Arabia (died 1999) who issued a " fatwa" in 1966 claiming that the sun orbited the earth. Multiple mainstream well-known sources have also said he believed the "earth is flat" (but they are not in the article, with the exception of Lacey) with two sources saying he didn’t say this (that is in the article). Details of these sources are here. Lacey, in his book, discusses Bin Baz's position and acknowledges that Bin Baz didn't issue a fatwa saying the "earth is flat" but gives an explanation (over 2 pages) for why, notoriously, the view has been attributed to Bin Baz i.e. because, says Lacey, he said it in a 1966 interview even though he didn't include it in the fatwa. As discussed in his article, Robert Lacey is a journalist and a well-known and respected commentator on Saudi Arabia. The Washington Post described Lacey as a "trusted source" in its review of the book. [11]. Is Lacey a reliable source for the the "According to Lacey" statements in the article? DeCausa ( talk) 11:34, 29 January 2013 (UTC)
@Wiqi, yes Lacey gives his sources, they are in the "notes" section in the back of the book. In my edition the endnotes for "Chapter 10: Stars in the heavens" are on p. 352:
88 'seemed to be flat' Memory of someone who read Bin Baz's writings
and
90 felt beneath his feet: These paragraphs are based on Bin Baz's fatwa of Shaaban 1389 and on conversations with his son Ahmed Bin Baz; with Dr Sheikh Mohammed Al-Shuwayl, the sheikh's close friend and assisstant,; with Prince Turki Al-Faisal; with Prince Sultan bin Salman; with Dr Abdullah Al-Muallimi; with Dr Ghazi Algosaibi; and with Fouad al-Ibrahim--whose differing perspectives I have sought to reconcile in this narrative.
There is more about the fatwas and translations and so forth. — Neotarf ( talk) 13:21, 31 January 2013 (UTC)
Robert Lacey is certainly a reputable author, and much read in the diplomatic community. The other citations are from the Judith Miller book. While I'm not aware of anything negative about the 99 Names book, her subsequent reporting of WMD in Iraq was totally inaccurate. She found WMD when there weren't any. [24] Certainly her ties with various members of the Bush administration and with neo-conservative politics are cause for concern about NPOV issues. — Neotarf ( talk) 21:49, 30 January 2013 (UTC)
Please bear with me, as this is a fairly verbose and mildly caustic analysis, but the outcome of this discussion could be substantial enough to justify a thorough discussion. I don't want to proceed on an intended course of action without getting a definitive answer about this book and some of its associated commentary. From what I have seen from the last six+ years of editing on Wikipedia, the general topic is one which receives disproportionate interest from the WP community in comparison to the general public as a whole; since the WP community is the final arbiter of notability and inclusion standards, I want to make sure that I'm not tilting at windmills here. Please don't make one argument here, and then argue against it in other fora.
This book, which (contrary to its appearances) is not a travel guide, is a look at the concept of Micronations, written more as an entertaining armchair read than as a scholarly treatise. The three authors are all freelance writers who have worked with Lonely Planet in the past, but a cursory search indicates that only one has an advanced degree in *any* field (Sellars has a PhD in Comparative Literature and Cultural Studies, awarded three years after the publication of this book, according to his CV from his personal site. Dunford does not have a CV at his personal site, and John Ryan's consultancy business biography does not list anything that would indicate an expertise, other than as a travel guide editor).
The reason that this discussion could be of substantive importance is that it is the primary source for a whole host of articles on the various micronations here on Wikipedia. Some of these micronations such as Sealand or Talossa are notable on their own merits (the former has been the primary subject of many articles from reliable sources, and the latter's constructed language just received an ISO 639-3 language code last week, which is an exceptionally notable accomplishment). However, quite a few of the other "nations" rely heavily on this book (or related content, such as reviews of the book or information from the personal websites of the authors) to establish their notability. See this AFD as an example of this single source being spun into a whole host of references; the book, a review of the book, a Wikipedia scrape from Business Insider and essentially the same material from the book from Simon Sellars' website became "sufficient" coverage to justify retention. There are plenty of other micronation articles which rely on equally flimsy sourcing, and if this book is in fact not a reliable source, then it stands to reason that these articles should be discussed individually, rather than having this book brandished as a talisman against the evil eye of requiring adequate sourcing. Some of them may have adequate sourcing to justify retention, but I suspect that tragic articles such as List of anthems of micronations will not make the cut. Horologium (talk) 02:16, 31 January 2013 (UTC)
Anyone tried merging the insignificant ones into something like List of Micronations? That might be a good compromise, and eliminate articles like Empire of Atlantium, which seems to be large chunks of trivia from the Atlantium website. Gamaliel ( talk) 22:23, 31 January 2013 (UTC)
I found an new and good source that lists best selling Xbox360 and PS3 games. Here are the links ( http://www.statisticbrain.com/playstation-3-best-selling-game-statistics/) and ( http://www.statisticbrain.com/xbox-360-best-selling-games-statistics/). I think this source is reliable maybe. It's not totally up to date but still better than VGchartz. Can it be used as a valid source. KahnJohn27 ( talk) 09:59, 31 January 2013 (UTC)
Source This page from the Ridenbaugh Press Northwest Wiki. Before the project went offline, the wiki's homepage compared it to Wikipedia and made it clear that anyone could contribute content.
Article Frank L. VanderSloot
Content User:Rhode Island Red added the source and the following accompanying text: " In 2006, Ridenbaugh Press listed VanderSloot as the fifteenth most influential person in the state of Idaho." I removed it but the user reverted my removal. dif
Andrew 327 06:48, 1 February 2013 (UTC)
I volunteered to review Karma in Jainism recently. Towards the end of the article, there is a section titled Scientific interpretation. It uses the following two authors as sources for most of the content in that section:
This author is an accomplished statistician writing on karma and Jainism, primarily because he is a Jain by religion and is the chairman of at least two Jain organizations. My conclusion after reading his theory (which talks about sub atomic particles called karmons, karmic matter, a karmic force-field emanating from the soul causing karmic fusion, karmic decay, etc) is that this is a WP:FRINGE theory.
The other author is:
I could find only the following information about this author online:
For both authors I was not able to find or access any papers or articles or books by these authors which have been accepted by or reviewed by the peer community in fields such as South Asian studies, journals on Indian religions, peer reviewed conference proceedings.
Based on the information I've gathered, I feel these sources are not reliable and should not be used to substantiate claims being made regarding the scientific interpretation of karma in Jainism. However, I would like others to comment on this as I may be wrong.
GA review and related discussion is on the talk page Talk:Karma_in_Jainism#GA_Review. Articleye ( talk) 09:11, 1 February 2013 (UTC)
Nothing good is likely to come out of this thread, so I'm going to NAC it. A document that is certainly reliable has been brought up, and it seems to be citable for much of the same information the questionable document was being used for. Interested editors are encouraged to replace the questionable document with the one that is certainly an RS where possible. If it turns out that the questioned document does contain important information that cannot be found in the indubitably reliable document, then interested editors should feel free to open another section about the questioned document, highlighting particular instances where it will be used, and paying much closer attention to decorum then was paid here. I can't enforce a waiting period, but would suggest that any future thread about this wait at least 7 days so that everyone can cool off.
Kevin Gorman (
talk) 03:56, 3 February 2013 (UTC)
| ||
---|---|---|
}}}
A document apparently originating from the U.S. National Gang Intelligence Center concerning supposed 'Juggolos' gang members has been cited as a source in multiple articles (see search results: [29]). Though there are several possible issues concerning the use this source has been put to, I would first of all like for it to be determined as to whether the document can be cited as a source at all. The document was originally cited as being sourced to publicintelligence.net, [30] which as a previous WP:RSN discussion noted, [31] is a tertiary self-published source, based on user's submissions, and as such possibly shouldn't be cited at all. Having discussed this with User:Niteshift36 on my talk page [32], the suggestion has been made that the U.S. Department of Justice be cited as the publisher - but Niteshift has provided no further details, and suggested that it may be necessary to "file a FOIA request" to access it. Given this response, and given that the document (or at least the document as presented on publicintelligence.net') states that it is "FOR OFFICIAL USE ONLY", I have to query whether the document could be described as 'published'? Accordingly, I'd like some guidance as to whether either the DoJ or publicintelligence.net can be cited as a source for the document. AndyTheGrump ( talk) 22:12, 29 January 2013 (UTC)
Without taking too close of a look at what the document was being used to support, I suspect that this published report by the FBI could be used to cite a decent bit of the material that the FOIA'ed document was previously being used to cite. Kevin Gorman ( talk) 05:48, 30 January 2013 (UTC)
A simple request for Niteshift36. You claim that the document we are discussing has been published. Prove it. Provide evidence that the document is directly available to members of the public, without such members of the public having to file a FOIA request. Give us all the necessary details by which the document can be obtained from a government department. The onus is on you. Vague handwaving and contradictory comments don't cut it - if it has been published, it must be available to the public somewhere. Tell us where. Specifically. AndyTheGrump ( talk) 15:22, 30 January 2013 (UTC)
Ahem. A perfectly good reliable source published document that backs up the information that we need to be backed up has been presented. That means you two can stop arguing over the other one now. It's moot. -- GRuban ( talk) 16:28, 30 January 2013 (UTC)
Niteshift, I see that you have now admitted that you don't know whether it would take a FOIA request to obtain the document. Which amounts (per Johnuniq's comment above) to a statement that you don't know whether the document has been published. The burden of proof is on you, as it always has been. Provide evidence that the document has been published, and can be obtained without a FOIA request, or accept that, as an unpublished document, it cannot pass WP:RS. AndyTheGrump ( talk) 17:45, 31 January 2013 (UTC) And incidentally, Niteshift writes above: "I don't know if it takes a FOIA or not. I never claimed that it did." This is untrue. On Jan 29, Niteshift wrote on my talk page "As for being verifiable....well, file a FOIA request". [35] A clear statement that a FOIA request would be needed to access the document. AndyTheGrump ( talk) 18:10, 31 January 2013 (UTC)
Ok, put your money where your mouth is, and propose an explicit clarification/amendment to WP:OR policy which states that if a contributor can obtain a document under the FOIA, it is considered as 'published' for our purposes. See how far that gets you... AndyTheGrump ( talk) 23:27, 31 January 2013 (UTC)
Break from more of the sameIt would be best if Andythe Grump and Niteshift36 did not participate past this point except to answer specific questions from other editors. Is there any information in the original document in question that can't be sourced to the obviously published PDF I linked previously? Unless any major facts can be cited to one but not the other, then this is an utterly pointless argument. Regardless of the fact that it wasn't the document originally brought to question in this section, if the same information can be sourced to the obvious acceptable document that has been linked here, there's no point arguing about the first source. Kevin Gorman ( talk) 00:11, 1 February 2013 (UTC)
Sorry, I've been off wiki for few days, just coming to this thread. Official United States government documents are usually highly reliable. But I don't think we have been shown any such document. I don't see any source mentioned in this thread that seems like a reliable source at all. Itsmejudith ( talk) 08:49, 2 February 2013 (UTC)
|
Online Etymology Dictionary by Douglas Harper is reliable? official website Zheek ( talk) 09:17, 1 February 2013 (UTC)
It looks like good information. It's tantalising, but it doesn't meet WP:RS criteria. The author is a Pennsylvania local historian, not a historical linguist (which you have to be, to be an expert on etymology). The Wikipedia articles about him and his dictionary give no reason to suppose he's an expert: note the Chicago Tribune quote, it's one of the "best resources for finding just the right word" -- nice, but nothing to do with etymology. He himself doesn't claim expert status: he says that he has compiled the material from certain sources. Well, those are good sources, but unfortunately, articles in Online Etymological Dictionary do not specify which source was used in each case. So, we should go to reliable sources, including those that Online Etymological Dictionary used. Andrew Dalby 11:01, 1 February 2013 (UTC)
The success of the Hunter, of which nearly 2000 were built, seemed to be the foundation of a secure future for Hawkers. The 1957 UK Government White Paper contained the devastating pronouncement that the defence of the country would in the future be achieved with guided weapons rather than piloted fighters. Hawkers were then proceeding with a private venture design of a mach 2+ fighter designated P.1121. The White Paper was the death knell of that project. The cancellation of the P.1121 led to increased emphasis on another project which soon became the P.1127. In 1959, Chaplin became ‘Chief Designer’ and an Executive Director on the Hawker Board.
In 1939 ... Chaplin was formally promoted to ‘Assistant Chief Designer’. In 1940 Chaplin and most of the Hawker Design Office moved down the Portsmouth Road from Kingston to Claremont, an 18th century mansion at Esher. From 1937 and on until after WW2, Chaplin was involved with the design of the Typhoon, Tempest and Sea Fury aircraft. In 1946 Chaplin’s share in the design and development of the Hurricane was acknowledged when he was awarded the Order of the British Empire
A new editor,
Jonathan Chaplin (
talk ·
contribs), is preparing a draft of
his father's biography. I recognise the
conflict of interest which is why I am assisting. As I do not have access to the source, I am unable to confirm which parts of the above paragraphs are being attributed to it. The source is currently cited at the end of each of those two paragraphs. If the source is being used as attribution for the whole of the sentence in paragraph 2 beginning and ending thus: "In 1946 Chaplin ... was awarded the
Order of the British Empire", then there is no issue; that sentence can be sourced to
"No. 37412".
The London Gazette (Supplement). 9 January 1946. p. 277. {{
cite magazine}}
: Check date values in: |date=
(
help) If the source is being used as attribution for all the quoted content above, then there may be cause for concern. Please direct us to the Wikipedia policy or guideline that specifically addresses such
ephemeral sources --
Senra (
talk) 15:33, 1 February 2013 (UTC)
Our article on Opposition to Freemasonry within Christianity starts with the sentence "While the majority of Christian denominations are either supportive of Freemasonry or take no stance on it, there are a several that are outwardly opposed to it, and either discourage or outright prohibit their members from joining the fraternity." The first part of this sentence (about the majority of denominations) has been challenged as needing a source. I am not sure how to go about doing so... how does one cite a lack of a stance. We can cite those who have been actively supportive... and we can cite those who are actively opposed... but how can we cite those who make no comment at all (who take no stance either for or against)? It is important to Neutrality that the article not give the impression that the majority of denominations oppose the fraternity... so some sort of comment about the majority needs to be made here... but any comment we make without sources is make is bound to be challenged as unverifiable. Advice? Blueboar ( talk) 20:46, 28 January 2013 (UTC)
Having read the article I think any numbers statement is really problematic. Of the big three communions, the Catholics are loudly against the Masons, the Orthodox (from what I can see) are similarly opposed, and only the Anglicans don't express a negative opinion (and it wouldn't surprise me that, if pushed, the African Anglican churches might give a negative statement). The evangelicals and fundamentalists appear to be generally opposed. That pretty much leaves the Methodists and Lutherans giving a mixed message and the Presbyterians saying nothing, and maybe the historic black churches in the USA (I don't recall where they stood). Sorting that out differently, the mainline Protestant groups are the only ones who aren't negative. Counting denominations is pretty hopeless because there are many, many, many more conservative Baptist polity groups and weird African fusion sects (for whom this is probably not an interesting question) than there are organized mainline denominations. If you count heads, then the Catholic/Orthodox opposition swamps everything else. I think we really need a secondary source to state any assessment. Mangoe ( talk) 14:33, 29 January 2013 (UTC)
I have encountered several articles using the Gatestone Institute web-site as sources for, often quite radical, claims diff. Looking at the web-site of the institute it claims to be independent and impartial. Looking at its subject matter and published articles it is quite clearly highly partisan with very strong and uni-directional political views. I have concerns about the wisdom of using this as a source in Wikipedia unless it is balanced by other more mainstream views. It is most commonly used as a source in the context of Israeli/ Palestine issues and getting the balance right in Wikipedia seems very important. I would welcome views or a direction to take my query. Thanks Velella Velella Talk 09:55, 1 February 2013 (UTC)
In a thread above someone pointed out that there are already multiple references to whatdotheyknow.com, a website that publishes requests under the Freedom of Information Act UK, perhaps other Freedom of Information acts as well, and the responses to those requests.
It seems to me that those documents are definitely going to be primary sources, and usually not reliable sources for WP, but I think we should have a full discussion, possibly amend WP:IRS and WP:NOR to give guidance on these cases, and if necessary launch a clean-up campaign. What do people think? Itsmejudith ( talk) 16:44, 2 February 2013 (UTC)
Is the image from a high school yearbook a reliable source to show that someone attended a high school to be listed as a notable alumni on the school page? It is a primary source which should be used with caution, but what we have is a reliable primary source showing an image of the person in 1976, easily compared with their modern image online. And of course their online Forbes biography stating that they were born in that town, and doing the math for confirmation. Born in 1958 + 18 = 1976 graduation. So, are yearbooks reliable sources, even though they are primary sources? We use the social security death index, which are primary sources to find birth dates all the time. -- Richard Arthur Norton (1958- ) ( talk) 02:49, 3 February 2013 (UTC)
It sounds like everyone is saying something like "not a good source, but possibly useful in particular cases"? But if that is the consensus then it is obvious we need to discuss particular cases?-- Andrew Lancaster ( talk) 12:13, 4 February 2013 (UTC)
On Talk:Masturbation#Endorphins an editor wants to include the idea that masturbation is addictive by quoting http://www.yourbrainonporn.com/rethinking-wonders-adult-masturbation and other yourbrainonporn.com resources. This is what I found about the website:
* ''Your Brain on Porn,'' which weaves together Biblical themes and information from scientific studies about the effects of pornography on one's beliefs.<ref>[http://www.prweb.com/releases/2011/12/prweb9034565.htm “Smut in the Sanctuary: New Guide From Covenant Eyes Blends the Bible and Scientific Research to Teach Christians About the Threat of Pornography ”]. PRWeb.com. 2011-12-13. Retrieved 2011-12-13.</ref>
Since the website is neither mainstream science nor mainstream medicine website, but a faith-based initiative against theologically perceived sexual perversity, I see also a problem with quoting it in respect to Wikipedia:Advocacy. Please help us settle the issue whether yourbrainonporn.com passes WP:MEDRS requirements.
The edits which have been reverted are at [42]. The reverted editor said hopes to reinstate his edits through quoting yourbrainonporn.com as a reliable source. Tgeorgescu ( talk) 22:01, 3 February 2013 (UTC)
Zad
68
22:26, 3 February 2013 (UTC)This ref seems reliable and references other medical studies, and I was going to use it to cite the content.
Does anyone see anything in this article that isn't OR? Note that if the link to Book of Jasher is meant to refer to Book of Jasher (Pseudo-Jasher), that's a hoax. And the first footnote is a note but not in English. Dougweller ( talk) 18:45, 4 February 2013 (UTC)
Is this source [45] reliable for this statement "The Media Watch report did not include a response from Boost Mobile and the report did not indicate that Media Watch had ever contacted Boost Mobile for comment." which an IP editor has been adding to the 'Marketing controversy' section of the article Boost Mobile. I am under the impression that this edit is original research, as the article does not mention that they did not contact Boost mobile, rather the IP has just noted that they do not mention contacting them, and on these grounds I have now removed that sentence from the article twice. Just wanted your opinion on the matter as I believe this issue will be contested further unless a third party intervenes. Freikorp ( talk) 01:27, 5 February 2013 (UTC)
Source: Gupta, Gupta, K.R , Amita (2006). Concise Encyclopaedia of India - Volume 3. Atlantic Publishers & Dist..
p. 1104
Article:
Etymology of Assam (
diff)
Content: "The word asama or assama was used during the time when
Bhaskar Varman ruled
Kamarupa. At that time the present Assam used to emit poisonous gases and was uninhabitable. Some of the
Kamrupi criminals used this land as shelter to hide and avoid punishment. Those people were also called asama or assama."
Discussion: Is the book mentioned above reliable source? The question arises because:
I may add that I have not found these claims in the other references I have examined, listed at end of Etymology of Assam. Chaipau ( talk) 15:53, 28 January 2013 (UTC)
This source is being used to support that Barry Manilow is a crunkcore artist at both of those articles. Dallas News is usually a reliable source, but in this case is either mistaken or this is somebody's idea of a joke. I doubt there are any other sources out there that identify Manilow as a crunkcore artist. This seems to be a case of gaming the system. Gobōnobō + c 09:38, 1 February 2013 (UTC)
Movie Review Intelligence is a film review aggregator website like Rotten Tomatoes and Metacritic. A few years ago, the domain was added to the spam blacklist because there was an effort to spam the website across multiple film articles. I endorsed the listing at the time. Recently, I started a general discussion about film aggregator websites (seen here) and remembered that MRI was blacklisted. I requested for it to be removed from the spam blacklist recently (seen here). Hu12 originally declined for a variety of reasons, though the request is reopened due to Amatulic seeing a potential case. The most pertinent reason to address here is reliability. Here is relevant coverage from other sources to review: Yahoo! and 1 and 2 from the Associated Press. The Wikipedia article has additional references. Hu12 says the Yahoo! article indicates lack of reliability: "Anybody working for a large-circulation publication – even someone with no previous experience – would be considered especially important in Movie Review Intelligence's formula." I think that this is not clear-cut since the Associated Press references this website. In addition, Rotten Tomatoes aggregates a wide range of reviews (not just ones found in print) and determines what is "Fresh" and "Rotten" (though we avoid using such bland labels in Wikipedia articles per WP:RTMC). Per the general discussion I mentioned earlier, I think that Movie Review Intelligence should be available to offset the duopoly of Rotten Tomatoes and Metacritic. (Arguments for and against likely abuse can be seen at the blacklist request link.) I am wondering what other editors think of MRI as a reliable source, especially in the context of RT and MC being accepted and used. It may also be worth considering its acceptability as an external link per WP:ELMAYBE #4 to be removed from the blacklist. Erik ( talk | contribs) 20:01, 4 February 2013 (UTC)
I seeking input regarding whether or not a particular legal document justifies a specific claim. There is an ongoing heated discussion on the Frank L. VanderSloot BLP regarding whether or not his company uses multilevel marketing, and this is a small part of that discussion. In the '90s, the BLP subject signed an "Assurance of Voluntary Compliance" with the Idaho Attorney General. Mother Jones posted a copy of the Assurance which reads, in part, "The Attorney General is informed and believe that Melaleuca sells various nutrition, personal care, and homecare products, pursuant to a multi-level marketing plan, in Idaho."
Rhode Island Red has repeatedly made claims similar to this: "Vandersloot acknowledged that his company is an MLM when he signed the consent agreement with the Idaho AG [46] -- why are you ignoring this fact?"
HTownCat provided a response: "As for the legal document you've linked above, it says 'The Attorney General is informed and believes that Melaleuca sells various nutrition, personal care and homecare products, persuant to a multi-level marketing plan, in Idaho.' I will leave it to the attorney general to have any 'belief' that he or she wants, but VanderSloot isn't admitting to an MLM in this 'assurance of voluntary compliance.'"
The question: is this a reliable source for the claim that Frank VanderSloot has stated that his company, Melaleuca, is a multilevel marketing company? Andrew 327 01:28, 5 February 2013 (UTC)
Hi there,
I've currently nominated a few Good Articles, and a question has come up over the referencing of Code of Honor (Star Trek: The Next Generation). The reviewer has questioned whether TrekNation and also "Jammer's Reviews" (which is hosted by TrekNation) are reliable. TN has previously been used in the Featured Article These Are the Voyages..., and was directly mentioned in the nomination paragraph for that article with it being described as " TrekNation is a long-standing website owned by UGO Networks and the Hearst Corporation". TrekNation is a collection of sites, including Jammer's Reviews. The main site is TrekToday, which is here, Jammer's Reviews is here.
Jammer's Reviews has not been used in any GAs previously (my initial Star Trek related articles did not include it as I was concerned that it was simply a fan site). However upon investigation, I discovered that the opinions of the writer and editor of the site was held in such esteem by the Star Trek: Voyager crew that they flew him out to Los Angeles to pitch story ideas to them at one point. Admittedly they didn't use any of his ideas, but they cared about his opinions enough to do that, and so I think that he can be considered a reliable source due to that context (in this case, he went back afterwards and reviewed each episode of The Next Generation after the series ended - I believe he started with Voyager).
Would it be possible to get some opinions on whether or not you think these would meet the criteria to be considered reliable? Thanks. Miyagawa ( talk) 14:52, 5 February 2013 (UTC)
The site eeggs.com had been brought here twice. Once in 2010 and again in 2011. The latter only resulted in one opinion. Currently, dispute is regarding its use in
Easter_egg_(media). The editor who I am in disagreement with was the one who created the 2011 discussion. I don't. believe that the site does not meet
WP:RS for direct sourcing. We're having another debate over this on article page, where you can also find the links to the two RSNs
Talk:Easter_egg_(media)#Third_opinion current debate here. I raised a concern that contents of the websites are user generated and there's no evidence that the contents are positively accuracy checked before its allow to go online. The disputing editor says it the other way around... that I don't have evidence that they DO NOT fact check. The about page says they're a husband and team website. They do hold a degree, but per our
WP:SPS, the authors must meet secondary publication as expert guideline to be considered anything other than he said, she said statements. I'm aware that they've been cited by reliable sources; however the editors of publisher's reliable source that cites them most likely fact checked the information they obtained from eeggs.com before publishing it. Say NY Times news article cites them. I think its ok to cite them along with the said NY Times article, but I find that the site should not be used to support examples not also covered in secondary source. There's also another concern that adding things from that site to article with no logical reasoning for choosing the examples that were chosen could be
WP:COATRACK or
WP:INDISCRIMINATE matter. I believe examples should have been covered in reliable secondary source before they're even considered as worthy line item.
Cantaloupe2 (
talk) 10:53, 25 January 2013 (UTC)
Reviewed by: David Wolf
; results: 382. Search for Reviewed by: Webmaster
; results: 6782. The lowest-numbered item I found,
http://www.eeggs.com/items/3.html, from 1999, was reviewed by "webmaster". I wonder who the
webmaster might be. So much for "only moderated by other screen named editors". Also, in
Easter egg (media) five out of the six eeggs.com citations were reviewed by . . . webmaster. Not that that makes one shred of difference to the as-established-by-independent-reliable-sources reliability and notability of the site as a source, as noted by GRuban. --
Lexein (
talk) 18:31, 26 January 2013 (UTC)
You're the only one who is vigorously defending this source, so far. We should be clear that it is not THEIR work that was cited, but that of some of their contributing anonymous internets editors and I feel that we can't really conclude "if host A's source A's work had been cited by a reliable source, source B on the same domain must be reliable". Do any other Wikipedians have input? Cantaloupe2 ( talk) 06:00, 27 January 2013 (UTC)
So, you mentioned in talk that its "vetted" process, but that process is through users. How exactly is it different from wiki with many editors overseeing it? Here, we don't usually allow other wiki pages. On eeggs.com many user submissions are posted in verbatim, therefore does that not make individual contributors the author and WP:UESRG? I think it does. Cantaloupe2 ( talk) 20:51, 6 February 2013 (UTC)
— Preceding unsigned comment added by Alexbrn ( talk • contribs)
I'm coming at this from the point of view of having reviewed mostly sourcing for biomedical statements, and in that domain we're looking for secondary sources. This appears to be a primary source research result. I'm not saying that's a problem, but more asking if it's usual to use primary research results in this area? I think the content would need to be localized to very clearly say Swedish schools, and not 'Waldorf pupils' in general, as the study compared Swedish Waldorf schools to Swedish mainstream schools.
Zad
68
19:17, 25 January 2013 (UTC)
Zad
68
19:20, 25 January 2013 (UTC)
Zad
68
19:22, 25 January 2013 (UTC)
Zad
68
19:26, 25 January 2013 (UTC)
OK... I'm not really following the article Talk page. Of course a publication that can demonstrated to be produced by the source it's attributed to can be a reliable primary source for something that person said per WP:SELFPUB as discussed. But even in this case "Waldorf pupils" is a larger scope than the study cited, which is Swedish Waldorf pupils as compared to Swedish traditional education pupils.
The question is whether it's important to cite in a general encyclopedia article on
Waldorf education what Waldorf insiders say to each other about Waldorf education - I'm sure they think it's great. It probably is important to have the article state what Waldorf proponents believe is good about Waldorf education. But again we need a secondary source - who says Dahlin's voice is the most important on this topic, and who says that these particular beliefs of his are the most important things? Getting out of here... have a good one.
Zad
68
21:13, 25 January 2013 (UTC)
If "expert opinion" is the case, then that brings up the question of whether that expert's opinion is notable, and to establish that we would like to see (once again) some independent notice of that expert's opinion, and using a primary study produced by such an expert will be a case of using a WP:PRIMARY source, which is difficult to do without interpreting it and introducing your own original research. What independent sources have reported on these findings?
Another way this rule of "reputation for fact-checking" might be applied is (and I have seen this for some Wikipedia articles I've worked on): A group working for a prestigious academic institution produces and publishes a primary study in that institution's own journal, and then over the years that study is so well-accepted by other experts in the same field that it is cited by them over and over again. Here the fact-checking might not be a formal pre-publication journal peer review, but rather the independent peers in the field find the work acceptable so they cite it. In this example, we'd be looking for non-Waldorf education researchers to generally accept and use the results of this study. Has this happened?
Zad
68
03:07, 27 January 2013 (UTC)
What I hope is my final comment on this RSN request: hgilbert and jellypear are both saying it's an "empirical study", but to that Wikipedia says, "So what? That's not enough." Getting published in a peer-reviewed journal is a good step toward being
WP:RS but even that is not enough, because many journals have disreputable peer-review processes, or somehow the study ended up in a decent journal but not one directly relevant to the field of study. Even when you have a study produced by a PhD and published in an appropriate, reputable peer-reviewed journal, that's not enough, because the study may have had undetected confounding problems or just be a statistical outlier. It's not until the study has been picked up in a review article or meta-analysis and combined with many other high-quality studies in a good secondary source that you can finally have some confidence in using it in a Wikipedia article. The Dahlin study is really at the very bottom of this hierarchy, as it appears to be a primary research study not published in any journal and not subject to any kind of peer review, and it was done by someone with a signficant conflict of interest. As such, the answer is: Dahlin's report is only useful as attributed to Dahlin for Dahlin's own opinions, and without an independent secondary source picking up on Dahlin's findings, it's a very open question as to whether Dahlin's findings are notable enough to be quoting as suggested in the "Content" line at the top of this RSN request.
Zad
68
03:25, 27 January 2013 (UTC)
Controversial statements such as the findings reported by Bo Dahlin are not allowed at the Waldorf education article after the 2006 ArbCom ruling against Waldorf-related sources. Dahlin is Professor II at the Rudolf Steiner University College in Sweden, and he is a supervisor of the master's thesis students who want a degree in Eurythmy, a Steiner/Waldorf topic. In 2006, the Arbitration Committee gave this final decision: Wikipedia:Requests_for_arbitration/Waldorf_education#Final_decision. It said, in part, "Editors of these articles are expected to remove all original research and other unverifiable information, including all controversial information sourced in Anthroposophy related publications." Also, "As applied to this matter, except with respect to information which is not controversial, material published in Anthroposophy related publications, especially by persons deeply involved in the movement such as teachers or theoreticians, are considered self published and thus not reliable sources." Dahlin is "deeply involved" in Steiner matters and is thus not reliable for Wikipedia purposes. His findings are controversial and thus fall afoul of the 2006 ArbCom ruling. Binksternet ( talk) 12:55, 27 January 2013 (UTC)
Zad
68
01:16, 29 January 2013 (UTC)
I'm glad the input was well-appreciated!
Zad
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01:12, 29 January 2013 (UTC)
Here (archive 95, late 2011) is what I think is the most recent discussion of wisegeek.com as a source. Quite why it needed discussion isn't obvious to me; it clearly lacks credibility. Anyway, the discussion -- in which I didn't participate (I first heard of wisegeek.com only today) -- seems to conclude that wisegeek.com is junk.
That had little or no lasting effect. Today, dozens of articles cite wisegeek.com.
Of course wisegeek.com is but one of a fair number of content/essay farms. Consider the little article on Johann Theodor Jablonski. It currently sports five footnotes, each to a different source. The first source is not problematic. Here are the second to fifth:
After my laughter had subsided, it occurred to me that these were such obvious crap that I should simply add
to the spam blacklist. But though this stuff is garbage, it's not spammed garbage. Stuff may be added to the list if it simply violates Wikipedia's policies or guidelines. However, this may just mean copyright violations, porn, goatse, etc; I'm really not sure. How about worthless sites that aren't being spammed, whose content won't shock, but that have no credibility and that a lazy, naïve or slow-witted editor could link to in any of a huge range of articles and thereby impress the naïve or slow-witted reader? Can these be added to the spam blacklist, and if they can't, shouldn't they be addable? Or is there some other solution that I am overlooking? -- Hoary ( talk) 10:18, 31 January 2013 (UTC)... slight alteration 08:12, 6 February 2013 (UTC)
Here are the blacklist rules. I quote (italics), with my own comments:
And what follows is irrelevant. (It's about deliberate debasement of WP, whereas I'm asking about unwitting [I'd hope] debasement of WP.) -- Hoary ( talk) 12:35, 31 January 2013 (UTC)
I just spent an hour trying to remove wisegeek.com links from articles, and I only barely dented the list. We definitely need to be more proactive in preventing these kinds of sites from being added in the first place so not create so many problems trying to clean them up later. We could also use a bot or special project to remove the ones already there. DreamGuy ( talk) 21:40, 3 February 2013 (UTC)
Lady Borton was an active Quaker member and one of the few Americans to work in both South and North Vietnam during the war. In one of her work, "After Sorrow" the role of Vietnamese women was described, and I want to bring it to the Vietnam War article.-- Zeraful ( talk) 07:04, 2 February 2013 (UTC)
Sorry, it seem that I did not make my point clear here. For the time being, I only want to use Borton's book as a reference for the Woman section in the Vietnam War article, since the whole thing currently didn't have any sources added into it.-- Zeraful ( talk) 06:36, 3 February 2013 (UTC)
There has recently been an ongoing discussion at WP:AIRPORTS on whether or not http://www.airlineroute.net should be used as a reliable source for listing new destinations/services for an airline. We are trying to reach to a consensus on whether or not we should use that as a source and the discussion has gone stale or lot of editors are having different opinions about. I don't know if this is the appropriate place to put it or we should continue discussing? Here is the link to the discussion: Wikipedia_talk:WikiProject_Airports#Airlineroute.net.2FRoutesonline.com. Thanks! Snoozlepet ( talk) 20:36, 6 February 2013 (UTC)
The National Hockey League maintains an official website www.nhl.com that maintain team and player profiles, game scores, statistics, etc for their league. Clearly it is a reliable publication maintained by the governing body of their respective competition.
My question is whether the website www.eurohockey.net can be regarded equally as reliable as the NHL site. The provenance of their data is unknown and the site describes itself as staffed by "around 50 volunteers" [57]. It seems to be run by a group of amateur enthusiasts and thus may not have the rigor of the official NHL site. -- Nug ( talk) 19:15, 4 February 2013 (UTC)
Off topic discussion
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Hi all,
We have a question at PROUT as to whether or not Crovetto [1] is a reliable source. This article was originally published in the peer-reviewed [2] journal "Nova Religio" as "Ananda Marga and the Use of Force" [3] and a revised version (which is at issue here) appeared in James R. Lewis's book Violence and New Religious Movements (OxfordUP, 2011). Crovetto is a recognized scholar [4] in this area with several peer-reviewed publications [5] despite not having a university affiliation. As best I can tell, this is exactly the kind of citation we want in our articles.
Abhidevananda has called the reliability of this article into question several times, most recently here. I don't think I can summarize the objections fairly so I'll let the talk page speak for itself.
Opinions from any disinterested editors would be appreciated.
Thanks,
Garamond Lethe 20:04, 4 February 2013 (UTC)
This doesn't appear to be a substantial objection to the unreliability of the source, it's just an unsubstantiated charge of bias. The passage quoted by Abhidevananda which supposedly demonstrates "obvious" bias demonstrates no such thing, and Abhidevananda alludes to other problems but does nothing to substantiate those claims either. Unless a serious effort is made by Abhidevananda to lay out the unreliability of this source beyond a mere longwinded claim of bias, all I see is smoke but no fire, and certainly no reason to toss out a peer-reviewed journal article, which is pretty much the top tier of sources.
Gamaliel (
talk) 20:21, 4 February 2013 (UTC)
A new editor has asked me about this, and I don't know the answer... so I am bumping this up the chain... Take a look at our article on Low-energy electron diffraction... specifically the section on "Historical perspective"... I know it is not normal to put a citation in the section header, but is there anything particularly wrong with doing so? (And if there is something wrong with doing so... are there any suggestions on where to put the citation? Blueboar ( talk) 02:56, 8 February 2013 (UTC)
Non-RSN discussion
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The following four sources have been removed from the tax choice "Further reading" section. They've all been published by credible organizations and are relevant to the concept of giving taxpayers more of a say on how their taxes are spent. None of the content from these sources has been referenced in the actual article. I've included the editors who removed the sources and their edit summaries.
Are these sources suitable to be listed in the "Further reading" section? Thanks. -- Xerographica ( talk) 01:20, 7 February 2013 (UTC)
RS is a threshold question – if a source is not reliable, it should not be used in the article text. To compare, please consider WP:NOTNEWSPAPER – journalists write in mainstream RS media all the time. We do not include their stories simply because the are RS. Sometimes FR & EL items can be included in those sections even if they are not RS. For example, the Open Directory Project will have lots of non-RS links, but it is appropriate to include {{ dmoz}} in the EL section. Likewise, musical scores or song lyrics might come from a RS, but they are not appropriate to use anywhere in an article because of COPYVIO concerns. As for your listing of 4 items, they are problematic. If you can find some support for your concerns on this noticeboard (or better yet, on the tax choice talk page), then fine. But I think the best COA is to collapse this RSN posting as off-topic. – S. Rich ( talk) 02:47, 7 February 2013 (UTC) Orangemike, the quoted policy clearly states that they are reliable sources...with reasonable limits to their use. Everything that an organization publishes is published "according to the whim and/or policy" of the organization. -- Xerographica ( talk) 02:51, 7 February 2013 (UTC)
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