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This is one Cnfusing place --No Idea if this is posted in appropriate place --OR how to FIND same.
Community where I live: full of creative people, structures and beautiful geography, some reasons why it has a page here. I have a website about the community (every aspect), started three years ago, with Sidebar links to everything a neighbor would want, which is why I attempted to add the page, under "external links" --but promptly got notice: 'a bot will remove your link'
So I'm asking: a.) why --isn't blog allowed b.) if I am the author/owner of the blog and its contents: why can't I add a link (of the blog) to community page? --All the material is original, neutral (except for political news) nothing inappropriate, crude, vulgar or others' material. So what's the prob? Thanks for help, Poppy
To Quest: thank you for replying (aren't you impressed I Found this page again, lol, I am!) I appreciate the material you listed, my *search wasn't as successful. Ironically: I usually have the same view, about blogs, most (90%?) are junk; my background in English and ethics, standards grounded in journalism prevent me from producing typical blog type stuff; doing things even daily newspapers do, so (*blush*) my view of the neighborhood-grounded blog: NOT the usual rag of sort. e.g. several pages, with cites, on controversial issue of our reservoirs, surrounding meadow, and future use. e.g., Under "Food" all external links to Forums, boards, websites - pre-set to community restaurants. e.g., recently a series of crimes occurred (for the first time in years) and all kinds of people popped in looking for news, up-date, notice/details of police-community meeting to discuss.
Blog is not my personal 'daily travails in the 'hood' sort, but links to all categories, in/related to the community. Ergo: I thought it would be useful to readers of the wiki Page; apparently I'm not as neutral as wiki wants? Could I list it if I cited myself as the owner?
I put a dubious tag on the claim in the Video assist article that Jerry Lewis has a US patent on the technology. Other editors removed the tag on the theory that the patent is widely believed to exist.
Ordinarily, such patents are easy to find. I tried to find the patent, and couldn't. Although such a patent would almost certainly be mentioned as prior-art in later patents, there are no such references. There's a well-known patent by actress Hedy Lamarr that is trivially easy to find and frequently mentioned by later patents. In short, the factual evidence does not support the claim in the article.
The reference in the article only shows that this patent is widely thought to exist, not that it does, and in fact the author of that reference says he has no evidence that the patent exists.
Please see the discussion here: Talk:Video_assist#Jerry_Lewis_patent
I hate having to say this, but I have no particular opinion on the matter. I respect Mr. Lewis and there is a vast amount of evidence that he made substantial contributions to the development of this technology. That's basically what the Jerry Lewis article says, and I'm fine with the language there. But the claim in THIS article is that he has a patent, so there should be a reference to support that claim.
Thanks. 67.164.125.7 ( talk) 02:11, 5 March 2009 (UTC)
Recently, John J. Bulten ( talk · contribs) removed a comment that Chuck Baldwin opposes interracial marriage. The statement was sourced to a BET article detailing Chuck's political opinions in which they made the comment that Chuck Baldwin believes that interracial marriage is a from of white genocide. It seems like this is both a WP:RS and WP:BLP issue, but since the original verbiage in the article was fairly neutral, I am assuming that the RSN was the place to go.
I searched around to see if I could source the statement elsewhere, but the best I could do is link it to his opinion of the book Sisterhood of the Traveling Pants here but without listening to probably dozen of sermons, if he has even left the questionable material available, I doubt we'll get better until a mainstream media source gets bored enough to crucify him.
I haven't reverted it yet, as BLP is still an issue, but do we have a policy for requiring sources to be sourced? Burzmali ( talk) 13:44, 5 March 2009 (UTC)
I recently ran into an article on sohh.com, but I'm not sure if this website would be considered reliable and if it would be deemed reliable if it went through GA, FL or FA. Diverse Mentality 00:21, 6 March 2009 (UTC)
The reliability of the above mentioned is questioned, and a user removed material sourced to a book authored by them [1]. This removal (not the first one) is based on un-proven reliability.
The questioned book [2] was published in 2006, and despite being a recent publication has already been cited by numerous other authors [3]. It was written by two professors, Brunnbauer [4] [5] and Sundhausen [6], and a PD, Esch [7], all historians and experts in the field the book is about (modern Eastern European history). The book was published by LIT [8], a publishing house specialized on science.
All the informations are easily verifiable (googleable) and though the sites are in German, the basic information should either be understood by non-German speakers, too (eg "Professor" and "Universität foo"), with other key words like "Geschichte Osteuropas" (history of Eastern Europe) a web translation will turn out a result. Therefore, I think that an English speaker should be able to retrieve the key information about the authors within a few minutes. Additionally, the disputed quote was given in the footnote, also the respective URL, and a translation was provided on talk [9].
The questions I have are:
Skäpperöd ( talk) 09:16, 5 March 2009 (UTC)
The anthology's publisher (LIT), editors (Ulf Brunnbauer, Michael G. Esch, and Holm Sundhausen), the author of the cited chapter (Detlef Brandes), and positive review in American Historical Review ( quote: "This book adds to the substantial amount of research about “ethnic cleansing” that has been published in recent years in the German language." ... "It is a virtue of the volume that it unites authors from various disciplines and nationalities. The essays also provide a good overview of recent research on ethnic cleansing in various European countries.") establish that this is a reliable, and, in fact, a good source to use on wikipedia. That doesn't, of course, make all its contents indisputably true, but if there is a controversy, present the alternate view too; don't simply exclude this source. By the way, while referencing this work, you should cite the actual article and its author(s), and not only the book and editors. Abecedare ( talk) 18:15, 5 March 2009 (UTC)
This should be a simple question. In relation to the article Feminine essence theory of transsexuality. This article is about the basic "woman trapped in a mans body" sort of story given to explain transsexualism. This particular variant of the idea is not edorsed by the APA, or any professional psychologist or physicians. I have a number of sources on this idea. The problem is that all of them could be considered self published depending on how you look at that. I will start with the strongest one.
Searching google scholar brings up only "Unveiling the Mystique of Gender Dysphoria Syndrome"Margaret L. Colucciello RN, PhD [11] Is the closest thing to this found in Google Scholar. In this case the word syndrome I think was used simply to avoid the word disorder and it's stigma. Are any of these acceptable? One may say well if it's not in a better publication it's not noteable... first of all anything in the TS communit takes a long time for mainstream media to get wind of. Second google the term, thousands of hits come up.-- Hfarmer ( talk) 18:45, 7 March 2009 (UTC)
please take a look at the situation over at Talk:Sum 41 discography. Basically, there are multiple 3rd party sources that say that this EP is an EP, there are also multiple 3rd party sources that label it as a studio album. But there are 2 PRIMARY sources (The EP, and the Band themselves) that have stated that it is an EP, and not a studio album. Isn't it true that primary sources over-ride secondary source, especially in this case (respond on my talk page please) 70.242.179.192 ( talk) 04:12, 8 March 2009 (UTC)
It shouldn't take anyone long to verify that many reliable sources mention the idea that the Armenians are among descendants of Mitanni. Yet I have seen anyone who tries to mention these reliable sources on the Mitanni article, get called a "troll" and threatened with blocking, article locking, etc. So are all the cited authors who wrote about this, "trolls" as well? Or is there some foul play here that is purposefully trying to exclude relevant information, exactly as described at WP:BIAS? Readers researching Mitanni can easily find out elsewhere that some modern-day groups do claim descent from them, and these readers probably wouldn't want this relevant info suppressed by editors who think that they personally "know better" than the sources, and that therefore these sources must not even be mentioned. The fact that they don't even have a single source rebutting this peer-reviewed view, is summarily dismissed by saying "Well that's because we know it's so wrong, why would we even bother rebutting it with a source".
This is exactly how we get such vast discrepancies between what wikipedia says, and what other sources say. It only takes about one second on google books or google scholar, to find copious scholarly books (NOT blogs) that mention the Armenian-Mitanni connection. But it seems that there are hidden, higher standards than "verifiability" at play, and that is the "prestige" that certain editors give one another, and the "cause" of "anti-nationalist globalism" which regularly denies all published evidence that any modern people could possibly be descended from any ancient people. (So the stork brought them, or what?) Til Eulenspiegel ( talk) 12:59, 8 March 2009 (UTC)
this thread is flawed from line one, because there aren't "many reliable sources mention the idea that the Armenians are among descendants of Mitanni". Don't confuse this claim with "it is plausible that the Armenians have Mitanni people among their ancestors", because this would force us to mention the Armenians at mitochondrial Eve, just because all Armenians are among the offspring of Mitochondrial Eve. The Mitanni kingdom flourished 3,300 years ago, and if you know anything about genealogy, this means that everyone in Southwest Asia, and probably most people in Eurasia and Africa, are "descended from the Mitanni".
As for the claimed "RSs", there are none known. Witness this revision, which shows the hallmarks of pov-pushing, with "possibly "Armeno-Aryan", origin [...] regarded by many historians as among the ancestors of the modern day Armenians" (pure weasling), garnished with 13(!) footnotes rather than a single quotable RS. For your edification, the 13 footnotes amount to:
these indiscriminately mix random urls (allnewsweb.com, touregypt.net... -- it remains a mystery why we should quote those when it is so "easy" to come up with real RS), and sources that do in fact argue for either the Anatolian hypothesis or the Armenian hypothesis (which are incidentially mutually exclusive, but never mind that), and imply that scholars arguing for either of these automatically support "Armenian Mitanni" which is utter nonsense.
Now Til knows all of this, of course, being a veteran editor, but he is also a veteran pusher of ethnic crackpottery. He should also know better, I suppose, than calling me names like "racist" for removing the above clutter of "references", but I suppose after getting away with his approach to Wikipedia for years, he doesn't see any reason not to.
Til at this point isn't an asset to Wikipedia as much as a liability, and if I wasn't his target in this case, I would consider imposing a block on him for his recent exploit. Briefly, he is wasting everyone's time over stuff that has been discussed exhaustively two years ago, and he isn't doing it politely and innocently, but in a manner that really begs that somebody should show him the door. -- dab (𒁳) 16:42, 8 March 2009 (UTC)
I don't see any reference to the Mitanni in the index of Richard G. Hovannisian (ed.) The Armenian People From Ancient to Modern Times: Vol. I: The Dynastic Periods: From Antiquity to the Fourteenth Century (Palgrave Macmillan, 2004). Since this is a pretty standard work on Armenian history this might give us some indication of the importance (or rather lack of it) of the Mitanni theory. -- Folantin ( talk) 18:54, 8 March 2009 (UTC)
At Amway there is ongoing discussion about whether or not this site is a reliable source for commentry on the company Amway. The site contains self-published info relating to Amway (specifically this site Amway analysis is used as reference). The arguement against is basically that Hassan is a SPS and is not an expert on Amway, therefor his opinion on Amway and whether or not it's a cult should not be used in the article. Opinions from this board will be welcome. Shot info ( talk) 23:10, 8 March 2009 (UTC)
There is a reference on the article Haplogroup E1b1b (Y-DNA) using this source from the International Society for Genetic Genealogy. From their website the organization's mission is -"is to advocate for and educate about the use of genetics as a tool for genealogical research, and promote a supportive network for genetic genealogists."
The organization compiles information from various publications and creates genetic trees. That are available on its website such as Y-DNA Haplogroup Tree 2009. Where it states: ISOGG (International Society of Genetic Genealogy) is not affiliated with any registered, trademarked, and/or copyrighted names of companies, websites and organizations. This Y-DNA Haplogroup Tree is for informational purposes only, and does not represent an endorsement by ISOGG"
The initial impression I have is that they are a private organization that provides a support network for genealogists. They do a good job of compiling information, however, they do not seem to have an established publishing system, or a system of peer review. For controversial matters, should they qualify as a reliable source. Wapondaponda ( talk) 08:28, 6 March 2009 (UTC)
I need your help for deciding which sources and which viewpoint has more weight. There has been a dispute over realistic estimation of Iraqi Turkmans and Syrian Turkmans for weeks. Some certain editors with a clear and heavy POV are are revert-warring on those articles, with no verifiable source, adding the most unrealistic figure for those articles, proven to be exaggerations by Turkman nationalists such as ITF. Please help us to solve this dispute. Ellipi ( talk) 15:21, 9 March 2009 (UTC)
Also please note that their only source (apart from a bunch of random urls) is UNPO, which by defination is a political organisation forming of and supporting ethnic nationalists around the world. There is a very huge gap between the neutral estimations by third-party and verifiable sources, which puts the estimation of Iraqi Turkmens as 1-2% (ca. 300-500 thousands) of the country, and these users' exaggerated figures which claim a funny lie of 2 to 3.5 millions. Ellipi ( talk) 16:24, 9 March 2009 (UTC)
Panthkhalsa ( talk · contribs) has been adding a lot of spurious claims to the articles like Mazhabi, Hari Singh Nalwa, Udham Singh and Bhai Mati Das. Basically, his edits center around the claims that notable Sikh personalities like Hari Singh Nalwa and Bhai Mati Das belong to his community ("Mazhabi"). Simple searches on Google Books prove him wrong: Hari Singh Nalwa belonged to the Uppal Khatri community [18], while Bhai Mati Das was a Mohyal (this is what the Wikipedia article originally stated). Besides these, the user has been adding a lot of propaganda-style material based on the scientific racism theories (e.g. "Those Mazbhis of lighter skin ranging from white to tan brown, with sharper facial features, tall in height and sometimes light eye colour are considered of Aryan blood. However the vast majority are off darker skin to black complexion with blunt facial features and tend to short in height. These mazbhis are considered to be the peoples from the Dravidan races captured in battle and enslaved by Aryan invaders on the Indian sub continent." [19]).
After I confronted him/her, the user has come up with two references, both of which seem highly dubious to me:
Any pointers? utcursch | talk 16:11, 9 March 2009 (UTC)
Hi,
The article List of metropolitan areas in Europe by population is almost solely based on the World Gazetteer data. This source has been widely criticised on the Talk-page but I would like an independent view on its reliability.
Ghaag ( talk) 06:52, 5 March 2009 (UTC)
OK, I know that weblogs in general are not a reliable source. But the Spirit of Mystery weblog is being written by the crew of a small boat that is sailing to Australia. It is a sort of online diary of events during the journey as experienced by the crew. I've not used it yet in the Spirit of Mystery article, but would like to pad out the details of Mark Maidment's accident with info from the weblog if it is considered to meet RS criteria. What do other editors think about the use of this particular blog? Mjroots ( talk) 06:54, 6 March 2009 (UTC)
Is Celebrity Sleuth a reliable enough source? I know it's a magazine that publishes photos and screencaps of nude celebrities, but I came across an issue (Volume 11, #1; 1997) that was all heights and measurements of hundreds of female celebrities, and it even detailed its sources, explaining that it scoured through thousands of sources, and rejected all but the most reliable. It rejected, for example, press releases, tabloid articles and studio stats because those were sources for publicity and not authenticity, and listed the seven sources they judged to be most reliable. The following list is quoted verbatim from the issue:
So what do you think? Would this be reliable? Nightscream ( talk) 02:02, 9 March 2009 (UTC)
Are GAO reports generally seen as Reliable Sources ? Specifically would GAO87 be an acceptable source for the results of a questionnaire they circulated among the research community? I ask this because its inclusion seems to have stirred a bit of controversy.
I should probably add that there is a related section on another noticeboard. On that board it was mentioned that it was not the proper place to ask about these matters. I suspect this notice board is the proper place to ask regarding RS. Thank you. Unomi ( talk) 04:25, 10 March 2009 (UTC)
I am wondering how reliable we should consider reports from Committee to Protect Journalists. Any thoughts appreciated; I'll comment with more details as I look around and based on feedback. Cheers, John Vandenberg ( chat) 06:37, 10 March 2009 (UTC)
See Talk:Schizophrenia#loss_of_brain_tissue, which has spilled over to Wikipedia_talk:Reliable_sources_(medicine-related_articles)#NPOV. Editors have tried to explain it fails WP:V never mind WP:MEDRS. The problem is that members of the MED wikiproject are now regarded as "pov pushers with a conflict of interest" by the person arguing for the use of this source. So the opinions of neutral editors would be welcome. Sorry if this is the wrong forum, but you can see that the MED forum wouldn't be appropriate. Colin° Talk
I would be interested in views about how suitable this document is as a reference (with the author cited as Vickrey) for the assertion: "Nobel-laureate William Vickrey is considered one of the fathers of congestion pricing, as he first proposed it for the New York City Subway system in 1952". The document header suggests that it was written by Vickrey in June 1992. The document does contain some of Vickrey's "thoughts", however, it is not clear that the information in it supporting the assertion of his being "considered one of the fathers of congestion pricing" was written by him. Indeed the biography information in there, including details of his death in 1996 can obviously not have been written by him. -- de Facto ( talk). 15:11, 10 March 2009 (UTC)
In some of our articles, we're using Pakistan Daily as a
reliable source on statements of fact, and I have some serious concerns about its reliability. First, many of their articles read like editorials (but aren't marked as editorials) and contain very questionable material. Second, they seem to have an anti-Israeli, if not anti-Semitic bias. Third, they allow anyone to upload submit articles to their web site
[23]. They state that "hate related articles will not be accepted" but it's not clear as to how to tell whether an article is written by their staff or by the public.
Here are some examples:
This article [24] refers to Paul Wolfowitz and Richard Pearle as "Zionist Israel-firsters" and Israel as the "Israeli racist-Zionist state". I can't imagine any reliable source here in the West using that language in a straight news story. This article also states things such as "Dennis Ross should not be allowed to occupy any position in the US government" which is clearly an opinion.
This article [25] claims that "USA Jewry" were "declaring war on America’s dispossessed majority, white Christian Americans" and "Jews fear and will do anything in their power, (and they now have all the power in America), to eradicate any semblance of nationalism emanating from white Christian Americans."
This article [26] appears to be a Holocaust denial article (or poem), "Jew conceives HOLOCAUST Factory / Fabricate HOLOCAUST Stories to Deflect Guilt / Fabricate HOLOCAUST Days to deflect Guilt".
In the article titled "Obama is Two-Faced Liar" [27] they claim "President Barack Obama treated [Republicans] like dirt, didn't give a damn what they thought about his stimulus package". Hardly neutral or fair writing.
In this article, they claim that Barack Obama has the "psychopathic nature of the ideal Jewish puppet" [28]
"Barack Obama likes to control others and uses that control to do others harm. In addition, Obama lacks genuine emotions, other than anger and pleasure. He is cold-hearted, arrogant and condescending.
"Like most psychopaths, he has learned to disguise his disorder. His lack of normal emotional response he masquerades as if cool headedness. His mendacities are stated in terms meant to mislead his followers into believing that he has their best interests at heart.
"Behind this deceitful psychopath prominently stand the Zionist Jews David Axelrod and Rahm Emanuel. Obama makes a perfect puppet for World Jewry. He has no conscience. Obama is eager to betray those who believe in him. He is ignorant and inexperienced, which means that he will have to rely on the advice and scripts of his Jewish advisors as heavily as he has relied on the money of his Jewish financiers."
Should Pakistan Daily be considered a reliable source per Wikipedia standards? A Quest For Knowledge ( talk) 18:50, 3 March 2009 (UTC)
Dlabtot ( talk) 20:25, 3 March 2009 (UTC) I'm getting the feeling this is not a reliable source. I looked at about 20 articles, and they're all credited as written by "www.daily.pk". I didn't find any actual names. They don't seem to have a normal about page, just about iWrite, which is sketchy at the least. I think they are a user submitted news source. Now, I'm sure someone is selecting and organizing their articles, but I couldn't find who that was, so I don't think they can be consdiered reliable. Now, if we figure out they were part of something in List of newspapers in Pakistan, then maybe we could reconsider. They don't seem to be part of a real newspaper as far as I can tell, though. - Peregrine Fisher ( talk) ( contribs) 20:14, 3 March 2009 (UTC)
As far as I can tell this is not a website of an actual print publication, but an online only news portal. Can anyone confirm that ? If so, do we know anything about its (online) publishers, popularity, reputation etc ? Do other news sources cite it ? I googled but didn't find anything relevant at first glance. Abecedare ( talk) 20:50, 3 March 2009 (UTC)
I see no evidence that Pakistan Daily qualifies as a reliable source, and much evidence that they do not: [30] [31] [32]. Per WP:FRINGE they are out. THF ( talk) 21:14, 3 March 2009 (UTC)
I have now done a more thorough search and still found nothing relevant to indicate that this news portal is usable as a source. Some troubling pointers:
So I would advice against using this as a reliable source for facts, or even as a noteworthy source for opinion - unless someone can show positive evidence of their reliability and/or noteworthiness. Pakistan has a vibrant print media (even in English), so sourcing straight news is usually not a problem, and if something is sourceable only to Pakistan Daily - it should probably not be on wikipedia anyway. Abecedare ( talk) 21:26, 3 March 2009 (UTC)
Well, the "iwrite" user-submitted articles appear to be segregated into their own section, just like dozens of US news sites that have a "citizen journalism" area. [35] But outside of that, there are some very inflammatory editorials about Israel, and no, I don't want us using those as statements of fact. They could maybe be used as statements of opinion, say in an article about conspiracist thought in Pakistan. Squidfryerchef ( talk) 00:02, 4 March 2009 (UTC)
OK, maybe not, maybe not even for statements of opinion. At first I thought people were asking about the Pakistan Daily-Times, which is very different. Squidfryerchef ( talk) 00:06, 4 March 2009 (UTC)
Looks like the consensus is a clear 'no'. I concur. Dlabtot ( talk) 22:42, 11 March 2009 (UTC)
One of the editors involved in a review of the Sustainability page is strongly of the view that this page should verify statements using sources not connected to the United Nations wherever possible - see for example this post
To please this one editor we've made a real effort to keep UN citations to a minimum. Trouble is, the United Nations has for decades been the central co-ordinating agency for all of the global-level planning and monitoring of sustainability. The above post specifically asks us to use news sources and recent scientific publications in preference to comprehensive international studies such as the Millennium Ecosystem Assessment (MEA) prepared under the auspices of the UN. This just isn't going to work in the article.
I think it would help a lot to get a clear answer to the above question: Is the United Nations a Reliable Source?-- Travelplanner ( talk) 20:25, 11 March 2009 (UTC)
The UN consists of many sub-bodies. Some are political, some are humanitarian, some are scientific (or broadly academic). In any case where you may want to use a publication from a body of the UN as a source, you'd be safe in stating that "UN body X says Y", because publications of UN bodies are reliable sources for the positions of the UN body. In cases where a UN body has commissioned a scientific or academic report on a subject, and there is little contraversy surrounding the outcome of the investigation, then the outcome could be stated without explicitly stating that the source is a UN body publication in the article (but the source would still need to be referenced, of course). The same is true for any political body, such as a nation, that commissions a scientific or academic report the results of which are relatively uncontraversial - for example a report from a statistics ministry. However, where there are conflicting reliable sources on a subject, it's best to clarify where each conclusion originates from. In the specific case you mention, a scientific report from a UN body seems to perfectly valid "current science sourcing", so long as the source is stated if the conclusion is contraversial. Such reports tend to be literature reviews, which are excellent secondary sources. I'd be interested in the opinions of other editors on whether UN bodies such as the World Health Organisation, that publish scientific reviews, have just as strict a peer-reviewing process and position of political independance as a reputable scientific journal. That's the impression I have, but I could be mistaken. However, I would think that the independance, fact-checking, etc. should be considered separately for each of these bodies, as some will be more reputable than others. Ryan Paddy ( talk) 21:28, 11 March 2009 (UTC)
I'd like to focus the discussion if I may. The following has just been posted on the Sustainability talk page: My favorite comment on the page is probably the first one ... ``It's a RS for the position of the UN. I wouldn't use it as a definitive source beyond that. THF (talk) 20:27, 11 March 2009 (UTC) This fits pretty nearly with what I have been saying... and I do believe a concerted effort needs to be made at telling where the source is from... a kind of intro... or disclaimer... or before each use of the ref in the article ... beyond the specific area in the article that is built around the very U.N. M.E.A. information. Bottom line ...the U.N. is funded... many times from corporations and political special interest groups. As a primary source it is not really effective or good except to source itself as information it is presenting. There is a specific question here as to whether the Millennium Ecosystem Assessment (1360 scientists took part) is a RS. And the more general one about over-representation of the UN in the article. Much of the debate about sustainability, rightly or wrongly, has centred on or emanated from the UN Sustainable Development program. Is this a RS? How do we decide these issues other than getting opinion from "outsiders" like yourselves? Granitethighs ( talk) 01:29, 12 March 2009 (UTC)
I think we need to look for reliable sources pertaining to whether the Millennium Ecosystem Assessment has a reputation for authoritive and trustworthy authorship in the subject of sustainability, for fact-checking and peer-review, and for independence (i.e. the degree to which it is a "third party" to the subject area). Those are the criteria of a reliable source, and the only way to determine whether it meets those criteria is by examining other reliable sources that describe the reputation of the source. Ryan Paddy ( talk) 01:50, 12 March 2009 (UTC)
(ec) This is really a WEIGHT issue rather than a RS issue. The relative weight of the UN report in the article depends on the credibility of what's being offered up as other points of view. If there is legitimate disagreement, then that should be noted. If everybody agrees with the UN except Lyndon Larouche and Louis Farrakhan, there's no problem with an article relying heavily on the UN. If the UN position is disputed, then the other points of view need to be considered, and there's no reason to favor the UN view in the article. THF ( talk) 01:53, 12 March 2009 (UTC)
OK my understanding of the above advice (much appreciated) is:
Is that the gist of it?-- Travelplanner ( talk) 02:46, 12 March 2009 (UTC)
The only source for the latest build is at the Norton forums, where an forum administrator who goes by his first and last name, posts about the latest build. There are no third-party sources available. TechOutsider ( talk) 22:45, 9 March 2009 (UTC)TechOutsider
Sample. I don't think this is reliable at all. It is used at Khemkaran. Look at the ridiculous tone that it is written in. YellowMonkey ( click here to vote for world cycling's #1 model!) 03:22, 10 March 2009 (UTC)
I don't post here often so I apologize if this is the wrong forum. I just got in an edit war with a user over the links http://understanding.infantilism.org and http://www.infantilism.org on the Paraphilic infantilism page. My take on it is that the links violate WP:EL as they are not of a neutral point of view. The other editor's defense of the link was that it was about "understanding" and that its POV should not be silenced. I feel that these links are clearly biased and they do not lead to material of an encyclopedic nature. Since we just got in an edit war I'd like it if somebody else could step in here. Thanks, Themfromspace ( talk) 19:25, 11 March 2009 (UTC)
I am using these sites to reference parts of this article. Are they reliable?
Currently, two editors seem intent on removing RS material because they feel it is "incoherent gibberish" [43] shows the wholesale removal of WP:IDONTLIKEIT material. Might someone point out that RS material (no one denies it is RS) is not to be removed as "gibberish" and that editors are not required to explain what sources say in English? Thanks! Collect ( talk) 02:28, 13 March 2009 (UTC)
At WP:DYK there has been some dispute whether or not entire articles can be sourced to ancient Chinese sources, such as the Book of Tang, which is about 1000 years old. Although a compilation of older sources and thus technically a secondary source, I do not believe that it meets the requirements of a reliable source. Our policy states that "Wikipedia articles should use reliable, third-party, published sources. Reliable sources are credible published materials with a reliable publication process; their authors are generally regarded as trustworthy or authoritative in relation to the subject at hand. How reliable a source is depends on context." - In the field of Chinese history, it is modern scholars who have a "reliable publication process" and who are viewed as "trustworthy" and "authoritative in relation to the subject at hand". Historians of Chinese history go back to this older material, assess its validity, and then present their conclusions to us. We should use that scholarship, not the less reliable material. Please help us decide whether articles such as Wu Yuanji need to be based on modern scholarship or not. Thanks. Awadewit ( talk) 15:46, 8 March 2009 (UTC)
I believe it's an overly dogmatic approach to RS to require that modern sources be used over ancient ones (such as the Twenty-four Histories, the text at issue) when:
Please ascertain that http://www.world-gazetteer.com/wg.php?x=&men=ifaq&lng=en&des=wg&geo=-4&srt=pnan&col=adhoq&msz=1500#q2 is a reliable source.
Also check that all sources on http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_metropolitan_areas_in_Europe_by_population meets WP:RS
It's causing problems: See http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Mediation_Cabal/Cases/2009-03/List_of_metropolitan_areas_in_Europe_by_population#Problem.232 WhatisFeelings? ( talk) 04:19, 11 March 2009 (UTC)
A quick query: are the followed to be considered reliable sources for Disturbed's genre:
I myself can't really tell one way or the other. Any input much appreciated, cheers. Prophaniti ( talk) 19:20, 11 March 2009 (UTC)
Okay, cheers guys, anyone else with input on the sources above? Prophaniti ( talk) 10:31, 13 March 2009 (UTC)
Yeah, there is a metal band out there called Disturbed. Nevard ( talk) 20:55, 12 March 2009 (UTC)
Cheers folks. Unless anyone else wants to contribute, I'll go with the Las Vegas Journal article and about.com one being reliable, the others not. Prophaniti ( talk) 22:08, 15 March 2009 (UTC)
Hi all - sorry for the repost, but we're still arguing about this on Talk:Oom_Yung_Doe. Is the [ Freedom of Mind page] about Chung Moo Doe a reliable source?
Arguments that have been made in favor of its reliability (and how to find the corresponding discussion) are:
Arguments that have been made against the source are:
Thanks for any help you can provide. Subverdor ( talk) 13:19, 13 March 2009 (UTC)
Looking for opinions on the site Expert Voices. Expert Voices is run by the National Science Digital Library, and is self-described thus:
Yes, it's a blog, but it's one published by a notable institution and the majority of articles are contributed by subject-matter experts who are independent of the publisher. I'm happy with the source, but my use of it on That's Not Fake to provide critical commentary and suggest possible reasons for the failure of that advertising campaign has been challenged by another editor, so I'm seeking input. JulesH ( talk) 21:04, 14 March 2009 (UTC)
Are any of these three references considered reliable:
First, does anybody know the aforementioned guy? He ran some benchmarks on Norton products and published his findings on his blog. I'm using his numbers and opinions (more like observations) about Norton software. His blog is here. The particular post is here
Second, is Passmark.com a reliable source for product benchmarks? First, don't be confused. They sell benchmarking software, and conduct benchmarks themselves. The particular publication I am talking about is here. Passmark states in the aforementioned report Symantec Corporation funded the benchmarks/tests and supplied some of the scripts used ... TechOutsider ( talk) 23:22, 15 March 2009 (UTC)TechOutsider
Is the above .org website a reliable site? They conduct malware detection tests. They are generally relied on for numbers by consumer product review magazines and sites, such as CNET or PCMagazine. However, a GA review has raised questions about the source ... here. The reviewer stated ...
“ | The 'about us' section of the av-comparatives.org site tells us it "tests mainly on behalf of the vendors", which instils little faith information is unbiased. | ” |
TechOutsider ( talk) 04:08, 15 March 2009 (UTC)TechOutsider
Some editors at Talk:William Timmons have made the assertion that this article is an 'op-ed'. Is this characterization accurate? Dlabtot ( talk) 18:01, 15 March 2009 (UTC) PS, other than posting this question, (which I did mean to also imply, the general reliability of the source for the uses it is put in this article), I'm recusing myself from further discussion simply because I am a regular respondent on this noticeboard. Dlabtot ( talk) 21:14, 15 March 2009 (UTC)
FYI, previous RSN discussions of "The Nation" - Dlabtot ( talk) 18:05, 15 March 2009 (UTC)
The only reason to mention a connection to Lennon would be if there is reliable evidence that Timmons played a role in the attempt to deport him. The ONLY source claiming as much is from an Op-ed article published by a self proclaimed "flagship of the left wing", and the only evidence provided is a copy of a letter to Strom Thurmond, signed by Timmons, informing Thurmond of the Immigration and Natural Service's deportation notice to Lennon (which was in response to a letter that Thurmond sent to the White House). The assertion that Timmons played a central role in the Lennon deportation attempts simply doesn't comport with the evidence, and opinion pieces from partisan publications have no place in a BLP. Timmons wasn't even a member of the McCain team -- The Nation article appears to be an attempt to use Timmons as a vehicle to damage the McCain campaign. Rtally3 ( talk) 02:42, 16 March 2009 (UTC)
Signing a memo informing a Senator of the INS's actions is not playing a role in the attempt to deport John Lennon. It's a simple administrative task that is completely uneventful. Rtally3 ( talk) 20:03, 16 March 2009 (UTC)
Is this entry in the CA virus encyclopedia reliable enough to list uTorrent as "disputed" or "malware/trojan/spyware/adware" in the List of BitTorrent clients article? Arguments for and against are here. Theymos ( talk) 03:01, 16 March 2009 (UTC)
Context: Airi & Meiri
So WP:PORNBIO and possibly WP:MUSIC apply.
There was a recent AfD closed as no consensus. Please help develop a consensus. Thanks!-- Cerejota ( talk) 02:40, 14 March 2009 (UTC)
I'm slightly unclear about the usage of reproductions of original sources on a website as reliable sources. The example in front of me is Nikki Craft. On her personal website (and websites she seems to have some control over), there are PDFs of news stories from obviously reliable sources. For example this article from the Dallas Morning News seems to be a photographic reproduction of a RS article. Now, finding an accessible original of that article on the web is difficult. There is obviously a danger of digital or photo-manipulation of original documents with a source like this but is it completely non-usable as a RS? I certainly understand the problems with retyped text of an article, purporting/alleging to be from a RS without verification. What do you think? Cheers, Pigman ☿/talk 16:24, 17 March 2009 (UTC)
The lede now has thirteen cites for a single word in the first line. Unfortunately many of the cites do not actually support the precise implicit claim being made, which is one problem, but, more to the point, the excess cites are being given in an effort to make the page look silly. Might someone examine the cites and the wording of them and jump in? I would also point out that some of the cites do not appear to be RS by WP standards for a claim of fact. Thanks! Collect ( talk) 02:42, 13 March 2009 (UTC)
I have a problem. The new macbook pro's can get extremely hot. You can google search this and you will get heaps of results, even on how to fix this problem. However, i added it to the article cause its extreme heat is a critism of the product. However, even though there is heaps of mentions on the internet about the problem. Most of them occur in blog posts(some more respectable than others) and forums. But the fact remains that while there might not be any hardcore relaible sources, the product does get extremely hot and should be mentioned in the article. What should be done? IAmTheCoinMan ( talk) 14:53, 17 March 2009 (UTC)
Hi all, does anyone consider this a reliable source?— Chris! c t 06:48, 18 March 2009 (UTC)
Hi, I wonder if Unrepresented Nations and Peoples Organization is a Reliable Source about the figures of the populations of its members. There is a dispute in Greeks in Albania, on whether the number given by UNPO is reliable, since it contains no other sources and no author at all. Balkanian`s word ( talk) 16:39, 18 March 2009 (UTC)
Im wondering that too, however unpo provides some interesting data about a nation's folklore and culture but it seems comfused about numbers. Alexikoua ( talk) 17:41, 18 March 2009 (UTC)
I'm reviewing Club de Gimnasia y Esgrima La Plata, which relies rather heavily on statistical sources from this site. The introduction say the site "was originally founded as NERSSSF (for Northern European Rec.Sport.Soccer Statistics Foundation) in January 1994 by three regular contributors to the rec.sport.soccer newsgroup". Note that this is used one time at Chelsea F.C. What do you think? Reliable or no? Noble Story ( talk • contributions) 01:34, 16 March 2009 (UTC)
It's a foundation, with rules, controlled editorship, editorial oversight, a focus on accuracy, a board, etc., and all clearly identified on the site. I don't see why anyone is saying it doesn't satisfy WP:RS. Dicklyon ( talk) 00:17, 18 March 2009 (UTC)
I think we can have teensier looser standards for statistical encyclopedic projects like this one, especially when we're just using them for numbers. I'm inclined to grant RS status to a RSSSF or a baseball-reference.com: they're both relied upon by journalists we consider reliable, and it seems silly to say that the bootstrapping is reliable, but the underlying source being used isn't. THF ( talk) 00:22, 18 March 2009 (UTC)
The RSSSF.com website is a highly reliable source for records of football. There is nothing else I can add that hasn't already been mentioned by other people in this section. If anybody wants to question its reliability, they should at least provide a stronger foundation for their argument.-- [|!*//MarshalN20\\*!|] ( talk) 00:32, 18 March 2009 (UTC)
Well then, I guess my question has been answered. And note to Peregrine: I would consider baseball-reference a reliable source. I do know that it's sister site, basketball-reference, is considered to be reliable source. At least, in this FAC, it was accepted by Ealdgyth, who seems to be the last word on references for FAC. Noble Story ( talk • contributions) 01:17, 18 March 2009 (UTC)
RSSSF is also recognised as the official statistical provider to one of the major European national football associations. I think it's the Danish FA, but I'd have to dig around to find something to confirm that. I wouldn't imagine the governing body of football in a given country would recognise it as official if they thought it was just a two-bob fansite...... -- ChrisTheDude ( talk) 08:07, 18 March 2009 (UTC)
As someone who is interested in football statistics, and does the majority of my editing on football articles, the RSSSF site is the number one site by a wide margin, for historical world football data. The very nature of its build is one of its major strengths - if you find an error in it (sourced, obviously), the site owners can correct it. You don't get that sort of accuracy control in most of what are laughably called "Reliable Sources" - major news corporations, printed matter etc., there if there is an error, no matter how glaring, it will likely remain an error for ever. If RSSSF is disallowed as a source, Wikipedia will lose more credibility, verifiability and most importantly of all accuracy. What's next, Cricinfo? - fchd ( talk) 19:40, 18 March 2009 (UTC)
Is a statement in an organization's own membership periodical reliable in terms of demonstrating intentions contrary to those publicly claimed?
This keeps getting deleted as "irrelevant" by one person.
"NCSY's parent organization, the Orthodox Union, published an essay boasting about how these public school clubs successfully inspired students to decline their opportunities at some of the best colleges in the nation in favor of yeshiva and seminary study. http://www.ou.org/pdf/ja/5766/fall66/AStuyvieRemin.pdf
Many club members ended up turning down the finest universities in the nation, including Harvard, Johns Hopkins, Boston University, Brandeis, New York University and other esteemed institutions of higher learning in order to engage in some genuine “higher learning.” Some of us went to study at Ohr Somayach or Kol Yaakov in Monsey, New York. [53]
Mrnhghts ( talk) 19:07, 18 March 2009 (UTC)
Sure. The JSU website and the article on Wikipedia's Jewish Student Union page [ [54]] claims, The mission of Jewish Student Union is "to get Jewish teens to do something Jewish," and includes a quote from a JSU employee that, "There is no active recruiting to Orthodox programs." But the quote above that keeps getting deleted, which was printed in the Orthodox Union's own magazine, "Jewish Action," says something very different -- that these "cultural" clubs are used to recruit public school student to ultra-Orthodox, not even just Orthodoxy, and that they are absolutely used to actively recruit students to programming off campus run by NCSY proper to achieve such results. Mrnhghts ( talk) 18:51, 19 March 2009 (UTC)
The link is Chemtrail News broadcast in german
There was a news broadcast done about chemtrails. I can't seem to find the actual source of the video as I can't read german 0.o. Could someone please have a look through their archives and see if you can pull up when this video is and an official link? Or can this video be considered reliable in its current state? (It would help the chemtrail article by giving it a news video ^.^ Thanks in advance. Smallman12q ( talk) 01:42, 19 March 2009 (UTC)
I have a concern about Comedy Central being used as a reliable source. Obviously the show is funny to watch, however, with the tag line for its political news, "Comedy Central's INdecision Reduced-Fact Political News," my concern is whether or not a website that admits to 'reducing facts' in its news program is a reliable souce for use on biographies of living persons? This is more of a concern especially if there are other more reliable sources presenting similar information (which might be more fact-based). Thus, should Wikipedia biographies of living persons consider Comedy Central a reliable source for suggesting facts on a particular biography? Thanks! Tycoon24 ( talk) 00:38, 20 March 2009 (UTC)
Is Svante Cornell a reliable source? I question whether he is reliable as he is only an associate professor and I find his works incredibly biased. He has written on Nagorno-Karabakh as well as the conflict in Georgia. Pocopocopocopoco ( talk) 03:07, 25 February 2009 (UTC)
In addition to the points above against Svante Cornell's works being considered a reliable source, if you review the his writings in the Nagorno-Karabakh document, he illustrates his bias when he repeatedly writes "the alleged Armenian Genocide". A scholar of repute would not put that qualifer in front of that horrible event that happened during WW1. Another problem I have with Cornell is that apparently he is the principle of a consulting company that looks like it offers consulting to organisations and companies in the west that want to tap the energy resources in the Caspian Sea. Naturally this would make him biased against newly independent regions that gained independence from Georgia and Azerbaijan as well as Russia and would bias him in favor of Azerbaijan and Georgia's initiative to resubjugate these newly independent regions. Using Svante Cornell as a source for the conflicts related to Abkhazia, South Ossetia, or Nagorno-Karabakh would be the equivalent of using research from a company that does business with Indonesia as a source for the conflict in East Timor. Pocopocopocopoco ( talk) 02:37, 26 February 2009 (UTC)
He's a reliable source. How, and whether, he should be used is beyond the scope of this noticeboard. Most of the editors here, me included, don't follow these decisions beyond that. We're not part of dispute resolution. - Peregrine Fisher ( talk) ( contribs) 08:28, 27 February 2009 (UTC)
I don't really get what we're discussing here. That is, what concrete uses of Cornell of a source are we talking about? I mean, if what he says is contradicted by other sources, then we should say, some think this, some think that, and link to the various sources. Or are you arguing that he should not be presented as an independent observer/analysist/scientist? sephia karta | di mi 15:17, 28 February 2009 (UTC)
From my talkpage:
Let's take a look at the ISDP first & second paragraphs, page 5 of 45:
"In August 2008, Russia launched an invasion of Georgia that sent shockwaves reverberating - first across the post Soviet space, but then also into the rest of Europe and the World, as the magnitude of the invasion and its implications became clear.
This invasion took the World by surprise. But what should have been surprising about it was perhaps the extent of Russia's willingness to employ crude military force against a neighboring state, not that it happenned..."
First off only a complete ignoramus would have been surprised by Russia's "invasion" of Georgia, because on August 5th, Russia sent a clear note to Georgia, that BBC published. Here's a timetable:
August 5th: Russia to Georgia: do not touch South Ossetia military, or else we will intervene (BBC published this!!!) August 7th: Georgia attacks South Ossetia full scale, with Grads, tanks, and the whole thing. August 8th - August 12th (or 16th): Russia intervenes.
What in the World did anyone find surprising?
And if you study real military analysis, you will realize that Russia force was not crude. Batallion Vostok doesn't use crude force. Nor do any of the Russian units sent in.
Still don't think it's heavily biased? HistoricWarrior007 ( talk) 00:33, 10 March 2009 (UTC)
But this is all OR. Is there any criticism of this author by a third party author? I asked this question many times, and received no answer. Grand master 11:40, 19 March 2009 (UTC)
Should this site be still considered a reliable source? A recent AfD turned up errors in the listing for Palladium discography (see: this and this). I also find many of the credits listed on songs and albums to be incorrect or totally missing, and the reviews to be overtly opinionated and factually incorrect eg. One reviewer claimed Anne Bredon (American folk singer) and Annie Briggs (British folk singer) were one in the same person person! I've used their article feedback form to try and correct the errors as they suggested but they appear to ignore any submitted information even with citations. JamesBurns ( talk) 01:36, 16 March 2009 (UTC)
An editor on Hak Ja Han is pushing this article as a source. It's problems are:
Should this be accepted as a WP:RS (particularly in light of the fact that this article falls under WP:BLP)? Hrafn Talk Stalk( P) 15:02, 16 March 2009 (UTC)
The article Saginaw Trail has a Google Maps link that is used several times as a reference...is this appropriate? My concerns were a) that it's not a permanent link, it's just a map generated on the fly; b) it may not be a reliable source. rʨanaɢ talk/ contribs 12:56, 16 March 2009 (UTC)
Judge for yourselves. Apparently written by a mate or family member. -- dab (𒁳) 20:20, 13 March 2009 (UTC)
well, yes, it's a notability problem. Or in other words, a problem of the reliability of the sources presented in order to claim notability. I was going to post this to WP:FTN, but I thought this board would be more appropriate. -- dab (𒁳) 10:20, 14 March 2009 (UTC)
Is Catalogo De Ordenes Extranjeras En Espana, "by Jose Maria de Montells y Galan and Alfredo Escudero y Diaz Madronero, 2007, published by the Academia De Genealogia, Nobleza Y Armas Alfonso XIII en colaboracion con la Sociedad Heráldica Española, Madrid, Kingdom of Spain" a WP:RS for information on Royal Confraternity of Sao Teotonio.
As was pointed out on that article's recent AfD, the book has received little attention, and no libraries appear to stock it (a fact I confirmed with a WorldCat search).
The reference's sole defender, a member of this organisation, points to references to its main author's works on Archduke Karl Pius of Austria, Prince of Tuscany and Order of Saint Michael of the Wing. However the former ref contains a 'Translator's Note' stating "Readers who may not be particularly well-versed in the history of Spain are likely to become confused when references to "the King", or Don Carlos VIII, Don Carlos IX, etc., are made in the text. These were Kings according to the Carlist Tradition and NOT Kings who actually sat on the Throne of Spain. In fact, the reader should keep in mind that the entire book is written from a controversial but justifiable Carlist perspective. To make it easier to understand, the reader should substitute in his own mind 'legitimist' where 'legitimate' is written." (See also Carlism.) This would appear to call into question whether the author's views are sufficiently mainstream that he can be used as a reliable source. Hrafn Talk Stalk( P) 06:57, 20 March 2009 (UTC)
The aforementioned defender is also continuing to defend the use of unpublished letters as a source in that article. Hrafn Talk Stalk( P) 04:27, 21 March 2009 (UTC)
I added a comment by this well-known academic to Francesco Carotta -- it's been reverted (3 times, editor warned) because of things such as "he completely misrepresents Carotta's work and doesn't explain, why it should be dismissed or why he thinks that Carotta is wrong. Therefore it's not admissible because it's not a criticism of Carotta's work but simply derogatory and off-point. " "He doesn't mention the book in the bibliography and doesn't deliver any proof to back up his criticism; it's therefore biased and unscientific" etc. dougweller ( talk) 16:22, 21 March 2009 (UTC)
I have waited nearly 6 months hoping that the problem would work itself out without a revert war, and instead, it has just worsened. I think a rigid admin intervention is necessary to finally get these lists into shape.
User:Badagnani and User:Hmains persistently prevent the removal of inappropriate, unsourced, or incorrectly-sourced names on List of X Americans... making up their own definition of X Americans which includes anyone with X ancestry, regardless of any reputable source recognition.
Take a look at the recent history of List of Hungarian Americans: [63]
Even when another user spots a problem with listing a British individual as Hungarian American because of a Hungarian relative, he is reverted on the spot: [64]
This means that Joaquin Phoenix is on the same list as Bela Lugosi, because Joaquin's grandma had apparently some Hungarian ancestry.
User:Badagnani continues to use aggressive WP:OWNish tactics on List of X Americans. Some wiki-stalking going on too.
Nearly all of all names on the lists are without source, many of which because THERE IS NO SOURCE calling them Hungarian American. I had attempted to remove all such names with the intention that if a source can be found explicitly saying this, they can, of course, be re-added.
Use:Badagnani filibusters the attempts at cleaning up the lists by constantly asking for consensus or 'discussion' but NEVER participating in consensus-finding or discussion. See Talk:List_of_Hungarian_Americans for example. He merely reverts on the spot with comments such as 'massive blanking' or (in the past) 'vandalism/trolling'. The same can be said of Hmains, though he is less aggressive. Bulldog 20:49, 21 March 2009 (UTC)
User:DegenFarang is on a one man campaign to insert defamatory material to the article for John G. Roberts. for weeks he has been attempting to push material into the lede of the article that will portray mr. roberts in a bad light. he repeatedly uses random blogs as sources, and today [ [65]] used a reliable source that did not mention at all what his text claimed it was citing. i've reported him on BLP noticeboard, but this is an apparently relentless editor. he's not reverting the removal of his material, staying clear of 3RR. he merely changes to some other defamatory claim. not sure how to get this to stop. Anastrophe ( talk) 16:46, 22 March 2009 (UTC)
Alright I'll give this a go and hopefully I can reach the right higher ups here at Wikipedia...Im not very good with the hierarchy. I run a site called forgetthetalkies.com and I have been butting heads with a user user:Wildhartlivie over whether links from my site should be posted or not. Im citing the Hollywood Babylon article but she also likes to say it doesnt count in other matters such as showing silent stars speaking voices ( [66] or Complete Filmographies (that include whether a film still exists or not and goes well beyond IMDB for research) [67]. Our biggest debate is over the articles debunking the book Hollywood Babylon ( [68], its 4 parts all linked from that first one).
I am vaguely familiar with Wikipedia policy and I try my best to adhere to it. I have spent several hours writing and researching articles growing them from stubs to FA status ( Anna May Wong) and all I get for it is bickering and snide comments from other users (not just one user, I've had a few of them). Its very dissuading and I can say I've spoken with a number of silent film historians, published authors, and generally knowledgable people and they all agree they do not even bother editing Wikipedia anymore, they've all had bad expierences. I'm the one of the only ones who tries to keep on with it. Silent film is not really an arena where one gets a lot of noterioty, money, or hits. Linking a site really gets me very little, and I do it to get the information out there. My (site, not wiki) articles have been used in a college class, proven Anna May Wong was not buried in an unmarked grave (something 3 published authors failed to do), shown silent film stars did not fail because of talkies, and I am about to be a published author myself with Mcfarland Publishing.
THAT all said I guess to the case at hand I understand this: blogs are not roundly percieved as good sources but I do know for a solid source they can be accepted. I dont consider my site a blog, but yes it is hosted on blogger. I research everything I publish, usuing the best sources possible. I dont cite every article (as I am not wikipedia) but the articles in question are sourced. I dont see why my site is any different from a site like [69] (or its variants) or [70] which are both run by one person, and carry similar content information. In fact my site isnt user edited, but the silent era's film database (which is cited all over Wiki especially lost film and silent film articles) is.
I stated a bit of my case on the Hollywood Babylon talk page and I know this is already getting long. I want further review of my site as I know my information is good and solid, and I feel if it were properly judged other than by one or two self appointed reverters it would get its rightful due. My biggest point is how else to showcase this information? In the case of Hollywood Babylon the books both contain several stories (again the talk page has elaboration) and a good chunk in both books can be disproven with websites and other books which is what I did. Take my article away and how can you write and edit this wiki article? To say for instance 'its inaccurate' one could cite probably no less than 10 sites about 10 different stories and be right...but it wouldnt show the correlation that 'this books stories are inaccurate' (ex: Olive Thomas did not died wrapped in a velvet curtain after swallowing pills, she took ill after swallowing a liquid and died the following day).
As for the other articles in question same problem. Silent film stars are often accused of failing due to funny voices, etc. Even if not an article about their voices (with examples) would be of great interest to someone researching an actor. Youtube links are not allowed on wiki, and when youtube is not involved what about imeem (showing a radio show for example)? Nope. So how would one show that? With my articles I show an example of their voice, a list of what they did for talkie work, and what became of their talkie careers. Again very heavily researched and any wikipedian is welcome to verify anything I've ever put in any of these articles.
And finally on the note of filmographies its again the same idea. For these I search film archives online, speak with other film historians, etc and then gather the list and say what films they were in and which ones still (to the best of our knowledge as of course some films like Beyond the Rocks reappear after 80 years). This would not be easily put on wikipedia without my article (well the info could if stolen from the site, but the research could not).
I am not a spammer and I am not someone just out to cause trouble. I am only good at writing articles and adding info...I have no clue how the adminship of Wikipedia works. I welcome any help or feedback and I really do hope and would greatly appreciate a fair ruling other than 'well they say its a blog so all your hard research is irrelevant'. Thank you.-- Maggiedane ( talk) 10:19, 19 March 2009 (UTC)
This is an archive of past discussions. Do not edit the contents of this page. If you wish to start a new discussion or revive an old one, please do so on the current talk page. |
Archive 25 | ← | Archive 28 | Archive 29 | Archive 30 | Archive 31 | Archive 32 | → | Archive 35 |
This is one Cnfusing place --No Idea if this is posted in appropriate place --OR how to FIND same.
Community where I live: full of creative people, structures and beautiful geography, some reasons why it has a page here. I have a website about the community (every aspect), started three years ago, with Sidebar links to everything a neighbor would want, which is why I attempted to add the page, under "external links" --but promptly got notice: 'a bot will remove your link'
So I'm asking: a.) why --isn't blog allowed b.) if I am the author/owner of the blog and its contents: why can't I add a link (of the blog) to community page? --All the material is original, neutral (except for political news) nothing inappropriate, crude, vulgar or others' material. So what's the prob? Thanks for help, Poppy
To Quest: thank you for replying (aren't you impressed I Found this page again, lol, I am!) I appreciate the material you listed, my *search wasn't as successful. Ironically: I usually have the same view, about blogs, most (90%?) are junk; my background in English and ethics, standards grounded in journalism prevent me from producing typical blog type stuff; doing things even daily newspapers do, so (*blush*) my view of the neighborhood-grounded blog: NOT the usual rag of sort. e.g. several pages, with cites, on controversial issue of our reservoirs, surrounding meadow, and future use. e.g., Under "Food" all external links to Forums, boards, websites - pre-set to community restaurants. e.g., recently a series of crimes occurred (for the first time in years) and all kinds of people popped in looking for news, up-date, notice/details of police-community meeting to discuss.
Blog is not my personal 'daily travails in the 'hood' sort, but links to all categories, in/related to the community. Ergo: I thought it would be useful to readers of the wiki Page; apparently I'm not as neutral as wiki wants? Could I list it if I cited myself as the owner?
I put a dubious tag on the claim in the Video assist article that Jerry Lewis has a US patent on the technology. Other editors removed the tag on the theory that the patent is widely believed to exist.
Ordinarily, such patents are easy to find. I tried to find the patent, and couldn't. Although such a patent would almost certainly be mentioned as prior-art in later patents, there are no such references. There's a well-known patent by actress Hedy Lamarr that is trivially easy to find and frequently mentioned by later patents. In short, the factual evidence does not support the claim in the article.
The reference in the article only shows that this patent is widely thought to exist, not that it does, and in fact the author of that reference says he has no evidence that the patent exists.
Please see the discussion here: Talk:Video_assist#Jerry_Lewis_patent
I hate having to say this, but I have no particular opinion on the matter. I respect Mr. Lewis and there is a vast amount of evidence that he made substantial contributions to the development of this technology. That's basically what the Jerry Lewis article says, and I'm fine with the language there. But the claim in THIS article is that he has a patent, so there should be a reference to support that claim.
Thanks. 67.164.125.7 ( talk) 02:11, 5 March 2009 (UTC)
Recently, John J. Bulten ( talk · contribs) removed a comment that Chuck Baldwin opposes interracial marriage. The statement was sourced to a BET article detailing Chuck's political opinions in which they made the comment that Chuck Baldwin believes that interracial marriage is a from of white genocide. It seems like this is both a WP:RS and WP:BLP issue, but since the original verbiage in the article was fairly neutral, I am assuming that the RSN was the place to go.
I searched around to see if I could source the statement elsewhere, but the best I could do is link it to his opinion of the book Sisterhood of the Traveling Pants here but without listening to probably dozen of sermons, if he has even left the questionable material available, I doubt we'll get better until a mainstream media source gets bored enough to crucify him.
I haven't reverted it yet, as BLP is still an issue, but do we have a policy for requiring sources to be sourced? Burzmali ( talk) 13:44, 5 March 2009 (UTC)
I recently ran into an article on sohh.com, but I'm not sure if this website would be considered reliable and if it would be deemed reliable if it went through GA, FL or FA. Diverse Mentality 00:21, 6 March 2009 (UTC)
The reliability of the above mentioned is questioned, and a user removed material sourced to a book authored by them [1]. This removal (not the first one) is based on un-proven reliability.
The questioned book [2] was published in 2006, and despite being a recent publication has already been cited by numerous other authors [3]. It was written by two professors, Brunnbauer [4] [5] and Sundhausen [6], and a PD, Esch [7], all historians and experts in the field the book is about (modern Eastern European history). The book was published by LIT [8], a publishing house specialized on science.
All the informations are easily verifiable (googleable) and though the sites are in German, the basic information should either be understood by non-German speakers, too (eg "Professor" and "Universität foo"), with other key words like "Geschichte Osteuropas" (history of Eastern Europe) a web translation will turn out a result. Therefore, I think that an English speaker should be able to retrieve the key information about the authors within a few minutes. Additionally, the disputed quote was given in the footnote, also the respective URL, and a translation was provided on talk [9].
The questions I have are:
Skäpperöd ( talk) 09:16, 5 March 2009 (UTC)
The anthology's publisher (LIT), editors (Ulf Brunnbauer, Michael G. Esch, and Holm Sundhausen), the author of the cited chapter (Detlef Brandes), and positive review in American Historical Review ( quote: "This book adds to the substantial amount of research about “ethnic cleansing” that has been published in recent years in the German language." ... "It is a virtue of the volume that it unites authors from various disciplines and nationalities. The essays also provide a good overview of recent research on ethnic cleansing in various European countries.") establish that this is a reliable, and, in fact, a good source to use on wikipedia. That doesn't, of course, make all its contents indisputably true, but if there is a controversy, present the alternate view too; don't simply exclude this source. By the way, while referencing this work, you should cite the actual article and its author(s), and not only the book and editors. Abecedare ( talk) 18:15, 5 March 2009 (UTC)
This should be a simple question. In relation to the article Feminine essence theory of transsexuality. This article is about the basic "woman trapped in a mans body" sort of story given to explain transsexualism. This particular variant of the idea is not edorsed by the APA, or any professional psychologist or physicians. I have a number of sources on this idea. The problem is that all of them could be considered self published depending on how you look at that. I will start with the strongest one.
Searching google scholar brings up only "Unveiling the Mystique of Gender Dysphoria Syndrome"Margaret L. Colucciello RN, PhD [11] Is the closest thing to this found in Google Scholar. In this case the word syndrome I think was used simply to avoid the word disorder and it's stigma. Are any of these acceptable? One may say well if it's not in a better publication it's not noteable... first of all anything in the TS communit takes a long time for mainstream media to get wind of. Second google the term, thousands of hits come up.-- Hfarmer ( talk) 18:45, 7 March 2009 (UTC)
please take a look at the situation over at Talk:Sum 41 discography. Basically, there are multiple 3rd party sources that say that this EP is an EP, there are also multiple 3rd party sources that label it as a studio album. But there are 2 PRIMARY sources (The EP, and the Band themselves) that have stated that it is an EP, and not a studio album. Isn't it true that primary sources over-ride secondary source, especially in this case (respond on my talk page please) 70.242.179.192 ( talk) 04:12, 8 March 2009 (UTC)
It shouldn't take anyone long to verify that many reliable sources mention the idea that the Armenians are among descendants of Mitanni. Yet I have seen anyone who tries to mention these reliable sources on the Mitanni article, get called a "troll" and threatened with blocking, article locking, etc. So are all the cited authors who wrote about this, "trolls" as well? Or is there some foul play here that is purposefully trying to exclude relevant information, exactly as described at WP:BIAS? Readers researching Mitanni can easily find out elsewhere that some modern-day groups do claim descent from them, and these readers probably wouldn't want this relevant info suppressed by editors who think that they personally "know better" than the sources, and that therefore these sources must not even be mentioned. The fact that they don't even have a single source rebutting this peer-reviewed view, is summarily dismissed by saying "Well that's because we know it's so wrong, why would we even bother rebutting it with a source".
This is exactly how we get such vast discrepancies between what wikipedia says, and what other sources say. It only takes about one second on google books or google scholar, to find copious scholarly books (NOT blogs) that mention the Armenian-Mitanni connection. But it seems that there are hidden, higher standards than "verifiability" at play, and that is the "prestige" that certain editors give one another, and the "cause" of "anti-nationalist globalism" which regularly denies all published evidence that any modern people could possibly be descended from any ancient people. (So the stork brought them, or what?) Til Eulenspiegel ( talk) 12:59, 8 March 2009 (UTC)
this thread is flawed from line one, because there aren't "many reliable sources mention the idea that the Armenians are among descendants of Mitanni". Don't confuse this claim with "it is plausible that the Armenians have Mitanni people among their ancestors", because this would force us to mention the Armenians at mitochondrial Eve, just because all Armenians are among the offspring of Mitochondrial Eve. The Mitanni kingdom flourished 3,300 years ago, and if you know anything about genealogy, this means that everyone in Southwest Asia, and probably most people in Eurasia and Africa, are "descended from the Mitanni".
As for the claimed "RSs", there are none known. Witness this revision, which shows the hallmarks of pov-pushing, with "possibly "Armeno-Aryan", origin [...] regarded by many historians as among the ancestors of the modern day Armenians" (pure weasling), garnished with 13(!) footnotes rather than a single quotable RS. For your edification, the 13 footnotes amount to:
these indiscriminately mix random urls (allnewsweb.com, touregypt.net... -- it remains a mystery why we should quote those when it is so "easy" to come up with real RS), and sources that do in fact argue for either the Anatolian hypothesis or the Armenian hypothesis (which are incidentially mutually exclusive, but never mind that), and imply that scholars arguing for either of these automatically support "Armenian Mitanni" which is utter nonsense.
Now Til knows all of this, of course, being a veteran editor, but he is also a veteran pusher of ethnic crackpottery. He should also know better, I suppose, than calling me names like "racist" for removing the above clutter of "references", but I suppose after getting away with his approach to Wikipedia for years, he doesn't see any reason not to.
Til at this point isn't an asset to Wikipedia as much as a liability, and if I wasn't his target in this case, I would consider imposing a block on him for his recent exploit. Briefly, he is wasting everyone's time over stuff that has been discussed exhaustively two years ago, and he isn't doing it politely and innocently, but in a manner that really begs that somebody should show him the door. -- dab (𒁳) 16:42, 8 March 2009 (UTC)
I don't see any reference to the Mitanni in the index of Richard G. Hovannisian (ed.) The Armenian People From Ancient to Modern Times: Vol. I: The Dynastic Periods: From Antiquity to the Fourteenth Century (Palgrave Macmillan, 2004). Since this is a pretty standard work on Armenian history this might give us some indication of the importance (or rather lack of it) of the Mitanni theory. -- Folantin ( talk) 18:54, 8 March 2009 (UTC)
At Amway there is ongoing discussion about whether or not this site is a reliable source for commentry on the company Amway. The site contains self-published info relating to Amway (specifically this site Amway analysis is used as reference). The arguement against is basically that Hassan is a SPS and is not an expert on Amway, therefor his opinion on Amway and whether or not it's a cult should not be used in the article. Opinions from this board will be welcome. Shot info ( talk) 23:10, 8 March 2009 (UTC)
There is a reference on the article Haplogroup E1b1b (Y-DNA) using this source from the International Society for Genetic Genealogy. From their website the organization's mission is -"is to advocate for and educate about the use of genetics as a tool for genealogical research, and promote a supportive network for genetic genealogists."
The organization compiles information from various publications and creates genetic trees. That are available on its website such as Y-DNA Haplogroup Tree 2009. Where it states: ISOGG (International Society of Genetic Genealogy) is not affiliated with any registered, trademarked, and/or copyrighted names of companies, websites and organizations. This Y-DNA Haplogroup Tree is for informational purposes only, and does not represent an endorsement by ISOGG"
The initial impression I have is that they are a private organization that provides a support network for genealogists. They do a good job of compiling information, however, they do not seem to have an established publishing system, or a system of peer review. For controversial matters, should they qualify as a reliable source. Wapondaponda ( talk) 08:28, 6 March 2009 (UTC)
I need your help for deciding which sources and which viewpoint has more weight. There has been a dispute over realistic estimation of Iraqi Turkmans and Syrian Turkmans for weeks. Some certain editors with a clear and heavy POV are are revert-warring on those articles, with no verifiable source, adding the most unrealistic figure for those articles, proven to be exaggerations by Turkman nationalists such as ITF. Please help us to solve this dispute. Ellipi ( talk) 15:21, 9 March 2009 (UTC)
Also please note that their only source (apart from a bunch of random urls) is UNPO, which by defination is a political organisation forming of and supporting ethnic nationalists around the world. There is a very huge gap between the neutral estimations by third-party and verifiable sources, which puts the estimation of Iraqi Turkmens as 1-2% (ca. 300-500 thousands) of the country, and these users' exaggerated figures which claim a funny lie of 2 to 3.5 millions. Ellipi ( talk) 16:24, 9 March 2009 (UTC)
Panthkhalsa ( talk · contribs) has been adding a lot of spurious claims to the articles like Mazhabi, Hari Singh Nalwa, Udham Singh and Bhai Mati Das. Basically, his edits center around the claims that notable Sikh personalities like Hari Singh Nalwa and Bhai Mati Das belong to his community ("Mazhabi"). Simple searches on Google Books prove him wrong: Hari Singh Nalwa belonged to the Uppal Khatri community [18], while Bhai Mati Das was a Mohyal (this is what the Wikipedia article originally stated). Besides these, the user has been adding a lot of propaganda-style material based on the scientific racism theories (e.g. "Those Mazbhis of lighter skin ranging from white to tan brown, with sharper facial features, tall in height and sometimes light eye colour are considered of Aryan blood. However the vast majority are off darker skin to black complexion with blunt facial features and tend to short in height. These mazbhis are considered to be the peoples from the Dravidan races captured in battle and enslaved by Aryan invaders on the Indian sub continent." [19]).
After I confronted him/her, the user has come up with two references, both of which seem highly dubious to me:
Any pointers? utcursch | talk 16:11, 9 March 2009 (UTC)
Hi,
The article List of metropolitan areas in Europe by population is almost solely based on the World Gazetteer data. This source has been widely criticised on the Talk-page but I would like an independent view on its reliability.
Ghaag ( talk) 06:52, 5 March 2009 (UTC)
OK, I know that weblogs in general are not a reliable source. But the Spirit of Mystery weblog is being written by the crew of a small boat that is sailing to Australia. It is a sort of online diary of events during the journey as experienced by the crew. I've not used it yet in the Spirit of Mystery article, but would like to pad out the details of Mark Maidment's accident with info from the weblog if it is considered to meet RS criteria. What do other editors think about the use of this particular blog? Mjroots ( talk) 06:54, 6 March 2009 (UTC)
Is Celebrity Sleuth a reliable enough source? I know it's a magazine that publishes photos and screencaps of nude celebrities, but I came across an issue (Volume 11, #1; 1997) that was all heights and measurements of hundreds of female celebrities, and it even detailed its sources, explaining that it scoured through thousands of sources, and rejected all but the most reliable. It rejected, for example, press releases, tabloid articles and studio stats because those were sources for publicity and not authenticity, and listed the seven sources they judged to be most reliable. The following list is quoted verbatim from the issue:
So what do you think? Would this be reliable? Nightscream ( talk) 02:02, 9 March 2009 (UTC)
Are GAO reports generally seen as Reliable Sources ? Specifically would GAO87 be an acceptable source for the results of a questionnaire they circulated among the research community? I ask this because its inclusion seems to have stirred a bit of controversy.
I should probably add that there is a related section on another noticeboard. On that board it was mentioned that it was not the proper place to ask about these matters. I suspect this notice board is the proper place to ask regarding RS. Thank you. Unomi ( talk) 04:25, 10 March 2009 (UTC)
I am wondering how reliable we should consider reports from Committee to Protect Journalists. Any thoughts appreciated; I'll comment with more details as I look around and based on feedback. Cheers, John Vandenberg ( chat) 06:37, 10 March 2009 (UTC)
See Talk:Schizophrenia#loss_of_brain_tissue, which has spilled over to Wikipedia_talk:Reliable_sources_(medicine-related_articles)#NPOV. Editors have tried to explain it fails WP:V never mind WP:MEDRS. The problem is that members of the MED wikiproject are now regarded as "pov pushers with a conflict of interest" by the person arguing for the use of this source. So the opinions of neutral editors would be welcome. Sorry if this is the wrong forum, but you can see that the MED forum wouldn't be appropriate. Colin° Talk
I would be interested in views about how suitable this document is as a reference (with the author cited as Vickrey) for the assertion: "Nobel-laureate William Vickrey is considered one of the fathers of congestion pricing, as he first proposed it for the New York City Subway system in 1952". The document header suggests that it was written by Vickrey in June 1992. The document does contain some of Vickrey's "thoughts", however, it is not clear that the information in it supporting the assertion of his being "considered one of the fathers of congestion pricing" was written by him. Indeed the biography information in there, including details of his death in 1996 can obviously not have been written by him. -- de Facto ( talk). 15:11, 10 March 2009 (UTC)
In some of our articles, we're using Pakistan Daily as a
reliable source on statements of fact, and I have some serious concerns about its reliability. First, many of their articles read like editorials (but aren't marked as editorials) and contain very questionable material. Second, they seem to have an anti-Israeli, if not anti-Semitic bias. Third, they allow anyone to upload submit articles to their web site
[23]. They state that "hate related articles will not be accepted" but it's not clear as to how to tell whether an article is written by their staff or by the public.
Here are some examples:
This article [24] refers to Paul Wolfowitz and Richard Pearle as "Zionist Israel-firsters" and Israel as the "Israeli racist-Zionist state". I can't imagine any reliable source here in the West using that language in a straight news story. This article also states things such as "Dennis Ross should not be allowed to occupy any position in the US government" which is clearly an opinion.
This article [25] claims that "USA Jewry" were "declaring war on America’s dispossessed majority, white Christian Americans" and "Jews fear and will do anything in their power, (and they now have all the power in America), to eradicate any semblance of nationalism emanating from white Christian Americans."
This article [26] appears to be a Holocaust denial article (or poem), "Jew conceives HOLOCAUST Factory / Fabricate HOLOCAUST Stories to Deflect Guilt / Fabricate HOLOCAUST Days to deflect Guilt".
In the article titled "Obama is Two-Faced Liar" [27] they claim "President Barack Obama treated [Republicans] like dirt, didn't give a damn what they thought about his stimulus package". Hardly neutral or fair writing.
In this article, they claim that Barack Obama has the "psychopathic nature of the ideal Jewish puppet" [28]
"Barack Obama likes to control others and uses that control to do others harm. In addition, Obama lacks genuine emotions, other than anger and pleasure. He is cold-hearted, arrogant and condescending.
"Like most psychopaths, he has learned to disguise his disorder. His lack of normal emotional response he masquerades as if cool headedness. His mendacities are stated in terms meant to mislead his followers into believing that he has their best interests at heart.
"Behind this deceitful psychopath prominently stand the Zionist Jews David Axelrod and Rahm Emanuel. Obama makes a perfect puppet for World Jewry. He has no conscience. Obama is eager to betray those who believe in him. He is ignorant and inexperienced, which means that he will have to rely on the advice and scripts of his Jewish advisors as heavily as he has relied on the money of his Jewish financiers."
Should Pakistan Daily be considered a reliable source per Wikipedia standards? A Quest For Knowledge ( talk) 18:50, 3 March 2009 (UTC)
Dlabtot ( talk) 20:25, 3 March 2009 (UTC) I'm getting the feeling this is not a reliable source. I looked at about 20 articles, and they're all credited as written by "www.daily.pk". I didn't find any actual names. They don't seem to have a normal about page, just about iWrite, which is sketchy at the least. I think they are a user submitted news source. Now, I'm sure someone is selecting and organizing their articles, but I couldn't find who that was, so I don't think they can be consdiered reliable. Now, if we figure out they were part of something in List of newspapers in Pakistan, then maybe we could reconsider. They don't seem to be part of a real newspaper as far as I can tell, though. - Peregrine Fisher ( talk) ( contribs) 20:14, 3 March 2009 (UTC)
As far as I can tell this is not a website of an actual print publication, but an online only news portal. Can anyone confirm that ? If so, do we know anything about its (online) publishers, popularity, reputation etc ? Do other news sources cite it ? I googled but didn't find anything relevant at first glance. Abecedare ( talk) 20:50, 3 March 2009 (UTC)
I see no evidence that Pakistan Daily qualifies as a reliable source, and much evidence that they do not: [30] [31] [32]. Per WP:FRINGE they are out. THF ( talk) 21:14, 3 March 2009 (UTC)
I have now done a more thorough search and still found nothing relevant to indicate that this news portal is usable as a source. Some troubling pointers:
So I would advice against using this as a reliable source for facts, or even as a noteworthy source for opinion - unless someone can show positive evidence of their reliability and/or noteworthiness. Pakistan has a vibrant print media (even in English), so sourcing straight news is usually not a problem, and if something is sourceable only to Pakistan Daily - it should probably not be on wikipedia anyway. Abecedare ( talk) 21:26, 3 March 2009 (UTC)
Well, the "iwrite" user-submitted articles appear to be segregated into their own section, just like dozens of US news sites that have a "citizen journalism" area. [35] But outside of that, there are some very inflammatory editorials about Israel, and no, I don't want us using those as statements of fact. They could maybe be used as statements of opinion, say in an article about conspiracist thought in Pakistan. Squidfryerchef ( talk) 00:02, 4 March 2009 (UTC)
OK, maybe not, maybe not even for statements of opinion. At first I thought people were asking about the Pakistan Daily-Times, which is very different. Squidfryerchef ( talk) 00:06, 4 March 2009 (UTC)
Looks like the consensus is a clear 'no'. I concur. Dlabtot ( talk) 22:42, 11 March 2009 (UTC)
One of the editors involved in a review of the Sustainability page is strongly of the view that this page should verify statements using sources not connected to the United Nations wherever possible - see for example this post
To please this one editor we've made a real effort to keep UN citations to a minimum. Trouble is, the United Nations has for decades been the central co-ordinating agency for all of the global-level planning and monitoring of sustainability. The above post specifically asks us to use news sources and recent scientific publications in preference to comprehensive international studies such as the Millennium Ecosystem Assessment (MEA) prepared under the auspices of the UN. This just isn't going to work in the article.
I think it would help a lot to get a clear answer to the above question: Is the United Nations a Reliable Source?-- Travelplanner ( talk) 20:25, 11 March 2009 (UTC)
The UN consists of many sub-bodies. Some are political, some are humanitarian, some are scientific (or broadly academic). In any case where you may want to use a publication from a body of the UN as a source, you'd be safe in stating that "UN body X says Y", because publications of UN bodies are reliable sources for the positions of the UN body. In cases where a UN body has commissioned a scientific or academic report on a subject, and there is little contraversy surrounding the outcome of the investigation, then the outcome could be stated without explicitly stating that the source is a UN body publication in the article (but the source would still need to be referenced, of course). The same is true for any political body, such as a nation, that commissions a scientific or academic report the results of which are relatively uncontraversial - for example a report from a statistics ministry. However, where there are conflicting reliable sources on a subject, it's best to clarify where each conclusion originates from. In the specific case you mention, a scientific report from a UN body seems to perfectly valid "current science sourcing", so long as the source is stated if the conclusion is contraversial. Such reports tend to be literature reviews, which are excellent secondary sources. I'd be interested in the opinions of other editors on whether UN bodies such as the World Health Organisation, that publish scientific reviews, have just as strict a peer-reviewing process and position of political independance as a reputable scientific journal. That's the impression I have, but I could be mistaken. However, I would think that the independance, fact-checking, etc. should be considered separately for each of these bodies, as some will be more reputable than others. Ryan Paddy ( talk) 21:28, 11 March 2009 (UTC)
I'd like to focus the discussion if I may. The following has just been posted on the Sustainability talk page: My favorite comment on the page is probably the first one ... ``It's a RS for the position of the UN. I wouldn't use it as a definitive source beyond that. THF (talk) 20:27, 11 March 2009 (UTC) This fits pretty nearly with what I have been saying... and I do believe a concerted effort needs to be made at telling where the source is from... a kind of intro... or disclaimer... or before each use of the ref in the article ... beyond the specific area in the article that is built around the very U.N. M.E.A. information. Bottom line ...the U.N. is funded... many times from corporations and political special interest groups. As a primary source it is not really effective or good except to source itself as information it is presenting. There is a specific question here as to whether the Millennium Ecosystem Assessment (1360 scientists took part) is a RS. And the more general one about over-representation of the UN in the article. Much of the debate about sustainability, rightly or wrongly, has centred on or emanated from the UN Sustainable Development program. Is this a RS? How do we decide these issues other than getting opinion from "outsiders" like yourselves? Granitethighs ( talk) 01:29, 12 March 2009 (UTC)
I think we need to look for reliable sources pertaining to whether the Millennium Ecosystem Assessment has a reputation for authoritive and trustworthy authorship in the subject of sustainability, for fact-checking and peer-review, and for independence (i.e. the degree to which it is a "third party" to the subject area). Those are the criteria of a reliable source, and the only way to determine whether it meets those criteria is by examining other reliable sources that describe the reputation of the source. Ryan Paddy ( talk) 01:50, 12 March 2009 (UTC)
(ec) This is really a WEIGHT issue rather than a RS issue. The relative weight of the UN report in the article depends on the credibility of what's being offered up as other points of view. If there is legitimate disagreement, then that should be noted. If everybody agrees with the UN except Lyndon Larouche and Louis Farrakhan, there's no problem with an article relying heavily on the UN. If the UN position is disputed, then the other points of view need to be considered, and there's no reason to favor the UN view in the article. THF ( talk) 01:53, 12 March 2009 (UTC)
OK my understanding of the above advice (much appreciated) is:
Is that the gist of it?-- Travelplanner ( talk) 02:46, 12 March 2009 (UTC)
The only source for the latest build is at the Norton forums, where an forum administrator who goes by his first and last name, posts about the latest build. There are no third-party sources available. TechOutsider ( talk) 22:45, 9 March 2009 (UTC)TechOutsider
Sample. I don't think this is reliable at all. It is used at Khemkaran. Look at the ridiculous tone that it is written in. YellowMonkey ( click here to vote for world cycling's #1 model!) 03:22, 10 March 2009 (UTC)
I don't post here often so I apologize if this is the wrong forum. I just got in an edit war with a user over the links http://understanding.infantilism.org and http://www.infantilism.org on the Paraphilic infantilism page. My take on it is that the links violate WP:EL as they are not of a neutral point of view. The other editor's defense of the link was that it was about "understanding" and that its POV should not be silenced. I feel that these links are clearly biased and they do not lead to material of an encyclopedic nature. Since we just got in an edit war I'd like it if somebody else could step in here. Thanks, Themfromspace ( talk) 19:25, 11 March 2009 (UTC)
I am using these sites to reference parts of this article. Are they reliable?
Currently, two editors seem intent on removing RS material because they feel it is "incoherent gibberish" [43] shows the wholesale removal of WP:IDONTLIKEIT material. Might someone point out that RS material (no one denies it is RS) is not to be removed as "gibberish" and that editors are not required to explain what sources say in English? Thanks! Collect ( talk) 02:28, 13 March 2009 (UTC)
At WP:DYK there has been some dispute whether or not entire articles can be sourced to ancient Chinese sources, such as the Book of Tang, which is about 1000 years old. Although a compilation of older sources and thus technically a secondary source, I do not believe that it meets the requirements of a reliable source. Our policy states that "Wikipedia articles should use reliable, third-party, published sources. Reliable sources are credible published materials with a reliable publication process; their authors are generally regarded as trustworthy or authoritative in relation to the subject at hand. How reliable a source is depends on context." - In the field of Chinese history, it is modern scholars who have a "reliable publication process" and who are viewed as "trustworthy" and "authoritative in relation to the subject at hand". Historians of Chinese history go back to this older material, assess its validity, and then present their conclusions to us. We should use that scholarship, not the less reliable material. Please help us decide whether articles such as Wu Yuanji need to be based on modern scholarship or not. Thanks. Awadewit ( talk) 15:46, 8 March 2009 (UTC)
I believe it's an overly dogmatic approach to RS to require that modern sources be used over ancient ones (such as the Twenty-four Histories, the text at issue) when:
Please ascertain that http://www.world-gazetteer.com/wg.php?x=&men=ifaq&lng=en&des=wg&geo=-4&srt=pnan&col=adhoq&msz=1500#q2 is a reliable source.
Also check that all sources on http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_metropolitan_areas_in_Europe_by_population meets WP:RS
It's causing problems: See http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Mediation_Cabal/Cases/2009-03/List_of_metropolitan_areas_in_Europe_by_population#Problem.232 WhatisFeelings? ( talk) 04:19, 11 March 2009 (UTC)
A quick query: are the followed to be considered reliable sources for Disturbed's genre:
I myself can't really tell one way or the other. Any input much appreciated, cheers. Prophaniti ( talk) 19:20, 11 March 2009 (UTC)
Okay, cheers guys, anyone else with input on the sources above? Prophaniti ( talk) 10:31, 13 March 2009 (UTC)
Yeah, there is a metal band out there called Disturbed. Nevard ( talk) 20:55, 12 March 2009 (UTC)
Cheers folks. Unless anyone else wants to contribute, I'll go with the Las Vegas Journal article and about.com one being reliable, the others not. Prophaniti ( talk) 22:08, 15 March 2009 (UTC)
Hi all - sorry for the repost, but we're still arguing about this on Talk:Oom_Yung_Doe. Is the [ Freedom of Mind page] about Chung Moo Doe a reliable source?
Arguments that have been made in favor of its reliability (and how to find the corresponding discussion) are:
Arguments that have been made against the source are:
Thanks for any help you can provide. Subverdor ( talk) 13:19, 13 March 2009 (UTC)
Looking for opinions on the site Expert Voices. Expert Voices is run by the National Science Digital Library, and is self-described thus:
Yes, it's a blog, but it's one published by a notable institution and the majority of articles are contributed by subject-matter experts who are independent of the publisher. I'm happy with the source, but my use of it on That's Not Fake to provide critical commentary and suggest possible reasons for the failure of that advertising campaign has been challenged by another editor, so I'm seeking input. JulesH ( talk) 21:04, 14 March 2009 (UTC)
Are any of these three references considered reliable:
First, does anybody know the aforementioned guy? He ran some benchmarks on Norton products and published his findings on his blog. I'm using his numbers and opinions (more like observations) about Norton software. His blog is here. The particular post is here
Second, is Passmark.com a reliable source for product benchmarks? First, don't be confused. They sell benchmarking software, and conduct benchmarks themselves. The particular publication I am talking about is here. Passmark states in the aforementioned report Symantec Corporation funded the benchmarks/tests and supplied some of the scripts used ... TechOutsider ( talk) 23:22, 15 March 2009 (UTC)TechOutsider
Is the above .org website a reliable site? They conduct malware detection tests. They are generally relied on for numbers by consumer product review magazines and sites, such as CNET or PCMagazine. However, a GA review has raised questions about the source ... here. The reviewer stated ...
“ | The 'about us' section of the av-comparatives.org site tells us it "tests mainly on behalf of the vendors", which instils little faith information is unbiased. | ” |
TechOutsider ( talk) 04:08, 15 March 2009 (UTC)TechOutsider
Some editors at Talk:William Timmons have made the assertion that this article is an 'op-ed'. Is this characterization accurate? Dlabtot ( talk) 18:01, 15 March 2009 (UTC) PS, other than posting this question, (which I did mean to also imply, the general reliability of the source for the uses it is put in this article), I'm recusing myself from further discussion simply because I am a regular respondent on this noticeboard. Dlabtot ( talk) 21:14, 15 March 2009 (UTC)
FYI, previous RSN discussions of "The Nation" - Dlabtot ( talk) 18:05, 15 March 2009 (UTC)
The only reason to mention a connection to Lennon would be if there is reliable evidence that Timmons played a role in the attempt to deport him. The ONLY source claiming as much is from an Op-ed article published by a self proclaimed "flagship of the left wing", and the only evidence provided is a copy of a letter to Strom Thurmond, signed by Timmons, informing Thurmond of the Immigration and Natural Service's deportation notice to Lennon (which was in response to a letter that Thurmond sent to the White House). The assertion that Timmons played a central role in the Lennon deportation attempts simply doesn't comport with the evidence, and opinion pieces from partisan publications have no place in a BLP. Timmons wasn't even a member of the McCain team -- The Nation article appears to be an attempt to use Timmons as a vehicle to damage the McCain campaign. Rtally3 ( talk) 02:42, 16 March 2009 (UTC)
Signing a memo informing a Senator of the INS's actions is not playing a role in the attempt to deport John Lennon. It's a simple administrative task that is completely uneventful. Rtally3 ( talk) 20:03, 16 March 2009 (UTC)
Is this entry in the CA virus encyclopedia reliable enough to list uTorrent as "disputed" or "malware/trojan/spyware/adware" in the List of BitTorrent clients article? Arguments for and against are here. Theymos ( talk) 03:01, 16 March 2009 (UTC)
Context: Airi & Meiri
So WP:PORNBIO and possibly WP:MUSIC apply.
There was a recent AfD closed as no consensus. Please help develop a consensus. Thanks!-- Cerejota ( talk) 02:40, 14 March 2009 (UTC)
I'm slightly unclear about the usage of reproductions of original sources on a website as reliable sources. The example in front of me is Nikki Craft. On her personal website (and websites she seems to have some control over), there are PDFs of news stories from obviously reliable sources. For example this article from the Dallas Morning News seems to be a photographic reproduction of a RS article. Now, finding an accessible original of that article on the web is difficult. There is obviously a danger of digital or photo-manipulation of original documents with a source like this but is it completely non-usable as a RS? I certainly understand the problems with retyped text of an article, purporting/alleging to be from a RS without verification. What do you think? Cheers, Pigman ☿/talk 16:24, 17 March 2009 (UTC)
The lede now has thirteen cites for a single word in the first line. Unfortunately many of the cites do not actually support the precise implicit claim being made, which is one problem, but, more to the point, the excess cites are being given in an effort to make the page look silly. Might someone examine the cites and the wording of them and jump in? I would also point out that some of the cites do not appear to be RS by WP standards for a claim of fact. Thanks! Collect ( talk) 02:42, 13 March 2009 (UTC)
I have a problem. The new macbook pro's can get extremely hot. You can google search this and you will get heaps of results, even on how to fix this problem. However, i added it to the article cause its extreme heat is a critism of the product. However, even though there is heaps of mentions on the internet about the problem. Most of them occur in blog posts(some more respectable than others) and forums. But the fact remains that while there might not be any hardcore relaible sources, the product does get extremely hot and should be mentioned in the article. What should be done? IAmTheCoinMan ( talk) 14:53, 17 March 2009 (UTC)
Hi all, does anyone consider this a reliable source?— Chris! c t 06:48, 18 March 2009 (UTC)
Hi, I wonder if Unrepresented Nations and Peoples Organization is a Reliable Source about the figures of the populations of its members. There is a dispute in Greeks in Albania, on whether the number given by UNPO is reliable, since it contains no other sources and no author at all. Balkanian`s word ( talk) 16:39, 18 March 2009 (UTC)
Im wondering that too, however unpo provides some interesting data about a nation's folklore and culture but it seems comfused about numbers. Alexikoua ( talk) 17:41, 18 March 2009 (UTC)
I'm reviewing Club de Gimnasia y Esgrima La Plata, which relies rather heavily on statistical sources from this site. The introduction say the site "was originally founded as NERSSSF (for Northern European Rec.Sport.Soccer Statistics Foundation) in January 1994 by three regular contributors to the rec.sport.soccer newsgroup". Note that this is used one time at Chelsea F.C. What do you think? Reliable or no? Noble Story ( talk • contributions) 01:34, 16 March 2009 (UTC)
It's a foundation, with rules, controlled editorship, editorial oversight, a focus on accuracy, a board, etc., and all clearly identified on the site. I don't see why anyone is saying it doesn't satisfy WP:RS. Dicklyon ( talk) 00:17, 18 March 2009 (UTC)
I think we can have teensier looser standards for statistical encyclopedic projects like this one, especially when we're just using them for numbers. I'm inclined to grant RS status to a RSSSF or a baseball-reference.com: they're both relied upon by journalists we consider reliable, and it seems silly to say that the bootstrapping is reliable, but the underlying source being used isn't. THF ( talk) 00:22, 18 March 2009 (UTC)
The RSSSF.com website is a highly reliable source for records of football. There is nothing else I can add that hasn't already been mentioned by other people in this section. If anybody wants to question its reliability, they should at least provide a stronger foundation for their argument.-- [|!*//MarshalN20\\*!|] ( talk) 00:32, 18 March 2009 (UTC)
Well then, I guess my question has been answered. And note to Peregrine: I would consider baseball-reference a reliable source. I do know that it's sister site, basketball-reference, is considered to be reliable source. At least, in this FAC, it was accepted by Ealdgyth, who seems to be the last word on references for FAC. Noble Story ( talk • contributions) 01:17, 18 March 2009 (UTC)
RSSSF is also recognised as the official statistical provider to one of the major European national football associations. I think it's the Danish FA, but I'd have to dig around to find something to confirm that. I wouldn't imagine the governing body of football in a given country would recognise it as official if they thought it was just a two-bob fansite...... -- ChrisTheDude ( talk) 08:07, 18 March 2009 (UTC)
As someone who is interested in football statistics, and does the majority of my editing on football articles, the RSSSF site is the number one site by a wide margin, for historical world football data. The very nature of its build is one of its major strengths - if you find an error in it (sourced, obviously), the site owners can correct it. You don't get that sort of accuracy control in most of what are laughably called "Reliable Sources" - major news corporations, printed matter etc., there if there is an error, no matter how glaring, it will likely remain an error for ever. If RSSSF is disallowed as a source, Wikipedia will lose more credibility, verifiability and most importantly of all accuracy. What's next, Cricinfo? - fchd ( talk) 19:40, 18 March 2009 (UTC)
Is a statement in an organization's own membership periodical reliable in terms of demonstrating intentions contrary to those publicly claimed?
This keeps getting deleted as "irrelevant" by one person.
"NCSY's parent organization, the Orthodox Union, published an essay boasting about how these public school clubs successfully inspired students to decline their opportunities at some of the best colleges in the nation in favor of yeshiva and seminary study. http://www.ou.org/pdf/ja/5766/fall66/AStuyvieRemin.pdf
Many club members ended up turning down the finest universities in the nation, including Harvard, Johns Hopkins, Boston University, Brandeis, New York University and other esteemed institutions of higher learning in order to engage in some genuine “higher learning.” Some of us went to study at Ohr Somayach or Kol Yaakov in Monsey, New York. [53]
Mrnhghts ( talk) 19:07, 18 March 2009 (UTC)
Sure. The JSU website and the article on Wikipedia's Jewish Student Union page [ [54]] claims, The mission of Jewish Student Union is "to get Jewish teens to do something Jewish," and includes a quote from a JSU employee that, "There is no active recruiting to Orthodox programs." But the quote above that keeps getting deleted, which was printed in the Orthodox Union's own magazine, "Jewish Action," says something very different -- that these "cultural" clubs are used to recruit public school student to ultra-Orthodox, not even just Orthodoxy, and that they are absolutely used to actively recruit students to programming off campus run by NCSY proper to achieve such results. Mrnhghts ( talk) 18:51, 19 March 2009 (UTC)
The link is Chemtrail News broadcast in german
There was a news broadcast done about chemtrails. I can't seem to find the actual source of the video as I can't read german 0.o. Could someone please have a look through their archives and see if you can pull up when this video is and an official link? Or can this video be considered reliable in its current state? (It would help the chemtrail article by giving it a news video ^.^ Thanks in advance. Smallman12q ( talk) 01:42, 19 March 2009 (UTC)
I have a concern about Comedy Central being used as a reliable source. Obviously the show is funny to watch, however, with the tag line for its political news, "Comedy Central's INdecision Reduced-Fact Political News," my concern is whether or not a website that admits to 'reducing facts' in its news program is a reliable souce for use on biographies of living persons? This is more of a concern especially if there are other more reliable sources presenting similar information (which might be more fact-based). Thus, should Wikipedia biographies of living persons consider Comedy Central a reliable source for suggesting facts on a particular biography? Thanks! Tycoon24 ( talk) 00:38, 20 March 2009 (UTC)
Is Svante Cornell a reliable source? I question whether he is reliable as he is only an associate professor and I find his works incredibly biased. He has written on Nagorno-Karabakh as well as the conflict in Georgia. Pocopocopocopoco ( talk) 03:07, 25 February 2009 (UTC)
In addition to the points above against Svante Cornell's works being considered a reliable source, if you review the his writings in the Nagorno-Karabakh document, he illustrates his bias when he repeatedly writes "the alleged Armenian Genocide". A scholar of repute would not put that qualifer in front of that horrible event that happened during WW1. Another problem I have with Cornell is that apparently he is the principle of a consulting company that looks like it offers consulting to organisations and companies in the west that want to tap the energy resources in the Caspian Sea. Naturally this would make him biased against newly independent regions that gained independence from Georgia and Azerbaijan as well as Russia and would bias him in favor of Azerbaijan and Georgia's initiative to resubjugate these newly independent regions. Using Svante Cornell as a source for the conflicts related to Abkhazia, South Ossetia, or Nagorno-Karabakh would be the equivalent of using research from a company that does business with Indonesia as a source for the conflict in East Timor. Pocopocopocopoco ( talk) 02:37, 26 February 2009 (UTC)
He's a reliable source. How, and whether, he should be used is beyond the scope of this noticeboard. Most of the editors here, me included, don't follow these decisions beyond that. We're not part of dispute resolution. - Peregrine Fisher ( talk) ( contribs) 08:28, 27 February 2009 (UTC)
I don't really get what we're discussing here. That is, what concrete uses of Cornell of a source are we talking about? I mean, if what he says is contradicted by other sources, then we should say, some think this, some think that, and link to the various sources. Or are you arguing that he should not be presented as an independent observer/analysist/scientist? sephia karta | di mi 15:17, 28 February 2009 (UTC)
From my talkpage:
Let's take a look at the ISDP first & second paragraphs, page 5 of 45:
"In August 2008, Russia launched an invasion of Georgia that sent shockwaves reverberating - first across the post Soviet space, but then also into the rest of Europe and the World, as the magnitude of the invasion and its implications became clear.
This invasion took the World by surprise. But what should have been surprising about it was perhaps the extent of Russia's willingness to employ crude military force against a neighboring state, not that it happenned..."
First off only a complete ignoramus would have been surprised by Russia's "invasion" of Georgia, because on August 5th, Russia sent a clear note to Georgia, that BBC published. Here's a timetable:
August 5th: Russia to Georgia: do not touch South Ossetia military, or else we will intervene (BBC published this!!!) August 7th: Georgia attacks South Ossetia full scale, with Grads, tanks, and the whole thing. August 8th - August 12th (or 16th): Russia intervenes.
What in the World did anyone find surprising?
And if you study real military analysis, you will realize that Russia force was not crude. Batallion Vostok doesn't use crude force. Nor do any of the Russian units sent in.
Still don't think it's heavily biased? HistoricWarrior007 ( talk) 00:33, 10 March 2009 (UTC)
But this is all OR. Is there any criticism of this author by a third party author? I asked this question many times, and received no answer. Grand master 11:40, 19 March 2009 (UTC)
Should this site be still considered a reliable source? A recent AfD turned up errors in the listing for Palladium discography (see: this and this). I also find many of the credits listed on songs and albums to be incorrect or totally missing, and the reviews to be overtly opinionated and factually incorrect eg. One reviewer claimed Anne Bredon (American folk singer) and Annie Briggs (British folk singer) were one in the same person person! I've used their article feedback form to try and correct the errors as they suggested but they appear to ignore any submitted information even with citations. JamesBurns ( talk) 01:36, 16 March 2009 (UTC)
An editor on Hak Ja Han is pushing this article as a source. It's problems are:
Should this be accepted as a WP:RS (particularly in light of the fact that this article falls under WP:BLP)? Hrafn Talk Stalk( P) 15:02, 16 March 2009 (UTC)
The article Saginaw Trail has a Google Maps link that is used several times as a reference...is this appropriate? My concerns were a) that it's not a permanent link, it's just a map generated on the fly; b) it may not be a reliable source. rʨanaɢ talk/ contribs 12:56, 16 March 2009 (UTC)
Judge for yourselves. Apparently written by a mate or family member. -- dab (𒁳) 20:20, 13 March 2009 (UTC)
well, yes, it's a notability problem. Or in other words, a problem of the reliability of the sources presented in order to claim notability. I was going to post this to WP:FTN, but I thought this board would be more appropriate. -- dab (𒁳) 10:20, 14 March 2009 (UTC)
Is Catalogo De Ordenes Extranjeras En Espana, "by Jose Maria de Montells y Galan and Alfredo Escudero y Diaz Madronero, 2007, published by the Academia De Genealogia, Nobleza Y Armas Alfonso XIII en colaboracion con la Sociedad Heráldica Española, Madrid, Kingdom of Spain" a WP:RS for information on Royal Confraternity of Sao Teotonio.
As was pointed out on that article's recent AfD, the book has received little attention, and no libraries appear to stock it (a fact I confirmed with a WorldCat search).
The reference's sole defender, a member of this organisation, points to references to its main author's works on Archduke Karl Pius of Austria, Prince of Tuscany and Order of Saint Michael of the Wing. However the former ref contains a 'Translator's Note' stating "Readers who may not be particularly well-versed in the history of Spain are likely to become confused when references to "the King", or Don Carlos VIII, Don Carlos IX, etc., are made in the text. These were Kings according to the Carlist Tradition and NOT Kings who actually sat on the Throne of Spain. In fact, the reader should keep in mind that the entire book is written from a controversial but justifiable Carlist perspective. To make it easier to understand, the reader should substitute in his own mind 'legitimist' where 'legitimate' is written." (See also Carlism.) This would appear to call into question whether the author's views are sufficiently mainstream that he can be used as a reliable source. Hrafn Talk Stalk( P) 06:57, 20 March 2009 (UTC)
The aforementioned defender is also continuing to defend the use of unpublished letters as a source in that article. Hrafn Talk Stalk( P) 04:27, 21 March 2009 (UTC)
I added a comment by this well-known academic to Francesco Carotta -- it's been reverted (3 times, editor warned) because of things such as "he completely misrepresents Carotta's work and doesn't explain, why it should be dismissed or why he thinks that Carotta is wrong. Therefore it's not admissible because it's not a criticism of Carotta's work but simply derogatory and off-point. " "He doesn't mention the book in the bibliography and doesn't deliver any proof to back up his criticism; it's therefore biased and unscientific" etc. dougweller ( talk) 16:22, 21 March 2009 (UTC)
I have waited nearly 6 months hoping that the problem would work itself out without a revert war, and instead, it has just worsened. I think a rigid admin intervention is necessary to finally get these lists into shape.
User:Badagnani and User:Hmains persistently prevent the removal of inappropriate, unsourced, or incorrectly-sourced names on List of X Americans... making up their own definition of X Americans which includes anyone with X ancestry, regardless of any reputable source recognition.
Take a look at the recent history of List of Hungarian Americans: [63]
Even when another user spots a problem with listing a British individual as Hungarian American because of a Hungarian relative, he is reverted on the spot: [64]
This means that Joaquin Phoenix is on the same list as Bela Lugosi, because Joaquin's grandma had apparently some Hungarian ancestry.
User:Badagnani continues to use aggressive WP:OWNish tactics on List of X Americans. Some wiki-stalking going on too.
Nearly all of all names on the lists are without source, many of which because THERE IS NO SOURCE calling them Hungarian American. I had attempted to remove all such names with the intention that if a source can be found explicitly saying this, they can, of course, be re-added.
Use:Badagnani filibusters the attempts at cleaning up the lists by constantly asking for consensus or 'discussion' but NEVER participating in consensus-finding or discussion. See Talk:List_of_Hungarian_Americans for example. He merely reverts on the spot with comments such as 'massive blanking' or (in the past) 'vandalism/trolling'. The same can be said of Hmains, though he is less aggressive. Bulldog 20:49, 21 March 2009 (UTC)
User:DegenFarang is on a one man campaign to insert defamatory material to the article for John G. Roberts. for weeks he has been attempting to push material into the lede of the article that will portray mr. roberts in a bad light. he repeatedly uses random blogs as sources, and today [ [65]] used a reliable source that did not mention at all what his text claimed it was citing. i've reported him on BLP noticeboard, but this is an apparently relentless editor. he's not reverting the removal of his material, staying clear of 3RR. he merely changes to some other defamatory claim. not sure how to get this to stop. Anastrophe ( talk) 16:46, 22 March 2009 (UTC)
Alright I'll give this a go and hopefully I can reach the right higher ups here at Wikipedia...Im not very good with the hierarchy. I run a site called forgetthetalkies.com and I have been butting heads with a user user:Wildhartlivie over whether links from my site should be posted or not. Im citing the Hollywood Babylon article but she also likes to say it doesnt count in other matters such as showing silent stars speaking voices ( [66] or Complete Filmographies (that include whether a film still exists or not and goes well beyond IMDB for research) [67]. Our biggest debate is over the articles debunking the book Hollywood Babylon ( [68], its 4 parts all linked from that first one).
I am vaguely familiar with Wikipedia policy and I try my best to adhere to it. I have spent several hours writing and researching articles growing them from stubs to FA status ( Anna May Wong) and all I get for it is bickering and snide comments from other users (not just one user, I've had a few of them). Its very dissuading and I can say I've spoken with a number of silent film historians, published authors, and generally knowledgable people and they all agree they do not even bother editing Wikipedia anymore, they've all had bad expierences. I'm the one of the only ones who tries to keep on with it. Silent film is not really an arena where one gets a lot of noterioty, money, or hits. Linking a site really gets me very little, and I do it to get the information out there. My (site, not wiki) articles have been used in a college class, proven Anna May Wong was not buried in an unmarked grave (something 3 published authors failed to do), shown silent film stars did not fail because of talkies, and I am about to be a published author myself with Mcfarland Publishing.
THAT all said I guess to the case at hand I understand this: blogs are not roundly percieved as good sources but I do know for a solid source they can be accepted. I dont consider my site a blog, but yes it is hosted on blogger. I research everything I publish, usuing the best sources possible. I dont cite every article (as I am not wikipedia) but the articles in question are sourced. I dont see why my site is any different from a site like [69] (or its variants) or [70] which are both run by one person, and carry similar content information. In fact my site isnt user edited, but the silent era's film database (which is cited all over Wiki especially lost film and silent film articles) is.
I stated a bit of my case on the Hollywood Babylon talk page and I know this is already getting long. I want further review of my site as I know my information is good and solid, and I feel if it were properly judged other than by one or two self appointed reverters it would get its rightful due. My biggest point is how else to showcase this information? In the case of Hollywood Babylon the books both contain several stories (again the talk page has elaboration) and a good chunk in both books can be disproven with websites and other books which is what I did. Take my article away and how can you write and edit this wiki article? To say for instance 'its inaccurate' one could cite probably no less than 10 sites about 10 different stories and be right...but it wouldnt show the correlation that 'this books stories are inaccurate' (ex: Olive Thomas did not died wrapped in a velvet curtain after swallowing pills, she took ill after swallowing a liquid and died the following day).
As for the other articles in question same problem. Silent film stars are often accused of failing due to funny voices, etc. Even if not an article about their voices (with examples) would be of great interest to someone researching an actor. Youtube links are not allowed on wiki, and when youtube is not involved what about imeem (showing a radio show for example)? Nope. So how would one show that? With my articles I show an example of their voice, a list of what they did for talkie work, and what became of their talkie careers. Again very heavily researched and any wikipedian is welcome to verify anything I've ever put in any of these articles.
And finally on the note of filmographies its again the same idea. For these I search film archives online, speak with other film historians, etc and then gather the list and say what films they were in and which ones still (to the best of our knowledge as of course some films like Beyond the Rocks reappear after 80 years). This would not be easily put on wikipedia without my article (well the info could if stolen from the site, but the research could not).
I am not a spammer and I am not someone just out to cause trouble. I am only good at writing articles and adding info...I have no clue how the adminship of Wikipedia works. I welcome any help or feedback and I really do hope and would greatly appreciate a fair ruling other than 'well they say its a blog so all your hard research is irrelevant'. Thank you.-- Maggiedane ( talk) 10:19, 19 March 2009 (UTC)