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User:Kansas Bear wants to delete Bart van Loo, spefically his work The Burgundians: A Vanished Empire from the Mary of Burgundy article. I don't think that source is a top academic source or something like that, but I think it deseves some mention because of the following reason, that I've posted on the Mary of Burgundy Talk page:

Just because someone is not a trained historian, that does not mean they don't meet the requirements of Wikipedia, which does accept even journalists's works and commentaries. I don't see anywhere the requirement that one must only cite trained historians. If we had a lot of sources on the subject to choose from, and the writer in question happened to have a controversial opinion, I would agree that we should move to a better choice. Van Loo's work definitely has an unorthodox, unacademic structure, but I don't hear anywhere that the basic events he describes are contested. Hans Cools, who is certainly a serious historian, thinks that the work does a good job in providing a Netherlandish/Flemings' take on the stature of its dukes, rather than the more known but propaganda-influenced of French (great!) historians like Jules Michelet, and that it provides good psychological portraits of personalities involved. I think the work is notable enough. Deamonpen ( talk) 18:16, 10 November 2021 (UTC)

• A link to that discussion would have been helpful; Talk:Mary_of_Burgundy#Pregnancy has some stuff. I don't understand Kansas Bear's "it's not in Google Scholar argument"; indeed, many things are not in there. The question is whether Head of Zeus is worth its salt as a publisher, and it's odd that this is the second time in two days that I ran into that publisher here on Wikipedia, both times with the same question: what kind of outfit is this? The document you linked is not helpful at all, since it does not appear to have been published, its origin is unclear, and it's even a translation from Dutch? No, that does not move me. What this needs is serious reviews; the Dutch and Belgian papers are full of stuff about the tour, the popularity, etc., but I have not yet found any reviews that judge it on its historical merits. I also find nothing for the author in JSTOR. So, for now, I do not see a good reason to accept it as a serious historical source. Drmies ( talk) 21:17, 10 November 2021 (UTC)
  • Head of Zeus is a formerly indie publisher which is now an imprint of Bloomsbury. I'm sure it's non-fiction publications are perfectly fine by popular history standards, but as far as I know they don't make any claims to be an academic press. Given that they aren't an academic press, and van Loos isn't an academic historian, I don't see any compelling reason to use him in the article: if a fact is worth reporting in our article, we should be able to find a better source for it; if there isn't a better source for it, I'd be concerned about due weight. Mary of Burgundy is the kind of topic which there ought to be serious academic sources for (and I'm no medievalist, but glancing at the article it seems that at least some of the cited sources absolutely are Proper Academic History), so it's not one of those cases where we are forced to use less-than-ideal sources because nothing better exists. All in all, I pretty much agree with Drmies: I don't see any particularly compelling reason to use van Loos. Caeciliusinhorto ( talk) 21:31, 10 November 2021 (UTC)
    • Drmies, I usually can find some mention of a source, either as a review or citation on Google Scholar. In this case, nothing. -- Kansas Bear ( talk) 21:39, 10 November 2021 (UTC)
      • This is probably because the book was first published in English on 28 October 2021 ( [1]). On the merits, I agree with Drmies and Caeciliusinhorto. There is no reason to accept a source like this for medieval history, a topic with more than its fair share of Serious Academic Commentary. AleatoryPonderings ( ???) ( !!!) 22:08, 10 November 2021 (UTC)

I think the Dutch review that corresponds (it seems revised) to the French translation is here. When I said that the sources on Mary of Burgundy were few, I thought primarily about English sources. I have not run across a biography of her in English, and while there are articles/essays etc about her, it usually focuses on her image (as represented by her or by others), from a scholar whose focus is on art/art history etc., even though they do get published by notable publishers. The sources with more details tend to be from the 19th century. The French side has a bit more but it's pretty hard to access. Her latest scholarly French biography is G. Dumont, Marie de Bourgogne (Paris, 1982). The others are very old (the novels etc are more numerous it seems). The German/Austrian side certainly mostly tells the story from the perspective of her influence on Maximilian's life - And he has no proper English biography either, despite being a huge European figure; the old ones carry a lot of recently (ab. 40 years) corrected propaganda-influenced errors, which affect Mary as well; to be fair, the many fields her husband was involved with are hard to grasp (but inextricably linked to each other) and compiled into a single work with a normal chronological order, so basically only Wiesflecker's (five-volumed, and huge) and Holleger's works are usually noted. And to German-speaking historians, the sources related to his last wife Bianca Maria are nearer. From Karaskova's and others' works, it appears that once Mary of Burgundy got married, the chroniclers stopped reporting on her political actions, so what we know is either from Maximilian, or side commentators, or information deduced from propaganda images/artworks. Another problem is that the Burgundian Netherlandish court tried to build a mythology around her, who had a short life and a short reign, so Marie as a human and her earthly actions tended to become obscured.-- Deamonpen ( talk) 00:33, 11 November 2021 (UTC)

• Schoßwald, Volker (30 November 2016). Rebellen der Reformation: Glaube, Eifer, Terror (in German). TWENTYSIX. ISBN  978-3-7407-0715-6. Retrieved 7 November 2021.

TWENTYSIX appears to be a self-publishing company. Does this source fail WP:SPS? -- Kansas Bear ( talk) 12:23, 11 November 2021 (UTC)

• Volker Schoßwald appears to be a pastor in the Nuremberg area. Absent proof that he's a recognized expert in the Reformation, I would say the source is unusable except for his own opinion. What's the proposed usage? Mackensen (talk) 12:50, 11 November 2021 (UTC)

• Franz von Sickingen -- Kansas Bear ( talk) 12:53, 11 November 2021 (UTC)

Currently, Bubbleblabber is used on 137 pages. But, I have questions about its reliability and think it may be be a self-published source per WP:BLOGS and feel it may not aligning with the guidelines of WP:RS. Although Daniel Kurland, who has wrote for Den of Geek, is on the site's staff, as was Noelle Ogawa who wrote for Crunchyroll, as noted here and here. I am not sure about the site's other staff and if they can be considered reliable. I've never posted on this noticeboard before, so please let me know if this is the wrong place to post this, but I felt it is necessary to discuss this on here. I look forward to hearing from you all.-- Historyday01 ( talk) 01:06, 9 November 2021 (UTC)

Not sure as to its reliability (tv shows/movies are not my area of expertise) but a quick DuckDuckGo search does not seem to see them mentioned in any prominent sources. The description of the link (the site is under maintenance) to Rotten Tomatoes' description of the source says BubbleBlabber is not a Tomatometer-approved publication. Reviews from this publication only count toward the Tomatometer ® when written by the following Tomatometer-approved critic(s): Daniel Kurland. Note that ScreenRant's author bio on Kurland does not mention Bubbleblabber at all.

In conclusion, Wikipedia:Manual_of_Style/Film#Critical_reception may provide some guidance on the use of similar websites. I personally don't see their use as highly problematic, and would suggest just adding a better source needed tag when relevant. In regards to their reviews, I'd follow RT's example of only using them when written by Daniel Kurland. Otherwise, as the source is not very prominent, it's best to use other critics and consider whether Bubbleblabber's reference should or should not be removed on a case-by-case basis. A. C. Santacruz ⁂ Talk 22:31, 10 November 2021 (UTC)

A._C._Santacruz, thanks for responding! I was beginning to think that no one would respond to my question (and was even considering proposing a RFC on Bubbleblabber), but I am glad you did. I am not surprised that they are not "mentioned in any prominent sources," to be honest or that Kurland's profile on ScreenRant doesn't even mention it. I'll definitely take a look at that Manual of Style link and will follow that guidance to only use them for articles written by Daniel Kurland, which does seem like a sizable amount. I'll also try to use other critics, assess the use of it on a case-by-case basis, and add a better sources tag when needed. Historyday01 ( talk) 15:07, 11 November 2021 (UTC)

Although Italian is Greek to me, I clearly know that La Voce delle Voci, an Italian news website, is unreliable for selling conspiracy theories ^[1]. Hope that fellow Wikipedians who are proficient at both Chinese and Italian can spend some time verifying my claim and discussing the reliability of this website. Thank you!-- RekishiEJ ( talk) 16:49, 12 November 2021 (UTC)

I believe that:

• Skeptical Inquirer
• Committee for Skeptical Inquiry
• CSICon
• Center for Inquiry Investigations Group
• QuackWatch
• Point of Inquiry
• Free Inquiry
• The American Rationalist
• Scientific Review of Alternative Medicine
• Philo (journal)
• Institute for the Secularisation of Islamic Society
• International Academy of Humanism
• Richard Dawkins Foundation for Reason and Science
• Committee for the Scientific Examination of Religion

and other Center for Inquiry publications should not be used as sources for BLPs of those affiliated with the organization (such as some of those listed here and all of those listed here) per WP:INDEPENDENT. For example, Taner Edis's page right now is entirely cited to sources that have CFI as a parent company (with the exception of those reviewing his book and his CV). This is very problematic as he is a consultant to Skeptical Inquirer, and so these references are a violation of WP:COISOURCE. I find the continued use of such sources on BLPs of people related to CFI wrong, and thus have created this post to get the opinion on the matter from others in the community, and hopefully to create a project-wide precedent. A. C. Santacruz ⁂ Talk 20:08, 10 November 2021 (UTC)

• Make situational—As I brought up in a previous thread, there's serious issue with these articles being heavily reliant on ultimate independent or primary sourcing, especially when the publications themselves don't have a clear editorial policy or rigor in their publishing methods. Der Wohltemperierte Fuchs ^talk 21:07, 10 November 2021 (UTC)

I am far more concerned about their use to insert negative information in BLPs, especially when an article or sting is done by a fellow or member, as that essentially makes it a WP:SPS, which definitely should not be used in BLPs to insert negative or controversial information. There are also issues when someone conducts a sting operation, and the direct report of that sting operation is used to add negative information to a BLP, as then it's a WP:SPS as well as WP:PRIMARY. If the information from stings were WP:DUE it would be covered in independent reliable secondary sources. Using them as sources to puff up the articles of members is certainly a COI issue, but the BLP issues stand out to me as a much larger problem. ScottishFinnishRadish ( talk) 21:22, 10 November 2021 (UTC)

• Quackwatch is currently regarded as self published, with WP:BLPSPS applying, and that may be the case with some of the others. However, I do have a concern with Skeptical Inquirer. It often uses experts, and we've generally allowed experts under WP:PARITY, and have no major issues concerning its use to counter pseudoscience. However, my problem is similar to ScottishFinnishRadish above, in that I'm certainly concerned about the use of Skeptical Inquirer in BLPs. There a general problem with the overall POV of the source, which is clearly highly partisan, but also according to the editorial guidelines, " The authors, however, are responsible for the accuracy of fact and perspective". They have a review process they use for some articles, but not all, and where BLP is concerned I'd like to have stronger standards, especially as this is often used for negative material about living people. In addition, in discussing Donald Gary Young, there were significant concerns raised about errors in the Skeptical Inquirer's article that were not supported by the sources being used, and concerns have been raised about their articles elsewhere [2] [3]. I think PARITY should apply, and can see the source remaining useful, but I have strong reservations with BLPs. - Bilby ( talk) 00:58, 11 November 2021 (UTC)

  "Quackwatch is currently regarded as self published" ← not so. Only Barrett's articles are so regarded. Alexbrn ( talk) 05:10, 11 November 2021 (UTC)

  True enough, but that does make up the bulk of the content. - Bilby ( talk) 05:53, 11 November 2021 (UTC)

• (Considering only as a question on BLP material) Case-by-case. Wikipedia articles should be based on secondary sources, and reliable sources are independent and from a publisher with a reputation for fact-checking and accuracy. Apply as necessary. Alexbrn ( talk) 05:10, 11 November 2021 (UTC); amended 16:06, 11 November 2021 (UTC)
• If "Center for Inquiry sources on CFI-related articles" is the context, it would be a case similar to WP:ABOUTSELF, usable for basic material that is not self-serving. As Bilby mentioned, these sources are often useful in other contexts for WP:PARITY. — Paleo Neonate – 09:15, 11 November 2021 (UTC)
• Generally reliable. I have not seen any instances where the reliability of these sources has been identified as lacking. Of course, reliability is almost always situational. It could be that some source of questionable reliability does exist that s published by this non-profit organization, but on the balance I think sources published by this group have been done responsibly and would continue to be done so. The evidence provided that there is a problem is essentially non-existent. jps ( talk) 11:43, 11 November 2021 (UTC)

• Per WP:INDEPENDENT:

It has been noticed, however, that some articles are sourcing their content solely from the topic itself, which creates a level of bias within an article. Where this primary source is the only source available on the topic, this bias is impossible to correct. Such articles tend to be vanity pieces, although it is becoming increasingly hard to differentiate this within certain topic areas.

If Wikipedia is, as defined by the three key content policies, an encyclopaedia which summarises viewpoints rather than a repository for viewpoints, to achieve this goal, articles must demonstrate that the topic they are covering has been mentioned in reliable sources independent of the topic itself. These sources should be independent of both the topic and of Wikipedia, and should be of the standard described in Wikipedia:Reliable sources. Articles should not be built using only vested-interest sources. This requirement for independent sources is so as to determine that the topic can be written about without bias; otherwise the article is likely to fall foul of our vanity guidelines.

the use of the sources in the BLPs I mentioned is a problem due to COI, which goes against WP:NBASIC and WP:NPOV, as well as other guidelines I might be forgetting to cite here. A. C. Santacruz ⁂ Talk 16:00, 11 November 2021 (UTC)

If there are no independent sources, the topic is non-notable and should be sent to AFD. That's not a reason to ban the use of a source for noncontroversial WP:ABOUTSELF sorts of uses, though. - MrOllie ( talk) 16:03, 11 November 2021 (UTC)

COI sources are not the same as SPS sources, so I ask you to clarify how ABOUTSELF applies here. A. C. Santacruz ⁂ Talk 16:17, 11 November 2021 (UTC)

Hope that didn't sound passive aggressive, just want some clarification on this as it seems nuanced. A. C. Santacruz ⁂ Talk 16:18, 11 November 2021 (UTC)

Is this some sort of trick question? You wrote above 'should not be used as sources for BLPs of those affiliated with the organization'. Either they're affiliated (and the org is writing about itself) or they're not (and then there is no problem). MrOllie ( talk) 16:22, 11 November 2021 (UTC)

I see what you mean. I accidentally assumed you meant something else, apologies MrOllie :) A. C. Santacruz ⁂ Talk 16:26, 11 November 2021 (UTC)

• In general, this seems fine, per WP:ABOUTSELF. As MrOllie wrote, Either they're affiliated (and the org is writing about itself) or they're not (and then there is no problem). There could in principle be exceptions, if claims are particularly self-serving or called into question by other, more independent sources, but such instances can be handled on a case-by-case basis if and when they arise. We don't expunge all sources affiliated with Harvard from the pages about Harvard faculty and alumni. XOR'easter ( talk) 19:34, 11 November 2021 (UTC)

• Your concern seems to be about independence of the sources for what they are being used to cover. That is situational based on the subject at hand. But it has nothing to do with the reliability of the sources. Regardless of COI conflicts in specific usage, the sources are still reliable sources. If you have specific concerns, then you should bring them up on the article talk pages or possibly the BLP noticeboard or Fringe noticeboard or other such article content-focused noticeboards. Reliability of the sources is not the issue here. Silver seren ^C 06:28, 13 November 2021 (UTC)

Source: https://books.google.com/books?id=ZoH2oQFIhWIC&q=chitrali+cap&pg=PA33%7Ctitle=A History of Kafferistan: Socio-economicand Political Conditions of the Kaffers

Its a book about Nuristan province in Afghanistan. Nuristan was Back than named Kafferistan. Is this book reliable?— Preceding unsigned comment added by 2a01:c23:69b5:4300:ddb7:4a4c:f11f:37d9 ( talk • contribs)

• Give appropriate weight - To be honest the weight you should give to this work should not be very high, if more modern histories contradict it then go with what they say. The publisher appears to be a well-established publishing house so it does appear to at least be an RS. You appear to be looking at it in reference to the clothes people wear/wore there? I see no reason why it would be particularly unreliable for that. FOARP ( talk) 12:10, 13 November 2021 (UTC)

Is this journal regarded as a reliable peer reviewed published source? Can it be used on Wikipedia?

https://www.ancient-asia-journal.com/

Metta79 ( talk) 10:55, 13 November 2021 (UTC)

It states the following on its main page: "Amongst its goals are to bring forth the research being conducted in areas that are not often well published such as... [list of countries]" If fact-checking isn't a problem, and the information they are publishing is based on facts and scientific evidence, then I can't see why not. --- ❖ SilentResident ❖ ^{( talk ✉ | contribs ✎)} 11:51, 13 November 2021 (UTC)

They say that they are peer reviewed, and they list an editorial board apparently made up of academics. I would assume that they're a reliable source unless there's a particular reason to believe they aren't. Caeciliusinhorto ( talk) 22:05, 13 November 2021 (UTC)

Seems to have been assessed as a legitimate academic publishing venue by both the Finnish and Norwegian national publication venue ratings boards as well as by ERIH PLUS ( link). I'd go with "reliable" unless there's some actual evidence to the contrary. - Ljleppan ( talk) 22:22, 13 November 2021 (UTC)

David A. King was a Professor of History of Science at J. W. Goethe University, Frankfurt. His works—especially, in the domain of Islam and astronomy—have been published by academic presses like Brill, Springer, Franz Steiner Verlag etc. In a 2018 lecture at the Centre for the Study of Islamic Manuscripts in London, he noted a factoid about al-Khwarizmi's birthplace.

Can this lecture be considered as a reliable source? Editors argue that while David A. King is reliable, the video is not since it is hosted on Youtube. Hence his views might not be inserted, even with attribution.

More here. TrangaBellam ( talk) 18:36, 12 November 2021 (UTC)

• No. Alexbrn ( talk) 18:39, 12 November 2021 (UTC)
  • Why not? Johnbod ( talk) 18:41, 12 November 2021 (UTC)
    • Because a lecture is a free-for-all zone. Sure, lectures can contain all kinds of great knowledge and uncontroversial stuff may usefully be sourced there. But once we get to a disputed point, and an editor is arguing for a lecture (a non peer-reviewed, unpublished source) as authoritative, we are in trouble. If the factoid in question is worth inserting, some WP:RS would be needed. Alexbrn ( talk) 18:45, 12 November 2021 (UTC)
      • How is a lecture different than a blog entry? And if we can allow blogs of scholars as RS, why not lectures? VR _talk 19:00, 12 November 2021 (UTC)
        • It's amazing isn't it, how some editors can misread "largely not acceptable as sources" as somehow allowed. Alexbrn ( talk) 19:25, 12 November 2021 (UTC)
          • It's not at all bizarre, however, that someone might read Self-published expert sources may be considered reliable when produced by an established subject-matter expert, whose work in the relevant field has previously been published by reliable, independent publications and think that might mean that some self-published sources are sometimes considered reliable. The key question here whether David King is indeed an established subject matter expert. Caeciliusinhorto ( talk) 20:01, 12 November 2021 (UTC)
          • And at any rate, the source in question isn't self-published. It's published by the Al-Furqan Islamic Heritage Foundation. I know nothing about them, so I don't know whether that counts for or against the source's reliability, but I don't see how WP:SPS applies. Caeciliusinhorto ( talk) 20:06, 12 November 2021 (UTC)
• I think videos of lectures are ok, though not the best source. I've used them myself without complaints. Johnbod ( talk) 18:41, 12 November 2021 (UTC)
• This would fall under WP:SPS. David A. King (historian) seems to have an impressive list of publications. Many of them are directly related to the topic of medieval Islamic civilization (to which al-Khwarizmi belonged). VR _talk 18:42, 12 November 2021 (UTC)
• Most objections by editors about using YouTube is related to copyright issues, which is not a problem in this case because the lecture is posted by the same organization that held the conference. Platonk ( talk) 18:51, 12 November 2021 (UTC)

• If that's the case it's a red herring as we cite copyrighted sources all the time, books, journal articles, websites. A comfortable majority of sources cited in Wikipedia are copyrighted. There could conceivably be an issue with linking to it if the video was uploaded by someone who doesn't have permission, but that doesn't mean the talk itself can't be cited. However, the organisation will have permission from the speaker to share the talk so that shouldn't be a problem either. Richard Nevell ( talk) 19:25, 12 November 2021 (UTC)

• The concern is for videos posted on YouTube that are copyvios, posted without permission from the copyright holder. We are prohibited from linking to any site that is hosting material that is a copyvios ( WP:COPYVIOEL. - Donald Albury 19:32, 12 November 2021 (UTC) - edited 19:38, 12 November 2021 (UTC)
• And it's not only in relation to YouTube, also true for other literature: we shouldn't cite random/unofficial websites that host a copy, unless the license of the source allows it. It is a non-issue in this particular case, of course. — Paleo Neonate – 04:45, 13 November 2021 (UTC)

• Moderate yes. Should be ok based on a number of editors vetting for both the speaker's and the institution's reputation as reliable/respected. However, if it is true that he has a long track record of publications on the subject I highly encourage you to find a non-video source, especially when the discussion on the value of the source started ~8 days ago. I don't particularly remember what the principle was, but in general it is best to avoid sources that are "easy to link, hard to examine" when possible. A. C. Santacruz ⁂ Talk 19:01, 12 November 2021 (UTC)

• For some reason I assumed you had started the section on the Talk thread TrangaBellam, my bad. A. C. Santacruz ⁂ Talk 19:05, 12 November 2021 (UTC)
• For example, there would be not much of an issue citing Rob Arnott's interview for Bloomberg Television as an expert opinion on markets and Tesla's valuation, but the strength of the article would be greatly improved by then replacing (or adding to) the citation with a reference to an article he wrote on the matter. A. C. Santacruz ⁂ Talk 19:13, 12 November 2021 (UTC)

• I just want to say that YouTube videos aren't inherently unreliable, and that WP:RSPYT notes this. It gives the example of a verified news organization on YouTube, but for another example I've cited a historical society's YouTube video before. That channel does seem to be the canonical one for the Al-Furqan Islamic Heritage Foundation, since it's linked at the bottom of their website. -- Chillabit ( talk) 19:07, 12 November 2021 (UTC)
• I would be hesitant to use a lecture, even while stipulating that the person speaking is an expert, speaking within their area of expertise. Lectures aren't peer reviewed. People can make mistakes while speaking. That's why we prefer papers collected in proceedings over the live presentation at the conference, journal articles drawn from those papers over the conference papers, and books expanded from those articles. Mackensen (talk) 14:18, 14 November 2021 (UTC)
• I concur with Mackensen here. Recordings of presentations have all the problems of preprints, with the added complexities of extemporaneous speech. I don't think the organization that posts a video on their YouTube channel can be thought of as its "publisher" in all the ways that matter. Videos tend to go up without the kind of work that goes into peer-reviewing and editing written material. An editor at a journal solicits opinions from experts in the field, who can point to specific parts of a paper and ask that they be revised. Nobody checks a lecture video to see if it is careless, confusing, oversimplified, or meandering. If you're very lucky, they'll get an intern to splice the speaker's slides into the video so they're easier to read, and maybe trim the Zoom-fumbling from the start of the recording; that's about it. If the point was that important, it would have been put in writing. XOR'easter ( talk) 19:04, 14 November 2021 (UTC)
• Generally no, per Alexbrn, Mackensen and XOR'easter. JBchrch talk 19:20, 14 November 2021 (UTC)

• I think it would be considered something like a SPS by an expert with a few additional considerations. As XOR'easter notes, what is said may be the chain of words that popped into the speaker's mind at the exact moment and may not reflect how they would wish to state something if given the ability to revise the statement. The most obvious example might be simply misstating a date or day of the week or name of a participant. The concern about accurately hearing the speaker is also true. Much of this I think speaks to WP:V rather than RS. For example, if we cite a YT video of a presentation and the video is taken down. The citation may be true (cites the actual performance rather than YT as the source) but how can we verify the claim if challenged? As others have said, this is less a concern if the source appears to pass copyright concerns. In summary, use only if nothing better is available and even then use with caution. Springee ( talk) 19:22, 14 November 2021 (UTC)

Samford University, like many other private schools, doesn't seem to publicize their paychecks. Is this an acceptable source? It's based on primary (IRS) info, I assume, but can we rely on their correctness? Drmies ( talk) 18:26, 13 November 2021 (UTC)

Does IRS info publicly available? Shrike ( talk) 18:37, 13 November 2021 (UTC)

• Although salaries are not explicitly mentioned in WP:BLPPRIVACY, I don't think Wikipedia should be publishing people's salaries even if they are a matter of public record. -- SVT Cobra 21:35, 13 November 2021 (UTC)
• Why do we need to include salary info in articles? Hemiauchenia ( talk) 21:45, 13 November 2021 (UTC)
• Agree with Hemiauchenia and SVTCobra above. Additionally, one could make a case for including information such as "x university is amongst the 50 best paying universities in the USA" with a reliable ranking list, but the actual people's salaries should probably not be included and the total salaries paid seems unnecessarily detailed for an article. A. C. Santacruz ⁂ Talk 21:53, 13 November 2021 (UTC)
  • Oh, I don't see that as problematic at all, certainly not for public universities, where we have sourcing like this--I was more interested in the principle of it--the sourcing. Anyone familiar with academia knows that administrative pay is a huge thing, in public as well as private systems. If hedge fund managers and business people can have their fortunes listed, then this is no more an invasion of privacy. Drmies ( talk)

It certainly seems like WP:OR if other sources haven't given any significance to it. Hemiauchenia ( talk) 23:25, 13 November 2021 (UTC)

Would it be OR to use a primary source that explicitly states the salary of the employee? I don’t read WP:PRIMARY that way. — Mikehawk10 ( talk) 01:07, 14 November 2021 (UTC)

Maybe not original research, but the comparison with the net worth of billionaires is inappropriate. The net worths are calculated by reputable newspapers. I don't think we should be mentioning individual staff salaries unless reliable sources deem it significant. Hemiauchenia ( talk) 01:18, 14 November 2021 (UTC)

Not OR if the salary is simply listed, but it would definitely violate WP:BLPPRIMARY IMO. Especially for tax records and similar. On the more general issue i.e. if the person is deceased for over 2 years, I'd say it's also WP:UNDUE unless some secondary sources covered that person's salary for some reason. This happens with CEOs etc, and I'm sure it happens with administrators but it needs to actually happen not just some editor thinking the person's salary is too high or all salaries of public officials should be know or something. (If some analysis is done of the salary e.g. person Z is the top paid staff member at university A or in the 1% of university A or something then I'd say it's OR specifically syn. While the calculation is technically trivial assuming your details are complete which IMO may be a big if, it it's too complicated to count as simple WP:CALC.) Nil Einne ( talk) 08:41, 14 November 2021 (UTC)

• Not sure No. The website states that Data for this page was sourced from XML published by IRS (public 990 form dataset) from: https://s3.amazonaws.com/irs-form-990/202011689349300911_public.xml So the data seems to be coming from an AWS dataset located here, and whose Github documentation can be found here. (Note that the data is not collected by Amazon: datasets available through the Registry of Open Data on AWS are not provided and maintained by AWS. Datasets are provided and maintained by a variety of third parties under a variety of licenses [10]). So what we have is a rehash of an AWS dataset which is itself a rehash of data located on the website of the IRS (apparently?). Bottom line: can we trust weird website that republish republications of publicly available data in order to generate cash from the ad traffic? I dunno. JBchrch talk 01:28, 14 November 2021 (UTC) On second thoughts, if I saw it "in its natural habitat", I would remove it. Too sketchy. JBchrch talk 01:36, 14 November 2021 (UTC)

• Unless someone's salary has been discussed, not just mentioned, in several reliable sources, it doesn't belong in an article. Doug Weller talk 11:14, 14 November 2021 (UTC)

• I agree with Doug; I think it needs to be discussed in a reliable source, ideally with context demonstrating the number's accuracy. This is different from coaches at public universities in the United States--their salaries are public and widely discussed. Mackensen (talk) 12:27, 14 November 2021 (UTC)
• I don’t really think this is a reliability issue, as others have implied or stated the question here is whether there is WP:DUEWEIGHT for inclusion. Horse Eye's Back ( talk) 20:02, 14 November 2021 (UTC)

Joy of Satan Ministries (  | talk | history | protect | delete | links | watch | logs | views)

Could anyone help untangling the sourcing at our article on Joy of Satan Ministries? I'm really not sure where to start. At a glance, the citations look impressive and possibly academic, but this falls apart when I start to look at individual sources. The second source, for example, was published by CESNUR, a pro-new religious movement and anti-anti-cult non-profit organization. I'd argue such a source is not reliable. However, the same author wrote the seventh source, published by Brill Publishers, which at least appears to be academic—though I'm not sure if any of their journals are reliable. Source #15 was published by Punctum Books, which (according to our article) is "scholar-led" but also print-on-demand, which seems sketchy to me. Then we have source #9, The Divine Province: Birthing New Earth by Jaemes McBride and Ed Rychkun, published by Ed Rychkun, who's also authored books on fly fishing.... After that, a Master's thesis that isn't widely cited in academia, plus all kinds of primary sources.

About the only sourcing that doesn't immediately fall part is cited to Jesper Aagaard Petersen, an actual, bona-fide academic. Is anyone able to determine if Petersen is reliable here? If he is, there's another concern that we're relying on his views for much of the article. Several other sources (Contemporary Esotericism, The Invention of Satanism, The Occult World, The Oxford Handbook of New Religious Movements: Volume II, and probably more) appear to be journal articles by Petersen but we're citing the editors instead. We're also frequently using Petersen to repeat primary claims from the Joy of Satan Ministries rather than for his own views.

I realize that this borders on a few other issues, V, NPOV, possibly N. But I wanted to unpack any sourcing issues before moving on to those concerns. Woodroar ( talk) 19:53, 14 November 2021 (UTC)

A few quick observations:

1. Yes, Brill absolutely do publish high quality reliable scholarship. I have no particular view on Satanism: A Social History, but in general Brill are an academic publisher with a pretty good reputation.
2. Per WP:SCHOLARSHIP, masters' theses are not generally reliable unless it can be shown that they have had a "significant scholarly influence".
3. Our pages on CESNUR and Massimo Introvigne certainly give a few reasons to question their general reliability

Caeciliusinhorto ( talk) 21:54, 14 November 2021 (UTC)

I went thru the lot, here are my notes:

1. The following venues were found either in the Finnish or the Norwegian national scientific publication venue ratings systems (or both) with classifications that indicate they are acceptable scientific publication venues: Brill, Brill Esotericism Reference Library, Routledge, Punctum Books, International Journal for the Study of New Religions, Equinox Publishing, Palgrave Macmillan, Oxford University Press. Based on that, I'd retain #4, #7, #11, #12, #15, #18, #21, #22, #23 unless there are concerns about the specific works themselves. Also, #26 seems to be fine per WP:SPLC, and #27 as per WP:RSPADL.
2. #5 and #6 are WP:PRIMARY.
3. #1 is a PhD thesis, and #29 is a master's thesis, so WP:SCHOLARSHIP applies. It seems #29 can be removed without losing much of value from the article, but #1 is used a lot. It does have a few citations to it according to Google Scholar, but I didn't check what those citations were.
4. The following appear to be SPS: #9, #14, #24, #28. Similarly, #10 is just a blog post, despite being listed under The Economist, see end of the text. #13 and #25 are from the websites of "Italian Satanist Union" which seems less-than-neutral for the topic based on the title. #8 is from History, which WP:RS/P says is "generally unreliable". #2 is from CESNUR, which WP:RS/P says is "generally unreliable". I think all of these should go.
5. #16, #17, #19 are Italian language websites that I can't make much sense of. I suppose they could be reputable news sources, but I'm not struck with that impression. On the other hand, I know approximately 2 words of Italian.
6. #20 is by a publisher I can't even find a website for, but the google books page doesn't fill me with confidence. At the very least it doesn't give any kind of a scholarly vibe.
7. #3 is tricky. It's supposedly been presented in an academic conference, but the conference seems largely unaffiliated with any larger organization. The publisher seems to have only ever organized two conferences (one co-located) and has been inactive for a few years now. There's no indication of whether there was a peer review process, any fact-checking, or anything like that. Not found in any of the scientific publication venue rating systems I surveyed. I'm inclined to view as unreliable unless evidence to the contrary is found.

- Ljleppan ( talk) 22:10, 14 November 2021 (UTC)

1. Corrispondenza Romana (#19) seems of heavy catholic bias (as can be seen in this article on vaccines, anti-islamic, and of inflammatory character from a cursory look on their site, so I would heavily heavily discourage their use. Their information page does not seem to establish a reputable editorial policy, either. A. C. Santacruz ⁂ Talk 22:42, 14 November 2021 (UTC)
2. Consul Press (#16) is most certainly not reliable based on their editorial policy. At all (quite an entertaining read, if anything). A. C. Santacruz ⁂ Talk 22:45, 14 November 2021 (UTC)
3. Heroic Phoenix (#17) is probably reliable only when it comes to Neapolitan cultural news (especially theater). No mention of them by reputable sources based on a google search also indicates that their opinions do not merit inclusion based on notability of source. A. C. Santacruz ⁂ Talk 22:50, 14 November 2021 (UTC)

• Additionally, I agree with Ljleppan's analysis above in other sources. A. C. Santacruz ⁂ Talk 22:52, 14 November 2021 (UTC)

Consul Press? If I remember correctly they’re old school fascists. Horse Eye's Back ( talk) 02:29, 15 November 2021 (UTC)

I got that impression, yeah. A. C. Santacruz ⁂ Talk 08:39, 15 November 2021 (UTC)

Post-RfC comment: I have to disagree with users saying this is a secondary source for this specific content, according to WP:PSTS. The word analysis in the policy seems to refer to philosophical analysis, not statistical analysis. If the paper were merely commenting on historical records, i.e. philosophically analyzing them, it would be a secondary source for the contents of those records. Likewise, it is secondary for the contents of earlier research discussed in it s literature review section. But the statistical analysis of the relation between school shootings and voting behavior in this paper is essentially a new experiment conducted by the author. The disputed content regarding the vote share of the Democratic Party is the outcome of that experiment. Experimental (primary) research papers don't just collect and present data. Even in undergraduate biology I and my classmates were expected to analyze the data from our experiments and draw conclusions from it. That was our novel contribution, just as the relation between school shootings and voting is this paper's novel contribution. The reason WP:MEDRS says to use review articles is because researchers sometimes make mistakes in analyzing their data or ignore other relevant data, even with peer review. The same should apply to other topics IMO. This specific paper was published online less than a week ago. There hasn't even been time for other research papers to cite it. Using it in a Wikipedia article seems a bit premature. The paper is definitely a primary source regarding "a remarkable shift in an age of partisan polarization", which is simply the author's opinion. -- Sangdeboeuf ( talk) 00:48, 16 November 2021 (UTC)

I would like to propose that Firuz Kazemzadeh's 1951 book The struggle for Transcaucasia, 1917-1921 be considered generally unreliable and outdated, at least concerning Armenian topics. Kazemzadeh often writes about Armenians in a disparaging tone, often trivializes massacres of Armenians and seems to blame Armenians for the Armenian genocide, something that would be too WP:UNDUE to include on Wikipedia. Because of this, he is very popularly cited on webpages dedicated to denying the Armenian genocide. [15] Kazemzadeh writes, "the Armenians in Turkey were by no means an oppressed and miserable people" (page 8), an odd thing for a historian that should be aware of the Hamidian massacres and Adana massacre to claim. He also writes, "already in the nineties they were preparing armed uprisings in Turkish Armenia, for they hoped to provoke conflicts which would attract the attention of Europe to the national struggle of Armenians" (page 10). Kazemzadeh frequently refers to "Armenian bands" (page 10), something that frequently appears in Turkish sources denying the genocide. Michael Karpovich criticized the book for containing false information, and wrote that Kazemzadeh had a background with the Turkish "points of view". [16]

Being over 70s years old now, it would be fair to suggest Kazemzadeh's book is outdated ( WP:AGEMATTERS) at least on Armenian subjects. The Armenian genocide hadn't began being extensively researched until over a decade later ( Until the mid-1960s, a “conspiracy of silence” cloaked the issue, which served Turkey’s interests). This means Kazemzadeh's book was published before much material about the Armenian genocide was available. ZaniGiovanni ( talk) 07:14, 10 November 2021 (UTC)

Disagree. Firuz Kazemzadeh is a top source on the history of South Caucasus, and remains one of the most cited sources on the subject in scholarly literature. This is obvious even from a quick search at Google books. Scholarly publications as recent as the last couple of years refer to Kazemzadeh. Kazemzadeh was one of the most distinguished US scholars, a graduate of Stanford and Harvard, and a professor at Yale. His works received generally positive reviews, and not a single reviewer advised against Kazemzadeh being a useful read on the subject. Regarding genocide, Kazemzadeh never wrote on that subject, and is not an expert in that field. If someone selectively cites Kazemzadeh to advance a certain agenda, it is certainly not Kazemzadeh's fault. And Armenian bands did exist, and some of them were very violent, attacking civilians. Kazemzadeh's work is based on archival research, and the activity of such irregular groups is well documented in Russian and other sources. Karpovich did not write that Kazemzadeh "had a background with the Turkish "points of view"". The review was by Hugh Seton-Watson, and not by Karpovich, and he actually wrote that "Mr Kazemzadeh is however well aware of Turkish and Persian points of view." That is a totally different thing. And Seton-Watson praised the work of Kazemzadeh, by writing that Kazemzadeh "produced a book which will be of value to all concerned with Russian empire in the 20th century". It should also be noted that the book in question earned Kazemzadeh a PhD from Harvard, which speaks for itself, and Karpovich was his mentor. The PhD dissertation was so good that it was published as a book that remains one of the top sources on the history of Transcaucasia in the beginning of the 20th century to this day. I don't think such an important source could be disqualified. Also, please note that the proposed use of Kazemzadeh's work is Armenia-Azerbaijan conflict related articles, covering the period from 1905 to 1920. Grand master 10:09, 10 November 2021 (UTC)

According to professor Anna Geifman, Armenian Dashnaktsutiun was the foremost terrorist organization in the Caucasus at the beginning of the 20th century: [17] So Kazemzadeh's works on the topic do not contradict what other researchers say. Grand master 08:51, 12 November 2021 (UTC)

She wrote an article advocating for stronger ties between Azerbaijan and Israel. She even talks hostilely toward Armenia for being Iran’s trading partner. She actually further proves that Kazemzadeh had personal biases. Her work regarding the subject or at least in relation to Armenia seems to be partisan and unreliable. ZaniGiovanni ( talk) 08:50, 13 November 2021 (UTC)

How is this related to her book on terrorism in the Russian empire, which received very good reviews? And she never showed any bias against Armenia. Even the article that you quoted mentions Armenia in a very neutral manner. And smuggling of weapons and technologies by Armenia to Iran is officially confirmed by US authorities, it is nothing new. Grand master 10:33, 13 November 2021 (UTC)

• Give appropriate weight - All historians have biases and blindspots and it should not surprise anyone that Firuz Kazemzadeh had them. This means assessing what Kazemzadeh said against the consensus of other historians, particularly if anything he said has been superseded by modern research. We should not include any of Kazemzadeh's WP:FRINGE theories, where the overwhelming majority of modern historical analysis is against him. Therefore it is not possible to give a general blanket "yes it's reliable"/"no, it's not reliable" viewpoint, but I would say that in most areas I would not give his views much weight where they disagree with the views of modern historians. FOARP ( talk) 10:26, 10 November 2021 (UTC)

  I agree, given that Kazemzadeh wrote a book called “The struggle for Russian Azerbaijan, 1918-1920“ it’s pretty clear where his personal biases lie. He should not be considered a non-partisan source. ZaniGiovanni ( talk) 19:36, 10 November 2021 (UTC)

• Give appropriate weight, pay attention/ommit material that has been debunked by the majority modern WP:RS - Kazemzadeh is a good source, and he should primarily be used for the stuff in which he specialized, i.e. Iran and Caucasus history. However, some of his sources are outdated anno 2021, and some of the material has been debunked by the majority modern WP:RS. Indeed, Kazemzadeh isn't the main one to blame if Armenian genocide deniers misuse his writings for negationist nonsense, unless there's solid proof that he was a denier himself. And with "solid proof" I mean comparable to the stuff we have for figures such as Lewis, Lewy, etc. As this mainly revolves around contentious AA2 topics, editors should pay even more-than-usual attention to WP:AGE MATTERS, and assign precedence to newer quality sources over such mid-20th century writings. - LouisAragon ( talk) 15:27, 11 November 2021 (UTC)
• Kazemzadeh should not be used as RS regarding contentious topics like Armenian Genocide, Armenian-Turkish, Armenian-Tatar/Azerbaijani conflicts as his biases clearly exceed his academic qualifications. He has enough bias to for his works to be cited by Turkish Coalition of America, in their coordinated attempt of giving academic air to Armenian Genocide denial. Marc Mamigonian from Tufts University writes that

The TCA, formed in 2007 with $30 million from Turkish-American businessman Yalcin Ayasli has made the “academic controversy” project a major focus, funding publications that attempt to undermine the historicity of the Armenian Genocide, supporting a major project at the University of Utah (the Turkish Studies Project), and repeating the existence of "a scholarly debate". A section of its website is headlined,“The Ottoman Armenian Tragedy Is a Genuine Historic Controversy / Many Reputable Scholars Challenge the Conventional, One-Sided Anti-Turkish Narrative and/or Refrain from Alleging the Crime of Genocide.” and that “The notion that the one-sided Armenian narrative is settled history does not reflect the truth and must be utterly rejected.”  Excerpts from the writings of some 34 scholars meant to illustrate this point are provided. 

The citations for this excerpt are “Firuz Kazemzadeh,”Turkish Coalition of America, http://www.tc-america.org/scholar/kazemzadeh.html (accessed 10 Dec 2014). and Firuz Kazemzadeh, “The Slaughter of the Armenians,” New York Times Book Review, 25 April 1993,13. If an somebody used "Slaughter of the Jews" instead of "Holocaust" would they not count as Holocaust denier? --Armatura ( talk) 16:34, 13 November 2021 (UTC)

• The fact that someone refers to Kazemzadeh to advance a certain point does not make Kazemzadeh unreliable. And Mamigonian does not mention Kazemzadeh. The quote is totally unrelated to the topic. We are not discussing reliability of TCA. Kazemzadeh had no connection with that organization. Grand master 18:20, 16 November 2021 (UTC)

lmao feminist (+) 02:49, 15 November 2021 (UTC)

On a more serious note, do people think that Fox New's reliability has changed since the 2020 RfC closed? The 2020 close happened before major events such as the 2020 election, and I know that Fox received a lot of criticism for their coverage of the big lie, though obviously a lot of that was from television pundits and not the news coverage itself. Hemiauchenia ( talk) 02:56, 15 November 2021 (UTC)

I was thinking whether we should explicitly mention "COVID-19" as part of Fox News's coverage of politics and science at RSP. feminist (+) 03:04, 15 November 2021 (UTC)

From just two days ago, MSNBC video, Fox News caught red-handed deceptively editing Biden speech. Platonk ( talk) 03:50, 15 November 2021 (UTC)

That's not "deceptively" edited in the slightest. They just focused on the part that was the "oopsie" rather than burn airtime with irrelevant material. MSNBC also took only part of his remarks and focused solely on what FoxNews omitted.

Full context (What was omitted/What MSNBC also omitted): "And I just want to tell you, I know you’re a little younger than I am, but you know I’ve adopted the attitude of the great Negro at the time, pitcher in the Negro Leagues, went on to become a great pitcher in the pros — in Major League Baseball after Jackie Robinson. His name was Satchel Paige"

It was a mistake and he corrected himself. Politifact pointed that out as well "Biden used the phrase “the great Negro,” but then corrected himself to describe Paige as a great Negro Leagues pitcher." and added punctuation to his verbal remarks to help distinguish it.

It clearly wasn't intended as calling him a Negro, but it was said. Calling it a "gaffe" vs "mistake" is little more than spin. Buffs ( talk) 07:08, 15 November 2021 (UTC)

I'd think COVID-19 would obviously count as science coverage, is it not being treated as such? - David Gerard ( talk) 09:05, 15 November 2021 (UTC)

The tweet I linked isn't really about science, it's more on the side of politics (i.e. culture war). Lots of topics adjacent to coronavirus (e.g. lockdowns, economic impact) have more to do with politics than science. (Now that I think of it, maybe "culture war" is a better term than "COVID-19" if we are including one at RSP.) feminist (+) 11:16, 15 November 2021 (UTC)

User:Feminist, you're right. (BTW, you need to fix your non-standard sig.) Some changes began before 2016, but really took off after that election, and Fox went along for the ride. It made a conscious decision to become fully and solely a political machine supporting TFG, and it's been a two-way synergy ever since. Science denial=denial of reality has become a political movement. It didn't used to be this way. Both the left and right used to accept science, reality, and respect experts. Now one side denies it in several areas and values the uninformed opinions of politicians over real experts. A number of GOP political talking points and political platform positions are related to science denial. Texas and Florida make laws to deny science and the application of its findings in the areas of climate change, COVID-19, and vaccines. In fact, many GOP-controlled states are doing this. These issues are shibboleths and loyalty tests (like the refusal to withdraw support of TFG even after he correctly(!!) said he could shoot (murder) someone on 5th Ave and not lose any voters), and if any GOP politician doesn't toe the line of TFG, they lose his support and get hacked on by the others. It's cultish, and Fox News is a large part of the reason. -- Valjean ( talk) 18:46, 15 November 2021 (UTC)

I am afraid Fox News isn't reliable news. Like Valjean said, it divorced from reality and I suggest that the editors steer clear from citing it as a reliable source. --- ❖ SilentResident ❖ ^{( talk ✉ | contribs ✎)} 00:53, 16 November 2021 (UTC)

Given Fox News' slide down the reliability scale, is it worth doing a full RfC on this? WP:FOXNEWS is in green, minus politics and science. Arguably this incident is current events, and not either of those two other categories. Sideswipe9th ( talk) 01:09, 16 November 2021 (UTC)

Border control ... sounds like politics to me? feminist (t) 07:48, 16 November 2021 (UTC)

A piece about the non-border related death of a border control agent is not a piece about border control, especially when other sources say he died of Covid complications. It's a tangential reference at best. Sideswipe9th ( talk) 22:16, 16 November 2021 (UTC)

Believe me, I’m no Fox News apologist but at the same time, they are a major news network whether people like it or not (makes me nauseous saying that); editors should simply use neutral discretion. Trillfendi ( talk) 01:04, 16 November 2021 (UTC)

I agree and I have personally used Fox News (the website) quite a number of times on articles about GOP politicians and election primaries. Hence Fox News on politics is placed in the yellow column, i.e. additional considerations apply but can still be used as a source in many situations. feminist (t) 01:38, 16 November 2021 (UTC)

Considering their status on RSP, foxnews.com is currently used in over 16,000 Wikipedia articles. Platonk ( talk) 01:46, 16 November 2021 (UTC)

...used in most of them before the new downspiral, if I may add to this. If no better source exists, then cite them with caution. --- ❖ SilentResident ❖ ^{( talk ✉ | contribs ✎)} 01:58, 16 November 2021 (UTC)

This may be funny but while Fox News clearly has problems, I'm not sure this example is really particularly meaningful in terms of RSN concerns. The link there is https://fxn.ws/3ndi0Jd which goes to [18]. There's nothing in the source which mentions the border migrant crisis not even the headline. Unless you count that stock photo which I'd argue barely shows anything and the caption "The back of a U.S. Border Patrol working at the border wall between Juarez, Mexico and Sunland Park, New Mexico in the United States. Shot at a rally on 1/29/2011 protesting the violence in Mexico. (iStock)" seems more random than politicised.

I went through all 7 archives in in the Internet Archive and none of them do or seem any different [19], [20], [21], [22], [23], [24], [25]. I can't rule out there is some version perhaps only shown to certain audiences that wasn't captured, but I think there's a good chance the headline was never in the actual article. (Note 2 of the archives listed here with slightly different dates end up sending you to the older version, and the most recent one at the time I wrote this was from me.)

Yes the article doesn't mention anything about COVID-19 but nor does this from the AP [26] or this from Az Central [27]. And if we look at those that do like [28] [29] they talk about "Border Patrol sources". So I think it's not unreasonable for Fox News to exclude such information. Whether it was a conscious choice because they felt it unnecessary to speculate on someone's private information based on "Border Patrol sources", or they simply never uncovered this in their limited research.

That headline on Facebook [30] (maybe other social media?) is clearly horribly misleading. But there's a good reason we never take headlines in otherwise reliable articles as reliable sources themselves, whoever puts them out. While some sources are worse than others and they perhaps provide a small amount of clue how much we should trust said source, ultimately I think misleading headlines let alone misleading headlines on social media are a bit of a wash.

Nil Einne ( talk) 10:57, 16 November 2021 (UTC)

@ Nil Einne: It's an AP News story, word for word. Platonk ( talk) 15:54, 16 November 2021 (UTC)

Prabook.com is an openly editable wiki that describes itself as a place to make a encyclopedic profile for any person, not just those notable enough to be included in an encyclopedia like Wikipedia. It’s content is a mix of automatically scraped details from other sources, and contributions from anonymous editors. It allows individuals to “lock” a profile, but has no mechanism to ensure it is only locked by the subject of the profile.

This iteration of Prabook.com appears to be founded in 2018 (per Valery Tsepkalo#Prabook), but there are earlier posts at RSN about a similar-sounding website.

How should we list it on WP:RSP?

• Option 1: Generally reliable for factual reporting
• Option 2: Additional considerations apply. For example, do not used to satisfy Wikipedia:Notability, only for Wikipedia:Verifiability.
• Option 3: Generally unreliable for factual reporting
• Option 4: Publishes false, fabricated, or unverifiable information, and should be deprecated

I have already removed it from several articles where I’ve found it used as a source, but would like to formally propose deprecating it per WP:USERGENERATED. Thanks, Politanvm ^talk 23:38, 17 November 2021 (UTC)

• Option 4 - As a self-published database it would rarely be usable in Wikipedia, but the fact that it has been edited by anonymous people for which we cannot determine who or whether they are qualified, it should be excluded entirely. Deprecate. Platonk ( talk) 23:45, 17 November 2021 (UTC)
• Comment - Is there a reason this is an actual RFC? Is this being used as a source on a wide scale? On it's face is unreliable, we don't need this whole rigamarole. ScottishFinnishRadish ( talk) 00:04, 18 November 2021 (UTC)
• Prabook.com    , finds that is currently used in a whopping... 1 article. Hemiauchenia ( talk) 00:08, 18 November 2021 (UTC)

That's because the nominator removed it from all the other articles. I removed it from the last article after someone reverted nom's edit. Platonk ( talk) 00:12, 18 November 2021 (UTC)

Well how many articles was it in originally? If it's only a handful it was removed from, why not just move straight to blacklist? Hemiauchenia ( talk) 00:15, 18 November 2021 (UTC)

I removed it from ~10 last week and it appeared on a few more since then, so not too many. I wasn’t sure if the formal RfC was needed to blacklist/xlinkbot/edit filter, but I’m happy to withdraw the RfC if it’s overkill. Politanvm ^talk 00:21, 18 November 2021 (UTC)

I don't think that a full RFC is necessary, since I don't think blacklisting it as a source will be contentious. I'm firmly on team blacklist. ScottishFinnishRadish ( talk) 00:25, 18 November 2021 (UTC)

• Comment seems that if it fits under the same heading as sites like find a grave or IMDb, in that it often contains factual information but may also be subject to inaccuracies because it’s open to anyone that edits. I think we just need to treat it the same way we treat the above two sources, in that we may want to put it in as an external link or something like that, but not as a citation. It seems like “blacklisting“ is more for stuff that is often false and/or defamatory. Montanabw ^(talk) 01:05, 18 November 2021 (UTC)
• Comment. It's a mystery to me where they get their data. I suspect they scrape from one or more Who's Who-s, since I inevitably find that any old biography I want to write has a Prabook entry with identical data to some Who's Who entry from ages ago. But I also don't see a clear need for a RfC, because it's not often used as a source. If we have deprecated Who's Who, as it appears we have, we should deprecate this as well. AleatoryPonderings ( ???) ( !!!) 02:46, 18 November 2021 (UTC)
• Why the RfC? Is this an issue in doubt? Why are editors being asked to spend time considering this? Alexbrn ( talk) 03:24, 18 November 2021 (UTC)
• Option 5, which would be "close this as not being useful". We do not need an RfC and formal listing for every random website used a handful of times, and that dilutes the usefulness of the list and is wasteful of volunteer time for people to read and comment here. It is clearly user-generated and clearly unreliable, and we don't need an RfC to determine that, let alone formal deprecation (which, similarly, should be resolved for the worst of the worst actors, generally those who deliberately and knowingly publish falsehoods). If it were nonetheless used in hundreds or thousands of articles, it still might make sense to spell out its unreliability explicitly, but ten? Let's not have more like this, please; it is abundantly clear that this site does not meet the RS guidelines without having to hear it in a formal RfC. Seraphimblade ^{Talk to me} 03:30, 18 November 2021 (UTC)

  • (Replying to you, but to respond to the other comments asking why I filed an RfC) I thought this might be overkill, but I filed an RfC because a long-term well-respected contributor suggested it might be appropriate in some cases, and I thought it possible that other contributors might agree. In terms of the number of times its been used, there are about a dozen that I noticed over the last week, but a RSN discussion about a previous iteration of Prabook noted 200 uses ( Wikipedia:Reliable sources/Noticeboard/Archive 211#Prabook as user-generated content), so I’m not sure how many times its been removed without someone noting. I thought it would be helpful to have a clear-cut reason to deprecate it and have XLinkBot help keep it clean. It seems to be added to a few articles a week, and I didn’t see harm in adding it to the list. Politanvm ^talk 03:41, 18 November 2021 (UTC)

• @ Politanvm: Try listing it here: MediaWiki talk:Spam-blacklist#Proposed additions. Platonk ( talk) 04:03, 18 November 2021 (UTC)

  • Thanks @ Platonk, I’m not sure that’s the right spot for this, since it doesn’t seem to be deliberate spamming effort, but rather unrelated good-faith editors using Prabook believing it to be a reliable source. I’ll just keep an eye on it for the next few weeks to see if it continues to pop up. Politanvm ^talk 04:10, 18 November 2021 (UTC)

  • Is it even used in article space at all? Alexbrn ( talk) 04:14, 18 November 2021 (UTC)

    • Not since I’ve removed the instances I’ve found. It was used a few more times over the last week. I’m not sure if there’s a way to search revision histories to see how often its been used but removed ad-hoc. Politanvm ^talk 04:18, 18 November 2021 (UTC)

• Comment No need for this RFC. This is not a debatable site; it's a self-published wiki-type site, which is already a clearly unreliable source. Not every source needs to be added to RSP; the list (and discussions such as this) are for sources where there is some reasonable contention as to whether or not it meets some definition of reliability. Editors not reading or understanding policy is not "reasonable contention" and this RFC is pointless. If you find it, it should probably be removed, and if it is continuously added back, the media blacklist is the correct place to go next. -- Jayron 32 13:13, 18 November 2021 (UTC)
• As has already been said, this is a standard user-generated site and use case is low. MediaWiki talk:Spam-blacklist#Proposed additions would be the proper place to bring it, if it is being persistently cited. Tayi Arajakate _Talk 13:42, 18 November 2021 (UTC)
• Comment: Prabook is inherently unstable as a user-generated, tertiary, source (just like Wikipedia) and thus generally unreliable, but from what I've seen, a good amount of content is mined from published directories like Marquis Who's Who and other Who's Who works, which can vary in their reliability, but have the reliable permanence of ink and paper (right or wrong, the information never changes). Many of these books can be viewed and verified at Internet Archive , e.g. Who's Who in Science, Who Was Who in America. Prabook entries often nod to this by statements such as "recognized as a Marquis notable". So the source of information in Prabook isn't always a mystery, even if not credited. But of course, the original directories should be cited in place of Prabook. --Animalparty! ( talk) 23:08, 19 November 2021 (UTC)

I have been informed that Love Reading is a user generated site. It looks like a 'reliable source' to me but I'd be interested in another opinion. Thanks.-- Joenthwarls ( talk) 20:43, 19 November 2021 (UTC)

Do you have any specific statements would you want to cite from a specific page of Love Reading for a specific Wikipedia page? - Ljleppan ( talk) 22:31, 19 November 2021 (UTC)

*Unreliable No it's not a reliable source for literary (book) reviews. Firstly, it's an affiliate internet bookshop and a commercial enterprise so the primary intent of the site is commercial, which is a red flag. Notice the "compare prices" link to *eight* different affiliate marketing platforms on each book page. Secondly, LoveReading is a "vanity" review site. There's no editorial process. *Anyone* can get their book (even self published books) reviewed packages starting at £120. See here: https://www.lovereading.co.uk/your-book-reviewed . Also, most of the "reviews" are appear to be based significantly on the publisher's blurbs, or press releases, to the extent that much the content of the "reviews" can be found on other sites and Google searches will reveal the "review" content is not unique. On many pages, much of the "review" content is actually derived from and quoted from other more credible literary review sources. See here: https://www.lovereading4kids.co.uk/book/17739/The-Midnight-Guardians-by-Ross-Montgomery.html and here: https://www.lovereading4kids.co.uk/book/9781912650828/isbn/No-Said-Rabbit-by-Marjoke-Henrichs.html. This is a good indication that WP editors should be using these quoted sites and/or authority sites in children's literature such as "The School Librarian", " The Bookseller", "Books for Keeps", "The School Reading List", "Booktrust" or significant national press sites such as "The Spectator", "The Guardian" or "The Sunday Times Book Review". Finally, there's no evidence that the "reviewers" have any authority in the field of literary criticism, and in most cases, the name of the "reviewer" is not even detailed on the "review". There is further evidence on the various "LoveReading" sites, that the reviews are in fact unsolicited and user generated content. No editorial process or authority checking is detailed. See here: https://www.lovereading4kids.co.uk/review-panel Tonyinman ( talk) 00:12, 20 November 2021 (UTC)

Note: this is the second re-listing.

source: The source in question is an article in the Slovenian newspaper Slovenski Narod from 1904. The full edition is available from the Digital Library of Slovenia here where it can be downloaded as a PDF. For those without a grasp on South Slavic languages, the text can be highlighted, copied, and pasted into a web-translation for a decent idea on what is being stated. The article in question within this newspaper edition is "Položaj v Macedoniji" which is based on a conversation with revolutionary leader Hristo Tatarchev.

article: I added this article as a source to the article of Hristo Tatarchev (and was promptly reverted).

content: I used the source to support two sentences I added: diff. I essentially paraphrase two points explicitly stated in the article, one being that Turkish reforms were insufficient in his view and the other that his organization would never allow Macedonia to join Serbia or Bulgaria.

I look forward to any guidance from uninvolved editors regarding why this source can or cannot be considered reliable for the purposes I had attempted to use it. Thanks. -- Local hero ^talk 05:49, 19 September 2021 (UTC)

Hi, I am the other editor involved in this issue. The article in the newspaper is used by User:Local hero in historical context. However per Wikipedia:Identifying reliable sources (history), historical scholarship is generally not:

• Journalism
• Opinion pieces by non-scholars
• Popular works that were not reviewed, especially works by journalists, or memoirs—these may be useful to supplement an article that relies upon scholarly sources
• Any primary source, etc.

Per Wikipedia:Identifying reliable sources (history), to determine scholarly opinions about a historical topic, consult the following sources in order:

• Recent scholarly books and chapters on the historiography of the topic
• "Review Articles", or historiographical essays that explicitly discuss recent scholarship in an area.
• Similarly conference papers that were peer reviewed in full before publication that are field reviews or have as their central argument the historiography.
• Journal articles or peer reviewed conference papers that open with a review of the historiography, etc.

That means if somebody want to use such a primary source (newspaper clipping in a language that is unclear to all the readers of the English-language Wikipedia and older then 100 years) it must be supported by recent scholarly books in English, etc. Thanks. Jingiby ( talk) 06:10, 19 September 2021 (UTC)

I’ll quickly note that the page you reference is not a Wikipedia policy and that this newspaper source is not a “clipping” as the full edition is available. Looking forward to input from uninvolved editors. -- Local hero ^talk 06:19, 19 September 2021 (UTC)

I will clarify that the idea backed by this newspaper's article contradicts with a lot of secondary WP:RS cited in the same article ( Hristo Tatarchev). Jingiby ( talk) 06:26, 19 September 2021 (UTC)

I somewhat concur with Jingiby here. Newspapers are hardly a good source about history anyway and such news stories are presented without context (an invitation to OR). We do not know, if this newspaper was reliable sources for this topic even back then (ethno-nationalistic POV pushing was one of the main reasons for existence of such local newspapers). In any case, if the only source for this information is this newspaper, it is certainly an undue information and should not be included in the article. If this information is mentioned in higher quality source (eg. history book), then use that source (discussion about due weight applies here, but that is out of scope of this noticeboard). Note useable sources are not restricted to English language, which is preferred, but not required. Pavlor ( talk) 10:32, 18 October 2021 (UTC)

Thanks a lot for the input, Pavlor. I can't think of a POV that a Slovenian newspaper would have to push in 1904 Ottoman Macedonia. Slovenski Narod was apparently the first daily Slovene newspaper, in print for over seven decades. Another user had originally added this source to the article but was reverted by Jingiby. I took a look and it seems legit, but hoping to get guidance here as to whether it is RS.

With regard to your other point, I am not able to find it in books. I was only able to find it stated in places like the Museum of the Macedonian Struggle's website ( link). -- Local hero ^talk 00:26, 25 October 2021 (UTC)

Hi,

the other day, I followed a citation in an article to a published work, which in turn cited "WK 2011", which turned out to refer to a 2011 version of the article in question. Based on what I've found in the meantime, it looks like this involves dozens of other articles as well. Your username appears in the Wikipedia:list of citogenesis incidents, so I'm hoping you can deal with this in an appropiate way, or notify the appropriate person. Here's the overview:

Between about 2007 and 2013, a series of books authored by Peter Baofu was published by Cambridge Scholars Publishing. The titles follow the general pattern The Future of this: Towards a New Theory of that: [31]

The publisher is a bit dodgy, according to their article; and these books are dodgy by the standards of that publisher, I think: Quite a lot of the prose was copied verbatim from Wikipedia, paying no heed to whether that content was cited or not. The only upside is that this author does credit Wikipedia.

Later on, people started citing those books in the articles they'd been cobbled together from. A Wikipedia search for the author currently yields 35 hits: [32]

I've only checked a handful, but I'd be very surprised if the pattern described above doesn't hold for practically all of them. I did wonder whether the citations might have been intended as product placement, to steer Wikipedia readers to the books. Across the ones I checked, this does not seem to be the case, though; the responsible editors and the timestamps are quite different for each one. So the likelier explanation is that occasionally, someone applies a ^{citation needed} tag to one of the passages appearing as-is in one of the books, and then someone else coming across the tag, and googles the former, and finds the latter at google books, and fails to wonder about the "WK" attribution there, and adds it as a ref... and voila, circle closed.

So this seems to be more benign than many of the listed citogenesis incidents, in as far as there's no deliberate fabrication at the root of it all, only originally uncited content. Let me know if you need any extra information, or if I can be of any further help with this issue.

- 2A02:560:42E7:3600:A538:6E0A:4565:830F ( talk) 13:57, 13 November 2021 (UTC)

• I'm reposting this from my talk page - I don't get on as much as I was able to in the past so this could benefit from someone who can take more immediate action. In any case, this is definitely something that needs to be looked into. ReaderofthePack(formerly Tokyogirl79) (｡◕‿◕｡) 16:43, 15 November 2021 (UTC)

• Easy enough to see how this can happen. Almost every day I get an email from academia.edu telling me that I have been cited in a publication. Which is strange, as I haven't published in a scholarly journal in more than 45 years. Some of those notices result from one of the academic authors who share my name. Many of them result from an "author" following the attribution rules, and listing me as a contributor to a Wikipedia article they have incorporated into a book. Maybe an essay on what to watch for in sourcing would help. - Donald Albury 18:14, 15 November 2021 (UTC)
  • @ Donald Albury: I get similar emails. Probably for the same reasons - my only article on Academic.edu is one published in the UK Skeptic Magazine. There also seem to be quite a few Doug Wellers. Doug Weller talk 09:27, 16 November 2021 (UTC)

• Don't feel too flattered – emails keep arriving saying my name "is mentioned in an Early tetrapods paper uploaded to Academia", to find out what it's about they want me to "upgrade" i.e. pay money. My guess is a rather rough 2006 illustration, much improved by Pixelsquid in the current article, has been re-used by them. Since I'm no expert, rather surprised they couldn't do better, but am not paying to find out more. . . dave souza, talk 19:45, 15 November 2021 (UTC)

• Yep, these look like benign instances of {{ cn}} tags getting filled too carelessly. In other words, they're pretty much exactly what the cartoon warned us about. I've been working my way through the list; most are redundant or easy to replace, though we'll need replacement citations in a few cases [33] [34] [35]. XOR'easter ( talk) 20:15, 15 November 2021 (UTC)
• Well, I've gotten the list down to Wuxia, Carriage, Deforestation, and Creativity (religion). XOR'easter ( talk) 03:33, 16 November 2021 (UTC)

• OK, I've rewritten the relevant section of Creativity (religion) to avoid citing Baofu. XOR'easter ( talk) 17:12, 16 November 2021 (UTC)
• Anyone feel like tackling the last three? I don't know when I'll get the time. XOR'easter ( talk) 14:14, 17 November 2021 (UTC)

Wuxia has been debaofued.

- (OP) 89.183.220.246 ( talk) 14:56, 18 November 2021 (UTC)

Thanks! XOR'easter ( talk) 18:44, 18 November 2021 (UTC)

Carriages have four round wheels but now zero circular citations, leaving only Deforestation.

- (OP) 2A02:560:421E:4400:60C4:A40A:3BA3:7860 ( talk) 13:48, 20 November 2021 (UTC)

Great! XOR'easter ( talk) 15:06, 20 November 2021 (UTC)

Cambridge Scholars is not known for strong editorial oversight. It does not surprise me that they would do this. ( t · c) buidhe 04:48, 16 November 2021 (UTC)

To expand on this, they seem to have been flipping in and out of the various publication ranking systems I have easy access to. For example, the Norwegian system classified them as level 0 (not a proper scientific publication venue) in 2020, but level 1 (meets basic criteria) in both 2019 and 2021. The spotty track record makes it pretty difficult to make any general statements beyond "consider every work carefully and in isolation". - Ljleppan ( talk) 13:11, 16 November 2021 (UTC)

Just don't use anything by CSP ever. They're garbage vanity press/predatory publisher. Headbomb { t · c · p · b} 22:26, 16 November 2021 (UTC)

It's being added a lot by Timeismotion ( talk · contribs) - I started a discussion at WP:FTN because some of the material is fringe, but there may also be a COI issue and of course refspamming. Doug Weller talk 10:53, 21 November 2021 (UTC)

According to our article, Tank Magazine is a fashion and culture magazine. In fields with such an abundance of academic sources like archaeology, I can't see why we would ever want to use Tank Magazine when we can use academic journal articles and books published by academic presses.

Looking in particular at Timeismotion's edits, this seems like a deeply questionable use of Tank Magazine, for instance. Why are we citing a review in a fashion magazine by an author with a BA in journalism as a source on the "scholarly reception" of a work of history, archaeology, and anthropology? Tao Lin isn't an academic and doesn't have relevant expertise, and the review isn't in a scholarly journal. Caeciliusinhorto ( talk) 15:02, 21 November 2021 (UTC)

No, it self-evidently isn't RS for such subjects. Blatant promotional refspamming. AndyTheGrump ( talk) 16:09, 21 November 2021 (UTC)

@ Caeciliusinhorto: the editor is clearly promoting Tao lin as well, eg Kmart realism sourced to what seems a blog. [36] [37]. Mentions of him in articles here. Interestingly enough, his article says "The Atlantic described Lin as having a "fairly staggering" knack for self-promotion." He's obviously very notable, but is being promoted by this editor and at times inappropriately. As an aside, I see Gawker is used several times as a source in his article. Looks like he may have been editing the article himself in the past. [38] [User:Doug Weller|Doug Weller]] talk 16:40, 21 November 2021 (UTC)

Here is a search for Unz. I haven't checked many, but the first few are all ELs to people's works, while at H L Mencken it's a source for a quote. Doug Weller talk 14:23, 21 November 2021 (UTC)

I think there is concensus for UNZ that a major issue was WP:COPYLINK and that their reprints weren't authorised, so probably not. Hemiauchenia ( talk) 16:10, 21 November 2021 (UTC)

It depends. The Unz periodical archive (which is separate from, and predates, the controversial Unz Review, despite now sharing the same web domain) consists of large amounts of scanned public domain material, similar to the Internet Archive or Biodiversity Heritage Library, and possibly some material still in copyright. Anything published in the U.S. prior to 1926 is public domain in the U.S., as are post-1926 works whose copyrights weren't renewed after 28 years, or for a variety of other reasons. So this 1924 article by Mencken is 100% free (in the US) to be re-hosted, reprinted, repurposed, etc. To my knowledge there are no concerns with the faithfulness or accuracy of the scans, as the archive was initially praised by publications across the ideological spectrum. ^{[1] [2] [3]}. Addendum: Some indexed content is clearly marked as under copyright and not publicly displayed, for instance here and here. And many of the outgoing links appear to simple author pages (e.g. William Kristol), not articles themselves, which is similar to {{ Internet Archive author}} or links to journalist pages, which might be considered per WP:ELYES if no other "official" links exist. --Animalparty! ( talk). 20:18, 21 November 2021 (UTC)

As described on Wikipedia, AJ+ is an online news and current events channel run by Al Jazeera Media Network. I have recently observed this channel to publish, via its Twitter account, a three minute propaganda piece regarding the Kenosha unrest shooting which tells outright falsehoods. In particular, it explicitly claims that Rittenhouse brought a semiautomatic weapon across state lines - a statement known to be false and which has been acknowledged in RS to be false for over a year ( 1 2) and which is currently treated as a particularly important myth to debunk ( e.g.). This is, after all, the entire basis for Dominic Black facing charges.

Given this egregious disregard for truth, which appears to derive from a strong partisan bias, I urge that AJ+ cannot be treated as a reliable source. I further argue that incidents such as this reflect negatively upon the parent organization, Al Jazeera. 174.93.70.56 ( talk) 00:08, 21 November 2021 (UTC)

Nah. The weapon across state lines talking point has been mentioned all over by journalists of all kinds of media outlets that we consider generally reliable, and I don't think we should do any mass deprecation based on this single issue. MarioGom ( talk) 00:26, 21 November 2021 (UTC)

AJ is hardly the only media source to repeat this particular claim (it has, unfortunately, been repeated by a LOT of news sources that we consider reliable). So let me ask… are there other situations where AJ has misstated facts to this extent? If not, then I would suggest we call it “unreliable for reporting on the Rittenhouse story” … without calling it “generally unreliable”. The same would be true for the other outlets that repeat the claim. Blueboar ( talk) 00:41, 21 November 2021 (UTC)

From what I can tell, their written coverage hasn't repeated the claim in question. XOR'easter ( talk) 00:47, 21 November 2021 (UTC)

This is in general why WP:NOTNEWS is a thing, breaking news is *always* going to be wrong to some extent. Horse Eye's Back ( talk) 01:29, 21 November 2021 (UTC)

Not to nitpick, but that statement about Wikipedia is not a newspaper is simply not correct, at all. "Not a newspaper" is about... what WP is not; it makes no mention of the reliability of newspapers nor anything else of the kind. 2600:1702:4960:1DE0:515:ADE:B2DC:BDFA ( talk) 02:48, 21 November 2021 (UTC)

"Wikipedia considers the enduring notability of persons and events." is the language you are looking for that says we should avoid including breaking news stories and wait for that to filter to something that has had time to get the facts right. -- Masem ( t) 22:28, 21 November 2021 (UTC)

Have other outlets continued to spread this lie (not a "talking point", as it is not in an way a justified description of reality, and not something they have any real excuse to get wrong) after the dismissal of the gun charge, indeed after the trial? If it were up to me, I'd deprecate all kinds of media outlets instead. They ought to know better. I agree in principle that this sort of thing can reasonably be tailored to the topic; but it comes across to me that when other sources have been deprecated generally, the people voting against those sources have had at most one example to point to. 174.93.70.56 ( talk) 00:44, 21 November 2021 (UTC)

Um.....I very sincerely doubt that any source has ever been deprecated here because of one single instance of misreporting. As for "they ought to know better" - perhaps, but how does any news organisation acquire 95+% of their information? By tapping into the reporting by the "top level" news agencies. Once a false story gets into circulation and widely repeated, it's very difficult to stop its propagation. As for your railing accsations of "lies", it is clearly an honest error that resulted from a commonm sense assumption...and really, whether you've carried a gun across a state line and killed two people with it, or whether you get your buddy that lives on the other side of said state line from you to buy the gun for you, then cross over into that state, pick up the gun and then kill two people with it...I know it makes a difference to the courts, but to everyone else in the world that is a petty detail. 2600:1702:4960:1DE0:515:ADE:B2DC:BDFA ( talk) 03:06, 21 November 2021 (UTC)

This relates to the point I made about Fox News a few days ago. Although this is a talk point in a video on Twitter rather than simply a headline which is clearly not an RS, I think generally we should be careful about stuff posted by RS on social media. In a lot of cases the standards tend to be more lax. And especially for Twitter, TikTok or Instagram, the medium is more tailored for brevity which can lead to excessive simplifications etc. (Although I acknowledge this is simply an error.) If AJ+ only posts content on social media, I don't know if we quite have to deprecate them but I don't think we should use them much anyway and should take particular concern with stuff that only seems to be mentioned by them especially if there's no reason to. (If it's a story that hasn't received much attention elsewhere then maybe.) And I don't think it tells us much about the standards at Al Jazeera in general. Nil Einne ( talk) 10:51, 21 November 2021 (UTC)

Nil makes a very good point… We tend to consider social media accounts and postings unreliable for facts (except in rare SPS situations). And I could see an argument that AJ+ is really a social media account rather than a news outlet (or perhaps it is the social media account of a news outlet). It blurs the lines. Blueboar ( talk) 14:58, 21 November 2021 (UTC)

It's not the social media account of Al Jazeera; the content seems to be created separately and AJ+ appears to have its own website that seems to very intentionally create short-form videos as its core "news and storytelling" purpose. I have no prejudice against news organizations that primarily use video as their form of communication, but I do think that they should be evaluated for editorial control, a reputation for fact-checking and accuracy, and the level of independence from the topic the source is covering. — Mikehawk10 ( talk) 23:04, 21 November 2021 (UTC)

In some ways, it would appear that AJ+ and Al Jazeera have different reliability. We would consider video news made by WP:NEWSORGs to be within their scope, as far as I am aware. I don't think it's simply an issue of social media postings on Twitter, as some indicate above. AJ+ has an extensive collection of short videos on Youtube that deal with politically sensitive historical topics; if we were to encounter a video made by 60 Minutes or BBC Newsnight published on YouTube, I imagine that we'd evaluate it based upon the reliability of 60 Minutes or BBC Newsnight as a news source rather than simply assuming it's generally unreliable because we found it on "social media". Why does YouTube matter here? Well, that same video that the IP linked to on Twitter also appears on the AJ+ YouTube page at this link. I'd find it rather odd that we'd apply one set of reliability standards to analyzing reliability of 60 Minutes content posted on YouTube and another set of standards to AJ+ content posted on YouTube. I also think that we shouldn't write this off as the mere postings of a social media account on a medium that reduces quality for the purposes of brevity, as others above have suggested. And, AJ+, after all, does have a website that apparently also includes both reporting in a written medium and videos that are literally links to its YouTube, so the source probably needs to be evaluated more broadly if there are issues with fact-checking and accuracy in its video productions. Perhaps an RfC is in order to see if AJ+ and Al Jazeera should be treated as if their reliability is different? — Mikehawk10 ( talk) 21:51, 21 November 2021 (UTC)

In the broad picture I think it makes sense to avoid using anything posted to social media even by a verified RS as absolutely reliable since these may not have the editorial scrutiny of published works. That said, most good RSes when they use social media usually include a link to a their story with more details, and that's what we should be using. -- Masem ( t) 22:30, 21 November 2021 (UTC)

I mean, I think that this Video from 60 Minutes unquestionably has the same reliability as 60 Minutes that's hosted on its own website. I don't think that we should be using tweets from news organizations; there's something analogous in reasoning to WP:HEADLINE that apply inasmuch as most social media posts are written to grab readers' attention quickly and briefly; they may be overstated or lack context, and sometimes contain exaggerations or sensationalized claims with the intention of attracting readers. But, I don't think that standalone videos, like the one brought up by the IP, are the same sort of thing. If the video is standalone (i.e. is not an excerpt of something longer that it links back to), then the purpose of the video is to actually tell its viewers what the news is with a strong degree of fact-checking and accuracy (or it should be, if it's a reliable newsorg). Videos from AJ+, being that they don't tend to link back to their website and don't appear to want to attract readers to any other longer article, probably should be evaluated by the typical reliable sourcing standards. If they're not reliable, then we should probably modify WP:RSP to indicate that AJ+ is not reliable and should be evaluated separately from the remainder of Al Jazeera-related content. — Mikehawk10 ( talk) 22:47, 21 November 2021 (UTC)

Sure, long-form videos on YouTube are fine, and I agree that treating social media like Twitter or Instagram (which are meant to be short, concise messages, not long-form works) should be treated like HEADLINE. (But that's a broad statement, not specific to the AJ+ situation) -- Masem ( t) 22:50, 21 November 2021 (UTC)

Recently, a large number of citations have been added to Led Zeppelin song articles with links to YouTube song videos as the sources. [39] The videos are accompanied by supplemental text, which is being used as sources for "Personnel" sections in song articles. The videos (actually only audio) themselves appear to be "official": the upload information includes "Provided to YouTube by Atlantic Records" and "℗ 2012 Atlantic Records", but also includes the disclaimer "Auto-generated by YouTube". [40] (click on "SHOW MORE" right below "Provided to YouTube by Atlantic Records")

The problem is, sometimes the information is incorrect. For example, the linked video text includes "Unknown: Andy Johns", but the actual album liner notes indicate "Engineers: Andrew Johns, London; Terry Manning, Ardent Studios, Memphis, Tennessee". [41] It seems that an "official" upload by Atlantic Records should at least contain the information that the record company itself lists on the actual album. So, although the video may have been provided by Atlantic, it appears that the supplemental text may not have been, or, is something less accurate than the album liner notes. Should the text that accompanies YouTube videos be considered reliable? Pinging 80s Sam, who added the citations, for their input.

— Ojorojo ( talk) 16:20, 18 November 2021 (UTC)

As it is "auto-generated" I suspect ita not reliable, as it obviously is not being either fact-checked or has any editorial oversite. Slatersteven ( talk) 16:23, 18 November 2021 (UTC)

Good heavens no. In theory, if some YouTube account were to say "all our comments are checked and edited by these known people, who stake their good reputations on the accuracy thereof," then maybe there'd be a hint of a possibility. But just good heavens no. Cheers. Dumuzid ( talk) 16:25, 18 November 2021 (UTC)

No, it's frequently wrong - David Gerard ( talk) 20:56, 18 November 2021 (UTC)

• No, these are auto-generated based on AI, similar to Google Knowledge Graphs, and subject to numerous unchecked errors. Personnel should only be sourced either to liner notes (in many cases) or to reliable published material otherwise (i.e. something like Mark Lewisohn's The Complete Beatles Recording Sessions). There is no evidence this text is reliable, even if it is posted under "official" videos. -- Jayron 32 14:50, 19 November 2021 (UTC)
• My instincts tell me they are about as reliable as the CC captions. As everyone else has put it, no way. Scorpions13256 ( talk) 02:29, 20 November 2021 (UTC)
• It looks like all this user is adding to those songs is the names of the band members and their instrumental/vocal contributions under "Personel." It's an odd way of going about sourcing it, but...does this particular info really NEED a source? That Robert Plant sang, Jimmy Page played guitars, John Paul Jones played bass, and John Bonham drummed in Led Zeppelen is kind of a BLUESKY thing, ain't it? And if it does need a cite, the albums themselves could be used as sources, right? 2600:1702:4960:1DE0:515:ADE:B2DC:BDFA ( talk) 03:49, 21 November 2021 (UTC)

Things sometimes get more complicated, with specific types of keyboards, guitars, Page or Jones on mandolin, who sings backup, etc. To go with the standard "A on vocals, B on guitar, C on bass, D on drums" may give an incomplete picture or actually be wrong (I was surprised to find that the instruments on several Beatles songs were played by different members). If it's worth adding to an article, it should be properly referenced (bios, reviews, album notes). — Ojorojo ( talk) 15:40, 21 November 2021 (UTC)

It also isn't always, or even often, true. I mean, officially in the Beach Boys Brian Wilson played bass, Carl Wilson and Al Jardine played guitars, Dennis Wilson played drums, and Mike Love played random other instruments. In reality, on the recordings they mostly just sang, and the Wrecking Crew recorded most of the instruments. Similarly, while we all know the Beatles official instrumentation, there are plenty of times when Paul played drums or guitar; when John or George played bass, when any of them or someone like Nicky Hopkins or Billy Preston played keys, etc. Recording is a complex process, and we shouldn't assume that the convenient roles of band members necessarily plays out in the recording process. -- Jayron 32 12:19, 22 November 2021 (UTC)

On Ignatievka Cave, another user has aggressively pushed the citation of a newly-published (but I believe reliably published) reference on the dating of the material of the cave, has removed other sources stating that the dating is less well agreed upon, has rewritten the article to state that the cave material definitively has the date given in the new reference, and has refused to answer questions on their behavior on talk, instead casting wild personal attacks. More experienced eyes on this article would be welcome. I'm bringing this here both because I think this board has people with the appropriate experience of sourcing and because the dispute concerns the removal of prior sources and the appropriate use of sources (although not the reliability of the newly added sources). — David Eppstein ( talk) 02:30, 21 November 2021 (UTC)

• Would this not be better solved at WP:DRN, David Eppstein? Or better yet, starting an RfC on the talk page of the article before engaging in the noticeboards. If I understand correctly you are not here to discuss whether a particular source (or group of sources) is reliable or not, which is the point of this noticeboard, and have more issues with potentially disruptive editing by the user. A. C. Santacruz ⁂ Talk 21:57, 22 November 2021 (UTC)

It concerns the removal of other sources in the same edits. — David Eppstein ( talk) 22:00, 22 November 2021 (UTC)

Yes, but the issue you are bringing up here is not the reliability of those sources, is it, David Eppstein? From what I can see in the talk page the consensus is both the sources removed and added are reliable, no? A. C. Santacruz ⁂ Talk 22:05, 22 November 2021 (UTC)

The New York Times reports that four articles from Gothamist, a news site owned by WNYC, used language from Wikipedia entries and articles in Salon and The New York Times without credit, according to a comparison of the pieces and the original sources.. The articles were, per the NYT, all published by the same individual. The four articles are enumerated in the NYT article and have all been pulled offline at this point. No Wikipedia articles appear to have referenced them.

The individual accused of plagairism served in several roles, including senior editor of WNYC’s race and justice unit and as host of National Public Radio news program "All Things Considered", according to the NYT report. I'm not quite sure how to respond to this; editorial oversight at WNYC seems to have failed to a good extent in editing one of its senior editors if the NYT report is true, though the eventual issuing of a retraction indicates that there is editorial oversight. I'm a bit skeptical of the remainder of the individual's reporting in that unit. The only partial analogue to this I see on WP:RSP would be the listing for Der Spiegel, but that was for fabrications rather than copying from Wikipedia.

How should this reflect on reporting from WNYC and its affiliates more generally? Are there additional considerations that should be taken for articles that come from its race and justice unit more broadly, or should additional considerations only apply to articles created by former senior editor whose articles now face retraction? — Mikehawk10 ( talk) 06:42, 20 November 2021 (UTC)

• I suppose I don't see a broader issue here given that the articles weren't referenced here, which would have created a circular referencing problem. People and institutions make mistakes; WYNC appears to have done the right thing, editorially, albeit after the fact. Mackensen (talk) 12:27, 20 November 2021 (UTC)
• Copying from WP should certainly lower the reliability of Gothamist as a news source. After all, we don’t consider WP reliable, so how could a source that copies from us be considered reliable? Correcting the mistake after the fact is good, but not enough to off-set the negative. Blueboar ( talk) 12:57, 20 November 2021 (UTC)
• If it was a problem with one writer, as seems to be the case, I'm not sure that it should affect how we treat the organization more broadly. An infraction by one individual isn't the same as an institutional dedication to fabricating claims. Make a note of it and see if Gothamist has more problems down the line, I suppose. XOR'easter ( talk) 16:51, 20 November 2021 (UTC)
  • Regarding An infraction by one individual isn't the same as an institutional dedication to fabricating claims, I agree. The senior position that the individual held within the editorial structure of WNYC, however, bites me a bit more than if this were simply a lone journalist on the ground. Would this indicate something along the lines of diminished editorial oversight under this particular individual, which could then affect the reliability of articles that the editor reviewed? If this were a mere staff journalist, I'd understand limiting the scope, but I feel like there's something different when senior editors at an institution do this sort of thing. — Mikehawk10 ( talk) 17:23, 20 November 2021 (UTC)
    • I understand the concern, but it still seems too grand an inference from the information we presently have available. XOR'easter ( talk) 01:54, 21 November 2021 (UTC)
• We had a similar situation in the video game area where one writer for a major site otherwise deemed reliable was found to be plagarizing. However, the site helped in that they redacted all of their articles, leading us to also redact the articles that had been used on WP. The site otherwise maintained its editorial reliability and hasn't changed how we used it. I think checking to see if work was plagarized is not something usually done by the editor's desk most of the time, but a good reliable source when caught will do all the necessary redactions and similar steps to eliminate the problem article. -- Masem ( t) 19:26, 20 November 2021 (UTC)

• Isolated problems require isolated solutions, if one author was the problem then we proscribe the Author not the source. If however future reporting on this case suggests that the issue is more systemic than this we can have a broader discussion at that time. Horse Eye's Back ( talk) 19:29, 20 November 2021 (UTC)

Reliability doesn't mean infallibility and even the most respected publishers will have this type of problem which they will then go on to correct. No action is required. TFD ( talk) 20:11, 20 November 2021 (UTC)

• Like most one-off incidents, this doesn't say anything about the source's general reliability, especially since they immediately issued a retraction; as WP:RS says, Signals that a news organization engages in fact-checking and has a reputation for accuracy are the publication of corrections... I also broadly disagree with the argument that we can / should focus on that individual - doing that sort of thing extremely unusual and would require more serious, sustained indications of a problem than this. No source is flawless, but part of the general trust we have in a source's reliability is that they will look into issues, generally discover them, and take appropriate steps; digging into individual contributors starts to get messy. Unless there's a reason to doubt the Gothamist in general, in other words, we can trust them to review the author's other contributions, and to stop using them if there is a reason to believe there will be a problem going forwards. -- Aquillion ( talk) 05:44, 23 November 2021 (UTC)

An IP wants to add the claim that this researcher is the third ranked zebrafish researcher worldwide, sourcing it to Expertscape. An article on this company was deleted multiple times and is currently protected from being created, but that doesn't necessarily mean that these rankings are not reliable. However, I find it difficult to figure out exactly how Expertscape calculates its rankings. Any guidance is appreciated. -- Randykitty ( talk) 11:39, 23 November 2021 (UTC)

1) No it isn't a reliable source. 2) Even if it were "third ranked zebrafish researcher" is beyond WP:TRIVIA and doesn't bear mentioning in a Wikipedia article; I don't care if the BBC itself published the information, just no. -- Jayron 32 13:15, 23 November 2021 (UTC)