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This is an RfC on the surrogate services of the U.S. Agency for Global Media (USAGM), not on its external service (Voice of America). The surrogate services are: Office of Cuba Broadcasting/ Radio y Television Marti, etc.; Middle East Broadcasting Networks/ alhurra/El Saha, etc.; RFE/RL; Radio Free Asia; and any other surrogate outlets under USAGM control the identify of which has not been publicly revealed.
As each of these are a DBA brand of a single organization with a single controlling mind (USAGM), this RfC proposes to address them collectively.

Question A: For coverage 2017 and later, are the surrogate services of the U.S. Agency for Global Media:

• Option 1: Generally reliable
• Option 2: Additional considerations
• Option 3: Generally unreliable
• Option 4: Deprecate

Question B: For coverage before 2017, are the surrogate services of the U.S. Agency for Global Media:

• Option 1: Generally reliable
• Option 2: Additional considerations
• Option 3: Generally unreliable
• Option 4: Deprecate

Chetsford ( talk) 06:02, 17 March 2024 (UTC)

Survey (USAGM)

• A4 / B3 for reasons I describe in the discussion section. I further suggest that pre-2017 online articles be considered post-2017 for application of this RfC unless an archive exists from an independent source (e.g. Wayback Machine). I don't think the integrity of outlet-maintained archives can be presumed. (Pinging Newslinger as he suggested the informal discussion that preceded this be reformatted as an RfC.) Chetsford ( talk) 06:02, 17 March 2024 (UTC)

• A1/B1 while their reporting has some bias, they are cited by others and usable for facts. While some lack of independence can be concerning, even state-funded media from authoritarian states is not per se less than GREL. While they are not strictly independent from the people directly in charge, they are definitely independent from the US as a whole, and undoubtedly independent from their geopolitical interest, at least to the degree that Al Jazeera is (an RS). They are cited by others, and while the change in structure is (morally) negative, it ought to have no impact on general reliability. In particular, RFA is undoubtedly reliable per prior discussions. FortunateSons ( talk) 11:42, 23 March 2024 (UTC)

• A1/B1 though lumping so many outlets together makes this RfC of questionable validity. Each outlet ought to be evaluated separately as was already done with WP:RADIOFREEASIA. Reporters/editors are distinct for each outlet as there's a quite a bit of linguistic and regional nuance from one outlet to another (e.g., Uyghur-language reporting at RFA versus Arabic-language reporting at Alhurra). - Amigao ( talk) 16:38, 23 March 2024 (UTC)
• A2/B2. I don't see firm evidence that the organisational change has affected the editorial standards. The sources provided by u:Chetsford show that there were issues before 2017 as well, including the control of RFERL by the CIA. Also, no evidence of their unreliability has been provided. The history of government control, the current ownership structure and the common sense indicate that these sources should be used carefully for contentious topics, especially for establishing due weight, hence vote for Option 2. Alaexis _¿question? 21:55, 23 March 2024 (UTC)
• A1/B1. I think that the 2021 RfC on Radio Free Asia captures well the notion that the source is generally reliable. The other surrogate services are independent of that newsroom, but a similar rationale applies to them: the newsrooms continue to be editorially independent, and I'm not seeing good evidence that organizational change has affected quality. If there are issues with a particular outlet, it would make sense to have them considered independently, but I'm just not seeing evidence that the surrogate services are broadly marginal (or broadly unreliable). As for Voice of America, I likewise see a general reputation for fact-checking and accuracy, and that is ultimately what makes it a reliable news source. — Red-tailed hawk  _(nest) 19:27, 24 March 2024 (UTC)
• Suggest SNOW as Nom. Clearly a consensus to revisit what -- I think I've clearly expressed -- are in my opinion malformed past consensuses will not be reached here today. As a result, this RfC serves no purpose other than creating clutter on the Noticeboard. I suggest it be WP:SNOW closed. I appreciate the participation of the other editors and thank them for their time. Chetsford ( talk) 23:30, 25 March 2024 (UTC)

  I appreciate you taking the time to set up a well-researched RfC, and apologise it didn’t go the way you would have liked it to.

  That being said, I think a proper RfC (at least enough for clear closure and an inclusion on the perennial sources list) would be beneficial here, as I think it’s quite possible that some use will be disputed later, and this discussion is likely to be of value then. Therefore, I think, I think the RfC is valuable enough to oppose SNOW. FortunateSons ( talk) 23:55, 25 March 2024 (UTC)

Discussion (USAGM)

• OP's rationale:

1.The organizational architecture of the surrogate services post-2017 makes them functionally non- WP:INDEPENDENT of the United States government. And the subjects of interest to the U.S. Government are panoptic, leaving no possible carveout of independent reporting.

• On December 23, 2016, the National Defense Authorization Act for Fiscal Year 2017 was passed which dissolved the semi-independent Broadcasting Board of Governors and placed these media outlets under a single official appointed by and serving at the pleasure of the president of the day. All surrogate services are 100 percent funded by the U.S. Government and their staff are U.S. Government employees on the GS payscale, recruited from usajobs.gov and in some cases their reporters have to undergo pre-employment SF-86 security screenings (e.g. [1]) by the Defense Counterintelligence and Security Agency.
• In addition, these outlets operate under an exclusive congressional statute which grants them absolute immunity from all civil liability. [2] As such, they are the only media outlets in the U.S. which face no legal risk for errors in their reporting or pecuniary incentive to avoid mistakes.

2. Each of these outlets has been widely criticized by highly reliable sources -- including their own staff -- for engaging in shoddy journalism, succumbing to political pressures, or concealing the hierarchy of their editorial control. There are too many to mention, so I'll just provide a small sample covering a couple brands over a 50 year period to show this is an endemic issue.

• Until 1971, RFE/RL reporting and editorial policy was secretly controlled by the CIA [3]. This was not voluntarily revealed by it and only came to light after an investigative expose.
• James Brown, director of RFE/RL from 1978 to 1985, chronicles extensively the political pressure he frequently came under to adopt an "ultra aggressive" editorial tone in his 2014 book Radio Free Europe: An insider’s view.
• A 2009 report by the U.S. Government's own GAO found that, from 2004-2007, Radio y Television Marti had a "perpetually poor standard of journalism", editorialized "the presentation of individual views as news", incorporated "offensive and incendiary language" in its reporting, and reported on "unsubstantiated" rumors. [4]
• A 2008 report by the University of Southern California found that Alhurra "relied on unsubstantiated information too often ... [and] allowed the on-air expression of personal judgments too frequently". [5]
• In his 2013 book Propaganda, Power and Persuasion: From World War I to Wikileaks, David Welch (Director of the Study of Propaganda at the University of Kent) wrote exhaustively about how Radio Free Asia is "very selective" in the news it reports and about the "inherent bias in RFA's programming" and that it frames its reporting on China with the intent of emphasizing the "disharmony" in the Harmonious Society.
• In 2018, Mother Jones chronicled the aggressive and questionable tone of Radio y Television Marti's reporting, including its news reports that deounced George Soros is a "multimillionaire Jew" and the "architect of the financial collapse of 2008". [6]
• In 2019, the USAGM commissioned a new report on Radio y Television Marti. That report - authored by professors at USC and journalists from Telemundo - concluded Radio y Television Marti was "riddled with bad journalism" and "ineffective propaganda". [7]
• As recently as 2021, USAGM's own staff representing all the brands have stated that management has taken "actions that did not align with USAGM’s firewall principles". [8]

Chetsford ( talk) 02:10, 23 March 2024 (UTC)

A cursory reading of the 2021 report is mostly referring to actions in the “gray zone”, and that they are being addressed. That sounds like standard journalistic issues and not impactful to reliability. FortunateSons ( talk) 11:45, 23 March 2024 (UTC)

In addition, it sounds like at least some of those primarily refer to bias and not unreliability. FortunateSons ( talk) 11:47, 23 March 2024 (UTC)

"In addition, it sounds like at least some of those primarily refer to bias and not unreliability." Hmmm ... I think you may need to do more than a cursory reading, then. Chetsford ( talk) 20:12, 23 March 2024 (UTC)

• For the record, all publications under this umbrella that have been previously discussed at RSN have been found to be generally reliable in discussions over the last several years, see WP:RSP for details. Given that many of the complaints are about Radio y Television Marti specifically, maybe it would have been better to have separate RfCs for each outlet. Hemiauchenia ( talk) 02:15, 23 March 2024 (UTC)

I've removed a comment by Chetsford that referred to a prior version of this comment where I did not add "previously discussed at RSN" that is now redundant. Hemiauchenia ( talk) 02:23, 23 March 2024 (UTC)

• Insofar as I can tell, almost none of the brands under this umbrella have been previously discussed at RSN, including Alhurra, Radio Sawa, Radio y Television Marti, etc. Moreover, the existence of prior discussions does not preclude revisiting consensus. From my review of the minority of instances of prior discussion, the community was presented with limited and inferior information, relied on its original research into their reliability to the complete preclusion of the panoply of independent evaluation that has occurred, and did not consider post-2017 changes to the organizational architecture of the USAGM.
  I also disagree it would be better to have independent RfCs about each outlet as this is a single outlet (USAGM) that simply operates under different branding schemes, not unlike CNN, CNN International, CNN en Español, etc. They're all in the same facilities, they have a common HR and legal team, their staff seamlessly float between brands, they report to the same boss, they have the same funding source, etc. It would be illogical, incoherent, and nonsensical for one to be RS and another to be non-RS. Chetsford ( talk) 02:29, 23 March 2024 (UTC)

• User:Amigao - "lumping so many outlets together" -- Just to clarify, I don't think anyone would reasonably view these as different outlets. This is a single outlet (the U.S. Agency for Global Media). It operates several different brands. None of these brands have the technical ability to independently broadcast programming, they are collectively served by USAGM's Office of Technology Services; RyTM and RFA signals both go out over the same physical transmitters. None of these brands hire their own "reporters," USAGM HR selects and hires them and each of them gets a paycheck that says "United States Treasury" on the top. None of these brands do pre-hire vetting of their own "reporters"; they are all vetted by U.S. military security services using the SF86 form [9] to determine their "loyalty to the United States." None of these brands have a different terminal boss, they all report to a political appointee of the president who can hire and fire employees. So, again, I think the only reasonable reading is USAGM is the outlet. These are merely Doing Business As names under which it operates. Chetsford ( talk) 19:58, 23 March 2024 (UTC)

  They are not exactly "Doing Business As" names. To be more precise, they are distinct 501(c)(3) organizations that are funded and supervised by USAGM. Their technical and financial infrastructure is provided by USAGM. That is public, well-documented, and does not necessarily create a contradiction with WP:INDEPENDENT, which centers on editorial independence. So far, I'm not seeing anything concrete here that would demonstrate an overall lack of editorial independence. - Amigao ( talk) 22:47, 23 March 2024 (UTC)

  • That's incorret. They are not 501(c)3s. They are operating units of the U.S. Government and their staff are employees of the U.S. Government, no different than the Office of Insular Affairs or the Defense Contract Management Agency. A 501(c)3 might would provide a measure of independence as it would create a cushion between elected officeholders and the editorial function. But that does not exist here. Chetsford ( talk) 23:19, 25 March 2024 (UTC)

    RFA, RFE/RL, and MBN are indeed 501(c)3 organizations. You can check out their Form 990 filings here: 1, 2, and 3. Amigao ( talk) 02:19, 26 March 2024 (UTC)

• User:FortunateSons - "it ought to have no impact on reliability" -- While it ought not to, WP:RS affirm with absolute certainty it does. Why do you believe Telemundo is not reliable to make the determination that RyTM is "riddled with bad journalism" and "propaganda" [10]. Why do you believe USC's Annenberg School of Communications is not reliable to make the determination Alhurra relies "on unsubstantiated information too often ... [and] allowed the on-air expression of personal judgments too frequently" [11]. I've cited a dozen RS who have said these brands are completely unreliable based on in-depth analysis they've undertaken (i.e. not a quick Google News search to see if they're cited elsewhere). Anyway, my question is - when you dismiss RS like that with the unsourced conclusory statement "it ought to have no impact on reliability" you are making an affirmation of your perception of the status quo or an expression of hope? Chetsford ( talk) 20:10, 23 March 2024 (UTC)

  while the change in structure is (morally) negative, it ought to have no impact on general reliability. specifically refers to the change in structure, not to the discussion as a whole. FortunateSons ( talk) 20:24, 23 March 2024 (UTC)

Right. But when you say "ought to" were you expressing your hope/desire/wish it has no impact on reliability? Or were you indicating you have sources that negate the extensive documentation by RS that it's unreliable? Also, if you believe these are reliable, do I read that to understand you'd be okay with someone sourcing Radio y Television Marti to insert into our encyclopedia that George Soros is a "multimillionaire Jew" responsible for the 2008 financial crisis (as it reported [12])? Chetsford ( talk) 20:29, 23 March 2024 (UTC)

Ought in this sense refers to “not substantiated by policy”

Regarding the coverage, it was retracted and the employee put on administrative leave. While I would prefer us removing any network that violates a modern definition of antisemitism from the RS list, that is simply not covered by policy, and I am not permitted to insert my personal view on what makes or breaks an RS. FortunateSons ( talk) 20:35, 23 March 2024 (UTC)

"I am not permitted to insert my personal view on what makes or breaks an RS" But isn't that what you're doing? Presented with a dozen different sources - many of which are in-depth, academic content analyses - affirming USAGM is unreliable, you have !voted based on merely conclusory statements without presenting any counter-evidence from any RS affirming their reliability? Chetsford ( talk) 20:38, 23 March 2024 (UTC)

I have voted in my reading of the sources (those whose language I understand) and my interpretation of policy. I am not allowed to make new policy just because I don’t like the conduct of a source. FortunateSons ( talk) 20:44, 23 March 2024 (UTC)

"I am not allowed to make new policy" Aren't you doing that, though? Our WP:IIS unambiguously precludes using a source that has a vested interest in a given topic and USAGM is simply an operating unit of the USG, funded by it and with less independence than even the Securities and Exchange Commission (which at least has a separating board). Instead of indicating even a tempered view of "additional considerations apply" you've given it the maximalist "generally reliable" with no caveat or limitation even for reporting on the USG itself. While I could disagree - but at least understand your position - if you presented counter-information or sources that contextualized what was presented, you haven't done that. It appears you're creating a policy carveout for the USAGM? Chetsford ( talk) 20:54, 23 March 2024 (UTC)

I am evenly applying the same policy that lead to the results at Wikipedia:RADIOFREEASIA, which means that bias is an issue (as written in my vote), but there is no general lack of reliability to justify depreciation. Government funding (no matter the method of oversight) has not yet been considered a justification for depreciation in democratic countries to the best of my knowledge. Particularly RFA is clearly broadly cited, and as you have argued that they belong together, so you should then accept the RFA RfC to apply to all. While issues of bias (and style) are apparent, a broad lack of reliability is not. Therefore, I maintain my vote. FortunateSons ( talk) 21:11, 23 March 2024 (UTC)

Here is Wikipedia:USEBYOTHERS for RFE too: Business Insider, JPost, Forbes, The Hill, Time, France24, BBC (from 2013), BBC and many more FortunateSons ( talk) 21:28, 23 March 2024 (UTC)

Further to usage by other sources, WP:GREL sources like The Atlantic and The Economist not only use RFA's reporting but have also praised it. Examples: 1, 2, 3. Amigao ( talk) 21:58, 23 March 2024 (UTC)

Citation 73 primarily discusses issues of (actual and perceived) bias, and (page 27) the bar is less than 15 percent of stories having less than 2 (not necessarily 0, according to the endnote) sources, something negative but not necessarily catastrophic.

For linguistic reasons, I am unable to read 72. FortunateSons ( talk) 20:32, 23 March 2024 (UTC)

I most wholeheartedly disagree with the veracity of your summary. Chetsford ( talk) 20:35, 23 March 2024 (UTC)

I appreciate your candor. FortunateSons ( talk) 20:37, 23 March 2024 (UTC)

• Alaexis, in your !vote you said " no evidence of their unreliability has been provided". I just wanted to make sure you had a chance to see the evidence of unreliability I provided, above, namely: that RS described it having a "poor standard of journalism," that it lied for 40 years about the identity of its editor-in-chief, that RS says it broadcasts "propaganda," that RS described it as "riddled with bad journalism," that RS notes it relies on "unsubstantiated information," that RS state it relies on "rumors," etc.? Chetsford ( talk) 23:26, 25 March 2024 (UTC)

  I've looked at them again. It seems like a lot of criticism is levelled against Martí, so that doesn't automatically mean that all other outlets are equally bad. Also, even your report acknowledges that Por otro lado, a favor de Martí, el panel detectó pocos errores de hecho, which is the impression I get from other sources you've provided. There is definitely bias and selective reporting but no examples of uncorrected falsehoods. I'm open to considering Option 3 just for Martí. Alaexis _¿question? 08:34, 26 March 2024 (UTC)

I opened a discussion to cover a recent conversation at AfD. The gist is basically "can/should notability (ie, coverage) of individual books establish notability for the main series". (IE, the books are all released as part of a main series and are not meant to be seen as independent standalone works ala how Breaking Dawn is part of Twilight and not a standalone book.)

I'm not asking anyone to weigh in at the relevant AfD, but I would like some eyes at the NBOOK discussion for this. This relates to reliable sources because it becomes kind of a sourcing issue, so I wanted to bring it up here - if anyone has any input, please discuss it further here. ReaderofthePack(formerly Tokyogirl79) (｡◕‿◕｡) 21:01, 27 March 2024 (UTC)

Any thoughts on radioworld as a RS? We've got the better part of 100 articles that cite it now, but my immediate reason for caring is that I cite it twice in Arthur O. Austin, which I'm getting in shape for WP:FAC. On the one hand, it feels a bit like a blog. On the other hand, it does have what appears to be a real editorial staff and the Editor in Chief does appear to be an subject matter expert. I'm thinking they're OK to use for non-controversial technical information in the area of broadcast radio, but I'd like to hear what other folks think. RoySmith (talk) 22:19, 23 March 2024 (UTC)

Hi @ RoySmith,

I've just had a look at the website. I definitely understand your argument but I don't think having real editorial staff makes much difference. I'm not saying the information in the articles (Under the "Columns and Views" tab) is inaccurate, but there are no citations to verify any of the content, which is Wikipedia's key criteria for sources, verifiability. I think it would be suitable to use in conjunction with other sources if you're willing to identify them?

As for using the source for non-controversial information, perhaps someone else can chime in here, but I don't think we want to set a precedent for changing the criteria for acceptable sources based on where they'll be used - IE, we should hold all sources to the same standard; neutral, secondary etc..

Just my thoughts..

Starlights99 ( talk) 14:31, 26 March 2024 (UTC)

The article in particular I was using is https://www.radioworld.com/columns-and-views/arthur-o-austins-continuing-legacy, which does cite sources for some things. But, thank you for the input. I'll see if I can find the original articles and cite them directly. RoySmith (talk) 14:45, 26 March 2024 (UTC)

Hi @ RoySmith

I just had a look at the link you sent. I think this should be fine. The way I would do it is pull the key information from article and find the relevant sources (at the bottom of the article) to reference from. I guess it's a case of skipping the blog, and going straight to the information and sources the blog has compiled together.

Starlights99 ( talk) 10:57, 28 March 2024 (UTC)

• (old url) educationengland.org.uk: Linksearch en - meta - de - fr - simple - wikt:en - wikt:fr • MER-C Cross-wiki • Reports: Links on en - COIBot - COIBot-Local • Discussions: tracked - advanced • COIBot-Local - COIBot-XWiki - Wikipedia: en - fr - de • Google: search • meta • Domain: domaintools • AboutUs.org • Live link: http://www.educationengland.org.uk
• education-uk.org: Linksearch en - meta - de - fr - simple - wikt:en - wikt:fr • MER-C Cross-wiki • Reports: Links on en - COIBot - COIBot-Local • Discussions: tracked - advanced • COIBot-Local - COIBot-XWiki - Wikipedia: en - fr - de • Google: search • meta • Domain: domaintools • AboutUs.org • Live link: http://www.education-uk.org

The site is created and run by a single individual with no evidence of satisfying WP:RS. Despite this, it is currently being used in over 190 articles in the main namespace. Therefore, I would like to reach a consensus on whether it is considered reliable before proceeding to remove all links. Thank you. GSS  ^💬 07:21, 22 March 2024 (UTC)

Looks like WP:QUESTIONABLE because, by his own admission, the articles and comments on the website are all primary, written and published by the site owner. There appears to be no editorial oversight or independent fact-checking. Geoff | ^{Who, me?} 16:11, 23 March 2024 (UTC)

@ Glane23: Yeah, that's what I tried to look for but couldn't find. It seems like the founder is the only person writing articles, and there is no fact-checking machinery in place. So, I guess it's fair enough to remove the links for not meeting the requirements set at WP:RS. GSS  ^💬 18:15, 23 March 2024 (UTC)

While I agree that this is not a generally reliable source, it also hosts several official documents that are not available anywhere else on the internet (or are at least behind paywall), for example:

• https://education-uk.org/documents/fleming/fleming.html
• https://education-uk.org/documents/robbins/robbins1963.html
• https://education-uk.org/documents/clarendon1864/clarendon1.html

These are often cited [13] on Wikipedia and I think removing these would not be an improvement, unless there is an issue with the authenticity of the hosted documents. I did not find any indicition of such a problem, though.

So overall I would support removing citations not to an official document hosted on the website while keeping the other ones. When the document is also available somewhere else, I would replace the citation's link, like this: [14]. Bendegúz Ács ( talk) 13:37, 24 March 2024 (UTC)

@ Bendegúz Ács: Thank you for highlighting this. I agree with you on this point. What if we use archived links through the Wayback Machine instead of linking directly to the website? This would ensure that the content remains accessible, especially considering that the owner is planning to cease redirection of educationengland.org.uk in February next year. And for future uses, if any links from this site contain official documents that aren't available elsewhere or are behind a paywall, they should be cited through the Wayback Machine. GSS  ^💬 16:19, 24 March 2024 (UTC)

I agree, archiving these documents and using the archived version would definitely be an improvement. Bendegúz Ács ( talk) 16:28, 24 March 2024 (UTC)

The link to the document path is cited in around 148 articles at the moment, so I will try to archive them. GSS  ^💬 17:32, 24 March 2024 (UTC)

If you need bot help you can post a request to WP:URLREQ. -- Green C 17:35, 24 March 2024 (UTC)

Thank you GreenC, I was already working on that and have filled a request. GSS  ^💬 18:05, 24 March 2024 (UTC)

@ Glane23 and Bendegúz Ács: The links under the "document" parameter have been archived per request at WP:URLREQ. Please add your comment if the remaining sources can be removed as unreliable, except for those under the "document" parameter. I will wait for a consensus before starting the removal. Thank you. GSS  ^💬 04:51, 25 March 2024 (UTC)

I'm good with removing the unreliable sources per the above, especially now that the "document" links have been archived. Geoff | ^{Who, me?} 12:57, 25 March 2024 (UTC)

I can still see some unarchived references, for example:

• Latymer_Upper_School#cite_note-Fleming_Report_1944-14
• Counties_of_England#cite_note-34

I don't know how they were missing by the archival bot, but I just found them by searching in the article sources: [15]

Bendegúz Ács ( talk) 17:31, 26 March 2024 (UTC)

It's because they are using education-uk.org domain and not educationengland.org.uk -- looks like 5 pages. Maybe someone can manually add archives. -- Green C 17:37, 26 March 2024 (UTC)

I have archived them now, feel free to remove the remaining, non-document citations. Bendegúz Ács ( talk) 18:47, 26 March 2024 (UTC)

My bot has a feature to "nuke" citations ie. completely remove the entire cite, including ref tags. There is also an option to replace with "citation needed", if there are no other cites next to it. If you want, post a request to WP:URLREQ with a section name "education-uk.org" (so the bot can link to that section in edit summaries). -- Green C 19:10, 26 March 2024 (UTC)

We don't usually prefer an archived copy over a working website. This is what we call a Wikipedia:Convenience link – you're really citing "the official government report", and the only legit copy we can find is on someone's website. So, rather than having a citation to the reliable source/government report with no link (which is an acceptable option), we would have a citation to the reliable source with a link that is "convenient" for the reader. A convenience link does not have to be pointed at a website that is otherwise reliable; it only has to work and not be a copyvio. WhatamIdoing ( talk) 03:41, 27 March 2024 (UTC)

This is true in other cases as well, the most common one appears to be ancestry.com. An unreliable source that also hosts many primary documents that may be reliable. The source in question appears to be self published and the author (Derek Gillard) appears to have some small use by others but no other publications that I can find, so it probably isn't a reliable source in the WP:SPS fashion. This though is seperate from any primary documents that the site is hosting. -- LCU ActivelyDisinterested « @» ° ∆t° 16:22, 28 March 2024 (UTC)

Anyone know about the reliability of this website?

Specifically, I'm looking into this for this commemorative stamp.

- IOHANNVSVERVS ( talk) 17:58, 25 March 2024 (UTC)

What page do you want to use this site for? Slatersteven ( talk) 18:03, 25 March 2024 (UTC)

Deir Yassin massacre#International. IOHANNVSVERVS ( talk) 18:07, 25 March 2024 (UTC)

Not really, its a stamp site (and see below, whats its reputation?). Slatersteven ( talk) 18:11, 25 March 2024 (UTC)

The "Improve our Catalog" button suggests it's like IMDB, it might be classifiable as that sort of source, see WP:IMDB. -- Green C 18:03, 25 March 2024 (UTC)

I wouldn't have thought so, Wikipedia's own articles describes it as a wiki and the specific page allows you to login and to 'improve the catalog'. This certainly suggest it's WP:UGC, and given the topic area I would find a better source. -- LCU ActivelyDisinterested « @» ° ∆t° 16:50, 28 March 2024 (UTC)

Is this [16] a reliable source for citing medieval history of India? Imperial ^[AFCND] 15:10, 27 March 2024 (UTC)

As it's magazine it would be helpful to know what particular peice you want to use and who the author of the particular piece is. -- LCU ActivelyDisinterested « @» ° ∆t° 17:03, 28 March 2024 (UTC)

Hello @ ActivelyDisinterested. Unfortunately, I lost the copy of the magazine. I was about to use it for the Deccan Wars. Dropped the plan anyways. Sorry if I wasted your time. Imperial ^[AFCND] 17:08, 28 March 2024 (UTC)

Who?

William Spaniel is a professor who also posts videos about armed conflicts and their political and social implications on YouTube.

Why use those instead of a published source by him?

Provides better coverage of specific issues that don’t necessarily have academic coverage, and is also a decent compromise between reliable but non-academic news sources and waiting months or years for proper academic coverage.

Why this noticeboard?

Because use for geopolitical conflicts, particularly Russia/Ukraine and the Middle East, are naturally highly contentious and a discussion here may pre-empt smaller and less productive discussions later.

Specific question:

Are videos by William Spaniel useable as a SPS by a subject-matter-expert in matters of war and politics, particularly current armed conflicts? FortunateSons ( talk) 13:55, 26 March 2024 (UTC)

IMO Spaniel is fine as a source as long as he's attributed, and is used appropriately i.e. whatever he is cited for comes from the perspective of a game theory professor. Spaniel frequently makes it clear that his videos are not to be used to e.g. assess the validity of intelligence reports. Cortador ( talk) 14:35, 26 March 2024 (UTC)

Thank you. Just “William Spaniel, a professor of political science at the University of Pittsburgh”, or a more specific attribution? FortunateSons ( talk) 14:42, 26 March 2024 (UTC)

@ FortunateSons That attribution sounds good to me. Cortador ( talk) 15:00, 26 March 2024 (UTC)

Thank you! FortunateSons ( talk) 15:01, 26 March 2024 (UTC)

• The channel, because I didn't see a link to it yet.-- Licks-rocks ( talk) 15:04, 26 March 2024 (UTC)

  I missed that, thanks FortunateSons ( talk) 15:23, 26 March 2024 (UTC)

  Do you have any additional thoughts on the usability of the source? FortunateSons ( talk) 18:56, 27 March 2024 (UTC)

He's been published by multiple independent reliable sources in the area of political science, conflict and game theory, which certainly meets the points laid out in WP:SPS. -- LCU ActivelyDisinterested « @» ° ∆t° 16:55, 28 March 2024 (UTC)

Great, thank you! FortunateSons ( talk) 18:00, 28 March 2024 (UTC)

The Athletic ( theathletic.com    ) is a sports website that has been cited nearly 6,000 times on Wikipedia, but I have yet to see it in the perennial sources list. Opening this discussion to seek consensus on the reliability of The Athletic; I hold that it is generally reliable, but consideration should be made for opinion pieces, which is why I have taken this source to RSN.

A note that The Athletic, though it is owned by The New York Times Company and replaced The New York Times's sports department last year, is not held to the same editorial standards as the Times. The Athletic's editorial guidelines can be found here. elijahpepe@wikipedia (he/him) 17:54, 12 March 2024 (UTC)

RFC: The Athletic

Are the platforms of the Office of Cuba Broadcasting of the United States Federal Government's U.S. Agency for Global Media (including Radio y Television Marti, RyTM's website Martínoticias.com, and any publicly undisclosed entities):

• Option 1: Generally reliable
• Option 2: Additional considerations
• Option 3: Generally unreliable
• Option 4: Deprecate

Note: A previous RfC dealt with the U.S. Agency for Global Media (AGM) of which Radio y Television Marti is one of its DBA names. Half of the participating editors, as of this date stamp and excluding nom, have requested individual DBA names of USAGM be addressed as separate RfCs and indicated their belief that the original RfC is malformed by not doing so. Chetsford ( talk) 00:37, 26 March 2024 (UTC)

Survey (Office of Cuba Broadcasting)

• 4 While it's possible to find individual instances of WP:USEBYOTHERS, implicit in that is the idea that refusal of use by others (when stated) acts as a rejoinder. Moreover, common sense would dictate that robust content analysis on an outlet's unreliability or propensity to publish falsehoods should be given more weight in source evaluation than a drive-by "according to X" mention in a different RS. In this case:

• A 1992 report by the GAO found that OCB's inhouse "critic and his predecessor have repeatedly expressed concern about editorializing" while two outside consultants found its "programs lacked balance and did not comply with standards". [22]
• A decade later, nothing had improved. That year, the GAO found that, from 2004-2007, Radio y Television Marti had a "perpetually poor standard of journalism", editorialized "the presentation of individual views as news", incorporated "offensive and incendiary language" in its reporting, and reported on "unsubstantiated" rumors. [23]
• In a 2006 headline, the New York Times described RyTM as "U.S. propaganda". [24]
• In 2018, Mother Jones chronicled the aggressive and questionable tone of Radio y Television Marti's reporting, including its news reports that deounced George Soros is a "multimillionaire Jew" and the "architect of the financial collapse of 2008". [25]
• In 2019, journalism professors at USC and journalists from Telemundo concluded Radio y Television Marti was "riddled with bad journalism" and "propaganda". [26]
• A 2019 article in Tufts Universitys Fletcher Forum of World Affairs classified RyTM as part of a medley of U.S. Government "influence operations". [27]
• As recently as 2021, USAGM's own staff -- including staff from RyTM -- stated that management meddled with editorial independence by taking "actions that did not align with USAGM’s firewall principles". [28]

Chetsford ( talk) 00:37, 26 March 2024 (UTC)

• 2 or 3 Don’t see any need to deprecate, but also not sure where this source would be used for given it’s a US outlet aimed at Cuba staffed by Cuban exiles. Clearly biased, if used, should be used with caution. Toa Nidhiki05 05:54, 26 March 2024 (UTC)
• 2 both pre and post 2017 There are some (concerning, but not catastrophic) issues and clear bias, but relatively insignificant issues with quality and clear bias does not make a source unreliable per se. Therefore caution should be applied, particularly when using it for controversial issues. FortunateSons ( talk) 12:53, 26 March 2024 (UTC)
• 4. It's a propaganda outlet broadcasting anti-Semitic conspiracy theories, among other things. Cortador ( talk) 14:32, 26 March 2024 (UTC)
• 4 per the sources presented by Chetsford. While biased sources can sometimes be used, sources that publish false or misleading information cannot; and sources that have a systematic bias that pushes them to intentionally publish false things are one of the cases that deprecation exists for. Bad journalism alone would just be unreliability, but systematic bad journalism in the service of a particular perspective is not something we ought to use as a source anywhere, because it is clear that the problems are not simple incompetence but the result deliberate intent. The OCB has done things like creating fake social media accounts to spread propaganda, or pay journalists under the table to press a particular point of view. We wouldn't accept a source like this from any other government; when a source is outright being used as an example of government-run propaganda in most academic studies discussing it, we're past the point where there's anything salvageable to it. -- Aquillion ( talk) 16:28, 26 March 2024 (UTC)
• 4 per Aquillion and Chetsford. Anything notable enough to include in an article would have much better sources. NightHeron ( talk) 16:56, 26 March 2024 (UTC)
• 4 This is a source explicitly designed to deceive and disseminate propaganda. Simonm223 ( talk) 17:20, 26 March 2024 (UTC)
• 3 per u:Chetsford's arguments. Alaexis _¿question? 19:43, 26 March 2024 (UTC)
• 4 An explicit state-sponsored propaganda outfit with no desire or ability to check facts. Boynamedsue ( talk) 06:21, 27 March 2024 (UTC)
• 4 The difference between 3 and 4 for me is whether a source is merely failing to verify facts, or if it's outright attempting to deceive. Many sources have no fact-checking process, but because they're not attempting to deceive they can at least be counted on for very basic things like what their own opinions are or certain kinds of direct quotes. Propaganda outlets like the OCB don't even meet that bar: since they're trying to lie to the reader, the appropriate thing to do when they say something is to think it's less likely to be true than it was before. Loki ( talk) 22:40, 28 March 2024 (UTC)

Discussion (Office of Cuba Broadcasting)

What sites are covered by this RfC? Template:Link summary might be useful here to understand the extent of usage on Wikipedia. - Amigao ( talk) 21:46, 27 March 2024 (UTC)

This RfC covers the Office of Cuba Broadcasting (OCB) and any platforms it operates.
As of the date-stamp, OCB is known to operate two platforms: Radio y Television Marti (broadcast) and martinoticias.com (online). There is functionally no difference between RyTM and martinoticias.com (i.e. CNN and cnn.com; Fox News and foxnews.com, etc.).
Because this RfC covers OCB and any platforms it operates, it would also include platforms the existence of which is not today publicly known. In other words, if — next year — it was discovered OCB was covertly publishing a bimonthly magazine called ¡Ahora o Nunca!, that magazine would be covered by the RfC unless it were disentangled through a separate RfC. (The construction of the RfC in this way is necessary due to other USAGM brands having been previously discovered disseminating lies about the identity of their controlling mind, relationship to one another, or even the very fact of their existence. See, for example: [29]).) Chetsford ( talk) 22:35, 27 March 2024 (UTC)

• martinoticias.com: Linksearch en (insource) - meta - de - fr - simple - wikt:en - wikt:fr • MER-C X-wiki • gs • Reports: Links on en - COIBot - COIBot-Local • Discussions: tracked - advanced - RSN • COIBot- Link, Local, & XWiki Reports - Wikipedia: en - fr - de • Google: search • meta • Domain: domaintools • AboutUs.com

So around 56 links in the mainspace as of the time stamp. - Amigao ( talk) 13:50, 28 March 2024 (UTC)

While RS evaluation doesn't necessarily preclude OR, I'll try to avoid it as it's not necessary in this case due to the vast array of evidence that already exists, however, I do note instances of martinoticias.com being used to source articles on baseball players stating that they "defected from" Cuba while all other RS (that aren't, themselves, sourcing martinoticias.com) are using a much more moderate "immigrated from" instead. This seems to validate what the sources suggest is RyTM's editorial objective of reporting whatever wild and unrestrained assertions it feels useful to undermining the vanguard role of the PCC, even if those assertions are completely untethered from reality. Chetsford ( talk) 18:09, 28 March 2024 (UTC)

Is this acclaim by Jan Needle an expert SPS? FortunateSons ( talk) 21:04, 28 March 2024 (UTC)

What is the use of this going to be? Jan Needle was a fiction author, and the text likely comes via the publishing house. -- LCU ActivelyDisinterested « @» ° ∆t° 22:19, 28 March 2024 (UTC)

I’m trying my hand at a first article about the author, I’m looking to source the family background without going directly for SPS by the subject. I’m sure I could cite her book, but I would rather try not to. FortunateSons ( talk) 22:33, 28 March 2024 (UTC)

Primary ABOUTSELF statements are allowed, and are better than the write up on an Amazon page. -- LCU ActivelyDisinterested « @» ° ∆t° 22:42, 28 March 2024 (UTC)

Ok, thank you FortunateSons ( talk) 22:44, 28 March 2024 (UTC)

While there has been prior discussions regarding Arcadia Publishing, no definitive conclusion has been reached, and the publisher is not listed on Wikipedia's Reliable Sources page WP:RSPSOURCES. Thus, advocating for the inclusion of sources from Arcadia Publishing, I propose adding Arcadia Publishing to the reference list and citing Monica Hudson's book Images of America, Carmel-By-The-Sea, as an example of a reliable source, based on Hudson's research with 60 families as the foundation for her book. Arcadia Publishing should be listed as Generally reliable in its areas of expertise WP:GREL.

Monica Hudson's book Images of America, Carmel-By-The-Sea by Monica Hudson, ^[1] with a reference to Author Monica Hudson walks Carmel”s storied path. The article by Lisa Crawford Watson describe Hudson's character: “I”ve known Monica for many years through our shared interest in local history,” said Jeanne McCombs, Special Services coordinator for the Monterey Library, who, with Dennis Copeland, co-authored “Monterey Album; Life by the Bay,” also published by Arcadia Publishing. “Monica is knowledgeable and professional, and her presentations are fact-filled and fun. I was so pleased she agreed to be a part of the Heritage Society”s Lecture Series. These lectures foster an appreciation for all aspects of local history, which deepens our understanding of who and what we are as a community today.”

The New York Times said on July 23, 2019, "The goal of Arcadis books is to reconnect people to their past through "hometwon history." In addition, Arcadia, noted for its unique approach to publishing local titles, acquired Pelican Publishing, Wildsam and River Road Press. Greg Henderson ( talk) 16:55, 27 March 2024 (UTC)

This publisher was previously discussed here in 2020 at WP:Reliable sources/Noticeboard/Archive 321#Reliability of Arcadia publishing and last month at WP:Reliable sources/Noticeboard/Archive 426#Arcadia Publishing. From a search of the RSN archives, there also appears to be other passing remarks such as the quality of books published through Arcadia is essentially the same as if they were self-published and Arcadia Publishing, which has apparently been scrutinized for quality concerns in the past. Pinging @ Graywalls and Netherzone: who have been extensively involved in some of these sourcing discussions both here and on local talk pages. Left guide ( talk) 17:58, 27 March 2024 (UTC)

I think describing Arcadia as essentially the same as if they were self-published is a bit too broad and can't necessarily be applied to all Arcadia books. A review for the academic journal Ohio Valley History described Arcadia in the following terms: some of the books are somewhat superficial and deserving of the denigrating term "coffee table" volumes. On the other hand, many of Arcadia's authors are well-respected professionals with a lifelong interest in their communities. As co-editor of the Encyclopedia of Northern Kentucky (forthcoming from University Press of Kentucky), I have proudly worked with nearly all of the authors reviewed in this essay, many of whom have contributed entries to the encyclopedia. They include librarians, historians, a professor, two historic preservationists, two planners, a medical doctor, a nurse, and a journalist/publisher. (Paul A. Tenskotte, " The Blossoming of Regional History and the Role of Arcadia Publishing", Ohio Valley History 7, no. 2 [Summer 2007]: 85–91, here 85. I cited this same passage in the linked thread from last month.

Rather than dismiss Arcadia wholesale, my sense is to assess their books and series with available evidence. Are there reviews of the books that tell us what to think of the quality? Do the authors have credentials or past publications that prompt confidence? But in saying this, I feel like I'm just saying what was already said last month, and I'm not really sure what Greg Henderson thinks will be accomplished by starting this thread so soon after the last. Arcadia's a mixed bag, and there are users who really distrust it and other users who think it should be assessed on a case by case basis. If this is ultimately about disagreements on what to include in articles, I'm not sure how talking about the publisher on this noticeboard is going to resolve those article talk page conversations. Hydrangeans (she/her) ( talk | edits) 19:15, 27 March 2024 (UTC)

It’s déjà vu all over again! Why are we discussing this again? Arcadia is not a high quality source, it's essentially the same as a self-published book, and hyper-local coverage. I think Arcadia is fine for finding historical photographs that are out-of-copyright for use in articles, but do not think they are a reliable source for Wikipedia content.

• 2009 discussion: the quality of books published through Arcadia is essentially the same as if they were self-published.
• 2017 discussion: Some of their stuff is excellent; some complete crap.
• 2020 discussion: use with caution, and probably avoid.
• February 2024 discussion is linked above in Left guide's Hydrageans' comment.
• There are other discussions as well on individual article talk pages.

Re: the NYT, it also says: written by geeky enthusiasts whose qualifications tend to arise largely from their residence in the places in question." and "each title follows a similar formula: an introduction consisting of a casserole of minutiae rather than any overarching argument, followed by an unexpectedly moving series of photo-packed chapters that feature quotidian people engaging in all the banal activities that compose a life." and ""The Arcadia vibe is more grandmother’s attic than Smithsonian Institution, more library lecture than college class."

Shouldn’t we be striving for reliable sources that are from top tier publishers, peer-reviewed academic presses and journals, or notable newspapers? Netherzone ( talk) 22:40, 27 March 2024 (UTC)

For clarity, Left guide linked the February 2024 discussion; I just replied in thread under Left guide's comment.

While Netherzone and I may disagree about about how to approach characterizing Arcadia books, I think we both agree that this thread, started so soon after the last one, isn't likely to generate any new consensus about the publisher, and not one that deems the whole imprint GREL. Hydrangeans (she/her) ( talk | edits) 20:36, 27 March 2024 (UTC)

• Oppose - the proposal that "Arcadia Publishing should be listed as Generally reliable in its areas of expertise WP:GREL." It sounds like the OP wants that stated on RSP, if so, I strongly oppose. Netherzone ( talk) 17:27, 28 March 2024 (UTC)
• Oppose the proposal that Arcadia Publishing should be listed as Generally reliable in its areas of expertise WP:GREL at the WP:RSP reference list, as there is clearly no consensus for this viewpoint. Netherzone's historical analysis of past discussions on this noticeboard sums it up perfectly. Left guide ( talk) 23:19, 28 March 2024 (UTC)

We've been relying heavily on ProPakistan,pk a Pakistani news platform, for various articles, including many BLPs. However, it's crucial to note that ProPakistan.pk isn't a conventional news outlet but rather a PR startup. Their content often comprises paid articles and press releases which implies a potential bias. Therefore, their reporting may not always be impartial or reliable. How should we address the use of ProPakistan in WP articles, particularly BLPs? Saqib ( talk · contribs) 20:10, 21 March 2024 (UTC)

I have combed through their website and performed an extensive Google search, I did not find an evidence of them being a PR firm or their content being paid articles. If there is an evidence to the contrary then it should be provided here. As it comes to bias, a source does not have to be neutral to be reliable. They do not seem to be a self published website as their about page shows a rather large editorial staff. Sheriff | ☎ 911 | 12:35, 22 March 2024 (UTC)

@ SheriffIsInTown: Their "about'" page mentions board members of ProPakistani, and consists mostly of individuals heading different categories in the organisation. The CEO of ProPakistani also owns Eikon7, an advertising and digital marketing agency and this also raises questions about ProPakistani impartiality. A closer look at their writing style reveals sensational, puffery and sometimes milsleading articles, such as dubbing Dr. Asim Hussain as the richest man on earth or misrepresenting Waqar Zaka as a cryptocurrency expert. These instances, along with occasional engagement in fake news [30] [31] [32] and promotional content like [33] [34], highlight the need for careful consideration before declaring ProPakistani as a RS, especially on BLPs. Just a friendly note, I hope you're not hounding me as you're not regular here. -- Saqib ( talk · contribs) 14:44, 22 March 2024 (UTC)

We would not know with certainty whether those are instances of fake news or promotional content unless we have something to the contrary in other reliable sources. As for your allegation of hounding, I am really not sure why do you always jump to bad faith conclusions, you could have assumed good faith by thinking that I might have added WP:RSN to my watchlist given we had lengthy discussion about another source recently. Just so you know I have over 3,000 pages in my watchlist, many of them I never edited before and with over 45,000 edits you cannot accuse me of hounding if I show up anywhere on WP at this time, just look at your contributions to find out how many different pages you contributed in last 24 hours and then see on how many of them I showed up to hound you, additionally this was not the forum to accuse me of hounding as it will drive away the focus from the actual matter for which we came here for but since you accused me, I had a right to reply. Sheriff | ☎ 911 | 16:05, 22 March 2024 (UTC)

Both pieces of news were debunked here and here. You could have done a simple Google search to verify this. And I've actually discovered several more instances of fake news published by ProPakistan. I will provide them later. -- Saqib ( talk · contribs) 17:06, 22 March 2024 (UTC)

Please remember WP:ONUS when you demand others to perform searches for you, both of the pieces by ProPakistani talk about Iran "warning" Pakistan and Iran "threatening" Pakistan. Warning and threatening to impose fine is not akin to actually slapping the fine. The second link you provided is a twitter link, how can something from twitter debunk anything? Sheriff | ☎ 911 | 18:07, 22 March 2024 (UTC)

Our sources should have a reputation for reliability. Is there any evidence this source is cited by experts?-- Andrew Lancaster ( talk) 08:08, 24 March 2024 (UTC)

Indeed, since this is a tech-focused news website, its stories are often cited by other RS. However, it's worth noting that many RS also cite the Daily Mail. --— Saqib ( talk | contribs) 08:31, 24 March 2024 (UTC)

In regard to BLPs I would urge some caution in the same vein as WP:NEWSORGINDIA. Anything article that sounds overly grandiose about the subject of the article should be handled with care. No comment about it's use in other areas. -- LCU ActivelyDisinterested « @» ° ∆t° 16:09, 28 March 2024 (UTC)

@ ActivelyDisinterested: Exactly, that's exactly what I intended to convey. There are several Pakistani news websites, including ProPakistani, which operate as sham news-style websites. Like paid reporting in Indian news organizations, they too frequently publish sponsored content and PR -based articles, often without adequate disclosure. I'm curious if the section can be amended to include mention of Pakistan as well? --— Saqib ( talk | contribs) 09:02, 29 March 2024 (UTC)

I'm not sure it's needed, although the section could proy do with some generalisation rather than more specifics. Nigerian media operates in a very similar way, with otherwise reliable sources including undisclosed advertorials, and I would be surprised if we see more of it in other countries. So maybe the section should be made about the general issue, rather than specific countries. -- LCU ActivelyDisinterested « @» ° ∆t° 11:25, 29 March 2024 (UTC)

@ ActivelyDisinterested: When it comes to BLPs, If the article isn't overly grandiose in its treatment of the subject, is it acceptable to include it? Furthermore, if it is too grandiose, can we include the content with attribution? Also, what is the source of your caution, did you find evidence of paid reporting? Sheriff | ☎ 911 | 10:20, 29 March 2024 (UTC)

If the article isn't overly grandiose in its treatment of the subject, is it acceptable to include it? Yes I would think so.
Furthermore, if it is too grandiose, can we include the content with attribution? I would use caution, sometimes it might be warranted and other times avoided.
I found no direct evidence of undisclosed advertorials, but that's kind of the point. A few articles seem somewhat otherly enthusiastic for the subject, but there are articles marked as sponsored content (for instance [35]) which is definitely mark in their favour.
Ultimately editors are expected to use their own good judgement when evaluating sources. If it sounds to good, then maybe leave it out. -- LCU ActivelyDisinterested « @» ° ∆t° 11:37, 29 March 2024 (UTC)

LiveJasmin has an RfC for possible consensus. A discussion is taking place. If you would like to participate in the discussion, you are invited to add your comments on the discussion page. Thank you. Alexfotios ( talk) 13:33, 30 March 2024 (UTC)

I’m looking to cite this article for a minor claim regarding a non-living person, is it a reliable source for claims about her? FortunateSons ( talk) 14:05, 30 March 2024 (UTC)

I am given immediate pause because 1) the article has no byline; 2) the About/FAQ page has Who owns and runs the Canary? See our full team here, but that link is malformed. When the link is fixed to what appears to be the real "team" page, there are again no names listed, although you have a chance to contact "individual journalists".

Oh, wait, I now see that a previous RfC on The Canary found it "Generally unreliable for factual reporting", so probably best avoided. -- Nat Gertler ( talk) 15:24, 30 March 2024 (UTC)

Oh yeah, that looks bad. Thank you FortunateSons ( talk) 15:37, 30 March 2024 (UTC)

Since I mentioned it in passing in a previous section, I thought I would bring it up in its own section!

The Heated substack is well regarded by publications like the New York Times, the Washington Post, Vox, the Guardian, MSNBC, and the New Yorker. It does a ton of amazing reporting, such as this article about plastic production in Texas. (Obviously I am a fan and a subscriber, but to be clear I have no other affiliation with this newsletter, nor by the way do I have one with Hell Gate which is what my previous comment was about.)

However. . .it has only two staff, and obviously, it is affiliated with Substack. Is this a reliable source or not? Computer-ergonomics (he/him; talk; please ping me in replies ) 01:53, 31 March 2024 (UTC)

You should give links to those well regarded pieces of coverage from the newspapers in question. That's the best way to show the point, not an article from Heated. Because how good their reporting is is, arguably, unimportant for reliability concerns. How well regarded they are from already known reliabile sources is more important. Silver seren ^C 02:09, 31 March 2024 (UTC)

I came across this website [36], its presentation and UI makes me question its reliability on first glance but upon further inspection it seems to have very comprehensive and detailed information which could be extremely useful for articles such as Metasequoia, Metasequoia glyptostroboides, Hu Xiansu, etc if it is considered reliable. Can someone take a look to see if it is reliable or not for sourcing? Thanks. Zinderboff( talk) 18:36, 30 March 2024 (UTC)

Oh no that looks like a prime dedicated nerd website (and I say that most lovingly). Sadly counts as self-published, so you can't really cite it, but the websites lists many published resources which can be cited, or which themselves have sources that can be accessed and cited, so you can get around citing the website for the most part by citing the sources the website cites, just like how you would go about citing "from wikipedia" in an essay for school: don't cite wikipedia, cite wikipedia's source! -- Licks-rocks ( talk) 23:37, 30 March 2024 (UTC)

Oh ok, thanks for the help, really appreciate it! Zinderboff( talk) 02:28, 31 March 2024 (UTC)

The author is listed at the bottom, with their CV. It's legit WP:EXPERTSPS for any of their original content. Anything they link to, check for the author affiliation yourself (in the "about" section or the bottom banner of a website), but the author seems to be linking to decent sites at a glance. Then of course there's all the books, if you can find them. SamuelRiv ( talk) 02:38, 31 March 2024 (UTC)

Thanks for the heads up! Zinderboff( talk) 02:52, 31 March 2024 (UTC)

Two things here -

1) Ran into the Within Our Lifetime page and decided to do some cleanup. When I added a source from the publication Hell Gate, it was challenged as an unreliable blog. . .except it isn't that. It's a worker-owned journalism cooperative, and they're doing some really great hyperlocal work in New York City (source: I am a resident). It's just newer than a publication like Gothamist. Now, I think the person who challenged me just didn't like that the article criticized NYPD, but a bigger question looms - does Hell Gate count as a reliable source? Further, what is the line between worker-owned journalism, professional journalism that happens to take place on a substack (I'm thinking of Heated as an example, which produces pretty stunning journalism), and something genuinely unreliable in a world where mass layoffs are shrinking legacy publications?

2) Is there a point in which you can just delete a source because there is simply no neutral reason that it was cited or wrote an article on that topic? Times of Israel, the Jerusalem Post, Haaretz and other Israeli news sources keep publishing technically citeable things about hyperlocal groups and issues in New York City. The things they will be saying will be blatantly demonizing random youth groups and run counter to all reliable local journalism. I'm not saying that Times of Israel, Haaretz, etc. are wholly bad publications, but it's just really bizarre, it's like if I wrote an article about Chicago but the only newspapers I used to cite it were French newspapers that hated deep dish pizza. Computer-ergonomics (he/him; talk; please ping me in replies ) 03:54, 30 March 2024 (UTC)

I don’t know enough about 1, but for 2:

No, if what an Israeli RS newspaper publishes is relevant content, it can and should generally be cited. They are RS like any other, it would be like generally not using a privately used newspaper to cover a communist country just because it may naturally be more hostile. Sources don’t have to be neutral, just reliable, and most major Israeli publications are.

If you are writing an article about a Chicago pizza place and it got a scathing (hypothetical) review from Le Monde, you should include that if any of the content is relevant, despite their potential bias. That being said, you definitely can add local coverage to ensure NPOV and DUEWEIGHT, just as you can here. Just be aware that weighing a Newspaper of Record against a local paper is difficult. FortunateSons ( talk) 10:54, 30 March 2024 (UTC)

Appreciate your thoughtful response. I definitely have conflicted feelings when, for example, several of these publications express opinions about certain New York City groups that are only echoed by the New York Post, which is judged by Wikipedia itself to be unreliable, even when it is occasionally correct. In this case, I have to wonder if my example should be more like, if generally reliable Russian newspapers started painting Ukranian anti-war groups in the city as evil Ukraine supremacists, and the only publications that agreed with them here were generally unreliable, like the Post. Computer-ergonomics (he/him; talk; please ping me in replies ) 01:42, 31 March 2024 (UTC)

That is definitely a complication, and I understand your concern. On a practical note, I would generally trust the more leftist newspapers over the local one (Haaretz and +972 where relevant), and be cautious and check for plausibility yourself with the right-leaning ones, and include or exclude based on the usual policies. Anecdotally (and in different locations, vague as not to doxx myself) I have found statements by Israeli RS to generally be accurate regarding which groups have problematic affiliations or beliefs and which don’t, but that could be my own bias as someone in the diaspora. FortunateSons ( talk) 08:33, 31 March 2024 (UTC)

1. No, Hell Gate is not a reliable source. It might become one, but currently it is not. Unlike most reliable media, there is very little editorial insight and responsibility to be accurate.

2. Yes, Haaretz and Times of Israel are reliable. We do not blanket-ban publications just because of the country (see racism). Jeppiz ( talk) 11:04, 30 March 2024 (UTC)

It is quite frankly a little humorous to accuse me of racism in this particular case when the very issue I am bringing to the table is regarding Islamophobia against certain hyperlocal groups protesting the Israel-Hamas war in New York City. I have no issue with Israeli news sources reporting on issues of interest to them, but I think it is worth asking why a publication in Israel might fixate on groups in New York City.

Being a source generally regarded as reliable does not mean its reporting is flawless - see the reporting in the Atlantic on transgender children that was immediately judged to be biased. Consider me I suppose of a critical consumer of journalism, I don't mind being painted with that brush. Computer-ergonomics (he/him; talk; please ping me in replies ) 01:34, 31 March 2024 (UTC)

1. I'm not familiar enough with Hell Gate to be sure of it specifically. What I'd say is that the newness of a periodical isn't strictly what's at issue for reliability; it's just that being newer it's more difficult for it to command a reputation so it's harder to demonstrate and persuade about its reliability. But there are sources about Hell Gate: perhaps those can provide more insight into its reliability. New York Times (alas, the subscription/paywall), Editor & Publisher.

I'd also add that being worker-owned doesn't seem like it should automatically be a problem either. W. W. Norton is worker-owned, but its books aren't "self-published".

2. Here, it's hard to express a general principle since whether a newspaper from one place is going to be reliable about reporting on another place depends. Jacobin could hypothetically do a report on some strike in Cork, Ireland, and it's not the geography that's at issue. The comment that we don't blanket-ban publications just because of the country is missing the point, I think—the problem here isn't whether the newspaper is from Israel but whether its coverage is due and matches the broader consensus that other journalism provides, and it's reasonable to compare to more local journalism that one would expect to be familiar with conditions on the ground (in this case, NYC journalism). All this to say that it's not like it's the case that you can never trim a source and its content from an article just because the source is a prominent national newspaper. If its coverage of the topic is at odds with other reliable source, that's a very reasonable reason to trim it. On the noticeboard right now there's a thread about certain newspapers in Israel, mostly about their coverage of Israel–Palestine and Israel–Hamas matters. And there's, to my mind, some persuasive discussion there about the Jerusalem Post and its predilection for sensationalism. Another thread, about the ADL, has given me a lot of pause about a source that's been listed as GREL at WP:RS for a while but I think could very reasonably been recategorized because of a seeming change in its coverage to have more inaccuracies than prior.

Short version: being worker-owned shouldn't be on its own a problem for reliability, and newness is only a problem if we aren't able to find coverage that tells us the source has standards and is run by professionals; and while the prominence of a newspaper is persuasive, if its content is contrary to wider consensus in sources or isn't due, it doesn't get to automatically be in the article. Per the verifiability policy, The responsibility for achieving consensus for inclusion is on those seeking to include disputed content. Hydrangeans ( she/her | talk | edits) 11:50, 30 March 2024 (UTC)

I think there is partially missing context on the use for local areas in the US (and Germany, probably also elsewhere) that I forgot to mention above: anecdotally, some of the English-speaking Israeli newspapers have somewhat significant local readership, particularly within the Jewish community, and thereby represent a pretty common view point, including for NYC. That obviously comes with the issues associated for the newspapers that are read and written by members of marginalised communities (like an understandable but high degree of sensitivity to discrimination). FortunateSons ( talk) 11:58, 30 March 2024 (UTC)

Thanks! This makes a lot of sense. Hell Gate is generally backed up by other Reliable Sources (in fact, in the context I used it, I was able to add on other reliable sources that backed up its claims.)

The exact reason I wanted to discuss 2 here is exactly what you claimed - Israeli sources cited often wholly contradict local ones, even though their reporters are obviously not on the ground. For example, they will claim certain groups are Islamist that no New York publication (outside of occasionally the Post) is claiming to be so - including the Times, which is the RS generally regarded among New York leftist communities to be the most suspicious of community groups led by Muslim New Yorkers. If the only source that agrees with you in New York is the Post, then it feels like there should be some sort of carve-out of reliability on at least certain topics.

There seem to be thoughtful reporters at Haaretz on a number of topics, but which hyperlocal community groups in New York City are Islamist does not seem to be one. Computer-ergonomics (he/him; talk; please ping me in replies ) 01:28, 31 March 2024 (UTC)

I don't know if "carve out" is the right term since sources being generally reliable doesn't mean they're universally unreliable. Editors who try to insist that a report from a generally reliable newspaper that is contradicted by other sources we can reasonably consider generally reliable are, I think, applying our guidelines too stringently. Hydrangeans ( she/her | talk | edits) 04:46, 31 March 2024 (UTC)

P.S. I have luck with the Wayback Machine bypassing the subscription paywall but you didn't hear it from me. Computer-ergonomics (he/him; talk; please ping me in replies ) 01:45, 31 March 2024 (UTC)

• The standard for deeming a source reliable is that it has a reputation for fact checking and accuracy. To determine whether a source has such a reputation we need to see what other sources say about it. So what are other sources saying about Hell Gate? Blueboar ( talk) 12:10, 30 March 2024 (UTC)

  I haven't seen local newspapers talk negatively about Hell Gate because the people who created it are all highly regarded in the New York media. If you look here at their editorial staff, you see people who have written for some of the most prestigious publications, such as the New York Times Magazine and the Village Voice, as well as highly regarded local publications, such as Gothamist. Hell Gate also accepts submissions by freelancers and accepts a limited number of them, which suggests a high level of editorial oversight. Computer-ergonomics (he/him; talk; please ping me in replies ) 01:18, 31 March 2024 (UTC)

Acccording to the author link on citation #33; "Luke Tress is a JTA reporter and a former editor and reporter in New York for The Times of Israel." So they do seem to have NYC-based correspondents, or direct contacts, for their NYC reporting.

For new hyper-local papers (and any new news source) the main inherent downside as others have pointed out is not having an established reputation for accuracy and rigor (or lack thereof). (Also, news sources in general are way overused imo -- by the time some minor event is past WP:Notnews, a newspaper is WP:Primary.) But if they have professional-grade editors and journalists and a stated editorial policy, then there is at least a baseline accountability such that they should be a fine usable source. SamuelRiv ( talk) 01:47, 31 March 2024 (UTC)

• As noted above, one of the best ways to show reliability for new-ish news groups is to see how they've been covered by others. And Hell Gate seems to have a fair bit. In addition to the two sources given above, there's also NiemanLab, The Guardian, and WNYC and that was just the first two pages of Google search results, so there's likely more available for a deep dive. The description of their makeup as well and how they're essentially entirely well known journalists from major papers definitely makes them reliable in my eyes.

As for your second question, hyperlocal fixation from a non-local news outlet is indeed strange. Papers can occasionally cover such local material, often when many other major papers are picking it up as well. But if it is a consistent thing and always with a negative tone, then that does raise concerns on how well the articles can be used. Because if the bias is making the coverage misleading repeatedly, then the outlets can't be considered reliable on that subject matter. If, for example, The Beijing News had produced a large amount of articles focused specifically on negatively commenting on hyper-local protest groups in the US protesting against Chinese government actions in Hong Kong, we would have rightfully not considered it the best source to use for general coverage of said groups or protests. We might have used some of the newspaper's articles as a statement on their response to said protests, but using them to cover actual information about the groups or protests would be inappropriate. Silver seren ^C 02:06, 31 March 2024 (UTC)

The author would be Matt Swider, who created this site on November 8, 2021. He has 25 years of experience being a renowned technology journalist, is the former US Editor-in-Chief of TechRadar and is among the top tech reporters in the US on Twitter. He has his journalism degree from Penn State University and launched Gaming Target while also contributing to publications Ars Technica, G4TV, GamePro, PlayStation: The Official Magazine and even some local US newspapers. https://www.theshortcut.com/about

I want to highlight, that my intention is to add this source to the article /info/en/?search=Sweet_Baby_Inc%2E to add the relevant addition of targeted harassment by Sweet Baby Inc. employees to a specific user and the ban of this employee by this action on twitter as the source of the controversy, not any form of opinion by the article itself. The sole purpose of the source "The Shortcut" would be simply as a secondary source (WP:PSTS) to explain the facts.

It is in this function a material cited to produce a more neutral perspective on the whole controversy, because other reliable articles try to state bias opinions of the authors about the ideology of members of this group as facts about the origin of this whole controversy. To solve this Problem:(WP:ACHIEVE NPOV) Biased information can usually be balanced with material cited to other sources to produce a more neutral perspective.

To allow a neutral perspective, it is necessary to highlight the whole context of the source of the controversy. The controversy happen over the things Sweet baby employees have done on Twitter prior to it. Without this information the whole topic can only be based on bias opinions. The text of Wikipedia articles should assert facts, but not assert opinions as fact. It is a fact, what a certain individual wrote on twitter and how twitter reacted to this comment. It is not a fact, what an author want to see as the political or social source for the support of a group afterward. This can be mentioned in a neutral manner after a statement of the fact, that it was not the actual source of the controversy.

i want to highlight, that this is my first post on this board. This post was created after a talk about this source with the user Rhain on his talk-page and after his suggestion to post this to this board. -- 2003:DF:A715:5000:C8E3:2AB:2B62:BBDA ( talk) 11:44, 15 March 2024 (UTC)

It seems quite doubtful this is an RS we could use on Sweet Baby Inc. The about page makes it clear their focus is on 'pass on that time-and-money-saving information to people in their inboxes, like any good journalist would want to do'. Their are some mention of reviews, but it's not the main focus and even for reviews they say 'Brevity – no one wants to read a 10,000-word review. Often, people just want to ask: “Is this good? Should I buy something else?”' While they do mention 'independent journalism', whatever the credentials of their writers and editorial team, there's barely any mention of any focus of the site on the sort of more basic journalism needed to cover anything remotely contentious so I think there's strong reasons to doubt they do a good job at it. The site may or may not be okay for opinions on reviewed products, and for info on stocks levels etc. Nil Einne ( talk) 12:36, 15 March 2024 (UTC)

I'd add while perhaps they're not a pure WP:SPS like most Substacks are since they have an editorial team, I'm not totally convinced it's the sort of editorial oversight we'd expect, especially when it comes to anything involving living persons. I mean their 'senior editor' seems to be the writer of an awful lot of articles covering contentious stuff [37] making it very unclear who's the one who actually reviews these sort of things. Nil Einne ( talk) 12:45, 15 March 2024 (UTC)

I just want to highlight, that the opinions of the site and their editorial actions is not part of my question about RS, i am aware, that The Shortcut opinions are probably not RS, but i want to stress, that this source could be used as a secondary source ( WP:PSTS) for specific and vital parts of the controversy to achieve NPOV. WP:BLPSPS is probably the case for the article opinion, but not in the specific small content, that would be used as a source, because the article is the source of material about a living person, that was original written and published by the person themself ( WP:BLPSELFPUB). The Shortcut would only be the secondary source of this self-published, primary source to avoid WP:TWITTER-EL

-- 2003:DF:A715:5000:21F2:F985:6D74:3A9E ( talk) 23:56, 15 March 2024 (UTC)

To make it a bit easier to understand. I could misunderstand something. But to quote WP:PSTS:

WP:SECONDARY

Policy: Wikipedia articles usually rely on material from reliable secondary sources. Articles may make an analytic, evaluative, interpretive, or synthetic claim only if it has been published by a reliable secondary source.

The Reliability is necessary to insert an analytic, evaluative, interpretive or synthetic claim of the secondary source.

WP:PRIMARY

A primary source may be used on Wikipedia to make straightforward, descriptive statements of facts that can be verified by any educated person with access to the primary source but without further, specialized knowledge.

I just want to use the primary source in the secondary source without inserting strictly any form of analytic, evaluative, interpretive or synthetic claim by the secondary source to remain in the primary policy. 2003:DF:A715:5000:21F2:F985:6D74:3A9E ( talk) 00:09, 16 March 2024 (UTC)

" mean their 'senior editor' seems to be the writer of an awful lot of articles covering contentious stuff"

Would like to add Wikipedia isalready using alot of journalistic sources that has senior editors that do the same thing 2001:9B1:CDC2:2400:5129:3CA4:1A94:B21A ( talk) 23:21, 30 March 2024 (UTC)

While I don't think The Shortcut is a good source for reasons already stated, this is kind of a fair point. I mean, this all kicked off from that Sweet Baby stuff and the Kotaku source article was also written by one of their Seniors Editors. DarkeruTomoe ( talk) 14:00, 31 March 2024 (UTC)

The Shortcut currently appear to have two articles directly about Sweet Baby Inc. They are; Sweet Baby Inc. detected: What actually happened and why should you care?, and Sweet Baby Inc.'s Wikipedia page is missing key facts – here's the unbiased context. There is also one other article that mentions Sweet Baby Inc in passing. All three were written by the same author, Adam Vjestica, formerly a writer turned hardware editor for TechRadar, and current senior editor at The Shortcut.

I would be sceptical of ruling this source reliable, solely for the purpose of laundering screenshots that purport to be tweets made by staff employed by Sweet Baby Inc. Even if it were reliable, there would be a question of whether this actually constitutes due or undue weight that would need to be assessed at the article's talk page. They are asserting certain things as factual that no reliable source that I've read about the recent events have asserted, while also downplaying the intense level of harassment and doxing attempts made against the company and its staff. However some of it does match with what some unreliable culture war focused sources, like Bounding into Comics, FandomWire, and That Park Place have said. The first article by The Shortcut on the Sweet Baby Inc situation does come across as more than a bit like victim blaming, and their second one about our article on the company takes umbrage with our content, despite it being verifiable to actually reliable sources.

In terms of use by others, I've not been able to turn up anything substantial from a quick search, aside from one brief mention in an article by The Verge about Twitter restricting the reach of links to Substack. Nor have I been able to find any RS writing about the site in general. It's possible I'm using the wrong search terms though, given the publication's choice in name it's difficult to filter them from background noise about shortcuts in games, or use of shortcuts on computers. Sideswipe9th ( talk) 00:58, 16 March 2024 (UTC)

That second article's claims that some of our article is incorrect—despite it being very clearly sourced to reliable sources—is certainly not helping its case. I would also hope that a news article claiming to have "the unbiased context" would do better than to present an out-of-context quote from the company's CEO about convincing employers to listen to one's ideas (as if that somehow proves the company is "forcing diversity"), or the completely unrelated quote from an "ex-employee" (former intern) whose comments have no relevance to the company whatsoever. The article also focuses on the accusations by "gamers" but does little to give any context from the other side (besides "journalists staunchly defend their version of events" and "this is something that Sweet Baby Inc. has denied"). Reliable sources are allowed to be biased but to claim you're not—while, in my opinion, proving otherwise—is not a good start. – Rhain ☔ ( he/him) 02:00, 16 March 2024 (UTC)

Heh, I'm actually kinda sceptical of the research The Shortcut claims to have done. They said According to The Shortcut’s research, there was also no encouragement given to “avoid the games” that Sweet Baby Inc. had been involved in., which is odd considering the still live Steam curator group has sixteen reviews in it, all of which are "Not Recommended" because the involvement of Sweet Baby Inc in each game's development process. Now it's true that the curator's about description does say that it's a tracker for games involved with the company, but the researchers at The Shortcut clearly couldn't have looked too deep into the group as they clearly missed the reviews. Sideswipe9th ( talk) 02:43, 16 March 2024 (UTC)

I just want to highlight, that the opinions of the site and their editorial actions is not part of my question about RS, i am aware, that The Shortcut opinions are probably not RS.

I once again state, that i honestly don't care about the opinions of editors of the Sweet baby Inc article on wikipedia or the opinion of The Shortcut to somehow push a claim, that one of these opinions about this controversy would be RS etc. This is not a topic to make critics about the articles of The Shortcut, explicit articles released after the opening of this topic.

In the same sense it is highly not NPOV to call tweets, made by a staff employed by Sweet Baby Inc only "purport" for this topic, while the actual RS used on the Sweet Baby Inc. here on Wikipedia article used the same account tweets and even some of the same tweets in their articles and even Wikipedia is using this right now to state facts in this article.

To claim at the same time, that these tweets would be WP:DUE is inconsistent as well, because it would make a large area of this topic in the Sweet baby Inc page about these tweets again on Wikipedia similar undue weight and it would have to be removed, thereby making the whole controversy missing a huge part of its origin.

it should be highlighted, that the review system of Steam doesn't give any other option of wording for a review, except recommendations and that a recommendation is not a call for avoiding a game, it is the typical word used on Steam for any review. Maybe a lack of understanding about Steam gives you there a unjustified sceptical view.

-- 2003:DF:A715:5000:21F2:F985:6D74:3A9E ( talk) 03:56, 16 March 2024 (UTC)

This is not a topic to make critics about the articles of The Shortcut, explicit articles released after the opening of this topic. In this discussion, per your request, we are assessing the reliability of The Shortcut. This is absolutely the place for us to be critical about their content, whether or not it is factually correct, and whether or not they have a reputation for fact-checking and accuracy. That is what this noticeboard does.

Now if you're asserting that The Shortcut is not a reliable source, then we don't really have anything more to discuss here. If it's not reliable, there's no way we would use it in any article, let alone one that's currently at the focal point of a controversy. Sideswipe9th ( talk) 04:08, 16 March 2024 (UTC)

And my request was 3 times already to differ between primary facts in a single article and the opinions of the site and their editorial actions as this is not part of my question about RS, i am aware, that The Shortcut opinions are probably not RS, but i want to stress, that this source could be used for a primary source(WP:PSTS) for specific and vital parts of the controversy to achieve NPOV in a vocal point of a controversy.

I even explained this heavily with quotes by Wikipedia:

But to quote WP:PSTS:

WP:SECONDARY

Policy: Wikipedia articles usually rely on material from reliable secondary sources. Articles may make an analytic, evaluative, interpretive, or synthetic claim only if it has been published by a reliable secondary source.

The Reliability is necessary to insert an analytic, evaluative, interpretive or synthetic claim of the secondary source.

WP:PRIMARY

A primary source may be used on Wikipedia to make straightforward, descriptive statements of facts that can be verified by any educated person with access to the primary source but without further, specialized knowledge.

I just want to use the primary source in the secondary source without inserting strictly any form of analytic, evaluative, interpretive or synthetic claim by the secondary source to remain in the primary policy.

It is oblivious, that someone, who is trying to judge the same Tweets once as a fact and than as unreliable and as "purport" and than even tries to argue about WP:DUE ignores simply huge parts of this argument, that

a) these tweets are partly backed by already RS sources to be self-published primary source. A specific tweet may be useful as a self-published, primary source. WP:TWITTER-EL

b) ELNO#10 makes it necessary to give a different reliable source for the primary source, that the tweet in itself.

c) it is possible to use The Shortcut as a source for a primary source by simply following WP:Secondary Policy, to not make in the article an analytic, evaluative, interpretive, or synthetic claim with The Shortcut, because it is not for itself a reliable secondary source. It still can be a reliable source of a primary source.

-- 2003:DF:A715:5000:21F2:F985:6D74:3A9E ( talk) 05:23, 16 March 2024 (UTC)

to achieve NPOV NPOV does not mean WP:FALSEBALANCE. There is no need to compromise on sourcing standards to try to reach a balanced article. More generally, it seems it is indeed your hope to use the Shortcut to 'launder' the primary sources / tweets themselves (as Sideswipe9th mentions above), so you can then insert them into the article. This as a source for a primary source concept you have come up with is novel, but it is not supported by Wikipedia's policies in letter or in spirit. You're not going to find some loophole that lets you get tweets into the article no matter how much WP:WIKILAWYERING takes place, particularly not when you are conceding that The Shortcut is not a reliable source. MrOllie ( talk) 12:44, 16 March 2024 (UTC)

thx for linking these 2 links, as i am new to this format of writing, i will lay down my case and excuse my Lawyering, if it took place. But i will hint, that certain elements of this controversy is clearly a matter of WP:UNDUE or WP:FALSEBALANCE and despreatly need to be fixed.

For example: The curator group received increased attention in February when a Sweet Baby employee asked others to report it for failing Steam's code of conduct. in the article in question was for no reason altered from the actual RS quoted for it.

"They asked their followers to report it and its creator due to it failing Steam’s code of conduct," 93.237.171.157 ( talk) 17:53, 16 March 2024 (UTC)

Since you are new here, I'll mention that WP:REGISTER has some advantages. Gråbergs Gråa Sång ( talk) 18:02, 16 March 2024 (UTC)

that the review system of Steam doesn't give any other option of wording for a review, except recommendations and that a recommendation is not a call for avoiding a game Not only is a "not recommended" tag a clear recommendation to avoid the game, back at the end of February before the social media stuff happened the logo for the Sweet Baby Inc detected curator was the Sweet Baby Inc company logo with the red no symbol superimposed onto it. The curator list itself contains only games that Sweet Baby Inc have been involved with in some way, with verification taken from the company's website, newsletter, game credits, or in the case of one game a blog post by the game's primary developers saying they had brought in Sweet Baby Inc for narrative consultation. The curator list was very clearly intended to tell its followers to avoid games that this company had some sort of involvement in. Sideswipe9th ( talk) 17:41, 16 March 2024 (UTC)

This is a typical example for the reason, why Editors, who repeatedly or seriously fail to adhere to the purpose of Wikipedia, any expected standards of behaviour, or any normal editorial process may be blocked or restricted by an administrator. One of these actions would be to demand, that you are in a similar discussion on the talk page on this article, that uses WP:PROVEIT for your argument, but ignore this policy in this case.

Once again you ignore the simple facts, that Steam calls any negative review a recommendation. The negative recommendation to a game in public is not a public statement to avoid it, even if this is claimed by others/you.

In the recommendation description is simply a link to the prove of involvement of the company in a game. This is not a statement to avoid the game.

The curator list was very clearly intend to list the games Sweet Baby Inc was involved in without even giving any reasoning for the dislike. The about page clearly state the actual purpose of the list to be a tracker for games involved with Sweet Baby Inc. 93.237.171.157 ( talk) 18:09, 16 March 2024 (UTC)

and RS actual stated, that the curator list doesn't give a reasoning for the negative recommendation beyond a proof of their involvment. -- 93.237.171.157 ( talk) 18:20, 16 March 2024 (UTC)

93.237, this would be so much easier if you just said exactly which source(s) you want to cite and what statement(s) you want to cite it/them for. Woodroar ( talk) 18:27, 16 March 2024 (UTC)

WP:ASPERSIONS - If you're going to accuse someone of blockable offenses, provide diffs. and reasoning.

Saying a game being tagged as "not recommended" by a steam curator means the curator isn't telling you to not buy the game is a terrible hill to pick to die on and hurts any arguments for inclusion on the source.

It is, in my opinion, an argument made in bad faith by the author that hurts the credibility of the article. Given people followed the group to know which games not to buy, I would go as far as to say the entire statement is irrelevant.

That being said, there may very well be statements inside that it can be sourced for which we needed the door to open on in a secondary source, which this is.

Maybe something in there is worth attributing to him, or is worth sourcing to the article as something that indisputably happened. I don't know what, but that's why we have the discussion process. I won't make a sweeping statement like "the entire thing has no value,"

It would be nice if you proposed some sentences or additions from the source, because right now, I don't think it's appropriate for every statement contained within. DarmaniLink ( talk) 23:13, 16 March 2024 (UTC)

As someone who actually reads Steam reviews, I find the claim particularly funny. Perhaps it's just because of the games I'm checking out, but a fairly common review is one which starts off with something like "it's a pity Steam only allows me to recommend or not recommend since I don't feel either of those fit". To my mind, most people who actual use Steam reviews understand that not recommend is explicitly telling readers IMO this game is probably not worth playing and recommend is explicitly telling readers IMO this game might be worth playing. Of course since it's a binary you're forced to pick a side even when you're neutral or it's complicated. But the forum seems to have chosen the "don't play" side and with all the other stuff they say this isn't surprising since it's precisely how they feel. I'm guessing they didn't even start their reviews with the classic "I didn't actually want to pick a side" line I mentioned. Nil Einne ( talk) 10:01, 18 March 2024 (UTC)

I don't think even SBI's biggest detractors would claim the group isn't about telling people what games to avoid, that's what "not recommended" means. Harryhenry1 ( talk) 02:30, 17 March 2024 (UTC)

> ...that the review system of Steam doesn't give any other option of wording for a review, except recommendations and that a recommendation is not a call for avoiding a game

Reviews on the Steam Store page only allow positive or negative reviews. Curators on the other hand (such as Sweet Baby Inc Detected) have the option to give an 'Informational' review instead. At the current time they have 0 positive, 0 informational, and 16 negative reviews. DarkeruTomoe ( talk) 11:41, 17 March 2024 (UTC)

I missed this yesterday and don't pay much attention to curator reviews myself. It's even funnier than that an argument is being made that the negative review is not intended to recommend against the games. Nil Einne ( talk) 10:37, 19 March 2024 (UTC)

I don't really feel like wading through the knee-deep foul-smelling liquid that seems to surround this topic, but it seems really alarming and silly to suggest that we consider a source unreliable because it says that a Wikipedia article is wrong. It should not be our general practice to bury our heads in the sand like this. jp× g 🗯️ 19:58, 17 March 2024 (UTC)

While I'll reiterate that I don't believe The Shortcut is reliable, I would agree with the above point that saying a Wikipedia article is wrong does not mean the source is unreliable. Some editors often like to cite Verifiability, not truth and it does apply.

To sidestep the whole Sweet Baby mess and give a less controversial example, it sometimes happens that only one or two reliable sources review a niche anime that was very popular and well received by users and most website reviews, but the Wikipedia page then says it was poorly received because two of the often cited approved reliable sources tend to have similar (and sometimes the same group of) writers who often rate anything with fanservice negatively.

Wikipedia will be wrong at times. Sources will be biased. Editors will be biased too. Sadly, we can only do what we can do. DarkeruTomoe ( talk) 14:03, 24 March 2024 (UTC)

• I've not seen anyone suggest this. I certainly didn't. – Rhain ☔ ( he/him) 14:21, 24 March 2024 (UTC)

I would like to add that many arguing against here are the editors of mentioned page and has a conflict of interest and NPOV 2001:9B1:CDC2:2400:B1DE:39CE:CD20:A460 ( talk) 08:40, 28 March 2024 (UTC)

That's not what either of those terms mean. Editors familiar with the article are perfectly capable of evaluating its sources—sometimes especially so, considering their familiarity with the subject (though not always). – Rhain ☔ ( he/him) 10:11, 28 March 2024 (UTC)

I would like to argue that since since The Shortcut has written an article that is against what the editors have written in the wikipage the editors have a special interest in getting it denied. 2001:9B1:CDC2:2400:3025:B178:5D26:80AD ( talk) 05:32, 29 March 2024 (UTC)

It's best to assume good faith. Contributing to an article does not make an editor less qualified to judge a source and its editorial policies. Personally speaking, if something I have written is incorrect, I would like to see it corrected. Besides, several users who have not edited the article have already provided their thoughts too. – Rhain ☔ ( he/him) 05:43, 29 March 2024 (UTC)

The ediotors have also listed GY-Online as a source in the SBI wikipage, but havent used any information or quotes from it. 2001:9B1:CDC2:2400:3025:B178:5D26:80AD ( talk) 05:35, 29 March 2024 (UTC)

This discussion is about whether or not The Shortcut is reliable. If you would like to discuss other sources used in the article, I would recommend finding other venues to do so. – Rhain ☔ ( he/him) 05:43, 29 March 2024 (UTC)

I think this source is reliable when it comes to factual basis of the material. Other sources previously used in the article don't really affect reliability of this one for one simple reason - these sources, for the most part, don't even mention information used here, and when they do mention it, some part of information gets omitted. I don't think that information provided here contradicts any major points in previously used sources, please do correct me if I'm wrong - with citations. Cheers -- Moon darker ( talk) 06:21, 17 March 2024 (UTC)

My main issue is "to what extent is it reliable." We would probably have to use it with a caveat that any statement which would need to be attributed, so anything which doesn't reference a tweet or otherwise summarize primary source material should likely not be included. Which, I'm fine with. DarmaniLink ( talk) 10:35, 17 March 2024 (UTC)

If a variety of reliable sources report on story elements A, B, C, D, E, and F, while one or two sources report on those plus G, there's a good chance that something is wrong with G. It may be incorrect, or it can't be corroborated, or it's simply irrelevant. Look, most journalists don't work in a vacuum. If they aren't reading the other articles, at least they know about them, and they're checking in with their own sources. The push for clicks and avoid getting scooped is real. That virtually all reliable sources covering a subject are ignoring some details is a good sign that we should, too. Woodroar ( talk) 16:59, 17 March 2024 (UTC)

Almost all articles that omitted the G predated ones that included the G, thus the whole point about vacuum is mostly irrelevant. Moreover,

• G can't be incorrect because it's a simple citation of a primary source
• It doesn't need to be corroborated because see p. 1
• It is relevant because it started the whole controversy in the first place

Moon darker ( talk) 21:05, 17 March 2024 (UTC)

With all due respect, it's a citation to a primary source along with interpretation of that primary source. That is why it can be thought of as having a truth value and needing corroboration. Imagine I say "Magna Carta was first signed in 1215, and set the stage for video games some seven and a half centuries later." If someone says to me, "Wow, that's a really dumb thesis," a rejoinder of "but Magna Carta WAS signed in 1215!" is not exactly convincing. This also goes to your final point--it started the whole controversy in the first place according to whom? We have to approach Wikipedia articles as though behind a veil of ignorance (with apologies to John Rawls). If you come in knowing what an article should look like, you're bringing baggage. That doesn't mean you can't contribute, of course, it just means it is suboptimal. Then again, reasonable minds can certainly differ on any of these points. Cheers. Dumuzid ( talk) 21:18, 17 March 2024 (UTC)

Lets imagine both of us know absolutely nothing about the situation (did I understand your take on veil of ignorance correctly?).

We have 3 inseparable messages that set things in motion (all sources agree here, right?). Try to measure an emotional impact, on average, on a human being:

• The @Steam curator harassment group Sweet Baby Inc detected is lead by this person, @kabrutusrambo. Here's them trying to be slick so they don't get reported. Even with the discriminatory language filed off, the group itself still fails the code of conduct. (here we have dry, although loud, statements of facts, not much in terms of emotional load)
• anyway report the f**k out of this group (sudden change, but still, it's not a personal attack or anything like that, just a call for action on an inanimate object)
• and report the creator since he loves his account so much (now, this is both a personal attack and a threat to an account of a person who has invested in it for 13 years, as we know from a screenshot attached to a tweet. It might resonate with any normal human being, but it will certainly resonate with any gamer)

This primary source does not need an interpretation, it's a dry fact in the timeline of events: employee X stated Y1, Y2, Y3 which resulted in Z. The fact that reliable sources omit Y3 doesn't make it any less valuable than Y1 and Y2, that's just 3 parts of one statement. Do you really deem it suboptimal? There must be something really wrong with me, because I don't understand your point. It doesn't seem like not having any background knowledge on the topic makes things look any better in these tweets either. What is the justification for not including it besides "the sources we've already used don't include it for some reason", what IS the reason? If this tweet is so unimportant, maybe the gaming community wouldn't use it at all? How come nobody cares about the first two tweets, besides the statement about Steam CoC? Have a nice one. -- Moon darker ( talk) 22:05, 17 March 2024 (UTC)

The "suboptimal" part is when an editor (and we all have been guilty of it from time to time) sets out to conform an article to what she "knows" happened. And that can be either a conscious or a subconscious tendency. From my point of view, nothing in the real world is as simple as "a + b resulted in c." There is an infinite chain of causation which led to a and b, and a context around c. Forgive my examples, but let me try one again: imagine you see a video of me yelling obscenities at and taking wild haymaker swings at a person. It would tend to make me look pretty bad. Now imagine another video of the same event, which shows that just prior, the target of my assaults spit on and said horrible things to my wife. The second video might not make you think I was justified in my reaction, but I think most people would agree that it would affect their view of the behavior. I guess in the end I am simply saying that a lot of perspectives can be brought to bear on an event. I know you have yours, and for all I know it is the correct one. But it simply isn't one that is currently shared by the reliable sources (though that may certainly change). Cheers. Dumuzid ( talk) 23:30, 17 March 2024 (UTC)

the RS use din the article to quote her demand to close the group mentioned the same demand to the creator of the group, but this part of the sentence (and his creator) was not mentioned in wikipedia and it still remains not mentioned on the page.

(on the sidenote, it would be increadible easy to mention, that the account of the employee was banned to violating X-policies similar to the article already mentioned the changes to the discord/group functions for similar not clear defined violations)

For some reason some editors dont want it to be in the article, against the factual statements of both in RS. -- 2003:DF:A715:5000:6D2D:5361:A474:1C3E ( talk) 11:42, 18 March 2024 (UTC)

• The source doesn't seem to have meaningful WP:USEBYOTHERS or a reputation for fact-checking and accuracy, so I don't see anything that would make them a high-quality RS - their own ABOUT page can't do it; being a RS is about their reputation, not what they say about themselves. Of course, reliability is contextual, so they might be usable for uncontroversial things. But they're definitely not usable on Sweet Baby Inc., a contentious topic; and the particular claims you want to use them for (implying specific individuals are guilty of harassment) is WP:BLP-sensitive besides, so it would require high-quality sourcing. The rationale you give for want to use them is backwards - WP:FALSEBALANCE doesn't allow us to put our "thumb" on the scale and use weaker sources in order to reach what some editors personally feel is a better or more accurate balance; it might feel balanced to you, but in practice approaching balance that way it means that you'd be introducing your own perspective to the article. We determine balance and WP:DUE weight by the weight in the best available sources, weighted according to their reliability and significance, not based on editors' personal views of the subject; if the best available sources don't cover something, the answer is not to dig for lower-quality ones. -- Aquillion ( talk) 18:25, 18 March 2024 (UTC)
• They're probably marginally reliable for tech news, but I agree with Aquillion that they lack 'use by others' and a 'reputation for fact-checking and accuracy'. For basic tech news (launch dates, specifications, etc..) this would be fine, but reliability is contextual and the details in this particular use fall squarely in BLP territory. WP:BLP clearly states Be very firm about the use of high-quality sources, and in this case the sources does not meet that expectation. -- LCU ActivelyDisinterested « @» ° ∆t° 15:56, 28 March 2024 (UTC)

See Revealed: US professor was behind extremist site that spread conspiracies Yenor is used as a source in several articles (one is ok). [38] The others use ; https://www.thepublicdiscourse.com/2017/07/19766/'] as a source - or at least some do. Doug Weller talk 16:23, 29 March 2024 (UTC)

Your first link does not seem to work FortunateSons ( talk) 16:47, 29 March 2024 (UTC)

Fixed link. Schazjmd  (talk) 17:16, 29 March 2024 (UTC)

Thanks. Doug Weller talk 19:25, 29 March 2024 (UTC)

I reviewed everywhere he's been cited. I removed one plainly cruddy old POV addition by someone at 1968 Civil Rights Act. There's some noncontroversial 19th-century history references at other articles from the same teachingamericanhistory.org website that are otherwise backed by other citations. The other citations on a couple feminism topics are from the Witherspoon Institute article you linked (to which he cites an article he wrote for the Heritage Foundation), but the citations are just used to support a one-sentence noncontroversial characterization of Judith Butler. (The rest of his characterization of queer theory in the paragraph is certainly reductionist and probably contentious, but it's not being cited.) (Also c.f. Nussbaum that interpreting Butler is basically choose-your-own-adventure.) I think the source ain't great, fine to replace, but in terms of use so far (in all of 5 articles?) it ain't broke. SamuelRiv ( talk) 02:58, 31 March 2024 (UTC)

Thanks for doing the heavy lifting. Doug Weller talk 17:39, 31 March 2024 (UTC)

The above mentioned website has been marked as an unreliable source by an editor. Just wanted to know whether the community feels the same or if it can be used as I found no other source to verify Karlie Kloss' ancestry on the web. Regards and yours faithfully, MSincccc ( talk) 14:17, 31 March 2024 (UTC)

It looks like EthniCelebs is a user-generated site, and thus not something we can use. John M Baker ( talk) 14:54, 31 March 2024 (UTC)

Previous discussions that questioned that site: [39] [40] [41] [42] Schazjmd  (talk) 15:01, 31 March 2024 (UTC)

Per [43] heck yes, it's unreliable, especially in a WP:BLP-context. As a rule of thumb, no website with celeb or famous in the name is a general RS. Gråbergs Gråa Sång ( talk) 16:11, 31 March 2024 (UTC)

Agree with all above. Probably EthniCelebs is correct in many cases, but no way of knowing when they are right or wrong unless other sources confirm it - and then we don't need EthniCelebs. So no, not reliable. Jeppiz ( talk) 16:59, 31 March 2024 (UTC)

If the name alone didn't give me sufficient pause, the broken english in the submission criteria certainly would, and if that still didn't give me pause the mention of us in their submission criteria would be the dealbreaker. Just, No. -- Licks-rocks ( talk) 17:51, 31 March 2024 (UTC)

Big NO. Nothing has changed since 2016 [44], including their Terms of Services: The information on Ethnicelebs is provided for entertainment purposes only. Although we may vet information to ensure its accuracy, we make no assurances that all information on our Site is accurate. And even without this self-declaration of non-reliablity, the very nature of the site (user-proposed content that is vetted by unknown people with unknown credentials) makes it unusable for WP. – Austronesier ( talk) 18:16, 31 March 2024 (UTC)

As it's been brought up multiple times and continues to be added to articles (even by experienced editors), could we list it at WP:RSPS as unreliable? Schazjmd  (talk) 18:21, 31 March 2024 (UTC)

I think we can per linked discussions and WP:RSPCRITERIA. Being such an obvious WP:USERG fail, I'm not sure we should bother, but there is little harm in it. Gråbergs Gråa Sång ( talk) 18:35, 31 March 2024 (UTC)

Apparently as a result of this comment notablebiographies.com was put on the blacklist in 2013.

The reasoning by User:Fladrif was that the publisher Advameg Inc. is "a content farm looking for eyeballs for advertisers across multiple similar websites. Many of these have been previously discussed and rejected as sources. [45] The biographies are anonymously written. There is no description of the editorial policy, and no identification of who the editors are."

I came across the block when I tried to use https://www.notablebiographies.com/newsmakers2/2006-A-Ec/Biya-Paul.html as a source in Paul Biya.

Notablebiographies.com presents no ads and the biography is signed "Catherine Victoria Donaldson".

Even though Notablebiographies.com is certainly a mediocre source of questionable reliabilty it might still be a useful to attain biographical information that cannot be found elsewhere. Would it maybe be more appropriate to flag it as such instead of blacklisting it altogether?

best regards, KaiKemmann ( talk) 12:55, 29 March 2024 (UTC)

Ok, when I looked at previous comments on Advamed Inc. I found that the Paul Biya biography seems to be a copy of this biography in encyclopedia.com (which is likely the legitimate source).

To make it easier for future editors to understand the copy-source relation (and find an alternative source to use in the article) maybe an addition to the infobox that appears when trying to save an edit containing a blacklisted source would be useful.

E.g. like this: "Some blacklisted sources present mere copies of an original or more legitimate source text. To find resources on the internet that could have served as the original source text copy one or more sentences of the blacklisted source and use a search engine to look for the exact quote (by putting the text in quotation marks)."

thanks, KaiKemmann ( talk) 13:14, 29 March 2024 (UTC)

Note that Encyclopedia.com is itself an aggregator, the publisher of that particular bio is Cengage. Which I believe is fine. Gråbergs Gråa Sång ( talk) 16:01, 29 March 2024 (UTC)

Ah, yes. Encyclopedia.com has apparently even been acquired by Cengage through Gale.

Since all of this takes a bit of effort to explore, would it make sense to assist users in refining the warning messages about blacklisted sites as I suggested above? If so, where would I go to suggest this?

thanks, KaiKemmann ( talk) 14:35, 31 March 2024 (UTC)

I see that notablebiographies.com was added due to a request on https://MediaWiki_talk:Spam-blacklist in 2019. You can ask about the reasoning on that talk page, or you can beg for an exception on /info/en/?search=MediaWiki_talk:Spam-whitelist. Items can get added to the spam blacklist for bad reasons so don't be optimistic. Peter Gulutzan ( talk) 21:03, 31 March 2024 (UTC)

Over 1000 articles are currently citing some ScienceDirect Topics page. These are machine-generated summaries of the articles published in a certain topic by Elsevier. They cannot be reliable sources because they obscure the real source and context of any given statement, potentially turning into its opposite for lack of understanding. After finding a useful statement on such a page, editors should find a suitable original source (possibly one of the academic papers listed in the page itself), confirm that it supports the claim, and use that as reference.

I suggest adding ScienceDirect Topics to Wikipedia:Reliable sources/Perennial sources as banned source, to better inform editors. Elsevier is strongly promoting its "AI" offering, and even though this is probably just some pretty standard machine learning (arguably less dangerous than general machine generation based on LLM), we'll probably see increased usage here as collateral damage. Nemo 08:30, 18 February 2024 (UTC)

Topics is already listed at RSP. I had no idea so many pages use it though. HansVonStuttgart ( talk) 12:27, 18 February 2024 (UTC)

RfC: ScienceDirect topics

Should an edit filter be implemented to warn editors trying to add ScienceDirect topics pages to articles? Hemiauchenia ( talk) 23:20, 19 February 2024 (UTC)

Responses (ScienceDirect)

• Yes As discussed at Wikipedia:Edit_filter/Requested#ScienceDirect_topics, an implementation of an edit filter requires a discussion at RSN. As previous discussed several times on this noticeboard (see Wikipedia:Reliable_sources/Noticeboard/Archive_270#Elsevier_topics:_reliability_of_machine-generated_sources, Wikipedia:Reliable_sources/Noticeboard/Archive_417#Elsevier_topics_again, Wikipedia:Reliable_sources/Noticeboard/Archive_422#Machine-generated_text_at_ScienceDirect_used_as_source) these are not verifiable references as the cited content on the page changes over time. We have over 1,000 references to these pages which indicates that its usage is a problem. Hemiauchenia ( talk) 23:20, 19 February 2024 (UTC)

• Yes. Last night I started attempting to replace some of these links and was immediately discouraged by both the overwhelming number of them and by how many were very recently added. It is definitely not clear to most people that SD Topics would have any problems at all, to the extent that I suspect almost no one casually using it would even consider the possibility it is GUNREL. I certainly didn't realize until I saw this thread yesterday that it was AI, despite repeatedly trying to use it to find background literature for my dissertation (and this explains why I occasionally encountered wrong shit in its summaries, and why I was never able to figure out how to cite what I thought were actual review articles...).

JoelleJay ( talk) 00:02, 20 February 2024 (UTC)

• Yes. They are truthy bits of out-of-context information and most people adding them will not know they are unreliable. HansVonStuttgart ( talk) 09:05, 20 February 2024 (UTC)
• Yes per above. -- Leyo 18:25, 20 February 2024 (UTC)
• Yes per above. In my own uses of "AI" (LLM) tools to try go generate summaries, abstracts, timelines, and other "this should be easy" digests of source material, the results have been uniformly awful, with virtually every single sentence having to be corrected in one way or another (from errors of omission to errors of focus/emphasis/nuance, to frequent outright factual errors, including "hallucinations" both of claims in particular sources and of entire sources). Maybe someday we'll be able to trust such tools to properly summarize material, but that some day is not today. Never forget that what LLMs do is try to provide an answer that will look like what should be a correct/expected result. It is not a fact-checking process of any kind, but a form of simulation. That we're able to get anything useful out of it at all (e.g. it can be used to generate simplex examples of correct, though often inelegant, Javascript or Python functions to do various things, as well as regular expressions as long as they are not very complex or do not have complex test cases to match) verges on astounding.  —  SMcCandlish ☏ ¢ 😼  13:19, 21 February 2024 (UTC)
• Yes, as we're setting editors up for failure by not warning them. Would these be useful ELs, though? Mach61 ( talk) 15:19, 21 February 2024 (UTC)
• Yes. On topics for WP:MED, ScienceDirect is a commonly-applied, unsatisfying source typically providing limited search results from lower-quality journals. It is frequently selected by novice editors, requiring followup editing for source accuracy in the article. More experienced medical editors would have no difficulty finding better sources by searching PubMed with the appropriate search terms. Note for the cleanup if replacing 1000+ ScienceDirect sources is the outcome: a bot can be developed to remove them (consult user GreenC), leaving a ^{citation needed} tag, but laborious manual checking of the sourced statement and editing by a volunteer are needed to refill with a good source. Zefr ( talk) 19:42, 21 February 2024 (UTC)
• Yes. Similar to everyone else, I have never seen it be a reliable source for research purposes, so it should be discouraged for novice editors. Ldm1954 ( talk) 00:42, 23 February 2024 (UTC)
• Yes: I was unaware that those topic pages are machine generated summaries, so an edit filter would be helpful. ARandomName123 ( talk)^{Ping me!} 03:14, 26 February 2024 (UTC)
• Sure if machine generated content. These can be problematic, but I use the sources Science Direct cites instead since as those are not AI generated and are instead published material by researchers. Ramos1990 ( talk) 05:42, 5 March 2024 (UTC)
• Yes. It's just misleading. Editors should cite the articles directly. Cortador ( talk) 12:32, 13 March 2024 (UTC)
• Yes per all above, and probably heading for a SNOW here. The Kip 06:35, 18 March 2024 (UTC)
• Yes, having only caught up on these pages not being the work of an editorial team due to this discussion. I think the way they do it is pretty clever and the pages can be useful, but I'll definitely be more cautious about assuming any of the papers in there are actually representative for the field as a whole, knowing what I know now. -- Licks-rocks ( talk) 13:47, 18 March 2024 (UTC)
• Yes and SNOW I've not participated in the previous discussion, but have kept an eye on them. From those discussions it's clear that editors should be cautioned about using the source. -- LCU ActivelyDisinterested « @» ° ∆t° 15:38, 28 March 2024 (UTC)
• Yes, this is the sort of thing edit filters exist for - it's an extremely reputable-looking site from an organization that most people would normally consider trustworthy and whose summaries are going to have an academic gloss; people are very likely to try and cite its summaries without understanding that they're machine-generated. The edit filter should probably briefly explain and encourage them to cite the actual paper itself. -- Aquillion ( talk) 22:06, 31 March 2024 (UTC)

This subject was raised back in 2021, but not actually resolved in any substantive way. [46]. We currently cite the Models.com website in 777 different articles, [47] and in a great many of them seem to be using the website to cite various descriptions, rankings and/or ratings for models as "Icons", "New Supers", "Top 20 Sexiest Models", "Top Newcomer", "Money Girl" and no doubt more - I'm not going to check all 777 articles. To my mind, such indiscriminate throwing around of labels would make them of questionable merit in any source, but from looking at the website itself it appears to be even more problematic. As their About page [48] makes clear this website sells 'memberships' which enable a member to "Manage Your Brand" etc. See also the Help page ("Use Models.com like a Pro to discover talent, promote yourself or manage the talent you represent... [49]), and FAQ ("How to upload campaigns, editorials and more" etc, etc [50]). This is clearly in no way an independent source, able to independently assess or rank models. It is selling a service, to facilitate those who promote them. Accordingly, as I see it, the use to which this website is being put is entirely improper. It is promoting its 'members', and we are citing this promotion as if it is some sort of objective commentary. We clearly need to stop citing the website this way, and I could even see an argument for blacklisting it, given how frequently it has been misused. AndyTheGrump ( talk) 16:58, 25 March 2024 (UTC)

The thing is that most models there who are labeled as "Icons", "New Supers" etc, are literally that. For example Vittoria Ceretti who has appeared on the big 4 covers of Vogue, has been part of numerous solo advertisment campaigns and has achieved fame makes her a supermodel, same goes for Bella Hadid or Gigi Hadid. Or Gisele Bündchen who has been labelled as an "übermodel" she really is an "Icon or a Legend" in terms of modelling. There are requirments in which they list their models, "Top 50" means top 50 models who have had a good season and I've seen most of them and it fits them. Also all models on the "New Supers" category are Supermodels. I get where you're coming from but as long as the ranking is correct, in which the website reviews it while making the selections, I don't really see a problem. Maria1718182 ( talk) 17:42, 25 March 2024 (UTC)

Your personal opinion as to who does or doesn't deserve to be labelled as an 'Icon', a 'legend' etc is of no relevance to Wikipedia policy regarding which sources are acceptable to cite for any particular content. I suggest you take the time to familiarise yourself with said policy, as I suggested on your talk page. AndyTheGrump ( talk) 18:33, 25 March 2024 (UTC)

It isn't my personal opinion rather the opinion of the industry and certain sources such as Vogue being one of them. Go and see how the models.com selections are made about these kind of labels, if they're selected as 'New Supers', their work has been taken into account. I simply said I have regarded these certain models and I agree with what models.com listed them to be. Maria1718182 ( talk) 19:56, 25 March 2024 (UTC)

Also if it was a promoting site, many models would have labelled themselves as supermodels especially newcomers. So selections are made based on certain criteria which is on models.com. You simply have to click on it. Maria1718182 ( talk) 20:06, 25 March 2024 (UTC)

If Vogue describes someone as a supermodel, we can consider citing them for it. As for the rest of your comments, once more, they have no bearing on Wikipedia policy. We don't cite sources because we agree with them. We don't cite them because they claim to have 'criteria'. We cite them when if, and only if, they meet our criteria. And as far as this website goes, it seems self-evident that they have a direct commercial interest in promoting, through the application of such 'selections', those that pay for membership. This invalidates them as a source of independent assessment. AndyTheGrump ( talk) 20:21, 25 March 2024 (UTC)

I was summoned here by another user for obvious reasons so let's see what basic googling brought me to:

A. Harper's Bazaar - "Gigi Hadid and Kendall Jenner make Models Top 50 debut". These two women need no introduction. They said and I quote Gigi Hadid and Kendall Jenner have both made Models.com's prestigious Top 50 list for the first time. They join the likes of Edie Campbell, Lindsey Wixson and Georgia May Jagger in what is widely considered to be the definitive guide to the top models of the moment. [...] the Top 50 list tracks the girls who are currently making waves within the fashion and beauty industries, thanks to their number of contracts, campaigns and editorial bookings.

B. Multiple editions of Vogue (yes, Vogue) have cited models.com as a reliable source or have used their lists as a metric of notability. Vogue Australia in October of last year: South Sudanese-Australian model Abény Nhial was nominated last year as Models.com’s 2022 breakout star of the year, and since, has gone on to hold a spot on the website's top 50 models list[.] and back in 2014 when Vogue Italia did a cover of 50 actual supermodels, the likes of Linda Evangelista and Naomi Campbell, [they saidhttps://www.vogue.com.au/fashion/news/50-models-cover-vogue-italias-50th-anniversary-issue/news-story/01c2e7202f1a12cc7235eae9722af508] The cast of models reads like a Models.com top 50 list. Teen Vogue published an article on a Models.com exposé. Teen Vogue published an article when Gigi Hadid was chosen by Models.com as Model of the Year The list is a great indicator of who's who in the industry. Vogue France deemed it notable when male model Kit Butler was chosen as Models.com's Model of the Year in the men's category. Even all the way back in 2011, Vogue sought it fit to mention that runway legend Natasha Poly was (ranked number two in the world on Models.com, for the record).

C. The New York Times, literally in the first sentence of this article, says Lara Stone, the gaptoothed Dutch-English model often compared to Brigitte Bardot who was at the top of models.com’s Top 50 models in the world list from 2010 to 2012, has done many things in fashion. Apparently this list is so notable that it precedes Vogue covers and being a Calvin Klein exclusive, in a New York Times editorial.

D. Interview on Ondria Hardin here: Things haven’t slowed down since: ranked as one of Models.com’s “Top 50 Models,” the North Carolina native was a fixture at the SS 2017 shows, walking for the likes of Miu Miu, Chanel, Balmain, Dries Van Noten, Versace, and Michael Kors.

E. GQ Australia used Models.com's lists, plural, as in other lists in addition to the Top 50 one, as a reference of notability 5 times in this article a month ago. Also called them prestigious and coveted.

These are only a few examples. So what exactly is the real argument against this website? It is so clear what the subversion here is. They have a masthead if anyone bothers to look at the bottom, so clearly there is a staff of people doing all of this as a job and it isn't some random blog ran from a loft in Greenpoint. Who gives a damn if they have a Pro section. Nowadays Vogue only let's people read one article before making people sign up or log in, and won't let people people see the runway slideshows (which, get this, we on Wikipedia need to use to verify work). To say that they're "not independent" because they expect to earn money as a business, no different than any other website (that includes the websites of magazines that have actual corporations behind them) is utterly nonsensical. Trillfendi ( talk) 21:35, 28 March 2024 (UTC)

The real question is whether Models.com is widely used in the model industry or not. This far, the only argument seems to be that AndTheGrump does not like the site and Maria1718182 likes it. Neither's feelings are very relevant. If it is an obscure site, we should not use it. If it is a widely used site in the modelling industry, it should be used for that industry, with proper attribution. Jeppiz ( talk) 12:02, 26 March 2024 (UTC)

My objections have nothing to do with 'not liking the site'. I am asking whether it can appropriately be used for promotional content regarding clients who may pay for 'memberships' which give access to editorial control. As a general principle, (see e.g. WP:SPONSORED) we consider Sources that do not clearly distinguish staff-written articles from sponsored content to be questionable. If this was just a one-off usage, I'd simply have removed it, but since the website has been cited so often, and since their doesn't seem to have been any prior discussion that resolved the issue, I am asking for broader input, based on the evidence available which suggests that its use as a source for rankings and other potentially-promotional content is compromised by a commercial relationship with its clientele. AndyTheGrump ( talk) 17:21, 26 March 2024 (UTC)

I checked the website once again about the membership.

"Individual model or creative profiles on Models.com are by invitation only based on career accomplishments, longevity and industry influence."

This is what is says. It means that these models are selected based on certain criteria, you have to give credit for your work and models.com only allows certain people on their website as models. Maria1718182 ( talk) 19:54, 26 March 2024 (UTC)

The whole work of models (new gen) is basically there which helps to cite how many shows they've walked in, editorials, advertisments and you have to give credit for your work as cited by the website, you can't just claim it. I think it is important for wikipedia since they seem to keep track of it, and in my opinion it's a reliable site for numbers such as runway shows etc. As for the rankings AndytheGrump may be right, because there are models who haven't contributed to the industry that long and are considered as "Supermodels", which makes you think if the site is reliable in terms of the rankings. Maria1718182 ( talk) 19:59, 26 March 2024 (UTC)

• From the about is page it's clear their content comes from the source, membership allows you to add details. At best that makes it self-published, and so should be handled as such. Specifically it should be fine as a source of information about themselves so long as The material is neither unduly self-serving nor an exceptional claim. So it can be used for details of what shows they've been in etc, but not for exceptional claims or matters of opinion. If you want to use 'supetmodel' you're going to have to find a different source. -- LCU ActivelyDisinterested « @» ° ∆t° 16:41, 28 March 2024 (UTC)
• For those who don't know the history, models.com started out as a spinoff site of the 90s era New York Web. From the beginning NYW had a sort of breathless "what's hot right now" approach, informed by NYC nightlife culture, that carried over into models.com. Some of the early archives of models.com rankings are kind of creepy to read! But there's no doubt, at all, that the site is now used widely within the industry, so much that companies providing stats and data about covers and runway appearances and so forth know they are monitored by their competitors and generally provide accurate information (except for height, haha). So I don't see a problem using it as a reference for things like Vogue covers or runway shows.
  That said, we shouldn't substitute models.com's rankings for our own notability guidelines, and we should avoid simply reproducing models.com's in-universe rankings without attributions, supporting citations, and context (e.g. not just "models.com Hot Newcomer" but "When asked for a list of eight new models she particularly liked, stylist Gabriella Karefa-Johnson selected Divine Mugisha as one of the eight for F/W 2024"). Put another way, a person isn't notable on Wikipedia because models.com ranks them highly, they are notable because of the underlying things that meet our guidelines. (Though I'm not sure we've ever come to a consensus that fashion shows or magazine covers count as the "other productions" specified in WP:ENT, actually.) As long as we're using it to support the actual stats/references we should be citing rather than just gesturing to the models.com ranking or editorial commentary as a substitute for that sourcing work, we don't have to worry as much about whether "Hot 50" means the most covers or highest EMV or most Instagram followers or Stephan's faves or which agency paid the fee or whatever. Indignant Flamingo ( talk) 03:06, 1 April 2024 (UTC)

Hey everyone. I thought of dropping in here and asking if there are consensus for the use of the following Israeli-based news sources particularly in the coverage of the ongoing Gaza War. I've seen Al-Jazeera being used for coverage of Israel-Palestine topics, alongside other Israeli news sources. Al-Jazeera has been considered reliable, but I'm unsure what about considering Israeli-based sources?

• Times of Israel
• ynetnews.com
• The Jerusalem Post

-- ZKang123 ( talk) 05:06, 22 March 2024 (UTC)

To the best of my knowledge, all of them are used, and generally considered biased in regards to the conflict but reliable; they are cited by others. Wikipedia:Reliable sources/Perennial sources does not list anyone but Haaretz. FortunateSons ( talk) 10:42, 22 March 2024 (UTC)

Jerusalem Post is highly misleading, given its record in war propganda; example when it mocked a dead Palestinian child claiming they were a doll. They did indeed apologize and retract the statement, but that just shows you how they operate. As for the Times of Israel, they are misleading in some aspects, including how for example they take great care to cast doubt into Gaza's casualty figures, even falsely claiming they were partly due to misfired Palestinian rockets; while at the same time, mentioning nothing of the friendly fire accidents when talking about Israeli casualties; they literally seem to do this mental gymnastics on every article they publish on the war. As for Ynet, I never read it so I wouldn't know. Makeandtoss ( talk) 12:59, 22 March 2024 (UTC)

There is credible reporting that Gaza’s casualties are partially caused by misfired rockets, both historically and currently by RS, so at least some deaths due to misfires are pretty clear, something significantly less certain regarding friendly fire (whose highest credible count during Oct 7 is less than 20 and which received coverage , plus 3 hostages later, as well as about 20 soldiers). FortunateSons ( talk) 13:14, 22 March 2024 (UTC)

That has nothing to do with what I wrote. In every article about the war they list the casualties on both sides in the last paragraph. In it they cast doubt on the 30k figures on Palestinian side, including with them the claim of casualties due to misfired Palestinian rockets, as if that’s a significant portion; ‘’’while at the same time’’’, mentioning nothing of friendly fire on the 1200 Israeli figure. Makeandtoss ( talk) 21:48, 22 March 2024 (UTC)

Because there is no broad support (at least by western RS) for any significant amount of casualties by friendly fire on October 7., with some sporadic casualties (our own article lists less than 15 people). FortunateSons ( talk) 22:34, 22 March 2024 (UTC)

Apologies and retractions mean that their editorial process is working and are generally a good sign. Are there any other examples of JPost's supposed lack of reliability? Alaexis _¿question? 21:59, 23 March 2024 (UTC)

• In my experience:

• ToI and Ynet are marginally biased, but typically reliable and about as neutral as an Israel-based source can be.

• JPost is considerably biased toward the Israeli right, and treads on the line between "reliable" and "use with attribution." Considering the availability of the two above, I personally lean toward the latter end of that scale.

Edited my comment as I'd confused Ynet with i24, which is outrage propaganda. The Kip 04:11, 25 March 2024 (UTC)

I have found ToI to be reliable in general (except for some reason when the article is bylined ToI staff rather than a named reporter). JP is awful, pretty much a government mouthpiece since the war started and ynet is OK most of the time but not always. Selfstudier ( talk) 13:19, 22 March 2024 (UTC)

Could you elaborate on how they are “awful” in the context of unreliability? FortunateSons ( talk) 13:24, 22 March 2024 (UTC)

They seem to mark the worst stuff as opinion so I'd say they're reasonably reliable as far as biased sources go. I agree with Selfstudier about TOI. NadVolum ( talk) 21:24, 22 March 2024 (UTC)

From what I've seen, Times of Israel is rather reliable and independent, and frequently criticizes the Israeli government. It obviously takes an Israeli POV, but still reliable. Jerusalem Post, in what little I've seen, is more sensationalist and populist in tone. Even regardless of bias, it's a poor quality source in general. I don't know Ynetnews well enough to comment. Jeppiz ( talk) 22:45, 22 March 2024 (UTC)

Ynet is fine, ToI is fine, JPost is generally closer to garbage than fine. Better than things like i24 and obviously Arutz Sheva, but closer to that end of the spectrum than Haaretz, Yedioth Ahronoth, and ToI. nableezy - 22:50, 22 March 2024 (UTC)

Like every source in the world, The JPost also has a certain leaning (and I hope we all agree that there is no objective media outlet). However, it is definitely not a "government mouthpiece", "awful", or "closer to garbage". One can see from the articles linked here, here, here, here, here and here, that they also write critically of the Israeli government. (I wonder if Al-Jazeera, which was mentioned here as a reliable source, has even one small article that does not blatantly side with the Palestinians in the Israeli-Palestinian conflict) . Eladkarmel ( talk) 12:38, 26 March 2024 (UTC)

As per Eladkarmel and FortunateSons. Both JP and Ynet have a long-standing history of journalistic integrity and professionalism. Naturally, these are Israeli outlets, so there is some leaning towards the Israeli POV, just like Al Jazeera, funded by Qatar, is not entirely neutral. Still, it is perplexing how some editors casually dismiss these journals as "garbage", "awful", "government mouthpiece", "war propaganda" etc. without any substantiated basis. These journals regularly publish articles that go against the government or that reflect major divisions within Israeli politics or public opinion. GidiD ( talk) 13:40, 26 March 2024 (UTC)

• It is important to reiterate that having a bias does NOT equate to being unreliable. That said, in controversial situations such as the current Israeli/Palestinian conflict bias can influence what gets covered and how it is covered. It is therefore important to give in-text attribution when reporting which outlet is saying what, and not present information from either side as undisputed fact. Blueboar ( talk) 15:28, 26 March 2024 (UTC)

  I think I presented in-text attribution from Jpost. Eladkarmel ( talk) 17:27, 26 March 2024 (UTC)

• Patriotic journalism is completely normal in every country, and is not a reason to discredit the local news outlets. Israel has a free press; its major newspapers, like YNet, are as reliable concerning Israel as the Washington Post is concerning U.S. news topics. The news organizations mentioned above have a reputation for having real fact-checking at Western standards and easily meet the reliability standards of Wikipedia. Marokwitz ( talk) 19:28, 26 March 2024 (UTC)

  Yeah, except the Jerusalem Post does a little more than that. It is a purveyor of outright lies and misinformation and actively indulges in Pallywood conspiracy theory. It is a pathetic rag and devoid of journalistic principles. Iskandar323 ( talk) 20:32, 26 March 2024 (UTC)

  Any chance you'll stop using this harsh language? It's really not helpful nor does it convince anyone. Eladkarmel ( talk) 09:14, 27 March 2024 (UTC)

  I'm glad that the only thing you take issue is with the tone. Iskandar323 ( talk) 09:49, 27 March 2024 (UTC)

  Actually yes, for me it is the basis of any discussion. There is a saying in Judaism that says: Proper behavior precedes the Torah. Eladkarmel ( talk) 11:44, 27 March 2024 (UTC)

  Thanks for this @ Eladkarmel, I'd not heard that saying before; I appreciate that.

  Regarding your concerns about tone however, while I agree that @ Iskandar323 should be more professional here, I do find that WP:Civility is often overly prioritized on Wikipedia, while polite misconduct, which is much more pernicious, often goes undealt with and unaddressed.

  - IOHANNVSVERVS ( talk) 12:14, 27 March 2024 (UTC)

  "Western standards" eh? Seems rather Eurocentric, don't you think?

  I'll remind you that WP:Competence is required, especially as this discussion relates to a contentious topic area

  - IOHANNVSVERVS ( talk) 09:31, 27 March 2024 (UTC)

  Ironic timing too, since a lot of "Western standard" sources have been coming under extreme scrutiny of late for their journalistic incompetence and extreme cultural/political bias. Iskandar323 ( talk) 09:47, 27 March 2024 (UTC)

  If you think the press in China, Russia, North Korea, or any Arab or Muslim country surpasses that in Israel, the US, and Western Europe, then... I don't know what to say. Feel free to call me Eurocentric. Marokwitz ( talk) 13:21, 27 March 2024 (UTC)

  Interesting stereotypical pick of Western bogeymen. Africa, Latin America and the rest of Asia also exist, fyi. Your words not mine on your Eurocentricity. Iskandar323 ( talk) 13:37, 27 March 2024 (UTC)

  This user should probably not be editing in this topic area. IOHANNVSVERVS ( talk) 13:38, 27 March 2024 (UTC)

• It seems a little odd to me to discuss the reliability of Israeli-based newspapers in general, but of the three listed there seems to be consensus that ToI and YNet are broadly reliable but less re JP. I agree it tends towards a more sensationalist tone and more severe bias, so it's definitely weaker (but probably stronger than the more tabloidy i24). There is one specific allegation of actual unreliability here: its promotion of a fake " Pallywood" allegation, as documented by the excellent BBC Verify team (These claims were amplified in an article by the Jerusalem Post, an influential Israeli newspaper, which showed an image of Muhammad in rigor mortis after his death and said it proved he was a doll. After a backlash, the paper removed the article from its website, saying on X (formerly Twitter) that the report " was based on faulty sourcing". That's definitely a count against it, mitigated by the removal, but probably not enough to consider it generally unreliable. Are there other specific examples? BobFromBrockley ( talk) 16:09, 27 March 2024 (UTC)
• Just a reminder that bias doesn't necessarily make a source unreliable, attribution is always an option. -- LCU ActivelyDisinterested « @» ° ∆t° 16:13, 28 March 2024 (UTC)

I've been busy and unable to check on this discussion. So from what I can tell from consensus, Times of Israel and Ynet are reliable, but JPost might not be? Btw, I'm asking because I just notice there have been consensus for other newspapers (Al-Jazeera) reporting on Israel/Palestine. I've also read many articles from the Israeli side which doesn't seem reported by other outlets (especially on the spike of antisemitism around the world). So I'm unsure whether they could also be cited as well.--11:30, 1 April 2024 (UTC)

I ran across this in a reference. The source seems to be definitely self-published, and flowpaper.com seems like a place where you can self-publish something and make it appear like it's a source for Wikipedia. Wanted to check here first and see if anyone else has the same opinion. Fred Zepelin ( talk) 20:27, 31 March 2024 (UTC)

Definitely self-publishing, whatever the specific source is could be reliable depending on who the author is see WP:SPS. -- LCU ActivelyDisinterested « @» ° ∆t° 01:34, 1 April 2024 (UTC)

Could be reliable, but probably not a good source if one is looking to see if a person has enough coverage to merit an article on Wikipedia. The subject of the bio wrote the piece themselves and that reference is being used to pad the reference section. Fred Zepelin ( talk) 03:29, 1 April 2024 (UTC)

No good for notability, but could be used per WP:ABOUTSELF as long as it's not to self-serving. -- LCU ActivelyDisinterested « @» ° ∆t° 14:10, 1 April 2024 (UTC)

Well would anyone here warrant the inclusion of the following Newsweek citation on the article Catherine, Princess of Wales? It discusses the evolution of the name "Kate Middleton" with regards to the Princess though she has never herself openly acknowledged the name (the name's inclusion in the main article is itself a disputed one). If its considered unreliable, I would readily have it removed. Here's it- ^[1] Regards and yours faithfully, MSincccc ( talk) 05:54, 1 April 2024 (UTC)

Afaict it's the cite for this sentence: "It has been noted that the British media opt for "Kate" in their headlines as a result of search engine optimisation, but mostly use "Catherine" in the body of their articles." The source may be ok-ish in context, but per WP:PROPORTION, should we bother to include it? Gråbergs Gråa Sång ( talk) 09:19, 1 April 2024 (UTC)

@ Gråbergs Gråa Sång We already have three citations to support the clause as to how she picked up her common name "Kate Middleton". But user Starship.paint who added it asserts that the Newsweek citation alone speaks of the fact that the British media opt for "Kate" in their headlines as a result of search engine optimisation, but mostly use "Catherine" in the body of their articles. Regards MSincccc ( talk) 09:50, 1 April 2024 (UTC)

How does the Newsweek claim compare to actual articles, if Kate is only being used in headline and not the body of articles they may have a point ( WP:HEADLINES would seem appropriate). -- LCU ActivelyDisinterested « @» ° ∆t° 14:13, 1 April 2024 (UTC)

That claim actually appears to be true. Take this recent article by the BBC for example. The title reads "Archbishop of Canterbury's Easter sermon refers to Kate and King Charles" and then you start reading and you get a sentence like this "He spoke of listening with 'compassion and sympathy' as Catherine told of her cancer diagnosis." Keivan.f ^Talk 15:29, 1 April 2024 (UTC)

The source is reliable for what it says, anything beyond that and how that should interact with WP:COMMONNAME is a discussion for the article's talk page. -- LCU ActivelyDisinterested « @» ° ∆t° 15:47, 1 April 2024 (UTC)

Hi, concerning editing articles on Indian history (in particular the state of Bihar), would the publications of the KP Jayaswal Research Institute be considered reliable? They were formed by the Government of Bihar and they are based out of Patna Museum. I have access to quite a few of their publications but want to know the consensus on them.

Their website for reference: https://kpjri.res.in/.

Thanks in advance! Ixudi ( talk) 15:53, 1 April 2024 (UTC)

oko press is cited in Wikipedia but it described themselves as propaganda tool created by mainstream Agora media to create impression that it is independent. oko press own communication announced it https://oko.press/stoi-oko-press-szczera-bolu-informacja-o-naszych-finansach if some tool is created only in order to fight other ideas it is propaganda. Can be propaganda a reliable source? i request to ecxlude oko press from list of reliable sources for Wikipedia. Jarek19800 ( talk) 22:05, 3 March 2024 (UTC)

RFC discussion started below this. The Weather Event Writer ( Talk Page) 23:01, 3 March 2024 (UTC)

RFC: OKO.press

Film Threat (filmthreat.com) publishes film reviews, many of which are cited on Wikipedia. Since 2011, they have offered paid reviews. As our article states: Since 2011, those seeking a review from the site can pay between $50 and $400 for varying levels of service, ranging from a "guaranteed review within 7–10 days" to a package that includes a guarantee of "100K minimum impressions". As far as I can tell, they do not disclose on review pages whether or not the review was paid for -- at least, none of the reviews that I have checked include such a disclosure.

The source has been discussed here at least once before, at Wikipedia:Reliable_sources/Noticeboard/Archive_96#FilmThreat.com, and the consensus there seemed to be that it was reliable for film articles. However, the discussion did not touch on paid reviews. It happened in May 2011 and it's possible that was before Film Threat introduced that service. Therefore I'd like to revisit the topic. I know that many editors have expressed the view that e.g. Kirkus Indie reviews are neither reliable nor count for notability purposes.

Are reviews from Film Threat reliable sources for critical commentary about a film, such as in a "Reception" section? Do they provide evidence of notability, e.g. under WP:NFO #1? Jfire ( talk) 01:22, 2 April 2024 (UTC)

As far as reliability goes, part of the problem with the Kirkus Indie reviews is that Kirkus shows the review to the author/publisher before release and gives them the option to choose for the review to not be published at all. This opens the door to critical reviews being suppressed, which leaves us with an inability to be totally sure about the Kirkus Indie reviews that do get published.

The Film Threat payment option to guarantee a review does not have this option: Because of Film Threat's commitment to journalistic and critical integrity, you should have no expectations that your project will be given a positive review and is at the mercy of the subjective perspective of the reviewer. Your project must stand on its own, and no refunds will be issued if you are not satisfied with the review. Your project is also not guaranteed to appear on review aggregators and the inclusion of your review is solely based on their discretion. For specifically the question of reliability, this is reassuring. Hydrangeans ( she/her | talk | edits) 01:56, 2 April 2024 (UTC)

The topic of MathWorld whether they are reliable or not has been discussed in WT:WPM, and many articles are relying on it, especially in the external links. See the discussion at Wikipedia:WikiProject Mathematics#Is Wolfram Mathworld reliable?. Dedhert.Jr ( talk) 13:45, 28 March 2024 (UTC)

Minor correction: the discussion is at the Talk page, here. XOR'easter ( talk) 13:51, 28 March 2024 (UTC)

• My take is that MathWorld is generally a reliable tertiary source, insofar as it summarizes secondary sources that it provides as references. It is less good itself as secondary source involving synthesis of published sources (and usually not as a primary source, for which I think the standard caveats apply). Usually, a good practice with MathWorld is to chase down any references to secondary literature, often by more than one hop to get to a really good reliable source (e.g., MathWorld frequently references OEIS, a source about which I have similar doubts). So I wouldn't use it for anything controversial, but it's fine as a general source in most cases, and no one should balk at having MathWorld replaced by a much better source in many cases. Tito Omburo ( talk) 14:20, 28 March 2024 (UTC)

• I tend to agree that MathWorld fulfills the basic reliability requirements of tertiary sources. Within mathematics, the terminology used in the academic discourse is not always consistent and one potential problem with some articles on MathWorld is that they use one definition of a term where other definitions are also possible without clarifying this to the reader. This is not ideal but also not strictly speaking wrong and it does not seem to me that the problem is severe enough to characterize MathWorld as a whole as an unreliable source. Phlsph7 ( talk) 17:30, 28 March 2024 (UTC)
• MathWorld doesn't have a working filter for terminology; they might treat as standard a term which is just a thing a guy said one time. Sometimes this leads to Wikipedia having articles it shouldn't. They're not actively bad, but they're not all that carefully vetted, either. XOR'easter ( talk) 23:14, 28 March 2024 (UTC)

  Agreed. At least when it comes to this particular aspect I think mathworld must be treated as an unreliable source. Gumshoe2 ( talk) 22:30, 29 March 2024 (UTC)

• It is useful as a primer to mathematics as a tertiary source too, but if there are issues they do cite refences which could be used to ground claims if needed (e.g. [52]) Ramos1990 ( talk) 05:12, 2 April 2024 (UTC)

Is ""Prehistoric Ancient And Hindu India by R.D. Banerji"" a reliable source?

https://archive.org/details/in.ernet.dli.2015.282613/mode/1up

The author of the book is R. D. Banerji who is viewed as a reliable historian for his work on the history of Bengal. Based Kashmiri ( talk) 17:04, 2 April 2024 (UTC)

I mean that is a pretty dated work. Simonm223 ( talk) 17:07, 2 April 2024 (UTC)

R.D Banerji in his book states that

"Devapāla, with the assistance of the Rashtrakuta Dynasty from Central India, managed to defeat a Tibeto-Burman tribe (Kambhoja) in the Northern Indian region." - ( Prehistoric Ancient And Hindu India by R.d. Banerji, page number 260 )

His statement is different from other historians so I added his statement in a article but an users removed the citations of his book because R.D. Banerji was a Raj Officer ( as WP:RAJ sources are unreliable )

Can I use this source or should I remove it from the article ? Based Kashmiri ( talk) 17:33, 2 April 2024 (UTC)

• I would say it can't be used. Too old. See WP:HISTRS. -- Kautilya3 ( talk) 17:54, 2 April 2024 (UTC)

  Ok, thank you!! Based Kashmiri ( talk) 17:56, 2 April 2024 (UTC)