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Is ListOwn a reliable source for the birth info of entertainers? Nightscream ( talk) 18:19, 18 February 2010 (UTC)
Thanks. Nightscream ( talk) 08:27, 26 February 2010 (UTC)
There has been a dispute on Union City, New Jersey regarding a local high-rise building called the Thread. A The New York Times article by Antoinette Martin that I cited as one of the sources says that that building is a former embroidery factory. But User:Djflem has asserted that this is not true, that the building is an original building, and that The New York Times is wrong. An anonymous IP editor whose IP is traced to Amsterdam (I don't know if this was also Djflem editing outside of his account) called the source "unreliable". I don't dispute that otherwise reliable sources can make mistakes, but for an editor to remove such info based solely on their assertion seems like OR, just as including such info on personal knowledge would be. What should we do? Nightscream ( talk) 21:08, 18 February 2010 (UTC)
I was thinking along the same lines. Thanks. Nightscream ( talk) 08:27, 26 February 2010 (UTC)
I've come across an article about a character from a book (made into movies and plays). The article has zero references (other than a really low quality YouTube video which I've deleted). The entire article ( Violet Beauregarde) is clearly original research. I suspect most of the content is verifiable if you read the book, see the movie, etc. In the case of plays, none of the included material is verifiable. My thought would be to shorten the article to basic facts specific to each media (book, movie 1, movie 2) and turn the page into one for disambiguation. However, I'm certain that this case isn't unique and that most big movies/books have articles written about specific characters. I would think that unless a character has been the subject of published secondary material from reliable sources, book/movie characters don't rate their own articles. But that may be just me. So may main question here at AN/I is this: what are are standards for articles about book/movie characters? Rklawton ( talk) 22:20, 26 February 2010 (UTC)
{{ resolved}} Can I use the website of Anti-Defamation League (www.adl.org) as a reliable source for the claims made in Current Communist antisemitism? I have attributed the claims to ADL, i.e. "according to the Anti-Defamation League ..." -- Defender of torch ( talk) 13:27, 20 February 2010 (UTC)
I have a question about a source of some information on a article about a school. The question revolves around a claim of a case of arson at the school (for the record I am not connected to the school in any way).
Some Background :
The article as I cam across it refereed to a "arson" in 1979 without any ref - there were (and are) photos showing a fire so I first taged then after 2 weeks changed to to fire. An editor Toddy1 came up with two refs 25th Anniversary of Bedford School’s Great Fire, March 2004 and An interview with Mr Simms, who celebrated 50 years with Bedford School this week, November 2009. one which says fire and one that says arson and reverted the article back to arson.
I reverted the article back to fire with this edit stating that : as the refs provided are WP:PRIMARY and one says "fire" and the one that says "arson" does not elaborate on the reason for claiming it was arson
Now an ip editor 20.133.0.13 is claiming that they are not WP:PRIMARY and I miss understand what a WP:PRIMARY source is (see this post to user page) as the passage of time makes this a secondary source.
So to my question :
1. Is anything a organisation says about it's self ever not WP:PRIMARY ? does the passage of time change it?
2. Is the school website a WP:RS about the fire and calling it arson ? Codf1977 ( talk) 13:57, 25 February 2010 (UTC)
You deleted arson, demanding a source. I found a source. But you still edit war over it. I do not see how you can stretch the definition of primary source to cover the source.-- Toddy1 ( talk) 20:09, 25 February 2010 (UTC)
Uninvolved. [2] is a reliable source for the statement that it was Arson. Hipocrite ( talk) 20:15, 25 February 2010 (UTC)
[3] reliable. Hipocrite ( talk) 22:26, 25 February 2010 (UTC)
{{ resolved}}
Nutshell: Article in question: Dog Whisperer, citing a Theatre History PHD candidate with no ostensible dog behavior expertise, as published in the journal of the Institute for Critical Animal Studies, the disputed source. See: Steven Best
The reference "Lisa Jackson Schebetta, a Ph.D. candidate in Theatre History, Theory and Criticism at the University of Washington,[24] concluded that the goal of the program is always a product, a dog that behaves according to its owners' desires, however illogical.[25] The dog is filmed performing his problem behavior, a male human voice-over describes the situation briefly, the owners share their exasperation with the film crew, and Millan arrives. He meets the people and shares with them his basic philosophies: ― a dog needs exercise, discipline and love, in that order, and the human has to be the Pack Leader. These mantras are the answer to every dog's problem, regardless of where the dog has come from or his or her current state of agitation. Although there are alternative theories about dog behavior and training, any discussion of these is omitted. Millan then meets the dog, the dog submits to him, and the owners celebrate, often voicing their amazement in referring to the miracle they have witnessed. The formula —problem dog meets Millan, dog submits, and owners are overjoyed — does not waver. Although the footage is clearly edited to construct the predictable story, each episode presents itself as natural and spontaneous.[25]"
The article [ Mythologies and Commodifications of Dominion in The Dog Whisperer with Cesar Millan] The journal [ Journal for Critical Animal Studies] The author [ Lisa Jackson-Schebetta]
This was deleted as not meeting wikipedia's definition of a 'reliable source' and its re-instating is being contested. Marj ( talk) 02:21, 26 February 2010 (UTC)
I think it is relevant that the article is linked to in PDF format, anyone who wishes to can vet the information for themselves by reading the whole paper. Marj ( talk) 05:34, 26 February 2010 (UTC)
Seems appropriate to use as a criticism in the article, as long as you specify the source ("... journal of animal liberation group ..." or something like that). The fact that a show about animals is criticized by animal rights activists is important, and ICAS and/or CALA seem like a notable animal rights journal and organization respectively from what you've written here and our article. It is an edited journal, which says nothing about neutral, all that means is that it's not just one person ranting, the article is approved by some kind of organization. We can't expect criticism to come from NPOV sources, criticism is inherently POV. However, I think it's getting a bit of undue weight in the article as is; the section on Jackson-Schebatta's criticism is just another criticism, and shouldn't get a separate section. I also think the fact that she's a theatre student isn't important; the fact that her criticism was published in an animal rights magazine seems the important part to me. I'd put it into the criticism section, and shorten it by a third. -- GRuban ( talk) 23:14, 26 February 2010 (UTC)
There is a Wikipedia editor who has repeatedly used the neutral voice of the encyclopedia to quote a legal opinion about the powers of the Palestinian Authority from this website. [5] The site contains very outdated information. For example it says that Yasser Arafat (now deceased) is still the head of the Palestinian Authority. The Internet Archive indicates that the page was last updated in June of 2007 [6]
It appears to be a self-published website that is the work of a single editor/creator, Esam Shashaa. Other than the text of a 1988 PLO declaration, none of the material contains inline citations, footnotes, or evidence that it is based upon other published sources. There does not appear to be any editorial oversight, and Mr. Shashaa is not a generally recognized expert on political science, history, or international law.
He says that he has a degree in "Business Administration and Accounts" and "I thank you for taking the time to browse my site and find out more about the History of Palestine, as well as the site's author and creator." [7]
harlan ( talk) 22:23, 26 February 2010 (UTC)
Announcing an RfC at Talk:Ghost#RfC:_Context_of_NSF_statement_about_belief_in_ghosts. The questions being discussed are:
1. Whether the National Science Foundation is a reliable source for stating that "belief in ghosts and spirits" are " pseudoscientific beliefs".
2. Whether their expressions can be considered to represent the current scientific consensus (in the USA) on that subject.
See you there! -- Brangifer ( talk) 17:04, 27 February 2010 (UTC)
Please review the sources, or find more. Thank you. Hipocrite ( talk) 17:20, 26 February 2010 (UTC)
This group does not appear notable enough to have its own Wikipedia article, yet is is linked in something perhaps close to 700 articles [10] Is that an issue? MM 207.69.139.150 ( talk) 03:07, 26 February 2010 (UTC)
I don't believe this is the proper forum for this discussion. the community has already discussed and decided upon this exact topic twice on the
Articles for deletion page which discussed the information you are bringing up here.
Coffeepusher (
talk) 16:35, 26 February 2010 (UTC)
sorry about that, I misread this entire discussion. Since I am now officially the Jerk on this thread I will keep my opinions to myself and just let you know to disregard what I wrote. Coffeepusher ( talk) 01:43, 28 February 2010 (UTC)
It this a reliable source for IT articles? As far as I can tell it's a blog hosting service with some digg-like and slashdot-like elements, i.e. the ability to vote on stories and accumulate karma. It's a bit different than slashdot, because blogs are individual, e.g. [11]. As far as I can tell, the individual blogs all are WP:SPS, and the editorial oversight is rather hard to ascertain because it comes from anonymized votes. So, the blogs hosted there need to be evaluated on a case-by-case basis: if the author a blog hosted there is a well-known authority that has published in that field elsewhere, then it's a reliable source, otherwise I think not. (FYI: AfDs where it was invoked: Evilwm, Kohana (web framework) Wmii, but for the latter two there are other sources.) Thoughts? Pcap ping 06:13, 23 February 2010 (UTC)
In this working paper and later a book ( The Israel Lobby and U.S. Foreign Policy), Walt and Mearsheimer are critical of what they see as the extension of the "Israel lobby" dominating public discourse. In regards to the Washington Institute for Near East Policy they claim "Although WINEP plays down its links to Israel and claims that it provides a 'balanced and realistic' perspective on Middle East issues, this is not the case... Its board of advisers...includes no one who might be thought of as favoring the perspective of any country or group in the 'Near East.' Many of its personnel are genuine scholars or experienced former officials, but they are hardly neutral observers on most Middle East issues and there is little diversity of views within WINEP’s ranks."
I believe that the authors' critical opinion can be cited as just that--and for a long time this has been in the criticism section of the WINEP article. In searching around other articles that cite it it is always cited as the authors' viewpoints ( Max Boot, Saban Center) and placed in the criticism or dispute section. An editor now seems to believe it is okay to include the authors' viewpoint as a part of the article's neutral text, even though the article has a criticism section. -- Shamir1 ( talk) 06:33, 25 February 2010 (UTC)
However, John Mearsheimer, a University of Chicago political science professor, and Stephen Walt, academic dean at Harvard University's Kennedy School of Government, describe it as "part of the core" of the Israel lobby in the United States. Discussing the group in their book, The Israel Lobby and US Foreign Policy, Mearsheimer and Walt write: "Although WINEP plays down its links to Israel and claims that it provides a 'balanced and realistic' perspective on Middle East issues, this is not the case. In fact, WINEP is funded and run by individuals who are deeply committed to advancing Israel’s agenda... Many of its personnel are genuine scholars or experienced former officials, but they are hardly neutral observers on most Middle East issues and there is little diversity of views within WINEP’s ranks."
Would Phillip Matier and Andrew Ross be considered reliable Sources? http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/blogs/matierandross/index Both are columnists for the San Francisco Chronicle, which in and of itself is certainly a reliable mainstream American newspaper. Both are certainly subject to editorial review by the editors at the San Francisco Chronicle. This being the case, can we disregard them as "gossip bloggers" and treat them as unreliable sources, or since they are subject to editorial review and published by a mainstream newspaper, would they be reliable sources? Ghostmonkey57 ( talk) 19:59, 21 February 2010 (UTC)
NB that this relates to the outing of Vaughn Walker. For what it's worth, the discussion in the legal web of the story has not been "Is it true?" but "Given that it's true, what are the implications?" I know other reporters who were aware of the issue and decided not to run the story. THF ( talk) 13:03, 28 February 2010 (UTC)
Another Russian IT site invoked in AfDs (e.g. Dwm). If the unsourced Wikipedia article about it is to be believed, it operates just like slashdot, i.e. accepts user submitted stories with some moderation. Reliable source? Pcap ping 06:37, 23 February 2010 (UTC)
Before we begin, yes I know it is a self-published website, and that nothing on the website itself establishes notability. Cameron Bevers, the writer, is a regional planner for the Ministry of Transportation of Ontario. However, he is certainly considered an expert on the topic, as the city of Toronto archives uses this website as the source for its description of the Highway 401 archive category. I can't link directly to the archives but if someone wants to see it before commenting.
I'm fairly certain I could find a recent newspaper article from a major newspaper that discusses him as well if the archives is not enough. - ʄɭoʏɗiaɲ τ ¢ 18:17, 11 February 2010 (UTC)
Well, yea... Thats what this board is for, sources that don't meet the generalized criteria of WP:RS to be discussed to see if consensus overrides the criteria. Also, the Hamilton Spectator is on par with the Toronto Star (it's the leading paper in Hamilton, which at 850000 people isn't just a dot on the map). Also keep in mind its being mentioned by the Toronto Archives, which is a government run ministry that deals with historical facts (as Cameron Bevers site does), not the personal blog of the mayors assistant. He is a regional planner for Central Ontario (established expert) who has been published in multiple reputable sources with regards to his expertise. It's not just a mention in an editorial in the Scarborough mirror, its an article devoted to him in the most published newspaper in the country. - ʄɭoʏɗiaɲ τ ¢ 03:07, 22 February 2010 (UTC)
Are the following reliable sources for the statement in the John Birch Society (JBS) article that it "has been described as far right":
My objections to these sources are that 1) they are being used as primary sources for the conclusion that the JBS has been described as far right and 2) the articles are not about the JBS or the far right and therefore not relevant to the topic. It is not as if there is a lack of relevant sources for this article.
The Four Deuces ( talk) 22:34, 17 February 2010 (UTC)
Hi,
I need input on whatever the TV schedules posted in this forum thread can be counted as Reliable to assert the X series broadcast on Y network/TV channel. Note that this thread is hosted in the official TV network forum and there is to my knowledge no other place to find broadcast information in the whole official website.
Thanks -- KrebMarkt 08:50, 21 February 2010 (UTC)
Are the sources
here:
1. Biberian, J.-P.; Armamet, N. (2008)
"An update on condensed matter nuclear science (cold fusion)" Annales de la Fondation Louis de Broglie. Volume: 33, Issue: 1-2, Pages: 45-51.
2. Sheldon, E. (2008)
"An overview of almost 20 years' research on cold fusion. A review of 'The Science of Low Energy Nuclear Reaction: A Comprehensive Compilation of Evidence and Explanations about Cold Fusion.'" Contemporary Physics. Volume: 49, Issue: 5, Pages: 375-378.
and
here: (includes discussion of peer review from book's forward)
3. Marwan, Jan and Krivit, Steven B., eds., Low energy nuclear reactions sourcebook (American Chemical Society/Oxford University Press, 2008;
ISBN
978-0-8412-6966-8)
and
here: (includes discussion of peer review)
4. Krivit, S.B, “Cold Fusion: History,” Encyclopedia of Electrochemical Power Sources, Vol 2, Juergen Garche, Chris Dyer, Patrick Moseley, Zempachi Ogumi, David Rand and Bruno Scrosati, eds, Amsterdam: Elsevier; Nov. 2009. p. 271–276,
ISBN
9780444520937
5. Krivit, S.B, “Cold Fusion - Precursor to Low-Energy Nuclear Reactions,” Encyclopedia of Electrochemical Power Sources, Vol 2, Juergen Garche, Chris Dyer, Patrick Moseley, Zempachi Ogumi, David Rand and Bruno Scrosati, eds, Amsterdam: Elsevier; Nov. 2009. p. 255–270,
ISBN
9780444520937
all reliable, peer reviewed,
WP:SECONDARY sources for improving the
cold fusion article? If not, which are and which are not reliable, and why?
99.191.75.124 (
talk) 17:35, 27 February 2010 (UTC)
Banned user Nrcprm2026 is not permitted to contribute.
Hipocrite (
talk) 20:03, 28 February 2010 (UTC)
For the New York Times article Paterson Weighs Race as Top Aide Quits in Protest, it states at the top "By DANNY HAKIM and JEREMY W. PETERS", but it also states at the bottom "David Kocieniewski, William K. Rashbaum and Karen Zraick contributed reporting from New York.".
Should David Kocieniewski, William K. Rashbaum and Karen Zraick be considered authors as well? Smallman12q ( talk) 02:51, 28 February 2010 (UTC)
I know that, as far as reliability goes, we no longer simply say "No blogs"... recognizing that there is a huge difference between joe blow's personal blog and a professional (or even semi-professional) news blog... and that we essentially judge reliability based on whether the blog has a reputation for good journalism. With that in mind, I just need to know... what is the reputation of thedailybeast.com? Thanks Blueboar ( talk) 03:31, 28 February 2010 (UTC)
It is not a blog. Dlabtot ( talk) 17:35, 28 February 2010 (UTC)
Despite the fact that we've discussed this site on these pages multiple times as being non-reliable, there are well over 1,000 articles using it as a source. On top of that, someone at Wikipedia:WikiProject Films/Resources keeps adding it back as a valid source. The info on that page says sites cannot be added to that page without a discussion on the talk page concluding them to be reliable, yet when it is removed it keeps getting putting back without any discussion.
I am putting this back here for another discussion, one which I hope will sort this out once and for all. If it's not reliable as we have been saying all along it needs to be enforced, perhaps with either the spam filter or some other method to get rid of it for good. DreamGuy ( talk) 18:01, 28 February 2010 (UTC)
Is the website mako.org.au ever a reliable source? It is a kind of public list of convicted (or not) criminals (" 98+% of offenders listed in the MAKO/Files Online and MAKO/Files Online- (WTC) have been convicted by a court of law."), without any kind of official backing, reputation for fact-checking, ... As this is used for extremely sensitive information (identifying paedophiles, murderers, ...), I don't believe that this source is good enough. It is currently used on 36 pages. [20] Any ideas? —Preceding unsigned comment added by Fram ( talk • contribs) 12:04, 22 January 2010
The subject of the appropriateness of using youtube videos comes up often, however there seems to be no bright line as to whether they shold be used or not. In the case of Patrick Wolff three youtube links depicting a chess match have been repeatedly (three times) added to the article despite the request to discuss why they are necessary and if they meet the narrow instances where youtube links can or should be used as a reliable source. Is this a case where the links should be used? Jezebel'sPonyo shhh 14:45, 22 February 2010 (UTC)
What are peoples thoughts on the reliability of The Daily Collegian and Collegiate Times, used in Michael Peter Woroniecki. I haven't read every article yet, but I'm thinking that they are possibly acceptable for reporting events that occurred on campus, but not external events. I'm trying to clean up a major NPOV issue, and this guidance would be useful before I start. Kevin ( talk) 23:58, 24 February 2010 (UTC)
There is a discussion above -- Wikipedia:Reliable sources/Noticeboard#Journal of Genetic Genealogy where an editor has said "As Andrew says, any consensus reached here can and will be ignored by editors familiar with the material". I have always understood that talk page consensus cannot trump policy, and I assume that means that talk page consensus can't overrule consensus here. Note I'm not saying there is a consensus here, this is just a question of principal for me at the moment, although I think the point at issue is also an important point of princple. Dougweller ( talk) 09:46, 24 February 2010 (UTC)
Doug, I realize that this is probably just a theoretical discussion but I do think it reflects upon the real case at hand, or may be seen to (as shown by the IP reaction above!). The quote you cite by Din is being taken out of context. There was in fact no real consensus.-- Andrew Lancaster ( talk) 21:00, 24 February 2010 (UTC)
When editors ignore a clear consensus at RS/N, the next step is typically AN/I. Jayjg (talk) 01:38, 25 February 2010 (UTC)
Is it a reliable source? Because there is a "suggest edit" button. Is it like wikipedia that anyone can edit the articles? -- Supreme Deliciousness ( talk) 09:53, 26 February 2010 (UTC)
This source is being used to support the following half-sentence in the article Gary Lavergne: "which according to a 2007 Associated Press article is "considered the definitive account of the massacre.""
The article has been under discussion at Wikipedia:Biographies of living persons/Noticeboard#Gary Lavergne, where an editor questions whether that source is usable because he believes it an includes an error, that in the crime under discussion there should be 29 not 28 floors. I am of the opinion that an error in a reliable source does not invalidate it as a reliable source to begin with, but beyond that there's no definitive proof it is an error. Within a minute or two of searching, I found support for the "floor 28" it asserts in the following sources:
He has altered the article Charles Whitman, which also included the 28 floors figure, now to read 29, with support from an archived student newspaper article. He suggests that the Associated Press piece should be eliminated from the Gary Lavergne article as unreliable, indicating that these other three sources are unreliable as well.
Feedback would be welcome on whether or not this source is reliable to substantiate that statement: "which according to a 2007 Associated Press article is "considered the definitive account of the massacre."" I'm not particularly inclined to sweat the details at Charles Whitman myself, as I am only involved in attempting to make sure that the BLP on Gary Lavergne is fairly represented. -- Moonriddengirl (talk) 18:49, 27 February 2010 (UTC)
This is a very minor error--a fiddling detail that can easily be resolved by, for instance, a FOIA request for related police documents. but it exposes an underlying solecism that is quite common on Wikipedia: the notion that there exist intrinsically reliable sources whose authority overrides all conflicting reports by virtue of their status. To clarify, I'm not suggesting that it's sensible to challenge an AP report with an article from an opinion blog, a student newspaper, or whatever. I suppose the distillation is that we shouldn't reify fiddling detail in our articles. The number of the floor is not ascertainable from reliable sources with any degree of certainty, and it's of no relevance, so omit the detail
Tasty monster ( TS on one of those new fangled telephone thingies) 19:42, 27 February 2010 (UTC)
(outdent) Thank you for bringing that to my attention, I just read it. It was a criticism of another admins interpretation of my remarks and your use of the rules. Nothing pertaining to this discussion that I could garner. I do believe we'll see her here in a thread or two. Victor9876 ( talk) 20:24, 27 February 2010 (UTC)
Question! Can an administrator "tweak" the rules on Wikipedia? Thanks in advance. Victor9876 ( talk) 17:30, 28 February 2010 (UTC)
There is a dispute on the
Propaganda in the People's Republic of China page about whether "Kurlantzick, Joshua (2009).
"China: Resilient, Sophisticated Authoritarianism". Freedom House. {{
cite journal}}
: Cite journal requires |journal=
(
help); Unknown parameter |coauthors=
ignored (|author=
suggested) (
help)" is a reliable source on the Chinese Communist Party's propaganda work.
PCPP (
talk ·
contribs) argues that it is not, since "a) is not a suitable academic source as most of its material relies on original research b) is from an organization funded by the US government, and the countries reported happened to be political opponents of the US". I disagree. This is a question about the reliability of the source, not about whether the source has been used in a fully appropriate manner in the article. Please share your considered opinions. --
Asdfg
12345 00:07, 2 March 2010 (UTC)
Oh, and it would be relevant to note who these people are. Here's Kurlantzick's profile; and Perry Link. -- Asdfg 12345 00:17, 2 March 2010 (UTC)
BBC has announced that several sections of its old websites would be axed and its old content pruned, owing to a funding shakeup to BBC Online. I'm concerned that this is likely to include old versions of BBC News articles dating back to 1999, which an awful lot of articles heavily depend upon for reliable sourcing (some of them the only source, in fact). I think we should start converting them into WebCites before they are removed and then we'll have a huge sourcing problem in our hands. - Mailer Diablo 13:40, 2 March 2010 (UTC)
This website is an etymological blog on the origin of popular phrases. The editor, and major contributor Barry Popik is "a contributor-consultant to the Oxford English Dictionary, Dictionary of American Regional English, Historical Dictionary of American Slang, and the Yale Dictionary of Quotations."
His About page is here and the article in question is here.
Would the material sourced by Popik be considered a reliable source? - Stillwaterising ( talk) 13:44, 2 March 2010 (UTC)
It looks like the author is a RS, is there anything that would argue against RS of the blog for narrow use in "culture" articles? 99.141.252.167 ( talk) 14:24, 2 March 2010 (UTC)
This is being used as a source in a WP:BLP. The particular article in which it is being used is Esam S. Omeish and the particular article being cited is this one, authored by Paul Sperry and originally published at Front Page Magazine. Is this a reliable source for the claims being made? Please recall that this is a WP:BLP. Tiamut talk 20:09, 2 March 2010 (UTC)
The International Amateur Radio Union is an international society of long existence, with member societies which must be recognized national organizations, and they only recognize one organization per nation. Member societies typically existed prior to membership in the IARU, and some member societies have existed for more than eighty years. The member societies are legally independent. The IARU is managed by the American Radio Relay League, probably because the ARRL is the largest member society.
Some years ago, a decision at AfD resulted in the creation of stubs for member societies of the IARU, based solely on such membership (which demonstrates that a particular society is national in scope), and listing by the IARU, with pointers to the member society, as well as reference in publications of the IARU, is arguably an "independent reliable source" (the IARU being legally and in fact independent from the member society, except arguably the ARRL).
Two factors, national scope and independent source for verification may create sufficient notability for a stub, that is already the guideline at WP:CLUB, and stubs appear to me to be the best solution for organization of information about the member societies in this case (there are other alternatives, of course, including lists in the article on the international organization, but that was not consensus, and the large bulk of member societies have stubs). However, a process of AfDing these stubs has begun, on the basis of lack of notability. The lack of notability claim hinges on a position that the IARU description of the members is not a "independent source."
It appears that !voting in the AfDs generally favors keeping the articles, but the very same arguments are repeated over and over and over. It would be better to have some global clarification, so that editors don't waste time pursuing alternatives with a pile of individual decisions that go one way or the other depending on who notices the AfD.
National scope is considered an important factor in the notability of nonprofit organizations, see WP:CLUB, and recognition by a notable international organization would seem to meet the minimal additional requirement for a stub: independent notice.
Hence the question (and a similar question could be asked about national member societies in any international and legally independent organization):
Is the IARU an "independent source" for the purposes of determining notability of national member societies? There is no controversy over the use of information from the IARU in articles, other than this. Some member societies have sufficient "outside" mention that has been found to qualify them for individual articles on that basis, but there is a problem that such notice in publications outside the field of amateur radio, which can be expected to exist somewhere for all these member societies, is typically in local languages, would mostly be very old, and is difficult to find, particularly under the gun of an AfD. (For example, the Hong Kong Amateur Radio Transmitting Society is about eighty years old.) If the combination of national scope and the minimum notability represented by IARU recognition and listing is adequate for a stub with fully verifiable and trustworthy information, there would be no need to defend each and every member society based on claims on individual non-notability, reducing unproductive disruption at AfD. The decision whether or not to collect information in the article on the international society or to use stubs would then properly be made by editors at the international society article, the article on the umbrella organization.
This does not apply to simple "members" or especially "chapters" of international organizations. It only applies to member societies which are national in scope; these national members are legally independent and they are not established by the international society; rather, they apply for membership after they have been established. Recognition, I suggest, is "notice." And this only applies, as well, to notable international organizations, fully qualified on the basis of independent sources for their own articles.
There exist stubs on individual amateur radio clubs that would not be protected from AfD by this clearer understanding, such as clubs affiliated with the national member societies. These clubs are not national in scope, generally. -- Abd ( talk) 18:12, 23 February 2010 (UTC)
Disclosure: I proposed a change to WP:ORG at [32], and this is being contested there based apparently on a claim that such international organizations would not be a reliable source for information about member national societies. Some of this may be based on a misunderstanding about legal independence, but because there is a sourcing issue, I've brought this here, and I'll notify participants there of this discussion. -- Abd ( talk) 18:12, 23 February 2010 (UTC)
Would an opinion piece by the Illinois Family Institute on the www.opposingviews.com website be a reliable source on the Southern Poverty Law Center? On that website the IFI describes itself as follows:
The Illinois Family Institute (IFI) is an independent 501c(3) non-profit organization dedicated to upholding and re-affirming marriage, family, life and liberty in Illinois. For the past fifteen years, the IFI has worked to advance public policy initiatives consistent with Judeo-Christian teachings and traditions, educating citizens so that they can better influence their local communities and the state.
IFI works within the state of Illinois to promote and defend Biblical truths to foster an environment where families can thrive and reach their full God-given potential to serve and glorify Him--making the most of the opportunities afforded to each of us by His gift of life and liberty.
-- Jayjg (talk) 23:13, 28 February 2010 (UTC)
The source used for porn being banned in Ukraine is Romanian National Vanguard which is basically... well, I'll let you have a look for yourself at what kind of site it is (some kind of far right website), but is it reliable to use in Wikipedia? I don't think so.-- Base and Spoiled Female ( talk) 17:08, 1 March 2010 (UTC)
Am I the only one who first read this as "Pornography by religion"? Hans Adler 07:41, 2 March 2010 (UTC)
Please see the following link, http://www.facebook.com/photo.php?pid=3996218&id=7470710094. This photo is being used as a source to show that the latest release by the artist BT, http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/BT_%28musician%29, debuted on two digital charts in the #1 sales slot. Since this is linked on the artists facebook page, is this considered a self published source? I would also question how verifiable this is as I can't find where amazon or itunes list historical data for singles sales. I know the information to be true, but an image can be easily manipulated. This article as a whole is poorly sourced, with many links dead, or citation given to articles that do not say what other editors have put into the article. There is a lot of opinion and some summarizing is bordering on OW. There have been contention about my recent changes, by anonymous/new users, to tone down some of the weasel/peacock statements, and to improve the sourcing of opinion data in the article. For this reason I'm trying to get a better consensus on my edits before I make them. Thanks. Fctchkr ( talk) 15:18, 2 March 2010 (UTC)
I wrote an article on a little known Scottish band called Iron horse. [36] To my surprise, the article is marked with Notability.
I read about the Notability guidelines and I am puzzled. I don't have anytihng to do with the Iron Horse Group. I just love their music. It may be that the music lovers highly appreciate this band. But there is no way to tell. They are next to unknown over the Internet. The band retired in 2001.
What can I do to meet the Notability requirements in this case? Can you really decide that the article is not worth being there based on the lack of sources? What if the quality of their art justifies the article by itself? Or who can be the judge of that
thanks Alfred
Hello. There is a dispute about whether the writer James Miller is a reliable source to comment on Michel Foucault. Please see the dispute here. Specifically, the dispute is partly over whether Miller is a reliable source on Foucault's philosophy with regard to sado-masochism. Here are some quotes directly from his book:
James Miller is an Associate Professor of Political Science and Director of Liberal Studies at the New School for Social Research, and his text was published by Harvard University Press. If there is more information that I would need to provide, please advise. The reason I have queried here is to get an outside opinion. Thank you.-- TheSoundAndTheFury ( talk) 13:19, 26 February 2010 (UTC)
Csloat, a number of editors above have considered that the inclusion has some merit, and that Miller scrapes through as a reliable source. I do not understand the resistance. Particularly, the version proposed by Coffeepusher spent most of the text criticising Miller. It's quite unclear how this violates the due weight clause. Would the editors who previously commented on this please consider advising on whether csloat's behaviour here is productive? This information, as has been shown, has been mentioned by many reliable sources. Total exclusion seems unwarranted; but I would like to hear the opinions of others. I will leave a note on their talk pages to highlight the fact that the disagreement is still ongoing. My version, Coffeepusher's version, clsoat's deletion -- TheSoundAndTheFury ( talk) 15:36, 1 March 2010 (UTC)
I think people are making good arguments for the inclusion of a sentence or two mentioning the Miller book (and the fact that it is roundly dismissed by actual scholars), but I don't see an argument for dwelling on one of the (many) scandalous and unsubstantiated claims that Miller makes throughout the book. It's pretty clearly an undue weight issue as I see it. I also don't disagree that some discussion of Foucault's sexuality might be shown to be relevant, especially if it is sourced to Eribon or another actual scholar. But taking Miller's pseudo-journalistic account, elevating it to the level of a "study" (as if it were a peer-reviewed research analysis rather than a compilation of gossip), and then pulling out one of his more sensational claims and devoting a large paragraph to that claim (more space than we're devoting to The Birth of the Clinic!) is definitely undue weight. In Miller's book alone there are multiple such ridiculous claims that have led to Miller being criticized -- such as the claim that Foucault was a murderer, and the claim that his entire philosophy changed as a result of a single dose of LSD. These claims tell us a lot more about Miller than Foucault, which is why they may be mentioned in a Miller article but not in the Foucault article. csloat ( talk) 20:15, 1 March 2010 (UTC)
Is there any past dicussion at RSN dealing with pseudonymous authors who publish under regimes where the judiciary is not independent and political persecution is common? [37]
A question has come up about the use of this source:
to cite this text at X-Ray of a Lie (not a BLP):
Wolfgang Schalk and Thalman Urguelles, Venezuelan TV producers and engineers, were commissioned to "produce a response to the propaganda piece by Bartley and O'Briain", according to AC Clark in The Revolutionary Has No Clothes: Hugo Chavez's Bolivarian Farce, who says the film accurately uncovers the "mendacity and tendentiousness of The Revolution Will Not Be Televised".
According to User:Rd232:
"A C Clark" is a pseudonym [38] chosen by a Venezuelan who is clearly a member of the opposition (the book title already suggests a polemic). This pseudonymous opinion is not, I think, a reliable source, and without knowing who it is, how are we supposed to judge due weight? Rd232 talk 08:56, 2 March 2010 (UTC)
Does the allegation that the author is "clearly a member of the opposition" have any bearing on reliability? Generally, how do we deal with pseudonymous authorship under repressive regimes, and specifically, is this source reliable for this text in a film article?
Thanks, SandyGeorgia ( Talk)
One point that weighs on my mind is that because of the pseudonym we cannot create a bio article allowing the reader to judge for themselves the significance of this person's opinion (or editors to judge due weight). The text the source supports is primarily opinion, not fact, and the factual element is the fairly trivial one surely sourceable elsewhere that X-Ray was commissioned as a response to Revolution. Rd232 talk 17:30, 2 March 2010 (UTC)
On Wikipedia a verifiable and reliable source is generally a source whose publisher is accepted as reliable and verifiable. If the author's name is known and happens to be an expert in the field of interest with a good reputation, that can add to the reliability of the source. But articles by reliable sources are often anonymous (and sometimes pseudonymous) and are still acceptable. Our focus for reliability is on the publisher's reputation for accuracy and editorial vetting mechanisms, and those are the same regardless of whether the author's name is disclosed. Also, the "author" of an anonymous/pseudonymous article can be more than one person, but again, it's the publisher which counts for verifiability and reliability. Crum375 ( talk) 12:44, 3 March 2010 (UTC)
This is related to the attempt [39] noted above [40] to de-list The Times of London as a reliable source. This blog [41]has been referenced to establish the Times as a Wikipedia "un-reliable source".
In short, and for a number of reasons considered in their totality, the opinion blog noted here is not a Reliable Source suitable for use at Wikipedia. 99.141.252.167 ( talk) 17:57, 1 March 2010 (UTC)
And now these
[66]
[67]
[68]
[69]
[70], these were inserted as "timlambert.org".
99.141.252.167 (
talk) 21:26, 1 March 2010 (UTC)
Lambert is an academic scientist, who writes about science. And although he blogs outside of specific his area of academic interest, he is part of an invitation-only blog network selected by the editors of Seed Magazine. He's not some random blogger. Guettarda ( talk) 21:54, 1 March 2010 (UTC)
{{
cn}}
tag and...that means it adds nothing? Er, no.
Guettarda (
talk) 22:21, 1 March 2010 (UTC)
Deltoid is frequently cited as a top 10 Science Blog. Phil Plait's Bad Astronomy is another. [72] Wikispan ( talk) 22:29, 1 March 2010 (UTC)
I see JQ has been reverting the removals of this blog as a source, John please note WP:BLP#Self-published has a clear prohibition on using self-published sources to discuss third parties: "Never use self-published books, zines, websites, forums, blogs or tweets as sources for material about a living person, unless written or published by the subject. I have reverted some of the more blatant violations of this in peoples bio`s I would ask you to self revert the rest thanks mark nutley ( talk) 10:37, 2 March 2010 (UTC)
WP:BLP#Self-published doesn't apply because a blog on ScienceBlogs is not self-published. If one particular blog is not RS, every single ScienceBlogs reference becomes suspect. All changes must be reverted until the status of ScienceBlogs as a whole is assessed. Xanthoxyl < 00:06, 3 March 2010 (UTC)
Well let's take PZ Myers' Pharyngula blog. Is it a reliable source on biology, particularly developmental biology? Of course it is. But Tim Lambert writing on Deltoid about a subject far from his own speciality is a different matter. To say that all Scienceblogs articles are suspect is simply correct.
As I've said before, the fundamental error is when we ask "Is publication/person/publisher X a reliable source?" The answer is that any given source (for all three meanings of "source") may be reliable on some subjects and not reliable on others. -- TS 00:17, 3 March 2010 (UTC)
@Xanthoxy, from that link you posted i see no agreement that it can be used as a wp:rs there is no editorial control, and you have people blogging about whatever they want. Tim lambert is a computer scientist and his opinions on people can`t be used as a wp:rs If science blogs are a reliable source then so is wattsupwiththat.com and http://eureferendum.blogspot.com/ is this what your saying? That opinion blogs with no editorial control can be used as wp:rs?
The issue of the reliability of the website Venezuelanalysis, which has long passed too long, didn't read status above, merits a reboot in an attempt to actually resolve the issue. The site now has its own entry - Venezuelanalysis.com. It is argued that Venezuelanalysis is widely considered reliable, and that it "offers useful detail and analysis on pivotal issues that is unavailable from other media sources," and as such is a necessary complement to other media sources. Any present overuse of VA should be fixed by adding more sources, not removing VA sources.
In the face of this evidence that Venezuelanalysis is widely considered a reliable source, some Wikipedia editors wish to substitute their personal opinion that it is unreliable, because links they allege between the website (the alleged links are weak and the sourcing generally unreliable) and the Venezuelan government allegedly render it unreliable. They also argue that in their opinion the website editors' political views, which differ dramatically from their own, render it unreliable. In addition they argue that those wishing to use VA as a source must prove the site's 8 editors have "journalistic credentials" (whatever that means). (It was generally ignored that I had noted - to suggest that "journalistic credentials" are not everything - that Venezuelan media, formerly one of the most respected presses in Latin America, had after the election of Hugo Chavez become part of the opposition: "media owners and their editors used the news - print and broadcast - to spearhead an opposition movement against Chavez... Editors [...] began routinely winking at copy containing unfounded speculation, rumor, and unchecked facts." Dinges, John. Columbia Journalism Review (July 2005). "Soul Search", Vol. 44 Issue 2, July-August 2005, pp52-8. US media reporting on Venezuela has also been critiqued [98] [99])
In discussing this issue in the RSN thread above, the editors opposing use of VA have introduced irrelevant sources; complained about Wikipedia's Venezuela articles not matching their POV; and made many accusations of bad faith. Since the old thread remains open for any more accusations of bad faith that may be required, as well as any more detours into complaints not relevant to the issue, hopefully this thread can focus on resolving the question: can VA be considered a reliable source? Rd232 talk 14:17, 6 February 2010 (UTC)
This looks like "ask the other parent" to an issue that was already well debated; I suggest that anyone weighing in here not take Rd232's summary at face value, rather re-read the entire previous thread. Venezuelanalysis is funded by Chavez, media in Venezuela is state-controlled, the writers for Venezuelanalysis are highly partisan and affiliated with the Chavez regime, have no journalist credentials, and VenAnalysis is largely cited by the extreme radical left. It has been used on Wiki to source an egregious BLP violation, and its reporting is rarely comprehensive or neutral; the people responsible for it are funded by Chavez and associated with him. VA has a very limited place on Wiki, if any, and people willing to use it as a source often do so to the exclusion of more reliable sources. It rarely covers info that is not available in non-biased mainstream reliable sources, and because it is affiliated with Chavez, should never be used to the exclusion of more reliable sources. I also notice Rd232's several distortions and one-sided presentation of the issues in his new thread here, and am concerned about his tendentious editing in Chavez/Venezuela articles. He states that media owners spearheaded opposition to Chavez, but fails to mention the serious press freedom issues in Venezuela and that the media is state-controlled, by Chavez, and you can be jailed or shut down if you criticize Chavez; if Wiki allows VenAnalysis a larger role here as a source, we become one more arm of Chavez's very successful Venezuela Information Office. We already see Rd232 writing entire articles sourced to the highly partisan VA website, and excluding mainstream views (that alone speaks to the bias of VA as a source). We also now have an unbalanced article venezuelanalysis.com that uses a tour guide to prop up this partisan website. And I strongly object to this "ask the other parent" reboot, since most people are probably tired of this discussion and considered it settled. WP:V is a pillar of Wiki; overreliance on VA turns Wiki into another arm of the Chavez PR and propaganda machine. SandyGeorgia ( Talk) 16:16, 7 February 2010 (UTC)
It is also a self-published source within the meaning of the policy, in the sense that it seems to have no employees, no bosses, no office, and no formal editorial oversight. It describes itself as "an independent website produced by individuals ... its contributors are all working on the site from their homes in various places in Venezuela, the U.S., and elsewhere in the world." [101]
The reliability of individual articles on the site therefore boils down to whether the person who wrote the article is a reliable source within the meaning of the policy. The policy says: "Self-published material may, in some circumstances, be acceptable when produced by an established expert on the topic of the article whose work in the relevant field has previously been published by reliable third-party publications." See WP:V#Self-published sources (online and paper). So each article on the website that's being proposed as a source will have to be examined individually to decide whether the author has previously been published in that field by an independent publication. Then that article could be used with a link to the site as a source. But I would caution against using self-published material for anything contentious, and it can never be used as a source of information about a living person, per V and BLP. SlimVirgin TALK contribs 19:11, 7 February 2010 (UTC)
SlimVirgin's analysis is correct, and I appreciate her more thorough review. The website is essentially a WP:SPS, and has to be treated as such. Its political views, and whether or not various professors write a laudatory paragraph for the website, are both irrelevant. Jayjg (talk) 23:46, 8 February 2010 (UTC)
Exhibit I, since people have been asking for examples, which I just happened across while looking into the curiously orphaned article, Corruption in Venezuela, whose original content seems to have gone desaparecido and orphaned. This VenAnalysis report is used to source a completely biased accounting there of the cases of Manuel Rosales and Raul Baduel (and others). Since I have cleaned up Rosales, and done a wee bit of work on Baduel, I invite those participating in this discussion to compare this VA article with the reliable sources listed at Rosales and Baduel, see if they think VenAnalysis has presented both sides of the story. SandyGeorgia ( Talk) 03:50, 8 February 2010 (UTC)
I've noticed that the site is included in required reading lists and bibliographies for courses at a number of universities. The following list (by no means exhaustive) provides some examples:
I would think that tends to affirm RS status. At any rate, it clearly has some considerable academic standing. -- JN 466 22:40, 19 February 2010 (UTC)
Having gone through this exercise, I can't fault SlimVirgin's analysis above, posted at 19:11, 7 February 2010. In particular, it seems more than likely from the affiliations of the people involved that the site does have a promotional agenda. That does not mean everything on it is bad or invalid; as SlimVirgin said earlier, we should look at the credentials of each individual author whose writings are hosted there, and base our decision on that. Thanks for your input. -- JN 466 17:02, 21 February 2010 (UTC)
Having expended more than enough energy on this issue, I'm staying out of it. However I will correct the error introduced above by relying on the Harvard reading list: the source given for the Mark Weisbrot contribution is "Black swans..." [116], which is a straight re-publication of the CEPR paper here: [117]. Weisbrot hasn't written for VA, as far as I know; but seemingly is quite liberal in allowing republication by anyone that wants. Rd232 talk 22:01, 21 February 2010 (UTC)
Is this a reliable source?
In my eyes of-course not if you look at the header of this website you will see some of the most cruel terrorist of the world who committed a lot of terroristic acts around the world.
http://www.kavkazcenter.com/eng/
But a lot of wikipedia articles rely on this source.
A short quote of an article:
"At least 3 US invaders were killed and another 3 injured during gun battles in which the enemy coalition forces were forced to retreat, said the report, adding a bomb tore apart a US invaders tank while trying to flee from the certain areas, killing the US invaders who were on board."
And Headlines such: "Clarification of the invaders propaganda in Afghanistan"
http://www.kavkaz.org.uk/eng/content/2010/01/31/11329.shtml
There's no indication of significant editorial oversight or a reputation for fact-checking and accuracy. Regarding the content, here's a story I picked off their front page just now:
2 apostate policemen eliminated in Caucasus Emirate's Dagestan Province
Publication time: 20 February 2010, 12:54Puppet officials say two apostate police officers were fatally shot in attacks in Dagestan Province, Caucasus Emirate.
Regional "Interior Ministry" gang's spokesman Mark Tolchinsky said Saturday that "a group of unidentified assailants fatally wounded the two officers at a roadside police station in the Gergebil district of Dagestan province late Friday".
Kavkaz Center
I think that pretty much sums it up. Jayjg (talk) 20:44, 21 February 2010 (UTC)
Well and an other article of this page
Mujahideen released a summary of military operations against Anglo-American invaders and Karzai puppets in Helmand for Saturday, February 13. According to these data, more than 50 US invaders have been killed or injured and 16 US have been tanks destroyed on Saturday in separate incidents in Marjah, Garmsir, Nad Ali and Now Zad districts of the Helmand province. Kavkaz Center
Sure ... --Saiga 14:46, 27 February 2010 (UTC)
Kavkazcenter is a mouthpiece for extremists in the North Caucasus. As far as facts and figures go, there is no editorial oversight or fact checking whatsoever, and for good reason since their intention is not to report an accurate and unbiased depiction of events, but to promote a cause.
LokiiT (
talk) 02:34, 28 February 2010 (UTC)
Kavkazcenter has been posted more often on WP:RS (and always survived) by people who are bitter about conflict. The site is indeed an extremis propaganda website, but always had ties with caucasian forces during both chechen wars. It has released images, videos, interviews, attacks, burials and also figures of casualties on both sides. Of course their numbers should be taken with a grain of salt, but they aren't less accurate than casualty figures reported by the russian press (often known for being propaganda figures as well). Kavkazcenter has been quoted by thousands of news tabloids [121] many times over, including the major ones. The same goes for books [122]. As long as their statements are attributed as something like "according to the radical kavkazcenter website" it's fine to use it on subjects related to the conflict in the northern caucasus (not afghanistan or iraq). Just as news tabloids as well as wikipedia articles also quote statements by Taliban leaders or even Al-Qaeda leaders as well as statements by pkk leaders or other rebel formations. I also think that anyone who accuses someone of spreading "terrorist propaganda" or calling anyone a "terrorist lover" (such as here [123]) should be blocked or warned for personal attacks because those accusations are highly provocative and polarizing. Grey Fox ( talk) 15:40, 8 March 2010 (UTC)
Hi, User:BruceGrubb is wanting to use Terry Sandbek, Ph.D. " Brain Typing: The Pseudoscience of Cold Reading" Journal of the American Board of Sport Psychology as a source on Multi-level Marketing. The site is ostensibly a peer-reviewed journal however the "journal" appears to consist of a sum total of 8 articles appearing only on the rather unprofessional looking website [124] and the document in question doesn't even appear to be one of those. The "journal" itself seems to have racked up a sum total of one citation, in an obscure Pakistani journal [125]. Given the article in question is (a) not by an expert in, or about, the topic in question (multilevel marketing) (b) probably not peer-reviewed and (c) not in a journal of any standing even if it was, it would appear to me to clearly fail WP:RS. Comments appreciated. -- Insider201283 ( talk) 23:38, 19 February 2010 (UTC) ETA: I found the article in question listed here on the website. It's a "position paper" and listed with other opinion-type pieces. As noted, it's not listed in the "journal" articles section [126] -- Insider201283 ( talk) 23:46, 19 February 2010 (UTC)
American Psychological Association Divisions 47 and 6 (Behavioral Neuroscience) 2004 Convention Symposium: Integrative Sport Psychology (*,**) Presented Papers section only one of the six papers is in the PDF format. All the rest are in powerpoint format even though the one star (*) denotes all as "for the researcher and practitioner (more technical/scientific)PEER-REVIEWED" and then you have three star (***) articles in PDF format even though the ratings only expressly states that one star articles are PEER-REVIEWED. I am inclined to trust the star ratings rather than the format especially as PEER-REVIEWED is in all caps and bolded.-- BruceGrubb ( talk) 01:54, 20 February 2010 (UTC)
Aha. Now it makes sense. From reading the paper, Sandbek is criticizing one specific person, Jon Niednagel, who is apparently is trying to do something called Brain Typing which has something to do with Sport Psychology (hence the sports medicine connection). As one of his criticisms, Sandbek mentions that Niednagel was involved with MLM. The sentence in context is:
Such is the case with Brain Typing. Mr. Niednagel is quick to claim a scientific basis for his product but is unable to offer any solid evidence that it is based on any scientific principles. This is not surprising when we look at the types of businesses that he has promoted in the last few decades. None of them have any direct link to applied science or scientific research. Multilevel Marketing and Positive Thinking, his two previous ventures, have no connection to findings within the scientific community.
The article, including the quoted sentence, is primarily a criticism of Niednagel specifically, not of MLM in general, and I suspect Sandbek would reject any claims of being an expert on MLM in general. Not appropriate for the MLM article. If we have an article on Brain Typing or Niednagel, it would be a good source there, but MLM is much bigger than Niednagel.
That said, however, surely there is no lack of better sources to criticise MLM. Consumer advocates, attorneys general, economists, all those would be much better critics than sports medicine experts. -- GRuban ( talk) 21:06, 21 February 2010 (UTC)
(remove indent)Gruban - Insider201283 is again engaging in a half truth. user:Arthur Rubin on the talk page and User:TheEditor22 on the RS/NS felt that Taylor, FitzPatrick, and Vandruff could be used as they were cited so many times in peer reviewed papers (including one that Insider201283 claimed was and was called on the carpet for that responded with "For someone to cite it, based only on a webpage, and have that accepted in peer review? A tragic example of poor standards.") as well as in reliable publishers such as Juta Academic not to mention the McGeorge Law Review which using Taylor as a reference stated "Day after day, however, many Americans and others around the world4 fall prey to a similar type of deception—supposed “business opportunities” in which 99.9 percent of investors lose money." User:Jakew left the RS/NS discussion just a little after User:TheEditor22 came on and you note on his User_talk:TheEditor22 who had been temporarily banned for using sock puppetry and other things to keep a reliable source by Fox News that Insider kept arguing for the removal of in the ACN Inc. article. Based on the last poster in that it was two against one that they were RS.-- BruceGrubb ( talk) 07:05, 2 March 2010 (UTC)
Is the Oxfordian journal Brief Chronicles considered to be a reliable source for the Wikipedia Shakespeare authorship question article? It focuses on a fringe theory, the Shakespeare authorship question, from an Oxfordian perspective (i.e. the assumption that Edward deVere, the 17th Earl of Oxford, was the true author of the Shakespeare canon). See the focus and scope statement.
Reading the “about” page, it is apparent that the journal was planned and carefully constructed to give the impression of a scholarly, peer-reviewed journal. However, the publication is controlled by general editor Dr. Roger Stritmatter, an Oxfordian whose commitment to spreading the gospel is well known to Wikipedia Shakespeare editors, and the 12-member board includes at least 10 identified Oxfordians, such as Dr. Michael Delahoyde of Washington State University and Dr. Richard Waugaman of the Georgetown University of Medicine and Washington Psychoanalytic Institute. While the accomplishments of these people should not be disparaged, they believe in a fringe theory (which is not all that unusual among certain percentage of academics) and participate on the board of a publication devoted to promoting a theory well outside the accepted scholarly consensus.
In its inaugural number, Brief Chronicles published 10 articles, ostensibly chosen by a double-blind peer review. Coincidentally, three of the 10 were authored by members of the editorial board. They included such articles as “The Psychology of the Authorship Question,” which according to the abstract, “Employs a historical/psychoanalytical model to understand why so many academicians are resistant to rationale [sic] discourse on the authorship question”; “Francis Meres and the Earl of Oxford”, which supposedly “Analyzes the numerical structure of Francis Meres' 1598 Palladis Tamia to show that Meres not only knew that Oxford and Shakespeare were one and the same, but that he constructed his publication to carefully alert the reader to this fact” (and incidentally marks the Oxfordian descent into cryptic number puzzles that formerly were the sole province of Baconism); and “Edward de Vere's Hand in Titus Andronicus”.
I believe that WP:PARITY applies to this publication, especially the sentence, "Note that fringe journals exist, some of which claim peer review. Only a very few of these actually have any meaningful peer review outside of promoters of the fringe theories, and should generally be considered unreliable. Examples: The Creation Science Quarterly, Homeopathy, Journal of Frontier Science . . . and many others." Tom Reedy ( talk) 03:14, 22 February 2010 (UTC)
Just a suggestion: you might want to limit comments by involved editors to one or two at the most. If you don't, a look at his editing and discussion history shows that Smatprt will deluge the discussion with irrelevant and tendentious posts that will effectively obfuscate any honest discussion or consensus on the issue by uninvolved editors. Tom Reedy ( talk) 13:34, 22 February 2010 (UTC)
I'm going to answer this from a different point of view; I'm going to agree with both sides. :-). Side "A", above, seems to be saying that the journal, publishers and review board, is full of people from one side of a fourfive-way argument, so it's biased. Side "B" seems to be saying that the journal is full of people with Doctorates from respected schools, so it's reliable. I'm going to say you're all right. A source can be both reliable and biased. The article
Shakespeare authorship question is specifically about the controversy, so it is a perfectly appropriate place where a journal published and reviewed by highly titled Oxfordians should be cited to explain Oxfordian views; it seems a perfectly reliable source for that branch of scholarship. That said, these views should be appropriately tagged with the caveat that these are the views of Oxfordians, not of all or most Shakespearian scholars in general, since Stratfordians, Baconians, Lettucians and Tomatovians may well differ. --
GRuban (
talk) 15:28, 22 February 2010 (UTC)
Is there any reason why this debate can't stop while uninvolved editors look at the evidence and make a decision? If they need any further information they'll ask for it. Lobbying in the hope of affecting the outcome is not an honest use of the noticeboard. So please just STFU. Tom Reedy ( talk) 20:48, 22 February 2010 (UTC)
Dougweller wrote above: "With all due respect, Schoenbaum, you seem to be a new WP:SPA with few edits, all but one to the talk page of the authorship article. I will recall a related discussion here [186] from last year." [Dougweller (talk) 10:31, 22 February 2010 (UTC)] Smatprt replied: "I do remember that discussion. At the time, this board looked at the credentials of the editorial team, asking relevant questions about their expertise. I would hope that a similar exercise is involved here." [Smatprt (talk) 16:08, 22 February 2010 (UTC)] Paul B. responded: "Both Smatprt and Schoenbaum are SPA editors whose sole activity on Wikipedia is to promote Oxfordianism."
It's true that I'm new to Wikipedia. Everyone starts somewhere. I make no apology for it, and am willing to respond to questions from the board about my qualifications. Paul B's claim is false, not only as it relates to Smatprt, but also as it relates to me. None of my comments on the talk pages promotes the candidacy of the Earl of Oxford, and none will. That is not my purpose, and he has no basis for saying otherwise. He admitted above that he is biased against Oxfordians. The fact that I've had disagreements with him on the talk pages doesn't make me one. He's just stereotyping me. My comments have been anti-Stratfordian, not Oxfordian. 96.251.82.13 ( talk) 00:24, 23 February 2010 (UTC)
I'm previously uninvolved in this topic, and this thread is not making me eager to get involved.
Brief Chronicles does a pretty good job of looking like an academic journal, but it's clearly a publication founded to advance a specific agenda: giving a veneer of scholarly legitimacy to unorthdox views of Shakespearian authorship. I found this sentence from the editors' introduction to the first issue telling: "Four contributors to our first issue hold PhDs in literary studies; two are MDs with records of publication on literary and historical topics, and six are independent scholars." This is a red flag that the journal advances fringy claims. Certainly independent scholars make valuable contributions to many academic fields, but they also contribute loads of nonsense to poorly refereed venues. Also, the phrasing of the sentence suggests that some of the contributors who hold PhDs or MDs do not currently hold scholarly positions. So a substantial portion of the contributors in the very first issue do not currently hold teaching or research positions. Frankly, this looks like a fanzine dressed up as an academic journal. Still, it may be that this periodical can be cited in Wikipedia articles, but it should not be used to suggest that Oxfordianism or any other non-standard theory of Shakespearian authorship has academic legitimacy. --Akhilleus ( talk) 03:39, 23 February 2010 (UTC)
An editor is using the book False Profits as a source for several claims in the article on multi-level marketing. The book appears to be a "vanity publishing" book, with the publisher, "Herald Press" [136] having the same address (1235-E East Blvd. #101, Charlotte NC 28203) as the authors "consumer advocate" organisation and website www.pyramidschemealert.org [137] No other books appear to have been published by this publisher and the authors have no other RS publications in the field, his website has been previously rejected as an RS for the article [138]. Comments appreciated. -- Insider201283 ( talk) 11:03, 24 February 2010 (UTC)
CRITICISMS OF MULTILEVEL MARKETING MLM is without question controversial. Millions of people are positively disposed toward MLM as judged by the number of MLM distributors and MLM sales. Simultaneously, count- less individuals, through publications, blogs, and Web sites, vehemently criticize MLM. MLM practitioners in particular have been criticized for alleged unethical behavior that includes misrepresenting earning potentials, pressuring friendsand relatives to become distributors or purchase unneeded or unwanted products and services, and using deceptive recruit-ing tactics (e.g., Bloch 1996; Koehn 2001).
As will be discussed, the existence of internal consumption in the context of MLM is viewed by critics of MLM as primafacie evidence of an unethical and perhaps illegal pyramid scheme.
Title:On the Ethicality of Internal Consumption in Multilevel Marketing Source:The Journal of Personal Selling & Sales Management [0885-3134] Peterson yr:2007 vol:27 iss:4 pg:317
Doc James ( talk · contribs · email) 00:08, 25 February 2010 (UTC)
WP:SPS specifically deals with material published by vanity presses, which appears to be the case here. Is either author "an established expert on the topic of the article whose work in the relevant field has previously been published by reliable third-party publications."? Jayjg (talk) 01:37, 25 February 2010 (UTC)
(remove indent) Something similar to this was this was kicked around in Wikipedia_talk:Reliable_sources/Noticeboard/Archive_1#When_does_an_person_become_enough_of_an_expert_that_we_can_used_his_self-published_material.3F. The list provided in that thread regarding Taylor and Fitzpatrick was as follows:
Carl, Walter J. (2002) "Organizational Legitimacy As Discursive Accomplishment in Multilevel Marketing Discourse" Organizational Communication Division of the National Communications Association conference Nov 21-24, 2002. (uses FitzPatrick's book False Profits as a reference)
Carl, Walter J. (2004) "The Interactional Business of Doing Business: Managing Legitimacy and Co-constructing Entrepreneurial Identities in E-Commerce Multilevel Marketing Discourse" Western Journal of Communication, Vol. 68.
Cruz, Joan Paola; Camilo Olaya (2008) "A System Dynamics Model for Studying the Structure of Network Marketing Organizations" Requirements of System Dynamics conference papers for the 2007 conference papers were as follows: "Papers may be submitted from January 2, 2007 to March 26, 2007 and must be in sufficient detail for the referees to judge their meaning and value. Submissions must be in English and should be 5 - 30 pages in length (there is also a maximum 2 MB electronic file size). Abstracts will not be accepted. Submission of models and other supporting materials to enable replication and aid the review process is encouraged in all cases (maximum file size 2 MB in addition to the paper). [...] All works submitted will be assigned for double blind peer review. The results, with the oversight of the program chairs, will determine whether a work will be accepted, and the presentation format for the work."
Higgs, Philip and Jane Smith (2007) Rethinking Our World Juta Academic uses MLM Watch website as well as Fitzpatrick as references. "Juta is respected as South Africa's pre-eminent academic and law publisher".
Koehn, Daryl (2001) "Ethical Issues Connected with Multi-Level Marketing Schemes" Journal of Business Ethics 29:153-160.
Pareja, Sergio, (2008) "Sales Gone Wild: Will the FTC's Business Opportunity Rule Put an End to Pyramid Marketing Schemes?" McGeorge Law Review, Vol. 39, No. 83. ("student-run, scholarly journal published on a quarterly basis" by University of the Pacific)
Terry Sandbek, Ph.D. Brain Typing: The Pseudoscience of Cold Reading Journal of the American Board of Sport Psychology uses both Taylor and FitzPatrick
Woker, TA (2003) "If It Sounds Too Good to Be True It Probably Is: Pyramid Schemes and Other Related Frauds" South African Mercantile Law Journal 15: 237
Wong, Michelle. A. (2002) "China's Direct Marketing Ban: A Case Study of China's Response to Capital-Based Social Networks" Pacific Rim Law & Policy Journal
The issue of how much and often someone has to be sited in reliable sources to be considered an expert was never really addressed.-- BruceGrubb ( talk) 08:16, 27 February 2010 (UTC)
As an aside - pretty much all distribution is "multi-level" - the point at which "pyramid" becomes inportant is where a significant part of the total revenue is derived from recruiting more marketers. As long as the main interest is in selling a product, it is not a "pyramid scheme." In many fields, by the way, where there are several ;ocal competitors in an industry, one will buy the wholesale amounts to reach price break points, and re-wholesales lesser amounts to his own competitors. The result is that he makes a small profit on each resale (and saves on his own wholesale costs) while the others have a convenient local jobber who is as cheap or cheaper than if they made individual purchases.
Collect (
talk) 12:23, 1 March 2010 (UTC)
An editor ( User:BruceGrubb) on the multi-level marketing article is trying something that to me seems a clear attempt at getting around the spirit of WP policy. A number of the sources he is wishing to use have been rejected as not RS, so he is quoting whole a sentence from an otherwise RS source in order to include criticism from the clearly non-RS sources. The paragraph in question is -
Now note that the citations given are not actually listed as citations in the WP article, it's merely a whole quote from (Carl, Walter J. (2004) "The Interactional Business of Doing Business: Managing Legitimacy and Co-constructing Entrepreneurial Identities in E-Commerce Multilevel Marketing Discourse" Western Journal of Communication, Vol. 68 a minor but otherwise acceptable journal. [143] Fitzpatrick & Reynolds, 1997 is clearly referring to the book False Profits, a vanity press book which I listed on RS/N and was rejected as a reliable source [144]. I asked Bruce if the Carter reference was another vanity press book "Behind the Smoke & Mirrors" and his reply was that it didn't matter what the reference was because the quote was from a peer-reviewed journal. [145] He did not reply when I asked what the Hopfl & Maddrell reference was, and the Butterfield reference almost certainly references a 25yr old book about Amway [146] from a collective, non-profit press that actively admits to being committed to "the politics of radical social change" [147] - not exactly NPOV when discussing a multinational business! So, the quote cites 4 sources, two of which are clearly non-RS, one of which is dubious but perhaps allowable, and one of which is of unknown origin. Is this acceptable editing practice?-- Insider201283 ( talk) 13:26, 26 February 2010 (UTC)
If you could follow the chain of sources long enough, almost every information would become non-reliable. After all, we clearly can't cite "I spoke to these otherwise non-notable people who claim they were watching it happen, and he said..."; but a New York Times article based on reports of eyewitnesses is often fine, and a peer reviewed scholarly paper collating and analyzing multiple eyewitness reports is the best we could hope for, though in the end, they would be just the same non-notable people who claim to have been watching something happen. The difference is that each step is a filter which, hopefully, would filter out the less reliable information. ( Doesn't always work, of course, but it's the best we can do.) -- GRuban ( talk) 19:32, 26 February 2010 (UTC)
(remove indent)Come on Insider201283, even a good hunk of the supposedly neutral and pro-MLM stuff call its a "scheme" rather than a "method", "methodology", or even "system" and as I pointed out in the article's talk page "scheme" carries with it some very negative baggage (such as "dodge: a statement that evades the question by cleverness or trickery" or "form intrigues (for) in an underhand manner"). As for multiple unimpeachable sources in the article's talk page you have claimed self-published works weren't (The Business School for People Who Like Helping People by Robert Kiyosaki through Cashflow Technologies which he owns and is president of) and claimed peer-reviewed papers weren't (Cruz) and have been called on the carpet several time for overly pro-MLM editing and even admitting "I have no problems being accused of violating WP:COI - I am." with regards to Alticor/Amway/Quixtar editing on your own talk page and this nonsense seems to be just a continuation of that. You have even challenged The Times by claiming the totally insane statement ""court testimony" is not only a primary source, it's inherently unreliable and extremely POV." despite this was presented by The Times. You are even challenging a direct quote from a peer reviewed paper because you don't like one of the reference they used.-- BruceGrubb ( talk) 09:32, 28 February 2010 (UTC)
This discussion is taking place over at the CRU hacking incident article. The editors are quibbling over the reliability of the Times of London. As usual, an uninvolved administrator would go a long way towards toning down the rhetoric.
By "American standards, all British newspapers are tabloids because they don’t distinguish between what is true and what they make up." [148] [149] These sources meet WP:SPS requirements. They relate specifically to The Sunday Times, also a News International publication, with separate editorial policy, but rather confusingly sharing the TimesOnline website with the daily. Just because something is in a formerly respectable British newspaper, that doesn't mean it meets verifiability standards. We also have to consider the writer, and some of them have a very questionable track record. As always, research and cross checking with other reliable sources is needed to assess individual statements. . dave souza, talk 10:12, 2 March 2010 (UTC)
(unindent)There is no requirement that material appearing in a reliable source must be included in an article, only that it is not eligible for inclusion unless it appears in a reliable source. Sort of like a job application; a teacher applying for a job must have a teaching license, but that does not mean the school board has to hire every applicant who has a license. Likewise, we can exclude material that appears in a reliable source if many other sources of equal quality, or one other source of clearly better quality, shows the source in question is wrong. Jc3s5h ( talk) 16:37, 9 March 2010 (UTC)
I don't really know where so many editors got the idea that newspapers are intrinsically reliable. No matter what the nationality of the publisher, they often disagree with one another on matters of detail. In particular, newspaper reporting of science and medicine is a complete disaster area. --
TS 17:04, 9 March 2010 (UTC)
I came across some erroneous information that was reported by a reliable source and came up against strong objections when I suggested it should be removed because it was clearly wrong. I was informed that "correctness" was not an issue, the only concern was verifiability. This is clearly a misinterpretation of the guidelines because surely Wikipedia policy doesn't oblige us to include incorrect information just because it's verifiable through a reliable source. Obviously consensus can easily take care of incorrect information reported by reliable sources: if people don't agree that something should go in, then it doesn't go in; if something is in and is referenced through a reliable source then it doesn't come out unless people agree it should come out. I got around the problem by contacting the authors and pointing out their mistake and it was corrected. But the verifiability section I think should be more explicit in making it clear that verifiabiliy isn't a bullet-proof sole condition for including material, and that it can still be challenged if it can be shown to be inaccurate. It should be made clear that consensus can overrule verifiability. Betty Logan ( talk) 17:33, 9 March 2010 (UTC)
A statement in a "reliable source" that is obviously incorrect (because it contradicts more reliable sources) is not verifiable. If The Times reports that overconsumption of jelly babies causes AIDS, we don't consider it to be verifiable just because The Times said it. -- TS 20:33, 9 March 2010 (UTC)
I hope (almost?) everybody in this discussion agrees that the only thing we fundamentally disagree about is how to use certain words that describe our normal and necessary practice of excluding information which according to common sense shouldn't be included. When we are in an argument, we all have a natural tendency to argue in terms of the policies and guidelines that we have in our minds from previous discussions. Therefore our rules have the tendency to get more and more blurry. E.g. AFAICT it's a standard argument at WP:RS/N to say that a newspaper is reliable for current events in the area it covers, but not for detailed claims about brain surgery. On the other hand, the Lancet isn't reliable for details about the history of the Beatles. Perhaps we shouldn't formulate the truth of these statements in terms of reliability but in terms of something else, but it seems that currently there is no other way to formulate this. Hans Adler 21:25, 9 March 2010 (UTC)
Is a VH1 picture of someone labeled "Sexy Scientologists" a reliable enough source to describe someone as a Scientologist in the Wikipedia article on them? [151] Jayjg (talk) 03:16, 2 March 2010 (UTC)
I have run across several articles like these examples that cite the results of a Pubmed search to support a claim about the author's work. This seems like original research to me.
Thanks for your input. — Chris Capoccia T⁄ C 15:37, 3 March 2010 (UTC)
So a better statement would be something like, "As of {some date}, Pubmed indexed {some number} articles by {some author}.<ref>{some pubmed search}</ref>" ? — Chris Capoccia T⁄ C 08:22, 5 March 2010 (UTC)
The following scientific article follows all Wikipedia standards related to "reliable sources" but was systematically rejected in the pedophilia article by user User:Jack-A-Roe. It's clear to me that this rejection is because such user do not agree with the content of the article.
Article: "On the Iatrogenic Nature of the Child Sexual Abuse Discourse"
Main link: http://www.unizar.es/riesgo/archivos/1242046186Iatrogenic.pdf
Abstract and info on publication: http://www.springerlink.com/content/k4q25t0332x43865/
The reason given for removing the link does not say the truth and is in fact very weak : "removing non-reliable source; it's not a study, it's an opinion piece expressing a far-fringe view by an author with an agenda, and who is not cited by any researchers".
This can be viewed here: http://en.wikipedia.org/?title=Pedophilia&diff=next&oldid=347367287
In December 2009, this same reliable source was removed and the issue was debated in the "pedophilia" Talk Page. See "Archive 13", Section 4.2.1 ("Legal issues about the use of the term", "new text", "splitting the text", part 1). Detailed arguments for keeping the source were then presented by user User :Giancarlo32 which were not refuted since then.
Link of the Archive 13 - http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Talk:Pedophilia/Archive_13
Transcription of arguments not refuted (section 4.2 .1) posted by (User Giancarlo32) –
« This sounds ridiculous and kafkian to me, but just for the sake of argumentation, I took the time to split the text in four parts: (1) While recognizing the term “pedophile” as pejorative, vague and hackneyed, researchers suggest its replacement with less value-laden and pejorative terms. [152] (see page 11, 2) [153]
(…) This is the Wikipedia policy about reliable sources (see WP:SOURCES) : "The most reliable sources are usually peer-reviewed journals; books published by university presses; university-level textbooks; magazines, journals, and books published by respected publishing houses; and mainstream newspapers. Electronic media may also be used, subject to the same criteria. Academic and peer-reviewed publications are highly valued and usually the most reliable sources in areas where they are available, such as history, medicine, and science."
is a reliable source – because the article is a university-level textbook and is available in the website of a university in Spain (University of Zaragoza, [155]; and because the article was published by a peer-reviewed journal, “Sexuality and Culture” [156]. This is very explicit in the section “Description” of the journal's website, which reads: “This interdisciplinary journal publishes peer-reviewed theoretical articles based on logical argumentation and literature review and empirical articles describing the results of experiments and surveys on the ethical, cultural, psychological, social, or political implications of sexual behavior” (source here - [157].
The journal has an Editorial Board whose members are identified here – [158]. They come from all over the world, including many researchers from USA and others from Germany, Sweden, New Zealand, Canada, Brazil, Hong Kong, Mexico, Austria, France, Australia and Croatia. Therefore this article follows the guidelines of Wikipedia about reliable sources. Giancarlo32 ( talk) 20:48, 21 December 2009 (UTC)
(end of transcription; Talk Page - Archive 13)
Please examine the reliability of this source with impartiality, and if you agree with me, explain to User « Jack-A-Roe » that this source is reliable according to Wikipedia’s criteria. If this scientific article is NOT reliable, then NO ONE would be, according to Wikipedia’s criteria on reliable sources. He/She cannot distort the rules or forget them whenever they are more convenient to support his/her point-of-view. If this is not resolved here, I will call for formal mediation. Thank you. AleBZ ( talk) 17:15, 3 March 2010 (UTC)
The article is a scientific paper. It expresses the opinion of the author, but that is true of a great many scientific papers including a large fraction of all papers in the psychological sciences. So there is nothing about the source itself to exclude it from use in Wikipedia. If the opinion in the paper is disputed by other scientific papers, it would be reasonable to qualify it with "According to Agustín Malón, ...". Whether it is appropriate for a particular article is a different question that I have no opinion about, but it absolutely is a Reliable Source. Zero talk 09:46, 4 March 2010 (UTC)
Is this site reliable for sourcing BLP's? I can't find any information about where their info comes from or who actually writes the articles. Their whois info also lists a Yahoo e-mail address which does not exactly scream "organization known for fact checking". Copana2002 ( talk) 23:21, 4 March 2010 (UTC)
At
Muhammad al-Durrah incident, there is a dispute over the reliability of this source:
[161]. It is a book by Eoin Devereux, entitled Media studies: key issues and debates. In a chapter authored by Greg Philo, on page 126, it states:
The circumstances of this killing were highly contested and became the focus of an extensive propaganda struggle [...] the Israelis issued a statement saying that the boy's death was unintentional. This was reported on TV news as follows:
Israel says the boy was caught unintentionally in crossfire. (ITV, lunch-time news, italics added, 2 October 2000)
The Palestinians rejected his account and stated that the targeting was deliberate. This view appears on the news in an interview from hospital with the boy's father, who is reported as follows:
Miraculously his father survived but his body is punctured with eight bullet holes. 'They shot at us until they hit us', he told me, and 'I saw the man who did it - the Israeli soldier.' (BBC1, main news, 1 October 2000)
The two accounts of the events are therefore opposed, but it is the Israeli view that became dominant on the news. Most significantly, it is endorsed by journalists as the 'normal' account of events. It is referenced not simply as a viewpoint [...] but rather as a direct statement, as in 'the boy was caught in the crossfire'.
I would like to use this source to support the statement: "On October 1, an interview with Jamal al-Durrah aired on BBC1 news. It was reported that Jamal al-Durrah had 8 bullet holes in his body, and that he said, "They shot at us until they hit us [...] I saw the man who did it - the Israeli soldier."
Is this acceptable? Or do I have to track down the original BBC1 broadcast, as SlimVirgin suggests here? Tiamut talk 23:35, 4 March 2010 (UTC)
See: Wikipedia_talk:Neutral_point_of_view#RfC:_Using_the_National_Science_Foundation_as_a_reference
Please weigh in THERE on whether a statement by the National Science Foundation is a reliable source to use as an illustration for a portion of an ArbCom statement used in the NPOV policy. This is especially important for members of the Arbitration Committee, since it relates to an ArbCom ruling. Please do not discuss this here.
Before proceeding, please read the short RfC which preceeded this one and layed the groundwork for it. (I wouldn't start an RfC if I didn't feel there was some chance of succeeding ;-) -- Brangifer ( talk) 08:18, 5 March 2010 (UTC)
I am not sure this is the right place to ask this question, if not please point me to the correct place. I was just looking at the sourcing of this section in the Open Carry article: Open carry around the world, and see that while there are dozens of references made to a large number of well known sources, that essentially none of them are pointing to coverage of the issue of global "Open Carry", or at the least none of them use the term "open carry". It is becoming apparent to me that the topic of "Open Carry" is largely a term describing a US centric political concept, and it is a term rarely used that can see in global context. I am asking for third opinions about this, do the sources used in context of that global subsection of that article meet reliable sourcing policy and guidelines? SaltyBoatr ( talk) 16:26, 5 March 2010 (UTC)
Hello everybody, we have a problem in Cham Albanians page. There is a source put in the page, by some contributors, which lacks references and bibliography, i.e. it is completely just a work by the author but with no references in it. The direct question is as follows: Can a source that has no references and no bibliography in it, be a secondary reliable source? Balkanian`s word ( talk) 18:47, 5 March 2010 (UTC)
The above mentioned source provides lots of references. For example on page 40, 41, 42, 58, 62 actually there are refs almost in every page. Alexikoua ( talk) 19:37, 5 March 2010 (UTC)
There are at least 200 articles linking to musicianguide.com, which has been deemed unreliable through past discussions such as
this.
Start removing now. Ten Pound Hammer, his otters and a clue-bat • (
Many otters •
One bat •
One hammer) 02:49, 6 March 2010 (UTC)
I posted the following on user Jayron32 talk page, I should have come here instead. I am editing the list of documentary films, which includes such infomation as year; director; producer, I have been using IMDB as a source for that information, before I continue I really need something in writing stating IMDB is O.K. for such information (basically needing the nod a approval) for this list.-- intraining Jack In 10:19, 6 March 2010 (UTC)
I'd like some clarification on this one - clearly, I know where I stand, but out of respect to the other editor I thought some other opinions may assist. As a quick bit of background: Sam the Koala was photographed and filmed while being fed water from a water bottle during backburning prior to the February 2009 Victorian bushfires. The photo of Sam, and later the koala itself, became a significant symbol of the fires. After the fires a koala was rescued, described as Sam, and taken into care. Sam was later euthanised due to an illness unrelated to the fire, and was stuffed and mounted at the Melbourne Museum, with comparisons being drawn to the popularity of Phar Lap.
The dispute concerns whether or not the rescued koala was the same koala as the one given water, and whether or not the original photo was a set up. There has, as far as I can tell, been no media coverage discussing these claims (based on a search of NewsBank and Google News). However, after a trademark dispute, the individual defended the trademark raised them, and this led to an article in the Australasian Journal of Herpetology (AJH) which claimed that the whole thing was a conspiracy, with a deliberate set up using a tame koala in the photo, and a different koala being rescued later. It makes further claims, but these are not currently being added to the wikipedia article. It is this article and journal that is in dispute, and this appears to be the only source offered (other than a press release and a YouTube video by the author) making these claims.
The journal is not an academic work, and it is owned, published, edited and entirely written by the same person, Raymond Hoser, a professional snakecatcher and amateur herpetologist, who nevertheless has some significant published works outside of the AJH. The journal does claim to be peer reviewed, though. I have a number of concerns covered in the article's discussion:
The editor, on the other hand, argues that:
I guess my major concern is that the idea that the claims that the editor wishes to add are extremely strong, as they speak to deliberate misconduct and fraud by those involved. And thus my assumption is that the sources need to be equal to that. I have requested other sources to support these claims, but so far none have been offered, so the question comes down to the reliability of the journal. Obviously, I don't think it is reliable, but I'd like to be fair and bring it here. - Bilby ( talk) 13:20, 6 March 2010 (UTC)
There are 300+ links to Musician Guide on Wikipedia. I truly believe that this is not a reputable source: there is no editorial policy; we don't know the writers' credentials, if any; and Domain Tools shows that it's apparently hosted out of someone's house by someone with a Gmail address. A few times, I have found information in Musician Guide that I have not been able to back up anywhere else (for instance, that James Bonamy's first single was withdrawn because the label thought there were "too many dog songs").
There was also a previous RSN discussion, one GA discussion and two FA discussions: this one (the grey "issues resolved" tab) and this one wherein the reviewers decided that Musician Guide is not reliable, so I took that as a weak precedent, but a precedent just the same. I boldly started removing the links, but had no fewer than three editors to complain to me about removal. So that's why I'm asking now: Is this a reputable source or not? (Post script: Yes, the site does show its sources, but wouldn't it be better just to use those sources instead of all the info that Musician Guide regurgitates questionably from the same?) Ten Pound Hammer, his otters and a clue-bat • ( Many otters • One bat • One hammer) 15:05, 6 March 2010 (UTC)
After the discussion above about deltoid blog and how it had been used as a ref in multipile articles i noticed another blog desmogblog has also been used as a ref in multipile articles. The ones i have looked at so far are opinion pieces written by various authors, I have removed a few of these per wp:blp but would like to know before i remove the rest if this blog is for some reason actually a wp:rs? From what i can see the site was set up by a pr guy and has been used to basicly attack people who are sceptical of the theory of AGW mark nutley ( talk) 15:33, 6 March 2010 (UTC)
Hello. I have a question about whether Salon.com is reliable on the cultural and queer theorist Eve Kosofsky Sedgwick. An article is here: [162]. Note that I would have thought there would be no reason so suspect that this is not a reliable source, but I wish to confirm that. Thank you. -- TheSoundAndTheFury ( talk) 02:35, 7 March 2010 (UTC)
This is not the type of request that usually appears on this noticeboard, but the issues with the sourcing in a particular article, Pan-Arabism, are simply to numerous to list here. Each of the sources used in the article (as of a few days ago) are listed in the talk page, here. A large number of random websites and editorials are used to proclaim that pan-Arabism is Nazism, fascist, racist, and among the worst evils in the world. Attempts to discuss the sources have largely been ignored. Would anybody who watches this noticeboard take a look at the sources and help us determine what is and what is not acceptable. nableezy - 07:19, 7 March 2010 (UTC)
This site appears to have been used as a ref in a fair few articles, however when i look at the webpages about us i see it was set up by three guys who as they say, Media Lens is a response based on our conviction that mainstream newspapers and broadcasters provide a profoundly distorted picture of our world. We are convinced that the increasingly centralised, corporate nature of the media means that it acts as a de facto propaganda system for corporate and other establishment interests. The costs incurred as a result of this propaganda, in terms of human suffering and environmental degradation, are incalculable This appears to me to be a selfpublished opinion site and does not seem to meet the criteria of wp:rs mark nutley ( talk) 11:08, 7 March 2010 (UTC)
This site [164] appears just to be a newswire service for religious organisations , so I guess that it's reliability depends on each particular org? A specific release from the Coptic American Friendship Association [165]is being used in the Nag Hammadi massacre to support some strong statements - "government protection is almost non existent for the Copts and the law is usually not enforced on the Muslim perpetrators." and "eye-witnesses reported that the mob was chanting "Allah Akbar" and "No God except Allah" while destroying, looting and torching Coptic property in many recent attacks". These statements were originally being attributed direct to the newswire service ( not added by me!), I changed it to reflect the CAFA origin but now I'm thinking that this isn't a good enough source. ANy thoughts thanks -- Glumboot ( talk) 12:56, 7 March 2010 (UTC)
In 2010 Austin plane crash, there's been some discussion of the reliability of a Psychology Today article attributing a certain definition of insanity to a 1983 novel by author Rita Mae Brown. User:NuclearWarfare added a "not in source" tag to the sourced attribution saying " it would be nice if things were actually in the sources listed". User:AoV2 later removed it saying " rm irrelevant blog". I will concede that Psychology Today did not say Rita Mae Brown was the first person to use it in her 1983 novel, however, it does affirm her use of it, none-the-less. As for it being an "irrelevant blog"... as noted at Talk:2010 Austin plane crash/Archive 1#Guys, can we cool it a bit?, the fact that a site runs blogging software does not mean it is a self-published source. I mean, sure, anyone can publish a blog, but not just anyone can post an article on psychologytoday.com. Now, I will concede that the fact that the article on psychologytoday.com cites wikiquotes is a problem. Does that mean that psychologytoday.com is not a reliable source, that just that particular article is not reliable (even though the rest of the website may very well be) or could the psychologytoday.com article be a reliable source regardless?
WP:RS states "Some news organizations have used Wikipedia articles as the sole source for their work. Editors should therefore beware of circular sourcing." but does not elaborate as to whether or not such articles should be considered reliable sources. On one hand, it seems silly to think that a journalist who does not provide citations would be considered more reliable than one that does, but, on the other hand, the journalist did cite a self-published source. WP:RS also states "Wikipedians should not rely on, or try to interpret the content or importance of, primary sources". It seems to me that that's essentially saying the same thing as "a reliable source should be considered to be reliable regardless of what it says". ie. if psychologytoday.com cites wikiquotes it should still be considered reliable. Now, if you have two different reliable sources contradicting each other, that's one thing. At that point, it might be best to say something like "articles have variously referred to the building as being four-stories [1][2] and seven-stories [3][4]", but this isn't a case of two reliable sources contradicting one another. TerraFrost ( talk) 07:06, 8 March 2010 (UTC)
Video game website IGN in 2002 ran a series of FAQs analyzing the various creatures in the Pokemon franchise, written by an unnamed female staff member and as a retry of their failed "Pokemon of the Day" series of articles. [168] [169] However a concern was brought up on Talk:Mr. Mime as to whether the articles are reliable enough for character reception as all of them are in IGN's FAQ section, in which the majority of the content is user-submitted and may not have been editorially scrutinized, though the author's status as a member of IGN's staff has been acknowledged on the same account and the content was advertised at least twice during its run by notable staff members such as Craig Harris. In addition the articles are being used only for the author's own opinions, which is the backbone of a reception section's concept as a whole.
So where do they fall on the matter of reliability for reception?-- Kung Fu Man ( talk) 12:42, 8 March 2010 (UTC)
Please opine at WT:IRS#RFC on Wikinews as a reliable source. The short version is that we need to re-establish what our consensus is, due to some recent changes at Wikinews. Blueboar ( talk) 22:29, 8 March 2010 (UTC)
Is a student academic research paper, completed as part of the requirements for Senior Service College Fellows at the U.S. Army War College in Pennsylvania, and published on the website for the Defense Technical Information Center a reliable source [170]? Of particular interest to me is the information on page 11,
Out of a total of 392 Palestinian villages and cities from which their inhabitants fled, only six were emptied because of orders from Arab leaders. 221 Palestinian villages were emptied as a direct result of Jewish military assaults; 51 more were expelled by Jewish forces (not through direct assaults, but by other means); 54 were drained because of the influence of a nearby Palestinian village’s fall; 43 others were cleared simply because of Palestinian fear; and 14 were evacuated as a result of a whispering campaign by the Jewish forces (Ibid, 2004, p.xvi).
This is a summary of the findings in Benny Morris's 2004 work on the Birth of the Palestinian Refugee Problem. There, Morris lists the causes for the emptying of each Palestinian village individually. What the author of this research paper has done is add up the totals for each type, providing (for the first time that I've seen), numerical totals for each type in summary.
What I would like to know is if this information can be introduced to our articles on this subject citing the academic research paper. If that is unacceptable because the source is not considered RS, is it permissible to use Morris' listing and tally up the total ourselves, citing his work directly. Or would that constitute WP:OR? Thanks for considering this issue. Tiamut talk 23:40, 8 March 2010 (UTC)
Ancestry.com [171]. Can it be a considered reliable source, and if so to what extent? Specifically, I'm interested in using some info from here [172]. I realize they're a private (for profit, I think) company, with some (weak) association with the Church of LDS but from what I know of them they do quite impressive genealogical research to the extent that sometimes even academic researchers rely on them. Thoughts? radek ( talk) 02:33, 9 March 2010 (UTC)
I've noticed an editor who is removing references to an unreliable source wholesale. I personally think that this is damaging, because it will leave a whole lot of unsupported statements in the articles. I guess I'd like an opinion: is it better to remove an unreliable reference and leave the unreliable statements, or is it better to leave both, and remove both with more care at a later time? cojoco ( talk) 04:28, 9 March 2010 (UTC)
{{
cn}}
or {{
fact}}
that a link is given to the edit summary where consensus was reached of the reference failing
WP:RS. Regards,
SunCreator (
talk) 12:09, 9 March 2010 (UTC)Hold on... if this is about CAMERA then you need to know that this source has been discussed multiple times on this notice board. Please look through the archives and read these discussions. My take... There is by no means a clear consensus as to CAMERA's reliability or its unreliability. It remains a hotly debated issue. As such, it is very inappropriate to make blanket removals of information citing it. Each individual citation needs to be examined and discussed, with close attention paid to the context of exactly how it is being used: what specific article it is being used in, and what exact statement it is being used to support. What consensus there is, seems to indicate that it is sometimes reliable, and sometimes unreliable... and determining which is which depends on context. Blueboar ( talk) 15:49, 9 March 2010 (UTC)
Hi I have a group of friends who run Claps and Boos, a Tamil/Indian Movies rating website, www.ClapsandBoos.com. Some of the folks who run this website are working as Journalists and some of them are involved in Movie making (Short Films, Documentaries), as a passion. This is a completely self funded venture and we do not publish fake news or fake reviews. We are similar to Rottentomatoes in that we collate user reviews and ratings and present an aggregated score/rating. We also have some technicians in the industry who give us interviews and some content like Pictures and Posters of movies. Senior editors in Wikipedia have been black marking this website classifying that as a fan site. They told me that only Admin users can determine the admissibility of the website. They have been accepting other websites which have been known to put up fake news, just for getting hits and they also have Pop-Ups and Malware being launched. http://clapsandboos.com/ http://clapsandboos.com/about Interview with a Tamil Movie director: http://clapsandboos.com/mindspeak/in-conversation-with-director-vishnuvardhan Interview with another director: http://clapsandboos.com/mindspeak/selvaraghavan-speaks-claps-amp-boos-special http://clapsandboos.com/mindspeak/gautam-menon-on-life-after-vinnai-thaandi-varuvaya-
I posted my question in the admin and was redirected here. Please let me know how we could work to become a reliable source?
Hi D1abtot, When you say fact checking, we can only show the veracity of our news articles - and when you mean already established reliable sources - if you mean other review sites, then it is going to be difficult because they are our competitors. Which was why I have been trying to prove in Wikipedia articles as to how often our ratings have mirrored the existing reviews and collections for each movie.
Karthik Sriram (
talk) 21:30, 9 March 2010 (UTC)
Also we were the first to post the poster for a Tamil movie called KO - None of the other websites have been able to get it. I feel I'm going around in circles!!
Karthik Sriram (
talk) 21:36, 9 March 2010 (UTC)
GRuban,
Thanks for the response. Okay - so as long we update news items with news that we have that should be fine right? I agree that for reviews we have to build credibility and reputation. But for movies we get exclusive content and so would like to share them - especially since we are getting it from the industry sources? Would that be fine?
User:Breein1007 insists on adding this material to Sheikh Jarrah: In the late 19th century, Sheikh Jarrah incorporated the Jewish neighborhoods of Shimon HaTzadik, founded in 1876; Nahalat Shimon, founded in 1891, and villas owned by leading Arab families. The Husseini family owned six homes east of Saladin Street. In 1918 there were eighteen Arab families living in Sheikh Jarrah. The neighborhood was predominately Jewish until 1948 when the Jews fled following attacks by Arab militiamen. with this opinion piece by the controversial geography PhD student and journalist Seth Frantzman as the only source - Terra Incognita: East Jerusalem's lost years.
I tried explaining on User talk:Breein1007 that it was unacceptable to use an opinion piece as a source for anything other than the opinions of the author and that Frantzman had no accreditations in the field and could not be considered reliable anyway, but he/she somewhat rudely deleted my notice. Perhaps someone else could inform her of Wikipedia policy on reliable sources, since they certainly aren't listening to me. Factsontheground ( talk) 03:18, 10 March 2010 (UTC)
( This comment by Zero0000 points out how ridiculous Frantzman's claims are. Factsontheground ( talk) 07:23, 10 March 2010 (UTC))
Ok, here is one source (in Hebrew, from a left wing newspaper) that may provide partial support [173], it's an Israeli for the very simple reason that this subject is in highlights in Israel -naturaly. The all subject is politicaly highly loaded, it seems like it would be a very hard task to source the article unbiasly.-- Gilisa ( talk) 12:41, 10 March 2010 (UTC)
Let me re-iterate: Seth Frantzman is apparently a PhD student of geography. He is not a journalist. He writes a blog which is published by the Jerusalem Post. In fact he is a prolific blogger, continually pushing a strong point of view. The newspaper would undoubtedly check his copy for potentially libelous material, but blogs are opinion pieces, not factual reporting. He has no known expertise in the pre 1948 history of Palestine/Israel. His opinions are not reliable for any historical statements such as those used in the article. Definitely not a reliable source. Jezhotwells ( talk) 21:29, 10 March 2010 (UTC)
Editor, User:JoyDiamond is (in my opinion) editing disruptively and tenditiously by continually citing unencyclopedic sources in order to support what I believe is a POV based on COI (she is a personal friend of the article subject - see article name below). Along with this, she seems to not want to "get the point" in regard to edit warring, policy, and editing in general. See this for an example (in the last section, "Not "orders", just advice for the good of the project as a whole") and [175] (at the section, 8 March 2010 Comments) of how she deals with any suggestions I may give her. I am honestly trying to work harmoniously with her, but anything I say or suggest or show her isn't proper editing, she balks at and rather than taking good advice, she wants other opinion. The problem is, she only likes opinion that favors her POV and agenda (which I believe is cleansing the Bouley article from anything she sees as negative). Her refusal to listen to good advice on editing includes her insistence on using blogs as references and continuing on with issues that are clearly against Wikipedia policy. The quote she continues to edit and add to (and insert the unacceptible references for) is currently in the article as:
"I hear about Tony Snow and say to myself, well, stand up every day, lie to the American people at the behest of your dictator-esque boss and well, how could a cancer not grow in you?...I know, it's terrible. I admit it. I don't wish anyone harm, even Tony Snow. And I do hope he recovers or at least does what he feels is best and surrounds himself with friends and family for his journey. But in the back of my head there's Justin Timberlake's "What goes around, goes around, comes around, comes all the way back around, ya - 2007"
Today, after having been shown that blogs are not acceptible references or sources [176], she inserted three blogs as references in the Charles Karel Bouley article [177]. (blogs are here [178], here [179], and here [180]. The blog "reference" she used before these was [181]. I am at a loss as to how to get across to this editor that her edits are not just frequently inappropriate and not in line with policy (whether official policy or otherwise), but that the references she insists on including are not kosher (as far as I understand WPs standard of not using blogs for BLP articles). I have no desire to get into another edit war with her would like some input (and hopefully other editor intervention) on how to proceed here. I fear that if I take out the blog "references" she provided, I will get slapped with a block for edit warring. Any thoughts, ideas, input? (just so you know, as far as I'm concerned, no longer editing the article is not an option; and in case you were wondering, I've been at the article at least a year before she came along). Thanks. -- SkagitRiverQueen ( talk) 05:00, 10 March 2010 (UTC)
Here MutantPlatypus has removed a reference from Skirda, Alexandre. Facing the Enemy: A History of Anarchist Organization from Proudhon to May 1968. AK Press 2002. p. 183. explaining "Removed unreliable sources. Books published by anarchist publishers and not cited by other literature are not reliable sources." He did the same thing with a Colin Ward book! While one can argue about some publishers and some authors and some books and some quotes, this looks like POV deletion of material that the author doesn't like. CarolMooreDC ( talk) 05:23, 11 March 2010 (UTC)
I would consider AK Press a reliable source, though I would also be careful about attribution (to the author not the publisher). They've published works by Chomsky, Bookchin among others. In particular, they should be considered reliable for the subject of Anarchist history. radek ( talk) 10:48, 11 March 2010 (UTC)
So I think we have general agreement that Anarchist Publishers are fine - unless they are proved to be vanity presses - and that each book or selection from a book published by them must be judged on its own merits? CarolMooreDC ( talk) 16:49, 13 March 2010 (UTC)
I am working on a project to complete the redlinked articles in the "Roster" section of Whiz Kids (baseball). All of these players meet WP:ATHLETE, so it's just a matter of making the articles, but I want to ensure that they are well-written and complete. For my next project player, Jocko Thompson, there are several good pieces of information on him at Baseball in Wartime, a website written and maintained by Gary Bedingfield. Given that the author is notable and respected enough for his own Wikipedia article, and that he is recognized as an authority in baseball during World War II, and that he has published three books and several magazine articles on the aforementioned, would his website be considered reliable in this context? Thompson's career was interrupted for four years by WWII, and this site contains a lot of good information on both his baseball and military careers. I certainly do not want to use it as the only source for this article, but as a supplements to such reliable sites as Baseball-Reference, as well as newspapers, books, and the like (I have a book by Robin Roberts that is the starting point for most of my research). As to the sources used by Bedingfield to compile his information, see the bibliography page of his website. There's also a relevant talk page discussion at the WikiProject Baseball talk page. Thanks for your time. KV5 ( Talk • Phils) 14:27, 11 March 2010 (UTC)
AnarchismVSI
was invoked but never defined (see the
help page).This is an archive of past discussions. Do not edit the contents of this page. If you wish to start a new discussion or revive an old one, please do so on the current talk page. |
Archive 55 | Archive 56 | Archive 57 | Archive 58 | Archive 59 | Archive 60 | → | Archive 65 |
Is ListOwn a reliable source for the birth info of entertainers? Nightscream ( talk) 18:19, 18 February 2010 (UTC)
Thanks. Nightscream ( talk) 08:27, 26 February 2010 (UTC)
There has been a dispute on Union City, New Jersey regarding a local high-rise building called the Thread. A The New York Times article by Antoinette Martin that I cited as one of the sources says that that building is a former embroidery factory. But User:Djflem has asserted that this is not true, that the building is an original building, and that The New York Times is wrong. An anonymous IP editor whose IP is traced to Amsterdam (I don't know if this was also Djflem editing outside of his account) called the source "unreliable". I don't dispute that otherwise reliable sources can make mistakes, but for an editor to remove such info based solely on their assertion seems like OR, just as including such info on personal knowledge would be. What should we do? Nightscream ( talk) 21:08, 18 February 2010 (UTC)
I was thinking along the same lines. Thanks. Nightscream ( talk) 08:27, 26 February 2010 (UTC)
I've come across an article about a character from a book (made into movies and plays). The article has zero references (other than a really low quality YouTube video which I've deleted). The entire article ( Violet Beauregarde) is clearly original research. I suspect most of the content is verifiable if you read the book, see the movie, etc. In the case of plays, none of the included material is verifiable. My thought would be to shorten the article to basic facts specific to each media (book, movie 1, movie 2) and turn the page into one for disambiguation. However, I'm certain that this case isn't unique and that most big movies/books have articles written about specific characters. I would think that unless a character has been the subject of published secondary material from reliable sources, book/movie characters don't rate their own articles. But that may be just me. So may main question here at AN/I is this: what are are standards for articles about book/movie characters? Rklawton ( talk) 22:20, 26 February 2010 (UTC)
{{ resolved}} Can I use the website of Anti-Defamation League (www.adl.org) as a reliable source for the claims made in Current Communist antisemitism? I have attributed the claims to ADL, i.e. "according to the Anti-Defamation League ..." -- Defender of torch ( talk) 13:27, 20 February 2010 (UTC)
I have a question about a source of some information on a article about a school. The question revolves around a claim of a case of arson at the school (for the record I am not connected to the school in any way).
Some Background :
The article as I cam across it refereed to a "arson" in 1979 without any ref - there were (and are) photos showing a fire so I first taged then after 2 weeks changed to to fire. An editor Toddy1 came up with two refs 25th Anniversary of Bedford School’s Great Fire, March 2004 and An interview with Mr Simms, who celebrated 50 years with Bedford School this week, November 2009. one which says fire and one that says arson and reverted the article back to arson.
I reverted the article back to fire with this edit stating that : as the refs provided are WP:PRIMARY and one says "fire" and the one that says "arson" does not elaborate on the reason for claiming it was arson
Now an ip editor 20.133.0.13 is claiming that they are not WP:PRIMARY and I miss understand what a WP:PRIMARY source is (see this post to user page) as the passage of time makes this a secondary source.
So to my question :
1. Is anything a organisation says about it's self ever not WP:PRIMARY ? does the passage of time change it?
2. Is the school website a WP:RS about the fire and calling it arson ? Codf1977 ( talk) 13:57, 25 February 2010 (UTC)
You deleted arson, demanding a source. I found a source. But you still edit war over it. I do not see how you can stretch the definition of primary source to cover the source.-- Toddy1 ( talk) 20:09, 25 February 2010 (UTC)
Uninvolved. [2] is a reliable source for the statement that it was Arson. Hipocrite ( talk) 20:15, 25 February 2010 (UTC)
[3] reliable. Hipocrite ( talk) 22:26, 25 February 2010 (UTC)
{{ resolved}}
Nutshell: Article in question: Dog Whisperer, citing a Theatre History PHD candidate with no ostensible dog behavior expertise, as published in the journal of the Institute for Critical Animal Studies, the disputed source. See: Steven Best
The reference "Lisa Jackson Schebetta, a Ph.D. candidate in Theatre History, Theory and Criticism at the University of Washington,[24] concluded that the goal of the program is always a product, a dog that behaves according to its owners' desires, however illogical.[25] The dog is filmed performing his problem behavior, a male human voice-over describes the situation briefly, the owners share their exasperation with the film crew, and Millan arrives. He meets the people and shares with them his basic philosophies: ― a dog needs exercise, discipline and love, in that order, and the human has to be the Pack Leader. These mantras are the answer to every dog's problem, regardless of where the dog has come from or his or her current state of agitation. Although there are alternative theories about dog behavior and training, any discussion of these is omitted. Millan then meets the dog, the dog submits to him, and the owners celebrate, often voicing their amazement in referring to the miracle they have witnessed. The formula —problem dog meets Millan, dog submits, and owners are overjoyed — does not waver. Although the footage is clearly edited to construct the predictable story, each episode presents itself as natural and spontaneous.[25]"
The article [ Mythologies and Commodifications of Dominion in The Dog Whisperer with Cesar Millan] The journal [ Journal for Critical Animal Studies] The author [ Lisa Jackson-Schebetta]
This was deleted as not meeting wikipedia's definition of a 'reliable source' and its re-instating is being contested. Marj ( talk) 02:21, 26 February 2010 (UTC)
I think it is relevant that the article is linked to in PDF format, anyone who wishes to can vet the information for themselves by reading the whole paper. Marj ( talk) 05:34, 26 February 2010 (UTC)
Seems appropriate to use as a criticism in the article, as long as you specify the source ("... journal of animal liberation group ..." or something like that). The fact that a show about animals is criticized by animal rights activists is important, and ICAS and/or CALA seem like a notable animal rights journal and organization respectively from what you've written here and our article. It is an edited journal, which says nothing about neutral, all that means is that it's not just one person ranting, the article is approved by some kind of organization. We can't expect criticism to come from NPOV sources, criticism is inherently POV. However, I think it's getting a bit of undue weight in the article as is; the section on Jackson-Schebatta's criticism is just another criticism, and shouldn't get a separate section. I also think the fact that she's a theatre student isn't important; the fact that her criticism was published in an animal rights magazine seems the important part to me. I'd put it into the criticism section, and shorten it by a third. -- GRuban ( talk) 23:14, 26 February 2010 (UTC)
There is a Wikipedia editor who has repeatedly used the neutral voice of the encyclopedia to quote a legal opinion about the powers of the Palestinian Authority from this website. [5] The site contains very outdated information. For example it says that Yasser Arafat (now deceased) is still the head of the Palestinian Authority. The Internet Archive indicates that the page was last updated in June of 2007 [6]
It appears to be a self-published website that is the work of a single editor/creator, Esam Shashaa. Other than the text of a 1988 PLO declaration, none of the material contains inline citations, footnotes, or evidence that it is based upon other published sources. There does not appear to be any editorial oversight, and Mr. Shashaa is not a generally recognized expert on political science, history, or international law.
He says that he has a degree in "Business Administration and Accounts" and "I thank you for taking the time to browse my site and find out more about the History of Palestine, as well as the site's author and creator." [7]
harlan ( talk) 22:23, 26 February 2010 (UTC)
Announcing an RfC at Talk:Ghost#RfC:_Context_of_NSF_statement_about_belief_in_ghosts. The questions being discussed are:
1. Whether the National Science Foundation is a reliable source for stating that "belief in ghosts and spirits" are " pseudoscientific beliefs".
2. Whether their expressions can be considered to represent the current scientific consensus (in the USA) on that subject.
See you there! -- Brangifer ( talk) 17:04, 27 February 2010 (UTC)
Please review the sources, or find more. Thank you. Hipocrite ( talk) 17:20, 26 February 2010 (UTC)
This group does not appear notable enough to have its own Wikipedia article, yet is is linked in something perhaps close to 700 articles [10] Is that an issue? MM 207.69.139.150 ( talk) 03:07, 26 February 2010 (UTC)
I don't believe this is the proper forum for this discussion. the community has already discussed and decided upon this exact topic twice on the
Articles for deletion page which discussed the information you are bringing up here.
Coffeepusher (
talk) 16:35, 26 February 2010 (UTC)
sorry about that, I misread this entire discussion. Since I am now officially the Jerk on this thread I will keep my opinions to myself and just let you know to disregard what I wrote. Coffeepusher ( talk) 01:43, 28 February 2010 (UTC)
It this a reliable source for IT articles? As far as I can tell it's a blog hosting service with some digg-like and slashdot-like elements, i.e. the ability to vote on stories and accumulate karma. It's a bit different than slashdot, because blogs are individual, e.g. [11]. As far as I can tell, the individual blogs all are WP:SPS, and the editorial oversight is rather hard to ascertain because it comes from anonymized votes. So, the blogs hosted there need to be evaluated on a case-by-case basis: if the author a blog hosted there is a well-known authority that has published in that field elsewhere, then it's a reliable source, otherwise I think not. (FYI: AfDs where it was invoked: Evilwm, Kohana (web framework) Wmii, but for the latter two there are other sources.) Thoughts? Pcap ping 06:13, 23 February 2010 (UTC)
In this working paper and later a book ( The Israel Lobby and U.S. Foreign Policy), Walt and Mearsheimer are critical of what they see as the extension of the "Israel lobby" dominating public discourse. In regards to the Washington Institute for Near East Policy they claim "Although WINEP plays down its links to Israel and claims that it provides a 'balanced and realistic' perspective on Middle East issues, this is not the case... Its board of advisers...includes no one who might be thought of as favoring the perspective of any country or group in the 'Near East.' Many of its personnel are genuine scholars or experienced former officials, but they are hardly neutral observers on most Middle East issues and there is little diversity of views within WINEP’s ranks."
I believe that the authors' critical opinion can be cited as just that--and for a long time this has been in the criticism section of the WINEP article. In searching around other articles that cite it it is always cited as the authors' viewpoints ( Max Boot, Saban Center) and placed in the criticism or dispute section. An editor now seems to believe it is okay to include the authors' viewpoint as a part of the article's neutral text, even though the article has a criticism section. -- Shamir1 ( talk) 06:33, 25 February 2010 (UTC)
However, John Mearsheimer, a University of Chicago political science professor, and Stephen Walt, academic dean at Harvard University's Kennedy School of Government, describe it as "part of the core" of the Israel lobby in the United States. Discussing the group in their book, The Israel Lobby and US Foreign Policy, Mearsheimer and Walt write: "Although WINEP plays down its links to Israel and claims that it provides a 'balanced and realistic' perspective on Middle East issues, this is not the case. In fact, WINEP is funded and run by individuals who are deeply committed to advancing Israel’s agenda... Many of its personnel are genuine scholars or experienced former officials, but they are hardly neutral observers on most Middle East issues and there is little diversity of views within WINEP’s ranks."
Would Phillip Matier and Andrew Ross be considered reliable Sources? http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/blogs/matierandross/index Both are columnists for the San Francisco Chronicle, which in and of itself is certainly a reliable mainstream American newspaper. Both are certainly subject to editorial review by the editors at the San Francisco Chronicle. This being the case, can we disregard them as "gossip bloggers" and treat them as unreliable sources, or since they are subject to editorial review and published by a mainstream newspaper, would they be reliable sources? Ghostmonkey57 ( talk) 19:59, 21 February 2010 (UTC)
NB that this relates to the outing of Vaughn Walker. For what it's worth, the discussion in the legal web of the story has not been "Is it true?" but "Given that it's true, what are the implications?" I know other reporters who were aware of the issue and decided not to run the story. THF ( talk) 13:03, 28 February 2010 (UTC)
Another Russian IT site invoked in AfDs (e.g. Dwm). If the unsourced Wikipedia article about it is to be believed, it operates just like slashdot, i.e. accepts user submitted stories with some moderation. Reliable source? Pcap ping 06:37, 23 February 2010 (UTC)
Before we begin, yes I know it is a self-published website, and that nothing on the website itself establishes notability. Cameron Bevers, the writer, is a regional planner for the Ministry of Transportation of Ontario. However, he is certainly considered an expert on the topic, as the city of Toronto archives uses this website as the source for its description of the Highway 401 archive category. I can't link directly to the archives but if someone wants to see it before commenting.
I'm fairly certain I could find a recent newspaper article from a major newspaper that discusses him as well if the archives is not enough. - ʄɭoʏɗiaɲ τ ¢ 18:17, 11 February 2010 (UTC)
Well, yea... Thats what this board is for, sources that don't meet the generalized criteria of WP:RS to be discussed to see if consensus overrides the criteria. Also, the Hamilton Spectator is on par with the Toronto Star (it's the leading paper in Hamilton, which at 850000 people isn't just a dot on the map). Also keep in mind its being mentioned by the Toronto Archives, which is a government run ministry that deals with historical facts (as Cameron Bevers site does), not the personal blog of the mayors assistant. He is a regional planner for Central Ontario (established expert) who has been published in multiple reputable sources with regards to his expertise. It's not just a mention in an editorial in the Scarborough mirror, its an article devoted to him in the most published newspaper in the country. - ʄɭoʏɗiaɲ τ ¢ 03:07, 22 February 2010 (UTC)
Are the following reliable sources for the statement in the John Birch Society (JBS) article that it "has been described as far right":
My objections to these sources are that 1) they are being used as primary sources for the conclusion that the JBS has been described as far right and 2) the articles are not about the JBS or the far right and therefore not relevant to the topic. It is not as if there is a lack of relevant sources for this article.
The Four Deuces ( talk) 22:34, 17 February 2010 (UTC)
Hi,
I need input on whatever the TV schedules posted in this forum thread can be counted as Reliable to assert the X series broadcast on Y network/TV channel. Note that this thread is hosted in the official TV network forum and there is to my knowledge no other place to find broadcast information in the whole official website.
Thanks -- KrebMarkt 08:50, 21 February 2010 (UTC)
Are the sources
here:
1. Biberian, J.-P.; Armamet, N. (2008)
"An update on condensed matter nuclear science (cold fusion)" Annales de la Fondation Louis de Broglie. Volume: 33, Issue: 1-2, Pages: 45-51.
2. Sheldon, E. (2008)
"An overview of almost 20 years' research on cold fusion. A review of 'The Science of Low Energy Nuclear Reaction: A Comprehensive Compilation of Evidence and Explanations about Cold Fusion.'" Contemporary Physics. Volume: 49, Issue: 5, Pages: 375-378.
and
here: (includes discussion of peer review from book's forward)
3. Marwan, Jan and Krivit, Steven B., eds., Low energy nuclear reactions sourcebook (American Chemical Society/Oxford University Press, 2008;
ISBN
978-0-8412-6966-8)
and
here: (includes discussion of peer review)
4. Krivit, S.B, “Cold Fusion: History,” Encyclopedia of Electrochemical Power Sources, Vol 2, Juergen Garche, Chris Dyer, Patrick Moseley, Zempachi Ogumi, David Rand and Bruno Scrosati, eds, Amsterdam: Elsevier; Nov. 2009. p. 271–276,
ISBN
9780444520937
5. Krivit, S.B, “Cold Fusion - Precursor to Low-Energy Nuclear Reactions,” Encyclopedia of Electrochemical Power Sources, Vol 2, Juergen Garche, Chris Dyer, Patrick Moseley, Zempachi Ogumi, David Rand and Bruno Scrosati, eds, Amsterdam: Elsevier; Nov. 2009. p. 255–270,
ISBN
9780444520937
all reliable, peer reviewed,
WP:SECONDARY sources for improving the
cold fusion article? If not, which are and which are not reliable, and why?
99.191.75.124 (
talk) 17:35, 27 February 2010 (UTC)
Banned user Nrcprm2026 is not permitted to contribute.
Hipocrite (
talk) 20:03, 28 February 2010 (UTC)
For the New York Times article Paterson Weighs Race as Top Aide Quits in Protest, it states at the top "By DANNY HAKIM and JEREMY W. PETERS", but it also states at the bottom "David Kocieniewski, William K. Rashbaum and Karen Zraick contributed reporting from New York.".
Should David Kocieniewski, William K. Rashbaum and Karen Zraick be considered authors as well? Smallman12q ( talk) 02:51, 28 February 2010 (UTC)
I know that, as far as reliability goes, we no longer simply say "No blogs"... recognizing that there is a huge difference between joe blow's personal blog and a professional (or even semi-professional) news blog... and that we essentially judge reliability based on whether the blog has a reputation for good journalism. With that in mind, I just need to know... what is the reputation of thedailybeast.com? Thanks Blueboar ( talk) 03:31, 28 February 2010 (UTC)
It is not a blog. Dlabtot ( talk) 17:35, 28 February 2010 (UTC)
Despite the fact that we've discussed this site on these pages multiple times as being non-reliable, there are well over 1,000 articles using it as a source. On top of that, someone at Wikipedia:WikiProject Films/Resources keeps adding it back as a valid source. The info on that page says sites cannot be added to that page without a discussion on the talk page concluding them to be reliable, yet when it is removed it keeps getting putting back without any discussion.
I am putting this back here for another discussion, one which I hope will sort this out once and for all. If it's not reliable as we have been saying all along it needs to be enforced, perhaps with either the spam filter or some other method to get rid of it for good. DreamGuy ( talk) 18:01, 28 February 2010 (UTC)
Is the website mako.org.au ever a reliable source? It is a kind of public list of convicted (or not) criminals (" 98+% of offenders listed in the MAKO/Files Online and MAKO/Files Online- (WTC) have been convicted by a court of law."), without any kind of official backing, reputation for fact-checking, ... As this is used for extremely sensitive information (identifying paedophiles, murderers, ...), I don't believe that this source is good enough. It is currently used on 36 pages. [20] Any ideas? —Preceding unsigned comment added by Fram ( talk • contribs) 12:04, 22 January 2010
The subject of the appropriateness of using youtube videos comes up often, however there seems to be no bright line as to whether they shold be used or not. In the case of Patrick Wolff three youtube links depicting a chess match have been repeatedly (three times) added to the article despite the request to discuss why they are necessary and if they meet the narrow instances where youtube links can or should be used as a reliable source. Is this a case where the links should be used? Jezebel'sPonyo shhh 14:45, 22 February 2010 (UTC)
What are peoples thoughts on the reliability of The Daily Collegian and Collegiate Times, used in Michael Peter Woroniecki. I haven't read every article yet, but I'm thinking that they are possibly acceptable for reporting events that occurred on campus, but not external events. I'm trying to clean up a major NPOV issue, and this guidance would be useful before I start. Kevin ( talk) 23:58, 24 February 2010 (UTC)
There is a discussion above -- Wikipedia:Reliable sources/Noticeboard#Journal of Genetic Genealogy where an editor has said "As Andrew says, any consensus reached here can and will be ignored by editors familiar with the material". I have always understood that talk page consensus cannot trump policy, and I assume that means that talk page consensus can't overrule consensus here. Note I'm not saying there is a consensus here, this is just a question of principal for me at the moment, although I think the point at issue is also an important point of princple. Dougweller ( talk) 09:46, 24 February 2010 (UTC)
Doug, I realize that this is probably just a theoretical discussion but I do think it reflects upon the real case at hand, or may be seen to (as shown by the IP reaction above!). The quote you cite by Din is being taken out of context. There was in fact no real consensus.-- Andrew Lancaster ( talk) 21:00, 24 February 2010 (UTC)
When editors ignore a clear consensus at RS/N, the next step is typically AN/I. Jayjg (talk) 01:38, 25 February 2010 (UTC)
Is it a reliable source? Because there is a "suggest edit" button. Is it like wikipedia that anyone can edit the articles? -- Supreme Deliciousness ( talk) 09:53, 26 February 2010 (UTC)
This source is being used to support the following half-sentence in the article Gary Lavergne: "which according to a 2007 Associated Press article is "considered the definitive account of the massacre.""
The article has been under discussion at Wikipedia:Biographies of living persons/Noticeboard#Gary Lavergne, where an editor questions whether that source is usable because he believes it an includes an error, that in the crime under discussion there should be 29 not 28 floors. I am of the opinion that an error in a reliable source does not invalidate it as a reliable source to begin with, but beyond that there's no definitive proof it is an error. Within a minute or two of searching, I found support for the "floor 28" it asserts in the following sources:
He has altered the article Charles Whitman, which also included the 28 floors figure, now to read 29, with support from an archived student newspaper article. He suggests that the Associated Press piece should be eliminated from the Gary Lavergne article as unreliable, indicating that these other three sources are unreliable as well.
Feedback would be welcome on whether or not this source is reliable to substantiate that statement: "which according to a 2007 Associated Press article is "considered the definitive account of the massacre."" I'm not particularly inclined to sweat the details at Charles Whitman myself, as I am only involved in attempting to make sure that the BLP on Gary Lavergne is fairly represented. -- Moonriddengirl (talk) 18:49, 27 February 2010 (UTC)
This is a very minor error--a fiddling detail that can easily be resolved by, for instance, a FOIA request for related police documents. but it exposes an underlying solecism that is quite common on Wikipedia: the notion that there exist intrinsically reliable sources whose authority overrides all conflicting reports by virtue of their status. To clarify, I'm not suggesting that it's sensible to challenge an AP report with an article from an opinion blog, a student newspaper, or whatever. I suppose the distillation is that we shouldn't reify fiddling detail in our articles. The number of the floor is not ascertainable from reliable sources with any degree of certainty, and it's of no relevance, so omit the detail
Tasty monster ( TS on one of those new fangled telephone thingies) 19:42, 27 February 2010 (UTC)
(outdent) Thank you for bringing that to my attention, I just read it. It was a criticism of another admins interpretation of my remarks and your use of the rules. Nothing pertaining to this discussion that I could garner. I do believe we'll see her here in a thread or two. Victor9876 ( talk) 20:24, 27 February 2010 (UTC)
Question! Can an administrator "tweak" the rules on Wikipedia? Thanks in advance. Victor9876 ( talk) 17:30, 28 February 2010 (UTC)
There is a dispute on the
Propaganda in the People's Republic of China page about whether "Kurlantzick, Joshua (2009).
"China: Resilient, Sophisticated Authoritarianism". Freedom House. {{
cite journal}}
: Cite journal requires |journal=
(
help); Unknown parameter |coauthors=
ignored (|author=
suggested) (
help)" is a reliable source on the Chinese Communist Party's propaganda work.
PCPP (
talk ·
contribs) argues that it is not, since "a) is not a suitable academic source as most of its material relies on original research b) is from an organization funded by the US government, and the countries reported happened to be political opponents of the US". I disagree. This is a question about the reliability of the source, not about whether the source has been used in a fully appropriate manner in the article. Please share your considered opinions. --
Asdfg
12345 00:07, 2 March 2010 (UTC)
Oh, and it would be relevant to note who these people are. Here's Kurlantzick's profile; and Perry Link. -- Asdfg 12345 00:17, 2 March 2010 (UTC)
BBC has announced that several sections of its old websites would be axed and its old content pruned, owing to a funding shakeup to BBC Online. I'm concerned that this is likely to include old versions of BBC News articles dating back to 1999, which an awful lot of articles heavily depend upon for reliable sourcing (some of them the only source, in fact). I think we should start converting them into WebCites before they are removed and then we'll have a huge sourcing problem in our hands. - Mailer Diablo 13:40, 2 March 2010 (UTC)
This website is an etymological blog on the origin of popular phrases. The editor, and major contributor Barry Popik is "a contributor-consultant to the Oxford English Dictionary, Dictionary of American Regional English, Historical Dictionary of American Slang, and the Yale Dictionary of Quotations."
His About page is here and the article in question is here.
Would the material sourced by Popik be considered a reliable source? - Stillwaterising ( talk) 13:44, 2 March 2010 (UTC)
It looks like the author is a RS, is there anything that would argue against RS of the blog for narrow use in "culture" articles? 99.141.252.167 ( talk) 14:24, 2 March 2010 (UTC)
This is being used as a source in a WP:BLP. The particular article in which it is being used is Esam S. Omeish and the particular article being cited is this one, authored by Paul Sperry and originally published at Front Page Magazine. Is this a reliable source for the claims being made? Please recall that this is a WP:BLP. Tiamut talk 20:09, 2 March 2010 (UTC)
The International Amateur Radio Union is an international society of long existence, with member societies which must be recognized national organizations, and they only recognize one organization per nation. Member societies typically existed prior to membership in the IARU, and some member societies have existed for more than eighty years. The member societies are legally independent. The IARU is managed by the American Radio Relay League, probably because the ARRL is the largest member society.
Some years ago, a decision at AfD resulted in the creation of stubs for member societies of the IARU, based solely on such membership (which demonstrates that a particular society is national in scope), and listing by the IARU, with pointers to the member society, as well as reference in publications of the IARU, is arguably an "independent reliable source" (the IARU being legally and in fact independent from the member society, except arguably the ARRL).
Two factors, national scope and independent source for verification may create sufficient notability for a stub, that is already the guideline at WP:CLUB, and stubs appear to me to be the best solution for organization of information about the member societies in this case (there are other alternatives, of course, including lists in the article on the international organization, but that was not consensus, and the large bulk of member societies have stubs). However, a process of AfDing these stubs has begun, on the basis of lack of notability. The lack of notability claim hinges on a position that the IARU description of the members is not a "independent source."
It appears that !voting in the AfDs generally favors keeping the articles, but the very same arguments are repeated over and over and over. It would be better to have some global clarification, so that editors don't waste time pursuing alternatives with a pile of individual decisions that go one way or the other depending on who notices the AfD.
National scope is considered an important factor in the notability of nonprofit organizations, see WP:CLUB, and recognition by a notable international organization would seem to meet the minimal additional requirement for a stub: independent notice.
Hence the question (and a similar question could be asked about national member societies in any international and legally independent organization):
Is the IARU an "independent source" for the purposes of determining notability of national member societies? There is no controversy over the use of information from the IARU in articles, other than this. Some member societies have sufficient "outside" mention that has been found to qualify them for individual articles on that basis, but there is a problem that such notice in publications outside the field of amateur radio, which can be expected to exist somewhere for all these member societies, is typically in local languages, would mostly be very old, and is difficult to find, particularly under the gun of an AfD. (For example, the Hong Kong Amateur Radio Transmitting Society is about eighty years old.) If the combination of national scope and the minimum notability represented by IARU recognition and listing is adequate for a stub with fully verifiable and trustworthy information, there would be no need to defend each and every member society based on claims on individual non-notability, reducing unproductive disruption at AfD. The decision whether or not to collect information in the article on the international society or to use stubs would then properly be made by editors at the international society article, the article on the umbrella organization.
This does not apply to simple "members" or especially "chapters" of international organizations. It only applies to member societies which are national in scope; these national members are legally independent and they are not established by the international society; rather, they apply for membership after they have been established. Recognition, I suggest, is "notice." And this only applies, as well, to notable international organizations, fully qualified on the basis of independent sources for their own articles.
There exist stubs on individual amateur radio clubs that would not be protected from AfD by this clearer understanding, such as clubs affiliated with the national member societies. These clubs are not national in scope, generally. -- Abd ( talk) 18:12, 23 February 2010 (UTC)
Disclosure: I proposed a change to WP:ORG at [32], and this is being contested there based apparently on a claim that such international organizations would not be a reliable source for information about member national societies. Some of this may be based on a misunderstanding about legal independence, but because there is a sourcing issue, I've brought this here, and I'll notify participants there of this discussion. -- Abd ( talk) 18:12, 23 February 2010 (UTC)
Would an opinion piece by the Illinois Family Institute on the www.opposingviews.com website be a reliable source on the Southern Poverty Law Center? On that website the IFI describes itself as follows:
The Illinois Family Institute (IFI) is an independent 501c(3) non-profit organization dedicated to upholding and re-affirming marriage, family, life and liberty in Illinois. For the past fifteen years, the IFI has worked to advance public policy initiatives consistent with Judeo-Christian teachings and traditions, educating citizens so that they can better influence their local communities and the state.
IFI works within the state of Illinois to promote and defend Biblical truths to foster an environment where families can thrive and reach their full God-given potential to serve and glorify Him--making the most of the opportunities afforded to each of us by His gift of life and liberty.
-- Jayjg (talk) 23:13, 28 February 2010 (UTC)
The source used for porn being banned in Ukraine is Romanian National Vanguard which is basically... well, I'll let you have a look for yourself at what kind of site it is (some kind of far right website), but is it reliable to use in Wikipedia? I don't think so.-- Base and Spoiled Female ( talk) 17:08, 1 March 2010 (UTC)
Am I the only one who first read this as "Pornography by religion"? Hans Adler 07:41, 2 March 2010 (UTC)
Please see the following link, http://www.facebook.com/photo.php?pid=3996218&id=7470710094. This photo is being used as a source to show that the latest release by the artist BT, http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/BT_%28musician%29, debuted on two digital charts in the #1 sales slot. Since this is linked on the artists facebook page, is this considered a self published source? I would also question how verifiable this is as I can't find where amazon or itunes list historical data for singles sales. I know the information to be true, but an image can be easily manipulated. This article as a whole is poorly sourced, with many links dead, or citation given to articles that do not say what other editors have put into the article. There is a lot of opinion and some summarizing is bordering on OW. There have been contention about my recent changes, by anonymous/new users, to tone down some of the weasel/peacock statements, and to improve the sourcing of opinion data in the article. For this reason I'm trying to get a better consensus on my edits before I make them. Thanks. Fctchkr ( talk) 15:18, 2 March 2010 (UTC)
I wrote an article on a little known Scottish band called Iron horse. [36] To my surprise, the article is marked with Notability.
I read about the Notability guidelines and I am puzzled. I don't have anytihng to do with the Iron Horse Group. I just love their music. It may be that the music lovers highly appreciate this band. But there is no way to tell. They are next to unknown over the Internet. The band retired in 2001.
What can I do to meet the Notability requirements in this case? Can you really decide that the article is not worth being there based on the lack of sources? What if the quality of their art justifies the article by itself? Or who can be the judge of that
thanks Alfred
Hello. There is a dispute about whether the writer James Miller is a reliable source to comment on Michel Foucault. Please see the dispute here. Specifically, the dispute is partly over whether Miller is a reliable source on Foucault's philosophy with regard to sado-masochism. Here are some quotes directly from his book:
James Miller is an Associate Professor of Political Science and Director of Liberal Studies at the New School for Social Research, and his text was published by Harvard University Press. If there is more information that I would need to provide, please advise. The reason I have queried here is to get an outside opinion. Thank you.-- TheSoundAndTheFury ( talk) 13:19, 26 February 2010 (UTC)
Csloat, a number of editors above have considered that the inclusion has some merit, and that Miller scrapes through as a reliable source. I do not understand the resistance. Particularly, the version proposed by Coffeepusher spent most of the text criticising Miller. It's quite unclear how this violates the due weight clause. Would the editors who previously commented on this please consider advising on whether csloat's behaviour here is productive? This information, as has been shown, has been mentioned by many reliable sources. Total exclusion seems unwarranted; but I would like to hear the opinions of others. I will leave a note on their talk pages to highlight the fact that the disagreement is still ongoing. My version, Coffeepusher's version, clsoat's deletion -- TheSoundAndTheFury ( talk) 15:36, 1 March 2010 (UTC)
I think people are making good arguments for the inclusion of a sentence or two mentioning the Miller book (and the fact that it is roundly dismissed by actual scholars), but I don't see an argument for dwelling on one of the (many) scandalous and unsubstantiated claims that Miller makes throughout the book. It's pretty clearly an undue weight issue as I see it. I also don't disagree that some discussion of Foucault's sexuality might be shown to be relevant, especially if it is sourced to Eribon or another actual scholar. But taking Miller's pseudo-journalistic account, elevating it to the level of a "study" (as if it were a peer-reviewed research analysis rather than a compilation of gossip), and then pulling out one of his more sensational claims and devoting a large paragraph to that claim (more space than we're devoting to The Birth of the Clinic!) is definitely undue weight. In Miller's book alone there are multiple such ridiculous claims that have led to Miller being criticized -- such as the claim that Foucault was a murderer, and the claim that his entire philosophy changed as a result of a single dose of LSD. These claims tell us a lot more about Miller than Foucault, which is why they may be mentioned in a Miller article but not in the Foucault article. csloat ( talk) 20:15, 1 March 2010 (UTC)
Is there any past dicussion at RSN dealing with pseudonymous authors who publish under regimes where the judiciary is not independent and political persecution is common? [37]
A question has come up about the use of this source:
to cite this text at X-Ray of a Lie (not a BLP):
Wolfgang Schalk and Thalman Urguelles, Venezuelan TV producers and engineers, were commissioned to "produce a response to the propaganda piece by Bartley and O'Briain", according to AC Clark in The Revolutionary Has No Clothes: Hugo Chavez's Bolivarian Farce, who says the film accurately uncovers the "mendacity and tendentiousness of The Revolution Will Not Be Televised".
According to User:Rd232:
"A C Clark" is a pseudonym [38] chosen by a Venezuelan who is clearly a member of the opposition (the book title already suggests a polemic). This pseudonymous opinion is not, I think, a reliable source, and without knowing who it is, how are we supposed to judge due weight? Rd232 talk 08:56, 2 March 2010 (UTC)
Does the allegation that the author is "clearly a member of the opposition" have any bearing on reliability? Generally, how do we deal with pseudonymous authorship under repressive regimes, and specifically, is this source reliable for this text in a film article?
Thanks, SandyGeorgia ( Talk)
One point that weighs on my mind is that because of the pseudonym we cannot create a bio article allowing the reader to judge for themselves the significance of this person's opinion (or editors to judge due weight). The text the source supports is primarily opinion, not fact, and the factual element is the fairly trivial one surely sourceable elsewhere that X-Ray was commissioned as a response to Revolution. Rd232 talk 17:30, 2 March 2010 (UTC)
On Wikipedia a verifiable and reliable source is generally a source whose publisher is accepted as reliable and verifiable. If the author's name is known and happens to be an expert in the field of interest with a good reputation, that can add to the reliability of the source. But articles by reliable sources are often anonymous (and sometimes pseudonymous) and are still acceptable. Our focus for reliability is on the publisher's reputation for accuracy and editorial vetting mechanisms, and those are the same regardless of whether the author's name is disclosed. Also, the "author" of an anonymous/pseudonymous article can be more than one person, but again, it's the publisher which counts for verifiability and reliability. Crum375 ( talk) 12:44, 3 March 2010 (UTC)
This is related to the attempt [39] noted above [40] to de-list The Times of London as a reliable source. This blog [41]has been referenced to establish the Times as a Wikipedia "un-reliable source".
In short, and for a number of reasons considered in their totality, the opinion blog noted here is not a Reliable Source suitable for use at Wikipedia. 99.141.252.167 ( talk) 17:57, 1 March 2010 (UTC)
And now these
[66]
[67]
[68]
[69]
[70], these were inserted as "timlambert.org".
99.141.252.167 (
talk) 21:26, 1 March 2010 (UTC)
Lambert is an academic scientist, who writes about science. And although he blogs outside of specific his area of academic interest, he is part of an invitation-only blog network selected by the editors of Seed Magazine. He's not some random blogger. Guettarda ( talk) 21:54, 1 March 2010 (UTC)
{{
cn}}
tag and...that means it adds nothing? Er, no.
Guettarda (
talk) 22:21, 1 March 2010 (UTC)
Deltoid is frequently cited as a top 10 Science Blog. Phil Plait's Bad Astronomy is another. [72] Wikispan ( talk) 22:29, 1 March 2010 (UTC)
I see JQ has been reverting the removals of this blog as a source, John please note WP:BLP#Self-published has a clear prohibition on using self-published sources to discuss third parties: "Never use self-published books, zines, websites, forums, blogs or tweets as sources for material about a living person, unless written or published by the subject. I have reverted some of the more blatant violations of this in peoples bio`s I would ask you to self revert the rest thanks mark nutley ( talk) 10:37, 2 March 2010 (UTC)
WP:BLP#Self-published doesn't apply because a blog on ScienceBlogs is not self-published. If one particular blog is not RS, every single ScienceBlogs reference becomes suspect. All changes must be reverted until the status of ScienceBlogs as a whole is assessed. Xanthoxyl < 00:06, 3 March 2010 (UTC)
Well let's take PZ Myers' Pharyngula blog. Is it a reliable source on biology, particularly developmental biology? Of course it is. But Tim Lambert writing on Deltoid about a subject far from his own speciality is a different matter. To say that all Scienceblogs articles are suspect is simply correct.
As I've said before, the fundamental error is when we ask "Is publication/person/publisher X a reliable source?" The answer is that any given source (for all three meanings of "source") may be reliable on some subjects and not reliable on others. -- TS 00:17, 3 March 2010 (UTC)
@Xanthoxy, from that link you posted i see no agreement that it can be used as a wp:rs there is no editorial control, and you have people blogging about whatever they want. Tim lambert is a computer scientist and his opinions on people can`t be used as a wp:rs If science blogs are a reliable source then so is wattsupwiththat.com and http://eureferendum.blogspot.com/ is this what your saying? That opinion blogs with no editorial control can be used as wp:rs?
The issue of the reliability of the website Venezuelanalysis, which has long passed too long, didn't read status above, merits a reboot in an attempt to actually resolve the issue. The site now has its own entry - Venezuelanalysis.com. It is argued that Venezuelanalysis is widely considered reliable, and that it "offers useful detail and analysis on pivotal issues that is unavailable from other media sources," and as such is a necessary complement to other media sources. Any present overuse of VA should be fixed by adding more sources, not removing VA sources.
In the face of this evidence that Venezuelanalysis is widely considered a reliable source, some Wikipedia editors wish to substitute their personal opinion that it is unreliable, because links they allege between the website (the alleged links are weak and the sourcing generally unreliable) and the Venezuelan government allegedly render it unreliable. They also argue that in their opinion the website editors' political views, which differ dramatically from their own, render it unreliable. In addition they argue that those wishing to use VA as a source must prove the site's 8 editors have "journalistic credentials" (whatever that means). (It was generally ignored that I had noted - to suggest that "journalistic credentials" are not everything - that Venezuelan media, formerly one of the most respected presses in Latin America, had after the election of Hugo Chavez become part of the opposition: "media owners and their editors used the news - print and broadcast - to spearhead an opposition movement against Chavez... Editors [...] began routinely winking at copy containing unfounded speculation, rumor, and unchecked facts." Dinges, John. Columbia Journalism Review (July 2005). "Soul Search", Vol. 44 Issue 2, July-August 2005, pp52-8. US media reporting on Venezuela has also been critiqued [98] [99])
In discussing this issue in the RSN thread above, the editors opposing use of VA have introduced irrelevant sources; complained about Wikipedia's Venezuela articles not matching their POV; and made many accusations of bad faith. Since the old thread remains open for any more accusations of bad faith that may be required, as well as any more detours into complaints not relevant to the issue, hopefully this thread can focus on resolving the question: can VA be considered a reliable source? Rd232 talk 14:17, 6 February 2010 (UTC)
This looks like "ask the other parent" to an issue that was already well debated; I suggest that anyone weighing in here not take Rd232's summary at face value, rather re-read the entire previous thread. Venezuelanalysis is funded by Chavez, media in Venezuela is state-controlled, the writers for Venezuelanalysis are highly partisan and affiliated with the Chavez regime, have no journalist credentials, and VenAnalysis is largely cited by the extreme radical left. It has been used on Wiki to source an egregious BLP violation, and its reporting is rarely comprehensive or neutral; the people responsible for it are funded by Chavez and associated with him. VA has a very limited place on Wiki, if any, and people willing to use it as a source often do so to the exclusion of more reliable sources. It rarely covers info that is not available in non-biased mainstream reliable sources, and because it is affiliated with Chavez, should never be used to the exclusion of more reliable sources. I also notice Rd232's several distortions and one-sided presentation of the issues in his new thread here, and am concerned about his tendentious editing in Chavez/Venezuela articles. He states that media owners spearheaded opposition to Chavez, but fails to mention the serious press freedom issues in Venezuela and that the media is state-controlled, by Chavez, and you can be jailed or shut down if you criticize Chavez; if Wiki allows VenAnalysis a larger role here as a source, we become one more arm of Chavez's very successful Venezuela Information Office. We already see Rd232 writing entire articles sourced to the highly partisan VA website, and excluding mainstream views (that alone speaks to the bias of VA as a source). We also now have an unbalanced article venezuelanalysis.com that uses a tour guide to prop up this partisan website. And I strongly object to this "ask the other parent" reboot, since most people are probably tired of this discussion and considered it settled. WP:V is a pillar of Wiki; overreliance on VA turns Wiki into another arm of the Chavez PR and propaganda machine. SandyGeorgia ( Talk) 16:16, 7 February 2010 (UTC)
It is also a self-published source within the meaning of the policy, in the sense that it seems to have no employees, no bosses, no office, and no formal editorial oversight. It describes itself as "an independent website produced by individuals ... its contributors are all working on the site from their homes in various places in Venezuela, the U.S., and elsewhere in the world." [101]
The reliability of individual articles on the site therefore boils down to whether the person who wrote the article is a reliable source within the meaning of the policy. The policy says: "Self-published material may, in some circumstances, be acceptable when produced by an established expert on the topic of the article whose work in the relevant field has previously been published by reliable third-party publications." See WP:V#Self-published sources (online and paper). So each article on the website that's being proposed as a source will have to be examined individually to decide whether the author has previously been published in that field by an independent publication. Then that article could be used with a link to the site as a source. But I would caution against using self-published material for anything contentious, and it can never be used as a source of information about a living person, per V and BLP. SlimVirgin TALK contribs 19:11, 7 February 2010 (UTC)
SlimVirgin's analysis is correct, and I appreciate her more thorough review. The website is essentially a WP:SPS, and has to be treated as such. Its political views, and whether or not various professors write a laudatory paragraph for the website, are both irrelevant. Jayjg (talk) 23:46, 8 February 2010 (UTC)
Exhibit I, since people have been asking for examples, which I just happened across while looking into the curiously orphaned article, Corruption in Venezuela, whose original content seems to have gone desaparecido and orphaned. This VenAnalysis report is used to source a completely biased accounting there of the cases of Manuel Rosales and Raul Baduel (and others). Since I have cleaned up Rosales, and done a wee bit of work on Baduel, I invite those participating in this discussion to compare this VA article with the reliable sources listed at Rosales and Baduel, see if they think VenAnalysis has presented both sides of the story. SandyGeorgia ( Talk) 03:50, 8 February 2010 (UTC)
I've noticed that the site is included in required reading lists and bibliographies for courses at a number of universities. The following list (by no means exhaustive) provides some examples:
I would think that tends to affirm RS status. At any rate, it clearly has some considerable academic standing. -- JN 466 22:40, 19 February 2010 (UTC)
Having gone through this exercise, I can't fault SlimVirgin's analysis above, posted at 19:11, 7 February 2010. In particular, it seems more than likely from the affiliations of the people involved that the site does have a promotional agenda. That does not mean everything on it is bad or invalid; as SlimVirgin said earlier, we should look at the credentials of each individual author whose writings are hosted there, and base our decision on that. Thanks for your input. -- JN 466 17:02, 21 February 2010 (UTC)
Having expended more than enough energy on this issue, I'm staying out of it. However I will correct the error introduced above by relying on the Harvard reading list: the source given for the Mark Weisbrot contribution is "Black swans..." [116], which is a straight re-publication of the CEPR paper here: [117]. Weisbrot hasn't written for VA, as far as I know; but seemingly is quite liberal in allowing republication by anyone that wants. Rd232 talk 22:01, 21 February 2010 (UTC)
Is this a reliable source?
In my eyes of-course not if you look at the header of this website you will see some of the most cruel terrorist of the world who committed a lot of terroristic acts around the world.
http://www.kavkazcenter.com/eng/
But a lot of wikipedia articles rely on this source.
A short quote of an article:
"At least 3 US invaders were killed and another 3 injured during gun battles in which the enemy coalition forces were forced to retreat, said the report, adding a bomb tore apart a US invaders tank while trying to flee from the certain areas, killing the US invaders who were on board."
And Headlines such: "Clarification of the invaders propaganda in Afghanistan"
http://www.kavkaz.org.uk/eng/content/2010/01/31/11329.shtml
There's no indication of significant editorial oversight or a reputation for fact-checking and accuracy. Regarding the content, here's a story I picked off their front page just now:
2 apostate policemen eliminated in Caucasus Emirate's Dagestan Province
Publication time: 20 February 2010, 12:54Puppet officials say two apostate police officers were fatally shot in attacks in Dagestan Province, Caucasus Emirate.
Regional "Interior Ministry" gang's spokesman Mark Tolchinsky said Saturday that "a group of unidentified assailants fatally wounded the two officers at a roadside police station in the Gergebil district of Dagestan province late Friday".
Kavkaz Center
I think that pretty much sums it up. Jayjg (talk) 20:44, 21 February 2010 (UTC)
Well and an other article of this page
Mujahideen released a summary of military operations against Anglo-American invaders and Karzai puppets in Helmand for Saturday, February 13. According to these data, more than 50 US invaders have been killed or injured and 16 US have been tanks destroyed on Saturday in separate incidents in Marjah, Garmsir, Nad Ali and Now Zad districts of the Helmand province. Kavkaz Center
Sure ... --Saiga 14:46, 27 February 2010 (UTC)
Kavkazcenter is a mouthpiece for extremists in the North Caucasus. As far as facts and figures go, there is no editorial oversight or fact checking whatsoever, and for good reason since their intention is not to report an accurate and unbiased depiction of events, but to promote a cause.
LokiiT (
talk) 02:34, 28 February 2010 (UTC)
Kavkazcenter has been posted more often on WP:RS (and always survived) by people who are bitter about conflict. The site is indeed an extremis propaganda website, but always had ties with caucasian forces during both chechen wars. It has released images, videos, interviews, attacks, burials and also figures of casualties on both sides. Of course their numbers should be taken with a grain of salt, but they aren't less accurate than casualty figures reported by the russian press (often known for being propaganda figures as well). Kavkazcenter has been quoted by thousands of news tabloids [121] many times over, including the major ones. The same goes for books [122]. As long as their statements are attributed as something like "according to the radical kavkazcenter website" it's fine to use it on subjects related to the conflict in the northern caucasus (not afghanistan or iraq). Just as news tabloids as well as wikipedia articles also quote statements by Taliban leaders or even Al-Qaeda leaders as well as statements by pkk leaders or other rebel formations. I also think that anyone who accuses someone of spreading "terrorist propaganda" or calling anyone a "terrorist lover" (such as here [123]) should be blocked or warned for personal attacks because those accusations are highly provocative and polarizing. Grey Fox ( talk) 15:40, 8 March 2010 (UTC)
Hi, User:BruceGrubb is wanting to use Terry Sandbek, Ph.D. " Brain Typing: The Pseudoscience of Cold Reading" Journal of the American Board of Sport Psychology as a source on Multi-level Marketing. The site is ostensibly a peer-reviewed journal however the "journal" appears to consist of a sum total of 8 articles appearing only on the rather unprofessional looking website [124] and the document in question doesn't even appear to be one of those. The "journal" itself seems to have racked up a sum total of one citation, in an obscure Pakistani journal [125]. Given the article in question is (a) not by an expert in, or about, the topic in question (multilevel marketing) (b) probably not peer-reviewed and (c) not in a journal of any standing even if it was, it would appear to me to clearly fail WP:RS. Comments appreciated. -- Insider201283 ( talk) 23:38, 19 February 2010 (UTC) ETA: I found the article in question listed here on the website. It's a "position paper" and listed with other opinion-type pieces. As noted, it's not listed in the "journal" articles section [126] -- Insider201283 ( talk) 23:46, 19 February 2010 (UTC)
American Psychological Association Divisions 47 and 6 (Behavioral Neuroscience) 2004 Convention Symposium: Integrative Sport Psychology (*,**) Presented Papers section only one of the six papers is in the PDF format. All the rest are in powerpoint format even though the one star (*) denotes all as "for the researcher and practitioner (more technical/scientific)PEER-REVIEWED" and then you have three star (***) articles in PDF format even though the ratings only expressly states that one star articles are PEER-REVIEWED. I am inclined to trust the star ratings rather than the format especially as PEER-REVIEWED is in all caps and bolded.-- BruceGrubb ( talk) 01:54, 20 February 2010 (UTC)
Aha. Now it makes sense. From reading the paper, Sandbek is criticizing one specific person, Jon Niednagel, who is apparently is trying to do something called Brain Typing which has something to do with Sport Psychology (hence the sports medicine connection). As one of his criticisms, Sandbek mentions that Niednagel was involved with MLM. The sentence in context is:
Such is the case with Brain Typing. Mr. Niednagel is quick to claim a scientific basis for his product but is unable to offer any solid evidence that it is based on any scientific principles. This is not surprising when we look at the types of businesses that he has promoted in the last few decades. None of them have any direct link to applied science or scientific research. Multilevel Marketing and Positive Thinking, his two previous ventures, have no connection to findings within the scientific community.
The article, including the quoted sentence, is primarily a criticism of Niednagel specifically, not of MLM in general, and I suspect Sandbek would reject any claims of being an expert on MLM in general. Not appropriate for the MLM article. If we have an article on Brain Typing or Niednagel, it would be a good source there, but MLM is much bigger than Niednagel.
That said, however, surely there is no lack of better sources to criticise MLM. Consumer advocates, attorneys general, economists, all those would be much better critics than sports medicine experts. -- GRuban ( talk) 21:06, 21 February 2010 (UTC)
(remove indent)Gruban - Insider201283 is again engaging in a half truth. user:Arthur Rubin on the talk page and User:TheEditor22 on the RS/NS felt that Taylor, FitzPatrick, and Vandruff could be used as they were cited so many times in peer reviewed papers (including one that Insider201283 claimed was and was called on the carpet for that responded with "For someone to cite it, based only on a webpage, and have that accepted in peer review? A tragic example of poor standards.") as well as in reliable publishers such as Juta Academic not to mention the McGeorge Law Review which using Taylor as a reference stated "Day after day, however, many Americans and others around the world4 fall prey to a similar type of deception—supposed “business opportunities” in which 99.9 percent of investors lose money." User:Jakew left the RS/NS discussion just a little after User:TheEditor22 came on and you note on his User_talk:TheEditor22 who had been temporarily banned for using sock puppetry and other things to keep a reliable source by Fox News that Insider kept arguing for the removal of in the ACN Inc. article. Based on the last poster in that it was two against one that they were RS.-- BruceGrubb ( talk) 07:05, 2 March 2010 (UTC)
Is the Oxfordian journal Brief Chronicles considered to be a reliable source for the Wikipedia Shakespeare authorship question article? It focuses on a fringe theory, the Shakespeare authorship question, from an Oxfordian perspective (i.e. the assumption that Edward deVere, the 17th Earl of Oxford, was the true author of the Shakespeare canon). See the focus and scope statement.
Reading the “about” page, it is apparent that the journal was planned and carefully constructed to give the impression of a scholarly, peer-reviewed journal. However, the publication is controlled by general editor Dr. Roger Stritmatter, an Oxfordian whose commitment to spreading the gospel is well known to Wikipedia Shakespeare editors, and the 12-member board includes at least 10 identified Oxfordians, such as Dr. Michael Delahoyde of Washington State University and Dr. Richard Waugaman of the Georgetown University of Medicine and Washington Psychoanalytic Institute. While the accomplishments of these people should not be disparaged, they believe in a fringe theory (which is not all that unusual among certain percentage of academics) and participate on the board of a publication devoted to promoting a theory well outside the accepted scholarly consensus.
In its inaugural number, Brief Chronicles published 10 articles, ostensibly chosen by a double-blind peer review. Coincidentally, three of the 10 were authored by members of the editorial board. They included such articles as “The Psychology of the Authorship Question,” which according to the abstract, “Employs a historical/psychoanalytical model to understand why so many academicians are resistant to rationale [sic] discourse on the authorship question”; “Francis Meres and the Earl of Oxford”, which supposedly “Analyzes the numerical structure of Francis Meres' 1598 Palladis Tamia to show that Meres not only knew that Oxford and Shakespeare were one and the same, but that he constructed his publication to carefully alert the reader to this fact” (and incidentally marks the Oxfordian descent into cryptic number puzzles that formerly were the sole province of Baconism); and “Edward de Vere's Hand in Titus Andronicus”.
I believe that WP:PARITY applies to this publication, especially the sentence, "Note that fringe journals exist, some of which claim peer review. Only a very few of these actually have any meaningful peer review outside of promoters of the fringe theories, and should generally be considered unreliable. Examples: The Creation Science Quarterly, Homeopathy, Journal of Frontier Science . . . and many others." Tom Reedy ( talk) 03:14, 22 February 2010 (UTC)
Just a suggestion: you might want to limit comments by involved editors to one or two at the most. If you don't, a look at his editing and discussion history shows that Smatprt will deluge the discussion with irrelevant and tendentious posts that will effectively obfuscate any honest discussion or consensus on the issue by uninvolved editors. Tom Reedy ( talk) 13:34, 22 February 2010 (UTC)
I'm going to answer this from a different point of view; I'm going to agree with both sides. :-). Side "A", above, seems to be saying that the journal, publishers and review board, is full of people from one side of a fourfive-way argument, so it's biased. Side "B" seems to be saying that the journal is full of people with Doctorates from respected schools, so it's reliable. I'm going to say you're all right. A source can be both reliable and biased. The article
Shakespeare authorship question is specifically about the controversy, so it is a perfectly appropriate place where a journal published and reviewed by highly titled Oxfordians should be cited to explain Oxfordian views; it seems a perfectly reliable source for that branch of scholarship. That said, these views should be appropriately tagged with the caveat that these are the views of Oxfordians, not of all or most Shakespearian scholars in general, since Stratfordians, Baconians, Lettucians and Tomatovians may well differ. --
GRuban (
talk) 15:28, 22 February 2010 (UTC)
Is there any reason why this debate can't stop while uninvolved editors look at the evidence and make a decision? If they need any further information they'll ask for it. Lobbying in the hope of affecting the outcome is not an honest use of the noticeboard. So please just STFU. Tom Reedy ( talk) 20:48, 22 February 2010 (UTC)
Dougweller wrote above: "With all due respect, Schoenbaum, you seem to be a new WP:SPA with few edits, all but one to the talk page of the authorship article. I will recall a related discussion here [186] from last year." [Dougweller (talk) 10:31, 22 February 2010 (UTC)] Smatprt replied: "I do remember that discussion. At the time, this board looked at the credentials of the editorial team, asking relevant questions about their expertise. I would hope that a similar exercise is involved here." [Smatprt (talk) 16:08, 22 February 2010 (UTC)] Paul B. responded: "Both Smatprt and Schoenbaum are SPA editors whose sole activity on Wikipedia is to promote Oxfordianism."
It's true that I'm new to Wikipedia. Everyone starts somewhere. I make no apology for it, and am willing to respond to questions from the board about my qualifications. Paul B's claim is false, not only as it relates to Smatprt, but also as it relates to me. None of my comments on the talk pages promotes the candidacy of the Earl of Oxford, and none will. That is not my purpose, and he has no basis for saying otherwise. He admitted above that he is biased against Oxfordians. The fact that I've had disagreements with him on the talk pages doesn't make me one. He's just stereotyping me. My comments have been anti-Stratfordian, not Oxfordian. 96.251.82.13 ( talk) 00:24, 23 February 2010 (UTC)
I'm previously uninvolved in this topic, and this thread is not making me eager to get involved.
Brief Chronicles does a pretty good job of looking like an academic journal, but it's clearly a publication founded to advance a specific agenda: giving a veneer of scholarly legitimacy to unorthdox views of Shakespearian authorship. I found this sentence from the editors' introduction to the first issue telling: "Four contributors to our first issue hold PhDs in literary studies; two are MDs with records of publication on literary and historical topics, and six are independent scholars." This is a red flag that the journal advances fringy claims. Certainly independent scholars make valuable contributions to many academic fields, but they also contribute loads of nonsense to poorly refereed venues. Also, the phrasing of the sentence suggests that some of the contributors who hold PhDs or MDs do not currently hold scholarly positions. So a substantial portion of the contributors in the very first issue do not currently hold teaching or research positions. Frankly, this looks like a fanzine dressed up as an academic journal. Still, it may be that this periodical can be cited in Wikipedia articles, but it should not be used to suggest that Oxfordianism or any other non-standard theory of Shakespearian authorship has academic legitimacy. --Akhilleus ( talk) 03:39, 23 February 2010 (UTC)
An editor is using the book False Profits as a source for several claims in the article on multi-level marketing. The book appears to be a "vanity publishing" book, with the publisher, "Herald Press" [136] having the same address (1235-E East Blvd. #101, Charlotte NC 28203) as the authors "consumer advocate" organisation and website www.pyramidschemealert.org [137] No other books appear to have been published by this publisher and the authors have no other RS publications in the field, his website has been previously rejected as an RS for the article [138]. Comments appreciated. -- Insider201283 ( talk) 11:03, 24 February 2010 (UTC)
CRITICISMS OF MULTILEVEL MARKETING MLM is without question controversial. Millions of people are positively disposed toward MLM as judged by the number of MLM distributors and MLM sales. Simultaneously, count- less individuals, through publications, blogs, and Web sites, vehemently criticize MLM. MLM practitioners in particular have been criticized for alleged unethical behavior that includes misrepresenting earning potentials, pressuring friendsand relatives to become distributors or purchase unneeded or unwanted products and services, and using deceptive recruit-ing tactics (e.g., Bloch 1996; Koehn 2001).
As will be discussed, the existence of internal consumption in the context of MLM is viewed by critics of MLM as primafacie evidence of an unethical and perhaps illegal pyramid scheme.
Title:On the Ethicality of Internal Consumption in Multilevel Marketing Source:The Journal of Personal Selling & Sales Management [0885-3134] Peterson yr:2007 vol:27 iss:4 pg:317
Doc James ( talk · contribs · email) 00:08, 25 February 2010 (UTC)
WP:SPS specifically deals with material published by vanity presses, which appears to be the case here. Is either author "an established expert on the topic of the article whose work in the relevant field has previously been published by reliable third-party publications."? Jayjg (talk) 01:37, 25 February 2010 (UTC)
(remove indent) Something similar to this was this was kicked around in Wikipedia_talk:Reliable_sources/Noticeboard/Archive_1#When_does_an_person_become_enough_of_an_expert_that_we_can_used_his_self-published_material.3F. The list provided in that thread regarding Taylor and Fitzpatrick was as follows:
Carl, Walter J. (2002) "Organizational Legitimacy As Discursive Accomplishment in Multilevel Marketing Discourse" Organizational Communication Division of the National Communications Association conference Nov 21-24, 2002. (uses FitzPatrick's book False Profits as a reference)
Carl, Walter J. (2004) "The Interactional Business of Doing Business: Managing Legitimacy and Co-constructing Entrepreneurial Identities in E-Commerce Multilevel Marketing Discourse" Western Journal of Communication, Vol. 68.
Cruz, Joan Paola; Camilo Olaya (2008) "A System Dynamics Model for Studying the Structure of Network Marketing Organizations" Requirements of System Dynamics conference papers for the 2007 conference papers were as follows: "Papers may be submitted from January 2, 2007 to March 26, 2007 and must be in sufficient detail for the referees to judge their meaning and value. Submissions must be in English and should be 5 - 30 pages in length (there is also a maximum 2 MB electronic file size). Abstracts will not be accepted. Submission of models and other supporting materials to enable replication and aid the review process is encouraged in all cases (maximum file size 2 MB in addition to the paper). [...] All works submitted will be assigned for double blind peer review. The results, with the oversight of the program chairs, will determine whether a work will be accepted, and the presentation format for the work."
Higgs, Philip and Jane Smith (2007) Rethinking Our World Juta Academic uses MLM Watch website as well as Fitzpatrick as references. "Juta is respected as South Africa's pre-eminent academic and law publisher".
Koehn, Daryl (2001) "Ethical Issues Connected with Multi-Level Marketing Schemes" Journal of Business Ethics 29:153-160.
Pareja, Sergio, (2008) "Sales Gone Wild: Will the FTC's Business Opportunity Rule Put an End to Pyramid Marketing Schemes?" McGeorge Law Review, Vol. 39, No. 83. ("student-run, scholarly journal published on a quarterly basis" by University of the Pacific)
Terry Sandbek, Ph.D. Brain Typing: The Pseudoscience of Cold Reading Journal of the American Board of Sport Psychology uses both Taylor and FitzPatrick
Woker, TA (2003) "If It Sounds Too Good to Be True It Probably Is: Pyramid Schemes and Other Related Frauds" South African Mercantile Law Journal 15: 237
Wong, Michelle. A. (2002) "China's Direct Marketing Ban: A Case Study of China's Response to Capital-Based Social Networks" Pacific Rim Law & Policy Journal
The issue of how much and often someone has to be sited in reliable sources to be considered an expert was never really addressed.-- BruceGrubb ( talk) 08:16, 27 February 2010 (UTC)
As an aside - pretty much all distribution is "multi-level" - the point at which "pyramid" becomes inportant is where a significant part of the total revenue is derived from recruiting more marketers. As long as the main interest is in selling a product, it is not a "pyramid scheme." In many fields, by the way, where there are several ;ocal competitors in an industry, one will buy the wholesale amounts to reach price break points, and re-wholesales lesser amounts to his own competitors. The result is that he makes a small profit on each resale (and saves on his own wholesale costs) while the others have a convenient local jobber who is as cheap or cheaper than if they made individual purchases.
Collect (
talk) 12:23, 1 March 2010 (UTC)
An editor ( User:BruceGrubb) on the multi-level marketing article is trying something that to me seems a clear attempt at getting around the spirit of WP policy. A number of the sources he is wishing to use have been rejected as not RS, so he is quoting whole a sentence from an otherwise RS source in order to include criticism from the clearly non-RS sources. The paragraph in question is -
Now note that the citations given are not actually listed as citations in the WP article, it's merely a whole quote from (Carl, Walter J. (2004) "The Interactional Business of Doing Business: Managing Legitimacy and Co-constructing Entrepreneurial Identities in E-Commerce Multilevel Marketing Discourse" Western Journal of Communication, Vol. 68 a minor but otherwise acceptable journal. [143] Fitzpatrick & Reynolds, 1997 is clearly referring to the book False Profits, a vanity press book which I listed on RS/N and was rejected as a reliable source [144]. I asked Bruce if the Carter reference was another vanity press book "Behind the Smoke & Mirrors" and his reply was that it didn't matter what the reference was because the quote was from a peer-reviewed journal. [145] He did not reply when I asked what the Hopfl & Maddrell reference was, and the Butterfield reference almost certainly references a 25yr old book about Amway [146] from a collective, non-profit press that actively admits to being committed to "the politics of radical social change" [147] - not exactly NPOV when discussing a multinational business! So, the quote cites 4 sources, two of which are clearly non-RS, one of which is dubious but perhaps allowable, and one of which is of unknown origin. Is this acceptable editing practice?-- Insider201283 ( talk) 13:26, 26 February 2010 (UTC)
If you could follow the chain of sources long enough, almost every information would become non-reliable. After all, we clearly can't cite "I spoke to these otherwise non-notable people who claim they were watching it happen, and he said..."; but a New York Times article based on reports of eyewitnesses is often fine, and a peer reviewed scholarly paper collating and analyzing multiple eyewitness reports is the best we could hope for, though in the end, they would be just the same non-notable people who claim to have been watching something happen. The difference is that each step is a filter which, hopefully, would filter out the less reliable information. ( Doesn't always work, of course, but it's the best we can do.) -- GRuban ( talk) 19:32, 26 February 2010 (UTC)
(remove indent)Come on Insider201283, even a good hunk of the supposedly neutral and pro-MLM stuff call its a "scheme" rather than a "method", "methodology", or even "system" and as I pointed out in the article's talk page "scheme" carries with it some very negative baggage (such as "dodge: a statement that evades the question by cleverness or trickery" or "form intrigues (for) in an underhand manner"). As for multiple unimpeachable sources in the article's talk page you have claimed self-published works weren't (The Business School for People Who Like Helping People by Robert Kiyosaki through Cashflow Technologies which he owns and is president of) and claimed peer-reviewed papers weren't (Cruz) and have been called on the carpet several time for overly pro-MLM editing and even admitting "I have no problems being accused of violating WP:COI - I am." with regards to Alticor/Amway/Quixtar editing on your own talk page and this nonsense seems to be just a continuation of that. You have even challenged The Times by claiming the totally insane statement ""court testimony" is not only a primary source, it's inherently unreliable and extremely POV." despite this was presented by The Times. You are even challenging a direct quote from a peer reviewed paper because you don't like one of the reference they used.-- BruceGrubb ( talk) 09:32, 28 February 2010 (UTC)
This discussion is taking place over at the CRU hacking incident article. The editors are quibbling over the reliability of the Times of London. As usual, an uninvolved administrator would go a long way towards toning down the rhetoric.
By "American standards, all British newspapers are tabloids because they don’t distinguish between what is true and what they make up." [148] [149] These sources meet WP:SPS requirements. They relate specifically to The Sunday Times, also a News International publication, with separate editorial policy, but rather confusingly sharing the TimesOnline website with the daily. Just because something is in a formerly respectable British newspaper, that doesn't mean it meets verifiability standards. We also have to consider the writer, and some of them have a very questionable track record. As always, research and cross checking with other reliable sources is needed to assess individual statements. . dave souza, talk 10:12, 2 March 2010 (UTC)
(unindent)There is no requirement that material appearing in a reliable source must be included in an article, only that it is not eligible for inclusion unless it appears in a reliable source. Sort of like a job application; a teacher applying for a job must have a teaching license, but that does not mean the school board has to hire every applicant who has a license. Likewise, we can exclude material that appears in a reliable source if many other sources of equal quality, or one other source of clearly better quality, shows the source in question is wrong. Jc3s5h ( talk) 16:37, 9 March 2010 (UTC)
I don't really know where so many editors got the idea that newspapers are intrinsically reliable. No matter what the nationality of the publisher, they often disagree with one another on matters of detail. In particular, newspaper reporting of science and medicine is a complete disaster area. --
TS 17:04, 9 March 2010 (UTC)
I came across some erroneous information that was reported by a reliable source and came up against strong objections when I suggested it should be removed because it was clearly wrong. I was informed that "correctness" was not an issue, the only concern was verifiability. This is clearly a misinterpretation of the guidelines because surely Wikipedia policy doesn't oblige us to include incorrect information just because it's verifiable through a reliable source. Obviously consensus can easily take care of incorrect information reported by reliable sources: if people don't agree that something should go in, then it doesn't go in; if something is in and is referenced through a reliable source then it doesn't come out unless people agree it should come out. I got around the problem by contacting the authors and pointing out their mistake and it was corrected. But the verifiability section I think should be more explicit in making it clear that verifiabiliy isn't a bullet-proof sole condition for including material, and that it can still be challenged if it can be shown to be inaccurate. It should be made clear that consensus can overrule verifiability. Betty Logan ( talk) 17:33, 9 March 2010 (UTC)
A statement in a "reliable source" that is obviously incorrect (because it contradicts more reliable sources) is not verifiable. If The Times reports that overconsumption of jelly babies causes AIDS, we don't consider it to be verifiable just because The Times said it. -- TS 20:33, 9 March 2010 (UTC)
I hope (almost?) everybody in this discussion agrees that the only thing we fundamentally disagree about is how to use certain words that describe our normal and necessary practice of excluding information which according to common sense shouldn't be included. When we are in an argument, we all have a natural tendency to argue in terms of the policies and guidelines that we have in our minds from previous discussions. Therefore our rules have the tendency to get more and more blurry. E.g. AFAICT it's a standard argument at WP:RS/N to say that a newspaper is reliable for current events in the area it covers, but not for detailed claims about brain surgery. On the other hand, the Lancet isn't reliable for details about the history of the Beatles. Perhaps we shouldn't formulate the truth of these statements in terms of reliability but in terms of something else, but it seems that currently there is no other way to formulate this. Hans Adler 21:25, 9 March 2010 (UTC)
Is a VH1 picture of someone labeled "Sexy Scientologists" a reliable enough source to describe someone as a Scientologist in the Wikipedia article on them? [151] Jayjg (talk) 03:16, 2 March 2010 (UTC)
I have run across several articles like these examples that cite the results of a Pubmed search to support a claim about the author's work. This seems like original research to me.
Thanks for your input. — Chris Capoccia T⁄ C 15:37, 3 March 2010 (UTC)
So a better statement would be something like, "As of {some date}, Pubmed indexed {some number} articles by {some author}.<ref>{some pubmed search}</ref>" ? — Chris Capoccia T⁄ C 08:22, 5 March 2010 (UTC)
The following scientific article follows all Wikipedia standards related to "reliable sources" but was systematically rejected in the pedophilia article by user User:Jack-A-Roe. It's clear to me that this rejection is because such user do not agree with the content of the article.
Article: "On the Iatrogenic Nature of the Child Sexual Abuse Discourse"
Main link: http://www.unizar.es/riesgo/archivos/1242046186Iatrogenic.pdf
Abstract and info on publication: http://www.springerlink.com/content/k4q25t0332x43865/
The reason given for removing the link does not say the truth and is in fact very weak : "removing non-reliable source; it's not a study, it's an opinion piece expressing a far-fringe view by an author with an agenda, and who is not cited by any researchers".
This can be viewed here: http://en.wikipedia.org/?title=Pedophilia&diff=next&oldid=347367287
In December 2009, this same reliable source was removed and the issue was debated in the "pedophilia" Talk Page. See "Archive 13", Section 4.2.1 ("Legal issues about the use of the term", "new text", "splitting the text", part 1). Detailed arguments for keeping the source were then presented by user User :Giancarlo32 which were not refuted since then.
Link of the Archive 13 - http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Talk:Pedophilia/Archive_13
Transcription of arguments not refuted (section 4.2 .1) posted by (User Giancarlo32) –
« This sounds ridiculous and kafkian to me, but just for the sake of argumentation, I took the time to split the text in four parts: (1) While recognizing the term “pedophile” as pejorative, vague and hackneyed, researchers suggest its replacement with less value-laden and pejorative terms. [152] (see page 11, 2) [153]
(…) This is the Wikipedia policy about reliable sources (see WP:SOURCES) : "The most reliable sources are usually peer-reviewed journals; books published by university presses; university-level textbooks; magazines, journals, and books published by respected publishing houses; and mainstream newspapers. Electronic media may also be used, subject to the same criteria. Academic and peer-reviewed publications are highly valued and usually the most reliable sources in areas where they are available, such as history, medicine, and science."
is a reliable source – because the article is a university-level textbook and is available in the website of a university in Spain (University of Zaragoza, [155]; and because the article was published by a peer-reviewed journal, “Sexuality and Culture” [156]. This is very explicit in the section “Description” of the journal's website, which reads: “This interdisciplinary journal publishes peer-reviewed theoretical articles based on logical argumentation and literature review and empirical articles describing the results of experiments and surveys on the ethical, cultural, psychological, social, or political implications of sexual behavior” (source here - [157].
The journal has an Editorial Board whose members are identified here – [158]. They come from all over the world, including many researchers from USA and others from Germany, Sweden, New Zealand, Canada, Brazil, Hong Kong, Mexico, Austria, France, Australia and Croatia. Therefore this article follows the guidelines of Wikipedia about reliable sources. Giancarlo32 ( talk) 20:48, 21 December 2009 (UTC)
(end of transcription; Talk Page - Archive 13)
Please examine the reliability of this source with impartiality, and if you agree with me, explain to User « Jack-A-Roe » that this source is reliable according to Wikipedia’s criteria. If this scientific article is NOT reliable, then NO ONE would be, according to Wikipedia’s criteria on reliable sources. He/She cannot distort the rules or forget them whenever they are more convenient to support his/her point-of-view. If this is not resolved here, I will call for formal mediation. Thank you. AleBZ ( talk) 17:15, 3 March 2010 (UTC)
The article is a scientific paper. It expresses the opinion of the author, but that is true of a great many scientific papers including a large fraction of all papers in the psychological sciences. So there is nothing about the source itself to exclude it from use in Wikipedia. If the opinion in the paper is disputed by other scientific papers, it would be reasonable to qualify it with "According to Agustín Malón, ...". Whether it is appropriate for a particular article is a different question that I have no opinion about, but it absolutely is a Reliable Source. Zero talk 09:46, 4 March 2010 (UTC)
Is this site reliable for sourcing BLP's? I can't find any information about where their info comes from or who actually writes the articles. Their whois info also lists a Yahoo e-mail address which does not exactly scream "organization known for fact checking". Copana2002 ( talk) 23:21, 4 March 2010 (UTC)
At
Muhammad al-Durrah incident, there is a dispute over the reliability of this source:
[161]. It is a book by Eoin Devereux, entitled Media studies: key issues and debates. In a chapter authored by Greg Philo, on page 126, it states:
The circumstances of this killing were highly contested and became the focus of an extensive propaganda struggle [...] the Israelis issued a statement saying that the boy's death was unintentional. This was reported on TV news as follows:
Israel says the boy was caught unintentionally in crossfire. (ITV, lunch-time news, italics added, 2 October 2000)
The Palestinians rejected his account and stated that the targeting was deliberate. This view appears on the news in an interview from hospital with the boy's father, who is reported as follows:
Miraculously his father survived but his body is punctured with eight bullet holes. 'They shot at us until they hit us', he told me, and 'I saw the man who did it - the Israeli soldier.' (BBC1, main news, 1 October 2000)
The two accounts of the events are therefore opposed, but it is the Israeli view that became dominant on the news. Most significantly, it is endorsed by journalists as the 'normal' account of events. It is referenced not simply as a viewpoint [...] but rather as a direct statement, as in 'the boy was caught in the crossfire'.
I would like to use this source to support the statement: "On October 1, an interview with Jamal al-Durrah aired on BBC1 news. It was reported that Jamal al-Durrah had 8 bullet holes in his body, and that he said, "They shot at us until they hit us [...] I saw the man who did it - the Israeli soldier."
Is this acceptable? Or do I have to track down the original BBC1 broadcast, as SlimVirgin suggests here? Tiamut talk 23:35, 4 March 2010 (UTC)
See: Wikipedia_talk:Neutral_point_of_view#RfC:_Using_the_National_Science_Foundation_as_a_reference
Please weigh in THERE on whether a statement by the National Science Foundation is a reliable source to use as an illustration for a portion of an ArbCom statement used in the NPOV policy. This is especially important for members of the Arbitration Committee, since it relates to an ArbCom ruling. Please do not discuss this here.
Before proceeding, please read the short RfC which preceeded this one and layed the groundwork for it. (I wouldn't start an RfC if I didn't feel there was some chance of succeeding ;-) -- Brangifer ( talk) 08:18, 5 March 2010 (UTC)
I am not sure this is the right place to ask this question, if not please point me to the correct place. I was just looking at the sourcing of this section in the Open Carry article: Open carry around the world, and see that while there are dozens of references made to a large number of well known sources, that essentially none of them are pointing to coverage of the issue of global "Open Carry", or at the least none of them use the term "open carry". It is becoming apparent to me that the topic of "Open Carry" is largely a term describing a US centric political concept, and it is a term rarely used that can see in global context. I am asking for third opinions about this, do the sources used in context of that global subsection of that article meet reliable sourcing policy and guidelines? SaltyBoatr ( talk) 16:26, 5 March 2010 (UTC)
Hello everybody, we have a problem in Cham Albanians page. There is a source put in the page, by some contributors, which lacks references and bibliography, i.e. it is completely just a work by the author but with no references in it. The direct question is as follows: Can a source that has no references and no bibliography in it, be a secondary reliable source? Balkanian`s word ( talk) 18:47, 5 March 2010 (UTC)
The above mentioned source provides lots of references. For example on page 40, 41, 42, 58, 62 actually there are refs almost in every page. Alexikoua ( talk) 19:37, 5 March 2010 (UTC)
There are at least 200 articles linking to musicianguide.com, which has been deemed unreliable through past discussions such as
this.
Start removing now. Ten Pound Hammer, his otters and a clue-bat • (
Many otters •
One bat •
One hammer) 02:49, 6 March 2010 (UTC)
I posted the following on user Jayron32 talk page, I should have come here instead. I am editing the list of documentary films, which includes such infomation as year; director; producer, I have been using IMDB as a source for that information, before I continue I really need something in writing stating IMDB is O.K. for such information (basically needing the nod a approval) for this list.-- intraining Jack In 10:19, 6 March 2010 (UTC)
I'd like some clarification on this one - clearly, I know where I stand, but out of respect to the other editor I thought some other opinions may assist. As a quick bit of background: Sam the Koala was photographed and filmed while being fed water from a water bottle during backburning prior to the February 2009 Victorian bushfires. The photo of Sam, and later the koala itself, became a significant symbol of the fires. After the fires a koala was rescued, described as Sam, and taken into care. Sam was later euthanised due to an illness unrelated to the fire, and was stuffed and mounted at the Melbourne Museum, with comparisons being drawn to the popularity of Phar Lap.
The dispute concerns whether or not the rescued koala was the same koala as the one given water, and whether or not the original photo was a set up. There has, as far as I can tell, been no media coverage discussing these claims (based on a search of NewsBank and Google News). However, after a trademark dispute, the individual defended the trademark raised them, and this led to an article in the Australasian Journal of Herpetology (AJH) which claimed that the whole thing was a conspiracy, with a deliberate set up using a tame koala in the photo, and a different koala being rescued later. It makes further claims, but these are not currently being added to the wikipedia article. It is this article and journal that is in dispute, and this appears to be the only source offered (other than a press release and a YouTube video by the author) making these claims.
The journal is not an academic work, and it is owned, published, edited and entirely written by the same person, Raymond Hoser, a professional snakecatcher and amateur herpetologist, who nevertheless has some significant published works outside of the AJH. The journal does claim to be peer reviewed, though. I have a number of concerns covered in the article's discussion:
The editor, on the other hand, argues that:
I guess my major concern is that the idea that the claims that the editor wishes to add are extremely strong, as they speak to deliberate misconduct and fraud by those involved. And thus my assumption is that the sources need to be equal to that. I have requested other sources to support these claims, but so far none have been offered, so the question comes down to the reliability of the journal. Obviously, I don't think it is reliable, but I'd like to be fair and bring it here. - Bilby ( talk) 13:20, 6 March 2010 (UTC)
There are 300+ links to Musician Guide on Wikipedia. I truly believe that this is not a reputable source: there is no editorial policy; we don't know the writers' credentials, if any; and Domain Tools shows that it's apparently hosted out of someone's house by someone with a Gmail address. A few times, I have found information in Musician Guide that I have not been able to back up anywhere else (for instance, that James Bonamy's first single was withdrawn because the label thought there were "too many dog songs").
There was also a previous RSN discussion, one GA discussion and two FA discussions: this one (the grey "issues resolved" tab) and this one wherein the reviewers decided that Musician Guide is not reliable, so I took that as a weak precedent, but a precedent just the same. I boldly started removing the links, but had no fewer than three editors to complain to me about removal. So that's why I'm asking now: Is this a reputable source or not? (Post script: Yes, the site does show its sources, but wouldn't it be better just to use those sources instead of all the info that Musician Guide regurgitates questionably from the same?) Ten Pound Hammer, his otters and a clue-bat • ( Many otters • One bat • One hammer) 15:05, 6 March 2010 (UTC)
After the discussion above about deltoid blog and how it had been used as a ref in multipile articles i noticed another blog desmogblog has also been used as a ref in multipile articles. The ones i have looked at so far are opinion pieces written by various authors, I have removed a few of these per wp:blp but would like to know before i remove the rest if this blog is for some reason actually a wp:rs? From what i can see the site was set up by a pr guy and has been used to basicly attack people who are sceptical of the theory of AGW mark nutley ( talk) 15:33, 6 March 2010 (UTC)
Hello. I have a question about whether Salon.com is reliable on the cultural and queer theorist Eve Kosofsky Sedgwick. An article is here: [162]. Note that I would have thought there would be no reason so suspect that this is not a reliable source, but I wish to confirm that. Thank you. -- TheSoundAndTheFury ( talk) 02:35, 7 March 2010 (UTC)
This is not the type of request that usually appears on this noticeboard, but the issues with the sourcing in a particular article, Pan-Arabism, are simply to numerous to list here. Each of the sources used in the article (as of a few days ago) are listed in the talk page, here. A large number of random websites and editorials are used to proclaim that pan-Arabism is Nazism, fascist, racist, and among the worst evils in the world. Attempts to discuss the sources have largely been ignored. Would anybody who watches this noticeboard take a look at the sources and help us determine what is and what is not acceptable. nableezy - 07:19, 7 March 2010 (UTC)
This site appears to have been used as a ref in a fair few articles, however when i look at the webpages about us i see it was set up by three guys who as they say, Media Lens is a response based on our conviction that mainstream newspapers and broadcasters provide a profoundly distorted picture of our world. We are convinced that the increasingly centralised, corporate nature of the media means that it acts as a de facto propaganda system for corporate and other establishment interests. The costs incurred as a result of this propaganda, in terms of human suffering and environmental degradation, are incalculable This appears to me to be a selfpublished opinion site and does not seem to meet the criteria of wp:rs mark nutley ( talk) 11:08, 7 March 2010 (UTC)
This site [164] appears just to be a newswire service for religious organisations , so I guess that it's reliability depends on each particular org? A specific release from the Coptic American Friendship Association [165]is being used in the Nag Hammadi massacre to support some strong statements - "government protection is almost non existent for the Copts and the law is usually not enforced on the Muslim perpetrators." and "eye-witnesses reported that the mob was chanting "Allah Akbar" and "No God except Allah" while destroying, looting and torching Coptic property in many recent attacks". These statements were originally being attributed direct to the newswire service ( not added by me!), I changed it to reflect the CAFA origin but now I'm thinking that this isn't a good enough source. ANy thoughts thanks -- Glumboot ( talk) 12:56, 7 March 2010 (UTC)
In 2010 Austin plane crash, there's been some discussion of the reliability of a Psychology Today article attributing a certain definition of insanity to a 1983 novel by author Rita Mae Brown. User:NuclearWarfare added a "not in source" tag to the sourced attribution saying " it would be nice if things were actually in the sources listed". User:AoV2 later removed it saying " rm irrelevant blog". I will concede that Psychology Today did not say Rita Mae Brown was the first person to use it in her 1983 novel, however, it does affirm her use of it, none-the-less. As for it being an "irrelevant blog"... as noted at Talk:2010 Austin plane crash/Archive 1#Guys, can we cool it a bit?, the fact that a site runs blogging software does not mean it is a self-published source. I mean, sure, anyone can publish a blog, but not just anyone can post an article on psychologytoday.com. Now, I will concede that the fact that the article on psychologytoday.com cites wikiquotes is a problem. Does that mean that psychologytoday.com is not a reliable source, that just that particular article is not reliable (even though the rest of the website may very well be) or could the psychologytoday.com article be a reliable source regardless?
WP:RS states "Some news organizations have used Wikipedia articles as the sole source for their work. Editors should therefore beware of circular sourcing." but does not elaborate as to whether or not such articles should be considered reliable sources. On one hand, it seems silly to think that a journalist who does not provide citations would be considered more reliable than one that does, but, on the other hand, the journalist did cite a self-published source. WP:RS also states "Wikipedians should not rely on, or try to interpret the content or importance of, primary sources". It seems to me that that's essentially saying the same thing as "a reliable source should be considered to be reliable regardless of what it says". ie. if psychologytoday.com cites wikiquotes it should still be considered reliable. Now, if you have two different reliable sources contradicting each other, that's one thing. At that point, it might be best to say something like "articles have variously referred to the building as being four-stories [1][2] and seven-stories [3][4]", but this isn't a case of two reliable sources contradicting one another. TerraFrost ( talk) 07:06, 8 March 2010 (UTC)
Video game website IGN in 2002 ran a series of FAQs analyzing the various creatures in the Pokemon franchise, written by an unnamed female staff member and as a retry of their failed "Pokemon of the Day" series of articles. [168] [169] However a concern was brought up on Talk:Mr. Mime as to whether the articles are reliable enough for character reception as all of them are in IGN's FAQ section, in which the majority of the content is user-submitted and may not have been editorially scrutinized, though the author's status as a member of IGN's staff has been acknowledged on the same account and the content was advertised at least twice during its run by notable staff members such as Craig Harris. In addition the articles are being used only for the author's own opinions, which is the backbone of a reception section's concept as a whole.
So where do they fall on the matter of reliability for reception?-- Kung Fu Man ( talk) 12:42, 8 March 2010 (UTC)
Please opine at WT:IRS#RFC on Wikinews as a reliable source. The short version is that we need to re-establish what our consensus is, due to some recent changes at Wikinews. Blueboar ( talk) 22:29, 8 March 2010 (UTC)
Is a student academic research paper, completed as part of the requirements for Senior Service College Fellows at the U.S. Army War College in Pennsylvania, and published on the website for the Defense Technical Information Center a reliable source [170]? Of particular interest to me is the information on page 11,
Out of a total of 392 Palestinian villages and cities from which their inhabitants fled, only six were emptied because of orders from Arab leaders. 221 Palestinian villages were emptied as a direct result of Jewish military assaults; 51 more were expelled by Jewish forces (not through direct assaults, but by other means); 54 were drained because of the influence of a nearby Palestinian village’s fall; 43 others were cleared simply because of Palestinian fear; and 14 were evacuated as a result of a whispering campaign by the Jewish forces (Ibid, 2004, p.xvi).
This is a summary of the findings in Benny Morris's 2004 work on the Birth of the Palestinian Refugee Problem. There, Morris lists the causes for the emptying of each Palestinian village individually. What the author of this research paper has done is add up the totals for each type, providing (for the first time that I've seen), numerical totals for each type in summary.
What I would like to know is if this information can be introduced to our articles on this subject citing the academic research paper. If that is unacceptable because the source is not considered RS, is it permissible to use Morris' listing and tally up the total ourselves, citing his work directly. Or would that constitute WP:OR? Thanks for considering this issue. Tiamut talk 23:40, 8 March 2010 (UTC)
Ancestry.com [171]. Can it be a considered reliable source, and if so to what extent? Specifically, I'm interested in using some info from here [172]. I realize they're a private (for profit, I think) company, with some (weak) association with the Church of LDS but from what I know of them they do quite impressive genealogical research to the extent that sometimes even academic researchers rely on them. Thoughts? radek ( talk) 02:33, 9 March 2010 (UTC)
I've noticed an editor who is removing references to an unreliable source wholesale. I personally think that this is damaging, because it will leave a whole lot of unsupported statements in the articles. I guess I'd like an opinion: is it better to remove an unreliable reference and leave the unreliable statements, or is it better to leave both, and remove both with more care at a later time? cojoco ( talk) 04:28, 9 March 2010 (UTC)
{{
cn}}
or {{
fact}}
that a link is given to the edit summary where consensus was reached of the reference failing
WP:RS. Regards,
SunCreator (
talk) 12:09, 9 March 2010 (UTC)Hold on... if this is about CAMERA then you need to know that this source has been discussed multiple times on this notice board. Please look through the archives and read these discussions. My take... There is by no means a clear consensus as to CAMERA's reliability or its unreliability. It remains a hotly debated issue. As such, it is very inappropriate to make blanket removals of information citing it. Each individual citation needs to be examined and discussed, with close attention paid to the context of exactly how it is being used: what specific article it is being used in, and what exact statement it is being used to support. What consensus there is, seems to indicate that it is sometimes reliable, and sometimes unreliable... and determining which is which depends on context. Blueboar ( talk) 15:49, 9 March 2010 (UTC)
Hi I have a group of friends who run Claps and Boos, a Tamil/Indian Movies rating website, www.ClapsandBoos.com. Some of the folks who run this website are working as Journalists and some of them are involved in Movie making (Short Films, Documentaries), as a passion. This is a completely self funded venture and we do not publish fake news or fake reviews. We are similar to Rottentomatoes in that we collate user reviews and ratings and present an aggregated score/rating. We also have some technicians in the industry who give us interviews and some content like Pictures and Posters of movies. Senior editors in Wikipedia have been black marking this website classifying that as a fan site. They told me that only Admin users can determine the admissibility of the website. They have been accepting other websites which have been known to put up fake news, just for getting hits and they also have Pop-Ups and Malware being launched. http://clapsandboos.com/ http://clapsandboos.com/about Interview with a Tamil Movie director: http://clapsandboos.com/mindspeak/in-conversation-with-director-vishnuvardhan Interview with another director: http://clapsandboos.com/mindspeak/selvaraghavan-speaks-claps-amp-boos-special http://clapsandboos.com/mindspeak/gautam-menon-on-life-after-vinnai-thaandi-varuvaya-
I posted my question in the admin and was redirected here. Please let me know how we could work to become a reliable source?
Hi D1abtot, When you say fact checking, we can only show the veracity of our news articles - and when you mean already established reliable sources - if you mean other review sites, then it is going to be difficult because they are our competitors. Which was why I have been trying to prove in Wikipedia articles as to how often our ratings have mirrored the existing reviews and collections for each movie.
Karthik Sriram (
talk) 21:30, 9 March 2010 (UTC)
Also we were the first to post the poster for a Tamil movie called KO - None of the other websites have been able to get it. I feel I'm going around in circles!!
Karthik Sriram (
talk) 21:36, 9 March 2010 (UTC)
GRuban,
Thanks for the response. Okay - so as long we update news items with news that we have that should be fine right? I agree that for reviews we have to build credibility and reputation. But for movies we get exclusive content and so would like to share them - especially since we are getting it from the industry sources? Would that be fine?
User:Breein1007 insists on adding this material to Sheikh Jarrah: In the late 19th century, Sheikh Jarrah incorporated the Jewish neighborhoods of Shimon HaTzadik, founded in 1876; Nahalat Shimon, founded in 1891, and villas owned by leading Arab families. The Husseini family owned six homes east of Saladin Street. In 1918 there were eighteen Arab families living in Sheikh Jarrah. The neighborhood was predominately Jewish until 1948 when the Jews fled following attacks by Arab militiamen. with this opinion piece by the controversial geography PhD student and journalist Seth Frantzman as the only source - Terra Incognita: East Jerusalem's lost years.
I tried explaining on User talk:Breein1007 that it was unacceptable to use an opinion piece as a source for anything other than the opinions of the author and that Frantzman had no accreditations in the field and could not be considered reliable anyway, but he/she somewhat rudely deleted my notice. Perhaps someone else could inform her of Wikipedia policy on reliable sources, since they certainly aren't listening to me. Factsontheground ( talk) 03:18, 10 March 2010 (UTC)
( This comment by Zero0000 points out how ridiculous Frantzman's claims are. Factsontheground ( talk) 07:23, 10 March 2010 (UTC))
Ok, here is one source (in Hebrew, from a left wing newspaper) that may provide partial support [173], it's an Israeli for the very simple reason that this subject is in highlights in Israel -naturaly. The all subject is politicaly highly loaded, it seems like it would be a very hard task to source the article unbiasly.-- Gilisa ( talk) 12:41, 10 March 2010 (UTC)
Let me re-iterate: Seth Frantzman is apparently a PhD student of geography. He is not a journalist. He writes a blog which is published by the Jerusalem Post. In fact he is a prolific blogger, continually pushing a strong point of view. The newspaper would undoubtedly check his copy for potentially libelous material, but blogs are opinion pieces, not factual reporting. He has no known expertise in the pre 1948 history of Palestine/Israel. His opinions are not reliable for any historical statements such as those used in the article. Definitely not a reliable source. Jezhotwells ( talk) 21:29, 10 March 2010 (UTC)
Editor, User:JoyDiamond is (in my opinion) editing disruptively and tenditiously by continually citing unencyclopedic sources in order to support what I believe is a POV based on COI (she is a personal friend of the article subject - see article name below). Along with this, she seems to not want to "get the point" in regard to edit warring, policy, and editing in general. See this for an example (in the last section, "Not "orders", just advice for the good of the project as a whole") and [175] (at the section, 8 March 2010 Comments) of how she deals with any suggestions I may give her. I am honestly trying to work harmoniously with her, but anything I say or suggest or show her isn't proper editing, she balks at and rather than taking good advice, she wants other opinion. The problem is, she only likes opinion that favors her POV and agenda (which I believe is cleansing the Bouley article from anything she sees as negative). Her refusal to listen to good advice on editing includes her insistence on using blogs as references and continuing on with issues that are clearly against Wikipedia policy. The quote she continues to edit and add to (and insert the unacceptible references for) is currently in the article as:
"I hear about Tony Snow and say to myself, well, stand up every day, lie to the American people at the behest of your dictator-esque boss and well, how could a cancer not grow in you?...I know, it's terrible. I admit it. I don't wish anyone harm, even Tony Snow. And I do hope he recovers or at least does what he feels is best and surrounds himself with friends and family for his journey. But in the back of my head there's Justin Timberlake's "What goes around, goes around, comes around, comes all the way back around, ya - 2007"
Today, after having been shown that blogs are not acceptible references or sources [176], she inserted three blogs as references in the Charles Karel Bouley article [177]. (blogs are here [178], here [179], and here [180]. The blog "reference" she used before these was [181]. I am at a loss as to how to get across to this editor that her edits are not just frequently inappropriate and not in line with policy (whether official policy or otherwise), but that the references she insists on including are not kosher (as far as I understand WPs standard of not using blogs for BLP articles). I have no desire to get into another edit war with her would like some input (and hopefully other editor intervention) on how to proceed here. I fear that if I take out the blog "references" she provided, I will get slapped with a block for edit warring. Any thoughts, ideas, input? (just so you know, as far as I'm concerned, no longer editing the article is not an option; and in case you were wondering, I've been at the article at least a year before she came along). Thanks. -- SkagitRiverQueen ( talk) 05:00, 10 March 2010 (UTC)
Here MutantPlatypus has removed a reference from Skirda, Alexandre. Facing the Enemy: A History of Anarchist Organization from Proudhon to May 1968. AK Press 2002. p. 183. explaining "Removed unreliable sources. Books published by anarchist publishers and not cited by other literature are not reliable sources." He did the same thing with a Colin Ward book! While one can argue about some publishers and some authors and some books and some quotes, this looks like POV deletion of material that the author doesn't like. CarolMooreDC ( talk) 05:23, 11 March 2010 (UTC)
I would consider AK Press a reliable source, though I would also be careful about attribution (to the author not the publisher). They've published works by Chomsky, Bookchin among others. In particular, they should be considered reliable for the subject of Anarchist history. radek ( talk) 10:48, 11 March 2010 (UTC)
So I think we have general agreement that Anarchist Publishers are fine - unless they are proved to be vanity presses - and that each book or selection from a book published by them must be judged on its own merits? CarolMooreDC ( talk) 16:49, 13 March 2010 (UTC)
I am working on a project to complete the redlinked articles in the "Roster" section of Whiz Kids (baseball). All of these players meet WP:ATHLETE, so it's just a matter of making the articles, but I want to ensure that they are well-written and complete. For my next project player, Jocko Thompson, there are several good pieces of information on him at Baseball in Wartime, a website written and maintained by Gary Bedingfield. Given that the author is notable and respected enough for his own Wikipedia article, and that he is recognized as an authority in baseball during World War II, and that he has published three books and several magazine articles on the aforementioned, would his website be considered reliable in this context? Thompson's career was interrupted for four years by WWII, and this site contains a lot of good information on both his baseball and military careers. I certainly do not want to use it as the only source for this article, but as a supplements to such reliable sites as Baseball-Reference, as well as newspapers, books, and the like (I have a book by Robin Roberts that is the starting point for most of my research). As to the sources used by Bedingfield to compile his information, see the bibliography page of his website. There's also a relevant talk page discussion at the WikiProject Baseball talk page. Thanks for your time. KV5 ( Talk • Phils) 14:27, 11 March 2010 (UTC)
AnarchismVSI
was invoked but never defined (see the
help page).