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There has been some dispute over the reliability of either an accurate website of easy verifiability such as http://www.angelfire.com/realm/gotha/ and the biggest genealogy website in Portugal and perhaps in Europe, http://www.geneall.net/. Geneall.net, with more than a million entries, was part of a vaster project that was dropped by other countries, which prompted it to take the space others didn't want to fill. You can read about it on article here http://www.geneall.net/P/article.php?id=137 - a Portuguese translator is required. Such dispute is almost highly insulting to people in this environment who rely on them and are both qualified and this and other areas. This is something that should be cleared. LoveActresses ( talk) 16:21, 18 September 2010 (UTC)
The first is a WP:SPS by someone called Paul Theroff, I'll let our genealogy people tell us if he's an established expert in this area. -- Cameron Scott ( talk) 16:48, 18 September 2010 (UTC)
The second makes use of user generated content (I think from the submissions bit) but I'm not clear on the editorial policies. Since we currently use it on over 600 pages might be nice to sort that one out... I've removed both of these from BLPs (which is why this has ended up here) but will bow to the greater expertise on the matter. -- Cameron Scott ( talk) 16:52, 18 September 2010 (UTC)
soc.genealogy.german
from 2005“ | Subject: 15. How can I learn about German noble families?
The standard series of books on German nobility is the Gotha series, which has appeared under various titles since the late 18th century. Look in your library catalog for a title similar to Gothaisches genealogisches Taschenbuch der adeligen Häuser or Genealogisches Handbuch des Adels. The latter has an online surname index at < http://www.rootsweb.com/~autwgw/sgi/index.htm> Herbert Stoyan has an excellent online resource for noble genealogy called WW-Person at < http://www8.informatik.uni-erlangen.de/html/ww-person.html> Paul Theroff has an online Gotha at < http://pages.prodigy.net/ptheroff/gotha/gotha.htm> Please be advised, however, that stories of noble relations in American families are often exaggerated. |
” |
Genealogies generally do not list all children. This does not make them unreliable. Indeed, infant mortality and the reuse of names in a family occurs often. Also sites such as LDS do not check data offered. Major societies do (Mayflower, DAR etc.) and are reliable. As are Debrett etc.
Lastly, women marrying the borther of their first husband are not rare at all, though I do not know if this is the Darwin case. See
Henry VIII.
Collect (
talk) 12:32, 19 September 2010 (UTC)
There is a Wikipedia article on the Almanach de Gotha. The last edition, printed in Gotha, is from 1944. On-line versions of the book are available at the Internet Archive, the latest version seems to be from 1922. These are definitely WP:RS but are of little help in WP:BLP. There is another publication from London with the same name from 1998–2004, but it has been criticized for unreliability. It may well be that Paul Theroff's on-line Gotha may in fact be the most reliable. I do not think this notice board can pass judgment on Paul Theroff. The issue should be discussed and decided in Wikipedia:WikiProject Royalty and Nobility or maybe Wikipedia:WikiProject Genealogy. -- Petri Krohn ( talk) 16:54, 19 September 2010 (UTC)
I've had a quick scan of the archives and, although I can references, I can't seem to find a definitive position on the reliability of blogs published on scienceblogs.com (maybe I've missed it?). I'm wondering whether the specific blog entry on Deep Sea News is sufficient to reliably source the claim that Lucernaria janetae is the first species of Stauromedusae ever described living on a deep sea vent. It's something of a synthesis on the part of the blog writer, since the original sources cited by the blog don't make the claim directly themselves (as far as I can see), although it does appear to be justified from the literature (WP:OR on my part). The authors claim to be Marine Biologists, have sourced their statements and credit various other scientists for the images that accompany the entry. I ask, in part, because I'm hoping the article will qualify for WP:DYK. Thanks Ka Faraq Gatri ( talk) 13:44, 22 September 2010 (UTC)
Hey! Red, Brown and Blue is a publication from Victory Media Corporation. A sample article is at http://redbrownandblue.com/index.php/%E2%80%9Cfree-spm%E2%80%9D-movement-is-more-about-a-community-needing-to-face-the-music-than-it-is-about-freeing-an-icon
http://redbrownandblue.com/index.php/about is its about page.
Is this an RS? WhisperToMe ( talk) 17:12, 22 September 2010 (UTC)
I inserted a pararaph at If I Die Young that Sam Tsui has released a cover video to iTunes, but the edit was removed on the grounds that the source I provided (a link to the actual video, on Sam Tsui's official YouTube channel, and therefore not a copyright violation), is somehow not a valid source. Really? Everard Proudfoot ( talk) 20:12, 22 September 2010 (UTC)
(also posted here, i'm not sure where is the best place for it) there are two cases i'm dealing with that are quite similar & interesting. the first one is concerning the Arab Peace Process. israel has never "officially" responded to it (official, written response), however - the prime minister has made few comments about it during a speech. the vast majority of sources do not title it as an "official response", however, one (acceptable) source does. so according to wikipedia policies - it should be written in the article that israel HAS officially responded to it, even though some sources would claim that israel has never responded. israel's official response or lack thereof is an important fact, and i think it might be represented in wikipedia the wrong way, just because a single source chose to title the prime minister comments as an "official response".
the same goes for Mahmud Ahmadenijad calling the holocaust a "myth". the dictionary definition of myth is
a traditional or legendary story, usually concerning some being or hero or event, with or without a determinable basis of fact.
so calling the holocaust a myth should probably not be considered as holocaust denial. myth is different from fiction - and most sources do not draw that conclusion - but some (acceptable sources) do! and in accordance with wikipedia policies, that is what would end up in the article - that it IS a denial, and he IS a holocaust denier according to that statement. Here, again - it just feels wrong. there is nothing to reflect that the vast majority of sources do NOT title that statement as holocaust denial. Is that really the right interpetation of wikipedia policies? Maybe there is a policy which addresses this absurd situation. If not, maybe there should be. Eyalmc ( talk) 10:00, 16 September 2010 (UTC)
Editors have created a "Quality of life" section in the Palestinian Territories article which is based upon statistics contained in an article titled "Blame It On The Occupation" credited to Natalia Zawidowski.
Zawidowski does not cite any sources for the statistics and has no credentials as a demographer. Scoop News credits her as the author of six columns or editorials:
A quick plagarism check with Dupli Checker indicates that the information was copied verbatim from the now-defunct meimad.org Community blog Hasbara Central. For example Middle East Facts sources it to http://www.meimad.org/default.asp?id=8&ACT=5&content=128&mnu=8
In 2003 the Jewish Chronicle reported that Zawidowski was a student at London Metropolitan University and that she co-founded an anti-terrorism website with the "aim to educate people about different types of terrorism, particularly the raising of children to be suicide bombers." [10]
The World Bank report contradicts many of Zawidowski's assumptions regarding the quality of life. See [11] and [12] harlan ( talk) 06:05, 22 September 2010 (UTC)
I did a search of the archives but could find no reference, so, would you say fastcompany.com is a RS? I can;t find anything much on their editorial policy, and they identify as a blog. But they are paid writers and have editorial staff. Thoughts? -- Errant [tmorton166] ( chat!) 09:16, 23 September 2010 (UTC)
I tagged Max's of Manila some time ago because I felt it did not establish notability. At the time the entry was already tagged for having no sources, and for reading like an advertisement. Another editor came through and removed the tags without making any improvements, save for adding a couple of references, one of which, I don't think meets WP:BLP standards. I tried putting the tags back and removing the reference that was not satisfactory for BLP, while explaining on the talk page, to no avail. I don't want to edit war over this so instead I would like to know if the references are reliable in the manner they are used.
Any input here would be helpful. Thanks in advance. Griswaldo ( talk) 13:56, 23 September 2010 (UTC)
There are several theological articles here on Wikipedia that use this blog [23] to source an opinion of the Roman Catholic church. It appears to be a personal blog and is self published and has no apparent peer review of it. Here are three articles that use this blog for sourcing. Hesychasm, theosis and Essence–Energies distinction use this blog to source a not so mainstream Roman Catholic opinion on Eastern Orthodox theology. LoveMonkey ( talk) 17:43, 23 September 2010 (UTC)
The article Operation Pike has been tagged as "single source" [24]
As I explained on talk [25], it would be great to find more sources, but it is a very obscure topic. The source used, Osborn's book Operation Pike. Britain Versus the Soviet Union, 1939-1941 is very well regarded. For example Keith Neilson (who himself is a Professor of history and author of several books on Anglo-Russian relations [26]) reviewed the book in the academic journal " Diplomacy and Statecraft". He writes: "Osborn, an archivist for the American National Archives and Records Administration, has provided a very useful study of British policy towards the Soviet Union from 1939 to 1941 and, in particular, of the little-known Anglo-french plans to attack the Soviet Union in the period from September 1939 to June 1940." In conclusion, Neilson writes: "This is a very good book on a limited topic. It does not promise more than it deliveres, its documentary base is exemplary and its conclusions are judicious and carefully considered."
So given that this is an obscure topic with scant coverage and virtually no prospect of finding additional sources that deal with the topic in detail, and that a published Professor in History has reviewed the only comprehensive source on the topic as exemplary, judicious and carefully considered, is this "single source" deemed sufficiently reliable that this tag is unnecessary? -- Martin ( talk) 19:05, 23 September 2010 (UTC)
Is this article also considered a valid resource? [27]
Here is a church website giving commentary on the article. [28]
The article also appears to confirm what is on the church dioceses webpage states as the church teaching on the subject here. [29] The OCA website is maintained by the editor of the original article Thomas Hopko who is also a main editor on the Orthodox Study bible. LoveMonkey ( talk) 19:15, 23 September 2010 (UTC)
1.A link to the source to on Russia as superpower [30] 2.The article in which it is being used is Russia 3.The exact statement in the article that the source is supporting down below:
The current writing is this: Russia is a great power and a permanent member of the United Nations Security Council, a member of the G8, G20, the Council of Europe, the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation, the Shanghai Cooperation Organization, the Eurasian Economic Community, the OSCE, and is the leading member of the Commonwealth of Independent States.
text here quote next to superpower on approval to use source as: I would like to replace it saying this: Russia is percieved as a superpower [31] and a permanent member of the United Nations Security Council, a member of the G8, G20, the Council of Europe, the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation, the Shanghai Cooperation Organization, the Eurasian Economic Community, the OSCE, and is the leading member of the Commonwealth of Independent States.
The source is "Will Russia Be the Superpower That Will Stop Iran from Going Nuclear" - The Middle East Media Research Institute By A. Savyon July 29, 2010 [32]
There has been no discussion on this source so I am sending it here to get some views. I looked at this source as it list references in the source as Russia as a superpower and why Russia is considered to the world as a superpower world affairs, using the issue with Iran and the world over Iran, people are wanting and using Russia as the term superpower in its world influence. I think this is a good source personally, maybe not as lengthly but does title it and talks about it in the article and references in at the bottom, it also is written from an institute so it is also education institution source.
Please see if you can give me some views if this would be an accepted source to use or maybe one with a couple of more I could also use as daisey chain source to the subject as Russia being a superpower. I am would like to use this source to use as Russia being a perceived as superpower again or a superpower as I think it is important and I think it is a good source. Thanks-- 12.40.50.1 ( talk) 21:30, 23 September 2010 (UTC)
There is a simmering edit war at Sahih al-Bukhari with an editor aggressively adding Shiite propaganda to the page. On other pages, these has been somewhat of an agreement that most of the mainstream Islamic sites, regardless of sect, are unacceptable as most are simply not reliable sources. In this particular instance, the strong bias of the two websites in question, as evidenced below, add to that unreliability. I cut and pasted part of what I wrote at Talk:Sahih al-Bukhari#Textual distortion section regarding this issue:
“ | The two websites,
al-islam.org and
Answering-Ansar.org, which you have cited are clearly Shiite propaganda sites. The former says this on its homepage:
And the later:
In addition to the the sites' POV nature, they are simply not reliable to begin with. To quote the relevant guideline, WP:SPS:
This clearly includes these two sites are being unreliable. Your choice of words, "mutilation", hardly makes the addition of this section seem unbiased. |
” |
Supertouch ( talk) 10:51, 24 September 2010 (UTC)
Is blender magazine a valid source? They had some criticism of Emerson Lake and Palmer which I would like to include in which they named ELP as the second worse band of all time. ELP has been a much criticized band but there is no indication of that from ELP's page here.-- UhOhFeeling ( talk) 23:18, 19 September 2010 (UTC)
http://www.blender.com/lists/67198/50-worst-artists-in-music-history.html so this article is no good?-- UhOhFeeling ( talk) 01:20, 22 September 2010 (UTC)
FYI there are many notable and respected authors who contributed to the article including
Jonah Weiner - Currently a music critic for slate, John Harris (critic), J.D. Considine , John Aizlewood writer for The Sunday Times, The Evening Standard and The Guardian who regularly appears on the BBC, Clark Collis a writer for Entertainment Weekly, Rob Kemp a contributing editor to Men's Health and others.
I would say with this stable of authors this article should be considered a valid source.-- UhOhFeeling ( talk) 01:31, 22 September 2010 (UTC)
Anyone? Any thoughts?-- UhOhFeeling ( talk) 03:14, 23 September 2010 (UTC)
HELLOOOOOOOO?-- UhOhFeeling ( talk) 16:14, 23 September 2010 (UTC)
There is a question at Talk:Tommy Wiseau/Archive 1#Sources which cite birth date about whether the "alumnifinder" database is a WP:RS for some WP:BLP information that does not appear to be available elsewhere. DMacks ( talk) 16:54, 25 September 2010 (UTC)
Conversation on the article's talk page seeks to add a new theory as to why the ship hit the iceberg, based on a story in the culture section of The Daily Telegraph: "Titanic sunk by steering blunder, new book claims". It turns out that the revelations are made by the novelist Louise Patten ("I was the last person alive to know what really happened on the night Titanic sank") to coincide with the release of her new novel Good as Gold, apparently dealing with financial impropriety by one of the passengers. In turn Patten had heard the tale from her grandmother who was the wife of one of the officers. My contention on the talk page is that this is hearsay and cannot be used as a reliable source for Wikipedia. -- Old Moonraker ( talk) 07:49, 24 September 2010 (UTC)
Apparently haaretz.com cannot be loaded inside the UAE (see P-800 Oniks history) and no doubt by other ISPs in the Islamic world.
Should we then consider all Israeli media to be non-reliable sources? And what should we do about all those sites that subjects of the PRC cannot see? Hcobb ( talk) 14:51, 26 September 2010 (UTC)
The website [49] looks reasonably serious (a collaboration of Deutsches Historisches Museum (DHM) in Berlin, the Haus der Geschichte (HdG) in Bonn and also the de:Fraunhofer-Institut für Software- und Systemtechnik in Berlin). Of course it is in German, but I was considering using it as a replacement for NNDB in the List of University of Heidelberg people for those people with no on-line reference in English. Or would it we better to use the Allgemeine Deutsche Biographie from wikisource [ [50]]? Thanks for your advise. -- Anneyh ( talk) 18:50, 26 September 2010 (UTC)
God help us, so far as I can tell there are only three WorldCat listings which deal with this subject: Religion and Subaltern Agency, written by a doctoral student and Christian missionary at the University of Madras as per here, Sri Vaikunda Swamigal and the stuggle for social equality in South India, of which apparently only Oxford University holds a copy here, and finally, a government publication called Colonialism, nationalism and legitimation : an essay on Vaikunda Swamy cult, Travancore here. The former is apparently slightly more widely available, the last seems to be only in the Library of Congress and the Indian government library. Does the first qualify as reliable as per our guidelines? John Carter ( talk) 15:11, 27 September 2010 (UTC)
Is this book, which is written for English secondary school students for courses about American government, a reliable source for Libertarianism and if so what sort. According to WP:NOR, "Many introductory undergraduate-level textbooks are regarded as tertiary sources because they sum up multiple secondary sources." But this book is not even undergraduate level.
While common sense tells us not to use the book, are there any policy reasons that state it cannot be used?
TFD ( talk) 15:44, 26 September 2010 (UTC)
I'd like to see some discussion about whether The Cambridge history of India, Volume 6 and other volumes of the series along with similar Cambridge history for other nations are reliable. The source is to be used for results and Casualties and losses section of Battle of Phillora along with other details described in the book through this section of book. The volume like the other volumes in the series is written by multiple famous and important historians and authors with knowledge of Indian history and even includes works of even historians and authors who lived in 18 and/or 19 century. The publisher of the is S.Chand, one of the largest publisher in Indian subcontinent and publishes the volume for sale in the Indian subcontinent. The information in the book is important because it is probably one of the only reliable neutral review of battle as other reliable medias only concentrated on the whole war rather than individual battles.
Well I found that the section Political Developments Since 1919 (India and Pakistan)was written by Vidya Dhar Mahajan in the extended digitized version in 2009.-- UplinkAnsh ( talk) 10:22, 28 September 2010 (UTC)
I am concerned particularly with this article: [51], referenced here: Hypercomputer#cite_note-11.
It caught my eye because this has been proposed again and again for decades, and always the answer is no. and this is no different, and no more significant. From the article: "So-called "nonlocal" phenomenon cannot be used to transmit information faster than the speed of light but Putz and Svozil today ask whether it can be used to process it, to carry out computational tasks at superluminal speeds." The problem here is that processing information 'is TRANSFERing it. Processing is just another word for entropic transfer. (transfer with loss of information entropy). So the question of whether "it can be used to process it" IS the question of whether "[it] be used to transmit [it]". A question whose answer is a definite "no". So the blog makes the mistake on notability on account of a rather egregious error. My question is does it still meet RS? And in any case, should it be removed from WP? Kevin Baas talk 18:29, 27 September 2010 (UTC)
Having tried to edit the Suzuki Samurai/Jimny etc article I was depressed by the amount of space given to the controversial lawsuit of 1996. There was an inordinate amount of battling back and forth between pro-Suzuki and pro-CU editors. In an attempt to remove this from my field of vision I started a new article, Suzuki Samurai v Consumers Union where these back-and-forths could take place out of view. Lately, I checked back and noticed that a link to a video (made by Suzuki, and clearly labelled as such) had been removed. Meanwhile, other, rather dubious accusations taken from a ambulance-chaser website remain. I don't know if this is the right place to ask questions on this topic, but I do feel that if anything an official Suzuki video (including actual Consumer's Union footage) is more reliable than some website like this one: http://www.crash-worthiness.com/ Thankful for any assistance, ⊂ Mr.choppers ⊃ ( talk) 21:01, 27 September 2010 (UTC)
If there are policies or guidelines how to deal with book references without page numbers. -- Car Tick 01:10, 28 September 2010 (UTC)
Unnumbered front matter should be normally referred to as such, "Unnumbered front matter starting at the Introduction and the following 21 pages." Pages numbered unusually (i-xxii) should be referenced as pp. i-xxii; A-AF. Pages with implicit numbers (the first page of chapters are often not numbered) should be numbered with their implicit number. Pages which are unnumbered in sequence but containing numbered section or paragraph numbers should be referenced by section or paragraph number §57¶5, or 5.f.IV.71.A-G. Pages which are unnumbered in the sequence (for instance, the obverse of a numbered page, normally unnumbered and blank containing a plate or other illustration) should be described as "Obverse p. 2" or "Opposite p. 3". Pages with no numbering sequence should be referred to by their chapter, section, or first line of the paragraph. For example "Chapter 3, §Ducklings, ¶"The ducklings slowly waddled down…" and the following 7 pages." Your choice if you like using stuff like passim. versus found in passing; ff. versus following pages. When describe unusual page numbers, like "Fly sheet" or "Rear fly sheet" or "Note inside front wing of dust jacket" you should ideally spell out the information very clearly. Fifelfoo ( talk) 03:29, 28 September 2010 (UTC)
This issue was discussed recently on the board. Assuming the book has page numbers, you should ask for the page numbers first, using a tag. If the person adding the citation refuses to provide it after a reasonable amount of time (give him/her several days at least), despite having clear opportunity, then you should remove the citation, and replace it with a citation requested tag. If you feel the information itself is untrue, you should remove the material as well. Jayjg (talk) 16:41, 28 September 2010 (UTC)
Thanks. -- Car Tick 17:24, 28 September 2010 (UTC)
I have a user who claims that the following sources are not good enough to be used to state in the classical liberalism article that what is now called classical liberalism used to be called simply "liberalism." I know it sounds crazy that he is disputing something so obvious, but he is. Here are the sources he is claiming are not reliable:
"The Industrial Revolution that began in Britain saw the development of economic liberalism. That is, first of all, the belief that the free market was the optimal form of economic life, providing the greatest prosperity for all, and necessitating maximum economic freedom for everyone. This went hand in hand with a wider view of liberty which saw the maximisation of social freedom as the best way to run society in general. It was this version of liberalism that was the first to actually be called 'liberalism', which was in the nineteenth century. It is better known by the name 'laissez-faire liberalism', although it is sometimes called 'classical liberalism'." Page 13: [53] This book, as you can see, is cited in many other books as well as in peer-reviewed publications: [54] The author, Ian Adams is Honorary Fellow at the University of Durham, where he was a lecturer in political theory until his retirement in 2001. [55]
"It would be difficult to adequately characterize Jefferson's philosophy. It come closest to what was called "liberalism" in the nineteenth century, and classical liberalism after that term was appropriated by the progressive movement..." Page 846 [56]
""Classical liberalism - or simply liberalism as it was called until around the turn of the century - is the signature philosophy of Western Civilization." Page ix [57]
First I just gave one source, then he said that wasn't good enough, so I get another, he says it's not good enough, then another. It seems ridiculous for me to continue on when I'm sure he's just going to say the next one is not good enough either. Please give me some back up here. The above sources appears to comply with Wikipedia reliability standards. Bullet Dropper ( talk) 04:07, 28 September 2010 (UTC)
This discussion makes we wonder what content is being disputed. The word classical has a meaning in English, and obviously as this WP is in English we do not need to source the meanings of every English term we use. Part of the nature of the word classical is that it is added as an adjective to distinguish the "old style" of something from the "new style". Obviously however, like 1+1=2 obvious, the "old style" would not have been used in the "old times". So if there is any level of sourcing for "classical liberalism" being called "liberalism" why would that be objected to? Is it being argued that liberalism is a neologism being applied to old movements retrospectively? Liberalism is obviously an "-ism" coming from "liberal", a term used in politics since the 1800s at least, and then obviously without "classical". I think I am right in saying the "-ism" also starts to appear in several contexts in the 19th century. More to the point though, it does not at first sight look like a "redflag" type of statement needing the highest quality of sourcing? Wouldn't we give the benefit of the doubt on a lesser source in such a case?-- Andrew Lancaster ( talk) 06:54, 28 September 2010 (UTC)
So in effect the argument is really about whether the text book is good enough to "trump" this summary? I think the summary is better and more comprehensive, allowing for the variations in meaning at the time, so I do not really see why anybody would want to replace it with an over-simplification. I believe liberalism was indeed not a "technical term" in the 19th century.-- Andrew Lancaster ( talk) 08:19, 28 September 2010 (UTC)The term classical liberalism was applied in retrospect to distinguish earlier nineteenth-century liberalism from the newer social liberalism.[5] The phrase classical liberalism is also sometimes used to refer to all forms of liberalism before the twentieth century, and some conservatives and libertarians use the term classical liberalism to describe their belief in the primacy of economic freedom and minimal government. It is not always clear which meaning is intended.
I recently created an article List of Philippine restaurant chains. I purposefully made it about a list of chains so as to increase the likelihood of notability. For those chains that did not have their own Wikipedia article I also included a link to the chain's website. In the external links section I have also included a link to a website that can be used to verify the existence of such establishments and other details related to them. Another editor has removed some of the chains I included because they do not have their own Wikipedia article or a reference to a secondary source. Here's a diff, before and after. Reason given seems to be WP:Linkfarm. On the other hand sources were given even if they were primary sources. Their removal seems excessive. For an entry on a list article, what is the threshold for inclusion? For comparison there is List of restaurant chains in the United States where I am seeing red links and no banner requesting verification. Lambanog ( talk) 04:29, 28 September 2010 (UTC)
This website appears to be a compendium of press releases, and hence in general not a reliable source. In particular, International Pole dancing Day, a press release from "The world’s largest independent pole-dancing-fitness school, Polestars" does not seem to be a reliable source for the history of pole-dancing at Striptease#Recent history. Kenilworth Terrace ( talk) 16:59, 28 September 2010 (UTC)
I would like to ask if others are sometimes uncomfortable with the following, and whether anyone has any practical suggestions about it. The most common scenario is something like this made-up case:- "this online review article looks well-written and well-sourced, great, but because RS debate is possible you should just use its handy bibliography for what you wanted to put in and not mention what led you there". Sound familiar?
Even when people then get copies of the articles in said bibliography (as per WP:SAYWHEREYOUGOTIT) in many cases of course, what ends up being put into Wikipedia is structured and worded in ways which are inspired by the helpful author of the good but potentially questioned source. However, editors are effectively told not to say so. (Indeed many are presumably doing this the whole time and not talking about it.) Structuring of subject matter, simple observations, basic ways of explaining uncontroversial things, are often not "OR", raise no red flags, and their sources are hard to prove, so no one cares where they come from. But if such influences are so uncontroversial why is being honest about it considered such a no-no?
I was recently involved in an example where a sourced quotation which had been subject to some questionable RS debate was removed, and a re-written sentence openly intended to capture something in the old material was then inserted without sourcing. The wording change possibly improves the article, and is (and was!) obvious enough not to need special sourcing, but I don't feel good about the deliberate lack of attribution.
In academic literature one still sees authors who are correct enough to quote a source as something that they read in another source. Indeed this is often quite useful. In WP, it seems odd to see people on WP argue quite strongly sometimes that an apparently good source should be used indirectly and without attribution supposedly due to WP rules. In reality of course what people mean is that it is better to avoid a long RS debate about how the WP rules might apply, and to find a "path of least resistance".
Just trying to think why this is happening, it occurs to me that it is relevant that if you put words in an article without sourcing, then someone needs to actually look at the content and understand it before they can judge if they need more sourcing. Feedback is likely to be informed in such cases. OTOH, if you try very hard to mention all sources, you can expect "feedback" which is generalized and awkward to deal with: based not on any reading of the content but upon quick browsing for theoretical sourcing warning signs. Are the incentives wrong?-- Andrew Lancaster ( talk) 13:17, 14 September 2010 (UTC)
I'm inclined to agree with the OP, and this is a problem that many WP editors try to dance around. Time and again, after I've put work into an article, using good sources and working to achieve a balanced, reliable text, on my won or together with others here, I run into editors (or they approach me) who are a complete PITA because they pretend that every single statement - whatever kind it is, even if it's uncontested or so obvious no one has ever needed to phrase it as a fact in print - must be shown to have been taken raw from a "reliable source" (however they define that) and that any attempt to rephrase, explain or bring out why something is important within the context of the subject makes it "original research" and inadmissible. In their view, the way to keep WP clean and reliable is to insist that every article should be a patchwork of statements that are vouched for, or verified/made falsifiable and controllable one by one, by the external source that says, or implies that "statement (p) is true".and put the citation for (p) in a footnote.
In reality that doesn't solve the issues, and real scientiests, scholars and encyclopaedic writers do not stop at simply saying a certain source has generic validity all the time because of what it is (reliable, an "honoured newspaper", a high-rank university etc). If a statement or a line of reasomning comes under scrutiny, it's those statements that should be discussed, not whatever source they were quoted by and the generic reliability of that source (which is most often not the ultimate source, anyway). Real encyclopaedias such as the Britannica are full of statements whose underpinnings are a swarm of minor facts, theories and inferences: the real voucher is the reputation of the guy who wrote the article and his knowledge, because unlike the average WP editor he risks something if he puts blatantly false, faulty or overstated stuff into his text. His colleagues might detect it and ruin his reputation. If any Jack Bass writes "Barack Obama is a practising muslim /source S1/ and he was born in Kenya /source S2, perhaps obamacrimes.com/" all he risks is an edit war and eventually, if he is really blunt, having his account blocked. The next day, or even before, he may open another account and keep on writing. So a standard view of what would make current WP policy says WP editing is a kind of collecting of raw facts that are sort of plagiarized, openly or thinly veiled, but in my view, and according to scientific standards, that isn't enough to make the outcome reliable.
If the idea here is to provide texts that are as reliable and s valid as a good paper encyclopadia, then it's just not helpful to pretend that this can be achieved simply by laying a million small "directly sourced statements" side by side but avoiding any discussion of those statements as such, and any attempts to bring them together. But if the hyperdeletionists who insist that's the way keep up their good work, the only way to avoid being clobbered with "original research!" seems to be to blatantly plagiarize whatever you can get accepted as a "good and reliable source".
Of course, sometimes this doesn't happen. It's just as pointed out here: sometimes the plagiarizing/rewriting thing is more discreet but it still sticks to rephrasing whatever you can find and which seems to vaguely fit with preconceived ideas of what should be in the article, "what it's like". Or you simply write a good article (or improve an existing one) according to your own solid knowledge - the article you'd have written for the Britannica if you'd have been asked to - and sprinkle it with some references although you know that it would be impossible to nail down every single statement, every nuance of the text, to a previous rock hard source. You add a list if books you know are central to the area. And then yoiu hope not to have some 15-year old newbie running onto it and deleting half of it, saying "not sourced" and "whattya mean by that? POV!!" (RS and citation discussion on purely generic terms). I find this unsatisfactory, but I'm not sure there's a way out of it as long as the Wiki bureaucracy insists on that every John Blow is allowed to write about everything but they must only parrot what one or another "reliable source" (in reality, there can never be an indisputable solid list of such sources, and what counts as "good sources" is in drift from article to article) has had to say in exactly those same words on the subject. Strausszek ( talk) 04:41, 26 September 2010 (UTC)
Reference "Mary" as a general reference or add her work to the "Further reading" section. Inline citations are not the only acceptable way to acknowledge sources. It's something editors have apparently forgotten with the trend on Wikipedia to drench articles with inline cites. Lambanog ( talk) 10:15, 26 September 2010 (UTC)
I can note an interesting case, still at issue: the intro paragraph to Atheism. it's basically a concatenation (via WP:SYNTHESIS, ironically) of plagiarism form 3 other poorly/biasedly-worded encyclopedias. I and others have argued on there about how articles aren't supposed to be a mosaic of plagiarism form other encyclopedias and that would just make for really bad prose, esp. for the intro. clearly there's a trade-off; good balance point. don't inject your own facts / analysis, but that doesn't mean you can't rephrase things and summarize them, or change how information is organized to make a better narrative. practically speaking it's not even possible to avoid doing those things, so isn't it better to at least be conscientious about them, rather than simply deny their existence? I don't know, it seems I can never phrase it to them such that they will understand what i'm saying. But my opinions aside, it's interesting case for your question. Kevin Baas talk 16:14, 28 September 2010 (UTC)
I discovered a couple of articles that had been plagiarized from a website calling itself Encyclopedia of the Nations and have added copyvio tags to them.
But has anyone noticed this website before? What is the origin of the content of this "encyclopedia"? It seems to be run by a company called Advameg, describing itself as "a fast growing Illinois-based company", but I see nothing indicating who the editors or authors are. -- Hegvald ( talk) 12:37, 26 September 2010 (UTC)
Not sure if starting a whole new section is appropriate but it's a problem with a different article. A while back I found the article Philippine cuisine riddled with errors and badly written and have been gradually improving it over time. The same editor who had problems with my List of Philippine restaurant chains article came in and removed references I added to a Further reading section. I restored them and put them under References to indicate that they can be considered general references. He has removed them again saying many of them contain external links. Diff, before and after (with some intervening inconsequential edits). I find the notion that published sources with convenience links should be removed, simply for having convenience links, kind of preposterous. There is room for the article to be improved and that is recognized but I do not think the actions being undertaken in the name of getting it to conform to Wikipedia standards helps the article as much as they obstruct and dissuade contributions. Could people take a look and give outside opinions? Lambanog ( talk) 18:12, 28 September 2010 (UTC)
We have a discussion but the bottom line is I wish to restore the references taken out by Ronz. Here are a sample of three items out of seventeen that were removed. I do not see any issues with them that warrant their removal. I'd like to see if anyone else aside from Ronz thinks otherwise and the reasons warranting their removal. From what I gather Ronz took them out based on WP:EL although I don't know what specific provision applies. I contend that removal for such reason is a misinterpretation of WP:EL that has the rather significant implication of making any citation using cite templates with a filled URL field subject to removal.
Absent any opposition from other parties I will interpret it as meaning that Ronz's interpretation of WP:EL as they apply to these refs is his alone and I will restore all 17 sources he removed. Lambanog ( talk) 13:01, 29 September 2010 (UTC)
During a discussion where I believe this point is not relevant anyway, a question of interpretation of WP:SPS arises. WP:SPS states that
"In some circumstances, self-published material may 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."
But putting aside the author, what if the WP:SPS, for example the website itself is frequently cited in the strongest possible sources in a way which shows it is authoritative?
This possibility is not mentioned at WP:SPS, but is perhaps presumed to be an obvious higher bar not worth mentioning? (I would personally think any such source would not even need to be defended as an SPS?)
A clear example I can think of would be the "haplogroup predictor" website of Whit Athey which is cited by most major peer-reviewed Y haplogroup papers in the last few years (at least when they contain STR based haplogroup predictions). (Try google scholar with "Athey haplogroup". I can of course post examples if necessary, but for the sake of discussing principle I keep this short.) This is a website set-up by Athey to run a prediction method described by him in an article he wrote which is also very widely cited in the best possible sources in this field. However am I right that such a website would either pass WP:SPS or else not be considered an SPS in the first place?-- Andrew Lancaster ( talk) 06:49, 29 September 2010 (UTC)
OK, here is another related question. I really hope I can get a few responses. Suppose:-
Cheers-- Andrew Lancaster ( talk) 18:55, 29 September 2010 (UTC)
Here is Jayjg's current position in one place, in his own recent words. I would like community feedback on this statement:
What satisfies me "personally" is something that complies with WP:V and WP:RS. Neither of them mention anything about being cited in reliable sources, they talk instead about being published in reliable sources. [61] (emphasis added).
My questions above are about whether this is a logical argument. Do WP:V and WP:RS envision cases where an author+publication which is one of the most widely cited in the field can NOT be an RS? Jayjg also says that
If Athey's posting itself were cited by reliable sources, that might be an indication that that specific posting had a degree of reliability. However, it's moot, since it hasn't been. (Same post, emphasis added again. Note that unlike academics who cite it, Jayjg refers to the journal as a website and its articles as "postings".)
Is it reasonable to demand that for an Author+journal combination which is extremely strongly cited in a field, for several articles, that another article by the same Author+journal needs to be cited independently and specifically to be an RS? Feedback from neutral Wikipedians would be very welcome.-- Andrew Lancaster ( talk) 01:52, 30 September 2010 (UTC)
Would this be accepted as an RS, a website quoting a magazine article? I guess the question is, is the website itself a reliable enough source to accept that they're quoting the magazine appropriately. WikiuserNI ( talk) 23:39, 29 September 2010 (UTC)
In the article Ken Livingstone, the following material describes Ken Livingstone's speech at the Durham Miners Gala 2010 as it appears in the Wikipedia article: 'In his speech he suggested the "solidarity" and "strength" the "working class culture" of the Gala gives could have reduced "some of the problems and alienation" in London had it been brought there during his time as Mayor.' The quotations are supported by a video of the speech on YouTube here. Specifically, the quotations are taken from a section of the speech made between approx 1:00 min - 1:20 min. However, one user has objected to the use of this video, stating that "I do still think a personal users uploaded video is not a correct place to support any content, we use youtube extremely sparingly and only use official content from recognizable uploaders". I object as it represents a primary source. It seems quite absurd that I have to look for a secondary source (somebody who heard it and wrote it down), which is inevitably likely to be less reliable. I propose using this YouTube link as a primary source. The discussion can be found here (most relevent material is found towards the bottom of the discussion). 79.79.186.76 ( talk) 11:30, 28 September 2010 (UTC)
I would say the real issue is notability. A you-tube video doesn't establish notability. But if you can find a secondary source to establish it, i see no harm in the the video, but then again, what's the point, now that you have a better source for the same content? Unless the video itself is the notable part... Kevin Baas talk 13:30, 28 September 2010 (UTC)
What do we think of www.bitterlemons.org as a source for historical fact in Israel/Palestine articles? It's run by Ghassan Khatib and an Israeli editor. For example, for the 1940s section in Israel, Palestine and the United Nations? I'm sure that the website editors are serious, and Khatib is an expert on the area as well as a politician. But we set the sourcing bar high for history articles. Itsmejudith ( talk) 06:30, 29 September 2010 (UTC)
I'm currently removing non-notable/unsourced entries in the article List of magnetic hills. Several entries cite the website TheShadowLands.net's Haunted Places Index as a source, such as their North Carolina page. The entries tend to be unsourced and poorly-written. Additionally, this page says that the website relies solely on visitor additions. This would presumably make it subject to hoaxes. As of now, I'm removing non-notable entries in the list that cite this as their only source, but I'd appreciate input. --- cymru lass (hit me up)⁄ (background check) 03:10, 30 September 2010 (UTC)
Hi. I am not sure where to ask this question, and I hope I asked in the right place. There was an addition to Columbia writing professor Janette Turner Hospital's wikipedia page because of an article on the Gawker website that listed her as "The World's Haughtiest Professor." I guess... it just doesn't sound very nice to do to someone. It was just ammended today, apparently, and the wikipedia article's sentence acts like it has happened in the past. Is Gawker really that credible of a resource to list an article like that? It just to me, seems very cruel. I think this professor's email did come from a place of wanting to better her former USC students and from the excitement of her new place. Several other people (on the Gawker comments page) have also wondered if the wikipedia reference is a little "scary."
I apologize if I am asking this in the wrong place. If anyone can can explain to me how or if that edit was fair and why, I would be grateful. I can't quite put my finger on it, but something about the way it is written seems a "off". Thank you for your time. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 173.71.19.247 ( talk) 07:15, 30 September 2010
Read-copy-update contains a large number of citations of works solely or primarily by User:PaulMcKenney, who also added them to the page. Some of them seem at a casual glance to be on hosted sites or articles like Linux Weekly. Could someone with more experience than me double-check these are reliable? -- Chris Purcell ( talk) 08:23, 27 September 2010 (UTC)
Done. PaulMcKenney ( talk) 20:10, 1 October 2010 (UTC)
Would
these
two articles by Hyde Flippo be considered
reliable sources that pass
FA 1(c)? About.com describes Flippo as an "About.com Guide". He is a
published author who has written The German Way (published by Passport Books), Perfect Phrases in German for Confident Travel (published by
McGraw-Hill), When in Germany, do as the Germans do (published by
McGraw-Hill), and is cited by several books. One book
calls him a "cultural historian".
I have read the comments at Wikipedia:Reliable sources/Noticeboard/Archive_16#Huffington Post, Gawker and About.com, especially the one by SandyGeorgia ( talk · contribs) on 05:29, 7 July 2008 (UTC) and the one by ImperfectlyInformed ( talk · contribs) on 06:27, 7 July 2008 (UTC) and believe that this source is reliable but am unsure whether it passes FA 1(c). Cunard ( talk) 02:35, 30 September 2010 (UTC)
Cunard ( talk) 18:11, 1 October 2010 (UTC)In an earlier feature, " Language and Culture," I discussed some of the connections between Sprache and Kultur in the broadest sense. This time we'll look at a specific aspect of the connection, and why it is vital for language learners to be aware of more than just the vocabulary and structure of German.
as well as:Trying to say "Have a nice day!" in German is a good example of language that is culturally inappropriate—and a good illustration of how learning German (or any language) is more than learning just words and grammar.
It is becoming more common in Germany to hear the phrase "Schönen Tag noch!" from sales people and food servers.
In an earlier feature, "Language and Culture," I discussed some of the connections between Sprache and Kultur in the broadest sense. This time we'll look at a specific aspect of the connection, and why it is vital for language learners to be aware of more than just the vocabulary and structure of German.
I want to use the source to provide information about how " have a nice day" is being used in Germany. Written by a German author, the analysis from the source will help counteract the US systemic bias brought up by reviewers.Beyond smiling, most Germans consider the phrase "have a nice day" an insincere and superficial bit of nonsense. To an American it's something normal and expected, but the more I hear this, the less I appreciate it. After all, if I'm at the supermarket to buy anti-nausea medicine for a sick child, I may have a nice day after all, but at that point the checker's "polite" have-a-nice-day comment seems even more inappropriate than usual.
I have checked Google Books and Google Scholar for "Schönen Tag noch!" but have been unable to find any other substantial coverage of it in relation to " have a nice day". Hyde Flippo's article appears to be the best source available. I believe that because Flippo's work about Germany has been published by the major publisher McGraw-Hill, his article published on about.com is also reliable, though I acknowledge that it likely does not pass FA 1(c). Cunard ( talk) 18:11, 1 October 2010 (UTC)
I've become aware that several articles (including at least one on the Norwegian Wikipedia) have the following source, in this format:
The journal is paywalled: this link takes one to abstracts of the articles in the issue, but when one clicks on the particular article, a dialogue box appears asking for payment, and does not go away until one has clicked repeatedly to close it and been transferred to a registration page or back to the issue contents list. This makes the article inaccessible as a source and there are other sources on scholarly doubts as to the reliability of accounts in Heimskringla and elsewhere of the Fairhair dynasty (main article on the matter). I was able to get 2 quotes from the article using Google, which I inserted into that article in this diff along with another source. I have subsequently added information on a Norwegian source also. I have qualms about the tone of those 2 quotations from Sjöström as well as the nature of the site, so I am asking here about the journal. My instinct is to remove all citations of the Sjöström article except in the main article on the issue, Fairhair dynasty, and where a citation is needed to replace them with one or more of the alternates. (I have done so at Harald III of Norway and posted to the talkpage: diff.) But possibly Foundations is a respected journal, in which case I should be more reluctant to replace these cites? It's hard for me to evaluate it without paying money, which I am loath to do given the obnoxious programming of the site.
So that is my question - the merit of that journal as a source. Yngvadottir ( talk) 20:06, 30 September 2010 (UTC)
From them just Harry Stine (but possible W. Boyne too) had acces to all documentations related with the subject. So, i would like to see more opinions about who's more qualified, especialy from technical and scientific point of view, to talk about (jet) engines. Thanks
Disclosure: I'm COI on the topic I'll bring, and I also contributed to the editing of the subject paper and am mentioned in it. I'm asking this to verify my impression of Wikipedia policy and guidelines as they apply to alleged "fringe" topics.
I pointed, on Talk:Cold fusion, to a very recent secondary source, a review of the field of Cold fusion, published under peer-review at Naturwissenschaften, perhaps the most notable of many secondary sources that have appeared in mainstream publications on the topic in recent years, after the 2004 U.S. Department of Energy recommended further research and publication, all of which may have reversed the presumption, previously properly held, that Cold fusion was Fringe science, as distinct from emerging science. No "negative" reviews under peer review have appeared since then.
An editor commented on the author as not "independent or neutral." [66].
My understanding is that we depend on independent publishers, to filter out fringe views and not allow them to be presented as being acceptable to the mainstream. Naturwissenschaften is solidly mainstream, published by Springer-Verlag, which is also solidly mainstream. The "neutrality" that we depend on is that of the peer reviewers and/or publishers, not the authors. The publishers will not, presumably, allow a fringe author to trample neutrality, for their reputation is at stake. If they are going to present a view that is fringe, for some reason, it will be tagged as controversial, not presented as a neutral review.
There is no doubt that at one time Cold fusion was widely considered fringe or even "pathological science." However, scientific consensus can change. We depend on mainstream publishers for determining what is "reliable source," and especially the publishers of peer-reviewed scientific journals, and most especially those journals when they publish secondary source reviews, which is our gold standard.
My concern here is the allegation that an author is biased, fringe, with the implication that everything the author writes is therefore suspect, even if accepted by a major mainstream journal, under peer review, as a review of the field. Do we expect that a review of the field would be written by someone unfamiliar with it? This attitude toward fringe is circular, for we determine what is fringe by preponderance of reliable sources, and if we, ipso facto, exclude any "fringe source," based on the POV it supposedly represents, or the identity of the author, we make it impossible to neutrally determine the actual balance.
I am aware of 15 reviews of the field, published in mainstream journals since 2005, see Wikiversity:Cold fusion/Recent sources. Their conclusions have generally been excluded from our article on this claim that the authors are "fringe." So this is a generic problem. The publishers involved are solidly mainstream. (On the Wikiversity page, I did not count as "mainstream" the Journal of Scientific Exploration, for obvious reasons. Unlike the others, they are deliberately not mainstream.)
So, my question: Is the recent paper reliable source? May facts and conclusions presented there be used in the article? This is a recent source, supported by many recent secondary sources. Does it therefore carry more weight than old responses from twenty years ago, when far less was known about the topic? Thanks for looking at this issue. As a COI editor, I will not be editing the article itself in any controversial way, but I want to be able to better advise the actual editors. -- Abd ( talk) 19:45, 23 September 2010 (UTC)
Is this really an RS question, or a question of due weighting of sources?-- Andrew Lancaster ( talk) 15:19, 26 September 2010 (UTC)
Questions from Andrew Lancaster: I guess no one is arguing that Naturwissenschaft is an unreliable source in any absolute way, just a less strong source than would normally be needed to make "redflag" claims? And on the other hand is anyone really claiming that the source is of the highest strength for this type of field?
Further, one critic of Storms who has published alternative explanations is Shanahan, and Storms (2010) apparently states that earlier Storms publications refuted Shanahan. On this topic, I suggest, Storms is not a secondary source but rather a primary one. A blanket declaration that Storms (2010) is a secondary source would allow it to be used to present Shanahan's work as published but refuted.
In short, I don't doubt that Storms (2010) is suffiently reliable and notable to be included in the article, but I have serious reservations about what sort of statements it might be used to support. In that sense, yes it is an UNDUE / redflag issue.
Also, I wonder (I have not spent time looking through this BTW) whether anyone is arguing that cold fusion claims simply can't be mentioned, at least as notable fringe theories.
In short, we have agenda-driven editors who who seek to use wikilawyering about policy and the fact that the scientific community mostly ignores anything about cold fusion to present what they see as the truth. I suggest that you bear in mind these issues when looking at comments about this topic area. EdChem ( talk) 17:02, 27 September 2010 (UTC)
extended comment on this by Abd
|
---|
What's been happening is that, for years now, what would be otherwise peer-reviewed reliable secondary source, the supposed gold standard, has been rejected on the synthesized argument that it is "fringe." That is a violation of policy as clarified in RfAr/Fringe science. The issue is article balance, generally, and we determine article balance by the weight of sources. If we reject sources as "fringe," we have lost the only way of determining what is "fringe," and what might, then, be undue weight. Rather, there are really two subjects here, crammed into one article. One is the history of what Huizenga called "the scientific fiasco of the century," in 1992. The other is the current state of the science. Different kinds of sources may be used for this; for science, we rely on PR secondary sources, as much as possible. And science changes. Generally, if the quality of the review is similar, later sources supersede earlier ones, because we may assume that the later sources were informed by the earlier. The current review is absolutely the strongest source that exists in the present state of the science. It is not about "sociology" or "popular opinion among scientists." The argument given above by EdChem is synthesized, there is no source for it. It's certainly relevant to the history of cold fusion, but not to the present state of the science. The review itself is quite cautious, but it also states, clearly, what is known and established. Which is not at all what EdChem and many others, not familiar with the research, believe. Parts of this field are no longer controversial (in both directions, by the way!). Please notice the original question here: is a peer-reviewed secondary source, in a major mainstream publication -- and Naturwissenschaften is major, and covers physics, unlike some implication here -- to be deprecated because the author is allegedly "fringe"? Notice that if an major review article is to be written, it certainly wouldn't be surprising if it is written by someone who has been a researcher in the field! The issue is the peer review and the publisher decision. It is simply preposterous that a journal like NW would risk their considerable reputation on fringe nonsense! Controversial? I'm sure.
|
I wish we could all keep proper perspective on issues like this, but I guess that's a forlorn hope. Can we all at least try to keep the game in the right ballpark? pointing out the obvious:
that's where this discussion should be. -- Ludwigs2 21:00, 27 September 2010 (UTC)
In my view, the most pertinent question for this board is whether the article should be regarded as a secondary source. I would say no, on the basis of precedent. Quite often in science articles single papers are proposed as sources. We have often considered them to be primary sources. Reviews of the literature are definitely secondary sources. Which side of the line does this article fall on? I would say primary, because it is not a systematic review carried out by an independent team. It would be useful to get this one right in order to inform future cases. Itsmejudith ( talk) 09:12, 28 September 2010 (UTC)
Sometimes I wish that whole 'primary/secondary/tertiary' thing had never been adopted. it's a lit-crit term that doesn't really work well for the kind of issues that wikipedia faces, and it confuses way too many people to be particularly useful.
at any rate, I think we can summarize things as follows:
does that strike people as a correct assessment of the situation? -- Ludwigs2 18:24, 28 September 2010 (UTC)
Cold fusion is a cross-disciplinary field. NW [Naturwissenschaften] is a cross-disciplinary journal, one of the top such in the world, covering all the "natural sciences," which includes physics and nuclear physics. I don't know that there is any better place for an article like this. But this is all pretty minor. That's a peer-reviewed secondary source, comprehensive, detailed, heavily sourced, and published under peer review in a mainstream journal. And it contains a whole lot of material that effectively contradicts our article. Don't you think we should start looking at that? Starting with what is in the abstract, some of which you chose not to include. Why? Do you have a better source to contradict it? There is no better source in the science of this field. That's the point. --Abd (talk) 01:09, 24 September 2010 (UTC)
Woonpton ( talk) 19:14, 28 September 2010 (UTC)
[68]. Edmund Storms, cold fusion extraordinaire, is an editor of the journal Naturwissenschaften. It is disingenuous to claim independent peer-review verification when your ace-in-the-hole work was published in a journal for which the author is a member of the editorial board. IEEE Transactions on Plasma Science suffers from the same problems with respect to plasma cosmology. It's an interesting fringe tactic, but one that is beautifully transparent.
Ask Storms why he doesn't publish in Physical Review or any other top-tier journal for whom he is not sitting on the editorial board. See what he says.
ScienceApologist ( talk) 04:55, 30 September 2010 (UTC)
(←) All very interesting no doubt, but the question for this board is whether a paper in a mainstream peer-reviewed academic journal is a reliable source, and whether it becomes any less so if the author is a member of the journal's editorial board. If the answer is that such a paper is in general a reliable source, is there evidence that this paper should be considered any differently? Kenilworth Terrace ( talk) 18:08, 1 October 2010 (UTC)
I can't see based on the discussion here why this is not an RS. -- Cameron Scott ( talk) 20:07, 1 October 2010 (UTC)
This page is an archive. Do not edit the contents of this page. Please direct any additional comments to the current main page. |
There has been some dispute over the reliability of either an accurate website of easy verifiability such as http://www.angelfire.com/realm/gotha/ and the biggest genealogy website in Portugal and perhaps in Europe, http://www.geneall.net/. Geneall.net, with more than a million entries, was part of a vaster project that was dropped by other countries, which prompted it to take the space others didn't want to fill. You can read about it on article here http://www.geneall.net/P/article.php?id=137 - a Portuguese translator is required. Such dispute is almost highly insulting to people in this environment who rely on them and are both qualified and this and other areas. This is something that should be cleared. LoveActresses ( talk) 16:21, 18 September 2010 (UTC)
The first is a WP:SPS by someone called Paul Theroff, I'll let our genealogy people tell us if he's an established expert in this area. -- Cameron Scott ( talk) 16:48, 18 September 2010 (UTC)
The second makes use of user generated content (I think from the submissions bit) but I'm not clear on the editorial policies. Since we currently use it on over 600 pages might be nice to sort that one out... I've removed both of these from BLPs (which is why this has ended up here) but will bow to the greater expertise on the matter. -- Cameron Scott ( talk) 16:52, 18 September 2010 (UTC)
soc.genealogy.german
from 2005“ | Subject: 15. How can I learn about German noble families?
The standard series of books on German nobility is the Gotha series, which has appeared under various titles since the late 18th century. Look in your library catalog for a title similar to Gothaisches genealogisches Taschenbuch der adeligen Häuser or Genealogisches Handbuch des Adels. The latter has an online surname index at < http://www.rootsweb.com/~autwgw/sgi/index.htm> Herbert Stoyan has an excellent online resource for noble genealogy called WW-Person at < http://www8.informatik.uni-erlangen.de/html/ww-person.html> Paul Theroff has an online Gotha at < http://pages.prodigy.net/ptheroff/gotha/gotha.htm> Please be advised, however, that stories of noble relations in American families are often exaggerated. |
” |
Genealogies generally do not list all children. This does not make them unreliable. Indeed, infant mortality and the reuse of names in a family occurs often. Also sites such as LDS do not check data offered. Major societies do (Mayflower, DAR etc.) and are reliable. As are Debrett etc.
Lastly, women marrying the borther of their first husband are not rare at all, though I do not know if this is the Darwin case. See
Henry VIII.
Collect (
talk) 12:32, 19 September 2010 (UTC)
There is a Wikipedia article on the Almanach de Gotha. The last edition, printed in Gotha, is from 1944. On-line versions of the book are available at the Internet Archive, the latest version seems to be from 1922. These are definitely WP:RS but are of little help in WP:BLP. There is another publication from London with the same name from 1998–2004, but it has been criticized for unreliability. It may well be that Paul Theroff's on-line Gotha may in fact be the most reliable. I do not think this notice board can pass judgment on Paul Theroff. The issue should be discussed and decided in Wikipedia:WikiProject Royalty and Nobility or maybe Wikipedia:WikiProject Genealogy. -- Petri Krohn ( talk) 16:54, 19 September 2010 (UTC)
I've had a quick scan of the archives and, although I can references, I can't seem to find a definitive position on the reliability of blogs published on scienceblogs.com (maybe I've missed it?). I'm wondering whether the specific blog entry on Deep Sea News is sufficient to reliably source the claim that Lucernaria janetae is the first species of Stauromedusae ever described living on a deep sea vent. It's something of a synthesis on the part of the blog writer, since the original sources cited by the blog don't make the claim directly themselves (as far as I can see), although it does appear to be justified from the literature (WP:OR on my part). The authors claim to be Marine Biologists, have sourced their statements and credit various other scientists for the images that accompany the entry. I ask, in part, because I'm hoping the article will qualify for WP:DYK. Thanks Ka Faraq Gatri ( talk) 13:44, 22 September 2010 (UTC)
Hey! Red, Brown and Blue is a publication from Victory Media Corporation. A sample article is at http://redbrownandblue.com/index.php/%E2%80%9Cfree-spm%E2%80%9D-movement-is-more-about-a-community-needing-to-face-the-music-than-it-is-about-freeing-an-icon
http://redbrownandblue.com/index.php/about is its about page.
Is this an RS? WhisperToMe ( talk) 17:12, 22 September 2010 (UTC)
I inserted a pararaph at If I Die Young that Sam Tsui has released a cover video to iTunes, but the edit was removed on the grounds that the source I provided (a link to the actual video, on Sam Tsui's official YouTube channel, and therefore not a copyright violation), is somehow not a valid source. Really? Everard Proudfoot ( talk) 20:12, 22 September 2010 (UTC)
(also posted here, i'm not sure where is the best place for it) there are two cases i'm dealing with that are quite similar & interesting. the first one is concerning the Arab Peace Process. israel has never "officially" responded to it (official, written response), however - the prime minister has made few comments about it during a speech. the vast majority of sources do not title it as an "official response", however, one (acceptable) source does. so according to wikipedia policies - it should be written in the article that israel HAS officially responded to it, even though some sources would claim that israel has never responded. israel's official response or lack thereof is an important fact, and i think it might be represented in wikipedia the wrong way, just because a single source chose to title the prime minister comments as an "official response".
the same goes for Mahmud Ahmadenijad calling the holocaust a "myth". the dictionary definition of myth is
a traditional or legendary story, usually concerning some being or hero or event, with or without a determinable basis of fact.
so calling the holocaust a myth should probably not be considered as holocaust denial. myth is different from fiction - and most sources do not draw that conclusion - but some (acceptable sources) do! and in accordance with wikipedia policies, that is what would end up in the article - that it IS a denial, and he IS a holocaust denier according to that statement. Here, again - it just feels wrong. there is nothing to reflect that the vast majority of sources do NOT title that statement as holocaust denial. Is that really the right interpetation of wikipedia policies? Maybe there is a policy which addresses this absurd situation. If not, maybe there should be. Eyalmc ( talk) 10:00, 16 September 2010 (UTC)
Editors have created a "Quality of life" section in the Palestinian Territories article which is based upon statistics contained in an article titled "Blame It On The Occupation" credited to Natalia Zawidowski.
Zawidowski does not cite any sources for the statistics and has no credentials as a demographer. Scoop News credits her as the author of six columns or editorials:
A quick plagarism check with Dupli Checker indicates that the information was copied verbatim from the now-defunct meimad.org Community blog Hasbara Central. For example Middle East Facts sources it to http://www.meimad.org/default.asp?id=8&ACT=5&content=128&mnu=8
In 2003 the Jewish Chronicle reported that Zawidowski was a student at London Metropolitan University and that she co-founded an anti-terrorism website with the "aim to educate people about different types of terrorism, particularly the raising of children to be suicide bombers." [10]
The World Bank report contradicts many of Zawidowski's assumptions regarding the quality of life. See [11] and [12] harlan ( talk) 06:05, 22 September 2010 (UTC)
I did a search of the archives but could find no reference, so, would you say fastcompany.com is a RS? I can;t find anything much on their editorial policy, and they identify as a blog. But they are paid writers and have editorial staff. Thoughts? -- Errant [tmorton166] ( chat!) 09:16, 23 September 2010 (UTC)
I tagged Max's of Manila some time ago because I felt it did not establish notability. At the time the entry was already tagged for having no sources, and for reading like an advertisement. Another editor came through and removed the tags without making any improvements, save for adding a couple of references, one of which, I don't think meets WP:BLP standards. I tried putting the tags back and removing the reference that was not satisfactory for BLP, while explaining on the talk page, to no avail. I don't want to edit war over this so instead I would like to know if the references are reliable in the manner they are used.
Any input here would be helpful. Thanks in advance. Griswaldo ( talk) 13:56, 23 September 2010 (UTC)
There are several theological articles here on Wikipedia that use this blog [23] to source an opinion of the Roman Catholic church. It appears to be a personal blog and is self published and has no apparent peer review of it. Here are three articles that use this blog for sourcing. Hesychasm, theosis and Essence–Energies distinction use this blog to source a not so mainstream Roman Catholic opinion on Eastern Orthodox theology. LoveMonkey ( talk) 17:43, 23 September 2010 (UTC)
The article Operation Pike has been tagged as "single source" [24]
As I explained on talk [25], it would be great to find more sources, but it is a very obscure topic. The source used, Osborn's book Operation Pike. Britain Versus the Soviet Union, 1939-1941 is very well regarded. For example Keith Neilson (who himself is a Professor of history and author of several books on Anglo-Russian relations [26]) reviewed the book in the academic journal " Diplomacy and Statecraft". He writes: "Osborn, an archivist for the American National Archives and Records Administration, has provided a very useful study of British policy towards the Soviet Union from 1939 to 1941 and, in particular, of the little-known Anglo-french plans to attack the Soviet Union in the period from September 1939 to June 1940." In conclusion, Neilson writes: "This is a very good book on a limited topic. It does not promise more than it deliveres, its documentary base is exemplary and its conclusions are judicious and carefully considered."
So given that this is an obscure topic with scant coverage and virtually no prospect of finding additional sources that deal with the topic in detail, and that a published Professor in History has reviewed the only comprehensive source on the topic as exemplary, judicious and carefully considered, is this "single source" deemed sufficiently reliable that this tag is unnecessary? -- Martin ( talk) 19:05, 23 September 2010 (UTC)
Is this article also considered a valid resource? [27]
Here is a church website giving commentary on the article. [28]
The article also appears to confirm what is on the church dioceses webpage states as the church teaching on the subject here. [29] The OCA website is maintained by the editor of the original article Thomas Hopko who is also a main editor on the Orthodox Study bible. LoveMonkey ( talk) 19:15, 23 September 2010 (UTC)
1.A link to the source to on Russia as superpower [30] 2.The article in which it is being used is Russia 3.The exact statement in the article that the source is supporting down below:
The current writing is this: Russia is a great power and a permanent member of the United Nations Security Council, a member of the G8, G20, the Council of Europe, the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation, the Shanghai Cooperation Organization, the Eurasian Economic Community, the OSCE, and is the leading member of the Commonwealth of Independent States.
text here quote next to superpower on approval to use source as: I would like to replace it saying this: Russia is percieved as a superpower [31] and a permanent member of the United Nations Security Council, a member of the G8, G20, the Council of Europe, the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation, the Shanghai Cooperation Organization, the Eurasian Economic Community, the OSCE, and is the leading member of the Commonwealth of Independent States.
The source is "Will Russia Be the Superpower That Will Stop Iran from Going Nuclear" - The Middle East Media Research Institute By A. Savyon July 29, 2010 [32]
There has been no discussion on this source so I am sending it here to get some views. I looked at this source as it list references in the source as Russia as a superpower and why Russia is considered to the world as a superpower world affairs, using the issue with Iran and the world over Iran, people are wanting and using Russia as the term superpower in its world influence. I think this is a good source personally, maybe not as lengthly but does title it and talks about it in the article and references in at the bottom, it also is written from an institute so it is also education institution source.
Please see if you can give me some views if this would be an accepted source to use or maybe one with a couple of more I could also use as daisey chain source to the subject as Russia being a superpower. I am would like to use this source to use as Russia being a perceived as superpower again or a superpower as I think it is important and I think it is a good source. Thanks-- 12.40.50.1 ( talk) 21:30, 23 September 2010 (UTC)
There is a simmering edit war at Sahih al-Bukhari with an editor aggressively adding Shiite propaganda to the page. On other pages, these has been somewhat of an agreement that most of the mainstream Islamic sites, regardless of sect, are unacceptable as most are simply not reliable sources. In this particular instance, the strong bias of the two websites in question, as evidenced below, add to that unreliability. I cut and pasted part of what I wrote at Talk:Sahih al-Bukhari#Textual distortion section regarding this issue:
“ | The two websites,
al-islam.org and
Answering-Ansar.org, which you have cited are clearly Shiite propaganda sites. The former says this on its homepage:
And the later:
In addition to the the sites' POV nature, they are simply not reliable to begin with. To quote the relevant guideline, WP:SPS:
This clearly includes these two sites are being unreliable. Your choice of words, "mutilation", hardly makes the addition of this section seem unbiased. |
” |
Supertouch ( talk) 10:51, 24 September 2010 (UTC)
Is blender magazine a valid source? They had some criticism of Emerson Lake and Palmer which I would like to include in which they named ELP as the second worse band of all time. ELP has been a much criticized band but there is no indication of that from ELP's page here.-- UhOhFeeling ( talk) 23:18, 19 September 2010 (UTC)
http://www.blender.com/lists/67198/50-worst-artists-in-music-history.html so this article is no good?-- UhOhFeeling ( talk) 01:20, 22 September 2010 (UTC)
FYI there are many notable and respected authors who contributed to the article including
Jonah Weiner - Currently a music critic for slate, John Harris (critic), J.D. Considine , John Aizlewood writer for The Sunday Times, The Evening Standard and The Guardian who regularly appears on the BBC, Clark Collis a writer for Entertainment Weekly, Rob Kemp a contributing editor to Men's Health and others.
I would say with this stable of authors this article should be considered a valid source.-- UhOhFeeling ( talk) 01:31, 22 September 2010 (UTC)
Anyone? Any thoughts?-- UhOhFeeling ( talk) 03:14, 23 September 2010 (UTC)
HELLOOOOOOOO?-- UhOhFeeling ( talk) 16:14, 23 September 2010 (UTC)
There is a question at Talk:Tommy Wiseau/Archive 1#Sources which cite birth date about whether the "alumnifinder" database is a WP:RS for some WP:BLP information that does not appear to be available elsewhere. DMacks ( talk) 16:54, 25 September 2010 (UTC)
Conversation on the article's talk page seeks to add a new theory as to why the ship hit the iceberg, based on a story in the culture section of The Daily Telegraph: "Titanic sunk by steering blunder, new book claims". It turns out that the revelations are made by the novelist Louise Patten ("I was the last person alive to know what really happened on the night Titanic sank") to coincide with the release of her new novel Good as Gold, apparently dealing with financial impropriety by one of the passengers. In turn Patten had heard the tale from her grandmother who was the wife of one of the officers. My contention on the talk page is that this is hearsay and cannot be used as a reliable source for Wikipedia. -- Old Moonraker ( talk) 07:49, 24 September 2010 (UTC)
Apparently haaretz.com cannot be loaded inside the UAE (see P-800 Oniks history) and no doubt by other ISPs in the Islamic world.
Should we then consider all Israeli media to be non-reliable sources? And what should we do about all those sites that subjects of the PRC cannot see? Hcobb ( talk) 14:51, 26 September 2010 (UTC)
The website [49] looks reasonably serious (a collaboration of Deutsches Historisches Museum (DHM) in Berlin, the Haus der Geschichte (HdG) in Bonn and also the de:Fraunhofer-Institut für Software- und Systemtechnik in Berlin). Of course it is in German, but I was considering using it as a replacement for NNDB in the List of University of Heidelberg people for those people with no on-line reference in English. Or would it we better to use the Allgemeine Deutsche Biographie from wikisource [ [50]]? Thanks for your advise. -- Anneyh ( talk) 18:50, 26 September 2010 (UTC)
God help us, so far as I can tell there are only three WorldCat listings which deal with this subject: Religion and Subaltern Agency, written by a doctoral student and Christian missionary at the University of Madras as per here, Sri Vaikunda Swamigal and the stuggle for social equality in South India, of which apparently only Oxford University holds a copy here, and finally, a government publication called Colonialism, nationalism and legitimation : an essay on Vaikunda Swamy cult, Travancore here. The former is apparently slightly more widely available, the last seems to be only in the Library of Congress and the Indian government library. Does the first qualify as reliable as per our guidelines? John Carter ( talk) 15:11, 27 September 2010 (UTC)
Is this book, which is written for English secondary school students for courses about American government, a reliable source for Libertarianism and if so what sort. According to WP:NOR, "Many introductory undergraduate-level textbooks are regarded as tertiary sources because they sum up multiple secondary sources." But this book is not even undergraduate level.
While common sense tells us not to use the book, are there any policy reasons that state it cannot be used?
TFD ( talk) 15:44, 26 September 2010 (UTC)
I'd like to see some discussion about whether The Cambridge history of India, Volume 6 and other volumes of the series along with similar Cambridge history for other nations are reliable. The source is to be used for results and Casualties and losses section of Battle of Phillora along with other details described in the book through this section of book. The volume like the other volumes in the series is written by multiple famous and important historians and authors with knowledge of Indian history and even includes works of even historians and authors who lived in 18 and/or 19 century. The publisher of the is S.Chand, one of the largest publisher in Indian subcontinent and publishes the volume for sale in the Indian subcontinent. The information in the book is important because it is probably one of the only reliable neutral review of battle as other reliable medias only concentrated on the whole war rather than individual battles.
Well I found that the section Political Developments Since 1919 (India and Pakistan)was written by Vidya Dhar Mahajan in the extended digitized version in 2009.-- UplinkAnsh ( talk) 10:22, 28 September 2010 (UTC)
I am concerned particularly with this article: [51], referenced here: Hypercomputer#cite_note-11.
It caught my eye because this has been proposed again and again for decades, and always the answer is no. and this is no different, and no more significant. From the article: "So-called "nonlocal" phenomenon cannot be used to transmit information faster than the speed of light but Putz and Svozil today ask whether it can be used to process it, to carry out computational tasks at superluminal speeds." The problem here is that processing information 'is TRANSFERing it. Processing is just another word for entropic transfer. (transfer with loss of information entropy). So the question of whether "it can be used to process it" IS the question of whether "[it] be used to transmit [it]". A question whose answer is a definite "no". So the blog makes the mistake on notability on account of a rather egregious error. My question is does it still meet RS? And in any case, should it be removed from WP? Kevin Baas talk 18:29, 27 September 2010 (UTC)
Having tried to edit the Suzuki Samurai/Jimny etc article I was depressed by the amount of space given to the controversial lawsuit of 1996. There was an inordinate amount of battling back and forth between pro-Suzuki and pro-CU editors. In an attempt to remove this from my field of vision I started a new article, Suzuki Samurai v Consumers Union where these back-and-forths could take place out of view. Lately, I checked back and noticed that a link to a video (made by Suzuki, and clearly labelled as such) had been removed. Meanwhile, other, rather dubious accusations taken from a ambulance-chaser website remain. I don't know if this is the right place to ask questions on this topic, but I do feel that if anything an official Suzuki video (including actual Consumer's Union footage) is more reliable than some website like this one: http://www.crash-worthiness.com/ Thankful for any assistance, ⊂ Mr.choppers ⊃ ( talk) 21:01, 27 September 2010 (UTC)
If there are policies or guidelines how to deal with book references without page numbers. -- Car Tick 01:10, 28 September 2010 (UTC)
Unnumbered front matter should be normally referred to as such, "Unnumbered front matter starting at the Introduction and the following 21 pages." Pages numbered unusually (i-xxii) should be referenced as pp. i-xxii; A-AF. Pages with implicit numbers (the first page of chapters are often not numbered) should be numbered with their implicit number. Pages which are unnumbered in sequence but containing numbered section or paragraph numbers should be referenced by section or paragraph number §57¶5, or 5.f.IV.71.A-G. Pages which are unnumbered in the sequence (for instance, the obverse of a numbered page, normally unnumbered and blank containing a plate or other illustration) should be described as "Obverse p. 2" or "Opposite p. 3". Pages with no numbering sequence should be referred to by their chapter, section, or first line of the paragraph. For example "Chapter 3, §Ducklings, ¶"The ducklings slowly waddled down…" and the following 7 pages." Your choice if you like using stuff like passim. versus found in passing; ff. versus following pages. When describe unusual page numbers, like "Fly sheet" or "Rear fly sheet" or "Note inside front wing of dust jacket" you should ideally spell out the information very clearly. Fifelfoo ( talk) 03:29, 28 September 2010 (UTC)
This issue was discussed recently on the board. Assuming the book has page numbers, you should ask for the page numbers first, using a tag. If the person adding the citation refuses to provide it after a reasonable amount of time (give him/her several days at least), despite having clear opportunity, then you should remove the citation, and replace it with a citation requested tag. If you feel the information itself is untrue, you should remove the material as well. Jayjg (talk) 16:41, 28 September 2010 (UTC)
Thanks. -- Car Tick 17:24, 28 September 2010 (UTC)
I have a user who claims that the following sources are not good enough to be used to state in the classical liberalism article that what is now called classical liberalism used to be called simply "liberalism." I know it sounds crazy that he is disputing something so obvious, but he is. Here are the sources he is claiming are not reliable:
"The Industrial Revolution that began in Britain saw the development of economic liberalism. That is, first of all, the belief that the free market was the optimal form of economic life, providing the greatest prosperity for all, and necessitating maximum economic freedom for everyone. This went hand in hand with a wider view of liberty which saw the maximisation of social freedom as the best way to run society in general. It was this version of liberalism that was the first to actually be called 'liberalism', which was in the nineteenth century. It is better known by the name 'laissez-faire liberalism', although it is sometimes called 'classical liberalism'." Page 13: [53] This book, as you can see, is cited in many other books as well as in peer-reviewed publications: [54] The author, Ian Adams is Honorary Fellow at the University of Durham, where he was a lecturer in political theory until his retirement in 2001. [55]
"It would be difficult to adequately characterize Jefferson's philosophy. It come closest to what was called "liberalism" in the nineteenth century, and classical liberalism after that term was appropriated by the progressive movement..." Page 846 [56]
""Classical liberalism - or simply liberalism as it was called until around the turn of the century - is the signature philosophy of Western Civilization." Page ix [57]
First I just gave one source, then he said that wasn't good enough, so I get another, he says it's not good enough, then another. It seems ridiculous for me to continue on when I'm sure he's just going to say the next one is not good enough either. Please give me some back up here. The above sources appears to comply with Wikipedia reliability standards. Bullet Dropper ( talk) 04:07, 28 September 2010 (UTC)
This discussion makes we wonder what content is being disputed. The word classical has a meaning in English, and obviously as this WP is in English we do not need to source the meanings of every English term we use. Part of the nature of the word classical is that it is added as an adjective to distinguish the "old style" of something from the "new style". Obviously however, like 1+1=2 obvious, the "old style" would not have been used in the "old times". So if there is any level of sourcing for "classical liberalism" being called "liberalism" why would that be objected to? Is it being argued that liberalism is a neologism being applied to old movements retrospectively? Liberalism is obviously an "-ism" coming from "liberal", a term used in politics since the 1800s at least, and then obviously without "classical". I think I am right in saying the "-ism" also starts to appear in several contexts in the 19th century. More to the point though, it does not at first sight look like a "redflag" type of statement needing the highest quality of sourcing? Wouldn't we give the benefit of the doubt on a lesser source in such a case?-- Andrew Lancaster ( talk) 06:54, 28 September 2010 (UTC)
So in effect the argument is really about whether the text book is good enough to "trump" this summary? I think the summary is better and more comprehensive, allowing for the variations in meaning at the time, so I do not really see why anybody would want to replace it with an over-simplification. I believe liberalism was indeed not a "technical term" in the 19th century.-- Andrew Lancaster ( talk) 08:19, 28 September 2010 (UTC)The term classical liberalism was applied in retrospect to distinguish earlier nineteenth-century liberalism from the newer social liberalism.[5] The phrase classical liberalism is also sometimes used to refer to all forms of liberalism before the twentieth century, and some conservatives and libertarians use the term classical liberalism to describe their belief in the primacy of economic freedom and minimal government. It is not always clear which meaning is intended.
I recently created an article List of Philippine restaurant chains. I purposefully made it about a list of chains so as to increase the likelihood of notability. For those chains that did not have their own Wikipedia article I also included a link to the chain's website. In the external links section I have also included a link to a website that can be used to verify the existence of such establishments and other details related to them. Another editor has removed some of the chains I included because they do not have their own Wikipedia article or a reference to a secondary source. Here's a diff, before and after. Reason given seems to be WP:Linkfarm. On the other hand sources were given even if they were primary sources. Their removal seems excessive. For an entry on a list article, what is the threshold for inclusion? For comparison there is List of restaurant chains in the United States where I am seeing red links and no banner requesting verification. Lambanog ( talk) 04:29, 28 September 2010 (UTC)
This website appears to be a compendium of press releases, and hence in general not a reliable source. In particular, International Pole dancing Day, a press release from "The world’s largest independent pole-dancing-fitness school, Polestars" does not seem to be a reliable source for the history of pole-dancing at Striptease#Recent history. Kenilworth Terrace ( talk) 16:59, 28 September 2010 (UTC)
I would like to ask if others are sometimes uncomfortable with the following, and whether anyone has any practical suggestions about it. The most common scenario is something like this made-up case:- "this online review article looks well-written and well-sourced, great, but because RS debate is possible you should just use its handy bibliography for what you wanted to put in and not mention what led you there". Sound familiar?
Even when people then get copies of the articles in said bibliography (as per WP:SAYWHEREYOUGOTIT) in many cases of course, what ends up being put into Wikipedia is structured and worded in ways which are inspired by the helpful author of the good but potentially questioned source. However, editors are effectively told not to say so. (Indeed many are presumably doing this the whole time and not talking about it.) Structuring of subject matter, simple observations, basic ways of explaining uncontroversial things, are often not "OR", raise no red flags, and their sources are hard to prove, so no one cares where they come from. But if such influences are so uncontroversial why is being honest about it considered such a no-no?
I was recently involved in an example where a sourced quotation which had been subject to some questionable RS debate was removed, and a re-written sentence openly intended to capture something in the old material was then inserted without sourcing. The wording change possibly improves the article, and is (and was!) obvious enough not to need special sourcing, but I don't feel good about the deliberate lack of attribution.
In academic literature one still sees authors who are correct enough to quote a source as something that they read in another source. Indeed this is often quite useful. In WP, it seems odd to see people on WP argue quite strongly sometimes that an apparently good source should be used indirectly and without attribution supposedly due to WP rules. In reality of course what people mean is that it is better to avoid a long RS debate about how the WP rules might apply, and to find a "path of least resistance".
Just trying to think why this is happening, it occurs to me that it is relevant that if you put words in an article without sourcing, then someone needs to actually look at the content and understand it before they can judge if they need more sourcing. Feedback is likely to be informed in such cases. OTOH, if you try very hard to mention all sources, you can expect "feedback" which is generalized and awkward to deal with: based not on any reading of the content but upon quick browsing for theoretical sourcing warning signs. Are the incentives wrong?-- Andrew Lancaster ( talk) 13:17, 14 September 2010 (UTC)
I'm inclined to agree with the OP, and this is a problem that many WP editors try to dance around. Time and again, after I've put work into an article, using good sources and working to achieve a balanced, reliable text, on my won or together with others here, I run into editors (or they approach me) who are a complete PITA because they pretend that every single statement - whatever kind it is, even if it's uncontested or so obvious no one has ever needed to phrase it as a fact in print - must be shown to have been taken raw from a "reliable source" (however they define that) and that any attempt to rephrase, explain or bring out why something is important within the context of the subject makes it "original research" and inadmissible. In their view, the way to keep WP clean and reliable is to insist that every article should be a patchwork of statements that are vouched for, or verified/made falsifiable and controllable one by one, by the external source that says, or implies that "statement (p) is true".and put the citation for (p) in a footnote.
In reality that doesn't solve the issues, and real scientiests, scholars and encyclopaedic writers do not stop at simply saying a certain source has generic validity all the time because of what it is (reliable, an "honoured newspaper", a high-rank university etc). If a statement or a line of reasomning comes under scrutiny, it's those statements that should be discussed, not whatever source they were quoted by and the generic reliability of that source (which is most often not the ultimate source, anyway). Real encyclopaedias such as the Britannica are full of statements whose underpinnings are a swarm of minor facts, theories and inferences: the real voucher is the reputation of the guy who wrote the article and his knowledge, because unlike the average WP editor he risks something if he puts blatantly false, faulty or overstated stuff into his text. His colleagues might detect it and ruin his reputation. If any Jack Bass writes "Barack Obama is a practising muslim /source S1/ and he was born in Kenya /source S2, perhaps obamacrimes.com/" all he risks is an edit war and eventually, if he is really blunt, having his account blocked. The next day, or even before, he may open another account and keep on writing. So a standard view of what would make current WP policy says WP editing is a kind of collecting of raw facts that are sort of plagiarized, openly or thinly veiled, but in my view, and according to scientific standards, that isn't enough to make the outcome reliable.
If the idea here is to provide texts that are as reliable and s valid as a good paper encyclopadia, then it's just not helpful to pretend that this can be achieved simply by laying a million small "directly sourced statements" side by side but avoiding any discussion of those statements as such, and any attempts to bring them together. But if the hyperdeletionists who insist that's the way keep up their good work, the only way to avoid being clobbered with "original research!" seems to be to blatantly plagiarize whatever you can get accepted as a "good and reliable source".
Of course, sometimes this doesn't happen. It's just as pointed out here: sometimes the plagiarizing/rewriting thing is more discreet but it still sticks to rephrasing whatever you can find and which seems to vaguely fit with preconceived ideas of what should be in the article, "what it's like". Or you simply write a good article (or improve an existing one) according to your own solid knowledge - the article you'd have written for the Britannica if you'd have been asked to - and sprinkle it with some references although you know that it would be impossible to nail down every single statement, every nuance of the text, to a previous rock hard source. You add a list if books you know are central to the area. And then yoiu hope not to have some 15-year old newbie running onto it and deleting half of it, saying "not sourced" and "whattya mean by that? POV!!" (RS and citation discussion on purely generic terms). I find this unsatisfactory, but I'm not sure there's a way out of it as long as the Wiki bureaucracy insists on that every John Blow is allowed to write about everything but they must only parrot what one or another "reliable source" (in reality, there can never be an indisputable solid list of such sources, and what counts as "good sources" is in drift from article to article) has had to say in exactly those same words on the subject. Strausszek ( talk) 04:41, 26 September 2010 (UTC)
Reference "Mary" as a general reference or add her work to the "Further reading" section. Inline citations are not the only acceptable way to acknowledge sources. It's something editors have apparently forgotten with the trend on Wikipedia to drench articles with inline cites. Lambanog ( talk) 10:15, 26 September 2010 (UTC)
I can note an interesting case, still at issue: the intro paragraph to Atheism. it's basically a concatenation (via WP:SYNTHESIS, ironically) of plagiarism form 3 other poorly/biasedly-worded encyclopedias. I and others have argued on there about how articles aren't supposed to be a mosaic of plagiarism form other encyclopedias and that would just make for really bad prose, esp. for the intro. clearly there's a trade-off; good balance point. don't inject your own facts / analysis, but that doesn't mean you can't rephrase things and summarize them, or change how information is organized to make a better narrative. practically speaking it's not even possible to avoid doing those things, so isn't it better to at least be conscientious about them, rather than simply deny their existence? I don't know, it seems I can never phrase it to them such that they will understand what i'm saying. But my opinions aside, it's interesting case for your question. Kevin Baas talk 16:14, 28 September 2010 (UTC)
I discovered a couple of articles that had been plagiarized from a website calling itself Encyclopedia of the Nations and have added copyvio tags to them.
But has anyone noticed this website before? What is the origin of the content of this "encyclopedia"? It seems to be run by a company called Advameg, describing itself as "a fast growing Illinois-based company", but I see nothing indicating who the editors or authors are. -- Hegvald ( talk) 12:37, 26 September 2010 (UTC)
Not sure if starting a whole new section is appropriate but it's a problem with a different article. A while back I found the article Philippine cuisine riddled with errors and badly written and have been gradually improving it over time. The same editor who had problems with my List of Philippine restaurant chains article came in and removed references I added to a Further reading section. I restored them and put them under References to indicate that they can be considered general references. He has removed them again saying many of them contain external links. Diff, before and after (with some intervening inconsequential edits). I find the notion that published sources with convenience links should be removed, simply for having convenience links, kind of preposterous. There is room for the article to be improved and that is recognized but I do not think the actions being undertaken in the name of getting it to conform to Wikipedia standards helps the article as much as they obstruct and dissuade contributions. Could people take a look and give outside opinions? Lambanog ( talk) 18:12, 28 September 2010 (UTC)
We have a discussion but the bottom line is I wish to restore the references taken out by Ronz. Here are a sample of three items out of seventeen that were removed. I do not see any issues with them that warrant their removal. I'd like to see if anyone else aside from Ronz thinks otherwise and the reasons warranting their removal. From what I gather Ronz took them out based on WP:EL although I don't know what specific provision applies. I contend that removal for such reason is a misinterpretation of WP:EL that has the rather significant implication of making any citation using cite templates with a filled URL field subject to removal.
Absent any opposition from other parties I will interpret it as meaning that Ronz's interpretation of WP:EL as they apply to these refs is his alone and I will restore all 17 sources he removed. Lambanog ( talk) 13:01, 29 September 2010 (UTC)
During a discussion where I believe this point is not relevant anyway, a question of interpretation of WP:SPS arises. WP:SPS states that
"In some circumstances, self-published material may 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."
But putting aside the author, what if the WP:SPS, for example the website itself is frequently cited in the strongest possible sources in a way which shows it is authoritative?
This possibility is not mentioned at WP:SPS, but is perhaps presumed to be an obvious higher bar not worth mentioning? (I would personally think any such source would not even need to be defended as an SPS?)
A clear example I can think of would be the "haplogroup predictor" website of Whit Athey which is cited by most major peer-reviewed Y haplogroup papers in the last few years (at least when they contain STR based haplogroup predictions). (Try google scholar with "Athey haplogroup". I can of course post examples if necessary, but for the sake of discussing principle I keep this short.) This is a website set-up by Athey to run a prediction method described by him in an article he wrote which is also very widely cited in the best possible sources in this field. However am I right that such a website would either pass WP:SPS or else not be considered an SPS in the first place?-- Andrew Lancaster ( talk) 06:49, 29 September 2010 (UTC)
OK, here is another related question. I really hope I can get a few responses. Suppose:-
Cheers-- Andrew Lancaster ( talk) 18:55, 29 September 2010 (UTC)
Here is Jayjg's current position in one place, in his own recent words. I would like community feedback on this statement:
What satisfies me "personally" is something that complies with WP:V and WP:RS. Neither of them mention anything about being cited in reliable sources, they talk instead about being published in reliable sources. [61] (emphasis added).
My questions above are about whether this is a logical argument. Do WP:V and WP:RS envision cases where an author+publication which is one of the most widely cited in the field can NOT be an RS? Jayjg also says that
If Athey's posting itself were cited by reliable sources, that might be an indication that that specific posting had a degree of reliability. However, it's moot, since it hasn't been. (Same post, emphasis added again. Note that unlike academics who cite it, Jayjg refers to the journal as a website and its articles as "postings".)
Is it reasonable to demand that for an Author+journal combination which is extremely strongly cited in a field, for several articles, that another article by the same Author+journal needs to be cited independently and specifically to be an RS? Feedback from neutral Wikipedians would be very welcome.-- Andrew Lancaster ( talk) 01:52, 30 September 2010 (UTC)
Would this be accepted as an RS, a website quoting a magazine article? I guess the question is, is the website itself a reliable enough source to accept that they're quoting the magazine appropriately. WikiuserNI ( talk) 23:39, 29 September 2010 (UTC)
In the article Ken Livingstone, the following material describes Ken Livingstone's speech at the Durham Miners Gala 2010 as it appears in the Wikipedia article: 'In his speech he suggested the "solidarity" and "strength" the "working class culture" of the Gala gives could have reduced "some of the problems and alienation" in London had it been brought there during his time as Mayor.' The quotations are supported by a video of the speech on YouTube here. Specifically, the quotations are taken from a section of the speech made between approx 1:00 min - 1:20 min. However, one user has objected to the use of this video, stating that "I do still think a personal users uploaded video is not a correct place to support any content, we use youtube extremely sparingly and only use official content from recognizable uploaders". I object as it represents a primary source. It seems quite absurd that I have to look for a secondary source (somebody who heard it and wrote it down), which is inevitably likely to be less reliable. I propose using this YouTube link as a primary source. The discussion can be found here (most relevent material is found towards the bottom of the discussion). 79.79.186.76 ( talk) 11:30, 28 September 2010 (UTC)
I would say the real issue is notability. A you-tube video doesn't establish notability. But if you can find a secondary source to establish it, i see no harm in the the video, but then again, what's the point, now that you have a better source for the same content? Unless the video itself is the notable part... Kevin Baas talk 13:30, 28 September 2010 (UTC)
What do we think of www.bitterlemons.org as a source for historical fact in Israel/Palestine articles? It's run by Ghassan Khatib and an Israeli editor. For example, for the 1940s section in Israel, Palestine and the United Nations? I'm sure that the website editors are serious, and Khatib is an expert on the area as well as a politician. But we set the sourcing bar high for history articles. Itsmejudith ( talk) 06:30, 29 September 2010 (UTC)
I'm currently removing non-notable/unsourced entries in the article List of magnetic hills. Several entries cite the website TheShadowLands.net's Haunted Places Index as a source, such as their North Carolina page. The entries tend to be unsourced and poorly-written. Additionally, this page says that the website relies solely on visitor additions. This would presumably make it subject to hoaxes. As of now, I'm removing non-notable entries in the list that cite this as their only source, but I'd appreciate input. --- cymru lass (hit me up)⁄ (background check) 03:10, 30 September 2010 (UTC)
Hi. I am not sure where to ask this question, and I hope I asked in the right place. There was an addition to Columbia writing professor Janette Turner Hospital's wikipedia page because of an article on the Gawker website that listed her as "The World's Haughtiest Professor." I guess... it just doesn't sound very nice to do to someone. It was just ammended today, apparently, and the wikipedia article's sentence acts like it has happened in the past. Is Gawker really that credible of a resource to list an article like that? It just to me, seems very cruel. I think this professor's email did come from a place of wanting to better her former USC students and from the excitement of her new place. Several other people (on the Gawker comments page) have also wondered if the wikipedia reference is a little "scary."
I apologize if I am asking this in the wrong place. If anyone can can explain to me how or if that edit was fair and why, I would be grateful. I can't quite put my finger on it, but something about the way it is written seems a "off". Thank you for your time. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 173.71.19.247 ( talk) 07:15, 30 September 2010
Read-copy-update contains a large number of citations of works solely or primarily by User:PaulMcKenney, who also added them to the page. Some of them seem at a casual glance to be on hosted sites or articles like Linux Weekly. Could someone with more experience than me double-check these are reliable? -- Chris Purcell ( talk) 08:23, 27 September 2010 (UTC)
Done. PaulMcKenney ( talk) 20:10, 1 October 2010 (UTC)
Would
these
two articles by Hyde Flippo be considered
reliable sources that pass
FA 1(c)? About.com describes Flippo as an "About.com Guide". He is a
published author who has written The German Way (published by Passport Books), Perfect Phrases in German for Confident Travel (published by
McGraw-Hill), When in Germany, do as the Germans do (published by
McGraw-Hill), and is cited by several books. One book
calls him a "cultural historian".
I have read the comments at Wikipedia:Reliable sources/Noticeboard/Archive_16#Huffington Post, Gawker and About.com, especially the one by SandyGeorgia ( talk · contribs) on 05:29, 7 July 2008 (UTC) and the one by ImperfectlyInformed ( talk · contribs) on 06:27, 7 July 2008 (UTC) and believe that this source is reliable but am unsure whether it passes FA 1(c). Cunard ( talk) 02:35, 30 September 2010 (UTC)
Cunard ( talk) 18:11, 1 October 2010 (UTC)In an earlier feature, " Language and Culture," I discussed some of the connections between Sprache and Kultur in the broadest sense. This time we'll look at a specific aspect of the connection, and why it is vital for language learners to be aware of more than just the vocabulary and structure of German.
as well as:Trying to say "Have a nice day!" in German is a good example of language that is culturally inappropriate—and a good illustration of how learning German (or any language) is more than learning just words and grammar.
It is becoming more common in Germany to hear the phrase "Schönen Tag noch!" from sales people and food servers.
In an earlier feature, "Language and Culture," I discussed some of the connections between Sprache and Kultur in the broadest sense. This time we'll look at a specific aspect of the connection, and why it is vital for language learners to be aware of more than just the vocabulary and structure of German.
I want to use the source to provide information about how " have a nice day" is being used in Germany. Written by a German author, the analysis from the source will help counteract the US systemic bias brought up by reviewers.Beyond smiling, most Germans consider the phrase "have a nice day" an insincere and superficial bit of nonsense. To an American it's something normal and expected, but the more I hear this, the less I appreciate it. After all, if I'm at the supermarket to buy anti-nausea medicine for a sick child, I may have a nice day after all, but at that point the checker's "polite" have-a-nice-day comment seems even more inappropriate than usual.
I have checked Google Books and Google Scholar for "Schönen Tag noch!" but have been unable to find any other substantial coverage of it in relation to " have a nice day". Hyde Flippo's article appears to be the best source available. I believe that because Flippo's work about Germany has been published by the major publisher McGraw-Hill, his article published on about.com is also reliable, though I acknowledge that it likely does not pass FA 1(c). Cunard ( talk) 18:11, 1 October 2010 (UTC)
I've become aware that several articles (including at least one on the Norwegian Wikipedia) have the following source, in this format:
The journal is paywalled: this link takes one to abstracts of the articles in the issue, but when one clicks on the particular article, a dialogue box appears asking for payment, and does not go away until one has clicked repeatedly to close it and been transferred to a registration page or back to the issue contents list. This makes the article inaccessible as a source and there are other sources on scholarly doubts as to the reliability of accounts in Heimskringla and elsewhere of the Fairhair dynasty (main article on the matter). I was able to get 2 quotes from the article using Google, which I inserted into that article in this diff along with another source. I have subsequently added information on a Norwegian source also. I have qualms about the tone of those 2 quotations from Sjöström as well as the nature of the site, so I am asking here about the journal. My instinct is to remove all citations of the Sjöström article except in the main article on the issue, Fairhair dynasty, and where a citation is needed to replace them with one or more of the alternates. (I have done so at Harald III of Norway and posted to the talkpage: diff.) But possibly Foundations is a respected journal, in which case I should be more reluctant to replace these cites? It's hard for me to evaluate it without paying money, which I am loath to do given the obnoxious programming of the site.
So that is my question - the merit of that journal as a source. Yngvadottir ( talk) 20:06, 30 September 2010 (UTC)
From them just Harry Stine (but possible W. Boyne too) had acces to all documentations related with the subject. So, i would like to see more opinions about who's more qualified, especialy from technical and scientific point of view, to talk about (jet) engines. Thanks
Disclosure: I'm COI on the topic I'll bring, and I also contributed to the editing of the subject paper and am mentioned in it. I'm asking this to verify my impression of Wikipedia policy and guidelines as they apply to alleged "fringe" topics.
I pointed, on Talk:Cold fusion, to a very recent secondary source, a review of the field of Cold fusion, published under peer-review at Naturwissenschaften, perhaps the most notable of many secondary sources that have appeared in mainstream publications on the topic in recent years, after the 2004 U.S. Department of Energy recommended further research and publication, all of which may have reversed the presumption, previously properly held, that Cold fusion was Fringe science, as distinct from emerging science. No "negative" reviews under peer review have appeared since then.
An editor commented on the author as not "independent or neutral." [66].
My understanding is that we depend on independent publishers, to filter out fringe views and not allow them to be presented as being acceptable to the mainstream. Naturwissenschaften is solidly mainstream, published by Springer-Verlag, which is also solidly mainstream. The "neutrality" that we depend on is that of the peer reviewers and/or publishers, not the authors. The publishers will not, presumably, allow a fringe author to trample neutrality, for their reputation is at stake. If they are going to present a view that is fringe, for some reason, it will be tagged as controversial, not presented as a neutral review.
There is no doubt that at one time Cold fusion was widely considered fringe or even "pathological science." However, scientific consensus can change. We depend on mainstream publishers for determining what is "reliable source," and especially the publishers of peer-reviewed scientific journals, and most especially those journals when they publish secondary source reviews, which is our gold standard.
My concern here is the allegation that an author is biased, fringe, with the implication that everything the author writes is therefore suspect, even if accepted by a major mainstream journal, under peer review, as a review of the field. Do we expect that a review of the field would be written by someone unfamiliar with it? This attitude toward fringe is circular, for we determine what is fringe by preponderance of reliable sources, and if we, ipso facto, exclude any "fringe source," based on the POV it supposedly represents, or the identity of the author, we make it impossible to neutrally determine the actual balance.
I am aware of 15 reviews of the field, published in mainstream journals since 2005, see Wikiversity:Cold fusion/Recent sources. Their conclusions have generally been excluded from our article on this claim that the authors are "fringe." So this is a generic problem. The publishers involved are solidly mainstream. (On the Wikiversity page, I did not count as "mainstream" the Journal of Scientific Exploration, for obvious reasons. Unlike the others, they are deliberately not mainstream.)
So, my question: Is the recent paper reliable source? May facts and conclusions presented there be used in the article? This is a recent source, supported by many recent secondary sources. Does it therefore carry more weight than old responses from twenty years ago, when far less was known about the topic? Thanks for looking at this issue. As a COI editor, I will not be editing the article itself in any controversial way, but I want to be able to better advise the actual editors. -- Abd ( talk) 19:45, 23 September 2010 (UTC)
Is this really an RS question, or a question of due weighting of sources?-- Andrew Lancaster ( talk) 15:19, 26 September 2010 (UTC)
Questions from Andrew Lancaster: I guess no one is arguing that Naturwissenschaft is an unreliable source in any absolute way, just a less strong source than would normally be needed to make "redflag" claims? And on the other hand is anyone really claiming that the source is of the highest strength for this type of field?
Further, one critic of Storms who has published alternative explanations is Shanahan, and Storms (2010) apparently states that earlier Storms publications refuted Shanahan. On this topic, I suggest, Storms is not a secondary source but rather a primary one. A blanket declaration that Storms (2010) is a secondary source would allow it to be used to present Shanahan's work as published but refuted.
In short, I don't doubt that Storms (2010) is suffiently reliable and notable to be included in the article, but I have serious reservations about what sort of statements it might be used to support. In that sense, yes it is an UNDUE / redflag issue.
Also, I wonder (I have not spent time looking through this BTW) whether anyone is arguing that cold fusion claims simply can't be mentioned, at least as notable fringe theories.
In short, we have agenda-driven editors who who seek to use wikilawyering about policy and the fact that the scientific community mostly ignores anything about cold fusion to present what they see as the truth. I suggest that you bear in mind these issues when looking at comments about this topic area. EdChem ( talk) 17:02, 27 September 2010 (UTC)
extended comment on this by Abd
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What's been happening is that, for years now, what would be otherwise peer-reviewed reliable secondary source, the supposed gold standard, has been rejected on the synthesized argument that it is "fringe." That is a violation of policy as clarified in RfAr/Fringe science. The issue is article balance, generally, and we determine article balance by the weight of sources. If we reject sources as "fringe," we have lost the only way of determining what is "fringe," and what might, then, be undue weight. Rather, there are really two subjects here, crammed into one article. One is the history of what Huizenga called "the scientific fiasco of the century," in 1992. The other is the current state of the science. Different kinds of sources may be used for this; for science, we rely on PR secondary sources, as much as possible. And science changes. Generally, if the quality of the review is similar, later sources supersede earlier ones, because we may assume that the later sources were informed by the earlier. The current review is absolutely the strongest source that exists in the present state of the science. It is not about "sociology" or "popular opinion among scientists." The argument given above by EdChem is synthesized, there is no source for it. It's certainly relevant to the history of cold fusion, but not to the present state of the science. The review itself is quite cautious, but it also states, clearly, what is known and established. Which is not at all what EdChem and many others, not familiar with the research, believe. Parts of this field are no longer controversial (in both directions, by the way!). Please notice the original question here: is a peer-reviewed secondary source, in a major mainstream publication -- and Naturwissenschaften is major, and covers physics, unlike some implication here -- to be deprecated because the author is allegedly "fringe"? Notice that if an major review article is to be written, it certainly wouldn't be surprising if it is written by someone who has been a researcher in the field! The issue is the peer review and the publisher decision. It is simply preposterous that a journal like NW would risk their considerable reputation on fringe nonsense! Controversial? I'm sure.
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I wish we could all keep proper perspective on issues like this, but I guess that's a forlorn hope. Can we all at least try to keep the game in the right ballpark? pointing out the obvious:
that's where this discussion should be. -- Ludwigs2 21:00, 27 September 2010 (UTC)
In my view, the most pertinent question for this board is whether the article should be regarded as a secondary source. I would say no, on the basis of precedent. Quite often in science articles single papers are proposed as sources. We have often considered them to be primary sources. Reviews of the literature are definitely secondary sources. Which side of the line does this article fall on? I would say primary, because it is not a systematic review carried out by an independent team. It would be useful to get this one right in order to inform future cases. Itsmejudith ( talk) 09:12, 28 September 2010 (UTC)
Sometimes I wish that whole 'primary/secondary/tertiary' thing had never been adopted. it's a lit-crit term that doesn't really work well for the kind of issues that wikipedia faces, and it confuses way too many people to be particularly useful.
at any rate, I think we can summarize things as follows:
does that strike people as a correct assessment of the situation? -- Ludwigs2 18:24, 28 September 2010 (UTC)
Cold fusion is a cross-disciplinary field. NW [Naturwissenschaften] is a cross-disciplinary journal, one of the top such in the world, covering all the "natural sciences," which includes physics and nuclear physics. I don't know that there is any better place for an article like this. But this is all pretty minor. That's a peer-reviewed secondary source, comprehensive, detailed, heavily sourced, and published under peer review in a mainstream journal. And it contains a whole lot of material that effectively contradicts our article. Don't you think we should start looking at that? Starting with what is in the abstract, some of which you chose not to include. Why? Do you have a better source to contradict it? There is no better source in the science of this field. That's the point. --Abd (talk) 01:09, 24 September 2010 (UTC)
Woonpton ( talk) 19:14, 28 September 2010 (UTC)
[68]. Edmund Storms, cold fusion extraordinaire, is an editor of the journal Naturwissenschaften. It is disingenuous to claim independent peer-review verification when your ace-in-the-hole work was published in a journal for which the author is a member of the editorial board. IEEE Transactions on Plasma Science suffers from the same problems with respect to plasma cosmology. It's an interesting fringe tactic, but one that is beautifully transparent.
Ask Storms why he doesn't publish in Physical Review or any other top-tier journal for whom he is not sitting on the editorial board. See what he says.
ScienceApologist ( talk) 04:55, 30 September 2010 (UTC)
(←) All very interesting no doubt, but the question for this board is whether a paper in a mainstream peer-reviewed academic journal is a reliable source, and whether it becomes any less so if the author is a member of the journal's editorial board. If the answer is that such a paper is in general a reliable source, is there evidence that this paper should be considered any differently? Kenilworth Terrace ( talk) 18:08, 1 October 2010 (UTC)
I can't see based on the discussion here why this is not an RS. -- Cameron Scott ( talk) 20:07, 1 October 2010 (UTC)