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In a recent discussion I initiated at WP:RSN, there appears to be a consensus forming that use of Google Snippets is an unreliable method of sourcing an edit as a sole means of research. This is because it is expected that editors will have access to the source, have read it and understand the context upon which the edit they proposed is based. Google snippets is inherently unreliable in that context is missing.
Would others consider the need to have access to the full source to be something of value to add to the guideline? Wee Curry Monster talk 12:27, 3 March 2011 (UTC)
Presumably the editor has read enough of the source to ensure the snippet is relevant. That, however, must be taken in good faith. Note that often a page or two is necessary for that (I have seen numerous cases where all relevant information regarding to the specific issue in a source was contained in a page, or a simple para). That said, I have seen cases where editors have cited sentences out of context. The world is not perfect - the solution is to verify when in doubt, and fix when the source is cited improperly. I should also add that direct page links to Google Books are very useful, and should be encouraged. -- Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus| talk 03:24, 4 March 2011 (UTC)
As per others, and the RS/N discussion, there is no hard and fast rule about snippets; sometimes they may provide enough context, sometimes they may not. Jayjg (talk) 03:20, 6 March 2011 (UTC)
I'd like feedback on the following addition under Self-published and questionable sources
Online retailers
References to websites which only offer a book, album or other product for sale do little to establish notability. These retailers provide little if any oversight in the products they offer for sale. Book, music, movie and other product sales sites like Amazon and iTunes may confirm that something exists but this doesn't tell us how it or the individual or organization that created it may be
notable. When referencing a review, use the original source of that review, rather than a link to an online retailer. Also, listing where to buy items associated with an article could be seen as spam whether in an external links or references section.
-- RadioFan ( talk) 14:24, 4 March 2011 (UTC)
Here's another "online retailer as RS?" situation that came up. One of the biggest online sellers of Tradtional Chinese medicines (snake oil, human placenta, sulfide of mercury, arsenic, etc.) says what their procducts is believed to treat. Is this RS for a sentence about beliefs of TCM? They are a somewhat secondary source for TCM beliefs, but they also have a profit incentive for promtion. PPdd ( talk) 19:12, 5 March 2011 (UTC)
All sources are unreliable to varying degrees. The use of the term "reliable source" actually encourages a naive credulity with regard to some types of source. It would be better if wikipedia could find alternative terminology. Mowsbury ( talk) 17:12, 5 March 2011 (UTC)
A problem has arisen in an article. How does one tell if a Chinese language source is reliable? First, there is a problem of an "English language encyclopedia" user reading it, or reading things about it which may only exist in Chinese script. Second, there is a problem that most such sources are published by the communist government, or censored by it, and the government has an economic stake in everything, so it is effectively always "self published" or "self edited". PPdd ( talk) 17:09, 4 March 2011 (UTC)
Proposed addition -
To get help with questions relating to foreign language sources (including help in determining whether the source is reliable), consider contacting the members of the relevant WikiProjects (eg: for questions relating to sources in Chinese, contact Wikipedia:WikiProject China), or contacting someone at the wiki for that language (e.g., if a source occurs in an article, consider posting at that article's talk page in the wiki for that language).
Is there a wiki for some languages that is independent of the English language wiki projects?
PPdd (
talk)
02:00, 6 March 2011 (UTC)
@PPdd: Not sure what you mean there, aside from belonging to the same overall project and sharing the basic principles are all the non english WPs independent of us. They all have their own administrators and their own set of guidelines, they do not depend on us for anything.If you look at it from article per capita perspective many of them are even way ahead of us (see [1])-- Kmhkmh ( talk) 01:50, 6 March 2011 (UTC)
I've been trying to help a bit at RSN, and gaming portals tend to come up. See most recently. [2] A topic such as gaming doesn't typically have types of sources that we value — scholarly articles, books, mainstream media, etc. So websites are often used as sources. In giving feedback, I look at the website to try to get a sense for whether there's some sort of editorial oversight. But there's no way of really knowing. I seem to remember that there's a gaming project that deals with this. Can someone point me to that, or any other relevant guide that one might use in giving feedback when these issues arise? Thanks. TimidGuy ( talk) 12:37, 9 March 2011 (UTC)
{{
edit semi-protected}}
Requested edit. (adds wikilinks for primary, secondary and tertiary sources)
75.47.137.71 ( talk) 00:36, 11 March 2011 (UTC)
Anyone who knows British tabloids at all knows the reputation of the Daily Star: basically, it doesn't have one. While there have been cases of the newspaper systematically fabricating stories, a an ex-reporter admitted fabricating stories after resigning and claimed the practice was not only known about, it was approved of by the editors. However, NEWSORG implies reliability in the case of the Star, as it is mainstream (higher circulation than the Guardian, at least) and it does have "news". Should the guideline be clarified that this is not an automatic pass? Sceptre ( talk) 18:02, 12 March 2011 (UTC)
I'm looking for some input over at the Newspaper of record article. User:Corbridge is insisting on deleting the New York Times from the list of examples of newspapers of record (the entry is sourced with the Encyclopedia Britannica article on the NYT), on the basis that "It is an opinion supported by an unreliable source. Please provide a reliable source. Another Encylop EB is not a RS". Any thoughts? It's news to me that Encyclopedia Britannica is not a reliable source, but I don't want to edit war with this user. Thanks. -- Skeezix1000 ( talk) 21:13, 9 March 2011 (UTC)
Cote was recently in the film Grown Ups (starring Adam Sandler). —Preceding unsigned comment added by 64.111.137.227 ( talk) 13:21, 16 March 2011 (UTC)
Are internet blogs that pretend to be new sources (Newsbusters, Huffington Post, Pajamas Media, Media Matters, Infowars, FAIR, Accuracy in Media, etc) really reliable sources?
Senior Trend ( talk) 05:22, 6 March 2011 (UTC)
I've removed a slew of endorsements from Chris Robinson (animation scholar), quoting praise -- at length -- by other authors. They appear to be dust jacket blurbs. My own view is that a journalistic review from an WP:RS lavishing praise is independent and worth citing, while endorsements from fellow authors, as one typically finds on book covers, or inside front pages, are not. I've tried to find a guideline that addresses book blurbs of this kind -- is there one? Thanks, Shawn in Montreal ( talk) 15:43, 14 March 2011 (UTC)
Is this a reliable source and if so, would it stand up to an FAC? - Neutralhomer • Talk • Coor. Online Amb'dor • 17:37, 24 March 2011 (UTC)
{{edit semi-protected}} Montrose Hagin birth date is wrong she was born June 12 1917 Can also supply a picture for her page.
98.151.152.132 ( talk) 21:08, 24 March 2011 (UTC)
The following discussion is about a specific IRS problem on the IRS noticeboard that contains a lot of general IRS discussion. It is in danger of being lost when/if the specific problem is fixed, leaving no change in the guideline, or even discussion on the WP:IRS TALK page. So here is a (small) part of the discussion, abstracting out much of the (irrelevant) specifics that led to it:
CHALLENGE:
Unhappy with WP:V, you've tried to change it and, at various points have pleaded to have it (essentially) ignored. Failing that, you're here on the reliable sources noticeboard challenging the reliability of the New York Times to verify a piece of data that everyone seems to agree with (official sources, those disputing the official sources, etc.). Someone brings up WP:WAX, so now you're challenging that. What policies, guidelines and/or essays do you generally agree with, other than WP:IAR? - SummerPhD ( talk) 17:39, 23 March 2011 (UTC)
ANSWER:
Jayjg, did you read the above? If the NYT does not fact check parts of obituaries or death notices like cause-of-death (which they do not) but instead rely on family who has this private information to supply to the paper, then why does republication in the NYT confer ANY extra reliability on such information? That is a triumph of surface-value over substance, but it's no progress epistemologically (comment, user:Itsmejudith?). In fact, this actually detracts from whatever information-value the material has, since it tends to HIDE the original source, just as is happening in this case. See churnalism. It's one thing for WP:IRS to mention "churnalism"- apparently it's something else for WP to actually incorporate the consequences of it, into policy or even guideline (which it has not). The family tells the NYT that the guy died of pneumonia, and this is considered by WP to be RS because the NYT prints it, but when the family later decides the cause was arsenic leading to pneumonia, the editors at WP refuse to accept this, ostensibly because it comes from the family. We don't know what the NYT would have printed if the family had initially claimed death-by-arsenic, or by Martian ray-gun. My guess is that they'd have refused to print anything on the cause of death, if it was too odd-sounding. But again, that fact adds no information, if what they DID print was noncontroversial. We already know that the NYT is likely to print non-controversial causes of death, but probably wouldn't print something outrageous or even odd (death by Humboldt Squid attack in a death notice), since they can't fact-check either one. So the fact that that they print "pneumonia" adds no level of likeliness that it actually was pneumonia as an ultimate (rather than only proximate) cause, since we already know the paper has an "unusual claim" filter at this level in death notices (which is not the same as fact-checking system-- it's just a skeptic-filter).
To SummerPhD: I merely gave an example of the NYT "fessing up" to their own errors (which they didn't catch;somebody else did) as a shortcut to get around argument that maybe they actually didn't make that many errors. Perhaps you think that an error by the NYT counts only if they admit it, or that if I can't find them admitting it, it doesn't count? If so, that is wrong. There are plenty of errors the NYT makes they never "fess up" to. For example, Judith Miller's NYT "exclusive" stories on Iraq's WMDs (which helped the drumbeat toward that war) were based in no small part, but without attribution, on Ahmed Chalabi's claims, a fact that the NYT (as noted) didn't include at the time, and has never appologized for, as an "error" (any more than the US government has). In this gaff, Chalabi's claims took on the NYT's reputation, and in doing so, made the government sound like their own WMD claims had been independently verified, by being taken up as a story (without attribution to Chalabi) by a liberal newspaper. BUT, you must read about this gaff in OTHER media, who (of course) lose nothing in making the NYT look like the rumor-spreading fools that they were in this case [3]. Like the game of "telephone," but one where each player gets more and more reputation as the chain elongates, it's a mess. Example: Curveball (informant)'s claims eventually taking on the reputation for accuracy of Colin Powell, who hadn't fact-checked them, any more than anybody ELSE had.
Consider Dan Rather and CBS's defense of the authenticity of the Killian documents, which they say their experts checked. It's a separate question from the problems of churnalism per se, of whether any given news medium (or government agency, for that matter) has a "reputation for acuracy" better than it deserves. If so, who is to say, and how would one know? From some other source? And what about THEIR reputation? Without application of science, this is ALL just a game of "he-said, she-said" more or less as happens in any nasty-divorce-trial, but without any primary evidence admitted anywhere. user:Itsmejudith, can you tell us about the epistemology of he-said/she-said? It's the method WP uses for much of its material. Do you see a problem with that? In examples above (Curveball) jounalists and government have ignored even legal rules of evidence, and admitted not only hearsay, but hearsay about hearsay! And when this goes to press, it all is transformed to WP:RELIABLE and WP:VERIFIABLE. Come on.
Oh, yes, and in answer to SummerPhD asking which WP policies I do agree with, see the end of section at [4]. I think WP:MEDRS is the best standard that exists at WP:IRS, which otherwise flails around a lot. Even as journalism is decaying, and journalism even admits that it is decaying, WP at the same time has enthroned journalism as a major source of reliable truth. That is bad. S B H arris 16:59, 24 March 2011 (UTC)
Andrew Lancaster, your questions are interesting, but where is the place to discuss them? If I complain about epistemology on the TALK page of an article, I get sent to RS/N (as happened here). If the problem is removed, we still end up with policy issues, which perhaps should be discussed at TALK page for WP:IRS. Which I can do, although those people get tired of arguing policy without specific examples in front of them. [But here the generalities are reposted anyway]
The short answer to your question is that things are all mucked up on IRS. They can't even decide if a newspaper report (front page NYT) ala Judith Miller's "reports" about Saddam's WMD's in 2002, are primary or secondary sources. One problem is that people like Miller don't give their OWN sources (in this case, it was an unreliable one) so why should we trust them? It's not as though Miller is likely to have checked out her sources with other journalists, let alone other newspapers-- that's not the way that world works. In science, however, it actually DOES work that way.
We can also see on WP:IRS that WP has no understanding of your average primary science experimental paper, published in a peer-reviewed journal, for it labels such things "primary sources." Anyone who actually has written one of these things knows that it contains many levels of information, starting with a "why we did this" section, continuing with two sections that on WP would be labeled WP:OR, and then a WP:SYNTH part where the authors interpret their findings, do a mini-review of the literature (ordinarily a secondary-source thing) and attempt to put their findings into perspective by contasting them with others, and often ending with a paragraph or two, of what in journalism would be called "Op-Ed". However, all this is is seen by multiple other (anonymous) reviewers before it gets to print, and the primary authors have a chance to correct it, also. It is NOT like a diary, published later by somebody (a classic historical primary source). Also, there is no way to compare it with anything a newspaper does. Do you see my problem? WP:RSMED (which again I didn't write, but like) does an admirable job of starting to get the epistemology of reading a scientific paper down to some kind of algorithm (it still takes quite a lot of sophisitication). However, nothing is available on WP for other fields, and certainly nothing that attempts to compare reliability in one field with another, something that happens ALL THE TIME in writing encyclopedia articles.
The answer to what to do about this for me as an editor, has been (in the past) to use my own judgement. What else can one do? However, there's no good way to settle arguments. I don't really think the problem has a good answer. But it would be good if we got the difficulties out into the open, and ADMITTED that it doesn't have a good answer. And that right now, all such problems are being handled by violating the letter of WP:SYNTH, and by argumentum ad baculum at the point of administrative-block tools, again without admitting this. There's a reason why the first steps of Alcoholics Anonymous involve admiting you have a problem, and you can't fix it. WP hasn't even gotten to Step 1 of the 12 Steps, after working a decade on it. The reason being that WP departed from the expert-review vision it initially started with when it was invented by Sanger, and then attempted to bureaucratize the dysfunctional result after that, in order to try to make the reliability problems disappear under a load of increasingly difficult to understand and jargonish policy guidelines. See my comments on the TALK page of WP:V. [5] [6] And of course, dissenters are suppressed or (eventually) leave, or are banned. I'm just waiting my own turn, though I've edited here since late 2005. S B H arris 21:15, 25 March 2011 (UTC)
The truth is that the most stories generated by "reputable news outlets" GENERALLY contain errors. If might be true that are "are generally considered reliable" but this general consideration is in error, for they shouldn't be. For example, here's a 2007 study in which 2,615 hard factual errors were found in a random sample of 1,220 stories clipped from major metropolitan papers, reporting on locally-generated events. These were stories on page 1, or in the metro, business, and the lifestyle sections. The study culled sports stories, opinion pieces, columns, and reviews and it didn't look at network news stories. Obviously many stories had more than one error and fewer than half had none. The errors were found by doing fact-checking surveys of primary news sources named in the articles, who had first-hand knowledge of the event being reported (things like age, title, spelling of names, and so on). All stuff that could have been done before publication, if the newspaper had cared, or had a policy of doing it. 69% of the stories sent for error review to the primary sources actually were reviewed and returned, so this doesn't represent much of a bias toward getting reports only from erroneous stories. Finally, the most shocking fact discovered is that only 2% of these errors were ever retracted by the papers, with the maximum rate being 5%. [7] The other 98% stand forever, as fodder for Wikipedia, under present guidelines.
The results here correspond with my own experience of news articles, in which I have never seen an article about some event of which I had first-hand knowledge, printed without some gross error. Many of these could have been fixed had journalists sent their copy to their primary sources for fact-review prior to publication, but I have found by bitter experience that not only will most journalists refuse to send their sources such copy prior to print (the most you get is they MIGHT condescend to read you a bit, over the phone). This is as a point of pride, but they often will not do it due to direct newspaper policy, for a host of legalistic reasons. Actually, I don't CARE what their reasons are, or if they can be fixed. The point is that this happens, and they cannot, or will not, fix it.
I am amazed that WP, which relies on thousands of eyes to review facts for any well-read article, would regard as more reliable, a news story that has been fact-checked by maybe one set of other eyes (not counting copy-editing), and that set is some other editor who cannot possibly be as knowlegeable about the story, as the story's subject and others who have first-hand knowledge about the event. Publication in a newspaper does not increase factual reliability; I don't really know why anybody thinks so. S B H arris 02:36, 30 March 2011 (UTC)
Newspapers are a "first draft of history" and are as full of errror as you'd expect from the way they are produced. They can be used as cites for what people and media thought at the time an event was happening, and for sources of the facts of historical events during the (hopefully short) period in which there has been no review, but later should be replaced by better sources as they come out. The short-time use should to limited on WP, since WP is WP:NOTNEWS (even though it tries to be-- in our shinking world WP is influenced by recentism, which is error-ridden).
In some historical cases, where no other sources are ever located but the news accounts (this happens a lot in the 19th century), we have to use what we have, as a semi-reliable source is better than no information at all. Historians must deal all the time with what to do with century-old news stories that come out a day after the event, but sometimes are not fully checked with their primary sources and witnesses (a story about something a journalists personally saw is not the same as a story about something a journalist reports on a deadline secondhand); and how to compare these with coroner or trial transcripts of what people say about the same event weeks or months later, vs. what people remember years later.
In any case, all these are WP:IRS issues, and probably shouldn't even be mentioned in WP:V. WP:V might speak to the usability of blogs, but only because they are evanescent. In these days of self-publication and small and smaller publishing houses (sometimes only 3 people only work for small imprint) the only reason to deprecate blogs is that you can't be sure they won't change, not because they are "self-published." Most organizations have publications these days, and they're all self-published. "Self-published" is hard to define, and in any case, the WP:V faults for it that we mention doesn't apply to print, nor to things reliably archived and available. Those things only have RS problems due to bias and relative lack of review by others, not V problems. Any by the way, the evanscense problems apply to many on-line sources that are reviewed, but due to become (i.e., will probably be) deadlinked on WP when somebody stops hosting them. But that usually doesn't cause them to run afoul of WP:V even BEFORE they disappear, as appears to be the case for "self-published works." Yet, evanescence is given as the reason for attacking the "self-publications", sometimes as a last ditch effort after their reliablity has withstood all attacks (I was just involved in one IRS argument about this type, about the GRG which keeps gerontological records). S B H arris 16:49, 30 March 2011 (UTC)
http://move.themaneater.com/ I would like to know if this qualifies as an RS. It could be vital to solving a genre war. Thanks! DCcomicslover ( talk) 19:15, 29 March 2011 (UTC)DCcomicslover
It seems that according to the "reliable sources" guidelines, Wikipedia itself is not a reliable source. It's barely more than a web forum where people can edit each others' work, not just respond to it. 1) The work itself is not a reliable source. 2) The authors are not (guaranteed) experts, therefore not reliable. 3) The publication itself is just a website not a reliable publisher with a staff of experts and professional fact-checkers.
I say this not to troll, but rather to point out that the guidelines are both ironic and outdated. Ironic, because, this publication has shown itself to be at least as reliable as many professional encyclopedias, almanacs, etc, yet has been at the forefront of upending the traditional system of knowledge gathering and dissemination. Outdated, because, the world has moved beyond merely the sources described as reliable. I understand the goal and sympathize, but it's outdated. Let me give an example.
I've been following an online series on the history of gianduia at dallasfood.org. The stuff is impeccably researched and footnoted. Technically it's a blog, one person's publication without peer or editorial review in any traditional sense. I added a footnote to the site in the Gianduja (chocolate) page for the proper/common Italian spelling of the word (which is actually "gianduia" not "gianduja"). I emailed the guy and encouraged him to update some of the historical information in Wikipedia that I was noticing was out of date/wrong as I was reading his articles and trying to get more context online. So he did. He made a change to the Waldensians page and footnoted it with a link to his site. Now, obviously there's no subterfuge here. There's no SEO advantage to linking to his site since Wikipedia does NO FOLLOWS. And the guy doesn't have ads on his site, either. And again, anyone who looks through the articles can see how impeccably researched it is. I don't know how he got his hands on all those Italian documents, but apparently he did. And he has photos/scans of some of them proving it. Yet, his changes were removed and now he tells me he's unlikely to add anything to Wikipedia again. Wikipedia's loss for sure.
Is he an expert in the field? I don't think so. He appears to be an obsessive hobbyist who is so interested in the issue that he's reading tons of academic sources and original sources. But he's obviously a hell of a lot more reliable than the other sources that are being used on the subject matters he's dealing with. He seems to have thoroughly debunked several common claims that appear to have been inserted into history by companies' marketing, primarily. And yet, he's not a reliable source and someone removed his footnotes and claims.
It's ludicrous and extremely ironic. I worked in the editorial department of newspapers for over a decade and I know how questionable a lot of the information that comes from them is, especially before there were digital recorders and the internet. Very few journalists have ever done the kind of research this guy is doing and yet the Dallas Morning News is a reliable source and this guy isn't. It's ass backwards and doesn't make sense for Wikipedia given the nature of its own articles and oversight.
There should be more emphasis placed on whether online content used as a source shows signs of going through the process of making itself reliable. The number one item in that regard, imo, is not a fallacious appeal to authority, such as is the basis for much traditional/mainstream media, but the evidence in the online articles themselves, such as footnoting, data, etc. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 64.201.141.251 ( talk) 07:25, 1 April 2011 (UTC)
(ec) I think these are just common misunderstandings. Please consider and see if this answers the concerns:-
Not sure where this question goes.
One statistic that I have managed to keep out of place articles is the projection of how many jobs a particular business indirectly creates (for anyone new to economics, this is NOT how many the business employs or intends to employ) and how much "domestic product" in cash, it generates in the community (again, indirectly, not their payroll nor accounting). Normally, if you add these up for everybody, they way outstrip the local domestic product and the number of adults in the area. Great for chamber of commerce pitches. Seems lousy for reporting in "fact" articles. This doesn't sound reliable to me. Student7 ( talk) 12:52, 1 April 2011 (UTC)
The issue of advocacy groups keeps cropping up at RSN (and WP:V and WP:NPOV), so I think we may need to spell it out... What do people think about adding the following (or something like it):
I am thinking that this could go in the "Some types of sources" section, or in WP:SPS. Thoughts? Blueboar ( talk) 17:46, 17 April 2011 (UTC)
The policy isn't explicit on this, but this uses what appears to be a fairly dubious source. Are press releases, especially this very web 2.0 type of press release, a reliable source? The claim isn't particularly unlikely, especially since if you read the announcement it's a fairly token boycott. SDY ( talk) 02:10, 19 April 2011 (UTC)
Being known as a mainstream news source does not automatically make said source reliable. Several news sources have reputations for—and have sometimes admitted to—either incomplete or biased coverage, a failure to do due research, and, in egregious cases, complete falsification of some stories. Even for reputable sources, there are various articles which may not be reliable. Having corroborating sources increases the chance the information is reliable, but beware of the practice of "churnalism", especially in print media. Prioritise sourcing to news agencies above other news sources.
I have two issues with the above:
1. Regarding the last sentence, I think it is a questionable that news agencies (AP, Reuters, and many are worse) are more reliable. They have a particular drawback in that they traditionally do not take public feedback. (Although is this now different in the internet age? Do they read comments?)
Back in the days of shortwave radio when we would send in QSL reports to radio stations, it was well known that the BBC would not reply to them. And this from an organisation that for decades had a reputation of being the most "reliable" and "unbiased" of news sources! Old_Wombat ( talk) 09:23, 26 April 2011 (UTC)
2. Regarding "[s]everal news sources have reputations for—and have sometimes admitted to—either incomplete or biased coverage, a failure to do due research, and, in egregious cases, complete falsification of some stories.", this sounds like a good description of the New York Times. (What? You thought I would say Fox News?) Yet we have to accept the NYT as reliable for a newspaper, simply because it is respected by the other newspapers and even determines what - in the U.S. - is a news story (see Bernard Goldberg, Bias for a personal account of the latter). So while in my personal opinion the paper is complete garbage, I would be the last to claim it is not a legitimate Wikipedia source (taken with some grains of salt, and with certain exceptions), and more usable as such than any other American newspaper. In other words, what is a mainstream publication is not necessarily related to its actual quality, so I think this statement is not useful and should be deleted. Mzk1 ( talk) 21:38, 30 March 2011 (UTC)
One has to be a bit careful here, though they might be occure more often in (various) newspapers descriptions like "failure of due research" or "misleading descriptions/errors" and the "admission to have published errors" do apply to all publication including most prestigious science/academic publications (remember cold fusion in Nature). In other words if one resorts to absolutes (having admitted errors or lack of due research exclude a source from usage), one ends up not being to use any reasonable source.-- Kmhkmh ( talk) 01:19, 31 March 2011 (UTC)
Being known as a mainstream news source does not automatically make said source reliable. Several news sources have reputations for either incomplete or biased coverage which affects the integrity of the story, a failure to do due research, and, in egregious cases, complete falsification of some stories. Even for otherwise reputable sources, there are areas of coverage where a publication may not be reliable for the aforementioned reasons. Having corroborating sources increases the chance the information is reliable, but beware of the practice of " churnalism", especially in print media. Check each source before using it.
Would it be out of place to say that I am touched and gratified by the reponse to my comment? I half expected to be pilloried for my comment; there have been at least a couple of attempts here to make the left-wing persepctive the only acceptable one.
While I believe my original comments were caused by the differences between U.S. and U.K. newspapers, I see now that I had perhaps misunderstood the term "mainstream" newspapers. If one divided American newspapers into three broad categories:
(1) Major newspapers, such as the New York Times, WSJ, Baltimore Sun, etc. Almost all of these have their point of reference somewhere in the Democratic Party.
(2) Secondary newspapers, such as the New York and Chicago Daily News. These may have greater circulation than the major ones, and tend to concentrate on local issues.
(3) Gossip sheets such as the Weekly World News, the National Enquirer, etc.
My understanding of "mainstream" was that the first category was almost always to be accepted without question, the second generally, and the third almost never. Do I understand now that both categories (1) and (2) should be considered mainstream?
Regarding wire services, my understanding was that network TV news and wire services were known for ignoring complaints from the general public. (Complaints from their customers, the newspapers and local stations, are limited by jounalistic groupthink.) Perhaps this has changed, but examples from AP and Reuters make me resistant to consider them more reliable that their clients. Mzk1 ( talk) 18:50, 2 April 2011 (UTC)
In the Terai article about a region of Nepal, someone cited [1]
It happens to be in connection with a very mundane, probably non-controversial statement. Nevertheless the source is probably unavailable to 99.999% of Wikipedians. It was published in Kathmandu, not available online as far as I can tell. Google Books does list it, but provides none of its contents. So is this a valid reference per WP policies? LADave ( talk) 20:52, 16 April 2011 (UTC)
I'm curious if there is any policy that covers secondary sources that have not yet been determined through consensus at WP to be reliable, but that have been cited by definite reliable sources. More specifically, I'm interested in whether an individual article from an uncertain source becomes reliable if it is cited by a reliable source. Thanks in advance for any help you can provide. - Thibbs ( talk) 20:33, 22 April 2011 (UTC)
Thoughts? Ocaasi c 15:19, 23 April 2011 (UTC)
In 2009 grandson Robert Kim Bingham, Sr. published a book about WWII rescuer Hiram Bingham IV, son of Hiram Bingham III, titled COURAGEOUS DISSENT: How Harry Bingham Defied His Government to Save Lives. Source: http://pages.cthome.net/WWIIHERO/ —Preceding unsigned comment added by 70.138.29.231 ( talk) 12:02, 26 April 2011 (UTC)
Dominick W. Giannino, who graduated in 2003, is an animal trainer who has performed around the country with big cats on circuses and zoological parks. He has also worked handling elephants for Ringling Bros. and Barnum & Bailey Circus. If you google search Cole Brothers Circus and WLOX, there will be a page with two videos on the show, one is specifically about him. Also google search his name and Cole Brothers Circus and more information can be found —Preceding unsigned comment added by 69.113.110.247 ( talk) 14:23, 26 April 2011 (UTC)
"Editors must take particular care when writing biographical material about living persons." - no argument there.
"Remove unsourced or poorly sourced contentious material immediately if it is about a living person."
Ahh, now there I see a problem. Borrowing from information theory, would it not be better to include it and flag it as "contentious"? This gives the reader TWO pieces of information (one, what was said; and two, that it is contentious); rather than not have anything at all, which gives the reader no information whatsoever: after all, you can't tell from a blank page what ISN'T written on it! What is "fair" and what is "unfair" becomes even more complicated if the person in question is himself frequently contentious, like say a Michael Moore. Old_Wombat ( talk) 09:17, 26 April 2011 (UTC)
Is anyone aware if such a thing as hierarchy of source quality exists? Ie, if certain topics are contentious, is there any guideline advocating for the preferential use of "expert" or "in-depth" literature rather than what might be considered as "generalist " ? Slovenski Volk ( talk) 09:24, 28 April 2011 (UTC)
We have an agreement to use a reference in an article. I still question this reference, which will be used anyhow because we don't have anything "better" right now.
It is located at http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/42555888/ns/us_news-life. The author has won a Pulitzer Prize for investigative journalism. In the wake of Fukushima, and opposing nuclear power, he has taken American power plants, drawn circles around them and counted the number of people there. And published it implying an "at risk population" (we don't quite have the nomenclature down in our separate discussion). We are assuming that the circles are drawn in accordance with recognized threat guidelines.
That doesn't mean the people counted there are, though. Tough for a non-census weenie to count census-designated places that partially lay outside, partially inside those "circles." My take on this is that the author is a fine recognized investigative journalist. But this is circle-drawing and head-counting, well outside his range of expertise.
If he, instead, had interviewed a census guy or statistics guy and got the same charts from them, that would be quite another matter and within his range of expertise. Figuring out which set of charts told the correct story.
But he is, IMO, committing WP:OR, just like a Wikipedia editor might, in "drawing circles" to support his WP:POV. I would appreciate neutral opinion. Thanks. Student7 ( talk) 13:12, 29 April 2011 (UTC)
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In a recent discussion I initiated at WP:RSN, there appears to be a consensus forming that use of Google Snippets is an unreliable method of sourcing an edit as a sole means of research. This is because it is expected that editors will have access to the source, have read it and understand the context upon which the edit they proposed is based. Google snippets is inherently unreliable in that context is missing.
Would others consider the need to have access to the full source to be something of value to add to the guideline? Wee Curry Monster talk 12:27, 3 March 2011 (UTC)
Presumably the editor has read enough of the source to ensure the snippet is relevant. That, however, must be taken in good faith. Note that often a page or two is necessary for that (I have seen numerous cases where all relevant information regarding to the specific issue in a source was contained in a page, or a simple para). That said, I have seen cases where editors have cited sentences out of context. The world is not perfect - the solution is to verify when in doubt, and fix when the source is cited improperly. I should also add that direct page links to Google Books are very useful, and should be encouraged. -- Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus| talk 03:24, 4 March 2011 (UTC)
As per others, and the RS/N discussion, there is no hard and fast rule about snippets; sometimes they may provide enough context, sometimes they may not. Jayjg (talk) 03:20, 6 March 2011 (UTC)
I'd like feedback on the following addition under Self-published and questionable sources
Online retailers
References to websites which only offer a book, album or other product for sale do little to establish notability. These retailers provide little if any oversight in the products they offer for sale. Book, music, movie and other product sales sites like Amazon and iTunes may confirm that something exists but this doesn't tell us how it or the individual or organization that created it may be
notable. When referencing a review, use the original source of that review, rather than a link to an online retailer. Also, listing where to buy items associated with an article could be seen as spam whether in an external links or references section.
-- RadioFan ( talk) 14:24, 4 March 2011 (UTC)
Here's another "online retailer as RS?" situation that came up. One of the biggest online sellers of Tradtional Chinese medicines (snake oil, human placenta, sulfide of mercury, arsenic, etc.) says what their procducts is believed to treat. Is this RS for a sentence about beliefs of TCM? They are a somewhat secondary source for TCM beliefs, but they also have a profit incentive for promtion. PPdd ( talk) 19:12, 5 March 2011 (UTC)
All sources are unreliable to varying degrees. The use of the term "reliable source" actually encourages a naive credulity with regard to some types of source. It would be better if wikipedia could find alternative terminology. Mowsbury ( talk) 17:12, 5 March 2011 (UTC)
A problem has arisen in an article. How does one tell if a Chinese language source is reliable? First, there is a problem of an "English language encyclopedia" user reading it, or reading things about it which may only exist in Chinese script. Second, there is a problem that most such sources are published by the communist government, or censored by it, and the government has an economic stake in everything, so it is effectively always "self published" or "self edited". PPdd ( talk) 17:09, 4 March 2011 (UTC)
Proposed addition -
To get help with questions relating to foreign language sources (including help in determining whether the source is reliable), consider contacting the members of the relevant WikiProjects (eg: for questions relating to sources in Chinese, contact Wikipedia:WikiProject China), or contacting someone at the wiki for that language (e.g., if a source occurs in an article, consider posting at that article's talk page in the wiki for that language).
Is there a wiki for some languages that is independent of the English language wiki projects?
PPdd (
talk)
02:00, 6 March 2011 (UTC)
@PPdd: Not sure what you mean there, aside from belonging to the same overall project and sharing the basic principles are all the non english WPs independent of us. They all have their own administrators and their own set of guidelines, they do not depend on us for anything.If you look at it from article per capita perspective many of them are even way ahead of us (see [1])-- Kmhkmh ( talk) 01:50, 6 March 2011 (UTC)
I've been trying to help a bit at RSN, and gaming portals tend to come up. See most recently. [2] A topic such as gaming doesn't typically have types of sources that we value — scholarly articles, books, mainstream media, etc. So websites are often used as sources. In giving feedback, I look at the website to try to get a sense for whether there's some sort of editorial oversight. But there's no way of really knowing. I seem to remember that there's a gaming project that deals with this. Can someone point me to that, or any other relevant guide that one might use in giving feedback when these issues arise? Thanks. TimidGuy ( talk) 12:37, 9 March 2011 (UTC)
{{
edit semi-protected}}
Requested edit. (adds wikilinks for primary, secondary and tertiary sources)
75.47.137.71 ( talk) 00:36, 11 March 2011 (UTC)
Anyone who knows British tabloids at all knows the reputation of the Daily Star: basically, it doesn't have one. While there have been cases of the newspaper systematically fabricating stories, a an ex-reporter admitted fabricating stories after resigning and claimed the practice was not only known about, it was approved of by the editors. However, NEWSORG implies reliability in the case of the Star, as it is mainstream (higher circulation than the Guardian, at least) and it does have "news". Should the guideline be clarified that this is not an automatic pass? Sceptre ( talk) 18:02, 12 March 2011 (UTC)
I'm looking for some input over at the Newspaper of record article. User:Corbridge is insisting on deleting the New York Times from the list of examples of newspapers of record (the entry is sourced with the Encyclopedia Britannica article on the NYT), on the basis that "It is an opinion supported by an unreliable source. Please provide a reliable source. Another Encylop EB is not a RS". Any thoughts? It's news to me that Encyclopedia Britannica is not a reliable source, but I don't want to edit war with this user. Thanks. -- Skeezix1000 ( talk) 21:13, 9 March 2011 (UTC)
Cote was recently in the film Grown Ups (starring Adam Sandler). —Preceding unsigned comment added by 64.111.137.227 ( talk) 13:21, 16 March 2011 (UTC)
Are internet blogs that pretend to be new sources (Newsbusters, Huffington Post, Pajamas Media, Media Matters, Infowars, FAIR, Accuracy in Media, etc) really reliable sources?
Senior Trend ( talk) 05:22, 6 March 2011 (UTC)
I've removed a slew of endorsements from Chris Robinson (animation scholar), quoting praise -- at length -- by other authors. They appear to be dust jacket blurbs. My own view is that a journalistic review from an WP:RS lavishing praise is independent and worth citing, while endorsements from fellow authors, as one typically finds on book covers, or inside front pages, are not. I've tried to find a guideline that addresses book blurbs of this kind -- is there one? Thanks, Shawn in Montreal ( talk) 15:43, 14 March 2011 (UTC)
Is this a reliable source and if so, would it stand up to an FAC? - Neutralhomer • Talk • Coor. Online Amb'dor • 17:37, 24 March 2011 (UTC)
{{edit semi-protected}} Montrose Hagin birth date is wrong she was born June 12 1917 Can also supply a picture for her page.
98.151.152.132 ( talk) 21:08, 24 March 2011 (UTC)
The following discussion is about a specific IRS problem on the IRS noticeboard that contains a lot of general IRS discussion. It is in danger of being lost when/if the specific problem is fixed, leaving no change in the guideline, or even discussion on the WP:IRS TALK page. So here is a (small) part of the discussion, abstracting out much of the (irrelevant) specifics that led to it:
CHALLENGE:
Unhappy with WP:V, you've tried to change it and, at various points have pleaded to have it (essentially) ignored. Failing that, you're here on the reliable sources noticeboard challenging the reliability of the New York Times to verify a piece of data that everyone seems to agree with (official sources, those disputing the official sources, etc.). Someone brings up WP:WAX, so now you're challenging that. What policies, guidelines and/or essays do you generally agree with, other than WP:IAR? - SummerPhD ( talk) 17:39, 23 March 2011 (UTC)
ANSWER:
Jayjg, did you read the above? If the NYT does not fact check parts of obituaries or death notices like cause-of-death (which they do not) but instead rely on family who has this private information to supply to the paper, then why does republication in the NYT confer ANY extra reliability on such information? That is a triumph of surface-value over substance, but it's no progress epistemologically (comment, user:Itsmejudith?). In fact, this actually detracts from whatever information-value the material has, since it tends to HIDE the original source, just as is happening in this case. See churnalism. It's one thing for WP:IRS to mention "churnalism"- apparently it's something else for WP to actually incorporate the consequences of it, into policy or even guideline (which it has not). The family tells the NYT that the guy died of pneumonia, and this is considered by WP to be RS because the NYT prints it, but when the family later decides the cause was arsenic leading to pneumonia, the editors at WP refuse to accept this, ostensibly because it comes from the family. We don't know what the NYT would have printed if the family had initially claimed death-by-arsenic, or by Martian ray-gun. My guess is that they'd have refused to print anything on the cause of death, if it was too odd-sounding. But again, that fact adds no information, if what they DID print was noncontroversial. We already know that the NYT is likely to print non-controversial causes of death, but probably wouldn't print something outrageous or even odd (death by Humboldt Squid attack in a death notice), since they can't fact-check either one. So the fact that that they print "pneumonia" adds no level of likeliness that it actually was pneumonia as an ultimate (rather than only proximate) cause, since we already know the paper has an "unusual claim" filter at this level in death notices (which is not the same as fact-checking system-- it's just a skeptic-filter).
To SummerPhD: I merely gave an example of the NYT "fessing up" to their own errors (which they didn't catch;somebody else did) as a shortcut to get around argument that maybe they actually didn't make that many errors. Perhaps you think that an error by the NYT counts only if they admit it, or that if I can't find them admitting it, it doesn't count? If so, that is wrong. There are plenty of errors the NYT makes they never "fess up" to. For example, Judith Miller's NYT "exclusive" stories on Iraq's WMDs (which helped the drumbeat toward that war) were based in no small part, but without attribution, on Ahmed Chalabi's claims, a fact that the NYT (as noted) didn't include at the time, and has never appologized for, as an "error" (any more than the US government has). In this gaff, Chalabi's claims took on the NYT's reputation, and in doing so, made the government sound like their own WMD claims had been independently verified, by being taken up as a story (without attribution to Chalabi) by a liberal newspaper. BUT, you must read about this gaff in OTHER media, who (of course) lose nothing in making the NYT look like the rumor-spreading fools that they were in this case [3]. Like the game of "telephone," but one where each player gets more and more reputation as the chain elongates, it's a mess. Example: Curveball (informant)'s claims eventually taking on the reputation for accuracy of Colin Powell, who hadn't fact-checked them, any more than anybody ELSE had.
Consider Dan Rather and CBS's defense of the authenticity of the Killian documents, which they say their experts checked. It's a separate question from the problems of churnalism per se, of whether any given news medium (or government agency, for that matter) has a "reputation for acuracy" better than it deserves. If so, who is to say, and how would one know? From some other source? And what about THEIR reputation? Without application of science, this is ALL just a game of "he-said, she-said" more or less as happens in any nasty-divorce-trial, but without any primary evidence admitted anywhere. user:Itsmejudith, can you tell us about the epistemology of he-said/she-said? It's the method WP uses for much of its material. Do you see a problem with that? In examples above (Curveball) jounalists and government have ignored even legal rules of evidence, and admitted not only hearsay, but hearsay about hearsay! And when this goes to press, it all is transformed to WP:RELIABLE and WP:VERIFIABLE. Come on.
Oh, yes, and in answer to SummerPhD asking which WP policies I do agree with, see the end of section at [4]. I think WP:MEDRS is the best standard that exists at WP:IRS, which otherwise flails around a lot. Even as journalism is decaying, and journalism even admits that it is decaying, WP at the same time has enthroned journalism as a major source of reliable truth. That is bad. S B H arris 16:59, 24 March 2011 (UTC)
Andrew Lancaster, your questions are interesting, but where is the place to discuss them? If I complain about epistemology on the TALK page of an article, I get sent to RS/N (as happened here). If the problem is removed, we still end up with policy issues, which perhaps should be discussed at TALK page for WP:IRS. Which I can do, although those people get tired of arguing policy without specific examples in front of them. [But here the generalities are reposted anyway]
The short answer to your question is that things are all mucked up on IRS. They can't even decide if a newspaper report (front page NYT) ala Judith Miller's "reports" about Saddam's WMD's in 2002, are primary or secondary sources. One problem is that people like Miller don't give their OWN sources (in this case, it was an unreliable one) so why should we trust them? It's not as though Miller is likely to have checked out her sources with other journalists, let alone other newspapers-- that's not the way that world works. In science, however, it actually DOES work that way.
We can also see on WP:IRS that WP has no understanding of your average primary science experimental paper, published in a peer-reviewed journal, for it labels such things "primary sources." Anyone who actually has written one of these things knows that it contains many levels of information, starting with a "why we did this" section, continuing with two sections that on WP would be labeled WP:OR, and then a WP:SYNTH part where the authors interpret their findings, do a mini-review of the literature (ordinarily a secondary-source thing) and attempt to put their findings into perspective by contasting them with others, and often ending with a paragraph or two, of what in journalism would be called "Op-Ed". However, all this is is seen by multiple other (anonymous) reviewers before it gets to print, and the primary authors have a chance to correct it, also. It is NOT like a diary, published later by somebody (a classic historical primary source). Also, there is no way to compare it with anything a newspaper does. Do you see my problem? WP:RSMED (which again I didn't write, but like) does an admirable job of starting to get the epistemology of reading a scientific paper down to some kind of algorithm (it still takes quite a lot of sophisitication). However, nothing is available on WP for other fields, and certainly nothing that attempts to compare reliability in one field with another, something that happens ALL THE TIME in writing encyclopedia articles.
The answer to what to do about this for me as an editor, has been (in the past) to use my own judgement. What else can one do? However, there's no good way to settle arguments. I don't really think the problem has a good answer. But it would be good if we got the difficulties out into the open, and ADMITTED that it doesn't have a good answer. And that right now, all such problems are being handled by violating the letter of WP:SYNTH, and by argumentum ad baculum at the point of administrative-block tools, again without admitting this. There's a reason why the first steps of Alcoholics Anonymous involve admiting you have a problem, and you can't fix it. WP hasn't even gotten to Step 1 of the 12 Steps, after working a decade on it. The reason being that WP departed from the expert-review vision it initially started with when it was invented by Sanger, and then attempted to bureaucratize the dysfunctional result after that, in order to try to make the reliability problems disappear under a load of increasingly difficult to understand and jargonish policy guidelines. See my comments on the TALK page of WP:V. [5] [6] And of course, dissenters are suppressed or (eventually) leave, or are banned. I'm just waiting my own turn, though I've edited here since late 2005. S B H arris 21:15, 25 March 2011 (UTC)
The truth is that the most stories generated by "reputable news outlets" GENERALLY contain errors. If might be true that are "are generally considered reliable" but this general consideration is in error, for they shouldn't be. For example, here's a 2007 study in which 2,615 hard factual errors were found in a random sample of 1,220 stories clipped from major metropolitan papers, reporting on locally-generated events. These were stories on page 1, or in the metro, business, and the lifestyle sections. The study culled sports stories, opinion pieces, columns, and reviews and it didn't look at network news stories. Obviously many stories had more than one error and fewer than half had none. The errors were found by doing fact-checking surveys of primary news sources named in the articles, who had first-hand knowledge of the event being reported (things like age, title, spelling of names, and so on). All stuff that could have been done before publication, if the newspaper had cared, or had a policy of doing it. 69% of the stories sent for error review to the primary sources actually were reviewed and returned, so this doesn't represent much of a bias toward getting reports only from erroneous stories. Finally, the most shocking fact discovered is that only 2% of these errors were ever retracted by the papers, with the maximum rate being 5%. [7] The other 98% stand forever, as fodder for Wikipedia, under present guidelines.
The results here correspond with my own experience of news articles, in which I have never seen an article about some event of which I had first-hand knowledge, printed without some gross error. Many of these could have been fixed had journalists sent their copy to their primary sources for fact-review prior to publication, but I have found by bitter experience that not only will most journalists refuse to send their sources such copy prior to print (the most you get is they MIGHT condescend to read you a bit, over the phone). This is as a point of pride, but they often will not do it due to direct newspaper policy, for a host of legalistic reasons. Actually, I don't CARE what their reasons are, or if they can be fixed. The point is that this happens, and they cannot, or will not, fix it.
I am amazed that WP, which relies on thousands of eyes to review facts for any well-read article, would regard as more reliable, a news story that has been fact-checked by maybe one set of other eyes (not counting copy-editing), and that set is some other editor who cannot possibly be as knowlegeable about the story, as the story's subject and others who have first-hand knowledge about the event. Publication in a newspaper does not increase factual reliability; I don't really know why anybody thinks so. S B H arris 02:36, 30 March 2011 (UTC)
Newspapers are a "first draft of history" and are as full of errror as you'd expect from the way they are produced. They can be used as cites for what people and media thought at the time an event was happening, and for sources of the facts of historical events during the (hopefully short) period in which there has been no review, but later should be replaced by better sources as they come out. The short-time use should to limited on WP, since WP is WP:NOTNEWS (even though it tries to be-- in our shinking world WP is influenced by recentism, which is error-ridden).
In some historical cases, where no other sources are ever located but the news accounts (this happens a lot in the 19th century), we have to use what we have, as a semi-reliable source is better than no information at all. Historians must deal all the time with what to do with century-old news stories that come out a day after the event, but sometimes are not fully checked with their primary sources and witnesses (a story about something a journalists personally saw is not the same as a story about something a journalist reports on a deadline secondhand); and how to compare these with coroner or trial transcripts of what people say about the same event weeks or months later, vs. what people remember years later.
In any case, all these are WP:IRS issues, and probably shouldn't even be mentioned in WP:V. WP:V might speak to the usability of blogs, but only because they are evanescent. In these days of self-publication and small and smaller publishing houses (sometimes only 3 people only work for small imprint) the only reason to deprecate blogs is that you can't be sure they won't change, not because they are "self-published." Most organizations have publications these days, and they're all self-published. "Self-published" is hard to define, and in any case, the WP:V faults for it that we mention doesn't apply to print, nor to things reliably archived and available. Those things only have RS problems due to bias and relative lack of review by others, not V problems. Any by the way, the evanscense problems apply to many on-line sources that are reviewed, but due to become (i.e., will probably be) deadlinked on WP when somebody stops hosting them. But that usually doesn't cause them to run afoul of WP:V even BEFORE they disappear, as appears to be the case for "self-published works." Yet, evanescence is given as the reason for attacking the "self-publications", sometimes as a last ditch effort after their reliablity has withstood all attacks (I was just involved in one IRS argument about this type, about the GRG which keeps gerontological records). S B H arris 16:49, 30 March 2011 (UTC)
http://move.themaneater.com/ I would like to know if this qualifies as an RS. It could be vital to solving a genre war. Thanks! DCcomicslover ( talk) 19:15, 29 March 2011 (UTC)DCcomicslover
It seems that according to the "reliable sources" guidelines, Wikipedia itself is not a reliable source. It's barely more than a web forum where people can edit each others' work, not just respond to it. 1) The work itself is not a reliable source. 2) The authors are not (guaranteed) experts, therefore not reliable. 3) The publication itself is just a website not a reliable publisher with a staff of experts and professional fact-checkers.
I say this not to troll, but rather to point out that the guidelines are both ironic and outdated. Ironic, because, this publication has shown itself to be at least as reliable as many professional encyclopedias, almanacs, etc, yet has been at the forefront of upending the traditional system of knowledge gathering and dissemination. Outdated, because, the world has moved beyond merely the sources described as reliable. I understand the goal and sympathize, but it's outdated. Let me give an example.
I've been following an online series on the history of gianduia at dallasfood.org. The stuff is impeccably researched and footnoted. Technically it's a blog, one person's publication without peer or editorial review in any traditional sense. I added a footnote to the site in the Gianduja (chocolate) page for the proper/common Italian spelling of the word (which is actually "gianduia" not "gianduja"). I emailed the guy and encouraged him to update some of the historical information in Wikipedia that I was noticing was out of date/wrong as I was reading his articles and trying to get more context online. So he did. He made a change to the Waldensians page and footnoted it with a link to his site. Now, obviously there's no subterfuge here. There's no SEO advantage to linking to his site since Wikipedia does NO FOLLOWS. And the guy doesn't have ads on his site, either. And again, anyone who looks through the articles can see how impeccably researched it is. I don't know how he got his hands on all those Italian documents, but apparently he did. And he has photos/scans of some of them proving it. Yet, his changes were removed and now he tells me he's unlikely to add anything to Wikipedia again. Wikipedia's loss for sure.
Is he an expert in the field? I don't think so. He appears to be an obsessive hobbyist who is so interested in the issue that he's reading tons of academic sources and original sources. But he's obviously a hell of a lot more reliable than the other sources that are being used on the subject matters he's dealing with. He seems to have thoroughly debunked several common claims that appear to have been inserted into history by companies' marketing, primarily. And yet, he's not a reliable source and someone removed his footnotes and claims.
It's ludicrous and extremely ironic. I worked in the editorial department of newspapers for over a decade and I know how questionable a lot of the information that comes from them is, especially before there were digital recorders and the internet. Very few journalists have ever done the kind of research this guy is doing and yet the Dallas Morning News is a reliable source and this guy isn't. It's ass backwards and doesn't make sense for Wikipedia given the nature of its own articles and oversight.
There should be more emphasis placed on whether online content used as a source shows signs of going through the process of making itself reliable. The number one item in that regard, imo, is not a fallacious appeal to authority, such as is the basis for much traditional/mainstream media, but the evidence in the online articles themselves, such as footnoting, data, etc. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 64.201.141.251 ( talk) 07:25, 1 April 2011 (UTC)
(ec) I think these are just common misunderstandings. Please consider and see if this answers the concerns:-
Not sure where this question goes.
One statistic that I have managed to keep out of place articles is the projection of how many jobs a particular business indirectly creates (for anyone new to economics, this is NOT how many the business employs or intends to employ) and how much "domestic product" in cash, it generates in the community (again, indirectly, not their payroll nor accounting). Normally, if you add these up for everybody, they way outstrip the local domestic product and the number of adults in the area. Great for chamber of commerce pitches. Seems lousy for reporting in "fact" articles. This doesn't sound reliable to me. Student7 ( talk) 12:52, 1 April 2011 (UTC)
The issue of advocacy groups keeps cropping up at RSN (and WP:V and WP:NPOV), so I think we may need to spell it out... What do people think about adding the following (or something like it):
I am thinking that this could go in the "Some types of sources" section, or in WP:SPS. Thoughts? Blueboar ( talk) 17:46, 17 April 2011 (UTC)
The policy isn't explicit on this, but this uses what appears to be a fairly dubious source. Are press releases, especially this very web 2.0 type of press release, a reliable source? The claim isn't particularly unlikely, especially since if you read the announcement it's a fairly token boycott. SDY ( talk) 02:10, 19 April 2011 (UTC)
Being known as a mainstream news source does not automatically make said source reliable. Several news sources have reputations for—and have sometimes admitted to—either incomplete or biased coverage, a failure to do due research, and, in egregious cases, complete falsification of some stories. Even for reputable sources, there are various articles which may not be reliable. Having corroborating sources increases the chance the information is reliable, but beware of the practice of "churnalism", especially in print media. Prioritise sourcing to news agencies above other news sources.
I have two issues with the above:
1. Regarding the last sentence, I think it is a questionable that news agencies (AP, Reuters, and many are worse) are more reliable. They have a particular drawback in that they traditionally do not take public feedback. (Although is this now different in the internet age? Do they read comments?)
Back in the days of shortwave radio when we would send in QSL reports to radio stations, it was well known that the BBC would not reply to them. And this from an organisation that for decades had a reputation of being the most "reliable" and "unbiased" of news sources! Old_Wombat ( talk) 09:23, 26 April 2011 (UTC)
2. Regarding "[s]everal news sources have reputations for—and have sometimes admitted to—either incomplete or biased coverage, a failure to do due research, and, in egregious cases, complete falsification of some stories.", this sounds like a good description of the New York Times. (What? You thought I would say Fox News?) Yet we have to accept the NYT as reliable for a newspaper, simply because it is respected by the other newspapers and even determines what - in the U.S. - is a news story (see Bernard Goldberg, Bias for a personal account of the latter). So while in my personal opinion the paper is complete garbage, I would be the last to claim it is not a legitimate Wikipedia source (taken with some grains of salt, and with certain exceptions), and more usable as such than any other American newspaper. In other words, what is a mainstream publication is not necessarily related to its actual quality, so I think this statement is not useful and should be deleted. Mzk1 ( talk) 21:38, 30 March 2011 (UTC)
One has to be a bit careful here, though they might be occure more often in (various) newspapers descriptions like "failure of due research" or "misleading descriptions/errors" and the "admission to have published errors" do apply to all publication including most prestigious science/academic publications (remember cold fusion in Nature). In other words if one resorts to absolutes (having admitted errors or lack of due research exclude a source from usage), one ends up not being to use any reasonable source.-- Kmhkmh ( talk) 01:19, 31 March 2011 (UTC)
Being known as a mainstream news source does not automatically make said source reliable. Several news sources have reputations for either incomplete or biased coverage which affects the integrity of the story, a failure to do due research, and, in egregious cases, complete falsification of some stories. Even for otherwise reputable sources, there are areas of coverage where a publication may not be reliable for the aforementioned reasons. Having corroborating sources increases the chance the information is reliable, but beware of the practice of " churnalism", especially in print media. Check each source before using it.
Would it be out of place to say that I am touched and gratified by the reponse to my comment? I half expected to be pilloried for my comment; there have been at least a couple of attempts here to make the left-wing persepctive the only acceptable one.
While I believe my original comments were caused by the differences between U.S. and U.K. newspapers, I see now that I had perhaps misunderstood the term "mainstream" newspapers. If one divided American newspapers into three broad categories:
(1) Major newspapers, such as the New York Times, WSJ, Baltimore Sun, etc. Almost all of these have their point of reference somewhere in the Democratic Party.
(2) Secondary newspapers, such as the New York and Chicago Daily News. These may have greater circulation than the major ones, and tend to concentrate on local issues.
(3) Gossip sheets such as the Weekly World News, the National Enquirer, etc.
My understanding of "mainstream" was that the first category was almost always to be accepted without question, the second generally, and the third almost never. Do I understand now that both categories (1) and (2) should be considered mainstream?
Regarding wire services, my understanding was that network TV news and wire services were known for ignoring complaints from the general public. (Complaints from their customers, the newspapers and local stations, are limited by jounalistic groupthink.) Perhaps this has changed, but examples from AP and Reuters make me resistant to consider them more reliable that their clients. Mzk1 ( talk) 18:50, 2 April 2011 (UTC)
In the Terai article about a region of Nepal, someone cited [1]
It happens to be in connection with a very mundane, probably non-controversial statement. Nevertheless the source is probably unavailable to 99.999% of Wikipedians. It was published in Kathmandu, not available online as far as I can tell. Google Books does list it, but provides none of its contents. So is this a valid reference per WP policies? LADave ( talk) 20:52, 16 April 2011 (UTC)
I'm curious if there is any policy that covers secondary sources that have not yet been determined through consensus at WP to be reliable, but that have been cited by definite reliable sources. More specifically, I'm interested in whether an individual article from an uncertain source becomes reliable if it is cited by a reliable source. Thanks in advance for any help you can provide. - Thibbs ( talk) 20:33, 22 April 2011 (UTC)
Thoughts? Ocaasi c 15:19, 23 April 2011 (UTC)
In 2009 grandson Robert Kim Bingham, Sr. published a book about WWII rescuer Hiram Bingham IV, son of Hiram Bingham III, titled COURAGEOUS DISSENT: How Harry Bingham Defied His Government to Save Lives. Source: http://pages.cthome.net/WWIIHERO/ —Preceding unsigned comment added by 70.138.29.231 ( talk) 12:02, 26 April 2011 (UTC)
Dominick W. Giannino, who graduated in 2003, is an animal trainer who has performed around the country with big cats on circuses and zoological parks. He has also worked handling elephants for Ringling Bros. and Barnum & Bailey Circus. If you google search Cole Brothers Circus and WLOX, there will be a page with two videos on the show, one is specifically about him. Also google search his name and Cole Brothers Circus and more information can be found —Preceding unsigned comment added by 69.113.110.247 ( talk) 14:23, 26 April 2011 (UTC)
"Editors must take particular care when writing biographical material about living persons." - no argument there.
"Remove unsourced or poorly sourced contentious material immediately if it is about a living person."
Ahh, now there I see a problem. Borrowing from information theory, would it not be better to include it and flag it as "contentious"? This gives the reader TWO pieces of information (one, what was said; and two, that it is contentious); rather than not have anything at all, which gives the reader no information whatsoever: after all, you can't tell from a blank page what ISN'T written on it! What is "fair" and what is "unfair" becomes even more complicated if the person in question is himself frequently contentious, like say a Michael Moore. Old_Wombat ( talk) 09:17, 26 April 2011 (UTC)
Is anyone aware if such a thing as hierarchy of source quality exists? Ie, if certain topics are contentious, is there any guideline advocating for the preferential use of "expert" or "in-depth" literature rather than what might be considered as "generalist " ? Slovenski Volk ( talk) 09:24, 28 April 2011 (UTC)
We have an agreement to use a reference in an article. I still question this reference, which will be used anyhow because we don't have anything "better" right now.
It is located at http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/42555888/ns/us_news-life. The author has won a Pulitzer Prize for investigative journalism. In the wake of Fukushima, and opposing nuclear power, he has taken American power plants, drawn circles around them and counted the number of people there. And published it implying an "at risk population" (we don't quite have the nomenclature down in our separate discussion). We are assuming that the circles are drawn in accordance with recognized threat guidelines.
That doesn't mean the people counted there are, though. Tough for a non-census weenie to count census-designated places that partially lay outside, partially inside those "circles." My take on this is that the author is a fine recognized investigative journalist. But this is circle-drawing and head-counting, well outside his range of expertise.
If he, instead, had interviewed a census guy or statistics guy and got the same charts from them, that would be quite another matter and within his range of expertise. Figuring out which set of charts told the correct story.
But he is, IMO, committing WP:OR, just like a Wikipedia editor might, in "drawing circles" to support his WP:POV. I would appreciate neutral opinion. Thanks. Student7 ( talk) 13:12, 29 April 2011 (UTC)