Jguk, please be reasonable - religious tolerance cites it's sources, everything's not made up. Don't make arbitrary edits like that. YOu don't have anything personal against them, do you? Izehar ( talk) 13:07, 17 December 2005 (UTC)
It's more a case that if you believe something is reliable as a reference, you need to defend it. The onus is always on someone who wishes to include something in Wikipedia to justify why it should remain - not the other way round. At least some of us are discussing things now.
Izehar - the point remains that Religioustolerance.org is effectively one man's blog, and that of a man with no academic training and stature in the subject. Yes, it cites its sources - but then so does an undergraduate essay. It also mis-cites its sources and draws conclusions that are unsupported by them. I have no problem with that - virtually all the essays are Bruce Robinson's opinion pieces, and he is entitled to hold whatever opinion he wants. But all this does mean that they are inappropriate as an academic resource.
Nandesuka makes a useful point - just because religioustolerance.org is unsuitable, because it cites its sources it could be used to help find appropriate academic sources. I have no difficulty at all in that - but in that case Wikipedia should cite the original academic source, not religioustolerance.org.
However, any "stand back and have a look at what Religioustolerance.org really is" analysis will conclude that it is of limited, if any, academic value. I'm also concerned that the English Wikipedia is the sixth highest site linking into religioustolerance.org [3]. Ideally we should have no links to it, jguk 13:32, 17 December 2005 (UTC)
I am surprised by the controversy. I have been using OCRT for years (longer than I have been using Wikipedia) and they adhere to the same NPOV philosophy as we do. The fact that it is largely the work of one man, to me, only serves to underscore the brilliance of the accomplishment. Carolynparrishfan 14:29, 17 December 2005 (UTC)
From WP:V: Personal websites and blogs are not acceptable as sources, except on the rare occasion that a well-known person, or a known professional journalist or researcher in a relevant field, has set up such a website. Remember that it is easy for anybody to create a website and to claim to be an expert in a certain field, or to start an "expert group", "human rights group", church, or other type of association. Several million people have created their own blogs in the last few years. They are not regarded as acceptable sources for Wikipedia. See Wikipedia:Reliable sources for more information.
Please note that I had a similar issue with user:Zappaz who inserted long quotes from religious tolerance into to the article cult. Eventually the references to religious tolerance was dropped in favor or direct references. Andries
Another quote is relevant here: Beware false authority. Would you trust a plumber to fill your cavities? Likewise, you should probably not trust someone who has a Ph.D. in plant biology to tell you about quantum mechanics. Just as actors in TV commercials don white lab coats to make viewers think they are serious scientists, people with degrees in one field are not necessarily experts in any other. Watch out for false claims of authority. Try to use sources who have degrees in the field they are discussing. The more reputable ones are affiliated with academic institutions. The most reputable have written textbooks in their field for the undergraduate level or higher: these authors can be expected to have a broad, authoritative grasp of their subject.
Regarding credentials: [4] and [5] describe some of the commendations (and criticisms) the site has received. Highlights: a four-star rating from Encyclopedia Britannica ("Canadian nondenominational society whose stated mission is to 'promote the understanding and tolerance of minority religions; expose religious hatred and misinformation; and supply information on controversial religious topics to help you reach your own decisions.' Includes well-informed profiles of a variety of religious traditions, as well as in-depth considerations of particularly controversial religious topics."). From the American Library Association: " The information is very well-done and balanced. The scope of the information is very thorough. In addition, the individual entries are well-done whether the religion is controversial or not. For example, the information on Satanism is very balanced and informative. The entry cuts through the scare tactics, misinformation and hype and presents a balanced picture on Satanism. The other entries are equally as well balanced and thorough. In most cases, the online articles have references and further web-sites to explore." (This review was from 1996, when the site was less developed than it currently is.) Commendations have come from various academic organizations: Schoolzone, which evaluates Internet sites for the British public schools, gave it a "highly recommended rating." Also, "TagTeacherNet has recommended our site to its 24,400 members, most of whom are teachers." There are numerous others. Firebug 14:06, 17 December 2005 (UTC)
I've now stated clearly on the project page what the proposed new guidelines are. I have divided the "references" and "external links" issues into two, and given two alternatives on the "external links" point.
Also, I should note that, on reflection, it would have been better to have made comments on all the talk pages of the affected articles from the start rather than just to make the edits in the first place. I have always preferred to be bold, but I should have realised that any reliability of sources issue is likely to be controversial, jguk 15:10, 17 December 2005 (UTC)
Ok, I don't really want to get involved into this huge debate, but personally speaking, every time I've googled something about Christianity for, well, anything, and religioustolerance.org popped up, it was either very slanted against one side, (Generally the side that interprets the Bible literally) it didn't cite the Bible well for things, or it just plain had bad arguments, but that's just what i've personally seen. So I don't know if this will matter, but I think i'd support a policy of this site not being used as a primary source for anything, but I don't know if I'd want it to never be allowed to be cited. Homestarmy 02:16, 29 January 2006 (UTC)
I can understand jguk's reluctance to have religioustolerance.org be cited directly as a source, though I disagree with his method of deleting all references to it without first discussing it. I have a different reason for objecting to the use of religioustolerance.org as a source: it has advertising. No source of information that relies on advertising for funding can ever be reliable. -- Angr ( t· c) 14:33, 17 December 2005 (UTC)
I am the main editor for Religious Tolerance.org. Only today (2007-OCT-07) have I stumbled across this debate. I would like to make two points: 1) Advertisements are essential. My group needs revenue to pay for our part-time employee and to purchase books for our library. Banner ads are the only feasible method to make sufficient money. We do receive some donations, but they are not nearly enough. 2) Essentially all of the advertisements on our site are provided by either Doubleclick or Google Adsense. In the twelve years that we have been online, we have never had any exchange of communication from any advertiser. They simply appear on our pages as supplied by Doubleclick or Adsense.
In an ideal world, the Internet would have been designed so that every essay would cost, say 0.1 cent to read with the revenue going to the author. Too late to start that now. And so ads are the only solution.
Bruce A Robinson at ocrt@religioustolerance.org —Preceding unsigned comment added by 72.38.156.121 ( talk) 23:29, 7 October 2007 (UTC)
I particularly like the part of the proposal that reads:
This does not sound at all unreasonable to me. Since the main contention here seems to be that this engineer and his few friends in Toronto are concocting stuff off the top of their heads, it only makes good sense to ask that you find at least one more reliable source that concurs with them... ፈቃደ ( ውይይት) 15:12, 17 December 2005 (UTC)
Most of the entries at the website of the University of Virginia were written by students and so sometimes the quality is very poor including factual mistakes. [7] [8] Sometimes the quality is good. Can we address this in a similar was as the religious tolerance website? Andries 15:37, 17 December 2005 (UTC)
I do not think we should have subpages of wp:v that blanket forbid certain references. I believe it is acceptable - possibly even a good idea - to have a central place where comments and opinions about the reliability and usefulness of a certain source can be stated and discussed.
However, the suitability of a particular reference should be a matter for each article that cites it. — Matthew Brown ( T: C) 22:09, 17 December 2005 (UTC)
I agree - the appropriateness of any cites or external links should be examined on an article by article basis.
Lyrl 01:13, 18 December 2005 (UTC)
I also agree; it's a bad precedent to "blackball" one particular site, even if it's true that it's probably not a good source in most cases. Let the reasonability of a source or link be judged in context each time it's used. *Dan T.* 12:14, 18 December 2005 (UTC)
This whole proposal is bogus, for a thousand reasons that have been mentioned above. Just thought I too would chime in with my opinion. Tommstein 22:47, 17 December 2005 (UTC)
Does anyone else find it troubling that people are attempting to dismiss this (and other) sites based on the author rather than the content? This parallels the critics of Wikipedia who dismiss it because it is not written by "experts". There are some blogs that are far superior to books, and some books far superior to some blogs. Just because something is published in book form or printed in a newspaper doesn't automatically make it superior and more authoritative.
There also needs to be distinction between facts and opinions. "Facts" need to be "scholarly" or from a reputable source. Anyone can have "opinions". Whether these "opinions" are included in articles should be a matter of editorial judgment based on how notable these "opinions" are. Should Wikipedia include opinions from religioustolerance.org? I would think in certain cases it would be appropriate, since this is a highly ranked website. In any case, all opinions should be clearly marked as such, and opposing opinions presented as necessary. Sortan 22:49, 17 December 2005 (UTC)
This page should be moved from the wikipolicy namespace to a Talk:wikipolicy namespace -- JimWae 04:11, 18 December 2005 (UTC)
I've asked Jimbo about his opinion on this whole mess. Firebug 04:17, 18 December 2005 (UTC)
Wikipedia needs policies such as this one. We can't let crazies such as communists or secularists control and corrupt the things in wikipedia. Not only with obscure INTOLERANT blog sites such as Religoustolerance, but there needs to be something to stop the Liberal MSM from infiltrating as well.--Koool 04:27, 18 December 2005 (UTC)
Oh, come on people, anyone who calls "communists and secularists" "crazies" is so far off into looney toon bias that they are just trolling here to make such comments. Any edits that person makes on the topic are clearly so out there that they'd be reverted on site by anyone with even a speck of NPOV in them. There's no need to even respond. Wikipedia:Do not feed the trolls. DreamGuy 11:24, 20 December 2005 (UTC)
Whilst I probably wouldn't be in favour of citing religioustolerance.org as a reference (although even then, I don't see why we need a specific ban for this website, rather than a more general policy), part of the problem is that Jguk has been going around deleting any link to religioustolerance.org, even in External Links sections (eg, at Atheism). Surely it is reasonable to link to the site in an External Links section! Links aren't just about citing references, but also providing links to places the reader may find useful for further reading, or pointing to sites which provide interesting opinions or arguments (or at least, if that's not the point of External Links, then a vast number of External Links on Wikipedia should be removed). Things like the usage of the word "Atheist" are not factual things which you look up in scientific journals, but things where there are more likely to be various opinions; linking to a site which explains the terminology well seems an appropriate thing to do. Mdwh 05:54, 18 December 2005 (UTC)
I wrote
one of the articles (abortion trauma syndrome) that seems to be at the center of this -- (I put religioustolerance.org as an External link).
I have several points:
The reason I included it in the external links is:
I think it is an ill-conceived overreach to make a policy that forbids linking to certain sites:
Nephron 15:24, 18 December 2005 (UTC)
Remember that information that is correct it can be referenced from a variety of sources. It's important though that the sources cited are reliable and reputable. Here we have a website that is not suitable to cite as a reputable source - but that does not mean the information in it is false, and it does not mean that that information cannot go in Wikipedia - it just means a different source is used for that information instead.
Others have noted above (1) their concerns that Robinson does not use his sources properly; and (2) that Robinson's articles do cite sources. Assuming Robinson hasn't erred, it should therefore be possible to back up claims for WP by going back to Robinson's sources, reading them, and citing them as the references for the WP article instead of religioustolerance.org. If it's impossible to find a suitable alternative reference, then we really shouldn't be having that info in WP just on Robinson's say-so.
This page is a centralised discussion on whether one particular website is suitable for references. Hopefully more will emerge (as we really need to eliminate poor "sources"). It is most definitely not about censoring good information - good information can always be sourced by reliable, reputable references, jguk 09:07, 18 December 2005 (UTC)
I am echoing something I said on Jimbo's talk page here, because I think it is relevant. To provide my $0.02 here, I think that jguk approaches this with a specific axe to grind: he wants religioustolerance.org excluded because they disagree with his pet issue of BC vs BCE for dates. That being said, I am in favor of continuing this discussion in its present form because I think there's an important issue at stake here, which is that Wikipedia should always favor primary sources over secondary sources, and secondary sources over tertiary sources, etc. Religioustolerance.org is a great example of a tertiary (or lower) source: it is essentially one man's (or a small number of men's) opinions, citing generally better sources for the factual content contained therein. I think we should not be at all shy about using the primary and secondary sources cited by religioustolerance.org for the benefit of our readers. I think we need a compelling reason to cite an opinion site in favor of doing the work of synthesis ourselves. If we used religioustolerance.org sparingly, in a few places, to demonstrate certain opinions, that would be one thing. But Wikipedia is littered with quite literally hundreds of references to them, often in places where superior verifiable and reputable sources exist. I view this as indicative of a problem, and despite my personal beliefs about jguk's motivation, worthy of serious discussion. While agreeing with El C's concerns about the way this was done, I find the attempts to shut down debate on this topic prematurely to be disturbing. Nandesuka 16:17, 18 December 2005 (UTC)
Perhaps a good first step here would be to catalog the places where religioustolerance.org is linked to by Wikipedia, and to classify those links. I'll propose the following categories, but welcome further suggestions:
My position is that for this is that while the first use is potentially proper, I can't think of a reason why we should be linking to religioustolerance.org (or any similar site) for the second or third uses. What other categories are there?
I'm of the opinion that outright banning a source such as Religioustolerance.org consists of censorship. There's no framework in place to entirely ban a site; every link should be measured by its own merits on a case-by-case basis. Also, I find it disturbing that a single person's quest to censor an entire valuable source is gaining this much traction.
I've done some research into various world religions before and after comparing Religioustolerance.org to other sources I found it to be a very thorough and accurate resource. Why would we want to censor/ban this entire site? -- Cyde Weys talk contribs 20:50, 19 December 2005 (UTC)
No, it's about saying that one website is not suitable to be used as a source. That does not mean that an alternative, reliable source cannot be found for any particular bit of information, jguk 20:44, 21 December 2005 (UTC)
As noted umpteen times before, I'm not out to censor anything - just to ask for reliable, reputable sources for whatever's going in the encyclopaedia. I certainly strongly disagree that any source is "innocent until proven guilty" - a source has to show itself to be reliable and reputable in order to be quotable. If you'll forgive me for some reductio ad absurdum - we wouldn't quote a 6 year old kid on something just because we couldn't prove his website contained an inaccuracy. In the event though, religioustolerance.org is full of bad scholarship - if you want me to quote an example, ask me on my talk page, jguk 22:38, 21 December 2005 (UTC)
... let me put it this way: citing Religioustolerance.org is like citing The Two Babylons as a factual source in Roman Catholicism. In other words, pretty stupid. - Ta bu shi da yu 13:40, 20 December 2005 (UTC)
Have you thought about the possibility that we're concerned about references and how reliable they are? After all, I fail to see how this supports any particular agenda - if a fact is true and verifiable there will be a better, reliable source for it, jguk 20:48, 21 December 2005 (UTC)
What is the difference between citing ReligiousTolerance.org to sources of the Mormon Church for example? Both are probably equally inaccurate for numerical purposes. It is widely known that the LDS Church inflates their numbers substantially. The Roman Catholic Church has done the same thing with Catholics in China according to the US State department. 144.35.254.12 00:39, 22 December 2005 (UTC)
Rather than try to read other people's minds on various issues, I'd like to suggest we get on with categorizing the links. Please feel free to add to this list as you see fit. There are a lot of articles to get through.
Page | Type of usage |
---|---|
Doomsday prediction | External link (listed as "a database", though really it's just a small selection) |
Scouting_For_All | External link on the Boy Scouts. Takes clear editorial position. |
2076 | Used to support factual statement. Link takes editorial stance. Better sources exist. |
Homosexuality and Zoroastrianism | External link. No clear editorial stance. Links to secondary source. |
Preimplantation genetic diagnosis | External link. Categorizes and collates various arguments. |
Hell_house | External link. Article takes clear editorial stance. |
Lukumi | External link. Article takes no editorial stance. "Santerian Beliefs" section is completely unsourced, however. |
Niilo Paasivirta | External link, quotes some text the person has said. Note that the text originally comes from an explanatory page on the person's own website; If the page is found, that probably should be quoted/linked instead. |
We should make a general policy eschewing poor sites (such as Religioustolernace.org), not limiting it to simply this one. Some sort of method for testing whether a site is a good reference source should be determined. The Jade Knight 08:59, 29 December 2005 (UTC)
-- sansvoix 09:08, 29 December 2005 (UTC)
That's a pretty lame attack on a source with no meat to it. "Eschewing poor sites (such as Religioustolerance.org)" indeed. What, exactly, is wrong with Religioustolerance? I've asked for some concrete examples a few times now and nobody's give me a damn thing. This leads me to belief that the objection to Religioustolerance is all pomp and no circumstance. In other words, people are biased against it because of their own views, not because of anything wrong with it itself. -- Cyde Weys vote talk 14:21, 29 December 2005 (UTC)
Despite the apt observations of it being a blog, it's Google ranking speaks for itself as to its relative reliability and primary sources it does use. Any website article/essay is understood to reflect the opinion of the author and/or organization who wrote it. Adding such notes would be time consuming, and in the specific case of RT, arbitrary and discriminatory. It is an essential external link in many cases, as a primary source it should not be used; likewise with any secondary source... be it Wikipedia, encyclopedias or Op/Ed pieces. - Roy Boy 800 20:24, 8 January 2006 (UTC)
I don't think it is a good or helpful to include a statment such as "There are more atheists in the U.S. than members of any religion other than Christianity." For one, it is an unsubstantiated claim, but even if we could find a citation for this, the statement should be clarified. After reading the multiple meanings of "atheist", I am left wondering: What is an atheist? What definition of atheism did the study use (if we can find one)?
This needs to be settled as one editor on the Christianity article is using this page as a statement of policy and has told another editor with whom there is some disagreement over the History section that "that site (RT) should never be used to source information in Wikipedia articles". From reading this discussion I'm guessing that this is not so but leaving this as an ongoing debate is obviously causing confusion.
Whatever side you are on, surely the concept of banning sources evokes Big Brother images. Once the principle is established, the credibility of Wiki will be undermined. There are enough motivated editors on the religious articles to make sure that inaccurate references do not get through. As they say - the "truth will out" - but only when information (accurate or inaccurate) is not censored. Believe it or not, most people are smart enough to ask further questions when they come across information that doesn't seem to fit with what they thought was true.
The only justifiable censorship in MO is the exploitation of minors such as child pornography. SOPHIA 11:35, 23 January 2006 (UTC)
Religioustolerance.org is a better source than the Bible for factual information, yet I see people in Christian-related articles cite the Bible as if it were fact. The site is informative and well-researched, and it is worth citing given that it has international recognition and a great deal of acclaim from various other credible sources. Titanium Dragon 06:05, 5 March 2006 (UTC)
I concur. Does that mean that we can terminate this discussion now, and formally mark Religioustolerance.org as a citeable source? Clinkophonist 19:34, 18 June 2006 (UTC)
I find the complaint that I (the main author on ReligiousTolerance.org) lack academic qualifications interesting. One of the main goals of that site is to explain various religious topics giving all viewpoints, and describing a wide range of religions, including their conservative, mainline, liberal and other factions. If I were to have a PhD in religion from, say, the Union Theological Seminary I would probably be hopelessly biased for life in a religiously liberal direction. If I went to a fundamentalist Bible school, I might be hopelessly biased in a religiously conservative direction. Best to have no post-secondary specialist education in the field of religion at all. A better route would be to have a degree in some topic that provides training in reason and communication. I am a graduate of the University of Toronto in Engineering Physics and spent 38 years working for a large textile company working in instrumentation development. A major part of my career was involved in writing manuals for the users of the instrumentation that my group developed. Further, I am an Agnostic, and thus do not have any particular bias for or against any religious group. I feel that I am much better qualified than most people to meet the specific challenges of my job.
In defense of our site, I will mention that we are the only religious website of which we are aware that has an errata section for reporting errors that we or our visitors have reported. We currently have 4,019 essays online; we cover a lot of ground.
We have been the brunt of many attacks since 1995 when our first essays went online. We just survived a denial of service attack last week, for example. We get lots of hate Email and the occasional death threat. We get many negative Emails from religious liberals complaining of our description of the conservative position on various topics; we get even more Emails from religious conservatives complaining about our liberal content. Some people really hate seeing opposing positions cited. We get about 3 to 4 times as many positive unsolicited Emails as negative ones. Bruce Robinson, 7 October 2007. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 72.38.156.121 ( talk) 23:57, 7 October 2007 (UTC)
I am a member of a small conservative Christian faith group that is covered by both wikipedia and religious tolerance.org. The wiki article is strongly biased and has been largely written (last I checked, I hate to even look now) by an anonymous author using self-published sources reflecting similar bias. The religioustolerance.org is the best article on our group on the web. It has a few errors and is not entirely complimentary to our group but it is fair.
So it seems the height of absurdity for wikipedia to assess www.religioustolerance.org. At least the site authors have a face and a a name.
I believe wiki was good when it just copied from reliable sources but now it's expansion is largely based on OR. No stopping it because wiki is really for hobbyist (e.g. unpaid) researchers and writers.
RSuser (
talk) 22:31, 13 July 2009 (UTC)
I have a simple question which I would like to ask the other editors on this page: is it more acceptable to cite a tertiary/secondary source, or a primary source, for any matter? Surely, one would pick the primary source. I think one thing we must all be able to agree on is that if we need to cite something, we would be better off using the sources that religioustolerance itself cites rather than the cite itself, if only because we are getting closer to the original source. I don't think there is any reasonable argument against this conclusion. Now, obviously, for noting that the site itself holds a particular opinion it should then be linked to - it would be a primary source for that use. -- 84.64.141.105 14:23, 27 August 2006 (UTC)
On the subject of Scientology, OCRT is biased since most, if not all, the articles are authored or co-authored by Al Buttnor who is the Director of Special Affairs (sometimes called Public Affairs) of the Toronto Org [9]. A lot of the current text looks like it was cribbed straight from Church of Scientology web sites. There certainly hasn't been any fact-checking done, and most of the references are to Church of Scientology sites or fronts like the "new CAN". As well, the site now blocks the Wayback Machine of the Internet Archive, which prevents comparing the current pages with previous versions. AndroidCat 22:08, 16 September 2006 (UTC)
The following info is for future reference, should this be required. It was copied from a 2008 WP:RS/N discussion:
(The google book links given to the actual pages may decay over time.)
Jguk, please be reasonable - religious tolerance cites it's sources, everything's not made up. Don't make arbitrary edits like that. YOu don't have anything personal against them, do you? Izehar ( talk) 13:07, 17 December 2005 (UTC)
It's more a case that if you believe something is reliable as a reference, you need to defend it. The onus is always on someone who wishes to include something in Wikipedia to justify why it should remain - not the other way round. At least some of us are discussing things now.
Izehar - the point remains that Religioustolerance.org is effectively one man's blog, and that of a man with no academic training and stature in the subject. Yes, it cites its sources - but then so does an undergraduate essay. It also mis-cites its sources and draws conclusions that are unsupported by them. I have no problem with that - virtually all the essays are Bruce Robinson's opinion pieces, and he is entitled to hold whatever opinion he wants. But all this does mean that they are inappropriate as an academic resource.
Nandesuka makes a useful point - just because religioustolerance.org is unsuitable, because it cites its sources it could be used to help find appropriate academic sources. I have no difficulty at all in that - but in that case Wikipedia should cite the original academic source, not religioustolerance.org.
However, any "stand back and have a look at what Religioustolerance.org really is" analysis will conclude that it is of limited, if any, academic value. I'm also concerned that the English Wikipedia is the sixth highest site linking into religioustolerance.org [3]. Ideally we should have no links to it, jguk 13:32, 17 December 2005 (UTC)
I am surprised by the controversy. I have been using OCRT for years (longer than I have been using Wikipedia) and they adhere to the same NPOV philosophy as we do. The fact that it is largely the work of one man, to me, only serves to underscore the brilliance of the accomplishment. Carolynparrishfan 14:29, 17 December 2005 (UTC)
From WP:V: Personal websites and blogs are not acceptable as sources, except on the rare occasion that a well-known person, or a known professional journalist or researcher in a relevant field, has set up such a website. Remember that it is easy for anybody to create a website and to claim to be an expert in a certain field, or to start an "expert group", "human rights group", church, or other type of association. Several million people have created their own blogs in the last few years. They are not regarded as acceptable sources for Wikipedia. See Wikipedia:Reliable sources for more information.
Please note that I had a similar issue with user:Zappaz who inserted long quotes from religious tolerance into to the article cult. Eventually the references to religious tolerance was dropped in favor or direct references. Andries
Another quote is relevant here: Beware false authority. Would you trust a plumber to fill your cavities? Likewise, you should probably not trust someone who has a Ph.D. in plant biology to tell you about quantum mechanics. Just as actors in TV commercials don white lab coats to make viewers think they are serious scientists, people with degrees in one field are not necessarily experts in any other. Watch out for false claims of authority. Try to use sources who have degrees in the field they are discussing. The more reputable ones are affiliated with academic institutions. The most reputable have written textbooks in their field for the undergraduate level or higher: these authors can be expected to have a broad, authoritative grasp of their subject.
Regarding credentials: [4] and [5] describe some of the commendations (and criticisms) the site has received. Highlights: a four-star rating from Encyclopedia Britannica ("Canadian nondenominational society whose stated mission is to 'promote the understanding and tolerance of minority religions; expose religious hatred and misinformation; and supply information on controversial religious topics to help you reach your own decisions.' Includes well-informed profiles of a variety of religious traditions, as well as in-depth considerations of particularly controversial religious topics."). From the American Library Association: " The information is very well-done and balanced. The scope of the information is very thorough. In addition, the individual entries are well-done whether the religion is controversial or not. For example, the information on Satanism is very balanced and informative. The entry cuts through the scare tactics, misinformation and hype and presents a balanced picture on Satanism. The other entries are equally as well balanced and thorough. In most cases, the online articles have references and further web-sites to explore." (This review was from 1996, when the site was less developed than it currently is.) Commendations have come from various academic organizations: Schoolzone, which evaluates Internet sites for the British public schools, gave it a "highly recommended rating." Also, "TagTeacherNet has recommended our site to its 24,400 members, most of whom are teachers." There are numerous others. Firebug 14:06, 17 December 2005 (UTC)
I've now stated clearly on the project page what the proposed new guidelines are. I have divided the "references" and "external links" issues into two, and given two alternatives on the "external links" point.
Also, I should note that, on reflection, it would have been better to have made comments on all the talk pages of the affected articles from the start rather than just to make the edits in the first place. I have always preferred to be bold, but I should have realised that any reliability of sources issue is likely to be controversial, jguk 15:10, 17 December 2005 (UTC)
Ok, I don't really want to get involved into this huge debate, but personally speaking, every time I've googled something about Christianity for, well, anything, and religioustolerance.org popped up, it was either very slanted against one side, (Generally the side that interprets the Bible literally) it didn't cite the Bible well for things, or it just plain had bad arguments, but that's just what i've personally seen. So I don't know if this will matter, but I think i'd support a policy of this site not being used as a primary source for anything, but I don't know if I'd want it to never be allowed to be cited. Homestarmy 02:16, 29 January 2006 (UTC)
I can understand jguk's reluctance to have religioustolerance.org be cited directly as a source, though I disagree with his method of deleting all references to it without first discussing it. I have a different reason for objecting to the use of religioustolerance.org as a source: it has advertising. No source of information that relies on advertising for funding can ever be reliable. -- Angr ( t· c) 14:33, 17 December 2005 (UTC)
I am the main editor for Religious Tolerance.org. Only today (2007-OCT-07) have I stumbled across this debate. I would like to make two points: 1) Advertisements are essential. My group needs revenue to pay for our part-time employee and to purchase books for our library. Banner ads are the only feasible method to make sufficient money. We do receive some donations, but they are not nearly enough. 2) Essentially all of the advertisements on our site are provided by either Doubleclick or Google Adsense. In the twelve years that we have been online, we have never had any exchange of communication from any advertiser. They simply appear on our pages as supplied by Doubleclick or Adsense.
In an ideal world, the Internet would have been designed so that every essay would cost, say 0.1 cent to read with the revenue going to the author. Too late to start that now. And so ads are the only solution.
Bruce A Robinson at ocrt@religioustolerance.org —Preceding unsigned comment added by 72.38.156.121 ( talk) 23:29, 7 October 2007 (UTC)
I particularly like the part of the proposal that reads:
This does not sound at all unreasonable to me. Since the main contention here seems to be that this engineer and his few friends in Toronto are concocting stuff off the top of their heads, it only makes good sense to ask that you find at least one more reliable source that concurs with them... ፈቃደ ( ውይይት) 15:12, 17 December 2005 (UTC)
Most of the entries at the website of the University of Virginia were written by students and so sometimes the quality is very poor including factual mistakes. [7] [8] Sometimes the quality is good. Can we address this in a similar was as the religious tolerance website? Andries 15:37, 17 December 2005 (UTC)
I do not think we should have subpages of wp:v that blanket forbid certain references. I believe it is acceptable - possibly even a good idea - to have a central place where comments and opinions about the reliability and usefulness of a certain source can be stated and discussed.
However, the suitability of a particular reference should be a matter for each article that cites it. — Matthew Brown ( T: C) 22:09, 17 December 2005 (UTC)
I agree - the appropriateness of any cites or external links should be examined on an article by article basis.
Lyrl 01:13, 18 December 2005 (UTC)
I also agree; it's a bad precedent to "blackball" one particular site, even if it's true that it's probably not a good source in most cases. Let the reasonability of a source or link be judged in context each time it's used. *Dan T.* 12:14, 18 December 2005 (UTC)
This whole proposal is bogus, for a thousand reasons that have been mentioned above. Just thought I too would chime in with my opinion. Tommstein 22:47, 17 December 2005 (UTC)
Does anyone else find it troubling that people are attempting to dismiss this (and other) sites based on the author rather than the content? This parallels the critics of Wikipedia who dismiss it because it is not written by "experts". There are some blogs that are far superior to books, and some books far superior to some blogs. Just because something is published in book form or printed in a newspaper doesn't automatically make it superior and more authoritative.
There also needs to be distinction between facts and opinions. "Facts" need to be "scholarly" or from a reputable source. Anyone can have "opinions". Whether these "opinions" are included in articles should be a matter of editorial judgment based on how notable these "opinions" are. Should Wikipedia include opinions from religioustolerance.org? I would think in certain cases it would be appropriate, since this is a highly ranked website. In any case, all opinions should be clearly marked as such, and opposing opinions presented as necessary. Sortan 22:49, 17 December 2005 (UTC)
This page should be moved from the wikipolicy namespace to a Talk:wikipolicy namespace -- JimWae 04:11, 18 December 2005 (UTC)
I've asked Jimbo about his opinion on this whole mess. Firebug 04:17, 18 December 2005 (UTC)
Wikipedia needs policies such as this one. We can't let crazies such as communists or secularists control and corrupt the things in wikipedia. Not only with obscure INTOLERANT blog sites such as Religoustolerance, but there needs to be something to stop the Liberal MSM from infiltrating as well.--Koool 04:27, 18 December 2005 (UTC)
Oh, come on people, anyone who calls "communists and secularists" "crazies" is so far off into looney toon bias that they are just trolling here to make such comments. Any edits that person makes on the topic are clearly so out there that they'd be reverted on site by anyone with even a speck of NPOV in them. There's no need to even respond. Wikipedia:Do not feed the trolls. DreamGuy 11:24, 20 December 2005 (UTC)
Whilst I probably wouldn't be in favour of citing religioustolerance.org as a reference (although even then, I don't see why we need a specific ban for this website, rather than a more general policy), part of the problem is that Jguk has been going around deleting any link to religioustolerance.org, even in External Links sections (eg, at Atheism). Surely it is reasonable to link to the site in an External Links section! Links aren't just about citing references, but also providing links to places the reader may find useful for further reading, or pointing to sites which provide interesting opinions or arguments (or at least, if that's not the point of External Links, then a vast number of External Links on Wikipedia should be removed). Things like the usage of the word "Atheist" are not factual things which you look up in scientific journals, but things where there are more likely to be various opinions; linking to a site which explains the terminology well seems an appropriate thing to do. Mdwh 05:54, 18 December 2005 (UTC)
I wrote
one of the articles (abortion trauma syndrome) that seems to be at the center of this -- (I put religioustolerance.org as an External link).
I have several points:
The reason I included it in the external links is:
I think it is an ill-conceived overreach to make a policy that forbids linking to certain sites:
Nephron 15:24, 18 December 2005 (UTC)
Remember that information that is correct it can be referenced from a variety of sources. It's important though that the sources cited are reliable and reputable. Here we have a website that is not suitable to cite as a reputable source - but that does not mean the information in it is false, and it does not mean that that information cannot go in Wikipedia - it just means a different source is used for that information instead.
Others have noted above (1) their concerns that Robinson does not use his sources properly; and (2) that Robinson's articles do cite sources. Assuming Robinson hasn't erred, it should therefore be possible to back up claims for WP by going back to Robinson's sources, reading them, and citing them as the references for the WP article instead of religioustolerance.org. If it's impossible to find a suitable alternative reference, then we really shouldn't be having that info in WP just on Robinson's say-so.
This page is a centralised discussion on whether one particular website is suitable for references. Hopefully more will emerge (as we really need to eliminate poor "sources"). It is most definitely not about censoring good information - good information can always be sourced by reliable, reputable references, jguk 09:07, 18 December 2005 (UTC)
I am echoing something I said on Jimbo's talk page here, because I think it is relevant. To provide my $0.02 here, I think that jguk approaches this with a specific axe to grind: he wants religioustolerance.org excluded because they disagree with his pet issue of BC vs BCE for dates. That being said, I am in favor of continuing this discussion in its present form because I think there's an important issue at stake here, which is that Wikipedia should always favor primary sources over secondary sources, and secondary sources over tertiary sources, etc. Religioustolerance.org is a great example of a tertiary (or lower) source: it is essentially one man's (or a small number of men's) opinions, citing generally better sources for the factual content contained therein. I think we should not be at all shy about using the primary and secondary sources cited by religioustolerance.org for the benefit of our readers. I think we need a compelling reason to cite an opinion site in favor of doing the work of synthesis ourselves. If we used religioustolerance.org sparingly, in a few places, to demonstrate certain opinions, that would be one thing. But Wikipedia is littered with quite literally hundreds of references to them, often in places where superior verifiable and reputable sources exist. I view this as indicative of a problem, and despite my personal beliefs about jguk's motivation, worthy of serious discussion. While agreeing with El C's concerns about the way this was done, I find the attempts to shut down debate on this topic prematurely to be disturbing. Nandesuka 16:17, 18 December 2005 (UTC)
Perhaps a good first step here would be to catalog the places where religioustolerance.org is linked to by Wikipedia, and to classify those links. I'll propose the following categories, but welcome further suggestions:
My position is that for this is that while the first use is potentially proper, I can't think of a reason why we should be linking to religioustolerance.org (or any similar site) for the second or third uses. What other categories are there?
I'm of the opinion that outright banning a source such as Religioustolerance.org consists of censorship. There's no framework in place to entirely ban a site; every link should be measured by its own merits on a case-by-case basis. Also, I find it disturbing that a single person's quest to censor an entire valuable source is gaining this much traction.
I've done some research into various world religions before and after comparing Religioustolerance.org to other sources I found it to be a very thorough and accurate resource. Why would we want to censor/ban this entire site? -- Cyde Weys talk contribs 20:50, 19 December 2005 (UTC)
No, it's about saying that one website is not suitable to be used as a source. That does not mean that an alternative, reliable source cannot be found for any particular bit of information, jguk 20:44, 21 December 2005 (UTC)
As noted umpteen times before, I'm not out to censor anything - just to ask for reliable, reputable sources for whatever's going in the encyclopaedia. I certainly strongly disagree that any source is "innocent until proven guilty" - a source has to show itself to be reliable and reputable in order to be quotable. If you'll forgive me for some reductio ad absurdum - we wouldn't quote a 6 year old kid on something just because we couldn't prove his website contained an inaccuracy. In the event though, religioustolerance.org is full of bad scholarship - if you want me to quote an example, ask me on my talk page, jguk 22:38, 21 December 2005 (UTC)
... let me put it this way: citing Religioustolerance.org is like citing The Two Babylons as a factual source in Roman Catholicism. In other words, pretty stupid. - Ta bu shi da yu 13:40, 20 December 2005 (UTC)
Have you thought about the possibility that we're concerned about references and how reliable they are? After all, I fail to see how this supports any particular agenda - if a fact is true and verifiable there will be a better, reliable source for it, jguk 20:48, 21 December 2005 (UTC)
What is the difference between citing ReligiousTolerance.org to sources of the Mormon Church for example? Both are probably equally inaccurate for numerical purposes. It is widely known that the LDS Church inflates their numbers substantially. The Roman Catholic Church has done the same thing with Catholics in China according to the US State department. 144.35.254.12 00:39, 22 December 2005 (UTC)
Rather than try to read other people's minds on various issues, I'd like to suggest we get on with categorizing the links. Please feel free to add to this list as you see fit. There are a lot of articles to get through.
Page | Type of usage |
---|---|
Doomsday prediction | External link (listed as "a database", though really it's just a small selection) |
Scouting_For_All | External link on the Boy Scouts. Takes clear editorial position. |
2076 | Used to support factual statement. Link takes editorial stance. Better sources exist. |
Homosexuality and Zoroastrianism | External link. No clear editorial stance. Links to secondary source. |
Preimplantation genetic diagnosis | External link. Categorizes and collates various arguments. |
Hell_house | External link. Article takes clear editorial stance. |
Lukumi | External link. Article takes no editorial stance. "Santerian Beliefs" section is completely unsourced, however. |
Niilo Paasivirta | External link, quotes some text the person has said. Note that the text originally comes from an explanatory page on the person's own website; If the page is found, that probably should be quoted/linked instead. |
We should make a general policy eschewing poor sites (such as Religioustolernace.org), not limiting it to simply this one. Some sort of method for testing whether a site is a good reference source should be determined. The Jade Knight 08:59, 29 December 2005 (UTC)
-- sansvoix 09:08, 29 December 2005 (UTC)
That's a pretty lame attack on a source with no meat to it. "Eschewing poor sites (such as Religioustolerance.org)" indeed. What, exactly, is wrong with Religioustolerance? I've asked for some concrete examples a few times now and nobody's give me a damn thing. This leads me to belief that the objection to Religioustolerance is all pomp and no circumstance. In other words, people are biased against it because of their own views, not because of anything wrong with it itself. -- Cyde Weys vote talk 14:21, 29 December 2005 (UTC)
Despite the apt observations of it being a blog, it's Google ranking speaks for itself as to its relative reliability and primary sources it does use. Any website article/essay is understood to reflect the opinion of the author and/or organization who wrote it. Adding such notes would be time consuming, and in the specific case of RT, arbitrary and discriminatory. It is an essential external link in many cases, as a primary source it should not be used; likewise with any secondary source... be it Wikipedia, encyclopedias or Op/Ed pieces. - Roy Boy 800 20:24, 8 January 2006 (UTC)
I don't think it is a good or helpful to include a statment such as "There are more atheists in the U.S. than members of any religion other than Christianity." For one, it is an unsubstantiated claim, but even if we could find a citation for this, the statement should be clarified. After reading the multiple meanings of "atheist", I am left wondering: What is an atheist? What definition of atheism did the study use (if we can find one)?
This needs to be settled as one editor on the Christianity article is using this page as a statement of policy and has told another editor with whom there is some disagreement over the History section that "that site (RT) should never be used to source information in Wikipedia articles". From reading this discussion I'm guessing that this is not so but leaving this as an ongoing debate is obviously causing confusion.
Whatever side you are on, surely the concept of banning sources evokes Big Brother images. Once the principle is established, the credibility of Wiki will be undermined. There are enough motivated editors on the religious articles to make sure that inaccurate references do not get through. As they say - the "truth will out" - but only when information (accurate or inaccurate) is not censored. Believe it or not, most people are smart enough to ask further questions when they come across information that doesn't seem to fit with what they thought was true.
The only justifiable censorship in MO is the exploitation of minors such as child pornography. SOPHIA 11:35, 23 January 2006 (UTC)
Religioustolerance.org is a better source than the Bible for factual information, yet I see people in Christian-related articles cite the Bible as if it were fact. The site is informative and well-researched, and it is worth citing given that it has international recognition and a great deal of acclaim from various other credible sources. Titanium Dragon 06:05, 5 March 2006 (UTC)
I concur. Does that mean that we can terminate this discussion now, and formally mark Religioustolerance.org as a citeable source? Clinkophonist 19:34, 18 June 2006 (UTC)
I find the complaint that I (the main author on ReligiousTolerance.org) lack academic qualifications interesting. One of the main goals of that site is to explain various religious topics giving all viewpoints, and describing a wide range of religions, including their conservative, mainline, liberal and other factions. If I were to have a PhD in religion from, say, the Union Theological Seminary I would probably be hopelessly biased for life in a religiously liberal direction. If I went to a fundamentalist Bible school, I might be hopelessly biased in a religiously conservative direction. Best to have no post-secondary specialist education in the field of religion at all. A better route would be to have a degree in some topic that provides training in reason and communication. I am a graduate of the University of Toronto in Engineering Physics and spent 38 years working for a large textile company working in instrumentation development. A major part of my career was involved in writing manuals for the users of the instrumentation that my group developed. Further, I am an Agnostic, and thus do not have any particular bias for or against any religious group. I feel that I am much better qualified than most people to meet the specific challenges of my job.
In defense of our site, I will mention that we are the only religious website of which we are aware that has an errata section for reporting errors that we or our visitors have reported. We currently have 4,019 essays online; we cover a lot of ground.
We have been the brunt of many attacks since 1995 when our first essays went online. We just survived a denial of service attack last week, for example. We get lots of hate Email and the occasional death threat. We get many negative Emails from religious liberals complaining of our description of the conservative position on various topics; we get even more Emails from religious conservatives complaining about our liberal content. Some people really hate seeing opposing positions cited. We get about 3 to 4 times as many positive unsolicited Emails as negative ones. Bruce Robinson, 7 October 2007. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 72.38.156.121 ( talk) 23:57, 7 October 2007 (UTC)
I am a member of a small conservative Christian faith group that is covered by both wikipedia and religious tolerance.org. The wiki article is strongly biased and has been largely written (last I checked, I hate to even look now) by an anonymous author using self-published sources reflecting similar bias. The religioustolerance.org is the best article on our group on the web. It has a few errors and is not entirely complimentary to our group but it is fair.
So it seems the height of absurdity for wikipedia to assess www.religioustolerance.org. At least the site authors have a face and a a name.
I believe wiki was good when it just copied from reliable sources but now it's expansion is largely based on OR. No stopping it because wiki is really for hobbyist (e.g. unpaid) researchers and writers.
RSuser (
talk) 22:31, 13 July 2009 (UTC)
I have a simple question which I would like to ask the other editors on this page: is it more acceptable to cite a tertiary/secondary source, or a primary source, for any matter? Surely, one would pick the primary source. I think one thing we must all be able to agree on is that if we need to cite something, we would be better off using the sources that religioustolerance itself cites rather than the cite itself, if only because we are getting closer to the original source. I don't think there is any reasonable argument against this conclusion. Now, obviously, for noting that the site itself holds a particular opinion it should then be linked to - it would be a primary source for that use. -- 84.64.141.105 14:23, 27 August 2006 (UTC)
On the subject of Scientology, OCRT is biased since most, if not all, the articles are authored or co-authored by Al Buttnor who is the Director of Special Affairs (sometimes called Public Affairs) of the Toronto Org [9]. A lot of the current text looks like it was cribbed straight from Church of Scientology web sites. There certainly hasn't been any fact-checking done, and most of the references are to Church of Scientology sites or fronts like the "new CAN". As well, the site now blocks the Wayback Machine of the Internet Archive, which prevents comparing the current pages with previous versions. AndroidCat 22:08, 16 September 2006 (UTC)
The following info is for future reference, should this be required. It was copied from a 2008 WP:RS/N discussion:
(The google book links given to the actual pages may decay over time.)