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"Science-Based Medicine" blog

Latest comment: 1 month ago66 comments25 people in discussion
This is not a correctly formatted RfC, and the opening section is a flagrant violation of WP:RFCNEUTRAL. Anyone is free to create a new RfC on Science Based Medicine, provided it is properly formatted and has a neutral opening statement. Given the dispute is seemingly about whether or not SBM is self-published rather than whether it is reliable or not, ideally the new RfC question should be specifically about that. Hemiauchenia (talk) 22:38, 5 December 2024 (UTC)

The following discussion is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.

There is a blog which previously received RS attention back in 2021 and the emerging comment on the RSP list said, "Science-Based Medicine is considered generally reliable, as it has a credible editorial board, publishes a robust set of editorial guidelines, and has been cited by other reliable sources. Editors do not consider Science-Based Medicine a self-published source, but it is also not a peer-reviewed publication with respect to WP:MEDRS. Since it often covers fringe material, parity of sources may be relevant."

https://sciencebasedmedicine.org/

I do not see how their content could be viewed as anything other than "self-published", even with a supposed "robust set of editorial guidelines", the content is not peer reviewed. I believe the source should be reviewed again, not deprecated most likely, though their reliability seems wildly unreliable, but at the very least a renewed discussion around the source and its quality should be updated for 2024.

Option 1: Generally reliable

Option 2: Generally unreliable

Option 3: Generally reliable with attribution

Option 4: Reliable for some things, not others, but should be used with care when citing claims, and should take care not to use Wikipedia:WIKIVOICE.

Iljhgtn (talk) 02:54, 1 December 2024 (UTC)

Option 1/Bad RFC - there is no real change from previous discussions, and there doesn't seem to be anything different. At the very least, would be better to have a discussion, as per WP:RFCBEFORE with evidence presented of the change in reliability rahter than jumping directly into an RFC. Bluethricecreamman (talk) 03:32, 1 December 2024 (UTC)
Has there been any WP:RFCBEFORE for this RFC that I've missed? If not this should be procedurally closed. -- LCU ActivelyDisinterested «@» °∆t° 13:11, 1 December 2024 (UTC)
I was not part of the earlier conversations and feel we need a broader consensus on the subject. This source also has lots of COVID-era discussions from around 2020-2022 that need to be looked at again. Now, in 2024, would be a good time for such a review. Iljhgtn (talk) 19:12, 1 December 2024 (UTC)
So has there been any new discussion since the last RFC or not? -- LCU ActivelyDisinterested «@» °∆t° 02:43, 2 December 2024 (UTC)
Quick look through the RSN, there is this discussion [1] about SBM and comparing to other sourcing wrt to Lab leak hypothesis... earliest about whether SBM is reliable or not is [2]... I think no.
To OP, I suggest getting more info about why SBM should be revisited beyond vague "I disagree" as the reasoning... Bluethricecreamman (talk) 03:03, 2 December 2024 (UTC)
To be clear I'm not saying an RFC shouldn't happen at some point, but before it happens new discussion should take place. -- LCU ActivelyDisinterested «@» °∆t° 03:19, 2 December 2024 (UTC)
Option 1 default to the last RFC, as I'm not seeing anything new being argued here. -- LCU ActivelyDisinterested «@» °∆t° 11:09, 4 December 2024 (UTC)
Much of the publishing world is not "peer reviewed" but put through editorial process. Let's not try to redefine "self-published" to mean "not peer reviewed". -- Nat Gertler (talk) 19:37, 1 December 2024 (UTC)
It is a blog though. Self-described as such even. Maybe we at the very least should make a distinction about some parts of the site that are most "bloggy"? Iljhgtn (talk) 19:40, 1 December 2024 (UTC)
There is no agreement among editors about what constitutes a SPS (see, eg., this summary of one discussion). Whether a source is generally (un)reliable is a distinct issue from whether it's SPS. FactOrOpinion (talk) 21:13, 1 December 2024 (UTC)
Indeed there are lots of things which call themselves a "blog" these days and which aren't. SBM is a publication of the New England Skeptical Society and is not SPS. Many Wikipedia editors seem confused about SPS and seem to want to redefine it in a weird maximalist way to encompass things with the Wrong POV™. I recommend reading self-publishing to them. Bon courage (talk) 11:51, 4 December 2024 (UTC)
The New England Skeptical Society is an amateur society... The people who write here are its members, that is amateur self publishing. This isn't an academic society or even a professional one, these are amateurs participating in a hobby. Steven Novella is a founder and president of the New England Skeptical Society, the "Founder and Executive Editor" of the Science-Based Medicine blog and the NeuroLogicaBlog as well as the primary contributor to both. Thats not normal or indicative or editorial independence. Horse Eye's Back (talk) 14:20, 4 December 2024 (UTC)
It was declared "not an SPS", despite literally being a blog, because people wanted to use it on BLPs. PARAKANYAA (talk) 22:15, 1 December 2024 (UTC)
fair enough... arguably, though, this RFC isn't asking if the blog is SPS or not though, which is entirely different from whether it is reliable or not. Bluethricecreamman (talk) 23:12, 1 December 2024 (UTC)
They're basically saying that because they're an SPS they're unreliable. Strange argument given the previous discussions (at worst they'd be an EXPERTSPS that can be used for non BLPs), but it's still because they're an SPS so it's still the crux of the issue. PARAKANYAA (talk) 00:52, 2 December 2024 (UTC)
Maybe an Option 3 then, saying that the source could be used for non-BLPs would suffice then? Iljhgtn (talk) 02:30, 2 December 2024 (UTC)
I was overly involved in the prior RFC, so I don't want to get too involved this time. But the essence is that SBM acknowledged that some of their authors published directly without editorial oversight. ("... we allow trusted authors to publish without prior review for the sake of efficiency and timeliness" [3]) That makes it an SPS in terms of BLPs. This does not mean that it is unreliable, or it can't be used per WP:Parity - only that it can't be used as a source of information regarding living people. Beyond that I have no opinion about it regarding reliability. - Bilby (talk) 03:36, 2 December 2024 (UTC)
I think that is all that needs to be updated then. Since the thought first occurred to me from a BLP. Iljhgtn (talk) 03:46, 2 December 2024 (UTC)
Although SBM's editors can publish without prior review, their description suggests that those articles undergo review after publication and that review can result in various actions (e.g., clarification in the comments section, corrections to the body of the article, retraction). So although an article may initially be a SPS, it arguably doesn't remain so. Moreover, guest columnists cannot publish without prior review, so the judgment about whether a given article is/isn't a SPS might vary with the author. FactOrOpinion (talk) 06:38, 2 December 2024 (UTC)
I agree. I think guest authors can be assumed not to be self-published. I think we need to assume articles by regulars are self published though, for the sake of BLP, and especially articles published by the editors, unless there is an indication that they went through independent review at some point. Otherwise, outside of BLPs, the main editors are experts in their fields, so the situation is different. - Bilby (talk) 07:19, 2 December 2024 (UTC)
The only people listed as current editors are Gorski and Novella. Is there anyone else we would exclude? Alpha3031 (t • c) 11:37, 2 December 2024 (UTC)
In that case I am happy with it being only those two for BLPs when looking at new articles. I do not know what other contributers can publish directly. Historical articles might be different. - Bilby (talk) 12:16, 2 December 2024 (UTC)
I think just clarifying that this source cannot be used for BLPs would be an improvement and a welcome clarification. Iljhgtn (talk) 13:07, 2 December 2024 (UTC)
While SBM ought not to be used for biographical details, it often is used on articles about BLPs as a parity source for information about a person's ideas or the reception of their work. A blanket 'cannot be used for BLPs' would be misleading. MrOllie (talk) 13:24, 2 December 2024 (UTC)
Well, it is a bit stronger than "ought not", as an SPS can't be used to make a claim about a living person unless it is written by the subject. But it is true that you can use it to say "this idea is not consistent with scientific consensus", because that is not about the person, althought not "this person believes something that is not consistent with scientific consensus". - Bilby (talk) 13:55, 2 December 2024 (UTC)
Actually, the editors have retracted someone else's article once, so, articles older than a few days have undergone editorial oversight. SBM is an important resource for medical fringe. Calling it SPS with the consequence of it being unusable would make lots of articles worse.
If deletion of SBM citation would lead to fringe claims in BLP articles being uncontested, the fringe claims would also have to be deleted. --Hob Gadling (talk) 14:38, 2 December 2024 (UTC)
They did retract it, yes. Does that mean that everything published by one of the various editors, that was allowed to be published directly, has also gone under editorial oversight since then? Can we tell when it happens and when it does not? Or how long it takes to happen if it does? That said, SMB seems to me to be perfectly usable to contest a fringe claim. That's not a BLP concern. I just question it as a means of assigning a belief in a fringe (or otherwwise) claim to a living person. - Bilby (talk) 15:17, 2 December 2024 (UTC)
That seems reasonable. Issue ofc is that this RFC does not ask if SBM is SPS, just if its reliable. Bluethricecreamman (talk) 16:14, 2 December 2024 (UTC)
  • Whenever this comes up I have to ask, "what is the article about someone whose snake oil has been described accurately as such this time?" The general misunderstanding of the BLP policy is that it bars sources from being used on BLP articles. It does not. It bars certain sources from being used about the living person. E.g. Science based medicine is routinely used to debunk the bullshit that various health nuts promote. It is perfectly fine to use SBM to say 'X claims their product Y gives benefits Z, there is no scientific basis to this.' What it is not used for is 'X is a habitual liar who lies about their products'. Despite both statements being entirely accurate, the BLP policy allows us to do the former, not the latter. This has been discussed multiple times and its not going to change any time soon unless you a)get the BLP policy rewritten, b)snake oil salesmen cease to exist. Only in death does duty end (talk) 17:12, 2 December 2024 (UTC)
    That is an interesting point. Where could I cite that exact policy which you claim "has been discussed multiple times and its not going to change any time soon"? I am not contesting your comment, I am just interested in where and how to cite that claim. Iljhgtn (talk) 18:24, 2 December 2024 (UTC)
Several links at WP:SBM, two of which are amongst the longest discussions 2018, 2021. There are also many old conversations at WP:FTN, for example 2022. Also various long conversations at WP:BLPN 2018. In the last link JzG summed it up best "SBM has been discussed here repeatedly: it is a reliable source for critique of quackery. It has a good reputation for editorial quality and is written by known expert contributors. It is challenged routinely by people buffing up the articles of charlatans, and every time it comes here, the decision is that it's reliable". Psychologist Guy (talk) 20:09, 2 December 2024 (UTC)
Have to agree with this assessment. So much of this RFC seemed to me like reasoning backwards from "I want to use Science Based Medicine on BLPs" to "therefore its not an SPS".
It is a group blog, and generally reliable (and particularly useful on matters that are definitively fringe), but it is an SPS and not suitable for third party BLP claims. Void if removed (talk) 10:33, 3 December 2024 (UTC)
Do people want to use SBM for biographical claims? I'm not aware that has been an issue (except where people wrongly claim that people's pronouncements in the realm of science are subject to BLP protections). Even leaving aside the SPS question, there is really no call to use SBM that way as it's not appropriate. Bon courage (talk) 09:06, 5 December 2024 (UTC)
@Only in death, I had exactly the same reaction. A quick glance through the OP's contributions made me wonder if it might have been inspired by seeing it in Jay Bhattacharya#COVID-19 pandemic, since the edit immediately preceding the creation of this section was to the talk page for that article, which says "Writing at Science-Based Medicine, David Gorski, Professor of Surgery at Wayne State University, argued that Gupta, Bhattacharya, and Kulldorff had either been "politically very naïve" in working on the declaration with the American Institute for Economic Research, or that the doctors were "motivated as much by ideology as their interpretation of COVID-19 public health science". Regardless, Gorski opined, the declaration provided a narrative of scientific division useful for political purposes" and cites a SBM page on the Great Barrington Declaration. WhatamIdoing (talk) 05:52, 5 December 2024 (UTC)
Option 3a - Generally reliable with attribution, but SPS. It is fine for eg. rebutting the sourced claims made by third party BLPs, but not fine for establishing facts about third party BLPs. While they're good on traditional quackery, they have come unstuck in recent years with lower quality contributions like this 2021 piece about the NICE evidence review on puberty blockers, which is quite misleading about what evidence was excluded and why. Eg, of fourteen supposedly illegitimately excluded studies, they were all excluded for legitimate reasons, but presented here as suspicious. For example:
  • One was after the date cutoff
  • One (De Vries 2014) was considered but according to an NHS stakeholder review it remained excluded from the final NICE evidence review as the relevant population and follow-up time points were included in the de Vries et al. (2011) study
  • Six didn't report outcomes sufficiently
  • One isn't even a published study, just a protocol for a prospective one
Etc. On top of that the general thrust has aged badly, since everything the NICE review concluded has been substantiated and reinforced by other subsequent systematic reviews (eg. Zepf et al in 2023, Taylor et al in 2024 as part of the Cass Review), and astonishingly multiple times this SBM article cites GenderGP approvingly, one of whose directors was struck off, and the other who has now lost her license after years of controversy.
Another piece by the same author contains swipes like this:
Dr. Hillary Cass, lead on the much-maligned and internationally criticized (and deservedly so) NICE Review
The two citations for this? The author's earlier piece (above) - so citing themselves as an authority for "much maligned" - and an essay on ethics which complains low quality studies were excluded from the NICE review (thus missing the point of excluding low quality results from the review synthesis).
It goes on to say:
The ill-conceived and GC-adored NICE review, which condemns gender-affirming medical care for youth as low quality, is linked and referenced in the NYT article and has influenced the NYT critique of puberty blockers. The review was commissioned by Dr. Cass, mentioned earlier, on whose recommendation England’s National Health Service proposed restricting gender-affirming treatment for trans youth to research settings.The review was also thoroughly criticized in the scientific community for, among other things, not understanding what “low quality” actually means in context.
The citations for this here are: GenderGP (again), a personal activist blog, a letter to the editor that doesn't mention the NICE review, and a 2021 letter to the editor that claims the NICE review was unrepresentative, which as multiple subsequent independent systematic reviews have shown is demonstrably false. These are not convincing sources. Not only would we never hold SBM up against such a high quality WP:MEDRS, the poorly substantiated and partisan hyperbole repeatedly attempting to undermine the NICE review does, I think, somewhat call into question the reliability of this SBM contributor.
While SBM are sometimes the only ones taking the time to writing about fringe topics, here a guest contributor is offering strong WP:PARTISAN opinions on something that isn't fringe, but is a top-tier WP:MEDRS, and getting it completely wrong, while backing that up with terrible sources. That should be cause for a little skepticism IMO. I think SBM are solid on antivax and autism quackery, but less so when they wander into this territory. Void if removed (talk) 12:47, 3 December 2024 (UTC)
I have noticed substantial issues with the SBM tone, they tend to use a lot of insinuation and emotionally charged language, which doesn't bode well for our NPOV policy of dispassion. Additionally, editors will often point to this as a form of WP:PROPORTION and it can distort POV. SmolBrane (talk) 18:44, 3 December 2024 (UTC)
Great points @Void if removed. I don't think this qualifies to fully deprecate the source, but it sure does call in to question the reliability of this self-publishing blog. Iljhgtn (talk) 04:45, 4 December 2024 (UTC)
Yes, I wouldn't go anywhere near that - just that they are reliable and useful when talking about things that are fringe, but I find it questionable to give opinionated guest contributors with a vested interest in a topic a platform to cast unwarranted aspersions on non-fringe sources. Void if removed (talk) 10:23, 4 December 2024 (UTC)
In the era of RFK Jr. as (probable) HHS Secretary and of AI-generated papers, it might be a good time to see the "top-tier MEDRS" are also capable of containing self-uncorrected fatal errors, and these errors can even be the result of regional social/political peculiarities. SBM is a product of the skeptical movement (as a proposal for the evolution of EBM) and would have been made familiar with how these peculiarities can manifest. Acupuncture may be a great trial balloon for how Wikipedia handles a fringe theory entering mainstream, though maybe there's a better example. In short I start to wonder how Wikipedia even handles it if the CDC or FDA were to produce faux reviews "proving" MMR vaccines are "poison", out of the ideological motivations of an HHS Secretary.
Incidentally, I wonder if the question of "aging well" considers the more-recent consensus of the French Society of Pediatric Endocrinology and Diabetology. VintageVernacular (talk) 20:50, 4 December 2024 (UTC)
Policy is that exceptional (Surprising or apparently important) claims be evaluated with additional care, per WP:EXTRAORDINARY. Alpha3031 (t • c) 05:36, 5 December 2024 (UTC)
Systematic evidence reviews are at the top of the evidence pyramid, and opinions based on narrative review such as the one you posted are further down. That this paper doesn't even cite systematic reviews like the NICE review, Zepf er al, Taylor etc al, or mention the Cass Review gives an indication that this source is some way from the top of the MEDRS pyramid.
None of which responds to my point that SBM lent a contributor a platform to make misleading, false and badly cited claims about the highest quality of sources, citing disgraced clinicians in support, more than once. This is the sort of thing you expect SBM to puncture, not endorse. We might rely on SBM to be a voice against quacks, but they are far from infallible when directing their attention at politicised mainstream medical disagreements such as this. Void if removed (talk) 08:41, 5 December 2024 (UTC)
To be fair, rare is the publication which has avoided pitfalls when it comes to the "politicised mainstream medical disagreements" around transgender topics, but in any case this is moot since there are ample MEDRS sources to hand (however much some Wikipedians are shy of them); so SBM would not be appropriate to use, just as it's not appropriate for > 99% of WP:BMI which is mainstream and which has mainstream coverage. Bon courage (talk) 09:04, 5 December 2024 (UTC)
Why should the French review only be considered "top of the MEDRS pyramid" if it explicitly cites these specific English-language reviews you favor, but the other way around doesn't apply as Cass/Taylor categorically excluded much of the non-English language literature? (Although also, the SFEDP paper says it's just their initial publication.) VintageVernacular (talk) 13:42, 5 December 2024 (UTC)
Option 3. There doesn't seem to be anything wrong with this source but it's opinion/advocacy, not research or news. Not disparaging the expertise and editing, but we should treat it the same way we would if the author had published in a reputable op-ed section or magazine, not like a journal or news section. GordonGlottal (talk) 13:13, 3 December 2024 (UTC)
Well put. SmolBrane (talk) 22:36, 3 December 2024 (UTC)
Option 1, per bluethricecreamnan Snokalok (talk) 16:54, 3 December 2024 (UTC)
Option 1, though attribution should probably be used in most use cases anyways. Most sources in general that aren't being used for explicit biographical background info should have attribution. SilverserenC 00:51, 4 December 2024 (UTC)
  • Option 1. Attribution would be a NPOV violation in many cases and a WP:PROFRINGER's dream if (for example) we had to make it look like BEMER therapy being dubious was "just" the opinion of SBM. Whether or not to attribute in any instance is determined by WP:YESPOV, which is part of WP:NPOV and therefore non-negotiable and not subject to RfCs. Bon courage (talk) 01:10, 4 December 2024 (UTC)
  • Option 1 - per @Bon courage above, we don't need to relitigate reliable source to accommodate WP:PROFRINGE editors who take offense when their fringe topics run into the face of science and are trying to wiki lawyer their way out of some sources being used to show why something is fringe. Raladic (talk) 01:26, 4 December 2024 (UTC)
Comment: to anyone voting option one, how is this not an SPS? Its reliability aside, our biggest rule on SPS is that we cannot ever use them for BLP statements unless they are about self. Saying it is reliable doesn't make it not an SPS when it is a blog. PARAKANYAA (talk) 02:21, 4 December 2024 (UTC)
Because, per the last RfC "it has a credible editorial board, publishes a robust set of editorial guidelines, and has been cited by other reliable sources". There may be a wrinkle whereby the editors-in-chief can publish straight to pixel without additional oversight, which is what has been discussed. But if the RfC was about whether SBM was an SPS it should have been framed that way, rather than (yet another) attempt to torpedo its reliability so as to open the fringe floodgates of hell. Bon courage (talk) 02:56, 4 December 2024 (UTC)
"...rather than (yet another) attempt to torpedo its reliability so as to open the fringe floodgates of hell." Because this one blog is all that holds back the "fringe floodgates of hell" now is that right? Most impressive. 😂 Iljhgtn (talk) 04:42, 4 December 2024 (UTC)
It's one of a very few sources which bother to comment on the grift, fraud and quackery out there in science/medicine allowing articles on such topics to attain WP:PARITY (it used to be QuackWatch, and in future no doubt it will be some other source). These sources are always very unpopular with a certain constituency of Wikipedia editors. Bon courage (talk) 11:48, 4 December 2024 (UTC)
  • Option 3/4, I believe this blog may be generally reliable for NON-BLPs only. I will say that the Gorski writer for the SPS does seem to be able to just write some articles and then publish them with himself as the scrutiny. Now, he may be reliable, but that effectively merges into the level of a primary source or self-published, and should not be usable for BLPs at the very least, even if generally reliable on other "science" related topics outside of BLPs. There are many areas that would still cover, but biographies of LIVING persons tend to have many extra rules for a reason. It has long been the case that those who sit on differing sides of a political aisle hold special venom, even the scientifically-minded among us humans, for those who disagree with deeply held beliefs. Thus, the main recipient of libelous claims does tend to be directed it would seem towards the biographies of LIVING persons, who also have other factors at stake. The rule then should likewise be consistently applied again for this blog, and I will even venture to say that I think the "floodgates of hell" will still be held at bay, even if the closer decided to rightfully deem the source "Generally reliable", but "not for BLPs"...Iljhgtn (talk) 04:56, 4 December 2024 (UTC)
    those who sit on differing sides of a political aisle This is a false framing. Robert F. Kennedy Jr. has recently switched aisles, but SBM has exposed his pro-quackery propaganda before and after the switch. SBM is about the conflict between medical science and medical pseudoscience, not about US politics. SBM's statements do not become tainted by politics just because US politics has moved into its field by becoming tainted by charlatans. Pseudoscience does not magically turn into not-pseudoscience-but-a-legitimate-political-position because US politicians embrace it. --Hob Gadling (talk) 12:30, 4 December 2024 (UTC)
    Party is not the same thing as ideological belief or conviction. One could remain consistent in that while switching party if the party you are aligned with is not serving as the optimal vehicle for delivering your message, all the while your message may not change at all, but your partisan alignment may shift. Iljhgtn (talk) 17:51, 4 December 2024 (UTC)
  • Option 1. Nothing has changed since the last time this was discussed. --Hob Gadling (talk) 12:30, 4 December 2024 (UTC)
  • I guess if we really are doing the numbers thing, I'll pop in an option 1. There is enough evidence of pre- and post-publication review that the source derives reliability from both a review process and, in many cases, the subject matter expertise of the author of individual articles, which is a step up from many other sources we treat as generally reliable in their area of expertise. Reviewing the concurrent discussions, I don't think there's likely to be firm consensus on the nature of the type of organisation in general (science advocacy group), but in that case we'd fall on existing practice of treating the source on a case-by-case basis. It may be appropriate to treat articles by Gorski and Novella as self-published, in which case we should take care statements so sourced are exclusively medical ("XYZ is not supported by the medical literature") and not biographical ("and therefore ABC is a crank for supporting XYZ") and it may also be appropriate to treat early reports with caution (like WP:RSBREAKING), but this is largely in line with how we treat other reliable sources.
Contra SmolBrane, the tone of our sources is generally not an issue. We should not take a carbon copy of the tone of our sources, especially sources of different genres, but this is again, the same for other sources we consider generally reliable (e.g., WP:NEWSSTYLE). We do have a consistent editorial tone for certain subject areas that may disappoint or disgruntle some editors, but this is in accord with our policies and guidelines (WP:GEVAL, WP:FRINGE) and not in contravention to it. Current policy is that we ought to take an anti-fringe line and judgement (not discretion, this is not optional) should be used to exclude fringe theories where inclusion would unduly legitimise it. In some cases, attribution may be appropriate, but this should be decided on a case by case basis. Alpha3031 (t • c) 14:00, 4 December 2024 (UTC)
  • Option 3/4. This source should never be used without proper attribution. As other commenters have noted, it frequently publishes content without prior peer review, a fact acknowledged by SBM itself. Consequently, it qualifies as a self-published source, with the opinions expressed reflecting the views of individual authors rather than the scholarly consensus. For instance, the above mentioned example of this Science-Based Medicine article appears to be the author’s personal reaction to the findings of NICE (the UK's National Institute for Health and Care Excellence), as reported in this BBC article [6] . The author seems to challenge the conclusions of UK authorities, which represents his personal perspective rather than a consensus view, particularly since the UK authorities did not align with his assessment. Using such sources without clear attribution is inappropriate, especially in BLPs or articles covering controversial topics, where accuracy and neutrality are paramount. Sean Waltz O'Connell (talk) 11:22, 5 December 2024 (UTC)
  • Option 4/3. For the areas where this source is accurate, there are usually better sources. SBM appears to be beloved by some editors because it is willing to go too far. The SBM authors are not content to report facts: they take highly polemical positions and express them with sarcasm, sneering, and ad hominems. Gorski in particular fancies himself something of an insult comic. Listing SBM as a reliable source allows this toxicity to be transcribed into wikivoice. - Palpable (talk) 22:23, 5 December 2024 (UTC)
  • Comment for closer, it is important here to keep in mind that there are some who are simply inserting a "Option1/2/3/4" without any subsequent argument or substance to any point at all. Given the nature of how an RFC is counted, and that these are of course not votes/!Votes, it is worth bringing attention to that. Iljhgtn (talk) 17:54, 4 December 2024 (UTC)
The discussion above is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.

404 Media (404media.co) and KrebsOnSecurity (krebsonsecurity.com)

Latest comment: 1 month ago3 comments3 people in discussion

The reliability of these sources in relation to cybersecurity matters is high in my opinion but it is being questioned on the page Vinny Troia so I am submitting a Request for Comment here D1551D3N7 (talk) 21:08, 5 December 2024 (UTC)

404 Media is a reliable source with editorial oversight. Krebs on Security is probably also reliable, but I'm unclear about its level of editorial oversight and it could well be a WP:SPS, which would make it unusuable on the Troia article. Hemiauchenia (talk) 00:40, 6 December 2024 (UTC)
Agree with @Hemiauchenia about 404. Speaking purely in the sense of how he is respected by peers in his field, Brian Krebs is reliable. However, the site itself does not appear to have editorial oversight, and is basically an extremely authoritative blog. For purposes here, it may make more sense to treat him as an SME, attributing opinions where necessary? WP:SPS is pretty clear about not using SPS's on BLPs, and I largely agree that once Krebs has reported on something, other RS's usually pick it up. Alyo (chat·edits) 00:58, 6 December 2024 (UTC)

Is 'hankookilbo(한국일보)' a reliable press?

Latest comment: 30 days ago13 comments6 people in discussion

Hankook Ilbo, established in 1954, is one of South Korea’s longstanding daily newspapers, covering a range of topics such as politics, economy, society, and culture. As a legacy media outlet, it has a significant historical role in shaping public discourse and providing news to the general public. Its credibility depends on factors such as accuracy, impartiality, transparency, and its ability to adapt to contemporary journalistic standards.

A key point in its favor is its reputation as a general news source aimed at a broad audience. Over the years, it has built a name for diverse and in-depth reporting, contributing to its longstanding presence in the South Korean media landscape. Furthermore, its efforts to transition to digital media demonstrate its adaptability in a rapidly evolving news environment, providing timely updates through online platforms.

However, like many traditional news outlets, Hankook Ilbo has faced criticisms over the years. Even if Hankook Ilbo tends to maintain a relatively moderate stance and is perceived as more politically neutral compared to other newspapers such as Chosun Ilbo or Hankyoreh, Some argue it may show political or ideological bias in certain article. Trust in traditional media has also declined globally due to increasing polarization and the rise of alternative online outlets. To assess Hankook Ilbo’s reliability, one must consider its track record, whether it adheres to fact-checking and correction policies, and whether it remains transparent about its editorial processes. Ultimately, the debate should explore whether its strengths in journalistic experience outweigh these criticisms and how it compares to other media outlets in its handling of issues such as neutrality and accountability. Kang eunyeong (talk) 04:37, 2 December 2024 (UTC)

@Jeong Ahram, @Xisuux, @Babaibiaobin, @Kang_eunyeong please stop spamming with random Korean sources.
We cannot provide permission or prohibition ahead of time for any of these sources. Use your best judgement. Bluethricecreamman (talk) 04:42, 2 December 2024 (UTC)
If I may ask, are you all students? I see you all working on assignments on the talk page of @Hanyangprofessor2. Bluethricecreamman (talk) 04:44, 2 December 2024 (UTC)
On the surface, the center is so strong, but the radical multiculturalism is quite strong compared to any media company. In the 2010s, short-term foreign workers are regularly published articles containing claims to ease immigration thresholds, expand refugee recognition, advocate and legalize illegal immigrants, and give permanent residency to second-generation illegal immigrants beyond just pro-multicultural tendencies. Jeong Ahram (talk) 05:17, 2 December 2024 (UTC)
if you are writing to fulfill an assignment or discussion, this is definitely the wrong place. Please check with your professor, but I doubt this is what they have in mind. Bluethricecreamman (talk) 05:26, 2 December 2024 (UTC)
@Bluethricecreamman Hmmm, I am happy to revise the assignment if it is not helpful for the community, but I thought RSN is a place to discuss reliability of specific sources (newspapers, etc.) without the need to look at particular examples (ex. I see #RFC Jerusalem Post above). Since many Korean or Chinese sources have never been discussed at RSN, I thought it would be useful to have them mentioned here, so they show in the search archives for folks who want to know if they are good (the next step would be to link the discussions from Wikipedia:WikiProject Korea/Reliable sources / Wikipedia:WikiProject Taiwan/Resources (WP:CHINA does not seem to have a relevant page, so it may be created based on this activity and similar discussions too). Granted, there is not much point in asking about mainstream SK newspapers which are generally ok-ish (i.e. reliable, if hardly Pulitzer-winning), but then, what is mainstream can vary - there are less than ideal Falun Gong or CCP-affiliated sources in the case of Chinese sources, for example. Piotrus at Hanyang| reply here 06:50, 2 December 2024 (UTC)
No RSN is for third party opinion or when editors need advice about the reliability of sources. It's definitely not for categorising sources. Unless there is legitimate disagreement on a source it shouldn't be discussed here. This would be a better fit as part of WikiProject -- LCU ActivelyDisinterested «@» °∆t° 13:12, 2 December 2024 (UTC)
So which WikiProject can be tapped for categorizing sources? Or do you mean the "country" one like China and Taiwan for Chinese-language, Korean for Korean? Many of them are not very active :( Piotrus at Hanyang| reply here 02:56, 3 December 2024 (UTC)
The students could do the work of discussing and evaluating the sources to then contruct a list. Most sources will never be discussed, because the first check is an editors good judgements. What do you think of the source? Can you back up that judgement, and how does it relate to Wikipedia's policies and guidelines? If those questions are discussed and answered, well then you could list the discussions and you have a sources list. Add those lists to the relevant projects and you've made them more active and useful.
Wikipedia's editors should be 'tapped' their time is not a resource for anyone else's use. -- LCU ActivelyDisinterested «@» °∆t° 06:36, 3 December 2024 (UTC)
@Hanyangprofessor2: Generally, making long lists categorizing uncontroversial sources is something to try and avoid. It happens anyways, but it's more of a flaw with our processes than something to emulate. The Israel-Palestine topic area is a bad example of how WP:RSN (or any process on Wikipedia) should work, as virtually every source ends up as controversial due to the contentiousness of that area.
Something you may wish to consider is reaching out at the Wikipedia:Education noticeboard. There's an independent non-profit (meta:Wiki Education Foundation) that can provide support to instructors, and they monitor that noticeboard.
One of the most common assignments is to evaluate an existing article which involves examining the reliability of sources in-context. [7] This has generally been more appreciated by the community/students, because you'd be directly improving content, and your students would have very visible contributions. Generally, the community is appreciative of contributions that directly create better articles.
In particular to your situation, it's very valuable to incorporate content from a foreign language source into English Wikipedia articles as most editors are limited to English sources. That's the source of the inactivity issue you identified. Identifying reliable Korean-language sources and using them in articles would probably benefit the encyclopedia far more than just creating a list of them, as there aren't enough editors who can read those sources. Chess (talk) (please mention me on reply) 00:37, 4 December 2024 (UTC)
@ActivelyDisinterested @Chess I am having hard time understanding " Identifying reliable Korean-language sources and using them in articles would probably benefit the encyclopedia far more than just creating a list of them". If a source is identified as reliable, shouldn't this assessment be recorded somewhere to make it easier for future editors to know it is good? I always thought that stuff like Wikipedia:WikiProject Video games/Sources is a gold standard and we both need and want such lists to be created for all topic areas. Piotrus at Hanyang| reply here 07:55, 6 December 2024 (UTC)
@Hanyangprofessor2: I reflected on this some more and I'm coming around to your point.
I believe the intent of WikiProject Video Games is to help editors find good sources for articles. The point of RSN is to get into fights (and sometimes actually seek advice) over whether a source is appropriate on Wikipedia, and WP:RSP is meant to summarize the results of those discussions. I've erred in saying that generally, making long lists categorizing uncontroversial sources is something to try and avoid, I should've said that WP:RSP is not meant to be a long list categorizing uncontroversial sources.
Such a list for the Korean-language topic area would likely be beneficial. But asking about individual sources at WP:RSN or a WikiProject talk likely isn't the best way to create this list, since your students are bringing up relatively clear-cut sources (I would do the same if it was for a school assignment). Chess (talk) (please mention me on reply) 08:26, 6 December 2024 (UTC)
@Chess Right, I need to rethink this activity. I considered directing students to WikiProject talk pages, but they are much less active then here. We don't want RSP to become too long, it's asking to be split already, really... the output of those less controversial and less common sources might be best to be kept in subpages. I envision RSP as a 'main page', listing most popular and commonly asked about sources, with the WikiProject topical lists being its subpages. But that's the ideal world, what we have is what we have. Any thoughts on how to make an educational activity that would benefit the workflow of RSN and generate useful data rather than noise is much appreciated (clearly, my idea is not here yet). Piotrus at Hanyang| reply here 08:46, 6 December 2024 (UTC)

HM (Magazine) / Heaven's Metal for notability assertion

Latest comment: 30 days ago10 comments5 people in discussion

https://issuu.com/dougvanpelt/docs/hm164_ef725e65eaf2f2/20 describes the state purpose it was established for: HM Magazine is a magazine specializing in heavy music/ christian metal. "I started HM Magazine to serve a two-fold purpose: to serve the fans, who needed and wanted information; and to serve the artists, who needed exposure."

Given that purpose, the question is if the HM magazine is a reliable indication of Wikipedia worthy notability of artists/bands/albums being served by the magazine to improve their exposure. Graywalls (talk) 17:56, 5 December 2024 (UTC)

Absolutely, yes. It's been discussed before. And it's got some decent coverage in academic publications, Christianity Today (which has called Doug Van Pelt an expert in the subject matter), and much else, including other traditional print media. It's also a traditional print publication. It evolved from its fanzine origins to become THE major journalistic source for Christian metal and hard rock (that's not just my assertion, that's what the scholar Marcus Moberg has said about the publication).
This isn't a deletion discussion, but still, you can do a quick Google/Google Books/Google Scholar search, as well as check out the archives for here and WikiProject Albums, before starting a discussion.--3family6 (Talk to me | See what I have done) 18:56, 5 December 2024 (UTC)
I don't pay such statements much attention, "We're here to serve the fans with enthusiastic blah blah blah" it's just marketing waffle.
It has some WP:USEBYOTHERS (Google books[8], Google Scholar[9]) it's varied in quality but there are some known reliable publishers there. -- LCU ActivelyDisinterested «@» °∆t° 19:02, 5 December 2024 (UTC)
I will note that at least three instances of those uses by others explicitly mention its expertise or primacy in the requisite subject matter. One of them even makes what on Wikipedia would be called a notability statement about an artist based on that artist's coverage by the magazine.--3family6 (Talk to me | See what I have done) 19:08, 5 December 2024 (UTC)
Well, sources use personal interviews and social media too in their own reporting. Is your position that artist being covered in HM Magazine count towards GNG requirements? Also, should HM Magazine and Heaven's Magazine be seen differently? When you browse WP:RSP there are entries like this "Unlike articles before 2013, Newsweek articles since 2013 are not generally reliable. From 2013 to 2018, Newsweek was owned and operated by IBT Media" Graywalls (talk) 18:52, 6 December 2024 (UTC)
HM totally counts toward GNG requirements. Why would it not? It is a traditional print publication with professional staff and editorial oversight, is notable according to other reliable sources, and is used extensively by other repliable sources and other sources have noticed its expertise and utility. Not only that, but a reliable source (a magazine article by Mark Allan Powell) explicitly states that Norma Jean was notable at the time he wrote the article because they were on the cover of HM . I don't know how often we have a reliable source specifically basing what on Wikipedia we would call a notability statement off of another source, but we actually have such a case here. Thus it definitely would qualify for GNG. It would qualify for establishing GNG even without that, but this basically is a perfect case where the specific issue (establishing GNG) can be confirmed in a separate RS.
As for HM versus Heaven's Metal, it's complicated. HM used to be Heaven's Metal, and then was rebranded as HM as it included a lot more rock, indie, and even sometimes hip hop coverage. Heaven's Metal later then was released as a parallel publication alongside HM. Around the time that Doug Van Pelt sold HM to David Stagg, Heaven's Metal became a separate publication, owned by Van Pelt. So, it is two separate publications as of 2013. I didn't fully realize this until last week or the week before, and that explains why there's two websites now. But there's no reason to suppose that suddenly Heaven's Metal or HM are unreliable, given that all that changed was the ownership of one of the two magazines. When you see something like "Newsweek is only reliable prior to 2013", it's because there's specific circumstances or problems after that timeframe that were identified by community consensus and consensus deemed that this source necessitated a qualifier for usage because of that. You don't have that here - there's no down-grade in the quality of the material published via HM or Heaven's Metal.--3family6 (Talk to me | See what I have done) 19:14, 6 December 2024 (UTC)
Yes, it's a long-running, professional music publication. All music publications are giving musicians exposure, whether they say it or not. No need to dock them for that comment. Sergecross73 msg me 19:35, 5 December 2024 (UTC)
That even is the purpose of music magazines. It's journalism about musicians. I would expect them to have interest in promoting the scene. It would become a conflict of interest if musicians were paid for stories/profiles/reviews, or the writers paid by record labels to do stories/reviews of particular artists. If the publication thinks certain bands are worth hearing and need to be communicated to audiences, that's literally the job of the publication.--3family6 (Talk to me | See what I have done) 22:06, 5 December 2024 (UTC)
Wait. Are we talking about this article? If so, I would not count it towards GNG because it's an interview performed seemingly by and with the editor. But it seems like this is more of a hypothetical question? If that's the case, then we'd need to see the article before we could make that call. Woodroar (talk) 19:58, 6 December 2024 (UTC)
Oh yeah, I totally agree. I'm not even sure what we would use this for other than statements about the editor themself, and those would not suffice for notability if for no other reason than because it's their own publication, anyway.--3family6 (Talk to me | See what I have done) 20:17, 6 December 2024 (UTC)

World Bank/UNICEF/UNESCO & Brookings Inst. are reliable?

Latest comment: 29 days ago6 comments4 people in discussion
Discussion has moved to Talk:COVID-19 lockdowns. -- LCU ActivelyDisinterested «@» °∆t° 13:09, 7 December 2024 (UTC)

The following discussion is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.

I inserted the below text into the article for COVID-19 lockdowns with the cited sources, which I thought were reliable, but it was taken down by @Bon courage due to "Unreliable sources". The same institutions are already cited in the article. Are these sources reliable? Why or why not?

Prolonged COVID-19 school closures and the ineffectiveness of remote learning, especially in low- and middle-income countries, exacerbated educational inequities, leading to substantial learning losses that could cost this generation of students $17 trillion in lifetime earnings, according to the World Bank, UNICEF and UNESCO. The COVID-19 pandemic disrupted education for 1.6 billion students at its peak, exacerbating the gender divide with disproportionately greater learning losses among girls and increased risks of child labor, gender-based violence, early marriage, and pregnancy in some countries.[1] The Brookings Institution found that pandemic-related school closures led to significant declines in math and reading scores, particularly among students from low-income backgrounds, with math being more heavily impacted than reading. While targeted interventions such as tutoring, summer programs, and extended school days offer hope for recovery, the effects of these disruptions are expected to be long-lasting.[2]Lardlegwarmers (talk) 03:14, 7 December 2024 (UTC)

Also, what about this source by Federal Reserve Bank of Richmond?
[10]https://www.richmondfed.org/publications/research/economic_brief/2023/eb_23-29 Lardlegwarmers (talk) 03:21, 7 December 2024 (UTC)
Bon courage challenged the sources. Have you tried asking them on their User Talk page or in the article's Talk page? ElKevbo (talk) 03:28, 7 December 2024 (UTC)
A US think tank and a banking group for statements about education (and extrapolation from the USA to the whole world)? Dubious. But the underlying report with UNICEF and UNESCO may be useful. Not sure why this is at a noticeboard when there was been zero discussion at the article. The COVID-19 article is very high level so details about US school closures are probably undue there too. Bon courage (talk) 03:28, 7 December 2024 (UTC)
I will move this to Talk:COVID-19 lockdowns Lardlegwarmers (talk) 03:35, 7 December 2024 (UTC)

References

  1. ^ "The State of the Global Education Crisis: A Path to Recovery". World Bank. December 6, 2021. Retrieved 2024-12-06.
  2. ^ "The pandemic has had devastating impacts on learning – what will it take to help students catch up?". Brookings. Retrieved 6 December 2024.
The discussion above is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.

botanikks.com

Latest comment: 29 days ago6 comments4 people in discussion

Some time ago, I cited botanikks.com as a source. @MtBotany informs me that it's a LLM-generated spam site. Just noting it here for the archives in the hopes some future editor won't make the same mistake I did. RoySmith (talk) 19:32, 5 December 2024 (UTC)

Never mind, this is the same issue as #LLM AI sources just below. RoySmith (talk) 21:44, 5 December 2024 (UTC)

LLM AI sources

I just ran across https://www.botanikks.com/ being linked or cited on Wikipedia and I'm posting to let other editors know about problems with the site and as another instance of an apparent LLM AI generated site being used by good faith editors. This is similar to the previous discussion I started about Selina Wamucii being cited. Rather than these content farms directly adding links they are just good enough to sometimes fool editors into citing or adding an external link to a page they have generated. The botanikks site is in many ways worse for us because it does not have the same blatant self contradictions that crop up on Selina Wamucii. Though it does have generated text tells. On the page Entosthodon neoscoticus] the binomial is repeated over and over with "M. S. Brown" appended after it. That's not a very human mistake to make. Other pages on the site have similar oddness such as their page on Sequoia Sempervirens that is full of vague platitudes. It also says, "Another disease that can impact Sequoia sempervirens is Sudden Oak Death. This is a devastating disease that can cause the entire tree to die within a few years." While Phytophthora ramorum does infect the species it does not kill trees directly. That's exactly the sort of subtle mistake of fact that is most dangerous for Wikipedia's mission. I do not have a solution to the larger issue, but I think we should start some sort of gray or black list of such websites that get cited by good faith editors to have some sort of warning when an editor adds an external link or citation to them the same way as when someone makes an edit containing a citation with publisher that puts out self-published works. 🌿MtBotany (talk) 19:45, 5 December 2024 (UTC)

All we have at the moment is the deprecation warning message, and it doesn't really fit the issue. There was a recent discussion about a WP:UGC site were I suggested the need for a "Please don't use these sites as reference" warning message that problematic and obviously unusable sources could be added to. But I have no idea that how to even start the process of getting such a thing. -- LCU ActivelyDisinterested «@» °∆t° 20:05, 5 December 2024 (UTC)
@The Earwig: I wonder if it would be feasible to expand https://copyvios.toolforge.org/ to also check for LLM text using one of the various LLM detectors that are available. RoySmith (talk) 16:17, 6 December 2024 (UTC)
@RoySmith: I have thought a bit about this, but as I understand it, the problem of detecting whether some text is LLM-generated is difficult and there are no reliable detectors available. If we are aware of something we can trust then I can look into integrating it. — The Earwig (talk) 18:48, 7 December 2024 (UTC)

Police Report

Latest comment: 29 days ago8 comments3 people in discussion

I am updating a university article to reflect a shooting that occured on the school property. I was going to source the police report of the incident. Is that a credible source? How much information like personal identifiers (Phone Numbers, Names) should I redact if any before uploading it to archive.org? Middle Mac CJM (talk) 20:26, 7 December 2024 (UTC)

We can't use public records, like police reports, to support claims involving a living or recently deceased person. See WP:BLPPRIMARY for that policy. Woodroar (talk) 20:53, 7 December 2024 (UTC)
But what if the addition to the article would be about the event and not the individuals involved? Middle Mac CJM (talk) 21:27, 7 December 2024 (UTC)
If the shooting is a significant event, there should be coverage of it. Citing a newspaper is better than citing a police report. Schazjmd (talk) 21:37, 7 December 2024 (UTC)
The only coverage of it is a police report and the minutes of a governmental meeting where the incident was discussed. I just think the police report is more objective than the meeting minutes but the story was not covered by any press at the time. Middle Mac CJM (talk) 21:45, 7 December 2024 (UTC)
If it wasn't covered by a reliable, secondary source, that's the best reason not to mention it on Wikipedia. We're not a news source, after all. Just think of all the police reports filed in a single day, and how many issues are discussed at governmental meetings. It's not up to us to decide which ones are worthy of coverage. That's why we look to reliable, secondary sources like the press. Woodroar (talk) 21:57, 7 December 2024 (UTC)
I agree with Woodroar. Without independent coverage, it isn't significant enough to mention in the article about the school. Schazjmd (talk) 22:02, 7 December 2024 (UTC)
Thank you both @Woodroar and @Schazjmd!! I really appreciate the wisdom! Middle Mac CJM (talk) 22:04, 7 December 2024 (UTC)

The Daily Galaxy

Latest comment: 28 days ago2 comments2 people in discussion

The Daily Galaxy is a news source that appears a lot on the google news science web site. I am not impressed with its reliability. Does anyone else have an opinion? Uzol 69 (talk) 20:29, 7 December 2024 (UTC)

It would be helpful if you could give some more details. Is there a particular Daily Galaxy article you were concerned about, or it's use in a specific article in Wikipedia? -- LCU ActivelyDisinterested «@» °∆t° 12:47, 8 December 2024 (UTC)

Is it acceptable to include self published YouTube videos?

Latest comment: 26 days ago11 comments10 people in discussion

For example, if I (non-expert enthusiast by the way) were to read aloud a passage of Mein Kampf, and I take a few liberties from the source for easier translation, could I link the video in the article? ----(there is also an rfc thread that is discussing a similar situation if anyone is interested)

Any advice is greatly appreciated. Plasticwonder (talk) 23:00, 4 December 2024 (UTC)

WP:YOUTUBE states a few concerns.
1) Copyright. If the read out loud material is copyrighted, you probably shouldn't be using it. Similarly, the person posting it on YouTube usually owns the copyright to video, so they would have to allow its use as per WP:IUPC. Since Mein Kampf is in public domain, and you donate the video, you could link it.
2) If the material is SPS or original, it would be problematic. So if the video is just a random video blog ramblings of a non expert, it really shouldn't be used. Since you are doing a word for word reading of Mein Kampf, that probably isn't original or SPS, and could be fine.
3) WP:DUE concerns. Going off your example, it's probably undue to post gigantic text quotes from Mein Kampf. It would probably also be undue to post a video of gigantic bits of Mein Kampf. Bluethricecreamman (talk) 01:16, 5 December 2024 (UTC)
The risk of taking liberties on a translation of a text sounds like WP:SYN. It is best to leave interpretations of a text to more academic sources instead. Ramos1990 (talk) 01:31, 5 December 2024 (UTC)
Except Plasticwonder is not doing a word-for-word reading; they're taking liberties with it for easy translation, which means it is especially not a reliable source for the contents of Mein Kampf. And it's not clear what would be gained by this even if it were reasonable; the proper source for quoting a book is the contents of the book itself (with an RS to show a particular quote is due.) The proper source for a translation from Mein Kampf is an expert translation from a reliable publisher -- though we have to be careful because translations can still be under copyright even when the work in question is in the public domain. -- Nat Gertler (talk) 01:39, 5 December 2024 (UTC)
1 - maybe I'm confused by what you're saying but while the copyright over the original work needs to be considered including whether the uploader of the YouTube video has the necessary permissions per WP:COPYVIOLINK, since the OP seems to be discussing simply linking to the original uploaded video the posted by the creator or with their permission there's no need to worry about their copyright any more than any other link. We don't need permission to link. If we were uploading the video or parts to of it or s transcription then sure. Likewise if there was doubt the uploader had permission of the creator. Nil Einne (talk) 05:50, 5 December 2024 (UTC)
This issue has also been discussed at WP:VPP#Videos from YT and WP:RSPYT. An anonymous YouTube video couldn't be used for the purposes of verification. But this appears to be external media, rather than a reference. As with a images or maps on commons whether they should be included isn't a WP:Reliable Sources issue, as it's not being used for WP:Verification.
Whether the videos should be included is something that should be discussed on the articles talkpage. -- LCU ActivelyDisinterested «@» °∆t° 01:34, 5 December 2024 (UTC)
I would suggest we not bother with amateur readings of historical texts whether those be Machiavelli's letters, Hitlers screed or Chaucer. The small benefit of hearing the original language is counterbalanced by concerns of WP:SYNTH regarding the subtitles. Simonm223 (talk) 13:14, 5 December 2024 (UTC)
My main concern with using them would be if they are the linguistically correct, historical pronunciation is not an amatuer field of study. As the videos are anonymous there's no way of knowing if they are correct. -- LCU ActivelyDisinterested «@» °∆t° 18:44, 5 December 2024 (UTC)
No, as to use an SPS it would have to be by a recognised expert. Slatersteven (talk) 16:23, 5 December 2024 (UTC)

And, given the fact that many YouTube is monetized and visits can cause the video producer to profit, YouTube videos should be treated like an emergency floatation device. Use it only if there's no other sources available and if it's absolutely necessary, and strictly complies with WP:RSPYT. Graywalls (talk) 23:42, 6 December 2024 (UTC)

The video is uploaded to Wikimedia, so it wouldn't be directly linked to YouTube. Tinynanorobots (talk) 09:44, 10 December 2024 (UTC)

Death estimation

Latest comment: 26 days ago22 comments7 people in discussion

The following discussion is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.

For both the Gaza genocide and Gaza famine are the following sources considered reliable for usage in an infobox as citations for death by starvation: [11] [12].

I couldn't find the editorial board or hard details on a review process for Cost of War, and the letter seems to be written for political advocacy. Originalcola (talk) 20:32, 6 December 2024 (UTC)

Comment - I was unable to find these sources discussed previously here. Originalcola (talk) 20:34, 6 December 2024 (UTC)
the first is apparently an estimate by an assistant professor. i cant tell peer review or if folks are citing it. might be considered SPS by cost of war institute, reliable but should be attributed Bluethricecreamman (talk) 20:37, 6 December 2024 (UTC)
Apologies, I accidentally misstated my request and have edited it. Originalcola (talk) 20:46, 6 December 2024 (UTC)
second is by doctorsingaza group or something. should also be attributed. Bluethricecreamman (talk) 20:46, 6 December 2024 (UTC)
Thanks for the response! I just have some quick follow-up questions for attributing, since the Associate Professor cites the second source (letter) do I attribute the AP, Doctor's letter or both? Furthermore, does the field of the Professor (Anthropology) warrant mentioning in this case and if so would I have to mention their field of expertise in a note? Originalcola (talk) 16:26, 7 December 2024 (UTC)

Discussion at Gaza genocide and at Gaza famine refers. Selfstudier (talk) 16:32, 7 December 2024 (UTC)

Let's clarify;

The report Publisher Watson Institute for International and Public Affairs (Watson Institute) Author Sophia Stamatopoulou-Robbins Associate Professor of Anthropology, Bard College Editor Stephanie Savell, Director of Costs of War and Senior Fellow at Brown University’s Watson Institute for International and Public Affairs Title The Human Toll: Indirect Deaths from War in Gaza and the West Bank, October 7, 2023 Forward Dated October 7, 2024

From the summary "The current report gathers previously published data to provide an overview of the direct and indirect deaths that have resulted, and will continue to result, from U.S.-supported Israeli military operations."

The report says (p.3) "There were 62,413 additional deaths from starvation, according to the October 2, 2024, “Appendix to letter of October 2, 2024 re: American physicians observations from the Gaza Strip since October 7, 2023.” For estimates of indirect deaths, see Figure 2, below." which (on p.4) shows Estimated Deaths from Starvation 62,413 in a table.

The referenced "Appendix" at page 5 shows how this figure was calculated. It cites the IPC technical manual: in the catastrophe phase of food insecurity the crude death rate rises to at least 2 deaths per 10,000 people per day, and in the emergency phase the crude death rate rises to 1-2 deaths per 10,000 people per day and applies that to the IPC published data, summarizing that on `page 6 as "In total it is likely that 62,413 people have died of starvation and its compilations in Gaza from October 7, 2023 to September 30, 2024" The Appendix is attached to an open letter to Biden/Harris signed by 99 American medical professionals who served in Gaza.

Detailed secondary source "Adding an estimate of those who have died by starvation—about 62,413 people—brings the total estimated death toll to 114,000, or about 5 percent of Gaza’s population. Those likely death-by-starvation numbers come from a letter 99 physicians who served in Gaza sent President Joe Biden last week." Selfstudier (talk) 18:34, 7 December 2024 (UTC)

I believe this was mentioned in the talk on those pages but I will add here that the "Detailed secondary source" is a news article summarizing 2 papers, including [163] and a companion paper from Cost of War. Objectively speaking, it doesn't provide much in terms of analysis or commentary, so I'd prefer citing the paper directly over than churnalism that just repeats what was said in the paper. In any case, I'm personally curious about whether the letter and paper pass WP:SCHOLARSHIP and WP:RS not the news article. I was hoping for some uninvolved editors to give their opinions, given that both you and I have already stated our opinions at length. Originalcola (talk) 00:27, 8 December 2024 (UTC)
The other party trying to delete this material is also curious about the scholarship issue, see Wikipedia talk:Reliable sources#Do these pass WP:SCHOLARSHIP?, not sure why they posted there but I pointed them to here. Selfstudier (talk) 10:29, 8 December 2024 (UTC)
Pinging @XDanielx. Valereee (talk) 14:21, 9 December 2024 (UTC)
If this is a scholarly source, where was this published? As far as I can tell, this is just a PDF document hosted on a university's website. There's no provenance or evidence that this was peer reviewed, so per WP:PREPRINT, it is unreliable. Chess (talk) (please mention me on reply) 00:41, 9 December 2024 (UTC)

<- I haven't followed the various discussion closely, but I'm wondering whether the right test is being applied here. It's not obvious to me why a scholarship test for starvation estimates should be used while we simply report (with attribution) casualty estimates that come from the belligerents. It's very possible that I'm missing something. Sean.hoyland (talk) 03:03, 9 December 2024 (UTC)

  • This estimate does seem pretty dubious. Selfstudier, that letter appendix doesn't say 62K died of starvation. It says it could be expected that many would die under the type of emergency this is being called. I don't think we can use either the letter appendix or the report, both of which are using an estimation method -- as opposed to estimating because we don't yet have definite numbers -- of expected deaths from starvation under certain conditions.
All RS seem to be saying there've been dozens, not tens of thousands. I think we need to see reliable sources reporting deaths. We could put an asterisk on it to an explanatory note that expected deaths from starvation under such conditions are estimated to be over 60,000, or whatever. It's fine to use that information, attributed and explained, in the article, but for WP to be estimating 62,000 deaths in the infobox, which does look like Wikivoice, as if there were reliable sources saying that is IMO not appropriate. Valereee (talk) 14:13, 9 December 2024 (UTC)
Since there was some discussion about this sort of thing, excess/indirect deaths, at the main war article, it's probably worth looking at that article or more easily, the infobox template for it, Template:Israel–Hamas war infobox.
There, it says "Indirect deaths likely to be multiple times higher" and one has to drill down in the refs/notes to see what it says, so for example, cited to The Lancet, "In recent conflicts, such indirect deaths range from three to 15 times the number of direct deaths. Applying a conservative estimate of four indirect deaths per one direct death to the 37,396 deaths reported, it is not implausible to estimate that up to 186,000 or even more deaths could be attributable to the current conflict in Gaza. Using the 2022 Gaza Strip population estimate of 2,375,259, this would translate to 7.9% of the total population in the Gaza Strip."
This estimate doesn't (afaics atm) break down that figure into different causes for the Gaza situation. I will try to look into it a bit more, Idk if it is possible to better pin down the starvation component or whether this new study is merely a first go at that. I would note that we wouldn't usually start investigating author cites to check their work, we would just usually attribute, assuming the source is RS. Selfstudier (talk) 15:49, 9 December 2024 (UTC)
But there's only a single RS (Mother Jones) that is repeating these estimates, which are from non-RS? And they're estimates based on a theoretical formula that predicts expected numbers. I'm not too concerned about that being covered in the article, where it can be explained, but right now we're saying, in what amounts to wikivoice, that an estimated 62K+ have died of starvation. I think it's irresponsible to include this in the infobox. Valereee (talk) 17:53, 9 December 2024 (UTC)
I had a look at it and I just couldn't convince myself that it was a good estimate. It wasn't based on anything on the ground and it had question marks in important places. Euro-Med gave a lower figure of 51,000 around the time for what it called the 'natural' deaths, i.e. the ones not due to the bombs and shooting and it has people on the ground. It broke down the figures better and it did not directly attribute deaths to famine though it said that lack of food was a major cause of dying rather than recovering from disease or injury. However it also mentioned things like lack of clean water and sanitation and medicine and the hospitals being destroyed. I guess it can be cited, it's by reputable people and they probably tried to do an honest job, but I'd like suitable attribution and caveats. NadVolum (talk) 18:18, 9 December 2024 (UTC)
The way I look at it is that there is very little reason to place much credence in any the various statistics for all sorts of reasons. All of the numbers are probably going to be wrong in one way or another. And we are not really able to estimate the reliability of any particular statistical claim. Under these circumstances, statements of fact in wiki voice should probably be avoided, and it seems more of a due weight question with respect to any particular claim. Sean.hoyland (talk) 06:28, 10 December 2024 (UTC)

Started RFC on Talk:Gaza genocide/Archive 7#RfC about starvation estimate about this estimate. Originalcola (talk) 21:37, 9 December 2024 (UTC)

Some reason you do not want to let this discussion run its course? Selfstudier (talk) 21:43, 9 December 2024 (UTC)
It's not my intent to stifle conversation, I want to have as many opinions as possible. I'll ping all the editors who posted here to invite them to the RfC, apologies to anyone who gets double pinged.
@Bluethricecreamman
@Selfstudier
@Valereee
@Chess
@Sean.hoyland
@NadVolum Originalcola (talk) 06:15, 10 December 2024 (UTC)
Might as well close this as RFC is opened to resolve. Selfstudier (talk) 10:24, 10 December 2024 (UTC)
The discussion above is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.

news-pravda.com

Latest comment: 26 days ago3 comments3 people in discussion

Has anyone come across news-pravda.com?

According to this Guardian article, it might be part of the Portal Kombat network. It does not look like it has anything to do with Pravda.ru, but it would be interesting to get some more eyes on this. - Amigao (talk) 03:02, 10 December 2024 (UTC)

I don't think you need to overthink it, just from a quick glance it seems to be just be reposting content from other sources often of questionable reliability. Originalcola (talk) 09:12, 10 December 2024 (UTC)
Aggregators and republishers (specifically those republishing word for word) don't have a reliability, as the reliability stems from the original source. Looking at the first couple of articles I found they were from Tsargrad.tv via Telegram, and Sputnik radio, neither of which are reliable sources. -- LCU ActivelyDisinterested «@» °∆t° 15:20, 10 December 2024 (UTC)

Letters to journals

Latest comment: 26 days ago16 comments9 people in discussion

I'm dealing with a situation over at the BLP Judy Singer where a claim of her creation of the term "neurodiversity", cited to BBC News as well as to two Portuguese articles, is being trumped by a citation to the journal Autism. However, the journal piece is not an article, but a letter to the editor. Not being an academic, I don't know whether such letters are subject to review, and I can't find any guidance on how we way such things, or if they are even permissible for BLP use. (I'm not assuming the same rules used for newspaper letters-to-the-editor apply here.) Any suggestions on how this should be addressed? -- Nat Gertler (talk) 17:03, 9 December 2024 (UTC)

Journal letters may be written by experts in the field, and their may be some validity in their points, but unlike the other journal contents, such information is not subject to peer review. If a wholly new concept is borne out of only a letter to a journal, that seems very iffy to include. Masem (t) 17:06, 9 December 2024 (UTC)
As Masem notes, such letters are not subject to peer review. This particular letter has been cited a number of times in other non-self-published sources; here's Google Scholar's list of publications citing it. At least some of those are peer-reviewed and might turn out to be better sources. I think the letter itself can be used as a source, but only with in-line attribution, along the lines of "Singer has been credited with coining the term 'neurodiversity,' [citations added for the Silberman book and Harris article mentioned in the letter], but in a letter to the editor of Journal J, Persons X, Y, and Z, state that the term was developed collectively ..." FactOrOpinion (talk) 18:36, 9 December 2024 (UTC)
Well, they might turn out to be better sources for other things, but of course they aren't going to repeat every fact from the letter, so that doesn't help us here. PARAKANYAA (talk) 20:36, 9 December 2024 (UTC)
It could well help us here, given the WP text that is sourced to the letter. The letter is used as a citation for three things: two instances of Singer being "known for coining the term neurodiversity" (for which better sources exist, as the letter itself notes), plus "this term first appeared in publication in a 1998 article by Harvey Blume, a year before Singer included it in a book chapter discussing the development of the concept of "neurological diversity" online. In this chapter, Singer did not claim to have created the term, and only used it in passing." That seems a bit cherry-picked to me, as the letter also states that (1) "Singer wrote an Honours thesis on the subject in 1998," so Singer's and Blume's use of "neurodiversity" were contemporaneous, (2) there's evidence of Singer claiming years ago that she spoke to Blume about it prior to his use, though that's unsubstantiated, and (3) the letter provides evidence of online use of "neurological diversity" that precedes both Singer's thesis and Blume's article, but this isn't mentioned. This peer-reviewed article, which cites the letter, says "the neurodiversity concept was not developed by any single person," and might be used instead for text along the lines of "whether Singer coined the term is disputed." FactOrOpinion (talk) 21:55, 9 December 2024 (UTC)
Not sure if I agree. It shouldn't be used for BLP if it is the only source for anything that might be damaging to the subject's reputation, but this kind of claim should be ok.Boynamedsue (talk) 21:39, 9 December 2024 (UTC)
I am not sure how this is not "damaging to the subject's reputation", as this is calling into claim the credit on which her reputation is at least partly built. We are dealing with a matter where an editor claiming to be the subject herself is raising concerns over the material. (see Wikipedia:Biographies_of_living_persons/Noticeboard#Judy_Singer) -- Nat Gertler (talk) 00:10, 10 December 2024 (UTC)
Sorry, no. This is not "contentious" in the sense it is meant in BLP. It is fine to cite the opinions of others on the origin of the term, but in this case it should be attributed.Boynamedsue (talk) 07:14, 10 December 2024 (UTC)
Having had a few such letters of my own printed over the years, and knowing other academics who have done the same, I can say that they do go through a review process, though not the same process as is used for articles. The editor's involvement can go beyond merely choosing which letters to print and include back-and-forth about cuts for length, edits for clarity, etc. In this particular case, the journal does not say that letters completely bypass peer review. Rather, their instructions for authors say that letters may not require two independent reviews to be accepted. The basic historical claims in the letter in question are of a sort that an editor could check for themselves without sending it out. (For example, it says that Blume used neurodiversity in a 1998 Atlantic story, and that story is right there.) Sending that out for the full kind of review applied to a regular research article would be excessive. I see no reason not to use this for the matter at hand. I'd use in-text attribution, not out of any concern that the reference is dubious, but just because when there are disputed claims, it's nice to be clear about who says what. XOR'easter (talk) 00:11, 10 December 2024 (UTC)
While I wouldn't be that fond of a letter published in a journal, I wouldn't assume that a news media source is going to do a better job researching the validity of a similar sort of claim. The news sources likely all reference a common source/person and for something that appears to be more a curiosity vs a critical claim, the news organizations are likely to take the claim at face value and move on. Springee (talk) 04:44, 10 December 2024 (UTC)
At this point, we are using the popular press mentions not to say "she created X", but to back up "she is commonly credited with creating X", which is a different statement. -- Nat Gertler (talk) 04:47, 10 December 2024 (UTC)
I would say these letters aren't peer-reviewed, but under editorial oversight and written by experts. I think blogs written by experts are better than news sources anyway.(a seasonally topical example here) I think it depends on the context in the work, though. People tend not to double-check trivia or fun facts. Who coined a term can be considered trivial, or really important based on who you are. Tinynanorobots (talk) 09:11, 10 December 2024 (UTC)
specific to Judy Singer I would suggest it might be useful to simply reword the content. Rather than focusing on who said the word first, focus on her impact in the formation of the academic concept. -- LCU ActivelyDisinterested «@» °∆t° 15:09, 10 December 2024 (UTC)
If you (or anyone) want(s) to run with it, I encourage you to; life is handing me a platter full of busy at the moment. -- Nat Gertler (talk) 15:39, 10 December 2024 (UTC)

Touken World

Latest comment: 26 days ago2 comments2 people in discussion

There are a couple of websites for what appears to be a museum for swords. https://www.meihaku.jp/about-museum/ and https://www.touken-world.jp. It is used several times in the Samurai article as a source. The articles there don't have an author listed, but seems okay. I think some English language sources written by scholars would be better, but I am not familiar with the website. I don't speak Japanese and am mostly familiar with western scholarship on Japan. So is this is reliable, and if it is, which grade would it be? Here is a link to a translated article.[13] Tinynanorobots (talk) 08:56, 10 December 2024 (UTC)

They are going to be more reliable than a random website, as you'd expect museums to have some understanding of its collection. It's a matter of weight, I would put a musueum as the same weight as news reporting but far below academic sources (wherever they are from). If an academic sources contradicts the museum, don't use the museum. -- LCU ActivelyDisinterested «@» °∆t° 15:39, 10 December 2024 (UTC)

Is Power-Technology.com reliable

Latest comment: 26 days ago3 comments2 people in discussion

I found this source on the web when trying to find reliable sources for Zhangiztobe Solar plant but I am not sure if it's reliable. In the webpage here, it said it was a B2B website that was a part of Global Data. I think this makes it reliable but I need some verification. SVcode(Talk) 23:35, 10 December 2024 (UTC)

That company profile is provided by Global Data, which describes its methodology for compiling that profile as Data on Zhangiztobe Solar PV Park report is collected through a hybrid research approach to track power plants across various companies and technologies. Secondary research involves gathering data from publicly available sources such as asset finance dea (cut-off mid-sentence is what they wrote).[14] Probably reliable for basic facts, I'd think. Schazjmd (talk) 23:54, 10 December 2024 (UTC)
Thanks! SVcode(Talk) 00:15, 11 December 2024 (UTC)

Is this article about Wikipedia a reliable source?

Latest comment: 24 days ago32 comments11 people in discussion

"Wikipedia’s Indian problem: settler colonial erasure of native American knowledge and history on the world’s largest encyclopedia" [15] This needs to be seen in the context of a response here[16] It's being discussed at an RfC[17] Doug Weller talk 16:04, 8 December 2024 (UTC)

Its far to polemical for example it says "Native peoples are first mentioned on the page in the context of disease to cast Native departure from the East Coast as a natural occurrence" We say "The colonization of the United States resulted in a large decline of the Native American population primarily because of newly introduced diseases.", so it seems to misrepresent what we in fact say to make a point. So at best this seems too biased to use without attribution, but not for statements of fact. Slatersteven (talk) 16:18, 8 December 2024 (UTC)
I think the question is, does the article show a valid viewpoint about underrepresentation of content about indigenous people in English-language Wikipedia? Bogazicili (talk) 16:21, 8 December 2024 (UTC)
And I am staying, it is so polemical all it shows its their perception there is a bias. Slatersteven (talk) 16:29, 8 December 2024 (UTC)
Indeed. So that would be a valid viewpoint per WP:NPOV. I am not suggesting it should be used in Wikivoice anywhere.
So the question is, do you think the article represents a WP:Fringe view? Because other studies have also suggested similar concerns. See Wikipedia_talk:Systemic_bias#Coverage_of_indigenous_topics_in_English-language_Wikipedia Bogazicili (talk) 16:33, 8 December 2024 (UTC)
Yes, as this seems to be a separate issue (but related). That is about underrepresentation among editors not bias within articles. At this stage I would also raise wp:blp as to use this for anything, might well violate it, as it talks about living editors. Slatersteven (talk) 16:38, 8 December 2024 (UTC)
No, other studies have also identified issues with respect to content:

This research concludes that First Nations histories, current experiences and voices remain marginalised on Wikipedia, reflecting the literature (Thorpe, Sentance & Booker 2023; Gallert et al. 2016; Bjork-James 2021).

[18]
Right now the study is not being used anywhere, except in talk pages. It was also used in Wikipedia:Wikipedia Signpost/2024-10-19/Recent research Bogazicili (talk) Bogazicili (talk) 16:44, 8 December 2024 (UTC)
You're going too hard here, we don't need to stretch BLP that far even if its a useful rhetorical cudgel. Horse Eye's Back (talk) 14:37, 11 December 2024 (UTC)
The article says "Native peoples are first mentioned on the page in the context of disease to cast Native departure from the East Coast as a natural occurrence." That's an accurate statement. As you yourself quote, the first mention of Native peoples is in the sentence "The colonization of the United States resulted in a large decline of the Native American population primarily because of newly introduced diseases." Not sure how you conclude that the article is "far to polemical" based on an accurate statement in the source article. As for "I would also raise wp:blp as to use this for anything, might well violate it, as it talks about living editors," there is no BLP restriction on using a source that talks about living persons. The restriction is on introducing WP text about living persons, and even there, WP text can be introduced if the source is a reliable non-SPS (or if it falls under BLPSELFPUB) and the WP content is DUE. FactOrOpinion (talk) 18:42, 8 December 2024 (UTC)
Well for one we do not in fact imply it was natural, we explicitly say it was introduced. It can also be argued we do not say anything about "departure" and make it clear this was a population decline due to deaths (due to introduced diseases). So it is about tone, it says we euphemize, when we do not. Slatersteven (talk) 10:25, 9 December 2024 (UTC)
Depends on the meaning of "natural" that one is using. A common definition is "Present in or produced by nature," which is the case for diseases. The statement "The colonization of the United States resulted in a large decline of the Native American population primarily because of newly introduced diseases" is also silent about the other main cause: violence. Moreover, there is no meaningful discussion of the existing indigenous populations in the first three paragraphs (the only mention is of the French and Indian Wars, but that is described only in terms of the French and the British), as if the indigenous peoples had no relevant history during this period except in relation to colonists. I think your judgment that the journal article is "far to polemical" is an overreaction. FactOrOpinion (talk) 17:27, 9 December 2024 (UTC)
I also disagree with the characterization of this research as too polemical. However this isn't a question of source reliability. Settler Colonialism Studies is precisely what I would expect from a niche humanities journal. It has a thoroughly average impact factor and is published by a major academic publisher. The source is reliable for discussion of settler colonialism. However much of what is in the article constitutes expert opinion. This is a question of WP:DUE. Keeler has a good enough h-index for an early career professor. Which he is. And he's writing within his area of specialty. As such I would say that this source would be due inclusion in articles that include critiques of Wikipedia within settler colonialism. Simonm223 (talk) 14:16, 11 December 2024 (UTC)
Simonm223, as I noted elsewhere in this discussion, so far as I know, no one has proposed using the Keeler article as a RS for content in any WP article. It was simply used in the Genocide Talk page discussion as evidence that content about indigenous peoples is often missing from WP articles where it's relevant, and that examples of genocides involving indigenous peoples should be included in the Genocide article's history section, but where the particular content proposed for the article would be sourced to other RSs. FactOrOpinion (talk) 18:10, 11 December 2024 (UTC)
Then this is all something of a waste of everybody's time. Simonm223 (talk) 18:12, 11 December 2024 (UTC)
Yup. Though it did prompt me to look at some of the genocide-related articles, and I ended up leaving a comment on the one where there's an RfC. FactOrOpinion (talk) 18:17, 11 December 2024 (UTC)
Just to clarify, I'm not suggesting using it as a source in Genocide article. Bogazicili (talk) 16:19, 8 December 2024 (UTC)
In general, whether a source is a reliable source has to be determined in relation to the WP article text that it's used to support. So far, no one is proposing that the Keeler article be used as a source for text in the Genocide article, so I'm not sure why you're asking about it here. FactOrOpinion (talk) 19:07, 8 December 2024 (UTC)
I assumed that was why it was being asked, as that seems to be what the talk page is about. Can the genocide of indigenous Americans be included? If that is not what it is being used for, what is this argument about? BUt it seems all of the arguments here are about Wikipedia's unfairness. Slatersteven (talk) 10:27, 9 December 2024 (UTC)
I'm not sure what you mean by "that seems to be what the talk page is about." I don't see anything on the Talk page suggesting that the Keeler article be used as a source for text in the Genocide article. Can you quote or link to the comment that you believe suggests that it be used as a source for the text in the WP article? FactOrOpinion (talk) 17:33, 9 December 2024 (UTC)
Simply put, no, this isn't reliable. It's a bunch of cherry picked example, often out of context, used to support the author's thesis. Keeler is an assistant prof in environmental studies, not an expert on colonialism (or Wikipedia), this doesn't even cross the threshold of expert opinion. Headbomb {t · c · p · b} 15:32, 9 December 2024 (UTC)
Yes, it is reliable for fact, as it is an academic article published in a peer-reviewed journal. However, it is a text in which much of the content is opinion and so should mostly be used with attribution to the author and/or the person they are quoting.Boynamedsue (talk) 16:32, 9 December 2024 (UTC)
@Boynamedsue: In practice, journals like Settler Colonial Studies do not really have a peer review process because they will publish basically anything that fits their a priori narrative without any scrutiny. Partofthemachine (talk) 23:12, 11 December 2024 (UTC)
Settler Colonial Studies articles are peer-reviewed, and it publishes less than half of the articles that are submitted. Your belief that they "do not really have a peer review process because they will publish basically anything that fits their a priori narrative without any scrutiny" doesn't seem based on evidence. FactOrOpinion (talk) 00:42, 12 December 2024 (UTC)
@Partofthemachine:There's a lot of prior assumptions in your post, which perhaps need clarifying. Could you define "journals like Settler Colonial Studies" and their "a priori narrative" as well as "scrutiny"? Then perhaps you could explain what reliable source you are basing these judgments on? As of now, a journal which is published by a reputable academic publisher and is peer-reviewed is a reliable source. If you are arguing there is a category of journals which are currently considered reliable but shouldn't be, you are going to need to provide a lot more evidence than a handwave.Boynamedsue (talk) 07:25, 12 December 2024 (UTC)
  • It's an academic article published in a peer-reviewed journal... but one with an impact factor of 1.8. I'd still say it passes the bare minimum of WP:RS. I don't even agree with the assertion above that it is necessarily opinion ("too polemical" is not a standard for either WP:RS or WP:RSOPINION; in practice it amounts to saying "we can't say this because I think it's wrong.") However... just because we can cite this, doesn't mean we should. As is usually the case, the issue is really about WP:DUE. At a glance the paper itself has never been cited (not totally surprising because it is just a few months old, but that's all we have to go by.) A paper that has never been cited, published in an obscure journal with a low impact factor, isn't something we can give much weight at all. So I'd avoid citing it for anything WP:EXCEPTIONAL at the very least, and if it is used at all I'd only use it for a brief mention at most. --Aquillion (talk) 17:59, 9 December 2024 (UTC)
I don't know, I think it is largely opinion. Almost every sentence contains a value judgment, implicit or explicit. I would concur that this is a question about WP:DUE though as it clearly does meet our criteria for reliability.Boynamedsue (talk) 19:52, 9 December 2024 (UTC)
@Aquillion, that's a pretty good impact factor for that field. WP:Impact factors vary by field, which is one of the reasons I find Scopus's rankings so helpful. That journal ranks at the 93rd percentile in their Arts and Humanities: History category. WhatamIdoing (talk) 05:10, 10 December 2024 (UTC)
Yeah I mentioned that above. I mean, let's be honest, it's not Nature. But for a relatively niche humanities journal an average impact factor is kind of what I would expect. Simonm223 (talk) 14:19, 11 December 2024 (UTC)
So I ask again, what is this source being used for? Slatersteven (talk) 14:18, 11 December 2024 (UTC)
@Slatersteven None right now. I see a number of threads/RFCs where there seems to be no specific article in mind.t Doug Weller talk 14:55, 11 December 2024 (UTC)
So then it seems to me, this is more of an undue issue, not a reliability one. Slatersteven (talk) 15:02, 11 December 2024 (UTC)
More or less. I’m sorry if some think it’s a waste of time, there have been some very useful comments. Doug Weller talk 18:18, 11 December 2024 (UTC)

Using Who's Who in American Politics with the caveats of ABOUTSELF?

Latest comment: 22 days ago4 comments3 people in discussion

From 1967 to 1995, 15 editions of Who's Who in American Politics were published by R. R. Bowker, while from 1997 to 2014, 11 editions were published by Marquis Who's Who. See [19] and [20] for respective examples, which seem fairly similar to each other, although the entries are formatted somewhat differently from standard Marquis entries. They primarily contain sketches of state legislators, although congresspeople, governors and other state officials, major city mayors, some party officials, etc. also get entries. I know previous discussions of Marquis have determined it to be 'generally unreliable' largely due to its similarity to self-published sources, and I agree it is not relevant to establishing notability. I am curious about its usage for biographical details. Most entries with biographical details are gathered from the subjects, and I believe most, perhaps nearly all other biographical details are gathered from state secretaries of state. While there is often plenty of media coverage of local politicians, the vast majority of their biographical details on WP come from self-written entries published by third parties, e.g. state blue books or newspaper compilations, or even from campaign websites. To me, it seems entries in WWiAP can be used with a similar level of compliance with WP:ABOUTSELF, WP:BLPSPS, etc., but I am curious to get others' input. Star Garnet (talk) 03:40, 12 December 2024 (UTC)

Opinions vary, but I would use them for WP:ABOUTSELF within the limitations that ABOUTSELF defines. -- LCU ActivelyDisinterested «@» °∆t° 21:41, 12 December 2024 (UTC)
As I pointed out during a previous discussion on Who's Who books, the evidence we have seen so far (such as the Kiser and Schacter study) actually indicates that these kind of biographical dictionaries can actually be very reliable and accurate, and that Marquis Who's Who, in particular, is very reliable and accurate. WP:ABOUTSELF is not applicable, because these books are not self published. Nor are they similar to self published books. Autobiography is not self publishing. Self publishing is when the author of a book pays the cost of publishing the book (ie he pays the cost of printing; he either prints the book himself or he pays someone to print it for him). The reason self published books are objectionable is because self publishing implies that no conventional publisher will pay to print the book because they think the book is unmerchantable because no one would want to buy the book. If no one wants to buy a book, that implies the book might be trash. But the Marquis publications seem to have sold very well, so that line of reasoning does not apply. James500 (talk) 09:27, 14 December 2024 (UTC)
Who's Who may not be self-published, but as you said it is autobiographical. Autobiography is literally the author about themselves, and so ABOUTSELF (which isn't just about self-published sources) applies. Ultimately it's not about how something was published, in anything that is the subject about themselves ABOUTSELF applies. Whether that is a press release, a social media post, an autobiography, or a blog post it's all the same. -- LCU ActivelyDisinterested «@» °∆t° 14:16, 14 December 2024 (UTC)

Reliability of Globo

Latest comment: 22 days ago2 comments2 people in discussion

There is a Brazilian media company called Grupo Globo, which operates TV Globo, GloboNews, G1, O Globo and other news outlets. I find it reliable as a source for Brazil-related information, although it was a lot better as it was much more of a partisan source years prior.

Was it generally unreliable prior to the death of its founder, Irineu Marinho, and is it generally reliable nowadays? 189.59.95.60 (talk) 21:33, 13 December 2024 (UTC)

That's a very broad question and I've not had much luck finding any third party discussion of the organisation. WP:NEWSORG covers general advice about established news organisations. I've left a notice at WT:WikiProject Brazil asking for any additional input. -- LCU ActivelyDisinterested «@» °∆t° 17:45, 14 December 2024 (UTC)

Quartz and AI errors in 2024 articles

Latest comment: 22 days ago2 comments2 people in discussion

According to reporting from Semafor [21], apparently thousands of Quartz's 2024 articles on securities and exchange filings were done with AI and it had to be turned off earlier this month because of making basic factual mistakes such as confusing one company's data for another's. Not sure if we should note this on RSP (e.g. at least a ban on using securities filing articles from Quartz in 2024). -- Patar knight - chat/contributions 00:56, 14 December 2024 (UTC)

Just by posting here it's added to the archives for anyone searching for it in the future. Semafor doesn't say that the articles on securities and exchange filings are the issue, but that an AI scraper that creates a feed of Quartz's articles has been turned off. However personally the fact they use AI for those articles is enough that they should at least be view critically.
It's been discussed a couple of times before, archive 316 and archive 301. As well as being mentioned in discussion about other sources[22]. -- LCU ActivelyDisinterested «@» °∆t° 18:08, 14 December 2024 (UTC)

Watchtime

Latest comment: 22 days ago3 comments2 people in discussion

Is www.watchtime.net reliable for watches? I’m considering writing an article about a watch, and this source might be closer to a make or break regarding notability. FortunateSons (talk) 23:31, 13 December 2024 (UTC)

For a moment I thought it was a dodgy knock off of watchtime.com, the website of an established watch magazine, but no it appears to be the German arm of the same company. It should be reliable for details about watches. -- LCU ActivelyDisinterested «@» °∆t° 17:53, 14 December 2024 (UTC)
Great, thank you! FortunateSons (talk) 18:57, 14 December 2024 (UTC)

Killing of Brian Thompson

Latest comment: 22 days ago9 comments4 people in discussion

On the article Killing of Brian Thompson, one editor wants to include a poll that's from a generally unknown and unreliable source, but the same polling data was published by the Miami Herald, a generally reliable news source. What does policy say about this? Is Miami Herald piece citeable? This discussion is taking place on the talk page, last section as of this writing. Jonathan f1 (talk) 18:12, 14 December 2024 (UTC)

If it's being discussed on the talk page, it should stay on the talk page. The argument doesn't appear to be based on whether Miami Herald is generally reliable, but instead whether the content is due for inclusion. Miami Herald is otherwise a standard WP:NEWSORG, and it doesn't seem like anyone is claiming otherwise, so don't see the purpose of this discussion here. CNC (talk) 18:19, 14 December 2024 (UTC)
Some editors are claiming the Miami Herald simply "regurgitated" the original source, with no fact-checking or editorial scrutiny, which is not what we normally assume if a news source has a reputation for that sort of thing. The implication is very much that this specific MH piece is unreliable. Jonathan f1 (talk) 18:21, 14 December 2024 (UTC)
I'd actually always assume this could be case, based on the generally in generally reliable. Overall, if it's only documented by one RS rather than multiple, it's not necessarily that reliable nor due for inclusion for that reason. This within the context of a very public topic, as opposed to niche topics that generally receive less coverage, which is obviously not the case here. CNC (talk) 18:36, 14 December 2024 (UTC)
Okay, sounds reasonable. Jonathan f1 (talk) 18:45, 14 December 2024 (UTC)
Just as a final point here, given I suggested an RfC prematurely elsewhere, it'd probably be best to wait a few days to see if other reliable sources provide coverage for the content in question (thus providing more scrutiny). If there were multiple sources for this, I doubt there would still be the strong opposition to the inclusion of the content. CNC (talk) 18:52, 14 December 2024 (UTC)
It's actually really common for papers to run polls without much oversight at all as to issues like survey quality. Largely because newspapers are not academic journals and don't generally have a statistician participate in editorial review. This is one reason we should be more cautious, in general, with newspapers reporting statistics. Simonm223 (talk) 18:47, 14 December 2024 (UTC)
Yeah that makes sense. CNC has persuaded me to wait so, we'll see what other sources say in a week or two. Jonathan f1 (talk) 20:53, 14 December 2024 (UTC)
For reference, the two polls being discussed: Scott Rasmussen/Napolitan News Service/RMG Research Inc poll conducted on December 12, 2024 and The Center for Strategic Politics poll conducted on December 11, 2014. Some1 (talk) 01:31, 15 December 2024 (UTC)

RFC: Should grey literature from advocacy groups and other similar orgs always be considered WP:SPS and therefore subject to WP:BLPSPS?

Latest comment: 1 month ago2 comments2 people in discussion

  Moved to Wikipedia:Requests for comment/Grey Literature
The following discussion is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made in a new section.

Should grey literature from advocacy groups and other similar orgs always be considered WP:SPS and therefore subject to WP:BLPSPS?

For use in science related articles, see Wikipedia:Identifying reliable sources (science) § White and grey literature.
Previous discussions as per Wikipedia:RFCBEFORE. [23][24]. Bluethricecreamman (talk) 03:00, 10 November 2024 (UTC)
The discussion above is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.

I would like feedback on what I feel is a reliable source but others have questioned.

Latest comment: 21 days ago6 comments4 people in discussion

I was recently looking to use AussieAirpower as a source in an aircraft article. I was surprised to see two people say it wasn't a reliable source. Here is why I believe it is.

The primary author writes for Janes, which is very highly regarded, worked as a research fellow at the Australian Defence Studies Centre, consulted for the Australian Strategic Policy Institute and many others. So his opinion isn't just held in high regard, governments pay for it. He is he a current research fellow for the American Institute of Aeronautics and Astronautics as well as the editor for AussieAirpower.

Peter Goon co authors a lot of the work, a qualified aircraft engineer and RAAF officer, graduate of the US navy test pilot school with extensive military test flying and who has developed and certified many aircraft technologies.

To me this seems like an ideal source on matters relating to things like radars and aircraft? However others seem to elevate the work of regular reporters above this and deem the think tank unreliable?

An example article is linked here. https://www.ausairpower.net/APA-Zhuk-AE-Analysis.html Liger404 (talk) 00:59, 8 December 2024 (UTC)

What was the article you tried to use? Slatersteven (talk) 11:16, 8 December 2024 (UTC)
The issue seems to stem from discussions at Talk:Sukhoi Su-57 about this article. The problem appears to stem from the fact it's outdated, as it's from 2010. At least that appears to be Steve7c8 and MarkusDorazio objection. -- LCU ActivelyDisinterested «@» °∆t° 12:45, 8 December 2024 (UTC)
They seemed to criticise the think tank in general. And yes I accept the article is 14 years old, it's also the most recent article myself or anyone else seems to be aware of. (That gets into the technical characteristics of the jet.). So is it not reasonable to say this is old, but also the current information? A lot of references, like say for Fly by wire, are from 1960 or similar, but they are considered acceptable as they are not replaced by more modern work. Liger404 (talk) 23:57, 8 December 2024 (UTC)
I believe this one, or an almost identical one. https://www.ausairpower.net/APA-2012-03.html Liger404 (talk) 23:59, 8 December 2024 (UTC)
AusAirPower’s stuff is generally quite solid analysis, and in my view is the same as any other think tank that advocates policy proposals.
Cheers, RadioactiveBoulevardier (talk) 11:28, 15 December 2024 (UTC)

Is the Khan Academy a reliable source for Petra?

Latest comment: 21 days ago6 comments5 people in discussion

Used 3 times in the article. Doug Weller talk 10:36, 15 December 2024 (UTC)

I used Khan Academy in school and I would consider it a reliable source but that's just based on my own experience. This0k (talk) 10:46, 15 December 2024 (UTC) — This0k (talk · contribs) is a confirmed sock puppet of Thatsoddd (talk · contribs).
Khan Academy is a study guide website similar to SparkNotes and CliffsNotes. Study guide websites were brought to RSN previously at least twice [25] [26], though without many comments.
In my opinion, study guide websites are basically less reputable school textbooks. As such, they are not outright non-RS, but are lower-preference and should not be used where good sourcing is necessary, such as for controversial material. They are tertiary sources, so better sources with deeper coverage will always exist and should be preferred. NicolausPrime (talk) 14:08, 15 December 2024 (UTC)
Seems to me that your question isn't about the Khan Academy in general, but about whether that specific Khan Academy article (used three times in WP's article on Petra) is reliable. That Khan Academy article was written by Dr. Elizabeth Macaulay-Lewis, and I looked up her background: https://www.gc.cuny.edu/people/elizabeth-macaulay (more info in her CV). I'd say that she's a reliable author for this content. FactOrOpinion (talk) 15:47, 15 December 2024 (UTC)
Yeah… not UNreliable… but better (MORE reliable) sources exist that will support the same material, and those should be found and used instead. Replace, rather than remove. Blueboar (talk) 15:56, 15 December 2024 (UTC)
The Khan Academy article refers people to a UNESCO page and a Metropolitan Museum page for further info. The UNESCO page has a bunch of info, though I'm not going to dig in to see if it has info about the specific WP text sourced to the Khan Academy essay. The Met page only has a bit of info but provides further reading via an exhibition catalog that can be viewed online, a bunch of Met art essays, and two books:
Markoe, Glenn, ed. Petra Rediscovered: Lost City of the Nabataeans. New York: Abrams, 2003.
Taylor, Jane. Petra and the Lost Kingdom of the Nabataeans. Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press, 2002.
Any of those sources would be better, assuming that they confirm the WP text. FactOrOpinion (talk) 16:19, 15 December 2024 (UTC)

Reconsider ABC News

Latest comment: 21 days ago4 comments4 people in discussion
I thought of hatting this, then wrote two different replies, and then decided I was probably right in the first place. -- LCU ActivelyDisinterested «@» °∆t° 17:11, 15 December 2024 (UTC)

The following discussion is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.

A news network that bends over so quick to intimidation from a fascist leader shouldn't be a RS. LilianaUwU (talk / contributions) 02:02, 15 December 2024 (UTC)

The settlement concerns a comment ABC News host George Stephanopoulos made on an episode of This Week, which is ABC News's Sunday morning talk show. News channel talk shows tend to be opinionated and are usually considered less reliable than the parent news organization's reporting; see MSNBC (RSP entry) and Fox News talk shows (RSP entry) for examples. Whether to settle a lawsuit is a business decision based on the costs of defending the company and the likelihood of winning, and I do not see ABC News settling this lawsuit about a talk show comment as a negative indicator of the reliability of ABC News's non–talk show reporting. ABC News is still generally reliable, per the news organizations guideline. — Newslinger talk 02:27, 15 December 2024 (UTC)
For my own sanity, I choose to believe that this is not a serious request. Thebiguglyalien (talk) 04:22, 15 December 2024 (UTC)
The discussion above is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.

This Day on Bella Disu

Latest comment: 20 days ago3 comments3 people in discussion

Posted on Wikipedia:Conflict of interest/Noticeboard and it was suggested to bring this here:

I am trying to cut promotional content from Bella Disu. This Day seems like a "reliable source". However, looking at the content they've published, I'm concerned that this newspaper may have a conflict of interest when it comes to her/her billionaire family.

In fact, many of the sources used in the article seem like the kind of thing a billionaire in a country like Nigeria probably paid someone to write but I am not sure how to handle this. 🄻🄰 14:49, 16 December 2024 (UTC)

I'm not commenting on the reliability of the outlet, I will leave that to more experienced editors. It might be worth noting that the links you provided have no byline, yet the news and political articles do have a byline. That is sometimes a clue as to whether it is promotional/paid articles. Plus, and please forgive me for the bluntness, but most of that writing is way over the top in terms of promotional.
See what others suggest. Knitsey (talk) 15:16, 16 December 2024 (UTC)
Oddly the have a tag for advertorials[27], but if you go to the first article currently in that list[28] the tag is absent from the article itself. There's been several Nigerian sources that have been previously discussed around the same topic. Much like the media market in India, see WP:NEWSORGINDIA, paid undisclosed advertorials are common in Nigeria. As with India this is done by otherwise generally reliable sources.
My suggestion would be to be critical of any reporting, regardless of origin, that is so overly promotional of the subject of it's reporting (unless the subject is regularly described in such a manner by multiple sources).
None of this is reliable for the over the top descriptions and achievements, but it could contain bits of usable information. You can go through the an article ignoring all the things you obviously can't use ("Men should bow and women should genuflect" or "she exudes the savvy of the ancients, the type of spunk that spurred medieval Amazons"), and see if there is anything you can use ("Educated at the University of Massachusetts, Boston, with a degree in political science and international relations"). -- LCU ActivelyDisinterested «@» °∆t° 16:23, 16 December 2024 (UTC)

What definition of antisemitism should we require sources to have?

Latest comment: 20 days ago49 comments24 people in discussion

@Butterscotch Beluga and Makeandtoss: You've both brought this up at the Times of Israel RfC. It's also been a subject for discussion at the WP:ADL RfC. Does a source falsely calling something antisemitic have an impact on its reliability? If so, what definition should we be judging sources by? I see a few options:

  1. Wikipedia editors should not determine if labels of antisemitism applied by a source impact that source's reliability.
  2. Wikipedia editors determine if labels of antisemitism applied by a source meet one of many widely accepted definition of antisemitism.
  3. Wikipedia editors create or adopt one definition of antisemitism and determine if sources are abiding by it.

Some possible existing definitions of antisemitism include the IHRA definition, the Jerusalem Declaration on Antisemitism, or the one created by the Nexus Project. I'm also open to suggestions.

For those unaware, I'm breaking out this discussion because this is a very common criticism of pro-Israel sources, as it's been used to argue against the ADL, the Times of Israel, the Jewish Chronicle,[29] and Tablet (magazine). [30] Specifically, these sources have said to have made false claims that pro-Palestinian or anti-Israel movements/individuals are antisemitic. Arguing about what constitutes antisemitism takes up a lot of time at RfCs, so getting consensus on 1, 2, or 3 would help reduce the contentiousness and length of future discussions on these sources. Chess (talk) (please mention me on reply) 02:44, 7 December 2024 (UTC)

Pinging Wafflefrites for input as well. This gets rehashed at every RfC, and I'd like to build a consensus on whether this argument is valid. More specifically, I would support option 1. I think arguing about whether a label of "antisemitism" was applied accurately by a source adds a lot of words to RfCs with very little benefit, since it's a statement of opinion rather than fact. Chess (talk) (please mention me on reply) 03:26, 7 December 2024 (UTC)
This suggestion is instruction creep. We follow academic consensus (or more likely debate) in what the definition is, and go from there to argue if a reliable source is respecting nuances or if they are doing indefensible assumptions. The ADL RFC brought up definitions of antisemitism because their definition was any protest that was pro-Palestinian is antisemitic, resulting in a "140% rise" statistic in antisemitism.
This is how any reliable source gets evaluated... we look at the academic consensus/debate, and see if the source respects the nuance, or if they go to the fringes. Making a special case for anti-semitism by either 1, 2, or 3 closes a wikipedia debate when the academic debate is and will remain ongoing. Bluethricecreamman (talk) 03:31, 7 December 2024 (UTC)
@Bluethricecreamman: That's a good way to phrase option 2. Editors would make their own evaluations of whether the antisemitism label was accurately applied, and this should be in reference to external definitions. Chess (talk) (please mention me on reply) 03:36, 7 December 2024 (UTC)
"The ADL RFC brought up definitions of antisemitism because their definition was any protest that was pro-Palestinian is antisemitic." I don't believe your source supports this text, unless your own underlying belief is that to be 'pro-Palestine' requires one to be against the continued existence of Israel and/or support violence against random Jewish people in Israel. Your sources says, "the group says in the audit that it has employed “new methodology” since October 7th that identifies language that expresses “opposition to Zionism” or is “perceived as supporting terrorism or attacks on Jews, Israelis or Zionists” as antisemitism." The examples they provide fit this more restrictive criteria.
One thing I notice consistently happening in discussions about this conflict (broadly construed) is the deliberate misuse or conflation of words and concepts. This isn't directed at you or even specifically at Wikipedia, this is a general observation. What people *mean* when they say words like 'Palestine' or 'resistance' or 'Zionism' is left as an unspoken question in the discussion. When someone says 'Palestine', do they mean its current borders, or its 1967 borders, or its 1948 borders, or are they talking about the entire region? When someone says 'Anti-Zionism is not antisemitism', is 'Zionism' supporting whatever Ben-Gvir said last week or believing that Israel the 70 year old country shouldn't be scattered to the winds? Does 'is not' mean 'is never' or 'isn't necessarily'? It's a regular rhetorical trick for one word or statement to mean multiple things to the same person in the same discussion, depending on how they're being challenged.
The ADL RfC downgraded ADL's reliability in large part due to disagreement with the definition the ADL used for antisemitism. Under a consensus for options 1 or 2, such a result would not have occurred; the ADL's usage clearly matches the IHRA definition and arguably the Jerusalem Declaration. That downgrade relied on an unspoken on-wiki consensus that the ADL's criteria for antisemitism was incorrect, but didn't establish a consensus about what criteria would be correct. This is eating our cake and having it too.
If an RfC like this can close with consensus, it'll make future discussions about what does or doesn't constitute antisemitism simpler, and remove a frequent vector for this deliberate discommunication strategy. It would also signal to the wider world where exactly the Wikipedia community collectively stands, which may be a benefit or a drawback, but either way would likely impact how news and organizations report on antisemitism moving forward. It will highlight ongoing discrepancies in how Wikipedia's principles are applied, particularly our non-discrimination policy. It will certainly be a contentious discussion, and would likely result in at least some members of the community giving up on the site, either because they aren't HERE or because Wikipedia isn't here for them. I don't believe the 'ongoing academic debate' will shift rapidly enough to make this effort obsolete; frankly, I believe that in the end, there's not that much difference between the multiple official definitions. Rather, the existence of those multiple definitions is an excuse for the tendentious what-is-antisemitism argument, perceived differences are rhetorically inflated, and the argument frequently fails to engage honestly with the definitions themselves.
For these reasons, I support any one of these options as well as a more extensive glossary of frequently ambiguous terms and their definitions as applied to on-wiki discussion. I support option 3. If option 3 fails, then I support option 2. If 2 fails, than 1. One of these options should be chosen. Whichever one is chosen, it should be a factor in a re-discussion on the ADL's reliability. Any RfC on this topic should wait until after the ArbCom case closes. Safrolic (talk) 05:19, 7 December 2024 (UTC)
I don't think the Wikipedia community should be sending signals "to the wider world" to communicate "where exactly the Wikipedia community collectively stands". The job of the Wikipedia community is to build an encyclopedia. The task should have no dependency of how it is viewed in the wider world. There are efforts to leverage media and social media to apply pressure. I imagine these might increase and diversify over time across a wide range of subjects as the rest of the web degrades perhaps by being contaminated with synthetic content. The community, in my view, should ensure that these kinds of influence operations fail. Sean.hoyland (talk) 15:19, 8 December 2024 (UTC)
The reason why I like option 1 is because it allows us to sidestep these disputes. Ultimately, arguing about whether labelling pro-Palestinian protestors as antisemitic is going to be a value judgement that depends on whether or not you support Israel.
With respect to the ADL, Option 1 here isn't going to automatically overturn that decision. The arguing about whether the ADL wrongly labelled Palestinian protestors as antisemitic added the vast majority of the wordcount, but didn't contribute much to the discussion. There were several editors who pointed out factual errors with the hate symbols database or gave examples of historical negationism. Those editors were ignored because everyone wanted to fight about the definition of antisemitism. Chess (talk) (please mention me on reply) 06:21, 7 December 2024 (UTC)
I like option 1 too! Any of these options is fine, my !vote is that we should pick one for internal consistency. I watched this RfC, but didn't participate, and I think you've shared an admirably good faith interpretation of its process and close. I would enjoy reading a refactored version of it with all the weak and irrelevant !votes/arguments stripped out entirely. Safrolic (talk) 06:53, 7 December 2024 (UTC)
1) with caveats I don't think a sources' labeling of something as antisemitic should directly effect their reliability as a whole, but it should be considered when citing them for that position. In controversial cases involving their use of the label, they should at least be attributed, with their inclusion then being decided on a case by case basis.
I do think that misuse of the label of antisemitism can be a factor in a source's unreliability, but outside of egregious cases, only when alongside other issues.
My caveat is that standards should be different depending on the type of source. A news org can afford to be both reliable & biased, but an advocacy org like the ADL should be held to a higher standard. Butterscotch Beluga (talk) 03:39, 7 December 2024 (UTC)
  • Mostly going to echo what Butterscotch Beluga said - WP:DUE and attribution are generally useful guidelines for controversial topics where there's no one universal definition, and I don't think our personal opinions on what is and isn't antisemitic should be dictating Wikipedia's content - there's a whole host of WP:NPOV issues brought up if they do that, not to mention our standard guidelines on following RSes.
Among the listed definitions, though, I'll say that I generally do like Nexus' work - the IHRA definition goes way too far, while Jerusalem doesn't go far enough. The Kip (contribs) 05:06, 7 December 2024 (UTC)
  • This is not the purpose of this board or even of this website. We do not impose ideological purity tests on sources, and we do not demand any source follow any particular position. The ADL RFC may have had some people arguing it is unreliable based on its positions, but those are weak arguments and they should not have weighed much in the determination of consensus. But it also had repeated examples of sources saying that the ADL has published false and misleading material in some topics, and *that* is not a weak argument for disputing its reliability. But this section should be closed as not a valid use of this board. nableezy - 06:20, 7 December 2024 (UTC)
    @Nableezy: I broadly agree, which is why I provided the first option. Your arguments at the WP:ADL RfC were effectively ignored because everyone wanted to fight about antisemitism. I think the status quo is untenable and I want to start reducing the number of arguments that don't benefit the topic area.
    I agree that ideological purity tests are weak arguments and they should not have weighed much in the determination of consensus. However, these weak arguments cause an inordinate amount of wordcount on something that doesn't end in a consensus, so explicitly clarifying that these arguments shouldn't be made would benefit the encyclopedia.
    I added in the other two options, because if editors do think purity testing is OK, I'd rather we at least clarify what we're purity testing against. If someone is going to say a source is unreliable because it called something antisemitic, editors should provide a definition of antisemitism and explain how the thing in question didn't meet that definition. This would still be an improvement over the free-for-all we have now. Chess (talk) (please mention me on reply) 06:35, 7 December 2024 (UTC)
    I don’t think the beginning of that statement is true, and I think a bunch of people brought sources questioning the ADLs reliability, not just personal opinions. And on the other end of the spectrum the Counterpunch RFC had similar attempts at purity testing. But we see that in a number of topics, not toeing a certain line on the Syrian war has been used to argue against reliability, having positions that editors disagree with on trans rights same thing. But those arguments should be ignored on all sides, sources not espousing the views that even large majorities of editors hold should not matter here one bit. nableezy - 06:53, 7 December 2024 (UTC)
    But those arguments should be ignored on all sides, sources not espousing the views that even large majorities of editors hold should not matter here one bit. The problem with the current situation is that it does matter, because RfC closers do not have a clear mandate to ignore those arguments. This discussion is intended to give that mandate and help editors understand what is expected when they !vote on sources. I believe more meta-discussions on what is "in-bounds" would help contentious topic areas.
    If I was !voting on WP:COUNTERPUNCH today, I wouldn't call it a neo-nazi rag because I am now much more familiar with the expectations for judging sources. That interaction would've gone better if you were able to link something saying that calling for the destruction of Israel/other examples of bias is not unreliability. Instead, in order to refute that, you and I wasted time arguing about whether or not WP:COUNTERPUNCH is actually antisemitic, because otherwise you'd have conceded the point. That did not have any measurable impact on the success of the RfC despite being an incredibly controversial timesuck, and it'd be beneficial if other editors could avoid that scenario in the future. Chess (talk) (please mention me on reply) 07:32, 7 December 2024 (UTC)
    I think they already do have a clear mandate, and I would hope in the future they make clear what arguments they ignore so that others can see that wasting that kind of time is counterproductive. nableezy - 13:22, 7 December 2024 (UTC)
    I count three people here that very clearly disagree. Chess (talk) (please mention me on reply) 21:43, 7 December 2024 (UTC)
    Three people are wrong on the internet. nableezy - 22:39, 7 December 2024 (UTC)
    Just don't argue about it then. Say, "I disagree but this is irrelevant to this discussion." And then stop. Simonm223 (talk) 19:37, 7 December 2024 (UTC)
    I would agree with this suggestion, far to often discussions in this area are dragged of topic. This creates bloat that makes the job of anyone closing the discussion harder. -- LCU ActivelyDisinterested «@» °∆t° 12:52, 8 December 2024 (UTC)
  • We are not going to pick and choose any definition, and then evaluate sources based on that. WP is not a watchdog. This discussion should take place on a case by case basis. Makeandtoss (talk) 07:11, 7 December 2024 (UTC)
    Is this support for option 1, or is it 'maybe option 1, maybe not, depending who we're talking about'? Safrolic (talk) 07:16, 7 December 2024 (UTC)
    This is an oppose to the question itself. Makeandtoss (talk) 07:26, 7 December 2024 (UTC)
  • This is not a question for this board. Some source may promote or argue for this or that definition of antisemitism or for anything else, that's up to them. What's up to us is deciding whether or not that constitutes a reliability issue in some context.Selfstudier (talk) 13:45, 7 December 2024 (UTC)
    I don’t think external definitions of “-ism” labels should be considered a reliability issue at all… it’s a DUE weight issue. Blueboar (talk) 14:08, 7 December 2024 (UTC)
  • Not a question for this board. It's a WP:DUE issue to be discussed on a case by case basis, and usually not here.--Boynamedsue (talk) 17:06, 7 December 2024 (UTC)
    It's also an AGF and BLP problem - it poisons the well of conversation on Wikipedia to accuse people of holding reasonable opinions such as "war crimes should be prosecuted regardless of the religion of the perpetrators," or, "ethnostates are bad and nobody should form one," as antisemitic. Which is functionally what "criticism of Israel is de-facto antisemitic" does. Furthermore, from a BLP perspective, a newspaper slinging opinion is inappropriate to label a living person an antisemite. When dealing with living people, or our project colleagues, we should be especially judicious. There have been good, long, times when a lot of what I've done on Wikipedia is patrol for WP:NONAZI disruptive editing and yet I don't go around calling (now permanently blocked for disruptive editing supporting pro-Nazi positions) editors Nazis. We should all try to show that minimal level of respect. This makes overly-expansive definitions of antisemitism and other bigotries functionally useless with Wikipedia. For the project to function we need to show a high degree of care. Frankly the divisions over this one conflict area consume far too much bandwidth across Wikipedia and bad-faith statements that lump a large number of editors in with racists is absolutely a part of the problem.
    So basically this is the wrong forum but where you probably want to take it is the open arbitration case about this mess.Simonm223 (talk) 22:30, 7 December 2024 (UTC)
    So, you agree with Option 1, that we shouldn't argue for the banning of the source based on it having the wrong definition of antisemitism? Chess (talk) (please mention me on reply) 22:35, 7 December 2024 (UTC)
    I said option 2 on the basis that I am against the use of GREL as a standard. All reliability is conditional. Please do not try to reinterpret my very clearly expressed statement in such a way. If you feel any better I would say the same thing about Al Jazeera. Simonm223 (talk) 22:49, 7 December 2024 (UTC)
    Also I think I just said that overly-expansive definitions of antisemitism destroy the conditions required for AGF and are problematic for BLPs. Let's close this and if you must insist on continuing the discussion do so at the arbitration case. This conversation is fundamentally inappropriate for this venue. Simonm223 (talk) 22:51, 7 December 2024 (UTC)
    If the discussion is fundamentally inappropriate for this venue, then people shouldn't be bringing it up at RfCs, correct? Chess (talk) (please mention me on reply) 22:54, 7 December 2024 (UTC)
    @Simonm223: I'm asking if you support that Wikipedia editors should not determine if labels of antisemitism applied by a source impact that source's reliability at RSN, not whether or not you believe the Times of Israel is generally reliable. Chess (talk) (please mention me on reply) 22:52, 7 December 2024 (UTC)
    And I said really clearly that framing the question in this way is inappropriate and that questions about what weight Wikipedia should give to the opinions of Israeli newspapers and pro-Israel lobby groups project wide should be reserved for the open arbitration case. Simonm223 (talk) 22:55, 7 December 2024 (UTC)
    I will not be responding further in this thread. Do not tag me again in it. Simonm223 (talk) 22:57, 7 December 2024 (UTC)
  • Count me in with those that think this is not a good question. I feel that the real question behind it is "when should wp call someone/something antisemitic because a source does?" This is an easier question for me because my answer is "never". Charges of antisemitism are always opinions, even when they are opinions that every reasonable person would agree with. So, like all opinions, they should be attributed. Wikipedia does not have opinions of its own. Once you decide that such accusations should be attributed, the questions here become meaningless. Zerotalk 11:26, 8 December 2024 (UTC)
  • yep not a good question, as others have said this looks more like an undue question. All we can say is what a source says, not if it is correct. Slatersteven (talk) 12:55, 8 December 2024 (UTC)
  • I agree with the two previous comments. There are multiple definitions of antisemitism, naturally different sources adopt different ones, whether explicitly or implicitly. This should have no impact on the reliability, this is not based on the RS policy. Alaexis¿question? 13:16, 8 December 2024 (UTC)
  • "so getting consensus on 1, 2, or 3 would help reduce the contentiousness and length of future discussions on these sources" no it wouldn't, might actually make them longer. Horse Eye's Back (talk) 13:27, 8 December 2024 (UTC)
  • I don't think this is the job of Wikipedians. It is the job of sources. The reputation of a source from other reliable sources should be the best metric for determining if it's reliable. I think with anything in this contentious topic, statements should be attributed to a specific source. And if there's other sources disagreeing with that understanding, those need to be mentioned as well. If a publication has particular slant that's considered anti-Semitic, that slant should be noted from other reliable sources, with attribution to those sources, and explanation included as to why they think that's anti-Semitic.--3family6 (Talk to me | See what I have done) 13:46, 8 December 2024 (UTC)
  • This isn't how we operate; a source's reliability is determined by their reputation for fact-checking and accuracy. But there are related questions we can consider: First, is a particular definition of antisemitism WP:FRINGE? Using a fringe definition is probably going to impact a source's reliability, although ultimately we'd look at coverage to determine that. That said, there's probably some fringe definitions out there but the ones that are debated in the mainstream media probably aren't. The other question is where and how particular definitions of antisemitism (and aspects of those definitions) are contested opinions vs. being established fact. I don't agree with the people above who say that it is always opinion - I think most people would agree that it is uncontested fact among the highest-quality sources that eg. the ideologies of Nazism or the KKK are antisemitic; they can be described as such in the article voice without attribution. But many major sources are using definitions that are obviously contested, and if a source is obviously using a controversial definition of antisemitism then that should be taken into account and made clear when using it in that context. --Aquillion (talk) 14:57, 8 December 2024 (UTC)
  • The common definitions of antisemitism in dictionaries do not imply that anti-Zionism is included. I believe that should be the base standard in Wikipedia. I really do not think it reasonable to apply it to being against Israel's action in Gaza like he ADL have nor as is implied in the IHRA examples. And I find it really really annoying that they many of the Zionists have decided to identify being Jewish with the mass killing of Palestinians and that they see nothing wrong with this. I would say that any publication that did this identification would have to be checked in any use of the term whether they mean anti-Israel and if they do then the use would need to be qualified in some way like 'meaning here they are anti Israel's actions'. So not something to deprectae the publication but something that one needs to be careful about. NadVolum (talk) 16:23, 8 December 2024 (UTC)
    @NadVolum: I think it's unnecessary to throw insults at "Zionists", so it'd be appreciated if you struck: And I find it really really annoying that they many of the Zionists have decided to identify being Jewish with the mass killing of Palestinians and that they see nothing wrong with this. Chess (talk) (please mention me on reply) 01:17, 9 December 2024 (UTC)
    Many of the Zionists. That is exactly what they do when they say opposing Israel's actions is a form of antisemitism. NadVolum (talk) 10:21, 9 December 2024 (UTC)
    To be clearer where I stand, this is an Engliah encyclopaedia not a Jewish one. We should normally use common English meanings. This is important as saying antisemitic has real world implications. If some jargon meaning is meant that should be made clear. For instance we do not call all the Palestinians killed by bombing and bullets martyrs even thought that is what they say. The normal English meaning is just inappropriate. A use of martyr for that should indicate it is a jargon meaning and point to the appropriate aricle. The implication for reliability is that checking is required if the meaning can be mistaken easily. That may not be a straight reliability issue but it definitely is something that shouldn't be just hidden away as an Easter egg from readers. NadVolum (talk) 17:57, 10 December 2024 (UTC)
  • Chess can you explain what option 2 means? You mean if a source defines antisemitism in a similar way to any one of the main defs (IHRA, JDA, Nexus) then it’s broadly reliable for a claim about antisemitism, everything else being equal? BobFromBrockley (talk) 18:36, 8 December 2024 (UTC)
    @Bobfrombrockley: I poorly defined it at the start of this discussion. It's meant to be a criteria for editors arguing against a source's reliability. Oftentimes, editors argue a source is unreliable in all contexts, or Israel-Palestine as a whole, based solely on its definition of antisemitism.
    Based on feedback from others, I'd rephrase it to say editors arguing that a source misapplied the label of "antisemitism" should show how it goes against the definitions used by reliable sources. That would be more broad than what you're saying. The intention isn't to say if a source meets this definition, it's reliable, it's that if you don't like a source, provide the definition of antisemitism so others can engage with your logic. I'm not in favour of this option, but I want it to accurately reflect the views of other editors.
    The third option, on the other hand, would enshrine some specific definitions of antisemitism we would use and analyze. I don't see anyone in favour of that. Chess (talk) (please mention me on reply) 23:32, 8 December 2024 (UTC)
    Thank you. I am strongly opposed to option 3, especially as most actual scholars of antisemitism do not use any of the high profile definitions. I have some sympathy with both option 1 and (a little less) option 2.
    In recent discussions, I've seen editors saying a source is reliable for defining antisemitism because it follows the IHRA definition, editors saying a source is unreliable because it follows that definition, and iirc maybe also editors saying a source is unreliable because it doesn't follow that definition. My view is that signing up to the IHRA def should have no bearing on reliability: it's not the most robust definition in scholarly terms, but on the other hand it is quite widely accepted among RSs and is very far from FRINGE.
    If editors are more or less universally opposed to option 3, and nobody is biting option 2, then I think logically making an explicit commitment to option 1 might not be a bad idea. BobFromBrockley (talk) 22:50, 9 December 2024 (UTC)
  • Option 1. Wikipedians should not use personal opinions on the definition of antisemitism to discount or impugn the reliability of sources. Whether or not sources align with one or another definition of antisemitism should not be an acceptable argument or factor in determining the reliability of sources. This is POV creep. Reliability of sources should be according to other reliable sources, analysis of fact checks, the reputation in the academic and reputable facts-based community, not simply how the opinions of editors square with their interpretation of the source. Andre🚐 22:54, 8 December 2024 (UTC)
Option 1 - and this should be generalised to all subjective political descriptions. I.e. if source X calls subject A racist, and source Y says subject A not racist, there can be no implication from this alone that either source X or source Y are unreliable. This doesn't preclude the conclusion that source X or Y are airing a fringe view in the particular case.
Contested political descriptions like "socialist", "conservative", "left/right" (or "far-left/right") should similarly not impact assessments of reliability. Even if a source regularly makes WP:FRINGE subjective political assessments but is reliable for objective factual claims, this should at most merit a note at RSP but no downgrading of reliability. The alternative is a progressively narrowing ideological overton window of reliable sources. Samuelshraga (talk) 08:45, 15 December 2024 (UTC)
Option 1 2 and 3 go against policy. As long as the definition isn't way outside. If the definition is weird, one might want to clarify that in the article. I think this dispute could also be avoided by describing the specific behaviour or belief. Tinynanorobots (talk) 16:30, 16 December 2024 (UTC)

Dictionary.com

Latest comment: 19 days ago4 comments3 people in discussion

I want to use the source in the Skull and crossbones article under a new section called "Use in social media". This is the only source I can find that could be reliable, the others I know for a fact are unreliable. ミラへぜ (talk) (ping me!) 00:58, 16 December 2024 (UTC)

It's a full dictionary produced by an editorial team, I don't see a reason to presume unreliability.--3family6 (Talk to me | See what I have done) 12:46, 16 December 2024 (UTC)
Although that's true, if the OP means this the skull and crossbones entry on the emoji dictionary[31] then it's reliability is not so clear. Note the comment at the end of the entry: "This is not meant to be a formal definition of ☠️ Skull and Crossbones emoji like most terms we define on Dictionary.com,..." I wouldn't use the emoji dictionary as a source, as it doesn't appear to be of the same standard as the rest of dictionary.com. -- LCU ActivelyDisinterested «@» °∆t° 13:19, 16 December 2024 (UTC)
Ah, I didn't even realize that part of the dictionary existed. I think the history of it as a UNICODE character would be reliable, but yes, I agree that the editorial note means that this shouldn't be used as a formal source.--3family6 (Talk to me | See what I have done) 12:50, 17 December 2024 (UTC)

Kaaba: Demand for Deletion of Blasphemous Imaged of the Last Prophet Muhammad (Peace be Upon Him)

Latest comment: 16 days ago6 comments5 people in discussion
This discussion has been closed. Please do not modify it.
The following discussion has been closed. Please do not modify it.

Subject: Request for Immediate Removal of Blasphemous Images from the "Kaaba" Wikipedia Page

Dear Wikipedia Team,

I hope this message finds you well. My name is [Your Name], and I am writing as a member of the Muslim community deeply concerned about the presence of pictorial depictions of the Prophet Muhammad (peace be upon him) and his blessed companions on the Wikipedia page titled "Kaaba" (https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kaaba).

These images, located under the 'History' tab, are highly offensive and blasphemous to Muslims around the world, as any visual representation of the Prophet Muhammad (peace be upon him) is strictly prohibited in Islam. The specific images in question are:

1. "Muhammad at the Ka'ba" from the Siyer-i Nebi, showing Muhammad with a veiled face, c. 1595.

2. A miniature from 1307 CE depicting Muhammad fixing the black stone into the Kaaba.

These images not only disrespect our beliefs but also deeply hurt the sentiments of millions in the Muslim community, including myself. The existence of these images on a public platform like Wikipedia fosters misunderstanding and disrespects our faith, which is rooted in profound reverence for our beloved Last Prophet (Peace be Upon Him). We kindly request that these images be removed from the Wikipedia page immediately, without any delay or further explanation.

We understand that Wikipedia requires supporting evidence for high-profile articles. In this case, the prohibition of visual depictions of the Prophet Muhammad (peace be upon him) is well-documented in Islamic teachings and widely recognized by scholars and religious authorities. Numerous fatwas based on Qur'anic scripture and hadith traditions from all schools of thought strictly prohibit drawing images of the last Prophet Muhammad (peace be upon him) and his blessed companions, deeming such acts as blasphemy. This prohibition is rooted in Islamic teachings that emphasize the importance of avoiding idolatry and misrepresentation. Scholars unanimously agree that there is no permissibility whatsoever for visual representations of the Last Prophet Muhammad (peace be upon him) or his blessed companions, as such depictions are considered blasphemous and fundamentally incompatible with Islamic teachings.

Furthermore, surveys indicate that a significant portion of Muslims find such depictions offensive. The Journal of Islamic Thought and Civilization highlights that Muslims believe visual depictions of all prophets should be prohibited, particularly those of Prophet Muhammad (peace be upon him), as they hurt their emotions and go against their faith (Journal of Islamic Thought and Civilization). We urge you to consider the sensitivity of this matter and its impact on millions of Muslims worldwide.

Addressing Wikipedia's FAQ:

1.Wikipedia is not censored: While Wikipedia aims to provide a neutral point of view, it is essential to consider how these images offend deeply held beliefs. The presence of such content does not foster an inclusive environment for all users.

2.Historical accuracy: The images in question are historically inaccurate, as acknowledged by Wikipedia. The artists who created these works lived centuries after Prophet Muhammad (peace be upon him) and could not have seen him. Using inaccurate images perpetuates misconceptions rather than providing educational value.

3.Offense to Muslims: Wikipedia recognizes that depictions of Muhammad are offensive to many Muslims. This offense affects millions globally and cannot be dismissed as a minor issue. Suggesting that users change their settings to hide images is not a viable solution; such representations on a public platform like Wikipedia perpetuate disrespect and harm.

4.Preventing idolatry: The traditional prohibition against images of prophets serves to prevent idolatry—a principle that should be respected in any educational context. The presence of these images on Wikipedia violates this fundamental religious principle.

5.Comparison to other figures: While Wikipedia may use images of historical figures like Jesus, it is crucial to note that any depiction of Prophet Muhammad (Peace be Upon Him) is universally forbidden in Islam. This distinction makes comparisons inadequate and unjustifiable.

6.Separate link for images: Creating a separate link for these images is also not an acceptable solution. The core issue remains that any depiction of Prophet Muhammad (Peace be Upon Him) is considered blasphemous in Islam, and there is no allowance for such visual representations under any circumstances. The existence of these images on a public platform like Wikipedia is inherently offensive and harmful.

We acknowledge the FAQ section on the Talk:Muhammad page but believe that this request warrants special consideration due to its unique nature. The presence of these images does not contribute to the educational value of the article but rather perpetuates significant cultural and religious offense.

Examples of Content Removal from Wikipedia

1.John Seigenthaler Wikipedia Hoax (2005): A false and defamatory article about journalist John Seigenthaler was posted on Wikipedia and removed after being identified. This instance illustrates Wikipedia's commitment to maintaining content integrity by removing material that is harmful or misleading.

2.Essjay Controversy (2007): Contributions from a prominent Wikipedia editor who falsified his credentials were scrutinized and subsequently removed, demonstrating that Wikipedia actively removes content undermining its reliability.

3.Wiki-PR Scandal (2012): Manipulated content created by a company using sockpuppet accounts was removed, showcasing Wikipedia's efforts to prevent abuse of its platform.

4.Orangemoody Investigation (2015): Fraudulent content posted by a group of blackmailers using sockpuppet accounts was removed, highlighting Wikipedia's proactive stance against harmful content.

Relevant Policies

Wikipedia's Policy on Images: According to your guidelines, "images that would bring the project into disrepute... may be removed by any user." The continued presence of these offensive images directly contradicts this policy as they clearly offend a significant portion of users.

Wikipedia's Policy on Offensive Material:

1.According to Wikipedia: Offensive material, while Wikipedia aims to include material that may offend, it explicitly states that "offensive words and offensive images should not be included unless they are treated in an encyclopedic manner." The inclusion of these blasphemous images does not meet this criterion as they serve no educational purpose but rather cause harm.

2.Neutral Point of View: As outlined in Wikipedia's Guide to Deletion, all content must adhere to a neutral point of view (NPOV). The presence of these offensive images violates this policy by failing to respect a significant portion of your readership who find such content unacceptable.

3.Speedy Deletion Policy: This policy states that pages can be deleted without discussion if they meet criteria for speedy deletion due to being obviously inappropriate for Wikipedia (Wikipedia:Deletion policy). Given their blasphemous nature, these images qualify for immediate removal under this guideline.

4.Content Integrity Maintenance: Content that undermines Wikipedia's reliability or trustworthiness can be removed proactively by editors or administrators (Wikipedia:Content Integrity). Allowing these offensive images undermines your credibility as an encyclopedia committed to accuracy and respect.

5.Adherence to Neutrality: Wikipedia has a strong stance against Holocaust denial and antisemitism, clearly reflected in the Holocaust denial page, which debunks false claims and provides historical evidence. This commitment to neutrality and respect for deeply held beliefs should be extended to the depiction of Prophet Muhammad (peace be upon him) as well.

Handling of Other Sensitive Topics:

1.Israeli-Palestinian Conflict: Wikipedia handles content related to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict with sensitivity and neutrality, ensuring a balanced representation of different perspectives.

2.Abortion: Wikipedia presents diverse viewpoints on abortion respectfully, acknowledging the sensitivity of the topic.

3.Censorship and Internet Freedom: Wikipedia respects local laws and cultural sensitivities, demonstrating its commitment to respecting different cultural and religious practices.

In light of these considerations and your own policies, I urge you to take immediate action to remove these offensive images from the "Kaaba" page and review your guidelines regarding sensitive religious content moving forward.

Thank you for your understanding and swift action on this matter.

Sincerely, Yasha Ullah Afghan Jeelanshah (talk) 07:18, 18 December 2024 (UTC)

Hello,
Welcome to Wikipedia. I think you may have found the wrong place in posting your message.
This is the Reliable Sources noticeboard, where editors discuss reliability of particular sources. If you'd like to discuss specific content in a particular article, you should open a discussion on its talk page, not here. In this case, the page you are looking for is Talk:Kaaba.
Cheers,
— Red-tailed hawk (nest) 07:33, 18 December 2024 (UTC)
Yes the talk page of where the image is used would be the better place, not here. Here we look at reliability issues of sources. Also please see the FAQ on images of Muhammad here [32]. Ramos1990 (talk) 08:41, 18 December 2024 (UTC)
Dear Czello,
Thank you for your response. I understand your concern regarding the frequency of my messages; however, I feel compelled to clarify my position. The reason I reached out across multiple boards is that despite numerous attempts by others to engage with the editors on the Talk:Kaaba page, there has been no action taken regarding the removal of the blasphemous images of the Prophet Muhammad (peace be upon him).
This lack of response is precisely why I sought to bring attention to this matter elsewhere.
This raises a critical question: who within the Wikipedia community should I engage with to ensure that this issue is handled logically and intelligently?
It is vital for me to advocate for the removal of these images, as they are deeply offensive to many around the world and do not align with Wikipedia's own guidelines on offensive material. As stated in Wikipedia's policy on Offensive Material, "offensive words and offensive images should not be included unless they are treated in an encyclopedic manner." The images in question do not meet this criterion and serve no educational purpose, only causing harm. Furthermore, the presence of these images violates Wikipedia's Neutral Point of View (NPOV) policy, failing to respect a significant portion of your readership who find such content unacceptable.
I appreciate your understanding and hope we can work together toward a resolution that respects all users' perspectives. Or you can guide me to a editor who would seriously look into the complaint?
Sincerely,
[Yasha Ullah Afghan] 202.47.33.85 (talk) 05:30, 20 December 2024 (UTC)
Help:Options to hide an image may be of use to you. You might consider using websites like WikiShia instead of Wikipedia. Gråbergs Gråa Sång (talk) 10:56, 18 December 2024 (UTC)
Dear Gråbergs Gråa Sång,
Thank you for your response. I understand your concern regarding the frequency of my messages and suggesting to use the options to hide the blasphemous images; however, I feel compelled to clarify my position. The reason I reached out across multiple boards is that despite numerous attempts by others to engage with the editors on the Talk:Kaaba page, there has been no action taken regarding the removal of the blasphemous images of the Prophet Muhammad (peace be upon him).
This lack of response is precisely why I sought to bring attention to this matter elsewhere.
This raises a critical question: who within the Wikipedia community should I engage with to ensure that this issue is handled logically and intelligently?
It is vital for me to advocate for the removal of these images, as they are deeply offensive to many around the world and do not align with Wikipedia's own guidelines on offensive material. As stated in Wikipedia's policy on Offensive Material, "offensive words and offensive images should not be included unless they are treated in an encyclopedic manner." The images in question do not meet this criterion and serve no educational purpose, only causing harm. Furthermore, the presence of these images violates Wikipedia's Neutral Point of View (NPOV) policy, failing to respect a significant portion of your readership who find such content unacceptable.
I appreciate your understanding and hope we can work together toward a resolution that respects all users' perspectives. Or you can guide me to a editor who would seriously look into the complaint?
Sincerely,
[Yasha Ullah Afghan] 202.47.33.85 (talk) 05:33, 20 December 2024 (UTC)

No Film School

Latest comment: 19 days ago2 comments2 people in discussion

Can I get a reliability check for https://nofilmschool.com re:reliability and citing in articles? It feels... "bloggy" to me, and I can't find any sources online that lend it any credence. Thanks, all, — Fourthords | =Λ= | 23:54, 17 December 2024 (UTC)

Not sure if we do a check, but rather, if under a particular context the source may be reliable or not. What is this source being used for? Ramos1990 (talk) 00:19, 18 December 2024 (UTC)

Use of YouGov poll in psychology/social science?

Latest comment: 18 days ago3 comments2 people in discussion

Currently checking references to improve the Family estrangement article. In the subsection Family_estrangement#Demographics the article cites data from a YouGov poll. Unsure whether this is a reliable source. Does this meet Wikipedia's reliability guidelines? Baresbran (talk) 05:23, 17 December 2024 (UTC)

It's fine for the attributed outcome of a poll (they're a fairly well established polling company), though polls in generally aren't the most useful things for our content. Being a primary source, any analytic or evaluative conclusions would be improper, and I don't think they do to much to interpret things for us. Alpha3031 (t • c) 13:28, 17 December 2024 (UTC)
Good to know. So it's a bit more useful than anticipated. So maybe good enough to keep at least until better sources are forthcoming. Thank you for your prompt and informative reply. Baresbran (talk) 04:56, 18 December 2024 (UTC)

Live 365 and Euphoriazine

Latest comment: 20 days ago1 comment1 person in discussion

Euphoriazine and Live 365 are blogs which have notability but do they have reliability? Live 365 is a well known website but is it reliable? When it comes to Live 365 I don't find it to be that reliable in the slightest and all seem to be WP:RSSELF by a woman named Katheryn. I would also like to ask about Euphoriazine, a blog that calls themselves a magazine and has sufficient information and well written sources and also does interviews with celebrities such as Paris Hilton. I would like consensus on both of these. This0k (talk) 23:46, 16 December 2024 (UTC) WP:SOCKSTRIKE; see SPI — Red-tailed hawk (nest) 06:31, 18 December 2024 (UTC)

Moviehole.net (defunct)

Latest comment: 21 days ago4 comments3 people in discussion

The site just went defunct (see description on YouTube), but I was wondering if it's still reliable for all-things entertainment? For what it's worth, it had been used by relatively high-quality sources as a secondary source before, for example:

Had to ask because I intend to use this (an article written by Alicia Malone) as a source for the overall critical reception to Death Race 2, an article I'm improving. Thanks, Nineteen Ninety-Four guy (talk) 12:21, 15 December 2024 (UTC)

I think it can be used but it's important to note, although it is referring to the second film either way I do not think this should be used for overall critical reception as it is one article. This0k (talk) 13:08, 15 December 2024 (UTC) WP:SOCKSTRIKE — Red-tailed hawk (nest) 06:40, 18 December 2024 (UTC)
I think one article that summarizes a critical reception will suffice, provided it's reliable. Nineteen Ninety-Four guy (talk) 14:14, 15 December 2024 (UTC)
Moviehole.net appears to have some limited use by others in academic sources, and Malone has published multiple works about cinema, so it should be reliable for your purpose. -- LCU ActivelyDisinterested «@» °∆t° 19:45, 15 December 2024 (UTC)

Is jewishgen.org an RS for List of shtetls?

Latest comment: 18 days ago5 comments3 people in discussion

It's used 18 times. Loads of dead links there also, maybe on wayback. The website says "All information on KehilaLinks pages is provided by JewishGen volunteers. Each site is the responsibility of the individual site owner, so please contact him or her for further information. JewishGen does not verify the information provided, nor do we have any additional information about these places which does not appear publicly on the JewishGen website." It's used for all the Yiddish names in the list. Doug Weller talk 15:33, 17 December 2024 (UTC)

It's definitely WP:PRIMARY and seems pretty close to a WP:SPS so, at best, use with caution. Simonm223 (talk) 15:35, 17 December 2024 (UTC)
@Simonm223 It doesn't seem to be used carefully there. Doug Weller talk 16:14, 17 December 2024 (UTC)
Yeah I'd say better sources would be good at List of shtetls. Simonm223 (talk) 16:53, 17 December 2024 (UTC)
The site tells you very properly how far it's reliable, and I don't think it's far enough for Wikipedia. The link Learn how to add your own KehilaLinks page goes to a page inviting everybody to create "Your Own KehilaLinks Site" and telling them "Even if you've never created a web page before, you can do this! Below and on the linked pages are detailed instructions to guide you through the process. All you need for a basic page is an internet connection, a web browser, a word processor, and these directions." The sites thus created will per JewishGen's policy be reviewed by the KehilaLinks Vice-President and Project Coordinator, before being listed on a KehilaLinks Index Page", which is not nothing, but the disclaimer Doug quotes above tells us it's not very much, either. ("JewishGen does not verify the information provided".) I should think most of the content is good, but to invite volunteers in such a manner and then not verify their information surely makes it pretty much a WP:SPS. Bishonen | tålk 10:50, 18 December 2024 (UTC).

hoteps onesource ref a Miranda Lovett

Latest comment: 18 days ago4 comments3 people in discussion

Miranda Lovett is a first-year PhD student studying ancient Greek art and archaeology with Dr. Emily Egan. Miranda graduated magne cum laude from the University of Mary Washington, receiving her B.A. in Classics with an archaeology emphasis in 2017. Google shows one op-ed to her name yet she is used 12 times on article hoteps. I dont think she should have that weight or any weight in the article. I never filed one of these before and the process is confusing. Hausa warrior (talk) 10:04, 18 December 2024 (UTC)

The chances are that the article is used as much as it is because it was convenient for confirming information prior editors wanted to include. It isn't a WP:BESTSOURCE but Wikipedia regularly uses far less reliable sources. This is a due weight question more than a reliability one. I guess the question I'd ask is whether there are other academics, more due inclusion, who contradict any of Lovett's statements? Simonm223 (talk) 14:56, 18 December 2024 (UTC)
It is probably relevant where the article was published. Are there other sources that disagree? Tinynanorobots (talk) 14:56, 18 December 2024 (UTC)
The article was published in Sapiens which is a good publisher. Lovett being a master's graduate / PhD student is why I was saying probably not WP:BESTSOURCE but I'd say her work in that journal definitely meets a minimum bar for reliability so that's why this is ideally a WP:DUE question. Simonm223 (talk) 15:08, 18 December 2024 (UTC)
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