Wikipedia:Reliable sources/Noticeboard

Welcome — ask about reliability of sources in context!

Before posting, check the archives and list of perennial sources for prior discussions. Context is important: supply the source, the article it is used in, and the claim it supports. Additional notes: RFCs for deprecation, blacklisting, or other classification should not be opened unless the source is widely used and has been repeatedly discussed. Consensus is assessed based on the weight of policy-based arguments. While the consensus of several editors can generally be relied upon, answers are not policy. This page is not a forum for general discussions unrelated to the reliability of sources. Start a new discussion

More on the reliability of BtVA

The Anime and Manga Wikiproject does not consider Behind the Voice Actors to be a reliable source. Can the perennial sources list stop calling it reliable now? Eldomtom2 (talk) 15:20, 2 February 2023 (UTC)

Do you have a link to the discussion where the reliability was discussed? The most recent such discussion here, From March, 2022 concluded that it was reliable. While such discussions don't have to happen here; they need to happen somewhere and if there is a new consensus, we all need to see what discussion came to a new consensus. --Jayron32 15:48, 2 February 2023 (UTC)

Near as I can tell, the discussion is in Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Anime and manga/Online reliable sources/Archive 1 and consists of two users. It's from more then a decade ago and as mentioned has only two participants, including the person who asked if it's a RS. --(loopback) ping/whereis 16:10, 2 February 2023 (UTC)

Per WP:LOCALCONSENSUS and also per WP:TIMETRAVELISN'TPOSSIBLEASFARASWEKNOW, an older discussion in a less-broadly-attended corner of Wikipedia cannot override an existing consensus which was established later. If Eldomtom2 wants to start a new discussion over the reliability of the website in question, they can feel free to do so, but unless and until someone does that, it appears the March 2022 discussion is the prevailing one.--Jayron32 16:40, 2 February 2023 (UTC)

The second one is a red link. Emir of Wikipedia (talk) 20:40, 2 February 2023 (UTC)

It's a blue link if you're browsing from before 2015. After The Fracture happened and Dr. Nixon broke the timeline with her first trip we deleted it. When there's a timeline collision we sometimes get people from 2008 linking to it when we try to warn them about the snakes. --(loopback) ping/whereis 21:26, 2 February 2037 (UTC)

Don't tell people about the snakes. It destabilizes the time loop and every time it happens we have to revdel the entire 2040s. jp×g 10:54, 9 April 2051 (UTC)

It won't be if you go back in time and fix it. --Jayron32 13:31, 3 February 2023 (UTC)

I have made multiple attempts at starting discussions here and they have failed to receive attention.--Eldomtom2 (talk) 21:47, 2 February 2023 (UTC)

I think a lot of that has to do with the fact that there was a well attended RfC for it here less then a year ago. It seems the community here largely doesn't feel like it needs to be reopened at this time. Is there something that's changed about the source in the last year, or do you just disagree with the conclusion? Because the former may catch more discussion but the latter is likely to elicit crickets if editors don't feel anything is substantially different to when we did this before. --(loopback) ping/whereis 06:42, 3 February 2023 (UTC)

I disagree with the conclusion. It was waved through with little investigation.--Eldomtom2 (talk) 22:34, 3 February 2023 (UTC)

I'm sorry, are we looking at the same RfC? I would like to draw your attention specifically to Compassionate727's fairly exhaustive dive into their structure and editorial methods. That is exactly the the type of examination we expect around here, and it did seem to hold quite a bit of weight with participants. If you were talking about a different RfC that's understandable, but if you meant the March 2022 one and think there was 'little investigation' then I don't think you are quite on the level. --(loopback) ping/whereis 06:02, 4 February 2023 (UTC)

If you think it was an "exhaustive dive" you can think that, but I don't think "they say they have some sort of standards (that they won't clarify) that they apply to user submissions" is good enough to say something is a reliable source.--Eldomtom2 (talk) 20:49, 4 February 2023 (UTC)

Just want to point out that WP Anime does consider Behind the Voice Actors to be reliable in most circumstances. You would see this if you actually read the entry at WP:ANIME/ORS#Situational. Link20XX (talk) 00:30, 14 February 2023 (UTC)

It actually says "Roles and lists that are not check-marked (covered by a screenshot), despite being listed under that actor, cannot be used", which means that BtVA is unreliable, since the only thing it is considered reliable for is providing screenshots of the primary source that is a show's credits.--Eldomtom2 (talk) 11:25, 21 February 2023 (UTC)

Rfc on Irish Central

We use this website in a number of articles.[1]. Its own article was deleted via Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/IrishCentral. My latest encounter with this was at [2] where it uses a reliable source to push the idea of Egyptians in Ireland by using it alongside a fringe video. I think at best this should be classified generally unreliable. Doug Weller talk 08:44, 29 March 2023 (UTC)

Meh. People shouldn't be using a light news source for such material in any event. Do you have evidence that the website willfully or negligently has a habit of publishing known falsehoods, or is this one story (which shouldn't be used in any event, even if it covered things that weren't WP:FRINGE, because this is not that kind of source) the only thing that makes you want to eradicate the source from Wikipedia? --Jayron32 11:19, 29 March 2023 (UTC)

@Jayron32There's this:John F. Kennedy's uncanny coincidences with Abraham Lincoln]. See Lincoln–Kennedy coincidences urban legend. [3] claims ancient Irish culture was polygamous and implies gender equality, but see Ancient Celtic women (maybe some but not much polygamy). No time for more, sorry. Doug Weller talk 16:10, 29 March 2023 (UTC)

Like I said, it's a light reading source. The "Kennedy-Lincoln" coincidences are a cultural meme that predates the internet by some years, I remember it from the 1980s for goodness sake, so much so that we have the Lincoln–Kennedy coincidences urban legend article. As I said, the source shouldn't be used in places where obviously better sources do, but that's not special to this source that makes it different from other fluffy listical-y websites. There's thousands of such websites, and I'm not sure this board's resources are well spent discussing each and every one. Go ahead and remove the bad uses, WP:SOFIXIT means you don't need permission to do so. It is not the sort of thing that we need to have a formal vote on or anything like that. Self-evidently bullshit articles can be removed from Wikipedia without any prior permission or discussion about the publisher of those articles. --Jayron32 16:16, 29 March 2023 (UTC)

RfC: Adding Stacker to list of reliable sources

Should Stacker be added to WP:RSP as a reliable source? Random person no 362478479 (talk) 23:30, 3 April 2023 (UTC)

Stacker is a newswire and "storytelling platform" focussing on data-driven journalism. The Editor-in-Chief is Micah Cohen, the former Managing Editor of FiveThirtyEight.[4][5] Their "full-time newsroom includes over two dozen data journalists, editors, and writers who have worked with and been published in leading national publications."[6]

For more information see:

• Discussion above
• Their about page
• Their editorial standards page
• This report and interview on Press Gazette

Random person no 362478479 (talk) 23:30, 3 April 2023 (UTC)

Survey

• Oppose This isn't to say Stacker is or isn't a good source. Instead, we simply don't have enough discussions about it. It should still be handled on a case by case basis with no presumption that it is or isn't acceptable for what ever specific claim it is being used for. Springee (talk) 23:37, 3 April 2023 (UTC)

  My hope was to have that discussion here. This was not just intended as a vote. I have now split this into a Survey and a Discussion section to make that clearer. Random person no 362478479 (talk) 23:47, 3 April 2023 (UTC)

• Agree with Springee. This is not how RSP works. If it turns out that there are multiple discussions about Stacker in the future, those discussions will resolve if, how and when it is listed at RSP. At this point there isn't even a single dispute, let alone a perennial dispute A RFC is not the correct path to RSP. Banks Irk (talk) 01:19, 4 April 2023 (UTC)

  "For a source to be added to this list, editors generally expect two or more significant discussions about the source's reliability in the past, or an uninterrupted request for comment on the source's reliability that took place on the reliable sources noticeboard." (WP:RSPCRITERIA)

  I think it is significantly more efficient to establish a source's status once, instead of discussing it several times before coming to a result. Why have multiple discussions when one will do? Random person no 362478479 (talk) 01:33, 4 April 2023 (UTC)

  I think that's a bad way to handle RS questions. First we need to remember that no source is considered always reliable and few are considered never reliable. Second, we really need to be looking at a case by case basis. One of the big issues with the RSP page is it leads to a level of gaming where it becomes important to get this site listed as "green" vs "yellow". Certainly a passing mention at the bottom of a "green" article is more important than a well crafted discussion in a "yellow" article. How dare an editor would try to use a yellow article to show that my green article is wrong! Also, people tend to think "green" means DUE vs just, "generally reliable". Part of the benefit of having multiple discussions about specific uses of a specific source is we get a better feel for the source over time. We also avoid the case, where just a few discussions result in a "conclusion" that is then enshrined in the RSP list. Personally, I think the standard should be at least 5 discussions but certainly not when we don't have any previous discussions. Springee (talk) 02:15, 4 April 2023 (UTC)

Further, there is no actual dispute over the use of the source in any article. I can find only one article in which it is currently being used as a reference. There is zero context for an RFC. Banks Irk (talk) 02:21, 4 April 2023 (UTC)

• Oppose, not only has there not been enough discussion on the site, but they don't have a page of their own and are known for making listicles and sponsored content so it fails to pass WP:SPONSORED. Scu ba (talk) 03:33, 6 April 2023 (UTC)
• Oppose I am bothered by the use of this discussion board and of RSP to "pre-approve" a canonical list of sources. It is not intended for such. This board is to resolve genuine disputes over the use of a source, not really a place to get something preemptively approved or preemptively banned. Apply the criteria at WP:RS and decide for yourself if using any particular source (including this one) is appropriate. --Jayron32 16:13, 17 April 2023 (UTC)

Discussion

• Support this only because I was confused by searching for Stacker in the chart at WP:RSP and hitting only Stack Exchange. Don't know if anybody else would have the same problem. I'm not impressed by the site's content but only by the editor, Mr. Cohen. -SusanLesch (talk) 15:36, 4 April 2023 (UTC)

  RSP is not a canonical list of sources. It only list those which have generated repeated controversy (they are perennially discussed). --Jayron32 16:13, 17 April 2023 (UTC)

RfC: PrivacyTools.io or PrivacyGuides.org websites reliability?

Which of the following best describes PrivacyTools.io or PrivacyGuides.org technology articles?

• Option 1: Generally reliable
• Option 2: Additional considerations apply
• Option 3: Generally unreliable

Disclaimer: I may have previously cited either or both of these. Mea Culpa. Summary: Option 3: Generally unreliable for both. Background: As far as I know, neither website has been discussed here previously, but PrivacyTools was previously mentioned (by me) to support a different source. Privacy Guides is a "fork" of Privacy Tools circa 2021. There was Wikipedia:Articles_for_deletion/PrivacyTools in 2019, result: Delete. Oddities: The PrivacyTools article creator, User:UnnamedUser, was blocked for puppetry. The only Keep came from User:JonahAragon, who requested Draft restore in 2021 Special:Diff/926083267, and has recently worked on Draft:Privacy Guides (with declared COI). They also cited Privacy Guides to add critical comparative statements (negative towards CalyxOS) to CalyxOS and GrapheneOS, and cited or mentioned PrivacyTools or PrivacyGuides elsewhere: Special:Diff/1146474677, Special:Diff/1146473478. Privacytools.io has been cited a few times[7]. Summary: Both websites are group (or individual) blogs (and advocacy sites) without evidence of editorial oversight, and as such are unreliable. -- Yae4 (talk) 19:16, 4 April 2023 (UTC)

• A RFC seems unnecessary. Of the articles in which it shows up on Wikipedia per the search lined above, one article references a blog, another references Reddit, the third uses it as an external link, not a reference, and the fourth is a false hit - the reference is actually to a similarly-named site on Harvard.edu. Clearly the blog and the Reddit references should be removed. The external link isn't an issue. There isn't really a live question as far as I can tell. Banks Irk (talk) 20:20, 4 April 2023 (UTC)

  Reaching consensus on the sources and nipping future problems in the bud is one option. Procrastinating until later is another. The other article issues have been fixed. -- Yae4 (talk) 17:43, 11 April 2023 (UTC)

RfC: WION

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.

---

Following these previous discussions from Wikipedia:Reliable sources/Noticeboard/Archive 335#WION News, and Wikipedia:Reliable sources/Noticeboard/Archive 315#Is WION a reliable source?, what is the reliability of WION (wionnews.com  )?

• Option 1: Generally reliable for factual reporting
• Option 2: Unclear or additional considerations apply
• Option 3: Generally unreliable for factual reporting
• Option 4: Publishes false or fabricated information, and should be deprecated as in the 2017 RfC of the Daily Mail?

Surveyor Mount 04:25, 8 April 2023 (UTC)

Survey

Option 3 I looked at the comments on the two links you provided and they seem to be advocating that it's unreliable due to it's political connection to India, and the evidence they gave seems to back it up. I took a peek and it doesn't look too bad (I mean, about the recent North Korean nuclear missile over Hokkaido thing, it seemed to be stating mostly true stuff, although I did notice a lot of articles about India, Pakistan, and that kind of stuff. I'd say option 3, although I am open to changing my vote to option 2 if new evidence suggests the source's reliability. interstatefive  01:26, 13 April 2023 (UTC)

• Option 3 for now, without prejudice to a new RfC in a year or so. If independent experts appear on WION, I see no problem using them, with attribution. They do separate news and opinion. I could not find a corrections policy. I could not find any evidence that a wrong article had been corrected. I spot checked a few articles and did not see anything that was obviously wrong. I looked around for WP:USEBYOTHERS and found very very little, though they are referenced by [8], which itself lacks much of a footprint. I don't see evidence that they have a reputation for fact checking, accuracy, lack of fact checking, or inaccuracy. I don't think they meet WP:NEWSORG yet. But they seem to be newish, so I think it would make sense to check back in a year or so. If this gets listed at WP:RSP, I request that the temporary nature of this assessment be noted. Furthermore, it is possible that input from a user who has a high degree of familiarity with India might change this assessment. Adoring nanny (talk) 19:59, 13 April 2023 (UTC)

• Option 3 maybe 4, although the latter is probably not necessary at this time. The news channel isn't too new, it was established around 2015-16 as an international channel by Zee Media (which also runs Zee News, its various derivatives and the websites India.com and DNA India; all of which have a very poor reputation). The channel just hasn't managed to get sufficient traction with their intended international audience and the company in general is faltering, so secondary coverage on their reporting will be somewhat sparse. In terms of its content, it isn't too different from its sister outlets, only the target audience, area of coverage and presentation is different.

I had commented on it in the previous two discussions back in 2020-21 and I'll more or less stand by my comments that it is generally and quite thoroughly unreliable. Although I wouldn't use the exact terms I had used back then, I'll still say that they are linked to the ruling party (the chairman of their parent company is Subhash Chandra) and they very closely toe the government line, making them functionally non-independent. I had also provided examples for unreliability back then and I'd just add to that with a few more points below:

• During the Covid-19 pandemic, in reaction to the coverage by international news outlets on government response and the extent and impact of the pandemic in India, they made allegations of "media bias" and "targeting", while claiming that the "western media" was censoring coverage of the pandemic in their home countries to the point that there was "nothing on the news wires" and that only WION was bringing the coverage in these countries as "everyone else has chosen not to" which we know is patently false. This is in line with their general MO and they frequently make similar retorts to reporting by the international press on the deteriorating state of affairs in India on matters such as political repression, press freedom, etc. This kind of behaviour doesn't align with them being a journalistic enterprise.

• They had once falsely announced that they were in a partnership with Deutsche Welle. This brings into question whether even its claims about itself can be relied on.

• With respect to the Russia-Ukraine conflict, there also seems to be a subtle alignment with Russian propaganda as well. For example, they had quoted a ABC News-Washington Post poll which included views of Americans on the Russian state but they re-interpreted it as "Russophobia", a term that wasn't used in the original source at all and is a charge of prejudice against Russians frequently used by the Russian state and its propaganda apparatus.

Tayi Arajakate _Talk 22:12, 16 April 2023 (UTC)

Gravitas is clearly a pundit-based opinion show, making it unreliable, regardless of how one views the underlying outlet. Adoring nanny (talk) 16:02, 19 April 2023 (UTC)

It looks like that but it isn't; Gravitas is identified as a news programme (see PR source; the website section of it describes itself as "Gravitas news") and the host mentioned in the specific episode above was an executive editor (not a pundit or talk show host) at that time. It's more of a feature/exclusive news segment where they break stories (such as in the example) or report on the biggest story of the day.

In fact, Indian news channels don't really have a concept of "pundit-based opinion shows", instead there are "debate shows" which fills a similar space. Tayi Arajakate _Talk 18:24, 19 April 2023 (UTC)

References

Discussion

@Surveyor Mount you have not formatted this to be a formal Request for Comments. If you want to do that take a look at the help page here: WP:RFC. Also pinging contributors from the two earlier discussions: @Morgengave @Tayi Arajakate @Thucydides411 @Horse Eye's Back Random person no 362478479 (talk) 20:31, 8 April 2023 (UTC)

Okay, I changed this link to wionnews.com, but wion.com what I requested is incorrect. Surveyor Mount 22:53, 8 April 2023 (UTC)

Both the links are wrong, the correct one is wionews.com  . Wion.com is someone's blog it seems, unrelated to this and wionnews.com is only a redirected link. I'll leave a comment on this news publisher in a while though I'm curious, what prompted this RfC? Tayi Arajakate _Talk 22:29, 15 April 2023 (UTC)

FYI, Surveyor Mount has since been blocked as a sockpuppet of SwissArmyGuy :3 F4U (they/it) 12:01, 20 April 2023 (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.

Fox News summary judgment

I read two caveats around published data on Fox's knowing promotion of the Big Lie raised in the last RfC - that it was court filings, not established facts, and that it was from opinion sources, not news. The legal situation has developed, not necessarily to Fox's advantage. Summary judgment has been granted in part to Dominion (https://www.npr.org/2023/03/31/1167526374/judge-rules-fox-hosts-claims-about-dominion-were-false-says-trial-can-proceed). The arguments that this was either opinion or accurate reporting of notable claims are both rejected in the judgment (https://www.documentcloud.org/documents/23736885-dominion-v-fox-summary-judgment). It is clear from the facts established that the problem was not opinions, or reportage around a false narrative, but provably false statements of fact.

In the Karen McDougal lawsuit, Carlson's (successful) defence was that no reasonable person would take anything he says seriously - very much the Wikipedia consensus that has governed use of Fox as a source for some time. The judgment forestalls that argument. Whether they were uttered with actual malice remains a question for the jury, as it relies on their assessment of the state of mind of the various individuals involved, but this distinguishes the Big Lie from the habitual use of hyperbole by opinion hosts.

It's also bigger than the opinion shows, regardless of whether anyone would mistake them for news. We now know that when Neil Cavuto cut away from a White House presser in which Kayleigh McEnany aired Big Lie claims, Raj Shah notified senior Fox News and Fox Corporation leadership of the 'Brand Threat' posed by Cavuto’s action. Cavuto is a news anchor, not an opinion host. When Jacqui Heinrich, a reporter, tweeted "top election infrastructure officials [confirmed that] there is no evidence that any voting system deleted or lost votes, changed votes, or was in any way compromised", Carlson texted "Please get her fired [...] Seriously… What the fuck? I'm actually shocked… It needs to stop immediately, like tonight. It's measurably hurting the company. The stock price is down. Not a joke." Heinrich then deleted her tweet. Fox News CEO Suzanne Scott wrote to Lachlan Murdoch: "It's a question of trust the AZ [call] was damaging but we will highlight our stars and plant flags letting the viewers know we hear them and respect them" and "We can fix this but we cannot smirk at our viewers any longer."

This shows a Fox exec team determination to steer its content to what the viewers wanted to hear (because they were deserting Fox for NewsMax) rather than objective fact. With hindsight, this was obvious the day they sacked Chris Stirewalt for correctly calling AZ for Biden. Benkler et. al. described exactly this dynamic in Network Propaganda - in my view it has always been a "when, not if" thing. We have been working on the basis that Fox's obvious dishonesty applies only to opinion programming, but I would suggest that we now have sound evidence that - at least since 2020 - it also infects editorial policy, and that this is acknowledged by those responsible. Notwithstanding the "boiling frog" problem of the creeping radicalisation of Fox leading to endless RfCs after each new outrage, it would be a mistake to think that 2023 Fox News is the same beast as 2019 Fox News. It's not. Guy (help! - typo?) 22:28, 8 April 2023 (UTC)

Can we set a cutoff point where it clearly turned unusably bad? (I mean, I'd concur that Fox was launched in bad faith, but ...) - David Gerard (talk) 23:24, 8 April 2023 (UTC)

2016 for sure, when they became the personal press for the Trump Administration. Zaathras (talk) 02:09, 9 April 2023 (UTC)

The least contentious point would probably be after the Arizona call, since that appears to have been the catalyst for a conscious decision by management to publish knowing falsehoods more widely than the opinion shows in order to preserve audience share. Guy (help! - typo?) 10:32, 9 April 2023 (UTC)

While I'm on the record as saying they were already unreliable, the Arizona call strikes me as the most obvious inflection point, yes, since coverage here seems to show that after that, the distinction between news and opinion largely started to collapse as the owners panicked and gave news hosts like Bartiromo the green light to spread outright falsehoods in non-opinion venues. --Aquillion (talk) 20:33, 13 April 2023 (UTC)

No. The problem here was the talk shows, not the news reporting. Additionally, what if Fox decides to be more careful going forward? As with the previous discussions, the problem element is already viewed as not reliable. Springee (talk) 10:40, 9 April 2023 (UTC)

what if Fox decides to be more careful going forward? Then that remarkable and entirely hypothetical event would be worth a new discussion. the problem element is already viewed as not reliable The issue is precisely that we have the court evidence it was not confined to one element, per the above - David Gerard (talk) 11:49, 9 April 2023 (UTC)

• The problem here was the talk shows - that seems to be specifically untrue. The entire issue here is that there's increasing evidence that the news side is subject to pressure to avoid contradicting the talk shows, and in some cases has also published falsehoods, which makes it equally unreliable. In particular, Bartiromo, whose statements at the center of the case, was classified by Fox as a news anchor at the time. From here (linked above): Prior to Dominion's claims that Fox was defaming it in late 2020, the network classified Bartiromo as a news anchor, not an opinion host. Or in more detail here, But the difference with Bartiromo is she identifies as a news anchor, as she indicated in her testimony. She was one of the ones most vocally spreading claims that Fox knew was false; and she was doing it as news, in her capacity as a news anchor, not as opinion. --Aquillion (talk) 20:17, 13 April 2023 (UTC)

It was. And then it changed. Evidence in this case very clearly shows executives responding to demands from the opinion side that the non-opinion side of Fox stop "disrespecting" viewers by giving them accurate information. Guy (help! - typo?) 23:02, 18 April 2023 (UTC)

A thing to keep in mind is that every source that is a for-profit company is going to be thinking along the same lines as Fox, in that they will focus and adjust how it presents the news to keep their audience happy and thus maintain and/or gain new subscribers. This is not to say that the NYTimes operates as heavily biased as Fox did in the years in question, but we do have to keep that in mind. A more "obvious" example is the Wall Street Journal, which, ignoring its editorial board, still favors news that impact the wealthy, and thus tends to be more right-leaning than other news sources. Pure objective news coverage is dead because there's no market for that type of coverage.

Yes, what Fox did here is a problem for us in how we use them, but lets be clear that some of its actions at the core are those other sources readily follow as well. Masem (t) 22:55, 9 April 2023 (UTC)

This sort of spurious equivocation between Fox and the NYT is a common pro-Fox talking point on RSN, and it isn't any more convincing this time around - David Gerard (talk) 10:04, 10 April 2023 (UTC)

I clearly pointed out that what the NYTimes may do compared to what Fox does is definitely not equivalent in terms of impact on current bias, but simply that we should never pretend this doesn't happen at works like the NYTimes. They have a paying audience which they serve first and foremost over neutral news coverage, and while their neutral coverage really hasn't taken that big of a hit from it, its still there in the sidelines (eg their writing on trans rights has left much to be desired). Masem (t) 12:21, 10 April 2023 (UTC)

We have concrete evidence here of Fox News' malfeasance, there is no such equivalent for the NY Times. {{|we should never pretend this doesn't happen at works like the NYTimes}} is just you handwaving as what you imagine to exist. False equivalence. ValarianB (talk) 12:32, 10 April 2023 (UTC)

I'm not trying to say we need to take action against the NYTimes because there's no evidence they have done it purposefully or with malfeasance, or at the scale Fox has. But this should remain a guiding factor when evaluating sources in the future, that most news organizations have a commercial motive that they have had to adopt since the 2000s to keep alive. Most of the time, that may only become apparent in small parts of their coverage, but in the case of Fox, the evidence is clearly against their use of favoring the readers' interests rather than journalistic integrity. Masem (t) 12:51, 10 April 2023 (UTC)

NYTimes investigative reporting brought down Eliot Spitzer, New York’s Democratic governor; derailed the election campaign of his Democratic successor, David Paterson; got Charles Rangel, the Harlem Democrat who was chairman of the House Ways and Means Committee, in ethics trouble; and exposed the falsehoods that Attorney General Richard Blumenthal of Connecticut, another Democrat, told about his Vietnam service. Fox and the NYTimes don't belong in the same paragraph. O3000, Ret. (talk) 13:04, 10 April 2023 (UTC)

There is no such thing as an utterly unbiased source; but WP:BIASED covers a more narrow and specific sort of bias - obviously if you consider every source equally biased then the policy becomes useless; I don't think there's any room to seriously entertain people who argue that the entire mainstream media falls under BIASED. But either way, with both sources that meet the threshold of BIASED and those that do not, there are still reliable sources - ones that don't allow their biases, such as they are, to taint the accuracy of their coverage. And then there are some unreliable sources, where a source's biases lead them to eg. allow their news anchors to publish intentional falsehoods because it advances some institutional agenda In those cases, the bias is a noteworthy component of their unreliability because it suggests that the problem is institutional and systematic. Obviously the coverage here suggests that Fox is the latter. (An obvious caveat is that I believed that previous coverage already adequately established this; but this makes it glaringly obvious that they do not maintain the separation between news and opinion that some people in previous RFCs hoped they did.) That is not something that is common among the mainstream media, hence why this lawsuit is making such a splash. --Aquillion (talk) 20:29, 13 April 2023 (UTC)

I'm afraid it is true that the media are all biased, some much more so than others. But what happens with a 'reliable source' is they go in for ignoring inconvenient truths and things their audience don't like or doing a bit of spin rather than sticking in outright lies. Outright lies puts them definitely in the not reliable camp. NadVolum (talk) 11:54, 10 April 2023 (UTC)

See "Network Propaganda" by Benkler et. al. There is asymmetric polarization in US media. Liberal-leaning media (e.g. MSNBC) will lose viewers if they publish ideologically preferred but factually inaccurate content. As the filings and the summary judgment show, Fox, an exemplar of right-wing media, has the exact opposite dynamic. Customers will desert if given factually information that is ideologically unacceptable. Guy (help! - typo?) 23:06, 18 April 2023 (UTC)

"Customers will desert if given factually information that is ideologically unacceptable." Great, an echo chamber in action. I will not not speculate what is their brand of a purity test is, but we have established that Faux News can no longer claim that it is "reliable for statements of fact". Dimadick (talk) 04:37, 19 April 2023 (UTC)

What new information do we have now that would change the non-consensus from just after Dominion released these messages? The summary judgement seems to be based on statements made by the commentary shows. Where is the new information that says the news programs are releasing false information? This would seem just to support the status quo conclusion we already have. We don't have a problem with people excessively relying on Fox News as a RS for contentious claims. Springee (talk) 13:43, 10 April 2023 (UTC)

No, you missed a key point of the coverage. Maria Bartiromo, who was the source of some of the defamatory claims at issue, was classified by Fox as a news anchor at the time, not a talk show host. (See here, Prior to Dominion's claims that Fox was defaming it in late 2020, the network classified Bartiromo as a news anchor, not an opinion host - or in more detail here, But the difference with Bartiromo is she identifies as a news anchor, as she indicated in her testimony.) Fox has retroactively taken to calling her a talk show host, but I'm sure that you understand that from the perspective of our policies, that makes things even worse - it means that Fox doesn't maintain a clear distinction between news and opinion, which resolves one of the key issues that previously blocked us from reaching a consensus on their unreliability. If Fox themselves is inconsistent on whether Bartiromo is a news anchor or an opinion host, and if she was saying false and defamatory things while they were calling her a news anchor, then clearly that suggests that we can no longer reasonably split Fox into news / opinion sections - if they're not making a clear distinction, then they have to be judged as a whole. Likewise, failing to distinguish between news and opinion is one of the textbook indicators of an unreliable source, especially when they have someone who is notionally on the news side publishing what the network as a whole knows are deliberate falsehoods. --Aquillion (talk) 20:17, 13 April 2023 (UTC)

Did we treat her commentary as need reporting or as commentary? Can you show examples where FN is being used inappropriately? Springee (talk) 20:34, 13 April 2023 (UTC)

With all due respect Springee, I don't follow the logic here. Why would we need existing examples of inappropriate use? Does lack of evidence for inappropriate use mean that all future uses are per se appropriate? Entirely possible I am missing something. Cheers. Dumuzid (talk) 20:43, 13 April 2023 (UTC)

The evidence doesn't show that FN's news reporting is unreliable. It shows that the talk shows are clearly not reliable. We already say FN political and science reporting is use with care/discretion. Do we have examples where that caution hasn't been followed? If not, what is the issue? What about the previous RfC is no longer valid? Springee (talk) 21:48, 13 April 2023 (UTC)

Incidentally, I think it would be hard to find an example where I introduced (vs argued that an existing reference is acceptable) Fox as a source. I'm not sure I ever have. Springee (talk) 21:49, 13 April 2023 (UTC)

I'm certainly not accusing you of doing so--but Aquillion has introduced an argument above as to why we can't simply rely on the talk/news distinction anymore; I find it persuasive. You may not, but you haven't really addressed it. Cheers. Dumuzid (talk) 22:19, 13 April 2023 (UTC)

Did we treat the person in question as an anchor or as a source of commentary? I presume we already put her in the same bucket as Carlson thus already not a RS. Springee (talk) 23:19, 13 April 2023 (UTC)

The problem is that the network itself equivocated on her role, meaning (at least for myself and Aquillion) that the division has become at least somewhat porous. To me, that's enough--we have an admittedly unreliable opinion side which (again, to me) is not clearly cordoned off from news, and thus I think the entire operation is presumptively unreliable, but as ever, reasonable minds may differ. Cheers. Dumuzid (talk) 23:34, 13 April 2023 (UTC)

"In the Karen McDougal lawsuit, Carlson's (successful) defence was that no reasonable person would take anything he says seriously [...] -@Guy"

Not really. His defense was that it was hyperbole. Harry Sibelius (talk) 07:18, 19 April 2023 (UTC)

"Please get her fired [...] Seriously… What the fuck? I'm actually shocked… It needs to stop immediately, like tonight. It's measurably hurting the company. The stock price is down. Not a joke."

I'm still not really understanding what the allegation of wrongdoing is here. I see this quote repeated on this noticeboard a lot as evidence that Fox intentionally lied about the 2020 American election, but I have never seen anyone explain how. I have also seen editors reproduce Carlson's quotes regarding his hatred of Trump, as well as his negation of Sidney Powell's claims regarding Dominion, seemingly as evidence of Fox's lying. It's also not clear to me what these facts have to do with Fox's credibility--the latter even seems to evince Fox's credibility, since Tucker Carlson attacked Powell's Dominion-Venezuelan voter-fraud theory both in private, and on his show. Harry Sibelius (talk) 07:29, 19 April 2023 (UTC)

Tucker Carlson, a high profile star and stockholder, was demanding that fact-checking of Trump's big lie should stop, because viewers were deserting Fox for OANN and Newsmax, and it was hurting the stick price. This would not happen in a legitimate journalistic enterprise. Guy (help! - typo?) 17:25, 20 April 2023 (UTC)

That's clearly untrue, because he attacked the Venezuela-conspiracy claims himself, publicly. How does it fit your theory that he attacked some claims of voter fraud, but not others? And are you honestly saying that no "legitimate journalistic enterprise" does not care about stocks or ratings? Harry Sibelius (talk) 07:06, 24 April 2023 (UTC)

No legitimate journalistic enterprise would continue to report what it knew to be false information because doing so would hurt its ratings or its circulation or its stock price. A news source with journalistic integrity would bite the bullet, issue corrections, and then take whatever non-journalistic steps were necessary to bolster its ratings, circulation, or stock price. I suppose there are those -- such as the folks at Fox News -- that think that the other course of action is acceptable, but they clearly don't really understand what journalism is supposed to be about. Beyond My Ken (talk) 08:09, 24 April 2023 (UTC)

What exactly is the claim that they knew to be false information, but promoted anyway? I often see it claimed that it was Tucker Carlson's assertion, in private, that Sydney Powell's claims were false. But he also asserted that they were false publicly, on the Fox News channel. There is no contradiction there. When Carlson said that Heinrich should be fired for saying that "There is no evidence that any voting system deleted or lost votes, changed votes, or was in any way compromised", this does not contradict his attacks on Powell, which were never private or hidden from the public in any way. The two claims are not equal, and can only be connected tendentiously.

If A alleges that B specifically did not steal the election, and C alleges that the election was not stolen at all, and A attacks C for saying so, that does not mean that A has contradicted themselves in any way whatsoever. Harry Sibelius (talk) 09:25, 24 April 2023 (UTC)

I've believed that Fox should not be considered a reliable source for quite a while, but just to be very clear about this I do indeed believe that this new evidence is relevant and that it establishes beyond a shadow of a doubt that they fail our standards for being a reliable source at least dating from November 2020, if not earlier. Loki (talk) 02:00, 14 April 2023 (UTC)

Just as a brief addendum to my colloquy with Sprringee above, this is very much my take, and for me, the date of the 2020 election is as good a cutoff as any (though I can see arguments for earlier). Cheers, all. Dumuzid (talk) 02:24, 14 April 2023 (UTC)

I generally agree with the above takes, but I would propose March 15th (the beginning of covid lockdowns and close to the beginning of serious campaigning for the 2020 election) as the cutoff date. Googleguy007 (talk) 14:37, 14 April 2023 (UTC)

If some solid justification could be provided, I wouldn't be opposed to that either. But, the current evidence seems to weigh mostly on events post-election.

I personally feel like if not November 2020, there just shouldn't be a cutoff date: some of the issues with Fox have been long-standing and while it definitely seems to have gotten notably worse in November 2020, issues revealed in this court case do seem to bear on their editorial policy in general. It's not clear to me, for instance, that Fox ever made a clear internal distinction between opinion and news. Loki (talk) 20:24, 14 April 2023 (UTC)

Yeah. There's no clear cutoff date because Fox has literally always been like this - David Gerard (talk) 21:37, 14 April 2023 (UTC)

While I may empathize with that sentiment, I wouldn't condone going back further unless it is also backed by RS, which may or may not be possible. The 2020 "Big Lie" Dominion debacle is documented, and therefore something every reasonable editor (regardless of their persuasion) should be able to agree on. It's conceivable that this event may have a domino effect that creates doubt that goes further back in time, but it requires RS and we definitely should start at 2020. DN (talk) 02:13, 15 April 2023 (UTC)

This is a change that would require a new RfC. Springee (talk) 10:30, 17 April 2023 (UTC)

I wouldn't be against an RfC, but this seems to be a policy issue, and RfCs do not supersede policy. DN (talk) 14:14, 17 April 2023 (UTC)

It's not a policy issue. WP:V is policy. A blanket view that FN is or isn't a RS in some given subject area is not a policy question. Additionally, this would be trying to supersede a recent and very well attended RfC. Springee (talk) 14:17, 17 April 2023 (UTC)

This falls under the umbrella of WP:V, ie the reliability of a source, "Material challenged or likely to be challenged, and all quotations, must be attributed to a reliable, published source. In Wikipedia, verifiability means that people reading and editing the encyclopedia can check that information comes from a reliable source". To paraphrase Aquillion, FN does not maintain the separation between news and opinion that some people in previous RFCs hoped they did.DN (talk) 14:37, 17 April 2023 (UTC)

I am disappointed that you are arguing for FNC. Coverage of this case very clearly shows that the opinion side drives policy. Notional news anchors were coerced into following the demands of opinion host (and stockholder) Tucker Carlson. Whether this was out of concern for financial impact or personal ideology is largely irrelevant.

Recall, Fox News is largely the result of Roger Ailes, a media advisor to Nixon, setting out to ensure that no future Republican should be forced to resign after being found out criming. The only person who would see this as anything other than "broken by design" is Mary Poppins. Guy (help! - typo?) 23:15, 18 April 2023 (UTC)

Remember, those are claims made by Dominion selectively releasing information. We don't know the opposing side's version of events. In all of this I don't recall seeing anyone claim the news side was proving bad content. The talk side may have driven what they wanted the news side to focus on but that isn't the same as false information from the news side. Combine that with the lack of evidence that editors are using Fox disruptively and the fact that we already say use with caution and I don't see an issue that needs to be fixed. Springee (talk) 23:25, 18 April 2023 (UTC)

To expand on this, Wikipedia has an issue in that, instead of deciding to use sources on a case by case basis we often resort to blanket decisions. In general those decisions are more favorable to sources on the left vs right. This can result in a skew in our articles. As an example, take the indictment of Trump by DA Bragg (or any of the other potential cases against Trump). In articles on those cases we presumably want a range of legal analysis/opinions on the way the law is being applied to the facts in question. If we only cite news sources on the left we risk having only analysis that left leaning audiences. It's easy to claim this is just a case of the right not picking good sources. However, take someone like Allan Dershowitz. In most cases if we are reporting legal opinions/analysis on a subject and Dershowitz offers one, it's probably DUE. It certainly comes from a one of the absolute top US legal scholars. However, sources like CNN don't ask him to come on. According to Dershowitz, most sources on the left no longer talk with him because he defended Trump during his first impeachment. This means in the end we may not get balanced coverage of the legal opinions on a topic because we have decided that sources that carry opinions that are more likely to appeal to the right are not reliable and thus can't be included. I think that is a serious blind spot in our neutrality. I certainly can see the issue if we were to pack Biden's article with every negative thing reported by Fox. However, if we have an article about the legality of something the president or Congress etc is trying to do then we are doing a disservice to readers if we remove Dershowitz'z opinion from our list of "reactions" simply because his views were part of a Fox vs CNN interview. Springee (talk) 00:06, 19 April 2023 (UTC)

Please reduce the verbiage. I already commented on your Dershowitz analogy. And I was polite enough to not include that highly regarded legal experts disagree with him with increasing frequency. And your claim that no one on the left will speak with him is unsourced and imaginative; and your comment that we are doing a disservice to readers if we remove Dershowitz'z opinion from our list of "reactions" simply because his views were part of a Fox vs CNN interview. is also unsourced. Frankly, I don't see why you keep talking about him. Are you saying that only Fox, of the massive news sources, will say anything about him? If that's true, wonder what the reason is. O3000, Ret. (talk) 00:13, 20 April 2023 (UTC)

Please check the time stamps. The edit above (00:06, 19 April 2023) was the first time I mentioned Dershowitz and predates your first comment on the subject (13:22, 19 April 2023). Springee (talk) 00:47, 20 April 2023 (UTC)

OK I'll strike; but twice is twice too many. It's not a good example. O3000, Ret. (talk) 01:03, 20 April 2023 (UTC)

Specifically re. Dersh, people won't ask him for his opinions as a legal scholar because he flushed his own reputation down the toilet.

His lawsuit against CNN for "ruining his reputation" by accurately reporting his actual words, failed, because he'd already said that his reputation had been ruined by the Epstein allegations.

We're not in danger as a project from not hearing Dersh's hot takes on anything. He was a respected legal scholar, he's now a hack, and nothing he says can be taken at face value. Guy (help! - typo?) 17:30, 20 April 2023 (UTC)

I know this is a bit off topic but, to set the record straight, the lawsuit failed not because the judge ruled Dershowitz wasn't defamed. It failed because he wasn't able to show that CNN's actions met the actual malice standard [9]. CNN didn't accurately report his words when they truncated a quote and then suggested Dershowitz said something he specifically did not.

From the ABA Journal article, Dershowitz claimed that a shortened clip and CNN news commentators falsely suggested that he thought that a president could do anything—including illegal acts—as long as a president thinks that it is in the public interest. Dershowitz had actually argued that a president can’t be impeached simply because he takes action based on a desire to be reelected, if a president thinks their reelection is in the public interest. But Dershowitz had also said a president can be impeached if they did something illegal, regardless of their motive. Dershowitz complained that CNN should not have taken out this sentence in edited clips: “The only thing that would make a quid pro quo unlawful is if the quo were some way illegal.”

Also from the article, ... while actual malice wasn’t established, the facts did show “foolishness, apathy and an inability to string together a series of common legal principles” on CNN’s part, Singhal said. Springee (talk) 16:21, 23 April 2023 (UTC)

Then he wasn't defamed under the legal definition. And, I agree with all that Guy posted. But then, why would we want to get into a legal argument here. Not our job. O3000, Ret. (talk) 16:51, 23 April 2023 (UTC)

Yeah, I just feel the need to pipe in very briefly about Dersh -- he is obviously notable and his opinions might well be notable, but he is very much an outlier on many things (a statement with which I believe he would agree), and so we have to be careful about according him too much weight, as that might be WP:UNDUE in some circumstances where he is alone or part of a very small group in the legal academy. Cheers. Dumuzid (talk) 16:57, 23 April 2023 (UTC)

Guy said CNN accurately reported his statements. The judge disagrees. Springee (talk) 17:10, 23 April 2023 (UTC)

• Given that we already say don’t use the talk shows, and already strongly caution editors about using Fox for certain topics (especially politics and science), I really don’t see a need for this. Blueboar (talk) 11:54, 17 April 2023 (UTC)
  • Given how the sort of editor who adds Fox as a source observably behaves, we clearly do - David Gerard (talk) 13:38, 17 April 2023 (UTC)

    Can you show an example of this? Honestly, this comes off as a bit of a character attack/personal attack against unnamed editors. Springee (talk) 13:59, 17 April 2023 (UTC)

    Editors that ignore RS in favor of a particular POV would be the example here. DN (talk) 14:12, 17 April 2023 (UTC)

    Again, do we have examples of this? If not then the existing RSP entry works fine. Springee (talk) 14:16, 17 April 2023 (UTC)

    If you look at articles regarding Trump, the 2020 election, the Biden's, the Clinton's etc... you will probably find some edits of this nature. DN (talk) 02:26, 18 April 2023 (UTC)

    Can you provide links to any examples? I don't follow those topics and honestly, try to avoid them. Springee (talk) 03:07, 18 April 2023 (UTC)

    Seconded. This seems like a reach. Harry Sibelius (talk) 06:18, 19 April 2023 (UTC)

    I agree that we do, and copious evidence of problem attempts to use Fox have been provided. I also agree that it would be great to establish that Fox is generally unreliable starting in 2020 even if prior to that remains as status quo. Andre🚐 18:42, 18 April 2023 (UTC)

    Can you share some example links? Springee (talk) 18:51, 18 April 2023 (UTC)

    Here's a recentish example [10] Andre🚐 18:55, 18 April 2023 (UTC)

    What's the issue? It seems like a reasonable add. It seems reasonable to use Fox as a source for an attributed POV. Unless your perspective is that any political content cited to Fox is unacceptable, a view not supported by the last RfC. Springee (talk) 19:00, 18 April 2023 (UTC)

    Looking into your example a bit more, it was added once then removed. How is that an issue. There was no edit warring and, right or wrong, the content didn't make it to the article. Honestly, this is a very poor example of a "problem". Springee (talk) 19:06, 18 April 2023 (UTC)

    This seems to be going off-topic quickly, and the goal posts seem to be moving. The discussion here is about the recent summary judgement against FN, and how that relates to it's assigned level of reliability. To reiterate, as far as this discussion is concerned, what unnamed editors are doing with FN is less relevant than what FN has been doing. If anyone wants to discuss editor behavior, maybe start a separate discussion somewhere else, otherwise it may be hatted, as it seems fairly off-topic. Cheers.DN (talk) 19:22, 18 April 2023 (UTC)

    What goal post is shifting? I asked where the use of Fox was problematic. The diff offered doesn't support the view that Fox is being used problematically. It does relate to the overall question since any change to RSP entry should include some indication that we are fixing a problem. Springee (talk) 22:35, 18 April 2023 (UTC)

    Springee, this noticeboard (and discussion) is about reliable sources...not reliable editors...DN (talk) 00:43, 19 April 2023 (UTC)

    I don't understand your reply. Springee (talk) 04:41, 19 April 2023 (UTC)

    A Fox RSP entry does exist, and that entry needs to contain accurate information on how Fox should or should not be used in the future. The subject of current or past editor behavior is unnecessary to that discussion. I believe DN was requesting that we all simply drop that topic. Alsee (talk) 05:25, 19 April 2023 (UTC)

    An earlier comment was that the use of FN has been problematic. I asked for examples and none were provided. Springee (talk) 05:39, 19 April 2023 (UTC)

    None were provided? I think you are mistaken. After an example you requested was given to you, you dismissed it stating "Unless your perspective is that any political content cited to Fox is unacceptable, a view not supported by the last RfC.". From a certain perspective, you provided a brand new example in this very discussion. DN (talk) 08:00, 20 April 2023 (UTC)

    Again, that isn't an example of a problematic addition. It infact was a perfectly reasonable use. So, no, you are wrong. No examples of problematic use of FN have been provided. Springee (talk) 10:22, 20 April 2023 (UTC)

    Its reasonableness is disputed, and it substantiates an existence of a disagreement on the usability of Fox for such issues. Our current RFC closure indicates that Fox should be used with caution and possibly not used for controversial political topics, and that it should not be considered a high-quality source. Since policy and guideline already urge multiple high-quality sources for controversial statements and issues, this would not be usable. But, your disagreement proves that Fox should be downgraded since editors are still trying to wiggle it in for issues where it shouldn't be used. Andre🚐 17:23, 20 April 2023 (UTC)

    Your argument is circular. It pre-supposes that any use of Fox for political content is a problem. So you show an example of someone citing FN and proclaim it proof of a problem. However, your argument is based on the false premise that any use of FN is by definition problematic. That premise conflicts with the "use with caution" RfC closing. By your thinking any use of a yellow source is problematic thus proof that source needs to be downgraded. The burden is on you to show that this example, your example, illustrates a problematic use. An editor added an opinion of the Heritage Foundation reported by Fox with all the required attributions, I presume in good faith (do you think they acted otherwise). Another editor decided it was UNDUE and removed it. Where is the problem? Are you going to suggest any time anyone adds verifiable but arguably UNDUE claims that the source is now problematic? That would at least be logically consistent with your claims here. Springee (talk) 21:24, 20 April 2023 (UTC)

    Do you believe it is acceptable to use FN for politics? O3000, Ret. (talk) 21:31, 20 April 2023 (UTC)

    Per the RfC closing yes. Use with caution is not the same as don't use. Springee (talk) 22:02, 20 April 2023 (UTC)

    I never said all claims are UNDUE or Fox is UNDUE by definition, it just so happens that most of the time editors want to use it to launder right wing propaganda. Andre🚐 00:33, 21 April 2023 (UTC)

    But you presented that specific diff and said it was evidence of a problem. A single example of FN being used, with no evidence of edit warring etc, without some sort of explanation why it was totally unreasonable to have been ever added doesn't support your case. It might actually be a perfect example but you would have to say why. Springee (talk) 00:37, 21 April 2023 (UTC)

    I second everything Springee has said.

    @Darknipples, your comment about moving the goalposts is very curious. @David Gerard commented that "Given how the sort of editor who adds Fox as a source observably behaves, we clearly do" [need to downgrade Fox as a source.] You, @Darknipples, seemed to support this, writing that "Editors that ignore RS in favor of a particular POV would be the example here", and that "If you look at articles regarding Trump, the 2020 election, the Biden's, the Clinton's etc... you will probably find some edits of this nature." When there seemed to be a paucity of evidence for such edits, you commented "This seems to be going off-topic quickly, and the goal posts seem to be moving", not seeming to acknowledge that it was you who had moved the goalpoasts. When Springee, reasonably, responded to this about-face with confusion, you condescendingly wrote "Springee, this noticeboard (and discussion) is about reliable sources...not reliable editors..., " despite the fact that it was @David Gerard alleging that there was a problem with "reliable editors", not Springee, and that you were encouraging David Gerard's position, not attacking it. It's all well and good that we return to talking about Fox itself, and not the editors that use it, but I don't think this about-face should go unnoted. Harry Sibelius (talk) 06:49, 19 April 2023 (UTC)

  • "In most cases if we are reporting legal opinions/analysis on a subject and Dershowitz offers one, it's probably DUE." It depends. I would suggest that we should avoid Dershowitz's legal opinions on sexual abuse cases involving minors, since he has been accused of "misconduct"" in such cases since 2015, and he is accused of having non-consensual sex with minors in his own right. Dimadick (talk) 04:54, 19 April 2023 (UTC)

    The person who made that claim recanted [11]. Springee (talk) 05:09, 19 April 2023 (UTC)

    Dersh's legal opinions are not what they were. Very much not. He is now a pariah, by his own admission, and no reputable source calls on him for his legal views, again, by his own admission. He sued CNN for it (and lost). Guy (help! - typo?) 16:18, 21 April 2023 (UTC)

• The talk shows of the likes of Carlson, Hannity, Ingraham, etc are already unreliable. This does not really change anything...  Spy-cicle💥  ^Talk? 20:32, 20 April 2023 (UTC)

Fox News Rating

Looking at WP:FOXNEWS(excluding politics and science) the rating is currently green and considered reliable, while WP:FOXNEWSPOLITICS(including politics and science) is white with no consensus. Given the RS provided by Guy at the beginning, I feel both of those ratings need to be reexamined at the very least, and possibly downgraded. DN (talk) 19:59, 18 April 2023 (UTC)

• I would agree regarding the political coverage… but not on the rest. Their coverage of mundane news is fine (example: their reporting on things like tornadoes or hurricanes is probably MORE reliable than the other cable outlets, since they can draw from local affiliates for information). Blueboar (talk) 20:16, 18 April 2023 (UTC)

  Forgive me if this is something obvious to US based editors, but would the point on affiliates not equally apply to other affiliate based stations with news divisions like NBC, ABC, CBS, etc? Sideswipe9th (talk) 20:20, 18 April 2023 (UTC)

• As was mentioned above, any change like this would require a new RfC. I don't agree that the issues associated with their talk shows warrant a change to their news reporting. Springee (talk) 22:37, 18 April 2023 (UTC)

  (edit conflict)Only some of the issues are related to the talk shows. And I'm tired of asking when the news shows are on since nobody seems to watch them, whenever they are on. Seriously the "news" media defamation case appears to be the largest lost in history, and an hour after, the Fox News site had a huge article at the top of the main page suggesting someone in the Biden administration cheated in the 2022 election for what was actually a minor infraction in front of a small audience as opposed to KelleyAnne Conway's multiple, widely seen public infractions for which there was no penalty. But, this is all pointless. O3000, Ret. (talk) 00:14, 19 April 2023 (UTC)

  Provide the examples where the issue was the regular reporting. Springee (talk) 00:09, 19 April 2023 (UTC)

  This was already provided at the very beginning by Guy and Aquillion, which it seems you dismissed, seemingly without actually reading the parts that mention it involves news anchors and EXECUTIVES. It goes all the way to the top including RUPERT MURDOCH, who quickly took to calling news anchors "hosts". There is undeniable evidence FOX news intentionally blurs the lines between opinion and fact for years and years. How is any reasonable editor able to ignore this well known fact? Here are the diffs...Guy Springee Aquillion....DN (talk) 19:15, 21 April 2023 (UTC)

  I have asked multiple times when is this "regular reporting" and no one responds, presumably because no one watches it. Is Kurtz one of them? He stated two days ago he was ordered not to talk about the case. Is that news? [12] O3000, Ret. (talk) 00:18, 19 April 2023 (UTC)

• The “regular mundane reporting” occurs on programs such as: “Fox News @ Night” with Shannon Bream (airs at midnight), “America’s Newsroom” with Dana Perino and Bill Hemmer (9 - 11 AM), “America Reports” with Sandra Smith and John Roberts (1 -3 PM), and “Special Report” with Bret Baier (6 PM). There is also some mundane news reporting during the morning “Fox and Friends” show… but morning news tends to be superficial no matter the network.
• That said, I suspect the real issue for Wikipedia isn’t what gets broadcasted on air (and when), but what gets written and published on their website and app. After all, that is what is usually cited here on WP. And I do have to agree that their web site sucks… it over hypes the sensational and partisan stuff, and buries the more mundane stuff. Blueboar (talk) 01:36, 19 April 2023 (UTC)

  This keeps coming up again and again ...... it has been decades since Fox News has been this way. Are Americans not taught about this sort of stuff in school? Moxy- 01:42, 19 April 2023 (UTC)

  "I feel both of those ratings need to be reexamined at the very least, and possibly downgraded." I would support downgrading their reliability in matters of politics. But we haven't heard whether their coverage of science is equally bad. And frankly, I don't see why would editors cite a television network in a topic which it rarely covers. Dimadick (talk) 05:07, 19 April 2023 (UTC)

  I have a feeling FOX NEWS' stance on CLIMATE CHANGE is totally accurate (snark).DN (talk) 05:19, 19 April 2023 (UTC)

• I agree that given the longstanding but increasing extent and extremity of the issues, and of other RS' reporting on them, "For politics and science [...] Fox News is considered marginally reliable" needs to be revised downward at least after 2020. This isn't a matter of guessing what the court case might have found in the future, but of acknowledging what RS have said, including about things that came out in relation to the case or which the court already did determine. (And "should the existing RSP entry on Fox continue to list them as reliable for politics?" is something we can and should determine based on whether Fox is reliable, not based on Wikipedia editor conduct, pace the one editor asking for examples of the latter.) -sche (talk) 10:03, 19 April 2023 (UTC)
• DN is right. The key words are "any reasonable editor". Those who are still in denial need to really think about how anyone can still consider them "reasonable editors". IDHT behavior is tiring and disruptive.
• Here are the stark facts: Fox News fact-checkers were threatened and news staff blocked from covering the whole story, with the knowledge of the top brass. Fox News has a problem in maintaining their obviously false claims that they are a news agency. No, they are a propaganda agency. They fail the most basic of requirements for being considered a RS.
• This lawsuit will not change anything. They will just be more careful to not libel companies, but will still tell lies. Former Fox News host Gretchen Carlson says Dominion settlement ‘Won’t Change the Way Fox Does News’ -- Valjean (talk) (PING me) 20:48, 21 April 2023 (UTC)
• I'm sorry but that sort of thinking is deeply flawed. The idea that any editor who might consider citing fox is, by your definition, not a reasonable editor is really problematic. Reasonable editors can disagree and reasonable editors can evaluate sources on a case by case basis. Springee (talk) 21:48, 21 April 2023 (UTC)

  I did not say that. I am thinking of any editor who continues to defend Fox. In every discussion about Fox here, we find the same little group of editors who never change their tune. They always use the same arguments to defend Fox, even in the face of the indefensible. They are learning nothing from the history of Fox News and its consistently serious deviations from journalistic norms. It was never intended to be a normal journalistic news source. It was and is an extension of the GOP and only serves the GOP party line. That's why Roger Ailes created it, and he always defended Nixon and his unethical behavior. "Fox News is no longer the propaganda arm of the Republican Party. The Republican Party is the legislative arm of Fox News." It's okay for a source to be openly and honestly related to a political party, but Fox News is deceptive about that issue. That's a problem.

  I definitely agree that reasonable editors can disagree, but around here they are supposed to learn, to know how to vet sources for reliability (a CIR issue), to show a progressive and positive learning curve, and to not sit entrenched in one POV and be unmovable regardless of what RS and other editors tell them. They know when to give up their opposition to progressive information and change their mind. They know when to drop out of the discussion when their opposition to progress is disruptive. That's why we have WP:IDHT. It recognizes that even experienced editors can slide into unreasonable behavior because they are not learning and progressing. We expect editors to demonstrate a positive learning curve and to give up their conservative and regressive ways of thinking that block progress here. Continued defense of Fox News is disruptive. Period. -- Valjean (talk) (PING me) 16:51, 22 April 2023 (UTC)

Fox News folded and now has to pay Dominion $787,500,000

See NPR - PBS - NBC - APNEWS...DN (talk) 00:36, 19 April 2023 (UTC)

You listed NPR, PBS, NBC, and AP news sources -- but not Fox News. Google shows dozens of stories in RS. For humor value, read the Fox News story [13]. Although released after the result of the suit, it doesn't say it was resolved. It only says that some of Trump's allies and legal staff made false statements, not Fox. It says nothing about Fox or about the settlement. And the Fox News site looks like a tabloid with three anti-LGBTQ stories and headlining Biden's income. Fox is not a reliable source. O3000, Ret. (talk) 00:58, 19 April 2023 (UTC)

As if we needed further evidence: they are even lying to their audience about having lied to their audience. Guy (help! - typo?) 17:53, 20 April 2023 (UTC)

A key point here is that we cannot treat any of the reported evidence as being true or what it may seem on paper because the court did not rule on it, and it does not appear to be in the settlement terms that Fox has to agree to admit to lying. Thus, all that evidence that Dominion casted that got discussed here is really hard to do anything with without putting our own prejudices in place. All we know is that they still likely should be avoided for political and science news (as they are now) but little else we can extrapolate from that. --Masem (t) 01:14, 19 April 2023 (UTC)

Really? So Fox News just paid $800 million because they thought they were going to win? I can't tell if you're joking or oblivious to the irony of what you are suggesting. DN (talk) 01:17, 19 April 2023 (UTC)

They folded most likely to avoid having a whole bunch of questionable details of their operation bubble to the forefront, including details from Murdoch, etc. While Fox will have to pay a lot of money, this is a win for them in terms that they appear to get scott free with their current news ethics and practices, since this case goes down without any judgement. Masem (t) 01:23, 19 April 2023 (UTC)

Unfortunately, this lawsuit was never about righting the wrongs (i.e. the right-wing Lie Machinations) of the Nov 2020 elections. This was only ever about a corporation protecting its shareholder value against another corporation's malfeasance. Zaathras (talk) 01:34, 19 April 2023 (UTC)

We still have to figure out how this may affect their reliability on Wiki. Fox paid to end the suit, so they obviously lied. The evidence in the case already shows as much. They continued to push The Big Lie to the bitter end. I don't see how any reasonable editor here can be expected to ignore this, or continue to put faith in reports by FN after such an obvious capitulation.DN (talk) 02:21, 19 April 2023 (UTC)

Fox paid to end the suit, so they obviously lied. is not a stance we can take. We may want to believe that as much as we want, but there's going to be no legal resolution to that matter. --Masem (t) 02:25, 19 April 2023 (UTC)

That is completely ignoring the evidence in the case. Do you really expect editors to keep treating FN as reliable after this?DN (talk) 02:34, 19 April 2023 (UTC)

That's like saying a certain RS citation can't be used because some random authoritative figure didn't get a chance to give their opinion on it. DN (talk) 02:46, 19 April 2023 (UTC)

Courts determine legal liability, not reality. You can live in a world where O.J. Simpson is innocent and Bruno Hauptmann guilty, if you like, but that's not the world in which I reside. Reliable sources and commentators have already weighed in on many things found in discovery in this case. Determinations by a court of competent jurisdiction should certainly be taken into account, but "no legal resolution means we must pretend it didn't happen" strikes me as unhelpful. Dumuzid (talk) 02:52, 19 April 2023 (UTC)

I'm hundred percent with you re "courts determine legal liability, not reality" but that also means that the outcome of this particular case by itself should not have much bearing on the status of FN. As always we should see what RS make of the evidence and summary judgement and follow them. Alaexis_¿question? 09:28, 19 April 2023 (UTC)

ETA: Apologies for ruminating on the fly, but I think it is categorically false that there is no legal resolution to the matter of whether Fox lied. That factual issue was completely disposed of by way of summary judgment. It was decided. The jury could not have found otherwise (indeed, the issue could not have been argued). To quote the judge, it was "crystal clear" that "that none of the Statements relating to Dominion about the 2020 election are true." That is from p. 43 of the ruling. Now, we can split hairs, I suppose, and say that perhaps the falsehoods were inadvertent, but that strikes me as a bit sophistical. Anyway, I will cease blathering now. Cheers, all. Dumuzid (talk) 03:03, 19 April 2023 (UTC)

I will agree that you're right, the summary judgment does say Fox lied, but only about their commentary about DVS. A lot more about why Fox News should be downgraded further in the prior discussions were based on additional "lies" that were found in DVS's evidence but not directly tied to DVS (such as Fox not wanting to lose viewers). Because these fall outside the bounds of what the summary judgment gave, and now will remain only evidence (and no verification of truth or not), we have to be careful to take those all as fact in determining Fox News' status. I'll stand that what we have now (unreliable for politics and science, and definitely not anything from their talking-head shows) remains as best consistent with the knowledge from this trial. Masem (t) 03:30, 19 April 2023 (UTC)

Apologies for sort of doubling up on Loki below, but I am still a bit confused (honestly, that's me more than anything else). I would certainly agree that we can't take Dominion's allegations as "true" for any Wikipedia purposes. But certainly we can take note of reliable sources commenting upon things that came out in discovery? Dumuzid (talk) 03:35, 19 April 2023 (UTC)

@Masem: Fox News is not currently unreliable for politics and science. From WP:FOXNEWSPOLITICS: For politics and science, there is consensus that the reliability of Fox News is unclear […] As a result, Fox News is considered marginally reliable. Shells-shells (talk) 04:28, 19 April 2023 (UTC)

Absolutely not true: if it's reported as true in reliable sources, we can rely on it, even if a court did not actually judge it to be true. Notably the court actually did judge several of Dominion's claims to be true already in summary judgement (and that's a major reason why they settled).

It's also not totally clear yet that Fox did not have to admit fault of some kind. Loki (talk) 03:30, 19 April 2023 (UTC)

Whether or not Fox News is reliable should be determined by conclusions published in reliable sources, not by our own. CNN settled with Nicholas Sandmann,[14] while the SPLC settled with people they accused of Islamophobia. Having to settle libel cases is of course evidence of unreliability, but whether it is conclusion is a determination for which we should look to expert opinion.

So far, the majority of RS I've seen (above) all seem to come to the consensus that FOX not only lied, but knew they were lying...and did it anyway.DN (talk) 04:11, 19 April 2023 (UTC)

Also, both The Washington Post and SPLC took steps to correct the record, something I think noteworthy in the reliability context (especially as to the Post, which did so before the suit). If Fox news does nothing more than the statement released in the immediate aftermath of settlement (yet to be determined, obviously), I would say the record remains uncorrected, but reasonable minds may certainly differ. Cheers. Dumuzid (talk) 04:43, 19 April 2023 (UTC)

Do they say that Fox actually lied or simply that Fox hosted external commentators who they internally doubted (in stronger terms). Given this was a legal case it's always important to be clear about what has actually been shown etc. As an aside, Dershowitz's take on the case (self published on YT) is interesting. On one hand he questions some of the judge's actions. My understanding is he feels the judge was wrong to declare findings of fact (a task that should be left to the jury). However, he also felt that there is likely more to the case that is publicly known. The feeling being that the potential avenues for appeal were strong based on both the preliminary rulings and the feeling that damages on this scale would be very hard to prove (did any states drop vote counting contracts)? He suggests this might mean Fox had more that they wanted to hide but that is purely speculative. Springee (talk) 04:52, 19 April 2023 (UTC)

Springee, I would invite you to read the judge's decision for yourself. And while it is quite true that in most cases, juries decide facts and judges decide law, motions for summary judgment are filed incredibly often in common law jurisdictions. In fact, I'd say it's very difficult to find a civil case without them. Now they are not granted nearly as often as filed, but there was nothing remarkable or unusual about the judge's decision here--which is not to say, of course, that it can't be disagreed with. Cheers. Dumuzid (talk) 05:02, 19 April 2023 (UTC)

This is certainly some good context to go along with that [15]. Ultimately I don't see this really changes things since we already said Fox talk shows/commentary are not reliable and that was the heart of this issue. Springee (talk) 05:12, 19 April 2023 (UTC)

I thought the heart of the issue was that the news reporting, not just the talk shows, was specifically omitting facts and publishing blatant lies without retraction relating to the topics at hand at the pushing of Murdoch and Fox executives? It's funny, I see multiple people pointing that out to you in discussions above. Strange you would still be pushing such an inaccuracy after having been repeatedly corrected. Almost as if you have an immense bias in trying to ensure Fox News isn't considered unreliable, as all of your arguing in this thread seems to indicate. Silverseren^C 05:25, 19 April 2023 (UTC)

First, the accusation is totally uncalled for. As I previously mentioned I don't think I've ever actually added FN as a source (reverting what appears to be an incorrect removal excluded). Second, not publishing or over/under emphasizing aspects of a story is not the same thing as publishing false information. Anyway, since you say I've been corrected, please show the diff and what sources are provided. I do have a bias in this. I have a bias against totally throwing out sources. I think that goes against the spirit and text of WP:V as well as WP:RS. Using Fox with caution (warranted) is not the same as saying we can't use Fox. This is especially problematic in cases where we cover the views of legitimate experts on a topic. Many of the news sources seem to focus on experts who share their perspectives. See my recent Dershowitz hypothetical. Springee (talk) 05:46, 19 April 2023 (UTC)

I don't think I've ever actually added FN as a source (reverting what appears to be an incorrect removal excluded). I find no difficulty in believing this claim, simply because your style of mainspace editing appears to focus on removing content and reverting edits (I say this not as a criticism—plenty of content needs removing—but merely as a neutral characterization of your style). Your claim is, however, unresponsive to the allegation that you have an immense bias in trying to ensure Fox News isn't considered unreliable, because whether or not you have a bias in favor of Fox News being a reliable source is totally separate from whether or not you personally choose to add Fox News as a source to articles. (But I must note that your personal bias is irrelevant to the question of whether Fox is reliable.)

In response to your request for the diff and what sources are provided that corrected your assertion that we already said Fox talk shows/commentary are not reliable and that was the heart of this issue, I will provide an example. Some days ago you claimed that The problem here was the talk shows, not the news reporting […] the problem element is already viewed as not reliable. David Gerard and Aquillion both responded directly to you, explicitly refuting your claim and providing sources: see here and here. In particular, Aquillion demonstrated that Fox News has blurred the line between news and opinion, which you apparently did not contest. I hope these examples suffice to fulfill your request.

Finally, you also say that I do have a bias in this. I have a bias against totally throwing out sources […] Using Fox with caution (warranted) is not the same as saying we can't use Fox. I think I agree with you on this point, but your position is not in opposition to the users questioning the reliability of Fox as a source. As far as I can tell, no user in these discussions has argued in favor of totally throwing out Fox News. The focus has been almost solely on Fox News's political coverage, and it is my impression that users are on the whole entirely open to Using Fox with caution in that area. Many of them are simply convinced that Fox News is in fact less reliable (in this area) than it has previously been believed to be. Shells-shells (talk) 07:33, 19 April 2023 (UTC)

David Gerard's reply was related to a speculative forward looking question so it doesn't address if our existing rating already covers this issue. Aquillion's reply shows that Fox News listed Bartiromo as a news anchor (and still does [16]) but it does so for her own shows which look like talking head shows rather than news reporting. Would we have considered Mornings with Maria news reporting or commentary? Given it was a talking heads show I think this would fall into the same bucket as Carlson et al which we have already said is generally unreliable. I don't think the it has been shown that the news programs (the shows we would view as news reporting, not commentary) were compromised. Why does this matter? Take the Indictment of Donald Trump article where there are sections talking about legal analysis and commentary. Given Alan Dershowitz's expertise, would it seem reasonable to include his perspective in the section? We have the legal opinions of people picked by other news sources. If someone added Dershowitz via, as an example, this Fox interview [17], should it be retained or not? Many editors already treat Fox News as a remove on site if the topic is even remotely political. Is that approach reasonable in my hypothetical case? What if Dershowitz gave the exact same content to MSNBC, would we then consider it acceptable? wp:RS tells us we really should be considering the claims in question, not just the source. However, over time this has evolved into a game of "do we collectively agree with that source". That doesn't make for better articles in the end. Springee (talk) 11:40, 19 April 2023 (UTC)

The Dershowitz example is interesting. Just this morning, CNN had a Republican insisting that after slavery, Blacks got full freedom because of the Second Amendment. Craziest concept I've heard on a news program in ages. Of course the anchor heavily challenged the concept. Would have Fox? So yes, it matters on what program Dershowitz is a guest. O3000, Ret. (talk) 13:22, 19 April 2023 (UTC)

The thing about Dersh is that, years ago, his opinions on legal questions were respected and often worthy of inclusion. That is very much no longer the case. So the only reason we would need to discuss him is in response to RS reporting of something he did. I would never use the primary source for that anyway. So we lose nothing by not being able to cite Fox for some statement he made on their shows. Guy (help! - typo?) 17:56, 20 April 2023 (UTC)

I agree, Dersh is firmly on the lunatic fringe at this point, not a respected academic and legal thinker. So this example really proves the opposite. Andre🚐 22:24, 20 April 2023 (UTC)

Any evidence of this? Where are the scholars who are claiming his legal analysis and understanding of the law is no longer accurate? When did this change occur? Surely this is something we would have covered in is BLP. Springee (talk) 23:02, 20 April 2023 (UTC)

[18] [19] [20] [21] the fall from grace is real. Andre🚐 23:11, 20 April 2023 (UTC)

From the Politico article, "Maybe the question isn’t what happened to Alan Dershowitz.

Maybe it’s what happened to everyone " Two of the article are just op-eds that are mad he was willing to defend Trump. If this is the best you have it's very weak. Springee (talk) 00:04, 21 April 2023 (UTC)

You say that David Gerard's reply was related to a speculative forward looking question so it doesn't address if our existing rating already covers this issue. This is an inaccurate characterization of David Gerard's comment. David Gerard replied directly to your statement that the problem element is already viewed as not reliable by saying that The issue is precisely that we have the court evidence it was not confined to one element. David Gerard's comment does address if our existing rating already covers this issue; it argues that our existing rating is outdated because newly available evidence demonstrates that the problems are broader than they were once thought to be.

With regard to Bartiromo, you say I don't think [that] it has been shown that the news programs were compromised. Yet you simultaneously say that Fox News listed Bartiromo as a news anchor. What is your criterion for identifying something as a news program? Shells-shells (talk) 18:49, 19 April 2023 (UTC)

Fringe fringe and more fringe [22] Andre🚐 23:11, 20 April 2023 (UTC)

I think we are missing something here. Yes, we must be very careful about what we print in mainspace. But, we are allowed to make our own judgements on reliability of sources for use in Wikipedia. We don't need a court of law for that. O3000, Ret. (talk) 10:25, 19 April 2023 (UTC)

I don’t disagree… but… I think we need to make those judgements on a more granule level - on a case by case basis. We all know that source X can be unreliable for statement Y, yet reliable for statement Z. We can apply this to Fox.

As a community, we can determine that FN is unreliable for its coverage on Dominion, yet we can also deem it perfectly reliable for its coverage on other stories… a massive warehouse fire in Detroit or a flood in Texas.

We need to resist the temptation to throw the baby out with the bath water. Blueboar (talk) 12:15, 19 April 2023 (UTC)

I think part of the problem is that everything is political these days. A flood or fire is caused by Biden's "woke" policies, or Rothschild space lasers. What came out of the recent case is that Fox management believes keeping their viewers happy is more important than facts. O3000, Ret. (talk) 13:08, 19 April 2023 (UTC)

We should be basing such decisions on clear evidence that the source is bad for us. EG for the Daily Mail, it was pushed hard to be classified as unusable, but only got consensus to be that way when multiple documented cases of falsification and made-up information were demonstrated. Here, we can use the case to definitely keep Fox News out of any political story, and strengthens why we don't ever want to see opinions from Tucker and the other talk shows on here, but that doesn't speak to the rest of Fox News in other, more general news departments. Masem (t) 12:17, 19 April 2023 (UTC)

I am unconvinced by the distinction. I believe we are creating a distinction here for Fox that we would not for almost any other WP:NEWSORG. If the San Francisco Chronicle was found to have lied knowingly and repeatedly at the direction of the editors about a particular topic, would we really say they're still reliable for reporting on other topics? Or would we just toss the whole source? Loki (talk) 18:23, 19 April 2023 (UTC)

The general news departments of Fox News took their direction from the big bosses in terms of what to cover in terms of their priorities on the 2020 election lies, that is what the Dominion case summary judgment finds. Andre🚐 18:26, 19 April 2023 (UTC)

We should ditch the over-generalizations that are inherent in such listings. Actual reliability is context specific.....expertise and objectivity with respect the the text which cited it. Also remember that in Wikipedia this isn't just about wp:ver. It ripples through into using wp:NPOV to POV an article, to suppress coverage of one side of political issues, in this case by far the largest news organization which covers that "side" North8000 (talk) 12:25, 19 April 2023 (UTC)

Problem is, Fox doesn't cover that one side reliably. Fox broadcasts lies -- for years. And is it actually a "news organization" just because it says it is? And don't other news organizations cover both sides? O3000, Ret. (talk) 12:42, 19 April 2023 (UTC)

No, in the US that era is unfortunately long gone. The major medias are now all at least partially advocates or tilted towards for one side or the other. And they under cover, over cover or fail to cover things and angles accordingly. North8000 (talk) 18:42, 19 April 2023 (UTC)

That's really not the case, but for the sake of argument, if it were the case, we should deprecate all of the corporate news media in the USA. CNN, FOX, MSNBC, NBC, CBS, NPR, ABC, NYT, WSJ .... I'd say they're all reliable except FOX. I hadn't heard that WSJ was on the chopping block. Do you consider WSJ tilted? Andre🚐 19:05, 19 April 2023 (UTC)

With regard to making over-generalizations, in my opinion, We should ditch the over-generalizations that you just now made in your comment. These are very broad, very absolutist assertions that are not particularly helpful to the question at hand. Do you have sources to support your position? Shells-shells (talk) 19:07, 19 April 2023 (UTC)

I know that claim is constantly made by the extreme right. I don't see it. CNN has Republican guests every day. The NYTimes has performed embarrassing investigating of Democrats. Both have had critical articles of the Biden administration. With the wealth of news sources, I cannot accept the idea that only Fox can be used for right-wing (extreme in many cases) angles. Besides, it sounds like you are saying we should start using Fox for politics and science, unlike most everyone here. O3000, Ret. (talk) 20:18, 19 April 2023 (UTC)

Why does FOX News get a free pass on Politics and Science? Do we do this for all news outlets?

• Um… responding to whoever created this sub-header… we say to NOT use Fox for politics and science. Which is the opposite of giving them a “free pass”. Perhaps you meant something else? Blueboar (talk) 20:31, 19 April 2023 (UTC)

  Could the assertion be that we're giving Fox a free pass by separating its politics and science coverage and assessing it separately from its coverage on other topics? _signed, Rosguill ^talk 20:36, 19 April 2023 (UTC)

  But that's not exactly special, and it happens for other outlets, too (e.g. Rolling Stone, Sixth Tone, WP:BUZZFEED vs WP:BUZZFEEDNEWS, CNET, The Points Guy, Newsweek). Distinctions get made when they have value, and my list would be longer when those were made without using separate entries. - GretLomborg (talk) 19:56, 20 April 2023 (UTC)

  Many of those are time-based, which is a different situation: we're not trusting editors that are unreliable for one topic to be reliable for other topics if we say that the reliability of a source has declined over time. The remainder have some very concrete reason why their unreliability in one area would not spill over to other areas. Buzzfeed News is a separate organization that just happens to be under the same brand as Buzzfeed's clickbait content, for instance. Loki (talk) 20:38, 20 April 2023 (UTC)

  You claim that we say to NOT use Fox for politics and science. This is not entirely accurate. Fox News is considered marginally reliable with regard to politics and science. It is not considered unreliable. Shells-shells (talk) 20:37, 19 April 2023 (UTC)

  oops...Sorry It looks like my signature didn't take on mobile. I see now that these rules seem to apply to many sources, and for politics it kind of makes sense, but a major news network not being reliable for SCIENCE seems like an extremely egregious line to cross from a standpoint of RELIABILITY.

  What other major networks are considered generally reliable, but not for SCIENCE?

  Not being reliable for reports that involve SCIENCE seems like a huge issue. If it is politicizing something that is supposed to be as fairly mundane as science in order to appeal to an audience that doesn't care about empirical research or WP:VERIFIABILITY, then why would anyone be surprised when they cross the line into plain old journalistic reports? They seem to cater EVERYTHING around a biased political viewpoint. It has been documented that Fox News has been pushing scientific falsehoods for years. See Fox News controversies-Coverage of the COVID-19 pandemic and Guardian-Fox Climate misinformation. The list goes on and on... DN (talk) 02:53, 20 April 2023 (UTC)

  I think it would be fine to use Fox as a source for anything that does not intersect with either politics or science. I doubt they lie about sports results (though even that would not surprise me at this point). Guy (help! - typo?) 17:59, 20 April 2023 (UTC)

  The problem is, what doesn't ever interact with either of those things? We know they're not reliable on business or law news either because they're lying about this case. Sports isn't completely apolitical: what if Colin Kaepernick decides to try to make a comeback? Do you really trust Fox to report on that accurately? Loki (talk) 19:38, 20 April 2023 (UTC)

  For that matter, you can't trust them on anything involving race or LGBTQ; both of which arise often in sports. And they did spend months lying about gas prices. O3000, Ret. (talk) 20:05, 20 April 2023 (UTC)

  They never lied about gas prices. You keep making that claim and it's wrong each time you do it. Springee (talk) 21:17, 20 April 2023 (UTC)

  They never lied on gas prices. It was infographics that at a casual glance biased the data to make it look more severe, but the text data 100% matched up with their source (a reputable one). Tha/ type of problem falls info the "93% of statistics are made up" realm that all sources do even if the simple text numbers are fine. Masem (t) 21:19, 20 April 2023 (UTC)

  Is there a link to this infographic and the story about (alleged) lying abut gas prices? Zaathras (talk) 21:22, 20 April 2023 (UTC)

  Oddly, no. But I documented here for months. Over 100 times it was updated near the top of the page with a number double the actual average price of gas, higher than any state average, claiming as a source AAA which never had any such numbers. Again, I'm not suggesting using this in the article -- only for our own evaluations. O3000, Ret. (talk) 21:40, 20 April 2023 (UTC)

  It was discussed at length in the last RFC. Andre🚐 22:23, 20 April 2023 (UTC)

  The text stated "Average Price" and the only number statically displayed was about double. If you were on a non-mobile device, you could see accurate numbers by state by hovering your mouse over a state. But, the one number that you could see without effort was higher than any state. The text stated that the source was AAA, a reliable source; but AAA had no such number anywhere on the displayed url. Interestingly, they did not link the url, so you had to take extra effort to see it was a lie. This was a lie repeated with a different wrong number each day. This number was of enormous importance to tens of millions of Americans and fit FN's claim that inflation was the fault of Biden's "woke" policies. If you believe this wrong number was a technology problem, as Springee repeatedly claimed with no evidence; then their carelessness is beyond anything I would consider RS. And all sources' statistics are NOT grossly incorrect 93% of the time. O3000, Ret. (talk) 22:15, 20 April 2023 (UTC)

  Again, you were wrong then and wrong now. It was a script error that didn't auto adjust the color scale as gas prices changed. Contrary to your repeatedly incorrect claims, it was not falsely presenting the average price of gas. Springee (talk) 22:34, 20 April 2023 (UTC)

  That is not correct. It clearly advertised a number that was not correctly calculated, and was significantly higher than any gas price in any state. Andre🚐 22:40, 20 April 2023 (UTC)

  A.) This has NOTHING to do with the colors. B.) You are just making that up. You have zero evidence of anything about any script. It stated "Average Price" and then had a number which was higher than the average in every single state. And this number was nowhere at the AAA page cited. If this was a "error" reported in a prominent spot for over 100 days; we shouldn't trust them to report the time of day. O3000, Ret. (talk) 22:41, 20 April 2023 (UTC)

  No, you were wrong then and you are still wrong. The issue was a color bar on the side of the screen that didn't scale correctly as the averages changed. It was a simple scripting error that you tried to claim was a big conspiracy to mislead readers. Springee (talk) 22:59, 20 April 2023 (UTC)

• I think I can see where you're coming from with this "scripting error" hypothesis. It is, however, a red herring. Earlier, you said that the infographic was not falsely presenting the average price of gas. I believe this is an inaccurate statement, and I will provide a concrete example.
  Here's an archive of Fox News's homepage captured at 00:12 23 August 2022 (GMT). On the right side is the infographic in question. The only value displayed there is $6.309. If you hover your cursor over the map, you will see individual state averages (which appear accurate) and another value will pop up on the low side of the color-bar: $3.963. Now here's a capture of gasprices.aaa.com around midnight, 22 August 2022. The average gas price given there is $3.901; moreover, no state average even approaches the value $6.309. There is an apparent discrepancy here, one that I think justifies to a great extent the claims made by Objective3000. I encourage the reader to open up both these links and compare them. Shells-shells (talk) 00:01, 21 April 2023 (UTC)

  This was all discussed last time O3000 complained about this script error. Please note that the plot is a heat map with relative values across different states. Now notice that the key for the heat map is almost all red. That would suggest to anyone who say has experience creating such tables/plots in things like Matlab that the key is not scaling to the updated data in the table. As an example consider this heat map (with gas prices that look very low) [23] Now consider what the key would look like if a script error said the minimum price (on that plot) was $3/gallon. It would show red from end to end. One of the common mistakes amateurs make when doing things like FEA studies is looking at the auto generated color map and ignoring things like the actual strain limits of their material. Yeah, this looks like a scripting error, nothing more. It also never says the price in question is actually an average. O3000 was wrong before and is still wrong now. Springee (talk) 00:18, 21 April 2023 (UTC)

  Your point is somewhat undermined by the rather obvious fact that an accurate bar would have had 5.324 at the right hand end, and the red and blue shaded sections of the bar would have been roughly even sizes. Any assumption of good faith on Fox's part in making an error like this is squarely in Mary Poppins territory. Guy (help! - typo?) 16:28, 21 April 2023 (UTC)

• ARRRRGH:

  I have never said anything about any bar or scaling. Why do you keep claiming this?

  You keep talking about a "scripting error". What are you talking about? I have been in the IT field for well over a half century and lectured on IT in five continents and this is an absurd statement with zero evidence. What is the name of the script? Why do you keep repeating this? What is your evidence? Has FN ever once claimed this -- or are you simply making it up?

  I said absolutely nothing about a conspiracy theory and request that you strike this accusation as per WP:AGF and WP:CASTINGASPERSIONS.

  O3000, Ret. (talk) 00:16, 21 April 2023 (UTC)

  Because you keep claiming the number on the bar was meant to be the average gas price. The key doesn't say that and the fact that the key is almost all red vs scaled to show what all the different colors actually mean further supports this. Has FN ever said that $6 number was the average price of gas? Was there ever a time when the average US gas price was that high? Perhaps if you were in some area of data analysis instead of what ever you did you might see this mistake rather than claim Fox is trying to lie about the average price of gas. Springee (talk) 00:21, 21 April 2023 (UTC)

  The number shown appears nowhere. It is an error, but not one of a heat map or a color scale or a scripting error. It's just a wrong value shown and is incorrect, and not excusably so. It happens to be incorrect in a way that creates the idea of $6 gas: when in fact gas never got anywhere close to $6, anywhere at all. Andre🚐 00:24, 21 April 2023 (UTC)

  At least you agree it's an error. I hope you can also agree that the bar graph that is meant to be the key to the heat map is screwed up since it doesn't show any of the cooler colors. Perhaps because I have experience creating and working with plots like this I recognize it for what it is, an error. I guess some people might be fooled into thinking it is trying to claim gas is $6/gallon but that is not the same as the claim that Fox spent "months lying about gas prices." That was O3000's claim. Springee (talk) 00:31, 21 April 2023 (UTC)

  As I have explained before, I also present daily charts on financial volatility on web sites, including Bloomberg and NASDAQ. I would be extremely embarrassed if I was off by a small fraction and would apologize. This cannot happen with an RS for over 100 days. So, either they lied or are incredibly incompetent in a manner that happens to fit their political narrative. Either is non-RS. In any case, you are making this all up. You have zero evidence that this is some error. Zero. We have had this discussion over and over and you continue to claim something about which you have no knowledge. O3000, Ret. (talk) 00:43, 21 April 2023 (UTC)

  So you are backing down from the lie claim? Springee (talk) 00:53, 21 April 2023 (UTC)

  Stop make false statements. I did no such thing. O3000, Ret. (talk) 00:57, 21 April 2023 (UTC)

  if you were in some area of data analysis instead of what ever you did Actually, I am and upload realized volatility numbers to Bloomberg and NASDAQ after every business day. You need to stop these comments. Tell me, what is anyone reading their site supposed to think this number means? The number is nowhere on the cited page, and the only text says Average. How can you trust this as RS? And, it's even higher than the high in any state. In any case, a number changing every day important to tens of millions of viewers that is always grossly incorrect, rather a lie or mistake, makes is just one example of the fact they are not RS. O3000, Ret. (talk) 00:35, 21 April 2023 (UTC)

  So you are saying it's not a lie now? You are accepting that is an error in the code now? I mean if you want to say it was a stupid mistake sure, I agree. But you called it a lie. Springee (talk) 00:41, 21 April 2023 (UTC)

• Can you two stop? You're not convincing each other, and neither of you is going to defeat the other with some rhetorical flourish. ScottishFinnishRadish (talk) 00:44, 21 April 2023 (UTC)

  As you likely know, the purpose of discussion on such pages is often not to convince the other person as it is impossible. It is to present your view, which cannot be done without clarifying your view in the light of false statements about your views or facts by another. O3000, Ret. (talk) 00:52, 21 April 2023 (UTC)

  This back and forth isn't doing that. Please stop it. ScottishFinnishRadish (talk) 01:00, 21 April 2023 (UTC)

  I absolutely said no such thing. I said even if. It is pointless to discuss this with you. Strike your false statements and stop WP:TEND. O3000, Ret. (talk) 00:46, 21 April 2023 (UTC)

  Ah, you spotted my point ;-) Yes, the right has made *everything* a political purity test by now. W took action on climate change. Imagine the 2024 Republican candidate running on tackling the biggest single problem facing humanity today. Or even admitting that schools should teach accurate US history, and absolutely not teach creationism. Guy (help! - typo?) 16:22, 21 April 2023 (UTC)

  I don't think much has changed. Fox News may be broadly OK for national and local US news stories, but its political coverage has a history of pandering to its audience. This was true even before the Dominion saga unfolded.--♦IanMacM♦ ^{(talk to me)} 19:52, 21 April 2023 (UTC)

How long

How long are we going to entertain false balance and political axes to grind on this? There should be a critical mass of support to downgrade Fox for politics based on what has been revealed about Fox and Dominion lies. The case was settled yes, but the discovery revealed factual information in RS. This information is damning and adds to the already considerable record on Fox that has been revealed in muliple RFCs, which is conveniently forgotten by a significant contingent along political lines every time it comes up. Well, let's draw a line then. Downgrade to generally unreliable starting in 2020. Andre🚐 23:15, 20 April 2023 (UTC)

If you want to start an RFC to see if said critical mass exists by all means. I dont necessarily disagree with you, but the above section is not going to come to anything. What you need is an RFC and to not have editors responding to any vote they disagree with so that the discussion does not get so unwieldy that no sane person wants to close it with a consensus for anything. nableezy - 23:19, 20 April 2023 (UTC)

Not yet another Fox News RfC, please, and this is coming from the person who opened the 2020 one. The current status quo of considering Fox's coverage of politics questionable is fine. We don't need another month of this noticeboard being clogged up and then having to get somebody to spend a lot of their time assessing the consensus. Maybe we can have another RfC in a year or two, but it's too recent since the last one. Hemiauchenia (talk) 23:23, 20 April 2023 (UTC)

I would normally agree with you on it being too soon, but there seem to be material differences between then and now. And we're clogging up this noticeboard now anyway. nableezy - 23:49, 20 April 2023 (UTC)

Too soon? Isn't that a bit like Thoughts and prayers, ie a way to ignore recent events and maintain Status quo? Lord forbid we clog up the notice board with discussion regarding the largest media settlement in history...so far. I honestly empathize with the cynicism, but that doesn't mean I go around telling people to just ignore it and "stay the course" like Exxon at a climate change summit. DN (talk) 03:42, 21 April 2023 (UTC)

If we just had a discussion and it attracted a large amount of participants, and there has been no material change in the circumstances then it is unreasonable to ask people to do it again, thats just editing by attrition. While here I agree there are some material differences, no TOOSOON is not just a way of maintaining the status quo, its also a way to avoid generating needles animosity within what is supposedly a collaborative community. nableezy - 17:11, 21 April 2023 (UTC)

I think I see your point, thanks for the response. DN (talk) 18:26, 21 April 2023 (UTC)

I don't want to start a new RFC if we are constrained to the usual 4 point format. I'd start an RFC, downgrade to red for politics only, yea or nay. If people don't think that RFC is fair or neutral enough even though I think it's the obvious only meaningful point of contention, then let someone else start it. Currently, the status quo for politics is yellow, which indicates marginal reliability, but not general unreliability. This might, in practice, be kind of the same thing because people only seem to want to add controversial things that end up being unreliable - on the other hand, people who oppose any change to the status quo on Fox, then still act like Fox is already red for politics. Andre🚐 23:23, 20 April 2023 (UTC)

Pretty much this. Stop talking here. Wait 3-6 months so the community has some time to recharge their arguing about Fox batteries, then try a highly structured RFC with word and reply limits. At the very least, everyone who's added more than 1000 words to the above discussion should just disengage. ScottishFinnishRadish (talk) 23:25, 20 April 2023 (UTC)

Yes, the above discussion may seem a pointless waste of time. But, Fox is the mostly viewed news source. As a result, it is constantly brought up as a source on numerous articles, where such lengthy discussions repeatedly take place because no one can point to a decision that it is not RS and just use one of the other innumerable sources, many with Pulitzers and other awards. So, as huge and silly as the discussion above may be – it is nothing compared to the sum of all other discussions on so many article TPs. At some point, reality must prevail to reduce the sum of timesinks.. Isn’t that the point of this page? O3000, Ret. (talk) 01:16, 21 April 2023 (UTC)

It's starting to feel like truth is becoming more of a popularity contest than a measure of rule and policy. If this is the way Wiki is headed, it will fail in it's endeavor. DN (talk) 02:23, 21 April 2023 (UTC)

RfC: downgrade Fox News for politics?

Should we downgrade Fox News to "generally unreliable" for politics starting in November 2020? Binksternet (talk) 19:32, 21 April 2023 (UTC)

Fox poll

• Yes, deprecate Fox News starting in November 2020 when management redoubled their efforts to portray falsehoods as truth. Binksternet (talk) 19:32, 21 April 2023 (UTC)
• Yes, based on the new evidence given. Andre🚐 19:34, 21 April 2023 (UTC)
• Yes ~ ONUnicorn^{(Talk|Contribs)}problem solving 19:43, 21 April 2023 (UTC)
• Yes but I would go further back than November 2020. I don't think they've ever been reliable for politics. – Muboshgu (talk) 19:47, 21 April 2023 (UTC)
• Yes, but back to the beginning, not just 2020. "For politics and science [...] Fox News is considered marginally reliable" needs to be revised downward. In keeping with the very reason Roger Ailes created Fox News, they have never been a RS for politics or science. There should be nothing positive left to say at WP:RSP. -- Valjean (talk) (PING me) 20:58, 21 April 2023 (UTC)
• Yes - I would actually prefer they be graded as generally unreliable across the board (at least since November 2020), but to my mind, an overreaction here is preferable to the status quo. Cheers. Dumuzid (talk) 21:03, 21 April 2023 (UTC)
• Oppose The lawsuit is further evidence that the talk shows are are red sources. It did not provide evidence that Fox's new reporting and provided false information. Additionally, no evidence has been provided that the current use with caution rating is not effective as Fox is already rarely cited. The last RfC was just 6 months back and had significant participation. The current rating is fine especially since case by case should be the standard we use rather than a blanket block which is what is being proposed here. Springee (talk) 21:40, 21 April 2023 (UTC)

  Here's a source about how "serious news anchor" Bret Baier tried to reverse the network's call of Arizona for Biden in the 2020 election, saying it should be "put back in [Trump]'s column", even though it never was to begin with. – Muboshgu (talk) 21:50, 21 April 2023 (UTC)

  Thanks for including that source. Peer review is present six times in our description of reliable source for a reason. If someone as strong as an on-air anchor at a network insisted that Arizona be "put back" in Trump's column and nevertheless Fox News refused to do it, meaning, the correct outcome was maintained by Fox News, an outcome manifestly contrary to their editorial stance and with a clear potential hit to their bottom line, that means that their peer review system worked. This is what we expect from a reliable source, and therefore the article you linked demonstrates support for an "Oppose" vote. Mathglot (talk) 21:48, 22 April 2023 (UTC)

  Mathglot, that decision to call Arizona for Biden is actually an example of the exception to the rule and seen as a mistake from which they sought to recover by doubling down on election lies. That was seen by Fox News as a mistake and loudly complained about by the rest of Fox News hosts and management. After that, they put all their efforts toward recovering from the damage caused by that correct decision. Viewers immediately fled from Fox News and turned to even more extreme right-wing sites. The internal messaging at Fox revealed in the Dominion case shows they all considered that to be a fateful and very harmful action. It was not a "correction", but seen as an "error" from which they sought to recover by lying even more. -- Valjean (talk) (PING me) 23:35, 22 April 2023 (UTC)

  I tend to agree. Mathglot's argument seems to cherrypick quite a bit, as you've pointed out from RS that have not recently been successfully sued for defamation damages. Not to mention the upcoming Smartmatic lawsuit, which hasn't even begun. If FOX loses again, would that still not change your view, Mathglot? Any anchor, journalist or news outlet can lie and still call themselves journalists, anchors or news outlets...The question is not whether it is "journalism" or 1st amendment speech... The question here is if it should affect FOXNEWS status as WP:RS, and currently there are about 787.5 million reasons, and counting.DN (talk) 01:09, 24 April 2023 (UTC)

  Fox News was the first network to call Florida for George W Bush in 2000, which was of monumental importance given the closeness and eventual recount. Who made the call for Fox? One of Bush's cousins, who was communicating with George and Jeb throughout the day. – Muboshgu (talk) 22:04, 21 April 2023 (UTC)

  The other networks followed four minutes later. Breaking news frequently contains errors, no matter how professional the network. TFD (talk) 20:33, 23 April 2023 (UTC)

• Weak yes - I HATE all generalizations and am very wary of saying that any media outlet is unreliable for “politics”… that is just too broad a scope for my taste. I would much prefer a narrow it down further to a more defined scope. I would definitely agree that “Fox is not reliable for their coverage of the 2020 US presidential election and it’s aftermath - especially their claims about Dominion.”
• That said, given that I thought we already said that Fox was unreliable for politics, I can’t object to doing so now. Blueboar (talk) 21:54, 21 April 2023 (UTC)
• Yes, provided it is time-limited, ending no later than the end of 2024.- Paying $780 million, or whatever the exact amount is, is not a good sign, to say the least, and a timed downgrade is appropriate. BUT I would oppose an indefinite downgrade as it would amount to disparate treatment. For example, the NYT was never downgraded for their lies here, which are uncorrected to this day.[24] In light of the need to avoid disparate treatment, we need to have a definite ending, and I think a full US election cycle is enough. And has a single academic publication involved in the COVID-19 debate taken notice of the fact that academic input from the People's Republic of China is censored by Xi Jinping?[25] Adoring nanny (talk) 22:23, 21 April 2023 (UTC)

back and forth somebody else thinks is not needed

Adoring nanny, you write "uncorrected to this day". That article has two corrections. The New York Times (a real news source) and Fox News (a GOP propaganda source) live in separate universes, and to try to compare them is just plain wrong. As far as time-limited goes, that ignores the fact that the problems are not exclusive to the election cycle, but existed before and will continue to exist. Fox will just be more careful not to libel a company, but will continue to tell election lies and any other lies necessary to retain their Trump base. There is a reason why good people left Fox News. Chris Stirewalt, Chris Wallace, Shep Smith, Gretchen Carlson, Julie Roginsky, Carl Cameron, Bill Sammon, Stephen Hayes, and Jonah Goldberg, etc. left for good reason. They were never allowed full freedom to be real journalists, and that will not change. When Fox's own fact checkers get threatened and news hosts get silenced, Fox News fails to meet our minimum requirement for a RS. -- Valjean (talk) (PING me) 17:51, 22 April 2023 (UTC) The big lie in the article was that Mike Nifong had the evidence to take the Duke lacrosse case to the jury. That was a lie when it was written. It remains one today. The most recent archive of the article I am aware of is here[26]. I see a single, minor correction, which has no bearing on the big lie. Other lies followed from the big one. Based on what criterion do you argue that the Fox lie was "propaganda" while the NYT lie was not? Adoring nanny (talk) 18:21, 22 April 2023 (UTC) Adoring nanny, do you have links to our article content about that aspect of the incident? There should be RS there, and I'd like to read about it. Otherwise, comparing Fox News with other RS is a fool's errand, as Fox News does what is right as an exception to the rule, whereas other RS commit errors as an exception to the rule. The prudent course with Fox News is the same as when dealing with Trump: "Let's just assume Trump's always lying and fact check him backward." Fox News comes nowhere close to being a RS. With the knowledge and approval from the top down, their own fact-checkers are threatened and news hosts are blocked from reporting the facts. They fail (that's the news desk) our minimum requirements for all other RS. Why make an exception for Fox? -- Valjean (talk) (PING me) 23:48, 22 April 2023 (UTC) Our article content? Not other than what I gave above. The most thorough source I am aware of on the Duke case is the book Until Proven Innocent [27]. A widely-read blog by one of the authors repeatedly covered the NYT, for example here[28] and here[29]. I can't agree with an attitude that assumes that certain sources are always lying. Adoring nanny (talk) 00:29, 23 April 2023 (UTC) Yes, our article(s) on the topic, as it's safer than to depend on one source. Of course, if there's nothing else, how strong is the case that the NYT is still lying? Please point me in the right direction. What article(s) do we have? Is it only the [[Duke lacrosse case? Whatever, the point still stands that with Fox, it is the rule, not the exception, that they are generally unreliable, whereas with RS it is the opposite. There are certain people and sources that are generally untrustworthy, so much so that one should always be suspicious of them. Trump literally, not hyperbole, can't say 3-5 sentences without there being some form of deception or manipulation. Fact-checkers have measured it and counted how often he engages in deception. It's that bad. Fox News has such a strong agenda that they are in the same boat. They are forced from the top to stick to an agenda, facts be damned. Being around someone like Trump, or listening to a source like Fox, just corrupts one's sense of what is true or false, what is right or wrong. One misses out on so much information that normally lets one know when they are lying that one's whole worldview changes for the worse. One's moral compass gets skewed. It's generally pretty obvious when editors get their info (I would say almost "any" info) from Fox News. They end up defending them and don't understand why other editors still criticize Fox. They don't realize they've been sucked into that fringe bubble. It's better to only stick to RS and never listen to Fox. It's not enough to say one should avoid the talking heads. No, it affects the news side too, much against the wishes of some of the real journalists. That's why so many of them have left. -- Valjean (talk) (PING me) 03:57, 23 April 2023 (UTC) OK, time to play "substitute one thing." Here it is: The NYT has such a strong agenda that they are in the same boat. They are forced from the top to stick to that agenda, facts be damned. The agenda: white males bad. So they supported an effort to railroad three white males for a rape that never happened. Plenty of people were sucked into a bubble where the Duke three were "guilty". And the NYT is still "reliable". Adoring nanny (talk) 04:17, 23 April 2023 (UTC) I would point to the fact that The New York Times afterward reckoned with and recognized failures. Fox has not done so, and their statement in the wake of settlement merely acknowledged that the judge's rulings existed. Cheers. Dumuzid (talk) 04:22, 23 April 2023 (UTC) And has a single academic publication involved in the COVID-19 debate taken notice of the fact that academic input from the People's Republic of China is censored by Xi Jinping? Yes, see Abazi, Vigjilenca (2020), "Truth Distancing? Whistleblowing as Remedy to Censorship during COVID-19" in the European Journal of Risk Regulation—it discusses the censorship of medical whistleblowers. Better examples may exist; I did not look very hard. Interestingly, this tangent is completely irrelevant to the topic of the RfC. Shells-shells (talk) 00:30, 22 April 2023 (UTC) Glad to hear that at least some journals have noticed. I do believe that we have double standards and that's a problem. I therefore believe this "tangent" is relevant. I would be more comfortable with a Fox downgrade now if there had been a previous NYT downgrade in the wake of the lies I mention above. You are welcome to differ with one or more of these opinions. But the way these RfC's work is that everyone gets to have their say in their own little section. Adoring nanny (talk) 00:47, 22 April 2023 (UTC) To be honest, I meant to undo my comment for being superfluous, but it edit-conflicted with your reply. I think your initial comment stands perfectly well on its own, and I have not added anything productive to this RfC. Would you mind if I collapsed my reply and the subsequent comment chain? Shells-shells (talk) 00:56, 22 April 2023 (UTC)

• Yes - But confining the rationale exclusively to how Fox has misrepresented reality since November 2020 really misses the point. In 2001, after 9/11, I was appalled at how Fox's quest for ratings not only drove its own coverage but how its success at poisonous warmongering drove other major channels to replicate that grotesque and dishonest approach to the news. Here's a good example from the NYT about how Fox affected public opinion, and hence, public policy. Ironically, the Times itself joined the odious ratings contest by regularly printing absolute "weapons of mass destruction" rubbish by Judith Miller on its front page. It pushed MSNBC, for example, to hire Michael Savage while it fired Bill Press and Phil Donahue who had too energetically sought to tell the truth. (Ironically, MSNBC hired Joe Scarborough and Pat Buchanan to provide "balancing" conservative voices.} Activist (talk) 22:15, 21 April 2023 (UTC)

  So in effect, you're blaming other outlet's poor editorial practices on Fox? I don't think this is exactly the best point. Assuming that Fox did affect other news outlets, shouldn't that be more of a testament to the unreliability of those said sources, since they were so easily driven to replicate Fox new's practices just to pursue ratings? - Knightoftheswords281 (Talk-Contribs) 22:44, 23 April 2023 (UTC)

• Yes, and I would also support downgrading Fox to generally unreliable in general. Last time this came up for an RFC, I believed that there were sufficient problems with Fox's reporting to downgrade them at that time, and I continue to believe that. The fact that there is a smoking gun now doesn't mean that Fox was reliable before.Loki (talk) 23:04, 21 April 2023 (UTC)
• Yes - This has a long history, going back to Australia, the UK (where Murdoch’s phone hacking scandal likely cost over $1 billion), and now the US where Roger Aisles, media consultant for US Republican presidents Richard Nixon, Ronald Reagan, and George H. W. Bush, and Mayor Rudy Giuliani, was hired as CEO. The house of cards is falling and there is no reason that WP should be under the collapse. There is a wealth of news sources from around the world with Pulitzer prizes and other awards. We have no shortage of sources. How can we use FN as a source and claim reliance on our five pillars? BUT, it must be at least politics, science, economics, race, religion, LGBTQ, most anything else including sports and entertainment as they include race, religion, LGBTQ, etc. O3000, Ret. (talk) 01:26, 22 April 2023 (UTC)
• Yes No question from this narrow period (2020 onward, politics only) that Fox cannot be anywhere close to reliable from their news desk. I would generally add as a footnote that for most other areas not covered by the RSP entry for Fox, that WP editors tend to look for better sources before resorting to Fox as the source, but that doesn't mean Fox is unusable on WP. --Masem (t) 01:36, 22 April 2023 (UTC)
• Yes. The problem isn't confined to opinion - Fox Corp. Chairman Rupert Murdoch admitted under oath that they all promoted false claims about the 2020 election, which he believed was fair. But the difference with Bartiromo is she identifies as a news anchor, as she indicated in her testimony. See also [30]. Even before this, there are scholars who reject the idea that Fox should be considered a news source at all, claiming instead that it should be considered something more akin to propaganda; and in 2021, the same source for the above summary describes it as ...a source of information that embraces a highly partisan perspective with inconsistent commitments to the accuracy of their reporting... A summary of the (still ongoing) Smartmatic lawsuit states that Fox News aired thirteen reports either explicitly stating or implying that Smartmatic played a role in stealing the 2020 presidential election and notes, again, that people making these claims were presented by Fox as news reporters, not as "opinion mouthpieces." It seems difficult to argue that a source whose reporting has the sort of academic coverage described here can reasonably be said to have the reputation for fact-checking and accuracy that WP:RS requires. I'd also be strenuously opposed to an expiration date; coverage makes it clear that they've had systematic problems from the start, even if things have gotten worse, and there's no particular reason to think it will ever get better - certainly not within the baffling single-year window that a few people have inexplicably advanced. In the unlikely event that Fox somehow changes its entire direction and business model, we can start a new discussion to re-evaluate it then, but the idea that it could go back to WP:MREL automatically is a total nonstarter. --Aquillion (talk) 02:40, 22 April 2023 (UTC)
• Yes with the following Suggested Specifics:

  Extent: The deprecation shall include strictly political news reporting, but not opinions, interviews, and commentary by Fox employees or guests, for which, however, Fox can be quoted as a matter of record only, e.g. "XYZ said abc on FoxNews yesterday [link to FoxNews]."

  Begining: The deprecation should start with any and all political reporting made by Fox on the date of the November 20,2020, election, and go forward to the present. Setting a date earlier than that would only result in seriously chaotic conditions; going forward, best leave this as a task of replacing with better sources, as the opportunity arises.

  Ending: Fox News remains one of the most watched medium in the United States. An indefinite deprecation is a step that probably should be taken with significant and somber consideration, i.e. we should not get carried away too much on the basis of recent news. We should have a time limit, upon whose ending the status of Fox as a deprecated source should either be revoked or indefinitely extended. The year 2024 suggested by Adoring nanny looks about right for this. I suggest revisiting the deprecation, if it presently comes to pass, on Saturday 30, 2024, which is the last day of the month of the next U.S. presidential election.

-The Gnome (talk) 10:00, 22 April 2023 (UTC)

• Yes, thoroughly - Fox was started as a political propaganda exercise from the beginning - David Gerard (talk) 14:02, 22 April 2023 (UTC)
• Yes They have been unreliable in this regard since well before 2020. Obviously nobody should be using them as a source on the 2020 election, the January 6th insurrection, or voting machines, we know for a fact that the people right at the top of the networks' chain of command willinglt particpated in spreading false information, their willingness to do so suggests they are totally unreliable as a source of information relating to politics. Beeblebrox (talk) 16:59, 22 April 2023 (UTC)
• Yes Fabrication is a no no. Selfstudier (talk) 17:06, 22 April 2023 (UTC)
• Is this a proposal to deprecate or downgrade to generally unreliable? Those are subtly different as per WP:RSP. — Rhododendrites ^talk \\ 17:12, 22 April 2023 (UTC)

  I think "downgrade to generally unreliable" was clearly what was meant, @Binksternet is using the non-jargon common meaning of "deprecate," but perhaps he wouldn't mind updating the section header text to be consistent to avoid confusion. Andre🚐 17:43, 22 April 2023 (UTC)

  Agreed with Andre. Loki (talk) 18:27, 22 April 2023 (UTC)

  Yes, "downgrade" is clearer. Binksternet (talk) 19:30, 22 April 2023 (UTC)

• Yes. Downgrade to unreliable, but not just for politics and not for a limited time frame. We shouldn't trust a source willing to knowingly lie to the public as being reliable at any point in time on any topic. They have demonstrated a lack of credibility as a source of information.4meter4 (talk) 19:37, 22 April 2023 (UTC)
• Absolutely. There's nothing new about Fox "News" being propaganda. Hell, that was the entire point of the documentary Outfoxed twenty years ago. And despite the equivocations and hemming and hawing, the idea that there's a distinction between news and opinion shows, or between the TV channel and the website, is and always has been nonsense. The Dominion case proved that beyond a reasonable doubt. The entire operation is rotten to the core, and has been since day one. oknazevad (talk) 19:53, 22 April 2023 (UTC)
• Honestly, Id go further than this, if you can find something only in Fox then in my view it probably is not true, and almost certainly is misleading. But for the question as posed, yes. nableezy - 20:57, 22 April 2023 (UTC)
• Yes, deprecate politics coverage after 2020. Also all of its other coverage. And after 2016, or 2012, or 2008, or 2000, or all they back to 1996. Whatever it takes. Fox News was founded as an alternative to perceived liberal bias in media, so it's been tainted from the beginning. Deprecate it all. Woodroar (talk) 21:22, 22 April 2023 (UTC)
• Downgrade only for politics. Do not deprecate the entire website as they provide reliable sports and weather coverage. However they are unreliable in politics. 69.119.89.11 (talk) 23:11, 22 April 2023 (UTC) struck block evasion ScottishFinnishRadish (talk) 23:41, 22 April 2023 (UTC)
• No - stick to status quo. There is no good reason to depreciate this source - this RFC is mainly about the settlement story on voting machines. The left wing news sources have had to do settlements over defamation cases recently too such as CNN settle $275 million over racist defamation of Nick Sandmann and Washington Post had to do the same Washington Post settles defamation in 2020. The current status quo already deals with these issues. Aside form the nightly commentators, general news reporting from Fox is reliable - as many mentioned in the last RFC last year RFC: Fox News (news): politics & science. Ramos1990 (talk) 01:06, 23 April 2023 (UTC)
• Yes for a downgrade to generally unreliable. It's been clear that Fox News has deceived and lied to its viewers for some time now, and as such should not be considered reliable. JML1148 (Talk | Contribs) 09:46, 23 April 2023 (UTC)
• FYI I've listed this at WP:CENT. — Rhododendrites ^talk \\ 12:24, 23 April 2023 (UTC)
• Yes. The Night Watch (talk) 17:32, 23 April 2023 (UTC)
• Yes - Whereas Ramos1990 cites defamation settlements regarding the 2019 Lincoln Memorial confrontation as proof of misconduct at other outlets, Fox News was forced to settle over lies on the fundamentals of the 2020 United States presidential election, a far more significant event, told over a far longer period. Besides the specific falsehoods highlighted in the court case, the editorial policy of focusing on viewership over fact-finding clearly disqualifies Fox News as a reliable source, at least until the Saturday, November 30th, 2024 date suggested by The Gnome. BluePenguin18 🐧 ( 💬 ) 17:47, 23 April 2023 (UTC)
• Yes, from the very beginning. This isn't a new thing that we're all pretending to be shocked is happening; this is fundamental to the network and has been so well-known for decades that primetime flagship shows in Fox's entertainment division have gone to the well more than once to make fun of of the news division; as Lois Griffin said in 2010, "even true things, once reported by Fox News, become lies". It's time for us to stop pretending. Sceptre (talk) 18:58, 23 April 2023 (UTC)
• Yes and backdate so the stuff can be removed by script. It would be highly subjective to try and determine when it started to become unreliable, so best to backdate and remove. scope_creep^Talk 20:06, 23 April 2023 (UTC)
• Yes also support downgrading Fox to generally unreliable if more evidence, showing cause to do so, is revealed. Why is no one that surprised? Conceivably, we have been worn down over the years to just accept that FOX NEWS knowingly lies at seemingly conspiratorial levels, from the top executives and "hosts", including the Murdochs, to the front-line journalists and anchors, that almost no laymans and few seasoned editors seem to be able tell the difference between. Once caught, FOX quickly just moves the goal post....It's been done so many times it's no wonder even they probably can't tell the difference themselves. Some might also feel the need to argue that they did this at the risk of American democracy, at the very least according to Fred Wertheimer. Reasonable editors are rightfully bothered by these developments. How could we so cynically advocate for "business as usual," much like what FOX NEWS currently seems to be doing? It is likely because we have failed to regularly reexamine the question of where to draw the line, to prevent harm to ourselves and others. Unfortunately, FN will likely continue stonewalling and obfuscating in order to continue to muddy the water between truth and opinion. DN (talk) 23:03, 23 April 2023 (UTC)

• No The complaint by Dominion appears to be against Fox News Channel hosts, not Fox News reporting. Statements by talk show hosts are not considered reliable. Also, there is considerable movement of talk show hosts and others between the networks, so they are equally guilty in their talk shows. Jonah Goldberg for example who achieved fame for Liberal Fascism which claims that modern U.S. liberalism has its roots in Italian Fascism, a claimed widely debunked by actual historians, left Fox and now contributes to CNN and MSNBC. He was actually interviewed about the book by CNN host Glenn Beck, who later moved to Fox. Meanwhile, the notorious Fox News host Tucker Carlson previously worked at PBS, MSNBC and CNN. TFD (talk) 20:57, 23 April 2023 (UTC)

• TFD, I absolutely respect your opinions on this, and I also believe this is something where people can, in good faith, come to differing conclusions. That said, I feel like this argument is too clever by half. Which hosts on other networks spread easily debunked lies about Dominion? Could it be that other networks have stronger safeguards in place to prevent occurrences like this? And it is interesting that you choose Jonah Goldberg (for whom I have no great affection), because his own claim was that he left the network because of "propaganda that weaves half-truths into a whole lie." Apologies for the interruption. Have a nice evening. Dumuzid (talk) 21:10, 23 April 2023 (UTC)
• It's quite possible the reason for the confusion is due to the fact that FOX NEWS very likely isn't WP:RELIABLE...it's just a business that calls itself "news"..."Lying in the press is unethical but does not necessarily strip liars of the protections provided by the First Amendment. There is an exception to this: the defamatory lie, one that injures a person or organization’s reputation. That is what got Fox News sued...Anyone can claim to be a journalist, irrespective of their actual function. Any business can claim to be a news organization. Functioning irresponsibly in either role is largely protected by the First Amendment and is therefore optional." - John C. Watson Associate Professor of Journalism, American University. DN (talk) 00:18, 24 April 2023 (UTC)

• Dumuzid, we agree, but for TFD's sake I'll point out that while "stronger safeguards" are what keeps normal journalists from making egregious errors, with Fox News there does not exist ANY type of safeguard that would work because this is a "feature" not a "bug" type of thing. It was knowingly and deliberately perpetrated on viewers to keep them from running away to OANN and Newsmax, which they did immediately after Fox called Arizona for Biden. Fox New had always been lying to viewers, but when they for once told the truth, they immediately paid the price, so they returned to doubling down on lying to viewers to get them back.

When Fox News' own fact checkers sought to correct outright lies, they were threatened and the NEWS division hosts were blocked from touching the matter. This has been going on for years, but the Dominion lawsuit just brought our attention to it. All those private communications revealed that every single person at Fox News, top to bottom, knew Trump's election lies were lies and that Biden won, yet they repeated those lies to audiences to keep them at Fox. That's not an "error" or "bug", that's a malicious "feature" that no "stronger safeguards" can prevent.

There is a reason so many good journalists have left Fox News. So to sum up the problem, it involves the whole gamut of people at Fox News, including the NEWS division, because it comes from the top. They all know what's true, but deliberately lied to keep their viewers from fleeing. The outcome of the Dominion case just means they'll be more careful not to libel a company but will keep on lying and keeping vital information from their viewers. That's how they have always rolled. That's why Fox News exists. It was created to operate that way by Roger Ailes.

"The complaint by Dominion appears to be against Fox News Channel hosts, not Fox News reporting." is a red herring. The problem exists, not because of the NEWS hosts, but because everything at Fox News, including the NEWS division, is controlled from the top, and the NEWS division is not supposed to function like an honest news service. It must follow the party line, dictated from the top. So good and honest journalists in the NEWS division are often prevented from covering certain topics and are required to lie to viewers. For many of them that is just too much and they leave. What we're left with is a Fox News that is still defective to its core. It fails the bare minimum (fact-checking itself) we require of all other RS. Why make an exception for Fox News when they do not intend to allow fact-checkers to do their job? -- Valjean (talk) (PING me) 22:34, 23 April 2023 (UTC)

Obviously the other networks' hosts did not lie about Dominion because they tend to lean Democratic, but they also broadcast misinformation such as when Glenn Beck approvingly interviewed Johnah Goldberg about how modern American liberalism derives from fascism. Beck also continually presented the views of the conspiracy theorist Cleon Skousen and wrote an introduction to his book about how the New World Order controls the world. While Beck was there, CNN also had as host the nativist Lou Dobbs whose virtually sole topic was "illegal immigration," claiming that Mexicans were responsible for most of America's problems. False reports of the 2019 Lincoln Memorial confrontation were carried on numerous mainstream news outlets. Similarly, media coverage of the Duke lacrosse players' case was extremely biased against the accused (who were innocent), with CNN talk show host Nancy Grace arguing the prosecution case night after night.

All major U.S. news media of course misled the public in supporting the false claim that Iraq was behind 9/11 and had weapons of mass destruction and for years that America was winning in Iraq and Afghanistan. The even had their reporters "embedded" with the U.S. Army, which is highly controversial to say the least.

Major media also misled the public in claiming the COVID-19 lab leak theory was a "conspiracy theory" although it is now considered a possibility, even if remote, and the FBI now says with low confidence that is what happened. CNN also had on night after night the now disgraced ex-governor of New York, Andrew Cuomo, presenting him as being on top of the covid pandemic even while he was covering up nursing home deaths. His brother, who was a talk show host at CNN, was helping Andrew defend himself in the media against sexual misconduct allegations.

The reason journalists can so easily move between Fox and other cable news is that they are similar. They both have relatively reliable news programming telling people what actually happened and relatively unreliable talk show hosts telling them what they want to hear.

I disagree that Fox News should be considered unreliable because its talk show hosts are. As I mentioned, they often go back and forth between networks and are not considered reliable sources anyway. TFD (talk) 01:30, 24 April 2023 (UTC)

I am happy to leave it there and agree to disagree. Have a good week. Dumuzid (talk) 01:31, 24 April 2023 (UTC)

• TFD, you have a point, but I think you're missing the broader picture. You're right that there is a difference between individual journalists and the network as a whole. For example, Judith Miller committed extreme journalistic malpractice, but that doesn't mean the New York Times as a whole is disreputable, same with Dan Rather and CBS News. However, when the network as a whole is staffed with so many of those disreputable figures, particularly at the top, then it can only be expected that what is pumped out through the TV outfit bleeds over into other divisions, which is what is proved both with this lawsuit and the decades of grounded and fundamental criticism. Curbon7 (talk) 02:28, 24 April 2023 (UTC)

• Yes Fox News has been spewing misinformation for decades about politics. ~ 🦝 Shushugah (he/him • talk) 21:26, 23 April 2023 (UTC)

• Yes for anything relating to American elections and specifically how they are carried out, retain status quo for everything else - the lawsuit highlights that Fox is unreliable for claims relating to US elections, with them basically admitting that they let stories air in regards to the election narrative, even when many knew that the stories are dubious at best. However, I don't see that this is enough to affect talk show hosts (who are already essentially deprecated and who this lawsuit primarily targeted), and the website (which in spite of the claims made by @Oknazevad, there is an unequivocally an undeniable difference in, especially in regards to non-political stories). I especially don't see how we should be deprecating non-political stories, which are fairly mundane and more comparable to the rest of the MSM. The lawsuit further indicates primarily that the talk show hosts are unreliable and as for the website, indicates that anything relating to 2020 US elections is probably fabricated, and that material relating to future elections in the United States at least on the federal level probably shouldn't be trusted either. However, most other political stories more mundane in comparison; just exaggerated and sensationalistic, and probably should just retain a yellow for being analyzed on a case-by-case basis, sort of similar to the WP:DAILYBEAST. I also agree with @Adoring nanny's statement that while yes, nearly a billion dollars is a big deal, using defamation lawsuits (or in this case, attempted lawsuits) to deprecate sources, is opening the floodgates for a massive, unwieldy, and generally bad precedent (for example, the multi-hundred million dollar lawsuits that CNN and the WaPo endured and settled with relating to the Covington kids). If Fox news is to be entirely deprecated for politics, then deprecate until Decemeber 1, 2024, after the month where the US election occurs, for the aforementioned reasons. - Knightoftheswords281 (Talk-Contribs) 22:22, 23 April 2023 (UTC)
• Yes. If Fox didn't treat "news" and "opinion" differently, as became clear as a result of the lawsuit, then why should we? Downgrade politics and science coverage to 3/red/unreliable, downgrade all other news coverage to 2/yellow/caution, and downgrade their talk shows to 4/darkred/deprecated. —pythoncoder (talk | contribs) 23:55, 23 April 2023 (UTC)
• Comment - We are rather quickly nearing WP:SNOW. For better or worse, the RfC topics were narrowed to politics, media, the arts, and architecture -- not including science, for example, or race and LGBTQ. One might argue that they are part of politics, but what isn't these days and that's not how the topics would be selected. Not suggesting they be added now as, perhaps, it makes sense to proceed piecemeal. Just means that we won't bring in folks interested in climate change, anti-vaccination, Gensex, CRT, {are Jewish space lasers included) and such that in normal days wouldn't be considered politics. Not making a suggestion -- just a comment. O3000, Ret. (talk) 01:19, 24 April 2023 (UTC)

  Just wanted to briefly chime in to say that I agree with both your general analysis and sense of where we are headed, but when we're talking about such a major source (the most-watched cable news network in the United States by far), I think we really should err on the side of caution by leaving things open for a long time and inviting as much comment as possible. Cheers. Dumuzid (talk) 01:30, 24 April 2023 (UTC)

  I think the fairest way to resolve this is to let this RFC tick for at least about another week, and then if it's still in WP:SNOW territory close it. Then open a second RFC for Fox News's political coverage prior to 2020 and a separate third one for Fox News's coverage prior to 2020 in general.

  I see there's a fairly large number of people here clearly saying that they want to go further than just a downgrade from 2020 onward, definitely more than people who explicitly oppose such a thing, but there's also enough people being vague about it that I don't think we'd be able to clearly say there's a consensus right now. Loki (talk) 04:31, 24 April 2023 (UTC)

• Yes Fox News repeatedly spreads lies and then claims that it's not actually news to get out of liability for that. It's news only in branding. The recent court judgement and settlement show clearly that they are a propaganda network and not reliable for politics. Galobtter (talk) 02:43, 24 April 2023 (UTC)
• Yes. And not just since 2020 (they've been unreliable for some time, at least 2016 if not earlier), and not just for politics (also science/medicine, e.g. climate change and covid). We should indicate, at a minimum, that "additional considerations apply" to citing Fox for any contentious topic, in addition to them being unreliable for politics. As others have said above, we don't give any other source anywhere near as much leeway as a few people keep trying to give Fox: if any other source was this intentionally inaccurate, we would consider that source suspect ("additional considerations apply", if not "unreliable"), not go "well, they lie about politics ... and science ... and medicine ... but there's no reason to think they're anything other than reliable for most stuff!" We should acknowledge they're unreliable for politics, and science / medicine, and say caution or "additional considerations" apply to citing them in general. -sche (talk) 03:15, 24 April 2023 (UTC)
• Yes The revelations that emerged in the Dominion lawsuit make it very clear that lying Fox propagandists are in charge there, and that top management sides with lies instead of facts, and defers to the demands of the propagandists instead of siding with the occasional Fox journalist who attempts to tell the truth. A network that says that Maria Bartiromo is somehow a legitimate journalist can be trusted with nothing. If Fox News sometimes tells the truth, then certainly we can easily find a far better source to cite for verification. Their pernicious lies, after all, far exceed any genuine journalistic scoops. Cullen328 (talk) 03:23, 24 April 2023 (UTC)
• To the question as asked, yes, obviously: it is a matter of public record. For AMPOL in general, without a terminus ante, also yes: there will always be stronger sources for anything factual they reported. Folly Mox (talk) 04:26, 24 April 2023 (UTC)
• Yes deprecate Fox News since it was founded and not just for politics. Lightoil (talk) 04:44, 24 April 2023 (UTC)
• No, clearly biased political poll. One major incident makes it suspect, sure, and if it happens again then a better argument could be made. But the settlement was made with the intention of owning up to a rather large mistake.--Ortizesp (talk) 06:40, 24 April 2023 (UTC)
• Of course we should. Duh.—S Marshall T/C 07:15, 24 April 2023 (UTC)
• Yes, absolutely - it's a no-brainer. Roger Ailes created FN as a propaganda outlet, after all. Beyond My Ken (talk) 08:13, 24 April 2023 (UTC)
• Yes, same logic as WP:THESUN, and the same treatment should apply. Indeed all Murdoch outlets should have a cautionary rubric because economy with the truth is his business strategy. --𝕁𝕄𝔽 (talk) 09:21, 24 April 2023 (UTC)
• Yes, they have admitted lying, they played all kinds of games before finally settling. They no longer have a reputation for fact-checking, they have a reputation for telling lies. Note as well we have been discussing this for years, with a gradual downgrading of Fox, this is not some Knee jerk reaction based upon recent news, rather recent news has confirmed what many of us have argued for years, Fox News tells lies. Slatersteven (talk) 09:25, 24 April 2023 (UTC)

• Question: Much of this RFC is focused on Fox’s coverage of the 2020 presidential election and their claims about Dominion. And I agree that Fox’s coverage of that was extremely unreliable. But… does this unreliability translate to their coverage of all political topics? For example, did they show the same bias and engage in the same false reporting when covering the various 2020 House, Senate or Gubernatorial races? I guess what I am asking is this: Are we making a broad generalization based upon one (admittedly egregious) specific case? Are there other instances? Blueboar (talk) 11:19, 24 April 2023 (UTC)

  Blueboar, just to answer your question for myself, I guess I am a bit skeptical of sources in general. For every mistake we know about, I assume there are several we don't know about or at least near misses. This was, as you say, an egregious case about basically their single biggest story over a prolonged period of time. Now, it's entirely possible (perhaps even probable) that their other reporting is sourced better than to a time traveler who speaks to the wind--but how can we know for sure? If they were willing to engage in this conduct over this big a story, what lines can we safely say they would draw? That's why I come down as I do, but as I like to say, reasonable minds may certainly differ and I am happy to go with the wisdom of consensus. Cheers. Dumuzid (talk) 14:19, 24 April 2023 (UTC)

• Yes. To answer User:Blueboar, this WP:RSNP note lists 23 discussions, not counting the RFCs. A random clickthrough of recent RSN archives shows numerous unlinked threads about something shady Fox News has done, often through opinion makers. In this clear instance, case discovery has demonstrated beyond a doubt that even at the very highest levels of management, even THEY don't believe what they've been broadcasting. I urged deprecation last RFC. BusterD (talk) 12:24, 24 April 2023 (UTC)

References

References

RfC: Is Tweakers.net a reliable source?

Which of the following best describes Tweakers.net articles?

• Option 1: Generally reliable
• Option 2: Additional considerations apply
• Option 3: Generally unreliable

AFAIK Tweakers.net has not been discussed here. It has been cited a lot.[31] Concern was expressed here: Draft_talk:Privacy_Guides, but the declared COI editor and I did not agree. Although Tweakers site lists editors and appears to have editorial staff, I found a article like this[32] to be troubling because it was submitted by a person with obvious COI, and that person was extensively quoted; it was cited in Draft:Privacy_Guides. Without extensive review of the website, to me it appears similar to Reddit, or a large group blog. -- Yae4 (talk) 17:45, 11 April 2023 (UTC)

News are written by Tweakers staff. Sources like other sites or press releases are cited.

Reviews are written either by editors ("reviews door de redactie") or users ("gebruikersreviews"). They are clearly marked.

The specific article you mention was written by Olaf van Miltenburg, at the time news coordinator ("Nieuwscoördinator") for Tweakers[33] (he is now Planning Editor at Wageningen University[34]).The article is based on information posted by PrivacyGuides team members on Reddit. The "Update" was written by the founder of PrivacyGuides.[35] So it definitely is not independent.

I can't comment on the general quality or reliability of the news or the editor reviews. Random person no 362478479 (talk) 18:46, 11 April 2023 (UTC)

This RfC is malformed; it's not proportionate go straight from a 1-on-1 draft notability dispute to an RfC here (especially since Tweakers was only discussed in two posts, in total, in that "dispute"). Talk page disputes can be brought up here, in normal discussions (not RfCs), and discussed by the wider community. Generally, RfCs are only held after several non-RfC discussions have been held, or if the source is very obviously unreliable (as in, written by AI, not this site). DFlhb (talk) 01:13, 12 April 2023 (UTC)

I concur with the above that this RFC is premature, this looks to be generalizing from a single use in a single dispute. We should probably have some evidence this source is frequently under dispute before considering it in the general. --Jayron32 16:06, 17 April 2023 (UTC)

Tweakers.net has been discussed almost a couple dozen times over the years.[36] I was mostly going by what Tweakers says about it, although Wikipedia is not reliable, and the one questionable link I spot checked. Wikipedia does not describe Tweakers as a news publishing organization; it is described as a technology website featuring news, etc. It also gives "Tweakers Awards" where members choose the best products, which is thus user-generated content. Of other Discussions, there is a mix of positive[37] and negative[38] comments by editors, although it is not always clear on reliability opinions.[39][40][41][42] This was the most detailed discussion I saw, and it looks like Option 2 - Additional Considerations or worse because of affiliate links etc.[43] I was hoping someone with more familiarity with Tweakers and reliable sourcing would have more informed opinions to give here. -- Yae4 (talk) 15:23, 18 April 2023 (UTC)

Your claim "as been discussed almost a couple dozen times" is not borne out by your link. It shows that the text string "tweakers.net" has appeared a couple of dozen times on pages in the Talk: namespace. A quick spotcheck of several shows that the vast majority of the times that text string appeared was as a bare external link, with no "discussion" about reliability, and that most of what is left seems to be naming the site without discussing its reliability. I'm not going to comb every link there to find perhaps an actual discussion, but my quick check says that such discussions have happened rarely and/or superficially if ever. Can you indicate some specific discussions where the site's reliability has been discussed and where it is a point of contention? --Jayron32 16:02, 19 April 2023 (UTC)

My "your link" is to the wiki-standard "Discussion" search. Please interpret my "has been discussed" as your "has appeared on Discussion pages", then look at the other links I already provided above, particularly the last one, which had more lengthy discussion, or commenting, or whatever semantic representation is preferred. -- Yae4 (talk) 19:06, 20 April 2023 (UTC)

• Comment I'll add some of my observations here. More for future reference than for the RfC, which doesn't seem to be taken up.
  • Their editorial statute ("Redactiestatuut")[44] looks good to me.
  • Editor reviews ("reviews door de redactie") and user reviews ("gebruikersreviews") are clearly distinguished.
  • Their news are written by staff[45] and sources are appropriately cited/linked. As is normal for this kind of page a lot of the news is information of the type "company x has announced the coming release of product y" which are basically reports about press releases. Obviously this has to be taken into account to determine the independence of news articles on a case by case basis.

I see no reason to consider Tweakers generally unreliable. Obviously the user generated content, e.g. user reviews and forum posts are unreliable, but they are clearly marked. News has to be checked for independence on a case by case basis by looking at the sources which often are press releases. To evaluate overall quality and reliability we would need people who are more familiar with the site to weigh in. -- Random person no 362478479 (talk) 00:50, 21 April 2023 (UTC)

The People's Daily RfC

So I was reading the article on Hotmail (which is now called outlook) and I noticed that The People's Daily was being cited as a source, as can be seen here.

Given that the People's Daily is official newspaper of the Central Committee of the Chinese Communist Party, I feel that we should have a discussion about marking The People's Daily as a Deprecated Source. Maurice Oly (talk) 00:26, 16 April 2023 (UTC)

• Two observations. (1) People's Daily is reliable for this noncontroversial statement for which it is cited in the Hotmail article. (2) The reference to People's Daily is far and away the least problematic bit of source material in the Hotmail article. Banks Irk (talk) 01:05, 16 April 2023 (UTC)
• There are already WP:RSP entries for WP:XINHUA and WP:CHINADAILY with significant caveats and carve-outs, it might be worthwhile to have a RFC about People's Daily to figure out exactly where the lines should be drawn with it. That's said, there's got to be a better source for that claim about Hotmail than People's Daily. - GretLomborg (talk) 13:55, 19 April 2023 (UTC)
• The cited article says "Source: Xinhua". The OP already removed, if that's disputable then a discussion on the outlook.com talk page would perhaps be appropriate. I believe an RfC would be bad. Peter Gulutzan (talk) 14:20, 19 April 2023 (UTC)

Does this book support the claim that USSR joined the Allies not after Barbarossa, but almost a month later?

This book says

"He [Cripps] replied on July 10 that Stalin had accepted 'an agreement for joint action between His Majesty's Government in the United Kingdom and the government of the U.S.S.R. in the war against Germany."

Does this source support the claims that

• USSR joined the Allies as a result of signing Cripps-Molotow declaration
• The Cripps-Molotow declaration was a military alliance
• The USSR could not be considered the Ally until it signed a military alliance with Britain?

Sincerely, --Paul Siebert (talk) 01:25, 17 April 2023 (UTC) Paul Siebert (talk) 01:25, 17 April 2023 (UTC)

No. Because it doesn't say any of that. AndyTheGrump (talk) 02:23, 17 April 2023 (UTC)

I would think there are more-explanatory and more-recent sources for those questions, rather than extrapolating from a single sentence in a government doc from 1962. - GreenC 02:23, 17 April 2023 (UTC)

Does it support the claims? Probably slightly, and obliquely at that, but it has got to be far down the totem pole of sources in the general area. Adoring nanny (talk) 02:46, 17 April 2023 (UTC)

There might be more in that source which better supports those three claims, but that sentence alone definitely isn't sufficient to source any of those three claims. The source supports something along the lines of "the UK and the USSR signed an agreement for joint action in the war on July 12th" and nothing significantly broader. Loki (talk) 02:55, 17 April 2023 (UTC)

Per Loki, the source can only be used as a source for what it actually says, which in this case is that Crips stated that Stalin accepted an agreement for joint action between His Majesty's Government in the United Kingdom and the government of the U.S.S.R. in the war against Germany on 10 July and that said agreement was signed on 12 July. It cannot be used for any interpretation about what that means, and all of the statements the OP asks about cannot be sourced to that sentence because doing so would be a violation of WP:FOLLOWSOURCE, to wit, "Take care not to go beyond what the sources express or to use them in ways inconsistent with the intention of the source" The source doesn't state what the three statements say, so it cannot be used to support those three statements. --Jayron32 17:26, 17 April 2023 (UTC)

I don't think their email was as good back then, Paul. It sometimes took a while for paperwork to get sorted out. Guy (help! - typo?) 18:03, 20 April 2023 (UTC)

...and they were rather busy at the time. AndyTheGrump (talk) 18:12, 20 April 2023 (UTC)

Thank you. Actually, I fully agree with what you say. This my question was caused by the dispute with one user, who believes that this source does support these claims. Paul Siebert (talk) 13:21, 22 April 2023 (UTC)

References

The Art Story

This has not been discussed to my knowledge, although I've seen The Art Story (https://www.theartstory.org) used in WP:WPVA articles and I'd like to get more consensus. My take, as an art historian, is "generally unreliable" because the editorial process is unclear, the names of authors are not included in articles, and articles lack publication dates.

The organization is a non-profit and the About Us section describes the process as: We start with material produced by brilliant academics who are also great writers. Our writers either have PhDs or are experts in their fields. This does not fill me with confidence. What is the process following the "start"? Why use the term "brilliant" or "great writers"? And how does one verify the expertise of those without PhDs? It lacks a coherent structure and this kind of description of a source would eliminate it at the outset from even undergraduate papers. While there is a list of editors, it is not clear how things are factchecked or how literature is used.

I am not saying that the information included there is not factual--it's actually a useful reference, but I do not believe we should be relying on The Art Story for serious art historical articles. I think that there are numerous alternatives (https://www.smarthistory.org is one such website and it is helpful to compare their peer review process) of scholarly and reliable content. Ppt91^talk 17:44, 17 April 2023 (UTC)

It's new to me. But I would completely agree with the majority of what you say, based on what The Art Story says about themselves. It seems to have originated as an online venture by a graduate, to create a dumbed-down and easily navigable art website / encylopedia. One thing I notice is, if you click on the "Cite me" button at the bottom of each page, it tells you who the author was and whether the editor has amended it. Strangely, the authors of the two articles/pages I looked at, weren't listed on the website's list of contributors. I'd say it's a handy resource for a high school project, but for Wikipedia we'd prefer better quality sources. Sionk (talk) 20:36, 17 April 2023 (UTC)

Thank you, @Sionk , I appreciate your input! It's interesting you were able to find specific authors for some articles, as the ones I looked at mention "The Art Story Contributors" when I click the citation button. I guess that only makes it harder to verify. Either way, I was glad to see you share my reservations regarding quality. Ppt91^talk 21:21, 17 April 2023 (UTC)

The "about us" you quote does not fill me with confidence either, not because some writers do not have PhDs, but because they wave PhDs as a reliability indication. As the early years of Wikipedia vs. Britannica demonstrate, the editorial process is a better guarantee of reliability than the credentials of the writers.

It’s certainly not at the level of scholarly sources (article papers, museum notices etc.), but on the other hand, on its face, it’s not trash either. By default I would say as reliable as articles from the non-specialized press can be. Tigraan^{Click here for my talk page ("private" contact)} 09:45, 19 April 2023 (UTC)

Votesmart.com

Is votesmart.com a reliable source? I need information on a former AR state legsitlaure member Nelda Speaks and they have a lot of info on her. GameOfAwesome (talk) 22:22, 17 April 2023 (UTC)

@GameOfAwesome do you mean votesmart.org/Vote Smart? Here's a discussion from 2016: Wikipedia:Reliable_sources/Noticeboard/Archive_214#Vote_Smart Gråbergs Gråa Sång (talk) 07:03, 18 April 2023 (UTC)

Looking at the earlier discussion, I concur with the first response there by Only in Death... Per WP:FOLLOWSOURCE, one needs to be very careful when using the source to ascribe things like political positions to a BLP article, even by implication. It seems to be an essentially reliable source for voting record (which bills a person voted on, and how they voted), however, to state (or even imply) that a person feels a certain way, or holds a particular political position, or believes in something or other, because they voted a specific way on some specific legislation is a bridge to far, and care needs to be avoided. I'd even be careful characterizing the vote beyond anything than "So-and-so voted nay on H.B. 202-35" or whatever, and NOT say things like "So-and-so voted against legalizing marijuana", because that requires additional sourcing to a source that states that explicitly. --Jayron32 11:55, 18 April 2023 (UTC)

Sounds about right. Gråbergs Gråa Sång (talk) 20:46, 18 April 2023 (UTC)

Votesmart is one of the parameters in {{CongLinks}} and I use it that way, as an external link. I don't personally believe I've encountered any errors in it. It's a useful research tool I don't cite inline. – Muboshgu (talk) 20:50, 18 April 2023 (UTC)

A separate but related issue is that sentences like So-and-so voted nay on H.B. 202-35 are often problematic from the point of view of WP:DUE and WP:SYNTH. --JBL (talk) 21:09, 22 April 2023 (UTC)

Reliability of the Daily Telegraph for politics?

What do we think of the reliability of this story[46]? Full text is available here[47]. An editor is arguing that the DT is not reliable for politics. See the discussion hereTalk:COVID-19_lab_leak_theory#Telegraph:_"Covid_pandemic_sparked_by_accidental_leak_from_Wuhan_lab,_US_investigation_concludes". Adoring nanny (talk) 01:04, 19 April 2023 (UTC)

The source is reliable for what it is saying: a Republican-backed study by the US Senate concluded that COVID likely came from a lab leak. The Telegraph is clearly not trying to say this report is true, just that the news is that this report from the Senate is making this claim. In other words, we have to be careful how to word in within WP, but there's no reason not to consider using the Telegraph as the source for the information about this senate report. Masem (t) 01:10, 19 April 2023 (UTC)

Reliable for saying what the Telegraph pieces says, that the US senate report claims that the source was most likely a "research-related incident". I'd also not how couched the language used by the Telegraph is "claimed", "claims", "argued", this is hardly surprising as as they stated in the article However, the report did not offer a "definitive" conclusion on the origin of the pandemic. -- LCU ActivelyDisinterested ∆transmissions∆ °co-ords° 01:41, 19 April 2023 (UTC)

It's an OK source for what is being presented. I would assume the backlash on this is that its reporting on opinions ...something that is not peer reviewed by experts in the field. Moxy- 01:53, 19 April 2023 (UTC)

Or "its reliable for the fact it was said, not for that being true". Slatersteven (talk) 16:57, 19 April 2023 (UTC)

An observation on the Telegraph's biases. It "has endorsed the Conservative Party at every UK general election since 1945." It has a reputation of being "a mouthpiece for Boris Johnson" whose columns were allegedly published with "no fact-checking at all". It keeps attacking transgender people with headlines such as "The tyranny of the transgender minority has got to be stopped". It was criticized by the regulator Independent Press Standards Organisation for systematically publishing COVID-19 misinformation. It regularly publishes texts with "pseudoscientific views on climate change", and published a false story about a predicted "mini-ice age" instead of global warming. Does that sound like a reputable publication? Dimadick (talk) 05:46, 19 April 2023 (UTC)

A lot of UK media outlets have been going downhill in recent years (eg see the debacle around the Jewish Chronicle). Unfortunate. (t · c) buidhe 06:15, 19 April 2023 (UTC)

I don't think consistent political endorsements are relevant for WP:RS. For example, I believe here in the US, the NYT has endorsed the D candidate in every election since 1960. We still consider them a first tier source. Adoring nanny (talk) 16:53, 19 April 2023 (UTC)

Unfortunately, while the Telegraph employs "journalists" like transphobe and Covid fake news-peddler Allison Pearson, it is always going to be somewhat mistrusted. It does appear to have dialled the climate change denial nonsense back a bit in recent years, however. Black Kite (talk) 21:05, 19 April 2023 (UTC)

Actually, the NYT has endorsed Republicans for governor, Senator, NYC mayor, and other positions since the 60s. O3000, Ret. (talk) 00:03, 20 April 2023 (UTC)

Why was this article brought up on the of COVID-19 lab leak theory talk page? Editors are using it to advocate for a rewrite of the lead, despite the fact that (a) it's a single news article, (b) it's not a MEDRS, (c) it's an old story about the October 2022 partisan Senate report, which is only back in the news because Axios just obtained the full report. The article is a breaking news (primary) source that simply summarizes the full report. If the author provides any analysis or opinions of his own, I can't discern them. It is a reliable source for what the Senate Republicans think, which is all it covers. Bringing up the article on the lab leak talk page is non-productive. DFlhb (talk) 21:44, 19 April 2023 (UTC)

I'm not sure why the query is about the papers reliability for politics and then goes on about coronavirus. It isn't quite such a politically divided issue like it has been in America, though conservatives do tend to follow republicans more on things like covid and climate change. It definitely is biased on politics but it's nowhere near the worst in Britain for that. On this matter what it did was basically publicise something that was out of date and with no medical input when the space could have been used for something better. My normal response when seeing something like that in a newspaper is to just curse them and move on to something else. NadVolum (talk) 23:11, 19 April 2023 (UTC)

• It appears concerns here regard due weight rather than reliability. The DT's politics coverage is usually reliable for simple factual information, but editorial choice of content follows a political line, so, like every paper, it is often necessary to attribute. This report is true, a US senate report DID make this claim. However, that doesn't necessarily mean it should appear in the lead, and perhaps not even the article unless peer-reviewed information is also given due prominence. --Boynamedsue (talk) 04:26, 21 April 2023 (UTC)

There's a distinction between editorial policy and the accuracy of news reporting. Editorials, columns, analyses, etc., are not considered reliable sources wherever they are published. We should not judge a news outlet reliability based on its editorial position. The Wall Street Journal is a good example where the two parts of the publication are totally separate.

The Republicans lab leak conclusion was reported in other publications such as ABC[48] and all media covered that the FBI has concluded that coronavirus originated in a lab.

Should the media refuse to report on what the majority party says because they are (probably) wrong? I don't think so. It's very important for readers to know what the debate in Washington is.

TFD (talk) 04:50, 21 April 2023 (UTC)

I believe the Telegraph's news articles remain a reliable source for politics. It is obviously biased and anything controversial should be attributed and also triangulated with other reliable sources biased differently. (Its opinion pieces are obviously not similarly reliable, although opinion in the Telegraph is more likely to be noteworthy than opinion in more marginal publications.) It is not, of course, reliable for medical matters. On this particular article, I agree with the above comments: the issue is weight not reliability. Politicians' views about medical matters (accurately reported or otherwise) are not particularly noteworthy in most contexts. BobFromBrockley (talk) 16:58, 21 April 2023 (UTC)

• Facts in its news coverage are probably facts. Its opinion pages do not appear to be fact checked. The opinions may be noteworthy, but they should not be used without attribution (and should probably be avoided) - David Gerard (talk) 14:04, 22 April 2023 (UTC)

So just like all other papers in the UK, and probably the world, then. Johnbod (talk) 15:24, 22 April 2023 (UTC)

That's bad news about those papers, because RSes have no excuse not to fact-check the opinion columns too. And it certainly doesn't apply to the world. (e.g. I write for Foreign Policy occasionally, in the opinions section, and I can assure you their fact-checkers are vicious and have saved my arse more than once.) If a paper runs nonsense in its opinion columns, that counts against that paper - David Gerard (talk) 09:53, 23 April 2023 (UTC)

• The Daily Telegraph employs people with ghastly and abhorrent opinions, but it's reliable for statements of fact, and its journalists have seriously embarrassed the Conservative party in the past with accurate and devastating revelations about expenses.—S Marshall T/C 16:37, 24 April 2023 (UTC)

Reliability of the Better Business Bureau for Company Status

Howdy! I'm basically re-writing the article for Playphone, and in doing so discovered that the Better Business Bureau has listed the company as being out of business. Given the empty website n' no social media activity since 2021, I'm inclined to believe that, but of course I'd need a reliable source to say it when puttin' that information in the article.

There've been a couple of discussions about the reliability of the BBB before, but they seemed to all be about ratings, which isn't what I'm lookin' for, and it isn't featured on the Perennial Sources page.

The site says that it gathered this information from "files" that the organization has, but I can't find any specification of what or where these files are. So my question here is: is the BBB a reliable source on the operating status of a company? Thanks in advance!

(P.S. I'm about to head to bed, so sorry if I can't give a lot of other info right away.) ~Judy _{(job requests)} 02:37, 19 April 2023 (UTC)

If BBB is the only source, to that's a problem. I'd note that the company is still listed at various Sec of State Business Entity sites. Banks Irk (talk) 02:57, 19 April 2023 (UTC)

That makes sense. I turned to government sites after reading this, and I actually think I know where the BBB got tripped up. It looks like Playphone set up a second company or another branch, incorporated it using a company in Delaware, and merged the two branches together into one, closing the one that wasn't incorporated in Delaware. As a result, it's listed twice on both a business tax search through San José and California's Sec State search, with one of 'em being listed as "closed" and "merged out," respectively. Ain't that nifty...anyway, thanks! I guess that answers the question, haha. ~Judy _{(job requests)} 17:40, 19 April 2023 (UTC)

Is the credibility and usefulness of the sources for the Alan Singh article in tatters?

Do the sources for this article lack credibility? -- Karsan Chanda (talk) 03:06, 19 April 2023 (UTC)

I came across this article while fixing errors, there's a lot of background detail in the article's talk page. -- LCU ActivelyDisinterested ∆transmissions∆ °co-ords° 11:38, 19 April 2023 (UTC)

@ActivelyDisinterested: Will this article be removed from Wikipedia? -- Karsan Chanda (talk) 12:01, 19 April 2023 (UTC)

That will be resolved at AFD, not here. If you believe that your article should not be deleted, you need to make your best argument at its discussion page there. Banks Irk (talk) 12:07, 19 April 2023 (UTC)

@Banks Irk: [49], [50] Are both these sources useful for the Alan Singh article? -- Karsan Chanda (talk) 12:19, 19 April 2023 (UTC)

No. They are not reliable sources. Banks Irk (talk) 12:32, 19 April 2023 (UTC)

@Banks Irk: This article has been reviewed. So will it not be considered important? -- Karsan Chanda (talk) 14:32, 20 April 2023 (UTC)

@Karsan Chanda: There is a deletion discussion herewhich you are invited to participate in, do not open discussions anywhere else, it is there that you need to contribute. It is not that the article is not considered important, we need "significant coverage" of Alan Singh in a good source. Significant coverage means a couple of paragraphs about Alan Singh at least. Boynamedsue (talk) 04:34, 21 April 2023 (UTC)

911Truth.org and consortiumnews.com

Source. https://911truth.org, specifically https://911truth.org/tag/ray-mcgovern/

911Truth.org as a source has been previously discussed or mentioned: [51], [52]

Source. https://consortiumnews.com, specifically https://consortiumnews.com/tag/ray-mcgovern/

Consortium News as a source has been previously discussed or mentioned: [53], [54], [55], [56]

Article. Ray McGovern

Content. Are they appropriate for inclusion in Ray McGovern#External links?

WP:LINKSTOAVOID (#2) states that we "should generally avoid providing external links to"..."any site that misleads the reader by use of factually inaccurate material or unverifiable research, except to a limited extent in articles about the viewpoints that the site is presenting." As noted above, various discussions about https://911truth.org and https://consortiumnews.com have found them to be generally unreliable sources of information, however, the "External links" section of Ray McGovern contains links to articles in in which his name has been tagged. Are those links appropriate for inclusion or should they be removed? (I understand that this is not about any particular text in the article, but I'm not sure there is a better forum for the question.) Thanks! -Location (talk) 16:37, 19 April 2023 (UTC)

• As bare links with no context, no, we should not link them. WP:ELYES is a fairly short list, and in practice is restricted mostly to either a) official websites of the subject b) reliable sources which discuss the subject, but which are not being used directly as inline citations. This is neither of those. Kill with fire. --Jayron32 18:05, 19 April 2023 (UTC)

I've deleted 911truth as it's clearly highly inappropriate. The McGovern page there was made up of stuff reposted from elsewhere (often Consortium) plus some fringe content that mentions him. The Consortium page might fit ELYES if that was the main outlet for his writings, but I don't think it is. The external links section on that article is severely bloated and I'd support cutting a lot of it out. BobFromBrockley (talk) 17:04, 21 April 2023 (UTC)

Policy violation to link to WikiLeaks

See List of material published by WikiLeaks. Lots of links to WikiLeaks and archived copies. All of Wikipedia should be searched for such links.

Doesn't linking to WikiLeaks violate our policies? We are not allowed to link to any website known to host copyright violations or stolen documents, and linking to an archived copy doesn't help the situation. That's why the Steele dossier article does not link directly to the website that hosts the dossier. We had to settle that matter when the article was first created. -- Valjean (talk) (PING me) 21:28, 19 April 2023 (UTC)

Wikileaks can be used as a primary source for backing up secondary sources, for instance about Wikileaks organization or denials or suchlike. But yes that page should not have links to Wikileaks for information about specific leaks, only to secondary sources. NadVolum (talk) 23:24, 19 April 2023 (UTC)

Yes. ABOUTSELF allows linking to the main index page and About page, but WikiLeaks hosts lots of illegally obtained content, and I believe we are not allowed to link to such URLs. That list links to many such pages. -- Valjean (talk) (PING me) 23:29, 19 April 2023 (UTC)

Hmm, that's rather strange. The main injuction seems to be against linking to copyright work that has been stolen. Isn't there some rule about government works in the US being public domain? It would still need a secondary source and I can't see there would ever be a good reason to link to the primary leaked source in that article. NadVolum (talk) 23:36, 19 April 2023 (UTC)

Classified documents aren't in the public domain... -- Valjean (talk) (PING me) 00:05, 20 April 2023 (UTC)

Works by the US federal government are often public domain from a copyright perspective; see Copyright status of works by the federal government of the United States. Not sure if we have a policy on linking to hacked/leaked materials. The reason we don't link to the Steele dossier is because it's a major BLP violation. Therapyisgood (talk) 05:07, 20 April 2023 (UTC)

Classified US Federal government documents are, by law, in the public domain. You may find this instance of an FBI agent attempting to copyright classified torture documents interesting. You'll find another example at ANT catalog. :3 F4U (they/it) 12:06, 20 April 2023 (UTC)

That's ...really quite amusing. Thanks! NadVolum (talk) 12:25, 20 April 2023 (UTC)

Amusing or not, the Mother Jones article does not verify Classified US Federal government documents are, by law, in the public domain. SPECIFICO talk 12:58, 20 April 2023 (UTC)

I'd have thought along with Copyright status of works by the federal government of the United States article the Mother Jones quote was enough to go by

Julian Sanchez, a fellow with the libertarian Cato Institute who has studied copyright policy, was harsher: “Do they not cover this in orientation? [Sensitive] documents should not be placed in public repositories—and, by the way, aren’t copyrightable. How do you even get a clearance without knowing this stuff?”

. NadVolum (talk) 14:09, 20 April 2023 (UTC)

Let's be clear about this - is it the case that having such links is problematic from the legal point of view and makes it possible to sue Wiki(m/p)edia in the US where the servers are located? If that's the argument, we need someone qualified to confirm that.

On the other hand, the mere fact that the documents were obtained not in a legal way is not a good reason to remove the links. Consider the Pentagon papers article - do you propose to remove the links to the actual papers from it too? Alaexis_¿question? 05:54, 20 April 2023 (UTC)

This is a long discussion. See this inconclusive RfC from 2021. There's two questions, one is whether it's public domain, and usually we deal with copyright, whether than national security classification. The other is, whether it's reliable. In all cases, a federal government is a primary document, but the question is, can we assume it's a primary government document? Generally Wikileaks is known for authenticating its sources, but it should neutrally be noted, that it's a Wikileaks host of documents, not directly claim it's some NSA document that was declassified in a FOIA request. All that said, if newspapers report on it, or they're used in public court proceedings, I'd have no issue with linking to direct Wikileak document in question. It's an unresolved question. ~ 🦝 Shushugah (he/him • talk) 12:12, 20 April 2023 (UTC)

Yes, such documents should definitely be attributed, I don't think anyone would argue with that. Alaexis_¿question? 19:00, 20 April 2023 (UTC)

• AFAIK, reading documents post-leak is not illegal in the U.S., New York Times Co. v. United States, organizations such as both Wikileaks and Wikipedia are protected under First Amendment guidelines regarding freedom of speech and of the press. To wit "Any system of prior restraints of expression [bears] a heavy presumption against its constitutional validity", which is to say that the burden of establishing prior restraint lies with the government, and there is a presumption against its wide applicability in the absence of specific liability. Which is to say, there is no legal ramifications on Wikipedia (or likely Wikileaks) to worry about. The copyright issue is a red herring as well, as far as I am concerned, and smacks of throwing anything against the wall and seeing what sticks. --Jayron32 18:21, 20 April 2023 (UTC)

This particular article has a huge number of proportion of primary sources. If the material in the list is noteworthy, there'd be secondary sources showing it. It's not our job to be a portal to Wikileaks. BobFromBrockley (talk) 17:22, 21 April 2023 (UTC)

I count roughly 25 references to WikiLeaks, out of 288 references, which isn't "a huge proportion". Some of these references are to Twitter posts by WikiLeaks, some to their website. Many are used in the standard way we usually use primary sources, i.e. to support statements like WikiLeaks claimed, etc.

Besides that, I wholeheartedly concur with Jayron32 that the copyright or legality arguments are red-herrings. WikiLeaks's tweets fall under WP:ABOUTSELF. The documents, however, don't fall under ABOUTSELF, since they are not original work self-published by WikiLeaks, but the works of others republished by them. Those documents count as bog-standard primary sources, to be used conservatively for descriptive statements of facts, not avoided altogether. DFlhb (talk) 18:04, 21 April 2023 (UTC)

Pinging @Diannaa: as the resident expert to see whether such links represent a copyright issue. Cambial — foliar❧ 11:51, 23 April 2023 (UTC)

ArabiaGIS and UNDP

I am thinking of create a bot request to automate some coordinate addition to lebanese towns articles. See this TH discussion for more info. The source for the coordinates is listed as UNDP/Arabia GIS. I was wondering if this is a reliable source for the coords of all LB towns. I'd say the UNDP is reliable but not sure about Arabia GIS. Their website went offline in 2011. Here's the last archive before that.

Edit:Seems they actually recreated their website but it has since gone offline again. See this PalauanReich (talk) 17:30, 20 April 2023 (UTC)

Buzzfeed News shutting down - what now?

With Buzzfeed News shutting down, should we be thinking about removing it from the list or is it still too early to do so? At the very least, I'm thinking of making a bot request at WP:BOTREQ for the IABot so as to archive all Buzzfeed News citations.

Thoughts? — That Coptic Guy^{ping me!} (talk) (contribs) 18:30, 20 April 2023 (UTC)

I don't think it would be removed from the list (even well after it shuts down) but I do think its a smart idea to archive the citations. Horse Eye's Back (talk) 18:32, 20 April 2023 (UTC)

Older Buzzfeed articles are still valid sources, so there is no reason to strip it from the list. Masem (t) 18:35, 20 April 2023 (UTC)

Should keep in list and note when the shutdown occurs, and maybe mention that after shutdown BuzzFeed will focus on all news efforts in WP:HUFFPOST instead. WikiVirusC^(talk) 18:39, 20 April 2023 (UTC)

The News of the World was added to the list many years after its closure. There's no reason to remove defunct sites from the list, as they can still be cited by archive. Hemiauchenia (talk) 18:54, 20 April 2023 (UTC)

Doesn't affect the reliability of old stories. But let's see what they do now, hopefully they won't ditch the team but "keep the brand", and start pumping out bad stories under the Buzzfeed News property. Doubtful IMO, but something to watch out for.

Would be nice to have a bot that archives all BN links though — DFlhb (talk) 18:58, 20 April 2023 (UTC)

Filed a bot request. Hopefully an admin can look at it soon. — That Coptic Guy^{ping me!} (talk) (contribs) 19:07, 20 April 2023 (UTC)

Following up at WP:URLREQ. -- GreenC 19:26, 20 April 2023 (UTC)

• It doesn't really change anything. The entry in the list is still important because we continue to have a lot of citations to their archived reporting and because (due to the associations of the Buzzfeed name outside its news division) it's a source that is frequently challenged, something that will probably only get worse now that Buzzfeed News is historical (and therefore people will steadily become less familiar with it and the fact that it was independent from the rest of the company.) A source shutting down doesn't affect the reliability of their past reporting, and "don't cite any future reporting from a source that no longer exists" is not usually a problem we have to worry about. --Aquillion (talk) 16:48, 22 April 2023 (UTC)

References

New York Post sports coverage

• https://nypost.com/sports/

We rightly have the New York Post marked as "generally unreliable", especially for politics. I want to make a carve out for their sports coverage, which is pretty good.

Some of their columnists have wiki bios. For instance, Jon Heyman and Joel Sherman (sportswriter) are NY Post baseball columnists who are also on MLB Network. They're both members of the BBWAA and have votes for the National Baseball Hall of Fame. Mike Vaccaro is also a NY Post sports columnist. They have previous work experience at RSP publications.

There is only one error in their coverage that I can recall, and that was Heyman's "Arson Judge to the Giants" tweet this offseason. He deleted the erroneous tweet within minutes. This is of course why we have an essay on handling sports transactions properly. The error was only on Twitter, not nypost.com.

Is there anything else I'd need to demonstrate to show it as reliable for sports? Pinging David Gerard, who has removed some NY Post sports citations, and Yankees10, who I saw restoring some of them. – Muboshgu (talk) 00:51, 21 April 2023 (UTC)

Yeah this was my thinking with the reversion. NY Post may not be reliable in general but as Muboshgu stated they employ notable baseball columnists/reporters. I believe an exception should be made for these.-- Yankees10 01:07, 21 April 2023 (UTC)

There's a common claim that unreliable newspapers should get a pass for their sports coverage - mostly on an ILIKEIT basis. This was commonly brought forward for The Sun (also a News Corp publication) and the Daily Mail - and yet, when I checked those two and actually looked at the sports coverage that we were using in Wikipedia, I kept finding egregious careless errors, wrong years, and claims that were not verifiable in any other source at all. It turns out bad sources can't be trusted.

(Martin Samuels won awards for his coverage at the Mail and is now at News Corp, so good individuals exist - but the paper's tendency to error and claims that can't be verified anywhere else remain. And a Mail piece being bylined "Martin Samuels" wouldn't give it a pass.)

I don't think ILIKEIT is a reason to make a carveout for a paper like the New York Post that keeps being caught in fabrications and was nearly deprecated; it's already been shown that they tend to lying way too much for Wikipedia use.

Note also that this is a pitch for a carveout on WP:BLPs in particular - I've been hitting specifically NYP on BLPs (and PageSix anywhere, 'cos it's a lying gossip rag and shouldn't really be used anywhere on Wikipedia) - and GU sources are really just not appropriate at all on BLPs except in remarkable circumstances, "sports" or not - David Gerard (talk) 08:57, 21 April 2023 (UTC)

Carve-outs like this should ONLY be done on a necessity basis. What necessary information is only available in the New York Post that would not be available in other sports journalism sources? Can you provide some examples of information you think needs to be added to Wikipedia, but which can only be found in the Post, and not elsewhere? --Jayron32 12:33, 21 April 2023 (UTC)

and - note - is so important to NPOV that it can only be achieved by adding a GU source to a BLP - David Gerard (talk) 16:26, 21 April 2023 (UTC)

Sure, allow, generally it's WP:NEWSORG. Specifically for sports: after the New York Times pretentiously declared they'd authenticated the Hunter Biden laptop story, the New York Post editorial ended: "Readers of The Post have known this since October 2020. We also have a much better sports section. We’ve authenticated it." Peter Gulutzan (talk) 20:21, 21 April 2023 (UTC)

The NY Post is not generally WP:NEWSORG, it was specifically found GUNREL in an RFC - David Gerard (talk) 14:02, 22 April 2023 (UTC)

I'm inclined to support the carve-out for sports only, unless there's concrete evidence of issues in their sports area. I think sports is generally low stakes and I also think the Post's sports section is indeed better than somere of their other sections. While I respect and agree with David Gerard and Jayron32, on many things, I can see why sports editors might want more sources to support content and I can see the Post's sports content by default doing no harm absent evidence otherwise. If there is indeed evidence that the Post's sports content is as bad as their political or general news reporting as far as being accurate and factual, I would change my view. Andre🚐 20:34, 21 April 2023 (UTC)

Gender-related sports coverage should not be cited. SPECIFICO talk 16:53, 22 April 2023 (UTC)

• Support, and edits like this are so incredibly stupid that the person who makes them should be treated as though he were a normal disruptive editor. Erasing something as trivially easy to source as one of the world's most famous entertainers performing at one of the world's most famous events under the guise of removing an unreliable source (hey, I wonder if there is video of her singing the anthem, like would it be possible such a thing would have been recorded). The NYPost is an absolutely reliable source on sports on sports-related topics. And there has never been evidence that it is not. nableezy - 20:48, 22 April 2023 (UTC)
• The sports section of The New York Post is a well-established WP:NEWSORG that has had a long reputation for having some of the best sports reporting in New York. Even as far back as 1985, when the NY Post was unambiguously still a tabloid, New York magazine note that [f]or years, The New York Post has excelled at this demanding pasttime, and has had no serious challengers to its reputation for the best sports section in town (it faced competition for this role from the New York Daily News for a bit in the 80s and 90s, but it still holds that crown; see this book from Fordham University Press for more info). There's also some evidence of explicitly higher ethical standards being applied specifically to the sports section of the paper than other sections (for example, a time where ran on the gossip pages when the sports section killed a story due to journalistic ethics), so I don't think describing a carveout for the sports section as merely being ILIKEIT has any firm basis in reality. The headlines can be quite sensational, but WP:HEADLINE covers that well enough. I also would urge caution with respect to how this is construed: the Sports editorial vertical is the operation that's got a good reputation; stories published in other sections of the newspaper that are merely tangential to sporting should not be confused with content coming from that vertical. — Red-tailed hawk _(nest) 18:11, 23 April 2023 (UTC)

Eater (website)

As a food website, would this be considered a reliable source for establishing the notability of a restaurant? As an example it is used around 30 times in this article Genoa (restaurant). LibStar (talk) 16:50, 21 April 2023 (UTC)

I mean, reliable for what? Facts about the restaurant or reviews of the restaurant? Of course, it is a reliable source for its own opinions. It also isn't a fly-by-nite publication, as a Vox Media property, it's got serious backing, and the article about the website indicates that other reliable sources consider it "required reading" and it's won four James Beard Awards. Given all of that I would say that the facts reported by the website should be considered reliable, and the opinions of the website (which is NOT a reliability issue, sensu stricto, and as such, are not really the purview of this board) are WP:DUE. --Jayron32 19:09, 21 April 2023 (UTC)

I agree that Eater is a reliable source for basic facts about a restaurant, and for its own opinions about restaurants. It should also be regarded as a reliable source on notability. I'm a little concerned that its use in the linked article is overdone per WP:DUE. What was on the menu on a particular date is probably a little non-encyclopedic. But that's for the article talkpage. Banks Irk (talk) 20:56, 21 April 2023 (UTC)

I'd say it's reliable enough, per Jayron32 and Banks Irk. Andre🚐 20:59, 21 April 2023 (UTC)

Any reason CBS News is not listed in the RS/P?

I was surprised to see that CBS News is not listed in WP:RS/P. Any reason for this, or just never happened? Searching through the archives here, I didn't see any focused discussions on it. There are a number of passing mentions whose implication is that CBS News is generally reliable. There are also some mentions that group it together with its closest analogues, ABC News and NBC News, both of which are listed in RS/P as generally reliable. There are also a couple of mentions that point to well-known CBS News screw-ups, such as Dan Rather and the Killian memos. All news organizations have a few such disasters, and in the end CBS News owned up to that one. So in my view, CBS News should be listed in WP:RS/P as generally reliable. Wasted Time R (talk) 21:40, 21 April 2023 (UTC)

I'd have said "obvious GENREL", but it looks like they merged their TV and online news divisions in 2021 (with the usual "opportunity that positions CBS for the future" corporate crap to downplay cost-cutting). That concerns me because most TV news is heavily biased towards superficial coverage (notably on science topics), and against the kinds of deeper analysis that makes a source truly secondary. Will need to keep an eye out. DFlhb (talk) 22:57, 21 April 2023 (UTC)

CBS News is generally reliable IMHO. Andre🚐 22:58, 21 April 2023 (UTC)

• WP:RSP isn’t a list of every media source… only the ones we frequently have discussed. The reason CBS is not listed is because we have not discussed it all that often. It hasn’t been a perennial issue (That’s the “P” part of RSP).

You don’t need a source to be listed at RSP to determine whether it is reliable or not. Blueboar (talk) 23:09, 21 April 2023 (UTC)

The irony of WP:RS/P is that to get on the list a source has to be discussed here a lot. So to get listed as generally reliable a lot of people have to have questioned and/or challenged their reliability. -- Random person no 362478479 (talk) 12:32, 22 April 2023 (UTC)

I agree that CBS News is generally reliable. —pythoncoder (talk | contribs) 23:58, 23 April 2023 (UTC)

Not every source gets listed. If you think it is reliable, you can just use it and don't need permission. RSP is mainly for sources which have been controversial enough to attract significant debate as to its reliability. Lots of scrupulously reliable sources have never been so discussed, and don't need to be listed here. --Jayron32 12:31, 24 April 2023 (UTC)

Should AccuWeather be deprecated?

Block evasion. ScottishFinnishRadish (talk) 23:44, 22 April 2023 (UTC)

Should AccuWeather be deprecated for being inconsistent, as claimed in this edit? 69.119.89.11 (talk) 23:01, 22 April 2023 (UTC) @Blaze Wolf: Does deprecation require an RFC? 69.119.89.11 (talk) 23:09, 22 April 2023 (UTC) Note – This is a likely IP sock of User:Andrew5. It has proven frustrating at the numerous instances of this user being reported to Wikipedia:Sockpuppet investigations/Andrew5 because the problem isn't being adequately addressed. The user being allowed to edit freely despite being a sockpuppet mocks the system. The user may try to act like a different person, but gives it away very easily by editing the same exact content and be the location of the IP address. United States Man (talk) 23:17, 22 April 2023 (UTC) Huh? I don’t like false accusations without evidence. 69.119.89.11 (talk) 23:19, 22 April 2023 (UTC)

Tornado outbreak of December 10–11, 2021 has an RFC

Tornado outbreak of December 10–11, 2021 has an RFC for possible consensus. A discussion is taking place. If you would like to participate in the discussion, you are invited to add your comments on the discussion page. Thank you. Elijahandskip (talk) 02:15, 23 April 2023 (UTC)

Do these sources support the claim: "During WWII, USSR was neutral until June 1941"?

Some editors argue that the sources listed below do not support this claim. The sources (and quotes) are as follows:

• "After Hitler's attack on the Soviet Union, Stalin abandoned his attitude of pro-Axis neutrality and joined the Allies" (Jan T. Gross. A Note on the Nature of Soviet Totalitarianism. Soviet Studies, Jul., 1982, Vol. 34, No. 3 (Jul., 1982), pp. 367-376. [57])
• "It is interesting to note that Graff Werner von Schulenburg, the German Ambassador in Moscow, regretfully informed his government in early 1940 that the Soviet Union was genuinely determined "to cling to neutrality [...] and avoid as much as possible anything that might involve it in a conflict with the Western Powers""

"The fall of France bolstered rather than altered the British concept. True, the loss of their allies on the Continent momentarily inspired the British to close ranks with the Russians. But the measures taken were too little and too late." (Gabriel Gorodetsky. The Impact of the Ribbentrop-Molotov Pact on the Course of Soviet Foreign Policy. Cahiers du Monde russe et soviétique , Jan. - Mar., 1990, Vol. 31, No. 1 (Jan. - Mar., 1990), pp. 27-41. [58])

• "The Soviet Union formally declared its neutrality on 17 September 1939, the same day that Soviet armed forces entered eastern Poland." (Geoffrey Roberts. Stalin, the Pact with Nazi Germany, and the Origins of Postwar Soviet Diplomatic Historiography. Journal of Cold War Studies, Fall 2002, Vol. 4, No. 4 (Fall 2002), pp. 93-103. [59])
• " The underlying message seemed to be that Moscow had acted to protect its own interests, was distancing itself from Berlin, and was concerned not to become involved in any wider conflict. One scholar [Gorodetsky] has written that the Soviets, in the ensuing days and weeks, 'resorted to strenuous efforts to placate Berlin and consolidate their own neutrality' '""

"British policy towards Soviet Russia did lurch and waver over ensuing months, notably during the Winter War. It is true, for example, that the British Government was much closer to declaring war on the Soviet Union during the Finnish campaign some four months later than it was over the Soviet invasion of Poland." (Keith Sword. British Reactions to the Soviet Occupation of Eastern Poland in September 1939. The Slavonic and East European Review , Jan., 1991, Vol. 69, No. 1 (Jan., 1991), pp. 81-101. [60])

• "Even before Soviet entry into the war the British had hinted at or proposed some kind of general settlement. For example, in October 1940 London had proposed an agreement that in return for the USSR’s benevolent neutrality there would be consultations on the postwar settlement, de facto recognition of Russian territorial acquisitions in Eastern Europe and British economic assistance to Soviet defence preparations" (Geoffrey Roberts. Ideology, calculation, and improvisation: spheres of influence and Soviet foreign policy 1939–1945. Review of International Studies (1999), 25, 655–673. [61]
• "In Britain at least, it is customary to say that the Second World War began in September I939. Yet what actually began then was a limited European war, confined to Britain, France, Germany and, briefly, Poland. Since the mid-I930s. British military planners had worked with the nightmare worst-case assumption of a three-enemy war-against Germany, Italy and Japan-but the latter two powers remained neutral, albeit malevolent, in September I939. On the sidelines too were the Soviet Union, which signed a non-aggression pact with Germany in August, and the United States, whose stance was one of neutrality tilted benevolently towards the Allies.. " (David Reynolds. 1940: Fulcrum of the Twentieth Century? International Affairs (Royal Institute of International Affairs 1944-) , Apr., 1990, Vol. 66, No. 2 (Apr., 1990), pp. 325-350. [62])

Thank you in advance. --Paul Siebert (talk) 21:18, 23 April 2023 (UTC)

@Paul Siebert, it is customary to mention and tag the users, which are concerned.

Our discussion wasn't about neutrality of USSR until June 1941, but about the date when USSR entered WW2. As far as I'm concerned, I don't think these sources confirm that the Soviet Union entered WW2 in 1941, as you claimed. This is what our discussion is about (Talk:Allies_of_World_War_II#Proposal_for_compromise,_straw_poll). Basically, none of them address the issue of SU entrance to WW2. Marcelus (talk) 22:16, 23 April 2023 (UTC)

Actually, no. I would like to know opinia of uninvolved users, and I am NOT going to continue the Allies of WWII dispute on this noticeboard.

Here, I am asking a very simple question:

Some users believe the above sources do not say that the USSR was neutral until 22th of June, 1941. And I am asking whether these sources support the claim about Soviet neutrality or not? Paul Siebert (talk) 12:36, 24 April 2023 (UTC)

You said "some users believe", specify which users and where. Also this board is to check if sources are reliable, not if they support certain statements, so it's misuse of the noticeboard. Also "opinion", not "opinia". Marcelus (talk) 12:41, 24 April 2023 (UTC)

Well, it is to check if sources are reliable in context. The problem is that the statement isn't really well considered; for example the term "neutral" can have far too many definitions in historical context. We would need to define what we mean by "neutral" (neutral as in "not involved in any treaties or pacts with others? Neutral as in declared neutrality? Neutral as in not actively fighting? Etc.) If you define what you mean by "neutral", you can just avoid the term altogether. You can say things like "Do these sources support the statement that the USSR signed the Molotov–Ribbentrop Pact on 23 August 1939" or "Do these sources support the statement that the Soviet Union invaded Poland on 17 September 1939" or "Do these sources support the statement that the Soviet Union signed the Anglo-Soviet Agreement on 12 July 1941". --Jayron32 14:26, 24 April 2023 (UTC)

I think you need to adress it to @Paul Siebert rather than me Marcelus (talk) 14:28, 24 April 2023 (UTC)

I was addressing your incorrect statement "not if they support certain statements, so it's misuse of the noticeboard" We actually usually ask for context when discussing sources, reliability in context (as in, alongside of the Wikipedia text that the source is being asked to verify" is very much what we do at this board, and not in any way a misuse of it. It is, in fact, using it exact as it is intended. If you read the instructions at the top of the page, it specifically asks for "The exact statement(s) in the article that the source supports." So, no, I was not addressing it at Paul Siebert. I am addressing it directly, and unambiguously at you, Marcelus, for the blatantly false claim you made at 12:41, 24 April 2023 (UTC), when you said "not if they support certain statements, so it's misuse of the noticeboard." which is a direct contradiction of the clear instructions at the top of the page. --Jayron32 15:50, 24 April 2023 (UTC)

• Like below, the statement is far too blunt to be useful in understanding the nuance of the relationships between the parties involved. Don't make such blunt statements and instead merely describe the events and relationships directly. --Jayron32 12:29, 24 April 2023 (UTC)

  I am not discussing nuances here. I just want to know if these sources say the USSR was neutral. Paul Siebert (talk) 12:37, 24 April 2023 (UTC)

  Matter for concerned editors to determine, assuming those sources are reliable. In which article does the disputed phrase appear? Selfstudier (talk) 12:52, 24 April 2023 (UTC)

  (ec)This is a 'discussing nuances' noticeboard. Context matters when it comes to assessing whether a source can be cited for a statement. AndyTheGrump (talk) 12:54, 24 April 2023 (UTC)

  The statement "During WWII, USSR was neutral until June 1941" is not a statement that should appear in any article, because it glosses over the events of the time, and is far to broad a brush to paint those events with. The sources themselves are reliable enough for describing the events they describe. The statement is not even wrong, in the sense that it oversimplifies the relationships between the USSR and the other countries participating in World War II. I'd avoid making it altogether, and instead merely describe the events in question. --Jayron32 13:09, 24 April 2023 (UTC)

  @Selfstudier, @AndyTheGrump, @Jayron32: In the Allies of World War II article t/p, there is a discussion about how the date when the Soviet Union joined the Allies should be indicated in the infobox. The main discussion was between 22 June 1941 (the date of the German attack) and 12 July 1941 (the first British-Soviet agreement). @Paul Siebert argued in favour of the first date. A compromise proposal was made to write "Soviet Union: at war with Germany from Jun 1941", Paul Siebert in favour of the version "Soviet Union: at war from Jun 1941", claiming that the SU was neutral before this date. Some users, including myself, believe that this wording ignores Soviet aggressions in 1939-41. Marcelus (talk) 13:18, 24 April 2023 (UTC)

  That's not a reliable source issue. That's merely an issue of how to describe the events in an infobox (as others have noted, infoboxen are terrible devices for conveying nuance). This forum will not be able to provide any help in resolving the issue. You're just going to need to talk it out on the article talk page and arrive at a consensus. You cannot short-circuit the consensus-building discussion by throwing sources at the issue. --Jayron32 13:21, 24 April 2023 (UTC)

  I agree, that's what I said in my other comment here Marcelus (talk) 13:36, 24 April 2023 (UTC)

Is this a reliable source for the statement: "The Soviet Union entered WWII in September 1939"

"The Soviet Role in World War II: Realities and Myths, " Mark Kramer, Director, Cold War Studies Project, Davis Centre, Harvard Univeristy. Particularly the following quote: "Another myth is that the Soviet Union’s role in the Second World War began on 22 June 1941, when the Wehrmacht attacked the USSR. In reality, the Soviet Union was a leading participant from the very start, colluding for nearly two years with Nazi Germany."[63]

Context is this discussion about a compromise proposal in relation to a RfC for the article Allies of WWII.Talk:Allies_of_World_War_II#Proposal_for_compromise,_straw_poll)

Thank you Aemilius Adolphin (talk) 01:17, 24 April 2023 (UTC)

The statement is far too blunt to be used at all. Instead, we should provide more details as to the USSR's overall involvement in the war, from the Molotov–Ribbentrop Pact through to the German invasion you note in 1941. Avoid speaking in such absolutes, and instead just describe their involvement as to what it was. --Jayron32 12:28, 24 April 2023 (UTC)

The problem is this (all of these threads About Russia's entry into Ww2) are about the info box, where we can't have nuance. Slatersteven (talk) 12:57, 24 April 2023 (UTC)

Which is one good reason for not using infoboxes in such contexts. AndyTheGrump (talk)

But also a different argument, and one nor for this forum. Slatersteven (talk) 13:04, 24 April 2023 (UTC)

We can have nuance in the infoboxes Marcelus (talk) 13:20, 24 April 2023 (UTC)

An infobox should be a summery of a summery. Slatersteven (talk) 13:21, 24 April 2023 (UTC)

And nothing should appear in an infobox that isn't an accurate summary of what relevant sources have to say on a subject. If nuance is necessary to cover this, and the infobox can't summarise this, it shouldn't go in at all. AndyTheGrump (talk) 13:54, 24 April 2023 (UTC)

Difficult to get nuance in an infobox and probably shouldn't try. Selfstudier (talk) 14:31, 24 April 2023 (UTC)

Ian Stevenson

At Argument from authority we currently use a paper by Ian Stevenson to support the claim that "authority has no place in science". However, the paper we are using to source this - which does make that claim - is the 1989 Flora Levy Lecture in the Humanities [64], in which Stevenson is primarily describing his belief in reincarnation, making it a decidly fringe paper, in which he makes the claim to say that we shouldn't trust what other people tell us about reincarnation. So, can we use a paper arguing for a fringe claim as support for a statement about the scientific process? - Bilby (talk) 03:27, 24 April 2023 (UTC)

I would not use it. For the reason you have stated, plus it sounds like his opinion or philosophical statement devoid of context. -Location (talk) 03:48, 24 April 2023 (UTC)

Fascist-era censuses

Hello. Data from the 1942 and 1943 censuses in Fascist-occupied Albania has been added to many settlement articles recently by @Alltan:. Links:

• 1
• 2
• 3

The sites are apparently owned by a "Tim Bespyatov" and I'm not sure where the source documents are to confirm the charts this individual has created. There are also many notes in the margins such as "disputed value" - it may be impossible to know what the dispute is exactly; Alltan also doesn't know what is disputed.

There's also a note at the bottom of each page: "the data contain errors in almost every geographical name, but these names are presented in forms in which they appear in the original document and are sufficient to identify corresponding settlements."

At quick glances, many of the stats don't seem too farfetched. However, at least one major problem I've noticed is that there is no category for Turks (among other groups), which are and were a significant population in rural western Macedonia. A good example is Kodžadžik where, as a result of Turkification during the Ottoman-era, there has been a solidly Turkish population for a long time - this is confirmed in late 19th/early 20th studies by Kanchov and in Ethnographie des Vilayets d'Andrinople, de Monastir et de Salonique. Yugoslav and Macedonian census (1953-present) also show an exclusively Turkish population (Selishchev shows a mixed Bulgarian-Turkish population). Yet, now we have a Fascist-era census from 1942 showing a pure Albanian population, where "Turk" apparently wasn't even an option.

Per Pandelejmoni (2001), these WWII censuses' "results were only approximate and a complete and a modern population census could not be carried out."

How do we best proceed with this? Thanks. --Local hero ^talk 03:48, 24 April 2023 (UTC)

This source appears to be self-published and therefore not reliable. The exception might be if Tim Bespyatov is a subject expert who has been published on subjects relating to WWII in the Balkans or the demographics of Macedonia or similar. Even if this were the case, raw census data from this period would have to be attributed, and I would be very uncomfortable using it unless quoted in a secondary source by a subject expert able to analyse its reliability. Boynamedsue (talk) 05:48, 24 April 2023 (UTC)

BTW, when setting up section here, you should include the name of the page which the source is being used for, and also some details of the claim it is being used to source. Boynamedsue (talk) 05:51, 24 April 2023 (UTC)

Apologies, first time posting here. The source has been added to dozens of articles within the past week. For example: Kodžadžik, Jelovjane, Tetovo, Struga, Padalište, Čajle, etc. --Local hero ^talk 13:51, 24 April 2023 (UTC)

This appears to be someone's personal server on which they publish things they're interested in, see for example saktransporti on the same server where Tim Bespyatov has galleries of trams, buses, and metro lines. I can't find anything definitive on Tim Bespyatov to show they would pass the requirements of WP:SPS. So the links should be considered unreliable. If the site is reposting census data a better source should be found. As to raw census data from fascist sources in general they should be used with extreme skepticism, given the racial ideologies they believed in. -- LCU ActivelyDisinterested ∆transmissions∆ °co-ords° 13:26, 24 April 2023 (UTC)

Local hero's objection seems to be related to the inclusion of the census itself. Tim Bespyatov's pop-stat-mashke was used as an easy way for readers who want to examine the census. The same website is widely used in articles about the Balkans as an easy way to cite censuses because it functions as a repository of census data. Offline sources can be used and I can search for other online sources which may be paywalled.

The inclusion of a census regardless of the era it was produced, may be useful to readers. The manipulation of censuses for political goals didn't begin or end in World War II. Kanchov is considered to have been writing under a Bulgarian nationalist bias, while Afanasy Selishchev explicitly changed his theories depending on what Soviet foreign policy dictated. They're not removed from the article despite their flaws. The bias which is embedded in every publication is itself useful in understanding the politics behind identity categorizing. Inclusion becomes a problem only when the source of a publication is being hidden from readers. This is not such a case because readers are being informed that it is a census which was conducted during WWII when the area became part of the Italian protectorate over Albania. Alltan (talk) 13:48, 24 April 2023 (UTC)

This is not the place for debating the inclusion of census data, but my position is that I can see no justification for including raw data from fascist era censuses in the pages of present day towns/villages. If this data is mentioned in a reliable secondary source discussing the town's demographic history, it should be fine to include as long as it reflects the overall perspective of the source in question. Otherwise, we would have to put the primary source in context by outlining the defects in the census data in every single article. Leading to the question, if the data is misleading, why use it? Boynamedsue (talk) 14:37, 24 April 2023 (UTC)

As it stands, we don't even need to discuss the above, as at the moment we do not have a reliable source for the census data. Boynamedsue (talk) 14:41, 24 April 2023 (UTC)

This appears to be a disagreement of how census data should be used. The best solution would be not to use it unless it's included in secondary sources that have already analysed it. -- LCU ActivelyDisinterested ∆transmissions∆ °co-ords° 14:42, 24 April 2023 (UTC)

Are these reliable sources for Moorthy Muthuswamy

Which seems to have been written by a fan. [65] - saveindia.com. Definitely doesn't seem to meet our criteria. Citation 4 leads to [66] and what I can see there (not all 4 are working) don't seem to meet RS either. Puzzling are these, cites 10 and 11 which lead to this journal which looks ok on the surface but when you click on the menu the pages aren't there. So I can't tell if it's this or not. That one lists a respectable editorial board but again the top links don't work, at least for me. The external link called review leads to [67] (one of the ones at citation 4) which looks like some sort of Islamophobic personal site. Doug Weller talk 10:36, 24 April 2023 (UTC)

The article was created (in 2017) by MoorthyM, which sounds like a version of the subject's name. They last edited it four months ago, and have made no other edits to the encyclopedia. I've given them a uw-autobiography warning. Bishonen | tålk 11:26, 24 April 2023 (UTC).

Update: I misspoke; the article creator was User:Koala34, another redlinked account that hasn't edited since 2017. Anyway, I have prodded the article. Bishonen | tålk 16:03, 24 April 2023 (UTC).

Heritage Times (India)

Is this site: https://www.heritagetimes.in/about-us/ reliable specifically some of the biographical content at https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tQjXELpSrlU for use in the article Imdad Sabri. The content would be neutrally selected and worded ie. real name, education, etc... -- GreenC 15:45, 24 April 2023 (UTC)

I would say: reliable enough for those basic facts, yes. I would say overall this is kind of an option 2 situation, since the outlet's stated mission is to "dispel the false and semi-true stories being fed to the people in the name of History". On the one hand, it has editorial staff and procedures for corrections (contact us). On the other hand, it has a stated POV bias and thus should probably not be used for matters of analysis, opinion, commentary, etc. Anything slightly controversial (even controversial facts) probably needs to be covered by other additional RSes.

Overall, given the editorial policy and correction mechanism, it is reliable enough for matters of fact that you describe. I think it would be better if at all possible to not link to youtube, but it is an okay last resort given that it is connected to the outlet. — Shibbolethink ^{(♔ ♕)} 15:51, 24 April 2023 (UTC)