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New York Times' - Epstein reporting

Please consider whether the NYT article should have its Epstein coverage demoted to "reliable but not independent" based on some or all of the following points is sufficient sourcing for the claim highlighted in point #5. (Striking original request per Newslinger’s comment). petrarchan47คุก 00:15, 5 October 2019 (UTC)

Bold 185.156.72.9 (talk) 06:44, 23 January 2023 (UTC)
Bold 185.156.72.9 (talk) 06:47, 23 January 2023 (UTC)
Bold 185.156.72.9 (talk) 07:55, 23 January 2023 (UTC)

___

1) NPR calls out NYT for dropping the ball on Epstein coverage

NPR describes how 3 media outlets whitewashed Epstein coverage for various reasons. One of them was the New York Times: How the media fell short on Epstein

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2) Current NYT CEO Mark Thompson & the BBC pedophile scandal and alleged coverup

  • Telegraph Nick Pollard, former head of Sky News and lead investigator into the Savile inquiry claimed that former BBC boss Mark Thompson lied over Savile evidence"
  • Vanity Fair examines Thompson's role and seemingly conflicting statements Vanity Fair
  • "Thompson is now attempting to reconcile two apparently contradictory statements over what he knew about a TV report into Savile by the BBC's Newsnight programme." Guardian
  • Thompson confronted about his contradicting statements about what he knew, stumbles through interview Channel 14
  • Front Page Mag concludes in Mark Thompson: From Pedophile Cover-Up to the New York Times: "As long as Mark Thompson holds the Old Gray Lady’s reins all the news that’s fit to print may not include exposing elite pedophile rings. It didn’t at BBC under Thompson’s leadership and there is no reason to believe this has changed."
  • Background on the scandal:
Extended content
  • "[BBC] staff turned a blind eye to the rape and sexual assault of up to 1,000 girls and boys by Jimmy Savile in the corporation's changing rooms and studios." Guardian
  • "at least 72 people were sexually abused by the DJ and presenter while he was working on BBC shows, including eight victims of rape. The youngest was just 10 years old. The largest number of assaults – 19 – happened during recordings of Top of the Pops." Independent
  • "BBC foreign correspondent Caroline Hawley said that “she thought she had told Thompson the broad context of the axed Newsnight investigation into Savile” at a pre-Christmas drinks party at BBC Television Center in late 2011." BBC
  • "Savile was accused by 107 staff at the BBC over the course of his decades of abuse" BBC

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3) Joi Ito - NYT BOD (2012-2019)

MIT Media Lab director Joi Ito and colleagues concealed Epstein donations and affiliation with the program. Ito knew Epstein donations were disallowed and created a coverup at MIT of the source and amount of donations. He also sought Epstein donations of $1.7 million for personal projects. Ito stepped down (but was not fired) from the NYT board of directors, as well as several other boards and the MIT Media Lab, on the heels of the New Yorker piece.

Apparently the NYT had the scoop but sat on it. WaPost: "Before Ito’s resignations, prominent women in the media world such as Xeni Jardin had spoken out on social media against his ties to Epstein"

Xeni: "I told the [New York Times] everything. So did whistleblowers I was in touch with inside MIT and Edge. They printed none of the most damning truths..."

___

4) Soft, almost romantic description of Epstein's abuse:

Compare with other media:
  • WSJ "repeated rapes and assaults"
  • CNN "pressured into giving him massages that transitioned into sexual abuse"
  • CBS "sexual battery and sexual assault"
  • VICE "The massages ...turned into several instances of sexual assault"
___

5) Possibly inaccurate coverage of Epstein-related court documents

Two thousand pages of previously sealed court documents were released the night before Epstein was declared dead. The New York Times makes a claim that no one else (except Alan Dershowitz and Ghislaine Maxwell) has, a claim now mirrored in our Jeffrey Epstein article:

NYT "The documents unsealed Friday also include an acknowledgment from one of Mr. Epstein’s accusers, Virginia Giuffre, that an earlier claim she made about Mr. Clinton visiting Mr. Epstein in the Caribbean was untrue."

Wikipedia: "The unsealed court documents also showed that Giuffre later acknowledged her previous claim about Clinton visiting the island was false."

The claim was made midway through a fluff piece about Trump-fueled conspiracy theories involving Bill Clinton. Besides this brief mention, the NYT has not reported on the documents. WP editors have taken its statement to mean that Guiffre admitted Clinton was not on the island, contrary to her earlier testimony. They have decided that because it was printed in the Times, it must be true, and lack of corroborating reports, and the presence of contradictory reports, are seen as irrelevant because the NYT is considered to be reliable.

In transcripts of Giuffre’s deposition released by the court Friday, Bill Clinton‘s relationship with Epstein is expounded upon. Giuffre alleges that Clinton was around when she was with Epstein on his island. Giuffre claims that she “flew to the Caribbean” with Epstein when she was 17, and that while she was there, Maxwell bragged that she picked Clinton up in a "black helicopter that Jeffrey [Epstein] bought her". Giuffre further says that she had spent time with Clinton and that while his secret service agents were there, they weren’t "where [everyone] was eating." ... While the details of the alleged helicopter trip were, thus, unclear, Giuffre’s other statements in the deposition, if true, confirm Bill Clinton was on Jeffrey Epstein’s island while underage girls were present. This runs contradictory to Clinton’s claims that he has never been to Jeffrey Epstein’s private island.

The documents say Guiffre was directed to have sex with former New Mexico governor Bill Richardson, among other powerful men. NYT mentions this nowhere in its reporting. Those who do cover the Richardson allegations include but are not limited to:

vice, Reuters, wapo, vanity fair, daily beast, cnbc, nbc, Rolling Stone, cbs, NY Mag, Bloomberg, Wapo.

Most media did not mention Clinton at all; I've included the text from those that did because it shows how vastly different the NYT report is from all other accounts. No other media mentions any lie or misstatement whatsoever from Guiffre in their coverage:

Extended content
  • FORBES A court unsealed documents from a lawsuit filed by an accuser of Jeffrey Epstein that claim a number of powerful men were involved in Epstein’s alleged ring of abuse—and that President Trump and former president Clinton took previously unreported trips with the former financier... Bill Clinton: The former president visited Epstein’s private island while Giuffre was there, she claims in one of her depositions. Giuffre stated that Epstein held a dinner for Clinton on the island. (In a statement previously made to Forbes, Clinton denied ever visiting Epstein’s private island.)
  • TIME In court documents that were part of the defamation lawsuit unsealed Aug. 9, Giuffre said that Trump never had sex with any of the women, but that Epstein told her they were friends. Giuffre also noted that she remembered Maxwell telling her that she and Clinton flew in a “huge black helicopter.”
  • Politico The logs and depositions of Epstein’s pilots also detail former President Bill Clinton’s use of Epstein’s planes to travel around the world for the Clinton Foundation and to make paid speeches. “President Clinton knows nothing about the terrible crimes Jeffrey Epstein pleaded guilty to in Florida some years ago, or those with which he has been recently charged in New York,” Clinton spokesman Angel Urena said last month “He’s not spoken to Epstein in well over a decade, and has never been to Little St. James Island, Epstein’s ranch in New Mexico, or his residence in Florida."
  • Chicago Tribune Giuffre, as part of her sworn testimony, also states that she met former President Bill Clinton, former Vice President Al Gore and future President Donald Trump, and that Epstein once held a dinner for Clinton on his island, Little St. James, off the coast of St. Thomas.

Thanks for your help. petrarchan47คุก 22:25, 3 October 2019 (UTC)

I've read this several times and frankly I'm a little flummoxed. The NYT is pretty ironclad as far as RS go, it's one of the most respected and trusted papers in the world. Are you really trying to argue that it's somehow not "independent" in covering Epstein (ie, that it's somehow pro-Epstein?) That's a pretty bold claim to make and not one that is particularly well at all supported by what you've linked here. And I'm pretty uncomfortable with what you seem to be implying about Thompson... Fyddlestix (talk) 03:45, 4 October 2019 (UTC)
I'm absolutely not making implications here, I'm providing data points with varying degrees of relevance. Thompson's move to the NYT was very controversial, even by fellow NYT employees: N.Y. Times Columnist Questions New Boss' Handling of Pedophilia Scandal. petrarchan47คุก 15:19, 5 October 2019 (UTC)
Also, what edits/articles is this even about? There's no point debating the NYT's reliability/independence on this story in a vacuum, what specific content is at issue here? Fyddlestix (talk) 03:48, 4 October 2019 (UTC)
I believe this is about whether the New York Times is a reliable source for a statement about Virginia Guiffre retracting a statement about Bill Clinton visiting Epstein's island. The statement in the article is "The unsealed court documents also showed that Giuffre later acknowledged her previous claim about Clinton visiting the island was false." which is cited to a New York Times article which includes the statement "The documents unsealed Friday also include an acknowledgment from one of Mr. Epstein’s accusers, Virginia Giuffre, that an earlier claim she made about Mr. Clinton visiting Mr. Epstein in the Caribbean was untrue.". At the risk of seeming like I am not assuming good faith, I think it is important to point out that previous attempts by Petrarchan to remove this statement from the article include attempting to contradict the Times' reporting with both semantics and original research ("'an earlier claim she made about' could mean anything. Maybe she claimed he had a striped shirt on at the island, but later remembered it was a Hawaiian shirt. You should be able to find this admission of a lie in the documents by using the word search option. If indeed you find it, I will make a donation to the NYT for their fantastic reporting. Because apparently they're the only ones to uncover this, which strikes me as odd."). I see this as little more than a further attempt to discredit what is undoubtedly a reliable source, and am wholly unswayed by the "evidence" being presented. AmbivalentUnequivocality (talk) 04:23, 4 October 2019 (UTC)
  • Looks like a raving conspiracy theory to me - and Wikipedia editors need to be very careful about saying people are "linked to" a pedophile scandal and spinning implications about that. Might need a BLP-savvy admin to look at this posting. Alexbrn (talk) 04:31, 4 October 2019 (UTC)
I was hoping for a BLP-savvy admin (or editors) as well. I was thinking Slim Virgin might be of some help. I've changed "linked to" to "&" because I didn't mean to go beyond what sources say, and "linked" is probably too strong, as you say. petrarchan47คุก 23:31, 4 October 2019 (UTC)
If, but and maybe, speculation should never really be RS, when its this speculative.Slatersteven (talk) 08:49, 4 October 2019 (UTC)
  • "Falling short" isn't the same as "not reliable." The NYT isn't infallible (no source is), but if you want to cast its reporting into doubt or keep it out of the article, you need a source contradicting it directly on that particular point, not a source bemoaning its coverage of the topic in general. Even with such a source, I'm skeptical that you could exclude a major, relevant statement in an article by the NYT - at best you can say "the NYT said X, while [other source] disagreed" or some similar construction making the disagreement between sources clear. That is to say, the Times is such a widely-read and high-quality source that when they get something wrong, that itself usually becomes part of the story that we need to cover. But even then you'd need the disagreement to be direct and obvious to avoid WP:SYNTH - you can't just say "the NYT said [specific thing X], but their general coverage of the topic was questioned by Y." Also, as an aside, I'm fairly sure Front Page Mag doesn't pass WP:RS, so you're not helping yourself by citing it disagreeing with the NYT (of all sources.) --Aquillion (talk) 16:24, 4 October 2019 (UTC)
You might want to read this. I'd say Columbia Journalism Review is a pretty decent source about reliability, wouldn't you? Atsme Talk 📧 16:39, 4 October 2019 (UTC)
Oh, I'm very aware of that (no source is perfectly 'neutral', either.) But that says that the NYT's bias (from the perspective of the left) is largely one of focus and emphasis - none of the stories there are described as wrong or even individually misleading; and even when the overall focus gives the wrong impression it's not intentionally misleading its leaders the way some other sources might - that piece is pretty clear that the problem, from the author's perspective, is that the Times genuinely sees the world through the lens they use to report things. It's just that the NYT's particular perspective (which has, as it says, always been a thing - and is always a thing for any source) is becoming more obvious and attracting more commentary because there's fewer readers who share it. That doesn't make the NYT unreliable for a simple statement of fact like this, and (for the better or worse) it doesn't yet change the fact that the NYT is the paper of record. --Aquillion (talk) 21:01, 5 October 2019 (UTC)
But what is the NYT actually saying? If you look at Newslinger's comment, you'll see our interpretation doesn't have support in the source material. Also, WP:CONTEXTMATTERS Information provided in passing by an otherwise reliable source that is not related to the principal topics of the publication may not be reliable; editors should cite sources focused on the topic at hand where possible. If I'm reading this right, an article about the documents and their contents would be preferable to this one from the NYT that is focused on conspiracy theories and mentions the documents only in passing. petrarchan47คุก 23:50, 4 October 2019 (UTC)
  • An examination of the five points listed above:
    1. The NPR story states that The New York Times editors "benched [correspondent Landon Thomas Jr.] instantly from any professional contact with Epstein" when they discovered his conflict of interest, and then "By early January 2019, Thomas was gone from the Times". The NPR piece condemns only the correspondent (Landon Thomas Jr.), but not the NYT as a whole. I would exercise caution when using Thomas's coverage of Epstein (e.g. his 2008 profile of Epstein) in any source, not just the NYT. The NYT's rapid removal of Thomas is a positive indicator of its reputation.
    2. The Jimmy Savile sexual abuse scandal has nothing to do with Epstein. Mark Thompson is not even mentioned in the Jimmy Savile sexual abuse scandal article, although I see that Mark Thompson (media executive) § Jimmy Savile sexual abuse scandal states that "Thompson departed the BBC before public exposure of the Jimmy Savile sexual abuse scandal and is not noted in the BBC chronology of the unfolding coverage". A short mention of Thompson's media responses might be warranted in the Jimmy Savile sexual abuse scandal article if due, but this scandal involves the BBC personality Jimmy Savile, and is unrelated to the NYT's coverage of Epstein.
    3. The NYT's coverage of Joi Ito is non-independent and should be attributed in-text, as Ito is a former board member of The New York Times Company. Because Ito was removed on September 7 after his conflict of interest was revealed, NYT's coverage of Epstein (outside of his interactions with Ito and the MIT Media Lab) after this date is unaffected. Coverage before this date falls into a gray area. Since the main concern is that the NYT may have resisted reporting some of the allegations against Epstein while Ito was a board member, editors should seek to supplement NYT coverage on Epstein with coverage from other reliable sources to ensure that all available information from reliable sources is considered.
    4. The NYT article also used the subheadline "The woman said her life was permanently scarred by the sexual abuse that started when she was 14." Your quote, "the massages quickly became sexual", does not exist in the article. The actual quote was "That first massage quickly turned sexual", and the next paragraph elaborated that 'she returned to Mr. Epstein’s home “countless times” until she was 17, with the visits becoming more frequent and the abuse becoming more severe.' The NYT's coverage here is in line with the descriptions from other reliable sources.
    5. I traced the NYT claim to pages 1910–1917 of the Epstein documents (387MB PDF version; linked from the article):
Video Deposition of Virginia Giuffre, Volume II Examination by Ms. Menninger (pages 1910–1917)
 7 Q Okay. You have mentioned a journalist by
 8   the name of Sharon Churcher.
 9 A Yes.
10 Q You are aware that Sharon Churcher
11   published news stories about you?
12 A Yes.
13   MS. MCCAWLEY: Objection.
14   Go ahead.
15 Q (BY MS. MENNINGER) Is anything that you
16   have read in Sharon Churcher's news stories about you
17   untrue?
18 A I think Sharon did print some things that
19   I think she elaborated or maybe misheard. But, I
20   mean, if you have a specific document to show me, I'd
21   love to look at it and read it and tell you what I
22   think.
23 Q Is there anything, as you sit here today,
24   that you know of that Sharon Churcher printed about
25   you that is not true?
 1 A Not off the top of my head. If you show
 2   me, like, a news clipping article or something, I can
 3   definitely read it for you.
 4 Q Is there anything that you know of that
 5   Sharon Churcher has printed about Ghislaine Maxwell
 6   that is not true?
 7 A No, not off -- no, not off the top of my
 8   head.
 9 Q Is there anything that you recall saying
10   to Sharon Churcher that she then printed something
11   different than what you had said to her?
12 A Yeah, I've read stuff. I mean, I just --
13   I can't remember what, but I read something that I
14   think was, Oh, she got that wrong. I can't remember
15   an exact example off the top of my head.
16 Q Did you ever complain to Sharon Churcher
17   about things that she got wrong?
18 A I didn't see a point. I might have, but
19   I -- I didn't see a point really because it's already
20   printed, you know.
21 Q You had a fairly voluminous set of
22   communications with Sharon Churcher by e-mail,
23   correct?
24   MS. MCCAWLEY: Objection.
25 A Voluminous, like a lot of them?
 1 Q (BY MS. MENNINGER) Yes.
 2 A Yes.
 3 Q And during any of those communications, do
 4   you know whether she printed things about you after
 5   you had any of those communications?
 6   MS. MCCAWLEY: Objection.
 7 A I don't know. I know a lot of stuff was
 8   printed, and I never really stopped to read who
 9   printed the article, or wrote the article, I should
10   say. Sorry.
11 Q (BY MS. MENNINGER) Okay. I'll show you
12   Defendant's Exhibit 7.
13   (Exhibit 7 marked.)
14   THE DEPONENT: Thank you.
15 Q (BY MS. MENNINGER) I'll let you read
16   through the statements on the first page there, and
17   if there is anything that is not absolutely true,
18   just put a check by it and we'll come back to it.
19 A It's not very clear how she wrote it. "I
20   flew to the Caribbean with Jeffrey and then Ghislaine
21   Maxwell went to pick up Bill in a huge black
22   helicopter that Jeffrey had bought her."
23   That wasn't an eyewitness statement.
24   Like, I didn't see her do it. Ghislaine was the one
25   who told me about that; that she's the one who flew
 1   Bill.
 2 Q All right. If you just want to put a
 3   check by it, then we'll just come back and talk about
 4   each one.
 5 A Okay.
 6 Q Just to move things along.
 7 A Okay. I have made three checkmarks.
 8 Q All right.
 9   MS. MCCAWLEY: And I just -- before you
10   continue, I just want to identify for the record,
11   since this doesn't have any identifiers on it, are
12   you representing that these are statements from
13   Sharon Churcher?
14   MS. MENNINGER: I'm not representing
15   anything. I'm asking the witness questions about
16   these statements. I asked her is anything on here
17   not true. That's all I asked her.
18 Q (BY MS. MENNINGER) So which ones did you
19   put checkmarks by, Ms. Giuffre?
20 A I'd have been -- I'm sorry. "I'd have
21   been about 17 at the time. I flew to the Caribbean
22   with Jeffrey and then Ghislaine Maxwell went to pick
23   up Bill in a huge black helicopter that Jeffrey had
24   bought her."
25 Q Okay. And what else did you put a check
 1   by?
 2 A "I used to get frightened flying with her
 3   but Bill had the Secret Service with him and I
 4   remember him talking about what a good job" --
 5   sorry -- "job she did."
 6 Q Okay. And what else did you put a check
 7   by?
 8 A "Donald Trump was also a good friend of
 9   Jeffrey's. He didn't partake in any sex with any of
10   us but he flirted with me. He'd laugh and tell
11   Jeffrey, 'you've got the life.'"
12 Q Other than the three you've just
13   mentioned --
14 A Yeah.
15 Q -- everything else on here is absolutely
16   accurate?
17   MS. MCCAWLEY: Objection.
18 A Yes. Well, to the best of my
19   recollection, yes.
20 Q (BY MS. MENNINGER) All right. What is
21   inaccurate about, "I'd have been about 17 at the
22   time. I flew to the Caribbean with Jeffrey and then
23   Ghislaine Maxwell went to pick up Bill in a huge
24   black helicopter that Jeffrey had bought her"?
25 A Because it makes it kind of sound like an
 1   eyewitness thing.
 2 Q Okay. Did you say that statement to
 3   Sharon Churcher?
 4 A I said to Sharon that Ghislaine told me
 5   that she flew Bill in the heli- -- the black
 6   helicopter that Jeffrey bought her, and I just wanted
 7   to clarify that I didn't actually see her do that. I
 8   heard from Ghislaine that she did that.
 9 Q You heard that from Ghislaine, and then
10   you reported to Sharon Churcher that you had heard
11   that from Ghislaine.
12 A Correct.
13   MS. MCCAWLEY: Objection.
14 A I heard a lot of things from Ghislaine
15   that sounded too true -- too outrageous to be true,
16   but you never knew what to believe, so...
17 Q (BY MS. MENNINGER) Okay. And after
18   Sharon Churcher printed what she said you said, did
19   you complain to her that it was inaccurate?
20 A I might have verbally with her, but again,
21   I didn't see a point in making a hissy over it
22   because what was done was done. She had already
23   printed.
24 Q What was inaccurate about, "I used to get
25   frightened flying with her but Bill" said -- "had the
 1   Secret Service with him and I remember him talking
 2   about what a good job she did"?
 3 A I just don't remember saying that to her.
 4   I don't remember saying I remember him talking about
 5   what a good job she did.
 6 Q All right.
 7 A I just don't remember that at all.
 8 Q Okay. And I guess, just to be clear, my
 9   questions wasn't do you remember saying this to
10   Sharon Churcher; my question is, is that statement
11   accurate?
12   MS. MCCAWLEY: Well, objection.
13 Q (BY MS. MENNINGER) Did you used to get
14   frightened flying with her?
15 A Yes.
16 Q Okay. Did Bill have the Secret Service
17   with him?
18 A They were there, but not like on the --
19   not where we were eating.
20 Q Do you remember Bill talking about what a
21   good job she did?
22 A I don't remember that.
23 Q So what is inaccurate about that
24   statement?
25 A I just -- it's inaccurate because I don't
 1   remember him talking about what a good job she did.
 2   I don't remember that.
 3 Q Does it inaccurately suggest that Bill had
 4   the Secret Service with him on a helicopter?
 5   MS. MCCAWLEY: Objection.
 6 A Well, not being an eyewitness to it, I
 7   wouldn't be able to tell you. I can't tell you what
 8   I don't know.
 9 Q (BY MS. MENNINGER) And do you believe you
10   said that statement to Sharon Churcher?
11 A I mean, Sharon and I talked a lot, and if
12   she misheard me or just wrote it in the way that she
13   thought she should, I have no control over that. So
14   I'm not too sure.
15 Q Did she record your interviews?
16 A Some of them. Some of them she didn't. I
17   mean, we, like -- we, like, met for like a week, and
18   we spent a lot of time together, and then even after
19   that we just continued, like, kind of a friendship.
Sharon Churcher is the Daily Mail (RSP entry) writer who published the piece "Teenage girl recruited by paedophile Jeffrey Epstein reveals how she twice met Bill Clinton". From the transcript, Virginia Giuffre disputes Churcher's quotes of her that were published in the Daily Mail. There are two possible conclusions that could be drawn from this transcript: either the quotes are accurate (and Giuffre told Churcher statements that she later retracted in her video deposition), or the quotes are inaccurate (and Churcher published false information in the Daily Mail). The NYT's claim, "The documents unsealed Friday also include an acknowledgment from one of Mr. Epstein’s accusers, Virginia Giuffre, that an earlier claim she made about Mr. Clinton visiting Mr. Epstein in the Caribbean was untrue", appears to assert the first conclusion with the key words "claim she made".
Overall, I don't see any major concerns with the independence of NYT's reporting of Epstein with the exception of the issues related to Thomas (#1) and Ito (#3). As with any source, in-text attribution is recommended for contentious claims and exceptional claims require coverage from multiple reliable mainstream sources. — Newslinger talk 17:00, 4 October 2019 (UTC)
I agree with you on all counts [EDIT 10/6: regarding point #5 (I did not mean to agree that there are no concerns with the other points)], and thank you for digging up the source material. Having read the section from the transcript, I still don't see how it can be interpreted as 'Guiffre admitted she never saw Clinton on the Island". It looks like they are quibbling over the helicopter aspect. Guiffre again states that he was there, with Secret Service. The wording from the Times isn't clear to me; they could be referring to Guiffre admitting she hadn't seen evidence that Clinton arrived on Maxwell's helicopter, but certainly there is no justification from the transcript for the claim we're making in WP's voice.
Extraordinary claims require extraordinary sourcing. To claim both that Clinton wasn't on the Island, and that Guiffre is known to make gross misstatements about incredibly powerful people, is a serious matter if not properly sourced. That is why I've taken issue with the whole thing. Guiffe has never been credibly accused of lying or making inaccurate statements. The FBI is preparing to interview Prince Andrew based on Guiffre's testimony and evidence (photographs, corroborating flight logs) alone. If she had been discredited in the way WP is now suggesting, we would have heard about it. It would impact much of the ongoing investigations and court cases, no? Alan Dershowitz is trying to get out of a defamation suit brought by Guiffre (one he invited only months ago), but in his defense he has never brought up the 'fact' that Guiffre has admitted to, essentially, lying about an ex President. He's brought up everything he can think of (Yes, I had a massage at Epstein's but I kept my underwear on and did not enjoy it*), but not that?
If Guiffre had admitted in the documents to lying about Clinton being on LSJ, why did no other media pick that up? Why did journalists who focused on the documents (unlike the NYT piece which focused on Trump and Clinton) actually reiterate that Clinton was said to have been on the Island?
As I've said at the talk page, I do think this statement sourced only the to NYT should be removed until corroborating sources can be found. (I'm not sure why this makes me the bad guy...)
Right now, WP is both calling Guiffre a liar, and exonerating Clinton based on this one single line from the NYT, a line which is either inaccurate or being misinterpreted by WP editors. The NYT has printed serious inaccuracies before, like the entire time they claimed WMD's existed, so this attitude that they are infallible strikes me as odd. petrarchan47คุก 23:31, 4 October 2019 (UTC)
You're right in that a single sentence from an NYT article ("The documents unsealed Friday also include an acknowledgment from one of Mr. Epstein’s accusers, Virginia Giuffre, that an earlier claim she made about Mr. Clinton visiting Mr. Epstein in the Caribbean was untrue.") is not enough to substantiate the exceptional claim that Giuffre made a false statement. I can't be certain that the NYT was wrong, since the NYT article doesn't specify which "earlier claim" Giuffre allegedly made, and because I only performed a text search on the Epstein documents instead of a thorough review of the entire 2024-page PDF. However, if I were a reporter, I would not accuse Giuffre of making a false statement based on the excerpt of the transcript I posted above, which is the most relevant portion of the documents I was able to find through a text search. — Newslinger talk 01:15, 5 October 2019 (UTC)
That was the only section in the transcripts I found to be relevant, also. The NYT says "a claim", indicating there were several. But it was actually the journalist who got the facts wrong, and the transcripts show Guiffre was merely correcting the record (about seeing the helicopter first hand vs hearing about it from Maxwell). Wikipedia changes it to "the claim", and has been calling Guiffre a liar for over a month. The NYT couches their statement in a paragraph about Clinton and the island, so even though they don't specify, they are guiding the reader surreptitiously, I believe, to read this as WP editors have done, contrary to the documents they cite. It is inconceivable that out of at least 20 media orgs that covered or mentioned the documents, the NYT were the only ones to discover this supposed admission by Guiffre. There are only two possibilities: NYT fact-checkers are incredibly inept, or this was an act of deceptive journalism. In either case, I don't see how this can be ignored going forward. This is fake news, and not inconsequential. The subjects could hardly be more famous and influential people. petrarchan47คุก 15:10, 5 October 2019 (UTC)
I wouldn't use the term fake news here since it takes more evidence to show deliberate disinformation than negligence (or just ambiguity), and I don't think the burden of proof for the former is met. There's not enough detail in that one sentence to be certain whether it is correct or incorrect. This case does illustrate that passing mentions in articles tend to be less reliable than claims that are substantiated with longer and more detailed explanations. (Perhaps WP:CONTEXTMATTERS could be expanded to include this principle.) I'll submit a correction to the NYT. If I get a response, I'll share it here (if the discussion is still open) and at Talk:Jeffrey Epstein. — Newslinger talk 17:17, 5 October 2019 (UTC)
You read my mind about writing to NYT. I so appreciate all your responses and the effort of contacting them. I trust we will be as discerning about them as we would say, Fox News, with regard to their response. I have followed this Epstein story extremely closely and can assure you that in those 2,000 pages, Guiffre is not found to admit to what NYT suggests. I cannot see the placement of their ambiguous statement as anything but a deliberate attempt to mislead. The entire paragraph is in defense of Clinton and about the Island. So we have really no choice but to assume that was the subject, however the sloppy wording gives them an out - "Oh we meant the detail about the helicopter, we just didn't think readers needed to know" - except for the fact that they got even that one detail wrong, it was the journalist and not Guiffre who misspoke.
One reason I think it's important to consider the bigger picture via points 1-4 is because of the attitude here in general towards the NYT, namely that they are somewhat saintly and infallible, and it's impossible to imagine they would purposefully mislead. However I've discovered that regarding Epstein coverage, in short, they hide or ignore damning evidence and facts (Xeni and whistleblower's Ito info, Richardson allegations), they report that which isn't true (point 5); they use softened language to describe child abuse as consensual (even once is too much, and placed at the beginning of the article means more readers are likely to see it); they were fine with Ito until he was outed; and it cannot be ignored that their current CEO was at the helm of the BBC during the entire Savile scandal when the BBC shelved an investigation into the pedophile and instead aired two Christmas specials celebrating him - this is a CEO who claimed not to know anything about any of it and has been credibly accused of making conflicting statements in his defense. petrarchan47คุก 02:26, 7 October 2019 (UTC)
  • Newslinger, I believe, just wrote something similar to what I was going to note: the NYT discovered something wasn't right with one of their reporters and so they benched him. Good! I am not aware that anyone here is saying that the NYT or any other outlet is fallible. Moving right along. Drmies (talk) 23:38, 4 October 2019 (UTC)
    Yes, I don't think the NYT's general reliability is in question here (although I think you meant to say "infallible"). The motivation for this discussion appears to be a specific case where the NYT's coverage needs to be corroborated with additional reliable sources to support an exceptional claim. — Newslinger talk 01:15, 5 October 2019 (UTC)
  • The NYT article is Michael Crowley, "Trump Shares Unfounded Fringe Theory About Epstein and Clintons", The New York Times, 10 August 2019: "The documents unsealed yesterday also include an acknowledgment from one of Mr. Epstein's accusers, Virginia Giuffre, that an earlier claim she made about Mr. Clinton visiting Mr. Epstein in the Caribbean was untrue." But which claim exactly? The Jeffrey Epstein article (permalink) cites this in support of: "The unsealed court documents also showed that Giuffre later acknowledged her previous claim about Clinton visiting the island was false." The WP article discusses "her previous claim" as though there was only one claim—that Clinton visited the island—and therefore that must be the claim that is false. I agree that we can't infer this from the NYT article, and their source contains over 2,000 pages. The NYT needs to introduce a "{{page needed}}" template. SarahSV (talk) 21:02, 5 October 2019 (UTC)
Seems like an easy fix to change "her previous claim" to either "a previous claim she made" or (although it nudges up against original research) "a previous claim attributed to her" (also I think discussions of content, other than for frame of reference, probably belong on the article's talk page, and not here where the focus is/should be about the reliability of NYT as a source) AmbivalentUnequivocality (talk) 06:01, 6 October 2019 (UTC)
Thank you, Sarah. I agree with the general sentiment here that without corroborating sources, this NYT mention of an ambiguous claim should not be in the article per:
  • WP:CONTEXTMATTERS Information provided in passing by an otherwise reliable source that is not related to the principal topics of the publication may not be reliable; editors should cite sources focused on the topic at hand where possible.
I'll remove the statement from the Epstein article until we can satify sourcing requirements. Calling Guiffre a liar in WP's voice is unacceptable and mustn't continue. petrarchan47คุก 02:26, 7 October 2019 (UTC)
I don't understand why you keep saying we can't call her a liar; by my reading, the (carefully-worded) line you object to does not do so. It says The unsealed court documents also showed that Giuffre later acknowledged her previous claim about Clinton visiting the island was false; a claim being false does not mean it was a lie, especially given that the context makes it very easy for Giuffre to have simply been mistaken. Furthermore, the statement that she was mistaken is not exceptional - numerous other sources in the article support that, eg. The Secret Service told Fox News in 2016 it had no record of agents being on the island. Giuffre claims Maxwell told her she flew Clinton to the island on her helicopter, although she conceded, "I heard a lot of things from Ghislaine that sounded too true – too outrageous to be true, but you never knew what to believe." Maxwell denied Guiffre's claim that Clinton visited the island. In fact, it is Giuffre's accusation that is WP:EXCEPTIONAL here. Furthermore, reporting such an exceptional claim about a living figure without covering exculpatory reporting in a high-quality WP:RS clearly violates WP:BLP. --Aquillion (talk) 02:56, 7 October 2019 (UTC)
She made a previous false claim - that is another way of saying she lied, as Newslinger notes as well (However, if I were a reporter, I would not accuse Giuffre of making a false statement). I'm sorry I have to disagree with you here on numerous points. Guiffre's claims are peppered throughout the Epstein article with no problems. It's only when it comes to Clinton that problems arise. Jimmy Wales had to come in and add the bit about the flight logs himself because editors kept whitewashing Clinton coverage. Guiffre's claims have not been considered a BLP issue heretofore and I don't see why Clinton becomes the exception. Guiffre's claims have RS to back them, but the reference to it being a false or mistaken claim DOES NOT, therefore we don't add the latter until it does. That does not justify removing all of it. The NYT piece was never RS for this statement, there is nothing to clear up. The guidelines are clear on this.
"The Secret Service told Fox News in 2016 it had no record of agents being on the island" does not mean Guiffre was wrong. These two claims can exist together - Guiffre says they were there, they say they have no record. Wikipedia records conflicting facts all the time, and properly cited, as out article has done, it's fine. If Clinton did arrive on a helicopter, there would be no flight logs; perhaps the SS doesn't record helicopter rides. I am only interested in recording what RS says, I'm not interested in determining the "truth" if that's not possible given the facts at hand. There are no claims in the article that support the notion Guiffre made serious mistakes in her account at any point. We have back and forth between the official stance of the SS, we have Maxwell claiming it's all false (but she is an accused so there is a COI issue). We also have official flight logs showing that actually Clinton's claims about how many flights he took are at odds with the truth.
I am going to restore all but the NYT piece since that is the only source that is problematic. No, it is not a BLP issue. Guiffre's claims are just that - they don't represent the official truth since they have not been in court, we are simply recording what is in RS.
Your demand at the Epstein page not to restore any of this until the NYT debacle is "cleared up" makes no sense. It was never a proper source for this to begin with, and there is no question posed to them to clear up, there is simply a note for them to make a correction since their claim has no support. We aren't going to await around to hear from them. You can't make up rules, or create ultimatums as amorphous as this. Once you find proper RS to refute or further explain, we will add it immediately. petrarchan47คุก 19:12, 9 October 2019 (UTC)
  • Another RS which directly contradicts the NYT: But she did not refute other details of the Daily Mail story, including that Epstein hosted a dinner on his Caribbean island for President Bill Clinton shortly after Clinton left office.*. petrarchan47คุก 20:26, 9 October 2019 (UTC)

NYT has not responded - Compromise

The NYT may not respond at all, so Aquillion's decision to remove the details about Clinton until the NYT responds is untenable. He is insisting that the NYT piece must be mentioned if the claim about Clinton and the island is mentioned. I compromised with the following:

In court documents unsealed August 9, 2019, one night before Epstein was found dead, Virginia Guiffre claims to have seen Clinton on Little Saint James where she said Epstein threw a party for the former president. FORBES Guiffre noted also that Ghisllaine Maxwell told her she and Clinton flew in a "huge black helicopter." TIME The New York Times reported that in the documents, Guiffre admits she was wrong about a claim she made regarding Clinton, but they did not specify which claim.NYT

This edit was reverted by Soiblanga who states that there is no ambiguity in the NYT statement, contrary to what Newslinger and Slim Virgin state above. He also states that Guiffre's claim "has been exhaustively debunked".

I would appreciate some help as I can't seem to reason with editors and don't quite know what else to do. petrarchan47คุก 03:14, 13 October 2019 (UTC)

I did not say that Giuffre's claim has been exhaustively debunked. I said that your assertion that the NYT sentence is ambiguous as to which claim she later acknowledged as false has been exhaustively debunked. Either you have serious reading comprehension problems or you are not behaving in good faith. And if you're gonna misrepresent what I said, you could at least have the common courtesy to ping me on it. I would appreciate some help as I can't seem to reason with editors and don't quite know what else to do. Oh. The. Irony. soibangla (talk) 18:06, 13 October 2019 (UTC)

I arrive at this looong discussion belatedly and have read parts of it, primarily related to the NYT sentence reporting unambiguously that Guiffre later acknowledged her earlier claim Clinton visited Epstein's island was untrue, and here's my bottom line. None of us are in the position of second-guessing reliable sources on a selected basis, especially if it debunks a years-long narrative that some may have embraced as established fact, only to see it debunked years later, and they just can't accept it. "A lie gets halfway around the world while the truth is still getting its shoes on," and now the truth has finally caught up to the lie. The NYT is one of the best sources of information on the planet, and that's not by accident: it's because they employ seasoned, vetted journalists/editors who catch things others miss, or others choose not to report for reasons that may include space/time constraints. The fact no one else reported that particular nugget of information does not mean the NYT got it wrong. The moment we start second-guessing highly reliable sources on a selected basis is the moment we step into a slippery slope resulting in every reliable source falling into question, until we conclude nothing is reliable anymore, and at that point Wikipedia might as well just shut down. soibangla (talk) 18:47, 13 October 2019 (UTC)

Soibangla, you pinged me elsewhere, but I'll leave a comment here instead as I see this has started up again. This is my final comment because I'm not following this. Obviously, you should err on the side of caution. There must be another source that supports what the NYT said; if there isn't, then it's best left out. Also, are all the unsealed documents available; if so, can you find the claim yourselves? Sorry, that's all I can contribute. SarahSV (talk) 18:58, 13 October 2019 (UTC)
SlimVirgin, thank you for your response. I note that you did not address the question I pinged you about. The NYT sentence is absolutely unambiguous. soibangla (talk) 19:05, 13 October 2019 (UTC)
soibangla The key point that you're missing is that the NYT exact phrasing is: an earlier claim, they unambiguously state that one of the claims she made was untrue. They do not, however, state acknowledged her earlier claim, as you have stated above, and that is why you're not understanding this issue.
Petrarchan47, I am missing nothing here. The sentence is absolutely unambiguous. It's not an earlier claim of just anything, it's "an earlier claim she made about Mr. Clinton visiting Mr. Epstein".
SlimVirgin, we did look through the source material cited by the Times (see Newslinger's lengthy comment above). The claim is found nowhere in the documents. The closest we can find is in a Q&A about a Daily Mail article, where Guiffre is questioned about claims attributed to her in the piece. She makes several comparatively minor corrections (one clarifying that Trump did not in fact flirt with her, as the DM piece hd stated), and the closest we can find to what the NYT ended up printing was Guiffre clarifying that although the DM article stated that Guiffre said she saw Clinton arrive to the Island in a helicopter, Guiffre did not see it happen fist hand, but reiterated what Maxwell told her. This was "a claim" about Bill and the Island that needed correction, but the misstatement came from the DM author, not Guiffre. So the NYT got this story wrong on multiple levels. petrarchan47คุก 23:59, 15 October 2019 (UTC)
Petrarchan47, Daily Mail is not a reliable source and analysis of legal documents is original research, which is unacceptable and overruled by a reliable source. soibangla (talk) 00:12, 16 October 2019 (UTC)
The Daily Mail is a complete and utter joke, and they got wrong a few claims they attributed to Guiffre. In the documents she clarifies statements made by the DM. I am deeply concerned by simple statements being misread and misunderstood, like that "an earlier claim" = "the one claim", as well as claiming that from what I wrote above, I am somehow trying to use the DM as a source. petrarchan47คุก 00:22, 16 October 2019 (UTC)
"deeply concerning comprehension issues," indeed. soibangla (talk) 00:32, 16 October 2019 (UTC)
Is this actually a Twighlight Zone episode? petrarchan47คุก 00:48, 16 October 2019 (UTC)

The insistence on keeping the Clinton bit out of the article unless we have (or can create) a rebuttal is a NPOV violation. I've opened a thread here. petrarchan47คุก 00:48, 16 October 2019 (UTC)

You can’t just keep hopping from forum to forum until you find one that agrees with you. Stop it. you did this on the Talk:Sharyl Attkisson page, this is a recurring trend and it needs to end. Toa Nidhiki05 02:18, 16 October 2019 (UTC)
Please see WP:HOUNDING. It's frowned upon and can result in a block. Cheers, petrarchan47คุก 22:22, 17 October 2019 (UTC)
You mean this part?
Making accusations of harassment can be inflammatory and hence these accusations may not be helpful in a dispute. It can be seen as a personal attack if harassment is alleged without clear evidence that the others' action is actually harassment, and unfounded accusations may constitute harassment themselves if done repeatedly. The result is often accusations of harassment on your part, which tends to create a nasty cycle.
This makes more-instructive reading: WP:FORUMSHOPPING --Calton | Talk 06:40, 18 October 2019 (UTC)

Request for comment on Talk:Jeffrey Epstein

There is a request for comment that aims to resolve the above content dispute. If you are interested, please participate at Talk:Jeffrey Epstein § RfC: Virginia Giuffre and Bill Clinton. — Newslinger talk 21:34, 17 October 2019 (UTC)

Reliability of Halopedia as a source for Halo articles

I would like to know if Halopedia would be considered a reliable source when it comes to Halo-related articles. It isn't currently cited in any article, but I know that among the Halo community, it is considered to be very accurate. Jeb3Talk at me hereWhat I've Done 12:54, 18 October 2019 (UTC)

No user generated content.Slatersteven (talk) 12:57, 18 October 2019 (UTC)
Alright. Just making sure. Thanks! Jeb3Talk at me hereWhat I've Done 12:59, 18 October 2019 (UTC)
It wouldn’t be inappropriate to have it as an external link, however, provided the site has a substantial history of stability and a large number of editors. Toa Nidhiki05 13:20, 18 October 2019 (UTC)

Continuation of "Is TidBITS a blog, or is it a reliable secondary source?"

In the last comment in this section (archived while I calmed down), Guy said "Well that's a remarkable bit of selective reading: you choose to interpret the replies in a way that gives you permission to reinsert the trivial crap back into the article." If that's a concession, it's a rather strange one—mixed with abuse.

Assuming it's not a concession allowing a modified roll-back to before the first of Guy's September edits, it's time for Guy and Scope_creep and Pavlor to provide a good faith explanation of why the Retrospect (software) article as of 19:11, 12 September 2019 "was bloated with trivia", "really horrible", a "product manual", and "a marketing piece". To focus the discussion, I've done some appropriate rough counting of items in that article and in two WP articles about competing enterprise client-server backup applications—plus FYI item counts for a competing personal "push" backup application.

The Retrospect (software) article as of 19:11, 12 September 2019 had 46 mentions of distinct features in 1.2 screen-pages. 12 of the cites for those features were to first-party references; these were to 2 User's Guides, a cumulative Release Notes, and a Web-linked collection of Knowledge Base articles. There never was a version history section; the Fall 2016 version was historically-structured with some how-to, but JohnInDC eliminated all that in Fall 2017.

The Backup Exec article as of 00:14, 9 October 2019 had 49 mentions of distinct features in 1.6 screen-pages. 36 of the cites for those features were to first-party references—only one of which was cited more than once. There's a version history section, but it only contains release numbers and dates.

The NetBackup article as of 16:59, 3 September 2019 had 38 mentions of distinct features in 1.0 screen-pages. All 16 of the cites for those features were to first-party references—only three of which were cited more than once. There's a version history section, but it only contains release numbers and dates.

FYI the Acronis True Image article as of 02:47, 27 September 2019 had 30 mentions of distinct features in 1.25 screen-pages. 7 of the cites for those features were to first-party references—none of which was cited more than once. There's a version history section that includes mentions of features, so I've counted its length as part of the feature screen-pages. As I pointed out to Scope_creep early in the now-archived Discussion of a September 2017 RfC (here's the diff, but it includes earlier and later sections whose comments were interspersed), he may have considered this "an ideal article to determine how to structure this [Retrospect] one"—but "Acronis is a 'push' backup system in which each individual conceptual 'client' pushes data to a backup 'host' (which may not be a full-fledged computer) at its non-'host'-controlled option". That fact explains why the Acronis True Image article, which is about a personal backup application, lists fewer (sparsely-referenced) features than the above-discussed 3 articles about enterprise client-server backup applications.

The 4 paragraphs directly above show that the Retrospect article listed about the same number of "trivial" features—mostly the same ones with better-linked names—as the articles for the other two enterprise client-server backup applications. I put in the better-linked names at the insistence of Scope_creep in Fall 2017; he said using the developer's own feature names was "marketing". IMHO the other reason the feature sections of the Retrospect came across as "marketing" is because—greatly shortened at the insistence of JohnInDC in fall 2017—I included brief descriptions of the features. By contrast, the other two client-server articles don't include any descriptions; almost all the links for feature names in those two articles are ones I added myself in January 2019.

The Retrospect article actually had an "anti-marketing" item—staying within the limits of WP:NPOV—in the first and third paragraphs of the History section until Guy deleted it. The Windows variant of the application suffers to this day from the absence of a true Administration Console, which the Mac variant and the other two enterprise client-server applications have, but there's no second-party reference that says so. I used to have a link to a section of the Windows Vista article that explains the absence, but that was deleted in Fall 2017 and probably violates WP:Synthesis. Since I intend to put the features sections back into the Retrospect article with no first-party references (at the cost of two or three feature items), that "anti-marketing" item will stay out because its references were a Retrospect Knowledge Base article and the Retrospect Windows cumulative Release Notes (improvements to a poor Console substitute).

Can anyone point to a Wikipedia rule that says a specification of a software application's non-trivial features is ipso-facto "a "product manual" or a "marketing piece"? Can anyone specify which are the trivial features I listed in the Retrospect article? — Preceding unsigned comment added by DovidBenAvraham (talk • contribs) 13:02, 14 October 2019 (UTC)

As near as I can tell, this is a dispute over whether, and to what extent, to rely on a WP:PRIMARY / non-independent source for software features, right? That question might be a better fit for WP:NPOVN, especially if the disagreement is over whether it's trivia or has a promotional tone, but generally speaking... a small amount of uncontroversial technical details can be cited to such sources, but it's always important to avoid citing too much of the article to them; entire paragraphs or sections cited to them are supposed to be avoided. It's also important to avoid self-serving claims or a WP:PROMOTIONAL tone, which seems to have been the main objection here (another reason why WP:NPOVN might be a better place.) Also, if you do post this elsewhere, it might be best to narrow it down to the one major question under dispute - few people are going to read a massive multi-paragraph essay like that, and the back-and-forth of the dispute isn't really important. Things like WP:AGF (if that's actually a problem there) are editor-conduct issues, not things WP:RSN or WP:NPOVN can help you with. --Aquillion (talk) 22:03, 14 October 2019 (UTC)
No Aquillion, if you read this section (archived while I calmed down) linked to in the section's lead paragraph, it's not about a primary source. This section is intended to be a a continuation—see the section title—of an archived (my fault for taking 6 days to calm down) dispute of whether the secondary source TidBITS is a blog. Guy had claimed TidBITS is a blog; when in the archived section I demonstrated conclusively that it isn't a blog, Guy's last comment started out with what I quoted in the first paragraph of this section. His comment went on to describe the Retrospect (software) article as of 19:11, 12 September 2019 with further insults. After 6 days, which is how long it took me to look at those insults with more detachment, I decided to continue the discussion to find out whether Guy had conceded the TidBITS point while concealing his concession with "sour grapes".
Guy's insults to the article were that it had a promotional tone, so I decided that a continuation should refute that as well. I'm well aware that the promotional question by itself is not suitable to this page, but Guy—who as an administrator should know better unless he was trying to bait me (WP:AGF in fact bothers me as far as Guy is concerned)—raised that question with his insults in a section which did belong on this page. If Guy forthrightly admits that TidBITS is not a blog unsuitable as a reference, I'll move this section to WP:NPOVN.
My "anti-marketing" paragraph alludes to the separate question of whether "a small amount of uncontroversial technical details can be cited to such [ primary] sources". I can re-find a statement from Guy in which he says basically that "because you used some primary sources, all your sources are now subject to review". That was another part of his Edit Summary explanation (I assume WP:AGF there) for deleting all the features sections in the article. I intend to raise the "a small amount of uncontroversial technical details ..." question in a separate section on this page, since I've gotten hints that some WP editors (Guy too?) tried several years ago to revise the WP rules to prohibit even that "small amount"—and had their attempt rejected. DovidBenAvraham (talk) 01:39, 15 October 2019 (UTC)
I have nothing to add to our previous discussion. If you wrote only one (I mean really only ONE, not two or more) small features section mentioning most important features (in best case balanced by POV of independent reviews), nobody would object. Pavlor (talk) 05:42, 15 October 2019 (UTC)
Thank you, Pavlor, for a helpful—non-insulting—comment. I could certainly eliminate a few less-important Small-group features mentions (non-multithreading of previous Desktop versions, volume-to-volume duplicates onto LTFS with verification, Avid Media Composer backup, elaboration of e-mail notifications).
However the real sticking point for you folks seems to be the separate former Enterprise client-server features section. IMHO you need to know a bit of history about this section. The features listed in it were all developed after 2006, initially at EMC management's orders, in order to upgrade Retrospect for enterprise users. From Fall 2016 to Fall 2017, those features used to be part of major-version sections of the article. Then, at the insistence of JohnInDC and other editors participating in an RfC, I deleted them from the Retrospect article to make it much shorter. I immediately put them in a new "Enterprise client-server backup" section at the rear of the Backup article, adding references to the competing Backup Exec and NetBackup and IBM Tivoli Storage Manager applications' mostly-first-party documentation of equivalent features—so that section was no longer explicitly about Retrospect. Although I had new-section content disputes with JohnInDC on its Talk page continuing for about 3 months, average pageviews of the Backup article increased. In November 2017 I added a short "Enterprise client-server features" section to the Retrospect article, consisting basically of feature names with links to the descriptions in appropriate sub-sections of the "Backup" section.
A new problem arose in late May 2019, when another editor—whose name I will not mention here to avoid embarrassing him further—decided to merge feature paragraphs from the new Backup section into similar-sounding feature paragraphs in preceding sections of that article. That other editor also merged two other related articles into the Backup article; he did not discuss any of the three mergers in Talk pages. His massive deletions made it clear that the other editor did not understand the content of the articles he had merged, and I deduced from his Contributions that his secondary education was in private schools run by a sub-culture in which boys after the age of 13 are taught almost exclusively in certain non-modern languages rather than in English. I confronted the other editor in an ANI with his inability to read technical English at a 12th-grade (British sixth-form) level, and he then promised in an already-underway RfC that—if I split off the rear section of the Backup section into a separate Enterprise client-server backup article—that he would temporarily refrain from editing that split-off article. I had started the ANI because, having noticed that he had followed his "urge to merge" other articles (technical but unrelated to backup) every January from 2016 on, I did not trust the other editor to follow through on any promises he might make. However, partly because my first version was "a wall of text", the ANI did not result in restricting the other editor in any way.
The point of these two bits of history is that I live in fear of what the other editor may do to the Enterprise client-server backup article in January 2020. Therefore I am extremely reluctant to create a substantially-shortened Enterprise client-server features Retrospect section that would be even-more-dependent on links to the Enterprise client-server backup article. If you want me to merge the former "Enterprise client-server features" section with the existing very-short descriptions into a somewhat-shortened "Small-group features" section of the Retrospect article I can do that, but IMHO there will be a stylistic clash unless I make the descriptions substantially longer—which duplicates the situation which the RfC in Fall 2017 said I couldn't preserve. I think a consolidation of two features sections that at most would save 6 screen lines in the article isn't justified.
As for the former Editions and Add-Ons section, that was only 0.25 screen-pages. By contrast the Backup Exec "Add-on Components" section is longer than that—at 0.35 screen-pages, and no editor has ever seen fit to merge it. DovidBenAvraham (talk) 02:39, 16 October 2019 (UTC)
On further thought, merging the former "Enterprise client-server features" section with the existing very-short descriptions into a somewhat-shortened "Small-group features" section—renamed "Standard features"—of the Retrospect article wouldn't be such a stylistic clash. Some of the merged-in paragraph headings would have to have "enterprise client-server" added for clarity, but the combined features section would be somewhat shorter than the old two sections. I'll add the combined section to the article tonight or tomorrow.
Getting back to the original topic of this section and its archived predecessor, I noticed Agen Schmitz has written a short review of Retrospect Mac 16.5 on TidBITS, but skipped writing anything for Retrospect 16.0—which was scheduled to be a major release but ended up adding just a preview of the Web-based Management Console and a couple of truly minor features. IMHO that proves Agen Schmitz—following in the footsteps of Adam Engst in previous years—has not been blindly copying Retrospect "Inc." press releases, so it's OK to use his articles as second-party references. DovidBenAvraham (talk) 02:43, 17 October 2019 (UTC)

I cut the article by about 0.5 screen-pages, and the combined Standard features" section by 0.3 screen-pages. It's still in my Sandbox; I'll move it Sunday night when I have time to write an explanatory comment on the article's Talk page. DovidBenAvraham (talk) 15:22, 18 October 2019 (UTC)

Paul Andrews

I think there is an undisclosed Wikipedia:Conflict of interest here. Judging by the editing pattern it seems like Ch.Davis (talk · contribs) is Paul Andrews (producer) or someone closley associated. All the edits have beens self-promotion. // Liftarn (talk) 11:23, 17 October 2019 (UTC)

Um. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Special:Contributions/Ch.Davis that person made two edits back in 2016. "Patterns"? When? Beyond "stale" is an understatement. This is not a "reliable source" issue. Collect (talk) 12:07, 17 October 2019 (UTC)
I'm talking about edits like [1][2][3][4][5][6][7][8][9][10] Notice a pattern? // Liftarn (talk) 12:50, 17 October 2019 (UTC)
Collect, I dare suggest that you need new glasses :-) ∯WBGconverse 16:53, 17 October 2019 (UTC)
The claim was made about Paul Andrews - and the fact is this person had made precisely two edits related to that BLP. And when one makes charges about an editor one well ought be sure there are enough edits to attract attention. I find nothing strange going on. Collect (talk) 21:40, 18 October 2019 (UTC)

LabelsBase

I notice a few record label articles using https://labelsbase.net/ as a source for artist lists. I noticed the risk of incorrect listings on the websites just today after the recent redirect overwrite of Nicole Bus, which previously redirected to Bitbird based on LabelsBase, after which I could not find any reliable sources establishing the artist's connection with the record label. A quick look at the website's About page shows the possibility that the website falls under WP:UGC. Other articles using this source include NoCopyrightSounds, Stmpd Rcrds, and Musical Freedom. See also Special:Search/Labelsbase. Jalen Folf (talk) 00:46, 19 October 2019 (UTC)

Zoominfo.com

I've reverted almost identical WP:REFSPAM from at least a dozen IP/users in the last month or two. XLinkBot was given the parameter a couple of days ago and has reverted a dozen or so SPAs with one-edit accounts. General M/O is to add an unnecessary WP:REFSPAM with an edit summary like: "adding a reference for the Job Title / Company Name". There's often already a perfectly valid reference there. There may, I suppose, be occasions where this is a valid source for a reference, and there are a few hundred existing links, but I haven't seen any occasions where it's an irreplaceable, reliable source, and this looks like a campaign to use us to drive traffic to the site. They are a commercial company who makes money out of selling access to their database

Beetstra raises the valid question as to whether the spamming is a "joe-job". Perhaps, but a pretty determined one if that's the case - and for what reason? Determined competitor? Ex-employee with a grudge and a lot of spare time?

We decided that bringing it here for an overview on how we view these links was the best plan. -- Begoon 06:53, 18 October 2019 (UTC)

I was just thinking of opening such a thread. A couple of weeks ago I reverted and reported Kimmydora8 for the same CITESPAM. per their page, they would seem to be a mirror anyway.

Zoominfo acquired and maintains its database by copying data from the internet using a proprietary web crawler called NextGenSearchBot,[1] analyzing the copied data to extract information, and storing the information in a database.[2]

also note that their content is a paid subscription service, so it's behind a paywall.
searching for which pages link or cite them, many appear to be in terrible shape. Some just include a plain link to the website.
I'd vote they be deprecated or at least somehow heavily discouraged. Hydromania (talk) 07:55, 18 October 2019 (UTC)

References

  1. ^ InternetOfficer.com ZoomInfo information page accessed March 3, 2016
  2. ^ Jennifer Zaino (Dec 4, 2008). "ZoomInfo Zooms Marketers to Prospects". SemanticWeb.com.
examples: Theodore Roosevelt High School (New York City), Andrew Scott (museum director) - where apparently correctly used as a source, should be verifiable if you have a subscription. The Baker Street Irregulars, Justin Kutcher, Terry Taylor - where it supposedly sources something, but is just a link to zoominfo.com. Abhash Kumar, Shiv Pratap Shukla, Onikwu articles in bad shape and/or zoominfo just in external links. Hydromania (talk) 08:19, 18 October 2019 (UTC)
Heh. That's actually quite amusing... If they built their database by "copying data from the internet using a proprietary web crawler called NextGenSearchBot, analyzing the copied data to extract information, and storing the information in a database" then they quite probably got a decent amount of it from wikipedia in the first place. Now they are spamming links here to drive traffic back to their paid service? Hmm.... Doesn't sound very "reliable" to me... -- Begoon 08:35, 18 October 2019 (UTC)

Not an RS, and maybe deprecate.Slatersteven (talk) 15:42, 19 October 2019 (UTC)

RfC: "The Western Journal" (September)

The following discussion is an archived record of a request for comment. Please do not modify it. No further edits should be made to this discussion. A summary of the conclusions reached follows.
There is a consensus that The Western Journal (WJ) is generally unreliable.
The RFC asked to pick from three options: (a) deprecate, (b) list as generally unreliable, and (c) something else (open-ended answer). Six editors have supported (a) and seven editors (one editor said WJ is unreliable, but did not specifically request deprecation) have supported (b). Those who have supported deprecation have provided little or no evidence to justify deprecation. One editor who supported deprecation has weirdly cited editors who supported another option. One editor who supported (b) said there is some evidence of publishing corrections and hence WJ should not be deprecated.
One of the prerequisites of deprecation is that a source is generally unreliable. All participants have indicated one way or another that WJ is unreliable, so that is not in dispute. But just because (b) implies (a) does not mean that the converse is true. Therefore there is no consensus for deprecation. Politrukki (talk) 14:10, 20 October 2019 (UTC)

Should The Western Journal be deprecated? float Or listed as generally unreliable? float Or something else? X1\ (talk) 20:34, 11 September 2019 (UTC)

For the WesternJournal.com, see earlier Wikipedia:Reliable sources/Noticeboard/Archive 271#Western Journal, and Wikipedia talk:Reliable sources/Perennial sources#The Western Journal for comments on The Western Journal's reputation. Note: I have only been in a previous "rating", and haven't kept up on potential process changes here. X1\ (talk) 22:56, 9 September 2019 (UTC)

I pulled it from Mikhail Abyzov (edit | talk | history | protect | delete | links | watch | logs | views) and Kyle Kashuv (edit | talk | history | protect | delete | links | watch | logs | views). The first is a blatantly bad ref and use of that ref. The Kashuv ref isn't remotely as bad, but appears to be the type of warmed-over press that the NYTimes identifies.
I'm only seeing 12 uses as references at this time --Ronz (talk) 17:09, 10 September 2019 (UTC)
Thank you. I see westernjournal.com HTTPS links HTTP links. X1\ (talk) 00:46, 11 September 2019 (UTC)

Survey (The Western Journal)

Discussion (The Western Journal)

  • Comment Their corrections are here. [11] They also say at the bottom of every article that they are "committed to truth and accuracy in all of our reporting." This certainly gives an impression of reliability. However, prior to voting, I am interested in what evidence others may bring to the table. Adoring nanny (talk) 02:50, 12 September 2019 (UTC)
Fox News had "Fair And Balanced" as a strapline. That was bullshit, by common consent. Guy (help!) 21:51, 12 September 2019 (UTC)
@Adoring nanny: Have you followed Western Journal long? It appears, per their wp page RSs, that had serious credibility issues regarding wp standards for RSs. Can you speak to how they now intend to use the westernjournal.com/corrections section? If they don't correct the articles themselves, a separate page will often be ignored. X1\ (talk) 21:17, 13 September 2019 (UTC)
No. Hence my interest in other people's evidence. Adoring nanny (talk) 00:09, 14 September 2019 (UTC)
@Adoring nanny: Some references used used previously here. X1\ (talk) 19:01, 15 September 2019 (UTC)
@Adoring nanny: Has Western Journal ever retracted an article? Do they use credible references within their articles (citing them as sources)? X1\ (talk) 21:20, 13 September 2019 (UTC)
@Adoring nanny:, do they ever publish a Trump statement and point out it's a lie? Do they do this consistently, so that readers get the impression that most of what he says can't be trusted (because that's the case)? Or do Trump supporters find support for their delusional beliefs by reading content at the Western Journal? -- BullRangifer (talk) 23:41, 18 October 2019 (UTC)
Why badger me about this? I already voted above. Adoring nanny (talk) 17:25, 19 October 2019 (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.

Bellingcat

Bellingcat - please can we ensure this site is not taken as a credible source on WP? This outlet is funded by The National Endowment for Democracy - a right-wing corporate think tank who essentially help the CIA and other western nations to overthrow other countries that don't allow themselves to be bullied by the WTO and IMF. Nothing less than propaganda and anyone accepting funding from them has seriously tainted any credibility they already had. Here's an e.g. from Consortium News (the outlet that broke the Watergate scandal before someone automatically assumes "they can't be credible because I've never heard of them")
https://consortiumnews.com/2019/01/28/the-dirty-hand-of-the-national-endowment-for-democracy-in-venezuela/ Apeholder (talk) 00:39, 20 October 2019 (UTC)

Bellingcat is generally considered reliable; its reporting on the Syrian and Yemeni wars, among other international issues, has been acclaimed around the world. Your personal opinion that its receipt of funding from NED renders Bellingcat non-credible is just that - your personal opinion. The article you linked does not mention Bellingcat at all whatsoever, so it's irrelevant for our purposes. If you have reliable sources which question Bellingcat's credibility and reporting, please present them here. NorthBySouthBaranof (talk) 00:49, 20 October 2019 (UTC)
Consortium News was founded in 1995 (yet broke the Watergate story?), and frequently publishes fringe rubbish. A very recent RFC concluded Bellingcat was generally reliable. Snooganssnoogans (talk) 01:00, 20 October 2019 (UTC)
@Snooganssnoogans: Robert Parry (journalist) created Consortium News, obviously he didn't create this website during the Iran-Contra affair as the WWW wasn't really a thing then was it?
Other examples of Bellingcat not using due dilligence and being fake news:
https://consortiumnews.com/2016/11/30/relying-on-unreliable-syrian-sources/
https://consortiumnews.com/2015/10/20/mh-17-case-old-journalism-vs-new/
https://www.spiegel.de/international/world/expert-criticizes-allegations-of-russian-mh17-manipulation-a-1037125.html
https://www.commondreams.org/views/2016/04/05/corruption-propaganda-weapon
https://www.commondreams.org/views/2018/11/29/guardian-escalates-its-vilification-julian-assange
And the sources Bellingcat use should be enough to at least raise doubt about their credibility. I really don't understand the arbitrary ways in which WP classes some sources as reliable and other not Apeholder (talk) 03:27, 20 October 2019 (UTC)
The criticisms published in Der Spiegel do present a significant reason for doubt, even if we are dismissing the other sources publishing criticism as being too politically expedient. signed, Rosguill talk 03:47, 20 October 2019 (UTC)
@The Four Deuces: FYI Apeholder (talk) 03:52, 20 October 2019 (UTC)
Robert Parry (journalist) created Consortium News, obviously he didn't create this website during the Iran-Contra affair as the WWW wasn't really a thing then was it?
Uh huh. And yet, what you actually wrote was "Consortium News (the outlet that broke the Watergate scandal before someone automatically assumes 'they can't be credible because I've never heard of them')", which bears no resemblance to your follow-up attempt at a back-pedal. Your factually wrong attempt at resume inflation -- Watergate? -- is still wrong, since Perry didn't "break" Iran-Contra, he broke some stories ABOUT Iran-Contra. --Calton | Talk 00:00, 21 October 2019 (UTC)
Reliability in Wikipedia has a very low bar. All it means is that there is a reasonable expectation that the information presented will be factual. Most highly biased sites such as bellingcat do not fabricate information but selectively search for negative information about individuals. In this case it is probably true that a Syrian-American group donated $3,500 to the Jimmy Dore show. Their president also contributed $2,800 to RO FOR CONGRESS INC, $552.50 to ActBlue and $100 to BERNIE200 in this campaign cycle. (Nothing to accused Assad apologists Tulsi Gabbard and the Green Party.)[12] However, WP:WEIGHT presents a higher bar, since only significant facts and opinions hat have been published by reliable sources on a topic may be presented in articles. "[D]iscussion of isolated events, criticisms, or news reports about a subject may be verifiable and impartial, but still disproportionate to their overall significance to the article topic."
In order to properly address weight, I have always avoided using investigative journalism as a source. If it is noteworthy then mainstream sources will pick up on it and determine what aspects of it are noteworthy and allow the victims of their coverage to provide their side, while experts will be consulted to provide their opinions. The main problem comes from right-wing media that target Democrats such as Obama and Hillary Clinton. Mostly these stories bounce around the right-wing echo chamber but occasionally make it into mainstream news media. It is only then that we can know the whole story, based on their reception. If we were to present stories that only Fox News had reported, then we would elevating their significance beyond what the mainstream viewed noteworthy and Wikipedia would become part of the echo chamber, rather than a neutral encyclopedia.
TFD (talk) 18:08, 20 October 2019 (UTC)
Our policy on exceptional claims is an effective stabilizer for controversial reports that are accurate, but one-sided. Multiple high-quality reliable sources are required to substantiate exceptional claims, which helps ensure neutrality. — Newslinger talk 21:42, 20 October 2019 (UTC)

Reveal News / Center for Investigative Reporting

Please could we consider Reveal News (http://www.revealnews.org)? They are an online outlet but also air their radio show / podcast on various radio stations across the USA. They have been around since 1977 and have won a truly staggering amount of awards and nominations, most recently Pulitzer, Peabody, etc:

https://www.revealnews.org/awards/
https://awards.journalists.org/organizations/reveal/

Not sure how to properly propose this as a RS? Apeholder (talk) 01:23, 21 October 2019 (UTC)

They seem to be accepted as a RS here. Their content seems good. -- BullRangifer (talk) 01:43, 21 October 2019 (UTC)
Apeholder, You don't need to. If you think it's reliable just cite it, if someone disagrees that's when the RSN discussion comes in. Fiamh (talk, contribs) 01:43, 21 October 2019 (UTC)
It's fine to ask tho IMO. Shouln't be discouraged. Herostratus (talk) 14:58, 21 October 2019 (UTC)

Proceed. 8th Internat. Meeting Society of Avian Paleontology and Evolution

Is [13] by Dr. Ursula B. Göhlich of the Naturhistorisches Museum in the Proceed. 8th Internat. Meeting Society of Avian Paleontology and Evolution a reliable source for Cécile Mourer-Chauviré? Lopifalko raised some concerns but is unsure at Talk:Cécile Mourer-Chauviré, and I am now unsure too. They referred me here. Eostrix (talk) 10:39, 22 October 2019 (UTC)

The source is not independent, since Mourer-Chauviré was former secretary of SAPE. Additional sources are needed. That being said, I think it is usable for the essential facts. Avoid using self-serving passages such as She significantly impacted paleornithological research in and out-side of Europe for the last 50 years and is in high demand as an expert and favored collaborator for researchers all over the world, but especially for the next generation of paleornithologists. --MarioGom (talk) 10:47, 22 October 2019 (UTC)

Indymedia

Indymedia is an anarchist-oriented open publishing platform for "citizen journalism" and crowdsourced content. They have several chapters and local sites. It has been discussed just once in 2008: Wikipedia:Reliable sources/Noticeboard/Archive 23#indymedia.

The site has been blocked in Germany for content that incites violence, and it is controversial in left-wing activist circles as well:

Now, I think this would quite clearly be unreliable as WP:SELFPUBLISHED, but the source is actually very much used in article space: indymedia.org HTTPS links HTTP links (792 uses), indymedia.ie HTTPS links HTTP links (151 uses), indymedia.org.uk HTTPS links HTTP links (222 uses), indybay.org HTTPS links HTTP links (209 uses). Do you reckon that a RfC and phasing out would be warranted? --Pudeo (talk) 07:39, 16 October 2019 (UTC)

  • Yes. This source should not be used per WP:SPS. Just checking some of their US sites, such as their version for Portland (portland.indymedia.org), it's all announcements of events, petitions, and advocacy. The fact that it's described as "open publishing", contributors are called "volunteers" and obvious lack of professionalism mean that there's no way this is a reliable source for almost anything. Deprecate all indymedia sites stat. Fiamh (talk, contribs) 08:59, 16 October 2019 (UTC)
I´ve come across numerous self-published sources in this noticeboard that are deemed reliable if attributed to a ´reliable´ author (source such as those published in Think tanks). I think there´s something to iron-out here. I don´t think self-published sources should meet WP:RS. Stefka Bulgaria (talk) 09:38, 17 October 2019 (UTC)
Stefka Bulgaria, SPS can be reliable when the writer is an established expert in his/her field. However, indymedia is the sort of low-volume, low-quality site that is highly unlikely to attract that kind of writer. Think tanks are not usually an SPS because the think tank has editorial control over its writers, not unlike a newspaper. Fiamh (talk, contribs) 10:53, 17 October 2019 (UTC)
Since there is no fact-checking, each article must be evaluated on its own merits. In practice however few if any articles published would meet rs, since reliable writers are unlikely to contribute and even if they did, the article would lack weight for inclusion of any of the facts presented. TFD (talk) 02:03, 19 October 2019 (UTC)
It is slightly more complex than that because Indymedia isn't just one organization, but a category of them (each with their own editorial board and policies); the name Indymedia is more of a "brand", like Antifa or somesuch, so the amount of (and existence of) fact-checking can differ from group to group. See here. (Certainly Indymedia journalism is a radicalway of sharing and selecting news. But it is not that much different fromestablished forms of journalism in the kind of problems, issues and editorialdiscussions it faces in the practice of everyday publishing. That said, it's reasonably clear that the vast majority of groups using the term, at least, wouldn't pass WP:RS for a variety of reasons - the converse of them being many scattered groups is that most of them individually lack reputations, even before you get to the fact that many of them just publish anything sent to them with only limited editorial control. This does mention that some have editorial boards that perform fact-checking, but, well, read for yourself: These differing interpretations of the purpose of Indymedia were further reflected incollectives’ editorial policy. Despite being based on the premise of open publishing it has been necessary at times to edit some postings. Spam is sometimes removed in order to retain newswire quality. Additionally there is an element of fact-checking that occurs for postings. This is done by the websites editorial collectives when they feel it is appropriate, but more commonly is undertaken by other participants and contributors in the form of comments posted after each newswire submission. Big yikes on the last part. A lot of the academic coverage (eg. here) strikes me as something that would be good for establishing reputation (they treat it as a usable news source), but which makes it sound unusable due to the way it interacts with our policies; that said, I would generally want to look at the reputation and policies of individual Indiemedia collectives rather than blanket-removing all of them, though with the assumption that they have a hard climb to illustrate reputation, fact-checking, and editorial controls, as well as a sufficiently well-defined editorial collective to avoid being WP:USERGENERATED (which seems like something else that varies from group to group?) I do think that they are not always a WP:SPS (at least, the academic papers listed there seem to give the editorial collectives some degree of weight), and some of them have actual editorial-board fact-checking, but there's a lot of other concerning things. --Aquillion (talk) 18:22, 19 October 2019 (UTC)
  • I agree with Fiamh: The following quote from the Portland Indymedia makes in clear that these sites consist of WP:UGC and this are "generally unacceptable" on Wikipedia. [15]:

Like all IMCs, Portland Indymedia hosts a website with an open publishing newswire to which anyone can post text, images, audio and video using the online publish form. Unlike a newspaper or other form of media, anyone is free to post their news and experiences (there are some exceptions, see the editorial policy. Articles posted to the site come from people in the community, and their words are never edited by IMC volunteers. The articles that are featured in the center column are taken right from the newswire, thus highlighting original content and reporting. This system empowers anyone to become the media for the purpose of sharing information and views that are blocked out or misrepresented by the corporate media; that is, to stand with the oppressed against the oppressors. - GretLomborg (talk) 04:32, 20 October 2019 (UTC)

  • The newswire sections are crowdsourced and inherently unreliable (WP:UGC). I recall at least one instance where an Indymedia post was the subject of a news piece published in a reliable source. For that narrow case, it may be useful to add the primary source as a supplement to the secondary source. Some of its editorial sections are usually a curated digest of the newswire, so I wouldn't bet on its reliability either. I guess some Indymedia sites might be reliable in narrow contexts, such as determining the exact date and location of a protest. --MarioGom (talk) 12:12, 22 October 2019 (UTC)

theconversation.com

Is The Conversation (website) considered a reliable source? Eg: [16]. I searched in WP:RS/P and the archives here but did not find anything relevant. Thank you in advance --Signimu (talk) 18:44, 18 October 2019 (UTC)

It's definitely being treated as reliable across the over 2,000 articles where it's being used.
The article you give as an example might be considered reliable simply because of the expertise of the author, Melissa Wdowik.
It would be helpful to find examples of how other publishers use it, but it seems fine at a glance. --Ronz (talk) 21:27, 18 October 2019 (UTC)
Thank you very much! --Signimu (talk) 05:15, 20 October 2019 (UTC)

Major..e.g.90%..culling of acceptable sources needed

WP:SNOW. There has been zero indication of support beyond the original proposer. Furthermore even if there were were support for the idea, proposals tend to have a low chance of success when they assume vast quantities of human-labor can be magically completed on demand. Wikipedia is already straining the supply of labor on existing-article cleanup work and the backlog of new articles&drafts.


Given the unanimous opposition to the previous proposal to deprecate CNN, I suggest that the proposer try to avoid ranging so far outside the bounds of community consensus. Alsee (talk) 14:32, 22 October 2019 (UTC)

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

I think the community should establish a committee to review all sources currently being accepted with a view of culling the acceptable sources by at least 90 %. Given the ever deteriorating quality and reliability of articles, I think Wikipedia should try to establish a niche with a reputation of only allowing the very best sourcing for its content, and CNN and FOX could be 2 of the first to go.
I do not think the status quo is going to be acceptable to the general public much longer as they are starting to see the reality of how much spin and other bias methodology has become embedded in most media. Nocturnalnow (talk) 19:11, 16 October 2019 (UTC)
If you think that Project Veritas is an acceptable source, then I think you probably need more experience evaluating sources before suggesting sweeping policy changes. GMGtalk 19:18, 16 October 2019 (UTC)
No, I have no idea if they are any good, but that's a good example to make my point that editors need a really short list of acceptable sources. Nocturnalnow (talk) 21:15, 17 October 2019 (UTC)
No, I have no idea if they are any good... and CNN and FOX could be 2 of the first to go
Then you're not qualified to offer opinions on reliable sources or on reliable-sources policy. --Calton | Talk 07:30, 18 October 2019 (UTC)
Good grief, so a guy can't be a pediatrician because he can't have a baby? Ad hominem always sucks, NOT because its not nice, but because its deflective and a HUGE waste of time! Nocturnalnow (talk) 17:15, 18 October 2019 (UTC)
  • The real problem is that too many editors can not distinguish NEWS journalism from OPINION journalism. The solution to that is better education of editors, not depreciation of sources. Blueboar (talk) 19:40, 16 October 2019 (UTC)
  • Sure there is a proliferation and perhaps reduction in quality of newstype sources, then again unless it's something really off-piste, I think most things are OK if edited in carefully/properly, use of attribution and so on.Selfstudier (talk) 23:03, 16 October 2019 (UTC)
    Since Wikipedia has a foundation stone of "anyone can edit" we can not move toward editor education or qualification, but since we do not have a policy of "any source is acceptable", then that is the direction we can go to improve article neutrality and validity. Nocturnalnow (talk) 21:15, 17 October 2019 (UTC)
    This is AT VERY BEST a solution in search of a problem. That you tried to get CNN deprecated makes me question your motivations here. --Calton | Talk
    Good grief, so a guy can't be a pediatrician because he can't have a baby? Ad hominem always sucks, NOT because its not nice, but because its deflective and a HUGE waste of time! Nocturnalnow (talk) 17:19, 18 October 2019 (UTC)
    And in this case, the ad hominem replies (always a sign of a weak opinion) may be an indication I may be on to a good idea...the culling...as disruptive at it would be. Disruptive can be a good thing, you know. Nocturnalnow (talk) 19:31, 18 October 2019 (UTC)
    When your suggestion is based mostly or entirely on your own personal opinion (as far as I can tell), it's not quite a clear-cut ad hominem to suggest that you may lack experience in the areas in which you are opining. I don't think it is over-the-top to suggest that 500 or so edits to articles over the past several years may not be sufficient for a thoroughly informed viewpoint on what drastic measures must be immediately undertaken to avoid the inevitable wiki-apocalypse. To suggest with such bravado that we must summarily depreciate Fox and CNN at the very least shows you are not aware that these sources have been discussed dozens of times. Merely having an opinion about Wikipedia does not constitute meaningful contribution to the project, and primarily doing so usually means that opinion will be an uninformed one. GMGtalk 19:50, 18 October 2019 (UTC)
  • Editors have widely endorsed both CNN (RSP entry) and Fox News (RSP entry) as generally reliable for factual news coverage, subject to the guideline on news organizations, in 27 previous discussions. It will take much, much more than a Project Veritas video to overturn the existing consensus. — Newslinger talk 19:53, 18 October 2019 (UTC)
  • Groupthink:..." is a psychological phenomenon that occurs within a group of people in which the desire for harmony or conformity in the group results in an irrational or dysfunctional decision-making outcome. Group members try to minimize conflict and reach a consensus decision without critical evaluation of alternative viewpoints by actively suppressing dissenting viewpoints, and by isolating themselves from outside influences." Not sure if the aforementioned applies, but I have not seen any "critical evaluation" of my "culling" suggestion. Nocturnalnow (talk) 00:39, 19 October 2019 (UTC)
    Wikipedia operates on consensus; this is fundamental. If consensus-building is not a process you would like to engage in, your contributions may be a better fit for some of these alternative outlets. — Newslinger talk 00:42, 19 October 2019 (UTC)
    I'm a great believer in consensus decision making. But open mindedness and outside the box thinking are not mutually exclusive to consensus decision making. But this (the non-mutual exclusivity of the above) is obvious and should not have to be even mentioned. Nocturnalnow (talk) 14:23, 19 October 2019 (UTC)
    If you want to overturn existing consensus, you'll need to convince other editors to adopt your views. The only "evidence" you've provided in your RfC on CNN is a Project Veritas video, and that didn't convince anyone. Likewise, in this discussion, you have not provided any good arguments against the existing consensus that CNN and Fox News can be used under the WP:NEWSORG guideline. If you think WP:NEWSORG should be changed, feel free to propose amendments at WT:RS. — Newslinger talk 19:13, 19 October 2019 (UTC)

What harm would there be in having a project-wide review and culling of sources?

Perhaps by looking at this in a different way we can have more constructive discussion. I think its a good idea to to have a committee review all the sources used this year, say in 1 or 2 categories, and come up with a short list of "most reliable sources". What's the problem with doing that? Nocturnalnow (talk) 14:23, 19 October 2019 (UTC)

Because who gets to decide who judges?Slatersteven (talk) 14:31, 19 October 2019 (UTC)
Just as an example, it could be a committee of retired Admins., voted into a "Sources Qualification Committee" on an annual basis. Nocturnalnow (talk) 19:22, 19 October 2019 (UTC)
Wikipedia is not a bureaucracy and we do not need a "Sources Qualification Committee" to review sources. The community as a whole is doing a fine job of reviewing sources on this noticeboard without a "committee". — Newslinger talk 19:23, 19 October 2019 (UTC)
So how will this be any less of a problem then RSN? The same people will vote them in, and no doubt will do so based upon a shared opinion of what RS should be.Slatersteven (talk) 19:25, 19 October 2019 (UTC)
RSN would still operate as an ongoing maintenance operation exactly as it is currently. The SQC would be an additional advisory entity which could come up with culling procedure recommendations for the community writ large to consider. For example, there might be a recommendation to begin creating a list of all existing acceptable sources in 1 category, perhaps a category which has the most contentious content, if such can be identified. Then each source can be evaluated by 2 members of the team and given a 1-10 score if the 2 can agree upon the appropriate score. Then, after all the scoring is done, the committee can recommend culling out all the sources with a low score, say 3 or under. Nocturnalnow (talk) 00:08, 20 October 2019 (UTC)
Currently, all editors are allowed to comment in any discussion on this noticeboard. Your proposal would restrict certain source-related discussions to editors who are part of a special group. How is that an improvement over the way this noticeboard operates now? — Newslinger talk 05:16, 20 October 2019 (UTC)
I'm not suggesting changing this noticeboard at all. I'm just suggesting putting many more sources on the blacklist. How to get that done is something to be figured out, but if the community thinks its worthwhile to assess whether we have too many acceptable sources, then I'm optimistic that method of assessment can be found. Nocturnalnow (talk) 21:21, 20 October 2019 (UTC)
Maintenance of the spam blacklist is already restricted to administrators, since MediaWiki:Spam-blacklist is in the MediaWiki namespace. Requests to change the spam blacklist are handled at WT:SBL, and vetted by administrators who exercise their discretion to determine whether the changes would help ensure compliance with policies and guidelines such as WP:SPAM, WP:NOTPROMO, WP:EL, WP:QS, and WP:SPS. You can request the blacklisting of new sources at WP:SBL at any time, but if the request is on reliability grounds, the spam blacklist maintainers will typically ask you to seek consensus on this noticeboard first. Administration of the spam blacklist is relatively informal, with no quantitative measurements such as the scoring system you're proposing. If you have a specific proposal related to the spam blacklist, the village pump's policy section or proposals section would be the ideal place to submit it for consideration, since the spam blacklist is not under the remit of this noticeboard. — Newslinger talk 21:58, 20 October 2019 (UTC)
Not sure this will achive that, as I said this will still be decided by the same kinds of people who decide it now, admins (even ex ones) were edds at one time.Slatersteven (talk) 08:50, 21 October 2019 (UTC)
Your "culling" proposal is highly unlikely to succeed, because it would – against existing consensus – fundamentally change what Wikipedia is. If you want to work on an encyclopedia where "at least 90 %" of sources that are considered reliable on Wikipedia are excluded, feel free to fork Wikipedia and start your own wiki. Wikipedia's CC BY-SA 3.0 license allows you to do this. — Newslinger talk 19:45, 19 October 2019 (UTC)
90% may be far too big a number, that number would be up to the SQC to recommend. Nocturnalnow (talk) 00:11, 20 October 2019 (UTC)
  • Nocturnalnow, you wrote CNN and FOX could be 2 of the first to go. There is a huge difference between the two, with CNN being nearly always right, and Fox News rarely so, so start by getting Fox News deprecated, then, in a decade or so, try to get CNN deprecated. That is how far apart they are on the "reliability" scale. I suspect you believe the "all mainstream news sources are fake news" mantra. -- BullRangifer (talk) 01:02, 20 October 2019 (UTC)
    "Suspicious" is a bad habit, and usually dead wrong. I personally think history textbooks have the most fake content, and I have not seen any increase in fake news over the past 60 years and yellow journalism goes back at least 125 years. I just think that there are way too many unscrupulous profiteers piling into the information provision space and that there will/must eventually be a severe culling. Nocturnalnow (talk) 21:39, 20 October 2019 (UTC)
  • @Nocturnalnow:, this isn't a case of "someone can't be a pediatrician if they can't have a baby," this is "someone citing Vani Hari to mothers of several healthy children to tell them they should drop all fish and candy from their children's diets (as though they were equally bad), going on to say that these same mothers shouldn't continue choosing what meals their children eat and yet are responsible enough to form a committee to solve world hunger."
The "harm" is that it would be beyond a huge time sink. Even if everyone agreed right now that this needed to happen, it would take months to get the committee sorted out, barring some sort of fascist takeover. Even then, there are currently 5,955,358 articles, some with [[Barack Obama|hundreds of citations], some with dozens of sources (still hundreds of citations), and all articles pretty much required to have at least two (if not three) distinct sources. Now, yes, there are a lot of stubs out there without sources, and if you want to bring them up, that's only proving my point that it is beyond delusional to even dream of the possibility of the community having anywhere near the manhours necessary to suggest this project. So, if even half of all articles have no sources (or else overlap with other articles' sources), and only 1% have hundreds (we'll say 100) and 5% dozens (we'll say 20), and the rest only three (a highly conservative guess), that'd still be 20,129,110.04 sources to review. Hell, if it's three-quarters of articles with no unique sources, only 0.1% that have just 100 sources, 1% that have 20, and the rest with just two or three (2.5), that'd still be 5,344,933.805 sources to review. Even 90% of articles with no unique sources, 0.01% with just 100 sources, 0.1% with just 20 sources, and the rest with just two, that'd still be 1,356,630.5524 sources. And we're not going to just immediately access all those sources at once, the best case scenario would be compiling a list of all citations (which would still end up with inexact duplicates).
In short, you are asking us to catalogue The Library of Babel. This should be WP:SNOW closed. Ian.thomson (talk) 22:01, 20 October 2019 (UTC)
You are likely 100% correct. I know it would be a huge challenge and task and the regulars here are much more capable than I am at figuring out how to get it done.
I am talking about something like putting a man on the moon back in 1961 when JFK set the goal. But the "how" comes 2nd., the "would this be something that you think would be good to accomplish" comes first. Nocturnalnow (talk) 14:23, 21 October 2019 (UTC)
The regulars who you admit are much more capable of figuring these things out than you have been telling you that not only can't it be done, but (especially) that it doesn't need to be done.
The process of sorting sources would require that we halt all editing to articles so that no more can be added (because the site is constantly being edited), then set up multiple bots to trawl through every article and copy everything in ref tags to a central location, convert all the different cite templates (cite web, cite book, cite news...) to just the default cite template, put the fields in the same order, drop the page number field, arrange all these citations in alphabetical order, and remove duplicate titles. (I know it'd seem like we'd be able to do the same with websites, but then all print book citations with Google Books or Internet Archive links would be scrapped). But not all citations use the cite template, those will have to be gone through manually. That's also not counting the number of citations where things are spelled slightly differently (such as including or dropping "The" from the title).
The bots would be the fast way to do it, and the site is still so big that a bot set up to go after a specific problem might not notice a specific article for years. After that, there's still a human element. We are still investigating copyright issues from four years ago. IIRC, the only reason we don't have very ancient drafts anymore is that we tag them for deletion once they reach a certain age.
At a minimum, this project would take four years -- and that'd be a miracle. A more realistic scenario is that the project would never be finished, and would probably be the death of the site. After that's finished, we could finally begin figuring out which sources would and would not be approved, and set up future rules for what would be approved. Academic publishers would be a bit easier to sort out ("Anything by Brill publishers is reliable until proven otherwise"). With the exception of the Associated Press and Reuters, pretty much all news agencies would fall into shades of grey, reliable for some coverage but not others (gosh, that's no change at all! It's like you should just be suggesting that the ban Fox and CNN as sources instead of this!). But then there's popular publishers, whose books are reliable or not on a case-by-case basis, and even some books reliable only for certain topics. This would take at least another year.
And during and after all this time, new sources that don't fit anywhere in the rules would be published. They would need to be approved by the committee. But ain't nobody got time for that, so they'd set up guidelines for what sort of sources might or might not be reliable and then a place to call into question the reliability of already cited sources -- Oh, shit, it's the system we already have, just going around both our elbows five times to get to our asses! Ian.thomson (talk) 23:10, 21 October 2019 (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.

Celebitchy.com - Reliable?

Taking a wiki walk, I stumbled across some stange, hard to believe information sourced to "Celebitchy.com", which I then removed because It didn't seem like a reliable source. Seeing how it doesn't seem to have been discussed before, I'm now bringing the site here- should "Celebitchy.com" be considered a reliable source? Articles used in. 💵Money💵emoji💵Talk💸Help out at CCI! 15:05, 22 October 2019 (UTC)

Not reliable:
https://www.celebitchy.com/advertise/ Celebitchy is a gossip and entertainment blog...
https://www.celebitchy.com/legal_disclaimer/ Celebitchy, LLC makes no claims that content is valid, accurate, or true. --Ronz (talk) 15:43, 22 October 2019 (UTC)
The family of websites that celebitchy is a part of includes blacklisted justjared.com, and TMZ. They all look very poor if not outright unreliable. --Ronz (talk) 16:26, 22 October 2019 (UTC)

Is pakpedia.pk a reliable source for a BLP? Or anything?

It's main page is here and there's a disclaimer here that says "Pakpedia is a Pakistan’s biggest Encyclopedia where you can find all the information in detail about Pakistan related to all the categories including personalities, locations, cities, government sectors, tourist places and many more. All the content provided in the articles has been taken from different sites as the articles are written with many references which you may check in the article so if you find that the content is wrong or the content is too old which needs correction or something too negative written about any personality or anything then you are most welcome to do tell us on the provided email and please give us maximum 72 hours for the correction." I see it's used for Khalil-ur-Rehman Qamar but I came here via Hassan Hayat. I guess while I'm here I should ask about Diva Magazine also.[17] Thanks. Doug Weller talk 15:41, 21 October 2019 (UTC)

I would say not, as we may have circular referencing issue.Slatersteven (talk) 16:41, 21 October 2019 (UTC)
Per "All the content provided in the articles has been taken from different sites" I wouldn't use it for anything except checking if they have useful refs, possibly as EL on a case-by-case basis. Unclear what Diva is so I wouldn't use it for anything remotely controversial/BLP-ish. Gråbergs Gråa Sång (talk) 08:56, 22 October 2019 (UTC)
  • Not RS, as far as I can tell. None of the indicia of reliability. "If you want your desire article should be publish on pakpedia then mail us on our given email id we will publish your article on pakpedia." Guy (help!) 10:34, 22 October 2019 (UTC)
"LATEST POSTS" worries me, and I am having trouble finding out if they have an editorial policy. At this stage I am erring towards not RS.Slatersteven (talk) 16:13, 22 October 2019 (UTC)
DIVA looks to be a clickbait site. No evidence of reliability that I can see. Guy (help!) 21:41, 22 October 2019 (UTC)

Should vpnpro dot com be considered a reliable source?

Citation no. 49 in NordVPN#Tesonet_court_case cites an article at vpnpro.com (https://vpnpro.com/blog/why-pwc-audit-of-nordvpn-logging-policy-is-a-big-deal/) which in my opinion sounds like a sponsored advertisement. The website also contains a large amount of irrelevant articles, which makes it appear to me like a paid promotional website. In my opinion, such a website shouldn't be considered a reliable source, since it puts paid content above the goal of creating an encyclopedia. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Oldosfan (talk • contribs) 11:33, 22 October 2019 (UTC)

Clearly not a reliable source. It is a blog in the business of profiting from affiliate links to NordVPN, ExpressVPN and Surfshark VPN. --MarioGom (talk) 11:37, 22 October 2019 (UTC)
agreed. since the consensus at this time seems to be that it's unreliable/sponsored, I think it would be prudent to remove that link and paragraph from the NordVPN article. Would (oldosfan) 03:20, 23 October 2019 (UTC)

Is this a reliable source?

This was added to the People's Mujahedin of Iran:

"UK Border Agency describes MEK in a 2009 report as "cult-like terrorist organisation"".

This was the source used for this: [18]

It just doesn't look right to me, so brining it here for your comments. Barca (talk) 00:06, 23 October 2019 (UTC)

  • I don't see what's wrong with this source. It's a legitimate UK government website, and the UK government is a good source for its own views per WP:ABOUTSELF. Whether or not it's due weight to include is not a question for this noticeboard. Fiamh (talk, contribs) 00:32, 23 October 2019 (UTC)
Yes. Additionally, I don't see why the official views of a major world power on a political organization would be WP:UNDUE. feminist (talk) 02:25, 23 October 2019 (UTC)
Well regardless, the use of the source is off: The UK Border Agency isn't themselves describing the MEK as such in the document, they are quoting a report from the US State Department. 199.116.171.94 (talk) 07:14, 23 October 2019 (UTC)
If you look closely, the comment that they are a "cult-like terrorist organisation" is an interjection inserted by the the UK agency into the quote from the United States agency. Fiamh (talk, contribs) 07:20, 23 October 2019 (UTC)
I'm not sure that's the intent; in the USSD source the paragraph just above the one being quoted begins 'By mid-1982, the clergy had won a succession of post-Revolution power struggles that eliminated first the center of the political spectrum and then the leftists, including the communist Tudeh party and the cult-like terrorist organization Mujahedin-e Khalq (MEK or MKO).' so I'm inclined to see it less as an interjection by the UKBA and rather a transposition of text to restore context to the acronym being used. 199.116.171.94 (talk) 07:48, 23 October 2019 (UTC)

stuff.co.nz re Science of Identity Foundation

A Stuff.co.nz article entitled 'I survived a Krishna cult' has been cited on the Science of Identity Foundation page by Localemediamonitor and 207.233.45.12.

The 'stuff' article is based on assertions by Rama das Ranson. He is obviously very troubled, so I hesitate to post an excerpt here that might subject him to ridicule. But a quick check of Ranson's website raises serious doubts about the suitability of this as a source. Humanengr (talk) 19:50, 22 October 2019 (UTC)

Bevan Hurley wrote the article you're referring to in Stuff.co.nz, and that publication's editors published the article. That is a separate issue from Rama das Ranson's remarks in a self-published website. WP:SYNTHESIS says we can't look at what Ranson says or how he says it anywhere but reliable secondary sources like the article you're asking about. That article "I survived a Krishna cult" confines itself to reporting what Rama das Ranson said about his experiences, and related events and statements by others. The article even gives the group's response to Rama das Ranson's comments about them.
I do see a problem with the statement in our article which the Stuff article is cited to support, however:

"Former members of the group describe it as a cult."

The Stuff article mentions Ranson's accusations and those of a Member of New Zealand's Parliament (which the article says were later retracted after a lawsuit) of cultism. These accusations may be given undue weight in our article's text, even though the Stuff.co.nz article meets WP:SECONDARY guidelines for a reliable secondary source.
I would suggest altering the text citing that article to say something like "Former Science of Identity Foundation member Rama das Ranson describes the group as a cult, based on his personal experiences with the group".
There's no reason not to use the article you're asking about. It is part of published comment in secondary sources on the subject of our article. It may be possible to find other secondary sources balancing Rama das Ranson's perspective. --loupgarous (talk) 11:14, 23 October 2019 (UTC)

Are Doctoral Theses considered reliable sources?

Hi all. An interesting conundrum came up at Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Ironclaw (2nd nomination). I found a doctoral theses published at NYU that relates to this AFD. Should it be considered reliable (since doctoral theses are peer reviewed by their faculty), and can it be used towards WP:SIGCOV? Thanks.4meter4 (talk) 20:45, 22 October 2019 (UTC)

Doctoral theses are only considered reliable if they result in the awarding of a doctorate. They've been approved by the thesis adviser and possibly others. In addition, writings by PhD holders in their subject of expertise are typically considered reliable even if self-published, per WP:SPS. Fiamh (talk, contribs) 20:58, 22 October 2019 (UTC)
@Fiamh: Does this indicate that? [19].4meter4 (talk) 21:11, 22 October 2019 (UTC)
4meter4, I don't see any reason why not. Since he is now a lecturer, it's safe to assume that the thesis was accepted. Thesis review is more robust than many other academic peer review processes. Fiamh (talk, contribs) 21:18, 22 October 2019 (UTC)
Acceptance of a dissertation or thesis in partial fulfillment of the requirements for awarding of a Doctorate of Philosophy (and some other doctoral degrees) shows that not only has the author added significantly to the sum of human knowledge in researching and writing the work, but has successfully defended the ideas in the document before a commitee of other scholars in the field of study. As Fiamh says, that process is usually more demanding and intellectually robust than peer review of research papers published in professional journals (one well-recognized example of reliable source for our articles). --loupgarous (talk) 10:08, 23 October 2019 (UTC)
In academic publishing we typically took the view that it was better to cite the journal articles vs the thesis when possible. Typically a thesis is comprised of work previously published in several journal articles. Thus typically you can cite the same author via their journal article (or conference article) on the same subject. While I agree it's harder to get a thesis published vs journal article, an individual journal article is going to be narrower in scope and thus the arguments within are more likely to be scrutinized more carefully. When considering cited by others journal articles are more likely to be cited vs a thesis. Finally, the thesis can be seen as a work that is created and published by a single university. The author and reviewers all being from the same institute (not always but in many cases). A journal article will have passed through the hands of uninvolved reviewers and an uninvolved publisher. Yes, there have been legitimate concerns about conflict of interest and bias etc but those issues are no different inside of the university vs out. As it relates to the question here, I would say first, we should try to find the underlying papers on which the thesis is based rather than citing the thesis. Second, I would generally consider a thesis to be expert opinion and then we have to look at the background of the author when deciding how much weight to apply to their opinions. Springee (talk) 13:27, 23 October 2019 (UTC)

Morning Star (British newspaper)

I'm checking WP:RS/P#Morning Star, which currently lists the MS as a "No consensus" source and cites that the New Statesman described it as "Britain's last communist newspaper". This seems rather to understate things - it's actually the house organ of the Communist Party of Britain. It's linked from their site. It lists its editorial policy as being in accord with their manifesto "Britain's Road to Socialism", and that manifesto states "On the economic, political and ideological fronts, the Morning Star as the daily paper of the labour movement and the left, with its editorial policy based on Britain’s Road to Socialism, plays an indispensable role in informing, educating and helping to mobilise the forces for progress and revolution.".

The MS itself states that "while the Morning Star’s editorial line may be guided via an annual democratic endorsement of Communist Party of Britain strategy document Britain’s Road to Socialism ... the paper is in fact a co-op owned by its readers for its readers", and describes itself as "often a lone voice reporting the stories that other media refuse to touch", which has WP:N implications.[20]

I'm not necessarily arguing for a change in its status, it's certainly possible to cite it with caution, but maybe the list entry should be updated to reflect this? Vashti (talk) 11:11, 9 October 2019 (UTC)

Being the official publication of a fringe (they have 775 members, and are one of about a dozen "Communist Parties of Britain") political party isn't something that should be highlighted at WP:RS/P? Vashti (talk) 15:07, 9 October 2019 (UTC)
No, as size of membership (or even staff) is not an RS criteria. Even SPS (one person publishing their own material) can be an RS. We need more then "but communists".Slatersteven (talk) 15:13, 9 October 2019 (UTC)
Hmm, fair enough. Vashti (talk) 15:17, 9 October 2019 (UTC)
  • It is kind of nutty, if you Google image search their front pages: "LABOUR VOWS TO TAKE ON GLOBAL ELITE", "BLOOD ON HIS HANDS", "TAX THE RICH - DON'T ROB THE POOR", "WAR CRIMINAL NOT WELCOME", "A SHOCKING CONSPIRACY", "BANKERS' PM PLOTS NEW ATTACK". It combines hard-left WP:PARTISAN viewpoint with British tabloid-journalism, so I would not consider it reliable but I would not deprecate it either. --Pudeo (talk) 23:06, 11 October 2019 (UTC)
  • From looking at their website today, all of the most inflammatory headlines appear to use quotes from individuals or groups interviewed in the article (e.g. "'Major safety failings' at prison holding Julian Assange", "XR demands BBC tells the whole truth of climate change"). It's questionable as a visual editorial style, but I'm not sure that it necessarily tells us much about the reliability of their coverage.
On another note, as it is a partisan publication, its choices of who to interview are very much grounded in its partisan perspective, and we should assess DUE accordingly. For example, when covering this week's Turkish invasion of Syria, the Communist Party of Turkey's opinion is unlikely to be the most important one for us to report. On the other hand, if we ever are in a situation where we specifically want communist (and specifically Marxist-Leninist parties') perspectives on an issue, Morning Star seems like a good resource. signed, Rosguill talk 23:24, 11 October 2019 (UTC)
  • Marginally better than the Daily Mail, but not much better. In all cases where the Morning Star publishes something that's both important and accurate, the same information will also be published by a better source.—S Marshall T/C 19:36, 15 October 2019 (UTC)
  • It should be treated the same way we treat all confirmed media-organs of political & religious organizations. And if we have no blanket rule for every one of those, it's probably high time we have one. -The Gnome (talk) 11:57, 19 October 2019 (UTC)
I agree, we need a blanket rule, and yes I would say ban on all such bodies. What we cannot do is ban some and not others.Slatersteven (talk) 12:02, 19 October 2019 (UTC)
  • I read the MorningStar regularly and haven’t seen any problem with reliability. If I were using it as a source of information on Wikipedia I would generally attribute the information. If the article was an interview then I would generally use statements made by the interviewee without attribution. The MorningStar is published by is a readers' co-operative called the People's Press Printing Society. It does have an historical connection with the Communist Party (various flavours). The current relationship between paper and party seems unclear. I haven’t seen any declaration that there is an official or legal connection. The two do seem to share some personnel. Here is an excerpt from a 2015 New Statesman article (Ben Chacko is the paper's editor and Robert Griffiths is the Communist Party of Britain's general secretary):

"The People’s Press Printing Society is now run by a management committee that includes representatives of nine national trade unions, each of which contributes £20,000 to the paper’s costs and "they wouldn’t do that if it was a communist front". Griffiths maintains that the involvement of non-communists is "genuine and substantial", though he concedes that the relationship between paper and party remains strong: he was in William Rust House on the same day as I was, to attend the monthly meeting of the CPB’s political committee. Chacko is also a committee member and he was attending the meeting, though Griffiths said he wouldn’t be "taking orders"".

Burrobert (talk) 15:00, 19 October 2019 (UTC)

I would rate it as reliable. S Marshall above makes the point, "where the Morning Star publishes something that's both important and accurate, the same information will also be published by a better source." I generally agree. However, the value of the left-wing press is that they often provide more extensive coverage or topics that receive little attention in mainstream media. For example, the Morning Star's article on the end of the Matalan strike[21] contains information not included in the BBC article,[22] such as information about the company's original offer and that the new offer includes a £90 one-off payment for all employees and backdated pay for all staff on core shifts.
I am not worried about editorial policy or headlines since opinion pieces are rarely reliable sources for facts and headlines are never reliable sources. The Wall Street Journal for example runs lots of editorials against climate change science, and even mainstream publications publish headlines such as "Americans Are Dying Younger, Saving Corporations Billions" (Bloomberg, August 8, 2007).
TFD (talk) 21:16, 23 October 2019 (UTC)

RFC: Moratorium on "general reliability" RFCs

  • Should we agree to halt the use of RFCs containing four options for "general (un)reliability" of a source, particularly when said RFC contains no specific instances of claims or citations?
  • While it may be useful to deprecate heavily-used and clearly-unreliable sources, the corollary is not true: Wikipedia is unable to promote a source to "reliable for any assertion about any topic whatsoever"; reliability is always assessed based on the nature of the claims being made.
  • With these parameters in mind, is it futile for us to continually open RFCs here on WP:RSN if an outcome of "generally reliable for everything" is counter-productive and misleading?
    • Sub-question: should such RFCs be permitted as long as they include at least one concrete example of an assertion of fact, such as one which is currently in dispute on an article's talk page?

Elizium23 (talk) 00:53, 14 July 2019 (UTC)

Survey (moratorium)

Arguments on both sides varied subtly, but to me it's clear that there is no consensus to halt RfCs at this time. Prominent support votes included concerns that A) RFCs on reliability assessments of particular sources have been mass-produced without prior informal discussions occurring beforehand as advised in WP:RFCBEFORE, and B) that "deprecation" is used too excessively. While both arguments are valid to certain extents, in the end the oppose votes are more well-formulated. The vast majority of voters opposing such a measure (Newslinger being the most prominent) present arguments that all basically boil down to WP:CONTEXTMATTERS, as well as concerns that such a measure would, at best, undermine the very purpose of RfCs. Nonetheless, given that even a relative majority in the opposition sympathized with the support on the two aforementioned key supportive arguments, overall I'd say that there while there is a somewhat strong consensus for discouraging RfCs for any source whose reliability has not been previously discussed on RSN or elsewhere as per WP:RFCBEFORE as well as considerable consensus for exercising caution when nominating a source for deprecation (applying common sense where necessary), there is absolutely no reasonable consensus to implement a moratorium at this time. ToThAc (talk) 22:49, 22 October 2019 (UTC)

The following discussion is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.
  • @Elizium23: Could you provide a couple of examples of the types of RfCs you think should be halted? 01:09, 14 July 2019 (UTC) — Preceding unsigned comment added by Nikkimaria (talk • contribs)
    Sure: WP:RSN#RfC: Quadrant Magazine, WP:RSN#RfC: Daily Graphic and wgraphic.com.gh, WP:RSN#RfC: The Herald (Glasgow). I didn't even have to visit our archives for them. I am not sure where this template originated, but it has rapidly become the de facto method for opening discussions here on RSN, and I do not like it, no sir, not one bit. Elizium23 (talk) 01:13, 14 July 2019 (UTC)
  •  Comment: This RfC is related to the RfC at WT:RSN § RfC: Header text, which affects the header text of this noticeboard. — Newslinger talk 01:19, 14 July 2019 (UTC)
  • Oppose halting RfCs. By generally reliable, we're referring to sources that have a strong reputation for accuracy, fact-checking, and error-correction. They usually have a reputable editorial team, and tend to be endorsed or used by other reliable sources for factual information. Context always matters, and the consensus shown in some discussions on this noticeboard restrict the scope of what a source is generally reliable for (e.g. The Verge RfC).

    Note that the word generally means "usually" in this context, not "always". The general classification of a source is only the starting point for evaluating reliability, and specific uses of a source can always be brought to this noticeboard for a more targeted review. If a source frequently publishes articles outside of its circle of competence, like in your example about science and religion, then the source should not be considered generally reliable. — Newslinger talk 01:21, 14 July 2019 (UTC)

    Then perhaps the question we should be asking is: Is there evidence that [source] have a reputation for fact-checking and editorial oversight? If a source meets these criteria, and independence from the topic, etc., then per WP:NEWSORG we may deem it to be generally reliable for statements of fact. But I do not think it is useful to whip up boiler-plate RFCs directly asking whether [source] is 'generally reliable' (and it's interesting that the qualification for statements of fact is, here on RSN, often missing from this question. Elizium23 (talk) 01:31, 14 July 2019 (UTC)
    For what it's worth, The 3 RfCs you have linked (Quadrant, Daily Graphic, The Herald) do include the "for factual reporting" qualifier after "Generally reliable". If this is not descriptive enough, then I agree that it would be helpful to provide more detailed definitions of each option in RfCs of this type. — Newslinger talk 01:45, 14 July 2019 (UTC)
    For what it's worth? Zilch. Newslinger opposed directly quoting or pointing to the RfCs, successfully. Peter Gulutzan (talk) 23:07, 14 July 2019 (UTC)
    Your reference and link to a discussion on edit filters have nothing to do with generally reliable sources. — Newslinger talk 03:44, 15 July 2019 (UTC)
    @Newslinger: If "generally reliable" is supposed to mean "usually" it should be worded differently, because "generally" sounds like it means in the broadest sense. "In general" is not equivalent to saying "in the cases where this source is applicable as a potential RS". If Scientific American is "generally reliable" then it would be reliable for politics too. —DIYeditor (talk) 23:22, 17 July 2019 (UTC)
    ​Thanks for bringing this up. I've started a discussion at WT:RSP § "Generally" in search of a less ambiguous word than generally. — Newslinger talk 23:56, 17 July 2019 (UTC)
    As a result of the above discussion, "Generally reliable" has been changed to "Generally reliable in its areas of expertise" in WP:RSP § Legend. — Newslinger talk 14:49, 22 July 2019 (UTC)
    I am neutral on the restriction ("include at least one concrete example of an assertion of fact") suggested in the sub-question. While we should encourage editors to provide examples of how a source is being used, a question on the general reliability of a source shouldn't be unduly focused on one specific use of that source. — Newslinger talk 01:45, 14 July 2019 (UTC)
  • Oppose halting RfCs. What's wrong with seeking a consensus as to the reliability of a source? I thought we were aiming to have high quality reliable sources? If an outlet is unreliable, it is unreliable WP:SPADE. I personally think it's a very useful means to ensure quality citations and avoid myriad edit wars and content disputes before they happen. Bacondrum (talk) 07:03, 14 July 2019 (UTC)
  • Comment Isn't the whole purpose of this noticeboard to ask questions regarding reliable sources? Bacondrum (talk) 07:13, 14 July 2019 (UTC)
  • Comment Shouldn't this discussion be held somewhere else? This is the reliable source noticeboard, isn't it? Perhaps the talk page would be more appropriate? Bacondrum (talk) 08:16, 14 July 2019 (UTC)
  • Oppose halting RfCs. It's appropriate to have one big discussion about a source's reputation for accuracy, fact-checking, and error-correction since this doesn't usually change from article to article. This doesn't prevent us from discussing its appropriateness in a specific instance where things like attributed quotes or scientific/medical claims come into play. –dlthewave ☎ 12:00, 14 July 2019 (UTC)
  • Oppose, though there are a tad too many of these lately. Generally a RfC here on the general use should be preceded by a discussion on a particular use (here), and also demonstrating that we have a general problem (e.g. We use source X in 100 articles, despite source X being described as Y....). Lately - there have been some RfCs here that jumped the gun on proper pre-RfC discussions. However, we definitely shouldn't have a moratorium on RfCs of these type generally - as discussions sources is exactly what this board is for. Icewhiz (talk) 13:15, 14 July 2019 (UTC)
  • Be more careful Don't reach straight for the RfC unless other options have proved fruitless. --Redrose64 🌹 (talk) 14:45, 14 July 2019 (UTC)
  • Support. RfCs should only be used in order to cleanly remove/"deprecate" currently in-use sources. For sources where no formal action is envisaged, start with a standard discussion. feminist (talk) 14:55, 14 July 2019 (UTC)
  • Support as there ahave been far too many in a short period so that the discussion is often truncated, undetailed, lacking participation and depth of investigation, regards Atlantic306 (talk) 16:53, 14 July 2019 (UTC)
  • Support. The four-way question is deceptive and not consistent with WP:RS. It misleads by claiming to be a "deprecation" so people who know this dictionary definition will think it's about "disapproval" but in fact the intent (not necessarily implemented) is that an edit filter will result in a message that references are generally prohibited. It misleads by claiming to be "as in the 2017 RfC of the Daily Mail" but in fact the Daily Mail closers didn't say "deprecating", said the prohibition is of use as a reference, and said opinion pieces are okay. It misleads by causing links to essay-status pages as if they have some sort of authority, when the real authority is WP:RS policy (the one that says to always take context into account). The Herald (Glasgow) RfC is an example of misuse -- an editor included the question about treating like The Daily Mail, not with evidence that serious people might think that but it's in the four-way question. Peter Gulutzan (talk) 20:31, 14 July 2019 (UTC)
Excuse me, sir, but "misuse"? I felt The Herald belongs on WP:RSP. What is the process if not posting here and getting consensus? It was my first time at this noticeboard. I saw the "four option" query being used here as if it was a template or standard format, so I followed suit. Other contributors even thanked me for the submission or said they thought The Herald was already on the list of perennial sources. And since this is policy currently being voted on, I don't think I was wrong, so I thank you not to characterize my submission as misuse or abuse of the noticeboard. --SVTCobra 20:46, 14 July 2019 (UTC)
SVTCobra Indeed, all this talk of misuse and dishonesty is way out of line, what happened to the assumption of good faith? I too saw that NEWSLINGER had used that format and I thought it was a clear and efficiant way to get feedback, I never asked for anything to be depreciated. Isn't this notice board precisely for asking about the reliability of sources? I've seen very little reasoning used here, just claims that too many people are asking questions or that those who ask are being dishonest. Should probably get rid of this noticeboard then, why have it if you aren't allowed to ask too much or your going to be accused of dishonesty. Bacondrum (talk) 22:09, 14 July 2019 (UTC)
Neither of the Daily Mail (RSP entry) RfCs (2017 nor 2019) concluded that "opinion pieces are okay". See Wikipedia:Citing sources for what reference means.

Even deprecated sources qualify for the WP:ABOUTSELF exception, which allows their use for uncontroversial self-descriptions in the rare case that they are WP:DUE and covered by reliable sources. The reliable sources guideline is being honored in all of these RfCs, because context matters in each of the four options. (The only exception is the CoinDesk RfC, and I opposed the proposal in that RfC's statement because this criterion was not met.) WP:DEPS defers to WP:RS and explicitly states, "reliability always depends on the specific content being cited, and all sources are reliable in at least some circumstances and unreliable in at least some others". If there is any confusion about what deprecation means, a link to WP:DEPS will clarify.

When an editor asks about a low-quality source, we should be able to say that it is questionable, and that it generally shouldn't be used on Wikipedia. Repeatedly debating the inclusion of poor sources that have earned abysmal reputations for repeatedly publishing false or fabricated information, conspiracy theories, or pseudoscience is a waste of the community's time. RfCs of this type allow us to make decisive evaluations resulting in consensus that endures until there is evidence that the source's reputation has changed. Consensus is a policy. — Newslinger talk 21:49, 14 July 2019 (UTC)

I said "misuse" correctly but should have emphasized it was innocent misuse, which is obvious. I said "and [Daily Mail RfC closers] said opinion pieces are okay" because despite Newslinger's irrelevancies it is a fact, see the NPOVN archive of a May 2017 discussion and look for the words "Attributed opinions of the author were not considered in the RFC, and a reasonable exception from the ban appears correct here." Nobody said anything against "we should be able to say that it is questionable" because that's not the topic. Consensus is not a policy that allows overriding WP:RS because WP:CONLEVEL. Peter Gulutzan (talk) 23:07, 14 July 2019 (UTC)
At Wikipedia:Neutral point of view/Noticeboard/Archive 65 § Daily Mail, the full statement from Tazerdadog (one of the 2017 Daily Mail RfC closers) was:

Attributed opinions of people other than the author were considered in the RFC and were included in the ban (IAR notwithstanding). Attributed opinions of the author were not considered in the RFC, and a reasonable exception from the ban appears correct here.)

The attributed opinions of any article's author are covered under WP:ABOUTSELF, which applies to all questionable (and deprecated) sources, although due weight should also be considered. If you don't like the results of the two Daily Mail RfCs, you can try to convince the community that "its use as a reference" should not be "generally prohibited". Overturning the current consensus would require a third RfC on the Daily Mail, which is not advisable right now because it's highly unlikely to succeed.

Nobody is suggesting that WP:RS should be overridden; the type of RfC being discussed here uses WP:V and WP:RS to identify questionable sources for what they are: "generally unreliable". — Newslinger talk 08:42, 15 July 2019 (UTC)

WP:ABOUTSELF is "about self", an honest title that has nothing whatever to do with Newslinger's assertion. But that doesn't matter since now there's no dispute that the closers said attributed opinions are okay, which is one of the reasons the question is misleading. I said nothing in this thread about overturning WP:DAILYMAIL, perhaps Newslinger mixes that up with my remarks that one shouldn't say something is like The Daily Mail and its RfC when it's not. Peter Gulutzan (talk) 14:27, 15 July 2019 (UTC)
Please re-read WP:ABOUTSELF. Using the example from the NPOVN discussion, the article that Katie Hopkins published in the Daily Mail qualifies under WP:ABOUTSELF as an uncontroversial representation of what Hopkins's own opinions are. However, this is only due in the article on Katie Hopkins (and if it were more prominent, it would be due in the Daily Mail article). It is not due anywhere else. Claiming that "the closers said attributed opinions are okay" is extremely misleading, since it conflates WP:RSOPINION (which the Daily Mail does not qualify for, because it's not considered a reliable source) with WP:ABOUTSELF (which is a restrictive exemption granted to all questionable sources and self-published sources). — Newslinger talk 20:25, 15 July 2019 (UTC)
The closer remarks that I pointed to made no mention of WP:ABOUTSELF, Newslinger while claiming to quote "the full statement from Tazerdadog" quoted only one full statement, another was "However, the DM does not have a reputation for altering the words of the author of the piece, so this can be taken as one of the exceptions we tried to write into the close.", the point at issue wasn't secretly WP:ABOUTSELF unless one believes that when Katie Hopkins wrote "Britain is faced with some hard questions ..." the word Britain was a synonym for Katie Hopkins. Peter Gulutzan (talk) 22:28, 15 July 2019 (UTC)
That is covered under WP:ABOUTSELF, because the claim is that Hopkins wrote the statement in the Daily Mail, not that the statement is true. It is used in the Katie Hopkins article as a primary source equivalent, but is not due anywhere else. Since WP:ABOUTSELF covers this situation entirely, no additional exceptions were made for the Daily Mail beyond what is normally allotted for questionable sources. The 2017 Daily Mail RfC does not support the use of the Daily Mail for all "opinion pieces", but the ones eligible for WP:ABOUTSELF "were not considered in the RFC". — Newslinger talk 00:33, 16 July 2019 (UTC)
I asked a closer, Primefac. The reply is here. Peter Gulutzan (talk) 19:45, 17 July 2019 (UTC)
Thanks for clarifying with Primefac. The Katie Hopkins case was not the ideal example, since it falls under WP:ABOUTSELF in the Katie Hopkins article. I will defer to Primefac's explanation for attributed opinions of Daily Mail authors in articles other than the article of the author, although due weight still applies. — Newslinger talk 21:18, 17 July 2019 (UTC)
If the term deprecation is an issue, anyone can submit a requested move from Wikipedia:Deprecated sources to Wikipedia:Highly questionable sources or some other name. The name makes no difference to me. However, I get the impression that you're not objecting to the name, but to the adoption of edit filters and other mechanisms that discourage the use of highly questionable sources. There is consensus that RfCs are the preferred process for determining whether these mechanisms should be implemented. You can verify this through the 18 successful RfCs that deprecated 17 different sources, and you can also read this paragraph from the closing statement of the 2019 Daily Mail RfC:

Finally, a number of editors argued that other publications were similarly, or more, unreliable than the Daily Mail. We note that the unreliability of a different source is a reason to remove that source, and is irrelevant here; regardless, these other publications are outside the scope of this RfC, and if there are lingering concerns about other tabloids or tabloids in general, a separate RfC is necessary to assess current consensus about them.

— Newslinger talk 08:14, 15 July 2019 (UTC)
There was absolutely zero "lingering concern" that something like The Herald (Glasgow) is a tabloid meriting removal, but there is concern here about the misuse of a misleading 4-way question that was never suggested in WP:DAILYMAIL closing remarks. As for "identifying questionable sources" -- great idea, because it's normal behaviour following instructions at the top of this WP:RSN page, i.e. it's not an RfC with four fixed questions. Peter Gulutzan (talk) 14:27, 15 July 2019 (UTC)
As of right now, nobody in the RfC for The Herald has claimed that it is a "tabloid meriting removal". WP:RFC lists a number of accepted uses for an RfC: "Requests for comment (RfC) is a process for requesting outside input concerning disputes, policies, guidelines or article content." The type of RfC under debate solicits input on whether a source generally meets the requirements of WP:V (a policy) and WP:RS (a guideline). Outside of the instructions in WP:RFCST, declaring whether an RfC format is or isn't "normal behaviour" for other editors is excessively bureaucratic, and Wikipedia is not a bureaucracy. — Newslinger talk 20:43, 15 July 2019 (UTC)
You brought up "lingering concerns about tabloids", I observed there was no lingering concern, so the excuse that you brought up doesn't hold. You brought up how good identifying questionable sources was, I said that's normal and in keeping with WP:RSN, I don't think I need to excuse that. Peter Gulutzan (talk) 22:28, 15 July 2019 (UTC)
These 18 RfCs, some of which you participated in, show ample "lingering concerns" regarding a wide variety of sources, including tabloids. One of the goals of these RfCs are to identify low-quality sources like InfoWars (RfC), Breitbart News (RfC) (which you defended), and Occupy Democrats (RfC) as sources that should be discouraged from use. — Newslinger talk 00:27, 16 July 2019 (UTC)
I assume the closer of this RfC will be capable of noticing that Newslinger changed the subject instead of addressing the point. Peter Gulutzan (talk) 19:45, 17 July 2019 (UTC)
You're ignoring the 18 RfCs that showed consensus for deprecating the source (including two tabloids, The Sun (RfC) and the National Enquirer (RfC)) and cherry-picking one RfC that doesn't. I've addressed your point. — Newslinger talk 21:18, 17 July 2019 (UTC)
Hahaha! My thoughts exactly, thanks for the chuckle.
  • Oppose but I agree with Icewhiz about the need to first establish that a source has specific reliability issues before going for a general RfC. Peacemaker67 (click to talk to me) 08:24, 15 July 2019 (UTC)
  • Oppose per my comment above: These RFCs are useful to get a very rough barometer for how a source is seen by the community and how specific questions about it are likely to be evaluated. Unless an RFC is worded as an outright ban (which is very rare, and generally invoked as a last resort), I don't think any outcome is taken to mean "always reliable, can never be questioned" or "always unreliable, remove on sight"; rather, they provide editors with a quick reference point so they know where they're starting from and the mood of the room if they want to argue for or against using a particular source in a particular context. Additionally, while it's accurate to say that we should judge each case individually, the reality is that we can't reliably get enough people to weigh in on each of them to ensure consistent assessment of sources; going entirely case-by-case with no broader RFCs would result in inconsistent and sometimes random responses based on who happened to weigh in. In particular, one of the requirements of WP:RS is that a source have a "reputation for fact-checking and accuracy", often the most difficult thing to assess - and one that usually doesn't vary much from use to use (or, if it does, it does so in a consistent expected way that can be noted during the RFC.) These RFCs can't predict or account for all possible uses of a source, but they're absolutely useful in terms of giving us a consistent, reasonably well-grounded definition of "does this source, on the whole, have the baseline reputation for fact-checking and accuracy that WP:RS requires?" --Aquillion (talk) 08:32, 15 July 2019 (UTC)
The problem is that a source may have a “baseline reputation for fact checking and accuracy” in one area, and not have one in another area. This was pointed out in the several Daily Mail RFCs... the DM is accurate when reporting on sports... not when reporting on politics and celebrities. This is why I am not a fan of these RFCs. They don’t examine context. Blueboar (talk) 11:07, 15 July 2019 (UTC)
So, several things. First, and most importantly, the Daily Mail RFC was one of those "last resort" things I mentioned - it's different from most of the RFCs we use here. Because a few people kept trying to use the Daily Mail as if it were a top-tier New York Times-quality source despite a very clear informal consensus that it was generally not reliable (and even though it kept coming back to WP:RSN and getting basically laughed off the page), we took the unusual step of formalizing that consensus into a general banned-by-default RFC. Those are and should be extremely rare, reserved only for when people keep insisting on trying to use a source in clearly unworkable ways over and over (ie. when a source both rarely passes WP:RS and is extremely popular for controversial topics where it clearly fails WP:RS.) It wasn't a gauge-the-general-room-temperature-for-the-Daily-Mail RFC, it was a we're-at-wits-end-and-need-this-to-stop RFC. Those are a separate thing, but I think they're justifiable occasionally; even in sports, I don't feel there much we would want in Wikipedia uniquely sourceable to the Daily Mail that can't be found elsewhere. But for the more common sorts of "what does the community think of X?" RFCs, things like this can be noted in the RFC, if it's true. We're not limited to binary yes / no options - the purpose of those RFCs is to collect a general measure of the community's consensus on a source in one place; if you look at the RFCs above, they're generally cautiously worded and lead to fairly cautiously worded entries in WP:RSP to provide guidance to editors, not strict bans or the like. Also, you are more likely to have someone contribute who knows those details in a large month-long RFC with a lot of people contributing than to have it come up in a tiny brief discussion with only a few people - what makes you think that if you come here saying "I want to use the Daily Mail as a source for Joe Sportsman", you'll get anything but "hahaha the Daily Mail? No." from the vast majority of responses? In this sense the RFCs are useful because they're more likely to turn up someone who says "wait, source X is actually usable in situation Y!", which (if they convince people in the RFC) can then be noted down on WP:RSP as something that came up and will then be available to editors who wouldn't otherwise have known it (and may not have discovered it, if they just poked WP:RSN and got a response from a handful of random people for their exact issue, which seems to be what the support voters here want us to go back to.) --Aquillion (talk) 16:59, 15 July 2019 (UTC)
  • Oppose It is what is says on the box: an RfC about general reliability. ANY website is reliable for the material it says about itself, but we try not to use / should be very careful with the use of those (primary) sources in the first place. It is a good thing that we establish as a community that a certain source is generally reliable, sometimes/often reliable or generally unreliable. The ones that the community decides that they are generally unreliable should be removed for non-primary sources, and the use as primary source should be scrutinized and may need removal. The use of such unreliable sources should be strongly discouraged and sometimes plainly be made 'impossible' (i.e. only be possible after a consensus discussion). --Dirk Beetstra T C 12:18, 15 July 2019 (UTC)
  • Alternate proposal - define and restrict General Reliability RFCs to cases where they actually make sense:
    • A General Reliability RFC is useful for adding a source to the list of perennial sources.
    • A General Reliability RFC is only appropriate if there have been at least 3 previous RSN discussions on the same source, each linked in the General RFC. This establishes that there is a genuine purpose for a generalized discussion, and it ensures at least previous three disputed cases for examination as well as that previous ground work of research and analysis. A general RFC on a source no one ever heard of, which no one will ever bring up again, and with no substantial evidentiary basis, is a bad use of other people's time.
    • The instructions and documentation should prominently state that that the outcome of a General Reliability RFC does not resolve any open dispute about any particular usage at any particular article. RSN already lays out separate instructions and requirements for that. Alsee (talk) 13:43, 15 July 2019 (UTC)
  • At least in as much as it applies, I have long said that we should not be having RfCs or even dedicated threads purely for the purpose of listing a source (one way or the other) on WP:RSPS. See also Goodhart's law. GMGtalk 14:09, 15 July 2019 (UTC)
  • Support strongly. If someone cares about looking into a sources reliability and answering questions about it they can go here. RfCs for sources which have not been brought here before just bludgeon the process and waste everybody involved's times. Sources should only be brought to RfC if there was no consensus or the consensus was not wide enough. Emir of Wikipedia (talk) 16:55, 15 July 2019 (UTC)
  • Support While some publications are more reliable than others, it's not as if some sources are gospel truth while others are heretical. Above, we are spending time on the American Conservative which publishes conservative opinion. Policy is however clear. Opinion pieces are rarely reliable unless written by experts. What point is there in having an argument about what people think about these opinions? TFD (talk) 17:10, 15 July 2019 (UTC)
  • Support The whole idea of a broad brush for a source is badly flawed. First every source varies in reliability. Second, reliability varies with respect to the text which supports it. Britney Spear's sister's book might be reliable as a cite for a "Britney's favorite color is.." statement, but not for a statement on particle physics. North8000 (talk) 17:35, 15 July 2019 (UTC)
  • Support Honestly all the RFCs without having discussion first is disruptive and not very helpful in general. A RFC should be a last resort and not a first try. It also ignores the general ideas of what we consider a RS. PackMecEng (talk) 22:12, 17 July 2019 (UTC)
  • Support per PackMecEng. The number of frivolous RfCs on this noticeboard discourages widespread participation, which undermines the possibility of them being authoritative answers, and encourages users to start an RfC every time they have a question about a source, or a gripe with one. Further, the wording of "generally reliable" which I take to mean "in general" conflicts with the primary meanings of "general" and may be misleading. Only an encyclopedia, which is a tertiary source anyway, would be "generally reliable". The RfCs are stamping a "general" seal of approval on sources that may have only narrow applicability. —DIYeditor (talk) 23:43, 17 July 2019 (UTC)
  • Support - These "Is X a terrible source which should be banned from Wiki" RFCs have been like a rash on this page since the DM ban, which was the original instance of banning something just because the power existed to do it. There is no reason to classify every single potential source here, and by doing so we store up potential problems for the future (bad decisions made without any context, which when applied to an actual case are clearly wrong in the context of that case). Just apply WP:NEWSORG. FOARP (talk) 09:08, 22 July 2019 (UTC)
PS - I also think a good argument can be made that these general discussions of source-reliability are against WP:FORUM. Unless there is a concrete issue related to article content being discussed, then ultimately these are just forum-type discussions about media in general. FOARP (talk) 09:31, 22 July 2019 (UTC)
These discussions don't violate WP:NOTFORUM, since they affect article content. They also affect how editor conduct is evaluated in areas subject to discretionary sanctions. — Newslinger talk 01:58, 23 July 2019 (UTC)
Only in the sense that a contextless discussion on what countries, politicians, or political parties are "bad" might do - and I'd hope that we would be able to identify that as as a WP:FORUM discussion. FOARP (talk) 07:29, 23 July 2019 (UTC)
The context is all of the articles the source is cited in, which can be found through an insource query or Special:LinkSearch. And this entire noticeboard focuses on evaluating whether sources have adequate reputations for fact-checking and accuracy. We're not determining whether various entities are "bad", but whether sources meet Wikipedia's standards. If these discussions were just forum discussions that didn't impact article content, there would be no incentive for you to post "Bad RfC" in all of the other RfCs on this page. — Newslinger talk 08:12, 23 July 2019 (UTC)
Yes, folks, stating that something is a Bad RFC means it must be a good RFC. My incentive cannot possibly be to point out that they are bad RFCs - I must be doing it because they are good ones!
Similarly, discursive, context-free discussions about sources that frequently reference the imagined political bias of the source and rarely cite meaningful evidence of general unreliability are not actually a determination of the source being "bad" in any sense - other than having the potential effect that they cannot be used. FOARP (talk) 12:39, 23 July 2019 (UTC)
  • Oppose - Some sources are plainly unreliable for any factual information, and we shouldn't have to make a request for each and every article in which they are used. --PluniaZ (talk) 04:37, 23 July 2019 (UTC)
  • Oppose if prior discussion - I don't see why a full-blown RfC is needed if there hasn't been a prior general RSN discussion on it. However, if there has, why not seek out consensus? Nosebagbear (talk) 10:12, 23 July 2019 (UTC)
  • Oppose halting RfCs: such discussions and WP:RSP heuristics (which marks many sources as "Generally reliable in its areas of expertise") are exceptionally helpful to newer users and those less experienced in determining if a source is reliable. Saying "reliability is always assessed based on the nature of the claims being made" tells a new user nothing. It's a rule for experienced users to bear in mind in edge cases, but not helpful to someone who wants to know whether they should go to The Register (yes) or Forbes (yes unless it's /sites/) or Breitbart (no) when they need a reliable source for something. — Bilorv (he/him) (talk) 17:37, 24 July 2019 (UTC)
/sites/ is now used for staff articles too not just contributors. example. --Emir of Wikipedia (talk) 21:09, 26 July 2019 (UTC)
Ooh, good to know. — Bilorv (he/him) (talk) 12:58, 27 July 2019 (UTC)
  • Support as a general concept. Actually, I wonder whether we should stop declaring sources to be generally unreliable, and instead start pointing out the specific ways in which certain common sources fail the guideline. The Daily Mail, for example, is generally unreliable because it's reputation for fact-checking and accuracy is poor, not because we don't like it. Declaring sources to be generally unreliable (beyond saying things like "DM doesn't meet the WP:RS guideline's definition of a reliable source – specifically, it fails point #1 in WP:NOTGOODSOURCE") overlooks the importance of WP:RSCONTEXT and usually is more of a question about WP:DUE weight anyway. (Yes, that website/fringe news site/politician actually did say that [which means the source is "reliable" under the WP:RS definition for narrow statements like "This source said that"]. But so what? There's no need to put any of that in this article in the first place.) In several cases, I think that these "GUNREL" declarations have actually been "tiny minority" declarations, and muddling the two concepts is a bad idea for anyone who wants to be able to think clearly and logically about content policies.
    Specifically, while I think we should stop having these RFCs, I am willing to perhaps consider the occasional RFC in contentious cases that have repeatedly appeared here at RSN and where RSN has had difficulty in resolving those discussions. (RSN regulars are perfectly capable of repeating "No, you can't use that anonymous HIV denial website to support a claim that HIV doesn't exist" as many times as necessary, without anyone starting an RFC.) As a practical matter, I also think we should stop having these "banned sources" RFCs on this page (use a subpage if you need to). Any of the alternatives that sound approximately like "Stop the RFCs unless you genuinely can't get resolve your content dispute any other way" would work for me. WhatamIdoing (talk) 18:37, 24 July 2019 (UTC)
  • Oppose this proposal as too rigid, but favor some minimal threshold. I would favor, as a general rule, that an editor starting a "general reliability" RfC would need to provide diffs showing (1) that the source was cited at least 5-10 times in article space (either presently, or in the recent past) and that there has been some of sort actual dispute about the reliability of the source. (I would not, as some suggest, require 3 different noticeboard discussions or anything like that—but I would require some sort of actual evidence, via reversion, talk page discussion, or noticeboard discussion, that the reliability of a source has actually been disputed.). Neutralitytalk 01:46, 25 July 2019 (UTC)
  • Support – sources should be evaluated in connection with a specific claim in a specific article, and not generally. – Levivich 01:59, 25 July 2019 (UTC)
  • Oppose. There is obvious utility in maintaining the list of generally unreliable sources. Obviously some people do not like the fact that some sources are generally unreliable. That is largely the point. Case by case review of Breitbart would be a titanic waste of time, and we'd need a {{still no}} template as well. Equally, a source that is a legitimate review case by case, is probably not right for deprecation. There should not be many deprecated sources but there absolutely should be deprecated sources, and managing this through RFC is the only obviously practical way of doing it. Not every new user can be expected to be familiar with our arcana, so the edit filters minimise bite, and again, we have to have some way of managing that. You could make a case for triaging, and putting those which meet the threshold for a proper debate at WP:CENT, but we have to have the RFCs. Guy (Help!) 10:29, 25 July 2019 (UTC)
  • Oppose- Although I can see the arguments for dialing back the RfCs a little, I worry that forbidding all discussion is just going to make every mendacious propaganda site decreed reliable by default while preventing anyone from doing anything about it. Reyk YO! 10:35, 25 July 2019 (UTC)
  • Oppose the main question. I do agree that they're mainly for unreliable sources, though, rather than setting rules for what is reliable [in general]. — Rhododendrites talk \\ 02:27, 26 July 2019 (UTC)
  • Oppose Autarch (talk) 18:59, 3 August 2019

(UTC)

  • Just a quick count of votes to date: 19 OPPOSE and 11 SUPPORT Bacondrum (talk) 02:17, 6 August 2019 (UTC)
  • Oppose moratorium, while supporting the inclusion of several specific examples whenever raising a general question about a particular source. — JFG talk 19:54, 3 August 2019 (UTC)
  • Support the opinions of North8000 and FOARP appear to be persuasive. The use of a source should be on a case by case basis, per article. Looking back on some of these RfCs a case of IDONTLIKEIT appear to have created consensus to ensure that sources are no longer utilized, which leads to due to the reduction of available resources, some content taking on the weight of views of the remaining sources, while excluding the views of other sources thus leading to, well meaning but, non-neutral content. Thus as others have suggested CONTEXTMATTERS.--RightCowLeftCoast (Moo) 11:04, 11 August 2019 (UTC)
  • Oppose. Per the many reasons already noted. Having a more structured discussion seems useful. I’ve been in a few roundabouts where the core issues are ignored and productive movement is derailed , on purpose or not, to the detriment of getting consensus.
    I also find it very useful to know if given a choice of multiple sources to use, which ones are more reliable. Presumably we should be getting sources that will last and not be just good enough for the moment. Gleeanon409 (talk) 22:45, 11 August 2019 (UTC)
  • Support Second thoughts 10:08, 2 September 2019 (UTC) - sources are used for verifiability so it depends on what needs to be verified - see WP:V To discuss the reliability of a specific source for a particular statement, consult the reliable sources noticeboard, which seeks to apply this policy to particular cases. It is a core content policy to which we should adhere. Atsme Talk 📧 02:36, 14 August 2019 (UTC)
As this RfC has run for 30 days, I've submitted a request for closure at WP:RFCL § Wikipedia:Reliable sources/Noticeboard#RFC: Moratorium on "general reliability" RFCs. — Newslinger talk 17:58, 17 August 2019 (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.

Workshop

Some editors have suggested restrictions on when an RfC on the general reliability of a source would be appropriate, as well as changes to the commonly used 4-option RfC format. For more coordinated discussion, please list your suggestion in a new subheading under this "Workshop" section, so other editors can comment on them individually. ​​​​​​​​— Newslinger talk 21:01, 15 July 2019 (UTC)

Emir of Wikipedia's proposal

I still oppose option 4 of the "commonly used" format. In my view an RfC on reliability is only appropriate if there has not been a discussion here which generated clear consensus, or if there has been discussion scattered around Wikipedia which needs centralising in an easily referable place. --Emir of Wikipedia (talk) 21:07, 15 July 2019 (UTC)

Alsee's proposal

Alternate proposal - define and restrict General Reliability RFCs to cases where they actually make sense:

  • A General Reliability RFC is useful for adding a source to the list of perennial sources.
  • A General Reliability RFC is only appropriate if there have been at least 3 previous RSN discussions on the same source, each linked in the General RFC. This establishes that there is a genuine purpose for a generalized discussion, and it ensures at least previous three disputed cases for examination as well as that previous ground work of research and analysis. A general RFC on a source no one ever heard of, which no one will ever bring up again, and with no substantial evidentiary basis, is a bad use of other people's time.
  • The instructions and documentation should prominently state that that the outcome of a General Reliability RFC does not resolve any open dispute about any particular usage at any particular article. RSN already lays out separate instructions and requirements for that.

Alsee (talk) 13:43, 15 July 2019 (UTC)

  • Support some combination of this with GMG's proposal below being added to instructions at top of this noticeboard. —DIYeditor (talk) 00:06, 18 July 2019 (UTC)
  • Support. Alsee's proposal ensures that general reliability RfCs are decided on at least four rounds of examination (three previous discussions plus the RfC itself), and directs attention to sources that need the most input from editors. It delineates the difference between the general case and specific cases, and does not place undue weight on any single use of a source. RfCs are most useful for reducing the volume of discussions on sources that are discussed too often. This proposal is likely to make the greatest reduction on editor workload by ensuring that there are not too many RfCs nor too many discussions on this noticeboard. (A requirement of 4–5 discussions instead of 3 also sounds reasonable to me.) — Newslinger talk 00:59, 18 July 2019 (UTC)
  • Oppose, too WP:CREEP-y. An essay to this effect might make sense, but these discussions are useful to gauge the general temperature of the community's views on a particular source, which helps people decide whether to open specific discussions and how to word them if they do (eg. letting people know the starting point and whether they need to argue a particular usage is an exception to the general community opinion on a source in one way or another.) More specific RSN discussions are useful but not sufficient for our purposes on their own, since they usually have very little participation and can therefore produce extremely swingy results between similar sources based on who happens to weigh in. --Aquillion (talk) 18:58, 18 July 2019 (UTC)
    • Fair enough, maybe best left for an essay (or some mildly worded friendly advice at the top of this page). I think that formal RfCs exacerbate the problem of these swingy results because if there are 10 active RfCs on here all the time, people watching for RfCs may just start to ignore them. So while it being an RfC may give the impression of being authoritative or representing general consensus, the flood of them may make that not true. Or is that off base? —DIYeditor (talk) 19:20, 18 July 2019 (UTC)
  • Support. François Robere (talk) 18:04, 22 July 2019 (UTC)
  • Support if original proposal not passed - This is a good alternative since it would still address the problem of people simply treating this page as a forum for discussing which sources are, in their view, "bad" in some contextless sense. FOARP (talk) 07:24, 23 July 2019 (UTC)
  • Supt.-2nd Choice if "GreenMeansGo's proposal" below does not pass, see my reasoning there. Alanscottwalker (talk) 14:45, 23 July 2019 (UTC)
  • Oppose - The list of perennial sources should have its own inclusion criteria based on past RfCs. Assuming that were based on multiple past discussions, it's unclear what this proposal would allow for in the case of general reliability RfCs. I generally support the idea that we shouldn't jump to one of those RfCs without previous discussions of a source, but I'm reluctant to suggest codifying that rule or, as I've already implied, the necessary involvement of RSP, which should remain a meta resource rather than play a role in the consensus process. — Rhododendrites talk \\ 02:32, 26 July 2019 (UTC)

GreenMeansGo's proposal

You shouldn't open threads about a source unless there is a specific content dispute. You shouldn't open a thread about the universal reliability of a source unless there is a preponderance of threads dealing with specific content disputes where they have decided the source is unreliable. GMGtalk 23:07, 15 July 2019 (UTC)

^^^^ !!!! Volunteer Marek (talk) 01:34, 16 July 2019 (UTC)
Yes - though I'd loosen this somewhat. I think it is OK to discuss a widely used source prior to article level discussions (however that shouldn't be a RfC - but a request for input - and should have specific examples - e.g. source W is used for X, Y, and Z. I have concerns because of A, B, C. In any case not universal). A blanket deprecation RfC should only be opened if there is an indication of a problem on Wikipedia (e.g. Daily Mail - was widely used). Icewhiz (talk) 05:28, 16 July 2019 (UTC)
  • Support --GRuban (talk) 19:43, 16 July 2019 (UTC)
  • Support – This should become policy. – Levivich 02:25, 17 July 2019 (UTC)
  • Support CThomas3 (talk) 03:08, 17 July 2019 (UTC)
  • Support adding to instructions at top of noticeboard. —DIYeditor (talk) 23:48, 17 July 2019 (UTC)
  • Oppose, too WP:CREEP-y. Perhaps as a general suggestion, but not as a rule - as discussed above, it is useful for editors to gauge the general "temperature" of opinion on a particular source, and I don't think we should have any hard restrictions on them doing so. --Aquillion (talk) 18:55, 18 July 2019 (UTC)
  • Oppose per Aquillion. And honestly there are sources out there that people try to use that are beyond the pale in basically any circumstance. So while no source is always reliable, being able to find out if a source is always unreliable is useful. Simonm223 (talk) 18:59, 18 July 2019 (UTC)
    • A more specific issue, which came up for the Newsweek RFC below, is that the precise wording of this suggestion would bar people from making general RFCs when a source is frequently discussed and frequently found reliable. (It would also bar RFCs when a source is frequently discussed with no consensus, which is utterly absurd, since those are the situation that most desperately requires a broader high-participation RFC that might reach some sort of consensus.) Having a broad RFC to settle perennial discussions of all sorts is general policy. I'm not sure we even can bar future RFCs of that nature per WP:LOCALCONSENSUS and WP:CCC. The whole idea of "let's have an RFC to set the rules under which people can make future RFCs" seems both WP:CREEP-y and sketchy. --Aquillion (talk) 19:09, 18 July 2019 (UTC)
      • 100% on the issue of perennial discussion and general policy. Simonm223 (talk) 19:11, 18 July 2019 (UTC)
      • That makes sense, we cannot change the rules for RfCs without an RfC advertised as doing such. I was thinking more along the lines of "advice" at the top of this page. Something to the effect that starting a formal RfC for every question about a source may overload the RfC process and limit participation. —DIYeditor (talk) 19:15, 18 July 2019 (UTC)
    • The problem is... no source is ever “always unreliable”... if nothing else, every source will be reliable for citing a quote from that source (and is, in fact, the MOST reliable source for that purpose). Blueboar (talk) 19:26, 18 July 2019 (UTC)
I disagree with the exception for quotes and opinion statements that is often trotted out. If a quote hasn't been repeated by reliable sources, it fails W:WEIGHT; if it has, why not just cite the reliable source? –dlthewave ☎ 17:51, 19 July 2019 (UTC)
If we're at a point where we're discussing whether a source is "always unreliable" or just "mostly unreliable", then we shouldn't use that source. François Robere (talk) 19:10, 22 July 2019 (UTC)
  • This is incorrect on two points. First, there are, in fact, "always unusable" sources, ones that can never be cited in any context; in particular, WP:USERGENERATED sources can never be cited, fullstop - no context exists under which it is ever appropriate to cite one. But more generally, most of these RFCs and discussions are asking about whether a source can be used for anything except the opinion of its author. There are a huge number of sources that are clearly not usable outside that extremely specific context. Context matters for some aspects of WP:RS, but not all of them - there are ways to fall RS severely enough to render a source totally unusable in any situation. --Aquillion (talk) 02:13, 6 August 2019 (UTC)
  • Strong oppose for the following reasons:
  1. There's value in discussing the general reliability of a source - be it a writer, a publisher, or a specific creation - which may or may not have a reputation for reliability among experts. Do musicologists often cite Peter Schickele? No (though not for lack of talent), and the current rules allow me to reflect that with an RfC if the question arises.
  2. The proposal assumes general RfCs are wasteful in terms of editors' time and effort, but the fact of the matter is that one general RfC is much less wasteful than a whole bunch of specific ones. If one is only allowed to bring fourth a general RfC after a "preponderance" of specific threads have been opened, then how much time would we have we wasted on those threads? And this is assuming good faith.
    1. BTW, how much is "a preponderance"? Is five a preponderance? Ten? Do you really want an editor to be "legally" able to open five threads on a bogus source in five different articles before someone is able to bring them here?
  3. The purpose of RfCs is to resolve disputes, but by requiring that previous threads "have decided the source is unreliable" we'd be preventing disputes from ever reaching the RfC stage. After all, what's the point of an RfC if we already have a consensus? Just ban RfCs altogether.
Bottom line: if you really believe there's a problem with too many general RfCs being brought in, then there's a much better proposal on the table by Alsee. François Robere (talk) 19:07, 22 July 2019 (UTC)
  • Support It's the closest thing that approaches the purposes of WP:V judging in context, and it would tend to avoid the WP:NOTAFORUM stuff these open ended queries get. Alanscottwalker (talk) 22:34, 22 July 2019 (UTC)
  • Oppose Seems to not only be about RFCs; too bureaucratic for a noticeboard. —PaleoNeonate – 01:05, 23 July 2019 (UTC)
  • Support The note at the top of this noticeboard clearly says that discussions should be about whether sources are reliable for specific purposes. Also, WP:V and other sourcing policies clearly state that reliability can only be judged in context. I don't think these general RFC should be completely banned, but people are opening them on sources that have never been discussed on the noticeboard, or for sources that are essentially never used in articles anyways. That just clutters up the noticeboard with useless junk. Red Rock Canyon (talk) 01:30, 23 July 2019 (UTC)
  • Oppose. Prefer Alsee's proposal, which applies the same treatment to the entire reliability spectrum. — Newslinger talk 01:49, 23 July 2019 (UTC)
  • Oppose "preponderance" - some level of prior consideration might be worthwhile, but the phrasing indicates that a more significant number is needed, perhaps unnecessarily restrictive Nosebagbear (talk)
  • Mixed (mostly support Icewhiz's modification): I agree that opening an RFC in the absence of any indication that anyone has ever attempted to use a source is kind of waste of time, but asking editors to open multiple WP:RSN discussions about an obviously unreliable source before finally having an RFC would be an even bigger waste of time. If I have a dispute over a source Rense.com that reaches a point where it's necessary to open a noticeboard discussion, then why not just go ahead and deprecate to save everyone the trouble of revisiting a clearly terrible source in the future? Specific content disputes should be the starting point, but maybe we should make allowances for editors (emphasis on the plural) to agree to broaden a discussion if a particular source looks like it warrants it.Nblund talk
  • Support - absolutely! It's in our PAGs. Atsme Talk 📧 02:38, 14 August 2019 (UTC)

Aquillion's proposal

I suggest discouraging any repetitive objections to such general-purpose discussions and RFCs that aren't clearly backed up by whatever outcome we reach here. If there's no consensus to remove them, or if we've agreed to allow them under certain circumstances, then posting near-identical comments to several of them at once objecting to them in identical terms, like this is WP:POINTy. (Not to call that one set of edits out - it's the most recent example, but others have done similar things in the past.) The reality is that such discussions have been accepted practice for a long time, and absent an actual RFC against them or some other indication that that practice has changed, trying to shout them down by responding to all of them at once with identical objections isn't constructive. The appropriate way to halt a common practice you find objectionable is to first try and establish a centralized consensus against it, not to try and force through an objection that lacks such clear consensus through disruptively repeating your interpretation as fact even when after it's failed to reach consensus. Posting identical "bad RFC!" messages on a whole bunch of discussions at once isn't the way to move forwards, especially if there isn't really a clear consensus backing that objection up. Merely having a strong opposition to particular sorts of discussions, or strongly believing that they're against some policy, isn't sufficient justification for disrupting them like that if there's no clear consensus backing you up. Obviously this would just be a general guideline - people could still object to individual ones they feel are particularly unhelpful, but mass-copy-pasting an otherwise off-topic objection to every single RFC of a particular type that you think we shouldn't be having ought to require at least some consensus to back you up. --Aquillion (talk) 01:09, 23 July 2019 (UTC)

  • Support as proposer. The whole point of this centralized discussion is to settle this in a clean fashion so it doesn't constantly spill out and disrupt other discussions with meta-arguments. --Aquillion (talk) 01:09, 23 July 2019 (UTC)
  • Support. The constant obstruction caused by these objections, written into multiple unrelated discussions without consideration of the sources being discussed, is indeed disruptive. The results of this RfC should settle this matter definitively. — Newslinger talk 01:40, 23 July 2019 (UTC)
  • Bad question. You refer to use of the words "bad RfC" (in this case by FOARP but I have done it more often). You are alleging that saying that is "disruptive" and that someone has tried to "shout down" others. These are conduct accusations. Replying "oppose" to a conduct accusation is (I believe) an error, since it implies acceptance that the proposal is legitimate in this context. Peter Gulutzan (talk) 01:54, 23 July 2019 (UTC)
  • Bad Proposal If the outcome of this RfC is that we shouldn't have those types of RfCs, then that objection is the correct objection to make. It doesn't matter if you're objecting to 1 bad RfC or 10 - they would all be bad RfCs. If the outcome of that RfC is that we should have those types of RfCs, then that objection shouldn't be made even once. Galestar (talk) 02:01, 23 July 2019 (UTC)
  • Right, but what happens if (as seems extremely likely at this point) this RFC is closed with no consensus? Those discussions keep happening, and the same few people keep posting the same few identical objections on all of them? I don't think that that's a reasonable way to proceed. --Aquillion (talk) 04:22, 23 July 2019 (UTC)
Your proposal starts with Regardless of the outcome of this RFC. This proposal is only even possible if 1 of the 3 outcomes is arrived at... Galestar (talk) 04:24, 23 July 2019 (UTC)
And ends with ...that aren't clearly backed up by whatever outcome we reach here. Most of the proposals above would allow them under certain circumstances, so I worded it broadly in the sense of ie. obviously comments reminding people of a clear outcome here would be fine. (And, obviously, you are incorrect about 1 of the 3; there's also the situation where none of the options reach a clear consensus.) Nonetheless, I'll remove the first bit to avoid confusion. --Aquillion (talk) 04:29, 23 July 2019 (UTC)
Okay I guess I didn't quite understand some of the nuance at first. I still think that this proposal should only be considered once its decided what kind of objections are allowed/disallowed/undecided. Maybe I just think too linearly and don't want to jump ahead to the part where we decide how many objections at a time are okay when we haven't yet decided (or failed-to-decide?) which objections are okay. Galestar (talk) 04:47, 23 July 2019 (UTC)
  • Bad proposal - WP:NOTAFORUM is a pretty basic rule on Wikipedia, and if people on this page want to repeatedly flout it by engaging in context-free, discursive "Which media sources do you feel are bad?" style discussions, then you betcha I'm going to point that out. It also clearly states what should and should not be RFC'd on this page right at the top, pointing out that an RFC flouts this can be no more wrong than pointing out that an AFD nomination fails WP:BEFORE, or that an RFC is wrongly factored (both of which are very common). FOARP (talk) 07:16, 23 July 2019 (UTC)

Support as per proposer. Bacondrum (talk) 23:00, 27 July 2019 (UTC)

Adoring Nanny's Concern and proposal

Appears to be just a simple yet grave misunderstanding of how WP:CONTEXTMATTERS is applied to arguments. ToThAc (talk) 01:16, 23 October 2019 (UTC)

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

The problem I see with blanket rules about what is and is not reliable is that it replaces using one's brain to figure it out. Effectively, WP:CONTEXTMATTERS carries no weight. See this discussion where I was in effect told that it was inappropriate to actually examine the evidence in the various sources and come to an evidence-based conclusion, which is exactly what WP:CONTEXTMATTERS implies one should do. Instead, the accepted thing appears to be to blindly follow certain rules about what is and is not reliable. And that makes people cynical about Wikipedia. Therefore, I suggest that what needs to happen is that WP:CONTEXTMATTERS needs to become policy that is actually used, rather than merely a "policy" statement that sits there but doesn't carry any weight in a decision about what is reliable and what isn't. Adoring nanny (talk) 01:35, 30 August 2019 (UTC)

  • I'm not sure what you're proposing. WP:V, a policy, already states that "The appropriateness of any source depends on the context." In the same paragraph, it defines the reliability spectrum: "The best sources have a professional structure in place for checking or analyzing facts, legal issues, evidence, and arguments. The greater the degree of scrutiny given to these issues, the more reliable the source." WP:CONTEXTMATTERS states, "In general, the more people engaged in checking facts, analyzing legal issues, and scrutinizing the writing, the more reliable the publication." Reliability depends on context, but some sources are more reliable in general than others. — Newslinger talk 01:58, 30 August 2019 (UTC)
    ​Additionally, your application of WP:CONTEXTMATTERS in Talk:Daniel Holtzclaw § Undue weight and fringe viewpoints (your linked discussion) is incorrect. You said in Special:Diff/893517711, "The soundness of one's conclusions -- the question of whether or not they follow logically from the evidence one is examining -- trump everything." That is against policy; we must "fairly [represent] all significant viewpoints that have been published by reliable sources, in proportion to the prominence of each viewpoint in the published, reliable sources" (WP:DUE). WP:CONTEXTMATTERS is not a trump card that allows us to elevate a fringe opinion that is not supported by other reliable sources. If a person is convicted in court, and nearly all reliable sources report that they are guilty, it would be improper to grant a false balance to the minority perspective of a news reporter who claims that they are innocent, when that perspective is not corroborated by other reliable sources. — Newslinger talk 20:06, 30 August 2019 (UTC)
  • Hi Adoring nanny, I just read the discussion you are referring to and I thought "Everyone in prison is innocent", if the court found him guilty and reliable sources report as much, that's the end of the story as far as Wikipedia is concerned. If he contests the conviction and it is overturned, then he is vindicated, otherwise it's just another in a long line of criminals claiming to be innocent. Any personal assessment of the evidence is original research. Bacondrum (talk) 22:58, 31 August 2019 (UTC)
Also, context matters should be applied to sources that are generally unreliable, in that if a source is generally unreliable it should be seen in context as generally unreliable...hope that makes sense? ie: a dishonest source may tell the truth from time to time, but they cannot be trusted because they are generally dishonest. Bacondrum (talk) 23:03, 31 August 2019 (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.

Is NewsGram.com reliable

Is NewsGram.com reliable so that it can be used in a BLP article? Recently added in this though it doesn't serve any purpose as of now. If it is reliable, then some important things in the Wiki article can be sourced from it. The editor-in-chief is some Munish Raizada [23], his twitter handle. - Fylindfotberserk (talk) 15:23, 23 October 2019 (UTC)

The Times of India describes the Editor in Chief thusly: [24] He's described there as a medical practitioner and sociopolitical activist. All of the articles are either republications of articles originally printed elsewhere, or have bylines of "Newsgram desk". I can find no list of employed or free-lance journalists that work with them, I can find no editorial staff, nothing. That does not have the hallmarks of a reliable source. --Jayron32 16:46, 23 October 2019 (UTC)
Smacks of SPS, no not an RS.Slatersteven (talk) 08:17, 24 October 2019 (UTC)

International Journal of Applied Sciences (IJAS)

Does this journal look reliable? ∯WBGconverse 10:38, 20 October 2019 (UTC)

Winged Blades of Godric, it claims to be peer reviewed and I didn't find it on a couple lists of predatory journals. However, it's very new and I would exercise some caution until it builds up a reputation. Fiamh (talk, contribs) 10:43, 20 October 2019 (UTC)
The publisher, CSC Journals (Computer Science Journals) is on Beall's list, though. Someguy1221 (talk) 18:57, 20 October 2019 (UTC)
Got a link for the version of Beall's list (which Beall is no longer updating according to some reports) you found CSC Journals on? I ask because this "list of possibly predatory journals" which uses Beall's list as a "core" only lists "Computer Science Journal", probably a predatory journal based in Pakistan. Predatory scientific publishers frequently adopt names similar to reputable scientific publishers. "Science Publishing Group", an infamously predatory publisher, is easily confusable with Science, the journal of the American Association for the Advancement of Science. Are you sure you saw CSC Journals and not Computer Science Jouirnal on your version of Beall's list? Just curious. --loupgarous (talk) 23:30, 24 October 2019 (UTC)
This is supposed to start with Beall's original list right before he took it down. It contains "Computer Science Journals" and lists their website as cscjournals.org, which is the one this new journal belongs to. Honestly as I look it it, it does seem to have certain red flags indicative of a predatory publisher, although admittedly I cannot find anyone to directly accuse them with an explanation. But anyway, it's weird to me that their journals mostly list American and European editors, but the corporate side and founder are located in Malaysia, with absolutely no information on their website that I can find even discussing the nature of the company behind the publications. And even their oldest journal, published for over 12 years, does not seem to be listed any high quality indexes that I recognize. As far as I can tell these journals are only indexed by services that are aiming for exhaustiveness, not quality. Someguy1221 (talk) 02:38, 25 October 2019 (UTC)
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