Wikipedia:Reliable sources/Noticeboard

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Reliability of Zee News

This is a source which is currently being used in nearly seven thousand articles. Looking through its Wikipedia article, there is a whole section on Zee News' fabrication of news stories and its spreading of disinformation; the article also goes over a criminal defamation case that was filed against the platform in 2020. The chairman of the organization is backed by the Hindu nationalist Bharatiya Janata Party and the platform has been banned in Nepal for "propaganda and defamatory report against Nepal government". Given all this, we are citing this news platform at an alarming scale. — EarthDude (Talk) 07:14, 24 March 2026 (UTC)

It is an entirely pro-BJP outlet today. It seems a lot of those instances, where this source was used, predate 2014 when BJP got reelected. I would completely avoid using this source for controversial topics. Koshuri ^(あ!) 12:45, 24 March 2026 (UTC)

I was wondering about this too. WION is owned by Zee Media and is listed as an unreliable source per WP:WION. Does the same apply to the parent company? Ixfd64 (talk) 18:30, 24 March 2026 (UTC)

The WION entry at that list as gunrel was recently added by a Omen2019 and the label explicitly goes against the last RfC which resulted in no consensus for it:

In short, I find that there is no consensus on the reliability of WION. ... leading me to conclude that there is consensus against WION being generally reliable, nor WION needing to be deprecated ... Concerns raised were regarding WION's lax editorial standards, churnalism, and misinformation. However, some argued that WION does produces some good quality articles that might not cover information found in other sourcing.

Ergo both the status and summary from the only RfC for the source are falsified at that list. The WION entry there should certainly be updated.

Omen2019 also tried to insert Zee News but was correctly reverted by ActivelyDisinterested over no significant discussion for it. Gotitbro (talk) 20:54, 24 March 2026 (UTC)

done.

Of note, that close is somewhat poorly written. there is consensus against WION being generally reliable, nor WION needing to be deprecated suggest there is consensus it is not generally reliable, but the nor suggests the closer meant to put the word "not" earlier. User:Bluethricecreamman (Talk·Contribs) 21:29, 24 March 2026 (UTC)

More on that close, the closer was fairly new, has less than 1k edits.
However, agree with no consensus as a good enough close, vote counts were spread out like this
1 - 5
2 - 8
2.5 - 2
3 - 7
4 - 3

I think one editor was voting 3 in the discussion above but failed to vote in the RFC below, though that hardly changes the vote count. User:Bluethricecreamman (Talk·Contribs) 21:40, 24 March 2026 (UTC)

pinging @Omen2019 User:Bluethricecreamman (Talk·Contribs) 21:29, 24 March 2026 (UTC)

The RSP is like any other page, if you see something that doesn't match up with the result of discussions WP:BEBOLD. Also editors need to update the entry with the result of any RFC, it doesn't update automatically. As with most things on Wikipedia if you want something done you're probably going to have to do it yourself. -- LCU ActivelyDisinterested «@» °∆t° 21:37, 24 March 2026 (UTC)

Coming to Zee News itself. I don't put much stock into television broadcast sources, especially so for India, and all of these should be used with caution if at all.

One thing about the Nepal "ban" mentioned above. It wasn't a ban, it was a boycott/dropping of all Indian television channels by Nepalese cable operators (amid a territorial dispute) and was retracted just weeks later. So that should not be something under consideration. Gotitbro (talk) 21:11, 24 March 2026 (UTC)

Now that WION is treated as an unreliable source, it is clear that Zee News is even worse given WION was supposed to be a reformed version of Zee News. We should avoid using any articles from Zee News that come after 2014. They are serving the Modi government to the extent that they even removed past articles that were being used against the government by their opposition. Orientls (talk) 02:43, 25 March 2026 (UTC)
No, WION is not treated as unreliable (gunrel) at enwiki. The last (and only) RfC on this was explicit that there is consensus against treating it as such. Gotitbro (talk) 03:22, 25 March 2026 (UTC)
It ought to be if it is not. Zee News and WION are both unreliable sources because they spread misinformation for the party in government. Zee Media's baron was backed by the party into the Rajya Sabha too.

You should discuss the source instead of what has happened or not in the past discussions. Omen2019 (talk) 16:21, 27 March 2026 (UTC)

I think deprecating Zee News, atleast its post-2014 coverage, could be the way to go, considering its record of spreading false and fabricated news stories. — EarthDude (Talk) 11:09, 25 March 2026 (UTC)

Agreed but disagree slightly on one point, WION was supposed to be an international outlet for Zee Media. It appeared polished to attract their viewership and degenerated later. I think both ought to be not used, even the Zee News of pre-2014 is just another sensationalist tabloid and they have altered/removed their older articles so only archived versions may be used. Omen2019 (talk) 16:43, 27 March 2026 (UTC)

Zee is pretty trash. Ngl. — Longewal (talk) 20:39, 28 March 2026 (UTC)

The purpose of the noticeboard is to discuss the reliability of sources, it's not a forum for discussing users behaviour. Editors behaviour does not effect the reliability of a source, and behavioural issues should be discussed elsewhere. -- LCU ActivelyDisinterested «@» °∆t° 10:28, 28 March 2026 (UTC)

The following discussion has been closed. Please do not modify it.

I find it deeply troubling that an editor can simply falsify the results of an RfC () to personally declare a source to be WP:GUNREL, and add bits of original commentary (re: Chandra) that do not appear anywhere in the RfC (an indication that the falsification may have been entirely deliberate) and then refuse to offer any explanation for it when discovered despite editing the same space simultaneously(). I find it doubly concerning that another editor is using that falsification, even after its discovery, as justification to gunrel other, related sources. UnpetitproleX (talk) 12:12, 25 March 2026 (UTC)
Guys, let's not get deviate from the main topic here. The categorization problem with WION seems to be resolved now. We can open another discussion for WION if we really need to, but the main issue at hand in this specific discussion is regarding Zee News. — EarthDude (Talk) 12:27, 25 March 2026 (UTC)
You should WP:FOC. Zalaraz (talk) 13:48, 25 March 2026 (UTC)
In what world would the use of a falsified RfC on one source for deprecating another related source not be relevant to the discussion about that source? UnpetitproleX (talk) 19:01, 25 March 2026 (UTC)
The issue is the focus on an editors behaviour. They're behaviour doesn't change the reliability of a source, and issues with editors behaviour aren't handled on this noticeboard. -- LCU ActivelyDisinterested «@» °∆t° 19:06, 25 March 2026 (UTC)
I understand that, and I offer no further comments on anybody's conduct, but I'm also talking about the reasoning behind "X was designated gunrel, Y is related to X, so Y is gunrel" when X was falsly designated gunrel in the first place. That is not about anybody's conduct but about the justification being offered, that is what I mean by "the use of ..." above. UnpetitproleX (talk) 20:04, 25 March 2026 (UTC)
Ok, I see. Arguments based on who owns a publication don't really matter anyway. The Daily Mail (deprecated) and the Independent (generally reliable) are owned by the same group, and the owner of The Sun (generally unreliable) also owns The Times (generally reliable). The owner of a new organisation usually doesn't mean anything. -- LCU ActivelyDisinterested «@» °∆t° 20:38, 25 March 2026 (UTC)

I wrote it based on all the discussions not one subdiscussion RfC. This news site is blatantly unreliable as it spreads misinformation, examples abound in the discussions. Omen2019 (talk) 16:11, 27 March 2026 (UTC)
this response betrays a profound misunderstanding of RFCs and how consensus is generated on wikipedia. User:Bluethricecreamman (Talk·Contribs) 16:15, 27 March 2026 (UTC)
It is was not an RfC summary. ~~I think you have a profound misunderstanding of RSP.~~ Omen2019 (talk) 16:23, 27 March 2026 (UTC) --- struck Omen2019 (talk) 22:07, 27 March 2026 (UTC)
Sorry, but you deliberately falsified the consensus result, synthesised a false status and labelling of a source at RSP and are still defending that hoaxing.

Please stop and reconsider, before you attract sanctions for this disruption. Gotitbro (talk) 18:02, 27 March 2026 (UTC)
Are you pretending to be an admin? You need some evidence else the sanctions will go your way. You and petit didnt like my summary and added your own, which says the same thing that it is unreliable only the colour is yellow and not red.

Focus on discussing the source. Omen2019 (talk) 19:40, 27 March 2026 (UTC)
No, but you will definitely be taken to ANI if any of this hoaxing is continued and defended further.

No one here added "their" summary to the RSP list, the summary is from the RfC. You falsified a consensus and status (apparently merely a color according to you), and are still treating it as a no big deal. Shocking to say the least. Gotitbro (talk) 01:14, 28 March 2026 (UTC)

Although I think the RSP entry was in error based on a misunderstanding of how the RFC relates to prior discussions (as I have stated below), I can't see any deliberate attempt to mislead. Discussion needs to return to the reliability of the source. -- LCU ActivelyDisinterested «@» °∆t° 21:15, 27 March 2026 (UTC)
this comment ("Zee Media's baron [Subhash Chandra] was backed by the party into the Rajya Sabha") and the fact that they added the same original commentary ("It is known to be close to the Modi government through its owner Subhash Chandra") to the falsified RfC summary, do lead me to believe it was not entirely unintentional. From this comment ("you changed [the RSP entry] to your version") and now this one ("You and petit didnt like my summary [at RSP] and added your own"), it is clear that the editor is under the impression they can use personal judgment to unilaterally gunrel a source.

That said, I think this should be taken to WP:ANI and not be discussed further here. UnpetitproleX (talk) 02:33, 28 March 2026 (UTC)

I suggest you WP:AGF and not engage in WP:BATTLEGROUND behavior. This is not something to escalate with sanctions when the editor just had a misunderstanding. — EarthDude (Talk) 21:58, 27 March 2026 (UTC)
"Sorry but it also doesn't make a big difference other than the colour." Either a highly flawed understanding of RSP or a contorted attempt to save face.

"which says the same thing that it is unreliable only the colour is yellow and not red." Simply false, the current RSP listing and the falsified one added by Omen do not say the same thing.

Pointing this out is not battleground and AGF was extended when the editor was invited here to make them understand why they shouldn't be doing what they did. But that has clearly borne no fruit. Gotitbro (talk) 01:24, 28 March 2026 (UTC)

You've misunderstood how the relationship between discussions and RFCs are meant to work. The RFC was to find a consensus based on disagreements found in the prior discussions. So the result of the RFC is the final consensus, and supersedes the prior discussions. So the RSP entry needs to reflect the consensus found in the latest RFC. -- LCU ActivelyDisinterested «@» °∆t° 21:12, 27 March 2026 (UTC)
Okay, I understand now. Sorry but it also doesn't make a big difference other than the colour. Omen2019 (talk) 21:31, 27 March 2026 (UTC)
No, you clearly do not understand. It is most definitely not only a difference in colour. UnpetitproleX (talk) 02:12, 28 March 2026 (UTC)

I agree that Zee news needs to be pruned, especially the articles after 2014. It has spread misinformation and fabricated narratives against political opponents/dissidents of the Modi-led BJP. Our article on Zee News is full of coverage of such instances. More instances: Zalaraz (talk) 13:59, 25 March 2026 (UTC)
I am saying nothing here about Zee News or Indian news media, but in general Wikipedia relies far too much on news reports as sources. Phil Bridger (talk) 20:00, 27 March 2026 (UTC)
I have opened an RfC below, which I think is necessary given the scale at which Zee News is cited in Wikipedia. I request editors to add their input. — EarthDude (Talk) 17:39, 29 March 2026 (UTC)

RfC: Zee News

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How reliable is Zee News, to be used in Wikipedia?

Option 1: Generally reliable for factual reporting
Option 2: Unclear or additional considerations apply
Option 3: Generally unreliable for factual reporting
Option 4: Publishes false or fabricated information, and should be deprecated

— EarthDude (Talk) 17:39, 29 March 2026 (UTC)

Survey: Zee News

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Option 4: Its history of spreading false and fabricated stories and disinformation is pretty well-recorded. Zee News should be deprecated. — EarthDude (Talk) 17:39, 29 March 2026 (UTC)
Option 4 As I mentioned above, they have even gone ahead to delete the pre-2014 articles that are critical of ruling BJP. Not a trustable source for anything. Orientls (talk) 18:02, 29 March 2026 (UTC)
Option 4 - As per discussion above. It has zero credibility today. Koshuri ^(あ!) 17:46, 29 March 2026 (UTC)
WP:SNOWCLOSE Nothing in the above discussion suggests disagreement or winnowing down of non-RS assertions (WP:RFCBEFORE). The one topic where assertions of unreliability have been made (post-2014 Indian politics) hardly makes up any usage for it (for which the RfC should've been limited to if needed at all). Gotitbro (talk) 19:43, 29 March 2026 (UTC)
Option 4 and WP:SNOWCLOSE per above. Feeglgeef (talk) 22:12, 29 March 2026 (UTC)
Option 4 Come on now half of our article on it is contained inside the controversy section. Is this really contentious enough for an RfC?
⹃Maltazarian ^{ᚾparley $\lor$ investigateᛅ} 23:04, 29 March 2026 (UTC)
Option 4 See Zee News#Controversies, this source is not just poor but has actively and intentionally spread fabricated stories. Zalaraz (talk) 00:43, 30 March 2026 (UTC)
Bad RfC. And conflation of two different entities in most of the !votes. Much of the Zee News article pertains to the TV channel, which is not the same as the website with news articles. No evidence has been presented to suggest the usage of these news reports are problematic, other than brazen ideological battleground complaints about the outlet's political orientation. TryKid ^{[dubious – discuss]} 03:56, 30 March 2026 (UTC)
The record of Zee News publishing fabricated stories is for both its TV outlet and news articles, which are well-integrated together. — EarthDude (Talk) 10:06, 30 March 2026 (UTC)
Speedy close with Option 4. The above argument is conclusive enough for me. THEZDRX _{(User) |}_(Contact) 07:19, 30 March 2026 (UTC)
Option 4 - I was expecting this type of discussion anytime soon for some years and finally we are here. Abhishek0831996 (talk) 09:22, 30 March 2026 (UTC)
Option 4 - Long overdue. D4iNa4 (talk) 15:26, 30 March 2026 (UTC)
Option 4, per Zee News's repeated publication and broadcasting of conspiracy theories, in particular, the love jihad conspiracy theory and a staggering number of other anti-Muslim conspiracy theories that Zee News has promoted with names in the form of "[insert topic here] jihad". On 11 March 2020, the Zee News editor-in-chief at the time, Sudhir Chaudhary, presented a "jihad flowchart" with 11 of these allegations: "economic jihad", "historical jihad", "media jihad", "film and song jihad", "secularism jihad", "population jihad", "love jihad", "land jihad" ("zameen jihad"), "education jihad", "victim jihad" and "direct jihad".
This incident was notorious enough to be mentioned in a number of academic works about propaganda and Islamophobia. The most in-depth one is the chapter "Prime-Time Propaganda: Television and Hate" from Understanding Propaganda (published by Springer Nature), which goes into considerable detail to refute Chaudhary's "jihad flowchart". I am unable to quote all of the relevant parts (half of the chapter) per the fair use restrictions, but the full text is available through The Wikipedia Library; an excerpt is below:

More information Excerpt of "Prime-Time Propaganda: Television and Hate" from Understanding Propaganda ...

Excerpt of "Prime-Time Propaganda: Television and Hate" from Understanding Propaganda

Since the arrival of the BJP-led government in 2014, prime-time news in television media in India has emerged as a site for actualizing an extreme right fantasy of vilification, hatred and collective vengeance against the Muslims. In March 2020, Sudhir Chaudhary, the then editor-in-chief of Zee News, ran a story on the different kinds of jihad on his prime-time show, which included specimens like 'Land Jihad' i.e. capturing land to build mosques, madrassas or Islamic seminaries and cemeteries for Muslims, 'History Jihad' i.e. the manipulation of history to glorify Mughal rule, 'Education Jihad' i.e. building 'madrassas' and promoting the Arabic language, 'Secularism Jihad' and 'Population Jihad' i.e. Muslim men marrying multiple wives to increase the population of Muslims and outnumber the Hindus.

[...]

This background renders false the different types of jihad propounded by Sudhir Chaudhary, who did not consider the nuanced history and scholarship behind the term.

This also undermines Chaudhary's allegation that there is a 'population jihad' caused by Muslim men marrying multiple wives to increase the population of Muslims and outnumber Hindus.

[...]

Zee news as one of the most popular television news channels in India (Devi, 2022) that cater to the viewership in the Hindi belt of North India remains one of the primary sites of media propaganda. Apart from manufacturing news and the viewers' consent, it also manufactures antipathy against the Muslims, normalizes violence against the community. The news channel continued its propaganda throughout the pandemic period, often pitting already confused, vulnerable and Covid-ridden citizens against one another. Zee news also picked up on fake news transmitted via WhatsApp to reinforce the dissemination of disinformation and concocted information aired at prime-time television.

— Basu, Arani (15 October 2025). "Prime-Time Propaganda: Television and Hate". Understanding Propaganda: A Study of Media in Contemporary India. Springer Nature. pp. 23–43. doi:10.1007/978-981-95-1665-0_2. ISBN 978-981-95-1665-0.

After this incident, Zee News continued propagating new "jihad" conspiracy theories, such as "corona jihad" and "spitting jihad" ("thook jihad") during the COVID-19 pandemic. In 2024, Zee News promoted "mehndi jihad" (including on its website), "food jihad" and "QR code jihad". The sheer number of conspiracy theories disseminated by Zee News indicates that it should be deprecated. — Newslinger talk 22:19, 30 March 2026 (UTC)

@Newslinger: all of these pertain to the TV broadcast side of things though, and none of them to the text articles used on Wikipedia. This "RfC" I presume is about the latter, but your comment does not address it at all. The TV and news article side of things are not "well-integrated", contrary to the claims of another editor. TryKid ^{[dubious – discuss]} 03:36, 31 March 2026 (UTC)
Precisely why I believe this is a malformed RfC. I also note that prior to Newslinger, nobody in this RfC presented any evidence at all but somehow all arrived at the same conclusion. I hope somebody is taking note. UnpetitproleX (talk) 23:59, 31 March 2026 (UTC)
I think you are being too aggressive with your severe accusations and have only objections against having the discussion and RfC. It looks like an attempt to derail the discussion. Omen2019 (talk) 02:03, 1 April 2026 (UTC)
Pointing out the obvious, that many if not all comments prior to Newslinger’s were made with no reference to any strong evidence for deprecating ("long overdue", "finally we are here" etc.) is not an accusation. It is an observation. Another is this: that WP:FOXNEWS gets deep dissection of its reporting and reliability but the knee-jerk reaction on other similar sources is to deprecate with a "speedy close", the opposite of actual discussion, speaks to wikipedia’s own WP:SYSTEMICBIAS. UnpetitproleX (talk) 19:09, 2 April 2026 (UTC)
And it turns into long write-ups about it with no inputs in the discussion topic. Omen2019 (talk) 04:33, 3 April 2026 (UTC)

Although Chaudhary was the anchor of Zee News's Daily News and Analysis (DNA) news program, on which he presented the "jihad flowchart", he was also concurrently the CEO of Zee News and, most importantly, the editor-in-chief overseeing all of Zee News's content, including online content (consisting of not just articles, but also videos created from the TV broadcasts). When the editor-in-chief is openly promoting conspiracy theories on television with his name and likeness for the audience to see, that is a negative indicator of reliability for the entire news outlet.

I searched the Zee News website and found content purporting the existence of "love jihad" (context), "land jihad" (context), "corona jihad" (context), ~~"UPSC jihad" (context; see Union Public Service Commission)~~ "rail jihad" (context) and, in response to a first information report (FIR) filed against one of Chaudhary's "land jihad" claims, "jihadist conspiracy". There is no shortage of these types of claims in Zee News's voice. I understand that different editors have different levels of tolerance for questionable content; my tolerance for conspiracy theories like these is low, thus my position in this request for comment. — Newslinger talk 00:39, 1 April 2026 (UTC) (Edited to make correction: To Zee News's credit, its coverage of the "UPSC jihad" conspiracy theory was fine; it was Sudarshan News that was criticised for its reporting. Replaced with "rail jihad". 22:16, 1 April 2026 (UTC))
I want to point out that its not that their coverage of the UPSC jihad conspiracy theory was fine, its more so they did not cover it. Omen2019 (talk) 23:39, 1 April 2026 (UTC)
Option 2 for all post-2020 reporting except option 3/4 (WP:GUNREL or deprecate) for all Muslim-related coverage post-2020, and option 1 for all pre-2020 reporting, based on the evidence presented above by Newslinger. All evidence presented is for a number of general anti-Muslim reports going back till 2020. I simply fail to see how that can somehow be used to deprecate the source for all reporting of all time. Something similar to WP:FOXNEWS is required here. —UnpetitproleX (talk) 00:36, 31 March 2026 (UTC)
Option 4 - Per the evidence brought forward by the Newslinger. It is an unusable source, almost similar to OpIndia in its reporting. Ratnahastin (talk) 02:29, 31 March 2026 (UTC)
Option 3/4, leaning 3 Having reviewed the discussion it seems clear this is a garbage source that should not be used. I'm uncertain if it's garbage enough to warrant deprecation. Simonm223 (talk) 20:02, 31 March 2026 (UTC)
Option 4 per the evidence presented by the RfC participants. It is a broadcaster of anti-muslim conspiracy theories with things like love jihad (), its derivatives like mehendi jihad (), land jihad (), spit or food jihad (), its derivates like QR code jihad (, ), ~~upsc jihad~~, vaccine jihad () besides being a disinformation outlet of the BJP on other things as well. This ought to be done with many other news sites which are of the same quality, it is a noticeable issue on many pages. Omen2019 (talk) 02:52, 1 April 2026 (UTC) ---- edited ---- Omen2019 (talk) 23:33, 1 April 2026 (UTC)
Option 4 and WP:SNOWCLOSE: Given that we have had multiple users look at this and not find anything redeeming, it's easy to say deprecate and close. However, since the process has faced ridicule for Newslinger being the only one presenting what they have found, I'll share some of what I found.
In the Politics of Fake News: How WhatsApp Became a Potent Propaganda Tool in India article published in the journal Media Watch, it states:
"Just after November 8, 2016, when the Indian government canceled currency notes of 500 and 1,000 denominations, fake news about new 2000 denomination note began circulating on WhatsApp. The most viral news being that the new note has a nano GPS tracker chip by which it can be traced anywhere. This, the fake news claimed, will help the government to keep eye on black money (Indian Express, 2016). What happened later is a perfect example of how hoaxes make their way to mainstream news. Zee News, a more than 18-year-old Hindi news channel, broadcast a special programme on new 2000 denomination note. In this programme DNA (Daily News Analysis), a well-known anchor of the channel narrated almost exactly the same features of the new notes as claimed by the fake news messages on WhatsApp."
If this organization is presenting WhatsApp hoaxes as fact, then it is some good evidence that it has some pretty bad editorial quality. Going back to some more evidence, the outlet has spread fake news about Tablighi Jamaat members attacking medical workers and has been involved in "anti-Muslim propaganda" during the COVID pandemic. So, I think it's safe to say we can deprecate and close this.--WMrapids (talk) 03:00, 1 April 2026 (UTC)
Option 4 - Per Newslinger and WMrapids. -- Kautilya3 (talk) 10:46, 1 April 2026 (UTC)
- Option 4 per WP:RS and WP:V. The evidence presented indicates repeated failures in editorial oversight and fact-checking, including publication of misleading or fabricated claims. Regardless of political bias (which alone is not disqualifying), such patterns undermine the source’s reputation for accuracy. Per WP:DEPRECATED, sources with a history of disinformation should not be used, and given the scale of concerns, deprecation appears justified.
  User4135 (talk) 15:02, 1 April 2026 (UTC)
Comment/question. I looked at this with an eye to closing. I'm seeing a consensus above to deprecate, at least for post-2014 content, I'm not seeing enough opinions expressed about earlier content to say that any of the options have consensus so more opinions on that would be useful. Is it though technically possible to partially deprecate a source (with date-based split)? (This is a genuine question, I have no idea). Thryduulf (talk) 04:07, 5 April 2026 (UTC)
Option 4 Per newslinger. Yeah nothing redeeming here. User:Bluethricecreamman (Talk·Contribs) 04:41, 5 April 2026 (UTC)
option 4i made a post about to yk nudge wikipedians into looking at indian sources glad to see were heading that way the controversy section alone is good enough for blacklisting also whatever newslinger said and also bjp associated owner and former editor has own controversy section its all the web of hindutva portal wikipedians have no idea how far it goes (not to soapbox tho its just detrimental to wiki) Stanjik (talk) 06:12, 7 April 2026 (UTC)
I like unpetitrole's nuanced suggestion, I think it helps maintain WP:RSCONTEXT's sensitive approach.
Option 1 for non-political content. For example, the Oceansat-3 (after having a lot of copyright info removed) cites Zee News for a fact about a survey of phytoplankton. I don't see a problem with citations such as this.
Option 4 for post-2020 Islam related content. The coverage is shocking, as everyone has already attested to. Thryduulf, for your reference, the summary for WP:FOXNEWSPOLITICS mentions that post Nov 2020 content is generally unreliable but pre Nov 2020 content requires further consideration. I think pre-2020 should have additional consideration rather than being completely deprecated. I think this would mean we should be careful with biographical information about Muslims provided by Zee News but general biographical information seems okay as long as it's also meeting the general WP:BLP guidelines.
I am suggesting 'post-2020' and not 'post-2014' because even though the Arani Basu chapter, helpfully provided by Newslinger, implies that the change in news outlets occurred after the arrival of the BJP govt in 2014, all the examples used in the chapter are from 2020 onwards. So I'd want a stronger argument if we were to question, and deprecate, an extra six years worth of content.
I also think it's worth differentiating between the TV news coverage and the website. The news channel pedalled a conspiracy about GPS trackers in notes but the website stated that it was 'bogus'. The differentiation here would be similar to WP:FOXNEWSTALKSHOWS. I get that they're all under one editor, but then perhaps simply the post and pre 2020 split applies if we don't want to separate the TV channel from the website. Katiedevi (talk) 14:51, 8 April 2026 (UTC)
Where did you get that this website has spread anti muslim disinformation after 2020? It has spread disinformation in favour of the ruling party in many dimensions against political opponents and dissidents :
As these sections on the corresponding article shows:
1. '2016 Jawaharlal Nehru University sedition controversy'
2. 'Navjot Singh Sidhu – Alwar controversy'
3. '2016 GPS chips in ₹2000 notes'
4. 'Spreading fake news during 2020–21 farmers' protests'
5. 'Coverage of 2020 Delhi election results'
This "post-2020 Islam related content" is not nuanced but outright denial of all of these instances!

Option 4 is the only right option here. Zalaraz (talk) 05:16, 13 April 2026 (UTC)
i second whatever he said Stanjik (talk) 09:50, 13 April 2026 (UTC)
Option 1: At least for entertainment-related, non-political and non-contentious content. Kailash29792 (talk) 14:25, 10 April 2026 (UTC)
Option 4 for everything. I'd oppose any carve-outs; a source with a history of publishing deliberately fabricated stories cannot be trusted for anything. Even if we assume they are only willing to fabricate stuff for political purposes (which is not at all a given), almost anything can in some way touch on politics, in ways that might not be obvious; and the underlying point is that this makes it clear that they lack a reputable fact-checking or editorial controls that would grant them a reputation for fact-checking and accuracy overall. More generally the history of trying to carve off "usable" parts from unreliable sources always tends towards us ultimately determining that the whole thing has problems (see the recent Forbes RFC, or the way reliability issues with Fox slowly creeped over every part of the network.) Sometimes problems might be limited to one part of a network, sure, but in general a source that is willing to publish actual disinformation about anything is going to be willing to publish it about everything, and cannot be seriously said to have a reputation for fact-checking or accuracy. --Aquillion (talk) 22:13, 13 April 2026 (UTC)
Option 4 per Aquillion. Unreliable source. MBlaze Lightning (talk) 09:10, 14 April 2026 (UTC)
Option 4 per Aquillion. What an unreliable source? I wonder if they will report on us doing Wikipedia jihad? Hopefully, that would be funny. If its unreliable for one matter, I don't see how it can be reliable for anything else, its not like it has experts for its publications on art but not politics (as an example). Sahib-e-Qiran, EasternShah 13:36, 14 April 2026 (UTC)
Option 4 per Aquillion. Reccommend WP:SNOW closing too. CheeseAndJamSamdwich (talk) 11:39, 18 April 2026 (UTC)
cant we depreciate it already also how are we going to clean it up since we have more than 7000 links to this website Stanjik (talk) 12:38, 20 April 2026 (UTC)
The answer to that second question is editor's time and hardwork. Each use will need to be checked to see if it can be replaced with a different source, and otherwise if the content needs to be changed. -- LCU ActivelyDisinterested «@» °∆t° 14:40, 20 April 2026 (UTC)
jesus christ its like a tumor in wiki what took us so long for depreciating this Stanjik (talk) 15:31, 20 April 2026 (UTC)

@ActivelyDisinterested @Stanjik I have seen editors call for purging citations in previous discussions which have ended with a consensus for deprecation, such as this RfC on Republic TV. Considering the fact that there appears to be a clear consensus for deprecating Zee News here, perhaps we could have its citations purged as well. — EarthDude (Talk) 11:35, 23 April 2026 (UTC)
Those citations were cleared down by editors checking and removing them, there isn't a technical solution to clearing up bad sources. -- LCU ActivelyDisinterested «@» °∆t° 12:29, 23 April 2026 (UTC)

Why 2014?

Does anyone have any evidence that Zee News changed in 2014? I think the burden of proof lies on those who claim that the pre-2014 version was reliable. --Guy Macon (talk) 13:14, 20 April 2026 (UTC)

(...Sound of Crickets...) --Guy Macon (talk) 20:30, 21 April 2026 (UTC)

How would partially deprecating a source even work though? — EarthDude (Talk) 11:30, 23 April 2026 (UTC)

Firstpost

Is Firstpost a reliable source?

It's linked from a very large number of articles. However, some statements by Firstpost have been fact-checked and found to be false. Its managing editor Palki Sharma used to work for WION, which is only considered to be marginally reliable per WP:WION.

WP:NEWSORGINDIA says some sections of Firstpost contain undisclosed paid content but says nothing about Firstpost as a whole. Ixfd64 (talk) 16:04, 2 April 2026 (UTC)

Seems quite reliable. I see plenty of use by others. BBC cited it often: and dozens more. The same for New York Times: citing coverage, coverage in Newswallah and so on. The Guardian cited Firstpost's coverage and statements given to Firstpost, and quoted obituaries published in Firstpost and so on. This is just from a cursory search for a few minutes into a few prominent newspapers, I'm sure there's plenty more.

The two factchecks both pertain to incorrect attribution of visuals—one instance of use of an old visual for a cyclone based on usage by an Indian district administration (later clarified), another of repeating viral social media claims about the location of a photograph. I suppose it would be appropriate to exercise caution if it's being used for source-attribution of some piece of media or social-media related/"viral" claims. TryKid ^{[dubious – discuss]} 20:22, 2 April 2026 (UTC)

The missing piece of the puzzle is that all the use by others is from before 2016 and the fact-checks are from the 2020s. Fact checks include fake news in a religious tension related issue and promoting Modi with false reporting.

The clue for it is that Network18 was overtaken by oil conglomerate Reliance Industries in 2014 and most of the authors (200 fell to 10-15) at Firstpost were slashed away in 2019. They have a paid news problem and there was a sting operation reported by WP:THEHINDU on how Hindutva ideology is peddled through paid news . Omen2019 (talk) 06:09, 3 April 2026 (UTC)

That's just not true. There's plenty of use of by others post-2016 and post-2019.

CNN in 2021:

ISIS-K took credit for the attack and named the suicide bomber as Abdul Rehman Al-Loghri. Two US officials confirmed the identity of the attacker. FirstPost, an English-language news site based in India, was first to report that he had been released from the Bagram prison.

Reuters in 2025:

On Wednesday, Marcos told Indian media outlet Firstpost, "If there is an all-out war, then we will be drawn into it."

These also just another two quick examples based on cursory searches, a lot more is available.

The Hindu/Cobrapost article has no mention of Firstpost and it has nothing to do with Firstpost. I'm also sick of someone crying "Hindutva" in every thread, often randomly and nonsensically as here. It has no bearing on the reliability of the source and comes across as political axe-grinding and battleground editing. TryKid ^{[dubious – discuss]} 06:48, 3 April 2026 (UTC)

What is not true? This is use of on-the-ground sources (eye witnesses), Guardian taking a quote from an interview is not an endorsement of the source or a statement that it has not repeatedly published misinformation which is directly related to the ruling government that has attacked press freedom and their ideology. Omen2019 (talk) 07:21, 3 April 2026 (UTC)

It is part of Network18. So it rises or falls along with it. Under R. Jagannathan, it came across as too opinionated. But now it has mellowed. -- Kautilya3 (talk) 23:09, 2 April 2026 (UTC)

~~It is generally considered usable PinkBlossomRain (talk) 09:38, 4 April 2026 (UTC)~~ Blocked sock

This LLM-generated text has been collapsed and should be excluded from assessments of consensus. — Newslinger talk 21:30, 3 April 2026 (UTC)

The following discussion has been closed. Please do not modify it.

I think this is a case where a nuanced application of WP:RS and WP:NEWSORGINDIA is more appropriate than a binary classification.

Firstpost appears to have some indicators of reliability—such as editorial structure and demonstrable use by other reliable outlets (including recent examples). Per WP:RS, this can support a presumption of reliability for straightforward, factual reporting, particularly when there is no reason to doubt the specific content being cited.

At the same time, the concerns raised here are not without merit. Documented instances of inaccurate reporting (even if limited in scope), along with issues like undisclosed paid content noted in WP:NEWSORGINDIA, suggest that additional editorial caution may be warranted. These factors align with situations where sources fall under WP:QUESTIONED rather than being fully reliable or fully deprecated.

In practical terms, this would support treating Firstpost as:

Generally usable for non-controversial, routine factual reporting, with attribution where appropriate.

Used with caution for contentious topics, political content, or claims involving attribution of media/viral material.

Avoided where higher-quality, independent sources are readily available.

I would also caution against over-relying on ownership or perceived political alignment alone (per WP:BIASED), as these do not by themselves determine reliability without clear evidence of editorial impact on accuracy.

Overall, Option 2 (“unclear / additional considerations apply”) seems the most consistent with policy and the mixed evidence presented so far.

User4135 (talk) 07:19, 3 April 2026 (UTC)

Would it be too early for an RfC? Ixfd64 (talk) 18:18, 3 April 2026 (UTC)

It is a thoroughly unreliable source. It was never useful. I would be fine with completely depreciating it. Koshuri ^(あ!) 08:04, 3 April 2026 (UTC)
Can you give your reasoning Koshuri? BobFromBrockley (talk) 04:41, 4 April 2026 (UTC)
It is undoubtedly unreliable. I won't use it for anything. THEZDRX _{(User) |}_(Contact) 10:01, 3 April 2026 (UTC)
Can you give your reasoning ZDRX? BobFromBrockley (talk) 04:41, 4 April 2026 (UTC)
@Bobfrombrockley Firstpost is not reliable. They have a pretty major issue with undisclosed paid editing, worsened by the fact that much of their articles which have undisclosed paid editing are written to defend and justify the Hindutva ideology or the ruling BJP government. Furthermore, they've had a history of spreading misinformation. — EarthDude (Talk) 08:16, 5 April 2026 (UTC)
Thank you. That’s pretty good evidence of clickbait, failure to verify, sensationalism. Agree therefore it seems to be a bad source BobFromBrockley (talk) 10:59, 5 April 2026 (UTC)

I'm not going to respond to your unsubstantiated WP:OR claims, but as for the "history of spreading misinformation":

: "Both the outlets [News18 and Firstpost] later ran a clarification stating that the clip is old."

: "News agency PTI, media organisations India Today, Firstpost, NDTV and English Jagran claimed that Ahmed's vote "saved" the UPA government in 2008, citing a book Baahubalis of Indian Politics: From Bullet to Ballot as their source." [underlined by me], which means that the discrepancy lies at the book source, not at the news agencies that reproduced the book source's claim with attribution and not as their own claim. Lazy reporting, but not disinformation. UnpetitproleX (talk) 05:52, 6 April 2026 (UTC)
WP:OR obviously does not apply to talk pages and noticeboard discussions. Anyhow, these cases are not rare for Firstpost. In April 2023, the outlet claimed that Pakistani parents have to resort to locking the graves of their daughters to prevent necrophilia, using an image posted on Twitter which had stirred a controversy and no additional research. However, as it turned out, the image was from Hyderabad, not Pakistan. In April 2025, the outlet used an image from 2021 and falsely called it the "first image from a suspected terrorist" in the 2025 Pahalgam attack. In June 2025, the outlet claimed that Modi had "fact-checked" Trump by stating that India "has never accepted mediation, does not accept it, and will never accept it", and that consequently Trump had performed a "U-turn" on his claim to have been responsible for ending the 2025 India–Pakistan conflict, now saying instead that the leaders of both countries were "very smart" and had "decided to stop the war". Again, this wasn't the case. The statement by Trump was that Asim Munir and Modi were influential in his decision, but he reiterated four times that he was the one who stopped the war. Again, these are just some of many such cases of the outlet spreading false information and engaging in sensationalism. This extremely low-quality source should not be used anywhere in Wikipedia. Deprecating it isn't a bad idea. — EarthDude (Talk) 08:26, 6 April 2026 (UTC)
I'd say it's marginally reliable. On one hand we have WP:USEBYOTHERS, on the other we have quite concerning examples of publishing falsehoods and then failing to issue corrections. Alaexis_¿question? 11:29, 3 April 2026 (UTC)
Reliable for what? I am yet to see where it can be useful. Zalaraz (talk) 12:07, 3 April 2026 (UTC)
I see that it's used a lot for cultural topics. Also, see @TryKid's examples of use by other RS. Alaexis_¿question? 12:20, 3 April 2026 (UTC)
He says there are post-2016 or post-2019 use by others of Firstpost. But has not proven it, all his links are pre-2016 with most from 2014. There was a large downsizing after a politically charged ownership change of Network18. Omen2019 (talk) 00:52, 4 April 2026 (UTC)

That is a good question. As far as I can tell, Firstpost doesn't do any ground reports. It publishes commentaries and/or analyses by columnists that it considers worthy. So, it is good enough to check the notability and reliability of the authors. -- Kautilya3 (talk) 15:34, 3 April 2026 (UTC)

This LLM-generated text has been collapsed and should be excluded from assessments of consensus. — Newslinger talk 21:29, 3 April 2026 (UTC)

The following discussion has been closed. Please do not modify it.

Given the range of views expressed here—from outright rejection to more conditional acceptance—I think it may be slightly premature to jump to an RfC at this stage. Per WP:RFCBEFORE, it’s usually better to allow some more focused discussion first, particularly around specific use cases rather than broad generalizations about the source as a whole.

A key question raised above—“reliable for what?”—is probably the most productive direction. Under WP:RS, reliability is contextual, and some sources may be usable for attributed opinions (e.g., commentary by notable columnists) but not for factual claims, especially if there are concerns about editorial standards or past inaccuracies.

The mention of WP:USEBYOTHERS is also worth examining carefully. Use by otherwise reliable sources can sometimes support reliability, but it is not determinative on its own—especially if those uses are limited, non-critical, or context-specific.

At this point, it may be more useful to:

identify concrete examples of both good and problematic usage,

distinguish between news reporting vs. opinion/analysis content,

and assess whether any narrowly defined use (if any) aligns with WP:V and WP:RS.

If, after that, there is still substantial disagreement, an RfC would likely be more focused and productive.

User4135 (talk) 18:35, 3 April 2026 (UTC)
Hi User4135, please do not use a large language model (e.g. an AI chatbot) to generate comments on Wikipedia. You are welcome to rewrite your comments in your own words. Thank you. — Newslinger talk 21:32, 3 April 2026 (UTC)
I have opened an RfC below, given the fact that this discussion doesn't seem to be going anywhere, and that discussions on the reliability of Firstpost have occurred in the past and have also not led to anything conclusive. I request editors to add their input. — EarthDude (Talk) 06:58, 9 April 2026 (UTC)

RfC: Firstpost

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How reliable is Firstpost, to be used as a source in Wikipedia?

Option 1: Generally reliable for factual reporting.
Option 2: Unclear or additional considerations apply.
Option 3: Generally unreliable for factual reporting.
Option 4: Publishes false or fabricated information, and should be deprecated.

— EarthDude (Talk) 06:58, 9 April 2026 (UTC)

However, you are invited to participate and your opinion is welcome. Remember to assume good faith on the part of others and to sign your posts on this page by adding ~~~~ at the end.

Survey: Firstpost

Option 4: Firstpost has had a history of publishing false news stories. I will highlight some cases here. In April 2023, the outlet claimed that Pakistani parents have to resort to locking the graves of their daughters to prevent necrophilia, based upon a viral image from Twitter and no further research. However, in reality, the image was from Hyderabad, not Pakistan, and it had nothing to do with necrophilia. In August 2024, the outlet falsely attributed a statement about the US' alleged involvement in Bangladesh to Sheikh Hasina. In April 2025, the outlet used an image from 2021 and falsely claimed that it was the "first image from a suspected terrorist" in the 2025 Pahalgam attack.. This source is absolutely not reliable and should be deprecated. — EarthDude (Talk) 06:58, 9 April 2026 (UTC)
"based upon a viral image from Twitter and no further research" and yet the report references cases of necrophilia from 2011, 2013, 2019, 2020, 2021, and 2022, all of which are real: , , , , . So which lack of further research? I already said this above, their reporting may indeed be lazy, but I am not seeing a "history of misinformation" that is being claimed here. UnpetitproleX (talk) 08:53, 9 April 2026 (UTC)

Re: Sheikh Hasina: Firstpost reported : "According to the Economic Times report which cited the ousted Bangladeshi PM’s close associates" which means that they are citing The Economic Times and it's not an original claim by Firstpost. The Quint "factcheck", which is arguably even lazier than Firstpost's report, claims the statement to be "fasle" based only on Hasina's son's tweet. "We went through Hasina's son, Sajeeb Wazed's social media accounts, who put out a statement against the alleged quote made by his mother." And you are saying we should deprecate Firstpost based on THIS? Beyond absurd. UnpetitproleX (talk) 09:09, 9 April 2026 (UTC)
Attribution does not eliminate accountability. Repeating a false or unverified claim from another source without enough scrutiny still counts as unreliable. Editorial judgment is what reliable sources should do, not just pass on what others say. It's even more worrying that Firstpost used "close associates" cited by another source without checking them out and presented them as a news claim. How are they reliable?

It is also not a valid counterargument to say that fact-checks are not valid because they are based on primary rebuttals. Fact-checking groups look at claims and see if they are true or false. If you can't show that their conclusions are wrong, calling them "lazy" doesn't make the correction wrong. THEZDRX _{(User) |}_(Contact) 09:25, 9 April 2026 (UTC)
It is lazy. They reached the conclusion that the statement was false instead of saying that Hasina's son has claimed it to be false. But what's more pertinent here is that Firstpost reported a claim which appeared in ET (with full attribution), which then Hasina's son claimed is false. That is not "false reporting" or "misinformation" by any metric, and using it for deprecating Firstpost is shockingly absurd. UnpetitproleX (talk) 10:01, 9 April 2026 (UTC)
Attribution alone does not make a report reliable. They should not just repeat claims from other sources, especially when those claims are serious and unverified. In this case, Firstpost did not simply report a disputed claim. It promoted an unverified statement based on anonymous or indirect sources (close associates) without showing clear skepticism or verification. That is churnalism, not thorough reporting. The fact that the claim was later denied by a directly involved party (Hasina’s son) further shows that the original report did not have enough verification. Whether one thinks the fact-check is "lazy" or not does not matter. The main issue is that Firstpost chose to publish and spread a claim with weak sources. THEZDRX _{(User) |}_(Contact) 10:19, 9 April 2026 (UTC)
I don't see anything in WP:RS or WP:DEPS that says we should be deprecating sources based on a few churnalistic reports, or that it affects the reliability of a source. UnpetitproleX (talk) 10:32, 9 April 2026 (UTC)
Per WP:RS, reliability depends on a source’s reputation for accuracy and fact-checking. When a source repeatedly publishes misleading or poorly verified content, that directly affects its reliability for factual reporting, regardless of whether it is officially discontinued. Similarly, WP:DS comes from community consensus when serious and ongoing reliability issues are found. The examples provided are not trivial because they involve misleading use of images, publishing claims without enough verification, relying on weak or indirect sourcing. These are core reliability concerns, not just minor churnalism. THEZDRX _{(User) |}_(Contact) 10:44, 9 April 2026 (UTC)
Churnalism being the reason for deprecating a source would be historic first here. Also, are you using AI to generate your responses? The tone is very GPT-esque to my ears. UnpetitproleX (talk) 11:56, 9 April 2026 (UTC)
Churnalism matters when it shows a lack of careful checking. When a source often publishes unverified or poorly sourced claims, or gives misleading context, it hurts its reputation for reliability. This is the main standard under WP:RS. Just because there isn't a past example doesn't mean these concerns are not valid. Each RfC looks at the evidence on its own merits. — Preceding unsigned comment added by ZDRX (talk • contribs)
Option 4: Per EarthDude. Firstpost isn't a reliable source. THEZDRX _{(User) |}_(Contact) 07:05, 9 April 2026 (UTC)
Option 4 - Like I said, it thoroughly unreliable source known for spreading disinformation. There is no use of it. Koshuri ^(あ!) 07:07, 9 April 2026 (UTC)
Option 1 the evidence presented here wouldn't even qualify the source for 2 or 3, let alone for deprecating. And the continuous months-long edit warring on the outlet's main article first to add WP:SYNTH and WP:UNDUE OR to the article's lead and then also to repeatedly remove longstanding templates that highlight the concerns of SYNTH and DUE (raised by multiple editors) just before this RfC by the same editors who are voting here to deprecate the source also beggars belief. --UnpetitproleX (talk) 08:20, 9 April 2026 (UTC)
First of all, I suggest you read WP:AGF and WP:FOC. Secondly, what goes on in the Firstpost article is unrelated to this discussion on the reliability of the Firstpost source. A news outlet with a history of publishing false and fabricated information cannot be deemed reliable. — EarthDude (Talk) 08:27, 9 April 2026 (UTC)
As I already pointed out above, not all instance you are personally claiming to be "spreading misinformation" are actually so. This is nothing but cherrypicked instances of a couple of lazy reports or misreports and making claims about widespread mis- or disinformation which doesn't seem to actually exist. UnpetitproleX (talk) 08:38, 9 April 2026 (UTC)
Cherry-picking would suggest that these were simply random, minor mistakes, yet it’s clear from the above examples that this source tends to publish false information about critical issues. Any number of these instances is relevant in terms of determining the credibility of a source, particularly in terms of its ability to provide accurate information.

In this case, the question is not about proving widespread disinformation, but whether the source maintains high editorial standards in general. It is a reasonable point of concern based on these examples.

If you feel these examples are inaccurate, please explain why specifically, rather than calling them “cherry-picked” without addressing them directly. THEZDRX _{(User) |}_(Contact) 08:58, 9 April 2026 (UTC)
I already have: here, here and here. So indeed, it is cherrypicking. In fact, at this point, it is also a falsification of evidence against the outlet. UnpetitproleX (talk) 09:12, 9 April 2026 (UTC)

Comment: And the claims of misinformation added to the article, which were also presented here as evidence of a "history of misinformation", are worryingly inconsistent with what the sources being cited for them actually say. I'm not going dig into who added them with conclusions that stretch the limits of interpretation and practically hinge on original research, but they certainly do not hold up as evidence for deprecation. UnpetitproleX (talk) 02:13, 10 April 2026 (UTC)
You are only offering justification that how FirstPost ended up spreading fake news. That changes nothing. THEZDRX _{(User) |}_(Contact) 11:40, 10 April 2026 (UTC)
As I said to another person trying to misrepresent me, we are only as blind as we want to be. Misrepresented or falsified "history of misinformation" cannot be grounds for deprecating. UnpetitproleX (talk) 05:26, 11 April 2026 (UTC)
A history of publishing false information is the exact grounds needed for deprecation, not to mention the organisation has also engaged in Islamophobic conspiracy theories in its articles. Worst of all, for most of their articles where they published false news or misinformation, they haven't reported corrections. — EarthDude (Talk) 08:53, 19 April 2026 (UTC)
Option 4 - For instances of misinformation, jingoistic coverage and churnalism. Zalaraz (talk) 08:14, 9 April 2026 (UTC)
Option 3. Kalpesh Manna 2002 (talk) 11:53, 9 April 2026 (UTC)
Option 4 - Completely fails WP:RS and has no productive value for Wikipedia. Not to mention it is notorious for spreading fake news and disinformation. Wareon (talk) 16:33, 9 April 2026 (UTC)
This notoriety? UnpetitproleX (talk) 02:32, 10 April 2026 (UTC)
Option 4 - This was expected. It is well known for spreading fake news. Abhishek0831996 (talk) 17:02, 9 April 2026 (UTC)
~~Comment~~ Option 1 This is a genrel at WP:ICTFSOURCES and I am not seeing any substative rationale (beyond what are simply "votes") for [nuclear] Option 4/3 which would require overwhelming and incontrovertible evidence for deliberate false reporting/fabrication. What are there are certain haphazard reports, exactly the same scoped by mainstream and other listed RS, without any appearance of deliberation by Firstpost or its singling out by fact checkers (many of which are borderline, if only we assessed reliability through politicians: differing Trumpian claims of ceasefire [cf. false or misleading statements by Donald Trump] and a controversial son denying his controversial mother and PM making a statement); it should be noted that most genrel at RSP have failed a similar rather a higher number of disparate fact checks (look no further than PolitiFact). Some comments in previous discussions on the article's Talk page have mentioned pro-government bias but as RSN knows (and WP:RSBIAS shows) that is impertinent for us, also cf. genrel but biased sources at WP:RSP like WSJ, National Post, Times of Israel, Sixth Tone [under the CCP], VOA [under US fedgov] etc. Now looking through scholarly reports assessing Firstpost here is what I find:
Firstpost has several mechanisms in place to vet fake news. It has conducted workshops organised with the help of Google News Lab, where journalists were given tips and introduced to tools that could help them verify the credibility of a source or image. ... With legacy news brands and relatively well-established websites like Firstpost, it is only in the past three years that their newsrooms have begun to create and curate content geared towards social media performance. Source: Reuters Institute for the Study of Journalism.
Firstpost is now entirely owned by Reliance, as a part of its acquisition of CNN-TV18 group, which was earlier owned by Raghav Bahl. In 2014, the Telecom Regulatory Authority of India (TRAI) was compelled to raise a red fag over media ownership patterns resulting in an inextricable nexus of politics and media patronage, which elicited this response from Firstpost editor R. Jaganathan: "How do we know a media house not owned by a politician is telling the truth too? […] Does non-ownership of media houses prevent a corporate house from infuencing it? Is the advertising rupee, or indirect benefits to media editors, any less infuential in the media?" With the following five points, Jaganathan sought to reassert press freedom, which was seemingly facing familiar threats, but also quietly going through fundamental revision as digitality was being ushered into the very temper of news-making. Source: "Portfolios of Fear and Risk in Platform News" in Platform Capitalism in India
So I see here a solid case for option 1 much in line with ICTF. Can look towards option 2 (caution) but the evidence so far of a slapdash of fact checks simply isn't convincing, which of course makes no case for gunrel or deprecation at all. I should note that the discussion above (and recent flurry at the article's Talk page) barely ran before the RfC was initiated, and would appear out of process. Gotitbro (talk) 19:29, 9 April 2026 (UTC)
Was further looking into its coverage by academic sources and this Firstpost article being discussed is of note (at Anti-Gender and Anti-Feminist Politics in India: Notes on Fascism, Feminist Solidarity and Liberatory Politics):
- Umberto Eco’s Ur Fascism: Modi govt bringing to life every sign of darkness (about Ur-Fascism and democratic backsliding in India)
There are a host of others by the same Firstpost author severely critical of the current Indian government: ; among others by several different Firstpost writers. And the blanket labelling of bias isn't very firm either. Gotitbro (talk) 21:01, 9 April 2026 (UTC)

Claims of misinfo have been greatly expanded within the article since the start of this RfC, . But most of these (cf. Talk) are reports by the original wire agencies/ other news orgs (and attributed as such) like Reuters and PTI which should have no imputation of reliability for this source. I also see a conflation of misinformation (itself a vexed assertion) and disinformation (entirely unevidenced).

And further third-party assessment of the source (by the Media Ownership Monitor tracking media concentration) :

Firstpost is a news website in English and Hindi owned and operated by Network18 Group. The website features news, analysis and opinion articles by reputed columnists. The owner Network18 – one the biggest media conglomerates – is Mukesh Ambani and family. Firstpost was initially launched as a news website but now it has also made its appearance in the print sector.
Gotitbro (talk) 19:38, 11 April 2026 (UTC)
Option 1: Generally reliable, with emphasis on generally. Firstpost has a solid record of use by other reliable sources for cultural critique, political commentary, interviews, and so on. Additional considerations apply to nearly all sources, and occasional lazy coverage of social media is not limited to the source under consideration. We have had cases of elaborate fabrications from ostensibly reliable sources (currently categorised as such on Wikipedia). Posts from "web desks", i.e. without any real bylines, can be presumed to be lazily recycling social media claims and cannot be relied upon for sources attribution of photos or other such "viral" phenomenon. Beyond this, there's no indication, nor has anyone claimed, that any current usage of this source on Wikipedia is problematic. No reasoning has been provided for why it would need "deprecation" in the votes above. regards, TryKid ^{[dubious – discuss]} 23:47, 9 April 2026 (UTC)
Option 1 - to deprecate Firstpost is quite a strong claim. A simple Wikipedia search shows that Firstpost is widely cited in articles on Indian celebrities and films. Second, as mentioned by @TryKid, Firstpost has has been cited by other major news outlets such as BBC, The New York Times, The Guardian etc. so yes, it is still relied upon. Third, upon reading WP:DEPS - deprecated sources are discouraged from citing in articles, because they fail the reliable sources guideline in nearly all circumstances. There is insufficient evidence to conclude that Firstpost meets that unreliability in nearly all circumstances. Instead of a blanket exclusion of Firstpost, its use in controversial topics should be carefully analyzed on a case-by-case basis. Overall, it is generally reliable. Chilicave (talk)
Option 4 - The instances of fake news are too many. Today, is either noted for spreading BJP propaganda or used for spreading fake news. Raymond3023 (talk)
Option 4 per ZDRX and Earthdude. It is just another agenda-driven outlet with no credibility. ArvindPalaskar (talk) 14:26, 10 April 2026 (UTC)
Option 1 or 2: At least for entertainment-related, non-political and non-contentious content. Kailash29792 (talk) 14:31, 10 April 2026 (UTC)
Option 4 - The excuse that the outlet is "lazy" and that's why it shouldnt be held accountable for the disinformation cannot work since it serves as a pro-BJP outlet, just like blacklisted OpIndia and Swarajya (magazine). CharlesWain (talk) 16:09, 10 April 2026 (UTC)
Who said the outlet is "lazy"? A handful of reports, far too few, appear to be "lazy." These far too few lazy reports, are being falsly claimed to be disinformation for deprecation. Please try not to misrepresent what I said, even if inadvertently. UnpetitproleX (talk) 05:45, 11 April 2026 (UTC)
Option 1 or 2 - Prominent film journalists such as Anna M. M. Vetticad have written for Firstpost. Additional considerations may apply for political content, but to completely ignore all other spheres of life where the source can be used and to jump the gun with Option 4 is not appropriate. DeluxeVegan (talk) 18:22, 10 April 2026 (UTC)
Option 4 due to various false claims. Ixfd64 (talk) 21:25, 10 April 2026 (UTC)
Option 1 or 2 It is an uncontroversially good source for entertainment related stuff and many other non-political spaces. Why just Firstpost? Deprecating any source just for a few instances is inappropriate. If this level of inaccuracies are being taken into consideration, many news agencies will be required to be blacklisted, because many of them, sometimes or the other, have published unverified information....and that makes no sense. There's always grey spaces, we can't expect everything to be completely white or completely black. BhikhariInformer (talk) 10:43, 11 April 2026 (UTC)
Option 4 - As detailed above, FirstPost is frequent at publishing disinformation and political agenda of the BJP. While I understand that it is not possible for news websites to remain perfect all the time, however, FirstPost happens to publish disinformation in the most insensitive manner. This is also totally over the line. Wisher08 (talk) 10:54, 11 April 2026 (UTC)
Option 2: Per Gotitbro. I will note that the source they cite also mentions Whether it be NDTV or The Wire.in or Firstpost, the language is hyperventilated, every story shrill and scandalous, every reaction amplified and magnified, and every aversion or expression of outrage riddled with sentimentalism about the past and scepticism about the present. I see no reason for Option 4, as it does not fail the reliable sources guideline in nearly all circumstances (emphasis mine). ARandomName123 (talk)^{Ping me!} 10:59, 11 April 2026 (UTC)
Option 1: I find it generally reliable for most of the topic area I edit in. For contentious areas, option 2 may be a case according to some specific though can't say since I haven't come across any myself. Options 3 and 4 nope. - Fylindfotberserk (talk) 13:32, 11 April 2026 (UTC)
Option 1: Firstpost is part of the Network18 group, which was acquired by an industrialist known to be close to the ruling party. All the members of the Network18 group, which include CNN-News18, suffer from certain amount of bias in favour of the ruling party. Other than that, I don't see any egregious misinformation being propagated by these organisations. WP:BIASED applies. -- Kautilya3 (talk) 23:17, 11 April 2026 (UTC)
Comment Just to opine real quick, I've had now two requests to fully protect the Firstpost page due to folks editing behavior in that article. I've left a message on the article talk page but if anyone notices anything that looks like it would break the rules please ping me. Dr vulpes (Talk) 00:13, 12 April 2026 (UTC)
Option 2: What concerns me isn't so much the errors, but the fact that they seem to rarely issue corrections, even when they get something egregiously wrong. (The only correction I can find is this one, discussed above, which was for a video they posted on Twitter. I haven't seen corrections in any of the actual articles on their website.) On the other hand, they seem to have plenty of reasonable, fact-based articles, so Option 4 seems really extreme to me. There seems to be a decent amount of variation in Firstpost's reliability, so I think editors can use their judgement to decide when it's reliable:
1. Generally, Firstpost shouldn't be used for statements that are likely to be disputed, especially in the area of politics. Editors should be aware that Firstpost may be biased towards the BJP.
2. WP:NEWSORGINDIA, of course.
3. Firstpost articles that use a sensational, tabloid-like tone should probably be avoided.
4. Editors should be aware that Firstpost's reporting often relies to an unusual degree on social media posts by random people. Firstpost articles that do so generally shouldn't be used.
Cadddr (talk) 00:34, 12 April 2026 (UTC)
@Cadddr: They have issued corrections on other occasions as well, see here for example. I do completely agree with you about point 4 though. Most of these reports seem to stem from social media posts (though not always by random people: Tommaso Debenedetti and Harris Sultan for instance). The rest of the discrepancies arise from using newswire (of PTI , on one odd occasion Reuters), or from republishing attributed claims from other news agencies/sources (such as The Economic Times, this book, The Indian Ministry of Culture etc.). I doubt we should hold it accountable for problems that arise elsewhere (PTI, Reuters, Economic Times etc.) UnpetitproleX (talk) 05:10, 12 April 2026 (UTC)
COMMENT: Hmm. FirstPost. Where have I heard that name before? (Searches) Ah. Here it is:
- Firstpost.com takes over popular satire site --The Hindu
- Firstpost buys current affairs satire portal FakingNews.com --Hindustan Times
- The Fake Inside Story of Faking News’s Acquisition --Medium
--Guy Macon (talk) 01:25, 12 April 2026 (UTC)
Option 4 - In 2020, when Modi government passed 2020 Indian agriculture acts which were universally condemned as net-negative for the farmers and were eventually withdrawn after 2020–2021 Indian farmers' protest, FirstPost was propagating Ambani-funded organization's article in favor of the law. This is when the protestors targeted Ambani. There is no doubt that FirstPost disseminates disinformation and propaganda for Modi administration. Segaton (talk) 03:26, 12 April 2026 (UTC)
I'm no fan of Modi, but it sounds to me like your argument is just that FirstPost published something you disagree with. FirstPost being WP:BIASED doesn't imply that it's unreliable in all circumstances. Cadddr (talk) 04:24, 12 April 2026 (UTC)
the thing is its biased with false claims. Its ok for a source to be biased, its problem when it deliberately spreads fake news trying to influence political arguments for the government Flyingphoenixchips (talk) 05:05, 14 April 2026 (UTC)
Deliberation I would note though is entirely unevidenced beyond a grab bag of failed fact checks mostly stemming from wire agencies. Gotitbro (talk) 05:29, 14 April 2026 (UTC)
Option 1 or 2: The examples provided and a little wider research doesn't lead me to depricate this scource. Lukewarmbeer (talk) 15:56, 13 April 2026 (UTC)
Option 4; the examples posted by EarthDude are convincing. Either they're publishing misinformation deliberately or they have absolutely no editorial controls or fact-checking at all to the point of showing a reckless disregard for the truth; and in either case they're not usable as a source. --Aquillion (talk) 22:16, 13 April 2026 (UTC)
Of the 3, this example is the opposite of convincing. This one as well, though marginally. It would be a stretch to ponder upon deliberate misinformation, i.e. disinformation, based on these alone. UnpetitproleX (talk) 11:48, 14 April 2026 (UTC)
Option 2 reliable for non-controversial content, anything political may be biased, and social media stories should be avoided Atlantic306 (talk) 22:54, 13 April 2026 (UTC)
Option 4 it is part of Network18, which is owned by Reliance and Mukesh Ambani, so is naturally biased and is basically PR piece for the news. Yes, Almost every single indian news outlet even the Hindu and others have spread fake news, so I always proceed with caution when I see indian news.... however first post is different. In AfDs I have seen editors misusing it a lot. depricating it makes the most sense because its reliability is too uneven for contentious factual claims. it is not something I would treat as a dependable source for contentious factual claims, especially politics and social-media-driven reports... Flyingphoenixchips (talk) 05:02, 14 April 2026 (UTC)
Quoting another user (ActivelyDisinterested) here: "Arguments based on who owns a publication don't really matter anyway. The Daily Mail (deprecated) and the Independent (generally reliable) are owned by the same group, and the owner of The Sun (generally unreliable) also owns The Times (generally reliable). The owner of a new organisation usually doesn't mean anything." UnpetitproleX (talk) 11:54, 14 April 2026 (UTC)
The problem is not that, I just pointed it out for sake of context. even ndtv is owned by the same group but I will consider it more reliable as there is editorial oversight. anything under the sky without any fact check gets published in first post Flyingphoenixchips (talk) 13:47, 14 April 2026 (UTC)
Saying that Firstpost has no fact checking is false. Per the Reuters Institute report, The Quint and Firstpost have already made pointed efforts to deal with the problem of fake news. Firstpost has several mechanisms in place to vet fake news. ARandomName123 (talk)^{Ping me!} 13:53, 14 April 2026 (UTC)
Having stuff and mechanism makes no difference, if it still peddles fake news because it serves as positive PR Flyingphoenixchips (talk) 14:14, 14 April 2026 (UTC)
Positive PR for who? You said it is "too uneven for contentious factual claims". What about the non-contentious claims? Surely not everything they publish is politics or social-media. ARandomName123 (talk)^{Ping me!} 15:45, 14 April 2026 (UTC)
Positive PR for the ruling establishment. The problem is them openly promoting and publishing fake news with no editorial insight. This discredit their other reporting. If I know one source is frequently and knowingly publishing fake news, I will not trust them for other non political things as well Flyingphoenixchips (talk) 16:07, 14 April 2026 (UTC)
[citation needed]

If anything, we have evidence to the contrary. UnpetitproleX (talk) 07:34, 15 April 2026 (UTC)
https://caravanmagazine.in/media/praveen-swami-india-pakistan-balakot-firstpost-journalism

see this, just because there were some content against Modi doesn't make firstpost reliable. The issue here is not is its biased, but is it publishing fake news. There are many more sources that actually point to them publishing fake news Flyingphoenixchips (talk) 13:57, 15 April 2026 (UTC)
Well, The Caravan itself is accused for anti-India narratives.

https://www.thehindu.com/news/international/prasar-bharati-chief-accuses-the-caravan-editor-of-blatant-anti-india-presentation-at-global-meet/article28420116.ece MarSteGeo (talk) 14:25, 15 April 2026 (UTC)
As I said its not about the ideology of these sources. It doesn't matter if they are pro government or anti... what matters is the factual content. The article I shared by the caravan is evidence based if you read it Flyingphoenixchips (talk) 14:28, 15 April 2026 (UTC)
Even BBC and NYTimes have published non-factual content and

it has created controversies, those occasional things doesn't make them unreliable. MarSteGeo (talk) 14:42, 15 April 2026 (UTC)
The issue is them doing it knowingly, and not owing up or correcting the mistakes Flyingphoenixchips (talk) 14:47, 15 April 2026 (UTC)
owning ̈ Flyingphoenixchips (talk) 15:10, 15 April 2026 (UTC)

of course prasar bharati will accuse an anti establishment media of anti nationalism this is same as zee news Stanjik (talk) 15:24, 15 April 2026 (UTC)

The Caravan article is certainly troubling, and I think it's good you shared it here, but I'm not seeing evidence of "them doing it knowingly". I agree that at least one of the examples here is further evidence that they usually don't issue corrections, and I think that implies that Firstpost shouldn't be used for contentious claims. But pro-government and anti-Muslim bias – although I think it's morally wrong – is not the same as fake news. Cadddr (talk) 17:04, 15 April 2026 (UTC)

Praveen Swami is perhaps the foremost Indian security journalist whose work has been published by John Hopkins University Press, Routledge, Contemporary South Asia, LeftWord Books, and Pearson, among others. A single article in The Caravan that claims his journalism is "murky" at worst, is not even enough for us to doubt the reliability of Praveen Swami, let alone to implicate Firstpost by association. UnpetitproleX (talk) 06:20, 17 April 2026 (UTC)
dont know whats wrong with the article the staff obviously posted false info related to balakot (notoriously known to be propagandic when the Op obviously failed as pointed out by caravan) him naming "unknown sources" just because he has authored articles in reliable institutions doesnt mean he cant echo propagandic content here Stanjik (talk) 21:42, 17 April 2026 (UTC)
Option 2: On Wikipedia, not all content is politically sensitive or falls under AC/CT. Using this source as citations for general content, primary claims, and entertainment-related topics is completely acceptable. Those users who are supporting Option 4 seem to lack AGF. who are completely blocking this source. They simply overlook the fact that Firstpost is one of the most cited sources in the Indian film industry and entertainment-related articles. And also, if there is a need to include a primary claim made by a government, politically motivated organization, or individual, this source can be used as a citation with proper attribution. But it is also true that using it as an independent source for exceptional claims is not appropriate, especially reports that begin with phrases like "as per sources". For contentious topics, such claims require further verification from more credible sources. King of Kings III (Dear Sir ...) 07:52, 14 April 2026 (UTC)
Option 4 - there is evidence of reckless writing without due diligence, thus it cannot be considered RS for our purposes. MBlaze Lightning (talk) 09:08, 14 April 2026 (UTC)
Option 4 due to a lack of evidence of editorial oversight. This should especially be the case for politics, but I think any content produced by a media publisher that does not have editorial oversight should not be on Wikipedia, regardless on how quaint or ordinary the subject is. Sahib-e-Qiran, EasternShah 13:33, 14 April 2026 (UTC)

Option 4 as per earth kid and part of Ambanis (billionare with close ties to current gov) hence a part of godi media Stanjik (talk) 19:42, 14 April 2026 (UTC)

changing opinion from 4 to 2 seems like they are mostly following guidelines but theres a lot of editorial lapses but not enough to fully depreciate it like the hellhole that is zee news Stanjik (talk) 09:16, 21 April 2026 (UTC)

Comment: A lot of the 'option 4' votes are along the lines of WP:IDONTLIKEIT based on assertions of bias and disinformation that are unfounded, unevidenced and unsubstantiated, and are in fact directly contradicted by WP:RS (such as here, here, here and here). Thus, I strongly oppose option 4 based on such unsubstantiated claims that are contrary to what secondary RS say. UnpetitproleX (talk) 07:47, 15 April 2026 (UTC)
Good sources have been given that are founded, evidenced and substantiated we should depreciate it,this is just like zee news all over again Stanjik (talk) 15:35, 15 April 2026 (UTC)
^Exhibit A. UnpetitproleX (talk) 05:52, 17 April 2026 (UTC)

What would be more accurate is to say that a lot of votes arguing for deeming the outlet generally reliable are based on WP:ILIKEIT and not on any actual evidence. The evidence for the outlet publishing false information and engaging in conspiracy theories is not "unfounded, unevidenced and unsubstantiated", not to mention the fact that for most of them, no corrections were reported. — EarthDude (Talk) 08:58, 19 April 2026 (UTC)
"are based on WP:ILIKEIT and not on any actual evidence" if you ignore the evidence linked right in the comment you are responding to, then maybe.

The assertions of disinformation and now of "engaging in conspiracy theories" are indeed unfounded, unevidenced, and unsubstantiated as already noted by others here and especially here—a mountain of evidence against claims of pushing conspiracy theories. A lot of the "false information", is actually just disputed claims, newswire, errors or viral hoaxes originating elsewhere, in other cases we do have corrections. UnpetitproleX (talk) 08:47, 20 April 2026 (UTC)
Option 1 I find Firstpost as reliable as many Indian print media such as The Wire, The Print etc. Some reports gets wrong with every big ones such as BBC and NYTimes but they are still considered to be reliable. MarSteGeo (talk) 08:08, 15 April 2026 (UTC)
Yet, unlike Firstpost, when the BBC or NYT publish misinformation on rare occasions, they report correction, often quite rapidly. Furthermore, they don't engage in Islamophobic conspiracy theories, such as love jihad or gaming jihad as Firstpost has. — EarthDude (Talk) 09:04, 19 April 2026 (UTC)
Well good thing Firstpost is also not doing any of that (as noted here and here). UnpetitproleX (talk) 08:32, 20 April 2026 (UTC)
And perhaps most definitively, as noted by Cadddr here. The claims of Firstpost pushing such conspiracy theories are completely contrary to evidence. UnpetitproleX (talk) 09:00, 20 April 2026 (UTC)
It should be Reliable. Ogambo obmagom (talk) 08:29, 15 April 2026 (UTC)
Comment. I have been following this thread somewhat, and feel like the evidence of its blanket unreliability is a little thin. In some cases, the editors were taken in by hoaxes (which happens regularly with all kinds of media, unfortunately). In others, there is evidence that the editorial standards are unevenly applied (true of all media, especially Indian media). I see a few examples of questionable reporting here (again, Indian mass media being Indian mass media, sadly). But it would be nice if there were some kind of study showing a systemic and widespread disregard of editorial norms, fake stories, etc. A few examples, while concerning in themselves, don't really move the needle for me all that much. Sławomir Biały (talk) 16:34, 15 April 2026 (UTC)
I mostly agree: a few examples of bias and bad reporting don't move the needle for me much either. (Well, they do move the needle for my personal view of Firstpost, but not for my opinion of how Wikipedia should handle them.) What does move the needle for me is that they didn't issue corrections in most of these cases. Cadddr (talk) 17:08, 15 April 2026 (UTC)
Option 1 While Firstpost is part of the Network18 group and reflects a known bias due to its ownership, this does not equate to egregious misinformation. Per WP:Biased, a source can still be reliable despite its political leanings. LeónGonsalvesofGoa (talk) 01:59, 16 April 2026 (UTC)
Option 1: I think it's generally reliable for most topics. Their editorial team could use an extra fact checker though. — Longewal (talk) 21:25, 16 April 2026 (UTC)
Option 1 no news source is perfect and Firstpost is no exception, but occasional errors alone don't justify deprecation. WP:RSDEPRECATED reserves deprecation for sources with substantial history of fabrication or serious factual accuracy issues. The examples given don't seem to show a consistent pattern of repeated unreliability. Some of the issues arent unique to Firstpost, some reporting lapses have occured in other outlets including Reuters. Even outlets like The Wire has had issues without it being deprecated. As WP:NEWSORG mentions, even reputable outlets occasionally publish errors, which means there needs to be case by case editorial judgement, not blanket deprecation. EM (talk) 02:25, 17 April 2026 (UTC)
Option 4 - It is impossible to expect any honesty from them. It is now trying to blame Pakistan for a local protest over lower wages in India. Excelse (talk) 12:17, 18 April 2026 (UTC)
no i mean they are just reporting what our (inappropriate adjective removed) minister said lmao i dont think this outlet is reliable but its just reporting him Stanjik (talk) 12:47, 18 April 2026 (UTC)

Any decent outlet would have called out that nonsensical claim, but since FirstPost is just a mouthpiece of BJP government they cannot. They can only populate BJP's propaganda no matter how absurd it is and thats why they are entirely unreliable. Orientls (talk) 08:06, 19 April 2026 (UTC)

That would be an allegation of bias not unreliability, unless they fabricated the quote. "It is now trying to blame Pakistan" is categorically false as they quite clearly did not do that. Gotitbro (talk) 09:33, 19 April 2026 (UTC)

i mean now that i think about it,it should have like atleast said something silence on this matter makes it seem like yogi is right Stanjik (talk) 09:52, 19 April 2026 (UTC)

"It is now trying to blame Pakistan" is just plain and simple false because they most certainly are not doing that in either this article or the video that accompanies it. Exactly what I mean by unfounded, unevidenced and unsubstantiated—just egregiously false claims. UnpetitproleX (talk) 09:41, 20 April 2026 (UTC)

Option 1 I cannot see how the arguments made for option 3 and especially 4 for gets anywhere near the threshold that WP:DEPS sets. WP:DEPS bar is set and needs to meet the "substantial history of fabrication" e.g. like the daily mail. Also, although there are some shortcomings to some First Post's past report, it seems like a lot of the arguments made for option 3 and 4 fall under the WP:IDONTLIKEIT. Also, WP:USEBYOTHERS also cuts in Firstpost's favour - as evidenced by Gotitbro and UnpetitproleX. On balance, for entertainment, business, sports, and culture it’s effectively reliable; on politics we already apply extra scrutiny anyway, as with any new outlet. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Chirpingsparrow (talk • contribs) 13:27, 18 April 2026 (UTC)
Option 4 - Apart from the examples mentioned above, it is also supporting Love Jihad conspiracy theory. It is entirely unreliable and misleading as a source. Orientls (talk) 08:06, 19 April 2026 (UTC)
If they reported that love jihad stuff in an actual news article, it would probably be the most egregious example here. But given that it says "Views expressed are personal" at the end, I think this is just a poorly-marked opinion piece. So regardless of the outlet, this piece would already be considered unreliable for statements of fact per WP:NEWSOPED.

While I personally think it's irresponsible not to fact-check opinion pieces, lots of well-regarded newspapers like the New York Times and Wall Street Journal don't do good fact-checking on their opinion sections. Of course, the Firstpost example is far worse than anything I've seen from either of those newspapers, and publishing it shows remarkably poor judgement, so maybe it should influence our reliability assessment a little bit. But overall, I'm not sure we can judge a publication much based on its opinion pieces. Cadddr (talk) 08:38, 19 April 2026 (UTC)
This Firstpost article is engaging in the Gaming jihad conspiracy theory. This article by the outlet is also engaging in the Love jihad conspiracy theory. Neither of these appear to be op-eds. — EarthDude (Talk) 08:48, 19 April 2026 (UTC)
Wow, that's quite bad, thank you for the links. After looking at those, I'm definitely seeing the case for option 3 for topics related to politics. Belief in the love jihad conspiracy theory is disturbingly widespread in India, but that’s no excuse for a news source to basically report it as fact with zero skepticism.

Since people apparently find Firstpost useful for entertainment-related topics, I’m still not seeing a great case to deem it unreliable for everything. And I still think option 4 might be a little too far. But I might change my !vote to option 3 for politics. (I’ll have to think it over a little more, though.) Cadddr (talk) 09:17, 19 April 2026 (UTC)

The latter of these is a bog standard crime report (covered by other RS) where nowhere is the vast conspiracy of love jihad asserted. It would do editors a whole lot of good to actually read what they cite here as fabrications or false news. The former is also another police case (also covered by other RS), nor is there any recognized "gaming jihad conspiracy theory" in academic sources neither is it alleged by the article. Unless we want sources to entirely do away with crime reporting, this is standard reporting and properly attributed to the police and alleged victims/accusers. Gotitbro (talk) 09:26, 19 April 2026 (UTC)
Could you report any secondary reliable source reporting these specific "incidents"? If you do manage to find sources for them, which are not from Godi media, then I will acknowledge it. Regardless, the language used in these specific articles is neither professional nor something seen in "standard reporting". — EarthDude (Talk) 09:34, 19 April 2026 (UTC)
The reason why I ask for non-Godi sources is because Godi media sources have a very well-known tendence to report fabricates cases related to Islamophobic conspiracy theories. A source is allowed to be biased, but we simply can't accept sources which have a well known history of publishing false news and engaging in conspiracy theories. — EarthDude (Talk) 09:36, 19 April 2026 (UTC)

Gaming case: ,

Marriage case: ,

This is from a cursory search of local sources, quite clearly much like Firstpost they pin the allegations on the accusers/parties to the case.

Neither is this fake news nor purveying of conspiracy theories in its own voice. Unless you want to deprecate every source that does breaking crime reports on the beat. That these alleged victims (not the sources) are promoting "conspiracy theories" is also an unestablished assertion that may very well taken to be offensive. Gotitbro (talk) 09:54, 19 April 2026 (UTC)
Outlook is the only acceptable source here. Even then, that article reports more on the specific police report. The Firstpost article on the other hand is far more conspiratorial, and it accepts that gaming jihad is true, with paras like the following:

Once a miscreant has created a profile on a popular gaming app, they identify their targets based on their behaviour - people who tend to spend a lot of time on gaming apps, and are very open to sending random messages to strangers are also open to receiving them. This is how targets are chosen. The perpetrators usually chose very impressionable young adults. Once a target is chosen, the miscreants will start a casual conversation, mainly about something very common and mundane, usually about things that are happening in the game. The miscreant will cajole younger boys to become close friends, by sharing tips and tricks to win. Certain games allow cheat codes, which the perpetrators will use to their advantage. They will tell their targets that they have guaranteed “recipes” to win the game. And because most games allow you to form teams of squads, and give users the ability to add people as their friends, groups get formed within the game. This is where the most crucial step comes in.

Followed by this:

Tightening the noose Often at this stage, numbers are exchanged and people start conversing using WhatsApp. Groups are formed on IM apps, to decide a common time to play. Later, these groups become like any other boy’s WhatsApp or Telegram groups, where people share memes, some vulgar jokes and videos, links to pirated games or movies, and a bunch of other stuff. Once numbers get exchanged, the perpetrator’s work becomes much easy. This leads to one on one conversations as well, where the perpetrator will try to find out what their target’s parents are like. If they feel that the parents aren’t too involved with the kid, or are too protective of them, to the point of coming across as overbearing, and therefore irritating, they will continue to lay their trap. Slowly, they will steer the conversation to subjects like violence and glory, and the need to be pious, in the context of a certain religion. This is usually accompanied by a sob story, about how a close friend or a family member of the miscreant was killed or kidnapped by the police, the armed forces, or other religious fanatics. Then, the conversation will be steered towards the Israel-Palestine conflict, and supposed atrocities by the armed forces and the police. They also share videos that speak highly of a certain religion, as if it is the one and only true way to get to heaven. Slowly more and more content is presented that brainwashes the targeted kids into developing a warped sense of reality.

The article, which is importantly not an op-ed, is clearly far more than simply "another police case". It is a deeply Islamophobic article which openly engages in the Gaming jihad conspiracy theory. This is not the only Firstpost article which engages in such Islamophobic conspiracy. — EarthDude (Talk) 10:17, 19 April 2026 (UTC)
Sorry but the assertion that this particular case(s) is a conspiracy theory is your own opinion and does nothing to establish allegations of pernicious fake news (nor that one-off articles even if veritably in that category would do that). Unless you have any source explicitly saying so this need be treated no different from usual crime/police beat reportage (all of these assertions are from the police/alleged victims). I could very well assert that this case is/could indeed be true. None of this in the end would do anything to show support for conspiracy theories or the contrary. The academic sources we have for Firstpost do nothing to establish this.

I will now be explicitly labelling my support for this source as option 1. As I have yet to see anything that lends credence for deprecation or anything close to it. Gotitbro (talk) 10:33, 19 April 2026 (UTC)
Oh, come on now. Simply reading this makes it clear enough that the article is more than just a police report. The specific conspiratorial paragraph I quoted from the article doesn't even mention the police report. Muslims exploiting vulnerable Hindu youth to brainwash them and convert them to Islam is textbook Gaming jihad conspiracy theory. It doesn't take a genius to understand this. — EarthDude (Talk) 10:53, 19 April 2026 (UTC)
Never heard about the "gaming jihad conspiracy theory" (a redirect created just now by you) in all of the academic literature about Islamophobia (and media) I have read in the last decade or so. Likely beyond fringe to be even of note or relevant to this case, unless you have sources which say this which is highly unlikely as this is a neologism tied to one journo (from the redirect target I am reading) not an extant conspiracy theory like "love jihad". You are synthesizing bits and pieces to make a case for this source to be a conspiratorial one when there is really no evidence for it. Neither would hyperfocusing on this one particular article help establish anything for deprecation. Gotitbro (talk) 11:11, 19 April 2026 (UTC)
even if this is in a few articles its really damaging unrelated how many jihads are we gonna hear spiting ,love,land,gaming what next AI jihad atleast do butlerian jihad lmao Stanjik (talk) 11:39, 19 April 2026 (UTC)

We can all create "conspiracy theory redirects" like the one you just created—which is essentially WP:OR and WP:SYNTH and then retrospectively accuse news outlets of "promoting" these conspiracy theories that no WP:RS is accusing them of, but would that be evidence for unreliability? I think not. UnpetitproleX (talk) 08:17, 20 April 2026 (UTC)

That these alleged victims (not the sources) are promoting "conspiracy theories" is also an unestablished assertion that may very well taken to be offensive.

The victim in the "love jihad" case is the woman, not the family, and we don't even know what she thought. As you probably know, in nearly all alleged cases of "love jihad", what actually happened is that a non-Muslim woman falls in love with a Muslim man and consensually gets married, having full knowledge of the man's religion. The woman's family objects to the interfaith marriage and can't believe their daughter would willingly marry a Muslim, so they tell the police it's a case of deceptive and forced "love jihad". Firstpost evidently didn't even rule out this possibility, such as by asking the woman whether her family's claims of love jihad were really true. If that basic level of fact-checking hasn't yet been done, then the article should at least make that clear from the very beginning. Instead, the first half of the article treats the accusation as simply true. (Ideally, it would also give some context about how usually these accusations just serve to punish men and women who enter interfaith marriages, but that's probably too much to ask.)

With that said, I think I'll stick with my initial !vote for option 2 rather than bumping it up to option 3. Because at the end of the day, this is just bad and misleading reporting. They're not making something up out of whole cloth, they're just treating a police report too credulously. Cadddr (talk) 12:15, 19 April 2026 (UTC)

The girl’s father claimed ... the claims made by the girl’s family are being looked into."

The report’s title reads "… Lucknow man allegedly …"

Reporting the claims of the complaint as recorded in the police report, explicitly as claims, is far from Firstpost "engaging in Love Jihad." UnpetitproleX (talk) 08:26, 20 April 2026 (UTC)
And as noted by Cadddr, a hoard of articles in Firspost are actually rather extremely critical of 'Love Jihad'. The claim of them promoting it flies right in the face of reality. UnpetitproleX (talk) 08:54, 20 April 2026 (UTC)

"The writer is a US-based activist who has played a critical role in the introduction of a paper trail for India’s Electronic Voting Machines called VVPAT. Views expressed are personal."

Quite explicit, unless we deprecate RS for particular opeds (we don't, WSJ and NYT and most RS for that matter would've been booted for what would be pretty facile) this asserts and proves nothing. Gotitbro (talk) 09:29, 19 April 2026 (UTC)

Here is an article published by FirstPost to promote BJP's Love Jihad conspiracy theory and here is an opinion piece published by FirstPost in support of Love Jihad conspiracy theory. At this stage, it is clear that FirstPost is hosting such absurd Islamophobic conspiracy theory articles because it is meant to be a Hindu nationalist unreliable source. D4iNa4 (talk) 16:07, 19 April 2026 (UTC)

@D4iNa4, EarthDude, and Orientls: On the other hand, a quick Google search finds lots of FirstPost articles that are extremely critical of love jihad as a Hindu nationalist conspiracy theory: ^[fixed] . That really makes me think nothing stronger than option 2 would be warranted: we should exercise some caution when using Firstpost, due to its articles being of variable quality and reliability, but deprecating it altogether seems really extreme. I think we should trust editors to use their judgement based on context. Cadddr (talk) 17:27, 19 April 2026 (UTC)

This link cited by you is unrelated to the topic. The fact that they post articles endorsing the conspiracy theory justifies that it deserves blacklisting. The FirstPost has also falsely claimed that India was offered UNSC seat in 1950 and 1955 but India "gifted" it to China, and today China is successfully single-handedly opposing India's entry into UNSC. They also falsely claimed that "China and the United States have launched a propaganda campaign against India after the Indian forces put heavy costs on the Pakistani forces." FirstPost only gets more unbearable. Orientls (talk) 17:47, 19 April 2026 (UTC)

Oops sorry, thanks for catching that. I must have pasted that one instead of this one. Fixed. Cadddr (talk) 18:35, 19 April 2026 (UTC)

It would do a whole lot of good for editors citing articles to actually read them. The first one of these is clearly covering the electoral politics of the BJP and its voters surrouding it not a promotion of it. Exactly what one'd expect a news source to file reports about.

The latter is an oped and explicitly marked as such. Gotitbro (talk) 17:55, 19 April 2026 (UTC)

Assume good faith you really think wikipedians do this thing man Stanjik (talk) 18:23, 19 April 2026 (UTC)

They are "covering the electoral politics of the BJP" without providing any rebuttal. That's what unreliable mouthpieces do. Orientls (talk) 18:41, 19 April 2026 (UTC)

News outlets don’t become unreliable just because they didn’t provide "any rebuttal" to a political party you may dislike in one article of theirs, especially given that they have indeed carried critique of that political party otherwise. UnpetitproleX (talk) 09:29, 20 April 2026 (UTC)

Did you actually read these or did you just keyword search them to post here? The first is a report titled "Kerala assembly elections: Is 'love jihad' a poll issue in Trivandrum?" which talks about what "Love Jihad" means to voters in Kerala. The second is a film review, which is essentially WP:NEWSOPED, an opinion piece and would already be unreliable for statements of fact. UnpetitproleX (talk) 07:59, 20 April 2026 (UTC)

Actually, scratch that, if someone were to keyword search then it would have been impossible to ignore the multiple Firstpost articles critical of 'Love Jihad', unless of course one (not you necessarily) were to purposely ignore them. The takeaway for all of us perhaps is to be more thorough and to read the sources. UnpetitproleX (talk) 09:14, 20 April 2026 (UTC)

Option 4 per EarthDude and Orientls. This one is disgusting and laughable at the same time. I agree that FirstPost is unusable for just any purpose. Lorstaking (talk) 17:05, 20 April 2026 (UTC)
@Lorstaking Lol that is not even the tip of the iceburg, lemme share some more. Tagging @Cadddr as well.

A Firstpost/News18 tweet used an old waterspout clip as if it showed Cyclone Nisarga’s eye... please have a read https://www.boomlive.in/fake-news/news18-firstpost-tweet-old-video-of-waterspout-as-cyclone-nisarga-8354

Firstpost published some “Shia tomatoes!” article about an alledged shia sunni conflict in Pakistanː https://www.boomlive.in/fact-check/politics/fake-news-viral-video-tomatoes-discarded-protest-pakistan-shia-sunni-angle-iran-zee-news-factcheck-19260 This is just hilarious, I am sorry to ruin your day with this banger, but do enjoy

Next, Firstpost published a headline calling Tulsi Gabbard “Indian-origin” https://www.altnews.in/media-misreports-us-congresswoman-tulsi-gabbard-as-indian-origin/

Alt News also cited Firstpost among outlets that inflated an Ayodhya Deepotsav estimate from about ₹1.33 crore to ₹133 crore... so yes there are lot of credible sources that call them a fake news outlet. https://www.altnews.in/october-2019-mainstream-media-at-the-forefront-of-misinformation/

I cannot believe some editors here are still not convinced and consider them a journalistic source... nothing but a slop in my opinion....

Also I have been following them for a while now and have found some crazy patterns.

Most common thing they do is how they overhead the headline... Typical pattern:

A fairly minor development, Headline turns it into global crisis

Plus Some articles repeat the same idea 3-4 times:

Paragraph 1: X is happening

Paragraph 3: X is still happening

Paragraph 5: Experts say X is happening Flyingphoenixchips (talk) 20:13, 20 April 2026 (UTC)
"Alt News also cited Firstpost among outlets that inflated an Ayodhya Deepotsav estimate from about ₹1.33 crore to ₹133 crore" [failed verification]

That is a made up, false claim. The source does not say that at all. The alt news report mentions a list of fourteen news outlets which does not include Firstpost.

"I cannot believe some editors here are still not convinced"

when editors keep presenting false claims like above, or like here and here, to then use these as evidence of deprecation, then how is it surprising that other editors are not convinced? UnpetitproleX (talk) 09:11, 21 April 2026 (UTC)
honesty agree with you very poor sourcing this cannot be used as evidence when major RS has reported them all Stanjik (talk) 09:15, 21 April 2026 (UTC)

Also re: the waterspout, as already stated above, Firstpost provided a correction for the tweet (there was no report). The Tulsi Gabbard misreport was a newsfeed from ANI, not an original Firstpost report. The source of the Shia-Sunni conflict over tomatoes was a viral Pakistani tiktok video which was re-reported by Pakistani journalist Taha Siddiqui, and Firstpost mentions Siddiqui for the claim in their report. UnpetitproleX (talk) 09:54, 21 April 2026 (UTC)

"[ analysis you personally disagree with] is disgusting and laughable at the same time" as a reason for deprecating is textbook definition WP:IDONTLIKEIT. UnpetitproleX (talk) 09:19, 21 April 2026 (UTC)
Option 1: Generally reliable for factual reporting. - No news outlet in the world is 100% accurate all the time—whether knowingly or unknowingly, some reports may contain incorrect information. However, I usually use this newspaper as a source of information, and in about 99.9% of cases, I have found it to be reliable for fact-based reporting. BadhonCR (talk) 08:08, 21 April 2026 (UTC)
Option 4 - The additional examples provided by Flyingphoenixchips and Orientls are more than enough for supporting this option. Rzvas (talk) 14:47, 21 April 2026 (UTC)
Option 4 - Evidence is certainly overwhelming. Georgethedragonslayer (talk) 10:49, 23 April 2026 (UTC)
Option 4 - I haven't had much experience with Firstpost, if any, but after looking through the linked examples (up above) of other outlets pointing out on multiple occasions that Firspost has engaged in publishing misleading information, then it shouldn't be considered reliable. EkoGraf (talk) 11:18, 23 April 2026 (UTC)

Billboard Philippines - reviews of Philippine music (albums, songs, concerts)

I have just gone through the last year of Filipino music reviews published by Billboard Philippines and am yet to find a critical review. This appears endemic to the Filipino music scene, and some music journalists (e.g. ) have written opinion articles over the past few years including lines like "Many writers have talked about how niches like music criticism or food criticism are non-existent in the country, and serve as avenues for PR." If outlets are unwilling to criticise, their praise is worth nothing, and the opinions they express WP:UNDUE.

Outside of articles labelled "review", Billboard Philippines appears capable of publishing critical reviews when the format demands it. An example is Every SB19 Song, Ranked. Compare the assessment of the track Gento (song) in the album review

From the lead single “GENTO” alone, the pulsating beats and confident delivery of the group already exude a natural sense of confidence. Though released back in May, the track continues to make waves not only with their fans but also with some of the biggest artists in the international music scene. The catchiness of the track is definitely a part of the reason why this song has become a viral hit all across the world, inspiring a dance trend that remains signature to SB19 and their identity. It makes a strong impact as the opening track of the EP.

And the comparison list, albeit still effusive:

“GENTO” is the latest SB19 song to take over the country and the world. “GENTO” sees SB19 playing with multi-syllabic rhymes in single bars: “Hindi mala-darna ‘to aandar ang makina ko / Tanging mekaniko ay ako ‘la nang moni moniko“. Beyond just the choreography of the song, the track’s lyrics make the song more cohesive and interesting than their previous work, especially with the boys’ utilizing the wordplay of the Filipino language to create sonically interesting melodies and lyrics. However, the energy stays at 100% throughout the whole song, which makes the song one-note and difficult to appreciate the individual sections.

Whonting (talk) 04:46, 12 April 2026 (UTC)

I don't think it's UNDUE. As a Filipino editor perspective, this is so unnecessary RSN (but okay since you are just asking), there are many negative reviews and I don't really think they are controlled by PR or any management of Billboard Philippines. Maybe you should read other spin-off or the OG Billboard. In WP:RSBIAS: However, reliable sources are not required to be neutral, unbiased, or objective. Sometimes non-neutral sources are the best possible sources for supporting information about the different viewpoints held on a subject. This is not even a controversial subject matter. It's not their fault if they're being bias on their article, although, their source are still part on independent source. Like, in &Asian on review of "Unang Kilig" and "Honey Honey" by Bini by Andros Resurreccion and Julienne Loreto, on that article, Resurreccion a bit biased on the part on "Unang Kilig": I think “Unang Kilig” is a wonderful representation of P-Pop. If we have a SEAblings (Southeast Asian Pop) Festival, my dream BINI set would include this song, “Salamin, Salamin” (Mirror, Mirror), “Pantropiko” (Tropical), “Zero Pressure,” and “Sweet Tooth.”

My opinion, it's not their fault if they are being bias or always praising all songs. Other sources like Pitchfork they are being biased too and also in Rolling Stone when they're review the album of Taylor Swift's The Life of a Showgirl. Since you pointed in our discussion in Tambayan Philippines music task force about your essay Wikipedia:Non-critical reception, this is a bit helpful, but, I don't think it's worth it to use this at all times and it's not even worth it. But, I'm not saying that it should delete that essay. ROY is WAR Talk! 05:18, 12 April 2026 (UTC)

I would also note based on WP:ALLOWEDBIAS: However, biased sources are not inherently disallowed based on bias alone, although other aspects of the source may make it invalid. A neutral point of view should be achieved by balancing the bias in sources based on the weight of the opinion in reliable sources and not by excluding sources that do not conform to the editor's point of view.

This is my two cents and waiting for other non-filipino editors POV. ROY is WAR Talk! 05:30, 12 April 2026 (UTC)

Unarchived to permit linking. Whonting (talk) 04:46, 18 April 2026 (UTC)

Presumably the publication has the right not to review something -- and therefore it's not a given that their praise is meaningless? After all, if we were to search the archives of Nobel Prize citations, we would only find praise of those scientists awarded them, but it doesn't follow that the Nobel Committee are an unreliable source for the quality of scientific research because they never say a bad thing about anyone. If the publication reliably praises artists that other publications consistently consider rubbish, or if they seem to be reviewing based on payment or similar rather than editorial discretion (something similar has come up with Nigerian news organisations in the past), that's another matter. UndercoverClassicist ^T·C 08:55, 18 April 2026 (UTC)

Thanks @UndercoverClassicist. My point on praise being meaningless if the outlet is unwilling to criticise is in the context of music criticism. It would be remarkable if an award was offering criticism, it is remarkable that music journalists aren't. While I appreciate this may be a case of outlets only publishing reviews when they have something to say, there are a few things to consider:

We have no reason to presume this is the case, but we have reasons to believe it's not (for instance, music journalists writing they are routinely lying about their opinions due to industry dynamics)
Every song in album reviews are praised. That's extremely unusual in music criticism.
If they were only publishing reviews when they liked the media, we would still be writing articles with "X was positively received by critics", which would only be true in the sense that critics who didn't like it couldn't publish. Our writing on art relies on critics being able to be forthcoming with any opinions.

The Nigerian case is apt: the problem isn't that money is compromising editorial discretion, it's that editorial discretion is compromised. Whonting (talk) 09:40, 18 April 2026 (UTC)

music journalists writing they are routinely lying about their opinions due to industry dynamics: this seems to be the key thing -- if we can demonstrate that (to a fairly high standard of proof), then someting like WP:RSNON would be appropriate. UndercoverClassicist ^T·C 09:43, 18 April 2026 (UTC)

You can see the links at the top for where I am drawing that from. With the idea that we start from the assumption an outlet is reliable and then have to meet a "fairly high" standard to question it's reliability: why? As far as reliability on Wikipedia can be understood as having burdens of proof, that falls on those who are saying something is reliable. Why are we considering them reliable for their opinions on this when they don't publish anything negative and people in the industry are describing having to lie about their opinions? Whonting (talk) 09:54, 18 April 2026 (UTC)

Yes -- we have two opinion pieces so far, both largely consisting of assertions rather than hard evidence. The first one has an interesting contradiction: Many writers have talked about how niches like music criticism or food criticism are non-existent in the country, and serve as avenues for PR. On the other hand, reviews panning positively accepted media are often met with ire from fans, artists, or the entities that produce these media in the first place. So critical reviews don't exist, but also "often" receive pushback -- the link for the latter being a negative music review at Billboard Philippines, the publication we're discussing here. At the moment, we haven't furnished a very high standard of proof, but it's good encouragement to dig deeper. UndercoverClassicist ^T·C 10:03, 18 April 2026 (UTC)

I hear what you're saying and the evidence being essentially two points of testimony from industry insiders is limiting. I also found the quote you gave interesting and it informed this section: Billboard Phillipines does appear more willing to be critical of musicals but not "albums, songs, concerts", and if critical voices exist in the Filipino media landscape that are being criticised by fans and creators, they're not happening here.

I'm curious how you think we should be proceeding at this time. Describing these reviews without any qualification seems unacceptable, particularly for the purposes of being HQRS at FA. Whonting (talk) 10:52, 18 April 2026 (UTC)

We should proceed as with any other claim of fact -- if we want to make the statement that "Filipino musical reviews are unreliable because journalists routinely conceal their own opinions for commercial reasons", we need to find good, reliable sourcing to support it. If all we have is our own interpretation, that's not enough. In the absence of good sourcing, the claim shouldn't be presented as true, either in article space or elsewhere. UndercoverClassicist ^T·C 11:10, 18 April 2026 (UTC)

Whonting: My point on praise being meaningless if the outlet is unwilling to criticise is in the context of music criticism. In that case, my genuine question, why did you RSN this in the first place? Look, you can find other sources besides Billboard Philippines. If that's really "bother" that their always praising, it's not really your problem. We can say that if Billboard Philippines are paid reviews then, it may be not reliable for reviews. However, I couldn't find any article that they are undisclosed paid articles.

Also, you said:Every song in album reviews are praised. That's extremely unusual in music criticism.. So, I can accused here on notice board like Rolling Stone for being bias as 5 out 5 rating to a Taylor Swift review? or The London Standard gave 1 out of 5 reviews 'cause they are "haters"?

My point here like I said in my previous above, it's not that deep that they are always "praising" the songs or concert reviews. They have editorial policies and they know how to handle that kind of what they publishing reviews. You can find other sources if you really want to find a negative reviews.

CC: UndercoverClassicist ROY is WAR Talk! 13:04, 18 April 2026 (UTC)

Thanks Whonting for the work you’ve put into this. I’m wondering when the last time Billboard Philippines published a critical review was? ~~ AirshipJungleman29 (talk) 10:58, 18 April 2026 (UTC)

@AirshipJungleman29, I have now gone back two years, and the most critical comment I can find of a Filipino concert/album/song is this: From what the audience witnessed, Felip’s first solo concert was a resounding success, demonstrating his growth as an artist and his ability to captivate an audience. Though it would’ve been appreciated if the show included more of his discography to make the most of its runtime, the 7sins album concert was not just a performance, but a journey through human emotions, brought to life by the SB19 soloist’s undeniable talent and charisma.. Reviews sometimes mention technical issues, but almost never criticism of the actual music. Whonting (talk) 11:53, 18 April 2026 (UTC)

Sorry, I thought I had gone further than I had. The most recent negative review of a Filipino act I have found is this from July 2024. Whonting (talk) 12:27, 18 April 2026 (UTC)

So 21 months without a negative review? I wonder what the similar results are for e.g. the international Billboard, &Asian, or Pitchfork which Royiswariii mentions above. ~~ AirshipJungleman29 (talk) 13:04, 18 April 2026 (UTC)

AirshipJungleman29 they have a negative reviews to Taylor Swift on her album on October 2025 which led to criticized Saulog on Facebook page of Billboard Philippines. ROY is WAR Talk! 13:09, 18 April 2026 (UTC)

Royiswariii, Whonting was above referring to “the most recent negative review of a Filipino act”. ~~ AirshipJungleman29 (talk) 13:21, 18 April 2026 (UTC)

Yes, i noticed that. But, I just add on this, although not a Filipino song, it can be counted their negative review. ROY is WAR Talk! 13:27, 18 April 2026 (UTC)

In the future, please consider not wasting others' time with comments you know are unrelated Royiswariii. ~~ AirshipJungleman29 (talk) 17:20, 18 April 2026 (UTC)

Billboard doesn't post many, although their most recent non-positive review is this from September last year, their third most-recent review. Pitchfork's most recent is yesterday, also their third most recent. &Asian has its most recent mixed review 3 weeks ago, and negative two months ago. Both are within the 10 most recent reviews. Whonting (talk) 13:42, 18 April 2026 (UTC)

Although original research, that comparison does not look good. I think the second source you cited above is very telling: "Perhaps nowhere is this effort to sanitize, promote or boost the public image of an individual or group more evident than in professional criticism in mainstream media... Heaven forbid that anyone offer a dissenting opinion ... Because the local music industry is so small, it’s become not only sensible but downright necessary to establish good ties with everybody. Symbiosis takes over. Artists, talent managers and concert promoters need the media to get the message (whatever it is) across, and journalists need those guys primarily for access. You scratch my back, I’ll scratch yours." ~~ AirshipJungleman29 (talk) 17:23, 18 April 2026 (UTC)

Yes, from a WP:NOTPROMO perspective I'm not happy with platforming content that appears convincingly to be PR. It does go a bit into analysis not directly made in sources, although in my opinion that is what much of reliability determinations are: consider how we analyze and deal with citogenesis, or when we recognize that stories not labelled "opinion" should be treated as such, or if a source is plainly biased (always criticising one side, never the other, reporting is value-laden) we may attribute their analyses even when we don't have the other sources saying explicitly "this is biased". If you and UC don't think there's a path forward apart from "wait and see if these claims are made outside of op-eds", I'll leave it alone. Whonting (talk) 12:49, 19 April 2026 (UTC)

@AirshipJungleman29, in case the above was missed. Whonting (talk) 12:27, 23 April 2026 (UTC)

Should Science-Based Medicine articles be treated as self-published for the purpose of BLP content

After a recent BLPN discussion was archived without consensus after splitting on whether SBM articles (specifically the ones cited at Vinay Prasad which I'll link to here, should be considered self-published:.

The previous RfC on the topic was closed as saying t least some articles on this site can be considered self-published and that material from this site ... should not on its own be used to support negative or controversial content in BLPs. I took this to mean (also based on the contents of the RfC) that since at least some of the material is effectively self-published and there is no way of knowing which, the WP:BLPSPS restrictions should be applied across the site. 2 editors at BLPN disagreed strongly with this interpretation of what the consensus was at RSN, which is why I'm bringing this here.

Moreover, the SBM articles in question are by David Gorski, Jonathan Howard and Lynn Schaffer. I think the consensus that Gorski's posts are self-published was accepted at BLPN. However of hte others, Jonathan Howard is I think SBM's most prolific writer. Lynn Schaffer has only published two articles with SBM, so it's presumably more likely that her posts are reviewed. I still think that as there's no way to tell externally whether content goes through an editorial process, it makes sense to apply WP:BLPSPS restrictions to all.

Pinging @Bon courage, @ActivelyDisinterested and @PARAKANYAA from the BLPN discussion. Samuelshraga (talk) 19:13, 15 April 2026 (UTC)

To continue my comments from there, I do think the source is an WP:EXPERTSPS, however, per WP:BLPSPS, we cannot use even EXPERTSPS on BLPs. The writer in question is a regular, so his posts are probably not reviewed and per the last SBM rfc, are self-published - perfectly fine source for anything that is not a BLP. But this is a BLP, so we should not be using SBM here. PARAKANYAA (talk) 19:17, 15 April 2026 (UTC)

As I said at the BLP discussion unfortunately I don't think this is inline with the RFC close, which is ambiguous at best. That all of SMB is selfpublished just doesn't hold up, and chucking everything out seems overly prescriptive.

I've posted notifications on BLP, due to the question, and FTN, due to the subject's it usually covers. -- LCU ActivelyDisinterested «@» °∆t° 19:27, 15 April 2026 (UTC)

@ActivelyDisinterested They're not arguing that all of it is, but that this specific author is; as said in the RfC, the website admits that content from regulars is not peer reviewed. These authors are largely from regular contributors. PARAKANYAA (talk) 19:32, 15 April 2026 (UTC)

The OP's post ends with a comment about their believe that all authors should be treated as BLPSPS, that is what I was responding to. -- LCU ActivelyDisinterested «@» °∆t° 19:37, 15 April 2026 (UTC)

Yes, I interpret the close as meaning that all SBM pieces should be treated as falling under BLPSPS (at least inasmuch as they should not on its own be used to support negative or controversial content in BLP. Otherwise on what basis could a close at RSN make such a stipulation about a source? That said, I recognise that it would be significantly more reasonable to except the Schaffer piece from the restrictions of the RfC's close than the other pieces. The fact is that you and I don't know what editorial process Howard's and Schaffer's posts go through. We can surmise, reasonably I think, that Howard's posts are less likely to go through an editorial process than Schaffer's, but we don't know what the baseline likelihood is or the difference.

That said, do you agree about the Gorski and Howard pieces that they should be considered self-published? Samuelshraga (talk) 19:54, 15 April 2026 (UTC)

I thought the wording of the close was ambiguous at the time, I should have sought but was busy with other things. I'll respond more fully about Gotski/Howard in a bit. -- LCU ActivelyDisinterested «@» °∆t° 21:54, 15 April 2026 (UTC)

I'll give this as a general clause, as it's applicable to other sources, posts or articles by someone who is both the owner and the editor of any source should be handled as selfpublished. -- LCU ActivelyDisinterested «@» °∆t° 11:19, 16 April 2026 (UTC)

Some's self-published; some isn't. The source is generally reliable for fringe topics where it's useful per WP:PARITY to achieve WP:NPOV. WP:PROFRINGE editors are constantly trying to extend WP:BLP protections to antiscience notions. Likewise, editors are also keen to invent the concept of "a BLP" as if entire articles are the scope of that policy, when it isn't so (it's information about living persons anywhere). Bon courage (talk) 19:37, 15 April 2026 (UTC)

How is information about the beliefs and statements of a person not information about that person? PARAKANYAA (talk) 20:48, 15 April 2026 (UTC)

The only citations to SBM currently on Vinay Prasad that I see are attributed statements about papers of his or theories he espouses. Using SBM to comment on someone's papers, their theories, field of study, etc. should not run afoul of BLP, self published or not. Sure, we shouldn't cite SBM to establish biographical details. Do we actually do that anywhere? MrOllie (talk) 19:37, 15 April 2026 (UTC)

The standard at WP:BLP is not whether it's about "biographical details", it's about Contentious material about living (or,in some cases, recently deceased) persons and in the case of WP:BLPSPS it's what we should never use as sources of material about a living person. I think the following quoted text from the current article are all subject to BLPSPS:

Prasad mentioned this outcome but did not acknowledge his role in causing this outcome, per physician Jonathan Howard.
In Shaffer's view Prasad's writing "lean[s] heavily on pushing people's emotional hot buttons" and amounted to a form of fearmongering.
according to physician David Gorski, Prasad again demonstrated insufficient understanding of the limitations of these randomized controlled trials as well as how the NIH's funding decisions work.

I think saying a living person was a cause of a poor public health outcome, that they engaged in fearmongering and that they don't understand key aspects of the field in which they work, these are all BLP claims as far as I'm concerned. I tried to raise this point at BLPN but then we got stuck in the SPS discussion. Samuelshraga (talk) 20:17, 15 April 2026 (UTC)

I think only the third one there is potentially problematic. The idea that BLP means the rhetorical tactics of somebody's writing cannot be criticised/analysed (we're talking about when Prasad likened COVID restrictions to Hitler's Germany right?) seems like a fringe-pusher's charter. Bon courage (talk) 20:24, 15 April 2026 (UTC)

Aside from fringe-pushing misinterpreting BLP in this overbroad way would make writing articles about authors in general impossible - if a book gets a bad review are we not allowed to cite it?

I agree that the third bullet point is not great, but it I think it would be better to just reword it rather than try to get the source declared unusable on shaky grounds. MrOllie (talk) 20:29, 15 April 2026 (UTC)

As a general rule, if you aren't getting your work published by a third party, Wikipedia should not care about your work. And BLP ramps this up by if your criticisms of a living person are not being covered by an independent source, then we don't repeat them. I don't know why there are editors who don't get this relationship. --Kyohyi (talk) 20:38, 15 April 2026 (UTC)

As a general rule, sure. But in cases like this WP:PARITY is important - the other option is to allow the encyclopedia to be filled up with pseudoscience. We shouldn't give antivax statements and the like a pass just because 'Person X said' is at the beginning of the sentence. MrOllie (talk) 20:43, 15 April 2026 (UTC)

Parity only applies to the fringe theory, and it does not suspend BLP. You cannot rely on Parity if you are not dealing with the theory itself. --Kyohyi (talk) 20:48, 15 April 2026 (UTC)

Right, that's what I'm saying. At most you reword a couple of things to make sure SBM is being used to explain that the theory is bunk rather than commenting on the person espousing the theory personally. MrOllie (talk) 20:56, 15 April 2026 (UTC)

Bingo. WP:FOC is a good idea dealing with such article as well as in Wikipedia discussions

. This was a point made back in the whole Michael Greger RfC which is the grand-daddy of these discussions. Bon courage (talk) 21:00, 15 April 2026 (UTC)

Let's deal with the SPS question first. If it's not an SPS, then the whole thing is moot. If it is an SPS, we can look at the specific claims cited to SBM, and see if they are focussed on the individual or something else. Do you consider the SBM articles self-published (or which ones do/don't you)? Samuelshraga (talk) 21:38, 15 April 2026 (UTC)

It's the other way round. Focus on describing positions, writings etc. and the whole WP:SPS questions is moot. Easier that way, especially since people seem generally confused about what is/isn't SPS. Bon courage (talk) 21:56, 15 April 2026 (UTC)

Well when we were at BLPN, you were saying in the context of the vaccine exemptions claim that The ref is not SPS, we got stuck on that so I opened this discussion. Now we're at RSN, you're saying let's focus on obviating the potential BLP issues. Why not answer the question: which ones do/don't you consider SPS? Samuelshraga (talk) 22:04, 15 April 2026 (UTC)

Mu. If we can just reword the article to fix the issues you have with it, we should just do that, and save a lot of time arguing about arcane policy considerations. MrOllie (talk) 22:10, 15 April 2026 (UTC)

The SPS question isn't abstract or arcane. If the sources are self-published, they should be immediately subject to WP:BLPREMOVE. If not, we can rework them as you subject to consensus. Not to mention the fact that the SPS question impacts whether the material is WP:DUE too. Samuelshraga (talk) 10:42, 16 April 2026 (UTC)

Only if you're looking for reasons to delete stuff rather than reasons to improve the article. MrOllie (talk) 12:13, 16 April 2026 (UTC)

I think making the article and its sourcing compliant with our policies and guidelines would be an improvement. And given I've actually spent time today improving the article and you haven't, I think your comment is unwarranted. Samuelshraga (talk) 12:22, 16 April 2026 (UTC)

So make the article and its sourcing compliant with our policies by proposing a reword that fixes the BLP issue without deleting anything. MrOllie (talk) 13:32, 16 April 2026 (UTC)

I've been down this road before in the previous discussion and wasn't convinced that it was fruitful. I'm sceptical that there is a way of making the "causing this outcome" part of: Prasad mentioned this outcome but did not acknowledge his role in causing this outcome, per physician Jonathan Howard in the article text into a non-BLP claim, but if you think it can be done feel free to suggest how. Samuelshraga (talk) 12:35, 17 April 2026 (UTC)

No, the third one is not about the Nazi-Covid comparison that you like to raise so much. It's about his views on masking policy. I honestly don't know how we can say that the opinion that Prasad personally is responsible for higher vaccine exemption rates is not a BLP claim. Samuelshraga (talk) 20:42, 15 April 2026 (UTC)

SBM can be used to refute any non biographical claims, but still being an SPS, should not be used to push biographical claims. That doesnt mean it can't be used on s BLP article but it's use strictly in discussing medical aspects. Masem (t) 19:42, 15 April 2026 (UTC)

It's also worth noting that the last RfC on this topic was driven hard by a now-banned sock who engaged in widespread disruption across the Project, not least in trying to whitewash fringe topics. A number of other participants have been banned/blocked. It's a shame these bad players are allowed to get so much traction. Bon courage (talk) 19:52, 15 April 2026 (UTC)

For Science-Based Medicine, the RSP says "Article written by the site editors are considered WP:SPS and WP:BLP considerations apply" (WP:SBM). The implication is that articles not written by the site editors are not considered SPS. So I'm puzzled by your assertion that "at least some of the material is effectively self-published and there is no way of knowing which" (emphasis added). FactOrOpinion (talk) 20:10, 15 April 2026 (UTC)

The RSP entry was disputed at BLPN (by someone with the opposite view to me) - I'm going by the close of the RfC which doesn't make exactly the same distinction as the RSP entry. I think the basis of the RSP entry is summarising the discussion as that the site editors' posts are definitely self-published, but I didn't add that entry so I don't know.

Looking at your argument from the RfC, would it be reasonable to say that you'd view Jonathan Howard (who has published more frequently than Gorski in recent years) as a regular author whose pieces should be viewed as WP:SPS, while Lynn Schaffer's should be assumed to have undergone editorial review? I'm fine with that if that's the consensus of this discussion - it's a reasonable inference of how we'd expect SBM to behave, even if (I still think) we can't be sure. Samuelshraga (talk) 20:25, 15 April 2026 (UTC)

I think that last RfC is off the table since it was initiated by a sock and bludgeoned by bad players. Bon courage (talk) 20:29, 15 April 2026 (UTC)

Lots of other Wikipedia proceedings would be invalidated if that was how it worked. That discussion had plenty of participation from real editors and was closed by an admin. You can't just say it didn't happen. Loki (talk) 20:41, 15 April 2026 (UTC)

It happened alright, but experienced editors will gauge consensus more widely and judiciously and chalk this one up as a mess that can be safely discounted. Bon courage (talk) 21:04, 15 April 2026 (UTC)

would it be reasonable to say that you'd view Jonathan Howard (who has published more frequently than Gorski in recent years) as a regular author whose pieces should be viewed as WP:SPS Of course not. Howard is not an editor. Article written by the site editors are considered WP:SPS does not apply to him. This is very simple logic. --Hob Gadling (talk) 08:11, 16 April 2026 (UTC)

Article written by the site editors are considered WP:SPS is a quote from the RSP entry, not the close of the last RfC. The difference between the two was addressed here and multiple times in this and the preceding discussion (e.g.). The RfC itself is the basis for the discussion in general, but my question that you quoted was based specifically on FOO's contribution to the RfC. Samuelshraga (talk) 10:35, 16 April 2026 (UTC)

The RSP language is not a great reflection of the language of the close. Loki (talk) 20:39, 15 April 2026 (UTC)

The RSP language isn't supported by the RFC close and should be corrected. The RFC close in full was:
There is a general consensus that at least some articles on this site can be considered self-published, and substantial disagreement over whether the site's editorial control is adequate, with even some partial supports acknowledging that material on the site may not be substantially reviewed if reviewed at all. As such, material from this site should be used with caution, probably with attribution, and should not on its own be used to support negative or controversial content in BLPs. Particular articles from the site may still be reliable on the basis of self-published sources by experts; those should be considered on an individual basis.
No mention of who should be considered selfpublished, certainly no mention of the sites editors or anyone by name. It says some articles could be considered selfpublished, that selfpublished articles could still be reliable per WP:SPS, that it should probably be attributed, and that it should not be used as the sole source "to support negative or controversial content in BLPs". That's it, nothing more.
Unfortunately I think everyone walked away thinking the close backed up their opinion of the site, when it doesn't actually back up much at all. -- LCU ActivelyDisinterested «@» °∆t° 22:03, 15 April 2026 (UTC)

Do you consider that SBM articles are currently used on their own to support negative or controversial content in BLPs in the case of Vinay Prasad? Samuelshraga (talk) 22:28, 15 April 2026 (UTC)

Are they the sole source for such claims? It's the only restriction that actually exists in the close, if they are then they go against the consensus in the close. -- LCU ActivelyDisinterested «@» °∆t° 11:13, 16 April 2026 (UTC)

Yes. If you look at the article, in all but one of the cases they are the only cited source for the material they are supporting. (In that one case the other citation is to Neurologica blog). Samuelshraga (talk) 12:16, 16 April 2026 (UTC)

The language of the actual close of the 2025 RFC is pretty unambiguous on this point, much more so than either the WP:RSP entry or a naive reading of the discussion: There is a general consensus that at least some articles on this site can be considered self-published, and substantial disagreement over whether the site's editorial control is adequate, with even some partial supports acknowledging that material on the site may not be substantially reviewed if reviewed at all. As such, material from this site should be used with caution, probably with attribution, and should not on its own be used to support negative or controversial content in BLPs. I don't see a way of reading this that lets us use any article from SBM on a BLP and the reasoning for this seems sound to me: at least some things SBM publishes are self-published, and we can't clearly tell which ones, therefore we have to treat the entire site as potentially self-published even though they do sometimes do editorial review. Loki (talk) 20:39, 15 April 2026 (UTC)

I'm going to reply to this message, but you're not the only person doing this - on a BLP and similar constructions are really unhelpful in discussions like this one, even as a shorthand.

There are plenty of statements 'on a BLP' (as in on an article with a person's name at the top) that are not 'about a BLP' (which would actually be subject to the WP:BLP policy).

If I were to move the exact same text off of Vinay Prasad and on to Vaccine hesitancy the rules need to remain the same, and it is not clear that all editors in these discussions agree with that. MrOllie (talk) 20:51, 15 April 2026 (UTC)

This is true, and it's an issue that was litigated at BLPN before we switched to the issue of whether SBM is a SPS. Would you agree that the claim that Vinay Prasad has personally caused rising levels of vaccine exemptions is a BLP claim whether at Vinay Prasad or Vaccine hesitancy? Samuelshraga (talk) 21:02, 15 April 2026 (UTC)

Could you give the exact text you are referring to please? Bon courage (talk) 21:05, 15 April 2026 (UTC)

n November 2023, the levels of kindergarten vaccine exemptions rose to the highest level in years. Prasad mentioned this outcome but did not acknowledge his role in causing this outcome, per physician Jonathan Howard. From the current revision, last edited by you. The part about his role in causing the outcome is cited to Howard in SBM. Samuelshraga (talk) 21:34, 15 April 2026 (UTC)

Right so not quite what you said. This is about exemptions. Spreading the agitprop that vaccinating your child will give them cancer will cause a rise in Exemptions one would have thought. Bon courage (talk) 21:46, 15 April 2026 (UTC)

Right so not quite what you said. This is about exemptions. What I said: the claim that Vinay Prasad has personally caused rising levels of vaccine exemptions.

The article doesn't say he claimed that vaccinating your child will give them cancer, but assuming he did say that, I would still want a reliable source to tell me about it and its consequences. one would have thought is as equally impermissible a basis for including damaging claims about a BLP as self-published sources are. Samuelshraga (talk) 21:50, 15 April 2026 (UTC)

"Personally caused" is entirely your thought. Bon courage (talk) 21:54, 15 April 2026 (UTC)

So when you said Right so not quite what you said. This is about exemptions. You actually weren't correcting me about anything to do with exemptions, it was on the all-important and highly relevant difference between his role in causing this outcome and personally caused? Ok. I am finding it difficult to understand a lot of your communications. Samuelshraga (talk) 22:09, 15 April 2026 (UTC)

What BC is saying is that contributing to a phenomenon is not the same thing as saying that he alone caused it. And I agree that's a relevant difference now he points it out, though either is a pretty clear BLP claim, and in fact a negative and controversial BLP claim of the sort the RFC closure mentions. Loki (talk) 23:42, 15 April 2026 (UTC)

If either is a clear BLP claim, I don't understand the relevance of the distinction but I think best I step away for now anyway. Samuelshraga (talk) 06:56, 16 April 2026 (UTC)

I don't think personally caused means he alone caused it. Most things are multicausal. Katzrockso (talk) 15:24, 19 April 2026 (UTC)

I agree that the second sentence (but only the second sentence) is a BLP-relevant claim. Loki (talk) 21:49, 15 April 2026 (UTC)

Yep, the BLPSPS issue there is the second sentence (about his personal role), I included the first sentence (which is separately sourced) for context. Samuelshraga (talk) 21:52, 15 April 2026 (UTC)

To be blunt, the argument being advanced seems to be that we shouldn't have to follow policies if the person is really bad, or if they have really bad opinions. jp×g 🗯️ 21:23, 22 April 2026 (UTC)

Does there need to be an RfC?

Sticking this question in here as I think from the above that I see a few editors on each side of the basic question (are the cited sources self-published) plus a few more who IMO haven't specified for sure. Since there's a BLPREMOVE in question, I think a failure to reach the consensus should result in removal but I'm sure that some editors above disagree with that so I don't know how else to move forward. Samuelshraga (talk) 07:53, 19 April 2026 (UTC)

I usually try and push back against RFCs, but in this situation it seems unavoidable. Not sure how best to phrase the question. I don't think it's about reliability, but rather about whether, in part or in full, it should be considered selfpublished. The split of opinion appears to be whether the articles from SMB editors should be considered selfpublished, all SMB articles should be considered selfpublished, or SMB shouldn't be considered selfpublished. -- LCU ActivelyDisinterested «@» °∆t° 11:20, 19 April 2026 (UTC)

What do you think about keeping it tied to the concrete examples here? So the question would be something like:

Should articles by the following writers in Science-Based Medicine be considered self-published:

David Gorski
Jonathan Howard
Lynn Shaffer

Partly this will make it easier to solve the dispute here. Also, these three represent three different types of author that I think we could consider separately. I think that while I interpret the close of the previous RfC to mean yes to all three, I would probably answer yes only to 1 and 2, and be neutral on the third. I saw comments from others at BLPN and here that made me think that the view that Howard's articles should be considered SPS is not mine alone. Samuelshraga (talk) 13:52, 19 April 2026 (UTC)

If what you think needs to happen is that some content should be removed or changed on the Vinay Prasad article, it would surely be more productive to just have an RFC on that article's talk page about making those changes. If the RFC being suggested here gets run, I think it is very likely you'll still be in dispute over at that article because you've only settled one of several underlying questions. MrOllie (talk) 14:01, 19 April 2026 (UTC)

I mentioned editors as they say that their editors may not be peer reviewed, and have a page listing who they consider to be editors. I thought that more definitive than people's opinions on who should/shouldn't be considered selfpublished. -- LCU ActivelyDisinterested «@» °∆t° 10:49, 20 April 2026 (UTC)

My reading of the previous RSN was that they weren't definitive that it was only the editors: we allow trusted authors to publish without prior review for the sake of efficiency and timeliness quoted here. I think the lists of regular contributors that Loki found below actually really help define a difference here. With that list we can be pretty sure that Lynn Shaffer's article is not SPS as she's not on any list there. I'd be pretty sure that the regular contributors who publish at least every two weeks are "trusted authors" so yes SPS. That leaves only the "other contributors" as a maybe. I wasn't aware of these lists before. Samuelshraga (talk) 11:44, 20 April 2026 (UTC)

I based it on "Outside submissions undergo review by our full editorial board, and most are rejected or require revisions prior to publishing. Our own editors, however, have earned the privilege of publishing articles without prior review, since they have a proven track record.". That comes from the article describing the pulling of the article you quoted. -- LCU ActivelyDisinterested «@» °∆t° 14:51, 20 April 2026 (UTC)

Also a good find. Furthermore, it seems that SBM put an editorial policy on their website today - a remarkable coincidence! Samuelshraga (talk) 17:56, 20 April 2026 (UTC)

Coincidence or not it's helpful that they clarify what exactly is going on. Although, if they are reading, they could help further by clarifying what they mean by "associated editors"? Does that mean the "Regular contributors" or "Emeritus editors", or something else? It's not a term that they define clearly. -- LCU ActivelyDisinterested «@» °∆t° 18:22, 20 April 2026 (UTC)

I'm not a fan of naming specific people because then we just have the same problem again later when someone tries to generalize from specific names to general classes.

What I'd prefer is:

Which of the following types of writers in Science-Based Medicine should be considered self-published (vote for as many as you want)?
A. The editors, including former editors
B. The regular contributors
C. The listed other contributors
D. Anyone else

Loki (talk) 21:52, 19 April 2026 (UTC)

I would suggest:
Which, if any, of the Science-Based Medicine articles written by the following should be considered selfpublished?
A. The editors, including former editors
B. The editors and regular contributor
C. All articles
D. None of the articles
That would mean editors don't have to make multiple choices, which should make the close simpler, and includes an option for those completely opposed to the question. My phrasing of the question sucks though. -- LCU ActivelyDisinterested «@» °∆t° 10:56, 20 April 2026 (UTC)

I think any RfC need to be wider. The last RfC, which was supposedly narrowly about the SPS issue (and which I ignored for that reason), got swayed by grievance-wielding socks into being a general discussion which somehow ended up being reflected in the close. Previous, more widely drafted, RfCs affirmed that SBM is generally reliable. For me the important aspects of SBM are that is (a) generally reliable for FRINGE topics (though is not MEDRS), and (b) useful for WP:PARITY for this reason, regardless of whether SPS status for some/all of its articles complicates its use for biographical information (and that should be easier to navigate now the editorial stance is clarified). The general WP:PROFRINGE tactic I want to head off is the use of BLP-usage concerns as a wedge to say the source cannot be for us conveying accurate knowledge on WP:FRINGESUBJECTS. Bon courage (talk) 10:00, 21 April 2026 (UTC)

I would take this more seriously if "profringe" was not the general term you use for when someone disagrees with you. jp×g 🗯️ 21:25, 22 April 2026 (UTC)

Linkspam and other low-quality sources at Straight razor

In January, I removed more than 20 spammy commercial links and other low-quality sources from Straight razor. At that time, about 1/4 of the sources were e-commerce sites, including Classic Shaving, Grown Man Shave, Men Essentials, Executive Shaving, Royal Shave, Cut Throat Club, Fendrihan, Knife Center, and Premium Knives. There were also links to shaving equipment manufacturers like Dovo and Nassrasur, and niche self-published and user-generated blogs and forums like Shave Straight and Safe, ShaveMyFace, Wood Database, and HalfBakery. In short, the article had become a spam magnet for shaving subscription services and niche fansites. At Talk:Straight razor, there were complaints about this going back to 2006 and 2007.

This left about 50 sources, primarily older books and magazines. (We're talking about straight razors here, they have their fans but there aren't a ton of contemporary sources.) In addition, many of the sources I removed were redundant, paired with otherwise reliable sources, which sure looks like linkspam to me. Also, many sources went into excruciating detail into straight razor parts, whetstones, strops, shaving creams—of course, all of which could be purchased at the source. In my opinion, if an independent, reliable source doesn't go into that level of detail, we shouldn't look to commercial sources to fill the gap.

All of those sources were restored today, with an edit summary to bring it here if I disagree. Thoughts? Woodroar (talk) 23:07, 15 April 2026 (UTC)

I think that, where references are redundant to a more reliable one, there is no real need to keep the commercial one, but where only the commercial source is provided, the reference can have a tag indicating a {{better source needed}} tag after the reference to indicate the need for a replacement, and a discussion on its talk page. Mitchsavl (talk) 12:19, 16 April 2026 (UTC)

I absolutely agree. Thank you very much. I might also add that if any spam links were added just to promote spam they should be removed on sight.--Dr. K. 15:26, 16 April 2026 (UTC)

Linkspam is a derogatory term denoting someone spamming links into an article to promote spam. This is not the case here. I used these links long time ago to support details about straight razors and their use because noone is going to write a book, an academic paper or Ph.D. thesis on the subject of straight razors. So, by necessity, some of the sources used in the article come from artisans or online commercial sites. I think that behind these commercial sites there are trades people who understand their trade and can be used as sources for simple, non-controversial, information. Needless to say, if a better source can be found, we can remove these sources I can see the point of the OP regarding some of the included details which may not be notable, but that is a subject that can be determined on a case by case basis. Be that as it may, I wish to make the following points:

a) DOVO Rasiermesser or DOVO Stahlwaren is or was a notable German manufacturer of steel implements, even medical devices per Medical Device Register, Volume 3,Page 77, which fell on hard times, victim of mass-produced cheap razors. DOVO also has the distinction of producing one of the best European straight razor brands of all time. Being steel implement manufacturers in general and manufacturing one of the best European straight razor brands, I am sure they are a very reliable source of information about straight razors. Yet the OP summarily nuked all DOVO citations. As an aside, I was shocked to see the DOVO Solingen article being deleted as not notable. I think it was a victim of the fact that most of the sources in Google Books are in German and one has to use German keywords such as DOVO Rasiermesser or DOVO Stahlwaren to get results. Thankfully, the German wikipedia still has the DOVO article online.

b) If commercial sites are redundant to more reliable sources, I have no objection removing them as a reference from the article.

c) I am open to discussing the importance of the various straight razor details that the OP thinks are not important.

Thanks. Dr. K. 02:14, 16 April 2026 (UTC)

I used these links long time ago to support details about straight razors and their use because noone is going to write a book, an academic paper or Ph.D. thesis on the subject of straight razors. So, by necessity, some of the sources used in the article come from artisans or online commercial sites. If reliable, secondary, independent sources don't cover a subject in this much detail, then Wikipedia shouldn't, either. Commercial sites exist to sell products, and that means presenting them in the best possible light. They're inherently self-serving. These links also make Wikipedia look bad, because we're basically saying "we consider this shave club to be reputable". Woodroar (talk) 21:13, 19 April 2026 (UTC)

You don't have to quote my text back at me, especially since the points you are making have been repeated above. I get it. You don't like commercial sites and commercial sites are commercial and try to sell products. Nothing new here. Now let's go past that and see what is actually happening in the article. Many of these sources are used to support nomenclature, and straight razor metallurgical and manufacturing details. As I said in my edit-summary these are non-controversial facts. Terms like "shank", jimps", "fluting", "Sheffield steel" are explained competently in these commercial sites because these commercial sites are dealers who know their products. These nomenclature and metallurgical details are essential to understanding the function of the straight razors and should not be removed.

I repeat here: If more reliable sources can be found to support these facts, I would be the first to remove the commercial references. User Mitchsavl suggested a very constructive approach just above. I think that's the way to go for now. Also, I don't think that using commercial sites as references runs the risk of misleading readers that these sources are reliable, since these facts are non-controversial and they only need the corroboration of a field practitioner, who in this case happens to be a commercial site.

I will add that notwithstanding the rest of the sources, the DOVO Solingen source is very reliable because DOVO is a famous European manufacturer of all kinds of implements, including several distinguished lines of straight razors. DOVO should not have been removed from the article.

Finally, the main reason I suggested moving this dispute to RSN is to avoid the back and forth created by two editors who disagree with each other, perhaps fundamentally. Thankfully, this being a wiki, good editors like Mitchsavl offer their opinion and a consensus emerges eventually. This has the distinct advantage of avoiding repetition and long, fruitless, discussions between two editors. So, I suggest we wait for more input. Dr. K. 05:32, 20 April 2026 (UTC)

reliability of the Washington Free Beacon - lack of fact checking

In a discussion about a content dispute at Talk:Israeli–Palestinian conflict#Scholars for Truth about Genocide, a user cites a Washington Free Beacon article, by a senior writer at the outlet, as a reliable source for inclusion of content in the enyclopedia, specifically that 100s of "genocide scholars" hare signed an open letter. The Free Beacon article repeats this claim, that 100+ signatories to a letter are genocide scholars, but verifying the identities of many of these people reveals that though some of them are genocide scholars, more of them are in other fields, ranging from accounting and biology to engineering and music. Looks like a partisan puff piece to me that lacks a fact checking. The article further passes itself off as investigative, writing, "...according to a letter obtained by the Washington Free Beacon..." when it appears to instead be an exclusive granted to the Free Beacon, complete with interview, ahead of a press release that was put out the very next day.

WP:FREEBEACON lists the source as generally reliable but possibly partisan, however I'm concerned about the lack of basic journalistic standards here with the fact checking. Fortunately it doesn't appear to be widely cited. —BrechtBro (talk) 20:37, 16 April 2026 (UTC)

I picked two articles at random from the "fact check" section and examined them:

FACT CHECK: Pete Buttigieg Is a 'Capable and Competent' Leader

You don't even have to look at the article. That is clearly an opinion, not a checkable fact. But I looked anyway. They didn't even bother listing anyone who said anything bad about Buttigieg (is there any politician that has zero criticism?). The only opinions they list are a tweet that doesn't actually say anything about Buttigieg and links to an editorial that has Buttigieg criticizing Trump -- nothing about Buttigieg's competency -- and a bunch of opinions from the Free Beacon.

Maine Democrat Graham Platner Called Jesus a 'Zombie' and the Virgin Mary 'a Skank' in Unearthed Reddit Post

So they found an anonymous Reddit post. And the evidence that the anonymous Reddit user was Graham Platner? A Tweet. By someone who pretty much only posts alt-right fake news and conspiracy theories. It took me less than a minute to find CNN making the connection but the Free Beacon couldn't be bothered.

Also, the RSP entry is a bit strange. "some editors consider it a partisan source"? Every page says "Covering the enemies of freedom the way the mainstream media won't" right at the top. And they publish things like Trump Ramps Up Pressure on Sangria-Slurping Spanish Surrender Monkeys. No bias there!

Generally unreliable. --Guy Macon (talk) 22:22, 16 April 2026 (UTC)

The first piece is one of their satire articles. For one correction, it wasn't using the tweet as a source for associating the account with Platner, but that a specific commentator was the first to criticize Platner for one post ("the post was first highlighted by"). How anyone first associated the account with Platner appears to be unclear, even the CNN article is also not clear about how they found this. I don't care either way about the reliability. PARAKANYAA (talk) 05:24, 17 April 2026 (UTC)

The Washington Free Beacon does not clearly distinguish its satirical content from the rest of its reporting. For every article on its website, any editor needs to determine whether it is a "real" news article, or whether it is an equivalent to a piece from The Onion or The Babylon Bee. Last year's RfC found that articles by Andrew Stiles are satire, but the Free Beacon does not label, tag, or classify his articles in a way that identifies them as satire. It is also unclear to me whether the Free Beacon publishes satirical content by anyone other than Stiles. In this discussion so far, Guy Macon's first linked article (the one about Pete Buttigieg) is authored by Stiles and Thaleigha Rampersad, but none of the other articles linked so far are authored by Stiles. — Newslinger talk 04:18, 17 April 2026 (UTC)

Looking at some of their other "Fact Checks" they seem better, but clearly show the partisanship (in one about Abbott firing librarians they state "left wing outlets, like the New York Times"). -- Cdjp1 (talk) 10:28, 17 April 2026 (UTC)

I question whether all of Stiles articles are satire. E.g. there's these two pieces on the NYT (which the WFB really doesn't like, alongside CNN) 1 2 that are just snarky about NYT articles. There's also this piece by Stiles about Cesar Chavez having been accused of being a sex pest. So not only does the WFE mix satire with reporting; you can't rely on all Stiles articles being satire because some aren't. Cortador (talk) 05:26, 21 April 2026 (UTC)

For the specific article, the lack of fact checking around are all signatories Holocaust and genocide scholars when the lead authors of the letter themselves label it as Over 100 Holocaust scholars, isn't that different to the lack of checking done by other outlets we consider GREL when they reported on the "Scholars for Truth" letter. So, it would seem this isn't something that on its own can be held against the WFB. -- Cdjp1 (talk) 10:39, 17 April 2026 (UTC)

Is that really so? Most of the reporting I've seen on the The Scholars For Truth letter (which wasn't follow-up reporting debunking it) was in Israeli media, and WP:TIMESOFISRAEL and WP:JERUSALEMPOST have qualifiers about content related to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.

Looking at the RfC on the Free Beacon, I notice that WP:USEBYOTHERS is cited. However, I think this may mask some of what is going on with the outlet, which is that ideological actors give things to them because they know the outlet is ideological and will run with them, and since the Free Beacon broke the news, if/when the stories do go bigger and are verified, journalistic standards call for citing the outlet that broke the story And this use is often qualified that the outlet is ideological, which wasn't mentioned in the RfC: The NYT cites the Free Beacon as a conservative outlet . The Economist cites them as "right-wing" or "conservative", so has NPR. They should at the very least be flagged as WP:PARTISAN. —BrechtBro (talk) 15:34, 17 April 2026 (UTC)

Yeah this doesn't look like a reliable source to me. Lack of fact checking, blending reportage with opinion, inflammatory content, etc. Looks like standard "alternative fact" crap journalism. Would an RfC be required to suggest this is GUNREL? Simonm223 (talk) 13:14, 20 April 2026 (UTC)
Re the topic: yes Free Beacon counted wrong and it's not cited in that Wikipedia article. Re the non-topic: if it gets something wrong and is cited in a different Wikipedia article, that different Wikipedia article presumably has a talk page. Peter Gulutzan (talk) 21:44, 20 April 2026 (UTC)
Is there anyone, on Wikipedia or on planet Earth in general, who's arguing that Washington Free Beacon isn't a partisan source? Regardless, any site which fails to clearly differentiate between satire and news should be treated as generally unreliable. Some of the satire is over-the-top obvious. Some of it seems like it's just news, although from a partisan POV. The problem is that some of it blurs the lines to an unacceptable degree. Reliability requires a baseline level of honesty, which this outlet appears to lack. Grayfell (talk) 06:43, 21 April 2026 (UTC)
Note that as per list of perennial sources, the WFB is already marked as partisan.

That said, during the last RfC, about 13 commenters considered the WFB to be generally reliable, and about ten either unreliable or stated that additional consideration apply. Based on the arguments I don't understand how it arrived at "generally reliable". Cortador (talk) 10:33, 21 April 2026 (UTC)
I guess we would need a new RfC or to get that closure re-evaluated. It is striking that almost all of the pro-reliable !voters gave little or no explanation of their vote beyond asserting general reliability, while all of the anti-reliable !voters gave policy-based and evidenced objections. I would have interpreted the results of the RfC to say that additional considerations apply. BobFromBrockley (talk) 14:45, 22 April 2026 (UTC)

What happened during the RFC was that the people arguing that it was reliable split the RFC into two based on who was the editor-in-chief at the time and then dismissed all earlier criticism based on an unsourced presumption that a new editor-in-chief meant it had improved. It broke stories that attracted attention under its new editor, but that, itself, is not an indicator of reliability or that its reliability had changed. The new RFC should cover the source as a whole; I'm generally opposed to this sort of dividing-things-up to try and find a reliable part unless there is clear sourcing stating that its reliability changed in context XYZ. People who want to argue for a split during the RFC can try to do so with sources, but we shouldn't have another RFC structured to assume that - they have to produce sources and arguments arguing for it in the context of an RFC on the source as a whole. --Aquillion (talk) 16:49, 23 April 2026 (UTC)

Art Threat

Before using this article from Art Threat, I can't help being concerned about its reliability. The website is an "independent media", but it reported a story soon after the ~~AI-generated~~ Kotaku articles did. George Ho (talk) 00:26, 20 April 2026 (UTC); edited, 08:38, 20 April 2026 (UTC)

Reliability of Kotaku is now raised at #Re:re:Kotaku. --George Ho (talk) 08:38, 20 April 2026 (UTC)

From internet archive: https://web.archive.org/web/20230715000000*/http://artthreat.net/

Looks like Art Threat was an indie art magazine/blog connected to the Canada Council for the Arts, from 2006 to about 2020. Then the website goes offline entirely for 5 years, comes back last year with no content or updates (but the same logo), stays otherwise dead for the rest of 2025. Then a few months ago, suddenly has a new logo, entirely new content (entirely about celebrities or pop culture).

I don't see any immediate red flags, though its full of yellow ones. Regardless of if its AI slop or human slop, it looks like a brand-new popup "news" source re-hosting the same stories as everyone else for ad views

/ˌtiːoʊseɪˈæf.dʒə/ (talk) 07:08, 20 April 2026 (UTC)

Brewminate

I would like a second opinion about this source: https://brewminate.com/about-us/

its not obviously biased and i didnt spot any direct copying from wikipedia at an overview, but it looks extremely AI generated, and its stuffed with sketchy popup ads. Also, every image used in these articles is either directly from wikipedia, or is AI generated. Its being used primarily to cite non-controversial claims with ^{[citation needed]} tags, by good-faith users, which means it might go unchallenged for a while. I wanted to post this for a confirmation that this is not reliable and should be removed, also so that if someone looks up this source later they'll have a discussion to see

thanks, /ˌtiːoʊseɪˈæf.dʒə/ (talk) 06:49, 20 April 2026 (UTC)

I don't see any evidence either way. The link you provided seems to say some of the right things, but it is the site writing about itself. Do you have any examples of copying from Wikipedia, or AI generation? Phil Bridger (talk) 11:33, 20 April 2026 (UTC)

Brewminate is a self-published source, and the founder (Matthew A. McIntosh) does not meet the criterion to be considered a subject-matter expert per WP:SPS ("Self-published sources may be considered reliable if published by an established subject-matter expert, whose work in the relevant field has previously been published by reliable, independent publications.") As a result, Brewminate's original content (which has a license message at the bottom of the page that begins with "Originally published by Brewminate") is generally unreliable.

Much of Brewminate's content is republished from other sources, as disclosed in the license message at the bottom of each article, and Brewminate appears to be compliant with the free content licenses of the source texts. The reliability of republished content is inherited from the reliability of the original publication. For example, "Oh Not God!: A History of Conspiracy Theories about the 'Antichrist'" is an abridged republication of the Antichrist article on Wikipedia, and should not be cited per WP:CIRCULAR. "Apokalypsis: A History of the Biblical Apocalypse" is an unabridged republication of the "Bibical Apocalypse" article from the World History Encyclopedia, and was written by University of Pittsburgh senior lecturer Rebecca Denova. "Apocalypse When?: Our Fascination with 'The End' since the Ancient World" was authored by University of Cambridge professor Maria Manuel Lisboa and originally published by Open Book Publishers.

If the source text is reliable, I would prefer to cite the original source, but if the original source (or an archive of it) is unavailable, Breminate might be usable as a properly licensed mirror of the original. To cite a republished article on Brewminate in a Citation Style 1 template, insert the details of the original source, but use Brewminate's URL and set the via parameter to Brewminate. — Newslinger talk 15:58, 20 April 2026 (UTC)

Re:re:Kotaku

Moved from Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Video games/Sources#Re:re:Kotaku

In February, there was a (not-yet-archived) discussion restoring Kotaku to reliable, a rating it had held until mid-2023 over fears of AI content. This project concluded that they had a change in ownership and editorial practices and so returned it to reliable. @George Ho has removed it and content citing it from the article Dan Gheesling, saying that this is a WP:local consensus that cannot overrule the consensus established at WP:RSN in 2023, advising me to establish a new consensus at WP:RSN. Does anyone have any advice/guidance on doing that? 1brianm7 (talk) 03:09, 20 April 2026 (UTC)

I don't see any strong RSN decision on Kotaku at the archives on RSN. There's a few threads but they are mostly one-off issues, not Kotaku as a whole. I'd need to see the explicit pointer to the claimed RSN concensus but without that, the change should be reverted to reflect our local concensus. Masem (t) 03:18, 20 April 2026 (UTC)

Ah, I see that George pointed to an RSN on "The Kotaku Times", which is no way related to the video game website Kotaku. Masem (t) 03:23, 20 April 2026 (UTC)

Yep 'Kotaku Times' is definitely an unreliable source, but it's also unrelated to 'Kotaku'. -- LCU ActivelyDisinterested «@» °∆t° 10:18, 20 April 2026 (UTC)

WP:KOTAKU links to two 2023 video game sources discussions but nothing on RSN. So that judgement is entirely a local consensus; I'm not sure when/why it got added to the perennial sources list (nothing is jumping out based on edit summaries so I'd have to go digging into diffs). I guess you could go to RSN and say "this was based on local consensus, that consensus has changed so the perennial sources list should be updated to reflect that". Sariel Xilo (talk) 04:38, 20 April 2026 (UTC) Comment originally made at WT:VGRS; see additional new comment below. Sariel Xilo (talk) 19:33, 20 April 2026 (UTC)

Nonetheless, the pre-2023 Kotaku section links to past RSN discussions back in 2022 and beforehand. (Repeating what I said at the Dan Gheesling talk page...) George Ho (talk) 06:41, 20 April 2026 (UTC)

The post 2023 Kotaku entry should be removed, the RSP is a log of RSN discussions not a log of everything. -- LCU ActivelyDisinterested «@» °∆t° 10:19, 20 April 2026 (UTC)

Concur. This should be removed from RSP since it is derived from a local consensus rather than an RSN discussion. Simonm223 (talk) 14:08, 20 April 2026 (UTC)

Done -- LCU ActivelyDisinterested «@» °∆t° 12:07, 21 April 2026 (UTC)

Ongoing local discussion about the specific Kotaku articles themselves at Talk:Dan Gheesling#Supercruise. George Ho (talk) 06:03, 20 April 2026 (UTC)

I've WP:BOLD moved this to RSN, the better venue for general source discussion. guninvalid (talk) 06:59, 20 April 2026 (UTC)

I expressed my concerns about the following Kotaku articles at Talk:Dan Gheesling (more over there): one article by "Lewis Parker" (more about this journalist at Muckrack) and another article by "Bee Wertheimer" (her/their official website). I hope I'm wrong about them both because I questioned their reliabilities about themselves as journalists and association with Kotaku. George Ho (talk) 07:40, 20 April 2026 (UTC)

Checking Parker's profile, he's still writing for Kotaku as of this month, while Wertheimer is writing for Aftermath as of 2026. I have no idea why you're assuming they're not real authors.--Kung Fu Man (talk) 08:02, 20 April 2026 (UTC)

...Oh... Reading what Aftermath is about, I now realized that Wertheimer may be a real author after all. If what you said about Parker is true, then I would stand corrected. However, even an email address... Let's hope that makes Parker more real. Otherwise... George Ho (talk) 08:26, 20 April 2026 (UTC)

Well... Even Parker's credentials... George Ho (talk) 08:28, 20 April 2026 (UTC)

I have no idea why you're assuming they're not real authors.

I didn't mean to make a personal attack toward them both if that's what you were implying. I didn't mean to assume that they're not real, but I stood corrected about Wertheimer. I just wonder about who Lewis Parker really is due to IMO insufficient info about him. George Ho (talk) 08:35, 20 April 2026 (UTC)

Its why we usually look at a website itself and not specific authors to make sure its reliable and has editorial oversight, as when they publish something that the site asserts is by its staff, we take it on their word every such article is vetted by the editorial staff before publishing (compared to the Forbes contributor model) Masem (t) 11:28, 20 April 2026 (UTC)

You also mean Kotaku's words about itself, like the following:

We expect our writers and commenters to treat those they write about as they would if they met them in person.

Still no disclaimer so far. An old version from 2024 had that same passage, but at least it had some Editorial Code that's no longer in the current one. George Ho (talk) 13:37, 20 April 2026 (UTC)

Almost, if not completely, crap. Re-rechecked Parker's credentials. Able to find his profile from IGN, which is generally reliable (WP:IGN). Well, he wrote a game review; haven't yet found his news-reporting articles for IGN so far. George Ho (talk) 16:33, 20 April 2026 (UTC)

My original comment from the February 2026 WT:VGRS reevaluation on Kotaku boils down to reliable after mid-2025 (post sale to Keleops; Keleops previously purchased Gizmodo in June 2024) & situational from mid-2023 to mid-2025. Since the sources that triggered this discussion are articles from April 2026, I'll update my comment on that time-range. I agree with Masem that we should stick with evaluating an outlet overall "and not specific authors to make sure its reliable". Keleops is continuing to excise the weirdness that was G/O Media. GamesIndustry.biz just reported that Rebekah Valentine is joining Kotaku; she's an award winning journalist (GameHERs "Top Gaming Journalist of the Year" in 2020, New York Game Awards "Knickerbocker Award for Best Games Journalism" in 2022, etc) who was at IGN from ~2021. Kotaku under Keleops continues to improve (higher budget, recruiting experienced journalists, etc) from the state G/O Media left it in & I think that improvement has been enough to move it back to reliable. Sariel Xilo (talk) 19:33, 20 April 2026 (UTC)

This original comment, you mean?: link to comment, diff. George Ho (talk) 20:18, 20 April 2026 (UTC)

Fixed! Thanks. I missed that the insert link clipped off the comment bit of the url. Sariel Xilo (talk) 20:22, 20 April 2026 (UTC)

I have no strong opinion, but I'd say that the source is at least situational. A lot of outlets have churnalism unfortunately, and we still have to use some common sense to discern a fact-based article from clickbait. Seeing recent professional hires is a good sign for reliability. Shooterwalker (talk) 19:32, 23 April 2026 (UTC)

Comment: I've removed the 2023 onwards section from the RSP, it's a log of discussions and consensus on RSN not an indiscriminate list. Any new consensus here can replace it, if ones forms. -- LCU ActivelyDisinterested «@» °∆t° 12:06, 21 April 2026 (UTC)

NBER working paper

There's a dispute over whether an NBER working paper is a reliable source for a chart. NBER working papers aren't peer-reviewed. The paper came out seven months ago. Google Scholar lists 282 citations. Lens lists 58.

Most of the authors are affiliated with OpenAI. David Deming is affiliated with Harvard only. Aaron Chatterji is Professor at Duke and Chief Economist at OpenAI. Two others are affiliated with both Harvard and OpenAI.

Is the working paper a reliable source for the chart data? Uhoj (talk) 19:39, 20 April 2026 (UTC)

NBER's description of its working papers can be found here: https://www.nber.org/papers . As proposed, the chart would be added to the 'Appplications' section of the ChatGPT article. Grayfell (talk) 19:48, 20 April 2026 (UTC)

Notified: Talk:ChatGPT, User talk:WhaleFarm, User talk:Grayfell, User talk:Czarking0 and User talk:Alenoach. Uhoj (talk) 19:58, 20 April 2026 (UTC)

Probably should be handled the same way as preprints, WP:RSNPREPRINTS and WP:SPSPREPRINT offer guidance. -- LCU ActivelyDisinterested «@» °∆t° 21:13, 20 April 2026 (UTC)

It's a reliable source for what OpenAI wants to say about itself. This was an OpenAI study, or at least it was described that way in the media, but also published on the OpenAI website . I would say that in addition to the WP:EXPERTSPS provisions, this source would also need to meet the WP:ABOUTSELF requirements. I would say this could very conceivably fall under the unduly self-serving part of ABOUTSELF. Katzrockso (talk) 01:29, 21 April 2026 (UTC)

Six of the seven named authors are OpenAI-affiliated, so this National Bureau of Economic Research (NBER) working paper is non-independent, and I agree with ActivelyDisinterested that the paper is equivalent to a preprint. It should be treated like the white papers that AI companies frequently publish about their own products on arXiv or their own websites. This is more of a neutrality and promotion issue than a reliability issue; the article about ChatGPT should ideally focus more on what independent reliable sources say about ChatGPT than what OpenAI says in its own paper about its own product. This also factors into image selection when the image in question (File:What people use ChatGPT for 2025 treemap.svg) is making factual claims. — Newslinger talk 18:55, 21 April 2026 (UTC)

Thank you everyone for commenting on this source. I believe the question has been answered. Uhoj (talk) 19:49, 21 April 2026 (UTC)

Conflicting claims about the reliability of United24 Media

United24 Media (apparently linked to the United24 platform run by the Government of Ukraine) is currently used as a source in approximately 400 articles. It claims to have a strong editorial policy and names all its reporters.

Media Bias/Fact Check rates United24 Media as "mostly factual" but notes that it only has "medium credibility" due to a lack of transparency and a pro-government bias. However, MFBC itself is considered an unreliable source. Furthermore, a number of users on Reddit say United24 Media is not reputable, although they did not provide a reason.

It does not look like United24 Media has been discussed here before. Do editors consider it reliable? Ixfd64 (talk) 02:37, 21 April 2026 (UTC)

You cant really use reddit users as source man Stanjik (talk) 09:17, 21 April 2026 (UTC)

Reddit and MBFC is very little to base a discussion off on. I doubt any Ukrainian source is unbiased in its reporting of the war, but being biased isn't a factor in reliability (WP:RSBIAS). There are many state owned news media organisations , and some of them are considered high quality reliable sources. The issue comes when it's state run media were there is no editorial independence between the news organisation and the state. If there an accusation of the latter it needs much better sourcing than MBFC and Reddit.
MBFC ratings aren't that useful because they not based on Wikipedia's policies and guidelines. If MBFC lists failures in accuracy and reliability then checking into those incidence can be useful for evaluation, but it's a starting point not an end point. -- LCU ActivelyDisinterested «@» °∆t° 11:48, 21 April 2026 (UTC)

I agree that a few Reddit comments alone do not warrant discussion. In these particular cases, the Reddit users didn't explain why they think United24 Media is unreliable. However, it may still be worth an investigation if a lot of people have concerns about a source. Ixfd64 (talk) 19:31, 21 April 2026 (UTC)

A lot of people have concerns about sources they don't like, but personal dislike doesn't make a source unreliable. Unless other reliable sources are calling the integrity of United24 into question it's just scuttlebutt. -- LCU ActivelyDisinterested «@» °∆t° 08:13, 22 April 2026 (UTC)

MB/FC is itself unreliable. Cortador (talk) 18:29, 21 April 2026 (UTC)

Freaknomics Podcast

Such as https://freakonomics.com/podcast/are-we-living-through-the-most-revolutionary-period-in-history/ used in Fareed Zakaria just so there's a specific example. It is used in a number of articles. Is this podcast a WP:RS like a news article or news video; or more like a column/opinion piece? Graywalls (talk) 14:07, 21 April 2026 (UTC)

I think it is as reliable as many news articles or news videos, but that is not saying much. Personally I would prefer to use it as a source to find academic sources that underlie it. Phil Bridger (talk) 18:49, 21 April 2026 (UTC)

Let us note that the use in Fareed Zakaria is for the statement His father, Rafiq Zakaria (1920–2005), was a politician associated with the Indian National Congress and a scholar interested in Islam. Being that the episode is an interview with Fareed where he presumably states that information somewhere in its 70 minutes; all we're going down to there is "is Freakonomics a reliable player of their inteviews?" -- i.e., have they not faked the interview or done some editing to create a false light -- and "is Fareed a reliable source of basic information about his father?" Both would seem to be yes, so it seems like a perfectly fine use. That is a very different question from "can it be considered a sufficient source for statements about economic theory?" -- Nat Gertler (talk) 19:32, 21 April 2026 (UTC)

Yeah, it seems like this podcast's status is adequately dealt with by WP:SPS and WP:ABOUTSELF. Simonm223 (talk) 16:01, 22 April 2026 (UTC)

Southern Poverty Law Center

Haven't we all got better things to do? Bon courage (talk) 01:47, 22 April 2026 (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.

Based on today's revelations that the SPLC was secretly funding neo-Nazi and white-supremacist extremist groups; propose that that organization be blacklisted as a source in Wikipedia.: . ~2026-94399-0 (talk) 01:40, 22 April 2026 (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.

Southern Poverty Law Centre (with moderation)

CLOSED

Noone is backing this, and it's only going to drag on and water editors time. If anything beyond allegations comes of this, depending of the outcome, it might be worth starting a new discussion. -- LCU ActivelyDisinterested «@» °∆t° 13:48, 22 April 2026 (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.

Given that multiple RS are reporting today that the SPLC has allegedly funded certain RW extremist groups, it may be appropriate to revisit the SPLC's use as a source for topics related to those groups. A clandestine financial connection (which the SPLC in statements has not denied) raises at least the appearance of possible inaccuracy in reporting. Riposte97 (talk) 07:14, 22 April 2026 (UTC)

1) This is based on an indictment, we have no settled facts here. What the facts are is the DOJ alleges that the SPLC paid individuals in far-right groups to be informants; no one is alleging they funded the groups themselves, but that in order to disrupt the functioning. It has been known for decades that they did this.

2) We had an RfC about this months ago and the SPLC using paid informants is not new information.

3) Using paid informants is not a reason for unreliability, or all coverage on far-right extremism is disallowed, as much of it is based on paid informants or information gleaned from paid informants. I also don't really see a problem with it? Do you think these groups get taken down without informants?

4) I have fact checked the indictment on some points, as it is fairly easy to figure out who the alleged informants are and I have a deep interest in the topic, and while I don't doubt they were paid as informants the whole thing is being "spun" in a strange way. I don't think I can say who the people are for BLP reasons but knowing who they are and looking into the scholarship and primary sources on them (as several are Wikipedia notables!) makes it clear that the case is not so clear cut as the DOJ would like to imply. They were definitely not being funded to do racism, I will say that.

Bad RW media outlets have looked at the headlines and read "actually the SPLC was funding all white supremacy!" as some kind of false flag, when no, they were funding informants in order to disrupt these organizations. So no, banning the SPLC is not an appropriate response. There is no factual inaccuracy here at all. PARAKANYAA (talk) 07:29, 22 April 2026 (UTC)

Actually, I do think undisclosed payments are potentially a problem for us. Firstly, it creates a financial incentive for people to feed the SPLC information that is potentially favourable to its political goals. Secondly, it creates an incentive to lie or mislead to maintain the secrecy of those payments, which it is alleged has been done. It is distinct from more usual journalistic methods, which attribute information to sources. Riposte97 (talk) 07:39, 22 April 2026 (UTC)

That goes for all information ever gleaned about far-right extremism. For the past 60 years large, large amount of information on far-right extremism has come from informants, who have political considerations - the SPLC critically evaluates the claims, which is what is important. People get paid to do interviews (as is done in media), people get paid to find information (as is done in media), that does not mean taking the information at face value. Paid informants are not that unusual in journalism.

I do not believe the allegation that they have lied is true, as gleaned from my fact checking of the DOJ indictment and my knowledge of the people in question. PARAKANYAA (talk) 07:42, 22 April 2026 (UTC)

@PARAKANYAA Please don't edit comments after that have been replied to. As much as I trust you, your knowledge and fact checking would be a lot more persuasive if they were backed up by some RS. Again, most of the factual backdrop appears to be admitted. Riposte97 (talk) 07:48, 22 April 2026 (UTC)

I edited it the moment you replied and there was an edit conflict, oops.

I want to give examples, but all of the informants in question are BLPs and I do worry that my connecting them to the people in the indictment without sources saying so (even if there is no other possible person it could be) would be a BLP violation. PARAKANYAA (talk) 07:50, 22 April 2026 (UTC)

For an example here of what I am talking about and how you can figure these out, with a real example but with no names:

Say the indictment says 3 things about Person X.

1 - Person X is the former leader of group X.

2 - Person X is still alive.

3 - The SPLC has a File up about Person X.

Well, group X has only ever had 4 leaders!

Leader 1 is dead, so per 2 he is ruled out.

Leader 3 is dead and has no file, so per 2 and 3 he is ruled out.

Leader 4 is the current leader, and has no file, so he is ruled out per 1 and 3.

Then who's left? Leader 2, who is a former leader, still alive, who the SPLC has a File about.

In this case, there are some extra, patent absurdities if you know anything about him combined with what the DOJ is alleging that make me seriously doubt the whole case. I believe they used paid informants and I'm fascinated with what this reveals but I do not think using paid informants is a reliability issue - especially having looked at the coverage in question, which is deeply critical and not playing into any side involved. Also, the SPLC stopped the practice years ago. PARAKANYAA (talk) 08:13, 22 April 2026 (UTC)

As per above: this framing is wrong, and there are no settled facts here. I personally think that basing our decisions of reliability on what the Trump Justice Department does is highly fraught. (Even if they were impugning the reliability of SPLC as a source, which it's not clear they are.) I have no strong opinions as the the reliability of SPLC, independently of this development, and will defer to others on that score, but this doesn't move the needle at all. Sławomir Biały (talk) 07:37, 22 April 2026 (UTC)

I would discourage nakedly political framing like this. In any case, the contents of the indictment are being widely reported, sometimes as fact, and the allegations are not denied. True, the SPLC contests the framing of the matter, but it is the core reliability considerations I am concerned with, only for those groups to which it relates, not the political framing. Riposte97 (talk) 07:41, 22 April 2026 (UTC)

The "groups to which it relates" is all of what the SPLC covers, so it is not "with moderation". And yes, there are nakedly political considerations here and we have no charges only (doubtful) allegations, their known practices, and an indictment. PARAKANYAA (talk) 07:44, 22 April 2026 (UTC)

I am not denying the existence of the indictment. I am saying it has no bearing on our assessment of reliability. You seem to be conflating different things. Regarding the "nakedly political framing", Trump's DOJ speaks for itself. Sławomir Biały (talk) 07:46, 22 April 2026 (UTC)

A discussion could be had, when we discuss the actual indictments. allegedly funded certain RW extremist groups is not what the indictments have said, and so to frame it as such poisons the discussion from the outset (even if actors from the government have made such inflammatory accusations in press releases). -- Cdjp1 (talk) 08:16, 22 April 2026 (UTC)

The current US DOJ is not a credible actor in this matter. Even if SLPC paid informants, the phrasing that they funded extremists groups seems unsupportable. Until such time that matters are clearer and don't rest entirely on allegations, I don't see that anything changes. -- LCU ActivelyDisinterested «@» °∆t° 08:19, 22 April 2026 (UTC)

The claim of SPLC funding the groups comes from acting AG Todd Blanche who said The SPLC was not dismantling these groups. It was instead manufacturing the extremism it purports to oppose by paying sources to stoke racial hatred AP News. -- Cdjp1 (talk) 08:27, 22 April 2026 (UTC)

That just adds weight to the first sentence of my comment. -- LCU ActivelyDisinterested «@» °∆t° 08:34, 22 April 2026 (UTC)

It's very strange, because that's not even shown taking their case in the indictment at face value. There's nothing in their indictment that would indicate that.

IMO this rhetoric is the extension of a strange conspiracy theory the MAGA right has concocted since the Charlottesville rally where they effectively think all the neo-Nazi or Klan type racists are not real and are being masterminded by the deep state to discredit the right-wing. PARAKANYAA (talk) 08:38, 22 April 2026 (UTC)

As PARAKANYAA correctly pointed out, even if the claims in the lawsuit are true (and the Trump administration has a very bad track record on this -- they keep claiming things in court filings that the judge laughs out of court) it would have zero impact on the reliability of the SPLC as a source. Besides the obvious issue that paying an informant to spy on a group isn't at all the same as funding the group, what is the theory here? That the SPLC "funds right wing groups" (dubious) and so we should conclude that ... they say good things about those groups? Seriously? It's not hard to go to the SPLC website and see with your own eyes that they are not in the habit of praising right wing groups. I have my issues with the SPLC, but the idea that this somehow affects reliability is nonsense. --Guy Macon (talk) 12:24, 22 April 2026 (UTC)

Not until it is proven. Slatersteven (talk) 09:57, 22 April 2026 (UTC)

While not a fan of the SPLC, I think the wait and see approach is best here. I think this raises concerns about how the group operates but there isn't quite enough to say what the impact is just yet. Consider a hypothetical, if the group was simply, illegally siphoning off funds to give to the leadership. That doesn't inherently mean the research the leaders were overseeing is wrong. While I think an actual conviction would be bad for the organization, that isn't our standard. We frequently treat groups as good/bad based on less than "proven in court". If the DOJ says, "paid these people" and the SLPC says, "paid them for the following reasons" then that should be viewed as established fact even if the overall legal case fails. Assuming the claims are true it appears the SLPC was violating finance laws which isn't the same thing as providing bad information. However, using paid informants raises concerns that the payer may be influencing actions rather than just observing. This has been a problem for the FBI under previous administrations.[https://cbs6albany.com/news/local/judge-orders-release-of-newburgh-four-defendant-and-blasts-fbis-role-in-terror-sting Springee (talk) 11:55, 22 April 2026 (UTC)

Pointless discussion. Governments are never reliable sources for anything but their stated opinion on something, and that goes triple for the Trump government. Cortador (talk) 12:35, 22 April 2026 (UTC)

A. Every source including the indictment describes them as paying people to infiltrate Nazi groups, which is very different from actively funding groups themselves.

B. The Trump admin is not a reliable source. Snokalok (talk) 13:07, 22 April 2026 (UTC)

To be clear, the doj indicted on fraud, claiming that it mislead donators to the group on how their donations were being used. Besides the unserious nature of this action, I dont think that touches anything about how they write content. Masem (t) 13:25, 22 April 2026 (UTC)

An indictment is just that, an indictment. It's no more dispositive than someone filing a lawsuit. The facts have to be proven in court, and reliable sources need to interpret that eventual outcome and determine its weight. Given that US courts have--in general--ceased to grant the current Department of Justice the presumption of regularity because of how the DOJ has handled its cases over the last year, we shouldn't accord the DOJ any special weight. Mackensen (talk) 11:56, 22 April 2026 (UTC)

The problem with the SPLC is that no matter how reliable or unreliable we might deem them, their opinions are noteworthy. When they address an issue or label a group, it matters. So, we do need to pay attention and report what they say. How we do so (with in text attribution or in Wikivoice) is the next question. Blueboar (talk) 13:05, 22 April 2026 (UTC)
Can't believe so much time is being wasted on this. More goofy allegations by the current US administration. O3000, Ret. (talk) 13:42, 22 April 2026 (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.

LLM sources: BiteBench, ML Systems Review, and Nutrition Research Review

Noticed these sources listed over at Draft:PlateLens which I believe to be entirely LLM-generated. The sites themselves each contain what at a glance looks like plausible journal / research content but have similar formats, and somehow have posts which predate the actual registration of the associated domains. I haven't checked if these are elsewhere, but figured I'd draw some attention to them here (and will appropriately list them on WP:CITEUNSEEN if we conclude anything here) - I want to preempt any of these being used as sources elsewhere if they are fake. (Examples: , , ASUKITE 15:37, 22 April 2026 (UTC)

Taking a second look, I'm fairly confident all 3 are pure marketing, whether or not they're LLM generated (but I'm convinced they are). ASUKITE 18:22, 22 April 2026 (UTC)

Articles predating the domain of their website is extremely sussy, indicates dishonesty, and should count strongly against their reliability. jp×g 🗯️ 21:29, 22 April 2026 (UTC)

Just on a quick look - ML Systems Review: Can't find any of the 'editorial staff', common names or absolutely nothing. Physical location is a commonly used 'virtual office' in Houston. Super-weird that they have a "How we handle PlateLens and other product-specific coverage" section in their methodology, which then humble brags on the product. Six day old domain. The five 'case studies' look like brief LLM junk. BiteBench has the same virtual office address as "ML Systems Review". Same templates, same LLM content. One week old domain, same host and proxy as other two sites. Nutrition Research Review: The ISSN (2812-4091) is invalid. Four week old domain. Could not verify any of the people involved. Material pre-dates site and almost always mentions the product being promoted.

Saw some other astro-turfing for the product on other sites as well, likely part of a SEO campaign. My opinion is this is completely fake; no comment on the product itself. Will take action when I get more time. Sam Kuru (talk) 22:58, 22 April 2026 (UTC)

The more I dig on this, the worse it gets. All of this appears to be a Claude-created set of imaginary sources and 'research'. The product in question and associated parent use the same virtual location as two of the sites. I've deleted the draft as promotional, and blocked the account. I suspect those sources will not pop up again, but please let me know if they do. Sam Kuru (talk) 13:43, 23 April 2026 (UTC)

CBS News revisited

I know the case of CBS News was brought up following the change of ownership and we, correctly (IMO), determined that no change of status would be appropriate. That said, for purposes of tracking these sorts of things, I want to note that the network has started credulously regaling viewers with the missing scientists conspiracy theory in TMZ-style vertical social media videos and in a sprawling monolith that matter-of-factly drops (in the last sentence) that there are "no links between any of the deaths" . On this basis alone, I think it's too soon to NewsNation it, but attentiveness may be helpful. Chetsford (talk) 17:39, 22 April 2026 (UTC)

Actually it's in the third paragraph of the article: "But those close to the various investigations into the disparate cases have said they see no links between them." Also, midway through the article is "CBS News interviewed several energy security and law enforcement experts. None saw an obvious link between the cases." --Animalparty! (talk) 18:07, 22 April 2026 (UTC)

Unfortunately there's not much we can do about newsmedia being sensationalist. If it descends beyond sensationalism and into any actual chicanery we might be having a different conversation. But, as things stand, this is the sort of garbage we long ago came to a consensus was allowable on this encyclopedia. Simonm223 (talk) 18:09, 22 April 2026 (UTC)

Yeah, I don't see this article as burying the lede. It appears pretty early as the lone sentence of a paragraph. Cadddr (talk) 18:21, 22 April 2026 (UTC)

And actually, this CNN article on the same subject seems much worse. Cadddr (talk) 18:51, 22 April 2026 (UTC)

"Actually it's in the third paragraph of the article" That's not the lead. If an article can make an authorial assertion, the assertion is the lead, not any attributed statements. Putting it in the last sentence of a thousands-word monolith is absolutely burying it. Chetsford (talk) 20:01, 22 April 2026 (UTC)

You should write a letter to the editor. --Animalparty! (talk) 20:37, 22 April 2026 (UTC)

Newsjunkie.net

newsjunkie.net: Linksearch en - meta - de - fr - simple - wikt:en - wikt:fr • Spamcheck • MER-C Cross-wiki • Reports: Links on en - COIBot - COIBot-Local • Discussions: tracked - advanced • COIBot-Local - COIBot-XWiki - Wikipedia: en - fr - de • Google: search • meta • Domain: domaintools • AboutUs.org • Live link: http://www.newsjunkie.net
Uses as a reference

Spammed by Pastier Pirate (talk · contribs), I'm not sure what to make of this website. All instances were added by this editor. The additions of interviews as references look like simple WP:REFSPAM.

Some of the references are to the newsjunkie database, such as https://www.newsjunkie.net/entity/emerson-college from Emerson College, used to verify "The school offered its first course in Journalism in 1924." --Hipal (talk) 19:48, 22 April 2026 (UTC)

Some of the additions do seem a bit spammy, but that's a behavioural issue for elsewhere. The source itself looks like it should be generally reliable, I don't see any reason to doubt it on the age of Emerson's journalism course. Spam isn't an issue of reliability though, if it continues then it should be reported to the blacklist. Specific blinks can always be whitelisted if needed. -- LCU ActivelyDisinterested «@» °∆t° 12:58, 23 April 2026 (UTC)

Thanks. I'll leave the database references. --Hipal (talk) 16:28, 23 April 2026 (UTC)

Bolsonarism on human rights and minority rights

The below text was added to the Bolsonarism article:

Bolsonaro through his political career has opposed human rights and minority rights in Brazil,^[1]^[2]^[3]^[4] and under his presidency human and minority rights were increasingly targeted by government policies.^[5]^[6]^[7]

@Wikieditorjs: keeps removing it stating these sources are exaggerated and sensationalist; Bolsonaro never did anything to harm minorities during his term. These sources come from people on the left of the political spectrum; They are clearly biased and non-neutral.

Can I have some opinions from people here if multiple academically published articles and books, alongside well respected specialist websites written by academics and scholars are reliable enough to support this inclusion? (I will also add that the specific actions by the Bolsonaro government that targeted various minority groups and human rights more broadly are detailed extensively in the Jair Bolsonaro#Political positions article). -- Cdjp1 (talk) 09:53, 23 April 2026 (UTC)

Additional sourcing I can point to includes Human Rights Watch, openDemocracy, The Guardian, IR scholar from King's College London, BBC, The Conversation, National Geographic, Al Jazeera, The New York Times, NBC News, The New Humanitarian, The Intercept, Deutsche Welle, Vox, Voice of America, Time magazine.

And I can find even more if I searched in scholarship and searched non-English press if needed. -- Cdjp1 (talk) 10:04, 23 April 2026 (UTC)

On that note, a couple of additional academic sources are:

Martins, Juliana T. de S.; Pereira, Anthony W. (2019). "The Politics of Human Rights". In Ames, Barry (ed.). Routledge Handbook of Brazilian Politics. Routledge. pp. 503–518. ISBN 978-0367659769. Furthermore, the NTC’s promotion of the norm of human rights was not uncontested. For example, Jair Bolsonaro, then a deputy of the Social Christian Party in the lower house of Congress, praised the torturer Colonel Carlos Brilhante Ustra as “the terror of Dilma Rousseff” in his speech before the vote on Dilma’s impeachment on April 17, 2016 [...] Jair Bolsonaro, the federal deputy from Rio de Janeiro mentioned earlier, articulates these anti-human rights sentiments. In a country in which the enforcement of law can be patchy and highly reliant on the commitment of public authorities (Barahona de Brito & Panizza 1998), the strength of such anti-human rights elements in the new ideological right threatens to roll back or at least stall some of the gains the movement has achieved.
Power, Timothy J.; Rodrigues-Silveira, Rodrigo (2019). "The Political Right and Party Politics". In Ames, Barry (ed.). Routledge Handbook of Brazilian Politics. Routledge. pp. 251–268. ISBN 978-0367659769. Over the past decade, leadership of the hard-line authoritarian faction has increasingly been assumed by the theatrical seven-term deputy Jair Bolsonaro, a former military officer. Originally an advocate for military families, Bolsonaro later adopted a radical public security agenda based on support for gun rights and open justification of extralegal killings. He is openly hostile to racial and sexual minorities and especially to human rights advocates, whom he sees as “defend ers of criminals.” Almost alone among national politicians, he unflinchingly defends the policies and actions of the 1964–1985 dictatorship. Although his nostalgia for anti-communism may have little purchase on the public imagination, his praise for two purported characteristics of military rule—higher levels of public safety and lower levels of official corruption—has proven very effective as a political tactic, and he has successfully leveraged legions of supporters on social media.

-- Cdjp1 (talk) 12:03, 23 April 2026 (UTC)

Yeah, this really just looks like WP:IDONTLIKEIT editing. You are correct. Simonm223 (talk) 12:05, 23 April 2026 (UTC)

And some of those edit summaries (especially this one) look like they were AI-generated. I note also that the lead paragraph talks about the neo-fascist nature of Bolsonarism, but the same editor removed it (and all of its sources) from the infobox. Black Kite (talk) 12:19, 23 April 2026 (UTC)

I can't see anything wrong with those sources either. Of course the ideology parameter in infobox is a matter of weighing sources and proportional presentation, more than it's a reliability issue, but there are a lot of reliable sources to back up what they have removed. -- LCU ActivelyDisinterested «@» °∆t° 12:37, 23 April 2026 (UTC)

In would have to agree, unless the editor can articulate a better argument this just sounds like IDONTLIKEIT. -- LCU ActivelyDisinterested «@» °∆t° 12:32, 23 April 2026 (UTC)

Looks like good sourcing overall. I agree that this was a IDONTLIKEIT revert. Cortador (talk) 14:12, 24 April 2026 (UTC)

References

[1]
Brancoli, Fernando (2024). Bolsonarismo: the global origins and future of Brazil's far right. Rutgers University Press. pp. 42–44. ISBN 978-1-9788-3855-0.
[2]
Bilenki, Thaís (9 June 2016). "Pré-candidato, Bolsonaro tenta criar a 'extrema direita light". Gazeta do Pantanal (in Brazilian Portuguese).
[3]
"Comissão da OAB repudia fala de presidente da Fundação Palmares". UOL (in Brazilian Portuguese). 28 November 2019.
[4]
Araújo, Thiago (5 October 2015). "Bolsonaro defende que a PM mate mais no Brasil". Exame (in Brazilian Portuguese).
[5]
Machado, Lia Zanotta (2020). "From the Time of Rights to the Time of Intolerance: The Neoconservative Movement and the Impact of the Bolsonaro Government: Challenges for Brazilian Anthropology". Vibrant, Virtual Brazilian Anthropology. 17 e17458: 25. doi:10.1590/1809-43412020v17d458.
[6]
Terto Neto, Ulisses (2020). "Bolsonaro, Populism and the Fascist Threat: The Role of Human Rights Defenders in Protecting Brazilian Democracy". Kairos: A Journal of Critical Symposium. 5 (1): 47–66 [49].
[7]
Holl, Jessica (27 September 2022). "Bolsonaro and Transitional Justice". Verfassungsblog.
Werneck, Jurema; Rosa, Erika Guevara (20 October 2021). "1,000 days of Bolsonaro and Brazil's grave human rights crisis". Amnesty International.
Azevedo, Gabriella Saad; Fonseca, Júlia Bussab (4 February 2020). "How Bolsonaro is undermining human rights protection mechanisms in Brazil". LSE Blogs. London School of Economics.
Buarque de Hollanda, C.; Costa da Silva, D.; Braga, P. S.; Milani, C. R. S. (2024). "From human rights to "righteous humans": Brazilian foreign policy in the Bolsonaro era". Journal of Human Rights. 23 (1): 38–53. doi:10.1080/14754835.2023.2276420.
Sánchez-Garzoli, Gimena (24 Jan 2019). "Bolsonaro Acts on Promises to Dismantle Human Rights Protections in Brazil". Washington Office on Latin America.

Lenta.ru articles before 12 March 2014

Southern Poverty Law Center (2)

SNOW close per thread above. A grand jury's review means nothing beyond the case going to trial, and Wikipedia is not beholden to the Trump admin. Stop beating the horse. Snokalok (talk) 21:30, 24 April 2026 (UTC)

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

A Grand Jury has found that Southern Poverty Law Center, a "generally reliable" perennial source,"paid informants engaged in the active promotion of racist groups at the same time that the SPLC was denouncing the same groups on its website." This fact is not in dispute, it was confirmed by a grand jury.

Next, the courts will determine if this behavior rises to the level of criminal fraud under US law, but sources don't necessarily have to be guilty of fraud in order to be unreliable on Wikipedia.

Previous discussions say this is "unproven" and "unreliable" but that this happened is not in dispute, the evidence was was independently reviewed by a grand jury, which makes it acceptable to use as factually correct evidence in the criminal case.

The average reader would very likely be persuaded by these findings, in addition to previous misconduct , that SPLC is not a generally reliable source, and earlier discussions should not have been closed in just seven hours, as this is still a developing story. Awwright (talk) 18:17, 24 April 2026 (UTC)

See multiple threads above. Slatersteven (talk) 18:18, 24 April 2026 (UTC)

I'm directly refuting the "multiple threads above" with new facts that ought to cause a different finding. Also, "Haven't we all got better things to do?" is not an acceptable reason to close a discussion. Awwright (talk) 18:24, 24 April 2026 (UTC)

What new facts? We already had a discussion about the indictment. Slatersteven (talk) 18:26, 24 April 2026 (UTC)

Previous discussions were closed for "Haven't we all got better things to do?" which is not a reason, and "Noone is backing this" which is both not a reason and untrue.

The previous discussions seemed to focus on the fact these are allegations and unproven; but in fact an independent grand jury reviewed the evidence, which was not discussed. Awwright (talk) 18:37, 24 April 2026 (UTC)

This fact is not in dispute, it was confirmed by a grand jury. The grand jury heard evidence from one side only. The defense was not allowed a lawyer, there were no defense witnesses, and there was no cross-examination of prosecution witnesses, if there were any. This is not a trial jury and confirmed no facts. A trial date hasn't even been set. Innocent until proved guilty. Note: This is one of numerous attacks against people and organizations disliked by the current administration. The investigation of the head of the Fed was dropped today. O3000, Ret. (talk) 18:28, 24 April 2026 (UTC)

An American grand jury indictment, of this nature, considering the political environment of the United States, is a deeply non-compelling reason for us to adjust our reliability standards. Simonm223 (talk) 18:34, 24 April 2026 (UTC)

Those are features of a criminal trial so that the defendant may claim that the facts do not show the behavior would rise to the level of a crime. The facts are nonetheless true, and admissible in court. Awwright (talk) 18:34, 24 April 2026 (UTC)

The subjects of a criminal trial are innocent until proven guilty. This is just a waste of peoples time. The Trump regime does not author reality. Simonm223 (talk) 18:39, 24 April 2026 (UTC)

Those are the features trials, criminal or civil. A grand jury is not a trial at all. They only decide if you can go to trial. Even if they do, the judge can also throw out the charges and avoid a trial. And your claim that the facts are "true" is way out of line. O3000, Ret. (talk) 18:41, 24 April 2026 (UTC)

The literal point of a trial is to settle matters of dispute, at the moment all that exists are allegations by the US government. Goverments are reliable for their attributed comment but don't get to decide fact, whether that's the US government or any other government. -- LCU ActivelyDisinterested «@» °∆t° 18:35, 24 April 2026 (UTC)

Criminal cases like this have two phases: first it goes to a grand jury, to review the evidence and see if it is sufficient and admissible; then it goes to a criminal trial, to see if the behavior constituted a crime. The former outcome is significant, and we are not interested in the latter. The proper place to review the facts and allow counter-testimony in determining if SPLC constitutes a reliable source is here. Awwright (talk) 18:41, 24 April 2026 (UTC)

I suggest you read WP:DROPTHESTICK. You already got a firm no at WP:RS/P and coming here immediately with the exact same non-argument is starting to look disruptive. Simonm223 (talk) 18:43, 24 April 2026 (UTC)

I see exactly two discussions opened to review the new facts and they were open for less than 8 hours. Awwright (talk) 18:54, 24 April 2026 (UTC)

The weight at a grand jury is only that the case might possibly be true, it in no way shows that the evidence is true. I'm sorry but you're simply wrong about this. Everything you've said has been rejected but multiple editors already, this discussion brings nothing new to discuss. -- LCU ActivelyDisinterested «@» °∆t° 18:44, 24 April 2026 (UTC)

Incorrect. You cannot admit untrue evidence into a court. It must be reviewed before the jury is even allowed to see it. Determining the truth of the evidence is the job of the grand jury, which came to this conclusion. Awwright (talk) 18:56, 24 April 2026 (UTC)

I don't agree with that, regardless see my comment below. -- LCU ActivelyDisinterested «@» °∆t° 18:58, 24 April 2026 (UTC)

Your belief that the allegations must be true for a grand jury to have taken them up is entirely irrelevant to source reliability. Simonm223 (talk) 19:00, 24 April 2026 (UTC)

That's getting silly. Of course untrue evidence is used in courts. That's why there must be a defense to challenge the evidence. O3000, Ret. (talk) 19:02, 24 April 2026 (UTC)

Unless we've missed something and the US has got to the show trial stage. -- LCU ActivelyDisinterested «@» °∆t° 19:06, 24 April 2026 (UTC)

We still allow a defense last I looked. We're not North Korea yet. O3000, Ret. (talk) 19:09, 24 April 2026 (UTC)

What you are saying is completely consistent with my point. Evidence may be reviewed by the defense before it goes to trial. It must be vetted by the judge or a grand jury before it goes to the jury. If bad evidence is inadvertently introduced, the jury is instructed to disregard it. If it is believed to affect the outcome, the whole trial can be nullified and it might be retried.

Eyewitness testimony, circumstantial evidence, and other subjective factors are legitimate things for a jury to weigh in determining if those factors show guilt, but we are not determining guilt of a crime here, a grand jury already found the evidence to represent a fact here. Awwright (talk) 19:17, 24 April 2026 (UTC)

What crime did they even allegedly commit that would impede on their reliability? Oxford University Press has been convicted of bribery crimes and that has no impact on their reliability for our purposes. PARAKANYAA (talk) 20:11, 24 April 2026 (UTC)

Even if the case was true, that the way they paid informants constitutes fraud because they didn't pay the correct amount of tax on it. I still fail to see how that effects their reliability, other than as a place to get accounting advice. The US government has been saying all kinds of things about the case, but the actual indictment is just a minor tax issue. The US government gets no special treatment, this is an international project. If other secondary reliable sources start to question the SLPC reliability then there would be reason discuss it, but what the US government believes (outside of the actual indictment) is of no importance in discussions of reliability. -- LCU ActivelyDisinterested «@» °∆t° 18:48, 24 April 2026 (UTC)

Are you claiming this is a tax issue? None of us would be persuaded by how they pay their taxes, nor is this part of the alleged crime. The indictment does not mention taxes, it charges SPLC with defrauding their donors, by claiming that when they placed a field informant with the Unite the Right rally to help organize it, that that constituted fraud to their donors. The fact they helped plan that rally is not in dispute; if that constitutes fraud is in dispute.

I am claiming that the typical Wikipedia reader would be greatly interested in removing sources known to lie in their reporting and about the nature of their stated mission, including SPLC, and requesting we continue discussion of this. Awwright (talk) 19:05, 24 April 2026 (UTC)

I don't see any point in entertaining this very silly argument any further. The answer is no, we will not be downgrading the reliability of SPLC as a source at this time. This is my final comment in this thread. Can somebody uninvolved please close this time sink? Simonm223 (talk) 19:08, 24 April 2026 (UTC)

Its literally the crime that is being alleged in the indictment, the only crime that is being alleged. If you're not aware of this it might be that you have been listing to the conspiratorial nonsense being stated by members of the current US administration. But that goes way beyond what is in the indictment, and is of no importance here. -- LCU ActivelyDisinterested «@» °∆t° 19:08, 24 April 2026 (UTC)

That they used paid informants was known before this point, and something they stopped several years ago. Using paid informants isn't a crime, even if it's ethically dubious. -- LCU ActivelyDisinterested «@» °∆t° 19:11, 24 April 2026 (UTC)

Indeed, it may not be a crime—which is why there's going to be a trial on it. However it is certainly disqualifying of a reliable source. Awwright (talk) 19:26, 24 April 2026 (UTC)

Can you point to any part of a policy or guideline that says that using paid informants makes a source unreliable? Because it's not in anything I've read. -- LCU ActivelyDisinterested «@» °∆t° 19:28, 24 April 2026 (UTC)

No, it isn't, journalists do it all the time. PARAKANYAA (talk) 20:10, 24 April 2026 (UTC)

Do you have reliable secondary sources stating that they lied in their reporting and about their stated mission? Excluding statements from the US government, because again the US government doesn't get to decide on these matters. -- LCU ActivelyDisinterested «@» °∆t° 19:14, 24 April 2026 (UTC)

In 2015, they added Dr. Ben Caron so its "Extremist File" over his views on marriage. They retracted and apologized.
In 2016, their "Ten Days After" report leads with the "hate incident" of a church being burned down ; however it was determined to be done by one of their own members and was sentenced in 2019 . No retraction has been published.
In 2018, they included British Muslim reformer Maajid Nawaz in "Field Guide to Anti-Muslim Extremists", causing a $3.3 million USD settlement
In 2018, they maliciously suggested several journalists and commentators were linked to Russia, including Max Blumenthal, Ben Norton, Rania Khalek, Tim Pool, and Brian Becker. After a legal threat , they posted a retraction and apology.

This is just in ~10 minutes of searching. Many other sources have been demoted for less. Awwright (talk) 19:22, 24 April 2026 (UTC)

The last RFC on the SLPC was in 2025, see archive 481, all of this was known before that point. Also thay would be the Tim Pool who famously got caught up in 2024 Tenet Media investigation that showed he had been paid by a company setup to push Russian disinformation. -- LCU ActivelyDisinterested «@» °∆t° 19:27, 24 April 2026 (UTC)

This is false and a red herring. Tim Pool et. al. were listed as the victims, being deceived by an RT scheme in the Justice Department indictment. The activity was laundered through a Canadian-Hong Kong citizen. The case was later dropped. Awwright (talk) 19:38, 24 April 2026 (UTC)

Given that multiple RS are reporting on this story, this is fair reason to re-open discussions.

The Ten Days After report was not considered in those archives. I would read the report and think it was a legitimate hate crime, but it's just not true.

How many more examples would you like me to come up with in order to admit that SPLC is not reliable? I'll do it, if you are willing to be persuaded. Awwright (talk) 19:46, 24 April 2026 (UTC)

Is calling them "extremists" wrong? I would dispute that. Extremism is wholly opinion so it cannot be wrong or right.

Yes, at the time authorities thought it was voter intimidation. The SPLC says authorities thought that - that's true, and they don't say it in their own voice! What is the problem?

Again, it is a matter of opinion, how can that be wrong?

2024 Tenet Media investigation, hm. PARAKANYAA (talk) 20:08, 24 April 2026 (UTC)

Even if they are found guilty, taking the evidence at face value it's not like it would be a reliability issue. The crimes are financial in nature, primarily; no one has alleged they printed anything false. PARAKANYAA (talk) 20:03, 24 April 2026 (UTC)

I think Reason has a nice take on this. Basically, if true this is not good but we simply don't know enough at this time to decide if this is anything more than an accounting issue. We need to be very careful about claims that money to informants = funding the groups under investigation. We also really should just wait until the smoke clears up and we can see what the evidence really is. Given the indictment there may be subpoenas for internal communications. Will those turn up information like we saw with Fox News? We don't know. So long as we don't know let's just hold back and wait. We shouldn't be in any hurry. BTW, this applies both to assessments of reliability and what content we should have in the article space. We can either err on the side of over emphasizing or under emphasizing. Yes, the SPLC isn't a BLP but we should still follow the idea of do no harm. If we undersell the issue we can always add more in the future when presumably we will have more sources and evidence on which to draw. Springee (talk) 19:26, 24 April 2026 (UTC)

How many times am I going to have to make the same point about this. It's like whack-a-mole. Even accepting the indictment at face-value so what? The indictment alleges that SPLC deceived banks about the purposes of payments. For that reason, I propose that we probably should not cite SPLC's accounting department as a reliable source for facts about the purposes of payments. (To be sure, there may be other reasons for doubting SPLC's reliability, but this development is a red herring.) Sławomir Biały (talk) 19:44, 24 April 2026 (UTC)

To be fair, the use of paid informants in journalism and law enforcement can be problematic and should give us pause. However, at this point we simply don't have more than theoretical concern. Hence why I'm going to keep advocating for people to wait and see. Springee (talk) 19:53, 24 April 2026 (UTC)

If we treated paid informants as a reason for unreliability all sources that have covered crime or the far-right are disallowed. It is inherent to the information about it. It simply is not a concern for us. PARAKANYAA (talk) 20:09, 24 April 2026 (UTC)

Also a large number of interviews with government officials throughout Europe. I personally think that checkbook journalism a problem, but it is still how most of the world (the parts outside the US) does things. MrOllie (talk) 20:13, 24 April 2026 (UTC)

As already explained, simply being indicted is not going to change how we treat SPLC as a RS that should be used with attribution. Other reliable sources have inside people they get information from, paid or not, and we don't question that.

The only thing that I could see changing this is if the claims that SLPC are using donor funds, inserting people into the organizations they are monitoring, and then have those people on the inside create the strife that leads to racial hatred (an extremely far fetched claim), then that would be an issue. But it has to be proven out through a court case, we don't take indictments as facts. It should be noted that DOJ is claiming fraud , lying about the use of funds (and then trying to make those longshot claims of inside manipulation), but if that's all that it ends up being, even then that would not change how we should treat SLPC. Masem (t) 20:13, 24 April 2026 (UTC)

As I said before, if you know anything about the groups in question it is fairly obvious who many of the informants are, the framing of them inserting people into the organizations to stir up trouble is obviously untrue and not what the people were doing. That isn't what the indictment is about but some of the officials framed their discussions that way, it's strange. PARAKANYAA (talk) 20:21, 24 April 2026 (UTC)

Put a moratorium on this nonsense until the trial is over at minimum. Cortador (talk) 20:15, 24 April 2026 (UTC)

I have topic banned Awwright from the SPLC. ScottishFinnishRadish (talk) 20:19, 24 April 2026 (UTC)

Someone uninvolved is welcome to close this as it's pretty much WP:1AM and the 1 is gone. Besides, it's boring. O3000, Ret. (talk) 20:24, 24 April 2026 (UTC)

The indictment does not mention taxes, it charges SPLC with defrauding their donors, by claiming that when they placed a field informant with the Unite the Right rally to help organize it, that that constituted fraud to their donors. The fact they helped plan that rally is not in dispute; if that constitutes fraud is in dispute. Yeah, no. I'll be closing this. Gotitbro (talk) 20:29, 24 April 2026 (UTC)

User:Awwright has provided a number of reasons--with sources--demonstrating why the SPLC has proven itself unreliable. I support depricating this highly biased source. Magnolia677 (talk) 21:23, 24 April 2026 (UTC)

They have been topic banned from the subject, and can no longer reply to any new comments. It's generally bad form to talk about editors in a way they can't reply too. -- LCU ActivelyDisinterested «@» °∆t° 21:29, 24 April 2026 (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.

By all means remove my comment if it is not allowed, but A grand jury's review means nothing beyond the case going to trial sounds a little rash to me. It means that there is probable cause; in other words reasonable grounds to suspect a crime has been comitted. As awful as the administration is, I don't know if it is wise to conflate it with a grand jury decision, much less to completely ban discussion of the case on Wikipedia, where it is of immense interest, until it has concluded. WP:SNOW is for circumventing tedious bureaucratic conversations about proposals that are doomed to fail; it does not mean that unpopular things cannot be discussed. Indeed, at times unpopular things are the most ripe for conversation. A much more fundamental rule to keep in mind is WP:NOTCENSORED. Anyway, just some thoughts, which I guess will now be lost to the diffs of time. Wh1pla5h99 (talk) 22:14, 24 April 2026 (UTC)

Nobody is saying the topic can't be discussed, just that at the current moment, the discussions about SPLC's reliability as a source cannot reasonably be concluded, as it is too early. These discussions are still relevant and informative, and there is nothing stopping anybody from starting a new discussion or RfC elsewhere, however it may be a good idea to wait until a final decision is made. I'm only barely informed on the topic but wanted to reply (and to let you know that the reply gadget does not work here, which may impede others' responses). Two other similar discussions closed very recently, with another editor trying to revive them (however passionate they were about the matter), is probably an edge case for WP:SNOW, but I don't personally believe the second necro of this discussion was going to succeed. I think any productive debate about the SPLC's reliability will need to reach a wider portion of the community, and even then, doing so before the entire matter has been settled would be premature. Just my thoughts. I have zero desire to join in this debate myself as I am still wrapping my head around it. ASUKITE 00:22, 25 April 2026 (UTC)

I also don't know where to leave a comment because I see three closed discussions on this page. I have no idea if they were paying informants or if they were actually funding racists, but I want to discuss it. Guz13 (talk) 00:50, 25 April 2026 (UTC)

For what it's worth, I don't think it's productive to close non-RfC discussions like this. Certainly if any random editor can close the discussion why shouldn't any other editor be able to revert the close. This isn't a RfC after all. I think the fast close of the original discussion is a problem because a number of editors may want to weigh in. I've advocated for waiting for more information to come out but I don't think we need to wait for a trial to conclude. As a hypothetical, if records are subpoenaed and they include the SPLC leaders saying they are going to "make it up" to "drive donations", yeah, I think that would be a big issue. Of course if that comes out I would expect RSs to report on it and analyze what it means with respect to the SPLC's credibility. Basically, we don't need to wait for the trial even though we do need to wait for more information and RSs to process that information for us.

BTW, I also think it's bad for non-admins to close discussion threads like this. Or more to the point, such closings should be reversible just like an article edit. Springee (talk) 01:02, 25 April 2026 (UTC)

They are reversible. Everything on WP is. Non-admin closure IMO is something I have personally always been careful about, but that was knowing there are venues to dispute my closures. I'll agree with you on the matter of non-admin closures, and note that in areas without such a venue, that leaves some strain on our general-purpose noticeboards such as ANI, but at the end of the day anybody willing to make such a decision is probably knowingly risking that somebody else might dispute it, admin or not. I am generally against "closing" discussions, but could see the merit of closing this one, on this particular venue, and am willing (again) to point out that there are other options, such as an RfC, but anybody willing to go through the trouble of putting one together would best avail themselves of an argument complete with facts and sources which are not "pending" further developments. It's also worth noting that this attention may not affect WP's overall consensus of use of SPLC as a source, but it is likely that individual editors will still use caution, and it is always my opinion that Wikipedia should always focus on the long term and avoid sudden changes. Look how long it took us to come up with an LLM policy, and it's still just barely fleshed-out... I do also agree that we don't need to wait for a trial outcome, but further developments (such as the hypotheticals you posed) could also sway the argument. Everything here is subjective anyway. ASUKITE 01:41, 25 April 2026 (UTC)

I urge everyone who believes that discussion should be held now to please look into how grand juries and indictments work in the United States. There is a reason why Chief Judge of the New York Court of Appeals Sol Wachtler famously said that district attorneys could get grand juries to "indict a ham sandwich" - they're not adversarial processes and the district attorney is allowed to present all of their arguments and evidence with no opportunity for the person they're seeking to indict to make any defense or objections. (That, by the way, is why it's so extraordinary when a district attorney fails to obtain an indictment - they've chosen to pursue the indictment and were able to make their strongest argument to the grand jury without any defenses or objections and they still weren't able to convince them.) ElKevbo (talk) 00:58, 25 April 2026 (UTC)

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