Wikipedia:Reliable sources/Noticeboard/Archive 251

As per this colloquy with Ponyo, Drmies, and Doug Weller regarding Joseph diGenova, I remain unconvinced as to why diGenova -- a former US Attorney for the District of Columbia, a former Independent Counsel of the United States, a former Special Counsel to the U.S. House of Representatives, a former Chief Counsel to the U.S. Senate Committee on Rules and Administration, and a former Counsel to the U.S. Senate Select Committee on Intelligence (the Church Committee) -- is an unreliable source and a "conspiracy theorist". Indeed, I find his dissection ("The Politicization of the FBI") of the scandals involving Comey and McCabe and others to be so instructive (see ) that I am almost tempted to invoke IAR. Quis separabit? 00:33, 27 October 2018 (UTC)

From his Wikipedia bio: He is known for promoting conspiracy theories about the Department of Justice and the FBI.^{[1][2][3][4][5][6][7][8]}

So yeah, a documented unreliable source. --Calton | Talk 23:26, 28 October 2018 (UTC)

@Calton :: Aside from CIRCULAR, which is strenuously discouraged, if not proscribed outright, sources such as New York Magazine and CNBC are blatantly biased liberal-left media organs. There is still no reason the url link to diGenova's analysis of James Comey and the FBI's handling of the "Russian collusion" and Hillary Clinton server controversies in Hillsdale College's respected Imprimis, should not be allowed to remain as a reflink or embedded external link. Let the reader come to his or her own conclusions. Quis separabit? 19:05, 30 October 2018 (UTC)

While I'm unconvinced that a reliable major news organisation like CNBC is "blatantly biased liberal-left" whether a source is biased has no relevance; what matters is if they are reliable and it is quite a stretch, to say the least, that the Washington Post or CNBC is unreliable. Since we have reliable sources questioning his credibility - in relation specifically to the FBI i.e the content your trying to include - it is fair to say that his comments are not reliable. Galobtter (pingó mió) 19:28, 30 October 2018 (UTC)

Aside from misapplying CIRCULAR in a clumsy manner, which is strenuously discouraged, perhaps you missed I -- quite deliberately -- INCLUDED THE SOURCES FOR DiGENOVA BEING AN CONSPIRACY-THEORY-SPOUTING UNRELIABLE SOURCE. That you like something he wrote because it happens to agree with your prejudices is immaterial. And the less said about your tired claims about known reliable sources being "blatantly biased" the better. --Calton | Talk 21:10, 30 October 2018 (UTC)

In Adolf Hitler and vegetarianism, the following claim is made:

"Marlene von Exner, who became Hitler's dietitian in 1943, reportedly added bone marrow to his soups without his knowledge because she "despised" his vegetarian diet."

The source for that claim is listed as:^[1]

Three questions:

[1] Is this a reliable source for this claim? (see the better source tag on the cite).

[2] Can anyone confirm that the source actually says this? The link leads to an article excerpt that doesn't support the claim, but it may be supported elsewhere in the work.

[3] What source does Bee Wilson cite for this claim? She was born in 1974, so she must have gotten it from somewhere.

--Guy Macon (talk) 17:40, 27 October 2018 (UTC)

There's a 2004 book: "and she simmered a bone in his soup now and then."^[1] --tronvillain (talk) 18:20, 27 October 2018 (UTC)

Wait, it's originally (in English) 2003, written in 1947. I suspect it's where Wilson gets the story. --tronvillain (talk) 18:25, 27 October 2018 (UTC)

Ah, and the New Statesman piece actually does say that: "Little did he realise that the extra kick derived from Marrowbone. Exner secretly added it because she despised his diet."^[1] Looking a little further, since the New Statesman piece seems to be from 1998, it would have had to be something like Voices From the Bunker (1990), which has "'He can't live long on food like that,' she used to say, and she secretly put marrow bone in his vegetable soup."^[2] --tronvillain (talk) 21:27, 29 October 2018 (UTC)

Rather than cite arcane policy and guidelines, I will attempt to appeal to common sense. If one actually wanted to know how vegetarian Hitler was beyond any reasonable doubt, would a diligent scholar rely on an article by the food critic of the New Statesman? No, you would wonder where she got her information and her article would be the beginning of your journey not the end. A much better source would be biographers of Hitler who presumably researched all the relevant primary and secondary sources on his diet. I think too often editors search for the facts they want instead of going to the best sources and reporting whatever facts they find. TFD (talk) 18:21, 29 October 2018 (UTC)

Until the Final Hour is a memoir which in itself would not be considered a reliable source. TFD (talk) 19:36, 29 October 2018 (UTC)

Wait, which guideline establishes that memoirs are not considered reliable sources? It would presumably be a primary source, but primary sources aren't inherently unreliable, though there are considerations as per WP:PRIMARY and WP:RSPRIMARY. Is there another guideline specifically about memoirs? --tronvillain (talk) 20:13, 29 October 2018 (UTC)

tronvillain, RS mentions fact-checking, a record of accuracy and independence of the subject. Hitler's secretary was not independent and cites no support for her statement. As you should be aware, Nazis did not have a good record of reliability. The international Jewish conspiracy is regarded as a conspiracy theory, they lied about Polish provocation preceding the invasion, they lied about their intentions in Munich, they falsified news stories during the war and the list goes on. Also, it's second hand - supposedly a cook told her the story. TFD (talk) 05:24, 30 October 2018 (UTC)

I feel like you didn't even read WP:PRIMARY and WP:RSPRIMARY: "Policy: Unless restricted by another policy, primary sources that have been reputably published may be used in Wikipedia, but only with care, because it is easy to misuse them. Any interpretation of primary source material requires a reliable secondary source for that interpretation. A primary source may only be used on Wikipedia to make straightforward, descriptive statements of facts that can be verified by any educated person with access to the primary source but without further, specialized knowledge" and Primary sources are often difficult to use appropriately. Although they can be both reliable and useful in certain situations, they must be used with caution in order to avoid original research. Although specific facts may be taken from primary sources, secondary sources that present the same material are preferred. Large blocks of material based purely on primary sources should be avoided. All interpretive claims, analyses, or synthetic claims about primary sources must be referenced to a secondary source, rather than original analysis of the primary-source material by Wikipedia editors." Those are significant caveats, but are not "memoirs are not reliable sources." --tronvillain (talk) 15:24, 30 October 2018 (UTC)

I have read it, while you appear to have misread it. By your reading, we can use Mein Kampf to add into articles that the Jews control the world. TFD (talk) 09:47, 31 October 2018 (UTC)

Wow. No, that's not even vaguely my reading. It could potentially be a reliable source for Hitler saying "that Jews control the world", but there are many reliable secondary sources for that, making it irrelevant. My reading is that nothing in either of those guidelines say that memoirs can't be reliable sources (in this case, for "reportedly added bone marrow to his soups without his knowledge") given the established caveats, and you've provided nothing to establish otherwise except a strange strawman. --tronvillain (talk) 22:29, 31 October 2018 (UTC)

• Is this more of the 'disputed' status at list of vegetarians again? Only in death does duty end (talk) 21:28, 29 October 2018 (UTC)

  Afraid so! The discussion at Wikipedia:Neutral_point_of_view/Noticeboard#Disputing_Hitler's_vegetarianism didn't get much traction so Mateo refused to accept the outcome ("Wikipedia works by consensus and reliable sources, not a random 2-1 majority!"). I started an RFC at Talk:List_of_vegetarians#RfC_about_Hitler_being_a_vegetarian because I couldn't see another way to resolve this issue. On one level this is a trivial debate (after all, we are discussing the diet of a man who took the world into war and murdered millions of people!) but for some reason it is an element of his life that seems to attract a lot of attention so the information should be correct. Betty Logan (talk) 03:31, 30 October 2018 (UTC)

  There are two main reasons why this draws attention. First, to many people, including myself, it is interesting that one of histories largest mass murderers could be unimaginably cruel towards humans yet be concerned with the welfare of animals, be a vegetarian, be anti-smoking, promote exercise, etc. We like our villains to be cartoon villains - 100% evil in every possible way. Of course it was just some humans and some animals -- he didn't murder members of his "master race" nor did he seem to show much concern for rats. Modern vegans are much more consistent. The second reason is that modern vegetarians don't want Hitler to be "on their team". (The dog lovers don't seem to have a problem with Hitler loving dogs...) So we see such silliness as claiming that Hitler's food taster and dietician are not authorities on what Hitler ate. --Guy Macon (talk) 04:44, 30 October 2018 (UTC)

  I figured out why the dog lovers never showed up to dispute Hitler being a dog lover. They are too busy having fun with their dogs to bother. Who's a good dog? You're a good dog! Yes you are! Yes you are! --Guy Macon (talk) 22:04, 31 October 2018 (UTC)

Reliable edit or not? Peer-reviewed sources:

• Krzewińska, Maja (October 2018). Ancient genomes suggest the eastern Pontic-Caspian steppe as the source of western Iron Age nomads. Science Advances.{{cite book}}: CS1 maint: year (link)
• Nikitin, Alexey G. (October 2018). Solving the origins of ancient Eurasian Nomadic Warriors with Genetics (PDF). Biology Department, Grand Valley State University.{{cite book}}: CS1 maint: year (link)

--Alperich (talk) 20:14, 31 October 2018 (UTC) Well they were published in a peer reviewed science journal, so not red flags.Slatersteven (talk) 16:09, 2 November 2018 (UTC)

I monitor links to unreliable sources. Vast numbers of them. I think it would be helpful to have a talk page edit filter to warn people that the source they are about to propose is generally considered unreliable. All the sites should be included in the filter (with /blog or whatever for sites like HuffPo where only blog content is unreliable). This would be a Warn filter, so they can still propose the link if they feel they must. Guy (Help!) 11:02, 5 November 2018 (UTC)

Seems fair, buit this might be best at (say) village pump. Lets get a wider input.Slatersteven (talk) 11:13, 5 November 2018 (UTC)

I think I proposed something like that before but I cannot remember where. Basically, it would mean expanding Special:AbuseFilter/899 and setting it to also warn people which I doubt has consensus (it was a hard-fought discussion to enable warnings for The Daily Mail (Special:AbuseFilter/869)). Maybe though 899 can be expanded to monitor these links so you and other interested editors can easily find such additions. Regards SoWhy 11:33, 5 November 2018 (UTC)

I found some links to freemarketnews.com: Linksearch en (insource) - meta - de - fr - simple - wikt:en - wikt:fr • Spamcheck • blacklist hits • MER-C X-wiki • gs • Reports: Links on en - COIBot - COIBot-Local • Discussions: tracked - advanced - RSN • COIBot-Link, Local, & XWiki Reports - Wikipedia: en - fr - de • Google: search • meta • Domain: domaintools • AboutUs.com , this is now defunct (the domain is up for sale) and despite the fact that it was "Driven By Truth", I can't find any evidence it was ever a reliable source. I removed the references from mainspace. Guy (Help!) 12:04, 5 November 2018 (UTC)

Would the website Threestooges.net be considered reliable? I occasionally see it cited in articles about actors. After reading the site's About This Site page and the About Team Stooge page, I am inclined to think it is not reliable. Eddie Blick (talk) 01:59, 5 November 2018 (UTC)

• It is more or less a personal website, at the very best a fansite with no real editorial oversight. Not reliable in a Wikipedia sense. — Frayæ (Talk/Spjall) 02:06, 5 November 2018 (UTC)

Thank you, Frayae. I appreciate the feedback. Eddie Blick (talk) 13:00, 5 November 2018 (UTC)

One other thing that I forgot to ask. When I encounter that site used as a source, should I delete it or leave it but mark it in some way? Eddie Blick (talk) 14:45, 5 November 2018 (UTC)

You can remove it. Or you can put a {{better source needed}} tag directly after it. It is up to you whether to leave it or not. If you want to replace it with another source that is also good. — Frayæ (Talk/Spjall) 16:21, 5 November 2018 (UTC)

A review authored by Klas-Göran Karlsson was published by https://www.levandehistoria.se/, which seems to be a blog. The artcile about the author is a stub, and I failed to find any sources about this author. This review has zero citations in google scholar. Author does not seem to be an expert in the field. Is this source reliable for the article Mass killings under communist regimes and Crimes against humanity under communist regimes? In the latter article, it is the only source that defines the article's subject as a separate category.--Paul Siebert (talk) 20:42, 5 November 2018 (UTC)

Paul Siebert, not a blog, it's part of the Swedish department of culture:. Gråbergs Gråa Sång (talk) 21:48, 5 November 2018 (UTC)

Yeah, I don't think it's correct to call this a "review published on a blog". Michael Shoenals is the co-author and he's a fairly well-known historian of China. Klas-Göran Karlsson appears to have published books on Soviet history. Nblund ^talk 21:59, 5 November 2018 (UTC)

The Forum for Living History appears to be a Swedish national institute, so I don't know that "blog" is accurate. He may not meet WP:PROF though - the current page almost certainly doesn't. --tronvillain (talk) 22:11, 5 November 2018 (UTC)

Good. Thanks.--Paul Siebert (talk) 22:15, 5 November 2018 (UTC)

@Binksternet @Muboshgu --- Are Fox News and the Associated Press not considered reliable sources anymore (see , , ). And we may as well have a look here to see if any issues arise. Thanks, Quis separabit? 03:45, 6 November 2018 (UTC)

• macrotrends.net: Linksearch en (insource) - meta - de - fr - simple - wikt:en - wikt:fr • Spamcheck • blacklist hits • MER-C X-wiki • gs • Reports: Links on en - COIBot - COIBot-Local • Discussions: tracked - advanced - RSN • COIBot-Link, Local, & XWiki Reports - Wikipedia: en - fr - de • Google: search • meta • Domain: domaintools • AboutUs.com
• Afus199620 (talk · contribs)

I saw the user spamming the site as reference to past financial result of listed companies. The site seems financial data aggregator , but is that reliable source. (It can go further that is there any possible WP:COI and WP:NOTHERE). Matthew hk (talk) 13:25, 29 October 2018 (UTC)

I am not spamming. The source is reliable for financial data.--Afus199620 (talk) 14:54, 29 October 2018 (UTC)

Not a reliable source. The site clearly aggregates data from other sources with insufficient information about the site's providers, their expertise and their specific methodology. Without such essential information the site's alleged reliability cannot be assessed and it is unreliable by default. Anyone can create such a site based on publicly available data and data APIs, so reliability must be shown with verifiable proof (or atleast some substantial evidence). Also, with the large amount of sponsored content the site's primary focus seems less on data and more on advertising. If primary statistical data is needed, it should be taken either directly from the primary source(s) or from an acknowledged secondary expert source. GermanJoe (talk) 18:12, 2 November 2018 (UTC)

Fair enough, such section was not quite encyclopedic as a collection of stats., i may not object the section if quoting Bloomberg or citing figures from primary source directly (plus more secondary source for not failing WP:NOTSTATS), but in this section using this source macrotrends.net was quite questionable . Matthew hk (talk) 04:34, 6 November 2018 (UTC)

Is Defense Visual Information Distribution Service a reliable source. It appears that at least some of its content is submitted by readers. It has been cited in Carrabelle, Florida, here,

Coast Guard Station Carabelle, a small boat and rescue station of the U.S. Coast Guard, is located on the city's waterfront. The station is assigned to Coast Guard District 8, Coast Guard Sector Mobile, and is also the homeport for U.S. Coast Guard Cutter Seahawk (WPB 87323), an 87 foot Marine Protector-class patrol boat and her crew.^[1]

. - Donald Albury 12:14, 5 November 2018 (UTC)

For that content? Seems reliable enough. Their FAQ says "All content on the DVIDS hub website is created and submitted by US Military personnel, US Government agencies, and contractors operating in the US Army Central Area of Responsibility, including Iraq, Afghanistan, and throughout the world" and "Contact your Unit Commander or NCOIC to determine if your unit is already registered for DVIDS submission. If not, your unit must first be registered to use the DVIDS system. Contact the DVIDS Training Chief for assistance in this process. Once your unit is online, you may submit content subject to proper release authority through your chain of command." It doesn't appear that anyone can just put up random content. --tronvillain (talk) 17:42, 5 November 2018 (UTC)

Thanks. I didn't look hard enough, and missed the FAQ. - Donald Albury 18:27, 5 November 2018 (UTC)

Who are they?Slatersteven (talk) 11:05, 6 November 2018 (UTC)

Source: CHMIELNICKI, BOGDAN ZINOVI

Article: Pogrom

Content: An encyclopedia, written over a hundred years ago (1901-1906) is used to reinforce the statement "The first atrocities against Jewish civilians, on a genocidal scale of destruction, were committed during the Khmelnytsky Pogroms of 1648–1657 in present-day Ukraine". In addition to the question that it does not contain the words " the first", "genocide" and "pogrom" (although some users successfully find them), there is the question - should we use such a source to support such statements?

I, in principle, agree with the statement made in the previous discussion: it "should never be used except (1) to illustrate the historical views of something at the time they were written, , with the article making clear the fact that it is very unlikely to still be the current view, or (2) for the basic plain facts about the biography of a person or the basic description of a place or the like, with care taken to see that they have not been contradicted or basically changed by later work."

I immediately see in this article two gross factual errors:

1. The article states that "Chmielnicki made the Jew a go-between in his transactions with the peasants of Little Russia." This is a complete nonsense. Before the uprising Khmelnitsky was not at all the ruler of Ukraine or any of its significant parts. He was only a Sotnik (Captain) who had little influence (Poles raided his estate with impunity).
2. The article states that rebels "massacred about three hundred thousand Jews". Modern studies estimate the entire Jewish population of the entire Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth at 200 thousand. The Jewish population of Ukraine is estimated at 40-51 thousand (See Khmelnytsky Uprising#Jews and refs there).

More modern Jewish Encyclopedias are much more balanced, and they usually have more detailed and accurate coverage of historical events (as in the case of the Khmelnytsky Uprising). I believe that the use of the Jewish Encyclopedia of 1901-1906 should be significantly limited.--Nicoljaus (talk) 09:15, 2 November 2018 (UTC)

• Comment Nicoljaus is forum-shopping now. He asked for a 3O - which I provided - and he didn't like the answer and proceeded to insist that my opinion was not offered in good faith. Simonm223 (talk) 12:49, 2 November 2018 (UTC)

• You mean this discussion [ was a forum shopping too? And the cited words of DGG was said because he just "didn't like the answer"? We have a problem with the using of outdated Encyclopedia. It should be solved.--Nicoljaus (talk) 14:39, 2 November 2018 (UTC)

• The results of an archived discussion from August 2015 (a time when I wasn't actually active on Wikipedia for an extended period) have absolutely no bearing on whether or not you are forum shopping. You had a content dispute. You reached out through a Wikipedia mechanism for a resolution that dispute. That resolution did not provide the answer you wanted. You then reached out to a different mechanism. That's forum shopping. And I might be more charitable if you hadn't been so quick to breach WP:AGF the second I gave an answer you didn't like at article talk. Simonm223 (talk) 14:58, 2 November 2018 (UTC)

• I like your stories about WP:AGF, but this is none other than Yaniv, whose opinion you so strongly supported, sent me here: --Nicoljaus (talk) 14:19, 6 November 2018 (UTC)

On David_Wolfe_(entrepreneur) we have two claims - that he is a flat earther and that gravity is toxic - which are in turn supported by two refs, American Council on Science and Health Blog and The West Australian. My problem with the two sources - in particular with the American Council on Science and Health Blog - is that they were published after we placed those two claims in the article, and I'm worried that they may have taken the claim from us. Given that they were posted long after we wrote that Wolfe is a flat earther, are those sources reliable? If not, would it be better to go with alternative sources which may come directly from Wolfe, be more independent of our article, or which predate us making those claims? I have found an article by Wolfe where he seems to state that gravity is toxic, but I'm having a bit more trouble with the flat earth claim - there is a strong possibility that he did say that at the Lightning in a Bottle festival, but the sources for that are a bit more difficult. - Bilby (talk) 00:15, 6 November 2018 (UTC)

You replaced the more reliable source (the West Australian) with Wolfe's own blog where he says this (how his own blog can be a source for criticism of his position is quite beyond me, but that is a different question).

You appear to have no doubt about the content -- that he believes the earth is flat and that gravity is toxic.

You have provided no evidence that either the ACSH or the West Australian are citing Wikipedia.

There is nothing in this objection. It is a complete waste of time. Jytdog (talk) 00:30, 6 November 2018 (UTC)

I do have some doubt about the Earth is flat claim, as in a post on his website he describes Flat Earther's as "Flat Earth consipracy theorists", which at least raises some doubt. I think it is reasonable to look for a source which is not circular. As to the ACSH, which is my main concern, it contains a series of accusations against Wolfe which mirror our article at the time. In regard to the West Australian, I'm ok with keeping it, but I'd like to add Wolfe's own words as a clear statement of what he believes on the assumption that it is unquestionably independent of what we wrote. - Bilby (talk) 00:35, 6 November 2018 (UTC)

If you have any doubt it is from sheer lack of trying. In this old version of our article, there was this youtube video from him where he goes on and on about how "ridiculous" the idea is, that the earth is round and how work coming out of NASA is one big long hoax and explaining his "evidence" that the earth is flat. There are many sources for this. There is zero doubt about this. Zero. Jytdog (talk) 00:51, 6 November 2018 (UTC)

I've watched that video. To be clear, my interest is in adding the best sources, not in necessarily removing the claims. With that video. it isn't posted by Wolfe - it was posted by an anonymous YouTuber called "IbelieveIcanfly", appears to have been edited, and doesn't explain where it came from. It has no context. The best I can track down is it is probably from the 2016 Lightning in a Bottle festival, so I'm following those leads to see if I can get a reliable source on what he said there. This is counter to the article he posted on his website where he discusses the Authagraph projection as the best map because of how it translates an oblate spheroid, which raises some doubt as to what he believes. If we can improve the sourcing we can remove concerns. - Bilby (talk) 01:17, 6 November 2018 (UTC)

I'll tell you what. Try to have the West Australian correct their story. You can link to the correction at the Wolfe talk page and then we'll remove that source. Until then this remains a complete waste of time. Jytdog (talk) 01:43, 6 November 2018 (UTC)

• Just the fact that something appeared on Wikipedia before it appeared in a reliable source doesn't make it suddenly unreliable. If there's actually strong evidence that it was cribbed from Wikipedia, e.g. the exact or near exact wording of the article also was used in the source, that might be a different story, but we can't presume everything published after it appeared on Wikipedia was gotten from Wikipedia. Seraphimblade ^{Talk to me} 00:47, 6 November 2018 (UTC)

I agree. I had flags raised because the American Council on Science and Health Blog lists a series of accusations against Wolfe which mirror the list in our article at the time, and provides no sources. - Bilby (talk) 01:21, 6 November 2018 (UTC)

• I haven't read all of the above, so apologies if this is known already, but he says something in this video about flat-earthism. Hard to know what he's saying exactly, but "there's something going on in Antarctica", and the world has been misdescribed. SarahSV ^(talk) 02:17, 6 November 2018 (UTC)

I hadn't encountered that one. The site seems worrying, but the video appears to be good. - Bilby (talk) 04:27, 6 November 2018 (UTC)

• Jesus, Bilby, why do you go to battle for every antivax crackpot in Australia? Guy (Help!) 19:48, 6 November 2018 (UTC)

Mass killings under communist regimes also cites Democratic Peace Blog, which appears to be self-published by Rummel. Is this a reliable source? –dlthewave ☎ 03:42, 3 November 2018 (UTC)

Like the original poster, dlthewave, you should also be including the content the citation is being used for to provide the needed context, per the instructions at the top of the edit version of this page. Here is the content:

In 2005, R. J. Rummel revised his estimate of total communist democide between 1900 and 1999 upward by 38 million to "about 148,000,000", due to recent publications about Mao's role in the Great Chinese Famine.[33]

In this case, the content is also Rummel's own views, so it being self-published is appropriate. Rudolph Rummel is routinely cited by other academic sources in this area. Here is an article about him if you are unfamiliar: R.J. Rummel—A Multi-faceted Scholar.

In article recommended by AmateurEditor , Harff says (about herself, Rummel, and other genocide scholars):

"Compiling global data is hazardous and will inevitably invite chagrin and criticism from country experts. Case study people have a problem with systematic data because they often think they know better what happened in one particular country. I have sympathized with this view, because my area expertise was the Middle East. But when empiricists focus on global data, we have to consider 190 countries and must rely on country experts selectively. When we look for patterns and test explanations, we cannot expect absolute precision, in fact we do not require it."

She also mentions her own earlier review on Rummel where she says:

"From an empirical viewpoint, there are some problems with Rummel's data. Historical sources rarely can provide accurate estimates numbers of people killed; more often they give give wide ranges or guesses. Rummel chooses numbers of deaths that almost always skewed in the direction of the highest guesses. "

Rummel's data are based on old Cold war sources, and he never revised his sources even when new figures become available. His estimate for the USSR (60+ million) are much greater that total population losses of Russia and the USSR in XX century (the data include WWI deaths, 2 million, Civil war death, from both sides, 10 million, Volga famine deaths, WWII deaths, 27 million, post war famine, 2 million). With China, a situation is the same: how can we seriously cite Rummel's figures for China is the consensus figure of the Great Famine deaths are 15-30 million, and it was the major component of Chinese "democide"? Different Wikipedia articles should be consistent, and if the article about Great Chinese Famine gives the figure of 15-30 million, other articles should not contradict to it. Either one or another figure must be fixed, and I have a feeling Rummel's data should be treated as a Cold war anachronism.--Paul Siebert (talk) 05:41, 3 November 2018 (UTC)

Paul, it's ironic that you say "he never revised his sources even when new figures become available" when the very citation being discussed here is Rummel revising his figures for China based on recent scholarship about the Great Chinese Famine. The quotes you cite by Harff indicate that there will always be an imprecise range of estimates and that Rummel's numbers are often at the high end of the range, but a range will always have a high end by definition. His estimates are not outside the mainstream because they are on the high end of a range. However, those exact quotes do not appear in the link I provided, as far as I can tell, so I think you made some mistakes in your post here. This is the closest passage in there:

"Of great continuing interest is the debate about Rummel’s democide estimates. Rummel created these on a country-by-country basis using published studies, concluding with three figures, a high estimate, a low estimate, and a most probable estimate. These could vary significantly. For the Soviet Union, for instance, Rummel (1990: 3) estimated a most probable democide of 62 million people, but with a range from 28 million to 127 million. In most of his work on democide, he focused on the most probable estimates, leaving himself somewhat vulnerable to criticism for excessive precision in these numbers. However, he also noted that he would be amazed if future research did not come up with figures that deviated significantly from his own. His figures should be viewed as rough approximations (Rummel, 1994: vii–xx)."

"His volume on the statistics of democide, however, as well as the books on the four ‘deka-megamurderers’ (the Soviet Union, China under Kuomintang, China under Mao, and Nazi Germany), contain all the sources and all the numbers and extensive comments on how he selected his own numbers. Some critics, including Harff (1996: 118) have argued that ‘Rummel chooses numbers of deaths that almost always are skewed in the direction of the highest guesses’. In this volume, Barbara Harff (Chap. 12) cites but does not reiterate this criticism. Rather, in discussing Rummel’s numbers for Cambodia, she finds that given his wide definition of democide, his estimates are consistent with established estimates in the literature and she also acknowledges his ‘monumental job in collecting data and information’. A reviewer of Rummel’s volume on democide in the Soviet Union chides him for not using Russian-language sources and for assuming citing a range of secondary sources ‘as if they were all of equal worth’. He also faults Rummel for assuming ‘that the entire labour camp population was innocent’ although some of those who died in the camps ‘were common criminals or actual Nazi collaborators’ (Swain, 1991)."

Having said that, this is not the proper forum to discuss Rummel's ranges. It is the proper forum for input on applying Wikipedia's reliable sources policies. AmateurEditor (talk) 06:14, 3 November 2018 (UTC)

I meant "he never revised his estimates to the lower side". The problem with Rummel was that he took all available data without any attempt to critically analyse them, and treated them as if they were equally trustworthy. As a result, the validity of his figures is very inhomogeneous: thus, his estimate for Canbodia are very accurate, and they well correspond to new Kiernan's data. That happened because the sources that overstated the scale of the genocide (as a rule, Vietnamese or Soviet sources) happened to be balanced by the sources that tried to understate it. However, that is a very rare case. In all other cases, his data collect everything, and good data are diluted with tons of garbage.--Paul Siebert (talk) 16:06, 3 November 2018 (UTC)

Again, this is not the proper place to discuss this, but from the quote directly above, he did not treat all data as if they were equally trustworthy. It says "Rummel created these on a country-by-country basis using published studies, concluding with three figures, a high estimate, a low estimate, and a most probable estimate. These could vary significantly. For the Soviet Union, for instance, Rummel (1990: 3) estimated a most probable democide of 62 million people, but with a range from 28 million to 127 million. In most of his work on democide, he focused on the most probable estimates...". AmateurEditor (talk) 16:39, 3 November 2018 (UTC)

It absolutely is the appropriate place to have that discussion. As I pointed out below, relying on WP:SELFPUBLISH to get a self-published source through WP:RS adds additional restrictions; Exercise caution when using such sources: if the information in question is suitable for inclusion, someone else will probably have published it in independent reliable sources. This claim is unambiguously WP:EXCEPTIONAL - it involves shocking, dramatic changes to numbers that diverge from mainstream assumptions - and therefore requires multiple high-quality sources; this source is not enough to satisfy WP:RS in the context where it is being used. WP:RS is contextual, and the fact that the claim is exceptional imposes higher sourcing requirements - certainly more than can be passed with a single WP:SELFPUBLISHed source. --Aquillion (talk) 17:48, 7 November 2018 (UTC)

The Web page you are discussing World Net Daily is not a reliable source. The published works by Rummel are reliable using Wikipedia standards. I have read and own Rummel's published works. We need to explain to readers that Rummel takes only English language sources from the cold war era to arrive at his estimates. He ignores and disregards the material from the Soviet archives published in Russia since 1990 as well as the academic discourse in the journal "Soviet Studies". Rummel's estimates are cited by opponents of socialism. Readers of Wikipedia are more likely to be familiar the Fox News with the claims Wikipedia can set the record straight by contrasting Rummel's estimates with the material published in Russia since 1990 as well as the academic discourse in the journal "Soviet Studies"--Woogie 10w (talk) 15:02, 3 November 2018 (UTC)

Also I carried on a E-mail correspondence with Rummel about 15 years ago, he was adamant that the Soviet census data and population data was forged, this claim is also made by Rosefielde. Is Rosefielde a reliable source? Rosefielde has his own population models to support his estimates. We really need to become familiar with the methodology of Rummel and Rosefielde. They claim that the policy of Stalin's USSR was responsible for 22-43 million hypothetical deaths. They also claim that the published archival material is a smokescreen to cover up these hypothetical deaths. The mass media regurgitates these claims. --Woogie 10w (talk) 15:21, 3 November 2018 (UTC)

Methodologies of Rummel and Rosefielde are totally different: the former produces no own data, just non-critically summarises the data from all other sources, the latter makes his own research.--Paul Siebert (talk) 16:13, 3 November 2018 (UTC)

There are two policies that are relevant on whether or not to include this source: reliablity and weight. If passes the first because Rummel meets the criterion for WP:EXPERTSOURCE because "the author is an established expert whose work in the relevant field has been published by reliable third-party publications." It fails the second because publication of an opinion in a conspiracy theory website does not establish notability. So paradoxically, according to policy, we can use the source for assertions of fact but not for opinion. Since the article was used as a source of opinion, it fails weight. TFD (talk) 16:17, 3 November 2018 (UTC)

You appear to have posted this in the wrong thread. dlthewave posted another source in this subsection for Rummel's personal website. I agree that Rummel meets the criteria for reliability as an expert on the topic in his own right. But due/undue weight should have no bearing on the conclusion of the RS noticeboard because that relates to the NPOV noticeboard. AmateurEditor (talk) 16:33, 3 November 2018 (UTC)

Sorry. This is a sub-thread, but my point is relevant to both. There are no valid rs objections to either source and weight is distinct from rs. I agree that the question should have been taken to NPOVN. TFD (talk) 16:43, 3 November 2018 (UTC)

Thank you. AmateurEditor (talk) 16:53, 3 November 2018 (UTC)

Rummel is not a reliable source in light of academic studies of the Soviet population , however in his his study Democide he claims 169 million deaths, of which the USSR is 63 million. We lack a critique of the balance of 106 million deaths which covers the entire planet from 1900-1990. The Nazi regime 20.9 million, Red China(1927-87) 38.7 million, Nationalist China 10.2 million, Japan 5.9 million, Pol Pot 2.4 million, the Armenian massacres 2.7 million, N. Vietnam 1.7 million, N. Korea 1.6 million, Expulsion of the Germans 1.6 million--Woogie 10w (talk) 17:21, 3 November 2018 (UTC)

Left wing sources will dismiss these figures as excessive,I agree. Right wing sources cite the figures to prove that the USA is the greatest country in the world, I disagree. Using population data(vital statistics) we cannot prove that Rummels figures are excessive or correct since there is no reliable population data in most of the above incidents that will allow us to validate Rummels claims. Sure you can cite reliable sources that have lower figures, but they are estimates, just an educated guess. Of course some people will accept a claim based on the authors standing in the academic world, that does not make it right--Woogie 10w (talk) 17:37, 3 November 2018 (UTC)

It is clear that Rummel is a reliable source for his stated opinions, regardless of where they are published. Also, he is an expert, hence we can accept the facts he provides as accurate. However, estimates are not facts, but opinions. Different experts provide different estimates. TFD (talk) 17:48, 3 November 2018 (UTC)

You wrote Also, he is an expert, hence we can accept the facts he provides as accurate This is false he does not list facts that are not disputed, he has published his own estimates, not facts.--Woogie 10w (talk) 18:01, 3 November 2018 (UTC)

Disagree that it does not matter where scholarship is published, per WP:SOURCE and WP:SOURCETYPES, it does matter who published scholarship. EXPERTSOURCE, itself, is far from automatic. And as for contentious claims, WP:REDFLAG applies. Alanscottwalker (talk) 20:51, 3 November 2018 (UTC)

From WP:SELFPUBLISH: "Anyone can create a personal web page or publish their own book, and also claim to be an expert in a certain field. For that reason, self-published media, such as books, patents, newsletters, personal websites, open wikis, personal or group blogs (as distinguished from newsblogs, above), content farms, Internet forum postings, and social media postings, are largely not acceptable as sources. Self-published expert sources may be considered reliable when produced by an established expert on the subject matter, whose work in the relevant field has previously been published by reliable third-party publications.[8] Exercise caution when using such sources: if the information in question is suitable for inclusion, someone else will probably have published it in independent reliable sources.[10] Never use self-published sources as third-party sources about living people, even if the author is an expert, well-known professional researcher, or writer."

It matters, but much, much less so when the author is considered a reliable source for the topic in their own right because you are not relying on the publisher of the material as a measure of the reliability.

What is it about WP:REDFLAG that applies here? It doesn't say anything about "contentious" claims. It says "Any exceptional claim requires multiple high-quality sources.[13] Red flags that should prompt extra caution include: surprising or apparently important claims not covered by multiple mainstream sources; challenged claims that are supported purely by primary or self-published sources or those with an apparent conflict of interest;[9] reports of a statement by someone that seems out of character, or against an interest they had previously defended; claims that are contradicted by the prevailing view within the relevant community, or that would significantly alter mainstream assumptions, especially in science, medicine, history, politics, and biographies of living people. This is especially true when proponents say there is a conspiracy to silence them." Remember, this is not about a statement of fact about the estimate in Wikipedia's voice, this is about accurately reflecting the opinion of an expert. I don't think it would be considered an exceptional claim that Rummel believed this, It is not at all out of character for him, and it is not a statement about the prevailing view of the wider community. He already published his estimates in what anyone would consider academic reliable sources. After his retirement, he updated them based on his reading of new publications and that should be reflected in the article. AmateurEditor (talk) 21:14, 3 November 2018 (UTC)

See my post below. The tables on his Hawaii web site, for example, this one, contain the list of sources. I took the book, and it is clear from it that the first figure in the "source" column is a year, the second is the page. Do you see any source published after 1988 there? Do you see any sign that Rummel tried to include fresh data into his tables?--Paul Siebert (talk) 21:51, 3 November 2018 (UTC)

Rummel's estimate is cited as part of a chronological listing of estimates and the date is included. If you have a reliable source that speaks to his figures being obsolete or criticises them in some other way, you should add that to the article right after his estimate, as we discussed earlier. AmateurEditor (talk) 00:21, 4 November 2018 (UTC)

I disagree with the way this section is organised. Chronological listing is good in two cases: either (i) we are talking about a history of the subject, and the modern data are presented separately (for example, Gulag article lists early estimates in a chronological order, and modern data are presented in a separate section), or (ii) we are talking about the subject that is pretty well defined, but the numbers are a subject of debates. Neither the first nor the second criteria are met in this case.

Thus, the present day data are not presented in this section (I realise these data relate to separate countries only, but that is not the reason to exclude them from this section. Othewise, the section should be renamed to something like "Early attempts to estimate a combined Communist deaths toll"). Second, different estimates deal with different definitions of "death toll": thus, Rummel's figures are astronomically high because he assumed several tens of millions were killed in camps, but he didn't include some deadly famines. Other authors include different categories, so each estimate deals with different events. The section in its current state is deeply misleading, and since we all know that, that means we deliberately mislead a reader.

If you agree that should be fixed, let's continue on the article's talk page.--Paul Siebert (talk) 15:44, 4 November 2018 (UTC)

We should definitely continue this on the article's talk page. I agree with adding single-country estimates, but not in a different section from the "historical" estimates. It should be an extension of that section. AmateurEditor (talk) 06:02, 5 November 2018 (UTC)

"not in a different section from the "historical" estimates" is exactly what I did few month ago, but it was reverted. --Paul Siebert (talk) 06:38, 5 November 2018 (UTC)

I fully realise that further discussion is more relevant to the NPOVN, but, as far as I know, our rules recommend not to split a discussion among several noticeboards, so, as soon as we started here, it makes sense to finish it here too. I took Rummel's "Lethal politics" (the book where he makes his own estimates for the USSR), and below is my analysis of the sources he used and a description of his approach.

• First. Rummel does not do his own low and high estimate. What he is doing is as follows (p. 239). (i) If a source says the figure is "conservative", Rummel puts in into a category of low estimates. (ii) If a source just provides a figure (or says something liek "as many as"), Rummel puts in in "middle" category. (iii) if the source says something like "no more than", Rummel puts it in "High" estimate. Therefore, "Low" "Medium" or "High" are not Rummel's estimates, but his estimates of "low", "medium", or "high" estimates made by others.
• Second. Rummel assumes 10, 20, and 28 annual mortality rate (low, medium and high, accordingly) for all camps during the whole period of Soviet history. Currently available data are much more accurate and time specific, however, Rummel prefers to use this liberal assumption.
• Third. I looked through the sources Rummel used for his estimates. I took post-WWII late Stalin's period (table 9A). Below is the list of the sources used in this table (I omit the sources that describe low mortality, so their contribution to the overall figure is negligible, e.g. Small and Singer, 7,500 death in Hungary):

• Kosiuk, Concentration camps in the USSR. London, Ukrainian Publishers, 1962
• Rosefielde, An Assessment of the Sources and Uses of Gulag Forced Labour 1929-56. Soviet Studies, Vol. 33, No. 1 (Jan., 1981), pp. 51-87
• Stewart-Smith, DG. The Death of Communism. London, Lidgate Press., 1964
• Solzhenitsyn's Archipelago
• Hingley. The Russian secret police: Muscovite, Imperial Russian, and Soviet Security Operations 1565-1970. London, Hutchinson&Co, 1970
• Rewddaway (press report, 1973)
• Heller & Nekrich. Utopia in Power: The History of the Soviet Union from 1917 to the Present. 1986
• Possony. From Gulag to Gutik. 1975
• Philips. The tragedy of Soviet Germans. John Philips, 1983
• Glaser&Possony. Victims of politics: The state of human rights. Columbia University Press. 1979

It is easy to see that the sources compiled in this table (It is the same table as the one published in his democide blog) are obsolete Cold war era sources. All modern sources are totally ignored. Conquest, Ellman, Wheatcroft, Getty, Rittersport, Zemskov, Maksudov, Werth, and others are not represented in this table. Even Rosefielde, whose 1981 article is used for this table, published several more recent works, and his newer figures differ from his early estimates. I need some time to analyze the rest of the book, but I believe it is clear that, whereas Rummel meets our RS standards, his data is a summary of obsolete sources, and, therefore, his book is a good source for description of a history of this subject, not of the current state of knowledge.--Paul Siebert (talk) 21:41, 3 November 2018 (UTC)

Paul, that book is not cited in the article, except by the 2016 compilation by the Victims of Communism Memorial Foundation website, where it is used for the low end of the range for North Korea. And all of the sources in the article are being cited as historical estimates, in the sense that the estimates are being presented chronologically, in the context of their dates of publication. AmateurEditor (talk) 21:52, 3 November 2018 (UTC)

Paul without going into a lengthy analysis we can cite Rummel's data and contrast it with other sources. Take Rosefielde, a reliable source, for example who has a figure of 20-22 million deaths in the Stalin era. Add c.60+ million Chinese famine and Laogai deaths along with PolPot and N. Vietnam and N. Korea. The result is in the ballpark of 100 million. Please don't tell us that the Soviet and Chinese famines were natural disasters. --Woogie 10w (talk) 21:55, 3 November 2018 (UTC)

Please, do not mix all Soviet and all Chinese famines: some Soviet famines were a result of strategic blunders, some (Volga famine and 1947 famine) were consequences of devastating wars, Chinese famine was partially natural (famines were routine events in China, which was desperately poor and the whole life of peasants was an incessant war for survival). Only few famines (mostly Holodomor) are considered genocide, others are fully or partially man made (like Bengal famine in India).

In any event, this your comment ignores my major point: Rummel provides a summary of obsolete sources, his methodology is questionable, and he should be treated accordingly.--Paul Siebert (talk) 23:09, 3 November 2018 (UTC)

Woogie 10w, re your comments at 18:01, 3 November 2018. I wrote above, "estimates are not facts, but opinions." You replied, "This is false he does not list facts that are not disputed, he has published his own estimates, not facts." Yeah, that's what I said. I also wrote two postings above that, "the article was used as a source of opinion." TFD (talk) 22:13, 3 November 2018 (UTC)

The Four Deuces, the reason I am here is because I have read and own Rummel's works. The problem here is that some editors are not familiar with Rummel's works as well the statistical arguments related deaths under communism. Some editors shop around the internet for the highest or lowest number and then attempt to push a left or right POV. They will blog pushing a POV all day long about a topic that they don't understand. Don't get me wrong, they edit in good faith, they are welcome here. Maybe they will learn something here. Anyone can edit Wikipedia--Woogie 10w (talk) 22:55, 3 November 2018 (UTC)

I am well aware of that. That is why I think that discussing the reliability (as defined in WP:RS) is a red herring. Since we are discussing opinions, the relevant policy is WP:WEIGHT - what weight should the article provide to Rummel's opinions published in WND? TFD (talk) 00:38, 4 November 2018 (UTC)

AmateurEditor, this book is cited in the article, because the figures from Rummel's blog are taken from this book. Rummel's figures of Soviet "democide" come from this book. Have you read Rummel (I mean his books, not his Webb site)?--Paul Siebert (talk) 23:02, 3 November 2018 (UTC)

I see your point that the contents of that book are in a sense cited indirectly, but Rummel's estimates in the article are literally cited from his 1994 book Death by Government (text from his books are reproduced on his website, but the article is not actually citing his "blog" for that estimate). No, I have not read the book, but I stand by the current citations. Please don't waste your time doing your own analysis and expecting that to be incorporated into the article. You know very well that is original research. It is not up to you or me to decide what sources are obsolete. If reliable sources are still citing his figures, they are not obsolete. But even if they were, we cite them in the article in a chronological list with other estimates by other sources with the years of publication provided, so readers can see all that for themselves and no one is being misled. AmateurEditor (talk) 23:25, 3 November 2018 (UTC)

You wrote If reliable sources are still citing his figures, they are not obsolete. True but readers need to know that the statistic of 63 million Soviet deaths(1918-87) is a distillation of many many different sources. AmateurEditor I wish I could put this listing of sources up on the page, but it would way too long. I wonder how Rummel had access to so many sources way out in Hawaii, he must have had buddies in the Library of Congress and the British Library. His sources are exclusively in English.--Woogie 10w (talk) 00:03, 4 November 2018 (UTC)

You could try using the sandbox page we set up as a workspace, here. AmateurEditor (talk) 00:23, 4 November 2018 (UTC)

Woogie 10w, it was not "a distillation of many many different sources", but a rather arbitrary treatment of a handful of not the most reliable sources (including public speeches, memoirs, or statements made by political organisations). --Paul Siebert (talk) 00:55, 4 November 2018 (UTC)

AmateurEditor,the list would be hundreds of lines long, he cited thousands of stats and then blended them. It's way too long to copy by hand or even photocopy. It can be compared to a mutual index fund that incorporates many different stocks. Rummel is a good source for sources, his page citations have never been wrong when I do research at the NYPL--Woogie 10w (talk) 00:37, 4 November 2018 (UTC)

::::OMG, now I understand. You guys are looking at the Rummel web page summaries. The detailed listing of the sources he used to make his estimates are in the published works.--Woogie 10w (talk) 00:07, 4 November 2018 (UTC)

Woogie, Rummel's web page tables and the tables published in "Lethal policies" are the same tables.--Paul Siebert (talk) 00:26, 4 November 2018 (UTC)

You are right paul, now I see. AmateurEditor here are you lists. The bibliography listing the sources does not seem to be included--Woogie 10w (talk) 00:55, 4 November 2018 (UTC)

AmateurEditor, you write "so readers can see all that for themselves and no one is being misled", however, "misleading" is exactly what we have here. The Rummel's book was published in 1994, but all his data for the USSR were taken from "Lethal policies" (all tables and figures are identical). Therefore, by giving a reference to this "new" book without due reservations, we mislead a reader: for me, it took a considerable amount of time to realise all Rummel's figures are an obsolete bullshit, and we cannot expect an ordinary reader will do the same job. By the way, by writing that Rummel reconsidered his figures in 2005, you imply he critically analysed all figures. In reality, that was not the case: all figures for the USSR were totally preserved, and he reproduced all odd claims that followed from these ridiculously exaggerated data. --Paul Siebert (talk) 00:34, 4 November 2018 (UTC)

We reference the "new" book because it contains his estimates for communism as a whole. That it incorporates his estimates from his USSR-specific book published in 1990 is unsurprising. That you don't like his conclusions means very little, especially considering that they are not being used in the article as a consensus view of any kind (we only cite them as being his opinion at the time he published them). Find a reliable source that states his stuff is "obsolete bullshit" (or words to that effect), and then we can talk about making sure that is reflected in the article appropriately. AmateurEditor (talk) 00:54, 4 November 2018 (UTC)

AmateurEditor, the question is not that I "don't like something". I am absolutely neutrally pointing your attention at the fact that Rummel uses only obsolete data for his estimates of the USSR deaths. The fact that all modern data are beyond the scope of his book is so obvious that your persistent refusal to accept it is totally impossible to understand.--Paul Siebert (talk) 01:04, 4 November 2018 (UTC)

I don't understand why you think that your conclusion that his 1994 data is obsolete should make a difference without sources stating such a conclusion. We have multiple high quality academic reliable sources citing Rummel figures and no sources saying they are obsolete or bullshit or the like. Why are you trying to get me to accept your way of looking at things (rather than presenting sources that agree with your way of looking at things) when we have clear rules against injecting our own conclusions into articles? In any event, that conclusion has no bearing on how Rummel's estimate is actually used in the article now, which is as part of a chronological list of various estimates published over time by various sources. You are acting as if he is being cited as the current best estimate, when in reality, there is (properly) no consensus estimate in the article and several different and more recent overall estimates are presented right after his. The article's Estimates section literally says this:"According to R. J. Rummel's book Death by Government (1994), about 110 million people, foreign and domestic, were killed by communist democide from 1900 to 1987.[32] ... In 2005, R. J. Rummel revised his estimate of total communist democide between 1900 and 1999 upward by 38 million to "about 148,000,000", due to recent publications about Mao's role in the Great Chinese Famine.[33]" There is nothing incorrect about that (or even misleading considering the list it is a part of), and that is what matters. AmateurEditor (talk) 01:34, 4 November 2018 (UTC)

AmateurEditor, there is a big difference between making a conclusion and writing the article. If no sources exists that claim that Rummel's estimates are obsolete, we cannot write that in that article. However, by looking at the list of the sources Rummel cites and by comparing it with the list of available good sources we can and must make a conclusion that Rummel's data are obsolete (I believe you cannot disagree with that), and to reorganise the structure of the article accordingly.--Paul Siebert (talk) 01:45, 4 November 2018 (UTC)

We don't have that kind of leeway and we have already organized the article based on the lack of consensus in the sources. NPOV policies require us to follow the lead of our identified reliable sources for structure, so basing it on a conclusion that would be original research if you entered it into the article explicitly is also a policy violation by entering it implicitly via article structure. From WP:DUE: "Neutrality requires that each article or other page in the mainspace fairly represents all significant viewpoints that have been published by reliable sources, in proportion to the prominence of each viewpoint in the published, reliable sources.[3] Giving due weight and avoiding giving undue weight means that articles should not give minority views or aspects as much of or as detailed a description as more widely held views or widely supported aspects. Generally, the views of tiny minorities should not be included at all, except perhaps in a "see also" to an article about those specific views. For example, the article on the Earth does not directly mention modern support for the flat Earth concept, the view of a distinct (and miniscule) minority; to do so would give undue weight to it. Undue weight can be given in several ways, including but not limited to depth of detail, quantity of text, prominence of placement, juxtaposition of statements and imagery. In articles specifically relating to a minority viewpoint, such views may receive more attention and space. However, these pages should still make appropriate reference to the majority viewpoint wherever relevant and must not represent content strictly from the perspective of the minority view. Specifically, it should always be clear which parts of the text describe the minority view." See also WP:BALANCE and WP:IMPARTIAL and the rest of the sections in WP:NPOV. AmateurEditor (talk) 02:06, 4 November 2018 (UTC)

The article is organized in the way that directly violates NPOV. That policy directly prohibit the structure that creates an apparent hierarchy of sources, but all good quality sources are split among different sections, whereas obsolete and politically biased sources are assembled together to present a totally false impression that these lousy data represent the views of true experts.

With regard to Rummel, a simple explanation of the origin of his data (a list of sources he used) and their itemising (to allow a reader to compare his ridiculous claims about the USSR with good quality modern data) would resolve the problem. In addition, since Rummel presented no new data in his Death by Government, why don't we explain that this book contains just a compilation of figures from his older books? --Paul Siebert (talk) 02:32, 4 November 2018 (UTC)

Everything sentence in the article ought to be supportable (ideally, supported) by a reliable source. Per WP:NPOV: "All encyclopedic content on Wikipedia must be written from a neutral point of view (NPOV), which means representing fairly, proportionately, and, as far as possible, without editorial bias, all of the significant views that have been published by reliable sources on a topic." About the current article structure creating a hierarchy of sources, WP:STRUCTURE says: "The internal structure of an article may require additional attention, to protect neutrality, and to avoid problems like POV forking and undue weight. Although specific article structures are not, as a rule, prohibited, care must be taken to ensure that the overall presentation is broadly neutral. Segregation of text or other content into different regions or subsections, based solely on the apparent POV of the content itself, may result in an unencyclopedic structure, such as a back-and-forth dialogue between proponents and opponents.[1] It may also create an apparent hierarchy of fact where details in the main passage appear "true" and "undisputed", whereas other, segregated material is deemed "controversial", and therefore more likely to be false. Try to achieve a more neutral text by folding debates into the narrative, rather than isolating them into sections that ignore or fight against each other. Pay attention to headers, footnotes, or other formatting elements that might unduly favor one point of view, and watch out for structural or stylistic aspects that make it difficult for a reader to fairly and equally assess the credibility of all relevant and related viewpoints.[2]" Having an estimates section that is arranged chronologically is not an example of a POV-segregated structure. If you are referring to single-country sources being separated from the estimates section, the two of us already agreed on including a table of such estimates in the estimates section and that has nothing to do with your critique of Rummel, so that is not relevant to this conversation. AmateurEditor (talk) 15:02, 4 November 2018 (UTC)

Paul you are right, Rummel's figures are an obsolete bullshit. But we have to convince the people who listen to Fox News and then check Wikipedia. Is there a reliable academic source that says Rummel's figures are as soft as shit? Is there somebody here who can cite criticism of Rummel? --Woogie 10w (talk) 00:55, 4 November 2018 (UTC)

We don't need any source to fix this problem. If we all will agree that the situation with Rummel must be fixed, I have an idea how to do that. However, this noticeboard is not the best place for that.--Paul Siebert (talk) 01:06, 4 November 2018 (UTC)

AmateurEditor, Rummels work was sponsered by the United States Institute of Peace Rummel,Received numerous grants from NSF, ARPA, and the United States Peace Research Institute. No wonder they love him on Fox News and Conservapedia--Woogie 10w (talk) 01:15, 4 November 2018 (UTC)

Paul Siebert, we absolutely do need a reliable source to make your fix. Consensus among just the editors interested in this article does not overrule the three Core Content Policies (WP:V, WP:OR, and WP:NPOV). Until you find a reliable source for it, your identification of this problem is OR and not relevant to the article's NPOV. Per WP:CONLEVEL: "Consensus among a limited group of editors, at one place and time, cannot override community consensus on a wider scale. For instance, unless they can convince the broader community that such action is right, participants in a WikiProject cannot decide that some generally accepted policy or guideline does not apply to articles within its scope. WikiProject advice pages, how-to and information pages, and template documentation pages have not formally been approved by the community through the policy and guideline proposal process, thus have no more status than an essay. Wikipedia has a standard of participation and consensus for changes to policies and guidelines. Their stability and consistency are important to the community. Accordingly, editors often propose substantive changes on the talk page first to permit discussion before implementing the change. Bold changes are rarely welcome on policy pages. Improvements to policy are best made slowly and conservatively, with active efforts to seek out input and agreement from others."

AmateurEditor, I sincerely cannot understand you: I provided an exhaustive evidences that Rummel's theory (at least, regarding the USSR, I need some time to look through his book on China) is based on the sources that, by and large, are Cold war era sources. Obviously, these sources cannot be better than modern data. What those sources are? Memoirs (which always should be treated with caution), CIA reports (that cannot be more precise than the data that became available after Perestroika), documents prepared by human right activists (who are not professional historians, and who were more concerned about the fight against the regime than about accuracy), Cold war era authors who wrote their books based on vague estimates and intuitive assumptions, and some of whom, like Robert Conquest, reconsidered their early conclusions in light of fresh evidences, and similar sources. As modern data demonstrate, Rummel's estimates are inconsistent with the demography of the USSR: they violate elementary rules of arithmetic. In addition, these data ignore (and contradict to) a huge number of very good data. This is a problem, and we need to think how to resolve it without committing a sine of original research. However, instead of that, you are maintaining that "as soon as formal RS criteria are met, everything is ok". This your position really puzzles me.--Paul Siebert (talk) 03:01, 4 November 2018 (UTC)

AmateurEditor and Paul, R.J.Rummel was a hack writer of US government financed propaganda. On the back cover of Lethal Politics the description reads he has a grant from the United States Institute of Peace Readers of Wikipedia should know this important fact. R.J.Rummel's research project was sponsored by the US government. I question the reliability and neutrality of Rummel's research based on the financial support given to him by the US government.--Woogie 10w (talk) 03:27, 4 November 2018 (UTC)

Woogie, your are not right. It is absolutely not a problem to have a grant from a state supported fund. As a rule, university professors in the US are totally independent, and the most important thing they are concerned about is their reputation. Rummel is good scholar, he made several important contributions to science, however, some of his conclusions and some of his figures are questionable, and some of them are dramatically outdated. The only thing we should do is to put Rummel into a proper context, and the problem will be resolved.--Paul Siebert (talk) 03:36, 4 November 2018 (UTC)

Paul, about your statement "This is a problem, and we need to think how to resolve it without committing a sine of original research." That is the key point, "without committing the sin of original research", including OR in article structure as prohibited by WP:UNDUE. About your statement "However, instead of that, you are maintaining that "as soon as formal RS criteria are met, everything is ok"." Yes, as soon as formal RS and NPOV criteria are met, then everything is "ok" as Wikipedia defines it. Wikipedia:Verifiability, not truth. AmateurEditor (talk) 15:02, 4 November 2018 (UTC)

AmateurEditor, you added "and NPOV" to my statement, but the problem here is that NPOV is not meet. Next problem is that we, being intellectually honest, cannot write an obvious nonsense: if some reliable source say that, we must find some tools to circumvent it.--Paul Siebert (talk) 15:36, 4 November 2018 (UTC)

Paul Siebert, I added NPOV as part of my response, not as part of your statement which mischaracterized my position. We cannot "circumvent" OR restrictions in this way. From WP:NPOV: "All encyclopedic content on Wikipedia must be written from a neutral point of view (NPOV), which means representing fairly, proportionately, and, as far as possible, without editorial bias, all of the significant views that have been published by reliable sources on a topic. NPOV is a fundamental principle of Wikipedia and of other Wikimedia projects. It is also one of Wikipedia's three core content policies; the other two are "Verifiability" and "No original research". These policies jointly determine the type and quality of material that is acceptable in Wikipedia articles, and, because they work in harmony, they should not be interpreted in isolation from one another. Editors are strongly encouraged to familiarize themselves with all three. This policy is non-negotiable, and the principles upon which it is based cannot be superseded by other policies or guidelines, nor by editor consensus."

Also from WP:NPOV: "Neutrality requires that each article or other page in the mainspace fairly represents all significant viewpoints that have been published by reliable sources, in proportion to the prominence of each viewpoint in the published, reliable sources.[3]"

You call Rummel's estimates "obvious nonsense", but have provided no reliable source yet saying so. On the other hand, we do have reliable sources citing Rummel's numbers as not nonsense, such as Valentino. Therefore, until you can come up with some reliable source for your view that his estimates are nonsense, they aren't, as far as Wikipedia is concerned. AmateurEditor (talk) 06:02, 5 November 2018 (UTC)

AmateurEditor, your mistake is that you mix two totally different things. Our policy says that all material in Wikipedia must be attributable to a reliable, published source. However, that relates to materials, not to the structure of articles. My arguments that you are answering relate to the structure, not to materials, so all your references to the policy are irrelevant. Modern sources, accepted by mainstream authors, say that much less amount of people died in the USSR as result of wars, famines, repressions and forced labor (including two world wars) than, according to Rummel, were killed in Gulag alone. That means Rummel's figures, which are based on Cold war era rough estimates, are total bullshit. Being a good faith Wikipedian, you cannot disagree with that. However, being a good faith Wikipedian, neither you or me can write "Rummel's data is a bullshit" in the article. However, since I (and you, I believe) understand that the blatant contradiction between Rummel's data and modern figures is a problem, and that we have to resolve this problem (because the article in its current form undermines credibility of Wikipedia), we need to decide how can we fix this problem without committing a sin of original research. How can we do that? The answer is simple: by reorganising the structure of the article. I have some ideas on that account, and if you agree in general, let's do that.--Paul Siebert (talk) 06:36, 5 November 2018 (UTC)

WP:RS is clear. Blogs by an "expert in the field" are allowed as sources, and the rest of this is a continuation of interminable objections which have cause the article talk page archive to reach astronomical lengths. Rummel is a valid expert, and anyone who says he should be excised as a "hack" is likely not paying attention to the Wikipedia rules about sources. And the rest? 12,000 words on the current talk page, and another 700,000+ (minimum) words in the archives. (One archive alone is over 270,000 bytes) Not to mention more than fifty discussions at RS/N. And dozens of discussions on other boards. At some point, will folks decide that interminable posts do not really help the project? Collect (talk) 12:05, 4 November 2018 (UTC)

I am not saying exclude Rummel,only that we should let readers know that he was funded by the United States Institute of Peace. BTW that is why his work is dismissed by many other academics. Collect you are right, this blog is way too long. I wasted my time here.--Woogie 10w (talk) 12:23, 4 November 2018 (UTC)

No, to add an information that some scholar was funded by some state agency means to convert Wikipedia in some marginal blog. It is absolutely normal for a scholar to be funded by some govermnent associated institution.--Paul Siebert (talk) 15:36, 4 November 2018 (UTC)

If we are all in agreement about Rummel being a RS, then lets get back to normal editing. AmateurEditor (talk) 15:02, 4 November 2018 (UTC)

We can start normal editing when we agree that if some reputable expert writes something in their blog, and this information is missing from their publications in more reputable media, then there may be some problem with this information. Many participants of this discussion agree with that. Do you agree?--Paul Siebert (talk) 15:36, 4 November 2018 (UTC)

In general - no. And in the specific instance - still no. We can not cherry pick within an oeuvre of an expert. Sorry. Collect (talk) 15:57, 4 November 2018 (UTC)

Have you familiarized yourself with the arguments presented by other users above? It looks like you totally ignore what they say without any explanations. Cherry-picking means something different. In that case, the question is if the statement found in a personal blog has the same weight as the statement published in reputable sources. --Paul Siebert (talk) 16:43, 4 November 2018 (UTC)

Accusing editors of "ignoring" the tens of thousand of words where the gist of the discussion has a simple answer is not really sensible. Wikipedia generally treats blogs by experts in a field as being reliable sources, in and of themselves. Self-published expert sources may be considered reliable when produced by an established expert on the subject matter, whose work in the relevant field has previously been published by reliable third-party publications. I suggest that the interminable discussions should be whittled down a bit. Collect (talk) 13:58, 5 November 2018 (UTC)

No. Even your "generally" claim does not give any simple answer. ("may" also does not give a formulaic simple command, either). So, don't try to shut discussion down. And your position does not even make good common sense, we would not ignore the manner of publication and we don't. Alanscottwalker (talk) 14:10, 5 November 2018 (UTC)

Collect, it is not an accusation. That is my impression. The relevant section on the policy page says: "Self-published material and content from non-staff contributors may sometimes be acceptable when the author is an established expert whose work in the relevant field has been published by reliable third-party publications. Such material, although written by an established author, likely lacks the fact checking that publishers provide. Avoid using them to source extraordinary claims." One criterion of an extraordinary claim is surprising or apparently important claims not covered by multiple mainstream sources. That means when one finds in WND some claim that surprises them, and other sources that support this claim is missing, this claim can be considered extraordinary. However, if other sources exist that say the same, that makes this blog redundant. Therefore, there is nothing to discuss here.--Paul Siebert (talk) 14:42, 5 November 2018 (UTC)

The blog at issue is not only not WND, the claims are fairly in line with other works by the author. Why did you compare this blog by an expert with WND? By the way WP:Verifiability[ is a policy. It outranks "content guidelines" last I checked (especially ones where your link was added all of two weeks ago).. Rummel is a high level expert in the field, thus his writings on the topic in which he is an expert, is considered a "reliable source." Collect (talk) 20:16, 5 November 2018 (UTC)

Collect, you are right, of course, I meant a Democratic peace blog (sometimes, when you switch between two different topics, that may happen :-)). With regard to the rest, guidelines usually specify details that are not covered by policy. The policy says Self-published expert sources may be considered reliable when produced by an established expert ..., but a footnote says that exceptional claims need exceptional sources. In addition, the next sentence of this policy section says exactly what people already explained to you: "if the information in question is suitable for inclusion, someone else will probably have published it in independent reliable sources". By the way, I never claimed all information from Rummel's blog is garbage: thus, a significant part of this blog reproduces his books he published earlier ("Deaths by government", "Lethal policies" etc). These facts and data are, without any doubts, reliable. However, I don't understand why should we provide a reference to this blog when we can use these books directly?--Paul Siebert (talk) 20:33, 5 November 2018 (UTC)

I think that this is a case where this clause in WP:SELFPUBLISH applies: Exercise caution when using such sources: if the information in question is suitable for inclusion, someone else will probably have published it in independent reliable sources. Such a dramatic claim is WP:EXCEPTIONAL and requires a better source than a blog, even one run by an established expert. Given the shocking nature of the claims, it should be easy to find reliable secondary coverage if they are credible and worth covering; and if we have such coverage, we should focus on those, not on blog posts. --Aquillion (talk) 17:48, 7 November 2018 (UTC)

• Ohio gubernatorial election, 2018 (edit | talk | history | protect | delete | links | watch | logs | views)

There are several articles like this on electoral races where a large proportion of the sources are tweets, usually inferring endorsement - each candidate has a list of endorsements and most of these are drawn directly from Tweets. Call me old fashioned, but that doesn't seem to me like the kind of carefully circumscribed qualified exception to "reliable, independent, secondary" that we had in mind when WP:SPS was written. I don't think we should be using tweets as the sole or primary source of facts about people other than on their own articles and where the facts are uncontroversial. Actually I can't see why on earth we would include these endorsements anyway, but some editors seem to do little else other than add them. Guy (Help!) 19:41, 6 November 2018 (UTC)

As I recall last time it came up, twitter being used as a SPS for who someone is endorsing in an election is fine (verified twitter account etc, the person endorsing is a notable figure - not some random - so their endorsement matters etc) but like it or not (I dont personally) endorsements are a big issue in (US especially) politics. Only in death does duty end (talk) 20:51, 6 November 2018 (UTC)

Meh... Endorsements are not as important to the political process as they used to be... partially due to the fact that social media makes it so easy for an endorsement to be expressed. Blueboar (talk) 21:10, 6 November 2018 (UTC)

I would argue that actually makes it (endorsements) more important in terms of impact on the process, in that previously an endorsement had to be reported on (see below comment) and so if the endorser was not of interest to the end voter, it would have little impact on their decision. With the media in rigid control of which endorsements were 'heard'. And thats if they had access to a range of unbiased media. With the current widely available media to *everyone* and ease of self-publication - the likelihood of a voter encountering an endorsement from someone they respect/admires/idolises has increased, and the proportional impact on their decision. this is a good article on who/how 2016 was 'influenced'. Only in death does duty end (talk) 23:26, 6 November 2018 (UTC)

This breaks all sorts of principles around NPOV. If the press haven't reported on an endorsement, we shouldn't include it; relying on first-party commentators through social media is a recipe for disaster if applied to nearly anything else. I'd think using a site like votesmart.org would be a better way to source these (and eliminate those not listed there). --Masem (t) 23:38, 6 November 2018 (UTC)

See my above comment, I am not arguing that we should include them (I would rather the articles are not used as an extension for the campaign apparatus), only that they are important in the modern voting world to the end voter. Only in death does duty end (talk) 18:38, 7 November 2018 (UTC)

Problem here is that "endorsement" has become "some positive mention on Twitter", not a formal endorsement reported by third-party commentators. Guy (Help!) 21:46, 6 November 2018 (UTC)

Currently, an article from InScription: Journal of Ancient Egypt, via an article by Robert M. Schoch on Circular Times is being used to support this statement on the fringe page, Sphinx water erosion hypothesis:

Similarly, David Coxill, a geologist working independently of both Schoch and Reader, has concluded from the evidence of weathering in the enclosure that "[t]he Sphinx is at least 5,000 years old and pre-dates dynastic times [before 3100 BC]."^[1]

Now, at the time, Circular Times was apparently the official website of Dowell and Schoch (one of the primary proponents of the hypothesis).^[2] Ignoring that, InScription: Journal of Ancient Egypt appears to exist nowhere online, though obviously that's not a requirement for verifiability and apparently physical copies of at least some issues are held in university libraries.^[3] Papyrus Publishing appears to have published six issues from 1997 to 1999,^[4] (check out the URL), but "Papyrus Publishing" and the Staffordshire Egyptology Society (at least at the time) appear to simply be Paul Badham - "pbadham@argonet.co.uk" is the email initially listed for it.^[5] Presumably the article in question isn't a self-published source since the author is Coxill and the publisher is Badham, but it's hard not to see the journal itself as "self-published" given that Badham appears to be the publisher and editor. --tronvillain (talk) 17:34, 7 November 2018 (UTC)

I agree about the journal. Here are the details for Coxill. Doug Weller talk 15:41, 9 November 2018 (UTC)

I wasn't even sure it was him until I clicked "show more" on education and publications. So, not exactly an expert in the field then, in a short-lived self-published journal. --tronvillain (talk) 16:44, 9 November 2018 (UTC)

• spacenews.com: Linksearch en (insource) - meta - de - fr - simple - wikt:en - wikt:fr • Spamcheck • blacklist hits • MER-C X-wiki • gs • Reports: Links on en - COIBot - COIBot-Local • Discussions: tracked - advanced - RSN • COIBot-Link, Local, & XWiki Reports - Wikipedia: en - fr - de • Google: search • meta • Domain: domaintools • AboutUs.com
• CubeSat (edit | talk | history | protect | delete | links | watch | logs | views)

I suspect that SpaceNews may not be a WP:RS. It appears to be largely an aggregator, with a lot of stories based on press releases and a very small staff none of whom appear to be experts in the field, though the editor would appear to be effectively a well regarded citizen journalist in the field. Guy (Help!) 22:47, 9 November 2018 (UTC)

This source is used for German casualties in the Battle of Kursk article. Can it be considered as a reliable source? Can it be used as a source for casualties in some particular battle (it gives casualties figures for army groups, not for some particular battle)?--Paul Siebert (talk) 20:37, 9 November 2018 (UTC)

The Internet Archive, or Wayback Machine, is not a source. The question should be, was the site ww2stats.com a reliable source? Note that if you try to access ww2stats.com, you will be taken to a site that tries to download something to your computer. I suspect that ww2stats was somebodies blog, and therefore not acceptable as a source. - Donald Albury 22:19, 9 November 2018 (UTC)

It looks like ww2stats is not active any more: . --Paul Siebert (talk) 22:56, 9 November 2018 (UTC)

The given example link to the archived website points to a wehrmacht document(series) availabe through the german Bundesarchive. Data is reliable to show officially recorded losses for specific timeframes and area/service branch. --Denniss (talk) 23:34, 9 November 2018 (UTC)

Sorry, but Bundesarchive data are a primary source, so their usage is strongly discouraged. Second, these data require a significant work (for example, I could not derive the figure of 50,000 from these data directly), so this would be an original research to provide figures that are derived from 10-days records by army (that woudl require some assumptions that are not too obvious, and are not easy to verify). Not only that is an original research, it is a poor quality original research: according to these figures, Wehrmacht sustained no losses during teh battle of Kursk after Zitadelle (50c KIA during Zitadelle and 50k total). I raised that question on the talk page, but I got no answer. Please, self-revert and find better sources and figures.--Paul Siebert (talk) 00:03, 10 November 2018 (UTC)

Apparently a direct quote from an interview" on a fringe website cannot be included. When did that start to happen? My initial concern was that the editor was removing more than just the direct quote, but that has been addressed, so now to address the direct quote. It's never been an issue with WP:PRIMARY so I'm not sure why it should be here. Walter Görlitz (talk) 18:54, 6 November 2018 (UTC)

Was the interview given by the website itself, or is it a reprint of another interview? Does the website have a reputation for accurately reporting interviews it does give, or is it known to make up fake interviews or misrepresent the content of those it interviews? I would say one would need to answer both of those questions before deciding if the quote is appropriate. For the first: If the same information (i.e. interview transcript) can be found on both a shitty, unreliable website and a good, reliable one, there's no good reason not to prefer to cite the better one. For the second question: If the interview IS original to the website, we need to use that website's own reputation for reliability as interviewers before deciding if the quote is trustworthy. --Jayron32 19:06, 6 November 2018 (UTC)

Check the interview out yourself. It's linked above. It appears to be an interview given by the site though. Walter Görlitz (talk) 20:11, 6 November 2018 (UTC)

• WND is a fringe website. Here we have "Religious extremist says weird thing on fringe website, source, fringe website where religious extremist said weird thing". That fails every part of reliable, independent, secondary. WND is a "normally exclude" site due to its history of egregious fabrication and bias. Guy (Help!) 19:43, 6 November 2018 (UTC)
  • And where's the decision for that? Walter Görlitz (talk) 20:11, 6 November 2018 (UTC)

Wikipedia:Identifying reliable sources/Perennial sources#WorldNetDaily. Guy (Help!) 21:44, 6 November 2018 (UTC)

• I imagine the quote is probably authentic: this doesn't sound all that different from what Billy Graham was saying in the 60s. The problem is that WND presents it as unprecedented because they desperately want to sell books by pushing a narrative of an impending apocalypse. In order to be useful, the quote needs context and WND is incapable for providing that context. Nblund ^talk 20:20, 6 November 2018 (UTC)
  • Agree that Graham was stating this in the 1960s, but had avoided the topic in recent years. Walter Görlitz (talk) 20:39, 6 November 2018 (UTC)

Oh I odn't doubt it, but in order to include it we'd need a reliable independent secondary source to establish veracity and significance. Guy (Help!) 21:45, 6 November 2018 (UTC)

• What's so difficult about just using RS? If a pearl is found in a dungheap (like WND, Breitbart, InfoWars, Fox News, etc.), we only document it if it's ALSO found in a RS, and then we cite the RS. Is that so difficult? SMH. -- BullRangifer (talk) PingMe 20:08, 7 November 2018 (UTC)

Seems obvious to me, but it appears to be an unfashionable view these days. Everyone seems to want to point to the fountain source of crazy, either in order to promote it or in order to speedily debunk it with an equally non-RS source. Guy (Help!) 20:18, 7 November 2018 (UTC)

• As I mentioned last time this sort of thing came up, I feel that there is an WP:RS requirement even for opinions. We rely on them to provide a degree of fact-checking and editorial control even for interview subjects. This is why WP:SELFPUBLISH has stricter requirements. I think it's logical to say that being published in a publication that utterly fails WP:RS adds nothing beyond eg. posting on your personal website or a verified Reddit AMA. Therefore, it ought to be subject to the same restrictions. --Aquillion (talk) 03:17, 10 November 2018 (UTC)

Hi, i'm currently rewriting the above article, since it's almost exclusively sourced with outdated 19th century sources. I need to know if the following sources are reliables for this topic before to cite them in the new version of the article :

• Roman Empire at War: A Compendium of Roman Battles from 31 B.C. to A.D. 565, by Donathan Taylor.
• The Nisibis War: The Defence of the Roman East AD 337-363 by John Harrel.

Please ping me if you need additional informations. Thanks.---Wikaviani ^{(talk) (contribs)} 20:44, 9 November 2018 (UTC)

I am suspicious of these, the publisher specialises in popular history rather than scholarly works. My normal practice would be to see who added them and find out if they had any edits adding sources by other publishers, because I am a nasty suspicious bastard. Guy (Help!) 22:54, 9 November 2018 (UTC)

Hey Guy, thanks very much for your insight. Actually, these sources are not yet used in the article. This article is quite messy with numerous claims not in accordance with WP:NPOV and rather WP:OR. The sources currently cited in the article are outdated 19th century sources (mainly). I want to rewrite the whole article, remove the outdated sources and replace them with recent ones and i was wondering if i could cite the two above sources.---Wikaviani ^{(talk) (contribs)} 00:16, 10 November 2018 (UTC)

Ah, OK. Yes it's a mess. I would prefer academic sources to these, myself, they look a bit Dorling-Kindersley. Guy (Help!) 09:54, 10 November 2018 (UTC)

I would consider both books reliable, but agree with Guy that some more serious academic sources would be preferable if possible. — Frayæ (Talk/Spjall) 14:31, 10 November 2018 (UTC)

Thanks very much to both of you for your insight. Best regards.---Wikaviani ^{(talk) (contribs)} 20:52, 10 November 2018 (UTC)

The original text on the page "Wetherby (film)" stated that no filming took place in Wetherby itself, I edited this page to explain that scenes in the released film were filmed in Wetherby. This edit has now been deleted, and continues to state incorrectly that "Despite the name and alleged setting, none of the film was shot in Wetherby".

I saw the filming take place in Wetherby and our family house was hired by the producers for two outdoor scenes in the film. The producers and actors will be able to confirm these facts.— Preceding unsigned comment added by 81.131.165.93 (talk) - Donald Albury 20:03, 10 November 2018 (UTC)

Your eyewitness testimony are not a valid source by Wikipedia policy. — Frayæ (Talk/Spjall) 19:58, 10 November 2018 (UTC)

Are you at all interested in the truth ?— Preceding unsigned comment added by 81.131.165.93 (talk) 20:10, 10 November 2018 (UTC)

If it's wrong you can always remove it. Leave this note on the article talk page and wait and see if a published reliable source can be found with the right details. — Frayæ (Talk/Spjall) 21:13, 10 November 2018 (UTC)

Please state your sources for the original statement "no filming took place in Wetherby"— Preceding unsigned comment added by 81.131.165.93 (talk) 20:18, 10 November 2018 (UTC)

The IMDB entry for Wetherby, given as an External link in that article, certainly includes the town as a filming location. Martinevans123 (talk) 21:22, 10 November 2018 (UTC)

It is clearly controversial and entirely unsourced. I simply removed the whole section. You can put something back if it is verifiable in line with WP:V and other policy. — Frayæ (Talk/Spjall) 21:32, 10 November 2018 (UTC)

• Also note: the closing credits of the film itself say only: "The film was made on location in Yorkshire and London ..." (If you want to check for yourself, there is full-length 1080p BluRay x264 version on YouTube that has been there for over two years: see t=1:42:38) Martinevans123 (talk) 21:46, 10 November 2018 (UTC)

Probably best discussed further at Talk:Wetherby (film). Thanks. Martinevans123 (talk) 21:56, 10 November 2018 (UTC)

This has just been used as a reference for a date of birth. It looks to me like a collection of dates taken from other sources (like probably Wikipedia). Does anyone know anything about this website? Deb (talk) 17:48, 11 November 2018 (UTC)

They claim to write all their content themselves, double check the dates, and existed for several years before Wikipedia. The editorial staff is listed as well on about page. I think it is reliable for dates. — Frayæ (Talk/Spjall) 21:29, 11 November 2018 (UTC)

Okay, then, I'll trust it until I have reason to do otherwise. Deb (talk) 09:26, 12 November 2018 (UTC)

Are university presses WP:INDEPENDENT of the university to which they stand in a legal and financial relationship? Manchester University Press, for example has always been housed by the university (always in one of the university's treasured, historic buildings.) It is "a department of the University of Manchester", all decisions "must be approved by the Editorial Committee, which is composed of academics based at the University of Manchester.". The University of Manchester is a public university. Is it an independent source for books about British politicians? The British government? British political history? And if it is , is it different form Brigham Young University Press? In a series of AfD discussions, an editor I respect, User:NorthAmerica has argued that no publication from BYU Press can be sued to establish the notability of anyone affiliated with the LDS Church. See current discussion at: Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Yoshihiko Kikuchi. The formal wording of WP:INDEPENDENT appears to rule out a great many scholarly journals and university presses. It may be that we need ot revise the guideline. But as worded, it ought to apply equally to every publisher with any "any financial or legal relationship to the topic." E.M.Gregory (talk) 20:30, 9 November 2018 (UTC)

I think the university normally has at least ultimate control. Is MUP an independent source for books about British politicians, the British government, British political history? Yes of course it is. Manchester U is no more "public" than Oxford or Cambridge. Religious university presses, and many 3rd world ones, may raise a question here. Johnbod (talk) 20:39, 9 November 2018 (UTC)

Just fyi the Manchester U Press is part of th eUniversity. Cambridge and Oxford U. presses are freestanding corporations, fiscally and legally independent oft the those universities. This is why I selected Manchester to stand for a type.E.M.Gregory (talk) 21:16, 9 November 2018 (UTC) My error.E.M.Gregory (talk) 16:58, 11 November 2018 (UTC)

That is absolute nonsense, at least as far as OUP goes. I can't be bothered to look at CUP, but I'm sure it is the same. OUP is exempt from Corporation tax, as a department of a charity (the University). Their website could not be more clear: "Structure: Oxford University Press is a department of the University of Oxford. It furthers the University's objective of excellence in research, scholarship, and education by publishing worldwide". For any UP, look at the boards and ask yourself who the shareholders (if any) are. Just fyi! Johnbod (talk) 23:23, 10 November 2018 (UTC)

Thank you for confirming that we have a problem. Many university presses are in a very close financial and management relationship with a university. Some (Georgetown University Press, Catholic University of America Press,) are church affiliated. Others - including Oxford and Manchester - are attached to government-funded universities. Problem is, the rule seems to be applied only to Brigham Young University Press.E.M.Gregory (talk) 16:58, 11 November 2018 (UTC)

• The reliability of various presses is a separate question. This is a question about what publications can be used to establish NOTABILITY at AfD. The wording at WP:INDEPENDENT doses not distinguish religious from non religious publishers.E.M.Gregory (talk) 21:16, 9 November 2018 (UTC)
• Well, WP:IS isn't a guideline. But it's important to remember why the independence criterion exists: "We require that all articles rely primarily on "third-party" or "independent sources" so that we can write a fair and balanced article that complies with Wikipedia's neutral point of view policy and to ensure that articles are not advertising a product, service, or organization." (WP:WHYN) It's clear that many university presses routinely publish books critical of the institutions with whom they may have a legal and financial interest, which gives some indication of the impact those interests actually have on those presses in terms of their ability to produce sources that support fair, balanced, NPOV articles while not advertising their employers. Ruling those presses out based on a narrow reading of an explanatory supplement would impede the work of the encyclopedia. Bakazaka (talk) 23:31, 9 November 2018 (UTC)
• The way these criteria are being used to try and exclude books published by BYU press and BYU studies is just out of line. Basically they claim that these organizations do not publish works critical of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints and other presses publish works critical of their owners, so it is a different story. This is flawed on many counts. While BYU press, BYU studies, Deseret Book and related entities do not publish works that deny the basic truth claims of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, they most definately do publish works that are critical of specific policies of the Church, actions of members of the Church, actions of leaders of the Church, and related issues. This is even more true of the Neal A. Mawell Institute and the Mormon Studies Review, which are from all standpoints of organizational analysis just as much under the control of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints are is BYU Studies. Academic journals should not be treated as unusable sources because of ownership. This is especially true of subjects that have a long history of very few balanced studies on them. This is especially the case of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. The most strong and serious scholarship of the history of this organization has been conducted by professors at Brigham Young University or people published tyhrough BYU until very recently. This applies even more so to studies about the Church as a contemporary or near contemporary organization especially outside the US. The attempt to exclude from being a reliable source a work edited by Reid Neilsen, the leading academic expert on the history of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints in Japan, from consideration as a reliable source just because of the affiliations of the university that published this work is ludicrous. To take a look at other works published by BYU studies they published Ron Walkers Qualities that Count, a collection of essays on Heber J. Grant. Despite the title, the work would generally be considered a very balanced one on Grant, and it clearly shows his human side and gives deep insight into the struggles of his life. The same is true of Walker's bio on Grant's mother included in the BYU press published work Supporting Saints. Some of Walker's comments are even quoted by virulent anti-Mormons in their attacks on the policies of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. I would argue that these are fed by misunderstandings of Latter-day Saint views on revelation, specfically that Latter-day Saints accept not just Joseph Smith but all his succesors as prophets, seers and revelators. They also accept that the revelation that guides and directs the Church, from its head Jesus Christ through his chosen leaders, does not need to be explicitly stated as new revelation to be binding, and that policies can and do, and in fact must change. The Latter-day Saints are inherently anti-fundementalist, they believe not in preserving some pure Church that once existed, but that Jesus Christ speaks to each time in their own language, and part of that speaking in their own language is making a Church that best meets the needs of the people and best prepares them to come unto him and receive his blessings. To me Walker's writings reinforce my faith and help me see this, and Walker if pushed would have almost certainly stated that Grant was an inspired man of God. However Walker was first and foremost a historian, who wrote balancved historical essays, and if these are not reliable sources on the life and work of Heber J. Grant none such reliable sources exist.John Pack Lambert (talk) 22:02, 10 November 2018 (UTC)

While BYU press, BYU studies, Deseret Book and related entities do not publish works that deny the basic truth claims of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints Doesn't that indicate that these sources should be considered primary or at least not independent when it comes to claims about the Mormon Church? Red Rock Canyon (talk) 23:40, 10 November 2018 (UTC)

The question at the top of this section is about independence, not reliability. A source can be reliable but not independent. For example, some church publications are reliable sources for the church's position on an issue. But they are not independent, and therefore cannot be used to support notability of a subject under WP:N. Bakazaka (talk) 00:17, 12 November 2018 (UTC)

• WP:INDEPENDENT is an "explanatory supplement to Wikipedia:Notability It clearly defines a great many university presses as not INDEPENDENT from the universities, governments and churches with which have "financial or legal relationship". But this guideline appears to be applied only to Brigham Young University Press; at AfD, scholarly books and articles about Mormons are being dismissed as sources for notability by an editor who has recently nominated dozens of articles about Mormons (some historic figures, some BLP, on the grounds that scholarly material from [[Brigham Young University Press]] is PRIMARY.E.M.Gregory (talk) 17:18, 11 November 2018 (UTC)
• Many university presses are members of the Association of American University Presses. This is noteworthy because, historically, many university presses have been targets of their parent institutions, which have sought to shut down the presses. Banding together has helped university presses act in concert against such efforts. If we're here to exercise judgement based on practical, empirical information, then we should note, again, that the supposed financial and legal interests do not have equal implications for all institutions. Also note that presses from some religious institutions are members of this organization, including Baylor University Press and University of Notre Dame Press. BYU Press is not. Neither is Liberty University Press. Bakazaka (talk) 21:26, 11 November 2018 (UTC)
• It would have to be decided on a case-by-case basis depending on how much editorial independence is acutally given to the press. Publications funded directly by a corporation would presumably reflect the corporation's best interests and might even have a legal obligation to shareholders. Educational institutions, on the other hand, theoretically operate in the interest of furthering human knowledge and have varying levels of independence from their sponsors; even when the University has final authority over what is published, a well-run institution would use an editorial committee to assess content from an academic rather than financial/promotional perspective. Public universities often have greater degrees of academic freedom, while religious institutions are required to follow their ideology more closely. In this case, sources such as the Encyclopedia of Mormonism are meant to be independent of the Mormon church, even though BYU resources were used in its publication. It would be far-fetched to say that church officials are pressuring the University press to cast them in a positive light. –dlthewave ☎ 00:17, 12 November 2018 (UTC)
• This is a strange question. University presses in most countries (at least those with freedom of speech) aspire to be, and usually are, scholarly publishers which prepare and publish works to scholarly standards independently of the university hierarchy. Reliable sources which state that the press is failing to be independent of the university would be needed to sustain a claim to the contrary. It's usually a big deal when a university's hierarchy attempts to influence works produced by the university press, so such sources should be readily at hand if this is an issue. The suggestions above that scholarly presses aren't independent because they form part of universities and/or because universities are (usually) government funded seems to be based on a lack of appreciation of the fact that universities in democratic countries are self-governing and run themselves along scholarly lines, with academic independence being fiercely protected. When this doesn't happen, it tends to be a major story. Nick-D (talk) 10:15, 14 November 2018 (UTC)

• The issue here is reliability, and a university press of a recognized university is RS pretty much by definition. There is no requirement that any publisher belong to any group of publishers, only that the publisher does reasonable fact-checking on non-fiction books. ("The Hunt for Red October" was published by the Naval Institute Press for example. ) So, in this case, all the side issues about the Book of Mormon being fiction and the like are irrelevant to the core policies of Wikipedia. If other reliable sources are found, then they clearly can be cited, but saying that this university is the Daily Mail of university presses is precisely the wrong thing to do. Collect (talk) 13:09, 14 November 2018 (UTC)

Is British Army Units From 1945 On a reliable source?

• 10th Regiment Royal Artillery 10 RA Article on Website
• 27th Regiment Royal Artillery 27 10 Article On Website

Thanks. Gavbadger (talk) 19:36, 13 November 2018 (UTC)

• Not reliable. There is no indication of what experience or qualifications the two people who run the site have or where they get their information from or how they check it. — Frayæ (Talk/Spjall) 19:45, 13 November 2018 (UTC)
• No. Same reasons as Frayae. Peacemaker67 (click to talk to me) 20:58, 13 November 2018 (UTC)

Thank you both. Gavbadger (talk) 22:57, 13 November 2018 (UTC)

• No. The source offers no information about what editorial oversight or peer review the information it provides is subject to. There is no information more definitive than a copyright notice as to who owns and operates the website, and nothing at all about the qualifications of the people behind it. Factotem (talk) 13:15, 14 November 2018 (UTC)

Please could I have some opinions as to whether Sequential Tart is a reliable source? It is currently being used to support a statement in the next DYK queue (see Template:Did you know nominations/Girlamatic), so we need to decide before the end of today whether this is permissible or not. If it isn't, the hook will need replacing and probably the sourced material removed from the article too. Also courtesy pinging Yoninah, Maplestrip, Narutolovehinata5 and The Rambling Man who have been involved in discussions about this hook/article. Thanks  — Amakuru (talk) 09:01, 15 November 2018 (UTC)

• Comment - just to add, initially I was tempted to just scrap it immediately, but looking at a Google search it also seems to feature a lot in various places on Wikipedia, so it may be more notable than initially meets the eye. THanks  — Amakuru (talk) 09:04, 15 November 2018 (UTC)

In this case, it appears to be an interview with someone actually involved with the article subject. At the very least, this could be an IAR case, and according to an off-wiki conversation I had with Maple, the source used is reliable and a frequent source for webcomics both on and off-wiki. Narutolovehinata5 ^tccsdnew 09:17, 15 November 2018 (UTC)

• Amakuru, I think the better or more pressing question for the moment is, is it (or the specific article/link in question) a reliable source to back up whatever claim it is currently supporting? What is the claim, and what is the article/link linked to? After that is determined, then the overarching use in other Wikipedia article citations can be addressed. Softlavender (talk) 09:18, 15 November 2018 (UTC)

• @Softlavender: the claim is: that the editor of webcomic subscription service Girlamatic originally wanted to call the website "ModernGirls", but this name was already taken by a porn site. For which the Sequential Tart source is . Thanks  — Amakuru (talk) 09:25, 15 November 2018 (UTC)

• The article in question being an interview, I believe the source should be relatively safe regardless. ~Maplestrip/Mable (chat) 09:33, 15 November 2018 (UTC)

• Whether or not it's an interview, there seems to be no evidence whatsoever that what is being claimed is actually true, where's the editorial oversight in the website which checks the facts? The Rambling Man (talk) 09:38, 15 November 2018 (UTC)

• You think Sequential Tart should have confirmed the fact that "ModernGirls" was considered as a potential name with other people who were involved with the creation of the website (like Joey Manley, for example)? ~Maplestrip/Mable (chat) 10:01, 15 November 2018 (UTC)

• I think someone should have checked the claim about it being a porn site was actually true, yes. For a RS, I'd expect that kind of check, and certainly before such claims are made on the main page, doubly so. I can't find any reliable third party evidence to back up that claim, can you? The Rambling Man (talk) 10:03, 15 November 2018 (UTC)

• It's a direct quote from a verbatim interview on a site that, per the comment by Maplestrip below, is reliable, and there seems to be no reason to question the reliability of the verbatim interview. The only conceivable reason I could see to discount or disbelieve that statement is if it had obviously been made in jest or as a snark, but nothing in the interview indicates the interviewee is being anything but sober and frank anywhere in the interview. Softlavender (talk) 10:04, 15 November 2018 (UTC)

• But there's no evidence what was said is true. No evidence at all. Show me some third party RS where ModernGirls has ever been a porn site and no problem. In the meantime, it's just something someone said which (apparently) is completely untrue. The Rambling Man (talk) 10:07, 15 November 2018 (UTC)

• Why do you say it is apparently completely untrue? And what motive would Lea Hernandez have for making a "completely untrue" statement with that amount of specificity? Softlavender (talk) 10:35, 15 November 2018 (UTC)

• I have no idea, maybe it was a mistake? But as I noted, there's no editorial oversight on that website that I can see, no fact-checking, and therefore it's just a primary claim until proven otherwise. As I said many times, an RS proving this was the case when they tried to obtain the domain would be just fine. Otherwise it's not. The Rambling Man (talk) 10:43, 15 November 2018 (UTC)

• The hook should probably say " but she claimed that name was " ... The Rambling Man (talk) 10:09, 15 November 2018 (UTC)

• This is likely not the correct venue to propose alternative blurbs, but would you be OK with the following: ... that Lea Hernandez, editor of webcomic subscription service Girlamatic originally wanted to call the website "ModernGirls", but Hernandez said this name was already taken by a porn site. ~Maplestrip/Mable (chat) 10:54, 15 November 2018 (UTC)

• That's appears much closer to the reality of the situation as far as we can reliably source, yes. The Rambling Man (talk) 10:58, 15 November 2018 (UTC)

• I'm completely fine with this change; it matters little to me. I do not know where to formally propose this change in the current state of the DYK process. Can you help me with this, Rambling Man? ~Maplestrip/Mable (chat) 11:01, 15 November 2018 (UTC)

• Amakuru will be able to sort something out, I'm certain... The Rambling Man (talk) 11:23, 15 November 2018 (UTC)

   Done  — Amakuru (talk) 11:40, 15 November 2018 (UTC)

• At the risk of TMI, I subscribed to a for-women porn site in approximately 2005/2006, and it was called Modern Girls. Softlavender (talk) 10:11, 15 November 2018 (UTC); edited 11:03, 15 November 2018 (UTC); see below

  I was just about to say that I was having difficulty finding the non-notable porn site, but it is good to hear this. Do you remember the URL? Maybe we can find it on the Wayback Machine. Just confirming that it existed at all should probably be enough. ~Maplestrip/Mable (chat) 10:14, 15 November 2018 (UTC)

  No, I don't remember the URL, and I unsubscribed to it in 2007 because the videos got pretty samey and tame. But I am certain it was called Modern Girls, and that had sounded classy to me and made me feel like it wasn't so sleazy to actually subscribe to a porn site. Even the URL would be defunct by now, since I think it went out of business as things got a lot more competitive. I dont think that Wayback would have captured a porn site in the early 2000s; it doesn't have workable captures for the URL "moderngirls.com" until 2015: . -- Softlavender (talk) 10:25, 15 November 2018 (UTC); edited 11:02, 15 November 2018 (UTC)

  So anecdotal evidence but nothing reliable. The Rambling Man (talk) 10:43, 15 November 2018 (UTC)

  I have done some digging on Bing (Google seems to tend to suppress porn results nowadays), and the site I subscribed to is and was called "For the Girls" (here's a description; not the actual link, no NSFW images: ), so I mis-remembered the site's name. Softlavender (talk) 11:01, 15 November 2018 (UTC)

• I have done a write-up on Sequential Tart's reliability at Wikipedia:Webcomic sources#Sequential Tart a long while back, and my conclusion has been that it is reliable. It had simply not been contested until now. Sequential Tart has a clear editorial board and has been used as a source by some of our other reliable sources, like Wired and Comic Book Resources. ~Maplestrip/Mable (chat) 09:32, 15 November 2018 (UTC)

Can you link to this, I can find no reference to an editorial board, or editorial practices.Slatersteven (talk) 10:17, 15 November 2018 (UTC)

Its editorial board (as well as a list of contributors) can be found here. I am linking an older version because the list has been edited and trimmed in the past few years. Editorial practices are not described, no. ~Maplestrip/Mable (chat) 10:25, 15 November 2018 (UTC)

Trimmed? in what way. Surely if there are few people on the editorial board that must raise doubts?Slatersteven (talk) 10:39, 15 November 2018 (UTC)

The staff has shrunk since the mid-2000s, that's true. I am not sure whether that changes how we consider their older articles, though. Moreover, they also simply stopped listing all of the authors who have contributed to the website since relatively recently, probably because that list had simply become too long. A lot of people have written for Sequential Tart in the past fifteen years. ~Maplestrip/Mable (chat) 10:45, 15 November 2018 (UTC)

It does not matter how many writers they have, what maters is oversight.Slatersteven (talk) 11:05, 15 November 2018 (UTC)

Of course, but individual writers can be experts in the field, so having the list is useful. The editorial board was also bigger at the time than it is now. Perhaps they are downscaling the publication. Two sections, "Cultures Vultures" and "Features", seem to have been halted. If we want to use one of these sections as a source, this older version of the editorial board is relevant. Moreover, Patti Martinson was not yet an assistant editor at the time the interview under discussion was published, etc. ~Maplestrip/Mable (chat) 11:11, 15 November 2018 (UTC)

See Talk:Posttraumatic stress disorder#Acupuncture --Guy Macon (talk) 14:51, 15 November 2018 (UTC)

One of the founding editors, Professor Edzard Ernst, has described the journal as "useless rubbish", primarily due to ineffective peer review. So no.Slatersteven (talk) 14:53, 15 November 2018 (UTC)

SCAM-specific journals are rarely reliable, and this one, as noted above, is no exception. Also, as a PTSD sufferer and supporter of Combat Stress (patron Sir Patrick Stewart, no less): scamming PTSD patients with quack treatments is a shitty trick. Guy (Help!) 15:02, 15 November 2018 (UTC)

Article: Monarchy of Australia

Source: Government Politics in Australia, 10th edition, by Alan Fenna, Jane Robbins, and John Summers. Pearson Higher Education 2013, p. 21: "The precise status of the two, the Queen and the Governor-General, is so unclear that experts debate which is the 'true' head of state in Australia."

There is a question whether the article should say the Queen is head of state or to say there is a dispute. Does the wording of the source say there is a dispute and if it does, is it a reliable source?

TFD (talk) 15:46, 14 November 2018 (UTC)

I would rather there we had more then one source saying there is a debate among experts. It is an RS but should be attributed. But No I am not sure it says there is a dispute, it says it is unclear.Slatersteven (talk) 15:53, 14 November 2018 (UTC)

Given the content of the current version of the article, and the Talk page, please note that the above query seems to be beside the point. Qexigator (talk) 17:22, 14 November 2018 (UTC)

Slatersteven, I found a number of books and articles about the topic, but unfortunately do not have access to them. But here are two Australian government sources I found used in the Australian head of state dispute:

"Who is the Australian ead of State?", Parliamentary Research Service, 28 August 1995. " The Constitution can be used to argue either proposition."

"Governors-General of Australia", Museum of Australian Democracy (part of the federal Department of Communications). "Some authorities argue that the GovernorGeneral is Australia’s Head of State in every respect: others disagree."

TFD (talk) 03:03, 15 November 2018 (UTC)

Well that is enough to say it is unclear and undefined.Slatersteven (talk) 09:56, 15 November 2018 (UTC)

This has been going on for years and will undoubtedly continue until Mrs. Windsor pops her clogs, leading to the accession of Prince Chas and Australia becoming a republic. Guy (Help!) 15:04, 15 November 2018 (UTC)

Here's the edit that cites this website. My gut is that it's not a WP:RS. But I'd like to hear other opinions. Msnicki (talk) 02:22, 10 November 2018 (UTC)

It appears to be some sort of curated inspiration site, there is no evidence that it's RS. Guy (Help!) 09:53, 10 November 2018 (UTC)

• It is a perfectly good site but not what I would describe as a reliable source, for BLPs particularly. Mainly due to the fact it is unclear who write their content or what their editorial process is. — Frayæ (Talk/Spjall) 14:24, 10 November 2018 (UTC)
• I spend a lot of time working on scientists. One of the hardest things is to find sources that actually discuss the science and what people did. This site gives more detail about the actual science than most of the sites I've seen, and I find it extremely useful. I found it when looking for information about the work of Marie Maynard Daly. It actually gave some information about what she did on nucleic acids and why that was important to researchers like Watson and Crick. Mary Mark Ockerbloom (talk) 15:56, 10 November 2018 (UTC)

Furthermore, the author, Dale DeBakcsy, is clearly identified on the site, and has published books in this topic area. cf. The Illustrated Women in Science (2015), The Cartoon History of Humanism. This is a very reasonable site to be referencing, and much better than a number of others I've seen, many of which just repeat the same information without giving useful detail. Mary Mark Ockerbloom (talk) 15:56, 10 November 2018 (UTC)

• No. According to the site's footer and privacy policy, Women You Should Know is owned and operated by Outhouse PR, which describes itself as a "Public Relations and Event Marketing Firm". The company's homepage states:

We specialize in grassroots brand building and image proliferation for both emerging and high-profile brands across a number of consumer industries. Delivering incomparable services and measurable results are our foundation. Contributing to the growth and success of our clients is our purpose.

Because of this, Women You Should Know appears to be a questionable source, but content from the site that is authored by established subject matter experts may qualify for the expert exception. — Newslinger talk 23:47, 15 November 2018 (UTC)

And to clarify, I don't think the expert exception is adequate justification to include content regarding living persons from questionable sources. — Newslinger talk 00:31, 16 November 2018 (UTC)

This site http://www.rugbyleagueproject.org looks like a personal site maintained by 3 friends as per . It does not say where their sources come from apart from contributions from indivduals. They do not say if they fact check. This site has been used as a source on 595 pages. --Dom from Paris (talk) 16:24, 16 November 2018 (UTC)

Tend to agree. Not seeing how this is not "just another blog".Slatersteven (talk) 16:51, 16 November 2018 (UTC)

Is RTT News a reliable source? Its currently being used on Caution (Mariah Carey album) to call it a hip hop album. It doesn't have a Wikipedia article so I thought I should ask here about its reliability. I found it fishy that this is the only website that called it a hip hop album, while none of the generally used reliable music sources called it explicitly a "hip hop album". To further prove their unreliability, the article in question also calls two of the songs that were only promotional singles as just "singles", while also forgetting to mention "The Distance" which was also released prior to the album.--NØ 19:13, 18 November 2018 (UTC)

Mmm unsure, what are its editorial polices (does it have an editor). At this time I am leaning towards no.Slatersteven (talk) 19:36, 18 November 2018 (UTC)

I agree - I looked around and did some Google searching but can't find anything on its editorial board or anything else that would indicate reliability. Guy (Help!) 19:42, 18 November 2018 (UTC)

An article about Sambhaji Bhide claims that he has been on the advisory boards of NASA and the Pentagon of USA. The source claims

he is reported to have been on the advisory boards of NASA and the Pentagon of USA

This is attributed to a user created content in Sulekha. The link is Can it be accepted ? Sarvagyana guru (talk) 06:43, 20 November 2018 (UTC)

"he is reported to have been" is an indication that the source hasn't confirmed it, so I don't think this is reliable enough to use. Zero^talk 14:20, 20 November 2018 (UTC)

A vague mention in a blog? No, that's not a reliable source for that. --tronvillain (talk) 16:06, 20 November 2018 (UTC)

This link is used 10 times in the article. Pantha describes himself as "Author and researcher of African history, culture and spirituality" and states that "Having traveled to KMT and Senegal he is avid researcher and focuses on sound methodology, primary and well verified secondary sources as his means of providing information." The source itself suggests he works at Cheikh Anta Diop University which has such a journal. Doug Weller talk 13:08, 19 November 2018 (UTC)

The source blakpanthaserer.com looks self-published. Is his work published elsewhere in any reliable sources? --Jayron32 14:25, 19 November 2018 (UTC)

Looking at the sourcing, they are quoting an academic paper "The Migrations between The Nile and The Senegal: Key Milestones of Yoro Dyao by Aboubacry Moussa Lam, Annals of the Faculty of Human Arts & Sciences, 21, 1991, p.117-139". Why not just quote the paper directly? FOARP (talk) 12:50, 21 November 2018 (UTC)

Moving this discussion over here:

1. It has been suggested that Baidu Baike references be replaced with ^{[citation needed]} or something using a bot.

2. It has been suggested that Baidu Baike be blacklisted.

Thoughts?

Convenience link(s):

• Search Baidu at RSN

Anna Frodesiak (talk) 21:06, 18 November 2018 (UTC)

• Support. Wasn't this brought up here already a couple of months ago? I remember commenting on this before. Daß Wölf 03:09, 19 November 2018 (UTC)

And it was, woohoo! Daß Wölf 03:14, 19 November 2018 (UTC)

• Support Seeing that, and considering all things, yes, support. Anna Frodesiak (talk) 10:44, 19 November 2018 (UTC)
• Support. As an open wiki, Baidu Baike is a self-published source and should not be cited in articles. — Newslinger talk 03:12, 20 November 2018 (UTC)
• Support. As a wiki full of corporate spam, Baidu Baike should be blacklisted just like the Daily Mail. feminist (talk) 06:48, 21 November 2018 (UTC)
• Support. Good faith users are being misled and causing a problem for the project. Guy (Help!) 22:30, 21 November 2018 (UTC)

Mag in question is The Nation. Shahid wrote about the 2016 U.S. Presidential election for The Nation as did D. D. Guttenplan. At AfD discussion Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Waleed Shahid, the leading source for Shahid's notability is coverage of him in The Next Republic: The Rise of a New Radical Majority, a book about the 2016 campaign by D. D. Guttenplan who covered the election for The Nation. Shahid is a professional political organizer and activist who has both written for and been written about in The Nation. Here: is a search of Guttenplan's articles in The Nation mentioning Shahid. — Preceding unsigned comment added by E.M.Gregory (talk • contribs) 18:59, 23 November 2018 (UTC)

Assuming that Seven Stories Press, the publisher of said work, has an editor who is not associated with The Nation, I'd say that they are independent of each other. Walter Görlitz (talk) 19:04, 23 November 2018 (UTC)

• Advent Film Group (edit | talk | history | protect | delete | links | watch | logs | views)

The article on Advent Film Group relies almost exclusively on ChristianCinema.com and Christian Newswire. The latter is obviuously a PR feed, but is the former sufficient to establish notability for a company that has received vanishingly little coverage anywhere else? Guy (Help!) 22:13, 18 November 2018 (UTC)

I would say "no" - Christian Cinema appears to be mostly involved in selling Christian Films, so it probably has some strong incentives to give undue coverage to relatively unimportant production companies. That said, Advent Film group was also covered by The Daily Beast, and Huffington Post (an actual reporter, not a blogger as far as I can tell), those would definitely qualify - so you might be able to make a case on those sources. Nblund ^talk 22:32, 18 November 2018 (UTC)

Christiancinema is a best a trade rag, and per WP:ORGIND they are not very helpful toward showing N. Jytdog (talk) 02:02, 19 November 2018 (UTC)

• Query could have been phrased better. There certainly are "Christian-specific" sources that are WP:RS.E.M.Gregory (talk) 19:50, 23 November 2018 (UTC)

I scanned the RSN archive for stuff on www.geni.com and found some past discussion, but nothing which appears to clearly state whether it's reliable. Any it's being cited alot in Victoria Coffey for information about relatives of Coffey, so I'm wondering whether the cite is considered a RS. Lots of the sourced content was recently added to the article by some new editors who might not be familiar with WP:RS and assumed that published online means good enough for Wikipedia. -- Marchjuly (talk) 02:28, 19 November 2018 (UTC)

Another editor commented that it was unreliable. Bear in mind that it consists of articles written by people about their family with no fact-checking. That certainly does not meet rs. TFD (talk) 05:02, 19 November 2018 (UTC)

Understand and thanks for the input. That discussion, however, dates back to 2012 and I'm wondering if there's been anything more recent about this particular site. -- Marchjuly (talk) 00:48, 20 November 2018 (UTC)

I would treat Geni.com similarly to Ancestry.com (RSP entry) and FamilySearch (RSP entry). Avoid using user-generated content from Geni.com. Primary source documents from Geni.com can be used when appropriate under WP:BLPPRIMARY to support a reliable secondary source, but take care not to use original research to interpret them. — Newslinger talk 11:18, 24 November 2018 (UTC)

Thanks for that Newslinger. What do you think about the way the source is being used in "Victoria Coffey"? -- Marchjuly (talk) 12:17, 24 November 2018 (UTC)

From what I can see in the current revision of the Victoria Coffey article, none of the seven citations there are appropriate, since all of them link to the user-generated family trees on Geni.com. There's no indication that the cited data has been fact-checked. Some of the family trees contain links to birth certificates in the gallery, but if used, the media should be directly cited (for example, by linking to the actual birth certificate instead of the family tree page for John Coffey).

For this article, WP:BLPPRIMARY doesn't apply as Coffey is no longer alive, but using the birth certificates could still be considered original research, since we don't have confirmation that the family described is the same Coffey family that Victoria Coffey belonged to. This concern has been echoed for other genealogical sites here and here.

Personally, I would remove the Geni.com references and use only the secondary sources cited in the article, which provide Coffey's years (but not dates) of birth and death. This would be less precise, but we would be confident that the information is correct. I would also remove the ages of Coffey's siblings when they died, since that content isn't supported by anything other than the Geni.com pages.​ — Newslinger talk 21:24, 24 November 2018 (UTC)

The article Acupuncture contained this sentence, "The evidence suggests that short-term treatment with acupuncture does not produce long-term benefits." and cited this source Wang SM, Kain ZN, White PF (February 2008). "Acupuncture analgesia: II. Clinical considerations". Anesthesia and Analgesia. 106 (2): 611–21 doi:10.1213/ane.0b013e318160644d

Having read the source I felt that the text didn't represent what the study found, which was that acupuncture does effectively manage some conditions in the short term. Accordingly I edited it to say "A review of randomized, sham-controlled clinical investigations found that treatment with acupuncture is "effective in the short-term management of low back pain, neck pain, and osteoarthritis involving the knee" but that it does not produce long-term benefits." However this was reverted with the claim that my edit is a POV edit. I think this is an issue of the source not being used correctly and not an NPOV issue which is why I am posting here.

Is this source used correctly in my edit? Morgan Leigh | Talk 21:14, 24 November 2018 (UTC)

Acupuncture doesn't work. It doesn't matter where you put the needles, or even if you actually insert them. All positive results are small, transient, and can be safely ascribed to bias and/or p-hacking. The source fully establishes this: "However, the literature also suggests that short-term treatment with acupuncture does not result in long-term benefits". The earlier version was more accurate, yours is less accurate. Guy (Help!) 20:21, 25 November 2018 (UTC)

Can we have a quote that supports that text?Slatersteven (talk) 20:22, 25 November 2018 (UTC)

There is an RFC at Talk:Stéphane_Grappelli#RFC:_Gay regarding whether or not the article should state that the subject was gay. Please provide your perspective! –Roscelese (talk ⋅ contribs) 04:08, 26 November 2018 (UTC)

Metal Sucks is an irreverent website covering heavy metal music news, run by a couple of New York heavy metal fans. Recently they have covered a band called Threatin, essentially a one man project by Jered Threatin (Jered Eames), who allegedly faked a large following via social media and then played to empty venues on a European tour. While WP:Albums considers MetalSucks to be "generally reliable", much of their material is satirical in tone. Given that the site is essentially a blog rather than an established heavy metal magazine like Kerrang! or Metal Hammer, I have concerns about its use when WP:BLP issues are involved. For this reason I removed the material where it was cited, but this was restored by Issan Sumisu. My position is that Metal Sucks should only be used as a source on what Metal Sucks says, e.g. album reviews, and not where BLP issues are involved. The deleted material is likely factual, I just think it needs a better source. MaxBrowne2 (talk) 16:29, 24 November 2018 (UTC)

Bearing in mind that MetalSucks is considered a generally reliable source, and that it is recommended that it is ok to be used except for overly satirical material, and that this content doesn't look at all satirical, I think it is ok to be used as a source for this material. Generally it is better to find another source for material rather than just deleting it if you aren't happy with the source. If you can't find a better source then add a citation required tag and see if someone else comes up with one. If some times passes and no one has, then deleting the material might be the thing to do. Morgan Leigh | Talk 21:29, 25 November 2018 (UTC)

I'd agree if it wasn't a BLP. MaxBrowne2 (talk) 04:07, 26 November 2018 (UTC)

As far as I can tell, we don't need it. Or indeed this article, which blatantly fails WP:BLP1E / WP:NOTNEWS. Guy (Help!) 08:31, 26 November 2018 (UTC)

Afd material then? Last Afd was easy, but now it's being covered by BBC, Guardian etc. MaxBrowne2 (talk) 12:06, 26 November 2018 (UTC)

I have no idea why we have these articles, but whatever. The issue is that large numbers of them source endorsements to primary self-published sources. Look at List of Donald Trump presidential campaign endorsements, 2016 (edit | talk | history | protect | delete | links | watch | logs | views), for example. You will see many examples of "J. Random Crank, source, JRandomCrank.com". Jeff Rense, for example. Rense.com is a completely unreliable source, and while the fact that Rense supported Trump is hardly a surprise, it would seem to me that in the absence of a reliable independent source commenting on it, it's WP:UNDUE. Same with WND columnists sourced to their WND columns and so on. Should I prune everything that is primary sourced to an unreliable source? Guy (Help!) 17:53, 25 November 2018 (UTC)

seems fair to me.Slatersteven (talk) 17:55, 25 November 2018 (UTC)

[If we're going to have such lists then] they should be notable; they don't need to be reliable. Wouldn't be opposed to requiring an endorsement receive secondary source coverage to include, but that's less an RS issue. The notable part makes them not random; the crank part doesn't separate them from lots of other names on the list. — Rhododendrites ^talk \\ 05:01, 26 November 2018 (UTC)

That's a puzzling statement: they should be notable; they don't need to be reliable. In my view everything on Wikipedia should be reliable. Long bloated lists supported by WP:PRIMARY / WP:SPS links to hyper-partisan websites seems like a bad idea on several levels. What do we learn from seeing that J. Random Extremist supported a candidate who had broad support among extremists? You'd be astounded if Noam Chomsky didn't back Bernie, and equally astounded if David Duke didn't back Trump. The converse - Chomsky backing Sanders and Duke backing Trump - is sufficiently unsurprising as to be not worth mentioning, I'd say, unless reliable independent sources discussed the importance at length (which, in both these cases, they do). Guy (Help!) 08:30, 26 November 2018 (UTC)

What's puzzling is trying to apply RS not to sourcing but to content about sources, regardless of the sourcing. If the issue is primary/sps, I said rather explicitly that I wouldn't be opposed to requiring secondary coverage. If not, I suppose we should delete our articles about infowars, WND, and, well, Trump himself, because "everything on Wikipedia should be reliable"? There are plenty of people/organizations on these lists that aren't reliable for a wide range of things, but we're not citing [e.g. WND, some lobbying group, some politician] for anything they're not a reliable source for; we're including them in a list of notable endorsements. RS is for sourcing, not content about sources, and it doesn't matter who would be surprised by names on the list. I'd say the best way to deal with this isn't to argue that content about sources is relevant to RSN, but to work out a stricter inclusion criteria, perhaps requiring secondary source coverage or something more. — Rhododendrites ^talk \\ 14:07, 26 November 2018 (UTC)

• Agree that many names on these lists are UNDUE. It's often argued that a notable person's opinion is inherently notable; this is a fallacy that goes against our NPOV policy. We should use the same secondary sourcing requirements that are applied everywhere else. –dlthewave ☎ 13:31, 26 November 2018 (UTC)
• I have several issues with these lists. First, we need to clarify the inclusion criteria. I think we need to distinguish between an official endorsement (someone speaking on behalf of an organization or entity such as a newspaper) and an unofficial expression of support (someone speaking as an individual).

Second... The real issue isn't so much the reliability of the sources, but the relevance of the information. That some famous (or infamous) individual expressed support for a candidate is rarely relevant (it is essentially election trivia). As for more official endorsements... I feel that for an endorsement to be relevant we need some indication that the endorsement matters. Prior to an election, we have to ask: Does the endorsement represent a significant group of voters (note - endorsements by fringe groups can and should be ignored, because they are not significant groups.) After the election, we have to ask: Did the endorsement play a significant role in the election... did it sway a significant group of people to vote for the candidate in question? In other words, when we mention endorsements, we need to give appropriate historical context. And a list is not really the right venue to give that needed context. Blueboar (talk) 15:00, 26 November 2018 (UTC)

Alternet is in the red box in the media bias chart, it is heavily opinionated and at least as biased as the Daily Mail. It is cited in around 900 articles, often for medical claims (it is an abject failure on WP:MEDRS and many of the claims are bogus alt-med nonsense). One particular favourite is punting homeopathy as a remedy for anthrax. Kids: don't try this at home. I propose to clean these references out. Any fact that is genuinely significant will be covered in a better source. Guy (Help!) 08:25, 15 November 2018 (UTC)

• Support Clearly unreliable.Should be put in the same category as Daily mail --Shrike (talk) 08:38, 15 November 2018 (UTC)
• Support oh my goodness yes. Is its owner, Raw Story, already categorised similarly? If not it should be - David Gerard (talk) 09:01, 15 November 2018 (UTC)
• Comment: Paging BullRangifer, because it is on his list regarding the reliability of various sources. -- Softlavender (talk) 09:13, 15 November 2018 (UTC)
• Not generally reliable. They provide an "alternative" news story - which is at times very much alternative. They definitely do not have a reputation for fact checking. As for whether they are as bad as the DM - not sure - but they aren't far off.Icewhiz (talk) 15:15, 15 November 2018 (UTC)
• Support. Not RS. -- BullRangifer (talk) PingMe 22:56, 16 November 2018 (UTC)
• Support. Much of AlterNet's content is aggregated from other sites (Salon, TruthDig, Common Dreams, etc). Most of these are also not RSs, but some may be, so worth checking source and citing the original where appropriate. Also be careful not to cull citations to the similarly named Alertnet, a project of the Reuters Thompson Foundation that was a highly reliable source! BobFromBrockley (talk) 00:19, 18 November 2018 (UTC)
• Support and Alternet should be blacklisted just like the Daily Mail. feminist (talk) 06:51, 21 November 2018 (UTC)
• Support per above; the site has a clear non-neutral point of view and includes content from a wide variety of re-published content, some of which have no editorial control. power~enwiki (π, ν) 05:03, 25 November 2018 (UTC)
• Support - this definitely isn't a reliable source for WP:MEDRS. Alternet does do a fair amount of content aggregation these days, and some of that content is reposted from other reliable sources such as Propublica or the Guardian - so efforts to clear out references to Alternet should probably proceed carefully to avoid eliminating information when we could just replace the reposted article with the original. Nblund ^talk 18:57, 26 November 2018 (UTC)

{reply to|Cullen328|GeeBee60}}

I would like a consensus as to whether this book is a reliable source: https://trove.nla.gov.au/work/29780718?q&versionId=36174633. It has been said that Gateway Press is a name of varied, since disestablished, companies, and that it was a vanity press. Be that as it may. The book stands on it's own merit, if read and not judged by its cover or publisher. And that brings up the issue of publisher, just because a book is published by an established publisher does not mean that it is accurate or true or well research. Which is what Alvanh Holmes books are, well researched, documented, footnoted, with photocopies of correspondence, such as from the College of Arms, and snippets of wills. Alvanh went so far as to produce proof that discredited a long held notion, held so dear to many Farrar family researchers, that that faction I call the Virginia Farrars, were not descended from Nicholas Ferrar, she went further, she was the first to cast doubt on the long held belief, repeated endlessly by other family researchers, that Nicholas Ferrar and the "Virginia" Farrars, in contratempts to Peter Peckard's Memoirs of the Life Of Nichlas Ferrar, did not descend from Henry de Ferrers,"master of horse" for Duke William at Hastings. The Ferrers line is a completely different line, and I suspect extinct in the male line, but a different haplogroup from that of the Virginia Farrars. Given that,despite it being published by Gateway Publishers, and that it being considered "vanity". The book is so well written, documented, footnoted and honesty to the point of pain for some. That it is a reputable and reliable book.Alvanhholmes (talk) 19:42, 25 November 2018 (UTC)

User:Alvanhholmes. three things - 1) I added a section header. 2) Your "ping" failed to work due a bracket error. I am pinging the two people in this diff so they are notified, as you intended. User:Cullen328, User:GeeBee60. 3) There are some other issues that should be resolved with conflict of interest and your username before this goes a lot further - I've brought this up on your user talk page. Jytdog (talk) 19:51, 25 November 2018 (UTC)

replying on the merits, two things. First, you don't offer an example of content you want to generate using this source. Please read the instructions at the top of this page. I can say that generally, as far as I can tell per the BBB here, Gateway was a vanity press (providing self-publishing services) and now just sells books at https://genealogical.com/. In general, we use SPS with caution and attribution, if at all. If you want to argue something on the merits, you need to bring sources showing that the author is indeed an expert. You haven't done that. Your opinion (or mine) of her expertise is not relevant...Jytdog (talk) 20:02, 25 November 2018 (UTC)

If it has been published by a vanity press, no it is nor an RS unless it can be shown it was written by an acknowledged (by others, not themselves) experts in the field, no it is not RS.Slatersteven (talk) 20:03, 25 November 2018 (UTC)

This is my assessment, copied from User talk:Shashi Sushila Murray:

"I claim no special expertise regarding the evaluation of genealogical sources but I am familiar with the general principles described in Wikipedia:Identifying reliable sources. One thing we do when looking at the reliability of a book is to evaluate both the reputation of the author and the reputation of the publisher. I have tried to find information about Alvanh Holmes but all I can find is that her work is mentioned on a few genealogy forums and blogs but nothing about her education or qualifications. Was she a professional academic historian (good) or an enthusiastic amateur (not so good)? Similarly with Gateway Press. There have been several companies over the years using that name and the best known current company with that name is now in business in Kentucky, and that appears to be a book printer (not a publisher) that will take a book order from anyone with the right amount of money to spend, and that is why I thought the book might be self-published. But this appears to be another Gateway Press located in Baltimore which is probably out of business since it has no website and no social media presence. I was able to learn that this Baltimore company specialized in publishing family genealogy books. I suspect that this was a Vanity press that would publish any manuscript about genealogy if the author pre-ordered and paid for X number of copies. Unless we can verify that this company had rigorous editorial control including fact checking, then a book published by this company is probably not a truly reliable source by Wikipedia's standards. From the point of view of reliability, a book published by a vanity press is identical to one that is self-published." Cullen³²⁸ Let's discuss it 20:14, 25 November 2018 (UTC)

Reliable sources OMG when it comes to genealogy, there are some excellent researchers who are "amateurs" and some lousy researchers who are "professional". It doesn't bother me that a publisher is "vanity" when it comes to publishing family histories, because usually these amateur researchers are not trying to con folk out of money, are simply relentlessly driven and want to share their discoveries. Obviously, problems arise when an impatient and irresponsible historical researcher jumps to wild conclusions and conjurs fiction out of wishful thinking. But just because I self-publish a family history does not mean my history is bad research. It only means that I have a small market. To make my story a big market book my claims would have to be sensational.

All that said, my entire knowledge of the family Ferrar is one week old! I asked a question in the Tearoom about a COMPLETELY different topic. user:Alvanhholmes's adjacent Tearoom question caught my distractible attention. I'm a decent editor researcher who mostly sticks with botany, entomology, gardening, and space science, but I dabble in historical topics including genealogy, (and other topics - User:Jytdog you helped me with a medical article six months ago). I responded to user:Alvanhholmes's question about editing partly because my current WP projects are driving me nuts and I wanted a change of view. I believed I could help make the one article more readable and credible, but I mostly have to trust user:Alvanhholmes's sources.

Sorry to be so minmally helpful. good luck -- GeeBee60 (talk) 23:57, 25 November 2018 (UTC)

Thanks for your note. We would need RS about the book or the author; nobody here has personal authority here to bless (or curse) anything. Jytdog (talk) 00:01, 26 November 2018 (UTC)

@GeeBee60:I am sure, because of current history, I will yet again be accused of argmentation. I will have to live with that then. However after GeeBee60 offered an explanaton Jytdog, in essence responds, thank you very much but I have taken my position and can't back down. You don't accept or respect the argument and will stand by your exclamation come hell or high water.

After reading the wiki article on Reliable sources, there is absolutely nothing in there that prohbits Alvanh Holmes from being a reliable source. Read at least a portion of the book the footnotes, the references, there is nothing at all in the guidelines that prohibit a self published book from being acknowledged a reliable source. The only other reason I can see is an inability or unwillingness to back up, retract, to admit errorAlvanhholmes (talk) 00:19, 26 November 2018 (UTC)

If the author Alvanh Holmes is a recognized academic expert on colonial Virginia, then perhaps this book might have some use as a reference. However, we know nothing at all about her so far, except that she wrote two books about the Farrar family. Your personal assertions about the quality of the book and the character of the author are of no value here, Alvanhholmes, although I do not doubt your sincerity. We need actual evidence. Cullen³²⁸ Let's discuss it 00:29, 26 November 2018 (UTC)

I just searched a research library for mention of "Alvanh Holmes" and found nothing. That search covers books, articles, newspaper articles, etc. including things that are not online. Mystery person. Jytdog (talk) 01:59, 26 November 2018 (UTC)

{reply to|Cullen328}} Does every book cited have to be from a recognized academic expert? I think not, and I see nothing of that sort in the guidelines, and if there was it would surely limit the ability to post articles. This appears more to be a case of moving the goal posts, to justify a position that has become inttractable. That's the way I see it.02:45, 26 November 2018 (UTC)

Oldperson, no, not every single book used as a reference needs to be from an academic expert. Context matters and we do not insist on such sources for articles about popular culture topics. But Identifying reliable sources says that "When available, academic and peer-reviewed publications, scholarly monographs, and textbooks are usually the most reliable sources." In the context of historical topics from 400 years ago, we ought to have a strong preference for sources written by academic historians. The policy goes on to say that "Reliable non-academic sources may also be used in articles about scholarly issues, particularly material from high-quality mainstream publications." In this case, we have no evidence other than your personal opinion that this is a high quality mainstream source or that it should be considered reliable here on Wikipedia. Cullen³²⁸ Let's discuss it 02:02, 27 November 2018 (UTC)

Sources have to be reliable. If the publisher is not, the author better be, in some identifiable way. If the publisher is recognizably a quality press, then we can safely assume they've done their homework in vetting the author and their work. If the press is a vanity press, and the author an unknown quantity, that's not a good combination. Drmies (talk) 03:12, 26 November 2018 (UTC)

To put things a bit more gently, while Wikipedia is very tempting to use as a publisher, one really should procede as if Wikipedia does not exist. Who would you like to review and publish your thesis / document / article? Would a reputable genealogical journal publish what you have written? What would an academic historian or someone else with good credentials say if they reviewed your work? What sort of scrutiny will your research stand up to?

@Cullen328, Drmies, and Shashi Sushila Murray: I understand your qualifications for reliability, but add one that is not considered. And I realize that it takes time. Consider the actual contents and the quality of the author themselves I don’t mean reading the entire book, but a link to it was published, and it’s contents can be perused and assessed as to their quality . Calling something vanity press or self published in itself is not a disqualifier, for certainly there are many such articles posted or reference on wiki, take a look yourself, otherwise these exceptions appear to be handwaving exercises. Perhaps acking one to actually asses the quality of a product is a waste of time especially when one has taken a position contrary. That would be asking too much, to change one’s opinion. My sister hated pears, but never ate one in her whole life, nothing would change her mind, she wouldn’t even take a bit of a pear However this experience has been insightful and an old dog can learn new tricks. But I've wasted enough time here, both yours and mine. I will cease activity other than keeping an eye on things. those articles I wanted to publish, I had given up on long ago, but held on out of principle. There are some principles that could improve WP, and one of them is to desist from forming the wagons in a circle. Trust me I do understand the problem of legal constraints and the need to get it right. I really do, but there is a tendency to fundamentalism, and so sadly, a tendency to ignore, rebuke or rebutt a user who simply asks what do you mean, please provide an example.. Authors are not proof readers, that is why publishing houses hire proof readers, telling a person that their article needs more work, and hen getting upset and charging them with being argumentative, bodes ill and is discouraging, worse yet telling someone they are guilty of bad behavior, when all they want is an answer to a question because they don't understand the suggestion is elitist and patronizing, we aren't children, and editors and reviewers aren't parentsOldperson (talk)

Regarding the credibility of specific sources, consider this: While it might take some digging, many genealogies are reviewed by an approriate journal or two at time of publication. Discern when these books were published and see if with digging you can find reviews at time of publication. That might include you sending letters to historical society researchers, maybe some funds for their time. You want blunt assessments, not fauning hagiography. Good research and good researchers can hold up to steely eyed scrutiny.

Of course one of the worst vanity presses is the internet. Validity is neither established nor rejected by being present on or absent from the internet, especially when it comes to historical documents and related research. Medical research, sure. Contemporary arts, sure. Modern technology, yeah. But family history-- extremely hit or miss, all depends. There are thousands of academic, public, and private libraries with treasure troves of amazing documents held in dusty underfunded archives and waiting to be explored.

The internet and Wikipedia are not going to prove the validity of yours or others research into 400 year old documents. Don't expect fame and fortune from them either. Do what would be expected of you as a researcher in 1968-- establish a good paper trail and a good story. Scrupulously document your research. Cross check and recross check. That really hasn't changed aside of the technology. GeeBee60 (talk) 08:10, 26 November 2018 (UTC)

Can anyone find sources for Square wheel? A recent edit there struck out some text resulting in "a metaphor meaning feeling bad and naive". Reference 4 is "citation needed"! Unfortunately, searches for "square wheel" get a bunch of companies with a similar name and pop-science articles on what kind of surface would make square wheels useful. It's a notable topic but without references for the meaning of the term. Johnuniq (talk) 02:45, 27 November 2018 (UTC)

Hi Johnuniq, I think you might have more luck at the resource exchange board, which focuses on finding sources instead of evaluating them. — Newslinger talk 04:08, 27 November 2018 (UTC)

Thanks but I thought that page was for requests for specific sources. I suppose the method to have sources found would be nominating the article for deletion, but I'm not going to do that. Johnuniq (talk) 04:14, 27 November 2018 (UTC)

Source: The Epoch Times

Article: Tuidang movement and any other page related to political controversies involving Falun Gong

Content: The entire article in as much as it relates to the existence of the Tuidang Movement (i.e., not the parts relating to repression of FLG in general).

I've just had a look at an article related to Falun Gong (the Tuidang movement) describing a supposed movement within China to quit the communist party and other communist party-related organisations. Supposedly already 300 million people in China have quit the communist party, a number greatly exceeding the membership of the communist party (~90 million), and also a number (roughly a quarter of the Chinese population) which would surprise most people who have lived in China and never met anyone who has quit the party.

My biggest issue with this page is that the only sources that actually describe this movement (the Tuidang movement) as existing are either the Epoch Times, are sources quoting the Epoch Times, or are articles written by activists within the Falun Gong movement. Other parts of the page, relating to the suppression of the Falun Gong movement in general, appear well sourced, however the repression of Falun Gong within China is already covered on a different page. Absent the Epoch Times references, this article might well lack notability per WP:GNG and verifiability per WP:V since nothing else actually discusses the Tuidang movement per se.

Is Epoch Times an independent, reliable source when it comes to political controversies that involve Falun Gong? Its editorial stance and relationship to Falun Gong are described here. Particularly relevant are the claims that The Epoch Times serves as part of a public-relations campaign for Falun Gong and that the paper "operates as a mouthpiece for" Falun Gong. More recently, following an incident where an Epoch Times reporter at the White House tried to hand a dossier to the president, Ming Xia, a political-science professor at the Graduate Center at the City University of New York, described The Epoch Times as follows:

"“They support the Falun Gong because they are Falun Gong practitioners,” Xia said. “It’s a way to accumulate their merit. They are not professional journalists and they do not follow the protocols professional journalists abide by. That’s how they can be very pushy and aggressive.”"

The same WaPo article linked above has an Obama-era official describing The Epoch Times as being "more activists than journalists".

For balance it should also be said that the editor of the English-language Epoch Times has denied that the paper is directly owned by Falun Gong. I also don't think the Epoch Times is necessarily not a reliable source for things not related to Falun Gong - it's the specific issue where the topic is a political controversy related to Falun Gong that concerns me. FOARP (talk) 21:01, 20 November 2018 (UTC)

My personal opinion is that no, the Epoch Times should not ever be considered a reliable source for anything. But especially never for Falun Gong related material. It's a garbage paper that exists only to put out anti-China propaganda. Simonm223 (talk) 19:55, 23 November 2018 (UTC)

It meets WP:NEWSORG so there is no real reason to exclude it and we do use sources by various activist organisations.Yes it biased against China current totalitarian regime so it should be used attributed.--Shrike (talk) 17:54, 24 November 2018 (UTC)

• Not independent, good for attributed stmts - Epoch Times, as well as (on the opposite side) any media inside of China and controlled/influenced by the Chinese regime, has a dog in the fight here around Falun Gong. They can be an important source for attributed stmts as they are available in English and do cover Falun Gong - but they are by no means independent. For issues unrelated to the Chinese regime they are possibly a RS - they are run as as NEWSORG.Icewhiz (talk) 20:43, 24 November 2018 (UTC)
  • If you want to know why I have major issues with how Wikipedia often handles so-called news sources as WRT reliability, look up at the anti-China comments in this thread and their attempts to slip in notability of a propaganda rag. Simonm223 (talk) 13:31, 26 November 2018 (UTC)

I don't think it is necessary at all to discuss whether editors are pro- or "anti-China" (which is normally a discussion about support or opposition to the CCP anyway). The specific question is whether The Epoch Times is an independent, reliable source for information on political controversies related to Falun Gong. FOARP (talk) 08:21, 27 November 2018 (UTC)

The almost complete lack of any press freedom in China is well documented by relevant watchdogs - e.g. Freedom House, RSF. Saying that the Chinese media, controlled/influenced by the Chinese regime, is a non-independent source regarding a Chinese opposition group is quite straightforward and is not anti-China in any way, shape, or from. Icewhiz (talk) 08:33, 27 November 2018 (UTC)

Not for statements of fact, for obvious reasons. Just in case anyone doesn't know, all pages related to Falun Gong, broadly construed, are under discretionary sanctions. I've added a notice to the talk page of the article. Doug Weller talk 10:12, 27 November 2018 (UTC)

Regarding this support. How does one proceed now? Anna Frodesiak (talk) 11:47, 27 November 2018 (UTC)

 You are invited to join the discussion at Talk:Honda Ridgeline#Citing an owner's forum. -- Marchjuly (talk) 02:59, 29 November 2018 (UTC)

In the article Jackie Walker (activist), it currently says "Her father was a Russian Ashkenazi Jew and her mother was a black Jamaican Sephardi Jew. with a citation to the Camden New Journal. There has been some discussion on the talk page about identifying her ethnicity,,, and this particular source has been questioned twice, both whether the periodical itself is a reliable source in general and whether the specific article is an opinion piece, and specifically in relation to a sensitive and contentious issue of ethnicity in a BLP. Guidance welcome. BobFromBrockley (talk) 17:14, 22 November 2018 (UTC)

• I do not mean to disparage the Camden New Journal, but it is unlikely that a New Jersey newspaper will have done genealogical research on the maternal ancestry of a British political activist. Walker claims in her memoir that her mother's family was descended from a Jew who came to America at the time Columbus did. There is no indication that Camden newspaper attempted to verify the claim.E.M.Gregory (talk) 20:20, 26 November 2018 (UTC)

• @E.M.Gregory: - the newspaper is based in Camden, London - not NJ (note that Camden NJ was not named due to the British Camden Town - but rather both were named for Charles Pratt, 1st Earl Camden). This is a freeebie newspaper for this specific London bourough.Icewhiz (talk) 20:37, 26 November 2018 (UTC)

• My bad. It remains true that the article gives no indication that the newspaper attempted to verify Walker's claim of maternal Jewish ancestry. E.M.Gregory (talk) 20:59, 26 November 2018 (UTC)

Forgive me but the above exchange does not look to me like you have done anything to check up on this source. Nor do we judge how much work a source may (or may not) have done, as unless we work for them we cannot know.Slatersteven (talk) 13:36, 29 November 2018 (UTC)

Can editors chime in on this RFC? Magherbin (talk) 20:00, 29 November 2018 (UTC)

Daily Star (United Kingdom) (edit | talk | history | protect | delete | links | watch | logs | views)

I see no clear consensus as to the nature of the Daily Star in the RSN archives. A discussion in 2011 suggests that it should never be used, with discussion of deliberately-falsified stories. Their current lead stories on their website www.dailystar.co.uk include NASA 'fakes anti-gravity on International Space Station with WIRES...it's filmed on EARTH' / THE International Space Station is not orbiting Earth and is secretly filmed in a studio, according to a wacky conspiracy online. (which is blatantly misleading but not technically false, as there probably is such a conspiracy theory), Human brains still work AFTER death so people KNOW they’re dead (which doesn't explain much), and Diana SPIED on before crash: US has secret files full of Royal Family’s DARKEST secrets (which appears to mis-represent the results of a FOIA request). This newspaper appears to be only slightly more reliable than the Weekly World News. If there's a consensus, I'd like it listed on WP:RSP as a never-reliable source. power~enwiki (π, ν) 04:58, 25 November 2018 (UTC)

It's absolute trash that doesn't even pretend to be a good source, and totally should be listed there. Does anyone try to use it on Wikipedia? - David Gerard (talk) 09:58, 25 November 2018 (UTC)

There are currently 220 articles which link to it. Almost all of them are gossip-fodder on celebrities or worse; Ana Braga as one example. power~enwiki (π, ν) 16:42, 25 November 2018 (UTC)

Absolutely. It makes the Daily Mail look the New York Times! ——SerialNumber54129 10:02, 25 November 2018 (UTC)

Agree, this should be treated no differently then the Daily Myth.Slatersteven (talk) 17:12, 25 November 2018 (UTC)

• It is a tabloid, worthless as a source. Fractionally better than the National Enquirer, but only fractionally. It absolutely cannot substantiate notability. Guy (Help!) 18:13, 25 November 2018 (UTC)

• Certainly not RS, facts and fiction mingle in such kind of tabloids Cinadon36 (talk) 18:52, 25 November 2018 (UTC)
• I wouldn't trust it for wrapping. Martinevans123 (talk) 19:04, 25 November 2018 (UTC)
• Best used on the nail on the inside of the outhouse door, when The Stun orTthe Fail are not available. Particularly satisfying when a pic of Maggie was on the front page. -Roxy, the naughty dog. wooF 20:14, 25 November 2018 (UTC)
• Gah! What a frightful thing. Please list it immediately. Morgan Leigh | Talk 07:20, 29 November 2018 (UTC)
• Here's a crazy idea: if a source lists something that seems false, check what it says against other sources. Tabloids in general are less reliable than broadsheet or specialist sources, but this doesn't mean they are completely useless or should never be used, it just means you should be careful when using them, especially for BLP. No need for a blanket-ban (and yes, that's what happened to the DM even if people won't call it that). FOARP (talk) 15:10, 29 November 2018 (UTC)

I totally agree about blanket bans. However I support a resource like this list that advises people about the quality of sources as it can save a lot of time. I don't support using inclusion on this list as a blanket ban on the source. Morgan Leigh | Talk 00:17, 30 November 2018 (UTC)