Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Horror/Sources

Hello, Would anyone also consider that both the following sites can be considered reliable and quality sources:

1. Scared Stiff Reviews. See their About Us and Team
2. the other is Moria Reviews

Best, -My, oh my! (Mushy Yank) 11:19, 17 September 2023 (UTC)

• @Mushy Yank: Sadly to me it doesn't seem like either site has any editorial oversight, which is a near universal demand for a site to be considered reliable.★Trekker (talk) 19:45, 17 September 2023 (UTC)

  Thanks@StarTrekker:! What about considering the editorial team of Scared Stiff Reviews as experts on their subject? The staff at Moira Reviews are annoyingly discreet about who they are.... -My, oh my! (Mushy Yank) 20:26, 17 September 2023 (UTC)

  @Mushy Yank: I am not overly familiar with the two so I can not say, I would recoment starting a discussion on the main horror project to get more input.★Trekker (talk) 20:56, 17 September 2023 (UTC)

  Done! (here) Thanks again.@StarTrekker -My, oh my! (Mushy Yank) 20:59, 17 September 2023 (UTC)

@StarTrekker and ReaderofthePack: Any reason why this now-defunct website is excluded from the list despite having deemed it reliable in a now-archived, three-year-old discussion? What makes it truly reliable, anyhow? Because I chanced upon a retrospective review from this site that I intend to cite in an article I'm improving; only problem is that neither WP:FILM/R nor this project seem to honor it. Nineteen Ninety-Four guy (talk) 18:44, 18 August 2024 (UTC)

Offhand I can't remember anything as far as it being removed. Maybe it was discussed at a deletion discussion and someone brought up something. I say go ahead and use it. ReaderofthePack(formerly Tokyogirl79) (｡◕‿◕｡) 16:24, 21 August 2024 (UTC)

I wanted to post here about the outcome of the discussion for Horrornews.net at RS/N. The gist is that the site is no longer considered to be reliable. It had been brought up before and at that time I hadn't noticed how bad the site had become.

It looks like the site started a pay service for expedited reviews in 2018, as part of an advertising package. They opened an outright marketing/PR arm in 2020. As far as I can tell, they don't clearly mark the reviews or articles obtained through these services. They do say that they don't promise positive reviews, but all of the prior combined does pose a huge issue, particularly the potentially unmarked marketing material.

I don't begrudge the site for trying to stay afloat, but this does change the site's reliability. As such, I propose adding the following note:

HorrorNews.net began offering marketing/PR services in 2018. Anything published on the site before 2018 is usable for establishing notability; anything published after this date is not.

What do y'all think? If there's no opposition, then I'll add this. ReaderofthePack(formerly Tokyogirl79) (｡◕‿◕｡) 17:38, 12 January 2026 (UTC)

Sad but I have to agree.★Trekker (talk) 15:01, 13 January 2026 (UTC)

I'll make this change. It's really sad. What's actually sadder is the discussion for Film Threat at RS/N. Long story short, they used to be great and now they're just a PR/churnalism site. ReaderofthePack(formerly Tokyogirl79) (｡◕‿◕｡) 19:43, 22 January 2026 (UTC)

So tiresome that this keeps happening. Sometimes I wonder if we'll have any good source left eventually.★Trekker (talk) 21:15, 27 January 2026 (UTC)

Hey, did we ever have a discussion about Horror Society? I had brought it up here with the list of potential sources, but I don't know if we ever actually discussed it.

There was a discussion at RS/N here. Someone emailed the site about how they obtained a DOB for an actor and the reply stated that they believed that the article's author obtained from IMDb. This poses a major issue with verification, if neither the journalist nor the editorial staff questioned the use of IMDb for information. It also looks like the site does sponsored posts per this page. I'm not certain if they mark the posts as sponsored or not.

So the question here is this: is the site reliable? Can we use it for reviews? My thought is that it's probably OK for reviews, but not for anything else. Interviews are probably OK for non-controversial details, but of course cannot establish notability.

Something that points in favor of the site for reviews and interviews is that it's been used as a RS in books put out by McFarland here, here, and here. I haven't seen them used anywhere else, though.

I've moved it to the situational sources section for now. ReaderofthePack(formerly Tokyogirl79) (｡◕‿◕｡) 12:26, 2 February 2026 (UTC)

Having sponsored stuff without disclosure it absolutely an issue for reliability. Reviews and interviews can probably keep being used (unless we find evidence that they're doing paid reviews as well).★Trekker (talk) 21:55, 4 February 2026 (UTC)

My big fear is that someone will argue that a sponsored post could be anything, including a review. ReaderofthePack(formerly Tokyogirl79) (｡◕‿◕｡) 13:49, 5 February 2026 (UTC)