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TohoKingdom

1. Source: TohoKingdom.com
2. Article Godzilla (franchise) and other related articles.
3. Per a discussion among users on the articles talk page here, there was discussion whether or not the site should be used as a source. Although there was a lot of enthusiasm for the site to be used, I believe it fails WP:SELFPUBLISH. It actively publishes information about films such as Mothra, and notes some sources, but also appears to use self-published sources such as in the article I had previously linked to, stating "On March 1st, 1961, Toho and Columbia released a press release stating how the latter was happy to be working with Toho" which declares its information from a self-published book. As I couldn't get much response outside enthusiasm for the site on its original discussion, I felt it would be appropriate to bring it up here. Andrzejbanas (talk) 07:47, 2 March 2020 (UTC)

SUPPORT: Yes, TK started out as a fan site but it has grown over the years. They've interviewed the filmmakers of the actual productions, acquired press releases directly from the studios, published exclusives, and provide information that is difficult to track down from other English sources, such as budgets and box office results for the Japanese films. Their information is mainly taken from Japanese periodicals and books, found here, which they also provide reviews for. The amount of information TK has provided for the films is impeccable and should be given serious consideration to be cited as a reliable source. TK is slowly but surely becoming an authoritative source on the subject of Godzilla and Japanese sci-fi/fantasy cinema. Armegon (talk) 15:28, 2 March 2020 (UTC)

Could you show me on the site where they say where the information is gathered or how? Because they definitely review the books, but its not clear how they gather their own information. Andrzejbanas (talk) 17:08, 2 March 2020 (UTC)

I managed to find three sources on the site itself that match your request. For this one, the author says that the Ryfle book "is unsurprisingly one of the acknowledged media sources cited on Toho Kingdom's credits page." For this one, the author states that this particular Japanese book is one of his "most used resources." And for this one, the author states "When we started putting background information in our movie bios, I went back and re-read many books in my collection to take notes for this. Tucker's Age of the Gods was one that I got lost in." So it seems they do use reliable sources (books in their collection) to add information to the site. Armegon (talk) 22:07, 2 March 2020 (UTC)

This again is where I take issue with the site, particularly the review of Age of the Gods which itself is a self-published book and fails as a reliable source for Wikipedia. Andrzejbanas (talk) 06:06, 3 March 2020 (UTC)

Yes but WP:SPS states that "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, independent publications." In the case of Tucker, he seems to be a reliable source since experts like August Ragone found him reliable enough to publish one of Tucker's essays in the Tsuburaya book, see page 102 if you have the book. The information culled for the site are either from Toho approved books or from English experts who have had their work published independently and verified by the filmmakers they themselves interviewed. Armegon (talk) 08:19, 3 March 2020 (UTC)

Comment. When it comes to their sources it really varies from article to article but the vast majority of the information is culled from reliable sources. For instance this article here [1] about the monster Dragon King from the TV show Zone Fighter is sourced from the books Toho Special Effects: All Kaiju Illustrated Encyclopedia and All Kaiju Kaijin (First Volume). While this translated story treatment for Continuation King Kong vs Godzilla [2] is translated directly from Godzilla: Toho Special Effects Unpublished Material Archive: Producer Tomoyuki Tanaka and His Era. As long as the information is sourced than I think its ok. That is really the gist of the website which elevates it from a simple fancruft fansite to one that contains legitimate factual information..Giantdevilfish (talk) 13:20, 3 March 2020 (UTC)

I'm not saying there isn't issues with all their content or the author of that book, but a self-published book that a site claims it takes heavy info from is not going to make the site shine well as a reliable source. The authors essay in a published book is another case entirely. I want to be cool with using TohoKingdom, as it could fill in a lot of gaps we have in articles, but I'm leaning towards now that we should really only use it as a source if they explicitly state on the specific pages where the information is coming from. Andrzejbanas (talk) 05:27, 4 March 2020 (UTC)

Well, the book may be self-published but the author has proven himself reliable given that established experts like Ragone have vouched for him. I'd be difficult to only use pages that cite sources because none of them state the source of their information. The best deduction one can make is that they pulled that content from Toho approved books, etc. Armegon (talk) 22:48, 4 March 2020 (UTC)

I think we should limit our use of this source. I feel hesitant to fully support it because, firstly, it is self-published, and secondly, a majority of its articles don't actually cite any reliable sources, though some do. However, I understand that it's hard to find English-language sources on this subject. I think we should only use this website for very basic, uncontroversial facts or facts that are clearly sourced to other reliable sources. ErinRC (talk) 15:32, 5 March 2020 (UTC)

What kind of basic and uncontroversial facts would you be referring to? I mainly want to use the site to fill in gaps for Japanese box office grosses, ticket sales, and budgets. Armegon (talk) 23:18, 6 March 2020 (UTC)

Reliability of GSMArena

I am using https://www.gsmarena.com/ to fill some info and add citations related to smartphones, but I want to know if relying on this site alone (especially when the device whose page I’m editing has been discontinued and is not on the manufacturer’s website like the first Nokia 3) is a good idea. Are there any issues with this page regarding reliability? RedBulbBlueBlood9911 (talk) 11:12, 4 March 2020 (UTC)

"We gather our information mainly from the web sites of manufacturers. Some of them provide very detailed information, others not so much." that does not read like they in fact edit or fact check, I would say not an RS.Slatersteven (talk) 13:39, 4 March 2020 (UTC)

That's a good thing. A phone manufacturer would, logically, have the most accurate information on the specification of their devices. If they presented inaccurate specifications, they would be committing fraud a misrepresentation, and no reputable phone maker would take such a risk. feminist (talk) 03:07, 5 March 2020 (UTC)

• Reliable, possibly the gold standard among mobile phone review sites, with a much longer history than sites like The Verge. Specifications are generally reliable for announced devices (not for unreleased devices, but they would usually violate WP:CRYSTALBALL anyway if you try to cover them on Wikipedia). Reviews count towards notability. feminist (talk) 03:07, 5 March 2020 (UTC)
• GSMArena is widely used by other reliable sources, including CNET (RSP entry), Ars Technica (RSP entry), PC Magazine, Tom's Guide, and TechRadar. My only reservation with GSMArena is that it does not publish a staff list; all of its articles are anonymously authored. I consider GSMArena's database of mobile device specifications to be a reliable primary source, excellent for populating infoboxes like {{Infobox mobile phone}} and comparison lists such as Comparison of smartphones. GSMArena's news articles are somewhere between marginally reliable and generally reliable, in my opinion. I don't think GSMArena's database entries or short-form articles should count toward a device's notability, since the site is not particularly selective about the devices it covers. GSMArena's reviews should be fine for notability. — Newslinger talk 11:44, 6 March 2020 (UTC)

  Right, I'm talking about their reviews. feminist (talk) 02:47, 7 March 2020 (UTC)

RfC: Sixth Tone

The following discussion is an archived record of a request for comment. Please do not modify it. No further edits should be made to this discussion. A summary of the conclusions reached follows.

There is a clear consensus for additional considerations apply. Specifically not reliable for political information and probably reliable for non-political cultural and social information. (non-admin closure) Eggishorn (talk) (contrib) 01:30, 8 March 2020 (UTC)

---

I recently found the Sixth Tone, which is owned by a mainland Chinese media company. Although Chinese media is sources which should be with catious when it comes to political issues in China, should we include the Sixth Tone as a realiable source to discuss Chinese society and culture (especially when there is no other source to fully describe a non-controversial Chinese events such as introducing a Internet personality and Chinese government-accused controversy on Chinese Internet service, since state-run media and popular western media)? Relisted by ToThAc (talk) 17:37, 4 January 2020 (UTC), originally raised by Mariogoods (talk) 20:18, 6 December 2019 (UTC)

Notified: Wikipedia talk:WikiProject China, Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Journalism, Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Magazines. — Newslinger talk 02:37, 13 December 2019 (UTC)

• Additional considerations: Foreign Policy described Sixth Tone as an "excellent site" and they seem to be concerned with how fake news is spread. The site does seem to need more notablility, though, so I would most likely find a different source first. But as you say, there are not many other sources like this. I am on the fence.----ZiaLater (talk) 16:25, 13 December 2019 (UTC)

@ZiaLater: I agree with your opinion. It is hard to find sources which represent Chinese view while not engaging much in propaganda. And while we have The Paper, Sixth Tone uses English language. (I needed more Wikipedians to comment this)Mariogoods (talk) 23:15, 13 December 2019 (UTC)

Comment: Everything I've read (includiog articles I used as sources to write the Wikipedia article Sixth Tone as well as the Foreign Policy article) seems to support that Sixth Tone itself is accurate for non-controversial cultural matters. WhisperToMe (talk) 12:37, 16 December 2019 (UTC)

• Definitely not reliable for political topics. No opinion about non-political topics. Anything that is based in mainland China should have the same reliability as the Chinese Government for political topics, which is zero. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Adoring nanny (talk • contribs)

In my opinion, the Sixth Tone should be used with caution to cite in political topics, especially Chinese political topics. But I don't think we should fully reject its report in political topics. Mariogoods (talk) 02:36, 15 January 2020 (UTC)

• Additional consideration Can be used to discuss Chinese society and culture but it needs to be carefully reviewed, attributed, and idealy would only be used to flesh out things described by reliable sources and not for things uncovered by reliable sources. Horse Eye Jack (talk) 09:36, 4 February 2020 (UTC)
• Reliable. They're actually a really good source, particularly about cultural/social issues (am familiar with some of their journalists). The only reason they'd be deserving of any scrutiny at all is because they're largely based in mainland China. The Drover's Wife (talk) 04:14, 16 February 2020 (UTC)
• Not reliable for politics as a source controlled by the Shanghai branch of the Communist Party of China. feminist (talk) 06:05, 23 February 2020 (UTC)
  • I'm seeing some troubling arguments here in that no response whatsoever has actually addressed their reliability but instead raised issues about where they're geographically based. If you've got reliable sources in the US saying that it's a good source, and you've got no specific-to-them arguments why the sources we already acknowledge are reliable in their reporting are wrong about this, general wariness about Chinese sources is not any kind of basis on which to declare something "non-reliable" on certain topics without any evidence whatsoever. The Drover's Wife (talk) 10:13, 23 February 2020 (UTC)

    My concern is not with where they are based, but the fact that they are published by Shanghai United Media Group, which is literally controlled by members of the Shanghai branch of the CPC. See their webpage. feminist (talk) 06:56, 24 February 2020 (UTC)

As this RfC has elapsed, I have requested closure at WP:RFCL § Wikipedia:Reliable sources/Noticeboard#RfC: Sixth Tone. — Newslinger talk 10:52, 3 March 2020 (UTC)

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

Fox News, 9/11 topic

I was wondering if this Fox News article, https://www.foxnews.com/us/a-torn-9-11-flag-is-repaired-one-loving-stitch-at-a-time, is reliable to support the sentence that an American flag flew outside 90 West Street after 9/11. I think it may be reliable, but wanted to have a second opinion, since this is a 9/11-related topic. The specific text is:

Following the attacks, a large American flag was flown outside the West Street Building, which became a "symbol of hope" for 9/11 rescuers.

References

epicgenius (talk) 20:37, 8 March 2020 (UTC)

• Yes. Fox would be reliable for that. In general, the major American cable news networks (Fox, CNN, MSNBC) are considered reliable for their basic news reporting, and less reliable for opinion and analysis segments. When in doubt, use in-text attribution. Blueboar (talk) 21:42, 8 March 2020 (UTC)
• Generally news reports are reliable sources for news, not things that happened 14 years ago. Reporters aren't trained historians and at this point there are better sources for 911 which should be used. Also, it's questionable whether something published in one news source 14 years after it occurred has weight for inclusion.

The News-Press

Can't find ought in the archives; what do we think of this? It looks like a "local paper", but covering multiple counties—so how local is that? I'm not sure. I'd like to use it for facts about a local resident if possible (rather than opinions, of which it doubtless has many and can keep, from our point of view). Happy Sunday all! ——SN54129 20:28, 8 March 2020 (UTC)

• Reliable for local news. Gannett, the parent company of the generally reliable USA Today (RSP entry), owns a large portfolio of local newspapers including The News-Press. I wouldn't be concerned with the paper covering multiple counties. Gannett covers many geographic areas in the US, and how the company splits these areas among its papers is a business decision that shouldn't impact reliability. — Newslinger talk 20:44, 8 March 2020 (UTC)

That's great news for me, Newslinger, and I appreciate the promptnesss of your info! Happy Sunday! (What's left of it) ——SN54129 21:05, 8 March 2020 (UTC)

Cheers! — Newslinger talk 02:41, 9 March 2020 (UTC)

www.filmreference.com reliable or not

I've come across this site being used as a reference and I don't see it on the list of reliable sources. There's no info that I see on the site as to who really runs it and how they do vetting. I'd have to lean away from it being reliable, but hoping others might have some inside info. Thks.Mikethewhistle-original (talk) 06:26, 10 March 2020 (UTC)

Yeah, I was wondering about that one myself recently. Note that there is a "Search the noticeboard archives" box above, that can sometimes be helpful.

IMO earlier comments like [3][4][5] has it right, it's nothing we should use, especially not in BLP:s. Gråbergs Gråa Sång (talk) 07:04, 10 March 2020 (UTC)

Gråbergs Gråa Sång, agreed. From a quick look, their articles have by lines, but no indication of who the authors are, whether they have an editorial process, where any of the information comes from, etc. Can't see any reason to give it credence as an RS. GirthSummit _(blether) 07:51, 10 March 2020 (UTC)

More sources for the CAPTCHA whitelist

In the discussion #Adding generally reliable sources to the CAPTCHA whitelist, Beetstra said that these links should just be added with a rather low bar. I hence propose adding some more sources to the list: see User:Feminist/CAPTCHA exemptions. These sources are not discussed enough to merit inclusion on RSP, but they should be uncontroversial additions to the list: they are all professionally-run publications routinely used as sources. The list is not meant to be exhaustive. @Newslinger and Beetstra: pinging editors involved in the previous discussion. feminist (talk) 13:03, 9 March 2020 (UTC)

This is great. I'll add more domains as I find them. — Newslinger talk 08:05, 10 March 2020 (UTC)

https://coronavirus.1point3acres.com/en

At Template:2019–20 coronavirus outbreak data, the above source and some content was introduced in this edit which does not appear to be reliable (or accurate by our standards). A review of the source shows that the numbers are maintained by a self-proclaimed "...group of first generation Chinese immigrants in the United States...[who] built this real time coronavirus/covid-19 tracker for US and Canada to bring more transparency to the public and increase awareness about the global epidemic." It seems to be a self-published source, as I mentioned at Template talk:2019–20 coronavirus outbreak data#Quality of Sources. However, the person who introduced this material has reinserted it again as he maintains it is reliable but hasn't addressed my suggestion to check it here. I couldn't find other sources to verify the numbers being introduced in the edit either. What do others think about the source and content? Ncmvocalist (talk) 17:12, 9 March 2020 (UTC)

Not reliable currently, per WP:SELFPUBLISH, although they do source their reports to other reliable sources which may be useful. Unless someone associated with the group is an established expert, or the page is verified by another party of verified experts, or expert status is conferred upon them then it's the equivalent of any other blog. Koncorde (talk) 17:23, 9 March 2020 (UTC)

1point3acres aggregates news bulletins about coronavirus infections and post tallies.

I found the site https://coronavirus.1point3acres.com/en more reliable than https://gisanddata.maps.arcgis.com/apps/opsdashboard/index.html#/bda7594740fd40299423467b48e9ecf6 . Both sites are just counting coronavirus infections.

1point lists it sources arcgis does not, or at least I don't know how to find them. Therefore 1point is more verifiable. When viewing updates 1point is often 24 hours faster than arcgis. Also arcgis seems to have missed a few updates, but unable to verify since it doesn't list it's updates.

The content dispute? At the time of this posting 1point lists 634 U.S. infections, arcgis lists 607.

Daniel.Cardenas (talk) 19:16, 9 March 2020 (UTC)

Question: Of the two sources is one more or less self published than the other? Daniel.Cardenas (talk) 19:28, 9 March 2020 (UTC)

The issue is not about content differences, but about reliability of the site used as a source. One source is John Hopkins, an indisputibly reliable source (an absolutely minimal check of the source would be obvious https://systems.jhu.edu/). 1point3acres in contrast has no standing, and it's contributers are basically unknowns of no verifiable notability. We are dependent upon them both maintaining their speed of updates, and their accuracy in interpreting secondary sources. Koncorde (talk) 19:31, 9 March 2020 (UTC)

John Hopkins sounds impressive but if they don't list their sources and the other does, which is more verifiable? At least with one we can double check they haven't made mistakes. I'll take verifiable over big name. And yes, it is very possible that 1point slacks off, at which point we can switch to something more reliable. Daniel.Cardenas (talk) 19:44, 9 March 2020 (UTC)

In addition to verifiable vs big name, it is obvious to me that one is doing a much better job than the other staying up to date. Right now the differences are larger, and it has been taking the slower site 24 hours to catch up. Daniel.Cardenas (talk) 20:19, 9 March 2020 (UTC)

Look, you obviously have not looked at the WP:SELFPUB standards or you wouldn't be asking why we trust an internationally reputable organisation, a specialist in the field of diseases and at the cutting edge of research with its own technology department that have put together a tracker that is being referenced by numerous other reliable sources. If you do not understand why John's Hopkins University is inherently reliable with the data it published then I am not sure how me explaining it to you will help. If you value being 24 hours ahead so much, rather than being sourced to one of the leading names in medicine in the world you would take the word of 6 random blokes that likely have good intentions but hold none of the relevant standing, notability or duty of care, then there is nothing anyone can do to explain how stupid a question you've just asked. Koncorde (talk) 20:28, 9 March 2020 (UTC)

How much trust do we want to put in a big name to count cases? Doesn't take a genius to do that. It is self evident which is more reliable. In addition to self evident, weight should be placed on which is verifiable. If John Hopkins told us how they are counting cases that would be great. Are they just taking WHO reports and putting in their website? Wouldn't it be better to trust someone who is directly adding up the numbers regardless if they have a PHD in epidimiology? And please don't be stupid again ignoring my arguments of verifiable versus a reputable source and the evidence that one is doing a better job. Daniel.Cardenas (talk) 20:48, 9 March 2020 (UTC)

If by self evident the answer is Johns Hopkins, then I agree. However your arguments are fallacious. The basic premise that somehow because we can see their sources we can verify that they are a reliable source is not how reliability works. That we don't want to put our trust in a "big name" is utterly ridiculous. On which basis I am noping the heck out of this ridiculous argument with someone who patently doesn't understand the basics. Koncorde (talk) 21:02, 9 March 2020 (UTC)

Just so others can understand since Koncorde is unable to comprehend. The argument is that one source list it sources and thus we can verify if the information is accurate. The other source comes from a reputable source but does not list it sources therefore we can not verify ability to gather all the sources and count correctly. So the question becomes, which is more important verifiability or reputable? Again to me, the ability to see the list of sources is very important. I think most wikipedians will agree. Daniel.Cardenas (talk) 21:10, 9 March 2020 (UTC)

did you actually bother to look at the Hopkins map? They literally list each source for the data. Praxidicae (talk) 21:16, 9 March 2020 (UTC)

Yes, I did. Thanks for the info. I see sources now listed as WHO, CDC, ... I'll withdraw my argument. Those sources are stale compared to 1point, but I doubt that will matter for this situation. Daniel.Cardenas (talk) 21:30, 9 March 2020 (UTC)

I just want to clarify in case anyone else was concerned, they have identified their sources on the map and in their blog since they launched it. They are not stale, they are the most reliable sources whereas other maps such as the ones you've linked are using crowdsourced information and reports from social media. Praxidicae (talk) 15:07, 10 March 2020 (UTC)

Is a blogger an expert in Agile development?

Can https://medium.com/@seandexter1/beware-safe-the-scaled-agile-framework-for-enterprise-an-unholy-incarnation-of-darkness-bf6819f6943f be used to back the claims made here? Walter Görlitz (talk) 22:31, 10 March 2020 (UTC)

• Unreliable. Sean Dexter is a "Senior UX / Product Designer" at Cigna, according to his LinkedIn. While he can arguably call himself an "expert" in a colloquial sense, he does not meet Wikipedia's standards to be considered a subject-matter expert: "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, independent publications" (WP:SPS). A search reveals that Dexter has only published material on Medium (RSP entry) and other self-publishing platforms. — Newslinger talk 08:01, 11 March 2020 (UTC)
• My simple response is, who?Slatersteven (talk) 08:45, 11 March 2020 (UTC)

Is a member of "Agile Forest" an expert in the subject?

Can https://agileforest.com/2018/06/24/why-safe-is-not-the-scaled-agile-approach-you-need be used to back the claims made here? Walter Görlitz (talk) 22:32, 10 March 2020 (UTC)

• Unreliable. The Agile Forest book is published on Leanpub, which is a self-publishing platform. The Agile Forest website (agileforest.com) is a self-published blog. I cannot find any indication that Renee Troughton is "an established expert on the subject matter, whose work in the relevant field has previously been published by reliable, independent publications", as required by WP:SPS. — Newslinger talk 08:06, 11 March 2020 (UTC)
• No.Slatersteven (talk) 08:45, 11 March 2020 (UTC)

Can we use photos of the Delhi riots a resident has uploaded?

I've just told someone no on my talk page but am having second thoughts. The issue is how do we know they are of these riots? Is there any way they can be seen as reliable? My opinion is that they aren't reliably published, but thinking about it we obviously use photos that aren't reliably published. Doug Weller talk 20:21, 8 March 2020 (UTC)

North East Delhi riots already uses one photo contributed by Banswalhemant. Why are these additional photos an issue? NedFausa (talk) 20:33, 8 March 2020 (UTC)

NedFausa, image caption/description should be cited except in some cases per WP:WHYCITE. These images need sources or should be deleted from Wikipedia (not Wikimedia commons).--SharʿabSalam▼ (talk) 20:46, 8 March 2020 (UTC)

SharabSalam according to the content guideline WP:CITE, Wikipedia's verifiability policy requires inline citations for any material challenged or likely to be challenged, and for all quotations, anywhere in article space. If you are challenging the authenticity of Banswalhemant's photos, please explain why you suspect they are fraudulent. NedFausa (talk) 20:57, 8 March 2020 (UTC)

NedFausa, I am not "challenging". You just don't get what it is saying. I don't have to challenge an unsourced material, unsourced material should be removed or tagged as unsourced. It is on the other party to bring a reliable source not on me to challenge it. The policy is talking about unchallengeable material like 5+5=10. I hope you understood now.--SharʿabSalam▼ (talk) 21:10, 8 March 2020 (UTC)

SharabSalam according to the behavioral guideline WP:GOODFAITH, It is the assumption that editors' edits and comments are made in good faith. Most people try to help the project, not hurt it. I am confident that Banswalhemant has provided his photos in good faith to help Wikipedia. Per WP:CITE, inline citations are required only for material challenged or likely to be challenged. No one has disputed his photo that has remained online since 4 March 2020. It remains to be seen if anyone besides yourself might challenge any other of his generously contributed images, should we add them to the article space. And since you refuse to explain why they are not authentic, I believe we should proceed to discuss not whether to include them, but which to select to best illustrate our narrative. NedFausa (talk) 22:05, 8 March 2020 (UTC)

(ec)@Doug Weller: - it's a good that you are reconsidering the idea that photos on Wikipedia (or on Commons) need to have some sort of reliable source. There are likely tens of millions photos uploaded by the photographer which don't have a "reliable source" saying that this photo is what the uploader says it is. Going down that road would likely be a path to removing 80-90% of user generated photos, which are likely at least 50% of all illustrations on Wikipedia. From the very beginning we've accepted the photographers word on good faith. I suppose the "caption needs a source" idea has some limited applicability, but the idea that anybody could get rid of any photo they don't like by saying "the caption is not referenced" would really be a no starter for anybody who has donated photos. Having a good reason to doubt the caption really should be required. Smallbones_(smalltalk) 22:18, 8 March 2020 (UTC)

We have a policy that says that we should cite every material except WP:SKYBLUE material. Uncited material should be removed or tagged without any additional discussion.--SharʿabSalam▼ (talk) 22:25, 8 March 2020 (UTC)

Not quite... the policy is that we must be ABLE to cite everything... but not that everything has to be CITED. The policy says we must ACTUALLY cite in two situations... a) when someone challenges it, or b) when we think the information is likely to be challenged (thus effectively peempting a challenge). The same holds for image captions. We can assume good faith in a lot of situations... but the more controversial the topic, the more likely it is that ANY information (even images and captions) relating to it will be challenged. Blueboar (talk) 22:41, 8 March 2020 (UTC)

Blueboar The article North East Delhi riots is controversial. Banswalhemant's photo captioned "Burnt shops at Shiv Vihar" has gone unchallenged since being posted on 4 March 2020. What do you make of that? NedFausa (talk) 22:52, 8 March 2020 (UTC)

I think Blueboar has it right - that when editors upload their own photos at Commons and label them as something that otherwise may be difficult to validate, we care going to take them at their word, unless we're talking an obviously incorrectly labelled image, an image that we know has routinely been impossible to get (eg a photo of Kim Jong-Un by an editor) or a clear copyright violation (like taking a Gettys image to make their own). Yes, the more images that user uploads that have easier objects to verify to show that they are in the area and thus likely able to capture other images from the same area, the better, but we're not going to judge that at immediately. We will assume good faith to start. --Masem (t) 22:57, 8 March 2020 (UTC)

Personally, I would like to have seen the GPS information in the extended details; but, even if I am to assume good faith, and there is no reason not to, it is very important to have some more information about the pictures. Is this a Muslim-owned business or a Hindu-, a Muslim home or a Hindu-, a Muslim street or Hindu-, to the extent that streets are segregated by religion? It is important to know that because we can't very well have, say, two pictures of Hindu homes or Hindu-owned businesses as representative illustrations if we are saying in the lead that at least two-thirds of homes or businesses destroyed were Muslim. I've asked the uploader these questions on Talk:North East Delhi riots Fowler&fowler«Talk» 02:11, 9 March 2020 (UTC)

Yesterday I upload a Picture of Rajdhani School [[6]] Which was damaged by mob in North East Delhi riots. In description, there is a link of NDTV through which you can verify my work. user:Banswalhemant

It was I that raised this concern. It is based upon the fact that over the years various social media have had doctored or "miscaptioned" photos used to spread rumour innuendo or false hoods. I was thus unsure if wp:or would apply to user images, and going forward I can see that if we indeed do allow this we may become victim to just this kind of hoaxing.Slatersteven (talk) 09:11, 9 March 2020 (UTC)

Just want to say, I saw this subject header in my watchlist and read "photos of the Delhi riots" as "photos of people rioting", which presents all kinds of BLP issues. But this is about a photograph of the aftermath. Is that the only photo, or are there more people had in mind? We allow user photos of notable buildings and places all the time. We would also allow photos of buildings taken at different times if changes, including things like fire damage, were significant to the article. I don't see how this is different, unless used to create some kind of emphasis not found in the sources. Someguy1221 (talk) 09:20, 9 March 2020 (UTC)

The problem is (maybe not with these images but going forward) is how do we know when an image was taken.Slatersteven (talk) 09:43, 9 March 2020 (UTC)

You can also see "Metadata" in which you can get the information about date and time of capturing of image. Like in this picture ([[7]]) you can find Geo-tag and other things Banswalhemant (talk)

• We need verification that this was caused by Delhi riot.--SharʿabSalam▼ (talk) 11:09, 9 March 2020 (UTC)
• I agree with most of what has been said---we should assume good faith on the part of the uploader---though I think it's a bit moot. Our manual of style (see MOS:PERTINENCE) is explicit that our images need not be provably authentic: Images should look like what they are meant to illustrate, whether or not they are provably authentic. The images look like what we're trying to illustrate, so I don't see a reason not to use them. — Wug·a·po·des​ 16:07, 9 March 2020 (UTC)

Agreed. If we required verification of all images used in all articles WP would be a rather bare place. Of course some images, or what they actually show, may be challenged (and on this highly POV-contentious topic may well be), but initially we should assume AGF. Johnbod (talk) 16:36, 9 March 2020 (UTC)

I think that is a good way of putting it. In my opinion the line is where there are multiple significant points of view among reliable sources, and the photo only supports one of them. If there is no dispute that buildings were damaged by fire, only what lead up to that, a photo of fire-damaged buildings is not partial to one point of view. Someguy1221 (talk) 22:48, 9 March 2020 (UTC)

• Quick update: there is an image that has been verified. I would say that images that are not controversial shouldn't have to be cited. Images that are controversial, can be challenged etc then there needs to be a citation so it can be used in Wikipedia. WP:OR also applies. An example would be ancient kingdoms maps, they need sources and WP:OR applies.--SharʿabSalam▼ (talk) 10:06, 10 March 2020 (UTC)

Muslim homes and businesses burned during the North East Delhi riots.

• New problem: We used this image and the source next to it. However, Slatersteven added "Failed verification" tag although the images are of the same places. Pinging those who participated @Masem, Someguy1221, Johnbod, Banswalhemant, and NedFausa:.--SharʿabSalam▼ (talk) 18:58, 10 March 2020 (UTC)additional ping @Wugapodes:.--SharʿabSalam▼ (talk) 19:03, 10 March 2020 (UTC)

Because the "source" is not the source for the photo, nor do the two images even show the buildings in exactly the same state.Slatersteven (talk) 08:48, 11 March 2020 (UTC)

Also we now have a claim the pictures have been edited, if so how [[8]]?Slatersteven (talk) 13:02, 11 March 2020 (UTC) As well as circular sourcing [[9]] is being used as a cite for the picture on our page, to quote the source "Photo Credit: Banswalhemant, Wikipedia Commons".Slatersteven (talk) 15:45, 11 March 2020 (UTC)

Slatersteven I remedied your concern about circular sourcing by rewriting the footnote, which now reads: Photo by Banswalhemant is original. The following reference to a published source that includes the same photo is offered solely for context. We make no claim that Eurasia Review is the source of our photo. NedFausa (talk) 16:17, 11 March 2020 (UTC)

• Just noting that per MOS:PERTINENCE, it is not necessary that a source be provided to authenticate images. For obvious reasons, the vast majority of self-produces photographs would not and could not be authenticated with a published source. Having lat long in the EXIF is nice and all, but EXIF can be edited too. So if you think someone is lying about a photo, the EXIF doesn't really solve your problem. GMG^talk 15:57, 11 March 2020 (UTC)

GreenMeansGo, what's frustrating about this discussion is that, so far as I can tell, no one has actually accused Banswalhemant of lying. Instead, those who oppose using his photos focus on their lack of publication by reliable sources. (Even though one of his photos was published two days ago by Eurasia Review—not a perennial source but not a deprecated source either.) NedFausa (talk) 16:58, 11 March 2020 (UTC)

And now we have the circular referencing I was afraid of.Slatersteven (talk) 17:01, 11 March 2020 (UTC)

Slatersteven as stated above, I remedied your concern about circular sourcing. Why didn't you respond there instead of here? NedFausa (talk) 17:12, 11 March 2020 (UTC)

(edit conflict) Yes, this is not the first time I have seen this dispute. How exactly do I know that this photo used on Karate is atually "children practising karate in the dojo of the Jack and Jill School in Bacolod City, Philippines" as the file suggests? I don't. And people making this argument are ignoring the fact that a consistent application of the principle would result in the removal of millions of own work images. The only time we actually do apply this standard is for things like charts and graphs that depend on accurately representing a data set. Other than that, if you want to doubt the authenticity of an image, you need an actual reason to do so, not merely the absence of proof of authenticity. GMG^talk 17:06, 11 March 2020 (UTC)

GreenMeansGo, without impugning the good faith of any editor involved here, I must point out that being devoutly opposed to showing property damage caused by predominately Hindu mobs is indeed "an actual reason" to dispute the authenticity of an image—albeit not a good one. NedFausa (talk) 17:40, 11 March 2020 (UTC)

That may be a reason to try to obstruct the inclusion of the image, but it doesn't speak to it's authenticity. To say that I have no opinion on relations between Hindus and Muslims in India is an understatement. I just don't like this tired argument being plodded out over and over again when it's contrary to the applicable guidelines. GMG^talk 17:46, 11 March 2020 (UTC)

While I think I share the lack of concern about having to demonstrate the "reliability" of user-uploaded photos, I would suggest we may want to establish a discuss to enshrine this as police either at WP:RS or at WP:IMAGES or somewhere else, rather than here. I feel we need to have something in writing to point to in case this comes up in the future. --Masem (t) 17:20, 11 March 2020 (UTC)

I mean, it's already written into MOS:PERTINENCE, which is a guideline, and WP:IMAGES is neither policy or a guideline. GMG^talk 17:32, 11 March 2020 (UTC)

References

Progress towards authentication

I don't want to repeat myself, but interested editors are invited to see my comment at Talk:North East Delhi riots § Authentication, where I detail my attempt to verify the photos in question. NedFausa (talk) 00:34, 10 March 2020 (UTC)

Getty Images Film Premiere Interview

For the past couple of months, I have been working on expanding an article on a fictional character known as Billy. In terms of sources, I found one that gave some VERY insightful information. However, it is a video from the notorious Getty Images so I am not entirely certain that it would constitute as "reliable". On one side, it IS an interview with the actor who played the character and gives some short but insightful information on his time as the character (Which is the ONLY alternative interview with the actor outside of the "Making of" documentaries on the film). On the other, it IS Getty Images (license purchasing and whatnot), so it is rather difficult to decide whether or not I would be able to use it. Just wanted to get a proper consensus before I decided to add it or leave it out. Here is the link: Robert Mann- 'Black Xmas' Los Angeles Premiere Interview--Paleface Jack (talk) 18:08, 11 March 2020 (UTC)

Biased Sources of Music Criticism

My edits on Barbie Girl and other pages such as Party All The Time and The Final Countdown are in the name of removing biased journalism sources such as Top 10 lists obviously written to appeal to a youth demographic (for example Blender's 50 Worst Songs Ever list). However, others believe I am "mass blanking credible sources", even if the obviously biased Top 10 lists are coming from said credible sources (like Rolling Stone).

Do you believe that Top [number] lists of any type of song are a true source of credible information? 2601:199:4181:E00:52C:5B78:548C:ABE1 (talk) 20:54, 10 March 2020 (UTC)

Edit warring and not discussing on the Articles Talk Page is usually a great way to have your opinion ignored.

With that said, perhaps highlight on the talk page the more questionable, WP:Undue references used. Certainly seems there was piling on in some of the sections and less than relevant sources were used but Rolling Stone, VH1 and an award that has a Wikipedia article are likely DUE. Slywriter (talk) 21:09, 10 March 2020 (UTC)

Still, I believe that there is a fair amount of bias. --73.123.30.85 (talk) 21:53, 11 March 2020 (UTC)

Sourcing for birth name on Peppermint

On Peppermint’s article “Born Kevin Moore” is contentious information under an RfC mainly because it misgenders her as a trans woman. Kevin was on the article from the start with no sourcing, a second “legal” name, Agnes Moore, was also added with no sourcing and both have been edit-warred on and off since then. Agnes is complete fiction, never being used by Peppermint, she actually has expressed no need for an offstage name. We need some expert assistance as to which sources can be used in the article to support the statement.

• People, the present version has been amended to remove Kevin, Peppermint said People got the information from...Wikipedia.

• USA Today, and Gay Italia, these references also have removed Kevin. All three of these rely on old archived versions to support the statement. It’s possible all three are WP:Circular references.

• Newsday, and Bay Area Reporter both use Kevin and Agnes, Agnes is a completely fictional name with no connection to Peppermint besides her Wikipedia bio, so it's likely these two are also WP:Circular references.
• , this might be a self-published source(?), and certainly a primary source and only lists Kevin “Peppermint” Moore as a cast member, with no other information.

Any help appreciated! Gleeanon409 (talk) 20:19, 8 March 2020 (UTC)

References

• • Gleeanon409, It looks like all the references to non-Peppermint names are questionable and should not be used per WP:BLP. buidhe 18:03, 9 March 2020 (UTC)
    • Thank you @Buidhe:! I’m hoping for more eyes as well to get a consensus. And will report back to the article which is presently locked down. Gleeanon409 (talk) 23:09, 9 March 2020 (UTC)

although it's not considered a rs, imdb has that other name. if you read imdb you'll see why they "maintain" the other name - in short because any credits keep the same name as originally credited unless imdb changes its policy.Mikethewhistle-original (talk) 08:07, 10 March 2020 (UTC)

I’m only interested in RS, but thanks. Gleeanon409 (talk) 19:26, 11 March 2020 (UTC)

This is WP:FORUMSHOPPING. A highly active RfC is taking place at Talk:Peppermint (drag queen).--65.78.8.103 (talk) 19:56, 11 March 2020 (UTC)

This effort is specifically to get fresh eyes on the sources being used, by editors experienced in such matters. Please allow others to look at the matter. Gleeanon409 (talk) 02:03, 12 March 2020 (UTC)

RfC: Grayzone

The following discussion is an archived record of a request for comment. Please do not modify it. No further edits should be made to this discussion. A summary of the conclusions reached follows.

The opinions expressed below are literally all over the map. Fortunately for everyone's sanity, consensus does not require unanimity and RfC's are not simple votes. Specious arguments have been discarded per WP:NHC. The arguments for two of the options presented were based more clearly on policy and procedures while the arguments for the other two options were based more on personal preference and appeals to anti-imperialism. There is a clear consensus below for the options that consider Grayzone less reliable (i.e., Option 3 and Option 4). Taking into account the strength of the arguments and those who did not distinguish between those options, there is a rough consensus for Option 4: "Publishes false or fabricated information, and should be deprecated". (non-admin closure) Eggishorn (talk) (contrib) 03:03, 8 March 2020 (UTC)

---

Was recently questioned about the reliability of Grayzone. Grayzone began as the Grayzone Project of Alternet (see WP:RSP).

Note: One previous discussion was held and was not conclusive.

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

Thanks again.----ZiaLater (talk) 09:28, 12 December 2019 (UTC)

Survey: Grayzone

• Option 2, that about tells me nothing about editorial policy or who writes for it. But looking at a sample of stories it all seems to be the same people some of whom appear to be editors of Greyzone. I think this is an example of some of it is SPS and some of it may not be, thus should be used with care.Slatersteven (talk) 10:06, 12 December 2019 (UTC)

• Comment: @Slatersteven: You are asking for more information? I believe you told me not to present a case during a previous RfC. I have done my research on Grayzone in the past and have my own opinion. If you wish to discuss this, would it be possible to do so on your talk page? Whatever is more appropriate, just trying to be as transparent as possible.----ZiaLater (talk) 11:00, 12 December 2019 (UTC)

Any conversation about this matter should be kept in one place. If you wish to address my doubts please do so here so others can see.Slatersteven (talk) 11:05, 12 December 2019 (UTC)

@Slatersteven: What doubts to you have? Just want to reply in a proper manner.----ZiaLater (talk) 11:23, 12 December 2019 (UTC)

"But looking at a sample of stories it all seems to be the same people some of whom appear to be editors of Greyzone. I think this is an example of some of it is SPS and some of it may not be, thus should be used with care." how much clearer could I have been?Slatersteven (talk) 11:27, 12 December 2019 (UTC)

@Slatersteven: The main issue that Grayzone has with its editorial policy is its political ties. Russia often utilizes Grayzone editors and its founder Max Blumenthal to disseminate Russian propaganda according to StopFake. The founder, Blumenthal, has been a frequent supporter and contributor of RT and Sputnik. Janine di Giovanni has said that "Blumenthal’s views completely flipped" after meeting with RT and that Blumenthal "has attacked not only the White Helmets but also Bana al-Abed, a nine-year-old girl who lived in rebel-held Aleppo and ran a Twitter account with her mother. ... The man ... now accuses anti-Assad Syrians of belonging to al-Qaeda and has claimed that the White Helmets were affiliated with the Islamist group". Hopefully this explains some of their editorial view.----ZiaLater (talk) 11:49, 12 December 2019 (UTC)

@ZiaLater: Here is a small analysis by France 24 about the collaboration of the White Helmets with al-Qaeda: [10]. In addition to that, there are dozens of photos of White Helmets members carrying assault rifles. The White Helmets only operate together with Al-Qaeda, and every time Al-Qaeda had to flee an area because of defeat, the White Helmets fled together with them. Xenagoras (talk) 22:53, 25 January 2020 (UTC)

@Xenagoras: The allegations you make and try to validate with the France 24 source are described as either "false" or "unproven" in the analysis.----ZiaLater (talk) 05:19, 9 February 2020 (UTC)

ZiaLater, the France 24 analysis proves my allegations.

White Helmets celebrated the taking of Idlib alongside armed groups. White Helmets helped jihadist groups carry out executions. Three seconds after a public execution in Deera, at least three White Helmets rush towards the body of the victim and carry it away on a stretcher. The crowd around them seems to be celebrating the event. White Helmets were able to carry out rescue missions in ISIS-controlled zones in 2015. White Helmets group admitted in 2017 that it had "assisted members of organisations like the Al Nusra Front and ISIS." Raed Al Saleh, the head of the White Helmets, [said] in 2014 that they mostly carried out their work in "zones that have been liberated or those under the control of ISIS" and in 2017 he added that the only true ‘no-go zone’ in Syria for volunteers are the areas controlled by the [Assad] government. [11]

A document with an Al Nusra logo states, "Charter from armed groups in Aleppo. The groups commit themselves to protect members of the [White Helmets]." Abdullah al-Muhaysini, an Islamic cleric close to Al Nusra said, "Regarding those in the [White Helmets], I don’t call them members of the [White Helmets], I call them the Mujahideen (Islamic fighters) of the [White Helmets]. They are mujahideen – may God accept [their Jihad and our jihad] – I don’t make a distinction between them and the men who are in the trenches and behind the barricades. They’re no different." The White Helmets mutilated the corpses of Assad regime soldiers. Ammar al Selmo, the former head of the Aleppo branch of the White Helmets, now in charge of the Al Bab branch, posed with a sniper rifle next to eight other men, some of whom are also heavily armed. A video shows a man wearing the White Helmets uniform and holding an assault rifle. Another video shows people who are supposed to be members of the White Helmets making V-signs from the back of a pick-up which is full of the corpses of presumed Syrian army soldiers. A White Helmet in his uniform facing the camera says in Arabic, "We collect the bodies of the Shabiha [pro-Assad militia] and throw them in the rubbish." [12]

Xenagoras (talk) 21:07, 21 February 2020 (UTC)

@Xenagoras: Your mishmash of a response excludes many things. White Helmets celebrated the taking of Idlib alongside armed groups. France 24 confirms that they celebrated with a group of the Army of Conquest, though "it is hard to tell what group these fighters really belong to". Does not specify it was Al Qaeda. White Helmets helped jihadist groups carry out executions. They did not help carry out executions, they were seen taking the bodies away afterward. The background to this situation is certainly unclear. Were they intimidated into taking care of the bodies following the execution? It is hard to say "no" to a group in control when they are performing executions in the streets... Anyways, the White Helmets condemned the event stating "the presence of volunteers in no way shows complicity or encouragement of the execution” and “[w]e condemn unequivocally the murder of civilians no matter who the culprit is". White Helmets group admitted in 2017 that it had "assisted members of organisations like the Al Nusra Front and ISIS. You purposefully exclude the remainder of the sentence. France 24 states "the White Helmets group admitted that it had 'assisted members of organisations like the Al Nusra Front and the Islamic State group', as well as government soldiers and members of foreign militias". The full statment shows that the White Helmets, according to France 24, provide aid to individuals no matter what groups they belong to. This is obvious because they state "volunteers save people on all sides of the conflict – pledging commitment to the principles of 'Humanity, Solidarity, Impartiality' as outlined under international humanitarian law". Is there something wrong with following the international humanitarian law? A document with an Al Nusra logo. This was declared "false" by France 24, with their conclusion saying "The France 24 Observers team wasn’t able to find out when or how the document was originally published, nor to establish its authenticity. There’s an Al Nusra logo but the quote cited by Anna News is incorrect". Abdullah al-Muhaysini, an Islamic cleric close to Al Nusra said. France 24 concludes, "It’s false to say that these two videos prove that Al Nusra considers the White Helmets as “soldiers of the revolution” or Islamist terrorist fighters." Again, an obvious conclusion presented that you ignore. White Helmets mutilated the corpses of Assad regime soldiers France 24 states this is true, while the White Helmets responded to the incident, saying the individual "had participated in an act that violates the organisation’s principles and the vision of the Syria Civil Defence" and was later removed from the organization. A video shows a man wearing the White Helmets uniform and holding an assault rifle. "The FRANCE 24 Observers team could not locate the original footage, and therefore cannot verify its authenticity." Seeing a trend here. You exclude "false" or "unproven" conclusions. “White Helmets members make the V-sign over the corpses of Syrian soldiers” "The FRANCE 24 Observers weren’t able to locate the original footage from this video in order to verify it." Again, another unproven statement... “A White Helmet member admitted to throwing the corpses of Syrian army soldiers onto rubbish heaps” "The FRANCE 24 Observers team wasn’t able to locate the original footage from this video in order to verify it". Finally, another "unproven" statement that you promote as true.

Xenagoras, it is obvious that you a promoting falsehoods in a discussion that is specifically attempting to determine verification, reliability and prevent the exact falsehoods similar to what you present. This is not helpful and you should re-evaluate how you interpret what is published in sources and your purpose in the Wikipedia project.----ZiaLater (talk) 06:59, 22 February 2020 (UTC)

In addtion: The Southern Poverty Law Center has written "Blumenthal was not as clear of a spokesperson for Kremlin geopolitics before he appeared at the same RT gala as disgraced former National Security advisor Michael Flynn and the Green Party’s Jill Stein in December 2015. During that occasion, he joined a panel called “Infowar: Will there be a winner” alongside Alt Right anti-Semite Charles Bausman of Russia Insider. A month later, Blumenthal’s pro-Kremlin position crystalized with the founding of the Grayzone Project. ... With other Grayzone contributors, Norton has been criticized for downplaying war crimes and helping publicize false theories about rebels contaminating Damascus’s water supply".----ZiaLater (talk) 11:58, 12 December 2019 (UTC)

• Option 3 Near as my research turns up, this is basically a gussied-up personal blog for Max Blumenthal and his cadre of close friends; anything which I would trust from this source I would first crosscheck against more reliable sources; and at that point I would just use the better source. I would use attributed quotes per WP:ABOUTSELF but otherwise I would never use such a site for speaking in Wikipedia's voice. --Jayron32 14:53, 12 December 2019 (UTC)
• Option 1 It is a useful source of information and has a coverage and perspective that is not always available from other sources. I would attribute anything I used from the site. Burrobert (talk) 15:18, 12 December 2019 (UTC)

  What makes that perspective trustworthy? How can we know that the site's factual reporting is reliable? --Jayron32 19:05, 12 December 2019 (UTC)

  @Jayron32: They are possibly trying to make the "multipolar argument"? If someone today was told that smoking is unhealthy but then saw a 100-year-old smoker who attributes smoking to their longer than average lifespan, who would you trust? Having a perspective different from someone else does not make them reliable.----ZiaLater (talk) 04:03, 13 December 2019 (UTC)

• Option 4 or 3. Snooganssnoogans (talk) 16:05, 13 December 2019 (UTC)
• Option 2. While Max Blumenthal has done some great journalistic work in the past, he's done some dubious work more recently too. We know nothing about Grayzone's editorial standards and it reads like a blog.— Preceding unsigned comment added by Bacondrum (talk • contribs) 23:39, 14 December 2019 (UTC)
• Option 3. Looks to be less reliable than Alternet, which is itself unusable. Guy (help!) 20:03, 15 December 2019 (UTC)
• Option 3. One could use this to attribute stuff to someone with WP:ABOUTSELF I think. I can't seem to find anything on fact-checking and would need more information on standards, the people behind it and whatnot. - MikkelJSmith (talk) 23:04, 15 December 2019 (UTC)

@MikkelJSmith2:, please read the "About" page [13] of The Grayzone for information on their editors, journalists and contributors. They have 2 editors plus 2 reporters plus several dozens of contributors. The Grayzone has published a correction on one of their stories so far, it can be read on the bottom of this article. The 4 editors/reporters all have a distinguished career of very good investigative journalism, including winning awards. Xenagoras (talk) 22:15, 25 January 2020 (UTC)

• Option 1. Max Blumenthal is not the only journalist associated with this publication. Western state-mouthpieces like the NYT are considered reliable despite their obvious pro-imperialist bias, so why depreciate sources that dispute that narrative? Maybe Grayzone is pushing an agenda sometimes, but so are the western sources that are held up as infallible. LittleChongsto (talk) 16:36, 17 December 2019 (UTC)
• Option 3 or 4. It is a self-published site. Most of its contributors are also regulars with Russian state media (e.g. Anya Pamparil is an RT America presenter) and its agenda seems to converge 100% with the agenda of Russian state media. An informed glance at any of its articles shows several factual errors, suggesting little or no editorial standards or fact-checking. It is a partisan site which might be usable for the opinions of its contributors if they are noteworthy but not as a source of news or information. BobFromBrockley (talk) 17:40, 17 December 2019 (UTC) (Plumping for 3 over 4, re ZiaLater request BobFromBrockley (talk) 18:06, 26 February 2020 (UTC))
• Option 3 or 4. I found this article by Daily Beast (In Nicaragua, Torture Is Used to Feed ‘Fake News’) and I think it shows that the accuracy of Grayzone is worrisome. The article explains how The Grayzone Project published an article by "Charles Redvers", who, according to the article, lied about his background and identity. Redvers wrote about a video where 20-year-old Nicaraguan student Dania Valeska, after Sandinista militants besieged a church in Managua where she and two hundred other students sought refuge, was forced to recant, after being arreste, beaten and threatened to be killed. Redvers claimed that Valeska was "later shown to be play-acting", referring to the livestream she published during the attack, where gunshots could be heard and apologized to her mother, thinking she would die. Daily Beast quotes the United Nations as a rebuttal:

The United Nations human rights office disagrees. In an August 29 report, it noted that the threat to life was very real. “The church was subject to shootings by police and pro-Government armed elements for several hours, which led to the killing of two individuals and injured at least 16,” part of a crackdown the office said violated “international human rights law.” (The Nicaraguan government expelled the U.N.’s human rights team following the report’s publication.)

It is worth mentioning that Zero Hedge, which has been found to be unrealible for Wikipedia "due to its propagation of conspiracy theories" and because "it is a self-published blog that is biased or opinionated.", often quotes The Grayzone Project: [14][15][16][17][18][19]. In another instance, Grayzone even claimed that Democratic Socialists of America received financement by the United States State Department.[20]

As it has been pointed out, Grayzone is highly opinionated and a self-published site too. Its main contributor, Max Blumenthal, even responded once to an Al Jazeera report mocking victims of the Syrian Civil War. More information regarding Blumenthal's criticism here. Answering to other editors saying that other outlets are "Western state-mouthpieces" or have a "pro-imperialist bias" as a justification, two wrongs don't make a right. --Jamez42 (talk) 20:15, 18 December 2019 (UTC)

@Jamez42: Now that you mentioned Zero Hedge, Alexa Internet has some interesting metrics as well. The Audience Overlap shows that Grayzone readers often frequent Telesur (see WP:RSP) and the recently created Orinoco Tribune, which uses Telesur, Grayzone and Venezuelanalysis (see WP:RSP) as its primary sources. Looking at Grayzone's old domain name, "grayzoneproject.com", Alexa Internet shows that 47.1% of traffic sources came from Venezuelanalysis, 45.3% from Consortium News and 20.8% from MintPress News (see WP:RSP).----ZiaLater (talk) 21:03, 18 December 2019 (UTC) Edit: Apologies, this is a traffic source comparison and not where Grayzone received their traffic.----ZiaLater (talk) 23:08, 22 December 2019 (UTC)

Also, you can see from the MintPress website that Blumenthal is listed under "Frequent Contributors" and the GrayZone Project is listed under "News Partners".----ZiaLater (talk) 21:41, 18 December 2019 (UTC)

• Option 4: Option 3: As the user who posted this RfC, I have patiently observed what multiple users have shared. Grayzone is a partner of MintPress News, with MintPress News itself being deprecated. Alexa Internet also shows an overlap with Telesur (also deprecated) and Venezuelanalysis (which was nearly deprecated, but ultimately found unreliable). Multiple users here have also said Grayzone is "less reliable than Alternet", that there are "several factual errors, suggesting little or no editorial standards or fact-checking", that "the accuracy of Grayzone is worrisome" and that we should "never use such a site for speaking in Wikipedia's voice". The allegations shared about Grayzone disseminating information about a possibly coerced and tortured protester in Nicaragua is also unsettling.

Responses arguing for the support of Grayzone did not argue in support of their reliability. One argued that Grayzone is "a perspective that is not always available from other sources", using a multipolar argument unrelated to reliability (different perspective ≠ reliable) that the Southern Poverty Law Center has already covered. Another user argued "Western state-mouthpieces like the NYT are considered reliable ... why depreciate sources that dispute that narrative? Maybe Grayzone is pushing an agenda sometimes, but so are the western sources that are held up as infallible". This user makes an irrelevant conclusion, using established reliable sources as a red herring to target when we are instead trying to determine if Grayzone itself is reliable.

After summarizing what everyone has shared so far, one can see that Grayzone should be deprecated.----ZiaLater (talk) 11:39, 19 December 2019 (UTC) Option 3 should be the best for Grayzone as editors have concerns about the reliability, though its usage is limited. Using this option is less prohibitive on the source and should help with any concerns with WP:ABOUTSELF.----ZiaLater (talk) 23:54, 25 December 2019 (UTC)

ZiaLater per your analysis and the comments that came after I think I'll have to change my vote to Option 3 it satisfies the concern that I had for WP:ABOUTSELF. I'll have to strikethrough my previous vote and write a new one though - MikkelJSmith (talk) 23:52, 27 December 2019 (UTC)

@ZiaLater: judging by "audience overlap" - judging news site X by what other news sites Y or Z their viewers also viewed is an irrelevant conclusion, using other sources as a red herring to target when we are instead trying to determine if Grayzone itself is reliable. Xenagoras (talk) 23:27, 25 January 2020 (UTC)

I think you do not understand what a red herring is, as I am not using websites in the "audience overlap" to distract from the reliability of Grayzone. The echo chamber within media is existent and it appears so in this case, especially when such websites are promoting one another. So this "audience overlap" is very important. If a blatantly unreliable source is promoting another source that is questionable, that promoted source may be concerning, especially if it is not a vetted source. But we are not judging solely on the overlap here, there appears to be multiple concerns about Grayzone shared by users in this discussion.----ZiaLater (talk) 14:51, 26 February 2020 (UTC)

• Option 4 per ZiaLater's and Jamez42's excellent analyses. There is no reason to ever cite this on an encyclopedia; this is a self-published blog by a fringe-y figure. To the extent one wants to cite facts, there's no indication that the blog has any indication of consistent fact-checking, use by others, or any of the other requirements we require. To the extent one wants to cite opinions, a citation to the website would violate WP:UNDUE and WP:FRINGE. Neutrality^talk 20:02, 22 December 2019 (UTC)
• Option 4, pretty well summed up by User:Jayron32 ("gussied-up personal blog for Max Blumenthal and his cadre of close friends), Guy ("less reliable than Alternet, which is itself unusable"), User:Bobfrombrockley ("its agenda seems to converge 100% with the agenda of Russian state media"), User:Neutrality ("self-published blog by a fringe-y figure"), and analysis by ZiaLater and User:Jamez42. This "cadre of close friends" do seem to re-publish each other's agenda, and no indication of more reliable authors at GrayZone have been given. SandyGeorgia (Talk) 23:27, 22 December 2019 (UTC)
• Option 3 or 4. Inherits Alternet's general-unreliableness, and what use by others exists is not great - mostly it focuses on Max Blumenthal's arrest, which implies that the site itself has little independent reputation outside of being, essentially, his blog. --Aquillion (talk) 23:36, 22 December 2019 (UTC)
• Option 2 While there are some concerns with this source, there are some contributors who are respected university researchers. I think we should take it on a case-by-case basis. ~EDDY ^{(talk/contribs)}~ 01:29, 23 December 2019 (UTC)

Which contributor is a respected (or even unrespected) university researcher? I couldn’t find any. BobFromBrockley (talk) 08:24, 25 December 2019 (UTC)

George Galloway is notable (as former UK MP, not as a researcher) and was interviewed on Brexit in a Grayzone video four days after you asked.^[21] Check out their channel, it's not only Max Blumenthal. –84.46.53.250 (talk) 00:37, 3 January 2020 (UTC)

While Galloway is "notable," I don't think he falls into the category of "respected university researcher." Per his wiki page, he's worked for Press TV and RT, both both considered generally unreliable and frequently described as disinformation outlets that uncritically report conspiracy theories. He's more of a controversial political figure. - GretLomborg (talk) 19:40, 3 January 2020 (UTC)

Here's someone from academia: Jeb Sprague. --David Tornheim (talk) 20:57, 3 January 2020 (UTC)

Even though the term "researcher" was used above, for this sort of thing I would really want a professor instead of an RA. Sunrise (talk) 00:45, 14 January 2020 (UTC)

• Option 2 or 3 Should not typically be used because it primarily publishes investigative journalism (i.e., primary research) and opinion. Can be used for WP:ABOUTSELF or when they publish investigations whose notability is established by being taken up by other sources, e.g., Blumenthal's story about burning aid in Venezuela. Not frequently used, no need for deprecation. — cmonghost 👻 (talk) 04:45, 23 December 2019 (UTC)

• @Cmonghost: You do make a good point that it is not widely used on Wikipedia. Maybe we should go the way of Venezuelanalysis in order to be less prohibitive, though editors agree that there may be some inaccuracies here. Deprecation could also cause issues with WP:ABOUTSELF, so I am thinking about moving towards Option 3.----ZiaLater (talk) 05:12, 23 December 2019 (UTC)

• Option 3 Here[22] Grayzone says that reports on Chinese organ harvesting "rely without acknowledgement on front groups connected to the far-right Falun Gong cult . . ." Funny, Wikipedia's article Organ harvesting from Falun Gong practitioners in China sources include NYT, WaPo, CNN, the Economist, and so on. I will note that this is considerably worse than anything seen at certain sources that have been deprecated. However, as a general matter, I don't like deprecating sources, so option 3. Adoring nanny (talk) 16:25, 31 December 2019 (UTC)

The news source links China Tribunal to ETAC as per its website (the Guardian reports the same thing [23]), ETAC to Epoch Times, then Epoch Times to Falun Gong as per NBC [24] and the New Yorker [25]. The only part of the story that is original to the Grey Zone is taking people from the ETAC website and comparing them to those on the website of the Epoch Times, something which anyone can do with similar results (especially given the Grayzone has linked the relevant parts). The story's only claim that organ transplants were not happening was a link to a Washington Post article to that extent [26] and two words in an embedded tweet. El komodos drago (talk to me) 17:56, 15 January 2020 (UTC)

• Option 4 per Jamez42 and ZiaLater. It's basically a blog written by a politically-fringy figure that's closely associated with other deprecated news sites. I think deprecation is the best option to prevent it from being used to spread unreliable information. Any reliable facts it contains likely can be supported with more reliable sources that should be preferred anyway. WP:DEPRECATED#Acceptable_uses_of_deprecated_sources already provides an exception for a deprecated source to be used in WP:ABOUTSELF contexts. - GretLomborg (talk) 21:33, 2 January 2020 (UTC)
• Option 1 or 2 per Slatersteven, LittleChongsto, Cmonghost, Jayron32. The editor Max Blumenthal is an award-winning journalist, writer, author, and documentary maker, who has written for numerous publications, including The New York Times, Nation, Guardian, etc. (see his Wiki page). Reviews of his books have critical acclaim in many notable publications, but you wouldn't know it from reading the bulk of his Wikipage, because instead of an accurate summary of the reviews, those reviews have been cherry-picked for the juiciest quotes that are most likely to raise eyebrows and quotes from his harshest critics who call him an antisemite because he doesn't tow the line of being pro-Israel, and in Western politics it is criminal to criticize Israel. He probably agrees with the U.N. that Israel should be charged with war crimes. Let's see what Time of Israel--a publication I often see used as WP:RS--has to say about the U.N.'s decision to proceed with war crimes:

"Foreign Ministry vows Jerusalem ‘will not cooperate with this mockery,’ says ‘moral majority’ of states did not vote in favor of measure".

So if Blumenthal agrees with the U.N., apparently he is an immoral Self-hating Jew.

Some of the things Blumenthal writes about are shocking precisely because they are true, and the mainstream media will not share it. Like the fact that Maduro's troops did not burn the U.S. "aid" that was supposed to pass through the U.S. economic blockade, which is what nearly all the U.S. media said and never retracted. But Blumenthal showed footage that in fact the "peaceful" pro-Guaido activists were throwing Molotov cocktails that probably set the trucks on fire. Although the U.S. media got it wrong, they are not the "fake news" in this case, it's entities like TeleSUR that got it right that are liars and conspiracy theorists.

And indeed, many of the things Blumenthal says do challenge the corporate media's portrayal of events--which is why his award winning work is taken so seriously. He does not tow the line of the establishment, especially by not being a Zionist. Instead, he is labelled an "anti-semite" Jew by Zionists like Alan Dershowitz, Rabbi Marvin Hier, and Rabbi Shmuley Boteach.[27]. When a writer brushes up against the establishment by exposing certain things they are not supposed to, the "emperor's lapdog"--the establishment corporate media--is not going to like the experience. (Noam Chomsky) Those raised eyebrows are the result of Blumenthal and his writers at Grayzone telling uncomfortable truths that need to be told:

"If these institutions [media] condemn us, that's pretty good reason to think we are doing the right thing."

-Chomsky

--David Tornheim (talk) 07:04, 4 January 2020 (UTC)

As this RfC has run for 30 days, I've submitted a request for closure at WP:RFCL § Wikipedia:Reliable sources/Noticeboard#RfC: Grayzone. — Newslinger talk 10:23, 11 January 2020 (UTC)

+1, I fondly recall waiting for 30 days after the last comment before having fun with NAC on c:+m:. –84.46.53.192 (talk) 04:21, 19 January 2020 (UTC)

References

• Option 2 -- I don't think I've ever cited Grayzone, but as the perspective is an outlier, I would attribute. (I assume someone has mentioned their "just let him talk" interview with Maduro.) 🌿 SashiRolls ^{t · c} 18:25, 12 January 2020 (UTC)

• Option 3 or 4 per the above analyses. On the founder (Blumenthal), it should be noted that the sources they cite are only a selection and multiple others haven’t been mentioned (e.g. see Max Blumenthal#Syria). Additionally, many of the arguments being used to support 1 or 2 for this source are fallacious, some on more than one level. For instance, the case described above as an irrelevant conclusion is also a tu quoque fallacy (which unfortunately is depressingly common in this context), and includes at least a couple of others as well. Sunrise (talk) 00:45, 14 January 2020 (UTC)

In response to a couple of the comments below: even if they sometimes publish reliable information, we as editors can't actually identify it as such until it's been confirmed by more reliable sources. Otherwise, it will be mixed in with unreliable information, and we don't have any way to tell them apart. In fact, for the Venezuela example, the original article also said the trucks were part of "the [US] coup against Venezuela", uses scare quotes (twice) for the term "humanitarian aid", and strongly suggests that the purpose of sending the aid involved "generating waves of destabilizing violence" - and all that is from just the first two paragraphs. Also, "scooping" or otherwise being first to publish something is not very relevant to a NOTNEWS encyclopedia; if the information is true, then it will be confirmed by more reliable sources in short order. Probably within days or even hours, especially since the implication is that there was another source being scooped, meaning that they were about to publish it themselves. Sunrise (talk) 11:20, 31 January 2020 (UTC)

• Option 4 In additional all the above, Blumenthal has fabricated sources in the past and then claimed that the academic in question was intimidated into lying by a writer from The Atlantic [28]. --RaiderAspect (talk) 06:40, 15 January 2020 (UTC)

• Option 1 Saying that the Grayzone is not an RS because it has been quoted by non-RSes seems something of a problematic argument - non-RSes quote from RSes all the time, twitter accounts quote from BBC reports for example. The argument that the Grayzone should be deprecated because of its audience seems similarly dubious.

Grayzone is also a long way from one member of the general public's blog. Its masthead includes Max Blumenthal who has written for The New York Times RSP, The Nation RSP, Al Jazeera English RSP, and The Daily BeastRSP, winning various awards; Ben Norton who has written for The Intercept RSP including a piece alongside Glenn Greenwald (yep, the same one person who published the Snowden revelations); Aaron Maté who writes for The Nation RSP and is a regular contributor to The Hill RSP; and Anya Parampil. It also hosts pieces from guest contributors. The style of their content strikes me as about as far away from a blog as it could possibly get but that's in the eye of the beholder.

The Grayzone also covers stories like the Burning Aid one [29] which are later picked up by major newspapers [30].

While I will maintain that these are serious journalist using sources like video footage to shine a light of international affairs from an angle not normally seen you can argue against its use in Wikipedia. Just please for the love of logic do so for what they are and what they publish not because a blog quotes them from time to time and their audience might also read unreliable sources. El komodos drago (talk to me) 19:51, 15 January 2020 (UTC)

• 1) Writing op-eds for reliable sources doesn't imbue journalistic reliability on a writer. --Calton | Talk 01:34, 26 January 2020 (UTC)

• Option 1 because the two editors Norton and Blumenthal plus the two reporters Mate and Parampil plus several contributors have distinguished careers in investigative journalism and some of them won journalism awards for their work. The Grayzone conducts reporting on location in foreign countries and also publishes corrections like here. The Grayzone is independent from political or financial outside influence. Its independence allows it to get unique journalistic access to places and people, enabling it to have scoops. It is a valuable addition to the journalistic spectrum. Xenagoras (talk) 23:55, 25 January 2020 (UTC)
• Option 4', or Option 3 at absolute best. Fringy as hell. Edit:' strike Option 3, per further evidence on this page. --Calton | Talk 01:34, 26 January 2020 (UTC)
• Option 1 Regarding the burning aid in Venezuela, the Grayzone has been credited by Glenn Greenwald with scooping the New York Times:

  While the NYT’s article and video are perfectly good and necessary journalism, the credit they are implicitly claiming for themselves for exposing this lie is totally undeserved. That’s because independent journalists – the kind who question rather than mindlessly repeat government claims and are therefore mocked and marginalized and kept off mainstream television – used exactly this same evidence on the day of the incident to debunk the lies being told by Rubio, Pompeo, Bolton and CNN. On February 24, the day the lie spread, Max Blumenthal wrote from Venezuela, on the independent reporting Grayzone site, that “the claim was absurd on its face,” ...He compiled substantial evidence strongly suggesting that the trucks were set ablaze by anti-Maduro protesters, including Bloomberg video showing them using Molotov cocktails, to express serious doubts about the mainstream narrative. — Preceding unsigned comment added by GPRamirez5 (talk • contribs) 22:48, 26 January 2020 (UTC)

• Greenwald is not crediting Blumenthal for giving the NYT the scoop, he is saying that Blumenthal was one of the first to share that information about the burning aid trucks, not the NYT. This does not deal with the overall reliability and WP:Fringe issues. There are better sources to use, especially with the major controversy and contention surrounding the burning of aid trucks, the NYT is more reliable than Grayzone in this case.----ZiaLater (talk) 16:45, 31 January 2020 (UTC)

• Option 2: (reasoning to follow)     ←   ZScarpia   17:25, 31 January 2020 (UTC)
• Option 1 or 2: I generally trust people who've been vetted by The New York Times and the LA Times, both of which Max Blumenthal has written for. But since The Grey Zone is a startup organization without much of a track record (except for Blumenthal's), I wouldn't trust it as much as I do with NYT or LAT, hence I'm vacillating between 1 and 2. -Zanhe (talk) 00:40, 2 February 2020 (UTC)

• Vetted by The New York Times? They describe Blumenthal as "a senior writer for Alternet and author" in their most recent description. Reminder: Grayzone originated on Alternet, with Alternet being recognized as being generally unreliable (Option 3) per WP:RSP. Could you provide any sources of the vetting you are talking about?----ZiaLater (talk) 15:14, 3 February 2020 (UTC)

• Option 4 as the GrayZone is more like Breitbart, with sensational scoops of questionable accuracy rather than actual news. There have been quite a few advocacy of fringe theories on the site and there is no need to use it on Wikipedia. It's not a news website, but a personal blog and their claimed "journalism" has been criticised by many on the left as propaganda, inaccurate, conspiracy theories and fake news.

1. On Gutter Journalism and Purported “Anti-Imperialism”, Gilbert Achcar in New Politics (magazine) ...One example of pro-Putin, pro-Assad “left-wing” propaganda combined with gutter journalism is...Another example is Grayzone, a website founded by a particularly versatile character named Max Blumenthal. These websites have in common the habit of demonizing all left-wing critics of Putin and the likes of Assad by describing them as “agents of imperialism” or some equivalent. The main “target market” assigned to them is naturally the left-wing readership. This implies that they must strive not only to convince their readers of the virtues of Moscow and its clients by a resort to fake “left-wing” and “anti-imperialist” arguments, but also and most importantly to discredit their left-wing critics. In doing so, they resort to the oldest trick of the slandering profession: outright lies.
2. Are purveyors of fake news endangering the lives of real journalists? In Pulse Media, written by Mathew Foresta Blumenthal and Rubinstein’s outrageous conduct cannot be written off as mere conspiracy mongering or trolling. A retraction is not enough. Dangerous lies and fake news cannot be allowed to run amok.
3. Stand from the Left: No to Chinese Authoritarianism, No to "Yellow Peril" by Promise Li on DSA website These problematic views are fueled by a disinformation campaign from right-wing outlets, like the Grayzone, that pose as being ‘anti-imperialist,’ with whole mass-led movements reduced to the positions of their cherrypicked individuals and organizations– thus smearing millions of protestors, from Hong Kong to Xinjiang, as U.S.-backed fascists and imperialists.
4. Against the GrayZone Slanders by Dan La Botz in New Politics (magazine) The GrayZone attack is based on a conspiracy theory, the notion that the omniscient and omnipotent State Department and other U.S. government agencies finance and control the most important organizations and institutions on the American left with the goal of furthering regime change in other countries.
5. Junket journalism in the shadow of genocide by Muhammad Idrees Ahmad in Aljazeera Opinion ...the emergence of a new form of junket journalism that serves as a global laundering service for blood-splattered autocrats. In recent months, several of the same figures have turned up in capitals from Caracas to Managua whitewashing mass repression; they have dismissed Uighur concentration camps in Xinjiang, slandered protesters in Hong Kong; and they all somehow find Vladimir Putin unimpeachable.

Given the multiple criticisms regarding accuracy, I believe this is not a reliable source to be used on Wikipedia. It's model is akin to Breitbart which engages in sensational "scoops" and is more of an advocacy outlet with the intention to provoke.--DreamLinker (talk) 15:51, 10 February 2020 (UTC)

@DreamLinker: Using the Democratic Socialists of America as a WP:RS to gauge the political stance of Blumenthal (who is by any standards of the left-wing), or the extreme pro-interventionist (Muhammad) Idrees Ahmad, is not a good basis for your argument. Ahmad himself has been verified to have engaged in fact-free polemics, including describing the self-christened socialist Libyan Arab Jamahiriya under Gaddafi as "fascist": In May 2016, he argued that in Libya, a “popular revolution” against a “fascist” who was slaughtering his own people had taken place, and that it was “West-centric” to argue that the reason Gaddafi fell was because of intervention by France, the UK and the US. This stance has been echoed by many others including Ayoub, who has argued that to observe that Libya was destroyed “utterly strip[s] Libyans of agency” and described Libya as a “paradise” compared to Syria. This interpretation of events in Libya has been thoroughly disproved by several sources including a report by the UK Foreign Affairs Committee that is discussed in greater detail below.

In short, using the pejorative "fascist" to describe any form of authoritarianism / opposition that one dislikes, as Ahmad has done, should thoroughly discredit that person's credibility as a WP:RS. CaradhrasAiguo (leave language) 18:43, 23 February 2020 (UTC)

• Option 4 or at best 3 per DreamLinker and ZiaLater. Any story that's broken by Grayzone would need to be independently checked for it to be usable. Any story not broken by Grayzone should be cited to the original source. Fringy nature of the website means that opinions are unlikely to be due weight. buidhe 16:00, 10 February 2020 (UTC)
• Option 4. This is not a ban, as discussed at WP:DEPRECATE, but based on the extensive analysis summarized above this is not a source that should be used in nearly any context. VQuakr (talk) 18:50, 12 February 2020 (UTC)
• Somewhere between Option 1 and Option 2. Grayzone journalists have had respectable careers elsewhere before joining this news platform, and they're one of the fewer number of outfits still trying to do investigative work. Furthermore, the notion that a news outlet should be banned or disregarded because it isn't sufficiently anti-Russian or anti-Putin, is dystopian and has nothing to do with Wikipedia's project as an international encyclopedia. Since the Grayzone sometimes has a strident editorial line, there are cases where it should be used with attribution. -Darouet (talk) 23:07, 13 February 2020 (UTC)

@Darouet: no one is proposing deprecating this source because of its point of view. Its reliability is under discussion. VQuakr (talk) 20:16, 15 February 2020 (UTC)

Ditto. --Jamez42 (talk) 02:12, 4 March 2020 (UTC)

• Option 3 or 4 Agree with DreamLinker's analysis. It seems a lot like a propaganda outlet, and I see very little evidence of real editorial oversight or fact checking, compounded by the fact that Max Blumenthal is the founder, editor in chief, and author of about 20% of their articles. AmbivalentUnequivocality (talk) 07:18, 18 February 2020 (UTC)
• Option 1 Absolutely factual reporting. If you consider any bias its editor, Max Blumenthal, may have, you should consider the editorial choices of those involved in The Washington Post, The New York Times, USA Today, etc.. Why aren't these also questioned? If I may address why, it's because these newspapers existed even before Wikipedia, so it's based on historical reasons instead of practical or factual reasons, or any concern related to reliability. If you have any concern on The Grayzone supposedly being financially supported by Russia and Venezuela, if that's even true, why is that any different from sources supported by United States? It's been known for some time that the United States has a propaganda machine, and that phenomenon was even addressed by Noam Chomsky. However, since the US has historically oppressed peoples of the world, through illegal regime changes around the globe, and financial and military support to not only extreme right-wing fascistic governments, but also terrorist organizations, a different narrative coming from the harmed countries may be needed. If people consider a news source "biased" because it disputes American imperialism and cultural hegemony over the world facts, they are also biased, but siding with a nation that has been, as History shows, militarily and economically oppressive. So, if a news source present facts and also a political analysis considering the dangers of Western imperialism, representing a voice for the oppressed nations, I consider that news source not only absolutely factual, but absolutely necessary considering the geopolitical situation of our world. --Marx.FelipeForte (talk) 11:06, 22 February 2020 (UTC) — Marx.FelipeForte (talk • contribs) has made few or no other edits outside this topic.
• Option 1 in agreement with what FelipeForte said.--SharʿabSalam▼ (talk) 18:52, 23 February 2020 (UTC)

Comment: @Snooganssnoogans: @Bobfrombrockley: @Jamez42: @Aquillion: @Cmonghost: @David Tornheim: @Sunrise: @Zanhe: @Buidhe: @Darouet: @AmbivalentUnequivocality:

Could you try to determine a single option if possible? This might help the closing user with where consensus lies. Also, if you did not provide an explanation, that would be helpful as well. It seems that this RfC has been quite extensive, so your opinion matters! Thank you!----ZiaLater (talk) 14:36, 26 February 2020 (UTC)

Done.BobFromBrockley (talk) 18:06, 26 February 2020 (UTC)

FWIW, I would think of the choice alone as really being a matter of vote count rather than argument, thus not having much effect on the outcome unless new arguments are also added at the same time. That said, it may be relevant to note that option 4 is already a de facto support for option 3 (being the same option with additional provisions included). Sunrise (talk) 04:02, 27 February 2020 (UTC)

@Sunrise: I understand this and figured to notify everyone who was undecided between two options. Making a single decision is especially important for users who chose Options 1-2 or 2-3, but I wanted to give the opportunity of an update to everyone if they wished to do so.----ZiaLater (talk) 06:01, 27 February 2020 (UTC)

• Option 4 per ZiaLater and Jamez42. Serious concerns about editorial oversight and factual accuracy. Jayjg ^(talk) 19:37, 27 February 2020 (UTC)

Comment: Striking option 3 after seeing DreamLinker's analysis. I disagree that the issue should be decided at the end mrely by a vote count. When Noam Chomsky's Manufacturing Consent is given the same weight as a reasoning of why information from the website is unreliable, biased or false, there there is a problem. --Jamez42 (talk) 03:04, 4 March 2020 (UTC)

Possible advocacy?

Just wanted to leave a notice about the possiblility that advocacy has been occurring regarding Blumenthal on Wikipedia. Here is a tweet by Blumenthal calling attention to his Wikipedia article stating it has been smeared by a user. Blumenthal states, "Jimmy Wales has legitimized this character and powerful admins back him as well", concluding that "Wikipedia is a bulletin board for pro-war elite interests". I opened a peer review to help address any concerns that Blumenthal might have and to broaden the number of users invovled in the article. Any other recommendations to abide by WP:BLP are greatly appreciated.

Twitter user Riothero, who is recognized as Tellectualin (formerly Riothero) on Wikipedia, replied to Blumenthal's tweet:

"I tell you, ZiaLater (the Wikipedia editor lower on the list) is also a huge douchebag. These people have time on their hands, and will wait everyone out until their edits stick!"

I take pride in my impartiality when it comes to my edits, so personal attacks like this hurt. I have never and never will be involved with special interests on Wikipedia. If I do have to name an interest regarding the project, it is the interest of maintaining reliable sources and information on the project. This interest is the entire reason this RfC was created in the first place! Encounters with Grayzone began to increase and so a question was brought here in order to get help from other users.

So, thank you to everyone who has helped with determining the reliability of Grayzone and thank you for staying away from personal attacks, focusing on the task at hand instead of each other.----ZiaLater (talk) 16:27, 3 February 2020 (UTC)

Is the "possible advocacy" you mention for Blumenthal or against him? Have you read the policy sections WP:Respect privacy and WP:outing? ("The fact that an editor has posted personal information or edits under their own name, making them easily identifiable through online searches, is not an excuse to post the results of "opposition research". Dredging up their off-site opinions to repeatedly challenge their edits can be a form of harassment".) Regarding edits on Blumenthal's page, I can't see that any of the current content was provided by Tellectualin. The leading editor is on 37.3% and you are second with 7.5%. Are there specific edits you are concerned about? Burrobert (talk) 04:11, 6 February 2020 (UTC)

@Burrobert: This vague notification is becuase there is a potential for advocacy both for and against Blumenthal. This is why I created an impartial peer review to observe recent edits and to improve the article's quality. As for privacy and outing, I am well informed about these policies and I have fully complied with them.----ZiaLater (talk) 16:34, 6 February 2020 (UTC)

As this RfC has elapsed, I have requested closure at WP:RFCL § Wikipedia:Reliable sources/Noticeboard#RfC: Grayzone. — Newslinger talk 10:55, 3 March 2020 (UTC)

@ZiaLater: in response to your request that I choose between options 1 and 2, I have gone through many of the links and comments in this long thread. The vast majority of the criticism of the Grayzone amounts to original research by editors who are upset that Blumenthal is associating with or Grayzone articles are being relisted by other news organizations that editors don't like. There are a few criticisms of the Grayzone in fringe outfits that aren't sufficient to being considered here. In the case of the articles appearing in the Atlantic [31] and the Daily Beast [32], Blumenthal is accused in one instance of misrepresenting a quote (he denies this allegation), and in the other instance of publishing a piece by John Perry. This does not change my view that the site is generally reliable for factual reporting, but that editors should acknowledge it has a political perspective when using it here. -Darouet (talk) 19:46, 4 March 2020 (UTC)

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

RfC: Is Paste a generally reliable source for politics-related topics?

The following discussion is an archived record of a request for comment. Please do not modify it. No further edits should be made to this discussion. A summary of the conclusions reached follows.

Even after eliminating irrelevant arguments (i.e., ...those that flatly contradict established policy, those based on personal opinion only, those that are logically fallacious, and those that show no understanding of the matter of issue) opinion on the question presented is split almost exactly in half. The strength of arguments on policies and sources is only slightly in favor of the "No" position. This has been open for 72 days and the last comment was 27 days ago. Achieving further clarity from this discussion is unlikely. Accordingly, this is closed with no consensus achieved on the reliability of Paste. (non-admin closure) Eggishorn (talk) (contrib) 03:46, 8 March 2020 (UTC)

Edited close to add: I've been requested to clarify the scope of this close. The RfC only addressed the reliability of Paste in regards to its political coverage. This close can only reflect that discussion and so also only applies to political coverage from Paste. I hope that helps. Eggishorn (talk) (contrib) 20:52, 10 March 2020 (UTC)

---

Is Paste a generally reliable source for politics-related topics?

- MrX 🖋 16:41, 26 December 2019 (UTC)

For background, see the discussion above: #Endless problems on Media coverage of Bernie Sanders

---

• Note: Wikipedia:WikiProject Albums/Sources has it listed as a general reliable source. Not sure why subject matters after fact checking has been verified and accepted by a project.--WillC 17:12, 26 December 2019 (UTC)

  Sources can have different levels of reliability in different subject areas. See WP:RSCONTEXT for more details. The scope of WP:A/S is musical topics, not general political topics. — Newslinger talk 17:14, 26 December 2019 (UTC)

  RSCONTENT says they may, it doesn't say they are defacto unreliable for that context.--WillC 17:18, 26 December 2019 (UTC)

  It's not de facto reliable for politics, either. This RfC will determine what the consensus is. — Newslinger talk 17:22, 26 December 2019 (UTC)

  That I won't argue, but its use is to cover the publication of articles and the negativity of these articles. Not for an actual factual statement regarding politics. Since we are discussing context, the manner in which it is being used is relevant.--WillC 18:00, 26 December 2019 (UTC)

• No - Their political coverage is superficial, and very high on opinion and low on fact. They routinely quote mine other sources, add a bit of snarky commentary, and call it journalism.[33][34] Most of their politics content is written by Shane Ryan, who seems to be a Bernie Sanders devotee and critic of mainstream media.[35][36][37][38][39]. Paste's coverage of politics is on par with The Root, (defunct)Splinter News, and Salon (the later of which Shane Ryan previously wrote for)[40]. - MrX 🖋 17:16, 26 December 2019 (UTC)
  • None of that disqualifies Ryan or the source per WP:BIASED and WP:NEWSORG.--WillC 17:20, 26 December 2019 (UTC)
    • I believe it does, and I've listed several examples to indicate why it should not be used as a source for politics content.- MrX 🖋
      • Well this is where you are going to need to list that. Because Ryan being a fan of any politician doesn't make the source less reliable nor does being involved in opinion content. If that was the case, there would be no reliable sources.--WillC 04:03, 28 December 2019 (UTC)
• No, and people saying it is are being silly. It's a specialist source, and that speciality isn't politics. Advocates trying to rules-lawyer RS guidance to push it through have fundamentally misunderstood Wikipedia sourcing - David Gerard (talk) 17:24, 26 December 2019 (UTC)
• Yes, per the comment of MrX. I did not find discussion on Splinter or Root, but there was some on Salon, with no consensus achieved, and a recommendation for adding attributions to its statements. If their politics content is written by the same person/people, then they should have the same treatment. Biased sources should not summarily be prohibited – not least because following such a guideline to a T would ban even so-called RS in politics such as CNN, (MS)NBC and ABC, given that they are for-profit entities with billion-dollar-scale political interests. Permit the political coverage of Paste Magazine, but attribute it as progressive or leftist in citations if such is the general sentiment of editors. As such, the discussion on this should probably not center around bias, but whether it can be trusted to be factual – and the fact that they have been deemed RS in other topics tells me they shouldn't be assumed without evidence to be untruthful. Selvydra (talk) 18:39, 26 December 2019 (UTC)
• No. It should not be used for factual statements. There's nothing to indicate it has a reputation for fact-checking and reputable reporting in politics. It may be used for attributed statements if they meet WP:DUE. Snooganssnoogans (talk) 20:01, 26 December 2019 (UTC)
• Yes. It's already reliable for other articles on Wikipedia, thus I don't think it would publish falsehoods in other topics. It would be idiotic for their reputation for them to do that -- especially for a source that's been cited by WaPo, NYT and other RS. When looking at their politics page, I've seen similar analyses in different sources. Just with a quick look this article [41] has subject matter that's been featured in many news articles by RS in the past few weeks. Another example would be this [42], I've read similar pieces/arguments in the Hill. So, I don't think that we should paint the source with a big brush due to bias -- even if the tone of some articles is snarky at times (which I don't particularly like). And as for bias, we've had sources with bias used on the site. So, in the case of bias, Paste should probably be attributed. So, in other words, the same conclusion that was given for Salon. I think that would be fair for consistency too. - MikkelJSmith (talk) 22:10, 26 December 2019 (UTC)
• Yes: Obviously I find it reliable. Apart from Albums finding it reliable, which means that project has established credibility through factual accuracy, I'd like to point out a couple of things about the site. Particularly that CNN featured it during headlines and as per policy "The goal is to reflect established views of sources as far as we can determine them" which displays the viewpoint by CNN regarding Paste as a credible organization to lend time. Chicago Tribune has cited it and even listed it among the best magazines. The book American Directory of Writer's Guidelines has a section regarding the Paste editing behavior, including editorial content, fact-checking, and reliability. Paste was named "Magazine of the Year" by the PLUG Independent Music Awards in 2006, 2007 and 2008. In 2008, 2009 and 2010, Paste was nominated for a National Magazine Award in the category of General Excellence. Though they are minor awards, the organization is notable enough for an article. Washington Post, New York Post, and The Guardian have all covered Paste. To "reflect established views of sources" seems to be that Paste has a good reputation among sources or at least a reputable magazine. In fact, Guardian has employed Hari Ziyad for content and he has worked for Paste as well. Shane Ryan also writes for Paste and is the subject of the citation at stake. He is a New York Times bestselling author and written for ESPN The Magazine and Golf Digest in addition to Paste. These are just a little bit of the information I found through a simple google search. As for context regarding source, it appears Paste is moving beyond just music and film now as it has an official section for politics. Which means determining if it is fitting for this material. The policy says it may not be reliable but not that is automatically. I suggest the above material makes it reliable as is for all topics due to established factual accuracy as a generally reliable source in addition to other sources recognizing it and its editors as having credibility and reliability to do material of their own. Like before, the goal for RS is to reflect the views of the source. I feel the views regarding Paste and its editors is positive.--WillC 23:26, 26 December 2019 (UTC)

  Wrestlinglover, you forgot to link to the Albums page. Here's the link : Wikipedia:WikiProject Albums/Sources. MikkelJSmith (talk) 22:40, 27 December 2019 (UTC)

• Yes as per the coverage of it in other reliable sources as detailed above, imv Atlantic306 (talk) 02:51, 27 December 2019 (UTC)
• Yes, reasonable politics-related WP:USEBYOTHERS across the political spectrum in eg. Vanity Fair, Vox, Vox again, New York Times, Fox News, The Colorado Independent, Snopes, The New Yorker, The Guardian. --Aquillion (talk) 04:27, 27 December 2019 (UTC)

• I checked five of those sources: four (N Yorker, Guardian, Vox x2) do not cite Paste magazine for factual statements, but for explicitly partisan punditry (in the same way that those sources might cite op-eds from the Daily Wire and Breitbart as a reflection of where conservatives stand on a topic). One (NYT) cited Paste for its reporting, but that was for its arts coverage.[43] Here are the ways in which the four sources cite Paste: "the Chapo Trap House hosts have been lauded by Paste magazine as the “vulgar, brilliant demigods of the new progressive left”"[44], "Paste magazine labelled “Chapo Trap House” the “vulgar, brilliant demigods of the new progressive left.”"[45], " “This is classic Booker — stand out front on feel-good social issues, regardless of his past positions, and align with big money everywhere else,” wrote Walter Bragman at Paste Magazine."[46] and ""The Democratic establishment doesn’t want a Democrat as president – it specifically wants Hillary Clinton as president," writes Brogan Morris in Paste Magazine."[47] This is not a RS outside of its arts coverage. Snooganssnoogans (talk) 18:26, 27 December 2019 (UTC)

  When looking at the sources posted by Aquillion, three of them that you didn't mention cite Paste for its political coverage : [48], [49] and [50]. MikkelJSmith (talk) 22:48, 27 December 2019 (UTC)

• This source quotes a statement made by a politician to Paste (which RS also do with non-RS).[51] The Snopes piece does not cite Paste for factual information, it cites Paste because a person that they were fact-checking pointed them to a Paste article and they cite the website as part of a genesis of an unfounded conspiracy theory (just like they would with non-RS).[52] The Fox News is by the hack Brian Flood in Fox News's "entertainment" section which is solely devoted to misleading smears about other nets outlets. So, in short, the only RS that has cited Paste for its politics reporting is a piece by Fox News (an outlet that I've for years argued is not a RS, it's also an outlet that would not hesitate citing all kinds of non-RS from our RS perennial list) attacking CNN.[53] And the piece is petty as hell. CNN failed to mention that university students in the DC area who attended a Democratic primary townhall had also interned with liberal political groups? What is this: "Abena McAllister, who was described by Blitzer as “active in Maryland Democrat Party,” was listed by CNN’s chyron as a “mother of two.” However, she is apparently the chair of the Charles County Democratic Central Committee." It's exemplary of the kind of petty BS that Paste is used for on the Media bias against Bernie Sanders page. Snooganssnoogans (talk) 23:15, 27 December 2019 (UTC)

  I skimmed the 2nd one so I missed that, sorry. As for the first of those, I will have to disagree that still seems fine to me. As for the third one, Fox News' website is RS, so I don't see why Paste wouldn't be used, but this does re-affirm my belief -- which I mentioned above -- that Paste should be attributed though due to its bias (just like Salon). MikkelJSmith (talk) 23:47, 27 December 2019 (UTC)

• " partisan punditry" = "partisan expert analysis". The point of RS is to establish to reputation of a source against secondary sources. Established sources crediting Paste in any way that is positive suggests they have a positive reputation regarding Paste which establishes credibility and reliability.--WillC 04:09, 28 December 2019 (UTC)

• RS frequently cite the likes of the Daily Stormer, Breitbart News, Daily Wire, Gateway Pundit and InfoWars. Simply being cited is not what WP:USEBYOTHERS is about. It's about being cited for statements of fact. Snooganssnoogans (talk) 04:24, 28 December 2019 (UTC)

• It clearly states the goal: "The goal is to reflect established views of sources as far as we can determine them." The problem with that argument is that the secondary sources list them with a negative reputation. These list Paste with a positive reputation. That is what makes one credible and the other just a child screaming into a bag.--WillC 05:23, 28 December 2019 (UTC)

• None of the sources, with the exception of one NYT piece on Paste's arts coverage and a Fox News piece, cite Paste in a positive way. I don't understand your need to not budge an inch on anything. Snooganssnoogans (talk) 13:39, 28 December 2019 (UTC)

• I don't have to when you don't read. Literally Vanity Fair, Vox, Vox again, New York Times, Fox News, The Colorado Independent, Snopes, The New Yorker, and The Guardian all referenced Paste in positive light, either using it as a factual source or as a source for opinions. None treated Paste as a bad source or pushed negativity towards it when referenced.--WillC 17:53, 28 December 2019 (UTC)

• If that's your standard for positive light, then the Daily Stormer, Breitbart News, Daily Wire, Gateway Pundit and InfoWars have also been cited in a positive way in RS. Snooganssnoogans (talk) 17:58, 28 December 2019 (UTC)

• Have they? And sources?--WillC 21:56, 28 December 2019 (UTC)

• Per this standard, here are some "positive" USEBYOTHERS for Breitbart:[54][55][56][57]. Snooganssnoogans (talk) 23:19, 28 December 2019 (UTC)

• No Couldn't find a corrections page on their site. Adoring nanny (talk) 11:32, 27 December 2019 (UTC)

  Adoring nanny, why would that disqualify their reliability? Genuinely curious, since some sources only correct below the article and they're reliable (i.e. they don't have a corrections page). MikkelJSmith (talk) 18:08, 27 December 2019 (UTC)

Do they do that? Adoring nanny (talk) 13:03, 28 December 2019 (UTC)

I'm not sure. I was just asking you a question regarding that point. MikkelJSmith (talk) 19:44, 28 December 2019 (UTC)

• No Paste Magazine is only an RS for music, not for politics. Others have correctly noted that their news coverage consists of a small handful of opinionated writers. For an outside opinion, I see that MediaBiasFactCheck also notes they are left-biased: https://mediabiasfactcheck.com/paste-magazine/ --MaximumIdeas (talk) 02:00, 28 December 2019 (UTC)
  • A bias doesn't negate reliability per WP:BIASED--WillC 04:09, 28 December 2019 (UTC)
  • I'm seeing way too much conflation of bias and opinionatedness with unreliability. One does not automatically beget the other. If it did, CNN, MSNBC and Fox wouldn't be RS either (AT&T, Comcast and Fox Corp. have tremendous political interests – the difference is they purport themselves to be unbiased, while most leftist sites do not claim such). Selvydra (talk) 09:32, 28 December 2019 (UTC)
    • Which is really upsetting because it is an attempt to discredit in such an invalid way while remaining ignorant to arguments against such position. It is a very disingenuous position that is brought on by an editors own inherent bias. All media sources have a bias. To claim bias that does not impact its factual capabilities as reason to deny reliability of a source, would basically level all of Wikipedia's ability to source statements. Even scholarly sources maintain biases simply by covering specific subjects.--WillC 10:12, 28 December 2019 (UTC)
      • You two are right that the outlet could still be given a “reliable but biased” rating; the issue is that it also has no reputation for reliability in politics coverage, as numerous others have noted.MaximumIdeas (talk) 14:54, 28 December 2019 (UTC)

        The thing though is that as I mentioned above it was cited for its political coverage by Fox News (the reliable Fox News stuff not the Hannitys and whatnot) and another source MikkelJSmith (talk) 16:15, 28 December 2019 (UTC)

  MaximumIdeas, we don't use mediabias/fact check, it's considered unreliable. MikkelJSmith (talk) 14:21, 28 December 2019 (UTC)

  • MikkelJSmith, I’ve seen it cited in these discussions before. I know it’s not the end-all-be-all, but it seems to be an important voice and they have a staff of researchers looking into the outlets. Was there a formal decision I missed here that their ratings should not be mentioned at all? If so, please let me know. MaximumIdeas (talk) 14:50, 28 December 2019 (UTC)

    MaximumIdeas, I used to cite it too, but according to https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Reliable_sources/Perennial_sources it's unreliable MikkelJSmith (talk) 15:23, 28 December 2019 (UTC)

    • Thank you. MaximumIdeas (talk) 15:25, 28 December 2019 (UTC)
• No Doesn’t appear to have any credibility in the field of politics, especially in regards to factual reporting or journalism. Toa Nidhiki05 15:05, 28 December 2019 (UTC)
• No Not it's area of expertise. And of course it's possible to be reliable for one thing but not another. I might count as an "expert" in my professional field (where I have educational credentials and experience) but am no more than an uninformed layperson in plenty of others. Publications are the same way. Current American politics is not exactly a niche field lacking in sources; no need to stretch to include these out-of-scope resources. If anything, we should be significantly more restrictive on which sources we use in this area, as it is one where disinformation is rampant and reliable sources are plentiful.Just a Rube (talk) 13:01, 10 January 2020 (UTC)
• Yes – Paste is a generally reliable source. If they drift too far outside their area of expertise, attribution is enough of a caveat to fix that. Of course, other sources focused on politics should have precedence. However, there is no need to consider Paste anything other than a reliable source. --- C&C (Coffeeandcrumbs) 18:20, 28 January 2020 (UTC)
• Yes – Paste is a generally reliable source for politics. Attribution will suffice where opinion is involved. Burrobert (talk) 05:17, 29 January 2020 (UTC)
• Yes (with attribution)- seems to be reliable, although it clearly has some bias. It also won an award from the Chicago Tribune and had a weekly segment on CNN (The self-proclaimed "Most Trusted Name in News"). Question for @MrX:- If I start a discussion on Salon will you support deprecation since you believe Paste is on par with Salon? Here is an article from Politico discussing how Salon has really gone downhill in recent years [58]. Just curious to know where you stand since I may start an RFC at some point.--Rusf10 (talk) 21:47, 10 February 2020 (UTC)
  • No, and I'm not supporting deprecation of Paste either. - MrX 🖋 21:55, 10 February 2020 (UTC)

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

RfC: The New Republic

The following discussion is an archived record of a request for comment. Please do not modify it. No further edits should be made to this discussion. A summary of the conclusions reached follows.

There is a clear consensus that Option 1 or Option 2 applies. A number of voices were raised that challenged the necessity or formation of this RfC. In the absence of an RfC, the status quo would be to treat this source as "normal", or as in Option 1. Taking this together with the strength of the arguments below makes it clear that a rough consensus for Option 1 has been expressed in this RfC. (non-admin closure) Eggishorn (talk) (contrib) 04:03, 8 March 2020 (UTC)

---

Which option best describes The New Republic?

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

Thanks! --Jamez42 (talk) 12:04, 31 December 2019 (UTC)

• Option 2: I am not seeing why this is unreliable, what am I missing?Slatersteven (talk) 12:12, 31 December 2019 (UTC)
• Before we proceed - What is the reason for this RFC? - David Gerard (talk) 13:04, 31 December 2019 (UTC) Furthermore - speedy close as malformed RFC, started with no context for question - someone please? - David Gerard (talk) 17:18, 31 December 2019 (UTC)

I agree we need to stop these RfC's that are eliminating all WP:RS that is critical of U.S. regime change efforts in Venezuela. The same group of editors who dominate the Venezuela pages (e.g. [59]) have been eliminating these sources one-by-one with their !iVotes and often citing a connection to or supportive views of Maduro, e.g. Center for Economic and Policy Research (CEPR),TeleSUR, Venezuelanalysis, Grayzone, HispanTV. I have good reason to believe this editor wants the New Republic eliminated to make it easier to delete material that is unfavorable to Juan Guaido who he supported in this this edit war here. --David Tornheim (talk) 13:48, 31 December 2019 (UTC)

Tornheim, please have a close look at WP:EDITCOUNTITIS (an argument based on that is unlikely to be sound). I know you read the discussions of how my editcount is inflated by the way I edit, the amount of cleanup I do, and the amount of intra-article copying and moving of text I was the one to do, after discussion. I certainly know you know that I no longer participate in those articles (precisely because of false examples of editors succumbing to EDITCOUNTITIS to attempt to discredit my editing, when I was the one doing all of the cleanup and consolidating between articles). I do follow RSN, and I will continue to participate here when I see marginal and state-sponsored sources being used inappropriately. SandyGeorgia (Talk) 16:42, 31 December 2019 (UTC)

The list includes:

Centre for Economic and Policy Research CEPR - RfC still running

Telesur deprecated in 2019

Grayzone - RfC still running

MintPress News deprecated in 2019

Venezuelanalysis deprecated in 2019

Burrobert (talk) 14:34, 31 December 2019 (UTC)

This is a tired and dumb argument about rfc's here. What is the point of this noticeboard if not to discuss reliable sources? If a source is debated then a discussion and survey is great, and if the result is a firm consensus that should set a precedent with that source lest something changes ie: new owners, new editorial staff etc. We save a lot of time/repetitive debates/edit wars etc by having a list of reliable sources. The debates been had, move on. I personally think these endless and inevitably frivolous oppositions to rfc's are disruptive. Bacondrum (talk) 02:35, 14 January 2020 (UTC)

User:Bacondrum, the primary point of this noticeboard is to discuss reliable sources in the WP:RSCONTEXT of a particular statement in a particular article. This is different from having general discussions about whether a publication should be near-banned from use in any article for any statement. We occasionally need those general discussions, but we don't need them nearly as often as they're happening, and we don't want them when people might reasonably suspect that the goal is to ban the source generally without having to confess that you're trying to get it removed from a single article. WhatamIdoing (talk) 17:16, 30 January 2020 (UTC)

• Options 1 or 2. It should be attributed for controversial claims or for things that other RS have not covered. Snooganssnoogans (talk) 13:51, 31 December 2019 (UTC)
• Close as malformed RfC. The original poster has offered no evidence one way or the other. This constant series of RfCs trying to anoint or condemn sources without context needs to stop. The long term effect is for those with one POV to vote sources with opposing POVs "off the island". This is a bad practice and does not help make better articles. Springee (talk) 13:57, 31 December 2019 (UTC)
• In this case, UNDUE. As with all matters of RS, one size does not fit all, and reliability of a source depends on the text being sourced. In this case, the author is Mark Weisbrot, a chavismo cheerleader, who has not evidenced fact checking or journalistic principles wrt Venezuela, and has been shown to be factually wrong multiple times. I can't fit that into the "Options" formulation above, but Mark Weisbrot is highly biased on Venezuela, and inserting opinions from him is UNDUE. I suggest those who want to insert anything said by Weisbrot should try to find similar at NYT, WaPO, or any of the other left-leaning mainstream media. I have not formed an opinion on The New Republic in general, but if it is like other sources that feature(d) Weisbrot's work (e.g.; The Huffington Post), we can look at how we rate their reliability, and the reliability of their contributors. We perhaps have the same situation here-- a source that demonstrates little journalistic concern about contributor opinion it publishes. SandyGeorgia (Talk) 16:45, 31 December 2019 (UTC)

  Option 2, based on information below from User:Alcibiades979 and User:MaximumIdeas, as well as the examples of fringe reporting from User:Aquillion, then we would place New Republic similarly to how we place National Review. Separately the Weisbrot-authored opinion would be UNDUE and Option 3 according the scheme above. So, that yields Option 2 or 3. SandyGeorgia (Talk) 18:55, 4 January 2020 (UTC)

Can we please discus the source, and not each other?Slatersteven (talk) 16:45, 31 December 2019 (UTC)

Could someone please provide an example of what text is being proposed based on this source and at what article? In general, looking at the Weisbrot-authored article, an examination of all of the preposterous positions and demonstrably false claims (compared to more reliable sources) that it advances would be too lengthy to be of use here. What are the specifics so that DUE WEIGHT can be evaluated? SandyGeorgia (Talk) 16:52, 31 December 2019 (UTC)

I think a significant number of us have been fearing this sort of source-silencing for a long time. I certainly was worried, with Wikipedia being as omnipresent as a source of information, that there were nowhere near enough protections in place to keep it from being used by schemers and agendists for profit and power. Now we see a part of it happening here.

No. The New Republic is a good source. - Jack Sebastian (talk) 17:12, 31 December 2019 (UTC)

Jack Sebastian I'm just pinging you to remind you to vote for which option you think is best. - MikkelJSmith (talk) 18:53, 2 January 2020 (UTC)

Sorry. Option 1. - Jack Sebastian (talk) 14:22, 3 January 2020 (UTC)

• Option 1 or 2 The New Republic had a tumultuous time in the 2010s, but most of the coverage that I can find of it criticizes the publication's business and marketing decisions, not so much their actual journalistic quality [60] [61]. They've had managerial troubles, and our article for them documents a number of controversies involving individual writers and editors, but as of this year CJR is still treating them like a leading American news publication, even if they're not what they were in the 20th century. _signed, Rosguill ^talk 19:08, 31 December 2019 (UTC)

I think its fair to say that very few media outlets have survived the fake news bombardment unscathed (which is an utter shame). Yes, the NR has had its share of controversies, but here's the thing: they always end up being on the right side of a news story, and they have survived crises that would have detonated other news agencies. - Jack Sebastian (talk) 19:17, 31 December 2019 (UTC)

I think that this is less due to fake news and more due to the general influence of the internet on news media. TNRs trajectory over the past decade has mirrored Newsweek to an extent, with the caveat that TNR appears to have reversed some of their more disastrous decisions made 2014–2016 and now have new editorial leadership which seems to be less interested in picking up the clickbait market, whereas Newsweek took the full plunge._signed, Rosguill ^talk 19:53, 31 December 2019 (UTC)

Contributor opinion (eg Weisbrot) is still distinguished from the source in which it is published (eg Huffington Post as a different example). To evaluate the contributor in this case, versus The New Republic in general, we still need to know what the proposed text is. In general, Weisbrot's writing often has demonstrable factual errors, but as a chavismo cheerleader, he is a good source on what Maduro/Chavez believe/state/think/do. Specifics, please? SandyGeorgia (Talk) 02:34, 1 January 2020 (UTC)

• Option 2 A lot of New Republic pieces read like opinion pieces. For example, as of right now on their home page, we have "A Unified Theory of the Trumps' Creepy Aesthetic"[62] which talks about Trump's "smirking melon-ball head", "impossibly accursed foods", and an aesthetic that is "always so shitty". I also couldn't find a corrections page on their site but did notice that they said corrections could be submitted as letters to the editor, which seems a little weird, but does also show some interest in correcting errors. So I can't exactly say that they are unreliable, but I can't really say they are reliable, either. Adoring nanny (talk) 11:54, 1 January 2020 (UTC)

• Comment @David Gerard:@Springee: I'm a little confused regarding the malformation of the RfC, since from what I gather RfCs have to be started in a neutral manner, without including own's positions.

As it was suggested before, the source was recently added to the United States involvement in regime change article, although I deeply regret that David Tornheim used their comment to attack and accuse me and other editors about unrelated topics. Browsing through the noticeboard's archives, it seems that the outlet's reliability has not been discussed in the past, so I want to know the community's position. Media Bias/Fact Check rates New Republic as having a left bias based on story selection and editorial positions that frequently favor the left. and high factual reporting due to proper sourcing of information and a clean fact check record., which is why I think attribution is needed and Option 2 best describes the outlet, but I've seen we don't depend on Media Bias/Fact Check to determine source reliability, another reason why I thought the RfC was the best option.

If needed, I can solve this issue, reopen the request for comment or close it, depending on the best option. Once again, many thanks in advance. --Jamez42 (talk) 12:29, 1 January 2020 (UTC)

Jamez42, MediaBiasCheck is considered unreliable on wikipedia. See [63] - MikkelJSmith (talk) 18:30, 2 January 2020 (UTC)

Not an attack. Everything I stated here is completely verifiable and has been observed by other editors in this RfC and elsewhere about the needless elimination of sources with these unnecessary WP:RfC's. These sources cover things outside the scope of the 2019 Venezuelan presidential crisis.

If you truly believe that what I stated above has no legitimacy, maybe it is best we take it to WP:AN/I. Would that be better venue for you? I am happy to open up a section there about my concerns. --David Tornheim (talk) 13:49, 1 January 2020 (UTC)

Yes, take it to ANI or user talk pages, we do not discuss users here.Slatersteven (talk) 13:56, 1 January 2020 (UTC)

@MikkelJSmith2: I know, which is why I said that we don't depend on Media Bias/Fact Check to determine source reliability and a reason of why I started the RfC. --Jamez42 (talk) 18:34, 2 January 2020 (UTC)

Jamez42, oh sorry, I misread your paragraph. - MikkelJSmith (talk) 18:53, 2 January 2020 (UTC)

MikkelJSmith2 No worries, thanks for your input :) --Jamez42 (talk) 18:59, 2 January 2020 (UTC)

• Options 1 or 2. Pretty much agree with the arguments above. I would also like to add that interestingly this chart [64] puts it in the same ballpark as the Daily Beast, The Intercept, Mother Jones, the Nation and Vanity Fair. I'm not treating it as gospel, but based on other information I know about the source, that seems correct. So, reliable but biased would be the assessment here I think. - MikkelJSmith (talk) 18:53, 2 January 2020 (UTC)
• Option 3. The New Republic says in its own about section that "For over 100 years, we have championed progressive ideas." So they have a self-described left-agenda. Furthermore, they have no editorial policies separating their news from this editorial agenda. Given this, while it can be an RS for opinion or investigative reporting, it should be used with extreme caution when it comes to political reporting. Separately, am curious to hear from @David Gerard:@Springee: where in the guidelines it says that a description is necessary for an RFC. --MaximumIdeas (talk) 02:08, 3 January 2020 (UTC)
• Option 1: Generally reliable. Opinions should be attributed of course. Burrobert (talk) 05:22, 3 January 2020 (UTC)
• Options 2 or 3. Correct me if I'm wrong but it's purely opinion, no? I started reading through some articles and at first was put off by the fact that opinion wasn't labeled as such, until I did some research on the paper and found that it's purely opinion. This is even stated in its |about page: "We don’t lament intractable problems; our journalism debates complex issues, and takes a stance. Our biggest stories are commitments for change." So in this light it should be treated like any other op-ed source. It most definitely has a point of view, its writings use persuasive rhetoric to argue for that point of view. Alcibiades979 (talk) 06:40, 3 January 2020 (UTC)
• Option 1: per Burrobert "Generally reliable. Opinions should be attributed of course.", per Slatersteven,Snooganssnoogans, Rosguill, and Jack Sebastian.

Still as I noted above--and others have concurred--I find serious problems with having these RfC's, when a standard post following the rules of WP:RS/N is all we needed in this case. I suggest we have a wider discussion about these RfC's and create limits on when they are launched and insist on a clear justification for them.

Perhaps, simply requiring in advance that editors show clear and convincing evidence that an RfC is needed, and requiring them to first make a request to hold the RfC here at WP:RfC--one that gains approval before it is permitted to be launched. These RfC's--especially when few non-involved editors show up (not the case here)--can have huge negative impacts on sourced material from the past and into the future. It can also create a strong POV problem if sources with a particular bias (all sources, including NYT, CNN, etc. have systemic bias) are eliminated by editors who do not like that bias. We cannot follow our key guideline of WP:NPOV if we continue to eliminate or deprecate publications that include opinions by experts, simply because the opinions have a particular bias that the editors who show up to the RfC do not happen to like, whether that bias is left, right, pro- or anti-nationalism, etc.

Also, these "fact-checking" sites have strong biases, and these are often used to "discredit" a publication in these RfC's, sometimes because of a single incident [to be exanded] I think these fact-checking sites may be even less reliable than the publications they are assessing. A single claim in one of these sites should not be the basis for deprecating a source. --David Tornheim (talk) 09:37, 3 January 2020 (UTC)

I agree with David Tornheim. I haven't see anything to make me think this isn't a generally reliable source but that doesn't mean we should treat every article as automatically reliable etc. My primary concern is there are too many of these RfCs recently and it seems their objective is to either anoint as "good" or "bad" a particular source. David's concern about systematic bias if too many sources are voted off the island or enshrined is also a concern. When someone comes here with an open ended question about a source I think the question that should be asked is, why are you asking? What have previous RSN discussions said? Can you provide an example of how this source is going to be used in an article? I don't recall ever working with/around the editor who opened this RfC nor do I recall dealing with The Nation as a source often enough to have an opinion on it (I had to look it up to see if it was left or right leaning!). Regardless, we simply need fewer of these blanket RfCs. It seems like far to many have come out since the Daily Mail was deprecated. Perhaps this noticeboard should have a rule stating that RS discussions must include context examples (what article is going to be used where) or have examples of previous RSN discussions before we can have a RfC to assign a stamp of good/bad on any general source. Perhaps we should spend a bit more time discussing if individual articles are making sound claims vs just assuming because it comes from "RS" it must be good. Either way, as it stands I'm opposed to RfCs such as this one. Springee (talk) 14:39, 3 January 2020 (UTC)

• Option 1 or 2. They're a complex case because their ownership and direction have shifted over time. On the whole they are generally reliable; they are often WP:BIASED, but the direction of that bias has swung back and forth over time, as our article on them discusses, so knowing the era a particular piece was written in and who wrote it is important if you need to determine if and how it's biased on the particular subject at hand. They have also occasionally published WP:FRINGE positions, especially Charles Murray's views on race science. That was a bit of an outlier and on the whole they are probably reliable due to their established reputation and relatively few scandals that directly impugn their journalistic accuracy, but it's important to pay attention to who wrote a particular piece there and to use in-line citations when necessary. --Aquillion (talk) 06:30, 4 January 2020 (UTC)
• Option 1 leaning left or right is beyond irrelevant. Have they published falsehoods? Nope. Have they got good editorial standards? Yes. This is a high quality left leaning source (everyone has a slant, whether they accept it or not). Bacondrum (talk) 01:00, 11 January 2020 (UTC)
• Option 2 either the website does not clearly label opinion content or it's all opinion, so it should be attributed in articles. buidhe 03:53, 12 January 2020 (UTC)

References

• Option 2: I do have to agree with concerns of a potential blur between fact and opinion, though it does have some editorial standards. Definitely should be a source that is attributed.----ZiaLater (talk) 12:13, 12 January 2020 (UTC)
• Option 1: Generally reliable for factual reporting. I've seen no report of specific factual errors in comments above. Everyone looks at a set of (who, what, when, where) facts and makes their own (why) interpretations. -- Yae4 (talk) 17:48, 12 January 2020 (UTC)
• Option 1; as others have said, I haven't seen any suggestion they make factual errors (except, presumably, with the low frequency that even the "best" sources occasionally make errors). If, as some have said above, reports from certain eras are biased in one way or another or need attribution, that can be discussed on a case-by-case basis (or brought up again here if and when there is an actual problem). -sche (talk) 07:48, 14 January 2020 (UTC)
• Option 2, but only because I don't accept option 1 in relation to any regularly updated source The only sources we can confirm as "generally reliable" are "closed" ones like books that have been published in a finished state. I also despise the fact that many Wikipedia editors (most recently, in my recollection, here) would like to use popular news media (and "scholarly" sources in unrelated fields) as "generally reliable" sources even in cases in cases where they are definitely wrong. Lacking further information, options 3 and 4 in this case appear to be something only someone with a political axe to grind would buy in to. Hijiri 88 (聖やや) 08:07, 14 January 2020 (UTC)
• Close as malformed RfC. Like Springee said. Peter Gulutzan (talk) 14:48, 22 January 2020 (UTC)
• Option 1 – I have seen no evidence to detract from the fact that this publication is generally reliable. --- C&C (Coffeeandcrumbs) 18:24, 28 January 2020 (UTC)
• Close as inappropriate, given that it's used in about 150 articles, and there's been no effort to see whether any of those uses (much less most of them) have any problems at all. I also don't see any effort by the editor who started this to look at the (dozens of) previous discussions in the RSN archives, which in my brief spot check generally said that it's as reliable as anyone would expect, given that it's an opinion-oriented magazine rather than a pure-dry-facts magazine. To give one example, User:FOARP described The New Republic as "highly reliable" in December 2018, in the context of explaining the difference between any individual article being perfect, vs the magazine overall being reliable (because they once published, and later retracted, content by Stephen Glass). And if you want a truly circular example, User:Bloodofox cited The New Republic for facts about Epoch Times, in the October 2019 discussion that resulted in deprecating that source. We shouldn't even be having this discussion. WhatamIdoing (talk) 17:31, 30 January 2020 (UTC)
• Close - This is precisely the kind of contextless WP:FORUM-style discussion about whether the source is “bad” that we should be avoiding here. Read the notes at the top with of the page about what this page is for. FOARP (talk) 19:33, 30 January 2020 (UTC)

As this RfC has elapsed, I have requested closure at WP:RFCL § Wikipedia:Reliable sources/Noticeboard#RfC: The New Republic. — Newslinger talk 10:58, 3 March 2020 (UTC)

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

Times of India RFC

The following discussion is an archived record of a request for comment. Please do not modify it. No further edits should be made to this discussion. A summary of the conclusions reached follows.

The result was: option 2 and 3, per Fowler&fowler's substantive argument (and breadth of knowledge in this area), which also includes mention of Britannica's own qualification. Many participants seemed convinced by F&f's explanation — no serious counter-argument against it has been made. El_C 00:08, 9 March 2020 (UTC)

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Which option best describes the reliability of The Times of India?

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

buidhe 18:28, 5 February 2020 (UTC)

Survey: Times of India

• Comment: ToI is one of the most-used sources on articles that are AfDed, and there are concerns that the website does not distinguish promotional content. However, other editors consider the source reliable or mainstream: see previous RSN discussions 1, 2, 3. This is a particularly important discussion as ToI is a major news source for the second most populous country in the world. buidhe 18:28, 5 February 2020 (UTC)
• 1 generally, for Indian-related matters (not necessarily for US/European things), but like other "mainstream" papers everywhere, pr crap does no doubt leak in. So maybe 2. Johnbod (talk) 18:34, 5 February 2020 (UTC)
• Option 2. You really need to analyse the actual content. India has many issues with the freedom of press (it's rated something like 140th in the world, behind a number of countries that are one-party states!) and therefore many sources tend to report with a pro-Government bias. Bias, however, is not the same as being non-factual, it's merely the picking and choosing of what content to publish, just like the majority of sources in the West. This is worth a read. Also, check for paid promotional content when used as sources. Black Kite (talk) 18:35, 5 February 2020 (UTC)

Yes, a good piece, but TOI was one of the groups Modi targeted with an ad freeze: "Senior executives of those groups and opposition leaders contend that the ad freeze was retaliation for news reports critical of the government". Johnbod (talk) 19:12, 5 February 2020 (UTC)

• Option 1 generally reliable for the factual reporting as no evidence given of unreliability of the basic information. Note that factual reporting does not include press releases, it has it's faults but I don't think it is any worse than major western newspapers that all dabble in promotion to some extent so discretion is needed in which stories to use but overally generally reliable. Regarding their entertainment content the film reviews seem independent criticism as they give plenty of rotten reviews, imv Atlantic306 (talk) 18:45, 5 February 2020 (UTC)

• Well, that's exactly the problem. The ToI (and some other Indian major sources) do tend to parrot Government press releases as fact. I realise that Western sources do this as well, but most Western governments (I'm not including Donald Trump's Twitter feed here) don't tend to publish press releases that are easily provable as false (see this and the Wikipedia article on it). See also this, for example. If it's an article merely repeating a Government press release, it absolutely needs to be "The Government said ...", and not reported as fact. Black Kite (talk) 19:19, 5 February 2020 (UTC)

• Comment This may not be the best discussion for this, but I'd be curious as to what people think about their coverage of actors and films outside of strict reviews. I've come across a lot of articles of this sort published by ToI that would be considered tabloid-level coverage in the US or UK. _signed, Rosguill ^talk 18:48, 5 February 2020 (UTC)
• 2. Black Kite raises an important point. feminist (talk) 10:52, 6 February 2020 (UTC) Addendum: the same applies to any other Indian newspaper. Special considerations apply with any reportage involving local politics and/or related topics. feminist (talk) 14:49, 6 February 2020 (UTC)
• 2 is the obvious answer. In limited experience it has been problematic more often than not. I am almost concerned enough to state a 3, if only because I have seen (particularly related to sports, politics, and biographical information) a willingness to publish a mix of jingoistic propaganda a la the Daily Mail, and sensationalism a la the Daily Mail. To be fair, a lot of that seems to be bleeding through from the "E-Times" or "Entertainment Times" - but there is unclear segregation. Also echo the concerns above by Black Kite. Lots of conveniently published "claims" by government sources about opposition parties. Koncorde (talk) 15:10, 6 February 2020 (UTC)
• 2 change to option 3 More or less what has been said above. I am not sure that they have a bad reputation for fact checking but do act as a government mouth piece. I think this is a case of attribution in all cases.Slatersteven (talk) 16:59, 6 February 2020 (UTC)
• Taking into account the New Yorker article as well as a recent thread about an advert on the front page being used to establish notability I have to now change my opinion. Its clear paid content is a major part of the TOI, as such it should not be used to establish notability, not for any information about companies or BLP, or even events.Slatersteven (talk) 10:29, 8 March 2020 (UTC)
• Option 2—3: Agree with what Black Kite states, but government involvement more often than not moves a source towards unreliability. Attribution should certainly be used with this source.----ZiaLater (talk) 17:07, 6 February 2020 (UTC)
• Wow. This is unexpected. I never even questioned it, but of course I should have done. I guess I lean 2 but will need to study more closely. It's not just the exertion of government control, Indian culture is very respectful towards authority so there may just be a good-faith shortfall in critical analysis. They treat homeopaths as doctors in news stories, for example, and tend to obsessively overuse honorifics, and I always put this down to the same culture of respectful acceptance that most Westerners find so charming as visitors to India. Guy (help!) 17:47, 6 February 2020 (UTC)

They also take horoscopes seriously, amongst other relatively benign pseudo fads (some of which have become accepted "alternative medicine" in the west) and have been known to legitimately promote ideas such as Breatharianism (sic?) and male pregnancy (of the physical man variety). Koncorde (talk) 20:00, 6 February 2020 (UTC)

Koncorde, not a surprise. Skeptics have a hard time in India. I love Indian culture, but you can't get away from the fact that belief is a magic talisman that isolates every form of bullshit from criticism. When a high street pharmacy advertises that it sells "homeopathy, ayurveda and allopathy" then you know that rational thinking is not getting much of a look-in. Guy (help!) 09:04, 7 February 2020 (UTC)

• Option 3, based only on my experience at AfD, where I have seen often this source reproduce obvious promotional material in the guise of reporting. See Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Luminita Blosenco, which I've just closed, for a relatively clear example. Sandstein 09:29, 8 February 2020 (UTC)

The one TOI piece there is nearly all photos from instagram and has no byline so is clearly not a news article. There is no need to throw the baby out with the bathwater, there are good articles -and poor articles so discretion is needed on which articles to use with attribution for anything not widely reported, imv Atlantic306 (talk) 14:35, 8 February 2020 (UTC)

Many TOI stories (and Indian publications in general) do not have a byline. That does not automatically mean they are factually incorrect. Based on my years of reading it, the paper edition of TOI does not have a lot of bylines even for the news pages. Yet, I would regard it one of the most reliable for Indian news, along with The Hindu and Hindustan Times. The promotional "TOI" piece [65] that you are talking about is actually from ETimes (which seems to have evolved from the IndiaTimes portal). It is published by the same publisher. However, while TOI has news, ETimes/IndiaTimes is more like a web portal which carries entertainment/P3 related articles. Even the website for ETimes states "ETimes is an Entertainment, TV & Lifestyle industry's promotional website and carries advertorials and native advertising" The actual TOI can be accessed from [66] and the news articles can be differentiated from the ETimes articles.--DreamLinker (talk) 03:07, 14 February 2020 (UTC)

• Option 2 based on comments from Black Kite and Sandstein. This source could be biased in certain nationalist contexts but is an important news and commentary source from India, and nationalist news production is a problem in most countries on earth. -Darouet (talk) 15:49, 14 February 2020 (UTC)
• Option 2. I see no evidence that they're categorically unusable, but it should be noted that The Times of India occasionally puts out such utter garbage that citing it is inconceivable. See for example Nawarat Ring where the ToI is used to support the claim that wearing a sapphire prevents accidents or health problems. Most of the citations are about entertainment topics: approximately 40%. When the article is credited PTI (Press Trust of India) or TNN (Times News Network), it's usually OK. IANS can be really terrible, (see [67] for example. Stories aggregated from Brandwire or Mediawire should never be used; they're PR. The ToI is sloppy with their bylines, so care should be taken when citing the author. For example: is https://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/life-style/health-fitness/de-stress/how-i-start-my-day/articleshow/64778683.cms by TNN, or Nona Walla, or Kamlesh Patel, the author of The Heartfulness Way? ....... Added at 16:48, 23 February 2020 by Vexations.
• Option 1 or Option 2 per arguments of Atlantic306 above. Some legitimate concerns raised, but there are numerous comments holding ToI to standards we just don't see Wikipedians demand from mainstream newspapers in the US/UK/Australia/etc. The Drover's Wife (talk) 17:20, 23 February 2020 (UTC)
• Option 1 with respect to actors and actresses (the area I focus on). Generally the articles seem to be okay and not overly promotional in tone, but each article should be considered on a case-by-case basis, in my opinion. Dflaw4 (talk) 03:13, 7 March 2020 (UTC)
• Option 1 The Times of India has been published since 1838 and it is a Newspaper of Record there are only 2 Indian newspapers which can claim so.It has been India's most reliable newspaper for large part of the time. It is politically neutral not aligned to the right or the left unlike most other indian newspapers. Pharaoh of the Wizards (talk) 00:35, 8 March 2020 (UTC)
• Note: The issue of undisclosed paid/sponsored content in The Times of India was documented and discussed at length at User_talk:Bishonen sometime last year (IIRC). And Ms Sarah Welch and/or Winged Blades of Godric had even started a sub-page documented reliable sources, such as New Yorker etc, writing about the issue with the aim of raising it at this board at some point. I have been inactive recently and thus am not sure if the issue was followed-up but am dropping this note for now to (a) ping the relevant users, and (b) to request that this discussion not be closed till those users' views and the relevant sources have been weighed. I'll try to dig up the links. Abecedare (talk) 05:16, 8 March 2020 (UTC)

• Here's the relevant discussion from May 2019, and here is the subpage concerning the topic that MSW had created. Also pinging @Hoary, Sitush, Doug Weller, Kautilya3, and PaleoNeonate: who had participated in that discussion.
• And anyone weighing in here should at least read the following article directly dealing with ToI's editorial standards.

Auletta, Ken (8 Oct 2012). "Citizens Jain". The New Yorker.

IMO after reading that, Option 1 (at least) cannot possibly be an acceptable option. Abecedare (talk) 05:32, 8 March 2020 (UTC)

@Abecedare: Indeed. The ToI is not alone. See this for additional background and details. They are okay for current news, if carefully read, summarized and attributed. Field-based-fact-checking is generally missing, rather the reporting is opinions-testimonials with gobbledygook and varying degrees of paid propaganda or downright corruption. The western media unfortunately has hardly any presence in the field – their villages, their smaller cities (with a million or more people) – and rely on their well-off Lutyens contacts/politicians. For most topics worth having an encyclopedic article on, peer-reviewed scholarship is available at least for the background, history, the disputes, balance of views from different sides, the brilliance, insights, complexities. Option 1 is unacceptable. Ms Sarah Welch (talk) 13:36, 8 March 2020 (UTC)

• Option 2 at best. I'll reluctantly forgo further ridiculing the coverage of curvacious Moldovan bikini models and the like. As for the far more important stuff, it's not limited to coverage (or non-coverage) of government matters. There are also the distortions resulting from corporate payoffs. Anyone who has selected "1" should read "Citizens Jain" (and thank you, Abecedare, for the reminder of that article and more generally "Paid news and private treaties"). If ToI was an excellent newspaper for its first century and a half, that only makes for a sadder decline. -- Hoary (talk) 07:11, 8 March 2020 (UTC)
• Option 1 It is good for reporting the occurrences happening in India for sure, I haven't seen enough problems yet to reject the option 1. Tessaracter (talk) 08:58, 8 March 2020 (UTC)
• Option 2. As an active contributor to WP Goa, for which sources are rarely available, ToI has come to my rescue multiple times. However, their reporting of current affairs has often shown bias. SerTanmay (talk) 09:43, 8 March 2020 (UTC)
• Note::::The Times of India has been published since 1838 and clearly is perhaps most reliable indian newspaper right since Robert Knight became the editor in 1857 when it rose to national promience and at one point it was Asia's best newspaper . Please note we are not talking about 10 year old or 30 year old newspaper and recent controversy or one piece cannot change one's opinion just like one cannot over the The New York Times ,The Daily Telegraph or the The Guardian .“Samir Jain wanted an editor who’s neutral—not tied to an ideology, a cause or a party,” please note here the New Yorker couldn’t get a hold of him before the article. Pharaoh of the Wizards (talk) 10:02, 8 March 2020 (UTC)

The same was true of the Daily Myth, it did not stop us deprecating it because of what it had become.Slatersteven (talk) 10:20, 8 March 2020 (UTC)

• Option 2–3 Option 2 for matter-of-fact reporting such as the weather; but Option 3 in any topic with politial ramifications, such as the numbers of people who may have died in a riot, or the numbers of malnutritioned chidren, because of the newspaper's history of a pro-government bias, especially after the 1970s. It is India's second-oldest newspaper after the Statesman, founded in 1838, and for many decades carrying only advertisements and obituaries on its front page. I own some historic editions: the beginning and end of WW2, India's independence, Gandhi's assassination, Nehru's death, ... If I have time, I'll take a look at the older editions to examine their quality. However, by the 1970s when Indian newspapers had come out of the shadow of nationalism and begun to show their independence, the Times did not quite. It has some major people writing in its op-ed columns; those are definitely worth a read, but not for citing on WP. Britannica 's lead sentence says it all: "The Times of India, English-language morning daily newspaper published in Mumbai, Ahmadabad, and Delhi. It is one of India's most influential papers, and its voice has frequently coincided with that of the national government." Fowler&fowler«Talk» 12:33, 8 March 2020 (UTC)
• Option 3 per my comments here and here. Specifically Sure and particularly in this case, I think anything TOI (or any media outlet) that doesn't readily identify their editorial staff and author of such pieces should not be regarded as reliable or factual. I personally do not understand how we as editors can rely on a source, especially at that length and subject, that the author can't even stand behind by signing their name to it. How can we trust the integrity of a source when they don't disclose who their journalists even are? Praxidicae (talk) 12:47, 8 March 2020 (UTC)
• Option 2-3 per Fowler&fowler, leaning towards 3 due in part to its reluctance to name authors, its pro-government bias, and this story[68] - see also Cobrapost. Doug Weller talk 13:30, 8 March 2020 (UTC) Forgot this.[69] Doug Weller talk 13:31, 8 March 2020 (UTC)
• Option 2 - 3 per Fowler&fowler, Sandstein and others. Articles need to be evaluated carefully for reliability, and if they are being used to demonstrate notability. GirthSummit _(blether) 13:47, 8 March 2020 (UTC)
• Option 2 TOI does not do their best at distinguishing op-eds from news, but they definitely meet the WP:RS threshold for WP:V, given their long-standing reputation. Also, meets WP:NEWSORG, but again, multiple issues persist. --qedk (t 心 c) 14:33, 8 March 2020 (UTC)
• 2 - The fact that this is one of the most influential news outlets in India means that we can not ignore what it says. However, we should not accept what it says as being unquestionably accurate. When used, it needs to be hedged with in-text attribution (“according to the ToI,...”, or “the ToI reported that...”, etc.) Blueboar (talk) 16:19, 8 March 2020 (UTC)
• Option 2 - 3 per Fowler&fowler, Sandstein and others. Articles need to be evaluated carefully for reliability, and if they are being used to demonstrate notability. Unbiasedpov (talk) 19:32, 8 March 2020 (UTC)
• Thanks for the ping, I remember asking to be notified if there ever was a more official discussion. I found very concerning some implausible statements expressed as facts in some articles. As someone who cannot read Indian languages, except for transliterated words where religion and related concepts are concerned, I understand the value of Indian English sources for Wikipedia. Still, I would not rate it as better than Option 2. —PaleoNeonate – 23:24, 8 March 2020 (UTC)
• Comment - In my gnoming, I see TOI used mostly for content about Indian films and their financial details. I haven't noticed any glaring inconsistencies among other sources. In contrast, unrelated periodicals Financial Express and Indian Express are examples of mainstream, typically-reliable sources that have published really misleading details about film financials.) So I wouldn't want TOI to get thrown out completely. And for some context, TOI once discontinued their box office column because of corruption in the film industry. So perhaps that is suggestive of some integrity? Cyphoidbomb (talk) 23:56, 8 March 2020 (UTC)

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

New York Times

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

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The New York Times clearly is not a reliable source. In 2007 they relayed lies by "the American military" without showing any sign of inquiry by themselves. They wrote "In the ensuing fight, the statement said, the two Reuters employees and nine insurgents were killed.", when in fact there was no fight, it was a massacre. Additionally they concealed what was undoubtedly a war crime, namely gunning down a rescue mission of a heavily wounded man, who survived the previous massacre. --Raphael1 21:44, 7 March 2020 (UTC)

It is no less reliable than the previous dozen times such a suggestion has been raised and refuted. Walter Görlitz (talk) 21:48, 7 March 2020 (UTC)

An appeal to tradition is not an argument. --Raphael1 22:25, 7 March 2020 (UTC)

I'm sorry. I didn't think I wrote that it was an appeal to tradition. Every single time a neo-con comes along wanting to make NTY seem unreliable based on their own pet source I recognize the previous discussions that have told similar editors that they're wrong (see WP:CONSENSUS). Walter Görlitz (talk) 02:05, 8 March 2020 (UTC)

• Generally reliable. The New York Times covered the video when it was made public by whistleblowers in 2010. The NYT's 2007 coverage properly attributes claims to the entities that made them (e.g. "The American military said in a statement late Thursday that 11 people had been killed: nine insurgents and two civilians. According to the statement, American troops were conducting a raid when they were hit by small-arms fire and rocket-propelled grenades."). — Newslinger talk 21:56, 7 March 2020 (UTC)

  Did you even notice, that the New York Times and you completely ignore the war crime I wrote about in my previous comment? Why is that? Because it's convenient? The article you link to is even worse, because even though they must have seen the video, instead of calling out the war crime, they again simply cite US Central Command blaming the victims, because they “made no effort to visibly display their status as press or media representatives". They don't just "fire on a van", they fire on the people, who try to rescue a wounded individual, and that is a war crime. --Raphael1 22:25, 7 March 2020 (UTC)

  Let me point a key part of the NYTimes article you are missing, bolded for emphasis: The American military said in a statement late Thursday that 11 people had been killed: nine insurgents and two civilians. According to the statement, American troops were conducting a raid when they were hit by small-arms fire and rocket-propelled grenades. The American troops called in reinforcements and attack helicopters. In the ensuing fight, the statement said, the two Reuters employees and nine insurgents were killed. The NYTimes did not create the claim this was a "fight", it is simply reiterating what the US Gov't told it, and it is very carefully making sure that none of these claims are theirs. That's good journalism that we expect from the Times. Ego, this is the wrong tree to be chasing up if you're trying to challenge the NYTimes. This is standard "US Gov't statement vs Wikileaks". --Masem (t) 23:27, 7 March 2020 (UTC)

I have this recurrent nightmare that I wake up and find myself in Oceania. O3000 (talk) 23:35, 7 March 2020 (UTC)

April 1 is still 22 days away. EvergreenFir (talk) 02:11, 8 March 2020 (UTC)

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

Inside the Criminal Mind References

Inside the Criminal Mind

The article basically contains 3 sentences and lists 3 sources all of which are TV Recap/Review sites. From the way the article is written it is hard to determine which site is the source for the info provided but I am mainly questioning whether these articles can be determined to be "reliable sources"

References listed:

"Stream It Or Skip It: 'Inside the Criminal Mind', Netflix's Docuseries About Dark Psychology". Decider. Retrieved August 1, 2019.
"'Inside the Criminal Mind' - Netflix Original Series Review". Ready Steady Cut. Retrieved August 1, 2019.
"'Inside the Criminal Mind'". Geeks. Retrieved August 1, 2019.

— Preceding unsigned comment added by EyeOmega (talk • contribs) 14:38, 18 February 2020 (UTC)

John. H. Boyd bird taxonomy

This website is run by the economist John. H. Boyd, and was added as the source of cladograms to 62 articles   by Videsh Ramsahai a few years ago. I shall quote the author from here:

Unlike other checklists, this one is based on genetic studies to the highest degree possible. With one or two exceptions, it relies on published studies (including those available “ahead of print”). The strong focus on genetics means that previous morphological studies are often treated as second-class citizens. This is especially true when they aren't consistent with the genetic data, even if the genetic data is somewhat soft. Nonetheless, I rely on such analyses to fill in the gaps left by the genetic data.

My approach contrasts with most checklist committees. They usually put substantial weight on traditional classifications, and try to avoid speculation, even when its clear that the traditional classification is wrong. In particular, they try to avoid making erroneous changes, and put a premium on stability.

This checklist has a different purpose. It exists to speculate, to map out potential changes in the taxonomy. The price of focusing on speculation is to give up stability. I try to avoid erroneously maintaining the status quo, and try to keep abreast of the latest findings, even if incomplete.

The truth is that much of the genetic analysis is incomplete. It is still the case that only part of the avian tree has reliable results. For the rest, some is still relatively uninvestigated, some has results that are not clear cut or even contradictory, and some studies are not well executed. In some cases I've taken my best guess based on available data, sometimes speculating well beyond the genetic data.

The instability of the TiF worldlist may make it unsuitable for everyday use, although it should serve the useful function of highlighting potential changes regardless of your preferred checklist. Unlike a printed checklist, the TiF web list can be easily updated as new information, corrections, and better interpretations come to my attention. The “What's New” button at the top will show you the latest changes.

Previously, only the combination of Sibley and Monroe (1990) and Sibley and Ahlquist (1990) or its precursor in the Auk (Sibley, Ahlquist, and Monroe, 1988) had attempted anything of this sort (the famous “tapestry”). From the beginning, the TiF list has used an explicit family-level tree. That has now been extended to a genus-level tree for most families. In some cases it has been pushed to the species level, and in a very few cases, to subspecies.

While I admire the effort of putting all of this together, I don't think it qualifies as a reliable source for wikipedia as it is self published and as a Economist he is not a recognised expert in the field of Ornithology, and the clade names he uses are non-standard like "Raphini" on the Columbidae article for instance. I think part of the reason that he hasn't been replaced is that cladograms are a pain to syntax in markdown and so nobody wants to bother. Hemiauchenia (talk) 11:04, 7 March 2020 (UTC)

I would agree being an expert in one thing does not make you an expert in everything.Slatersteven (talk) 12:42, 7 March 2020 (UTC)

Potential reliability of marriedceleb.com

I'm seeking help as to whether the website marriedceleb.com might be considered reliable. They say they verify information, but to be honest I consider info about them limited. I've not used it for anything yet as I'm hoping to get some input, but a page that I'd look to use it on would be Mark Wallace. This is the link where they give some info about themselves. https://marriedceleb.com/about-us In this particular example, the only source for the couple's divorce is pagesix (listed on reliability page under NYPost)(all other sources list pagesix as their source with respect to this couple) and it has no consensus with respect to its reliability and emphasizes it's "gossip". Thank you.Mikethewhistle-original (talk) 00:03, 8 March 2020 (UTC)

I'd say no. Name isn't everything (Stuff (website) is something I think is generally reliable), but [70] says nothing about who "we" are. The three articles I clicked on were written by "Manish" who "starts as an intern in 2019." Gråbergs Gråa Sång (talk) 11:45, 8 March 2020 (UTC)

• No no no no no. This is another one of those famousbirthday variants. It's never an acceptable source and at best it's just refspam. Being correct doesn't mean reliable. Praxidicae (talk) 11:48, 8 March 2020 (UTC)

i would say no, no evidence it is reliable.Slatersteven (talk) 12:02, 8 March 2020 (UTC)

• Unreliable. I agree with Praxidicae that Married Celeb is similar to Famous Birthdays (RSP entry), which is currently blacklisted for repeated violations of the biography of living persons policy. Another point of comparison is CelebrityNetWorth (RSP entry), which is considered generally unreliable. Married Celeb doesn't publish a staff list, but I found three author profiles: a blogger (Selena) and two interns (Bibek and Manish). I consider Married Celeb a self-published source, which is unusable for claims about living persons. — Newslinger talk 13:40, 8 March 2020 (UTC)
• Unreliable. Sorry, but I agree with the above, it looks like a gossip blog, there's no way we should be repeating claims based on the content there. GirthSummit _(blether) 15:28, 8 March 2020 (UTC)

Thanks to all for the input. I'd say it's a consensus. The shame is that the article they had that led me here appeared to be good and corroborated info on another source that's yellow. The shame of it is, it's stopping me from fixing two people's pages because the only other source is from pagesix which took me a bit to find on the list under ny post and another user deleted my post saying it wasn't reliable. Thanks to all again.

out of curiosity, what causes a source to go to the reliable list? Mikethewhistle-original (talk) 06:29, 10 March 2020 (UTC)

Mikethewhistle-original, the problem with this sort of corroboration is that if none of them are reliable, we don't k ow whether they're all just repeating the same Internet rumour, or even just copying from each other. You will find plenty of websites that corroborate the idea that the world is flat, it doesn't mean we should use them. The criteria for reliable sources are at WP:RS - we then discuss here whether or not we agree that a source meets  them, and whether they're suitable for a particular assertion. GirthSummit _(blether) 06:47, 10 March 2020 (UTC)

Should "citation needed" be added when there is a permanent dead link?

I would like opinions to see whether my thinking is incorrect regarding placing a "citation needed" tag where information is sourced with a permanent dead link, as well as marking a citation as "dead link" in the text of the article if it is already identified in the list of references as "permanent dead link". I recently removed information from Billy Graham because the source was marked as a permanent dead link ([71]). Another editor (in good faith) reverted me, stating that "it's never OK to remove a dead link WP:DEADLINK" [72]. After considering it, I agreed that the information should remain in the article. Since the link is dead, I added a "citation needed" tag. Since the link is not identified in the text of the article as dead, I also added a "dead link" tag ([73]) so that other editors would know that a new source is needed. The other editor removed both tags with the comment "no a permanent dead link can be replaced, but not removed and there is a citation there" [74]. So for future reference I'd like to know if it is inappropriate to add those tags when a link is determined to be permanently dead. Thanks. Sundayclose (talk) 18:59, 1 March 2020 (UTC)

No, it should be marked with an archived version can be found. Headbomb {t · c · p · b} 20:17, 1 March 2020 (UTC)

Agreed. Having the original reference is vital to fixing link rot by hand. Often it is still available elsewhere. Sometimes I've been able to get the site to restore the link. But I cannot do these things without the original reference; it is the deletion of links rather than their going dead that causes a permanent loss. There is no need for a "citation needed" tag. Hawkeye7 (discuss) 20:30, 1 March 2020 (UTC)

Thanks. Just to be sure I understand, the link in the list of references indicates "permanent dead link", but in the text of the article there is no indication of a dead link. I think it should be added there; otherwise the reader doesn't know it's a dead link unless they go to the trouble to look in the list of references. Does that sound right? Sundayclose (talk) 21:22, 1 March 2020 (UTC)

The readers regard notations in the text as clutter. If they want to know about a reference, they hover the mouse over it. Hawkeye7 (discuss) 21:37, 1 March 2020 (UTC)

One more question. How long should information tagged "citation needed" or "dead link" remain in an article? I realize that sometimes a dead link can be fixed, but sometimes it can't. I looked extensively for the particular source in this particular case and I believe it is no longer available. In this case I can find another source that partially confirms the information. But in other articles I've seen questionable information remain tagged in articles for many years. Where do we draw the line? Thanks again. Sundayclose (talk) 22:28, 1 March 2020 (UTC)

I would see nothing wrong with both, right there, inline in the text, so that we're not misleading readers into thinking a statement is well-supported when it absolutely isn't. A dead link is not verifiable, and WP:V is policy - David Gerard (talk) 18:56, 6 March 2020 (UTC)

But this isn't always correct. There is no requirement that a source must be online for verification. This comes up with newspaper sources, as in those cases if the same story also appeared in a physical paper, and the citation information is sufficient to find that story in the physical paper, then it's misleading to suggest the dead link means it's not verifiable. Otherwise you get the weird scenario where the presence of the link means the information is 'not verifiable' but the absence means it 'is verifiable'. Nil Einne (talk) 13:13, 10 March 2020 (UTC)

Yes, the information may be in a physical publication, but the link cited is dead (I looked extensively and couldn't find it archived or located on another website). So the link should be marked dead. That's not misleading. It tell editors to look for the information elsewhere. It's not misleading to indicate that a link that is truly dead is, in fact, dead. The "citation needed" tag also tells editors that the information needs to be sourced. Otherwise the information stays in the article without adequate sourcing indefinitely. I have seen many "citation needed" tags that were ten or more years old, and the information was dubious. The old tags let editors know that the information needs a source, or it needs to be removed. This is not a WP:BLUE issue, it's a clear violation of WP:V. Sundayclose (talk) 00:26, 11 March 2020 (UTC)

• No need for {{citation needed}} Just mark it as a dead link because it is referenced. Someone viewed the reference when it was alive. Walter Görlitz (talk) 00:42, 11 March 2020 (UTC)

I agree if is inline. Otherwise most editors won't know it's a dead link. Sundayclose (talk) 00:49, 11 March 2020 (UTC)

I'm not sure why you changed the indenting format, but I won't correct it. See MOS:INDENTMIX.

No, a {{dead link}} is not required to be inline. That's been stated above. It's now part of the reference and will be in the actual citation. Walter Görlitz (talk) 00:55, 11 March 2020 (UTC)

Sorry, I thought in response to your comment I should indent one more space over. Feel free to correct me on my talk page if that's not appropriate. Anyway, I realize it may not be required inline, but my point is that most readers don't know it's a dead link if it's not noted inline. I think it should be inline so editors will know to try to fix the dead link or look for another source, as state above by David Gerard. Sundayclose (talk) 01:07, 11 March 2020 (UTC)

Which readers need to know it's a dead link: the ones who look at the citation number and nothing more then move on, or the ones that click on the citation and want to read about it? I'd argue it's the latter, and they're the ones who will see that's it's dead. Adding in in-line (and I assume you mean after the ref) is clutter to the majority of readers. Walter Görlitz (talk) 07:31, 11 March 2020 (UTC)

It's "clutter" that informs them they can't check this supposed reference, and as such it does genuinely useful work. I think lying to the readers about the status of a cite is bad - David Gerard (talk) 09:45, 11 March 2020 (UTC)

If you're suggesting <ref>ref contents</ref>{{dead link|date=March 2020}} rather than <ref>ref contents{{dead link|date=March 2020}}</ref>, then yes, it's clutter. Walter Görlitz (talk) 15:08, 11 March 2020 (UTC)

"Permanent dead link" can be misleading for a couple reasons. 1. Archives sometimes exist at other providers and are waiting to be discovered. 2. Providers have the archive, but keep them offline then restore them later, for technical or policy reasons (this happens surprisingly often). 3. The original archive URL has moved to a new archive URL and requires sometime to untangle the redirects. 4. The source URL is archived, but under a different archive URL (similar to the last case but involves changing the source URL); or the source URL is currently live under a different URL under the same domain, and the archive should be removed. 5. The source URL can be replaced with a new link to a new domain (eg. a Reuters story might be available at different sites). There are probably other cases but demonstrate how complex it can be. -- GreenC 15:28, 11 March 2020 (UTC)

I understand that sometimes a link marked as permanently dead may be recovered (or the same information can be found in another source). But that doesn't negate the fact that sometimes a link is, in fact, permanently dead. I think we should err on the side of upholding WP:V and tag the link inline as dead so that editors know they should try to revive the link or find another source. I agree with David Gerard that what some consider "clutter" may serve a useful purpose. Taken to its logical extreme, it could be argued that most inline notations, including legitimate "citation needed" tags or even the citations themselves, should be removed as clutter. This is the nature of an encyclopedia that has no professional editorial oversight; the inline "clutter" sometimes is necessary. Sundayclose (talk) 16:10, 11 March 2020 (UTC)

You have shown repeatedly that you do not understand what verifiablity means. It does not mean that a link can be clicked on and the contents read. It "means other people using the encyclopedia can check that the information comes from a reliable source." I'm not sure how you can confuse such a simple concept. If the source is a book, you cannot click on the reference to read the print version, but it's not dead. Similarly, most online sources may not actually be unavailable. It is assumed that someone vetted the information as well, and so it's not even likely a bad source. Walter Görlitz (talk) 18:12, 11 March 2020 (UTC)

Walter, thanks for your comments and feedback. Please don't personalize this discussion, toward me or any other participant in this discussion. Sundayclose (talk) 19:05, 11 March 2020 (UTC)

I'm sorry, but this is about your misunderstanding not about a misapplication of policy, manual of style or guideline. I'm not attacking you but neither will I coddle you. Walter Görlitz (talk) 19:10, 11 March 2020 (UTC)

No problem regarding the personal comment. I respectfully disagree with your conclusion about this being about a misunderstanding, whether my misunderstanding or anyone else's misunderstanding in this discussion. It's about how we interpret and apply policies and guidelines, which often have different interpretations. That's why we have these discussions. Thanks again for your input. Sundayclose (talk) 19:14, 11 March 2020 (UTC)

But you've referenced WP:V several times and made it seem that it means that we must be able to see the content of a cited source. I quoted directly from the first sentence of the policy. It does not support that claim. David Gerard has made similar implications. Walter Görlitz (talk) 19:29, 11 March 2020 (UTC)

Let's agree to disagree and see if anyone else weighs in. Sundayclose (talk) 19:37, 11 March 2020 (UTC)

You want me to agree with allowing you to carry a clear misunderstanding of a Wikipedia policy? In what way does this statement make sense to you? If you don't want to understand policy correctly, then the best option is to walk away from the English project. This is not a case of "I see it one way and you see it another". It is a case of you not clearly understanding a policy.

Others have weighed-in and you push-back with your clear misunderstanding at every turn. Walter Görlitz (talk) 19:41, 11 March 2020 (UTC)

I think they more have the right of it than you - you're arguing that a permanent dead link is hypothetically verifiable so the tag should go, we're arguing that a permanent dead link is not practically verifiable so the tag should stay - David Gerard (talk) 20:03, 11 March 2020 (UTC)

No sir. That is not my argument. I am not saying it is hypothetically verifiable, I am saying any reader can see if it is or is not a reliable source. That's what WP:V is about. You do understand that, don't you? Your argument appears to be "I can't click on a link so I can't read what it has to say." That is not what WP:V is about. But by all means, quote from the policy to show me where I'm wrong. I'm open to updating my misunderstandings of the policy. Walter Görlitz (talk) 20:09, 11 March 2020 (UTC)

Is Kyle Kulinski independent of Jacobin?

The discussion at the Kyle Kulinski draft currently hinges on whether he meets WP:ENTERTAINER, against which there has been no dissent after ten days with three editors in agreement, and whether he is independent of Jacobin magazine. Please comment there as to whether the subject is presently notable. EllenCT (talk) 10:50, 12 March 2020 (UTC)

Medical Sources

Can we use hitconsultant.net and beckershospitalreview.com as reliable sources?

• hitconsultant.net usage
• beckershospitalreview.com usage

--KartikeyaS (talk) 16:45, 11 March 2020 (UTC)

I'd say no on hitconsultant.net. It seems to be a personal blog written by a single person and his wife. The guys only qualification for being an expert in the field, and therefore has a right to used as a reliable source, is that he's a "seasoned health IT strategist." Whatever that means. Same goes for his wife, who's qualifications are that she is a "seasoned marketing and communication professional." None of that makes them usable. The particular source you want to them for, Luma Health, is just a company press announcement anyway, but that aside it's clearly not a reliable source for the reasons I've given. Personal blogs just aren't acceptable. More so though considering it's not written by authors who are regarded as authoritative in relation to the subject. Same goes for the other source. None of the editors there seem to have authoritative qualifications. The main editors only accolade is that she's the editor of that website. She isn't even claiming to be a healthcare professional or to have any connection to the industry outside of the website. She actually went to a law school. --Adamant1 (talk) 07:43, 12 March 2020 (UTC)

• Unreliable. I agree that HitConsultant looks like a personal blog. I'd like to see more about advertising policies at Beckers (I searched and failed to find anything), but in the absence of that, I'd opt to say unreliable.Dorama285 (talk) 16:23, 12 March 2020 (UTC)
• Thank you Adamant1 and Dorama285 for your review. Any words on the other source beckershospitalreview.com? --KartikeyaS (talk) 16:48, 12 March 2020 (UTC)

I tried to download the Beckers media kit, but it looks like they will only provide it if the requester works in the medical industry. That's the information I would need to confirm (or not) that it's a pay-to-play scheme. Dorama285 (talk) 16:55, 12 March 2020 (UTC)

https://www.worldometers.info/coronavirus/#countries

This source has been used in multiple instances for Coronavirus cases including 2020 coronavirus pandemic in the United States and here and I am not sure how reliable it is. In any case it would be helpful to come to a consensus on whether this is an admissable source or not. I tend to think that it is not for similar reasons that were discussed above for 1point3acres, it seems to be a self-published source. --hroest 17:53, 12 March 2020 (UTC)

Assuming this is true [[75]] seems an RS.Slatersteven (talk) 17:55, 12 March 2020 (UTC)

In general, the [Worldmeters about page] indicates that it is a legitimate source and for many of their other statistics pages they use official government sources. But for the US coronavirus, the sources are a mix of news sources (all of which look mainstream) and state health officials. You can roll over the sources here [[76]]. It that ok? Many of the states with numbers listed for Mar 12th have no sources at all. https://www.worldometers.info/coronavirus/#countries scroll down. Is that ok? Or should we only use state and federal government numbers? Seatto23 (talk) 20:04, 12 March 2020 (UTC)

I think is really a question of whether a mix of local news and government sources that can't be directly traced back to federal or state government-released numbers is considered a "reliable source". Also we don't know the degree to which humans are involved in quality control of the worldmeters numbers. I don't have enough experience with what Wikipedia considers a legit "reliable source" to know whether of not its ok. Also it shows "recovered" but we know that is not being tracked by states (yet). On the flip side, it is definitely a simple page to use and to archive with a nice time-stamp. Seatto23 (talk) 20:33, 12 March 2020 (UTC)

Linkedin

Is Linkedin considered a reliable source for anything? It's currently used in more than 9000 articles(feel to correct me here) https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?search=Linkedin&title=Special%3ASearch&fulltext=1&ns0=1

Recent article i noticed was used is List of highest-grossing video game franchises,used twice. People post data on Linkedin be it game sales, game budgets, game marketing budgets, retail sales, other stuff not mentioned anywhere else. Timur9008 (talk) 18:12, 6 March 2020(UTC)

It's a primary source. Consider it a WP:SPS and treat it the same way as you would a personal website or personal blog. Valid for use to describe non-controversial information about the individual that published it and nothing else. Walter Görlitz (talk) 16:15, 6 March 2020 (UTC)

But not (I would argue) for things like how much something has made, its self serving.Slatersteven (talk) 16:16, 6 March 2020 (UTC)

• Generally unreliable. As a social network, LinkedIn contains mostly user-generated content which is not usable in most cases. If a LinkedIn account is confirmed in some way to be operated by the person it represents, then statements or claims from the account can be used for uncontroversial self-descriptions. However, unlike some social networks such as Twitter (RSP entry), LinkedIn does not have an account verification process.

  In 2013, LinkedIn acquired the news aggregator now known as LinkedIn Pulse, and transformed it into a blogging platform similar to Medium (RSP entry) and Blogger (RSP entry). Blog posts on LinkedIn Pulse do not undergo editorial oversight, and should not be used unless the author is a subject-matter expert or the content is used for uncontroversial self-descriptions. LinkedIn Pulse articles can be identified by their URLs, which begin with linkedin.com/pulse. There are currently 597 articles that cite LinkedIn Pulse, and most of the citations are inappropriate. — Newslinger talk 05:50, 7 March 2020 (UTC)

AFAIK there is no oversight at L. Even IMDb has people who at least look at info being added even though they are terrible at stopping bad or fake info. The point is that anyone can post anything about themselves and noone verifies whether it is accurate or not. I would deprecate its use as a reference and doubt whether it ev3en belongs as an EL in Wikiepdia articles. MarnetteD|Talk 21:58, 12 March 2020 (UTC)

CNN

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

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What would you call the CNN?

• Partisan
• Bipartisan
• Non-partisan

--SharʿabSalam▼ (talk) 02:51, 13 March 2020 (UTC)

• I think CNN is a reliable source but it's extremely partisan just like Fox News.--SharʿabSalam▼ (talk) 02:51, 13 March 2020 (UTC)
• Keeping in mind that bias does not make a source unreliable, it has become more partisan, and typical in some proportion to the left as Fox News gets more partisan towards the right. (like, if you could put units on a ideological scale, for every two steps Fox moves to the right, CNN moves 1 step to the left, at MOST). --Masem (t) 02:54, 13 March 2020 (UTC)

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

Medcitynews.com

Is Medcitynews.com can be used for citations as a reliable source? --KartikeyaS (talk) 06:07, 10 March 2020 (UTC)

• Current usage

Some not reliable. They do some native advertising which is typical for business journals. An example native is this article. It says "Sponsored post". This is a required flag by the FCC to notify readers it is an advertisement. -- GreenC 13:38, 11 March 2020 (UTC)

• Unreliable. First, a minor observation: With respect to GreenC's comment, I'd like to point out that the FCC does not regulate websites. The FTC regulates commercial activity, but its track record on native advertising hasn't been one of aggressive enforcement.

After looking at MedCityNews' media kit, the more significant issue that I see is that they have loopholes established to avoid native advertising enforcement. One example: Sponsoring a panel session at one of their events will get you on the panel as a speaker and an article about the panel "written by MCN Editorial [and] published on MedCityNews.com" (no disclaimer needed!). It doesn't say how much panel sponsorship costs, but sponsored posts on the website start at $3,500.

To summarize: This looks pretty clearly like a pay-to-play operation. Dorama285 (talk) 16:35, 12 March 2020 (UTC)

"Editorial" content is in a different category from reporting. Editorials are non-neutral and promotional by design (Editors give their opinion about who to vote for because those politicians match the politics of the editors). If it is marked an editorial it is no problem because we don't use it anyway. They are open about native advertising, marking some content as sponsored. Otherwise it would be like a conspiracy theory, they must be hiding something because their revenue model depends on some native advertising pieces, thus none of the content can be trusted, and we can't trust the government to do their job so we should ban the site. -- GreenC 17:22, 12 March 2020 (UTC)

I wouldn't call it a conspiracy! Just a business model. I noticed their marketing kit also offers "bylines or ghostwritten articles" and "eBooks and whitepapers." (It doesn't say what they will ghostwrite, but it seems pretty broad.) There's a significant grey area they can safely operate within. Larger news websites are often more transparent because A) They want to be credible and B) They are regulatory targets. When you only get 1.25 million page views monthly (which is what MedCity claims), the only readers are pretty much all people clicking through from Wikipedia. Dorama285 (talk) 17:39, 12 March 2020 (UTC)

Considering it is used in 35 articles on Wikipedia they must not be doing much business :) Anyway, I don't thing we should use supposition without some evidence. The articles are mostly signed by journalists with a staff page with their picture and bios, it doesn't look shady to me as if they are not disclosing native advertising. -- GreenC 13:50, 13 March 2020 (UTC)

Coronavirus (COVID-19) source reliability

Does anyone have reliable sources (https://www.chinadaily.com.cn/a/202002/21/WS5e4f30e6a31012821727930c.html from China Daily) that linked to Coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) and the 2019-20 Coronavirus disease 2019 outbreak? --SwissArmyGuy (talk) 10:29, 13 March 2020 (UTC)

Are you asking if chinadaily.com.cn is a reliable source? -- GreenC 13:53, 13 March 2020 (UTC)

Limited reliable use for IMDB - DoB and DoD

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

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I've read thru many of the discussions regarding imdb, and would like to open up for discussion using it for a very limited use. While most of imdb is user added, and I will concede filled with errors - I've found many myself. But due to lawsuits it has tightened up it's dob and dod and what's required to add them.

This is where their policy for adding and what's acceptable. imdb dob guidance

I would also say to not use imdb as a primary source unless no other source is available. I've recently run across a couple of wiki pages where there is no dob but imdb has it. Doing searches fails to find any other sources. Thoughts.Mikethewhistle-original (talk) 05:58, 10 March 2020 (UTC)

IMO, per WP:DOB we should not use imdb for that. Usable, apart from the usual decent secondary sources, is something selfpublished (WP:BLPSELFPUB), like subjects website or (confirmed) social media. Not WP:BLPPRIMARY stuff. But there is no problem with not having a DOB in an article. Gråbergs Gråa Sång (talk) 07:21, 10 March 2020 (UTC)

I disagree that not having a dob is ok because it can result in confusing two (or more) individuals. have to be honest, imdb has really tightened up its policies on dob. i have submitted dob's to imdb using sources lists on wikipedia and they were rejected. i think the age discrimination lawsuit that they fought made their lawyers use a ruler on them. the problem is that only ones since their changing procedures can be assured of being tightened so ones that are already out there could be a problem. unfort for the dob's i looked for there was nothing on selfpub either as i did check. i have to laugh because i'm older than dirt, bald as an eagle, and really don't care but some guard it apparently very tight. i guess maybe once they die and go onto the ssa death list but that could take 60-80 years.Mikethewhistle-original (talk) 08:15, 10 March 2020 (UTC)

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