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Gas vans in the USSR and Nazi Germany, pt. 2

After substantial input from editors here including @Assayer, Slatersteven, Aquillion, My very best wishes, The Four Deuces, Someguy1221, Paul Siebert, Nug, K.e.coffman, and ZScarpia: discussion was quickly archived. Not being aware of discussion here, I tried to consolidate accounts of NKVD gas vans [1]. Quickly thereafter My very best wishes has expanded our article's emphasis on Soviet use of gas vans, and changed the article's language to be more definitive [2].

My main concern is that the Nazi systematic use of gas vans for extermination is being subordinated to their sporadic and uncertain use in the purges in a manner that violates WP:WEIGHT. This is especially alarming to me because The Four Deuces suggests that this has been a cause célèbre for holocaust deniers including Udo Walendy.

Until this discussion and investigation is included, hopefully in a manner involving a greater number of editors, I think we should be conservative with the article Gas van. -Darouet (talk) 14:41, 21 October 2019 (UTC)

This is not really an RS issue, its a NPOV issue.Slatersteven (talk) 16:41, 21 October 2019 (UTC)
This has been already discussed on WP:NPOV noticeboard [3], with consensus to expand the section about Nazi Germany. User Assayer promised to expand it, and he is welcome to do just that. Who said "this has been a cause célèbre for holocaust deniers"? If that can be reliably sourced to something other than Holocaust deniers themselves, perhaps this should be included to the page? My very best wishes (talk) 17:42, 21 October 2019 (UTC)
  • As others have said, this is a WP:DUE / WP:TONE issue that is better taken to WP:NPOVN - at this point it's hard to see what reliable-sourcing question is being asked at all, since the real dispute is over focus and framing rather than what sources to use. Although I should also point out (since I see people in the discussion on that page bringing up the previous WP:RSN discussions as though they settled this definitively) that those discussions were over whether the sources can be used under WP:RS, not whether they should be used under WP:DUE or, if so, how much weight to give them and what tone to take under WP:TONE. Those, unfortunately, tend to be more difficult questions. --Aquillion (talk) 18:30, 21 October 2019 (UTC)

Comments by involved users (@Assayer, Slatersteven, Aquillion, My very best wishes, The Four Deuces, Someguy1221, Paul Siebert, Nug, K.e.coffman, ZScarpia, and Darouet:

Actually, there is also an issue that makes this discussion relevant to this noticeboard. On the article's talk page, @Darouet: proposed to list all sources that tell about Soviet gas vans, and to summarise which secondary sources are based on which primary sources. I think it would be good to move this discussion here. Moreover, per comments on the NPOV talk page, I propose to organize this discussion in such a way that involved and uninvolved users are separated from each other. In my opinion, noticeboards like this one are created to give more opportunity for non-involved users to voice their opinion, so that style seems to serve to this purpose better.

Here is my summary of all sources:

  • A collection of testimonies published in Kontinent. The author is a writer specialized in cinematography. He just collected all available testimonies about Butovo polygon. He provided no own analysis of testimonies, so, in my opinion, this book, despite the fact that it is a useful source of information, is just a collection of primary sources.
  • The Komsomolskaya Pravda article published in 1990 by Zhirnov. This article is not available online (to the best of my knowledge). It is very likely that the Zhirnov's article used the Berg's dossier, the same document cited by the Kontinent (vide supra).
The Zhirnov's article was cited by several secondary sources, each of which used it as the sole source about Soviet gas vans. These sources are:
  1. Timothy J. Colton. Moscow: Governing the Socialist Metropolis. Belknap Press, 1998. ISBN 0-674-58749-9 p. 286
  2. Е. Жирнов. «По пути следования к месту исполнения приговоров отравлялись газом». Коммерсантъ Власть, № 44, 2007 (the article by the same author who just re-tells the story he published in KP).
  3. Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn Two Hundred Years Together (Двести лет вместе), volume=2, Москва, Русский путь, 2002, ISBN 5-85887-151-8, p. 297
  4. Yevgenia Albats and Catherine A. Fitzpatrick, KGB: The State Within a State. 1995, page 101
  5. Robert Gellately, Lenin, Stalin and Hitler: The Age of Social Catastrophe, Knopf, 2007, ISBN 140003213X, p.460.
In addition, the source Marek Hałaburda, “The Polish Operation”. The genocide of the Polish people in the USSR in the years 1937–1938, Orientalia Christiana Cracoviensia, 2013, v.5, p. 71. just cites the Polish book Wielki Terror: 1937–1938 by Tomasz Kizny, who, according to Joanna Madloch (The Slavic and East European Journal, Vol. 57, No. 4 (WINTER 2013), pp. 699-70) is just an independent photographer. Therefore, it is highly unlikely Kizny performed any independent archival research, and, most likely, he is telling the same story that the KP article.
  • The article Н. Петров. «Человек в кожаном фартуке». Nikita Petrov, Novaya Gazeta (ru:Новая газета, спецвыпуск «Правда ГУЛАГа» от 02.08.2010 № 10 (31)) tells essentially the same story as the Zhirnov's article, but it provides no sources, so it is highly likely it is based on the information provided by Zhirnov (an author of the KP article).
  • We also have the Grigorenko's book where he cites (from memory) testimonies of one person who happened to see what he described as usage of a gas van in Omsk in 1930s. In my opinion, the author provided no analysis of this primary source, so this source should be considered as a highly questionable primary source.
  • Next source is memoirs by ex-policeman М. П. Шрейдеp. According to him, during transportation, the victims were intoxicated by car exhaust that made them semi-conscious. He is not telling that the primary reason was to kill them during transportation. Therefore, usage of this source is a direct violation of the rules that regulate usage of primary sources.
  • The article by Sokolov (Газовые душегубки: сделано в СССР (Gas vans: made in the USSR) by Dmitry Sokolov, Echo of Crimea, 09.10.2012) was published in a local Ukrainian newspaper. It essentially summarizes the information from the above mentioned sources.
  • In addition, we have the article published is a personal blog by Nicholas Terry, a scholar who is professionally studying Holocaust and Holocaust denial. This article says the Soviet gas van story is used by Holocaust deniers to blame Jews in invention of gas vans.

In my opinion, there is a big problem with usage of sources, which are organized in such a way that multiple sources that used a tabloid article as the sole source of information are presented as many independent sources. In addition, several primary sources are used as secondary ones, whereas the opinion of the scholar who professionally studies the Holocaust is ignored. As a result, we have a three pronged violation: WP:V, WP:NPOV, WP:NOR are violated simultaneously.

Again, to let uninvolved user voice their opinion, all participants are strongly encouraged to comment in "involved" and "non-involved" sections, accordingly.--Paul Siebert (talk) 03:04, 22 October 2019 (UTC)

@AmbivalentUnequivocality: I probably was not clear enough. When I listed the sources that are based on a single KP article, I meant that they cite only this article as a source of information. For example, Solzhenitsyn clearly writes that he obtained the information about gas vans from this KP article, and he does not cite any other source. There is no indication that Albatz, Merridale, Gellately, Solzhenitsyn use any other source besides the Zhirnov's article. Therefore, it is not my guess: they are talking about the same story that happened during the Great Purge, they cite only the KP article, they cite no arcival documents, they present no witness testimonies, and there is no indication any of them did any independent archival studies of this issue. Therefore, there can be no "probably" here: each of them is based on that KP article, and only on that article. Later articles authored by Zhirnov tell the same story, and they are based on the same single document the author happened to see in 1990, so it is not an independent publication either. The Polish work cites another Polish book authored by a photographer, who also did no archival research, and the only source of information available to him could be either that KP article or some of the sources listed by me above. That is not a guess, that is a logical conclusion.
In addition, nobody claims these sources should be rejected, the problem is different: if several sources are telling the story that was taken from some single source, we cannot present them as several independent sources. Quite the opposite: we have to list them all, but we must clearly explain the connection between each of them and the original publication each of them is based upon.
--Paul Siebert (talk) 03:21, 22 October 2019 (UTC)
I am referring to things you have said such as "It is very likely that the Zhirnov's article used the Berg's dossier", "The article...tells essentially the same story as the Zhirnov's article, but it provides no sources, so it is highly likely it is based on the information provided by Zhirnov" and "it is highly unlikely Kizny performed any independent archival research, and, most likely, he is telling the same story that the KP article". These seem to be to be your assumptions about these sources, and not verifiable facts. Just because something is, in your opinion, "very/highly/most likely", does not mean that we can consider it as such. That is, as far as I can tell, your original research. AmbivalentUnequivocality (talk) 05:41, 22 October 2019 (UTC)
@AmbivalentUnequivocality: Of course, it is verifiable. Thus, it is quite possible to find Kizny's book and check what source he was using. Taking into account that he himself is not a historian, and his book is not devoted to the gas van topic, it is highly unlikely that he did any independent research. Therefore, we have a very serious reason to assume it is not an independent source, but just a repetition of what other sources say. That can and should be checked, and, until it is checked, we should not use it.--Paul Siebert (talk) 14:12, 22 October 2019 (UTC)
I will reiterate; it is only your opinion that this is "highly unlikely", and making such assessments of sources is original research. I give very little weight to assumptions, no matter how serious one thinks the causes for such assumptions may be. AmbivalentUnequivocality (talk) 04:46, 24 October 2019 (UTC)
Guy, it seems this issue does belong to this page, at least, partially. First, should we treat the source that just reproduces a single secondary source as secondary or tertiary? Second, should we treat it as an independent source, or we should clarify the hierarchy of sources (which source is based on which)?--Paul Siebert (talk) 14:17, 22 October 2019 (UTC)
  • Unfortunately, I think the comments by Paul are misleading and indeed original research. No, the publication in Kontinent is not just a collection of testimonies. There is no such thing as "Butovo polygon". Paul could not even find the article in Komsomolskaya Pravda he tells was used by other sources. All authors of secondary sources clearly express their own views on the subject, they do not even cite directly the alleged source "...", including even later publications by the same author (Zhirnov). We simply do not know what other sources the historians (Albatz, Merridale, Gellately, Solzhenitsyn, etc.) could use, all of them are established experts. If even I could find four additional sources (such as the articles in Kontinent and by Sokolov and memoirs by Grigorenko and Shreider, none of which ever mention the article in Komsomolskaya Pravda), so could others. My very best wishes (talk) 15:07, 22 October 2019 (UTC)
  1. It doesn't matter, if the comments of an editor on sources are "original research" or not. In fact, research is indispensable to assess the reliability of sources.
  2. The publication in Kontinent is merely a transcript of interviews for a documentary. The previous discussion at best proposed to use this source with caution and attribution. Actually I am surprised that My very best wishes is so in favour of that source, because it directly contradicts their other sources, in that the Soviet gas vans according to these "eyewitnesses" were not used for execution, but for rendering the victims unconscious before they were shot.
  3. Albatz, Colton, and Solzhenitsyn cite Komsomolskaya Pravda. Merridale cites Colton. To use Merridale and Colton as seperate sources is misleading. As of now the translator of Yevgenia Albatz' work has even been promoted to co-author status. Does anybody think that this increases reliability?
  4. It does not matter what other sources historians might have used use. That's mere speculation. It is clear from the footnotes that many used only one source and others kept copying. Those are not independent sources.
  5. The current use of sources in the article is so focused upon using everything available, that errors and contradictions are reproduced over and over again. I already introduced a work on Stalin's secret police by Alexander Vatlin.[4] Based upon Berg's personal file it is clear that Berg became chief of the administrative economic department in Moscow’s NKVD in the summer of 1937 and was arrested on 3 August 1938. Instead, based upon a newspaper article by Zhirnov, Wikipedia claims that Berg was arrested in 1937. That's an example of WP:INACCURACY and demonstrates how (un)reliable Zhirnov is. What could be found on Berg with Vatlin has quickly been removed from the article. Seems that this source didn't fit into the narrative, because Vatlin does not mention "Soviet gas vans".
  6. To a large degree this is indeed an issue of WP:DUE. However, I would like to know when exactly WP:VERIFIABILITY and WP:SCHOLARSHIP were thrown over board. As of now interviews, newspaper articles, novelists and studies from the 90ies are preferred over more recent scholarship.--Assayer (talk) 18:22, 22 October 2019 (UTC)
Verifiable means if I read it and you read it we see the same thing, not that it is accurate. Scholarship is one part of RS, so it WP:NEWSORG, what it does not say is we can only use scholarly sources. So none of the above throws either out. I really suggest this is closed now, its not an RS issue and is becoming tiresome. Do not ping me again, I have said all I wish to say.Slatersteven (talk) 18:28, 22 October 2019 (UTC)
Historical articles should rely on scholarly works where possible And, yes, Scholarly sources and high-quality non-scholarly sources are generally better than news reports for academic topics. There is no grounds for an "anything goes"-approach. If there was any ping, it was unintentional and maybe due to the edit summary. --Assayer (talk) 19:47, 22 October 2019 (UTC)

Comments by non-involved users

  • I do not really want to wade too deeply into this here (Seems like not really the correct place), but I will say that the above argument relies far too much on the assumptions, guesses, and opinions of one editor(unsigned, but page history shows it is Paul Siebert) to the point that it verges pretty deeply into Original Research territory. I am not comfortable with their assessment that all these sources "probably" rely upon the same source, especially when that source is unavailable. I see a whole lot of "in my opinion", "It is very likely", "highly likely", etc. This is really nothing more than guesswork, and you cannot dismiss sources based on an editor's assumptions or guesses, which seems to be the backbone of the above argument. AmbivalentUnequivocality (talk) 01:36, 22 October 2019 (UTC)

I am not an involved edd, and have no idea how I am supposed to be involved. We do not second guess sources, we do not use assumption or OR to dismiss them. This is not an RS issue (the sources have been found to be RS) its a weight issue. This is getting tedious now.Slatersteven (talk) 09:00, 22 October 2019 (UTC)

Comments

  • This is very strange posting by User:Paul Siebert. He tells that all multiple RS above "used a tabloid article as the sole source of information". Why? No, they did not. Actually, most of the sources above perfectly qualify as independent secondary RS per WP:RS (only two of them are reliably published memoirs by famous people and therefore probably primary RS, which does not preclude their usage per policy). An exception is this blog post, which was posted by an anonymous user with Russian name [5]. No, this is not posting by Nicholas Terry. Fortunately, no one suggested to use this blog on the page so far. My very best wishes (talk) 23:41, 21 October 2019 (UTC)
  • This is not a RS question, the sourcing is generally fine and can be addressed case by case on Talk anyway. The issue is of WP:UNDUE, and as far as I can see we can fix that simply by putting the Nazi section first (since that's far and away the most prominent). I have done that. Guy (help!) 10:40, 22 October 2019 (UTC)
  • How is this even an argument?! Everyone has heard about Nazi gan vans, lots of sources. "Soviet gas trucks" are covered by Russian tabloids who recount an eyewitness of a truck which nauseated but didn't kill transportees, some sources who repeat the tabloids, and Holocaust deniers who try to downplay Nazi gas vans. Nazi gas vans existed and killed many. The existence of a few "Soviet gas trucks" isn't even certain. Eostrix (talk) 11:15, 22 October 2019 (UTC)
This page does not include a single reference to tabloids or to Holocaust deniers. I did not see a single RS saying anything about Holocaust deniers in relation to the Soviet gas vans. None of the cited sources downplays Nazi gas vans. My very best wishes (talk) 11:57, 22 October 2019 (UTC)
I don't know much about this, but I did search. What I found in English: [6] or [7] is on www.vho.org whose title is "The Holocaust Controversy A Case for open Debate". German-Wikipedia calls Weckert a "Holocaust denier". The Russian-Wikipedia is skeptical on Berg - "no evidence". Eostrix (talk) 15:46, 22 October 2019 (UTC)
OK. Russian Wikipedia is not an RS, but it provides a link to yet another source [8], newspaper Argumenty i Fakty (currently not used on our page Gas van). There, a Russian state security official tells about Soviet gas vans as matter of fact. Furthermore, your both sources (linked pdfs) also claim that Soviet gas vans did exist and refer to an additional source, a "four-part television series ... broadcast in the United States" (also currently not used on our page). However, one of the linked sources is a book by a Holocaust denier as you say, and another one is from the "The World's largest website for Historical Revisionism!". Are you saying they should be used for sourcing on the page? Argumenty i Fakty look OK to me. My very best wishes (talk) 16:17, 22 October 2019 (UTC)
I am not suggesting www.vho.org. Color me skeptical when everything I find in English is linked to Holocaust denial.Eostrix (talk) 16:34, 22 October 2019 (UTC)
Yes, that's because some people denied the use of gas vans by Nazi. My very best wishes (talk) 16:39, 22 October 2019 (UTC)
  • My understanding was that Terry (the central academic RS in this case) was ambivalent if the Soviet gas vans existed but asserted if they did exist they were a small "innovation" with a local scope, not something codified into policy. Simonm223 (talk) 14:34, 22 October 2019 (UTC)
What "central academic RS" do you mean? This blog post by this anonymous user [9]? My very best wishes (talk) 14:46, 22 October 2019 (UTC)

Source to check

These have come up as possible sources, can someone check them?

The Scale and Nature of German and Soviet Repression and Mass Killings, 1930-45 Stephen Wheatcroft Europe-Asia Studies Vol. 48, No. 8 (Dec., 1996), pp. 1319-1353 "construction of gas-vans ('dushegubki') in 1937".

Cheers.Slatersteven (talk) 15:21, 23 October 2019 (UTC)

Sole mention I see is in footnote 75 (page 1353):

"Valentin Kovalev quotes a statement from Isaiah Davidovich Berg, the former head of the administrative economic department of the Moscow oblast' NKVD , that he had participated in the construction of gas-vans ('dushegubki') in 1937 in order to gas to death those sentenced to be shot. Further confirmation is needed concerning this sensational claim. See Valentin Kovalev, Dva Stalinskikh Narkoma (Moscow, Univers, 1995), p . 241"

So a sensational claim needing further confirmation. Eostrix (talk) 15:28, 23 October 2019 (UTC)

How about [[[https://books.google.co.uk/books?id=lXM2H6tWHskC&pg=PA286&lpg=PA286&dq=dushegubki+%2B+nkvd&source=bl&ots=fOiZKwVv_F&sig=ACfU3U24SQrch93sKcvAr-jwbrbIUxRgeg&hl=en&sa=X&ved=2ahUKEwjbrMjB27LlAhU5QUEAHQAMDfMQ6AEwDHoECAkQAQ#v=onepage&q=dushegubki%20%2B%20nkvd&f=false]?Slatersteven (talk) 15:40, 23 October 2019 (UTC)

One sentence on "ginned up" lorry by Isai D. Berg at Butovo. No discussion, the rest of the page discusses shootings there. Eostrix (talk) 15:45, 23 October 2019 (UTC)
Is it an RS? If it is then we have an RS that talk s about this. Anything else is another matter.Slatersteven (talk) 15:46, 23 October 2019 (UTC)
The reference number 75 in the Wheatcroft's article is used in the sentence
" Auschwitz as a centre for mass killing should be compared with the mass shootings[75] of the NKVD throughout the 1930s, and not with the Gulag or the famine."
The ref 75 says:
" Valentin Kovalev quotes a statement from Isaiah Davidovich Berg, the former head of the administrative economic department of the Moscow oblast' NKVD, that he had participated in the construction of gas-vans ('dushegubki') in 1937 in order to gas to death those sentenced to be shot. Further confirmation is needed concerning this sensational claim."
That means that (i) Kovalev refers to the same document that was used by Zhirnov in his KP article, and, most likely, Kovalev's claim is based on the same KP article, and (ii) Wheatcroft, who is a really serious historian specializing in Stalinist repressions, thinks that that claim is "sensational" and needs further confirmation.--Paul Siebert (talk) 05:07, 24 October 2019 (UTC)
Regarding the book, this page is not available to me, and I couldn't read it. However, if it tells about Berg, then it is definitely based on the same KP article, because the Berg's dossier seems to have been classified again (the only person who happened to see it was Zhirnov). Again, we are speaking about the same story reproduced by several secondary sources. --Paul Siebert (talk) 05:11, 24 October 2019 (UTC)
Which is irrelevant, that is not how RS works. We are not allowed to second guess or analyse RS. They may well be reap;ting the same story (assuming they are, and that is an assumption), they are still RS.Slatersteven (talk) 08:22, 24 October 2019 (UTC)
Not exactly. We are allowed, and we must analyse RS before we use them. Thus, my analysis shows that the RS found by you supports the claim that the statement about Soviet gas van found in Valentin Kovalev's book is sensational, and it requires further confirmations. Do you have any objection to that?--Paul Siebert (talk) 23:33, 24 October 2019 (UTC)
Which Wikipedia policy tells us "we must analyse RS before we use them"? What you are proposing is research and WP:OR strictly forbids it. --Nug (talk) 12:56, 29 October 2019 (UTC)
WP:V says: "Use sources that directly support the material presented in an article and are appropriate to the claims made. The appropriateness of any source depends on the context. The best sources have a professional structure in place for checking or analyzing facts, legal issues, evidence, and arguments. The greater the degree of scrutiny given to these issues, the more reliable the source."
That means, we have to
  1. Analyze the context to determine appropriateness of the source;
  2. Analyze the structure of the source to determine if it is professional;
  3. Analyze the degree of scrutiny to determine the degree of reliability.
In contrast, if you just pick a phrase from the source, that is called cherry-picking, and it is not a sign of a good editor.
Moreover, as a recent discussion at the NOR talk page demonstrated, OR is applied to the article space only. What you are saying is playing policies against each other. --Paul Siebert (talk) 20:00, 29 October 2019 (UTC)
You misunderstand WP:V, nowhere does it state we need to analyse sources used by a source, that is OR. --Nug (talk) 21:12, 29 October 2019 (UTC)
An ability to read and understand English texts is an obvious skill that is not supposed to be stipulated by our policy. And, again, this your statement is playing OR against V, which is directly prohibited in areas that are under DS.--Paul Siebert (talk) 21:18, 29 October 2019 (UTC)
@Paul, I do have one question. You said in your post above, "whereas the opinion of the scholar who professionally studies the Holocaust is ignored". What scholar and which source are you talking about? Based on your post (the diff), it is this anonymous blog post. And you are telling about the alleged "WP:V, WP:NPOV, WP:NOR" "violations" by others? My very best wishes (talk) 23:37, 29 October 2019 (UTC)

Database of 18,000 Retracted Scientific Papers Now Online

"Retraction Watch Database is designed expressly for finding out whether any given study is still legit. The next time you read an article or hear someone say, "studies show that talking is bad for you," you can head over to the site and see what's what."

--Guy Macon (talk) 07:48, 26 October 2019 (UTC)

Guy Macon, Nice! See [10] for one well known author. Guy (help!) 12:12, 28 October 2019 (UTC)
I think this should go to page Retractions in academic publishing. Anything similar on plagiarism? I know there is Dissernet. My very best wishes (talk) 00:44, 30 October 2019 (UTC)

Encounter Books and Adler & Adler Publication reliable?

Article: Ruhollah Khomeini

Text in question:

"Khomeini told the Muslim faithful that marrying a girl before she begins menstruation was a “divine blessing.” “Do your best to ensure that your daughters do not see their first blood in your house.”

Sources:

  • "Khomeini called marriage to a girl before her first menstrual period “a diving blessing,” and he advised the faithful: “Do your best to ensure that your daughters do not see their first blood in your house.” This practice continues to this day, despite the severe injuries girls often incur from early intercourse and childbirth. Encounter Books
  • ""In many of his works Khomeini himself strongly recommends pre-menstruation marriage as "a divine blessing." "Do your best to ensure that your daughters do not see their first blood in your house," he write in Tawzih al-Masayel"Adler & Adler Pub

Stefka Bulgaria (talk) 17:18, 26 October 2019 (UTC)

Encounter books (page 48), Adler and Adler (page 35). Stefka Bulgaria (talk) 18:20, 26 October 2019 (UTC)
Being "conservative" or skeptical of Islam does not an unreliable source make. What's concerning here is that the authors do not have a high reputation for accuracy and the Encounter itself seems like, at best, quite polemical in tone; it publishes self-described "broadsides". Pro-Iran disinformation is also something to be on the lookout for. I'm not sure about these exact quotes, but there are other sources describing Khomeini's encouragement of pedophilia. See, eg. this UN report (pg. 2). Fiamh (talk, contribs) 18:40, 26 October 2019 (UTC)
Wot? An outright polemic Islamophobe, per a bunch of scholarly sources, does not a reliable source make. ∯WBGconverse 05:16, 27 October 2019 (UTC)
True, but when they also have a reputation for falsehoods its does. It just saves time to point out their view of Islam is so negative it (basically) is a false view (and falsity a non RS does make).Slatersteven (talk) 11:08, 27 October 2019 (UTC)
I would go with UN report (link by Fiamh above): "According to the ... Ayatollah Khomeini, sexual experiences, with the exception of intercourse, are permitted with girls of all ages. He hasissued a fatwa (religious edict): “Anyone who has a wife less than nine years of age is not allowed to engage in sexual intercourse, whether she is his permanent or temporary wife. However, other forms of sexual pleasures are permitted, such as..." The text after changes reads pretty much pro-Iran regime. My very best wishes (talk) 01:02, 30 October 2019 (UTC)

californiabirthindex.org ?

Can anyone tell if this is a credible primary source for birth records, or if there is a better one?

In particular is an ongoing dispute if Jussie Smollett was actually born Justin. Or any other name.

Any help appreciated! Gleeanon409 (talk) 21:35, 28 October 2019 (UTC)

this is not a question of reliability. Primary sources cannot be used per WP:BLPPRIMARY. The policy is very clear. Slp1 (talk) 22:29, 28 October 2019 (UTC)
It’s foremost a question of reliability. If the information is from an unreliable source then I won’t consider using it as a reason to search for reliable secondary sourcing. If the source is accurate then it begs the question why the disconnect of what is true, verses what is being reported.
It’s been suggested Smollett, or someone, changed his name, although some states amend birth certificates maybe California does not. Gleeanon409 (talk) 23:08, 28 October 2019 (UTC)
The policy language could not be clearer: "Do not use trial transcripts and other court records, or other public documents, to support assertions about a living person. Do not use public records that include personal details, such as date of birth, home value, traffic citations, vehicle registrations, and home or business addresses."
If reliable secondary sources do not discuss the material, then it must be excluded by policy. "It’s been suggested Smollett, or someone, changed his name" is precisely the type of innuendo and rumor that has absolutely no place in Wikipedia, and this is a matter of policy that every Wikipedia editor is obligated to follow.Cullen328 Let's discuss it 02:47, 29 October 2019 (UTC)
I wasn’t looking to use it as a source per se, but to determine what is accurate in the many sources available.
Right now we are unable to reliably source any birthname so we’ve removed that from the info box.
At this point it seems he was born Justin, and Jussie is a nickname. None of which has been reliably sourced, but all of which have been ongoing edited into the article.
I figured there was something to it and wanted to get some resolution on the matter. Gleeanon409 (talk) 03:07, 29 October 2019 (UTC)
"Justin" should be excluded from the article until reliable secondary sources report it. The fact that one very reliable source withdrew the claim is a strong indication that the so-called birth name was probably an error. Cullen328 Let's discuss it 04:17, 29 October 2019 (UTC)
Excluding ‘Justin’ for now is exactly what we are doing; because of this inquiry we are also removing the ‘birth name’ from info box because there is *no* source he was born as ‘Jussie’. ‘Jus’ is one of many nicknames for people named Justin, personally I feel this is the most likely explanation.
I’m convinced there’s at least one very good PR person at work on the issue, as can be seen on the article talk page. Gleeanon409 (talk) 05:16, 29 October 2019 (UTC)

FWIW: Sports Illustrated [11] refers to Smollett as "Justin." Foreign publications also refer to him as "Justin." Is SI a decent enough source? Collect (talk) 18:46, 30 October 2019 (UTC) Also [12] Elle which is likely also to be RS. [https://www.programme-tv.net/news/series-tv/224892-jussie-smollett-agresse-la-star-dempire-sort-enfin-du-silence/ ], [13] The Panther, how many are needed? Collect (talk) 18:56, 30 October 2019 (UTC)

Thank you! I’ll post these to the article talk page. Gleeanon409 (talk) 19:11, 30 October 2019 (UTC)

Source for some quote that has no proof in material historical documents

In the article on Uskoks[1] the following is mentioned, I quote "Large numbers of Serb fugitives from Bosnia and Serbia fleeing the Ottomans, joined the ranks of the Uskok bands [2][3] " I read the book from Goffman Daniel[4] and page where these Serbs are mentioned but there is no evidence for that claim(migration from Serbia or mention of Serbs) so i wonder what to do? These historians have stated it but it has not been proven by anything, otherwise it cannot be proven with nothing because there are no historical documents that mention Serbs in that part of Croatia except one document but these Serbs migrate to Slovenia. Two historians are factual evidence for Wikipedia however these historians tell fairy tales, what do I do? I started a topic on the talk page[5] but i am wondering what else i can do, thanks.Mikola22 (talk) 18:37, 30 October 2019 (UTC)

Mikola22, please take another look at WP:V, WP:NOR, and WP:PRIMARY. It is perfectly acceptable (in fact preferable) to use reliable secondary sources for a claim without personally examining the primary sources used. Fiamh (talk, contribs) 19:38, 30 October 2019 (UTC)

Maybe I didn't express myself well, there are no historical data of Serbs in the Senj area or that they are members of the Uskoks. How to use reliable secondary sources for a claim when they are not proven. It is as if they mentioned that Turks were Uskoks but there is no information about Turks been Uskoks. I suppose those historians quote some Serbian historians who are probably seeing Serbs there. Factual data says the following: "Determining the exact national or ethnic composition of the Uskoks from Senj is extremely difficult since is rarely recorded nationality of the Uskoks, (most commonly terms for Uskoks are "Croat", "Slavs", "Morlaks")[6] It is difficult to actually determine the national and ethnic composition of the Uskoks, Venetians are described Uskoks as Croats, Habsburg sources also identify Uskoks as Croats. [7] About a migration from Serbia to Senj we should not waste words for that. Do you now understand what this is all about?Mikola22 (talk) 20:30, 30 October 2019 (UTC)

Mikola22, Yes, this is exactly what NOR is for. If you have a supposition based on evidence that published sources are mistaken, write a history paper on the subject and get it published in a peer-reviewed journal. THEN cite it here. Fiamh (talk, contribs) 22:05, 30 October 2019 (UTC)
But they do not prove it in their books because there is no evidence for that. We cannot based some fact on the statement of some historian which claim that the Uskoks are Serbs when there is no evidence for that. So i should write a scientific paper to refute it? But i cited scientific papers where Serbs are not mentioned as Uskoks. We have some new history that we didn't know about until now. So far we have not had a single historical record that talk about Serbs who are coming in masses to Croatia(Senj area) but on Wikipedia it says and everyone who reads that fact really thinks it's true. If someone starts write that the Chinese are coming to Croatia and that will be true because someone wrote it in their book. It's like quoting and put in wikipedia article clame of Serbian historian Jovan Cvijic who mentions White Serbia from where Serbs come to the Balkans, but there is no historical documents that mentions White Serbia. Do not tell me I need to write a scientific paper to refute that claim of Jovan Cvijić? Wikipedia is a great platform for Serbian propaganda because no one is looking for original evidence. If these claims start to be transmitted by foreign historians we will have some new history and we already have one. Croatian emigrants in America or Argentina when he reads about Uskoks in the wikipedia he will probably think that Senj Uskoks are and Serbs although there is no evidence for that, some citizens in Serbia will think the same. It's like reading a serbian wikipedia I quote "The Uskoks people were Serbs who fled from Ottoman territory to the border regions of Austria and the Venetian Republic." I have now stated that there is no historical information for that. Twilight Zone?Mikola22 (talk) 05:57, 31 October 2019 (UTC)
Do they say it in their books? Please read wp:v.Slatersteven (talk) 09:56, 31 October 2019 (UTC)
Quote from the book: "Just as it rounded Pola point, less than one day out from Venice, a swarm of some forty small boats suddenly darted in from the east and quickly infested the massive and clumsy galley. The courier knew that these were Uskoks, a community of destitute yet determined privateers — many of whom were fugitives from Ottoman Bosnia and Serbia — entrenched in the northern Dalmatian seaside town of Senj, sanctioned by the Habsburg state, and dedicated to struggle against Islam. Despite their sworn opposition to the Ottomans, it was Venetian shipping that most suffered from their attacks, which invariably occurred in the Adriatic "sea of Venice." Uskok zeal excused strikes. Bracewell, Uskoks of Senj, passim." This is what Goffman Daniel writes in his book, he does not explore history of Uskoks. Probably quotes Catherine Wendy Bracewell. The first we should see a page of her book where she quotes this and evidence for that claim. I have been following the reviews of her book in Croatia and she determined someone's origin based on names and surnames. A review, I quote "She notes, however, that to determine of Uskoks origin helps their names and surnames [8] It only proves that is true what i'm talking about i.e. that we do not have any historical information about Serbs in the Uskoks, but that should be clarify by names and surnames? How when half of Croatia are under Turks and a good part of the Croats convert to the Orthodoxy. This is as it claims by Serbian historians from the 19th century. For part of the article in which are mentioned migration of large numbers of Serbs from Serbia there is no evidence for that so we don't even need to discuss it. Otherwise someone could write book about the British population and identify someone's origins based on their first and last names, if someone wrote that in a book people would probably think he was crazy.Mikola22 (talk) 12:55, 31 October 2019 (UTC)
I am not sure this source supports either conclusion. It does not say they were Serbs (but were from Serbia), but nor does it say they were not Serbs.Slatersteven (talk) 12:59, 31 October 2019 (UTC)
Yes, right now i noticed that. Serb fugitives are not mentioned in the book of Goffman Daniel but this is stated in the article on Uskoks.Mikola22 (talk) 13:11, 31 October 2019 (UTC)

References

  1. ^ https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Uskoks#History
  2. ^ Goffman, Daniel (2002). The Ottoman Empire and early modern Europe. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. ISBN 0-521-45280-5.
  3. ^ Davies, Norman (1996). Europe: a history. Oxford University Press. ISBN 9780198201717.
  4. ^ https://archive.org/stream/The.Ottoman.Empire.and.Early.Modern.Europe/The.Ottoman.Empire.and.Early.Modern.Europe_djvu.txt
  5. ^ https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Talk:Uskoks#Irrelevant_evidence_and_proposal_for_delete_parts_of_the_article_which_have_no_evidence_in_the_original_historical_documents
  6. ^ {{University of Zadar History Department Undergraduate university study of history }} https://repozitorij.unizd.hr/islandora/object/unizd%3A582/datastream/PDF/view#page=5
  7. ^ {{UNIVERSITY OF RIJEKA FACULTY OF PHILOSOPHY IN RIJEKA }} https://repository.ffri.uniri.hr/islandora/object/ffri%3A490/datastream/PDF/view#page=11
  8. ^ https://hrcak.srce.hr/15897#page=250

catholicism.org

This website is currently being used in 76 articles. It's published by the New Hampshire branch of the Slaves of the Immaculate Heart of Mary, a religious group with no official recognition from the Catholic Church. Here are some recent news articles about the group: [14][15][16]. While the SPLC's coverage of traditionalist Catholicism is generally incomplete and of poor quality (e.g., why do they label anti-ecumenism and sedevacantism "worse" than antisemitism? [17]), I agree with their characterisation of the New Hampshire Slaves as antisemitic[18]. Would it be appropriate to treat this website as an unreliable source for everything other than the views of the Slaves? Cheers, gnu57 05:49, 30 October 2019 (UTC)

A non-canonical Catholic institution is only going to be reliable for its own views. Actually, the same is true of official Catholic Church publications. But the latter viewpoint is much more important and likely to be appropriate for inclusion in articles. Fiamh (talk, contribs) 06:29, 30 October 2019 (UTC)
  • Requires an explicit attribution to the author of any publication and depends entirely on the qualification of the author. Must be avoided, unless the author is a known expert on the specific subject. My very best wishes (talk) 17:19, 31 October 2019 (UTC)

Unspeakable Love

It would be OK to use this material Soon after the 1979 revolution, Ayatollah Khomeini established the death penalty for homosexuality. In February and March of 1979, there were 16 executions for crimes related to sexual violations attributed to the following source in Ruhollah Khomeini article? source:Whitaker, Brian (2011). Unspeakable Love: Gay and Lesbian Life in the Middle East. Saqi Books. ISBN 0863564836.

I have to say that I cannot find any other sources to support "Ayatollah Khomeini established the death penalty for homosexuality".Saff V. (talk) 14:19, 21 October 2019 (UTC)

Books are usually poor sources for statements of fact, the reason being that books are usually not fact-checked by independent fact checkers. You are therefore thrown back largely on your confidence in the author. Well let's see... Brian Whitaker has an article. He's a legit journalist, writes for The Guardian... Which means he's not an academic. However, is clearly very expert in the general subject. He speaks Arabic and has written several books. The passage is very specific: "In February and March of 1979, there were 16 executions." Not the sort of thing that a person like him would just make up. He seems unlikely, with his level of expertise, to have confused "executions" with "imprisonments" or something. Is this something he would do on purpose? Well, he's got a website, al-bab, so you can check him out more thoroughly there... Here is his Twitter feed. And here is a library of his Guardian articles. He could be vetted more thoroughly thru these, but my overall sense is that no, he probably wouldn't do that, as it doesn't seem to fit what looks to be his business and career model. To the the extent that he might have a strong enough polemical bias to twist facts on purpose, he doesn't show it right off.
TL;DR: Has the expertise to not get this wrong. Does not appear likely in my view to have got it wrong on purpose. So, source is OK. Just OK, but OK enough in my book. Herostratus (talk) 14:51, 21 October 2019 (UTC)
Source is RS. There are billions of other sources that confirm homosexuals were outlawed under Khomeini "because it went against the Quran". Sky is blue. --HistoryofIran (talk) 15:06, 21 October 2019 (UTC)
@HistoryofIran:, Well in that case, we should use one of those sources instead, one that's been published in a peer-reviewed academic journal or publication known to have a good fact-checking operation. Herostratus (talk) 10:45, 23 October 2019 (UTC)

I have no idea where the idea books are usually bad sources comes from. The publisher seem reputable, the author is a respected journalist who actual,y has a qualification related to the topic this book is about. Now there may be an argument for attribution, but its RS.Slatersteven (talk) 16:45, 21 October 2019 (UTC)

@Slatersteven:, It comes from the idea that books are not fact checked. Articles in Time magazine are actually gone over by a fact-checker, independent of the write. She consults reference works, makes phone calls, and so forth to double-check that the writer indeed got his facts right.
Books are not fact-checked in this way. Books are gone over by a copy editor, but she is looking for spelling and grammar mistakes and awkward wording; she might check some facts on an ad hoc basis, but not rigoursly. There's no time; she's got X days to copy edit the entire book, and fact-checking is labor intensive. Sometimes an author will pay out of his own pocket and hire a fact-checker. Not usually.
And indeed I have some instances of distinguished authors getting fact wrong in books.
Nor does the publisher care. HarperCollins etc. know that people buy books by subject and author. No one says "Oh, a new HarperCollins books, I'll buy it". So it's not their business model to care. They won't publish books by InfoWars type authors who make up facts wholesale from whole cloth, because that'd eventually tend to degrade their reputation; that's different from caring whether a proper author is loose with occasional facts. "Reputable publisher" sounds comforting, but it's just a magic word. It doesn't mean much really.
So, a book is little better than a blog. The fact that it has physical mass, hard covers, cost some money to create, fancy dust cover... it feels comforting, but it doesn't mean anything really. Tha's not terrible; a lot of blogs are fine. It's just a matter of how reliable you think the author is, and you have to recognize that without a fact-checker even the best author's book or blog is going to be "Acceptable, but not great". Brian Whitaker looks reliable enough for me. Whether he had published his statement in a book or on his blog makes no real difference. We've decided to trust Brian Whitaker that what he says is true. Herostratus (talk) 10:45, 23 October 2019 (UTC)
@Herostratus: your evaluation of the author was good but I think you may have a more accurate "sense" if you note that the author of [19] has used another book (Afary, Janet and Anderson, Kevin: Foucault and the Iranian Revolution: Gender and the Seductions of Islam. Chicago 2005, p. 161.) as the reference for the claims. It is more interesting that in the footnote 31 of the later book, p.292 , the author has used email exchanges as a source of information! Can we rely on this?Saff V. (talk) 06:39, 22 October 2019 (UTC)
Why wouldn't we? Email correspondence with experts in a given field is a valid way for journalists and academics to obtain information. It also cites a piece by Eliz Sanasarian, and other academic writings, and is published by University of Chicago Press. I don't see anything that would contradict this being a reliable source, in fact quite the opposite. AmbivalentUnequivocality (talk) 08:17, 22 October 2019 (UTC)
No less then face to face interviews.Slatersteven (talk) 08:57, 22 October 2019 (UTC)
Pleas take look at the provided link then make the commment, Not only the source is the email exchanges, but also are this two unriliable website, homan and [20]. it is what was written in footnote:
Some of this information is based on an e-mail exchange with Goudarz Eghtedari (Iran). For a discussion of this issue, see Sanasarian 2000 and various issues of the journal Homan (1999–2001). For more information on the Iranian GLB movement, see the website for Homan: The Group to Defend the Rights of Iranian Gays and Lesbians, www.homan.cwc.net. For literature on Iranian lesbians, see www.geocities.com/khanaeyedoost.According to Duran, “homosexual assault is frequently used by the police of repressive regimes, such as the SAVAK during the reign of the Shah of Iran or its successor,SAVAMA, the dreaded security organ of the Khomeini government” (1993, 187). Saff V. (talk) 11:44, 22 October 2019 (UTC)

@AmbivalentUnequivocality: According to which policy of wp:RS is the email exchanges reliable?Saff V. (talk) 11:56, 22 October 2019 (UTC)

Are we citing to it?Slatersteven (talk) 11:59, 22 October 2019 (UTC)
Yes, the main source for that claim is email which as WP:SOURCE demanded, Unpublished materials are not considered reliable.Saff V. (talk) 12:17, 22 October 2019 (UTC)
Hold on I am confused now, is the claim being sourced to the book, or an e-mail?Slatersteven (talk) 12:32, 22 October 2019 (UTC)
A book, which cites another book, which cited email. Staff V seems to be arguing that since the chain starts with email, subsequent books based on the email are not RS. Blueboar (talk) 12:46, 22 October 2019 (UTC)
I will reserve judgement on the merits of such an argument (though I think my above responses should give a clue) based upon what his response it.Slatersteven (talk) 12:48, 22 October 2019 (UTC)
I suggest then you read wp:rs which does not support your contention. Books are RS, as long as they meet certain criteria, this one does. If you are not happy with this I suggest you take it to village pump and try to get policy changed.Slatersteven (talk) 12:20, 23 October 2019 (UTC)
  • Yes, the book very clearly qualify as a good secondary RS on the subject. And what is the argument against using it, exactly? "A book, which cites another book, which cited email"... so the book is not an RS? This is the same "argument" as in the thread just below about Soviet gas vans. Wrong. An author of a secondary RS/a book can cite whatever (or nothing at all), but it is still his/her conclusion, and it is clearly a secondary RS. My very best wishes (talk) 13:12, 22 October 2019 (UTC)
This secondary book is not reliable for this claim, because these claims refers to email! I did not talk about being reliable book or not generally.Saff V. (talk) 14:35, 22 October 2019 (UTC)
Not only you are making an original research here, but you are trying to disprove claims made by a reliable source (a book by an expert) while not being an expert on this subject yourself. This is POV-pushing. My very best wishes (talk) 15:13, 22 October 2019 (UTC)
Books written by practicing journalists who specialize in reporting on the field the book is about (in this case, the internal politics of Middle Eastern countries) ought to be treated as reliable subject to the precautions stated in WP:BIASED. Some of the best reporting on the contentious and highly technical field of nuclear weapons proliferation has been in books authored by journalists who work for large newspapers and news magazines. The guidance in WP:BIASED has never been more appropriate wnen citing news sources in general, not just books or famously agenda-driven news outlets. --loupgarous (talk) 13:59, 23 October 2019 (UTC)
It is reasonable to say "Statements written by practicing journalists who specialize in reporting on the field... ought to be treated as reliable subject to the precautions stated in WP:BIASED". It's not necessarily true, but it's reasonable, as long as its understood that there are exceptions, and it depends on what the statement is.
Because whether its a book, a blog, an interview, or any other public statement doesn't necessarily or even usually make much difference. Just understand that, book or blog, if the person made a mistake -- for instance, slipped up reading a column of figures and wrote that the 2017 nominal GDP of Czechia is 245,000 (when actually that is the 2018 number) -- nobody is going to check that, probably. So it is not just expertise and lack of bias, you also need an author who wants to be and is able to be pretty careful about each statement of fact she puts under her name. Lots of writers are expert and unbiased, but not super careful. (As I said above, this particular writer for this particular statement of fact from this particular book is probably OK.) Herostratus (talk) 18:14, 23 October 2019 (UTC)
And any argument here must be based upon policy, not logic. Policy does not say that blogs and books are the same. Can we close this now, its just going round in circles.Slatersteven (talk) 08:19, 24 October 2019 (UTC)

I find it dubious to suggest that WP:RS and WP:V would oppose inclusion of a source just because at some point the contents of that source were communicated via email. I would ask instead whether this source has any reviews that speak to its reliability; is it contradicted by other reliable sources; is it written by an author with a reputation for making shit up? This question seems more one of WP:DUE than WP:V to be honest. And for us to determine how due this particular source is for inclusion we must start by examining whether there's a countervailing view at all. Simonm223 (talk) 14:38, 28 October 2019 (UTC)

I agree with this. The bottom line: the book was reliably published, and the author can be reasonably viewed as an expert on the subject. My very best wishes (talk) 17:30, 31 October 2019 (UTC)

Jihad Watch, the Middle East Forum and "Global muslim brotherhood daily watch" in articles about Islam

We describe the first as an anti-Muslim conspiracy blog. Our article on the Middle East Forum is a bit equivocal but doesn't fill me with confidence, and I'm surprised that we call its founder Daniel Pipes an historian (yes, he once taught history, but that's not what he's known for - he's mainly a major critic of Islam). Global MB Watch is a one man band run by Steven Merley who worked for Nine Eleven Finding Answers Foundation whose senior consultant now is Evan Kohlmann and was evidently, according to his description of himself[21] the subject of praise by John Ware (TV journalist), described by the Guardian as "not quite public enemy number one for many British Muslims -"[22].

These sources are used in articles such as Wahhabism, Hani Ramadan and numerous others.[23][24][25] Doug Weller talk 14:08, 24 October 2019 (UTC)

MEF after 2009 become peer reviewed and have editorial control yes its partisan but we allow partisan sources per WP:BIASED --Shrike (talk) 14:11, 24 October 2019 (UTC)
The objection is not to partisanship. MEF, and the organizations it funds, actively foment Islamophobia, there is a long record through all of the venues it establishes and supports, and via all of the funding groups behind it, of militant antipathy as a driving force in a publicitarian cause. I don't think we should make an exception here. If MEF figures on a respectable site listing hate groups (Southern Poverty Law Center) as it does here, then it should not be used on Wikipedia. We have huge resources from Academic, government think tanks etc. on all of these Islamic movements. The latter are often problematical, qua partisan, but they have no stepped over into financing fear and fomenting anti-Islamism as the MEF does.Nishidani (talk) 16:56, 24 October 2019 (UTC)
I would be concerned if we were using Jihad Watch as an authority on Muslim subjects, but from glancing at the internal search results, all of the citations that I saw were specifically citing it to support claims about the activities and opinions of anti-Muslim academics, which seems potentially acceptable. I haven't reviewed the other sources at this time. signed, Rosguill talk 18:07, 24 October 2019 (UTC)
We don't use blogs, let alone conspiracy blogs, which is how Jihad Watch is described. This is every more so given its decidedly polemical anti-Muslim world view. Sensitive topics require optimal sourcing. Nishidani (talk) 20:26, 24 October 2019 (UTC)
We should not be using blogs at all, as Nishidani said. Furthermore some of these sources look pretty clearly like WP:FRINGE outlets and they should not generally be used as sources. Simonm223 (talk) 12:00, 25 October 2019 (UTC)
Fair enough. I'd agree that these look like fringe outlets. signed, Rosguill talk 17:09, 25 October 2019 (UTC)

I'm not sure it makes sense to lump all three of these sources together. The Middle East Quarterly has been edited by Efraim Karsh, who has held academic posts at various respected universities. And I don't think the SPLC is the best authority on anti-islamic sentiment after its Majid Nawaz fiasco. Is there any evidence that MEQ is an unreliable source, making stuff up or stating incorrect facts? If it should be discredited it should be on those grounds and not because Wikipedia editors disagree with its POV. Fiamh (talk, contribs) 15:04, 28 October 2019 (UTC)

According to its h-index, MEQ is cited by other academic journals and ranks in the middle of similar journals by number of references to its articles. It gets cited by regular scholarly books, for facts. (Although it is criticized elsewhere for pro-American orientation, no evidence of unreliability is offered). I don't see any indication that MEQ is not a reliable source. Fiamh (talk, contribs) 00:48, 30 October 2019 (UTC)
Those linked citations aren't the strongest, and fringe sources frequently exist in an ecosystem of supportive other fringe sources that support them. I'm still very dubious about MEQ. The others are clearly fringe. Simonm223 (talk) 12:32, 1 November 2019 (UTC)

An article published in a local Ukrainian newspaper as a source for a history article

This source was already mentioned in the previous discussion devoted to the Gas van article, but it seems the idea to discuss several sources simultaneously was not good, so I am posting my question about this source specifically.

The source is a 2012 publication in a local Ukrainian newspaper. I failed to figure out credentials of this author. An interview in a Russian newspaper (which is a Human interest reporting) says he is a historian, but I failed to find reviews on his publications, and his books. Our policy says that mainstream newspapers are considered reliable sources, but I would like to know a third opinion if this publication is a mainstream newspaper article.

The statement this source is supporting is Gas vans were also reportedly used in other parts of the Soviet Union.

This question may be simultaneously a WP:V and WP:NPOV issue, because outstanding claims need outstanding evidences, and it would be good to hear a third opinion on whether such a publication may serve as an adequate evidence for such a claim.--Paul Siebert (talk) 03:19, 28 October 2019 (UTC)

Do we really need 3 active posts on the same noticeboard, about the same article? It suggests that whatever is going on at Gas vans is a bigger/thornier issue than a matter of a specific source's reliability. Fyddlestix (talk) 03:41, 28 October 2019 (UTC)
Fyddlestix, unfortunately, yes. I realized that discussion of this concrete source separately would be less confusing and time consuming, and resolving this issue would be a first step out of an impasse.
In particular, I would like to know if my understanding of WP:NEWSORG is correct, and if such sources are reliable primary sources for statements attributed to that editor or author, but are rarely reliable for statements of fact.--Paul Siebert (talk) 03:49, 28 October 2019 (UTC)
  • An RS and can be used, especially with attribution to author. I think the source is OK because the author (Sokolov) is a historian who published, for example, this book. A lot of info about him, including other numerous scholarly publications, can be found here. This is an interview with him in one of major Russian newspapers. According to introduction by 3rd party, "Dmitry Sokolov is a historian from the city of Sevastopol. Since 2007, he has published many history articles in journals, and since 2013, he has been publishing monographs annually on various periods and aspects of the tragic events that began in 1917 on the land of Tauris." This is all in Russian. The article in question was published (not self-published) in a newspaper. The article is clearly a secondary source because it summarizes claims from books by Petro Grigorenko, ru:Шрейдер, Михаил Павлович and several others. Yes, as Paul tells, one of his summary statements was that gas vans were also reportedly used in other parts of the Soviet Union - because such cases have been reliably reported in books by Grigorenko, Shreider and yet another author cited in the review article by Sokolov. My very best wishes (talk) 03:50, 28 October 2019 (UTC)
  • Comment Is there any evidence it has a poor reputation for fact checking?Slatersteven (talk) 09:11, 28 October 2019 (UTC)
@Slatersteven: if I understand it correct, this works in an opposite way: an evidences of a good reputation and fact checking should be presented per WP:BURDEN.--Paul Siebert (talk) 14:20, 28 October 2019 (UTC)
Always been unsure, as its hard to prove that where as it is easy to show it does not have one. So I tend to err on the side off "it has a good reputation because it does not have a bad one".Slatersteven (talk) 17:55, 28 October 2019 (UTC)
@Slatersteven: it seems you still don't understand. Our policy says Editors may also use material from reliable non-academic sources, particularly if it appears in respected mainstream publications. Other reliable sources include (...) Mainstream newspapers. That means want to see a proof that this newspaper is a mainstream newspaper, because otherwise it cannot be considered a reliable source.
Moreover, the newspaper page where Sokolov's article is published has a disclaimer that explains Sokolov's opinion does not necessarily reflects the editorial board's opinion. Therefore, this publication is more like op-ed, and, per our guidelines, it should be considered reliable primary source for statements attributed to that editor or author, but are rarely reliable for statements of fact.
Is my understanding correct?--Paul Siebert (talk) 18:56, 28 October 2019 (UTC)
I cannot say if it is mainstream I am not Ukrainian (but I see nothing to indicate it is not), as to your second point, correct so we attribute.Slatersteven (talk) 19:03, 28 October 2019 (UTC)
That is an interesting approach: does it mean that every newspaper is considered mainstream unless the opposite has been demonstrated? If yes, that fully contradicts with my understanding of our policy.
Regarding your the second answer, "attribute" ... to whom? What are credentials of this author? Had he authored any book or article that was published by some reputable publisher or scholarly journal?--Paul Siebert (talk) 19:12, 28 October 2019 (UTC)
Yes, sure, see the link to his book above; he has many other publications noted in another link. Also, this is not "news", but an educational publication about the past by historian. How this article can be a "primary" publication if it is entirely based on other sources, primary and secondary? My very best wishes (talk) 19:05, 28 October 2019 (UTC)
There is a page about this newspaper on ruwiki, ru:Крымское эхо, and it does not tell anything bad. My very best wishes (talk) 18:26, 28 October 2019 (UTC)
So, speaking of the three meanings of a source [26], (a) the article itself is OK (it claims nothing extraordinary, but simply summarizes what other sources on this subject say), (b) the author is fine, an established historian based on his publications, and (c) the newspaper is obviously not a scientific journal, but this is just an article on history for general public, enough to reliably document whatever author tells. Also, the newspaper is located in Crimea where author apparently lives. At the time of publication, it was a Russian language Ukrainian newspaper (as Paul tells), but it was expropriated by Russia in 2014, together with peninsula. My very best wishes (talk) 15:13, 28 October 2019 (UTC)
  • I am hesitant on this one, just because I have seen a considerable amount of historical misinformation in newspapers especially the more minor ones. It is reliable for the fact that the author wrote it, but I wouldn't take it much farther than that. I doubt that editors are in a good position to vet such claims—especially if they put a disclaimer on it! Fiamh (talk, contribs) 19:07, 28 October 2019 (UTC)
Unless I am mistaken, Paul misled us by saying: newspaper page where Sokolov's article is published has a disclaimer that explains Sokolov's opinion does not necessarily reflects the editorial board's opinion. This is not a disclaimer for this specific publication. This is a disclaimer at the very bottom of the website which goes everywhere: Ответственность за точность изложенных фактов несет автор. За содержание рекламных материалов редакция ответственности не несет. My very best wishes (talk) 19:13, 28 October 2019 (UTC)

Since English Wikipedia users are not expected to know Russian, below I reproduce the disclaimer in full

"При перепечатке и цитировании ссылка(гиперссылка) на "Крымское Эхо" обязательна. Точка зрения авторов может не совпадать с точкой зрения редакции. Ответственность за точность изложенных фактов несет автор. За содержание рекламных материалов редакция ответственности не несет. Материал, обозначенный (R), публикуется на правах рекламы."

Google translates it as follows:

"When reprinting and citing, a link (hyperlink) to the Crimean Echo is required. The authors' point of view may not coincide with the editorial point of view. Responsibility for the accuracy of the facts presented lies with the author. The editors are not responsible for the content of advertising materials. Material labeled (R) is advertised."

In my opinion, the statement in bold is exactly what op-ed means.--Paul Siebert (talk) 19:47, 28 October 2019 (UTC)

  • Yes, this is a disclaimer at at the very bottom of the website which goes on all pages, right? But you made it appear as a disapproval of the article by Sokolov [27]: "newspaper page where Sokolov's article is published has a disclaimer that explains Sokolov's opinion does not necessarily reflects the editorial board's opinion". The disclaimer does not say anything about Sokolov or his article. My very best wishes (talk) 19:53, 28 October 2019 (UTC)
  • Comment Reading this source, it looks totally unreliable. It's written in a sensationalist and politicized rather than academic or historical style. My Very Best Wishes has found two links [28][29] showing that the author Dmitry Sokolov has a presence somewhere on the Russian-language internet, but his lack of connection to English-language academia makes it impossible to verify his credentials, importance, and suggest he's not a well known journalist or historian. The paper he's written in is not a major / flagship or internationally recognized publication and I can get no information about it in English.
In short, nearly every red flag one could conceive of is present here. I thought that in these topic areas, we were supposed to use the highest quality academic sources, with an emphasis on English-language sources. By contrast, this feels like scraping the bottom of the fringe barrel in one of the darker and more remote recesses of the internet. -Darouet (talk) 19:53, 28 October 2019 (UTC)
No, it is simply written as an article for general public, not as an academic paper. This is a newspaper, not an academic journal. But the newspaper and especially the author still qualify just fine per WP:RS. That's the policy. My very best wishes (talk) 19:59, 28 October 2019 (UTC)
I wish you were right, but, alas, The Great Purge is not under this restriction. Only Nazi gas van topic, and only in part related to Poland falls under that restriction.--Paul Siebert (talk) 20:26, 28 October 2019 (UTC)
  • Comment It should be noted that this source is also used to argue that the primary sources quoted by this source (Sokolov), namely the memoirs by Shreder and Grigorenko, have to be quoted in the article as well. Whereas on this page My very best wishes writes that Sokolov claims nothing extraordinary, but simply summarizes what other sources on this subject say, they have frequently maintained on the talk page that Sokolov “discusses” the claims by Grigorenko.[31][32], and therefore these primary sources may freely be used. Upon Sokolov and the sources quoted by him they also base their conclusion that gas vans have been used “in at least three different cities” in the USSR.[33] [34] This conclusion is not supported by any other sources. Not using these sources they consider to be censorship.[35] [36]
This is an article on the Holocaust both in Poland and the Soviet Union. Gas vans were used at Chełmno extermination camp, e.g.. The whole epic discussion has emerged, because it has been maintained by some, that the "same" gas vans as were used by the Nazis were first used, probably even "invented" by the Soviets. A quote by journalist Yevgenia Albats, stating: "yes, the very same machinery made notorious by the Nazis - yes, these trucks were originally a Soviet invention, in use years before the ovens of the Auschwitz were built", has been vigorously defended, thereby effectively integrating the "Soviet gas vans" into the narrative of the Holocaust. I think that narrative is untenable and not supported by scholarly sources, only by fringe sources like Sokolov, but those who connected the "Soviet gas vans" to the Nazi gas vans should not deny that they intend to suggest that very connection. Applying the source restrictions would certainly clear things up a bit. --Assayer (talk) 20:53, 28 October 2019 (UTC)
To that, I would add that one of the most renown historians writing about Stalinism, Wheatcroft, clearly writes that the claim that gas vans were used during the Great Purge is "sensational", and it needs further confirmation (Stephen Wheatcroft, The Scale and Nature of German and Soviet Repression and Mass Killings, 1930-45. Europe-Asia Studies, Vol. 48, No. 8 (Dec., 1996), pp. 1319-1353). Therefore, the statement that Sokolov's article contains nothing extraordinary directly contradicts to what a top quality reliable source says.--Paul Siebert (talk) 21:19, 28 October 2019 (UTC)
Regarding your "applying the source restrictions would certainly clear things up a bit", I asked EdJohnston to do that, and I am still awaiting for a responce.--Paul Siebert (talk) 21:46, 28 October 2019 (UTC)
  • This is probably off-topic, but Yevgenia Albats is not only a journalist, but also a political scientist who received her PhD degree in Harvard University and taught in a number of other Universities. More importantly, she is a top expert in Russia on the KGB subjects; she worked as consultant for the Russian Duma commission to examine KGB involvement in Soviet coup attempt of 1991. This is all described in her book used on the page. Also, "same gas vans" is the narrative by almost all sources that mention both Soviet and Nazi gas vans, for example, by Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn, and yes, also by Petro Grigorenko and Sokolov. Sources on the Holocaust usually do not mention Soviet gas vans simply because Soviet gas vans were not a part of the Holocaust, quite obviously. My very best wishes (talk) 21:28, 28 October 2019 (UTC)
Sources on the Holocaust usually do not mention Soviet gas vans and so forth - that's exactly the reason why the sources who "mention both Soviet and Nazi gas vans" are WP:FRINGE. And saying "almost all sources", one should note that the majority of scholarly sources on "Soviet gas vans" do not mention Nazi gas vans at all. The fringe character of the whole subject is the reason why you have to turn to an article by a virtually unknown local historian in a Crimean newspaper in the first place. To insist that an otherwise insignificant aspect of the history of gas vans should be exempted from the strict sourcing restrictions otherwise applied in the very same article is inconsistent, confusing and leading to distortion.--Assayer (talk) 09:46, 29 October 2019 (UTC)
"Sources on the Holocaust usually do not mention...". Sure, that's why we do not mention Soviet gas vans on the page Holocaust, but only on page Gas vans. My very best wishes (talk) 10:08, 29 October 2019 (UTC)
The Holocaust#Gas vans refers to the "main article" Gas van. So the latter article is very much within the scope of the topics under source restruction.--Assayer (talk) 17:23, 29 October 2019 (UTC)
  • Comment Why even use newspaper article (or op-ed), when there are plenty of peer reviewed journals and books devoted to this part of the world/history? If you want author´s opinion, simply use higher quality source he wrote on the same topic. Pavlor (talk) 06:55, 29 October 2019 (UTC)
This is not the place to discuss content dispute.Slatersteven (talk) 10:08, 29 October 2019 (UTC)
It's absurd to use this source for Russian Communism, which is one of the most studied and documented topics in the world. Imagine writing an article about the American Civil War or Amundsen's journey to the South Pole and using a village newspaper in Spain as a source. This is clearly cherry-picking, choosing an obscure source that presents information not accepted in mainstream scholarship. TFD (talk) 06:26, 31 October 2019 (UTC)
That is sort of a false equivalency. Spain has nothing (or very little) to do with either of those things, whereas this is about the Soviet Union, of which Ukraine was a part. AmbivalentUnequivocality (talk) 07:18, 1 November 2019 (UTC)
Not mentioning that the history of Soviet NKVD repressions is a Terra incognita. Even basic numbers (how many people were victims) remain completely unknown. One of reasons: the KGB archives were partly destroyed, and partly remain state top secret. When Lev Ponomaryov commission started digging, it was disbanded immediately. My very best wishes (talk) 15:09, 1 November 2019 (UTC)

I would remind users this is about reliability, not wp:undue.Slatersteven (talk) 09:55, 31 October 2019 (UTC)

Slatersteven, good point. So the conclusion is that the source is not reliable for that statement, and the absence of other sources does not make it reliable. Do other participants of the discussion (except involved parties) have any comments/objections to that summary?--Paul Siebert (talk) 20:47, 3 November 2019 (UTC)
You misunderstood. Slatersteven said the article can be used with attribution to author [38]. My very best wishes (talk) 23:00, 3 November 2019 (UTC)

Life Site News (again)- or rather Crux News

Archbishop Carlo Mario Vigano became famous last year for publicly accusing Pope Francis of covering up for accused sexual predator Theodore McCarrick. However, Vigano himself was accused of ordering an end to an investigation into Archbishop John Nienstedt, who resigned his position after allegations of sexual abuse. Vigano provided documentation attempting to show that he did not order an investigation into Nienstedt to Life Site News, which published it. The content detailing this matter, as well as some other things, were removed from Vigano's biography here by David Gerard in response to Life Site News being deprecated.

I challenged the revert on the basis that per WP:BLP, Vigano's defense of himself against accusations of wrongdoing should be included in the article, the venue through which he chose to do so-whether LSN or something else-being irrelevant. We were quoting Vigano's claims about himself, not claims made by Life Site News. David Gerard countered that we don't know whether Vigano actually said what LSN says he said or whether he actually gave the publication the documents that it published. LSN has often been accused of twisting facts, but I don't know that they've ever been accused of fabricating entire interviews or pretending to receive documents that they actually didn't. Neverthetheless, in response to his objections, I re-added the material with a link to an article from Crux, a more mainstream Catholic source that does not have a reputation for ideological partisanship or distortion like LSN. I hoped that the fact that a reliable source considered the material genuine would put to rest the concerns of David Gerard that the interview and documentation were fabricated. I also re-added a statement that Vigano gave to LSN in response to Pope Francis's denial of coverring up for McCarrick and sourced it to a separate Crux article which covered it.

I was then reverted by JzG. Both JzG and Gerard are now arguing that the material should be left out not because it is unreliable but because it is WP:Undue. JzG has repeatedly called Crux a partisan source. I challenged him to support this accusation and he offered no evidence other than the fact that the source identifies itself as Catholic. He seems to think that no religious sources, even ones which, in spite of what he says, are nonpartisan, should be included in articles because they are undue weight. I think that this is absurd and intended to diminish the importance of religious issues. As I told David Gerard, just about everybody gives the standard "I didn't do it" defense when accused of misconduct. Vigano went beyond this and provided documentation in order to try to prove his innocence. If we focus on the accusations against him and ignore the evidence that he provided in his defense, that is a breach of neutrality and a BLP violation.

I propose that Vigano's defense of his actions and response to Pope Francis's denial be restored with citations to the Crux articles. Display name 99 (talk) 22:10, 8 November 2019 (UTC)

It's certainly a novel argument that a site that was deprecated for being completely untrustworthy and having a history of publishing false information - blatant repeated liars - must be included in an article on BLP grounds. I find myself utterly unconvinced that WP:BLP says anything of the sort. What wording in WP:BLP makes you think that this is a necessary move? What do the WP:RSes say on the case, and is there any reason that none of them went near his statements? The situation was covered in a lot of mainstream RSes, that are in the article - why did they leave this out? - David Gerard (talk) 00:05, 9 November 2019 (UTC)
The article is Carlo_Maria_Viganò. and the discussion is at Talk:Carlo_Maria_Viganò#LifeSiteNews - editors on the page had come to a WP:LOCALCONSENSUS that LSN was a fine source to use - David Gerard (talk) 00:16, 9 November 2019 (UTC)
  • Which part of WP:BLP do you think requires the use of a low-quality source in a situation like this? That seems counter-intuitive - the essence of BLP is that we require high-quality sourcing for BLPs. It doesn't require that the article look the way the subject would want it to, or even that we include every single possible detail (no matter how weak the sourcing) that could make the subject look better. If this information was published in a reliable source it would definitely belong in the article for WP:BALANCE reasons, which BLP does require - but balance, including balance for BLPs, requires weighing sources according to their reputation and reliability; what you're requesting here would be WP:FALSEBALANCE. I suggest you search for a better source that covers the material you want to add to the article, rather than trying to argue for this one. --Aquillion (talk) 02:50, 9 November 2019 (UTC)
David Gerard and Aquillion, there are points that I already made but I'm not sure you understood or paid full attention to. Let me spell them out again.
I understand that Life Site News has often been accused of twisting and distorting facts, but nobody has shown me any example of cases in which they were accused of going so far as to fabricate entire interviews or pretend like certain documents were given to them when they really weren't. So long as you are unable to find something like that, it is at best a stretch to say that LSN made the whole thing up.
The source that I am using isn't even LSN. It's Crux, which is a reliable nonpartisan source that reports on events in the Catholic Church and is currently widely used on Wikipedia articles documenting recent events in the Catholic Church. It published an article in which it discussed the interview and documentation that Vigano provided to LSN. The fact that a reliable source considers the interview and documents that Vigano gave to LSN genuine should put to rest any doubt in your minds about whether or not they are really what he said, and the fact that the source discussed it in an article should establish notability. Leaving the material out is a BLP violation because it involves discussing allegations of wrongdoing made against someone while excluding mention of the fact that the person published documentation in his defense even though the fact that he did was discussed in a reliable source. That reliable source is Crux. Crux is the source that I'm using David, not LSN. Display name 99 (talk) 03:17, 9 November 2019 (UTC)
This situation looks similar to the one discussed in Wikipedia:Reliable sources/Noticeboard/Archive 257 § A question related to the Daily Mail. — Newslinger talk 05:52, 9 November 2019 (UTC)
  • Ah, I misunderstood (your initial post was a bit wall-of-texty, so I sort of skimmed it - granted I'm the last person who should complain about that.) Crux is trickier than LifeSiteNews; I can definitely see the argument (which some people have raised on talk) that they might be WP:BIASED, but they do have a relatively decent pedigree as a spin-off of the Boston Globe, and they've discussed their independence. I think they're usable for the relatively uncontroversial fact that Vigano denied the accusations, but I would advise caution for the rest - Crux's coverage is more cautious than the coverage from LifeSiteNews (which is good, since it probably means they're less biased) but when you swapped the sources you didn't update the text to reflect that caution. For example, one key line in the dispute says this: He provided documents to LifeSiteNews to show that he did not order an end to the investigation. That's worded in a way that definitely states that he provided the documents and at least heavily implies they exonerated him. But the relevant text from Crux says this: Viganò also claimed Jeffrey Lena - an American lawyer working for the Holy See - went to the Congregation for Bishops and found documents “proving that my conduct had been absolutely correct.” That is, if I'm reading right, it presents it as Viganò claiming the documents exonerated him rather than stating it as fact, and they carefully put the statement of what the documents imply in a quote so it's clear it's just Viganò's opinion. We'd have to reflect that caution if we're going to use Crux as the source - this sort of thing is common when replacing an unreliable source with a reliable one, since WP:RSes tend to be more careful with their language, on the whole, and it's easy to overlook that. I would say that from that disputed edit, the back-and-forth where Vigano's denials are covered is fine (the simple fact that he denied everything is not very controversial, so it doesn't require a top-tier source anyway), the documents bit needs to be reworded to make it clear that it's just Vigano claiming that they exonerated him, and the quote from LifeSiteNews is possibly usable but probably WP:UNDUE given that it's only covered in one very specialized source. --Aquillion (talk) 06:04, 9 November 2019 (UTC)
    Aquillion, the core question is, should we include a claim that there is exculpatory evidence, published in a site which we have deprecated due to a history of fabrication and repeated by a site that has an obvious dog in the fight, when that supposed exculpatory evidence has not been picked up by any of the multiple reliable sources that discuss the case. Let's not forget that LSN will not have fact-checked this too hard: the claims discredit the Pope and they hate him because he supports LGBT rights, and they have a history of fabricating stories or spinning them out of all connection to the actual facts when it suits their agenda.This debate exists only because no sources outside the walled garden have picked up the claims of exculpation. At the very least that seems to be textbook WP:UNDUE. In fact much of the article lends excessive deference to the opinions of people with a vested interest in the reputation of the Catholic church as "rebuttal" to weighty mainstream sources pointing to a serious problem. Guy (help!) 11:32, 9 November 2019 (UTC)
Yeah, I can see the argument that it's WP:UNDUE, especially given that the Crux version effectively minimizes it by treating it so cautiously. I'm just pointing out that even if we did use Crux as a source, the text cited to it would have to be toned down to make it clear that everything about the documents is just a claim by Vigano (since that's how even Crux treats it.) You described Crux as repeating Viganò's claims "largely uncritically" down below, but I don't think that that's true - the section reads to me as fairly skeptical. In a section titled "Viganò’s Denials", they describe the bits we're discussing as just things he claimed, note that they couldn't get confirmation from any of the people involved, summarize the letters in a fairly dismissive way, then list a series of followup investigations on their part that, collectively, make Viganò look guilty as hell (eg. In addition to O’Malley’s intervention in Rome, Crux has learned that Viganò was warned about the archbishop of the Twin Cities on at least one other occasion - this time by a prominent U.S. Catholic leader who asked not to be named, and who says he tried to persuade Viganò to take action.) I mean, look at the quote they chose to end the article on. Even the summary of his denials in the early part of the article is fairly skeptical (In recent days, Viganò has rejected claims that he tried to interfere in the investigation. Yet new interviews with some of the pivotal players - along with confirmations that two U.S. cardinals were involved to varying degrees with discussions over Nienstedt’s potential removal - suggest that question marks about his role have not yet been resolved) - essentially presenting their own investigations as putting Viganò's denials in question. Reading it carefully, this reads to me as more of a careful, straightlaced-speak rebuttal to the LifeSiteNews piece rather than an uncritical repetition of it. I feel like, when swapping one source for the other, people fell into the trap of "does it mention this at all" without looking carefully at the source's overall context. For another example, consider what they're implying when they drop Meanwhile, Busch has told the New York Times that he was aware of Viganò’s letter two weeks prior to its release - which according to his expressed timeline would have been just days before his Institute announced Nienstedt’s departure - this being Viganò's letter with accusations against the Pope, mentioned here, and Nienstedt’s departure from Busch's Catholic conservative Napa Institute. Think about what it actually means that Crux is connecting the dots on those timeframes (a connection not made in the Times source) - this is a genteel accusation of, at the very least, impropriety by Busch, implying that he removed Nienstedt from the Napa Institute only when it was politically expedient in order to "clean house" for an accusation against the Pope and bury a potentially embarrassing incident in Viganò's past that people could raise in response. What I'm saying is that taken as a whole rather than mined for one factoid, this article does not seem at all sympathetic to Viganò or his allies. Of course you could argue that Crux is taking the side of the Pope against Viganò - but either way, taking the article as a whole, I don't think they're on Viganò's side, and I think they're digging more deeply and carefully than you're giving them credit for. This sort of narrow, specific source does have some risk of being WP:BIASED, but it also gives them potential insight into connections other sources missed - as with the bit where they noticed the implications of the timeframe mentioned above. Regardless of how they're used here, I'd be reluctant to dismiss them entirely as a source without more reason to doubt their coverage. --Aquillion (talk) 14:34, 9 November 2019 (UTC)
LSN is a conservative catholic website, generally reliable, trusted by many leading catholic figures and leading vaticanists. Senior Vaticanist Philip Pullella just described it in 2019 in a Reuters article as "a conservative Catholic website that often criticizes the pope" and frequently uses it as a source (here or here). New York Times columnist Ross Douthat used it as a source in his last book about Francis and the Catholic Church. I could go on and on. Claims made by people through LSN should of course be included. Thucyd (talk) 08:29, 9 November 2019 (UTC)
Thucyd, LSN? Reliable? Not hardly. It's a hard-line anti-abortion site with a history of bias and sometimes outright fabrication, "Among other issues, a troubling headline about "beating baby hearts" resulted in accusations of witness intimidation." (see, e.g. https://www.snopes.com/?s=LifeSiteNews for other fabrications and distortions, and that's just one fact checker). It criticizes Pope Francis alright, that is exactly why it's unreliable in this context (the claims are disputed by Francis). The main reason it hates Francis is because he supports, as much as any Catholic can, LGBT rights. LSN is as hard-line homophobic as it is anti-abortion. Douthat may have used it as a source for what the fundamentalists think about X or Y, but it is certainly not reliable for claims of fact, especially for anything involving sex. Guy (help!) 11:39, 9 November 2019 (UTC)
JzG If LSN is a reliable source for Reuters, a New York Times columnist, Associated Press, Catholic newspapers, etc., it is good enough for Wikipedia. Your political and theological views are of no interest here. Thucyd (talk) 15:49, 9 November 2019 (UTC)
Being quoted in those sources doesn't make it a reliable source for them (and being quoted by a columnist has almost no value at all.) They're using it to represent an opinion, because it is a high-profile source that holds that opinion; this isn't the same as them treating it as a reliable source for statements of fact. WP:USEBYOTHERS isn't just about randomly mentioning or quoting or referring to a source; it means using it in a way that implies that it has a reputation for fact-checking and accuracy. Absolutely nobody uses LSN that way, because it performs no meaningful fact-checking and is infamously inaccurate to the point of outright fabrication. --Aquillion (talk) 15:58, 9 November 2019 (UTC)
Thucyd, As Aquillion notes, I am pretty sure you are misreading this. The cites you mention are more like WP:ABOUTSELF quotes. We do have a consensus that LSN is not reliable: see Wikipedia:Reliable sources/Perennial sources#LifeSiteNews. This discussion is not going to overturn that, I think. Guy (help!) 16:33, 9 November 2019 (UTC)
  • The issue here is the uncritical reporting of claims of exculpatory evidence in a serious matter. We are having this discussion only because the op cannot find a single mainstream sources that covers it. These are claims published by LifeSiteNews - a canonically unreliable source - and repeated largely uncritically by a Catholic source. This is not about reliability (though the discrepancies and the original source underline that the content may well be unreliable), it's about WP:UNDUE. Claims by a Catholic that there are documents that contradict the evidence in mainstream sources, published on a canonically unreliable fundamentalist Catholic aligned website, rejected as such, then re-sourced form a largely uncritical repetition on another Catholic website. Why do none of the non-church-aligned sources cover this supposedly exculpatory information? Because there's no evidence its true, beyond the subject's own protestations? Who knows? We need reality-based resources, not apologia, per WP:UNDUE. Guy (help!) 10:12, 9 November 2019 (UTC)
Aquillion, I'm not saying whether the documents that Vigano provided actually do exhonerate him or not. They may very well not, and that's up to the reader to decide. All I'm saying is that for the sake of maintaining neutrality, we should include the fact that he published documents in his defense, whether these documents actually do defend him adequately or not being open to the reader's consideration. If you can think of a better way to phrase the text, I'd be open to it. How about: "He provided documents to LifeSiteNews which he said showed that he did not order an end to the investigation."
David Gerard, Crux, despite being a religious source, is mainstream in the sense that it is nonpartisan and does not have a reputation for poor factual reporting. That is why it is widely used on articles related to recent Catholic events. I'll try some arguments by analogy as I did with JzG on the article talk page. What we have here is a Catholic issue, which means that Catholic sources are likely to report on it in greater detail than non-Catholic ones. Do we consider events in U.S. politics unnotable simply because non-American news agencies didn't report on them? Or how about information in a science journal that wasn't published in the Washington Post or New York Times? That sounds ridiculous, but it makes about as much sense as what you're telling me. Display name 99 (talk) 15:29, 9 November 2019 (UTC)
Now that I've spent a while longer pouring over the Crux piece, here's my problem with that. By placing something in the article, you are giving it weight - implying that it is significant, or important, or has some relevance to the topic. In context, I do not feel the Crux source actually gives those documents much weight - it reads as if they present them, summarize them in a way that plainly dismisses them, then present broader details that undermine Vigano's claims. Especially given their summary of the documents, which is... not helpful to Vigano at all. One is literally just an earlier document by him denying that he did it, and the other is a vague note about "correct[ing] my interpretation of his instructions", ie. patiently retconning something Vigano previously said. (In fact, hold on, you say it's "up to the reader to decide", but how would they do that when your version omits how little the documents even say?) Pulling out just Vigano's characterization of the documents and leaving everything else (including the actual content of the documents themselves) would put WP:UNDUE weight on one aspect of their reporting in a way that misrepresents the source, especially given that no other reliable sources have covered this at all. I don't agree that neutrality means that we have to cover every single argument that Vigano makes in his own defense; and this one seems to be one that didn't go anywhere at all. Only one source we could remotely consider reliable even mentions it, and that one, by my reading, does so fairly dismissively. Insisting on taking something so low-profile putting it in the article strikes me as WP:FALSEBALANCE. --Aquillion (talk) 15:55, 9 November 2019 (UTC)
Aquillion, I still feel like for the sake of impartiality, we should mention when someone publishes documents to try to clear their name and when such a fact is mentioned in a reliable source. In order to maintain the balance, I could accept also adding in the fact that the unnamed Catholic leader said that Vigano refused to take action. If you're unwilling to agree to this, I will have to accept defeat, but I feel that it's the best course. Display name 99 (talk) 16:21, 9 November 2019 (UTC)
Display name 99, you are moving the goalposts now. And no: we don't include "rebuttals" without sources that assess their validity.
Imagine if the Washington Free Beacon published an article saying they had documentary evidence that Ukraine interfered in the 2016 election by suppressing evidence of Manafort's corruption, and the Washington Free Beacon published an article noting it. Would we use that as a source? No we would not. Same here. No sources outside the bubble cover it, then neither do we.
As an argument, give me what I want and I will allow you to weaken it slightly with an anonymous comment" is unpersuasuive. Guy (help!) 17:01, 9 November 2019 (UTC)
David Gerard, Aquillion, and JzG, I acknowledge that I will not get consensus for re-adding the content and therefore accept defeat. Consider the question finished. Display name 99 (talk) 22:42, 10 November 2019 (UTC)

RfC: VGChartz

GENERALLY UNRELIABLE
Editors unanimously agree that VGChartz as a whole is generally unreliable. — Newslinger talk 09:47, 6 November 2019 (UTC)

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

Other than sales data, what would best describe the reliability of VGChartz as a whole? (More detailed query below.) ToThAc (talk) 03:20, 7 October 2019 (UTC)

It's already been informally established that VGChartz is unreliable for everything pertaining to sales data. One excerpt from a certain bureaucrat of a non-Wikimedia wiki even summed up the following here:

Due to its popularity and being the most immediately visible source when researching sales data, it's hard not to address VGChartz.
Much[1][2] has been written about the reliability of VGChartz. As explained on the site's methodology page, it has access to data from an undefined sampling of "retail partners", filling in the rest by guessing based on various trends (while the aforementioned trackers do not have access to every retail chain and do some number of "filling in the blanks", they are proven to track a substantial amount of retailers, unlike VGChartz). The fact that VGChartz numbers have frequently been contradicted by more official channels and other anomalies (In one instance, the site reported the game Arc Rise Fantasia as a best-seller for June 2010 despite the game not being released until the end of July[3]) have led to several sites banning it as a source. As far as the wiki is concerned, VGChartz is not reliable and should not be used as a reference for sales data.

References

  1. ^ Carless, Simon. (June 23, 2009). Analysis: What VGChartz Does (And Doesn't) Do For The Game Biz. Gamasutra. Retrieved November 7, 2013.
  2. ^ Kohler, Chris. (June 23, 2008). Why We Don't Reference VGChartz. Wired. Retrieved November 7, 2013.
  3. ^ zeldofreako. (July 4, 2010). How did this game sell 22,000 units in it's first week. It's not even out!?!. GameFAQs. Retrieved November 7, 2013.

However, I have repeatedly seen VGChartz cited in areas other than sales data; most of it is to cite release dates and companies behind certain games, with some relevant news articles as well. Moreover, most of the criticism towards the site is usually limited to just the site's methodology in obtaining sales data. And so as far as Wikipedia is concerned, what options would best describe VGChartz's reliability?

  1. Generally reliable
  2. Generally reliable, with the exception of sales data (recommend better source)
  3. Generally reliable, with the exception of sales data (require better source)
  4. Generally unreliable

Cheers - ToThAc (talk) 02:11, 7 October 2019 (UTC)

Survey (VGChartz)

Discussion (VGChartz)

Notified: Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Video games, Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Video games/Sources, Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Reliability — Newslinger talk 02:52, 7 October 2019 (UTC)

@Sergecross73 and Namcokid47: In case this wasn't already clear to either of you, I'm addressing the entire VGChartz website, not necessarily their sales data (which has already been proven unreliable). ToThAc (talk) 03:24, 7 October 2019 (UTC)

I am fully aware of that, and I am still opposing it. Nearly all of the content on there is user-generated, and lots of the articles are not in the best of quality. I still consider them unreliable. Namcokid47 (Contribs) 03:28, 7 October 2019 (UTC)
Okay, thanks for the clarification. ToThAc (talk) 03:35, 7 October 2019 (UTC)
The discussion above is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.

Is wikispooks.com a reliable source or should it be deprecated?

I see we use it in a number of articles[39] but take a look at their article "Conspiracy theory" - the quotes are theirs, most of their articles don't seem to have scare quotes. The lead says ""Conspiracy theory" is a label given to ideas which challenge an official narrative, held by people who are pejoratively termed "conspiracy theorists". This stems from the US deep state's efforts to promote the "lone nut" theory of the JFK assassination. The concept was later developed into a general purpose enemy image used to try to prevent the connection of deep events that the commercially-controlled media presented as isolated incidents. Post 9/11, it is the subject of pseudo-scientific study to limit freedom of speech by promoting the idea that the holders of such opinions are inclined to violence and deserve to have their civil liberties removed, in particular by subjecting them to internet censorship.'"

I'd argue that this is a site that should definitely be deprecated. Doug Weller talk 08:45, 1 November 2019 (UTC)

I would agree with that argument. Content is user generated "The site is written by volunteers", and "a few pages here have imported material directly from Wikipedia", and "The idea of "fake news", launched in 2016, appears to be a counterproductive attempt to boost flagging faith in corporate media". Seems about as reliable as an anonymous conspiracy theory blog. AmbivalentUnequivocality (talk) 09:45, 1 November 2019 (UTC)
No evidence of reliability. Guy (help!) 10:16, 1 November 2019 (UTC)
No its not an RS. It seems to be another Wiki.Slatersteven (talk) 10:18, 1 November 2019 (UTC)
  • ”Depreciate” is the wrong word. I would simply call it Unreliable. “Depreciation” implies that there are at least some rare instances where it would be OK use it (example: when we depreciated the Daily Mail, we made an exception for its sports reporting) and, in this case, I can’t think of any situation where it would be appropriate to use it. We simply don’t consider user generated websites reliable. Blueboar (talk) 12:24, 1 November 2019 (UTC)
At the risk of piling on, yeah - obviously not a reliable source, and we should be taking a careful look at any of the pages you linked there that use it as a citation. Fyddlestix (talk) 14:32, 1 November 2019 (UTC)

winstonchurchill.org

Hello. Is winstonchurchill.org a reliable source for Racial views of Winston Churchill?

It's a piece of polemic,in a website dedicated to preserving his memory. It would be a reliable source for Richard M. Langworth's views on the racial views of Winston Churchill, but a neutral academic textbook or similar would be a better source to use. GirthSummit (blether) 09:43, 3 November 2019 (UTC)
Yep, I think OK with attribution, but I would.Slatersteven (talk) 09:59, 3 November 2019 (UTC)

I used winstonchurchill.org's full text instead of the quotes used by BBC. Which, since the article is about racial views and not about chemical weapons, is the only needed part. Aryzad (talk) 10:51, 3 November 2019 (UTC)

No, no, no absolutely not. You cannot do that. The discussion didn't mention that the proposal was to use this website to directly substitute its interpretation and analysis for that of the BBC. That is utterly unacceptable - in limited circumstances, this could be used to briefly present this source's opinion, as their opinion, but giving it priority over the opinion of an established, reliable secondary source like the BBC is absolutely WP:UNDUE. Evaluating how to use sources isn't just a matter of RS / non-RS; sources have differing reputations and weights. The BBC is obviously a better source here and needs to be given prominence, with Richard M. Langworth's personal disagreement given a single sentence to present a potentially WP:FRINGE view, if that. You cannot present his view as truth, hardstop, and I'm skeptical that you can even use his views to cast doubt on the BBC, since the difference in reliability and prominence is so stark. Your solution of presenting the quotes in a way that implies Langworth's interpretations without directly saying so is in some respects even worse, since it raises WP:SYNTH / WP:OR issues - if Langsworth's position is to be included at all, it should be directly said that it's his opinion (and would have to be accurately represented as a minority position.) --Aquillion (talk) 20:03, 3 November 2019 (UTC)
@GreenMeansGo: Yes, there are many sources about the subject and a book, for example, is probably a better source; however, I don't think that BBC is unreliable. There are so many people who check BBC's articles. Aryzad (talk) 19:18, 4 November 2019 (UTC)
"The BBC" is not a monolith, and you cannot assume that everything published by the BBC is reliable simply because most content published by the BBC is reliable. In this case, this is an article by someone, who as far as I can tell, has no actual credentials in either history or Churchill, and whose only purpose at the BBC appears to be writing low-quality click bait, with no particular area of expertise to speak of. GMGtalk 19:56, 4 November 2019 (UTC)
You are right; the article's author is also important. However, I still think the article is a RS, but using an academic source is obviously a better idea. I will try to find one. Aryzad (talk) 21:14, 4 November 2019 (UTC)
Aryzad Just a quick note to add that I'm absolutely in agreement with GMG on this - there must be massively better sources out there to use than the beeb. It's a reliable source for news, naturally, and I'm not saying it's formally unreliable in this context, but it's just a bad choice for a subject that has been written about so extensively by academics in peer reviewed articles and monographs. We should be looking for the best sources, not just the first one that Google throws up that would probably pass the WP:RS test. Thank you for agreeing to try to find some. Cheers GirthSummit (blether) 16:54, 9 November 2019 (UTC)
 Done This book, added to the article by an IP, is now the source of that subsection. Aryzad (talk) 22:18, 9 November 2019 (UTC)

Kissyfur

Is this IO9 Top 10 list that claims certain shows don't deserve to be remembered a reliable source regarding critical reception of the series Kissyfur? I don't think barely-known Top 10 lists with negative opinions aren't good sources. 73.123.30.85 (talk) 22:59, 3 November 2019 (UTC)

IO9 is generally reliable, except for it's user-submitted section.
I'd say attribute it as opinion. --Ronz (talk) 00:39, 4 November 2019 (UTC)
No. Listicles are essentially sets of passing mentions; not reliable per WP:RSCONTEXT. - Ryk72 talk 05:52, 5 November 2019 (UTC)
I wouldn't use it, but not for the reason of reliability. A source is scrupulously reliable for quoting or paraphrasing what it says itself. The fact that IO9 has rated a show on a list IO9 itself has published can be reliably sourced to the list itself. The question is: is IO9 a respected source of criticism such that its lists are worth including from an WP:UNDUE standpoint? That is, would someone expect such a list to carry significant weight, because IO9 is specifically well known for its criticism of cartoon shows? For a parallel example, let's take the list of 50 Greatest Players in NBA History as published by the NBA itself. I would expect such a list, notably compiled from the opinions of many of the most respected basketball journalists of all time, by the NBA itself, to carry significant weight, and so a player that appeared on that list would be worth mentioning in their article. The question is, what weight does IO9 carry in terms of critical journalism of cartoon series? Does it have that reputation? Or is it the equivalent of just one person coming up with their own list? Again, it isn't a reliability issue, which is about "Do we trust that the information we are citing is correct?" Of course it is correct, IO9 is correctly publishing it's own opinion. That's not a reliability issue. It's why should we care? That's an issue for WP:UNDUE. I don't know IO9's specific place in the field of TV show criticism, so you're going to all have to figure that out yourselves, but unless they are a "household name" in the field, I would err on the side of not including it. --Jayron32 20:50, 5 November 2019 (UTC)
  • I'd say it's technically reliable but probably WP:UNDUE. It could be used as one sentence in a larger paragraph covering reception from a variety of sources, but I don't think it makes sense to devote an entire section to, effectively, one brief item in a list. --Aquillion (talk) 07:00, 6 November 2019 (UTC)
That seems more a concern about the overall lack of reception coverage in the current article version (and perhaps also the borderline notability of the subject) rather than a rationale to exclude the IO9 piece from being cited in the article under any circumstances (as would be provided by the "views of tiny minorities" part of WP:UNDUE which refers to flat-earth type opinions). I have searched for other reception coverage, finding only a similarly negative LA Times review so far (see also below), and started a broader reception section in the article. Regards, HaeB (talk) 14:10, 6 November 2019 (UTC)
As others have stated, IO9 can be regarded as RS. Despite what 73.123.30.85 claimed here, neither the age of the article's author nor the website's former owners change that. Neither do reviews have to be positive to count as RS, as 73.123.30.85 appears to assume above.
Regarding the (offtopic) NPOV/UNDUE discussion: WP:NPOV asks us to reflect "all of the significant views that have been published by reliable sources on a topic". Searching for such views, it seems that the reception of this minor TV series in reliable sources may have been very limited (e.g. IMDB lists no professional reviews). Apart from some blogs which are way less reliable and relevant than IO9, the only other one I can find right now is the LA Times piece (one of the only two other RS already cited in our current article), consisting of one similarly negative paragraph. Considering this, IO9's assessment clearly seems significant here and should be included. Regards, HaeB (talk) 14:10, 6 November 2019 (UTC)
On the contrary, IO9's opinion is not significant merely because no one else mentioned it. It is only significant if the greater world at large considers IO9's opinion on such matters worth listening to. Has the source built a reputation for critical analysis of cartoon shows or not? If it hasn't, then its opinion is not significant. --Jayron32 21:17, 6 November 2019 (UTC)
Nobody said "merely". IO9 is "a Tomatometer-approved publication", meaning that its TV reviews are considered to be significant by Rotten Tomatoes. In other words, the opinion of editors who consider them insignificant runs against the judgment of a reliable source (see also the Rotten Tomatoes entry in WP:RSP). BTW, it is also worth being aware that IO9 has already been cited or linked over 2000 times, often in articles about popular culture. Regards, HaeB (talk) 05:47, 7 November 2019 (UTC)
That's fine. I never said it wasn't such a source. I merely gave you information so you could determine, and demonstrate to others, that it is such a significant source. If its reviews are held in such regard (and again, I am not saying that the actually are, AND saying that I am not saying that they are not. I hold no position on the matter) than they could be used. If they were not, then they should not be. --Jayron32 13:40, 7 November 2019 (UTC)

LifeSiteNews

I'd like to comment on the unreliability of LifeSiteNews, particularly this, which has been deleted from the Rebecca Kiessling article citing WP:RSP. The piece, written by the subject herself, was only intended to support claims about her date and place of birth as well as her views on abortion: diff. It was not written by the website, nor are the claims about abortion she makes in it included in the Wiki; it's a blog post that merely recalls her experience with abortion. So, while I don't necessarily question the consensus against the source, I think there should be an exception and not dismiss it outright. Perhaps we could just tag the ref with Template:Better source inline so other editors would be given a chance to provide a better one. You've gone incognito (talk ⋅ contribs) 09:29, 5 November 2019 (UTC)

If there's no other source for the statement than a source that was deprecated at an RFC for extreme unreliability to the point of just making stuff up, then there are obvious problems including it in a BLP, of all places. Is there any mainstream RS coverage of these facts?
More generally, the thing to do with deprecated sources is not to look for reasons to include them anyway - David Gerard (talk) 09:40, 5 November 2019 (UTC)
I should note, I'm not disputing the facts themselves - but LifeSiteNews is worse than a {{citation needed}} - David Gerard (talk) 11:33, 5 November 2019 (UTC)
  • LifeSiteNews is completely unusable as a source. We already decided that. Guy (help!) 10:16, 5 November 2019 (UTC)
  • No. We should not use the cite, their unreliability is so bad, we can't even trust that the article they have claimed has been written by Kiessling herself was done so. That's the point of the prior discussion. As David Gerard says above, sites of this level of unreliability are actually worse than a cn tag, and should be removed in cases like this, even if they are the only source. --Jayron32 14:46, 5 November 2019 (UTC)
  • No. LifeSiteNews is a notoriously unreliable source and should not be acceptable as a source for any article on Wikipedia. --PluniaZ (talk) 03:40, 8 November 2019 (UTC)
  • Yes-LSN should not be used to report on facts, but I don't know when they've ever been accused of fabricating what someone told them. I see no reason why claims made by people through LSN should not be included. Display name 99 (talk) 22:18, 8 November 2019 (UTC)
  • Yes -I agree with Display name 99. LSN is a conservative catholic website, generally reliable, trusted by many leading catholic figures and leading vaticanists. Senior Vaticanist Philip Pullella just described it in 2019 in a Reuters article as "a conservative Catholic website that often criticizes the pope" and frequently uses it as a source (here or [here). New York Times columnist Ross Douthat used it as a source in his last book about Francis and the Catholic Church. I could go on and on. Claims made by people through LSN should of course be included. Thucyd (talk) 23:10, 8 November 2019 (UTC)
  • Partially usable. Some portions of Rebecca Kiessling's blog post from LifeSiteNews (RSP entry) can be used in the Rebecca Kiessling article under WP:ABOUTSELF. However, WP:ABOUTSELF is very restrictive, and only applies to Kiessling's uncontroversial self-descriptions. It does not apply to Kiessling's claims about third parties. For example, in Special:Diff/924651825, the post can be used for Kiessling's birthdate and residence (if uncontroversial), but not for "In addition, she told Kiessling that she would have had an abortion if it had been legal at the time she fell pregnant with her. Kiessling's mother, though, recanted this six years later, saying that she was glad her daughter was born." because Kiessling's mother is a third party.

    For the general case, see the July 2019 RfC, which deprecated LifeSiteNews. Since RfCs are more broadly publicized than discussions, it would take a new RfC to overturn the existing consensus. It is unlikely that consensus has changed since the previous RfC, which is still recent. — Newslinger talk 10:15, 9 November 2019 (UTC)

Jessica Bendinger podcast for Anna Genovese

I just closed Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Anna Genovese. At that discussion, there was debate on whether this Mob Queens podcast, hosted by Jessica Bendinger, qualifies as an RS for the article Anna Genovese. What do you guys think? feminist (talk) 01:09, 7 November 2019 (UTC)

  • Your "keep" close is correct, considering the multiple reliable sources offering significant coverage in the Anna Genovese article. However, the Mob Queens podcast looks borderline: it's hosted by only two people (Jessica Bendinger and Michael Seligman), and some editors would prefer to see stronger evidence of editorial oversight before it counts toward WP:GNG. Since Anna Genovese is deceased, I would consider it a marginally qualifying source (equivalent to a book published by a lesser-known publisher) in light of the favorable press coverage of the podcast. If Genovese were a living person, the podcast would probably be restricted by WP:BLPSPS. — Newslinger talk 02:48, 7 November 2019 (UTC)
  • I think it's the kind of source that is best handled via direct attribution rather than simply as an unexplained inline cite. That is, in addition to the inline citation, we should state before information from it "According to the podcast Mob Queens..." and then put the information there. For information which is only able to be cited to a single source, without confirmation from other sources, that's the best way to handle it. --Jayron32 15:09, 7 November 2019 (UTC)

Should proprivacy dot com be considered a reliable source?

The website appears to be native advertising, sponsoring several VPN providers, and also contains calls to action. It is cited in NordVPN.

An independent audit by PricewaterhouseCoopers has described the company's claims of not logging users' data as accurate. The audit refers to their service and server configurations as of November 1, 2018.[1]

— Preceding unsigned comment added by Oldosfan (talk • contribs) 01:47, 7 November 2019 (UTC)

References

  1. ^ Crawford, Douglas (November 29, 2018). "NordVPN has no logs claim investigated by independent auditors". proprivacy.com. Retrieved October 25, 2019.

At present, the audit is only available to a pre-selected list of journalists. At bestVPN.com we were lucky enough to be among the first to see the results.

We were pleased to learn that the report fully endorses NordVPN’s no logs claims.

The domain bestvpn.com now redirects to proprivacy.com, but was not updated in the article. In a January 2019 press release published through PR Newswire, BestVPN.com described itself as a "VPN comparison website". Since then, the comparison shopping website has been moved to the "Reviews" section of ProPrivacy. ProPrivacy gives NordVPN a 10/10 score with affiliate links all over the page; the review does not mention NordVPN's March 2018 server breach, which was covered by The Verge (RSP entry) and CNET (RSP entry). It appears that the audit was not made available to reliable sources, only to affiliates like BestVPN. From this, I have no doubt that the ProPrivacy article is an unreliable piece of churnalism. As a whole, ProPrivacy is like a more biased version of CoinDesk (RSP entry) with an additional section of the site devoted to selling what they push in their articles. — Newslinger talk 02:19, 7 November 2019 (UTC)

  • Unreliable per Newslinger's investigation as well as common sense. It appears to be a typical affiliate site. The text is likely based on a PR notice pushed down by NordVPN to the affiliates (if being cynical one could say for the purpose of deniability as well as appearance of multiple testimonies). Daß Wölf 02:59, 8 November 2019 (UTC)

New static Media Bias Chart 5.1

Announcement from adfontesmedia:

"Thanks for all your feedback on both the interactive and static versions of the Media Bias Chart! We are continuously striving to make this a better and better resource over time. We received quite a few requests to make the static version a little friendlier for downloading, zooming in, and printing. Specifically, we got quite a bit of feedback that though people appreciate the precision and data on the 5.0 interactive version of the chart, the overlapping logos on the static version made it harder to share and use in classrooms and presentations. Here's our solution!"

Enjoy. -- BullRangifer (talk) 15:30, 7 November 2019 (UTC)

Behind the Voice Actors

I've got a lot of cartoons, animated films, and voice actors on my watchlist, mostly due to hoaxes from bored children and unsourced speculation ("I'm sure I heard this actor's voice, so I'll go to Wikipedia and add it!" seems to be where many of the edits come from). So, I've been trying to find authoritative sources I can use to verify voice actor roles. Many sites list this information but are user-generated (such as the IMDb), not comprehensive enough (such as the American Film Institute), or hide their content behind a paywall (such as Baseline StudioSystems). So, that leaves sites like BtVA, which is used rather extensively on Wikipedia (about 1200 results from Special:LinkSearch). What opinions are there on the reliability of this website? See, for example Jeff Bennett (cited for birth date) and Jack Angel (cited for filmography). The last time I see this discussed here was 2013. NinjaRobotPirate (talk) 05:36, 9 November 2019 (UTC)

    • Well it's not user-generated and according to that 2013 discussion they do verify information with the primary source (with a green tick) so it's probably ok for basic information, imv Atlantic306 (talk) 18:59, 9 November 2019 (UTC)

Please help

On the talk page [40] I exposed that all information I presented is accurate and written in books by historians, deleting that facts is because someone does not like that truth, I'm here alone and I'm interested what to do next? Thanks. Mikola22 (talk) 08:57, 10 November 2019 (UTC)

Using author so controversial like Krunoslav Draganović is not the best way to build a consensus for your changes. If you don´t have better sources to support your POV, I advise you should probably not edit any article in this contentious area. Pavlor (talk) 09:53, 10 November 2019 (UTC)
Are you kidding me? Krunoslav Draganović wrote book in 1937 in which it cites original evidence from the Vatican archives on nearly every page below the text. It's one of the best books with archive sources I've seen. It is evidence in master's theses in historical studies and every catholic or other library has that book. Therefore when historical data cannot be disputed then the writer is guilty? I'm interested in data that has original evidence and this is exactly what Wikipedia is looking for. Me and Wikipedia are not interested who is the writer we are interested whether the writer's claims have evidence in historical sources. What do i have to do? Collect people on Wikipedia to enter some information as some people(Serbians) doesn't like it? Oh my God. We have an article on Wikipedia about Sokollu Mehmed Pasha[1] for which it is stated that he was of ethnic Serb origin, and sources for that information are cited as Turkish, English, Yugoslav sources, however there is no single document on earth from his time in which he is referred as a Serb, moreover the original historical data indicate that it comes from Croatia(southeast Bosnia) but this information from the American historian cannot be included in the article because it is not relevant?? Twilight Zone?? We have information from Wikipedia article that talks about the Croatian dialect Stokavian[2] from which I deleted part I quote "By far the most numerous, mobile and expansionist migrations were those of Ijekavian-Shtokavian speakers of eastern Herzegovina, who have spread into most of Western Serbia, many areas of eastern and western Bosnia, large swathes of Croatia (Banovina, Kordun, Lika, parts of Gorski kotar, continental parts of northern Dalmatia, some places north of Kupa, parts of Slavonia, southeastern Baranya etc.).[3] This is the reason Eastern Herzegovinian is the most spoken Serbo-Croatian dialect today, and why it bears the name that is only descriptive of its area of origin. These migrations also played the pivotal role in the spread of Neo-Shtokavian innovations.[4] On that famous migration talk linguist without any historical document and someone persistently returns that data even we do not have any historical sources on earth which proves migration of someone from eastern Herzegovina to 70% of Croatia or Bosnia. This is exactly where I recognize the Greate Serbian ideology which claims that Croats are Catholic Serbs because they talk "Stokavian" dialect and therefore they delete relevant evidence and about converting to Orthodoxy and historical facts that prove existence of Orthodox Croats. If this is Wikipedia then i probably can't do anything myself. For this reason I ask everyone to help me to present truth to the whole world and to finally remove the Greater Serbian ideology from Wikipedia. Mikola22 (talk) 10:52, 10 November 2019 (UTC)
Krunoslav Draganović was not a historian, and was a propagandists. I doubt very much he is an RS for anything but his own views.Slatersteven (talk) 11:14, 10 November 2019 (UTC)
You don't understand, source is important. If Draganović 1937 has sources on every page of the book then this tells that his book is reliable source. He did not write documents from the Vatican Archives, he presented them to the public and presented own conclusion. This is source and for the doctoral thesis so I see no reason not to be source in the Wikipedia article except that someone is bothered that and the truth but that's another matter. I also quoted other historians and books about Orthodox Croats. That is something controversial would be already disputed but problem is fact that there exist and Orthodox Croats who are today part of Serbs in Croatia, and this someone wants to hide. Mikola22 (talk) 11:40, 10 November 2019 (UTC)
I do understated, I understand perfectly Draganović was a propagandists who took sources and presented his conclusions as to what they proved. As far as I am aware he is not a respected historian, nor a respected expert in any field (not even the one he worked in). Thus (at best) he could only be used for his views on what those sources said (unless of course he just presented photostats without commentary, did he?).Slatersteven (talk) 11:48, 10 November 2019 (UTC)
I put in the article facts(from Draganović book) based on the Vatican Archive I quote: ">From Syrmia 1634 we have a report on the Catholics which convert to Orthodoxy: more than 10 villages, i.e. Soljani, Veliki Remete, Golubinci , Ruma , Vojinci, Manđelos and Sremska Mitrovica " "Sono andate al rito Raseiano piu di 10 ville eioe Soljani,Velike Remete, Golubinei, Ruma, Vojinei, Mangjeloš e Mitrovica,magior parte e fra tutto sarrano case 200 epiO..Vatican Archive" i quote: [Sokollu Mehmed Pasha]] 1566 issued an order in which he says that roman friars of Buda, Timișoara and Dubrovnik and of all Croatian nation do not ask for charity if these people(Croats) belongs to the Greek Patriarch(Greek Orthodoxy) it is a command from Turkish times. And this is his conclusion, I quote: Most Catholics of southern Herzegovina especially in the central parts of the diocese in the 15th century or earlier convert to Orthodoxy". This conclusion in his book proves dozens of original documents from the Vatican archives that talk about Catholic converting to Orthodoxy. Otherwise this is mentioned and in doctoral dissertation from year ( Zagreb, 2013.) [5] in which has dozens of books and also the Vatican archives as evidence. Therefore, these facts cannot be disputed because they are what they are and we must respect them not erase them. Otherwise there is information from Pope of Rome about overtook of the Catholic churches in eastern Herzegovina and their conversion to Orthodox Churches, I did not state this but it also needs to be brought to light. And that's why is the problem because Wikipedia starts telling the truth and they don't like this. I didn't know this was a private portal i thought such things should be entered into Wikipedia without question. Mikola22 (talk) 13:00, 10 November 2019 (UTC)
  • When dealing with propagandists, it is common that they cherry pick documents which supported there conclusions, omitting documents and evidence that might contradict those conclusions. I don’t know enough about this specific author to know if he did this or not, but given the controversial nature of the topic, I think it quite likely. This does not mean we can not mention what this author says, but you need to present his conclusions as being his OPINION and not as accepted fact. You also need to weigh what he says against what other (academic) historians say. If they overwhelmingly disagree with his conclusions, then mentioning what he says would give his conclusions UNDUE weight. Blueboar (talk) 13:32, 10 November 2019 (UTC)
These are the informations from doctoral dissertation (Zagreb, 2013.) I quote: "Hum and Travunja until the second half of the 12th c. were ruled by Catholic rulers and west Christianity was the only confession in this region (southern and eastern Herzegovina), "Orthodoxy during the rule of Serbian rulers did not take root more deeply in Hum", "During all this time, the danger of the spread of Orthodoxy threatened from the East, which is especially strong in the late 12th and 13th century. for the reigns of the Nemanjic dynasty." "Pope Clement VI in 1335 addresses to Stefan Uroš IV Dušan and request him to stop the persecution and that to the bishop of Kotor which is responsible for Roman Catholic Diocese of Trebinje return monasteries, churches, islands and villages, which some kings of Raška before him overtook." "At the same time, as Catholic church buildings are being demolished, Orthodox monasteries are erupting which had not existed in the area of Trebinje and Hum before the Turkish conquest." "During 16th c. Orthodox monasteries were established in the territory of Herzegovina: Tvrdos, Zavala and Žitomislić." "Although historians of the Orthodox Church, the construction of individual monasteries in the territory of Herzegovina dates to the Middle Ages, that is, before the Turkish conquest, such claims we do not find in historical sources" "About the situation in the diocese a few years later, writes Ambrose Gučetić first bishop of Trebinje who visited the diocese under Turkish rule after a long time, His report from the beginning of the 17th c. shows an almost hopeless state of dioceses." "J. Mancinelli in the early 17th c. wrote that because of the lack of Catholic priests, the people in the area of the Diocese of Trebinje were convert to orthodoxy(source in Latin) The Franciscan Blaž of Graz in his report of 1624. will accuse the Congregation of Rome of converting Catholics on Islam and Orthodoxy( source M. JAČOV, Spisi Kongregacije) "Archbishop of Dubrovnik, who wrote to Cardinal Vice-Prefect of the Congregation Antony Barberini in 1640 about the situation in the Diocese of Trebinje, why "many Catholics become schismatic/orthodox) or embrace Islam"( source: Vescovato di Tribigne, e Mercana vi sono molti Schismatici, e Catolici insieme, e per penuria di buoni Parodii molti Catolici diventano Schismatici, o si fanno Turchi…, M. JAČOV, Spisi Kongregacije) " Since the number of Orthodox priests in the Diocese of Trebinje was significantly higher than the Catholic ones, of which there were few or no, it is not at all surprising that young people attend their rites ( source:Non vi sono nè preti, nè Frati Cattolici, nè monasterij, se non due dell'Ord[in]e di S[an] Basilio Greci scismatici, uno è in Trebigni di 40 frati incirca, e l'altro in Savala in Popovo ancora dell'istesso numero...“ M.JAČOV,Le missioni…, vol. II., 672.) etc, etc..(there is more historical information) This is not based on Krunoslav Draganovic's book but facts are same and conclusions is same( doctoral dissertation) I don't understand what the problem is, it's historical facts? Whether this is Wikipedia or someone's private portal?[6] Mikola22 (talk) 15:10, 10 November 2019 (UTC)

I have to ask at this point, exactly what is this all being used for?Slatersteven (talk) 15:16, 10 November 2019 (UTC)

This was not used for anything, this is proof that source from 1937(Krunoslav Draganović) and 2013 (doctoral dissertation) have the same conclusion and they are not "propagandists" or "fascist" how Serbian editors want to show them. The problem is that the historical data is presented and talks about Orthodox Croats and transition to Orthodoxy. Someone does not like it and deletes that information, so please help me get that information back "Croatian Orthodox Church" [7] Mikola22 (talk) 16:11, 10 November 2019 (UTC)
OK, do any of these sources actually say that the Croatian Orthodox church existed before 1942, quote for that statement please.Slatersteven (talk) 16:16, 10 November 2019 (UTC)
I have information about Orthodox Croats or Croats and Catholics who converted to Orthodoxy. Does this belong to the this Wiki article? Mikola22 (talk) 16:24, 10 November 2019 (UTC)

References

  1. ^ https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sokollu_Mehmed_Pasha
  2. ^ https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shtokavian
  3. ^ Okuka (2008:16)
  4. ^ Okuka (2008:17)
  5. ^ {{Dijana Pinjuh VJERSKE PRILIKE KOD KATOLIKA U HERCEGOVINI (OD TURSKOG OSVAJANJA DO KONCA 17. STOLJEĆA) Doktorska disertacija https://repozitorij.hrstud.unizg.hr/islandora/object/hrstud:1512/preview }}
  6. ^ https://repozitorij.hrstud.unizg.hr/islandora/object/hrstud:1512/preview
  7. ^ https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Croatian_Orthodox_Church
That is not the same thing.Slatersteven (talk) 16:55, 10 November 2019 (UTC)

What is actually Wikipedia?

I made a proposal in the article which talking about Sokollu Mehmed Pasha for deleting information that he is Serbian origin because there is no historical document that speaks of him as a Serbian. Answer on the talk page I quote: "Competely irrelevant. Even if there are no documents written during his life talking about his roots that does not mean a thing. THere is a ton of events and people on which we do not have sources from their life and time. Sadkσ (talk is cheap)" So there is an article on Wikipedia that speaks that he has Serbian origin, although there is no historical document which proves that he is Serbian? (Talk:Sokollu_Mehmed_Pasha#Deleting_the_data_concerning_the_origin_of_Sokollu_Mehmed_Pasha.) I know that nobody trusts Wikipedia as a source of information and i tried to change that but this is amazing. I have no words for this. Thanks Wikipedia for the relevant information. Mikola22 (talk) 16:53, 10 November 2019 (UTC)

We do not need historical documents, we need RS saying it.Slatersteven (talk) 16:59, 10 November 2019 (UTC)
Thanks for RS which says that he is Serbian origin. Maybe I will one day in the future according to RS become Sokollu_Mehmed_Pasha. Anything is possible in the future. Thank you Wikipedia for this information otherwise we would never know some things. Mikola22 (talk) 17:15, 10 November 2019 (UTC)
Well I doubt any source that claims you are a reincarnated 16thC Ottoman statesman is ever going to be found to be RS. But anything is possible.Slatersteven (talk) 17:19, 10 November 2019 (UTC)
  • The statement you seem to object to has seven sources: Sokollu's birth name was probably Bajica,[4][5] and he was of ethnic Serb origin.[1][2][3][4][5][6][7]

References

  1. ^ Malcolm, Noel (1994). Bosnia: A Short History. New York: New York University Press. p. 46. ISBN 978-0-8147-5520-4. {{cite book}}: Invalid |ref=harv (help)
  2. ^ Hastings, Adrian (1997). The Construction of Nationhood: Ethnicity, Religion and Nationalism. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. p. 132. ISBN 978-0-52162-544-9. {{cite book}}: Invalid |ref=harv (help)
  3. ^ Gilles Veinstein (1997). "Sokollu Mehmed Pasha". In Clifford Edmund Bosworth (ed.). The Encyclopaedia of Islam. Vol. 9 (2nd ed.). Leiden: Brill Publishers. pp. 706–7. ISBN 9789004104228.
  4. ^ Ana S. Trbovich (2008). A Legal Geography of Yugoslavia's Disintegration. Oxford: Oxford University Press. p. 69. ISBN 9780195333435.
  5. ^ Emine Fetvacı (2013). "Sokollu Mehmed Pasha's Career". Picturing History at the Ottoman Court. Bloomington, Indiana: Indiana University Press. p. 102. ISBN 9780253006783.
  6. ^ İlber Ortaylı (2006). Osmanlı'yı Yeniden Keşfetmek [Rediscovering the Ottoman Empire] (in Turkish). Istanbul: Timaş Yayınları. p. 119. Sokullu Mehmet Paşa ... Sırp asıllı bir ruhban ailesinden gelir.
  7. ^ Peter Bartl (1985). Grundzüge der jugoslawischen Geschichte [Basics of the Yugoslav History] (in German). Darmstadt: Wissenschaftliche Buchgesellschaft. p. 38. ISBN 9783534080823. des serbischstämmigen Großvezirs Mehmed Pascha Sokolli
Can you be more specific about what you find objectionable about them? They seem reliable to me, and those authors seem to think there's sufficient evidence that he's of ethnic Serbian origin, even if you disagree. It sounds like you're just saying you think they're wrong (eg. that they misstate or overstate the evidence), which isn't meaningful unless you can produce sources of comparable weight contradicting them. Or do you think those sources, themselves, are being misrepresented in the article? (I haven't checked what they say; it might be worth checking some to be sure.) But "all these sources are unreliable because I think they're wrong" is going to be a hard sell, at the very least. --Aquillion (talk) 18:46, 10 November 2019 (UTC)
First and most importantly there is no original historical document which refer to him as a Serb. There is information from the American historian which is based on archival records that he is caught in Croatia. Harold Lamb states in the book "Suleiman the Magnificent" that for Sokolli record shows that he was a captive at the age of eleven and that is coming from Croats and that he retained the grim Croat as the minister of his empire all his life.[1] As for these sources in which is stating that he is a Serb I can't read why they claim it because sources has not a direct link. 1. Noel Malcolm. Bosnia: A Short History. Recent history is discussed here and I guess that information was taken from someone without research. 2. The Construction of Nationhood: Ethnicity, Religion and Nationalism. By Adrian Hastings. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1997. This is book of some kind nationalism so it is not explored here either origin of Mehmed Pasha 3. The Encyclopaedia of Islam. Probably a conclusion based on the Orthodox faith, I do not see that there would be any concrete evidence 4. Ana S. Trbovich (2008). A Legal Geography of Yugoslavia's Disintegration. Oxford: Oxford University Press. p. 69. ISBN 9780195333435. We we don’t need speak about Yugoslav themes or Serbian historians because there is no evidence here except on the basis of first and last name or religion. 5. Emine Fetvacı (2013). "Sokollu Mehmed Pasha's Career". Picturing History at the Ottoman Court. Bloomington, Indiana: Indiana University Press. p. 102. ISBN 9780253006783. Here could be more specific information but again we have no documents that he is a Serb and some American historians like to quote Yugoslav historians 6. İlber Ortaylı (2006). Osmanlı'yı Yeniden Keşfetmek [Rediscovering the Ottoman Empire] (in Turkish). Istanbul: Timaş Yayınları. p. 119. Sokullu Mehmet Paşa ... Sırp asıllı bir ruhban ailesinden gelir. We should see on what basis a Turkish source concludes that he is Serb, if the American historian concludes that he is Croatian and Turkish that he is Serbian, we should see this source, but there is still no original record that he is a Serb. 7. Peter Bartl (1985). Grundzüge der jugoslawischen Geschichte [Basics of the Yugoslav History] (in German). Darmstadt: Wissenschaftliche Buchgesellschaft. p. 38. ISBN 9783534080823. des serbischstämmigen Großvezirs Mehmed Pascha Sokolli. This is based on Yugoslav history and it is not relevant. Mikola22 (talk) 20:03, 10 November 2019 (UTC)
At last a vaguely respectable source, yes it says he was a croat, but its one source. But its enough to say he may have been a croat.Slatersteven (talk) 20:18, 10 November 2019 (UTC)
Turkish archive says that he comes from Croats not from Croatia which would mean that he comes from a place where Croats live. We have only one source for his place of birth and that is "in or near Sokolovići (tr. Sokol) in the vicinity of modern-day Rudo.( Imamović, Mustafa (1996). Historija Bošnjaka. History of Bosniaks) so we don't know exactly where he came from. However, in this area or a little to the south, Turkish sources are also recorded Croats, especially towards eastern Herzegovina and Montenegro. In southern Serbia(Sandžak) they are also mentioned. If those facts are not known and obviously they are not known then we can understand why some Historian thinks without proof that he is Serbian. Because historians did not investigate concrete history of that area. However, there is still no evidence that Mehmed Pasha has Serbian origin even if he is Croat Mikola22 (talk) 20:59, 10 November 2019 (UTC)
And for the last time read wp:v and wp:or, we go with what RS say, not our own researches. We have RS that say he was a Serb, so we say it as well. It may need attribution, but we still say it.Slatersteven (talk) 10:12, 11 November 2019 (UTC)

References

  1. ^ Suleiman The Magnificent Sultan Of The East, by Harold Lamb, Publication date 1951, https://archive.org/details/suleimanthemagni001564mbp/page/n327 #page= 53,311

Church Militant

Church Militant (website) is a website founded by Michael Voris dedicated to Traditional Catholic point-of-view. I've rarely seen it used on Wikipedia and the few times I've used it myself (such as here) is only to cite the views that Voris and like-minded individuals have and never to back up key information or statistics in an article. None the less I find some of the articles on this website highly problematic and was wondering if it should be listed as an unreliable source on the list found at Wikipedia:Reliable sources/Perennial sources#Sources.

In this article published by the website, the writer intentionally twists data on a Pew Poll to exagerate the data that Muslim support for ISIS. In this article the author claims that Eugenio Scalfari has proven that Pope Francis rejects the divinity of Jesus, probably one of the most ludicrous things to say about the head of the largest Christian denomination. These (1 2 3 etc.) all exagerate James Martin (priest, born 1960) activism for LGBT individuals. This article markes speculative accusations that Howard Hubbard promotted a ring of Gay priest, and then uses sexual abuse allegations as supposed proof of their earlier claims.

In additoin there is well documented evidence (1 2 3 4) of Church Militant twisting facts and stories to promote its traditonlist Catholic views. Given this and other evidence, I think that it is only fair to say that Church Militant is an unreliable citation and should be listed as such at Wikipedia:Reliable sources/Perennial sources#Sources so that new editors who perhaps are not familiar with WP:RS will know not to use it. Thanks Inter&anthro (talk) 21:15, 7 November 2019 (UTC)

There are almost no links to it anywhere on Wikipedia. Is this really enough of a problem to warrant listing it as a "perennial source"? ‑ Iridescent 21:31, 7 November 2019 (UTC)
I agree that Church Militant is a completely unreliable source that should never be used on Wikipedia. It is not an organization with a reputation for factual reporting, but a fringe extremist group that seeks to cause as much controversy as possible. It should be fully deprecated and banned from ever being used as a source on Wikipedia. --PluniaZ (talk) 22:18, 8 November 2019 (UTC)
I say the same about this that I do about LSN. It should not be used to report on facts, especially when those facts are controversial, but claims made by people through Church Militant should not be excluded. Display name 99 (talk) 22:21, 8 November 2019 (UTC)
I agree with Display name 99 wholeheartedly on this point. gnu57 04:21, 11 November 2019 (UTC)

Regional editions of The Sun

Should regional editions of The Sun (RSP entry), including The Scottish Sun (Scotland; thescottishsun.co.uk HTTPS links HTTP links) and The Irish Sun (Republic of Ireland; thesun.ie HTTPS links HTTP links), be treated similarly to the main UK edition of The Sun (thesun.co.uk HTTPS links HTTP links)? Are there differences in editorial quality between the editions?

This discussion is a continuation of WT:RSP § The Irish Sun. — Newslinger talk 08:02, 9 November 2019 (UTC)

I think we'd need evidence to show that it was in any way different. Otherwise we can assume they're the same, and treat them as such. Andy Dingley (talk) 15:34, 9 November 2019 (UTC)
Agreed, which for me means deprecating.Slatersteven (talk) 15:52, 9 November 2019 (UTC)
I concur - do they even have different newsrooms? - David Gerard (talk) 18:30, 9 November 2019 (UTC)
Yes. Glasgow and Dublin. Different editors too. Although much of the content is syndicated. They're probably better papers (could hardly be worse), but not so that it matters. Andy Dingley (talk) 19:45, 9 November 2019 (UTC)
humm, ok. We might have to consider them separately from The Sun in some ways then ... though they're still The Sun ... - David Gerard (talk) 00:16, 10 November 2019 (UTC)
Newslinger, The Scottish Sun is technically The Rain. I've been there. I don't see any evidence the newspaper is any different, mind. Guy (help!) 16:53, 9 November 2019 (UTC)
The Scottish Sun is effectively the English version with a few local interest stories added (most of the content is the same) and therefore should be similarly deprecated. I have no experience of the Irish version. Black Kite (talk) 18:44, 11 November 2019 (UTC)

The Sun being used for content on living people again

From an IP user on my talk page:

> Hi Sorry to bother you. I'm a casual user who has been editing for a while learning rules from other users. I am a fan of I'm A Celebrity and the new series is coming up in a week or so. Right now, The Sun has put out a list of the purported Starting 10 and there is a user who is using it as a source for a confirmed list. The celebrities have not all arrived in Australia now and already there is a surprise celebrity who has arrived not on the Sun List (Andrew Maxwell). I reverted the edit and we raised the source asking for them to wait for the confirmation by ITV whose Press pack will most likely come out this week. He cited me for vandalism, and said that the Sun and Metro had the confirmed lineup even if there is already a deviation. he's trying to semi protect the page. Could you possibly take a look at I'm A Celebrity Series 19 page or perhaps give me a bit of advice on handling these editors. I'm just going from past experience with pages like this and I also noted that you were reverting edits with sources from The Sun, so I thought I would try to talk to you. Thanks!!!96.20.110.32 (talk) 23:59, 10 November 2019 (UTC) samusek2

I suggested they come here, but then thought I should probably post it here myself.

So ... overenthusiastic users using The Sun as a source for content on living people - a thing The Sun SHOULD NEVER be used for - even though I believe it's in an edit filter.

I am unclear at what point one would advocate adding a deprecated site to the spam blacklist, but this sure feels to me like it's heading in that direction for thesun.co.uk - David Gerard (talk) 12:49, 11 November 2019 (UTC)

  • Are there any RS sources for this? Radio Times? If not, then should we be covering this at all?
I can see the argument, "We would have to use a tabloid, it's the only source that covers the topic." But is the answer there to lower the sourcing bar, or to prune content? Andy Dingley (talk) 17:21, 11 November 2019 (UTC)

No we should not, depreciate the crap out of it.Slatersteven (talk) 17:26, 11 November 2019 (UTC)

Just reverted another one. There are thousands of these - do we need to remove them all before a request at MediaWiki Talk:Spam-blacklist, as the instructions seem to say? I also asked in passing on User talk:XLinkBot/RevertList - David Gerard (talk) 18:41, 11 November 2019 (UTC)
d'oh, it's already on the xlinkbot list! - David Gerard (talk) 19:14, 11 November 2019 (UTC)

Can someone keep an eye on List of Emmerdale characters? There's a username and a rotating series of IPs that keep making the same edit adding The Sun as a cite - David Gerard (talk) 21:47, 11 November 2019 (UTC)

Benjamin Weinthal

Are articles written by Benjamin Weinthal RS? He is referred 95 times on en.wp, I came across him on the Sarah Leah Whitson, where he has written very critically of her.

He is "research fellow" (link) at Foundation for Defense of Democracies, and a journalist (link) at the The Jerusalem Post. Also a writer for Aish HaTorah, (link) Unfortunately none of these places reveal anything about his qualifications (like education, academic degrees, etc).

His statement “You have to exaggerate to get these ideas across, because they don’t understand what contemporary anti-Semitism is, many of them,” (link) makes me wonder if we should use him, at all, on wp, especially regarding BLPs.

Comments? Huldra (talk) 23:33, 9 November 2019 (UTC)

I don't think he meets WP:SPS, so reliability would depend on where he was published. Furthermore, what's the evidence that he said this? As far as I can tell it has circulated on various pro-Arab media websites. It's a serious allegation for BLP. Fiamh (talk, contribs) 01:49, 12 November 2019 (UTC)

David Eugene Smith on prehistoric ratio concepts

Dr. Smith is cited in the Ratio article in support of the thesis that

…the idea of one village being twice as large as another is so basic that it would have been understood in prehistoric society.

The reference is to Smith, David Eugene (1958) [1925]. History of Mathematics. Vol. 2. Dover. p. 477. While Dr. Smith was an authority on mathematics education, I find nothing to warrant this anthropological claim. Most pages of his book have abundant footnotes (I count 13 on one page), but the particular passage cited, which refers to the sizes of tribes and the lengths of straps, has none whatever. He claims, without argument, that ideas of ratio "are such as would develop early in the history of the race"—this seems an off-the-cuff opinion with no support from the fields in which Dr. Smith was expert. May I delete the claim from the Ratio article?

Peter Brown (talk) 21:19, 9 November 2019 (UTC)

Peter M. Brown, I doubt that an off the cuff remark in a century-old publication could meet WP:DUE. Fiamh (talk, contribs) 01:50, 12 November 2019 (UTC)

Opinions sought on two websites

In this edit, information sourced to https://www.angloboerwar.com/ and http://www.roll-of-honour.com/ was added to a featured article. I am seeking opinions on the reliability of these two sites, particularly in terms of the standards generally expected for a featured article. Thanks. Factotem (talk) 18:44, 11 November 2019 (UTC)

  • Analysis of sites:
    • Anglo Boer War (angloboerwar.com): Self-published source. According to the home page, "This site is run by volunteers" who are anonymous. There is no indication of how the authors determined the details that are listed in the cited page. This site would not be an appropriate citation for any article, much less a featured article.
    • Roll of Honour (roll-of-honour.com): Copyright violation. The link in the diff is to a transcription of pages 229+ of "Absent-Minded Beggars" by William Bennett, a book published by Pen and Sword Books in 1999. We should never link to copyright violations, per WP:COPYLINK, but we are allowed to cite the original book. Bennett's book looks reliable, but I'm not knowledgeable enough about the subject matter to determine whether it's a source suitable for a featured article.
I see that these two domains were also added to the article's External links section. WP:ELMAYBE states that "Sites that fail to meet criteria for reliable sources yet still contain information about the subject of the article from knowledgeable sources" are "to be considered", but I don't think these domains meet the standard to be included as external links, either. — Newslinger talk 22:55, 11 November 2019 (UTC)
The first source is obviously unacceptable. Pen & Sword is probably OK for non-controversial information; it is a mid-range historical press (but not as good as academic histories). However, the content would have to be verified against the book. Fiamh (talk, contribs) 01:53, 12 November 2019 (UTC)
The first one is definitely not a RS. As far as the second is concerned, we shouldn't link to a copyvio, but a citation to the book is fine, as a publisher Pen and Sword are also fine, especially for something as basic as order of battle information. Peacemaker67 (click to talk to me) 02:29, 12 November 2019 (UTC)
Thank you everyone. You've confirmed my suspicions, and I reverted the edit in question. The info sourced indirectly to Bennett was already sourced elsewhere. Much appreciated. Factotem (talk) 08:55, 12 November 2019 (UTC)

Explanation of the neutral point of view

"Editors, while naturally having their own points of view, should strive in good faith to provide complete information, and not to promote one particular point of view over another" Article about Serbs from Croatia[1] I quote: "According to Srđa Trifković, by the mid-14th century Serbs were present around Klis and Skradin in central and northern Dalmatia, and by the 15th century in the entire region of Knin with villages Golubić, Padjene and Polača there was an Orthodox majority" We do not have any historical data on the Serbs in that area and those places. But this fact is on Wikipedia, although there is no historical data to prove it. Where are RS, where are "good faith to provide complete information" "Instead, try to rewrite the passage or section to achieve a more neutral tone." What should i write? When I write that Vlachs were originally mentioned in the area(history books, historians, original records) then the answer is that it has nothing to do with the Serbs in the article, or that it was original research? Then what is this information without concrete evidence that exists on Wikipedia? Information that is read by the whole world and does not have any original document as evidence. We have this information as well, I quote: Serbian source, "A letter of Emperor Ferdinand, sent on 6 November 1538, to Croatian ban Petar Keglević, in which he wrote "Captains and dukes of the Rasians, or the Serbs, or the Vlachs, who are commonly called the Serbs"" Book of Croatian historians has original record(letter) I quote: " King Ferdinand in November 6, 1538. writes a letter to Petar Keglević "te in hoc, quod capitanei et woyvode Rasciani sive Servian! atque Valachi, quos vulgo Zytschy (Cici) vocant, cum eorum subditis et adherentibus fidem devotionemque" in which he mentions "Rascians or the Serbs!" "And Vlachs!" (who are commonly called the Ćići ). Is this in good faith and with relevant source? One historical document and two translations. The Serbian source is without the original record(letter) and we can guess who is lying. But nothing is changing and that fact(RS) it is still on Wikipedia. Etc, etc.. Mikola22 (talk) 12:38, 11 November 2019 (UTC)

It was explained to you several times before, we can´t use primary sources (eg. 16th century document) to support some POV/interpretation. Find high quality secondary source (a book by renowned historian, paper in respected peer reviewed journal) and use its POV to balance the article. So, if that "book of croatian historians" is such high quality source I mentioned, it may be added to the article. If there are two major points of view, both should be mentioned and attributed. If one POV has broad support in reliable sources and the another only minor, it should be reflected in the coverage of both POVs in the article (due weight). Pavlor (talk) 06:51, 12 November 2019 (UTC)
Did I tell? When I use the books of Croatian historians as evidence and start writing about Vlachs, this is deleted because it is an article about Serbs. We have a Wikipedia article on Vlachs in Croatia[2] In this article about Vlachs is 90% written history of Serbs from Croatia. How to put it all in the part of the other article(history) who talks about Serbs from Croatia? The answer of some editor is that has nothing to do with Serbs. Historical records for Vlachs are used by some Serbian historians as RS for history of Serbs, and that's proof(RS) is on Wikipedia for the history of the Serbs although the original documents do not speak about Serbs. Mikola22 (talk) 11:08, 12 November 2019 (UTC)

References

  1. ^ https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Serbs_of_Croatia
  2. ^ https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vlachs_in_the_history_of_Croatia

Sources for the flag of the Kingdom of Abkhazia

In my opinion there are no sources supporting the inclusion of this flag in the article on the Kingdom of Abkhazia of 8-10 centuries CE. The discussion took place Talk:Kingdom_of_Abkhazia#Map,_flag,_coat_of_arms here and it has reached an impasse. The two sources that have been provided are the following two maps:

These maps were created in 14-15 centuries and in my opinion cannot be used as sources for the flag of an entity that existed in 8-10 centuries. Would be great to get a third opinion on this. Alaexis¿question? 15:43, 12 November 2019 (UTC)

I see article talk page discussion goes nowhere. Request a reliable source (f heraldry.ge is based on user submited content without editorial oversight, then it is not a RS - can´t judge it right now). If there is none, simply remove the flag. Pavlor (talk) 06:56, 13 November 2019 (UTC)

The Guardian

This newspaper has an inherent left wing bias in all it's articles, It's op-ed pieces are often anti-semetic. Why is it considered as a reliable source for anything?80.0.45.128 (talk) 00:29, 21 October 2019 (UTC)

The Guardian is covered at WP:RS/P. - SummerPhDv2.0 00:54, 21 October 2019 (UTC)
  • Here's a list of awards received by The Guardian and a list of past discussions on The Guardian's reliability. Do you have any specific examples that would support your claims against The Guardian's reliability? — Newslinger talk 00:58, 21 October 2019 (UTC)
  • The Guardian is an eminently RS. Apparently offense has been taken that it accurately describes Milo Yiannopoulos as "Far Right". -- BullRangifer (talk) 01:31, 21 October 2019 (UTC)
  • WP:RS is about having a reputation for fact-checking and accuracy, not about being unbiased. A source simply having a perspective you find objectionable isn't sufficient to make it unreliable; see WP:BIASED. The question when dealing with such sources (and I'm not sure the Guardian would even qualify as such relative to news media as a whole) is whether its perspective or bias influences its reporting. There's a huge difference between a source like The Guardian that simply has a particular perspective and one that (for instance) was created to advance a perspective or which systematically has that perspective disseminated from above by a set of daily talking points as at Fox News; and even then, there's a difference between sources that work to advance a particular agenda (but do so 'fairly', ie. by reporting the news as it happens, if with a slant or with selective focus), and sources like the Daily Mail that just outright make stuff up, report stories with gross distortions, and otherwise don't exhibit the fact-checking and accuracy that WP:RS requires. --Aquillion (talk) 06:49, 21 October 2019 (UTC)
So? as has been said multiple times. BIas is not a reason for exclusion, if it was Fox would be banned, its not.Slatersteven (talk) 08:43, 21 October 2019 (UTC)
  • I almost feel that we ought to clarify that policy a bit to make a division between sources that have a clearly identifiable perspective (which to some extent all sources have, though they differ in how much it influences their tone and how much effort they make to erase it from their coverage), and sources that are intentionally biased, ie. they get daily memos from above telling them how to slant their news or were created with the intention of influencing politics. Currently WP:BIASED lumps the two together in a way that is somewhat misleading - the former are far more reliable than the latter and, when high-quality, generally do not require in-line citations, whereas the latter should be avoided. The Guardian, obviously, falls into the former camp; they have a perspective, yes, but there's no indication that they push it in any formalized way. While it's true that you could technically describe both Fox and The Guardian as biased, there is a substantial difference - Fox's bias is formalized and part of its institutional mission, which is a much more serious issue. (And I don't mean to make this just about Fox - it's also a major issue when people try to use think tanks as sources, citing WP:BIASED. Yes, they're sometimes usable, but a think tank generally exists to advance a particular perspective, so they have to be used far more cautiously than a source that lacks institutionalized bias. In particular it can be presumed that sources with such bias will often omit or downplay details unflattering to their position, even if they are fully-reliable otherwise.) --Aquillion (talk) 20:27, 3 November 2019 (UTC)

All bias media sources, Fox included should not be used as a RS for any project such as this. If a source is not centre and independent, then you cannot trust what they are reporting is true, or what facts are being ommitted to suit the bias of their articles. But if this is how wikipedia works then so be it. It will continue to be a joke in scholarly circles. Kind Regards J 80.0.45.128 (talk) 22:31, 21 October 2019 (UTC)

Wikipedia (RSP entry) is not a reliable source, and I would certainly hope that no academic publication directly uses content from Wikipedia, except for the purpose of studying or quoting Wikipedia itself. All readers are advised to exercise due diligence when using Wikipedia for research.

On media bias, our neutral point of view policy requires us to balance biased sources with sources representing other perspectives in proportion to their due weight. "Neutrality requires that each article or other page in the mainspace fairly represents all significant viewpoints that have been published by reliable sources, in proportion to the prominence of each viewpoint in the published, reliable sources." (WP:DUE) The result is a neutral article not obtained by limiting ourselves to extremely neutral sources like the Associated Press (RSP entry) and Reuters (RSP entry), which would unnecessarily restrict our coverage, but by forming an accurate reflection of the world around us. — Newslinger talk 22:53, 21 October 2019 (UTC)

  • The Grauniad has a solid reputation for fact-checking and draws clear distinctions between news and editorial content. It has won many awards for high quality journalism. It is a reliable source. Guy (help!) 16:41, 23 October 2019 (UTC)
  • While I generally dislike the use of news media as a source, so long as we do allow that any news media source should be used as a reliable source, the Guardian should. And I say this as someone who has been quite critical of Guardian reportage on a couple of topics; for instance, the Guardian was quite credulous both in its publication of Wikileaks data and also its reiteration of poorly sourced information in China stories. However, with that said, the Guardian has much stronger fact checking, editoral standards and corrections policies than most other news outlets. No news outlet is perfect, and Wikipedia is definitely too dependent on them in general. But the Guardian should be one of the last outlets we walk away from, not the first. Simonm223 (talk) 14:33, 28 October 2019 (UTC)
  • The only thing I would simply be careful with on the Guardian is that they've taken a firm stance that climate change is real and they will fight disinformation related to it, so when it comes to how they write about climate change deniers/skeptics in terms of opinionated thoughts. eg if they started saying "This idiot John Q Smith thinks that a 1.5degC rise is normal.", we'd be very careful in repeating that on WP (best I know, they haven't done anything like that). Otherwise an RS. --Masem (t) 14:38, 28 October 2019 (UTC)
  • It's not the question of whether CC is real or not, its how they would treat those that deny it with derogatory language because of the Guardian's firm stance to support that climate change exists. They can call people climate change deniers/etc. just fine, just that if they stoop to more derogatory terms, that's part of this "bias" and we should avoid including. --Masem (t) 02:23, 29 October 2019 (UTC)
  • No, that argument is completely unworkable. By your logic we could never call anyone WP:FRINGE because by definition anyone calling them fringe has taken a "firm stance" representing the mainstream position. If we consider simply rejecting a fringe theory to make a source WP:BIASED, then by definition all mainstream sources are biased and WP:BIASED loses all meaning. --Aquillion (talk) 09:10, 12 November 2019 (UTC)
@Masem:, I don't believe you that the news side of the Guardian said, "This idiot John Q Smith thinks that a 1.5degC rise is normal," or anything remotely similar. Link, or it never happened. Mathglot (talk) 03:18, 29 October 2019 (UTC)
That was a hypothetical. I have never seen, nor would expect the Guardian to go there with a statement like that. But if they ever should, we should be careful of how to use that.--Masem (t) 04:02, 29 October 2019 (UTC)
  • @Masem:, the only other area I'd recommend caution is agricultural topics with the Guardian, as they don't have a great reputation for fact checking there or go too far into sensationalism (compared to say NPR that has a better track record) That's a little different than what you're bringing up, but in both cases, it wouldn't be a WP:SCIRS source and should have limited usage at best anyways. For this overall conversation, it's probably best for people to acknowledge it's not always a blanket reliable source, but the exceptions can be subject dependent or where source advocacy might go too far as you bring up. Too nebulous to discus further though except on a case by case basis. Kingofaces43 (talk) 23:20, 7 November 2019 (UTC)

As far as its op-ed pieces "often being antisemitic" is concerned, it's probably worth noting that Jonathan Freedland, "a leading liberal Zionist in the UK"[43], "was executive editor of the opinion section of The Guardian from May 2014 till early 2016"[44]. He and other Guardian journalists such as Jessoca Elgot also write, or have written, for The Jewish Chronicle.
As far as "all" its articles having a leftwing bias is concerned, writers from its list of contributors such as Max Hastings, Mark Lawson and Simon Jenkins might disagree.
      ←   ZScarpia   10:42, 7 November 2019 (UTC)

  • As a major national UK broadsheet newspaper, The Guardian is undoubtedly a WP:RS, as is The Daily Telegraph (aka Daily Torygraph) and The Times. But these latter two also have an equal and opposite right-wing slant to their content. Are we to dismiss these sources as well? I think, instead, that we have answered the original question and should accept them equally as  high quality sources. Nick Moyes (talk) 10:07, 12 November 2019 (UTC)
    I'd categorize it as "generally reliable" and look for corroborating RS to cite along with it. We are still dealing with a news source, not an academic or historic retrospective; therefore, in an effort to avoid instability and ongoing challenges over the material we add, exercise caution and find at least 2 other RS for back-up. Atsme Talk 📧 12:05, 13 November 2019 (UTC)
    Atsme, more sources is always a good thing, but The Guardian is RS on its own. Its reputation for fact checking and news gathering is as high as any. Spelling, not so much. Guy (help!) 12:54, 13 November 2019 (UTC)

The Guardian on Hong Kong protests

Is this Guardian article 'Society is suffering': Hong Kong protests spark mental health crisis a reliable source for citing that at least nine suicides have been linked to the 2019 Hong Kong protests? feminist (talk) 14:19, 31 October 2019 (UTC)

Might be best to attribute it, but yes.Slatersteven (talk) 14:20, 31 October 2019 (UTC)
  • Yes, this is good RS. Does not require explicit attribution, except saying something like "reported/reportedly" to not be in WP voice. My very best wishes (talk) 17:15, 31 October 2019 (UTC)
  • Reliable. I would attribute this to The Guardian since I don't see other sources explicitly corroborating the "at least nine" figure. Most sources acknowledge the suicides without providing a number. — Newslinger talk 03:39, 1 November 2019 (UTC)
  • Not in this instance, no. The article says "Since June, protesters have tracked at least nine cases of suicides that appear to be directly linked to the demonstrations." (Emphasis added). Well I mean I sure don't trust what "the protesters" say. We can't, much as we support them; their job is to make the government look oppressive, not be pedantic with their facts, and important job it is. It's just not a job that fills our needs.
The Guardian then turns this into "Nine suicides have been linked...". They don't say by whom. So that moves it a bit away from pointing out that original source is going to be very biased.
And then they have "Public health advocates, NGOs and counsellors say the number of calls and threats of suicide they have received has increased..." (Emphasis added). Assuming that this is true and either The Guardian has had an independent fact checker call these people (using the reporters notes) OR they have a vigorously enforced "get your facts wrong three times and you're fired" (or whatever) policy for their reporters -- and I don't know if either of those are true, but assuming -- a bunch of calls and threats does not equal nine people dead. Ditto the Hong Kong U. study showing "It is not just the protesters who are at risk. A study by Hong Kong University released in July found nearly one in 10 were suffering from probable depression, as well as an increase in suicidal thoughts, from 1.1% at the start of this decade." One in ten of whom is not made clear, but it says "It is not just the protesters...", so I assume the population of Hong Kong generally, so we are still a long way from nine actual protestors dead.
And in fact and FWIW, the main interviewee of the story, Niko Cheng, also remains alive.
There is one -- one -- anecdote given: "Lo Hiu Yan, a 21-year-old piano student, who fell to her death from an apartment building on 29 June. She had written on a wall: 'Hong Kongers, we’ve protested for a long time, but we shouldn’t forget our faith. We must keep on'." OK. Even assuming that this is reported accurately, what are the names of the eight others and why are they not given in the article.
Don't get me wrong: I like The Guardian, in fact I look at it most days, and they are reliable for most facts and I've used them myself. And of course we all support the Hong Kong protestors. But The Guardian is not an utterly unbiased Fair Witness, I don't really trust Lily Kuo (the writer) and her editor to not have been a little loosey-goosey considering the subject, and the entire piece looks rather one-sided (did the reporter seek out an opposing view, anyone who might have said "well, we don't know if there are really nine people dead or if it's just a legend"). We don't want to pass along a Martin Šmíd type situation. Herostratus (talk) 10:50, 1 November 2019 (UTC)
  • Reliable - the Guardian is a reliable source end-of, in this case the figure should be attributed in the text but the sort of speculation above is personal opinion with no factual backup, imv Atlantic306 (talk) 20:33, 1 November 2019 (UTC)
Well, like anyone, I might be wrong or I might be right, or more probably somewhere in between. But to dismiss my work as unfounded speculation and uneducated opinion is not helpful to what we are trying to do here, and arguments by assertion is not how we are supposed to roll on this board. So far the vetting of this ref, in total, has come to:
1) "Yes" (for attributed use)
3) "Yes, this is good RS".
2) "Reliable" (for attributed use)
4) "Reliable -- the Guardian is a reliable source end-of-[story?]" (for attributed use)
5) My contribution, which I guess is "personal opinion with no factual backup" if you like. =/
It's not a headcount here. There's nothing wrong with chiming in with a quick one sentence personal assessment of one's considered belief about a publication in general, and we're busy and sometimes that's all we get. But it's not really enough. It's just the best we can do, mostly. But anyone who believes that a source is going to be correct in all instances, to a level of confidence that we can take it to the bank... well, there aren't many such publications, and The Guardian sure isn't one of them.
Attributed use is a cop out because this is not an opinion, a review, or an interpretation. Nine people are dead or else they're not. It's not a matter of "According to Pinkcney Pruddle, the play is actually a metaphor for the manufacturing of ice cream" or whatever.
It there was a good chance that the statement was true, that'd be different. But there isn't. It's at least reasonably possible that the statement is not true. In fact, if I had to bet, my guess at this point would be that it is probably not true. If it's true, what are the names. How can we not know the names. We know the names of the Nine Martyrs of England and Wales, the Nine Martyrs of Cyzicus, the nine victims of Charleston, and forth. What's different about these nine. Get me the names for starters and then we can talk. At any rate, "who knows, it might be true" is a pretty low standard for including statements of fact in the Wikipedia, it says here, even attributed inclusion. Herostratus (talk) 22:22, 1 November 2019 (UTC)
It is potentially a matter of interpretation, since whether a suicide is linked to the protests or not isn't necessarily unambiguous or clear-cut. And we can use in-line citations for statements of fact in situations like that - "CNN reported that..." and the like. This doesn't cast the figure into (much) doubt, but it makes it clear who is doing the counting. --Aquillion (talk) 23:27, 2 November 2019 (UTC)
  • The dispute, as I understand it, isn't over whether it's reliable, but where or how to cover it (which isn't really an WP:RS issue.) It can definitely be covered in the article text, although I might use in-line citations if nobody else is saying it or other estimates differ. But I'd object to listing it in the infobox, because that gives the impression that this is a concrete official death toll and that no other deaths occurred, which isn't really what the Guardian source says - this is one small facet of the topic, worth covering in the body, but not appropriate to put in the infobox on its own. --Aquillion (talk) 23:22, 2 November 2019 (UTC)
You understand wrong. I dispute that the source is reliable. Herostratus (talk) 00:53, 4 November 2019 (UTC)
  • I understand the question as , should we include content that appear on newspaper but in fact a direct quote. I would say generally no, but sometimes as a context, such quote may have a merit to add to wikipedia. Matthew hk (talk) 12:29, 5 November 2019 (UTC)
There's no quote. The Guardian itself says "Since June, protesters have tracked at least nine cases of suicides that appear to be directly linked to the demonstrations" and "The nine 'protest suicides' fuelled the early stage of the movement" (and, in the articles sub-heading, "Nine suicides have been linked to the wave of unrest"). No one is quoted.
So I guess the larger question is, how do we handle material that reported by a newspaper with no attribution to any individual person, and that probably isn't true? How is it helpful to the reader to throw stuff that probably isn't true into the mix, attributed or not? Could we say "According to The Guardian, the death of Martin Šmíd set off the Czech Revolution", even tho Martin Šmíd doesn't exist and never did? After all, we are not saying that he did. We're just reporting the true fact that The Guardian said that he did.
Except... that'd be misleading. We're not here to mislead the reader, is all.
How is the helpful to what we are trying to do here. And (in this case) can the reader go to the ref and figure out for herself it it true? She can't, beacause there's no evidence in the article. No one is quoted, no names are given, no documents are referenced, no investigation is done, only vague evidence is presented. (That'd not prove that those quotes or documents aren't lying for polemical reasons -- depends on who is quoted or what the documents are -- but at least it'd be something for crying out loud. we can rely on The Guardian to, almost surely, not make up people to quote or invent documents. The Guardian is reliable in that sense.)
I mean, just ugh. What is the point of all this. Person asked if the source was reliable for the fact. I vetted it and found that it isn't for this particular fact and demonstrated why. All I get is pushback with no actual counterargument. I get that the Hong Kong protesters are the good guys, but baseless propaganda for the good guys is still baseless propagands. Good grief.
Well I've made my point. It's the Wikipedia not the Herostratuspedia. If y'all want to print untrue things I can't stop you can I. Carry on. Herostratus (talk) 17:49, 6 November 2019 (UTC)
"According to The Guardian, the death of", We can totally rewrite as "the alleged death of Martin Šmíd, set off the Czech Revolution", and immediate after that describe Martin Šmíd actually not exist.
While for the context of HK protests, what i mean it should not be using Guardian as a valid RS for the context of number of deaths. But using the fact that people believe the alleged deaths and suicides are related to the police actions on the protesters as a context to explain the reasons of people still joining the protest, it seem fine. Also some guy OR that those people suicide, made their own political demo and showing they want to act like self-immolation, and then suicide, is still not related to the protest, seem a perfect example of "i don't like it" Matthew hk (talk) 11:24, 12 November 2019 (UTC)
Herostratus, if you're really concerned you can WP:ATT it to the Grauniad, but it would be OK to state in Wiki voice too, they are a reliable source and have no obvious dog in the fight. Guy (help!) 12:56, 13 November 2019 (UTC)
  • Those people who want to use the Guardian in this context are mis-attributing statements to the author which actually came from the protesters. It's not appropriate to fill the infobox. Simonm223 (talk) 19:02, 12 November 2019 (UTC)

The New Republic on Quillette

There's a dispute over these cites to this piece in The New Republic discussing a list of "antifa journalists" published on Quillette and ensuing fallout. To be clear, the New Republic piece in question is not and would not be the main source used in the paragraph about the list and its fallout, which is sourced to eg. CJR as well; this dispute is just over whether The New Republic should be used to add more to the section. For a summary of important context, Kim Kelly (the author of the New Republic piece in question) was one of the journalists listed on Quillette's list of antifa journalists; she says, in this piece, that that may have endangered her. (Quillette’s “Antifa Journalists” List Could’ve Gotten Me Killed is the headline.) What, if anything, is this source usable for? How does it compare in reliability to this piece in The Independent covering the same topic? (That is, should one or the other be used, both be used in summary, both used separately with in-line attribution, etc.) Is the Kelly piece usable at all, and, if so, for what parts of that edit removing it; one particular consideration might be which aspects require in-line attribution, which was already present for one of the removed bits but not further down. --Aquillion (talk) 01:08, 8 November 2019 (UTC)

With attribution I see no issue.Slatersteven (talk) 11:23, 8 November 2019 (UTC)
  • As I opined there, the Independent article is double-sourced and clearly identifies the difference between fact and opinion; the CJR article backs it up on the facts. There's no reason to doubt these sources. We can attribute the opinions in the Indie and state the facts as fact in Wiki voice or with attribution according to editorial judgment. Guy (help!) 17:07, 8 November 2019 (UTC)
This situation appears to have been one where a notable supervote enforced us having a discussion before inclusion - at which point the one dissenting voice decided not to participate having got what they wanted via said supervote. Simonm223 (talk) 14:09, 13 November 2019 (UTC)
  • Simply declaring that TNR is "not an acceptable source" is at best gross over-simplification. It's an opinion magazine, so I don't exactly look for a deluge of Pulitzers any time soon. But it's leagues away a more established publication than the likes of Quillette. GMGtalk 14:45, 13 November 2019 (UTC)

The Oracle

Is the newspaper publication written by the University of Florida in Tampa considered reliable? http://www.usforacle.com204.186.240.186 (talk) 00:13, 13 November 2019 (UTC)

Looking at contribs, the source appears to be this on Nader Tabsh, president of USF’s LGBT Pre-Health Alliance,[45] and this the proposed content, at LGBT rights in the United Arab Emirates.[46] - Ryk72 talk 01:05, 13 November 2019 (UTC)
Assuming I am correct about the source and content, I would say No; not reliable for statements of fact, per WP:INTERVIEWS & WP:RSCONTEXT. The statements about "torture and beatings" are a passing mention. - Ryk72 talk 01:08, 13 November 2019 (UTC)
Ryk72, I concur. Guy (help!) 15:53, 13 November 2019 (UTC)
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