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RFC: People Make Games

Which of the following best describes People Make Games's videos in the area of video games?

• Option 1: Generally reliable
• Option 2: Additional considerations apply
• Option 3: Generally unreliable
• Option 4: Deprecate

Loki (talk) 20:16, 17 January 2023 (UTC)

Survey (PMG)

• Option 1 People Make Games is reliable for video game journalism. They've been cited several times by multiple sources we consider reliable (including PC Gamer, Eurogamer, Polygon, Wired, and even the Washington Post somehow), and all their contributors are professional video game journalists. You can even see in the WaPo article (and other places) that they follow basic journalistic standards like asking their subjects for comment before publishing a story. Loki (talk) 20:16, 17 January 2023 (UTC)
• Option 1 They seem legit, given that other scrupulously reliable sources treat them as reliable. --Jayron32 12:53, 18 January 2023 (UTC)
• Option 1 for video-games journalism. They're a solid outlet, have broken at least one major story in that area, and are treated as reliable by other sources. ThadeusOfNazereth(he/him)^{Talk to Me!} 20:32, 23 January 2023 (UTC)
• Option 1 and I'm glad that people aren't dismissing them automatically because they're on YouTube. casualdejekyll 12:38, 25 January 2023 (UTC)

  So am I! Such a nice change of pace from normal, especially for those of us who remember how difficult it was to get consensus on Anthony Fantano's status as a "music critic." ThadeusOfNazereth(he/him)^{Talk to Me!} 18:29, 25 January 2023 (UTC)

• Option 2 as it appears to be a self-published source, but could be used with attribution as WP:EXPERTSPS. The authors are the publishers; there doesn't seem to be any fact checkers, editors, masthead, ethics policies, separation of news from opinion, etc. Just being cited alone doesn't make something an RS; this one is just not professional journalism, it's a well-respected blog, but it should be used only with attribution per EXPERTSPS. It's not like CNET or other professional publications. Levivich (talk) 18:37, 25 January 2023 (UTC)

  Not that I find too much fault with your logic, but it's a little funny that CNET is the example you give given, well, the discussion basically directly below this one :) ThadeusOfNazereth(he/him)^{Talk to Me!} 04:06, 26 January 2023 (UTC)

  Lol, true, that was the first tech publication that came to mind, but my mind is outdated ;-) Levivich (talk) 16:06, 26 January 2023 (UTC)

  I think it's important to note that while PMG is a small organization and doesn't have all those roles as separate people, it clearly does still have those roles. Its employees are all professional video games journalists and do clearly bring journalistic ethics with them in their role as PMG. So for instance, they do request comment from their subjects (implying some sort of ethics policy and also some sort of fact checking procedure), they do separate news from opinion (because they have no opinion section), they pretty clearly are treated as journalists by the industry (as shown by the many sources citing them, but also it's reasonably clear in the Nuclear Gandhi video that they are treated as journalists by games companies as well).

  An important thing to note here is that they're a journalism collective, somewhat like Bellingcat. They're not self-published because no individual journalist gets to publish their reporting alone: PMG as a whole organization is the publisher while the individual reporter is the author. If a story didn't pan out, it wouldn't get animated by their animator (and presumably the other members of the PMG team would also object to releasing it). Loki (talk) 17:32, 27 January 2023 (UTC)

  I disagree that having no opinion section means that they separate fact an opinion. That generally means the opposite, that fact and opinion share the same space in their content. This also means that use of People Make Games as a source should probably be attributed. Thebiguglyalien (talk) 18:37, 10 February 2023 (UTC)

  I'd add: Having those roles as separate people is kind of the whole point of having separation between reporters and editors. A group blog is a group blog, and sometimes acting ethically (e.g. requesting comment from their subjects) is not a substitute for not having an ethics policy. Being cited is not the same thing as "treated as journalists", and being treated as a journalist is not a substitute for being a journalist. Point-by-point, your response concedes that they do not meet any of the usual criteria for RS journalism (no separation of reporters and editors, no public written ethics policy, no separate fact checkers, no separate opinion section, no professional/credentialed journalists). Levivich (talk) 17:44, 12 February 2023 (UTC)

• Option 1 Washington Post uses them, so I'd support their reliability based on that. I've not seen anything to suggest otherwise. Oaktree b (talk) 17:04, 31 January 2023 (UTC)

  Not sure if I would use that as a reason to have it as option 1. If anyone it would be a reason to have Washington Post as option 2 or 3 in my view. Emir of Wikipedia (talk) 20:38, 2 February 2023 (UTC)

• Option 2 for use in the area of videogames. Emir of Wikipedia (talk) 20:36, 2 February 2023 (UTC)
• Oppose Option 4 and this "deprecation" system. Emir of Wikipedia (talk) 20:39, 2 February 2023 (UTC)
• Strong option 1 Option 2 Reliable for statements of fact in their area of expertise, however, extra caution should be advised for BLP material. Echoing others, I'm quite pleased at the open-mindedness of the comments. WP:RSP fundamentally exists to keep non-factual material out of our articles, but there's zero reason to be rigid about how we define what an RS can be. Thanks for offering this up for discussion, and I hope we see more of these kinds of outlets. DFlhb (talk) 23:06, 8 February 2023 (UTC); edited to add caution about BLP material; hadn't thought of that when writing my comment, and I agree that it's a valid concern 12:58, 17 February 2023 (UTC)
• Option 2. WP:SPS with no indication of a published editorial policy or editorial review. This would make it Option 3, but acknowledgement in major outlets should be sufficient for an exception. Thebiguglyalien (talk) 18:35, 10 February 2023 (UTC)
• Option 2. In agreement with Thebiguglyalien SolVerdict (talk) 01:07, 12 February 2023 (UTC)
• Option 2, I think they're fine to use within their area of expertise (games and game culture) but I would advise against using them alone for BLP info without attribution. Horse Eye's Back (talk) 16:59, 12 February 2023 (UTC)
• Option 2; Their citations in numerous reliable sources (there's a lot more if you search for them in Google News) demonstrate that they should be reliable for games and related topics (our own sources certainly seem to think so), but with it being unclear whether they're an expert self-published source or something closer to a traditional news organisation, I would echo the caution around BLP matters. twotwos (talk) 09:55, 18 February 2023 (UTC)

Discussion (PMG)

• As we describe on its page, Nuclear Gandhi is an urban legend that Gandhi in the original Civilization was particularly likely to nuke people because of a bug. However, it's come out recently that in fact such a bug did not exist, nor was Gandhi even particularly likely to use nukes, and that this was purely an urban legend the entire time. On the page, we cite this dodgy Russian-language source (translation) for several important claims about it.

However, the source we cite openly says it got this info from the People Make Games YouTube channel, in particular this video, which originally broke the story. And by all appearances this video is a very reliable source. People Make Games is staffed by professional video game journalists, including the one who broke this particular story, they've been cited by other sources we consider reliable (like PC Gamer, Eurogamer, Polygon, Wired, and even the Washington Post somehow) and the video itself contains multiple interviews with the developers themselves saying no such bug exists. In my opinion, PMG is about equal in reliability to Bellingcat for the specific area of video games, and for basically the same reasons.

Yet not only do we not cite the video here, we don't cite People Make Games anywhere, about anything, as far as I can tell. Even for stories that they broke, we always cite someone else just repeating what they said. I believe this is primarily because they publish in video format, on YouTube, rather than in text, and we don't consider "YouTube" reliable. I think this is a silly bias against video content that we'd never allow if PMG was a news channel, and I'm aiming with this RfC to establish that just because PMG publishes its investigations on YouTube, that doesn't mean they're unreliable. Loki (talk) 20:16, 17 January 2023 (UTC)

While I enjoy watching PMG, they are arguably a self-published source, and thus shouldn't be used as a directly cited source for non-self BLP claims, eg their allegations of abusive behaviour by indie developers. Hemiauchenia (talk) 20:22, 17 January 2023 (UTC)

Bellingcat is also arguably a self-published source, yet they're green on WP:RSP, and have absolutely been used for BLP claims before (e.g. they named several Russian intelligence officials involved in the Skripal poisoning). That's why I brought them up, to prove that we don't have a general policy against citizen journalism even in BLPs.

To be clear, I believe the actual situation in both these cases is that PMG/Bellingcat is the publisher and the particular journalist breaking the story is the author, making neither of them WP:SPS. (This is the same as the situation with, say, the NYT; if we said that every employee of an organization is that organization no source would be reliable.) One of the key distinctions between self-published and independent sources is that independent sources have organizational editorial standards, which both PMG and Bellingcat clearly do. Loki (talk) 20:43, 17 January 2023 (UTC)

Per Loki, what makes a self-published source self-published is the lack of a layer of editorial control between the writer and the publication of the information itself. People Make Games is not self-published; they appear to have an editorial staff and vet their stories as well as any other journalism organization. --Jayron32 12:56, 18 January 2023 (UTC)

People Make Games is a YouTube channel run by 3 people who all collaborate together, far less than the number of journalists working on Bellingcat, so I don't possibly see how it could satisfy having a layer of editorial control between the writer and the publication of the information itself. Most major scoops by PMG have been covered by regular video game journalism websites, so this is really moot anyway. Hemiauchenia (talk) 18:19, 18 January 2023 (UTC)

But the fact that they keep getting covered by regular video game journalism websites shows that other video game journalists consider them reliable, even despite their small size. And just because other sources frequently cover their work doesn't mean that we don't need to mark them reliable. So for instance, they did an interview with the creators of Blaseball that we ought to be able to quote from, even though to my knowledge it hasn't been cited elsewhere. Loki (talk) 02:51, 19 January 2023 (UTC)

Video game websites cover a lot of shit, frequently including stuff like Twitter posts.--Eldomtom2 (talk) 18:23, 20 January 2023 (UTC)

• Question Do they have a corrections policy? Do the follow it? Adoring nanny (talk) 21:08, 17 January 2023 (UTC)

  They don't have a website outside of YouTube and Patreon, so, as far as I can tell, not a published one. However, they have responded to criticism of their work before at length. Loki (talk) 22:42, 17 January 2023 (UTC)

• Comment Not sure why we need this source when Sid Meier himself has said this is a myth. But it's not the countless callbacks and references that make the nuclear Gandhi story so funny to me. It's the fact that none of it is true. The overflow error never happened at all. (Sid Meier's Memoir!: A Life in Computer Games p. 262) Although it did exist as an Easter Egg in Civ V. Geogene (talk) 18:14, 18 January 2023 (UTC)

  It's not just Nuclear Gandhi I'm talking about here, they've broken other scoops in the past as well. Loki (talk) 02:46, 19 January 2023 (UTC)

• I don’t know this outlet well enough to opine on general reliability, but I would oppose depreciation. That is (and should be) saved for extremely rare cases. Blueboar (talk) 21:42, 2 February 2023 (UTC)

  To be clear, I absolutely wouldn't like them to be depreciated, I'm just following the standard format. Loki (talk) 22:17, 6 February 2023 (UTC)

• Comment – I've contacted Chris Bratt of People Makes Games to inquire about editorial policies. DecafPotato (talk) 01:38, 4 February 2023 (UTC)

  That's a good idea. Loki (talk) 22:14, 6 February 2023 (UTC)

Beware: CNet running AI-generated articles, byline "CNet Money"

CNet, usually regarded as an ordinary tech RS, has started experimentally running [1][2] AI-generated articles, which are riddled with errors. Currently these articles are under the byline "CNet Money". So far the experiment is not going down well, as it shouldn't. I haven't found any yet, but any of these articles that make it into a Wikipedia article need to be removed - David Gerard (talk) 15:33, 18 January 2023 (UTC)

Since November, no less, per your sources. If they haven't yet given up on it, it's concerning. Could it be time to downgrade CNet? I note that at WP:RSP, they are green, but the RfC is dated. Adoring nanny (talk) 16:01, 18 January 2023 (UTC)

That is very worrying... Its one thing if an AI assisted and human edited article is up to the normal standards but I think we do have a real problem here with the content being so much less accurate than their standard content. Horse Eye's Back (talk) 16:12, 18 January 2023 (UTC)

I'm hoping this is one high-up editor or publisher with a bee in their bonnet, and the reputational damage will put paid to the initiative before it spreads too far. I've never been a huge fan of CNet, but even at my most cynical about it I wouldn't have classed it with SEO spam blogs - David Gerard (talk) 16:32, 18 January 2023 (UTC)

I have always thought that CNET was a mediocre source, but this is really on another level. I would support downgrading the source. Hemiauchenia (talk) 16:36, 18 January 2023 (UTC)

Is downgrading necessary? These articles don't affect the rest of the articles they make. Just putting a note on RSP that any with the byline CNet Money are unreliable should be good enough. Silverseren^C 19:19, 18 January 2023 (UTC)

I concur - just that for now would be more than enough. Hopefully they come to their senses. FWIW, the AI articles are all under www.cnet.com/personal-finance - I just looked through them all, and Wikipedia has 24 articles with that string in their source, and none are from the bot - David Gerard (talk) 21:01, 18 January 2023 (UTC)

I also agree for now. Seems like there is consensus among the participants here. Do we need an RfC? Or can we just do it? Adoring nanny (talk) 00:02, 19 January 2023 (UTC)

I think that if we have some reason to believe that CNET's personal finance section has a lot of stories with material inaccuracies, we should put a clarifying note for editors using this department to reference articles. I'm not sure if futurism.com is a reliable source, but the things they've pointed out seem to be obvious errors (like if you deposit $10,000 into a savings account that earns 3% interest compounding annually, you'll earn $10,300 at the end of the first year). These are the same kind of errors that human writers tend to make, so I don't know if this is a special case, apart from the apparent failure of editorial oversight. jp×g 00:19, 19 January 2023 (UTC)

Futurism is an ehhhh source, a lot of reblogging, but they've been doing some good journalism lately.

On CNet, I'd wait until and unless this is more of a problem. I was posting more to warn editors to look out for this sort of thing.

I do think in general, any source that starts putting up AI-generated text in this manner warrants a close inspection - David Gerard (talk) 13:26, 19 January 2023 (UTC)

I just read this article from The Verge, which corroborates Futurism's report. Very concerning, but it would seem only their Money-related articles are affected. At this stage, I wouldn't suggest they be blacklisted, but this scandal should be noted at RSP and editors should be warned against citing Money-related articles published since November 2022. InfiniteNexus (talk) 03:43, 20 January 2023 (UTC)

Just a note, WP:RSP currently has no link to or mention of this discussion, or the brief one from spring last year. The last linked discussion was back in 2015. This may be a concern. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 137a (talk • contribs) 15:02, 20 January 2023 (UTC)

Update: https://www.theverge.com/2023/1/20/23564311/cnet-pausing-ai-articles-bot-red-ventures InfiniteNexus (talk) 05:19, 21 January 2023 (UTC)

I added a link to this discussion (as well as one other discussion about CNET that has been archived) in WP:RSP, but I have't changed the status or the description yet. 137a (talk • edits) 14:02, 23 January 2023 (UTC)

Maybe post a warning, Cnet has generally been good for tech/computer news. Oaktree b (talk) 17:02, 31 January 2023 (UTC)

Since it appears their use of AI is disclosed and easily identifiable, a specific warning for articles that are "written by CNet Money" and have an AI disclosure would be most appropriate. –dlthewave ☎ 18:55, 10 February 2023 (UTC)

Red Ventures's portfolio

Following this, I think it's time to downgrade CNet's reliability. That's just outrageous. Given the reports, it's probably time to check and see if there's anything else we need to do about Red Ventures's huge portfolio, which seem to also employed the same tools and processes. :bloodofox: (talk) 05:48, 21 January 2023 (UTC)

Why would them stopping a limited section run of AI generated articles be a reason to downgrade them? If they had expanded the articles to any section, then sure. But the article you're responding to is them doing the exact opposite. Silverseren^C 06:00, 21 January 2023 (UTC)

Let's take a step back and consider what we've witnessed here. CNET generated a bunch of content with AI, listed some of it as written by people (!), claimed it was all edited and vetted by people, and then, after getting caught, issued some 'corrections' followed by attacks on the journalists that reported on it ("Some writers — I won’t call them reporters ... "). According to the reporting we've seen so far, they've evidently implemented these tools and approaches throughout their portfolio but won't say exactly where or how.

And why should we believe anything this company says? Red Ventures has not been remotely transparent about any of this—the company could at best be described as deceitful—and the company runs a big stable of SEO-focused content mills across its ecosystem just like what we're seeing on post-acquisiton CNET, including Healthline and an EDU-focused branch (!). It's worth looking into how we're using properties that they own as sources—that is, those that aren't already listed as extremely dubious (Red Ventures owns, as you'll notice, the notorious The Points Guy).

I expect we'll probably hear a lot more about this in the future, as Red Ventures seems to have to date been largely passed over by investigative journalists, but in the meantime we should be tacking stock of what this company is pumping out and where it's appearing on Wikipedia. :bloodofox: (talk) 06:20, 21 January 2023 (UTC)

Then we should consider splitting CNET into pre-September 2020 and post-September 2020 (when they were acquired by Red Ventures), in a similar fashion to Newsweek and Forbes. InfiniteNexus (talk) 06:24, 21 January 2023 (UTC)

Would oppose this pretty strongly (for now), given that the relevant articles have all apparently received corrections, and that CNET is suspending this dubious "experiment". Source downgrades are meant to address general reliability problems, not to be punitive. The other properties owned by Red Ventures are not relevant, since the WP:RSP entry is specifically about CNET; and we don't judge one property's reliability based any other media properties that share the same owner. DFlhb (talk) 10:24, 26 January 2023 (UTC)

Further on this from Futurism: CNET's AI Journalist Appears to Have Committed Extensive Plagiarism: CNET's AI-written articles aren't just riddled with errors. They also appear to be substantially plagiarized - the hazard of AI text generators where they spit the source back out. It's possible that this will give Red Ventures pause ... - David Gerard (talk) 13:51, 24 January 2023 (UTC)

Another piece from Futurism out today on AI-generated problem content from Bankrate, another Red Ventures property. :bloodofox: (talk) 02:19, 1 February 2023 (UTC)

And another one, this time covering Red Ventures EDU, which appears to be producing many AI articles steering visitors to schools like Liberty University and the University of Phoenix. :bloodofox: (talk) 17:38, 1 February 2023 (UTC)

Buzzfeed also said it will use AI to generate some content ("interactive" content, not clear if this includes news). Perhaps we should consider listing ChatGPT or AI as its own line at WP:RSP (whether or not individual sources that use it are also listed individually)...? -sche (talk) 05:48, 27 January 2023 (UTC)

Interactive content by definition does not include traditional news articles. In the context of Buzzfeed interactive content means their famously stupid quizzes [3]. Horse Eye's Back (talk) 17:47, 1 February 2023 (UTC)

CNET "editorial firewalls have been repeatedly breached" to benefit advertisers

Given this new Verge report out about "the guardrails that keep editorial content independent [have been] repeatedly breached" to benefit advertisers, I would support downgrading post-Red Venture sale CNET to "use with caution". (November 2022 and after.) This is related to but separate from the AI stuff above. Ed ^{[talk] [majestic titan]} 15:49, 2 February 2023 (UTC)

• Support and downgrade to generally unreliable leaning toward future deprecation. If this report is true—and there seems to be every reason to believe it—this is absolutely unacceptable. I think "use with caution" is letting these bad actors off the hook quite lightly and I think we now have every reason to suspect post-acquisition CNET and other organizations under the Red Ventures portfolio as outright unreliable—where's the line between a CNET ad and a CNET article now? :bloodofox: (talk) 17:41, 2 February 2023 (UTC)
• Support. InfiniteNexus (talk) 17:36, 3 February 2023 (UTC)
• Support, we took the wait and see approach before and now we can see its bad... Agree with bloodofox that "use with caution" is a minimum, our response is probably going to have to be more reasonable and proportionate than that. Horse Eye's Back (talk) 17:47, 3 February 2023 (UTC)
• Note Red Ventures has owned CNET since October 2020. I would Support downgrading to "use with caution" post-sale. Hemiauchenia (talk) 20:08, 3 February 2023 (UTC)
• Support. Reading the Verge report, I have a hard time trusting that they wouldn't modify older articles from before Nov 2022 or the Red Ventures acquisition in 2020. RV is a private equity firm out for a quick buck and is willing to burn every bit of CNET's accumulated reputation to get it. We cannot trust them to provide reliable coverage going forward. Axem Titanium (talk) 20:09, 3 February 2023 (UTC)
• Support for post-sale articles (post-2020); older ones should still be fine, though, especially archived pages from archive.org. CNET was a good source for computer/tech news in its heyday. Phediuk (talk) 22:31, 3 February 2023 (UTC)
• I'm putting my thoughts on the whole situation here to avoid breaking it into multiple comments:

Generally reliable for articles produced before the Red Ventures acquisition in October 2020.

Situationally reliable for articles produced post-October 2020, per above. Articles on subjects mentioned specifically in The Verge's report, as well as review based on a review copy or version of a product, should be treated as unreliable or require inline attribution.

Generally unreliable for articles written by artificial intelligence. The use of AI as seen in CNET articles borders on WP:USERG as well. DecafPotato (talk) 00:59, 4 February 2023 (UTC)

forgot to mention but I'm very against deprecation – per my thoughts above. DecafPotato (talk) 01:02, 4 February 2023 (UTC)

• Support per Phediuk. Timur9008 (talk) 14:52, 4 February 2023 (UTC)
• Support Schierbecker (talk) 20:52, 7 February 2023 (UTC)
• Downgrade to generally unreliable post-Red Ventures. I already wrote somewhere that CNET should be downgraded owing to their claim that their AI-generated articles would be reviewed by a human editorial board, yet articles were still published with serious and obvious factual errors. That suggests either that their editorial board is incompetent, or that they're not reviewing at all. With the report that they're deliberately sacrificing editorial control for the benefit of advertisers, that makes them unreliable for any information by our standards. Ivanvector (^Talk/_Edits) 17:22, 10 February 2023 (UTC)

  I would also support a blanket prohibition on the use of any source written by AI, from any publication. At this stage of the technology, AI is repeatedly shown to be unsuitable for academic work, and there's also a pretty significant risk of contributory copyright infringement from AIs that are just regurgitating other works. Ivanvector (^Talk/_Edits) 17:25, 10 February 2023 (UTC)

  I'll cosign that blanket prohibition. XOR'easter (talk) 14:55, 12 February 2023 (UTC)

• Support, with the note that these companies often manipulate old stories as well... We might be restricted to internet archive and similar only at some point. Horse Eye's Back (talk) 17:28, 10 February 2023 (UTC)
• Downgrade to "generally unreliable" for post-Red Ventures content. There is no need to pause at some wishy-washy "use with attribution" status; including advertisements as attributed opinion would be an insult to the idea of expert opinion. I also don't see the merit in a "use with caution" half-measure. The adequate amount of caution is not to use it. XOR'easter (talk) 14:55, 12 February 2023 (UTC)
  • Downgrade to generally unreliable. It's hard to believe an editorial team that does not review AI-generated articles or topics advertisers want is exerting sufficient editorial control to make CNET better than a blog.

Chess (talk) (please use {{reply to|Chess}} on reply) 19:49, 14 February 2023 (UTC)

• Comment: I did not see anything in the Verge article suggesting that Red Ventures is changing old/previously published articles — the references to “changing articles” seem to be about things currently being written. Without actual proof that the company is modifying old articles, speculating on their doing so is unhelpful at best and conspiratorial at worst. I support downgrading to use-with-caution post-acquisition, as the Verge article suggests the journalists there seem to still value rigor (despite their bosses’ best efforts), and the Verge piece seems to primarily implicate opinion pieces/reviews. AI-generated articles should be banned entirely per common sense. Gnomingstuff (talk) 06:01, 15 February 2023 (UTC)
• Downgrade to "generally unreliable" for post-Red Ventures content because CNET is no longer journalism. Levivich (talk) 06:08, 15 February 2023 (UTC)

Yet more AI content farm magazine filler

Futurism's got this story by the throat. "Magazine Publishes Serious Errors in First AI-Generated Health Article: The owners of Sports Illustrated and Men’s Journal promised to be virtuous with AI. Then they bungled their very first AI story — and issued huge corrections when we caught them." [4]

The publisher in question is the Arena Group. Here's a list of their brands.

It's pretty obvious that anything by a text generator isn't an acceptable source for Wikipedia. We need to work out suitable and proportionate ways to deal with this issue in general, though - archive articles, bad publishers, etc - because it's going to keep coming up - David Gerard (talk) 17:00, 10 February 2023 (UTC)

You're right. We definitely need a policy on AI-generated content. Wikipedia should be furthering the SEO aims of these AI-generated content farms. :bloodofox: (talk) 06:24, 15 February 2023 (UTC)

More on the reliability of BtVA

The Anime and Manga Wikiproject does not consider Behind the Voice Actors to be a reliable source. Can the perennial sources list stop calling it reliable now? Eldomtom2 (talk) 15:20, 2 February 2023 (UTC)

Do you have a link to the discussion where the reliability was discussed? The most recent such discussion here, From March, 2022 concluded that it was reliable. While such discussions don't have to happen here; they need to happen somewhere and if there is a new consensus, we all need to see what discussion came to a new consensus. --Jayron32 15:48, 2 February 2023 (UTC)

Near as I can tell, the discussion is in Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Anime and manga/Online reliable sources/Archive 1 and consists of two users. It's from more then a decade ago and as mentioned has only two participants, including the person who asked if it's a RS. --(loopback) ping/whereis 16:10, 2 February 2023 (UTC)

Per WP:LOCALCONSENSUS and also per WP:TIMETRAVELISN'TPOSSIBLEASFARASWEKNOW, an older discussion in a less-broadly-attended corner of Wikipedia cannot override an existing consensus which was established later. If Eldomtom2 wants to start a new discussion over the reliability of the website in question, they can feel free to do so, but unless and until someone does that, it appears the March 2022 discussion is the prevailing one.--Jayron32 16:40, 2 February 2023 (UTC)

The second one is a red link. Emir of Wikipedia (talk) 20:40, 2 February 2023 (UTC)

It's a blue link if you're browsing from before 2015. After The Fracture happened and Dr. Nixon broke the timeline with her first trip we deleted it. When there's a timeline collision we sometimes get people from 2008 linking to it when we try to warn them about the snakes. --(loopback) ping/whereis 21:26, 2 February 2037 (UTC)

Don't tell people about the snakes. It destabilizes the time loop and every time it happens we have to revdel the entire 2040s. jp×g 10:54, 9 April 2051 (UTC)

It won't be if you go back in time and fix it. --Jayron32 13:31, 3 February 2023 (UTC)

I have made multiple attempts at starting discussions here and they have failed to receive attention.--Eldomtom2 (talk) 21:47, 2 February 2023 (UTC)

I think a lot of that has to do with the fact that there was a well attended RfC for it here less then a year ago. It seems the community here largely doesn't feel like it needs to be reopened at this time. Is there something that's changed about the source in the last year, or do you just disagree with the conclusion? Because the former may catch more discussion but the latter is likely to elicit crickets if editors don't feel anything is substantially different to when we did this before. --(loopback) ping/whereis 06:42, 3 February 2023 (UTC)

I disagree with the conclusion. It was waved through with little investigation.--Eldomtom2 (talk) 22:34, 3 February 2023 (UTC)

I'm sorry, are we looking at the same RfC? I would like to draw your attention specifically to Compassionate727's fairly exhaustive dive into their structure and editorial methods. That is exactly the the type of examination we expect around here, and it did seem to hold quite a bit of weight with participants. If you were talking about a different RfC that's understandable, but if you meant the March 2022 one and think there was 'little investigation' then I don't think you are quite on the level. --(loopback) ping/whereis 06:02, 4 February 2023 (UTC)

If you think it was an "exhaustive dive" you can think that, but I don't think "they say they have some sort of standards (that they won't clarify) that they apply to user submissions" is good enough to say something is a reliable source.--Eldomtom2 (talk) 20:49, 4 February 2023 (UTC)

Just want to point out that WP Anime does consider Behind the Voice Actors to be reliable in most circumstances. You would see this if you actually read the entry at WP:ANIME/ORS#Situational. Link20XX (talk) 00:30, 14 February 2023 (UTC)

nosh.com as an RS

This is about a WP:COI article about my sister that is currently at Draft:Carla Vernón--TonyTheTiger (T / C / WP:FOUR / WP:CHICAGO / WP:WAWARD) 22:40, 7 February 2023 (UTC)

• I am trying to get a better understanding of how to pursue encyclopedic merit for my sister's bio, which has been declined at WP:AFC by User:Scope creep who broadly panned all the sources. I disagree with the assessment, but my understanding of its perspective has been improved by recent Draft talk page discussion with User:Rosguill. One specific source has also been described by User:Melcous as non-independent on the same Draft talk discussion. When I look at this source, which is not listed as one of the Wikipedia:Reliable sources/Perennial sources that is unreliable, I view it as a piece of journalism in which the author requested comment that my sister responded to with some quotes that were included. However, the parts of the article that I intended to rely upon as a WP:RS appeared to me to be in the voice of the author. Rosguill suggested that the editorial process of this source may rely largely on PR packages rather than journalistic research. Can I get further clarification on whether Nosh is or isn't an WP:RS.--TonyTheTiger (T / C / WP:FOUR / WP:CHICAGO / WP:WAWARD) 22:40, 7 February 2023 (UTC)

The source and its parent is a news aggregator for the beverage industry that consists largely of disseminating press releases. In the case of this particular article, it appears to be reproducing the subject's email announcing a job change with the thinnest of veneer to make it look like a real article. There is nothing that inspires any confidence in the source. Not reliable, especially not for a BLP.Banks Irk (talk) 23:48, 7 February 2023 (UTC)

Why isn't it listed at WP:RSP? On what basis do we know the unquoted content was from my sister's hand/voice?--TonyTheTiger (T / C / WP:FOUR / WP:CHICAGO / WP:WAWARD) 05:27, 8 February 2023 (UTC)

RSP is a list of stuff that has been repeatedly discussed on this and other WP-pages. If you know of such discussions about nosh.com, you can suggest it at RSP talk or go WP:BOLD. Gråbergs Gråa Sång (talk) 09:25, 8 February 2023 (UTC)

User:Banks Irk On what basis do we know the unquoted content was from my sister's hand/voice?--TonyTheTiger (T / C / WP:FOUR / WP:CHICAGO / WP:WAWARD) 22:24, 8 February 2023 (UTC)

The article explicitly says so. It references and extensively quotes her email. Banks Irk (talk) 23:00, 8 February 2023 (UTC)

User:Banks Irk, I admit, I do not often research WP:BLPs in professions where press releases and personal emails determine content, but it I am asking about the unqouted content. I understand her quotes are her own hand/voice from the attributed emailed correspondence. I do a lot of editing in sports. If a journalist quotes LeBron James in an article I do not assume that James wrote the whole article. Here, I am asking about the unquoted content. Why do we assume that the author did not do any journalism for the unquoted content?--TonyTheTiger (T / C / WP:FOUR / WP:CHICAGO / WP:WAWARD) 16:39, 10 February 2023 (UTC)

• Anyone is free to chime in here other than User:Banks Irk. I just need an explanation about why there is any belief that my sister wrote the unquoted content in the article above. For comparisons sake let's look at this story when Tom Brady first announced his retirement last year. This ESPN article is pretty normal coverage of the announcement. It has lots of quotes by Brady and lots of unquoted content. Do we believe that Brady wrote the unquoted content as well?-TonyTheTiger (T / C / WP:FOUR / WP:CHICAGO / WP:WAWARD) 18:32, 11 February 2023 (UTC)
• User:Scope creep and/or User:Melcous would be welcome commenters here as to why we believe the unquoted content was written by my sister and the author put her byline on an article that she had nothing to do with.--TonyTheTiger (T / C / WP:FOUR / WP:CHICAGO / WP:WAWARD) 18:36, 11 February 2023 (UTC)
• TTT, I think it's fair to say the source is non-independent, in the way that half-interview, half-bio pieces frequently are. I don't have hard evidence that Ortenberg is primarily relying on Vernon's email, as opposed to independent research, but that's my best judgment. Using nosh as a source in general is questionable, with its big "Submit News" button at the top right not inspiring confidence. Firefangledfeathers (talk / contribs) 18:41, 11 February 2023 (UTC)
  • I am aware that they accept submissions. However, they are not a wiki. They have a very extensive team with editors for wide ranging subjects-TonyTheTiger (T / C / WP:FOUR / WP:CHICAGO / WP:WAWARD) 19:56, 11 February 2023 (UTC)

TonyTheTiger your initial question here seems to muddy the difference between reliable sources and independent sources. Just because something is not listed at WP:RSP does not mean it is independent. A source that is an interview with a subject is by definition not independent of that subject, and one that is known for basically rehashing press releases is even less so. To be frank, it's a similar question to your own judgment on writing this article - you may very well have reliable information, but as her brother you are not independent. Melcous (talk) 03:31, 12 February 2023 (UTC)

There is no doubt I am not independent of my sister and thus I am editing by special process. The source article at issue here is clearly not an interview. An interview is an article where an author presents a list of questions and responses to those questions. My point on this source is that as a producer of 100s of DYKs, 100s of GAs and dozens of FA & FLs, I have a lot of editing experience. I have presented a lot of sources. I have never presented a source with an editorial team like this and had it not be considered a source. As I am talking to more people about this source, I continue to look at the article and see quoted and unquoted content. I feel that the unquoted content was not of my sister's hand. Thus I thought it was fair to say that with this editorial team it has to be good content. Now, I feel that you are saying all of the unquoted stuff is truly sourced to press release content that my sister could have had a hand in. I think a large percentage of content on WP is sourced to press releases. I am not sure I truly understand why press releases are so bad, but for a CEO, I guess independence may be an issue.--TonyTheTiger (T / C / WP:FOUR / WP:CHICAGO / WP:WAWARD) 03:53, 13 February 2023 (UTC)

I don't have much experience with this sort of speciality source but I'm not sure the editorial team is as impressive as you are making it out to be. For starters, that link seems to just have general staff roster rather than being exclusive to info on their editorial staff which is what a good source generally does, and means we have to pick through it to see what's there.

Further their "CEO / Founder / Editorial Director"'s education seems to be in marketing not in journalism. Putting that aside for a while, I'm not sure having their CEO as "editorial director" fits the sort of independence of editorial staff we generally expect (i.e. separation of church and state), nor "vision shapes the editorial, publishing, and positioning of all of BevNET's properties".

The "Editor, NOSH" while having journalism qualifications seems to have worked mostly in marketing. The "Managing Editor, Brewbound" at least does have some journalism experience and education but her more recent experience (stated to be nearly 10 years) and education seems to have been in marketing.

Their "Editor-in-Chief" at least seems to have been mostly or exclusively a journalist and also their "Editor, Brewbound" and possibly their "Managing Editor, BevNET". The qualifications and experience of their "Producer, Taste Radio; Contributing Editor, BevNET", "Spirits Editor" and "Editorial Assistant, BevNET & NOSH" are unclear.

Mind you I assume this is a NOSH article and people who only work on Brewbound or BevNET (or probably the Spirits Editor) are irrelevant. But that further fits into the wider issue that we can't just look at the link see a bunch of people and assume their content is fine.

From a BLP standpoint, while these sort of sources are generally mostly positive and as mentioned by others generally coming from the companies and the people around them, I would oppose their use for content about living persons because their poor standards means there's always a risk they will repeat inaccurate information. (And putting aside it should not matter, it's not guaranteed that the subject will always be happy about the material since the interests of a company don't necessarily align with individuals involved.) Perhaps we could make an exception for very basic details like person X was hired for role Y in company Z, but that's about it. (And it also doesn't demonstrate notability.)

As for your press release comment, I'm not convinced it's true. But in any case while it is true we have a lot of material not sourced to RS (whether no source at all or the source is an RS), it doesn't mean it's acceptable to add to the problem by adding more improperly sourced content. And press releases are rarely RS and especially not in a BLP.

Nil Einne (talk) 05:40, 15 February 2023 (UTC)

StatMuse

StatMuse is the eponymous interactive AI (Chatbot) of the StatMuse company (basically a ChatGPT with a sports focus). Is its use on articles such as List of National Football League players with multiple 1,000-yard receiving seasons appropriate? It appears that someone asked the AI "Which Wide Receiver Has The Most 1000 Yard Receiving Seasons" and we're now using that answer as the only source on the article. Horse Eye's Back (talk) 04:01, 9 February 2023 (UTC)

Not a WP:RS... Probably needs to be formally deprecated or blacklisted. —DIYeditor (talk) 06:33, 9 February 2023 (UTC)

"lmao" is all I'll say about that last sentence. The things we see! DFlhb (talk) 19:11, 9 February 2023 (UTC)

I would also note that the details in the table doesn't even match the reference. -- LCU ActivelyDisinterested ∆transmissions∆ °co-ords° 20:39, 9 February 2023 (UTC)

Which may be because the source is dynamically generated and therefore can be expected to keep changing. Another reason to avoid these sites. DFlhb (talk) 21:02, 9 February 2023 (UTC)

Definitely, a nonstable source can not be verified. -- LCU ActivelyDisinterested ∆transmissions∆ °co-ords° 21:15, 9 February 2023 (UTC)

Is there any copyright concern over republishing tables generated by StatMuse, or would they be to generic as they are just statistics? -- LCU ActivelyDisinterested ∆transmissions∆ °co-ords° 21:17, 9 February 2023 (UTC)

RfC

Which of the following best describes the StatMuse chatbot?

• Option 1: Generally reliable
• Option 2: Additional considerations apply
• Option 3: Generally unreliable
• Option 4: Deprecate

Horse Eye's Back (talk) 21:06, 9 February 2023 (UTC)

Not sure RFCs on individual chatbots are the right approach here. WP:LLM (a draft) declares them all unreliable in one fell swoop, which seems more appropriate, since I doubt there are any specifics that would make one chatbot more reliable than another. DFlhb (talk) 21:11, 9 February 2023 (UTC)

I'm seeing use on well over 500 pages, to me that means there really does have to be a formal centralized discussion. If it was under 100 I would do it myself but I'm just not comfortable being *that* bold. Horse Eye's Back (talk) 21:15, 9 February 2023 (UTC)

A search "only" yielded 211 pages for me, hence my reply. But yes, in that case, Deprecate or at the least GUNREL. DFlhb (talk) 21:19, 9 February 2023 (UTC)

Did you add in the variants like "stat muse"? Search on wiki is not my strong suit. Horse Eye's Back (talk) 21:22, 9 February 2023 (UTC)

I searched insource:"url=https://www.statmuse.com" so it only picks up the URL parameter of {{cite web}}. Otherwise you get articles like Terry Crews that contain the words "stat" and "muse" but no citation to that site.

Can also do that in PetScan, "Other Sources" tab, "Search query" field, and it gives a nice list. DFlhb (talk) 21:30, 9 February 2023 (UTC)

Ok so the cleanest search I can find is insource:"www.statmuse.com" which returns two eighty something without any apparent errors. The more specific search misses lazy cites like the one at Tom Van Arsdale. Horse Eye's Back (talk) 21:39, 9 February 2023 (UTC)

If it's necessary to have the RFC and not just declare all such sources unusable for referencing purposes, then Deprecate. The other problem these seem to raise is of OR, take this for example. It's currently in use and uses a complex set of criteria, those criteria are being set by the editor. No other sources is publishing the specific details, it brings to mind a discussion above were an editor has written code to prove a particular algorithm. -- LCU ActivelyDisinterested ∆transmissions∆ °co-ords° 21:53, 9 February 2023 (UTC)

I think the OR question is inherent in the category of incredibly niche lists and the Chatbots just allow it to be smoother, see List of college football coaches with 150 NCAA Division I FCS wins for example. If we check the edit history we find that it was not made because there was coverage of the topic in WP:RS or anything else which would indicate notability but because they "Decided to create a list I've wanted to add for a couple of years." and worked backwards from there... Thats a problem whether you piece it together from databases yourself or use a chatbot to piece it together. Horse Eye's Back (talk) 22:02, 9 February 2023 (UTC)

At least on those cases someone has actually published the statistics, I wouldn't count them towards notability though. In this case the editor is creating the reference to meet the content they want to add, that's extremely problematic. -- LCU ActivelyDisinterested ∆transmissions∆ °co-ords° 22:07, 9 February 2023 (UTC)

Yeah but that "someone" is primarily a defunct SPS now available only in archive form, example [5]. Almost everything down this hole is problematic, chatbots are just the new lowest level of hell. Horse Eye's Back (talk) 22:20, 9 February 2023 (UTC)

Those chatbot prompts are particularly deadly. AI chatbots give you whatever answer you're looking for. I just asked ChatGPT which US President had a chihuahua. It said "none". I told it: "I thought Eisenhower had one." And it said: You are correct! President Dwight D. Eisenhower did have a Chihuahua named Heidi. Thank you for bringing this to my attention. But all Eisenhower had was a Weimaraner. Chatbots are like a child being asked leading questions by a policeman.

Any super-specific question, like the one you link, is extremely like to lead to confabulation. How long until one of these bots claims it was abused by Satanists? DFlhb (talk) 22:44, 9 February 2023 (UTC)

It's clear to me that this discussion is based on my actions. I did not start the article, but I noticed the page was inaccurate and I figured that StatMuse was better than no source. I'm not going to argue one way or another for StatMuse but I do have a couple of questions. What makes this site a "chatbot"? It's a self-proclaimed artificial intelligence company, but it doesn't communicate with you. It fetches information from a sports database based on queries that you enter. Also, why was this listed Media, the arts, and architecture instead of Society, sports, and culture? I think it's important that the sports group be involved in the discussion. Hey man im josh (talk) 15:22, 15 February 2023 (UTC)

The problem is the "artificial intelligence" part, many instances of which have been shown to make up facts as a way to answer questions. If this was just a way of cross referencing details in a database it wouldn't be so probelmatic. StatMuse are obviously not going to say exactly how their chatbot works, so caution is required. -- LCU ActivelyDisinterested ∆transmissions∆ °co-ords° 15:36, 15 February 2023 (UTC)

I see what you're getting at regarding the AI part. Though I will say again, I don't believe this fits the definition of a chatbot. Hey man im josh (talk) 17:43, 15 February 2023 (UTC)

It interprets your language via AI, builds what it's believes you mean into a database search, and returns I'm the results back via AI into language. It's a chatbot. -- LCU ActivelyDisinterested ∆transmissions∆ °co-ords° 17:51, 15 February 2023 (UTC)

I could understand not classifying StatMuse as a reliable source, but I'm hung up on the phrasing of a chatbot here. I view it as a searchable database whereas I guess I look at a chatbot as something that's trying to carry on a conversation. Hey man im josh (talk) 18:06, 15 February 2023 (UTC)

A chatbot is defined by it's interaction with users using natural language, which is what is happening here. -- LCU ActivelyDisinterested ∆transmissions∆ °co-ords° 18:32, 15 February 2023 (UTC)

There's also the question of OR / undue. If no-one else has published these statistics before you ask the question then you are creating a reference to support the article text, and that sounds extremely problematic. -- LCU ActivelyDisinterested ∆transmissions∆ °co-ords° 17:53, 15 February 2023 (UTC)

I did have concerns about OR when using StatMuse as a reference, but I believed that it was better than nothing (again, I didn't create the article, just was trying to improve it). I can absolutely understand how this could be problematic. Hey man im josh (talk) 18:06, 15 February 2023 (UTC)

It's is definitely better to have nothing that to have text supported by an unreliable source. Instead of adding OR, the text should be removed if it can't be supported by a previously published reliable source. -- LCU ActivelyDisinterested ∆transmissions∆ °co-ords° 18:30, 15 February 2023 (UTC)

You're right, and I'm going to go ahead and blame the lingering brain fog I have from COVID. I should have nominated that article for deletion when I stumbled upon it instead of trying to salvage it. Hey man im josh (talk) 18:56, 15 February 2023 (UTC)

There's nothing negative about trying to save an article. -- LCU ActivelyDisinterested ∆transmissions∆ °co-ords° 19:02, 15 February 2023 (UTC)

You ask it a question in natural language (in this example "which player has the most 1000 yard receiving seasons"), it provides an answer in natural language (in this case "Jerry Rice played the most seasons with 1,000+ receiving yards, with 14 seasons."). How is that not communicating with you? Horse Eye's Back (talk) 17:11, 15 February 2023 (UTC)

Chatbot mentions communication back and forth, but StatMuse does not converse with you. It fetches information based on a query, much like a search engine does. Hey man im josh (talk) 17:43, 15 February 2023 (UTC)

It replies "Jerry Rice played the most seasons with 1,000+ receiving yards, with 14 seasons." in response to your question (the very definition of back and forth) isn't communication what is it? Horse Eye's Back (talk) 17:59, 15 February 2023 (UTC)

I guess I'm hung up on the conversational aspect of it. For the query (found here) it doesn't just list Jerry Rice, as your comment might imply. It brings up a list and creates a table out of them. Hey man im josh (talk) 18:06, 15 February 2023 (UTC)

You ask it a question in natural language, it answers in natural language (in addition to other things as you said), you and the chatbot just had a conversation. It doesn't have to be lengthy to be a conversation, not all chatbots are set up like that. Horse Eye's Back (talk) 18:11, 15 February 2023 (UTC)

I think this is one I'll need to mull over and let bounce around in my head for a bit. On the one hand, it's an ask and answer back and forth (in a way via searching). On the other hand, it adds a lot of "extras" which is likely why I'm having a tough time looking at is as a chatbot. Never the less, I do understand why you're referring to is as such after this back and forth and my view of what is and isn't a chatbot may change after giving some more thought. Hey man im josh (talk) 18:26, 15 February 2023 (UTC)

Its not a very advanced one, its much more 2017 than 2023 but thats what it is. Note that is also meant to be used with voice not text, one of the key features is that it talks to you in the voice of various NFL player. In the intended use case it is much more conversational. Horse Eye's Back (talk) 18:36, 15 February 2023 (UTC)

Wow, I wasn't aware of that feature. Guess I may have been using it in a way that's not the norm. Hey man im josh (talk) 18:46, 15 February 2023 (UTC)

Based on your replies, it seems that StatMuse ought to be compared to Google’s Answer Box than to ChatGPT. The Google Answer Box takes info from one of the search results, and displays it in natural language (and is sometimes inaccurate, taken from an inaccurate site).

The key question, therefore, is: is StatMuse’s database accurate? What’s their WP:UBO? DFlhb (talk) 21:54, 15 February 2023 (UTC)

Option 2: Additional considerations apply Treat them as a WP:PRIMARYSOURCE. If a stat was important enough, then it generally should have been mentioned by WP:SECONDARYSOURCEs. We don't want to provide WP:UNDUE weight to random stats.—Bagumba (talk) 15:25, 15 February 2023 (UTC)

Option 4: Deprecate It's not transparent where they get their information from. Human-made sources have at least the advantage that humans normally shy away from publishing things that others might see as ridiculous. Rsk6400 (talk) 17:43, 15 February 2023 (UTC)

Here it states they get information from a company named SportRadar. On the company's website it shows various partners, including several major sports leagues (such as NBA, NHL, MLB). Hey man im josh (talk) 17:50, 15 February 2023 (UTC)

Just FYI Sportradar is primarily a service provider to the gambling industry, they're not generally what we would consider a WP:RS. This makes the question of where the data actually comes from murkier, not clearer. Horse Eye's Back (talk) 18:03, 15 February 2023 (UTC)

I agree that it's murky since we aren't able to audit the information ourselves. I do think we can infer that the information provided by Sportradar is likely accurate given its use in the gambling industry (FanDuel & DraftKings). Though I understand that inference may not be enough to establish reliability. Hey man im josh (talk) 18:15, 15 February 2023 (UTC)

• 4: Deprecate. For the obvious reasons of reliability, accuracy, and OR. JoelleJay (talk) 20:02, 15 February 2023 (UTC)

Seymour Hersh

• Hersh, Seymour (February 8, 2023). "How America Took Out The Nord Stream Pipeline". Substack. Retrieved February 8, 2023.

1. Can this source be linked in a list of works at Seymour Hersh?
2. Can this source be cited with attribution at Seymour Hersh?
3. Can this source be cited with attribution at 2022 Nord Stream pipeline sabotage?

Thanks, Levivich (talk) 20:16, 10 February 2023 (UTC)

• I think the answer to #1 is "yes", because it's not being "used as a source" (WP:SPS), it's a significant work by the subject of the article, and including a link to it is helpful to the reader. We're not using it to source any content in the body of any article, under #1. For #2 and #3, I'm not as sure, I think it comes down to WP:ABOUTSELF #3, which is "it does not involve claims about third parties", and the source does involve claims about third parties (governments of US and Norway), and we wouldn't use the source in either article as a source about Hersh, we'd be using it as a source about the sabotage and who Hersh alleges is responsible. So for that reason I lean 'no'. On other hand, since we're already including this content in both articles sourced to other reliable sources (The Times, Reuters), it seems like what's the harm of including a citation to the original piece for the convenience of our reader? So for that reason, I lean 'yes'. Levivich (talk) 20:23, 10 February 2023 (UTC)

My gut reaction is quite similar to yours -- sure to #1, and okay to #2, given that the information already exists elsewhere. I would personally say no to #3, basically because I would see that as implicitly giving the work Wikipedia's imprimatur of reliability, and I don't think that's warranted. As ever, reasonable minds can differ. Happy Friday. Dumuzid (talk) 20:28, 10 February 2023 (UTC)

I would be on board with that Solomonic decision. Levivich (talk) 20:36, 10 February 2023 (UTC)

Same, unless we are revaluating substack and independent publishing as a whole, Hersh decided to publish without editorial oversight and by our policies is of limited use. It's also investigative journalism, which is usually Primary anyway. That said, we should strive to provide readers with Primary materials that aid their own reading and understanding of the subject. Slywriter (talk) 20:59, 10 February 2023 (UTC)

We routinely source, say, Donald Trump's views to his Twitter account in his article. How's that different from sourcing Hersh's opinions to his blog? — kashmīrī ^TALK 21:39, 10 February 2023 (UTC)

Do we? Take another look at Donald Trump... There is only one use of a twitter account as a source and it isn't Trump's. Horse Eye's Back (talk) 21:43, 10 February 2023 (UTC)

In the 2022 Nord Stream pipeline sabotage article there is literally a paragraph section about a tweet, with the tweet used as a citation, that goes on longer than the section about Hersh. Spudst3r (talk) 01:30, 11 February 2023 (UTC)

They didn't say 2022 Nord Stream pipeline sabotage, they said Donald Trump. There is no reason for that page to be using tweets either, they're entirely redundant. Horse Eye's Back (talk) 02:22, 11 February 2023 (UTC)

• Yes to all three.

Hersh is a Pulitzer-prize winning journalist who broke multiple truthful stories using anonymous sources, including the May Lai Massacre, the Abu Ghraib prison scandal and the secret bombings of Cambodia. All of this reporting came with smears against his reputation and gaslighting that he was lying that was latter proved wrong, irrefutably. Meanwhile, later stories like his coverage of the Bin Laden story and Syria are more disputed and the historical fact is not so clear on his side.

With this substack story both the Russian and Chinese foreign ministries are relying on it to demand that the U.S. provide explanations. If a substack successfully triggers a diplomatic incident like that, and receives news coverage the way this story has, then it's worthy for inclusion for the reader. Omitting it is weird -- like an attempt to censor the reader from the core sources driving the valid encyclopedic entry. Spudst3r (talk) 21:20, 10 February 2023 (UTC)

• @Levivich: I started drafting a similar question here, too. You were first :)

As a background, Hersh is a Pulitzer-winning American investigative journalist who first uncovered the My Lai massacre, the Abu Ghraib torture, and a few other scandals involving the US administration. He mostly published in The New York Times. Recently, he switched to self-publishing for reasons explained by him here[6] and so, his newest piece of investigative journalism appeared on a personal publishing platform.

In my view, this situation is governed by WP:SPS: Self-published expert sources may be considered reliable when produced by an established subject-matter expert, whose work in the relevant field has previously been published by reliable, independent publications. We are therefore free to consider this a reliable source within the scope of its author's expertise. Also, denials/criticism of Hersh's investigations coming from the US administration, even if reported by big titles, should in my view not influence our decision. So:

• Yes to #1
• Yes to #2 if the actual authorship is not in doubt
• Yes to #3 for reasons explained above (WP:SPS).

(That said, I don't think it was wise to publish this investigation now, before the war is over.)

— kashmīrī ^TALK 21:24, 10 February 2023 (UTC)

I agree that this situation is governed by SPS, however SPS seems to explicitly forbid the use of this source... It can only be used as long as "it does not involve claims about events not directly related to the source;" which this one does, its only claims about events not directly related to the source. Horse Eye's Back (talk) 21:27, 10 February 2023 (UTC)

You're confusing the sections. The quote you refer to is under "Self-published or questionable sources as sources on themselves" and with an important note: they can be used without the self-published source requirement that they are published experts in the field. This policy mostly allows us to source a company's financials to their investors report, or someone's place of birth to their personal blog. This does not refer to expert views published by experts themselves. — kashmīrī ^TALK 21:34, 10 February 2023 (UTC)

What part of "Questionable sources are those that have a poor reputation for checking the facts, lack meaningful editorial oversight, or have an apparent conflict of interest. Such sources include websites and publications expressing views widely considered by other sources to be promotional, extremist, or relying heavily on unsubstantiated gossip, rumor, or personal opinion." doesn't fit Hersh's blog? Horse Eye's Back (talk) 21:41, 10 February 2023 (UTC)

Please show us evidence that any of the three applies to that particular piece of journalism. — kashmīrī ^TALK 21:45, 10 February 2023 (UTC)

Hersh has a poor reputation for checking the facts, as the WP:RS which covered this story noted (hence the "disgraced" in "disgraced investigative journalist"). By everyone's agreement there is no meaningful editorial oversight here, I don't believe that's disputed. According to WP:RS the entire article is based on a single anonymous source whose claims WP:RS have not been able to substantiate, thereby "relying heavily on unsubstantiated gossip, rumor, or personal opinion." Horse Eye's Back (talk) 21:50, 10 February 2023 (UTC)

This is WP:EXPERTSPS v. non-expert WP:SPS. I'm not sure that Hersh is an expert within the meaning of EXPERTSPS. What is he an expert in, and what are his credentials? I wouldn't call Woodward and Bernstein experts, either, but maybe I'm wrong. Are investigative journalists experts? Levivich (talk) 21:46, 10 February 2023 (UTC)

Woodward and Bernstein would be experts on journalistic practices, and Woodward also on the larger business side of that since he's been an editor at a paper-of-record for some time. Long careers at the top of their field do imho give them acknowledged expertise in that field. But neither would be experts in the subjects they covered during that career. --(loopback) ping/whereis 09:07, 12 February 2023 (UTC)

@Kashmiri:, you wrote "Self-published or questionable sources as sources on themselves" but that's exactly what this is about. This is about whether or not use Hersh's blog post at Substack as source for his unverified, unsubstantiated, uncorroborated allegations within the wiki article. Notice: This topic's question states: "Hersh, Seymour, "How America Took Out The Nord Stream Pipeline". Substack. Can this source [Substack] be cited with attribution at 2022 Nord Stream pipeline sabotage?". And the answer is No. Substack is a social media blog so should not be used as a source per WP:SPS. Best regards~ BetsyRMadison (talk) 23:53, 10 February 2023 (UTC)

Substack is a publishing platform (i.e., an IT system), not a publisher (company). Just like Wikimedia Commons is an image distribution platform and not a publisher on its own. — kashmīrī ^TALK 00:02, 11 February 2023 (UTC)

He mostly published in The New York Times. He left the NYT in the late 70s or early 80s. His Abu Ghraib reporting was published in The New Yorker, not the NYT. The concern here is that his more recent work has come under increased criticism over its sourcing, with the New Yorker eventually declining to publish him anymore given concerns about it. Clearly, if he had published this in the NYT or the New Yorker, it could absolutely be included as a source. We need to assess, though, how to interpret the fact that he DIDN'T publish this in an RS, and what that means about the content. As such, I'm inclined to agree with the discussion above and say yes to 1 and 2, no to 3. BubbaJoe123456 (talk) 21:38, 10 February 2023 (UTC)

• Since the White House responded and the response was noted in reliable sources, a sentence or two is acceptable. Linking to the (unreliable) source is not, since it lends too much credibility to it--as does the whole "investigative journalist" appellation. That was true decades ago. Drmies (talk) 21:42, 10 February 2023 (UTC)

This isn't the question being asked here. — kashmīrī ^TALK 00:06, 11 February 2023 (UTC)

• Yes to 1 and 2, no to 3, Hersh should be attributed for any controversial statement and his self-published journalism is still self-published. Andre🚐 21:48, 10 February 2023 (UTC)

• Yes to 1, no to 2 and 3: A "source with direct knowledge of the operational planning" is insufficient attribution for a credible SPS, even from a reputable journalist. The anonymous source is quoted over a dozen times, but not once is their position, authority, or reason for requesting anonymity characterized. That doesn't meet current standards for the use of anonymous sources, which I'm sure Hersch understands. Δπ (talk) 22:03, 10 February 2023 (UTC) Sock strike Levivich (talk) 17:19, 11 February 2023 (UTC)

• To clarify, RS Reuters calls his piece a "blog post." [7] Hersh posted his blog post in a social media blog named Substack. WP:SPS says "social media postings are largely not acceptable, as sources. Also Substack is WP:NOTRS, WP:QS whereby Substack does not fact check their blogger’s works and has no editorial oversight.

For #1, Yes under certain conditions. RS Reuters calls his piece a "blog post." Therefore, under the condition that it's under the correct Subheading "Blog Post on Social Media Blog" I'd be a yes & agree with Levivich and Dumuzid on #1; otherwise, I'd be a no.

For #2, No due to WP:UNDUE, WP:AGEMATTERS, WP:NOTWEBHOST and possibly WP:LIVING & WP:NOTSCANDAL According to RS, the "subject matter" in Hersh's blog post includes unsubstantiated allegations against a living person and others [8]. And because RS report that Hersh's subject matter about the living person and others include details that media outlets have not verified and have not corroborated [9] [10], I am concerned we'd run into WP:LIVING issues.

For #3, No due to WP:NOTRS, WP:QS, WP:UNDUE, WP:SPS, WP:SOAPBOX, WP:FRINGE, WP:AGEMATTERS and possibly WP:LIVING & WP:NOTSCANDAL, and for reasons Levivich & Dumuzid stated. In fact, because of the reason I just stated, I feel the current paragraph on this is too lengthy & should reduced to just a few sentences at most, and possibly removed completelty.

Thanks for posting this Levivich! :) Best regards~ BetsyRMadison (talk) 22:41, 10 February 2023 (UTC)

• Yes to 1, 2 and 3: The way this has blown up: obviously, Huldra (talk) 23:58, 10 February 2023 (UTC)
• Comment: here is a balanced WP:SCMP article covering Hersch's article and the official U.S. response. Δπ (talk) 00:13, 11 February 2023 (UTC)

  Doesn't seem so reliable to me: "The September explosions were blamed by Western countries on Russia", "Western fingers have continued to point at Russia" – these claims are not corroborated even by our Wikipedia article (because the statements are a fiction). "The decision was made in secret by US President Joe Biden to cut off Moscow’s ability to earn billions of dollars from natural gas sales to Europe" is another fiction – Hersh, just like Western governments, stresses energy dependence, not money. It's perhaps an unbiased article, but it's so poorly written that I wouldn't use it. — kashmīrī ^TALK 00:21, 11 February 2023 (UTC)

Note that the story is an Agence France-Presse wire, are you saying that the AFP is publishing poorly written fiction? Horse Eye's Back (talk) 00:24, 11 February 2023 (UTC)

Learn the difference between an existential and a universal quantifier. — kashmīrī ^TALK 09:46, 11 February 2023 (UTC)

Learn how to identify a reliable source. Horse Eye's Back (talk) 16:25, 11 February 2023 (UTC)

It's not fiction that the West largely blamed Russia; Poland and Ukraine all but officially blamed Russia, while US officials and other officials from EU countries were mostly just saying that it seemed very likely that Russia was to blame. Regarding these claims are not corroborated even by our Wikipedia article -- there's a reason AFP journalists are AFP journalists and not Wikipedia editors. Endwise (talk) 04:12, 11 February 2023 (UTC)

@Endwise:, You're spot on! the AFP article is not fiction. See my comment below to Kashmiri where I give RS links showing wiki's RS concurred with the AFP article. Best wishes~ BetsyRMadison (talk) 04:35, 11 February 2023 (UTC)

@Kashmiri:, wiki's RS do say 'the West blamed Russia' and that the 'West pointed fingers at Russia.' Here, "Russia shrugged off Western accusations of its complicity in mysterious explosions at the Nord Stream pipelines in Europe this week” [11], here "World leaders quickly blamed Russia for explosions along the Nord Stream undersea natural gas pipelines." [12], here "Western governments have stopped short of pointing the finger directly at Russia" [13], here "Western officials were quick to stress on Tuesday that the explosions appeared to have affected Russian-owned assets.[14]. Plenty more RSes say the same thing. And, those quotes from RS should be included in the wiki article & I've often wondered why they're not. Best regards~ BetsyRMadison (talk) 04:32, 11 February 2023 (UTC)

We do not use headlines as sources.

US News beyond the headline: Though Western officials have so far withheld blaming Russia directly, some have hinted at complicity from Moscow – it says that the West did not blame Russia.

Elsewhere, no report of any named Western government official publicly blaming Russia. There were a few (very few) hints, insinuations, anonymous (!) "officials" sharing a "widespread belief" (in the WaPo piece; the anonymity of their sources is even more annoying than with Hersh's), but there was nothing official. Nothing especially coming from the "collective West" as the AFP piece suggests. The Guardian piece sums it up best: [T]he idea that Moscow would dare to step up by targeting western undersea pipelines and cables in the Baltic Sea and elsewhere remains hard to believe. — kashmīrī ^TALK 09:28, 11 February 2023 (UTC)

If you would like to challenge the reliability of the AFP all you have to do is open a new discussion under this one. You can't dispute that in this conversation as we have a clear consensus on their reliability, you would need to change that consensus. Horse Eye's Back (talk) 17:30, 11 February 2023 (UTC)

I'm questioning the factual accuracy of this particular news piece, and you want me to challenge the reliability of the entire AFP? Idiotic manipulation at its best. — kashmīrī ^TALK 12:07, 12 February 2023 (UTC)

Then open a discussion for the factual accuracy of this particular AFP piece... See if other people agree with you. Horse Eye's Back (talk) 02:37, 13 February 2023 (UTC)

• Yes to all three. It seems like there is some disagreement about the third question, but I think there shouldn't be any considering that it has been covered by plenty of reputable sources Der Spiegel, RFI, South China Morning Post, La Vanguardia. Hersh satisfies the WP:SPS criteria as his work has been published by multiple sources. Alaexis_¿question? 21:23, 11 February 2023 (UTC)

• @Alaexis: The third question is whether or not the blog post published on a social media blog should be used as the source cited in the article about Nord Stream. So, since the content has been "covered by plenty of reputable sources" why not just use those reputable sources, as opposed to using the blog? Especially since blogs are not RS. Best regards ~

BetsyRMadison (talk) 21:43, 11 February 2023 (UTC)

@BetsyRMadison Substack is NOT social media, please. Read this: Substack. — kashmīrī ^TALK 12:08, 12 February 2023 (UTC)

@Kashmiri: Yes, Substack IS a social media blog where anyone can write whatever they want with no editorial oversight and with no fact-checking control. Substack does not ensure the veracity of what any of their bloggers write and does not monitor its own content. That means Substack bloggers can post any false content, conspiracy theories, or propaganda they choose to post. Best regards~ BetsyRMadison (talk) 16:38, 12 February 2023 (UTC)

Kashmiri may be correct that “social media” may not be technically the correct term for Substack, but BettyRMadison is certainly correct in describing it as a blogging platform. At any rate there is no doubt that a Substack post falls within the SPS category in the same way as a Wordpress or Facebook post or a newsletter in the old-fashioned sense does. There is no editorial oversight of any kind. BobFromBrockley (talk) 03:15, 13 February 2023 (UTC)

BetsyRMadison, I think this gets a bit theoretical. We would write the same thing ("Seymour Hersh wrote that US blew up the NS pipeline based on an anonymous source") whether we cite his substack or any of the RS which reported on it. Alaexis_¿question? 20:15, 12 February 2023 (UTC)

• @Alaexis:, I agree and disagree, here's what I mean: Yes, I agree we would write about what Hersh alleges if RS report on it. No, we would not write about Hersh's allegations if the only source is his blog. Best regards~ BetsyRMadison (talk) 21:42, 12 February 2023 (UTC)

  I agree, if his blog were the only place to say it would be undue to mention it in the article. Alaexis_¿question? 21:45, 12 February 2023 (UTC)

Also, it is not true that blogs are always not RS. WP:V says that "Self-published expert sources may be considered reliable when produced by an established subject-matter expert, whose work in the relevant field has previously been published by reliable, independent publications." Alaexis_¿question? 20:17, 12 February 2023 (UTC)

I strongly disagree that Hersh is a subject-matter expert in the Nord Stream sabotage, or Nord Stream, or sabotage, or the Russia/Ukraine war, or the Biden administration, or the CIA, or the Norwegian government, or anything else even remotely relevant. Arguably he might be an SME in My Lai or Abu Ghraib, but not in this. Levivich (talk) 21:41, 12 February 2023 (UTC)

One could argue that he *is* a subject matter expert in various covert operations of varying nefariousness. Alaexis_¿question? 21:46, 12 February 2023 (UTC)

One could, at the risk of sounding quite foolish. For one thing, neither My Lai nor Abu Ghraib were covert operations. But let's assume they were. A journalist who breaks two stories--35 years apart--about two covert ops does not thereby become a subject matter expert in covert ops. (The same holds true if you substitute anything else for "covert ops"). A subject matter expert in covert ops (or any other subject) would have (a) a PhD, or (b) a decades-long career in covert ops (or in that subject), like a retired CIA operative. Hersh is no more an SME in covert ops than Woodward or Bernstein, or any other journalist who ever broke a govt scandal. Levivich (talk) 21:52, 12 February 2023 (UTC)

• @Alaexis: That is not true either. Hersh is not in expert in "covert operations." Hersh had never planned, organized, facilitated in, or participated in a "covert operation" so he is not an expert on that. As someone wrote above: Woodward and Bernstein may be experts in journalistic practises, "But neither would be experts in the subjects they covered during that career." Same goes for Hersh, he may be an expert in journalism, but he's not expert in covert ops, Nord Stream, sabotage, underwater gas line explosions, or even gas lines. Best regards~ BetsyRMadison (talk) 22:03, 12 February 2023 (UTC)

  Are you implying that no journalist can ever break a story revealing anything about covert ops, Nord Stream, sabotage, underwater gas line explosions, or even gas lines? Sounds like the death of any investigative reporting on wikipedia, no? Spudst3r (talk) 03:31, 17 February 2023 (UTC)

@Alaexis:, You are mistaken. Hersh is not a "subject matter expert" on Nord Stream, on underwater gas pipe explosions, or even on gas pipes for that matter. And, Hersh has done no previous work in "the relevant field" of Nord Stream, underwater gas pipe explosions, or gas pipes. Therefore, the portion you quoted does not apply to Hersh or Hersh's blog. Best regards~ BetsyRMadison (talk) 21:45, 12 February 2023 (UTC)

Strongly disagree that Hersh could be considered a SME on this topic. It’s a highly technical topic and he has zero qualifications to authorise his reporting on these technicalities. BobFromBrockley (talk) 03:18, 13 February 2023 (UTC)

• Not 3: I think we can let RS do the donkey work in that case (and I imagine plenty of them will be doing it).Selfstudier (talk) 21:51, 11 February 2023 (UTC)
• Not 3: Per WP:FRINGE. Rsk6400 (talk) 07:47, 12 February 2023 (UTC)
•  Comment: #3 is essentially about sourcing Wikipedia articles to self-published content on Substack (because evaluating Hersh's individual blog entry is outside of RSN scope I believe). It's worth noting that editors commonly source content to Substack – almost 1,000 occurrences – and this has not been questioned to-date. It's unclear why Hersh's post should be an exception. — kashmīrī ^TALK 14:45, 12 February 2023 (UTC)

How in the world is evaluating the reliability of a source in a specific context outside of the scope of RSN? Horse Eye's Back (talk) 21:53, 12 February 2023 (UTC)

• Yes to all 3 as per Alaexis answer.--Mhorg (talk) 20:15, 12 February 2023 (UTC)
• Not 3. This is a self-published source without editorial oversight. Hersh is not a subject-matter export on this topic; being an investigative journalist does not make you an expert on anything that you are investigating. I think there was a point in his career when you could consider Hersh an expert on national-security matters; a review of his record (and how reliable sources write about him) over the last decade suggests that this is not the case now. Mackensen (talk) 22:06, 12 February 2023 (UTC)
• Yes to one, No to 2 and 3. There is just no way around the fact that our Wikipedia:Verifiability policy explicitly forbids using questionable sources in those ways. Horse Eye's Back (talk) 22:08, 12 February 2023 (UTC)
• Yes to one, iffy on 2, no on three. WP:ABOUTSELF seems to apply, and that seems to only clearly cover case 1. As others have noted, 3 is not needed as other sources that don't need special exceptions already exist. 2 is not the worst, since it is on his own article, but I have questions about WP:UNDUE; Wikipedia doesn't need to list every self-published blog post, and I'm not sure a case has been made that this one bears special mentioning in even his own article. --Jayron32 14:41, 13 February 2023 (UTC)
• Comment. Of course the pipes were blown by Russian saboteurs, but this is hardly relevant. Can a primary self-published source for a conspiracy theory be linked if the theory was also covered in a number of valid secondary RS (as in this case)? I would say "yes", why not, simply for a convenience of a reader. My very best wishes (talk) 17:37, 13 February 2023 (UTC)

  Hi @My very best wishes:, I just want to make sure I understand what you're saying. Are you saying that you feel Hersh's blog post should be used as a cited source "for convenience" to a reader? If that is what you're saying, then I disagree and here's why. 1) Hersh's blog is WP:NOTRS & WP:QS so should not be added. 2) Hersh posted his blog on Substack which is also NOTRS & QS. 3) I don't feel "convience" for the reader is a reason to violate WPNOTRS & WP:QS. 4) Wiki is WP:NOTWEBHOST so, if a reader is curious to see Hersh's blog, then they can 'google it.' Best regards~ BetsyRMadison (talk) 18:46, 13 February 2023 (UTC)

Yes, I think it can be used by making an additional link in content about his theory that should be described using other secondary RS that are not self-published. I do not think it would harm to make such link. If we had only the self-published article and no secondary RS that discuss it, I would say "no". My very best wishes (talk) 00:54, 14 February 2023 (UTC)

• I suppose it could go as an external link, if convenience is all that's wanted. Selfstudier (talk) 18:51, 13 February 2023 (UTC)

  It does not fit any of the WP:ELYES criteria for the relevant articles. I think what mvbw is saying is that we shouldn’t use it as a source for facts but secondary coverage suggests it’s mildly noteworthy, and it doesn’t hurt to include the primary source for ease as well. BobFromBrockley (talk) 09:16, 14 February 2023 (UTC)

  I think "Sites that fail to meet criteria for reliable sources yet still contain information about the subject of the article from knowledgeable sources." would cover it. Selfstudier (talk) 09:30, 14 February 2023 (UTC)

  @Selfstudier: I disagree and here's why - the "information (details) about the subject" of Hersh's blog are not corroborated and not verified by any "knowledgeable sources." In other words, other than just 3 RS writing, Hersh wrote a blog post, there is not a single RS that I'm aware of who has verified the "information about the subject" from any "knowledgeable sources." In fact, one of the RS used in the wiki piece on Hersh's blog debunks Hersh's allegations about the "subject." [15] For those reasons & reasons @Bobfrombrockley: stated, I don't that WP:ELYES applies here. Best Regards~ BetsyRMadison (talk) 15:13, 14 February 2023 (UTC)

  I agree, I meant that Hersh himself is a "knowledgeable source", that doesn't mean he is an expert, if he was, I'd say cite him directly with attribution. It's just an external link, no biggy. Selfstudier (talk) 15:17, 14 February 2023 (UTC)

• Sorta no to all 3 but with conditions. My views are somewhat similar to My very best wishes except that I have not analysed the secondary source situation enough to comment on whether there is reason to include. In other words, while I don't think the blog post can be used by itself, if secondary source coverage of the blog post means it is mentioned in some article, I don't see any harm in including a link to the blog post. I've fairly sure we do this all the time in fact, it's no significantly different from the way we may include a link to a tweet or Facebook post when these are covered in reliable secondary sources even though there are generally not RS by themselves. However to be clear, I have no view on whether secondary source coverage is enough to warrant mention in any article. Nil Einne (talk) 23:28, 13 February 2023 (UTC)

  To be clear, this means the link should only be for context, further reading and convenience. Since it's not an RS, it still cannot be used as the sole source for any detail which is not covered in secondary sources. Nil Einne (talk) 08:09, 14 February 2023 (UTC)

• Yes to all 3, given that his accusations have been met with denials and been covered in third party secondary sources. With that, including the initial accusation by a notable and noteworthy commentator is fine. nableezy - 17:36, 14 February 2023 (UTC)
• 1-Yes and source it to WP:RS not his blog 2,3-NO as per WP:SPS he is not an expert on nordstream or explosions --Shrike (talk) 22:03, 17 February 2023 (UTC)
• Yes to all 3: His reporting has prompted a response from the White House, making it extremely notable for the subject of question #3 especially. Mottezen (talk) 22:54, 19 February 2023 (UTC)

Mercola.com

This is NOT an RfC, (so just discuss) but a feeler for whether we should start one to see if we can get his websites (plural) listed and deprecated at WP:RSP. I was amazed to see it wasn't even mentioned there. His websites are so bad they violate WP:ELNO.

Joseph Mercola is possibly the most infamous, currently living, peddler of pseudoscientific alternative medicine products and truly dangerous ideas. He is now suing Google/YouTube for removing his videos. He has several websites, the most notable of which is https://www.mercola.com/. He has also moved much of his content to Substack, which is an infamous "last refuge" for bad actors who get banned elsewhere (that applies to quacks and fringe journalists). Mercola's content is literally "so bad no one else will host it". Here's a sample from our article:

He was warned by the US Food and Drug Administration (FDA) in February 2021 for selling fake COVID-19 cures. In March, the Center for Countering Digital Hate named Mercola as one of the 12 most prominent sources of COVID misinformation in a report later cited by US Surgeon General Vivek Murthy. In September his accounts on YouTube were removed by the company for breaking their policies on COVID-19 misinformation. Mercola then moved some of his content to Substack. According to Imran Ahmed, CEO of the Center for Countering Digital Hate, Mercola's content is "so bad no one else will host it".

On September 29, 2022, Mercola filed suit against Google, who owns YouTube, alleging they violated their provision of giving the subscriber an opportunity to remove any of their content to comply to a new policy.

Is there some interest in pursuing this endeavor? -- Valjean (talk) (PING me) 00:51, 12 February 2023 (UTC)

Mercola.com   Shows exactly one use that isn't the article about Mercola himself. I think in order to call a RfC you would need to demonstrate that its use is a problem, which I just don't think is the case here. Hemiauchenia (talk) 00:55, 12 February 2023 (UTC)

I removed that one other use (it was at Sauerkraut, where the citation was not needed). Firefangledfeathers (talk / contribs) 01:04, 12 February 2023 (UTC)

I would say Mercola should be considered generally unreliable if not deprecated. However as Hemiauchenia says I am not aware of anyone trying to add Mercola links to Wikipedia. Andre🚐 00:59, 12 February 2023 (UTC)

Definitely unreliable, don't need an RfC. Could be a case for Xlinkbot. Firefangledfeathers (talk / contribs) 01:04, 12 February 2023 (UTC)

It appears that most editors are fairly sensible since they aren't adding him as a source to articles. That's good. What I'm really after is a community decision at WP:RSP about it. We need to get it deprecated. (Only sensible and uncontroversial sources can explain no mention at WP:RSP. Mercola is neither, so a community decision should be found there.) Right now his article has only one link, in the infobox, after I removed one link from the External links as a violation of WP:ELNO. I'd like to get rid of the one in the infobox, and I'm hoping a decision at WP:RSP would enable that move.

What's the next step? -- Valjean (talk) (PING me) 03:35, 12 February 2023 (UTC)

I think you can go ahead and remove the link from the infobox based on this discussion, but you don't need to add it to RSP unless it comes up again in the future. Andre🚐 03:37, 12 February 2023 (UTC)

Okay. Then, if anyone complains, we can take this further. -- Valjean (talk) (PING me) 03:40, 12 February 2023 (UTC)

It probably doesn't matter because anyone can search for Mercola and easily find his website. In regards to his lawsuit he sued because Google had a policy to allow all users time to comply with any new policy changes but neglected to do that in his case.Red Rose 13 (talk) 04:06, 12 February 2023 (UTC)

• Strong support to deprecation. It's not that the links are there at this moment; it's that they keep being added every now and then and it takes time and effort to remove them.

Links to this peddler of fringe nonsense should have no place in any self-respecting encyclopaedia. — kashmīrī ^TALK 12:16, 12 February 2023 (UTC)

• So like, what's the point? Deprecating/listing on RSP/etc. etc. are all about controversial sites; things that either have been, or that we anticipating being, points of contention. Stuff that is on the face completely unreliable doesn't need to be listed (or even discussed, really), as we expect people to be able to apply WP:RS all by themselves, without coming here to ask permission or checking the list at RSP. There's no need to get community consensus to remove every bullshit source that has ever existed. Most of them, you can just remove or not use; if there is a controversy, then this might be an appropriate venue to discuss, but we have no evidence that anyone is trying to use this, nor do we have evidence that its use is widespread. If it's shit, get rid of it on your own, WP:SOFIXIT applies here as anywhere else. Permission is not needed. --Jayron32 14:38, 13 February 2023 (UTC)

• I agree there's no reason to have an RfC on RSN but I think most other editors have missed a wider point. The OP seems to be under the mistaken impression deprecation would mean we're forbidden from including the website in the infobox or as an external link and that seems to be the primary reason they're asking for deprecation.

  But that's not what deprecation is for or what it achieves. It's not even what blacklisting achieves since the link can still be whitelisted where it is appropriate. Consider famous cases like Breitbart News and Daily Mail. Unsurprisingly both articles include links to their respective media outlets in their infoboxes. (Maybe elsewhere, I didn't check.)

  To be clear, deprecation is about preventing editors using something as a source in all but the most exceptional of circumstances. It makes it clear to editors the default would be to never use the source (as an RS) and they would have to have a very very good argument as to why we should use it as a source in any particular case. Blacklisting is about preventing abuse or mistakes e.g. for sites which are spammed or which contain dangerous enough material that we have to be sure it never occurs. There should be evidence there is actually such a problem. If there are zero links to a source and people aren't too many cases of people having to remove them then it is unlikely blacklisting is needed.

  Whether to include a link to the website not as a source but either as external link or infobox should be discussed in the article talk pages where such a link is proposed guided by our relevant guidelines and policies of which WP;RS is basically uninvolved. There is no reason to involve RSN in it since it's not an RS question the website isn't being used as a source in any way.

  We definitely consider potential harm from the website but you don't need a discussion on RSN to establish potential harm. For example we removed the link to Kiwi Farms after this RFC Talk:Kiwi Farms/Archive 4#URL and 8chan after Talk:8chan/Archive 2#Inclusion of the link to 8chan but still link to Stormfront after Talk:Stormfront (website)#URL. To give a bunch more examples, we also still link to The Right Stuff (blog), VDARE, [[The Daily Stormer], 4chan, Encyclopedia Dramatica and Wikipediocracy. No idea about discussion on these. If any of those websites have ever been discussed on RSN before, I assume these have been short discussions since there's no question they aren't suitable as sources. (Like with Mercola, they're so bad that they're definitelty a case where I think we should not include a link even if we're covering something because of secondary source discussion unlike I think we generally should as mentioned in a discussion above.)

  With the exception of the last three, personally I consider all of these websites more harmful than Mercola. But I acknowledge a key difference is with most of them it's unlikely people visiting via us is a significant factor in the harm since anyone who is taken in by them is probably going to find it anyway and are unfortunately already down a rabbit hole Wikipedia can't do much to prevent. But it's possible some people may visit Mercola's website and be taken in by some of the absolute nonsense without that being the case.

  Note I am not saying you need to start an RfC on the article talk page. As always, if you've removed the link, explained your reasons and no one has objected you can leave it at that. I'm also not trying to say we should keep a link to Mercola's website/s. There is a key difference between the Mercola case and the one ones namely that the other ones the entire article is basically about the website but thankfully we do not have and I don't think we need to have an article on Mercola's websites, we just have one on the person. But the point is discussion here and even deprecating or blacklisting is of very limited relevance to the question you seem to be asking.

  Nil Einne (talk) 09:01, 14 February 2023 (UTC)

  • Nil Einne, thanks for your interest. I just saw this now. Not that I ever even considered it, but I agree that blacklisting is not needed, and since a local consensus can solve this issue, I'll go that direction. Thanks again. -- Valjean (talk) (PING me) 19:01, 18 February 2023 (UTC)

References

RFC: Frontiers Media

Which of the following best describes Frontiers Media?

• Option 1: Generally reliable
• Option 2: Additional considerations apply
• Option 3: Generally unreliable
• Option 4: Deprecate

RFC Before Previous Discussion 1 Previous discussion 2 Selfstudier (talk) 14:47, 12 February 2023 (UTC)

Survey (Frontiers)

• Option 3, generally unreliable Unlike established academic publishers (Elsevier, Emerald, Springer, Sage, Wiley, Taylor & Francis, etc.), Frontiers is pay for publishing. Most respected academic publishers also offer the option to pay for open access but, crucially, that has no impact on the peer reviewing nor on the editorial decision, and authors are bot required to pay. Not so for Frontiers, where payment is compulsory and the peer-review is "fast and easy". It does not mean all research published in Frontiers is wrong (much may be correct) but it does mean that it is payment, rather than the result on the peer-review process, that decide the outcome. As such, it is generally unreliable in academia. Jeppiz (talk) 14:55, 12 February 2023 (UTC)

Payment is compulsory for essentially all gold OA journals, including very respectable journals. One could easily make the same critique of Scientific Reports, which is also full of both junk and excellent research, but no one seems to be clamouring to make it generally unreliable. Hemiauchenia (talk) 16:16, 12 February 2023 (UTC)

Open the discussion on Scientific Reports then, now that you've pointed out that its not generally reliable there will be some sort of clamor... Horse Eye's Back (talk) 17:28, 12 February 2023 (UTC)

I'm pretty sure most people who cite SciRep are well aware of its mixed reputation. It's also published by Springer Nature, which is a generally reliable publisher, which makes the case for classifying it as "generally unreliable" more difficult. Hemiauchenia (talk) 17:33, 12 February 2023 (UTC)

• Option 2 i.e. Status quo (WP:CITEWATCH#Frontiers Media). There is excellent research in frontiers journals. There's also garbage research. It's a mixed enough bag that you can't summarily rule it out as a source. Headbomb {t · c · p · b} 14:58, 12 February 2023 (UTC)
• If it is “pay to publish”, then I would not call it generally reliable. It might qualify as specifically reliable (context is important)… but, even then, I would treat anything they publish as SPS by the author. In-text attribution would be important, and WP:DUE would come into play. Blueboar (talk) 15:23, 12 February 2023 (UTC)
• #3, generally unreliable. With regret, because they have published some valuable articles, too. But my limited experience has taught me that utter crap is also found in Frontiers journals, published either for payment or because you're friends with the journal's chief editor and no serious journal will publish you. — kashmīrī ^TALK 15:53, 12 February 2023 (UTC)
• Option 2 per HB. HB really knows what he's talking about when it comes to academic journals, and he regularly removes actual predatory journals. I don't cite frontiers very often, but I occasionally do so if the authors are subject matter experts (which means that the work is standing up on the reputation of the author rather than the journal). If it is judged generally unreliable, then there will be no room for nuance regarding these cases. Hemiauchenia (talk) 16:16, 12 February 2023 (UTC)
• Option 3, generally unreliable. The poor reputation at RSN discussions has persisted for years. Where is the evidence they have done anything to improve their editorial process? Bad reports continue to come out,[16] and they are now being disregarded by some universities.[17]. In most RSN dicussions, the consistent advice I am seeing is that they shouldn't be cited for biomedical stuff[18] and other "important" stuff, yet that's the majority of their output. It's difficult to see why they should not be deprecated. - Hunan201p (talk) 19:44, 12 February 2023 (UTC)
• Option 2 I tend towards Headbomb's logic. Some Frontier journals are highly respected (e.g. Frontiers in Immunology which acts as the journal of the International Union of Immunological Societies), some are not. I wouldn't want a situation where use of very good, solid, peer-reviewed review articles in Frontier in Immunology can't be used. Red Fiona (talk) 21:25, 12 February 2023 (UTC)
• 3 or 4 - Yes, sometimes garbage journals publish good work. Sometimes they publish useful work frequently enough to be tempting to us as Wikipedia editors. Is the defense here that because its a convenient journal, despite its problems, we should be citing them anyway? It's an extraordinary and supremely rare rare situations where we absolutely need to be on the cutting edge of research, and therefor need to cite a primary source from a predatory journal where no better sources exist. Grayfell (talk) 07:27, 13 February 2023 (UTC)
• Option 2: The status quo of 'use with caution' is the most practical approach. Frontiers has dozens of journals, and the case for any given journal, in any given subject area, is going to be different. The assessment of that should remain case-by-case, and be performed by editors willing to put in the legwork of scrutinizing the quality of individuals papers, their authors and the reviewers. Iskandar323 (talk) 09:48, 13 February 2023 (UTC)
• Option 2 is the most sensible option, per Headbomb. Papers should be evaluated on a case-by-case basis. WP:MREL, with the footnote being highlighted by Headbomb's unreliable.js tool, should be enough to drive people to discuss these on the talk page and determine whether a paper should or shouldn't be used. DFlhb (talk) 10:02, 13 February 2023 (UTC)
• Option 2 The CiteWatch entry above does not seem to be invalid; no evidence has been presented that the situation has changed positively or negatively. Problematic, but not a "never use" option. --Jayron32 14:18, 13 February 2023 (UTC)
• 2. I'm sympathetic to the argument that Open Access journals where the content is free-as-in-libre content for all don't jive with funding methods relying on paying to access content and so other funding options have to be explored and is at least philosophically different then pay to play. I would not hold that against them to the full extent of a predatory/pay to play journal. That said for some of them the intentionally wide net they allow does merit caution. The current situation seems to take that into account. --(loopback) ping/whereis 14:55, 13 February 2023 (UTC)
• Option 2 Agree with Headbomb. Every publisher publishes some garbage. I have read perfectly good review articles in Frontiers journals. I would be more concerned about the original research published there, which we shouldn't be using much anyway. Pelirojopajaro (talk) 21:34, 13 February 2023 (UTC)

Discussion (Frontiers)

I understood that one still can cite as SPS/subject matter expert even if the publisher is WP:GUNREL, is that wrong? Selfstudier (talk) 16:43, 12 February 2023 (UTC)

If it's a generally reliable publisher, it isn't self-published. If the source is challenged in the talk page, you could certainly point out that the publisher is generally reliable and the author is a subject matter expert. Jc3s5h (talk) 16:57, 12 February 2023 (UTC)

Sorry, my fault, using these dratted abbreviations, GR meaning WP:GUNREL as opposed to WP:GREL. Fixed. Selfstudier (talk) 17:53, 12 February 2023 (UTC)

Headbomb, Hemiauchenia, Selfstudier - like Selfstudier says, option 3 would not exclude ever citing articles in Frontiers. However, option 2 (and 1) makes it a free for all. Perhaps our fields are different, but for me, if there is "excellent and garbage research" (as I agree there can be), I don't think we should say it's all fine. If a restaurant served some dishes that were delicious and some that were poisoned, I would not eat there. A hallmark of virtually all good academic publishers is that they don't publish garbage. I would still keep an open mind to cite experts who had published in Frontiers - but strongly caution against the status quo that anyone can cite anything from Frontiers and shrug it off by saying "it's unclear". Selfstudier, Falk was a serious researcher and whatever the outcome of this discussion, I would not use it to disqualify Falk. Jeppiz (talk) 16:54, 12 February 2023 (UTC)

All publishers at least on occasion publish garbage research. Is Elsevier generally unreliable because it once published a paper that suggested that octopus were space aliens? [19] and which one malacologist described as pseudoscience and nonsense [20].? Hemiauchenia (talk) 17:07, 12 February 2023 (UTC)

Also publishers have better and worse journals, and bad research gets published. Again, we are in very different fields, but in my field no good journal (none of the top 200) requires payment, and all have proper review process. That is not true for Frontiers. It doesn't mean everything in Frontiers is bad or anything in Elsevier good, but it does mean they are different kinds of publishers. For Elsevier, the research has to be good (and payment for open access is optional); for Frontiers, the payment has to be made (and research quality is optional). That is not comparable. Jeppiz (talk) 17:33, 12 February 2023 (UTC)

Pay-for-publishing Gold OA is standard for many major publishers used in paleontology, like PLOS One and PeerJ, both of which have reasonable peer review standards. The idea that a source should be looked down on because it is pay for OA, regardless of peer review standards, is not tenable across the whole of academic publishing. Hemiauchenia (talk) 17:42, 12 February 2023 (UTC)

To add to Hemiauchenia's point, lots of funding bodies are moving towards "you have to publish in open access". Red Fiona (talk) 21:26, 12 February 2023 (UTC)

"And be sure to include that in your budget proposal because we'll pay for it as part of your funding." (I'm not setting aside the impact this move toward pay-for-publishing has on self-funded researchers, graduate students, independent scholars, etc. - just noting that including this as part of your budget request for research grants has quickly become the norm in those disciplines where this is occurring.) ElKevbo (talk) 03:29, 13 February 2023 (UTC)

As someone who works in an adjacent field, all I get is scientists complaining :) Red Fiona (talk) 00:02, 18 February 2023 (UTC)

• Comment: Here is a discussion on researchgate about Frontiers, originally shared by @Zero. It's quite interesting, with posters reporting a range of experiences with Frontiers, including many reporting experiencing a long and thorough review process with very serious reviewers. Also at least one poster who had a paper rejected (one out of four), and other interesting details about Frontiers apparently waving costs or offering cost discounts - much of which squares poorly with it being a slapdash, cash-for-publication outlet. Iskandar323 (talk) 09:44, 13 February 2023 (UTC)

On the other hand, an actual participant in the review of a Frontiers study has given a different perspective.[21] - Hunan201p (talk) 14:31, 13 February 2023 (UTC)

As noted at the talk page, that is not at all persuasive. Selfstudier (talk) 14:51, 13 February 2023 (UTC)

Question/Suggestion

Given that pretty much everyone agrees that Frontiers is problematic, but some users point out that some of its journals are decent enough, surely the best option would be to make that distinction? If we all agree that several journals are "garbage", it should be an easy decision to decide that they are not RS, while still keeping an open mind on the Frontiers journals identified as reliable. Jeppiz (talk) 21:06, 13 February 2023 (UTC)

It's not even journal by journal thing (though some journal are worse than others), it's a paper by paper thing. Nearly every Frontiers journal lands in a 'sort of ish I guess maybe?' grey area. Headbomb {t · c · p · b} 21:23, 13 February 2023 (UTC)

Seconding Headbomb's comment about these journals landing in a grey area. My only addition is that the amount of fringe in a given Frontiers journal is often directly proportional to the amount of fringe in a field, if its a wacky field it might get pretty wild. Horse Eye's Back (talk) 21:28, 13 February 2023 (UTC)

How is this different from what is already written at WP:CITEWATCH#Frontiers Media --Jayron32 12:53, 14 February 2023 (UTC)

@Headbomb and Horse Eye's Back: In reality this seldom happens. Mostly, the bad science just keeps piling up, and the good editors exhaust themselves trying to fix the articles while the socks and the IPs wear them out. From my experience, most genetics articles on European and Asian ethnicities have sat littered with outdated pre-prints and garbage interpretations of poor sources for years. People know where the really bad citations are, but don't have the time or the energy to explain why and remove them. The idea that a website like Wikipedia with thousands of high-volume research articles (but only a handful of competent and unoccupied editors) is going to "sort everything out on a case by case basis" is extremely unrealistic and impractical. - Hunan201p (talk) 14:45, 14 February 2023 (UTC)

That's more a problem that would need a WP:GENRS akin to WP:MEDRS to solve than it is a problem requiring a ban on Frontiers journals being cited. Headbomb {t · c · p · b} 16:24, 14 February 2023 (UTC)

Either route is unlikely to succeed though, as long as people favor a "grey zone" approach to source reliability. Nobody wants to compromise and set standards for the other sciences, lest that we lose the privilege of citing that one magic paper that stood out from the rest. - Hunan201p (talk) 17:26, 14 February 2023 (UTC)

This exactly matches my observation as well. I've guessing every experienced editor has had to explain why they removed bad sources. Imagine how much more tedious it is when a source is in a supposed "grey area". Nobody has that kind of time.

Human genetics articles have a specific problem where they include undue details that shouldn't be included even when supported by the best primary sources from the best journals in the field.

Being generous, I think a lot of editors just want to share their own enthusiasm for their field and lose sight of the big picture. Anyone who edits in this area knows that there is also a more sinister problem of cherry-picking to support ideological conclusions. There is no clean way to differentiate between these two motivations, but getting rid of predatory journals seems like a reasonable starting point. Grayfell (talk) 02:16, 16 February 2023 (UTC)

The Free Press

Bari Weiss has converted her Substack Common Sense into what appears to be an attempt to create a more "institutional" organization called The Free Press. It describes itself as a "new media company", and it does not seem obvious to describe it merely as a blog (as Weiss' Wiki article seems to imply). It features a cast of contributing journalists/writers, not only Weiss. I know Bari Weiss is, perhaps to some, a politically controversial figure, yet her credentials as an established journalist seem fairly clear by her resumé. Is there any consensus or opinions on whether this source is OK for Wikipedia? Obviously it not a major, traditional institution like the Washington Post or ABC, but it does appear to merit some discussion as it appears to be rather more than a blog. Euor (talk) 20:23, 13 February 2023 (UTC)

A pretty looking blog is still a blog. There is no editorial board, no standards, and no mechanism for corrections, literally nothing except a note from Bari Weiss... It remains a blog, not a bona fide news organization. Slywriter (talk) 21:44, 13 February 2023 (UTC)

It still looks like Weiss's blog. Should be treated as a WP:SPS. Horse Eye's Back (talk) 21:48, 13 February 2023 (UTC)

I agree with the above, WP:SPS and should not be treated as a media organisation. Jeppiz (talk) 23:15, 13 February 2023 (UTC)

This looks to have some degree of editorial oversight, and I wouldn't characterize it as being composed entirely of WP:SPS. There are multiple people who serve as editors over the content published, including Weiss herself Peter Savodnik—both of whom are serious journalists. Nellie Bowles, who is involved both as a reporter and in a broader strategic role, is also both full-time on this project and a serious journalist. My only concerns are (1) that the content tends to be more essay-based than straight reporting (but Vox is considered WP:GREL so that does not appear to be blocker in and of itself) and that (2) the new media organization is truly new; it doesn't appear to be well-established quite yet. But the basis of editorial review and fact-checking appear to be present, so this is definitely not a self-published source in any reasonable sense of the term as it pertains to the articles written by the various writers and contributors. — Red-tailed hawk _(nest) 04:44, 14 February 2023 (UTC)

Largely matches my view. They seem to employ good people. I recommend waiting until they're more established to classify them either way. DFlhb (talk) 19:01, 14 February 2023 (UTC)

Possibly better than most group blogs but still basically that. No reputation for fact checking an accuracy so probably not a usable source for facts unless authors are subject matter experts. As opinion, unlikely to be noteworthy as too fringe. So not necessarily never usable but I can’t imagine many situations when it’d be worth citing. BobFromBrockley (talk) 09:23, 14 February 2023 (UTC)

What exactly do you mean by too fringe? The opinion range seems to broadly span center-left to center-right. — Red-tailed hawk _(nest) 16:48, 14 February 2023 (UTC)

I also found that statement a bit odd. I also find it reflecting centre-right to centre-left view. Obviously it will appear to contain deeply heterodox opinions if you strongly adhere to a certain orthodoxy. But if you zoom out and attempt to detach yourself from POV (impossible to do completely, of course), it seems to reflect certain ordinary opinions of a considerable segment of the population. Example: it appears The Free Press has now written an article concerning a new audio interview series with J.K. Rowling. If you strongly reject Rowling's views, I am sure it would appear "fringe", bringing on all kinds of criticisms toward The Free Press about "platforming" and so on. But zooming out, is J.K. Rowling and her stance in the whole gender debate "fringe"? Or is it representative of the position of a considerable section of the population, whether you agree with that position or not? To dismiss it as "fringe" despite a wide base of support for her, including among generally the right-side of the political spectrum (~half the population?) implies a value judgement that is problematically POV to me. And I say this as someone that is no fan of her positions. Anyways, this is beside the point of whether its editorial standards and reputation is acceptable as of yet.--Euor (talk) 19:22, 14 February 2023 (UTC)

WP:SPS still, despite the glossy coat of credibility paint. It still has none. Zaathras (talk) 03:28, 16 February 2023 (UTC)

I agree with Zaathras. An SPS by any other name is still an SPS. As far as Wikipedia is concerned, it could just as well be a blog. It's a self-published source we can only use on the author's biography here. In no case can it ever be used to comment on a living person anywhere at Wikipedia. That's BLP 101. The only way we can document what it says is the exact quotes from it that are cited by secondary and third party RS, and then we cite those sources/URLs. -- Valjean (talk) (PING me) 01:48, 18 February 2023 (UTC)

southasiatime.com

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

This looks a bit dubious. I found it sourcing some stuff at Miss World 2023. The "about us" page has no physical address or list of people, notably not an editor-in-chief or information about any associated print publication. The "about us" does claim ownership by "LDC News Service". Best I can tell is that LDC is a group with a Facebook page (if it's the same outfit); I'm not even sure if it's incorporated or (looks probable) student-run or something like that. Can anybody else tell more? ☆ Bri (talk) 21:19, 13 February 2023 (UTC)

From the about page, I see an editor listed but no editorial guidelines. Domain is only four years old and there is no indication it is anything other than a blog. I would say not reliable. --CNMall41 (talk) 05:49, 15 February 2023 (UTC)

Defence-blog reliable now?

In the about us page, Dylan got some staff now doing reports. In the past, some editors considered it to be not reliable and blacklisted the page. Ominae (talk) 05:54, 14 February 2023 (UTC)

Multiple people contributing to an unreliable source does not make it more reliable. How is the source treated by other sources? Is it cited by other scrupulously reliable sources? Does it have editorial control? Does it respond to errors and make corrections? Does it employ respected writers and investigators who themselves have a reputation of reliability? If ALL of that doesn't happen, it isn't reliable, no matter how many people write for them. --Jayron32 12:52, 14 February 2023 (UTC)

I just saw some wiki pages around here that are using it. When I used it before, it got blocked by the blacklist. Ominae (talk) 18:51, 14 February 2023 (UTC)

I mean, don't judge something is correct merely because other people are also doing the wrong thing. Go back to core principles. Check a source against WP:RS. Does it meet all the criteria. This one clearly doesn't. Don't worry if someone else did the wrong thing. That's not license to also do so yourself. --Jayron32 13:11, 15 February 2023 (UTC)

I feel like a broken record but a few people writing guest articles on their friend's blog does not turn it into a news outlet. Horse Eye's Back (talk) 18:53, 14 February 2023 (UTC)

Showering and disease prevention

Shower has a section that reads:

Showering is mostly part of a daily routine primarily to promote cleanliness and prevent odor, disease and infection. Advances in science and medicine in the 19th century began to realize the benefit of regular bathing to an individual's health.

This statement is backed up by a single source: a sociology book from 2003. While I do not discount the importance of WP:SKYBLUE for common-sense statements, it must be balanced with WP:MEDRS in this case since the article is making sweeping claims of the disease prevention effects of showering, and MEDRS firmly establishes that medical claims must be backed up by sufficient peer-reviewed secondary studies published in reputable journals and not a book about sociology, and certainly not science from the 1800s. Existing precedent would suggest removing this statement until MEDRS-compliant sources can be found. MarshallKe (talk) 13:18, 15 February 2023 (UTC)

This seems to be more an a wp:undue than a wp:rs issue. Slatersteven (talk) 13:21, 15 February 2023 (UTC)

I'd move this to the talk page rather than deleting, to give people an opportunity to look for MEDRS that may or may not substantiate dueness. I generally don't like to judge dueness based merely on sources we cite, without doing my own survey of sources from scratch. Also, while we should use MEDRS for medical claims, the sociologist author seems reputable, and I'd expect there to be non-medical statements we can source to her. DFlhb (talk) 21:37, 16 February 2023 (UTC)

The Colorado Times Recorder, Passage, and Idavox as sources in the Foundation Against Intolerance and Racism article

There is currently an ongoing debate at the Foundation Against Intolerance and Racism about whether the sources listed above are reliable. I have tried to argue they are through relevant details and wikipolicy, and those opposed have tended to just say the sources are "activist" without further elaboration (or reliable sources for their claim) and have in some cases resorted to personal attacks and insinuations about me as an editor. Having tried without much success to have a good faith discussion there, I'm raising the issue here for comment on their use generally and in this particular article. TheTranarchist ⚧ Ⓐ (talk) 18:01, 15 February 2023 (UTC)TheTranarchist

The Colorado Times Recorder

(https://coloradotimesrecorder.com/, source in question)

The text that was removed sourced to the CTR is The Colorado Times Recorder listed it as a "conservative, anti-LGBTQ, pro-charter school activist group" and stated "FAIR’s Board of Advisors consists of a host of disgraced academics and journalists, many of whom have been accused of racism, pushing race science, climate change denial, sexual assault, and homophobia transphobia." in the Reception section.

This source most obviously meets all the requirements for a WP:RS. They have a named editorial board of distinguished journalists and a clear policy for factually reviewing and verifying information before publishing, in addition to a clear retraction/correction policy. They have been cited, named, and praised extensively in well-established WP:RS and have a clear separation between opinion and analysis articles. TheTranarchist ⚧ Ⓐ (talk) 18:01, 15 February 2023 (UTC)TheTranarchist

Can you link to the editorial board? Because I see a listing of staffers (not all with a journalism background and many with political orientations described)[22], but not an editorial board? Additionally, the site has an explicit political orientation. Jahaza (talk) 21:37, 15 February 2023 (UTC)

Link is here. Three writers state they are progressive, only one does not reference past journalistic work. The paper describes itself as nonpartisan, with a progressive orientation. Per WP:BIASED, this does not mean they can't be used. TheTranarchist ⚧ Ⓐ (talk) 21:57, 15 February 2023 (UTC)

Apologies for the self-plagiarism: Even a generally reliable source may not be reliable in all context. This article obliquely labels a handful of advisory members (over 50 people per the FAIR website) as "disgraced" including Robert P. George, Steven Pinker, Michael Shermer due to accusations of bad stuff (and the author also cites her own op-ed to justify one of the "has been accused"). Does that seem like something that should be accepted at face value, even if attributed? --Animalparty! (talk) 21:59, 15 February 2023 (UTC)

The source primarily investigates FAIR's connections with CPAN. The figures noted are the most prominent, and other sources have often used the same ones as examples of a conservative-stacked board. That they have been accused of those things is public knowledge, most are sourced to reliable secondary coverage of the accusations or primary sources directly backing up that they were accused of those things (such as an open letter signed by hundreds or GLAAD painting a fairly damning factual picture of Robert George being homophobic and transphobic). The op-ed she cites does not suddenly mean the whole source shouldn't be used or quote not included. More to the point, her op-ed is not the source for the accusations, it is an op-ed describing accusations and providing some context. Two different things. A prominent quote to that effect is It caused controversy when Target announced it would be pulled from its shelves Nov. 12, following outcry from the trans community, which points to the fact she alone is not calling Shrier transphobic. That they criticized the organization and members of the board is WP:DUE, especially attributed, and to keep it out is to WP:WHITEWASH their reception. TheTranarchist ⚧ Ⓐ (talk) 17:01, 16 February 2023 (UTC)

It's not just the local sources that acknowledge the site's partisanship; Axios provides it as being among Democrats and liberal organizations that began producing partisan content years ago in Colorado, but this information is plainly available on the about page of the website, so I'm not sure that the website being left-leaning is contested anywhere. Moreover, the entire editorial board of the website is one person; any articles by him are going to have to be presumed to be self-published, as there does not appear to be any other editors who would review his work. That the extent of editorial review is a single person is also not the sort of robust sort of review process that inspires strong confidence in editorial control and editorial independence.

Among local journalists, the Times Recorder's reputation appears to be mixed. A column written by local investigative reporter Jimmy Sengenberger and published in the Colorado Springs Gazette, the paper of record for the Colorado Springs area, labels the website as a mock news site run by left-wing activist Jason Salzman. The publication's news site has previously merely labeled the website as liberal or as progressively bent. Not all of the articles published in the Gazette have been as critical (some have cited it), but my general sense reading through how others use the website is that it has a mixed reputation for fact-checking and accuracy; WP:MREL probably describes it well. As such, it might not exactly be the sort of thing that we want to use to cite contentious claims alone for reasons of its reputation for fact-checking, and I would question the extent to which items reported on solely by the Colorado Times Recorder warrant inclusion in the article—even with attribution. — Red-tailed hawk _(nest) 22:38, 15 February 2023 (UTC)

I don't see where you pulled WP:MREL or mixed reputation for fact-checking and accuracy out of. A much larger number of more established WP:RS have lauded it's coverage and reliability. Additionally, the article in question was not written by the editor, so while that consideration may apply for articles he himself writes, it does not apply to this one.

You only linked to 1 source that criticizes their coverage instead of just noting they have a left-wing bias, which nobody disagrees with. The Gazette does not criticize their accuracy, they criticize their description of CPAN as extremist: twice in December, the Colorado Times Recorder — a mock news site run by left-wing activist Jason Salzman — attempted to paint CPAN as a right-wing extremist group working to undermine public education and harm the LGBTQ community. The site grouped CPAN with the Foundation Against Intolerance and Racism, Advocates for D20 Kids, and the longstanding Independence Institute. None of these organizations are extremist. The author discloses CPAN has awarded him, so it's hardly independent. Notably, this is a strawman, as the article does not once call them extremist, they call them a conservative, anti-LGBTQ, pro-charter school activist group. They provide more than ample evidence for each facet of that description. As you noted, the Gazzete has found them reliable and cited them before, so one article calling them a "mock news site" and attacking a strawman without pointing out any inaccuracies by a person with a clear COI is not damning. TheTranarchist ⚧ Ⓐ (talk) 17:29, 16 February 2023 (UTC)

I would say they should be considered generally reliable, particular as other reliable source cite them. Bias does not mean unreliable, but I would suggest they are always attributed. No comment on due issues, that's for the articles talk page. -- LCU ActivelyDisinterested ∆transmissions∆ °co-ords° 10:31, 16 February 2023 (UTC)

Generally reliable The editorial board have great credentials, and the about page implies they even fact check opinion pieces, which seems like a rarity these days (looking at you, NYT). I wish every news site had as clear an about page as they do. This is an excellent source. Sativa Inflorescence (talk) 20:51, 19 February 2023 (UTC)

Passage

(https://readpassage.com/, source in question)

The text that is most directly sourced to this in the article is a paragraph on their activities and collaborations in Canada.

This source from the start seems to meet most of the requirements for a WP:RS. They have an editorial team, with a well-respected and published managing editor and many distinguished journalists working for them as well. They have a clear verification/corrections policy and their corrections seem to be mostly date mix-ups. They distinguish between opinion and news. The only question is how it's been covered in established WP:RS. Any help with the google-fu necessary to find how they've been covered is appreciated, as "passage" unsurprisingly turns up a lot of hits. TheTranarchist ⚧ Ⓐ (talk) 18:01, 15 February 2023 (UTC)TheTranarchist

• Not reliable; this is an opinion piece written by a freelance writer, and the website itself notes that Please note that we only publish opinion and analysis. We do not accept news articles, pieces with original reporting, interviews or articles that have been published elsewhere.. The claim that they distinguish between opinion and news is true inasmuch as they publish exactly zero news pieces; this is in no way, shape, nor form a WP:NEWSORG. I see nothing particualar about the freelance writer that would indicate that they are an WP:SME, so I see no reasonable reason to see this as reliable except for the author's opinion (which is not WP:DUE absent coverage from secondary sources).— Red-tailed hawk _(nest) 22:45, 15 February 2023 (UTC)

  @TheTranarchist: What did you mean by [t]hey distinguish between opinion and news? — Red-tailed hawk _(nest) 22:47, 15 February 2023 (UTC)

  My mistake sorry, I paraphrased "analysis" as "news" and on double-checking I mixed up their and the CTR's differentiation on analysis and opinion since I was drafting all 3 arguments for sources at once and got a little mixed up. Thankfully Springee brought up the example of the Atlantic's analysis pieces being considered a reliable source, as "analysis" does not mean can't be used. Additionally, this source is not used for their opinion, but factual statements about FAIR's activities and partnerships which are cited in their article and easily verifiable. TheTranarchist ⚧ Ⓐ (talk) 17:51, 16 February 2023 (UTC)

  With respect to the Atlantic's analysis pieces being considered a reliable source... no, it's ideas section is opinion and is treated as WP:RSOPINION. Sometimes they are given WP:WEIGHT (such as when other organizations report about them), but they aren't RS on their own. — Red-tailed hawk _(nest) 17:58, 16 February 2023 (UTC)

  Then here the question becomes how to differentiate between Passage's opinion and analysis. Given that the source is being used for factual and verifiable statements about their activities, situated in an article analyzing groups influencing school boards in Canada, it seems to fall under the latter. TheTranarchist ⚧ Ⓐ (talk) 18:04, 16 February 2023 (UTC)

  This !vote by RTH seems to confuse opinion with analysis, and to ignore the fact that Passage exercises editorial oversight over the analysis it publishes. I therefore see no reason to treat the piece in question as if it were RSOPINION or an SPS. Newimpartial (talk) 21:44, 19 February 2023 (UTC)

  I am not confusing opinion writing with analysis; I am saying that the two tend to have the same issues with fact-checking and editorial oversight, and that RSOPINION generally applies to analysis pieces as they are merely opinion pieces by another name. — Red-tailed hawk _(nest) 03:53, 20 February 2023 (UTC)

• Generally Reliable; the paper has a left-wing bias no question, but its factual reporting of Canadian subjects is on the same level as Generally Reliable American sources like Jacobin, and their reporters break verifiable original investigational stories. I recommend we approve this source with the same caveats we give to the Jacobin. Namely with the same disclaimer: There is a consensus that Passage is a generally reliable but biased source. Editors should take care to adhere to the neutral point of view policy when using Passage as a source in articles, for example by quoting and attributing statements that present its authors' opinions, and ensuring that due weight is given to their perspective amongst others. Spudst3r (talk) 06:58, 16 February 2023 (UTC)

• Not reliable for analysis; The fact that this site makes it clear they only publish opinion and commentary makes it hard to see how we could generally use it for Wikipedia articles. The source isn't notable for their analysis thus why would their analysis be given weight? This isn't a site like The Atlantic where their analysis or commentary is generally well respected. I don't see that it's clear when an article is opinion vs commentary so the level of fact checking isn't clear if we want to use the source for basic facts. This seems more like a Quillette source than anything. Interesting to ponder but not useful for a factual encyclopedia. Springee (talk) 08:47, 16 February 2023 (UTC)

If they are only publishing analysis and opinion, then the author of the work is more useful for determining the reliability of any particular piece than the site itself. The site doesn't appear to have notability I can find, it may be useful to revisit it in the future. -- LCU ActivelyDisinterested ∆transmissions∆ °co-ords° 10:36, 16 February 2023 (UTC)

• Not reliable per Red-tailed hawk's arguments above. I'll also add that the Passage website prominently features a "courses" section (https://readpassage.com/courses/) geared toward political advocacy. Jweiss11 (talk) 00:17, 17 February 2023 (UTC)

• No evidence they should be considered reliable yet: they may have important stories and perspectives, but so far they don't seem to have made a dent in the wider world yet in terms of establishing themselves as reliable (see WP:REPUTABLE). Formed in 2020, their current editorial team appears consist of one editor and one part-time marketer (which is down from 2021's three editorial staffers, and on par with 2020's one editor. I've not yet found evidence that other established outlets commonly treat it as a reliable source, or even a noteworthy opinion platform, per WP:USEBYOTHERS. And while the editor of Passage has been published elsewhere, I can't find a track record of writing by the freelancer of the article in question. Just as it's often too soon for a Wikipedia article on promising subject, it currently appears too soon to treat this source as reliable, regardless of its editorial stance. --Animalparty! (talk) 02:17, 17 February 2023 (UTC)

  I had the time to do some digging for mentions in various sources, helped by running across this tool, so here's what I found:

  • Ricochet uses an article and data therein published by passage and Mastracci about the real estate holding of various MP's.
  • The Breach used it cite that the MP's moonlight as landlords
  • Vice speaks of Nora Loreto's article in Passage on the connections between white supremacy and the anti-lockdown movement and gets a statement from her on their article on the same topic.
  • The Conversation refers to a Passage article to cite their statement on Canada's history of deregulation.
  • Jacobin cites a Passage article to refer to the underfunding and privatization of the Canadian public health system.
  • Mondoweiss cites them on how CanWest, a media conglomerate, has twisted facts in their reporting and how Reuters chose to break with them for it.
  • Canadian Dimension refers to research Mastracci did and published in Passage on UPA flags at Ukrainian solidarity rallies in Canada
  • The NB Media Co-op used them to cite its statement that mainstream Canadian media has failed to scrutinize the military.

  This is non-exhaustive but a start, I'll try and revise the list further tomorrow. TheTranarchist ⚧ Ⓐ (talk) 04:57, 18 February 2023 (UTC)

  News sources comment on or mention opinion pieces published in other publications. That doesn't suddenly render the opinion piece not an opinion piece, and it's extremely clear that—by the website's own editorial standards—they do not publish news reports from freelancers. — Red-tailed hawk _(nest) 15:36, 18 February 2023 (UTC)

• The piece you link to is written by a "freelance writer" and contributor, rather than credentialed, full-time employed journalists. By definition, it is a self-published source, whose reliability matches WP:FORBESCON.

As for the reliability of the outlet in general: as far as I can see, their managing editor has published opinion pieces in mainstream news outlets, but has not had an established career as a journalist working full-time for a reliable source. I wouldn't qualify that as "well-respected and published", as such a career would be required for this outlet to be considered more reliable than a group blog. So, not reliable. DFlhb (talk) 12:53, 17 February 2023 (UTC)

"Freelance writer" means a professional writer that's paid on a per-article or per-project basis. Every major news organization makes use of freelance reporters. By definition, it's not self published. Sativa Inflorescence (talk) 20:15, 19 February 2023 (UTC)

This !vote seems to confuse freelance status with self-publishing and a analysis with opinion; it would therefore be best to ignore it. Newimpartial (talk) 21:39, 19 February 2023 (UTC)

No it doesn't, and ignoring it would be a mistake. The comment notes correctly that this is a freelance writer, and, in light of the explicit editorial guidelines they have about freelance writers, it makes it obvious that this is analysis/opinion. — Red-tailed hawk _(nest) 03:52, 20 February 2023 (UTC)

More newsletter than news. This site has editorial oversight, but seems to be more of a tertiary source, as a newsletter. The specific source in question appears to be well-written, sourced and edited. However, I think the website as a whole is difficult to classify, and there's probably better sources that can be used. Sativa Inflorescence (talk) 20:36, 19 February 2023 (UTC)

Idavox

(https://idavox.com/, source in question)

The text removed is In August 2021, Idavox reported that IRS Form 990's were not available since the organization is less than one year old, and speculated that due to the high number of Koch-connected people on the board, the Koch brothers are the source of some funding. Text removed, disputed, and modified on the talk page but not re-introduced is Idavox described FAIR as "Wolves in Sheep’s Clothing" and said "it's not a civil-rights organization". They stated that their analysis of FAIR's board of advisors revealed a large number of Koch employees, Quillete contributors, and transphobes in Reception.

Idavox, the One People's Project, and Daryle Lamont Jenkins are well known and respected for their research on the organized right and far-right. A detailed analysis of how established WP:RS reference and use Idavox (the search would be even more supportive if extended to OPP and Jenkins) is here. A summary is that reliable sources have directly used with and without explicit attribution Idavox's articles, used their footage and videos as reliable sources, praised their coverage on researching the far-right, and refer to them as "Independent news". Idavox delineates between news and opinion and not a single reliable source has ever questioned or called into doubt their reporting. TheTranarchist ⚧ Ⓐ (talk) 18:01, 15 February 2023 (UTC)TheTranarchist

Not reliable. This is extremely clearly WP:SPS, and a bad SPS at that. I frankly cannot believe that this is a question. Among the issues with the source are that there is:

1. No author identified;
2. No listed editorial staff on the website;
3. No apparent editorial standards for the website's content;
4. No apparent corrections policy or place to submit corrections;
5. Nothing else that even hints at this having anything like a reliable source.

To find any information about editorial oversight, I had to start trying to piece things together, and I had to go to an external website to find literally any information on who runs "Idavox". This is basically the pet project of literally a single person, and reading through the website does not give any confidence as to the site's reliability. The website is obviously reliable for the content that the website says, but it carries no WP:WEIGHT because it's not an RS when it comes to its coverage; merely slapping on attribution does not improve the article nor our coverage more broadly. For similar reasons, we don't cite She's A Homerecker for the information it says and then slap on attribution as if it's some sort of band-aid. — Red-tailed hawk _(nest) 21:21, 15 February 2023 (UTC)

Moreover, using this self-published source for its self-proclaimed speculations about the activities of living people (i.e. Charles Koch and David Koch) is so flagrantly in violation of WP:BLPSPS that I cannot even understand why one would so much as attempt to use this in an article. — Red-tailed hawk _(nest) 21:30, 15 February 2023 (UTC)

Thank you for your response as you were the first to actually raise some wiki-policy. Given your arguments I can't help but agree it shouldn't be used, though I do want to note that when publishing on armed and organized white supremacists, being published anonymously is not a clear de-merit and more of a safety concern, though in conjunction with the lack of transparency on editorial oversight and corrections policy it is questionable. I'd also forgot that one of the Koch's was somehow still alive and kicking.

For future reference, if a reliable source mentions or cite it's coverage of a particular group/event, could we refer to the site itself with attribution? TheTranarchist ⚧ Ⓐ (talk) 18:00, 16 February 2023 (UTC)

If a reliable source says "Idavox said X", then that source is reliable for the claim that Idavox said X. Whether it's WP:DUE is going to be a question of proportionality to the overall topic's coverage. — Red-tailed hawk _(nest) 05:59, 18 February 2023 (UTC)

This appear to be the weakest of the bunch, I don't believe it should be considered generally reliable nor used in BLPs. -- LCU ActivelyDisinterested ∆transmissions∆ °co-ords° 10:38, 16 February 2023 (UTC)

• Not reliable per Red-tailed hawk's comprehensive arguments above. Jweiss11 (talk) 00:18, 17 February 2023 (UTC)

not reliable. No byline and no editorial board. Which is unfortunate, since I don't think there's anything factually inaccurate in the linked source. But without a byline and without clear editorial oversight, it shouldn't be used. Sativa Inflorescence (talk) 20:48, 19 February 2023 (UTC)

Commenting on all three sources

Without commenting on the potential reliability of any of these sources, I really don't think it's wise to use sources for potentially contentious statements when these sources aren't listed at WP:RSP. DFlhb (talk) 12:38, 17 February 2023 (UTC)

The absence of a source from the list at WP:RSP doesn't necessarily affect reliability, per WP:RSPMISSING. It just means a source hasn't been the subject of repeated, perennial discussion. Lots of clearly reliable sources like major newspapers aren't on it, likewise nor are countless low quality unreliable sources. --Animalparty! (talk) 18:15, 17 February 2023 (UTC)

Michael L. Kurtz

• Source. Kurtz, Michael L. (2011). "Organized Crime". In Wood, Amy Louise; Wilson, Charles Reagan (eds.). The New Encyclopedia of Southern Culture. Vol. 19 Violence. Chapel Hill: The University of North Carolina Press. pp. 123–124. ISBN 9780807869284. Retrieved February 14, 2023.
• Article. Joseph Civello
• Content. Kurtz writes: "Little is known about the Dallas family of Joseph Civello. Some accounts depict it as an independent Mafia family; others describe it as the Texas arm of the Marcello empire."

I was considering using that material in the article about Joseph Civello, but I am having troubling evaluating contradictory aspects of the suitability of this source. On one hand, Kurtz is a professor emeritus of history and the book in which his chapter appears was published by a university press. On the other, he is a JFK assassination "researcher" with at least two other books on the subject - both also published by a university press - who doesn't know who really killed JFK but that it had to be a conspiracy.[23] Those views spill into this book when after the bit about Civello he made a number of unfounded claims about Jack Ruby including 1) he was "probably the best-known individual in the history of organized crime in the South", 2) he "began his career in the Al Capone organization", 3) he "joined the Civello organization" when he moved to Dallas, 4) "he assisted in smuggling arms and supplies to anti-Castro guerrilla fighters in Cuba", and 5) he was in cahoots with the mob to have JFK assassinated. With these statements Kurtz repeats what various conspiracy sources have claimed while contradicting what the largest investigations into Ruby have found (i.e. Ruby was not a member of organized crime anywhere but that he was acquainted with a lot of underworld figures[24]).

If an editor wanted to use this material in the Jack Ruby or Assassination of John F. Kennedy articles, I am assuming it would be considered to be from a fringe source and treated as such. In this context, how do we evaluate that exact same source for potential use in the Joseph Civello article? Thanks! -Location (talk) 21:32, 15 February 2023 (UTC)

Wow, this is a really good question. I think I would have trouble taking anything seriously that he writes about history if this is the quality of his scholarship. But we editors really don't get to have an opinion. So I think we would need to move to the next generation of researchers who hopefully are evaluating his work. What do they say about this person who would appear to the public to be on the same equality level. In the world of psychics we have Dr. Gary Schwartz who has "tested" all kinds of people who claim to be psychic, his testing is so flawed that although he has a PhD and is tenured at his University, the rest of the scientific community thinks he is a joke. Though when I went to look for evidence of this, I find little. But because of his lack of methodology I personally would not rely on his scholarship, though it might be difficult to back that up if we are talking about using him on an article here on Wikipedia concerning psychics. I'm interested in others thoughts. Sgerbic (talk) 22:13, 15 February 2023 (UTC)

On the positive side, both the general editor of the series, Charles Reagan, and the volume editor, Amy Louise Wood, appear to be respectable scholars of southern US history. If Kurtz's work were solely complete crankery, you would hope that they would not have invited him to write an entry; if he had written a completely bunk entry you would hope that they would have not included it. (Indeed, even Kurtz's work on the JFK assassination seems to have recieved reviews in scholarly journals which don't immediately dismiss it as complete crankery - I don't have full text access, but both Conkin's review in the Journal of Southern History and Turner in the Journal of American History don't seem to be dismissing him completely out of hand.

On the other hand, you can always use your editorial discretion to not use a source that you don't find convincing; until another editor makes the case that it's important to include you don't have to use any given source! Especially if that source is claiming things which you believe are contrary to the academic consensus! Caeciliusinhorto-public (talk) 13:02, 16 February 2023 (UTC)

@Sgerbic and Caeciliusinhorto-public: Thanks for the feedback. I agree that the editors of the series and book, Wilson and Wood, are respectable scholars, and that is part of what makes it difficult to evaluate this scholar.

While I agree with Kurtz that "little is known about the Dallas family of Joseph Civello", I think I would have trouble justifying to another editor that statements in one paragraph of his article should be considered reliable, but statements in another paragraph should not. As far as finding alternative sourcing for the article, the difficulty I am having is that most reliable sources of information for Civello seem to be primary sources, but almost all of the secondary sources that discuss him either do so in the context of the JFK-was-killed-by-the-mob conspiracy theories (this is Kurtz) or they are books/websites about organized crime who have gotten their information about him from the conspiracy books (this also appears to be Kurtz). -Location (talk) 17:29, 16 February 2023 (UTC)

I would probably air to not using the source. You have put a lot of thought in it and the arguments you are making against using it seem to outweigh the few reasons to use it. Sgerbic (talk) 21:28, 16 February 2023 (UTC)

opinion pieces published by the AP?

I was summoned by the bot to an RfC where one of the arguments is based on this. Anyone know more about the extent to which the AP publishes political opinion pieces like this (without marking them as such)? There's no opinion section at the top of apnews.com, and while I know the style of say, style/entertainment sections necessarily involve a degree of opinion, I guess I was under the impression they didn't get into this kind of thing (Black Lives Matter "rejecting the perfection of God and Jesus" and whatnot). I mean to read it, it's obviously an opinion piece, but I'm curious what other folks have seen. — Rhododendrites ^talk \\ 13:49, 16 February 2023 (UTC)

I do agree it looks like an opinion piece. I'm not entirely sure where it's categorized. The author is not your usual pundit type though. Long time historian and a retired PoliSci professor, he's extremely widely published in newspapers for historical perspectives mostly in the Texas area but also as far afield as Connecticut and has over a dozen books mostly focused on Texas history. It's an interesting find. --(loopback) ping/whereis 14:13, 16 February 2023 (UTC)

It's an opinion piece, there's no doubt there, also the same author has other AP articles (example) that run in a similar vein and are also opinion pieces. I also hadn't realised that AP published opinion pieces such as this. -- LCU ActivelyDisinterested ∆transmissions∆ °co-ords° 14:26, 16 February 2023 (UTC)

The AP might occasionally fail to label obvious opinion pieces as opinion pieces. That's bound to happen when the AP is producing such a large volume of content; I've seen organizations like The Guardian and the religion section of The Washington Post make this sort of mistake before. WP:REPUTABLE asks editors to exercise common sense when evaluating sources, and it's very clear that the particular piece you're bringing here is an essay expressing the opinion of the author, so common sense dictates that we should treat it like an opinion piece. — Red-tailed hawk _(nest) 15:03, 16 February 2023 (UTC)

The AP has historically allowed a bit looser standards when it comes to religion (it is a field largely devoid of facts in the traditional news sense after all, one who sets out to fact check the Bible is in for a world of pain). I wonder if this piece didn't start on the religion side rather than the politics side. Horse Eye's Back (talk) 15:49, 16 February 2023 (UTC)

• An opinion piece is as an opinion piece does. If it quacks like an opinion piece and it walks like an opinion piece, that's what it is. It also has no bearing on the general reliability of the AP. Treat that one article as an opinion piece, and that's all you need to do. --Jayron32 16:44, 16 February 2023 (UTC)
  • Yup, but I didn't ask what to do with that case; I asked for information/insight about AP practices, their website's organization, and the extent of this phenomenon. — Rhododendrites ^talk \\ 21:11, 16 February 2023 (UTC)

As the ever-reliable Poynter points out, it is quite routine for otherwise-reliable sources to improperly or insufficiently mark opinion pieces. I've also been seeing some articles that combine both news and opinion (not by the AP, just in general by WP:RS), though that's thankfully rare. As long as editors know to exercise proper judgment, and attribute whatever should be attributed, there's no problem. DFlhb (talk) 21:35, 16 February 2023 (UTC)

At least in the past, I know that we have considered a failure to properly separate news and opinion to be an indicator of unreliability... though it would be admittedly hard to apply this to the AP (partially because reliability is a combination of factors of which that is just one.) But it's definitely not a good look. --Aquillion (talk) 04:30, 17 February 2023 (UTC)

I’ve never noticed this kind of opinion piece on AP before. I can’t work out which section it appears in. It’s very egregious that it’s not clearly labelled as opinion, so we might need to watch out for this. BobFromBrockley (talk) 08:25, 17 February 2023 (UTC)

• Part of the confusion may be simply computer or human error. I've noticed that archived news articles, be they native or syndicated, often lose some key information and formatting over time, either from link rot, bad OCR scans, or just poor digital maintenance. For instance, digitized historic New York Times articles frequently have mangled titles that may omit the byline/dateline, and only subscribers with access to actual page scans can see the full context (e.g. whether something is clearly placed on an Opinion page). Sometimes articles on the AP website seem to be only partial versions of syndicated versions seen elsewhere in print. I think editors should always be aware that what they are seeing on a screen may not be exactly the whole truth (see also scanned journal articles from the 1920s whose online DOI says "published 1 Jan 2011" because that's maybe the month/year it was digitized). There is a Texas based syndicated columnist named Robin Montgomery who appears to write on religion and history, maybe one of his articles got filed in the AP website, either on purpose or by mistake (thanks, AI!). Glad to see people using their brains here in recognizing opinion from news in the absence of an explicit "OPINION" stamp. --Animalparty! (talk) 03:42, 18 February 2023 (UTC)

  My best guess would be some kind of CRM (database) migration. Article may have been prominently labelled opinion, but some metadata got lost in the transfer. I'll note that its URL was never archived before the last few days, and it's common for CRM migrations to involve URL moves. DFlhb (talk) 11:19, 18 February 2023 (UTC)

Congressional Quarterly and Roll Call: Reliability and Trade Publication Status

Following an AFD discussion, I'm seeking consensus and a WP:RSP listing for Congressional Quarterly and Roll Call, two related U.S. political newspapers. It seems clear from their pedigree and standing that they're generally reliable sources, but there was disagreement among editors of whether they constituted "trade publications" and are thus ineligible to be used to establish notability per WP:ORGIND. QuintinK (talk) 15:47, 16 February 2023 (UTC)

Just a note that Congressional Quarterly wasn't mentioned at all in the AFD, let alone the subject of a disagreement. The other source mentioned in that discussion is The Hill, not Congressional Quarterly. Horse Eye's Back (talk) 15:52, 16 February 2023 (UTC)

No, under no reasonable definition of the term, are they trade publications. They just aren't. They are specialist journals, for sure, but that doesn't mean they are trade publications. That's just silly. Politics is not a trade or an industry, it's a matter of public interest. Journals that focus on politics aren't trade publications. Regarding RSP listing; are these sources frequently discussed and is their use frequently under contention? I mean, one person in one AFD making one claim does not a controversial source make. I see no reason to list them if they are not frequently brought up for their reliability. This includes Roll Call, CQ, and The Hill. These are perfectly reliable sources for all purposes, full stop. They also don't need to be listed at RSP as there is no evidence anyone is questioning these.--Jayron32 16:42, 16 February 2023 (UTC)

Roll Call seems to sponsor the Congressional Baseball Game, so it's not clear to me that it's not generally independent for items related to that specific event, nor is it currently independent from anything related to FiscalNote (its owner), but I don't think they're trade publications in the sense of something like Supermarket news.

The current form of Congressional Quarterly feels more like a business intelligence source rather than a traditional news source. There are going to be additional considerations with respect to WP:ORGIND that apply for BI sources, since they have a tendency to regurgitate press releases with relative frequency. But, if there is original reporting from CQ, then I don't see any independence issues per se that are more broad than "it's not independent of organizations substantially owned by their parent company/projects of a sister organization". — Red-tailed hawk _(nest) 17:25, 16 February 2023 (UTC)

The Times, NYT, British media and LGBT

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.

---

With the concerning reporting coming from The Times, some other British media, as well as American newspaper The New York Times about the killing of Brianna Ghey (where The Times "corrected" their story by misgendering Ghey), I hope we can reconsider some of those newspapers as reliable sources (but considering we still have FOX News as reliable in any capacity, I doubt it). LilianaUwU ^{(talk / contributions)} 20:21, 16 February 2023 (UTC)

I don't think 1 single incident would be enough to make The Times and NYT completely unreliable (NYT isn't even British, it's American) ― Blaze Wolf^Talk_{Blaze Wolf#6545} 20:25, 16 February 2023 (UTC)

You failed to mention the part of that source that states, referring to The Times, "The article was later amended again to restore the word 'girl' and to remove Ghey’s deadname." EddieHugh (talk) 20:40, 16 February 2023 (UTC)

@EddieHugh The Times shouldn't have "corrected" the article to deadname her in the first place. LilianaUwU ^{(talk / contributions)} 20:42, 16 February 2023 (UTC)

I'm sure The Times's "apology for the previous apology" will be discussed at some length the next time we have reason to evaluate that source's POV amd reliability on transgender issues. Newimpartial (talk) 20:46, 16 February 2023 (UTC)

The Pink News article also doesn't say that Ghey was 'misgendered' ("remove the word 'girl'" isn't equal to 'use the word "boy"' or not mentioning gender). And the second version of The Times article doesn't do that either (it repeatedly and consistenly uses "her"). EddieHugh (talk) 20:59, 16 February 2023 (UTC)

Deadnaming is a form of misgendering. LilianaUwU ^{(talk / contributions)} 21:01, 16 February 2023 (UTC)

It can be, but in this instance the source also used "her" consistently, so this looks like whoever made the changes didn't think it through, and a few hours later they were corrected. So, not desirable for anyone, but not as reprehensible as I thought from your initial post – hence my replies, to add some of the detail for others reading here. EddieHugh (talk) 21:28, 16 February 2023 (UTC)

Still, saying she was a girl then purposefully updating the article to call her a "transgender teenager" instead (as if "transgender girl" is so difficult to type) and releasing her deadname without reason speaks wonders to the Times' general editorial line on trans people. The reason its called a "deadname" originally stemmed from the fear of being recorded under the wrong name in death when you weren't around to do anything about it. The Times choosing to deliberately reveal the deadname of a dead 16 year old and not refer to her as a girl, after they'd already published the piece, is downright evil. TheTranarchist ⚧ Ⓐ (talk) 21:43, 16 February 2023 (UTC)

One instance that was corrected doesn't make a source unreliable. To see what unreliable is see the Daily Mails coverage of the killing, which is deeply unpleasant. -- LCU ActivelyDisinterested ∆transmissions∆ °co-ords° 20:48, 16 February 2023 (UTC)

For context on the NYT, here is an article discussing the recent complaints against them. Here is an article that provides some more in-depth criticisms as opposed to just reporting on them. Long story short, ~200 NYT contributors signed an open letter condemning their coverage of transgender people/healthcare. GLAAD and 100+ LGBT organizations/advocates (including even WPATH, PFLAG, and the Human Rights Campaign) also issued a statement condemning their coverage. The criticisms include: platforming anti-trans groups and conversion therapy organizations like Genspect (despite being warned about their history of anti-trans activism and pseudoscience), muddying the waters on the safety of trans healthcare and misrepresenting the science (forcing WPATH to publish a multiple page response detailing how much they got wrong in just one article), their lack of trans people in the opinion and news departments, and their pathologizing terms for trans people. In short, the NYT's articles on trans people/topics should probably be taken with a tablespoon of salt. In terms of healthcare, WP:MEDRS probably already covers that. TheTranarchist ⚧ Ⓐ (talk) 21:30, 16 February 2023 (UTC)

• Close There are no factual errors for this board to assess. Sources are under no obligation to follow WP:DEADNAME, a wikipedia policy. Slywriter (talk)

There are factual errors at least in the case of the NYT. Should that be discussed here or would it be better in a section dedicated to their coverage specifically? TheTranarchist ⚧ Ⓐ (talk) 22:02, 16 February 2023 (UTC)TheTranarchist

If you think they rise to the level of needing RSN input, a new section with specifics would be best. This is generic, broad-brushed and already gone down a rabbit hole.

With that, not sure why a one-off of NYT botched a story would require anything more than discussion on article talk page. As much as I'd enjoy seeing all newspapers barred from being used as sources for recent events, I doubt this would rise to gaining consesua to making NYT generally unreliable.Slywriter (talk) 22:13, 16 February 2023 (UTC)

It's more of a pattern of botching stories rather than a one-off, and I'd say it should still be considered generally reliable but with a caveat noting their coverage of trans topics specifically. @LilianaUwU, would you mind creating the section?

If created I'll also do an analysis of how their articles have been cited on WP to see the extent to which it's a problem. TheTranarchist ⚧ Ⓐ (talk) 22:24, 16 February 2023 (UTC)

@TheTranarchist I'm assuming you want me to create a RfC? LilianaUwU ^{(talk / contributions)} 22:50, 16 February 2023 (UTC)

Yes please! TheTranarchist ⚧ Ⓐ (talk) 23:22, 16 February 2023 (UTC)

We just had a giant RfC on The Times (of London) in this context, and no uncorrected errors of material fact are being alleged in this thread, so I see no need to attempt to re-litigate the discussion with respect to the UK newspaper of record. — Red-tailed hawk _(nest) 22:38, 16 February 2023 (UTC)

If a UK newspaper of record decides to misgender and deadname a murder victim - and then changes its mind - I don’t expect other editors to be as tolerant of that as you are (in the next giant RfC). The problem with The Times on trans issues isn't that it makes uncorrected errors of material fact, it is that it presents selective reporting in service of its avowed editorial aims, including the marginalization of trans people and the reversal of their rights and access to health services. You may not see this as a problem - and it isn't a problem WP:RSN is well-equipped to deal with - but I dare say many other editors do see it as a problem. Newimpartial (talk) 22:44, 16 February 2023 (UTC)

I should probably stay out of this, but I can't let "its avowed editorial aims, including the marginalization of trans people and the reversal of their rights and access to health services" slide by – where has The Times stated ("avowed") that these are among its editorial aims? EddieHugh (talk) 22:52, 16 February 2023 (UTC)

According to its editorial articles, yes. This is also a conclusion reached within peer-reviewed scholarship. Newimpartial (talk) 22:53, 16 February 2023 (UTC)

"its avowed editorial aims" doesn't mean that others think that those are its aims; it means that The Times itself has stated that. I doubt that it has done that. If it has, please provide full citations. EddieHugh (talk) 23:02, 16 February 2023 (UTC)

This article sets out The Times's view on transgender health in fairly clear terms, I should think. Newimpartial (talk) 23:11, 16 February 2023 (UTC)

That's The Sunday Times, but regardless, I see no statement of editorial aims there. Some of its principles are mentioned here, for example. EddieHugh (talk) 23:33, 16 February 2023 (UTC)

To be clear, when I say their avowed aims, I mean the objectives pursued directly in their editorial line, not the fluff they insert in an about page. So fiscal prudence and border security might be some of the other "avowed aims" (declared editorial objectives) for which The Times advocates more or less consistently. Newimpartial (talk) 23:41, 16 February 2023 (UTC)

If there are no issues with the factual accuracy of the content in The Times, and the only issue that editors take is the way that The Times goes about characterizing public disputes, that's a complaint about bias, but, as the relevant guideline goes... reliable sources are not required to be neutral, unbiased, or objective. Sometimes non-neutral sources are the best possible sources for supporting information about the different viewpoints held on a subject. The same guideline also notes that [w]hen dealing with a potentially biased source, editors should consider whether the source meets the normal requirements for reliable sources, such as editorial control, a reputation for fact-checking, and the level of independence from the topic the source is covering. If there is evidence of it lacking editorial control, a reputation for fact-checking, and/or editorial independence, the last RfC would have been a great place to make those arguments. And some did make them, but the small amounts of evidence presented regarding the publication's alleged failures in fact-checking have been plainly unconvincing to the community writ large, nobody seems to think that The Times lacks editorial independence, and The Times has a generally strong and robust system of editorial oversight. — Red-tailed hawk _(nest) 00:25, 17 February 2023 (UTC)

Yes, I remember that RfC. It was flawed and sprung upon those of us who were preparing for such an RfC early. While the Times might be a newspaper of record on some topics, it is very much not so for trans and non-binary topics.

On the specific issue of Brianna Ghey, The Times was one of only two UK newspapers to make the choice to deliberately misgender Ghey, the other was The Daily Mail. While the editorial bias of The Times has lead to heavily slanted and inaccurate coverage, this choice to deadname a teen who had just been killed was a new low. Sideswipe9th (talk) 22:48, 16 February 2023 (UTC)

Perhaps this discussion should mainly be about whether these newspapers are reliable with regards to the narrow topic area of gender. Taking the New York Times as an example, I don't think there is ever going to be consensus that it is anything other than reliable in its coverage of local or national topics (e.g. I doubt its coverage of gender topics has anything to do with its coverage of topics such as subway construction). However, I do think it would be a good idea to host an RFC on whether these newspapers' coverage of gender topics is reliable. – Epicgenius (talk) 23:19, 16 February 2023 (UTC)

We had one... three months ago. — Red-tailed hawk _(nest) 23:29, 16 February 2023 (UTC)

Yes, definitely too soon to revisit that (The Economist was also covered). EddieHugh (talk) 23:38, 16 February 2023 (UTC)

As was The Telegraph. — Red-tailed hawk _(nest) 00:00, 17 February 2023 (UTC)

Perhaps this discussion should mainly be about whether these newspapers are reliable with regards to the narrow topic area of gender. Yes, that was actually the RfC I was preparing for back in November (alas recovery from laser eye surgery has held me back from completing the prep work). The unreliability of sources like The Times and Daily Telegraph is focused almost entirely upon their trans and non-binary content, though recently they've also been branching out into more generalised anti-LGBT+ content.

Alas because the November RfC was launched prematurely to say the least, and in general we don't revisit past RfCs until at least 6 to 12 months has passed since the last one, and because collating and presenting a set of examples of unreliable coverage alongside the context for why the examples are so bad such that editors unfamiliar with GENSEX content can understand why these papers are not reliable on this topic, I'm not hopeful for any RfC along even those narrow lines to have any chance of success prior to at least June if not November.

Even just collating and presenting the set of examples is incredibly time consuming. When considering just The Times and Telegraph, both papers have been publishing at least one anti-trans article, per day, since 2019/20. I don't have the exact figures to hand at the moment, but in the last year alone The Times has published over 1000 anti-trans articles. It's not just a case of "they've published some bad articles", they're publishing hundreds of bad and misleading articles. Sideswipe9th (talk) 23:35, 16 February 2023 (UTC)

I'm going to try to comment a second time here without being censored. The notion that The Times or The New York Times aren't reliable because they mentioned someone's former name is absurd and at odds with the central mission of this project, which is to assemble verifiable facts. Jweiss11 (talk) 00:28, 17 February 2023 (UTC)

You aren't being censored, publicizing the deadname of a dead trans girl is a shitty thing to do that speaks to a basic lack of respect for trans people, whether you or the Times does it, especially when she was never notable under that name. Explicitly stating her deadname had no bearing on the discussion and was just cruel. I know you seem to think that deadnaming and misgendering living trans kids is okay, but apparently even in death you can't respect them. At least on WP, we don't allow that. TheTranarchist ⚧ Ⓐ (talk) 00:41, 17 February 2023 (UTC)

@Jweiss11 The reason why it's called a deadname is because of the fear of being recorded under the wrong name in death when you weren't around to do anything about it, to quote @TheTranarchist, which is exactly what happened in The Times. LilianaUwU ^{(talk / contributions)} 00:41, 17 February 2023 (UTC)

Yes, that's the very definition of censoring. While I agree that it would be rude to call a transgender person their former name to their face, in the context of what we are doing here, assembling facts about notable topics, the idea that you can't even mention a birth name in a meta-level discussion is absurd. We all ought to be able to decouple the horror of what happened to this apparent murder victim from our efforts to discuss the facts of the topic. That some some of us may be applying this sort confused logic in how we determine reliable sources could be utterly crippling for Wikipedia. Jweiss11 (talk) 00:50, 17 February 2023 (UTC)

@Jweiss11 Not publicizing a dead trans woman's name is not censorship, it's basic decency. LilianaUwU ^{(talk / contributions)} 00:54, 17 February 2023 (UTC)

LilianaUwU, I would recommend you revisit the definition of censorship. It applies even to things we would all consider indecent. Also, comments on a Wikipedia administrative discussion board qualify as publicity? Jweiss11 (talk) 00:58, 17 February 2023 (UTC)

It's called WP:Advocacy gone wild, but the community has apparently endorsed it, so yes, you can be censored. The fact that we are even discussing a source because of it's ideological leanings being at odds with the societal norms that Wikipedia has established for itself with no real evidence they published a falsehood should tell you how far from the core mission we have strayed on this one issue. Slywriter (talk) 01:01, 17 February 2023 (UTC)

Slywriter, are you disagreeing with the frequently-reiterated community consensus that for WP to include non-notable deadnames is a WP:BLP issue? Or with the scope of application of BLP policy that includes recently deceased people, as well as Talk pages? Or are you objecting to both things? Newimpartial (talk) 01:19, 17 February 2023 (UTC)

When we are discussing a sources reliability because the source violated WP:DEADNAME, policy they are clearly not bound to, we have gone too far. When labeling a source "Anti-Trans" and then trying to remove it from use on Wikipedia on trans topics for that reason, we have gone too far. It's one thing to ask for decency and respect in our interactions among ourselves and to try our best to limit harm, but when it affects sourcing because people don't like it, that's gone too far. Sensitivities of editors and subjects should play zero part in our editing. Republicans don't like being called far-right. Its offensive to many who are not far-right. I am personally offended anytime someone use cismale as I am a male without qualification and don't see why someone should force their word-coice upon me. I also don't advocate on wikipedia to limit use of far-right or ban use of cis because those are distractions from the core mission and my sensitivities should play no part in editing. Slywriter (talk) 01:52, 17 February 2023 (UTC)

Jweiss11, when you cry censorship, are you disagreeing with the frequently-reiterated community consensus that for WP to include non-notable deadnames is a WP:BLP issue? Or with the scope of application of BLP policy that inclides the recently deceased, as well as Talk pages? Or are you objecting to both things? Newimpartial (talk) 01:20, 17 February 2023 (UTC)

You're obviously not being censored, as you've been more than happy to repeatedly express your opinion misgendering and deadnaming are fine and trans kids should just have to put up with it. Wikipedia doesn't allow doxxing or slurs, that's not censorship it's common decency. It's rude to call a trans person a deadname to their face or to needlessly reveal their deadname to others who don't know it. You indeed publicized it. It had absolutely no bearing on the discussion and you chose to include it anyways - your rant could have worked just as well and conveyed approximately the same level of callousness if you hadn't explicitly stated it. That the Times chose to publicize the deadname of a murdered trans girl for shits and giggles shows they have little concern for fair reporting on transgender people. TheTranarchist ⚧ Ⓐ (talk) 01:03, 17 February 2023 (UTC)

:::Best put diffs up for such an extreme claim. Otherwise, retract because I uphold policies I disagree with every day, while also expressing the accurate fact that Wikipedia is an encyclopedia, not a place to change the world. ::::Slywriter (talk) 01:11, 17 February 2023 (UTC)

You want us to link to the diff where Jweiss used Brianna's deadname, which has been oversighted (check the page history) and that no-one outside of those with the Oversight role can actually read? Sideswipe9th (talk) 01:14, 17 February 2023 (UTC)

From the placement of this comment, Slywriter, it appears to be a reply to TheTranarchist, but from the indent level it looks like a reply to Jweiss11. In either case, however, the comment you are replying to isn't about you or your actions so your call for diffs and your defense of your actions elsewhere in the project seem, ahem, misplaced. Newimpartial (talk) 01:31, 17 February 2023 (UTC)

Sticken and thanks to both of you. Misaligned in my head and was upset an editor I've interacted quite well these last few days had an issue with me. Slywriter (talk) 01:52, 17 February 2023 (UTC)

Were it not for The Times and Daily Mail deliberately choosing to publish Brianna's deadname, would anyone outside of her family, friends, and possibly local community actually known it?

There is a reason why we have the MOS:DEADNAME guideline when it comes to handling the deadnames of trans and non-binary people who were either notable or not notable prior to their transitions. That guideline clearly states If a living transgender or non-binary person was not notable under a former name (a deadname), it should not be included in any page (including lists, redirects, disambiguation pages, category names, templates, etc.), even in quotations, even if reliable sourcing exists. Treat the pre-notability name as a privacy interest separate from (and often greater than) the person's current name. (links from original text).

For Brianna, sadly she was not notable (in the GNG sense) prior to her death, and the article we have on her is focused on her killing (which is notable in the GNG sense). The privacy protections from our BLP policy however applies to the limited amount of biographical content we have on her, even in death. It is not censoring to remove or suppress content from any page that egregiously breaches Wikipedia policy. The WP:REVDEL policy states plainly what circumstances content can be either redacted (so that only administrators can view it) or suppressed (so that only those with the Oversight role can view it), and this was one of those circumstances. Sideswipe9th (talk) 01:09, 17 February 2023 (UTC)

No disagreement with any of this, except it's not a reason to exclude a source from Wikipedia. They didn't lie. They said something we don't like here. That's not actionable. Slywriter (talk) 01:16, 17 February 2023 (UTC)

I was not aware that the MOS applied to talk and discussion pages such as this—to the point that oversighting would be deployed. Wow. Jweiss11 (talk) 01:23, 17 February 2023 (UTC)

@Jweiss11 Privacy violations against a deceased person isn't just a MOS guideline. LilianaUwU ^{(talk / contributions)} 01:24, 17 February 2023 (UTC)

Not the MOS. It's a WP:BLPPRIVACY/WP:BLPNAME issue. BLP apples to any edit about a living or recently deceased person, on any page, anywhere on enwiki. Sideswipe9th (talk) 01:25, 17 February 2023 (UTC)

How is it a privacy violation if it's public information as it was published by mainstream news sources (e.g. https://archive.is/PZRQO)? Jweiss11 (talk) 01:31, 17 February 2023 (UTC)

Rather than WIKILAWYERING over whether it is a privacy violation, can you concede that it is a BLP violation? Otherwise it looks as though we are headed to WP:ARE. Newimpartial (talk) 01:34, 17 February 2023 (UTC)

Per BLPNAME When the name of a private individual has not been widely disseminated. Temporary publication in one source we consider reliable (The Times), and one we consider unreliable (Daily Mail) is not "widely disseminated".

Also like the last time, you could have easily asked this question without linking to the archive of the source, just as how I'm not linking to archives of The Daily Mail's article that also contains the deadname. Sideswipe9th (talk) 01:37, 17 February 2023 (UTC)

In isolation it's potentially a reason to exclude the specific article, or archived versions of it, from Wikipedia. But that's not what this tangent discussion is about. This tangent seems to mostly be about why Jweiss11 believes they were censored, despite it being a very clear privacy violation of a recently deceased person. Jweiss11 could have made the same point about about The Times without any need to mention Brianna's deadname. Sideswipe9th (talk) 01:23, 17 February 2023 (UTC)

The irony here is that Jweiss11, in their contributions, is providing a rationale for this filing that did not exist ab initio. Normally we use source reliability as a shortcut to assess the balance of coverage and what counts as widely distributed information. By drawing attention the clash between what The Times (and The Daily Mail) have chosen to publish and Wikipedia's norms, Jweiss has given reason to question whether The Times should be considered in assessing DUE inclusion of content, regardless of whether its reporting meets minimal standards of facticity. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Newimpartial (talk • contribs) 01:47, 17 February 2023 (UTC)

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

RFC: Scientific Reports

Which of the following best describes Scientific Reports?

• Option 1: Generally reliable
• Option 2: Additional considerations apply
• Option 3: Generally unreliable
• Option 4: Deprecate

Previous discussions: [25].Hemiauchenia (talk) 20:57, 16 February 2023 (UTC)

Survey

• Option 2 Whether or not a paper from SciRep should be used is very field and author dependent. While undoubtedly a lot of good and valid research is published there, so is a lot of dubious stuff, more so than other journals in the SpringerNature portfolio. Hemiauchenia (talk) 20:57, 16 February 2023 (UTC)
• Option 2: many scholarly articles should be given little weight on Wikipedia anyways, regardless of publisher or reliability, as primary sources (WP:PSTS). A primary article that describes a new species, like this one, is reliable enough to show the species has been validly published, even if subsequent taxonomists disagree or reclassify it. But a research paper in the same journal that seeks to upend an existing classification scheme of a family or phylum based on a newly sequenced blip of RNA should be weighted accordingly with other sources. --Animalparty! (talk) 23:13, 16 February 2023 (UTC)
• Option 3, though some things published there may be usable via WP:SELFPUB. It is reasonably clear from its history that it exerts practically no editorial controls whatsoever; therefore it is a textbook non-WP:RS and publication there will never lend any iota of reliability. I can understand people stating that this is 2 (because sometimes highly-regarded experts do publish things through it, which can be used via WP:SELFPUB) but my concern is that our ratings are generally considered to be for the source itself - SELFPUB is a separate consideration that allows certain things to be used regardless of the reliability of the venue they were published in, not something that changes the fundamental unreliability of a journal with essentially no editorial controls. And the fairly rigid structure WP:RSP has evolved into could mean that a "yellow" rating there would lead to people arguing that publication there sometimes lends reputability, or that it is disputed whether it lends inherent reliability. It never does, not ever, which means that option 3 is the best choice with the caveat that things by established experts can be used as normal via SELFPUB (true in general for things published in non-RSes) - essentially, anyone who wants to use a paper from there has to start from the presumption that it is unreliable and construct a SELFPUB argument otherwise on a case-by-case basis. --Aquillion (talk) 04:28, 17 February 2023 (UTC)
• Option 2 Should be assessed on an article-by-article basis. Some may be useful as primary sources alongside secondary sources that themselves reference material published there, but for the most part we should not be using scientific papers without a supporting secondary source that puts the primary research into context. It's probably fine for linking in cases where we reference the material in conjunction with its discussion in secondary sources, but like ALL scientific journals, per WP:PRIMARY, "Do not analyze, evaluate, interpret, or synthesize material found in a primary source yourself; instead, refer to reliable secondary sources that do so." --Jayron32 13:50, 17 February 2023 (UTC)
• Option 3 Misusing primary sources is already rampant on wikipedia. The journal has a checkered history, so I agree with Aquillion that articles should basically be treated as self published. Sativa Inflorescence (talk) 21:03, 19 February 2023 (UTC)

Discussion

• I'm not sure we have a color code for "quite frequently unreliable, but reliability can be established on a case-by-case basis in fairly standard ways". The various arguments for 2 and 3 that are currently up there seem to agree to a large extent on how the journal ought to be treated in practice; the difference is how to translate that into suitable Wikipedia jargon. XOR'easter (talk) 16:36, 17 February 2023 (UTC)
• Unless Sci Rep has started publishing review articles, is this more of a "people using primary sources when they shouldn't" problem? Red Fiona (talk) 00:09, 18 February 2023 (UTC)

The Daily Beast and Mediaite for extraordinary claim in a BLP

Regarding edits to Julie Banderas making an extraordinary claim about a living person. The first edit [26] used the The Daily Mail, which is not a reliable source per WP:RSP, and so the edit was reverted.

The claim was restored [27] citing Mediaite and The Daily Beast.

WP:RSP says this about Mediaite:

There is some consensus that Mediaite is only marginally reliable, and should be avoided where better sources are available. Editors consider the source to inappropriately blur news and opinion, and due weight should be considered if no other reliable sources support a given statement.

and this about The Daily Beast:

There is no consensus on the reliability of The Daily Beast. Most editors consider The Daily Beast a biased or opinionated source. Some editors advise particular caution when using this source for controversial statements of fact related to living persons.

Is this sufficient reliable sourcing for the claim being made? — Archer1234 (t·c) 00:40, 17 February 2023 (UTC)

No they shouldn't and they definitely shouldn't be hidden behind "it was published" without the who plays published. Also, if no one else covering the incident, doubt it is WP:DUE. Slywriter (talk) 01:04, 17 February 2023 (UTC)

These sources definitely shouldn't be used for any BLP claims. I'm skeptical that we should be using them at all given that they're basically tabloids. Thebiguglyalien (talk) 03:00, 17 February 2023 (UTC)

No, these sources should not be used for extraordinary or contested claims about living persons. Find a better source or take it out of the article. --Jayron32 13:47, 17 February 2023 (UTC)

Regardless of sourcing, her husband is not a public figure, and her article cannot contain allegations of crimes potentially committed by him, per WP:BLPCRIME. It's also clear that these sources can't be used. DFlhb (talk) 14:19, 17 February 2023 (UTC)

The Wire (Indian Publication) and Meta Controversy

With the increasing use of The Wire as a source for citation for various articles, we should assess The Wire as a reliable source for Wikipedia. Attached are some links below to go over the controversy.

Scroll Explainer

Meta's Report SpunkyGeek (talk) 03:16, 17 February 2023 (UTC)

I'm a little confused here. Is there any reason anyone on this planet should believe anything Meta says? I mean, come on.

If there's more to this, we certainly need a much better source than Meta. :bloodofox: (talk) 03:47, 17 February 2023 (UTC)

Are there other issues with Wire that require an assessment of their use on Wikipedia? Wire-Meta seems premature for the community to discuss as even the tech community appears to be divided/confused as to what's going on, per the scroll source. Slywriter (talk) 04:15, 17 February 2023 (UTC)

The Wire has conceded that there was a breach of moral conduct. The printed story seemed politically motivated because it was pursued with fabricated evidence.

Hence the question that the story it publishes is reliable enough to cite as a source.

https://thewire.in/media/the-wire-editorial-to-our-readers-an-apology-and-a-promise

https://www.newslaundry.com/2022/10/27/the-wire-issues-apology-cites-deception-by-a-member-of-our-meta-investigation-team SpunkyGeek (talk) 04:55, 17 February 2023 (UTC)

• We obviously can't just take the fact that Meta itself (as a primary source) disputes the Wire's coverage as evidence that there's some problem the Wire is unreliable; this, at least, is an obvious WP:MANDY situation - if the simple fact that the subject of a piece denied things was enough to render a source unreliable, no source that reports on anything controversial could be reliable. And even if there was secondary coverage saying that the Wire got this particular thing wrong (and the Scroll article - which isn't particularly impressive as a source - says no such thing, it just reports competing claims), that wouldn't necessarily impact their status as a WP:RS, because a source's reliability is based on its overall reputation for fact-checking and accuracy and not one particular incident. Do you have any reason to think that the Wire's overall reputation has been harmed by this, as opposed to them just saying some things that Meta disputes? --Aquillion (talk) 04:16, 17 February 2023 (UTC)

  Agreed we cannot take Meta's statement as the truth. However, the issue is that The Wire conceded that there was a breach of conduct from one of their employees (fabricating the evidence). Reporting something wrong and fabricating something to prove a story are different things. SpunkyGeek (talk) 04:59, 17 February 2023 (UTC)

  It's not just meta saying things; it's The Wire fabricating things and destroying their reputation. — Red-tailed hawk _(nest) 20:32, 17 February 2023 (UTC)

• Is there any indication (ideally from a reliable source) that we should consider this to be more than a deplorable, yet individual incident? Der Spiegel is by consnesus generally reliable, inspite of the mass fabrications by Claas Relotius. –Austronesier (talk) 06:14, 17 February 2023 (UTC)

  @Austronesier: See The Economist, which notes that The Wire destroyed its reputation in this whole affair. — Red-tailed hawk _(nest) 20:33, 17 February 2023 (UTC)

• Still reliable They did a story and took it back with a notice. There is nothing wrong with that. Capitals00 (talk) 06:21, 17 February 2023 (UTC)

  The Economist provides credible information that there was an intentional breach of journalistic morals (fabricating evidence). SpunkyGeek (talk) 22:10, 17 February 2023 (UTC)

• Every source screws up at least once. It's only the response to the screw up and the pattern of behavior that matters, not a singular event. The Wire's response seems appropriate as to what a reliable source does when one of its employees engages in bad practices; this is a sign that they are reliable, not the other way around. --Jayron32 13:45, 17 February 2023 (UTC)
• Deprecate Generally unreliable Poorly worded opening post, which lacks any background. The issue is not that Meta disputed their report. MANDY is horribly misapplied here. The issue isn't that they made a "mistake", either, or that they were hoaxed by an employee (which happened to the most reliable outlets). The issue is that

• an employee completely fabricated evidence used in news stories that had multiple senior editors on the byline
• that this fabrication was so blatant that the most basic fact-checking mechanisms would have caught it
• that these senior editors publicly stood by the story, saying that it was based on two separate sources.
• that the outlet as a whole (not just the fired journalist) vociferously quadrupled-down on the fabricated story
• and that this "explosive" news story is exactly the kind of story that actual WP:RS would either jointly investigate with other WP:RS, or at least scrutinise very deeply. A good example is this competent joint reporting by The Guardian and other outlets.

This fiasco could never have happened at a reputable outlet. The Wire's editors admit that they never bothered to verify the sourcing, despite public claims otherwise, and despite that being journalism 101. We judge reliability based on the level of editorial scrutiny. This story shows that The Wire has none, and firing the at-fault journalist does not address this. The Economist says The Wire fell for a "massive conspiracy", and blames The Wire's partisanship. WaPo notes growing questions about The Wire’s integrity and accuracy. The Editors Guild of India, their national journalistic association which had previously stood by The Wire, now calls out their circumvention of journalistic norms and checks.

We simply cannot treat an outlet that lacks proper "journalistic norms and checks" as reliable. Let's not be lenient on this. DFlhb (talk) 15:22, 17 February 2023 (UTC) changing from Deprecate to GUNREL, since this isn't an RFC 22:16, 17 February 2023 (UTC)

India has no reputable outlets left, not a single one. The irony is that even after all of this The Wire is probably still the most reliable Indian news source... If we were to move to prohibit the use of every source as reliable or less we would be prohibiting the entire Indian media industry. Horse Eye's Back (talk) 17:58, 17 February 2023 (UTC)

Only 194 to go.

More seriously, thanks to those who have clarified this is more than a simple dispute. Based on the above fact set, I would support some form of downgrading of the Wire, though not sure we are in deprecate territory yet. Slywriter (talk) 18:50, 17 February 2023 (UTC)

I have to kindly disagree. India has many reputable sources and reliable outlets like The Indian Express, The Hindu, etc.

Breach of journalistic ethics by The Wire in the above case contradicts your argument. SpunkyGeek (talk) 21:37, 17 February 2023 (UTC)

Agreed with most of the points presented.

Will make sure more background is provided in the future. SpunkyGeek (talk) 21:41, 17 February 2023 (UTC)

@DFlhb: For what it's worth, deprecation can only be achieved by formal RfC. I'm not sure that I would support outright deprecation (this is probably fine for run-of-the-mill facts) but I do think the question deserves discussion. Do you think that it would be wise for me to open up a standard four-option RfC below? — Red-tailed hawk _(nest) 21:56, 17 February 2023 (UTC)

In that case, I'll change my !vote to "generally unreliable". It's indeed pretty reasonable for outlets to be declared GUNREL before being considered deprecated, so proper scrutiny can be applied for each "downgrade". Also, I'll likely have little time to contribute over the next few weeks, except watching my watchlist, so I won't be able to do the kind of more in-depth analysis I like to do in RFCs. DFlhb (talk) 22:14, 17 February 2023 (UTC)

• Not generally reliable. Like Jayron32 says above, the response to the screw up and the pattern of behavior matters most when determining whether a news group has a reputation for fact-checking and accuracy. But, looking at the response to the screw up and the pattern of behavior here, I am struggling to draw lines between The Wire's response and that of Rolling Stone following its publication of A Rape on Campus; for various reasons including the lack of rigor in Rolling Stone's editorial standards for that topic area, we have WP:ROLLINGSTONEPOLITICS. DFlhb lays out a persuasive case that The Wire no longer possesses the reputation for fact-checking that generally reliable sources do, and the reputation of The Wire seems to have taken a hit inside of even the more reliable Indian newsrooms, following both its fabricated October reporting about Meta and its fabrications relating to Tek fog:
  CNN-News18 and NewsLaundry give a decently long summary of the extent to which evidence was fabricated for the October story regading Meta:
  1. The Wire had alleged that an Indian government official more or less had the power to remove posts on Instagram. Meta denied the story.
  2. When Meta initially denied the story, The Wire posted fabricated screenshots stating that a user had "X-check" privileges. Meta responded by stating that the "X-check" privilege did not actually allow what The Wire said it did (previous reporting did not indicate that the privileges could actually be used to take down posts), and that the screenshots contained a fabricated url on a page designed to look as if it were something related to Instagram.
  3. After Meta responded saying that the url and website were deceptively fabricated and the privileges shown in the previous screenshots did not do what The Wire claimed, The Wire released a doctored video to back up its reporting that falsely claimed to show one of its journalists having access to Instagram's backend.
  4. Aside from all of this, both experts The Wire claimed it received access to an email from Meta executives, which the Meta executives denied. The Wire claimed that it had conducted checks with specific experts in cybersecurity to verify that the content of the email was legitimate, but those experts themselves say that they never talked to The Wire or that they explicitly refused to run the verification. The Economist, linked below, notes that the email was written in painfully broken English, which is not exactly expected of senior anglophone Meta executives, and this should have been a bright red flag for The Wire.
  5. Within two weeks of publication, the entire meat of the story had been publicly shown to have been a total and utter fabrication, and CNN-News18 notes that The Wire has been accused of fabricating evidence to validate its report after the fact.

After this whole fiasco, The Economist wrote that The Wire had shattered its own credibility and criticized the Indian news website's editors for their stupidity of choosing partisanship over process. If you have access to The Economist, I hope you read the whole article, as it's truly eye-opening regarding this news source. The Washington Post, in their esposé on the issue, also tore into the doubling-down and tripling-down, suggesting that basically every attempt by The Wire to provide evidence just kept raising more questions in The Wire's reporting.

Next, let's look at a summary of the (under review but not officially retracted) Tek Fog story, which India Today correctly notes is even more damaging than the Meta controversy:

1. The Wire, in January 2022, published a story alleging that a secret app, called "Tek Fog" was allegedly being used by the BJP and by the Indian government to harass female journalists.
2. The story was quickly picked up internationally, particularly in the opinion sections of Washington Post and Bloomberg, a academic blog post from London School of Economics, as well as nationally on Indian TV and among other Indian news organizations.
3. At the time, the Editors Guild of India expressed significant concerns regarding the treatment of women journalists in India.
4. After the whole Meta scandal, news organizations systematically re-evaluated the reliability of the Tek Fog reporting. In light of the battered reputation for fact-checking within The Wire's investigative reporting, the issued a statement saying that serious questions on the veracity of their reporting and called upon news groups to resist the temptation of moving fast on sensitive stories, circumventing due journalistic norms and checks. Bloomberg news even retracted(!) an opinion article on Tek Fog because it had been based on reporting from The Wire.

Both of these stories alleged extremely serious violations—and wound up being of extremely questionable factual accuracy. The response to criticism of the October investigation into Meta was simply to double- and triple-down on the fabrications that they had published. And so too was their response to Tek Fog; until the Meta story completely and utterly fell apart in front of their very eyes ten months after they published the Tek Fog piece, The Wire's editorial staff had refused to issue a correction—despite the report being extremely factually dubious. This is a sign that the organization has irresponsible oversight from editors, and the organization frankly does not have a reputation for fact-checking and accuracy in its investigative journalism. For reasons of having systemic deficiencies in editorial oversight and editors from the paper repeatedly and publicly insisting that false and fabricated content was true until the weight of criticism against them became too great to handle, and several well-respected publications more or less saying that The Wire's credibility is totally shot following this charade, this should source not be considered to be generally reliable—and I would have great concern about using this whatsoever with respect to WP:BLPs. This isn't a case where we're dealing with simple errors or misinformation; these stories well appear to be intentional political disinformation attempts. — Red-tailed hawk _(nest) 19:12, 17 February 2023 (UTC)

Agreed. This is a case of intentional manipulation for political goal-scoring where it seems even the top leadership has a role. SpunkyGeek (talk) 21:50, 17 February 2023 (UTC)

RfC: The Wire (India)

Which of the following best describes the reliability of Indian news website The Wire (direct url)?

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

— Red-tailed hawk _(nest) 02:02, 18 February 2023 (UTC)

Survey: The Wire (India)

• Option 3. As I've noted in my large comment above, what we have here is a website that was exposed for creating hoaxes out of whole cloth in order to engage in political disinformation. The set of fabrications published by The Wire are of such a complex scale as to be compared to infamously fabricated Rolling Stone piece "A Rape on Campus", and many of the same deficiencies that plagued Rolling Stone at the time appear to be plaguing The Wire. When Meta contested the reporting from The Wire, the website outright accused Meta of fabrication rather than admitting its mistakes promptly. They only withdrew the story after doubling- and tripling-down on baseless allegations that were supported by fabricated evidence; rather than doing their due diligence before making extraordinary claims about Meta, The Economist correctly observes that The Wire's editorial staff undertook the stupidity of choosing partisanship over process and in the process shattered its own credibility. Responsible news organizations don't attempt to cover up their mistakes by continuing to fabricate evidence; after being asked to retract the piece, as The Washington Post notes, The Wire also published screenshots of emails it said were from independent experts vouching for its authenticity, but those emails showed incorrect dates from 2021. The images were edited to show the correct dates [(i.e. 2022)] after the story published, but not before readers caught the error. And lo and behold, those emails were indeed fabricated; everyone who The Wire claims to have sent them an email either explicitly stated that they refused to work with The Wire or stated that they had not been contacted by The Wire. This is a total failure of editorial integrity, from the reporters who initially made the incorrect reports, to the editors who knowingly allowed a doctored email to be published in an attempted cover-up rather than admit their mistake.
  It isn't just foreign observers who lack confidence in The Wire following these revelations. The Editors Guild of India has noted that issues with factual accuracy extend deeper into the website's investigative reporting, noting serious questions on the veracity of their reporting in The Wire's investigation of Tek fog, an alleged app that allegedly allowed people to send automated messages to harass female journalists, and reminding the media organization to resist the temptation of moving fast on sensitive stories, circumventing due journalistic norms and checks.
  All in all, this was a total and utter failure of fact-checking on topics that allege significant (and perhaps criminal) wrongdoing against specific parties, on multiple occasions, both on topics with explicit political relevance. This goes beyond sloppiness or misinformation—this was disinformation that appears to have been conducted and approved by both the journalists who wrote the original report as well as the editors who initially attempted to cover that very same report up. I would never want to cite this source for facts about a WP:BLP, nor for contentious facts. — Red-tailed hawk _(nest) 02:02, 18 February 2023 (UTC)

No reliable secondary sources accuses the editors of covering up or political disinformation nor do they mention accusations on those lines by any third party. To the contrary, the Washington Post article features a comment by the main person (the CIS co-founder) who unraveled the fabrications, where he says that the editor "maintained his personal integrity". This is pertinent because you have missed a key fact that we would not be certain that those emails were fabricated if the editor had not co-operated and disclosed the identities of the senders (they were kept anonymous).

If they really wanted to, they could have forgone accountability and easily rode on their reputation and it would have remained a debated issue among tech experts. Most of the retractions and commentary came after their own retraction. The structural conditions, i.e pressures on journalistic organisations, the need to protect sources, outstretched resources and the state of press freedom is in far severe condition in India than in the United States (read this article by NYT), so any comparison is misguided.

And saying that "foreign observers lack confidence in The Wire" (or reliable Indian ones) is inaccurate and there isn't much substantive evidence for it. It should be noted that The Economist piece is an opinion column that is making an appeal to The Wire and in general, and compares their reporting to things like Russian interference in US elections and the Cambridge Analytics scandal related to Brexit, describing them as similar mistakes, as far as I understand these are still debated over if not accepted. The full EGI statement is also a reference to the reporting on the Tek Fog app specifically; it says "Since the Wire has removed those stories as part of their internal review following serious questions on the veracity of their reporting, the Guild withdraws the references made to all those reports". It shouldn't be conflated as a judgement of The Wire general reporting. Tayi Arajakate _Talk 09:05, 18 February 2023 (UTC)

• Option 1 Fabrications and deception by one of their employees (who was subsequently sacked) shouldn't be conflated with the news publisher as a whole. Both the stories whether Tek Fog or the one on Meta were retracted and an apology published. This is standard practise when journalistic misconduct does occur and is an indication of a reliable source.

They otherwise have a solid track record of investigative journalism and reputation as a high quality news publication, consistently receiving both major Indian and international awards. A lot could be written on this but I'll give one prime example that shows that they are considered authoritative and clearly demonstrate that it's a reliable source. BBC News has the most extensive coverage of any high quality international news publisher in India and they regularly, in nearly every major (and extremely contentious) story on India, use The Wire as a source for important related facts, without seeing the need for any attribution or qualification (such as describing it as a claim) and simply with hyperlinks directly to "thewire.in", some instances (note that these are hard to collect since they don't come up in searches, but are rather abundant):

1. hyperlink at "ensure that Muslims stop wearing skullcaps"
2. hyperlink at "called Muslims demons", another one at " people have been held over tweets" and another one at "held for putting up posters"
3. hyperlink at "criticism"
4. hyperlink at "a vendor was beaten up", etc etc

Other international outlets have a similar practise, using it as a source and present its reporting as facts, a few instances below.

1. this report in Columbia Journalism Review on threats to journalists during the 2020 Delhi riots, it was used as a source for facts (see "...fifty-three people, the majority of whom were Muslim, had been killed..." ("fifty-three people" is hyperlinked to a thewire.in article).
2. this piece (hyperlink at "disaffection") in the The Diplomat uses it as a source for facts on jurisprudence regarding the sedition law in India
3. this Coda Media report (hyperlinks to 4 articles at "rebuke", "had", "observed" and "maintained") uses it as a source for facts regarding migrant workers during COVID-19 pandemic and inconsistencies in the government's claims
4. this piece in The Verge on net neutrality
5. this report from The Independent on the Haridwar hate speeches, and many more.

In addition, to give few examples of their reputation, as in how they are described, in the Columbia Journalism Review report on news media in India, The Wire was extensively covered and specifically described to have carried "award-winning reporting", the International Press Institute in a a report during the pandemic had stated that it "is providing some of the best coverage in the Asia-Pacific region on the impact of the coronavirus and the lock-down on disadvantaged and disempowered Indians", Foreign Policy in one of its columns described the publication as "Indian's most respected online news service", etc. Tayi Arajakate _Talk 06:54, 18 February 2023 (UTC)

All of these links are from before the controversy. DFlhb (talk) 11:38, 18 February 2023 (UTC)

Kindly Disagree. This was not journalistic misconduct. It is a case of fabrication of evidence for political goal-scoring. All the cases that you have provided where The Wire has been cited as a source is before October 2022. I highly doubt that any credible news agency has used their story after this expose. SpunkyGeek (talk) 12:07, 18 February 2023 (UTC)

It demonstrates that they had a reputation for fact checking and accuracy and any determination of the source as unreliable would mean one would have to discard all articles from this period.

It also doesn't appear anything has changed post—October 2022, in December 2022, they won 2 Red Ink Awards, one for their contribution in the Pegasus Project collaboration as it's Indian partner (which they still are, and it includes reputable publications from around the world) and one for their report on transgender prisoners. The BBC documentary, India: The Modi Question (which is very high stakes), released in January 2023, features the editor of The Wire in an authoritative capacity. Tayi Arajakate _Talk 13:22, 18 February 2023 (UTC)

India: The Modi Question documentary is a controversial documentary. The Wire has a known history of political bias against the present government in India hence much of its reporting is in that particular space. The documentary is a critique of the present Indian government's domestic policies. Most of the journalists who are currently part of The Wire have presented their critical analysis on the then Gujarat government (2002) and the present Indian government, therefore are part of the documentary. (We are not discussing the authenticity of their analysis here)

The Wire fabricating a piece of evidence to pursue a story with biased editorial oversight is a whole different case. Why I said 'biased' is because there have been no repercussions for senior editors or the board members of The Wire. SpunkyGeek (talk) 20:40, 18 February 2023 (UTC)

• Option 3, see my detailed reply in the pre-RFC discussion, which I won't summarise here. The Meta story was genuinely ludicrous; all the tech experts I follow on Twitter immediately questioned its veracity. Why didn't the outlet? This is far worse than A Rape on Campus, which was at least a little plausible. The Meta story had several senior editors (including a founding editor) on the byline. When Meta said sources were fabricated, these senior editors should have checked (indeed, any outlet would have done so before initial publication). Instead, they vociferously quadrupled-down, called Meta's denials "obfuscation", and wrote about Meta's denial in a shockingly combative way (alleging that Meta was trying to "goad" them into revealing their sources). The Wire's editorial failures go far beyond the fired journalist, and four months later, still haven't been addressed. They pledged "transparency", yet haven't publicly announced any changes to their editorial process. Firing a journalist doesn't solve their lack of editorial oversight. The Tek Fog story hasn't been corroborated by other outlets, relied on the now-fired journalist, allegedly has "glaring holes", and yet is still not retracted (only "removed from view"). It's on them to prove they addressed their editorial issues, not on us to assume they did.

Let's see what third-parties think:

• "Unprecedented polarization, the trumping of ideology over facts, active hate-mongering or pamphleteering, and the death of nuance — particularly in prime time television — all make up the new normal. Journalists are increasingly either chamcha ya morcha: sycophants and shameful supplicants to power, or activists dreaming of regime change." (Semafor)
• "a once-dependable news website", "sheer irresponsibility" (Slate)
• URLs shown in the report didn't actually exist (a MarketWatch reporter)
• "The Wire did not ask Meta for comment [...] ahead of publishing" (a Buzzfeed News reporter); that's egregious!

I'm not alleging that this was a deliberate hoax on The Wire's part. But I don't need to. I evaluate sources based on their editorial practices, and theirs just aren't good enough. DFlhb (talk) 12:41, 18 February 2023 (UTC)

This is easy to say in hindsight but the fact is tech experts were uncertain and divided. Even Sophie Zhang, someone who had understanding of Meta's systems was for a time convinced by the journalist's conviction despite her initial doubts. It's also inaccurate to say they have announced no changes, they did in the apology they published.

In the end there's a simple question, can you (or anyone) bring any news report of theirs or any reliable secondary coverage that questions their reporting and is not in the context of this controversy, this one journalist, or these retracted and/or withdrawn (or "removed from view" if you will) reports?

There is so much evidence that demonstrates that they have a "reputation for fact checking and accuracy" which is how we determine which sources are reliable, not on our own ideas of their internal workings (based on one episode that is), one should at least be able to show a pattern across the organisation. Tayi Arajakate _Talk 13:22, 18 February 2023 (UTC)

Zhang had left Facebook two years earlier, and had no understanding of Facebook's then-current systems. She also falsely claimed that the docs must have been faked by a Facebook employee, which is... understandable, given her dislike of the company, but was completely baseless. Meanwhile, independent observers and proper journalists were skeptical from the start, and were harassed by The Wire's supporters.

The fact is, trust is earned, not given. It's true that they're among the better Indian outlets, but declaring them GENREL means they can be used as sourcing in BLPs, and everywhere else. Here, "business as usual" is not tenable. The polarisation pointed out by Semafor means that it's no longer a case of outstanding independent journalists on one side, and government propagandists on the other side; sadly, the independent side is no longer fully trustworthy either. DFlhb (talk) 14:37, 18 February 2023 (UTC)

That doesn't answer my question, you are just showing me twitter comments and opining on them. With the evidence you have the only articles that shouldn't be used for BLPs and elsewhere are the ones that can't be used anyways because have been withdrawn/retracted. Tayi Arajakate _Talk 15:36, 18 February 2023 (UTC)

The argument that a news outlet is printing against a government can be termed as a reliable source is meaningless in this context.

Here we have a specific case where it seems that the top leadership of The Wire has participated in the intentional fabricating of evidence. Giving them amnesty would not only set a wrong precedent but will also put a question mark on WP:RSP guidelines. SpunkyGeek (talk) 19:52, 18 February 2023 (UTC)

The Wire was also ordered to take down 14 (not 1 or 2) of its stories by the Telangana Court for reporting against Indian vaccine manufacturers (Bharat Biotech, COVAXIN). Yet no action was taken by the "internal editorial board" of The Wire.

(Such were the violations that Telangana Court also barred The Wire from further reporting)

See:Telangana Court orders The Wire to take down its stories

If you are claiming this is to be a one-time incident then I have to kindly and strongly disagree with that. SpunkyGeek (talk) 21:07, 18 February 2023 (UTC)

An Indian court ordering a news source to take down a story does not mean that story is not true; indeed, given recent events, it may even be more likely that it is. Black Kite (talk) 22:23, 18 February 2023 (UTC)

If the stories were authentic, don't you think The Wire would have gone to the higher courts?

Also, many other publications would have supported them to pursue this. SpunkyGeek (talk) 23:13, 18 February 2023 (UTC)

DFlhb In fact, the very Slate article you quoted here shows them having a solid reputation even in midst of the controversy. I hope you read it in its entirety. Some full quotes from it:

1. "The Wire has done important, noble work under duress, and its best writing remains a brilliant exemplar of what Indian journalism can do best. But going forward, it’ll be so much harder to do this type of journalism."
2. "To be clear, informed analysts of the saga did not tend to believe the Wire acted maliciously in order to defame Meta. Rather, they said this was probably the result of an elaborate scheme planned by someone with a vendetta against the Wire. Or, as Stamos put it, “an extremely successful op against opposition journalism.”"
3. "Misinformation from BJP foot soldiers at all levels make it so sites like the Wire are the only way anyone outside India can get an accurate view of one of the world’s most important countries."
4. "Wire had become one of the most dynamic Indian publications of the Modi years, a singular bulwark against the flood of false and propagandistic “news” that took over so much of Indian media. Along with outlets like the Caravan, Scroll, Alt News, the Print, and Cobrapost, the Wire offered detailed, incisive reporting on the realities of modern-day Indian life and politics."
5. "The pressure is high in the subcontinent, and the Wire’s most intrepid writers doubtlessly face daily threats of the kind few American journalists are familiar with. Yet that also makes their rectitude all the more imperative."

They are treating it like a reputable publication that has made a mistake, which is exactly what we should be doing. Tayi Arajakate _Talk 14:32, 18 February 2023 (UTC)

I did read it in its entirety, and this misdirects us into the weeds. The fact that The Wire faces threats by the government, or that they weren't outright malicious, or that "their best writing" is good, has nothing to do with their editorial standards, which is what we judge here. The two Slate quotes I give earlier do address The Wire's reliability. Note that beyond publishing an apology, "promising" to vet their stories better, and retracting the Meta story, they still haven't shown any evidence of changes. They still haven't retracted or re-examined their TekFog story, and the founding editor on the Meta byline is still employed. DFlhb (talk) 14:44, 18 February 2023 (UTC)

It has everything to do with "editorial standards" and is exactly what we should be looking at. Coverage from reliable secondary sources is how we determine their reputation and their editorial standards. It doesn't matter whether you find it trustworthy or what you imagine their editorial standards to be. The article is more or less describing their journalism as one of the best and one of the few where you can get actual news in the country, that very very clearly shows that they are considered a reliable source.

WP:REPUTABLE and WP:USEBYOTHERS are guidelines on reliable sources, and by now it's clear that they more than comply with both. Tayi Arajakate _Talk 15:36, 18 February 2023 (UTC)

There's a difference between a website's stated editorial standards and the extent to which they are put into practice. If extremely senior people are disregarding editorial standards (such as happened in "A Rape on Campus"), then that reflects much, much more broadly on the quality of the organization's editorial oversight than a mere blurb of text that the news organization claims to adhere to. — Red-tailed hawk _(nest) 15:41, 18 February 2023 (UTC)

I second your point @Red-tailed hawk. The leading editors in this fiasco have faced no inquiries or consequences. The same editorial board is now reviewing the misconduct. This alone should be shocking for an editor with some journalistic standards. SpunkyGeek (talk) 20:58, 18 February 2023 (UTC)

• Observation What would be the optics of Wikipedia declaring a news source unreliable, when that news source has been one of those recently harrassed by the Modi Government (the most recent was the BBC, whose Indian HQ was invaded by "tax inspectors") because it prints news that show the Government in a bad light? I suggest those optics would be very poor. Black Kite (talk) 15:03, 18 February 2023 (UTC)

  Nobody here is arguing that the source unreliable because it shows the Indian government in a bad light. We're arguing that it's unreliable because of failures of editorial control and fact-checking, and that responsibility for this goes all the way up to the top. I hope that answers your question. — Red-tailed hawk _(nest) 15:29, 18 February 2023 (UTC)

The irony here is that BBC itself seems to be find them reliable. Tayi Arajakate _Talk 16:26, 18 February 2023 (UTC)

Why are we considering optics here? Whom are we trying to satisfy here? The only thing that should matter is if a news outlet has participated in journalistic malpractice that too intentionally on the highest level, then there should be repercussions for it.

Those who want to consider optics should also consider that if grave misconduct by a news outlet is gone unscathed what precedent are we setting here? SpunkyGeek (talk) 20:00, 18 February 2023 (UTC)

My concern is that two (yes,two) incidents are being used to turn one of the few reasonably neutral Indian news sources into "unreliable" and put it on the same footing as actual Indian fake news sites such as Republic TV. This isn't the Daily Mail or Russia Today that we're talking about here. Black Kite (talk) 20:47, 18 February 2023 (UTC)

See:Telangana Court orders The Wire to take down its stories

Another violation for your reference.

Also, your argument does not provide any substance to nullify points made by @Red-tailed hawk and @DFlhb. SpunkyGeek (talk) 21:11, 18 February 2023 (UTC)

I see. Well, on the same subject, perhaps you could give us a run down of this edit of yours, explaining why the mainstream news services there are unreliable (I am well aware that Reddit and forums are no good, it's the other sources I'm interested in). Black Kite (talk) 22:20, 18 February 2023 (UTC)

The context of this forum is The Wire's reliability.

However, the content written was opinion based rather than having encyclopedic language. I would be happy to work with you on that article if you have some suggestions. SpunkyGeek (talk) 22:59, 18 February 2023 (UTC)

• Option 1 per Tayi_Arajakate. They have a lot of quality content and the response to the Meta incident shows that they have editorial standards and act upon them. Alaexis_¿question? 20:05, 18 February 2023 (UTC)
• Option 1. It's the response including take down and corrective measures that test a publication's reliability. The case where a publication themselves intentionally fabricates is where it is deemed unreliable. The Wire was deceived by one of their own thus causing a fiasco, the publication didn't intentionally fabricate. They took it down and took corrective actions. Unreliable sources don't — DaxServer (t · m · c) 21:41, 18 February 2023 (UTC)
• Option 3 I think arguments made by @Red-tailed hawk and @DFlhb are spot on. There has been no accountability for the senior editors in this incident. What can be more shocking is the same team is reviewing this debacle. (Not the first time that The Wire is under severe scrutiny). An impartial inquiry is needed which seems highly doubtful here. — Preceding unsigned comment added by SpunkyGeek (talk • contribs) 23:10, 18 February 2023 (UTC)
• Option 1. The Wire has screwed up big time, but their ultimate response has been that of a reliable news organization, and the tenor of the most detailed pieces, such as the Slate article, suggest they have been hoodwinked rather than that they've engaged in intentional malpractice. If something similar happens again in the future, it might suggest that there's a systemic issue here, but otherwise it's too soon to deprecate. Vanamonde (Talk) 22:38, 18 February 2023 (UTC)

  The Slate article is a Future Tense column. We recently discussed these sorts of columns on this very noticeboard; the pieces are characterized by Slate itself as daily commentary published on Slate, and the piece from Slate isn't exactly straight news reporting. — Red-tailed hawk _(nest) 06:31, 19 February 2023 (UTC)

It's quite inaccurate to charecterise Future Tense as a column (columns are personal or editorial opinion sections of particular columnists). This is a newsletter under a wide collaboration, which includes commentary (and reportage) and brings in expertise with it. Tayi Arajakate _Talk 11:10, 19 February 2023 (UTC)

• Option 1 we shouldn't rush to judgement on the basis of one incident allegedly involving one rogue reporter. The wire has been painted as an anti-Mohdi publication and is therefore subject to intimidation, demonization and propoganda including from pro-Mohdi sources in the same way as many other respectable sources have been including the BBC. See these two articles from The Guardian for some context here and here, imv Atlantic306 (talk) 22:22, 19 February 2023 (UTC)
• Option 1: for an organization that won prizes for its journalism in the past, and issues corrections when they make mistakes. Mottezen (talk) 22:48, 19 February 2023 (UTC)

Discussion: The Wire (India)

• @SpunkyGeek, Horse Eye's Back, Jayron32, Capitals00, Austronesier, Aquillion, Slywriter, and Bloodofox: I'm pinging you to notify you about this RfC, as you have all contributed to the discussion immediately preceding it. — Red-tailed hawk _(nest) 02:05, 18 February 2023 (UTC)
  • @DFlhb: as well. — Red-tailed hawk _(nest) 02:06, 18 February 2023 (UTC)

  If I've missed someone who participated in the preceding discussion, feel free to ping them. I tried to go from bottom to top and think I got all the users who participated in the discussion, but it doesn't hurt to check. — Red-tailed hawk _(nest) 02:07, 18 February 2023 (UTC)

• Note, I've left notices at Wikipedia talk:Noticeboard for India-related topics and Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Journalism regarding this discussion. Tayi Arajakate _Talk 14:04, 18 February 2023 (UTC)

Tennessee Star - reliable source?

The Tennessee Star (edit | talk | history | protect | delete | links | watch | logs | views) / Official website

I'm leaning "no" because it's a right-wing website that tries to make itself look like a newspaper, but I wanted to seek additional input here. Wes sideman (talk) 13:50, 17 February 2023 (UTC)

• Could you link to an article where it is being cited, so we can see the context in which it is being cited? Blueboar (talk) 14:28, 17 February 2023 (UTC)

@Blueboar: It's being used today as justification for including a deleted tweet as WP:DUE, in an RfC at Talk:Shaun King. Wes sideman (talk) 17:08, 17 February 2023 (UTC)

• Kathy Barnette is one, which I remember, because I added the cite. Gråbergs Gråa Sång (talk) 15:04, 17 February 2023 (UTC)

• Self-described as "the flagship member of the Star News Digital Media family". More on Star News Digital Media in Snopes here. -Location (talk) 15:04, 17 February 2023 (UTC)
• No, it is not reliable. It's a Breitbart clone; set up by the same people, for the same purpose, on the same model. It is not a reliable source of information. --Jayron32 15:13, 17 February 2023 (UTC)

  Clearly ideological but how is it a Breitbart clone? Springee (talk) 15:17, 17 February 2023 (UTC)

  This makes the case that it's exactly that. To wit, "He agreed that “Breitbart of Tennessee” would be a fair description of his site," where "he" is Steve Gill, the founder of the website. It isn't me calling it a Breitbart clone, it's the guy who founded and runs it that is. --Jayron32 16:34, 17 February 2023 (UTC)

• Strikes me as marginal. I don't see an issue using it for the opinion of the writer or for basic, uncontroversial facts but not much more. I do understand that a lot of editors say "it's connected with X source" however we appear to accept media sources that are connected with ideologically motivated groups in some cases but not others. So long as it has the basics of a RS and the claims it is used to support are either uncontroversial or attributed to the author (not just the site) I would say it's OK to use with caution.

Springee (talk) 15:16, 17 February 2023 (UTC)

It should not be used with caution. It should be avoided at nearly all costs, and treated like Breitbart. See above, the founder of the website has himself agreed that it is the "Breitbart of Tennessee". That doesn't indicate to me that it is trying to be a reliable source of news. --Jayron32 16:37, 17 February 2023 (UTC)

• "The publication has been compared to Breitbart, which Leahy also writes for". Taking a gander at the website, it isn't as outright bad as Breitbart, but is still markedly conspiratorial (I mean come on). I don't see why this should be used when other forms of media will cover the same topics. Curbon7 (talk) 15:19, 17 February 2023 (UTC)

  "News the Mainstream Media and Big Tech Don’t Want You to Know" is always a signal. Curbon7 (talk) 15:25, 17 February 2023 (UTC)

• Yeah this seems like the kinda source to avoid. Skimming through some articles seem more professional and “objective” a bit with conservative leanings/views. Others though definitely has a more tabloid flavor to it than that of a newspaper. At best people should be cautious using it and it probably should not be the sole source for something except maybe for local issues in Tennessee. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 3Kingdoms (talk • contribs) 18:10, 17 February 2023 (UTC)

Probably should be avoided, and definitely not used for BLPs. Might be useful with attribution about local issues. -- LCU ActivelyDisinterested ∆transmissions∆ °co-ords° 22:15, 17 February 2023 (UTC)

• I think it should be treated on a case-by-case basis. It may be unwise to use for contentious political matters due to its slant, but more appropriate in other cases. Note that whatever Steve Gill has said about it, he apparently hasn't been affiliated in an editorial capacity since 2019.[28]. Also, keep in mind that news outlets tend to only get attention from other outlets when they either have scandals or win major awards: perfectly normal things rarely make the news. I can't find much recent criticism of the Star (e.g. post 2019): a 2022 CJR article mentions the Politico and Snopes criticism, which are from 2018 and 2019 respectively, and also notes that some sources have used the Star's reporting, which could count towards reliability per WP:USEBYOTHERS, and that it has real connections to the places it reports on. While a previous criticism was lacking bylines (hindering transparency), this no longer seems to be the case: thus more recent articles may be more reliable than early ones. It appears to feature a mix of original stories[29][30] and syndicated content from sources like The Center Square[31] and Just the News[32] similar to how Yahoo! News might republish Business Insider, AlterNet, etc. (one of the sources in question is a republished story from The Daily Caller, so that particular article should not be considered reliable). While some contributors appear to have also written for Breitbart (e.g.[33][34]), that doesn't mean everything they've ever written for Breitbart or the Star is automatically unreliable (I haven't yet found evidence the Star rehosts articles from Breitbart, but that would be a different story). The Star is probably more reliable for local politics, interviews and lifestyle topics like musicians, and should be considered questionable and biased for political reporting. Biased sources are by no means prohibited per WP:PARTISAN. For what it's worth, according Media Bias/Fact Check it hasn't failed a fact-check in the past 5 years.[35]. Probably all the Star News Network websites should be treated as one outlet, especially since they seem to share articles and editors. --Animalparty! (talk) 23:24, 17 February 2023 (UTC)
• I generally don't look favorably upon the use of hyperpartisan local news websites for contentious facts. Biased sources can be ok if they have substantial editorial oversight and engage in substantial fact-checking, but generally the problem with them is that they have less well-established editorial controls and tend to blur the line between factual reporting and opinion. I'd agree with Springee that it's marginal; it's probably fine for ordinary statements about local politics and local politicians (stuff like Jane Doe has been a member of the Harrison Township Board of Education since her election in 2016 seems fine if it's sourced to the Tennessee Star), but I would generally advise against using it for contentious statements. This seems like a fairly straightforward partisan mirror of The Colorado Times Recorder, which is being discussed above, and similar considerations should apply to each. — Red-tailed hawk _(nest) 00:19, 19 February 2023 (UTC)

The Oklahoman / Accuracy in Media

1. Source. Irvine, Reed; Goulden, Joseph C. (June 1, 1997). "New Wave of Attacks Targets Aldrich". The Oklahoman. Retrieved February 17, 2023.

2. Article. Gary Aldrich.

3. Content. "George Stephanopoulos, serving as White House communications director under the Clintons, was able to exert pressure on the media to ignore the book, and it received little attention from mainstream outlets despite the sensational contents and its popularity with the reading public."

I noticed that this content was cited without the authors to an article in The Oklahoman, however, clicking the link indicates that they may have re-published something originally published in Accuracy in Media by Reed Irvine and Joseph C. Goulden. (For another take on why Gary Aldrich's book may have not been given the publicity some think it deserved, see Margaret Carlson's take in TIME.) At the very least, I think this is a statement that needs attribution. Thoughts? -Location (talk) 22:01, 17 February 2023 (UTC)

Wouldn't this be a BLP issue as it's an allegation against Stephanopoulos? If the only source is a tabloid shouldn't the text be removed, per WP:BLPSOURCES? -- LCU ActivelyDisinterested ∆transmissions∆ °co-ords° 22:21, 17 February 2023 (UTC)

@ActivelyDisinterested: I'm not sure. This doesn't look like a typical tabloid, but it does appear to violate WP:REDFLAG if it is considered an "exceptional claim". -Location (talk) 19:27, 18 February 2023 (UTC)

I would say it's an exceptional claim, using public office to suppress an unfavorable work is implying corruption. -- LCU ActivelyDisinterested ∆transmissions∆ °co-ords° 19:34, 18 February 2023 (UTC)

Should be treated as an opinion piece by Reed Irvine and Joseph C. Goulden, for me that means it can't be used at Gary Aldrich. When Aldrich dies that "can't" gets downgraded to a "shouldn't" Horse Eye's Back (talk) 19:31, 18 February 2023 (UTC)

Blue Police in Poland

the following reference is given at Collaboration with the Axis Powers for the statement that the "Blue Police", a Nazi police auxiliary made up of Polish policemen, were recruited "under threat of death". I don't care if it is reliable or it isn't, personally; I will just remove it if it is determined that it is not. I don't speak Polish and the book does not seem to be available online. The link goes to a publisher's page.

Hempel, Adam (1987). Policja granatowa w okupacyjnym systemie administracyjnym Generalnego Gubernatorstwa: 1939-1945 (in Polish). Warsaw: Instytut Wydawniczy Związków Zawodowych. p. 83.

I am looking for another source for the statement, but would be glad to hear from any subject matter experts, anyone who owns the book, or anyone who can suggest a different good source. Thanks all Elinruby (talk) 01:16, 18 February 2023 (UTC)

I'm seeing it referenced twice on Google Scholar; once is to an article (English translation) in The Police Review, while the other is to this article in Polish that is available on WP:TWL but which I cannot read for lack of Polish language skills. It's also cited in page 170 of this English book, which is OUP-published but doesn't appear on Google Scholar, in a chapter on the Polish Blue Police, and on Page 264 of this German book published by a Brill imprint. Out of the two English sources, only the one from The Police Review says something similar (something about the death penalty if the members of the Blue Police did not enforce laws or carry out German orders, which is also stated in this thesis), but that's different than recruiting new policemen under threat of death. Do you have access to the original Polish text from that page? There's a chance it's a translation error making its way into the Wikipedia article. — Red-tailed hawk _(nest) 06:30, 18 February 2023 (UTC)

Would German (here) be easier to understand Elinruby?

GizzyCatBella🍁 06:46, 18 February 2023 (UTC)

well, that's not going to be a source. And although my German is so rusty that I don't really claim to speak it, I *think* that that says that all Polish policemen must without exception report for duty or face strict penalties. Not seeing death mentioned there. But maybe you can answer Red-tailed hawk, who seems to have taken an article interest in the question, because the Polish article ours links to is "collaboration" and doesn't mention Blue police. Elinruby (talk) 22:01, 18 February 2023 (UTC)

I do not speak German. My Polish is so rusty that I cannot really claim to speak it; the full extent of my Polish-language knowledge is basic greetings and how to say "I love you", so I'm not going to be able to do original research on primary sources. But also, we're explicitly not supposed to do that when writing articles, so I'm not really sure what I'm being asked to answer here, Elinruby. — Red-tailed hawk _(nest) 04:49, 19 February 2023 (UTC)

apparently I was unclear. 1) I tagged you in particular since you were interested enough in the question to do a non-trivial amount of googling. I am, to be clear, not asking you to do anything more or spend anymore time on this than you want to. I am a little baffled as to what I might have said that sounded like a request for OR, and would appreciate a note at my talk page about that, so that I can avoid confusing other people. Since I don't think this is an OR question, allow me to rephrase. I saw an article that is very inadequately sourced and had problems of due weight in my eyes. I am still struggling with the latter but as part of my attempt to remedy the referencing, I noted a statement that I found a little surprising, although I don't actually doubt it. I would however like to verify this reference as part of my edit of the article. Is this not best practice?

The reference is in a language that I don't speak, and is not online, where Google Translate might help with that. So what I was hoping when I came here was either a) someone would come by who owns the book or b) someone with some topic knowledge would be able to suggest a better reference. Alternately, since you can't verify it and neither can I, perhaps I should rewrite the sentence to match the sources you found. That part is a question. "Blue Police" gives a LOT of false positives. That part is a comment. If you are tired of this question then I am ok with that too, but that is what the question was, not whatever misimpression I managed to give you somehow. Elinruby (talk) 05:16, 19 February 2023 (UTC)

As noted on my talk page, I think I misunderstood the ping in the comment above to mean that the question was directed at me. Sorry for my confusion. — Red-tailed hawk _(nest) 05:53, 19 February 2023 (UTC)

No worries. It would have been better to address someone by name and not change topics mid-post. Just glad it's cleared up. Making note to self.Elinruby (talk) 09:59, 19 February 2023 (UTC)

Actually... the exact wording in the article is "who were forced, under penalty of death, to work for the German occupation authorities." Maybe the intended meaning here is that they worked under the threat of death, not that they were forced to join under the threat of death. Perhaps I should reword that to clarify (assuming this reading is correct). The sourcing question remains though. Those cite numbers sound low. Should we just go with Red-tailed hawk's sources? Or is there a better one that can be found if we aren't trying to source "recruited on pain of death", which seems to be the wrong reading? The thesis RTH mentions cites the call up to something that looked like it could be another copy of what GCB is showing us... it scrolled away when I tried to copy the footnote. Thank you for any brainpower than anyone applies to this. <g> Elinruby (talk) 22:28, 18 February 2023 (UTC) @GizzyCatBella: Elinruby (talk) 22:31, 18 February 2023 (UTC)

@Elinruby - translated Polish--> najsurowsze kary = English --> the severest punishments. What were the severest punishments back in 1939? - GizzyCatBella🍁 00:43, 19 February 2023 (UTC)

I take your point. And yet, this is not what the poster says, exactly. So you think this would mean death if you don't join, then I take it? I'd still rather find a source that says that exactly. Surely there is one. Maybe even this one. Elinruby (talk) 01:20, 19 February 2023 (UTC)

What you are seeing is an official document issued in 1939 by Friedrich-Wilhelm Krüger ordering pre-war Polish policemen to appear for service or face severest penalties:

All Polish police officials and also Polish police officers who were on duty on September 1, 1939, should report by November 10, 1939, regardless of their previous place of service at the nearest German police office. Officials who do not comply with this request face the severest penalties. Friedrich-Wilhelm Krüger -

Do you still have doubts what that source says? If you do have doubts that severest penalty meant death during the German occupation of Poland, then maybe someone has access to that book, I also want to see it. - GizzyCatBella🍁 06:16, 19 February 2023 (UTC)

That says severest penalties not severest penalty. You changed the meaning by making it singular instead of plural. Horse Eye's Back (talk) 16:23, 19 February 2023 (UTC)

Concur with HEB that we should be wary of equating najsurowsze kary / strengste Strafe (severest penalties) with the death penalty. It may be that that is what was intended, it may be that that is what was understood; but it is a act of original research for us to make that connection. WP:NOR requires that the source directly support the material (emphasis in the original); which this primary document does not. - Rotary Engine ^talk 23:35, 19 February 2023 (UTC)

Was "severest penalties" specifically a euphemism for the death penalty in Poland of that time period (the same way that "ultimate penalty" might be in English today), and can that be sourced? Alternatively, does the book itself interpret this as describing the death penalty, rather than only providing a quotation from a primary document as in the translated snippet? If either of those is true, then I would say that WP:V is met and the issue becomes entirely about the reliability of the specific book; otherwise, I would agree that we should not be describing it in this way. Either way, this seems like the sort of thing that should be reported in multiple high-quality sources if true, so if it isn't then that could call into question the reliability of the single source that does. With regards to the article, one intermediate option might be to provide the translated quote directly in the article instead. Sunrise (talk) 01:32, 20 February 2023 (UTC)

Concur that either of the two cases mentioned would be better; but the first case, involving a combination of two separate sources, impacts poorly with WP:SYNTH. - Rotary Engine ^talk 03:13, 20 February 2023 (UTC)

Guys, I think most of the above, i.e. the content issue itself about whether Polish policeman faced death penalty under the Nazi regime, is not really related to reliability (and I suggest this discusison is copied/movied to Talk:Blue Police or like). With regards to the source named by the OP (Hempel, Adam (1987), Policja granatowa...). I can't find much about the author, whom I would qualify now as an "independent historian" (i.e. not affiliated with any institution). Google tells me he was born in 1955, got a PhD from University of Warsaw (I can't find out in what field) and published several books and articles dealing with history of Polish security organizations (police and like). Regarding publisher of this particular book, it had more than one, USHMM states Państwowe Wydawnictwo Naukowe, which is a major Polish publishing house. His work is cited by a number of other scholars, which is a positive sign. I can't a dedicated review of it, however; the best I have so far is this: in this Polish-language academic article [36] published in pl:Studia Podlaskie in 2008 by pl:Robert Litwiński (historian at the Maria Curie-Skłodowska University), Litwiński writes positively about the book in one paragraph (in Polish, translated by me): However, the most comprehensive and basic study on the Polish Police in the years 1939–1944 are the works of Adam Hempel (Policja granatowa w okupacyjnym systemie administracyjnym Generalnego Gubernatorstwa 1939–1945, Warszawa 1987; Pogrobowcy klęski. Rzecz o policji „granatowej” w Generalnych Gubernatorstwie 1939–1945, Warszawa 1990). The author comprehensively presented the origins and formation of the Polish police service under German occupation, discussed the organization of Polish police authorities in the General Government, their role in the implementation of German occupation policy, cooperation with the resistance movement, and relations with Polish society. so from what I see so far it seems reliable. --_{Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus| reply here} 07:44, 19 February 2023 (UTC)

• This source [37] says "under threat of penalty", not death. Adam Hempel, if the book even says what is claimed, is not reliable as the book was published under a communist regime in Poland in 1987. During the communist era critical research was impossible and all books were supervised by censors. JoeZ451 (talk) 19:35, 19 February 2023 (UTC)

  For what it's worth, the death penalty is a sort of penalty, so I think it's a bit dubious to use a source saying under threat of penalty necessarily excludes the death penalty being that penalty. — Red-tailed hawk _(nest) 02:26, 20 February 2023 (UTC)

  Agreed. It doesn't necessarily exclude it; but it also doesn't verify it. And then if we have one source (to which we don't have access) ostensibly suggesting "death penalty", and other sources, which we can access, suggesting an unspecified penalty, we want to think about how any article text aligns with WP:DUE. - Rotary Engine ^talk 03:13, 20 February 2023 (UTC)

Guys. I just spent one hour digging through sources, and writing an analysis, only to loose it to a browser memory crash... sigh. TL;DR: None of the sources I found says anything about this (as in, no source I found discusses the issue of penalties for refusal to re-enlist in 1939; some sources do mention death penalty but for disobeying orders in general, presumably after re-enlisting). And while it would be good to verify what is written in Hempel, p.83 I am leaning towards this being an error (I don't want to say hoax) introduced by an anon in 2008: [38]. I've tagged the current claim the article with but frankly, I think we can just be bold and either restore the original wording (arrest, not death penalty) or change it to "severest punishments'" per discussion above. (Pl wiki, I'll note, does not state death penalty either, it just uses the "severest punishments" language and references the very poster we have above, which is a bit ORish, if arguably factually correct). --_{Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus| reply here} 03:44, 20 February 2023 (UTC)

• @Elinruby and Piotrus: I would say remove this claim. The source is obscure and dated. Especially given that Grabowski & Klein refute it:

‘Shortly after the German Invasion of Poland,’ says the [Wiki] article’s section on Poland, ‘the Nazi authorities ordered the mobilization of prewar Polish officials and the Polish police (the Blue Police), who were forced, under penalty of death, to work for the German occupation authorities.’ The Germans did indeed impose severe punishments on those refusing to serve in the new police force, but not the death penalty, and no documented case exists of a Polish officer being executed for such refusal.

References

This is a controversial, if not a WP:EXTRAORDINARY claim, which needs better sources than a 1990 publication and a poster that does not mention death penalty. --K.e.coffman (talk) 04:38, 20 February 2023 (UTC)

@K.e.coffman Agreed. The only question is do we restore the original wording ("arrest") or go with "severe/severest(?) punishments" instead? _{Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus| reply here} 04:44, 20 February 2023 (UTC)

Quoting from an unreliable source, when the unreliable source is cited by multiple reliable sources.

In the article Killing of Brianna Ghey, we have a sentence that originally read The Independent reported that a parent of one of her school friends criticised the initial police statement, saying, "Let's be frank, she was bullied because of her sexuality. Of course this is a hate crime.", citing this article. It's gone through a couple of revisions since then and currently reads According to the Independent, MailOnline reported that a parent of one of her school friends criticised the initial police statement, saying, "Let's be frank, she was bullied because of her sexuality. Of course this is a hate crime.", cited to the same article. The relevant paragraphs in the citation are the three paragraphs beginning from Damian Harry, who said his 15-year-old daughter, with the later two paragraphs being direct quotations from Harry that appear in a MailOnline article.

This was objected to on the article's talk page, as the original source of the quotation from Damien Harry is the MailOnline, and that Wikipedia should not be using any info sourced to a deprecated source, even indirectly. Is this the case? Are we unable to indirectly cite interview comments that first appeared in a deprecated source, when the same comments are re-reported in other reliable sources? Sideswipe9th (talk) 01:53, 18 February 2023 (UTC)

Think there is a policy/guideline/essay somewhere that says this but wouldn't it be the same as NYPost in Hunter Biden laptop controversy and Twitter Files with SUBSTACK/Twitter? The parts that are referenced by reliable sources can be used as they are placing their editorial integrity on the line. A similar policy here is restoring a banned editors edits, which the restoring editor then takes responsibility for. Slywriter (talk) 02:03, 18 February 2023 (UTC)

I'm almost certain that this has been addressed somewhere before, possibly somewhat recently on this noticeboard, I'll just be damned if I can find it. Sideswipe9th (talk) 02:11, 18 February 2023 (UTC)

For my part, it is my understanding that other considerations aside, so long as we are not directly citing the deprecated source and that the quotation has appeared in other reliable sources, we are allowed to include that content. I'm almost certain a similar issue to this was discussed on this noticeboard at some point in the not so recent past, however my search-fu of the archives has so far been unable to find that discussion. And because we are anonymously quoting, summarising and attributing this to a parent of a friend of Brianna's, we are not putting anything into Wikivoice as a fact.

While I wasn't able to find the past discussion from this noticeboard, I did discover two other examples (Antisemitism in the UK Labour Party and Stabbing of Salman Rushdie) where we are indirectly citing the MailOnline through other reliable sources.

Finally, I'm aware that neither the current nor original sentences are ideal. If there is a consensus that we can indirectly cite the MailOnline, then that sentence will be rephrased into one that's more natural to read. However because of this current issue that could result in the removal of the sentence, we've not spent any time yet on writing a replacement. So it's safe to assume that once this question has been answered, the sentence will either be removed or rephrased as required. Sideswipe9th (talk) 02:09, 18 February 2023 (UTC)

• Generally speaking, performing research on sources we would consider unreliable and using their fact-checking (backed by their reputation) to produce reliable reporting out of it is part of the point of a WP:RS; obviously something from an RS can't be dismissed simply because it is reporting on something from a non-RS, or we wouldn't be able to cover anything at all. The one caveat is that it's important to rely on what the proximate (actually reliable) source says - sometimes there are situations where someone first writes something using a non-WP:RS, then it gets replaced with a RS quoting that non-RS, but the original text is never rewritten to reflect what the RS itself says. If the WP:RS cites a non-RS in a way that is clearly skeptical or cautious, we have to be careful to reflect that in our wording; likewise, if they cite it in a way that balances out different viewpoints we have to be careful to reflect that balance overall and not pull one part out in an undue manner. --Aquillion (talk) 03:35, 18 February 2023 (UTC)

  In this specific circumstance, neither the Mail nor Independent have made commentary on what Damian Harry said. Both sources just quote his words. Sideswipe9th (talk) 03:42, 18 February 2023 (UTC)

  obviously something from an RS can't be dismissed simply because it is reporting on something from a non-RS, or we wouldn't be able to cover anything at all. This is interesting, there's a trio of related articles (related to each other, not the article that spawned this discussion) that I may need to bring here after this, where an editor has been excluding content from reliable sources because they are reporting factually on something that first appeared in an non-RS. In that circumstance, the proximate sources state something as factual, that we're currently reporting on with far more scepticism than any of the reliable sources on the topic report it on. Sideswipe9th (talk) 03:53, 18 February 2023 (UTC)

I don't think that our article expressing skepticism under that circumstance would be appropriate at all. Second-guessing the methodology and fact-checking of a source (including by saying eg. "they shouldn't have trusted X, and they obviously just copy-pasted from there with no fact-checking) is inappropriate WP:OR. Of course I'd have to see the source, the text in question, etc. and so on, but generally-speaking I don't think we're supposed to second-guess the sources used by sources, and that discussing them generally veers into WP:OR (no differently than questioning a paper's methodology.) If people believe skepticism exists they should find sources expressing that skepticism, rather than making the argument themselves in talk and then inserting that into the article. --Aquillion (talk) 04:05, 18 February 2023 (UTC)

That was my thinking on this as well. I'll drop you a message on your talk page when I make another RSN discussion for it later. Sideswipe9th (talk) 04:07, 18 February 2023 (UTC)

Reliable sources regularly cite things Wikipedia considers to be unreliable sources all the time; it's a basic way that journalism operates. Journalists work with primary sources that we would not consider reliable for facts—one-on-one interviews with witnesses to a crime committed by a living person, public databases, archives of blogposts, ISIS propaganda, OSINT twitter accounts, press releases, etc.—and use them to construct an article that is consistent with their newsroom's standards. Think of how news organizations handle coverage of civil legal disputes: if there are two sides of a legal dispute, for example, the written statements of a plaintiff (such as a motion for summary judgement) is not WP:RS for whether or not those charges are based in fact, and neither would be a defense attorney's writings in court patently denying all of the plaintiff's allegations. Typically, news organizations will describe what each side is arguing, quoting from each side in a dispute and providing each side some weight, and the news article might also provide additional context on its own regarding the facts in the case. It seems pretty straightforward how we'd deal with that in an article.

WP:RS/QUOTE notes that To ensure accuracy, the text of quoted material is best taken from (and cited to) the original source being quoted. If a reliable secondary source is reporting on a quote from a primary source document, then we should look to verify the quote in the primary source and we should cite both. If we have access only to the secondary source, we have to state where we actually got the quote from, and we obviously can't cite the primary source. To continue with the example above, if we have access to the writings of the defense attorney and the prosecutor, and the news organization made an obvious error in quoting one of them, then we should use common sense (for example, if the newsorg accidentally introduces a typo like "we are seeking to expedite the trial" to "we are seeking to expedite the trail", then we can just cite both the newsorg and the original document and use the correct quote).

In any case, I think that a similar logic would apply to when reputable news organizations publish articles contain quotes from text written in the voice of tabloids or other news agencies that we would not consider to be reliable; the news organization has chosen to give the quote some weight, and we should faithfully represent that. The logic becomes a bit more stretched when we're dealing with a reliable news group quoting an unreliable tabloid who is quoting a parent who themselves a 15 year-old who new the victim and is making specific criminal allegations against living people, albeit two people whose identities are probably sub judice so the BLP considerations are probably lower than they would otherwise be. I'd be inclined to think this is more of a WP:DUE issue; is the specific quote from the 15 year-old something that's give a bunch of weight in sources? I would generally tend towards exclusion on the quote in favor of prose description (something like A parent of one of Ghey's friends, speaking with the Daily Mail, alleged that the killing was a hate crime.... Police initially stated that they had no evidence supporting the claim that this was a hate crime, but since have opened an investigation as to whether or not the killing may be a hate crime. might work better based off of a general reading of the article in The Independent) but again that's more of a weight/style question on the specific words.

— Red-tailed hawk _(nest) 05:27, 18 February 2023 (UTC)

So just to clarify, the quotation as it originally appeared and subsequently reused in other sources is from the father of one of Brianna's friends, not from the friend. While DUE issues are a bit out of scope for this noticeboard, two RS have included the same "Let's be frank" comments that originally appeared in the MailOnline: The Independent and LGBTQ Nation. Other quotations from the same father have appeared in various RS over the last few days, and he has appeared on camera on Sky News and I believe both BBC and Channel 4, though clips of the later two are not easy to search for. Sideswipe9th (talk) 00:44, 19 February 2023 (UTC)

Fox News Knew It Was A Lie: Fox News Purposely Pushed Deception On 2020 Voting

In case anyone hasn't noticed, the discovery process in the Dominion vs Fox case has uncovered damning info about how Fox knew Trump's "stolen election" Big lies were bogus, yet kept pushing the company's Murdoch agenda. “The messages exposed Fox News as a propaganda network.” Rupert Murdoch and his talking heads at Fox News all knew how ridiculous Rudy Giuliani sounded, and knew how wrong the big lie was, but they helped spread it.

As we have known for a long time, this is not an occasional "bug", but a "feature" of Fox News. For them, telling the uncomfortable truth in politics and science in the Trump age is only an occasional thing that gets the offender punished by their own colleagues and management. They must toe the party line.

Rupert Murdoch told Fox News CEO Suzanne Scott that they should try not to “antagonize Trump” by reporting the truth about bogus voter fraud claims and instead should focus on helping elect Republicans in the Georgia runoff elections. Fox has no written editorial guidelines. This is what distinguishes Fox News from an actual news organizations.

Hosts on Rupert Murdoch's propaganda channel Fox News, Tucker Carlson, Sean Hannity, & Laura Ingraham, didn't believe the allegations of voter fraud in the 2020 election but chose to amplify the BIG LIE, according to court filings in Dominion's $1.6 billion defamation lawsuit.

Here are a few sources, all properly formatted for immediate use. Do not remove the "name" function: Do not remove the "name" function:

1. Fox's Murdoch called election fraud claims a 'Trump myth,' Toronto's Dominion says in court filing - CBC
2. Fox News hosts thought Trump’s election fraud claims were ‘total BS’, court filings show - The Guardian
3. Fox knew vote rigging claims were false, Dominion says, as network defends coverage - Reuters
4. Off the air, Fox News stars blasted the election fraud claims they peddled - NPR
5. Lawsuit filing shows Fox hosts didn't believe election fraud lies they pushed on TV - PBS NewsHour
6. Fox News hosts, execs privately doubted 2020 conspiracy claims shared on air - The Washington Post
7. Fox Stars Privately Expressed Disbelief About Trump’s Election Fraud Claims - The New York Times
8. Fox News hosts doubted 2020 election fraud claims off camera as they promoted them on air - Los Angeles Times
9. Five top revelations from Dominion’s explosive court filing in Fox News lawsuit - The Hill
10. Fox News hosts called 2020 election fraud 'total BS' in private, new Dominion court filing says - ABC News
11. Fox News stars and staffers privately blasted election fraud claims as bogus, court filing shows - NBC News
12. Fox News hosts, Rupert Murdoch were skeptical of Trump election fraud claims - CNBC
13. Fox News hosts didn't believe 2020 election fraud claims, $1.6 billion Dominion defamation suit asserts - CBS News
14. Fox News executives refused to let Trump on-air when he called in during January 6 attack, Dominion says - CNN
15. Analysis: Fox News has been exposed as a dishonest organization terrified of its own audience - CNN
16. Fox News' split screen spills into view - Politico
17. They Knew It Was A Lie: Fox News Purposely Pushed Deception On 2020 Voting - The National Memo
18. I Never Truly Understood Fox News Until Now - The Atlantic
19. Why Fox News Lied to Its Viewers - The Atlantic
20. Tucker Carlson’s Dominion Text Messages Are a Thing of Beauty - Slate
21. Fox stars privately bashed election fraud claims the network pushed - Axios
22. Fox News Lied to Viewers to Keep Them From Fleeing, According to Dominion Suit - Variety
23. CNN’s Oliver Darcy: Leaked Messages In Dominion Lawsuit ‘Expose Fox News As A Propaganda Network’ - Forbes
24. A juicy new legal filing reveals who really controls Fox News - Vox
25. Dominion voting case exposes post-election fear at Fox News - Associated Press

and

• Tucker Carlson Fears That Leaked Texts of Him Telling Truth Will Kill His Brand - The New Yorker SATIRE

Isn't it about time we actually deprecate Fox News?

1. This was not accidental, or "all networks make mistakes".
2. This is not "misinformation", but deliberate "disinformation".
3. This is, and has been for a long time, a normal "feature" of their modus operandi.
4. It's not a one-time thing, but an autopsy over long-standing behavior.
5. It reveals their "journalists" have no moral scruples. The good ones have abandoned them.

They totally fail requirements for consideration as a RS. -- Valjean (talk) (PING me) 04:04, 18 February 2023 (UTC)

To me, the most alarming thing here is that Tucker Carlson demanded that Jacqui Heinrich be fired for fact-checking him, and the fact that Kristin Fisher, who since left the company, was disciplined for fact-checking Rudy Giuliani. These are alarming because those two were supposed to be part of Fox's news side, not its talk / opinion side; and our decision to leave some parts of Fox as WP:MREL for politics rather than unreliable or fully deprecated depended entirely on the assumption that Fox maintained a divide between those two parts. These things indicate that that's not the case; if there's a general pattern of the news side being essentially run like the talk side then that's a clear reason for another RFC given that the previous one's conclusion depended on at least some editors arguing that that wasn't happening. --Aquillion (talk) 04:14, 18 February 2023 (UTC)

While I'm not clamoring for another RFC just yet, I certainly agree with Aquillion's observation and Valjean's analysis. I'd be interested to hear from some of the editors who believed that status quo was a good outcome from the prior RFC (not from the "Fox is GENREL crowd" who I assume will never change their minds no matter what happens) whether this changes their mind at all. The previous RFC found a consensus that Fox News was not reliable, but did not find a consensus to pronounce it generally unreliable. In my mind, many of the arguments hinged on the idea that many news media are also unreliable (which is not an accurate or substantive argument in my view), the closer also said that there seemed to not be a general consensus of the level of standard we hold media to (or at least, what it would take to be "generally unreliable") I'm probably paraphrasing badly, but I think any new RFC should have a close read of the prior RFC's arguments and closing, and see if any of the "status quo" crowd could be persuaded before we engage in an endeavor that will likely end in a fruitless stalemate. Andre🚐 04:21, 18 February 2023 (UTC)

Well, since WP:RS is about a source's overall reputation for fact-checking and accuracy, the main thing to do is probably to wait a bit and see if these things impact Fox's. Of course, I'm already on the record as saying repeatedly that I don't think Fox as a whole meets the threshold of having that reputation; but at the very least if followup coverage shows a clear decline in its overall reputation for fact-checking and accuracy among top-tier sources, then people who argue that it did meet that threshold, or came close enough to it to be WP:MREL in the case of politics, should have to explain how it continues to do so - especially if there's sustained coverage emphasizing the pressure on the news side to cover things inaccurately, coupled with evidence that the network's overall reputation for fact-checking and accuracy has been harmed as a result. --Aquillion (talk) 04:49, 18 February 2023 (UTC)

I agree, I like the wait and see approach. This story is fresh and will likely have a protracted impact as more info comes out and analysis. Andre🚐 04:53, 18 February 2023 (UTC)

Another thing that comes to mind, after reading coverage a bit more: One aspect I'm seeing a lot of focus on is the idea that Fox measurably changed tactics in response to the backlash from its base after it called Arizona for Biden - that is, there was a serious, deliberate shift at the top level to reposition the news side away from straight reporting and more towards essentially backing up the things said on the opinion side, at least when it came to the election. If that proves to be a broader and longer-term shift, and coverage reflects it, it might be worth having a future RFC be for post-2020 Fox coverage of politics, since this gives us a reason to think that the aftermath of the 2020 election and the backlash to Fox's news coverage there may have lead to changes that reduced its reliability. --Aquillion (talk) 21:13, 18 February 2023 (UTC)

Good point. That also was mentioned last RFC. The 2020 Arizona call was offered as support for Fox's supposed quality reporting, which if that is the sea change point, therefore now a sign of the opposite. Andre🚐 21:40, 18 February 2023 (UTC)

Not for nothing, but isn't basically all this does is confirm that the late night talk show hosts are not reliable, which is already the case? There's no question that there are serious factual errors with Hannity, The Ingraham Angle, and Tucker Carlson Tonight that render the programs unfit for citing on Wikipedia... but that's currently already what we note at WP:RSP. — Red-tailed hawk _(nest) 04:26, 18 February 2023 (UTC)

As stated above, most of the links provided above related to the TV talk shows (Fox News Channel), not the news website. Pertinent to for our purposes is what Aquillion lays out with the interference into the operation of the actual news portion. Curbon7 (talk) 04:27, 18 February 2023 (UTC)

First, we should be careful about using deposition testimony where claims haven't been challenged etc to decide that the news branch isn't reliable. This is especially true if the Dominion legal team is releasing this information in order to shape the public understanding before a trial or to push for a better settlement without a trial. Second, as others have noted, this seems to fit what we have already said, Fox talk shows are not reliable. I would also ask, what problem would further moves on Fox News solve? It's rarely cited as many editors treat it as if it's not reliable already. Springee (talk) 04:52, 18 February 2023 (UTC)

@Springee: I think you may have meant to say Fox talk shows aren't reliable. — Red-tailed hawk _(nest) 05:32, 18 February 2023 (UTC)

Yes, that is what I meant. Corrected above! Springee (talk) 05:52, 18 February 2023 (UTC)

This sounds eerily familiar: "Fox News could stand in the middle of Fifth Avenue and boldly and knowingly lie about everything, and it wouldn't lose any voters, OK? It's, like, incredible." -- Valjean (talk) (PING me) 04:28, 18 February 2023 (UTC)

• We already don't use Hannity or Carlson or talking heads for factual reporting, and advise caution per Fox News political reporting per WP:FOXNEWSPOLITICS. This doesn't seem to concern Fox's straight news coverage. Are we to believe that that Kyle Jacobs is NOT dead or Bruce Willis does NOT have dementia just because Fox News reports it? Beyond jumping on the Fox News Hate Train and venting how much we despise Tucker, what more can Wikipedia do? --Animalparty! (talk) 04:47, 18 February 2023 (UTC)

  That's neither here nor there because it concerns entertainment. The last RFC was constrained to science and politics. We should probably constrain any hypothetical or current discussion even further to just politics. Most Fox science content already fails MEDRS. Andre🚐 04:55, 18 February 2023 (UTC)

"Most Fox science content already fails MEDRS. " This is not unique to Faux News. The current standards for MEDRS in Wikipedia requires us to avoid most popular press articles on medical topics: "The popular press is generally not a reliable source for scientific and medical information in articles. Most medical news articles fail to discuss important issues such as evidence quality, costs, and risks versus benefits, and news articles too often convey wrong or misleading information about health care." Dimadick (talk) 07:45, 19 February 2023 (UTC)

Yes, I know, that's why I meant if we had an RFC to downgrade Fox we should do so only for politics, since science probably isn't much use anyway. Andre🚐 19:31, 19 February 2023 (UTC)

• Are we to believe that that Kyle Jacobs is NOT dead or Bruce Willis does NOT have dementia just because Fox News reports it?

This is a meaningless comparison, as sources that we have already deprecated also produce factual content too. That doesn't change the fact that they were deprecated for a reason, which is due to actively producing disinformation that meant they couldn't be trusted as a generality, even if they might technically produce factual content as well. Silverseren^C 05:42, 18 February 2023 (UTC)

• Has Fox News been used for anything remotely controversial since the last RfC? If the answer is no, then our process already work and there is no need to expend the time and energy necessary to further split the hair.Slywriter (talk) 05:15, 18 February 2023 (UTC)

• A key word in all these reports is court filings. These are unproven claims. I know its really tempting to jump on these to use to dismiss Fox News, but we cannot use such court documents as valid source to speak of something in Wikivoice. --Masem (t) 14:45, 18 February 2023 (UTC)
  • Masem, the commentary from RS is about the actual evidence, the internal Fox News/Murdoch communications that reveal they knew they were pushing crazy BS. We do not need to wait for any legal judgment. We have what RS say, and they say a lot, including about how this isn't just about the talking heads we already ignore, but about how the Fox News organization operates, including the news division. They literally have no written editorial policy. They just follow Murdoch's agenda, and it has always been anti-democracy and make money by any means possible. That's the history of Murdoch and his empire.
  • Fox News threatens, punishes, and fires those employees, including in the news division, who fact-check BS pushed by the news division. Complaints between each other is kept private and separate from what is revealed to the public. Open fact-checking is discouraged and punished. -- Valjean (talk) (PING me) 17:26, 18 February 2023 (UTC)

    Its evidence in a court case. We cannot assume the evidence is true until it has passed through the court, where if they are true, it will be part of the court's decision. This is a requirement of how we handle information from any ongoing court case, so we absolutely have to wait until the court decides to then take the court's decision and stance on this evidence as true. I will stress that I personally think the evidence is all true, and the court case against Fox is very much falling against them, but from being a Wikipedia editor, I have to recognize that we don't presently have the appropriate filter (the final decision) to treat it as truth.

    Besides, as Blueboar points out, even if this all proves too, this doesn't change how Fox News would be classified at RSP; we still have to use extreme caution of using Fox News non-opinion works for politics. Masem (t) 17:32, 18 February 2023 (UTC)

  • I don't think there is any proposal to directly use court documents to write article content about Fox News in Wikivoice. We absolutely can use evidence which does not meet RS standards to evaluate a source on RSP. -- King of ♥ ♦ ♣ ♠ 07:50, 19 February 2023 (UTC)

• No need to change anything - We already say that Fox’s coverage of politics is unreliable, and we already say that opinion journalism from the likes of Hannity and Carlson is unreliable. Blueboar (talk) 15:11, 18 February 2023 (UTC)

To be clear, we currently list Fox's coverage of politics as yellow / WP:MREL, not unreliable. Many people, including people contributing to this discussion, have used this to argue against the removal of plainly controversial things related to politics that are cited solely to Fox, or to argue for using it in situations where it is the only source saying something. --Aquillion (talk) 19:34, 18 February 2023 (UTC)

Indeed, it has come up at least a handful of times since the last RFC, such as the Twitter Files and the Hunter Biden laptop controversy. There are still those who want to use Fox News for plainly controversial political topics. Andre🚐 21:44, 18 February 2023 (UTC)

• The current consensus is that Fox talking heads on cable TV != the Fox News website, and nothing here seems to contest that. While I believe that our policy on WP:PARTISAN sources is far too forgiving, this doesn't seem like it changes anything. Thebiguglyalien (talk) 15:04, 18 February 2023 (UTC)

The site routinely posts primetime content without being disclosed as opinion, attributed to "Fox News Staff."[39][40][41] soibangla (talk) 15:52, 18 February 2023 (UTC)

I think the point was, what do WE need to change in the way how we treat Fox? Slatersteven (talk) 15:57, 18 February 2023 (UTC)

Fox News threatens, punishes, and fires those employees, including in the news division, who fact-check the news division when it pushes BS, and it does. Internal complaints are kept private and separate from what is revealed to the public. Open fact-checking is discouraged and punished. Murdoch dictates that for everyone, including the news division.

What we need to change is to make it official that Wikipedia deprecates Fox News. What we do and our policies must be in sync with each other. We need to stop giving Fox a "Trump exemption" which protects high-profile right-wing BS here. Fox is no more sacred than Trump, and we finally, after far too long, acquiesced to the overwhelming weight of RS that confirmed Trump is a pathological liar and started doing what RS did, to call him a "liar" in wikivoice. We should have, without question, right from the beginning, followed what RS said, but we didn't. Our history of giving right-wing sources a longer rope than left-wing sources is a spot on our reputation.

We need to officially stop giving them a free pass. We need to be able to point to an official position, just as we do with any other source that pushes BS. Why treat Fox differently for the same crimes as New York Post, Daily Mail, The Federalist, OAN, Drudge Report, Breitbart News, Newsmax, RedState, InfoWars, The Daily Wire, The Daily Caller, Conservative Tribune, and Townhall? There is no justification for treating Fox News differently. -- Valjean (talk) (PING me) 17:26, 18 February 2023 (UTC)

I’m not sure how you can say we give Fox a “free pass” when we explicitly state that Fox is considered unreliable for certain topics (politics being highlighted). Blueboar (talk) 17:47, 18 February 2023 (UTC)

Because we deprecate other sources guilty of knowingly and consistently pushing BS. Accidental or occasional misinformation happens to all RS, but a sustained pattern of real disinformation? No, that's where we draw the line, EXCEPT for Fox News. That's so wrong. Why make an exception for Fox News? They cannot be trusted.

Sure, they also report accurate news, while they deliberately ignore and refuse to report on topics that go against the Murdoch/GOP/Trump agenda. They sin by omission an awful lot. Unlike other networks, Fox is Murdoch's machine, not a real news organization. It's a propaganda network. His agenda is the editorial policy, which explains why they have no written editorial policy. Murdoch instructed them to not antagonize Trump.

Is there really no sin bad enough to get Fox News deprecated? Do they really have to "shoot someone on 5th Avenue" and we still won't deprecate them? That's what you're telling me. How long will we completely ignore our own requirements for a RS? Tell me where your red line is located in this matter. There seems to literally be no bottom, no red line, that will cause us to ever deprecate them. Please tell me that's not true. Where is your red line? -- Valjean (talk) (PING me) 18:12, 18 February 2023 (UTC)

Ah… I see, you want to see the magic word “deprecated”. Meh… I don’t see the need. We already say Fox should not be used for politics… that restriction is effectively deprecation where it matters. Using a magic word is pointless. Blueboar (talk) 18:26, 18 February 2023 (UTC)

Let's be clear, the distinction is not simply semantic. Currently Fox News is considered not generally reliable and should not be used for controversial statements in politics. We haven't declared it generally unreliable and generally should not be used for any politics. In my view, a downgrade would move it from Option 2 to Option 3 for politics. That is not the same as deprecated - it would move from WP:MREL to WP:GUNREL for politics. Andre🚐 18:36, 18 February 2023 (UTC)

Whether it's "deprecated" or just "Option 3", let's just move it down. -- Valjean (talk) (PING me) 18:40, 18 February 2023 (UTC)

Meh… I guess we will just have to agree to disagree. I think the previous consensus (current statement) adequately restricts how and when to use Fox, and am content to leave it as is. Blueboar (talk) 19:15, 18 February 2023 (UTC)

There was a time when the network's mendacity was largely limited to its primetime hours, but in more recent years it has metastasized throughout the day, from Fox&Friends in the morning to Outnumbered in the afternoon to Jesse Watters leading into primetime. It's now pervasive and the sheer volume of it can be hard to keep up with. Fortunately there are several folks on Twitter who watch all of it and post video clips throughout the day. The network "went big" on mendacity to adopt the "say anything" Trump style and is now overwhelmingly propaganda sprinkled with some "real" news here and there, but there's copious examples of even that being poisoned with lies. The entire enterprise, including its website that reflects and amplifies its programming, simply cannot be trusted on anything. That it is the 800-pound gorilla of conservative media matters not. soibangla (talk) 18:59, 18 February 2023 (UTC)

Are you saying we should trust random and likely ideologically motivated people on twitter to aid in making our choices? Isn't that like using Libs of Tiktok to define the views of those on the left? Springee (talk) 19:05, 18 February 2023 (UTC)

"is now overwhelmingly propaganda sprinkled with some "real" news here and there" That much of their political content is propaganda has been rather clear for years. But I am under the impression that their crime coverage tends towards sensationalism and alarmism. I keep coming across online articles which note that the Fox news audience is convinced that there is some kind of crime epidemic. Dimadick (talk) 08:08, 19 February 2023 (UTC)

• This is just court filings around talk shows which we deem unreliable already not much to see here. Again editors conflating the talk shows with the website.  Spy-cicle💥  ^Talk? 19:33, 18 February 2023 (UTC)

  Well, it’s not just the talk shows if the talk show hosts got a news division reporter fired for fact checking their narrative. The current rating for Fox News (politics and science) is “reliability unclear”. Is it really still unclear after all the resignations, revelations, books, etc.? Also, it appears some editors believe the website is the same as the news division. But, it looks more like the talk shows with attacks against one party for years. Last time this came up, I asked for the names of the people considered in the news division and don’t think I got an answer. I can’t find this on Google as I keep getting Hanity, Carlson, etc. Who are the people that are considered green at RS/PS? O3000, Ret. (talk) 20:02, 18 February 2023 (UTC)

  I would list Bret Baier as probably the most prominent name in their news division. Blueboar (talk) 13:38, 19 February 2023 (UTC)

  Blueboar, I agree. NPR wrote this:

  "On Nov. 5, 2020, just days after the election, Bret Baier, the network's chief political anchor texted a friend: "[T]here is NO evidence of fraud. None. Allegations - stories. Twitter. Bulls---."

  and we have this:

  Bret Baier and Chris Wallace Complained to Fox News Heads About Tucker Carlson Capitol Riot Special (Report)

  Good for them, but even as news anchors, they were not allowed to publicly express such views. Wallace is now at CNN. -- Valjean (talk) (PING me) 19:59, 19 February 2023 (UTC)

  Objective3000 asked for the name of someone in the News Division, I gave one of the more prominent ones. More to the point, Baier is someone at Fox who does not engage in the sort of crap complained about in the lawsuit. I would consider Baier’s reporting very reliable. If you think otherwise, please explain why? Blueboar (talk) 22:14, 19 February 2023 (UTC)

  Blueboar, I agree. He's good. Unfortunately, he's not the only one there, and the corporation mixes the opinion and news stuff in deceptive ways ALL THE TIME, and when good people like Baier object, they get told to keep their opinions off-air or they get in trouble.

  They can tell the truth about non-GOP, non-Trump, non-COVID, non-vaccines, non-climate change, topics ad libitum, add nauseum, so that really means we have no use for them and should tell editors and the world we can't trust them to tell the truth all the time, and can't trust them to tell the truth when it's against their fringe right-wing political agenda and their anti-science agenda. There is no justification for not downgrading their status. If we don't deprecate them, we should upgrade Daily Mail and some other deprecated sites that are better than Fox News. Fox's popularity makes it a dangerous site. I don't think we should do that, so I still think we're violating our own policies and sending a horrible message to the world by not deprecating them, especially in light of all these solid revelations.

  The world looks to Wikipedia, and our quibbling here is visible and will be compared to the internal quibblings by the Fox News people, and those who refuse to deprecate will end up looking like Hannity and Carlson, who refused to tell the truth. We know that editors end up getting named in the press. I got hung out by Breitbart as a "Russiagate truther" because I still think Russia interfered in the 2016 elections. (I'll take that as a badge of honor, considering it's from Breitbart!) -- Valjean (talk) (PING me) 00:48, 20 February 2023 (UTC)

  Did they actually get anyone on the news side fired or did they just talk about it between a few hosts? This is one of the big issues with internal coms like this. Things said in the context of anger/frustration can be presented as carefully laid plans by an opposing party. So far it looks like the news side did what we would want it to do. It reported the facts even though it didn't align with the talk shows. Springee (talk) 20:20, 18 February 2023 (UTC)

  They attempted to get her fired calling Suzanne Scott, the network’s chief executive. Instead, the post she made factchecking Trump was deleted. That is they did not report the facts that didn't align with the talk shows. O3000, Ret. (talk) 20:52, 18 February 2023 (UTC)

  The top story on the site right now is Ronny Jackson, a hardcore Trump supporter, alleging a coverup in Biden's health report.[42]] Is that news, or conspiracy theorizing? Anyone ever taken a look at Jackson's twitter feed? Whoo-boy. This is typical of the site. soibangla (talk) 20:41, 18 February 2023 (UTC)

  [43] soibangla (talk) 20:29, 18 February 2023 (UTC)

  That is a link to a previous post of yours. How is that meant to be interpreted in context of Spy-cicle's comments? Springee (talk) 20:32, 18 February 2023 (UTC)

"Fox News Knew It Was A Lie". Yes. And we knew they knew. That's why they're considered unreliable for politics. Nothing changed here. Headbomb {t · c · p · b} 21:20, 18 February 2023 (UTC)

It's interesting how many people claim Fox News is already considered unreliable, full stop, for politics. However, the close of the last RFC found it was marginally reliable and should not be used as a high-quality source for controversial claims. Which is one notch more reliable than generally unreliable. If we think it is generally unreliable, we should write that and reflect that. Andre🚐 21:42, 18 February 2023 (UTC)

Bingo! Sadly, above I asked Blueboar:

"Is there really no sin bad enough to get Fox News deprecated? ... Tell me where your red line is located in this matter. There seems to literally be no bottom, no red line, that will cause us to ever deprecate them. Please tell me that's not true. Where is your red line?"

Still no answer. Our policy on how we define a RS should be enough, but it's being ignored when it comes to Fox News. They are Teflon. Sad. I want an answer from Blueboar: "Where is your red line, since deliberate disinformation isn't enough?" -- Valjean (talk) (PING me) 00:03, 19 February 2023 (UTC)

I don’t actually HAVE a “red line”. I have never liked the concept of “deprecation”, because I strongly believe in judging sources on a citation by citation context. And even the “worst” sources can be reliable in specific contexts… Just as the “best” sources can be unreliable in specific contexts. To judge whether a source is reliable, you need to examine the specific statement we are attempting to verify with that source, and ask whether the source is reliable in that specific context. The more extraordinary the statement, the more extraordinarily reliable the source must be.

I agree that Fox does not rate as an “extraordinary” source (and even that it is a “poor” source)… and so 100% agree with saying it should not be used for verifying extraordinary claims (and the claims about election fraud in 2020 certainly qualify as extraordinary). But then, that is a criticism I think is true for ALL media outlets. Blueboar (talk) 01:22, 19 February 2023 (UTC)

• What this comes down to is that there is a network that calls itself a “news network” watched by hundreds of millions of people worldwide that allows, and apparently pushes, outright falsehoods to be published saying that United States elections are a fraud, Covid restrictions are a fraud, etc. – and we allow it to be used as a source. Folks, drop any biases you may have and remember that this is an encyclopedia. There are so many sources that have proved their ability to correct errors, use multiple sources, gain Pulitzers for exposing problems on both sides of any aisle. Let us use them and not bother with (and give credence to) a corporation whose management allows (at the least) lies and misinformation -- misinformation that dangers democracy and health (among other problems). What do we lose by reducing the rating of a dangerous source when there exist so many that have proved their worth over a very long time? And please, let us stop this claim that all media sources do what Fox does. There is no evidence that anything this dramatic is occurring in what we call RS.. O3000, Ret. (talk) 01:43, 19 February 2023 (UTC)

Here's a Fox "News" story. What's the first thing readers see? A Jesse Watters clip.[44] And in this "news" story? Laura Ingraham[45]. And here's another "news" story entitled "Black Lives Matter at School Week of Action kicks off for thousands of U.S. schools." Sounds reasonable, right? But what do readers see first? A Tucker Carlson clip with guest Candace Owens calling BLM a scam.[46] And here's Paul Gigot and Kim Strassel et al. of the WSJ editorial board in a "news" story.[47]. And Hannity with a "news" story.[48] It just goes on and on. See how they insidiously inject their opinion programming into their "news" site? It's baked in. By contrast, at minimum MSNBC shows in their URLs that their stories are from opinion shows, and typically displays that on the page or notes it's an opinion piece. soibangla (talk) 03:21, 19 February 2023 (UTC)

It is completely inappropriate to consider what the website version delievers, particularly when the labeling of the video is clear it is not related to the story given by the headline. It's why when evaluating reliability we ignore everything like the headline itself, ads, etc - all that matters is the copy of the article text. They are not the only website that forces video on the reader, and while most other websites usually include video of the story that the article talks about, they have other content in that video block carosel (eg: like at CBS News [49]). BTW, Fox News absolutely does delineate opinion from news pieces in terms of what they present at text. There are other sources like the AP that does not do this.

Remember that every media source is fighting for viewers and drawing readers to their site. Some are more ethical about that, but every bit of trying to grab viewership draw rather than focusing on the news weakens the site's integrity. Masem (t) 03:51, 19 February 2023 (UTC)

It is completely inappropriate to consider what the website version delievers I don't understand, we're talking about links to the site that some editors want to use as references here

particularly when the labeling of the video is clear it is not related to the story given by the headline There is no video labeling. Readers click the story and are presented a video that is ostensibly "the news," but actually it's the view of a mendacious polemicist. Many people (particularly since 54% of American adults cannot read to a 6th grade level) will likely watch the 2-minute clip rather than read the article, and walk away thinking they got "the news." But they haven't, they've been fed partisan opinion. By contrast, when CNN includes a clip in a story, it's from a straight-up newscast that conforms with the more extensive text reporting beneath it.

all that matters is the copy of the article text Oftentimes on its front page CNN shows headlines with a little "play" icon, denoting a video news report with just a short caption, not a text story. If an editor were to write "CNN reported..." would it be impermissible to use that source because it's not text?

while most other websites usually include video of the story that the article talks about I can't think of another news site that uses clips other than a news clip to accompany the article text. Fox News commonly presents opinion clips, without disclosure.

AP that does not do this I'm not aware AP publishes opinion pieces that writers submit, but if they do I suspect those opeds would be clearly labeled as such.

Fox News absolutely does delineate opinion from news pieces in terms of what they present at text As text, perhaps. But not holistically, including their video content, as I've demonstrated, and CNN doesn't do what Fox does, where readers click a story to what might be legitimate news and instead get Tucker Carlson. This is not by accident, it's by design, and if legitimate news outlets also do it, I haven't seen it. It's a devious practice that Fox News uses to insinuate its editorial stance into everything their audience sees on the network, and its site. This might be imperceptible to some who are not paying close attention. soibangla (talk) 16:16, 19 February 2023 (UTC)

The Fox videos have a bolt title and a brief description immediately below the video, impossible to miss. That's the labeling.

See #opinion pieces published by the AP? for the recent determination that AP offers unlabeled opinion pieces.

And I stress that we do not focus on the embellishments in the web presentation of a prose story. Videos, ads, pictures, interactive features, etc. Not just for Fox News but for all media website.

Now I can fully accept the "by design" argument that Fox News wants to push certain content, that's obvious, but every news website is also playing the drawing of eyes to keep viewers on their pages. Maybe not to the same degree as Fox, and not to their opinion pieces, but they do the same thing of trying to distract you from wanting to leave their website. --Masem (t) 16:25, 19 February 2023 (UTC)

What I meant by label was disclosure as opinion, not content summary. There is no disclosure.

Wow, AP published an oped, I'll be damned. How common is that?

we do not focus on the embellishments but does that mean the CNN scenario I described is impermissible?

There is a big difference between engagement/retention and systematically insinuating opinions into news. soibangla (talk) 16:47, 19 February 2023 (UTC)

• Comment I find myself in agreement with Aquillion and Andrevan's concerns. I would not prefer an immediate RfC for total deprecation but we ought to keep a close watch at this news-cycle. TrangaBellam (talk) 18:20, 19 February 2023 (UTC)

Keep in mind that Fox News is still refusing to cover this scandal. We do need an article about it: Fox News "voter fraud" scandal. When this Dominion trial is finished, we can do this better, but there is already enough RS coverage to start the article.

The mark of a RS news agency or other news source is not that they never make mistakes, but that they immediately correct and apologize. Fox News, RIGHT NOW!!!, is refusing to do this. They would lose face too much with their Trump base. They tied their news and opinion sides together with Trump as the only guiding light, and down the rabbit hole the whole Fox News enterprise went. Now they can't admit it publicly to their viewers without it being such a major catastrophe that they fear sinking their own ship. So they are doing what they have always done, hiding the inconvenient facts from their viewers, because Trump has told them that all other sources are fake news. Those viewers will continue thinking that "all this mainstream talk about Fox News hosts thinking Trump was lying about the election" is just fake news.

In the face of all this, Wikipedia still refuses to deprecate or downgrade them, even though, on much flimsier grounds, we deprecated The Daily Mail for far less serious offenses. We should upgrade The Daily Mail (only a tiny bit) and deprecate Fox News. -- Valjean (talk) (PING me) 20:10, 19 February 2023 (UTC)

Why wouldn't Fox cover this story? They are being sued over the core of this story. One of the things any competent legal team will tell their client before a trial is make no public statements. Covering this content would be exactly that. It would totally ignore the reality of the legal issues to expect Fox to cover claims that they libeled Dominion before the trial. That is akin to saying, "if the suspect is innocent, why doesn't he take the stand and say so?" Springee (talk) 21:22, 19 February 2023 (UTC)

Oh snap! Springee, you make a good point. What a pickle, not that they would apologize even if not being sued, but we can't know. What we know is that their listeners will continue to believe what has been reported, and even though Fox will likely not dare continue to repeat "stolen election" lies, they will not be able to correct the record. Fox viewers will continue in their delusional bubble and refuse to believe what all other sources are reporting. What a situation! That guarantees Fox News continues to remain an unreliable source that should be deprecated. -- Valjean (talk) (PING me) 01:03, 20 February 2023 (UTC)

The impression I had from the last RFC is that some people who actually agree Fox News is unreliable believe that it helps Wikipedia to appear as less biased to have Fox News be listed as yellow and marginally reliable. Because even though Fox News is generally unreliable for politics and most people proceed as though this is the case in almost every case, they don't want to hear the screams of the drive-by trolls lamenting Fox News' "unfairly" maligned status. Because these people are thinking with their emotions and not with logic, so we can't reason with them. So, we take the tiny tiny sliver of cases where Fox News is reporting on some information that no other source has the very same information, and they extrapolate that to the idea that the reliability of Fox News for politics is unclear, given that occasionally, Fox News does publish accurate and mundane information about politics. When in reality the reliability of Fox News for politics is listed as unclear. It's generally unreliable, a category that prohibits mundane use but there are still plenty of exceptions where use might be allowed. Andre🚐 21:35, 19 February 2023 (UTC)

Can you point to any specific examples of that? I don't recall that but I also wasn't really looking for it. Springee (talk) 21:39, 19 February 2023 (UTC)

I have a few comments in mind but I'd rather not ping them to the discussion because I suspect it would be unwelcome. If they show up on their own later I will be happy to discuss that. Andre🚐 21:51, 19 February 2023 (UTC)

As I recall there were something like 100+ respondents. If we are talking about one or two replies I'm not sure that means much compared to the larger consensus. Springee (talk) 21:53, 19 February 2023 (UTC)

NPR wrote this:

On Jan. 5, 2021, the day before Congress was to ceremonially affirm Biden's win, and an angry pro-Trump mob sacked the U.S. Capitol to prevent it, Rupert Murdoch forwarded a suggestion to Fox News CEO Scott. He recommended that the Fox prime time stars - Carlson, Hannity and Ingraham - acknowledge Trump's loss. "Would go a long way to stop the Trump myth that the election was stolen," he wrote. They did not do so. "We need to be careful about using the shows and pissing off the viewers," Scott said to a colleague.

Even Murdoch can't get them to publicly admit their failure. At that time, the "stolen election" conspiracy theory was still in somewhat of its infancy (not really...) but just think of how much Fox News has added to the size of that lie since then? Wow! Now they have added to their complicity so much more. In Japan, these people would have been called into the corporate headquarters, forced to kneel in a row, been handed knives, and committed hara-kiri. Seriously.

Of course, Wikipedia still supports Fox News. We are sending a signal to the world, a really bad signal. -- Valjean (talk) (PING me) 20:17, 19 February 2023 (UTC)

• Wait - We should wait until either the case goes to trial and a ruling is made (in which the facts of the case will be laid out), or until this is widely verified by other RS (preferably some right-leaning ones). Until then, it could be argued that we are doing WP:SYNTH by using deposition testimony and discovery evidence (WP:PRIMARY) to make conclusions. If we let the conclusions be made for us, we're in the clear. All that said, this is bordering on WP:BLUE given that some of the evidence is verbatim text messages and emails. EvergreenFir (talk) 20:22, 19 February 2023 (UTC)
  • No one is proposing we perform OR or use primary sources. See that long list of what we call "reliable sources" above? We are actually allowed to use them to create content here! What an amazing idea. -- Valjean (talk) (PING me) 20:24, 19 February 2023 (UTC)

    It is 100% OR because it is only evidence in a ongoing case. No matter how much RSes write about it, it has not been validated under a court of law as being valid and/or truthful.

    Is it likely truthful? Heck yes, but we cannot jump to conclusions like this. Masem (t) 20:33, 19 February 2023 (UTC)

    Reliable sources are what we're all about, not jury decisions. Sometimes juries convict innocent men. soibangla (talk) 20:44, 19 February 2023 (UTC)

    We absolutely do not rely on reliable sources for the determination of legal matters like the Dominion VS lawsuit that this evidence was submitted for. Only the courts can make that determination. Masem (t) 20:48, 19 February 2023 (UTC)

    Is that codified in PAGs? soibangla (talk) 22:29, 19 February 2023 (UTC)

    For those who are digging into this material, ask who released it and why? Who does the release of this material benefit? Was it released with the other side being given a chance to argue about the content? Do we know if the releases were full and complete or selective? One of the very successful strategies the plaintiffs did in the infamous Ford Pinto lawsuit (Grimshaw v. Ford Motor Co.) was release a memo which was in reality a response to the government, using government provided numbers and framework trying to assess the cost vs benefit of new rollover protection standards. Since Ford could provide a good estimate on the vehicle cost side of things they were doing that. However, the Grimshaw legal team successfully convinced the public that the memo was proof that Ford didn't care about lives and calculated it was cheaper to pay off the dead vs pay for safety in the cars[50]. It was a totally false narrative but thanks to Mother Jones it stuck. When one side or the other releases a bunch of evidence we need to ask, is it because it helps them make better arguments in court? No, it's because they are hoping to taint the jury pool. Even if we take the evidence at face value all it's doing is verifying what we already have concluded. Springee (talk) 21:31, 19 February 2023 (UTC)

    Obviously we cannot foresee the result of a trial. So, we cannot say they are guilty of anything. We most certainly can make our own determinizations of the reliability of a source and we can use RS for that purpose without the help of the legal system. O3000, Ret. (talk) 22:28, 19 February 2023 (UTC)

• Comment Fox is biased in my mind, but can be used for simple fact verification; airplane xyz crashes on xyz date. Beyond this, they tend to spin a story so it suits a certain narrative. Oaktree b (talk) 02:24, 20 February 2023 (UTC)

When Fox executives refer to their "brand" being damaged, they are saying it in the context of "Our brand is WE DELIBERATELY LIE ABOUT ELECTIONS better than anyone!" Seriously, read the sources and see what they are sayings about their "brand" and especially when they say it. You can make this stuff up. -- Valjean (talk) (PING me) 03:43, 20 February 2023 (UTC)

The older editors all see the trajectory FOX is on. The question for you is, and please take your time to think about it, where should this source be categorized as a result? That's what I think was missing from your original post, and that would help some of us see your intent more clearly. Cheers. DN (talk) 03:53, 20 February 2023 (UTC)

References

Media Bias Fact Check

What is the reliability of Media Bias/Fact Check? The Cite Unseen says its unreliable. An IP editor claims it is credible Special:Diff/1139970652 — DaxServer (t · m · c) 10:06, 18 February 2023 (UTC)

We even have a nice little shortcut for that one: WP:MBFC. :) — Rhododendrites ^talk \\ 13:41, 18 February 2023 (UTC)

Ah of course. Thanks! — DaxServer (t · m · c) 14:29, 18 February 2023 (UTC)

You could have checked the main article on this website, which points out that it an an "amateur attempt at categorizing media bias". And that the website's owner has stated that "his methods are not rigorously objective." Basically, Media Bias reflects his subjective views. Dimadick (talk) 08:23, 19 February 2023 (UTC)

Unlike the Media Bias Chart by Ad Fontes, they don't have any formal training, a large team, or repeated and careful measurements, analysis, and statistics. That's why it's strange that the Ad Fontes chart isn't rated better. -- Valjean (talk) (PING me) 03:46, 20 February 2023 (UTC)

The Ad Fontes chart continues to not be good either. It promotes a false equivalency between MSNBC and CNN, that are generally reliable, versus the mostly unreliable Fox, NY Post, and Daily Mail. Andre🚐 03:56, 20 February 2023 (UTC)

Ad Fontes Media is mostly a centrist political organization with its own biases. As pointed in the main article: It "promotes a false equivalency between left and right, lionizes a political 'center' as being without bias, and reinforces harmful perceptions about what constitutes 'news' in our media ecosystem, and is ignored by anyone that doesn't already hold a comparable view of the media landscape." Dimadick (talk) 04:38, 20 February 2023 (UTC)

Ratings Ryan

Is Ratings Ryan a reliable source for episode viewership ratings?

I first stumbled across the site while visiting the article South Park (season 1), after realising that the list was making a contradiction about the viewership ratings of the first episode (0.89 million) comparing to the number given by the article on that episode (0.98 million). While the latter cites a book, the list cites this page from the Ratings Ryan blog. This was before I noticed that all the pages from season 1 to season 10 also cited that exact page, affecting the list of South Park episodes (check reference 20 (permalink)). Concerned over the reliability of the blog, I started a discussion on the talk page of the list, pinging the editor that added them (diffs:1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10), before searching the blog name in Wikipedia (in quotation marks) and realising that other episode lists cited it too: Futurama; Breaking Bad; Big Brother (1 2); Jimmy Neutron; Yes, Dear; 8 Simple Rules; Monk; Friday Night Lights; Murder, She Wrote and the list goes on (I haven't checked whether this editor added references to the blog in these other lists).

I first considered posting this in MediaWiki talk:Spam-blacklist, but the fact that this source is being cited in so many pages and the apparent extensive information present in the blog makes me think whether this is a special case (where the blog is reputable or written by a subject-matter expert for instance). However, I can't find any evidence of this. ObserveOwl (talk) 15:20, 18 February 2023 (UTC)

Also, there aren't many past Wikipedia discussions mentioning it (1 2). ObserveOwl (talk) 15:24, 18 February 2023 (UTC)

Per WP:BLOG and [51], not a WP-good source. Gråbergs Gråa Sång (talk) 17:28, 18 February 2023 (UTC)

Alright. I've started a discussion in Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Television#Removal of references to a blog to try to remove these citations. Thank you. ObserveOwl (talk) 13:08, 19 February 2023 (UTC)

I'd agree we're looking at a blog. Nothing which should be considered reliable. When cleaning it out, please note if any particular users have been introducing the source, and don't be shy about calling on me if you notice anything fishy. BusterD (talk) 16:33, 19 February 2023 (UTC)

National First Ladies' Library biographies

Link: National First Ladies' Library – First Ladies Research

These online biography pages are used in several articles for United States first ladies, and I've used them a few times myself. It seems to be a legitimate organization, but I've stopped using it lately because I'm having trouble finding information about how the biographies were written. It would be really helpful if a few other editors could weigh in on it. Thebiguglyalien (talk) 22:42, 18 February 2023 (UTC)

These are tertiary sources, and probably fairly credible (on par with a museum or public library article), but should be used sparingly as citations, and not used as the sole source for any particularly surprising or controversial facts. Simplified tertiary sources like these are very good for evaluating due weight to give various aspects of a biography. Presumably every fact in them can be found in greater detail in academic sources: when possible we should find and cite those instead. --Animalparty! (talk) 01:32, 19 February 2023 (UTC)

Lipstick Lesbian Pride Flag controversy

This sourcing issue affects five articles, Lesbian flags, Pride flag, Biphobia, History of lesbianism in the United States, but has been discussed in most detail on Talk:Lesbian flags.

Back in 2010, a blogger named Natalie McCray designed the Lipstick lesbian pride flag. This flag has had a bit of a controversial reception within the LGBT+ community, some felt the flag was not inclusive of butch lesbians, while others pointed out controversial comments made by the designer on her former blog.

At present, Lesbian flags states that Some lesbians have argued that the lipstick flag is butch-phobic, while others oppose its use due to controversial comments allegedly made by the flag's designer on her blog. Pride flag and Lipstick lesbian state that However, it has not been widely adopted; some lesbians have not adopted the flag because it is not inclusive of butch lesbians, while others have accused McCray of writing allegedly biphobic, racist, and transphobic comments on her blog. Biphobia states that some lesbians are against it because McCray’s blog had biphobic (and racist and transphobic) comments, and because it does not include butch lesbians. And History of lesbianism in the United States states Note that the lipstick lesbian flag has not been widely adopted; some lesbians are against it because it does not include butch lesbians, and because McCray’s blog had biphobic, racist, and transphobic comments.

All variations of the text cite the same sources: a 2015 After Ellen article, and Refinery 29, with the After Ellen cited for the flag's lack of widescale use, and Refinery 29 for the controversial comments by the flag's creator. Of the controversy, Refinery 29 states Some lesbians oppose the use of this flag because McCray's blog includes racist, biphobic, and transphobic comments, and because the pink colours and "lipstick lesbian" terminology don't include butch lesbians. however three of the articles state this in more uncertain terms.

The discrepancy between the cited source, and the article text was previously raised on the lesbian flag talk page, where several other reliable sources were discussed and excluded because those sources cited sources we consider unreliable (various social media, and Medium blogs). This included exclusion of a 2019 Cosmopolitan article (later updated in 2021), and a Yahoo!Sports rehosting of a June 2021 Women's Health article (which was updated in June 2022).

Two questions. Should the Cosmopolitan and Women's Health articles have been excluded because their ultimate source for information, after traversing through the levels, was a series Tumblr and Medium blog posts? Is the Refinery29 article strong enough that we should be less sceptical in our content across all five articles that include mention of the Lipstick flag? Sideswipe9th (talk) 02:01, 19 February 2023 (UTC)

There are some other sources that would have been pre-emptively excluded on this particular controversial flag

• Nonchalant Magazine, which said McCray has also been known to write some pretty controversial stuff on her blog, including what others have deemed as racist, transphobic, and biphobic comments.
• Symbolsage which said Furthermore, designer McCray was said to have posted racist, biphobic, and transphobic comments in her now-deleted blog.
• EqualLOVE which said Some lesbians also oppose use of any flag revised from the lipstick original because its designer Natalie McCray reportedly wrote racist, biphobic and transphobic comments on a her blog. And some lesbians oppose the use of this flag because the pink colors and “lipstick lesbian” terminology don’t include butch lesbians.
• POP!, a subpublication of the Philippine Daily Inquirer (a Philippine newspaper of record) which said This design was further forgotten when the creator of this in 2010, Natalie McCray was known to have transphobic and racist ideologies.

Sideswipe9th (talk) 02:17, 19 February 2023 (UTC)

I think it's fine for publications to link to social media sources for discussion of something. I don't think it's a reason to exclude reliable sources discussing a topic, particularly when the topic was formed through things involving social media and personal websites. And the sources all seem to concur on the lack of support for the 2010 lipstick lesbian flag within the community both for its exclusion of certain groups and the community's distaste for the creator. There seems to be no alternative views in RS' on this subject. If anything, just saying "Some lesbians" might be too reductive, since the sources appear to indicate a much stronger community repudiation of the flag. Silverseren^C 02:24, 19 February 2023 (UTC)

• The question seems to miss an essential point and fundamental question about reliable sources. What is the text for which the source being cited as a reference? If I understand the foregoing wall of text, these reliable sources are cited to support the proposition that a "lipstick lesbian" flag was proposed on a blog, that it has not been widely adopted, and some people object to it as insufficiency inclusive. These sources are unquestionably reliable for those propositions. That the sources link to the original blog or to other SPSs is irrelevant, as are allegations of bias about the original blogger. We do not censor or "preemptively" exclude content on Wikipedia because of bias, real or imagined. Banks Irk (talk) 02:28, 19 February 2023 (UTC)

  There's three versions of the text, across the five articles, listed in the second paragraph of the "wall of text". Ideally I'd want to unify this into a single version for all five articles, to something like the version that appears on History of lesbianism in the United States and currently reads some lesbians are against it because it does not include butch lesbians, and because McCray’s blog had biphobic, racist, and transphobic comments.

  However given the pre-existing issues on exclusion of reliable sources, and that the current version of the text in three articles was made more sceptically phrased citing WP:LIBEL (changed here before propagating to other articles) than the source being used to support it, I've not wanted to draft or propose a replacement issue until the sourcing problem has been resolved. Sideswipe9th (talk) 02:56, 19 February 2023 (UTC)

Smarthistory

This is a somewhat unusual (though I hope not unwarranted) RS thread on Smarthistory (www.smarthistory.org), as the source has not been challenged to the best of my knowledge. Nonetheless, I think it merits its own discussion to offer WP:CONSENSUS precedent moving forward in case doubts appear. It has recently grown into one of the most extensive and accessible sources for art history, architectural history, and global visual cultures; I myself have used this source multiple times in various articles due to its reliability and peer-review process. However, I am also aware that the format and visual layout of the page, along with its admittedly blog-like name, can at first appear unreliable and possibly discourage potential new editors from relying on it as a resource for WP:VISUALARTS. There is already a dearth of high quality art historical content on many global subjects (despite, of course, some excellent GAs and FAs, most of which focus on Western art history). I am looking forward to hearing other editors' thoughts. Thanks so much. Ppt91 (talk) 19:12, 19 February 2023 (UTC)

Looking at their "Our Mission", "Content editors and contributors", and the page on how to contribute an essay, leaves in little doubt that this is a reliable source. They also run a blog site that should probably be handled with a little more care, but would be fine for WP:ABOUTSELF comments. -- LCU ActivelyDisinterested ∆transmissions∆ °co-ords° 21:24, 19 February 2023 (UTC)

@ActivelyDisinterested Thanks. That is what I always assumed, which is why I have been on the fence whether to even open this noticeboard thread at all. So, I am happy to see the first vote being unequivocal in its support. Ppt91 (talk) 21:28, 19 February 2023 (UTC)

Techdirt

In editing an article on The Washington Post, I found the website TechDirt used as a source. Upon investigating TechDirt, I found it to be nothing more than a large-scale, multi-user blog.

Quoting from the "About Us" section of the website, it is clear that the website is an opinion blog and not at all a reliable source for information:

"Started in 1997 by Floor64 founder Mike Masnick and then growing into a group blogging effort, the Techdirt blog relies on a proven economic framework to analyze and offer insight into news stories about changes in government policy, technology and legal issues that affect companies' ability to innovate and grow.

The dynamic and interactive community of Techdirt readers often comment on the addictive quality of the content on the site, a feeling supported by the blog’s average of ~1 million visitors per month and more than 1.7 million comments on 74,000+ posts''."

Based upon the fact that TechDirt is a blog, I propose that it be included on the list of Reliable sources/Perennial sources as deprecated. I eagerly await your participation in this discussion. All the best. MarydaleEd (talk) 00:36, 20 February 2023 (UTC)

If it's a blog then WP:BLOG applies and it should be handled as any other self published source, but there's no need to deprecate it. Looking at a few authors/posts I'd say it's generally unreliable, but it could be if the author was otherwise recognised as a subject matter expert. -- LCU ActivelyDisinterested ∆transmissions∆ °co-ords° 02:13, 20 February 2023 (UTC)

History Channel case-by-case basis

I'd like to suggest that we revisit the History Channel (History.com) notability, to consider it on a case-by-case basis. While I agree that Ancient Aliens and similar shows are not notable, I see no reason why we can't use the "Food that Built America", "Tools that Built America" and "Toys that Built America" and similar programs in this same "that Built America" theme as reliable sources. They've had a history of companies, toys, tools, foods and other items that are part of America's industrial and commercial heritage. Each program seems well-researched, having company representatives, university scholars and other individuals present the history of each item involved. The History Channel comes and goes as far as overall notability is concerned, but I've noticed that they've attempted to get some serious content on the air lately. Oaktree b (talk) 02:19, 20 February 2023 (UTC)

"While I agree that Ancient Aliens and similar shows are not notable" Who says they lack notability? Their reliability is questionable, not their notability. Dimadick (talk) 04:43, 20 February 2023 (UTC)