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City Journal as a source covering RationalWiki

There is an on-going dispute about whether an article published in City Journal can be used as a reliable source. RationalWiki has a history of its users (including board members) interfering with discussions related to RationalWiki. The discussion at the article's talk page has been mentioned at RationalWiki's "Saloon Bar". Original research aside, is this article a reliable source for criticism of RationalWiki? PCHS-NJROTC ^{(Messages)Have a blessed day.} 22:28, 17 July 2023 (UTC)

City Journal is a publication of the conservative think tank Manhattan Institute for Policy Research. We could perhaps debate the City Journal's status in general, but that isn't needed in this case: The article in question is an obvious opinion piece and should not be used to support claims of fact. It is also probably worth mentioning that the City Journal article is condemning attacks on a group of academics (Emil Kirkegaard, Noah Carl, Heiner Rindermann, etc.) who tend to publish racist pseudoscience. That whole mess will no doubt be familiar to anyone who follows RFCs or controversial topics, as we have had many RFCs and Arbcom proceedings on it. MrOllie (talk) 22:47, 17 July 2023 (UTC)

I certainly agree that this is an obvious opinion article and wouldn't be usable as a reliable source. A general discussion on City Journal might not be a bad idea though, it doesn't seem to be a reliable source.

From a quick check, while they have an editorial team, there's no published fact checking policy or any obvious way to contact the publication for corrections. At least one former contributor has asserted that there was a decline in editorial independence from the think-tank in 2007 after a change in the editorial lead, and that the Trump presidency corresponded with increased "editorial interference coming from the boardroom." I'd need to do some digging though to find out if this contributor is alone in his assertions. Sideswipe9th (talk) 00:02, 18 July 2023 (UTC)

city-journal.org: Linksearch en (insource) - meta - de - fr - simple - wikt:en - wikt:fr • 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

I'm seeing hundreds of cites in articles, many in BLPs. Just browsing, I'm not seeing a lot worth preserving, even predating the 2007 change in leadership. Grayfell (talk) 01:25, 18 July 2023 (UTC)

This is part of the reason why I brought it here, I knew it would get a better analysis as a source for the article here, but I also question whether a publication by a think-tank is a good source for Wikipedia in general. PCHS-NJROTC ^{(Messages)Have a blessed day.} 02:03, 18 July 2023 (UTC)

"whether a publication by a think-tank is a good source for Wikipedia in general" It can be extremely useful in determining the think-tank's worldview and the kind oif policies it promotes. It is practically useless for reliable information on other topics, since most of them do not have a reputation for fact-checking. Dimadick (talk) 09:18, 21 July 2023 (UTC)

• I concur with MrOllie's opinion here, while RationalWiki by its own admission really acts as hosting site for what on Wikipedia would be described as attack pages (though that does not mean that the content is untruthful), this article is far from an unbiased account. Hemiauchenia (talk) 22:54, 17 July 2023 (UTC)

As an an addendum, this article seems to be heavily based on an article published on an anonymous substack. Definitely unreliable. It's also not clear that "David Zimmerman" is a real journalist (this is the only piece listed on their profile for City Journal, and there's no links to any social media or anything confirming that this is a real person). It could be a pseudonym, possibly by the author of the substack. Hemiauchenia (talk) 04:42, 18 July 2023 (UTC)

I'm seeing similarities with claims made by blocked user Gardenofaleph there. - MrOllie (talk) 12:24, 18 July 2023 (UTC)

• To summarize what I said on the article's talk page, the source's omissions and misrepresentations are too plentiful and too convenient to be brushed-aside as a coincidence or simple mistake. Compensating for these issues would introduce undue weight and likely also original research. Any use of the source without compensating for these issues would introduce WP:FRINGE and WP:BLP issues. It's a bad source and it's not worth using. Grayfell (talk) 23:47, 17 July 2023 (UTC)
• As I said at Talk:RationalWiki, I agree with the assessment that this City Journal item is not a usable source, for reasons that start with WP:RSOPINION and go on from there. XOR'easter (talk) 00:03, 18 July 2023 (UTC)
• I agree with Sideswipe9th, Grayfell, and XOR'easter. SNOW close in order? TrangaBellam (talk) 00:34, 18 July 2023 (UTC)
• The Manhattan Institute is one of the market-fundamentalist think tanks that have spread disinformation about climate change. That alone disqualifies their publications from being a reliable source on anything except their own opinions. They will put a spin on everything; they do not have any goal related to telling the truth. --Hob Gadling (talk) 06:31, 18 July 2023 (UTC)
• The Manhattan Institute is not a WP:RS for anything and should never be cited without attribution under any circumstances. As a political think tank, they're obviously a WP:BIASED source and will always require attribution, but more importantly, they have a history of distorting facts to suit their biases, whether in medicine, education, or society. Even for opinions, I would only cite them via a secondary source, for the same reason we wouldn't cite anything significant directly to a company's publication or to an ad organization they hired; the purpose of the Manhattan Institute is to push for particular outcomes on behalf of its sponsors, which (as the numerous problems show) is not really compatible with rigorous fact-checking and accuracy. If a company dumped a million dollars on an ad campaign to argue for why they should pay lower taxes, we wouldn't cite the ads; in the absence of any reason to think they have a reputation for fact-checking and accuracy, how is citing a think tank that serves the same purpose any different? --Aquillion (talk) 13:55, 18 July 2023 (UTC)

  You provided 3 links. The first appears to be a paper that disagrees with the MI not CJ and even then such a disagreement doesn't always make a source bad. The second is a link to a book and book helpful unless you can point to specific pages. The third is a New Yorker article that has it's own biased and gets into the debate about CRT. That's not really helpful because it seems that both sides of that debate don't agree on the definition of CRT. Do we discount other sources because someone disagrees with them? The irony of the biased source argument is that, per Adfonts media bias chart CJ is less biased and more reliable than Salon, MSNBC, Vanity Fair and the Daily Beast. In terms of bias, The New Yorker is more biased as well (but gets a better accuracy score). Springee (talk) 10:47, 25 July 2023 (UTC)

The first link does not simply disagree; it says that there are numerous clear methodological flaws. Obviously if a source publishes things with such flaws (and does not later retract it), that harms their reliability. You can easily find the second book's discussion of the Manhattan Institute by searching it on its page, but its most damning point is probably a quote of this source, which says that The institute's research on vouchers is not a search for truth but a search for justifications for its political program. Likewise, as far as both the New Yorker piece and your other objections go, you know how policy works - a source being WP:BIASED is not necessarily fatal to its reliability; in fact, the New Yorker, your objections aside, is green on WP:RSP with a note about its robust fact-checking process. By way of comparison, the Manhattan Institute, based on these sources, does not have a robust fact-checking process; in fact (and this is very much the point of all three) it publishes whatever it believes will advance its agenda, without regard for whether it is true or false. You may personally believe that the debate over "critical race theory" is some evenly-weighed two-sided affair; but high-quality sourcing that has covered the City Journal's involvement in it doesn't agree. The New Yorker may be written for an audience of coastal New Yorkers, which the creator of Adfonts (itself, as you know, unreliable) finds distant from what they personally consider the cultural norm; but its purpose is ultimately to inform them, and in that service it has a good reputation for fact-checking and accuracy. The purpose of the Manhattan Institute and the City Journal is not to inform anyone; its purpose is to exert influence - and the sources above show that it is entirely willing to publish flatly false things in the service of that influence. They are not comparable. --Aquillion (talk) 14:21, 25 July 2023 (UTC)

I'm on my phone so a complete reply is difficult but I will note you are conflating martial published by the parent organization with the magazine. Also, Adfonts isn't a RS per wp:RS and we don't use it in article space as such. That doesn't mean we should just dismiss their findings when they are inconvenient. Your argument about informing vs persuading is weak as a conservative source may have the exact same intent. At the same time the NYer might feel they are informing when writing on a topic yet fail to see their own biases. Again if their absolute bias score is higher than CJ perhaps they aren't good at being objective? The idea that they should be deprecated on such flimsy evidence is really a problem when we zoom out and look at Wikipedia objectivity on any controversial subject. We should handle this on a case by case basis rather than a broad brush basis. Springee (talk) 15:03, 25 July 2023 (UTC)

This seems like a good candidate for deprecation, and this is coming from a conservative actively involved in the Republican Party. PCHS-NJROTC ^{(Messages)Have a blessed day.} 16:47, 19 July 2023 (UTC)

• Deprecation per the reasons above. Death Editor 2 (talk) 23:39, 19 July 2023 (UTC)
• I lean towards City Journal not being reliable, but that is separate from the Manhattan Institute, which does produce research of the kind seen by other think tanks. Its issues briefs (here) seem to fall in line with that of other think tanks — certainly with an ideological bent, but sourced to and with substantive arguments, e.g. Taking the Trash Off the Streets: Innovative Waste-Management Solutions for New York City by Arpit Gupta, an NYU professor. Inline attribution of citations to MI research should not be blanket deprecated. WhinyTheYounger ※ Talk 01:58, 21 July 2023 (UTC)

Does the think tank have a positive reputation for accuracy and fact checking by itself? Is there peer review? I don't see any clear indication of corrections or retractions, and this example article you have linked is mostly just one associate professor's opinion with some bland citations attached. Those sources include some reputable journals, but also blogs, two of the author's own articles for City Journal, and some NYPost tabloid junk for good measure. Looking at some of their other publications, it's all a jumble which only barely distinguishes between commentary, briefs, and news. It also looks like the same topics and positions as City Journal, even if the style is slightly more academical. Grayfell (talk) 08:31, 21 July 2023 (UTC)

Striking original comment per above. WhinyTheYounger ※ Talk 00:14, 24 July 2023 (UTC)

I also think its worth mentioning to the discussion that User:PCHS-NJROTC on their user page says they are an admin on Conservapedia which is often called the ideological opponent of Rationalwiki, so may not have been neutral in trying to get the source in the article and on the articles talk page was told an RSN wasn't needed and it would be "waste of the community's time". Lavalizard101 (talk) 15:10, 23 July 2023 (UTC)

I fail to see how trying to get a broader opinion on City Journal (and discussing deprecation) constitutes trying to get the source in the article but okay. As for neutrality, I don't even pretend to be neutral on RationalWiki, in fact I declare it to be a cesspool that is too cozy with WMF office banned users and other trolls. That said, I try to be fair. PCHS-NJROTC ^{(Messages)Have a blessed day.} 20:38, 23 July 2023 (UTC)

Uh huh, got it... Anyway, the source was garbage regardless of who added it or why. As an IP on the talk page pointed out, it appears City Journal has taken it down. No explanation why, and I do not see any clear indication of a consistent policy on issuing retractions or corrections. Publishing something like that in the first place says many things about their standards, none of them good.

There is certainly plenty of similar nonsense still on the site, going back decades.

As I mentioned above, the site is used in many articles, including BLPs and a few other important articles. From this discussion and from looking at the outlet more closely, I have been attempting to clean-up these cites. I think consensus is clear enough, but a full RFC on the outlet would simplifying things quite a bit. Grayfell (talk) 04:02, 24 July 2023 (UTC)

RfC to deprecate City Journal and The Manhattan Institute

How should we classify City Journal and The Manhattan Institute as a source for Wikipedia in general?

• 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.

PCHS-NJROTC ^{(Messages)Have a blessed day.} 16:42, 24 July 2023 (UTC)

Discussion City Journal

• I am leaning toward Option 2 Option 3 or Option 4. I'm not very knowledgeable about the source, but what I'm seeing does not impress. PCHS-NJROTC ^{(Messages)Have a blessed day.} 16:42, 24 July 2023 (UTC)

  “Not very knowledgeable” can be addressed, in part, by observing that “City+Journal” on Google Scholar yields 107,000 results. The very first City Journal result, the article “The curse of the creative class" is cited by 442 (!), including the International Journal of Urban and Regional Research, the Journal of Economic Geography, the Economic Development Quarterly, the Economic Geography (journal), Inter-Asia Cultural Studies, the European Journal of Cultural Studies and numerous (obviously around 400) peer-reviewed and other academic publications, in addition to well over a dozen books.

  It is indisputable that numerous book and peer-reviewed authors cite City Journal because these authors consider the Journal to be WP:REPUTABLE. XavierItzm (talk) 07:46, 27 July 2023 (UTC)

  This book by Jamie Peck is the second listed work citing "The curse of the creative class". It itself has 2849 listed citations on Google Scholar. It has a very negative view of City Journal overall. —siroχo 08:21, 27 July 2023 (UTC)

  Regarding "The curse of the creative class” from City Journal, your book quotes 5 lines of it approvingly on p. 192; approves of its statistical analysis on p. 208; quotes a 15-line portion on pp. 208-209, quotes a further 3 lines on p. 213, paraphrases it for 4 lines on p. 214, quotes it in disagreeeent for 2 lines on p. 214, and paraphrases it (with distaste) for a couple of lines on p. 215.
  Newsflash: whereas regarding “The Curse” Peck doesn’t agree overall with it, Peck finds it quite useful to bludgeon Richard Florida’s ideas, who are the clear target of each and every citation of “The Curse” article from City Journal. Yes, your book elsewhere attacks the Manhattan Institute, because, duh!, your book is a polemic against neoliberalism, but here you find no purchase: Peck relies on City Journal for his Chapter 5. XavierItzm (talk) 09:41, 27 July 2023 (UTC)

  The example you give does not indicate that coty journal is reliable.197.232.48.230 (talk) 12:36, 27 July 2023 (UTC)

  I'm suggesting that Peck relies on it not as a reliable source, but specifically as an example of a biased source. In chapter 5 Peck uses phrasing like (note: striking potentially misleading context, point stands, see further discussion) "Demonstrating, if nothing else, the ease with which urban league tables can be manipulated, Malanga mischievously suggests...", and "rather than taking issue with the eccentric economics they seem more offended by liberal cultural politics and exhortation to urban invention..." The demonstration here is that lots of citations does not necessarily mean "generally reliable for factual reporting." And that the caution that Wikipedia readers may not know the bias from City Journal is a valid one. —siroχo 20:30, 27 July 2023 (UTC)

  That’s a serious misreading of Peck's book. Peck in pages 207-208 eviscerates Richard Florida’s statistical arguments for “bohemian places” as requirement for city success. In page 208 Peck largely relies on the article “The Curse” from City Journal: after approvingly referring to “The Curse”’s critique of Richard Florida for 7 lines, Peck goes on to add: Demonstrating, if nothing else, the ease with which urban league tables can be manipulated, Malanga mischievously suggests that Florida constructed his measures in such a way as to elevate a predetermined set of favored liberal-leaning cities, linked to the 1990s technology boom. In a classic circular fashion, certain conspicuous features of these cities are then ascribed causal significance as foundations of economic creativity. But the arguments are scrambled. Street level cultural innovation and conspicuous consumption may just as easily be consequences of economic growth, rather than causes of it. And loose correlations between economic development and certain cultural traits may be no more than contingent, or easily challenged by counterfactual cases. This is the Las Vegas critique: high growth, lousy culture, how come? (bold mine, italics Peck’s).
  You see, Peck acuses Richard Florida of manipulating urban league tables, and immediately relies on the results of City Journal’s “mischievous” arguments to demonstrate that a city with zero “bohéme” can also be a top city, like Las Vegas. I wish you would retract your comment, since your incomplete citation of the City Journal is not only misleading, but also entirely discordant with how Peck uses the City Journal as an ally to bludgeon Richard Florida.XavierItzm (talk) 19:55, 28 July 2023 (UTC)

  I'm switching to option 2, per some of the other discussion. It's a biased source for sure, and caution should certainly be applied when using it, but I'm not sure that it should be deprecated. Besides, we have sources that are generally considered acceptable that I could prove embellish facts. PCHS-NJROTC ^{(Messages)Have a blessed day.} 20:25, 28 July 2023 (UTC)

  My intention of including that quote was really around the word "mischievously", and I probably should have quoted tighter, instead of leaving potentially misleading context. I will strike the context so its more clear to others. In my reading, it's not a zero-sum analysis, and Peck is critical of multiple things. By using the word "mischievously", I don't read an endorsement of the source as reliable but rather borrowing rhetoric from a paper that he doesn't fully endorse, which has problems he points out immediately following. —siroχo 20:31, 28 July 2023 (UTC)

• I haven't followed the discussions above but what evidence do we have to treat them as something other than a partisan news outlet? Do we have RSs saying they are generally a bad source? I'm not saying CJ is a good source but I don't think the fact that they are part of the Manhattan Institute = bad source. That's a standard we don't apply to many other source (SPLC for example). I would also note that unless there is a history of issues with this source deprecation is inappropriate. Really, if this is a source that isn't used much we need to back away from our blanket ruling on sources and start looking at specific instances for specific claims. Springee (talk) 16:50, 24 July 2023 (UTC)

I see you couldn't pass-up the opportunity to throw shade at the SPLC, but comparing Manhattan Institute/City Journal to the SPLC is unworkable. Readers do not generally know City Journal's biases, of which there are many, and unlike the SPLC, City Journal conceals most of these biases behind pseudo-intellectualism. City Journal is not, as far as I can tell, widely described by reliable sources as experts in any particular field. To the contrary, per a few examples from the above discussion, ([1], [2], [3]) they have a documented history of publishing misleading information and falsehood. Not just among partisan outlets, but also among academic work. The (now deleted) City Journal story that started this discussion was misleading to a degree that no SPLC source I have seen was, not even those which the SPLC has issued retractions for (and those were pretty bad). But City Journal doesn't appear to issue retractions, it just deleted this one without explanation. Grayfell (talk) 19:03, 24 July 2023 (UTC)

The Washington Post ran a long article about the issues with the SPLC and their questionable tactics. Do we have anything like that for CJ? Adfonts media bias chat is generally respected around here. CJ's absolute bias and reliability scores (34.95, 10.31) are similar to sources we view as acceptable (Slate, MSNBC, Vanity Fair, Daily Beast). At the same time I'm not seeing much evidence of wide spread bad reporting. It comes off more as some people don't like them so we need to make their use unacceptable. It seems in reality they don't publish much so they don't get much coverage by other sources. Again this is something we should be looking at on a case by case basis rather than with a broad brush. At minimum editors should be sitting examples of problematic use in wiki articles before were should ever consider depreciation. Springee (talk) 10:34, 25 July 2023 (UTC)

On my phone now so this will be a limited reply. I did a Google scholar search for "city journal". It turns up a lot of hits with a lot of citations. Are those citations to sources saying "CJ is wrong"? I don't know but when you have a CJ article with cited by 442 other sources it's seems unlikely they are all saying the work is wrong. Springee (talk) 15:27, 25 July 2023 (UTC)

As I said, readers already know what SPLC means, attributing them provides context. Few readers know that City Journal has a history sloppy pseudo-scholorship and political ax grinding. Adfonts media bias chat is generally respected around here. What? Where on earth did you get that idea?? See Wikipedia:ADFONTES. It's a sloppy armchair echo-chamber. As I said, City Journal is cited in dozens and dozens of articles including BLPs. I've cleaned up a handful, but a lot more work will be needed. Treating all of these on a case-by-case basis is already creating a lot of extra work for little benefit.

As for raw cite counts, Google Scholar includes unreliable outlets, likely including other City Journal articles. Authors are free to cite themselves and outlets may encourage commentators to add links to others in the same walled garden, but this tells us nothing about reliability or notability. Google Scholor cannot categorize what kind of cites these are. Some are likely used to support a claim. Some will be in passing, some are used for examples of an opinion, and to your point, some cite City Journal specifically to refute one of its claims. Such numbers absolutely require additional context to be meaningful. Grayfell (talk) 19:29, 25 July 2023 (UTC)

The results from Google Scholar "city+journal"&btnG= suggest City Journal has published articles that are widely cited. This alone should take deprecation off the table. Unfortunately I don't have ready access to most of the articles listed under "cited by" but here are a few I can access [4], [5][6][7]. This is a limited sample since I can't open most references and there are quite a few cited articles. I can see arguing that they are often opinion and we need to be very careful if citing this source to be clear when we are citing an opinion/analysis vs fact. However, this does not appear to be a source that just makes things up as we view the DM. It's crazy that we would view the SPLC as an acceptable source to claim a group is a "hate group" but we would deprecate this source for making arguments that, I presume, are often outside of mainstream orthodoxy but hardly lies etc which would be the normal standard to select option 4. Springee (talk) 22:36, 25 July 2023 (UTC)

It is necessary to actually look at how a source is being cited, not just whether it is being cited (something you noted above but don't seem to have done before linking these.) I'll summarize it for you: Every single citation you presented - every single one! - is to a piece by former NYC police commissioner William Bratton defending his controversial policy of Broken windows theory; they are citing it not because they believe it is accurate, nor because he published it someplace reputable; they are citing it solely because of who wrote it, in that it provides (what we would call) WP:PRIMARY insight into Bratton's thinking and arguments. And (yes, you probably knew this was coming if you've read this far) they are largely citing it to debunk that thinking and arguments - aside from one that is just a passing mention to establish the history, they are all critical of this theories and the arguments he makes for them. As WP:USEBYOTHERS notes, negative attention like this counts against a source's reliability; in any case, they are citing it to illustrate Bratton's opinions, not for facts in the way that WP:USEBYOTHERS requires in order to establish a source's relevance. --Aquillion (talk) 04:21, 26 July 2023 (UTC)

If you were paying more attention I noted that I said that when something is cited 442 times it's probably not always cited as an example of something negative. I also noted that I don't have easy access to may of the sources. However, I did provide examples were the CJ papers were cited for something other than to say, "this is an example of someone who is wrong" etc. Let's go beyond that, I didn't dig into all the different examples (see my comment about limited access). You are wrong to claim all those are examples of negative. The used by others as evidence of something means other sources take the things said in CJ seriously. They may not agree and I think much of it appears to be opinion (but so is SPLC and many editors thinks it's a fine source). What is stupid is to claim the source meets the standards of deprecation. If you want to claim they are an option 3 I wouldn't agree based on the evidence presented but that at least is a defendable position. #4? You are claiming they make up quotes? You are claiming they lie about what others say? That's quite a stretch. Springee (talk) 04:31, 26 July 2023 (UTC)

Here are some additional citation examples [8][9][10]. That one is used for background facts. Here is an example where the authors dispute that a CJ article says but the fact that they felt a study was needed to refute it is suggests the views expressed have weight [11]. It's also notable that the authors say they don't have a causal evidence. If nothing else that suggests that the claims are disputed but not proven one way or the other. You would be reasonable to say that means the cited CJ article is thus opinion/not RS and I would agree but not because the source is fundamentally bad. Rather because we may use RSOPINION to illustrate a POV but not for statements of fact. This is why the other considerations apply should be used here. Springee (talk) 05:02, 26 July 2023 (UTC)

"If you were paying more attention" What was that you said before about condescending comments?

The first three you mention all cite the same article from 1996 by Edward Glaeser. The first is from MDPI which has its own history on this talk page and is not a useful example. The Sage one cites Glaeser's other works a dozen times and only uses the City Journal once for a direct quote to summarize Glaser's opinion, not for general facts. The third does use Glaeser, along with others, for a specific basic claims. The fourth link is busted beyond my ability to fix, but to say that that refuting study implies weight is not at all correct. This approach leads to WP:PROFRINGE problems, among other things. It always takes more effort to debunk bad ideas than it does to advance them. Grayfell (talk) 22:52, 26 July 2023 (UTC)

The reason why you will see a number of the cites to the same source in my examples is because of the way I'm finding examples. I went to Google Scholar then clicked on the CJ article's "cited by" link. After that you can look at individual sources that cited the single story in question. Springee (talk) 23:03, 26 July 2023 (UTC)

• Option 2 or maybe Option 3 with the strong understanding that the source is generally analysis/opinion rather than straight factual reporting (note that MBFC views the source as politically right but generally factual reporting, Adfonts puts the source on a level similar to Salon, MSNBC, and Vanity Fair but on the right... and slightly more neutral). The source is clearly cited by others per Google Scholar and while certainly some sources seem to disagree with their claims, that is disagreeing with analysis or opinion, not basic facts. Certainly this would be a use with care/case by case source. Really, we should be applying that sort of thinking more often rather than using broad brush declarations regarding the reliability of all things that come from a source. Springee (talk) 04:39, 26 July 2023 (UTC)

• Option 4 or maybe Option 3 - I've seen several superficially reliable-looking sources which were more subtle about the outlet's very specific political agenda, but in a lot of ways, that's worse. The few uses I've seen which were acceptable were as primary sources for details on City Journal's own contributors. City Journal is inconsistent at both citing sources, and at accurately summarizing those sources. Otherwise, the journal has shown itself to have poor editorial oversight by republishing the pseudo-anonymous blog that started this discussion, so any opinion published should not be presumed to be encyclopedically significant. We would need a specific reason to cite any opinion from them, even if it was written by a recognized expert. Grayfell (talk) 19:03, 24 July 2023 (UTC) Striking option 3. The medical misinformation issues remove that doubt. Even if, for some reason, editors wish to argue that Christopher Rufo's opinions are usable as opinions, his use of an "anonymous doctor" to launder false medical claims is inexcusable. Other examples of medical misinformation have also been brought up in this discussion, as well. This removes what little doubt I had that this outlet is utterly unreliable, and this extends to the Manhattan Institute. Grayfell (talk) 19:28, 4 August 2023 (UTC)

  You are making claims but bringing no evidence. Please provide the links. Springee (talk) 10:35, 25 July 2023 (UTC)

I already provided a few links in the reply to your comment above. Try to keep up. Grayfell (talk) 19:29, 25 July 2023 (UTC)

Let's drop condescending comments like "try to keep up". I noted those links. I think only the New Yorker actually talks about CJ, the others were MI. Even then it's one thing to disagree with one or two papers etc. It's quite another to state all their work is unable. That requires a much higher level of evidence. (Note: still on my phone so if I confused links please forgive. I hope to get some actual computer time to do some additional digging) Springee (talk) 20:02, 25 July 2023 (UTC)

Your comment I noted those links doesn't really align with your prior comment, You are making claims but bringing no evidence. Within this context, your objection to Try to keep up appears misplaced. Newimpartial (talk) 20:11, 25 July 2023 (UTC)

(edit conflict)Yup, exactly. Grayfell (talk) 20:14, 25 July 2023 (UTC)

Your !vote here has no evidence. That is what I was referring to. Springee (talk) 20:31, 25 July 2023 (UTC)

I've seen comments like this made before, but I don't know of any policy basis to tell !voting editors that they have to give links as evidence for their !vote - and it seems especially disappointing to see that broadside launched when an editor actually has provided links, just not in their !vote. Newimpartial (talk) 20:39, 25 July 2023 (UTC)

I replied to their !vote before reading their reply to my vote. Note that when someone reads their claim of Option 4 yet they aren't providing links it suggests that vote should be discounted. Springee (talk) 22:07, 25 July 2023 (UTC)

That's not how consensus works. Links are not the only thing that matters, and a whole lot has already been discussed by many editors, even ignoring the discussion above the RFC. Grayfell (talk) 22:35, 25 July 2023 (UTC)

But the strength of the arguments does weigh into consensus. Springee (talk) 22:37, 25 July 2023 (UTC)

Indeed, and Grayfell and Aquillion have provided stronger arguments. Generalrelative (talk) 13:34, 29 July 2023 (UTC)

Yet those arguments largely boil down to a dislike of their politics or possibly their analysis. Why aren't we holding other activist/pov sites to the same standard? Springee (talk) 13:56, 29 July 2023 (UTC)

They most certainly do not, and accusing others of making arguments based on mere "dislike" when they have bent over backwards to give objective evidence is unhelpful. Further, at this point you appear to be WP:BLUDGEONing the discussion. You've made your case, now please allow others to have a turn. Generalrelative (talk) 14:04, 29 July 2023 (UTC)

• Option 4. See my links above on medicine describing flaws in their methodology when arguing for reduced regulation of drugs, on how they posted flat lies about "critical race theory" in order to advance a political agenda, or on their continuous lies about education; the last quotes this source, which says that the institute's research on vouchers is not a search for truth but a search for justifications for its political program. There is no indication that they make any effort towards fact-checking or accuracy at all; they seem to view their role as producing whatever output they believe will move the needle in favor of their founders, without regards to whether it is accurate or not - effectively no different from (eg.) an advertising agency. Even few people trying to argue that it is reliable haven't presented any actual indication of the reputation for fact-checking and accuracy that RS requires; and it's difficult to see what could demonstrate it for a source that has published so much straightforward nonsense. Certainly being WP:BIASED alone doesn't render a source unusable, but when a source's bias becomes its overriding mission to the point where it overrules any attempts at fact-checking or accuracy, that clearly renders it unreliable. I don't see how anyone can argue that that's not the case here. --Aquillion (talk) 14:21, 25 July 2023 (UTC)

  Please review the number of CJ a articles that turn up in Google Scholar hits. The content seems to be cited a fair bit. It could be people just saying it's crap. It could be Google just over counting. But it could also be that other sources are using them as a useful source. Springee (talk) 15:32, 25 July 2023 (UTC)

  Can you give an example of another source using city journal (or manhattan institute)?--80.227.114.18 (talk) 17:15, 25 July 2023 (UTC)

Sure thing. Take for example the 2010 City Journal article Preservation Follies. That article has been cited at least 38 times: for example, by the peer-reviewed Yale Law Journal, by the Journal of the American Planning Association, by the Virginia Law Review; as well as by three books, and 32 other academic articles (I exclude a book where the author cites his own City Journal article). You can peruse the full list of citations here.

This one article which I’ve taken at random from among 33 years of monthly articles goes to show that scholars rely on City Journal and therefore it meets WP:USEBYOTHERS: «widespread citation without comment for facts is evidence of a source's reputation and reliability for similar facts». XavierItzm (talk) 07:10, 27 July 2023 (UTC)

• Option 2 or 3, probably 3 - unless we're about to state that Californian school children are being made to worship Aztec deities [12] we should use this source with caution at best. In the particular article, I can see no particular factual errors but it is egregious in its omissions and euphemisms. Its definition of 'intelligence research' seems to amount to something bordering on eugenics[13] and it presents OpenPsych as a normal scientific journal as opposed to one with a dubious peer review process[14][15].

I'm generally opposed to the deprecation of sources without evidence that editors are continuing to misuse them after the source has been deemed unreliable. ~ El D. (talk to me) 17:02, 25 July 2023 (UTC)

The California Department of Education got sued precisely for making kids chant to In Lak’Ech (Mayan) and to Nahui Ollin (Aztec)! From The Los Angeles Times: frequently recited in high school ethnic studies classes in California: “You are my other me. If I do harm to you, I do harm to myself. If I love and respect you, I love and respect myself.” […] Nahui Ollin involves four concepts — self-reflection, knowledge, action and transformation — which are represented by the names of four Aztec gods. The chant also includes the name of a fifth Aztec god." CADoE recognized their error, deleted the worship to Aztec deities from the curriculum, agreed to "notify all school districts, charter schools and county offices of education of the deletions”, paid $100,000 as compensation, and admitted the deletion of the pagan chants is consistent with CADoE's “long-standing commitment to ensuring appropriate treatment of religion in a secular public education context.” So per your own logic “unless we're about to state that Californian school children are being made to worship Aztec deities”, your vote cannot possibly be “2 or 3, probably 3”. It looks like your source, New York Magazine, is the one that should be deprecated.XavierItzm (talk) 05:22, 27 July 2023 (UTC)

I don't see any reference to $100,000 compensation, just $100,000 for plaintiffs legal fees. Your snipping also seems fairly misleading. The frequently recited thing is a poem by Luis Valdez. The chant which includes the name of an Aztec god is a "a longer chant based on In Lak’Ech and the Aztec concept of Nahui Ollin, also called the Four Movements". It's fairly unclear to me from your source if this longer chant is "frequently recited". The fact that the poem is, and that the longer chant was included in the curriculum which was only recently finalised and from what I can tell wasn't yet used, doesn't mean much. It's unclear to me whether even this curriculum, actually encouraged reciting this chant or simple included it as part of what students are meant to or encourage to learn about. While learning about an allegedly religious chant in an ethnic studies class may not be an "appropriate treatment of religion in a secular public education context", especially if there isn't equal space being given to learning about other religious chants and prayers, it doesn't mean students who learn about it are worshiping Aztec deities, or any deities. People can learn about the Lord's Prayer without worshiping the Christian God, people can learn about the Shahada without worshiping the Islamic Allah. There may be reasonable questions if children should be made to learn about on in an ethnic studies class in public education, especially if it is only one of them (or whatever), but that's different from saying learning about them means the student is being forced to worship a whatever deity. Nil Einne (talk) 09:21, 31 July 2023 (UTC)

You might be unclear about whether it was worship to Aztec gods, but the State of California sure did chose to delete the daily chanting, to "notify all school districts, charter schools and county offices of education of the deletions”, and to pay $100,000. So it looks like California DoE was not as uncertain as you yourself are. As to how frequent the chanting was, this is what The San Diego Union-Tribune reported: “Many ethnic studies teachers say In Lak’Ech is not used as a prayer but as an affirmation […] frequently recited daily in high school ethnic studies classes in San Diego and elsewhere in California.” (emphasis mine). Prayer, “affirmation," potato, potatoe, how do you like mandating it daily in schools? XavierItzm (talk) 06:00, 1 August 2023 (UTC)

• Option 3 (update, Blueboar brings up a good point below so I lean a bit more towards 3 with a big caveat around DUE opinion), maybe Option 4. To add to the evidence, in regards to The Manhattan Institute, we have a review of one of their papers (alongside a second paper from the Heritage Foundation) here (Pleace, 2021, European Journal of Homelessness), concluding "These papers do not simply contain elements of deliberate misreading and misrepresentation of the existing evidence base, they are both comprised of deliberate misreading and misrepresentation of the evidence base. Almost nothing asserted in either paper is backed by any evidence in the unqualified way that the authors assert. When actual data and results are referred to, the results are taken out of context and their implications are distorted.". This in combination with evidence presented by other editors does not paint a picture of this institute or its publications being reliable sources. I do not like the idea of deprecating sources, but the quote above might even qualify it for option 4. —siroχo 21:56, 25 July 2023 (UTC)

That’s an opinion article from an advocacy NGO you are using as “evidence” to justify a deprecation! Your opinion article is titled A Review Essay, and it was published in the section “Book Reviews” of the advocacy publication of "the only European NGO focusing exclusively on the fight against homelessness” (FEANTSA). Beggars belief.XavierItzm (talk) 04:46, 27 July 2023 (UTC)

Nicholas Pleace is a subject-matter-expert, and this is also a peer reviewed journal. Given that we're evaluating the reliability of a source, this seems like a reasonable review of one of that source's works. —siroχo 20:07, 29 July 2023 (UTC)

Do you really think that the “Book Reviews” section of the publication of an advocacy NGO is peer-reviewed? Yes, Pleace is a university professor; funnily enough, Professor Victoria Stanhope of New York University and Professor Kerry Dunn of University of New England are cited in Wikipedia arguing against the very policy Pleace advocates…in a peer-reviewed journal! This is a debated, unsettled subject and Pleace can hardly be seen in his opinion article as impartial.XavierItzm (talk) 04:39, 1 August 2023 (UTC)

• I've removed or edited several uses of City Journal which seemed unnecessary or inappropriate or both. Here are some examples:

• This article was used at New York City waste management system. The City Journal source from 2015 1992 said 26,000 tons per day of garbage while other (current) sources said about 10,000 tons (including recycling). If this source is accurate I would love to see an explanation for the discrepancy.
• At Identity politics, This removed content was an attempted summary without attribution of a very meandering, very strange opinion from Jonathan Haidt. Haidt was promoting his Heterodox Academy project, which ideologically overlaps with Manhattan Institute. In this source, Haidt calls Reed College "one of the most politically orthodox schools in the country", which is an especially bizarre thing to say as the source he cites in the same paragraph is headlined "The Surprising Revolt at the Most Liberal College in the Country".[16]
• This was an opinionated and mildly inflammatory review of a biography of James Brown, complete with Amazon affiliate shopping link. If the book itself is reliable, this source is superfluous and just adds baggage.
• Citing Heather Mac Donald for content about race and crime at Oakland, California, without attribution, is a bad idea for many reasons. Per the NYMag: "Mac Donald has devoted her career to the proposition that anti-white racism is a far more serious problem than anti-black racism..."[17]
• Whatever one thinks of Michael Moore, it is not appropriate to cite an over-the-top hit piece to emphasize that he dropped out of college. The author of that article is Kay Hymowitz, who's Wikipedia page doesn't inspire confidence.
• Several articles have cited a Christopher Hitchens piece on the Barbary Wars, such as at Interracial marriage. We still need a reason to include his opinion beyond name-recognition, and Hitchens wrote extensively on Thomas Jefferson in more reputable outlets. If necessary, a better source for these opinions should be easy to find.

Hopefully this gives some context for this proposal. Regardless of the result, there are still likely some uses which will need to be removed on their own merits, or at least more clearly attributed. Grayfell (talk) 22:28, 25 July 2023 (UTC)

The CJ article on trash you cited is dated 1992, not 2015. It says 26,000 tons so who knows. That said, this 2015 ABC news article says 25,000 tons [18]. Unless you have some other 1992 vintage source it's hard to claim it's wrong. Also worth noting the NYT article cited next to the CJ you removed was an OpEd article and doesn't appear to use the word "ton" at all. Ironically it's arguing for government to take away private trash collection options from companies. The link to the sanitation page doesn't actually show a number (perhaps editors are supposed to dig?) Springee (talk) 22:52, 25 July 2023 (UTC)

Ah, my mistake on the date, the CJ article was mistakenly dated 2015 in its cite template. If the City Journal was reliable back in 1992, which is still debatable, it would be far too outdated for the supported point. By 2015 the change of leadership discussed above had gone into effect and it would no longer be usable even when fresh.

This date error combined with the misuse of the NYT editorial (which is from the editorial board so not really an Op-ed), are indications of over-citing. This doesn't suggest that City Journal is indispensable if this is how it's being used.

As for those other sources, cleaning up all of this will take work, and deprecating bad sources makes this kind of work a lot easier. I've adjusted the New York City waste management system accordingly. Grayfell (talk) 22:10, 26 July 2023 (UTC)

I agree, the whole sentence seemed poorly sourced and a 1992 article is way to old for what is meant to be a contemporary fact. In that regard the removal was correct. I also agree that cleanup is a bit of a mess. It's not clear where that "over 10k" part comes from. I also noticed the 2015 date. That's an understandable mistake given the Wiki citation was wrong. Still, using this as an example, if the discussion were actually about 1992 tonnage I wouldn't see an issue using CJ for what is a non-controversial fact (I presume the tonnage isn't a controversial fact). However, if someone is trying to use CJ to say what the solution should be to the problem of too much trash, well then it should be an attributed statement. Their free market perspective could be balanced against the NYT's suggestion that expanding the public works is the answer. We don't have to pick sides, we instead say both options have been suggested. (note: I'm not saying that was the way the sources were used, this is just a hypothetical). This is part of why I oppose deprecation. CJ does seem like a reliable perspective on a topic if we have an article that is presenting various views on a topic. Honestly. I think many of our articles on topics would be better if we tried to include a wider range of perspectives when there is a public debate (such as should private or public utilities handle an issue). As another example, the Glaeser article could be a good source for an article on the broken window policing debate. Clearly a large number of sources cited Glaseer's article even if it was only to say, "this is what a proponent has said". Great, we can cite the source for the same reasons. Yet another reason to not deprecate the source. Springee (talk) 23:12, 26 July 2023 (UTC)

10k is from the cited NYC source, which mentions "24 million pounds of trash" instead of tons, but you're right, that's closer to eleven thousand. "Tons" seems fine, per WP:CALC.

I know we've had this discussion before on other pages, but I don't accept that any two arbitrarily chosen options need to be contrasted. When we use unreliable and biased sources, it has to be for a reason beyond just how convenient it is. If a reliable sources indicated that the amount of tonnage from 1992 was encyclopedic significant, why would we need this particular source for that factoid? Knowingly adding any point from an unreliable source is a subtle form of editorializing, because we're prioritizing our opinion that this belongs over policies and NPOV. To put it another way, if the best source that can be found is City Journal, first an editor should why it belongs, and then we can evaluate if it's an exception. The starting position should be 'find something better'. Grayfell (talk) 00:01, 27 July 2023 (UTC)

• Option 4 Since they quite clearly and actively publish false information and misinformation in order to push their political ends. Worse than the Daily Mail, imo, since the DM is a blatantly obvious trash rag publication that is obvious to everyone, whereas the City Journal tries to present itself as a legitimate news source while publishing the exact same kind of misinformation as DM. I find the attempted muddling comparison of the SPLC above hilarious and sad. Also a worthless clearly partisan argument. Silverseren^C 23:26, 26 July 2023 (UTC)

• Option 1: Generally reliable for factual reporting. It is interesting to read thru all the innuendo above (example: «Readers do not generally know City Journal's biases, of which there are many, and unlike the SPLC…»); it was also funny to read the attempt to discredit the C-J with its 1992 statement regarding NY’s waste tonnage of 26k … only for NY ABC News in 2015 to state that waste tonnage was 25k (!). See what I mean by innuendo? Now, so... is the SPLC reliable because we all know it is a far left NGO of questionable ethics, but the C-J is bad because not everyone knows the C-J is published by a conservative NGO? At any rate, the C-J is a 33 year-old institution published in print by a highly respectable think tank; it’s been cited by many others. Banning it is clearly beyond the pale. I should add that Michael Moore did drop out of UMF and the fact we don’t like the tone of an author who reported this verified fact doesn’t warrant deleting evidence for the fact Moore did drop out: arbitrary deletion of good, reliable sources like this is beyond a bad look: it starts to look like a concerted effort to blacklist sources we just don’t like, no matter how accurate and on-point they are. XavierItzm (talk) 00:19, 27 July 2023 (UTC)

Oh look, the guy who proclaimed that Oh, great, Wikipedia is now to rely on white male western politicos (and in this case an Anglican one) to tell us what Islam is and what it isn't. See, this is why this is a made up "controversy". It is because a minority of editors support a POV promoted by foreigners who are largely European/European descent infidels, instead of just accepting that all Islamic State group members call themselves, rather plainly, the Islamic State. To deny these People of Color their own identity is an interesting example of Western cultural and religious POV imperialism [19] is back to trolling again. What a suprise. Hemiauchenia (talk) 00:22, 27 July 2023 (UTC)

If I’m receiving flak, I must be right on target. Anyway, nice ad-hominem you launched there! Cheerio, mate. XavierItzm (talk) 01:07, 27 July 2023 (UTC)

How is quoting your own words on wiki that showcase your active bias in regards to editing an ad hominem? Silverseren^C 01:11, 27 July 2023 (UTC)

Because instead of proposing valid arguments, the edit attempts to attack the speaker. That’s the very definition of ad hominem.XavierItzm (talk) 01:25, 27 July 2023 (UTC)

Why should anyone take anything you say seriously when you openly engage in trolling discussions? In another example, you described having the title of an article in lowercase when the company stylised their name in all caps as being equivalent to deadnaming transgender people [20]. Hemiauchenia (talk) 01:50, 27 July 2023 (UTC)

And the ad hominems shall continue, in lieu of argument! XavierItzm (talk) 04:34, 27 July 2023 (UTC)

Why would anybody engage in good faith argument with your worthless trolling? I'm just warning others not to waste their time with your nonsense. You can take this to ANI IF you're feeling like a big boy, but I doubt that would go well for you. Hemiauchenia (talk) 05:17, 27 July 2023 (UTC)

• Option 4. I'm surprised to have never heard of City Journal until this discussion. After reading our articles about the City Journal, the Manhattan Institute, the notable contributors, and about a dozen articles on the site itself, I can't see why we'd ever want to cite them. There's little distinction between fact and opinion (and their opinion is often based on claims that are debunked or far from the scientific consensus), many of their contributors are known for their inaccuracies, and they have connections to other unreliable sites, like Breitbart. My general opinion is that advocacy organizations (like think tanks and their publications) should be considered unreliable by default, and only reliable when significant use by reliable sources demonstrates "a reputation for fact-checking and accuracy". City Journal, however, appears thoroughly disreputable and should be deprecated entirely. Woodroar (talk) 13:28, 27 July 2023 (UTC)
• Option 3 at least, but inclining towards option 4 per Grayfell, Aquillion, Siroxo, and Woodroar. I share Grayfell's evaluation of the use-by-others claims. The default presumption is that a source of this type is unreliable, just like advertising would be; overcoming that presumption is an uphill task that is nowhere near accomplished in this case. XOR'easter (talk) 22:23, 28 July 2023 (UTC)
• Either Option 4 or Option 3 would be warranted here. Grayfell, Aquillion, siroχo and El D. have all presented compelling arguments to this effect. Silverseren's comparison above with Daily Mail is especially apt: while DM is quite obviously unreliable, Manhattan Institute / City Journal are almost parodic in the lengths they go to to appear urbane and mainstream. And the citation figures do indeed seem to reflect the fact that mainstream academics single them out for criticism rather than that anyone takes their research seriously. Generalrelative (talk) 13:46, 29 July 2023 (UTC)

  The DM was deprecated based on evidence they fabricated quotes. Where is the evidence CJ fabricated material? Springee (talk) 13:58, 29 July 2023 (UTC)

  We're now going around in circles, Springee. Please see !votes by Aquillion, siroχo, and El D. above for just a few examples of deliberate misinformation. Insisting on "fabricated quotes" is a red herring. Generalrelative (talk) 14:18, 29 July 2023 (UTC)

  Siroxo's argument was clearly addressed by XavierItzm who noted the source was an opinion article from an opposed advocacy group. That certainly doesn't prove they misrepresented facts. XavierItzm also pointed out that the New Yorker article was wrong about the facts. At best you can argue this gets into that gray area of politics when one person says, for example, this is discrimination, while the other says it isn't. Both can make some level of rational claim. If the legal outcome supports what CJ said it's hard to claim they are wrong. As for Aquilion's examples, in the case of the medical paper it's hard to claim a deep dive into statistics is the same as falsely claiming something about medicine. It's reasonable to say their statistics are wrong in that instance, but that isn't the same as saying the source is generally unreliable (assuming there is not rebuttal etc) It's also worth noting that the author of the CJ article is a Prof at Columbia's business school with a background in medical economics [21]. This isn't a case of a far-right ideolog throwing out nonsense. This is a case of someone who is clearly viewed as knowledgeable in the field in question. To listen to some of the claims here one might think the person making these "false claims" was random talk show host or fiery political commentator rather than a senior faculty member at a prestigious university. We are talking about someone who is clearly an expert in the field. The CRT is again, the New Yorker which has already been shown to be problematic when it comes to a different CJ topic. This is now getting into the details of CRT as a public topic and a source like the New Yorker isn't sufficient to show one side or the other is outright correct. This would be a disputed claim. Springee (talk) 14:32, 29 July 2023 (UTC)

  Further looking into the claims of "distorting facts to suit their biases, ... in medicine". The CJ paper in question was published by FR Lichtenberg (Columbia's business school with a background in medical economics), "Why has longevity increased more in some states than in others? The role of medical innovation and other factors". Note that editors here aren't treating this as a disagreement among academics in the field. Instead it's treated as if the intent was to knowingly mislead readers. Note, this is a health economics paper, not a paper about a specific medical treatment. This certainly isn't someone arguing for a novel use of an equine antiparasitic to fight a raspatory virus. Even if it Lichtenberg is wrong, this would be economic misinformation, not medical misinformation. Using Google Scholar I was able to pull up another paper that cites the Lichtenberg paper in question. Based on this paper it's clear that Lichtenberg has a number of publications in academic journals and over about a decade about this topic. Here is one:

  • Benefits of investment into modern medicines in Central-Eastern European countries. Inotai, András; Petrova, Guenka; Vitezic, Dinko; Kaló, Zoltán Expert Review of Pharmacoeconomics & Outcomes Research, Feb2014; 14(1): 71-79. 9p. (Journal Article - research) ISSN: 1473-7167 PMID: NLM24350863, [22] While citing Lichtenberg this source states, "A frequently referenced statement based on research by Lichtenberg concludes that new medicines, in addition to increased life longevity, helped to control overall healthcare spending by reducing invasive surgeries and expensive hospital stays, and therefore, reduced hospital expenditure may offset increased expenditure on innovative medicines [3,101,102]."

  Citation 101 is to the CJ paper and includes the following note (bolded in the source), * This study is one of the most frequently referenced study concerning the value of pharmaceutical innovation based on U.S. data. This clearly meets the used by others standard. Even if the article ultimately uses a flawed method, that method is trying to assess the societal cost effectiveness of medical innovation and per used by others would likely be a DUE opinion on the topic. Springee (talk) 03:44, 30 July 2023 (UTC)

Citation 101 in doi:10.1586/14737167.2014.86831 is not to the City Journal, it's to a Manhattan Institute PDF. That PDF, by the way, is advocating for the rights of pharmaceutical companies to market high-priced medicine. As with the rest of Manhattan Institute's output, science (and basic decency) take a back seat to ideology, but this particular study is not part of City Journal, so has little relevance to this RFC. Grayfell (talk) 05:23, 31 July 2023 (UTC)

It is the paper other editors cited as an example of medical misinformation (see the claim of "distorting facts to suit their biases, ... in medicine"). Since it was used as evidence that the source was unreliable I followed it to investigate. Springee (talk) 09:53, 31 July 2023 (UTC)

• Option 4 obvious outlet of a propaganda mill. oknazevad (talk) 20:45, 29 July 2023 (UTC)

  Based on what? Deprecation is an extreme position. Absent strong evidence it shouldn't be on the table. This is especially true given many of the members are academics in their relevant fields. Springee (talk) 21:42, 29 July 2023 (UTC)

  How about hateful transphobia? Do you think this video and others like it by the City Journal are acceptable [23] (the video is linked on the journal) [24]. This type of content is no different than the American Renaissance (magazine). It is misinformation that is fuelling unnecessary hate. Psychologist Guy (talk) 18:16, 30 July 2023 (UTC)

• Option 2 or 3 - once again, we are really arguing the wrong policy. CJ is an opinion journal. As such, there are limits as to HOW we should use it. Generally, any statements we write based upon it should include in-text attribution to the specific contributor and should be phrased as being opinion. It should be seen as a reliable PRIMARY source for that opinion. The NEXT QUESTION (and the one that we should be focused on) is whether that opinion is DUE or UNDUE. That is a context driven discussion. Blueboar (talk) 22:17, 29 July 2023 (UTC)

Based on specific examples provided, including the now-deleted post which was republished from an anonymous attack blog, City Journal is a poor source for demonstrating that any particular opinion is due weight. So if we're going to use it for opinions, we would need some specific reason from a more reliable source to include that opinion, and in the majority of cases, we are better off sticking to that more-reliable source and City Journal is unnecessary. Grayfell (talk) 00:43, 30 July 2023 (UTC)

I agree that you might need other sources to demonstrate that an opinion is DUE… HOWEVER, I disagree with your follow up. - For citation purposes, once an opinion IS considered DUE, the primary original (in this case CJ) will always be the single most reliable source. A secondary source may misquote or poorly summarize. Always go back to the original for citation purposes. Blueboar (talk) 01:06, 30 July 2023 (UTC)

A secondary source may misquote or include misleading information, but by that broad standard, City Journal is itself even less reliable. From what I've seen, City Journal has not been the sole primary source for these noteworthy opinions. Our goal is to provide context for why these opinion are noteworthy per reliable sources. Since it isn't to summarize the parts of these opinions we personally think are interesting, we really only need to use these primary sources in edge cases when City Journal is the only usable example of an opinion that would otherwise be incomprehensible without additional context. I don't think this situation is common, and we can still make exceptions when it happen. Otherwise, we're preemptively protecting the hypothetically good use of a bad source. Grayfell (talk) 10:11, 30 July 2023 (UTC)

• Option 2, per Springee, or even Option 1. I've reviewed the examples helpfully provided by Aquillion and Grayfell, which I suppose are the worst and clearest examples of their unreliability and I'm not convinced. Specifically, this criticism is about the methodological flaws in a regression model. This is how science works! If we were to declare unreliable every journal which published an article that has been criticised we wouldn't have any reliable sources left. As a side note, the original article was published on the site of the Manhattan Institute [25], rather than the City Journal. Then it was claimed that the 26k ton figure from this article is factually wrong. However as you can see in the discussion above a similar figure was given by ABC and it seems to be close to the figures in this report (summing up figures Tables IV 2-1 and IV 4-1). So there is just no evidence for making it unreliable. Alaexis_¿question? 10:01, 30 July 2023 (UTC)

City Journal doesn't pretend to be a scientific journal, it's a general audience magazine. Please read past the very first example I mentioned, which was from 1992 instead of 2015 as I initially though. Per the above discussion, City Journal had a change in editorial board in 2007, so if you think the older stuff is more reliable, feel free to explain that position. I partly added it because, as I said, I would love to see an explanation for the discrepancy. I wasn't being facitious, and mentioning this issue here has already helped improve the linked article. The PDF you link appears to be from 2003, as it only includes projections up until 2025. If NYC really had cut its garbage production by more than half in only a few years, despite its own projections, that should be explained in the article itself, but as usual, we need better sources.

For Option 1, if you want to claim, for example, that Heather Mac Donald is generally reliable for factual information about crime and race on Wikipedia, you should be willing to make that claim directly. Grayfell (talk) 10:34, 30 July 2023 (UTC)

Okay, let's ignore the first example. The second one is the removal of this information. I do not disagree with the edit itself, but to me it looks like a matter of due weight. I don't see reliability problems there - probably the CJ can be trusted to tell us about the critique from the right-wing POV.

Regarding Heather Mac Donald, which of the facts that you removed are false? This is a genuine question, as I don't know anything about the history of Oakland. Happy to strike out Option 1 if some of these facts are false. Alaexis_¿question? 11:22, 30 July 2023 (UTC)

Facts? The statement economic competition increased racial tension is unfalsifiable. It is Mac Donald's loaded opinion being presented as a bland fact, but it is not a fact. To accept that claim we would first have to accept multiple controversial assumptions about race as separate from class, as well as the degree to which economics causes racial tensions, instead of the other way around. That article wouldn't be the proper place to go into those assumptions, and Mac Donald isn't qualified to discuss them anyway. One of several problems with this outlet is that it emphasizes superficially reasonable looking statements like that one without any of the necessary context. Even in a vacuum, this statement wouldn't have worked as written, but it's not an isolated case, it's part of a larger pattern. This is why I indicated Mac Donald's controversial status as a pundit. And the source was punditry, not journalism. In the same paragraph of the source where Mac Donald highlights information about the drug dealer Felix Mitchell, she prefaces that with information about how Oakland's "poverty culture is still thriving". That isn't a factual claim, it's an opinion (and a dog-whistle), and an extremely loaded one at that. So these superficially bland facts only exist to support these non-bland opinions. Some of these claims (but not all) are factual, but that isn't enough to make the source itself reliable. We need to look at context. If the only reason a fact is being mentioned is to grind an ax, we need get better sources and go from there. Grayfell (talk) 22:25, 30 July 2023 (UTC)

Well, let's be precise and start from the article in question. I don't see the phrase economic competition increased racial tension there. The closest is probably After the Johnson administration deemed Oakland ripe for the next race riot—based on unemployment and racial tensions ... the feds rolled in a $23 million pilot jobs program in 1966, hoping to forestall trouble. but it clearly doesn't say that competition increased racial tension. So probably this specific case is an example of misquoting a source. Alaexis_¿question? 09:12, 31 July 2023 (UTC)

It wasn't presented as a quote, but I'm not sure how much that helps. If reliable sources supported the bit about Johnson, we could use those to decide if this belongs in the article and from that neutrally summarize that history. Mac Donald is not reliable for this. As another example from that article, the source was also used for content about Felix Mitchell. Mac Donald claims that Mitchell created the country's first large-scale, gang-controlled drug operation. This is nonsense. As one obvious counter-example, the Bonanno crime family was selling narcotics in the 1930s or 40s. Mac Donald either completely misunderstood why Mitchell's life and death were significant, or was lazily misrepresenting it in an attempt to prove a specific ideological point about "poverty culture". As Mitchell's article explains, crime didn't spike due to Mitchell's gang activity, it spiked after he died in prison due to the power-vacuum he left behind. (This is likely part of why he was fondly remembered in Oakland, and this legacy is the real reason he was significant.) Grayfell (talk) 11:04, 31 July 2023 (UTC)

Is that a contextual definition of gang? I personally wouldn't think of the 1930s mafia or Chicago style gangs as the same thing as the 1970s street gangs. This seems like saying she is wrong on a technicality. Would the statement be correct if it were changed to "street gang" instead of "gang"? Springee (talk) 13:12, 31 July 2023 (UTC)

What are the differences between the 1930s mafia or Chicago style gangs and 1970s street gangs? I can't come up with any significant ones. Horse Eye's Back (talk) 16:17, 31 July 2023 (UTC)

The wiki article on gangs lists it and mafia as separate subtypes. I presume various RSs on the subject say why they are different. Springee (talk) 16:41, 31 July 2023 (UTC)

Mafia as a subtype of gang, not different from a gang. Chicago style gangs were street gangs, at least according to the sources I've read. Only real difference is race, but I'm sure thats not what you meant so what did you mean? Horse Eye's Back (talk) 17:11, 31 July 2023 (UTC)

I'm not sure that in the time of the war on drugs "gang" was used to generically refer to the mafia vs what our article defines as street gangs. It does seem reasonable that Mac Donald was referring to street gangs and presumably the one in question showed similar gangs how they could make money off the drug trade. I think it's wrong to suggest a source is outright unreliable based on this sort of distinction (assuming I'm correct about Mac Donald's intended scope of the word "gang"). I'm not sure I've heard of a source referring to people like Al Capone as street gang leaders. Springee (talk) 18:11, 31 July 2023 (UTC)

Mac Donald didn't say "street gang", she said "...the country's first large-scale, gang-controlled drug operation". A "large-scale" operation is by definition not a street-level operation. There are plenty of other non-"mafia" examples of large scale drug dealing operations, also. How about Frank Lucas, Frank Matthews (drug trafficker), or Griselda Blanco? As I said, Mac Donald's claim that Mitchell created "the first" such operation is false. Mac Donald purports to be an expert on crime in the same way that City Journal purports to be an intellectual magazine. Grayfell (talk) 19:47, 31 July 2023 (UTC)

OK, but what was the context? Was she talking about 1970s "gang" activity? If so that often was describing street gangs vs mafia or "organized crime" as mafia type groups were often described. You are saying MacDonald's claim was false but it seems based on the idea that she was describing all things that one might describe as "gangs" rather than street gangs which were a product of the 1970s. Is her statement correct if we narrow the topic to street gangs? Did Mitchell show the way for other street gangs? I'm not seeing that you have proven much beyond context matters and you think the context of her claim isn't clear. Looking at the article I would read it as the mixing of street gangs and drug operations. Perhaps she could have been more clear? Maybe. What would people in 1999 envision when "gang" was used in context of crime? I mean we can also say that alcohol is a drug in which case the prohibition era rum runners were clearly there first. However, if we are going to claim something is false we need to be careful that we aren't using gotchas to do it. Springee (talk) 20:20, 31 July 2023 (UTC)

Thanks for providing more examples. I've removed option 1 from my !vote. Alaexis_¿question? 12:51, 31 July 2023 (UTC)

• Option 4 Manhattan Institute's City Journal is entirely unreliable hateful propaganda. It has been taken over by Christopher Rufo who is using the journal to promote transphobia and spread misinformation about LGBT [26], [27]. He's also published articles trying to link LGBT to pedophilia. The journal has many other transphobic articles [28], [29], [30]. Rufo has been described by the Southern Poverty Law Center as a "far-right propagandist" [31]. Anti-vegans, transphobes and white nationalists are the City Journal's biggest followers. Click on the first links I provided by Rufo which provides a transphobic video, how can anyone take this journal seriously? It should be removed from Wikipedia. Psychologist Guy (talk) 17:58, 30 July 2023 (UTC)
  • Making up facts is a reason to deprecate, but being against LGBT is not. This is an international encyclopedia, and global opinions on LGBT are very diverse. PCHS-NJROTC ^{(Messages)Have a blessed day.} 12:10, 3 August 2023 (UTC)
    • Those are not examples of "diverse" opinions, they are examples of conspiracy theories and discriminitory fear-mongering from the anti-gender movement. This is an international encyclopedia, but it's also a collaborative project. "International" isn't an excuse to harbor bigoted misinformation. Bigoted misinformation, like the articles linked above, provide no encylopedic benefit on their own. Grayfell (talk) 19:12, 4 August 2023 (UTC)
      • I repeat, making up facts (or as you said, harboring misinformation) is a reason to deprecate, being bigoted is not. Being anti-LGBT (or for that matter racist, sexist, xenophobic, ageist, etc) is in itself a solid reason for option 2, as in do not use for information about those topics. For everything else, please see ad hominem as a source's position on LGBT matters is irrelevant to whether or not the source can be trusted when it says the sky is blue, and the sensationalized language here is a distraction from the real topic at hand. All of this considered, we would have to deprecate a heck of a lot of historical publications if we fully deprecate everything that is anti-LGBT, because most sources in the USA were anti-LGBT until recent years, including a lot of respected scientists of old. PCHS-NJROTC ^{(Messages)Have a blessed day.} 03:54, 5 August 2023 (UTC)
        • Repeating yourself isn't helping. The information in those links is both bigoted and false. It is "made up" if phrasing it that way matters for some reason. It is so bigoted that it negatively impacts its reliability. The outlet's bias has apparently damaged its ability to impart factual information, per the linked examples. They are allowed to publish false information, and we are allowed to evaluate that information. My evaluation is that it is both false and bigoted, and these two traits happen to be closely-linked. Therfor it should not be cited on Wikipedia.

We should not cite "respected scientist of old" for factual claims when their work contradicts the modern scientific consensus, and this is especially true for medical claims (per WP:MEDRS). The examples above include WP:FRINGE medical claims about LGBT people, which, by itself, is reason enough to deprecate this outlet. If Rufo's extraordinary claims become of historical interest at some point, we would cite secondary sources explaining that historical context. Grayfell (talk) 04:54, 5 August 2023 (UTC)

You're making this more difficult than it needs to be. I'm not disagreeing that someone's factually compromised biased horsemanure shouldn't be used, I am stating that an entire source should not be deprecated because of it. You are correct that new science supercedes old science, but the notion that the works of Albert Einstein, Issac Newton, or Charles Darwin should join the ranks of Occupy Democrats and Info Wars as a deprecated source is asinine. Their works are another example of option 2 in that some of their writings are outdated, and they would be a primary source in probably most cases where their use in Wikipedia would be appropriate. A key difference is that I can write "Charles Darwin said the sky is blue" and directly reference On the Origin of Species, whereas writing "The Daily Mail said the sky is blue" with a direct reference to Mail Online would be inappropriate because Daily Mail is deprecated; we don't care what Daily Mail says unless they say something that gets significant coverage in reliable sources. The point I am trying to make is that, if it were discovered that one of these men slayed an entire tribe of aboriginals in an act of homophobia, it should have no bearing on the relability of their works overall; it would just be evidence of a bias to take into consideration. PCHS-NJROTC ^{(Messages)Have a blessed day.} 15:56, 5 August 2023 (UTC)

I agree with PCHS here. Take one of the articles PG listed as transphobic, [32]. Which part is factually inaccurate? The article is an interview so what is critical for factual reliability is that the person who claims to be a doctor is and that their statements are accurately reported in the article. The views of the doctor are basically the doctor's views/opinions. We wouldn't treat them as fact. As Blueboar and Rhododentrites note, when you have a source that is heavy on commentary and opinion we shouldn't assess their reliability the same way we would assess a factual news report. Back to the article in question, we can grant that the doctor is giving their honest testimony but that doesn't mean the doctor's assessment/analysis of the situation is correct any more than an eye witness's recall of an event is correct. We can decide the article has no weight because the doctor is anonymous and the source is POV motivated and the conclusions reached are unpopular but none of those mean the source made things up. Making things up is the justification for deprecation, not reaching a conclusion people don't like. Springee (talk) 18:11, 5 August 2023 (UTC)

"if it were discovered that one of these men slayed an entire tribe of aboriginals in an act of homophobia, it should have no bearing on the relability of their works overall". Okay dude, whatever you say.

As for Rufo's misinformation, he isn't just presenting it as an opinion, he's also presenting misinformation as a factual basis for his opinion. In other words, he is using lies to make his opinions seem more legitimate. These claims attributed to this dubious anonymous doctor are WP:FRINGE and are far outside of mainstream medical claims, but they are accepted by Rufo as truth with only the flimsiest pretense of plausible deniability. Grayfell (talk) 21:45, 5 August 2023 (UTC)

Please do not make it look like you are quoting my edit. I said nothing about aboriginals. Springee (talk) 22:39, 5 August 2023 (UTC)

Fair, you did not say that, PCHS did immediatly above your comment, which you specifically agreed with. Grayfell (talk) 18:44, 6 August 2023 (UTC)

I agree with their argument. That doesn't mean I support every statement nor that I should be expected to answer for any specific quote. I trust/hope that is something you would generally agree with as well. Springee (talk) 18:51, 6 August 2023 (UTC)

• Option 1 and option 2 As reliable as the widely accepted sources. I'm against all such overgeneralizations but responded in the format of the question. North8000 (talk) 13:21, 31 July 2023 (UTC)
• Option 3, at best they publish minority opinions... But I'm not seeing the sort of active disinformation that would necessitate deprecation. I would treat all of their content as opinion content with the regular restrictions and allowances that come with that. Horse Eye's Back (talk) 16:17, 31 July 2023 (UTC)
• Leaning Option 2, considering that most of their publication is clearly in the form of opinion pieces, which we would already be taken with the appropriate grain of salt. BD2412 T 19:21, 31 July 2023 (UTC)
• Option 2 per Blueboar, North8000, and Springee. It's an opinion journal, and WP:IDONTLIKEIT's opinions/ideology is not a proper basis for deprecation. The other considerations are: it's opinion journal, and there should typically be in-text attribution for controversial statements. GretLomborg (talk) 06:19, 3 August 2023 (UTC)
• Option 2.5, I guess - Opinion content doesn't fit neatly into the taxonomy of WP:RSP, and it seems like we often wind up talking indirectly about WP:WEIGHT rather than WP:RS: what kind of opinion content should be included in an article. Obviously City Journal shouldn't be used for unattributed statements of fact, but when is it appropriate to include the opinions it contains? That's always the hard question. Some opinion content is flagged as red (the Fox News talk shows, for example). Why? Because they blur the lines between news and opinion, and those opinions frequently result in misinformation and misrepresentation. I see some of that in City Journal, too, but it's not nearly as bad as others and gets respect because of who its readers are.
  The City Journal is like the New York Post's older sibling with a couple years of college under its belt. Its New York City is still a lawless hellscape run by inept democratic politicians. Systemic racism is still a fiction promoted by the left. Welfare still hurts rather than helps people. ... but those opinions are framed in terms of concrete policy and public opinion rather than the Post's "woke mayor sets thugs free" rants. Whereas the Post's audience is largely the Fox News audience plus a bunch of aggrieved blue collar locals content to blame the city's woes on whichever bum is in office, City Journal's audience is the mayor and the mayor's staff themselves (or, realistically, whichever conservatives/centrists are in office or running for office). They're not trying to sell a rag to as many people as possible; they're trying to influence policy. It's a think tank publication, not a newspaper. So they have a more serious reputation, even if the underlying messages are the same.
  When should they be given weight? I don't know. A typical way of determining weight of opinions is to include whenever they've been covered by independent reliable sources, but I've never really understood that because then why wouldn't we just cite the other sources directly? Meh. I think it's not handled well by this option 1-4, so I land at 2.5: probably shouldn't be used, but for a partisan opinion publication it's not terrible. — Rhododendrites ^talk \\ 15:49, 4 August 2023 (UTC)
• Option 4 per Grayfell, Psychologist Guy, Silver seren, El D, and Aquillion. From the sources provided, it's pretty clear that City Journal pedle in misinformation in topics, ranging from false medical claims, inventing a conflict over critical race theory, transphobia, climate change, and COVID-19. A former long term contributor to the publication asserts that there was a decline in editorial independence from the publication and the parent think tank after a change in the editorial lead in 2007, and that the Trump presidency coincided with increased "editorial interference coming from the boardroom". That it may be, as some editors say, an opinion journal, and so arguably subject to WP:RSOPINION, does not exclude them from otherwise needing to meet the criteria of being a reliable source. Because of their propensity towards misinformation in multiple fields, and lack of editorial independence from their parent think tank, deprecation is the best course of action here. Sideswipe9th (talk) 19:57, 4 August 2023 (UTC)

  Most of these links are just to CJ itself. That isn't good evidence. Crossroads ^-talk- 23:01, 5 August 2023 (UTC)

• Option 4 per Sideswipe9th. Andre🚐 04:12, 5 August 2023 (UTC)

• Option 1. City Journal is a high-quality source with an editorial staff. It should be considered generally reliable for the reporting of facts. Many of the claims here about misinformation on their part are either false or actually just differences of opinion. Jweiss11 (talk) 22:19, 5 August 2023 (UTC)
• Option 2. Yet another opinion outlet with widely varying output. Sometimes the bulk of RSN feels such sources are circumstantially usable proponents of their POV and other times is intent on marking them as verboten. Hmm. Crossroads ^-talk- 23:06, 5 August 2023 (UTC)
• Option 3: While this is very much an unreliable source, there are times when we might want to cite it (e.g. the noteworthy views of previous police chiefs, as an example of mainstream conservative discourse on cities, some of its earlier more scholarly articles, noteworthy opinion pieces by notable conservative commentators) and so it would be a massive overreaction to deprecate. Most of the arguments above for deprecation are really arguments for general unreliability, except that the semi-academic appearance might mislead people. The examples of active disinformation are not compelling to me; these are mostly either in areas where we'd look for more solid sources anyway or simply hyper-partisan presentation.

“Earlier more scholarly articles” is a fallacious statement. Take, for instance, the second of the 99,100 citations of City Journal reported by Google Scholar: a 2015 City Journal article. It is cited by 64, including Oxford University Press’ The British Journal of Criminology, by the peer-reviewed journos Journal of Economic Literature (which begins: “We review economics research regarding the effect of police”), Criminal Justice Policy Review, Qualitative Sociology, Nature Human Behaviour, by the Michigan Law Review, by 11 books, and obviously by 47 other scholarly articles.
For decades, scholars in all continents have continued to cite City Journal tens of thousands of times in peer-reviewed journals, in law reviews, and in books because authors and scholars deem the Journal a reliable source, whether they agree or disagree with its assertions. That a Wikipedia !vote might end up asserting that thousands of researchers for decades have been fools beggars belief. XavierItzm (talk) 02:35, 20 August 2023 (UTC)

I've seen scholars cite people to say that they are wrong. Being highly cited does not mean that City Journal is viewed as reliable by scholars. 2600:4040:475E:F600:98CA:7075:DDD6:3F63 (talk) 02:40, 20 August 2023 (UTC)

You can peruse the 100,000 scholarly articles that cite the City Journal and try and come with a statistic. The evidence of 100,000 citations I present, you present... what? Speculation? I've provided full citations above, but, to assuage your concerns, here is another random peer-reviewed citation of the 2015 City Journal article cited above, this one in Crime & Delinquency: «and George Kelling, a progenitor of broken windows theory, explained, “[police] will necessarily target high-crime areas, and those tend to have a pre- ponderance of African-Americans and Hispanics and are usually the poorest neighborhoods in the city” (Bratton & Kelling, 2015, p. 4). Bratton and Kelling’s assertion is well-suited to quantitative testing» (all bracketing in the original). The resultant peer-reviewed quantitative testing ends up neither proving nor disproving the Citi Journal, but blandly stating: «Results suggest that urban and suburban policing dynamics are quite different [...] Perhaps previous research on racial threat found a positive relationship because it focused on cities.»
Anyway, the City Journal was a reliable source reputable enough to be properly cited as basis for quantitative hypothesis testing in contexts outside its remit, and the author was unable to refute it in his chosen context. Evidence of reliable sourcing just doesn't get any more solid than that. XavierItzm (talk) 03:58, 20 August 2023 (UTC)

So being cited a lot = reliable? At least, that is what I am getting from this and other posts. 2600:4040:475E:F600:98CA:7075:DDD6:3F63 (talk) 04:11, 20 August 2023 (UTC)

The above statistics and detailed citations demonstrate that City Journal meets WP:SCHOLARSHIP and WP:USEBYOTHERS by a mile and a half, which helps determine it meets WP:SOURCE. Some people for whatever reason are willing to say they visited the Journal's homepage, took a dislike to it, and so it should be banned, but observe WP:SOURCESDISAGREE mandates "NPOV, fairly representing all majority and significant-minority viewpoints published by reliable sources". XavierItzm (talk) 08:47, 20 August 2023 (UTC)

• Option 2: Unclear or additional considerations apply. First, this RFC is asking about two at once. Second, why ask ??? By WP:RS, a RS question is supposed to be upon a situation to be judged where WP:RSCONTEXTMATTERS -- and here there seems only the RationalWiki article involved but no longer a specific edit up for discussion and even the cite item originally in question seems no longer there so the topic seems mooted. I'm not seeing a need or evidence for broadly categorising sites as universally good or bad from just one article and a no-longer existing edit or cite. Cheers Markbassett (talk) 20:36, 23 August 2023 (UTC)

• Option 4 preferred or 3 per above mostly. It is functionally an outlet for a think tank, and to call it propaganda wouldn't be completely inaccurate. DontKnowWhyIBother (talk) 16:24, 29 August 2023 (UTC)

References

RfC to deprecate RationalWiki

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

Open wikis are not reliable sources, this was agreed many years ago. The first two sentences of the RfC statement are asking us to confirm the status quo - there should be no need for an RfC for this. --Redrose64 🌹 (talk) 23:31, 4 August 2023 (UTC)

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While we're on this topic, I think we should seriously consider deprecation of RationalWiki the in the same fashion we have deprecated Baidu Bake. It's an open wiki, so it automatically fails WP:RS (anyone arguing otherwise ought to be templated for disruptive editing) and WP:ELNO. One won't find a lot of links to it because I occasionally sweep the encyclopedia for inappropriate links to it (I've seen it used as a reference and as an external link), but it has been used in the reference desk (which I have left alone), and it's used as a primary source in its own article (this should include the sources that merely provide direct quotes of RationalWiki without further in-depth analysis, such as the one in the lede). RationalWiki has a history of its organization's board members spamming links to the site and then disruptively editing when these actions are challenged, making the site a candidate for the spam blacklist. [33] [34] [35] [36] It hosts content created by multiple users banned from Wikipedia (two of whom received WMF office bans for serious misconduct), and links to such content could be considered ban evasion.

RationalWiki is a particularly problematic source because it is admittedly biased and extremely unstable (editor turnover is very high). Reliable sources describe the site as one that "by their own admission engages in acts of cyber-vandalism." In the early days, it was a hang out place for trolls like User:Keegscee (who is office banned from WMF projects for harassment of Wikipedians and maintains a sysop account in good standing there despite users downplaying this fact because his account is inactive), and its content has slowly morphed into this strange mix of Encyclopedia Dramatica, left wing Kiwi Farms, Reddit, Liberapedia, and Wikipedia. It is admittedly not encyclopedic. For a nice example of the quality and seriousness of the project see the block log and user page history for dummy account Punching Bag (this revision advocating violence by a respected "old guard" member is particularly lovely), the Goat article (which is in the mainspace vs. the "fun" space, potentially leading certain members of the human race such as children or people with disabilities to believe this is serious), and the cunt article. The bar to become a sysop on RationalWiki is extremely low, with users who have just recently joined often being granted the toolset without even asking for it (it was the first wiki I was ever an administrator on, as a matter of fact), so even the main page can be edited by pretty much anyone, much less pages about the site's history, site policies, etc. Known trolls like User:MarcusCicero and User:Dyskliver (who is office banned on WMF projects) have won moderator and board member elections and allowed to claim those titles. It historically had a policy of not permanently blocking anyone (including highly problematic trolls like User:Grawp), hence the "vandal bin" feature where people they considered annoying could still edit but were restricted to one edit every 30 minutes.

The cherry on top of all of this is that, although there is no article about me on the wiki, Dyskliver (who they finally banned for harassing other people), Oxyaena, and Bongolian have engaged in doxing by posting personal information about me on certain pages which remain on the wiki (I won't link for obvious reasons, though I will say that some of it is erroneous, and they have made some claims about me that are outright libeous). Strangely enough, despite RationalWikians attempting to downplay Keegscee's involvement in their project, the same exact information was posted on Wikipedia by Keegscee (and subsquently oversighted) in 2016, prior to it being posted on R-W by Dyskliver, Oxyaena, and Bongolian, so chances are there's still a connection even if it's in private away from public view. Dyskliver was the mastermind of this all of this, which he did in retaliation for me blocking him on Conservapedia based on solid CheckUser evidence (something RationalWiki lacks), and the rest of the community there endorsed this behavior. I understand that this aspect may be too much for this forum to consider and may require involvement of ArbCom or the WMF office, but if the source can be deprecated via this venue, there is no reason to involve them.

All of this considered, I pray that the community will consider deprecation, blacklisting, and WP:LINKLOVE treatment of RationalWiki. PCHS-NJROTC ^{(Messages)Have a blessed day.} 22:31, 4 August 2023 (UTC)

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

Discussion (RationalWiki)

• Option 4 for the reasons stated above. PCHS-NJROTC ^{(Messages)Have a blessed day.} 22:31, 4 August 2023 (UTC)

  Why is this needed? Wikis aren't reliable sources, WP:UGC. Schazjmd (talk) 22:41, 4 August 2023 (UTC)

• Option 4 Well it's automatically not a WP:RS as it's an open wiki, there's nothing more we need to do. That being said, the edit filter functionality of deprecation would be helpful in this case. Canterbury Tail talk 22:41, 4 August 2023 (UTC)

  Would it be possible to edit filter "wiki" in the root domain of any url? That could be helpful. Schazjmd (talk) 22:44, 4 August 2023 (UTC)

• Option N/A, procedural close It is a wiki. It's not a reliable source. The only potential use of it is in the article about itself and maybe if there's ever an article that has a section discussing RationalWiki in news sources regarding another topic and RationalWiki admins make a public response. Though even in that unlikely latter situation, I would think the response would be included in news sources anyways and cited to those, not to RationalWiki itself. Therefore, I see no reason to deprecate or even have a reliable source discussion on it. It's not a reliable source at all, so it doesn't fall under this noticeboard. Silverseren^C 22:44, 4 August 2023 (UTC)

  Though I will say that someone starting an RfC on a source because of a personal dispute is highly questionable in itself. Your COI on this topic means you shouldn't be involved in any of this whatsoever on Wikipedia. Silverseren^C 22:47, 4 August 2023 (UTC)

• Ireelevant RFC, procedural close. It's a wiki. It's already automatically depreciated as a matter of policy. We don't need this RFC, and it is likely only filed to rant. Close and hat. oknazevad (talk) 22:46, 4 August 2023 (UTC)
  • I agree that it should be obvious, but it wouldn’t be the first wiki deprecated (I think Baidu Bake is a wiki, yes?), there have been lengthy discussions on the matter, partly because of COI people trying to keep links to the site, and the site is used as a primary source which should not be happening because of the low bar to obtain administrative privileges. Deprecation settles the matter once and for all. PCHS-NJROTC ^{(Messages)Have a blessed day.} 23:13, 4 August 2023 (UTC)

    Links to those "lengthy discussions" on this? Schazjmd (talk) 23:16, 4 August 2023 (UTC)

    No problem. This was a long discussion that ended in stale mate, only for an uninvolved user to remove the link later. Deprecation would have prevented this. PCHS-NJROTC ^{(Messages)Have a blessed day.} 23:20, 4 August 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.

Epsom and Ewell History Explorer

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

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The reliability of a source I have used is being challenged. Please see Talk:Woodcote Park, where it is being challenged as user generated content. The source is https://eehe.org.uk/. Reading the "About us" section of the website, the website is written by volunteers working closely with the History Centre at Bourne Hall, a public library and local history museum in Ewell. I would not say this is on a par with user generated content at all. They are volunteers, but still experts in local history, and the content is sourced largely from information provided by the Epsom and Ewell Local and Family History Centre. They state that they do their best to ensure accuracy and maintain full editorial control of the content. It is an incredibly rich resource for local history. Is it a reliable source for the content I've written in Woodcote Park? Best wishes, Polyamorph (talk) 16:24, 28 August 2023 (UTC)

What evidence can you provide that the website has "a reputation for fact-checking and accuracy"? Has it been cited e.g. in academic works on local history? AndyTheGrump (talk) 16:49, 28 August 2023 (UTC)

I can search regarding actual use of the site as an academic resource, but in the meantime this link indicates the history Centre is the place to go for any information on local history https://www.surreycc.gov.uk/culture-and-leisure/local-history-centres/epsom-and-ewell, is that sufficient in itself? The fact that it's staffed by volunteers is, I think, neither here nor there. Polyamorph (talk) 16:55, 28 August 2023 (UTC)

@AndyTheGrump: Yes it has been cited in academic works [37], [38], [39], [40] to link four books. Polyamorph (talk) 17:13, 28 August 2023 (UTC)

Local councils provide information on facilities they provide as a matter of course. That indicates nothing of consequence. As for the citations, they aren't particularly inspiring, given that the topics seem far removed from the subject matter concerned. Better than nothing, but not really indicative of general reliability, in my opinion.

Incidentally, you don't seem to have notified the individual you are in dispute with that you have started this discussion. You probably should. AndyTheGrump (talk) 21:05, 28 August 2023 (UTC) @SchroCat: FYI.

A couple of these are certainly not academic sources and I can't see the reference in one of the academic sources (although I only have a partial view of the work, so can't say completely). - SchroCat (talk) 08:57, 29 August 2023 (UTC)

Notified (didn't realise it was a requirement). [41] comments on using the website as a resource. Another book: [42]. When you say far removed from the subject matter are you referring to "Woodcote Park" or local history in Surrey in general? Because surely if they are reliable source for the latter then it has to also be considered a reliable source for the former. Polyamorph (talk) 22:00, 28 August 2023 (UTC)

More info on the centre: https://eehe.org.uk/?p=29767, although I appreciate you already said you don't find that sufficient. But they sit on a large collection of resources and state they do their best to ensure accuracy - surely this must count for something re:reliability? Cheers Polyamorph (talk) 22:05, 28 August 2023 (UTC)

I'd suggest that a local historical society can be trusted as much as anything to keep good records and report on them reliably. However, the difference between them and an academic historian reporting on the subject is that the academic would cross-check the documents at the historical society with corresponding documentation and evidence elsewhere from the time to put together a whole story. So a local historian is reliable to report that this and that factual documented event happened, but less so that these were the attitudes and trends or murky details of the times. Academic historians would be the appropriate source for the latter. SamuelRiv (talk) 23:04, 28 August 2023 (UTC)

@SamuelRiv: Right, so in the context of Woodcote Park, it is mostly being used to evidence historical events that happened . So provided it is only used for such instances, and not to over rely on the essays for the murkier details, then would it be OK to use? It is, of course, not the only source being used for much of the content that it's supporting, in most cases multiple sources support the same fact, but the Epsom and Ewell Explorer might give a particular date or detail that is missing in other sources and hence is useful to include. Polyamorph (talk) 01:30, 29 August 2023 (UTC)

@SamuelRiv: Please could you also comment on the claim by SchroCat that it’s unreliable. It’s a volunteer’s local history society, which is the equivalent to a fan site. It doesn’t pass WP:UGC. From what I can gather from your comment, you agree that the resource is reliable as a source of historical facts, but not for any wider interpretation of the events? To be honest, I don't think I'm particularly using it for the latter but I can certainly go through and check. Polyamorph (talk) 07:52, 29 August 2023 (UTC)

It is a local history society. They don't include sources for their findings, which is something of a problem, they don't identify the people behind the pages (so there is no way of knowing whether the person behind them has any specialist training or academic background to know how to deal with the information sources - whatever they are) and much of their output attempts to draw conclusions that are not there, and reporting as fact things that appear in other sources with several different alternatives. This makes it unreliable in my eyes. - SchroCat (talk) 08:57, 29 August 2023 (UTC)

They do not describe themselves as a society, let's stick to verifiable information - it's a council funded history centre with large library and archive resources. Authors of articles are detailed in Epsom and Ewell History Centre Newsletters - this is the latest - https://eehe.org.uk/wp-content/uploads/2019/05/NewsletterFeb2023.pdf. It is very clear they are serious about verification, I already recognise one of the authors (Le Messurier) from their book. Polyamorph (talk) 09:12, 29 August 2023 (UTC)

Having resources does not mean that the people who write their webpages understand how to read primary sources properly or know how to question them. History is more than just repeating what things seen on bits of paper. Looking at the obituaries of two of the volunteers they have in that newsletter, I see zero evidence of a background in historical research, academic rigour or any reason why we would think them reliable. They are members of a local history society. The newsletter even manages to open citing and referring to a Daily Mail article, which does not demonstrate a level of academic rigour that would make this a reliable source. - SchroCat (talk) 09:25, 29 August 2023 (UTC)

What society are they members of? I don't see how a newsletter citing the DM because the author read an interesting article in it is evidence that the history explorer itself is unreliable. The newsletter lists tabulates the authors of the articles, which was one of your original complaints.Polyamorph (talk) 09:36, 29 August 2023 (UTC)

You may not understand why using the DM is a problem, but it really is a huge red flag. As to a list of names, that's pointless: there is no indication that any of these people have any academic qualifications or that they have any training in how to handle primary source material. - SchroCat (talk) 10:49, 29 August 2023 (UTC)

I perfectly understand the unreliability of the DM but don't see how someone noting that they read an article and linking to the article in a newsletter has any relevance to the website itself. I await SamuelRiv's response to my query. Polyamorph (talk) 10:57, 29 August 2023 (UTC)

It is not clear that they have only cited it as a source because they read the story there. Where does it say that the newsletter article contains no information from the Mail? Showing where information comes from is key to the reliability of any source and, much like the rest of the information on the site, there is extremely limited information on what sources used for what information, nor is there any indication on whether the writers are qualified in questioning and judging the sources they use. - SchroCat (talk) 11:37, 29 August 2023 (UTC)

Paul Le Messurier is an Author and historian, and has published 'Surrey's Military Heritage' in 2019. I don't think casting aspersions about what newspaper people read is helpful. Polyamorph (talk) 11:51, 29 August 2023 (UTC)

Easy tiger: no-one is casting aspersions about anyone, as is very clear in what I have written - it takes an extreme stretch to think that I am dismissing anyone on the basis of what newspaper they read. And Le Messurier, describes himself as an historian, but has a business studies degree and an MBA: there is no evidence of training as a historian, even if he writes on historical matters. He is also just one of the names on the list but, again, there is no information about the backgrounds of any of them. - SchroCat (talk) 12:40, 29 August 2023 (UTC)

They state they read an article in the DM, they then describe what was missing from the article. If anything that's evidence they know what is and isn't reliable. It's all irrelevant though because it's a newsletter, which I purely linked here because it contains a table of authors of the articles in the eehe.org.uk website, which is what you said was missing. I acknowledge your dismissal of the list of authors and links to the articles they wrote on the eehe webpage as "pointless". Again, I await the response of my query to SamuelRiv, which you have responded to here.Polyamorph (talk) 12:59, 29 August 2023 (UTC)

The article in the newsletter isn't irrelevant: it's an example of their output and it likely includes material from the Daily Mail. That brings into question their standards of sources they deem acceptable. It's certainly not evidence they know what is reliable - you're just making up a spurious claim to excuse an unacceptable source, I'm afraid. - SchroCat (talk) 13:03, 29 August 2023 (UTC)

The article in the newsletter is not an article in the website which is in question, i.e. eehe.org.uk. The author of that newsletter is not listed as an author in the website eehe.org.uk. I don't see how it's relevant. In any case, that's enough - you've made your point - I've made mine. I'd like to hear what others have to say. Bye Polyamorph (talk) 13:17, 29 August 2023 (UTC)

If you can't see the connection between the use of unreliable sources in a their output and it being an unreliable source in itself, that isn't something I can't help with, I'm afraid. I note that the Mail is used a few times on the site as a source, which doesn't generate much confidence.

One example: this, with Daily Mail, Daily Sketch (another tabloid), Wikipedia and a blog as sources. Not reliable. - SchroCat (talk) 13:24, 29 August 2023 (UTC)

If you look at the sources, they are referring to the images which come from wikipedia, Daily Mail (1915), Daily Sketch (1915), and Illustrated London News - I don't know about the prose but the author is given as "Written by Peter Reed in September 2012". I've heard you, you've made your point, you don't need to keep bludgeoning it. I would like to hear from others now. Polyamorph (talk) 13:39, 29 August 2023 (UTC)

Really? Exactly where does it say that the list of sources they provide only refers to the images? It doesn't. It's yet another claim you've made without any evidence. There's no bludgeoning: I'm pointing out just where you are making an error in thinking this a reliable source. I am refuting your arguments and providing further examples of where there are problems. I'd also like to hear from others, but if you keep making false statements, I'll keep knocking them over. - SchroCat (talk) 13:45, 29 August 2023 (UTC)

In the image captions. I haven't made any false statements. This entire experience has been thoroughly unpleasant and I have no interest in interacting with you again. I really should have looked at your block log before taking you seriously. Polyamorph (talk) 13:46, 29 August 2023 (UTC)

(edit conflict) Yes, the captions cover the images (even though it should say they are from Wikicommons when they refer to Wikipedia), but there is no indication that the text is also not from those places. The information about the sip being built by "Wm Denny & Brothers of Dumbarton" is either from Wikipedia or anglesey.info. The status of the source anglesey.info is also a dubious one: there is no indication who is behind this site either, so it looks like another unreliable source. That's five unreliable sources in one article that only lists nine sources. My block log has nothing to do with the reliability of the source, so please comment on that, rather than personalising things. - SchroCat (talk) 13:59, 29 August 2023 (UTC)

I find SchroCat analysis convincing, this does appear to be too low quality a source to be heavily used. Horse Eye's Back (talk) 17:16, 29 August 2023 (UTC)

• I've notified users at Talk:Epsom of this discussion, since it is a GA and uses this source - editors there will likely have useful opinions. Polyamorph (talk) 11:16, 29 August 2023 (UTC)
• Request close please could someone close this trashcan fire? Best wishes Polyamorph (talk) 14:02, 29 August 2023 (UTC)
• The discussion has been redirected to Talk:Epsom#Epsom_and_Ewell_History_Explorer by SamuelRiv. I attempted to close this thread but was reverted. Polyamorph (talk) 17:49, 29 August 2023 (UTC)

Because we're discussing a source that could be used on multiple articles. SamuelRiv erred in suggesting we relocate to just one of the articles - this is the point of having discussions on the RSN not individual articles. - SchroCat (talk) 17:56, 29 August 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.

Russian newspaper

Are these Russian newspaper generally reliable and could they be used in the article Battle of Galashki (2002)?

• www.newsru.com
• www.kp.ru (komsomolskoya pravda)
• izvestia.ru
• www.nvo.ng.ru (nezavisimaya)
• www.worldofhistory.ru

WikiEditor1234567123 (talk) 09:29, 30 August 2023 (UTC)

I don't think there is a simple yes/no answer to that since these sources are very different. In general, the media in Russia at that time was still relatively free, but as with any conflict, each side may have their own biases that we need to take into account. So to go from more to less reliable

• Nezavisimaya Gazeta is a well-known newspaper and the article seems legit
• Izvestia likewise is a major newspaper and the article preceded its acquisition by the state-owned Gazprom-media in 2005
• Newsru is a web-only media outlet that belonged to Vladimir Gusinsky. The article was published after he fell out with Putin.
• Komsomolskaya Pravda (kp.ru) is a tabloid, so I would try to limit its usage if other sources are available. The article you linked to is a good example of their reporting style: the title says that "bandits" cut off heads of two soldiers whereas in the article one guy just says it happened and they don't report it as a fact.
• Worldofhistory is just a website with no editorial policy and the author of the article doesn't seem to be a subject-matter expert, so I wouldn't use it.

Alaexis_¿question? 11:35, 30 August 2023 (UTC)

Thanks for the answer. By the way, do you know any reliable newspaper that might cover the Battle of Galashki in 2002? WikiEditor1234567123 (talk) 11:46, 30 August 2023 (UTC)

The New York times has at least two articles on the battle. They are linked on the battle's Wikipedia page. Cortador (talk) 15:13, 30 August 2023 (UTC)

San Francisco Bay View and People's Dispatch at Ruchell Magee

This San Francisco Bay View article contains a specific plea for money for Ruchell Magee; can it be used?

• "The Coalition to Free Ruchell Magee and other supporters are raising money to ease Ruchell’s transition from prison. Please consider making a donation HERE."

It is now used to source content left over from the initial OR/POV version of the article, which survived AFD as citation 38 in the "Compassionate release" section, and in the "Symbol of resistance" section.

More than a month after Magee's release, no non-partisan or higher quality sources have picked up the information in those two sections, including citations 39 and 40 and People's Dispatch-- described in a previous RSN post as a highly partisan source. SandyGeorgia (Talk) 00:27, 30 August 2023 (UTC)

Also, in terms of reliability, there are some factual confabulations in the San Francisco Bay View article:

• The "$10 worth of marijuana" fails to mention the car reported as stolen and the loaded gun.
• "Carries a penalty of up to five years" fails to mention the previous conviction (albeit bogus as it looks) that triggered sentencing guidelines.
• "Trial lasted two days" fails to mention the re-trial.
• The recounting of the events at the Marin County Civic Center attacks leaves out enough information about Magee's role to be considerably misleading.
• "The trials against Angela and Ruchell were then separated" leaves out considerable information about Magee's behavior that led to that.
• "During the trial, an autopsy of the judge who had been killed clearly showed that Ruchell had not been responsible for his death" is false.[43]
• "This is where his first of 16 parole hearings took place", fails to mention his disciplinary record in prison.

On the other hand, it's the only source I've found that explains the compassionate release. SandyGeorgia (Talk) 00:47, 30 August 2023 (UTC)

As far as I can see the article is only used as a source for the fact that his release is based on a new compassionate release law and an attributed statement by Magee. I don't think either of those uses is problematic. Sure a more neutral source would be nice, but if we don't have that I think this will do. -- Random person no 362478479 (talk) 15:35, 30 August 2023 (UTC)

That's my concern; it's the best source I can find for what it's citing, but the underlying question I have is whether it's OK to use a source that asks for money. For example, we can't do that in External links, per WP:ELNO, but I'm unsure if same applies to using a source as a citation. SandyGeorgia (Talk) 18:10, 30 August 2023 (UTC)

I am not sure this is the kind of thing that is meant by WP:ELNO. I mean is it so different from say an article about a natural disaster that includes a link to the red cross? Personally I think this is a case where a poor source is better than no source or omitting the information. -- Random person no 362478479 (talk) 18:31, 30 August 2023 (UTC)

Ah ha ... the Red Cross example relieves my worry. Thanks! SandyGeorgia (Talk) 19:15, 30 August 2023 (UTC)

SSRN: Published or preprint?

Querying whether this is published anywhere or just a preprint. Jo-Jo Eumerus (talk) 18:15, 28 August 2023 (UTC)

I could not find it published anywhere and the copy says it is not peer reviewed. Its reliability therefore depends on the expertise of the authors, per WP:SELFPUB. TFD (talk) 18:21, 28 August 2023 (UTC)

It is an unreviewed preprint, see the legend on the copy here. John M Baker (talk) 02:48, 31 August 2023 (UTC)

Unofficial translations of works on Internet Archives

Would unofficial translations of Reliable sources that have been posted on the Internet Archives be useable as a reference if the original (non-english) source hasn't been uploaded - in particular, would this translation of Der Krieg in Der Nordsee Volume 7, part of the German Official History of the First World War be OK to use as a source, or is there too much risk of things being mangled in translation (and difficult to verify that it has been distorted, owing to the lack of the original German text).Nigel Ish (talk) 07:51, 31 August 2023 (UTC)

Wikipedia:WikiProject Resource Exchange/Resource Request might be able to get the original and check references. Alaexis_¿question? 08:16, 31 August 2023 (UTC)

Isn't this essentially a SPS? Pavlor (talk) 08:25, 31 August 2023 (UTC)

I tried to research a bit about the translator, Robert Denny II. Assuming this is the same person, the only trace I could find of him is a documentary he made in 1989 ([44]) which seems to push the "That idiot Hitler!" narrative. Maybe his views have changed in the 30 years since then, but I'm not sure I would trust his translations without any additional context. A few regulars of WP:RX are from Germany, so they could likely find you the original work. Curbon7 (talk) 09:00, 31 August 2023 (UTC)

• This review by Jeffrey W.S. Leser, a published author on the subject of Italian troops in World War II, doesn't seem too positive. Apparently these are machine translations and not complete either. See also [45] regarding the quality of the translation. Kges1901 (talk) 09:08, 31 August 2023 (UTC)

I would think that if you had seen the original source and were happy with the translation it would be an appropriate courtesy link to make it easier for English-speaking readers to verify the claim, but I would not want to source a claim to a self-published translation unless it was by someone with established expertise in the topic. Caeciliusinhorto-public (talk) 09:09, 31 August 2023 (UTC)

Sadly, it looks like without access to the original German text, there is too much risk of translation, transcription errors (the books in the series use a very annoying gothic font, so transcription errors are very possible) or just stuff missed out (footnotes appear to have been omitted as well as maps) for it to be used. And that particular volume seems to be rare - according to Worldcat there are no copies in UK libraries.Nigel Ish (talk) 18:14, 31 August 2023 (UTC)

@Nigel Ish: Luckily, the volumes in question of the German official history are available here on Hathi Trust, which has all seven volumes. Kges1901 (talk) 20:01, 31 August 2023 (UTC)

The Hathitrust versions of the books are search only - you cannot actually read any of the text.Nigel Ish (talk) 20:17, 31 August 2023 (UTC)

They are open access and downloadable for me in the United States. If you'd like I can send you the pdf. Kges1901 (talk) 21:02, 31 August 2023 (UTC)

• It shouldn't be used for an exact in-text quote, because that would require citing the translation itself, which we can't do. But otherwise, if you trust the translation, you can just cite the original (perhaps with the translation as a courtesy link, but the cite should otherwise be to the original source, so a native speaker can later verify if necessary or a better translation can be found or the like.) Whether you trust the translation is ultimately a case-by-case thing that comes down to the judgment of individual editors, but unless there's some glaring reason to think it's wrong, it's probably fine - we have to balance the risk of editors being misled by mistranslations with the need for us to avoid putting undue weight on English-language sources. It's probably also best, when relying on poor or machine translations, to go with broad summaries large parts of the work (which even a poor translation is unlikely to change unless it's actively malicious) and avoid citing it for things that rely on a single sentence or their precise choice of wording. Something like eg. multiple paragraphs blaming the loss of a particular battle on a particular general is probably not the result of a translation error and can be reasonably summarized into a sentence attributing that blame; whereas the precise word they use to describe the general's mistake or the specific level of vitriol they use probably can't be relied on. --Aquillion (talk) 19:32, 31 August 2023 (UTC)

Editor rejecting Basic Books, Kent State University Press, Harcourt Brace Jovanovich as reliable sources

Article: Turkish capture of Smyrna

Three separate times the IP 37.155.4.209 has placed tags disputing that works published by Basic Books, Kent State University Press, Harcourt Brace Jovanovich are reliable sources.

Here is the reference: Marjorie Housepian Dobkin, Smyrna 1922: The Destruction of a City (New York: Harcourt Brace Jovanovich, 1971; 2nd ed. Kent, OH: Kent State University Press, 1988); Giles Milton, Paradise Lost: Smyrna, 1922 (New York: Basic Books, 2008).[46]

IP edit summary: "Sources from Armenian nationalists is not reliable. It's biased and neo-fascist."

Diffs:

• [47],
• [48],
• [49]

I have reverted once, but because this falls under EE DS, I cannot do more and additional editors should review this matter.  // Timothy :: talk  12:35, 1 September 2023 (UTC)

I see that the user is asserting things, but anyone can assert anything. The books are published by reliable publishers, if the assertions about the bias of those sources were true, surely other reliable sources would exist that would say so. --Jayron32 13:06, 1 September 2023 (UTC)

Alumnius.net

The 'Alumnius.net' website, [50] which is currently cited in 50 articles, looks questionable as a source to me. There is nothing obvious to indicate that it does anything to verify content, and instead simply includes individuals per the details provided on registration. Any comments? AndyTheGrump (talk) 20:47, 28 August 2023 (UTC)

A quick internet search suggests that it is even worse. They also scrape other websites and if you want them to remove your information from their page demand payment to do so.[51] Basically an extortion racket. Completely unreliable. -- Random person no 362478479 (talk) 22:56, 28 August 2023 (UTC)

Yikes. If that's correct, we should probably blacklist the website entirely. AndyTheGrump (talk) 23:11, 28 August 2023 (UTC)

People can just write in information as well, not usable for anything as there's no way to know if it's just made up or not. -- LCU ActivelyDisinterested ∆transmissions∆ °co-ords° 22:56, 29 August 2023 (UTC)

So it's basically a user wiki or wiki-like then, which disqualifies it as a reliable. The site should indeed be blacklisted then. Cortador (talk) 15:11, 30 August 2023 (UTC)

We seem to be in agreement that blacklisting is appropriate. Since I'm not familiar with how this is done, could someone else perhaps do the necessary? AndyTheGrump (talk) 13:44, 1 September 2023 (UTC)

Swedish Film Database - reliable source for Swedish and non-Swedish films and actors

I bring this here because I think that, for once, we've found a film database that is a reliable source (as opposed to IMdB and so many others at Category:Online film databases). It's published by the Swedish Film Institute. If you look at a typical entry, it's impossible for the public to edit; a reader fills out a form to suggest edits.

One caveat: There are perhaps a dozen short films marked "promoted entry" each year. This category has the note, "Here you will find films that are promoted internationally by the Swedish Film Institute’s International Department." I'm unsure if these entries are truly independent; I suspect they are.

From the "About the Swedish Film Database" page:

• "All in all the Swedish Film Database includes over 90,000 titles – around a quarter of them Swedish – as well as records for more than 365,000 persons who were involved in their creation in some way: directors, screenwriters, actors and so on. In addition there are details of companies, original works and musical works used in films, as well as editorial material in the form of biographies and articles with exciting new gateways into Swedish film."

I learned of this at this ongoing AfD:

• Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Gyurkovicsarna

--A. B. ^{(talk • contribs • global count)} 15:34, 1 September 2023 (UTC)

This resource does not establish notability for films as the guideline is currently written:

• Wikipedia:Notability (films)#Resources

Our guideline for entertainers WP:ENTERTAINER does not explicitly address databases but my personal opinion is that it doesn't:

• The database is reliable, often comprehensive, but terse
• I think the "spirit" of Notability (films) should apply to the notability other film-adjacent works and people vis-à-vis databases

--A. B. ^{(talk • contribs • global count)} 15:49, 1 September 2023 (UTC)

The source seems reliable as the official database of the Swedish Film Institute, similar I would have thought to the similar work by the British Film Institute. I don't believe it would count towards notability, as it's an indiscriminate list of all films released in Sweden. -- LCU ActivelyDisinterested ∆transmissions∆ °co-ords° 20:17, 1 September 2023 (UTC)

@ActivelyDisinterested, I’m glad to learn of a second reliable database. Thanks!

As I noted above, film databases don’t establish notability.

—A. B. ^{(talk • contribs • global count)} 20:33, 1 September 2023 (UTC)

The National (Emirati news outlet)

The National is widely used in the article about Sultan Al Jaber, as well as a few articles adjacent to him e.g. the one about ADNOC. As noted here, it appears that The National is owned by a royal and PM of the UAE. We thus have a source here owned by the UAE government (or rather someone with immediate stakes in said government) reporting on issues regarding the UAE government, which calls reliability and notability of The National as a source into question. I'd like some input before replacing all the sources, or removing content. Cortador (talk) 11:27, 18 August 2023 (UTC)

• Ownership of an outlet doesn't in itself matter. An owner is there to make money and show off their assets to their friends. You look for independent reports that an outlet is unduly influenced or otherwise unreliable. This has to be evaluated in the context of the region the outlet operates in and subject matter being covered.

I suggest you not remove and replace content unless you have good reason to believe that the specific content of the articles that are being cited is unreliable -- that is, misrepresents or is reckless with facts. Extreme blatant bias is to be expected for an outlet like this (and others in the region), but there are plenty of green sources in RSP that explicitly editorialize all content. Reliability is primarily about things like factual accuracy, omission, and accountability. SamuelRiv (talk) 11:46, 18 August 2023 (UTC)

There are some third-party reports regarding The National e.g. about topics such as human rights being censored as well as coverage of local news, which is what The National is generally used as a source for. Some of the articles also read like promotional pieces e.g. this one states that Al Jaber "has extensive experience of advocacy on environment-related matters, having led a clean energy agenda for almost 15 years", whereas in reality, Al Jaber was widely criticised after becoming the head of COP28 due to his oil ties, and tried to cover major investments into carbon against industry trends with a greenwashing campaign. There several articles (like this one) that uncritically talk about the UAE's 2050 net zero target, whereas ADNOC by itself is projected to make that impossible by ramping up carbon usage. Another article states that ADNOC "has one of the lowest methane intensities in the world", which, as was reported, is apparently based on lies uncritically printed. I think The National is at minimum unreliable for articles on carbon and environmental issues. Cortador (talk) 12:53, 18 August 2023 (UTC)

Certainly the New Republic and AJR peices paint a poor picture of the source. Editors are required to properly judge sources and not just take them at face value. A source having a conflict of interest on what it is reporting is always something to keep in mind. Given that and reliable sources calling it into question, it would seem unreliable for UAE matters. -- LCU ActivelyDisinterested ∆transmissions∆ °co-ords° 13:18, 18 August 2023 (UTC)

That seems fair. I checked out a few of their pieces on international news e.g. the war in Ukraine, and they seem to be fine. All the issues appear to be with articles involving the UAE, ADNOC, climate issues, or related topics. Cortador (talk) 13:26, 18 August 2023 (UTC)

I'd agree with that, with the caveat that re UAE topics it's presumably reliable for the views of officials or for banal facts about official stuff, in the way that Chinese state media is for such things in China? BobFromBrockley (talk) 13:34, 22 August 2023 (UTC)

I don't agree with the assessment that Chinese state media are generally reliable for the views of Chinese officials. E.g. a few weeks ago, Qin Gang, China's (now former) foreign minister, disappeared. He then returned and was removed from office. I wouldn't trust any state media quoting him as being reliably reporting on what he actually said. Cortador (talk) 16:27, 22 August 2023 (UTC)

Any bias can simply be mitigated by treating the source like any biased or opiniated source - by balancing it with other, independent sources. Iskandar323 (talk) 16:33, 31 August 2023 (UTC)

• I agree with the comments above. In addition to reliability there are NPOV concerns. There is very little press freedom in UAE (see World Press Freedom Index). Therefore we should expect outlets based there to be biased, especially when it comes to reporting on the Emirati officials. Alaexis_¿question? 13:37, 18 August 2023 (UTC)

@Alexandermcnabb, you live in the UAE and know the area well. Can you weigh in here?

—A. B. ^{(talk • contribs • global count)} 14:44, 24 August 2023 (UTC)

Hi @A. B. and thanks for the OTR. The National is a UAE national newspaper, one of four English language papers here (and the newest of them). Its launch editor was the former editor of The Telegraph in the UK, Martin Newland. Its journalists are well respected and broadly do a good and sound job - but they work within a society where respect is important and they would generally be uncritical of government and/or senior figures. If we're looking at factual reporting, The National is factually sound and well grounded and its journalists competent - if you want criticism of the UAE's strategy, leaders or prominent figures, there are plenty of foreign outlets delighted to provide that. But the very idea people would contemplate deprecating a UAE national newspaper because they 'don't trust it' or 'there's no press freedom' is strange to me - you'd gut pretty much every WP article about the country if you did that - and that's pretty harsh western bias, right there. The UAE has a right to its national news media and we, as editors, have a right to take - and balance - facts from those media and use them in Wikipedia. WP:DUE very much applies, IMHO. And that's my 2p worth right there!!! Best Alexandermcnabb (talk) 04:41, 25 August 2023 (UTC)

No one has suggested deprecating the article, the most that has been said is that given reports represented that it should be used with caution for UAE matters. Obviously people have the right to their own national views, but that's very different from sources that have been alleged to have governmental interference. Do you have anything to add about the reports from AJR and New Republic? -- LCU ActivelyDisinterested ∆transmissions∆ °co-ords° 20:17, 25 August 2023 (UTC)

The suggestion was deprecation of the medium as a reliable source. AJR is a blog post - surprised to see that quoted on the RS noticeboard - and that by a person who says he didn't serve on the desk he is commenting on. The New Republic piece, 10 years old, seems to be a bunch of kvetches regarding editors self-censoring. I'm sure you'll find journalists who worked at The National willing to trash it - you'll also find journalists out there who cut their teeth and started sound careers at the paper. Generally the former category will tend to be more vocal. I'm not about to die on the hill of UAE press freedom, but there's a very nuanced conversation to be had there about the nature of societies and how they are served by their media. The National is, in my experience, factually reliable and employs (and has in the past) many fine journalists who do a good job. Are we looking at directly applied state control a la CGTN or RT? No, we are not. Not for The National or, indeed, the privately owned Gulf News, Khaleej Times or Gulf Today. Arabian Business is, BTW, published by ITP - an expatriate-owned publisher. Best Alexandermcnabb (talk) 05:07, 28 August 2023 (UTC)

@Alexandermcnabb: Don't you have a COI with The National or was that a different Emirati publication? Horse Eye's Back (talk) 16:15, 31 August 2023 (UTC)

They wrote about me, hardly a COI. I've been interviewed on British TV, too. Does that preclude having a view on the BBC? No, I thought not. Best Alexandermcnabb (talk) 04:52, 1 September 2023 (UTC)

Deprecation has a very specific meaning in relation to the reliability of sources, no-one has suggested that this source be deprecated. Nor has anyone suggested they are similar in nature CGTN or RT. Actually your own post The National is factually sound and well grounded and its journalists competent - if you want criticism of the UAE's strategy, leaders or prominent figures, there are plenty of foreign outlets delighted to provide that , appears to the be sentiment of most editors. That it's reliable, but might have a blind spot for UAE matters. -- LCU ActivelyDisinterested ∆transmissions∆ °co-ords° 20:40, 1 September 2023 (UTC)

Very few national news outlets do a good job of ribbing their own governments. The BBC, as an example, is no longer a fantastic source for particularly pointed criticism or independent commentary on the British government, not since its leash has been tightened. Iskandar323 (talk) 16:52, 31 August 2023 (UTC)

• General comment: Ι very strongly disagree with the position expressed above that "[o]wnership of an outlet doesn't in itself matter", in the context of media. On the contrary, ownership is in itself of supreme importance. A trivial demonstration of that fact is the existence of a potential conflict of interest. Ownership might not always be used as a stand-alone criterion for source reliability but it can facilitate enormously the sleuthing for bias, promotional intent, propaganda, etc.

Specific suggestion about the The National: Although I do not happen to possess strong evidence of the owners influencing the paper's content, I believe that The National should be treated as the "house organ" of the UAE ruling family. In other words, for anything related to the persons and the affairs of the royal family The National is practically a primary source par excellence and, thus, generally unreliable. It should only be used as a source for "straightforward, descriptive statements of facts", and, even then, with a lot of care. -The Gnome (talk) 08:43, 1 September 2023 (UTC)

Focus (German magazine)

I've seen German magazine Focus being cited many times on German Wikipedia, an in general it is highly regarded in Germany, and I'm considering the idea of citing Focus in English Wikipedia as well, including politics, culture, sports etc. For example, [52][53][54][55][56][57][58][59] and some other. However, I don't know if Focus can be actually considered a reliable source. IvanchukW (talk) 18:05, 26 August 2023 (UTC)

The last time it was discussed was Wikipedia:Reliable sources/Noticeboard/Archive 400#Focus (German magazine) the sentiment of which was that it was generally reliable but a bit tabloidy. Probably find a better source when it comes to WP:BLPs. -- LCU ActivelyDisinterested ∆transmissions∆ °co-ords° 18:24, 26 August 2023 (UTC)

There are three big weekly news magazines in Germany: Der Spiegel, Stern (magazine), and Focus (German magazine) and I would rank their quality in this order. Focus uses lots of splashy graphics and pictures and also reports on topics that are less "high-brow" than what you usually find in Spiegel. Focus_(German_magazine)#Profile gives a good description. I would still consider it generally reliable. Also notice that Focus Online and Focus are related, but not the same (similar to Der Spiegel (online) and Der Spiegel). -- Random person no 362478479 (talk) 20:52, 26 August 2023 (UTC)

I agree with this assessment. The online presence is generally more tabloid-esque (goes for both Der Spiegel and Focus), and I'd also say that Focus is a bit more sensationalist in general. Cortador (talk) 11:43, 28 August 2023 (UTC)

• The publication has been the origin of many an investigative piece of journalism in its history and continues to be so. It is true that its pages tend to be sensationalist, colorful, and often provocative, all attributes that are found in tabloids, but which are not, on their own, enough to render it a tabloid publication. Content is primary; form follows at a distance. Among the big three German magazines, Focus seems to be the wild, unruly, often annoying sibling who's also, though, as honest as the lot of them. Random case in point, its reportage on the impending bankruptcy of Greece: All German magazines reported essentially the same story but not the same way and only Focus found itself accused in a Greek court of "insulting the country's national symbols," etc. (Acquitted.) I believe we can keep the designation of Focus as reliable with few worries. -The Gnome (talk) 14:41, 1 September 2023 (UTC)

  "Among the big three German magazines, Focus seems to be the wild, unruly, often annoying sibling who's also, though, as honest as the lot of them." It is by far the newest of the three (Spiegel: 1947, Stern: 1948, Focus: 1993) so it had to find a new niche. -- Random person no 362478479 (talk) 21:16, 1 September 2023 (UTC)

Alternatively, it could be that the German readership, along with most of German society, had changed significantly after forty-five years, i.e. from 1947/48 to 1993, and the newborn responded to the new environment and adjusted. The change might have affected a significant portion of the readership or simply had created a new market segment, aka "niche." I have not studied this. -The Gnome (talk) 07:35, 2 September 2023 (UTC)

topitalianscientists.org

• https://topitalianscientists.org/
• [60] link search
  • Paolo Zamboni#Awards and recognition (example, one of ~30)

About thirty articles currently cite this. It smells like a "Who's Who" for scientists, and not in a good way. However I don’t read Italian and its FAQ says something about H-indexes, so maybe it is legit. I can’t really tell. ☆ Bri (talk) 23:58, 3 September 2023 (UTC)

There is a related English language wiki: https://en.wiki.topitalianscientists.org/Main_Page -- Random person no 362478479 (talk) 00:07, 4 September 2023 (UTC)

"Evaluation of Top Italian Scientists using Google Scholar (with h-index >= 30) and Scopus when link to Google Scholar My Citations does not exist." Not reliable at all. -- Random person no 362478479 (talk) 00:12, 4 September 2023 (UTC)

Sources for Muhammad

Are the following sources reliable for the article on Muhammad:

• Rodgers, Russ (2017). The Generalship of Muhammad: Battles and Campaigns of the Prophet of Allah. University Press of Florida. ISBN 978-0-8130-5459-9.
• Rodinson, Maxime (2021-03-02). Muhammad. New York Review of Books. ISBN 978-1-68137-493-2.
• Glubb, Sir John Bagot (2001). The Life and Times of Muhammad. Cooper Square Press. ISBN 978-0-8154-1176-5.

Kaalakaa (talk) 15:49, 28 August 2023 (UTC)

Note that the books are actually older. The book by Russ Rodgers is from 2012, the book by Maxime Rodinson is from 1960, the book by John Bagot Glubb is from 1970. So at least the books by Rodinson and Glubb won't be up to date. -- Random person no 362478479 (talk) 18:06, 28 August 2023 (UTC)

It doesn't mean they are unreliable, unless consensus among other scholars shows that they are. There's plenty of works from the mid-twentieth century, and earlier, that still represent the scholarly consensus, and on a whole plethora of topics. --Jayron32 13:04, 29 August 2023 (UTC)

Hi @Jayron32, if you don't mind, would you be willing to participate in the discussion regarding this issue here? Thank you. Kaalakaa (talk) 03:34, 30 August 2023 (UTC)

Sorry @Kaalakaa:, I don't have any insight onto the reliability of the sources specifically. Perhaps the sources are good, or perhaps they are shit for other reasons, but the fact that they are 60 years old is not a reason to consider them strictly unreliable. You need to dig deeper into the academic reputation of the authors to find out what the scholarly consensus is on their reliability. Just being old does not mean that the scholarship is bad, especially if later scholarship largely agrees with it. If later scholarship doesn't, then that's different. But age is not, of itself, a reason to decide that something is unreliable. If it had been reliable enough when it was written, and nothing has later come along to disagree with that earlier assessment, then it doesn't magically become unreliable simply over time. Reliability doesn't have an expiration date. If the sources aren't reliable for other reasons, okay then, but age shouldn't be the sole determining factor.--Jayron32 12:28, 30 August 2023 (UTC)

Thank you, @Jayron32, for your answer. However, I'm all for the use of the three sources, especially the first one, because the publisher is the University Press of Florida, which states on their website:

The UPF faculty advisory board, composed of faculty members from each of the 11 universities in the State University System, assesses and approves all books that have passed peer review and are slated for publication, ensuring that the peer review process is thorough.

But another user, @Iskandar323, and an admin named @Anachronist appear to be attempting to dismiss it, labelling the author as obscure. Kaalakaa (talk) 12:49, 30 August 2023 (UTC)

The point has been missed on the page, where the discussion is not about reliability, but about relative degrees of source quality given the abundance of options. Iskandar323 (talk) 13:07, 30 August 2023 (UTC)

No of course not. That is not what I meant. I just mentioned it in case the OP chose them because of the recent dates. A lot of great history books are from the 60s and 70s. And the fact that the books by Rodinson and Glubb are still in print suggests that they are classics. In fact both books (and authors) seem to have good reputations. But after skimming the talk page discussion I think the real question isn't whether the books are reliable as much as whether they're the best among the many options. Having read none of the three books I have no opinion on that. -- Random person no 362478479 (talk) 16:00, 30 August 2023 (UTC)

It's possible for even the best of sources to be given excessive WP:WEIGHT - there is no source whose quality is high enough for us to use it for the entire article, or even the majority of a well-developed article. In that case, the issue isn't really any problem with the sources themselves, so the thing to do is just to find and use additional sources. --Aquillion (talk) 23:57, 30 August 2023 (UTC)

It's not really clear why the argument about these three books is getting so heated, but looking at the talk page the root of it seems to be an argument about WP:NPOV. The WP:RS argument seems more like a placeholder for that. -- Random person no 362478479 (talk) 00:09, 31 August 2023 (UTC)

Late update: It seems that there are no more issues regarding the 2nd and 3rd sources since this comment of mine. Just the 1st one left. Kaalakaa (talk) 01:03, 4 September 2023 (UTC)

References

Is Worldpopulationreview.com a source I should cite?

I was updating the Akiachak, Alaska article and noticed that the aforementioned website had quite useful information about the 2020 census data for Akiachak. However, the interface and the amount of ads on the website are off putting, which makes me wonder if it is a deprecated or otherwise untrustworthy source. I asked this question on my talk page and the Teahouse but have been told this would be a better place to ask. Thank you! Slamforeman (talk) 15:05, 4 September 2023 (UTC)

No. See:

Wikipedia:Reliable_sources/Noticeboard/Archive_261#World_Population_Review

Wikipedia:Reliable_sources/Noticeboard/Archive_271#World_Population_Review

Wikipedia:Reliable_sources/Noticeboard/Archive_380#Is_'World_Population_Review'_a_reliable_source?

Wikipedia:Reliable_sources/Noticeboard/Archive_411#Rfc:_World_Population_Review

-- Random person no 362478479 (talk) 16:13, 4 September 2023 (UTC)

Thanks very much. I feel like I should ask though, if this much consensus has been reached, why is the website not listed on a list of untrustworthy sources or a list of sources not to cite? Slamforeman (talk) 17:10, 4 September 2023 (UTC)

I would like to clarify to see if this source is allowed

I'm wanting to get the tour date list for the The Spicy Meatball Tour that has a couple missing dates (and one with the incorrect day listed) I was told reviews of concerts would be ok sources to prove the show happened (dates, venue, etc). In conclusion I'd like to know if this is a reliable source as I don't see it on amy list. Thomasthedarkenguine (talk) 21:06, 25 August 2023 (UTC)

• Before we explore whether the source is reliable, I have to ask whether the material is appropriate. Listing upcoming tour dates seems promotional. Reviews are fine for past dates. Blueboar (talk) 21:24, 25 August 2023 (UTC)

  This is for a show that's come and gone, making it a past date. Thomasthedarkenguine (talk) 21:49, 25 August 2023 (UTC)

  Perhaps I was vague the source is from a review of a Hellfest concert and the review was released a few days after the concert occurred. Thomasthedarkenguine (talk) 16:08, 26 August 2023 (UTC)

  So, the article you cited does not mention the Spicy Meatball Tour. How do we know the appearance at Hellfest was part of the tour, and not a one-off performance? Being a date that occurred during the tour period doesn't mean it was part of the tour. So, the source is fine for saying "Tenacious D appeared at Hellfest", but it is NOT fine for saying "The Hellfest date was part of the Spicy Meatball Tour". It does NOT say that. --Jayron32 14:53, 1 September 2023 (UTC)

  I did have another source that said it but it wasn't accepted because it listed tour dates prior to the show happening. I will however find another source to connect the two together. Thomasthedarkenguine (talk) 20:29, 2 September 2023 (UTC)

  I do see something from their official website but I'm still uncertain about if it's allowed. Is a band's official website allowed as a source? Thomasthedarkenguine (talk) 20:31, 2 September 2023 (UTC)

  It depends on what it is used for. See WP:ABOUTSELF. -- Random person no 362478479 (talk) 21:45, 3 September 2023 (UTC)

  I'm talking about a poster for the tour, it is provided by their website. Thomasthedarkenguine (talk) 23:49, 3 September 2023 (UTC)

  I would consider that WP:ABOUTSELF. I'm not sure the information is WP:DUE, but that's another question. -- Random person no 362478479 (talk) 00:19, 4 September 2023 (UTC)

  So if a review of a concert that doesn't mention the tour or a poster isn't allowed, then what would be allowed? Thomasthedarkenguine (talk) 01:07, 4 September 2023 (UTC)

  If I understand this correctly the question is about whether to list their appearance at Hellfest as part of the Spicy Meatballs Tour? This review shows that they appeared, but does not mention a connection to the tour. Meanwhile this poster lists Hellfest as part of the tour on June 18. Together that is enough to satisfy me that the performance at Hellfest did take place and that it was part of the tour. I am not active in this area of Wikipedia, but if this kind of information is usually included in articles about tours (that is what I meant with WP:DUE) then I would say it can be included with these sources. -- Random person no 362478479 (talk) 01:27, 4 September 2023 (UTC)

  So what you're saying is both sources combined are allowed? Thomasthedarkenguine (talk) 17:19, 4 September 2023 (UTC)

Anglican.ink

Is this a reliable source? All references to it have recently been deleted from Anglican Church of Australia on the basis of WP:BLPSPS because it contains articles that republishes material from a personal blog. Anglican.ink is used in may other articles: Anglican Church in North America, Homosexuality and the Anglican Communion, Global South Fellowship of Anglican Churches, etc. All the website says is "Anglican.ink is a service of AnglicanTV Ministries, Inc." StAnselm (talk) 14:15, 3 September 2023 (UTC)

If I search for "Anglican Ink" on Google Books, I see that it does get cited a lot; the top result is published by Penn State University Press.[61] StAnselm (talk) 15:26, 3 September 2023 (UTC)

They seem to be cited as primary sources and there seems to be some hedging such as "According to the conservative website Anglican Ink". Scholarly books are free to cite controversial or even factually untrue or unfounded sources and in fact must if for instance they are studying the producer or something related to the source and are going to discuss the controversy or why the source is unfounded. In the Anglican Church of Australia article you mentioned above, the statement the Anglican Ink cite is supporting is "In 2018, the then-Primate of Australia and Archbishop of Melbourne, Philip Freier, released an ad clerum reiterating the current position that clergy cannot perform a same-sex marriage". The headline for Anglican Ink reference was "No sanctions against Melbourne gay marriage priests" while the second reference supporting the same statement was the "ad clerum" and showed that the priests in question had not violated the canons (they were present but did not officiate) and so no sanctions were needed though reiterating that the canons forbade officiating at same-sex marriages. The Anglican Ink article cited the "ad clerum" also but then claimed the priests were probably lying and attacked the writer of the "ad clerum". It had more the flavor of an opinion. Erp (talk) 17:30, 4 September 2023 (UTC)

The "About us" is not clickable. The Staff page lists only two people: a publisher and an executive editor.[62] Comment section is moderated by "five volunteers".[63] And a very large proportion of "news" is written by a single person, George Conger who is also the executive editor suggesting that there is little to no editorial oversight.[64] I would not consider it reliable. There is a large section of press releases that could probably be used as WP:ABOUTSELF, but most of the ones I clicked through had a link to the official source which would probably be preferable for this purpose. -- Random person no 362478479 (talk) 21:42, 3 September 2023 (UTC)

Yes, interesting. Of course, this has come up in relation to articles written by someone else (David Ould) and I wonder whether editorial oversight is being exercised over what he has written. StAnselm (talk) 23:34, 3 September 2023 (UTC)

I see no evidence that republished texts like those from Ould's blog undergo any oversight beyond a publish or don't publish decision. And there is no indication what that decision is based on or who makes it. -- Random person no 362478479 (talk) 23:45, 3 September 2023 (UTC)

AnglicanTV Ministries, Inc is a "501c3" non-profit organization, incorporated on February 5, 2008. AnglicanTV started as a personal ministry of Kevin Kallsen. Then, toward the end of 2007, Kevin sought out like-minded individuals and formed a Board of Directors, which eventually lead to incorporation and non-profit status. The Mission of AnglicanTV Ministries is, "To provide news and commentary important to the 77 million Anglican Christians worldwide; to educate and train church laypersons in video and Internet technology; and to build up the Body of Christ through the creation, distribution, and promotion of multimedia content."
— https://www.youtube.com/@ATVMinistries/about

Kevin Kallsen is also the publisher of anglican.inc. -- Random person no 362478479 (talk) 23:51, 3 September 2023 (UTC)

An article about Kallsen and Conger that does not shed a positive light on them: Christopher Brittain: The Truth of the Gospel, the Gospel of 'Truthiness' and the Future of the Anglican Communion, abc, 29 May 2015 -- Random person no 362478479 (talk) 00:04, 4 September 2023 (UTC)

Thank you @StAnselm for alerting me to this new topic on this thread. I am the editor who has been deleting references that use davidould.net as a source and the anglican.ink references that simply re-publish david ould articles. I do that for all the reasons mentioned in the edit history reasons, that the DO site is a personal blog, it regularly attacks other Anglican priests, especially women priests and so it should not be used as a reliable source for bios of living people, it allows very nasty comments about living people to stay on its site which amount to religious vilification, with some commenters claiming other living priests are apostate and going to hell. When this site is used a source it also fails the WP policy that minority criticisms of living people should not be repeated on their biographical articles. The Anglican ink site reproduces the david ould articles without change, in fact if you go to the end of the Anglican ink articles you will see a note that states the article was originally posted on David Ould and if you click that note you will go to the DO site and find the same article. So I am following WP policies for bios of living people, to use reliable sources, not use minority criticisms of living people and beware of attack sites as sources. LPascal (talk) 01:19, 6 September 2023 (UTC)

Just adding another comment. I am not deleting Anglican ink as an unreliable source in itself. I am only deleting it when it reproduces the DO articles. Other editors can make decisions about Anglican Ink as a source for their articles on other subjects. LPascal (talk) 01:25, 6 September 2023 (UTC)

Is this article in Face2Face Africa a reliable source for Nsude pyramids?

Article is here and is by [65]. Note I just removed a source which used a photographic scanning technique that captures photons in other dimensions.[66] Thanks. Doug Weller talk 12:44, 6 September 2023 (UTC)

Well as she doesn't appear to be a respected authority, no. Slatersteven (talk) 12:46, 6 September 2023 (UTC)

Perhaps more importantly she cites newspapers, not researchers. A non-expert can write a decent and reliable piece about an archeological site, but they should get their information from experts. -- Random person no 362478479 (talk) 18:19, 6 September 2023 (UTC)

Why is Ruetir blacklisted?

I tried to use an article from Ruetir as a source, but couldn't commit the edit as Ruetir is blacklisted. I'm not very familiar with the site, but doing a general search brought up a bunch of articles that use it as a source. The site admittedly looks a bit content mill-esque, but I was just using it to reference the name of a physical edition of a video game. Several online stores also used that name i.e. this wasn't controversial information. I already used a different source, but I was curious why Ruetir is blacklisted. Searching in the archives here brings up no hits whatsoever. Cortador (talk) 11:34, 7 September 2023 (UTC)

• Blacklisted as a copyvio/scraper site. See MediaWiki_talk:Spam-blacklist/archives/February_2022#Media_scraper/copyvio_sites. Black Kite (talk) 12:10, 7 September 2023 (UTC)

  Cheers! Cortador (talk) 13:07, 7 September 2023 (UTC)

Threshold and situations where WP:MEDRS must be met

(disclaimer: I have a discussion going on at the article's page. I am asking here since the line between general vs "biomedical" is blurry to me in this situation) Source use: https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC7572435/ What I used the source for. In article naloxone to support:

 Researchers analyzed 56 successful overdose reversal events between 2016–2018 in New York City by interviewing people who administered naloxone and summarized that 23 out of 56 cases resulted in patient rage. Of 23 rage cases, 15 were categorized as "high level rage" which researchers described as "extreme outbursts that included verbal abuse, intimidation, threats of violence and being spat upon." These responses are generally targeted at the person administering the naloxone, but sometimes also aimed at others around them.

An editor said the said source can not be used, because it is a primary research. I looked at WP:MEDORG and for the type of claim made, I believed this source was just fine. Does what I quoted fall under "biomedical" claim or "general"? I believe the need for higher standard would be for discussions about the effectiveness of certain medication, such as medication A vs B vs placebo.

Does the source I used for the statement above meet the threshold of reliability requirement? Graywalls (talk) 09:19, 5 September 2023 (UTC)

See WP:BMI. If you want Wikipedia to say that a drug resulted in patient rage (and there seems to have been a massive POV-push to make Wikipedia say this), simply find a reliable source for that: there are plenty of reputable reviews of Naloxone and its side effects. However, from what I've read they say that Naloxone is generally safe and useful. Bon courage (talk) 09:46, 5 September 2023 (UTC)

I am NOT trying to say naloxone directly causes it, but rather, to include common response following its use. The research seems reasonably reliable to me for the purpose of showing 15 out of 56 cases reviewed resulted in "high level rage". I put it in a section of its own rather than side effect so it wouldn't be seen as a "side effect" directly caused by naloxone.

So what I am asking the reliable sources noticeboard is if this source reliable enough to document this and whether a statement of such would be considered "biomedical" claim requiring that needs to meet the highest threshold. Graywalls (talk) 09:56, 5 September 2023 (UTC)

A claim that a drug, used a certain way, has a certain side effect, is a biomedical claim. I'm not clear why this would be remotely in dispute. Using a primary research study to support this claim is not per WP:MEDRS. This is a major drug with ample secondary sources. -- Colin°^Talk 11:22, 5 September 2023 (UTC)

• In fact looking at the article history, Graywalls has been doing more of this in the recent past. For example here[67] is added a 1992 (!) case report for a "important side effect that is not documented" Bon courage (talk) 12:15, 5 September 2023 (UTC)

  http://journals.sagepub.com/doi/10.1177/106002809202600211 is not acceptable?? Graywalls (talk) 15:12, 5 September 2023 (UTC)

  No, it's a case report from 1992. It would be hard to imagine a worse source for a topic which has oodles of recent quality sourcing available. To repeat: you need to read MEDRS (preferably before continuing the "MEDRS" deletion spree on the article). Bon courage (talk) 16:51, 5 September 2023 (UTC)

  There's no set expiration date on the report. What objective criteria condemns this as lacking "quality"? I disagree 1992 is too old to be thrown out into irrelevant given it's still something used for the same thing. While WP:MEDDATE says recent, 1992 is not so far behind to make it irrelevant on this matter. I welcome input from other editors on this. Graywalls (talk) 17:10, 5 September 2023 (UTC)

  If you read WP:MEDRS you'd know that case reports are junk sources. Old ones are old junk sources. Bon courage (talk) 18:35, 5 September 2023 (UTC)

  Case reports are only usable on Wikipedia if they are the subject of significant research. And in that case it is the research about the case report that makes it relevant. See e.g. the case report of Anna O. aka Bertha Pappenheim that is of historical interest because of its role in the development of psychoanalysis. We are only interested in case reports if and insofar they are important for the history of science or medicine. Never for anything even remotely resembling a statement of medical information. -- Random person no 362478479 (talk) 20:05, 5 September 2023 (UTC)

This is clearly in MEDS territory. Since this is a claim related to the effects of a drug (even a side effect) on the user it needs to be sorted with medical literature. Springee (talk) 12:32, 5 September 2023 (UTC)

I believed the PMC thing I cited is a medical literature of a sort and believed it met the community expectations of reliability for what it is supporting. Only one editor ever challenged the validity of a source like the one in question here.

I see claiming the effectiveness of Ivermectin would be MEDRS territory, but talking about people having used it believing it works, got sick and ended up hospitalized is general referencing territory. Graywalls (talk) 15:19, 5 September 2023 (UTC)

Please read WP:MEDRS and maybe WP:MEDFAQ and WP:WHYMEDRS for background. Beliefs in themselves are not biomedical considerations but stating or implying something makes somebody sick and lands them in hospital, gets us there. Suggest this is closed now since it's being discussed in 3 places. Bon courage (talk) 15:30, 5 September 2023 (UTC)

I started this, because I'm interested in input from others, not the primary vocal editor questioning the particular source. Graywalls (talk) 15:36, 5 September 2023 (UTC)

What about Case reports that used doses of 0.1 mg/kg (maximum of 2 mg/dose) repeated every 1–2 minutes (10 mg total dose) have shown inconsistent benefit citing https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/23782760/ and As the doses used throughout the literature vary, it is difficult to form a conclusion regarding the benefit of naloxone in this setting. citing https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/12126186 in existing prose? My confusion is in filtering out those PMID things that meet MEDRS and PMID things that do not. Graywalls (talk) 16:46, 5 September 2023 (UTC)

They're both old sources. Anything more recent? (Anyway, this should be at article talk. The article is tagged for a reason). Bon courage (talk) 16:48, 5 September 2023 (UTC)

The entire confusion was because apparently some PMID things being MEDRS ok while other PMID things as you call it are not usable. Graywalls (talk) 16:55, 5 September 2023 (UTC)

Tp repeat (again), you need to read WP:MEDRS. Something having a PMID means pretty much nothing on its own. Bon courage (talk) 17:00, 5 September 2023 (UTC)

Is it a medical claim, if yes it meets the threshold, simples. Slatersteven (talk) 16:09, 5 September 2023 (UTC)

• With this one whether its MEDRS or not is all about framing, if you frame it as the effects of naloxone then its MEDRS but if you were say framing it as the experiences of those administering naloxone ("X% of those administering naloxone experienced... ") then its no longer MEDRS but that doesn't appear to be what you want to do here so yes MEDRS applies. Horse Eye's Back (talk) 16:10, 5 September 2023 (UTC)

  Thank you for your feedback. I will word it differently so it is not making medical claims in this case. Graywalls (talk) 16:18, 5 September 2023 (UTC)

Yes, this would be covered by MEDRS. It's a claim about the side-effects of medication. I can imagine talking about "common response following its use" in a way that doesn't implicate MEDRS, but I think it's clear here that the source and the article are talking about effects caused directly by the medication. Firefangledfeathers (talk / contribs) 16:17, 5 September 2023 (UTC)

I am not sure if you caught the change I made.

• I am NOT trying to say naloxone directly causes it. I just noticed a few minutes ago it was missing the word "not" and I just got around to fixing it.

Graywalls (talk) 16:21, 5 September 2023 (UTC)

What were you doing here[68] when you tried to create a section in the article entitled "Naloxone induced violence"? Bon courage (talk) 16:26, 5 September 2023 (UTC)

My understanding at the time was the source cited met MEDRS. So, I am ok with framing it differently and putting it in section in such that it's not medical claim at all. Graywalls (talk) 16:36, 5 September 2023 (UTC)

Yeah, don't. Primary research is pretty much useless as a basis for Wikipedia content. As it happens, this paper has been picked-up by secondary sources so those may be used to relay any accepted knowledge it contains. Bon courage (talk) 16:45, 5 September 2023 (UTC)

Primary research is pretty much useless as a basis for Wikipedia content.. That's pushing it. With proper context, and the type of primary source, it would be acceptable as said in WP:PRIMARY and WP:PRIMARYNOTBAD. It seems like other editors are saying you're calling mainstream press "fringe". Graywalls (talk) 16:53, 5 September 2023 (UTC)

WP:PRIMARY is overruled by our higher requirements in MEDRS for biomedical claims. Case reports, research studies, clinical trials, etc. are all primary and should not be used as the sole support for any biomedical claim. The best sources would be guidance/SoC statements by major medical bodies reflecting the consensus position on a topic. JoelleJay (talk) 17:12, 5 September 2023 (UTC)

Yeah, I see that for biomedical claim. I'm saying claiming pretty much useless for "Wikipedia content" as opposed to "biomedical claim" is crossing the line. Graywalls (talk) 17:15, 5 September 2023 (UTC)

Wikipedia articles must be based on secondary sources. Primary ones can be useful for touching in details around the edge but you can't have pieces of knowledge resting entirely on obscure primary sources. Bon courage (talk) 17:34, 5 September 2023 (UTC)

Should be based on. Not that reliable PS are prohibited. Also, should ≠ must and the article naloxone is far from being predominantly based on primary sources. Graywalls (talk) 19:01, 5 September 2023 (UTC)

It's always possible to make a case to use a primary source in an unusual way, and maybe get consensus. But in the present case we have a metric craptonne of golden sources, so can safely achieve NPOV the orothodox way, by following those WP:BESTSOURCES. In such situations the desire to use primary sources is usually down to POV-pushing, trying to present material ignored by the best sources. Bon courage (talk) 19:59, 5 September 2023 (UTC)

I did understand what you meant, but thank you for clarifying. I'm saying that readers will interpret both the article language and the cited source as making claims about effects of the drug. Firefangledfeathers (talk / contribs) 16:28, 5 September 2023 (UTC)

If you are describing something that happens to the patient thats MEDRS, if you're describing the carer's perceptions/experiences thats not MEDRS. Perhaps I should not have introduced that nuance, for what you want the answer IMO is MEDRS applies. Horse Eye's Back (talk) 16:29, 5 September 2023 (UTC)

Can you give a concrete example of this in an article? Where a biomedical claim is ok to sources to a non-MEDRS because it's just a description of the carer's perceptions? I'm having trouble imagining when that would ever be appropriate. — Rhododendrites ^talk \\ 19:33, 5 September 2023 (UTC)

Its not a biomedical claim, thats the entire point. A claim about how the drug effects the patient is a biomedical claim, a claim about how the patient interacts with their carer is a sociological claim. Horse Eye's Back (talk) 19:48, 5 September 2023 (UTC)

In the present case (as the article now says) it's the highly unpleasant physiological symptoms of opioid withdrawal which can make people being treated hostile to the thought of continued treatment. Hard to dissolve-out the biomedical components of what's happening. Bon courage (talk) 19:54, 5 September 2023 (UTC)

At the risk of repeating myself "Perhaps I should not have introduced that nuance, for what you want the answer IMO is MEDRS applies." Horse Eye's Back (talk) 20:04, 5 September 2023 (UTC)

Complications that maybe experienced by the caregiver/administer then would just have to meet normal WP:RS, not WP:MEDRS. Graywalls (talk) 20:08, 5 September 2023 (UTC)

Yes, side effects fall under MEDRS. The hierarchy of sources for MEDRS can be tricky, but as others have said, for such a high-profile subject there are plenty of the highest quality sources (review articles, textbooks, guidelines/positions from the big orgs). — Rhododendrites ^talk \\ 19:33, 5 September 2023 (UTC)

In my opinion this falls under WP:MEDRS and would require better sources. Pretty much any way you frame this will suggest a causal connection and that absolutely requires WP:MEDRS. -- Random person no 362478479 (talk) 20:16, 5 September 2023 (UTC)

And it is of course significant that the idea that Naloxone causes violence is a (politically motivated?) widespread myth.[69] We really don't want Wikipedia lending credence to this kind of misinformation. Bon courage (talk) 05:34, 6 September 2023 (UTC)

• And now we've got Graywalls removing well-sourced content on this subject because they don't "agree" with it. The article could use more eyes — Preceding unsigned comment added by Bon courage (talk • contribs)

Excuse me, but who are you to say fact sheets and such YOU add is good, things I add is bad? I see you're quite dismissive towards others whom respectfully asked you to stop calling things "fringe" by responding No thanks. Wikipedia doesn't indulge fringe crap and I see others on your talk asking you to stop addressing things from mainstream media "fringe". Including what I want to include, and including your rebuttal factsheet would balance things out and having both sides is informative and NPOV. Graywalls (talk) 07:17, 6 September 2023 (UTC)

Wikipedia doesn't do WP:FALSEBALANCE. There are a number of myths about Naloxone it seems and the Canadian Mental Health Association appears to be a reputable medical organisation and a good source for what those are. If you want another, here's the Indiana DoH.[70] No reliable source says that Naloxone causes violence, that appears from RS to be one of these myths (and your personal opinion).

Bon courage (talk) 07:35, 6 September 2023 (UTC)

See, but you're not the sole arbiter of what's reliable/not. I disagree with you what I am proposing is a "false" balance. Graywalls (talk) 07:36, 6 September 2023 (UTC)

No indeed, that's determined by WP:CONSENSUS, and from this thread it's apparent you're WP:1AM. Bon courage (talk) 07:40, 6 September 2023 (UTC)

User:Graywalls, the fact that this claim is in scope for MEDRS and that MEDRS says not to use your primary research paper as the source, the fact that there are many secondary sources for this drug that cover its side effects, the fact that medcial authorities state clearly that what you are pushing is a "myth" and the fact that multiple editors here have told you you are wrong, .... unless you drop this and really do accept what others are telling you, you're going to end up at ANI with a topic ban at the least. You are arguing about really well established stuff and do not have a SNOWBALL's chance of getting your way on this. -- Colin°^Talk 08:01, 6 September 2023 (UTC)

To be specific, it's a myth that it always/nearly always happens. (I assume it always happens in television dramas?) One of the sources that Bon courage links above says "The North Carolina Harm Reduction Coalition notes that this response occurs in a few as 8% of people who overdose" (I have faithfully preserved their typo in this quotation). To put that in context, that's approximately the same chance that taking aspirin will give someone an upset stomach. It's not rare, but most people don't have that experience. WhatamIdoing (talk) 15:39, 6 September 2023 (UTC)

Thanks for the info. Assault and abuse of ambulance teams is very common but unconscious or dead people don't tend to commit assault. What's the chance of such a reaction to another intervention or indeed no intervention (assuming not life threatening) but just supportive / watching? They wake up surrounded by people in uniforms, blue flashing lights, etc, etc. I don't imagine many people are cool as a cucumber at that point.

I quickly googled your aspirin fact. PMC 3627011 says "In 59 studies with 3,304.5 subjects receiving aspirin and 3,170.5 subjects receiving placebo, 5.2 % of aspirin subjects reported a minor gastrointestinal complaint (abdominal pain, dyspepsia, or nausea/vomiting), versus 3.7 % of placebo subjects." The difference is statistically significant but it isn't like none of those popping the placebo got a stomach upset. A quite small portion of people feeling in need of a painkiller will end up with a stomach upset, for all sorts of reasons, whether they took a placebo or aspirin. Or put another way, if a study has 1000 people taking aspirin, 948 won't get any stomach upset, but might worry unnecessarily that they will because of what they've heard, and although 52 will get a stomach upset, only 15 (1.5%) of them get it because they took aspirin rather than a placebo. -- Colin°^Talk 17:12, 6 September 2023 (UTC)

Quick question. What's a quick and easy way to assess PMC/PMID sources if they pass MEDRS? Graywalls (talk) 19:19, 6 September 2023 (UTC)

There's no quick and easy way to account for all the myriad factors, but WP:MEDSEARCH gives the essentials. Bon courage (talk) 20:07, 6 September 2023 (UTC)

This maybe for another discussion; although pamphlets and info sheets that cites Harm Reduction Coalition (POV in that Institute for _insertcausehere_ way) is not MEDRS or even NPOV. Harm Reduction Coalitions are advocacy groups, are they not? Graywalls (talk) 19:18, 6 September 2023 (UTC)

I think you are more getting into the issue where Wikipedia wonders how to handle sources that may be biased. It doesn't automatically make them unreliable. For example, Cancer Research UK no doubt pushes its cause and need for research into its domain more than others, but they are highly respected. The quality of source needed also depends on how challenging the claim is. I've not got a big problem citing a very unremarkable fact to a lesser quality source. MEDRS doesn't demand every biomedical fact is cited to a narrative review in a top tier journal, or the consensus guidelines of an international body. It isn't a pass/fail for MEDRS any more than for any source on any topic. I mean, some are obvious fails but mostly it depends what claim we are making from the source. -- Colin°^Talk 07:59, 7 September 2023 (UTC)

where does https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC6543555 that's also used in naloxone fit into? It says "AC and JM jointly developed the article concept, conducted background research, and wrote the manuscript. Both authors read and approved the final manuscript." So, this appears to be self reviewed? What characteristics does this article fit compared to https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC7572435/? This discussion is really the first time I had to give so much thought to scrutinizing so called scholarly looking "PMC/PMID things", so I appreciate your patience in explaining things. Graywalls (talk) 16:48, 7 September 2023 (UTC)

"AC and JM jointly developed the article concept, conducted background research, and wrote the manuscript. Both authors read and approved the final manuscript." So, this appears to be self reviewed?

No, that is just a statement by the authors about how much each contributed to the article. Sometimes one author writes one part, another author another part. (E.g. Alfred North Whitehead famously did not even read the more technical parts of Principia Mathematica written by Bertrand Russell.) For the question of peer-review you have to look at the journal the paper is published in. In this case that is BMC Public Health which is a peer-reviewed journal. One thing you should always check for with scholarly papers (whether MEDRS or not) is the journal and whether it is peer-reviewed and respected/respectable. -- Random person no 362478479 (talk) 17:33, 7 September 2023 (UTC)

Ok, simply put, is the PMC9543555 peer reviewed, independent secondary, and authoritatively MEDRS? Graywalls (talk) 17:44, 7 September 2023 (UTC)

It's peer-reviewed expert commentary, but not WP:MEDRS - which is fine as it's not being used for WP:BMI. Bon courage (talk) 17:52, 7 September 2023 (UTC)

Did you mean PMC69543555? If so it is peer-reviewed and reliable. But as Bon courage says it is not used for WP:BMI. It is an expert answer to misinformation with recommendations on how to address misinformation and how to root it out. As such it is a reliable source for its purpose. -- Random person no 362478479 (talk) 18:05, 7 September 2023 (UTC)

Despite these explanations, Graywalls is now repeatedly trying to delete this (and adjacent MEDRS-sourced content) highlighting the naloxone misinformation. I agree that ANI and at least a WP:TBAN looks likely for this user, who is becoming a time sink. More eyes and/or admin attention welcome. Bon courage (talk) 18:16, 7 September 2023 (UTC)

@Graywalls I would recommend not making changes on this article without getting consensus on the talk page first. -- Random person no 362478479 (talk) 18:18, 7 September 2023 (UTC)

Bon Courage, that isn't about the source in question. You newly added particular examples sourced to an advocacy source. I asked you to get consensus on it. Graywalls (talk) 18:21, 7 September 2023 (UTC)

You don't even appear to know what you're doing. You removed the very sources that have been discussed here and agreed suitable. Three times now. Bon courage (talk) 18:24, 7 September 2023 (UTC)

I believe you're discussing Special:Diff/1174318808. I removed the specific references about actions at Canadian universities, which I believe is undue, and asking that you obtain consensus before inserting this back in. What I have removed is something you have newly introduced into the article. I left behind the BMC Public Health sourced contents. However, the other two that follows, in my opinion is undue and I believe it's reasonable I ask you to get consensus for inclusion of that newly added material whose addition I disagree with. Graywalls (talk) 18:28, 7 September 2023 (UTC)

• Just as a note, but that paper has been cited 19 times. I'd suggest going over those lists of citations and see if any is a good secondary source that covers the relevant aspect - just glancing at the titles, it seems reasonably possible. Replacing it with a secondary survey paper or the like would solve the problem. --Aquillion (talk) 17:37, 7 September 2023 (UTC)