Talk:Bitter Winter

Conflict of Interests/Advocacy

Before the creation of this, the major contributor of this article, Aidayoung, had extensively cite sources affiliated to Massimo Introvigne. After the creation of this article, Aidayoung has been inserting links to Bitter Winter in various articles. In one instance, a non-affiliated source (Paul Farrelly's dissertation, according to the article) is available yet not used. The statement in the article is not in the Bitter Winter article cited.

In this article in particular:

1. Weasel word such as "[s]ome international media" are used to create the impression on this magazine's importance where Business Insider is the only media quoted the report in the source given.
2. In the O Clarim article, Porfiri's opinion is attributed as the opinion of the magazine.
3. Various primary sources are used to make conclusions not exist in the source.

Those are signs of advocacy and even potential conflict of interest. -Mys_721tx (talk) 20:28, 1 February 2019 (UTC)

I included additional references to outside sources and checked and corrected the Porfiri quote. IMHO I do not believe as it is the article relies excessively on inside sources but hope others can contribute in the expansion/cleanup Aypedrito (talk) 16:09, 2 February 2019 (UTC)Aypedrito

In your edits, you are using primary sources to summarize that "[s]ome international media quoted Bitter Winter". This is a synthesis of published material, and is not allowed by policy. If you are unable to provide a source that can directly support the assertions in this article, those content will be removed. -Mys_721tx (talk) 23:18, 2 February 2019 (UTC)

I hope I got your point; I changed "some international media" by listing the three medias that quoted Bitter Winter. I also deleted the statement that these media reported authenticity was confirmed by Uyghur sources, as this is not true for all medias. Obviously you are the expert here but I wonder how many media are "some media" under the policy. Perhaps three are not enough for "some"? Aypedrito (talk) 14:29, 3 February 2019 (UTC)

I would also need clarification about the notion of "primary sources." I may be wrong, as I am new here, but by reading the Policy I would conclude that "primary sources" in this case are sources associated with, or close to, Bitter Winter. Obviously Business Insider and Yeni Şafak have no association with Bitter Winter. Does the fact that Radio Free Asia shares some (or most) political opinions about China with Bitter Winter make it a primary source? In which sense, the article "relies mostly on primary sources"? The editor who created the article included a promotional section that was certainly based on primary sources, that I deleted, but the other references to Italian daily La Stampa and weekly L'Espresso etc. do not seem to correspond to what I understand to be the definition of primary sources. Aypedrito (talk) 14:29, 3 February 2019 (UTC)

No, primary source does not mean association with Bitter Winter. Those source are primary in the context of this article because they are reporting on Bitter Winter content. The statement that some media are using Bitter Winter content is a conclusion drawn from the analysis of those sources and is not present in them. Per Wikipedia:No original research policy, Wikipedia is not the place for such analysis. To support such statement, you need to find a source that did such analysis. -Mys_721tx (talk) 19:41, 3 February 2019 (UTC)

Perhaps I got it. I cannot say that newspaper X "used" Bitter Winter because this would mean guessing how the journalist worked and, even if I am right, it would be original research. I substituted the word "mentioned," as that Business Insider, Radio Free Asia and Yeni Şafak "mentioned" Bitter Winter is a fact supported by the links in the References section. This applies to the sources I quoted but, if you confirm my understanding is correct, I can check all the sources the other editor quoted and eliminate the original research Aypedrito (talk) 21:00, 3 February 2019 (UTC)

Yes, the wording is fine. -Mys_721tx (talk) 03:00, 5 February 2019 (UTC)

Thanks. I cleaned up other sentences, substituting expressions such as "several media" with enumerations of the specific medias, and making the quote from Manila Times more specific (to be strict, they quoted the editor-in-chief of Bitter Winter rather than Bitter Winter per se). Aypedrito (talk) 04:25, 6 February 2019 (UTC)

Passing mention trivia

Regarding this edit: For most news outlets, and especially for advocacy outlets, being cited by a reliable source can be an indicator of significance or reliability, although not always a definitive one. However, merely being mentioned is not, by itself, significant. If the "use" of Bitter Winter's work is somehow significant, use these sources to explain why it is significant, otherwise it appears to be name-dropping for promotional effect. More alarmingly, not all of these sources are reliable. Including obscure unreliable sources is not appropriate, and all sources must be judged in context. On this note, I would also appreciate a time-stamp for this link, since the text version does not mention Bitter Winter, making it difficult to properly evaluate. Grayfell (talk) 03:44, 9 October 2019 (UTC)

@Grayfell: Firstly your insinuation that this magazine an advocacy outlet and that its work is trivia is already a point-of-view/pointy description. Just call it an online magazine (which we both agree that it is) and its work as what it is - its work. Why should the work of this magazine not be counted as significant? It's works aren't just being mentioned it's the central topic that is being discussed in the sources that you purged. In fact, it's significant enough that some of the reporters of this magazine have actually been arrested. (as the article makes clear) Even if these sources which used this magazine's works were not reliable sources (no evidence that they arent), the fact that you have these sources (Business Insider, Yeni Şafak, Al Jazeera and Taiwan News) which are positioned across the entire political spectrum used this magazine's work in the same way is already in itself significant enough for the works of this magazine to warrant inclusion in this article. I could draft a sentence or two that gets more specific on why the use of its work significant, but that doesnt seem like what you want despite your explicit say-so: you seem like you are just interested in dismissing the validity of this source altogether. Also, your edit summary here is nonsensical you directed me to this discussion above but the users there both agreed that it was ok to mention that the magazine's references were mentioned in other outlets; they just disagreed on how it should be referenced. User:Mys 721tx and User:Aypedrito I have also notified you two given how similar this new dispute is to the one the both of you were involved in and see if there is anything either of you may want to clear up in this discussion. Flaughtin (talk) 05:06, 9 October 2019 (UTC)

@Grayfell: So wrt the above I propose the following version of the content:

The magazine's work (which included coverage on the re-education camps in Xinjiang and destruction of Buddhist sites that were subsequently used by the Business Insider, Yeni Şafak, Al Jazeera and Taiwan News) led in late 2018 to the arrest of some of its correspondents by the PRC authorities. According to the Bitter Winter, the authorities first took action against the magazine when it published an article in May 2018 which included the reproduction of a leaked plan by the PRC government to investigate and prosecute South Korean Christian groups in Mainland China.

This version of the content satisfies your complaint that the content didn't show why the use of BW's work was significant, but it also satisfies all the other things I brought up in my previous comment; it also satisfies other issues which were no discussed above, such as sentence flow and accounting for overlooked details (e.g. time discrepancy per the sources in when the crackdown, alleged or otherwise, on BW started). At any rate this version of the text is superior to your version where you just purged the material outright for what I think we can both agree are fairly mediocre and clueless reasons - I am totally ready to debate you if you want to say, for example, that those re-education camps in Xinjiang are unimportant as i got out of a massive rFC-debate on that article not too long ago. If you don't respond then I will be putting this into the article. Flaughtin (talk) 21:13, 26 October 2019 (UTC)

Catch me up, please. What reliable, independent sources discuss this? Grayfell (talk) 22:21, 26 October 2019 (UTC)

Are you serious or being sarcastic? Cross reference with the sources that are didn't purge from the article and then for the specific ones that you purged they are here. Everything remains as is, the only change is the last sentence which is sourced to the Human Rights Without Frontiers source. This is easy to do, you should know given how you went through all the sources on this article. If you are just getting hung up on the sources then I will take it that you dont have an issue with the content. Flaughtin (talk) 23:00, 26 October 2019 (UTC)

I was not being sarcastic, but I think sarcasm could be forgiven after being called "clueless". Even if I did remember exactly what sources supported which points, the talk page is a record of the conversation, and it's asking a bit too much to expect anyone else to dig through the article's history of to connect the dots. Since you are proposing a change, you should point to which inline citations would support this change. This is both for my convenience, and for future reference.

Anyway, again, I still do not think name-dropping other outlets is informative. As I said, being mentioned or cited by another source is not, by itself, significant. If the use of Bitter Winter's work is somehow significant, use these sources to explain why it is significant, otherwise it appears to be name-dropping for promotional effect. Putting this list in parenthesis doesn't fix this, and would only suggest to readers that this is trivial.

I am skeptical that Katholisches.info is a reliable source, and their about page doesn't indicate strong editorial oversight or a history of fact-checking. Who is the author of that article? Is it anonymous, or did I just miss it? It seems to me that it's aggressive in seeking contributors, which is another red flag.

There are many concerns I have about the L'Espresso article, but it doesn't mention any specific reporters being arrested. It is mostly Introvigne complaining about Gianni Valente, and how this ties in with Bitter Winter would need to be established (this seems unlikely).

The Human Rights Without Frontiers source is attributed to "admin_HRWF" and includes Bitter Winter in the byline, linking to the exact same article on Bitter Winter's website. HRWF is using Bitter Winter as a newswire. This is neither independent of Bitter Winter, not necessarily a reliable outlet for factual claims.

So the CPJ may, possibly, still be useful. Summarize what that source says, instead of "according to Bitter Winter". This source indicates that Hsu is (or was at the time) investigating several different cases, one of which was related to Bitter Winter. I'm still not convinced that this is notable, even to Bitter Winter, without something more substantial. Grayfell (talk) 00:06, 27 October 2019 (UTC)