Wikipedia:Reliable sources/Noticeboard/Archive 376

Archive 370

←

Archive 374

Archive 375

Archive 376

Archive 377

Archive 378

→

Archive 380

Wanted to know whether these websites are reliable sources

Most editors use filmibeat.com and tollywood.net as sources for articles related to films. I would like to know whether these sources are reliable,if not please add those to list of non-reliable sources list TuluveRai123 (talk) 16:55, 8 May 2022 (UTC)

Just a note: We don't add every source in existence to a list; the list we do have is only reserved for sources which are "perennially" debated and discussed, which come up a lot. --Jayron32 16:11, 9 May 2022 (UTC)

Nope, they are not reliable. OneIndia and all its derivatives like Filmibeat, Gizbot, etc, are content farms. Note how it advertises itself to potential employees, stating that it "churns out around 1000 articles a day and has industry best engagement metrics". Filmbeat in particular has a lot of churnalism with text in its articles inserted from press releases and other publicity material. Tollywood.net looks like a similar site, note its own disclaimer which states "tollywood.net and its affiliates do not control, represent or endorse the accuracy, completeness or realiability of any of the information available on the web site".

Also I'm fairly sure "most editors" don't use these for film articles, at least not experienced ones. Filmibeat is already listed as unreliable at WP:ICTFSOURCES and looking at use cases for tollywood.net  , it is fairly low at only 128. Tayi Arajakate _Talk 00:10, 14 May 2022 (UTC)

Both added to WP:UPSD as generally unreliable. Headbomb {t · c · p · b} 13:36, 18 May 2022 (UTC)

railscot.co.uk

Proposing as a fancruft site - the website has 347 contributors [1] and the whole website looks quite amateur-ish. This is used inline for a significant number of rail articles across (primarily) Scotland and (possibly, although I haven't yet checked in depth) northern England. Mattdaviesfsic (talk) 08:55, 14 May 2022 (UTC)

1489 links to railscot.co.uk pages which are a mixture of references or links in the "External links" section of pages. I support the assertion that this is a not a reliable source. Per WP:DUCK it looks/smells/sounds like a fansite - amateur look & feel, plus hundreds of authors non of whom have any sort of bio to establish their credibility. For train fans wanting to exchange information with each other it's an invaluable resource, but it is not encyclopaedic, it is not a reliable source, it is a self-published fansite. 10mmsocket (talk) 09:01, 14 May 2022 (UTC)

For a start, WP:FANCRUFT refers to articles on Wikipedia which are themselves cruft, not external sites which are linked to. I will reply more fully to this later when I have the time, in the interim please discuss your intentions here, instead of colluding between the pair of you on a personal talk page after the discussion was started and unilaterally instigating bot requests less than 48 hours after a discussion was started. Consider this the objection you felt was lacking and gave you the green light to go ahead with your purge without delay. Crowsus (talk) 09:18, 16 May 2022 (UTC)

We're both seasoned editors and very happy to engage in further discussion now that an objection has been raised. As for fancruft, I take your point. I think what was actually meant was WP:FANSITE along with WP:SPS and WP:UGC.

b.t.w. Accusing us of collusion implies a lack of good faith that I object to. Yes we discussed this on my user talk page - which is exactly why we brought it here in the first place. 10mmsocket (talk) 09:34, 16 May 2022 (UTC)

Well, discussing it before adding this is obviously fine, ideal in fact, but one that discussion had been started, comments on the next course of action to take should have been made here, not there. However, 'colluding' was not the right term to use as clearly Mattdaviesfsic is the contributor who is taking the premature unilateral actions and using the wrong setting for dialogue; it is obviously neither a collaborative effort to deceive anyone nor any type of grand plan, so I apologise to 10mmsocket for conflating your involvement and to Mattdaviesfsic who I assume has made a couple of small errors of judgement, as I have here. Crowsus (talk) 09:45, 16 May 2022 (UTC)

Thanks @Crowsus: - apologies for my unreasonably swift actions (the bot request, I admit, was a mistake, in hindsight). And yes, it seems I did indeed mix up fancruft and fansite! Mattdaviesfsic (talk) 09:52, 16 May 2022 (UTC)

Thank you. 10mmsocket (talk) 09:56, 16 May 2022 (UTC)

Since this matter was raised it has taken up too much of my limited brain power thinking about how to respond; although I have no personal involvement with the site and limited interest in the topic it covers, I had what would be best described as passionate rant half-prepared in its defence, then was caught on the hop by the start of the purge so rushed the response above and came across as even more of a dick than I concede I am. But basically it comes down to this: I think having Railscot on Wikipedia is a net positive as I have never found anything to be wrong on it and have found many things on there which are not easily found anywhere else online, and I think it falls more under the umbrella of a one man band SPS, the contributions from others seem to be for the photographs. It is certainly nothing like SABRE, for example, either in tone or data collection method. But I am aware I am fighting a losing battle under the site guidelines to convince you that it meets sufficient requirements of a RS, though as I've said I have not encountered anything on there which I think is unReliable (it's all fairly dry stuff about dates for stations and maps for lines, presented with no editirialising, just the facts) and often it is the only place where I can Source the information I was looking for online, and I can't be the only one who has found it useful and credible over the years as I certainly didn't add it to ~2000 articles personally. So I will withdraw my opposition to its removal from all articles as an inline reference for any specific fact, as long as we can agree that it can remain as an external link for interested readers on the relevant pages in the spirit of WP:IMDB / WP:IMDB-EL. PS, have to say I am disappointed by the lack of input from the projects in this discussion, not necessarily to support my 'side' but just to show interest as a contributor which I know there are a few although I only dip in and out of railway and transport topics. But you can't make folk join in so there we go. Crowsus (talk) 00:43, 17 May 2022 (UTC)

Remove as reference. Keep as EL? Seems reasonable - and another editor (below) has suggested exactly that. 10mmsocket (talk) 07:22, 17 May 2022 (UTC)

My own two cents is that railscot is a suitable external link for relevant pages but probably isn't a reliable source and shouldn't be used as such. Mackensen (talk) 01:07, 17 May 2022 (UTC)

As above that's a way forward. 10mmsocket (talk) 12:26, 17 May 2022 (UTC)

I think the general consensus is to remove the site from inline citations but leave in External links - willing to close with that @Crowsus:, @10mmsocket:, @Mackensen:? Mattdaviesfsic (talk) 13:25, 18 May 2022 (UTC)

Yup OK. Crowsus (talk) 13:31, 18 May 2022 (UTC)

I'll add to WP:UPSD as generally unreliable then. Headbomb {t · c · p · b} 13:33, 18 May 2022 (UTC)

I have reinstated the links that I already deleted from "External links" section of several articles. Anything used as an inline reference, in "Sources", or in "Bibliography" can be removed. Thanks all, very helpful discussion. 10mmsocket (talk) 15:03, 18 May 2022 (UTC)

Anti-Shi'ism

Is this thesis reliable for mentioned text in Anti-Shi'ism? source (thesis):Yohanan Friedmann, "Shaykh Ahmad Sirhindi", Chapter 5(3), p. 74, PhD Thesis, Institute of Islamic Studies, McGill University, Montreal, (1967).

text:Since the Shia permit cursing Abu Bakr, Umar, Uthman and one of the chaste wives (of the Prophet), which in itself constitutes infidelity, it is incumbent upon the Muslim ruler, nay upon all people, in compliance with the command of the Omniscient King (Allah), to kill them and to oppress them in order to elevate the true religion. It is permissible to destroy their buildings and to seize their property and belongings.

thanks.Homiho (talk) 10:03, 18 May 2022 (UTC)

In general, speaking in Wikipedia's voice implies wide agreement among mainstream sources. If something is sourced to a single PhD thesis from 45 years ago, and appears nowhere else in the world, at minimum, the Wikipedia text should be rewritten so as to directly attribute the author. And that should only happen if the author is themselves a widely-recognized subject matter expert. If they aren't, then perhaps the text doesn't belong in Wikipedia at all. --Jayron32 12:39, 18 May 2022 (UTC)

WP:SCHOLARSHIP has some guidance. Gråbergs Gråa Sång (talk) 13:10, 18 May 2022 (UTC)

• OK, that is a bit of a Russian doll source. That text comes from the 1966 PhD thesis, which itself says that Sirhindi also quotes with approval a legal opinion issued by a group of Transoxanian 'ulama• who ruled: (the text). (Ahmad Sirhindi seems to my unexpert eyes to be a fairly influential 16th-century theologian in Akbar’s India.) So we are citing a PhD source, which cites-translates a 16th-century source (Radd-e Rawafiz by Ahmad Sirhindi), which "quotes approvingly" a legal opinion whose reference are not given in the PhD thesis (and I would guess neither in AS’s text).

As we cannot trust that the "ruling from the Transoxanian 'ulama" really existed (it would not be the first time that a 16th century non-fiction author attributed their own views to some external prestigious authority), I would say it should be handled as if that was the opinion of AS himself. So I would say the proper citation is two-sources as per WP:SAYWHERE: Ahmad Sirhindi (full ref to the 16th century text), as translated by Yohanan Friedmann in (full ref to the 1966 thesis).

Now, I would say the PhD thesis is likely a RS for translating the passage. The only question is whether it is WP:DUE to mention it in Anti-Shi'ism#Indian Subcontinent. I think AS’s views are definitely due weight there, so the only real question IMO is whether that specific quote is representative / due weight. I would say that if we put in a quote, it is better to select one that was already selected by a secondary source (such as the 1966 PhD). I do not think it is realistic to expect such passages to have been studied and cited by multiple scholars, so I would say it’s OK by me, but there is a counterargument that we should not have quotes at all. Tigraan^{Click here for my talk page ("private" contact)} 09:04, 19 May 2022 (UTC)

Timeline of the war in Donbas (2022)

I came to to this article to do a quick overview/wikilinking/copyedit, but there were/are some RS issues. First of all it was flagged at the top for reliable sources, with a complaint on the talk page about Russian state sources not being cited. I answered that and removed the tagging. Then I saw ANNA News was repeatedly cited, and tagged. I found their WP article, which says they not only disseminate propaganda and disinformation, but actively fabricate stories, and the RfC here, which pretty much said the same thing. This seemed to leave little doubt about the material cited to ANNA, so I removed that. I am now finding references to RIA Novosti for statements in wikivoice... and having some doubts. The Ukrainian ministry of defence is also cited. I have just been through many of the linked articles from 2022 Russian invasion of Ukraine and, not shockingly, there are vast differences in the claimed casualty figures on each side. This is really further into the weeds than I meant to get on this article, but shouldn't the the statements of the Ukrainian ministry of defense be attributed, and for purposes of details like who shot at who first in which village, would RIA Novostibe considered the voice of the Kremlin and can they be used at such (if attributed) in this article? If not, the article will be left fairly one-sided and apparently in any event could use some eyes, even if *some* outside reporting have been added.

Also, while I have the attention of people versed in Ukraine, I seem to recall the UNIAN, while Russian-language, is a decent mainstream Ukrainian source; could somebody who knows off the top of their head please save me some time and verify that? Thanks Elinruby (talk) 03:14, 16 May 2022 (UTC)

Arguably with all aspects of the Ukraine-Russian war, we have very few independent eyewitnesses that can give us verified numbers, rather than the lots of claims made for Ukraine victories through social media coupled with Russian state propanda. It may be that several of the details will be unclear or vague for months or years until the war is over and independent groups can help pick up the pieces. It would be better only to work from clear RSes with a reputation of fact checking for current article development, knowing this may leave gaps, rather than include unconfirmed info. --Masem (t) 13:42, 16 May 2022 (UTC)

Elinruby, the European Journalism Centre (EJC), in partnership with the Dutch Ministry of Education, Culture and Science (OCW), has a webpage on the state of journalism in 30 countries, including Ukraine. UNIAN is mentioned here. The question of reliable sources also came up in the AfD discussion in February. TASS, ANNA, RIA: do not cite, UNIAN can be cited but should be checked for bias, preferably with a neutral source like Reuters. Space4Time3Continuum2x (talk) 10:27, 19 May 2022 (UTC)

Thank you. It sounds like I should go through again and remove the RIA Novosti stuff and check attributions. I appreciate the responses Elinruby (talk) 11:14, 19 May 2022 (UTC)

Spotify

Any good general advice on how to deal with articles that use Spotify a lot as references, like Anders (singer) and Heavyweight (podcast)? As I see it, it's similar to citing Amazon, a web-shop. Gråbergs Gråa Sång (talk) 08:45, 12 May 2022 (UTC)

It's not perfect [2] but I would say that it's often as good as it gets for basic information such as titles and release dates. Which, incidentally, is what WP:RSPAMAZON and WP:AMAZON say. JBchrch talk 20:22, 12 May 2022 (UTC)

So if we apply that thinking to say the cites in this section Anders_(singer)#As_featured_artist, is it WP-good way to do things? Gråbergs Gråa Sång (talk) 21:24, 12 May 2022 (UTC)

I would say it's WP-good temporarily, i.e. until we get a more reliable source, like a review, a label or artist website or—who knows?— whole books about them. JBchrch talk 00:21, 13 May 2022 (UTC)

If those are the WP:BESTSOURCES, then that’s what you’ve got. You might find corroborating tidbits at last.fm or music.apple.com or amazon.com — but it doesn’t seem likely to have academic works available for this so the best you can do is all you can do. Cheers Markbassett (talk) 02:25, 14 May 2022 (UTC)

@Markbassett That makes an amount of sense, I guess. Would you agree with me that Spotify doesn't give any WP:N points, though? Gråbergs Gråa Sång (talk) 09:23, 14 May 2022 (UTC)

Yes, the context used in Anders (singer) and Heavyweight (podcast) is as a database or directory. There perhaps Spotify lists artists of each track, but that does not mean there is anything particularly Notable about it or reflect a reporter writing some review. Cheers Markbassett (talk) 10:18, 14 May 2022 (UTC)

Interesting conversation here. I would be under the impression that Spotify (like last.fm as previously mentioned) would be WP:UGC akin to WP:IMDB. If I see it in draft articles, I usually decline for unreliable sources. Bkissin (talk) 17:37, 19 May 2022 (UTC)

Reliability of "whats-on-netflix.com"?

An IP editor added this as a source on the Dead End: Paranormal Park page today, calling it a "news source". As a person who tries to add the most reliable sources possible, I reversed their edit. But, considering this is used on 455 pages on here, I have to ask, do you all consider this site to be a reliable source? I'm leaning toward no, but I want to hear what you all have to say. Historyday01 (talk) 15:30, 19 May 2022 (UTC)

I use that site personally, and it is incorrect an uncomfortable percentage of the time. It's a low percentage, but still frequently just a regurgitation of rumours. At the end of the day that site is mostly an aggregator pulling data from Netflix announcements and feeds. Canterbury Tail talk 21:56, 19 May 2022 (UTC)

I'd lean towards no, as a cursory view shows pulling data from Netflix announcements and feeds, as above. --Whiteguru (talk) 23:44, 19 May 2022 (UTC)

Good to know because someone used it on another page I was editing and use it as a source to say the show was cancelled/ended. Historyday01 (talk) 20:07, 29 June 2022 (UTC)

input request re: reliability of memorabletv.com

For the page at https://www.memorabletv.com/tv/hooten-lady-sky-1-2016-michael-landes-ophelia-lovibond/, I'm not terribly enthused about the reliability of this source, but that's strictly from the appearance of the site. Can somebody else, somebody better versed, take a look and tell me what they think? Thanks! — Fourthords | =Λ= | 00:38, 20 May 2022 (UTC)

The London Economic interview with Gary Delaney for his article

Is this following 2015 interview with standup comedian Gary Delaney at The London Economic (www DOT thelondoneconomic DOT COM /entertainment/tle-meets-gary-delaney-10627/) reliable for biographical information added to Delaney's Wikiepdia article (specifically: where he went to school, his odd jobs before becoming a comedian, and his residence as of 2015)? That info has already been in his Wikipedia article for some time, but the url is dead, and while there is both a live url and an archived version at the Internet Archive, I can't change it because it's on the blacklist, and I'd like to add it as an exception, if possible, to the whitelist. I couldn't even include the url in this post for the same reason, so I had to write out portions of the url in order to convey it here. Nightscream (talk) 14:55, 21 May 2022 (UTC)

Is My Jewish Learning a reliable source for Beta Israel

This article [3] is used over 70 times as a source. Its article is a journalist.[4]. The article seems to be a magnet for pov editors, but that's another issue. Doug Weller talk 13:32, 21 May 2022 (UTC)

Do you have concerns regarding the accuracy of the information sourced to this article? In general, scholarly sources are considered more reliable. Alaexis_¿question? 15:10, 21 May 2022 (UTC)

@Alaexis yes I do, because it's not a scholarly source nor written by a specialist. But the issue is moot now, as this was some sort of reference vandalism. An editor's only edit added 3 sources to the article multiple times[5] despite the fact that they don't discuss the text they reference. Damn, a big cleanup. Doug Weller talk 16:20, 21 May 2022 (UTC)

Reliability of the Oxford scientist about a medieval scholar

Hi, i would like to know if this article constitutes a reliable source when it comes to Avicenna's contributions. Thanks.---Wikaviani ^{(talk) (contribs)} 20:24, 21 May 2022 (UTC)

• No. That is a short essay written by a high-schooler published in a (university) student-run magazine. That's hardly the type of source we should rely on for history or medicine. The numerous grammatical errors, the redflag claims, and lack of citations in the essay, do not engender trust either. Abecedare (talk) 20:59, 21 May 2022 (UTC)
  • Right - he probably got it all from Wikipedia... Johnbod (talk) 21:05, 21 May 2022 (UTC)

  Many thanks.---Wikaviani ^{(talk) (contribs)} 21:39, 21 May 2022 (UTC)

WeGotThisCovered.com

Context: This has been discussed before. And it was added to WP:RSP.

We Got This Covered is a movie website which publishes rumors about movies coming out. About a year ago (from my memory) there were about 23 articles citing this source. Now, checking back in May 2022, there are about 600 articles citing this. (No idea why, my best guess would be 2022 has a lot of movies coming out, and the site constantly pops out in search results).

• They reported that Ned would become the Hobgoblin in No Way Home. This is an example of their crazy rumors that just aren't true. Some of them give credit to people, but many just ramble with zero evidence to support their statements.

Just making the point, we don't need to cite this source, especially since the sequel rumors are unverifiable. This source is not reliable and it was obvious back in 2020 (before it was at RSP) so it should be obvious now. RanDom 404 (talk) 01:00, 16 May 2022 (UTC)

Given that in that case it is clear they are citing a rumor to what appears to be a random blogger, that's an article that even if CNN published we'd not want to use. So a question to ask is if the stories that aren't claimed to be rumors are false. Entertainment sources love to work on rumors, up and down the reliability scale, and this may be a case of just being fully aware of the situation around an article that we should not use. --Masem (t) 01:41, 16 May 2022 (UTC)

They publish lots more, most of which doesn’t even give credit to a random blogger, they just have zero evidence to even base their claims. How can people consider this reliable? RanDom 404 (talk) 13:56, 16 May 2022 (UTC)

Maybe we should just blacklist the site then, if we can never find it reliable I don't see a reason we'd ever link to it. Canterbury Tail talk 13:54, 16 May 2022 (UTC)

The only thing which may hint at reliability is that it has a Managing Editor and Deputy Managing Editor, and other editors. That's about it though, apart from policies on a fact-checking, corrections, and ethics. But, I have no idea whether those policies are followed, though. Historyday01 (talk) 18:31, 16 May 2022 (UTC)

I would also add that if something is mentioned on WeGotThisCovered.com, then it is undoubtedly mentioned on a more reliable source. So I'd say that a much better source can be cited instead. In a post by @User:Jack Sebastian in 2019, @User:Newslinger said that "neither site [Showbiz Cheat Sheet and We Got This Covered] appears to be a great source" and @User:Hipal said that "both look poor: churnalism and gossip." Then in 2020, there was agreement by @User:Scrooge200, Newslinger, and @User:Oknazevad that it was "generally unreliable." Mentioning specific users here to garner their insight as they previously commented on the reliability of this site. Historyday01 (talk) 18:39, 16 May 2022 (UTC)

Oppose blacklisting as their film reeviews and interviews are useable in my view Atlantic306 (talk) 08:41, 17 May 2022 (UTC)

I'm not sure how the proposed blacklisting would work exactly. I agree with User:Atlantic306 and I would be disappointed if we were not allowed to use WeGotThisCovered on account of their reviews and original inteviews. But they put out a lot of low quality articles, rumors, and content recycled from other sources, so I would support the strongest measures and most annoying warnings possible short of preventing it being used entirely. My 2 cents. -- 109.77.204.193 (talk) 23:40, 21 May 2022 (UTC)

• Support blacklisting. Nothing on this website is even remotely worth using. It's all clickbait BS. WGTC is one of a series of clickbait-headlined rumor websites all run by the same company that use each other as supposed sources to publish patently untrue material that make money it off the ad revenue. They thrive on being shared around social media, attracting attention from less-discerning people just reacting to the headline. They claim to have a fact checking and corrections policy, but you will never find an article on their site that actually has a correction appended, because their claimed policy is just as useless, worthless, and made up as their articles. Cosmic Book News is another such site, and in fact is owned by the same company as far as anyone can tell. That's the other aspect: who actually owns these sites is intentionally obscured to hide their commonality. They're not reliable sources. They're a scam. oknazevad (talk) 11:21, 19 May 2022 (UTC)

theinsider.ua

Has anyone run into this source before or have an opinion about it? The context is Timeline of the war in Donbas (2014), where it sources a claim that police did not respond to pro-Ukraine protesters being beaten. Elinruby (talk) 06:54, 23 May 2022 (UTC)

I can't find much information about them. Their chief editor Olga Khudetska has been quoted a few times by other media outlets, including once by the Ukrainian edition of BBC [6]. It's clear that it's biased towards one side of the conflict but probably it can be used with attribution. The claim in question is hardly extraordinary. Alaexis_¿question? 11:21, 23 May 2022 (UTC)

Not extraordinary, no, but perhaps contentious. Maybe not at this point, but certainly more likely to be so than Girkin's origins, which are in the same paragraph (cited to something else) but are pretty much established fact. I guess if I don't hear otherwise I will leave it as long as it meets verifiability. Than you for looking. I didn't find much either. Elinruby (talk) 11:55, 23 May 2022 (UTC)

Vice and other Sources at JP Sears

Over at our article for anti-vaxxer/MAGA/conspirituality comedian JP Sears, there's been a repeated and long-term effort to remove any and all coverage of the article's subject that a few embedded editors have deemed 'critical' or 'political'. These editors only appear and respond when such coverage pops up. This is their only function on the page—a typical issue with FRINGE-related articles.

The latest round of this is over a 2021 Vice article reporting on the Sears gathering with some of the best-known anti-vaxxers in modern US pop culture along with Trump's ex wife (Marla Maples) to pray for Trump on the last US presidential election day (it's been on the article for a while now). You're welcome to join the discussion here. :bloodofox: (talk) 21:49, 16 May 2022 (UTC)

@Bloodofox: I don't think anybody is disputing the credibility of sources in that discussion but discussing whether it is due or undue. You may want to move this discussion to WP:FTN. ArvindPalaskar (talk) 12:39, 17 May 2022 (UTC)

Well, although this more about DUEness of material (seems the content is UNDUE), I definitely would say that Vice should be avoided as a source for contentious material about a living persons. Moreover, I will echo my 2018 comments from a different discussion that Anna Merlan, the author of the article does not have a stellar record of fact-checking and corrections. But it should be added that in 2019 Merlan claimed, regarding Al Franken allegations, that The New Yorker's Jane Mayer mischaracterised some of the allegations that were reported in Jezebel. I don't know who is wrong but they can't both be right.

With regards to FTN, Bloodofox started a discussion at FTN before posting here. They have started at least five discussions related to Sears: #2, #3, #4, and #5. Some notifications – e.g. the newest post – are blatantly canvassing, some not so much. And to all dear wikilawyers out there, no – posting a neutral notification (something like "Please see the discussion here [link]") to FTN is not canvassing. Posting biased notifications is "campaigning" and considered harmful. Politrukki (talk) 16:49, 17 May 2022 (UTC)

First, I'll thank you not to modify my post headers to your preference. Second, I regularly post about about fringe topics and draw attention to fringe-related articles and discussions, including here and particularly over at the fringe theories noticeboard. It's a common problem for these obscure articles to get too few eyes, and to become flooded by supporters, and my statements here are demonstrably correct. You're welcome. Finally, if you're new to the wonderful world of fringe topic articles, you've got a lot of bad actors awaiting you, and I invite you to experience that rather than pearl-clutching and moaning about those of us who bother to get involved. :bloodofox: (talk) 16:59, 17 May 2022 (UTC)

As far as the JP Sears article goes, the only editor who might be trying to "remove any and all coverage [that is] 'critical' or 'political'" is Jtbobwaysf. The rest of the editors have been brought by various noticeboard postings or other normal processes. Just because an editor disagrees with you does not make them a bad actor, and just because you disagree with what editors say when they come to the page does not mean the article has been flooded by supporters. More editors would be likely to get involved in the topic area if vitriol wasn't hurled at anyone who dares to have a different opinion. ScottishFinnishRadish (talk) 17:14, 17 May 2022 (UTC)

A trite assessment, as you're well aware that there are at least a few editors there, including the one that you mention, whose sole activity on the article is to attempt to remove any and all 'critical' or 'political' material associated with the article. That is all they've done there, all they continue to do there, and chances are all they'll ever do there. Typical of articles of this type, the article is also regularly hit by IPs who alter the article in favor of the subject, sometimes in explicit ways and sometimes in more nuanced ways. Meanwhile, your efforts to date have largely been to provide support for WP:RS removal attempts rather than to put your foot down when it's clear that the article is seeing repeated scrubbing attempts (and I mean scrubbing: straight up attempts at deleting any and all coverage of the subject's 'political' activities). What's that about? :bloodofox: (talk) 17:28, 17 May 2022 (UTC)

This doesn't look like provid[ing] support for WP:RS removal attempts. This is exactly what I was talking about in the section above. I was brought to the discussion from a noticeboard that I frequent, and have provided an uninvolved opinion. You've responded at every turn as if I, and anyone who disagrees with you, is some sort of fringe apologist. I've edited plenty of fringe and controversial topics, and even if you have issues with certain editors you can engage constructively, rather than with blatant hostility. Honey and vinegar and all that.

Every topic on Wikipedia is hit by IPs who alter the article in favor of, or against, the subject. This is not unique for fringe or conspiracy topics. The former president of Somalia, and the current president of Somalia who was a former president, were the target of COI editing. You think the fringe topic area is bad? Look at anything at all related to castes or politics in India. Advocacy editing by a small number of editors is not an excuse to throw civility and good faith out the window. ScottishFinnishRadish (talk) 17:40, 17 May 2022 (UTC)

Let's go ahead and recognize that Wikipedia's fringe articles frequently do indeed swarm with supporters, embedded or otherwise, who aim to alter them to present their subjects in flattering ways, often by snipping out less-than-flattering media coverage. Scholars who have written about this phenomenon are well aware of it, including about our very own Falun Gong article and its many tentacles. There's no reason for us to pretend it's not the case. :bloodofox: (talk) 17:52, 17 May 2022 (UTC)

@ArvindPalaskar: Just thought I'd ping you on this, as in the days since your comment, two votes based primarily on WP:RS have come through. So there is a contingent that is making the reliability argument where some outside perspective would be helpful. Bakkster Man (talk) 15:12, 23 May 2022 (UTC)

• I actually think VICE is pretty good but sometimes they can be overly gossipy. The reason I opposed the inclusion of this VICE article for this claim in the JP Sears article is because of how it and other are sources are being used to paint him with the same brush as we do antivaxers, like Kennedy and Malone, mentioned there. I don't follow Sears but I've watched a few of his videos and he doesn't strike me as an extreme conservative though I am disappointed he takes a pseudo libertarian position on public health policy - and shared a stage with those people. I'm glad that the "conservative conspiracy theorist" is properly attributed to the liberally WP:BIASED New York Times, as I don't think his erroneous statements about Vitimin D and what not amount to conspiracism, though there is a source that puts it as that. CutePeach (talk) 22:18, 22 May 2022 (UTC)

Sources for Rosalie Slaughter Morton's date of birth

I'm trying to figure out which of a handful of sources to use to cite the date of birth of Rosalie Slaughter Morton, and in particular whether we can find a source which is both reliable and gives the (likely correct) date of 1872.

Recently published secondary sources largely state Morton's date of birth as 28 October 1876, e.g. Dictionary of Women Worldwide and The Biographical Dictionary of Women in Science, so that's what we wrote in the article.

A short while ago I came across this historical marker, placed by the Virginia Department of Historic Resources, which listed her date of birth as 1872, so I was curious and contacted them to understand which sources they used. The reply I received today stated that Morton "listed 28 October 1872 as the date of her birth when she applied for a passport in 1898", was "listed as an eight-year-old in the 1880 census", and "the social security death index on Ancestry gave her birthday as 16 Oct. 1872" (note the different date in the last source). They say that following her marriage, Morton began to use the year 1876 in official documents (including the marriage register and her passport and immigration materials), and that people changing their ages isn't uncommon in their experience.

It seems that 1872 is most likely to be the correct date of birth, and the VDHR are quite certain, but I'm left wondering which source to use. Is the historical marker a reliable secondary source? Or is one of the primary sources acceptable? Thoughts welcome. Sam Walton (talk) 21:47, 23 May 2022 (UTC)

Is Anadolu Agency legit source?

Hi, I would like to know if News agency such as Anadolu Agency is reliable source? Please refer to discussion on the talk page.Aye1399 (talk) 11:39, 24 May 2022 (UTC)

It is in WP:RSP, two entries, I'd start there. Selfstudier (talk) 14:26, 24 May 2022 (UTC)

Hyperallergic

1. Source: https://hyperallergic.com/482353/a-regime-conceals-its-erasure-of-indigenous-armenian-culture/

2. Article: Anti-Armenian sentiment in Azerbaijan

3. Discussions on the talk page: Here

4. Content:

In 2019, Azerbaijan's destruction of Armenian cultural heritage was described as "the worst cultural genocide of the 21st century" in Hyperallergic, exceeding the destruction of cultural heritage by ISIL.

5. Question: Can we consider www.hyperallergic.com as a reliable source for Armenia-Azerbaijan area articles? Hyperallergic can not be considered reliable for the Armenia-Azerbaijan area articles, because hyperallergic does not have reputation for fact checking. In fact here I in details described that Hyperallergic published propoganda article, which based on the hearsay. It also might be partisan and biased source if used for the AA area articles. From the about page it is clear that hyperallergic WP:NEWSBLOG founded by active diaspora Armenians, and moreover, they publish articles written by the Simon Maghakyan, who is propagandist and working as ANCA-WR’s Community Development Coordinator Abrvagl (talk) 21:57, 20 May 2022 (UTC)

Being founded by people with Armenian names does not mean it's not reliable. Having said that, there are bound to be many sources covering the destruction of Armenian cultural heritage in Azerbaijan. If only Hyperallergic called it "the worst cultural genocide of the 21st century" then this might not be notable for Wikipedia. Alaexis_¿question? 15:14, 21 May 2022 (UTC)

Let me re-express myself. I am not telling that it is not reliable because it was founded by Armenians, it is not about nationality. Hyperallergic is not reliable for Azerbaijan-Armenia area articles, because they, for example, publish articles from propaganda warriors such as Simon Maghakyan. Even reading through the article it is obvious that information is biased, not encyclopedic and neither academic. For example article states Hyperallergic article claims that such was said by Russian journalist Shura Burtin without providing any prove of that: "not even ISIS could commit such an epic crime against humanity.".

Articles should be based on reputable, independent, published sources that have a reputation for fact-checking and accuracy, according to WP:RS. Hypersensitivity is neither of these. Hyperallergic identifies itself as a "online publication founded by the husband-and-husband team, Veken Gueyikian and Hrag Vartanian, in 2009 as a forum for playful, serious, and radical perspectives on art in society." It is neither a scholarly publication nor a mainstream news organization known for fact-checking. It's more of a blog-style website. I raised RSN because it is not about the single article. Hyperalergic is news-blog which neither reliable nor neutral, and can not be used as a source for AA area articles. Abrvagl (talk) 16:11, 21 May 2022 (UTC)

Is there evidence that Shura Burtin did not say that? Generally, we don't require sources to provide citations for the quotes they include in their articles.

Hyperallergic currently has a large team of editors, writers, and contributors, and is described by reliable sources as an Art Journal. It appears to be reliable; do you have examples of articles they published that include inaccuracies? BilledMammal (talk) 17:03, 21 May 2022 (UTC)

Well, I am not talking about art. Hyperallergic might be OK for art articles, but definitely not reliable for Azerbaijan-Armenia related articles as per WP:RS and WP:NPOV. This article does not provide their research or opinion, it just attribute to the opinion piece of other person. As per WP:BLP such information shall be verifiable.

More, it is not general case, this is NEWSBLOG which makes WP:REDFLAG statements like not even ISIS could commit such an epic crime against humanity, and attribute such exceptional statements to mostly unknown people's opinion piece. This opinion pieces can not be fact checked, and does not make any weight. I can not imagine how anyone can consider political propaganda and biased article, written by the Simon Maghakyan (His twitter), the ANCA-WR’s Community Development Coordinator, and posted on the partisan newsblog, owned by Armenian diaspora, which specializes on the Art, reliable and neutral for the Azerbaijan-Armenia area articles. Abrvagl (talk) 20:58, 21 May 2022 (UTC)

I don't see any evidence that it is not reliable for Azerbaijan-Armenia related articles. Since you opened this discussion about the article "A Regime Conceals Its Erasure of Indigenous Armenian Culture" are there any inaccuracies in that article? BilledMammal (talk) 03:39, 23 May 2022 (UTC)

Hyperallergic is a self-published newsblog which does not have a reputation for fact-checking and accuracy, it publishes opinion piece of contributors. Azerbaijan-Armenia related articles in the Hyperallercic are not in line with WP:NPOV. How propaganda article, written by the propagandist Simon Maghakyan in the partisan menner and posted on the NEWSBLOG can be accepted reliable for the Azerbaijan-Armenia area? It is like asking the fox to guard the chickens.

The problem is in propaganda nature of the articles, in the way how information selected and presented. Azerbaijan-Armenia related articles in the Hyperallergic, are written by propagandists like Simon Maghakyan, who is ANCA Coordinator, and who is well known for his anti Azerbaijan/Turkey position. Such articles are giving due weight to the information which does not have academic/encyclopedic value and do not carry any significance other than propaganda.

For example, one of the obvious inaccuracies - Article completely disregards and denies destruction of Azerbaijani cultural heritage all over the Armenia and previously occupied Karabakh region of the Azerbaijan. Simon writes: Azerbaijan’s president protests that “all of our mosques in occupied Azerbaijani lands have been destroyed.” A visitor to Armenia-backed Nagorno-Karabakh (also called Artsakh in Armenian) would observe otherwise: there are mosques, albeit nonoperational, including one in the devastated “buffer zone” ghost town Agdam. What Simon does not say that all the mosques were actually destroyed, except for 2, one in Shusha and 1 in Agdam, and the one in Agdam was vandalized and used for keeping cattle[7] [8].

Also, there is REDFLAG statements in the article, which based on "someone told us", which are not verifiable at all:

1. Recounting his 2013 visit to Agulis, Burtin recently told Hyperallergic that he didn’t see “a trace of the area’s glorious past.” Burtin did not mince words to describe what he saw (or rather, didn’t see): “not even ISIS could commit such an epic crime against humanity.”.

2. “Oil-rich Azerbaijan’s annihilation of Nakhichevan’s Armenian past make it worse than ISIS, yet UNESCO and most Westerners have looked away.” ISIS-demolished sites like Palmyra can be renovated, Ayvazyan argues Abrvagl (talk) 08:40, 23 May 2022 (UTC)

It's neither self-published nor a newsblog, and while we need to comply with WP:NPOV, we can use sources that don't - although I am not seeing any evidence that this source is biased, and other reliable sources such as the Guardian consider the report credible.

Looking at your example, to demonstrate that this article is inaccurate, we would need reliable sources supporting the claim that all mosques in the region were destroyed, but neither of your sources say this - they don't even say that all mosques except two were destroyed.

As for the statements, sources aren't required to provide a citation supporting quotes they make. Do you have any evidence that those quotes - or other quotes - were manufactured by Hyperallergic? BilledMammal (talk) 14:49, 23 May 2022 (UTC)

• Unless I'm missing something obvious, the cited hyperallergic source does not seem to support the worst cultural genocide of the 21st century statement. M.Bitton (talk) 16:20, 21 May 2022 (UTC)

  Well noted. Miss copied. Hyperalergic linked article states not even ISIS could commit such an epic crime against humanity.. The “ worst cultural genocide of the 21st century” is headlines from the other article. Abrvagl (talk) 16:49, 21 May 2022 (UTC)

• Hyperallergic is a pretty decent source for art and art-adjacent topics. This is an art-adjacent topic. Calling something "the worst cultural genocide of the 21st century" isn't a statement of fact, but an opinion, so obviously it needs to be attributed. One of the things we can look for to evaluate WP:WEIGHT of such an opinion is whether it's mentioned anywhere else. In fact, the guardian and the la times have both picked it up. A google search for "worst cultural genocide of the 21st century" yields several other results which seem to be based on the Hyperallergic article. — Rhododendrites ^talk \\ 17:11, 21 May 2022 (UTC)

  Hyperallergic might be decent source for arts related topics, but with all respect, it is NEWSBLOG which biased and not reliable for politics-adjacent articles, and mentioned articles are political related. Abrvagl (talk) 18:06, 21 May 2022 (UTC)

• “the greatest cultural genocide of the 21st century” comes from a Guardian article, reporting the Hyperallergic article and actually attributing these queries to Hyperallergic’s writers. The fact it’s being reported by a big third party proves the reliability of the Hyperallergic article. OP hasn't demonstrated any valid and relevant policy-based reasons to think otherwise. ZaniGiovanni (talk) 15:52, 23 May 2022 (UTC)

• I think Hyperallergic should be treated in accordance with WP:CONTEXTMATTERS. When it covers the WP:ARBAA2 articles, its opinionated statements should be avoided there. Especially since Hyperallergic describes itself as "a forum for serious, playful, and radical thinking about art in the world today" (emphasis mine). The claim of "the worst cultural genocide of the 21st century" is a clear example of this and should be dropped even if attributed. Brandmeister^talk 18:13, 23 May 2022 (UTC)

  • The claim of "the worst cultural genocide of the 21st century" is a clear example of this and should be dropped even if attributed

  Why exactly? No, not even clear to me, far from it. Please elaborate and give a policy based valid reason why Hyperallergic isn't reliable / shouldn't be used when all the indications show otherwise? “the greatest cultural genocide of the 21st century” comes from a Guardian article reporting the Hyperallergic article, again, the fact it’s being reported by Guardian proves the reliability of the Hyperallergic article. Honestly, I've yet to see a valid policy based reason as to why this article can't be used when big third parties quote its writers [9], [10]. ZaniGiovanni (talk) 20:40, 23 May 2022 (UTC)

  I tend to agree. Some other sources call it cultural genocide too [11] and it was called as such at the floor of the European Parliament [12] so I think it can be mentioned. Alaexis_¿question? 20:51, 23 May 2022 (UTC)

  Hyperallergic never posted even a single article to the favor of Azerbaijan, or at least considering Azerbaijan side[13]. Some clear examples of Hyperallegic being bias and not neutral when it comes to Azerbaijan related articles: Shushi’s Occupied Museums, A War Over Patterns, Symbols, and the Cultural Heritage of Karabakh’s Carpets.

  Let me put it this way. Correct me if I am wrong, we are saying that articles posted on the NEWSBLOG[14], owned by the active Armenian diaspora members, who hold anti-Azerbaijan position(Hrag Vartanian[15],[16],[17];Veken Gueyikian [18],[19]) which written by the propaganda warrior Simon Maghakyan, who hold anti-Azerbaijan position[20][21][22], and who works for ANCA, which holds anti-Azerbaijan position[23], are neutral and reliable for the WP:ARBAA2 articles. Are we? Abrvagl (talk) 16:44, 24 May 2022 (UTC)

  How many times you have to be told that Hyperallergic isn't a "NewsBlog"? I feel like I told you this 10 times already in Talk:Anti-Armenian_sentiment_in_Azerbaijan#Destruction_of_cultural_heritage, and you received the same answer here as well. This constant repetition leans to WP:CIR already for all I know.

  Correct me if I am wrong...

  Do you think you know better than The Guardian [24], La Times [25], Foreign Policy [26], European Parliament [27] who discussed / wrote articles about this topic or quoted Hyperallergic writers in their articles? Do you think that linking random twitter posts without even quoting them, with your own commentary, is going to change this reality? ZaniGiovanni (talk) 17:17, 24 May 2022 (UTC)

List setlist.fm as generally unreliable?

Setlist.fm is a self-proclaimed 'setlist-wiki' where users submit data for live shows and their setlists. It is a violation of WP:USERG, and is used in numerous articles (see here). It would be helpful for setlist.fm to be listed at WP:RSP like discogs is, to reduce future use.

Wikipedia:WikiProject Albums/Sources lists the site as unreliable, with a very short discussion here. The site's about page states the following, "Anyone who likes to share their knowledge about setlists is welcome to add and edit setlists". Here are a few random examples of the source being used in articles: ref 5, ref 20, ref 2, ref 11. — PerfectSoundWhatever (t; c) 17:00, 22 May 2022 (UTC)

Unsure if this has to be an RfC to be added to the list, if it does, please let me know — PerfectSoundWhatever (t; c) 17:02, 22 May 2022 (UTC)

I think it has to be an RfC, so I'll go ahead and do so. If this is incorrect, feel free to revert. — PerfectSoundWhatever (t; c) 15:08, 23 May 2022 (UTC)

Setlist.fm RfC

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.

---

Which of the following best describes the reliability of setlist.fm?

• Option 1: Generally reliable for live show and setlist statistics
• Option 2: Unclear or additional considerations apply
• Option 3: Generally unreliable for live show and setlist statistics
• Option 4: Publishes false or fabricated information, and should be added to Wikipedia:Deprecated sources?

— PerfectSoundWhatever (t; c) 15:08, 23 May 2022 (UTC)

• Its a wiki so Option 3. Slatersteven (talk) 16:04, 23 May 2022 (UTC)
  • Option 3 per Slatersteven. ― Qwerfjkltalk 17:18, 23 May 2022 (UTC)
• No need for an RFC, this is clearly WP:UGC (aka option 3). Headbomb {t · c · p · b} 17:31, 23 May 2022 (UTC)
• Option 3 obviously but yeah, there's no need for an RfC here. If you're adding information about what an artist played live, that has to come from a source such as a reliable review of the show. Black Kite (talk) 13:03, 24 May 2022 (UTC)

  @Headbomb and Black Kite: Should I withdraw the RfC? I thought it needed one since Rateyourmusic, Discogs, and Last.fm had one, and they're all the same clear-cut WP:UGC.

  Also, the top of this page states "Requests for comment for deprecation, or for blacklisting or classification as generally unreliable of sources that are widely used in articles, should be registered here using an RfC". I'm requesting for the site to be listed as generally unreliable, and it is pretty widely used. I'm unsure what else I should have done so the site could be added to WP:RSP — PerfectSoundWhatever (t; c) 13:40, 24 May 2022 (UTC)

  @PerfectSoundWhatever: Setlist.fm is de facto deprecated (per our WP:RS policy). Is anyone questioning its unreliability? M.Bitton (talk) 13:54, 24 May 2022 (UTC)

  I'll withdraw the RfC. — PerfectSoundWhatever (t; c) 21:26, 24 May 2022 (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.

Are NTD and vision times legit source?

I really want to know if news media such as NTD (New Tang Dynasty) and Vision Times are legit source or not? I heard they are run by falun gong practitioners and often known for their baised anti-China news. Though NTD claim itself a quality source in its website and abt Vision times there are not much info available on google. Can they be trusted as far as entertainment is concerned? — Preceding unsigned comment added by Arorapriyansh333 (talk • contribs) 04:34, 23 May 2022 (UTC)

I believe NTD news excluding politics are generally reliable. As for politics, they are biased. An unimportant person (talk) 10:29, 23 May 2022 (UTC)

Biased does not equal unreliable. Are they fabricating stories?Slywriter (talk) 16:43, 24 May 2022 (UTC)

Should be treated the same as sister publication WP:EPOCHTIMES (which is deprecated). - MrOllie (talk) 17:26, 24 May 2022 (UTC)

Agreed. As part of a consortium with the Epoch Times, I would treat is as unreliable without some very convincing evidence to the contrary. Cheers. Dumuzid (talk) 17:28, 24 May 2022 (UTC)

Now that I can support.Slywriter (talk) 20:30, 24 May 2022 (UTC)

Yep, that is correct: Highly unreliable. It's yet another Falun Gong media entity, just like The Epoch Times. :bloodofox: (talk) 02:37, 25 May 2022 (UTC)

Ok i'm now confirmed. Thank you very much.. Arorapriyansh333 (talk • contribs)

Official Website of an Organization

Hi, I am relatively new to Wikipedia editing, so please forgive me if I am doing this wrong.

I am looking to start a page (an article? idk) about a non-profit organization that I am a part of, and I am just wondering if the website of that organization would be considered a reliable source for information. The organization is North Texas Performing Arts and the website is ntpa.org. If I am allowed to, I would probably use this website as the main source of information for the article. Alligator023 (talk) 15:04, 25 May 2022 (UTC) Alligator023

@Alligator023 Welcome to Wikipedia. It seems you have a fundamental misunderstanding as to what Wikipedia is for. We do not have pages for organizations, we have articles about notable topics. The fact that you are part of the organization means you have a conflict of interest and cannot be trusted to write neutrally about that topic. The organization's website is not an independant source, and independent sources are required to demonstrate notabilty. That said, self published sources are considered reliable for some uncontroversial facts about an article subject - but they should be used sparingly. ~ ONUnicorn^{(Talk|Contribs)}problem solving 15:21, 25 May 2022 (UTC)

Thank you for the clarification Alligator023 (talk) 15:37, 25 May 2022 (UTC)

Bloomberg

This article which appears to have been authored by multiple Bloomberg editors was turned down as being a source too closely associated with the company, i.e. a press release. Can someone tell me what is wrong with this source? M4DU7 (talk) 09:30, 26 May 2022 (UTC)

genome.ch.bbc.co.uk

As there was an element of "crowd-sourcing" for this site (see https://genome.ch.bbc.co.uk/genome), should it be regarded as unreliable? Regards, BennyOnTheLoose (talk) 11:55, 26 May 2022 (UTC)

It was crowd sourced to check OCRing and make some corrections, it wasn't crowd sourced to add net new information just perform error checking. While it's possible some errors could have slipped in, it was still coming from an reliable source. I'd say it's reliable unless evidence can be produced to indicate that the crowdsourced checking and correction of the OCR produced too high an error rate. Canterbury Tail talk 12:05, 26 May 2022 (UTC)

Dread Central

So the website Dread Central is listed on Wikipedia:WikiProject_Horror/Sources#Reliable_sources, but I don't see any editorial credits anywhere on the site. This to me is a big red flag. How do we know the site is reputable? Under what consensus was it approved as a reputable source? I've never seen any discussion anywhere in favor of or against it. There are no discussions on WP:HORROR's talk page, nor here on RSN. Ten Pound Hammer • ^{(What did I screw up now?)} 13:50, 26 May 2022 (UTC)

• ETA: See Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Lifeless (TV series). Ten Pound Hammer • ^{(What did I screw up now?)} 13:57, 26 May 2022 (UTC)

  That list was discussed/made at Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Horror/Archive 5#Reliable sources list with universal agreement. There was no individual discussion about the merits of Dread Central, though. Just FYI. Woodroar (talk) 14:09, 26 May 2022 (UTC)

• Hollywood Reporter article about site - Seems like it may have credibility.Slywriter (talk) 14:12, 26 May 2022 (UTC)

Corrected above Hollywood Reporter link here Atlantic306 (talk) 17:47, 26 May 2022 (UTC)

• Reliable as it is a mainstream horror site quoted in reliable sources and a main critic on Rotten Tomatoes. Also there is information on its editors in chief at the Dread Central Wikipedia article which also shows it has won a number of awards and has been covered in multiple reliable sources, imv Atlantic306 (talk) 17:35, 26 May 2022 (UTC)
• Comment As far as I'm aware it has been regarded as reliable by the horror project for as long as I have been on Wikipedia.★Trekker (talk) 17:47, 26 May 2022 (UTC)
• Comment, they might not have an editorial page on their website, but they have an editor in chief and a managing editor [28] DonaldD23 talk to me 18:23, 26 May 2022 (UTC)
• It's a mainstream publication that's pretty widely respected and reported on. It's also been used as a source in academic and scholarly sources fairly regularly as well, per things like this, this, and this, and some of their writers have gotten mention themselves in stuff like this. As far as horror goes, they're kind of a household name like the New York Times, Washington Post, or The Guardian. Or to use a genre specific one, like Fangoria or Rue Morgue. They're good about factchecking and so on. I don't know why they don't have editorial info posted, but they do have editors and staff writers. This article even covers a new staff member joining the editorial board. ReaderofthePack(formerly Tokyogirl79) (｡◕‿◕｡) 18:46, 26 May 2022 (UTC)

• Basically, while the editorial staff not having its own page can sometimes be a sign that a source isn't reliable, the lack of posted info about the editorial staff and oversight doesn't automatically mean that something isn't reliable or usable. (On the other hand, a editorial staff/policy page doesn't always mean that a source is reliable either. I mean, The Sun has an editorial page and they're about as reliable as a mesh umbrella in a rainstorm.) This is one of those cases where there isn't a page listing the staff, but is still reliable. ReaderofthePack(formerly Tokyogirl79) (｡◕‿◕｡) 19:02, 26 May 2022 (UTC)

Reliability of Manglorean

I recently discovered a site which is almost 20years old [29] also has some mentions in article references on Wikipedia but doesn't have it's own article. I checked the website found to be genuine as they have different section of press release articles especially of the politicians as well, I mean to say they are not biased of the politicians. I think who has expertise on deep analysis can be helpful on this topic. 2409:4060:218C:53B2:0:0:43D:68A1 (talk) 01:01, 27 May 2022 (UTC)

Well this is a local newspaper in southern India. What are you asking about it? If it is used sometimes as a source that might be appropriate, but you would need to come back here to ask the particular articles where it is used. If you want to create an article about the newspaper, you will have to find out whether there are other sources, not connected with the newspaper, that mention it. See for example The Argus (Brighton) for what a short article on a local newspaper can look like. Itsmejudith (talk) 08:36, 27 May 2022 (UTC)

Outandaboutlive.co.uk

I've used this as a source on Ford Transit Custom, but does this count as WP:RS per your guidelines? They're basically a magazine on motorhomes, caravans, holiday homes etc. --Easteary861 (talk) 15:53, 26 May 2022 (UTC)

I think it's fine. It's the kind of place you'd expect to get a review of a new motorhome. Itsmejudith (talk) 17:07, 26 May 2022 (UTC)

Seems reasonable within the context of motorhomes. The website show some of their other titles, so they seem to have background knowledge and editorial processes. Cheers Markbassett (talk) 04:03, 28 May 2022 (UTC)

Is Hamariweb.com a reliable source?

Hamariweb.com. I found many Wikipedia articles cited this site. This site is very much popular and maybe 10 years old. I also want to cite this site in some of pages that's why I want to know that is this source reliable? Grabup (talk) 10:10, 28 May 2022 (UTC)

A quick glance at their website and I don't see anything obviously objectionable. —Compassionate727 ^(T·C) 15:22, 28 May 2022 (UTC)

From the Fires of War: Ukraine’s Azov Movement and the Global Far Right

Published by ibidem-Verlag has been described as A "self published vanity press source" over at [[30]], is this correct? And thus is this not an RS? Slatersteven (talk) 12:17, 29 May 2022 (UTC)

The citation error has been corrected at 12:10 by Vladimir.copic so the point has been moot and so I’m not sure why you’re bringing this here now? Volunteer Marek 13:02, 29 May 2022 (UTC)

Because when I posted this you were still raging it was a "self published vanity press source". Slatersteven (talk) 13:15, 29 May 2022 (UTC)

Might as well close this, overtaken by events. Selfstudier (talk) 13:27, 29 May 2022 (UTC)

I now agree, the issue has been (in this instance) resolved. Slatersteven (talk) 13:29, 29 May 2022 (UTC)

Reliability of Euromaidan Press

Recently, a discussion has started between me and @Mhorg: about the reliability of Ukrainian English-language online newspaper Euromaidan Press. Mhorg argues that Euromaidan Press supports a pro-Ukrainian government agenda and should be considered propaganda, while I argue that, while being supportive of Euromaidan and the Revolution of Dignity, Euromaidan Press is an independent and reliable source, which receives support from notable liberal democratic institutions like the International Renaissance Foundation and the Open Society Foundations and is mainly supported by readers' donations. I would like the topic to be clarified.--Karma1998 (talk) 13:42, 27 May 2022 (UTC)

Absolutely an unreliable and extremely biased source for everything related to Ukraine. "Euromaidan Press is an online English-language independent newspaper launched by Ukrainian volunteers in 2014"[31] Yes, "Ukrainian volunteers" or "activists" or people who already have a very precise vision of the world, that of Euromaidan (which is the name of the newspaper inspired by those events). Giving space to this source would be to pollute the debate, in the same way as Sputnik does for Russia.

For example, in 2014 this newspaper whitewashed the Azov Battalion, even when all Western sources referred to it as a neo-Nazi or far-right battalion.[32] And again.[33] There is not even a mention of a right-wing ideology of the battalion... it is presented as just any military formation.

Here an interview with Andriy Biletsky founder of Azov, described by many Western RS as an anti-semite, called "The White Leader". Not even a mention of his past in their articles... he is presented as just any commander of the war.[34]

Here we have an article about Right Sector, not even a mention to their links with Ukrainian far-right circles, presented as just any military formation. [35]

I hope I was clear enough, but other cases can be brought up as well, their site is full of biased articles. This is not independent journalism, it is biased journalism by activists who have a very clear political position. So no, it cannot be used for matters involving Ukraine, too much conflict of interest. Mhorg (talk) 14:10, 27 May 2022 (UTC)

conflict of interest does mean not “supports the Ukrainian government”. As per the name, they are in favor of democracy, yes, in an area where this is still controversial. What is the exact source and statement it is supposed to support? Elinruby (talk) 15:01, 27 May 2022 (UTC)

@Elinruby: there is a difference between "biased" and "unreliable". Jacobin and The Nation are clearly biased, but are not always unreliable.-Karma1998 (talk) 16:18, 27 May 2022 (UTC)

This is true also. Of course. But as a separate matter, “conflict of interest” does not mean what Mhorg seems to think it means. Elinruby (talk) 18:37, 27 May 2022 (UTC)

@Mhorg: as for the articles you provided, these are simply articles about the war and the conflict. Their focus is not the ideology of the mentioned people. As for the comparison with Sputnik News, it's nonsense: Sputnik is owned and financed by the Russian government, while Euromaidan Press isn't-Karma1998 (talk) 16:12, 27 May 2022 (UTC)

I read the discussion between Karma1998 and Mhorg and I think that context matters. Is Euromaidan Press reliable for statements of fact? Maybe it is (I'm not an expert and I haven't done research on this). Is it reliable for assessing the political situation and for value judgments? Maybe it is, within the confines of WP:BIASED. Is it reliable for assessing the academic standing of its contributors? Definitely not, as Euromaidan Press is not an academic outlet. So Anton Shekhovtsov's reliability as a source and his notability as academic (which I don't doubt) should be established elsewhere, on a different basis. And the same applies to Stephen F. Cohen - another author you were discussing about. His expertise in the area of his studies cannot be questioned on the basis that "The Daily Beast", "New Republic" and other news websites/magazines labelled his views as pro-Kremlin; while those sources can be used to argue that WP:BIASED applies, they can hardly disprove that he is a reliable source in his area of expertise. Gitz (talk) (contribs) 17:23, 27 May 2022 (UTC)

In my experience, mildly biased but mostly reliable - use for uncontroversial facts, and with attribution in controversial areas. BobFromBrockley (talk) 17:17, 27 May 2022 (UTC)

I’m thinking it’s at least as reliable as the Huffington Post, for example. But this would be a discretionary sanctions article, yes? Elinruby (talk) 18:42, 27 May 2022 (UTC)

I will say in general the reliability of Euromaidan Press depends on usage. I will say that I disagree strongly with some other comments when people refer to it as extremist or government sponsored - that is patently wrong. This site, along with a few others like it, were set up by people in the mainstream of Ukrainian civil society to have more media outlets in English that cover Ukrainian news that are not government or oligarch financed. If anything, it probably reflects the systematic bias of Ukrainian "mainstream” civil society, which is pro-democracy, pro-freedom of press, pro-europe, anti-putin. anti-communist, etc. this is hardly 'extremist' from the POV of the usual systematic bias of wikipedia.

Some of the examples listed here are dubious. Obviously, Ukrainian media is going to spend more of a focus, when talking with military units engaged in an active operation on asking about details about said operation than focusing on ideology of (some) members of a 2000 troop battalion. In the context of 2014, this is especially true, since the Ukrainian media market was not completely disconnected from the Russian media market, and there was already a hybrid war (filled with large amounts of disinformation hyping up the "nazi threat" ; https://euvsdisinfo.eu/why-does-putin-portray-himself-as-the-tamer-of-neo-nazism/?highlight=nazi ), coming from the Kremlin to distract from the actual clear and present danger, which in hindsight, was the external threat intent on dismembering and incorporating their country.

Whether or not it is appropriate to use it or not depends on context. I think it's WP:BIASED for certain issues, WP:RS for others. Cononsense (talk) 23:47, 27 May 2022 (UTC)

There are a couple of short mentions in the archives, Wikipedia:Reliable_sources/Noticeboard/Archive_201#Euromaidan_Press indicates a fair amount of bias, it is cited a fair amount in book rs, so possibly rs in general, pinch of salt if it is anything to do with Russia. Selfstudier (talk) 17:35, 27 May 2022 (UTC)

@Selfstudier: The articles mentioned there are all op-eds and one even has a disclaimer on it. We are clearly not supposed to judge the publication because of them.-Karma1998 (talk) 08:09, 28 May 2022 (UTC)

I mentioned them because we could consider an RFC on the reliability of Euromaiden if there were prior discussions about it without firm conclusions, idk if those relatively brief discussions would qualify, this current discussion would qualify, of course, in the event it is queried again. Selfstudier (talk) 14:13, 28 May 2022 (UTC)

@Selfstudier - I believe it's undoubtedly a partisan source..🤔 I would not use it. - GizzyCatBella🍁 18:44, 27 May 2022 (UTC)

@GizzyCatBella: the articles mentioned by Selfstudier are op-eds and one has a disclaimer on it. They shouldn't be used to judge the publication.-Karma1998 (talk)

Thank you Selfstudier. At that time I didn't use the English wiki much, I could never find that discussion. However, for anyone who has a minimum to do with the issue of the Russian-Ukrainian crisis/war, knows very well that this source is "extremist" and extremely biased. Mhorg (talk) 20:35, 27 May 2022 (UTC)

@Mhorg: "Extremist" is totally nonsense. They are a liberal, pro-democracy newspaper. Labeling pro-Ukrainian newspaper as "extremists" only plays the tune of Russian propaganda, expecially if you want us give credit to notorious far-left Putin apologists such as Cohen. I agree with @Cononsense: about the reliability of the publication.-Karma1998 (talk) 08:13, 28 May 2022 (UTC)

Do you have any evidence, sources, that Cohen was a "notorious far-left Putin apologist"? Selfstudier (talk) 14:19, 28 May 2022 (UTC)

@Selfstudier: as a matter of fact, yes I do.-Karma1998 (talk) 10:25, 29 May 2022 (UTC)

Then open a new section here for Cohen and ask the question whether he is reliable for (some statements). Afaics it is quite clear from the discussion here as well as at Talk:Far-right politics in Ukraine that there is substantive disagreement with your thesis.Selfstudier (talk) 10:33, 29 May 2022 (UTC)

[36] (before he was a Putin apologist he was a Stalin/Lenin apologist), [37] [38] [39] [40] etc etc etc Volunteer Marek 13:13, 29 May 2022 (UTC)

They are clearly biased (for example calling the surrender of Azovstal defenders evacuation or running an article about Azov fighters loving "pets, books, and sports"). As with other biased sources they can be used provided that due weight is given to different perspectives. Alaexis_¿question? 18:50, 28 May 2022 (UTC)

Sources are supposed to be evaluated with respect to a specific statement in a specific context. Neither the statement nor the context has been provided here, and if you go look at the article in question, it turns out that somebody is trying to impeach a writer because he has written for Euromaidan Press and Euromaidan has not signed on to the whole "Azov Battalion is evil" POV that some editors are pushing. It seriously doesn't work that way. First of all, Wikipedia is not censored and does not have ideological litmus tests. Even if Euromaidan were utter trash, with which I emphatically do not agree, would not affect whether one of its authors is an expert in a his field! Lewis Carroll wrote Alice in Wonderland, and was nonetheless a mathematician. This argument is simply wrong on a number of levels. It might be possible to say that someone who has written for RT or The Daily Stormer is not a serious journalist, since journalism requires objectivity, but a) this is not the place to do it and b) Euromaidan Press is not in the same league just because it supports democracy in Ukraine. Even an RT journalism might be reliable on the inner workings of RT. Possibly. Elinruby (talk) 13:18, 29 May 2022 (UTC)

It’s more reliable than The Nation and *definitely* more reliable than The Jacobin (which is mostly trash). Volunteer Marek 13:06, 29 May 2022 (UTC)

Reliable for facts and for views of Ukrainians. Reuters did a good piece on them.[41] MBFC rates their credibility as high.Disconnected Phrases (talk) 06:18, 30 May 2022 (UTC)

Extensive use of baseball-reference.com / bullpen open wiki

There is a subsection of the baseball-reference.com site which is an open wiki. While I realize BR has been deteremined to be a reliable source, this part of the site seems to very clearly not be. Prior RSN discussions are limited - I was only able to find this. There are many prior discussions at WP:BASEBALL (ex: here here here, and here), and they include an explicit disclaimer of the site in their style advice page.

The Bullpen's disclaimers seem to be clear as well: "ABSOLUTELY no guarantee or warranty is given to the accuracy of the material within the BR Bullpen. These materials are produced and edited by users (hopefully knowledgeable ones) like yourself. While we hope you will find a great deal of accurate and helpful material on this section of Baseball-Reference.com, it is certain that there will be some errors both unintentional and intentionally placed there. These materials receive NO REVIEW by an outside panel of experts."

There are more than 3,000 references or links to this material in live articles or drafts. It is possible, given license on that site, that some links are necessary for attribution of copied material - obviously that will need to be retained, although there seems to be some historical questions about the compatibility of licenses. Before I start removing them, I just wanted to make sure I'm not missing something since this will likely cause some disruption. Kuru (talk) 18:07, 29 May 2022 (UTC)

The wiki seems like a splendid example of WP:USERG, and outside possibly the WP:EL section, should not be used, especially not in a WP:BLP. Gråbergs Gråa Sång (talk) 18:54, 29 May 2022 (UTC)

I'm usually all for WP:PRESERVE, but does an EL from one wiki to another provide any value? I'd remove them from an EL section.—Bagumba (talk) 18:58, 29 May 2022 (UTC)

Before I start removing them...: Will you just be removing the citations outright, or also be tagging the statements with {{Cn}}'s?—Bagumba (talk) 18:58, 29 May 2022 (UTC)

1) Where it is the sole reference, remove it and replace with a CN unless the section is tagged already (if it's sensitive BLP material, then excise the statement instead of tagging). 2) where it is used in conjunction with other reference, remove it and check the others to make sure the statement is covered - if not, tag with a CN noting the part that is uncovered (or add a CN mid-sentence possibly). 3) evaluate corner-cases: external links that are extensive, possible attributions, and inline links that can be replaced with an internal link to another article. The only case were I'd remove it outright would be if it's a "decorative" inline link (the statement is covered by an existing source, and the link was just an external link to more info). I do all this by hand and evaluate each one; I don't really see a path on an automated approach that would catch the corners. Yeah, it will take a long time; hence discussion first before I spend that capital. Kuru (talk) 20:01, 29 May 2022 (UTC)

Sounds reasonable. —Bagumba (talk) 10:52, 30 May 2022 (UTC)

I've been deleting B-R bullpen links for over a decade & was not surprised to find the first of your links was a 64.85 dynamic IP that was me before I registered. Back then, I was focusing on removing the link from Negro league pages, and a few others I found. What I did was, in general, if the statement was sourced at bullpen, I would simply change the ref to the ref used at bullpen. If it was unref'd at bullpen, and I could not find another ref, I'd just remove it. I think the only ones where I ran into trouble was all of the "Landis is a racist" statements, but eventually those all got ref'd by someone.

Also noting, that back in the day there was Template:Bullpen that was similar to Template:1902 Britannica, which said something like "Text of this article was copied from B-R bullpen under license such & such." Once I got all of those articles fixed I got that template deleted. You probably won't run into much opposition in my opinion, and it probably won't take you as long as you think. Rgrds. --Bison X (talk) 21:11, 29 May 2022 (UTC)

Are "Light & Life Publishers" reliable for anything?

I see quite a bit of use of this publisher.[42]

It's "About page"[43] says "We felt God’s hand on this company from the beginning and because of this our mission at Light & Life is to: Increase the personal knowledge of Jesus Christ and His Church through the written word, serve our customers efficiently, and bring ultimate glory to the life-giving Trinity: Father, Son and Holy Spirit." Doug Weller talk 10:09, 30 May 2022 (UTC)

I would say it would depend on the author, and the topic. Slatersteven (talk) 10:36, 30 May 2022 (UTC)

Are you sure the website is actually for the same publisher? Looking at the titles being cited, I have my doubts. AndyTheGrump (talk) 10:43, 30 May 2022 (UTC)

Agreed. I'm confusing two publishers. That was the first one I found and the easiest, but as I can see books by the Indian company with a similar name at JSTOR, those books are probably ok with the usual caveats.[44] Doug Weller talk 11:00, 30 May 2022 (UTC)

Apologies for wasting your time, folks. But the books Fida Muhammad Hassnain published with them are only RS for him, so there's your usual caveat. Doug Weller talk 11:04, 30 May 2022 (UTC)

Texas Attorney General's interview reliable or not?

Talk page thread: Talk:Robb Elementary School shooting#Texas Attorney General Ken_Paxton's comment removed

(Permanent link)

Proposed text and the source:

Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton responding to a question on why he resisted gun control, said that he believed shooters wouldn't follow the law, and he'd rather see citizens "armed and trained" so they could respond to events such as mass shootings. Republican officials have also called for increasing security presence in schools, limiting entryways into schools, and arming teachers and other school officials.

References

Texas AG gave interview to Newsmax, AG was quoted in The Texas Tribune, a reliable source. I believe that AG is the source here. Iamreallygoodatcheckers had added it But @Chesapeake77 has removed [45] [46] and is blocking this content claiming Newsmax is unreliable. Please help to determine if this can be considered reliable source or not? Venkat TL (talk) 18:20, 26 May 2022 (UTC)

Hi, It was removed because the Texas Tribune article is using material from a NewsMax article (and the Tex. Trib. fully acknowledges this in the article).

PLEASE NOTE: The problem is NewsMax references and citations are BANNED on Wikipedia. If you go here (AND SCROLL DOWN) you will see a list of BANNED (and ACCEPTED) news sources for Wikipedia-- (Click Here and scroll down)-- WP:RSPSOURCES.

By all means, do go find another conservative news source to add balance to the subject in the paragraph. But it can't be a copy of NewsMax reporting because that is considered an unreliable source on Wikipedia.

Also, I did not "block" it, I reverted it.

Respectfully, Chesapeake77 ^{>>> ♥ Truth} 19:24, 26 May 2022 (UTC)

Chesapeake77, while I agree re: Newsmax, in this instance, it's the Texas Tribune's reputation on which we are relying. They are entitled to find something pertinent and accurate on Newsmax, and it it passes their fact-checking and editorial processes, then it is okay for inclusion on Wikipedia by my lights. There may be other questions about whether the material is actually WP:DUE, but I would say it should not be reverted on non-RS grounds. As ever, just my opinion. Cheers. Dumuzid (talk) 19:30, 26 May 2022 (UTC)

Sometimes a simple attribution can make all the difference in finding consensus. Just a possible suggestion. IMO Newsmax is very slanted, and if no other sources say it, it's probably just Newsmax's opinion. DN (talk) 19:38, 26 May 2022 (UTC)

NewsMax is indeed righteously deprecated. I not sure that extends to saying that the Texas Tribune (a gold-standard reliable source for Texas) cannot report what a politician says on their network, although I guess they could misleadingly edit the video. However, the fact that he said this is not exactly shocking and a few other sources have now published this, so rather than trying to parse this I would suggest using [47] or [48] or [49] Elinruby (talk) 19:42, 26 May 2022 (UTC)

• It should be perfectly fine to use the Texas Tribune source to verify that Paxton made those remarks in a TV interview with Newsmax. I'm sure this has been done before in similar scenarios. ––FormalDude talk 20:03, 26 May 2022 (UTC)
• Source is usable per FormalDude. Iamreallygoodatcheckers (talk) 22:58, 26 May 2022 (UTC)
• Source is fine, per the above. The source we are citing is reliable, and can be presumed to do their factchecking. While we don't cite NewsMax directly with good reason, quotes from interviews that have been cleansed by passing through the editorial controls of actual reliable sources are fine. --Jayron32 14:15, 27 May 2022 (UTC)
• The Texas Tribune is a RS. The fact that they are quoting NewsMax (which isn't) doesn't matter, because part of the purpose of an RS is to cover stuff for us that we wouldn't cite or describe directly - the presumption is that the editorial controls and fact-checking of an RS will handle any issues caused by the original source. The only caveat is that you have to pay attention to how the RS handles it and reflect that; if an RS quotes something but says it is blatantly wrong, then you have to include that or you're misusing the source - but I don't think that that's the case here. So WP:RS-wise it is fine. The question is WP:DUE, not WP:RS. --Aquillion (talk) 18:56, 30 May 2022 (UTC)

Closer Weekly, Hollywood Life, Betty White's Memoir

I'm trying to gather enough sources to start a page for a historian at NYU. His name is David Ludden. His field is Asia, especially South Asia, but now also Global Asia. Well, ... all that is true, but he is also the son of Alan Ludden the 70s talk show host and the stepson of the actress Betty White of the The Mary Tyler Moore Show and whatnot else. He went to Andover, Yale, and Penn where he received his Ph.D., and was soon hired at Penn where he remained for many years chairing the department and so forth, about which Betty White in a memoir says, "Go figure." In pretty much all the work I've done on WP, I've used academic sources. And although I can find plenty scholarly reviews of his professional work, I'm a little stumped with the personal life bit. E.g. there's the story about David, Alan, and Betty acting in Critics' Choice in 1962, the play leading to Betty falling in love with Alan, etc. Anyhow, here are the non-scholarly sources I have the judgment on which I will leave to the mercies of the experts here:

• A Closer (magazine) especially Betty White Was a Stepmom to Late Husband Allen Ludden’s 3 Kids! Meet David, Martha and Sarah
• B This People Magazine story, although it doesn't have much
• C The book Images of America about Lakewood Theater in Maine, especially pages 108 and 109, the photo captions
• D Betty Whites memoir Here we go again: my life in television, Scribner, 2010, especially pages 140 and 141
• E Ludden's web page at NYU.
• F Ludden's personal web page at NYU

— Preceding unsigned comment added by Fowler&fowler (talk • contribs) 13:34, 30 May 2022 (UTC)

Erm, what exactly is the question here? —Compassionate727 ^(T·C) 12:49, 31 May 2022 (UTC)

Can these sources be used for a Wikipedia biography? Fowler&fowler«Talk» 13:11, 31 May 2022 (UTC)

Very sorry, I forgot to sign. Fowler&fowler«Talk» 13:11, 31 May 2022 (UTC)

Raping and killing a 1-year-old in Ukraine as alleged by Ukr. politician and reported by Daily Beast and Yahoo News

Hello, I'd like to know if this article and this article constitute reliable sources for the purposes of inclusion of these contents. Please refer to this discussion on the talk page. The points under discussions are the following ones: 1) Did "Daily Beast" and "Yahoo News" exercise some kind of independent journalist oversight over the allegations of war crimes made by Ukrainian ombudswoman Lyudmyla Denisova? Are they reliable secondary sources, or are they just the bullhorn for the primary source? 2) Allegations of war crimes made by ombudswoman Denisova are per se sufficiently notable in the article War crimes in the 2022 Russian invasion of Ukraine? 3) War crimes alleged by ombudswoman Denisova, if not independently documented, are sufficiently verifiable? Based on the answers to these questions, the editorial issue is Option 1: publish or Option 2: not to publish that According to the ombudswomen a 1 year old boy died after being raped by Russian soldiers in a village near Kharkiv. A dozen other reported victims includes "two 10-year-old boys, triplets aged 9, a 2-year-old girl raped by two Russian soldiers, and a 9-month-old baby" who was raped in front of his mother. Gitz (talk) (contribs) 17:05, 22 May 2022 (UTC)

I would say that the Daily Beast and Yahoo News are sufficient as sources for the fact that she said it. The way you speculate about them being just the bullhorn for the primary source sets off alarm bells in my head - that logic could be used to instantly disqualify any source reporting any statement by anyone and isn't grounded in policy at all; part of the purpose of an WP:RS is to decide which quotes and claims are noteworthy. That is to say, if an RS is acting as her "bullhorn", that is an appropriate editorial judgment for them to make and is enough to satisfy the bare minimum for inclusion. It does not necessarily require inclusion - whether they are WP:DUE is another question which has to be decided by comparing the weight of this quote to the weight of what's already in the page; I do tend to agree that it's worth being skeptical about including genuine but incendiary or exceptional claims and quotes reported in reliable sources - but "they're just reporting what she says" isn't a meaningful WP:RS objection. And this isn't the appropriate place to ask about due weight issues - try WP:NPOVN. --Aquillion (talk) 06:10, 23 May 2022 (UTC)

Even at their most depraved, no one rapes a 1 year old. This is very WP:UNDUE, and very likely a fabrication/exaggeration. Headbomb {t · c · p · b} 06:18, 23 May 2022 (UTC)

WP:UNDUE deals with fair representation of signficant viewpoints, in proportion to their prominence in sources. It has nothing to do with personal asssessments of the depravity of a given act, or the one's personal belief in the likelihood of it being fabricated. Nightscream (talk) 17:11, 28 May 2022 (UTC)

Without commenting on the actual issue here, I'd just like to say that I wish I shared your optimism about humanity. Cheers. Dumuzid (talk) 06:27, 23 May 2022 (UTC)

Indeed. The thing about Yahoo News is that they seem to rewrite news from other sources, which tend to be reliable. In this case the source seems to be the Ukrainian Ministry of Defense and the Ukrainian ombudsman, which, rightly or wrongly, are being accepted as reliable on war crimes in Ukraine in 2022. There have been quite a few allegations of rape, although I hadn't seen these in particular, and they are particularly spectacular. I would at least verify the sourcing of the articles, just because; ie did they really say it. I'd be happier if the caliber of the sources was better. These are acceptable sources, but not extraordinary as these extraordinary claims would seem to require. Yahoo is rather mediocre and Daily Beast rather sensational, if usually accurate for a certain definition of accurate. As to Headbomb's comment, I would suggest that rape in this case most likely involved penetration with an object, at least for the smaller children, and at the risk of sanctimony point out that rape is about violence, not sexual attraction. TL:DR: reluctant yes, sort of. And my sympathies are with the Ukrainians, mind you. I think the elaborate gory detail may be rather undue, and have some BLP concerns if these kids live in small villages. Sure the identifying detail may already be out there, but should we ourselves memorialize it? Triplets is pretty specific. Personally I think I would say something about the ombudsman reporting multiple rapes of children, some very young. Elinruby (talk) 07:29, 23 May 2022 (UTC)

(a bit later) on re-reading I see that the Yahoo story at least has been filtered through the Twitter feed of Iryna Matviyishyn, a reporter for the Kyiv Post and a respected journalist, which improves my opinion of the Yahoo article's reliability. I still have UNDUE and BLP concerns however. Elinruby (talk) 07:44, 23 May 2022 (UTC)

@Headbomb I wish you were right but you're not. Examples: [50], [51], [52], [53], [54], [55]. EvergreenFir (talk) 15:09, 31 May 2022 (UTC)

@Aquillion My "bullhorn for the primary source" was actually a verbatim quotation from a discussion we're currently having about TASS (here at RSN above), my point being that just like TASS merely echoes statements by politicians without scrutiny because TASS is politically oriented (they're government agents), so popular newspapers may report shocking statements because they are oriented by marketing purposes.

I'm not claiming popular newspapers are lying, but they could be reporting the ombudswoman's statements without scrutiny because they lack motivation; and the ombudswoman herself could be reporting army officers' allegations without scrutiny because of lack of motivation, and the army officers could be reporting someone's allegations without scrutiny for the same reason. The question is: should we report them as well without scrutiny? Even without official propaganda inputs, all wars create incredible tales that are nothing but the consequence of the real trauma - no mean intentions are needed. But the standard of Wikipedia should be higher than that: New York Times, BBC, CCN, Times, Le Monde, Frankfurter Allgemeiner, Corriere della Sera, they don't publish news about 1-year-old raped by the Russians. Should we?

With regard to sexual violence against children, I suggested we publish "On 13 May UK representative to the UN said that there were credible allegations of sexual violence against children by Russian troops [CBS]. The issue of sexual violence against children had already been raised by human rights activists and Ukrainian authorities at the beginnings of April [CNN]" I'm also perfectly fine with Elinruby's suggestion ("On 19 May Ukrainian ombudswoman Denisova reported multiple rapes of children, some very young"). By the way, her post on Facebook (the primary source of all this) was removed by Facebook, as she explains here and can still be read on her Telegam channel here.

Final note: on War crimes in the 2022 Russian invasion of Ukraine this is a recurring problem. For weeks we've had an intercepted phone call, released by the Ukr. army, where a Russian soldier tells his mother that he likes torturing captured Ukrainians, recalls the heroic behavior of Ukrainians who, even under the most horrific tortures, do not submit to the invaders, and mummy reacts positively claiming that "Ukrainians are not people" and that she herself would be "high" in such a situation. Source: "Ukranskaja Pravda" and the "Mirror". So we editors there need some clear guidelines from this noticeboard. Gitz (talk) (contribs) 10:56, 23 May 2022 (UTC)

Ukrainian Pravda is reliable, or so I was told here when I asked. Presumably *their* source was the Ukrainian military, which doesn’t make the claim necessarily true, but Pravda is being treated as reliable enough to correctly quote the Ukrainian military. They should be attributed. Given the level of disinformation the Russian population is subjected to, I don’t find this one all that extraordinary. This particular claim has circulated quite a bit though and it would be good to find a better English-language source than the Mirror; surely one is out there. I can’t keep British tabloids straight but I remember not being impressed with that one.Elinruby (talk) 12:39, 23 May 2022 (UTC)

• More has been recently reported about it. See here [56]. My very best wishes (talk) 21:10, 23 May 2022 (UTC)

@My very best wishes: wow. Thanks for that, which would seem dispositive, as a) this is a reliable source and b) specifically mentions a waiver of privacy, so... much as all this disturbs me, I withdraw my earlier BLP hestitation, @Gitz6666:, and on second thought, for a war crimes article, it probably is not UNDUE. A war crime this definitely is. Elinruby (talk) 13:23, 24 May 2022 (UTC)

I don't understand why this last source would be dispositive. Nobody actually doubts that Denisova said "a, b and c" in a Facebook post, later delated by Facebook and published on Telegram. Ukrinform says what the Daily Beast says: she made certain detailed and serious (but also extraordinary) allegations on social media. Neither Daily Beast nor Ukrinform verified or corroborated in any way a, b and c - they're just reporting that she said "a, b and c". So, should we publish?
If the answer is "yes", on what basis should we refrain from publishing the (equally detailed, serious and extraordinary) claims frequently made by Russian National Defense Management Center head Colonel General Mikhail Mizintsev about Ukrainian forces using hospitals, schools, residential buildings and churches for military purposes without first evacuating people? These claims are reported by TASS, and TASS is fairly reliable as far as declarations by Russian authorities are concerned; in terms of independently verifying the claims, TASS is as useless as Ukrinform and the Daily Beast. Gitz (talk) (contribs) 15:03, 24 May 2022 (UTC)

Nobody cares what the deranged Facebook bots deleted. The difference, to AGF that you are asking in good faith, is that the Russian government has a huge history of actual fabrication, not to mention claiming they aren't doing what they clearly are doing. Do you have *any* RS repeating these claims? That's what I thought. Elinruby (talk) 15:13, 24 May 2022 (UTC)

So after all your criterion is "we trust the Ukrainians". There's no point in quoting all those UNDUE, BLP, NPOV of ours, we should say it openly and make the life of us editors much simpler: we trust the Ukrainian government, that's it. Gitz (talk) (contribs) 15:19, 24 May 2022 (UTC)

Scroll up and see the RfC about TASS on this page. Elinruby (talk) 15:47, 24 May 2022 (UTC)

• This is an NPOV issue. Normally, you'd expect such WP:EXTRAORDINARY claim to be covered by multiple mainstream sources. M.Bitton (talk) 14:04, 24 May 2022 (UTC)

Ukrinform and Kyiv Post are mainstream. It is *not* an NPOV issue. Two government agencies say this and it should be attributed, but the RS are more than sufficient. Elinruby (talk) 14:54, 24 May 2022 (UTC)

The Guardian, the BBC, Al Jazeera and the likes are mainstream sources (Ukrinform and Kyiv Post are not). AFAIK, the WP:EXTRAORDINARY claim is not covered by multiple mainstream sources, therefore, making this a NPOV issue. M.Bitton (talk) 15:12, 24 May 2022 (UTC)

I've explained to you a few times now that other languages exist and see no reason to punish my carpals to go through this with you again. Elinruby (talk) 15:18, 24 May 2022 (UTC)

I won't sink to your level. Please, do me a favour and refrain from replying to my comments. M.Bitton (talk) 15:23, 24 May 2022 (UTC)

I am not replying to you. Just pointing out that you have a history of disparaging sources that are not in English. Mainstream != in english. I have heard this from you at least three times since the invasion began, and in my experience ignoring you doesn't work either. Elinruby (talk) 15:41, 24 May 2022 (UTC) (comment reinstated after being removed by M.Bitton with a misleading edit summary)

The claim that a polyglot could possibly look down on non-English languages is ludicrous, but what else to expect from someone who has a history of making baseless assertions? M.Bitton (talk) 15:57, 24 May 2022 (UTC)

A *history* huh. I suggest you explain that to me slowly at my talk page, or I might take that as a personal attack. Meanwhile, I just struck the comment about the edit summary. I didn't go back far enough in the edit summary to see that you changed your comment before I replied, so it probably seemed true to you. The beta feature I am using to avoid edit conflicts let me choose not to overwrite you, but somehow it only knew about the earlier version. So I do apologize for that, but meanwhile I await with bated breath an explanation of this history you speak of. And I don't know why anyone would disparage non-english-language sources (note; sources, I said sources...) but you do seem to do so consistently. Or is it just Ukrainian? In any event, I am trying to apply reliable sources guidelines. I am sorry you don't like them. Note: *this* is a reply. Elinruby (talk) 16:08, 24 May 2022 (UTC)

Since you used the word first, you take it however you wish. The rest of your unwanted comment will be ignored. M.Bitton (talk) 16:09, 24 May 2022 (UTC)

@M.Bitton: as per WP:GLOBAL, I disagree that only WP:RS like the BBC are WP:MAINSTREAM enough to cover these claims in an WP:NPOV way. Just like little known Rappler is MAINSTREAM for the Philippines, Kyiv Post is MAINSTREAM for Ukraine, and even if they are determined to be WP:BIASED for/against their governments, it would only affect how we use them to cover such claims, perhaps requiring attribution. If the BBC and other western sources don't cover these claims at all, then there will likely be an issue identified with them, but Wikipedia is not a WP:CRYSTAL ball, and whatever the issue/s are - if//when identified - they may/will be covered too. Considering that HRW and Amnesty have reported that war crimes like these are taking place, I strongly oppose your evocation of WP:EXTRAORDINARY in relation to the Ukrainian Ombudsman's claims. Saying that Elinruby has a history of making baseless assertions is absolutely a WP:PA and completely inappropriate. Please strike your remarks otherwise I will have to ping administrators here. CutePeach (talk) 09:47, 26 May 2022 (UTC)

@CutePeach: The sources "with an apparent conflict of interest" are mentioned in WP:EXTRAORDINARY. Since you think that their comments are appropriate, you're more than welcome to ping whoever you like, or better still still, take your concerns to the appropriate venue. M.Bitton (talk) 12:47, 26 May 2022 (UTC)

"An apparent conflict of interest" does not extend to simply being of the same nationality as the two government agencies making the allegation, especially with in-text attribution. Especially when one of them is the agency that would prepare the court case. We have RS that she said this, she is an official who is an expert in what she is saying. To question this is to question the validity of the democratically elected Ukrainian government. Elinruby (talk) 15:38, 26 May 2022 (UTC)

• Support the use of any WP:RS, Western or Ukrainian, covering the Ukrainian Ombudsman's claims of war crimes, be them true or false. WP:INTEXT attribution may be required till the ICC makes a ruling on these cases. CutePeach (talk) 10:10, 26 May 2022 (UTC)

Agreed as per CutePeach Elinruby (talk) 15:38, 26 May 2022 (UTC)

Just to understand your point: would you agree on having in the same article the following text?

Since early May Russian National Defense Management Center head Colonel General Mikhail Mizintsev reported alleged cases of use of human shields by Ukrainian military and paramilitary units:

• on 3 May at schools N. 6 and N. 7 in Mykolaiv and at apartment buildings in the village of Raigorodok, Kramatorsk district [TASS];
• on 6 May from the village of Tsyrkuny, Kharkiv region, to the front line with Russian troops at the village of Borshchova [TASS];"
• and so on, so on...

I'm asking this because TASS is accurately reporting statements by the Russian army. So if we agree that statements by Ukrainian officials that have not been independently verified are per se relevant, wouldn't we be bound to admit that the same applies to statements by Russian authorities? The argument "we trust the Ukrainians" is prevented by WP:NPOV, and neutrality is very important to Wikipedia and yet difficult to obtain in an article such as War crimes in the 2022 Russian invasion of Ukraine. Gitz (talk) (contribs) 17:02, 26 May 2022 (UTC)

I would start by getting rid of "reported", which implies that the statement is probably true. Also, what does "since early May" mean? But you are trying to make the question whether TASS is reliable for reporting what the Russian military say. It may or may not be reliable for that. I have already referred you to the open RfC, which seems to be leaning to no, with some dissent. The main issue, in my mind, is that the Russian military and political leadership cannot be believed when they say the sky is blue. It isn't so much that "we trust Ukrainians", as you keep saying, as that we don't believe an organization that to this day claims that it is not invading Ukraine. Is Russia invading Ukraine? Elinruby (talk) 18:47, 26 May 2022 (UTC)

The Daily Beast and yahoo news are reliable sources that the claim has been made, but cannot be used as sources that the event actually happened. The fact that the story has not received wide attention means it lacks significance for inclusion. The UN special representative for sexual violence in the area says the report has not been confirmed. That's probably why major mainstream media have not reported it. TFD (talk) 11:44, 26 May 2022 (UTC)

nod. nobody is questioning the need for attribution. I originally had BLP concerns because we are talking about child rape and small villages, and triplets is pretty specific. However, the UKrinform source provided by My very best wishes specifically mentions a waiver of privacy for the cases it mentions so this to me means that for at least the cases that it covers, so I changed my mind about whether the detail might be undue Elinruby (talk) 15:38, 26 May 2022 (UTC)

By undue, editors are referring to a policy called Due and undue weight.It says, "Neutrality requires that mainspace articles and pages fairly represent all significant viewpoints that have been published by reliable sources, in proportion to the prominence of each viewpoint in the published, reliable sources." Merely being mentioned in a few minor sources does not establish due weight for inclusion. It has nothing to do with BLP. TFD (talk) 03:00, 27 May 2022 (UTC)

You seem determined to make me explain the top of the thread to you. I originally expressed BLP concerns (identifying victims of child rape} AND undue concerns (“gory details”). I do realize that these are different policies thankyouverymuch. This was an aside to some unhappiness with Yahoo News as a source, which is the one concern that is actually relevant to this board. I later withdrew that after realizing that the tweet it quoted (in addition to the MoD and the ombudsman) was from a reporter from the Kyiv Post, which is NOT a “minor source” when it comes to Ukraine. Despite my opinion of Yahoo News, it is used extensively on Wikipedia, and in articles on this war in particular. I say this as someone who has copy-edited almost all of them. Obviously this claim requires care however, and concern for the victims is part of that. But for at least the cases mentioned in the Ukrinform article (also NOT a “minor source” when in comes to Ukraine; you should know this) the parents have waived privacy. As for undue: this is for an article on war crimes. Although I initially suggested something like “multiple reports of child rape, some of very young children” that was in part based on the BLP concerns. If we can talk about at least some of them the kids, then I think we can be a bit less euphemistic. The exact weight that should be given to this depends on rest of the page; there are multiple gang-rapes there already, for example, just not of infants. I haven’t touched the article in a week or more, so I don’t remember all the details, but it should be discussed on the talk page. Elinruby (talk) 12:14, 27 May 2022 (UTC)

There is nothing in WP:DUE that discusses gory details. I disagree that the Kyiv Post is a "major source" for an article with international significance. Sources used in the article include BBC News, the New York Times, Human Rights Watch, Amnesty International, the UN Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights, the UN Human Rights Monitoring Agency in Ukraine, al Jazeera, the Guardian, Forbes, CBC News, AP, Reporters Without Borders, Le Monde, Reuters, and many other sources that have international reach. When something is significant to the story, then it receives attention in multiple sources. Of course one would expect more in depth coverage in media close to the event. But the article cannot include everything and we must be selective in what appears. The way we do that is determined by WP:WEIGHT: we include "in proportion to the prominence of each viewpoint in the published, reliable sources." Coverage in a local newspaper and a few minor Western news sources does not meet the criteria. TFD (talk) 21:54, 27 May 2022 (UTC)

I think you are completely wrong to belittle all Ukrainian sources like that. You clearly aren’t following the invasion articles. Those two sources are *heavily* used, therefore there is a consensus that they are reliable. If you don’t like it perhaps you should start an RFC. Also there is no “point of view” when it comes to War crimes, there is true or false, and this is the Reliable Sources noticeboard not NPOV. The question is whether these sources are reliable. But, for the record, if this was controversial you would be somewhat correct, but there is here, and would also have been, weight with respect to all the other war crimes. Bucha. The people in the Mariupol theater. All the residential neighborhoods that were shelled. The war crime they just sentenced somebody to twenty years for. Shelling the nuclear plant and seizing it for Russia. Deporting hundreds of people to Siberia. Elinruby (talk) 06:34, 28 May 2022 (UTC)

yet it still seems to me that the fact that major news outlets (not only the English-speaking ones) have not covered the verifiable info "Ukrainian ombudswoman alleged X" suggests a bit of caution on our part. Maybe that news in not notable enough in an article dealing with X, or maybe X is not sufficiently verified to be reported by high quality publications. Gitz (talk) (contribs) 07:32, 28 May 2022 (UTC)

How could it not be notable? This is the woman who brings war crimes charges in Ukraine. If she can send someone to jail for twenty years it’s pretty insulting to the entire country to suggest that this requires verification. That’s for DRC Congo and Honduras. The “major” news sources mentioned above are almost all in the US, which has just had back-to-back mass shootings which have pushed everything else out of the news cycle. But in any event you asked if the sources are reliable. They are. Sorry if you don’t like it. The NPOV board is thataway Elinruby (talk)

The significance of information is not determined by what you consider important, but what reliable sources find important. If reliable sources fail to mention something in a well-covered story then it lacks significance. The assumption of course is that major mainstream media will cover the important facts of major stories, but that's policy and if you disagree with it, you should get it changed. I am not as you falsely claim belittling the Kyiv Post. I am merely observing that they cover more information than major mainstream media which we would expect because they are in the middle of the conflict. The New York Times in comparison covers more New York stories than CP24 or the Ottawa Citizen. That's because the New york Times is a New York newspaper. That doesn't mean that we cannot use the New York Times for the article on New York City, just that stories about New York that are not covered by other sources lack significance. The New York Times of course publishes "all the news that's fit to print." Unfortunately, Wikipedia articles have restrictions on length and cannot include everything about a subject in each article. The article on New York City for example does not mention all 110 mayors, although we have reliable sources mentioning each one.

I assume by the way that unlike you major reliable sources do not consider the claims noteworthy is that they cannot be confirmed. They have a lower level of credulity than you. They are not as ready to believe everything they hear.

TFD (talk) 14:33, 28 May 2022 (UTC)

I suggest you strike the personal attack. I don't know why you always feel you have to do that; I guess it often works? You're still on the reliable sources board talking about neutral point of view. According to me you are wrong about that also, but the point is, these are reliable sources. They're arguing over at NPOVN about whether Ukrainian sources pollute the discourse on the war, which sounds like your kind of argument. As for here, I think you're wrong, and you're *definitely* off-topic Elinruby (talk) 16:27, 28 May 2022 (UTC)

I believe that had Denisova provided some verifiable details, quality media would have been eager to publish the news. Instead she wrote on a Facebook post "1 year old raped!" without specifying where who how d'we know, has any investigation been made, etc., so quality media thought, and I think, better wait and see whether this needs to be published or it's just war talk. Gitz (talk) (contribs) 18:30, 28 May 2022 (UTC) (sorry I had signed when unlogged)

• There were many such cases, not only a couple noticed in the title of the thread, see here, for example. These claims have been reliably reported in multiple RS and acknowledged in sources like CNN (although CNN does not provide details). When cited as specific cases with details rather than as a general trend (CNN), they need to be attributed to Denisova. This is all. My very best wishes (talk) 19:39, 28 May 2022 (UTC)

P.S. [57] - Ukrainian parliament wants to fire her. That does make her claims about this weaker, although linked sources (like [58]) do not provide any specific examples of incorrect claims by her. My very best wishes (talk) 14:16, 31 May 2022 (UTC)

I looked at those links (via online translator; I don't read these languages) and just to confirm, that first one is a Ukrainian source even though it's in Russian, right? I know it's a fairly large media outlet; it's just hard to keep track of which outlets are owned by Russia oligarchs. The second one does get cited a lot and treated as reliable from what I have seen. Minor quibble: It's not the parliament, it's the Servant of the People party, but I think they have a majority (?) there so maybe that doesn't matter. I kind of agree with the second one, assuming this is not what she is doing; some of those concerns are what I have been calling BLP concerns. I think we should probably confine ourselves to case where a waiver of privacy is specifically mentioned. That's one thing. I still think that this is no longer an RS question, since everyone agrees the claims should be attributed. I am not entirely sure what to make of these news stories, but I agree that nobody seems to be questioning her veracity, and wouldn't it be OR if we researched her political support? That's a question. I am not particularly versed in what is or is not OR. In any event, there are literally hundreds of likely war crimes to choose from for this article, so I am not sure how much space these statements should get, as I haven't been in the article in a while and really don't want to get bogged down in it. My thoughts are these. I do not agree that Ukrainian sources are somehow not high-quality, but there *are* sources in English and rather than engaging in hand-to-hand combat over this it may be better to use one of those, and in my opinion this should be in addition to rather than instead of the Ukrainian sources. Incidentally, somebody mentioned Le Monde; it does have a story in English about child rapes in Ukraine, but it's behind a paywall and this does not come up in the first few paragraphs, so I am not sure whether it is talking about these allegations or about something like the teenagers held captive and raped until they were pregnant. Bottom line, there are a lot of rape allegations. Mention a couple of the most solid-looking and moe on, unless somebody wants to start a dedicated article for this, which I am *not* advocating Elinruby (talk) 14:59, 31 May 2022 (UTC)

Actually that source is very relevant for our discussion.
"Denisova has been in office since March 2018. On May 31, deputies of the pro-presidential Servant of the People faction collected signatures for her resignation. Member of the faction Pavel Frolov on Facebook spoke about the claims of the Servant of the People against the Ombudswoman. According to him, the official reported cases of sexual violence "in a perverted form" against the children of Ukrainian residents by the Russian military, who later did not find confirmation (...) Dozens of Ukrainian media employees previously wrote an open letter to Denisova urging her to report only those cases of sexual violence that are confirmed by the investigating authorities. According to journalists, the reports, which are not subsequently confirmed, cast a shadow on efforts to investigate the real crimes of the Russian military".
I think this settles the question. Next move should be to open a RFC on the Daily Beast quoting this as an example of sloppy journalism. Gitz (talk) (contribs) 15:03, 31 May 2022 (UTC)

I am not sure I trust the Ukrainian parliament over RS, and also don't recall reading that any particular claim was disputed. You're aware that rapes are generally not prosecuted, right? I don't think you can dismiss ALL these sources. And I threw out the British tabloids and all sources I wasn't familiar with...Btw..Weren't you arguing a while back that sexual violence was not really a war crime? [59] [60][61] [62][63] [64] (passim) [65] (passim) [66]

teens: [67][68][69]Elinruby (talk) 15:46, 31 May 2022 (UTC)

I see that you're constantly complaining about editors making personal attacks against you but, as far as I read, it is you the one who always makes personal attacks. No, I have never argued that sexual violence is not a war crime. Please provide a Diff. or apologise here. Gitz (talk) (contribs) 16:01, 31 May 2022 (UTC)

You disputed, with some tenacity, whether it was being used as a weapon of war and claimed that it was too much detail [70] — Preceding unsigned comment added by Elinruby (talk • contribs) 31 May 2022, 16:09 (UTC)

No, I did not claim that "it was too much detail". The discussion I opened was about rape "used as a weapon of war" and not - as you are now admitting - about rape not being a war crime. So either you misunderstood or you misrepresented my argument. Please be careful because the ability of reading a text, understanding that text and summarizing it accurately is very important when writing an encyclopedia. Please sign your previous comment, which you had placed randomly somewhere else in this discussion. I moved it here where it logically belongs Gitz (talk) (contribs) 16:38, 31 May 2022 (UTC)

Rape as a weapon of war is a war crime. See Bosnia. And you *did* say it was too much detail. In caps, even. Item four in a long list of reasons why we should not talk about this, Also, please do not move or alter my posts. I gave you permission to do that one single occasion when we had overwritten each other a couple of times trying to do the same thing, and I was pretty specific about where it should be moved to. If you feel that something I wrote is in the wrong place, the thing to do is to take it to my talk page, as I did to yours in that instance, when we just needed some clarity about who was going to to take care of it. I suggest you re-read the section, meanwhile, if you are doing to dispute that you said what you said. Elinruby (talk) 17:09, 31 May 2022 (UTC)

Nobody ever disputed that rape as a weapon of war is a war crime. I have not the time of explaining to you a discussion to which you didn't take part. The discussion is here for everybody to read, and here it's off topic. You need to re-read WP:TALK carefully because you are placing your comments randomly, constantly talking WP:TALKOFFTOPIC, bickering, making a mess of the talk. Gitz (talk) (contribs) 17:16, 31 May 2022 (UTC)

You did! In your previous comment. You claimed that you did not dispute that rape was a war crime because you claimed that you in fact disputed whether it was used as a weapon of war. Then demanded an apology. And this was after you said that there were no quality sources, then after these were provided, that something something about the Daily Beast. You know what? It is simply projection to say I am the one who is bickering, and I have stuff to do. Cheers Elinruby (talk) 18:04, 31 May 2022 (UTC)

I did a search for '"child rape" Ukraine' (quotes an effort to minimize returns about all the other rapes) and quite a few come back, even if you throw out everything ukrainian, which I don't believe we should do. At least one specifically mentions the one year old. Note that Zelenskyy has said also that very small children have been raped. Google returns will be different depending on where you are and what else you have been searching for, but Zelenskyy at least should come up. I am just having trouble taking the conversation seriously since I am completely convinced that we would not be having all this brouhaha if we were saying that Russian soldiers like puppies. The sources are reliable for news on Ukraine; attribution should be given. Elinruby (talk) 12:53, 29 May 2022 (UTC)

"Truth is the first casualty of war"- various

So on that premise, which of the sources is an independent identification of the alleged crime not relying on the Ukrainian government as a source?Slywriter (talk) 13:52, 29 May 2022 (UTC)

why would we discount the the Ukrainian government as a source, is my first question. Attribute, sure. Refuse to publish anything they say? No. Elinruby (talk) 14:15, 29 May 2022 (UTC)

Because it violates WP:NPOV to say one side of the war can be attributed at will and the other side receives strict scrutiny. It's not just this topic, it's everywhere in the encyclopedia. Ukranian claims are immediately included with attribution, Russian claims are discounted as unreliable. Additionally, when newspapers are doing no fact checking and just reciting quotes, they are window-dressing for Primary sources, no different than an interview or press release.14:36, 29 May 2022 (UTC)

The Ukraininan government is not invading another country while denying it is doing so. Elinruby (talk) 14:39, 29 May 2022 (UTC)

Semantics. Russia does not deny its troops are there nor does it deny soldiers are dying, nor does it claim Belgium is actually destroying Ukraine. Its reference to a Special Operation instead of a war is not sufficient justification for violating WP:NPOV by claiming it means ALL statements by the Russian government are false and more importantly, that ALL statements by the Ukrainian government are WP:DUE. En-Wiki is a neutral observer and should be documenting history without WP:ADVOCACY for one side.Slywriter (talk) 14:51, 29 May 2022 (UTC)

It still claim it is not invading Ukraine. Still. Its written military doctrine is to lie about everything. There is a difference between neutrality with respect to points of view and acting as stenographers to known and likely falsehoods. It doesn't claim that Belgium is destroying Ukraine but it does claim that the Azov Battalion was. See the maternity hospital in Mariupol. Elinruby (talk) 14:57, 29 May 2022 (UTC)

False claim by Ukraine on sinking a ship was included on Wikipedia using attribution to justify its inclusion despite the source being a politician on telegram that was blindly parroted by MSM. Ukraine is just as likely to use hyperbole and propaganda. Difference is majority of editors want to believe Ukranian statements and dismiss Russian statements.Slywriter (talk) 15:22, 29 May 2022 (UTC)

An official policy to put out disinformation is on a whole other level than sometimes being wrong. I am not familiar with the details of that particular incident at the moment, but the POINTY question this has morphed into still boils down to this: we don't quote the Russian government or Russian military because they lie. All the time. As a matter of policy. The end. Elinruby (talk) 15:37, 29 May 2022 (UTC)

Interesting that you link to a Wikipedia article that has better sourcing for the doctrine not being actual policy than for the claim that it is Russian policy. Anyway, extraordinary claims by politicans in a warzone should be treated with a healthy dose of scepticism as it is in their nation's interest to paint the enemy in the worst possible light. Hiding behind "but it's attributed" is not becoming of an encyclopedia.Slywriter (talk) 16:09, 29 May 2022 (UTC)

The dispute about that doctrine is over authorship, and whether it is an original proposal, or on the other hand descriptive of what the author believes that NATO does and therefore must be answered in kind. There is no dispute that this is policy. We don't just say "but it's attributed", or we would quote the Russian military. If it were demonstrated that Ukraine was deliberately and consistently making false statements as a matter of policy, I would call for us not to quote them either. Meanwhile, if the UN can quote them, then so can Wikipedia. If France or Canada systematically made false statements, I would not support quoting those governments either, and for that matter I do so with great case when it comes to the Vichy government or the immigration system on the one hand, or the government-run boarding-school system or the environment on the other. I do not support relying on American military statements about the war in Iraq. And I have now reached the limit of my patience with Russian talking points and will stop responding here. Elinruby (talk) 16:30, 29 May 2022 (UTC)

Shutting down discussion with that last line is a load of bullshit and pretty close to a personal attack. But, enough have been said to prove my point that the Ukranian government is held to a different standard.Slywriter (talk) 16:48, 29 May 2022 (UTC)

Russophobia *is* a Russian talking point. This is a simple fact. That may not be why you are alleging it, but the fact is that this is their defense. But if all you want is a statement that they are held to a different standard -- absolutely. A history of dishonesty does make people doubt a country's veracity. Elinruby (talk) 16:56, 29 May 2022 (UTC)

Nobody claimed "that Ukraine was deliberately and consistently making false statements as a matter of policy", but eventually it turned out that Denisova was making unverified allegations which caused controversy in Ukraine and might cost her office [71]. Had we published those gory and exceptional allegations we would have been tricked by war propaganda. RS/N was the right place to discuss this. Gitz (talk) (contribs) 15:13, 31 May 2022 (UTC)

Her dismissal from position does not automatically invalidate any specific claims/statement she made in her official capacity (and she made a lot of them). The specific claims can be invalidated only by other RS, regardless to an official staying or leaving the office. See Veracity of statements by Donald Trump as a classic example of claims by an official widely disproved in RS. So far, I do not see anything of that nature about her claims.My very best wishes (talk) 16:21, 31 May 2022 (UTC)

Mainstream Ukrainian publications are not RS but Facebook allegations in Ukrainian are? Just checking to make sure I heard that right Elinruby (talk) 15:59, 31 May 2022 (UTC)

Here the open letter, "On communication about sexual crimes during the war" (in Ukrainian), by Hromadske Radio. Gitz (talk) (contribs) 16:16, 31 May 2022 (UTC)

RFC: Bitter Winter

Which of the following best describes the reliability of Bitter Winter?

• 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 as in the 2017 RfC of the Daily Mail

Ipnsaepl28 (talk) 15:29, 22 April 2022 (UTC)

• Comment: CESNUR is listed as unreliable on WP:RS/P, but there's nothing explicitly noted for the affiliated magazine Bitter Winter, which mainly focuses on oppression in China, and whose reliability may be different from CESNUR itself. From the section for Bitter Winter on CESNUR, I can see it being used by other WP:RS such as Le Monde, The Manila Times, Radio Free Asia, World, and the Department of State. This may call for a different evaluation of reliability than for CESNUR.Ipnsaepl28 (talk) 15:33, 22 April 2022 (UTC)

  The US Department of State is an arm of the US government, and would not be a reliable source for anything but the most mundane, uncontroversial facts. Here, we're discussing a publication focused on China. Any statements by the State Department about China have to be viewed as political, and are not necessarily accurate. Radio Free Asia is also an arm of the US government, and per previous discussions at WP:RSN, caution is advised for subjects that the US government could have a political interest in. During the pandemic, for example, RFA has promoted disinformation about the COVID-19 death toll in China, pushing figures that are a factor of 10 (here, 40k or more) to 50 (here, 150k) times higher than scientific estimates (approximately 5k). -Thucydides411 (talk) 21:43, 26 April 2022 (UTC)

  @Thucydides411: I'm not seeing where it says that RFA has promoted disinformation about the COVID-19 death toll in China. Is there a missing link? Horse Eye's Back (talk) 00:45, 29 April 2022 (UTC)

  I don't know what "it" you're referring to, but we've had this discussion a number of times already. You know the articles I'm talking about (and I linked them above). RFA's recent history of pushing disinformation about the COVID-19 death toll in China is absolutely clear. -Thucydides411 (talk) 14:35, 29 April 2022 (UTC)

  Thucydides411 is quite obviously comparing scientific studies to RFA reports to indicate that we should conclude that the latter are unreliable. It seems to me you're asking that question rhetorically because you feel that it's necessary to have a source that explicitly accuses RFA of pushing misinformation. But that's not the case. Thucydides411's argument is, in principle, in an acceptable format: WP:OR does not apply to talk pages and other pages which evaluate article content and sources. However, I personally disagree with Thucydides411 on this: it could be a case of good-faith disagreement between sources or a case of early speculation on the part of RFA. Ipnsaepl28 (talk) 21:01, 19 May 2022 (UTC)

• Option 3 I don't see any evidence that Bitter Winter is necessarily free from the concerns that plague CESNUR as a source of information. This doesn't mean that they aren't working in China and aren't the subject of unethical reprisals by the Chinese government. I don't see their work cited by those sources, I see that those sources are reporting on the basic facts about the source. There's something of a use-mention distinction here; the source is being mentioned and described, but not being used as a source of information by reliable sources. --Jayron32 15:59, 22 April 2022 (UTC)

  Upon closer inspection, it seems like you're correct that many of the sources in the article aren't relying on Bitter Winter for information but rather are reporting on Bitter Winter itself. However, it does seem to be the case that some WP:RS do cite Bitter Winter as a source for information, including Radio Free Asia 1 2 and Voice of America 3. Ipnsaepl28 (talk) 22:29, 22 April 2022 (UTC)

  Both of which are U.S. Government funded sources, they are generally reliable, but with a caveat, from WP:RSP "Many editors consider that VOA is biased towards the interests of the American government and that its interference is enough to cast doubt on its reliability in some topics, particulary in news related to American foreign policies." for example. For non-politically-charged topics, I'd consider VOA and RFA fine. For one like this, no. --Jayron32 16:13, 25 April 2022 (UTC)

• Option 1 The source is used by other WP:RS such as Voice of America and Radio Free Asia. There are no known examples of the source spreading misinformation and not correcting it. The only controversy I can see related to the source is a brief spat with ChinaSource that was seemingly resolved somewhat amicably with no conclusive evidence of falsehood being spread by Bitter Winter. Ipnsaepl28 (talk) 13:14, 23 April 2022 (UTC)
• Bad RfC No indication where it's being used on Wikipedia that's causing a dispute. Even if there was, it could go on the relevant talk page. Peter Gulutzan (talk) 13:32, 23 April 2022 (UTC)
• Option 3 Looking at Bitter Winter it's clear that as well as being published by CESNUR its editorial staff is drawn from the same group of individuals. A look at some of their content suggests the same distorting advocacy that renders CESNUR unreliable. Cambial — foliar❧ 21:01, 24 April 2022 (UTC)
  • From what I can see regarding CESNUR, most of the objections to using CESNUR as a source are based on its stance in favour of new religious movements rather than repeated examples of false content. The main objection is a conflict of interest objection, not a truthfulness one. Given this, since Bitter Winter covers a different subject area—the persecution of religious minorities by the Chinese government, regardless of whether they belong to new religious movements—it may not be subject to the same conflict of interest considerations. Ipnsaepl28 (talk) 14:42, 28 April 2022 (UTC)
    • I can only assume you’ve misread or misunderstood the objections. The comments above and below, including my own, refer to the problem of the group’s advocacy mission distorting its reporting of the facts. Its desire to achieve its ends frequently takes precedence over accurate and complete reporting, and leads to serious omission, distortion or alteration of the facts. These render it useless as an RS. Cambial — foliar❧ 09:41, 5 May 2022 (UTC)

• Option 2 Insufficient information available to pass judgement. What is the context? · · · Peter Southwood ^(talk): 09:11, 26 April 2022 (UTC)
• Option 3. Not enough indication of any reputation for fact-checking and accuracy, which means we can only go by the reputation of the parent organization... which is terrible. It could perhaps sometimes be used for opinion but even that should be done cautiously for WP:DUE reasons. I don't think being cited by Radio Free Asia and VOA are sufficient in this context for the reasons outlined above - they're WP:BIASED sources with a bias that would specifically push them to rely on weaker sources, so they're not sufficient to overcome the problems with the publisher or the lack of usage outside of that bubble. --Aquillion (talk)
• Option 3. Bitter Winter is the house organ of CESNUR, an activist group working to hold China accountable for human rights violations. Their goal may be worthy, but the publication exists to achieve the larger goal rather than to print the truth. Binksternet (talk) 15:53, 28 April 2022 (UTC)
  • The consensus for outlets with a similar set of goals (e.g. VoA, RFA) is that they are generally reliable and able to be used, even for coverage on China. I don't see how this is any different. Ipnsaepl28 (talk) 00:02, 29 April 2022 (UTC)
    • For RFA, the consensus is that it should be treated with caution for any subject that the US government has a political interest in. That makes use of RFA for any China-related subjects highly questionable. Just to illustrate the risks of using RFA for China-related subjects: during the COVID-19 pandemic, RFA has promoted disinformation about the death toll in China (inflating it by a factor of 10 to 50, relative to scientific estimates) which I discussed in a comment above. -Thucydides411 (talk) 14:49, 29 April 2022 (UTC)
• Option 3 with the note that their research/reporting is very well reported by WP:RS so there will still be a lot of legitimate uses here. Horse Eye's Back (talk) 00:45, 29 April 2022 (UTC)

  If the research/reporting is very well reported by WP:RS, WP:USEBYOTHERS applies, and it is most likely a reliable source. Ipnsaepl28 (talk) 21:02, 19 May 2022 (UTC)

  Except when it isn't as in this case, WP:USEBYOTHERS is a gate not a trump card. Zero chance in hell Bitter Winter is reliable. Horse Eye's Back (talk) 00:25, 20 May 2022 (UTC)

• Option 1: Generally reliable for factual reporting. It is not as if the Chinese Communist party is a white dove that benevolently oversees the country; Bitter Winter merely chronicles the government's abuses.XavierItzm (talk) 18:30, 2 May 2022 (UTC)
• Option 3: No justification or context has been provided why Bitter Winter would be any better than CESNUR. I would put no weight on the usages by VOA & RFA due to the rationale provided by Aquillion. If RS do use them in more than a "According to X, Y happened" I would cite the RS directly. Jumpytoo Talk 22:33, 4 May 2022 (UTC)
  • Explicit justification has been provided in favour of the position that it would be better than CESNUR. [M]ost of the objections to using CESNUR as a source are based on its stance in favour of new religious movements rather than repeated examples of false content. The main objection is a conflict of interest objection, not a truthfulness one. Given this, since Bitter Winter covers a different subject area—the persecution of religious minorities by the Chinese government, regardless of whether they belong to new religious movements—it may not be subject to the same conflict of interest considerations.Ipnsaepl28 (talk) 10:30, 17 May 2022 (UTC)
• Option 3 if not option 4: One look at the site's coverage of Falun Gong, for example, tells me that this is by no means a reliable source and under no circumstance should it directly be used as a reference on English Wikipedia. It is an obvious WP:RS fail. :bloodofox: (talk) 16:46, 17 May 2022 (UTC)

  Are there any particular articles that are factually inaccurate? If not, this seems to be a case of WP:IDONTLIKEIT applied to sourcing. Ipnsaepl28 (talk) 20:55, 19 May 2022 (UTC)

  Well, there's the whole uncritically parroting every imaginable talking point from the notorious Falun Gong, for starters ("Falun Gong was successful and popular because, although this was later denied by critics, people found that it did deliver the health benefits it promised"—those pesky critics! "The CCP vehemently denied the practice, and successfully recruited international academics and journalists who insisted that either it never took place or was discontinued after an initial phase, although governments and international organizations did mention organ harvesting in their criticism of China’s abysmal human rights record." — those pesky international academics and journalists!). This entry reads like it was written by the group itself, complet with no mention of the New York compound, Shen Yun, The Epoch Times, extreme right-wing politics, Trump administration intermingling, hope that Trump would bring on the apocalypse, etc., just a bunch of doubt tossed on "critics", "scholars", and "journalists". Get outta here. :bloodofox: (talk) 03:22, 20 May 2022 (UTC)

• Option 2 or possibly 3. They have an editorial board, along with regular contributors who all seem to be professionals [72]; there is an editorial control. The content does not raise any serious and obvious red flags as outright misinformation, at least for me (including even examples linked above). Yes, this is definitely a case of WP:BIASED. I think it might be useful as a source for human right issues, although not the best source. CESNUR does look suspicious (probably would be "3"). My very best wishes (talk) 21:57, 31 May 2022 (UTC)

RFC: The Times article archive

This reference is currently marked as "failed verification" in the article of Titan the Robot. The talk page of the article is not frequented, so I ask for comments here if WP:V should be removed from that source. A pro-argument that I can see for WP:V is that the source is paywalled and no author is given (at least for me, as I don't have access beyond the paywall). I'm inclined to remove the WP:V, but I'm not familiar enough with the conventions of the EN-edition to do so without putting the issue up for discussion first.

I was always told that the standard is "verifiable" not "easily verifiable". That said, I personally try not to use paywalled sources. Have you checked to see if the article was archived? Is some other source available? Elinruby (talk) 16:03, 30 May 2022 (UTC)

An archive of the Times is available through Gale in the Wikipedia Library. Looking at it, it seems the full article is just those three paragraphs that are are practically viewable without a subscription through the Firefox reader mode, printable versions and other paywall bypassing tricks and websites. No skull or transformers are mentioned in the article. regards, TryKid ^{[dubious – discuss]} 16:13, 30 May 2022 (UTC)

Thanks for the input, TryKid. I was so focussed on whether the source itself is considered reliable that I overlooked that the claim that is supposed to be verified by that source isn't even mentioned there.MiBerG (talk) 16:21, 30 May 2022 (UTC)

Paywall is not an issue, and i fail to see why the time archive is less reliable than the times. Slatersteven (talk) 16:27, 30 May 2022 (UTC)

• To be clear, the text cited here is The face resembles a skull, and some have even compared it to a Transformer. Which is in the lead. Is that leadworthy? Even a source could be found, it seems a bit undue; and a quick search mostly turns up Wikipedia mirrors, so I'm not sure this is actually a significant observation. Does "someone once said, in passing, that it looked like a Transformer" really belong in the lead? Like, what are we even trying to verify here - that one person, once, somewhere, made this observation? EDIT: Also, looking at the history, the line was added here. Note that the citation currently affixed to it was already present but was used for a different statement than it is currently (It was designed by Nik Fielding, who runs Cyberstein from Newquay, Cornwall, England) - it looks like what happened was that that statement was removed, but the citation was left in and somehow ended up affixed to text it was never meant to be used for. I've deleted it and replaced it with the older text; there are too many problems here and no reason to think the source ever supported it or that the statement was ever anything but a personal observation by the editor who added it. Also, to be clear, the problem isn't anything to do with the Times or the archive or the paywall, the problem is that the source doesn't support this statement and I don't think it was ever intended to or asserted to do so, it just ended up adjacent to it by accident. --Aquillion (talk) 06:42, 31 May 2022 (UTC)

  Thank you Aquillion, I fully agree with you.MiBerG (talk) 01:20, 1 June 2022 (UTC)

Songfacts.com

I saw a couple posts about it very early on in RSN's existence (including at least one I started back in 2011), but nothing since. To this day, I'm still finding literally hundreds and hundreds of articles that link to it. Their "About Us" page has a section titled "How can I contribute?" which implies that at least some of their material is user-generated. If you look up any song, they say "we get our info from interviews, books, magazines, etc.", but rarely is any individual songfact attributed to a source. Even if there is a writer team, there's no way to tell who wrote what, whether any given songfact was indeed user-generated, or what source is being used to attribute the info.

I've tried to get discussions started on this many times, but every single time it just fizzles out in a day. Given the giant number of links to what is supposedly a user-generated site, can we please reach a conclusion here? tl;dr: Is Songfacts.com a reliable source? If not, should it be deprecated? Ten Pound Hammer • ^{(What did I screw up now?)} 22:00, 28 May 2022 (UTC)

• Ping @Martin4647:, @Caldorwards4:, @ChrisTofu11961:, @Hog Farm:, @Carbrera:, @Chiswick Chap: and other music editors. Ten Pound Hammer • ^{(What did I screw up now?)} 22:02, 28 May 2022 (UTC)
• It's listed in the unreliable sources chart down the page at Wikipedia:WikiProject Albums/Sources because it is user-generated based on a 2008 discussion, imv Atlantic306 (talk) 22:04, 28 May 2022 (UTC)

  That alone should be reason to deprecate it. And yet it's still linked in nearly a thousand articles. Ten Pound Hammer • ^{(What did I screw up now?)} 22:05, 28 May 2022 (UTC)

• Ive always assumed it's unreliable, for USERG reasons. And it's listed at WP:NOTRSMUSIC. Not much else to say. Sergecross73 msg me 22:16, 28 May 2022 (UTC)
• What about the songwriter interviews? Those aren't user-generated since they come directly from the artist(s). ResPM (T🔈🎵C) 22:21, 28 May 2022 (UTC)

• I was going to say the same thing: the "facts" on the website, 100% unverifiable and fail WP:USERG. But their interviews are conducted by their staff. I would say that these interviews are reliable, but the rest of the site no. Richard3120 (talk) 22:39, 28 May 2022 (UTC)

  I think there's enough context here to start removing links. Should we get a bot to do it? Ten Pound Hammer • ^{(What did I screw up now?)} 01:58, 29 May 2022 (UTC)

  Only problem with Bot is can it tell difference between interviews and rest, since seems to be some belief the interviews are rs.Slywriter (talk) 15:25, 29 May 2022 (UTC)

• Staff interviews are good. The rest of the site is largely WP:UGC. I used one of their interviews with Dave Mustaine. X-750 _{Rust In Peace... Polaris} 10:52, 29 May 2022 (UTC)

  What about the staff makes them a reliable source in the Wikipedia context? It takes more than just a staff existing... Sergecross73 msg me 17:11, 29 May 2022 (UTC)

  Sergecross73, it is because the staff are literally asking the artist in question. They are literally conducting an interview of the artist. What part about that is unreliable? Is it no different to another publication such as Loudwire, Blabbermouth or Metal Nexus conducting an interview? Also correction: It was with David Ellefson, not Mustaine. You can read it here, cross-referencing it with Ultimate Guitar gives the same story. So I'd say it's reliable. X-750 _{Rust In Peace... Polaris} 20:47, 29 May 2022 (UTC)

  Uh, no, we generally look for things like editorial staff, editorial policy, writers with credentials, etc. I was looking more for something like that... Sergecross73 msg me 22:37, 29 May 2022 (UTC)

  Right... as for editorial staff, policy, credentials, many of the interviewers have personal bios (which can be found under the "Blog" dropdown), most have degrees, so I'd say credentials isn't an issue really. In fact, many of the authors on Songfacts have actually published other literary works with publishers such as lulu.com, another has had several published books and has reviews published in the Sunday New York Times. I think interviews are RS. X-750 _{Rust In Peace... Polaris} 23:52, 29 May 2022 (UTC)

• Its user-submitted content would fall under USERG, and so in that case no. However...two exceptions. One, as a convenience link to a lyric used as a primary source; second, artist interviews, if sufficiently illuminating, would be permissible under WP:SELFSOURCE, and so in that case I agree with X-750. Chubbles (talk) 23:14, 30 May 2022 (UTC)

  Would anyone be willing to help me clean up uses of it for a citation? Ten Pound Hammer • ^{(What did I screw up now?)} 02:44, 2 June 2022 (UTC)

  I reckon it'd be best for a bot to do it, however, I don't know if the bot can tell the difference between an interview and just generic song facts. I'm rather preoccupied with bringing Dave Mustaine up to good-article standards. X-750 _{Rust In Peace... Polaris} 11:17, 2 June 2022 (UTC)

Are European observations of Raj era about population distribution reliable ?

Recently some of my edits related to Duars(now BTR) about population distribution of the region were removed http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?oldid=1089464202&diff=prev by an editor because the author refers to works done by European officer-scholars. Reasons given by the editor is here Talk:Bodoland_Territorial_Region#problematic_text. In fact, Britishers were involved in the Duar war or Anglo-Bhutan war. So, in my opinion, The author referring to works done by officer-scholars then can't be problematic. What do you think? Thank you.

• Edit The source is a PhD thesis cum Published Book. Maulana Abul Kalam Azad Institute of Asian Studies, Kolkata, A research institute, contributed to Publish the book. Publishers :Anshah Publishing (2005) and Shipra Publication(2020).

Northeast heritage (talk) 04:11, 24 May 2022 (UTC) Northeast heritage (talk) 06:57, 31 May 2022 (UTC) (Edited)

This discussion has already taken place Wikipedia:Reliable_sources/Noticeboard/Archive_172#Are_British_Raj_ethnographers_unreliable.3F. The consensus is these sources are unreliable. Read the last two comments by Boing!_said_Zebedee and Itsmejudith. Pinging Sitush and Fylindfotberserk for visiblity. Chaipau (talk) 12:30, 25 May 2022 (UTC)

Obviously these are unreliable, as well as newer sources that have copied those or are largely influenced by them per WP:FRUIT. - Fylindfotberserk (talk) 12:40, 25 May 2022 (UTC)

Fylindf... was already pinged by Chaipau in Talk:Bodoland_Territorial_Region#problematic_text and both of them have opposed my edits based on WP:RAJ . But WP:RAJ is all about castes/races and Our discussion is not about castes and races. Author writes about population distribution based on Political mission to Bootan (by Eshly Eden and others) and Francis Hamilton, An Account on Assam, p. 67; A Mackenzie, op. cit., pp. 9-10. This is purely historical, nothing to do with WP:RAJ. Northeast heritage (talk) 14:02, 25 May 2022 (UTC)

• WP:FRUIT is an essay (and a terrible, poorly-conceived one with no useful applicability.) As a matter of policy, we cannot disregard an WP:RS simply because we dislike its sources - an WP:RS is an RS, and outside of the limited exceptions for citogenesis, policy provides no room for editors to second-guess it based on its own sources. If otherwise modern sources have mindlessly repeated the errors of older ones that is unfortunate, but trying to remove them simply based on that interpretation is getting into WP:RIGHTGREATWRONGS territory - we have to reflect what the best available sources say even if we disagree with it. If you are certain they're wrong, the thing to do is to find equal or higher-quality sources specifically disagreeing with them. --Aquillion (talk) 19:10, 30 May 2022 (UTC)

I totally agree with the consensus as per archived-discussion highlighted by Chaipau. I was neither discussing castes nor using any old sources. And we can't impose our assumption on any sources. Francis Hamilton is a well-known primary source and Political missions to Bootan is a collection of multiple reports. I am not any scholar to prove or disprove that these sources belong to the racist, casteist and biased category. I've seen these sources being extensively used by well-known scholars and I've not come across a negative review about them. So, We can't assume and impose any claim on these sources. Northeast heritage (talk) 14:50, 25 May 2022 (UTC)

Hopefully, I am being understood. Thanks Northeast heritage (talk) 14:53, 25 May 2022 (UTC)

• Especially in the case of this part of the Indian subcontinent, such sources are not entirely reliable, but we may need to use them because they are literally all we have. Anything drawn from them should be given with the source, not stated as fact. The 19th-century population of what is now southern Bhutan became a very live issue some dcades ago, with the Bhutanese refugees crisis, & I went to a conference years ago where these sources were being argued over, in the absence of any other records from the period. I hadn't seen the 2014 discussion, but don't really agree with it. Frankly the same biases are if anything stronger (in different directions) in most modern sources, so where does that leave us? Johnbod (talk) 15:14, 25 May 2022 (UTC)
  • @Johnbod: I think we should not be using these biased sources at all in Wikipedia. It is OK for scholars to use them critically, as some linguists working on Boro-Garo languages are doing (especially Francois Jaquesson). But if we let uncritical scholars keep transmitting these old sources, as Das has done here, we end up transmitting not just the old biases, but also wrong information. (WP:FRUIT). In many cases, we do have alternative sources. Chaipau (talk) 15:45, 25 May 2022 (UTC)

There is another removal http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?oldid=1089759489&diff=prev of cited text because the text use "Duar" term which was also the name for the same region in past. Northeast heritage (talk) 15:24, 25 May 2022 (UTC)

How can you say Das is an uncritical scholar. She had done a comprehensive study about the region. You've assumed to claim - her to be uncritical, you've assumed to claim - data on population is suspect. If Wikipedia agrees with your assumptions, Surely this long discussion will not be fruitful to me. Northeast heritage (talk) 16:50, 25 May 2022 (UTC)

The sources

To clarify,

• the Political Mission to Bhutan is a collection of four narratives based on missions by colonial representatives in the years 1815, 1837-38 and 1863.[73] The mission that is relevant here is the one from 1863.
• This was reported without critical remarks in a PhD thesis by Smriti Das (1998) [74] (p27).

The source is more than 150 years old, for one. But that is not the primary problem. The ethnic ·reporting used here is about a region that was under the control of the Bhutan government at that time, not the British. The failure of the political mission led to the Anglo-Bhutan war (1864-65). Thus both the intention of the author as well as the reliability of information conveyed—ethnic composition of a foreign land—are suspect.

Chaipau (talk) 15:51, 25 May 2022 (UTC) (edited) 15:53, 25 May 2022 (UTC)

Claiming the sources to be based on suspect is another suspect. So-called foreign land referred by Chaipau was part of Koch kingdom or at least the inhabitants (Kacharis and Meches supported by Historical chronicles) supported Koch kings and had good relation with Koch rulers. Bhutan was able to conquer up to Gohain Kamal Ali, Thus there was a conflict between Bhutan kingdom and Koch-Ahom kingdom. So, They were very much clear about population. Also, there was no fixed boundary and standing army, people were free to cross boundaries, of courses, European travelled up to the capital of Bhutan then, that's why they were able to discuss the issue with Bhutia kings. European had written about Bhutia also, leave alone tract between Bhutan and Gohain Kamal Ali, where there was no proper government at that time. Northeast heritage (talk) 16:02, 25 May 2022 (UTC)

A 150 year old source would not usually be reliable. However, a PhD thesis from 1998 is reliable, as it would be the critical reflection of a modern scholar. The implication of your argument here is that no document based on primary sources from the Raj era is reliable, and therefore no modern scholarship whatsoever is acceptable dealing with this period. This is clealry a flawed interpretation. As far is it goes, Das's thesis is almost certainly a reliable source, and the inclusion of claims she/he makes should be discussed at the article talkpage. Boynamedsue (talk) 16:04, 25 May 2022 (UTC)

@Boynamedsue: I have indicated the problem with Das's thesis. Many modern scholars today regurgitate old ideas. If we let these regurgitated facts in, we end up using the old unreliable information (WP:FRUIT) Chaipau (talk) 16:30, 25 May 2022 (UTC)

Old information doesn't mean unreliable and New information doesn't mean reliable. Information are verified by scholars and published again and again. Yes old sources are unreliable because we discover new things with time. It's quite funny, If we consider old information to be unreliable, there will not be any history. Northeast heritage (talk) 16:37, 25 May 2022 (UTC)

Do you have a specific reason to consider Das's PhD thesis to be unreliable, related to it specifically rather than the concept of history in itself? Boynamedsue (talk) 16:50, 25 May 2022 (UTC)

I have already mentioned the specific reason—Das is just regurgitating what Eden said.

• Eden writes (1864): The whole of this tract is inhabited by Meches and Kacharis, the only classes apparently able to live there in consequences of the atrocities of the Booteahs and the malaria generated in these vast jungle tracts...[75].
• Das writes (1998): The tract was formerly inhabited by people, called Meches and Kacharis, the only classes apparently able to live in these malarial zone in consequence of the atrocities of the Bhutias. [76]

In other words, Das is just paraphrasing Eden. So you can't even use a construct such as "According to Smriti Das..." in Wikipedia and quote the thesis because that would not be true. The ghost of Eden is speaking through Das here.

But continuing with what Eden writes betrays the imperial intentions which makes this claim by Eden suspect. He continues: ...the malaria generated in these vast jungle tracts, which though perfectly healthy if cultivated, are year by year becoming depopulated through the short-sighted policy of the Bootanese Government... Obviously, the reason why Eden is setting up the situation in this way is because this tract of land could be settled by farmers and used for revenue generation. Nitasha Kaul writes (2021): I argue that the British annexation of Duars did not proceed from the Eden Mission, but rather the Eden Mission proceeded from the British desire to annex the Duars, a policy that existed for years before the 1860s[77] (p325).

Chaipau (talk) 17:58, 25 May 2022 (UTC)

What is the problem with paraphrasing? Does this prove the old (original) information false/unreliable? Are you saying - she should have manipulated the old information? She considered it worth mentioning, thus she took it and she gave credit. Are you saying - she should have manipulated the old information? This can't be an issue. This information fits in historical context, thus she took it. If you infer anything from WP:RAJ, it's WP:FRUIT. Please, use WP:RS to argue. Show us something recent which refutes what Das mentioned. Northeast heritage (talk) 18:10, 25 May 2022 (UTC)

This is how academia works. You read an older source, and if you believe it to be true, you state in your own voice that it is so, giving credit to the original author in a footnote. This is why she paraphrases. It is exactly what we do on wikipedia! Boynamedsue (talk) 20:10, 25 May 2022 (UTC)

I am sorry I do not agree. I am intimately familiar with academia and nowhere in quality work have I seen a primary source just quoted without quotation marks (as if plagiarized). Even Wikipedia wants us to write a claim in our own words. It is impossible that the duars were inhabited only by the Koch and Mech peoples. There were Bhutanese from the mountains and other plains peoples. These were domains of the Goalpara zamindars. The Darrang Duars were shared between the interesting, because the Ahom kingdom controlled it for a few months in a year and Bhutan for the rest. This is given in Das (1998) itself, in the same chapter where Das parrots Eden. The simplistic picture painted by Eden is false. The information contained in the same chapter in Das is enough to contradict the sentence plucked from Eden. Chaipau (talk) 00:47, 26 May 2022 (UTC)

She doesn't use the exact words, she paraphrases and cites. That is not plagiarism. Below you state that you consider Das to be reliable, in which case this discussion should be moved to the talkpage of the article.Boynamedsue (talk) 06:17, 26 May 2022 (UTC)

• Q: Das's advisor J. N. Phukan does seem to a recognized specialist in Assamese history, but is there any indication that Das's thesis, Assam-Bhutan relations with special reference to duars from 1681 to 1949, has been republished by an academic press, independently reviewed, or cited positively by later scholars? Note that those are some of the factors outlined at WP:SCHOLARSHIP when considering whether a dissertation should be cited, which should always be with care. A search on JSTOR, Google scholar and Google books didn't bring up anything relevant. Abecedare (talk) 20:47, 25 May 2022 (UTC)

This has been published, it seems, by Anshah Publishing House (2005).[78] This is a good work, in general, and I was the one who inserted it and used it in the article.[79].

Nevertheless, I am concerned that many of the scholars from that part of the world very often repeat Raj authors, myths, legends, etc., without any critical remarks. I was under the impression that WP:RAJ took care of that situation—that we assume Raj sources skeptically at first and accept them only if they are critically accepted in recent scholarship or are reasonable. This would allow us to use recent scholarship without the bad portions tainting the entire work. Das's work is one such example. Eden's writings are basically the groundwork for the coming Duars war and was in portions either partially true on totally false. There are also instances when these outdated and incorrect work get used for pushing political POVs. I wonder whether we need a wider discussion on this. We have had a number of such issues in the past.

Chaipau (talk) 22:32, 25 May 2022 (UTC)

Sorry, I can't agree because our discussion isn't about ONLY people (Koches, Meches, Kacharis in all duars and Meches and Kacharis in tract between Bhutan and Assam) who lived in the region and ONLY is not my addition and the context has been unnecessarily changed into politics. Eden et. al had written about what they had observed about people of duar region. Tribal regions of old times were very different from what we see today. Different tribal groups lived in different regions that's why in northeast places were/are known as Garo hills, Khasi hills, Naga hills, Kuki hills, tripura hills, Kachari duar, Cooch Behar etc. Also, When a region became part of some kingdom then that region mightn't necessarily be inhabited or occupied by the people of the conqueror kingdom. Regions were conquered to collect taxes, control trade etc. Imposition of today's politics won't change History. Northeast heritage (talk) 03:52, 26 May 2022 (UTC)

Just like Raj-era scholars are known to have political motives in their interpretations, Similarly, so-called modern scholars of Assam aren't free from political motives. Northeast heritage (talk) 04:00, 26 May 2022 (UTC)

I am not a scholar. I won't be able to counter so many assumptions (which, I think, We shouldn't discuss as per WP:OR or WP:FORUM). I am getting a headache. I won't be able to take part in this discussion anymore. Thank you all. Northeast heritage (talk) 04:08, 26 May 2022 (UTC)

• I would suggest this discussion should be closed. The question here is the Reliability of the cited work, Which is Das's thesis. Chaipau states they consider this thesis to be a reliable source, therefore the discussion of how it is used in the article would be a matter for the talkpage of the article in question. Boynamedsue (talk) 06:41, 26 May 2022 (UTC)

I do not agree that the issue is about the reliability of Das's thesis alone because (1) the sentence in Das is almost identical to Eden's, and (2) other sections in Das's chapter seem to add other ethnicities. Though this might seem like a hair splitting, we would like some general consensus on how this type of situations should be handled, since they appear more often than not. I would like to seek abecedare's comment on whether there exists a need to handle the issue of questionable information passing through sloppy scholarship in otherwise reliable sources here. If there is, I shall tag some additional editors who have faced similar situations in this area. If not, we may continue this in the talk page. Chaipau (talk) 14:09, 26 May 2022 (UTC)

In that case, you should start a new discussion, unconnected to this particular instance. What you really want to know is "can any source which accepts or repeats claims made by British writers living and working in India during the raj be considered reliable for that information?" The answer is, of course, likely to be "yes, on many occasions it will be". Boynamedsue (talk) 15:39, 26 May 2022 (UTC)

Not true. The Raj claims on ethnicities, by default, are not reliable.Wikipedia:Reliable_sources/Noticeboard/Archive_172#Are_British_Raj_ethnographers_unreliable.3F I have pointed this out a number of times here and in the talk page. Chaipau (talk) 15:48, 26 May 2022 (UTC)

Final thought, She mentions the worth mentionable ethnicities of pre-colonial era (in historiography). There is difference between historiography and ethnography. We aren't using RAJ sources. We are using a source published in Independent India. Northeast heritage (talk) 15:58, 26 May 2022 (UTC)

Yes, but that is slight-of-hand move to quote the near identical sentence that originated in Eden. You cannot use Das (1998) as a fig-leaf to cover Eden (1864). WP:FRUIT applies. One of the key sentences in that essay is Avoid sources that trace back to unreliable sources. Therefore, you cannot use this quote from Das 1998. Chaipau (talk) 16:10, 26 May 2022 (UTC)

Avoid sources that trace back to unreliable sources quote refers to absolute unreliable sources. There is difference between absolute unreliable sources and unreliable due to being old and belonging to raj-scholarship. I would suggest our Wikipedia community to update the quote Avoid sources that trace back to unreliable sources by Avoid sources that trace back to absolute unreliable sources. Sorry if my suggestion is wrong.Northeast heritage (talk) 18:40, 26 May 2022 (UTC)

• WP:FRUIT is just a poorly-conceived essay; it does not apply to anything. Policy, which defines WP:RSes, does not allow you to selectively disregard them because you have personal quibbles with their sources. If it allowed that anyone could disregard any source at any time by tracing what it says back far enough - I cannot underline enough what an awful and poorly-considered essay FRUIT is, expressing terrible opinions that have no basis whatsoever in policy or practice and which would cause endless problems if treated as anything but the joke they are. Now, a source might be a weak or bad one for any number of other reasons; but analyzing its sources does not generally come into it - that is trying to second-guess the source with your own WP:OR and has no place here. --Aquillion (talk) 19:14, 30 May 2022 (UTC)

• Comment. Maybe I'm just not familiar with the way PhD dissertations are treated in the humanities, but I was under the impression we should avoid citing them unless they have received substantial citations and/or reviews. Merely being a published work shouldn't be enough. And if a (barely-cited) dissertation is the only source for particular info then that info should not be included at all, since we need evidence through discussion by multiple secondary RS that it is actually WP:DUE. JoelleJay (talk) 18:58, 26 May 2022 (UTC)

That is an accurate summary of the prevailing consensus about the use of doctoral dissertations and theses: They're often reliable sources but rarely are they noteworthy enough to warrant inclusion in an encyclopedia article. ElKevbo (talk) 23:11, 26 May 2022 (UTC)

Agree, We need multiple secondary RS to satisfy WP:DUE but scholarship about the region is very rare. We are discussing a place which belongs to a state called Assam where the census isn't even published correctly. So, It would be very hard to give multiple citations. Northeast heritage (talk) 19:36, 26 May 2022 (UTC)

If there are not many or any reliable sources about a topic then it should not be included in this encyclopedia. ElKevbo (talk) 23:11, 26 May 2022 (UTC)

Thank you for your valuable input. I agree we should take care of WP:DUE. This thesis is also available as a published book, publisher- Anshah Publishing House and also used in China’s India War- Collision Course on the Roof of the World, publisher- OUP India. I would like to know if WP:RAJ and WP:FRUIT are applicable here as these two guidelines were used to counter my edits. Northeast heritage (talk) 05:07, 27 May 2022 (UTC)

Is Anshah Publishing House a reliable publisher? ElKevbo (talk) 11:32, 27 May 2022 (UTC)

I quickly searched the RSN archive and there is no prior discussion here on the publisher. I had not heard about it earlier. I searched for it on the web, and could find no website, though I could get a physical address. But the books published by it are available in online outlets, like amazon, abebooks etc. My take is that it is not the publisher that will give it added reliability, beyond it being a thesis with a known supervisor.

Having said that I would like say that to me this looks like a generally reliable source on a rare subject. Given the quality of PhD theses produced in its class, this is a rather comprehensive and solid piece of work. It is a thesis of the "literature search" or a review of "primary/secondary sources" type. As Johnbod has pointed out, we should probably hold on to whatever information we have here. Nevertheless, since it is an uncritical work, we need to be cautious and apply other Wikipedia rules, conventions, and guidelines as necessary. Chaipau (talk) 13:48, 27 May 2022 (UTC) (edited) 13:49, 27 May 2022 (UTC)

• I mentioned this above, but FRUIT is an extremely poorly-conceived essay. It does not apply here because it does not apply anywhere - WP:OR, unlike FRUIT, is policy, so is completely unacceptable to try and use WP:OR to dig into a source's own sources and use that as a reason to argue to exclude. Anyone who tries to cite FRUIT can be safely ignored outside of a brief reminder that it is not policy. --Aquillion (talk) 19:17, 30 May 2022 (UTC)

@Aquillion: Thank you for such an eloquent clarification.

More about The sources

Searchwork.standford.edu, catalogue.nla.gov.au and www.nlb.gov.sg say that Author is Smriti Das, Publisher is Delhi : Anshah Pub. House, 2005. and Contributor is an autonomous research institute - Maulana Abul Kalam Azad Institute of Asian Studies, Kolkata. This thesis is also published by Shipra Publication. It's plausible that Anshah Pub. House has closed its business. https://ir.nbu.ac.in/handle/123456789/195 University Library, University of North Bengal is also its publisher. I've gone through the chapter. Her work is comprehensive. She was very specific about the region. Her work is very much critical. Each and every line is properly cited in her narrative about the region. I think her Historiography is absolutely fine. I don't understand why Chaipau claims her uncritical and considers those tribal communities not worthy of being mentioned. Northeast heritage (talk) 16:01, 27 May 2022 (UTC)

In other places Das mentions other groups: Totos (p34); Kacharis, Assamese, and Bengalis (p35); Monpas (p36); Bhutia (p28) etc. So obviously Eden was making a false claim. Das also fails to point that when Eden wrote the report that the Assam Duars had already been in British possession for at least 20 years, since the 1840s. So when Eden accuses Bhutan of its policies affecting the demography, did he mean the two communities were present only in the Bengal Duars, which Bhutan had control over, or the Assam Duars as well, which was under British control. The information is there in the thesis, but Das provides no critical input to reconcile the differing accounts.

A reasonable sentence in Wikipedia would be "The duars were inhabited by the Mech, Koch, Kacharis, Assamese, Bengalis, Monpas and Bhutias.", but that would come with a hint of WP:SYNTH. It is best to avoid the demographics till new reliable sources become available.

Chaipau (talk) 14:16, 28 May 2022 (UTC)

You claimed her uncritical. You applied WP:RAJ and WP:FRUIT to PhD thesis converted to a Published Book by Maulana Abul Kalam Azad Institute of Asian Studies, Kolkata which is a misapplication of that policy according to Boynamedsue. You claimed -"I am intimately familiar with academia". Your critical understanding has to offer us "The duars were inhabited by the Mech, Koch, Kacharis, Assamese, Bengalis, Monpas and Bhutias.". Das' critical understanding has to offer us "The tract(BTR) was formerly inhabited by people, called Meches and Kacharis, the only classes apparently able to live in these malarial zone in consequence of the atrocities of the Bhutias. South from this, there is a plain which varies from 16km to 32km in width, and was chiefly occupied by Koches and Rajbongsis.. Are you able to see the differences? Doors or Duars and The tract (BTR) between Bhutan and Gohain Kamal Ali aren't the same thing. She refers to well-known communities. It is a wastage of everyone's time to argue on unnecessary things, For example - She gave example about Totos of Jalpaiguri district to explain about Bhutanese Administration. Monpas of Koriapar Duar of present Arunachal Pradesh. Assamese and Bengalis were officers because no Bhutia settled in the Duar areas, their offices aren't mentioned where and for which region, and how officers can represent habitation of mentionable community. It is well-know Assamese (Ahom) ruled from Rangpur and officers like Barphukans lived in Guwahati, and I don't know much about Bengalis because western part of Duar is in West Bengal which isn't part of our discussion. Multiple times she mention that no Bhutia settled in Duar areas and She mention about Bhutias taking possession of Duars under pressure of tibetan government. This is of course written which is the cause of Koch-Bhutan, Anglo-Bhutan wars. Thus, She is no way uncritical, She had written what is crystal clear about the region. She didn't speculate based on officers and invaders. Your speculations belong to Dooars. Please, Read both the sources (Das and Eden). It's crystal clear what is meant by the tract because just before the sentence list of duars within the tract they mentioned. Wherever Bhutanese violated the policies, It has nothing to do with habitation of people. Where they violated the policies is also written by Eden et. al. Just like we follow WP:NOTEVERYTHING, Similary all the speculations aren't scholarly. Hopefully, You are satisfied. Health is wealth, Stay safe, Thank you all. Northeast heritage (talk) 17:38, 28 May 2022 (UTC)

You are presenting a point of view. But that view should come from a reliable secondary source, not from editors. Unfortunately Das is not providing one. That is why Das is not critical - she has not critically examined these contradictory claims in different sources. Chaipau (talk) 19:19, 28 May 2022 (UTC)

• I would like to request more experienced Wikipedian to observe if this discussion has become WP:GAME. Northeast heritage (talk) 19:08, 28 May 2022 (UTC)

  We are seeking WP:CONSENSUS here on the reliability of Das and/or Eden on that sentence. I am not sure this is becoming WP:GAME. Chaipau (talk) 19:26, 28 May 2022 (UTC)

  Das unreliable

  JoelleJay suspects Das is unreliable

  ElKevbo) agrees Das is unreliable, but is open to know more.

  Das reliable

  Boynamedsue has suggested that Das is unambiguously reliable, and Eden's reliability is immaterial.

  Maybe ...

  Johnbod suggests that even if Das is not reliable, we should be able to salvage something because this is rare information

  Abecedare thinks Das could be reliable but is seeking more information.

  Das is reliable here, but probably not in others

  Northeast heritage's position is that Das's claim based on Eden is the only correct information, whereas the other information in Das are not.

  Das is not reliable here, but reliable in general

  Fylindfotberserk's opinion is that this particular claim by Das is not reliable.

  My position is that there are seemingly contradictory claims in Das's chapter and Das has not provided any resolution. In other words, my position is a combination of Johnbod's and Fylindfotberserk's positions.

  I have pinged all the editors named here so they may correct me if I have stated their positions wrong.

  I would like to point out that your original notice was whether Eden is RS, not whether Das is RS. Nevertheless, our discussion has focused on Das. This is, I think, because there is no doubt that Eden is not RS.

  Chaipau (talk) 20:35, 28 May 2022 (UTC)

*Hopefully, more experienced Wikipedians do understand our stances just going through the discussion. Still, I am repeating my stance:- Eden et. al is a primary source. Das is a WP:RS secondary source (from 1998). WP:RAJ and WP:FRUIT can't be applied to Das' work." We already had a long discussion about the quality of Das' work. Just as you have stated Das is uncritical and Eden et. al is suspect, similarly your assumption Das's claim based on Eden is the only correct information, whereas the other information in Das not. on my stances is wrong. Instead, I have explained why your WP:SYSNTHESIS may be wrong and I've asked to add your speculations (if belongs to WP:RS) in other article Dooars. Lastly, Your wrong assumption about my stance make me feel like going via on-trial, I don't know if there is some guideline to avoid such situation. Northeast heritage (talk) 04:25, 29 May 2022 (UTC)

I've shown there are no contradictory claims in Das' chapter while explaining your WP:SYNTHESIS. You add new issues without any proof to make the discussion longer. I'm not aware if this fall under Wikipedia policies.Northeast heritage (talk) 06:18, 29 May 2022 (UTC)

Just to be clear, I am using "critical" as given in the third meaning of the Webster dictionary here ("exercising or involving careful judgment or judicious evaluation"). Das has not provided a critical review of the demographics of the region. For example, she writes: "Most of the Katma and Lashkar were Kacharis, Assamese and Bengalis because no Bhutia settled in the Duar areas" and also "He then collected all the Bhutias of Duars, the Kacharis and Meches living between the..." These are definitely contradictory statements found in Das, and Das gives us nothing to reconcile them. You seem to prefer the first statement. But then the first statement also says the Kacharis, Assamese and Bengalis officers settled in the Duar regions. So which one do you prefer? How best do you want me to state your position. Could you please give me an example and I shall correct it. Chaipau (talk) 16:05, 29 May 2022 (UTC)

@Chaipau: Though WP:RSN is not place to discuss content dispute, I am giving my points. These two statements don't contradict. "He(Naranaryana) then collected all the Bhutias of Duars, the Kacharis and Meches living between the..." add this to the expedition of Naranaryana. "Most of the Katma and Lashkar were Kacharis, Assamese and Bengalis because no Bhutia settled in the Duar areas" add this to Dooars. Eden et. all had written their sentence in the present continuous tense. Eden et. al is eye-witnesses of 1800s. Historically there was no strong boundary. Duars region is larger than the BTR region. I believe that you are aware of surveys and censuses of the Raj-era where not a single Bhutia was reported. Wherever Bhutias lived went to Bhutan. You're free to write as per the source in the right context. Kamta and Laskar were officers just like today's officers. I believe we can't compare between when there was no well-recognised boundary (Naranarayan-era) and when there was a well-recognised boundary(Raj-era). Not only Kamta and Laskar, You can add British officers who administered this region. Also, Expedition of Naranayana doesn't confirm whether he was collectinng settled Bhutias or he was collecting migratory Bhutias. In Bhutia chronciles, they are said to be taking possession of Duars under pressure of Tibetan government. Your claim But then the first statement also says the Kacharis, Assamese and Bengalis officers settled in the Duar regions isn't true, She says Kacharis, Assamese and Bengalis had to be Kamta and Laskar officers because Bhutanese didn't settle. I already said officers lived where their rulers posted them and There is difference between Duar and BTR. Probably Kachari officers handled Kachari duar and Assamese(Ahom) and Bengali officers handled which weren't Kachari duar. Making multiple Bad Faith Assumptions to win an argument does seem to violate Wikipedia policy. If you have clear proof of Kachari, Assamese, Bengali officers settling in the BTR, Please add, but her comment doesn't prove so. Northeast heritage (talk) 16:48, 29 May 2022 (UTC)

@Northeast heritage: I agree with you that all you have said are possible explanations. There are probably more. It is unfortunate that Das does not help us pick the right one. That is the issue here.

I do not want to prolong this discussion. Let us wait for more inputs. Chaipau (talk) 22:18, 29 May 2022 (UTC) 16:31, 30 May 2022 (UTC)

My explanation was to show that there are no contradictory statements. Das couldn't find other mentionable ethnicities while doing her research, so she mentioned only well-known ethnicities. If historical documents support the existence of other ethnicities, it will be updated. I believe that scholarship is an incremental process. For example - There is Tripura rajmala which gives other than present narratives of Assam. There is an ancient Kachari chronicle in DHAS which is yet to be studied and published. Assam history will be written to reconcile with these chronciles. Then Wikipedia articles will also be updated. Northeast heritage (talk) 04:02, 31 May 2022 (UTC)

• Comment. India's northeast is one of the most active areas of modern Indian history writing. There is no reason to use Smriti Das's book, not because it uses British gazetteers uncritically, but because it is poorly written. Please examine the conclusion. I can't figure out what it is. Not only is it littered with spelling errors, but it reads like a high-school essay, an effort to fill space any which way. They paid tribute it says so they were tributaries. So please don't use that book. Please don't use the gazetteers either not because they are British but because they are old. Here are two modern books:
• Misra, Sanghamitra (2011), Becoming a Borderland: The Politics of Space and Identity in Colonial Northeastern India, London and New York: Routledge, ISBN 978-0-415-61253-1
• Goswami, Uddipana (2014), Conflict and Reconciliation: The Politics of Ethnicity in Assam, Transition in Northeastern India, London and New York: Routledge, ISBN 978-0-415-71113-5

Misra, a historian, was Peter Robb's PhD student at SOAS, and Goswami, a sociologist, was Tiplut Nongbri's PhD student at JNU. There are many other scholarly books. Best regards, Fowler&fowler«Talk» 10:57, 31 May 2022 (UTC)

If it is a question of accessibility, please ask at the relevant WP help desk and someone will get the relevant chapters for you. Fowler&fowler«Talk» 11:07, 31 May 2022 (UTC)

I think Misra's is the better effort. Fowler&fowler«Talk» 11:08, 31 May 2022 (UTC)

@Fowler&fowler: Thank you. I have read only one chapter which i found factual. So, I tried to use the book. I wasn't aware of her conclusions. I will no more use the book as there are reasons not to use it, but I doubt if there is any other source which can give a clear picture about the region. And I've learnt that WP:RAJ and WP:FRUIT can't be applied to WP:RS sources which i wanted to know. Northeast heritage (talk) 12:34, 31 May 2022 (UTC)

Nah I don't think it is the WP:RAJ or the other link that is the reason. I don't entirely agree with those links. The British collected a lot of data, on caste, on population, on geography (the Great Trigonometric Survey was a monumental effort), on languages (Gierson's Linguistic Survey of India collected some marvelous [gramaphone recordings], dictionaries in many South Asian languages. Platts Urdu dictionary is still used by many people, including scholars. I remember the great Pakistani Urdu poet Fahmida Riaz saying somewhere before her death that she learned a lot from Platts. Absolute monumental effort. In almost every aspect of Indian life, the British recorded data. The censuses are used by all historical demographers. Before the British there is nothing like this data in Indian history.

The reason why we can't use them is that they are now WP:PRIMARY sources and we are not trained in their interpretation such as a demographer might, or a linguist might, ... It needs training to figure out what aspect of the data is reliable and what is not.

We rely instead on a modern book, which might be using the same British data, but whose author has some insight on how to interpret it, to separate the wheat from the chaff. That is the reason.

Das's book is a separate issue. It just seems poorly written. Too many red flags. Fowler&fowler«Talk» 13:07, 31 May 2022 (UTC)

Thank you for your comment. I agree with you that Das in unable to interpret the sources which has been the main source of confusion. To be clear, there are some sections of the thesis that does not require interpretations, which is where I want to retain its use.

Furthermore, though the British did well in some linguistic studies, their reports require significant interpretations especially in the area of northeast Indian languages/ethnicities, as Jaquesson has done here (see his comments on Hodgson). Chaipau (talk) 14:03, 31 May 2022 (UTC)

Thank you all. I've decided not to use the book as per discussion. This thread can be closed. Northeast heritage (talk) 12:52, 31 May 2022 (UTC)

Thank you Northeast heritage for bringing up this discussion. I agree that Das and Eden both are not reliable sources. Requesting WP:CR. Chaipau (talk) 11:26, 2 June 2022 (UTC)

The London Economic interview with Gary Delaney for his article

Could someone please respond to this?

Is this following 2015 interview with standup comedian Gary Delaney at The London Economic (www DOT thelondoneconomic DOT COM /entertainment/tle-meets-gary-delaney-10627/) reliable for biographical information added to Delaney's Wikiepdia article (specifically: where he went to school, his odd jobs before becoming a comedian, and his residence as of 2015)?

That info has already been in his Wikipedia article for some time, but the url is dead, and while there is both a live url and an archived version at the Internet Archive, I can't change it because it's on the blacklist, and I'd like to add it as an exception, if possible, to the whitelist. I couldn't even include the url in this post for the same reason, so I had to write out portions of the url in order to convey it here. Nightscream (talk) 14:03, 28 May 2022 (UTC)

Hello? Nightscream (talk) 17:12, 2 June 2022 (UTC)

Nightscream see MediaWiki talk:Spam-whitelist. As long as you believe it is reliable, you can make a case for whitelisting it. I'd say interviews with the person in question are generally accurate. X-750 _{Rust In Peace... Polaris} 04:17, 3 June 2022 (UTC)

muckrack.com

Before I go and wipe out references across 200 articles, I figure I should confirm my suspicion that muckrack.com is not a usable source as it is user-generated.

example - [[80]]

Slywriter (talk) 23:38, 24 May 2022 (UTC)

"A centralized Public Relations Management (PRM) platform to help your team build media relationships, collaborate from anywhere, and measure success." sounds eminently wipe-able. Per WP-philosophy you should make some effort to replace while wiping, though. Gråbergs Gråa Sång (talk) 09:05, 25 May 2022 (UTC)

I think that their page for journalists ("Muck Rack provides free tools to help journalists like you automatically compile and showcase your portfolio...") is further evidence that Muck Rack should not be regarded as a suitable source. Regards, BennyOnTheLoose (talk) 12:03, 26 May 2022 (UTC)

I would say it is an WP:ABOUTSELF source in BLPs and a usable primary source for e.g. noting that X journalist has contributed regularly to Y periodical, but I would not use it beyond there. BobFromBrockley (talk) 17:14, 27 May 2022 (UTC)

The verified profiles, yes, a bit like LinkedIn. But there are also unverified profiles and they let people claim profiles through the web. --Seggallion (talk) 17:34, 30 May 2022 (UTC)

Generally unreliable and self-published. Muckrack pages are generally made by a bot, without the journalist's input. It's wholly unreliable for attributing an article to a particular person, and the bot often gets confused when there are multiple non-verified journalists with the same name, leading to some problems given the lack of effective human oversight over the bot queries. It is not ok to use in a WP:BLP (per WP:BLPSPS), unless the particular MuckRack profile is verified and used in accordance with WP:ABOUTSELF. I personally would not place it as an WP:EL unless it were verified, owing to issues with its quality. — Ⓜ️hawk10 (talk) 18:37, 3 June 2022 (UTC)

I happen to have some stories that show up on Muckrack, and had mentioned the site in a teahouse discussion. I think of it as useful only because it carries actual links to the stories themselves; it's a good research tool — not an actual reference tool. But editors should familiarize themselves with it because it may produce sources that aren't showing up in other searches. It also could be confusing because, for example, when I did a general search for myself under "verified journalists," it showed only a handful of story links. One of them showed my byline under a headline for something I didn't write (at Grammydotcom), with a bit of text underneath from an article I did write. But clicking on that headline and scrolling down a bit shows the complete story I wrote. But you wouldn't know it's there from what shows up in the search results. But clicking on my name in that byline brings up my profile page, with a much longer list, including a couple of PDFs for magazine cover stories I wrote that aren't available online. What's really weird, though, is that list also has the headline mentioned above, but with a text paragraph that actually matches it — not the text grab from my story (which still does appear below it).

Still, if you know somebody wrote something and you haven't found a link to it, going to muckrack and searching for that writer might lead you to a link Google didn't pull up. If you do find the writer there, click on their byline or profile link to get a better list — which will not be in order, so keep scrolling. TexasEditor1 (talk) 21:34, 30 June 2022 (UTC)

climate-data.org is not a reliable source

The website lists weather data from almost all parts of the world, but it is very different from the weather data released by many official agencies. Taking the Japanese city of Hachinohe as an example, the temperature difference between the data released by climate-data.org and Japan Meteorological Agency exceeds 3 degrees Celsius, and the difference in precipitation exceeds 200 mm. In addition, a similar problem can be found in the French city of Ajaccio. Compared with the value released by climate-data.org and Météo-France, the gap is too large. 迷斯拉10032号 (talk) 07:43, 4 June 2022 (UTC)

Are the sources in 2016 shooting of Dallas police officers enough to establish it was a terrorist attack by a left-winger?

The background it at Talk:Terrorism in the United States where a new editor believes argues that the sources are sufficient. It's been added to Timeline of terrorist attacks in the United States. The argument in part hinges on whether this source[81] used in Terrorism in the United States establishes it as terrorism. It looks like a reliable source and has compiled it own database, but it says "only two incidents of domestic terrorism in the database can plausibly be attributed to a perpetrator with such sympathies. They are the December 2014 killings of two police officers in their patrol car in New York City and the July 2016 sniper shooting in Dallas, which left five officers dead and nine wounded." Note the word "plausibly".

The government database[82] also used in the Terrorism article does not include either of these, and at the moment that article says there were no instances of left-wing terrorism during the time period covers and also that there were 7 deaths.

The Dallas shooting article does not mention terrorism anywhere except the infobox which is sourced to [83] which I don't think backs the claim, [84] which doesn't seem to either, and [85] which does although I don't think the statement that the perpetrator was left-wing is established (this is from my reading of the article). Doug Weller talk 18:08, 3 June 2022 (UTC)

I'll note that per Betteridge's law of headlines, the latter two sources indicate it's not domestic terrorism. On a quick glance, this seems like a case where the mainstream view (in particular, the GAO) is that it was a targeted mass shooting rather than domestic terrorism, though there are notable claims that it was terrorism which should be attributed to their source rather than wikivoiced. Bakkster Man (talk) 18:16, 3 June 2022 (UTC)

There's nothing I can see that labels the Dallas shooter as "left-wing". Only that his motives were ambiguous, and one author pointing to the "plausibility" as you said, which is not enough, in my opinion, to call them "left-wing" terrorist. Pyrrho the Skipper (talk) 18:17, 3 June 2022 (UTC)

Agreed with pretty much all of this; the first source, if anything, undercuts the claim. The second source, a lawyer's blog, does not seem reliable to me, but does not support the claim. The CNN op-ed does support the claim, but seems to be a bit of an outlier. Even its authors hedge their bets by saying "seemingly motivated." That claim could be used with attribution but is absolutely not enough, by my lights, to state it as an uncontroverted fact in Wiki voice. Cheers all, and Happy Friday. Dumuzid (talk) 18:18, 3 June 2022 (UTC)

Previous consensus in mass shooting articles is that the motive should come from the investigators, not media reports, politicians' speeches etc. The media has got it wrong in the past by jumping to conclusions. It's hard to dispute that Micah Xavier Johnson was some sort of crackpot with a grudge against the police, but the government does not appear to have classified the incident as left wing terrorism.--♦IanMacM♦ ^{(talk to me)} 18:29, 3 June 2022 (UTC)

I consider Neiwert an expert and a reliable source when it comes to eliminationism and right-wing attacks on the left. He is a well-published journalist who often freelances and has maintained several personal websites over time. As the OP points out in their quote, Neiwert's usage of the word "plausibly" seems intended to narrow outliers of his central thesis, not to explicitly label those outliers. I feel Neiwert is a openly left-wing, but certainly an authentic journalist with a long track record of publication. BusterD (talk) 18:32, 3 June 2022 (UTC)

We really only should describe attacks as "terrorism" when this is a assessment by the law authorities overseeing the case investigation, since in most countries this is an "enhanced" crime that comes with additional penalties. Attacks can be said to be "suspected terrorism" from other expert sources (including newspapers) but that's prior to an official assessment. We're far to quick to jump to when newspapers and other people not in an authority position use "terrorism" inappropriately. --Masem (t) 18:35, 3 June 2022 (UTC)

During the overnight standoff that led to his death, the suspect told a hostage negotiator that he was upset about the recent police shootings of two black men and that he wanted to kill white people, especially police officers, Dallas Police Chief David Brown said at a news conference this morning.[86] Terrorism is generally understood to be acts of violence conducted against civilians for political purposes. Killing white police officers who are guarding a peaceful demonstration certainly qualifies as terrorism, in the same way that Roof's attack on black churchgoers does.[87]. Johnson liked on Facebook the New Black Panther Party (NBPP), the Nation of Islam and the Black Riders Liberation Party, all listed by the SPLC as hate groups. [88]

What more evidence do we need to confirm the connection here? Yamazon3 (talk) 19:10, 3 June 2022 (UTC)

That is called original research, we only summarize what reliable sources say and so far, reliable sources do not say that this is an act of terrorism much less an act of left wing terrorism. PRAXIDICAE💕 19:11, 3 June 2022 (UTC)

Reliable sources DO say that this is an act of terrorism, see this source: "Terrorism is generally understood to be acts of violence conducted against civilians for political purposes. Killing white police officers who are guarding a peaceful demonstration certainly qualifies as terrorism, in the same way that Roof's attack on black churchgoers does[89]".

I may be misunderstanding what original research is, and I apologize if that's the case, but it was my understanding that if someone says that a person has 2 quarters in their pocket, then it's acceptable to write that they have at least 50 cents in change in their pocket. Yamazon3 (talk) 19:39, 3 June 2022 (UTC)

it is not widely reported as terrorism or a left wing terrorist attack, the CNN article is also an opinion piece which can be attributed but cannot be used as a statement of fact. PRAXIDICAE💕 19:41, 3 June 2022 (UTC)

While we can of course rephrase statements (in part to avoid plagiarism, in part to be NPOV), making the jump from 'reliable sources don't use a particular label for an event, but we decided it fits the definition' is textbook WP:OR. That said, I'm confused how you equate 'killing police officers on duty' with 'violence against civilians'. Even by the definition you provided, this shooting wouldn't qualify because government officials engaging in official business arenot civilians. Bakkster Man (talk) 19:45, 3 June 2022 (UTC)

@Bakkster Man Good point! The source from GAO used in the header of the article[90] cites at least 8 fatal right wing attacks against police officers. Given that you're saying that attacks against police officers don't count, the claims regarding terrorist counts from them should not be considered valid. How should we edit the header of the Terrorism in the United States to remove the GAO counts? Yamazon3 (talk) 20:02, 3 June 2022 (UTC)

Given that you're saying that attacks against police officers don't count. No, I said that according to the definition you provided, your argument was inconsistent.

Saying that because your personal definition of "terrorism" is different from the GAO's definition of "violent extremism" we should consider that authoritative source to be unreliable is more WP:OR. I suspect even worse, because it appears to be bad-faith and/or WP:POINTy. Bakkster Man (talk) 20:14, 3 June 2022 (UTC)

You are indeed misunderstanding what original research is, and your example misrepresents the argument. Substituting "at least 50 cents" for "2 quarters" is paraphrasing (assuming there is no further import to the fact of 2 quarters), but what you are doing is taking "2 quarters" from one source, relative measures of poverty from another source, and synthesising an assertion that the person is poor, when the reliable source doesn't actually state that.

For Wikipedia to call an act terrorism it must be adjudicated as such in some legalistic manner; a journalist's opinion is not sufficient to transcribe into Wikivoice. Such opinion might be sufficiently notable to be reported as such however. Captainllama (talk) 13:09, 4 June 2022 (UTC)

I forgot to add that the lead and and the first section of the body at Terrorism in the United States contradict each other and I’m not sure how to fix it. Doug Weller talk 18:37, 3 June 2022 (UTC)

Do you mean the first paragraph of the lead contradicts the second paragraph, or what is the contradiction you're referring to? Pyrrho the Skipper (talk) 19:28, 3 June 2022 (UTC)

The third paragraph of the lead in Terrorism in the United States makes the claim that all fatal terrorist attacks between 9/12/01 - 12/31/16 were attributed to either right wing or Islamic terror. After making that claim, it then states that no fatal terror attacks were attributed to left wing terrorism. These claims come directly from GAO. The first section in the body of the article claims that 7 deaths were caused by left wing terrorism between 2008-2016. Yamazon3 (talk) 19:32, 3 June 2022 (UTC)

Sorry. The last sentence in the third paragraph of the lead is contradicting the start of the U.S. totals section Terrorism in the United States#U.S. totals. Doug Weller talk 19:33, 3 June 2022 (UTC)

I just rewrote the last sentence in paragraph 3 of the lead to Deaths attributed to left-wing groups were rare. Better? The citations following may need to be added/removed, though. Pyrrho the Skipper (talk) 19:54, 3 June 2022 (UTC)

@Pyrrho the Skipper Yes. Thank you! Yamazon3 (talk) 20:07, 3 June 2022 (UTC)

We can say that one report said none, another plausibly 7, but the table is a problem. Doug Weller talk 21:01, 3 June 2022 (UTC)

@Pyrrho the Skipper we can't say "rare" when the citation quotes the source as saying " According to the [US Extremist Crime Database], activities of far left wing violent extremist groups did not result in any fatalities during this period." I've rewritten the lead to include both statements and added the "plausibly" caveat to the U.S. totals section - that definitely should have been there in the first place. Doug Weller talk 09:14, 4 June 2022 (UTC)

Ah. @Masem@BusterD@Praxidicae@Dumuzid and probably others, going over this thread again I'm not clear as to whether we include the 7 deaths with the caveat or? And should we remove the mention of terrorism in the 2016 shooting of Dallas police officers infobox or call it terrorism because that one report says it is? I'm at a bit of a loss here. It's in the mass shooting category at the moment. Doug Weller talk 09:23, 4 June 2022 (UTC)

So, for me, this is indeed where I would come down. On Terrorism in the United States, I think I would keep the "no deaths attributed to left wing groups language" but perhaps append "by this report" or some such simply to make it very clear that we have contrasting sources. (I confess, I am not sure what the issue was with one of the tables?) As to Dallas, I would vote to remove terrorism. One CNN op-ed does not for me establish the link. "Mass shooting" is obviously fine. As ever, reasonable minds may differ. I hope everyone has a nice weekend. Dumuzid (talk) 15:27, 4 June 2022 (UTC)

Okdiario

Should Okdiario (headed by Eduardo Inda) be deprecated as a source? It has not only been accused of being a manipulator and spreader of hoaxes, but it has also been sentenced several times by the Spanish justice. --KajenCAT (talk) 20:24, 1 May 2022 (UTC) Some examples:

• The most important Consumer rights NGO of Spain, Facua: [91] [92] [93] [94][95]
• Greenpeace (points out as one of the main spreaders of hoaxes in the media) [96]
• Others: [97][98][99] [100][101][102]

--KajenCAT (talk) 20:28, 1 May 2022 (UTC)

Comments

I am somewhat confused on a quick look. I randomly checked two of the sources shown. The Greenpeace link seems to be about WhatsApp. Are the two related? One Facua source is titled, "11,000 euros: After FACUA's complaint, they initiate a sanctioning process against Okdiario for a serious infraction". The infraction: "Eduardo Inda's newspaper violates consumer protection legislation by offering subscriptions with prices that do not include taxes." In my apparent ignorance to some point, I can not see a connection between these and the site being a "manipulator and spreader of hoaxes". I did see one but all news source have likely been guilty of printing things not exactly true, or even totally false.

The link states the source is a Spanish digital newspaper aligned with neoliberalism and Spanish nationalism. It is my opinion, at first glance, that editors should not be limited to sources that are aligned to a particular way or idea. The entire concept of balance, due weight, and neutrality depends on being able to view different points of view. It is reported that "Its editorial line is part of the political spectrum of the liberal ideology and the unity of Spain", which is in line with the article. It is expedient to take note of this. If a source is used to push a particular article in a direction not in line with Wikipedia policies and guidelines we can act to protect this encyclopedia.

CinemaCrush

Can cinemacrush.com be considered a reliable source for film credits, cast and crew, release dates, etc? I was not able to get any information about the website, their history or the team. A domain search shows the website was registered in 2018 and will expire next week. At the bottom of the page it says Date Source: TMDb. I don't know what Date Source means, but TMDb, like IMDb, is crowd-sourced.

The website is used as a source at Manan Joshi and Mozhgan Bayat. Jay (talk) 20:59, 5 June 2022 (UTC)

• Looks like yet another obscure website on the net trying to serve a [large] niche audience. Probably retrieved content via API or web scraping. For sourcing on WP, I'd say no — DaxServer (t · m · c) 08:01, 6 June 2022 (UTC)

Searching for a Gem (www.searchingforagem.com)

I think that searchingforagem.com is a reliable source for Bob Dylan's discography and related topics (e.g. Dylan video releases, Travelling Wilburys discography).

In his 2021 book The Double Life of Bob Dylan Vol. 1: A Restless Hungry Feeling: 1941-1966, Clinton Heylin includes Bob Dylan Worldwide: The First Twenty Years : an Anthology of Original LPs, Singles & EP Releases 1961-1981 by Christoph Maus with Alan Fraser, a book based on content from the site, under "reference resources". The site's compiler, Alan Fraser, has his own entry in Michael Gray's The Bob Dylan Encyclopedia. From the 2008 edition (p.244): "Fraser ... has provided information to Columbia Records and various Dylan fanzines, but his major contribution is the website searchingforagem.com: a huge, painstaking and scrupulous documenting, in mind-boggling detail, of officially-released Dylan rarities and more". Gray goes on to describe the site as "excellent and lavishly illustrated".

Any views? BennyOnTheLoose (talk) 22:30, 5 June 2022 (UTC)

If the biographer has cited it, I agree this constitutes reliability. --K. Peake 06:47, 6 June 2022 (UTC)

I've just discovered that Record Collector magazine referred to searchingforagem.com as "the internet's number one resource for rare Dylan releases" in February 2008. (source). BennyOnTheLoose (talk) 08:37, 6 June 2022 (UTC)