Wikipedia:Reliable sources/Noticeboard

Welcome to the reliable sources noticeboard. This page is for posting questions regarding whether particular sources are reliable in context.
Before posting, please check the archives and list of perennial sources for prior discussions of the source. If after reviewing, you feel a new post is warranted, please be sure to include the following information, if available: Links to past discussion of the source on this board. Source. The book or web page being used as the source. For a book, include the author, title, publisher, page number, etc. For an online source, please include links. For example: [http://www.website.com/webpage.html]. Article. The Wikipedia article(s) in which the source is being used. For example: [[Article name]]. Content. The exact statement(s) in the article that the source supports. Please supply a diff, or put the content inside block quotes. For example: <blockquote>text</blockquote>. Many sources are reliable for statement "X", but unreliable for statement "Y". In some cases, it can also be appropriate to start a general discussion about the likelihood that statements from a particular source are reliable or unreliable. If the discussion takes the form of a request for comment, a common format for writing the RfC question can be found here. Please be sure to include examples of editing disputes that show why you are seeking comment on the source.
While we attempt to offer a second opinion, and the consensus of several editors can generally be relied upon, answers are not official policy.
Please focus your attention on the reliability of a source. This is not the place to discuss other issues, such as editor conduct. Please see dispute resolution for issues other than reliability.
If you are looking for a copy of a specific source, please ask at the resource exchange board.
Additional notes: The guideline that most directly relates to whether a given source is reliable is Wikipedia:Reliable sources. It has an explanatory supplement at Wikipedia:Reliable sources/Perennial sources, listing the outcomes of many consensus discussions at this noticeboard. The policy that most directly relates is: Verifiability. If your question is about whether material constitutes original research, please use the No original research notice board. If your question is about undue weight or other neutral point of view issues, please use the NPOV noticeboard. If an unreliable source is being over-used or spammed, consider the MediaWiki blacklist, where it can be added to the spam blacklist or a revert list for automated reversion of potential good-faith additions. 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 {{rfc|prop}}. As usual with RfCs, consensus is assessed based on the weight of policy-based argument. Sections older than 5 days archived by lowercase sigmabot III. (For help, see Wikipedia:Purge)
Click here to start a new discussion

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More on the reliability of BtVA

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

It actually says "Roles and lists that are not check-marked (covered by a screenshot), despite being listed under that actor, cannot be used", which means that BtVA is unreliable, since the only thing it is considered reliable for is providing screenshots of the primary source that is a show's credits.--Eldomtom2 (talk) 11:25, 21 February 2023 (UTC)

StatMuse

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

RfC

Which of the following best describes the StatMuse chatbot?

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Yeah but that "someone" is primarily a defunct SPS now available only in archive form, example [1]. Almost everything down this hole is problematic, chatbots are just the new lowest level of hell. Horse Eye's Back (talk) 22:20, 9 February 2023 (UTC)

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

They're a tertiary source. 🙢 - Sativa Inflorescence - 🙢 02:07, 22 March 2023 (UTC)

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

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

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

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

• 4: Deprecate. For the obvious reasons of reliability, accuracy, and OR. JoelleJay (talk) 20:02, 15 February 2023 (UTC)
• Comment: Given that the website is primarily based around sports statistics, I still believe this should be listed at Society, sports, and culture instead of Media, the arts, and architecture. Hey man im josh (talk) 17:59, 21 February 2023 (UTC)
• Option 2 per Bagumba. I'm generally sceptical of LLMs because of their tendency to fabricate facts or pull from unreliable sources. However, this use case with a closed data source seems fairly low risk and more akin to the search/analysis tools that are already built into many databases. This is a primary source that doesn't contribute to notability or weight. It might be useful for citing standard statistics for infoboxes etc (although surely there are better sources for these), but we certainly shouldn't be using it to add trivia like this or this. I'm struggling to think of a use case where there aren't better sources that are readily available. –dlthewave ☎ 18:29, 25 February 2023 (UTC)
• Option 4 IMO these sorts of tertiary (quaternary?) sources are black boxes, and should all be deprecated. 🙢 - Sativa Inflorescence - 🙢 02:05, 22 March 2023 (UTC)

RFC: Scientific Reports

Which of the following best describes Scientific Reports?

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

Previous discussions: [2].Hemiauchenia (talk) 20:57, 16 February 2023 (UTC)

Survey

• Option 2 Whether or not a paper from SciRep should be used is very field and author dependent. While undoubtedly a lot of good and valid research is published there, so is a lot of dubious stuff, more so than other journals in the SpringerNature portfolio. Hemiauchenia (talk) 20:57, 16 February 2023 (UTC)
• Option 2: many scholarly articles should be given little weight on Wikipedia anyways, regardless of publisher or reliability, as primary sources (WP:PSTS). A primary article that describes a new species, like this one, is reliable enough to show the species has been validly published, even if subsequent taxonomists disagree or reclassify it. But a research paper in the same journal that seeks to upend an existing classification scheme of a family or phylum based on a newly sequenced blip of RNA should be weighted accordingly with other sources. --Animalparty! (talk) 23:13, 16 February 2023 (UTC)
• Option 3, though some things published there may be usable via WP:SELFPUB. It is reasonably clear from its history that it exerts practically no editorial controls whatsoever; therefore it is a textbook non-WP:RS and publication there will never lend any iota of reliability. I can understand people stating that this is 2 (because sometimes highly-regarded experts do publish things through it, which can be used via WP:SELFPUB) but my concern is that our ratings are generally considered to be for the source itself - SELFPUB is a separate consideration that allows certain things to be used regardless of the reliability of the venue they were published in, not something that changes the fundamental unreliability of a journal with essentially no editorial controls. And the fairly rigid structure WP:RSP has evolved into could mean that a "yellow" rating there would lead to people arguing that publication there sometimes lends reputability, or that it is disputed whether it lends inherent reliability. It never does, not ever, which means that option 3 is the best choice with the caveat that things by established experts can be used as normal via SELFPUB (true in general for things published in non-RSes) - essentially, anyone who wants to use a paper from there has to start from the presumption that it is unreliable and construct a SELFPUB argument otherwise on a case-by-case basis. --Aquillion (talk) 04:28, 17 February 2023 (UTC)
• Option 2 Should be assessed on an article-by-article basis. Some may be useful as primary sources alongside secondary sources that themselves reference material published there, but for the most part we should not be using scientific papers without a supporting secondary source that puts the primary research into context. It's probably fine for linking in cases where we reference the material in conjunction with its discussion in secondary sources, but like ALL scientific journals, per WP:PRIMARY, "Do not analyze, evaluate, interpret, or synthesize material found in a primary source yourself; instead, refer to reliable secondary sources that do so." --Jayron32 13:50, 17 February 2023 (UTC)
• Option 3 Misusing primary sources is already rampant on wikipedia. The journal has a checkered history, so I agree with Aquillion that articles should basically be treated as self published. Sativa Inflorescence (talk) 21:03, 19 February 2023 (UTC)
• Option 3 Primary sources like research papers should only be used with special care to begin with, and this journal fails the use-with-caution standard. Aiming for quantity indiscriminate of field is a big red flag. Peer review requires trustworthy subject-specific expert review, which is dubious when the journal as a whole disregards subject specialization. Our article Scientific Reports appears to indicate the quantity-over-quality approach bearing poor fruit. Note that this should not count against any paper published there, surely much of that work is fine. It just means publication in Scientific Reports adds little to any other publication or authority the work may otherwise have. Alsee (talk) 22:28, 21 February 2023 (UTC)

I suppose given that as of 2020 SciRep was publishing 7,500-10,000 papers every year, is looking at the raw number of controversies an appropriate metric? Hemiauchenia (talk) 23:26, 21 February 2023 (UTC)

• Option 2 - Other considerations apply. (Not sure this needs a RFC -- Is there really a 'perennial' need about this source ? But in any case hers is my input.) As always, WP:CONTEXTMATTERS and whether the source is authoritative depends largely on what content it is being used for. What the venue is should not be a universal up or down item. That said, I'm dubious about the value of citing a study to an article, it generally seeming a work in progress and typically technical item of no large note. (And I'm even more dubious about those of note or WP:WEIGHT as being suspect for sensationalism or publicising rather than scientific note.) Cheers Markbassett (talk) 06:36, 22 February 2023 (UTC)
• Option 4, deprecate: there is not enough time to evaluate the merits of this publisher's studies on a case-by-case basis, and where this does happen it usually involves protracted edit wars, cliques, drama, etc. Wikipedia's quality and user experiences improve tremendously by setting higher standards for sources. What little value that might be lost will be more than compensated for by removing the big pile of bad studies, as well as the bloat of material that just isn't notable enough to be included in a tertiary source. What has been published by Scientific Reports that was truly important or worthy of inclusion in an encyclopedia? - Hunan201p (talk) 20:44, 22 February 2023 (UTC)
• Option 2. Retractions and weak articles are happening in all scientific journals, even the best ones. That is not a proof of anything. Given the description of their editorial process [3], they have a peer review process and editorial oversight. But yes, the additional considerations must apply, as always, i.e. one should check if specific publication makes exceptional claims, contradicts general knowledge in the field, not supported by other sources, etc. My very best wishes (talk) 01:21, 13 March 2023 (UTC)
• Option 2. For me, this is a no-brainer. Scientific reports is a huge website covering a lot of ground. One cannot compare mathematics to sociology in terms of the ability of a reader literate in both to be able to validate for one's self whether something is true or not. But as always, caveat emptor applies, and in general it is nonsense to judge a book by its cover, and asking if a source is reliable is actually nonsense. CarlWesolowski (talk) 06:54, 13 March 2023 (UTC)
• Option 3. Scientific reports covers a very wide range of areas but like all primary sources, WP:PRIMARY will apply. We shouldn't be analysing or interpreting sources, which is why reliable secondary sources are much more acceptable. Having said that, I think it's important to remember that context is still important (WP:CONTEXTMATTERS), and they can still be used to supplement other sources. Starlights99 (talk) 20:42, 16 March 2023 (UTC)

Discussion

• I'm not sure we have a color code for "quite frequently unreliable, but reliability can be established on a case-by-case basis in fairly standard ways". The various arguments for 2 and 3 that are currently up there seem to agree to a large extent on how the journal ought to be treated in practice; the difference is how to translate that into suitable Wikipedia jargon. XOR'easter (talk) 16:36, 17 February 2023 (UTC)
• Unless Sci Rep has started publishing review articles, is this more of a "people using primary sources when they shouldn't" problem? Red Fiona (talk) 00:09, 18 February 2023 (UTC)
• Do Not List In RSN - this seems not usable for RSP results. Unless there are a number of past instances where this was one "whose reliability and use on Wikipedia are frequently discussed" then by definition it does not belong in RSP. If there *are* past discussions, then they should be described by the RFC as the reason for the discussion and not as a generic search link that returns false hits on the phrase "scientific reports". In this case the generic search seems to have 4 which actually question SR, and only one case came to a conclusion which was that particular study was just that -- a first-person report of a study which did not suit the article CONTEXT of MEDRS. In WP sense, this seems -- not an entry for RSP, and utility depends on context. But really, just stop asking about every venue there is. Cheers Markbassett (talk) 18:03, 23 February 2023 (UTC)

• Scientific Reports is a well respected fast publishing journal for particular types of studies. Personally I have published in it. That said it has received criticism for inadequate review in some areas. They do not publish opinion pieces and try to publish the original research of authors. Like all publications they should be used judiciously and without bias. I do not see why this has been brought up as an RFC as the way to treat publications applies to any publication. Many scientists even see Nature itself as not much more than a flashy magazine filled with titles and little content. However its impact factor keeps people publishing in it as scientists grant access depends on a high impact factor. I recommend closing this as the premise of the RFC is actually not relevant to the issues with journals. Cheers Scott Thomson (Faendalimas) ^talk 14:05, 16 March 2023 (UTC)

The Wire (Indian Publication) and Meta Controversy

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

Scroll Explainer

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Only 194 to go.

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

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

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

Agreed with most of the points presented.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

RfC: The Wire (India)

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

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

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

Survey: The Wire (India)

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

It was controversial with supporters of the present Indian government, but it was also accurate and reliable. What exactly is the issue you take with it? Horse Eye's Back (talk) 18:18, 24 February 2023 (UTC)

What issue I have with the documentary is irrelevant to the discussion. The Wire has practiced unethical journalism is the story here. SpunkyGeek (talk) 00:58, 25 February 2023 (UTC)

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

Let's see what third-parties think:

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Another violation for your reference.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

• Option 1 we shouldn't rush to judgement on the basis of one incident allegedly involving one rogue reporter. The wire has been painted as an anti-Mohdi publication and is therefore subject to intimidation, demonization and propoganda including from pro-Mohdi sources in the same way as many other respectable sources have been including the BBC. See these two articles from The Guardian for some context here and here, imv Atlantic306 (talk) 22:22, 19 February 2023 (UTC)
• Option 1: for an organization that won prizes for its journalism in the past, and issues corrections when they make mistakes. Mottezen (talk) 22:48, 19 February 2023 (UTC)
• Option 1: The situation that led to this RFC is very bad, but it is still singular. The organization took the steps one would expect such an organization to take when the problem became known. Long-term, institutional problems have not been demonstrated beyond this event. Yes, it is not good, but it is still just one incident. --Jayron32 14:12, 20 February 2023 (UTC)
• Comment Then how about Option 2: exercise additional caution for tech-related reporting? That’s a small minority of their stories; and the founding editor admitted that the main reason for this fuckup was a general lack of tech expertise among their staff, who would have caught it if they had better domain-knowledge. This would also allows us to keep using them for Indian politics, since it’s true that they’re one of the few independent publications left in India, and have done some good work. DFlhb (talk) 07:33, 21 February 2023 (UTC)

No, that's a bad option and just unnecessary, it would bring into question their coverage in the Pegasus Project collaboration, for which there is no evidence that there's anything wrong with it. The rest of their other tech related news coverage is just very basic "who said what" reporting; for example this report or this report, there aren't any problems with these either.

After what happened, it's highly unlikely that they are going to try to pursue any tech related story on their own again, for the foreseeable future. And if any issue arises in the future, we can always revisit this. Tayi Arajakate _Talk 09:25, 21 February 2023 (UTC)

• Option 1 The Wire has retracted the problematic reporting in question. You can find problems in just any source which has published thousands of articles until now. Unless there is a pattern of biased reporting I don't think we should be really discussing this. Capitals00 (talk) 02:51, 22 February 2023 (UTC)
• Option 1 - It is reliable enough for a news website. I don't see evidence to the contrary even after reading the whole discussion above. Abhishek0831996 (talk) 04:49, 22 February 2023 (UTC)
• Option 1 Per Tayi and Atlantic306.
  Even giants like NYT (Jayson Blair) and WaPo (Janet Cooke) have fell victim to hoaxes courtesy rogue reporters but such episodes are blips in a stellar record of journalism across the years. Much has been made out of the fact that the outlet had "quadrupled down" on the story in face of adverse comments (before coming to retract it) but such a defensive response is natural when one considers the sorry state of media freedom in India — anyway, for a comparison, Cooke's story had raised quite a many red flags in the newsroom and even by external observers but her editor chose to not buy them and instead nominated it for a Pulitzer!
  On the overall, I have a hard time believing that the OP has followed any media scandal in the past couple of decades. The RfC is misguided and unless The Wire develops a track record of producing similar dubious stuff, we shan't be revisiting this. TrangaBellam (talk) 05:49, 22 February 2023 (UTC)

• Let us see what a domain-expert who aided in debunking the fake story says:

  I do not think that The Wire as an organisation was complicit in this, if nothing else, because their behaviour was not consistent with that assumption. For instance, The Wire provided the identities of the experts to other people to verify. If you knew that these were forged, it is unlikely you would do that—you would make up an excuse about their safety and say, “We can’t tell you who it is,” or something like that.
  — Zhang, Sophie (2022-12-01). "What the Wire-Meta saga means for the future of tech-reporting". The Caravan.

• It is blindingly obvious that the publication was taken by a reporter — who has since been documented to have highly dubious antecedents and a propensity for pathological lying — for a ride. This gullibility does reflect poorly on the organization but it was possible only because — as Zhang notes — tech journalism has not yet developed in India. TrangaBellam (talk) 06:44, 22 February 2023 (UTC)

• I am also fascinated by the OP's attempt to discredit the Slate article in reply to V93 while bandying about the opinion-column in the Economist by Dominic Ziegler. Maybe they do not know about the "Banyan blog" but given their unusual confidence, I doubt it. TrangaBellam (talk) 07:02, 22 February 2023 (UTC)

  Are you saying that the piece from The Economist isn't from their newsroom? — Red-tailed hawk _(nest) 16:33, 24 February 2023 (UTC)

  Yes. TrangaBellam (talk) 18:07, 24 February 2023 (UTC)

  I had been thinking that it was. — Red-tailed hawk _(nest) 18:52, 24 February 2023 (UTC)

• Option 1. Even the best publications like The Lancet (the Wakefield "vaccines cause autism" hoax) and The New York Times (the Jayson Blair incident) have, at some point or another, had these kind of screwups. What tells us if they are reliable is not that they never make an error, even a big one, as over enough time, they will. Rather, it is whether they own up to it, appropriately publish corrections and retractions, and generally seem to care that they made the error and commit to doing better going forward. If this becomes a pattern, we can revisit the issue, but that hasn't happened yet. Seraphimblade ^{Talk to me} 15:23, 22 February 2023 (UTC)
• Option 1 The best of news organizations get taken in by a story that's too good to pass up (Hitler diaries and the venerable The Sunday Times and Stern (magazine) come to mind). Unless there is a pattern of misreporting and poor editorial judgement, there is no reason to downgrade an otherwise respectable source. --RegentsPark (comment) 16:51, 22 February 2023 (UTC)

  With all due respect, but Stern doesn't belong in the league of "green" sources. I've checked WP:perennial sources with relief not finding it there. They fell for Kujau's forgeries for a reason, and would have fallen for all other Kujaus to come; they were just spared because other potential Kujaus wouldn't choose Stern because of its borderline reputation, thus being a bad venue for propagating "high-quality" hoaxes. –Austronesier (talk) 21:23, 22 February 2023 (UTC)

• Option 1 per Tayi, TrangaBellam etc. I have asked in the pre-RfC discussion if there is "any indication (ideally from a reliable source) that we should consider this to be more than a deplorable, yet individual incident?" and since then haven't seen anything that comes even close. Instead, I see a narrative that attempts to present The Wire in an undifferentiated manner as a wilful agent of fabricating false information, when no source actually support such a claim. Yes, it was reputation-shattering event, but no-one has provided evidence of a pattern of low editorial standards in their previous or subsequent output. –Austronesier (talk) 21:14, 22 February 2023 (UTC)
• Option 1 - The problems that arose were in one narrow section of technology invesigative reporting, where the editorial board lacked sufficient expertise. I judge that The Wire handled it responsibly after problems were discovered. There is nothing here to castigate the media house. -- Kautilya3 (talk) 00:43, 23 February 2023 (UTC)
• Comment: I am not familiar enough with the source and haven't looked through all of the links but it seems to me that nobody arguing for options 2 or 3 is basing it on any pattern pre- or post- the recent Meta reporting. Use by others up to October 2022 suggests it was widely considered reliable until then. The very upfront and prominent apology suggests that lessons have been learnt. For us to move to anything other than option 1, I'd need to see evidence outside of the Meta stories. BobFromBrockley (talk) 16:57, 23 February 2023 (UTC)
• Option 1, they had a serious issue and according to the reliable sources they adequately addressed those issues and they are not indicative of widespread issues with their other reporting. Horse Eye's Back (talk) 18:21, 24 February 2023 (UTC)
• Option 1. It is absurd for us to be even considering deprecating an otherwise reputed and trustworthy news website as unreliable for a solitary instance of a slip-up, where they not only retracted the story and formally acknowledged the oversight, but took corrective measures to guard against future recurrence of it. That, if anything, reflects credit on thier journalistic ethos. The Wire, indeed, for long have distinguished themselves, amongst all the partisan noise, with thier elaborate reportage, critical and erudite commentary and critique, high journalistic and writing standards. It would be a travesty to downgrade this eminently reliable source of information. MBlaze Lightning (talk) 19:42, 24 February 2023 (UTC)
• Option 3 per SpunkyGeek, Red-tailed hawk and DFlhb this is not a one time incident. Its reporting is very controversial it has been subject to several ongoing defamation suits by businessmen and politicians the number of cases disproportionately high for a website of its size.Here for example Bharat Biotech has filed 100 Crore ongoing suit against it here and Telangana court ordered them to take down 14 articles hereand herePharaoh of the Wizards (talk) 02:03, 2 March 2023 (UTC)

  Oh, come off it. That's such an absurd proposition and a travesty. Defamation suits by rogue "businessmen and politicians" ought not be construed a blemish on the The Wire's character; it is, if anything, a testament to their bold, intrepid and undaunted investigative journalism. Those are the earmarks that beckon amidst the jarring context of a conspicuous decline in press freedom in the country, where, paradoxically, an obtrusive section of the predominantly docile media hobnobs with a rogue, Hindu nationalist regime to boot, and disseminates disinformation to bamboozle a credulous populace. The Wire's investigative journalism has, notwithstanding the context, stood out as a torchbearer of journalism in the country. MBlaze Lightning (talk) 07:28, 2 March 2023 (UTC)

Being a target of legal cases is no evidence of unreliability, if this is so then most independent press in the country would become unreliable. Do you have any secondary reliable source documented anything wrong with the articles related to these cases? To my knowledge, there is none whatsover. To the contrary secondary reliable sources (including scholarly ones) describe them as instances of harassment, intimidation, attacks on press freedom, strategic lawsuits against public participation, etc.

Here the takedown order isn't even any kind of judgement, it's an ad interim ex parte injunction, i.e a temporary order (for the duration of the case) granted solely on the basis of one party's concern. In 2017, the same injuction was applied on a different case and dismissed after two years, it means absolutely nothing. Tayi Arajakate _Talk 10:00, 2 March 2023 (UTC)

• Option 1 (Weak vote) I am definitely not informed enough to make a unqualified !vote on this. There's clearly editors with agenda participating in this discussion, which seems to have driven up the back-and-forth engagement through the roof. However just reading all the arguments (and not having done enough background research of my own), I'm not convinced at all by any argument in favour of Option 3. There's a few facts that are being recycled through over and over in the hopes of convincing others, without addressing most of the core issues brought up by others. I'd request any closing admins to scrutinise policy behind the arguments very heavily. Soni (talk) 04:29, 10 March 2023 (UTC)

• Option 3: I am moved by Red-tailed hawk, especially his reference to one of the most credible media outlets out there, The Economist, which not only lambasted The Wire's coverage on Meta and Tek Fog for "choosing partisanship over process", but also defined it as an anti-BJP religious bigot with the following, "wanting to believe is a fine quality in a pilgrim but a lousy one for holding power to account." Fayninja (talk) 10:05, 13 March 2023 (UTC)

References

Discussion: The Wire (India)

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

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

• Note, I've left notices at Wikipedia talk:Noticeboard for India-related topics and Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Journalism regarding this discussion. Tayi Arajakate _Talk 14:04, 18 February 2023 (UTC)
• I never got your ping. Capitals00 (talk) 02:45, 22 February 2023 (UTC)

  That's odd. You're in the list above (and I think other editors got their pings?). Has this issue affected anyone else? — Red-tailed hawk _(nest) 16:29, 24 February 2023 (UTC)

I didn't get mine. Wasn't an issue though. Horse Eye's Back (talk) 01:58, 25 February 2023 (UTC)

@Red-tailed hawk, I suspect that your ping failed for everyone. This page lists the triggers for pings to work. Because your edit began with a change to an existing line—even though you added lines later on—I'm guessing Echo skipped it. The same thing probably happened with this edit as well. Woodroar (talk) 02:20, 25 February 2023 (UTC)

Well, I guess I've learned what not to do. Thank you for the link; I'll keep it in mind the next time I try to send a mass ping. — Red-tailed hawk _(nest) 03:46, 25 February 2023 (UTC)

Glaukopis

A previos discussion on Glaukopis was disrupted by a SP and didn't deliver a consensus. Glaukopis is currently used as RS in at least 17 WP articles (listed here). In their controversial article on Wikipedia’s Intentional Distortion of the History of the Holocaust, Jan Grabowski and Shira Klein devote two pages to discussing Wikipedia's use of this source, which they claim caters to, and is led by, the Polish extreme nationalistic right. WP:SCHOLARSHIP says that "Care should be taken with journals that exist mainly to promote a particular point of view". Is Glaukopis reliable? Gitz (talk) (contribs) 12:20, 10 March 2023 (UTC)

Grabowski&Klein were themselves shown to be unreliable sources (more literally: utterly refuted), so should we believe them about Glaukopis? Are there some really reliable sources that agree with them about that journal? a!rado🦈 (C✙T) 14:28, 10 March 2023 (UTC)

I must have missed that, can you link the article which refutes them? Horse Eye's Back (talk) 18:03, 10 March 2023 (UTC)

For example, here (WP:EXPERTSPS applies). To clarify: my point is not that Glaukopis is a relible academic journal, but that we make too much fuss because of Grabowski&Klein&Icewhiz's academic shitposting. Nevermind though, I'm just one of hundreds of Polish nationalist editors who flock here to commit distortion~ (according to pan Grabowski) a!rado🦈 (C✙T) 05:05, 11 March 2023 (UTC)

And what exactly are they a subject matter expert in? What are their qualifications? Horse Eye's Back (talk) 05:21, 11 March 2023 (UTC)

IDK, but maybe in the subject of G&K&I's article? Something like "Coverage of Holocaust in Poland on English Wikipedia"? I don't see why some historian, briefed by banned LTA, can knew more about that than one of the most expirienced editors in that topic area. Maybe you can explain to me? a!rado🦈 (C✙T) 06:18, 11 March 2023 (UTC)

Can I start horseeyesback.substack.com and cite myself as a subject matter expert on coverage of Taiwan on English Wikipedia? Horse Eye's Back (talk) 08:33, 11 March 2023 (UTC)

Thanks for asking me first, I allow you. Now is the time to give interview to some professor of Chinese history about how you and thousands of Chinese nationalist editors distort the history of White Terror. Have fun refuting his forthcoming article! a!rado🦈 (C✙T) 09:42, 11 March 2023 (UTC)

I'd love both to be interviewed for and to read that article, we do actually have issues with coverage of KMT era atrocities on wikipedia and we need way more academic coverage of wikipedia not less. Not sure how that would make me a subject matter expert though, you're gonna have to explain that one. Horse Eye's Back (talk) 17:14, 11 March 2023 (UTC)

Note: Icewhiz's intent was to make Glaukopis unrealible for Wikipiedia. That's what Icewhiz always wanted, because scholars who publish in Glaukopis don't accommodate Icewhiz's POV. The previous discussion on Glaukopis was disrupted by that globally banned user (BobnotSnob - SP of Icewhiz) who again advocated for the dismissal of Glaukopis as WP:RS. - GizzyCatBella🍁 15:06, 10 March 2023 (UTC)

Glaukopis is in fact unreliable for most use on Wikipedia. This weird position you've adopted where you're against everything Icewhiz was ever for is disruptive. Horse Eye's Back (talk) 18:06, 10 March 2023 (UTC)

• No - It appears from the reception section that there is an unanimous consensus among scholars that the journal disseminates far-right viewpoints. TrangaBellam (talk) 18:07, 10 March 2023 (UTC)
• Not reliable per above and the reasons in the last RSN. It's one of those fake far right journals like Mankind Quarterly. Levivich (talk) 18:09, 10 March 2023 (UTC)
• No it does not seem to have a reputation for fact-checking. Slatersteven (talk) 18:13, 10 March 2023 (UTC)

Between having a very particular POV and not being cited very often it fails the sixth point of WP:SCHOLARSHIP. Unless someone can show peer reviews by the wider academic community it shouldn't be considered a reliable source. -- LCU ActivelyDisinterested ∆transmissions∆ °co-ords° 19:14, 10 March 2023 (UTC)

• No mostly per ActivelyDisinterested. The non-sequitur about Icewhiz makes little to no difference about the assessment of the source. --Jayron32 19:15, 10 March 2023 (UTC)

  I don't have a dog in this fight, but IMO if someone is in fact socking for some viewpoint, you should double-check the argument they are socking just in case. It definitely makes that much difference. The socked viewpoint could still be correct, it's just that increased suspicion of that viewpoint is the natural counterbalance to socking.

  I mean, if you disagree with that, I'm sure Singsduntil will back me up here. Dingsuntil (talk) 21:00, 10 March 2023 (UTC)

• In general no, especially for articles like Żydokomuna where it's currently used. As with other problematic sources, there might be some acceptable uses. Alaexis_¿question? 21:36, 10 March 2023 (UTC)
• Non-RS: no reputation for accuracy or fact-checking; has been known to publish materials outside of the mainstream. --K.e.coffman (talk) 03:54, 11 March 2023 (UTC)
• Not reliable. I think that it's fair to mention that an editor has socked in the past to try and get us to stop using this source, since we have to evaluate the way potential misconduct could slant the sources when eg. looking at our section on the source in our article on it (and since it serves to alert closers that potential socking could occur here.) It is important to WP:DENY repeated socks influence on our processes. But it is even more important to uphold WP:RS. The broad range of sources skeptical of it are persuasive, and no matter how we slice it nobody has presented any sort of source or argument supporting its reliability outside of "it's a peer-reviewed journal", which is not enough on its own when sourcing is so uniform on it lacking the reputation for fact-checking and accuracy that WP:RS requires. Another small irony that occurs to me: The previous discussion seems to have been headed to a clear consensus of "not reliable" even without the sock, which means that despite their intent, the only reason we still even used this source until today was because of their disruption. --Aquillion (talk) 06:33, 11 March 2023 (UTC)
• Not generally reliable per ActivelyDisinterested and Glaukopis#Reception. Siawase (talk) 19:40, 11 March 2023 (UTC)
• A few words from en.wiki's newbie. While writing various articles on pl.wiki, I rather try to avoid using "Glaukopis" as a source. With no doubts it is apologetic regarding the history of National Democracy and its heirs, history of Polish-Jewish relations etc. Also, it was granted the status of academic journal by the Polish Ministry of Education and Science, but only in 2021 and this decision sparked some controversies (see: [4]). However, in the past, historians who have no ties with Polish far- or moderate right sometimes published some interesting articles in "Glaukopis". Two examples: Hubert Kuberski[5], who is now one of the leading experts regarding the history of the Oskar Dirlewanger unit and Nazi war crimes in occupied Belarus, or Andrzej Jankowski[6] a historian and judge who investigated Nazi war crimes in Świętokrzyskie region of Poland. Imao It would be shame not to allow use their articles as the sources. Probably I could find some similar examples. To sum up: generally not reliable, but I would not advise banning it totally. I would rather focus on particular authors and recommend not to use "Glaukopis" as the sources in any article that may spark the controversy.Dreamcatcher25 (talk) 12:12, 12 March 2023 (UTC)

  Generally unreliable rather than deprecated is a balanced assessment. Gitz (talk) (contribs) 00:23, 13 March 2023 (UTC)

• WP:Biased. Based on the description by G&K, this is a WP:Biased source, and as such it can be used with care and with appropriate attribution. Saying that, I just removed it from a couple of pages where it simply was not needed. Sure thing, while using biased sources, one should exercise good judgment (as always!). For example, this is hardly a good source for page Żydokomuna. My very best wishes (talk) 01:05, 13 March 2023 (UTC)

I think the overall idea behind this discussion is to exclude citing this journal from all pages. I think this is terribly misguided. For example, one can cite thousands lies from newspaper Pravda ("The Truth") with appropriate attribution and by providing proper context which makes it clear that the claim was a lie or propaganda. One can cite words by Vyshinsky "Shot these rabid dogs!" about people who were innocent, etc. But I am sure this source in not nearly as bad as Pravda. As far as we are certain that an article singed by author X was indeed written by X, we can use it (when Pravda fails even that, i.e. the article was written by another person, one just needs additional RS). It does not mean that the claim was the truth, it well could be a lie. Verifiability is not the truth. My very best wishes (talk) 02:48, 22 March 2023 (UTC)

• Not reliable I actually think this should be deprecated because it's WP:FRINGE pseudo-scholarship with a clear aim of promoting hate-filled historical revisionism under the guise of academic research. Muszynski and others are either part of IPN or otherwise close to the government. Its editorial board, branded as independent and consisting of five people (three of whom have doctoral degrees), is not associated with any major or reliable academic institution and yet it was inexplicably awarded 70 points in the most recent ranking of research publications compiled by the Ministry of Education--indicating national reputation--in a blatant attempt to legitimize the journal and other right-wing outlets. In addition to the above: 1) founders of Glaukopis claimed several years ago that the journal was meant to "reject political correctness" 2) as noted by Przemyslaw Witkowski, the journal "praises Polish pre-war fascism," promotes conspiracy theories related to freemasonry and discriminatory concepts like 'judeoskepticism', and whitewashes Adam Doboszynski who organized the Myslenice raid targeting the Jews, among other findings 3) and then there are the public musings of Wojciech Muszynski, its former editor-in-chief and current publisher, who declared that the members of Razem, a left-wing party in the Polish parliament, would be dropped into the ocean from helicopters in 1970s Chile, casually alluding to Videla's "death flights" (if you read Polish: "W Chile w 1973 roku członkowie partia (sic!) Razem zostaliby helikopterami przewiezieni nad ocean i tam puszczeni wolno (30 km od brzegu") (1) and posts such images on Facebook. I really don't see how this publication would be considered reliable, let alone scholarly, in any serious academic setting. Ppt91^talk 01:57, 14 March 2023 (UTC)

On the other hand, as you conveniently forgot to mention, Mr. Witkowski, represents the Polish radical left. I would rather suggest quoting the criticism from academic circles, then from no-mainstream left-oriented weekly magazine. Nevertheless, I generally agree that citing of "Glaukopis" should be limited as far as possible. At the same time, I would avoid the "punishing" the authors without political associations, who with their good will (I believe) published some of their works on non-controversial topics in "Glaukopis" (as mentioned in my comment above).Dreamcatcher25 (talk) 08:24, 14 March 2023 (UTC)

Perhaps I should clarify: the main argument against the reliability of this journal is the opaque and fundamentally biased peer-review process limited to three scholars--with the editor-in-chief and publisher having previously declared their need to "reject political correctness"--and lacking additional editorial oversight. There is simply not enough transparency or POV balance to consider this journal reliable.

Any scholar willing to undergo methodological and historiographical scrutiny (i.e. the kind accepted by mainstream academia) would be welcome to publish their findings in a reputable journal, regardless of their personal politics. No one is really punishing them, as far as I see it.

As for Witkowski, I am perplexed by the "conveniently forgot" ad hominem bit. He studies ideological extremism on both sides of the political spectrum and describing him as a representative of "radical left" is hyperbolic. Ppt91^talk 16:16, 14 March 2023 (UTC)

Witkowski is an expert on political extremism, but I've never seen it suggested that they themselves are a political extremist. Certainly left of center but do you have a source for Witkowski representing the Polish radical left? Horse Eye's Back (talk) 16:55, 14 March 2023 (UTC)

For the record, Glaukopis claims to be published "in cooperation (my emphasis) with The Tadeusz Kosciuszko Chair of Polish Studies at The Institute of World Politics, A Graduate School of National Security and International Affairs, Washington, DC." which in practice means its direct affiliation with Marek Jan Chodakiewicz, a declared ultra-nationalist who has held that endowed position since 2008 (as I believe had already been noted by some in the original 2021 thread). His is an illustrious crusade against minorities of all kinds, ranging from claims that gerbils have, in fact, been used by gays for anal stimulation during the AIDS crisis to whitewashing Polish responsibility for Jewish pogroms. Importantly, "Chair" is translated into "Katedra" in the Polish description on the journal's website, which is an equivalent of an academic department at U.S. universities. A single person does not constitute a department and searching the term Glaukopis on IWP's website yields results related only to Chodakiewicz. Using such term to describe a one-person chair is inaccurate and implies another attempt to create a façade of legitimacy. Finally, I forgot to clarify earlier that the peer-review rules of the publication, per its website, clearly state that the final decision regarding publication is made by the editor-in-chief or the editor-in-chief of a given section, completely invalidating the entire process. Ppt91^talk 23:43, 19 March 2023 (UTC)

• Generally unreliable/biased per Gitz, MVBW, Dreamcatcher, etc. I midly wonder about use in uncontroversial context such as military history (I removed Glaukopis used as a source here in this context because I initially couldn't find the cited work under English translated title of "Beginnings of Polish armored weapons", but later I found it in Polish under "Początki polskiej broni pancernej" [7]). pl:Witold Ławrynowicz doesn't seem like a right-wing radical... but it could be that his article is an exception to the rule as far as this journalis concerned. I certainly support actively removing this source for anything controversial. --_{Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus| reply here} 07:01, 18 March 2023 (UTC)

Film credits from pricebaba.com

This edit [8] to the filmography table at Lollu Sabha Maaran cites a "news" article from pricebaba.com to verify that Lollu Sabha Maaran is in the 2023 film Kannitheevu (not the 1981 film of the same name linked at Kanni Theevu).

The pricepaba.com "news" articles (all under pricebaba.com/blog/) appear to be technology product announcements, including announcing when films are to be released for digital streaming. Those film streaming release announcements typically include cast listings. Some of the news articles appear to be legitimate reporting based on other news sources. For example, this news article on GM planning to use ChatGPT cites other reports from Reuters and Semafor.

That particular pricebaba.com news article regarding Kannitheevu was triggered, apparently, by a tweet from the streaming service provider, Simply South, that the film is now available for streaming outside of India. Following the tweet [9] leads to a sub-tweet [10] that provides a link to the service provider's web page for that film [11], which lists the cast and crew, but the list does not include Lollu Sabha Maaran. I have no reason to doubt that Lollu Sabha Maaran is in Kannitheevu, but I do not know if this particular source or individual report is reliable enough to use.

Btw, pricebaba.com appears in 13 articles.  — Archer1234 (t·c) 17:37, 14 March 2023 (UTC)

Any thoughts on whether pricebaba.com is reliable?  — Archer1234 (t·c) 00:59, 17 March 2023 (UTC)

I found this when looking into the last question, and didn't think it likely reliable. It's a price comparison site that has news articles listed under a blog section. -- LCU ActivelyDisinterested ∆transmissions∆ °co-ords° 17:59, 20 March 2023 (UTC)

Is the New York Post reliable when used for a direct quote?

Hi all. In this diff, Oncamera reinstated some material, including a quote, sourced to the NY Post. It had previously been removed by Peaceray. I definitely side more with Peaceray on this one, but I understand Oncamera's rationale to some degree, so I would appreciate any thoughts on whether the Post as used here is exempt from its generally unreliable status. Thanks all. Dumuzid (talk) 14:04, 16 March 2023 (UTC)

As per Wikipedia:Reliable sources/Noticeboard/Archive_312#RFC: New York Post (nypost.com) :The general consensus seems to be 3, Generally unreliable for factual reporting especially with regard to politics, [...] I think that this certainly applies to this case. I searched in Google, Bing, & duck.com for the "Any tribute to her must be removed to protect our family and the public from the continued sham" quote, & it originated with the NY Post & was quoted as from that source at whiskeyriff.com. It does not appear elsewhere. If we are to follow the consensus delineated at WP:NYPOST, we would remove the whole quote & citation. There are two questions about the quote. Is it accurate? Is its inclusion justified by WP:IGNORE Peaceray (talk) 14:26, 16 March 2023 (UTC)

The Independent also used the NY post in their article for the same quote. See here. They are a reliable news agency.  oncamera  _{(talk page)} 14:29, 16 March 2023 (UTC)

That definitely does lend some more reliability to the quote, but I will confess that as The Independent specifically attributes it to The Post, I still have qualms. Happy to go wherever consensus leads, though. Cheers. Dumuzid (talk) 14:32, 16 March 2023 (UTC)

It's a direct quote from the sisters and attributed as such in the Sacheen Littlefeather Wikipedia article. I can understand how the NY Post can be unreliable in other cases but this case seems pretty straightforward. It's being used the same as how the Independent used the source.  oncamera  _{(talk page)} 14:35, 16 March 2023 (UTC)

I would be more comfortable with using the Independent as a citation, & quoting that source's attribution to the New York Post. Peaceray (talk) 14:37, 16 March 2023 (UTC)

If quoting New York Post, the best thing to cite is New York Post per WP:RS/QUOTE. Peter Gulutzan (talk) 16:35, 16 March 2023 (UTC)

Bad sources are not trustworthy, including for direct quotes. Find a quote made to an RS, not one reblogged by some other outlet - David Gerard (talk) 18:53, 16 March 2023 (UTC)

The NY Post interviewed the sister directly and it's her direct quote being sourced in the article. I don't see how that's not trustworthy when they just printed what the person said. WP:RS/QUOTE says The accuracy of quoted material is paramount and the accuracy of quotations from living persons is especially sensitive. To ensure accuracy, the text of quoted material is best taken from (and cited to) the original source being quoted and that's how the source is being used.  oncamera  _{(talk page)} 20:19, 16 March 2023 (UTC)

Because we don't trust generally unreliable gossip rags to report even quotes accurately. The NY Post is a trash-tier source given to fabrication, and only just escaped full deprecation. If it said the sky was blue, you should look outside. It's not a source to use for any claim about a living person - David Gerard (talk) 23:55, 16 March 2023 (UTC)

Can you link me to the part of the discussion that says direct quotes from the interviewed person by the post can't be used? I couldn't find such a claim in the discussion linked. Wikipedia policy WP:RS/QUOTE says it's preferred.  oncamera  _{(talk page)} 00:39, 17 March 2023 (UTC)

I believe that would be included under general unreliability for factual reporting. Cheers. Dumuzid (talk) 00:44, 17 March 2023 (UTC)

Just noting here that I agree with this interpretation and would not cite the New York Post for any reason in a BLP. Loki (talk) 00:49, 17 March 2023 (UTC)

Well, Sacheen is dead and BLP is for the living.  oncamera  _{(talk page)} 01:50, 17 March 2023 (UTC)

WP:BLP by its own terms also applies to (at least some) recently deceased people. We can debate whether that applies here, but her passing is not a reason for using the Post. Cheers. Dumuzid (talk) 04:12, 17 March 2023 (UTC)

That's fair, but her sisters are still alive. Loki (talk) 17:49, 17 March 2023 (UTC)

The status of the NYPost means it has zero weight in how we determine the due weight of the content. It would be better to use a RS, even if they originally got it from the Post. If no other sources picked it up, then we would not use it at all, with the exception of ABOUTSELF, where we could use the Post speaking about itself as content in our New York Post article. -- Valjean (talk) (PING me) 04:06, 17 March 2023 (UTC)

See my comment in next section. -- Valjean (talk) (PING me) 06:09, 17 March 2023 (UTC)

The Independent cites the NY Post for the same direct quote above. Should I just switch to that reference in the article and be done with this discussion if that's an acceptable solution?  oncamera  _{(talk page)} 04:47, 17 March 2023 (UTC)

RS/QUOTE and unreliable sources

This is a tangent to the above, so I'm starting a subsection. I've seen the WP:RS/QUOTE argument used before, as it is above, to insist that generally unreliable sources (or even deprecated sources) be cited for quoted material that they originally published. I'm not loving this argument. RS/QUOTE says "To ensure accuracy, the text of quoted material is best taken from (and cited to) the original source being quoted." For accuracy to be at issue in these situations, we'd have to believe something like:

• A person said something (uncontested)
• A generally unreliable source has accurately transcribed the something said (I would have thought this to be the sketchiest part)
• A generally reliable source has inaccurately copied the text from the generally unreliable source (this is surprisingly the point some people have an issue with)

This is especially hard to swallow when all the sources involved are online and accessible. We can be sure that the generally reliable source is accurately copying the quoted material from the unreliable source.

To me, there is a distinct cost, paid in the overall trustworthiness of the encyclopedia, to every citation to an unreliable source. What is the benefit? Firefangledfeathers (talk / contribs) 04:28, 17 March 2023 (UTC)

On the FAQ on the talkpage of Wikipedia talk:Reliable sources, it says Are there sources that are "always reliable" or sources that are "always unreliable"? No. The reliability of a source is entirely dependent on the context of the situation, and the statement it is being used to support. Some sources are generally better than others, but reliability is always contextual. In regards to WP:RS/QUOTE, looking at the context and actual statement being cited can make an "decidedly" unreliable source acceptable at times, imo.  oncamera  _{(talk page)} 04:51, 17 March 2023 (UTC)

I don't disagree with that at all. Firefangledfeathers (talk / contribs) 04:56, 17 March 2023 (UTC)

In the absence of any doubt about accuracy, and no BLP issues, I don't disagree either. I will strike my comment above as contextual reliability trumps most any other argument. -- Valjean (talk) (PING me) 06:07, 17 March 2023 (UTC)

Can we please not dragged Trump into it? EEng 20:40, 17 March 2023 (UTC)

Right. That's an argument for putting the quote in. My argument earlier (which was not the argument that Firefangledfeathers claimed someone was making) was that if you're putting the quote in, you should follow the Wikipedia guideline. Peter Gulutzan (talk) 13:57, 17 March 2023 (UTC)

I don't see much benefit at all, frankly. If no reliable source includes an exact quote, then it's very hard to say that our including an exact quote would be warranted. "Contextual reliability" just sounds like an escape clause to justify putting any quote under any circumstances. It's a quote, therefore the source is momentarily reliable, therefore we should include it! This is uncomfortably close to a get-out-of-deprecation-free card. Yes, WP:RS/QUOTE says To ensure accuracy, the text of quoted material is best taken from (and cited to) the original source being quoted. Then it goes on to say, If this is not possible, then the text may be taken from a reliable secondary source. I'm rather fine with regarding deprecation as a reason why citing a publication is not possible. Physically, it can be done, but so can the insertion of BLP violations and all sorts of other nasty things, but it's not possible to do that and be encyclopedic at the same time. XOR'easter (talk) 15:12, 17 March 2023 (UTC)

I think the quote should be removed. To use a deprecated source violates BLP. We cannot be sure that the Post has accurately quoted the sisters. Surely if the sisters requested that the Academy remove the tribute, there should be some other source. An article entitled "'Liar' Sacheen Littlefeather's sisters: Leave her out of Oscars' In Memoriam" reeks of tabloid journalism. We should be able to do better. Peaceray (talk) 05:57, 18 March 2023 (UTC)

Well, now, that was not hard to find! I have removed the quote & the NY Post citation, & replaced it with material derived from a new source, The Mercury News that does adhere to WP:RS. Peaceray (talk) 06:36, 18 March 2023 (UTC)

• While, yes, reliability is contextual, citing quotes or opinions to a source is a general usage case, which means that if a source is considered reliable for them it would be yellow on WP:RSP (because there is a broad general case where it is reliable, meaning that it's "unclear or other considerations apply.") If a source is unreliable or deprecated, there is no general case where it is reliable, which means that the default is that it is not usable for quotes or opinions. Individual case by case exceptions do exist, of course; but you have to make an individual argument each time, and if your argument is something broad and general then you're really disputing the argument that it is generally unreliable. I strenuously disagree with the position a few people seem to implicitly take where quotes and opinions are not subject to WP:RS at all - it leads to people just taking a non-RS and adding "according to X..." before it, as though framing it as an opinion resolves any problems. But the text of the relevant policies does not support that; sources cited for those things still have to meet our general standard for fact-checking and accuracy, there are just some sources that are only reliable for one or the other. --Aquillion (talk) 08:22, 20 March 2023 (UTC)

Allpar.com

The use of allpar.com (a web site on US-based car manufacturers and their products) as a source came up in a discussion at Wikipedia talk:Good article reassessment/February 2023. Searching for insource:allpar.com finds currently 433 articles using it, many or most as a reference. According to https://www.allpar.com/about/ it is an open forum, of a type that I think WP:ELNO #10 and maybe more relevantly WP:USERGENERATED forbid. I didn't find anything about it in the archives or perennial source list. Can it be used as a reliable source, or should efforts be made to remove those 433 links? —David Eppstein (talk) 00:31, 17 March 2023 (UTC)

Looks like a wide open pseudonymous forum that has been formatted to superficially resemble a news site. Fully WP:USERGENERATED and the about page shows it's not in line with WP:RS at all: "The beauty of online forums is the information is peer-vetted. Our members have read the content, commented, replied, and helped maintain active conversations around the accuracy of the content you might be reading. In addition, our team of moderators and administrators are looking out for “fake news” and “shill posts” from unauthorized sources." Moderators to remove the most obvious spam is nothing like an editorial process. Siawase (talk) 09:41, 17 March 2023 (UTC)

I would be careful when looking at it's use and what's being cited. Allpar fits into the group of online information sites that are often topic specific and contain a mix of user/forum submitted content, archives of material that may have been published elsewhere (brochures, article scans etc) and articles published by the site. In that last case how/where is the line between a topic specific news site vs something like the site in question? Personally I might go with looking at the context of the claim. If the claim is 'BLP subject stole money from Chrysler' then I want strong sourcing. If the claim is "in 1973 the Cordova's rear axle ratio was 3.55:1" cited to something outside of the forums then I don't see an issue with this source. If it's being cited as a repository for a citation to an old brochure then it treat it as a repository. Nothing should be cited to the forums. I think all of this is compatible with our RS principle of context matters. Springee (talk) 15:16, 17 March 2023 (UTC)

According to similar reasoning it would be ok to use Wikipedia articles as reliable sources for claims that, in the article in question, are sourced to something outside Wikipedia. But it's not ok. —David Eppstein (talk) 16:10, 17 March 2023 (UTC)

OK, I just looked at the website and it wasn't what I remembered so I looked at the history of the site. It has changed owners and appears to have moved from a site with edited articles and forums to a forums only. The current site owners say they are a company that owns a range of online forums. As such I would no longer endorse it's use. However, I would investigate the links rather than whole sale removing them. Allpar historically was a good site and cited by others in the automotive space such as Hemmings [12]. I suspect most links predate the sale of the site and have no idea if they still link to old content. Replacing the references with cn tags rather than removal of the supporting claims seems like the proper option. Springee (talk) 21:19, 17 March 2023 (UTC)

Looks like a standard WP:USERGENERATED case to me. It seems on a par with media fansites; hobbyists can be passionate about gathering detail, but we don't regard Memory Alpha as reliable for our purposes, either. XOR'easter (talk) 17:55, 17 March 2023 (UTC)

Allpar.com did not use to be user generated. It would start with a writeup by Allpar themselves, they would ask for contributions, and publish that which passed muster. I agree that the current format is not the same, but if you look at most of the content deleted by David Eppstein after this quick conversation here. Older references like this one are well researched and the contributors are known to Zatz and the other editors. I cannot tell when the format changed (looks like 2020?), but my suggestion is to set a cutoff and accept archived content from before the change into a wiki-style endeavor. Thanks,  Mr.choppers | ✎  00:50, 21 March 2023 (UTC)

Note that this is a continuation of heavy pushback from Mr.choppers on my talk page after I carried out Springee's suggestion of replacing these citations with citation needed tags (without removing any article text) on a test set of ten articles. "well researched and the contributors are known" does not obviate USERGENERATED. —David Eppstein (talk) 01:38, 21 March 2023 (UTC)

Ignoring the question of user generated for the moment, how do we feel about using archived versions of online published sources? For example, assume Automobile Magazine's online only published content was referenced in an article. Then Automobile Magazine closes it's doors (or is absorbed by a lesser auto magazine). Now the catalog of online content is taken off line. What does that mean for the wp:V of those citations? Do we consider archived copies to be acceptable per wp:V or just a convenience? I will note that my comment above was based on the assumption that the original source article was outright lost/ 404'ed. If archived copies are still available I think erring on the side of keeping the existing archived link and maybe the deadlink tag? Springee (talk) 02:33, 21 March 2023 (UTC)

For print sources that happen to have an online copy, it makes no difference to the reliability of the source when that copy goes away. For web-only sources that were archived (so we can still see them) and for which we can reasonably believe that they went offline only because nobody cared to keep them online, I think their reliability is also more or less as good as it originally was.

Web-only sources that are not archived and no longer accessible, and sources that were deliberately taken down because their creator no longer wished to stand by the claims in them, are much more problematic. —David Eppstein (talk) 06:20, 21 March 2023 (UTC)

I agree with that. An archived source is no different than a written source, unless it has somehow been retracted as David says. As for Allpar, the older content appears perfectly acceptable and even of a very high quality. Is there any reason to believe that content provided by Zatz and the others are incorrect? I have several books on various topics covered at old allpar articles and I have never found any discrepancies, only more and better information. But we should definitely add the deadlink tag since most (all?) addresses will redirect to the new site and I agree that had better be avoided. Thank you,  Mr.choppers | ✎  12:44, 21 March 2023 (UTC)

It will be hard to draw a good/not good line for "the older content" for their articles, you would have to date ownership or policy change somehow. Separate question, is there a better cn idea? Sammy D III (talk) 13:17, 21 March 2023 (UTC)

I had a look around and it seems like the site is divided into 2 sections: archives of the old site and new posts.

The new stuff is just like any other forum site and not up to WP standards for references.

However, the archives appear to be very well researched articles started by a staff member, which then have follow up posts by general forum members. This is the same modus operandi of many newspapers and magazines which are up to WP standards for references (and just like with newspapers and magazines, we don't use any of the follow up posts for references, just the initial staff post). Which means WP:USERGENERATED does not apply.

The archives are all under https://www.allpar.com/forums/allpar-com-articles.285/ and have "Home > Forums > Welcome To Allpar - The Mopar Community > Allpar.com Articles" in their top breadcrumb banner. The only problem that I can see is that it is not possible to tell if a URL points to a new thread (not acceptable) or archive article (acceptable). The only way to tell is to go to the site and look for "Allpar.com Articles" in the breadcrumb banner.  Stepho  talk  13:52, 21 March 2023 (UTC)

Also, the archive articles by staff members have "Copyright © VerticalScope Inc." at the bottom and general forum posts do not. It also shows that someone of legal training has some oversight to make sure that the staff posts have a minimum standard that they must pass - as opposed to general posts which have no minimum standard. This also follows the modus operandi of newspaper and magazine websites.  Stepho  talk  14:02, 21 March 2023 (UTC)

Thanks for finding that. If the old articles are still there then this appears to be a case where links need to be updated. Is there a tag for that? Springee (talk) 14:25, 21 March 2023 (UTC)

Well, that was good work, finding something good in that mess. Good for them, too, to keep up. Looks like you've saved this one. Sammy D III (talk) Sammy D III (talk) 15:09, 21 March 2023 (UTC)

news.jagatgururampalji.org

Hey everyone!

I've noticed that users have attached this source news.jagatgururampalji.org to a handful of Hinduism articles that I've been editing and I'm questioning it's reliability for a few reasons:

1. per WP:Verifiability - cannot identify if the writers are professionals
2. The blogs on this website also revert back to their guru's (Jagat Guru Rampal Ji) teachings and according to this BBC article there is some controversy behind Jagat Guru Rampal Ji.
3. per WP:Questionable Sources - when looking at the about us page it looks quite opinionated. I feel this is not suitable for general content on Hinduism articles.

Would appreciate your input! Chilicave (talk) 17:30, 17 March 2023 (UTC)

Hi @Chilicave,

I've just had a look at the source. The link you've put takes you to the homepage. I've had a look at a few article pieces and agree that it's hard to verify the authors and/or professionalism. In general, it's best to stay away from primary news sources as nothing has been verified by a third party.

They also have a section saying "Sant Rampal Ji defeats other spiritual leaders and exposes their cults". The language feels quiet biased in my opinion. I would say it's not reliable.

Thanks,

Starlights99 (talk) 19:47, 17 March 2023 (UTC)

As a follow up on this:

I noticed the source also talks about World Wildlife Day and how to avoid being reborn as an animal. The source says that "salvation is attained by doing Sat-bhakti of Real God Kabir", and states one should go to Sant Rampal Ji for "the true Guru’s divine blessings".

I don't think this is a reliable source based on the notion that they are actively promoting worship to Sant Rampal Ji and refer to him as the true guru. Wikipedia articles cannot maintain WP:NPOV if the sources themselves are also biased.

Thanks!

Starlights99 (talk) 20:12, 17 March 2023 (UTC)

I agree! Thanks for the clarity @Starlights99! Chilicave (talk) 23:35, 18 March 2023 (UTC)

Oh yes, I came across WP:Reliable Sources/Perennial sources and took a look at the list. Do you think such a source is worth adding to this list? Or is this a source that should "obviously" be avoided and therefore not worthy of adding to the list? I found this conversation was archived Wikipedia:Reliable sources/Noticeboard/Archive 379#jagatgururampalji.org and nobody really addressed it... Chilicave (talk) 23:50, 18 March 2023 (UTC)

Hi,

I've looked at the archived conversation you linked and @Kenm v2 (the author) has raised many of the same issues we have.

It seems like the Perennial list is for sources whose reliability is regularly discussed. I guess this would make it the 2nd time that news.jagatgururampalji.org has been flagged.

@127(point)0(point)0(point)1 Your input was very helpful back in February regarding the MEDRS sources on the Diwali article. I was wondering if you have any views on this source as well? Do you think it's worth adding to the Perennial noticeboard or should it be flagged somewhere?

Thanks!

Starlights99 (talk) 16:37, 22 March 2023 (UTC)

• Please note that the “P” in “RSP” stands for “PERENNIAL”. It isn’t a list of every unreliable source… it is a list of sources that we have discussed over and over again… usually with the same results (ie, it is a compilation of those multiple discussions).

As far as I know, this is the first time that news.jagatgururampalji.org has been discussed. So… it would not belong on RSP no matter how unreliable it may be. Blueboar (talk) 18:13, 22 March 2023 (UTC)

Focus (German magazine)

Can someone verify whether Focus (focus.de) can be considered a reliable source for news and sports reporting? Don't know if its reliability has already been discussed. Kacza195 (talk) 22:26, 18 March 2023 (UTC)

Seems to be an established German news source, sports should be fine but it would be good if someone with more knowledge of Germany could comment on their news. There seems to be some concerns of bias, although that still wouldn't stop them from being quoted. -- LCU ActivelyDisinterested ∆transmissions∆ °co-ords° 18:02, 20 March 2023 (UTC)

It's not quite on the level of Der Spiegel, but still a respectable German magazine, would be very comfortable with it as an RS. If you're looking for a US analog, think of Focus as broadly similar to Time. BubbaJoe123456 (talk) 11:35, 21 March 2023 (UTC)

Their online version has frankly always been more than a bit embarrassing, very tabloid-esque and clickbait heavy in both choice of topics and general presentation - I most assuredly don't go visit there often but just gave it a quick scroll, and this little number is just bloody hilarious coming from them. That said, when it comes to straightforward reporting on news and sports, you can generally rely on them not to purposefully publish misinformation. As abhorrent as I find their style, they're not at all in the same tier as certain shitrags, and I don't think you need to have major qualms about using their stuff to cite yours. But do be sure to bring an adblocker. Dr. Duh 🩺 (talk) 10:51, 22 March 2023 (UTC)

Ban Tucker Carlson

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.

---

Reading an op-ed this morning, I was struck by the strong similarities between Tucker Carlson, who is not banned from Wikipedia, and the Daily Mail, which is. Carlson is the most watched US cable host. The Mail is the most popular British daily newspaper. Both have business models which see them not just reflect but drive the right wing news agenda. Both are widely seen as being guilty of at best, extreme bias, at worst, fake news. Both wield significant power in domestic politics, with US Republican Party Presidential candidates feeling a need to appease Carlson to secure the Trump vote, and UK Conservative Party leadership candidates feeling a need to appease the Mail to secure the Johnson vote, with both Trump and Johnson recently unexpectedly winning elections with populist extreme right platforms. It is therefore high time to place an outright ban on using Tucker Carlson as a source anywhere in Wikipedia for any purpose, just like it has done for the Daily Mail. Jango Borundia (talk) 08:42, 20 March 2023 (UTC)

• Per Wikipedia:Reliable sources/Perennial sources, Fox News talk shows (including Tucker Carlson Tonight in particular) are already deemed generally unreliable. BD2412 T 10:24, 20 March 2023 (UTC)

  Which is not the same as Daily Mail ("deprecated") as I understand it (from actual Wikipedia editors). Wikipedia can still include content of the form "On X date, Tucker Carlson said "Ukraine is a puppet state" (with a link to his show) for the purposes of explaining why a controversy ensued (and perhaps why a Ukraine military aid bill failed). If the Daily Mail runs the same headline causing the same controversy, it is not permissible to link to the Mail story, Wikipedia only reflects what reputable outlets said about it (universal derision, obviously).

  Furthermore, being "deprecated" means it is less likely that the Mail causing a controversy by pushing absurd far right talking points will be deemed worthy of note at all. Since as far as I can tell, Carlson is actually worse than the Mail, Britain having frankly negligible political support for far right figures in contrast to the huge popularity of Trump in the US, this is clearly unjustified. It might even suggest to readers that Carlson has defenders/sympathisers/apologists among Wikipedia editors.

  That surely cannot stand. A signal needs to be sent, in the same way the ban of the Mail was designed to send a signal to the world that Wikipedia is not in the business of aiding the business models of far right viewpoint pushing media outlets (who clearly do it because it makes them money and gives them power, rather than being their genuine opinion). Jango Borundia (talk) 13:15, 20 March 2023 (UTC)

  I would support deprecating Carlson. Slatersteven (talk) 13:19, 20 March 2023 (UTC)

  The deprecation of the Daily Mail wasn't done to "send a signal to the world". It was done to make it clear to contributors that it didn't meet our standards for reliability. AndyTheGrump (talk) 13:22, 20 March 2023 (UTC)

  I beg to differ. Wikipedia was already making it clear which sources it considered reliable, and in what contexts. The Mail ban was a step change, which is why it made headlines around the world and The Guardian duly wrote that it was a "highly unusual" move for Wikipedia, adding "The decision by Wikipedia comes amid widespread debate over the rise of fake news, which has widened to include concerns about misleading information in traditional publications. A recent BuzzFeed analysis claimed that there was “little appetite” for completely fabricated “fake news” in the UK because the country already had a highly partisan press." This references contemporary statements from Jimmy Wales which singled out the Mail specifically. The Mail is about as partisan as it gets in the British press, famously. If Wikipedia did not intend it to be a signal, that is definitely how it was received among the media and everyone I know. How could it not have been? The first and still the only time Wikipedia has ever singled out a source that well known (orders of magnitude more than Breitbart, which was and still is seen as a fringe outlet) for a total ban. Jango Borundia (talk) 14:08, 20 March 2023 (UTC)

  Well I did not intend it as a signal, but (as now) rather an attempt to make sure we do not allow souces that tell outright lies to be used. Slatersteven (talk) 14:11, 20 March 2023 (UTC)

  Which is what Carlson does, no? He committed to print that Ukraine "a colony with a puppet regime essentially managed by the US State Department." That is an outright lie, no? And is standard fare for him appparently. Who here can seriously make the case that the Mail is worse than that, given their motives are identical. Jango Borundia (talk) 14:22, 20 March 2023 (UTC)

  The Daily Mail RfC was in 2017. WP:RSPSS, and its various categories of "generally reliable" etc. did not exist then. The Daily Mail was special only because it was the first. (I do not know if the Daily Mail RfC created RSP in a direct cause-and-consequence manner, but it certainly came in the same zeitgeist.) Tigraan^{Click here for my talk page ("private" contact)} 14:20, 20 March 2023 (UTC)

  Wikipedia was codifying what makes a source reliable and under what contexts it can be used well before 2017, with reference to clear categories (such as tabloid journalism). The Mail ban was a step change in approach, a clear signal that reliability can also now be judged by who, not what. Carlson falls under who, and in every way that matters, is the same type of who as the Mail. Jango Borundia (talk) 14:28, 20 March 2023 (UTC)

• First, deprecation does NOT mean we ban the source for “anywhere in Wikipedia for any purpose”… it means we severely limit its use. For example, a deprecated source can still be used in ABOUTSELF situations.

Second, the DM deprecation had exceptions… for example it can be used for its sports reporting. There was also a “cut off date” where reporting prior to that date was deemed reliable (don’t remember what the date is… but it was discussed at the RFC).

Finally, there is no NEED to formally deprecate Carlson, as he is already covered under the determination that Fox’s talk shows (and their opinion journalism in general) are unreliable. Blueboar (talk) 13:52, 20 March 2023 (UTC)

I am pretty certain all uses of the Mail not about itself are banned, and as in the NY Post debate above, many rightly feel the Mail cannot be trusted about itself either. A good reason to deprecate Carlson is precisely because he is surely more likely to lie about himself than the Mail would be, and is otherwise just as unreliable about anything else. Jango Borundia (talk) 14:44, 20 March 2023 (UTC)

• It wouldn't hurt to explicitly call him out "..including Tucker Carlson" due his outsize role in cable news TV. He is watched more than any other show on any channel (for cable news). That's why he is such a big deal, so many people watch him and he says woowoo. -- GreenC 14:15, 20 March 2023 (UTC)
• I think there is a big difference between depricaiting the use of an entire news outlet (The Daily Mail) and depreciating the use of one guy (Tucker Carleson). Especially since the one guy in question works for a larger news outlet that you are not asking to be depreciated, despite the fact that said one guy is not the only problematic voice coming from that outlet. At this point I would be in favor of downgrading Fox News to "generally unreliable" status, although I haven't participated in the most recent discussion on the question, but I find it a little silly to debate depriating just one of their commentors, even if he is disporportiantly influential. ~ ONUnicorn^{(Talk|Contribs)}problem solving 14:21, 20 March 2023 (UTC)

  What is remotely silly about treating two things that operate the same way for the same reasons and have the same power because of it, in the same way? I made this proposal in part because the op-ed reminded me that Carlson is essentially an outlet all of his own, and Fox certainly aren't in any positive to influence him while he is being so effective at what he (and the Mail) does. Jango Borundia (talk) 14:37, 20 March 2023 (UTC)

It is permissible to point to opinions in the Daily Mail. People will say they're not due but that's not an RS issue. Peter Gulutzan (talk) 14:42, 20 March 2023 (UTC)

This is definitely not true. The Mail is banned for all contexts, in large part because their opinions (editorial and columnist) are making use of fake news as their basis. If is the business model. Just the same way Carlson does. Jango Borundia (talk) 14:48, 20 March 2023 (UTC)

Thats why we treat opinion work as WP:SPS with all the restrictions that come with it (can't use it for statements about third parties, can't use it for statements about things which the author wasn't involved in, etc). Horse Eye's Back (talk) 14:51, 20 March 2023 (UTC)

Are Tucker Carlson's stated opinions actually his opinions? It appears he has stated they are not. If not, it's kinda like quoting something from The Onion as opinion. O3000, Ret. (talk) 14:52, 20 March 2023 (UTC)

• I am getting strong WP:RIGHTGREATWRONGS vibes here. Again, Carlson and his ilk are already covered… there is no need to “send a signal” or highlight someone specifically. Blueboar (talk) 14:45, 20 March 2023 (UTC)

  Do you agree or disagree that the Mail is Carlson's "ilk"? What in your eyes makes Carlson more trustworthy (such that linking to him from Wikipedia is acceptable)? Jango Borundia (talk) 14:51, 20 March 2023 (UTC)

• The point of this noticeboard is to address ongoing issues with sourcing on wikipedia. Unless Tucker Carlson is currently being used as a source you lack grounds. Horse Eye's Back (talk) 14:50, 20 March 2023 (UTC)
• While I understand the community's previous reluctance to deprecate Carlson, I sympathize deeply with the OP. They are not wrong. Public commentators who are caught deliberately and consciously falsifying should be deprecated, IMHO. BusterD (talk) 14:50, 20 March 2023 (UTC)

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

can i reinstall it?

They started adopting the Brahmin worship system. -- Karsan Chanda (talk) 11:10, 20 March 2023 (UTC)

What source are you talking about? Slatersteven (talk) 13:20, 20 March 2023 (UTC)

@Slatersteven: See Le Bon, Gustave (1887). "Civilizations of India" (in French). Librairie De Firmin Didot, Paris. p. 128. JSTOR 23659746. -- Karsan Chanda (talk) 15:04, 20 March 2023 (UTC)

Find newer book. The author was not a professional historian (there is not a list of sources - at least I did not find one, references etc.), we would not use such kind of a book, even if it was written today. There are plenty of good books about history of India, so no need to use this one. Pavlor (talk) 06:14, 21 March 2023 (UTC)

Reliability of explorekaro.com

Is https://explorekaro.com/ a reliable source? SuperSharanya (talk) 12:48, 20 March 2023 (UTC)

• No. it's a one-man blog. On this page we find "Hi Guys, welcome to explorekaro.com blog website. My name is Raju Patel, I’m from India and I have completed my diploma in Civil Engineering. This blog website is run only by me.". Black Kite (talk) 14:13, 20 March 2023 (UTC)

  Thanks for knowledge. Can you please add this site in WP:ICTFSOURCES unreliable section. SuperSharanya (talk) 15:39, 20 March 2023 (UTC)

  You should probably discuss that at WT:ICTF. Caeciliusinhorto-public (talk) 16:49, 20 March 2023 (UTC)

RIA Novosti

RIA Novosti is now the international version of Sputnik, and it's produced by the same agency as RT and Sputnik, which are deprecated. There's question as to whether it should be specifically carved out of Sputnik's deprecation. Currently the RSP listing for RIA Novosti is yellow-rated as no consensus. The last discussion was 2016.

I'm not asking "deprecate or not" yet, I'm asking what sort of outlet it has been at what times. I suspect I wouldn't trust it for anything right now, but was it ever good? In what editions? - David Gerard (talk) 21:36, 20 March 2023 (UTC)

RIA Novosti has a long history under a series of different names since the Soviet era. My sense is that historically its reliability has been comparable to TASS, and that like TASS it has suffered from the RTification of Russian media in the past year, and that it should now be considered generally unreliable (although I would imagine that it is still usable for coverage of topics unrelated to politics, as we're simply not going to find generally reliable Russian sources doing mundane journalism inside Russia for the foreseeable future). _signed, Rosguill ^talk 21:47, 20 March 2023 (UTC)

Is https://myanimelist.net a reliable source?

I want to update the wiki page for Diarmund Ua Duibne, to add his charicter in Fate/Zero. I cannot find any listed reliable sources that can verify his participation in the series. If this is a reliable source or if you have any others, please let me know Generic Image (talk) 02:13, 21 March 2023 (UTC)

It is not a reliable source, because it depends on user-generated content. You can find a guide to reliable sources for anime and manga at Wikipedia:WikiProject Anime and manga/Online reliable sources. Thebiguglyalien (talk) 06:03, 21 March 2023 (UTC)

Just a general question

Sometimes, even generally reliable newspapers use bylines like "News desk" or "Web desk", etc. Does it mean the published content is prepared by several staff members, or is it used to mask sponsored or paid content? Are such articles/reports reliable? Insight 3 (talk) 06:07, 21 March 2023 (UTC)

In a typical respectable publication, that just means an article that was assembled by multiple authors, without a byline. Wouldn't assume it was sponsored or paid content, which (again, in a legit publication) should be explicitly flagged as such). BubbaJoe123456 (talk) 11:36, 21 March 2023 (UTC)

Insight 3 Both. Some reliable sources like The Economist uses no byline, read [13]. PR agencies try to use this to get organic coverage (loophole): "A byline is a where the writer of an article is credited. In PR, bylines are an opportunity for clients to get organic media exposure through writing a piece in a magazine or newspaper, pulling from their industry experience and building the company’s platform in the process." [14] So just trust highly reliable sources won't damage their reputation by masking the paid content under "news desk" byline. 175.107.236.127 (talk) 13:46, 21 March 2023 (UTC)

In addition to the above: "News desk" or similar bylines may also indicate syndicated content, e.g., from the Associated Press. Another very common use case is news briefs (assembled by staff, generally from press releases, often has a headline indicating "briefs," "news in brief," etc.) These often appear as "news desk," etc. because the copy/layout desk or online editor assembles them, rather than the reporting desk. Or -- more often than you'd think -- articles may appear under "news desk" or "web desk" when the newspaper website has not, for whatever reason, properly included the byline in the CMS, or properly transferred the byline from an old CMS to a new one, or the paper has been purchased by some other company that has not maintained its website. In these cases sometimes the actual byline appears in article text, and sometimes it doesn't and you have to check the print version to see who actually wrote it. In short, it's complicated, but without other evidence there's no reason to think these aren't reliable. Gnomingstuff (talk) 19:38, 22 March 2023 (UTC)

singersroom.com revisited

The site Singersroom was founded in 2006 and apparently was pretty reliable for some sorts of R&B related content up to Sept 2010 but by Sept 2017 some posters on this noticeboard were a bit more skeptical. (Those are noticeboard archive links). I propose we should flag up the site in the perennial sources list as now unreliable. I'm guessing the site was sold sometime in the last few years, for instance their YouTube channel which has hundreds of videos dating back to 2006 has not posted in 3 years and no longer appears to be linked on the site itself. Also note this page where they say they will accept $100 per post which is very sketchy behavior that will get you down-ranked in Google. Finally, if you look at the content posted in February and March 2023 alone by generically named authors like "Simon Robinson", "Darren Jamison", and "Jared Parker" you see literally hundreds of clickbait like "10 Best The Modern Jazz Quartet Songs of All Time". All of these articles are almost certainly written using ChatGPT or one of the other current AI bots, because they read like hot garbage, especially if you know anything about any of these artists. I spent this morning removing some recent sources added to music articles. Again, content prior to maybe 2015 or so does seem of better quality, but the stuff currently being posted to that site is clickbait trash. Krelnik (talk) 14:09, 21 March 2023 (UTC)

Related, I just nominated the article at Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Singersroom, I couldn't find reliable sources establishing notability even prior to their drop in quality. JaggedHamster (talk) 15:04, 21 March 2023 (UTC)

• It's probably premature to discuss adding this to perennial sources. The linked archives hardly qualify as discussions - in each case a single editor commented on the questions posted. It does look like the site allows paid guest postings and also encourages submission of material directly by the subjects of articles. So, it does not look like a reliable source at this point in time. Was it ever? Hard to say, and if so, when did it stop being reliable (similar to RSN's assessment of Newsweek or the New York Observer? There was a profile of the site's founders in Black Enterprise a little over a decade ago [15] which would suggest that it had real editorial oversite at that time. It is being cited as a source in roughly 350 articles when I checked a few minutes ago, but again, many of those predate that profile article. Banks Irk (talk) 17:51, 21 March 2023 (UTC)

  That's fair. To be honest I rarely interact here except to look up a source so I'm not familiar with policy on that. I'm happy just to have this discussion in the archives now, so someone else looking up this source will see that there is some agreement that singersroom.com is NOT a great source, except in some very limited circumstances with older (pre 2017) content. Thanks! Krelnik (talk) 13:43, 22 March 2023 (UTC)

  Oh one more note - I looked up that page that says they accept paid posts (including links back to other sites) in the Internet Archive, and the earliest it was seen was February 23, 2020 so I would guess 2019 is actually the cut-off for considering any posts on that site. That is consistent with when their YouTube channel went dead. Krelnik (talk) 13:48, 22 March 2023 (UTC)

Baaz News

Baaz News is a substack-hosted website whose About page describes it as "home to opinions, ideas, and original reporting for the Sikh and Punjabi diaspora."

There is some controversy regarding use of a Baaz News report in the article about Amritpal Singh (activist), a Sikh advocating separatism from India. The article in the question is described as "Original Reporting" by Balpreet Singh, a "spokesperson and legal counsel for the World Sikh Organization of Canada".

Seeking neutral opinions here on the reliability of Baaz News since the editors involved in editing Amritpal Singh (activist) are Indians and/or Sikhs (CalicoMo, Mixmon, Extorc, Kautilya3, ThethPunjabi). 27.111.75.49 (talk) 15:43, 21 March 2023 (UTC)

• The "about us" page indicates that it solicits articles from third party sources, and has a small staff to review them before publishing. It characterizes these submissions as ranging from letters to opinion pieces to "original reporting". Although it labeled this particular article as "original reporting", it is authored by an attorney and spokesperson for the WSO of Canada advocacy group. The article itself is therefore similar to an op-ed; it might be used as a source for the author's opinion (assuming that the author is notable) but not for reporting facts. An article in Vice[16] from last February states that the person who runs Baaz News is a board member of the WSO Canada (although I do not see him so listed on the WSO Canada website). See also this profile of its founder.[17] Under all the circumstances, I am inclined to characterize Baaz News as being the publication of an advocacy group because of the apparent connection between its publisher and WSO Canada, rather than as a reliable news organization. Banks Irk (talk) 20:00, 21 March 2023 (UTC)

  cc @ThethPunjabi @Dilpreet Singh Mixmon (talk) 19:41, 22 March 2023 (UTC)

  @Mixmon I have seen this and noted the above user’s judgement. The information is already reported in other sources which can be used instead of Baaz. I want to ask why you said the Sikh Press Association is “unreliable”, please share your reasonings so that we may discuss them. ThethPunjabi (talk) 19:43, 22 March 2023 (UTC)

  Sure but for that start a new RSN for that. This one is for Baaz Mixmon (talk) 19:48, 22 March 2023 (UTC)

Logically.ai

Logically.ai is a UK startup specialising in fact-checking and other intelligence tasks. It is used as a source in a few places, but especially prominent in the articles about the websites Disclose.tv and The Exposé.

I would like to get feedback on the reliability of their non-fact checking website content, which seems to essentially come down to editorials, and using these directly as a source. The context is my deletion request for the Disclose.tv article, which currently uses their article on them as the by far most prominent source for the article's content, with the company's analysis being explicitly mentioned in almost every paragraph as other sourcing on Disclose.tv runs very thin. Even if the article were to be kept, it seems undue to me to put this much weight on their editorial and labelling.

The reason I am questioning the website's reliability is that there's no comprehensive list of staff, writers or generally an editorial team as far as I can find, with some investigative articles being attributed simply to the company. The attributed author's profile in the Disclose.tv article even leads to a 404 page.

While the company has been cited in articles by other RS (see deletion discussion), that seems mostly limited to their reports and fact-checking activities. I also find it questionable how much of that essentially comes down to PR for their services, as they're a private company.

Personally I haven't found any sources besides the ones mentioned in the deletion discussion referencing them, but this might come down to it being made a bit difficult from the company's name and most citations leaving out the ".ai".

Tagging @Isi96 SenorCar (talk) 01:00, 22 March 2023 (UTC)

• Reliable per WP:USEBYOTHERS. Per my comment on the deletion discussion, Logically has been cited by reliable sources such as The Guardian (RSP entry) [18][19], the BBC (RSP entry) [20] and The New York Times [21] (RSP entry), among others. It has also been certified as a fact-checker by the International Fact-Checking Network (RSP entry), and it has a corrections policy. Isi96 (talk) 02:40, 22 March 2023 (UTC)
• Not Reliable There is nothing about this website or any search to it that inspires any confidence about its reliability. It appears to be an aspiring UK/Indian Snopes without any third-party independent reliable assessment of its reputation for accuracy, not withstanding that it's been in operation a fair number of years. Banks Irk (talk)`
• Generally Reliable with some additional considerations. Per the points Isi96 brought up, they seem reliable for factual reporting and analysis. However, there is a blog on the website that probably shouldn't be used, since blogs usually have less editorial oversight. I don't see the editorial board, which gives me pause to call them generally reliable flat-out. I'm definitely a little weary of the fact that their website seems secondary to their consulting business. They shouldn't be used to establish notability, but I don't think that's what's happening at Disclose.tv. I would like to get feedback on the reliability of their non-fact checking website content, which seems to essentially come down to editorials, and using these directly as a source. I think you're mischaracterizing the article. It' not an editorial at all. 🙢 - Sativa Inflorescence - 🙢 14:56, 22 March 2023 (UTC)

  The website does have a lot of investigations published with "Logically" as an author, which is what I referred to. Though admittedly after checking again I noticed that these tend to at least have the names of the researchers listed at the top of the article. SenorCar (talk) 20:14, 22 March 2023 (UTC)

  Their team members are located here. Isi96 (talk) 05:33, 23 March 2023 (UTC)

  May I ask you how you found this? As this isn't linked anywhere on their website. Additionally, how do you find the references to them that you referred to above? As I mentioned, I wasn't able to come up with anything, which I assume is due to the company's name being very generic and most sources referring to them just as "Logically".

  Sorry for being a bit suspicious, but I noticed before that you seem to be one of the persons referencing to them as a source the most, including being one of the main authors of the company's own article. SenorCar (talk) 14:51, 24 March 2023 (UTC)

  "May I ask you how you found this? As this isn't linked anywhere on their website." That page is accessible from their fact-checking page, under the Research dropdown.

  I was able to find the above references by using the site parameter in Google Search, e.g. logically site:nytimes.com.

  "Sorry for being a bit suspicious, but I noticed before that you seem to be one of the persons referencing to them as a source the most, including being one of the main authors of the company's own article." That's fine, it's not an issue. I actually encountered them as a reference in this piece from Coda Story. Isi96 (talk) 15:15, 24 March 2023 (UTC)

  Thank you. SenorCar (talk) 15:20, 24 March 2023 (UTC)

Publications removed from Alexandra Katehakis page

Hello, I am the marketing manager at Center for Healthy Sex, and part of my role is to fact check the Wikipedia page for our clinical director, Alexandra Katehakis. Alex has published 6 books which we would like to include in the introductory section of her page above her biography. Every time I include her published books, they are removed. I'm wondering why this keeps happening and which guidelines are being broken by listing the books she has written? They are listed at the bottom of the article as well but only the top section is being restricted. I appreciate any help on this matter! 2603:8001:6C00:9000:193E:E7CE:E15F:B0D4 (talk) 16:53, 22 March 2023 (UTC)

Which is odd, as this is then only edit you have ever made here. Slatersteven (talk) 17:04, 22 March 2023 (UTC)

See Special:Contributions/2603:8001:6C00:9000:0:0:0:0/64. Shells-shells (talk) 17:13, 22 March 2023 (UTC)

Cheers. Slatersteven (talk) 17:15, 22 March 2023 (UTC)

Also, this is not an RS issue. Slatersteven (talk) 17:06, 22 March 2023 (UTC)

• Looking at the edit summaries the primary issue seems to be that the editor who is objecting feels that it is inappropriate to list all the publications in the lead paragraph, and that the general tone of the lead was too promotional. Blueboar (talk) 17:17, 22 March 2023 (UTC)

• Hi, you should take a look at this page: WP:COIEDIT. In particular:

• you are strongly discouraged from editing affected articles directly;
• you may propose changes on talk pages (by using the {{request edit}} template), or by posting a note at the COI noticeboard, so that they can be peer reviewed;

Your edits have been in good faith, I'm not saying you've done anything wrong. And declaring your COI is highly appreciated. However, in the future, you should make requests for edits on the talk page. 🙢 - Sativa Inflorescence - 🙢 17:37, 22 March 2023 (UTC)

Tornado Archive

The Tornado Archive is a data visualization tool for tornadoes. According to their Sources and Attribution page, Tornado Archive uses data from official organizations used commonly on Wikipedia (SPC, NCEI, DAT, TPG, ECCC, ESWD, etc.) However, it also says on the front page, "TA is a community created and contributed tornado data visualization resource..." Tornado Archive could be useful as it provides track information and tornado information in general in places/times where it may not be as accessible. RandomInfinity17 (talk - contributions) 19:15, 22 March 2023 (UTC)

The National Desk and Sinclair Broadcast Group

There are several related discussions happening on the Lia Thomas Talk page that may benefit from additional input about the reliability of The National Desk and/or its parent company Sinclair Broadcast Group, including:

• Talk:Lia Thomas#Are any of these sources reliable re: locker room controversy?
• Talk:Lia Thomas#Riley Gaines accusations Part II

Two sources being discussed are:

• [22] (The National Desk, also published by a local ABC station KATV)
• [23] (published by a local NBC station, produced by The National Desk)

I have not found past discussions of these sources on this board. Thank you, Beccaynr (talk) 21:57, 22 March 2023 (UTC)

• With regard to Sinclair Broadcast Group, sources I have found include:

Sinclair Broadcast Group sources

Sinclair requires stations, including KOMO, to air segments tilting to the right, (Seattle Times, produced by Sydney Ember, The New York Times , May 15, 2017, e.g. "During the election campaign last year, it sent out a package that suggested in part that voters should not support Hillary Clinton because the Democratic Party was historically pro-slavery. More recently, Sinclair asked stations to run a short segment in which Scott Livingston, the company’s vice president for news, accused the national news media of publishing “fake news stories.”") This is Sinclair, 'the most dangerous US company you've never heard of' (The Guardian, Lucia Graves, 17 Aug 2017, e.g. "It has a long history of airing material which has often been controversial, and for which it has been sanctioned in the past – all the while purporting to simply report the “news”. [...] Unlike Fox News, which brands itself clearly and proudly, most viewers of Sinclair’s local stations have no idea who owns them since they are not branded as part of the Sinclair network.") Sinclair Made Dozens of Local News Anchors Recite the Same Script, (Jacey Fortin and Jonah Engel Bromwich, The New York Times, Apr. 2, 2018, e.g. "Although it is the country’s largest broadcaster, Sinclair is not a household name and viewers may be unaware of who owns their local news station.") Sinclair, the pro-Trump, conservative company taking over local news, explained (Dylan Matthews, Vox, Apr 3, 2018, e.g. "In 2008, Sinclair raised eyebrows yet again for running an ad attempting to tie then-Sen. Barack Obama to Weather Underground terrorist Bill Ayers. [...] the New York Times’s Jim Rutenberg noted, it was an ad that Fox News and CNN declined to run due to legal concerns."; "In 2015, it hired former CBS News reporter Sharyl Attkisson to host a weekly news show; Attkisson had become a prominent Benghazi conspiracy theorist"; "recent Sinclair segment featured former Trump adviser Sebastian Gorka ranting about the “deep state” and its efforts to sabotage Trump, and was produced by Kristine Frazao, a former reporter and anchor for the Russian propaganda network RT") What we know about the conservative media giant Sinclair, Chicago Tribune, produced by Eli Rosenberg, Washington Post, Apr 03, 2018, e.g. "The company's Terrorism Alert Desk produces segments that underscore the menace of terrorism around the globe. HBO comedy host John Oliver lambasted a news brief from the desk about efforts to ban burkinis in France as part of a critical look at Sinclair last year. "That is not about terrorism!" Oliver said incredulously. "It's just about Muslims.")

Beccaynr (talk) 23:01, 22 March 2023 (UTC)

Thanks for opening this topic. She is mentioned above, but a very problematic Sinclair show is this one:

Full Measure with Sharyl Attkisson

Our local ABC channel runs it, and even without much interest in politics, my wife commented: "What is this? What planet is that woman from? She sounds like a Fox News host with little connection to reality." I was rather surprised, because she rarely says much about politics. It turns out my wife is much better informed than I realized.

We need a list of such problematic shows from Sinclair. -- Valjean (talk) (PING me) 01:13, 23 March 2023 (UTC)

• With regard to the first National Desk source listed above (Feb. 9 2023), the reporter writes, "Thomas, who was born male". According to the Sex assignment section of the APA Style Guide,

  "birth sex" is one of the phrases "considered disparaging by scholars in TGNC psychological research; by many individuals identifying as transgender, gender-nonconforming, or nonbinary; and by people exhibiting gender diversity. Thus, these disparaging terms should be avoided. [...] It is more appropriate to use “assigned sex” or “sex assigned at birth,” as this functionally describes the assignment of a sex term".

  The Washington Times reported in October 2017, "The Associated Press's official Stylebook [Twitter] account counseled journalists to not describe a transgender individual as having been “born” a certain sex." The GLAAD Media Reference Guide Transgender People section includes, "Avoid "Marisol was born a man." [...] An oversimplification like "born a man" invalidates the current, authentic gender of the person you're speaking about and is considered disrespectful."
• With regard to the second National Desk source listed above (Mar. 1, 2023), the reporter uses the term "biological women" to introduce a quote from a speaker who used the term "woman." I am reminded of a past discussion on the Lia Thomas Talk page where part of C.Fred's close of the discussion included noting "Biological male" is considered derogatory (15 among other sources). That link is to the Oregon Health & Science University "Transgender Health Program: Terms and Tips". As a comparative example, the generally unreliable website WP:POSTMIL has used the term biological male to describe a transgender woman athlete.

Beccaynr (talk) 03:56, 23 March 2023 (UTC)

• I appreciate these style guide inputs, but I don't think those necessarily render The National Desk unreliable for the content "So-and-so complained about sharing a locker room with this person". The core question here is verifiability. Not style or form, this isn't the NPOV noticeboard. Do we have actual concern that The National Desk has reported falsehoods or inaccuracies here? Or only that they are slightly outdated with regards to terminology? (a sin that many news outlets are guilty of, many of which are green on WP:RSP). — Shibbolethink ^{(♔ ♕)} 14:59, 23 March 2023 (UTC)

  Do you have examples of 'many green WP:RSP news outlets' using language widely understood to be derogatory/disparaging and contrary to the AP Style Guide? The AP Style Guide appears to have been updated by 2017, and The National Desk is using language in 2023 also used by the generally unreliable and biased WP:POSTMIL, so from my view, that does not seem 'slightly' outdated, and instead more like an editorial decision that raises general concerns about the news outlet and specific concerns about the sources considered here. Beccaynr (talk) 17:15, 23 March 2023 (UTC)

  Here are several GREL outlets that say "born male" when referring to trans persons (after 2017):
  Politico (15 Feb 2023) · CNN (July 2021) · ESPN (6 July 2022) · BBC News (22 December 2021) · Scientific Reports (26 January 2021) · The Texas Standard (11 December 2018) · Medical News Today (11 Aug 2022) · SkyNews (UK) (2 May 2021) — Shibbolethink ^{(♔ ♕)} 19:29, 23 March 2023 (UTC)

  These sources appear to be different than the TND reporters using the terminology: The Politico reporter attributes 'born male' to others; CNN uses "born with DSD traits" and "sex they were assigned at birth"; ESPN attributes to British Triathlon; BBC attributes to rumors; Scientific Reports uses "assigned to them at birth"; Texas Standard quotes its interviewee: "changing my sex from my assigned sex" and later writes 'he was born male'; Medical News Today: "a person who was assigned female at birth (AFAB) but identifies as a man may refer to themselves as a “transgender” man"; Sky News quoting Caitlin Jenner also using other terms identified above as disparaging (e.g. "biological boys"). With the exception of the Texas Standard, which may be paraphrasing in an article based on the statements of the subject, it does not appear 'born male' or 'biological man/woman' are used by the reporters. Beccaynr (talk) 19:50, 23 March 2023 (UTC)

  emphatic disagree. These sources use "born male" in passages not attributed:

• CNN: But there is increasingly vocal pushback from parts of the medical community, parents and intersex people themselves, saying that being intersex isn’t a medical “problem” to be “solved” any more so than being born male or female is one
• ESPN: The governing body announced Wednesday there would be two categories for athletes over the age of 12: "female" for those who are born female, and "open" for men and those who are born male, including transgender and nonbinary people.
• BBC: Brigitte Macron is set to take legal action over an internet conspiracy theory that she is a transgender woman and was born male.
• Scientific Reports research article: Which of these situations do you most closely relate to? (1 I was born male, but I have felt female since childhood; 2  I was born female, but I have felt male since childhood; 3  I was born male and I feel comfortable with my body; 4  I was born female, and I feel comfortable with my body)
• Texas Standard: He then learned that he was born with a condition called androgen insensitivity syndrome, in his case, he was born male but his body did not produce testosterone. He began living as a male again by injecting testosterone on a weekly basis.
• Medical News Today: People who are born male and living as men cannot get pregnant. A transgender man or nonbinary person may be able to, however.
• SkyNews: The Florida legislature passed laws this week that would restrict entry to girls' sports teams to those who were born female.

If these reporters wanted to attribute such things, they would have placed them inside the quotations or in more obvious paraphrasing. Instead, they placed them in the "omniscient voice" of the articles themselves. Getting it right at one place in the article does not overcome getting it wrong elsewhere in the article. You are stating above that getting it wrong in one place should render a source unreliable. So here are reliable sources that also, in some places, got it wrong. We should not hold our sources to such a high standard selectively based on our disagreement with their politics. And, moreover, we never use "style" as a reasoning for rendering a source unreliable. Only editorial policy and fact checking. — Shibbolethink ^{(♔ ♕)} 20:12, 23 March 2023 (UTC)

Attribution is not always in quotes - for example, if the Florida legislature, British Triathlon, or internet conspiracy theory are using 'born female' or 'born male', the outlets report that. And scientific reporting that also use the accepted language is a different type of report than the TND. But I don't think this discussion is helped by us going round-and-round on this. We've added sources and our perpectives, and other participants can review and make their own judgments. Thank you, Beccaynr (talk) 20:54, 23 March 2023 (UTC)

• I think that if they're reporting that someone was "born a man", we should definitely cast doubt on their accuracy, as a "man" is an adult male human, and surely such a birth would've made news separately. --Nat Gertler (talk) 17:37, 23 March 2023 (UTC)

  I don't actually know that TND said "born a man". They said, Thomas, who was born male, sparked global controversy when she joined UPenn's women's swimming team in 2021 following hormone replacement therapy. Which is not exactly "assigned male at birth (AMAB)" (the preferred language to the best of my knowledge), but it's close. I think if we're quibbling about that then it's too close of reading trying to invalidate a source for nit-picky reasons imo. I agree the male-vs-man thing is worth discussing, but they didn't actually commit that particular error. — Shibbolethink ^{(♔ ♕)} 19:15, 23 March 2023 (UTC)

  I don't think we're quibbling about male-vs-man, because the sources cited above focus on e.g. "The Associated Press's official Stylebook [Twitter] account counseled journalists to not describe a transgender individual as having been “born” a certain sex", which appears to plainly include the TND 'born male', i.e. "birth sex" phrasing. Beccaynr (talk) 19:28, 23 March 2023 (UTC)

  Then see above multiple news outlets which say "born (sex)" when describing Trans persons. I'm all for using inclusive and updated language wherever possible when we write the encyclopedia, but it's absurd to use standards like this to disqualify outlets when tons of GREL outlets are apparently making that mistake. — Shibbolethink ^{(♔ ♕)} 19:31, 23 March 2023 (UTC)

• I agree that the MOS criticisms are irrelevant to whether a source is reliable or not. There is no question that Sinclair has a right editorial bias and that some of its past news policies and outlets have be extensively criticized, some compared to Breitbart. The Wikipedia article on National Desk contains considerable discussion of criticism from Media Matters. On the other hand, Media Bias/Fact Check[24] acknowledges the bias and urges caution as a result but rates them "High" for factual reporting, in part on the basis that they are well sourced and have a clean fact-check record. It also notes that the National Desk website lacks transparency in failing to have an "about us" page - so there's no description of its editorial or fact-checking policies. My thought is that I don't see much evidence beyond those two positions that there has been a lot of assessment of its reliability and little citation of its stories by unrelated third party reliable sources. It is is too recent to have developed a solid reputation on which to say that it is generally reliable or unreliable as a rule. Citations should be handled on a case-by-case basis. Banks Irk (talk) 16:45, 23 March 2023 (UTC)

  According to the WP:RS/P entry for Media Bias/Fact Check, There is consensus that Media Bias/Fact Check is generally unreliable, as it is self-published. Editors have questioned the methodology of the site's ratings. And I think the sources I found above that document a history of inaccuracy and bias by the parent company Sinclair Broadcast Group raises significant concerns about the general reliability of its new outlet The National Desk, particularly as the specific sources listed above use language that appears to be widely understood to be disparaging (including according to "scholars in TGNC psychological research" per the AP) and is similar to language used by another outlet considered generally unreliable and biased per WP:RS/P (WP:POSTMIL) when also reporting on transgender athletes. Beccaynr (talk) 16:59, 23 March 2023 (UTC)

  Do you think Sinclair's history is enough to deprecate or downgrade every single outlet they have ever owned or will own? Because that's something like 100+ news markets covering 72% of US household's local news stations. Many of which report factual things like...the weather, outcomes of political races, local interest stories, etc. I agree with you and Banks that the political bias of SInclair is patently obvious. But I don't think the history of Sinclair should be so cleanly and carelessly applied to everything they have ever touched like that.

  On the other hand, I agree there are some very troubling inaccuracies as described in The National Desk § Format that are extremely relevant to this discussion! I would have asked you to describe these from the beginning of this post! That's what we should have been talking about the whole time! On the basis of those inaccuracies and misinformation instances, I would say TND should be "Category 2" aka "additional considerations apply" and there should be caution when using TND to verify content about American politics and science, especially from a conservative bent. Not Category 3 (generally unreliable) mind you, because if their attempt is to be "commentary-free" as described in that section, then they can still probably be used for "uncontroversial" topics. — Shibbolethink ^{(♔ ♕)} 17:07, 23 March 2023 (UTC)

  Yes, that's the question. Sinclair has a deserved reputation for bias and inaccuracy in many other outlets that predate National Desk, but rather like the perennial debates over the news vs opinion/entertainment sides of other organizations, I can't conclude that everything it puts out is necessarily unreliable. National Desk has not yet developed a reputation for accuracy or inaccuracy in factual reporting as far as I can tell. RSP says Media Matters is only marginally reliable, and MB/FC is unreliable, but no other solid, third party reliable sources appear to have weighed in. So where does that leave us? That's why I suggest taking use of it as a source on a case-by-case basis, and not make a blanket judgment at this point in time. Banks Irk (talk) 17:21, 23 March 2023 (UTC)

  From my view, we are not trying to make an RFC determination about the outlets generally, but the background information seems relevant to assessing the specific sources proposed to support politically-related WP:BLPCRIME/WP:BLPGOSSIP content in the article. I have wanted to research The National Desk more, because I am aware of the need to assess WP:MEDIAMATTERS on a case-by-case basis per RSP, but have not yet had the opportunity. I instead started with the Sinclair Broadcast Group, and then found indications in the specific sources listed above that from my view, seem similar to concerns raised by reliable sources about SBG. Beccaynr (talk) 17:38, 23 March 2023 (UTC)

  I think in this particular instance, it is permissible to verify the factual statement "so-and-so expressed concerns to the media about being forced to view so-and-so's genitalia in shared locker rooms at inter-collegiate swim meets" to local outlets and others who reprinted the TND report. It's a factual statement, that The National Desk reported, incontrovertibly, accurately. There's no actual question as to whether the complaint happened. We know it did. If the question is: "Is this DUE?" then the proper noticeboard would be WP:NPOVN. — Shibbolethink ^{(♔ ♕)} 19:12, 23 March 2023 (UTC)

  If we proceed from the lightest caution of "there should be caution when using TND to verify content about American politics and science", then these do not appear to be reliable sources for these contentious, politically-related WP:BLPCRIME and WP:BLPGOSSIP claims about a transgender athlete. Gaines is making allegations about her teammates and Thomas, and per WP:BLPCRIME, it is more than a complaint and we need multiple reliable sources, and there are the BLP/WMF privacy issues also being discussed on the article Talk page. I think before we get to WP:BLP and WP:NPOV, it would help to resolve source reliability issues (to help determine BLP compliance, balance, neutrality, and weight), which is why I opened the discussion here. Beccaynr (talk) 20:02, 23 March 2023 (UTC)

  What crime is being alleged here? Why would WP:BLPCRIME apply at all? — Shibbolethink ^{(♔ ♕)} 20:16, 23 March 2023 (UTC)

  I have explained in the article Talk discussions, including in an in-depth response to your question today [25]. Gaines explains in her statements about how she believes she has been subject to criminal conduct. A plain reading of the headline also seems to imply alleged criminality. So I think it is best to keep focused on whether these sources are reliable for contentious politically-related statements about a living person that include allegations of criminal conduct, and/or allegations about personal medical information that also requires much better sourcing. Beccaynr (talk) 20:35, 23 March 2023 (UTC)

  While I personally think there are transphobic aspects to some of the statements made by Gaines, when looking at her immediate complaint (wrong genitals in the wrong place), there are, seen from a general societal POV, issues of what are seen as inappropriate conduct related to public display of genitals, that have nothing to do with identity as transgender, and that can have legal consequences. If a man or woman (in the sense of sex assigned at birth, with intact male or female genitalia), regardless of their sexual preference (hetero or LGBTQ) or transgender self-identity, changes their clothes in a gym shower dressing room reserved for their "sex assigned at birth" (only dicks or only vaginas), there will be no controversy, but if one of them does so in such a room for the "opposite sex" (to use common terminology), there will be immediate controversy, possibly with the police being called. That is the immediate complaint made by Gaines, and that part of the claim has nothing to do with the fact that Thomas is transgender. Gaines would have made the same complaint if any other person with male genitalia had exposed themselves in front of her in the changing room. So we need to separate the two issues.

  The issues above are related to political correctness and sensitivity to the rights, feelings, and respect for what are seen as proper terminology in the LGBTQ and transgender communities. Unlike conservatives, progressives try to keep up, but it isn't always easy, and it is the nature of the beast that there will always be a time lag. Just because a person uses the "wrong terminology" does not equate to them being homophobic or transphobic. That's why we need to be careful with describing the immediate "exposed genitals" complaint as transphobic. Other statements made by her? Quite possibly, but not this one. A totally bland mention of the complaint without identifying the fact it was about the "wrong genitals in the wrong room" issue leaves the impression that the complaint must have been transphobic, and that is a clear BLP violation against Gaines.

  Next we come to the subject of this thread. Is a source automatically an unreliable source because it sometimes uses politically incorrect terminology? No. Editors can easily choose to use the most advanced and "proper" terminology here when creating content, regardless of the exact terms in the source. We do try to be sensitive when writing content, but editors who have more advanced understandings of the latest changes in terminology must be patient with their fellow editors who aren't "up to date" and AGF. With sources, we can expect that conservative sources are going to be resistant to change and changes in terminology, without it affecting the general reliability of their factual reporting. Their terminology just reveals their bias (a bit backward in the eyes of us progressives). Bias alone does not equate to "not a RS". User:Shibbolethink seems to understand some of what I'm saying. Some other editors have been so unpleasant to me that I feel like I'm being treated as the enemy, even though I will always defend all LGBTQ and transgender rights and the laws that defend them. I'm an old guy who is trying to keep up and it's not easy. That may explain why I no longer dare to comment at the Lia Thomas article talk page. It's a minefield where a single wrong word leads to immediate attacks and bad faith accusations. I'm sick of that.

  So here, let's at least not use the "it's politically incorrect" argument to diss Sinclair. No, there are other, much better reasons to do that. They are Fox News lite, and not far behind. Like Fox, they tend to push falsehoods and conspiracy theories. For those reasons, they should not be considered a RS, but that does not mean every station they own is therefore an unreliable source. It is only the very limited Sinclair content that is unreliable, and it really is only a tiny amount, usually clearly identified as Sinclair commentary. -- Valjean (talk) (PING me) 03:05, 24 March 2023 (UTC) (pinged User:Shibbolethink -- Valjean (talk) (PING me) 03:07, 24 March 2023 (UTC)

  From my view, our own personal or political feelings are not helpful for assessing whether or not a source is reliable. I cited a series of sources to identify a potential concern about the use of language in the TND sources brought to this board, because these TND sources have been raised as support for the WP:BLPCRIME/WP:BLPGOSSIP content proposed to be added to the article. So far, sources added to this board are about the parent company Sinclair Broadcast Group, which appears to have a documented history of inaccuracy and bias, as well as sources (the AP citing scholars, etc) that raise a concern that the way certain language is used by the TND in two articles about transgender people indicates that these are not suitable sources for politically-related contentious information about a living transgender person.

  To the extent that an RSP greenlit, generally reliable source clearly uses its own reporting voice in a way that disparages transgender people, I can see how that might also not be a suitable source to support a similarly contentious WP:BLPCRIME/WP:BLPGOSSIP claim. But we do not appear to be talking about a generally reliable source, and instead need to at least exercise caution, and the detail of the repeated use by TND of language widely understood to be disparaging by mulitple sources seems to help encourage us to exclude these sources for supporting this WP:BLPCRIME/WP:BLPGOSSIP content. Beccaynr (talk) 03:48, 24 March 2023 (UTC)

• Let's get back to basics. The relevant policy is WP:NEWSORG. Do these organizations have a layer of editorial control? Do they correct their errors? Are the particular sources news or opinion? Those are the relevant questions here. Adoring nanny (talk) 03:00, 24 March 2023 (UTC)

  The local stations are both marked with a copyright 2023 Sinclair Broadcast Group in the lower right side of their websites, and TND appears to be a SBG production; according to the sources about SBG listed at the top of this thread, the WP:QUESTIONABLE section of the RS guideline also appears relevant, e.g. publications expressing views that are widely acknowledged as extremist, [...] or that rely heavily on rumors and personal opinions. The first TND source (also published at KATV) heavily relies on rumors and personal opinions from Gaines about her teammates and Thomas; the second only has a brief mention with a hyperlink to the first source, but instead published on the TND website, which was how I first realized this was not reporting by a local station. WP:QUESTIONABLE also says, Questionable sources are generally unsuitable for citing contentious claims about third parties, which includes [...] persons living or dead. By contrast, The Patriot-News reporting on the same news offers context about Gaines and her current political advocacy campaign, clearly identifies what Gaines says as an allegation, places quotes around the phrase "male genitalia", and appears to be an established and well-regarded news source. Beccaynr (talk) 05:39, 24 March 2023 (UTC)

• I started reviewing Media Matters sources that discuss The National Desk:

• A year of misinformation on Sinclair's morning show The National Desk (Media Matters, Jan. 19, 2022) - this source says "local TV audiences are regularly exposed to conservative misinformation from right-wing pundits, Republican-aligned industry front groups, and even a representative of an anti-immigration hate group", "including segments from anti-vaccine activist Sharyl Attkisson’s weekly Full Measure program", "has repeatedly aired misinformation on COVID-19 and promoted opponents of vaccination", "been a friendly home for right-wing activists who oppose teaching children about racism and its history", etc. Then there is a list of examples, starting with examples of COVID-19 misinformation (which includes one documented rebuttal), then immigration, the economy, education, and "Platforming pro-insurrection Republican lawmakers and lying about Democrats’ efforts to protect voting rights" (includes an interview with Larry Klayman).
• Sinclair has repeatedly turned to a former Trump immigration official who defended family separation for commentary (Media Matters, Feb. 12, 2021) - this source includes an overview of past statements by the former official Mark Morgan, with references that include other news outlets, and states since 2021, appearances by Morgan include "national news packages -- which typically air on dozens of Sinclair stations each time -- and on Sinclair’s morning news program The National Desk, which airs on 68 Sinclair stations." Then there are a list of examples, including a news package quoting Morgan for what is characterized as "a right-wing dog whistle Republicans use to fearmonger about immigration", and a news package quoting Morgan for what is characterized as "fearmongering about a migrant caravan possibly containing people infected with COVID-19, even though it’s unlikely it will make it to the U.S. border."

I encourage everyone to review these and other available sources as well; it may be a bit before I can refocus on the review. Thank you, Beccaynr (talk) 04:27, 24 March 2023 (UTC)

Media Matters is an unreliable source. Their "sources that discuss The National Desk" are worthless. Maine 🦞 12:41, 24 March 2023 (UTC)

According to the WP:MEDIAMATTERS section of WP:RSP, There is consensus that Media Matters is marginally reliable and that its articles should be evaluated for reliability on a case-by-case basis. As a partisan advocacy group, their statements should be attributed. From my view, it may be helpful to sift these sources to examine fact-based examples of inaccuracy and/or bias in TND, or to generally get a better sense of how SBG relates to TND. Beccaynr (talk) 15:04, 24 March 2023 (UTC)

MMFA does a lot of homework that's useful for source evaluations. To actually look at the most recent RfC about them, almost nobody is arguing that they're unreliable, and scant evidence is provided related to unreliability. The primary objection has to do with its political leanings. We treat partisan sources that tend to get the facts right differently from those that don't get the facts right, which is why MMFA is considered reliable-but-partisan (so check against other sources and attribute anything controversial) whereas some others are partisan-and-unreliable (generally avoid). Where it wind up mattering most in practice is in debates over WP:WEIGHT. Partisan sources generally get less weight than other sources, regardless of how reliable they are, when it comes to including material in an article. If we included everything MMFA ever wrote about Fox News in the Fox News article, it would be five times longer than it already is. Here at RSN, however, WP:WEIGHT isn't an issue, and we can freely use partisan reliable sources to the extent they're helpful. — Rhododendrites ^talk \\ 16:08, 24 March 2023 (UTC)

• I'm familiar with Sinclair, but don't have experience with ND, so did what I always do with a new source: look at what's currently there. I pulled up two articles ripe for exercises of bias and took a look.
  The first is about an LGBTQ law vetoed in Kentucky. It's an AP article, so perhaps not a great example, but those aren't immune from being skewed by partisan sources. In this case, I don't see any evidence of that. No sign of problems.
  The other is about reparations in San Francisco. Here there are subtle problems. Mainly, Under that plan, Black residents of the city would receive a one-time payment of $5 million, complete and full forgiveness of their personal debt, an annual income of $97,000 and the ability to buy a home within San Francisco city limits for just $1. - This is almost identical to the way the AP wrote about it, but with two key differences. First, ND has changed "$5 million to every eligible Black adult" to "Black residents of the city would receive a one-time payment of $5 million" (everyone, not just those eligible). More problematic, however, is that the AP continued These were some of the more than 100 recommendations made... and Tuesday’s unanimous expressions of support for reparations by the board do not mean all the recommendations will ultimately be adopted, as the body can vote to approve, reject or change any or all of them. But ND omitted that basic information. In other words, according to the ND, the board approved $5 million per person, etc., but it hasn't actually done that.
  This is, of course, a sample size of two with one that doesn't have problems and one that's misleading, but that certainly indicates there's something worth exploring here. — Rhododendrites ^talk \\ 16:08, 24 March 2023 (UTC)

  The article opens As San Francisco mulls giving qualifying Black citizens millions of dollars in reparations, which seems pretty clear that it's a matter under consideration. That said, I'm confused by the later sentence The San Francisco Board of Supervisors is expected to implement the committee's recommendations at its next meeting on potential reparations on Sept. 19. Expected by whom, and how would they know that? Although a single article should not in and of itself be disqualifying, I do find this part concerning. Adoring nanny (talk) 05:24, 25 March 2023 (UTC)

Reliability of Reddit comments published by immediate family member of a deceased individual (Technoblade)

I've looked into the discussions linked in WP:RSPREDDIT and did a cursory search through the noticeboard archives, but I lack the skills necessary to sift through and refine all the results within the noticeboard, nor do I think there's been a case where Wikipedia editors have cited Reddit comments published by immediate family members of a deceased individual. I'm aware of WP:ABOUTSELF, WP:BLPSPS, and WP:SPS, but I would rather let more seasoned Wikipedia veterans be in the driver's seat for this situation—the number of circumstances involved in here are a bit more than I can chew.

Here's the exact comment originally cited in Technoblade: https://www.reddit.com/r/Technoblade/comments/yzjnwm/comment/ix278au. For the time being, I've enclosed the relevant claim and this citation in an invisible comment so that the content's preserved within the article for now.

The authenticity of u/MrTechnodad (father of Technoblade and author of the Reddit comment in question) is a bit unorthodox compared to Reddit accounts associated with verified AMAs. Instead of using (or rather, due to the lack of) a previously verified social media handle to establish authenticity, u/MrTechnodad published a comment under Technoblade’s Reddit account (u/Technothereddit). This alone calls item number 4 of WP:ABOUTSELF into question, as well as the first sentence of WP:BLPSPS. The fact that the comment was made by someone from Technoblade's immediate family calls item number 2 of WP:ABOUTSELF into question solely on the basis that the comment wasn't written by Technoblade himself (for obvious reasons).

I'm not adding this topic to imply that u/MrTechnodad is a fraud—rather, I'm here to ask about a potential edge case even after applying as many relevant Wikipedia policies as possible.

I am most likely overthinking this, so I need a fresh pair of eyes on this whenever possible. Thanks in advance. Cheers, u|RayDeeUx (contribs | talk page) 04:15, 23 March 2023 (UTC)

What information is the father's reddit account proposed to be used for? Just that the son attended UIowa? AFAICT that's not an important detail, so if the usability of the source for it is this low, I'd say just leave it out, nothing important is lost by not including that. Since it's a statement by the father about two different third parties—Technoblade and UIowa—it doesn't seem to meet WP:ABOUTSELF. -sche (talk) 08:51, 23 March 2023 (UTC)

Jack Anderson (columnist)

Ordinarily I’d be asking this question on the page of the article in question, which is Jack Anderson (columnist), a deceased journalist. More on why I’m asking here later. Anderson often been labeled a “Muckraker”. And if you look at that biography’s section titled Muckraker it says in Wikipedia’s voice the FBI participated in “retaliation and continual harassment” towards Anderson. My problem with this is the source is Anderson himself, a primary source. Anderson’s work product was often called into question for various reasons, one of which falls into a “Mission from God” category. Along this vein, I believe the article has other primary sourcing issues. In short, maybe it could use a review or two from anyone so inclined. Artificial Nagger (talk) 16:57, 23 March 2023 (UTC)

• There a couple of references to the History Channel doc hosted by Anderson, including for this passage. It's reliable with attribution even though it's "about self", because it is not self-published. Same thing for any of his WaPo columns. And there are plenty of other sources to corroborate the particular passage here...heck, the harassment continued after his death. This really belongs back at the article talk page before bringing it here; there is no controversy or dispute that's been raised there first without a resolution. Banks Irk (talk) 01:52, 24 March 2023 (UTC)