Source: Heitzman, James; Worden, Robert, eds. (1995), India: A Country Study (PDF), Federal Research Division, Library of Congress, p. 571

Statement in source: "There was some opposition to this move within the cabinet by those who did not agree with referring the Kashmir dispute to the UN. The UN mediation process brought the war to a close on January 1, 1949. In all, 1,500 soldiers died on each side during the war."

Discussion: Talk:Indo-Pakistani War of 1947–1948#6000 casualties figure

Statement to be supported: Result in infobox per this edit

Summary: This is a highly partisan topic and is subject to DS. The talk page discussion started by questioning Pakistani casualties quoted as 6,000 killed, citing Globalsecurity.org and a figure of 1,500 killed. There is no consensus as to the reliability of that source but it actually cites India: A Country Study (the subject of this post). The Indo-Pakistani War of 1947–1948 was initially fought by proxy until the ultimate engagement of both national militaries. It is unclear from the other sources cited precisely what they are reporting as casualties (ie national military casualties v total combatant casualties). The other sources are not great, in that they are largely Indian in origin. The subject edit would add the 1,500 figure to both sides. However, the reliability of the source (India: A Country Study) has since been questioned, citing WP:CONTEXTMATTERS.

Question: Is the subject source (India: A Country Study) sufficiently reliable to support the edit made to the infobox in respect to casualties.

Cinderella157 (talk) 11:16, 13 December 2021 (UTC) I have no ties to either country.[reply]

Comments (India: A Country Study)

• Not a reliable source for the purpose.
  • That being said, what is the end-game? A majority of men employed by Pakistan were irregulars supplied with arms-stashes and money; who had recorded those casualties? There is a reason why even semi-official histories (see Shuja Nawaz et al) skips mentioning casualty-counts. TrangaBellam (talk) 11:47, 13 December 2021 (UTC)[reply]
• The time of the event is around late 1940's. This makes it very difficult to gather enough information on the casualty figures. Wikipedia was earlier quoting an indian figure which seems to have no official source and was not reliable enough. The 1,500 casualty figure estimate is the most neutral source on the internet neutral source at page 571 and is quoted by global security.org ^[1]. It is also cited in some university work. No concensus can even be reached on global security.org not being suitable for being quoted. It has been cited in over 25,000 articles and also by Reuters and new york times as well as Washington Post which are considered reliable sources^[2] and its citation in some 25,000 articles on Google Scholar^[3]. It is only logical to quote both the 1,500 and 6000 figures as an estimate. Going by what TrangaBellam, that would mean removal of all the casualty section as this argument will even apply for the 6000 figure, which also it not a sure shot reliable source. Truthwins018 (talk) 13:49, 13 December 2021 (UTC)[reply]
• Not reliable for the purpose, as I already said on the article talk page. It looks to me that somebody sitting in Washington DC just made a wild guess. The Indian History of the War says the following:

During the long campaign, the Indian Army lost 76 officers, 31 JCOs and 996 Other Ranks killed, making a total of 1103. The wounded totalled 3152, including 81 officers and 107 JCOs. Apart from these casualties, it appears that the J & K State Forces lost no less than 1990 officers and men killed, died of wounds, or missing presumed killed . The small RIAF lost a total of 32 officers and men who laid down their lives for the nation during these operations. In this roll of honour, there were no less than 9 officers. The enemy casualties were definitely many times the total of Indian Army and RIAF casualties, and one estimate concluded that the enemy suffered 20,000 casualties, including 6,000 killed.^[4]

So, the Indian casualties were in excess of 3,000 and the Washington estimate misses it by a wide margin. -- Kautilya3 (talk) 18:16, 13 December 2021 (UTC)[reply]

The India country Study states 1500 Indian soldiers died, so it's off by 397 from the Indian History of the War. However, it's unclear whether it includes the J&K/AJK/GB/Chitral forces for either side and if it does, it would indeed be off by a wide margin. Cipher21 (talk) 20:40, 13 December 2021 (UTC)[reply]

There may be some confusion of terminology. Casualty is killed+wounded. It's apples and oranges to compare 1,500 killed with over 3,000 casualty. -- GreenC 03:47, 14 December 2021 (UTC)[reply]

• This source doesn't rule out that the 1,500 figure is wrong. The 6000 Pakistani casualty figure and 3000 indian casualty figure still turns out to be an indian claim. The 1,500 comes out to be a seperate estimate of casualties, not related with ^[5]}}. No official pakistani casualty figures were released and thus the source cannot be ruled out. Your source only suggests thats the indian killed figure be changed to 1,500-3000 and Pakistani be kept at 1,500-6000. Truthwins018 (talk) 19:03, 13 December 2021 (UTC)[reply]
  • The question that is being discussed is whether it is reliable for the purpose. I gave evidence that proves that it is not. The best you can do is to quote it verbatim in the body. It is nor reasonable to split it up into pieces and format it in whatever way. -- Kautilya3 (talk) 23:44, 13 December 2021 (UTC)[reply]
• For the sake of including a neutral perspective I agree with using it. Currently, the article cites Indian figures. Cipher21 (talk) 20:40, 13 December 2021 (UTC)[reply]
• I agree with including it, as a range. The source is widely cited by other reliable sources as noted by Truthwins018. Furthermore reliable sources are not required to cite their sources to be reliable. A research division within the Library of Congress is not faultless, I doubt any numbers are definitive, but it would require more than Wiki editors disagreeing with the numbers to exclude it from the article, particularly when given as a range. -- GreenC 03:37, 14 December 2021 (UTC)[reply]

• Unreliable for the purpose. The source which is India: A Country Study is clearly not widely cited. The assertion that it is, is based on a different website called globalsecurity.org quoting it. The website globalsecurity.org which looks like a group blog, is the one being used as a source for an opinion in one NYT article and produces 25k+ results on google scholar (every result after the 8th is from the website itself). This is very marginal use in RS, not to mention its use is irrelevant to the actual query here. Searching for India: A Country Study itself produces similarly barebone results. The subject of the source is an overall profile of India and is not specific to the military history of the Kashmir Conflict. The topic area needs specialist academic sources, especially for things like casualty estimates. On a sidenote, looking at the infobox of the article, every single source without exception, that is cited for the casualties is similarly problematic in some respect or the other. Tayi Arajakate _Talk 08:06, 14 December 2021 (UTC)[reply]
• Wide citation of global security.org has already been mentioned by SpicyBiryani on the talk page of 1947-1948 indo-pak war.The founder of the website is John Pike. John Pike is one of the worlds leading expert on defence in the world and more can be read about him in the sources cited^[1][2].Global security also has a reputed range of staff with wide experience in the field of defence^[3].Global security has been cited in Reuters ^[4] by an article worked upon by Reuters Staff. It has been cited in CNN ^[5]. It has been cited in Washington Post here, here ,here. It has been cited by NYT [1], [2]. Some of the book citations are:

  • Fair, C. Christine. Fighting to the End: The Pakistan Army's Way of War. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2014 ,ISBN 978 0 1998 9270 9.
  • Cordesman, Anthony H. Al-Rodhan, Khalid R. Gulf military forces in an era of asymmetric wars. Westport, Conn. : Praeger Security International ,2007.
  • Anthony H. Cordesman, Martin Kleiber, Iran's Military Forces and Warfighting Capabilities: The Threat in the Northern Gulf ^[6]

All the book citations may be viewed here. It has been cited in numerous books on National Security. [3]

As for the subject issue, The book does concentrate on one of the participants of the war. The killed figures are given in a seperate National Security section. We till date are not equipped with accurate figures of the casualties from the war. An indian version of figures are available. A neutral version is established from this source. It is only wise to continue with an estimated range of casualty figures which gives all the figures Truthwins018 (talk) 10:09, 14 December 2021 (UTC)[reply]

• I see merit in the arguments of those who esteem the source unreliable for the purpose for which it is being used on the main page. There is hardly any correlation between the reliability of a source and the magnitude of hits it gets on a search engine. The tangible criteria are enumerated and enunciated at WP:RS and there is no indication that this source, which uses a broad-brush to coalesce the two countries' casualties under a single sentence with unwarranted brevity, measures up when the yardstick of WP:RSCONTEXT is applied. Kerberous (talk) 12:27, 14 December 2021 (UTC)[reply]

• It definetely fulfils on the criteria of WP:RS. Your opinion WP:OR is irrelevant in the present criteria. The source directly cites the material and its under a seperate section of Natural security. Vaious citations of globalsecurity.org does increase its reliability especially by already considered reliable sources and none of the discussion was aimed at " magnitude of hits"Truthwins018 (talk) 14:03, 14 December 2021 (UTC)[reply]
• Comment I had come here to seek opinion that was hopefully independent of the topic. By and large, this has not been the case so it is substantially just a rehash of the opinions being offered at the original discussion. Perhaps though, the most telling comment is that of Tayi Arajakate: On a sidenote, looking at the infobox of the article, every single source without exception, that is cited for the casualties is similarly problematic in some respect or the other. It would strongly suggest that the solution is: "remove one, remove all". Cinderella157 (talk) 05:02, 1 February 2022 (UTC)[reply]

  Yeah, that would be one way to go about it. Although a better solution would be to find independent specialist scholarly sources and replace these sources with them. To give an overview of the sources, I can see 3 books published by Lancer Publishers which is the in-house publisher of the Indian armed forces, a Pakistani newspaper article, one book authored by Ved Prakash Malik, one commissioned by the Ministry of Defence and an article from an Indian military think tank. This reminds me of a previous discussion arising from a similar dispute, and the article in question appears to have more or less analogous issues. Tayi Arajakate _Talk 14:23, 1 February 2022 (UTC)[reply]

WP:CR request made. Cinderella157 (talk) 05:09, 1 February 2022 (UTC)[reply]

• Unreliable for this purpose. Similarly I don't see how globalsecurity.org make the estimate more credible. It is not reliable as well. The number of hits on google does not correspond with reliability, as pointed out by others already. Captain Jack Sparrow (talk) 12:45, 1 February 2022 (UTC)[reply]

The Dispatch – Xi Jinping Strengthens His Grip Over Chinese Media

What are the implications of the CCP exercising increased control over Chinese media on Wikipedia coverage of Chinese topics? Does it contribute to increased systemic bias against topics local to China, and if so, how can we mitigate this? feminist (talk) 14:41, 8 January 2022 (UTC)[reply]

Yes, and yes. It will increase problems with using Chinese sources because those Chinese sources will have an increased Systemic bias. And there is no way to mitigate this, we cannot weaken our sourcing rules to allow outright propaganda sources to be used for statements of fact.Slatersteven (talk) 14:50, 8 January 2022 (UTC)[reply]

We can mitigate it by not using sources that are under the grip of Xi Jinping. We do this to some degree, but nowhere near enough. See WP:XINHUA for example. We try to distinguish areas where China "may have a reason to use it for propaganda or disinformation." News flash: we are not omniscient. Also, see WP:SCMP. The South China Morning Post was once a terrific source, but Hong Kong's freedom is rapidly coming to an end. See Jimmy Lai.

There is also the problem of academic "research" that is under Xi's thumb. In that area, we haven't done anything. We should. Adoring nanny (talk) 02:46, 9 January 2022 (UTC)[reply]

We already have a strong systemic bias in Chinese-related topics, in the opposite direction from what you're suggesting. Ruling out Chinese sources will only make that systemic bias even worse.

Ruling out high-quality sources like Caixin, which is an excellent finance and investigative journalism outlet, would leave Wikipedia in a worse position. Caixin's reporting on China is often of a much higher quality than that of major Western outlets, and Western outlets often rely on Caixin for basic reporting. The same goes for SCMP. -Thucydides411 (talk) 03:10, 9 January 2022 (UTC)[reply]

I see Caixin has been gagged.[4] Being excellent is apparently not allowed. As a general matter, I agree that sources that have been banned by Beijing have a better chance of being reliable. Apple Daily is another example. Adoring nanny (talk) 06:00, 10 January 2022 (UTC)[reply]

The article you linked does not indicate that there's any problem with Caixin's reporting. In fact, it says that Caixin has reported critically on issues inside China.

If we go along with what you're proposing and ban all Chinese sources, we'll lose Caixin's excellent, well informed reporting. We'll end up relying heavily on outlets that often have less informed coverage, and which have their own strong biases.

See, for example, Bloomberg's irresponsible reporting back in March 2020 on conspiracy theories about vastly inflated death tolls in China. Bloomberg took an accurate, non-sensationalist report from Caixin, mixed it with conspiracy theories from Chinese social media, and uncritically presented crazy death tolls. And it's not just Bloomberg that did this. A bunch of outlets did it too: [5] [6] [7] [8] [9]. Scientific research into both excess mortality and seroprevalence ([10] [11]) in China has debunked these conspiracy theories. Why did these outlandish conspiracy theories get such wide play in the media in the first place? Because they played to the biases that these outlets have. -Thucydides411 (talk) 20:17, 10 January 2022 (UTC)[reply]

The vast majority of domestic Chinese topics are mundane, which Chinese state media is still reliable for. The topics where CCP have a reason for misinformation are generally already widely covered by Western sources so we would already typically be using them instead. Jumpytoo Talk 04:10, 9 January 2022 (UTC)[reply]

Yes, —PaleoNeonate – 23:59, 11 January 2022 (UTC)[reply]

The South China Morning Post is no better than the rest of Chinese propaganda media outlets and is arguably more sinister because it is tailored to a broader, more international audience. The recent decision by their *newsroom* chief to publish a bizarre video comparing press freedom in China/HK — i.e. the lack thereof — to the Assange case says a lot about the decline of HK media in general and this newspaper in particular. Normchou ^💬 01:34, 12 January 2022 (UTC)[reply]

I would not write off the SCMP just yet. Comparing China/HK's press freedom to US press freedom is certainly bizarre, but less so in the context of the Assange case, and I think newspaper editors should be allowed to express their own opinions on Twitter. It was SCMP that reported that secret Chinese government documents put November 17 as the date of the first confirmed COVID case, even though the Chinese government claims it was December 19. Of course, I do wonder why they haven't released the Chinese government documents to the public, in the way AP have (see below). We will just have to watch them very closely. LondonIP (talk) 01:01, 13 January 2022 (UTC)[reply]

The implications are that Chinese journalism is biased towards a Chinese government's position on the issues by virtue of the fact that they exist in a state that has heavy media censorship. This has always been the case in mainland China and is also now starting to become the case in Hong Kong/Macau. No offence, but this article demonstrates no meaningful change in Chinese press freedom. The WSJ article the linked piece is based on explains it pretty well as "Many of the restrictions described in Friday’s draft have existed in some form for years, according to media scholars, but China’s large internet companies have long operated in a legal gray area when it comes to online news content." This isn't a radical change in the Chinese media environment, but a further clamping down over dissent.

All this being said, I do believe we have a heavy pro-Western bias and we should not rule out Chinese sources by virtue of the fact they're Chinese. Like WP:XINHUA, China Daily, or whatever else, it's possible for us to take a middle ground on these issues. Mitigating systemic bias would mean that we can use these sources to present China's position on many issues while clarifying that these sources are state-run or potentially biased. Chess (talk) (please use {{reply to|Chess}} on reply) 03:28, 20 January 2022 (UTC)[reply]

Mitigating systemic bias would mean that we can use these sources to present China's position on many issues while clarifying that these sources are state-run or potentially biased
I 100% agree with this view. We should A) describe the controversy, but also B) fairly represent the Chinese academic view as the scientific view given that the academic sources and the government sources help us frame the current scientific consensus. We can then describe the fact that many outlets find these sources questionable given the risk of government censorship. All of this is fair game, and none of it should be entirely excluded, but rather proportionally represented. This is also what WP:BESTSOURCES tells us to do. — Shibbolethink ^{(♔ ♕)} 14:24, 23 January 2022 (UTC)[reply]

• Chinese media is generally unreliable (prime example being Global Times). Media like SCMP is as of now more or less reliable, but its quality is rapidly deteriorating and this statement may not be true a year or two from now.

Best practice would be to not use state media as a RS unless it is absolutely necessary.Captain Jack Sparrow (talk) 14:00, 31 January 2022 (UTC)[reply]

So I assume you and some other editors are fine with a ban on Chinese state media? Per similar rankings on Freedom House should we also ban media from Cuba (like Radio Havana), Venezuela (like Televen), Laos (like Vientiane Times), North Korea (like KCNA), Saudi Arabia (like Al Arabiya), UAE (like Gulf News), Iran (like Tehran Times), Russia, Ethiopia, Azerbaijan, Egypt, Vietnam and several other 'low press freedom' countries no matter what? No, it'd very much be censorship & sytemic bias.

These outlets are good for non-controversial claims supported by Western media & should esp. be allowed for articles where such countries are in dispute with another (often 'more free') country to represent their own viewpoint. Attribution is ofc necessary but they should def. be used in some instances. Donkey Hot-day (talk) 05:26, 23 February 2022 (UTC)[reply]

AP: Xi Jinping restricts publishing of COVID-19 data and research

According to internal documents obtained by the AP, any data or research on COVID-19 must be approved by a new task force managed by China’s cabinet, under direct orders from President Xi Jinping. These orders affect the Chinese CDC, as well as independent scientists, both of whom have published papers in international journals, some of which are being cited to argue that contentious claims. We may need to discuss this gag order and how it effects the reliability of Chinese scholarship on COVID-19, just as we would with its reliability for Traditional Chinese medicine and The Three Ts. LondonIP (talk) 00:46, 13 January 2022 (UTC)[reply]

This may affect some studies but if a study is peer-reviewed, including by non-chinese scientists, then the study is as good as any other peer-reviewed study. also please do not duplicate discussions. Xoltered (talk) 08:10, 16 January 2022 (UTC)[reply]

No. It does not make sense to expect them to present a neutral and fact-based summary of the events but rather a pro-Chinese government view that will deflect from reality. NavjotSR (talk) 04:22, 17 January 2022 (UTC)[reply]

You provide no justification for this ridiculous view, as previously stated, peer review is a process that prevents this. Xoltered (talk) 12:05, 18 January 2022 (UTC)[reply]

Except that peer reviewers wouldn't be able to tell if data has been completely misrepresented, so long as the data is internally consistent as if it was actually collected that way. So a paper being peer reviewed in such a case doesn't mean the data or results are inherently reliable. Silverseren^C 04:26, 17 January 2022 (UTC)[reply]

You do not seem to understand how peer-review works, if this was actually the case, it would be a common issue throughout science, but it is not. It would be helpful for you to think through your points and see if they immediately fall flat before making them. Xoltered (talk) 12:05, 18 January 2022 (UTC)[reply]

• I consider this remark to be complacent. Peer review can work well, with referees taking a sufficiently broad perspective to recognise all the reasons why the data might not be representative, but it often doesn't and this should not be surprising. The Chinese government putting their thumbs on the scales in this way is something we should take into account in evaluating research that depends on data coming from China. Cf. the remarks of Michael Eisen, First, and foremost, we need to get past the antiquated idea that the singular act of publication – or publication in a particular journal – should signal for all eternity that a paper is valid, let alone important. Even when people take peer review seriously, it is still just represents the views of 2 or 3 people at a fixed point in time. To invest the judgment of these people with so much meaning is nuts. [12].— Charles Stewart (talk) 13:39, 18 January 2022 (UTC)[reply]
• it would be a common issue throughout science, but it is not
• Except it is. Elizabeth Bik's entire (recent) career is based around calling out the numerous cases of bad and outright falsified data that was published and went through peer review. It happens all the time and, in most cases, the journals refuse to retract or do anything about the studies even when the falsification is pointed out. Silverseren^C 18:31, 18 January 2022 (UTC)[reply]

@Thucydides411, Mx. Granger, and Novem Linguae: Also pinging some people who this was linked to by another editor Xoltered (talk) 12:05, 18 January 2022 (UTC)[reply]

Quick tip: A good neutral way to alert both sides to discussions like these is to leave a {{Please see}} on a relevant talk page.

This is like the 5th page I've seen this "is China fudging their COVID statistics" debate overflow to, and it must be a bit exhausting for the participants to keep making the same arguments over and over. Would be nice if editors would stop WP:FORUMSHOPping this and just hold a proper RFC somewhere, such as at Talk:Chinese government response to COVID-19.

In case anybody is curious, I still 100% agree with Thucydides411. He has read the scientific papers, understands them, and makes convincing arguments that they are trustworthy (e.g. international peer review, the various types of data agreeing and supporting each other), despite the Chinese government's attempts to influence the media. –Novem Linguae (talk) 12:24, 18 January 2022 (UTC)[reply]

e.g. international peer review, the various types of data agreeing and supporting each other

That is a meaningless statement. Chinese researchers were already caught falsifying data and publishing in international journals and getting through peer review just fine. Over 400 papers published in a wide variety of journals and scientific fields. Here's the full list and you'll note that only about half had any sort of "expression of concern" or retraction done about them. And that's just from one paper mill. Silverseren^C 18:37, 18 January 2022 (UTC)[reply]

To paraphrase: Some scientists from country X did this bad thing, so we should disregard all research done by scientists from country X.

I'm sure everyone sees what the problem with that sort of thinking is. We're talking about peer-reviewed research in leading journals like The BMJ, The Lancet and Nature, and ruling out these sources when the authors have a certain nationality would be repugnant. I'm surprised and disappointed that we're even having this conversation. -Thucydides411 (talk) 19:55, 18 January 2022 (UTC)[reply]

• I think you're making a straw man. I don't think we are at the point where the evidence of interference is of the sort that would justify 'ruling out these sources when the authors have a certain nationality' although I can conceive of interference that would lead me to recommend exactly that. What I am saying and I take Silver seren to be saying as well, is that there is evidence of interference and this does justify caution. I think we should generally be a bit more cautious about trusting the imprimatur of publication in empirical fields where replication rates are not high, although that's another kettle of fish. — Charles Stewart (talk) 21:01, 18 January 2022 (UTC)[reply]

• Yes. Additionally, this isn't just "some scientists", this is hundreds of scientists. As the article from Science that I linked noted, there are no common authors between these papers. They're all "independent" groups of scientists across all the hospitals in China. It encompasses most of the top level physicians who work in hospitals in the country. Furthermore, the bigger point I was making is that this directly shows that peer review in international journals doesn't mean anything at all in terms of inherent reliability of the data. Because peer review can't see through completely fabricated data, as the consistency in the data is only within itself. Saying that the data is consistent between the different papers put out from these research groups, as Thucydides411 has been using as an argument, means nothing if that data is wholesale fabricated and distributed to be consistent between them on purpose. Silverseren^C 00:41, 19 January 2022 (UTC)[reply]

  It's a pretty serious claim you're making here, that the data in all these papers in leading international scientific journals is faked. That's the kind of claim you should either justify or retract. Better yet, you should call up the editors at Nature, The Lancet, The BMJ and all the other journals and tell them about your startling revelations. Once you get the journals to retract these papers, as I'm sure they will if there's any basis to your claims, then come back and let us know. Until then, however, everyone here should disregard your speculation about mass data-faking in leading scientific journals. -Thucydides411 (talk) 04:39, 19 January 2022 (UTC)[reply]

  UPE farms have been discovered and dealt with on Wikipedia. Does the discovery of one UPE farm invalidate our entire encyclopedia? Also, the fact that these fake papers were discovered is actually a strong argument that fake papers WOULD be caught. –Novem Linguae (talk) 11:50, 19 January 2022 (UTC)[reply]

Thanks for the tip, and I strongly agree, this discussion should be at one page, and not 5 different ones. Xoltered (talk) 12:48, 18 January 2022 (UTC)[reply]

Because of this order, I would treat all such sources as having a severe conflict of interest. According to the order, people who don't comply will be "held accountable". The unfortunate fact is that for the authors, disclosure of information the CCP wants to hide would come at tremendous personal risk. Adoring nanny (talk) 12:55, 18 January 2022 (UTC)[reply]

Or maybe China's zero-COVID policy worked, just like it worked for Australia, eastern Canada, New Zealand, Scotland, Northern Ireland, Singapore, South Korea, Taiwan, and Vietnam, and China isn't hiding anything. –Novem Linguae (talk) 13:11, 18 January 2022 (UTC)[reply]

Are you implying that the AP's document is not genuine? Or that it's not a smoking gun of hiding information? If they "aren't hiding anything", why did the WHO say China didn't release the list of early patients, Wuhan blood samples, and swabs? And why do I get a 404 at [13]? Adoring nanny (talk) 14:52, 18 January 2022 (UTC)[reply]

It sounds like 1) the Chinese government ordered its media and scientists to present information a positive light, and 2) China had an excellent response to COVID-19. Believe it or not, these two things can occur simultaneously. I understand that #2 is suspicious due to #1, but if upon examination no evidence emerges that #2 is fake (and no evidence has emerged, as Thucydides and the scientific papers he quotes indicate), then this hypothesis that #2 is fake due to #1 should be dropped. –Novem Linguae (talk) 15:05, 18 January 2022 (UTC)[reply]

Yes, it sounds very much like #2 is due to #1. We know from this AP report that Xi ordered these restrictions and we know from Bloomberg why he might be doing this, so we should not be naive about Chinese "scientific" publications. I made a list of sources questioning China statistics on the China Government Response page and I would like to see how scholarly sources contradict them. Can you make the list? ScrumptiousFood (talk) 17:24, 18 January 2022 (UTC)[reply]

Many of the citations from Chinese government response to COVID-19#Case and death count statistics likely fit your criteria. –Novem Linguae (talk) 17:54, 18 January 2022 (UTC)[reply]

An "excellent response" like silencing doctors who knew by New Years' day that it could be transmitted from person to person, forbidding said doctors from wearing PPE in the early weeks, reporting a disease of "unknown cause" when they had the viral DNA sequence, delaying the release of the viral DNA sequence, going ahead with their 40,000 person gathering on Jan. 20, 2020?, without warning people that they could get the pandemic, which they were still pretending was unlikely to be spread from person to person.[14] Adoring nanny (talk) 18:22, 18 January 2022 (UTC)[reply]

China can both, make mistakes very early on in the pandemic and do a very good joh controlling the pandemic in the months after, again these statements, like the ones previously made, are not in contradiction. It's also irrelevent to this discussion, which is about if the sources are reliable, which we already explained how they are. This is why we should not have 5 different pages to discuss one thing. Xoltered (talk) 00:23, 19 January 2022 (UTC)[reply]

From my perspective, it seems as though the view broadly expressed here is China's government did bad things, so we should not believe they were good at controlling COVID-19 and getting low case counts. This is not how Wikipedia works. We do not care how moral or ethical the actions of governments are (the Chinese government was neither in this instance, imo). We only care about what the sources say, and fairly summarizing those sources in our articles. Sometimes that means wikipedia is wrong. But we are not trying to tell the truth, we are trying to summarize the state of existing knowledge through a very particular lens. — Shibbolethink ^{(♔ ♕)} 14:30, 23 January 2022 (UTC)[reply]

The sources are not reliable. The CCP document obtained by the AP is perfectly clear on this.[15] The order said communication and publication of research had to be orchestrated like “a game of chess” under instructions from Xi, and propaganda and public opinion teams were to “guide publication.” Adoring nanny (talk) 03:59, 19 January 2022 (UTC)[reply]

Nature, The Lancet and The BMJ are some of the most highly respected and competitive scientific journals. Just blanket saying "The sources are not reliable" is unserious. You're essentially arguing that we should throw out virtually all scientific research on the infection rate and mortality in China, because Chinese scientists have done most of that research.

The scientific sources are extremely clear on the extent of infection and mortality in China during the pandemic. If the scientific sources clash with your perception, that's not a reason to rule out the sources. -Thucydides411 (talk) 04:32, 19 January 2022 (UTC)[reply]

Have you actually read the responses to what you've said Adoring nanny? This has already been addressed countless times, please stop taking the discussion in circles. Xoltered (talk) 07:47, 19 January 2022 (UTC)[reply]

• It's worth recalling that The Lancet published Andrew Wakefield's fraudulent research suggesting a link between autism and the MMR vaccine. Although the GMC found problems with Wakefield's work quickly and Brian Deer published evidence of fraud five years later, it took the editors another seven years before they retracted the study, waiting until after the GMC found Wakefield guilty of malpractice. We can't avoid taking account of reputation, given how the publication game works at present, but that doesn't justify having illusions about the fallibility of peer review even at the best journals and the reluctance of most editors to admit and correct errors. — Charles Stewart (talk) 15:40, 19 January 2022 (UTC)[reply]

Perfectly serious. If an order said that Propaganda and public opinion teams were to “guide publication.”, I believe the order. To answer a question above, I routinely read the responses. The issue is not the prestige of the journals, it is the accuracy. There is a long history of prestigious sources publishing lies in situations where accuracy might offend powerful governments, i.e. Any report of a famine in Russia is today an exaggeration or malignant propaganda, published in the NYT in 1933. And here we have the smoking gun. Adoring nanny (talk) 17:59, 19 January 2022 (UTC)[reply]

• I would say the big difference is that Wakefield's study had high profile rebuttals ALSO published in academic venues. It was a primary source. And the secondary source response from scientists in academic journals was swift, concise, and disastrous. It does not take one long to find secondary MEDRS reviews which discuss how wrong the Wakefield paper was. [16] [17] [18] [19] Large scale studies were conducted showing the link between vaccination and autism was spurious: [20] [21]. In this case, like many others, Science was self-correcting. Sometimes it takes a year (or several) to really get that conversation going, but it does happen. And that is part of why Wikipedia's work is never done. — Shibbolethink ^{(♔ ♕)} 14:37, 23 January 2022 (UTC)[reply]

• Apologies for the late reply, Shibboleth, I missed this at the time. I think this substantially misrepresents what happened. While the BMC and scholars quickly pushed back against the wider conclusions Wakefield was drawing from his study, far from the reaction being "swift, concise and disastrous", the three articles you cite that were published before 2004 did not claim there were problems with Wakefield's study and instead 'taught the controversy' and increased his bibliometrics. Instead, the fraud was uncovered by a Sunday Times journalist, Brian Deer, who was driven to do actual investigative reporting because of his interest in Wakefield's anti-vax activity. Sometimes scholars are driven to do effective investigations in this vein, but it seems likely to me that without the spadework of this journalist, the full truth would not have been revealed. I think a little less faith in the self-correcting nature of science is called for: eventually, if scientists sustain their attention to a question, they tend to cast off illusions, but if the institutions are not working well, lies can thrive for a generation or more. Ignoring what investigators say out of overzealous faith in some hierarchy of reliability of sources hinders us in creating Wikipedia. — Charles Stewart (talk) 16:27, 1 February 2022 (UTC)[reply]

• @Chalst: I think you meant to ping @Shibbolethink: here. Regarding if the institutions are not working well, lies can thrive for a generation or more, I think we need to be careful to remember not to try and WP:RGW. WP:PAGs tend to favor the institutional mainstream for good reason, even when they're wrong. If they're wrong, then investigative journalism can and should be welcomed to correct it. But Wikipedia should be following those corrections, not leading them (again, WP:RGW). Bakkster Man (talk) 17:26, 1 February 2022 (UTC)[reply]

• Thanks, Bakkster Man for fixing my ping. Personally, my editing on the lab-leak hypothesis has been cautious reflecting my own uncertainty about the evidence and the awareness that, to the extent that there are biases, they cut both ways; it's pretty clear that there are a lot of people out there who want to use the pandemic as an opportunity for propaganda in their campaign against China. Because our ability as WPians to do original research is for most of us necessarily limited to understanding existing sources, we are forced into a certain amount of conservatism with regards to sourcing; what I'm attacking isn't this, but instead a few more subtle issues, including less awareness than we should have that rules that attempt to ensure that we use only the best sources can reduce the quality of the judgements we make about sourcing and a tendency not to treat 'good' sources with appropriate caution. I think MEDRS suffers from both problems, but I'm struggling to come up with proposals for improvement. — Charles Stewart (talk) 23:24, 1 February 2022 (UTC)[reply]

@Xoltered: please be mindful of WP:CANVASS. You should have pinged all participants from the China COVID-19 pandemic discussion . CutePeach (talk) 15:06, 21 January 2022 (UTC)[reply]

No, given the amount of pressure exerted by the chinese government to ensure the compliance with their POV.Captain Jack Sparrow (talk) 14:00, 31 January 2022 (UTC)[reply]

RFC: Can Chinese academic publications be considered independent on subjects censored by the Chinese government?

Editors above dispute the reliability of Chinese academic publications on subjects censored by the Chinese government. Does the community think Chinese academic publications are WP:INDEPENDENT on subjects censored by the Chinese government?

• Option 1: Yes
• Option 2: No

CutePeach (talk) 16:05, 19 January 2022 (UTC)[reply]

Survey: Can Chinese academic publications be considered independent on subjects censored by the Chinese government?

• No since Chinese scientists are restricted by the Chinese government on what they can publish and must "coordinate" with a special task force to make sure anything they publish suits their narrative. Some Chinese scientists have even promoted Chinese traditional medicines as a treatment for COVID-19, which suits their narrative. Those who dissent face harsh punitive measures. CutePeach (talk) 16:11, 19 January 2022 (UTC)[reply]
• No relative to "on subjects censored by the Chinese government." On other subjects these sources might be used. Jehochman ^Talk 16:26, 19 January 2022 (UTC)[reply]
• Loaded question. AndyTheGrump (talk) 16:28, 19 January 2022 (UTC)[reply]
• Indeed an incredibly loaded question, as it implies the publications are all censored despite discussion above. CutePeach is also forumshopping by posting this same thing on multiple pages, I believe in an attempt to find editors who have not fully looked into the discussion to read the loaded question and say no. Xoltered (talk) 16:33, 19 January 2022 (UTC)[reply]
• I can't give either a yes or no answer here. Either would be a problematic oversimplification. Many academics outside China lack the kind of integrity and willingness to put questions of career aside needed to be truly regarded as independent and many scientists in China clearly have remarkable integrity. "Independent" is too tricky a concept for this RfC question to be useful. — Charles Stewart (talk) 16:43, 19 January 2022 (UTC)[reply]

• Postscript: It is both the case that high quality research on Covid-19 has been done in China that does not raise alarm bells and there is evidence of pressure from the government that does. I think there is a need for increased caution, but sources need to be assessed on a case-by-case basis. I don't regard this RfC as helpful because I think it discourages looking at sources on this case-by-case basis. — Charles Stewart (talk) 00:23, 20 January 2022 (UTC)[reply]

@Chalst: I agree with you on a meta level, but this RfC was born out of a discussion where editors decided to delete a section in Chinese government response to COVID-19 about the accuracy of China's COVID statistics, citing studies from Chinese scientists and even reports from Chinese government websites. That discussion and the The “2021 academic study are what precipitated this RfC. The only caveat that can be added is whether Chinese scientific publications can be used as WP:BALANCE reports like this one from the SCMP on the first confirmed case being traced back to Nov 17, or the reports of excess deaths in the early outbreak [22] [23] [24]. LondonIP (talk) 02:49, 20 January 2022 (UTC)[reply]

• What exactly is a Chinese academic publication? Written by a Chinese person? Written by a Chinese person outside of China? Written by somebody in China? Published by a Chinese publication? This RFC question is so incredibly broad that it is meaningless. nableezy - 16:47, 19 January 2022 (UTC)[reply]
  • Exactly. Withdraw RfC as embarrassing. Alexbrn (talk) 16:49, 19 January 2022 (UTC)[reply]
• I would encourage those who view this RfC to come see where this discussion originated, COVID-19_pandemic_in_mainland_China though it has spread to 5 other places now with some editors (including the one who made this RfC) seemingly forum shopping to find somewhere which will support their view. Xoltered (talk) 16:53, 19 January 2022 (UTC)[reply]
  • Isn't CutePeach in violation of their TBAN by launching this? Alexbrn (talk) 16:55, 19 January 2022 (UTC)[reply]

    I'd support this assessment. The loaded question seems like just a way to interact with the topic of "Origins of COVID-19, broadly construed". A. C. Santacruz ⁂ Please ping me! 17:04, 19 January 2022 (UTC)[reply]

    I disagree. The intention of the TBAN was to allow continued editing in the broader COVID-19 topic area. The locus of this dispute is not related to the zoonosis v. lab leak discussions that led to the TBAN. Firefangledfeathers 17:34, 19 January 2022 (UTC)[reply]

    I'm generally against crucifying users for incidental violations of TBANs. If a potential TBAN violation has resulted in disruption in a related area, then that defeats the purpose of a narrowly defined sanction. Whether or not disruption has occurred is not clear to me. AlexEng^(TALK) 16:45, 21 January 2022 (UTC)[reply]

Alexbrn Do they have TBAN regarding this? If so that is very concerning as they have been making extensive edits on numerous pages regarding this topic for quite some time now. Xoltered (talk) 17:03, 19 January 2022 (UTC)[reply]

Yes, they have an indefinite topic ban from the Origins of COVID-19, broadly construed.. [25] Jehochman ^Talk 17:05, 19 January 2022 (UTC)[reply]

Xoltered they have a TBAN with Origins of COVID-19, see editor's talk page notice. A. C. Santacruz ⁂ Please ping me! 17:06, 19 January 2022 (UTC)[reply]

Yeah... their !vote is a clear violation EvergreenFir (talk) 17:08, 19 January 2022 (UTC)[reply]

I see, it seems they are not heading the warning provided with their notice. Xoltered (talk) 17:09, 19 January 2022 (UTC)[reply]

Okay, so the t-ban is on the origins of COVID-19. This is not a violation of that. EvergreenFir (talk) 17:23, 19 January 2022 (UTC)[reply]

WP:BROADLY construed being the key. At least one admin determined this got close enough and placed a temporary ban. With the source of the sanctions revolving around a lab-leak (and subsequent cover-up by China), it's not a stretch to say "Chinese censorship of COVID" is the kind of 'edge nibbling' broadly construed topics are meant to cover. Or at least, close enough to seek clarification prior to editing on the topic, as WP:BROADLY recommends. Bakkster Man (talk) 17:45, 19 January 2022 (UTC)[reply]

@EvergreenFir: I suppose I would ask you: "Does this RfC also affect the TBAN'd area?" I think its up to interpretation, and the "broadly construed" is very clearly debatable. If this RfC passes, then many many publications on covid-19 origins pages would be affected. Does that not implicate CutePeach in violation of their TBAN? — Shibbolethink ^{(♔ ♕)} 21:33, 19 January 2022 (UTC)[reply]

@Shibboleth: Fair question. In my view, the outcome of the RfC possibly affecting origin-related sources is not a t-ban violation here because all of CutePeach's recent edits suggest the impetus for the RfC is about COVID-19 treatments. Further, I don't think a hypothetical removal of Chinese scientist authored publications on the origins of SARS CoV2 would substantially change the descriptions about its origin (assuming that the "lab leak" theory is what CutePeach was promoting/being tendentious about). EvergreenFir (talk) 21:38, 19 January 2022 (UTC)[reply]

It would preclude the future use of any publications about the origin which are based on mainland Chinese scientists who find closely related coronaviruses in the wild, further drawing a taxonomy in support of a natural origin. Because these publications would be "tainted." I agree that the impetus probably comes from a combination of COVID treatments and national death statistics in this case. But I wouldn't call the implication on origins papers to be a "happy accident." I don't know if CP has considered the implications, but the implications clearly are not good. In the end, though, I trust your judgment, EvergreenFir. — Shibbolethink ^{(♔ ♕)} 21:58, 19 January 2022 (UTC)[reply]

@EvergreenFir: Many of the highest-impact papers on SARS-CoV-2 have been authored by Chinese scientists. Here are two, just off the top of my head:

• Shi et al., Nature, 2020, "A pneumonia outbreak associated with a new coronavirus of probable bat origin". This paper has nearly 16,000 citations. It's the paper that first described RaTG13, which was, until recently, the closest known relative of SARS-CoV-2.
• Huang et al., The Lancet, 2020, "Clinical features of patients infected with 2019 novel coronavirus in Wuhan, China". This paper has nearly 39,000 citations.

Ruling out these seminal papers, because of the nationalities of the authors, would definitely impact Wikipedia. These papers have been judged important enough by the scientific community that they've been cited tens of thousands of times. We Wikipedia editors really have no business overruling that judgment, especially on broad arguments about certain nationalities of scientists being compromised. -Thucydides411 (talk) 22:12, 19 January 2022 (UTC)[reply]

What an elaborate straw man. No one has a problem citing Shi et al. or Huang et al for non contentious claims. The problem is citing low quality primary sources to counter reports from high quality RS like the BBC, Foreign Policy and Bloomberg. LondonIP (talk) 03:04, 20 January 2022 (UTC)[reply]

@LondonIP: Correct me if I'm wrong, but the original dispute (and wording of the RfC) appears to be broader than just low-quality sources and contentious claims. The RfC refers to "Chinese academic publications", but the dispute seems to revolve around mainland Chinese authors publishing in English-language international journals like BMJ. And that's the line where I think we disagree. In principle yes, Chinese sources subject to a gag order or government interference should not be considered independent. My disagreement is over whether this makes peer-reviewed research in major non-Chinese journals (not subject to Chinese oversight) unreliable, or if it's attempting to use wiki to WP:RGW. Bakkster Man (talk) 16:00, 20 January 2022 (UTC)[reply]

@Bakkster Man: I don't know why LondonIP didn't answer, so I will. Please don't make this about Chinese authors publishing in English-language international journals like BMJ, because as others here have said, those journals are not under the jurisdiction of the Chinese government, while Chinese nationals - including those abroad - very much are. The Chinese government response to COVID-19, COVID-19 pandemic in mainland China, and zero COVID are full of primary sources supporting a Chinese nationalist POV, like "China contained the crisis reasonably swiftly", which is just absurd. The BMJ, Nature and Lancet articles do not even claim what Thucydides411 says they do, so this discussion would be just as home on WP:OR/N. There are multiple problems here, with WP:INDEPENDENT being the main one, followed by WP:PRIMARY and WP:OR. Perhaps an ArbCom case would be a better solution. CutePeach (talk) 14:20, 10 February 2022 (UTC)[reply]

@LondonIP and Bakkster Man: The Foreign Policy article does not draw any conclusions, and actually begins by acknowledging that the official death toll from China could be correct: Those numbers could be roughly accurate. The Foreign Policy article merely says that it has obtained a database that might, with further analysis, shed light on the question. As far as I can tell, in the 21 months since Foreign Policy published this initial article saying they had obtained the database, they have never published any follow-up. You're free to draw what conclusions you'd like from that, but my suspicion is that Foreign Policy never found anything particularly newsworthy in the database.

I'll add that Foreign Policy is not even a reliable source for this sort of information. It's a lay publication, written by people without any training in the relevant fields: epidemiology and public health. We have far stronger sources to go on, like peer-reviewed scientific papers in The BMJ, The Lancet and Nature. -Thucydides411 (talk) 21:21, 1 February 2022 (UTC)[reply]

@Thucydides411: no one cited it anything other than questioning the accuracy of China's statistics, and it can and should be used for just that. LondonIP (talk) 00:49, 13 February 2022 (UTC)[reply]

• Let's be absolutely clear about what CutePeach is proposing here. CutePeach is proposing that before we cite papers from leading scientific journals with peer-review and rigorous scientific editing, such as Nature, The Lancet or The BMJ, we should look at the nationalities of the authors, and if they appear to be Chinese, that we should reject them. CutePeach wants us to overrule the scientific editors (normally senior scientists in a related field) and peer reviewers (normally leading international experts in the given scientific subfield that the paper deals with), because we supposedly know better than them. It's worthwhile looking at what motivated this proposal from CutePeach. A number of editors have expressed their personal belief that China must be hiding its true death toll. When confronted with the fact that their personal belief is contradicted by a mass of scientific research into excess mortality and serology in China (and among people evacuated from China), they've gone over to arguing that we should ignore virtually all the scientific literature on the subject. Instead, they'd rather we relied on news articles published nearly two years ago that discussed conspiracy theories about massively larger death tolls (e.g., the infamous "urns" conspiracy theory from March 2020). It's getting tiring trying to explain the scientific literature on every single talk page on which the same group of editors bring this subject up, so please take a look at this for more details. -Thucydides411 (talk) 17:22, 19 January 2022 (UTC)[reply]

If what is meant by "Chinese academic publications" includes Nature, The Lancet or The BMJ because the author is Chinese, then gtfo yes. nableezy - 17:27, 19 January 2022 (UTC)[reply]

I read the proposal to mean Chinese publications, as in publications that are controlled by the Chinese government because they are located in China and subject to Chinese censorship. I agree that nationality of an author publishing in The Lancet is totally irrelevant. Jehochman ^Talk 17:30, 19 January 2022 (UTC)[reply]

This is what i meant when i said above "CutePeach is also forumshopping by posting this same thing on multiple pages, I believe in an attempt to find editors who have not fully looked into the discussion to read the loaded question and say no." Xoltered (talk) 17:39, 19 January 2022 (UTC)[reply]

• No They inherently can't be. And it's a major problem. Thucydides411 above is trying to just claim that they would all be reliable no matter what because they're peer reviewed papers. But that is an inherently self-defeating claim, as all of the journals (and many others besides) have published studies with falsified data before. And sometimes it took years to find out about the falsification. What makes it more difficult in this case is that the already verifiable crackdown by the Chinese government on what sort of information gets released about Covid, including what sort of scientific data is published, means they could quite easily control the very basis of what data is collected. They could ensure any actual case numbers are not recorded properly, that any deaths are not included in the data, ect. And that sort of data collection would not be something peer reviewers in the journals would be able to determine is incorrect. Because the falsification is happening on the very collection of data level. Silverseren^C 17:28, 19 January 2022 (UTC)[reply]

Claiming that peer-reviewed scientific sources are unreliable just because they might later be falsified is ridiculous, Wikipedia is not a crystal ball and what you are saying could be applied to all peer-reviewed studies as the studies in question are no different than any other peer reviewed studies and are published in reliable sources. Xoltered (talk) 17:35, 19 January 2022 (UTC)[reply]

• If we have a reliable source that the results of major studies were censored, let's cite them. If reliable peer-reviewed sources publish studies, it's up to them to retract them if they're faulty, not up to us to WP:RGW. Bakkster Man (talk) 17:45, 19 January 2022 (UTC)[reply]

Here are two such sources [26] [27]. The problem is we don't know which sources are being censored, and the AP report says it goes beyond censorship. Publications must be "orchestrated" like a "game of chase". ScrumptiousFood (talk) 17:57, 19 January 2022 (UTC)[reply]

I'm referring to reliable sources disputing peer-reviewed studies in generally reliable journals. My interpretation of WP:RGW and WP:V places the benefit of the doubt on a journal like Nature or Science not accepting studies if their results were subject to faulty collection methods, and we should be incredibly cautious in second-guessing their publishing. So caveat these studies with other WP:RS pointing to potential flaws, rather than marking these Science/Nature studies themselves as unreliable. Seems worryingly close to WP:OR. Bakkster Man (talk) 18:15, 19 January 2022 (UTC)[reply]

Check my list of RS questioning the accuracy of China's statistics. There isn't anything in Nature of Magazine articles that invalidate these RS, so that's just a giant red herring that has been used a lot in those discussions. We should take care of the WP:INDEPENDENT problem first. ScrumptiousFood (talk) 18:29, 19 January 2022 (UTC)[reply]

As stated probably over 100 times now, popular media speculation does not overide reliable peer-reviewed scientific studies published by reliable sources, and representing the scientific consensus. Simply mentioning that some popular media have questioned it is not the (original) thing in dispute. Xoltered (talk) 18:33, 19 January 2022 (UTC)[reply]

• Loaded question, and too broad. This RFC is the culmination of the dispute "Is China fudging their COVID-19 statistics?" Recommend closing this RFC and crafting a more specific question that is directly applicable to that dispute. –Novem Linguae (talk) 17:53, 19 January 2022 (UTC)[reply]

How would you frame the question? Haven't editors on your side cited Chinese academic sources to put down a question that Chinese censors don't like? ScrumptiousFood (talk) 18:01, 19 January 2022 (UTC)[reply]

At a minimum, a new RFC question should be more specific. "Are Chinese academic papers on the topic of COVID-19 statistics in China reliable?" But even that has issues. How do we define a Chinese academic paper? Is a paper published by The Lancet a Chinese academic paper? Seeing as the Lancet isn't Chinese, I think there's a strong argument that a paper published in the Lancet isn't Chinese. Or if we don't go by the nationality of the journal, what do we go by? Our original research on the nationality of the paper's authors? Honestly I think the difficulty crafting a good question here shows the weakness of the argument. But assuming good faith, some workshopping of the question beforehand could likely lead to a better RFC question. –Novem Linguae (talk) 18:20, 19 January 2022 (UTC)[reply]

@Novem Linguae: if narrowing the question down to COVID-19 still isn't narrow enough, then the !votes calling this question to broad may just look like a certain other WP:STONEWALLING operation in this topic area, which was ultimately unsuccessful. If this discussion isn't closed with a clear consensus on what to do with the Accuracy of COVID statistics section that was deleted by FormalDude [28], who also called for this RSN discussion [29] (which he has yet to participate in), then an ARBCOM case would be in order. I think it'll be an open and shut case, with what RS like The Times say [30], and with what the academic sources don't say. LondonIP (talk) 02:37, 13 February 2022 (UTC)[reply]

Hi @ScrumptiousFood you appear to be new around here. Editors don't have "sides" and to say that they do is truly edging towards "us" and "them" territory in a very unhealthy way. We are all guilty of this, but I would urge you to avoid such arguments in the future. — Shibbolethink ^{(♔ ♕)} 21:36, 19 January 2022 (UTC)[reply]

• No. I watched the discussions on Talk:Chinese government response to COVID-19 and COVID-19 pandemic in mainland China where two completely different sets of editors suggested including significant views from reliable sources questioning the accuracy of China's statistics. In both discussions, the same group of editors are claiming that Chinese academic papers "prove" that the Chinese government is right, and ignore/deflect when asked about President Xi's gag order on Chinese scientists publishing COVID-19 data and research. When I posted a list of RS that question the accuracy of China's statistics, they counter with citations to Chinese scientific publications. Earlier in the discussion they even cited a Chinese government website to disprove something the BBC says! ScrumptiousFood (talk) 18:05, 19 January 2022 (UTC)[reply]

The gag order does not make peer-reviewed studies published in reliable sources such as Nature, The Lancet or The BMJ unreliable, also your claim that the discussions had "two completely different sets of editors" is not true at all, many editors on both sides of the discussion participated in both articles, though those who oppose the overwhelming scientific consensus and instead support popular media speculation have repeatedly brought the discussion to page after page, perhaps in search of editors who will agree with them. Xoltered (talk) 18:24, 19 January 2022 (UTC)[reply]

• Its a loaded question but as stated the answer is clearly "No" the problem comes with ascertaining what is and what isn't a subject censored by the Chinese government as there is some level of censorship in *every* subject in China even if some are censored to the point of the entire subject being censored (for example history and international relations). Horse Eye's Back (talk) 18:11, 19 January 2022 (UTC)[reply]

The stated answer is not "clearly no" as nearly all editors who responded but did not give an answer disagree with the implications of a simple "no" answer Xoltered (talk) 18:17, 19 January 2022 (UTC)[reply]

• Too vague to be answerable in an RfC. I suggest a speedy close and starting a new RfC with a clear question. What is meant by a "Chinese academic publication"? An academic publication published in China? An academic publication published outside of China where some of the contributors are in China? Where some contributors are Chinese citizens? Chinese government officials? Overseas Chinese? The RfC is impossible to answer in its current form. —Mx. Granger (talk · contribs) 18:24, 19 January 2022 (UTC)[reply]
• I also suggest a speedy close for the reasons above, I also suggest those who agree make their agreement explicitly known, as Granger and I have, to avoid some users mistakenly thinking the consensus is no. Xoltered (talk) 18:34, 19 January 2022 (UTC)[reply]

Xoltered please stop WP:BLUDGEONING. I see no good reason to close this RFC with any consensus. Most RFCs run for at least a month. ScrumptiousFood (talk) 18:37, 19 January 2022 (UTC)[reply]

The reasons are stated above by many editors, including quite clearly by Mx Granger. Xoltered (talk) 18:39, 19 January 2022 (UTC)[reply]

Loaded question and Poorly formed RfC. - Recommend speedy close. We have plenty of examples of mainland chinese citizens courageously speaking out in ways that the Chinese Government would find counter-productive. Li Wenliang [31], Shi Zhengli [32], Zhang Yongzhen [33]. and others. If this RfC were decided as "no," then publications by these individuals would be considered unreliable. Many mainland chinese scientists, if not most, do their jobs for the sake of scientific progress and bold inquiry. Scientists are, by and large, loyal to the scientific process above and beyond the influence of any government actors. This is part of why Mao's cultural revolution targeted scientists, engineers, journalists, etc. Because their loyalty to their craft superseded that of the party. Why would we buy into any narrative that paints Chinese scientists with such a broad brush? — Shibbolethink ^{(♔ ♕)} 21:29, 19 January 2022 (UTC)[reply]

None of the people you've listed seem relevant to the issue at hand? I had thought they were going to be examples of Chinese scientists speaking out against the censorship of their government against publishing negative news regarding Covid, but none of them are that. So they don't seem relevant to the current issue as noted by the Associated Press that the Chinese government is directly controlling what data and studies can be published and what information is allowed to be included in them when published. It is the reliability of this data that is of concern here, since if the data is manipulated from the very point of collection of it, then there's no way peer reviews even in international journals can tell that the data isn't accurate. The verified control over that data that the AP has notified on is the problem here. Because it brings into question whether the scientific data on Covid, particularly on Covid numbers and deaths, coming out of China is actually the true data. The government there could even do it in a blinded way and prevent even the Chinese scientists from accessing the accurate data and so they are only publishing on what they have been allowed to access, which is a biased data set. The scientists themselves could think they're doing proper science and be unaware of the selective data the government is letting them access. Since, again, we have verifiable reports that the Chinese government is controlling what data is allowed to go out. Silverseren^C 21:38, 19 January 2022 (UTC)[reply]

(edit conflict) I had thought they were going to be examples of Chinese scientists speaking out against the censorship of their government against publishing negative news regarding Covid, but none of them are that. They are scientists who spoke out about COVID in ways the government didn't like. Li Wenliang spoke out about COVID-19 and death tolls in Wuhan and human-to-human transmission when the government was very quiet about the issue. Shi Zhengli spoke out about the coronavirus' origins in Hubei province when the government wanted no one to talk about it at all, and instead support the idea that it originated in the US. Zhang Yngzhen's lab published the genome of the virus when the government wanted everyone to coordinate and publish together in support of a specific government-favored narrative. They did so in a way that benefited the world and put the needs of the many (7 billion) over the few (Chinese government's image). How is that not relevant? — Shibbolethink ^{(♔ ♕)} 21:41, 19 January 2022 (UTC)[reply]

Why do you think the only way to obtain death data in China is to go through the government? Do you understand how deaths are counted in America? It very often isn't done through the government. (E.g. see the public health whistleblower in Florida who was harassed by state officials when her counts didn't match up [34] [35]) There are many ways to estimate covid deaths with varying involvement from government data resources (from complete to very little), and not all of them are equally accurate either: (such as excess death estimates [36], machine learning using GIS data [37], [38]). It's bizarre to hoist these criticisms on China while not looking inward. I would actually call it xenophobic. — Shibbolethink ^{(♔ ♕)} 21:44, 19 January 2022 (UTC)[reply]

But, again, we know that they're actively clamping down on the information right now, as reported:

The government is handing out hundreds of thousands of dollars in grants to scientists researching the virus’ origins in southern China and affiliated with the military, the AP has found. But it is monitoring their findings and mandating that the publication of any data or research must be approved by a new task force managed by China’s cabinet, under direct orders from President Xi Jinping

The Chinese government, because of their societal structure, is much more capable of actively silencing dissent and controlling information reaching outside or even having it be obtainable by scientists there. It isn't comparable to Florida whatsoever. And, also, the situation in Florida did make us here on Wikipedia have to re-evaluate how we included information on Covid in the US and regarding Florida because of that. Shouldn't we similarly change how we cover information on China when we have verifiable information that the data is being suppressed and controlled for review by the Chinese government? Silverseren^C 22:00, 19 January 2022 (UTC)[reply]

Not if the conclusion is "we shouldn't trust any publications which come out of China." If the conclusion is "we should be careful and only use publications which are peer reviewed and edited by international scientists who are experts in these fields" then yes, I would support that. Otherwise our answer is not only xenophobic, it is short sighted and frankly wrong-headed. It will not help us more accurately cover anything, or be closer in line to the scientific consensus. It will drive us further from it. — Shibbolethink ^{(♔ ♕)} 22:02, 19 January 2022 (UTC)[reply]

Shouldn't we similarly change how we cover information on China when we have verifiable information that the data is being suppressed and controlled for review by the Chinese government? We should document the controversy, that these accusations exist in RSes. But we should not ignore things that Chinese scientists publish simply because of this suspicion. To do so would be ignorant, xenophobic, and wrong. It ignores the very fundamental reasons why we value academic research publications: their peer review and editorial processes. — Shibbolethink ^{(♔ ♕)} 22:06, 19 January 2022 (UTC)[reply]

How is peer review by others going to properly deal with the situation? If the data being allowed for release by the cabinet task force is purposefully biased, peer reviewers aren't going to be able to detect that. Since the issue isn't internal to the studies, but due to the data being collected from the beginning. I already noted a similar issue earlier in the thread above where it took years to identify that hundreds of papers being published by hundreds of top level physicians in China in every major hospital in the country were using falsified data. It was only identified as a problem in 2020 and some of the studies dated back to 2016. Worse still, the majority of them haven't even been retracted from the top level journals in question or even given a notice of concern on them. If that sort of thing can get by these peer reviewed international journals and take years to discover and that was just the medical researchers themselves working together to falsify the data, what sort of level of misuse can be done when the Chinese government is involved in controlling the data released? Silverseren^C 22:10, 19 January 2022 (UTC)[reply]

So what you're saying is, it only took 4 years to figure out the problem? Wow, that's pretty fast. I'm glad science is such a self-correcting process with international input from a wide variety of contributors, peer reviewers, post-reviewers, and editors. Wikipedia as a project is never "done" so I'm not sure why that is an issue of enough importance to greenlight systematic bias against any laboratory that happens to be located in China. — Shibbolethink ^{(♔ ♕)} 22:17, 19 January 2022 (UTC)[reply]

Also, your examples are from early 2020, whereas we're discussing government control of data that is being reported on right now, in addition to a government crackdown on news organizations and what they're allowed to report on, which is also happening right now and in the past 6 months especially. Silverseren^C 21:39, 19 January 2022 (UTC)[reply]

I'm unclear why you think the timing matters. Scientists who felt that way about the government in 2020 are very likely to still feel that way today. — Shibbolethink ^{(♔ ♕)} 21:43, 19 January 2022 (UTC)[reply]

The situation is very different now than it was in early 2020. The Chinese government has spent that time period ensuring greater control over what information gets distributed and who has access to it. Silverseren^C 22:00, 19 January 2022 (UTC)[reply]

This is the kind of argument which fuels conspiracy theories. It is non-falsifiable. Not saying it is a conspiracy theory, only that it is the sort of circular logic which can lead us in that direction. — Shibbolethink ^{(♔ ♕)} 22:04, 19 January 2022 (UTC)[reply]

There's no conspiracy theory here. Just direct reporting from the Associated Press on the cabinet task force being set up to control what data and studies are allowed to be published. Unless you think the AP journalists are lying and making it up? Silverseren^C 22:10, 19 January 2022 (UTC)[reply]

No, I think they're acting in good faith, just like I think most Chinese scientists are acting in good faith. I'm trying to be very cautious before we institute a consensus which perpetuates a systematic bias, and actually institutionalizes and codifies it. — Shibbolethink ^{(♔ ♕)} 22:19, 19 January 2022 (UTC)[reply]

• Bad question with worse implications. Context, the specific source, and the specific material being supported all still matter. VQuakr (talk) 23:13, 19 January 2022 (UTC)[reply]
• Yes: Per responses from Chalstnableezy, Jumpytoo, VQuakr, and shibbolethink. How is even thinkable to ban sources from a country? Of course we still have to take into account the context, background etc. of a source, but that's not new. If the consensus on this question was to be yes, than what would happen? Would every single source originating from the PRoC have to have proof it's not censored? There is an extreme amount of anti-China bias in the US and west in general, and generally reliable sources publish articles on how China is generally censoring free speech. One result on this would be extreme PoV pushing in articles against the Chinese government as a lot of sources with info that might make the PRoC seem good would simply be unable to be used. bop34 • talk • contribs 18:53, 20 January 2022 (UTC)[reply]
• No: China is noted for exercising top level censorship. Any publication that is related to them or went through their inspection should not be considered reliable or independent. --1990'sguy (talk) 20:07, 20 January 2022 (UTC)[reply]

• No. Reasons have been provided by editors above-Note that this refers to Chinese publications, not authors. That would be xenophobic.Captain Jack Sparrow (talk) 14:00, 31 January 2022 (UTC)[reply]

Arbitrary break

• If the authors are under the physical control of the People's Republic of China, no. First of all, we need to be clear about what is and is not a problem. No problem with Taiwanese authors, for example, or ethnically Chinese authors who live in the USA. The issue comes with authors who are under the physical control of the PRC. At that point, we can't rely on them. It sucks, but it is what it is. Peng Shuai now says she was not sexually assaulted. Right. Adoring nanny (talk) 00:02, 20 January 2022 (UTC)[reply]
  • If Nature (journal) says X article by Y Chinese scientist meets our standard for publication then it meets our standard for use as a reliable source. Israel has a military censor. Does that mean that any Israeli newspaper or scholar writing in a non-Israeli journal, as being subject to that censorship, is unreliable? Of course not. And that isnt even addressing the issue of ruling out highly regarded publishers on the basis of the location and/or ethnicity of the author. nableezy - 00:09, 20 January 2022 (UTC)[reply]

  @Nableezy: you're assuming that we're talking about a Nature (journal) article that actually says X. I've asked Thucydides411 to quote the exact text from the Nature, BMJ and Lancet articles that they claim counter reports from the BBC, SCMP and Caixin about how China tallies COVID infections and fatalities [39] [40], but so far they haven't been able (or willing) to do that. Since you're taking a stand here, perhaps you can read the discussion and the Nature article in question. LondonIP (talk) 01:32, 20 January 2022 (UTC)[reply]

  No, Im not, Im basing my view of this off of the RFC question that is so insanely broad as to be meaningless, and the claims above and below. AN is arguing that even sources that cite Chinese sources should not be usable. You finding fault with my argument is because the RFC question is faulty. nableezy - 01:44, 20 January 2022 (UTC)[reply]

  You are taking a stand and you are holding up a source which doesn't even exist. The question of this RfC came up when editors brought up sources from Chinese scientists that even WP:FT/N put down as WP:PRIMARY and not WP:MEDRS [41]. Please read the sources that are being discussed here. LondonIP (talk) 01:59, 20 January 2022 (UTC)[reply]

  No, I am answering the RFC question as asked. But as far as your request, The BMJ. When presented with this and other sources, the response was You need to find independent western sources which lacks a WP:COI in the study and debunks these sources. If there is some specific source youd like to discuss then you should bring that. The problem with this RFC, and many RFCs at RSN tbh, is that it makes such a gross generalization that you have to consider the consequences of that question. If you see my initial answer I said I have no idea what a Chinese academic publication means. Down below you have a user complaining that when we cited Western sources that relied on Chinese data that we were VeryWrong™. You may be arguing something else entirely, but the question as posed is wide that it invites such answers. Make a better RFC question and you may get a different answer. nableezy - 02:14, 20 January 2022 (UTC)[reply]

@Nableezy: my question focuses very narrowly on 1) Chinese academic publications and whether they can be considered 2) independent sources on 3) censored subjects. Granted 1 and 2 can be narrowed down further, but taking these three criteria, my question is not insanely broad. I modeled this question on the one directly below #Are student newspapers considered independent RS when assessing notability of fellow students at the same university?. I don't see anyone there refusing to answer that question and attempting to speedy close it with spurious reasons. CutePeach (talk) 15:21, 21 January 2022 (UTC)[reply]

What exactly is a "Chinese academic publication". Everybody understands what a student newspaper is, it is a newspaper staffed by students at a university or college that largely focuses on campus matters. There is not any ambiguity there. What exactly do you mean by a "Chinese academic publication"? nableezy - 16:17, 21 January 2022 (UTC)[reply]

@Nableezy:, a "Chinese academic publication" in the context of my RFC question is any paper published by any Chinese academic on any subject censored by the Chinese government, and my question is narrowed down further asking if they should be considered WP:INDEPENDANT. Taken alone, "Chinese academic publications" may seem broad, but as Silver seren explains above, international journals are not able to check if a submission has been censored in some way, and as I told to AlexEng above, these journals have collaborated with the Chinese government's 中共中央宣传部 office to censor politically sensitive subjects. Taking all three criteria of my question, this RFC would affect only a handful of papers and how they are used, such as the BMJ article - discussed below - which was used to counterbalance reports from the Financial Times and other HQRS, and even WP:POVDELETE them [42] [43] [44]. Please don’t break the criteria of my RFC question to make it broader than it actually is, or that it would affect any more than a handful of papers, which are being used in the wrong way. CutePeach (talk) 14:47, 22 January 2022 (UTC)[reply]

"... any paper published by any Chinese academic ..." ← right, well we can close this now because papers published by an academic are self-published and not reliable. I thought you were talking about papers published by publishers (academic presses and the like) which were authored by chinese academics. Alexbrn (talk) 14:56, 22 January 2022 (UTC)[reply]

No I am obviously not referring to self published papers, as those were not even proposed. Hopefully the closer of this RFC will read the WP:RFCBEFORE discussions and understand which papers are being referred to. They are the papers published in BMJ, Nature and the Lancet, are all primary, and not usable for refuting high-quality secondary sources. CutePeach (talk) 15:30, 22 January 2022 (UTC)[reply]

It's not obvious at all, because you haven't said what you mean and when you try, you write nonsense. Alexbrn (talk) 15:50, 22 January 2022 (UTC)[reply]

You are the only editor to ask about self published sources, even though they have never been proposed, and you just got your answer. Please strike your uncivil comment. ScrumptiousFood (talk) 18:22, 22 January 2022 (UTC)[reply]

Wrong. The OP referred to "any paper published by any Chinese academic". It seems now they didn't actually mean that, but this is part of the problem: incompetence and imprecision. This is why this RfC is such a fucking mess. Alexbrn (talk) 18:34, 22 January 2022 (UTC)[reply]

I will say, "published by any Chinese academics" is ambiguous, and I too interpreted it as referring to WP:SPS. The process of editorial oversight and peer-review is very key to this question, and it's important to note that the OP is referring to articles which are not SPS, but in fact have been peer-reviewed and editorially reviewed before publication by an independent international journal. These papers are authored by Chinese academics. — Shibbolethink ^{(♔ ♕)} 18:56, 22 January 2022 (UTC)[reply]

I think what the OP might mean is "Any paper where any of the authors has a Chinese-sounding name". Alexbrn (talk) 05:29, 23 January 2022 (UTC)[reply]

Does your definition of "Chinese academics" include Chinese citizens who are working as academics abroad? Does it include non-Chinese citizen authors who are working in China? Does it include journals which are run by non-Chinese citizens? Does it include non-Chinese citizen authors who live abroad, are ethnically Chinese, and have immediate family in China? These are just a few of the many many questions that are raised by your broadly phrased RfC. At this point, so many editors have responded to the vague wording, and different interpretations have sprung up, that there is probably very little we can do to narrow the scope. — Shibbolethink ^{(♔ ♕)} 19:13, 22 January 2022 (UTC)[reply]

@Shibbolethink: the "Chinese academic publications" part of my question is broadly phrased, and it can be applied to any subject to the Chinese government censorship, which obviously includes Haiwai Huaren - and justly so. Overall, it is not as broadly phrased as some would make it out to be - including yourself - as it is one of three criteria and the outcome of this discussion would only restrict the use of primary sources to refute and delete claims found in high-quality secondary sources. This has very little to do with COVID-19 origins as you said above, and I doubt any research from Chinese academics on that subject as the CCP would prefer for this ambiguity to remain. There is no ambiguity with the CCP's failure to contain the virus at its source and prevent it from becoming a pandemic. CutePeach (talk) 13:39, 10 February 2022 (UTC)[reply]

• Poor question The standard for determining whether a source is reliable is its acceptance in reliable sources. If other academic publications use its facts and findings,then it's reliable. What do we do if the information works its way into a textbook? Are we going to reject new discoveries on the far side of the moon because the Chinese found them? TFD (talk) 00:13, 20 January 2022 (UTC)[reply]
• No, as Academic freedom in China is severely limited, and even more restricted for COVID-19 research. I would have preferred an RfC in WP:OR/N as the BMJ, Nature and Lancet articles that are being tirelessly flashed around do not counter the claims of the BBC, SCMP, Caixin and the many other high-quality sources questioning the accuracy of China's COVID statistics. To address the question of this RfC, Chinese scientists cannot be considered independent, and I do not agree with Adoring nanny's point directly above, as Chinese scientists with family in the mainland may even be under duress when abroad, or they may choosing to self censor (as is common in China). Case in point: Shan-Lu Liu. LondonIP (talk) 02:26, 20 January 2022 (UTC)[reply]
• Bad RfC, suggest speedy close with no action This is getting into very dangerous territory here, where we are starting to discount sources just because of the authors nationality, regardless of all other circumstances. Florida has been accused of censoring COVID data (source), so does that mean all Floridan COVID academic studies are unreliable? No, that's ridiculous. If one wants to counter the sources by Chinese scientists, then they should provide other high quality academic sources with an opposing viewpoint. Not go make an RfC to try to get what you don't like blocked from Wikipedia. Jumpytoo Talk 02:35, 20 January 2022 (UTC)[reply]

  No one suggested sources should be discounted for the nationality of the authors. To do so would be xenophobia and I would strongly condemn such a motion. The problem here is that some scientists are subject to a special gag order on a specific subject (COVID-19) in their country (China). LondonIP (talk) 02:52, 20 January 2022 (UTC)[reply]

  Without a clear definition of "Chinese academic publications", I have to go with the broadest possible meaning, because people will definitely use a "No" consensus to discount anything associated to a Chinese scientist, even if they are not in China (for example, to quote yourself: I do not agree with Adoring nanny's point directly above, as Chinese scientists with family in the mainland may even be under duress when abroad, or they may choosing to self censor). This alone makes a bad RfC. Jumpytoo Talk 03:42, 20 January 2022 (UTC)[reply]

  If we follow the logic in the quote you've given from LondonIP, we'll have to discount any work by anyone who even has family in China. That would rule out a very large fraction of ethnically Chinese scientists around the world. This is just such a toxic proposal, and I'm a bit ashamed that we're even discussing it. -Thucydides411 (talk) 21:55, 20 January 2022 (UTC)[reply]

  we'll have to discount any work by anyone who even has family in China. Don't you get tired of this straw man argument? I didn't propose discounting sources wholesale. I don't consider these sources to be independent, and I think we need to exercise caution with them, and use attribution. Please don't put words in my mouth. LondonIP (talk) 00:06, 21 January 2022 (UTC)[reply]

  You just said that everyone with family in China is suspect: Chinese scientists with family in the mainland may even be under duress when abroad, or they may choosing to self censor How am I supposed to interpret that? You can't write things like that and then claim that No one suggested sources should be discounted for the nationality of the authors. You're going beyond arguing for discounting sources based on the nationalities of the authors. You're saying we should take the nationalities of their family members into account as well. -Thucydides411 (talk) 03:20, 21 January 2022 (UTC)[reply]

• No Least trustable sources as history has repeatedly proven. TolWol56 (talk) 15:30, 20 January 2022 (UTC)[reply]
• NO: Chinese academics are restricted from publishing data on COVID-19 and must "orchestrate" their publishing "like a game of Chess", according to government documents leaked to AP [45]. CNN and SCMP also reported leaked documents showing that the Chinese government concealed information about the disease and suppresses the freedom of Chinese academics. We should also not consider Chinese academics as independent source on Xi Jinping Thought. Dhuh! Francesco espo (talk) 20:45, 20 January 2022 (UTC)[reply]
• Bad (loaded and too broad) question with worse implications, poorly formed RfC, and suggest speedy close with no action per Bop34, Jumpytoo, Mx. Granger, Nableezy, Novem Linguae, TFD, Thucydides411, Shibbolethink, Xoltored, et al. — of course, censorship must be taken seriously and in account per Jehochman, though such sources may still be usable in context and with attribution, but this is not the way to do. As things stand, there are way better ways to improve things like attributing the studies, find better or equally reliable academic studies, and include the societal context, rather than dismissing the relevant and cited academic studies without no evidence yet they have been falsified (if they have been, I am sure it will come out but we should not right great wrongs until academia does it for us) because they are Chinese. Chalst and Xoltered have it right that both things can be true but it does not justify outright removal, rather than simply being more cautious or use attribution, and adding the societal context.

Davide King (talk) 20:54, 20 January 2022 (UTC)[reply]

• Not Wikipedia's role - The suggestion goes beyond normal source evaluation expectations. WP already avoids obviously unreliable sources and retracted articles and it is careful with the use of primary sources. It also cares about higher quality sources where relevant like WP:MEDRS. Not about the origin of the participants in normally high quality sources, on the assumption of a conspiracy. The current Indian government is known to promote AYUSH but that's not a valid reason to reject reliable sources with Indian participants. The US government also filters academic publishing to some point for national security concerns. —PaleoNeonate – 23:51, 20 January 2022 (UTC)[reply]
• No, at least for any publications related to politics, history and COVID-19. Speaking about publications in natural sciences though, this is not so simple. For example, First Departments in the former USSR did not allow certain works to be published, but they did not modify any content of specific scientific publications, simply because KGB censors did not understand any science, unlike politics, history and fiction. So, whatever passed through their filter and was published in natural sciences was generally an independent publication. But the censorship in China with regard to COVID-19 was too serious to ignore [46]. My very best wishes (talk) 00:13, 21 January 2022 (UTC)[reply]
• No Especially after this whole Covid episode it would be unwise to say otherwise. NavjotSR (talk) 11:38, 21 January 2022 (UTC)[reply]
• Far too broad "Chinese academic publications" is so open to interpretation as to render any close to this RfC worthless. Recommend speedy close and specification of question per above. BSMRD (talk) 05:36, 22 January 2022 (UTC)[reply]
• Running tally/summary: As of right now, we have 12 "no" and ~16 "too broad/speedy close" comments. This thread, like many in the lab leak/COVID-19 FRINGE space, has become bloated with multiple concurrent running threads and discussions which become small battle-grounds for various disagreements. The more this happens, the less and less likely a succinct/effective closure becomes. I would suggest to everyone that they take this thread as a lesson in how not to write an RfC that you actually want closed. Narrow questions get narrow responses get effective closures. — Shibbolethink ^{(♔ ♕)} 14:20, 22 January 2022 (UTC)[reply]

@Shibbolethink: please leave the job of closing to the closer, and remember WP:NOTDEMOCRACY and that closing is not just about tallying. Rushing to close this RFC on the claim that my question is too broad smacks of WP:STONEWALLING and even WP:POVRAILROADING. When taking all three criteria of my question together, it is not broad at all. There are only two editors who are not involved in this topic who say it is broad, and I have just answered them. By involved, I mean in Chinese politics, including Uyghur genocide, where the same tactics have been employed. CutePeach (talk) 15:06, 22 January 2022 (UTC)[reply]

I would take this accusation as an avoidance of the substantive questions and concerns that many many editors have expressed here. I count many more than 2 “uninvolved” editors who have expressed those same concerns, but as you’ve said, this is not a vote. And it is absolutely appropriate to summarize the current state of the discussion and to have a running tally. Many editors have invented add-ons and scripts to do just that. Would you suggest all those scripts should be deleted? The important part is that votes/tallies should not be the ‘’only’’ factor in a close. I have no intention of closing and have not suggested I would close, as I am certainly “involved.” You have not provided a “neutrally worded” summary that includes all the relevant facts of the situation, which is required when starting an RFC. Particularly with regards to which disputes are involved, how this dispute developed, etc. When asked to do so, you have not complied. It’s entirely appropriate, then, to dispute this RFC as malformed. As many “uninvolved” and “involved” editors have done. Many editors have suggested the negative implications of a broad RFC question which is not neutrally worded. You have yet to address these concerns. At this point, there’s no going back. Too many people have responded to your prompt. We’re now stuck waiting for this RFC to either somehow be closed (by some brave soul) or (more likely) to expire and be archived. My suggestion would be to withdraw the RFC and ask a truly neutral entirely uninvolved 3rd party to step in and write a more narrowly phrased RFC. Good luck… — Shibbolethink ^{(♔ ♕)} 18:43, 22 January 2022 (UTC)[reply]

@Shibbolethink: you didn't participate in the discussions that precipitated this RfC, so let me summarise them for you. In the "Alleged under-counting of cases and deaths" and "2021 academic study" discussions, the independence of Chinese academics sources was rejected by some editors due to China's gag order on them publishing their COVID data and research (which includes the Chinese CDC). In this diff an editor suggested we discuss it here on RSN, worded very closely to the question of this RfC, but with specificity to international journals. In both these discussions, editors elevated primary sources from Chinese academics to refute claims from secondary sources like the Financial Times, The Economist and Time Magazine, and another 20 sources that ScrumptiousFood kindly listed. The only comment you made in any of those discussions is to say Scrumptious's sources are not reliable for analysis of epidemiological data, without commenting on any of the sources offered in their stead. Your only participation in this RfC has been to put it down, and you haven't even commented on the primary source being discussed below, or suggested better wording for the RfC. Please don't talk about avoidance. LondonIP (talk) 01:03, 23 January 2022 (UTC)[reply]

The difference is that no one was asking me to do those things, and I never started any RfCs that required me to do those things. If CutePeach had provided this amount of background at the beginning of the RfC, and had done so in a more neutrally-worded manner (such as describing the primary sources as peer-reviewed, etc), then we wouldn't have this problem. I assess your summary here as biased as well. You neglect to say the primary sources are peer reviewed and published in international journals. You neglect to mention the MEDRS-compliant government body sources. You emphasize the number of sources and the venues of the sources that you prefer, and do not mention the number or venues of the sources that you do not prefer. All of this creates a biased picture in favor of your view. It's also a biased summary of my participation. First you say I have not participated, and then you describe comments I made in the aforementioned discussions. Which is it? — Shibbolethink ^{(♔ ♕)} 13:49, 23 January 2022 (UTC)[reply]

I'll add that the "20 sources" being touted here are almost all of very low quality.

The only scientific source in the list does not support the claim that China covered up its case or death count. It's a paper that tries to estimate the total number of infections in Wuhan, by applying an epidemiological model to Chinese data from outside Wuhan. The authors do not accuse anyone of deception, and state right at the outset,

For quite a bit of time, the current number of people infected was unknown. In fact, e.g., authorities in China found severe uncertainties regarding the dynamics and spread of the SARS-CoV-2 virus which causes COVID-19.

The authors actually assume that official data from other parts of China outside of Wuhan is accurate (presumably because those regions were not overwhelmed by cases). In virtually every country on Earth, official case counts are only a fraction of the total number of infections, because in general, most people who get infected do not get PCR tested (this problem was particularly acute during the initial outbreak in Wuhan in January-February 2020, when PCR testing capacity was extremely limited). It's entirely expected that far more people were infected in Wuhan than were diagnosed, and even the China CDC has published an estimate that is a few times the official case count.

The rest of the sources on the list are from the popular media. Some of them are from March/April 2020, and describe a conspiracy theory from Chinese social media about the number of urns supposedly delivered to crematoria in Wuhan (there are many things wrong with this theory: it ignores the fact that people die of causes other than COVID-19, and it contradicts virtually all scientific studies into mortality and seroprevalence in Wuhan). Some of the sources are just pure speculation, some are opinion pieces, many are of the "We're just asking questions" variety. These are the sorts of sources that we're being asked to use in place of scientific sources. -Thucydides411 (talk) 21:56, 1 February 2022 (UTC)[reply]

@Thucydides411:, you haven't shown how these sources are contradicted by scientific sources, and I haven't seen where it was asked that they be used in place​​ of scientific sources, so that appears to be mistruth. In the case of the story about the urns, it is in at least four high quality sources [47] [48] [49] [50], and it is well known that China covered up the early outbreak of the virus, a fact which is not contradicted by any scientific sources. If you have any sources contradicting these sources, please provide them here, so we can see what they say and if they are WP:INDEPENDENT. CutePeach (talk) 13:47, 5 February 2022 (UTC)[reply]

I've already explained to you several times that the scientific mortality and seroprevalence studies are wildly inconsistent with the urns conspiracy theory from Chinese social media. None of the four sources you link to above is a reliable source for any claim about epidemiology: they're all popular media. Even still, the Caixin article does not advocate or even mention the conspiracy theory. The other three news articles discuss the conspiracy theory, but the fact that a conspiracy theory was discussed in the media does not mean that it should be included in the article, especially when the theory is at odds with scientific publications. Why are you trying to insert a random, 2-year-old, incorrect conspiracy theory from social media into the article? -Thucydides411 (talk) 22:54, 5 February 2022 (UTC)[reply]

Instead of explaining​​ things in your own words, pelase provide the sources​​ and text you say refute these RS so that we can discuss them here. The original Caixin article, including the original in Chinese, [51], gives figures cited by Bloomberg, SCMP and Time in their reports about those questioning the accuracy of the Chinese government's figures. For the benefit of the closer, please keep your response short and to the point. CutePeach (talk) 14:54, 8 February 2022 (UTC)[reply]

• Loaded Question/Malformed RFC Absolutely ridiculous way of framing the question, as per above. Parabolist (talk) 00:53, 23 January 2022 (UTC)[reply]

• Comment do any of the editors saying this RFC is too broad have any suggestions about narrowing it down? The AP reported that the Chinese government ordered CDC staff not to share any data, specimens or other information related to the coronavirus with outside institutions or individuals [52]. How exactly do you want to narrow down "Chinese academic publications" when the Chinese government censorship on publishing COVID data is this expansive? LondonIP (talk) 01:09, 23 January 2022 (UTC)[reply]

  Sure. Pick a diff that was being edit warred and caused COVID-19 pandemic in mainland China to get full protected, then start an RFC where folks are asked to pick version 1 or version 2 of the text being edit warred. Not saying we should start yet another RFC, since RFCs use a lot of community time and this one is not even closed yet, but after reflection, if I was given a time machine and able to redo this particular RFC, a narrow question like that is how we should have approached this. –Novem Linguae (talk) 01:56, 23 January 2022 (UTC)[reply]

  Describe in detail which sources are being used, and have editors pick between the versions relying on Source A or Source B. Pick a particular source and ask: "Is this reliable for this content?" Those are the narrow sort of RfC questions that actually get answered. — Shibbolethink ^{(♔ ♕)} 13:53, 23 January 2022 (UTC)[reply]

• "Subjects censored by the Chinese government" is way too broad to be useful. That could stretch from almost anything (Great Firewall) to much less depending on one's interpretation. I do not share the concerns of other editors about clarity in terms of nationality; as I see it, any academic publication published in China would be covered, and any academic publication not published in China, even by Chinese authors, would not be (though the very fact there is debate on this means it can't really be considered clear). That being said, such a blanket ban is just wrong, even ignoring the absence of clarity. The Chinese government is not omnipotent, and editors are responsible enough to evaluate the extent to which a source is influenced by the Chinese government. The vast majority of sources may in fact be influenced by the Chinese government in a way that compromises their reliability, but a blanket ban across a country of 1.4 billion people is just too draconian. Zoozaz1 (talk) 03:09, 24 January 2022 (UTC)[reply]
• No, but we're going to need a much better standard for determining what constitutes a Chinese publication than just: "do these names look Chinese?" Probably going to need a separate RfC to tackle that issue given how heated this one has become. —Compassionate727 ^(T·C) 20:24, 31 January 2022 (UTC)[reply]
• Bad question — Here's a specific example of why this RfC in its current wording would harm otherwise useful editing, from someone who frequently uses Chinese research in articles. In my current overhaul of the Taiwanese Mandarin article, I make use of plenty of mainland Chinese sources that discuss the differences between that dialect and standard mainland Chinese, (Putonghua). These sources invariably toe the party line on Taiwan, calling it 台湾地区 'the Taiwan area/region'; none ever say that it is, for example, the "national language" of Taiwan, even though it is, because that would imply Taiwan is independent. Saying so would absolutely get them in trouble and would never make it into publication. So there's an example of a specific form of censorship with a pervasive impact in mainland scholarship that should unquestionably not be excluded from articles but very well could be under the wording of this RfC. WhinyTheYounger (WtY)(talk, contribs) 23:19, 31 January 2022 (UTC)[reply]
• No — Chinese academic sources can be very reliable but they are never independent from the Chinese government censorship. It is a feature of the Chinese publication systems that "All the examinations and approvals from the different administrative levels ensure that journals comply with the national ideology."[53]. China was known to even pressure foreign journals to censor articles. [54] Sgnpkd (talk) 16:46, 1 February 2022 (UTC)[reply]
• No — per Sgnpkd's sources, and:

1. ""China denounced over 'grave threat to academic freedom'"", The Times, 29 March 2021
2. ""They Don't Understand the Fear We Have"", Human Rights Watch, 6 June 2021
3. ""How Academic Freedom Ends"", The Atlantic, 6 June 2021
4. ""Chinese Censors Shut Down Popular Science Social Media Accounts"", Radio Free Asia, 16 July 2021
5. ""Chinese Universities Are Enshrining Communist Party Control In Their Charters"", NPR, 20 January 2021
6. ""Hong Kong's Contested Academic Freedom"", The Diplomat, 27 January 2022

Pious Brother (talk) 04:53, 15 February 2022 (UTC)[reply]

• Comment:since it was asked by an editor in the ongoing RFCBEFORE discussion [55], I would like to clarify that "Chinese academic publications" does not include off the record statements made by confidential sources who we would have no reason to suspect of tugging the government line. There is a big difference between government officials talking in confidence to journalists about COVID-19 and Chinese academics who are subject to censorship on COVID-19. CutePeach (talk) 15:42, 16 February 2022 (UTC)[reply]

Discussion

The problem runs deep. Here is an example where we got pretty much everything wrong, not by relying on sources that are under Xi's control, but by using sources that used sources that are under Xi's control. It is a paragraph from the article that eventually became COVID-19 pandemic, from a version[56] dated January 8, 2019: As of 5 January 2020, 59 cases have occurred with seven in a critical condition, 163 contacts commenced monitoring and there were no reported cases of human-to-human transmission or presentations in healthcare workers.[6][8] Affected people have presented with fever and sometimes difficulty breathing, common to several respiratory illnesses at this time of year. X-rays of the chest have revealed signs in both lungs.[6][7] The cause of the pneumonia is currently unknown; however, viruses like seasonal flu, SARS, MERS and bird flu had been ruled out.[8][7][9] No new cases have been reported since 5 January 2020.[10] The outbreak has not shown signs of escalation.[6][7].

Let us count the ways in which this was wrong:

1. The case counts were suspect
2. there were sick healthcare workers by then
3. the cause was known
4. it was a SARS-like virus whose DNA had been sequenced
5. new cases were occurring daily
6. the outbreak was escalating.

Adoring nanny (talk) 00:26, 20 January 2022 (UTC)[reply]

1) Please provide an RS demonstrating those case counts are suspect, from that time. We cannot judge what they knew then with what we know now. Because much of what we know now, the Chinese govt also would not have known then.
2) I'm not sure any sources anywhere exist to demonstrate this point as true. AFAIK, Liang Wudong was the first HCWer to die of COVID, period And he died on Jan 29. Li Wenliang may have been one of the first HCWers to get infected, and he got infected on Jan 8th. Where do we have sources showing there were already sick HCWers at that time? And do you have any proof the Chinese govt was actively censoring that fact?
3) We had sources showing this from Chinese nationals by then, they just weren't used [57] [58] (and various WeChat posts which would not qualify as RSes). And much of this delay is due to the fact that we didn't have a MEDRS showing this, we didn't have any "true" RSes showing this, which makes sense because it takes time to show the modified Rivers' criteria for a novel virus [59]. It took time for SARS too [60]. I'm not sure I want to be using lower quality faster sourcing for something like that.
4) It's RNA, and the sequence was only verified by Jan 10th [61]. They were still vetting its accuracy with independent samples, a common practice. We actually know there were errors in that original sequence because they rushed it a little too much. [62] (there's actually been 3 revisions)

I don't understand what point you're trying to make. An outdated paragraph with outdated sourcing (and lacks the really really low quality sourcing that would be needed to show the other things you've indicated) is not indicative of any cover-up. It just means someone needed to update it with the sources that were out there, if any. The sources from Chinese nationals existed already which would have proven some of these points. And most of all, most of these "false" facts weren't sourced from scientific publications, were they? So would this RfC really have solved anything back then? — Shibbolethink ^{(♔ ♕)} 00:40, 20 January 2022 (UTC)[reply]

You seem to mistake our purpose here with being correct as opposed to documenting what other sources say is correct. We were wrong because the sources were wrong? Yeah, sounds about right. If there are better sources they should of course be used, but the idea that because a source uses information from China that makes it unusable is nonsensical, mostly because we rely on those sources to decide what is accurate, and if they are wrong then so to will we be. nableezy - 01:16, 20 January 2022 (UTC)[reply]

We're an encyclopedia. Breaking news stories are frequently inaccurate, which means that our articles on breaking news will be frequently inaccurate and is an excellent argument against rushing to create or update articles in response to breaking news events. Conversely, we're a volunteer encyclopedia and sometimes verifiably dated information will persist for a while. None of this is novel, unique to China or COVID, or warranting of changes or exceptions to our policies. VQuakr (talk) 01:39, 20 January 2022 (UTC)[reply]

Quite right. If anything, this example illustrates why we should cite retrospective studies in high-quality journals like The BMJ, when available. They are likely to be more accurate than early news reports. —Mx. Granger (talk · contribs) 17:57, 20 January 2022 (UTC)[reply]

Sounds like you all want a focus on academic sources. Fine. Behold "The fight against fake-paper factories that churn out sham science". The title doesn't say "China", but the content is about Chinese academic fraud mills. And this is before the additional layer of lying imposed by Government authorities. [63] But Nature has tallied 370 articles retracted since January 2020, all from authors at Chinese hospitals, that either publishers or independent sleuths have alleged to come from paper mills (see ‘Fraud allegations’). Most were published in the past three years (see ‘Chinese hospital papers on the rise’). Publishers have added expressions of concern to another 45 such articles. Adoring nanny (talk) 14:20, 20 January 2022 (UTC)[reply]

And here are some Western examples of fake papers: The Atlantic: wrote 20 fake papers using fashionable jargon to argue for ridiculous conclusions, and tried to get them placed in high-profile journals in fields including gender studies, queer studies, and fat studies. Their success rate was remarkable: By the time they took their experiment public late on Tuesday, seven of their articles had been accepted for publication by ostensibly serious peer-reviewed journals The Guardian The researchers say some of her work is still being cited and accessed, even though she was barely literate in science and unable to recognise basic formulas taught to first-year chemistry students., The MMR & autism study It is intensely sceptical about the possibility of error, but totally trusting about the possibility of fraud.”1 Never has this been truer than of the 1998 Lancet paper that implied a link between the measles, mumps, and rubella (MMR) vaccine and a “new syndrome” of autism and bowel disease

There are many papers that are fraudulent, but we should not be trying to WP:RGW ourselves here by (quoting Thucydides here): look[ing] at the nationalities of the authors, and if they appear to be Chinese, that we should reject them. As people noted below, we can try to use review and secondary sources over primary academic sources when available. And if you have true concerns about a paper, go to the journal and make your appeal. This is disregarding how poor this RfC question is, as I've said before, how is "Chinese academic publications" defined? Is just having one Chinese author "too Chinese"? If there is even just one international author, does that make the paper "not Chinese"? Jumpytoo Talk 19:34, 20 January 2022 (UTC)[reply]

The state of this RfC is deplorable. People are talking past each other, and there are numerous complaints about the formulation of the original question. @CutePeach: please immediately clarify what you mean by "Chinese academic publications". Please give examples. You have been asked numerous times, often directly, to elaborate on the question, and you have not done so. As evidenced by the above survey responses, many editors take this to mean "Chinese journals", while many others take it to mean "contributions by Chinese scientists to any journal". Whatever the result of this RfC, it should ultimately be considered invalid unless there is actual consensus on what we are even talking about. AlexEng^(TALK) 17:28, 21 January 2022 (UTC)[reply]

You can find an example directly below. It's one of three papers cited to refute allegations from high quality secondary sources. The accuracy sections of the China government response page was deleted to make way for praise and pomp. ScrumptiousFood (talk) 00:16, 22 January 2022 (UTC)[reply]

The state of this RfC is deplorable. People are talking past each other it's indeed invalid yet a successful attempt to make noise... Both sections have had their reasonable answers and should probably be closed to prevent more disruption and waste of community time. —PaleoNeonate – 01:14, 22 January 2022 (UTC)[reply]

@AlexEng: it is very hard to WP:AGF with some of the editors questioning the definition of "Chinese academic publications", when they use the same tactics to argue that the Uyghur genocide can’t be defined as a genocide. The Chinese government has complete control over all publishing, so it would not be hard for them to control academic publishing, and they can now even censor Western academic journals publishing in China [64]. This RFC affects only a handful of papers that were debated in the WP:RFCBEFORE] discussions, which I mentioned in my answer to Nableezy below. This is a very unique case, because few countries invest as much as China does in censorship, and according to this report [65], they invest anywhere between $6.6B and $13B in internet censorship alone. We cannot ignore the effects of this censorship on the coverage of censored topics here on Wikipedia. CutePeach (talk) 14:54, 22 January 2022 (UTC)[reply]

Hi, I'm an editor who is very unclear about your definition of "Chinese academic publications" but I would simultaneously emphatically agree that the Uyghur genocide is clearly defined as a genocide. Please don't create strawman arguments that those who disagree with you are being unreasonable. There is good reason for confusion with the phrasing of your question, and how others are interpreting it to mean different things. E.g. above, londonIP broadens it to include people who are living abroad but have family in Mainland China. Do you intend it to be interpreted this way?

That link you provide to the case of China Quarterly has very little, if any, bearing on this discussion. China requested certain articles be inaccessible when surfing the internet in China, behind the Great Firewall. No actual edits were made to any articles. Since all of the English Wikipedia is already blocked in China, the horse has kind of already left the barn on that one. — Shibbolethink ^{(♔ ♕)} 18:47, 22 January 2022 (UTC)[reply]

@CutePeach: I don't know why you're raising the article Uyghur genocide in a discussion of reliable sourcing on COVID-19 mortality. It seems to me that you're bringing in an unrelated political issue, simply because it involves China. Is every discussion about China-related sourcing going to end with a litmus test on participants' views on Xi Jinping, Xinjiang, Tibet and the Opium Wars? -Thucydides411 (talk) 23:34, 22 January 2022 (UTC)[reply]

The Chinese Wikipedia community has been informed of this RfC. Milky·Defer >Please use ping 15:27, 11 February 2022 (UTC)[reply]

Is the specific study this discussion originated with (BMJ) reliable?

• Liu, Jiangmei; Zhang, Lan; Yan, Yaqiong; Zhou, Yuchang; Yin, Peng; Qi, Jinlei; Wang, Lijun; Pan, Jingju; You, Jinling; Yang, Jing; Zhao, Zhenping; Wang, Wei; Liu, Yunning; Lin, Lin; Wu, Jing; Li, Xinhua; Chen, Zhengming; Zhou, Maigeng (2021-02-24). "Excess mortality in Wuhan city and other parts of China during the three months of the covid-19 outbreak: findings from nationwide mortality registries". The BMJ. doi:10.1136/bmj.n415. ISSN 1756-1833.

The discussion on this page has been confused, with poorly phrased and biased RfC's regarding this, so I created this section to simplify it, hopefully we will find consensus and the original page will be unlocked. Xoltered (talk) 05:04, 20 January 2022 (UTC)[reply]

• Yes It is peer-reviewed and published in the BMJ, a reliable journal. Xoltered (talk) 05:04, 20 January 2022 (UTC)[reply]
• Yes, it's as reliable as any other peer-reviewed primary study in a high-quality journal. Which doesn't necessarily mean that it can't be incorrect or refuted/challenged by other sources (as a result of potential source data issues cited above, part of the reason any primary study has limits to its use), but we shouldn't be in the habit of second-guessing the reliability of peer-reviewed studies per WP:RGW and WP:OR. Bakkster Man (talk) 16:45, 20 January 2022 (UTC)[reply]

@Bakkster Man: you say this source can be refuted/challenged by other sources but do you think it can be used to refute/challenge secondary sources and even omit them? I'm not sure if you read the discussion in the China COVID-19 pandemic page, but that is what this dispute is about. Here are the omissions from Mx. Granger [66] and Thucydides411 [67] and restoration by Encyclopedia Lu [68]. Do you agree with these omissions and use of primary sources, or would you like to change your mind - and your !vote? CutePeach (talk) 15:03, 21 January 2022 (UTC)[reply]

@CutePeach: I got here through FTN, and the entire extent of the dispute is just not something I want to devote time to diving deep enough to weigh in on the original dispute. I'd prefer to weigh in specifically on the source question, which I'm concerned might be trying to make too-broad conclusions in the context of a too-narrow dispute. Bakkster Man (talk) 15:19, 21 January 2022 (UTC)[reply]

@CutePeach: You're not providing reliable secondary sources on epidemiology. You're providing popular magazine and news articles written by non-experts, and not subject to any kind of peer-review or rigorous scientific editing. Many of these articles are just discussing the urns conspiracy theory, which comes from social media.

The sources that I and other editors are pointing to are peer-reviewed papers on mortality and serology in China, published in leading international journals.

These two classes of sources are not even remotely on the same level. The popular media articles are junk in comparison to the peer-reviewed scientific literature. -Thucydides411 (talk) 16:34, 21 January 2022 (UTC)[reply]

• Fails MEDRS so not reliable for any claim in the realm of WP:Biomedical information, and while it may be "reliable" for other kinds of claim, as a primary source these would almost certainly be POV/UNDUE. Alexbrn (talk) 16:49, 20 January 2022 (UTC)[reply]

  It's a peer-reviewed study in one of the most prestigious medical journals in the world. In what world does it fail WP:MEDRS? This is the single best source available on mortality during the outbreak in China, by a very wide margin. -Thucydides411 (talk) 19:00, 20 January 2022 (UTC)[reply]

  It's primary research. Wikipedia generally wants secondary sources for biomedical material. Alexbrn (talk) 19:03, 20 January 2022 (UTC)[reply]

  I dont think thats true, the raw data in the mortality registries is the primary source there, the analysis of it is secondary. nableezy - 19:07, 20 January 2022 (UTC)[reply]

  It's true. From the data the authors selected the method and produced a novel result ("research"). For medical secondary sources in journals we typically want review articles, meta-analyses or systematic reviews. These all offer overviews of multiple pieces of primary research. Alexbrn (talk) 19:11, 20 January 2022 (UTC)[reply]

  Whether or not you consider this "primary" or "secondary" research, it's clearly the highest quality source available today on the subject of the death toll in China's initial COVID-19 outbreak. The question being discussed in this thread essentially boils down to: should we throw out this peer-reviewed study because of the nationalities of the authors, and replace it news articles from March/April 2020 that discuss social media speculation about vastly larger death tolls? This study is clearly on an entirely different level of reliability than those news articles, when it comes to making statements about the actual death toll. It would be great if we had a meta-analysis or review article of different mortality estimates, but what we have now is a peer-reviewed paper in a highly prestigious medical journal, and that's pretty darn good. -Thucydides411 (talk) 19:45, 20 January 2022 (UTC)[reply]

  95% + of peer-reviewed content in medical journals is research and completely unsuitable for Wikipedia, which is meant to be a reflection of "accepted knowledge". Once research has been validated by additional layers of verification (review article, etc.) it becomes eligible for our use. The problem with nearly all of this discussion about author nationality etc. is that it's irrelevant. A lot of research is just wrong so editors here deciding to use it are in effect indulging in WP:OR by deciding for themselves it's correct. Wait for truly reliable sources: there is no deadline. Alexbrn (talk) 19:52, 20 January 2022 (UTC)[reply]

  This is throwing out the baby with the bath water. In an attempt to improve source quality, you're arguing against using the highest-quality source available. The consequence will be that absolute junk (news articles discussing a social media conspiracy theory that is wildly inconsistent with all research on the subject) will be substituted in its place. Review articles are preferable to research articles, but research articles are still high-quality sources. In this case, this is clearly the highest-quality source available, by a wide margin. Not every scientific subject gets its own dedicated review article, and sources of this high caliber are used regularly in MEDRS articles. -Thucydides411 (talk) 20:06, 20 January 2022 (UTC)[reply]

  This is what we call POV-pushing. You've decided some claim needs to be included, and then (despite the lack of RS) try to find a way to include it. NPOV means representing what reliable sources say, not adding stuff to articles editors want. Alexbrn (talk) 20:10, 20 January 2022 (UTC)[reply]

  That's an absurd allegation, Alex. I'm just arguing that we use the highest-quality available sources. You should try to understand what the context of this discussion actually is before you wade into it. This discussion is about whether or not we will rule out peer-reviewed scientific papers on the basis of the nationalities of the authors and replace them with news articles that discuss social media speculation. -Thucydides411 (talk) 20:38, 20 January 2022 (UTC)[reply]

  If the "highest quality" is an unreliable source, stay silent. Silence is better than misinformation. As to the question, I do understand it. I have answered the (stupid) RfC question; and now this just-as-stupid question about whether a source (without context) is "reliable". I also appreciate the political shadow-boxing taking place. Alexbrn (talk) 20:47, 20 January 2022 (UTC)[reply]

  In this case, the highest-quality available source is not unreliable. You can argue about whether to classify it as primary or secondary, and what amount of attribution to use (e.g., "According to a study published in The BMJ, ..."), but this is not some speculative paper based on in vitro experiments that makes wild claims. It's a standard analysis of mortality data done by a third party, which has been subjected to rigorous peer review (5 reviewers, in fact, whose reports you can read on The BMJ's website) and published in a highly prestigious journal. -Thucydides411 (talk) 21:14, 20 January 2022 (UTC)[reply]

  You need to read WP:MEDRS. For background, WP:WHYMEDRS and WP:MEDFAQ are useful. This is just a replay of the same arguments the "lab leak" proponents tried to push to get their favoured research in. You either follow the WP:PAGs, or you don't. Alexbrn (talk) 07:30, 22 January 2022 (UTC)[reply]

  I'm already familiar with WP:MEDRS, and I don't agree with your interpretation of it. If we follow your interpretation, we will have to remove virtually all mortality estimates for all countries, including the CDC's estimate of COVID-19 mortality in the US. I think it's entirely reasonable, based on WP:MEDRS, to attribute the excess mortality estimates (to the CDC, to a paper in The BMJ, etc.), but policy does not require us to remove them entirely, nor would doing so be reasonable. -Thucydides411 (talk) 16:13, 22 January 2022 (UTC)[reply]

  As a major medical body, the CDC's position would meet MEDRS. Different thing entirely. Alexbrn (talk) 16:26, 22 January 2022 (UTC)[reply]

  The CDC's analysis is exactly analogous to the BMJ paper we're discussing. Scientists from the CDC published their methodology for determining excess mortality from available data in The Lancet Regional Health - Americas. That's primary research, according to the definition you're advancing (which I do not agree with). We're now citing that mortality estimate on Wikipedia. The analysis published in The BMJ is entirely analogous. Scientists from the major public health institution in China, the China CDC, publish an analysis of available disease surveillance data in a journal with very rigorous standards of peer review (5 reviewers in this case). We're discussing two exactly analogous situations. It's obvious that we wouldn't remove the most reliable estimate of COVID-19 mortality in the US, but if we follow your logic here, we'll have to do so. -Thucydides411 (talk) 23:23, 22 January 2022 (UTC)[reply]

  No its not, the Chinese CDC is restricted from publishing any COVID data or research without approval from the Chinese State Council and CCP propaganda office [69]. LondonIP (talk) 01:12, 23 January 2022 (UTC)[reply]

  China CDC is a reliable source for medical statistics in China, and the study we're discussing was published in The BMJ, which is a highly reputable medical journal. If you have concerns about the data being fake, then I suggest you take that up with the editors at The BMJ. They take allegations of data faking very seriously, and they will certainly issue a correction or retraction should there turn out to be problems with the data. Until that happens, however, this is an analysis by a highly competent medical authority, published in one of the most prestigious medical journals in the world, after peer-review by five experts in the field and with oversight by scientific editors at the journal. Your vague claims that the data is questionable are irrelevant - go to The BMJ with your concerns. -Thucydides411 (talk) 16:59, 8 February 2022 (UTC)[reply]

  If we follow WP:MEDRS to the letter as advocated above, the Chinese CDC is the most reliable source available and is the only MEDRS source of all the sources presented, since it is a position statements from national or international expert bodies. Interesting. –Novem Linguae (talk) 02:01, 23 January 2022 (UTC)[reply]

  Yes I would agree with Novem and Alexbrn here, it's a MEDRS because it's a position statement from a government body, even though it's technically a primary source. Different from academic journal articles of course. Primary sources CAN be used per MEDRS, but there should not be valid alternatives. See WP:MEDANIMAL and WP:MEDASSESS. — Shibbolethink ^{(♔ ♕)} 13:54, 23 January 2022 (UTC)[reply]

  Novem Linguae and Shibbolethink, I believe Alexbrn was referring to the US CDC, and as LondonIP says, the Chinese CDC is bound by the gag order too. If we believe the Chinese CDC, China’s COVID-19 deaths have been stuck at 4,636 for nearly two years, and zero new deaths in a nation of 1.4B. Do you see the problem here or will we need a new RFC with a question in specific to the Chinese CDC? I personally don't think such an RFC is necessary, but if you are agreeing with a Thucydides411 that the Chinese CDC trumps RS then we may have no choice but to post one here. CutePeach (talk) 14:34, 8 February 2022 (UTC)[reply]

  Chinese CDC trumps RS: The "RS" you're raising are not reliable sources for this sort of information. You keep saying that we should rely on random popular news articles from nearly two years ago, which discuss a social media conspiracy theory about the number of urns supposedly delivered to Wuhan. These conspiracy theories were never sound to begin with, but they've been completely ruled out by what we've learned since: there were only about 4,600 excess pneumonia deaths in Wuhan, and seroprevalence is around 4% in the city (it would have to be essentially 100% in order to arrive any anything close to the death toll the urns conspiracy theory claims). What I and others here are saying is that we should use actual reliable sources, like peer-reviewed studies of mortality and seroprevalence, and national statistics.

  stuck at 4,636 for nearly two years: China has followed a zero-COVID strategy. The virus was entirely eliminated from China (at least from circulation in the human population) in April 2020. There are extremely strict quarantine measures at the border, and every new outbreak is met with mass testing, extensive contact tracing, quarantine and isolation, and targeted lockdowns. These measures have been successful in ending the few dozen new outbreaks that have occurred in various places in China since April 2020. The largest outbreak since April 2020 (the recent one in Xi'an, which took place in December 2021 - January 2022) involved only about 2000 people in total. The fact that China has pursued a zero-COVID policy has been extremely widely reported on in the media and in the medical literature. In fact, there is an entire issue of The BMJ devoted to discussing the zero-COVID policy in China. I would assume that a basic awareness of this policy would be a pre-requisite for editing articles related to the pandemic in China, because I'm not sure how an editor who is unaware of the policy could meaningfully contribute. -Thucydides411 (talk) 16:43, 8 February 2022 (UTC)[reply]

  @Thucydides411: I agree with Alexbrn. The best source doesn't always clear the threshold for reliability here. If WP:MEDRS standards apply here (and I believe they probably do), then we can't use primary sources. It would, however, also mean that the "absolute junk" sources couldn't be used either. Whatever the decision (I don't think RSN is the right place), it should be applied consistently. If BMJ can't be used because the information is WP:BMI, then the information might need to be left as unknown. Bakkster Man (talk) 21:11, 20 January 2022 (UTC)[reply]

  @Bakkster Man: If I go look at COVID-19 pandemic in the United States, the second sentence gives a death toll drawn from the website, Our World in Data, along with a statement about per capita mortality sourced to a Johns Hopkins University tracker, and the sidebar gives estimates of the death toll from the CDC (there's an associated peer-reviewed paper, which under the definition advanced above would be primary research) and a black-box machine learning model published by a popular magazine, The Economist (obviously not peer-reviewed, not necessarily even created by experts in the field, and which spits out absurd, impossible results for some countries). The paper we're discussing, published in The BMJ, is of far higher quality than any of those sources. In other words, the paper in The BMJ is of much higher quality than the references we're currently using to source similar information in analogous (and much more prominent) articles on Wikipedia. It's highly valuable to not just give government numbers, but to also give scientific estimates of death tolls and infection rates. The BMJ provides a much better source for doing so than is available for other articles. -Thucydides411 (talk) 21:44, 20 January 2022 (UTC)[reply]

  @Thucydides411: I think that could be a thread worth pulling on (is collating and republishing official data reasonable or not, and are case counts BMI), but I think it probably needs to happen in a better venue (WP:BMI for instance) out of the shadow of this "but China" RfC to give it a chance of actual consensus. Bakkster Man (talk) 22:36, 20 January 2022 (UTC)[reply]

  I think the relevant discussion is that this study's reliability will depend on WP:BMI and WP:MEDRS and whether we consider it primary or secondary (arguably a different noticeboard), not on whether or not the authors are Chinese. Bakkster Man (talk) 19:13, 20 January 2022 (UTC)[reply]

  Note to closer: the authors are Chinese has not been presented by any editors as the sole criterion for considering the reliability of this source. CutePeach (talk) 17:42, 25 January 2022 (UTC)[reply]

  @Alexbrn @VQuakr Here is where the paper is currently used, if you want to give your opinion: [70] [71]. Jumpytoo Talk 19:59, 20 January 2022 (UTC)[reply]

  I'll pass. The COVID-19 articles generally are a morass of poorly-sourced content. In years to come they'll get cleaned up. Maybe. All I can do now is try to explain what our sourcing guidelines actually say - though as we can see it's not what some editors want to hear, as this discussion is really just another proxy politics battleground, now isn't it. Alexbrn (talk) 20:05, 20 January 2022 (UTC)[reply]

@Jumpytoo: it's cited three times in a short paragraph, which is ugly (just cite it at the end of that para), but the info it's used to support isn't a MEDRS issue (it talks about mortality numbers, doesn't give medical advice) and isn't a red flag either: it's consistent with other reliable sources about total COVID deaths in China. Reasonable editors may disagree, but I'm not seeing any issue here and "because it's from China" is a non-starter of a reason to exclude. VQuakr (talk) 21:16, 20 January 2022 (UTC)[reply]

• Reliable to support what information? "is X reliable" is not a question that can be answered in the affirmative without context. It's a primary medical article, so as Alexbrn notes is fails MEDRS. It's a year old, so the information in it may be dated. BMJ is reliable in most contexts, though. VQuakr (talk) 16:53, 20 January 2022 (UTC)[reply]
• No per Alexbrn. Fails WP:RS when we use it on any COVID-19 page. TolWol56 (talk) 18:59, 20 January 2022 (UTC)[reply]
• Yes, the study in question is inarguably the best available source on mortality during the outbreak in China, by a very wide margin. It's a peer-reviewed study in one of the most prestigious medical journals in the world, The BMJ (formerly known as "The British Medical Journal"). It provides a detailed analysis of excess mortality due to a whole number of different causes in Wuhan, Hubei province (excluding Wuhan) and China (excluding Hubei province). Of particular interest, it calculates excess pneumonia mortality, which is attributable to COVID-19. Here is its bottom line:

  In Wuhan city (13 districts), 5954 additional (4573 pneumonia) deaths occurred in 2020 compared with 2019, with excess risks greater in central than in suburban districts (50% v 15%). In other parts of Hubei province (19 DSP areas), the observed mortality rates from pneumonia and chronic respiratory diseases were non-significantly 28% and 23% lower than the predicted rates, despite excess deaths from covid-19 related pneumonia. Outside Hubei (583 DSP areas), the observed total mortality rate was non-significantly lower than the predicted rate (675 v 715 per 100000), with significantly lower death rates from pneumonia (0.53, 0.46 to 0.63), chronic respiratory diseases (0.82, 0.71 to 0.96), and road traffic incidents (0.77, 0.68 to 0.88).

  Except in Wuhan, no increase in overall mortality was found during the three months of the covid-19 outbreak in other parts of China. The lower death rates from certain non-covid-19 related diseases might be attributable to the associated behaviour changes during lockdown.

The authors speculate that the slight decrease in pneumonia deaths outside Wuhan is due to a decrease in flu transmission during the lockdowns.

The findings of this study have proved to be consistent with a whole number of serology studies published in highly reputable international journals (such as Nature Medicine, The Lancet Regional Health Western Pacific and The Lancet Microbe) that look at infection rates in various regions of China.

The alternative to this study in The BMJ that some editors are proposing we use is literally a conspiracy theory from Chinese social media about the supposed number of urns delivered to Wuhan after the lockdown, which was briefly discussed in some news articles all the way back in March/April 2020 (see more here). The idea that we would run with that social media conspiracy theory but rule out peer-reviewed research in one of the world's top medical journals is laughable.

The fact that this source has even been called into question (purely on the basis of the nationalities of the authors) just goes to show how absurd this entire discussion is. We have to decide whether or not Wikipedia is a place that discriminates on the basis of nationality. I think it shouldn't. -Thucydides411 (talk) 19:32, 20 January 2022 (UTC)[reply]

• Yes, in context of this RfC, if this is a suitable article per WP:MEDRS and the primary/secondary argument is something that could be discussed, but the fact the authors are Chinese does not impact the reliability of this piece. Jumpytoo Talk 19:50, 20 January 2022 (UTC)[reply]
• No per Alexbrn and Xi's "Game of Chess". LondonIP (talk) 00:08, 21 January 2022 (UTC)[reply]
• No, in context of this RfC and also per Alexbrn who says it is WP:PRIMARY. Francesco espo (talk) 00:09, 21 January 2022 (UTC)[reply]
• No because it fails WP:MEDRS, and this is the case when WP:MEDRS does apply. My very best wishes (talk) 00:35, 21 January 2022 (UTC)[reply]
• NOTE If the consensus is that the study is reliable but fails MEDRS because it is a primary source, then that means reliable secondary sources refrencing the study ARE reliable. Also as previously noted above, other articles regarding COVID have primary sources for the claims of deaths and cases as typically they are the best source for this, should this also be changed? Xoltered (talk) 01:03, 21 January 2022 (UTC)[reply]

  Yes, secondary sources citing this study would likely meet MEDRS and therefore be the best available sources on this topic. — Shibbolethink ^{(♔ ♕)} 14:11, 23 January 2022 (UTC)[reply]

• No Not reliable due to pro-fringe background. NavjotSR (talk) 11:36, 21 January 2022 (UTC)[reply]
• WP:CONTEXTMATTERS. If this WP:PRIMARY source was being cited for ordinary non contentious claims, then perhaps YES​​. However, since it is being used to refute/challenge claims from high quality WP:SECONDARY sources like the Financial Times and the Economist [72], it's a NO. The applicable policy here is WP:BALANCE, which requires secondary or tertiary sources to describe the disagreement from a disinterested viewpoint. CutePeach (talk) 13:45, 21 January 2022 (UTC)[reply]

  The idea that popular media like The Financial Times or The Economist are reliable sources for epidemiological information - but that a peer-reviewed paper on excess mortality in one of the world's most prestigious medical journals isn't - is simply laughable. The Financial Times and The Economist aren't even remotely reliable for this sort of information. They're okay for current events. They have near-zero expertise in epidemiology. -Thucydides411 (talk) 14:46, 21 January 2022 (UTC)[reply]

  I'm inclined to agree. The Financial Times and The Economist are HQRS, but I feel like there's a problem if we rate them as better than a peer reviewed publication in an esteemed publication like The BMJ, on a issue in the journal's expertise. ProcrastinatingReader (talk) 14:59, 21 January 2022 (UTC)[reply]

  I was about to make the very same argument. The Economist and FT are not "High quality" epidemiology journals. They are media outlets which are respected on matters of politics and economics.
  ' — Shibbolethink ^{(♔ ♕)} 14:15, 23 January 2022 (UTC)[reply]

  ProcrastinatingReader and Shibbolethink, contrary to what Thucydides411 claims, the "Alleged under-counting of cases and deaths" is not "epidemiological information", and the BMJ article does not even refute the claims of Foreign Policy, Financial Times and the Economist. I don't think the community has the patience for another massive throwdown at WP:BMI and I don't think your arguments here will persuade any admin to unblock the page. CutePeach (talk) 17:01, 25 January 2022 (UTC)[reply]

  @CutePeach, ProcrastinatingReader, and Shibbolethink: CutePeach, you keep claiming the Foreign Policy article supports the contention that China deliberately under-counted cases and deaths. It doesn't. In fact, the article begins by acknowledging that China's numbers may be accurate. I've responded to you at another location where you made this same argument, so see this diff for a fuller explanation. In any case, we're talking about epidemiology here, and speculation in popular media is not reliable when it comes to questions like: how many people in China have been infected or died of COVID-19? -Thucydides411 (talk) 17:09, 8 February 2022 (UTC)[reply]

  @Thucydides411: you keep giving us your opinion instead of reliable sources, or showing us where your reliable sources contradict what Foreign Policy, Financial Times, the Economist, and others say. Please don't single out the Foreign Policy, as that is just one aspect of the story, and please don't WP:CHERRYPICK one sentence from the article, as the sentence you are referring to is immediately followed by another saying But it’s also possible that the numbers presented to the rest of the world are vastly understated compared to Beijing’s private figures. CutePeach (talk) 14:37, 10 February 2022 (UTC)[reply]

  You keep claiming that the Foreign Policy article supports your claim that China undercounted deaths and cases. It doesn't. I quoted the first sentence because it makes clear that Foreign Policy is not making the claim that you're attributing to it. In fact, the Foreign Policy article does not make any firm claims about China's figures. It simply says that there is a new database that could shed light on the issue. There has been no follow-up from Foreign Policy, which strongly implies that this database did not actually contradict China's official numbers - if it did, FP would have written an article on it at some point in the last 20 months.

  On the other hand, there are actual scientific studies of mortality and seroprevalence in Wuhan and China, which have been raised may times in this discussion. For example, this study in The BMJ finds that there were approximately 4,600 excess pneumonia deaths in Wuhan, and net zero outside of Hubei province (there were small numbers of COVID-19 deaths, but there was a reduction in flu deaths that balanced them out). This is consistent with the official death toll. There are also numerous seroprevalence studies (just a few: [73] [74]), all of which find similar rates of infection (a few percent in Wuhan, virtually zero outside of Hubei province), which are consistent with the official death toll. These are actual reliable sources for epidemiological claims. Popular media, such as Foreign Policy, are not reliable sources for this sort of information.

  Honestly, claims that China had far more deaths than reported are in fringe conspiracy-theory territory. The death toll and level of infection in China are fairly well understood, and have been for a long time now. Adding erroneous speculation from two-year-old popular media articles adds nothing of value to this subject. -Thucydides411 (talk) 18:14, 10 February 2022 (UTC)[reply]

Claims that China had far more deaths than reported, which is just what they are - claims - have been made by multiple RS, and not just the Foreign Policy, which focuses on a leaked Chinese database. The studies that you have been raised "many times" in the discussion cannot be used to refute these claims, for multiple reasons explained to you here. Between the three discussions on the topic of RS questioning the accuracy of China's statistics, there is no consensus that your primary sources trump these secondary RS, so neither you or FormalDude should be deleting the POV tag. CutePeach (talk) 13:25, 12 February 2022 (UTC)[reply]

• Um no, CP didn't claim that China undercounted deaths and cases. It is the sources that claim it, as a probability, because it is censored. There is consensus here your primary sources don't refute these claims. Francesco espo (talk) 00:09, 11 February 2022 (UTC)[reply]

• No because this fails MEDRS per Alexbrn, the problem here is of course that MEDRS prohibits peer reviewed studies in publications like the BMJ, but thats a known issue with MEDRS. Only in death does duty end (talk) 13:58, 21 January 2022 (UTC)[reply]
• To those saying this is a primary source, genuine question, what's the difference between this discussion and a recent discussion here at RSN involving analysis of population data, where it was said that novel analysis of results to reach a novel conclusion is considered secondary if the authors didn't obtain the data? (I can't find the discussion at a skim but it was quite well attended IIRC). ProcrastinatingReader (talk) 14:56, 21 January 2022 (UTC)[reply]

@ProcrastinatingReader: the requirement for the use of WP:PRIMARY sources is that one cannot analyse or interpret them, which is clearly the case here. There is also WP:BALANCE which requires contradictory sources to be relatively equal in prominence and secondary or tertiary by type. CutePeach (talk) 15:55, 21 January 2022 (UTC)[reply]

The requirement is that editors don't analyse or interpret the results/contents of the primary source. As far as I can tell, the source obtained data from "China's Disease Surveillance Points" and the source analysed this data. I'm not entirely sure the 'primary source'/'secondary source' classification is ideal for this case, but IIRC previous RSN discussions covering similar situations have held that such cases are considered secondary sources. ProcrastinatingReader (talk) 16:33, 21 January 2022 (UTC)[reply]

@ProcrastinatingReader: It's also worth noting that the BMJ paper on excess mortality in China is analogous to the CDC estimate of excess mortality in the US, which is considered the standard estimate for the US. Both are published in very similar ways: they're peer-reviewed analyses of data gathered by various disease surveillance networks. -Thucydides411 (talk) 16:47, 21 January 2022 (UTC)[reply]

• ProcrastinatingReader, I believe this is what you are looking for. nableezy - 17:05, 21 January 2022 (UTC)[reply]

  Yup, that's the one. Thanks nableezy. Having skimmed that discussion again it seems like surely its result should apply here since we have, in essence, the same situation: the papers' authors are using data obtained by another source, and reaching novel conclusions. That discussion found a consensus that this kind of source is considered secondary. ProcrastinatingReader (talk) 18:43, 22 January 2022 (UTC)[reply]

• ProcrastinatingReader it's not just a primary source, it's primary research. If China is undercounting cases, then it's true figures would be a state secret, and all epidemiology submissions would be thoroughly vetted by a censor, and some papers would be commissioned by propagandists for… propaganda. This BMJ paper does not refute or even challenge the widely varied allegations of many HQRS that question the accuracy of China's statistics, so it's a giant red herring. The Nature and Lancet articles are also primary and don't refute anything. ScrumptiousFood (talk) 18:50, 21 January 2022 (UTC)[reply]

  @ScrumptiousFood: If you believe the data on which the paper in The BMJ is based is faked, then please take your concerns to the editors at The BMJ. Five expert peer-reviewers (who deal regularly with this sort of data) and the scientific editors at The BMJ vetted this paper. I'm sure they'll be interested to hear any evidence you have of data-faking, and if there's any merit to your claims, I'm sure they'll retract the paper. We are, after all, talking about one of the most prestigious medical journals in the world. But as things stand, this is a peer-reviewed paper in a leading journal, and there's absolutely no indication that the data is faked. -Thucydides411 (talk) 20:11, 21 January 2022 (UTC)[reply]

  @ProcrastinatingReader: you said The requirement is that editors don't analyse or interpret the results/contents of the primary source but that is exactly what editors are doing [75] [76] [77]. CutePeach (talk) 15:21, 22 January 2022 (UTC)[reply]

  Those edits you linked don't analyse or interpret the results but simply mention the findings of the study, what are you claiming is user analysis? Xoltered (talk) 09:06, 23 January 2022 (UTC)[reply]

@Xoltered: the edit summaries in the three edits I showed ProcrastinatingReader's point give an analysis of this WP:PRIMARY source, as if they are WP:SECONDARY sources describing opposing views clearly as per WP:BALANCE. They are not, and those edits are WP:POVDELETIONS. CutePeach (talk) 16:25, 25 January 2022 (UTC)[reply]

You are simply stating this, if you look at the edits you linked they simply mention the findings of the study, and do not present them as a secondary source. Xoltered (talk) 18:09, 25 January 2022 (UTC)[reply]

In the three diffs links above, you and two other editors removed content sourced to RS [78], due to this BMJ article supposedly refuting claims of China underreporting the extent of infections and deaths. Do you understand the problem with your edit and why we are here on RSN discussing this BMJ article and other sources brought to refute widely reported claims? CutePeach (talk) 14:04, 27 January 2022 (UTC)[reply]

• Only if there are no good secondary academic journal article sources available per WP:MEDRS, particularly WP:MEDANIMAL and WP:MEDASSESS. If there are secondary MEDRS-compliant sources available which cite these studies, those secondary sources should be used instead. — Shibbolethink ^{(♔ ♕)} 13:58, 23 January 2022 (UTC)[reply]

@Shibbolethink: this discussion is about a BMJ paper which supposedly refutes the claims of RS which you say aren't reliable [79]. Its really not clear from your answer here why you think these RS aren't reliable if the BMJ isn't a secondary academic journal article. WP:BALANCE requires that sources be relatively equal in prominence, and a primary source is never going to be as prominent as a secondary one. Please can you clarify for the benefit of the closer? CutePeach (talk) 17:17, 25 January 2022 (UTC)[reply]

Here are several secondary academic sources which support the conclusions drawn from the original paper in this discussion: [80] [81] [82] [83] That is also a misreading of BALANCE, which actually requires us to write our articles based on the proportion of those views in our WP:BESTSOURCES. The sources you provide do not trump scholarly work, which is what sets the tone here on Wikipedia. — Shibbolethink ^{(♔ ♕)} 00:28, 26 January 2022 (UTC)[reply]

Those sources, secondary as they are, have absolutely nothing to do with the topic at hand. They may perhaps support the conclusion of this BMJ paper - whatever it is - but they absolutely do not refute or challenge the claims found in over 20 RS about China allegedly underreporting the extent of COVID-19 infections and deaths. Looking at the dataset leaked to the Foreign Policy [84], I do not see where your secondary sources refute this report. There are hundreds of reports in RS that China underreported cases from the very start. It is a fact we can put in Wikivoice. CutePeach (talk) 14:16, 27 January 2022 (UTC)[reply]

@CutePeach and Shibbolethink: The Foreign Policy article does not claim that China under-reported cases or deaths. In fact, the article begins by stating, Beijing claims that since the coronavirus pandemic began at the end of last year, there have been only 82,919 confirmed cases and 4,633 deaths in mainland China. Those numbers could be roughly accurate... The article says that FP has obtained a leaked database, and will analyze it. In the 18+ months since this FP article came out, there has been no follow-up reporting from FP on this database, as far as I can tell (I've searched and come up empty). That leads me to believe that FP found nothing newsworthy in the database. At the very least, you can't keep waving around this source and claiming it supports your contention that China deliberately under-reported cases or deaths. If anything, this source undermines your contention. -Thucydides411 (talk) 16:52, 8 February 2022 (UTC)[reply]

• No In particular, I would note their conflicts statement: Competing interests: All authors have completed the ICMJE uniform disclosure form at www.icmje.org/coi_disclosure.pdf and declare: funding for the project through a grant (No 82073675) from the National Natural Science Foundation of China; no financial relationships with any organisations that might have an interest in the submitted work in the previous three years; no other relationships or activities that could appear to have influenced the submitted work. The portion about "no other relationships or activities" contradicts the document released by the AP. The authors all have a relationship with the Government of China. The AP document states that the Government of China must approve all publications in this area. This is a conflict, and a true conflicts statement would have mentioned it. Of course this sucks for the authors, who would likely not have been allowed by the Government of China to mention this particular conflict. But for our purposes, the bottom line is that because of the AP's document, the conflicts statement is verifiably false. Therefore, the source is not reliable. Adoring nanny (talk) 04:11, 27 January 2022 (UTC)[reply]
• Comment A further problem with the source, which I did not mention in my !vote above, is that it describes Chinese Government publications on the topic of mortality as "data". However, there is a slam-dunk case that certain deaths are deliberately not reported by their actual cause. See the article Organ harvesting from Falun Gong practitioners in China. China does report some executions, but not enough to account for the timely availability of human organs compatible with such a large number of recipients. The upshot is that the publications which the source describes as "data" must either exclude or misclassify some deaths where the cause of death is execution by the Government. Perhaps a user who reads Chinese can confirm this. Adoring nanny (talk) 11:27, 27 January 2022 (UTC)[reply]

This is completely unrelated to the topic being discussed, this is about COVID deaths and linking to an unrelated article which "The neutrality of this article is disputed" does not improve your point. Xoltered (talk)

@Xoltered: While it proves nothing on its own, I think the fact that the CCP has been known to fabricate death statistics in other politically sensitive areas gives reason to be suspicious that they may also be doing so here. —Compassionate727 ^(T·C) 20:39, 31 January 2022 (UTC)[reply]

See WP:OR Xoltered (talk) 20:41, 31 January 2022 (UTC)[reply]

• While WP:CONTEXTMATTERS is relevant, I am in agreement with what Adoring nanny said. Azuredivay (talk) 08:01, 30 January 2022 (UTC)[reply]

  Slam-dunk case: Where have I heard that before? You're pointing to completely unrelated - and extremely suspect - accusations of organ harvesting of Falun Gong prisoners to argue that essentially all scientific study on COVID-19 mortality in China is wrong. If you believe that the paper in The BMJ that we're discussing is based on faked data, then you should bring that to the attention of the editors of The BMJ. If you have any credible evidence, I'm sure they will take your complaint very seriously and will publish any needed retractions or corrections. Until you've convinced The BMJ to do so, however, we are all free to reject your suggestion of faked data out-of-hand. -Thucydides411 (talk) 21:09, 1 February 2022 (UTC)[reply]

• No, per Adoring nanny. —Compassionate727 ^(T·C) 20:21, 31 January 2022 (UTC)[reply]
• Yes, in the context of this RfC, per Bakkster Man and Jumpytoo, as a paper published by the academic press, and the authors being Chinese does not change this. I prefer a case-by-case analysis — we can include the study, while also using the best news sources, though I do agree with ProcrastinatingReader's comments. As for 'refuting', we need reliable sources saying that to avoid OR/SYNTH, so we should use careful wording, rather than decide for ourself such sources, especially if they are those,12 refuted this paper. As for primary/secondary, WP:PRIMARY notes: "A source may be considered primary for one statement but secondary for a different one." As written by Shibbolethink, it should be a no brainer "if there are no good secondary academic journal article sources available per WP:MEDRS, particularly WP:MEDANIMAL and WP:MEDASSESS. If there are secondary MEDRS-compliant sources available which cite these studies, those secondary sources should be used instead." Davide King (talk) 23:49, 31 January 2022 (UTC)[reply]
• Yes its a reliable source, published in a prestigious journal and extensively reacted to. However, Alexbrn is right to call it a primary source. Secondary sources would include things like the peer reports that the BMJ, like most but not all journals, does not publish and the literature that comments on this study. The editors who think that the fact that the article interprets its own data makes it a secondary source are confused. If MEDRS considers primary sources of this quality to be unusable, so much the worse for MEDRS. — Charles Stewart (talk) 12:03, 1 February 2022 (UTC)[reply]

• Postscript - to be clear, the article is a secondary source with respect to its discussion of prior literature. I'm only arguing that it is not a secondary source with respect to its own claims. — Charles Stewart (talk) 12:06, 1 February 2022 (UTC)[reply]

• No. Fails MEDRS, per Alexbrn and others. MEDRS requires we use more than just primary source research papers like this one, even though they might otherwise be individually reliable research. MEDRS requires we use reviews and meta-analyses based on analysis of LOTS OF such papers, otherwise OR use of primary sources would rule our medical articles. Editors would (and do) pick and choose which research papers they wish in support of any type of agenda they're pushing. MEDRS blocks such efforts. -- Valjean (talk) 16:01, 5 February 2022 (UTC)[reply]
• No fails WP:MEDRS per others above, Adoring nanny has a good explanation. -Roxy the dog. wooF 16:29, 5 February 2022 (UTC)[reply]
• I'm at a loss to explain the "fails WP:MEDRS" !votes. What exactly is the medical information being cited here? It makes no comment on treatment, causes, mechanism of infection, course of disease. A statistical analysis of excess mortality is not medical information, and no just using the word COVID does not make something medical information. So yes, I think this is a clearly reliable source on excess mortality in Wuhan and other parts of China covered for the early stages of the pandemic. If other sources dispute its findings then that should be presented. Some amorphous claim that anything from a Chinese author is irretrievably tainted seems objectionable on any number of grounds. Least of which is the B in BMJ is "British". nableezy - 23:39, 7 February 2022 (UTC)[reply]

@Nableezy: actually, the case here is that this source was used to refute claims in secondary sources in a way that is WP:OR [85] [86] [87], and similar content was removed from two other pages for the same reason. Overall, there are three issues here:

1. Does this primary source even refute the claims in the secondary sources provided. Perhaps this should be posted WP:OR/N, but the other two issues belong here.
2. Can Chinese academic publications be considered independent on subjects censored by the Chinese government? Note the three criteria in this question, and that it pertains to WP:INDEPENDENT, an explanatory supplement to the multiple policies and guidelines, including WP:RS.
3. Should sourcing on epidemiology and public health topics be governed by WP:MEDRS. In the WP:BMI RFC last year, I put it that epidemiology does not draw only from biological sciences, citing a policy paper from Harvey V. Fineberg in AJPM [88]. This is a question of science policy, health policy, and more specifically, ​​International Health Regulations - which require WHO member states to report cases in a timely and accurate manner. Therefore, I think epidemiology and public health topics should not always be governed by WP:MEDRS, and I didn't cite it in my No !vote. If these disputes keep on erupting, we may need to create WP:PHRS to cover public health.

That there is B in BMJ is really not relevant as the Chinese government gag order affects Chinese academic publications, and not the publishers which are obviously not under their jurisdiction. This was explained by Silver seren and Jehochman in the RFC above, and there are plenty of examples of Chinese Ministry of Public Security involuntarily repatriating citizens for thinking and saying the wrong thing [89] [90] [91]. CutePeach (talk) 15:17, 10 February 2022 (UTC)[reply]

• Yes but not usable. It is published in a reliable source but as a primary research paper, it cannot be used where there is disagreement or incoherence with other WP:RS. WP:SCHOLARSHIP prefers secondary sources and advises extreme caution with primary sources. Pious Brother (talk) 05:24, 15 February 2022 (UTC)[reply]

Are these sources usable for balancing these allegations?

What do we think about these sources added by Karl Krafft [92] to WP:BALANCE the well-founded allegations that the Chinese government deliberately under-reported the extent of infections and deaths in COVID-19 pandemic in mainland China?

1. Koch, Christoffer; Okamura, Ken (2020-11-01). "Benford's Law and COVID-19 reporting". Economics Letters. 196: 1. doi:10.1016/j.econlet.2020.109573. ISSN 0165-1765. We find no evidence of manipulation of Chinese COVID-19 data using Benford's Law. [...] Media and politicians have cast doubt on Chinese reported data on COVID-19 cases. We find Chinese confirmed infections match the distribution expected in Benford's Law and are similar to that seen in the U.S. and Italy. [...] Contrary to popular speculation, we find no evidence that the Chinese massaged their COVID-19 statistics.
2. Isea, Raul (May 2020). "How Valid are the Reported Cases of People Infected with Covid-19 in the World?". International Journal of Coronaviruses. 1: 53–56. doi:10.14302/issn.2692-1537.ijcv-20-3376. The results obtained from the analysis based on Benford's Law of infected cases with Covid-19 obtained that China, Germany, Brazil, Venezuela, Norway, South Africa, Singapore, Ecuador, Egypt, Ireland, France, Australia, Colombia, India, Russia, Croatia don't manipulate the information register in the John Hopkins dataset.
3. Zhang, Junyi (2020-02-13). "Testing Case Number of Coronavirus Disease 2019 in China with Newcomb-Benford Law". arXiv. In this article, we propose a test of the reported case number of coronavirus disease 2019 in China with Newcomb-Benford law. We find a p-value of 92.8% in favour that the cumulative case numbers abide by the Newcomb-Benford law. Even though the reported case number can be lower than the real number of affected people due to various reasons, this test does not seem to indicate the detection of frauds.
4. Kolias, Pavlos (1 January 2022). "Applying Benford's law to COVID-19 data: The case of the European Union". MedRxiv: 2. doi:10.1101/2021.12.24.21268373v4.full. Previous studies, in different fields, have applied Benford's distribution (or law) analysis to detect fraudulent and manipulated data. Specifically, for COVID-19, it was found that deaths were underreported in the USA (Campolieti, 2021), while in China no manipulation was found (Koch & Okamura, 2020).
5. Idrovo, Alvaro Javier; Manrique-Hernández, Edgar Fabián (May 2020). "Data Quality of Chinese Surveillance of COVID-19: Objective Analysis Based on WHO's Situation Reports". Asia Pacific Journal of Public Health. 32 (4): 165–167. doi:10.1177/1010539520927265. ISSN 1010-5395. PMC 7231903. PMID 32408808. Was there quality in the Chinese epidemiological surveillance system during the COVID-19 pandemic? Using data of World World Health Organization's situation reports (until situation report 55), an objective analysis was realized to answer this important question. Fulfillment of Benford's law (first digit law) is a rapid tool to suggest good data quality. Results suggest that China had an acceptable quality in its epidemiological surveillance system. Furthermore, more detailed and complete analyses could complement the evaluation of the Chinese surveillance system.

ScrumptiousFood (talk) 18:37, 17 February 2022 (UTC)[reply]

Are studies from 2020 even relevant to the discussion going on? Since we're discussing concerns of data manipulation in the past 6 months or so specifically? Silverseren^C 22:06, 19 February 2022 (UTC)[reply]

@Silver seren: most sources questioning the accuracy of China's statistics focus on the initial outbreak, and the Dec 2020 Associated Press investigation cited by The Times doesn't give dates. I would suggest to replace these sources with this source, but it doesn't counter all the allegations so it shouldn't be given too much weight. ScrumptiousFood (talk) 19:10, 22 February 2022 (UTC)[reply]

Do you have any objections about the sources in particular? Sources 3 and 4 are pre-prints, but the other 3 look fine to me. Jumpytoo Talk 22:41, 22 February 2022 (UTC)[reply]

My objection about these sources is that they are primary and cannot be used to balance claims made in secondary sources and that they may not be independent due to the Chinese government COVID-19 gag order. The NYTimes opinion piece is a secondary source and more usable. ScrumptiousFood (talk) 17:10, 25 February 2022 (UTC)[reply]

What is the reliability of Behind the Voice Actors (BTVA)? They are not user-generated content and they try to distinguish themselves from websites like IMDB and it also looks like they fact-check/verify their information with the primary source with a green tick. Past discussions here look like there is no clear consensus on BTVA. After this RfC, I think we should consider putting it on WP:RSP. Here are the past discussions [1], [2], [3], and [4].

• Option 1: Generally reliable for the voice or actor of a character/entertainment news
• Option 2: Unclear or additional considerations apply
• Option 3: Generally unreliable for factual news
• Option 4: Publishes false or fabricated information and should be deprecated

― Kaleeb18^Talk_Caleb 16:17, 4 February 2022 (UTC)[reply]

• I have No opinion on the reliability of the source… but 4 discussions over nine years is hardly perennial. Blueboar (talk) 02:36, 5 February 2022 (UTC)[reply]
• While it’s not as bad as IMDb, I’ve still seen the site be unreliable on a few different occasions, so I personally wouldn’t think it would be a great idea when using it as a reference or a source to back up anything because it isn’t always reputable. Unfortunately because of this, I would have to go with Option 3. SlySabre (talk) 04:59, 5 February 2022 (UTC)[reply]
• Option 3 I scrolled down and read "This is an unofficial site", which is somehow weird. Also too many advertisements and banners and there are no authors, we do not know who says what. I 'd suggest it 's better to avoid. Cinadon36 08:29, 5 February 2022 (UTC)[reply]
• I reject such over generalizations. (invited by the bot) But on average, weaker than a typical RS. So e.g. generally strong enough to retain an uncontested contested fact, not strong enough to retain a contested one. North8000 (talk) 10:49, 5 February 2022 (UTC)[reply]
• Option 3: Immediately visible is a paragraph describing itself as a "community database", which means it likely is not as reliable as a page with a stated author(s) and preferably some kind of editorial team. Also as per Cinadon36, the bottom states that it is an "unofficial website" which is concerning and raises questions over its reliability. Liamyangll (talk to me! | My contribs!) 02:30, 6 February 2022 (UTC) At second glance, it appears my brief, superficial scan of the general website was not accurate. The thorough points specified by Compassionate727 seem to address the points made by Cinadon36 which I originally supported. After doing a little more digging, I'm inclined to lean towards Option 1, but I'm overall still undecided as I don't believe the reliability could span the entire website. I'll replace my past opinion with Option 2. Liamyangll (talk to me! | My contribs!) 12:11, 11 February 2022 (UTC)[reply]
• Option 2 they claim to fact check and there are no examples specified of errors so it could be used for uncontroversial information in my virw, Atlantic306 (talk) 18:50, 6 February 2022 (UTC)[reply]

  This is how I also feel about it. ― Kaleeb18^Talk_Caleb 18:52, 6 February 2022 (UTC)[reply]

• Option 1. As already noted, the website describes itself as "unofficial" in the footer alongside a note about copyrights and trademarks, which I interpret to be their attempt to make some kind of fair use claim. The home page describes it as a "community database"; I believe this means community-maintained, because when I navigate to the content guidelines, there is a note that: The BTVA site is run by a handful of volunteers who contribute content in their spare time as a hobby; the FAQ notes that: all the site staff either have jobs or are still in school. It is clear that not everyone can be a volunteer, because site visitors are instructed to request additions or changes to content via forum post, unless they are a voice actor making requests concerning their own content, in which case they are instructed to contact the site admin directly. There is a note in the FAQ that: If you prove yourself a reliable and trustworthy contributor who works well with others, then you may be invited to become a team member. Currently there are only 13 such individuals.[93]

Their FAQ suggests an extensive fact-checking process, and they claim: Our site is not perfect and we do make some mistakes, but unlike user submitted sites like imdb and wikipedia our sources come from official voice actor websites, voice actor resumes, DVD/Blu-ray ending credits and from conversations with the voice actors & voice directors who actually worked on the titles. If you notice any green checkmarks those are confirmed credits. Click the greencheck mark to see the source. Our goal is to have a green checkmark for every single role on the site so fans will know these credits are confirmed. Then you won't have to rely on other sites that don't list any sources at all. I found some pages that have these green checkmarks and clicked on them, which brought up screenshots of the show's credits, either taken directly from the animation or on the websites of distributors like Funimation. The FAQ notes, in the context of someone claiming that their credits lists for particular actors may be incomplete, that: Other sites might claim to be up-to-date but anybody can write words; gathering pictures and verifying credits takes a lot of time and effort. Listing another site isn't as helpful as you think it is. It's not going to make the work go any faster and chances are the site staff already know what hasn't been added yet. They note elsewhere that they sometimes receive conflicting information and conduct some kind of investigation when that happens.

My overall assessment is that for a website run by a dozen volunteers, they seem shockingly professional. I would say that any credits with a green checkmark are clearly reliable. Content without a checkmark should be treated with a little more skepticism, but even then I would say it is probably generally reliable unless we have specific reason to doubt its accuracy in a particular situation. Despite their unpolished presentation, they seem generally high-quality, certainly better than somewhere like IMDb or Wikipedia. —Compassionate727 ^(T·C) 20:48, 6 February 2022 (UTC)[reply]

Wow thanks for the detailed review! ― Kaleeb18^Talk_Caleb 20:53, 6 February 2022 (UTC)[reply]

• Option 1 per Compassionate727's detailed review. I may change my mind if SlySabre gives the examples of unreliable occasions. Pious Brother (talk) 23:21, 10 February 2022 (UTC)[reply]
• Option 1 (Summoned by bot) very good report by Compassionate727. IAmChaos 23:27, 12 February 2022 (UTC)[reply]

Are independent, secondary sources considered reliable to state the Staffordshire Bull Terrier was formerly known by the names "Bull and Terrier", "Bull Terrier", "Pit dog", "Half and Half" and "Bulldog Terrier"? Cavalryman (talk) 02:52, 8 February 2022 (UTC)[reply]

Background. It has been claimed none of the below sources are reliable to state the Staffordshire Bull Terrier was formerly known by any of the names "Bull and Terrier", "Bull Terrier", "Pit dog", "Half and Half" and "Bulldog Terrier". Further, it has been claimed that citing them is WP:OR, [94][95][96][97]. Discussions at Talk:Staffordshire Bull Terrier#Merger proposal: Bull and terrier and WP:FRINGEN#Staffordshire Bull Terrier have failed to reach a consensus.

The below sources and specific quotes have been claimed to refute the sources above.

Question. Are the sources detailed in the top box considered reliable and specifically are they reliable to cite the former names of the Staffordshire Bull Terrier? Cavalryman (talk) 02:52, 8 February 2022 (UTC)[reply]

Survey

• Yes all of the sources are reliable and yes they are reliable for citing the claim the Staffordshire Bull Terrier was formerly known by all of the various names listed above. Cavalryman (talk) 02:52, 8 February 2022 (UTC)[reply]
• Hasn't this question already been asked at Talk:Staffordshire Bull Terrier and Wikipedia:Fringe theories/Noticeboard#Staffordshire Bull Terrier? How is this not forum shopping? Damn, I was about to note that Talk:Bull and terrier had not been edited since 2019 and suggest that these discussions continue there, when you started this!! wbm1058 (talk) 03:15, 8 February 2022 (UTC)[reply]

wbm1058, there has been no determination on the reliability of the sources. This is just to seek a determination about whether the the community considers these sources reliable, I believe the discussions have broken down because of a refusal to accept their reliability (or potential lack of). Regards, Cavalryman (talk) 03:26, 8 February 2022 (UTC).[reply]

• Wow - a malformed RfC improperly worded to get the answer you want? The fact that you already failed to gain consensus at 2 other venues over this same issue needs an admin's attention. If this isn't forum-shopping with a splash of TE, then I don't know what is. I've seen editors get t-banned for far less than what you've been doing for over a week now. Atsme 💬 📧 06:03, 8 February 2022 (UTC)[reply]
• Comment Most of the sources in the first box are WP:TERTIARY (Atlas, Dictionary, Encyclopedia). These are down-scale quality. Some are also quite old. It may be there are two perspectives: traditional cultural understanding, and scientific/DNA analysis. Thus it is possible both are right, depending on context. Stuff like this is best handled with careful prose. Report what we know including contradictions. -- GreenC 03:30, 8 February 2022 (UTC)[reply]
• Comment(invited by the bot) You basically have wp:RS's saying somewhat conflicting things. IMO your solution isn't going to come from deciding on inclusion or exclusion of sources based on policy. I certainly would not knock out either claim or source based on that. Most likely you'll need to say both with attribution. North8000 (talk) 04:41, 8 February 2022 (UTC)[reply]
• Yes that the sources are reliable for saying the Staffordshire Bull Terrier was formerly called the sundry names given above. This has been hashed out a few times now, and I'm familiar with the arguments out forth. Happy editing, --SilverTiger12 (talk) 05:05, 8 February 2022 (UTC)[reply]
• Trout and close. Why is this RfC even here? It's as if this page didn't have instructions at the top about what it's for` and how to post. Alexbrn (talk) 06:09, 8 February 2022 (UTC)[reply]
• Yes, these appear in reliable secondary sources. There are a few sources that disagree, so they should be referenced as well with their point of view.--Seggallion (talk) 09:05, 8 February 2022 (UTC)[reply]
• More or less. Quite a few of these are clearly tertiary sources, including Coile, Jones (both books), Morris, and Wilcox. Beaufoy is probably a primary source. That said, all of them except maybe Beaufoy (depending on whether he has a reputation as an expert) are probably reliable enough for the facts at issue. I agree with complainants here, however, that these facts should not be at issue on this page, after just being discussed on another noticeboard and being subject to an ongoing thread at Talk:Bull and terrier#Continuing from where we were on the fringe theories noticeboard. Cf. WP:TALKFORK.  — SMcCandlish ☏ ¢ 😼  17:51, 8 February 2022 (UTC)[reply]
• Comment. If the question here is to evaluate the sources, I would say that the first group of sources appears to include more in the way of books about the subject, which is a point in its favor, but the sources on both sides of the disagreement are largely reliable for Wikipedia's purposes, albeit with the caveats about tertiary sources noted above. This is not a decision between reliable sources and junk/deprecated sources. Since the underlying question goes beyond source reliability, to which POV should be reflected by the page content, I'd agree with some of the other editors here that the best resolution of the ongoing dispute is to acknowledge both sides, with attribution, and not to come down strongly one way or the other in Wikipedia's voice. --Tryptofish (talk) 23:28, 8 February 2022 (UTC)[reply]
• Comment. This is a waste of time. Why can't Cavalryman and Atsme work out a compromise wording that explains both sides of the dispute? Why do Cavalryman and Atsme feel the need to start these noticeboard discussions? The sources are disputing the facts. As others have said, say both with attribution. This is an AN/I thread in the making because neither one of you feels the need to compromise and you are both adamant on your correctness. How hard is it to just write the article acknowledging that there's a dispute in reliable sources? For what it's worth, the dog breed doesn't have to be proven to exist as a separate dog breed to have its own article. Look at the Khorasan group. This group may or may not exist as a separate cell of Al-Qaeda, although many reliable sources have said that it does exist many have said it doesn't. It gets a separate article because many reliable sources have covered it as a separate entity, and then in the article itself we go into detail on the dispute over its existence. Dog breeds should be less controversial than international terrorism but for whatever reason it was a whole lot easier to adopt a compromise wording in that article. Chess (talk) (please use {{reply to|Chess}} on reply) 00:09, 9 February 2022 (UTC)[reply]

  Is the Greater Khorasan the parent breed of the Afghan Hound? --Tryptofish (talk) 00:14, 9 February 2022 (UTC)[reply]

• Comment, it is certainly not my intention here to recontest the close of the merge proposal, there is a pretty clear process for how to do so and it does not involve this noticeboard. My intention here was simply to gauge the community's views on the sources listed because their reliability has been continuously denied throughout the two other discussions, this noticeboard is for posting questions regarding whether particular sources are reliable in context. That being said, if general feeling is this is a waste of time I have no objections to it being closed. Cavalryman (talk) 04:00, 9 February 2022 (UTC)[reply]
• Comment - in summary, the sources have been assessed as being reliable by the vast majority of editors here. That established, it is now time to close this thread. 182.239.144.134 (talk) 08:02, 10 February 2022 (UTC)[reply]

There are reasonably frequent discussions about Amnesty:

2019 - Is research by Amnesty International a valid source for Wikipedia?

2021 - Amnesty

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

Selfstudier (talk) 14:08, 10 February 2022 (UTC)[reply]

Discussion (Amnesty International)

• Comment I would ordinarily consider Amnesty a reliable source for facts and with attribution for opinion. Nevertheless, its use is not infrequently contested and there have been more than a few discussions in the past. Recently, at the Israel article, it has twice been referred to as questionable. The purpose of this RFC is to clarify usage. Selfstudier (talk) 14:12, 10 February 2022 (UTC)[reply]
• I would go with somewhere between option 1 and option 2. Their statements are notable, but I would attribute what they say, "According to Amnesty International". --Jayron32 14:32, 10 February 2022 (UTC)[reply]
• Option 1 because we shouldn't even be asking this of a source with Amnesty's reputation, and of its book-length study, the result of 4 years of research, with 1,500+ footnotes meticulously sourcing virtually every statement. What is contested on the Israel page from Amnesty is a fact, furthermore, not Amnesty's opinion.Nishidani (talk) 14:54, 10 February 2022 (UTC)[reply]

  I wasn't aware we were assessing a specific publication. The OP does not note any specific publication. I'm not sure why you changed the topic of the RFC from a general assessment to one of a specific publication, which may be more or less reliable. than a general assessment of the organization. --Jayron32 15:28, 10 February 2022 (UTC)[reply]

  We are not, although Amnesty in an Israeli context has come up recently at both BDS and Israel articles. People might think that Amnesty is unreliable in an Israeli context but it is I think usual for the targets of Amnesty reports to not agree with them as a matter of course, even the UK and the US do so. What I would like is agreement on the way to treat Amnesty as a source in general, rather than in any given setting (unless people think it is appropriate to comment on a given setting, that is). Selfstudier (talk) 15:48, 10 February 2022 (UTC)[reply]

  see here. I didn't change anything. I don't think there is much point in framing this request in terms of AI's general reliability. It has always been accepted here that it is a top-ranking human rights organization known for careful research. The only point here is to ask whether when Amnesty's remark, not exceptional (B'tselem/Human Rights Watch and dozens of scholarly papers have made the same general observation)- can be used for the details about the known fact that Palestinian Israelis are 'restricted' in their access to land, and find themselves confined to '139 densely populated towns and villages' in just 3 areas of Israel. No one contests the fact from Israeli official statistics that they live predominantly in 139 towns and villages, in three areas, that Israeli land regulations do not allow any significant expansion of those areas, hence 'densely populated', as opposed to the prerogatives for ethnic-exclusive landuse accorded the Jewish majority population. AI's report, based on a huge number of sources, states the known facts succinctly. Some editors do not want it as a source for this page, ergo, they call it, weirdly, 'questionable'. It is national governments, as noted above, from China to the US and GB, that contest AI's work, not scholars. What is 'questionable' is what any reader of Israeli newspapers will find regularly reported in the national press. Go figure. Nishidani (talk) 16:00, 10 February 2022 (UTC)[reply]

  It doesn't really matter if you want to frame the question in terms of general reliability, the OP did. If you want to assess the reliability of a specific document, that should be a different discussion. It's not helpful to steer the discussion into a different direction. --Jayron32 17:05, 10 February 2022 (UTC)[reply]

  Jayron, you're right and that is why this discussion is misleading from the start. The only reason we're discussing Amnesty now is because the OP wants to use a specific Amnesty report to claim that Israel is an apartheid state. That particular report has been widely disputed by many democratic governments. So to frame this discussion as being about Amnesty in general, when the OP himself states on the talk page of Israel that he started the discussion because of the report, is very misleading, to the point of being dishonest. Selfstudier, you should either start a discussion about the specific Amnesty report you want to use, or accept that the opinion on Amnesty in general does not give you a carte blanched to use that particular report. Jeppiz (talk) 11:54, 12 February 2022 (UTC)[reply]

  I refer you to my reply below.Selfstudier (talk) 12:29, 12 February 2022 (UTC)[reply]

• Option 1, with an asterisk. Amnesty International is an authoritative human rights advocacy group with a long history. They are generally reliable with respect to the facts. Their opinions are highly respected but sometimes controversial; they should generally be included and attributed in-line. Amnesty International's decisions regarding what to cover should be understood to may reflect a left-wing bias; in particular, they should be considered partisan in the Israeli–Palestinian conflict. —Compassionate727 ^(T·C) 15:50, 10 February 2022 (UTC)[reply]

  To skew human rights, which is inscribed as a constitutional right in all modern democracies and constitutions, underwritten by founding fathers who were republican, liberal, democratic etc., as 'left-wing' is unacceptable. Indeed it is a term applied to Human Rights bodies simply because the job they do is unpleasant for most governments that violate elementary principles of humanity. That is not a concern which is the exclusive preserve of some (radical/Marxist/extreme) 'leftists'. The left, in regard to Amnesty and Human Rights Watch, has a notable record of criticizing those agencies for underplaying or ignoring human rights issues in Israel and several other countries. Nishidani (talk) 16:00, 10 February 2022 (UTC)[reply]

I don't believe I ever claimed otherwise. Respect for human rights is a decidedly centrist position; disrespect, an extremist position present in both wings. I was merely observing that Amnesty International's reporting consistently favors Palestinian perspectives versus Israeli ones, a tendency that is consistently associated with left-wing politics in the United States and, from what I understand, Western Europe also. Perhaps if we were to examine other controversial conflicts, we would find a similar bias. I don't know, I am not an expert in Amnesty International, merely reporting my impressions like everyone else here. If it helps, I have edited my statement that they "should be understood to" show a bias, which implied more consistency than I had intended. —Compassionate727 ^(T·C) 16:25, 10 February 2022 (UTC)[reply]

Amnesty International consistently states what its field reporters, and the general consensus of Israeli academics who study their own area document. That Palestinian complain, and Amnesty reports their grievances is no more 'left-wing' that would be the case if the Uyghurs or Tibetan or any other indigenous population had their complaints addressed by an external analytical human rights group. Amnesty like B'tselem and Human Rights Watch regularly criticize abuses by the Palestinian Authority, Hamas and lone wolves ( and the standard 'left-wing critique of their reports on Palestinian violence takes exception to the way all three groups address Israeli accusations). They are neutral to the kind of one-eyed partisanship we associate with right/left wing. Nishidani (talk) 17:31, 10 February 2022 (UTC)[reply]

• Option 1 with an asterisk. As an advocacy organization, Amnesty's views should be attributed, as they can be controversial. Amnesty is highly critical of some governments but less so of others, which some say makes them biased. Pious Brother (talk) 16:24, 10 February 2022 (UTC)[reply]

Comment.We should exercise care when describing groups as 'advocacy' organizations. AI advocates, globally, for human rights, i.e., due respect for law and the fundamental values of the UN charter, and modern democracies. Huma rights are a universal principle, not a partisan cause. I'd rather see a distinction between advocacy that evinces a rigorous call for the former and advocacy which is only for a specific human group, ethnos, nation, national interest etc. That is a different kettle of fish, since the militancy of the latter is primarily to vindicate a sectional interest. Nishidani (talk) 17:36, 10 February 2022 (UTC)[reply]

• Option 1. I'm not sure if the use of AI has been credibly challenged; but they have a long history as a highly respected human rights organization. Yes, they're an advocacy organization, meaning their opinions should be attributed, but factual information does not need to be, and I see no evidence that they're in any way unreliable for factual information. Vanamonde (Talk) 16:35, 10 February 2022 (UTC)[reply]
• Option 1 - agree with Vanamonde, the very definition of a respected, widely cited, and professional organization. When they make an accusation of such and such being a human right violation it should of course be attributed, and since their views are routinely cited in reliable sources it should not be difficult for a secondary source for their views. But when they report facts, like in the last 20 years there have been X refugees fleeing Y country, an absolutely solid source. "According to Amnesty International" can be found 600+ time on nytimes.com, 469 times on BBC, 352 times on The Guardian, some 5000 results on google scholar, nearly 700 times on JSTOR. A solid source on all counts. nableezy - 19:45, 10 February 2022 (UTC)[reply]
  • Not for nothing, but According to Xinhua appears "according+to+xinhua"+site%3A"nytimes.com over 700 times on the NYT, around 275 times on the BBC, about 280 times in The Guardian, about 580 times by WSJ and over 2000 times in the South China Morning Post. Amnesty International certainly has more integrity than Xinhua, but it's important to note that the way in which RS use Amnesty international matters more than merely the times that somebody says something according to them. Are these uses mostly uses as a source for facts, or because the NGO carries weight even if it is seen to fudge numbers at times? — Mhawk10 (talk) 05:14, 12 February 2022 (UTC)[reply]

Yes, examine those results. You will see that reliable sources cite material from Amnesty International as a matter of course and that when they make an accusation they discuss it to show that the NGO carries weight for just their opinions. But yes, often for facts. nableezy - 23:26, 14 February 2022 (UTC)[reply]

• Option 1. Widely respected organisation, they can be used without attribution when dealing with uncontested factual assertions. Where they are contradicted, or where they draw inferences from factual data, they should be attributed. The same as any other Reliable Source really. They should, of course, be understood to have a bias in favour of human rights and against organisations which violate them. Boynamedsue (talk) 21:13, 10 February 2022 (UTC)[reply]
• Option 1 if we (=wikipedia) were not to cite them, we would be about the only ones (outside right-wing Israeli sources) not doing so, so yes; of course we can cite them, Huldra (talk) 21:20, 10 February 2022 (UTC)[reply]
• Option 1; widely trusted as a reliable source. Whether they can be cited for facts should depend largely on whether there are other sources that disagree with them, but their reputation is sufficient that when they state something as a fact and there's nothing to contradict it then we can generally report that as fact ourselves. I don't think there's sufficient evidence to consider them generally biased - if a government disagreeing with AI's conclusions was enough to make it biased, then there would be no unbiased sources describing any governments. As someone said above, if people think it is biased I'd want to see scholarly sources (or, more specifically, sources we can reasonably consider unbiased ourselves) saying so. --Aquillion (talk) 22:47, 10 February 2022 (UTC)[reply]
• Option 2 I think that it's pretty clear that there is a bias with Amnesty when it comes to the Middle East. It's not just Israel (or the US) that repudiated their report. Many countries, and even Arabs within Israel have repudiated the report. Arab party leader in Israel rejects Apartheid label, they have shown that they look at things with a predetermined outcome. As such, they should not be deemed reliable in this area. Sir Joseph ^(talk) 00:04, 11 February 2022 (UTC)[reply]

With respect, we are not being asked whether the source is biased. All sources are biased. We are being asked whether it is reliable, nothing you post above contradicts its reliability. The suggestion that if an individual or government disagrees with a statement the source it comes from can not be reliable does not hold much water. Boynamedsue (talk) 07:25, 11 February 2022 (UTC)[reply]

• Option 1 All indications are that they are generally reliable for facts. Their inferences, evaluations, position statements, etc., should be attributed, since they are the organization's own work. That's just giving intellectual credit where credit is due. XOR'easter (talk) 01:11, 11 February 2022 (UTC)[reply]
• Option 1 Amnesty checks all the important boxes of reliability in my opinion. Like XOR'easter has noted above, personal opinions and collective positions are to be attributed. Some research services that Amnesty offers are trusted across the board by reliable sources: for example, in the wake of the Pegasus Project (investigation), it released a peer review of the investigation in parallel to uToronto's Citizen Lab [98], which was widely cited by the RS that led the investigation, such as the Washington Post, Le Monde, and Die Zeit. Pilaz (talk) 18:16, 11 February 2022 (UTC)[reply]
• Reliable for facts, attribution required for evaluations and position statements. "X journalists were assassinated in country Y in 2021" is a factual statement. "Media freedom in country Y is restricted" is their own position and must be attributed. Of course both facts reported by them and their opinions may or may not be DUE in any given article. The discussion of the bias is out of the scope of this noticeboard but it certainly exists: they report (relatively speaking) more on open and democratic societies and focus on the recipients of the US aid (see Amnesty_International#Country_focus). While it's understandable as they want to maximise the impact of their work, we should keep it in mind when assessing the relevance of the AI reporting and positions. Alaexis_¿question? 20:53, 11 February 2022 (UTC)[reply]

What bias? Amnesty International's remit (bias?) is to report accurately and reliably on human rights abuses anywhere. That is why has regularly denounced systematic abuses of human rights and violation of the rules of war by the Palestinian National Authority and Hamas, Israel's adversary. As to the distinction re facts, versus opinions, many Israeli sources state international laws, on which AI relies, are opinionable. Are they?Nishidani (talk) 22:37, 11 February 2022 (UTC)[reply]

Look, I've myself used their reports when writing about various post-Soviet conflicts and I consider them reliable in general. The bias criticism in Amnesty_International#Country_focus is about varying levels of coverage. To give an example, they have 725 reports on Israel and 111 reports about North Korea. I don't think you'd argue that there are 7 times more human rights abuses in Israel. Being generous to them, the reason is probably that it's easier for them to get information about the Israeli abuses and also because they consider it more likely that their reporting with make an impact there. My point is that we should not let this imbalance skew the coverage in Wikipedia. We have WP:NPOV and they don't. Alaexis_¿question? 07:42, 13 February 2022 (UTC)[reply]

If you want to argue that AI is reliable for every other country except for Israel then argue for that. If enough agree, then a special exemption can be carved out as was done with the Jewish Chronicle where it was decided that it was reliable except for some areas. That the Israel situation has more reports is not at all surprising, I don't know why you would think otherwise, Israel also gets more attention everywhere else not just at AI, this has been going on for a long time.Selfstudier (talk) 09:21, 13 February 2022 (UTC)[reply]

That's not at all what I'm saying. I'm saying that it's mostly reliable but biased in its coverage. As you rightly note, many media outlets have the same problem. Alaexis_¿question? 13:35, 13 February 2022 (UTC)[reply]

Fair enough, accepting that there is a bias, as is the case with all sources, is this bias of a nature sufficient to justify excluding the source for the case of Israel? I think it is not.Selfstudier (talk) 13:59, 13 February 2022 (UTC)[reply]

they have 725 reports on Israel and 111 reports about North Korea. I don't think you'd argue that there are 7 times more human rights abuses in Israel. - Who said that? TrangaBellam (talk) 08:56, 14 February 2022 (UTC)[reply]

No one. It's a rhetorical question which served to emphasise my point about the level of coverage not correlated with the level of violations. Alaexis_¿question? 12:53, 15 February 2022 (UTC)[reply]

• WP:GREL and WP:BIASED, so attribute the source. There are obviously claims that the group makes that are indeed opinions—that The death penalty is the ultimate cruel, inhuman and degrading punishment or that Governments have a duty to prohibit hateful, inciteful speech are two such examples—unless we are going to start trying to define WP:RS for claims of moral fact and natural law made in Wikipedia's voice. I think that doing so would be a bad idea and would be contrary to WP:NPOV. There's evidence that Amnesty carries substantial weight, but at its core the group is focused on human rights advocacy through its own particular lens. There's little question the group leans left in certain areas—the legalization of prostitution, opposition to capital punishment, and resolute support of abortion rights without any restrictions all are stances on controversial issues involving human rights where Amnesty falls to the left side of the political divide. I'm hard pressed to find a human rights issue with a left-right divide where Amnesty leans hard right. That being said, WP:BIASED keenly notes that sometimes non-neutral sources are the best possible sources for certain sorts of information and that when dealing with a potentially biased source, editors should consider whether the source meets the normal requirements for reliable sources, such as editorial control, a reputation for fact-checking, and the level of independence from the topic the source is covering. WP:BIASED also indicates that a strong bias on a topic may make in-text attribution appropriate. Amnesty is a highly respected organization that has a reputation for fact-checking and accuracy as well as a substantial review process for its at-length reports, so its reports seem to be WP:GREL where it's independent from the topic it is covering. I'm not so sure about using Amnesty's website more generally, particularly its opinionated "what we do" pages, but I don't think people would seriously try to cite the equivalent of Amnesty International's "about us" pages in a contentious manner when its detailed reports exist, are publicly accessible, and contain higher quality information. — Mhawk10 (talk) 05:14, 12 February 2022 (UTC)[reply]

To repeat, concern for human rights, at least historically, was a liberal concern. The word 'liberal' itself came to mean 'communist-leaning' exclusively in American right-wing discourse, and 'liberals' are now bunched in with 'leftists', who in any case, can't agree who's on the 'left'. Such branding is pointless, esp. in this case, where it functions in right-wing discourse to discredit without discussion anything critical of government policy.Nishidani (talk) 16:09, 12 February 2022 (UTC)[reply]

If we’re going to attempt to trace the history of human rights activism, there are real and profound splits among campaigners over things like prostitution, abortion, and capital punishment. I do not see anywhere where I am saying that Amnesty International are communists—they aren’t. Certainly center-left and left-liberal groups exist, are not communist, and fall to the left of the left-right divide. I’d find it really odd to deny that If you are arguing that the idea of left-liberal ideology is centered entirely in the USA (it’s not) or that describing a group as center-left is mere right-wing discourse to discredit without discussion anything critical of government policy—I am going to have to sharply disagree with you there. There are indeed times when “left wing” and “right wing” get lazily thrown around to discredit an argument without backing up the substance of one’s claims—the comment above this one is a good example—but I don’t think that noting that the lens that Amnesty looks at human rights is a left-liberal lens. In areas of controversy regarding what human rights actually are, it is proper to attribute to Amnesty when they are stating their stances on issues, such as Is abortion a violation of the right to life? No. This sort of stuff is key to WP:NPOV—just as attribution to the ADL that Amnesty’s report on Israel creates fertile ground for a hostile and at times antisemitic discourse is something we should do rather than putting the generally reliable ADL’s claim in wikivoice. Attributing sources on these sorts of issues is exactly what WP:NPOV calls us to do—avoid stating opinion as fact. — Mhawk10 (talk) 17:50, 12 February 2022 (UTC)[reply]

You introduced the idea of a source evaluative benchmark, the left-right distinction.I think this is meaningless in the context of human rights. As I noted on the talk page, Yossi Sarid, Ehud Barak, Ehud Olmert, Michael Ben-Yair, Ami Ayalon and A. B. Yehoshua have drawn the same comparison as Amnesty and Human Rights Watch (both frequently the targets of what some in this schema might identify as ‘ leftist’ criticism regarding Israel) comparison, over a decade before those NGOs finally accepted the idea. Are they all identifiable with some ‘left-leaning viewpoint? No. Israeli NGOS like B'tselem and Yesh Din idem. Does it throw light on their reliability to regard those two as ‘leftist? No, such accusations just shift the goalposts from analysis of their data and inferences, to insinuations that their work‘s conclusions are predictable because it fits a ‘leftist’ mindset, whatever that is. It's the impression 25% of American Jews have,that “Israel is an apartheid state”.(Ron Kampeas, ‘Poll finds a quarter of US Jews think Israel is ‘apartheid state’,’ Times of Israel 13 July 2021; Chris McGreal,Amnesty says Israel is an apartheid state. Many Israeli politicians agree The Guardian 5 February 2022) The figure is more dramatic if we take into account The Jewish Electorate Institute poll last year which found 38% of American Jews under 40 concur with that interpretation, while 15% were unsure. Only 13% of the over 64 bracket entertained that view. This means it is a generational divide in Jewish American opinion. (Arno Rosenfeld , Amnesty ‘apartheid’ report solidifies human rights consensus on Israel,' The Forward 1 February 2022) Do those 25% vote for Ralph Nader or even the Democratic Party which is rumoured to be, somewhat laughable, leftwing? No.Nishidani (talk) 23:01, 12 February 2022 (UTC)[reply]

• Option 1 . Generally reliable for facts; their work is on a par with much serious scholarship. That what are clearly opinions should be attributed is a given - it attaches to any publisher or author. Cambial — foliar❧ 06:01, 12 February 2022 (UTC)[reply]
• Option 2 and dubious discussion start. Given that the discussion starter launched thus discussion with the sole purpose of claiming that Israel is an apartheid state, I find the discussion misleading as it pretends to be about Amnesty in general. Amnesty's recent report about Israel has been debunked by most leading democracies in the world (the US, the UK, Germany etc.). Given that this discussion is about that specific report (see the long discussion at the talk page of Israel where the discussion starter explicitly admits starting this discussion for the purpose of using that report), the question is rather whether Amnesty is infallible. So for me it's option 2. I generally trust Amnesty. If Amnesty puts out a report that is widely discredited in the Democratic world, that report should not be used as a neutral fact, pretending all the criticism of it doesn't exist. Jeppiz (talk) 11:41, 12 February 2022 (UTC)[reply]

  I did not add the Amnesty material to the Israel article so your premise is just false. I initiated one of the prior discussions on Amnesty linked in the opening. I also referred in my opening to the fact of Amnesty having been twice referred to at the Israel article as a questionable source, said assertion being given as reason to revert material which was not added by me. Since Amnesty validity as a source has been questioned on a number of occasions, it is logical that we establish it's status, that is what this is about and not your offensive innuendo, for which an apology would be in order. Selfstudier (talk) 12:22, 12 February 2022 (UTC)[reply]

Just to clarify, whether or not Amnesty are a Reliable Source (and all the evidence suggests they are), the governments of Israel, Germany, The UK and the USA absolutely are not. Nor are any other governments. Their statements of opinion on the Amnesty report on Israeli apartheid have no bearing on whether wikipedia should consider Amnesty to be RS. Also, the word "debunk" indicates a systematic and convincing rebuttal. The governments in question have not done this, nor has anybody else. Boynamedsue (talk) 15:02, 12 February 2022 (UTC)[reply]

Jeepiz. This arose when I cited it for a specific, and uncontroversial datum about residential confinement of Israel's minority,- which no one doubts since it comes from Israeli statistics - and an immediate war of expunction flared up. I presume because it contained the word 'apartheid' in the discreetly footnoted title. Neither the US, nor Germany nor the UK have 'debunked' what is the result of a 4 year long 280 page study, with 1,564 footnotes. Two official foreign spokesmen dismissed it on the day it was issued (I presume they didn't read the whole study in one day - to digest it has taken me a week) echoing outrage in Israeli government circles. The only valid criticism of whatever inadequacies or inaccuracies it may be found to contain will come from scholars or policy wonks who take the trouble to tackle the intricate details and show where AI's report is, in their view, flawed. Therefore official reactions by allied states are meaningless. No such overnight hysteria greeted Gunnar Myrdal’s groundbreaking American Dilemma (1944) when its detailed analyses, anti litteram of quasi-apartheid segregation policies in the United States came out in two massive volumes, and over time, esp. after Douglas Massey and Nancy Denton’s book American Apartheid: Segregation and the Making of the Underclass, Harvard University Press, 1998, (' the singularly most influential study of segregation in the United States' Gershon Shafir , From Overt to Veiled Segregation: Israel's Palestinian Arab Citizens in the Galilee, International Journal of Middle East Studies, Volume 50 Issue 1 February 2018, pp.1-22 p.3, who uses such works and models to examine comparable Israeli demography) sociological studies of things like ethnic profiling of residential patterns as a US variety of apartheid are commonplace. The Report collects a huge range of data bearing on patterns of discrimination which echo a vast range of articles and books in Israeli and diasporic scholarship. Rather that provide 10 scholarly sources for each assertion, a synthesis as we have it in AI’s report, or the very similar HRW report, is textually easierWhy is it that, anytime even a hint is made that Israel fits some pattern, or has institutional arrangements best understood in comparative perspective since similar things are evidenced in many other countries, all on the basis of quality scholarship and its sourcing, people get nervous and argue for exceptionalism? Or accusations arise that ignore the substance and dwell on political fallout as a criterion for reliability? The question is rhetorical, since the answer is that Israel is a Jewish state, ergo, given the toxic longevity of anti-Semitism regarding Jews that makes us extremely careful of bias against them, anything regarding Israel can be construed as offensive to Jews. Any critical thought will lie dead in the water, stillborn, if that specious premise becomes ubiquitous. Nishidani (talk) 16:09, 12 February 2022 (UTC)[reply]

Option 2,3 and Option 5 UNDUE WEIGHT for Israel article Also dubious discussion start. The question was incorrectly presented (see talk page on "Israel article) AI report claiming Israel is apartheid state was cherry picked and inserted into an article that is basically supposed to be primarily apolitical. There are thousands of NGOs and tens of thousands of opinion's regarding Arab-Israeli conflict, so prioritizing one report of one NGO is cherry picking. AI is as much reliable as other NGOs and political parties when their views are presented with proper attribution, DUE weight and in WP:NPOV fashion. Nothing of this was done in this particular case. The report was rejected by some government's, ignored by all others and defined as antisemitic by other NGOs. What makes this report so special that it should go to every article related to Israel and what gives it special WEIGHT over others to go into the main Israel article? Is AI a legal authority to define any state as genocidal or apaprtheid nation? Its just their highly contested opinion in the same way as claiming Israel as perfect place, only remaining multicultural and multiethnic democracy in Middle East, only country where minorites are rapidly increasing in numbers that gives the highest standards of democracy and freedom to all minorities in that part of world, is opinion of some other NGOs. I would understand mentioning it in the article regarding Israel/Apartheid analogy but here this report is fully UNDUE . I see same group of people going from one to another article and adding negative opinion's about Israel and although such opinion's could be worthy for Wikipedia, cherry picking a highly contested and controversial report of one particular NGO and presenting it as an established fact in an article that is not supposed to cover that topic is against Wikipedia policy of neutrality and fully out of DUE in this particular case. The "Israel article" shouldn't be based on the claims and contra-claims of countless NGOs and particularly not on opinion of just one that fits someone POVs. User Selfstudier ignored my and concerns of others regarding UNDUE weight and went to this noticeboard to open question regarding AI reliability. I hope that he dosent see this as the easiest way to overrun the DUE problem with his edits.Tritomex (talk) 01:43, 13 February 2022 (UTC)[reply]

Weight is decided by the amount of coverage something receives in Reliable Sources, not who agrees with it. The attention given to Amnesty International's report by reliable sources was immense, therefore it is notable for the Israel article. To use wikivoice to state "Israel is an apartheid state" would clearly be inappropriate. However, something like "Human rights groups such as Amnesty International, Human Rights Watch and B'tsalem consider Israel to be committing the crime of Apartheid in its treatment of Palestinians in Israel, Gaza and the West Bank." followed by those who reject this view is clearly entirely WP:DUE. Boynamedsue (talk) 07:22, 13 February 2022 (UTC)[reply]

As an example, take Forward's coverage where they give over a substantial space to the argument that there is a global consensus among human rights organizations on this issue, it's not just AI opinion. Arguing for UNDUE doesn't hold water. As I said above, by all means make the case for an exemption on Israel but so far I have not seen that case.Selfstudier (talk) 09:28, 13 February 2022 (UTC)[reply]

• Option 2 Can be used with attribution. As an advocacy organisation, it tends to be less nuanced and more forceful in its descriptions than standard RSs such as when it equated Guantanamo Bay with a Soviet gulag. AllOtherNamesWereTaken (talk) 09:25, 13 February 2022 (UTC)[reply]

You mean a 278 page report with 1,564 sourcing notes lacks nuance, compared to other RS? Most of our RS are newspapers without footnotes. Nishidani (talk) 09:57, 13 February 2022 (UTC)[reply]

Nuance is not synonymous with detail. While they might accurately report events, they are not jurists or historians and their moral, political and legal judgements can be unsophisticated and overstated. This is not a criticism of them per se and similarly applies to other advocacy groups.AllOtherNamesWereTaken (talk) 14:11, 13 February 2022 (UTC)[reply]

There are two major problem here. First a political advocacy group is not a legal authority that establishes legal facts. So this claim is just an assertion of one NGOs that was ignored or rejected by all major international players (mostly ignored). Second, and in this case even bigger problem is that there are m dozens of events weekly related to Arab-Israeli conflict that are covered by some and in many cases even larger number of RS, it doesnt mean that all of them should be inserted in any article related to Israel. Especially not in the main Israel article. There are many reports of NGOs and political groups whose position could be added to many Wikipedia article's tackling issues of Apartheid analogy. Here we have a case of cherry picking one report of one political advocacy group whose claims are elevated into the level of facts and than inserted without any WEIGHT into the body of article regarding the State of Israel. Tritomex (talk) 10:42, 13 February 2022 (UTC)[reply]

We attribute opinion, claimers and deniers alike, that is not in dispute, therefore irrelevant. That there is a literal worldwide consensus of NGOs both in and outside of Israel on this issue is also not in doubt so that argument falls flat. The only way to achieve your goal here is to make out a case that Amnesty has an exceptional bias in the case of Israel and I see no evidence for that, other than your opinion. Selfstudier (talk) 10:50, 13 February 2022 (UTC)[reply]

"A literal worldwide consensus of NGOs" Common, please, there are millions of NGOs worldwide, thousands just in Israel, 2000 in my small country of Serbia and 99,999+% of those NGOs never herd about this report, not to mention giving consensus to this report. Very few NGOs even reacted, mostly accusing AI for bias, although what would give some weight to this article would be reaction of states, international bodies and institution's which was with few rebuffs equal to zero. Tritomex (talk) 11:11, 13 February 2022 (UTC)[reply]

Sweeping Amnesty ‘apartheid’ report solidifies human rights consensus on Israel

14 Israeli human rights groups back Amnesty International's 'apartheid' report

I have sources to support my view, do you? Selfstudier (talk) 11:17, 13 February 2022 (UTC)[reply]

Option 3 Regarding I/P conflict one of the number one antisemitism experts Deborah Lipstadt call amnesty reports as “ahistorical and unhistorical.”. [99]We cannot really trust what it says in it report regarding Israel as it has clear agenda in its mind. Amnesty have a bad record regarding AntiSemitism [100]--Shrike (talk) 16:12, 13 February 2022 (UTC)[reply]

Lipstadt has no specialist knowledge here, so her comments are irrelevant, as revelaed by the comments themselves. The crime of apartheid is not a matter of history, it is a matter of international law which is in place at this time.--Boynamedsue (talk) 06:58, 14 February 2022 (UTC)[reply]

Lipstadt is specialist on antisemitism and her desription about the report quite telling It seems that amnesty have jewish problem [101] Shrike (talk) 19:03, 14 February 2022 (UTC)[reply]

A specialist on antisemtism is not an expert on international law. The crime of apartheid was criminalized by the Rome Statute, and there is nothing "historical" about it. Shocking development, Israel advocacy organization itself accused of intolerance and racism (eg here) objects to human rights organization criticizing Israel's actions. And this has what exactly to do with Amnesty's reliability again? nableezy - 19:29, 14 February 2022 (UTC)[reply]

So, it is established that Lisptadt is not an expert in the matter at hand. Seems we are now talking about the SW centre's criticism of AI not opening a separate investigation into antisemitism in the UK in 2015. That criticism is exceptionally weak, it presupposes either that antisemitism was more prevalent in the UK than any other form of racism, or that it was more important than any other form of racism. Disagreeing with those premises in good faith can not be reasonably construed as antisemitism. Boynamedsue (talk) 21:18, 14 February 2022 (UTC)[reply]

• Option 1 for facts but with attribution needed for when this strays into advocacy and opinion. AI is, after all, a group that is involved in advocacy, lobbying and campaigning. However, their research and publications are very robust and the findings are usually backed up by other reliable orgs. The idea of "left-wing" bias doesn't make sense really considering the actual history of AI. Perhaps editors are here are too young to remember, but AI angered left-wing groups by not giving Nelson Mandela the prisoner of conscience title. Vladimir.copic (talk) 21:52, 13 February 2022 (UTC)[reply]
• Option 1 wrt to facts. If used to source an opinion, attribute it, but AI is a stellar source in most context. Headbomb {t · c · p · b} 01:24, 14 February 2022 (UTC)[reply]
• Option 1 Stellar source. TrangaBellam (talk) 08:56, 14 February 2022 (UTC)[reply]
• Option 1 Extremely reliable for what it does, which is extremely considered secondary research, in consultation with teams of humans rights lawyers, of the facts on the ground in humanitarian situations around the globe and their relationship with international law. Iskandar323 (talk) 14:24, 14 February 2022 (UTC)[reply]
• Option 2 or 3: Amnesty is a political advocacy organization, so views it expresses on political questions should be attributed to Amn esty and only used in situations where Amnesty is relevant. For example, regarding Amnesty's latest Israel report, many countries disputed Amnesty's claims including the US, Germany, the UK, Austria, the Czech Republic, Australia, Ireland, Canada, and Israel. This is not to disparage Amnesty as an organization, it's just their opinions are fundamentally not suitable encyclopedic sources. OtterAM (talk) 17:58, 14 February 2022 (UTC)[reply]

What relevance do political declarations by countries have in assessing a scholarly report concerning another country? None.— Preceding unsigned comment added by Nishidani (talk • contribs)

• Option 1, as always if there is disagreement or incoherence with other WP:RS then statements/opinions should be attributed. Horse Eye's Back (talk) 18:00, 14 February 2022 (UTC)[reply]
• Since it's an advocacy organization that often takes controversial positions, I'd say its claims should generally be attributed in text, especially if disputed by other sources. (I'm deliberately not choosing an option on the 1–4 scale because I don't think the scale is particularly useful in this case.) —Mx. Granger (talk · contribs) 21:33, 14 February 2022 (UTC)[reply]
• None of the above AI is a very notable advocacy group, and as such it’s claims and accusations are worth mentioning… HOWEVER, because it IS an advocacy group it’s claims and accusations should be stated as OPINION (with in-text attribution) and NOT stated as fact (in Wikipedia’s voice). Once that is done, we can cite them as a primary source for that opinion. Blueboar (talk) 13:05, 15 February 2022 (UTC)[reply]

  Option 2 then? Attribute everything, even facts? Selfstudier (talk) 16:25, 15 February 2022 (UTC)[reply]

• Comment. Of course, attribution for its interpretation of the facts. If the interpretation looks like a circle, then it is the huge number of fact dots that make up the appearance of roundness that warrant our attention, not the issue that Amnesty and every major human rights group tend to call the arrangement a circle, as opposed to those who state it may be a skewed rectangle. Nishidani (talk) 13:45, 15 February 2022 (UTC)[reply]
• Reliable for facts, attribute for opinions - which is what we should do with any opinion. Whether Amnesty's opinions are DUE is not something that can be determined here beyond saying "sometimes yes, sometimes no". Thryduulf (talk) 13:39, 16 February 2022 (UTC)[reply]
• Option 1 They have a strong reputation for fact-checking and accuracy when it comes to human rights issues. Just today I stumbled upon this while working on the torture article: "Because of its extensive quality control procedure, which includes research teams of subject and area experts as well as approval by veto players, AI is agreed to produce credible allegations (e.g. Clark, 2001). This reputation for credible reporting has not only made AI an effective advocate, but also made its reports a source for content analysis by researchers generating data " (Conrad, Courtenay R.; Hill, Daniel W.; Moore, Will H. (2018). "Torture and the limits of democratic institutions". Journal of Peace Research. 55 (1): 3–17. doi:10.1177/0022343317711240.) (t · c) buidhe 22:44, 16 February 2022 (UTC)[reply]
• An advocacy group that is reasonably accurate for facts, so: generally reliable for facts, attribute for opinions. If there are questions about a specific report they have published, then the reliability of that report should be considered individually and not bundled into a discussion about general reliability. BilledMammal (talk) 05:03, 19 February 2022 (UTC)[reply]
• Option 1 – "Reliable for facts, attribute for opinions" per BilledMammal, Buidhe, Thryduulf, et al. seems to be a good summary. Davide King (talk) 15:33, 22 February 2022 (UTC)[reply]

• Option 1 -- reliable for facts, attribute for opinions; good reputation for accuracy and fact-checking. Assessments and opinions are best attributed. --K.e.coffman (talk) 08:17, 23 February 2022 (UTC)[reply]

• Option 3: for the apparent context of reporting on Israel. Factually, they are an advocacy group - and such are not supposed to be objective. Publications from advocacy groups are commonly intended to achieve a goal, to sell a POV. In the case of “apartheid”, obviously emotional phrasing intended to incite and not to be technically accurate. So may be cited with attribution as a WP:BIASED source, but should not be treated as fact. See also the prior discussions about advocacy. Googling them and Israel does find criticisms of method and accusations of a bias do exist to minor extent. Cheers Markbassett (talk) 00:58, 25 February 2022 (UTC)[reply]

Here you are in effect arguing that anybody who has an opinion is not reliable. All sources are biased, but some are careful not to publish false information. The Guardian, Telegraph, Haaretz and New York Times all have very strong biases, but we treat them as reliable sources as they are careful not to publish factually inaccurate information. Do you have any reason to believe AI publishes inaccurate information?

In terms of the apartheid analogy, the crime of apartheid has a technical legal definition which AI states, in a very closely argued report, Israel are in breach of. Now, you can disagree with their reasoning, which is why everybody who votes Option 1 states their opinions should be attributed, but characterising this as "emotional phrasing" aimed to sell a POV is a gross misunderstanding of the situation.Boynamedsue (talk) 07:49, 25 February 2022 (UTC)[reply]

obviously emotional phrasing intended to incite and not to be technically accurate, pure fantasy. AI is discussing the crime of apartheid and its technical definition and saying it applies. That is their view, and it should be included as their view. But it is fantasy that the phrasing is intended to incite or not technically accurate. nableezy - 16:03, 25 February 2022 (UTC)[reply]

Discussion

How is it a RS issue? AI reports are tautologically reliable for the position of AI. The inclusion of the said position in any given article should be determined by WP:NPOV, specifically the due weight considerations. Alaexis_¿question? 19:30, 11 February 2022 (UTC)[reply]

I think the question people are really asking is whether 1. AI is usable for facts (ever), or solely for its own attributed opinion, and, 2. is it biased in the I/P area specifically. --Aquillion (talk) 20:12, 11 February 2022 (UTC)[reply]

Well, the second question should be asked at WP:NPOVN probably but I see your point. Alaexis_¿question? 20:53, 11 February 2022 (UTC)[reply]

Yeah the question is on things like AI saying things that are not their position but are reporting as fact. Like, to take one totally hypothetical example, AI saying that of the Palestinians in Israel 90% of them dwell in 139 densely populated towns and villages restricted to the Galilee, Triangle and Negev regions, with the remaining 10% in mixed cities sourced to one of their reports and removed as one-sided propaganda that cannot be RS. nableezy - 21:56, 11 February 2022 (UTC)[reply]

Its not just propaganda it is factually falls. Just in Jerusalem there are close to 400 000 Palestinians who are counted in Israeli Arab population and who themselves represent 20% of population. Nazareth, Rahat, Um el Fahem, Akko, Lod, Ramle, Tel Aviv-Yaffa,...are not villages, but towns and and just those place that I mentioned are home to another 300 000 Arab people (cc 15%) which means that the 90% claim is nothing but falsification.Tritomex (talk) 14:36, 13 February 2022 (UTC)[reply]

Source saying it is false please.Selfstudier (talk) 14:43, 13 February 2022 (UTC)[reply]

Just Jerusalem had last year 350 000 Arab inhabitants which is almost by itself 20% of Arab population counted by Israeli CBS. [102]. So just apply WP:COUNT and you see that the 90% out of 1.9 million claim in 139 villages is falsification. Off course I can give source for each localities I mentioned above and for other as well. Tritomex (talk) 15:10, 13 February 2022 (UTC)[reply]

Except the portion in Jerusalem is not in Israel? East Jerusalem being considered by Amnesty and nearly the entire international community to be in the Palestinian territories, not Israel. I get that you dont like Amnesty or the positions it espouses, but there is zero evidence that they are unreliable in any way. You disliking their positions matters for a blog maybe, not for our articles. nableezy - 17:27, 14 February 2022 (UTC)[reply]

How many of the Arabs in East Jerusalem are citizens of Israel? Selfstudier (talk) 15:17, 13 February 2022 (UTC)[reply]

2020 figures from this source gives Israeli pop as 6.87 million Jews, 1.96 million Arabs (Muslims (1.67 million) Druze and Christian Arabs) and 0.46 million others for a total of 9.29 million. The Muslim 1.67 million includes the Muslim Arabs living in East Jerusalem, who are not Israeli citizens. "It can therefore be concluded that there are 1.3 million Muslim citizens of Israel (author’s calculation based on the Central Bureau of Statistics, 2020c)." (For "Muslim", you can read "Palestinian").Selfstudier (talk) 15:29, 13 February 2022 (UTC)[reply]

They are Israeli residence card holders and are counted in all Israeli demographic reports, by Israeli CBS and every single source plus everywhere here in Wikipedia (without anyone even questioning it) without single exception. In all article's, including this one. Otherwise the number of Israeli Arabs wouldn't be 1.9 but more like 1.5 million and their share in population wouldn't be 21.1% but somewhere between 16-17%. The 1.9 million and 90% claim falls already in Jerusalem, but there are many many other towns and cities from whom I mentioned few above. You raised a good but off-line question which is on my mind for very long time. Why we always count Jerusalem and Golan Arab population in Arab population of Israel without any notes or explanation?— Preceding unsigned comment added by Tritomex (talk • contribs)

There are ongoing discussions about this at the relatively new article Palestinian citizens of Israel Selfstudier (talk) 15:39, 13 February 2022 (UTC)[reply]

Spatial Segregation in Israel says "The vast majority (90%) of PCI live in around 140 Arab towns and villages, while around 10% live in the so-

called “mixed cities”, including Haifa, Acre, Lod, Ramla and Natzeret Illit." June 2021

Fact Sheet: Palestinian Citizens of Israel says "Most Palestinian citizens of Israel live in three areas: the Galilee in the north, the so-called “Little Triangle” in the center of the country, and the Negev desert (Naqab to Palestinians) in the south." So "most" rather than 90%, March 2021 Selfstudier (talk) 16:26, 13 February 2022 (UTC)[reply]

These figures must surely hinge on whether, as a baseline, East Jerusalem is interpreted as being within Israel or as an occupied territory, with the former obviously lacking the support of international law (presumably AI's position). Iskandar323 (talk) 14:21, 14 February 2022 (UTC)[reply]

• Comment - What are these "with an asterisk" !votes? The question explicitly regards facts and reliability as a source is as a matter of long-standing policy a thing we recognise even when the source is also known to have biases or be partisian in some respects. We do not ask that reliable sources reflect a view from nowhere. If the "with an asterisk" opinion don't document actual reliability concerns, I recommend the existence of the asterisks be disregarded by the closer. — Charles Stewart (talk) 14:34, 14 February 2022 (UTC)[reply]
  • In general, comments on whether or not a source is WP:BIASED on a particular topic do wind up getting reflected in closes, especially if this would render in-text attribution for the source to be a best practice in controversial topic areas. There are real reasons to consider the asterisks and to not artificially limit discussion to something narrower than what normally is permitted in the standard 4-option RfCs. — Mhawk10 (talk) 02:58, 15 February 2022 (UTC)[reply]
    • Since all sources have a bias, what does an asterisk mean? If one wants to insist on attribution, one has merely to select Option 2 and say so.Selfstudier (talk) 07:42, 15 February 2022 (UTC)[reply]

• Sceptre, you forgot to sign your close and I do not think closing this a week in was a good idea. It is arguable whether "with an asterisk" applies or not and the discussion isn't an obvious snowball so I think you should undo your close. Tayi Arajakate _Talk 14:50, 18 February 2022 (UTC)[reply]

  I agree that this isn't a good case for a snow close, not least given that the "with asterisk" perspective is currently a minority position compared to unequivocal "option 1". The close language also seems to imply that AI's Israel report is not reliable, which does not appear to be a consensus position here. I would also expect a close for a discussion like this to address and evaluate the specific arguments made and their relative strength, which the current close does not. If the close isn't self-reverted shortly, it should be challenged formally. _signed, Rosguill ^talk 16:05, 18 February 2022 (UTC)[reply]

• Seeing as the OP also wants it reopened, I've reopened it. FWIW, I was working on the assumption that AI already occupies GREL, and I don't think there's a likely prospect it'll go to MREL (like I said, the "asterisk" option is the absolute limit downwards in this discussion). I'm happy to admit I'm wrong. (Also, I make no opinion on the Israel report myself; I'm just saying that if it's questionable, then it can be discussed without affecting GREL). Sceptre (talk) 18:24, 18 February 2022 (UTC)[reply]

• Considering the head of Amnesty has a problem with the report should tell you that at the very least we should not be using the report as a RS, but as an opinion. Amnesty’s Israel chief criticizes group’s report accusing Israel of apartheid Sir Joseph ^(talk) 15:22, 22 February 2022 (UTC)[reply]

  The head of Amnesty International Israel not the head of Amnesty. Same sort of situation as Amnesty in Germany.Selfstudier (talk) 15:46, 22 February 2022 (UTC)[reply]

Um Sir Joseph, everybody agrees that when AI presents their own view it should be presented as their own view. But what they report as factual is reliable. And you should read that link, the AI Israel head didnt actually dispute the findings of the report, only that it overlooks the work of human rights groups within Israel and the accomplishments of some Palestinians in Israel, and that she does not generally find the report helpful in advancing any cause. That is certainly fine for her to feel, but that has nothing to do with is Amnesty a reliable source. nableezy - 22:54, 22 February 2022 (UTC)[reply]

We have consensus to deprecate Baidu Baike, but as of now we really don't have any consensus for another Baidu product, the Baidu Tieba. Two months ago @大猩猩城: modified Line 6 (Tianjin Metro) with frivolous mentions of Line 8 stations, and when I asked for sources supporting them to modify so, they pointed [103] to me, claimed that their members asked NDRC and provided reasons for saying Line 6 instead of Line 8.

My suggestion is to also deprecate Baidu Tieba, or even we should add it to spam blacklist due to mass user-generated contents, mass copy-paste of copyvio contents and mass release of republic of fake news.

See also: Wikipedia:Reliable_sources/Noticeboard/Archive_174#Can_we_use_blogs_to_show_that_a_subject_is_discussed_in_cyberspace?. --Liuxinyu970226 (talk) 02:10, 16 February 2022 (UTC)[reply]

• Generally unreliable. Baidu Tieba is an Internet forum with user-generated content, which is self-published. Tieba is one of the most widely used communication platforms in China. We don't usually blacklist or deprecate popular forums or social networks in their entirety because they are platforms instead of publishers, and because article subjects occasionally use these platforms to publish uncontroversial self-descriptions that can be cited in Wikipedia articles in limited cases. We do typically add these platforms to User:XLinkBot/RevertList, which instructs XLinkBot to automatically revert link additions from new users when the link is not in a citation; this is usually done to address problems with spam or promotion. Tieba is similar to Reddit (RSP entry), Facebook (RSP entry), and Twitter (RSP entry).
  https://tieba.baidu.com/p/7636663652 is not a reliable source for the Line 6 (Tianjin Metro) article, since it does not meet the requirements of WP:ABOUTSELF. — Newslinger talk 03:31, 18 February 2022 (UTC)[reply]

• I propose that Fox News be deprecated as an unreliable source for political topics on WP:RSP. I will present evidence here that "the news side" of Fox News fabricated a major outright lie, which continues to advance despite significant blowback from reliable sources, to create a false narrative of "Hillary Clinton spied on Trump" that has spread like wildfire as truth across right-wing media. This can get a bit complicated, so if anyone asks for a source to substantiate anything I say, I'm happy to provide it, though the wikilinked articles should be adequate.

Background: John Durham indicted former Perkins Coie attorney Michael Sussmann for allegedly lying to an FBI official by saying during a 2016 meeting between them that he was not representing a client for the purposes of their meeting. Durham alleges that Sussmann was actually representing the Clinton presidential campaign. Sussman, a cybersecurity law expert, represented the Democratic National Committee when they were hacked in 2016, and his former Perkins Coie colleague Marc Elias represented the Clinton campaign. Parenthetically, Elias almost single-handedly shut down Trump's 60+ legal attempts to overturn the 2020 election results, so it goes without saying some might be kinda upset with him, perhaps to the point of seeking payback.[104] But I digress...

Sussmann worked with internet analyst Rodney Joffe, who analyzed DNS traffic (not communications content) during 2015 and 2016, both at the White House and Trump properties, which his spokesman has said was based on concerns of Russian infiltration to disrupt the election (Russians hacked the Executive Office of the President in 2015 and the DNC in 2016). Joffe's company, Neustar, had a government contract for this work to identify security threats. In February 2017, Sussmann took to the CIA Joffe's findings that a Russian phone was querying the White House and Trump properties networks. Durham asserts Sussmann did this to gin-up intelligence community suspicions about Trump and Russia, on behalf of the Clinton campaign. Sussmann denies this. Again, he went to the CIA after Trump was already president.

On February 11, Durham filed a court motion that included a description of Joffe's alleged activities. This is where Fox News comes in. The next day, the Fox News news side ran a story entitled:

Clinton campaign paid to 'infiltrate' Trump Tower, White House servers to link Trump to Russia: Durham[105]

and the lede continued...

Lawyers for the Clinton campaign paid a technology company to "infiltrate" servers belonging to Trump Tower, and later the White House...

Here's the problem: Durham did not say the words "paid" or "infiltrate" in his motion.[106] Instead, Fox News reveals in the 21st paragraph of the story that those words actually came from former Devin Nunes and Trump employee Kash Patel, who is characterized as a Trump loyalist. But not surprisingly, and likely/certainly by design, the Fox News headline and lede were sufficient to detonate an explosion in conservative media: "Clinton spied on Trump! He was right all along!" It's no accident they used Patel's word "infiltrate," they know their audience will interpret that to mean "hacking." There is no evidence of hacking.

Durham's motion said none of these things:[107][108]

• Clinton campaign was involved
• Payments were made
• Joffe's alleged activity was unlawful
• "Infiltrate" or "paid"

Today, the same Fox News journalist ran:

Clinton campaign lawyer Sussmann files motion to dismiss Durham prosecution[109]

Again, Durham has alleged Sussmann was a Clinton campaign lawyer, which has not been established as fact, and which Sussmann has denied. The reason the "news side" of Fox News has done this is transparently obvious, to misleadingly connect dots to fabricate a false narrative:

"Joffe monitored Trump's internet traffic, Sussmann took that to the CIA, Sussmann worked for Clinton, therefore Hillary was the mastermind behind a scheme to spy on Trump."[110][111]

And of course, the primetime opinion side of Fox News amplifies and blasts that false narrative out to millions, who will accept it as proved because, you know...Durham said so. Except he didn't, not yet anyway. Since Fox News first published this false story days ago and it was ripped apart by reliable sources, they have made no effort to correct it, let alone retract it.[112]

This is egregiously unethical conduct. It clearly demonstrates that the opinion side of Fox News now fully controls the enterprise, and it should be deprecated as an unreliable source for politics. soibangla (talk) 00:32, 18 February 2022 (UTC)[reply]

• It's already considered unreliable for politics. This wouldn't change anything. Headbomb {t · c · p · b} 00:38, 18 February 2022 (UTC)[reply]

There's a difference between "generally unreliable" and "deprecated". But WP:DEPREC says it requires an RfC. – Muboshgu (talk) 00:42, 18 February 2022 (UTC)[reply]

Fox News (politics and science) (RSP entry) has been designated as "no consensus" since the 2020 RfC. Only the talk shows (RSP entry) have been designated as "generally unreliable". The closure and subsequent indexing of that RfC were accurate reflections of community consensus at that time. I don't think a new RfC would be helpful right now, since political content on Fox News that is determined to be unreliable can still be excluded from Wikipedia articles on a case-by-case basis. — Newslinger talk 03:13, 18 February 2022 (UTC)[reply]

Also, in this specific case, its clear that we can document how Fox is approaching the story from far more reliable sources to flag any attempt to use Fox as a "factual" source here as completely inappropriate. --Masem (t) 03:47, 18 February 2022 (UTC)[reply]

But is Fox News reporting anything substantially different than the Wall Street Journal or NBC, on this story? It's reasonable to assume that investigative journalists are able to uncover facts that go beyond what a prosecutor is yet willing to divulge their strategy on. So the indictments shouldn't be held as a ground truth to which Fox News should be compared. I don't watch Fox News, and generally only hear bad things about Fox News, but it's not like there's some "fair and balanced" counternarrative among journaists, that paints Joffe as innocent. People who've actually looked into it seem to be reasonably in consensus:

• Tech exec used access to White House computers to look for dirt on Trump

• Who Are Those 'Techies' Who Spied on Trump?

• The Politics of Neustar

And, if you feel like going a little further in depth:

• The Checkered Past of the FBI Computer Contractor who Spied on Trump

So, sympathetic as I'd be with the notion of deprecating Fox News as a source, this seems a very weak basis on which to do so, since it would equally hold against NBC and the Wall Street Journal. BurritoTunnelMaintenance (talk) 07:46, 18 February 2022 (UTC)[reply]

The WSJ articles are clearly marked as opinion pieces, and RealClearPolitics articles are usually op-eds, so those links don't have the same issue as there is with Fox News calling these stories "news." The NBC article might be in the "Hillary Clinton" category (I say "might be", because it just links back to the one article), but they're not running a sensationalist headline, and they bury any connection to Clinton deep in the article, where it's only present in quotes or carefully qualified as an unproven accusations. Even if the NBC article was essentially identical to what Fox is running (it's not), NBC still doesn't have Fox's long, sordid history with this sort of thing. Mysterious Whisper (talk) 11:48, 18 February 2022 (UTC)[reply]

We need to be careful that the "anti-Fox" stories are talking about normal Fox News reports vs commentary from people like Tucker Carlson etc. The opinions/analysis expressed by the commentators are already marked as unreliable and are separate from the normal news reporting. Also, I think some of the "nothing to see here" sources are basically taking the limited claims of the Durham report and saying they don't prove larger claims. For instance, lets accept as true that a lawyer who does work for the Clinton campaign contacted Joffe to get meta data from Trump computers. That does not mean the lawyer did any of that at the request of the Clinton campaign nor that Clinton herself had any knowledge. This is a simple logical statement that association doesn't equal causation. If CNN runs a story saying as much and saying that this isn't proof even though a Fox commentator is saying as much, well that is correct. However, it doesn't mean a commentator is wrong to say, "this looks like" or "this may mean". This is also problematic because we had many sources who took evidence that was just as limited as this and used it to accuse Trump of Russian associations (a claim that hasn't been conclusively proven one way or the other). Now, let's assume that in a few months more conclusive evidence comes out and it turns out the Fox talking heads are right. Would we then say this is proof that the NYT etc should be considered questionable at least for political analysis? This is really a new source Rorschach Test. We have something that currently isn't conclusively anything. It could be A, it could be B or even something different than A or B. What we probably should report is what the sides claim. We shouldn't assume one side is right or wrong unless they make a claim that isn't supported by the very limited evidence to date. It may not be a bad idea to take a wait and see approach. Sadly it may be many years before the news sources on either side can give an impartial review of this huge mess. Springee (talk) 14:35, 18 February 2022 (UTC)[reply]

The Fox News article is presented by them as "normal Fox News reporting" and not "commentary", it's not categorized by them as an opinion piece, and the case being made here is that there is no longer any meaningful distinction between the two at Fox News. Also, in this case, your suggestion would almost certainly run afoul of WP:FALSEBALANCE. Mysterious Whisper (talk) 14:56, 18 February 2022 (UTC)[reply]

I think you would need to show which article they are they refer to. I know in a related discussion I followed a link and saw references to Fox commentators. We should be careful about what is actually claimed vs what other sources claim is claimed. Saying what various sources report is false balance if we have only a few sources on one side vs the other. However, we actually have quite a few sources that are saying things similar to Fox, that this does at least appear to support a claim that the Clinton campaign was attempting something. Yes, a number of those sources are no-consensus on political topics but when so many say the same thing (and The Hill and WSJ are green) we shouldn't just act like there is nothing to see here. Springee (talk) 15:22, 18 February 2022 (UTC)[reply]

Again, the Wall Street Journal articles ([113], [114]) are clearly marked as opinion pieces, the Fox News article ([115]) is not. The rest of your comment is tangential. Mysterious Whisper (talk) 15:27, 18 February 2022 (UTC)[reply]

I'm sure this is not the sum of all articles on the subject. Also, OpEd restrictions dictate how we should use these sources in articles. It doesn't mean we can't point at the arguments made in those sources to say they tend to counterbalance the analysis made by the NYT et al outside of their OpEd pages. Springee (talk) 15:50, 18 February 2022 (UTC)[reply]

The subject of this discussion is Fox News, or more specifically, the article I linked that was also linked above. This is not a general discussion of the topic of that article, we are discussing the article itself. The WSJ articles were presented by BurritoTunnelMaintenance to show that other news outlets were publishing similar reports, but the difference is that the WSJ articles are presented by them as opinion pieces, while the Fox News article appears to be an opinion piece masquerading as news reporting. Do you disagree, and if so, on what grounds? Mysterious Whisper (talk) 16:00, 18 February 2022 (UTC)[reply]

Yes, but if the justification for this subject is Fox News is making false claims based on the claims of a few other sources then we need to show that what Fox is claiming is outside of reasonable. So far you and Soibangla haven't met that standard. As for the OpEd "masquerading as news reporting" part, well that is a big problem with many sources. Many sources that claim to just be reporting include some level of analysis even in stories not marked as OpEds. However, if that is the issue we should zoom out and discuss this as a general topic, not something restricted to Fox News. Springee (talk) 16:18, 18 February 2022 (UTC)[reply]

I, for one, will discuss Fox News in the Fox News section, and other topics in their own sections, because I view the alternative as being disruptive. I think Soibangla has done much more to support their opinion here than anyone else has, and they've provided enough verifiable evidence to convince me, but you're free to disagree. Mysterious Whisper (talk) 16:25, 18 February 2022 (UTC)[reply]

• Paraphrasing Durham from last night: "It's not my fault some are lying about what I said."

If third parties or members of the media have overstated, understated, or otherwise misinterpreted facts contained in the Government’s Motion, that does not in any way undermine the valid reasons for the Government’s inclusion of this information.:[116]

soibangla (talk) 17:05, 18 February 2022 (UTC)[reply]

• Unnecessary - Fox is already listed as “generally unreliable” for political topics. That is enough. Blueboar (talk) 16:24, 18 February 2022 (UTC)[reply]

To be precise, it is listed as no consensus on the reliability. It isn't listed as unreliable. The commentary shows are listed as unreliable. Springee (talk) 16:52, 18 February 2022 (UTC)[reply]

• Oppose deprecation noting that even after setting the various problems with deprecation as a process aside, it is from a technical perspective not possible to enforce deprecation for a specific set of topics, as the edit filter cannot tell what the subject of an edit is. No opinion at this time on otherwise adjusting the reliability. _signed, Rosguill ^talk 16:28, 18 February 2022 (UTC)[reply]
• Support unreliability, oppose deprecation - I agree that Fox News is unreliable for political and science news, and RSP should be changed to clearly say that. But I don’t think it is practical to deprecate for just some topics. John M Baker (talk) 17:07, 18 February 2022 (UTC)[reply]
• Comment, we can't deprecate a source for just some topics. That being said there is an extremely strong argument for deprecating Fox but that will have to be a holistic argument/discussion because we would be deprecating the whole enchilada not continuing the split opinion.Horse Eye's Back (talk) 17:17, 18 February 2022 (UTC) Update: now that its an RfC with a formal question I would support downgrading to generally unreliable. Horse Eye's Back (talk) 22:44, 23 February 2022 (UTC)[reply]
• Downgrade to "generally unreliable" We should have a consensus that the "news" division of Fox News exists to prop up the U.S. Republican Party and related causes. They have been overhyping the Canadian trucker convoy.[117][118] Fox News isn't news, it's propaganda. – Muboshgu (talk) 19:49, 18 February 2022 (UTC)[reply]

• Neither of those sources criticize Fox’s news coverage for being factually wrong–they just don’t like that Fox is providing positive coverage regarding the protestor’s goals. But that is evidence that Fox News has a conservative (or I guess in a really narrow sense for those two articles a “pro-protester”) bias, not that it is unreliable. The Hannity and Tucker stuff is already considered GUNREL, since the talk shows are largely commentary, opinion, and entertainment. And Media Matters for America isn’t exactly a WP:GREL source either, per WP:RSP, so it really should not be the basis of downgrading Fox. Fox News, used in a manner that doesn’t put it in Wikivoice for exceptional claims, is generally fine and can provide useful information on politics-related topics when people keep in mind that additional considerations apply. — Mhawk10 (talk) 20:04, 18 February 2022 (UTC)[reply]

This is all just the tip of the misinformation iceberg. So many times Fox News pushes misinformation and disinformation. It's real bad. – Muboshgu (talk) 21:23, 18 February 2022 (UTC)[reply]

In order, your sources are an WP:MREL source that is actually criticizing the fact-checking on Fox’s opinion-based talk shows or an article that Fox corrected (which is actually a sign of a good editorial practice), an opinion piece ([https://www.washingtonpost.com/policies-and-standards/ analysis pieces at WaPo are interpretive and for anticipating how events might unfold), a discussion of Fox News’s talk show hosts (who are WP:GUNREL), and excerpt from Brian Shelter’s book that basically criticizes Fox News for airing too many opinion-based talk shows and the effects that the opinion shows are having. I am not arguing that the network in its entirety is generally reliable in the field of politics—what I am arguing is that its straight news reporting is fine to use in the field of politics provided that it isn’t given undue weight or used alone to substantiate extraordinary claims. The name of Thomas Binger’s wife and the number of kids they have is something perfectly fine to cite Fox for, as are his previous roles and the fact that he ran a campaign for DA. To mark Fox News off as something less reliable than the blogs hosted on The Guardian for purposes of politics seems ill-advised. — Mhawk10 (talk) 23:42, 18 February 2022 (UTC)[reply]

• Short of deprecation, at minimum the Fox News RSP entry should be amended to explicitly mandate that any Fox News reference in politics/science must be accompanied by at least one fully corroborating green source. soibangla (talk) 20:50, 18 February 2022 (UTC)[reply]

We should change the results of a RfC that had over 100 participants and a panel closing because you don't like how they covered a recent story? OK. Springee (talk) 21:30, 18 February 2022 (UTC)[reply]

There were no "results" in the last RfC, it was closed as "no consensus". And it was from July 2020, which was almost an entire pandemic ago. – Muboshgu (talk) 22:03, 18 February 2022 (UTC)[reply]

Yes, after over 100 editors weighed in there was no consensus. Where is the evidence that things have changed? Springee (talk) 22:23, 18 February 2022 (UTC)[reply]

I believe that the evidence they are referring to is currently being discussed here and now. Correct me if I'm wrong, but it seems as though this argument is akin to Circular reasoning ie "How can there be a new consensus if there was no previous consensus, and if there was no previous consensus, how can there be a new/different consensus?" I'm not trying to straw man, just asking for clarification. DN (talk) 01:04, 19 February 2022 (UTC)[reply]

Fox overhyping Canadian truck convoy is not a valid reason to downgrade them. Fox covering more about news that are more favorable to the conservatism or Republican Party is not also a cause for downgrading. SunDawntalk 04:59, 21 February 2022 (UTC)[reply]

• Leave as is: The evidence presented here is not sufficient to show Fox News should be downgraded. Yes, we should always be careful when commentary gets into factual reporting but this is hardly unique to Fox. Springee (talk) 20:10, 18 February 2022 (UTC)[reply]
• Support downgrade to "generally unreliable", without prejudice towards deprecation (via RfC) should the trend continue. Mysterious Whisper (talk) 21:05, 18 February 2022 (UTC)[reply]
• Support downgrade to "generally unreliable" per Soibangla's and Mysterious Whisper's arguments. DN (talk) 21:39, 18 February 2022 (UTC)[reply]
• Support downgrade to generally unreliable for politics, or full depreciation if a consensus exists for it, though not solely because of this one incident. High-quality sources bluntly describe Fox News as distributing misinformation.^[1] Sources specifically note that both the news and opinion portions of the network have worked to intentionally spread disinformation^[2] and that almost nothing that Fox News airs meets traditional journalistic standards.^[3] In the previous RFC some of its defenders speculated that while Fox's talk sections and opinion pieces are obviously unreliable, it could be possible that the other parts are reliable; however, no evidence has been presented that its news sections actually have a higher reputation or that the problem is confined to opinion, while there is plenty of evidence at this point unambiguously indicating that no such division exists. This is just the latest example; but sources are extremely clear that Fox's news section systematically and intentionally spreads misinformation when doing so serves the network's political processes. Obviously Fox is a WP:BIASED source when it comes to American politics and could never be cited without attribution anyway (many of the sources above use it as their specific example of "partisan media"; many others specifically note that it was created with the intent of being stridently partisan and to advance its owners' political agenda^[4][5]), but the key point is that this institutional bias has led to it introducing intentional misinformation into its news side. This certainly makes its political reporting unreliable, and truthfully it's sufficient to justify wholesale depreciation, especially given that the political divides it both created and exploits means that there will always be people who continue to try to use it as a source for topics directly or indirectly connected to American politics, despite its plain and well-documented unreliability. EDIT: Since people have asked what changed since the previous RFC, I'll point out that, in addition to the incident that prompted this, there is a lot more coverage of Fox's misinformation during COVID, as well as broader coverage sparked by it or reflecting it. Most of the sources I mentioned are from 2021 or later. In addition to directly providing an example of deliberate misinformation by their news section, the significant impact of COVID misinformation has prompted more coverage of ideologically-driven misinformation from partisan sources in general; many sources have used Fox as a prime example for this. --Aquillion (talk) 00:52, 19 February 2022 (UTC)[reply]

• Aquillion, Political Communication in the Time of Coronavirus do not say anything like that on page 83. There is nothing there that can reasonably construed as "not[ing] that both the news and opinion portions of [Fox News] have worked to intentionally spread disinformation." Can you re-check your reference and provide the exact quote? Alaexis_¿question? 18:09, 19 February 2022 (UTC)[reply]

It spills onto page 84 and 85 and isn't easily summarized into a single pull-quote. But the key points are The parade of pseudo experts appearing on right-wing news and interview programs helped spread and legitimize claims that Trump had been making since march that hydrochloroquine (hereafter HCQ) was a cure for COVID-19. This false narrative was widely repeated within the radical right media sphere, which we define as a media ecosystem in which a variety of outlets produce and spread a mixture of conventional and fake news, political propaganda, and public mobilization activities (Yang, 2020). A casual observer might conclude that outlets in this sphere, centered around Fox News... --Aquillion (talk) 19:26, 19 February 2022 (UTC)[reply]

Thanks. I think this isn't equivalent to intentionally spreading disinformation, which would require them knowing that they were spreading falsehoods. In the hindsight we know that, but you can't retroactively charge them with it. As you'll remember, there were experts who quite confidently said that masks were useless for laypeople, and this wasn't disinformation either. Alaexis_¿question? 21:26, 19 February 2022 (UTC)[reply]

If you continue on to page 86, the piece describes Fox as "producing propaganda materials" and part of the "co-production of disinformation." I think it's fair to read intention in to those, at least so far as this article takes us. Cheers. Dumuzid (talk) 21:33, 19 February 2022 (UTC)[reply]

Fair enough. The examples on that page appear are all about the opinion pieces ("falsehoods ... came from Fox personalities", "...Fox news host ... railed about economic shutdown") which we wouldn't use anyway. It looks like nitpicking but Aquillion's claim was that both news and opinion parts of Fox News intentionally spread disinformation and I still think it's not supported by this source. Alaexis_¿question? 06:37, 20 February 2022 (UTC)[reply]

• Croce & Piazza 2021 are more nuanced than you claim. The full quote is The first objection sheds light on the difficult problem for mainstream media of finding a balance between the duty to report what relevant public figures maintain – including cases in which what they assert is mostly fake news – and the duty to inform their audience, that is, to provide them with high-quality information. This problem becomes even bigger if media outlets themselves are involved in distributing misinformation. As anticipated, this typically happens with partisan media such as Breitbart and Fox News. So the claim here is that "partisan media such as Breitbart and Fox News are typically involved in distributing misinformation", which adds two (three?) qualifiers to your quote, and hence is not their blunt description. JBchrch talk 19:53, 20 February 2022 (UTC)[reply]