To increase transparency and robustness of the process for classification of sources, increase the review requirement for actions that prevent use of a source. Guy (help!) 17:17, 21 February 2020 (UTC)[reply]

Detail

Proposal 1: Add the following to Wikipedia:Reliable sources/Perennial sources/Instructions:

A project-level RfC is required for the following:

• Any source that is proposed for deprecation (see also the list of deprecated sources);
• Any source that is widely used in articles (per {{insource|$SOURCEDOMAIN}}) that is proposed as generally unreliable (see also the list of perennial sources).

RfCs should be registered at Wikipedia:Reliable sources/Noticeboard using {{rfc|prop}}.

Proposal 2a: Add the following to the instructions for editors at MediaWiki talk:Spam-blacklist:

You must initiate a project-level RfC when requesting blacklisting of any entry that is widely used as a cited source in articles (per {{insource|$SOURCEDOMAIN}}) other than those added by the spammer(s). The RfC may be initiated concurrent with after requesting blacklisting where there is ongoing abuse. RfCs should be registered using {{rfc|prop}} at Wikipedia:Reliable sources/Noticeboard.

Proposal 2b: Add the following to the instructions for admins at MediaWiki talk:Spam-blacklist:

A project-level RfC is required when blacklisting any entry that is widely used as a cited source in articles (per {{insource|$SOURCEDOMAIN}}) other than those added by the spammer(s). The RfC may be initiated concurrent with after addition to the blacklist where there is ongoing abuse, with the expectation that it will be removed if the RfC decides against blacklisting. RfCs should be registered using {{rfc|prop}} at Wikipedia:Reliable sources/Noticeboard

Proposal 3: Add the following to Wikipedia:Reliable sources/Noticeboard:

Requests for comment for deprecation, or for blacklisting or classification as generally unreliable of sources that are widely used in articles, should be registered here using {{rfc|prop}} and should run for at least 7 days. Contentious RfCs should be closed by an uninvolved administrator and consensus assessed based on the weight of policy-based argument.

This does not affect existing classifications or blacklisting. Guy (help!) 13:24, 21 February 2020 (UTC)[reply]

Opinions

1. Support 1, 2a, 3 (first preference); 1, 2b, 3 (second preference) as proposer. Discussions on source classification at WP:RSN typically have few participants, but may have substantial impact if problematic sources are widely used. This also applies to spammed sites that are targets for blacklisting. Guy (help!) 13:24, 21 February 2020 (UTC)[reply]
2. Support the proposal in principle, but I can't comment on the particulars simply because I don't have much experience of this area. Deprecating and/or blacklisting a widely used source can have long-term effects on the verifiability of content in the relevant topic area and it should be done with a stronger consensus that one achieved by one or two editors. The one case that I've been involved in in the past didn't leave me with the impression that the process was a sane one: a website used in a few hundred articles was blacklisted on the strength of opinion of three editors (with a fourth one disagreeing), where the major issue appeared to be not any demonstrable unreliability, but those editors' dislike for the fact that the website was generating a profit from running ads while using public domain data. If a discussion is more widely advertised (like with an RfC), then the impact of personal whimsy should be less noticeable, and the outcome better defensible. – Uanfala (talk) 11:45, 24 February 2020 (UTC)[reply]
3. Support per Uanfala, the basic principle that deprecating a source is a sufficiently significant step to take that it needs many more eyes on the discussion to do so. Otherwise a walled garden dictates. Is the occuramce also uncommon enough to warrant a notice at CENT? ——SN54129 11:54, 24 February 2020 (UTC)[reply]
4. Support all: significant steps ought not be taken without discussion. But this is not my area of expertise, and so I am also unable to comment on the particular mechanisms of each proposal. — Javert2113 (Siarad.|¤) 12:29, 24 February 2020 (UTC)[reply]
5. Support Like Uanfala I was involved in a case where a website was blacklisted on ideological grounds. In addition to the benefits list above, this proposal will provide us with an audit trail detailing when and why a site was blacklisted. Hawkeye7 (discuss) 01:38, 25 February 2020 (UTC)[reply]
6. Oppose - because I cannot in clear conscience fully support it. I'm also of the mind that such a proposal should go to VP for wider community input. There would have to be clearly defined parameters before blacklisting/deprecating any source in an effort to eliminate potentially harmful ideologically based decisions. --^Atsme _Talk 📧 01:23, 28 February 2020 (UTC)[reply]
7. Oppose Based upon the village pump suggestion only, such drastic measures need to be more fully discussed with a wider audience.Slatersteven (talk) 08:51, 19 March 2020 (UTC)[reply]
8. Support per Uanfala and SN. Deprecating a source and similar actions affect many articles and should follow our usual procedures for establishing consensus for proposals that have such broad effects (i.e., well-advertised RfC, left open for a minimum period of time, etc.). Prefer 2a over 2b. Since this proposal has been advertised on CENT and elsewhere, I don't see a problem with it being here as opposed to VP or another page. Levivich ^{[dubious – discuss]} 18:34, 19 March 2020 (UTC)[reply]
9. Going on a segue here but feel free to count it as "Neutral" or rather, "why is this instruction creep needed?" vote: there are already discussions that take place on RSN and they are handled just fine (not seeing the demonstration of a problem). Similarly, if something is blacklisted by unilateral discretion, it can easily be removed from the blacklist before or after discussion (and again, not a demonstration of a problem). There's no need to add more instruction when we already have WP:ANRFC backlogged and tons of RfCs ending up with no result. The current approach of solving blacklisting with WP:BRD (make an edit, take issue, discuss!) and the fact that RSN handles these with/without "formal" RfCs is just fine. No point drawing a line in the sand, imo. --qedk (t 心 c) 20:39, 19 March 2020 (UTC)[reply]
10. Support for all this. Regulations of websites is serious business over time it can have big impacts across the project. Also RfCs should be broadly advertised not just in RS/N which can become insular. -- GreenC 22:02, 23 March 2020 (UTC)[reply]
11. Support,with the possible modification that sources of general interest require a community-wide AfC, not just one at the project level. We need a more realistic approach to RS: No source is entirely reliable, almost no source is totally unreliable. The best news sources, such as the NYTimes, have on occasion carried invented stories; the worst, like the Daily Mail, have on occasion carried genuine news that they were the first to report. The scientific journals of the highest prestige, such as Nature, have sometimes carried nonsense, such as the discovery of Polywater, or Duesberg's denial of HIV. Thesame goes for book publishers, and television networks, and almost anything else.. We properly take a skeptical approach to priary sources, for they need itnerpretation; the same is true for secondary sources as well. There is no substitute for intelligence and impartial investigation ofindividual cases. DGG ( talk ) 09:24, 25 March 2020 (UTC)[reply]
12. Support Per above. --Puddleglum^2.0_{(How's my driving?)} 14:11, 1 April 2020 (UTC)[reply]
13. I have mixed thoughts on these proposals:
    • Proposal 1: Deprecation already requires an RfC by definition, so proposal 1 would not change how sources are deprecated. Requiring RfCs for designating sources as "generally unreliable" is interesting, and I wonder how this would be implemented. Currently, new entries are created in the perennial sources list after discussions on this noticeboard are archived or formally closed. With this proposal, if a new entry would be classified as "generally unreliable", it would be put on hold until an RfC takes place on this noticeboard. This encourages editors to create RfCs for "generally unreliable" sources that were just discussed, which means that editors who participated in the previous discussion would need to repeat their arguments in a new RfC. While input from more editors is nice to have, I'm concerned that the repetition from back-to-back discussions would cause fatigue among the editors who participate in both the discussion and the RfC – especially for editors who frequent this noticeboard. There are two classes of sources for which I think the RfC requirement is unnecessary: self-published sources (by authors who are not subject-matter experts) and sources with a large proportion of user-generated content.
    • Proposal 2: I support proposal 2a/2b for cases involving reliability, but I don't think RfCs are necessary to blacklist sites that contain a large quantity of copyright violations or sites that dox Wikipedia editors. Also, would these RfCs take place on the spam blacklist noticeboard or the reliable sources noticeboard?
    • Proposal 3: This proposal reduces the minimum duration of RfCs on this noticeboard from 30 days to 7 days. It serves as a counter against proposal 1 (which increases the number of RfCs here) by making them more manageable. However, closers on the request for closures noticeboard typically put requests of RfC closures on hold until they are 30 days old, so there needs to be some cross-coordination to make this work. If proposals 1 and 3 were both implemented, and RfCs on this noticeboard were not closed promptly, we would end up with a large backlog of stale RfCs here. Despite this, I think RfC closers should be advised to wait until an RfC on this noticeboard is inactive for at least a few days before closing it, if the RfC is between 7 and 30 days old, to prevent the abbreviated RfC period from excluding opinions from editors who don't frequent this noticeboard.

Discussion

I believe we should also tighten up the guidance on the conduct of RfCs, e.g. to ensure that they primarily address reliability of a source. This is especially important for politics articles, where there is asymmetric polarization in the media that causes frequent and heated arguments on Wikipedia. There are also credible reports of a repeat of the 2016 Russian social media and disinformation campaigns whose very existence is denied by previously mainstream conservative sources. It's not Wikipedia's problem but it's a problem for Wikipedia, and I think we should be ready for the heightened scrutiny we are likely to receive even when it is from bad-faith actors. Guy (help!) 13:24, 21 February 2020 (UTC)[reply]

• I would generally oppose any language that imposes arbitrary cut offs. There is nothing special about "100", but if you include that type of language, people are going to treat it like gospel, as if there is something substantive that separates sources with 99 and 101 citations. GMG^talk 13:34, 21 February 2020 (UTC)[reply]

  GreenMeansGo, I thought about that. I don't mind adding an option to strike the numerical example. Guy (help!) 17:17, 21 February 2020 (UTC)[reply]

• @JzG: what is your brief and neutral statement? At over 3,500 bytes, the statement above (from the {{rfc}} tag to the next timestamp) is far too long for Legobot (talk · contribs) to handle, and so it is not being shown correctly at Wikipedia:Requests for comment/Wikipedia policies and guidelines. The RfC will also not be publicised through WP:FRS until a shorter statement is provided. --Redrose64 🌹 (talk) 14:13, 21 February 2020 (UTC)[reply]

  Oh, heaven forfend that a complex issue could not be rendered in a way that pleases the bots. Guy (help!) 17:17, 21 February 2020 (UTC)[reply]

  Thank you this is the effect. --Redrose64 🌹 (talk) 19:33, 21 February 2020 (UTC)[reply]

• I think proposals 2a and 2b should be restricted in scope to apply only to blacklisting domains for reasons related to reliability. An RfC would be unnecessary to blacklist a domain that was widely spammed in clear violations of the external link spamming guideline (excluding the reliability criterion). — Newslinger talk 03:29, 22 February 2020 (UTC)[reply]

  ^This. After having manually removed almost 1000 occurrences of "lepidoptereason ra.eu" from articles before having it blacklisted. It rarely happens, but it does. ~ ToBeFree (talk) 05:42, 22 February 2020 (UTC)[reply]

  I also agree with this. We should put as much emphasis on verification and reliability as we can as some users can easily be confused with bias vs. reliability.----ZiaLater (talk) 08:26, 22 February 2020 (UTC)[reply]

OK, so lepidoptera.eu was spammed. So was ZoomInfo (and I nuked all links). Playing devil's advocate, should we not blacklist and then have an RfC, as I propose, to ensure that there is broad support for removal? At least if it's used in pre-existing (clarification added) reference tags (which could have been more explicit, so I fixed that). External links is different. 1,000 articles is a big impact on the project. Even if the source is clearly unreliable, it's going to be better to have solid consensus for any automated removal. And in fact if we do it right we can probably get approval for a bot to remove all references to a site that has been through this process, which will save a massive amount of time. Guy (help!) 10:06, 22 February 2020 (UTC)[reply]

I agree with this. Let's not give spammers a target to meet. Being used in reference tags is not particularly relevant, WP:CITESPAM is the default nowadays I believe. MER-C 12:12, 22 February 2020 (UTC)[reply]

This sounds backwards to me... I would think we would need an RFC prior to placing a site on the blacklist (whether due to reliability or some other reason) To determine whether the site should be added to the blacklist or not. Once a site is on the blacklist, however, we can automatically remove (and I don’t see a need to have additional RFCs before automatically removing).

Deprecated sources, on the other hand, are a different issue... these are discouraged, but NOT blacklisted (as they often have nuanced exceptions and carve outs attached to the deprecation)... so automatic removal is not the best solution. These need to be examined on a case by case basis, and additional RFCs may be needed. Blueboar (talk) 12:58, 22 February 2020 (UTC)[reply]

Blueboar, MediaWiki:Spam-blacklist has over 8300 entries. Having an RFC "prior to placing a site on the blacklist" in 15 years would have required an RfC more frequently than every 16 hours. ~ ToBeFree (talk) 13:24, 22 February 2020 (UTC)[reply]

I am confused... How do you determine if something is spam vs legit sourcing without an RFC? Is there some alternative process? Blueboar (talk) 15:32, 22 February 2020 (UTC)[reply]

Counter-question: How does one determine if a user needs to be blocked without an RFC? Or if a page needs to be protected? The point of electing administrators is to let some people enforce the community's policies in uncontroversial situations without having an RFC for every single action. The spam blacklist is primarily used to deal with the worst and most obvious cases of spam reported at MediaWiki talk:Spam-blacklist, just as WP:RFPP and WP:AIV are used for simple protection and blocking requests. ~ ToBeFree (talk) 20:41, 22 February 2020 (UTC)[reply]

ToBeFree, not that it's especially relevant but actually it's analogous to the proposed blacklisting response. Abuse is dealt with expeditiously but is then subject to review either by the user appealing the block (up to ArbCom if necessary) or by the admin posting the block for review on WP:ANI, one of the most watched pages on enWP. Guy (help!) 12:34, 23 February 2020 (UTC)[reply]

Blueboar, the default for a deprecated source is to remove it. My standard approach would be to tag with {{deprecated inline}} and then after some time go back and remove the tagged sources. We should not raise enormous bureaucratic obstacles to removal of a source we have decided is crap. My issue is that the process for deciding it's crap is vulnerable to groupthink. And I say that as one of the group.

The reason for blacklist then RfC when there are significant numbers of references is to control abuse. We should not allow a spammer to run rampant for a week while we think about it. The blacklist controls abuse, most abuse does not involve substantial numbers of references in mainspace, because it's usually a simple matter of rolling back the edits of the spammers. The example that clarifies this for me is ZoomInfo. This was absolutelt spammed. I then checked the existing references and found a mix of good and likely bad faith additions, including what was almost certainly their people adding their archive url to a lot of references. Those archives are all now defunct, according tot he checks I did, so are worthless. The rest of the information cited to ZoomInfo was generally trivial and likely to be self-provided. I still think, in retrospect, an RfC would have been a good idea. It was discussed here in some detail, but only the usual suspects show up.

Bear in mind that the existing process for deprecation is a short discussion here, often with few participants. The default for blacklisting is even quicker. Turnaround can be close to real time and in some cases the person proposing addition, also actions it (not best practice but necessary to control spamming, same as speedy deletion nominations by an admin are sometimes done in one step rather than being tagged and left for a second pair of eyes).

It seems to me that best practice is to be more deliberative when significant numbers of existing references are affected. And recent experience, for me at least, backs that up. As an aside, I would also like to see a parameter in the {{cite}} templates to link to any discussion showing consensus to include an apparently dubious source (e.g. specific self-published books). A small and discreet checkmark could be displayed to say it's a qualified reference despite appearances to the contrary. Guy (help!) 12:45, 23 February 2020 (UTC)[reply]

• This is confusing two different things - whether a source is reliable and whether a source is being spammed. Sources which pass all the requirements of reliable sources can still be spammed (whether by/on behalf of the owner/creator of the source or by unrelated third parties), and not all unreliable sources are spammed or otherwise added maliciously. The Spam Blacklist should concentrate on sources that are being spammed - the determination of which does not require an RFC as it depends on behaviour here (and on other Wikimedia projects) rather than the quality of the source. If we on en:wiki want to keep a separate blacklist covering sources that are unwanted for reasons other than spamming (such as unreliability or copyvios, then that is a different thing entirely.Nigel Ish (talk) 16:50, 22 February 2020 (UTC)[reply]

  Nigel Ish, no it's not, it's handling two scenarios whereby sources might be rejected: blacklisting (which can happen due to spamming but may affect large numbers of references if the site has been abused, as was the case with ZoomInfo), or deprecation / "Generally Unreliable". Both of these can happen as of today with virtually zero input. I think that's a bad thing if the site has been widely used. Given your decision to reinstate vanity presses and blogs lately, I think you are of the same view: we should not be adding a site to a list which qualifies it for large scale removal from Wikipedia without some more input than we currently get. Guy (help!) 12:32, 23 February 2020 (UTC)[reply]

Updated

Since I am the only one to !vote so far I have updated the proposals per comments above:

• Removed the number of references per WP:BEANS etc.;
• Clarified that links added by the spammer(s) don't count when blacklisting, so only pre-existing links.

Does this help? Guy (help!) 12:57, 23 February 2020 (UTC)[reply]

Are you essentially proposing that we expand the scope of the blacklist to cover deprecated sources as well as spam? If so, I would oppose. While deprecated sources ARE usually removed, there are nuanced exceptions when they should not be... and thus deprecated sources must be dealt with on a case by case basis. Blueboar (talk) 13:37, 23 February 2020 (UTC)[reply]

Blueboar, no, I am saying that when a site has been spammed but is widely used as a source, we should follow up with an RfC to decide what o do about the existing uses, part of which will be to assess whether it was, in fact, reliable in the first place. Guy (help!) 20:13, 23 February 2020 (UTC)[reply]

Ok... my confusion stemmed from the fact that your proposal #3 focused on deprecated sources, and not spammed sources... but if you are now limiting the discussion to just spammed sources I can shift from opposition to neutrality. Blueboar (talk) 02:31, 24 February 2020 (UTC)[reply]

• I agree with Guy's statement We should not allow a spammer to run rampant for a week while we think about it. In this regard, I think that 2b is a bit better than 2a; I like the sound of The RfC may be initiated concurrent with addition to the blacklist where there is ongoing abuse more than The RfC may be initiated concurrent with requesting blacklisting. But, to me, neither option really seems clear about the chronology that is being envisioned here. XOR'easter (talk) 19:02, 23 February 2020 (UTC)[reply]

  XOR'easter, sure. And I am happy to tweak it, but I think you understand my intent: blacklist then discuss. Controlling abuse comes first. Guy (help!) 20:14, 23 February 2020 (UTC)[reply]

• My concerns are that it opens the door to POV creep, inadvertent or otherwise, and it does so in a big way, particularly in controversial topic areas like AP2, climate change, religion, etc. Perhaps if there was stricter adherence to including only the facts rather than opinions, and we paid closer attention to RECENTISM, NOTNEWS and NEWSORG, we'd be just fine. All of WP should not be run on the same premise as Project Med; i.e., strict adherence to WP:MEDRS. ^Atsme _Talk 📧 13:47, 19 March 2020 (UTC)[reply]

The number of RFCs

My main concern is about the number of RFCs we've been holding, and the relatively poor justification for most of those RFCs. I'd like to see rules that focus attention on sources that have both of these qualities:

1. are actually being used (including proposed uses, e.g., on the talk page), and
2. the resulting disputes (please notice my intentional use of the plural) have been difficult to resolve.

That means that we have RFCs on Daily Mail and similar sources, but that we use our long-standing, normal, non-RFC discussion processes for whichever website popped up last week. If that means that they don't end up on the source blacklist, that's okay with me. We do not actually need a list of what editors thought, generally at a single point in time, about hundreds and hundreds of sources.

This RFC doesn't address any of my concerns, and I'm concerned that it will have even greater Tragedy of the commons-like effects on the overall RFC process. Y'all need to use the sitewide RFCs when they're important, not as your first approach to resolving a dispute. WhatamIdoing (talk) 21:42, 23 March 2020 (UTC)[reply]

We often spend more time and energy debating a single AfD. I'd rather get it right than worry about a relatively small number of consensus discussions. Regulating entire websites is serious business it can impact thousands of articles and even result in articles being deleted if their sourcing is knocked out. -- GreenC 21:56, 23 March 2020 (UTC)[reply]

Is Newslaundry (newslaundry.com) a reliable source for the following content in the OpIndia article, removed in Special:Diff/944447105?

A January 2020 report by the media watchdog Newslaundry noted the portal to contain several inflammatory headlines targeting the leftists, liberals and Muslims.^[1] Mainstream media and the political opposition (esp. Indian National Congress) were oft-criticized; posts published by OpIndia Hindi from November 15 to 29 were located to be invariably situated against any criticism of the Hindu nationalist Bharatiya Janata Party.^[1] On February 12, OpIndia had organised an ideological seminar featuring prominent figures from right wing intelligentsia^[2]; Newslaundry noted the seminar to have spread communally charged conspiracy theories about the Kathua rape case, equate the Shaheen Bagh protests to formation of mini-Pakistan and engage in other Islamophobic discourse.^[2]

See related discussion on Talk:OpIndia. — Newslinger talk 15:04, 8 March 2020 (UTC)[reply]

Do they have an editorial policy? I cannot find it.Slatersteven (talk) 15:07, 8 March 2020 (UTC)[reply]

• Newslaundry is an unreliable source with a clear bias and no indication of factual reporting. We should not allow Wikipedia becoming a platform to document feuds between the partisan sources in question. Shashank5988 (talk) 19:44, 8 March 2020 (UTC)[reply]
• Reliable: According to this, they won the Ramnath Goenka Excellence in Journalism Awards for their "investigative reporting".--SharʿabSalam▼ (talk) 20:07, 8 March 2020 (UTC)[reply]
• Reliable According to their about page they have won a lot of awards recently on the subject of investigation reporting and their work covering gender and human rights. But I couldn't find an editorial hierarchy. According to their hiring page, it looks like their reporters cover a variety of areas rather than having a "beat" and there isn't information about leadership. But I think the awards count for a lot. Liz ^{Read! Talk!} 02:29, 9 March 2020 (UTC)[reply]
• Unreliable - No information on leadership or editorial policy. As a new media site much like OpIndia, no certification from IFCN regarding fact-checking (which AltNews, cited in the article under criticism, has).Pectore^talk 06:00, 9 March 2020 (UTC)[reply]
• Unreliable We have no way of knowing if the editor also writes for it, they appear to have no editorial policy.Slatersteven (talk) 09:16, 9 March 2020 (UTC)[reply]
• They do provide some information at this webpage. Liz ^{Read! Talk!} 02:08, 10 March 2020 (UTC)[reply]

• Unreliable No published editorial policy. Clear trait of bias as noted by some wiki editors. No redressal mechanism in case of feedback, I tried approaching them with no success. --Jaydayal (talk) 10:12, 11 March 2020 (UTC)[reply]
• Unreliable for OpIndia and other Right wing portals atleast. They’re in dirty spat with each others and regularly publish such stories which don’t have much factual accuracies. If we’re going to consider OpIndia (I think we already did) as unreliable then this also falls in same line. — Brihaspati (talk) 11:56, 11 March 2020 (UTC)[reply]
• Reliable and generally reliable. Newslaundry was awarded the Ramnath Goenka Excellence in Journalism Awards in 2015 for their extensive coverage of a political scandal in which members of parliament (in both the right-wing Bharatiya Janata Party and the centre-left Indian National Congress) and other well-known people misappropriated US$15 million of taxpayer money through public sector undertakings for their personal or business interests. This five-part series is archived below:
  1. RTI Investigation (part 1): How politicians use PSUs as cash-vending machines
  2. RTI Investigation (part 2): How Vijay Darda used power ministry to further his business interests
  3. RTI Investigation (part 3): How ministers milk PSUs for ads and sponsorships
  4. RTI Investigation (Part 4): Corruption allegations surface against a BJP MP
  5. RTI Investigation (part 5): PSUs are an easy pool of money for politicians to dip into

• Reliable - per Newslinger. In addition, it also doesn't sum up that they would be factually inaccurate while also winning high prestige awards, I've yet to come across an allegation of misreporting against them which even mainstream media agencies face from time to time. Though there may be a degree of editorialisation in their content so care should be taken regarding that. Tayi Arajakate _Talk 14:20, 11 March 2020 (UTC)[reply]
• Reliable has a dedicated staff, uses bylines, has won awards for its journalism, imv Atlantic306 (talk) 16:28, 11 March 2020 (UTC)[reply]
• Unreliable - No editorial policy available on the website. Concocted click-bait stories based on imagination. Retracted after clarification from the office of President of India. It published fiction instead of fake news. Not trustworthy.
  1. Newslaundry spreads fake news about president's puri visit Shubham2019 (talk) 08:57, 12 March 2020 (UTC)[reply]

     Newslaundry was covering an alleged event that was initially covered by The Times of India, News18, and Times Now – other reliable sources. When the press secretary to the President denied the incident, Newslaundry officially retracted the story, demonstrating a strong reputation for error-correction, which is identified in WP:NEWSORG as a hallmark of a reliable source.

     As an aside, you're using "The True Picture" (thetruepicture.org, formerly thetruepicture.in), a site that was thoroughly discredited as a questionable source by a 2018 investigation from The Indian Express and a 2018 report from Boom (a fact checker that is certified by the IFCN). The Quint has additional coverage of the exposés. These analyses show that "The True Picture" is closely affiliated with BlueKraft Digital Foundation, a company that "has been involved in promoting various government initiatives, including Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s book ‘Exam Warriors.’" From this, it's clear that "The True Picture" is unreliable and has a strong conflict of interest. — Newslinger talk 09:57, 12 March 2020 (UTC)[reply]

     This reply is clearly not satisfactory, Newslaundry concocted a casteist angle in the issue. None of the articles cited give a hint of this angle. This was the reason they had to retract their imaginative story while others did not. It was clearly written to promote enimity between the communities and cater to a certain narrative to attack the government.As a side note, this kind of ideological reinforcement is being done by portals like Newslaundry, Altnews,Wire,Quint,Boom,NDTV. All of which are reinforcing each other's position and being cited in a circular manner to counter/manage the narrative or ideological resistance being provided by the portals of contradictory ideology. OpIndia, Republic,Swarajya, TheTruePicture,MediaBias fact check, Fact Hunt all are being campaigned against in wikipedia. The articles which attack the left wing portals are certainly written in Right Wing Portal and vice versa. Yet only one way citations are allowed i.e. against Right Wing Portal. Therefore there is no WP:NPOV.

Either wikipedia has a policy of not allowing different ideological point of views or we seriously need to re-evaluate why all right wing portals are outright dismissed as unreliable/deprecated/questionable and left wing portals are treated as gospels which can't be wrong and don't need to be questioned. Shubham2019 (talk) 16:21, 12 March 2020 (UTC)[reply]

Bias is not a reason to reject a source. We dismiss sources that can be shown to knowingly and willingly publish falsehoods which they do not retract.Slatersteven (talk) 16:24, 12 March 2020 (UTC)[reply]

Your argument against Newslaundry depends solely on criticism from a questionable source ("The True Picture") against a properly labeled "opinion" piece from Newslaundry. As the piece from Newslaundry was retracted before it was archived, your claims are unverifiable. The fact that Newslaundry is willing to retract errors is a positive attribute. Compare that to OpIndia, which has yet to retract their coverage of a fake letter falsely attributed to a Muslim body president, for example.

If the right-wing sites you listed were reliable, they would be recognized with awards and favorable coverage from other reliable sources. But, the IFCN – a politically neutral organization – rejected OpIndia in 2018, while it certified Alt News in 2019 and Boom (boomlive.in) in 2019. Newslaundry won the Ramnath Goenka Excellence in Journalism Award and two Red Ink Awards, while OpIndia has never won any significant awards. These are some of the reasons Newslaundry, Alt News, and Boom are considered reliable, while OpIndia is not. Media Bias/Fact Check (RSP entry) was discussed three times on this noticeboard, and is considered unreliable because it is self-published, not because it had any discernible overall bias.

The neutral point of view policy requires us to represent "all the significant views that have been published by reliable sources on a topic" (emphasis added). — Newslinger talk 16:59, 12 March 2020 (UTC)[reply]

• I wrote to the Newslaundry editorial team and this is what I heard back...I don't think there is any problem sharing the relevant portion of the email message:

Thanks for reaching out.

We are currently redesigning our website and we'll have a page explaining our editorial policy on the upgraded site.

Of course, like any credible news organisation, our work goes through a series of editorial filters before it is published. I believe the quality of our work testifies to this. Mr Raman Kirpal, cced in this mail, is our managing editor. He's an award-winning journalist with several decades of experience in the industry and he takes the final call on what appears on Newslaundry.

Liz ^{Read! Talk!} 22:37, 12 March 2020 (UTC)[reply]

I inspected the source code of older versions of Newslaundry's home page, and noticed that Newslaundry switched its content management system from a (possibly in-house) platform based on AngularJS as of 16 January 2020 to Quintype as of 22 January 2020. While most of the site has already been migrated to their new platform, there are a few pages that are currently only accessible through archived versions. This includes Newslaundry's About Us page, which includes a list of Newslaundry's staff and a list of Newslaundry's owners (with percentage ownership specified for each owner). This transparency reflects favorably on Newslaundry, and I expect to see the editorial policy when the site finishes migrating to the Quintype platform. — Newslinger talk 01:08, 13 March 2020 (UTC)[reply]

• Generally reliable per Newslinger and others. I'm impressed by the apparent transparency (website transition confusion not withstanding) and their response to Liz. My only comment is that it might be, perhaps, that we should take any news items towards OpIndia (and similar sites) with a grain of salt per the concerns about an apparent on-going spat. Waggie (talk) 02:14, 13 March 2020 (UTC)[reply]
• Unreliable Do they have any Editorial Policy? Half baked stories with facts missing in most of there reporting, completely biased source. Santoshdts (talk) 10:38, 16 March 2020 (UTC)[reply]
• Unreliable They don't have a well defined editorial policy. The news reporting is mixed with biased opinions. They generally lampoon and criticises other media sources. There is a clear lack of objectivity. They have also published fake news in the past.IndianHistoryEnthusiast (talk) 21:21, 16 March 2020 (UTC)[reply]

  Do you have a reliable source to back up the "fake news" claim? — Newslinger talk 06:44, 17 March 2020 (UTC)[reply]

  They published a news story on the President of India, which was denied by the President's office. Newslaundry is not important enough to be covered by other reliable media portals. There are a few sites like these which are engaged in trashing each other online based on ideological differences, they publish hit-pieces on each other at random intervals, their editors and reporters fight on twitter. There's a clear lack of objectivity.IndianHistoryEnthusiast (talk) 08:09, 17 March 2020 (UTC)[reply]

  Your comment strikes a false balance between Newslaundry and the near-unanimously condemned OpIndia, and excuses OpIndia's unreliability as "ideological differences". Unlike OpIndia, Newslaundry corrects or retracts all of its stories that need doing so. — Newslinger talk 04:10, 18 March 2020 (UTC)[reply]

• Unarchived from Wikipedia:Reliable sources/Noticeboard/Archive 288 to request closure at WP:ANRFC. Cunard (talk) 01:41, 19 April 2020 (UTC)[reply]

Should generally reliable sources on the perennial sources list be added to CAPTCHA whitelist, so that new and anonymous users can cite them in articles without needing to solve a CAPTCHA? — Newslinger talk 19:37, 7 March 2020 (UTC)[reply]

Background

Wikipedia uses the ConfirmEdit extension, which is an anti-spam feature that requires IP editors and newly registered users to solve a CAPTCHA before they can add a citation or external link, unless the linked website is on the CAPTCHA whitelist. The CAPTCHA whitelist makes it easier for new editors to add content that references "known good sites", which are likely to be appropriate citations or external links, and unlikely to be spammed.

There are currently 103 domains operated by 76 sources that have been designated as generally reliable on the perennial sources list after being reviewed on this noticeboard:

aljazeera.com
aljazeera.net
arstechnica.com
arstechnica.co.uk
ap.org
apnews.com
theatlantic.com
avclub.com
bbc.co.uk
bbc.com
bellingcat.com
bloomberg.com
buzzfeednews.com
csmonitor.com
climatefeedback.org
cnet.com
cnn.com
theconversation.com
thedailybeast.com
dailydot.com
telegraph.co.uk
deadline.com
deadlinehollywooddaily.com
deseretnews.com
digitalspy.co.uk
digitalspy.com
economist.com
engadget.com
ew.com
ft.com
foxnews.com
theguardian.com
guardian.co.uk
theguardian.co.uk
haaretz.com
haaretz.co.il
thehill.com
hollywoodreporter.com
idolator.com
ign.com
independent.co.uk
ipsnews.net
ipsnoticias.net
ipscuba.net
theintercept.com
jamanetwork.com
latimes.com
metacritic.com
gamerankings.com
motherjones.com
thenation.com
nymag.com
vulture.com
thecut.com
grubstreet.com
nytimes.com
newyorker.com
newsweek.com
people.com
pewresearch.org
people-press.org
journalism.org
pewsocialtrends.org
pewforum.org
pewinternet.org
pewhispanic.org
pewglobal.org
playboy.com
politico.com
politifact.com
propublica.org
theregister.co.uk
reuters.com
rollingstone.com
rottentomatoes.com
sciencebasedmedicine.org
slate.com
slate.fr
snopes.com
splcenter.org
spectator.co.uk
spiegel.de
thewrap.com
time.com
thetimes.co.uk
thesundaytimes.co.uk
timesonline.co.uk
torrentfreak.com
tvguide.com
tvguidemagazine.com
usatoday.com
vanityfair.com
variety.com
venturebeat.com
theverge.com
vogue.com
vox.com
wsj.com
washingtonpost.com
weeklystandard.com
wired.com
wired.co.uk
zdnet.com

The above excludes:

• Forbes (RSP entry), which shares a domain with the generally unreliable Forbes.com contributors (RSP entry)
• buzzfeed.com, which is no longer used for BuzzFeed News (RSP entry) after it moved to a separate domain

Some of these domains are already on the CAPTCHA whitelist, and would not be added again.

Another request concerning this whitelist was made just over a week ago at "CAPTCHA exemption for reliable domains". — Newslinger talk 19:37, 7 March 2020 (UTC)[reply]

Survey (CAPTCHA whitelist)

• Support as proposer. The CAPTCHA whitelist improves accessibility for new and anonymous editors. The listed sources have already been vetted through this noticeboard. — Newslinger talk 19:37, 7 March 2020 (UTC)[reply]
• Support to improve accessibility and remove unnecessary red tape, these captcha processes are particularly difficult for visually impaired people, imv Atlantic306 (talk) 20:48, 7 March 2020 (UTC)[reply]
• Support to improve the user experience and therefore editor retention. Clayoquot (talk | contribs) 21:57, 7 March 2020 (UTC)[reply]
• Sorry if this seems like a stupid question, but what's stopping users from editing WP:RSP to bypass this restriction? feminist (talk) 04:48, 8 March 2020 (UTC)[reply]
  • OK I see that this proposal doesn't actually add RSP links to the CAPTCHA whitelist in real time, but rather involves manually adding the links to the whitelist. Support. feminist (talk) 06:14, 8 March 2020 (UTC)[reply]
• Support - and I will consider to add this capability to User:Beetstra/Gadget-Spam-whitelist-Handler (well, I will likely copy-and-paste it to a next handler) to make it easier to handle these requests. IMHO, they should just be added with a rather low bar - as long as they are properly logged and tracked it should not impose many problems. --Dirk Beetstra ^{T C} 12:57, 8 March 2020 (UTC)[reply]
• Support per nom. Adding my late support as well if it's still needed. I don't see any objections to this, so I'd go ahead and implement. {{u|Sdkb}} ^talk 08:25, 3 April 2020 (UTC)[reply]
• Support no brainer that would make it much easier to cite good sources. buidhe 02:54, 4 April 2020 (UTC)[reply]
• Support, it's a no-brainer really and just makes sense. >>BEANS X2t 13:05, 4 April 2020 (UTC)[reply]
• Support, per Newslinger's comments above. ~mitch~ (talk) 13:26, 4 April 2020 (UTC)[reply]
• Support the principle, oppose the list as given unless there's significant further pruning. A lot of those are "generally reliable" in a particular topic but I wouldn't trust them to give me the time of day outside their specialist area. (Do you really want the newspapers gleefully running "Wikiped:ia considers Playboy a more reliable source than most national newspapers" headlines? That's what all you supports above are voting for, and I guarantee that at minimum the Daily Mail is eagerly watching this discussion.) ‑ Iridescent 13:44, 4 April 2020 (UTC)[reply]
• Support. Should have been done a long time ago. I see Iridescent's point, but the CAPTCHA is there stop bots, not people. If there's a human editor who thinks that Playboy is a suitable source for magnetohydrodynamic turbulence, yes that's a problem, but having to type in a CAPTCHA won't stop them. Adding a site to this list isn't a declaration that it's "extra reliable", just that it's very unlikely to spammed by a bot. Suffusion of Yellow (talk) 22:40, 10 April 2020 (UTC)[reply]

Discussion (CAPTCHA whitelist)

• @Beetstra: If there should be a low bar for the whitelist, we could also add domains of sites classified as "no consensus, unclear, or additional considerations apply" to the list. Should I create a separate proposal in this RfC for the "no consensus..." domains? — Newslinger talk 13:18, 8 March 2020 (UTC)[reply]
  • @Newslinger: that list is endless, especially when knowing that we have likely never discussed 99% of the reliable sources (we discuss for being perceived not reliable, not the other way around). --Dirk Beetstra ^{T C} 13:40, 8 March 2020 (UTC)[reply]
• Sources listed as reliable on WP:VGRS and WP:A/S should be added as well. I'm currently compiling a list of potential additions on User:Feminist/CAPTCHA exemptions. Feel free to use it and work on it as you wish. feminist (talk) 08:02, 9 March 2020 (UTC)[reply]
• There are also some lists over at WP:New pages patrol/Source guide discussions about reliable sources for specific regions/contexts. However, these pages are quite early in development and don't yet have much discussion. Might be useful in the future. Jlevi (talk) 03:01, 4 April 2020 (UTC)[reply]

Is the Poynter Institute's International Fact-Checking Network (IFCN) a reliable source for determining the reliability of fact-checking organizations? — Newslinger talk 14:35, 16 March 2020 (UTC)[reply]

The IFCN's website (ifcncodeofprinciples.poynter.org) includes a list of signatories that have been certified by the IFCN. — Newslinger talk 14:51, 16 March 2020 (UTC)[reply]

Survey (IFCN)

• Yes. The IFCN evaluates sources for compliance with a code of principles (summarized here, detailed here) that are in line with what is expected from reliable sources. The assessments (example: Snopes in 2018) are in-depth, and include examinations of the fact-checker's article quality, methodology, funding, staff, commitment to nonpartisanship, and track record of performing error corrections. Although the Poynter Institute has never been discussed in detail on this noticeboard, past discussions indicate that the Poynter Institute is not questioned as a reliable source when it is mentioned, similiarly to the Columbia Journalism Review. — Newslinger talk 14:35, 16 March 2020 (UTC)[reply]

• No. Some of the financial backers^[1] are neutral but some appears to be for-profit and political influencers and have controversial backgrounds.

Here's what I have found. Poynter (IFCN) have had received major funding from some controversial entities as follows.

• Facebook is a highly controversial entity that is alleged of stealing and selling the private user data to advertisement agencies and political parties and have also tried to influence the political views of users.^[2]
• Open_Society_Foundations whose founder and chairman is George Soros, who according to the his Wikipedia page is "a well-known supporter of progressive and liberal political causes" and a controversial figure.
• Charles Koch Foundation is another controversial entity backing IFCN. According to Political_activities_of_the_Koch_brothers, the Koch brothers have made significant financial contributions to libertarian and conservative think tanks and have donated primarily to Republican Party candidates running for office.
• Google News Initiative is an entity created by a for-profit and controversial company, Google.^[3]
• Open Society Foundations, Omidyar Network | Luminate Omidyar, Tides Foundation are funds managed by tycoon Luminate Omidyar who is alleged of having given large sums of money to causes that are active in left-wing politics^[4]

Looking at the past backgrounds of these investors/backers, the neutrality of the IFCN is in question since it is an entity that accredit news portals as verified news fact-checkers globally via some middlemen (who again are politically influenced by some means). This is a serious issue and some of the accredited fact-checkers in question (whose founders/associates are actually involved in publicly bashing out other-side political leaders or ideologically/religiously different groups of people) are involved in publishing targetted and one-side political write ups. Ironically, IFCN is also involved in rejecting requests from the sources which are politically/ideologically have different views than its existing verified fact-checker signatories. Because Wikipedia treats IFCN and its verified signatories as reliable sources, this is a serious threat which is deliberately being used as a powerful weapon whoever talks against them even with the valid evidences. Also, whatever is being published or circulated by such IFCN verified signatory fact-checker websites is considered as a final truth which is a dangerous thing, in my opinion. I would like to propose that IFCN (and its verified fact-checker signatories) should not be treated as reliable sources of the news. If this is not possible, then at least allow other news websites to be considered equally reliable which have been targettedly called as black-listed by these IFCN verified fact-checker websites. This decision can ensure that there is no monopoly of IFCN on judging the fact-checkers as it posses the power of being one today since Wikipedia (editors) trust all those IFCN-verified fact-checkers and doesn't trust at all those who are rejected or have been bashed out targettedly by the IFCN-verified ones. Vishal Telangre (talk) 17:42, 16 March 2020 (UTC)[reply]

The Poynter Institute lists 22 major funders. The widely discredited George Soros conspiracy theory, which is often described as antisemitic, has no bearing on the reliability of the Poynter Institute or the IFCN. Additionally, you've listed funding from both liberal (e.g. George Soros) and conservative (e.g. Charles Koch) entities, showing support across the political spectrum. For-profit companies donate to nonprofit organizations all the time, and a nonprofit organization does not become a less reliable source by accepting funds from a for-profit company, especially when a vast number of commercial publications run by for-profit companies qualify under the reliable sources guideline. It is true that OpIndia has been rejected by the IFCN, and considering OpIndia's propensity to publish false or misleading information, the rejection is a positive indicator of the IFCN's reliability. — Newslinger talk 18:01, 16 March 2020 (UTC)[reply]

Rejecting an applicant doesn't make IFCN reliable rather it make it more questionable. The IFCN's credibility becomes untrustworthy when the its verified signatories have one-sided idelogical views rather than fact-based neutral views. An example is AltNews who is owned by by Pratik Sinha who has anti-Modi, anti-BJP, anti-Hindutva and anti-right-wing, pro-leftist views^[1] and is a member of a political organisation (mentioned in his Twitter bio) that is involved in targetted bashing of current prime minister of India and is inclined towards left-wing political parties and individuals. Just makes all connections fishy. This is one of the examples of the specific-agenda views of the entities associated/verified by IFCN. Vishal Telangre (talk) 18:59, 16 March 2020 (UTC)[reply]

So they're biased because they're funded by non-profits, and businesses, and progressives, and conservatives, and libertarians I guess. That's certainly a unique analysis. GMG^talk 19:03, 16 March 2020 (UTC)[reply]

Your false allegation that Pratik Sinha is "anti-Hindu" is a violation of the biographies of living persons policy unless you can back that up with a reliable source. OpIndia, a site that is essentially the Indian version of The Gateway Pundit (RSP entry) (which was deprecated in a 2019 RfC), is not reliable and the IFCN is correct to reject it. — Newslinger talk 06:49, 17 March 2020 (UTC)[reply]

No false allegations. I have attached reference to the website (it redirects to altnews.com now) run by the same man which had published articles expressing similar views. Vishal Telangre (talk) 08:47, 17 March 2020 (UTC)[reply]

The false "anti-Hindu" allegation is not the same thing as the term anti-Hindutva. — Newslinger talk 09:32, 17 March 2020 (UTC)[reply]

Seems like you missed my edits. Vishal Telangre (talk) 09:51, 17 March 2020 (UTC)[reply]

I see that you've changed "anti-Hindu" to "anti-Hindutva" in Special:Diff/945975817. Thanks. — Newslinger talk 09:54, 17 March 2020 (UTC)[reply]

Pratik Sinha himself spread fake news amid COVID-19 pandemic to disturb the situation from his official Twitter account and later when authorities found out that it was indeed a fake news, he tweeted with an apology.

It is commendable that Sinha apologized for retweeting someone after he realized the original tweet was from an "imposter account", especially considering that the retweet was done on Sinha's personal Twitter account, not Alt News's Twitter account. Using Sinha's retweet correction as "evidence" against the IFCN-certified Alt News is a very long stretch of an argument; it is unsurprising that the IFCN-rejected OpIndia published an article along the same lines as your argument. Even if the retweet were done from Alt News's Twitter account, the correction would be a positive point: the IFCN expects its signatories to publish error corrections, as outlined in its code of principles. — Newslinger talk 07:44, 25 March 2020 (UTC)[reply]

Vishaltelangre, That's... novel. In the real world, a body that never rejects any applicant is not thought to be terribly discerning. As to Sinha, I don't know if you've realised it, but critical analysis of the government of the day is a core function of journalism. Failure to do that is one reason why Fox News is not reliable. Guy (help!) 08:11, 17 March 2020 (UTC)[reply]

Regarding Pratik Sinha, as cited above, he do not have neutral idelogical and political views. He rather have published articles only targetting a specific person (to be specific, India's current PM, Narendra Modi), related ideology and that person's political party. That makes him and his organization (AltNews) an unreliable source since the published articles show the similar views. If someone is a hater of a specific ideology then how can his organization be trusted as a reliable source which published most news stories that majorly targets a specific community? Vishal Telangre (talk) 08:47, 17 March 2020 (UTC)[reply]

You have not established that Alt News is biased, especially considering that Alt News was found to be compliant with the IFCN's nonpartisanship policy when it was accredited in 2019. Wikipedia articles are generally allowed to use biased or opinionated sources, but generally not allowed to use questionable sources. OpIndia is a questionable source because it regularly publishes false and misleading information, not because it is a far-right pro-Hindutva publication. — Newslinger talk 09:40, 17 March 2020 (UTC)[reply]

Vishaltelangre, he doesn't have to have unbiased views. Alan Rusbridger is not a fan of the Tory Party, but he ran a highly respected newspaper that comments with some authority on what the Tory government does. Guy (help!) 20:28, 17 March 2020 (UTC)[reply]

• Yes. IFCN is an authority widely used and cited by other reliable sources. Reuters, CJR and others cover it as a positive contribution to factual reporting. It's not for us to second-guess those sources, especially when the motivation is that we like a source it says is unreliable. Guy (help!) 08:07, 17 March 2020 (UTC)[reply]
• Yes as it is considered reliable by sources such as Reuters, imv Atlantic306 (talk) 18:50, 17 March 2020 (UTC)[reply]
• Yes they appear to have a good reputation for reliability and fairness. I view their broad base of donor support as a positive. Glendoremus (talk) 20:53, 18 March 2020 (UTC)[reply]
• Yes, good reputation for reliability and fairness, strong WP:USEBYOTHERS. Neutrality^talk 19:28, 19 March 2020 (UTC)[reply]
• Yes agree with what Newslinger said.--SharʿabSalam▼ (talk) 19:33, 19 March 2020 (UTC)[reply]
• Yes per above. Alanscottwalker (talk) 01:43, 20 March 2020 (UTC)[reply]
• Yes Reliable sources have "a reputation for fact-checking and accuracy." The fact that the IFCN has given a positive assessment of a factchecker is evidence they have a reputation for fact-checking and accuracy. That does not mean that it is conclusive evidence, but that without evidence to the contrary we would accept their findings. I don't think it matters who funds the project. We should look at the reputation of the sponsor, which is a journalism school. TFD (talk) 04:57, 21 March 2020 (UTC)[reply]
• Yes - I'd venture to say far more reliable than several of the fact checking sources we're using now, particularly those fact-checking sources founded by individuals whose backgrounds didn't provide one any comfort in knowing who was checking the facts. ^Atsme _Talk 📧 21:42, 22 March 2020 (UTC)[reply]
• Yes per Newslinger, and the lack of credibility in the arguments against. GirthSummit _(blether) 09:29, 25 March 2020 (UTC)[reply]
• Yes they are reliable, IFCN is one of the best in the business. If they don’t meet the bar for WP:RS I don’t think anyone in the space does (which would be a problem for us). Horse Eye Jack (talk) 18:59, 27 March 2020 (UTC)[reply]
• Yes clearly. Beyond My Ken (talk) 08:28, 29 March 2020 (UTC)[reply]
• No. Yes, but with concerns. I've been skeptical (cough) about Poynter/IFCN for a while, and previously had some discussion in context of another "fact check" (blog) site.[5] In my view, Poynter/IFCN is another "news" publisher, similar to many others. While they may be "non-profit," they still have to cover their expenses, and that creates obligations, and lack of independence, just like with other publishers. For context, I feel Wikipedia's blacklist approach should abandoned in favor of a more metric-based approach, used article by article. Unfortunately, objectively rating each individual article proposed as a source takes more effort. So, Poynter is a publisher, and IFCN is their "fact check" arm, to take advantage of a current trend, but it doesn't make everything they publish, or every rating by IFCN, a "gold standard." Some other comments:

• Reuters is a "signatory." [6] Thus Reuters citing IFCN is not independent, but more like conflict of interest. They have mutual interest in endorsing each other.

• Snopes withdrew from both Facebook and Poynter/IFCN. According to Poynter/IFCN, this was due to "bandwidth" and using "a manual system." According to snopes, it was due to the compensation being inadequate.[7][8] Poynter/IFCN published an article on Snopes.[9] The point is Poynter/IFCN is not a disinterested party.

• Poynter/IFCN published an article about DARPA disinformation efforts, and questioned their ability to use software for more automated fact-check type efforts.[10] Could it be Poynter is concerned about competition with their business?

• Poynter uses wordpress, as well as associated plugins and advert/tracking networks. This reflects poorly on their capabilities, and may indicate a conflict in some opinion publishing (see criticism of DARPA above).

• Poynter re-publishes PolitiFact publications. It's with attribution, but it demonstrates lack of independence in operation.[11]
• -- Yae4 (talk) 14:54, 31 March 2020 (UTC)[reply]

  This RfC does not seek to make the IFCN the sole arbiter of whether a fact-checker is reliable; the RfC statement asks whether the IFCN's assessments are generally reliable (and should be used in conjunction with other available reliable sources) when determining whether a fact-checker is reliable. The IFCN is not independent from PolitiFact (RSP entry), since both are operated by the Poynter Institute; however, editors are free to assess the evidence presented in the assessment for PolitiFact on its own merits. Snopes (RSP entry) was previously paid by Facebook (not the IFCN) to fact-check content on the social network; Snopes ended the partnership with Facebook because Snopes did not consider it to be the best use of resources. WordPress powers many reliable sources, including the websites for Time (RSP entry), Variety (RSP entry), and NiemanLab; a website's content management system is not related to its reliability. Most of the top million websites use web tracking, including the sites of many reliable sources, and the presence of web tracking has nothing to do with reliability. — Newslinger talk 07:37, 1 April 2020 (UTC)[reply]

I'm changing my "vote" to Yes, with concerns, because in balance they seem about as "good" as other "reliable" publishers, and better in some ways. It is predictable, however, when IFCN is on the RSPS list, they will become the default primary arbiter. It's also concerning there were zero "Not Compliant" issues in Opindia's archived review, but somehow they were "rejected" in the end, for being partisan. Everyone is partisan... I think they lack independence too much, and they have been misleading or contradictory, despite their transparency efforts. For example, in one place they say, "The IFCN does not publish fact checks and is therefore not eligible to be a signatory of its own code of principles..."[12] However, in another place they acknowlege, "Poynter also houses the Pulitzer Prize-winning PolitiFact, which is the largest political fact-checking news organization in the United States."[13] So, one side of the house does not fact check, but the other side does, and they don't hesitate to review and endorse their own fact check arm. The technology issue was raised to point out they (1) are comfortable with criticising DARPA, a potential creator of a competing technology for IFCN business, while they are criticized by Snopes for relying on manual methods (poor technology); (2) By being one of the million who use typical website monitizing methods, they are one of the million who are motivated to "drive" eyeballs to their site(s), rather than being unique and completely preventing those conflicts of interest. So, a site's CMS technology isn't the only indicator, but it is an indicator, and "advert infested" (which is implemented with site CMS technology) has been used as a criticism. -- Yae4 (talk) 09:05, 1 April 2020 (UTC)[reply]

Discussion (IFCN)

• The International Fact-Checking Network's evaluations are commonly used as a metric for determining whether fact-checking organizations (such as Snopes (RSP entry), Alt News, Boom, and OpIndia) are reliable. Recently, some editors who argue in favor of the reliability of certain pro-Hindutva publications (including Swarajya and the IFCN-rejected OpIndia, which are also being discussed in the "OpIndia and Swarajya" noticeboard discussion) have criticized the IFCN and IFCN-certified fact checkers on a variety of grounds. (See Talk:OpIndia § IFCN Rejection in the Lead Section and Talk:Swarajya (magazine) § Neutrality of the article in question for details.) This RfC aims to resolve the question of whether the IFCN should be used to evaluate the reliability of fact-checkers, which are in turn used to source claims in articles. — Newslinger talk 14:35, 16 March 2020 (UTC)[reply]
• Is there some serious debate about this source? GMG^talk 15:28, 16 March 2020 (UTC)[reply]

  Yes, see the following:

  • Talk:OpIndia § IFCN Rejection in the Lead Section
  • Talk:Swarajya (magazine) § Neutrality of the article in question

  ​— Newslinger talk 15:32, 16 March 2020 (UTC)[reply]

There is disagreement over at Wikipedia:Fringe_theories/Noticeboard#RfC_on_race_and_intelligence whether the following source is reliable as an assessment of the fringe nature of the opinion that there are "genetic differences in intelligence along racial lines".

• Rindermann, Heiner. Survey of expert opinion on intelligence: Intelligence research, experts' background, controversial issues, and the media Intelligence, 2020.

Some have said that Rindermann himself is inherently unreliable due to other sources he has written for in the past (e.g. Mankind Quarterly), though I have seen no reliable source directly criticising Rindermann or this paper, and the journal itself seems to meet WP:RS.

Could I please get some comments regarding the reliability of Rindermann in general as well as the reliability of the Journal itself? Thanks. — Insertcleverphrasehere ^{(or here)}_{(click me!)} 22:53, 5 April 2020 (UTC)[reply]

@Insertcleverphrasehere: FYI, there was a very similar discussion (about Rindermann in general, but not this particular paper) in February. 2600:1004:B151:58B1:9DDF:E91F:7217:39A7 (talk) 00:39, 6 April 2020 (UTC)[reply]

I am aware. This particular source has a different publisher, and much of the previous discussion focused on Hunt. — Insertcleverphrasehere ^{(or here)}_{(click me!)} 02:24, 6 April 2020 (UTC)[reply]

Comment the paper has been subjected to peer review by a reputable journal. Wikipedians are not qualified to second guess the peer review process. Therefore I think it is a reliable source.--Literaturegeek | T@1k? 16:23, 6 April 2020 (UTC)[reply]

Is Intelligence really a reputable journal? They had two of the editors of Mankind Quarterly on their editorial board until quite recently. And, of course, Rindermann himself is currently on the board so this isn't really independently published. - MrOllie (talk) 16:30, 6 April 2020 (UTC)[reply]

Authors of journal papers are never allowed to review their own papers, so the fact that he's on the journal's editorial board isn't relevant here. If a paper's author being on the editorial board of its journal means that the paper is not independently published, we'd have to reject a huge number of journal papers as reliable sources - probably about a quarter of the journal papers that are cited at Wikipedia. 2600:1004:B120:B574:307B:E61E:9775:FA3B (talk) 17:01, 6 April 2020 (UTC)[reply]

MrOllie, Do you have a reliable source saying that Intelligence is not a reputable journal or is this just OR? MQ has a bad reputation but I don't think that means that everyone ever associated with them caries guilt by association to any other place they work. — Insertcleverphrasehere ^{(or here)}_{(click me!)} 19:28, 6 April 2020 (UTC)[reply]

See the cites on Intelligence (journal). And we're not talking about 'everyone ever associated with them', we're talking about this guy. - MrOllie (talk) 19:48, 6 April 2020 (UTC)[reply]

MrOllie, well my comment above stands. Of the citations in the "criticism" section at the Intelligence (journal) article, The New Statesman article says "The ISIR is home to many great scientists, and its journal Intelligence is one of the most respected in its field." The Independent doesn't mention the journal at all and seems mainly a citation discussing Lynn and Meisenberg. The Guardian article is an opinion piece and the author seems rather critical of the entire research field, but it does specifically go into quite a lot of detail on the editorial process of the Journal itself, and it seems as rigorous as other high quality journals. — Insertcleverphrasehere ^{(or here)}_{(click me!)} 20:08, 6 April 2020 (UTC)[reply]

• This source[14] makes the point that despite questionable figures on its board, the journal Intelligence itself is respected. As to Rindermann, this posting fails to follow the noticeboard instructions - what content are we talking about?. He is obviously reliable for his own view, but whether that's due is more in the realm of WP:NPOV. Alexbrn (talk) 19:51, 6 April 2020 (UTC)[reply]

  Alexbrn, whether this particular journal article has any bearing on whether the opinion in the scientific community that there may be "genetic differences in intelligence along racial lines" is a fringe viewpoint or not (per the Linked RfC that is ongoing). Of particular note is the section in the discussion that discusses the experts' opinion on "the cause of past and current US Black-White differences in IQ test results".

  In the current study, EQCA experts were asked what percentage of the US Black-White differences in IQ is, in their view, due to environment or genes. In general, EQCA experts gave a 50–50 (50% genes, 50% environment) response with a slight tilt to the environmental position (51% vs. 49%; Table 3). When EQCA experts were classified into discrete categories (genetic, environmental, or 50–50), 40% favored an environmental position, 43% a genetic position, and 17% assumed 50–50. The difference in the average versus discrete results may seem contradictory (average results tilted to the environment and discrete categories tilted to genes), except when extreme positions are considered. 16% of experts who favored an environmental perspective assumed a 100% environmental position, whereas only 6% of experts who favored a genetic perspective assumed a 100% genetic position (Fig. 3). That is, the opinion of “environmentalists” was more extreme than the opinion of “geneticists.”

  Some have stated in the RfC that Rindermann is not reliable, or that the journal is not reliable to be taken credibly when trying to assess what opinions are fringe in the intelligence research community. — Insertcleverphrasehere ^{(or here)}_{(click me!)} 20:14, 6 April 2020 (UTC)[reply]

  Whether the views are fringe or not is a discussion at WP:FT/N, not here (and a tar pit I am avoiding). Whether this guy is reliable ... well he is obviously reliable for a report of what he states. But Wikipedia obviously isn't going to WP:ASSERT his views because they are not accepted knowledge, so how much exposure he gets is really a neutrality question. Alexbrn (talk) 20:52, 6 April 2020 (UTC)[reply]

  Alexbrn, What I'm asking, specifically, is whether this journal article is a reliable source to be cited in said RfC discussion (how much weight it is given is up to commenters there of course). It sounds like you are saying that, yes, it is. — Insertcleverphrasehere ^{(or here)}_{(click me!)} 21:23, 6 April 2020 (UTC)[reply]

  Alex said, two comments above, that yes according to a source, it is a respected journal and he said that Rindermann is reliable for his own view but you cannot assert in Wikipedia’s voice that his view is a fact or the truth.--Literaturegeek | T@1k? 23:49, 6 April 2020 (UTC)[reply]

  Literaturegeek, I'm not talking about his view. That's not what I'm citing here. I'm citing the results of his survey. — Insertcleverphrasehere ^{(or here)}_{(click me!)} 00:23, 7 April 2020 (UTC)[reply]

• Comment: Rindermann has been a frequent contributor (from his BLP) to a journal that has been described as a "cornerstone of the scientific racism establishment", a "white supremacist journal",[1] an "infamous racist journal", and "scientific racism's keepers of the flame"[2][3][4] (from the 1st sentence of the article Mankind Quarterly). His survey was published in the official journal of the International Society for Intelligence Research, which is described in New Statesman as an organization that promotes "racist pseudo-science".^[1] There are many ways someone with a strong POV can skew an opinion survey (biased sample selection, biased wording of questions, biased framing of results, etc.). Would we regard as reliable a survey of "expert" opinion on abortion conducted by someone with an extreme anti-abortion POV and published in an anti-abortion journal? Would we regard as reliable a survey of "expert" opinion on homeopathy conducted by a homeopath and published in a homeopathy journal? NightHeron (talk) 01:32, 7 April 2020 (UTC)[reply]

  Your broad-brush condemnation of the International Society for Intelligence Research, and its journal Intelligence, which you have done repeatedly, is not appropriate. First, academic sources take priority over journalistic ones per WP:SCHOLARSHIP. You can't use a single article in the political and cultural magazine New Statesman to say a peer-reviewed journal and academic society are totally illegitimate. Now, there are supposed peer-reviewed journals and academic societies that are not legitimate, but this illegitimacy is established by actual academic sources. This is how it is with your example of homeopathy. Secondly, and more to the point, New Statesman does not say what you are claiming it does. It is nowhere therein described...as an organization that promotes "racist pseudo-science" as you claimed. Quite the opposite. It says that a certain person pointed out that the conference at which he actually spoke, that of the International Society for Intelligence Research (ISIR), was “super-respectable” and attended by “numerous world-renowned academics”. The article continues: He is entirely correct. The ISIR is home to many great scientists, and its journal Intelligence is one of the most respected in its field. True, towards the end of the article, there is a vague statement that Journals and universities that allow their reputations to be used to launder or legitimate racist pseudo-science bear responsibility when that pseudo-science is used for political ends, but at most this could be taken to mean that ISIR has allowed itself to be used to launder/legitimate racist ideas. This doesn't negate the other statement I quoted, however. Instead of your current approach, I suggest making more use of sources that show that environment can cause group differences in IQ test performance, including those published by ISIR and in Intelligence. Disclaimer: this comment should not be taken as in favor of Rindermann or the survey in question, nor as a blanket endorsement of any particular paper or author. Some of these in this topic area are indeed fringe. Crossroads ^-talk- 06:11, 7 April 2020 (UTC) updated Crossroads ^-talk- 06:20, 7 April 2020 (UTC), Crossroads ^-talk- 06:52, 7 April 2020 (UTC)[reply]

@Crossroads: I urge you to immediately withdraw Rather than continuing to argue that all scientific research into intelligence is ipso facto racist, as it is an entirely baseless accusation made against another Wikipedia editor. Onetwothreeip (talk) 06:16, 7 April 2020 (UTC)[reply]

@Onetwothreeip: Fine, I see the issue; and I was still re-reading and adjusting the comment when you commented. But I ask that you also remove this comment and this reply I am writing to honor my rewrite, because it's not needed anymore, and so this isn't a distraction from the actual subject. Crossroads ^-talk- 06:23, 7 April 2020 (UTC) tweaked Crossroads ^-talk- 06:44, 7 April 2020 (UTC)[reply]

I think it would have been more appropriate to strike out the comments rather than remove it, but I'm not concerned anymore. It's more a matter for whom the accusation was made against. I appreciate your withdrawal. Onetwothreeip (talk) 06:57, 7 April 2020 (UTC)[reply]

Crossroads: You're splitting hairs. The sentence that contains the words "racist pseudo-science" refers to "journals and universities," and the journal that the article discusses in detail as promoting racist pseudo-science is Intelligence, which is the journal that published the article we're discussing. After the comment about "great scientists" the article says that when people such as Stephen Pinker speak at ISIR-sponsored events this "threatens the reputation of respectable scientists." The same paragraph that uses the phrase "great scientists" goes on to criticize ISIR by listing eugenicists and white supremacists who play important roles in ISIR: Richard Lynn, Gerhard Meisenberg, Linda Gottfredson -- and Heiner Rindermann: Two other board members are Heiner Rindermann and Jan te Nijenhuis, frequent contributors to Mankind Quarterly and the London Conference on Intelligence. Rindermann, James Thompson, Michael Woodley of Menie and Aurelio Figueredo, all heavily implicated in the London Conference on Intelligence, helped to organise recent ISIR conferences. That is, Rindermann is one of the people specifically mentioned in the article as promoting racist pseudo-science.

My point was that someone who has an extreme POV on an issue is not a reliable surveyor of "expert" opinion on the same issue. That should apply whether Wikipedia regards the POV as fringe (homeopathy), regards it as not fringe (opposition to abortion), or is still debating whether it's fringe at WP:FTN, as in this case. NightHeron (talk) 12:53, 7 April 2020 (UTC)[reply]

The problem is that you are making it sound like ISIR and Intelligence are unreliable sources, full stop. They're not. This is WP:RSN after all. Put another way, if it was attempted to put that statement with that source into an article, it would be reverted as original research. Now, the extreme flip side, that anything they put out is automatically reliable (or WP:Due) is not the case either, but this is true for many other academic societies and journals as well. Note, too, that the article says "journals and universities", talks about the "London Conference on Intelligence", and says this was hosted at University College London (which also supported Francis Galton and had a Galton Chair in National Eugenics until 1996 (!)). Is UCL now, as a whole, a "promoter of racist pseudo-science" as well? I still feel your characterization of ISIR is highly misleading. Instead, you could say that some of what has come from ISIR is pseudoscience, and therefore that being published by them is not an automatic stamp of reliability. Crossroads ^-talk- 16:17, 7 April 2020 (UTC)[reply]

• I concur with Crossroads, Alexbrn, and Literaturegeek. How many times, and how many different places, will this be discussed? YES, a peer-reviewed journal is an RS. Not only that, but this is a generally-respected journal with an above-average "impact factor", measuring how often its papers are cited by other academics: https://www.journals.elsevier.com/intelligence . Yes, Rindermann's papers published by RS outlets are also RS. He is also a reliable source regarding his own views. If the allegation is that he is "fringe", that should be discussed on the other board. --MaximumIdeas (talk) 17:38, 7 April 2020 (UTC)[reply]

The issue being discussed here is not whether Rindermann is a reliable source for his own views, but rather whether he is a reliable source for other people's views. Both the author of the "survey" in question and the organization whose official journal published it have an extreme POV on race and intelligence. NightHeron (talk) 17:53, 7 April 2020 (UTC)[reply]

Whether his particular paper would be a good summary of the views of those in the field really sounds like a question for the relevant talk page. As for the relevant question on this forum: yes, the official journal is an RS. I'm not aware of a single highly-cited academic journal that is considered by Wikipedia to have "extreme POV" on any issue. As long as this paper is still being run and cited by high-level academics, is it really not for Wikipedians to second guess the academics. And, the journal being an RS, therefore papers they published are also considered RS. Author vetting is to be left to the experts at the journal. If Wikipedia were to start trying to judge every journal and academic author's POV, it would lead to a big can of worms and one must worry that in some cases science would give way to what is popular. --MaximumIdeas (talk) 01:16, 10 April 2020 (UTC)[reply]

The Elsevier journal Intelligence is probably the largest and highest-impact journal in the world for intelligence research specifically. I would say that the vast majority of intelligence researchers in general have published it in or have cited it. It is no more or less reliable than the majority of Springer, Elsevier etc journals (some of the MOST mainstream of which have published literal hoax articles). Moreover, if you find yourself in the position of having to scrub the dozens and dozens of citations to Intelligence papers from Neuroscience and intelligence, Flynn Effect, and others, good luck replacing all of that information with citations you approve of.

This feels like a significant rehash of a very similar topic that arose recently, and, in fact, some identical arguments are being made here. Should we really reject a major scientific resource's reliability based on a single New Statesman opinion piece? I commented in February about the same tactic being used to axe research by ISIR members, and much of the same rebuttal applies here. [15] -Ferahgo the Assassin (talk) 23:51, 7 April 2020 (UTC)[reply]

Like the previous commenter, you're ignoring what the question under discussion is. It's whether or not a specific "survey" by Rindermann is reliable. No need to rehash your arguments about other matters that were/are being debated elsewhere. Rindermann is a frequent contributor to Mankind Quarterly. Would a reputable scholar publish repeatedly in a white-supremacist rag? Can such an author be relied upon to conduct an unbiased "survey of expert opinion" about a matter on which he holds an extreme opinion? NightHeron (talk) 00:42, 8 April 2020 (UTC)[reply]

NightHeron, I think he is saying the same thing that others have said, the journal that this article is published in is reliable. The article in question has been subjected to rigorous peer review. Unless we have other sources questioning the validity of the results, it's results should be regarded as reliable. You have one source that literally just says that the author contributed to MQ, and nothing else. Implying that his previous contributions to a MQ means he is unreliable is OR; unless you have a source that actually says so. There is no source that I have seen criticizing any of his work, even previous articles that he published in MQ. Your argument basically boils down to "The Daily Mail is bad, therefore everyone who ever wrote an article for the Daily Mail is unreliable". That is the association fallacy and neither WP:RS nor WP: SCHOLARSHIP supports this method of disqualifying sources. Ultimately, the Rindermann journal article presented here gives us insight into the academic consensus on whether experts believe to what degree environment or genetics play a role in group differences, and it seems that they believe that the impact is somewhat 50/50. It is far from a fringe view that genetics play some role. — Insertcleverphrasehere ^{(or here)}_{(click me!)} 01:31, 8 April 2020 (UTC)[reply]

Additionally, I've spent quite a bit of time looking through Google Scholar search results, and the only article that I can find in which Rindermann was an author in Mankind Quarterly is this article published 8 years ago, for which he is not even the primary author (or the correspondence author). — Insertcleverphrasehere ^{(or here)}_{(click me!)} 01:46, 8 April 2020 (UTC)[reply]

I did not independently try to locate Rindermann's contributions to Mankind Quarterly, but rather cited the New Statesman (cited in his BLP) referring to him as a "frequent contributor." The article you found is from 2017, not 8 years ago, and I'm not sure where to find much earlier articles, since fringe journals are not always extensively catalogued.

You're misrepresenting my point. My point in this discussion relates only to his "survey." Remember, that's all you asked to be discussed here. My point is that a "`survey of expert opinion" on a certain question by someone with an extreme POV on that question is not reliable, especially if it's published in the official journal of a society that promotes that same POV. NightHeron (talk) 02:25, 8 April 2020 (UTC)[reply]

NightHeron, I'm not sure that it is established fact that he has an "Extreme POV". Do you have a source for that? I've struck the 8 years ago bit; I misread the date of publication on Google Scholar. Google Scholar does indeed index MQ, you can find the search I did here. — Insertcleverphrasehere ^{(or here)}_{(click me!)} 05:54, 8 April 2020 (UTC)[reply]

It's possible to search specifically for papers authored by Rindermann that were published in the journal. I don't know why I didn't think to check this before. You're correct - he's only published a single paper there, of which he was the co-author. [16]

The fact that the New Statesman article described being the co-author of a single paper as being "frequent contributor" does not speak well to that article's reliability. This was an easily researched fact that the New Statesman apparently got wrong, and we should discuss whether a source with that low a standard of fact-checking is appropriate to use for statements about living people. 2600:1004:B16A:B73E:5813:B854:6438:A623 (talk) 07:31, 8 April 2020 (UTC)[reply]

I knew there must be some way to search by author and journal... I tried looking that up but couldn't figure it out so I just ended up digging through 314 results lol. Well, your search is a bit cleaner to say the least. Not sure about the New Statesman, It's not listed at Wikipedia:Reliable_sources/Perennial_sources, though it does cite them as a source about someone else, so it seems to be taken seriously. The note at the bottom of the page says "Ben van der Merwe is a student journalist." Maybe he and the editorial team just didn't fact check this particular comment as well as they should have. Even good sources slip up sometimes. While I can't find any page on their editorial policy, I saw plenty of references to the editorial team and various "senior editors" so they definitely have one. Reading their outside contributor guidelines indicates to me that van der Merwe might be one of these outside contributors (if he is a student journalist he obviously isn't staff). Still, the editorial team should be checking this sort of stuff. — Insertcleverphrasehere ^{(or here)}_{(click me!)} 11:29, 8 April 2020 (UTC)[reply]

That is quite the finding! That is a pretty basic error, and should cast doubt on the use of this New Statesman article as the source for discrediting an academic author and journal. --MaximumIdeas (talk) 01:23, 10 April 2020 (UTC)[reply]

Insertcleverphrasehere: Evidence of extreme POV of Rindermann: (1) in 2016 speaking before the rightist Property and Freedom Society claiming cognitive and cultural inferiority of immigrants;^[1] (2) publishing in 2017 in the Mankind Quarterly; (3) being on the "review team" for OpenPsych (set up in 2014 by white supremacists Emil Kirkegaard and Davide Piffer, described as a "pseudojournal" by the Southern Poverty Law Center); (4) attending the London Conference on Intelligence, originally held secretively at the University College London and then moved after a scandal arose over UCL unknowingly hosting such a conference. NightHeron (talk) 12:14, 8 April 2020 (UTC)[reply]

NightHeron, Again, do you have a reliable source saying that any of these are evidence of an "extreme POV" that discredits his research published in a reputable peer-reviewed journal? Or is this just synthesis on your part? I get that you don't like him, but that isn't a policy based reason for excluding a source. If that's all you got, we are done here. — Insertcleverphrasehere ^{(or here)}_{(click me!)} 12:20, 8 April 2020 (UTC)[reply]

The Wikipedia articles on Mankind Quarterly, OpenPsych, the Property and Freedom Society, and the London Conference on Intelligence have much well-sourced evidence that they represent the extreme right of the spectrum of opinion on this issue. NightHeron (talk) 12:37, 8 April 2020 (UTC)[reply]

That's basically WP:SYNTH and guilt by association as your only arguments then. — Insertcleverphrasehere ^{(or here)}_{(click me!)} 12:59, 8 April 2020 (UTC)[reply]

It's a misapplication of WP:SYNTH to say that editors can't look at the evidence and conclude from it that a source is not reliable. We don't need to find an RS that says "this source is unreliable."NightHeron (talk) 17:35, 8 April 2020 (UTC)[reply]

• The journal is clearly suspect--as would any journal be that tried to publish primarily on the subject of "intelligence" which is so derided a backwater as to be essentially blocked out of most of the rest of the profession (compare phrenology). I've seen this sort of thing play out before. Elsevier, closest to a devil if there could be said to be one when it comes to academic publishing, will gladly host your pocket journal if it means they make a profit -- and it is clear the "intelligence academics", such as they are, have some money to throw around. (I'll let the SPLC explain where some of it comes from). Is there legitimate data that can be gleaned from some of the work published in Intelligence? No doubt. There are probably legitimate pieces of data that you can find in the ludicrous amounts of noise that were published by phrenologists as well. But to rely on this journal as some sort of standard of reliability would be to ignore the legitimate critiques that have been raised against it. That the people who believe in intelligence rally round the flag is not particularly surprising, but the sad fact is that independent evaluators almost entirely find fault with this journal. It should be used only with extreme care. jps (talk) 16:53, 8 April 2020 (UTC)[reply]

the sad fact is that independent evaluators almost entirely find fault with this journal Do you have a source for that, aside from the (somewhat dubious) New Statesman article? You and NightHeron tend to make sweeping assertions like this without offering much in the way of support. The citations to this paper published in Intelligence (By Linda Gottfredson, no less) show about 1,700 results, including citations to the paper in the most prominent current textbook of Behavioral Genetics, as well as in papers published in Nature and Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences. This certainly does not look like the journal being "so derided a backwater as to be essentially blocked out of most of the rest of the profession". 2600:1004:B167:8D2A:68F1:5069:EA1A:D617 (talk) 18:08, 8 April 2020 (UTC)[reply]

The fact that you think the New Statesman article is "somewhat dubious" is all I need to read. I stopped there. jps (talk) 18:17, 8 April 2020 (UTC)[reply]

When you refuse to provide sources that support your statements, you shouldn't expect other people to listen to you. 2600:1004:B167:8D2A:68F1:5069:EA1A:D617 (talk) 19:53, 8 April 2020 (UTC)[reply]

When racist sockpuppets like you casually dismiss sources as "dubious", we don't need to pay attention to you at this website. jps (talk) 20:38, 8 April 2020 (UTC)[reply]

ජපස, He is calling it dubious because a previous fact from that specific article was already found to be false. The source itself may be generally reliable, but this particular article's reliability seems in question. — Insertcleverphrasehere ^{(or here)}_{(click me!)} 20:46, 8 April 2020 (UTC)[reply]

Previous false facts, eh? If the writer had omitted the word "frequent" it would have been entirely accurate, right? I'm not impressed. jps (talk) 22:20, 8 April 2020 (UTC)[reply]

ජපස, The implication made in the New Statesman article is that he often and repeatedly writes articles published in MQ; that simply isn't true. The fact is that a single article was published there, largely written by someone else and then critically reviewed by him (the author contributions are clearly stated in the article in question). In any case, having your name credited on one paper in a less-than-reputable place does not taint all of your work published in high quality journals. — Insertcleverphrasehere ^{(or here)}_{(click me!)} 23:34, 8 April 2020 (UTC)[reply]

That New Statesman article is in the education section and by a student journalist as was pointed out to NightHeron 4 or 5 discussions ago, wish he would quit splashing it all over talk pages. fiveby(zero) 00:04, 9 April 2020 (UTC)[reply]

Even RS sometimes have errors. The error (the only one found) in the New Statesman article was the word frequent. As soon as this error was found (by two other editors), I struck the word frequent from my earlier comments. The fact remains that recently, in 2017, Rindermann wrote an article for Mankind Quarterly, which is a disreputable white-supremacist journal. That's enough to call his reliability into question, since it shows that he has an extreme POV on the issue that was the subject of his "survey". NightHeron (talk) 00:15, 9 April 2020 (UTC)[reply]

NightHeron, You are just repeating yourself at this point without addressing any of my previous points. This method of disqualifying a source you just don't like is wildly inappropriate and not in keeping with our core policies on Reliable sources. — Insertcleverphrasehere ^{(or here)}_{(click me!)} 00:54, 9 April 2020 (UTC)[reply]

On the contrary, I'm strictly following policy, as stated in WP:RS: The reliability of a source depends on context. Each source must be carefully weighed to judge whether it is reliable for the statement being made in the Wikipedia article and is an appropriate source for that content. The question concerning the "survey" by Rindermann is whether it is an appropriate source for that content. Is a "survey of experts" on the race-and-intelligence question an appropriate source for that content if both the journal and the author have an extreme POV on that question? NightHeron (talk) 01:02, 9 April 2020 (UTC)[reply]

NightHeron, Saying that everyone on the Intelligence editorial board has the same POV and that their opinions are "extreme" is not correct and not supported. There is no evidence that the entire board of Intelligence are radical right wing extremists or something. The best you have is one article in the New Statesman which also says "The ISIR is home to many great scientists, and its journal Intelligence is one of the most respected in its field.". What we are talking about is this journal with an impact factor of 2.6, and counts on its editorial board James Flynn. Is Flynn also one of those "extreme POV" people that is unreliable? You can't take a few examples and then expand it to apply to everyone associated. I've asked you repeatedly to stop using the association fallacy, but it appears that you don't understand how not to. — Insertcleverphrasehere ^{(or here)}_{(click me!)} 01:40, 9 April 2020 (UTC)[reply]

I didn't say that everyone on the Intelligence editorial board has the same POV. Please stop distorting and caricaturing what I say. The journal Intelligence has an overall rightist orientation on race and intelligence, meaning that a strong POV dominates the editorial board, and hence the journal favors articles by authors with that POV.

It's unfortunate that you opened this parallel discussion on RSN to the one on FTN, since it means that you and I are carrying on an exchange at two places at once, which becomes repetitious, time-consuming, and tedious. NightHeron (talk) 01:57, 9 April 2020 (UTC)[reply]

You said, quote, "Since the editorial board at Intelligence is dominated by the same extreme POV on race and intelligence, Rindermann did not have to somehow got past peer-review at Intelligence. The "peers" were biased in the same way that he was." — Insertcleverphrasehere ^{(or here)}_{(click me!)} 02:15, 9 April 2020 (UTC)[reply]

Can't you see the difference between saying that "everyone" in a group has the same POV, and saying that the group is "dominated" by the POV? You were trying to make me look foolish by misquoting me as saying the former, when I really said the latter. (The US Supreme Court, Senate, and Executive branch are dominated by Republicans, but a large number of people in all three groups are Democrats.) NightHeron (talk) 11:45, 9 April 2020 (UTC)[reply]

NightHeron, And yet, you claim that his paper could not have been peer reviewed properly, based on this "dominated by" claim, with no evidence. I've pointed out that there are experts on the peer review panel that have essentially the opposite POV from him. In any case your claim of the Editorial board being dominated by the same POV is original research based on... I'm not sure. The New Statesman says there were a couple people that have a strong POV there (or at least, they were there, they are not any more). However, that can't be taken as evidence that the entire board is skewed towards one POV, or even that a majority are. — Insertcleverphrasehere ^{(or here)}_{(click me!)} 19:50, 9 April 2020 (UTC)[reply]

Editors of the journal Intelligence have been claiming that their POV is mainstream for a long time. In 1994, Linda Gottfredson (who was funded by the white supremacist Pioneer Fund) wrote a statement published in the Wall Street Journal titled "Mainstream Science on Intelligence." Its purpose was to defend the book The Bell Curve by Herrnstein and Murray, and it was signed by 52 university professors described as "experts in intelligence and allied fields," including around one third of the editorial board of the journal Intelligence[2] (from the Wikipedia article on the statement). The current editor-in-chief of Intelligence, Richard J. Haier, was one of the signatories.

Typically, when an author submits a paper, the editor-in-chief assigns it to someone on the editorial board, who chooses reviewers. If the editor-in-chief has a strong POV and the author is a crony who shares that POV, it will likely be assigned to someone on the board who shares the POV, and he'll choose likeminded reviewers. Thus, while from a naive standpoint it's theoretically possible that Rindermann's article was peer-reviewed by neutral or skeptical reviewers, there's no reason to think that that happened. NightHeron (talk) 20:29, 9 April 2020 (UTC)[reply]

• Not reliable - not really, but this thread is a couple layers of improper. First, it's explicitly started solely to influence an ongoing RFC. That's not cricket. It's not like if Rindermann is found to be "reliable", that means the RFC must close with a "no" result. "It can't be fringe because RSN found it reliable! Ha! Gotcha!" That's just not the way consensus works. We shouldn't use RSN to "trump" an RFC. This is an attempt at gaming consensus in my opinion and a misuse of this notice board. Secondly, "reliable"/"not reliable" is the wrong rubric. We shouldn't (and really can't) make these pronouncements in a void for an entire work. As mentioned above, the question is "reliable for what? Reliable to support what edit/language"? Rindermann is reliable for his own opinion, but his opinion is not the same thing as scientific consensus. His opinion about what consensus is, is still his opinion. Bottom line, Rindermann may believe people of certain races are somehow genetically inferior to or different from other people, but that doesn't mean we present his view as the mainstream. Levivich ^{[dubious – discuss]} 14:04, 9 April 2020 (UTC)[reply]
• Per Levivich, I believe Rindermann is reliable for his own opinion and probably many ancillary facts brought up to support his argument. However, that says nothing about whether his opinion is mainstream or how it should be weighted in articles. buidhe 18:42, 9 April 2020 (UTC)[reply]

Levivich, Buidhe, Again, the material being cited was the results of his survey, as published in Intelligence, not his opinion. The source provided does not give Rindermann's opinion on this issue, but rather the opinions of the experts that were surveyed as they self reported them. What Rindermann believes is irrelevant and in fact was not cited by me anywhere. This source came up in the RfC and its reliability was in question, so I came to RSN to ask for comments. — Insertcleverphrasehere ^{(or here)}_{(click me!)} 19:38, 9 April 2020 (UTC)[reply]

Rindermann conducted the survey, decided how questions would be worded, decided who the "experts" are, decided not to be bothered if most of the experts who opposed Rindermann's POV or disliked his wording of the questions threw the questionnaire in the trash, etc. That's why the article is unreliable for the purpose for which it was cited on Wikipedia, namely, to attempt to show that views on race and intelligence of Rindermann, Lynn, Rushton, Gottfredson, and likeminded authors are not fringe. NightHeron (talk) 20:00, 9 April 2020 (UTC)[reply]

ICPH, I get that, let me address the survey directly. I do not think that we should state, in wikivoice, the results of Rindermann 2020, for these reasons:

1. The survey was performed in 2013–2014, but published in 2020.
2. It's an internet survey.
3. It's an anonymous survey; we don't know who the respondents were.
4. The response rate was 20%, so the vast majority of invited "experts" didn't participate. This makes the above point all the more important. We don't know whether the 20% of "experts" who actually took the survey were simply Rindermann's fellow hereditarians. Call me crazy but I think that's pretty likely.
5. In the survey, Rindermann says the methodology is justified, citing to... Rindermann's own earlier work.
6. It's published by Intelligence, where Rindermann sits on the board
7. It was published like two months ago, so it's too soon to tell if this one survey is revered or ridiculed by the scientific community

Bottom line, I am not at all swayed by the fact that Rindermann conducted an anonymous internet survey seven years ago to see if people agreed with Rindermann, using methodology devised and approved by Rindermann, and the results were that half the people agreed with Rindermann. And then he published it not at the time, but only after Intelligence got into hot water for who it had on its Board... including Rindermann. I mean, come on. This isn't a scientific paper, it's propaganda. The "point" is to be able to say that, secretly, half of scientists agree with hereditarians. Well, I say, BS. Levivich ^{[dubious – discuss]} 20:10, 9 April 2020 (UTC)[reply]

Levivich, I'll address your points one by one.

1. This is irrelevant, it is still the best data we have for that period. Other data from the survey was used in previous journal articles he wrote Survey of expert opinion on intelligence: Causes of international differences in cognitive ability tests, and Survey of expert opinion on intelligence: The FLynn effect and the future of intelligence (2017). He hasn't been doing nothing with the data.

2. It was sent to very specific individuals and open to members if ISIR, not open to anyone, so the fact that it is an internet survey is irrelevant.

3. Yes. That was sort of the point. Anonymity gives them the freedom to actually say what they think without reprisal.

4. This is a somewhat fair point, but the response rates of surveys are always low, even when people sign up beforehand. The self-reported liberal-conservative ratio was balanced towards the liberal end however. It is still the best we have. It also generally agrees with previous surveys done decades previously.

5. He cites a previous paper because he has used other results of the same survey in previous papers. His methodology was outlined in the earlier articles so didn't feel the need to repeat himself.

6. Irrelevant, authors on the editorial board of journals are not allowed to peer review their own work.

7. His previous two reports using data from the EQCA survey (in 2016 and 2017) have been cited 33 and 27 times, respectively (not counting his own citations still gives a respectable number). I've looked at some of these citations and the work seems to be taken seriously. No criticism of his methodology could be found. Note in particular that the 2016 study also discusses expert's opinions on cross national differences in intelligence, and similarly, many experts believed that genes play some role. There has been plenty of time to discredit or write rebuttals of the previous surveys, yet no one has, instead choosing to cite their results.

Your paragraph at the bottom amounts to little more than a conspiracy theory. This is a scientific paper, published in a reputable peer-reviewed journal. Note that all three of the above reports on the results of this survey were published in different journals. — Insertcleverphrasehere ^{(or here)}_{(click me!)} 20:47, 9 April 2020 (UTC)[reply]

ICPH, one man's "conspiracy theory" is another man's "damn perceptive analysis", right? ;-) We're talking about a survey of 71 people, which Rindermann admits is actually more people than the total number of scientists in the world studying international differences in intelligence. Further, the entire pool was drawn from people who published in "specific journals" (Intelligence (journal), Cognitive Psychology (journal), Contemporary Educational Psychology, New Ideas in Psychology, and Learning and Individual Differences... none of these have impressive impact factors) or who were affiliated with the International Society for Intelligence Research. And it was publicly posted at the website of International Society for the Study of Individual Differences. Not exactly a randomized sample.

By the by, Rindermann's admission that there are less than 50 scientists in the world studying this sort of suggests it's fringe. (Because this field of study is definitely not cutting edge.)

Here's an excerpt from the 2016 paper, describing this survey's limitations:

One limitation of the study can be seen in the small sample and low response rates. The sample consisted of 71 respondents, which is small compared to Snyderman and Rothman's sample of 661 respondents (of 1020 invitations). In addition, self-selection of experts could have biased the results.

We attempted to increase response rates by using an Internet survey, emailing invitations (and reminders), and announcing the survey at intelligence conferences. Despite these measures, response rates were still low. The low response rates may be attributed to the length of the survey (which took about 40–90 min to complete), self-censorship, or fear of addressing a controversial subject (despite assurances of anonymity). The low response rates may also reflect a paucity of experts on intelligence and international differences in cognitive ability. There may be 20–50 scientists who study international differences in intelligence. Based on this estimate, the number of respondents (71 people) may exceed the number of scientists who study the topic! Because the aim of the survey was to obtain expert opinions on the research questions, our view is that participation of people with only tangential knowledge of the subject matter could distort answers more than low response rates attributable to self-selection by experts.

One researcher suggested in an email that only politically biased researchers would respond to the questionnaire, especially given its length. In contrast to the speculation, three researchers sometimes labeled as “conservative” in Internet articles and Wikipedia refused to participate due to lack of expertise, survey length, or disapproval of opinion surveys as a way of finding truth. Based on several comments of researchers with diverse political backgrounds we have no hint of biased participation or refusal of participation.

Levivich ^{[dubious – discuss]} 21:12, 9 April 2020 (UTC)[reply]

Levivich, So now you are saying that the entire field of study is fringe? His point is that there are 50 or more people who actually publish research in this field. It was not posted publicly online for anyone to join, it was only open to members of the ISIR and people who published journal articles in those papers (and Cognitive Psychology has an IF of 4.5, how is this not impressive?). An announcement was published on the website and ISIR members were invited to participate. This is made clear in the methods section of the article. Yes there are less researchers in the field than there were 30 years ago, I thought that was pretty obvious. We are looking to see what the consensus is amongst experts in the field of intelligence research, this is still the best we have. All studies have limitations, but when 90% of your respondents say they agree that genetics plays some role, it is pretty obviously not a fringe view. — Insertcleverphrasehere ^{(or here)}_{(click me!)} 21:39, 9 April 2020 (UTC)[reply]

ICPH, that the survey was only open to members of ISIR and those who published in those five journals is one of the top reasons why we should not state the conclusions of the survey in wikivoice. Yes, I think the entire field of "genetic differences in intelligence between races" is fringe. 4 isn't an impressive impact factor; 40 is. Also, when it came to the question of whether there were genetic-based differences in intelligence between whites and blacks, I thought the number of respondents who said yes was 40%, not 90%... and that's 40% of the hand-picked 71 ISIR members who volunteered to participate. Based on this, we can't say that it's the mainstream view. We can't say it in wikivoice. It's the opinion of less than 30 scientists apparently. All this says is that there is 30 hereditarians out there. And this is definitely, definitely not "the best available". We have consensus statements from AAPA and other organizations. We have stuff from Nature (impact factor 43). We have "cracking the Bell Curve", heck we have Cofnas 2019 in which he admits that hereditarianism isn't the mainstream view. We have Lynn 2019, in which he says the same thing. That's the one that ends with "Someday it will be accepted" or something like that. There is an overwhelming amount of evidence out there that the belief that black people are genetically stupider than white people, is fringe. It's not accepted by mainstream scientific consensus. And Rindermann's internet survey doesn't disprove that (though it tries). I mean, the only way he could get 30 scientists to say that genetics is the reason for differences in intelligence between whites and blacks is by hand-selecting them, AND promising anonymity, and then still going through their responses to select the final sample. And still less than half agreed with him! Levivich ^{[dubious – discuss]} 21:58, 9 April 2020 (UTC)[reply]

Levivich, you're misunderstanding the results of the survey. When the survey found that 43% favored a genetic explanation, that means 43% thought genetics accounted for more than 50% of the black/white IQ gap. However, only 16% took the view that genetics play no role. These results are shown clearly in the diagram on the paper's fourth page. So that is 61 respondents who felt that genetics played some role in the gap, not 30, out of a sample of 71.

Also, saying that the hereditarian view can only be "fringe" or "accepted by mainstream scientific consensus" is a false dichotomy. There are many shades of gray between those two extremes, for theories that are not truly mainstream but still receive a significant amount of support. Papers like Cofnas 2019 acknowledge that the hereditarian view is not the mainstream view, but that is not the same as saying it's a fringe view. The view is one of those shades of gray. 2600:1004:B14C:5FEB:A5C7:A31D:F041:4AE2 (talk) 22:21, 9 April 2020 (UTC)[reply]

I'm glad we agree that hereditarianism is not the mainstream view. When I say "fringe", I mean WP:FRINGE, which begins: In Wikipedia parlance, the term fringe theory is used in a very broad sense to describe an idea that departs significantly from the prevailing views or mainstream views in its particular field (emphasis in original). "Black people are genetically less intelligent than white people" is an example of an idea that departs significantly from the prevailing views or mainstream views in its particular field. "There are genetic differences in intelligence along racial lines" is another example. Levivich ^{[dubious – discuss]} 22:32, 9 April 2020 (UTC)[reply]

Wikipedia:Neutral_point_of_view#Due_and_undue_weight describes three categories of viewpoints: majority views, significant minority views, and views held by a small minority (that is, fringe views). What I'm saying is that the hereditarian view is a significant minority view, not a fringe view. The criterion mentioned there for identifying significant minority views is that it's possible to name prominent adherents, and that standard is easily met in this case. See the article quoted by Sinuthius's vote in the RFC, as well as my own comment here. 2600:1004:B105:E59:893E:5FA4:4B48:5668 (talk) 23:28, 9 April 2020 (UTC)[reply]

Isn't it absurd to ask in a questionnaire what percent of the IQ difference between blacks and whites do you think is due to blacks being genetically inferior in intelligence? Since there's no scientific evidence whatsoever for racial differences in genes for intelligence --- assuming the notion of races and the notion of genes for intelligence had biological definitions (which they don't) --- the question asks for pure speculation. An equivalent question would be: Give a percent figure for how superior you think you are to black people. Hopefully Wikipedia can reach a consensus that such bigotry is fringe. NightHeron (talk) 22:40, 9 April 2020 (UTC)[reply]

I don't really want to argue the RfC here, we are discussing the source specifically and its reliability. When they say the "hereditarian view" is not mainstream, they are referring to the view that "most of the difference is genetic". That may be a fringe view, and probably is. That's not what just what the RfC wanted to label fringe though. It also wants to say that the view that "some" of it is likely genetic is fringe. That simply isn't the case. In any case, lets not get off topic. — Insertcleverphrasehere ^{(or here)}_{(click me!)} 22:41, 9 April 2020 (UTC)[reply]

So you agree that the viewpoint that 2/3 of the IQ difference is due to black genetic inferiority is fringe, right? How about 1/3? How about 3%? Note that there is no scientific evidence for any of these values. Nor is there any scientific evidence disproving the possibility that, if all past and present environmental conditions were equalized, blacks would have the genetic advantage in intelligence. Was the latter option even included in the survey? Of course not, since the POV of the survey was white superiority over blacks, not the reverse. Just to be clear -- despite the "circumstantial evidence" one would get by looking at the three most recent US presidents -- I do not believe that whites are genetically inferior to blacks in intelligence; and in fact, such a belief would be fringe as well, if the RfC passes. NightHeron (talk) 23:38, 9 April 2020 (UTC)[reply]

NightHeron, As I said, lets not get off topic. proving a negative isn't possible, either way, and in any case has no bearing on the opinions of researchers in the field (which is what this particular source addresses). — Insertcleverphrasehere ^{(or here)}_{(click me!)} 23:44, 9 April 2020 (UTC)[reply]

You (NightHeron) are, for at least the 4th time now, making things up and attributing them to Rindermann to find him "extreme POV", biased, or racist. The survey didn't ask which group, if any, has a "genetic advantage", or any other kind of advantage, or superiority, in intelligence or anything else. The survey question on what percentage of the (US) black/white IQ test difference is from genetics or environment is a question of statistics that anyone getting the survey would immediately understand. One can interpret it either as asking for percentage of "variance explained", in which case a person who believes blacks are of higher average genetic ability would have his view fully represented by answering 100 percent. Alternatively, it is asking about effect sizes, e.g. the same person might think blacks have a +3 IQ point genetic advantage and a minus 18 point environmental disadvantage, adding up to the 15 point difference. In that case I think answering 100 percent environmental would adequately convey the person's viewpoint even if they feel it's higher than that. But if you disagree with that, and think the survey is artificially censoring those views, then obviously the survey is just as much censoring the viewpoint that the gap is more than 100 percent hereditary (genetic gap higher than 15 points), so it provides no evidence that Rindermann et al were trying to bias the results. Their reported fraction of mostly-environmentalist versus mostly-hereditarians in the survey would not have changed since that was based on the number of responses saying it's lower or higher than 50 percent. 73.149.246.232 (talk) 23:47, 12 April 2020 (UTC)[reply]

No, you're wrong. Suppose a recipient of the survey believes that environment by itself would have caused an 18-point black/white gap, but that black genetic superiority over whites reduced this by 3 points. Then 120% of the white-minus-black difference is environment (and negative 20% is due to genes). It is not 100%. Of course, this point is purely theoretical. Rindermann was clearly interested in sampling the opinions of people who, in the absence of any scientific evidence whatsoever about genes for intelligence (whatever that's supposed to mean) being less prevalent in one race than in another race, nevertheless personally believe that blacks are genetically inferior to whites. NightHeron (talk) 03:49, 13 April 2020 (UTC)[reply]

NightHeron, You are oversimplifying the situation by using a strawman. Many of these scientists believe that not all of the gap can be adequately explained using environmental variables; therefore they attribute any remainder to genetic variables. With this model they don't deem it necessary to have nailed down "genes for intelligence" to believe that it can't be explained 100% by environmental variables. Others dispute this, but both sides have some circumstantial evidence to support their view. Neither side has 'proof'; the hereditarian view that "some" of it must be genetic has no definitive proof, but neither does the view that "none" of it is genetic, or that "all" of the difference can be explained by environment. Stop trying to make implications to try some "gotcha" that Rindermann is "racist" or something. It is all original research and it is getting tiresome to have to point this out to you repeatedly. We don't have any reliable sources saying that Rindermann has any sort of extreme POV that would discredit his research. — Insertcleverphrasehere ^{(or here)}_{(click me!)} 04:02, 13 April 2020 (UTC)[reply]

"Circumstantial evidence" is not a scientific term (although it is a term in criminal investigations). How can anyone claim "scientifically" that they can estimate the effect of environment on differences in test scores? What controlled experiment could possibly do that? What branch of science has the methodology to estimate the quantitative effect on test scores of centuries of colonialism, slavery, poverty, discrimination, cultural marginalization, inferior schooling, police harassment, etc.? Rindermann is not surveying scientific knowledge, but only speculation and prejudice. NightHeron (talk) 04:30, 13 April 2020 (UTC)[reply]

NightHeron, You clearly haven't read the literature and have no desire to but would rather speculate that they simply couldn't. I'm not going to entertain such a conversation. — Insertcleverphrasehere ^{(or here)}_{(click me!)} 20:12, 14 April 2020 (UTC)[reply]

Have you actually read the Rindermann survey that you're asking us to comment on? If so, you must have noticed Figure 3, which shows the distribution of "expert" opinions on the question of how much of the white-minus-black difference in IQ scores is due to environment and how much to genetics. Please look at that bar graph if you haven't already. It's all over the map. 16% say it's zero genetics and all environment, 6% say it's zero environment and all genetics. 17% say 50-50. 15% say it's 80% genetics and 20% environment. 9% say it's 70% genetics and 30% environment, but 8% say it's 70% environment and 30% genetics. In the first paragraph of section 2, Rindermann claims that "expert surveys can ... yield accurate estimates of empirical matters." As if you could determine the causes of the difference in IQ scores by surveying the wild speculations of 102 self-selected respondents who had nothing better to do with their time, and then taking the average (which is what Rindermann does in his paper). But that's not how science works. That's how pseudoscience works. One could similarly take a survey of homeopathic "experts" concerning what percent of ailments can best be treated with modern medical cures and what percent with homeopathic cures, and then take the average of the responses. It's all a lot of hooey. NightHeron (talk) 21:38, 14 April 2020 (UTC)[reply]

NightHeron, Both myself and IP have already drawn attention to that particular Figure from the journal article. Yes, respondents were very divided on this issue; that's what I've been saying all along. Rindermann doesn't just "take the average"; he discussed what can be drawn from the results but also presented the raw data. "Homeopathic experts", if such a thing could be said to exist, do not generally publish in reputable journals, and if they do, are almost universally derided and discredited. Your assessment represents 100% original research on your part. Let me make this clear: you are not qualified to assess the validity of Rindermann's methods, results, or conclusions. That is what peer review is for (which this article has been subjected to) and what reliable sources that comment on the results are for. If you have any RS that disputes the methods, results, or conclusions of this paper (or the two other papers that used the same data/methods and were published earlier), or otherwise discredits Rindermann directly, please present those reliable sources. Otherwise please cease and desist from trying to slander research using baseless accusations based on original research. I thought you asked to be finished with this discussion over on FTN? — Insertcleverphrasehere ^{(or here)}_{(click me!)} 01:49, 15 April 2020 (UTC)[reply]

When I initiated the RfC at FTN, I gave many reliable sources attesting to the fringe nature of claims that blacks are genetically inferior to whites in intelligence. You started this parallel discussion, which I don't think added much to the discussion at FTN. I agree with you that there's no reason to continue this discussion here. NightHeron (talk) 02:12, 15 April 2020 (UTC)[reply]

• "As if you could determine the causes of the difference in IQ scores by surveying ... 102 self-selected respondents ... then taking the average (which is what Rindermann does in his paper) ". 5th time: you (NightHeron) are making things up and attributing them to Rindermann. Certainly if Rindermann et al had done what you say, trying to use a survey to determine the science by vote, it would be staggering incompetence and disqualify them as RS. But since they didn't do it, and everyone can see they didn't do it, the science-by-vote accusation is only slander on your part rather than an error on theirs.73.149.246.232 (talk) 07:56, 15 April 2020 (UTC)[reply]
• Comment. The New Statesman article is journalistic fraud, not RS. Among other problems, student (pseudo)journalist Ben van der Merwe fabricates, alters or reverses the meaning of quotations from Charles Murray, Noah Carl, and Adam Perkins; quotes false accusations of "racial eugenics" made by Angela Saini; does not appear to have requested comment from the people whom he slanders; recycles false Richard Lynn quote from the SPLC on "phasing out" populations, a quote that vdMerwe and SPLC could easily check, as SPLC lists the source (Lynn was explaining someone else's position, not stating his own). Get outta here using this fraudulent article against Rindermann or others.

Also, that New Statesman did not catch any of the false quotes or other easily discovered errors despite the article containing links to the sources, indicates they didn't fact check the article or that their usual level of fact checking is nonexistent. 73.149.246.232 (talk) 07:57, 12 April 2020 (UTC)[reply]

Does everyone understand what the other IP is referring to by the New Statesman article recycling a false quote from Richard Lynn? I had been wondering if I ought to mention that here, because aside the claim that Rindermann is a "frequent contributor" to Mankind Quarterly, this is the most easily demonstrable falsehood in that article. 2600:1004:B125:ADE2:A589:8ADE:3EF3:6B4A (talk) 22:46, 12 April 2020 (UTC)[reply]

I was not aware. Could you explain in more detail? — Insertcleverphrasehere ^{(or here)}_{(click me!)} 20:00, 19 April 2020 (UTC)[reply]

The New Statesman article says that Lynn "has called for the 'phasing out' of the 'populations of incompetent cultures'" This statement is cited to an article published by the SPLC. Here is the relevant quote from Lynn in the SPLC article:

If the evolutionary process is to bring its benefits, it has to be allowed to operate effectively. This means that incompetent societies have to be allowed to go to the wall… . What is called for here is not genocide, the killing off of the populations of incompetent cultures. But we do need to think realistically in terms of "phasing out" of such peoples.

This quote from Lynn does make it sound as though he is calling for these cultures to be "phased out". But notice the "..." after the words "go to the wall" - why did the SPLC choose to omit part of this quote? The answer can be found by reading the complete quote, which is from a review of a book by Raymond Cattell. Here is the quote including the part that the SPLC omitted:

If the evolutionary process is to bring its benefits, it has to be allowed to operate effectively. This means that incompetent societies have to be allowed to go to the wall. This is something we in advanced societies do not at present face up to and the reason for this, according to Cattell, is that we have become too soft-hearted. For instance, the foreign aid which we give to the under-developed world is a mistake, akin to keeping going incompetent species like the dinosaurs which are not fit for the competitive struggle for existence. What is called for here is not genocide, the killing off of the populations of incompetent cultures. But we do need to think realistically in terms of "phasing out" of such peoples."

When reading the complete quote in its original context, it's clear that when Lynn says "what is called for here", what he means is "what is called for in the book that I'm reviewing". The New Statesman article is one of several books and articles that have cited the SPLC's selective quotation of this book review in order to state that Lynn personally endorsed this action, rather than that he was describing the argument presented in Cattell's book.

When one digs deeply into the literature by anti-racist activists about intelligence researchers, one inevitably finds examples like this. There was a discussion here about a similar example discovered by user:Ferahgo the Assassin, in which another of these sources repeated a completely fictitious quote that originated from Wikipedia vandalism. These types of sources typically aren't fact-checked carefully, so this is par for the course. 2600:1004:B12E:AD49:147A:3CF7:7A6C:C92C (talk) 22:03, 19 April 2020 (UTC)[reply]

It's beyond that. At the SPLC page on Linda Gottfredson they say Lynn calls for "phasing out the global black population". Another example is Angela Saini, another journalist-activist and the main source for the New Statesman article, calling Lynn and Meisenberg (in her criticism of Intelligence for having them on editorial board) advocates of "racial eugenics". Online material by and about Meisenberg makes it clear this is a slanderous lie. In Lynn's case he wrote two long books on dysgenic and eugenics respectively, yet the SPLC's quote-mining and all the interns 440 million dollars can hire did not find anything racial there worthy of quoting on his attack page. They have investigated and found him clean of the charges! Saini lied, because she (like the people supporting current RfC) instinctively conflates any two things in the race/HBD/eugenics/alt-right universe, as is common for people who get their information from the left-media information bubble including SPLC and much of Wikipedia. This all gets laundered back into Wikipedia as "reliable sources" by citogenesis and the more daring fabrications of people like Ben van der Merwe who are comfortable making things up if it helps the Cause. 73.149.246.232 (talk) 22:58, 19 April 2020 (UTC)[reply]

• Cosign the comments of Levivich and Buidhe. --JBL (talk) 15:15, 12 April 2020 (UTC)[reply]

Hi! I'm not sure if this is the right place to ask, but I have a question regarding ASCAP as a source for artists' real names. More specifically, this is about the band members of Dir En Grey, whose real names are (except for two first names) officially unknown. However, on ASCAP, they are listed with their (supposed) real names and their PKAs, their artist names. I'd like to know how trustable ASCAP is as a source for real names and if it would be alright to add these names to their respective articles with ASCAP as the reference. Thanks! Seelentau (talk) 12:51, 6 April 2020 (UTC)[reply]

I am not sure, I suspect not as they do not seem to have an editorial board or policy.Slatersteven (talk) 12:54, 6 April 2020 (UTC)[reply]

This feels like it straddles a line between self-published sources and legal records. ASCAP, as a performance-rights organization, would have a record who is registered as the copyright holder of a work. The names would be provided by the creator of the work. So, on the one hand, we have a record created by the artist showing their legal and performing names, which we could rely on the same as we would a statement by them about their date of birth. On the other hand, is this the kind of legal record that the privacy guidance in WP:BLP says we shouldn't be using? —C.Fred (talk) 13:06, 6 April 2020 (UTC)[reply]

I'm unsure as well, exactly do to the reason you mentioned: If an artist can provide the name, what stops them from providing a false name, right? Seelentau (talk) 15:29, 6 April 2020 (UTC)[reply]

C.Fred has the correct analysis. The name that ASCAP shows is the one the artists provide. They will usually provide their legal name, but they don't have to, they just have to be able to cash a cheque by whatever name they provide. Walter Görlitz (talk) 16:21, 8 April 2020 (UTC)[reply]

So that would be a no to adding them then? Seelentau (talk) 12:12, 9 April 2020 (UTC)[reply]

ASCAP (American Society of Composers, Authors and Publishers) is a primary source for this information. ASCAP listings are reliable for an artist's officially credited name for a specific work (e.g. in an {{Infobox song}} template for a song), but I would avoid using ASCAP for an artist's real name. A high-profile example is "This Is What You Came For": songwriter Taylor Swift was temporarily credited in the song's ASCAP listing under the pseudonym "Nils Sjöberg" to divert unwanted attention from the song. — Newslinger talk 12:25, 9 April 2020 (UTC)[reply]

What if the artist in question is listed with both their (assumed) real name and their artist name? Would that change anything? Seelentau (talk) 13:47, 10 April 2020 (UTC)[reply]

Even if the artist's stage name is listed under "Performers" and the artist's assumed real name is listed under "Writers", I don't think this would be enough to show that the artist's real name corresponds to the artist's stage name. This is because the song isn't necessarily written by the performer, and it's unclear whether the stage name and the real name belong to the same person. This is especially the case for living artists, due to the higher standard set by WP:BLPPRIMARY. However, ASCAP can still be used to say something like "[Song name] is a song by [perfomer name]. It was written by [writer name]." — Newslinger talk 11:07, 12 April 2020 (UTC)[reply]

Oh, it's not like that, actually. I'm only talking about writers' credits, which are given as "First Name (PKA: Stage/Artist Name) Last Name" on ASCAP for the band I want to add the members' real names. So something like "John (PKA: JoDo) Doe", for example. Seelentau (talk) 22:28, 12 April 2020 (UTC)[reply]

I found the ASCAP listing for Dir En Grey and I see what you're talking about. Here, it's clear that the writer names are connected to the "professionally known as" names. However, I'm not sure if this passes WP:BLPPRIVACY, which states that "many people regard their full names and dates of birth as private. Wikipedia includes full names and dates of birth that have been widely published by reliable sources, or by sources linked to the subject such that it may reasonably be inferred that the subject does not object to the details being made public". I recommend asking the biographies of living persons noticeboard, since this is no longer a reliability issue, but a BLP issue. — Newslinger talk 10:38, 14 April 2020 (UTC)[reply]

Okay, I will ask there, but what I'd still like to know is: Does this connection you mention change anything in terms of credibility? Or could those names still be fake? Seelentau (talk) 11:31, 16 April 2020 (UTC)[reply]

• n5ti.com: Linksearch en (insource) - meta - de - fr - simple - wikt:en - wikt:fr • Spamcheck • MER-C X-wiki • gs • Reports: Links on en - COIBot - COIBot-Local • Discussions: tracked - advanced - RSN • COIBot-Link, Local, & XWiki Reports - Wikipedia: en - fr - de • Google: search • meta • Domain: domaintools • AboutUs.com

The site https://n5ti.com/ doesn't appear to have cropped up on Wikipedia yet, but a lot of the heavily trending fake news stories about coronavirus are coming from this site, for example, https://n5ti.com/health/1233/ and https://n5ti.com/italy-07099/. Is there any way that we can take preventative action against this site, or do we have to wait until people are actually citing it? Kaldari (talk) 19:09, 6 April 2020 (UTC)[reply]

That you opened this thread is already a good thing, as it'll be in searchable RSN archives. I agree it's not usable as a source for anything. It'd also be possible to request that it be blacklisted but I doubt it'd be accepted without prior use. Maybe easier at XLinkBot's revertlist though... And probably a good idea to keep this link ({{sl|insource:"n5ti.com"}}) and occasionally check. —PaleoNeonate – 08:53, 7 April 2020 (UTC)[reply]

• Should not use. Running on Wordpress. Unclear oversight. Tabloid style stories and full of adverts for adult games.--Hippeus (talk) 10:09, 12 April 2020 (UTC)[reply]
• Copyright violation. News NT (n5ti.com) republishes articles from other sites without permission. For example, https://n5ti.com/health/1121/ is an exact copy of "Italy’s Coronavirus Nightmare Could Happen in U.S. Within Days or Weeks, Ex-CDC Chief Says" from The Intercept (RSP entry). Try to cite the original source, if it is reliable. WP:COPYLINK prohibits linking to copyright violations. If you notice editors adding links to n5ti.com or similar sites, please file a blacklisting request. — Newslinger talk 11:23, 12 April 2020 (UTC)[reply]
• I don't have much to add, but I concur with the others that this does not look like a good source. Glades12 (talk) 15:38, 15 April 2020 (UTC)[reply]

Is Global News [17] a generally reliable source for news and current affairs coverage? --TheSandDoctor ^Talk 17:56, 7 April 2020 (UTC)[reply]

• Current usage:[18]

Generally reliable a well regarded mainstream news source from a country with high press freedom. Reliable for both Canadian and international news. They made a minor error in misattributing three seconds of footage, but nothing to indicate a systematic issue (according to Columbia Journalism Review) since they apologized + issued a correction. buidhe 20:46, 7 April 2020 (UTC)[reply]

A normal news site as far as I know. Per instructions at the top of the page "Please be sure to include examples of editing disputes that show why you are seeking comment on the source: how did you come to consider it worth questioning? - David Gerard (talk) 19:41, 7 April 2020 (UTC)[reply]

I decided to raise my concerns about an edit at WP:BLPN#Use of The Washington Free Beacon for what looks like a BLP violation on an article about a political candidate but there are also RS issues, particularly about using it in BLPs. It's not mentioned at perennial sources. Doug Weller talk

For BLP information no. Its salacious and would need a top line source.Slatersteven (talk) 10:09, 9 April 2020 (UTC)[reply]

• Using the Washington Free Beacon as a source for anything is a bad idea. Using it for a BLP is a particularly bad idea. Guy (help!) 14:41, 12 April 2020 (UTC)[reply]

• Not a reliable source and should be marked as generally unreliable. They have made various false claims, such as "Minnesota Democrat Ilhan Omar held 'secret fundraisers with 'Islamic groups tied to terror'" and that "Europe Poised to Put Warning Labels on Jewish-Made Products". According to The Daily Beast, their reliability has decreased following the election of Donald Trump. Maybe we could do something similar to what happened to Newsweek?----ZiaLater (talk) 09:27, 16 April 2020 (UTC)[reply]
• Deprecate These examples are not just getting the facts wrong, they show intention to mislead. Therefore, the source should be deprecated. buidhe 02:29, 17 April 2020 (UTC)[reply]
• Deprecate per Buidhe. --TheSandDoctor ^Talk 16:57, 19 April 2020 (UTC)[reply]

There's been a discussion on 2020 coronavirus pandemic in Sweden going on for two months. Discussion however appears meaningless, as there's a never-ending edit war going on in the background. Any ^{[citation needed]} and ^{[unreliable source?]} usually gets silently removed within days, and WP:INACCURATE is foreign language. The sources for the text isn't a problem at all, but when it comes to the stats the article is a total train wreck. And there sure is a lot of stats on the page. We have a bunch of charts, a table, a case list, a time line and an infobox. But if you visit the article looking for a number of cases on a specific date, you can easily find five numbers all contradicting each other. Probably more. This has gotten out of hand long ago, and the problem is bigger than just a conflict about sources, but I don't know where to take this?

today's discussion, current talk page, archived talk page, archived talk page

To give you an idea of the absurdity of it all, I'll give an example of a "source" for 5(?) charts:

"Datasource of some of the following charts are Public Health Agency of Sweden official data compiled every day at noon, also presented by ECDC and WHO. Others are from databases that compile region reports later every day, showing slightly different numbers."

Any help would be much appreciated, and much needed.

Are there any sources coming from South Africa that we can consider to be reliable? I see one coming from the University of Cape Town, specifically this one, which documents important events in modern South African history. I know that the government South Africa during apartheid had not been kind to its dissidents, and I have no doubt that it would push its pro-apartheid propaganda in the press. Since the end of apartheid, however, the nation seems to have a relatively free press, as evidenced here. If the sources do not meet any opposition for being state-owned media, then I think there are credible sources there. FreeMediaKid! 05:02, 11 April 2020 (UTC)[reply]

FreeMediaKid!, I think the thesis is usable because PhD theses are typically reliable sources and UCT is rated as one of the top 200 universities worldwide: [19] Outside the top 200 or 300 univerisities however there starts to be concerns with plaigiarism, bribery, and fraud that make it difficult for theses to qualify as RS. buidhe 19:21, 12 April 2020 (UTC)[reply]

Yes, PhD theses should always be considered reliable unless there is very good evidence to suggest otherwise, and I have no problem with this one. PhD theses go through peer review, and Wikipedians should always respect this, unless we have specific evidence to prove "plagiarism, bribery, and fraud". Ahiroy (talk) 13:58, 13 April 2020 (UTC)[reply]

While I would generally agree with you, there's certain countries (such as Ukraine)[20][21][22][23] and probably others, where systemic problems may mean that there isn't effective peer review or other editorial oversight as required by WP:RS. buidhe 06:09, 16 April 2020 (UTC)[reply]

Is hindi2news.com a reliable source? For reference, see:

Editorial policy: [24]

About: [25]

Samp4ngeles (talk) 17:41, 11 April 2020 (UTC)[reply]

• Copyright violation. Hindi2News copies articles from other websites, changes some words around, and then republishes them without permission. For example, see https://hindi2news.com/celeb-stylist-jo-ferguson-selected-to-show-life-assist-machine-off/, which is a lightly modified version of the Daily Mail (RSP entry) article "Jo Ferguson 'chose to turn life support machine off instead of going sober for six months to qualify for lifesaving liver transplant' amid health battle before her tragic death aged 46".

  Try to locate the original source, and cite that source instead (but only if it is reliable). WP:COPYLINK forbids linking to copyright violations, including the articles in Hindi2News. If you notice editors citing hindi2news.com   inappropriately, please submit a request for blacklisting. — Newslinger talk 09:55, 12 April 2020 (UTC)[reply]

• This website is run by two individuals. It may be OK for Bollywood trivia, but it is not high quality.--Hippeus (talk) 11:21, 12 April 2020 (UTC)[reply]

  To clarify my previous comment, the entire website is a collection of copyright violations. It's not usable under the WP:COPYLINK policy and the WP:ELNEVER guideline. — Newslinger talk 00:30, 13 April 2020 (UTC)[reply]

  The item you linked aboved has a little bit of paraphrasing, not exact copy. Even without the copyright violation, a serious matter, it appears to be a website run by two individuals with little to no reputation.--Hippeus (talk) 10:20, 13 April 2020 (UTC)[reply]

  I think it's much more serious than paraphrasing. Compare the headline, byline, and first paragraph in the Daily Mail:

• So what you are saying is we should not use it for information on a BLP like was purposed? PackMecEng (talk) 15:40, 15 April 2020 (UTC)[reply]

I think they are saying it should not be used AT ALL. Blueboar (talk) 15:46, 15 April 2020 (UTC)[reply]

Yes, that's right. There are two factors here, each of which are enough to disqualify a source from use (on any article, not just BLPs):

• Copyright violation: WP:COPYLINK states, "if you know or reasonably suspect that an external Web site is carrying a work in violation of the creator's copyright, do not link to that copy of the work." Hindi2News is clearly violating the copyrights of other websites by taking their articles and republishing mangled versions of them without permission. Copyright violations are unacceptable as sources regardless of whether the underlying sources are reliable.
• Inaccuracy: WP:V requires us to "Base articles on reliable, independent, published sources with a reputation for fact-checking and accuracy." Article spinning frequently changes the meaning of the text or makes it incomprehensible. For example, the Hindi2News article claims that Ferguson died from liver and kidney failure because she "made the choice to show off the machines", which is incorrect. Poorly spun articles are not reliable even if they do not violate copyright.

If you want to cite something from Hindi2News, try to find where the article was originally published. If it's a reliable source (which the Daily Mail is not), then the original source can be cited instead. — Newslinger talk 03:10, 16 April 2020 (UTC)[reply]

These two sources are being discussed at Talk:One America News Network § No clear consensus on 'far-right' descriptor. Please note that they are being used in article space. — Newslinger talk 13:23, 13 April 2020 (UTC)[reply]

Ad Fontes Media for One America News Network

Is Ad Fontes Media a reliable source for the bias or the reliability of a publication (in article space)? The organization's Media Bias Chart is being used for the claim that One America News Network is not "far-right". — Newslinger talk 13:18, 13 April 2020 (UTC)[reply]

IIRC, this was discussed. It is an interesting tool. But, not to be used a as source. O3000 (talk) 14:53, 13 April 2020 (UTC)[reply]

Absolutely not. There's nothing to indicate that they are reliable. Editors really need to stop citing random-ass "media bias" websites. The chart from this website is ludicrous and conflates opinion and news reporting. Snooganssnoogans (talk) 13:23, 14 April 2020 (UTC)[reply]

Users Snooganssnoogans, and O3000 do not appear impartial to this discussion. Both users appear to want to discredit Ad Fontes Media without any justification or evidence. Their motive appears to be to progress the definition of One America News Network as far-right. It's important to mention this here, because it is not clear to other editors that this is the case. To me the concern about it not being a reliable source stems from it being effectively a self-published source. I personally think it is reliable for providing a general assessment of media bias (far more so than a competitor news agency which is currently deemed de-facto "reliable"). Aeonx (talk) 16:48, 14 April 2020 (UTC)[reply]

u wot m8? OANN is deprecated - the only lower regard it could be held in here would be to actually be on the spam blacklist - David Gerard (talk) 17:29, 14 April 2020 (UTC)[reply]

@Aeonx: in the last couple days you have called me a fool and an idiot. Now, I have a "design to discredit". I suggest you take more care when posting on a noticeboard. Behavior will catch up to you. O3000 (talk) 17:34, 14 April 2020 (UTC)[reply]

David, being deprecated doesn't mean left or right. The real question here is should we give credence to the ratings of these sites when trying to decide if a source is far-left, left, centrist, right, far-right. Springee (talk) 18:02, 14 April 2020 (UTC)[reply]

• Nope. A handy guide but there's nothing there that would pass our bar for reliability. Guy (help!) 20:27, 14 April 2020 (UTC)[reply]

It certainly can't be cited in the article but when it comes to helping editors judge how a site should be labeled when RS's can be found for the labels should we still ignore it? If we are willing to use such information to help exclude sources from being RS's [[26]],[[27]],[[28]],[[29]] why shouldn't we also use it to help decide which label found in various RS's is most appropriate? Springee (talk) 03:18, 15 April 2020 (UTC)[reply]

Springee, I am a big fan, and the site definitely informs my view of the bias and reliability of a source, but we cannot use it to drive content. Partly because it's self-published, partly because it doesn't have a peer-reviewed methodology, and partly because it is time sensitive and lags events (successive versions have moved Fox steadily down and right, for example). MBFC are somewhat more up to date. Sources are pretty clear on OAN having lurched to the right recently, and become less reliable as a result. They are in fact "doing a Fox": as Benkler noted in Network Propaganda, when Breitbart started eating Fox's lunch, Fox became markedly more partisan and markedly less factual. Fox have basically taken OAN's space, and OAN is responding in the same weay. This is fully consistent witht he positive feedback loop effect documented by Benkler, which means that partisan right wing media will tend to become more right wingh and less accurate, because their system of incentives penalises rather than rewarding factual content that contradicts the right-wing narrative. Guy (help!) 09:42, 15 April 2020 (UTC)[reply]

• I agree with Guy. Not usable as a source (it's self-published and does not have the usual requirements for a source to be considered RS. Neutrality^talk 20:32, 14 April 2020 (UTC)[reply]
• Usable if quoted in a third-party source. So, hypothetically, if the New York Times cites the Ad Fontes Chart's "skews right" rating of One America News in a news article about OANN, we can use the NYT article as a source to support a statement which reads 'The source is rated "skews right" by Ad Fontes Media'. feminist ^{Wear a mask to protect everyone} 09:55, 17 April 2020 (UTC)[reply]

AllSides for One America News Network

Is AllSides (allsides.com) a reliable source for the bias or reliability of a publication (in article space)? The site's rating of One America News Network is being used for the claim that One America News Network is not "far-right". — Newslinger talk 13:18, 13 April 2020 (UTC)[reply]

• I think they (edit: I'm referring to both bias check sources) are widely accepted and used around here. I would never give their ratings weight by themselves. However, when deciding how to label an organization I do think they offer a reasonable, method based way to decide. Springee (talk) 14:37, 13 April 2020 (UTC)[reply]

Absolutely not. There's nothing to indicate that they are reliable. Editors really need to stop citing random-ass "media bias" websites. Their ratings are ridiculous. Snooganssnoogans (talk) 13:23, 14 April 2020 (UTC)[reply]

This reply will apply to both of your posts since they are the same for both. Do you have any evidence that they are not? What should we use in their absence? Do we just use editor opinion? You are proposing the OAN be labeled "far-right" but the bias reporting sites don't agree with that. Why is your opinion more reliable than theirs? Springee (talk) 14:15, 14 April 2020 (UTC)[reply]

My opinion is equally reliable as theirs: completely unreliable. That's why the far-right description is sourced to actual RS, and not to myself. Snooganssnoogans (talk) 14:17, 14 April 2020 (UTC)[reply]

Where is the published method behind your opinion? Is your opinion cited by others? "sourced to others" but not the majority of others who use "conservative" and not "far-right". Springee (talk) 14:27, 14 April 2020 (UTC)[reply]

• Nope. A handy guide but there's nothing there that would pass our bar for reliability. Exactly as per Ad Fontes. Helpful in assessing other sources, but not in and of itself reliable. Guy (help!) 20:27, 14 April 2020 (UTC)[reply]
• I agree with Guy. Not usable as a source (it's self-published and does not have the usual requirements for a source to be considered RS. Neutrality^talk 20:32, 14 April 2020 (UTC)[reply]
• Usable if quoted in a third-party source, as I explained above for Ad Fontes Media. feminist ^{Wear a mask to protect everyone} 09:55, 17 April 2020 (UTC)[reply]

And in related news...

I was today years old when I found out that the original source for the grotesque caricature of the Ad Fontes chart, used by Trump as the basis of his 2018 rant against Google, was actually not from PJ Media, but from Sharyl Atkisson, the well-known totally-not-an-antivaxer. https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/i-wrote-the-article-about-media-bias-in-google-searches-regulation-isnt-the-answer/2018/08/29/15bdaae2-abaa-11e8-8f4b-aee063e14538_story.html Guy (help!) 10:09, 15 April 2020 (UTC)[reply]

The InfoWars media bias chart is even more peculiar. — Newslinger talk 10:14, 18 April 2020 (UTC)[reply]

A book by a certain Paul J. Murphy titled The Wolves of Islam: Russia and the Faces of Chechen Terror (2004) is currently under discussion at Russian apartment bombings. Murphy is reportedly "a former U.S. government senior counterterrorism official" and "a U.S. congressional special adviser on Russia in 2002" who "dealt with issues related to counterterrorism cooperation between the United States and Russia" (I have not been able to verify this biography). There's not much reviews about the book, and while some positive ones can be found, there are also at least two negative ones which described it as very biased and void of sources [30][31]. The book is filled with rather controversial statements about a subject that is already heavily politicized. For example, Murphy has alleged early ties between Al-Qaeda and Chechen insurgents in the early phase of the 2nd Chechen War (while other authors have always pointed out that there was no real evidence for this), and also that "Chechens supplied Bin Laden with suitcase nukes in the mid-90s", amongst other unverified claims of nuclear terrorism. More importantly, the book has no footnotes or bibliography (you can see this in the Amazon preview too[32]), which in my opinion is already a reason not to consider it a reliable source. What do others think? And how should Wikipedia deal with such source? Cite it with care, or not at all? Machinarium (talk) 14:04, 13 April 2020 (UTC)[reply]

He may well claim that, that does not mean its true. I would say not an RS for facts, it is an RS for his opinion, but then undue comes into it. Not really usable.Slatersteven (talk) 14:12, 13 April 2020 (UTC)[reply]

Paul J. Murphy is an American counterterrorism expert, and the article Russian apartment bombings provides precisely the context where one might want to use his 2004 book as a source.

So far, four reviews of the book by Murphy have been discussed at the talk page of the Russian apartment bombings article.

1) Beyond the Myth: A review of the Wolves of Islam by Andrew McGregor, published by an NGO Jamestown Foundation. A negative review.

2) THE WOLVES OF ISLAM, Paul Murphy, Potomac Books, Washington, DC, 2006, 268 pages, $18.95 by Robert M. Cassidy, published by a peer-reviewed magazine Military Review. A positive review.

3) The Wolves of Islam: Russia and the Faces of Chechen Terror by Paul J. Murphy. by Mark J. Conversino, PhD, published by Strategic Studies Quarterly. A positive review.

4) A Pandora's Box Opened”: Al Q'aeda, Fundamentalist Islam, and the Global War on Terror—A Review Essay by Leo J. Daugherty III, Ph. D., published by The Journal of Slavic Military Studies. A positive review.

The attitude of the reviews shows that the book is vetted by the scholarly community. The only negative review has been published by an NGO, and doesn't contain any specific criticism which concerns claims currently made on the page Russian apartment bombings and supported by the book by Murphy as a reference.

Beyond that, review (2) has noted that the book's biggest shortcoming is the absense of footnotes, which "points to potential shortcomings in research". Review (3) has also noted the absense of footnotes and that "the accuracy and veracity of many of the author’s assertions or accounts must be accepted at face value".

That's valid criticism, but that's the criticism made within the scholarly community. That criticism might be mentioned within the article on the Russian apartment bombings.

Other criticism made within the review (3) is that a reader might find "more balanced and intellectually rigorous accounts of the Russo-Chechen War". However, the author of the review doesn't criticise the point essential to the article "Russian apartment bombings", that is, the complicity of international terrorists in perpetrating the apartment bombings of 1999. Contrary to that, the author of the review believes that the weakness of the book is its weak coverage of "historical roots of Chechen resistance to Russian and Soviet rule".

Lastly, indeed, the book by Murphy concerns the claim that Chechens purchased nuclear weapons for bin Laden. However, the said claim appears as a direct quotation of Yossef Bodansky's 1999 book (Murphy, p. 155), and it is indeed a longstanding opinion by Bodansky. For example, at page 102 of his 2008 book "Chechen Jihad: Al Qaeda's Training Ground and the Next Wave of Terror" Bodansky writes:

Moreover, the topic of the suitcases nukes doesn't even appear within the article Russian apartment bombings.

My opinion is that the book by Murphy is a RS and should be kept, at least for the uses within the said article.

--Document hippo (talk) 15:19, 13 April 2020 (UTC)[reply]

Murphy also wrote about a "Chechen terrorist carrying out the first-ever act of nuclear terrorism". It shouldn't really matter that you want to use the source for another topic though. Apart from the dubious claims, his book has no footnotes. There's many books like that about conflicts, all very opinionated, but there's nothing "scholary" about it, and Wikipedia would do better by not regarding them as WP:RS. Machinarium (talk) 16:06, 13 April 2020 (UTC)[reply]

P.S. You are wrong in calling reviews 2 and 3 "positive" when they point out some obvious shortcomings. Machinarium (talk) 16:21, 13 April 2020 (UTC)[reply]

You are very well-knowleadgeable about the Russo-Chechen conflic! However, Murphy is indeed correct with that claim.

See "Inferno in Chechnya" by Williams, p. 148:

Or "Chechnya's Terrorist Network" by Pokalova, p. 50:

p.s. Of course, reviews are supposed to provide some criticism. To point out a deficiency with the author's sourcing is also a polite way to say that you've actually studied his work.

--Document hippo (talk) 16:25, 13 April 2020 (UTC)[reply]

Alright, didn't know about such a move (sounds like something Basaev could do), so Murphy probably did refer to that, but the selling of nuclear weapons to Bin Laden is too much. The problem with a book like this is, again, that it has no footnotes, so we often don't know what he bases his conclusions on. Hence all my other arguments still stand, - this book shouldn't qualify as a WP:RS — it's better to cite other sources.Machinarium (talk) 17:02, 13 April 2020 (UTC)[reply]

Bodansky (who Murphy quotes, with a proper attribution) claims to have used sensitive sources which he doesn't disclose. I concur with you that that information, taken as a fact, would be inappropriate for an encyclopedia. However, Fawaz Gerges cites diaries by Abu al-Walid al-Masri, according to which a part of bin Laden's interest in Khattab was trying to secure nuclear weapons from Russia's arsenals. Gerges wrote so about Khattab and bin Laden (p. 59 of "The Far Enemy: Why Jihad Went Global"):

May be Bodansky is not off the mark, after all.

Meanwhile, Murphy is cited only in a few places in the article on the Russian apartment bombings. His lack of sourcing could be accounted for by seeking an independent verification of his claims (for example, in the media). --Document hippo (talk) 17:25, 13 April 2020 (UTC)[reply]

The source actually indicates that Chechens didn't provide WMD's to Al-Qaeda, so the opposite of what Bodansky claims. Also, as a side-note, WMDs can also be non-nuclear. Machinarium (talk) 18:22, 13 April 2020 (UTC)[reply]

You may believe in all kinds of sinister plots, but repeating unverified claims and presenting them as facts is not what a scholar should be doing. WP:RS states that a reliable source has "a reputation for fact-checking and accuracy", and there is no indication that this applies to Murphy's book. To the contrary, the book has hardly any sources and no footnotes, exactly the opposite of a reliable source. But I'll let others give an opinion now, since this should become a discussion forum between the two of us. Machinarium (talk) 18:08, 13 April 2020 (UTC)[reply]

Thanks for a fairly insightful discussion! You are welcome to continue it at my talk page, if you please. --Document hippo (talk) 18:14, 13 April 2020 (UTC)[reply]

Okay.Machinarium (talk) 18:22, 13 April 2020 (UTC)[reply]

Agree entirely with Machinarium here.--Calthinus (talk) 15:36, 14 April 2020 (UTC)[reply]

Yes, it was published by Brassey's, which is an imprint of the University of Nebraska Press. That doesn't necessarily mean that the conclusions reached by the authors are correct or that there are no errors. TFD (talk) 04:49, 15 April 2020 (UTC)[reply]

The Albanians: An Ethnic History from Prehistoric Times to the Present is a book that was published by a nonagenarian Protestant missionary named Edwin E. Jacques in 1995. Although revered in the Albanian diaspora, the book has been by dismissed by Western academics as pseudo-history, which isn't much of a surprise given that Jacques was not a historian.

Its use as a source on Wikipedia has led to criticism in the academic community, given some of the fringe views that Jacques espouses, notably that the likes of "Alexander the Great, Diocletian, Constantine the Great, Homer, Aristotle, Hippocrates" were ethnically Albanian. Jacques also claims that Troy was built by the Albanians. For the academic critique of the book that I mentioned earlier, see here . Amanuensis Balkanicus (talk) 16:45, 13 April 2020 (UTC)[reply]

Not RS. I believe this has been discussed before. Jacques' commentary occasionally has notability not as a source but as a topic. Aside from that, he is, very much as AB has already demonstrated, not reliable. Even if it weren't for his hilarious claim about Troy, which is news to me, he very much represents the partial view of a missionary who sought to return Albanians to their supposed exalted Western Christian origins. (There is a Saudi publication by Muslim missionaries on Albanians too to watch out for, which is nearly the Islamized mirror image of Jacques, similarly exaggerating the significance of Albanians in Islamic and Mediterranean history etc etc) --Calthinus (talk) 15:34, 14 April 2020 (UTC)[reply]

That pretty much sums up my view on Jacques, Calthinus. The fact that scholars have explicitly criticized his use as a source on Wikipedia is quite telling. BTW, you wouldn't happen to know the title of that Saudi missionary book? Amanuensis Balkanicus (talk) 14:08, 15 April 2020 (UTC)[reply]

Amanuensis Balkanicus have looked. Cannot find it at the moment. If I do and I remember I'll let you know.--Calthinus (talk) 00:28, 17 April 2020 (UTC)[reply]

• Does not appear to be reliable given that it was published by a religious figure and espoused a fringe viewpoint.--Hippeus (talk) 10:46, 16 April 2020 (UTC)[reply]

• Scourge of Henry VIII: The Life of Marie de Guise, Melanie Clegg, 2016.
  

I found a short biography of Melanie Clegg, but I am not sure this qualifies her as a reliable source. --Kansas Bear (talk) 17:04, 13 April 2020 (UTC)[reply]

• I know Melanie, fwiw. She studied history and writes popular histories for proper publishers for a living, which helps. She's good (IMO) and very detailed and painstaking. Lists her bibliographies if you want to dive deeper. Doesn't have a Wikipedia article yet, but that's a "yet". What article is the book being used as a reference in, that you were wondering about? - David Gerard (talk) 11:06, 14 April 2020 (UTC)[reply]

She makes mention of a few details concerning the duke and duchy of Lorraine. Antoine, Duke of Lorraine, mainly his date of death. Bogdan gives his death of death but it is in French, I try to use English sources whenever possible. --Kansas Bear (talk) 19:56, 14 April 2020 (UTC)[reply]

Nothing wrong with non-English sources, particularly if they machine-translate intelligibly - maybe add both - David Gerard (talk) 20:43, 14 April 2020 (UTC)[reply]

• David Gerard, from the goth community? Anyway, Pen & Sword are reputable, I think, so this seems OK to me as well. Guy (help!) 20:25, 14 April 2020 (UTC)[reply]

• I'm sure she'd be outraged at the g-word suggestion. (Yes.) - David Gerard (talk) 20:44, 14 April 2020 (UTC)[reply]

  David Gerard, I am told that at least one woman particularly dislikes being described as a fake goth, so clearly this is a damned if you do, damned if you don't thing... Guy (help!) 21:24, 14 April 2020 (UTC)[reply]

Article:Joe Biden sexual assault allegation

Edits in question:[33][34]

Source:[35]

Discussion:Talk:Joe Biden sexual assault allegation#Twitter as a source

Should I restore the source? --Guy Macon (talk) 20:34, 13 April 2020 (UTC)[reply]

I don't personally think you need to restore the source, as long as the content remains. I simply objected to your edit summary as I think it mischaracterizes policy. Thank you for bringing it here for greater clarity. petrarchan47คุก 21:05, 13 April 2020 (UTC)[reply]

Here is our policy:

"Exercise extreme caution in using primary sources. Do not use trial transcripts and other court records, or other public documents, to support assertions about a living person... Where primary-source material has been discussed by a reliable secondary source, it may be acceptable to rely on it to augment the secondary source, subject to the restrictions of this policy, no original research, and the other sourcing policies." --WP:BLPPRIMARY

This is right above WP:BLPSPS, which says

"Never use self-published sources—including but not limited to books, zines, websites, blogs, and tweets—as sources of material about a living person, unless written or published by the subject of the article."

This establishes that there is no blanket prohibition on Tweets (One could ague that the "subject of the article" is Biden, not Reade, but I am not about to open that can of worms). The question to me is whether the twitter citation in any way "augments the secondary source" or whether it simply leads the reader to a whole series of reply tweets that are not allowed per BLP. --Guy Macon (talk) 22:02, 13 April 2020 (UTC)[reply]

Regardless of reliability, there is no need for the tweet as American news organizations have covered this episode with great detail.--Hippeus (talk) 10:48, 16 April 2020 (UTC)[reply]

Article:Joe Biden sexual assault allegation

Related discussion

Proposed text:

Reade filed a criminal complaint with the Washington, D.C., police on April 9, 2020.

Source: Rich McHugh writing for Business Insider

A woman who accused Democratic presidential candidate Joe Biden of sexually assaulting her when she worked for him in 1993 has filed a formal criminal complaint with the Washington, DC, police about the alleged incident, Business Insider has learned. Late Thursday afternoon, Reade filed a report of the incident with the sexual assault unit of the Washington, DC, Metropolitan Police Department. Business Insider has obtained a public incident report recording the allegation.^[1]

• "Rich McHugh is an Emmy-winning investigative producer with over 20 years experience in television news. Recently, he served as executive producer for Al Gore’s 24 Hours of Reality, a global broadcast focused on climate change. Prior to that, he was a supervising producer in the NBC News Investigative Unit and spent nearly a decade at ABC News producing Good Morning America."*
• Here is a NYT piece about his work as Ronan Farrow's producer at NBC when the two attempted to report on Weinstein.
• Here are two of his pieces for Vanity Fair on the subject *, *

Presently, Joe Biden sexual assault allegation has

Reade filed a public incident report with the Washington, D.C., police on April 9, 2020.

Source: NYT

Ms. Reade filed a report with the Washington, D.C., police, saying she was the victim of a sexual assault in 1993; the public incident report, provided to The Times by Ms. Reade...

An attempt to correct this was overturned, saying Business Insider is an unreliable source. From Perennial Sources: "There is no consensus on the reliability of Business Insider. The site's syndicated content, which may not be clearly marked, should be evaluated by the reliability of its original publisher".

The present text is sourced to the NYT, but misquotes it. NYT doesn't say Reade filed a public incident report. It simply calls it "a report". The document about the report that was released to media is public, while the report that was filed is not. Our article has it twisted and claims she filed a public report which is simply not true. I see no reason to prefer imprecise language, nor why Rich McHugh would be unreliable. petrarchan47คุก 20:48, 13 April 2020 (UTC)[reply]

Petrarchan47, I am not sure the police would take a criminal complaint - this is, by her own admission, well past the statute of limitations. Guy (help!) 20:22, 14 April 2020 (UTC)[reply]

I'm not sure how to respond to that. We can only follow what sources say. Have you read much of the coverage of this story? More from the BI report: Reade said she filed the complaint against Biden for "safety reasons," to establish a paper trail of the incident in case anything happened to her. The statute of limitations for the alleged incident has passed..."I also wanted to make it clear that I would be willing to go under oath or cooperate with any law enforcement regarding it" There is no dispute in RS that she filed a criminal complaint. You could probably reach out to McHugh with questions. You might be interested to hear an interview with him from earlier today for more: link. petrarchan47คุก 20:40, 14 April 2020 (UTC)[reply]

Given the multiple questions about sourcing at Joe Biden sexual assault allegation (edit | talk | history | links | watch | logs) I would invite anyone who is familiar with our sourcing and BLP policies to review all the sources used on that page. In particular, I have taken a very conservative position, insisting on only high-qulaity sources, nothing marginal. Have I gone too far? --Guy Macon (talk) 22:07, 13 April 2020 (UTC)[reply]

I think you may have misunderstood consensus on Business Insider, it's really a matter of whether the reporter is reliable in this case, rather than the publisher. He clearly is, and Vanity Fair today credits him with being the source used by all other MSM:

• "After Rich McHugh reported on the report for Business Insider on Friday, the Times, the Post, the AP, and NBC News all followed". petrarchan47คุก

...Then you should have no problem finding another source -- one that Wikipedia:Reliable sources/Perennial sources lists as being "Generally reliable in its areas of expertise" instead of using a source that is "marginally reliable (i.e. neither generally reliable nor generally unreliable), and may be usable depending on context". This is [A] a BLP, [B] a person in the middle of trying to win an election, and [C] a serious accusation that has ruined many careers (many rightly and a few wrongly). We need to be super careful about the sourcing for even small details. I say we should only use the highest quality sources and not Business Insider. I don't find your argument for making an exception compelling, and so far I am not seeing a bunch of RSNB regulars telling me "you are wrong, Guy, BI is clearly reliable for the "criminal complaint" claim".

Guy Macon, that is very wise. The article itself is a self-evident end-run around failure to gain consensus for coverage elsewhere. Guy (help!) 20:22, 14 April 2020 (UTC)[reply]

You've made this false claim (that there was no consensus to include it here), and it was pointed out to you there, by several editors, that it is a false claim. Why are you repeating this false claim again here? JungerMan Chips Ahoy! (talk) 01:55, 15 April 2020 (UTC)[reply]

The New York Times does say she filed a police report. On Thursday, Ms. Reade filed a report with the Washington, D.C., police.... Filing a false police report may be punishable by a fine and imprisonment.[36] The public incident report is a public summary of the police report. Kolya Butternut (talk) 23:14, 14 April 2020 (UTC)[reply]

A "criminal complaint" is an indictment that is adjudicated by a trial court. As I pointed out at least a week ago on the article talk page, our article Criminal complaint describes an indictment. It's a gross abusee of Wikipedia policies to use a twist of language, regardless of its origin, to insinuate to our readers that Biden has been indicted. As has also been pointed out on the article talk page, it's irrelevant, encouraging SYNTH OR, to follow up with the penalty for a false police report. I certainly would not be citing Business Insider on sensitive, difficult details or to cobble some article content not that, if valid, could be cited to better mainstream sources. SPECIFICO talk 23:41, 14 April 2020 (UTC)[reply]

The NYT says "police report", not "criminal complaint". I am fine with either "incident report" or "police report". "Criminal complaint" has a specific meaning:

• "A criminal complaint is a document that charges a defendant with a crime. Complaints serve at least a couple purposes: [1] providing some kind of showing that the government has a legitimate reason to prosecute the defendant and [2] clearly informing defendants of the allegations against them."[ www.lawyers.com/legal-info/criminal/criminal-law-basics/criminal-complaints.html ]
• "An arrest, by itself, doesn’t begin formal criminal proceedings. Rather, the filing of a document in court is required. In most instances in state court, the document is a 'complaint.' Complaints can be either civil or criminal. Civil complaints initiate lawsuits, typically between private parties or a private party and the government. Criminal complaints, on the other hand, are almost always filed by the government. (Some states allow citizens to file criminal complaints or applications for them.)"[ www.nolo.com/legal-encyclopedia/what-criminal-complaint.html ]
• "The complaint is a written statement of the essential facts constituting the offense charged. Except as provided in Rule 4.1, it must be made under oath before a magistrate judge or, if none is reasonably available, before a state or local judicial officer."[37]
• "What will happen after I file a Criminal Complaint? There is a person at the court called the "clerk-magistrate." The clerk-magistrate will schedule a hearing. The hearing is called a "show cause" hearing. The show cause hearing is to see if there are enough facts to show that what happened was a crime."[38]
• "an 'indictment,' an 'information,' and a 'complaint' all serve the same function – they initiate a criminal case and inform the defendant of the charges against him. They also ensure that a prosecutor has sufficient evidence to establish probable cause that a crime has been committed."[39]

Biden has not been charged with a crime. There was no show cause hearing. It is unlikely that a magistrate judge or clerk-magistrate was involved. It is likely that the report was made to a cop manning the front desk at the police station. It appears that Reade simply reported what happened to the local police. You can report anything to the local police and they will file a police report on it. (Even a report that a dead squirrel told me that John Smith is an evil space alien might be good to know if John Smith gets murdered later). --Guy Macon (talk) 23:49, 14 April 2020 (UTC)[reply]

Those are procedures for Federal crimes, but in the US, different jurisdictions have different rules and procedures. For example, in my home state of Massachusetts, it is quite possible and common for a regular persons to file a criminal complaint with the police , per [40]. The above is, in any case WP:OR. In any case, the "criminal" part has also been reported by other sources, including Fox News[41] (reliable per Wikipedia:Reliable_sources/Perennial_sources#Fox_News), MSN, Vox and the Washington Examiner, so it could easily be sourced to one of those. JungerMan Chips Ahoy! (talk) 03:04, 15 April 2020 (UTC)[reply]

Please don't post false information hoping that nobody will check. Somebody always checks. The claim "in my home state of Massachusetts, it is quite possible and common for a regular persons to file a criminal complaint with the police" is directly contradicted by the link provided, which says that you fill out a Police Incident Report form, take it to the court, complete an application for criminal complaint, wait for a hearing will be scheduled, see if the clerk-magistrate finds probable cause, and if she does, she will issue a criminal complaint. --Guy Macon (talk) 04:37, 15 April 2020 (UTC)[reply]

I have not commented on the term "criminal complaint". I am opposed to "incident report". She did not file an incident report. Kolya Butternut (talk) 00:27, 15 April 2020 (UTC)[reply]

So you oppose the use of "criminal complaint" to describe the report Reade filed with the local cops? SPECIFICO talk 01:30, 15 April 2020 (UTC)[reply]

It looks like most sources refer to it as a "police report", so I would prefer that, especially since there is some question over whether the term is used improperly in the Business Insider article. However, the reporting of the details of the police report and incident report are superior in Business Insider compared to other sources. Kolya Butternut (talk) 01:43, 15 April 2020 (UTC)[reply]

Given that it's a marginal RS to begin with and that it's using a term that falsely implies that Joe Biden was indicted for a crime, I don't feel real good about BI for any of this content. One reason it might be showing more detail on the report is that the report itself is insignificant and that other media, such as the extensive NY Times reporting, gives better journalistic weight to the important parts of the story. SPECIFICO talk 01:48, 15 April 2020 (UTC)[reply]

No I wouldn't go there. The Business Insider story simply is more focused on the police complaint, as the title suggests. I feel that the New York Times' reporting is very unreliable. The Intercept and Current Affairs are more professional sources. Kolya Butternut (talk) 02:29, 15 April 2020 (UTC)[reply]

You are certainly allowed to have that opinion, but when editing Wikipedia you must abide by the consensus regarding the reliability of Business Insider and New York Times' as documented at Wikipedia:Reliable sources/Perennial sources. You are, of course, allowed to make an argument to change that consensus at Wikipedia talk:Reliable sources/Perennial sources, but until you do you must follow it. There is also a strong consensus regarding Trump and Biden that we should use only high-quality sources. SPECIFICO got it exactly right. --Guy Macon (talk) 03:56, 15 April 2020 (UTC)[reply]

My opinion is that The New York Times is very unreliable compared to The Intercept and Current Affairs. So for instance, if sources rated 7-10 out of 10 are considered generally reliable, I would rate The Times a 7, which I would consider very unreliable for a story such as this. And Business Insider reports on details for which we do not have better sources. Kolya Butternut (talk) 04:56, 15 April 2020 (UTC)[reply]

When there are different ways to phrase the same thing and some of them have technical meanings, we should use terms that don't. TFD (talk) 04:37, 15 April 2020 (UTC)[reply]

Rich McHugh is clearly a reliable source. While he isn't credited with breaking the Reade allegation story (The Intercept did that), he is credited with breaking the criminal complaint aspect of the story, per Vanity Fair, which then led to reluctant legacy media reports:

The tides began to shift following Rich McHugh's report in Business Insider on Friday that Reade had filed a criminal complaint against Biden. The New York Times ran its first report about the allegation on Sunday morning as millions of Americans were observing Easter. The Washington Post and NBC News issued their own reports later that day.CNN (sike!)

The NYT was next to mention McHugh's reporting after Newsweek (which covered it right away and did not mince words: "Tara Reade filed a criminal complaint with the Washington Metropolitan Police Department...according to Business Insider"). The NYT made a decision to refer to the criminal complaint as "a report", but I don't think this is encyclopedic. There is no NPOV reason for us to make this change; we should be relying on the best sources and be wary of adopting language from those known to have a partisan slant. petrarchan47คุก 21:33, 16 April 2020 (UTC)[reply]

You keep calling the police report a "criminal complaint" as if that was an established fact, citing the same unreliable source and deciding to ignore reliable sources. We are not going to deliberately introduce false information from an unreliable source into a Wikipedia page. That's not going to happen, so you can stop trying to make it happen now.

• A Police Report is a document prepared by a police officer (typically the desk sergeant) when someone shows up at the police station and reports a crime. No police department will reveal the contents of a police report, so neither Wikipedia, Business Insider, or The New York Times knows from any official police source the contents of any police report. The NYT correctly reports that Reade says she filed a police report.
• A Public Incident Report is a document that the police department publishes showing that a police report exists and thus that someone reported a crime. Public incident reports often withhold the name of the accused and the name of the person reporting the crime. The NYT correctly reports that Reade says that a particular public incident report was the result of her filing a police report reporting a crime.
• A Criminal Complaint (which no reliable source says exists in this case) is a document filed by a prosecutor charging a defendant with a crime. It must be made under oath before a magistrate judge. It initiates a criminal case and leads to a show cause hearing scheduled by a clerk-magistrate. If a criminal complaint existed for Biden / Reade the NYT would have reported "Joe Biden was charged with sexual assault today" and everybody would be talking about the upcoming criminal trial. No prosecutor will file a criminal complaint or schedule a show cause hearing if the statute of limitations has expired.

This has all been explained to you before. Several times by several editors, in fact. Please drop the stick and back slowly away from the horse carcass. Beating that dead horse will not cause him to run faster. --Guy Macon (talk) 19:02, 18 April 2020 (UTC)[reply]

• bitcoin.it  

This is a wiki, I assume it's considered unreliable, as wikis generally are, and specifically unreliable as an in-universe crypto website. David Gerard, is that correct? Anyone else have a view? Guy (help!) 10:35, 14 April 2020 (UTC)[reply]

It's a wiki, worse than that it's an advocacy wiki - completely unusable for Wikipedia purposes. (Though for e.g. my own purposes, it can be surprisingly helpful and is not always wrong as such! FWIW.) - David Gerard (talk) 10:57, 14 April 2020 (UTC)[reply]

• Not reliable as a publicly-editable wiki. Additionally, the first page I read [42] cites a forum, two Reddit threads and two Wikipedia articles. –dlthewave ☎ 13:06, 14 April 2020 (UTC)[reply]
• Kill it per above, this isn't useable for anything at all. buidhe 04:32, 16 April 2020 (UTC)[reply]

My question concerns the Global Terrorism Database.

Recently I've added a mention of its entries regarding the September 1999 terrorist attacks in Russia to the article Russian apartment bombings. Here is the diff.

I would like to know how reliable the Global Terrorism Database is as a source.

Thanks in advance! --Document hippo (talk) 23:02, 14 April 2020 (UTC)[reply]

It should have limited use as a tertiary publication. In this case, they said in 1999 that Chechen terrorists were considered to be responsible for the bombings. They provide sources that say this. They did not conduct any investigation or provide any statement about whether those claims were credible, they merely reported what reliable sources were saying at the time. Sure what they said was reliable, sources did say that, but it has no relevance to the article. Bear in mind that their objective is to collate information in reliable sources, not to analyze events. TFD (talk) 03:15, 15 April 2020 (UTC)[reply]

Thanks! --Document hippo (talk) 05:37, 15 April 2020 (UTC)[reply]

Some additional input on guidance regarding the appropriate sources for Rachel Scott would be helpful. This is a sensitive topic, as Scott was a young student killed in the Columbine Massacre and was subsequently given a Christian martyr treatment in the USA, some of which seems to have crept into the article. I'm particularly concerned about the many books written about Rachel after her death under the supervision of her family, which has done a fair share to promote the martyrdom message. The one most prominently used in the article is Rachel's Tears. Sociologist Ralph Larkin has termed these books "hagiographies". There's also a myriad of articles from reliable news sources that quote extensively from interviews with her family. The books and interviews are used to support numerous claims mostly related either to Rachel's personality, her religious views and piety, or the effects of her interactions with other people (her family says she was kind to a bullied kid thus he chose not to kill himself, for example). The sources are obviously not independent, and in many ways would seem to be WP:Primary. So, should these sources be used at all, or should they (and the text they supposedly support) be removed? If they are to be used, for what details? -Indy beetle (talk) 01:22, 15 April 2020 (UTC)[reply]

The books are published by Thomas Nelson, which meets rs. IIRC Scott was the young woman who spoke up when one of the killers asked if anyone was a Christian and was killed. Since that is why she is notable, I think the emphasis of the article should be on that incident and it's development into a myth. Is that what actually happened, was she a martyr and what influence has her story had? Those are the issues that should be the focus of the article, per weight, rather than biographical information. TFD (talk) 02:43, 15 April 2020 (UTC)[reply]

Columbine in general is a mass of conflicting third-hand accounts. I don't think there's any solution other than noting inconsistencies between sources when they appear and pruning back peacock terms. --RaiderAspect (talk) 08:10, 15 April 2020 (UTC)[reply]

Is The Logical Indian (thelogicalindian.com) article a reliable source for the Jai Shri Ram article? Two articles from the website are being used to cite the following text:

Fake cases alleging usage of Jai Shri Ram

Multiple cases have been reported where people have alleged the usage of Jai Shri Ram during an altercation or a fight which have turned out to be fake.^[1]

In Karimnagar, Telangana, a man alleged that he was beaten by BJP and RSS mob for not chanting Jai Shree Ram. However, the Commissioner of Police after investigation clarified that the incident was not communal and that the man was trashed for harassing a teenage girl. ^[2]

— Newslinger talk 07:40, 15 April 2020 (UTC)[reply]

personally I doubt it as they are not forthcoming about their editorial policy (or even who actually works for them) and they accept paid content.Slatersteven (talk) 10:24, 15 April 2020 (UTC)[reply]

I'm having a hard time determining whether this site's articles are written by staff members or from non-staff contributors in the same vein as Forbes.com contributors (RSP entry), which are considered self-published sources. The About Us page lists two founders and claims to have "a crew of 25 and a pool of volunteers", but the site does not indicate which authors are staff members and which are "volunteers".

In 2015, The Logical Indian apologized to Mid Day for copying one of their articles verbatim without permission or attribution. This kind of incident generally only happens when the website publishes content from non-staff contributors without review, as it only takes a minute to check for plagiarism on a search engine. — Newslinger talk 10:38, 15 April 2020 (UTC)[reply]

It does not say what these staff do (or come to that any of the volunteers) they could just trawl the internet for any old rubbish that takes their fancy and just publish it (and that does seem to be the implication form the about page).Slatersteven (talk) 10:42, 15 April 2020 (UTC)[reply]

For the record, I agree that The Logical Indian is a questionable source. — Newslinger talk 03:21, 16 April 2020 (UTC)[reply]

• Not reliable This is just another news-aggregator rewriting stories reported by mainstream press and commingling it with user-submitted and sponsored content. Better, if due, to cite the media-sources they are citing, directly. The Logical Indian seems to be better in (usually) attributing the content to the original source, which puts them ahead of most of the similar quick-to-set-up aggregators in the Indian marketplace but there is no indication of actual original reporting and/or of additional fact-checking, which would make them useful or usable as a source on wikipedia. Abecedare (talk) 15:23, 15 April 2020 (UTC)[reply]

It is important to note and disclose any WP:COI in this thread. Let me go first, I am not a Catholic.

• [43] This is the source
• Transubstantiation

• In a comment on the Pew Research Report, Greg Erlandson drew attention to the difference between the formulation in the CARA survey, in which the choice was between "Jesus Christ is really present in the bread and wine of the Eucharist" and "the bread and wine are symbols of Jesus, but Jesus is not really present", and the Pew Research choice between "during Catholic Mass, the bread and wine actually become the body and blood of Jesus" and "the bread wine are symbols of the body and blood of Jesus Christ". He quotes an observation by Mark Gray that the word "actually" makes it sound like "something that could be analyzed under a microscope or empirically observed", while what the Church teaches is that the "substance" of the bread and wine are changed at consecration, but the "accidents" or appearances of bread and wine remain. Erlandson commented further: "Catholics may not be able to articulately define the 'Real Presence', and the phrase [sic] 'transubstantiation' may be obscure to them, but in their reverence and demeanor, they demonstrate their belief that this is not just a symbol"

• 1 Let me quote what is in the page footer "Echoes is the opinion section of TheBostonPilot.com, the Web site of The Pilot. Opinions expressed are those of the authors and they do not necessarily reflect the views of the editors or The Pilot. Publication does not represent an endorsement by the Archdiocese of Boston."
• 2 Users Bealtainemí and Elizizum23 appear to be obscuring the POV here and it is primarily edited by Catholics. It appears, that they disagree with the results of the CARA, unnamed, and Pew polls and provide an opinion about how we should view the poll
• 3 The writer of the opinion piece, Greg Erlandson, is quoting the head of a (Catholic Director of CARA - Catholic polling service's personal blog)
• 4 The article literally says "For 2,000 years, this has been the teaching of the Church." ALL non-Catholic Christians (50% of all Christians) would STRONGLY disagree with this statement. And even Catholic scholars do not say this line.
• 5 Then the author Erlandson quotes "one theologian" who "told [him] when a similar survey came out years ago"
• 5b not only is this "one theologian" unnamed and his quote is being used in the article, it refers to a completely DIFFERENT unnamed poll.
• Now I ask, how is this count as "General belief and knowledge among Catholics" to which the section is titled. How is an opinion of an opinion even notable? Dr. Ryan E. (talk) 09:03, 15 April 2020 (UTC)[reply]

Op-edds are allowed as long as the opinion is attributed (it is) and is form someone whose opinion might be considered expert (that is harder as Greg Erlandson appears to only be an editor of various publications, not an acknowledged expert). Also as the section is about the catholic church, that is the church it is speaking of, not the wider christian church, so it is irrelevant what other denominations think of it.Slatersteven (talk) 10:31, 15 April 2020 (UTC)[reply]

Yep, I agree it's hard to establish that Erlandson is an expert (he's not). And frankly, someone quoting an unnamed theologian's opinion is somehow representative of "General belief and knowledge among Catholics" is a really large stretch. And really, the opinion isn't really Erlandson's in that case, but a person he quotes. Yep, I agree about the latter sentence, that's why there is NO non-Catholic source having opinions in that section. Dr. Ryan E. (talk) 07:22, 16 April 2020 (UTC)[reply]

Mark Gray, from the Georgetown University CARA centre, who is the person quoted by Erlandson with regard to the Pew Research survey, is clearly an opinion\-survey expert. Erlandson's subsidiary remark, that the reverence and demeanour of Catholics in general towards the consecrated Eucharistic bread and wine demonstrates their belief that these "are not just a symbol" is unlikely to be seen as controversial. Bealtainemí (talk) 08:06, 16 April 2020 (UTC)[reply]

• 2014 Isla Vista killings (edit | talk | history | protect | delete | links | watch | logs | views)

I am disturbed by the obsessive use of the word "manifesto" to describe Rodger's diatribe, but rather more disturbed to see ten separate statements sourced to it within the article. This appears to me not to be a valid use of a primary source, gioven its content?

Another inclusion - the external link ""My Twisted World manifesto" (HTML) (unscrubbed, free-copy ed.). with link to word processor format" - I removed. Guy (help!) 11:47, 15 April 2020 (UTC)[reply]

What do RS say?Slatersteven (talk) 11:48, 15 April 2020 (UTC)[reply]

Slatersteven, sufficient that we don't need to source directly from the primary, even if it was a good idea, which it is not. Or do you mean re "manifesto"? They vary. We obnessively use manifesto, sources use manifesto, story, email, diatribe and other characterisations. Incels always use manifesto, though. Guy (help!) 11:53, 15 April 2020 (UTC)[reply]

I mean your question, I assumed you were asking if we can call this a manifesto. If RS do so do we.Slatersteven (talk) 11:55, 15 April 2020 (UTC)[reply]

Slatersteven, I agree we can call it that once, but not every time. That makes the aarticle read as a polemic for incels. Guy (help!) 15:36, 15 April 2020 (UTC)[reply]

This is not an RS issue then. So cannot be answered here, maybe take it to...this is awkward as I am about to tell a very experienced user how to suck forums.Slatersteven (talk) 15:39, 15 April 2020 (UTC)[reply]

Slatersteven, LOL! s/very experienced user/serial idiot/ Guy (help!) 12:21, 16 April 2020 (UTC)[reply]

Isn't the text reliable only in a WP:ABOUTSELF fashion? I note that the Ted Kaczynski article also refers to the Industrial Society and Its Future text as a manifesto. And both Elliot Rodger and Ted Kaczynski's texts are listed as "Notable Manifestos" in the Manifesto article, alongside those of Anders Behring Breivik, David Duke, Dylann Roof, and the Christchurch shooter. Hemiauchenia (talk) 15:15, 16 April 2020 (UTC)[reply]

• Stop the Church (edit | talk | history | protect | delete | links | watch | logs | views)

This is an article on a protest at New York's Catholic cathedral organised by ACT UP during the AIDS crisis, primarily against the Catholic position on condoms and teaching safe sex as personified by Cardinal O'Connor.

It contains a substantial number of cites to a podcast, "Plague: Untold Stories of AIDS & the Catholic Church ", by Michael O'Loughlin. We have no article on the podcast or the presenter. I think this is an impermissible WP:SPS, albeit an interesting one, since he is a gay Catholic. The link is here: https://www.americamagazine.org/faith/2019/12/01/surviving-aids-crisis-gay-catholic. It is apparently related to America (magazine) so is very pro-Catholic, and probably not an acceptable source for claims like O'Connor "ministering" to AIDS patients; the consensus view seems to be that he was - to put it charitably - not well-disposed towards gay people. The word homophobe is commonly used (as indeed is bigot). I propose to replace such references regardless - we have better ones. But is this podcast an appropriate source?

I also note several references to an article on Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty. I have always thought of that as a propaganda outlet and not reliable. Is it valid here? Guy (help!) 15:35, 15 April 2020 (UTC)[reply]

Seems to fall foul of SPS, so then the question become who is he. As it seems he is no one of significance I would say its fails RS.Slatersteven (talk) 15:37, 15 April 2020 (UTC)[reply]

I am not sure why Radio Free Europe wouldn't be counted differently than other nonproblematic state media, such as the BBC for instance. I would consider it generally reliable for its own reporting. It does rely on TASS (RSP entry) [44] and other suspect sources for some reporting, but these are clearly marked on articles. If so, additional considerations may apply. buidhe 04:29, 16 April 2020 (UTC)[reply]

Buidhe, there's quite a difference between RFE/RL and the BBC (which is much closer to PBS, as an analogy). It's not even analogous to the BBC World Service. It's really a cold war hangover. Guy (help!) 12:20, 16 April 2020 (UTC)[reply]

What makes you think so? buidhe 01:59, 17 April 2020 (UTC)[reply]

The podcast is obviously not an SPS: it was produced by America Media, the parent of America magazine. It also seems notable: see coverage in the New York Times, NPR, NewNowNext, POZ, Digital Trends, Crux, Catholic Health World, etc. In addition to his work for America, O'Loughlin has written on the subject for the Daily Beast and the Washington Post, and been quoted in the Guardian. Cheers, gnu57 09:10, 16 April 2020 (UTC)[reply]

I was trying to verify a statement in Habesha peoples. I looked up the source at Google Scholar. It pointed me to the original publication at Springer's website, but also to a PDF at Academia.edu. The original is behind a paywall while the Academia PDF is readily available. The citation didn't specify either website; I found these on my own. However, the Academia PDF contained a credit, "Edited By: Habesha Gaaffaa-Geeska Yäafrika, PhD," and has yellow highlighting throughout the document (presumably added there by Yäafrika). But for all I know, this version has had its text modified, as well. (I've previously brought up another problematic source attributed to Yäafrika at Talk:Habesha peoples#Synthesis, POV, and also at Wikipedia:No original research/Noticeboard/Archive 43#Habesha peoples). I've gone into more detail about this particular instance at Talk:Habesha peoples#Source redux. The larger issue for Wikipedia, though, is that (apparently) anyone can take a journal source, modify it at will, upload it to Academia.edu and (intentionally or not) pass it off as the original source. Presumably this has come up before. -- Gyrofrog (talk) 00:31, 16 April 2020 (UTC)[reply]

@Gyrofrog: If the source cited is the Academia reprint, the person originally citing the source should have linked the reprint. Otherwise, it's assumed to be the original source. To verify the information, make a request for the original publication at WP:RX; someone probably has access to a pdf. buidhe 04:20, 16 April 2020 (UTC)[reply]

@Buidhe: Thanks, I was able to get it via ProQuest. No, no one was specifically citing the Academia.edu version (nor any online version) but, again, I recognized the name therein from a different cited reference (made to appear as though it appeared in an academic journal, when, as far as I can tell, it did not). That this happens at all is, I guess, outside (or bigger than) the scope of this noticeboard. -- Gyrofrog (talk) 16:59, 16 April 2020 (UTC)[reply]

Is statistical data taken from forebears.io reliable? I'm not referring to user-generated content about surname etymologies, but the numerical data that is listed about surname use in each municipality of a given country.--Maleschreiber (talk) 15:16, 16 April 2020 (UTC)[reply]

How is it generated?Slatersteven (talk) 15:18, 16 April 2020 (UTC)[reply]

They seem to have access to census data and other population metrics tools. They claim that Forebears Names data has been used by publicly traded companies, banks, national security contractors, marketers, The Federal Reserve and has been cited in over 60 academic studies. In the case of US surnames, I have verified that their data has been mined directly by the 2000/2010 US census database and is accurate.--Maleschreiber (talk) 16:35, 16 April 2020 (UTC)[reply]

There have been some recent discussions about whether Reason Magazine is a generally reliable for news, facts, and as an attributed source about itself for commentary, analysis, and opinions. I would like to float the following to see if there is consensus for it. Suggestions for wording changes are invited.

Reason Magazine and the associated website reason.com are generally reliable for news and facts. Reason has a self-described libertarian bias and much of the content is commentary, analysis, and opinions. Statements of opinion should always be attributed and considered to only be reliable sources on themselves.

Is the above an accurate description?

Somewhat related:

Here is reason's editorial board of experts: [45]

Here is mediabiasfactcheck.com's analysis:[46]

"Editorially, Reason takes Libertarian positions such as low taxes, free markets, low regulations and socially liberal position such as Marijuana legalization and pro-abortion rights. Politically, Reason falls within the Right-Center category based on economic positions (right) and socially liberal positions (Left). These positions often put Reason Magazine at odds with President Trump’s agenda regarding tariffs and free trade."

"A factual search reveals they have not failed a fact check."

"Overall, we rate Reason Magazine Right-Center biased based on story selection that favors Libertarian positions and High for factual reporting due to mostly proper sourcing and a clean fact check record."

--Guy Macon (talk) 16:11, 16 April 2020 (UTC)[reply]

To avoid having newsinger repeat themself, MBFC is a self published source that is considered unreliable on the perennial sources list. Hemiauchenia (talk) 16:51, 16 April 2020 (UTC)[reply]

Sorry. Dumb mistake. I should have checked. --Guy Macon (talk) 18:26, 16 April 2020 (UTC)[reply]

• Generally reliable for facts though with the usual caveat that if they are publishing a claim that seems outlandish with no corroborating sourcing or sources that agree with them, carefully weight inclusion and attributed as necessary. --Masem (t) 16:54, 16 April 2020 (UTC)[reply]

And yes, I agree with the bolded wording as given. That matches my feelings, understanding of it. --Masem (t) 16:56, 16 April 2020 (UTC)[reply]

• Generally reliable -I agree with Masem and Guy. JungerMan Chips Ahoy! (talk) 19:25, 16 April 2020 (UTC)[reply]
• Additional considerations apply: The problem with reason is that like many other online publications, virtually all the content is marked "commentary", "policy brief", or "working paper". Opinion pieces, by definition, aren't considered reliable for facts. Policy briefs, such as this one, are also just opinions. Their working papers eg appear to be original research and studies that were first published on Reason, not in an academic journal, and therefore non-peer reviewed primary sources which have quite limited application in terms of what they could be cited for. It's hard to find any content on Reason that would be considered generally reliable for facts. buidhe 23:53, 16 April 2020 (UTC)[reply]
• Generally not reliable The objective of Reason from the beginning was to present conservative opinions. It does not report news, but presents a conservative analysis of news. Since opinion pieces are rarely reliable, it cannot be rs. Also, it doesn't make sense to source facts to opinion pieces, when they merely repeat what has already been reported. TFD (talk) 02:47, 17 April 2020 (UTC)[reply]

  That is incorrect. First of all, Reason is a libertarian website and magazine, not Conservative. More importantly, we don't discount sources due to their ideological bent - MSNBC is left-leaning, but reliable, and Fox News is right leaning, but reliable. We consistently refer to 'analysis' provided by reputable, reliable sources, of all ideologies. There is no difference between quoting Politifact's analysis of various claims (of which there are hundreds of examples on Wikipedia), and this article by Reason, similarly analyzing claims made about Dr. Oz, for example. JungerMan Chips Ahoy! (talk) 03:03, 17 April 2020 (UTC)[reply]

  "Generally not reliable" is pretty strong when I already proposed wording that includes :much of the content is commentary, analysis, and opinions. Statements of opinion should always be attributed and considered to only be reliable sources on themselves."

Here are four factual claims made in Reason that might be useful to satisfy WP:V on Wikipedia: (sample limited to their main page to avoid cherry picking). There of course are other policies such as WP:WEIGHT that might exclude the citation and there may be better, unbiased sources, but "generally not reliable" means "factual claims not usable for verification as required by WP:V."

• Four sheriffs in Michigan opposed the stay-at-home order issued by Governor Gretchen Whitmer. [47]
• Michigan's' updated stay-at-home order bans travel between Michigan residences such as vacation homes. Residents of other states who own such properties in Michigan are still allowed to visit them.[48]
• A federal judge issued a temporary restraining order against the mayor of Louisville, Kentucky, who had tried to ban drive-in Easter services.[49]
• The World Health Organization regional office for Europe has encouraged governments to enforce measures which limit alcohol consumption during lockdowns due to the the COVID-19 pandemic.[50]

These are all statements of fact, not opinion, and are counterexamples to the false claims that "It's hard to find any content on Reason that would be considered generally reliable for facts" and "[Reason] does not report news, but presents a conservative analysis of news". (Also, Libertarians are not conservatives. How many conservatives want to legalize all drugs, legalize prostitution, completely open our borders, and withdraw all US troops fighting wars overseas?) --Guy Macon (talk) 07:17, 17 April 2020 (UTC)[reply]

• News organizations says, "Editorial commentary, analysis and opinion pieces, whether written by the editors of the publication (editorials) or outside authors (op-eds) are reliable primary sources for statements attributed to that editor or author, but are rarely reliable for statements of fact." While I am sure you can find many cases where the policy has not been followed, that does not mean we should not follow policy. The article you link to is clearly an expression of opinion, in this case that the media incorrectly reported the intent of Dr. Oz's statements. TFD (talk) 05:28, 17 April 2020 (UTC)[reply]

• • +1 Exactly—we should follow our own policies. buidhe 10:00, 17 April 2020 (UTC)[reply]

• Generally reliable If you need a recent example of them being more reliable than other mainstream left and right sources look here: [51] Pelirojopajaro (talk) 05:50, 17 April 2020 (UTC)[reply]

  Your link is to ... a piece in Reason. --JBL (talk) 17:21, 18 April 2020 (UTC)[reply]

Here is another great example:

Compare the following claims in various sources:

• "The United States goes through over 500 million plastic straws every day, according to Eco-Cycle, a United States-based nonprofit recycling organization." Source The New York Times
• "In the United States alone, 500 million plastic straws are used each day, according to campaigners." --Reuters
• "We use 500 million plastic straws every day in the U.S. alone" --Time
• "With Americans using 500 million straws a day, the National Geographic calls them 'one of the most insidious polluters' because of the harm they cause to sea life." --The Guardian
• "Millions of straws are used once and then discarded in the United States each day, with some operations like the National Park Service saying some 500 million straws are discarded a day." --San Fransisco Chronicle
• "Every day Americans use — and almost immediately discard — up to half a billion plastic beverage straws. At least, that’s the figure widely used by environmental activists to explain why people should embrace going straw-less. It’s not clear where that number came from, but it seems credible..." --Los Angeles Times
• "Approximately 300-500 million plastic straws are used in the United States each day. " --Los Angeles Department of Sanitation (and they passed a law based on that number...)
• "Every day, Americans throw away 500 million plastic straws" --CNN
• "Americans throw away 500 million plastic straws every year, according to the National Park Service." --ABC News Los Angeles
• "It is estimated that Americans use 500 million straws per day" --USA Today
• "It is estimated that Americans use, and then dispose of, 500 million straws every day." --The Washington Post
• "The National Park Service estimates 500 million straws are used by Americans each day." --Fox News
• "The legislature finds that Americans use five hundred million disposable drinking straws daily, according to the National Park Service" --Hawaii State Legislature

Now let's look at what Reason said about it:

• "The original bad-straw-stat sin was the claim that Americans use 500 million straws a day, a number that popped up in just about every news article, blog post, or government press release on the topic before Reason revealed that its source was a small phone survey by a nine-year-old... the kid who gave us that 500-million-straws-a-day figure told USA Today, 'Why I use this statistic is because it illustrates that we use too many straws. I think if it were another number, it still illustrates the fact that there is room for reduction. That's really my message.' "[52]
• "The bigger issue is that claim that Americans consume 500 million straws a day. This stat, we know now, was produced by a 9-year-old boy; more reliable estimates put straw consumption at 175 million per day."[53]
• "News outlets writing about this issue—from CNN to the San Francisco Chronicle—unfailingly state that Americans use 500 million plastic straws a day, many of them ending up in waterways and oceans. The 500 million figure is often attributed to the National Park Service; it in turn got it from the recycling company Eco-Cycle. Eco-Cycle is unable to provide any data to back up this number, telling Reason that it was relying on the research of one Milo Cress. Cress—whose Be Straw Free Campaign is hosted on Eco-Cycle's website—tells Reason that he arrived at the 500 million straws a day figure from phone surveys he conducted of straw manufacturers in 2011, when he was just 9 years old. Eco-Cycle skews a bit more radical, with their "Be Straw Free" campaign -- sponsored in part by reusable straw makers -- that urges the adoption of glass or steel straws. Because we all know how good steel smelting is for the environment."[54]

Other news outlets have talked about the bogus 500 million figure, but only after Reason broke the story.

This did not require sophisticated investigative reporting either: many of the sources cite the National Park Service[55] or Eco-Cycle,[56] and both of those sources clearly state where the number came from. The news outlets simply did not bother checking, and either gave the number as if it was factual or attributed the number to the Park service / Eco-Cycle as if they came up with it instead of getting it from a 9-year-old.. --Guy Macon (talk) 13:42, 17 April 2020 (UTC)[reply]

The statement in Reason that media "unfailingly state that Americans use 500 million plastic straws a day" is incorrect. As your examples show, they typically say something like "according to Eco-Cycle." Eco-Cycle got the number from 9 year old Milo Cress and still uses this figure.[57] USA Today published an article about the statistic in 2018.[58] The New York Times also published an article which says that since Cress' estimate, rigorous studies have been conducted that puts the figure between 170 million and 390 million straws per day.[59] Turns out that Cress' estimate was accurate considering the publicly available information at the time. But note the Reason article attacks the estimate based solely on Cress' age and does not publish the more recent informed figures which were then available. That's clear propaganda. Reason wants us to think that plastic straws do not present a problem and does this by attacking the original source of the estimate without giving us the actual figure because it is inconvenient to the narrative they want us to believe.

The most we can say is that Reason was helpful in drawing attention to the questionability of the numbers. But we had no way of assessing what they said until reliable sources commented on it.

TFD (talk) 16:08, 17 April 2020 (UTC)[reply]

• Generally reliable in context Reason is primarily a source of commentary and should be treated as such. Much as we source basic facts from commentary material from sources like Washington Post, we should be OK doing the same from Reason. But any interpretations or conclusions which the article reaches should not be treated as fact and should be attributed. Springee (talk) 12:43, 17 April 2020 (UTC)[reply]
• Generally reliable for facts I agree with the summary. A quality publication with a particular political bent (not traditionally left or right in the US context), which mostly publishes commentary but performs adequate fact-checking on their articles. Comparable to other political news/commentary magazines such as Mother Jones or The Nation. feminist ^{Wear a mask to protect everyone} 09:57, 18 April 2020 (UTC)[reply]
• Apply extreme caution - Reason Magazine used to be right into holocaust denial, for example,[60], including a special issue dedicated to minimising and denying factual claims about the Holocaust and bringing on deniers to Just Ask Questions.[61] It's a magazine and website that exists for the purpose of political advocacy on behalf of its backers. That doesn't preclude fact-checking or stopped-clock moments, but it does mean that it'd be a yellow-rated source at very best, in need of application with great caution and attribution. I wouldn't use it at all except where unavoidable. Your bolded statement is not supportable without a caveat about their Holocaust denial, at which point the statement is self-contradictory - David Gerard (talk) 18:40, 18 April 2020 (UTC)[reply]

Who/what is Pando and are they reliable for the claims in question? I didn't see them discussed in the RSN archives. Springee (talk) 18:44, 18 April 2020 (UTC)[reply]

They're a news outlet with proper editorial and journalism and so forth, and certainly were at the time - PandoDaily. Are you making a claim about the veracity of the report that Reason was into holocaust denial? Are you questioning the veracity of the reprint of Reason's holocaust just-asking-questions edition, suggesting it might be a fake? Please be specific in your objection - David Gerard (talk) 20:13, 18 April 2020 (UTC)[reply]

I've never heard of them. They don't appear in any RSN discussion save this one. The Wiki article on them doesn't offer much to go on and the articles you linked to started off with Koch conspiracy claims. It's not exactly easy to read the images on my phone. But I would say the burden is on you to show we should put weight on the claims of the Pando writer. I certainly don't see enough evidence thus far to assume they are correct vs mischaracterizing articles printed nearly 5 decades back. The claim you are making is a serious one. It would require some rather substantial evidence. Do we have additional sources making the same claims? Springee (talk) 20:31, 18 April 2020 (UTC)[reply]

Your ignorance is not a measure of a source. But this discussion is about Reason. Did they run a Holocaust denial issue? Yes, they did. Is this a reason to not regard Reason as a reliable source? I'd say it is - David Gerard (talk) 21:35, 18 April 2020 (UTC)[reply]

Ignorance is preferable to making claims that you know to be false. You clearly read the February 1976 issue (you quoted from it) and thus have seen the table of contents. It was not a "Holocaust denial issue" and you know it. It was a Revisionism issue, and the revisionism referred to was the position taken by William Appleman Williams and other left-wing critics of the Cold War. --Guy Macon (talk) 10:40, 19 April 2020 (UTC)[reply]

My claims are about the actual content - as I quoted, showing that my description is accurate - and not about their claims about themselves - David Gerard (talk) 10:59, 19 April 2020 (UTC)[reply]

Here's the Feb 1976 "Special Revisionism Issue" of Reason. p. 39. North: "Probably the most far-out materials on World War II revisionism have been the seemingly scholarly studies of the supposed execution of 6 million Jews by Hitler. The anonymous author of The Myth of the Six Million [...] has presented a solid case against the Establishment’s favorite horror story - the supposed moral justification for our entry into the War." January 1976 on reason.com, p.6. James J. Martin: "The German concentration camps weren't health centers, but they appear to have been far smaller and much less lethal than the Russian ones." Unless you're going to try to claim that's a fake too - David Gerard (talk) 21:37, 18 April 2020 (UTC)[reply]

I haven't said anything is fake so please don't setup strawmen. I have said that you are making extraordinary claims about the entire body of work of magazine that has been in publication for many decades based on the claims of a single source of unknown reliability. The fact that this source starts with the Koch brothers boogie man is not a good sign. Springee (talk) 21:50, 18 April 2020 (UTC)[reply]

We have an article on pando.com: PandoDaily.

Reason itself covered their own February 1976 "Revisionism issue" back in 2014.[62] You can read that entire issue here:[63].

The 2014 Reason article is a bit of a long read, so I will give a few quotes from it -- but if anyone is serious about studying this accusation they should read the entire thing and at least skim the 1976 issue for context.

• "Ames is correct that some of the contributors to that issue developed an interest in or were fellow travelers with that most pathetic area of study known as Holocaust revisionism or denialism. That scurrilous topic is not the focus of any of the articles in the issue, but the inclusion of contributors such as James J. Martin, who would go on to join the editorial board of the contemptible denialist outfit the Institute of Historical Review, is embarrassing. Another of that issue's contributors, Gary North, would later be excoriated in this 1998 Reason article for arguing in favor of violent theocracy and the stoning of gays and others."
• "The "revisionism" under discussion in the 1976 special issue refers to the movement that was popular especially among left-wing critics of the Cold War such as University of Wisconsin's William Appleman Williams." (We have an article on him: William Appleman Williams.)
• "Much of the material from the issue doesn't hold up, which is hardly surprising for a magazine issue published almost 40 years ago. Even as the various writers warn explicitly against uncritically accepting revisionist accounts out of inborn contrarianism, there is a generally adolescent glee in being iconoclastic that I find both uninteresting and unconvincing. However, to characterize the issue as a "holocaust denial 'special issue,'" as Ames does, is an example of how quickly he can lose his always-already weak grasp on reality."
• "Reason's Editor in Chief Matt Welch noted that Ames is "the anti-libertarian conspiracy theorist with a history of generating apology notes and speedy take-downs among those journalistic outlets still reckless enough to publish him."

Analyzing what they wrote 44 years ago is interesting, but does not change the fact that as as the year 2020 Reason Magazine and the associated website reason.com are politically biased but generally reliable for news and facts. --Guy Macon (talk) 22:23, 18 April 2020 (UTC)[reply]

• • Just to comment on the Pando aspect: CRJ seems to quote them (and Reason as well), so I'm going to say that Pando's a recognized voice, but when you look at the specific facets of Pando's claims towards Reason, it is as Guy says, something from 40 years ago, and only seems to be propagated by one writer at Pando. Looking at Pando's "process" it basically is a minimally reviewed blog, maybe one step away from a SPS, so basically the whole aspect boils down to "he said, she said" and one we'd not consider without other sources that have also evaluated it. As such, what one writer Pando has said about what some people involved with Reason had opined 40 years ago doesn't affect the use of Reason today for facts with a recognized bias. --Masem (t) 22:33, 18 April 2020 (UTC)[reply]

I was sitting here thinking "now where did I hear about pando.com before?" then it hit me. They are the ones behind the conspiracy theory that the Tor (anonymity network) -- The one both I and Edward Snowden use -- is some sort of government conspiracy. See [64], [65], and [66].

• Generally reliable per Guy Macon. One terrible article that was published 44 years ago and has since been disavowed isn't very convinced argument against reliability. --RaiderAspect (talk) 05:40, 19 April 2020 (UTC)[reply]
• General unreliable - There are not strictly a WP:NEWSORG, but even if they were, "News reporting from less-established outlets is generally considered less reliable for statements of fact.". The purpose of their foundation is to promote libertarian ideas[67], which is obvious from their content[68][69] and some of their donors like Charles Koch Institute[70]. Their claim that their publications are editorial independent from their foundations seems dubious. They share similar audiences with Nation Review, Washington Examiner, The Federalist, Daily Caller, adn Daily Wire, all of which we tend to steer away from for references.[71] There may be case where their opinion content is usable with attribution, but it's hard to imagine scenarios where something noteworthy would be sourced in Reason Magazine or website, but not in a far more credible publication. As far as I can tell, they are infrequently cited by other reliable sources, which suggest low WP:USEBYOTHERS. - MrX 🖋 15:02, 19 April 2020 (UTC)[reply]
  • it's hard to imagine scenarios where something noteworthy would be sourced in Reason Magazine or website, but not in a far more credible publication. As far as I can tell, they are infrequently cited by other reliable sources, which suggest low WP:USEBYOTHERS. yep, this is key. Anything good is not original, anything original is not good - they're not a newspaper, at all. And nobody else treats them as one - David Gerard (talk) 21:26, 19 April 2020 (UTC)[reply]
• Generally reliable absent any reason to think otherwise. I don't like a lot of what they write, but they probably don't like a lot of what The Guardian writes. Guy (help!) 20:23, 19 April 2020 (UTC)[reply]