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Question about a possibly self-referenced source

I'd like to get a ruling on a source in article Calvary Chapel. In a subsection of 'criticisms' titled Authoritarian Practices, a statement refers to a quote by an individual (Rick Ross) where the quote in question is reprinted on his own website. Additionally, the source appears to be an 'op-ed' type piece from an alternative newspaper (a google search finds an incomplete quote that 'Sonoma County Independent, the weekly alternative newspaper for Sonoma, California, presents news, arts, entertainment, politics and culture around Sonoma'.) I and others have questions about whether the source is appropriate and even whether the content itself should be included without stronger verifiable sources. Thanks in advance for your feedback on this. 24.8.168.247 (talk) 19:29, 9 July 2011 (UTC)

As a general rule, information available only in some minor source might be considered verifiable (=we're sure he said it), but not WP:DUE (=we're not sure it's important enough to mention). Tiny minority views, such as information that can only be found in someone's blog or a minor source, are not usually important enough to mention in a Wikipedia article. WhatamIdoing (talk) 04:26, 10 July 2011 (UTC)
(Full disclosure: same editor as above.) Thanks for the clarification on that. Before I possibly overstep my bounds in referencing your position at the discussion page, are you taking any particular position on the aforementioned reference or speaking in very general terms? I read your statement to suggest that the reference in question (and the content to which it refers) could be seen as undue weighting (minority/fringe view) and not worth keeping in the article without more/stronger sourcing. 24.129.80.163 (talk) 23:20, 11 July 2011 (UTC)
General rule only, as I have not bothered to look up either the newspaper or the individual in question. But if your description of the newspaper is at all accurate, then the general rule certainly appears to be applicable. WhatamIdoing (talk) 04:23, 12 July 2011 (UTC)
Thanks again for the feedback. I wondered if I might impose upon you further. 2 editors of the page (myself included) agree with your application of the general rule, while at least one other feels that we cannot apply it until someone reviews the reference in question. Would you be willing/able to do that? The description of the newspaper that I provided to you was found as the second result from this google search. The reference in question is here and the individual who is quoted (and on whose website the reference is sourced) is Rick_Ross_(consultant). I appreciate any time you might have for this. 24.129.80.52 (talk) 00:23, 14 July 2011 (UTC)

For future reference, to address the "Self Referenced" issue, here is the link to the archive of the David Templeton Losing My Religion article from the April 2-8, 1998 edition of the Sonoma County Independent from the website of the publisher Metro Publishing Inc: http://www.metroactive.com/papers/sonoma/04.02.98/calvary-9813.html. Mojoworker (talk) 17:57, 25 July 2011 (UTC)

Late Night Actress interview

It is of my understanding that the subject of this interview admits having made explicit adult movies. Is this usable as a valid reference for that sensitive information? --damiens.rf 02:52, 13 July 2011 (UTC)

The interview is likely legitimate and usable as WP:RS since it comes from an official convention website. I'm not sure about using that brief statement as anything other than exactly what it is though. Since she doesn't go into depth on what she means by "explicit" it's not a given that it means anything beyond R-rated. I would just quote her verbatim, something like: "In 2003 Reed described her website as containing "nude photo galleries and explicit home movies." Siawase (talk) 16:00, 13 July 2011 (UTC)

Using Ideological or partisan sources for criticism section

A general question as my reading of the policy doesn’t really clarify much for me.

What is the general consensus on using ideological or partisan sources for criticism section? If the only source for a groups criticism of something or someone is the groups own literature or website, does that make it notable enough to include in the article or does a secondary source have to confirm the notability?

Thanks! ZHurlihee (talk) 21:04, 13 July 2011 (UTC)

The first thing to think about is whether articles should have a criticism section. We are trying to avoid such sections and rewrite articles so that criticisms appear in various sections. Criticisms can sometimes be cited to the websites of organisations. It depends whether it is a notable criticism. For example, in an article about the UK Conservative Party, a criticism found on the website of the UK Labour Party would probably be notable. On the other hand the same criticism might be found in an independent source, e.g. in a book by a political scientist. An independent source would be better, if it exists. Itsmejudith (talk) 22:20, 13 July 2011 (UTC)

Nineteen dog breed sources in question

The following online sources, primarily all-breed commercial sites, were plucked from dog breed GAs (not merely stubs or articles needing cleanup). I don't think any of them meet the requirements for self-published sources, and although academic credentials aren't necessarily required in this specific area of the dog fancy, it throws up red flags when you can't find any information about the site owners or authors. More eyes would be appreciated. I'm not sure what proper protocol is when trying to receive binding input on sources, but this seemed like as good of a place as any.

I'm not going to count up how many articles each of these sources appears in, but the search function can answer that if you'd like to know. As I mentioned above, each is cited in at least one GA, which is why I want to get further input.

  • Animal Forum.com: "Arrow Web Design, Inc." Whois contact seems to have connection to horse community and others.
  • BarkBytes: Online magazine, may vary with article?
  • Canada's Guide to Dogs: Hosted some CKC breed standards that were linked to, has an active Canadian event directory, Canadian judge profiles. Started by two people with a "passion for dogs and background in web design".
  • DogBiz: "Bestway Marketing & Information Systems"?
  • Dog-Breed-Facts.com
  • Dog Breed Info Center: This one is the quintessential dubious, ad-laden source that covers every possible designer and rare breed out there -- where do they get their content? I believe it accepts user-submitted info (Miyagawa may know more about this; I've let them know about this thread) and its About page contains nothing identifying the site's owners or contributors. Previously brought up on RSN.
  • Dogs Monthly Magazine: Previously brought up on RSN. Doesn't seem to fit sourcing criteria.
  • Dogstuff.info: ?
  • DogUp!: Largely commercial in nature, no indication of reputability. Registrant apparently also owns DeeDee Boxers -- my connection was aborted because Avast detected a trojan, so be cautious.
  • English Cocker Spaniel Secrets
  • Pasoddy.com: Croatian and English versions. Can't find owner or author information.
  • Pet Meds Online: "Created by pet lovers, for pet lovers"? Information I looked at was suspicious.
  • PetPlace: Not on the same level as the others but would still like to verify. About page
  • PetPlanet.co.uk: Is "part of M8 Group Ltd" ... "long been recognised as the market leader in our sector in the UK". Primarily an e-commerce site.
  • PetWave: Has a review board made up of "veterinary specialists" -- is that enough?
  • Sarah's Dogs: On the Bernese Mountain Dog page, there were several factual errors that stood out and some strange statements. Without going through their other pages in more detail, I would assume this isn't a problem unique to that one. Additionally, there is no information at all about the site's author, and the domain is owned by someone from Denmark with no apparent connection to the dog fancy.
  • Scottish Terrier Dog World: I'm concerned they that list the Wikipedia page among commercial sites on the bottom, under the heading "Linked with". No owner or author information.
  • TerrificPets.com
  • The Breeds of Dogs

I'm very sorry if I went overboard -- I'll trust my gut re: unreliable sources in the future if "consensus" on this page agrees with it, but I wanted to be especially careful. Thanks a bundle and I apologize for the volume. Anna talk 23:30, 9 July 2011 (UTC)

A couple of thoughts:
  1. Whether a source is reliable depends on exactly what you're trying to say in the article. "Garbage-site.com" is a perfectly reliable source for something like "There's a website with the name Garbage-site.com". Albert Einstein's most famous scientific paper is completely unreliable source for the name of the current UK Prime Minister. Without knowing how the sources are used, we can't really judge their suitability for supporting that material.
  2. If you don't think that the material itself is wrong, then I probably wouldn't worry too much about whether the site is commercial, names its authors, sells stuff, has advertisements, etc. WhatamIdoing (talk) 04:32, 10 July 2011 (UTC)
Thanks for the reply. First of all, though this may be a given, none of them are backing up information about themselves -- they're all referring to the breed in question (its appearance, temperament, history, other traits). Realistically I can't judge whether all of it is implausible or not; it would take quite a bit of time and I don't know heaps about each breed off the top of my head. It seems more efficient in the long run, in my view (take it for what it's worth!), to crack down on sources whose information is not necessarily correct and whose authors are big question marks. What credence do their works have if they don't cite sources or identify the author and his/her qualifications? Incidentally, the same applies to Wikipedia. :)
I was applying the criteria set out at the self-published sources section of the verifiability policy's page, in case that was unclear. And like I said, some of the information these sources provide is suspect -- some is flat-out wrong -- and I'm concerned their inclusion may become more prevalent. To clarify, I don't think a site being commercial in nature is inherently bad, but of course there are complications that arise with it (trying to sell a certain method of training [well, the associated tools] and thus referring to a dog breed as "sensitive" or "dominant" when that may not apply, etc.). Anna talk 06:21, 10 July 2011 (UTC)
I would have some concern about the sites being commercial. I have seen in similar articles that people do coatrack type expansions just to add spam links as references, ie:[1] If possible I would look at the history of the article and see how those references were added. I didn't double check the sources you listed, but spontaneously, the only one that sounds WP:RS with WP:SPS caveats is the site that claims to have veterinary specialists reviewing articles. Mainly, for all those sources it sounds like higher quality sources could be found, and where possible I would replace them. Siawase (talk) 14:27, 10 July 2011 (UTC)
I'm probably guilty of using all of those sources over the past couple of years, as I have to say I'm a lot more aware of the RS requirements over the last year than I was towards the start (which is ironic as I've worked on less GA articles for the dog breeds in the last year than previously). Certainly the only one which seems to be an easy win is Dogs Monthly - it's a print magazine in the UK which is in most medium or larger newsagents and is one of the big three dog magazines over here. I'm a big fan of Sarah's dogs, but like you say, it needs to be checked and varified as some of it is factually incorrect. However in some cases for the rarer breeds, there isn't much information to back it up with. I've had several of those listed ruled out for not meeting GA requirements to the extent that when working on an article I don't even think of looking at them anymore. Miyagawa (talk) 16:26, 10 July 2011 (UTC)
What bothers me about the sourcing issue is that it's hard to tell someone who isn't familiar with Wikipedia's policies "it was used in a certain GA/article to support that factoid, but can't be used to support this one". I wonder if this doesn't fit "if it's worth reporting, another source would have already" (and I'm still curious where they get their rare breed info if you know!) I wasn't targeting you specifically, but since you've written most of the dog breed GAs it may have come off that way -- apologies if you thought so. This was something I had been meaning to do for a while but things got hectic so it was put off.
Would there be consensus (Wikipedia-style) to go through and replace citations to unreliable websites (excluding Dogs Monthly Magazine and the vet-checked sites)? Does anyone dislike that idea? I don't think dog breed refs should be held to lower standards than those of other articles. Thanks again for the replies. :) Anna talk 21:57, 10 July 2011 (UTC)
I agree that it needs to be done. I hadn't been on the English Cocker Spaniel article in a while and hadn't realized it was such a mess - yet it's almost exactly the same as when it passed GA. I'm sure my other 2009 GAs must be very similar and will need some work. There are reliable dog sources out there, and the dog breed articles need to be held to the same standard as other articles. Miyagawa (talk) 22:10, 10 July 2011 (UTC)
Some thoughts on this issue with no answers:
  • This is a concern I've had as well. One of the problems with sourcing content on temperament and behaviour in dogs is that sometimes the best and most knowledgable people may be breeders and owners with a lot of experience who may also run commercial sites. Those sites by most WP standards may be unreliable. Vets may be good for medical conditions but not necessarily for behavior temperament depending on their experience with different breeds. The way I've dealt with this issue is to look at multiple sources for one piece of information and to use the very best one I can find. If I find a source with info that is contradicted in other sources or that I am suspicious of, I look for something else. I haven't looked at many articles though and nothing on larger less well known breeds.
  • We aren't a dog breeders/owners manual so maybe less but very accurate information would be better than a lot of suspicious content.
  • Dogs and dog breeding especially for newer and rarer breeds is not necessarily the subject of the RS we generally find for other kinds of articles. Are there scholarly sources for some of rare dog breed behaviour for example. Probably not.
  • I think trying to improve articles with better sources would be great, but being open minded about what is actually available or not available on each breed. Definitely knowledge of dogs and breeds would be useful if not critical. (olive (talk) 22:34, 10 July 2011 (UTC))
    I don't disagree with your comments -- they're all valid -- so the following may be preaching to the choir. If the only sources available aren't reliable, does the breed actually merit its own article? Is it "notable"? I've always favored quality over quantity, like you say, and funnily enough have that on my userpage. (Incidentally, in my experiences with the dog world, experienced and knowledgeable breeders become involved with breed clubs or write about the breed in various reputable sources, sometimes their personal website. They don't contribute to dogbreedinfo.com -- or maybe they do and keep it under wraps!)
  • I'm not referring to scholarly sources, if that was unclear -- there are plenty of reliable books and sites with reasonable editorial oversight. For example, the dog magazine Canis Major's authors and editors have years of real-world experience with dogs, breed clubs, and the dog fancy generally. I wouldn't hesitate to use it as a source. Another example: Sue Ann Bowling may not have a degree in zoology or genetics but her coat color genetics articles have been reprinted by breed clubs "worldwide". It's simply concerning when you can't find author information. Maybe the person is highly well-informed and has experience, but how can anyone be even somewhat assured of that? Anna talk 23:13, 10 July 2011 (UTC)

I guess my thought is use the best sources you can find. If the best source has no author oversight, then you can either use that source, use the content without a source if the content is not contentious, and if you question the validity of the content and there are no reliable sources, delete it. I don't think there are any hard and fast rules for this kind of situation and what applies in one article may not apply in another. There's a point where it boils down to editor judgment. If you think you can improve an article, and you sound like you can, I'd just do it, GA or otherwise Nothing is ever forever on Wp.:o)(olive (talk) 23:28, 10 July 2011 (UTC))

Makes sense to me. I'll be going through and replacing (or, less ideally, axing) the unreliable sources (by WP's current standards) this week when I have the time -- of course, anyone is free to revert if they don't like what I'm doing, but I'm hoping this won't be controversial since the only goal is to improve sourcing quality. On a related note, I'm also considering starting an open list of free, online canine resources that do seem to fit the RS criteria. Hopefully, that would be helpful to all who work on these articles and happen to come across my userpage. Anna talk 14:23, 11 July 2011 (UTC)

The list of known reliable, free, online canine resources would be so very useful! I also agree that it would be great if we could sift through the dog breed articles and replace as many "un-reliable" sources as possible. For medical conditions, this would be relativly easy. The toughest parts for reliable referencing in dog breed articles, in my opinion, are the temperament sections. Thankyou for bringing these referencing issues up Anna :). Keetanii (talk) 08:23, 14 July 2011 (UTC)

Self-published sources in band articles

Okay, as an editor I do a lot of editing on various band or music artist articles, and I have a question. According to Wikipedia policy on biographies of living persons, which active bands and music artists fall under, reliable self-published sources are never to be used. However, I was wondering that when dealing with non-controversial, general band history and awards, if an exception for sites like Jesus Freak Hideout, MusicMight, or self-published material by the music journalist Matt Morrow, and other, similar sources. A similar use would be discussion of music genres, which technically isn't about the musician(s), but rather the music. My personal belief is that in cases like these would be an instance of ignore all rules, as long as the material dealt with is basic band or artist info such as historical overview, awards, genre, and the like, and deals with the band as a unit and not the individuals.--3family6 (talk) 19:00, 10 July 2011 (UTC)

Can you give some examples of the kind of information you want to add? On the subject of awards, why is the only source a bands own site? would ot the awars not mention who the gave it too?Slatersteven (talk) 19:02, 10 July 2011 (UTC)
With the award question, it's a specific incident where a music webzine (Metal Storm) holds an annual awards event. The album in question, The Habit of Fire was nominated for this award. I wasn't sure whether this award was even notable, but when the album underwent a failed GA review, mention the award was not noted as an issue. But because the webzine is self-published, I have so far reverted any mention of the award on the band article itself, because the band article is a BLP while the album article isn't.
With reference to the overall question, it would mostly be about whether sites like Jesus Freak Hideout, Music Might, or The Phantom Tollbooth which are notable and have an editorial staff, would be okay to use for details in a general band overview that is already referenced by sources that are not self-published, as long as such details were about the band as an entity and not the musicians in the band. Related to that would be using reliable self-published material, such as that by Matt Morrow, to discuss a band's music style, as that would not be making personal statements about the musicians in the band.
Does that clarify things, or do you need more info?--3family6 (talk) 19:23, 10 July 2011 (UTC)
It would not matter if the webzine is self published, its wrting about itself (an award it had given) so it would be RS for what it has done.
Why do you want to use these site for aleady sourced information?Slatersteven (talk) 13:29, 12 July 2011 (UTC)
An SPS is not RS for any material not just BLP (by the way BLP does apply to small entities such as bands), if that material is not about the writer of the SPS, unless the SPS is a notable expert in the field then (with proper in line accreditatio (Morrow ays teh band is...) then its OK. If however they are not an notable expert then it would not be OK to use an SPS as a source about an entity.Slatersteven (talk) 13:29, 12 July 2011 (UTC)
Just a side comment. I guess the first sentence of the above note from SlaterSteven is written in an accidentally over-absolute way, presumably just by typo, because it is in direct conflict with the next sentences. --Andrew Lancaster (talk) 14:06, 12 July 2011 (UTC)
Okay, I think that answers my question. Basically, if the SPS is notable (which is the case for any SPS I'd be using for a BLP), than they are okay for a BLP as long as credited?--3family6 (talk) 14:17, 12 July 2011 (UTC)
I would susgest that ou ask about each source in turn as you will need to demonstrate that they are notable experts in their field. For example who is Matt Morrow?Slatersteven (talk) 16:20, 12 July 2011 (UTC)

Refactored my comment to make its meaning clearer.Slatersteven (talk) 14:42, 12 July 2011 (UTC)


Okay. First, Jesus Freak Hideout shouldn't be a problem, as I asked about this one on here awhile ago and there weren't any problems with it, and [MusicMight] is used quite extensively on Wikipedia, and anyway is the same type of site as JFH (i.e. editorial staff and oversight, etc.). With Matt Morrow, he does a lot with Christian underground music, and has written several articles for HM Magazine: [2], [3], [4], [5], [6], [7]. Another writer is Johannes Jonsson, as not only has he written for HM Magazine ([8], [9]), his self-published website, Metal for Jesus! has received academic coverage: [10].
One source I am unsure of is [tollbooth.org The Phantom Tollbooth]. It's an online magazine with an editorial staff, and basically is the same as Jesus Freak Hideout or even HM Magazine's website, so there shouldn't be problems, I just thought I'd check.--3family6 (talk) 17:40, 12 July 2011 (UTC)
Reviews are not articles, also many have no byline so no way of telling who they are by.Slatersteven (talk) 18:56, 12 July 2011 (UTC)
Sorry for confusing reviews as articles, I know there is a difference but didn't bother typing it out above. I'm not sure what you mean about no byline, all of the above reviews and interviews have one.--3family6 (talk) 20:20, 12 July 2011 (UTC)
You second source does not have a byline, it says for more info see another article in another source. I did not see the others because (like the second source) his names was in brackets and had text after it. But I accept that he is attributed as the author.Slatersteven (talk) 10:58, 13 July 2011 (UTC)

I realized this morning that JFH, MusicMight, and Phantom Tollbooth should be fine as while the websites are self-published, what is being cited is the individual authors, whose work is being published by the website, so the sources would not be self-published. But where are we on Morrow and Jonsson?--3family6 (talk) 14:50, 13 July 2011 (UTC)

Whilst its true that they are not self published it would also have to be shown that the articles cited are not the equivalent of a wiki style article (in other words they accept any old rubbish for their online publication). JFH does seem to have been found to be RS in the past, no reason to assume its not now. But you would (if we take the original discussion to heart) to make the case for what you want to include. As to Morrow and Jonsson I have said that we need to see evidence that their opinions are notable enough to circumvent BLP and SPS. This might not be the best venue for that question.Slatersteven (talk) 15:42, 13 July 2011 (UTC)
Which venue would be the best?--3family6 (talk) 20:48, 13 July 2011 (UTC)
Depends on the question, the SPS or BLP notice baords would be best for sepcific discsions abut those issues. Notability might best be discused there.Slatersteven (talk) 13:54, 14 July 2011 (UTC)
Okay, thanks.--3family6 (talk) 14:14, 14 July 2011 (UTC)

Is a blog post at http://getoutofdebt.org a reliable source for use in an article?

Please see http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=User_talk:72Dino&oldid=438963358#Dumb_Question for a disagreement over one source -- the writer is not with a major paper, but just a specialty blog -- normally, not necessarily an expert if he were gonig to, say, interpret a law or something, but what's being cited is incidences on suicides or attempted suicides, and this writer's claiming to have received a letter from someone contemplating suicide --since I believe him to be true, this appears to meet 'reliable sources' criteria for Wikiepdia --please see the subsection titled 'Dumb Question' at http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=User_talk:72Dino&oldid=438963358#Dumb_Question this saved 'screen diff.' -- 72Dino asked me to bring my disagreement here --and here I am.71.100.190.190 (talk) 19:50, 11 July 2011 (UTC)

According to our content policies, reliable sources normally have these qualities:
  • The source has a reputation for fact-checking and accuracy.
  • The publication is done by a reputable publishing house, rather than by the author(s).
  • It is "appropriate for the material in question", i.e., the source is directly about the subject, rather than mentioning something unrelated in passing.
  • It is a third-party or WP:Independent source.
  • It has a professional structure in place for deciding whether to publish something, such as editorial oversight or peer review processes.
Some individual's blog about how to get out of debt fails four out of the five criteria. It's not that we think the author is telling a lie about the letter he received; it's that the blog posting isn't an authoritative source for the claim that there has been an "increase in suicides directly attributable to the stress related to distressed and defaulted student loans" (=text from the article). WhatamIdoing (talk) 20:03, 11 July 2011 (UTC)
OK, thx 4 the reply here, W, but the claim about "increase in suicides directly attributable to the stress related to distressed and defaulted student loans" isn't something that ONE author by himself needs to prove -- so to put the full burden of proof fully & totally on one author (that you admit you do believe is telling the truth) is illogical. What I mean is this: Yes, it's possible for one author to prove this claim --like, an author of a scientific study --however, a whole lot of individual anecdotal evidence may also verify this claim here: "increase in suicides directly attributable to the stress related to distressed and defaulted student loans." -- Put another way, if you needed to borrow a thousand dollars, you might borrow from one REAL RICH friend --but to disqualify smaller loans (or gifts) from others *just because* they're small, would be foolish: You could easily borrow or receive as gifts *many* smaller amounts (instead of *one* large lump sum) --and thus, you admit that you believe this author. Here, let me quote you: "It's not that we think the author is telling a lie about the letter he received," which admits that his truthfulness is not being called into question --and THAT is what its all about: Don't make it more difficult than it is.
Looking at your standards, while I admit I don't know this author other than having seen his website, I will say this:
1 - his reputation is at least strong enough to verify he received a letter.
2 - "The publication is done by a reputable publishing house, rather than by the author(s)." -- This is not necessarily an iron-clad rule, since many articles in, say, the NY Times would qualify --insofar as his blog is publishing, it qualifies --even if to a lower standard of quality than, say, the NY Times.
3 - The subject of the cited article is appropriate to the claims made in the Wikipedia article -same subject matter, just anecdotal, rather than "large group" study.
4 - It IS an independent 3rd party insofar as it's neither of the 1st 2 parties (the reader or Wikipedia)
5 - It seems like there is some professional review --even if it's only the guy's wife & pet cat --it's enough to satisfy his claims of receiving a letter --see, a lot of anecdotal evidence is just as useful as one "big" study --it all adds up: Truth is truth, no matter how you add it up.
For the reasons above, I respectfully dissent & support both this source AND ALL OTHERS which I've cited as valid. Do you dissent here?71.100.190.190 (talk) 23:09, 11 July 2011 (UTC)
You don't seem to understand the criteria.
  1. His reputation is nothing to me. Since few people bother fabricating stories like that, I'm willing to believe that he's telling the truth, but I have no reason to believe it except my own belief that most people aren't liars.
  2. The New York Times, like most newspapers, is published by a respectable outfit.
  3. A blog about finances is not an appropriate source of information about the cause of suicides. (A blog about suicide in general might be.)
  4. I agree that he would constitute an independent source for this claim. "The reader" and "Wikipedia", however, are not parties to the claim at all. You might benefit from reading WP:Party and person or WP:Third-party sources to figure out what that term means.
  5. "The guy's wife & pet cat" do not constitute professional editorial oversight in any sense. The editor at your local newspaper, who has the right and duty to tell the reporter that his beloved story will never be printed, exercises professional editorial oversight.
More to the point, the plural of anecdote is not data, and WP:SYNTH directly prohibits you from adding up "a whole lot of individual anecdotal evidence" to verify a claim. Either the source makes the whole claim, and is reliable and appropriate for that whole claim, or it's not.
I'm not sure why you're bothering with this. Trying to drive readers to a favorite blog, maybe? There are already two sources named for this claim. We don't need WP:Citation overkill, especially with such weak sources as some guy's blog. WhatamIdoing (talk) 04:34, 12 July 2011 (UTC)
Anecdotal evidence (posted on blogs and so) is not enough. How many different pieces of anecdotal evidence are you going to collect to support the claim that there is "increase in suicide..."? In doing so it would become original research WP:ORIG.
If there is truth to that claim, then sooner or later a researcher is going to publish a study that shows this increase in suicide, or at least some reputable newspaper will report on it in an article on that topic. Then you will have your reliable source , and then you can add it in the article. MakeSense64 (talk) 05:23, 12 July 2011 (UTC)
  • I just want to state what the name of the source is that is under discussion here and the specific link to the source. The source under discussion is GetOutOfDebt.org and the specific page being cited is [11]. The claim it was being used to support was in the article College tuition in the United States, stating, "Besides economic effects of rapidly increasing debt burdens placed on students, social ramifications are felt. One of these is the increase in suicides directly attributable to the stress related to distressed and defaulted student loans." I agree with those editors who believe this source is not a reliable source for this particular claim, because the fact that one financial blog received one letter from someone who said he was considering suicide due to his student loans does not establish that there has been an increase in suicides attributable to student loan problems. --Metropolitan90 (talk) 16:50, 12 July 2011 (UTC)

This is a pretty bold claim made by this blog or website or whatever it is. It's also one that surely must have been discussed in much more reliable sources. If this were a small point of, say, local history, then we might discuss using it as it might be the only source available. But in this particular case there's no reason to waste any time debating the merits of a dubious website. Go find a study or a newspaper article to cite instead. Gamaliel (talk) 04:53, 15 July 2011 (UTC)

Student-generated open notebook data

Should the student-generated data found at an open source notebook be used as a source of data in the infoboxes for our chemical articles? (example for benzoic acid used as a source for non-aqueous solubility at benzoic acid.) My conclusion is that it does not meet Wikipedia's criteria outlined at WP:RS. What do others think? ChemNerd (talk) 18:15, 12 July 2011 (UTC)

I respect the good faith of those who collected these data, but my view is an emphatic no way that such data would admissable as a reliable source in the Chemistry portion of Wikipedia. What next? (Sarcastic example: Data from the notebooks of the fluoride Action Network on the in-efficacy of water fluoridation.) Often, even a primary journal citation is not good enough, we prefer secondary sources for certain data. --Smokefoot (talk) 19:12, 12 July 2011 (UTC)
I completely agree with ChemNerd & Smokefoot, and my concerns would be compounded if a student or students who helped generate the data are the ones who are citing their own work. In any event, Wikipedia's NPOV is best supported by reliable sources that are consistent with the criteria mentioned above. "Just say no" to student-generated data found at an open source notebook. --USEPA James (talk) 14:18, 14 July 2011 (UTC)

David Meerman Scott

It appears the information under under the section Town Hall At The Whitehouse in the article David Meerman Scott is sourced from unreliable sources, which, the editor User:Woz2 seems to disagree. See discussion here.

The video clip is indisputably the President of the United States answering questions at the town hall hosted by Twitter. I found a better posting of the clip. http://www.whitehouse.gov/blog/2011/07/07/president-obama-twitter-town-hall-economy-jobs-deficit-and-space-exploration#vseek403 Click on the third link or seek to 6:44 Woz2 (talk) 13:14, 13 July 2011 (UTC)
See also the discussion here Woz2 (talk) 12:40, 14 July 2011 (UTC)

AALBC.com The African American Literature Book Club

The particular page in question has been http://reviews.aalbc.com/karrine_steffans_2007.htm, this was used as a source for birth date and may be used as a source for the author's personal background as detailed in her BLP Karrine Steffans and includes an original interview with the author. Are there any opinions that this is suitable as a source for a BLP as it has recently been removed on unclear grounds? Thanks Fæ (talk) 11:17, 14 July 2011 (UTC)

Reliability of a genealogy that is sort self-published

Silas Bent (judge) is an article that I created a few days ago but have not got round to expanding. CaroleHenson has been digging around and over the last couple of days has been able to expand it significantly, which in normal circumstances is A Good Thing.

My concern is that heavy use is made of a book by Allen Bent, published 1900 - The Bent family in America: Being mainly a genealogy of the descendants of John Bent who settled in Sudbury, Mass., in 1638, with notes upon the family in England and elsewhere. GBooks link. I saw this book mentioned when I started out and discarded it because (a) more modern works insist that it has the wrong date of birth for Silas, and (b) at least one more modern work insisted that it was wrong to say that the guy's father had been involved in the Boston Tea Party, although someone in the family may have been. The latter argument against accuracy, made by Grinnell, was stated and cited in the article when I created it but has now been written out.

The book is written by a direct descendant of the family, appears (inevitably) to be based on his own knowledge and is from a publisher that I, for one, have not come across before. The counter-argument is that more modern writers apparently cite it and the reflect what it says. From what I have seen, those cites were mostly vague and sometimes existed to deny the accuracy of it, as noted above.

So, should it be treated as a reliable source, a self-published source, as near as dammit a primary source or what? I am aware that various viewpoints can be stated in an article and will resort to that if necessary. Views would be much appreciated.

I should add that CaroleHenson and myself get on ok. This is not some major drama between editors! - Sitush (talk) 20:57, 14 July 2011 (UTC)

I dont normally work on biographies but I did create one on an ancestor of my own and came across similar problems (Warinus de la Strode). Since I worked on it alone and didnt have other viewpoints I will state what I did when I came across a similar problem–if something from a source was proven to be incorrect on a particular matter by a more modern source I did not use the older source at all for that particular matter. But I never threw out the baby with the bathwater, alot of times the olde source did still have some relevant material, that even if in the future it is also found to be incorrect, it hadnt been found incorrect by any other published works (we are verifiable, not truth after all). Per WP:RS a reliable source is reliable for what is non-controversially "true", it can be reliable for parts and not the whole; a source doesnt have to get EVERYTHING right in order to be reliable.Camelbinky (talk) 21:08, 14 July 2011 (UTC)
Agreed. If a part of an older source is proven wrong by a modern source, then just replace that part, but that doesn't mean that the rest of the information in the older source is wrong. It's just likely that new information has come up in the meantime that proved otherwise for that specific part. SilverserenC 21:33, 14 July 2011 (UTC)
Thank you, both. My recent area of activity has been mostly in the highly contentious realm of India-related articles and in those I have found that the optimum solution is often to present contrary (reliably sourced) views in the body of the text. In this instance, I am unsure whether it is necessary to discard one view for another, present both in the text or whether the best approach might be to footnote the older, potentially less accurate/COI view. This particular situation is not assisted by the fact that I cannot view the entire source on GBooks, but I suspect that I'll find it on archive.org or hathitrust tomorrow, given the year of publication. I am afraid that I am one of those people who likes to see context. Any comments on this or indeed on anything said previously would be welcome. I would stress that none of this is intended as a criticism of CaroleHenson, wo has done much good work. In fact, I am hoping to be able to add a note to the article talk page, pointing to this discussion in order to head off any such debate in the future. Strike while the iron is hot and my memory is still functioning etc. The Bent source has the potential to be used across a wide range of articles. - Sitush (talk) 23:29, 14 July 2011 (UTC)
It seems there's already an opinion here.
For what it's worth, I disagree with the characterization of the use of this particular source - and the extent to which there is information different than other sources. The one difference was noted in the "notes" section of the article regarding one date of birth (and it's not clear what is accurate, but I noted the difference). Not knowing about this thread, I addressed the other issue about "the father" on my talk page with a number of sources verifying the data. There was a train of thought for using the source including: consistent information with other sources (except one date of birth) and the book was often cited in other solid, often quoted books about the Bent family members of interest.--CaroleHenson (talk) 01:54, 15 July 2011 (UTC)

Peter Sprigg

Are either of these two sources WP:RS for the claim that Peter Sprigg "has argued that gay marriage is not an issue of civil rights"?

  1. Ham, Ken (2007). Darwin's Plantation: Evolution's Racist Roots. Green Forest: Master Books. p. 174. ISBN 0890514976.
    • Ham and his Answers in Genesis organisation has a long history of quote-mining, so I would not think that he'd be a reliable source, even for a quote.
  2. Stockland, Patricia (2007). Same-Sex Marriage. Abdo Publishing Company. p. 24. ISBN 159928863X.
    • A "Young Adult" book written by an author whose main qualification appears to be being a rightwing 'Culture Warrior'.

Both appear to be, at best WP:QSs, so should not be used for claims about third parties.

I'm not disputing that it is most-probably true that Sprigg holds this position -- but I was under the impression that my opinion that it is true is insufficient, that the information must have "already been published by a reliable source". HrafnTalkStalk(P) 08:37, 13 July 2011 (UTC)

It's irrelevant. Both books provide a quote from Sprigg, and three seconds of Googling got me primary sources which confirm that Sprigg said these things. Roscelese (talk ⋅ contribs) 05:51, 15 July 2011 (UTC)
The original FRC piece no longer exists on their website, and none of the other online sources for it seem particularly reliable. HrafnTalkStalk(P) 06:14, 15 July 2011 (UTC)
Google has the cached version. Roscelese (talk ⋅ contribs) 06:19, 15 July 2011 (UTC)
Is a Google cache a reliable source? Or more importantly is it one that's not going to whortly evaporate? HrafnTalkStalk(P) 13:37, 15 July 2011 (UTC)
I don't see a reason why it would be any less reliable than the page it's caching; sources don't have to be online, so if it evaporates, we're fine as long as we've properly cited the original document. Roscelese (talk ⋅ contribs) 16:24, 15 July 2011 (UTC)
But they have to be published -- can a document that only ever had existence online, and whose only reliable online copies either no longer exists, or soon won't exist, be considered to be "published" in any meaningful way? This would appear to be a fundamental difference between online-only documents and online copies of deadtree-published documents. HrafnTalkStalk(P) 17:28, 15 July 2011 (UTC)
Online-only sources can absolutely be highly reliable. I saw recently that a UK government department is no longer producing its research reports in paper format, while they are all available to download free. I don't know quite how it works, but I understand that there are always caches to find documents that may be taken offline. I really hope that editors will pay attention to giving full bibliographic details of online documents. For example, someday the UK government department may be reorganised, the website may be completely restructured. So long as there is a report title, authors, ISBN number etc., it should be quick work to track the document down. Itsmejudith (talk) 17:52, 15 July 2011 (UTC)

Emme (model)

This biography of Emme is nearly identical to the biography that was left on my talk page by someone who claims to be the subject of the article. So, can I use the PBS.org link as a source? I'm not feeling really good about it but figured I'd ask. Thanks, Dismas|(talk) 20:25, 13 July 2011 (UTC)

I think the source is reliable enough. I dont see any reason to doubt the reliability--Misconceptions2 (talk) 21:43, 13 July 2011 (UTC)
PBS is fine; in this instance, whether or not the user claims to be the subject is irrelevant. (If they're causing problems at the article, that's an issue for COI noticeboard.) Roscelese (talk ⋅ contribs) 05:48, 15 July 2011 (UTC)
Thanks to you both! Dismas|(talk) 03:36, 16 July 2011 (UTC)

CNET

Is this a reliable source?

--Hm2k (talk) 14:07, 15 July 2011 (UTC)

CNET is definitely notable, and the writer is a staff writer, so that looks good. Does it have an editorial staff? If so, than it is fine.--3family6 (talk) 14:41, 15 July 2011 (UTC)
Just to quibble with the above opinion, a source doesn't have to be notable to be reliable. But CNET is both, and this is a good source for IT news. Itsmejudith (talk) 17:46, 15 July 2011 (UTC)
...And, it does have an editorial staff: [12] Siawase (talk) 17:51, 15 July 2011 (UTC)

Battle of Brega–Ajdabiya road

To avoid starting edit war, I´ve added this sentence into article: At evening Press TV reported that rebel forces have finally managed to capture Brega. based on this [13] The Libyan revolutionary forces on Friday captured Brega, some 800 kilometers (500 miles) east of Tripoli, a Press TV correspondent reported. Yet it edit was reverted by several users based on claim that Press TV is not WP:RS. Is it? --EllsworthSK (talk) 22:40, 15 July 2011 (UTC)

CNN, BBC News, ABC news, etc all confirm, and even the rebels themselves, that the fight for Brega is still on and the town is not captured. They also confirmed that the initial attack from yesterday faltered. A rebel spokesman tonight confirmed that a small recon force of rebels managed to breach Brega from the north but pulled back quickly to prepare for a new offensive at dawn. The town has not been captured and Press TV is known to make unreliable statements in the past specificly on this conflict. EkoGraf (talk) 00:34, 16 July 2011 (UTC)

Sources Dispute

Hi, there is currently a dispute regarding certain sources on the article Green Brigade. The article is about a football supporters group, who model themselves on European Ultras groups. There has been extensive discussion and disagreements between editors here. It goes on for quite some time so I will not pick out any responses or exact points.

The first source disputed is from the website ultratos with the exact source to the green brigade part of the website here to back up this statement in the article, this is mainly done through their large, colourful displays, often known as tifos

The other sources in question refer to youtube more specifically what has been described as the green brigades official youtube site here. To back up this in the article, Two other areas of the Green Brigade's support are their use of smoke bombs and flares[6] as well as corteos

There was also a dispute over the use of the emerald city supporters group website in this source to back up information about ultras groups.

Hopefully that’s some context to the sources and the dispute and would welcome replies. Thanks. Monkeymanman (talk) 13:22, 15 July 2011 (UTC)

The YouTube issue is a tough one. If it can be proven that the YouTube channel is the official channel then it could be used as a primary source. However, the community has been very strict on verification that it truly is official (to the point that common sense is not the acceptable standard).
For the specific lines being sourced by YouTube, a couple lines are not overdoing use of a primary source. But, "The group try to model themselves on European ultras groups[4] this is mainly done through their large, colourful displays, often known as tifos.[5]" Reads a littl like original research. Has a secondary source discussed this? And "The Green Brigade are also known for using banners to display messages. Two other areas of the Green Brigade's support are their use of smoke bombs and flares[6]" has a couple concerns. Are they really known for it? The primary source does not and cannot verify such a self-serving line. I do think that the second part "Two other areas of the Green Brigade's support are their use of smoke bombs and flares[6]" is acceptable if the channel is deemed OK.
The main issue is not YouTube but that it might read like a fan-page/promotional-mirror-of-their-webpage. This is going to raise issues. Try finding the info in secondary RS just to prove that the info is worthy of inclusion and to get other editors to not be overly skeptical.
More of my thoughts on YouTube can be found at WP:VIDEOLINK. Most of it is from previous discussions and existing guidelines. SPcifically I would like to point to "Any interpretation of primary source material requires a reliable secondary source for that interpretation. This prevents editors from engaging in original research. A primary source may only be used to make descriptive statements that can be verified by any educated person without specialist knowledge. Editors should not use a video as a citation to present their own interpretation of its content." Also see WP:PRIMARY.Cptnono (talk) 00:35, 17 July 2011 (UTC)

Source Assessment

Hello! Recently, at the page for militant atheism, a source from the BioLogos Foundation was removed. Please click the difference to see the context in which it was used. Ian H. Hutchinson, a professor of nuclear science and engineering at MIT, elaborated his views on New Atheism in relation to militant atheism, and the explanatory text surrounding the video was used as a source for the material in the Wikipedia article. According to WP:RS, "Some news outlets host interactive columns they call blogs, and these may be acceptable as sources so long as the writers are professional journalists or are professionals in the field on which they write and the blog is subject to the news outlet's full editorial control." As such, I feel that the material and reference is fine in the context in which it was presented in the Wikipedia article. I would highly appreciate if some individuals here could kindly assess whether the source has a place in the article. Thanks in advance. With regards, AnupamTalk 22:47, 15 July 2011 (UTC)

Context is important, Anupam; I'll list the objections mentioned repeatedly on the talk page. 1) Biologos is a not a news outlet. 2) Biologos is a Christian advocacy group, according to their about page "BioLogos explores, promotes, and celebrates the integration of science and Christian faith." 3) Ian Hutchinson is not a professional journalist or a professional in the field. His blog post is about religion, but he's a professor of engineering. 4) This is a primary source with no notability.   — Jess· Δ♥ 07:48, 16 July 2011 (UTC)
Yup. Christian organization claims that questioning the tenets of Christianity is equivalent to forcibly converting and murdering people = dog bites man. Since it wasn't picked up by a reliable source, and since Hutchinson has no expertise in the subject, there's no reason to include it. Note that Anupam's quotation of the news blog policy is faulty since this is not a news blog. Roscelese (talk ⋅ contribs) 17:08, 16 July 2011 (UTC)

Facebook should be a Reliable Source

What if Facebook is somethings Offical website. Since Wiki say it can't be a source how can we make a reference or link the topic User:EastBelfastBoy

Chances are, anything notable enough to require an "official website" link is going to have more of a web presence than a Facebook page, to be fair. GRAPPLE X 00:40, 16 July 2011 (UTC)
Wikipedia doesn't blanket exclude Facebook as a source, but it may not be straight forward or easy to use it in an encyclopedic manner. WP:SOCIALMEDIA covers this specifically. WP:SPS and WP:PRIMARY may also apply. You may also need a WP:SECONDARY source that falls under WP:RS to confirm that the Facebook account belongs to the entitity in question. Material only found on Facebook is also likely to fall on WP:WEIGHT. Siawase (talk) 00:50, 16 July 2011 (UTC)
Facebook is rarely if ever a reliable source. Each notional use of a Facebook page as a reference must be carefully considered regarding its verifiability, regarding who wrote it. Only an expert source should be considered reliable. Binksternet (talk) 22:22, 16 July 2011 (UTC)

nickandmore.com

There have been a number of users, primarily new editors and IPs adding reference that use http://www.nickandmore.com as a source. Nickandmore is hosted by toonzone.net which is of dubious reliability and the "about" page for nickandmore.com doesn't fill me with a lot of confidence.[14] Most of the references seem base on content posted to the nickandmore forums, with Travis Yanan (not his real name) appearing frequently, while some are third hand copies from tvbythenumbers. A couple of the sources used as refs are [15] and [16] but the editors adding the refs often malform them and they end up being unusable anyway. I was wondering wht the opinions of others are regarding this site. --AussieLegend (talk) 09:48, 16 July 2011 (UTC)

I'm not seeing any indication that nickandmore.com fulfills the criteria for WP:RS. If the examples you give are typical, it might be possible to source the ratings to another site. On the other hand, if the ratings aren't mentioned in secondary sources, they might fall under WP:NOT or WP:UNDUE. Siawase (talk) 20:57, 17 July 2011 (UTC)

Spanky and Our Gang and sources

We are seeking help in assessing the reliability of a book being used in support of statements regarding the history of 60's folk-rock group Spanky and Our Gang. Some changes in the possible causes of death of guitarist Malcolm Hale were recently proposed by User:Pinkadelica, each with supporting references [17]. I disagreed with two of these possible causes (walking pneumonia and cirrhosis) and removed them, claiming that the following book supporting their inclusion is a questionable source: The Encyclopedia of Dead Rock Stars: Heroin, Handguns, and Ham Sandwiches by Jeremy Simmonds published by Chicago Review Press. p. 23. (ISBN 1-556-52754-3). My initial objection was primarily that the book had no external references. Pinkadelica disagreed that the book was a questionable source and posted on the Reliable sources/Noticeboard to seek other opinions. One response indicated that a book does not have to include citations for it to be considered reliable. In my view the book is nevertheless questionable for reasons I give below, and we are waiting for some additional opinions on this source to try and resolve this. Statements regarding Hale's cause of death in the article have been removed until this matter can be cleared up.

Wikipedia notes that questionable sources (WP:QS) are those with a poor reputation for checking the facts, or lacking meaningful editorial oversight. I am questioning the author's or editor's fact checking, at least in the portion devoted to Hale. The article in the book that describes Hale and his cause of death is only 237 words long, covering one third of a 7 x 9 inch page. Three errors arise in this very short article. A couple of them are minor errors. Hale did not die at his apartment, as stated in the book, but at the home of a friend. This is a minor error and it might be a hard one to check, making it probably not a good test for diligence in fact checking. But another error is the name of the group’s biggest hit and Top Ten single, Sunday Will Never Be The Same, which is given in the book as Sunday Will Never Be The Same Again. Although perhaps a minor error, it would have been extremely easy to fact-check. So easy that one might suspect that fact checking had not been done. A third error is really inexcusable, identifying Hale as the group’s guitarist and drummer. Hale was never a drummer. This remarkable error also would have been extremely easy to check. In my view these observations are good evidence that fact checking was extremely lax or was not carried out, indicating that the source is questionable according to Wikipedia guidelines (WP:QS). I believe that the book is therefore unsuitable to support the claim that Hale’s death has been ascribed to walking pneumonia and cirrhosis. Hale’s death certificate attributes the cause of death to bronchopneumonia, and makes no mention of walking pneumonia or cirrhosis. As the deceased’s brother I have access to this death certificate but not everyone does, so I cannot use it as a source.

It should be noted that If the cited book is deemed to be a reliable source some might argue that Hale’s role as a drummer should be added to the article. Emhale (talk) 15:22, 17 July 2011 (UTC)

Even without all the mistakes, it would be very questionable as a reliable source—not because of the lack of footnotes, but because the author is not a known authority as far as I can see. The book looks more like a casual entertainment book than a serious academic resource on rock history. With all of the obvious mistakes, the book clearly fails "fact-checking and accuracy". Another, more reliable source, would surely be needed to support those claims. First Light (talk) 21:36, 17 July 2011 (UTC)

Can someone help me/this new editor?

User:Bokan995 (edit | talk | history | links | watch | logs) has created a new article, King Manisarus. There were/are some copyvio problems with text or image but that can be easily sorted. The editor earlier added some sources to forums and blogs and I removed those, posting to his talk page explaining why. He's now added some new references and external links which flummox me a bit as most don't seem to mention the subject of the article (and one is another forum). If someone could look at [18] and tell me if I've missed something that makes sense of these links I'd appreciate it. I'll tell the editor about this dicussion. Thanks. Dougweller (talk) 15:37, 17 July 2011 (UTC)

I checked the references. They are not related to the article!--Aliwiki (talk) 15:55, 17 July 2011 (UTC)
(edit conflict) I'm having the same problem -- none of the sources seem to mention him (though I cannot be certain they don't do so with a variant spelling). Also christianislamicforum.wordpress.com does not seem to be a WP:RS.
I'm finding very little, and most of it inaccessible. A guy did exist of that name and era -- but the details aren't clear as yet.HrafnTalkStalk(P) 15:57, 17 July 2011 (UTC)
And he's ignored my post about not using blogs and my more recent post asking him to come here, and added a new blog as a source. Dougweller (talk) 16:32, 17 July 2011 (UTC)
Digging deeper and looking at [{Corduene]] as well (where he was king), there's also some Kurdish nationalism going on here. Dougweller (talk) 18:28, 17 July 2011 (UTC)

Misr news agency

Is the Mirs news agency a rs? I don't know enough about the region or language to determine if it is or not. --Cameron Scott (talk) 16:03, 17 July 2011 (UTC)

It is "Misr news agency". Misr is Arabic for Egypt. Otherwise I cannot find anything about them. TFD (talk) 16:44, 17 July 2011 (UTC)

Opps yes, I've corrected it - nope I can't find anything either. --Cameron Scott (talk) 16:47, 17 July 2011 (UTC)

I am looking at [19] --Greenmaven (talk) 17:14, 17 July 2011 (UTC)

It is difficult to establish a news agency as reliable. One step is to see if others include news items from the agency. Here are a few of such links to Misr News Agency:
These are the only two I have found, so far. DonaldRichardSands (talk) 18:27, 17 July 2011 (UTC)
We need an experienced Wikipedia editor who understands Egypt and Arabic. DonaldRichardSands (talk) 18:29, 17 July 2011 (UTC)

The Weather Channel

For at least the second time today I have come across blatantly incorrect climate information in city articles cited to The Weather Channel. From what I gather, a great deal of city articles use TWC as a source for climate data for {{Weather box}}. Two examples of my having to correct incorrect TWC data with an official NOAA source (in these cases on record high and low temperatures) are here and here. Another example not yet corrected with an official source is Wichita Falls, Texas, with the Weather Channel data cited for both monthly averages and records. Comparing this to the official source (click on the X's in the "Daily/Monthly Temperature" row and then scroll to the bottom row to view that month's data), it appears like happened in the Salina, Kansas and Oklahoma City, Oklahoma articles I linked TWC's data is incorrect. Another example I found was Houston, TX. I'm rather unsure what to do because of the rather widespread use on Wikipedia of TWC climate data despite the fact that it has shown itself many times to be inaccurate compared to official NOAA sources, and so I'm bringing it here for discussion. Ks0stm (T•C•G) 00:52, 18 July 2011 (UTC)

Do you know what TWC uses as a source for its data? --Nuujinn (talk) 01:19, 18 July 2011 (UTC)
According to an FAQ (question 27) they use NOAA's 30 year, 1971-2000 averages and records, which explains why their averages match NOAA's (30 year averages from 1971-2000 are used by NOAA) but their records are incorrect (NOAA uses records for the climate station's entire period of record, rather than the 1971-2000 data only). Ks0stm (T•C•G) 01:35, 18 July 2011 (UTC)
Interesting. What I would do is contact TWC and ask them about it, since if they acknowledge a mistake and change the FAQ, the conflict is resolved and WP will fix itself over time. But I think NOAA is clearly a reliable source, and if TWC says they are using NOAA data, good faith changes in the data and the reference would be fine, so long as they are not challenged. And if they are, discussion on the talk page would be appropriate. --Nuujinn (talk) 02:06, 18 July 2011 (UTC)

Media Spy / The Spy Report

I'm seeing about 300 links citing http://www.mediaspy.org/ and http://www.mediaspy.org/report/ as sources. I'm not persuaded this site meets WP:RS and I think the existing cites should probably be removed. The citing of blog posts and forum discussion threads is especially dodgy, but I don't think even the more conventional news pieces are suitable as sources to be cited in Wikipedia articles. The site admins use pseudonyms, the site solicits donations to pay its webhosting bill, there are "writers wanted" threads in the discussion forums: I think a good deal of the content is for all intents and purposes WP:SPS or at any rate falls short of WP:RS in that it doesn't appear to me to be a "reliable, third-party, published source[] with a reputation for fact-checking and accuracy" and suitable editorial oversight. I'd appreciate others' opinions. -- Rrburke (talk) 02:29, 18 July 2011 (UTC)

Andromaqi Gjergji

I have serious doubts about the reliability of this source [20]. It is being used to push a typical nationalist/protochronist POV [21], namely that the Fustanella, a late medieval Albanian garment (c. 14th century), descends from the Illyrians, an obscure ancient people who disappear from the historical record about 7 centuries earlier. In my experience many Albanian authors claim that just about anything you can imagine has an Illyrian origin, so I am somewhat skeptical of the source. I have no idea what kind of publishing house Mesonjetorje is, and the source is difficult to view online and most libraries don't have it. From what little I can discern online, it contains spelling errors [22] ("for horseman") and boilerplate nationalist POV [23] ("our Illyrian ancestor"). Any input would be greatly appreciated. Athenean (talk) 06:01, 6 July 2011 (UTC)

I'm guessing that this was written a while ago, under Enver Hoxha's rule, and only recently translated. If you click on the author's name in Google Books, you find one publication as far back as 1966. It reads to me like someone trying to do proper scholarship but having to comply with the party line, a line that is about as useful to us today as Lysenkoism. The publishing house may be the main Albanian history publisher. It has two recent books with sensible titles listed by the Council of Europe, as part of a listing of partner publishers. References to Illyrians aren't usable, as this kind of scholarship is now superseded. Itsmejudith (talk) 06:32, 6 July 2011 (UTC)
Wow, I had no idea. Typical Hoxha-era protochronism, then. Thanks you very much for your help. Athenean (talk) 07:18, 6 July 2011 (UTC)

(unindent) Hold on you guys. There are other parameters for judging the reliability of an author.

Opinions by other scholars on the author include:

  • The well-known Albanian ethnologist, Andromaqi Gjergji link
  • Andromaqi Gjergji, a well-known and well-respected ethnologist link
  • Andromaqi Gjergji, an authority on Albanian dress link
  • The leading expert on costume of her country link

That fulfills WP:RS parameters. No offend on the users above, but I see no argument by their part, just prejudices. Aigest (talk) 08:46, 6 July 2011 (UTC)

It seems that this is another weird remnant of old stalinist Albania. Apart from the major pov issues the users eager to add this book can't even give the precise quotes to verify the specific claims. Instead of giving at least the appropriate snippets the explanation they give is really poor and aggresive, proving that they can't find the specific parts anywhere[[24]].Alexikoua (talk) 18:54, 6 July 2011 (UTC)


Are there any arguments here? Saying that she is some kind of communist professor(she wasn't even a member of the party) isn't an argument at all. Aigest brought some arguments related to what wikipedia defines as reliable. Among others her papers were published by the Victoria and Albert Museum in 1983. If we go by Alexikoua's opinion VAM was collaborating with unreliable Hoxhists.--Kushtrim123 (talk) 19:44, 6 July 2011 (UTC)
Aigest's arguments are besides the point, and I don't expect anyone to respond to them. The point is clear: Hoxha-era sources should not be used for references to the Illyrians. First, because "Illyrian continuity" was the party line and no author would dare cross that, second because that was 30 years ago and we have much better scholarship. Read Itsmejudith's comment once again, particularly the last line. What's the point of going to WP:RSN if you guys aren't going to accept the result anyway? Athenean (talk) 19:46, 6 July 2011 (UTC)
Why are Aigest's arguments besides the point? Judith didn't really bring anything forward that proves that she's unreliable. Why are her colleagues considering her an expert and why at the same time she was a Hoxhist she was getting in published by the Victoria and Albert Museum? I don't mind restarting the discussion until someone replies with arguments.--Kushtrim123 (talk) 20:05, 6 July 2011 (UTC)
It seems like the publication in question dates 2004. I don't understand at all Albanian, but using google translator, it seems like Andromaki Gjergji received a prize in her city of birth in 2010 (link)? That would make her alive in 2004, at the year of publication. Why is her work during communist Albania being discussed if the publication dates 2004, a year when she was alive and taking full responsibility of her work? If that is the case, accepting her as a source shouldn't be that hard, since she seems to be a leading authority in her field. And one cannot blame all the scholars of Eastern Europe for having studied, worked, and produced scientific results during the communist era, at least I don't think this is anywhere in wikipedia's policies.Divide et Impera (talk) 22:12, 6 July 2011 (UTC)
The 2004 publication is an English translation of the Albanian-language original from 1988 Veshjet shqiptare në shekuj: origjina Tipologjia zhvillimi , during the years of the communist regime in Albania. This regime impelled scholars to prove "Illyrian continuity" and no scholars would cross it [25]. I thus remain skeptical of communist era sources that claim this or that is of Illyrian provenance. Athenean (talk) 22:28, 6 July 2011 (UTC)
As I said earlier, the source comes from 2004, when Gjergji could express herself freely, and was free of political burdens, so you may not brand the source as a "communist era" one: the translation in English couldn't have been made without her consent. What you are blaming her about is to have been a scholar even earlier than 1989. This is not a valid argument.
Wikipedia policies are that all the scholars' views be presented, so if there are scholars that would disagree with her, their views should be presented as well. A confrontation of the views usually produces the best results in terms of article quality.Divide et Impera (talk) 22:43, 6 July 2011 (UTC)
The original scholarship for the book was conducted in 1970s and 1980s, during the Hoxha era. As such, it heavily dated and obsolete. The 2004 publication is just a translation, there is no new scholarship. We have better sources on the Illyrians now, many sources. If there is merit to the claim being made about the fustanella, it shouldn't be that hard to find even just one contemporary western source that backs it. Yet I can't find a single one. Clearly a minority view, and since it's from the communist era, I am even less convinced. Athenean (talk) 22:58, 6 July 2011 (UTC)
How do you know when the original scholarship was conducted, and why do you think that the author did not revise the 2004 version? She keeps, afterall, the copyrights, and she qualifies as RS, because she is an expert in the field. And how do you decide that Gjergji is still "affected" by Lysenkoism, 15 years after the fall of communism, when she, herself was never a member of the party, even when Albania was a dictatorship? Besides, it seems like the fustanella is a national costume of the Albanians, don't you think that silencing the major Albanian ethnographist would be equivalent with breaching the NPOV pillar of wikipedia?Divide et Impera (talk) 15:38, 7 July 2011 (UTC)

(unindent)This debate is not about personal conviction but on RS parameters. Since you are bringing the case of Illyrians here, John Wilkes The Illyrians The Peoples of Europe Author John Wilkes Edition illustrated, reprint Publisher Wiley-Blackwell, 1995 ISBN 0631198075, 9780631198079 (here) and Aleksander Stipcevic The Illyrians: history and culture History and Culture Series Author Aleksandar Stipčević Editor Aleksandar Stipčević Edition illustrated Publisher Noyes Press, 1977 ISBN 0815550529, 9780815550525(here) (which are both leading experts on Illyrians and whose works are used as bases on Illyrians articles on wikipedia) have no problem of using A. Gjergji on their books. I don't see why there is such a resistance from Athenean and Alex on that issue. We are not here deciding the truth, just write what is written in RS sources and Andromaqi Gjergji fulfills those parameters, simple as that. Aigest (talk) 08:08, 7 July 2011 (UTC)

I don't get why we're getting so hung up on the fact that Gjergji worked during Hoxha's time. Most of the Lysenkoism that Judith talked about would be applied to Party history. I'm sure it would have been easier to say that the Albanians could be of other origin than Illyrian than to say that Mit'hat Frashëri was actually a patriot who served his country well. (As a matter of fact, Albanian scholars worked with Romanians scholars on the possible Dacian-Albanian connection.) The fact that they adopted Illyrian origins is hardly a communist manifestation, but a reflection of the dominant view of the time: modern Albanians are descended from the Illyrians. There are still scholars today who accept this as a viable theory ([26]).--Gaius Claudius Nero (talk) 14:05, 7 July 2011 (UTC)
I agree that generally speaking Wikipedians should not be the ones deciding that someone is a bad source because of the country they lived in or the regime they live under. The aim of the people discussing this source should be to prove or disprove that this author is cited and taken seriously by experts in the field, because they are our reference point.--Andrew Lancaster (talk) 07:54, 8 July 2011 (UTC)
So what do you think about Gjergji's reliability?--Kushtrim123 (talk) 20:43, 8 July 2011 (UTC)
I know nothing about this. But I see that one correspondent here has taken the time to show that she is cited here and there, and that is promising.--Andrew Lancaster (talk) 17:23, 9 July 2011 (UTC)

If Gjergji's scholarship has found acceptance, it should not be too hard to find other reliable references corrobating his views, should it? If this is not the case, he should be dropped as dubious. Gun Powder Ma (talk) 02:18, 10 July 2011 (UTC)

Everything said above corroborates my initial impression: an important scholar but working under the restrictions of state-nationalist ideology. Being willing to investigate possible Romanian-Albanian links is obviously clearly in line with the official Albanian line of the time. This author may well be reliable for details about Albanian folk culture, but the insistence on Illyrian origins of cultural forms is speculative ethnic boosterism out of sync with the best recent work and should be ignored. Itsmejudith (talk) 20:26, 10 July 2011 (UTC)
I see that in this debate actually none except me is providing reference for backing his claims on this specific author. Itsmejudith insists that the author can not be used on Illyrian related articles, but keeps ignoring the fact that leading experts on Illyrians have used the work of this author in their books:
  1. The Illyrians The Peoples of Europe Author John Wilkes Edition illustrated, reprint Publisher Wiley-Blackwell, 1995 ISBN 0631198075, 9780631198079 p-228-229) Wilkes speaks about Illyrian dresses and the reference is note 12 where we can see that the references he uses for that topic are "Note 12. Stipcevic 1977a, 86-90, Cresmonik 1963, 1964(native dress on Roman relief sculpture in Bosnia-Hervegovina), Isidore of Seville, Etymologies 19.22, 9 (dalmatic), Terzan 1984b (dress and society), Gjergji 1971 (Albanian continuity of Illyrian dress), Jubani 1970."
  2. The Illyrians: history and culture History and Culture Series Author Aleksandar Stipčević Editor Aleksandar Stipčević Edition illustrated Publisher Noyes Press, 1977 ISBN 0815550529, 9780815550525 here points exactly "Note 43. On the subject of the remains of this costume in the folk-costumes of present-day Albania, see Gjergji, "Element vestimentaires communs des tribus illyriennes et leur continuation dans nos costumes populaire," Illyriens, pp. 152-153." The same author Stipcevic in his book on Illyrians claims that "Ethnologists too, studying the very rich material, have found in it a series of elements which have descended directly from prehistoric Illyrian heritage. Particularly numerous are traces of Illyrian costume in present day-day Albanian national costume(102)" while the reference 102 used says "note 102 Franz Nopsca had also observed that in the national Albanian costume there exist some ancient features dating from prehistoric times. See his work "Prinosi starijoj povijesti eleverne Albanija GZ m 22(1910) 347.54. More recently some Albanian ethnologists have dealt with this problem, cf . A. Gjergji, "Elements communs dans l'habillements des tribus illyriennes et leur continuation dans nos costumes populaires," Illyriens, pp. 151-71; ..." link
I want to point out that both Wilkes and Stipcevic are considered leading experts on Illyrians and they are used constantly on Illyrians article in wikipedia and everything related to that topic in wiki.
User:Itsmejudith claims that A. Gjergji is "an important scholar but working under the restrictions of state-nationalist ideology..... This author may well be reliable for details about Albanian folk culture, but the insistence on Illyrian origins of cultural forms is speculative ethnic boosterism out of sync with the best recent work.." but nothing in scholar work support Judith claim on this specific author. Let's see
  1. None of the experts on Illyrians above (Wilkes and Stipcevic) is an Albanian and I don't see how their work could be described as "speculative ethnic boosterism". They have not worked under "the restrictions of state-nationalist ideology" however they use Gjergji work and even support her claims(see above links).
  2. We have a direct description on A. Gjergji claims and values in recent publications, which contradict totally what user:Itsmejudith claims. Actually when published scholars speak on A.Gjergji work, they claim that "..This in turn enables her to demonstrate which regions of Albania were deeply influenced by neighbouring cultures and which revealed distinctly separate Albanian cultural characteristics "not found elsewhere". She concludes that, far from developing in isolation, there are indications in these specific areas of prehistoric Albano-Illyrian cultural origins. The strength of Gjergjis's case lies in its multidisciplinary approach, which overrides any nationalistic assumptions. Every piece of the ethnic puzzle is carefully put in place to create a whole picture... " The study of dress history Studies in design and material culture Studies in Design Author Lou Taylor Edition illustrated Publisher Manchester University Press, 2002 ISBN 0719040655, 9780719040658 p.53
  3. The same claims on the link of dresses "fustanella-Albanians-Illyrians" have been done independently of A.Gjergji work, by other authors as of 2009 "...fustanella, was common dress form men in the thirteenth century when it was worn by Dalmatians, one of the Illyrian progenitors of the Albanians. The historical and etymological roots of the fustanella, however, date back to the days of Rome, when the Albanian or Illyrian kilt became the original pattern for Roman military dress..." The fabric of cultures: fashion, identity, and globalization Author Eugenia Paulicelli Editors Eugenia Paulicelli, Hazel Clark Edition illustrated Publisher Taylor & Francis, 2009 ISBN 0415775426, 9780415775427 p. 148 "
To user:Itsmejudith and others, I have some simple questions that need to be asked and commented
  1. Are John Wilkes and Aleksandar Stipcevic leading experts on Illyrians?
  2. Do they rely on A.Gjergji work in regard to Illyrian clothings?
  3. Is Gjergji work described from recent published scholars as "multidisciplinary approach, which overrides any nationalistic assumptions."?
  4. Do recent and independent works still claim the link fustanella-Illyrans-Albanians, just as A.Gjergji does?
  5. In relation with these facts above what do you think now of A.Gjergji work?Aigest (talk) 10:07, 11 July 2011 (UTC)
Itsmejudith, maybe you are not explaining all your evidence above, so maybe I am under-estimating your argument, but you seem to be literally saying that because this source could be ethnic boosterism, it should be treated as if it definitely is. But do you have any source which calls it this or is this just your own suspicion?--Andrew Lancaster (talk) 13:59, 12 July 2011 (UTC)
Neither Wilkes nor Stipcevic nor anyone else for that matter gives any credence to Gjergji's specific claim about the Illyrian origin of the Fustanella, and it's not hard to see why. She bases her entire claim on two statuettes from the 1st millennium BC, one from Ljubljana and one from Maribor. Aside from the fact that both these places are a thousand kilometers from southern Albania, where the fustanella likely originated, aside from the fact that there is a gap of two millennia (the fustanella dates to the late middle ages, c. 14 century), we know now neither Ljubljana nor Maribor were even Illyrian territory. Ljubljana was part of the territory of the Iapyges, who were formerly thought to be Illyrian but no longer, and Maribor is Celtic territory. Perhaps this wasn't so at the time Gjergji wrote, so at the very least her scholarship is outdated. In other words, we are in WP:FRINGE territory as no other author cites her specific claim about the origin of the fustanella. As for the other source, any source that speaks of Albanians descending from 13th century Illyrian Dalmatians (never mind that Illyrians disappear from the historical record in the 7th century AD) needs to be taken with a huge grain of salt. I wonder how some of the editors participating here would feel if I were to include that kind of info in, say, Origin of the Albanians. Lastly, I note that there is a concerted push by a group of editors to claim that just about every piece of traditional Albanian clothing has an Illyrian origin [27], using falsified sources (previous example) or whatever can be scraped from the bottom of the barrel (current situation). Athenean (talk) 20:32, 12 July 2011 (UTC)
(ignore trolling and attack based on ethnic affinity) Apparently you have not read A.Gjergji Athenean and I think that you either are misinformed or you are misrepresenting the facts.
  1. Maribor was an Illyrian territory before being invaded by Celts here The figurine came from Illyrians sites and has been dated as of Vth century and before the Celtic invasion. For those who are interested further here you can see a picture of figurina found at Maribor (just scroll down because it is down in the page)
  2. The same can be said for Iapydes, which were originally an Illyrian tribe and in which the influence of Celts began in IV th century, so after those "fustanella" which date Vth century BC findings, a century before Celtic invasion( you Athenean say above Iapyges but I assume you mistyped because they were not based in Ljubjana, Slovenia as you claim but in the heel of Italy peninsula and they were part of the Messapii usually linked with Illyrians.
  3. In her book also Gjergji speak of archaeological findings which represent man wearing "fustanella" in Smokthine, (Vlore, South Albania) dated 3-4 century AD and Durrës, (Central Albania), dated 4th century AD.
  4. Summarizing on the origin of fustanella, the author claim that "zoma" of the Greeks and "cinctus" of the Romans differ from "fustanella" in the cutting and the form, the most ancient findings on "fustanella" come from Illyrian sites, they are linked in in the cutting and the form with medieval fustanella, medieval fustanella was documented in use among Albanians, thus the origin(cutting, form, earliest documentation) and continuation (cutting, form, earliest documentation). Aigest (talk) 08:54, 13 July 2011 (UTC)
Who are the real owners of the fustanella?? Zeriyt.com? Seriously now? How exactly does this attest to Gjergji's reliability as a source? How exactly do these ancient statuettes found in Slovenia prove the "Illyrian" origin of a medieval southern Albanian garment (oh I forgot, there is another statuette)? Is Gjergji an archeologist? An Illyrologist? On the other hand, I do encourage everyone here to check out this website, if only so they can familiarize themselves with the kind of mentality we are dealing with here. Incidentally, User:Kushtrim123, the one who started all this has been blocked as a sock of User:I Pakapshem, a well-known nationalist troll that ascribed to the mentality of the piece in zeriyt.com. Athenean (talk) 15:53, 13 July 2011 (UTC)
@Athenean, I think that you are trying to mislead the contributors here. I was telling the others that they could see a picture of the now "famous" Maribor figurina in a website, not that the website should have been used a source, those are your words not mine. Yours is a false claim and I may say an intellectual dishonesty. Responding to your further questions, I may say that she is specialized in dresses and uses archaeologists and Illyrogists data, just like archaeologists and Illyrogists (Stipcevic, Wilkes) use her data in their books. It is not so complicated, if you try to understand that this is the mechanism among academics. I see that you are not bringing any source for backing your claims and you are avoiding my questions on this specific author. From your attitude I can assume that you have no source backing your claims and you are just "assuming" things, while in the other hand we have scholars that declare the opposite. How could you explain this discrepancy between your personal claims here and published literature of several scholars? Aigest (talk) 16:28, 13 July 2011 (UTC)
Oh, I know you aren't trying to use zeriyt.com as a source. It would be funny if you tried. But why frequent such sites? Those images are available elsewhere. If the idea is the hope that out readers read through that 19th century racialist drivel on the way to the image, I can assure it is self-defeating. As for avoidance, you are the one who is avoiding (perhaps because you are unable to find sources?) the question that not a single source takes Gjergji's claim of an Illyrian origin for the Fustanella seriously. Your saturation bombing with useless sources, together with the inability to properly indent your comments, has succeeded in making this thread illegible and impossible to follow. If you must know, that is the reason I didn't notify you when I initiated this RSN, because I knew this is what would eventually happen. So long now. Athenean (talk) 18:52, 13 July 2011 (UTC)
You accused me of using a website as a source for Gjergji's reliability(that was just one of google images search result showing Maribor figurine), while that was not true since I've brought there instead other authors above with related links speaking of Gjergji's work and whose you keep avoiding. Summarizing it means false accusations and lack of references for your claims. Knowing your attitude here in wiki for quite some time, I am not surprised by that. Aigest (talk) 20:27, 13 July 2011 (UTC)
They use Gjergji as sources and where are there any scholars that consider her fringe? Wikipedians can't judge scholars' reliability but their own colleagues. Their opinion is that she's an expert on that field and use her very frequently as a source for their studies. During your absence did you find any scholars that say that Gjergji is unrealible?--Kushtrim123 (talk) 20:50, 12 July 2011 (UTC) 20:43, 12 July 2011 (UTC)
A fringe claim is a fringe claim, we don't necessarily need sources to tell us that. Given the relative obscurity of the subject, it is highly unlikely that anyone would have bothered refuting it. Moreover, the burden of proof is on you to prove that her fustanella claim is taken seriously by experts. That's usually how it goes. Otherwise, anyone could enter whatever fringe claims they wanted, and the community would have to prove that they aren't. It doesn't work like that. Athenean (talk) 21:06, 12 July 2011 (UTC)

(unindent)Athenean, this is Reliable Sources board not Fringe theories board. You should finish your discussion here first and then if you wish we can go to another board. I have claimed that this author fulfills WP:RS conditions as I have stated many times above:

ACADEMIC, PUBLISHED AND CITED:

  • The author Andromaqi Gjergji has studied for history, has a PhD degree and is an academic. Her main work consist on ethnology and costumes and she has written on Albanian and Illyrian dresses also. Some of her books here.
  • She has 693 hits on google books
  • She has 75 hits on google scholar

OPINIONS OF OTHER SCHOLARS ON HER WORK:

ON ILLYRIAN CLOTHINGS CASE:

That fulfills more than enough WP:RS parameters and I am repeating the same question Andrew Lancaster made to user:Itsmejudith above "maybe you are not explaining all your evidence above, so maybe I am under-estimating your argument, but you seem to be literally saying that because this source could be ethnic boosterism, it should be treated as if it definitely is. But do you have any source which calls it this or is this just your own suspicion?" Aigest (talk) 08:54, 13 July 2011 (UTC)

As a general rule Gjergji is reliable for Eastern European folk history. But in her works written under the Hoxha regime some statements may not be reliable. That is just one estimation. There may be some other views among regular commentators here. Itsmejudith (talk) 09:12, 13 July 2011 (UTC)
If I am not wrong you are just assuming that she might not be reliable, but you have no source on that, is that right? In your personal opinion "working under communism=ethnic boosting=not reliable", but what about this scholar opinion "The strength of Gjergjis's case lies in its multidisciplinary approach, which overrides any nationalistic assumptions. Every piece of the ethnic puzzle is carefully put in place to create a whole picture... " The study of dress history Studies in design and material culture Studies in Design Author Lou Taylor Edition illustrated Publisher Manchester University Press, 2002 ISBN 0719040655, 9780719040658 p.53
So published sources from respectable scholars contradict totally your personal opinion on that issue. They describe her work as "overriding any nationalistic assumptions". It seems that according to scholars she can not be accused of ethnic boosting, on the contrary her work is seen as NPOV and her working method is appreciated. It looks that sources maintain that this specific author does not fit in your scheme argument. Do you have any comment on this?
P.S. I would like also you to comment on the facts that I have brought above (with links also) on her respectability, scholar comments on her and use of her work by various authors on clothings and on Illyrians. It had taken me quite a lot of time of finding and bringing them here. It would be nice to spent some words on them also. Aigest (talk) 09:53, 13 July 2011 (UTC)
There is nothing in the above wall of text (which has been pasted here a second time) to suggest that Gjergji is any sort of authority on the Illyrians. Sure, she is a well-known Albanian folklorist but is not an archeologist, nor an Illyrologist or any such thing. As such, her claims regarding the Illyrians need to be treated with caution. This is quite common with sources. Just because a source us reliable for one area doesn't mean it's reliable in others. For example, Fallmerayer could be considered a reliable source in Byzantine studies, but his anthropological musings on the modern Greeks are largely rejected. I think part of the problem is that Aigest is equating "Albanian folklore" with "Illyrian archeology". But these are two completely different disciplines. When Gjergji flatly makes statements such as "our Illyrian ancestors", this is outdated scholarship as best, ethnic boosterism at worst. Athenean (talk) 16:06, 13 July 2011 (UTC)
You are trying to mislead the contributors here. As I have explained above to you I may say that she is specialized in dresses and uses archaeologists and Illyrogists data, just like archaeologists and Illyrogists (Stipcevic, Wilkes) use her data in their books. It is not so complicated, if you try to understand that this is the mechanism among academics. Were Stipcevic and Wilkes (Illyrologist and archeologists) costumologist? No, that's why they use Gjergji work when they speak on Illyrian costumes. I don't know if Stipcevic and Wilkes could be called "Albanian folklore"?! You are also stating that these "Illyrian ancestor" is outdating, but this is another false claim because as of 2009 we have the same claims "...fustanella, was common dress form men in the thirteenth century when it was worn by Dalmatians, one of the Illyrian progenitors of the Albanians. The historical and etymological roots of the fustanella, however, date back to the days of Rome, when the Albanian or Illyrian kilt became the original pattern for Roman military dress..." The fabric of cultures: fashion, identity, and globalization Author Eugenia Paulicelli Editors Eugenia Paulicelli, Hazel Clark Edition illustrated Publisher Taylor & Francis, 2009 ISBN 0415775426, 9780415775427 p. 148
The difference between my claims and your claims Athenean, are published sources. I see that you are not bringing any source for backing your claims and you are avoiding my questions on this specific author. From your attitude I can assume that you have no source backing your claims and you are just "assuming" things, while in the other hand we have scholars that declare the opposite. Your "truth" vs published scholarship truth. How could you explain this discrepancy between your personal claims here and published literature of several scholars? Aigest (talk) 17:00, 13 July 2011 (UTC)


Spare me the condescending, arrogant attitude ("It is not so complicated..."), it is getting tiresome by now, although it is nothing new. You are correct about one thing though, in that I do not have a single source that backs Gjergji's outlandish claim of an Illyrian origin to the Fustanella. Do Wilkes and Stipcevic endorse that claim? I think not. If you cannot see the weakness of Gjergji's case (a couple of statuettes from the first millennium BC for crying out loud), I really don't know what else to say to to you. Reliable authors do not make fringe claims. And enough with the Paulicelli source. Why do you keep pasting it over and over again? Unless of course, you don't mind if we include its claim that Albanians descend from "13th century Illyrian Dalmatians". Anyway, you are now repeating the same things over and over (mostly bragging about your sources), so I think I'm done here. You want to claim an Illyrian origin for the Fustanella? Then find real sources, not Hoxha-era ethnic boosterist sources that prattle on and on about "our Illyrian ancestors" and whose claim is not taken seriously by anyone. Athenean (talk) 18:45, 13 July 2011 (UTC)


(ignoring personal attacks)So yourself admit that have no sources for your claim that this specific author is no RS, while there are plenty of them (published scholars) which claim the contrary, namely that this author is WP:RS and WP:NPOV. Good to know that. So it looks like this author is WP:RS (and also WP:NPOV) per wiki rules and this what this board is for.
P.S. As for Illyrian-fustanella thing, I see that you keep ignoring (or misusing) 2009 sources brought above. Your claim that 2009 source says that Albanians descend from "13th century Illyrian Dalmatians" shows the wrong way you deal with the sources. You didn't care to read all the paragraph the author was talking about, although I brought the link and that text was readable. Read that and you can see that the author claims that fustanella was an Illyrian garment, it was used by Roman legionaries and actually was introduced by Roman legions to Celts in Britain. The fact that it was used in 13th century in men in Dalmatia shows the remaining of that garment among ex-Illyrian populations (other slavs outside ex Illyria province do not use it). The author does not claim that "13th century Illyrian Dalmatians were progenitors of Albanins" because there were no Illyrian Dalmatians at that time, instead he was referring to Dalmatian as one of many Illyrian tribes, which contributed in the formation of Albanian people. For those interested in the context and whole page and author claim here the link which shows what I am talking about. Maybe you Athenean should read more on the topic, to not lie on the sources and maybe we can discuss different theories on that, but this kind of discussion does not belong here. Aigest (talk) 20:00, 13 July 2011 (UTC)
Gjergji is definitely not RS as far as the Illyrians are concerned, as several users have tried to explain to you but you are pretending not to hear. No one takes her "our IIlyrian ancestors wore the fustanella" claim seriously, because it is fringe. Reliable authors do not make fringe claims. Neither is the 2009 source RS, as it speaks of Albanians descending from 13th century Illyrian Dalmatians (never mind that IIlyrians vanish from the historical record in the 7th century BC and 13th century Dalmatia was Croatian). Since it seems that no one else here is interested in repeating the same things over and over except you, I consider this discussion closed. Now, you are entitled to think that Gjergji is the most reliable source in the world, but don't even think about edit-warring over it. Athenean (talk) 20:39, 13 July 2011 (UTC)
Read above on your wrong interpretation on 2009 source (why i am not surprised?) and more important you should bring sources for your claim, which in this specific author, is contradicted by published scholar evidence. Summarizing, the author The author Andromaqi Gjergji has studied for history, has a PhD degree and is an academic, published 1, citated 2, used by Illyrian experts on the topic of Illyrian clothings (3, 4 estimated 5,6,7, 8 and her methodology is appraised as multidisciplinary and her results as NPOV 9. Well this is in accordance with wiki rules thus Gjergji is WP:RS and WP:NPOV. If you want to make "claims on fringe theories" go to another board, this is not the place for it. In that case on a courtesy advice: bring references for your claims. Aigest (talk) 21:22, 13 July 2011 (UTC)
Lack of comprehension of the English language on your part, or else brazen intellectual dishonesty (maybe both): "...in the thirteenth century when it was worn by the Dalmatians, one of the Illyrian progenitors of the Albanians". The source claims that the 13th century was "when" it was worn by the Dalmatians. Get it now? Seriously. I leave you to your own devices, but like I said, edit-warring had better not be among them. Athenean (talk) 21:05, 13 July 2011 (UTC)
As usual you didn't read all what the source say, but you wrongly interpreted a short sentence deforming its meaning. Fortunately the full text is available to others here the link which shows your wrong way of interpreting the sources. The source claims that "Dalmatians, were one of the Illyrian progenitors of the Albanians" that's why fustanella was still present among them in 13th century as an Illyrian heritage. That is clear when also when you see the author claiming that "the Albanian or Illyrian kilt became the original pattern for Roman military dress". I wonder if 13th century Dalmatians gave to the Romans the military dress. Just stop joking with the sources. Aigest (talk) 21:39, 13 July 2011 (UTC)
Totally agree with Aigest, please add his opinion in article --Vinie007 22:24, 15 July 2011 (UTC)
The fact that Aigest is able to find multiple reliable sources which use Gjergji proves her reliability. The only arguments against this that I see are the impudent remarks made by Athenean questioning Aigest's English comprehension skills -- among other things -- without effectively citing evidence against it.--Gaius Claudius Nero (talk) 16:06, 16 July 2011 (UTC)
The hypothesis that the Illyrians are the ancestors of Albanians for certainty should be treated with heavy precautions, and of course works and authors that believe that this is a historical fact should be rejected. As mentioned by third-part editors Gjergji could be fine in general but in the specific topic (Illyrian origin) she isn't an expert.

@Aegist: please stop canvasssing and sending repeatedly msgs only to users that may support your view.Alexikoua (talk) 08:48, 18 July 2011 (UTC)

(ignoring false accusations dealt here with them) Illyrian-Albanian continuity? Well there are a good number of scholars thinks so. The fact that you Alex think that their view should should be rejected apriori, shows a misunderstanding of how academic field functions.

@Alex and all others I would like to show me the sources that maintain that this particular author Andromaqi Gjergji is non reliable. There are several users who have asked this, but up to now none is presenting them just making personal assumptions. Right now we have scholars opinion vs personal opinion. Do you Alex agree with the facts presented in this sentence "The author Andromaqi Gjergji (female) has studied for history, has a PhD degree in ethnology and is an academic, published (her main topic being popular costumes, Albanian, Illyrian, Romanian)1, she is cited by others 2, used by Illyrian experts on the topic of Illyrian clothings 3, 4 estimated by other scholars 5,6,7, 8 and her methodology is appraised as multidisciplinary and her results as NPOV 9." Please focus on this author and the facts and references to her by scholars, not on making personal assumptions. Is there any author who reject her work as unreliable? To me it seems that on the contrary many scholars speak very well on her work and use her in their books, as proved by numerous citations and links. If many scholars (practically everyone citing her) finds her work reliable, and none speaks ill on her or refuses her work, that is an excellent example of an author fulfilling WP:RS (and even WP:NPOV) parameters, don't you think so? Aigest (talk) 13:53, 18 July 2011 (UTC)

Softonic.com

Can a http://Softonic.com software review be considered reliable for the purpose of establishing verifiability for inclusion of software in a list? The purpose is independent verification of claims made by the primary source, the software author. Example: the review by Nick Mead at Softonic of the Neebly IRC client. Mead has written over 3,300 reviews and articles on the site, which has this Alexa rank. (There was some controversy in 2007-2008 at Talk:Softonic.com about "paying for downloads of demo software", but the company seems to have removed any confusing language, and removed paid download-directly-from-Softonic links except where the original author's download link is broken.) --Lexein (talk) 06:37, 13 July 2011 (UTC)

(I am an involved user. The inclusion criteria for the list is at -least- mention of the client in one reliable third party source, and I am disputing this review fulfills the criteria. We need outside opinions) --Enric Naval (talk) 07:06, 13 July 2011 (UTC)

Bump. Still seeking RSN assessment. --Lexein (talk) 03:42, 16 July 2011 (UTC)

When there was a deletion review for @icon sushi the Softonic.com reviews were accepted as a reliable sources. --Hm2k (talk) 11:36, 18 July 2011 (UTC)

NNDB

Is this a reliable source for information at all, and specifically for BLPs? There is an unsourced list of alumni at Ethical Culture Fieldston School and I was going to have a go at it by removing anything I couldn't source and sourcing the rest. I clicked on Jill Abramson and found that in her entry the school information, along with some other tidbits, was sourced to this NNDB database. I had never heard of it before so I figured I'd check here.Griswaldo (talk) 13:37, 18 July 2011 (UTC)

As a related followup, if anyone has any ideas of how best to reliably source these types of facts (where someone attended high school) please let me know. Thanks.Griswaldo (talk) 13:42, 18 July 2011 (UTC)
NNDB has come up here several times before. I don't think we can sign it off as reliable for BLPs but some people are better disposed towards it than me. Itsmejudith (talk) 15:32, 18 July 2011 (UTC)
No, NNDB isn't remotely 'reliable', see [28]: "Our standard is correctness over verifiability (the reverse of Wikipedia)". The rest of that page basically amounts to a statement that what goes into articles isn't actually based on verifiable sources, but instead on the opinions of the editorial team - who seem to have an agenda regarding race/ethnicity issues in particular. I wouldn't use it as a source for the day of the week. AndyTheGrump (talk) 15:45, 18 July 2011 (UTC)
Agreeing with the above. NNDB is run by the people behind Rotten.com and has a distinctive bend towards sensationalist information (from the article on NNDB here: "one-night stands ... illnesses, phobia, addictions, drug use, criminal records") often with dubious sourcing, sometimes purely speculative. Basically not at all suitable for BLP sourcing. In the cases where NNDB is clear on the sources they used, seek out those sources directly instead if they are WP:RS.
As for alternatives to find where people went to high school, longer, in-depth interviews and profiles in magazines or newspapers sometimes include that information. I'm not sure if there is previous consensus is regarding WP:BLPPRIMARY and high schools. Siawase (talk) 19:20, 18 July 2011 (UTC)

WENN Entertainment News Wire Service

This news wire service is listed on LexisNexis and carries useful material about celebrities. Are there any views as to whether this would be a source acceptable for use in a BLP? Thanks Fæ (talk) 14:42, 18 July 2011 (UTC)

Editorial in New Statesman

American Left (edit | talk | history | protect | delete | links | watch | logs | views)

  • Lind, Michael. "The weird men behind George W. Bush's war". New Statesman, 2003 London.[29]
  • Used to support the statement, "This conspiracy charge has been frequently repeated and even widened to assert a takeover of the foreign policy of the George W. Bush administration by former Trotskyists". (The source does not use the term "conspiracy" and states, "Most neoconservative defence intellectuals... are products of the largely Jewish-American Trotskyist movement of the 1930s and 1940s.... They call their revolutionary ideology "Wilsonianism" (after President Woodrow Wilson), but it is really Trotsky's theory of the permanent revolution....")
  • My view is that this comes under WP:RS#Statements of opinion: "Some sources may be considered reliable for statements as to their author's opinion, but not for statements asserted as fact without an inline qualifier like "(Author) says...". A prime example of this is Op-ed columns in mainstream newspapers. When using them, it is better to explicitly attribute such material in the text to the author to make it clear to the reader that they are reading an opinion." I also do not understand why these "conspiracy claims" are even mentioned.

TFD (talk) 04:16, 19 July 2011 (UTC)

Isn't a 'conspiracy charge' entirely a matter of opinion unless it is a part of a legal process? But yes, this is pure conspiracy theory, dressed up as... well, I don't know. Note however it is 'the usual suspects' behind it. Bollocks, and not even original bollocks at that... AndyTheGrump (talk) 04:20, 19 July 2011 (UTC)
But why are we even mentioning it in the article? It is OR. TFD (talk) 04:38, 19 July 2011 (UTC)
I dunno. Though it is hardly 'original', and doesn't seem to be the product of anything resembling 'research' either. Whataver it is, it doesn't belong in the article. AndyTheGrump (talk) 04:46, 19 July 2011 (UTC)
It is OR because a conclusion is made about the existence of a conspiracy theory by finding an example of one rather than a third party source commenting on them. The fact that one person wrote something years ago does not make their writing notable. I have changed the section back to an earlier version.[30] Any comments? TFD (talk) 04:57, 19 July 2011 (UTC)


Please Google "Social Democrats, USA" and note the number of conspiracy-theory websites that appear, both on the far left and the far right. TFD forgot to note that this charge is critiqued in the next sentence of the article.
He forgot also to mention that User:Carrite looked over my edits, and Carrite is the principal author of the WP articles on American Left history. He also forgot to note that I have rewritten the histories of the related articles on SPUSA, DSOC, SDUSA, and SPA, and nobody has yet reverted or complained about the rewriting.  Kiefer.Wolfowitz 06:11, 19 July 2011 (UTC) I quote the paragraph, which provides context.

Social Democrats USA (SDUSA)

Main article: Social Democrats USA

Bayard Rustin was the national chairperson of SDUSA during the 1970s. SDUSA sponsored a biannual conference[1] that featured discussions, for which SDUSA invited outside academic, political, and labor-union leaders. These meetings also functioned as reunions for political activists and intellectuals, some of whom worked together for decades.[2] SDUSA also published position papers, e.g. opposing many of the G. W. Bush administration's domestic policies.[3] From 1979–1989, SDUSA members like Tom Kahn organized the AFL–CIO's fundraising of 300 thousand dollars, which bought printing presses and other supplies requested by Solidarnosc (Solidarity), the independent labor-union of Poland.[4][5][6] SDUSA members helped form a bipartisan coalition (of the Democratic and Republican Parties to support the founding of the National Endowment for Democracy (NED), whose first President was Carl Gershman. The NED publicly allocated 4 million USD of public aid to Solidarity through 1989.[7][8] Because of their service in government, Gershman and other SDUSA members were called "State Department socialists" byMassing (1987), who wrote that the foreign policy of the Reagan administration was being run by Trotskyists, a claim that was called a "myth" by Lipset (1988, p. 34).[9] This conspiracy "Trotskyist" charge has been repeated and even widened by journalist Michael Lind to assert a takeover of the foreign policy of the George W. Bush administration by former Trotskyists;[10] Lind's "amalgamation of the defense intellectuals with the traditions and theories of 'the largely Jewish-American Trotskyist movement'" was criticized by Alan M. Wald, a professor at the University of Michigan who has written a history of Trotskism and neo-neoconservatism, The New York intellectuals.[11][12]

  1. ^ Social Democrats, USA (1973), The American challenge: A social-democratic program for the seventies, New York: SDUSA {{citation}}: Cite has empty unknown parameter: |1= (help); Invalid |ref=harv (help)
  2. ^ Meyerson, Harold (Fall 2002). "Solidarity, Whatever". Dissent. 49 (4): 16. {{cite journal}}: Invalid |ref=harv (help)
  3. ^ Muravchik (2006):

    Muravchik, Joshua (January 2006). "Comrades". Commentary Magazine. Retrieved 15 June 2007. {{cite journal}}: External link in |journal= (help)

  4. ^ Horowitz, Rachelle (2007). "Tom Kahn and the fight for democracy: A political portrait and personal recollection" (PDF). Democratiya(merged with Dissent in 2009). 11: 204–251. {{cite journal}}: Invalid |ref=harv (help); Italic or bold markup not allowed in: |journal= (help)
  5. ^ Shevis (1981, p. 31):

    Shevis, James M. (Summer 1981). "The AFL-CIO and Poland's Solidarity". World Affairs. 144 (1). World Affairs Institute: 31–35. JSTOR 20671880. {{cite journal}}: Invalid |ref=harv (help)

  6. ^ Opening statement by Tom Kahn in Kahn & Podhoretz (2008, p. 235):

    Kahn, Tom; Podhoretz, Norman (2008). "How to support Solidarnosc: A debate" (PDF). Democratiya (merged with Dissent in 2009). 13 (Summer). Sponsored by the Committee for the Free World and the League for Industrial Democracy, with introduction by Midge Decter and moderation by Carl Gershman, and held at the Polish Institute for Arts and Sciences, New York City in March 1981: 230–261. {{cite journal}}: Invalid |ref=harv (help); Italic or bold markup not allowed in: |journal= (help)

  7. ^ "The AFL–CIO had channeled more than $4 million to it, including computers, printing presses, and supplies" according to Horowitz (2009, p. 237).
  8. ^ Puddington (2005):

    Puddington, Arch (2005). "Surviving the underground: How American unions helped solidarity win". American Educator (Summer). American Federation of Teachers. Retrieved 4 June 2011. {{cite journal}}: Cite has empty unknown parameter: |1= (help)

  9. ^ "A 1987 article in The New Republic described these developments as a Trotskyist takeover of the Reagan administration" wroteLipset (1988, p. 34).
  10. ^ Lind, Michael (7 April 2003). "The weird men behind George W. Bush's war". New Statesman. London. {{cite journal}}: Invalid |ref=harv (help)
  11. ^ Wald, Alan (27 June 2003). "Are Trotskyites Running the Pentagon?". History News Network. {{cite journal}}: Invalid |ref=harv (help)
  12. ^ Muravchik (2006). Addressing the allegation that SDUSUA was a "Trotskyist" organization, Muravchik wrote that in the early 1960s, two future members of SDUSA, Tom Kahn and Paul Feldman

    "became devotees of a former Trotskyist named Max Shachtman—a fact that today has taken on a life of its own. Tracing forward in lineage through me and a few other ex-YPSL’s [members of the Young Peoples Socialist League] turned neoconservatives, this happenstance has fueled the accusation that neoconservatism itself, and through it the foreign policy of the Bush administration, are somehow rooted in 'Trotskyism.'

    I am more inclined to laugh than to cry over this, but since the myth has traveled so far, let me briefly try once more, as I have done at greater length in the past, to set the record straight.[See "The Neoconservative Cabal," Commentary, September 2003] The alleged connective chain is broken at every link. The falsity of its more recent elements is readily ascertainable by anyone who cares for the truth—namely, that George Bush was never a neoconservative and that most neoconservatives were never YPSL’s. The earlier connections are more obscure but no less false. Although Shachtman was one of the elder statesmen who occasionally made stirring speeches to us, no YPSL of my generation was a Shachtmanite. What is more, our mentors, Paul and Tom, had come under Shachtman’s sway years after he himself had ceased to be a Trotskyite.

Why introduce this information into the article and then claim it is a conspiracy charge? And why can't you find any sources that meet your own rs standards that discuss the charge? TFD (talk) 13:07, 19 July 2011 (UTC)
As you have been reminded repeatedly, please discuss content at the article's talk page.
Alan Wald is a full professor at the University of Michigan, who is an expert on the topic, and a competent academic. This makes his publications of greater interest than an adjunct professor at Camden community college who seems never to have visited an archive.
You have lost at the talk page and at two noticeboards, T4D, so I suggest that shop at a third noticeboard where your plaintive questions might be read with greater sympathy.  Kiefer.Wolfowitz 13:29, 19 July 2011 (UTC)
Itsmejudith suggested taking the issue of rs here. But you still have not explained why you think the Trots in the White House story is significant for the article. It would seem that your research would show that it should be ignored. TFD (talk) 13:39, 19 July 2011 (UTC)
Here is another article, discussing the "Trotskyist" charge in relation to SDUSA:  Kiefer.Wolfowitz 09:11, 20 July 2011 (UTC)

@article{doi:10.1080/1474389042000309817, author = {King, William}, title = {Neoconservatives and "Trotskyism"}, journal = {American Communist History}, volume = {3}, number = {2}, pages = {247-266}, year = {2004}, doi = {10.1080/1474389042000309817}, URL = {http://www.tandfonline.com/doi/abs/10.1080/1474389042000309817}, eprint = {http://www.tandfonline.com/doi/pdf/10.1080/1474389042000309817} }

Lipset discussed the charge. It is also widely repeated on internet sites, and was widely repeated on Wikipedia articles by editor Jacrosse, who seems to have retired.  Kiefer.Wolfowitz 13:54, 19 July 2011 (UTC)
The issue is relevance. No one cares what a retired editor believes. How is this relevant to the article? Lipset btw was talking about the Reagan administration, not the Bush Whitehouse. Incidentally if you find Lipset meets your high standards then I hope you will not object to his use as a source in the article, e.g., his It didn't happen here. TFD (talk) 14:21, 19 July 2011 (UTC)
You raised the question about Lind. Nobody has questioned the Lipset article here or on the talk page of the article. Please stop bringing up irrelevant distractions.  Kiefer.Wolfowitz 09:04, 20 July 2011 (UTC)
Please try to restrain yourself and focus on one issue at a time.  Kiefer.Wolfowitz 14:23, 19 July 2011 (UTC)

Discussion

I changed "conspiracy charge" to "'Trotskyist' charge", responding to the above discussion.  Kiefer.Wolfowitz 06:52, 19 July 2011 (UTC)

The content discussion doesn't really belong here but on the article's talk page. The discussion here should focus on the sources being subject debate.--Kmhkmh (talk) 08:26, 19 July 2011 (UTC)

Old source in Study Tech article

In the article Study Tech the line "In South Africa, schools which apply Study Tech have been backed by local companies and have reported widespread success." is cited by a newspaper article from 1991. I don't have access to the article, but at the very least this needs some sort of qualifier considering the source was reporting on a program that was active 20 years ago. Can someone with access to the source look at it and add some more context? 151.213.41.25 (talk) 10:37, 19 July 2011 (UTC)

The original source says: "But in South Africa, the schools reportedly have had considerable success, especially among poor black families, and are backed by some South African corporations." so the Wikipedia article might be overstating it a bit. There is indeed more in the source that could be of use, and the current usage might not be ideal per WP:NPOV. The full article can be found on scientology critical websites (and individual sentences can be verified with google news archives.) Siawase (talk) 23:13, 20 July 2011 (UTC)

TMZ and WP:Circular

While working to source the alumni section of Ethical Culture Fieldston School (which prompted another query above) I cam across something odd. I was trying to source the alumnus claim for Jordan Bratman. His entry mentions the school in the "Early Life" section but the entire section is unsourced. The most promising source I found online was TMZ, but at first glance it looked like some editor had already plagiarized TMZ in the entry to write that section. Both our current entry and TMZ have the following language, word for word:

  • He has a brother, Josh. Bratman landed his first job at sixteen. He went on to intern at several recording studios in New York City. After graduating from the Ethical Culture Fieldston School in New York in 1995, Bratman pursued his bachelor's degree in business management at Tulane University’s A.B. Freeman School of Business in New Orleans Louisiana. While a student there, Bratman began seeking out and recording local artists at the American Sector Recording Studio in New Orleans.

Yet when I tried to figure out when and by whom the plagiarism originated in our entry I discovered that this text had morphed into what it is now over the years within the entry. For instance the first version of the entry contained slightly different text:

  • Jordan Bratman landed his first gig in the music industry at the early age of sixteen, interning at several recording studios in his hometown of New York City. While earning his Bachelor’s Degree in Business Management at Tulane University’s A.B. Freeman School, Jordan began seeking out and recording emerging local artists at The American Sector Recording Studio in New Orleans, Louisiana.

A few edits later in the history of the entry this change alters the first two sentences to read, "Bratman landed his first gig in the music industry at the early age of sixteen. He soon went on to intern at several recording studios in his New York City, his hometown." I wont bore you all with the further progression, but my point is that it seems obvious to me that TMZ is copying Wikipedia. I wasn't sure if this was common knowledge and wanted to alert people that these profiles on TMZ are not reliable sources. Cheers.Griswaldo (talk) 15:01, 18 July 2011 (UTC)

This seems depressingly common. A lot of people probably avoid TMZ anyway, but I found similar issues with an online biography at The Biography Channel.[31] I haven't really found any tertiary biography sources for contemporary celebrities that seem to do independent fact checking, it's all just repeating the same handful of free-floating factoids. Siawase (talk) 19:34, 18 July 2011 (UTC)
  • Not that this answers your worry in general, but here's a published book for the specific fact in question. "Christina Aguilera: A Biography", by Mary Anne Donovan-Wright, Greenwood Publishing Group, ABC-CLIO, 2010, page 86. Of course that doesn't guarantee it isn't also circular, but there's only so much we can do; it isn't a highly controversial claim, and according to our articles on them, the publisher(s) are quite respectable. Yeah, I know the Google Books scan seems to have gotten the cover wrong; reported. The text seems to be straight, though. --GRuban (talk) 14:54, 21 July 2011 (UTC)

--GRuban (talk) 14:58, 21 July 2011 (UTC)

Google Books

I have started a new article at Duton Hill and the 2nd ref doesn't appear on screen but does appear in the google book search result I suppose as there is another ref supporting it then it's ok and as WP:V does not require it to be online. Bff6C9 (talk) 15:36, 21 July 2011 (UTC)

Ancestry.co.uk

Can this be used to cite Paloma Faith's year of birth, even though it's a subscription only source? Her birth year appears to be 1981, but this, and Find My Past, are the only sources that seem to mention this. - JuneGloom Talk 21:48, 17 July 2011 (UTC)

No, because it does not meet WP:RS guidelines. TFD (talk) 02:40, 20 July 2011 (UTC)
Ancestry does include reliable sources (government databases, etc), but it is all primary sources. That means you'd be doing original research to get the birth year. Karanacs (talk) 02:49, 20 July 2011 (UTC)
To clarify: you are allowed to use WP:PRIMARY sources, such as birth certificates. However, there are narrow limits on how you can use them. In this instance, it is a violation of the policy against original research for you to declare that this particular birth certificate belongs to this particular adult human. The birth certificate does not contain helpful information, like "Paloma Faith, who is going to grow up to be a famous entertainer". We have to assume that there might be someone else out there with a similar name.
The fact that the source is behind a WP:PAYWALL is completely unimportant. WhatamIdoing (talk) 20:33, 22 July 2011 (UTC)

HowStuffWorks.com

Hi, I'm trying to determine if HowStuffWorks.com is a reliable source. While I realize that sites like WikiHow would be circular sourcing, HowStuffWorks.com seems like it should be a reliable source. It is an educational site with published content, and users cannot freely upload their own content. I believe it is a reliable source, but I want to get a second opinion before using it. Thanks. --TravisBernard (talk) 21:04, 21 July 2011 (UTC)

HowStuffWorks is owned by the entitity that is behind the Discovery channel. It should fall under WP:RS generally, but previous discussions of it on this noticeboard ([32][33]) mentioned some ways it might not be the best possible source. It's basically factual, but it's also made for entertainment. I'll just quote Blueboar verbatim: "it is probably not the most reliable source for specifics. Having seen the broadcasted TV show, I know that it often over simplifys things... I would expect the same from the website. So, if the source is contradicted by more reliable sources, I would go with the those instead." Siawase (talk) 22:04, 21 July 2011 (UTC)
Thanks for the help. --TravisBernard (talk) 17:33, 22 July 2011 (UTC)
I agree: it meets the minimum standards for a reliable source. It is not, however, likely to be the single most authoritative source you could use. (On the other hand, sometimes a well-written article uses a diverse range of sources, so that there's something for every reader. You might use Howstuffworks.com for simple, basic facts, and a top-quality or scholarly source for the details.) WhatamIdoing (talk) 19:36, 22 July 2011 (UTC)
Indeed I'd rate the discovery channel as barely reliable. In other words you can use it as a source (temporarily), but you avoid it when possible.--Kmhkmh (talk) 13:00, 23 July 2011 (UTC)

Is the Band Dethklok considered "Brutal Death Metal"

One of the genres listed for Dethklok listed is "brutal death metal", and the source given for it is this http://www.unratedmagazine.com/bios/_artists.cfm?band_id=1620. In the article it states "The soundtrack for season one was released, appropriately titled "The Dethalbum" and it debuted at #21 on the Billboard chart. The highest debut/chart position ever for a death metal album. This isn't a typical sugar coated High School Musical/Miley Cyrus pre-teen snot fest that routinely rules the charts, this is a brutal death metal album (even though the lyrics deal with coffee and mermaids, but who's complaining?)."

One of the editors belives that when it states "this is a brutal death metal album", that the author is specifying the genre. But I think that by "brutal death metal" the author meant a death metal album that was "brutal". We're trying to reach a consensus. Davidravenski (talk) 13:35, 23 July 2011 (UTC)

First I'd say, what's the difference, it's redundant. Second any such classification would be based on opinion because it results from subjective scrutiny. Unless the vast amount of sources who've heard it say it's either brutal, Death Metal or Brutal Death Metal, there's no point arguing it. --BETA 14:02, 23 July 2011 (UTC)
I don't really understand the previous reply. My take is that "death metal" is a genre, and if Unrated magazine is a magazine that regularly reviews this kind of music, then it is a reliable source for the genre being "death metal". Is there a genre "brutal death metal"? I really doubt it. If there is, then you will find more than one band has been described in this way, by a number of sources. A band can't have a genre on its own. Itsmejudith (talk) 14:32, 23 July 2011 (UTC)

ISRAELITE.INFO

Hello Everyone, can < http://www.israelite.info/ > be used as a reference? Thanks! Sincerely:Abstruce (talk) 20:09, 23 July 2011 (UTC)

What for? Looking at the site, I see nothing to suggest that they would be reliable for anything but their own opinions. It appears to be a website run by some obscure group with strange (but not unique) views regarding the 'Tribes of Israel': "ETHIC believes the modern descendants of the biblical ten tribes of Israel (the house of Israel) are found mostly, but not exclusively, in the nations of modern Europe, Scandinavia, the British Isles, North America, Australia, New Zealand and portions of other nations". [34] Tosh, but tosh with a long history - if you are looking for a modern source to quote on this bit of nonsense, then no doubt they'll do, but otherwise, not reliable for the day of the week. AndyTheGrump (talk) 20:30, 23 July 2011 (UTC)
Thank You for Your valuable time, in answering My query. Sincerely: Abstruce (talk) 21:07, 23 July 2011 (UTC)

Progressivism

Progressivism (edit | talk | history | protect | delete | links | watch | logs | views)

An editor continues to insert individuals into the Progressivism article and refuses to provide any sources.[35] His comment was "removing non-NPOV vandalism targeting my edits, nut no others. Additions sourced within the WP links they lead to". He said on the talk page, "After researching TFD's long history of standing guard on his favorite political pages, ensuring that his thinly-veiled leftist ideology gets bullied through, this incident is starting to make more sense." Despite being an IP, this is a long term editor who was previously posted unsourced edits relating to the U.S. president's nationality[36] and has argued against the description of the John Birch Society by a "liberal professor at some liberal university".[37]

TFD (talk) 06:05, 24 July 2011 (UTC)

Catholic League

As it is an advocacy group, I think the Catholic League (U.S.) should only be considered a reliable source for their opinions, not for controversial statements (such as George Soros being behind anything in particular). Another editor claims that they're reliable until proven otherwise. Do I have to investigate each claim of theirs in detail before I can say whether or not they can be used? --SarekOfVulcan (talk) 21:22, 16 July 2011 (UTC)

I Agree... as an advocacy group, the Catholic League is reliable for attributed statements of opinion... but not for unattributed statements of fact. Blueboar (talk) 21:27, 16 July 2011 (UTC)
Agreed. Opinions can be sourced to them, not facts. Binksternet (talk) 22:18, 16 July 2011 (UTC)
A little off topic: Should all advocacy groups be treated this way? I have noticed editors using sources from NGOs advocating a clear agenda (albeit courageous and notable agendas) as RS for facts and not just opinion.Cptnono (talk) 06:55, 17 July 2011 (UTC)
A good rule of thumb: when in doubt, attribute. So, yes. Treat all advocacy groups the same way (assuming it is WP:DUE to mention what the advocacy group says at all). Blueboar (talk) 11:27, 17 July 2011 (UTC)
Refinement on Blueboar: "Major advocacy groups may be treated as reliable for attributed statements of their opinions..." LeadSongDog come howl! 18:32, 17 July 2011 (UTC)
I can't find "advocacy group" at wp:RS. Can someone show me where it is? --Kenatipo speak! 18:57, 17 July 2011 (UTC)

Not sure this should scroll off quite yet...--SarekOfVulcan (talk) 17:07, 20 July 2011 (UTC)

Should we then treat Sierra Club and the American Automobile Association the same way we treat the Catholic League?--RightCowLeftCoast (talk) 19:17, 20 July 2011 (UTC)
Subject to common sense, yes. MastCell Talk 19:23, 20 July 2011 (UTC)

Sarek, what if the opinions of the Catholic League are controversial? and, can the Catholics for Choice article include the CL opinion that CfC is anti-Catholic sourced directly from the CL ? --Kenatipo speak! 13:58, 21 July 2011 (UTC)

If the opinion was not picked up by secondary sources then it does not rise above the background noise and become notable. Thus, if you stick with reliable secondary sources about the opinion of the Catholic League then you'll be set. Binksternet (talk) 14:16, 21 July 2011 (UTC)
I disagree. If anyone knows what anti-Catholicism is, it's the Catholic League. If the SPLC can define "hate groups", then the CL can point out anti-Catholicism. They've been at it for almost 40 years and they're practically semi-official in the New York archdiocese. --Kenatipo speak! 14:46, 21 July 2011 (UTC)
No, the definition of anti-Catholic as employed by the Catholic League is much larger than the definition used by anyone else. They are known for so naming the slightest of critics, even devout Catholics who criticize the church from within. Binksternet (talk) 14:56, 21 July 2011 (UTC)
The same thing can be said for most anti-defamation organizations. Do people claim the Anti-Defamation League casts too wide a net? Do people claim the NAACP casts too wide a net? Are groups that are proclaiming x, y, and z organizations hate-groups, casting to wide a net? Statements from all of those organizations are allowed on other pages. All these groups are quoted a lot and appear on major news networks all the time, so notability is established. As long as it is being stated as opinion, Catholic League's can be allowed to. Marauder40 (talk) 18:59, 21 July 2011 (UTC)
In articles about the hate group designation from SPLC, secondary sources establish the fact that there was wide commentary about the designation. I expect that NAACP and ADL statements in articles would also have secondary sources establishing the statement as receiving wider notice. If the Catholic League shouts in the forest, does anyone hear? Please stick to secondary sources to make sure that the statement from the group is a notable one. Binksternet (talk) 20:43, 21 July 2011 (UTC)
WP:Secondary does not mean independent. Most of that "wider notice" is actually in independent primary sources, not in secondary sources. WhatamIdoing (talk) 19:44, 22 July 2011 (UTC)
Hello, I noticed this discussion and would assume that the same reasoning apply to the advocacy group, Freedom From Religion Foundation's "Freethought Today". Am I correct in saying so? I look forward to your comments. With regards, AnupamTalk 05:27, 23 July 2011 (UTC)
I would say so. But with a caveat... A lot depends on context... to say for sure, we would need to know a) The specific statement you are supporting with the source, and b) what article you are saying it in. Blueboar 20:44, 23 July 2011
Do you think for example, that this advocacy group could give a NPOV definition of militant atheism? I look forward to your response. With regards, AnupamTalk 02:30, 24 July 2011 (UTC)
Sources are not required to comply with NPOV; your use of the sources must comply with NPOV.
The only way to know whether your definition of <anything> complies with NPOV is to see whether it accurately reflects the balance of reliable sources. In the simplest case, if all the sources conveniently agree on a definition, and you write a definition that matches all of them, then you have complied with NPOV. In a complicated case, if multiple apparently reliable sources give wildly divergent definitions, and you pick just one of them, then you have failed to comply with NPOV, because NPOV requires you (in that complicated case) to tell the reader that the sources disagree, not to commit a NOR violation by deciding which of the definitions is more neutral than others. WhatamIdoing (talk) 03:06, 25 July 2011 (UTC)

The Sealed Nectar

Is the Sealed Nectar a reliable source to use to give a "Muslim perspective" on Muhammad's life. I used the source in the Invasion of Banu Nadir article, as a means to give a Muslim view of the event, rather than an accurate view. Can i do this? I say its notable because it has been aknowledged by Muslims in something called the Islamic Conference on Seerah, an open competition about the biography of Muhammad , where it got first prize(according to its wiki page). An online version is (or was) hosted at the University of Arkansas website here--Misconceptions2 (talk) 21:37, 20 July 2011 (UTC)

I'm the editor who questioned its reliability, and I made these points:
  • The book is published by a religious publisher, not by a scholarly publisher; it's like citing a book published by Zondervan for an article on an episode in the Bible, rather than a book from a real publisher.
  • The award the book won is from the Muslim World League, not from any sort of publishing or scholarly organization. The Muslim World League is a religious organization with specific social and political goals. This award thus does not add anything to the reliability of the book.
  • All other considerations aside, one individual author does not constitute a "Muslim perspective."
Given the enormous scholarly corpus on the history of Islam, I do not think it's necessary to use this inferior source. The article is written almost entirely based on this source, and it simply isn't up to our standards for reliability. (As a side note, Misconceptions2, what's this nonsense about "a Muslim view, rather than an accurate view"?) Roscelese (talk ⋅ contribs) 14:22, 21 July 2011 (UTC)
Correction, i meant give "1 Mulim perspective" , instead of the "Muslim perspective" (the latter does not exist as no one represents all Muslims). But this book has been acknowledged by Muslim World League as the best biography of Muhammad in its first "Seerah (biography) competition". So i do think its notable.Notability is the grounds i want to use this source, rather than accuracy (which many people doubt because it refers to Muhammad as a "prophet of god")--Misconceptions2 (talk) 20:15, 21 July 2011 (UTC)
Unfortunately, notability is not the basis upon which we judge which sources are appropriate to use. Reliability is that basis, and this book hasn't got it, not being published by a scholarly publisher or otherwise recognized for its historical rigor. Roscelese (talk ⋅ contribs) 21:17, 21 July 2011 (UTC)
I think you've already answered yourself by "1 Mulim perspective". Don't forget WP:DUE on the subject, as it will make us list tons of other views to get to a NPOV. You already know that there's enough controversial in the authorized sources about his life, so Wikipedia is not interested in hearing out-side singular views, IMO.
Oh, and the source you said is on Univ. of Arkansas' website is from a student club/community, which definitely ain't authoritative at all. ~ AdvertAdam talk 01:34, 22 July 2011 (UTC)

@AdamRce, we cant make an article all on the Modern Muslim scholars version of the event. silly. My mistake was over using the Sealed Nectar in the Invasion of Banu Nadir, i will try fix this. By the way all scholars like Watt, Muir, Stillman are critical of Muhammad, but since they are more scholarly then Mubarakpuri (author of the book in question), i will from now on, mention them more. Because Mubrakpuri always tries to spin controversial parts of Muhammad's life (making him seem innocent and peaceful whenever he can). I will use him less. --Misconceptions2 (talk) 02:43, 22 July 2011 (UTC)

I think this source is fine—so long as it's handled as one source among many.
NB that zero of our content and sourcing policies say that a publishing house that specializes in religious material are less reliable than any other type of publishing house. The actual policies talk about editorial control, not the subject matter. Scholarly sources are lovely (for scholarly things), but they are not the only sources that actually meet the minimum requirements for a reliable source. WhatamIdoing (talk) 19:40, 22 July 2011 (UTC)
In this case, however, it's not being handled as one source among many - pretty much the entire article is built on it - and I also disagree that we should be treating popular religious publishers as equal to scholarly publishers on scholarly subjects. I did a simple Google Books search and found over half a dozen books from reliable scholarly publishers that discuss this event (in addition to mainstream houses like Penguin and Random House); not a one is cited in the article. Roscelese (talk ⋅ contribs) 02:56, 23 July 2011 (UTC)
It's not solely a scholarly subject, and the non-scholarly religious perspective ought to be included. I agree that you've got a significant DUE problem—but that means that you need to change the balance, not that you get to entirely dump the source whose religious POV you dislike. WhatamIdoing (talk) 05:09, 23 July 2011 (UTC)
Would you agree, though, that the article's current sourcing (ie. written around this one lay source, with a few nods to other sources) is quite unsuitable? (Particularly for the main page - I came across this at T:TDYK.) I honestly haven't thought so far as removing the source entirely - but I do think the article needs to be written with predominantly scholarly sources, given the attention that scholars have devoted to it and given our usual standards for articles on historical and religious events. Roscelese (talk ⋅ contribs) 05:23, 23 July 2011 (UTC)
As I said: "significant DUE problem". It is a bit {{one source}}, but it's not extreme. It is worth remembering that this is nowhere near the worst such case we've ever cleaned up.
Don't filter your reliable sources on the basis of perceived POV: A religious scholar is every bit as much a scholar as a non-religious scholar, and on a subject of religious importance like this, there will be many more religious scholars publishing high-quality reliable sources than non-religious scholars. WhatamIdoing (talk) 22:41, 24 July 2011 (UTC)
You seem to have much experience in the field, so why don't you stick with more authoritative sources that are similar to the majority of scholars? Please avoid controversial opinions and stick to more authoritative scholars, like Ibn Ishaq's works has been republished by Oxford University in 2004, Ibn Kathir, and Al-Dhahabi as long as you don't take texture out of context (you know what I mean, due to previous actions). You can't just pick any source just because you like his opinions. We can't just list every author's opinions and also add them to the lead! ~ AdvertAdam talk 08:28, 23 July 2011 (UTC)

sputnikmusic

Is http://www.sputnikmusic.com/ a reliable site? The paid staff must approve any reviews published, so wouldn't those reviews count as reliable sources? The Wikipedia article for them at Sputnikmusic#Reviewer_stratification says Contributing Reviewers "are acknowledged as being good writers who generate content of a high quality." They don't just let anyone submit something. Whether you are paid as a writer, or volunteer, that shouldn't matter. A paid editorial staff still approves everything and these are professionally written reviews. Dream Focus 23:30, 22 July 2011 (UTC)

Please see item #4 in the directions above. Every source, no matter how dubious, is reliable for something. If you want a useful answer, you need to give us more information. WhatamIdoing (talk) 05:11, 23 July 2011 (UTC)
http://www.sputnikmusic.com/review/28699/Grand-Belials-Key-Kosherat/ Are the reviews on their site reliable, even if not written by a paid staff member, as long as they are approved by one? This came up at Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Kosherat Dream Focus 08:02, 23 July 2011 (UTC)
No, staff reviews only. We can generally assume that staff reviews have some objectivity. This isn't true of 'user' (i.e. fan) reviews. We have no evidence that these user reviews are endorsed in any way by Sputnik staff.--Michig (talk) 20:48, 24 July 2011 (UTC)
What Michig said. —Andrewstalk 21:58, 24 July 2011 (UTC)
So you're asking whether a "user" review is useful for notability purposes, rather than to support material in the article? It might well be reliable for supporting a sentence in an article, but I wouldn't expect AFD to buy it as proof of notability. WhatamIdoing (talk) 22:44, 24 July 2011 (UTC)

Greenwood Publishing Group

American Left (edit | talk | history | protect | delete | links | watch | logs | views)

Buskey, Donald F. Democratic socialism: a global survey. Westport, CT: Praeger Publishers, imprint of Greenwood Publishing Group, 2000 ISBN 0275968863[38]

  • User:Kiefer.Wolfowitz says, "Busky was a national officer of SPUSA and the PA state chair of SPUSA from 1978 until his death. His book is not serious, and his publisher is a known for weak books, below the leading history publishers (e.g. Princeton, in addition to previously listed publishers)."[39]
  • My view is that the book is from a reputable academic publisher that checks facts and it is therefore a reliable source for the facts it presents.
  • pp. 164-165 were used as a source for "Michael Harrington broke with the Shachtmanites over support of the War in Vietnam, urging peace negotiations, although not an immediate withdrawal."

TFD (talk) 04:15, 19 July 2011 (UTC)

TFD first promoted Busky as being professor of political science. Then I pointed out that Busky was only an adjunct professor at some community college, who pointed out his Conflict of Interest as a SPUSA officer in his introduction.
This book is a joke, and not a serious history. Please read a few pages and decide for yourselves. For example, ask yourself whether a sectarian ideologue or a professionally competent history professor penned the sarcasm "labor is the motor of all social change".
 Kiefer.Wolfowitz 06:07, 19 July 2011 (UTC)
Compare Busky's delusion with the New York Times. There is no mention of Shachtman, but instead there is a discussion of the Vietnam War. (In fact, Shachtman died in November 1972, so his influence on the December Convention must have been supernatural!) The majority of the socialist party in 1972 favored a negotiated peace settlement and demanded an end to bombings: they also criticized the conduct of the war. Harrington's caucus called for a cease fire and immediate withdrawal. The Debs caucus was mentioned as a curiosity "a Debs caucus" by the NYT in only one article, because it was so small it received only 2/33 votes on the national committee.  Kiefer.Wolfowitz 06:35, 19 July 2011 (UTC)

Another measure of the intellectual poverty of Busky's book is its being ignored by academic journals. To see how serious accounts of democratic socialism are reviewed and cited, search for Adam Przeworski, or John D. Stephens, etc., whose rank is each somewhat higher than adjunct professor at some community college.  Kiefer.Wolfowitz 07:06, 19 July 2011 (UTC)

Your quote says the Realignment Caucus in the SP-SDF believed that "labor was the motive of all social change". Note also that Harrington's biography (Isserman, Maurice. PublicAffairs, 2000) describes the split with Shachtman at the March 1973 Socialist Party convention in similar terms in "Socialists at War". (Shachtman died in November, 1972). TFD (talk) 13:04, 19 July 2011 (UTC)
Please write more carefully. I assume that you meant the March 1972 Convention?
To which page do you refer? (I have already suggested that the article include a discussion of the middle-class versus working-class political orientations of Harrington and the majority of the SP, but you have already complained that there is too much attention to this period!)  Kiefer.Wolfowitz 12:25, 23 July 2011 (UTC)
Please focus on the reliability issue, here. (Isserman is a competent but not infallible historian, and he certainly wrote no burlesque like Busky's "straw man".)  Kiefer.Wolfowitz 13:35, 19 July 2011 (UTC)
See WP:TRUTH: "The threshold for inclusion in Wikipedia is verifiability, not truth—that is, whether readers are able to check that material added to Wikipedia has already been published by a reliable source, not whether we think it is true." TFD (talk) 13:46, 19 July 2011 (UTC)
Nobody but you has said anything positive about Busky's book. Quoting irrelevant policy is a distraction. The point is that Busky's book is junk, published by a low-standards publisher and ignored by academic researchers, and full of errors and obvious biases. It is simply NOT a reliable source.  Kiefer.Wolfowitz 13:51, 19 July 2011 (UTC) 12:22, 23 July 2011 (UTC)
Kiefer, can you help me understand the factual problems here? Did Harrington not break with the Shachtmanites? Did he break with them for some reason other than Vietnam? Did he not urge peace negotiations? Did he support an immediate withdrawal? How many separate factual problems are here? WhatamIdoing (talk) 20:39, 22 July 2011 (UTC)
On this page, I would prefer to focus on the reliability of Busky, here.


Despite my reservations, however, let me answer your good-faith questions honestly and directly, however. Tonight, I don't have time. Please give me 36 hours. (1) It is erroneous to call the SP majority/SPUSA "Shachtmanites", since the leadership were from the ILGWU and the civil-rights movement. (Harrington's memoir state that the needle-workers union fought communists in battles with sticks and sometimes guns in the 1920s and 1930s, and that they therefore did not joke around with anti-anticommunism or with communists). ILGWU social democrats were not Shachtmanite, and I believe it was dominant. Further, it's not clear that "Shachtmanite" is an accurate description of Shachtman's associates after 1957, when his group joined the Socialist Party. This phrase is used mainly by opponents of Shachtman's associates. Finally, Shachtman died in 1972 before the December convention so it is weird to emphasize Shachtman. (2) Harrington was pro withdrawal, at some point in the 1960s, according to Drucker's biography of Shachtman, which states that he won longer and sterner criticisms of the Vietnam War in every convention: He led a public challenge to the Negotiations Now! position in 1972, when his resolution for a withdrawal was defeated 2:1. The SP majority was pro negotiations (which Harrington viewed as a good faith waste of time or a camouflage for supporting the war or both), but was not "pro-War". (3) At least as large an issue was the class politics of McGovern, and his followers, which helped give Presidency to the Nixon and Reagan. See Harrington's quote from his memoirs in his article Michael Harrington.
(4) "Harrington's break with the Shachtmanites"? It's not clear who broke with whom. Apparently, Harrington reversed his previous public positions where he had (toughly by all accounts) argued against the withdrawal proposal. Harrington got a lot of personal and public criticism for this reversal, according to the Isserman biography. According to Shachtman's biography by Drucker, Shachtman never spoke or wrote to Harrington after his reversal, with Shachtman stating or writing that Harrington's sin was not to acknowledge that he had publicly maintained the positions that he was now attacking right through 1972, so this was a sanctimonious and hypocritical reversal; of course, Harrington's public positions and private arguments were much more complicated than allowed by Shachtman, and Shachtman was universally regarded as brutal when in "debate mode", so I would suggest more sympathy with Harrington---who was also suffering from an anxiety disorder and probably depression, since the mid 60s. In any event, the details of Harrington and Shachtman's relationship belong in their biographies, not in a history of the left or of the SPA. \
Further, regarding Harrington and "Shachtmanites", a close associate of Harrington said that "Michael never said a word against Bayard Rustin", so it is simply false that there was a complete break with the people in SDUSA. (Kahn and Harrington referred to each other negatively, of course, with Harrington complaining about his protege's change of allegiance and Kahn mocking Harrington's personality, rather roughly but seriously, as recognized by e.g. Irving Howe.) Kiefer.Wolfowitz 22:55, 22 July 2011 (UTC) 12:22, 23 July 2011 (UTC)
I was about to ask the same thing. A source is rarely absolutely reliable for everything or absolutely unreliable for anything (with the possible exception of the News of the World). Frankly, the fact that someone was "merely" an adjunct professor isn't that bad, and being an officer of the Socialist Party USA might even be an asset for writing about the history of the Socialist Party USA. If he were writing about a controversial fact where his conflict of interest might be a problem, that would be different, but I don't see anything inherently that controversial here in the phrases TFD mentions that we should reject this source out of hand. If you disagree with the reason Harrington broke with the party, bring up a source that says the alternate reason. --GRuban (talk) 21:43, 22 July 2011 (UTC)
GRuban, please be more careful. There was a statement of "breaking with the Shachtmanites" which you now state as "breaking withthe party". What is this "break"? Harrington resigned in 1973.
Busky is not intellectually serious, period. I cite Drucker or Isserman or Todd Gitlin Rachelle Horowitz (on the article on Kahn), because they are serious: They recognize complexities, they try to document things, they sometimes say a good word on behalf of others in disagreements.
The phrase about the support of the war by Harrington and peace negotiations by Busky is a malicious half-truth, which might have been accurate say 68-early 72, but was false at the 1972 December convention. I give page citations to Drucker's biography of Shachtman which discusses Harrington's position on the talk page of User:Peter G Werner.
I shall write more in the next 36 hours.  Kiefer.Wolfowitz 22:55, 22 July 2011 (UTC)
Don't feel compelled to provide more details on my behalf; I just needed to confirm that I correctly understood that relying on this source was resulting in errors in the article, rather than it being a dispute over REFSPAM behind a basically accurate sentence.
At absolute minimum, I think that sentence must be attributed WP:INTEXT as Busky's opinion, rather than being presented as if it were a simple fact. My inclination, though, is simply to remove it. WhatamIdoing (talk) 00:39, 23 July 2011 (UTC)
[deleted]
I quoted the article so that you could see words like "dissident" being applied to minorities in an organization., and other biased language. Also, there is absolutely no evidence that those caucuses within the SP/SDUSA ever took any action (as a caucus) to move to DSOC or UDS/SPUSA; individuals did (apparently): If somebody would cite minutes that could be verified, I would not object to a restoration of the caucus language, rather than "members".  Kiefer.Wolfowitz 11:48, 23 July 2011 (UTC)
I gave in-line citations to a 1973 interview with Harrington, which describes a membership for DSOC of 840, of whom 200 had been members of the SPA/SDUSA (and some no doubt, I add, continued their membership).  Kiefer.Wolfowitz 14:10, 25 July 2011 (UTC)

Section of T4D, using Busky

This was the state of American Left, (sic., should be American left), after T4D's tlc:

In 1972, the Socialist Party was renamed Social Democrats, USA (SDUSA) and now had only 1,600 members.[1] Dissidents left to form theDemocratic Socialist Organizing Committee (DSOC) in 1973, led by Michael Harrington.[2] The same year another faction of the SPA, including David McReynolds, formed the Socialist Party, USA which continues to run presidential candidates.[3]

Social democratic and socialist groups

The main social democratic and socialist groups that emerged from the Socialist Party-Social Democratic Federation (SP-SDF) after 1972.

Social Democrats USA (SDUSA)
Main article: Social Democrats USA

The Shachtmanites, called the Realignment Caucus, in the SP-SDF argued that since organized labor supported the Democratic Party, they should join the Democratic Party and transform it into a left-wing party, with the Republicans becoming a right-wing party. Further, they argued that they should support the War in Vietnam to stop Communist expansion. In 1972, they supported Senator Henry Jackson for the Democratic presidential nomination, and re-named the party Social Democrats USA (SDUSA), dropping the term "socialist". While they retained membership in the Socialist International, they supported Jimmy Carter in the 1976 election and had moved sufficiently right by 1980, that many of their members served in the Reagan administration.[4]


This is just nonsense. (1) The SP majority/SDUSA supported a negotiated peace in Vietnam and urged a stop to the bombing. (2) The realignment caucus, which had Harrington, had an "immediate withdrawal wing", which is discussed in Isserman's biography of Harrington. (3) Busky cites no resolution or any evidence linking the organization SP majority to the Jackson campaign: I am aware that Tom Kahn and a few other individuals supported Jackson but know of no evidence that "they" (sic.) [the SP majority] supported Jackson. (4) Busky cites no organizational document suggesting that the SP majority/SDUSA had adapted Shachtman et alia's realignment strategy. (5) The party renamed itself SDUSA, by a vote of more than 2:1. (6) There is no evidence in Busky of an organizaiton support of Carter. In fact, SDUSA's leaders criticized Carter for his anti-Washington campaign, and continued to criticize him for his defense policy, for his statement that the US would have to outgrow its inordinate "fear of communism", for Andrew Young's behavior at the UN, for his terrible response to Soviet dissidents and refugees and for his failure to help Solidarity, etc. (7) Gershman served in the Reagan administration, helping on human rights at the UN. There is no evidence that "many" of their members did.  Kiefer.Wolfowitz 23:27, 23 July 2011 (UTC)
Socialist Party USA (SPUSA)
Main article: Socialist Party USA

Members of the Debs Caucus opposed supporting the Democrats and began working outside the Socialist Party with antiwar groups such as the Students for a Democratic Society. Many locals of the SD-SDF voted to disaffiliate. They re-organized as the Socialist Party USA (SPUSA) and kept control of the old Debs Caucus paper, the Socialist Tribune, later re-named The Socialist. The SPUSA continued to run local and national candidates, although by 2000 they had only about 1,000 members. In 1972 they supported the presidential campaign of Benjamin Spock of the People's Party. Their 2000 candidate for president was David McReynolds.[5]

Democratic Socialists of America (DSA)
Main article: Democratic Socialists of America

Although Michael Harrington, who came to lead the Coalition Caucus, agreed to work within the Democratic Party, he broke with the Shachtmanites over support of the War in Vietnam, urging peace negotiations, although not an immediate withdrawal. He led his caucus out of the SD-SDF to form theDemocratic Socialist Organizing Committee (DSOC), which became a member of the Socialist International. Although this group never ran candidates for public office, it became the largest of the three groups emerging from the SD-SDF, attaining a peak membership of as many as 10,000. In 1982, it joined with the New American Movement(NAM), an antiwar group that emerged from the New Left of the 1960s, to form the Democratic Socialists of America (DSA).[5]


This is nonsense. (1) Harrington (like the SP majority) favored a negotiated peace treaty, although privately he favored an immediate withdrawal by the late 1960s. He publicly called for an immediate withdrawal in 1972 (perhaps earlier), but this proposal was voted down 2:1, when the SP intensified its criticism of Nixon's war policies (especially bombing) and affirmed its support for a negotiated peace treaty. This was reported in the NYT. (2) There is no documentation of Harrington's breaking with "Shachtmanites". Drucker's biography reports that Shachtman stopped speaking or communicating with Harrington, because he viewed Harrington's reversal (without acknowledgment of its being a reversal, in Shachtman's view) hypocritical---a view that was shared, to some extent, by earlier advocates of withdrawal, according to Isserman's biography. (3) There is no evidence (in Busky) that the "Coalition" caucus ever decided to switch from SDUSA to DSOC. (It is certainly plausible that many and perhaps most members individually did.) (4) DSA has ran plenty of members for public office, including mayors of New York City, perhaps Chicago, Ithaca, etc. Most (but not all) of these members ran after winning Democratic Party primaries. It has supported independent socialists for public office, such as Bernie Sanders, outside of the Democratic Party. (5) "SD/SDF" is a partisan belittling of the Socialist Party, which had merged with a smaller social-democratic confederation in March 1972, apparently. The standard term of the SP was the Socialist Party, until it changed its name to SDUSA in December 1972.  Kiefer.Wolfowitz 16:49, 24 July 2011 (UTC)

AGF: Please be serious

How can an editor write such a biased account, and then be welcomed here as an innocent? Show me one reliable source stating that the Socialist Party or the majority of the Socialist Party (SDUSA) endorsed Scoop Jackson! Sincerely,  Kiefer.Wolfowitz 23:30, 22 July 2011 (UTC)

If you want to take up editor conduct, there are channels for that. See that I posted again below, did so in entirely open and neutral terms, have one uninvolved post already, hoping there may be more. Itsmejudith (talk) 12:49, 23 July 2011 (UTC)
Judith. I appreciate your fair comments now and before. I do not wish to pursue anything formally. However, a brief "heads up" was warranted imho, which has been done by quoting the biased account and emboldening the most biased language. The bias of the account, written by an adherent of the SPUSA apparently or at least by a naive follower of Busky's account, should be self-evident (e.g., maliciously representing individuals' as organizational "ties" or "support" with Republicans and pro-defense Democrats ). Kiefer.Wolfowitz 14:14, 23 July 2011 (UTC)

Aftenposten as reliable source about Israel

The above mentioned Norwegian newspaper has described one of the sites that Norway mass killer was most active on (dokument.no) as "anti Muslim and Israel friendly". The problem is that first, it's the single source I could find that describes this site as "Israel friendly"-though it can be that some users there are Israel friendly, it doesn't seem to be what defined the site (rather the site is about anti Islamic ideology and against immigration to Europe). The British Telegraph for instance called "anti Islamic"[40] or "anti Islamic and anti immigration". The Aftenposten is considered as controversial at least in its opinions about Jews [41] and about Israel [42]. So given that virtually Aftenposten is single source in defining document.no as "Israel friendly" and given that such argument would need better sources, less controversial of course, would it be safe to tell that this source is not valid to define in several of Wikipedia articles document.no as Israel friendly site?--Gilisa (talk) 09:40, 25 July 2011 (UTC)

That's not a question of reliability, I think, but rather a question of due weight which should be dealt with on the article's talk page. If the majority of sources characterize the site as "anti Muslim" but do not characterize the site as "Israel friendly", or if being Israel friendly doesn't not factor into the killings directly (I have no idea myself, I've been on vacation the last few days), I would suggest the latter doesn't meet due weight. www.jcpa.org and www.jpost.com might be considered controversial by some groups, and controversy does not negate reliability. --Nuujinn (talk) 10:03, 25 July 2011 (UTC)
It truly doesn't matter if the JP and JPCA org are controversial to some if the Aftenposten published one of its edition with the title that rich Jews have bought Obama, sometimes WP: spade is a spade applies. Not to mention anti Semitic caricatures that were published in this daily. The question is of specific source (i.e., Aftenposten) being adequate for Israeli or Jewish matters. The answer is no. As for pro Israeli view and the killings: no connection. The killer believed he's in crusade to save the western society, especially the European one.--Gilisa (talk) 10:36, 25 July 2011 (UTC)
Leave the description out, at least for now. WP:RECENT applies. Aftenposten and the Daily Telegraph are both reliable mainstream newspapers, but all the media are still piecing together the relationships between the mass murderer and various ideologues and groups. Itsmejudith (talk) 11:29, 25 July 2011 (UTC)
Yes, good idea. --Nuujinn (talk) 19:20, 25 July 2011 (UTC)

AlienBabeltech

Is this website - alienbabeltech.com - a reliable source that can be used for criticism of tech products? Specifically, I am concerned with an article by one of their anonymous contributors, identified only as "BFG10K, video editor", being used as a source to claim performance problems on an Nvidia chip in this article: GeForce 400 Series Jeff Song (talk) 00:38, 26 July 2011 (UTC)

Further call for comments, Busky on American Left

Greenwood Publishing Group (edit | talk | history | protect | delete | links | watch | logs | views)
Democratic Socialism: a Global Survey

Per the over-long sections above, is Busky's book RS for the article American left? All agree that it has a bias, therefore it would have to be attributed, and balanced with other accounts where they disagree. Is it usable at all in that article? Would appreciate having a number of uninvolved views. I was uninvolved at first but have been drawn in. Itsmejudith (talk) 09:47, 23 July 2011 (UTC)

Donald F. Busky, Democratic socialism: a global survey, Praeger 2000. Preview available at Google Books. Itsmejudith (talk) 09:57, 23 July 2011 (UTC)
Well, it looks like Praeger does have an editorial staff, but it's a general interest non-fiction publisher and not an academic press. Busky is an adjunct at a county college in New Jersey. That's not much in the way of credentials. I don't see much in the way of citations of the work in google, nor publications by Dr. Busky in peer reviewed journals. I'd be curious as to what would be supported by this work before making any judgement, but in general, I would say this appears to be a low quality source given the credentials of the author and the impact of the work, and I would assume that given the topic, there should be many better sources available. Of course, if there's a narrow specific point for which Busky is a source, that might work. In the way of disclosure, I haven't read the discussions above, the article or the talk page. --Nuujinn (talk) 12:25, 23 July 2011 (UTC)
What would be supported is detail of splits and resulting positions of American socialist parties, at the mainstream end of the spectrum. Itsmejudith (talk) 12:41, 23 July 2011 (UTC)
It is a book from an academic publisher providing an overview of social democratic parties throughout the world. If the book has not set the world on fire, it is because it does not present original theories, but merely summarizes in a neutral tone the generally accepted views of these parties. In any case, the issue of reliability is whether or not the facts may be relied upon. The suggestion that the author would be "dishonest" (Kiefer.Wolfowitz's term) about the divisions in social democracy in the U.S., which forms a small part of the book and obviously a small part of social democracy worldwide (for example social democrats form the major opposition parties in America's neighbors, Canada and Mexico, yet in the U.S., the three segments of the Socialist Party have together fewer than 5,000 members) is unsupported. And Kiefer.Wolfowitz has failed to find any rs that contradicts the facts presented in the book. If we are to disallow this source then we would have to disallow all sources that fall below its standards. TFD (talk) 07:19, 24 July 2011 (UTC)
I am done enabling T4D, who is lying or in denial. The New York Times and Isserman's biography reported on Harrington's call for an immediate withdrawal of US military forces from Vietnam. Isserman's biography is not perfect, but it at least is a serious academic work (with the usual biases of biographies). T4D has cited Isserman only where he agrees with Busky, but omits the numerous places where Isserman contradicts Busky. It's time for T4D to recognize that the UFO did not arrive as Busky predicted.  Kiefer.Wolfowitz 17:00, 24 July 2011 (UTC)
On what basis are you asserting that Praeger is an academic publisher? I see that they publish textbooks, and books on academic and professional topics, so I would agree that they have an educational slant, but I would not put them in the same class as, say, the Norton Critical editions or publications by John Hopkins and other academic presses.
I find myself disinterested in opinions of editors about other editors, that's not within the scope of the discussions here. I checked both WP:USEBYOTHERS and Wikipedia:Reliable_sources#Some_types_of_sources, and it is on the basis of those policies that I would suggest that this is not a very high quality source, although I would not argue that it is not reliable. I checked the statement in the article attributed to Busky, and as I had assumed, other sources are available--I found this, this, and this. So for the non-controvesial statement that that the DSOC and the NAM merged to form the DSA, it seems reliable enough. I would myself prefer using articles from peer reviewed journals for historical information, but the fact of the merger seems well supported. --Nuujinn (talk) 14:31, 24 July 2011 (UTC)
I provided a reliable source for the merger:

In 1982 DSOC established the Democratic Socialists of America (DSA) upon merging with the New American Movement, an organization of democratic socialists mostly from the New Left. (Isserman, p. 349: Isserman, Maurice (2001) The Other American: The Life of Michael Harrington. New York: Perseus Books.)

I improved the description of NAM.  Kiefer.Wolfowitz 14:01, 25 July 2011 (UTC)
I wrote the following above, which I quote for your convenience:
"The Shachtmanites, called the Realignment Caucus, in the SP-SDF argued that since organized labor supported the Democratic Party, they should join the Democratic Party and transform it into a left-wing party, with the Republicans becoming a right-wing party. Further, they argued that they shouldsupport the War in Vietnam to stop Communist expansion. In 1972, they supported Senator Henry Jackson for the Democratic presidential nomination, and re-named the party Social Democrats USA (SDUSA), dropping the term "socialist". While they retained membership in the Socialist International, they supported Jimmy Carter in the 1976 election and had moved sufficiently right by 1980, that many of their members served in the Reagan administration." (Busky, pp. 163-165)

Comment: This is just nonsense. (1) The SP majority/SDUSA supported a negotiated peace in Vietnam and urged a stop to the bombing, as adopted in its 1972 Convention, which is reported in the NYT. (2) The realignment caucus, which had Harrington, had an "immediate withdrawal wing", which is discussed in Isserman's biography of Harrington. (3) Busky cites no resolution or any evidence linking the SP majority (as an organization) to the Jackson campaign: I am aware that Tom Kahn and a few other individuals supported Jackson but know of no evidence that "they" (sic.) [the SP majority] supported Jackson. (4) Busky cites no organizational document suggesting that the SP majority/SDUSA had adapted Shachtman et alia's realignment strategy. (5) The party renamed itself SDUSA, by a vote of more than 2:1, according to the NYT. (The "Shachtmanites" did not rename anything.)(6) There is no evidence in Busky of an organization support of Carter. In fact, SDUSA's leaders criticized Carter for his anti-Washington campaign, and continued to criticize him for his defense policy, for his statement that the US would have to outgrow its inordinate "fear of communism", for Andrew Young's behavior at the UN, for his terrible response to Soviet dissidents and refugees and for his failure to help Solidarity, etc. (7) Gershman served in the Reagan administration, apparently dealing with human rights at the UN, e.g. Cuba, etc.; there is no evidence that "many" of their members did.  Kiefer.Wolfowitz 23:27, 23 July 2011 (UTC)
Nobody objects to a statement that DSOC and NAM merged to form DSA. One presumes that Isserman reports this objective fact. There is no need to cite Busky.
Busky was a partisan hack and incompetent academic, who had difficulty writing English. Unfortunately, T4D followed Busky and wrote a wildly inaccurate and partisan history of the American left, one wishes naively.
WP does not require that bullshit from herbalists or phrenologists be reported in its medical articles, balanced with other views. WP should remove bullshit from its political articles, also.  Kiefer.Wolfowitz 16:25, 24 July 2011 (UTC)
I can't make a lot of sense of the above. We have had one view that Busky is RS for facts of party reorganisations, but not a very good source. Other than that, I am not sure what in the above is your own words, what is a direct citation of Busky, or what you think he is so very wrong about. Would you care to say here, in a short post, what you think is a better source for the history of the SDUSA in the relevant period? Itsmejudith (talk) 16:40, 24 July 2011 (UTC)
Busky's book is not a reliable source, period. Use Isserman or the NYT, cited with links above, for the DSOC/NAM merger.
Why are you bring SDUSA up here? Look at the SDUSA article for discussions of SDUSA, which was usually discussed in terms of the activities of its members. There are plenty of unreliable sources about SDUSA, which are not cited.  Kiefer.Wolfowitz 17:03, 24 July 2011 (UTC)
Also, you appear to confuse the March 1972 convention of the Socialist Party of America with the December 1972 convention of the Social Democrats USA. Busky's book easily meets rs standards and if there are errors in the book (which there inevitably are in all reliable sources) then you need to present a source that explains events differently. TFD (talk) 17:06, 24 July 2011 (UTC)
Read the NYT. Busky does not distinguish March and December conventions, and I would wish that this would be your last obfuscation defending your tendentious editing. You are defending a dishonest hack.  Kiefer.Wolfowitz 17:13, 24 July 2011 (UTC)
(out) Here is another account from Robert A. Gorman (professor of political science at the University of Tennessee), Michael Harrington Speaking American (Routledge, 1992). "In November 1971, the Coalition Caucus [Harrington's group] requested a referendum of the Party on a motion demanding that the U.S. set an early date for withdrawal from Vietnam, but it was denied by the National Action Committee.... Harrington now [February 1973] completed the process of contrition begun ten years earlier.... [His] decade-long opposition to unconditional withdrawal was thus immoral and counterproductive. (pp. 5-6)[43] (my emphases). I look forward to your critique of the professor and his publisher and university. TFD (talk) 17:57, 24 July 2011 (UTC)
Please stick to the issue, Busky, and stop trolling.
Gorman noted an evolution of Harrington's thought. In your account following Busky only represents his mid 1960s position and not an (important) position that led to the Harrington's resignation from SPA/SDUSA and founding DSOC.
You previously complained that too much attention was given to the 1960s and 1970s. Now, if you wish to expand on Harrington's evolution, you should first draft a passage and ask for feedback on the talk page of the article. Stop trolling and try to be productive.  Kiefer.Wolfowitz 14:28, 25 July 2011 (UTC)
I looked up Mitterrand in the book, to check if Busky had it right. It was a bit of a superficial overview, descriptive rather than analytical but basically right. Nothing odd, extremist or quirky, just what you would expect from a book that surveys all of democratic socialism across the world. I still don't understand the objection to this book, certainly not why it is so vehemently opposed. Itsmejudith (talk) 21:05, 24 July 2011 (UTC)
Compare the treatment in Donald Sassoon's history of social democracy, which was favorably reviewed by Göran Therborn.
The subject of this controversy is the use of Busky for American Left (sic.) not about whether Busky is a dull but not incompetent account of Mitterand. An account that describes Harrington as being opposed to a withdrawal from Vietnam (with no dates), that suggests mis-pronouncing SDUSA as "Seduce-ah", that ascribes the reasoning "that labor is the motor of all social change", etc. is just not a reliable source. Have you read the discussion of American socialism in Busky, after reading a chapter in Isserman or Peter Drucker or the article here on Tom Kahn?
Have you looked at the history of Socialist Party USA and Social Democrats, USA and Socialist Party of America to see that these articles had severe ideological biases until a few months ago?
Please examine the talk page & history of T4D and see whether he is regarded as a NPOV editor on other articles.  Kiefer.Wolfowitz 00:28, 25 July 2011 (UTC)
Much of the above does not belong on this notice board. Kiefer.Wolfowitz, I think you should probably have a cup of tea and clam down, focus on the content and not bring up editor conduct here. We do not require that editors be neutral in their point of view, that is a policy that governs use of sources. One might argue that you have an agenda, and that's fine. But if you have a complaint about TFD, this is not an appropriate venue. If you believe that an article is not neutral, take it to the NPOV noticeboard.
No source is reliable for all statements--I believe there are two statements in the article sourced to Busky at the moment, and for the one statement I see brought up here, using him looks fine. The other one seems pretty mundane, are you asserting that for the two statements attributed to Busky that he is not reliable? --Nuujinn (talk) 01:27, 25 July 2011 (UTC)


Busky is an unreliable source on American socialism, a topic which has a surfeit of sources, many of which are reliable. It would be better to cite Isserman or another reliable source on DSOC; an editor here found several reliable sources (e.g. NYT) for the DSOC/NAM merger.
I am unaware of any reliable sources for the Socialist Party USA, because it seems to have been even smaller and less influential than DSOC/DSA and SDUSA even before 2000. It may be permissible to cite Busky on SPUSA, as long as his unreliability and as long as his self-disclosed COI is noted, e.g. by quoting his self-disclosure of a COI. I shall look for an alternative description.  Kiefer.Wolfowitz 10:57, 25 July 2011 (UTC)
Actually, many sources are reliable for all their statements. You may wish to study competent books or articles in mathematics or logic, for example. In history, Richard Pipes was careful with his sources while Isaac Deutcher was not. Peter Drucker's biography of Shachtman seems very careful. Isserman's biography of Harrington is careful and usually accurate.  Kiefer.Wolfowitz 10:57, 25 July 2011 (UTC)


(out) Kiefer.Wolfowitz, Busky said that the Realignment Caucus in the SP-SDF believed that "labor was the motive of all social change". He did not say that he supported that belief. Do you understand the difference between explaining someone's beliefs and advocating them onself? TFD (talk) 06:15, 25 July 2011 (UTC)

TfD, You should review the use of "all". Burlesquing others' positions wastes others' times and distinguishes pseudoacademic charlatans from scholars. It is unusual for academic histories to suggest ridiculous mis-pronounciations of organizational names, "SDUSA, pronounced Seduce-ah", also. Stop wasting time with fallacies and distractions.  Kiefer.Wolfowitz 10:57, 25 July 2011 (UTC)
This to-and-fro and this hostile language does nothing to encourage editors to work together to improve the articles. Can we draw a line under it now please. My reading of the passage was the same as TfD's, that Busky was reporting the views of others, not his own views. Itsmejudith (talk) 14:13, 25 July 2011 (UTC)
Busky was distorting others' views, despite their being well documented. His bias is shown also in the suggestion of mispronouncing "SDUSA" and many malicious errors. Busky not a reliable source about the SPA or DSOC-DSA or SDUSUA. (Let us wish that he got some facts about the history of SPUSA correct.)  Kiefer.Wolfowitz 18:50, 26 July 2011 (UTC)
How is SDUSA pronounced? TFD (talk) 18:18, 25 July 2011 (UTC)
Like "SPUSA" or "DSA" or "South Dakota, USA": Namely "SD–USA". It's just the ABCs.  Kiefer.Wolfowitz 18:50, 26 July 2011 (UTC)
Not at issue here. Itsmejudith (talk) 19:18, 25 July 2011 (UTC)

Consensus?

Sources

I was wondering if these sources are realiable.

Euro rivals here to show how popular a football club is.

Scottish football grounds here for information and facts. Monkeymanman (talk) 12:04, 25 July 2011 (UTC)

Eurorivals is clearly not RS, from their site: "This chart shows the most popular clubs in the world on eurorivals.net. Clubs are ranked on a combination of total Facebook likes, and how many times each football club is viewed on eurorivals.net". Scottish Football Ground appears to be self-published by Duncan Adams and so falls under WP:SPS and shouldn't be used unless you can establish that Adams is an expert recognised or referenced in reliable 3rd-part sources. Maccy69 (talk) 12:19, 25 July 2011 (UTC)
Euro rivals is clearly not Facebook likes is not a way for ranking a club. Scottish football grounds tends to be correct for information although it depends what its been used to back up as i wouldn't say it counts as reliable. In terms of grounds the clubs website would be the most reliable. A list of further football related sources can be found at Wikipedia:WikiProject Football/Links. Hope this helps as not sure what your asking in relation to. Warburton1368 (talk) 23:08, 26 July 2011 (UTC)

Is a Library of Congress entry enough to meet our RS criteria?

At Talk:Feaster an editor is claiming that this privately published work "The Robert Coleman Family from Virginia to Texas 1652 - 1965 " [44] can be used as a source. Now it's a very nice piece of work and I'm sure the families involved like it very much, but it is privately published. There's a claim that it is actually published backed by a reference in the Library of Congress Catalog but that doesn't show anything that meets our criteria. The web version says "Privately Published in 1965 by JAMES P. COLEMAN, Ackerman, Mississippi Manufactured in the United States of America by Kingsport Press, Inc., Kingsport, Tenn." [45]. Dougweller (talk) 19:41, 25 July 2011 (UTC)

Under U.S. law all writers may register their copyrights with the United States Copyright Office, and a copy of the work is then deposited in the Library of Congress. That does not elevate it to rs. TFD (talk) 19:58, 25 July 2011 (UTC)
Being in a library (congress or not) has nothing to do with reliability whatsoever.--Kmhkmh (talk) 21:10, 25 July 2011 (UTC)
...and neither does being 'published'. AndyTheGrump (talk) 21:14, 25 July 2011 (UTC)
That depends what statement it is being used to support. A catalog entry should be sufficient to say that The Work With This Title was published in the year 1984 at such and such place and attributed to Anne Author. Beyond that, statements hinge on the reliability of the work, not of its catalogued metadata.LeadSongDog come howl! 21:25, 25 July 2011 (UTC)
Yup. WorldCat and LOC are irrelevant; they attest merely the book's existence, but that's never what anyone comes to RSN to talk about. Roscelese (talk ⋅ contribs) 04:04, 26 July 2011 (UTC)
It's being used as a general source for information about a family/families. at Feaster. Dougweller (talk) 06:53, 26 July 2011 (UTC)
And the editor arguing the point was a sock puppet now blocked, but I'm still interested in the discussion. Dougweller (talk) 06:57, 26 July 2011 (UTC)
It is verifiable but very much a primary source. No notability of any sort is given to the contents. One of my uncles wrote a history of the family, if it had been published instead of being burnt by my grandmother only the bits a secondary source noted would be of any interest at large. Dmcq (talk) 12:17, 26 July 2011 (UTC)

Is a report from a non-free commercial resource reliable?

Here's the citation: Forex Magnates Retail Forex Market Quarterly Report for Q1 2011 (Report). Forex Magnates. 2011.

[46]

The article in which it is being used Price action trading

The exact statement in the article that the source is supporting -

The implementation of price action analysis is difficult, requiring the gaining of experience under live market conditions. There is every reason to assume that the percentage of price action speculators who fail, give up or lose their trading capital will be similar to the percentage failure rate across all fields of speculation. According to widespread folklore / urban myth, this is 90%, although commercially available analysis of data from US brokers' 2011 regulatory disclosures puts the figure for failed accounts at around 70% in that quarter and suggests this is typical.[3]

where 3 refers to the citation above.

Links to relevant talk page discussion [47] (first to third paragraphs)

Details: the data from the brokers regulatory disclosures is newly available since the passing of a US law making it a requirement. It appears that this company forexmagnates and their website are only as old as this law. Does the company or website have to be more established than this to count as reliable? Does this appear to be a reliable source? Thanks for the help. --Ahardy66 (talk) 22:24, 25 July 2011 (UTC)

If it is self-published, then the answer is no. Reports about the contents of the report by third-parties would be reliable for what the report says, but the report itself is simply opinion. This looks like spam intended to entice the user to part with $250. Yworo (talk) 23:14, 25 July 2011 (UTC)
Unfortunately from the website it does look very much like spam - the website has been set up as a driver to sell, with the assumption that the usual clicheed sales patter and dumb images will help the sales. However there is actually useful information in that report - it isn't spam, despite appearances. I won't go into detail here about why the information in the report is good and useful, that would be more appropriate on the talk page for the article. What I would like to know however is what makes a (slick) commercial site reliable? There are apparently companies selling research articles on the financial sector. To quote @Sposer

if they are known in the business, and like firms such as Tabb Group, Aite, etc., are known quantities, then it is reasonable to link to their report

So what I'm asking is, how do I determine if they are "known in the business"?--Ahardy66 (talk) 08:56, 26 July 2011 (UTC)
Concur with Yworo. Quoting Sposer is not as significant as quoting policy. White papers and similar SPS should only be used for the most uncontroversial information, as we would regard them as unreliable for anything else. If they are quoting from sources we would consider reliable, try backtracking to those sources. --Nuujinn (talk) 10:13, 26 July 2011 (UTC)
OK thanks. I'll follow up your suggestion. --Ahardy66 (talk) 09:20, 27 July 2011 (UTC)

Jihad

This has been a debate for a long time. Is this source] reliable to say, "According to BBC...". By the way, the link is not from BBC News, and BBC has many documentaries and interviews with scholars and individuals...etc on multiple educational subjects. ~ AdvertAdam talk 18:38, 26 July 2011 (UTC)

I don't see why not. The BBC is, in general, reliable, and they put disclaimers on pages deemed less so. It's probably not the best source - there will be plenty of discussion in the academic literature - but it seems to be ok. --Stephan Schulz (talk) 18:57, 26 July 2011 (UTC)

This is not specifically a question about an unreliable source but of giving undue weight to a less reliable source, and thereby not keeping with WP:NPOV. The BBC source has been contested in this discussion Talk:Jihad#Rules of war according to Islamic law in disharmony with BBC's strict rules and the source that makes assertions somewhat contrary (and in my opinion very substantial) to BBC is this book that I have argued is more reliable. Davidelah (talk) 18:59, 26 July 2011 (UTC)

Your proposed source is over 50 years old (it's a modern reprint of a 1955 edition). I really would not use this book on a topic which has seen plenty of recent coverage. --Stephan Schulz (talk) 19:08, 26 July 2011 (UTC)
Secondary sources regarding religious topics is allowed to be very old as far as I can tell from the guidelines WP:RSEX#Religious sources. I haven't been able to find that many books about rules of war in Islamic teachings by a Muslim author, but maybe the other user can find a book with a more modern interpretation of them, as it seem to me that the book of Majid Khadduri covers the classical rules as established through most of history. This would also be in line with the policy that we should explain the development of a religion in history. Davidelah (talk) 20:10, 26 July 2011 (UTC)
Are you sure he was a Muslim? Mossul is a center of the Assyrian Church. Khadduri certainly was a recognized expert and notable scholar, but 50 years is a long time. And his work is scholarly in nature, not religious. --Stephan Schulz (talk) 20:29, 26 July 2011 (UTC)
Well, you're right. It could be a wrong assumption that he was a Muslim, but in any case secondary sources about a religion does not have to be religious in nature. There are also many other secondary sources that can support Khadduri's book Jihad in classical and modern Islam, The reliance of the traveller and even his own translation of the original Islamic book of warfare Shaybani's Siyar. I will argue that Khadduri's book exactly explains the classical interpretation of the rules of war. So in my opinion it should be used together with a modern or reformed interpretation, but not the BBC source since it does not specify that the list represents a development from the classical point of view, and implies that their list is the only mainstream interpretation. Davidelah (talk) 21:39, 26 July 2011 (UTC)
DavidElah, why are your bringing this here. You removed a sourced sentence, and this is a place to ask about a source. You were told before you can add alternative views, but only when you properly source them. Anyways, I'll go back to the ancient talkpage discussion today. If you want a noticeboard, WP:DRN is the pace to go (not here). Peace, and see you around... ~ AdvertAdam talk 03:41, 27 July 2011 (UTC)
AdamRce, you're still giving undue weight to that source and that is all I'm was trying to explain here and suggest a possible solution, what would the admin suggest? Davidelah (talk) 09:15, 27 July 2011 (UTC)

todaysviews

Is this http://www.todaysviews.com/2011/07/26/anders-breivik-hindu-terror-in-norway/ RS for the claim that Anders Behring Breivik is a Hindoo? I doubt it but thought I would check.Slatersteven (talk) 15:46, 27 July 2011 (UTC)

That's clearly an opinion piece linking him to Hinduism as a supporter of the aims of some Hindu groups, it doesn't make a factual claim about him being a Hindu under any usual understanding of the term (ie a practising member of the religion). There's also nothing to suggest that site meets WP:RS in terms of reputation for fact-checking. Indeed they have a disclaimer which suggest that they don't even aspire to being a factual news source. To quote: "All data and information provided on this site is for informational purposes only. Todays Views makes no representations as to accuracy, completeness, currentness, suitability, or validity of any information on this site & will not be liable for any errors, omissions, or delays in this information or any losses, injuries, or damages arising from its display or use.All information is provided on an as-is basis." Also: "Todays Views presents fresh ideas. Its purpose – as well as that of the other such sites is to provide a venue for informed commentary on World politics and culture from a international perspective." None of that suggests a factual news site - and I doubt you could find much by the way of third party recognition of the factual nature of any statements made on the site. Maccy69 (talk) 16:20, 27 July 2011 (UTC)
Thsts my conclusion, but I wanted third party imput. The user claism is "the source is well written and is 100% true".Slatersteven (talk) 16:51, 27 July 2011 (UTC)
It wouldn't matter even if it were a reliable source, which it isn't. We'd need Breivik to say it himself. It isn't even a sourcing question, it's a BLP issue. Dougweller (talk) 18:18, 27 July 2011 (UTC)

Primary sources in Criticism of evolutionary psychology

Issue

There is an ongoing dispute among the editors of this article involving the use of primary sources. The following is a recent case:

Arguments for using this source: The text that the source supports is not an interpretation or analysis, it is just reporting the conclusions which anyone can gather from the abstract or the conclusion section.

Arguments against using this source on its own: Because the study involves technical terminology and complex statistics that are inaccessible to a non-expert and because it is reporting on a single study with a small sample size, it should be backed up by a secondary source.

Requests

  1. Administrative input on the use of this source
  2. If possible, input on the use of primary sources in a technical field such as EP.

Jojalozzo 18:57, 27 July 2011 (UTC)

The source does not support the key sentence at the start of the paragraph - a good source for this would be secondary source noting this criticism of the field. The study cited would belong under a topic heading such as 'political views associated with scientific beliefs' where it would sit alongside broader sources. The argument that the source material is complex and technical is not a major issue - it is the fact that it is primary that limits its value. Martinlc (talk) 21:08, 27 July 2011 (UTC)
Proponents say, "Primary sources are allowed." Jojalozzo 21:47, 27 July 2011 (UTC)
Primary sources are allowed, but secondary RS are preferred. It sounds to me as if editors are keen to include something about politics and have found it difficult to find a good secondary source, and proposed primary instead. The danger of using primary sources is that it is left to wiki editors to decide how significant, reliable, well-evidenced any statement is. I would argue that a primary source which cannot be demonstrated as notable in itself should not be used as the sole or main source. If it is genuinely impossible to find any secondary sources which address the issue then its inclusion in the article is UNDUE.Martinlc (talk) 22:26, 27 July 2011 (UTC)
I respect your opinion and appreciate the analysis but I'm not sure it's authoritative enough to resolve the dispute. What would you recommend as our next step if this doesn't do the trick? Jojalozzo 03:19, 28 July 2011 (UTC)

Geo Stone and Suicide and Attempted Suicide

Is Geo Stone and his Suicide and Attempted Suicide a reliable source on issues related to suicide? Stone is not a medical doctor; he studied for a PhD in pharmacology but didn't finish [48]. His book gets occasional citations [49], and was reviewed in the journal of the American Medical Association [50], which said it had "intellectual merit". Stone maintains a website [51], which contains parts of the book. Christopher Connor (talk) 21:41, 27 July 2011 (UTC)

The publisher Carroll and Graf appear to be respectable general publishers. the fact that it has been reviewed and cited suggests that it an be used. Where his views are non-standard they should be attributed by name to him. His educational background would only be relevant if he were claiming specialist medical expertise. Martinlc (talk) 22:35, 27 July 2011 (UTC)

Urdutoday.com a website or forum/blog?.

I would like to bring this matter to the experienced editors to decide that,that Urdutoday.com is a website or a just forum.In my opinion it is a standard website consist of editorial board,chief editor and administrator,see,http://www.urdutoday.com/content/terms-and-conditions in enlish and urdu.Please be fair clear and bold to give your opinion regardless any language. Please see Talk:page or article discussion Ehsan Sehgal.I hope editors who know the Urdu may take part in this discussion.If it is not a website,can be used as a external link?.Thanks.Ehsan Sehgal (talk) 05:09, 28 July 2011 (UTC)

I think this is the key phrase: Material sent by any member will be checked by our team of editors and it can take 2 weeks long for final publishing. Its content is still user submitted even though there is a level of editorial oversight, in much the same way IMDB is and we don't accept that as a RS. Unless there are areas of the site that are published strictly by professional staff I'd have to say it isn't a RS. Betty Logan (talk) 06:10, 28 July 2011 (UTC)

User-generated blog posts and an unattributed Media Matters post as criticism of a peer-reviewed journal article

An editor has added the following content to NPR controversies#Allegations of liberal bias:

The study has been heavily criticized. Geoff Nunberg, linguist and professor at the UC Berkeley School of Information, has written the study was "based on unsupported, ideology-driven premises" and has "severe issues of data quality".[5] Media Matters for America asserted that the charge of "liberal bias" was "unsubstantiated" and noted that the authors of the study have received significant levels of funding from conservative think tanks.[6] The methodology of the study was also criticized by Brendan Nyhan, political scientist and professor at Dartmouth College.[7]

The content is being used to criticize this journal article] published in the peer-reviewed Quarterly Journal of Economics. In contrast, the following sources are being used:

The relevant policy at WP:IRS seems to be the following:

"Blogs" in this context refers to personal and group blogs. Some news outlets host interactive columns they call blogs, and these may be acceptable as sources so long as the writers are professional journalists or are professionals in the field on which they write and the blog is subject to the news outlet's full editorial control. Posts left by readers may never be used as sources.
Self-published material may be acceptable when produced by an established expert on the topic of the article whose work in the relevant field has previously been published by reliable third-party publications.

While Nunberg and Nyan are both academics, it has not been demonstrated that either are "an established expert on the topic of the article whose work in the relevant field has previously been published by reliable third-party publications."

The discussion is here.

I would say Nyhan being a poli sci professor does mean he's in a relevant field and could be used under WP:SPS. The linguist, not so much, that's too distant a field in my opinion. Media Matters has been brought up here many times,[52] but consensus seems to be that it is WP:RS as a media watchdog. In all these cases proper in-text attribution should be applied (seems to have been done already.) Siawase (talk) 19:41, 28 July 2011 (UTC)

Videonuze

Is this site regarded as a reliable source? The Metacafe article has a general reference pointing to this Videonuze post], an article reporting a discussion which does read pretty positively, but I've never come across the site before so not sure. Thanks. Eldumpo (talk) 20:39, 27 July 2011 (UTC)

Websites are always a challenge to evaluate, and we usually fall back on this rule of thumb: Is there any indication of editorial oversight. In this instance it names the editor. And the About page says that the contributors are industry veterans. So on the face of it, the site may be acceptable. The particular article you pointed to seems authoritative. I'd say that it meets the standard, and if anyone challenges it, then we can maybe give it some more scrutiny here. TimidGuy (talk) 10:18, 28 July 2011 (UTC)
From the about page[53] and the posts, it looks to be a one man show. His credentials don't include having work published:[54] so technically he isn't within WP:RS via WP:SPS. On the other hand his strong credentials (esp the industry conference work) probably makes him a de facto expert. On the third hand, since this is just a general reference and isn't noted as being used to verify anything specific, I would probably remove it. Siawase (talk) 19:23, 28 July 2011 (UTC)

Peer review to high a bar?

This edit to the article on prosocial behavior removed some text and the supporting source because it was "non-peer reviewed". Requiring that a source be peer-reviewed seems like a very high bar to me. I would just revert the edit myself, but I've never done that before, so I thought I'd ask here to see what people thought. Yaris678 (talk) 17:47, 29 July 2011 (UTC)

In theory, yes. An ideal version of that article would be based primarily on peer-reviewed scholarly sources, meaning that adding a non-reviewed source would bring down the average quality of the sources. However, the article right now is a total mess (I may actually have to nominate it for deletion), so adding a source that actually uses the phrase "prosocial behavior" is, at this point, a positive step. (Also, the paper was published in Social Development - is that not peer reviewed?) Roscelese (talk ⋅ contribs) 22:44, 29 July 2011 (UTC)
  1. ^ Isserman, p. 300-301.
  2. ^ Isserman, p. 311.
  3. ^ Isserman, p. 422.
  4. ^ Busky, pp. 163-165
  5. ^ a b Busky, pp. 164-165
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