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Times and IBTimes RS?

In Unite Against Fascism the Times and IBTimes have been offered for the label of "left wing" for the organization. [1] TimesOnline 10 Aug 2009 "Left-wing groups including Unite Against Fascism " and [2] IBTimes 19 Nov 2010 "the left-wing group Unite Against Fascism (of which Prime Minister David Cameron is a supporter)". were offered for the claim. Are they RS for such a claim? Collect (talk) 13:24, 9 December 2010 (UTC)

The Times and IBTimes are certainly reliable sources. The sources are news stories, not editorials. The description as "left wing" is made in passing and cannot be characterized as any kind of reasoned in-depth analysis. But, when are convenient labels ever supported by reasoned in-depth analysis? All that being said, I don't see any problem with the sources being used in the manner thay are being used in the article.216.157.197.218 (talk) 14:43, 9 December 2010 (UTC)

They are certainly RS for this. They views on the political leanings of protest groups and parties are considerd RS.Slatersteven (talk) 14:47, 9 December 2010 (UTC)

In which case, might a disinterested admin examine the edit war going on to remove the RS sourced claim? I think one editor has broached reasonable revert levels by a goodly bit. Collect (talk) 16:08, 9 December 2010 (UTC)

No challenge to The Times being a reliable source (and that has only been presented today for the first time by the way). The IBT has been challenged in this respect on the talk page. The issue is one of WP:WEIGHT and the refusal of Collect and others to engage in discussion. In particular its difficult for one casual reference in a news story to overcome the support for UAF by the leader of the leading RIGHT WING party in the UK. There has been a long term edit war to label UAF as left wing. Recently this has been a concerted effort by a small group of editors, end result was a massive edit war a few pages ago and a general refusal to allow the stable version to stand while a consensus was reached. There have been a few other examples of AGF failure. It certainly needs some new eyes to take a look at it. --Snowded ^TALK 16:20, 9 December 2010 (UTC)

The Times is certainly reliable enough. That said, these kinds of labels are generally a bad idea, especially if there are contradicting views on this. Are there reliable sources that state UAF is not "left-wing"? Jayjg ^(talk) 01:50, 10 December 2010 (UTC)

I have to agree that terms such as left-wing and right-wing need to be used with care. Usually, we go with self-identification, except in cases where academic analysts are pretty much speaking with one voice (which does usually mean they're more extreme). In this case, I think "left-wing" clearly does not deserve to be there. On their website, they identify as anti-fascist only, not left-wing. The website contains a list of signatories to their founding statement, including some Conservatives, such as Teddy Taylor (rather right wing) and Peter Bottomley, at least one Ulster Unionist in Martin Smyth (really not left-wing at all), and many centrists Labour MPs. It's true that the SWP has someone on their national committee, but they turn up to anything involving the organisation of students and not too much attention should be paid to it. I think the label should absolutely be removed as undue. It's against standard practice to include it like this.VsevolodKrolikov (talk) 03:57, 10 December 2010 (UTC)

The process is to use RS on the basis of "verifiability not truth." In the case of John Birch Society, the JBS denies that it is "radical right-wing" (a bit further off the chart than "left wing" is), but the "radical" term is found in the WP article. I would be happy if there were a policy that no articles whould place anyone or any group on any "political spectrum" but we have to deal with what the current policies and guidelines are. If we allow such, then RS is all that is required ("left wing" is not an accusation of terrorism or anything remotely like that). Collect (talk) 11:22, 10 December 2010 (UTC)

The enemay of my enemy is my friend. There are many instances (such as the animal rights movemnt) where persons at opposite ends of the political spectrum come out of the wood work to suport a group or cause that expuses something tehy agree with. That does not alter the basci politics or attitude of the group reciving support. Its also not true to say this label appears in one source. I agree that what is needed is perhaps some kind o=f guidlines as to how to label such groups rathyer then the rather add hok system we have now. What we have is a situatioin wehre group A can be called FAr naughty becasue (even though they deny it) 20 RS say they are where as Group B cannot be calle wicked wing becasue (even though they have not denied it) only 3 RS call them it.Slatersteven (talk) 11:33, 10 December 2010 (UTC)

Sorting some guidelines would make sense. However we so far have one independent view (VsevolodKrolikov) given that all others are active on this issue or more generally on the various political and pressure group pages. I suggest those players hang back and see if we can get some more perspectives. --Snowded ^TALK 12:40, 10 December 2010 (UTC)

This is not a question of reliability per se, but whether undue weight is being given to the label. I agree with VsevolodKrolikov's analysis. Two, very brief, throwaway mentions in the media (including from one at rather weak source on the reliability scale (IBT)) are not sufficient to label an organization in this fashion, most especially in the Lead, particularly when its founding membership clearly belies it. In contrast, the label of the John Birch Society as right-wing has been made by many more, much higher quality sources, including academic ones. --Slp1 (talk) 13:45, 11 December 2010 (UTC)

Additional sources, my support of which has led to a threat of ANI, are these RS for the claim? [[3]] [[4]] [[5]] [[6]] We also have this sources which can be read as saying that the UAF are left wing (it does not attempt to differentiate between them ans the other left wing demonstrators [[7]] Slatersteven (talk) 14:25, 12 December 2010 (UTC)

Slatersteven is one of a couple of POV warriors on this page. It needs other eyes to (hopefully) avoid the need to go to ANI. His links in the message above include the Daily Star, which for those of you from outside the UK is a notorious soft-porn newspaper with little reputation for factual reporting, and a webpage from pakistan.tv carrying BNP supporting material. (And one of the other links actually makes clear that the group is not simply left-wing, actually against his case. But he doesn't seem to care). On the page itself he's also citing the opinion column of a light-entertainment compere in a local paper (I'm not kidding). RS (BBC, Daily Telegraph, Guardian) describing the UAF as mainstream or cross-party has also been provided by other editors, but is being ignored by those determined to include their favoured text. They appear to have no guiding principle behind their edits save a content outcome, making discussion futile.VsevolodKrolikov (talk) 14:41, 12 December 2010 (UTC)

Of the sources presented by Slatersteven, I would say this is a reliable source, but the characterization is made in passing, so I would suggest it would be of little weight. Use of this to support the claim would be, IMO, OR. --Nuujinn (talk) 14:49, 12 December 2010 (UTC)

One of the sources that is used to refute the claim [[8]] actualy uses the phrase 'left wing criminals'.Slatersteven (talk) 14:54, 12 December 2010 (UTC)

That is a reported quote from the leader of the far right BNP Slater, its not a statement by the Telegraph. --Snowded ^TALK 14:57, 12 December 2010 (UTC)

(edit conflict) Wow!! are you actually suggesting we pay any attention to want Nick Griffin thinks about UAF? I'm speechless. VsevolodKrolikov's analysis is looking more and more on the money. --Slp1 (talk) 15:00, 12 December 2010 (UTC)

Its in the same line as the comment you say opposes the idea that the UAF are not left wing" (which is also a quote from Mr griffin), So if its RS for the line "notes that "mainstream politicians" support the UAF" its must be RS for them being left wing. There has been an accusation made (more then once) that those of us who want to include the liine 'left wing' have been cherry picking souces. Well what is this? You cannot use a source when it supports your view and then refuse to allow it when it does not.Slatersteven (talk) 15:03, 12 December 2010 (UTC)

Sorry, I have no idea what you are talking about. Nick Griffin's attributed opinions are in a completely different league from the reportage of a newspaper with editorial oversight. It's so obvious I can't believe I even have to say it. --Slp1 (talk) 15:19, 12 December 2010 (UTC)

It in the saem sentance as the claims that it has mainstream support, both statemnts are attributed to Mr griffin. How can nthe telegraph be used as RS for a stament when its repeating Mr Griffin and then the same sentance cannot be used as RS for something else?Slatersteven (talk) 15:29, 12 December 2010 (UTC)

(reinserting material accidentally deleted by user answering another topic)

It is a reliable source for what Griffin said, but not for the rightness or wrongness of Griffin's opinions. --Snowded ^TALK 15:32, 12 December 2010 (UTC)

Heh, nice try, Slater. Nick Griffin's opinions start with the quotation marks.VsevolodKrolikov (talk) 15:35, 12 December 2010 (UTC)

Okay, I see what you mean. Not the greatest source for the fact that mainstream politicians support the UAF, and if it was the only source making the point (or even used in the article) it would be problematic. But it isn't, of course.The BBC is cited in the article for this, and thus this is line of argument is a something of a red herring. --Slp1 (talk) 15:53, 12 December 2010 (UTC)

I was reponding to the statemnt that sources have been presented on the talk page that the UAF is not leftist. But it does not mdeny the group is itself left wing, just that it enjoys support from a wide spectrum (in much the saem way that the anti-globalisation movment contains many disperate and some times (in other areas) hostile groups). The case being made is that no source denies that the UAF are actualy left wing (its just as OR to say that becasue they enjoy wide support as the Express arctiel thyat says that left wing groups), nor have they temsleves denied it.Slatersteven (talk) 16:06, 12 December 2010 (UTC)

(edit conflict) Pakistan.tv is not a reliable source, as there is no sign of any kind of editorially oversight. Websites ending with .tv sound official, are mostly just self-published websites. The Daily Star is a tabloid with a very poor reputation for accuracy, and the Daily Mail is not much better. The Sunday Business Post is a reliable source and the best of the bunch, but it does not support the notion that the UAF is a left wing organization; it states that the UAF is "a loose collection of left-wing and anti-racism organisations in Britain" (emphasis added).--Slp1 (talk) 15:00, 12 December 2010 (UTC)

(edit conflict) To Nuujinn: the problem with the Daily Mail on this topic is firstly that it's an anti-immigrant newspaper with a history of skewing or on occasion simply inventing stories about immigrants, and secondly, as a paper it's fair to say that it pretty much despises the chairman of UAF, Ken Livingstone. It's a very popular paper, so perhaps its opinion is noteworthy, but not as a source representing considered opinion, which is how they want it to be used. As for Slater's comments here, he's just illustrating the problem with his editing.VsevolodKrolikov (talk) 15:04, 12 December 2010 (UTC)

• This is obviously not a RS issue at all. It's pretty obvious (i) that there are RS that call the organization "left wing"; (ii) the organization doesn't view itself as left wing; (iii) even reliable sources can have biases, which is irrelevant, and (iv) there are edit warring editors who either like or dislike the labels in this instance or on principle generally. The text was pretty balanced when I looked at it back when this first came up at RSN a few days ago, other than I'd think it sufficient to mention the "left wing" label once. I'm not going back again to see what's happened in the meantime. Not gonna pick up this tarbaby. This is not a RSN issue; take this dispute elsewhere. Fladrif (talk) 15:11, 12 December 2010 (UTC)

I don't entirely agree that RSN editors don't have something to contribute, since various sources have been claimed as reliable when they are not, such as pakistan.tv and Nick Griffin's opinion. On the other hand, I think all agree that this is mainly a question of Undue weight, and that discussion should be held elsewhere. --Slp1 (talk) 15:19, 12 December 2010 (UTC)

It should be about undue weight, but the undue weight argument has been met with trash sources to add ballast.VsevolodKrolikov (talk) 15:28, 12 December 2010 (UTC)

Yes, this is primarily a question of weight. Many of the sources presented are clearly not reliable, but do keep in mind It is to be expected that some reliable sources have a bias, see for example the numerous discussions of Fox News. Most of the discussion above does not belong here, really. --Nuujinn (talk) 15:36, 12 December 2010 (UTC)

The issue of the "left-wing" epithet in an article in The Times is still unresolved. In my view The Times is clearly RS. Whatever bias it has is normal in UK broadsheet papers and must be disregarded. The problem with this particular article is that it only uses "left-wing" as a brief throwaway. Shorthand, even, for those opposed to fascist groups and therefore "left-wing" in comparison with fascism. The senior Conservative Party politicians in membership of UAF are undoubtedly to the left of BNP and EDL. I wouldn't support the addition of "left-wing" to the lede on the basis of this source. Itsmejudith (talk) 11:55, 13 December 2010 (UTC)

The presentation here of the dispute about the Times being questioned as RS is a clean misrepresentation. As you rightly note, it's an issue of proper weight to this single comment. In actual fact, this all appears to be a retaliatory dispute because of the labelling of the EDL elswhere on wikipedia, as discussions show.VsevolodKrolikov (talk) 13:40, 13 December 2010 (UTC)

Eh? Show me any edit I have made conscerning the EDL in any venue whatsoever - then iterate that I am "retaliating" about something! Nor do I give a whit about what the EDL is labelled as long as it is supported directly by reliable sources and attributed properly to them. Now can we stop the side circus? Collect (talk) 18:35, 13 December 2010 (UTC)

I notice you put up spirited arguments in the article about Arthur Kemp, who is a leader of the British National Party, against the inclusion of information sourced to the Southern Poverty Law Centre (not RS), court records (primary source) and his book about the supremacy of the white race and a revisionist view of the holocaust.(synthesis). You even edited the article to make it appear this description was an opinion, after it was sourced to The Guardian.[9] TFD (talk) 23:49, 13 December 2010 (UTC)

Collect, I was referring to the discussion in general where the labelling of the EDL as right-wing appears to have incited a few editors. Of course there are other far right groups which editors are feeling sorry for. You in particular have compared this situation to the phenomenally well-sourced description of the John Birch Society as radical right. As TFD notes above, you're not applying the same standards of editing across the encyclopedia, but picking and choosing positions to suit a pretty consistent POV. You've got editing the wrong way round.VsevolodKrolikov (talk) 01:17, 14 December 2010 (UTC)

Curiously, I am using exactly the same position everywhere on WP. And it is TFD who wobbles. I would oppose calling any group "radical" or "extreme" in the lede absent an overwhelming consensus of sources for the precise adjective. Absent any such agreement among sources, the adjective is not needed. Here there is no such dispute among sources, and no use of the adjectives "rextrem" or "radical" etc. My "POV" is in exact agreement with WP policies and guidelines here. I would also suggest that my edits on totally apolitical articles is consistent with this, as well as my edits on such "rightwingers" as Alex Sink, David Copperfield and Huey Long. Did you know that iterating false claims is not a great idea? Collect (talk) 11:36, 14 December 2010 (UTC)

Thank you for proving my point. You have not provided evidence of overwhelming consensus on this point (I've asked you on the NPOV noticeboard three times for the "dozen" sources you claim to have), yet you continue to revert the material back in. It is "disputed" because there are RS that contradict the description. They don't say "a bunch of editors are wrong on wikipedia", they describe UAF as cross-party and non-partisan. You raised the issue here, you've had your answer, and it seems you don't like it.VsevolodKrolikov (talk) 12:37, 14 December 2010 (UTC)

Suggestion: A number of editors have pointed out that this is not an RS issue. Should we maybe take further comments to the NPOV discussion (which has been moved here, for reasons I can't quite work out: Wikipedia_talk:Neutral_point_of_view/Noticeboard#UAF)? --FormerIP (talk) 00:23, 14 December 2010 (UTC)

The problem is, FormerIP, that those wishing to continue with the insertion of this material are dancing between claiming they have lots of sources (which are not actually RS) and pretending that it's really about editors challenging the RS status of the Times, which, as you point out, it isn't. That is, although several outside editors have stated this is an issue of weight, there is a refusal by Collect and others to address this point. It's a behavioural problem.VsevolodKrolikov (talk) 01:22, 14 December 2010 (UTC)

And lots that are (three at least, and thats being generous to the other side).Slatersteven (talk) 15:32, 17 December 2010 (UTC)

Google Chrome Releases blog

The Google Chrome Releases blog contains the official release notes for the Google Chrome browser. These release notes do not appear to be published by Google anywhere else except this blog. The release notes from January 2010 are used to verify the claim that Chrome passes the Acid3 test in the Google Chrome and Acid3 articles. Again (as with the Surfin' Safari blog), it looks like SunCreator asserts that this is a self-published source and therefore is unreliable. I say that it's the place where Google publishes its official release notes and is reliable. All the sources I find that state that Chrome passes Acid3 appear to copy information from these release notes. Is the Google Chrome Releases blog considered a self-published source or unreliable for some other reason? -- Schapel (talk) 14:17, 11 December 2010 (UTC)

Google lists "Google Chrome Releases" as an official company blog here (7th down in the list) Barte (talk) 14:47, 11 December 2010 (UTC)

It's a bit of both. It's a self-published source that is only reliable for the claims of it's author. IOW, you cannot cite it to say, "Chrome passes the Acid3 test. You can, however, cite it to say, "Chrome passes the Acid3 test according to Google. In general, you should avoid citing self-published sources. In general, if the information should be included in an article, then other third-party sources will have published it. AQFK (talk) 14:51, 11 December 2010 (UTC)

It's not a bit of both. It's an official Google blog--listed as a press resource by the company. It would have been helpful in this context if Google had been clearer on the blog itself. But the link from the Google Press Center is hard to argue with.Barte (talk) 14:56, 11 December 2010 (UTC)

It's a self-published source which is only reliable for the opinions of its author. Take with that what you will. A Quest For Knowledge (talk) 15:05, 11 December 2010 (UTC)

In what way is it a self-published source? My understanding is that a self-published source involves an individual who serves as both publisher and author. If I write a book and publish it myself, my book is a self-published source. If an editor at Newsweek writes an article and Newsweek publishes the article, the author and publisher are different entities, so the article is not a self-published source. -- Schapel (talk) 15:16, 11 December 2010 (UTC)

Let's walk through this. On Google's Press Center page, Google--the company--offers a Google Blog Directory. The introduction to said directory says:

"Whether it's a product or feature launch or a cool new initiative, chances are that you'll read about most news from Google on one of our blogs. We started blogging in May of 2004 and now have a network of company blogs that cover topics as diverse as our renewable energy policies, product updates, developer challenges and code snippets, and information for advertisers and partners." (Italics mine).

Seventh on the list in the Google Blog Directory is the blog in qustion. Now, you can maintain if you like that this is still a self-published blog. But please explain what this self-published blog is doing in the Google Blog Directory, which lists a network of company blogs. Barte (talk) 17:26, 11 December 2010 (UTC)

My understanding is that self-published applies to organizations as well as individuals. Even if it doesn't, it should still have in-text attribution because it's not independent of the subject. A Quest For Knowledge (talk) 17:30, 11 December 2010 (UTC)

So an article by a NewsWeek employee published in the printed magazine NewsWeek is an article self-published by NewsWeek? -- Schapel (talk) 17:55, 11 December 2010 (UTC)

I believe that the distinction is whether the decision to publish belongs to the author or the publisher. In the case of Newsweek, the reporter must submit his article to an editor who reviews the article and require (or ask for) changes or can decline to publish it. A Quest For Knowledge (talk) 18:01, 11 December 2010 (UTC)

That makes sense. So whether a particular blog post is a self-published source may depend on whether the author was able to publish it without editorial oversight, or if the author had to get editorial review and approval before the post is published? In this case, we would need to determine if the release notes are reviewed and approved before being published. My experience as a software developer would lead me to believe that the release notes for Google Chrome would be checked and reviewed before being published, but how can we be sure? -- Schapel (talk) 21:11, 11 December 2010 (UTC)

Wikipedia makes a distinction between self-published sources and primary sources. The former are literally self-published by individuals--see wp:sps. The latter, primary sources, wp:primary, can be used on Wikipedia, but only with care--to make declarative statements, not analytic, synthetic, interpretive, explanatory, or evaluative claims about material found in a primary source". The community does not seem to have ruled specifically on corporate blogs--the page that covered them reached no consensus. But a corporate blog that logs progress on an open source project is hardly "self-published" in the sense that wp:sps defines it. Read the paragraph for yourself. Barte (talk) 00:13, 12 December 2010 (UTC)

Yes, I have read these policies and guidelines and have come to the same conclusion. I was asked to discuss the matter here because others disagree and claim that these blogs are self-published and unreliable. I hope this clarifies the issue with F/OSS blogs. Thanks! -- Schapel (talk) 15:46, 12 December 2010 (UTC)

Barte, for clarity are you suggesting this is not self-serving as Schapel has claimed? I can see the reasoning for it being considered WP:PRIMARY, and think it falls somewhere between Primary and SPS. Regards, SunCreator ^(talk) 16:08, 12 December 2010 (UTC)

The question at the top was whether the source was SPS. When I look at wp:sps, I don't see how this blog qualifies. ("Anyone can create a personal web page or pay to have a book published, then claim to be an expert in a certain field. For that reason, self-published media...) The blog is not by a self-proclaimed "expert," but by Google, and its reputation is at stake. The blog's purpose is not primarily marketing, but to give status updates on an open source project. So I think the blog is strictly a primary source and can be cited using WP:PRIMARY guidelines, including the simple, declarative claim that Chrome passed the Acid3 test. If that assertion were ever disputed by another notable source, we should then cover the controversy and cite both.Barte (talk) 16:55, 12 December 2010 (UTC)

Many sources that are poor for most things can at least be considered as reliable or "expert" for information about themselves. Whether that is mentioned in the SPS sub-section or not I do not recall, but it is covered within policy in various places. What we would not use such a source for though would be anything self serving, or anything about living third parties.--Andrew Lancaster (talk) 17:38, 12 December 2010 (UTC)

"Chrome passed the Acid3 test" seems to me a simple statement of fact.

"Chrome passed the Acid3 test, making Google a leader in Web standards compliance"--on the other hand, seems more like the kind of self-serving assertion we are concerned about. Just to be clear, I think the guidelines allow us to trust a primary source on the former, but not the latter. Barte (talk) 22:58, 12 December 2010 (UTC)

The question at the top should be whether this(Google's blog for a Google Chrome product) is a reliable source or not. This is the reliable source noticeboard after all. I don't see a statement of "Chrome passed the Acid3 test" as anything but a promotional claim but whatever consensus is, is. Why isn't anyone else reporting the Google Chrome assertion, and thus giving a clear reliable source? Regards, SunCreator ^(talk) 23:33, 12 December 2010 (UTC)

A few bloggers have picked it up. They haven't referenced the Google blog; rather they just run the test and run screenshots showing that Chrome has passed. SunCreator: would you agree that the Google blog is at least reliable enough to cite it with an in-text, "according to" reference? Barte (talk) 06:21, 13 December 2010 (UTC)

"according to" would be great. When things are in prose with a context it's easy to use like this. However the article use of this information is in a yes/no type check-box list where an explanation to the reader is not available. Regards, SunCreator ^(talk) 00:20, 14 December 2010 (UTC)

The blogging reference doesn't contain the information it's just says it scores 100. A common mistake and a sadly re-occurring one with the articles contents. To pass Acid 3 test a browser has to both score 100 AND pass a performance test. Regards, SunCreator ^(talk) 00:20, 14 December 2010 (UTC)

I would have thought the Web Standards Project would have been the obvious place for an official announcement. But the site hasn't posted (that I can see, at least) anything on Acid3 since 2008. If a browser passes, who but the manufacturer is left to declare it? Barte (talk) 16:15, 14 December 2010 (UTC)

The official Chrome 4.0 Release Notes from the Google Chrome Releases blog states Full ACID3 pass, not just that Chrome scores 100/100. Other sources have said the same thing, although their source seems to be these same release notes. I would think if Chrome in fact didn't pass, that would have been covered by someone. What else is there to say when the release notes say it, and it seems to be true? -- Schapel (talk) 23:21, 14 December 2010 (UTC)

One would expected the abundance of technical press appearing in Google News to have covered it. Regards, SunCreator ^(talk) 16:35, 14 December 2010 (UTC)

Covered it perhaps--but who would have announced the news in the first place? For example, Opera (I believe) is the poster child for Acid compliance. But who first raised brought that to the attention of the world...WSP? Or was it Opera, itself? And if Opera did it via a press release or blog, would that have been a legit primary source? I think it would have, even though both venues are inherently self-serving. Barte (talk) 23:09, 14 December 2010 (UTC) Indeed, FWIW, the Opera Wikipedia entry covering that browser's Acid3 results cites a TechBlog post which is a straight lift of Opera Software's marketing materials for the browser as a whole. That's doesn't make it a good cite, of course, but I think the point is the same: it's hard to imagine Opera Software, or Google, putting out false info on something so widely scrutinized. My vote (in case this wasn't clear) is to treat the blog as a reliable primary source.Barte (talk) 23:23, 14 December 2010 (UTC)

Again, as your previous link the techspot source does not say it passed the performance test, it only says it scored 100. It's of no use as a performance reference. Regards, SunCreator ^(talk) 13:32, 15 December 2010 (UTC)

Who would have announced the news in the first place? Any of the technical press. The browser test http://acid3.acidtests.org/ is publically available to everyone. Regards, SunCreator ^(talk) 13:32, 15 December 2010 (UTC)

a-ha recordsales

I have recently come into a dissagreement with a different editor regarding a-ha's recordsales. I understand that youtube videos are in general not considered a reliable source due to the possibility of editing etc. However the video in question is an official recordlabel promo video released in conjunction with a-ha's latest album release back in 2009 and is genuine. The video was given an official release and used on TV campaigns acrosss Europe and in various languages. I understand that information that recordlabels release might be considered unormally favourable to the artists that they promote ( as with all artists ) , but still are other media outlets and various certifications more reliable ? As I understand sales are only certified if the artist / label asks for it and are not nesseserely uppdated. Furthermore recordsales are in general difficult to handle as there can be various ways of counting recordsales from country to country and period of sales / certification. a-ha is a Norwegian band and sources are not nesseserely as readily available as for artists from English speaking countries. They have especially large fanbases in Europe, Asia and South America. Because of all these issues, I feel that this offical video should be regarded as a reliable source as anything else. Video in question: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=G4WOhWdXp8s&feature=related

The video can be traced back to Universal Germany's official youtube site: http://www.youtube.com/user/pop24#p/u/77/Wcd5ZkQS3dY Both English and German versions are here. Your feedback is welcome Mortyman (talk) 21:46, 12 December 2010 (UTC)

I don't think the video should be treated any differently to a statement on the record company's website. It is perfectly okay to cite from YouTube if no copyrighted content is linked to and there is no serious reason to question the authenticity of the content. However, I'm not sure that the record company can be considered an RS in respect of claims relating to artists on its roster. This source: [10] says 36 million. Is that a figure you would be happy to go with? --FormerIP (talk) 03:36, 13 December 2010 (UTC)

Well, most YouTube videos are someone's copyright, the question is whether the video was uploaded with the copyright owner's permission. Home movies, cell phone videos, and commercial works are all protected by copyright, at least in most countries where YouTube has servers - anything that is "created" is protected (which includes almost everything). I think you mean as long as the linked content does not infringe upon copyright without the owner's permission.

The person who uploaded the video (chrisf300uk) looks like a fan, not someone officially linked to the studio. The video in question looks like a commercial work so it appears as though the video is infringing on the copyright of whoever produced it. This is a complex legal question we can't answer, but the copyright status is questionable. Whether the copyright owner has filed, or ever will file a complaint is irrelevant. A cursory glance suggests this is not a legitimate outlet for that video, so I'd say don't use that as a source unless you can find something that demonstrates it was uploaded with the owner's permission.

If you can find a copy of the video that was officially uploaded by the studio or band, then I think it would be okay. I checked their website and couldn't find it, but maybe it's somewhere else. When it's obtained from a random person like this, there's no way to guarantee a fact-checking process which is the essence of a reliable source. 96.228.129.69 (talk) 12:12, 13 December 2010 (UTC)

Thanx for your replies. As mentioned above:

The video can be traced back to Universal Germany's official youtube site: http://www.youtube.com/user/pop24#p/u/77/Wcd5ZkQS3dY

Both English and German versions are here.

So the video on this site is upploaded by the label. The 36 million figure is albums only. It is not total sales including singles, EP's etc Mortyman (talk) 16:08, 13 December 2010 (UTC)

Sorry but I must disagree there, I think Universal Germany's official website is www.universal-music.de and there's no mention of either the YouTube channel in question or the pop24 website. I'm not fluent in German so maybe someone else would have more luck finding it. The pop24 site appears to be a German-language e-zine for pop music fans, but I don't think they originally produced the video in question. They may have uploaded it without permission or produced it themselves from unlicensed video clips, but studios generally don't enforce copyright when it comes to trailers (and thus are unlikely to fact-check one produced by a third party). Their website does link to Universal Music, but that doesn't mean there is official affiliation. If there is evidence that they are affiliated (other than a claim they make on their YouTube channel which we can't confirm), it needs to be presented to demonstrate reliability. Otherwise, cite a version of the video in question that was uploaded with the copyright owner's permission so that we have some guarantee of an editorial process.

There's nothing wrong with using a video from YouTube as such, but it must be subject to the same reliability constraints as any other source. In short, there is no guarantee of fact-checking for verification when it comes to this source. 96.228.129.69 (talk) 01:45, 14 December 2010 (UTC)

It looks to me like there is no reason to suppose that the trailer is not legally hosted (even if it wasn't, we could still use it as a source provided there is no reason to doubt its basic authenticity and we were able to give citation details without linking to it). The only issue, AFAICT, is whether record company promo puff is a suitable RS for sales data, which I don't think it is because of the possibility that it may be self-serving (see WP:BLPSPS). That's probably an issue that has been discussed previously, if anyone cares to do the research. --FormerIP (talk) 01:51, 14 December 2010 (UTC)

There is no reason to suppose that it is, or is not, legally hosted. The user Mortyman appears mistaken in thinking that it was the official YouTube channel for Universal Music Germany - an understandable mistake since pop24 labeled their channel "Der Pop-Channel von Universal Music". "The burden of evidence lies with the editor who adds or restores material." I've made a good-faith effort to research this and find a credible link between the two but could not. The channel in question is for a pop music e-zine as I said above, and without significant coverage or an open editorial process (I found evidence of neither). If he'd like to find an alternative source for this video, that would be a separate discussion.

Any video uploaded to YouTube can be altered, even if the original came from a viable source. The spirit of the rule is that Wikipedia needs some sort of reasonable guarantee that any fact stated in the source has been checked. A company's claim regarding its own record sales could be usable in a crunch, but undesirable as a primary source; it would serve until such time as a reliable secondary source is found. Specifics about the claim being self-serving and other concerns about the appropriateness of the source need to happen on that article's talk page.

(Also, I don't think WP:BLP applies to the article A-ha because groups are not generally included. If the information is potentially harmful to a member of the group, some caution would be warranted. I'm just assuming this is for the A-ha article but the user didn't say.) 96.228.129.69 (talk) 02:07, 14 December 2010 (UTC)

Whether the video is hosted on the official channel of the record label (it clearly isn't) is not really relevant. A pop music ezine is capable of being a reliable source, including its video content. I think you're misunderstanding regarding about "Legal persons and groups", 96.228.129.69 - this is not a reference to pop groups and they will be covered by BLP provided the members are still living. The only issue here is whether the material may be "self-serving" or not, I think. --FormerIP (talk) 03:12, 14 December 2010 (UTC)

While an e-zine could be a reliable source, it needs to show an open editorial process like any other source. Generally tabloids (print or online) are not considered reliable - while they are in fact publications, that doesn't make them reliable until they establish a reputation for fact-checking and accuracy. Same thing applies to a pop music mag like pop24. Let's assume pop24 produced the video - have they received significant coverage to demonstrate them as a reputable source? If so, then it could be considered, but that has not yet been demonstrated adequately. If pop24 did not produce the video, then it absolutely should not be considered as reliable source until a legitimate official outlet for the video can be located.

Without seeing anything further, the call on this video needs to be no. If the editor that added the source can provide more info along the lines I've explained, then maybe it could be used.

(From BLP regarding groups: "The extent to which the BLP policy applies to edits about groups is complex and must be judged on a case-by-case basis". That's a discussion for BLPN, not here.) 96.228.129.69 (talk) 06:05, 14 December 2010 (UTC)

I personally went over a-ha's available certified sales (which can be found at a-ha's discussion page here) just to see if their certified sales are anywhere close to 70 million, and based on my research the 70 million which appears in the footage uploaded to You Tube is outright inflated. The certified sales from the larger, medium and some smaller markets should cover 70% of the actual sales and a-ha's certified sales which comes up to some 12 million suggest that their actual sales could not even reach the 50 million mark, let alone 70 million. I don't think the video could and should be viewed as reliable as anyone could record anything from TV and then add sales figures to it and then upload the altered version to You Tube.--Harout72 (talk) 03:53, 14 December 2010 (UTC)

The current source on the article from The Norway Post is more reliable and credible than a video trailer. Also there is evidence, like the certifications posted on the talk page by Harout, and other sources such as this Daily Mail article, to say they have sold even less than the 51m records quoted on The Norway Post article. Mattg82 (talk) 23:48, 15 December 2010 (UTC)

Reliability of US military summary reports

User:Geo Swan has been treating the summary reports from the Office for the Administrative Review of the Detention of Enemy Combatants (or OARDEC) on the Guantanamo detainees as "secondary reliable sources" in writing biographies, e.g. see discussion at Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Fazaldad. An example of the memos is at:[11] He writes that "I honestly see no reason that the OARDEC summary memos should not also be considered secondary sources which are suitable WP:RS." The "summary memos" are unclassified reports prepared for the Combatant Status Review Tribunals (see Summary of Evidence (CSRT), though note that it is an article written entirely using primary sources). They were apparently each written by a US military officer on the basis of more extensive reports. What is the status of these summary memos as reliable sources, and are they suitable for use in BLPs? If this isn't too wide a question, would other internal military or government documents ever be considered to be reliable sources? Fences&Windows 21:15, 13 December 2010 (UTC)

(ah shit, was answering the general question in the header, not looking at the specific sources). Adendum: Those summary reports are primary, but of pretty high quality, unlike the general field reports i address with the following comments: 1. They're primary sources. 2. They are highly unreliable unto themselves (they consist in large part of reports of rumors, scraps of intelligence that may or may not be accurate, self-serving after action reports that were later corrected, etc...) 3. They are reliable for their own contents, which occasionally might be good to link/use (for instance if the contents of one of these things became highly controversial and the subject of investigation and that was the topic/part of a wikipedia article).Bali ultimate (talk) 21:25, 13 December 2010 (UTC)

Seconding Bali. Primary, unreliable for external reality. Government documents are routinely written to give opinion. The purpose of an Office for Administrative Review of the Detention of Enemy Combatants is to provide administrative review: opinion. The documents themselves are insufficient to be "simple" primary sources regarding biography. Do not use, remove any sections reliant as synthesis, particularly where BLP. Fifelfoo (talk) 21:31, 13 December 2010 (UTC)

The bulk of the example linked was from the Officer In Charge, Combatant Status Review Tribunals. This is the work of several people, but not a large agency, under a strict chain of command. Inevitably, the neutrality of this particular kind of "court" will be doubted, and their standards for including content may not necessarily be journalistic standards. However, it would also be biased to assume that they are publishing false information. The tribunal may be less reliable than a civilian court or a good newspaper, but it may be more reliable than a local paper in a developing country or a news tabloid. In the end I look at it and say, are they making an effort to print the truth? Maybe. The distinction between "primary" and "secondary" is a crude one, and sometimes a source straddles this boundary. In the interests of fair coverage of living persons, I think it would be best to treat the source as primary - in other words, to say "the tribunal found that Abdul fought with al Qaida..." rather than "Abdul fought with al Qaida..." One should be careful when drawing conclusions from primary sources, but the same is true of secondary sources really. Wnt (talk) 02:18, 14 December 2010 (UTC)

For the uses given "in writing biographies" they are written by a clearly involved instrumentality: primary source. Wikipedia editors do not need to "assume that they are publishing false information"; we only need to assume whether using a document will require non-trivial analysis and contextualisation (ie: original research or synthesis) to produce encyclopaedic knowledge. The proper seating and contextualisation of these document would require non-trivial analysis. Search for journalists who've seated and contextualised these biographies. Fifelfoo (talk) 02:32, 14 December 2010 (UTC)

• I do my very best to understand the positions taken by other parties in discussions. I don't think I can rely on guessing what some of the more obscure phrases used in the above comment mean, so I can't count on understanding what that comment means. Specifically, I don't know what a "clearly involved instrumentality" is. I don't know what "proper seating and contextualisation" are. The above comment seems to be implying that the memos can't be understood at first glance. On the contrary the memos have clear surface meanings.

  In other discussion some correspondents have asserted more interpretation was required so "readers might draw the wrong conclusion". I think this approach is a mistake. I think we need to respect the intelligence of our readers. If our articles are written from a neutral point of view, if we properly attribute material from our sources, and our intelligent readers draw different conclusions from those we personally hold this is not a failure -- this is a sign of a successful compliance with WP:NPOV. And trying to prevent readers from "drawing the wrong conclusion" lapses from WP:NPOV. Geo Swan (talk) 20:45, 18 December 2010 (UTC)

Fences & Windows invited me to correct misconceptions in the way they framed this discussion.

• 1. No, the summaries do not rely solely on primary documents. All summaries relied on documents from at least six agencies, including the State Department and the office of the DASD-DA, the Deputy Assistant Secretary of Defense for Detainee Affairs. These are not agencies that would be producing field reports, as they had no contact with the detainees, or with field agents.
  2. The summary memos weren't written by a single author. They were written by teams of authors.
  3. In regular scholarship the distinguishing characteristic of a secondary document include intelligent analysis, interpretation and synthesis of other source documents. That is the definition scholars use, if I am not mistaken it is the basic definition used here, for most fields we cover. I believe we should use our standard definition of secondary source for documents related to the detainees. Geo Swan (talk) 02:42, 14 December 2010 (UTC)

WRT: "In regular scholarship the distinguishing characteristic of a secondary document include intelligent analysis, interpretation and synthesis of other source documents."

Please understand OARDEC is a US military body who is running the Guantanamo tribunals. OARDEC created these factors. They can not be a secondary source for their own findings.

WRT "No, the summaries do not rely solely on primary documents. All summaries relied on documents from at least six agencies, including the State Department and the office of the DASD-DA, the Deputy Assistant Secretary of Defense for Detainee Affairs. These are not agencies that would be producing field reports, as they had no contact with the detainees, or with field agents."

Please provide sources for your claims. As far as i can see this is absolutely unclear. Have you been involved with OARDEC?

WRT: "The summary memos weren't written by a single author. They were written by teams of authors."

Please provide a source for that claim.

IQinn (talk) 02:58, 14 December 2010 (UTC)

• I have addressed these questions in more detail here.

  Briefly, the second paragraph above contains the serious misconception that the authors of the OARDEC memos were commenting on "their own findings". That is incorrect. Their documents were based on reports from other agencies.

  Other documents make clear which other agencies's documents OARDEC relied on, including documents released due to the captives' habeas proceedings, the documents drafted the OARDEC Board members, after their hearing, recording how they arrived at their determinations, the "exhibit lists" published for serval dozen of the hearings, and finally the affidavit of whistleblower and challenger Stephen Abraham. Geo Swan (talk) 22:19, 18 December 2010 (UTC)

No, I have no involvement with OARDEC, other than reading their documents, and citing their documents here. Geo Swan (talk) 22:24, 18 December 2010 (UTC)

It's a primary source. Dlabtot (talk) 03:10, 14 December 2010 (UTC)

I agree, these are primary sources. They're internal government documents intended primarily to be read by other members of the government. Nick-D (talk) 08:05, 14 December 2010 (UTC)

Agree. The documents are primary sources (just like court documents), and with no particular presumption of impartiality or reliability. They are not usable as sources in a BLP. They are reliable for attributed opinions only, and I don't see why these opinions would be particularly notable. --Stephan Schulz (talk) 16:31, 14 December 2010 (UTC)

I also agree that these documents are a primary source. They simply are what they are. --Yachtsman1 (talk) 17:41, 14 December 2010 (UTC)

• The comment above asserts the OARDEC memos are "just like court documents". Sorry, but i think this assertion is based on several serious misconceptions.

  First, the OARDEC review Boards are specifically not courts, although they bore a surface similarity to courts. Civilian courts and military courts martial are adversarial proceedings where two sides fight it out, and try to establish a particular position. We see them as fair when both the Prosecution and Defense were evenly matched in their skills, staff, resources, and access to the raw evidence. In non-judicial inquiries all the staff are supposed to be committed to the same goal, working together to see that the inquiry reaches a fair, accurate and reliable conclusion. Fairness is not left to the judge, all the staff are supposed to be doing their best to be fair. In an adversarial. two-sided, court proceeding the documents prepared are inherently biased to support the position of the Prosecution or Defense. In a one-sided non-judicial inquiry the documents are supposed to be reliable, not favoring a single position.

  WRT to the assertion "with no particular presumption of impartiality or reliability" -- these proceedings have been characterized as being impartial and reliable since they were first announced. In particular, they were characterized as being superior to the "competent tribunals" required by the Geneva Conventions. You and I are entitled to question this characterization in our personal discussions. But, should your personal doubts or my personal doubts play any role in article space? I don't think so. Have human rights and legal scholars challenged them? Yes. And the documents where authoritative legal and human rights workers have challenged the fairness of the proceedings. We don't pick sides. That is policy. Both the OARDEC memos, and documents written by challengers, should be treated as RS. Geo Swan (talk) 21:42, 18 December 2010 (UTC)

• Nick-D writes, "They're internal government documents intended primarily to be read by other members of the government." I agree, the intended audience were government officials. But, is there a policy or guideline that states that if a document's intended audience are government officials it shouldn't be considered a reliable source? Why shouldn't they be considered a reliable source? Geo Swan (talk) 01:07, 16 December 2010 (UTC)

• Could you please also reply to above. Do you have sources for your claims? They are primary sources as i guess that is the overwhelming consensus of this discussion. Reliable in what sense? Recent cases where the Government was forced to show of the underlying classified information in court has show that most of that is simply crap. Dozens of Guantanamo detainees won their habeas corpus cases in court because the Judges found that a lot of it is unreliable or false. IQinn (talk) 01:17, 16 December 2010 (UTC)

They are primary sources. They don't establish notability, but they may be used within the limits of WP:BLPPRIMARY. For instance, it may be appropriate to cite them for supplemental details, such as where a detainee was captured and what weapons he was carrying. Squidfryerchef (talk) 13:22, 15 December 2010 (UTC)

• Anything produced by any government that could in any way be considered contentious should be considered a self-published source as well as WP:PRIMARY. I'm not aware of any distinction between governmental and non-governmental entities in our policies. But I didn't doublecheck. Dlabtot (talk) 02:00, 16 December 2010 (UTC)
  • Government documents considered self-published? Realistically you won't find a single government document that someone won't find "contentious". Some Senators, including Kerry, spent close to a decade investigating whether the Vietnamese had secret camps holding GIs originally declared Missing in Action. They concluded all the MIAs were lost n combat, and that there were no captives. Contentious? Yes. Self-published? I can't agree with that. That is not what we mean by self-published for any other topics, and I suggest we shouldn't redefine what we mean by self-published here. Similarly, it seems to me you are suggesting redefining what we mean by the distinction between primary and secondary sources.
  • We have some strong policies, good policies -- including WP:VER and WP:NPOV. We shouldn't let fads influence which references we use. When I started using these memos, in 2005, they were regard as authoritative. Since then some legal and human rights scholars have published analyzes of them, and more former captives have been interviewed about camp conditions. But this is where WP:NPOV kicks in. When multiple references take different positions we neutrally report what all significant sides state. We don't pick sides and suppress the references based on our personal interpretations. Geo Swan (talk) 20:16, 18 December 2010 (UTC)

Reliable source?

(Moved from Wikipedia:Help desk)

Is this a reliable source for this article? I'm trying to improve the article's referencing, since it's currently a Good article candidate. Thanks, The Utahraptor^Talk/_Contribs 01:08, 14 December 2010 (UTC)

Gary B. Speck does not appear to be accountable to any editorial process. Unless it can be shown that he is, this is not a reliable source. --FormerIP (talk) 03:14, 14 December 2010 (UTC)

In case it helps, Speck wrote Dust in the Wind: A Guide to American Ghost Towns (see here). The Utahraptor^Talk/_Contribs 03:17, 14 December 2010 (UTC)

Even if the information on a website appears to be written by one of the most well-respected authors in his/her field, it is still self-published. There are cases where such materials can be acceptable when alternatives cannot be found, but it needs to show editorial process. In this case, he simply lists himself as author with his own e-mail address. Maybe there is an editorial board reviewing this website - could you research this? At the bottom it says "This was our GHOST TOWN OF THE MONTH for February 2000," so who is included in that pronoun "our"? 96.228.129.69 (talk) 06:11, 14 December 2010 (UTC)

"Our" probably refers to the website that it's on: http://freepages.history.rootsweb.ancestry.com/~gtusa/index.htm I couldn't find a website reviewing Speck's article. The Utahraptor^Talk/_Contribs 12:54, 14 December 2010 (UTC)

If Speck were an established expert on ghost towns I'd say the site is something we could potentially use. However, the book you mention was published by "White's Electorics",[12] which is an electronics company that makes metal detectors and also evidently happens to publish books, mostly on metal detecting.[13] I don't think publishing with them really establishes Speck as an authority, unless others are citing the work... does he have any other publications?--Cúchullain ^t/c 16:36, 14 December 2010 (UTC)

Yes. Speck also wrote Ghost Towns: Yesterday and Today (link). The Utahraptor^Talk/_Contribs 23:37, 14 December 2010 (UTC)

It's still an unedited website. Who he is is not really that important, there's no fact-checking process for anything he writes on his website (that we know of). If he described an editorial process for his website then it would be different, but right now all reliability hinges on the author's own ability to write every fact accurately with no oversight. This is akin to assuming he is incapable of making an error which is too much to ask of any author. This is not just policy but the spirit of the rule as well; no editorial process generally means no reliability.96.228.129.69 (talk) 06:46, 15 December 2010 (UTC)

I would say, allow it. "Who" is the crux of the matter, if he's been published before on the subject, he's likely to meet the requirements of an expert under SPS. He's the author of at least two books on the subject, that should do it. Squidfryerchef (talk) 13:20, 15 December 2010 (UTC)

Just writing the books isn't sufficient in and of itself; that first book listed here is essentially self-published as well, as it was put out not by a normal publisher, but by a company that makes metal detectors.--Cúchullain ^t/c 21:19, 15 December 2010 (UTC)

That's not self-published; it doesn't matter what the business model of the publisher is, as long as they're not controlled by the author. That's not uncommon in some niche/hobby topics. Anyway, Worldcat says he wrote three books, there's that, there's one about the license plate collecting hobby that does appear to be self-published, and the other book about ghost towns is published by Westside Publishing out of Lincolnwood IL, and a little searching shows they publish a variety of different book series for a popular audience. So, two of those books count as being published, and on the subject of ghost towns. Squidfryerchef (talk) 02:09, 16 December 2010 (UTC)

I meant that it still fails per our guidelines, not that the author actually paid to self-publish the book. We do have to consider whether the publisher has an established reputation for fact-checking and accuracy. In the case of the one book, I don't see that it does; the publisher is a metal detector company. I don't know about the other book, but it seems to me that there are probably better sources out there than this website.--Cúchullain ^t/c 14:52, 16 December 2010 (UTC)

Worldcat shows that both of the "ghost cities" books are held by some public and university libraries, so there is some reputation for them as a source. Squidfryerchef (talk) 15:01, 16 December 2010 (UTC)

There seems to be some confusion about SPS. It seems more and more often discussions lean in the direction of "well it's self-published and not a BLP, so it must be an OK source." Arguments, then, tend to follow about the personal qualifications of the author as the only issue for reliability. That is not what the policy means at all, and maybe that policy needs some revision due to the recurrent confusion on this issue...SPS should be avoid in general, but for a subject other than a living person, they are not immediately disqualified. If the work is written by (or claims to be written by) an established expert in the field, then it avoids the immediate disqualification of being irrelevant opinions - that is the rationale behind that line in the policy. It still must be held to the same question as any source used for encyclopedic purposes: Is there a reliable editorial process in place? If the answer is either "no" or uncertain, then it's not reliable, and the simple fact that it is SPS doesn't "trump" that fundamental issue.

For the case of this website (and so many others) we have no guarantee or even any indication that the information was checked by anyone other than the person who wrote it. It may be a very good website, the author may be extremely well-respected, there may be a half-dozen Pulitzers weighing down papers on his desk...but if no one else read the info before it was published, then it's not usable here. 96.228.129.69 (talk) 13:33, 16 December 2010 (UTC)

That isn't quite right. The matter really does hinge on the author's qualifications, not on whether someone else has happened to check over the web page. If it could be established that Speck was an established authority on ghost towns, we could potentially use web sites and other self-published material by him based on that. Such a source isn't immediately disqualified simply because we don't know if anyone read it beforehand, though that may be a factor in the decision of whether or not to use it. In this case, though, the bigger issue is whether the author is an authority on the topic. I don't think it's been established that he is, so I would recommend avoiding his website.--Cúchullain ^t/c 14:52, 16 December 2010 (UTC)

(outdent). No, according to policy, self-published sources are allowed under certain circumstances. It doesn't matter that the information hasn't been reviewed by anybody else; that's what being self-published is. If it was reviewed by editors, then it would be a published secondary source. Policy has already been satisfied. It's up to a consensus of the editors working on the page to decide whether and how to use it as a source. Now, I don't see any reason why we should deprive ourself of this web page as a source, as long as the citation explains who wrote it, and a supplemental footnote explaining that this is the author of the two Ghost Cities books may be in order. Squidfryerchef (talk) 14:58, 16 December 2010 (UTC)

WP:SPS requires, before a source like is used, that: (i) the author is an "established expert" on the topic of the article; (ii) the author's work in the relevant field has been previously published by reliable, third party publications. Taking at face value the author's bio at Amazon.com [14] it looks to me like he satisfies both criteria. All that being said, I would prefer a better source, but this one does seem to satisfy WP:RS and WP:SPS. Fladrif (talk) 21:40, 16 December 2010 (UTC)

Morning Star (UK newspaper)

The UK communist newspaper Morning Star curiously seems to be the only media outlet to present views about the contentious British anti-Islamism group the English Defence League by a high-ranking police official that could be interpreted as very valuable to supporters of this group ("'EDL not far-right,' says police extremism chief"). There is currently an ongoing discussion on the talk page of the group's article about whether the Morning Star can be considered a reliable source in this context, and subsequently also of whether the quote is in any case relevant for inclusion into the article as it may have been taken out of context, or that the terms used by the police official may be special police terminology that really doesn't mean what the casual reader would take it to mean. __meco (talk) 10:06, 14 December 2010 (UTC)

In the sense of "admission against interest" the cite would be informative, I suppose. The cite would have to be properly ascrived to the newspaper, and, if it is commonly categorized as "communist", that can be included. Collect (talk) 11:29, 14 December 2010 (UTC) Collect (talk) 11:29, 14 December 2010 (UTC)

It seems to me (assuming they are not quoting out of contextx that he does in fact sat "but they are most certainly not extreme right-wing organisations". So the question is (to my mind) only is the Moring Star RS. I am in two minds its an far left paper that is opposed to the police and it has a clear agenda. It has also been known for printing blantna falsehoods in the past to further that agenda. On the otehr hand its not much worse then many othe in that respectr sources. I would rather there were better sources for this material (there is not), but that has nothing to do with this sources status as RS.Slatersteven (talk) 12:48, 14 December 2010 (UTC)

Part of the issue here is no search shows the same material being reported in other newspapers which makes it dubious. Even if it is accurate then its meaning is specific to legal issues (see the talk page). --Snowded ^TALK 12:52, 14 December 2010 (UTC)

• The Morning Star is a tabloid newspaper in the United Kingdom almost entirely dependent upon its readership for financial operation. The paper's goal is "to inform, to publicise and to advocate." The paper has a clear editorial bias, "For peace and socialism." Questions: at the present point in time does the editorial bias affect the content of stories to the point of falsehood? In the given article, apparently not. At the present point in time does the paper differentiate news from opinion? Yes, and the article in question is listed as news not opinion. Does the newspaper unduely emphasise fringe or minority view-points? Yes, it interviews the CPGB CPB (apologies to the Gen Sec of the CPGB, I'm not up to date on my British groups)Fifelfoo (talk) 13:27, 15 December 2010 (UTC) in relation to the Police's view of the EDL. Consider notability before using components, but the article is reliable for police views on the EDL. Fifelfoo (talk) 00:24, 15 December 2010 (UTC)

Please note that the Morning Star quotes the General Secretary of the CPB, not, as stated above, the CPGB, which is an entirely separate and unrelated organisation. RolandR (talk) 00:38, 15 December 2010 (UTC)

Fifelfoo: I think your on the right lines with your questions, but for the question (which I would rephrase slightly) "with reference to the case in hand, what is the potential for the editorial bias of the paper to make the source unreliable" I would give a slightly different answer. The communist bias of the newspaper (according to it's Wikipedia article) may lead it to tendentious misrepresentation when reporting on matters to do with the police (as well as the far-right).

There seem to be two rival ways of looking at the source. (1) The officer quoted was simply stating his view about the political nature of the EDL, and that's all there is too it. A problem for this version is that this would seem to be quite a newsworthy thing to happen, but does not seem to have been commented on by anyone other than the Morning Star (2) The officer was stating that, within the bounds of the idiosyncratic definition under which his police unit operates (on its website here: [15]) the EDL are not defined as right-wing extremists because their activities are not, per se, unlawful (note that this is not how most people would define "right-wing extremism"). Given the known bias of the source, it seems to me that it is at least plausible that it has failed to properly contextualise the comments of the officer in order to give an impression that the police are overly-sympathetic to the far-right. The question for other editors is whether or not it really is plausible. --FormerIP (talk) 01:53, 15 December 2010 (UTC)

I was about to simply say, yes it probably meets RS, but the report should be attributed as "according to the socialist newspaper Morning Star". But that's a pretty good analysis, FormerIP. If there's a way to put the officer's comments in context without straying into SYNTH, that would make a good contribution to the article. Squidfryerchef (talk) 13:15, 15 December 2010 (UTC)

Yes, that would make sense as a prescription. --FormerIP (talk) 18:13, 15 December 2010 (UTC)

I don't see what has changed since it came up in May. Use with caution, particularly in areas where it would have bias, and try to find more mainstream newspapers as sources instead. Jayjg ^(talk) 04:29, 17 December 2010 (UTC)

It somehow doesn't appear that you have appraised yourself of the actual discussion in this section and your cursory opinion seems for that reason mostly redundant. This section hinges specifically on the publication having printed information that could be seen to go against their inherent interest and that no other outlet can be found that has duplicated this information. __meco (talk) 08:55, 17 December 2010 (UTC)

www.al-islam.org

This website is an openly Shi'a-centric website devoted to a narrow interpretation of Islamic history that supports a clearly Shia narrative especially regarding the Caliphate and associated historical figures and battles. It is used extensively to support contested minority Shi'a viewpoints that are presented as facts, contrary to NPOV policy. It can be found as in-line citations for contentious material in such articles as Ali, the Battle of Karbala, Husayn Ibn Ali, Yazid I, Muawiya I and others. Such contested material using this admittedly biased (and minority opinion) website must clearly state that it is a Shi'a viewpoint, and not uncontested fact. As an example, see this extract from the Battle of Karbala:

At the death of Ali ibn Abu Talib, his elder son Hasan ibn Ali succeeded him but soon signed a treaty with Muawiya to avoid further bloodshed. Muawiya remained the ruler of Syria. Prior to his death, Muawiya was actively plotting a major deviation from Islamic norms.

This kind of material, and its citation by al-islam.org, is slanted in justification of one side of the battle against the other. That there was a "plot" for a "major deviation" and that the losing side signed a treaty only to "avoid further bloodshed". These should be presented as "according to Shi'a sources" etc. Also please see the current discussion thread in Talk:Battle of Karbala#http://www.al-islam.org is not a reliable source.--AladdinSE (talk) 13:49, 14 December 2010 (UTC)

Adding the phrase "According to Shia Sources" is not an issue nevertheless AladdinSE just has problem with the source as its a Shia one. - Humaliwalay (talk) 14:09, 14 December 2010 (UTC)

What evidence is there that this site has a reputation for accuracy, or is notable enough to have the opinions of its writers taken into consideration? (i.e. what makes it a good "shia source"?)VsevolodKrolikov (talk) 14:12, 14 December 2010 (UTC)

VsevolodKrolikov - Al-Islam.org is run by Ahlul Bayt Digital Library Project (Ahlul Bayt DILP) one reputed Shia source and as I said earlier its not forcing its views on all. Its only confined to Shia sources, so no one says everyone to agree with. But as far as Shia faith is concerned the site is good source. Al-Islam.org. - Humaliwalay (talk) 05:05, 15 December 2010 (UTC)

I'm forced to agree with User:AladdinSE. www.al-islam.org cannot be accepted as a reliable source for being used in Wikipedia articles. We must acknowledge that there is a very big religious issue between Shia (10-20% minority) and Sunni (80-90% majority) groups, it is unlike any other sects among other religions. I.e. the Shias in general call the Sunnis kafirs (infidels)[16], and the Sunnis usually call the Shias kafirs [17], etc. This is well known and if you want quick evidence there are many online forums and chat sites where you often read this on daily bases. Let's not allow these type of people to use Wikipedia by expressing their natural hate toward one another through the use of these websites. Therefore, we should not allow any source that is openly a Sunni or a Shia-centric who are only there to promote their own sect by all means nessary. By the way, there are so many major academic sources (such as Britannica and others) easily available for references so why not cite those instead? Let's not forget that Wikipedia is an encyclopedia used for official educational purposes and its content must be well balanced.--AllahLovesYou (talk) 01:21, 15 December 2010 (UTC)

That has nothing to do with whether it's a reliable source though. Sean.hoyland - talk 05:14, 15 December 2010 (UTC)

These don't look too good though from About Al-Islam.org

• "operates through the collaborative effort of volunteers based in many countries around the world."
• "we in no way can guarantee the absolute authenticity of all of the data and should not be held responsible for any errors herein"

Sean.hoyland - talk 05:19, 15 December 2010 (UTC)

Also, this could be a problem. Sean.hoyland - talk 05:32, 15 December 2010 (UTC)

Yeah, thanks for highlighting the two statements. I do agree now with you. - Humaliwalay (talk) 06:32, 15 December 2010 (UTC)

IMO, al-islam.org can be relied upon as it contains reliable articles such as [18], [19], [20], [21], [22], [23], [24], [25], [26], etc which are work of reputed Shi'a, Sunni & Western scholars. May be we should be cautious while referring to it as this website is an online library and all content at this website may not be NPOV or academic (as in the case of physical libraries) but that does not discredits importance of the website as source. --Sayed Mohammad Faiz Haider^tc_s 19:03, 15 December 2010 (UTC)

• Whether a source has a point of view, is biased, slanted, etc. -- is a question that is pretty much completely irrelevant when judging whether its use in a particular citation fits the WP:Identifying reliable sources guideline. The writing of Wikipedia articles is guided by our WP:NPOV, which despite its rather confusing name, does not mean from a point of view that is neutral. It means we include all significant viewpoints that have been published by reliable sources. Dlabtot (talk) 19:27, 15 December 2010 (UTC)

This looks to me to be a reputable site and, in principle, a reliable source for much of its content. Sean: I can understand why you have highlighted those quotes from the about page, but similar statements would be true of Project Gutenberg, for example, which would seem to me to be a good parallel, and we certainly would consider that a reliable source. Whether any given text from the site is biased or significant is another matter, but that's not for here. There also seem to be certain parts of the site such as "An Islamic Encyclopedia" (currently seems inaccessible anyhow) which are probably not reliable, though. --FormerIP (talk) 22:53, 15 December 2010 (UTC)

Perhaps it's similiar to the Jewish Virtual Library in the sense that although the JVL isn't an RS like the BBC etc it contains many documents that do qualify as RS. In the JVL's case it's usually possible to cite the orginal document sources rather than cite JVL. Sean.hoyland - talk 06:46, 16 December 2010 (UTC)

If we consider sites such as al-islam.org as RS then we may add many other sites such as WordPress and so on to the RS list, which only further destroys Wikipedia's reputation as an unreliable place for info. In order to strengthen Wiki's reputation we have to get rid of such sites being used as references and only cite academic sources, especially when dealing with Islam and different sects. That way we don't get to see too many POV-pushers and edit-wars--AllahLovesYou (talk) 11:55, 16 December 2010 (UTC)

Why would we be adding WordPress? Don't be silly. A new rule saying that articles to do with Islam can only be sourced to academic publishers would be an interesting one, but it is not currently the rule and so, however good it is as an idea, it is not a good reason for excluding this source in particular. This site should not be used to present POV as if it were fact, though, which does appear to be an issue. --FormerIP (talk) 15:04, 16 December 2010 (UTC)

i agree with FormerIP and others who are of opinion to cite from this site, I shall be re adding the materials which were deleted referenced from this site.- Humaliwalay (talk) 11:59, 18 December 2010 (UTC)

World Air Forces directory 2010

http://www.flightglobal.com/articles/2010/12/14/350794/tough-choices-world-air-forces-directory-2010.html Download your free copy of the World Air Forces directory, including global fleet analysis by Flightglobal Insight

RS? Enough of an RS to go marching through the articles and "correcting" numbers of aircraft? Hcobb (talk) 19:33, 14 December 2010 (UTC)

Yes, I would say so. It's published by Reed, a highly respectable business/technical publisher, and bears the imprimatur of Flight International, which is surely a reliable source if ever there was one. See http://www.flightglobal.com/staticpages/aboutus.html - Flightglobal.com is the website of Flight International, Airline Business, ACAS, Air Transport Intelligence (ATI), The Flight Collection and much more. Barnabypage (talk) 20:24, 14 December 2010 (UTC)

Yes, it's a RS and checks out with other RS. An IP account (which I suspect was linked to the company) spammed its contents into Wikipedia's articles on air forces a few months ago, and the information was actually very useful. Nick-D (talk) 07:32, 15 December 2010 (UTC)

Agree, it meets the requirements for a WP:RS, particularly in this topical area. Jayjg ^(talk) 04:25, 17 December 2010 (UTC)

1861 Map

Ethnographic Map of the Balkans by G. Lejean (1861)

A couple of users are insisting on using this map from 1861 by a French cartographer in Albanians, despite the fact that it is both heavily outdated and erroneous. As the caption makes clear [27], in the early and mid-19th century, the entire coastal region from Montenegro down to the Ambracian Gulf was referred to as "Albania" at the time. However, the usage changed in the late 19th century, and later maps have corrected this. It is over 150 years old, do we really need it? The only reason I can think someone would insist on using the map in this article is for irredentist POV-pushing. Opinions? Athenean (talk) 20:30, 14 December 2010 (UTC)

Wikipedia presents historical facts as well as current things, so why would an out-dated map only be useful for POV pushing? If it is being used as an historical map in a correct way I would not think that is what most people think of as POV pushing?--Andrew Lancaster (talk) 20:42, 14 December 2010 (UTC)

Well, look at where it is used: The Gallery section of Albanians [28]. Does that strike you as correct use? Gallery sections, by their very succinct nature, make it impossible to discuss complex issues like these. Moreover, that's not what gallery sections are for. As far as I can tell, the only place where this map is correctly used is in Demographic history of Macedonia, where all the complexities of such 19th century maps are discussed in a proper context. Athenean (talk) 20:46, 14 December 2010 (UTC)

It seems like in that gallery section it is being described correctly according to you? Anyway, this seems does not seem like a subject for this noticeboard, but more a question of due weighting?--Andrew Lancaster (talk) 07:00, 15 December 2010 (UTC)

You're right, I will move this to WP:CCN. Athenean (talk) 07:10, 15 December 2010 (UTC)

New World Encyclopedia is not a reliable source

[I posted the following comment on the talk page for a specific article. However, when I searched for other information on the reliability of this source I found nothing of value. The WP Mirrors list gives it a "medium" rating, but that seems to refer only to its GFDL compliance, not its reliability as a source. Since its published goal is to modify facts to reflect Unification Church values, this "encyclopedia" should never be considered a reliable source of information. There may be other articles that cite the New World Encyclopedia, unaware that its objectives are radically different from WP's or from any other even marginally legitimate encyclopedia. I have not removed the specifics relevant only to the article on the House of Romanov because they do not obscure the information about the so-called encyclopedia. Here is my comment:]

According to both its own web site and the Wikipedia article that mentions it, the New World Encyclopedia is in essence a WP mirror site with modifications to highlight Unification Church values and doctrines:

New World Encyclopedia writers and editors rewrote and completed the Wikipedia article in accordance with New World Encyclopedia standards.

— http://www.newworldencyclopedia.org/entry/Romanov_Dynasty#Credits

One section of the New World Encyclopedia standards referenced above states:

Addressing values in articles

---

This encyclopedia is one in which both facts and values are fully honored. Pre-1911 Encyclopedias integrated facts and values from an Enlightenment point of view, while post-1911 Encyclopedias tend to focus on facts alone, creating a scientistic point of view that was narrower in outlook than earlier encyclopedias, and an inherent materialistic and objectivist ideology.

Here facts are integrated with global, universal, or “cosmic” values. This encyclopedia intends to be broader and more inclusive than previous encyclopedias, operating under the belief that some universal principles define the basis of existence. Human beings did not create themselves or evolve randomly. They are subject to both spiritual and physical principles and purposes, just as a bridge exists for a purpose and is subject to physical laws regarding the strength of materials. These principles are open to examination, discussion, and ever sharper articulation. However omitting them because of difficulty in defining them objectively is to ignore aspects of the topic being discussed, or even the reason why it is worth producing an entry on the topic or why it is worth reading.

What are these values?

1. They should reflect the concept that the universe and human life exist in relation to the ideas of “God's heart,” or “True Love.” These are religious terms that can be widely debated, but imply some basic universal values:
2. These terms imply human beings did not create the universe and are subject to principles that govern it.
3. These terms imply that the highest value is love: love of the entire creation from the viewpoint of one who created and cherishes it.
4. These terms imply the desire for all to be happy, share prosperity with justice, and live together in peace and harmony. Hence the subtitle of this encyclopedia: happiness, well-being, and peace.
5. This "heart" informs both principles of creation, and principles and the providence of restoration (or how to get from a less than perfect world to a more perfect world).
6. In the language of unificationism, they should support everyone's opportunity to accomplish the "three blessings." This would include freedom, self-realization and divine embodiment, family, education, security, economic opportunity, justice, peace, environmental care, and collective spiritual life.
7. They must not be in conflict with the parameters of natural law as understood by science. For example, you cannot drive a truck across any bridge that is not designed to hold at least the weight of the truck. In the economic realm, you cannot spend more money than you have, plus what a lender trusts is within your repayment capacities. In the political realm, you cannot lead beyond the extent of your capacity to lead. Many conventional doctrines violate natural law. They should be exposed when possible, and never expressed as truth.

Help the reader, as would a teacher

Readers of these articles will want to know the value of what they are reading.

The readers of this encyclopedia include high school and college students who will be in the process of learning. They will benefit from knowing how others have valued the topic and how the authors, who are in the position of teachers, think the topic relates to happiness, well-being, justice, world peace and other universal human values.

In the twentieth century a simplistic notion prevailed that encyclopedias merely present facts. It was assumed the reader was "free" to interpret and use these facts as he or she wished. Not only did the mere presentation of facts cloak a materialistic ideology, but it assumed the reader was capable of constructively using these facts. This second assumption is faulty in that if the reader was indeed fully capable of understanding the value of the facts in the article, he would likely have no need to read the article in the first place.

[...]

— http://www.newworldencyclopedia.org/entry/Help:Writers_Manual#Addressing_values_in_articles

(Note: I have added WP formatting to the quotations above so that they look approximately as they do on their own sites, but I have not modified the content at all.)

I quoted only the beginning of the New World Encyclopedia's "Addressing values in articles" standard. The entire section is very long and detailed in telling editors how to infuse Unification Church values into encyclopedia articles so subtly that the reader is not even aware he is reading anything other than simple facts. That hardly makes that "encyclopedia" a reliable source. The last paragraph quoted above is particularly disturbing in its assumption that readers are incapable of evaluating encyclopedia articles if they are presented with facts alone.

The New World Encyclopedia is cited as a reference only once in this article, with regard to the dynasty name (R vs H-G-R), but the articles are so similar that it's practically impossible for a casual reader to determine which is the chicken and which is the egg. Its symbiotic relationship with the corresponding Unification Church article seriously undermines the credibility of this whole article.--Jim10701 (talk) 22:55, 14 December 2010 (UTC)

• Not RS: pov pushing and non-scholarly tertiary. Fifelfoo (talk) 00:13, 15 December 2010 (UTC)

• Specifically non-specialized tertiary - hence a very poor source absent anything better at all. With emphasis on "anything better at all." No need to assert anything more about the source. Collect (talk) 00:20, 15 December 2010 (UTC)

• It's an open wiki; not reliable. Their stated principles and policies are irrelevant, as the subject of wikis as sources has all been addressed before. 96.228.129.69 (talk) 03:27, 15 December 2010 (UTC)

• hmmm, might need a clean up. Sean.hoyland - talk 03:56, 15 December 2010 (UTC)

Wow, 251 links as of now. Just skimming thru the entries, most of them appear in the articles as references and not just externals. Definitely needs some cleanup. 96.228.129.69 (talk) 06:49, 15 December 2010 (UTC)

• Non-specialized tertiary, wiki, articles based on Wikipedia, non-expert. It's quote obviously not a WP:RS. Jayjg ^(talk) 04:15, 17 December 2010 (UTC)

Can a map be a primary source?

This is a follow on to a request made at Wikipedia:Editor assistance/Requests, which didn't really get any usable response. There are 2 questions I'd like answered, the first a generic question and the second a specific one.

1. Can a diagram/map be primary source? or does a source require words? and
2. In the case of this edit, is that a piece of WP:SYNTH/WP:OR on my part?

The background here is that there is a very common construct used in climate articles and sections right across the pedia, where the local climate is put in the context of a region or area. It provides location-based contextual information and is an extremely useful construct for imparting information to readers. Some examples:

• Geography of Cambodia#Climate - Cambodia's climate, like that of the rest of Southeast Asia is dominated by monsoons, ...
• Mequon, Wisconsin#Climate - The climate of Mequon is much like that of other midwestern cities in the United States....
• Kottayam district#Climate - Kottayam has a tropical climate like that of the rest of Kerala, ..
• Middleton, Greater Manchester#Geography - Middleton experiences a temperate maritime climate, like much of the British Isles, ...

Rarely are these similes referenced in any way. So when I added something similar to the Belgium article's climate section, I wasn't expecting to be reverted. However I was, and a short edit war ensued, which ended up with LemonMonday (talk · contribs) being blocked. The context remains in Geography of Belgium#Climate, but with the dispute unresolved.

Can anyone offer any opinions and/or suggestions around the 2 questions above? I guess the first might be better phrased as

1. Under what circumstances can a diagram be used as a primary source?

Cheers Fmph (talk) 07:57, 15 December 2010 (UTC)

I am not sure if a map is necessarily a primary or secondary source (I think they can be either) but I think the key thing is whether it has some sort of fact checking. Concerning synthesis/OR I think the key thing is whether the facts being put together are fairly obvious. Considering both these points, I'd think your edits are OK at first sight as long as your source maps are reputable. I am not sure what the argument against is?--Andrew Lancaster (talk) 08:40, 15 December 2010 (UTC)

Thanks Andrew. TBH, neither am I. I felt the edits were totally uncontentious and found myself in the middle of an edit war and quite vitriolic talkpage argument. The maps are extremely reliable. They are a 2010 (I think, from memory - could be 2009) update on the climate classification 'bible'. Hey ho! Fmph (talk) 09:28, 15 December 2010 (UTC)

Having a look at the talk pages, it does not seem the source was being questioned but instead your own working definition of northwest europe? That doesn't mean I disagree with you, but not sure this is a question for this board?--Andrew Lancaster (talk) 10:07, 15 December 2010 (UTC)

OK. I agree. I'm more interested in the answer to the generic question of a map being a primary source. After that it's really a matter for discussion and negotiation wrt what the best form of words are. I still believe that the phrase "..., like most of northwest Europe, ..." adequately describes the area in question. But I'm open to suggestions on alternatives. Fmph (talk) 14:37, 15 December 2010 (UTC)

I'm somewhat confused by this; the content being added essentially breaks down as "the climate in region X is Y", it is not "country Z is in region X" (for which a map is a correct primary source). So a map is not necessarily the source you need; the source needed is one that shows either the climate of region X is Y or that the climate of country Z matches that of region X. --Errant ^(chat!) 14:48, 15 December 2010 (UTC)

Whether a map is a primary source is not a matter of it being a type of diagram rather than all text, it is a matter of who drew it and how. If it was drawn by someone who was not directly involved by any event depicted by the map (if there is such an event) and it is based on maps drawn by others, it is a secondary source. If it was drawn to depict an event by a person or organization directly involved in the event, or if it was drawn by making direct observations on the ground, it is a primary source.

The way the question is phrased makes me wonder if Fmph understands our Verifiability policy. Why wouldn't one be able to use maps (whether primary or secondary) freely, as long as one does not draw one's own conclusions that are not evident from looking at the map? Jc3s5h (talk) 14:48, 15 December 2010 (UTC)

That's not entirely accurate. A primary source is really dependant on how you use it. If you have a reliably published news editorial using that to say "the writer said XYZ" is using it as a primary source. If a map is drawn based on other maps it can still be a primary source, especially if it is interpretive (i.e. it includes shading showing rainfall data) and you relate that interpretation. --Errant ^(chat!) 14:52, 15 December 2010 (UTC)

Reliable secondary sources are not subject to any of Wikipedia's policies. Unlike Wikipedia editors, they are allowed to interpret and draw conclusions from their source documents. In Errant's example, a map that includes shading showing rainfall data would be secondary if the rainfall data was previously published, or primary if the rainfall data had been collected by the authors. Jc3s5h (talk) 15:18, 15 December 2010 (UTC)

Nope, it can be used as a primary source. For example, if you are using it to source that "X country had the highest rainfall" (for example), which would be 100% fine I think, but primary sourced to a map graphing the primary data. Primary/secondary is almost entirely decided by how you use a source, nothing else (this is not really even WP's definition, just how it is :)). --Errant ^(chat!) 15:21, 15 December 2010 (UTC)

I disagree with ErrantX's concept of primary and secondary sources. Sure, the same publication (say, the New York Times) could have primary and secondary components (news articles vs. ads) and thus could be used as either a primary or secondary source, the nature of a particular passage wouldn't normally depend on how it was used (although you could always come up with a pathological case). Jc3s5h (talk) 15:53, 15 December 2010 (UTC)

What about this? A map as a primary source might be for example the Ordnance Survey which publishes large files full of raw data that is considered authoritative. I think an example of a map as a secondary source might be a fancy coloured map put together using various different data sets from other sources, then mapped out graphically for comparison. Does this sound about right?--Andrew Lancaster (talk) 15:57, 15 December 2010 (UTC)

It kinda depends on your definitions really on whether in plotting data on the map they are making interpretive commentary on that data (i.e. the highest rainfall is in country X). But, yeh, it could be used as a primary source. This is something of a weird conversation TBH because this is a key and simple distinction - how a source is used defines whether that use is as a primary or secondary source. It's very hard to dispute that as it is the accepted approach used in academia --Errant ^(chat!) 16:03, 15 December 2010 (UTC)

I'd agree with Andrew and I'd suggest that is exactly what Peel and Finlayson have done in their research. They have analysed weather observations to produce climate classifications. The final output of the research is a map. And this map does not contain regional labels. So if we are to use the map as a source - and I think it's a primary source, but others might justifiably say it is secondary - we need to interpret the diagrammatic output into words. Hence, the green part of Europe from the map, is IMHO "... most of northwest Europe ...". Fmph (talk) 16:20, 15 December 2010 (UTC)

I disupute ErrantX's claim that "because this is a key and simple distinction - how a source is used defines whether that use is as a primary or secondary source. It's very hard to dispute that as it is the accepted approach used in academia" and request that he/she prove it. Jc3s5h (talk) 16:30, 15 December 2010 (UTC) None of the examples shown above (Cambodia's climate, like that " etc.) is cited to ANY sourcing, primary or otherwise, and thus if challenged would need to be removed until some type of reliable sourcing is found to verify the claim. Active Banana (^bananaphone 14:59, 15 December 2010 (UTC)

Not sure I follow the relevance of this point. Are you saying that the articles need more footnotes etc? If so then it sounds like Fmph could do that and so no deletion need be done? But is this relevant to the question here?--Andrew Lancaster (talk) 15:05, 15 December 2010 (UTC)

Exactly. Most reference-free statements are challenged by adding a {{fact}} tag. In each of those cases, wee that done, I could add a similar reference to the map. But would that be sufficient? Would the map be a reliable source? Fmph (talk) 16:01, 15 December 2010 (UTC)

Of course; the question being asked makes the mistake of asserting that a map is a reasonable source for that sentence about climate. Which it is not. Maps can be used as primary or secondary sources depending on the context, but in this case it would not be a sufficient source for that sentence. --Errant ^(chat!) 15:23, 15 December 2010 (UTC)

Errant, just to make sure we avoid confusion, you are now talking about the sourcing for the definition of northwestern Europe, right? On this I think I agree. That map contained no such definition as far as I could see. I think this whole discussion is a little confusing because the example being given obviously is not an example of the principle Fmph wanted to discuss. If we wanted to discuss cases where a map might not be a good source it would help to have a real example. Indeed there have been many discussed hear over time.--Andrew Lancaster (talk) 15:52, 15 December 2010 (UTC)

Sorry, Errant, can you clarify that statement for me please? Why in this case is that map NOT a sufficient source? Are you saying that because the definition of NWEUR is hazy? or because the words NW Europe are not on the map? I'm not quite with you. Fmph (talk) 15:59, 15 December 2010 (UTC)

Well, given the following sentence; Cambodia's climate, like that of the rest of Southeast Asia is dominated by monsoons. As I make it out the original question is "could a map be used to cite that Cambodia is in Southeast Asia and would it be a primary source" - to which the answer is yes, yes and its use is fine. But the issue with that sentence is not the location of Cambodia, which is simply obvious information and does not need to be cited, but that Cambodia's climate is the same as the entire region. That is the information requiring citation. Now, the Belgian link seems to have a source which might cite that information (I have only read the abstract, which is unclear) in which case that is fine. But the other examples are uncited. EDIT: of course, a reliable map showing common climate across the region, with the region labelled (or the region being an accepted and undisputed definition) that would work as a source, it occurs to me now that this is perhaps the question being posed - to which my comment would be, lets see an example! :) --Errant ^(chat!) 16:08, 15 December 2010 (UTC)

Right, ok. Apologies for not investigating this close enough, the OP should have linked to File:Koppen classification worldmap CfbCfc.png which was the source being used. I would say that it is, sadly, not a reliable source due to where it is hosted :) And also I would have concerns over the broad area of the map lacking detail. A clearer map hosted somewhere reliable would seem fine to me though. --Errant ^(chat!) 16:13, 15 December 2010 (UTC)

When you say it is not a reliable source due to where it is hosted, I presume you refer to the copy on Wikipedia? The original is available here together with all the research data. Check the supplement link. And there are more in depth maps of each of the continents, actually embedded in the PDF of the paper. It's not clear that permission has been given to extract each of those individual maps for use on WP, although the main map is released. Fmph (talk) 16:29, 15 December 2010 (UTC)

A much higher res world map is here Fmph (talk) 16:34, 15 December 2010 (UTC)

In this case, it appears to me that the map is being used as a primary source, and the claim being made is interpretive. You should find a source that explicitly makes this statement, rather than interpreting it from a specific climate map. Jayjg ^(talk) 04:07, 17 December 2010 (UTC)

Can I summarise the responses and perhaps wrap up where we are agreed and highlight the areas where we are not:

1. Can a diagram/map be primaryreliable source? - yes, a diagram can be a reliable source. Depending on the context and source material it can be either a primary or a secondary source
2. or does a source require words? - not necessarily, but it helps!
3. In the case of this edit, is that a piece of WP:SYNTH/WP:OR on my part? - We are not agreed on this.
4. Under what circumstances can a diagram be used as a primary source? - I think we are mostly agreed that this particular map IS a primary source.

Is that a fair summary of where we are? Fmph (talk) 23:52, 17 December 2010 (UTC)

Jona Lendering

There is a minor edit war at Cyrus Cylinder, part of which concerns whether this source [29] can be used [30]. I can find various mentions in other scholarly works of Lenderinq,

eg [31] [32] and [33]. I think Lendering can be used for this but I'd like other comments. Thanks. Dougweller (talk) 12:46, 15 December 2010 (UTC)

Thank you for bringing up this issue, DougWeller, it was the right thing to do:

For the record and for the benefit of other editors. Here is one excerpt from the talk page on Cyrus Cylinder:

DougWeller, there is no 'edit war' occurring and the Lendering issue is being dealt with appropriately.

Regarding the issue of 'edit war'...as the record on my talk page indicates:

You've hit WP:3RR. Maybe you should self-revert that edit and take your concerns to WP:RSN. Dougweller (talk) 12:30, 15 December 2010 (UTC)

"I count 3 reversions of various text in the last 24 hours. No violation yet, just don't do it again and I do suggest you self-revert on your Lendering complaint - discuss, don't just revert. I've raised it at WP:RSN. What do you mean how do you send messages to people? I'm going out now walking the dogs so won't be able to answer quickly. You aren't in any trouble right now. Dougweller (talk) 12:56, 15 December 2010 (UTC)"

"I only count 2 in the last 24 hours, FWIW. Swarm X 13:01, 15 December 2010 (UTC)"

As well as the record on your talk page:

::Please see my response to comment on 3RR on talk page. I don't see a violation and I've requested Swarm for assistance: User_talk:Swarm GoetheFromm (talk) 12:57, 15 December 2010 (UTC)

I didn't say you had violated it, I said you'd reached it. I'd also appreciate it if when you quote me on other talk pages you'd inform me that you've quoted me. Dougweller (talk) 13:02, 15 December 2010 (UTC)''

So, this issue is not becoming an edit war, as you claim it to be.

Next,

With regards to 'Lendering' as a source, I refer you to: Wikipedia:Reliable_sources. The Lendering source is a self-published online source. The source itself contains very little in-text citations (especially in relation to the reason why it is being cited) and seems to be more of a reflection of the author's opinions.

Doug, as your extensive edit and talk page history indicates User_talk:Dougweller Special:Contributions/Dougweller, you've been involved in this issue before, so I'd like to extend a friendly reminder that you, yourself, might be complicit in promoting an 'edit war.'

You've certainly taken the right step, however, to refer to RSN.

Best, GoetheFromm (talk) 14:07, 15 December 2010 (UTC)

GoetheFromm (talk) 14:07, 15 December 2010 (UTC)

The site says that almost all articles are by Lendering, so I guess this is indeed self published. According to our policy pages, the question therefore turns to whether he is a published recognized expert in this field. He certainly does appear to be a published "expert", in Dutch, but with serious publishers. On the about page it says that "Livius is a website on ancient history written and maintained since 1996 by the Dutch historian Jona Lendering. [...] He is the author of several books, all in Dutch; some other bits and pieces can be found here. For the Livius website, which was awarded the "Oikos publieksprijs" by the Dutch classicists in 2010, he collaborates closely with Bill Thayer of LacusCurtius." The prize seems quite real, confirmed on multiple Dutch language sources, but I don't see his articles and books being widely at first sight (but I note Doug's link above). I think it is also worth remarking that the format is not a normal blog, but clearly more carefully constructed. I'd say it is usable at least for non-contentious things. For example if there are highly controversial "WP:REDFLAG" things being cited, I guess some more debate might be expected. Is there anything "redflag"?--Andrew Lancaster (talk) 14:49, 15 December 2010 (UTC)

I certainly agree that he should be used judiciously, but I'd probably say that about a lot of reliable sources. GeotheFromm, the minor edit warring I was referring to is taking place, you can see it in the article's history - Lendering, which paragraph should come before another one, etc. That often happens, and a discussion about that is not really appropriate here and perhaps I shouldn't have mentioned it, but I wasn't thinking of your 3RR at the time, which is a separate issue and doesn't belong here. I've replied to that on the article talk page where you brought it from your talk page - but it really should stay on your talk page. Oops, I did forget to sign. Dougweller (talk) 10:38, 16 December 2010 (UTC)

DougWeller, I'm assuming that this is you directly, above. You forgot to sign...GoetheFromm (talk) 09:49, 16 December 2010 (UTC)

There's an article on Wikipedia about this author at Jona Lendering. Judging from the discussion page Talk:Jona Lendering, there seems to be a campaign against him by some Iranians who object to his historical research. Some Googling reveals that there is even a petition against him by Iranians (can't link to it, search for "lendering petition") and an article by an Iranian publication [34] complaining about his work on the history of Cyrus the Great (relating to the Cyrus Cylinder). However, the Wikipedia page that GoetheFromm refers us to says specifically "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." I see that GoetheFromm has been advocating at Talk:United States Declaration of Independence#Declaration of Independence as Object of Propaganda (New Section?) to label the US Declaration of Independence as a "propaganda text" on the basis that the Cyrus Cylinder is called a propaganda text by, among others, the British Museum. I think this is more about politics than sourcing problems. -- Prioryman (talk) 18:08, 15 December 2010 (UTC)

Prioryman, I'm not sure why bringing my proposal for a new section on Declaration of Independence has to with Lendering as a source. You argument seems disjointed to me. But if it helps you, it is no secret that I will be suggesting a "propaganda section" for every article related to proclamations and documents related to human rights and allow the discussions to develop a general consensus for an eventual to add the section or not. I think that the discussion is very useful and addresses many points at one time (you will see that the Declaration page is addressing the propoganda question since it was brought up).

Also, Prioryman, the question presented by DougWeller on this noticeboard is whether Lendering's online source is credible. Are you trying to disprove Lendering's credibility by stating that there are those (via petition, a publication, on wikipedia, etc) )who object to the credibility of the works that otherwise make him unuseful? I highly doubt it. So, please provide your rationale for bringing it up.

And exactly, let's keep politics out of it and focus on the question at hand: reliability of Lendering as source. GoetheFromm (talk) 09:49, 16 December 2010 (UTC)

Dougweller has provided clear evidence that Lendering is a notable and cited historian. The Wikipedia policy page that you yourself referred us to says that self-published works by experts in the relevant field can be used. There is no dispute, as far as I'm aware, over the accuracy of the information for which Lendering is cited (i.e. the fact that people have circulated a falsified translation of the Cyrus Cylinder), so it is not contentious. It is highly relevant that there appears to be an online hate campaign by Iranian nationalists against Lendering; his article's discussion page shows that he is being targeted here on Wikipedia. Frankly, it is hard to see the objections to using Lendering as a source as being anything other than politically motivated. As for your campaign over the US DoI, there's absolutely no connection whatsoever between the DoI and the Cyrus Cylinder (which wasn't even discovered until 100 years after the DoI was written). Prioryman (talk) 12:42, 16 December 2010 (UTC)

Lendering is certainly a respected scholar, but his website is self-published and offers very few references (as he himself admits, though I don't understand the reason he gives). On a controversial issue, as this surely is, we would do better not to treat him as a reliable source unless he gives adequate citations to justify his view. In this case he doesn't give adequate citations. I wrote this much before reading Prioryman's comment above: I would just add that to say the translation is "falsified" is bound to be contentious if some are still relying on that translation, which seems to be the case. Andrew Dalby 12:53, 16 December 2010 (UTC)

I don't understand your last sentence. There is a false/fake translation out there, eg if you search this book [35] for cylinder, you will find it translated "down on or insult them as long as 1 am alive. From now on, till Ahuramazda grants me the kingdom favor, I will impose my monarchy on no nation. Each is free to accept it, and if any one of them rejects it, I never resolve on war to reign." This substitution of Ahuramazda for Marduk is simply wrong. Lendering is pointing this out. I'm not clear what is controversial about this. I don't think you will find any scholars suggesting that it says Ahuramazda. Dougweller (talk) 15:25, 16 December 2010 (UTC)

Yes, of course it's wrong, and I'm sorry if my comment wasn't clear. You make my point better than I did. We aren't here to talk about what's right and wrong. That author (like some other recent authors) relies on the fake translation; simply for that reason, to say that's it's fake is contentious. Because it's contentious, we need documented, reliable references about the issue. A web page that isn't documented is not our ideal reference. Andrew Dalby 21:46, 16 December 2010 (UTC)

I'd like point out that Lendering, as per his wikipedia page, holds a masters, which doesn't necessarily make him an less reliable, but does help. After all, masters level work certainly isn't as rigorous as a doctrate.

But anyway, I think the contention for using Lendering as a source doesn't lie in the issue of the existence of a fake translation (I'm sure that there a many fake translation about many ancient artifacts), but rather his unsupported assertions that the fake translation is related to Pahlavi, propaganda. That entire section is speculative, contentious, and unsupported. GoetheFromm (talk) 15:44, 16 December 2010 (UTC)

Lendering qualifies as an expert source. This website can be used in the narrow manner laid out in WP:SPS. Jayjg ^(talk) 04:02, 17 December 2010 (UTC)

http://www.businessofcinema.com/

In the Genelia D'Souza article, I wish to add a statement about her brother saying that her younger brother who works with the Bombay Stock Exchange, which is present in http://www.businessofcinema.com/news.php?newsid=13968. Is businessofcinema reliable. It seems to be reliable after visiting their About Us page. Just wanted to confirm here. Xavier449 (talk) 15:03, 15 December 2010 (UTC)

Looks okay to me, at least the News and Interviews sections...material in the Database section may well be submitted by the companies concerned and not subject to editorial oversight. Barnabypage (talk) 16:28, 16 December 2010 (UTC)

It's a website that appears to be relatively professionally made, but the About Us page actually says little about it. We know nothing of its ownership, editorial policies, editorial board, etc. It doesn't help that the About Us page has an html error on it. I don't see anything indicating it meets WP:RS. Jayjg ^(talk) 03:57, 17 December 2010 (UTC)

Considering, it is owned by Join The Dots (JTD) Entertainment Media Pvt Ltd, and their journalists are well known, who provide news reports to leading websites, it should be considered reliable. Accroding to this dispatch, media organizations are generally considered reliable. Xavier449 (talk) 15:22, 17 December 2010 (UTC)

It is unfortunate that the site doesn't give a bit more detail about its structure or ownership, and JTD doesn't seem to have a corporate site, but I think ownership by a company is a helpful indication that it's more than a blog with pretensions. These help too: http://in.linkedin.com/in/hetaladesara and http://www.businessofcinema.com/news.php?newsid=10000 Barnabypage (talk) 16:36, 17 December 2010 (UTC)

Personal data on findmypast.co.uk

The website www.findmypast.co.uk has been used as a source for the date and city of death for Stan Aldous. Is this website considered a reliable source? --Jezebel'sPonyo^{bons mots} 18:16, 15 December 2010 (UTC)

I believe it is a reliable source for verifying information as they just faithfully regurgitate public records and then charge you for digitization. The public records themselves are available for free in physical archives and the issue here is that a service provider is making a charge for viewing the digital record. The citation should be to the public record (for example the birth certificate) rather than findmypast.co.uk and unfortunately it does not seem possible to make a permalink to the findmypast.co.uk record match. I suggest we insist that someone citing findmypast quote exactly the text returned and give a context to the record they viewed (i.e., the birth certificate reference number and any names and dates on the certificate) so that you don't have to pay to see all potential records returned by searching (in this case the only "free to view" match I find is "ALDOUS, Male (unnamed), Romford, Essex, 1922" which appears to be the wrong year of birth).

Note that though findmypast are making money from freely available public records, this is not a scam. In fact they are a recognized partner used by government agencies to aide with public access to public records even though this has, regrettably in my opinion, resulted in access charges for images that in principle are public property and cannot be copyrighted. From a copyright perspective, there is nothing to stop someone taking the digital image of a public record from the findmypast website and uploading it to Commons under a PD-scan license; though findmypast may try to stop users from doing this in the T&C's on the website there is no current case law to support such a user contract.

The relevant part of the website terms states "You may only use the Website, the Services, the Records and any information you obtain through all or any of these (together the "Resources") for your personal family research." However once you have a copy of a public record, such as a faithful reproduction of a birth certificate, by definition there cannot be any copyright claim by the website owner for the resultant image and consequently they cannot retrospectively enforce any constraint on the use of such an image as it is not in any way materially different to a scan of physical copy of a public record you might make for yourself at a public record office. Fæ (talk) 12:15, 16 December 2010 (UTC)

Ok, so the gist of it is that the information derived from the site is reliable in the sense that it relies on Government issued statistics, however there are certain issues with verfiability due to the paywall? --Jezebel'sPonyo^{bons mots} 15:24, 16 December 2010 (UTC)

The issue is that the public record must be clearly cited, rather than providing a vague reference to findmypast. Fæ (talk) 17:27, 16 December 2010 (UTC)

Findmypast does not give access to view actual death certificates. What it gives is access to a transcribed digital index, together with details necessary to order the death certificate, and view access to the book (master record)from which the index is transcribed - which is itself a transcription from the actual death cert, made by the ONS. There is a slight chance that either transcription may not be accurate. Only for the most recent death certs is the whole process digital, reducing transcription errors.Elen of the Roads (talk) 17:43, 16 December 2010 (UTC)

You shouldn't be using such sources, they are basically primary in nature and attempting to find personal details in this way is close to investigative reporting, I suggest you consider if personal details are not widely available in multiple mainstream reliable citations then consider not searching and searching in obscure locations so it can be fantastically added to wikipedia. If its not widely available it might not be notable. Off2riorob (talk) 18:00, 16 December 2010 (UTC)

Primary sources can sometimes be used on Wikipedia but this would not be a good case, because interpretation is required in order to apply this raw material to the subject matter being discussed in Wikipedia. What I mean is that, as any genealogist will tell you, identifying that a particular death record is a particular person you are interested in is non obvious and therefore original "research". The paywall is not the issue. See WP:PAYWALL.--Andrew Lancaster (talk) 18:57, 16 December 2010 (UTC)

This is plainly the record for our Stan [36] (it's from the Ancestry site, so the paywall shouldn't apply), and I found it by typing his full name in the search box, so no OR here (otherwise no-one would every be able to use Google books!), but I can't see it gets us much further. Ponyo could order the death cert, but we already know he died in 1995, from the Football League source. Elen of the Roads (talk) 21:38, 16 December 2010 (UTC)

I just get a request to pay money, the guys not even noteworthy, what a waste of time, what relevance and desperation is the desire to add his exact date of birth, and this whole section about such an irrelevance, . Off2riorob (talk) 22:03, 16 December 2010 (UTC)

It's a valid query - JSTOR is a source of info behind a paywall also. I can't see there's any reason to get actually angry about it. Elen of the Roads (talk) 22:07, 16 December 2010 (UTC)

A clarification as to how I became involved. I added a source from the Oxford Mail to the Stan Aldous article and had been trying to update his birth/death date stats at the same time but came up empty handed. Two days later another editor added the month and city of death but did not provide a source. When I asked where they obtained the info they mentioned the Findmypast website - unsure if this was a reliable source and wondering how to proceed should I come across it being used in the future, I thought it best to check here. --Jezebel'sPonyo^{bons mots} 16:26, 17 December 2010 (UTC)

Just a point on interpreting the results: the register entries are ordered by month of registration of the life-event, which isn't necessarily the month the life-event took place. So, for instance, the site coming up with a date of "death" of January 1975 would only confirm the death was registered in that month, and the subject could well have actually died the previous year. cheers, Struway2 (talk) 21:47, 18 December 2010 (UTC)

Mastercollector

Is mastercollector.com a reliable source for toy/character reviews? They publish print paid subscription newsletter, they have reviews that are done by professional staff members who use their full names, not anonymous fan contributed reviews. Mathewignash (talk) 12:45, 18 December 2010 (UTC)

Probe Magazine

Probe Magazine is used as a source for a few articles (mostly American politics). I am not familiar with this magazine, would it qualify as a reliable source? P. S. Burton (talk) 18:49, 16 December 2010 (UTC)

I also found this, is it the same mag? P. S. Burton (talk) 18:51, 16 December 2010 (UTC)

PROBE News Magazine [37] is a weekly, formerly fortnightly, English-language news magazine published in print in Bangladesh, concentrating on Bangladesh national and regional news. It appears to be a genuine newsmagazine with an editorial board and professional jounalists that has been in business for many years. A Google search doesn't turn up a lot of hits for it in the news, book or scholar archives, but it does appear to have been cited as a source in at least a few books and even scholarly articles. I would think that it is a RS, but I am curious as to why one would use it as a source on US politics. A quick glance at the table of contents for the current issue online would lead me to believe that US politics is not something it concentrates on, but that does not mean that it is not a RS if it does publish an article on the subject.

On the other hand Probe Magazine [38], a former publication of the "Citizens for Truth about the Kennedy Assassination" is something completely different. It is published by a self-described "activist group". There is no indication that it has any editorial oversight. The group and the magazine is devoted to conspiracy and fringe theories about the Kennedy assassination and other matters. It most definitely would contain lots of articles on US politics, but if that is the Probe Magazine being used as sources in Wikipedia articles on US politics, that would be a big problem. It is definitely not a RS for such purposes. Fladrif (talk) 23:12, 16 December 2010 (UTC)

If it's used in articles on American politics, I suspect it's the latter. P.S. Burton, which articles did you mean? Jayjg ^(talk) 03:42, 17 December 2010 (UTC)

Robert F. Kennedy and Bob Woodward for example. Fortunately it seems to have been removed from all articles now. P. S. Burton (talk) 09:49, 17 December 2010 (UTC)

RIA Novosti

I just got reverted without comment on Sukhoi PAK FA by User:Mr_nonono. Is RIA Novosti not reliable about Russian projects? Hcobb (talk) 00:06, 17 December 2010 (UTC)

Can you explain what RIA Novosti is? Jayjg ^(talk) 03:40, 17 December 2010 (UTC)

RIA Novosti is a Russian state owned news agency. I don't see why it should be less reliable than any other press release from the Russian Military Industrial Complex. Hcobb (talk) 16:33, 17 December 2010 (UTC)

BOUML

Hello, I'd like some help with that article. It's involved in a dispute on the french wikipedia AfD. The author of the software claims to be Bruno pages (talk · contribs) which is one of the latest contributor of the article. He's been indef banned on fr.wp for threatening to sue admins, his first contribs here have not been very nice either (see also the notice on the software web site).
So I need some help evaluating the references on that article:

• The first ones come from Bruno Pages own web site
• To me, the last are obviously the result of a random google search
• fr:BOUML has a much better english bibliography, can anybody retrieve those papers and evaluate them?

Since I am French, I can offer some advice on the french ref: the url from the PLUME project is correct, however, its title violate NPOV. Another reference on free software in French is framasoft, but http://www.framasoft.net/article3966.html is outdated.
Czech and Italian references seems to be idle chat on forums, and I can't make heads or tail of the chinese one. Thank you for your help, Comte0 (talk) 11:00, 17 December 2010 (UTC)

This looks very much like WP:SPAM. Itsmejudith (talk) 17:38, 17 December 2010 (UTC)

Shame that he is to stop working on it, its actually a quite nice program. What did he threaten the admins over? un☯mi 20:44, 17 December 2010 (UTC)

At the french afd right now, a couple of people are also saying that it's a nice program used in teaching. I am then surprised that the sources' quality is so bad... Comte0 (talk) 22:50, 17 December 2010 (UTC)

I have replied at both your talk pages, I'd rather have us only discuss the quality of the sources on this noticeboard. Thank you. Comte0 (talk) 01:34, 18 December 2010 (UTC)

I have looked at the sources on both the English and French WP. I can't identify any reliable source on the English WP. The Italian source was definitely a blog post. I couldn't read the Czech or Chinese sources. However, on the French WP, while there are some internet forum and blog sources, there are also two academic papers: Kearney & Power, and Changizi et al., both in English. Also, in the "bibliography" section there are three books which appear from their titles and publishers to be decent reliable sources. Page numbers are given but the books aren't cited inline. Potentially five good sources, but it remains to be seen whether these are sufficient to establish notability. It would help if a specialist in software could comment. Information cited only to blogs and forums should be removed. Itsmejudith (talk) 12:24, 18 December 2010 (UTC)

WP:COMPSCI has been notified. Should I also contact WP:CZECH, and WP:CHINA? BTW, the Chinese article is still available through google cache. Regards, Comte0 (talk) 16:17, 18 December 2010 (UTC)

• Steven Kearney and James F. Power (2007). Université nationale d'Irlande (ed.). Benchmarking the accuracy of reverse engineering tools for Java programs: a study of eleven UML tools (Technical Report: NUIM-CS-TR-2007-01) (PDF). {{cite book}}: Unknown parameter |day= ignored (help); Unknown parameter |month= ignored (help)
  • Technical report. Reliable although probably not peer-reviewed, but not sufficient to establish notability on its own. This is the only independent source that could potentially be used to base an article on, but note that the this report concludes that BOUML is rather buggy. —Ruud 17:03, 18 December 2010 (UTC)
• Behnaz Changizi, Natallia Kokash, Farhad Arbab (2010). Electronic Notes in Theoretical Computer Science (ed.). A Unified Toolset for Business Process Model Formalization (PDF). p. 6. {{cite book}}: Unknown parameter |month= ignored (help)CS1 maint: multiple names: authors list (link)
  • Seems to be a technical report as well. Reliable although probably not peer-reviewed, but not sufficient to establish notability on its own. Refers to BOUML but does not discuss it. —Ruud 17:03, 18 December 2010 (UTC)
• Esra Erdem, Fangzhen Lin, Torsten Schaub, Logic Programming and Nonmonotonic Reasoning: 10th International Conference, Springer, ISBN 978-3-642-04237-9, 2009, p.458-459
  • These are proceedings, which paper exactle? I assume this refers to Applying ASP to UML Model Validation. Contains minimal discussion of BOUML. —Ruud 17:11, 18 December 2010 (UTC)
• Dorota Huizinga, Adam Kolawa , Automated defect prevention: best practices in software management, Wiley-IEEE Computer Society Press, ISBN 978-0-470-04212-0, 2007, p.398
  • Again, which paper? —Ruud 17:11, 18 December 2010 (UTC)
• Fabrice Kordon, Yvon Kermarrec, Reliable Software Technologies - Ada-Europe 2009: 14th Ada-Europe, Springer, ISBN 978-3-642-01923-4, 2009, p.154
  • Which paper? —Ruud 17:11, 18 December 2010 (UTC)

Hi, just to say I was blocked on French wikipedia because an administrator reversed the meaning of one sentences I written. Good witch hunt, even though Halloween is already past. Bruno pages (talk) 22:33, 18 December 2010 (UTC)

Breitbart as News RS

All: I would like to request some community input on the following question: Is Andrew Breitbart's Breitbart TV (and Breitbart.com) a reliable source for news? It describes itself as a "news syndicate," and appears somewhat similar to the Huffington Post, in that it feeds from other sources such as the AP and AFP and PR Newswire. The only other discussion on this noticeboard that I've found even remotely relevant is here in which User:Cpx86 comments, "I'd venture to say that it's a fairly established media outlet by now" (emphasis added). However, that thread is largely about Youtube. Finally, my question stems from my review of these two articles. I made some minor corrections, but looked at the citation used in Vecuronium for the news stories referencing the Daisuke Mori murders (see note 2 within Vecuronium). It's to Breitbart's Breitbart.com. (N.B.: The citations within Daisuke Mori are all to the Japan Times and other clearly, unquestionably reliable sources.) I just want to see what the community's consensus is here. As of now, my personal opinion is that if the Huffington Post is a reliable source then Breitbart's websites are, also, as news aggregators if nothing else. Thanks for everyone's input. Apologies in advance if this is a settled issue--I did search this noticeboard in advance--but there's no big pre-existing list of vetted, community-accepted reliable sources (is there?). Thanks again. Saebvn (talk) 14:50, 17 December 2010 (UTC)

Opinions are always citable as opinions. Where an "original source" other than Breitbart is given, that source is best for WP purposes. Where Breitbart is the originator, it is RS for facts in factual articles, and for opinions properly cited as opinion from opinion articles. It has "editorial oversight" which is the primary requiremnet. This is also true for Huffington. Collect (talk) 15:29, 17 December 2010 (UTC)

Natural Philosophy Alliance

There is an archived noticeboard discussion thread of 2 years ago <link rel=NPA discussion in Wiki archive http://wiki.riteme.site/wiki/Wikipedia:Reliable_sources/Noticeboard/Archive_14#Reliability_of_Proceedings_of_the_Natural_Philosophy_Alliance.2C_Storrs_2005_ISSN_1555-4775. There were 3 editors discussing whether papers published in the web-journal at http://www.worldnpa.org are considered to be conforming to wp:IRS. The outcome of the discussion was not finished. At the end, there were 2 editors for and 1 against, with no apparent agreement.
I would like to use a source " Joseph J. Smulsky, "Gravitation, field, and rotation of Mercury Perihelion", pp.254-260 , vol. 5. No. 4, Proceedings of the NPA, Albuquerque, NM, USA, copy stored at http://www.ikz.ru/~smulski/Papers/08Smulsky2c.pdf. " in an edit located at Talk:Tests_of_general_relativity#Mercury_precession_-_minority_test. Can I get a poll of scientists that think that this source can be used to give a neutral point-of-view NPOV.D c weber (talk) 23:49, 17 December 2010 (UTC)

The NPA is self-described as a proponent of fringe theories outside mainstream physics. So, papers presented at its conferences are not Reliable Sources on science articles, and those sources, even with attribution, could not be described as having a NPOV. Fladrif (talk) 02:41, 18 December 2010 (UTC)

Rape during the Occupation of Germany

A schoolteacher has estimated that there were 10,000,000 rapes of Soviet women during WWII committed by the German army. Is this a reliable source?

A new section about German rapes in Russia has been added to the article on Rapes during the [Allied] occupation of Germany[39]. In one of the new sentences it is stated that: "estimates speak of up to 10,000,000 victims [of rape] in Soviet Russia alone." This is referenced to Zur Debatte um die Ausstellung Vernichtungskrieg. Verbrechen der Wehrmacht 1941-1944 im Kieler Landeshaus 1999 which seems to be a paper published in connection to a debate surrounding a museum exhibition about Wehrmacht crimes. The PDF contains many articles, the one that seems to be the referred to is; "Vergewaltigungen und Zwangsprostitution im Krieg" by Ursula Schele. Ursula seems to work as a schoolteacher for children of ages 6 to 15, but she also leads an organisation against sexual violence.[40]

In her article she writes:

In einer u. a. mit Prof. Dr. Jan Phillip Reemtsma geführten Diskussion zur Wehrmachtsausstellung 1997 in Bremen beschrieb Prof. Dr. Wolfgang Eichwede die Tatsache, dass es in der früheren Sowjetunion außerordentlich viele Kinder von Wehrmachtssoldaten gebe. Unter Berufung auf russische Historiker und deutsche Quellen geht er von mehr als einer Million unter Kriegsverhältnissen gezeugten Kindern aus und betont, dass es viele Zeugnisse von Vergewaltigungen gibt (vergl. Thiele, S. 96). Auf Basis biologischer Gegebenheiten lässt sich davon ausgehen, dass statistisch gesehen etwa jeder zehnte Geschlechtsverkehr eine Schwangerschaft zur Folge hat. Folgerichtig muss von etwa 10 Millionen Vergewaltigungen deutscher Männer allein auf russischem Boden ausgegangen werden

My tentative translation (please correct me): Dr. Eichwede had a discussion with Dr. Reemtsma in connection to an exhibition in 1997. Dr. Eichwede described that in the Soviet Union there were extraordinary amounts of children fathered by German Army soldiers. He relied on both Russian and German sources to claim that more than one million children were made under war-circumstances, and stressed that there are many testimonies of rape. (compare with Thiele, page 96). Since statistically every tenth sexual intercourse results in pregnancy it must be deduced that 10 Million rapes were committed by Germans in Russia.

How usable is this source?--Stor stark7 ^Speak 00:00, 18 December 2010 (UTC)

Without wishing to detract from the undoubted horrors of the time, would it be OR to suggest that not every incident of sexual intercourse resulting in pregnancy need necessarily have been non-consensual? AndyTheGrump (talk) 01:39, 18 December 2010 (UTC)

Without Eichwede's sources, we don't know where the original figure comes from: it may have been statistical extrapolation already. All we know is that it has been multiplied by ten. I'm not saying whether the result is "true" or not -- we can't know that -- but it isn't sufficiently solidly based to be used in the historical background to Rape during the occupation of Germany. Andrew Dalby 14:43, 18 December 2010 (UTC)

The opening statement is misleading and tries to present the author as schoolteacher- this is not correct and seems to try to downgrade the importantce of Ursula Schele leads Bundesverband Frauenberatungsstellen a German wide organisation which researches sexual violence.He work is based on cooperation with Profesor Wolfgang Eichwede who researched the topic.She represents National Network of Rape crisis centres[41] or Bundes- und Landesverbandes der Frauenberatungsstellen und Frauennotrufe. . The conclusions were presented on numerous symposiums. The number is also given in scholarly book Gleichsam wird die Anzahl von Vergewaltigungen durch deutsche Soldaten auf russischem Boden auf etwa 10 Millionen geschätztSander, Helke; Johr, Barbara (Hrsg.): BeFreier und Befreite. Krieg, Vergewaltigungen, Kinder, München 1992 page 71--MyMoloboaccount (talk) 14:56, 18 December 2010 (UTC)

In any case statements by scholars are reliable enough to be presented, in this case it will be enough to attribute the figures to people making them-since per Wiki rules scholarly sources and statements published by such people organisations are allowed they can be given. Unless any source contradicts this, pursuing different opinion on its own is OR or SYNTH.--MyMoloboaccount (talk) 15:02, 18 December 2010 (UTC)

@AndyTheGrump. Good question. That is exactly the same methodology that has been used to estimate the number of rapes of German woman by Soviet military: the number or pregnancies times 10 = the number of sexual contacts, and all of them were assumed to be rapes.--Paul Siebert (talk) 15:42, 18 December 2010 (UTC)

The fact that Ursula Schele apparently has no academic credentials to support her when making this type of statement is quite relevant. Extraordinary assertions require extraordinary evidence. The fact that she leads some sort of crisis center, which I already mentioned and indeed linked to, does not lead additional weight to her credentials, other than explain her interest in the topic.

This "Women Against Violence" that you associate Schele with[42] seems like an organisation that campaigns and raises awareness on violence against women. Please provide evidence that it also produces academic research. Checking the edit history I now see that it was you, MyMoloboaccount, who inserted the 10,000,000 claim, referenced to the PDF.[43] Please explain, then, why you referenced the 10,000,000 rapes claim to a debate article by Ms Schele, instead of the book by Barbara Johr that you above claim contains the same allegation (without a page reference indeed). Checking the sentence you provided it seems you copied it from the homepage of the "Women against violence".[44]. No citation is given for the claim in the web-page. Hardly a reliable source. You have provided no evidence either that Ms Schele has cooperated with Dr. Eichwede. The claim is extraordinary, and not backed up by any reliable sources.--Stor stark7 ^Speak 15:56, 18 December 2010 (UTC)

Could you point out what source makes this is an extrordinary claim? I am not aware of any serious scholarship claiming Nazi forces didn't commit mass rapes, I encountered some claims on that like that from fringe revisionists(who by their very nature are unreliable fringe best left alone) or right wing people but nothing scholarly. The available research on German mass rapes in WW2 admits they were widespread as far as I know. Do you have some serious sources claiming otherwise or other estimates on Nazi German mass rapes and their victims? Professor Eichwede is a reliable, scholarly source-are you claiming otherwise? I did not copy the text from the website-please redact this.--MyMoloboaccount (talk) 16:17, 18 December 2010 (UTC)

I am still waiting for an answer to my questions, MyMoloboaccount. Please do not try to avoid answering them by posting copious amounts of text, remember the terms of your parole as regards "disrupting talkpages with tendentious filibustering". This may not be a talk, page, but it is close enough. I see now that you after I made my question inserted a page number into your earlier post, without any edit summary.[45] Please avoid such things in the future, it only serves to mislead those who read this thread. If you did indeed not copy-paste the sentences from that web-page then I apologize, but since you provided no page number, and the wording is exactly as in the webpage I think it was reasonable to write "it seems you copied it". I will check the wording in the book and compare it. All the best.--Stor stark7 ^Speak 21:54, 18 December 2010 (UTC)

Also note that other available figures confirm the numbers:

A 1942 Wehrmacht document suggested that the Nazi leadership considered implementing a special policy for the eastern front through which the estimated 750,000 babies born through sexual contact between the German soldiers and Russian women (an estimate deemed very conservative) could be identified and reclaimed as racially German. (The suggestion was made to add the middle names Friedrich and Luise to the birth certificates for boy and girl babies, respectively.) Although the plan was not implemented, such documents suggest that the births that resulted from rapes and other forms of sexual contact were deemed as beneficial, as increasing the “Aryan” race rather than as adding to the inferior Slavic race. The underlying ideology suggests that German rape and other forms of sexual contact may need to be seen as conforming to a larger military strategy of racial and territorial dominance. (Pascale R . Bos, Feminists Interpreting the Politics of Wartime Rape: Berlin, 1945; Yugoslavia, 1992–1993 Journal of Women in Culture and Society 2006, vol. 31, no. 4, p.996-1025)

Using the same calculation as used by profesor Wolfgang Eichwede and which was used to claim rapes in Germany by Soviet soldiers(mainly x10) then above number of 750.000would indicate 7.5 mln rape victims in 1942 already.Should we give this information or would be that considered OR? In any case it is obvious that there is nothing extraordinary in the issue of rape victims in German occupied Europe and Soviet Union.--MyMoloboaccount (talk) 16:37, 18 December 2010 (UTC)

That would be OR, most definitely. As for the more general issue, I think we owe it to the victims of such events to seek to present the truth, as much as we can find it, and leave speculation to others. I think any references to figures in articles on the topic should make clear the methodology used to derive them, and also make clear that any definitive answers are unlikely to be found. AndyTheGrump (talk) 19:43, 18 December 2010 (UTC)

Ibn Warraq

I would like to inquire about the policy of using Ibn Warraq's works as a source in articles on Islam. The reliability of his works has been questioned by established experts in Islamic fields (see Ibn_Warraq#Peer reception). As far as one can tell from his biography, he is not considered an authority in any Islamic field to have two of his books listed under the "further reading: books and journals" section of the main article on Islam:

1. Warraq, Ibn (2000). The Quest for Historical Muhammad. Prometheus. ISBN 978-1573927871.
2. Warraq, Ibn (2003). Leaving Islam: Apostates Speak Out. Prometheus. ISBN 1-59102-068-9.

The first mentioned work, much like his other works, has received very negative reviews, see The Quest for the Historical Muhammad (Ibn Warraq)#Reception.

As I understood from reading the Wikipedia guides on source reliablity, Ibn Warraq's views may be cited and used in an article if that view has been previously stated or published by an established expert on the topic of the article, but this is hardly the case for many of Ibn Warraq's views.

I should mention that he is cited heavily in the article, Criticism of Islam (which in my opinion and as others noted on the talk page, doesn't follow the same standards applied to Criticism of Christianity and Criticism of Judaism or any other Wikipedia article in general) in addition to many other critics who are not recognized within the scholarly community of Islam, like Ali Sina. Please see Criticism of Muhammad#Ali Sina for an example of his "criticism".

So to split the question into parts:

1. Can Ibn Warraq be quoted in articles such as Islam, Muhammad...etc ?
2. Can Ibn Warraq be quoted in Criticism of Islam and similar articles such as Criticism of Muhammad...etc even when Ibn Warraq's view was not quoted by a reliable third party ?

Thank you –Al-Andalusi (talk) 07:10, 18 December 2010 (UTC)

I would split the question into parts differently:

1. Are Ibn Warraq's views on Islam suitable for incorporation into Wikipedia material on Islam, without further qualification?
2. Are Ibn Warraq's criticisms of Islam quotable in Wikipedia material dealing with criticisms of Islam, if attributed to Ibn Warraq ("Ibn Warraq has criticized Islam as being...")

As explained in Wikipedia:RS#Statements_of_opinion, the criteria for reliability will be different in the two cases. Spacepotato (talk) 11:11, 18 December 2010 (UTC)

It appears to me that it would be as inappropriate to cite Ibn Warraq in articles on Islam, as it would be to cite Israel Shamir in articles on Judaism, or Richard Dawkins in articles on Christianity. Each of them could be used as appropriate in the respective criticism articles; but their use as normative and reliable sources in other articles could not be justified. RolandR (talk) 18:05, 18 December 2010 (UTC)

Democracy Now! and CounterPunch

I'm having some disagreements with another editor about the use of these two sources. Neither appears, in my mind, to be a reliable source for controversial topics such as the ethics of medical research. In some cases the reports can be confirmed with independent sources, though in some of these cases all that's reported is an allegation without discussion. SDY (talk) 07:37, 18 December 2010 (UTC)

Why do you not feel that they are reliable? Do you have any sources claiming that they have a record of poor fact-checking? We don't base reliability on perceptions of "incorrect political stance". After all, if we did that, we couldn't use the New York Times, because of it's rabid support for corporate capitalism (or the inaccurate alternative perception that they are too "liberal"), or Fox News for it's ultranationalist far-right viewpoints. We can't allow editors to censor certain publications because they don't like their politics. We base determinations of reliability on criteria like professional editorial control, and record for factual accuracy, which both of these publications have. On the other hand, if you can provide peer-reviewed/academic sources that contradict them, then that's a different story. Otherwise, these are both clearly reliable sources. -- Jrtayloriv (talk) 08:01, 18 December 2010 (UTC)

Sources are reliable until proven beyond a reasonable doubt otherwise? That's a bold claim indeed, especially when it comes to a source that describes itself as "muckraking with a radical attitude." Fox News is the ur-example: it's a reliable source for news, but when the news is inseparable from opinion it is inappropriate to use it as a source. SDY (talk) 08:31, 18 December 2010 (UTC)

Yes, for you to claim that an award-winning, nationally syndicated news show like Democracy Now is unreliable, you need to provide some evidence that it is not accurate or something other than that you think they are an "activist" site. I think the New York Times does activism for its marketing clients, but you won't see me trying to censor them for that here, because although they are biased in the facts they select for presentation (as is every publication), their facts are generally accurate. -- Jrtayloriv (talk) 09:24, 18 December 2010 (UTC)

"muckraking newsletter" is enough for me to consider Counter Punch not RS. Democracy Now is certainly biased but I am not aware of any issues of their bias causing incorrect reporting (not sure though). They also have some journalism awards so it makes it even a little bit more of a challenge to dispute. However, we have much stricter neutrality standards then they do so the tone cannot be replicated and editors should question if any material only source from there is even worthy of mention if it is not seconded in a source that is less questionable. And Fox is RS. Some of their opinion pieces and shows may not be.Cptnono (talk) 08:36, 18 December 2010 (UTC)

Muckraking simply means reporting on issues of corporate and government corruption which are, for obvious reasons, misrepresented and underreported by corporate news media, and by the government press offices they are so fond of using as sources. Muckraking does not mean inaccurate. There is absolutely no reason to leave out sites because they claim to be doing muckraking or investigative journalism, as long as they are factually accurate. -- Jrtayloriv (talk) 09:20, 18 December 2010 (UTC)

They're both highly biased phenomenal journalism/opinion producers. You have to be careful to distinguish their opinion pieces from journalism pieces and where there is explicit or implicit advocacy going on. That said, their raw fact checking is not really in question, especially not Democracy Now. Counter Punch publishes many editorial articles, however, which might not have the same standard of fact-checking or fact-attribution. I'd be significantly more careful with that one. Both should be used where appropriate, but possibly with in-line attribution. My opinion... Ocaasi (talk) 08:50, 18 December 2010 (UTC)

Like every major news organization, they each produce both journalistic reporting and op-ed pieces. We cannot use their opinions without attribution, and even then, we should only be using their opinions if they are particularly notable for the topic at hand. However, we can report their statements of fact just like we do for the New York Times or Fox News. Every publication is biased. Corporate media organizations are biased in favor of their advertising clients and shareholders, nonprofit news organizations are biased towards whichever groups run them. What matters is not their selection bias, but their factual accuracy. By neutrally reporting what each type of publication has to say, we get factually accurate information and a more complete understanding of the situation. -- Jrtayloriv (talk) 09:31, 18 December 2010 (UTC)

I generally agree with this. I don't know if I feel comfortable grouping Counter Punch in with NY Times, Fox News, and even Democracy Now. The question is not just one of corporate scope or size or popularity. Counter Punch is much farther removed from the news discourse to be used as a basic fact-finding group. I tend to think it needs attribution where it is used. And I like the site a lot. Ocaasi (talk) 09:50, 18 December 2010 (UTC)

• Question: Which specific instances of use of those sources do you challenge SDY? un☯mi 09:32, 18 December 2010 (UTC)

Mostly my concern is that there are better sources available for pretty much every time those sources are used, and the "muckracking" is creeping into the article. Some of the more questionable items have been addressed already through a review of sourcing, and in most cases the DN/CP cites are redundant with more normal sources (i.e. published books, though a few of those are certainly on the sensational side as well). The specific item that prompted this question was a comment about "killing babies" cited to DN (#114). For example, the Vanity Fair article (#115) explains the ambiguity about the deaths and does not immediately claim murder. It's this kind of polevaulting to conclusions that makes me very, very reluctant to use any source that's so obviously activist and partisan, because those kinds of sources never give you the whole story. SDY (talk) 10:03, 18 December 2010 (UTC)

Neither of the articles in question claims murder. Would you prefer the words "babies died" instead of "babies were killed"? I'd be willing to go with this, despite the fact that the actions of other people caused them to die -- i.e. they were killed.-- Jrtayloriv (talk) 10:10, 18 December 2010 (UTC)

The only reference to this in the Democracy Now transcript is this: " In Argentina, seven babies died while enrolled in clinical trials for GlaxoSmithKline. In New Delhi, India, 49 babies died at the All India Institute of Medical Sciences while taking part in clinical trials over a 30-month period.", is that called into doubt? It sounds more like an editorial issue than a problem with sources. un☯mi 10:18, 18 December 2010 (UTC)

In the Democracy Now transcript James_B._Steele, one of the authors of the Vanity Fair article,states: "So we concluded, therefore, that you’re talking about 200,000 people dying pretty much yearly from prescription drugs. I mean, that’s more than die from diabetes and a whole range of other illnesses that affect people out there. So, it’s one of those unknown, really undisclosed and unpublicized killers that are the consequences of many prescription drugs.", other than that I see no reference to 'kill' - and that is an attributable statement. un☯mi 10:21, 18 December 2010 (UTC)

I've changed "were killed" to "died". Thanks for the input. -- Jrtayloriv (talk) 10:29, 18 December 2010 (UTC)

There is a substantial difference between the two: the DN story implies intent (active verb) and when you look at the VF article it makes it clear that intent is by no means confirmed. Our article, in most of the statements attributed to CP or DN, has the same problem as this case: it concludes intent where ignorance is a perfectly valid explanation (e.g. the Serratia case where it was used on the assumption it was harmless). Given that we are talking about serious crimes, intent is a fact that has to be cited because it's the difference between negligence (bad) and malevolence (much worse). It's this interpretation from those sources that I'm challenging. In some cases, like the Tuskegee study, valuing the results at the expense of the well-being of the patients is well-documented and we can call a spade a spade. SDY (talk) 10:48, 18 December 2010 (UTC)

No, killed does not imply intent. Killed implies responsibility (with or without intent). I can accidentally (i.e. unintentionally) run over a child, and one would say that I killed them, whether or not I intended to. That said, I agree that we should not ascribe intent to people where it is not documented in the sources. As far as Democracy Now ascribing intent in this particular case: I think that's what any reasonable person would say. When, for the sake of profit, you willfully engage in dangerous research practices overseas to avoid safety regulations and government oversight, knowing that you are going to maim and kill in some cases, I think you can safely say that the harm caused is intentional. (And by the way, the person being interviewed in the Democracy Now article is one of the authors of the Vanity Fair piece) -- Jrtayloriv (talk) 11:24, 18 December 2010 (UTC)

(undent) Yes, but the DN interviewer is the one who called it "killing" and that was who you were citing. Your conclusions about what a reasonable person would think are your own, since I count five or six additional assumptions in your statement, and you're missing the real ethical problem which is not dodging of oversight but potential exploitation of vulnerable populations where consent would be considered invalid even if it the subjects gave it. Back on topic, I think we should be very careful about using these kinds of sources for anything other than statements of who/what/where/when/how fact (e.g. people died, army performed experiment). Statements of opinion or analysis (why) are basically unusable because of the partisan nature of these sources. We shouldn't "be careful" about ascribing intent or guilt, we must not do it unless we have real evidence (i.e. admissions against interest, convictions in court, consensus from historians, etc...). Partisan sources like these cannot be used to ascribe guilt in a neutral article. SDY (talk) 11:50, 18 December 2010 (UTC)

No, the interviewer said "died". I said in my paraphrasing of the article that the experiments killed the subjects involved, which is an objective fact. We can say that the experiments killed the children or that they died as a result of the experiments. I really don't care. But this is an editorial problem with the Wikipedia article, not with any of the sources cited. -- Jrtayloriv (talk) 12:11, 18 December 2010 (UTC)

(And by the way, I didn't miss the ethical problem that you mentioned. It's one of several serious ethical problems with what they are doing. In my mind, the taking of life for profit was also a serious ethical problem. I don't think you can call either of them "the real ethical problem". They are both "real", as are several other issues like lack of informed consent, academic dishonesty, and false advertising.) -- Jrtayloriv (talk) 12:22, 18 December 2010 (UTC)

Huh, odd, I thought it said killed. I stand (well, sit) corrected and agree that it is solely an editorial issue. SDY (talk) 19:09, 18 December 2010 (UTC)

Unless, there is more this than the quotes given above, both "the experiments killed the children" or "they died as a result of the experiments", are unsupported. DN does not attribute the deaths to the experiments at all. They are careful to say that the children died during the trials. Nobody can, without statistical analysis compared to typical infant mortality rates, make any claim about whether this is an unusual rate or not. Yes, Democracy Now is a reliable source, but you need to stick very close to the source given. Something like "Babies died during clinical trials in India and Argentina."--Slp1 (talk) 13:31, 18 December 2010 (UTC)

Without knowing which specific articles, edits and citations we are talking about, it is impossible to give a concrete answer, but DemocracyNow!, at least, certainly fits our criteria for generally reliable sources.Dlabtot (talk) 19:35, 18 December 2010 (UTC)

Back AGAIN regarding Reproductive Health Bill (Philippines)

So now what is in contention is whether the Catholic Social Science Review is a "scholarly publication" according to WP:RELIABLE. What is given in evidence that they are is this page [46], since they require "peer review." Mind you, that this "journal article" is entitled National Perfidy and the first sentence of said article is: "If there is anything notable about House Bills No. 16, 2029, 2042 & 2550, it is that they are outrageously pathetic and devoid of rationality." You can see the rest of the article here: [47] This is a position paper, but it is cited authoritatively in the article as if it was a scientific study. 122.3.45.29 (talk) 15:06, 18 December 2010 (UTC)

I'm not sure why anyone would assume that it's a scholarly publication based on what they say on their web site. Even WP:RS says "Care should be taken with journals that exist mainly to promote a particular point of view. A claim of peer review is not an indication that the journal is respected, or that any meaningful peer review occurs. Journals that are not peer reviewed by the wider academic community should not be considered reliable, except to show the views of the groups represented by those journals" I don't think there can be any clearer indication of promoting a particular point of view on this issue than prefixing the name of the review with the word 'Catholic'. Sean.hoyland - talk 16:31, 18 December 2010 (UTC)

Their papers don't seem to be cited much in other publications according to google scholar. Almost all the hits are for catholicsocialscientists.org and www.cssronline.org. On the plus side, apparently they did publish a retraction for this slight error. Sean.hoyland - talk 17:10, 18 December 2010 (UTC)

I think it might be less useful to argue about the tricky word "scholarly", which is just one of the types of fact checking, and more useful to consider that the problem here seems to be more to do with what to do with a source that obviously has a strong position, i.e. "point of view". In other words well known sources with a reputation for fact checking can sometimes have controversial and/or strong POVs. What we generally do is then consider whether those POVs are notable and then if they are we can mention them but attribute them in a balanced way along with opposed views.--Andrew Lancaster (talk) 18:08, 18 December 2010 (UTC)

Richard Littlejohn

There is a group of users registered and IP who are trying to force a claim about Richard Littlejohn having a criminal record. The 'source' they are trying to use is a book review from a biased left-wing newspaper which is known to have a dislike of Mr Littlejohn. They keep arguing it is a reliable source. But I do not feel an opinionated book review by a left-wing author is a reliable source. Also the 'source' does not even support the claim in the article. I have tried explaining this but they persist in reverting it. I would be grateful for your intervention. Christian1985 (talk) 16:34, 18 December 2010 (UTC)

It's from The Observer, which is undeniably a relable source according to Wikipedia's policies. Calling it "a biased left-wing newspaper" is rather over the top. It's liberal.Paul B (talk) 17:15, 18 December 2010 (UTC)

But that's not the point I was making. The 'reference' they are attempting to use is a book review of Littlejohn's Britain. I hardly feel this is a solid source. The 'source' isn't from an article, it is an opinionated book review, surely that does not meet guidelines. Christian1985 (talk) 17:19, 18 December 2010 (UTC)

For clarity to save people looking, it's Ben Summerskill's book review here in The Observer and this edit. I would move this to the WP:BLP/N noticeboard if I were you. Sean.hoyland - talk 17:26, 18 December 2010 (UTC)

Will do, thank you for your assistance Christian1985 (talk) 17:27, 18 December 2010 (UTC)

(ec)The article is clearly an "opinion piece" and thus not a reliable source for a claim of criminal acts in a BLP - where not only is the requirement absolute that the source be strong, it is also established that opinions are to be avoided in such cases. One would need a specific RS for the precise claim for it to be in any BLP at all, and the matter of political spectrum analysis is irrelevant here. Collect (talk) 17:28, 18 December 2010 (UTC)

It's a book review. Reviews are just as much subject to the usual checking as other articles. You can be sure they'd check this or Littlejohn would be ranting in his next column about the incompetence of the Observer and the lies of liberal left blah blah. It's not, however, a "criticism" as such. The fact would be better placed in the biographical section. Paul B (talk) 18:06, 18 December 2010 (UTC)

Obviously it is a reliable source. I agree this discussion would be better posted on WP:BLP/N.Dlabtot (talk) 17:47, 18 December 2010 (UTC)

Agreed. It's a reliable source but misused both in that the edit overstates what the Observer article says, and it's too trivial for the article. But if anyone insists on keeping it in, BLP is the place to discuss it. Dougweller (talk) 17:50, 18 December 2010 (UTC)

• The Observer is a reliable source. Also, it is unlikely it would be able to publish that Littlejohn has a criminal conviction without facing a libel claim, if it were not true. It's not an opinion, or an analysis of the facts, it's a plain fact and reliable sources can be used to cite facts. Betty Logan (talk) 17:56, 18 December 2010 (UTC)

• There are several problems here. Opinion columns (such book reviews) are only to be used with attribution to the author, see WP:NEWSBLOG; they are not strong sources for a BLP article; and, as pointed out by others, the source does not actually support the edit, which claims acts of violence (plural). The book review supports only one act of violence (brawling), with no mention that there was a criminal conviction.--Slp1 (talk) 18:12, 18 December 2010 (UTC)

The Observer is unquestionably a reliable source. Notwithstanding that this is contained in a book review, the particular assertion is not an expression of opinion, it is a statement of fact. So to require attribution in the text on the lines of, "according to X, Y was convincted as a youth of Z" is a bit of overkill. Given the ridiculously stringent libel laws in Britain, and that this is a mainstream newspaper rather than a tabloid gossip rag, there should be no question about this being a reliable source. I see no claim that the factual assertion is wrong or inaccurate in any way. That the newspaper or the author may have a bias (which has more to do with the subject being at a rival paper than with any political or idological bent) is utterly irrelevant. So, summarily removing this would seem to me to be improper edit warring. I will note that the text in the BLP does not seem to track the source with perfect accuracy, but that is not an issue for RSN. Fladrif (talk) 21:06, 18 December 2010 (UTC)

Echoing Fladrif, I think we can let any such claim let through, probably even without attribution, given that the state of libel laws in Britain and the Grauniad's general adherence to journalistic standards (i.e., it doesn't have a reputation of making things up wholecloth) makes it unlikely to be anything other than a statement of fact. Sceptre ^(talk) 21:26, 18 December 2010 (UTC)

Barack Obama as a reliable source: no, he's a self published source

In the Barack Obama article in the last section, there is coverage about his religion.

Naturally, this is a touchy subject. Some people are on a campaign to try to shout and advertise that he is Christian. Wikipedia is not an advertising agency. Those other people are including a big block quote "proving" that Obama is a Christian.

There are two problems: 1. It assumes that Muslims are bad, therefore, it must be advertised that he is not Muslim. 2. Using a big quote in a box is a SPS self published source. The quote is not a famous speech, like JFK's ask not what you can do for your country, ask what your country can do for you speech.

1. NY Mayor Koch was once called a homosexual. He said that he is not but that the accusations were made to show that he (and homosexuals) are bad. Obama is in the same boat. He is not a Muslim but it is not wrong or bad to be Muslim.

2. SPS should not be used, especially in a touchy article, like Obama. This report to this board primarily concerns #2.

Proposed resolution: use reliable sources, not self published sources, like a huge box to "prove" and advertise that he is a Christian. Just say it, provide sources, and no undue weight. MVOO (talk) 20:30, 18 December 2010 (UTC)

I'll withhold comment on the request above, but note that User:MVOO has removed this content three times from Barack Obama and has now been warned about edit warring.  Frank  |  talk  20:34, 18 December 2010 (UTC)

Self-published sources to establish someone's own religion -- the religion they claim for themselves -- are just fine. He talks at great length about his christianity and faith in his books, and his speeches, etc... and that establishes that he's, well, christian. All mainstream sources that deal with his religion also identify him as such -- hardly a controversial claim (indeed, the christian church he once belonged to was a target of controversy during his presidential campaign). Hope this helps.Bali ultimate (talk) 20:36, 18 December 2010 (UTC)

SPS are RS for information about themselves.Slatersteven (talk) 20:38, 18 December 2010 (UTC)

Agreed. Self published sources are fine, maybe even sometimes preferable, for their own opinions, beliefs etc.--Andrew Lancaster (talk) 20:40, 18 December 2010 (UTC)

I think MVOO should read WP:BLPCAT: "Categories regarding religious beliefs... should not be used unless the subject has publicly self-identified with the belief or orientation in question; and the subject's beliefs... are relevant to their notable activities or public life, according to reliable published sources". The only legitimate source for the religious affiliation of a living person is self-assertion. I can't see how anyone reading the article could see it suggesting "that Muslims are bad" in any case. AndyTheGrump (talk) 20:42, 18 December 2010 (UTC)

An autobiography published by a respected, independent, mainstream publishing house is not a SPS. The argument being advanced here is based on a complete misconception of what an SPS is. That being said, even if it were an SPS, as pointed out above, it would be perfectly consistent with WP:BLP WP:RS and WP:SPS to source a statement as to what religion a person practices to a SPS by the subject about him or herself. Fladrif (talk) 21:24, 18 December 2010 (UTC)

PROPOSED NEW RULE

If that is the case, then the SPS rules should be changed. It could read that "references to one's religion and sexual orientation origination from the self published source are acceptable.".

I have added this idea to WP:V. Otherwise, your opinion about SPS not applying to religion is simply your opinion and not Wikipedia policy. This addition should not be controversial, except that anything related to Obama is always controversial, even the brand of toilet paper he uses, probably. MVOO (talk) 21:39, 18 December 2010 (UTC)

A Self Published Source is one published by the author, not one written by the subject. A personal website is SPS. A 'vanity' press is de facto SPS. Obama's books are not SPS. In any case membership of a Christian church makes him a Christian. Of course in his secret soul he may be a worshipper of the Great Spaghetti Monster. But we can't see into his secret soul can we? Paul B (talk) 21:50, 18 December 2010 (UTC)

Exactly. The source isn't a SPS. Period. End of story. Fladrif (talk) 21:54, 18 December 2010 (UTC)

WP:AGF and all, but why are we even having this discussion? Saying that people are trying to "convince" and "advertise" that he is a Christian sounds more like giving in to the dumbasses that think he's a Muslim (if he was, there would be nothing wrong with it, but he is no more a Muslim than the Pope or Dalai Lama). Ian.thomson (talk) 21:59, 18 December 2010 (UTC)