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Wikipedia:Reliable sources/Noticeboard/Large scale clean-ups/answersingenesis.com

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answersingenesis.com

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Requires work:

Raw external links report [1]

Summary of problem

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answersingenesis.org presents a variety of biblical literalist publications through a website, some are suspected copyvios, others are suspected of inappropriate use in articles. 1000+ external links, about 50:50 in article space.

Suspected by who, evidence for? Wider degree of consensus here, doesn't look like this has been discussed but for almost no time and by hardly anyone. As much as I hate AIG for it's backward's ass retarded positions, I have to question blanking out them as a source for these types of articles. If they was just a massive copyright violation factory you'd think they'd be sued off the internet by now, so what is the evidence that the majority of the articles are copyright violations and how are you going to sort them for which is good and which is bad? — raekyt 02:52, 22 June 2012 (UTC)[reply]
See the link immediately below to the RS/N discussion. AiG's publication of TJ content is an obvious suspected copyright violation, they aren't the copyright holders and they have no reputation as an archive. Fifelfoo (talk) 03:23, 22 June 2012 (UTC)[reply]
Then just switch the links for TJ to the official archive plain and simple. — raekyt 03:26, 22 June 2012 (UTC)[reply]
Except many of the links use Technical Journal to claim that AiG supports a position, which it can't, or to link AiG to a position, which it can't, or to support scientific or historical claims, which it can't, or to act as a proxy for the entire YAC movement, which it can't bear the weight of because it represents a FRINGE Australian literalist YAC group only, or use it as an exemplar of YACs, which it can't bear, because again, it represents a FRINGE Australian literalist group only. Sometimes it can be valid, but generally it isn't because the publication is unreliable for so many things in wikipedia. Its scope of reliability is very limited. Similarly with the glossy pop magazines produced by AiG. Fifelfoo (talk) 04:49, 22 June 2012 (UTC)[reply]
I don't dissagree with those statements, but I think in some cases the level of weight your expecting from a source for YEC is impossible to find. YEC is unscientific, and any claim by YEC is going to be unsupported by any SCIENTIFIC journal. So in articles specificly talking about YEC claims, I dissagree that the claim should be removed with some of your reasonings of why these sources are bad, because we'll NEVER get a good 3rd party source to backup a fringe psuedoscience claim. It may be fringe in science, but YEC is mainstream belief in American population, so articles dealing with this is clearly WP:N and we're going to have to use some of these poor sources for their claims, thats all they got. — raekyt 04:54, 22 June 2012 (UTC)[reply]

I am repeating a post I made on this topic at WP:RSN. This large scale clean-up is causing problems for articles like Objections to evolution and Nylon-eating bacteria and creationism that cover the Creation–evolution controversy, which may not be notable as a scientific controversy because of the psuedo sicence nature of creation science, but is quite notable as a cultural/political/religious/sociological phenomenon. Anyone with any sense knows that Answers in Genesis is never a reliable source for any scientific topic, but it is a reliable source (and an important one) for what creationists say and think and it is widely cited as such by postings on websites that are reliable sources such as National Center for Science Education, TalkOrigins Archive and NMSR. If we can't cite sources from organizations like AiG or Creation Ministries International it is hard to cover the controversy, especially since those organizations are significant players in the controversy. It is a long established principle that sources that would not otherwise be considered reliable for anything else, are in fact reliable sources for their own viewpoints. Let us stop and discuss this a little before we continue to hack up perfectly good articles like the two I mentioned. Rusty Cashman (talk) 18:45, 22 June 2012 (UTC)[reply]

I see no evidence of the "hacking up" you refer to. I do understand that removing some sources from some article may make it more difficult to cover some subjects as thoroughly as some might like, however, policy a) doesn't change because of the subject article, and b) articles have WP:IAR to fall back on if they really need to. As you can see below, many of the sources that would not be valid in many articles are already being treated as valid in articles where their inclusion makes sense. No one is slashing and burning through every reference to AiG for example. I would also add that while sources are reliable for their own viewpoints, I don't believe the Pope, for example, despite being notable, has an opinion on Plate Tectonics that needs to be included, for obvious reasons. If there was a tectonic plate controversy article involving the Church's views, that would be different. Has someone removed AiG sources from Nylon-eating bacteria and creationism, (other than for WP:COPYVIO grounds, which has nothing to do with the opinions of the source)? -- Despayre  tête-à-tête 04:26, 23 June 2012 (UTC)[reply]

RS/N report

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Wikipedia:Reliable_Sources/Noticeboard#http:.2F.2Fwww.answersingenesis.org.2F:_1114_external_links. (non-permanent link)

Progress on clean-up

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  • The links in article mainspace are below, in rough categories. The biographies (most but not all of living people) are the most urgent, and have been annotated with an impression of how appropriate the link is. Itsmejudith (talk) 15:47, 21 June 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Intelligent design movement

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Technical Journal suspected copyvios
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Creation ex nihilo
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(Creation ex nihilo was a 1990s glossy magazine produced by AiG creation.com's crew that fails the Ulrich's test for peer review, and which has no editorial policy listed at AiG's site. It appears to lack weight or notability amongst the community of biblical literalists in terms of its low hit count online.)

And they're all copyvios, the owner of creation is http://creation.com/ who actually maintains an archive, so all these (even when valid) need to be replaced with http://creation.com/ links; when they're otherwise reliable and weighty for their claims.

Biographies

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Science (all cleared)

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Debate around evolution

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History and archaeology (all cleared)

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Philosophy (all cleared)

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Sociology (all cleared)

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Theology, Bible

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*http://www.answersingenesis.org/creation/v20/i4/noah.asp is linked from Javan removed, date uncertain Mangoe (talk) 13:36, 6 January 2014 (UTC)[reply]