Wikipedia:Reliable sources/Noticeboard

Welcome — ask about reliability of sources in context!

Before posting, check the archives and list of perennial sources for prior discussions. Context is important: supply the source, the article it is used in, and the claim it supports. Additional notes: RFCs for deprecation, blacklisting, or other classification should not be opened unless the source is widely used and has been repeatedly discussed. Consensus is assessed based on the weight of policy-based arguments. While the consensus of several editors can generally be relied upon, answers are not policy. This page is not a forum for general discussions unrelated to the reliability of sources. Start a new discussion

RFC: twitchy.com

Am I Racist? is likely to be a... let's call it... frequently-edited article over the next few weeks. As of right now, its only two citations are from twitchy.com. I've seen a few mentions of it in the archives, but mostly in the context of other media properties its parent company owns. Its page Twitchy calls it a "Twitter aggregator and commentary website". That doesn't sound super reliable to me.

Is using Twitchy justified in this case? Snowman304|talk 06:59, 29 August 2024 (UTC)

Twitchy does at least have Editors, but the description ('Twitchy is a ground-breaking social media curation site powered by a kinetic staff of social media junkies. We mine Twitter to bring you “who said what” in U.S. & global news, sports, entertainment, media, and breaking news 24/7.') doesn't make it sound particularly reliable. It's also 'founded by conservative pundit Michelle Malkin' then 'sold to Salem Media Group, a conservative Christian broadcasting corporation' so bias may be a concern too.

With that said, it makes me wonder why the page has been approved at all with only two citations and from a potentially iffy source at that. It doesn't sound like it's evidenced a great deal of notability at this time. DarkeruTomoe (talk) 09:41, 29 August 2024 (UTC)

There was no approval of the page. It was a redirect, and converted into an article. Doing so skips NPP and AfC. -- LCU ActivelyDisinterested «@» °∆t° 20:42, 29 August 2024 (UTC)

The use in that article is just 'he said, she said'. It could be reliable in a primary attributed way (if the opinion is even due), but for that use you could just use the original social media post. It doesn't appear to add anything beyond the original social media posts, so using it in the way it's used in that article wouldn't be appropriate in WP:RSCONTEXT. -- LCU ActivelyDisinterested «@» °∆t° 20:47, 29 August 2024 (UTC)

That was basically my feeling too. I'm hoping this sparks a conversation that (eventually) leads to it being put on the WP:RSP list. Snowman304|talk 21:44, 29 August 2024 (UTC)

Sounds like it just scrapes content from Twitter with minimal filtering by humans. Not RS. JoelleJay (talk) 02:26, 3 September 2024 (UTC)

It's a Twitter aggregator with minimal human input, run by people on the fringe right. Not reliable. Toa Nidhiki05 19:40, 17 September 2024 (UTC)

RfC: Universe Guide

The reliability of Universe Guide is:

• Option 1: Generally reliable
• Option 2: Additional considerations
• Option 3: Generally unreliable
• Option 4: Deprecate
• Option 5: Blacklist (not mutually exclusive with 3 or 4)

–LaundryPizza03 (dc̄) 23:13, 1 September 2024 (UTC)

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

Background

Universe Guide is an amateur blog about astronomy that is cited on many pages about astronomical objects. This website has been discussed at this WT:ASTRO discussion, this WP:RSN discussion, and this WT:AST discussion, and there is general consensus that it is unreliable, and due to persistent usage, it has been suggested to be deprecated or blacklisted. –LaundryPizza03 (dc̄) 23:13, 1 September 2024 (UTC)

Survey

• Deprecate per the discussions linked in the background section. I can see this is regularly being added to articles, so deprecation seems warranted here. voorts (talk/contributions) 23:25, 1 September 2024 (UTC)
• Option 4: Deprecate That blog is a self-published site which is not peer-reviewed. Shadowwarrior8 (talk) 12:09, 2 September 2024 (UTC)
• Option 4 I've nothing to add from the last time this came up, it's a blog written from what one person researched on the Internet[1]. It doesn't have a reputation for fact-checking and accuracyreputation for, if anything it's the opposite as per the discussions at WP:ASTRO. It's self published but not by an established subject-matter expert, whose work in the relevant field has previously been published by reliable, independent publications, rather I am an amateur space enthusiast of many years as opposed to someone who is academically qualified.[2] Nothing about the source makes it reliable for verification purposes, and if it is still being regularly added to articles for that purpose then deprecation is appropriate. -- LCU ActivelyDisinterested «@» °∆t° 15:20, 2 September 2024 (UTC)
• Option 4 too: Very clearly an unreliable source, even if it's a nice website.— Preceding unsigned comment added by Mrfoogles (talk • contribs) 05:29, 4 September 2024 (UTC)
• Option 4 for deprecation. Actually I called out this first on WT:AST, but was unable to make an RfC here because of personal issues back at home. One of my main issues with this website is this appears too often in Google searches, so it is inevitable it would be blindly used as a source. This is clearly a source written by a non-expert, and even makes its way to very prominent articles like Saturn or the James Webb Space Telescope. Deprecation indeed is necessary to keep this out of Wikipedia.

By the way LaundryPizza, I'm sorry for not initiating the RfC myself. Just got problems a few days ago. SkyFlubbler (talk) 15:16, 12 September 2024 (UTC)

• Option 4, this website is almost always not reliable, and contain several inconsistencies (like saying that the temperature of star X is 4,400 K, but later saying that it is between 2,400 and 3,700 K). I wouldn't be comfortable if there was any starbox using data from Universe Guide. 21 Andromedae (talk) 18:02, 12 September 2024 (UTC)
• Comment: @LaundryPizza03: You asked whether it should be deprecated or blacklisted, but only listed deprecated as one of the options for voting. Blacklisting is not bundled in deprecation. ☆ Bri (talk) 19:47, 12 September 2024 (UTC)

  Okay, I'll do that. –LaundryPizza03 (dc̄) 02:44, 13 September 2024 (UTC)

• Option 4 per above. I think over time we have to start to include more of this UGC, but this one seems to be poorly done. Maybe deprecate for now and come back and revisit in a few years if they improve. These things either improve over time or go away entirely. Lets take a wait and see attitude, and deprecate for now. Jtbobwaysf (talk) 03:55, 17 September 2024 (UTC)

• Option 4, from a look at the source it’s clearly of extremely low quality and seems to just make stuff up. The site decided for us that brown dwarfs are actually definitely stars and calls them brown stars. It says there’s no evidence NGC 474 contains planets and that a wormhole would be required to visit it. We use that page as a source right now. 3df (talk) 21:45, 17 September 2024 (UTC)

Are news sources reliable for articles on history?

I have been working on the Yasuke article. It is a topic which has received a lot more coverage in the popular press than in academic sources. However, it keeps coming up in every discussion that there are news sources that cover the topic, and that if anything goes against them, it goes against the majority view. This has conflicted with my attempt to replace news sources with more academic sources, like Britannica. I point out that there are major errors in the CNN Travel article, but that isn’t accepted by another editor, who insists that because CNN is reliable, then the specific article is reliable. https://edition.cnn.com/2019/05/19/asia/black-samurai-yasuke-africa-japan-intl/index.html The main expert interviewed in the article wrote a book on Yasuke as well as the Britannica article. The expert’s ideas are not without controversy, but the CNN article conflicts with what the expert has said about Nobunga, and in one case says the wrong source. There is so little literature on Yasuke that one can easily trace most ideas about him and all the primary sources. Tinynanorobots (talk) 15:31, 6 September 2024 (UTC)

we've already talked about lockley here: Wikipedia:Reliable sources/Noticeboard/Archive 447#Reliability of Thomas Lockley

Was a mess, did not pay attention to it all, no clue what the consensus was at the end.

generally, unless if you can prove otherwise, news articles are generally assumed to be useful secondary sourcing. Bluethricecreamman (talk) 15:46, 6 September 2024 (UTC)

... i guess this was the closest RFC about lockley Talk:Yasuke/Archive_3#RfC:_Should_the_view_that_Yasuke_was_a_samurai_be_added_to_the_article

TLDR; until someone else has a secondary sourcing about Yasuke, can't really do much else... best you can do if someone hates lockley is attribute a statement to lockley? Bluethricecreamman (talk) 15:56, 6 September 2024 (UTC)

News articles are not generally reliable secondary sourcing for history -- see WP:HISTRS for overview. (Contemporary news articles are primary sources, while features are the equivalent of pop science, even when written by an expert, as noted in the discussion you linked, as they do not cite sources for controversial claims, which is exactly what is at issue.)

The linked discussion links to a review of Lockley's book (from which the CNN article seems to mostly be excerpted), in which it is made clear that the lack of citations are in the book as well, and it is intended as a pop history for casual reading.

This is not particularly complicated. Secondary scholarly/rigorous work supercedes non-secondary and/or non-scholarly/rigorous work in WP generally. It's not that Lockley's book is not a RS generally; it's that it would seem that anything in there that isn't verifiable in the scholarship generally is his speculation in a non-rigorous work, and so must at best be given with attribution. (The more history-topic-inclined editors may decide some statements should be discarded entirely as non-encyclopedic.) SamuelRiv (talk) 17:02, 6 September 2024 (UTC)

It isn’t about Lockley, it is about CNN. I think a few quotes explains the situation well.

CNN: "When feudal Japan’s most powerful warlord Nobunaga Oda met Yasuke, a black slave-turned-retainer, in 1581, he believed the man was a god"

Britannica: "The researcher Thomas Lockley (the author of this article) speculates that they may have seen him as a form of divine visitor due to the fact that the Buddha and other holy figures were often portrayed as black-skinned in Japan at this time."

I couldn’t find the quote from the book African Samurai, but Lockley believes that Nobunaga was an atheist or at least not very devout, which I understand is in line with other scholarship. The connection between buddha statues and black skin is Lockley´s opinion, no other scholar says this. In this case, CNN Travel is not even correctly portraying what Lockley says. There are other errors, and the general tone of the article is non-academic. Every time I remove the citation, it is added to some uncontested claim in order to add weight. Other more academic sources have been removed in order to insert news sources. Tinynanorobots (talk) 06:19, 7 September 2024 (UTC)

See wp:or, we do not get to judge RS unless we can show they make stuff up, not just disagree with one (not all) expert. Slatersteven (talk) 15:52, 6 September 2024 (UTC)

WP:HISTRS applies here. (And see pretty much every guideline on RS -- we absolutely do judge RS -- it's not a binary.) SamuelRiv (talk) 16:45, 6 September 2024 (UTC)

That is an essay, and does not trump policy. Yes we can judge a source where is (for example) goes against widely accepted consensus (see wp:fringe, which is a policy), or where it contradicts itself, or where it flat out tells an obvious falsehood (such as the sky is not blue). What we do not do is use our own knowledge rather than referring to RS that contest a claim) to dismiss a source. Slatersteven (talk) 16:50, 6 September 2024 (UTC)

There is no policy that all RS on their face are equal, or that we cannot use multiple factors to judge the suitability RS in context. Per the intro overview of WP:RS: Proper sourcing always depends on context; common sense and editorial judgment are an indispensable part of the process. That's pretty much 95% of what's done on RSN (or else we're resolving technical points in a larger contextual comparison of RS in context that goes on in an article's Talk page). And while we ideally try not to turn essays into P&G unnecessarily, the pandemic forced us to make WP:MEDRS into a guideline -- fwiw a roughly similar hierarchy for publications exists in most academic fields. SamuelRiv (talk) 17:11, 6 September 2024 (UTC)

Is this an RS or not? Slatersteven (talk) 17:14, 6 September 2024 (UTC)

What do I say to an editor that ignores all arguments about context? The editor that disagrees with me has a similar interpretation wikipolicy as Slatersteven. I would say, more extreme. Suggesting only in cases of fraud or CoI can a source be questioned. In this case, it isn’t about a particular claim, because the citations have been moved from one claim to another, and ended up attached to a non-contested claim that at one point had four inline citations. Does the fact that it is in CNN Travel matter? I think it would be considered Human interest and therefore less reliable? Also, the article appears 90 % based on Lockley, who had just written a book at the time. So does that count as churnalism? Tinynanorobots (talk) 09:41, 9 September 2024 (UTC)

---

>"See wp:or, we do not get to judge RS"<

If @Rotary Engine doesn't mind me paraphrasing a comment he/she made elsewhere:

• ". . . the specific nature of the source in both the context of the nature of the article and the specific content for which a source is intended to be used is important in determining reliability. [Per WP:RSCONTEXT]: Each source must be carefully weighed to judge whether it is reliable for the statement being made in the Wikipedia article and is an appropriate source for that content. Additional guidance in the context of historical claims might be found in WP:HISTRS (essay), WP:BESTSOURCES, and WP:SOURCETYPES. . ." [emphasis added]

And, per WP:RS:

• ". . . Proper sourcing always depends on context; common sense and editorial judgment are an indispensable part of the process. . ."

(edit: pardon, I see this has already been discussed a bit by SamuelRiv & Slatersteven above; still worth emphasizing, IMO -- these, I think, clearly show that "unless it says 'the sky is red', we cannot use any reasoning about it whatsoever" is far too limited a criterion. It is not impermissible to make basic, incontestable inferences.)

---

As @Tinynanorobots says below, there is seemingly a persistent attempt at using "we can't use any judgment re: sources but rather must parrot them religiously!" as a bludgeon to ensure that the article/discussion is dominated entirely by the ouroboric recycling, in popular media, of what is -- as @SamuelRiv correctly points out below -- actually just a very few actual (pertinent, academic) sources.

I think that's a misread of the guidelines in both letter & spirit.

In some sense, it's a continuum -- no one would object at someone saying "hold on, these news articles are all saying that Yasuke was known for his proficiency with rocket launchers; maybe we need to look at where this 'fact' is actually originating", but more complex objections can become contentious -- but to suggest "recycled, unsourced claims in the popular media, on a topic not in their wheelhouse, must not be questioned at all* because they're on the WP:RS list" is a bridge too far, IMO.

(Interesting, perhaps, to note that one argument made in the RfC in question has been that we must assume news organizations such as CNN Travel have teams of fact-checkers & on-hand experts ensuring accuracy. As Zero references in a reply below, this is extremely optimistic, heh.)

---

• *(edit: by "not be questioned at all", I mean "...not be questioned as to weight at all": i.e. that it is verboten to infer anything from their being news media puff-pieces which all reference one or two original / academic [if you count Lockley as "academic"] sources.

I would argue against this, as said. To suggest that "no, these are all on the WP:RS list & hence we are not to reason about them whatsoever: whether there are 10, 20, or 100 of 'em, it counts as 10/20/100x more bricks on the 'majority view' pile" -- ...is to suggest that one's job as an editor is to turn one's brain off.)

---

Cheers,

Himaldrmann (talk) 23:42, 14 September 2024 (UTC)

@Himaldrmann Don't mind the paraphrase/quote at all. Appreciate the mention. Any pronouns are fine. May post a comment at the bottom of the thread. Rotary Engine ^talk 07:23, 15 September 2024 (UTC)

Oh good lord are we still doing this? 100.36.106.199 (talk) 00:03, 10 September 2024 (UTC)

I think that the question here isn't whether this is a reliable source per se, more whether this particular claim is due for a particular article. If it is an exceptional claim, it may be published in an otherwise reputable source and still not be due for the article.Boynamedsue (talk) 21:03, 6 September 2024 (UTC)

There is plenty of free-form discussion on the talk page of Yasuke about what is and isn't due. Best to let questions of due and undue happen there. Bluethricecreamman (talk) 23:02, 6 September 2024 (UTC)

The discussion always stops on the argument on the quality of sources. At least one editor believes that sources that are listed as RS can’t be questioned. All the sources that agree should be counted, and that forms the majority opinion. This comes up in every discussion topic. Tinynanorobots (talk) 06:02, 7 September 2024 (UTC)

I would say that if multiple news sources make a similar claim then those can be used if not other better sources exist. Ramos1990 (talk) 08:14, 7 September 2024 (UTC)

There are better sources, but the other editor keeps replacing the better sources with news sources because of weight. When I point out that the news sources aren’t as good, I am called a [[truthfinder]] and accused of violating NPOV. Tinynanorobots (talk) 09:29, 9 September 2024 (UTC)

My understanding from the article discussion threads is that it goes back to its previous RfC (linked earlier), which was a rather complicated discussion about what is a very tiny amount of actual usable sources (exactly 2 scholars that investigate the topic directly, iirc). You're correct that almost every English-language news article is essentially recycling Lockley, which is academically sourced to his one book. The result of the RfC afaik of the pertinent questions is that "it's more complicated than a simple yes/no" (regarding implying a particular definition of 'samurai' across several centuries in particular, wrt what seems the most controversial issue here) and that one or two academics summarizing it is fine because only one or two academics have ever studied it in detail, and their assessments (not their separate speculations) were not particularly controversial, even if quoted from a pop book or their (expert-written) CNN article instead of/in parallel with their academic papers. Either way, if the source SamuelRiv (talk) 13:15, 9 September 2024 (UTC)

Thank you for your answer, but I don’t understand it. You didn’t finish your last sentence. Also, I don’t think this has to do with Yasuke´s status as a samurai. The CNN article not only states speculation as fact, it contradicts Lockley´s book and the article he wrote for Britannica. It also seems to cite the "historical fiction" part of Lockley´s book as fact. The problem is not so much that the article recycles Lockley, but that it falsely represents his ideas. This is shown by comparison of the CNN article with other works by Lockley. Tinynanorobots (talk) 05:45, 10 September 2024 (UTC)

Lockley's book is the one with any semblance of academic review (by the publisher and in academic publications after the fact), while the CNN article has none. I love citing a pop sci journalist who writes a good lay summary of an academic source (in addition to the original source), but they can sometimes get things wrong, or extract grossly nonrepresentative quotes from the author. Since we have Lockley's book (and plenty of other lay sources summarizing Lockley), and the CNN article cites only Lockley, I agree it would be ridiculous to cite the CNN article if it misrepresents the source at all. Citing a lay summary (in parallel) is only worthwhile if it's (1) free and (2) good. (For my previous post I probably meant to erase that final sentence that was cut off.) SamuelRiv (talk) 16:17, 11 September 2024 (UTC)

Generally speaking, the problem with citing Lockley's book is that the local consensus seemed to be that his book was not acceptable for use in the Yasuke article due to the academic review saying that the author doesn't use citations which makes it difficult to discern his speculation from researched factual statements. The previous attempt to discuss Lockley's book here for a wider consensus was extremely drawn out, bogged down, and is confusing as to what it represents, so much so that I cannot derive any real meaning from it.

Honestly, I wonder if holding an RfC about whether or not Lockley's book is a reliable source might be in order if for no reason than to hopefully get a definitive answer. I have seen people post in the talk discussion that the RSN consensus was it was unreliable, I have seen other editors argue the opposite. It is a confusing mess. Brocade River Poems (She/They) 20:20, 11 September 2024 (UTC)

The previous RfC seemed to suggest it was fine enough for a number of things. The discussion turned up a number of other scholarly RS that might be usable, such as Lopez-Vera (none of which were 100% ideal for this topic, but every topic takes what it gets). But a pop journalism writeup of a pop history book is useless -- just cite the pop history book -- that's what pop history is for (except for getting online text for verification, in which case, cite both in parallel). There's no need for another RfC -- they decided these historians were reliable enough in the previous one, and they settled how to say the most controversial claim in the article. Just use the sources there. SamuelRiv (talk) 20:45, 11 September 2024 (UTC)

just cite the pop history book. Except that won't work. People have tried to just cite the pop history book, it gets reverted. It is basically never ending, one side will try to add something and it will get reverted. The other side will try to add something, it will get reverted. One claims "unreliable", the other yells "against the RfC'. Brocade River Poems (She/They) 01:00, 12 September 2024 (UTC)

The problem with Lockley´s book is that it contains dramatization, and it is hard to know what is historical fiction and what is Lockley´s theory. We could probably figure it out by comparing the content in the book with other sources, such as interviews, but every attempt to discuss that is meant with accusations of TRUTHFINDER!. The sources used for the RfC were mostly pop journalist write-ups of Lockley´s book. The RfC was mostly resolved because there is no evidence that any expert thinks that Yasuke is not a samurai. Some are just less sure, or wouldn’t use samurai for any Sengoku warrior. I am not trying to overturn the consensus. The debate over whether the article needs to cite 3-4 news sources that mostly rely on Lockley and were written years ago.

Tinynanorobots (talk) 17:06, 13 September 2024 (UTC)

Well, you got a choice. On the one hand, you have two very imperfect but legit secondary sources on history by legit historians, which seem to be approved by the RfC. On the other, there seems to be some notion that because these are imperfect, it would be better to have these imperfect sources filtered through the lens of the non-historian, non-rigorous, more-pop-audience-focused, news magazines like a CNN feature (which goes so far as to additionally cite even worse sources for information, like a TV show). How does this at all make sense?

If people give you a hard time for citing the original secondary source behind all this, because they think it's not an RS, then refer them to this thread and the RfC. If they raise an undue fuss, we can chew them out from there. SamuelRiv (talk) 00:30, 15 September 2024 (UTC)

I don’t understand what you are saying. What are the two sources that you are talking about? I suggest that you look at the lead at the Yasuke page. Then you will see how the sources are used and in what context.

Also, how do I know that there is a consensus on this thread? It seems like every either broadly agrees with me, or is asking questions and not giving clear responses. Tinynanorobots (talk) 12:11, 15 September 2024 (UTC)

can you provide a concrete example, as in a diff? Slatersteven (talk) 13:20, 9 September 2024 (UTC)

It seems to have happened in stages. The CNN article was used to support the claim about Yasuke being given a stipend, a house, and servants. I replaced it with a citation of the Britannica article that had been newly rewritten. https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Yasuke&diff=prev&oldid=1238887725 At some point, the in text citation was moved to the end of the paragraph. After that the CNN citation was restored. https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Yasuke&diff=prev&oldid=1241316774 There have been a lot of edits in the lead, and the citations moved around, often as part of other edits. The claim about the stipend etc. later received a citation to an academic source, but then was replaced with CNN. https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Yasuke&diff=prev&oldid=1243549402 The CNN article is not in the lead any more, but it is still used to support the claim about the stipend.

One error the CNN article contains, is that it attributes the stipend, house and servants to Jesuit sources. This is not true. All other secondary sources that mention it, point to Japanese sources. Tinynanorobots (talk) 06:54, 10 September 2024 (UTC)

It seems to me that all of these edits did more then just remove the source, they also removed claims solely sourced to that source. Also "that it attributes the stipend, house and servants to Jesuit sources", yes as that is where all those other sources get the claim, they are talking about the primary sources. Slatersteven (talk) 11:50, 10 September 2024 (UTC)

The diffs that I linked to? I don’t see that. There are a lot of changes to the lead, but I can’t keep track of that, especially as a lot of them aren’t discussed on talk.

I am not sure what your point is about the Jesuit sources, of course it is supposed to be the primary sources. There are not that many primary sources about Yasuke, so it is easy to keep track of them. Some are written by Jesuits, but Lockley cites Ōta Gyūich as the source for the statement about the stipend, house and servants. Ōta Gyūich wasn’t a Jesuit. There are other sources that mention a stipend, but they are also Japanese. A Jesuit source mentions Yasuke receiving money, but I don’t think any expert has suggested that was a stipend. Tinynanorobots (talk) 14:07, 10 September 2024 (UTC)

Addition (or changes to) text, not just adding or removing sources "who served as a samurai ", I really need to go no further. Slatersteven (talk) 10:44, 11 September 2024 (UTC)

I get the feeling that you are saying gotcha, but I don’t get your point. I made the efforts to find those diffs because you asked for them. There are additional changes, but they are unrelated to the citation change. Pretty much all the sources use "samurai" to describe Yasuke, so changing from one to the other doesn’t change that. Encyclopedia Britannica actually makes the case that Yasuke was a samurai, so it is stronger in that aspect. Tinynanorobots (talk) 16:56, 13 September 2024 (UTC)

>"Also 'that it attributes the stipend, house and servants to Jesuit sources', yes as that is where all those other sources get the claim, they are talking about the primary sources."<

I think perhaps this is a misinterpretation of @Tinynanorobots, amigo (although he's not always the easiest to understand, to be fair–). I read him as saying that the primary sources for this particular claim are to be found in Japanese accounts; the Jesuit primary sources exist, but for other claims, not the "servants" bit.

>"It seems to me that all of these edits did more then just remove the source, they also removed claims solely sourced to that source"< . . . >"Addition (or changes to) text, not just adding or removing sources 'who served as a samurai ', I really need to go no further."<

I don't understand your point here either, sorry! -- if, arguendo, this is correct, then we've gone from "a better source is being replaced with a poorer one" (Tinynanorobots) to "true, but also, the information from the better (ostensibly , anyway) source is being stripped out along with it" (Slatersteven)... which, surely, would just make it an even worse example of editorial malfeasance!

Cheers,

Himaldrmann (talk) 23:55, 14 September 2024 (UTC)

Travel guides and travel articles in newspapers are notoriously unreliable for history and should not be used. Not only that, but typically the writer has taken information from random places including Wikipedia. One of the most common errors is to uncritically report traditions as facts. Historical events that are mentioned in passing in newspaper articles are also not reliable. The only times that history in a newspaper should be considered reliable are (1) an article written by a historian or known expert, (2) an article by a journalist who directly quotes a historian or known expert. I've seen too many cases of historical errors being introduced from newspapers to suggest a weaker criterion. Zero^talk 13:52, 10 September 2024 (UTC)

That seems overly restrictive... Unless you start with a very restrictive definition of history (something other than history being the past). A newspaper writing about something that happened last week is writing about history. Horse Eye's Back (talk) 16:03, 10 September 2024 (UTC)

I don’t think anyone defines last week as history in this context. Tinynanorobots (talk) 16:25, 10 September 2024 (UTC)

That doesn't seem to be a very helpful comment unless you offer your own definition of history in this context. For the record I define it that way, history is anything which is not currently happening (call it breaking news in this context). In practical terms I guess one could argue that true history begins whenever someone publishes the first academic paper... But for wikipedia's purposes history would appear to start when the first reliable non-primary source is published. If by history you just mean that news sources will be less reliable about older stuff, well duh... Thats already baked into our preferance for academic sources. Horse Eye's Back (talk) 16:24, 11 September 2024 (UTC)

I am reminded of the Isaac Asimov story “The Dead Past,” which lets you only see "historical" events, as in 1 second in the past. Slatersteven (talk) 16:35, 11 September 2024 (UTC)

I was reminded of the adage that news is the first rough draft of history (or something like that) Horse Eye's Back (talk) 16:43, 11 September 2024 (UTC)

Sorry, I thought you were being reductio absurdium, but not I see that you were thinking like that. I think this is something that common sense, should be able to solve. Unfortunately, people forget that is allowed on wikipedia. There might even be an essay on history vs. the news. I think one litmus test would be if it is something that journalists or historians are considered experts on. Another might be that if there is the possibility to interview witnesses, then it is news. In this case, 1500s Japan is clearly history and not news. Tinynanorobots (talk) 17:11, 13 September 2024 (UTC)

The problem with common sense is yours may not be mind, the Falklands war was 40 years ago (to me history) but you can still interview Survivors. 9/11 was 30 years ago (to me history) but you can interview survivors. History is "the study of past events, particularly in human affairs.". Slatersteven (talk) 10:51, 14 September 2024 (UTC)

Yes, those are border cases, and probably would need to be discussed on a case by case basis. Wikipedia policy on breaking news addresses this somewhat. Part of common sense is understanding what skills are needed to understand the subject and what techniques the journalist or historian is using. Most "news" isn’t investigative journalism. A lot of it is interviews or relies on press releases, by people who don’t specialize in it and have to produce something every day. A news article from 40 years ago about the Falklands war should probably be seen as a primary source. A news article written about the Falklands War today, would probably be a reflection piece, and lean towards being human interest. A book written by an investigative journalist would be more useful. However, I think a historian writing on the Falklands War would be better. It is a case by case basis, using common sense and consensus. Tinynanorobots (talk) 15:34, 14 September 2024 (UTC)

Sure, maybe, but no one contests whether something that happened centuries ago is news or history -- so @Zero's criterion is easily applicable, and we need not figure out whether "last week" counts or not.

Cheers,

Himaldrmann (talk) 23:59, 14 September 2024 (UTC)

The CNN article in question is not a breaking news article -- it is a feature. Not all articles in newspapers are news articles. There are features (profiles, retrospectives, essays and photoessays, obits), op-eds (two separate things), etc. All of these are conceptually entirely different with regards to whatever the above is. (Unless of course the samurai have reanimated and asserted a new dominion in the past week -- I don't watch CNN, so I suppose I wouldn't know). SamuelRiv (talk) 00:38, 15 September 2024 (UTC)

Excellent point! There's no need to confuse the issue with sophistry about whether a news article from last week is unwarrantedly caught by Zero's suggested guidelines: entirely apart from this particular case not being anywhere near the grey area, it's also a fundamentally different type of article.

Himaldrmann (talk) 01:05, 15 September 2024 (UTC)

So the question then is what relevance does this line of argument have, as this is (unequivocably) about history? Slatersteven (talk) 11:27, 15 September 2024 (UTC)

None. Tinynanorobots (talk) 12:14, 15 September 2024 (UTC)

...tbh, I've no idea. I just didn't want to seem unfriendly, you know?... Himaldrmann (talk) 14:37, 15 September 2024 (UTC)

Lets make this easy, as there seems to be some confusion over consensus.Slatersteven (talk) 12:17, 15 September 2024 (UTC)

The point below about "it depends" is very valid, the question really is a bit too broad. Slatersteven (talk) 12:50, 15 September 2024 (UTC)

Some crucial information is missing from this thread, which I stumbled upon by chance. Tinynanorobots has been repeatedly removing news sources from the Yasuke article (in what seems like a slow edit war) since August 22 [3]. Symphony Regalia and I reverted their edits, and we had a discussion on the article's talk page (here), which is TL;DR. They didn't achieve consensus and recently began removing sources without providing an explanation in the edit summaries (here's my complaint on their user talk page).

The important point is this: I agree with SamuelRiv Secondary scholarly/rigorous work supercedes non-secondary and/or non-scholarly/rigorous work in WP generally, but the news sources that Tinynanorobots is removing (CNN, TIME, Smithsonian Magazine) haven't been contradicted by any scholarly sources. These sources either support non-controversial content ("Yasuke was also granted servants according to Thomas Lockley"; "He was granted a sword, a house and a stipend", "In 1968, author Yoshio Kurusu and artist Genjirō Mita published a children's book about Yasuke"; "Yasuke was the inspiration for Takashi Okazaki's Afro Samurai franchise") or contentious content that is also supported by reliable academic sources ("Yasuke [...] was a man of African origin who served as a samurai"). There is literally no reason to remove these sources, as they align with and do not conflict with academic ones.

On the article's talk page, I proposed creating two citation bundles to avoid WP:OVERCITE: one for academic sources and another for news sources (here). The aim was to prevent edit warring/disruptive editing by clarifying that the content about Yasuke's status as a samurai is well-supported by sources, while also providing readers with a collection of news sources for those interested in how Yasuke has been represented in the popular press - an important aspect of the "Yasuke case". This proposal was rejected by Tinynanorobots (here), in my opinion without good reason. Gitz (talk) (contribs) 13:45, 15 September 2024 (UTC)

There is literally no reason to remove these sources -- other than the fact that, as has been pointed out, they have been factually been misleading on key points for which they are cited (and for which they themselves give no attribution -- glancing at the discussion you link, date range). the news sources that Tinynanorobots is removing ... haven't been contradicted by any scholarly sources: This is why we have WP:Due -- in an academic topic (like very elusive histories) we don't need an academic source to be saying what is not true, when non-academic sources start saying something else or something new, especially when there are so few academic sources on this niche topic as here. If the information you want to cite is not in the academic sources, you should really ask be asking why you're citing it in the first place.

Anyway, all this substantive discussion of the content of sources as relates to the article is not appropriate to RSN, but rather the article's Talk page. Here we have said to abide by existing recommendations on history sourcing and the previous RfC. SamuelRiv (talk) 14:38, 15 September 2024 (UTC)

Which did not seem to come to any real conclusion, and which (to a degree) seemed to have the same issue as this discussion, it meandered all over the place, going so far as to claim that because some of his work was peer review this made this book RS (nor does it seem to have been an RFC). So maybe a formal RFC is needed to ask the question is his book an RTS? Slatersteven (talk) 14:46, 15 September 2024 (UTC)

If the RfC on the author was at the article Talk page, then an RfC on the author's book about the article subject belongs on the article Talk page too. SamuelRiv (talk) 15:20, 15 September 2024 (UTC)

This is the RSN notice board. Why do people keep bringing up general questions about this issue, dodging the basic question, is the book an RS? Slatersteven (talk) 15:24, 15 September 2024 (UTC)

So maybe a formal RFC is needed to ask the question is his book an RTS? I don't think an RfC is necessary: virtually everyone agrees that Lockley's book Yasuke: The True Story of the Legendary African Samurai is not a reliable source. By the author's own admission, much of it is fictional. In fact, our Yasuke article does not cite the book. But this doesn't mean that Lockley is not a subject-matter expert, that his other publications don't qualify as reliable sources, or that news sources citing Lockley are not reliable. Gitz (talk) (contribs) 22:08, 15 September 2024 (UTC)

as has been pointed out, they have been factually been misleading on key points for which they are cited What? Where? Gitz (talk) (contribs) 16:36, 15 September 2024 (UTC)

• Comment As I saw something said about this earlier in the discussion. Per the header of this noticeboard This page is not a forum for general discussions unrelated to the reliability of sources. If you wish to discuss whether content is, or is not, due for inclusion in an article that discuss should be had at the articles talk page or another appropriate forum. Inclusion is not a matter of verification but of NPOV. -- LCU ActivelyDisinterested «@» °∆t° 11:35, 16 September 2024 (UTC)

  I'm not saying that there aren't questions about reliability here, just that that's the only discussion that should be had here. Splitting discussions about what content to include to an unrelated board isn't helpful. -- LCU ActivelyDisinterested «@» °∆t° 11:38, 16 September 2024 (UTC)

Are news sources reliable for articles on history?

Note can we here just express our preference, and leave any discussion to the above (main) thread)? Slatersteven (talk) 12:23, 15 September 2024 (UTC)

Yes

I see no reason why not (as long as they otherwise count as RS), they can do the research, or even talk to historians. Slatersteven (talk) 12:18, 15 September 2024 (UTC)

No

(Good idea, @Slatersteven; impenetrably dense discussion seems to have kilt the motivating RfC—and I've been known to get wordy, myself... [*ahem*]—thanks for taking the initiative, compadre o7)

---

I think the answer is closer to No than to Yes, if we're voting—but upon reflection, I sort of wonder what possible outcomes this can even have. What's the difference between a No, a Yes, and an It Depends? The answer will be the same: "Use your judgment, look at context, look at track record of source, follow guidelines", etc. etc. I can't imagine some new guideline—or advice to ignore current ones—will come out of this...

...so I might leave off responding here, after this, though of course anyone who agrees with everything I say is welcome on my Talk page if they'd like to continue anything.

Cheers,

Himaldrmann (talk) 14:21, 15 September 2024 (UTC)

• No Reliable news media are reliable sources for news. They hire professional journalists whose work is then reviewed by editors. However, they are not specialists in any academic discipline. TFD (talk) 20:33, 17 September 2024 (UTC)

It depends

A lot depends on what precisely we are verifying when we cite a news source. News sources are great for basic historical facts (such as verifying that X event occured on Y date) but they are not really appropriate for analysis or for verifying conclusions. They often suffer from RECENTISM and so are not good for determining the long term significance of the events they are reporting on. In short, there is more to the issue than a yes/no question of reliability. Blueboar (talk) 12:45, 15 September 2024 (UTC)

Good point, the question is far too broad for a definitive answer. Slatersteven (talk) 12:51, 15 September 2024 (UTC)

It depends on context, content and source, the same with any other category of source; per WP:RS: The reliability of a source depends on context. Each source must be carefully weighed to judge whether it is reliable for the statement being made in the Wikipedia article and is an appropriate source for that content.

Just as no source is 100% reliable in all contexts; no category of source is 100% reliable in all contexts.

News sources should certainly not be excluded from consideration as reliable sources in historical articles, but were the question Are they the WP:BESTSOURCES for articles on history?, the obvious answer would be "No; they are not." We should prefer WP:SCHOLARSHIP; again per WP:RS. Rotary Engine ^talk 12:53, 15 September 2024 (UTC)

I remember a case long ago where a "historical fact" about a village was cited to a newspaper, but when I looked at the newspaper I found it was a comment in passing in a cooking article. I hope nobody here would consider that reliable. The point is that the reliability doesn't depend just on how long ago something was or how prestigious the newspaper is. It also depends on the context in which it appears in the newspaper. Zero^talk 13:39, 15 September 2024 (UTC)

It depends. As I said here above [4] there's nothing wrong with the way news sources are currently used in the Yasuke article. Gitz (talk) (contribs) 13:48, 15 September 2024 (UTC)

It always depends. WP:CONTEXTMATTERS Andre🚐 21:07, 15 September 2024 (UTC)

It depends per context matters -- long-form or focused journalism is probably usually reliable in this vein, and can probably be particularly useful for metropolitan history, as large papers or magazines occasionally and even semi-regularly run features on historical events and persons. Alanscottwalker (talk) 23:16, 15 September 2024 (UTC)

Bad RfC

Not an RfC, "news sources" and "history" are not well defined as this was immediately pointed out as problematic in the preceding paragraphs, and probably not here as we discuss academic sourcing in WP:HISTRS. SamuelRiv (talk) 14:42, 15 September 2024 (UTC)

Its not an RFC, and we really can't answer such a general question, what is needed is a specific RFC about just this book. Slatersteven (talk) 14:55, 15 September 2024 (UTC)

there has been one already somewhere in the archives of Talk:Yasuke Bluethricecreamman (talk) 15:09, 15 September 2024 (UTC)

The only one linked to here was not an RFC and was about the author in general, not the book. Slatersteven (talk) 15:12, 15 September 2024 (UTC)

the difference between the author being reliable for historical fact, the book being reliable for historical fact, the newspaper covering a book being reliable for historical fact, and news sources in gen being reliable for historical fact seems like a case of trying to justify some argument about excluding/including the word samurai from the yasuke page.

if you want to figure this yasuke samurai stuff out, please do so without trying to make some broad distinction about whether all news stories are disallowed from historical wikipedia pages. seems like a mighty escalation to rfc with such broad and inconcise wording. Bluethricecreamman (talk) 16:49, 15 September 2024 (UTC)

I do not think that the word samurai should be excluded from the article. I have replaced a source that just uses the word samurai, with one that explicitly says that Yasuke is a samurai. There is a case for preferring the word Bushi, but that is off topic. I have actually added extra sources that don´t rely on Lockley that use samurai for the topic. Tinynanorobots (talk) 13:20, 16 September 2024 (UTC)

There was an RSN about Lockley after the RfC. The consensus save for one editor (who has been involved in a lot of the back and forth edits on the Yasuke page) was that his book 'African Samurai' due to its lack of citations + liberal employment of creative license, and many of his more grounded claims being more appropriate to cite from his peer reviewed scholarly work elsewhere, was unsuitable for citing on the page and should be replaced with higher quality sources. The RfC also concluded that Lockley constituted a reliable source, it is just that this one book is a problem that is best avoided entirely since little is lost from doing so. Since the closure of that RSN, the page has been changed to reflect it by directly attributing Lockley's theories from his more academic peer reviewed work and the page is significantly better off for doing so.

The CNN article is just a case of a journalist (Emiko Jozuka) without a background in history uncritically taking African Samurai's narrative at face value. The book features many claims which have no means of verification, are in no sources, and are largely conjecture such as the role of Yasuke in Nobunaga's death, his escape from honnoji, his service under nobutada, and even service in the Imjin War. The book does not clearly define what is fact, theory, or conjecture - but many of the theories within are present in Lockley's academic works (such as his suggestion that Yasuke was a Dinka rather than from Mozambique as traditionally thought.

While looking through this RSN, I think the last RSN on Lockley has been seldom mentioned despite it being a clear consensus - save one editor. Relm (talk) 14:03, 16 September 2024 (UTC)

reiterating thoughts above, Bad RFC. With such a broad question, without real actionable options, I suspect most reasonable editors would hedge and say "it depends"... which is basically a more polite way of saying they can't/won't comment without much more context.Bluethricecreamman (talk) 21:04, 15 September 2024 (UTC)

The correct answer is 'it depends', but realistically no valid answer can be given to the question beyond pointing towards some policy pages. The answer to such a broad question would be best laid out in an essay. -- LCU ActivelyDisinterested «@» °∆t° 11:22, 16 September 2024 (UTC)

I agree, this poll is bad. I would have at least mentioned CNN Travel in the context of supporting the claim regarding "servants etc." I think I made too many mistakes on this thing. As this issue is likely to be addressed elsewhere, I would like to draw a line under this. I would like to thank everyone for their input as well as patience. If I should have notified someone of this, then I am sorry, I didn’t notify anyone. I am not sure if I should officially close this or not, but I probably won´t be returning to this page for a while. Tinynanorobots (talk) 14:06, 16 September 2024 (UTC)

• Agree BAD RFC. Interesting discussion, but maybe on another location and not here. Seems to be more of a discussion. Jtbobwaysf (talk) 03:57, 17 September 2024 (UTC)

Use of Fox News on Jo Boaler

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

Sangdeboeuf has reverted content three times on Jo Boaler over the last few weeks. The content is specifically:

Boaler's work on the 2023 revision of the California Math Curriculum Framework was alleged to contain numerous misrepresentations and inaccuracies. In response, Boaler said that the accusations demonstrated "a lack of understanding of educational research protocols and processes."

The claim is that the content violates WP:FOXNEWSPOLITICS because the article uses the word "equity". While the article is published under the media section of the website, the claim here is that the use of any topic deemed to be political is sufficient for excluding content sourced to Fox News. In this case, Fox News is one of the few mainstream sources that Boaler has spoken to about this specific topic.

While there are potential BLP issues with any news source, in this case we are dealing with direct quotes from the living person in question. I suppose this boils down to: Should we include Boaler's critical response to the allegations, or should it be excluded?

Grossman, Hannah; Lencki, Maria (1 April 2024). "Stanford professor defends herself after being accused of 'reckless disregard for accuracy'". Fox News. Retrieved 2 April 2024.

Looking to gather and integrate community input. TheMissingMuse (talk) 15:14, 10 September 2024 (UTC)

This is a massive non-story, and pretty clealry exemplifies why we don't use Fox. Fox created a controversy over a "report" (i.e., 100 pages of anonymous ranting that was probably thrown in the trash by the Stanford administration) and then asked for comment. It was dumb of Boaler to engage with Fox, but her bad PR strategy doesn't make any of this due for inclusion in the BLP. voorts (talk/contributions) 15:21, 10 September 2024 (UTC)

The topic here is whether we should include her rebuttal of the allegations. The coverage of the anonymous allegations is a separate topic which may be worth digging into, but that's not based on Fox News sources. TheMissingMuse (talk) 15:45, 10 September 2024 (UTC)

Also, if there are other sources use them. Slatersteven (talk) 15:23, 10 September 2024 (UTC)

Since we are currently mentioning allegations of wrongdoing against Boaler—"alleging Boaler had violated the research policies of the university"—we should mention her denial of the allegations (see WP:BLPPUBLIC). If Fox is the only outlet that has published the denial, we should still include it. That doesn't mean we should use the Fox source to expand the mention of allegations. A better version would just be

In March 2024, an anonymous complaint was sent to Stanford's dean of research alleging Boaler had violated the research policies of the university. Boaler denied the allegations.

Firefangledfeathers (talk / contribs) 15:40, 10 September 2024 (UTC)

I haven't done a comprehensive search recently, but when the content was added the Fox News source was the only mainstream source that reported on her rebuttal of the allegations. I'll see if I can find anything else that's been reported since then. TheMissingMuse (talk) 15:48, 10 September 2024 (UTC)

"Boaler denied the allegations" requires a source, like everything. You can't cutely dance around citing sources that you're taking information from just because you think the source is icky. That's textbook WP:Plagiarism. SamuelRiv (talk) 15:53, 10 September 2024 (UTC)

I don't understand. I'm suggesting that we cite the Fox source for the denial. Am I dancing around or plagiarizing? Firefangledfeathers (talk / contribs) 16:39, 10 September 2024 (UTC)

Apologies, then I misinterpreted your statement to mean not using the source at all; you just meant "to expand". SamuelRiv (talk) 17:04, 10 September 2024 (UTC)

Gotcha. Thanks for explaining. Firefangledfeathers (talk / contribs) 17:08, 10 September 2024 (UTC)

Is anyone but Fox and/or other unreliable culture war conservative publications reporting on these anonymous allegations? If not, neither the allegations nor the denial should be in the article. voorts (talk/contributions) 15:58, 10 September 2024 (UTC)

Voorts has a good point. IF the allegations have been widely reported (and thus DUE to mention) THEN her rebuttal is relevant and Fox can essentially be cited as an ABOUTSELF statement on her part. HOWEVER, if Fox is the only outlet to report on the allegations then the entire thing is UNDUE and both the allegations and her rebuttal should be omitted. Blueboar (talk) 16:06, 10 September 2024 (UTC)

I concur. The anonymous allegations and the denial seem UNDUE. – Muboshgu (talk) 16:56, 10 September 2024 (UTC)

The short answer is yes. In the BLP, it's sourced to the San Francisco Chronicle: [5]. TheMissingMuse (talk) 17:37, 10 September 2024 (UTC)

Actually, that refers to the previous allegations. Inside Higher Ed covered this specific set of allegations here: [6]. TheMissingMuse (talk) 17:42, 10 September 2024 (UTC)

See also: [7], [8], [9],, [10], [11]. TheMissingMuse (talk) 18:16, 10 September 2024 (UTC)

Three of those links are to The Stanford Daily, a student newspaper. Not exactly bolstering the case for due weight IMO. —Sangdeboeuf (talk) 23:49, 10 September 2024 (UTC)

Though I've seen it used as a standalone source in other articles, I agree that the Stanford Daily alone should not be used to establish due weight. Inside Higher Ed, The Chronicle of Higher Education, and Ed Source are all top tier reliable sources when it comes to broadly reporting news in the education world. TheMissingMuse (talk) 15:56, 11 September 2024 (UTC)

Fine. In that case we don't need the Fox News source at all, and we can close this discussion. —Sangdeboeuf (talk) 16:44, 11 September 2024 (UTC)

The fact that Stanford isn't investigating this at all seems to reinforce that it would be undue to include these anonymous allegations in the article. voorts (talk/contributions) 20:25, 10 September 2024 (UTC)

That's not how WP:DUE weight works. TheMissingMuse (talk) 20:44, 10 September 2024 (UTC)

This could be used for an WP:ABOUTSELF statement, but that would apply only the second sentence. The first sentence is additional commentary separate from the ABOUTSELF statement, so Fox is likely not a suitable source for it.

Being reliably sourced isn't necessarily a reason for inclusion, rather all content that is included must be verifiable to a reliable source. So whether the statement is due if only Fox has covered it isn't a matter of reliability, and should be discussed on the articles talk page. -- LCU ActivelyDisinterested «@» °∆t° 17:21, 10 September 2024 (UTC)

What specifically is the issue with the Fox News reporting? TheMissingMuse (talk) 17:54, 10 September 2024 (UTC)

This is obvious cult war stuff, and so covered by FOXNEWSPOLITICS. Something doesn't have to be exactly labelled by the source for it to apply. -- LCU ActivelyDisinterested «@» °∆t° 21:38, 10 September 2024 (UTC)

To be clear the reason they are reporting on this at all is because of culture war issues, however they phrase their article or what category of article it's sorted into doesn't change that. -- LCU ActivelyDisinterested «@» °∆t° 15:51, 11 September 2024 (UTC)

I can't speak for the motivations at Fox News. I can only say that I think Boaler's response is an important part of the story. TheMissingMuse (talk) 15:52, 11 September 2024 (UTC)

FOXNEWSPOLITICS describes what the community's consenus is and why Fox is considered to be generally unreliable for politics. voorts (talk/contributions) 18:01, 10 September 2024 (UTC)

The cited article is not politics news reporting. Is there something specific about the reporting or the article which is concerning to you? TheMissingMuse (talk) 18:05, 10 September 2024 (UTC)

This is quite clearly a culture wars political issue: going after a scholar with anonymous attacks because she promotes racial equity in STEM. voorts (talk/contributions) 18:28, 10 September 2024 (UTC)

Do you have a source that says the anonymous attacks are due to the fact that she promotes racial equity in STEM? That's a WP:BLP claim, and needs proper sourcing. TheMissingMuse (talk) 18:33, 10 September 2024 (UTC)

It would need a source if I were trying to add that claim to the article. I'm just using my common sense and knowledge of how conservative politics operate in the United States. voorts (talk/contributions) 20:14, 10 September 2024 (UTC)

This helps no-one. SamuelRiv (talk) 20:20, 10 September 2024 (UTC)

The question was why does FOXNEWSPOLITICS apply, and I was explaining why I think this is a political issue rather than a story about academic integrity. There's a fuzzy line between political, cultural, and academic issues, particularly in the United States where education has become centered in the culture wars. voorts (talk/contributions) 20:24, 10 September 2024 (UTC)

Again, you're going to have to come up with some kind of policy rationale for treating regular news content as political if it's not explicitly labelled as politics. Going with your gut doesn't pass muster, especially when you make unsourced claims like: "going after a scholar with anonymous attacks because she promotes racial equity in STEM". I haven't seen any reporting that suggests that's what is actually happening here. TheMissingMuse (talk) 20:43, 10 September 2024 (UTC)

You're inventing a completely arbitrary standard for what counts as political coverage. Just looking at the "media" category on Fox's website, the top stories include one about Kamala Harris's presidential run, another about Donald Trump's comments about Kamala Harris, and another about Harris's drug policy positions. Do these stories have nothing to do with politics because they aren't explicitly labelled as political? —Sangdeboeuf (talk) 23:41, 10 September 2024 (UTC)

Your own Inside Higher Ed source describes this as part of an attack against scholars promoting racial equity: Rufo and conservative media outlets have published multiple accusations of plagiarism and research misconduct [...] They’ve all been backed by anonymous complaints, and they’re all against officials or scholars at prestigious institutions who either work in DEI or have studied race and equity. [...] There’s a reason he’s focused on DEI and 'grievance departments,' Rufo said. [...] Observers such as Isaac Kamola, director of the Center for the Defense of Academic Freedom at the American Association of University Professors, see 'a coordinated attack' behind it all. In short, this is another hack job by Christopher Rufo, similar to the anti–CRT panic of a few years ago: [12] —Sangdeboeuf (talk) 04:43, 11 September 2024 (UTC)

Please stick to the article in question. This is not the Inside Higher Ed article. There is no mention of Trump, Rufo, Harris, etc. TheMissingMuse (talk) 15:26, 11 September 2024 (UTC)

You said that you haven't seen any reporting that suggests there was an attack on Boaler because she promotes racial equity in STEM. I pointed out that your own source in fact suggests this. You don't get to dictate how sources are used here. —Sangdeboeuf (talk) 15:33, 11 September 2024 (UTC)

It's a [DEI or whatever Fox diversity-buzzword-bogeyman of the moment is] story. It's also an evaluation of a scientific publication. That's both parts of WP:FOXNEWSPOLITICS. — Rhododendrites ^talk \\ 21:48, 10 September 2024 (UTC)

There is no mention of DEI in the article. There is also no mention of any scientific publication, as there are none being referenced. Maybe you are reading the wrong article? TheMissingMuse (talk) 22:31, 10 September 2024 (UTC)

Quoting the very first line of the Fox source (my bolding): A Stanford professor, who was one of the thought leaders behind San Francisco's removal of algebra in junior high for equity reasons, is coming under fire [...] "Equity" is very much a part of DEI, which stands for diversity, equity, and inclusion. As reported by Fox, the anonymous complaint contends that Boaler misrepresented the findings and/or methods of a number of reference papers, which concerns a scientific publication. Are you sure you're not reading the wrong article?

The 2021 California mathematics framework, which was the source of the controversy here, has already been heavily politicized: [13][14][15] The anonymous complaint, as well as the university's response, are already mentioned at Jo Boaler, citing The Chronicle of Higher Ed: [16] The Fox article adds nothing significant IMO. —Sangdeboeuf (talk) 00:49, 11 September 2024 (UTC)

The use of the word equity does not make this a political article. Which reference paper was a scientific publication? TheMissingMuse (talk) 15:25, 11 September 2024 (UTC)

According to the Chronicle of Higher Education, the complaint details 52 instances in which Boaler [...] allegedly misstated or misconstrued outside studies about learning, neuroscience, and math education.[17] Did you want me to go through all 52? —Sangdeboeuf (talk) 15:48, 11 September 2024 (UTC)

Yep. Fox News covering the intersection of science and culture-war politics is, well, it's not a circumstance in which we can cite Fox News. XOR'easter (talk) 03:37, 11 September 2024 (UTC)

There is no science or culture war politics in this article. TheMissingMuse (talk) 15:27, 11 September 2024 (UTC)

Once again, the 2021 California mathematics framework, which became a proxy for various political issues, including equity and social justice, [18] is explicitly referenced in the Fox News article: [19] It quite evidently a political topic that both The New Yorker and CalMatters describe as part of the culture wars. —Sangdeboeuf (talk) 16:37, 11 September 2024 (UTC)

Shifting Focus

I would like to thank everyone for their feedback. There has some strong constructive input from various editors including Slatersteven, Firefangledfeathers, SamuelRiv, ActivelyDisinterested, and voorts. While I don't agree with everything they have said, their feedback has been invaluable.

There has also been another contingent of editors who have been responding quite emphatically that Fox News is just not a source to be used in anything that has even the patina of politics, with just the use of the word equity in the article being disqualifying. I certainly appreciate this perspective as well.

There have also been some questions about whether or not the coverage of the incident in question rises to the level required for inclusion. We have not dug into that deeply, however the broad coverage in the mainstream press and educational press establishes it as more than just an internal issue for Boaler.

It's probably worth shifting focus to evaluate whether or not this topic should be included in the article, and the address the issue of whether or not Boaler's response should be included per WP:ABOUTSELF. While I did not add the content in question to the article, I was the one who added Boaler's response, because I think it's an important part of the story. As for whether or not there is due weight for the topic to be included, I would ask: which noticeboard is appropriate for that discussion?

Input invited, and thank you everyone for participating! TheMissingMuse (talk) 15:40, 11 September 2024 (UTC)

Whether something should be included is an NPOV issue. It's usually best discussed on the article talk page, but outside opinion could be sought at WP:NPOV or as this is a living person you could try WP:BLPN (as it's usual better attended then NPOV). -- LCU ActivelyDisinterested «@» °∆t° 15:48, 11 September 2024 (UTC)

Thanks again for all the help. I will raise the broader topic there. Cheers! TheMissingMuse (talk) 15:57, 11 September 2024 (UTC)

Not a single person has said the use of the word equity by itself is the reason to reject the Fox News article. That is a straw man invented by you. The actual reasons given by me and several others are that Boaler has been the target of politically motivated attacks, with the California mathematics framework being used by the right wing as a proxy for DEI in their culture war, and that the source is reporting on unreliable for scientific claims. —Sangdeboeuf (talk) 17:21, 11 September 2024 (UTC) edited 03:18, 12 September 2024 (UTC)

To say that "Boaler has been the target of politically motivated attacks, with the California mathematics framework being used by the right wing as a proxy for DEI in their culture war" is a misleading oversimplification. The criticism of the framework came from across the political spectrum and some extremely harsh personal attacks connected with that dispute came from progressive sources. See [20] and [21] for more context. Will Orrick (talk) 18:11, 11 September 2024 (UTC)

It's not misleading and it's not an oversimplification. OP asked about a particular aspect of the criticism (i.e. an anonymous complaint discussed in a Fox News story) and that's what we've been discussing. voorts (talk/contributions) 18:33, 11 September 2024 (UTC)

I think you need to provide supporting evidence for this statement: "This is quite clearly a culture wars political issue: going after a scholar with anonymous attacks because she promotes racial equity in STEM." Having paid close attention to the dispute over the framework as it unfolded I would not be quick to assume that the complaint was motivated by hostility to equity. The progressive critics of the framework claim that its proposals would harm equity. Given some of the tactics some of those critics used in attacking Boaler personally, it is not hard to imagine that the complaint could have come from one of them. It could also have come from some politically neutral party with strong opinions about mathematics education or about research practices. Will Orrick (talk) 19:20, 11 September 2024 (UTC)

The evidence is here. The story was initially published in The Washington Free Beacon, a conservative blog. Whatever the reasons for the initial complaint, it's only in the news now because of the right-wing culture war on DEI. At least one observer sees a "coordinated attack" behind the recent wave of anonymous complaints against mostly black scholars studying race and equity. —Sangdeboeuf (talk) 03:11, 12 September 2024 (UTC)

I agree that the fact that The Washington Free Beacon broke the story points to a right wing source. (I checked that the story in The Chronicle of Higher Education was derived from the one in The Washington Free Beacon, and not the other way around.) I still don't see how one can know that the motivation was culture war based. My reading of Boaler's work is that it is primarily concerned with pedagogy and curriculum, with culture war themes, if present at all, a distant second. The main issues in this controversy cut across political boundaries and relate to tracking, acceleration, student-directed vs. teacher-directed approaches to instruction, but most importantly, to curriculum choices, in particular data science vs. algebra II. Opposition came from all parts of the political spectrum, as, unfortunately, did the ad hominem attacks on Boaler's work.

It may be the case that the only reason this is in the news now is due to the right wing media. That is regrettable, as the issues with the scholarship in the CMF were widely discussed back in 2022. See Brian Conrad's web page and a blog post about it by Peter Woit. Brian Conrad's comments on the blog post, in particular the second one, are relevant. Will Orrick (talk) 17:47, 12 September 2024 (UTC)

Boaler has received extensive criticism from across the political spectrum, with the most substantive criticism having nothing to do with culture war issues. In fact, if you review high quality sources like | The Chronicle of Higher Ed, and the | NY Times sources (see article for more sources) you'll find that culture war issues are essentially absent from the issues raised. TheMissingMuse (talk) 18:27, 11 September 2024 (UTC)

Sure, but you raised the issue of this particular anonymous complaint, and several of us has argued that it is a right wing culture wars canard. Both things can be true at the same time. voorts (talk/contributions) 18:30, 11 September 2024 (UTC)

I don't think anyone has provided any reliable sources that support that perspective. No one has suggested that Fox News is a good source for establishing due weight for the topic. The only relevant content unique to that source is Boaler's rebuttal of the complaint. I think that's important to include, but I may be alone in that. TheMissingMuse (talk) 18:36, 11 September 2024 (UTC)

Reliable sources are required by article content, this would be a matter of consensus building. -- LCU ActivelyDisinterested «@» °∆t° 19:15, 11 September 2024 (UTC)

The Fox article does contain details about Boaler's response to the complaint that I haven't seen anywhere else, for example her claim that the complaint was padded to make it appear to encompass a larger body of work than it actually does. These details don't appear to be suitable for Wikipedia, but for the reader wanting to hear Boaler's side, a reference to the Fox article could be informative. Will Orrick (talk) 19:51, 11 September 2024 (UTC)

The Chronicle of Higher Ed and NY Times sources, from 2023 and 2021 respectively, have nothing to do with the 2024 Fox News article nor the recent anonymous allegations made against Boaler. You're just shifting the goalposts now. —Sangdeboeuf (talk) 03:31, 12 September 2024 (UTC)

No-one is suggesting that Fox have, or would, falsify Boaler's quote. So the only reliability issue is the first sentence of the diff, which could just be left out as it's covered already based on other sources. Again whether that should be included isn't a matter of reliability, and should be discussed somewhere appropriate. -- LCU ActivelyDisinterested «@» °∆t° 19:12, 11 September 2024 (UTC)

Unicorn Riot reliability

Is this website a RS?[22] Mhorg (talk) 23:15, 10 September 2024 (UTC)

I'd be cautious. Their "About Us" makes no mention of editors, fact-checking, or even who their writers are. It's a nonprofit set up to report "underrepresented stories" and present "alternative perspectives"; The New Yorker quotes one of the founders as saying they have a "reputation as a clearing house for data dumps on far-right groups".[23] Schazjmd (talk) 23:29, 10 September 2024 (UTC)

Just noticed we have an article on them. And I also see that a number of articles do cite them.[24] Schazjmd (talk) 23:40, 10 September 2024 (UTC)

They're certainly biased to the left, but they're one of the few organizations that has on-the-ground coverage of social movements/protests in the United States and engages in investigative reporting of the far right. They have both an editorial independence policy and a correction policy. I would presume they publish under the Unicorn Riot byline rather than individual names because they operate as a collective. So yes, be cautious and attribute their reporting in-text. voorts (talk/contributions) 00:28, 11 September 2024 (UTC)

A paper describing them as an "anonymous hacker and surveillance collective"[25].

A paper describing them as "activist journalism"[26].

They may have aspects that would lead us to treat them as a primary source. Barnards.tar.gz (talk) 19:50, 11 September 2024 (UTC)

Some news reporting is primary, some is not. We can't say the whole outlet is primary just because part of their work is invesitgative/on-the-ground reporting. voorts (talk/contributions) 11:40, 12 September 2024 (UTC)

Biased but reliable. Their investigations are solid and used by others. They report on topics not covered by more mainstream sources. If other more reliable sources exist for a claim, those might take precedence; if not, this source is fine. BobFromBrockley (talk) 05:35, 12 September 2024 (UTC)

If the source is widely agreed to be super biased, how could it be reliable? Seems to be Non-RS to me. These fringe left and right so called publications, which are just PR sites (think Breitbart) are not useful for us to reach NPOV, all we get is false balance. These far right and left websites are just laughable. Unicorn riot (as I type and the first time I have ever visited or heard of the site) is covering what appears to be a 4 person rally to ban astroturf. This is not what we need at wikipedia. Jtbobwaysf (talk) 04:01, 17 September 2024 (UTC)

Please review WP:RSBIAS. voorts (talk/contributions) 04:08, 17 September 2024 (UTC)

If something isn't notable (a 4 person rally), we'll not cover it, so this is irrelevant. UR is in no way comparable to Breitbart; Breitbart is (super)biased plus unreliable while UR is just biased. BobFromBrockley (talk) 09:00, 17 September 2024 (UTC)

RFC on The South African

Which of the following best describes the reliability of The South African?

• Option 1: Generally reliable for factual reporting
• Option 2: Unclear or additional considerations apply
• Option 3: Generally unreliable for factual reporting
• Option 4: Publishes false or fabricated information, and should be deprecated as in the 2017 RfC of the Daily Mail The C of E God Save the King! (talk) 10:03, 11 September 2024 (UTC)

• • The reason why I am opening this RFC is that I have a concern about The South African hosting plagiarised Wikipedia content in their news articles. The one that concerned me was this article that appeared to have directly copied from our Des van Jaarsveldt article. I emailed the paper informing them of this but got no reply. When I raised the discussion at RSN, opinions seemed to believe there was reason to doubt the reliability of The South African so this is why I am formally opening the RFC and asking the community given it has similar characteristics to the issues from WP:ROYALCENTRAL that led to it's subsequent depreciation. The C of E God Save the King! (talk) 10:07, 11 September 2024 (UTC)

    Might be worth looking at the author's others writings too.. don't have time to rn Bluethricecreamman (talk) 14:29, 11 September 2024 (UTC)

    • @Bluethricecreamman: Well I have looked into this particular author and it seems he has done it again in a later article about Pravin Gordhan. The article also appears to copy from the Wikipedia article, specifically the lede. I don't know if that may change people's opinion as to whether its just one author or the whole source needs a look at. Pinging @ActivelyDisinterested: and @North8000: so they can see too. The C of E God Save the King! (talk) 17:48, 14 September 2024 (UTC)

Survey (The South African)

• Option 2 They appear to be a standard news organisation, although the issues highlighted raise concerns about their quality. I can't find any other issues being raised, although search for information on them is made difficult due to their name. I don't think one issue is enough to declare them generally unreliable or deprecate them, but it does show the source should be shown more scrutiny if it's used. -- LCU ActivelyDisinterested «@» °∆t° 14:09, 11 September 2024 (UTC)
• Option 2 (invited by the bot) Except in extreme cases, I'm against generalization (=overgeneralization) of any source. Which means "other considerations apply" is what nearly all should be. Sincerely, North8000 (talk) 14:35, 12 September 2024 (UTC)
• Option 2 Its news stories attributed to journalists seem largely reliable, or at least no worse than many other outlets we trust. However, we need to be aware of the possibility of wiki-mirroring in these articles. There also appears to be incipient AI use which may require further discussion if more examples become evident.--Boynamedsue (talk) 07:30, 15 September 2024 (UTC)

Discussion (The South African)

• There are multiple publications that have very similar names, so it's not easy to search for information on the source. Also there appears to be two very different periods in its history - from 2003–2015 it was a freesheet distributed in London, but since 2015 it has been an online news source focused on the South African market. The BBC[27] and Stanford Libraries[28] both have media guides about South African news media, neither of which mention the The South African. -- LCU ActivelyDisinterested «@» °∆t° 14:09, 11 September 2024 (UTC)

  I've left a notification of the RFC on the Project South Africa talk page[29]. -- LCU ActivelyDisinterested «@» °∆t° 14:14, 11 September 2024 (UTC)

Question

I have a question about a dispute.

If reliable Historian A writes that "Historian B says x", can we say in wikivoice that "Historian B says x"? Obviously it would be better to cite Historian B directly, but in this case Historian B's works have not been translated into English so I can not access them. Is it legitimate to cite Historian B (with attribution) in this indirect way?

Thanks, IOHANNVSVERVS (talk) 19:31, 11 September 2024 (UTC)

What is the context here? voorts (talk/contributions) 19:38, 11 September 2024 (UTC)

https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=1948_Palestine_war&diff=prev&oldid=1245176061

"Historian Aref al-Aref gives the number of Palestinian deaths as 13,000, with the majority of that number being civilians." Cited to Henry Laurens

References

Discussed here Talk:1948 Palestine war#Morris' "800 murdered" IOHANNVSVERVS (talk) 19:43, 11 September 2024 (UTC)

If WP:SAYWHEREYOUGOTIT applies, it's not exactly a WP:RSN problem. Peter Gulutzan (talk) 19:47, 11 September 2024 (UTC)

From your link it says "If your knowledge of the source is secondhand—that is, if you have read Jones (2010), who cited Smith (2009), and you want to use what Smith (2009) said—make clear that your knowledge of Smith is based on your reading of Jones." I understand this to imply that such "secondhand" citing is legitimate. Am I interpreting that correctly? IOHANNVSVERVS (talk) 19:59, 11 September 2024 (UTC)

In my opinion yes. Peter Gulutzan (talk) 22:40, 11 September 2024 (UTC)

Yes, that is usually ok.Boynamedsue (talk) 07:33, 15 September 2024 (UTC)

The Jewish Chronicle

This is a still developing story worth keeping an eye on: Over the past few days, several heavyweight sources in Israel and elsewhere have impugned the reliability of The Jewish Chronicle (currently listed as green on WP:RSP), accusing the paper of publishing outright disinformation in service of a PR campaign by Israeli Prime Minister Netanyahu. Interestingly, some of the pushback is from the Israeli Defense Forces:

• Channel 12 refutes report Sinwar planned to smuggle himself, hostages out of Gaza via Philadelphi Corridor, The Times of Israel, 6 September 2024
• 'A Wild Invention': Jewish Chronicle's Report on Hamas' Plans Comes Under Scrutiny, Haaretz, 9 Sep 2024
• Author of a Questionable Jewish Chronicle Article Comes Under Fire on Israeli TV, Haaretz, 10 Sep 2024
• IDF investigates claim Jewish Chronicle published stories based on ‘fabricated intelligence’, The Guardian, 12 Sep 2024
• שרה נתניהו טענה ש"יש ידיעות", הגרי: "לא מכיר מידע שיבריחו חטופים מפילדלפי" (Sara Netanyahu claimed that "There is news", Hagari: "I do not know of any information that kidnappers will escape from Philadelphi Corridor"), Ynetnews, 10 Sep 2024
• Why did a British Jewish newspaper publish fake Israeli intelligence? Israel’s army suspects fabrications published in the Jewish Chronicle were part of a pro-Bibi influence campaign, while the article’s author is not as he claims., +972 Magazine, 11 Sep 2024

This may be an isolated case – it appears to be the work of a single journalist (other papers have had scandals based on a single journalist's work, including The Guardian ...) – but the tie-in with Netanyahu and the accusation of politically motivated disinformation are potentially worrying.

The Jewish Chronicle have posted a statement, saying an investigation is underway. Andreas JN466 15:29, 12 September 2024 (UTC)

Journalists sometimes don't have to reveal sensitive sources to their editors, so it's possible this reporter got played. Announcing an investigation into what went wrong is precisely what we would expect an RS to do. voorts (talk/contributions) 15:45, 12 September 2024 (UTC)

It's become clear as the story has evolved that the "journalist" involved has issues with his credentials and seemingly little background in journalism at all. It's a fairly similar case to the NYT editorial standards scandal. Iskandar323 (talk) 04:57, 17 September 2024 (UTC)

Looking back through the archives, the latest being Wikipedia:Reliable sources/Noticeboard/Archive 438#Jewish Chronicle, this publication seems to have a knack for getting itself into trouble. As I said in the linked discussion I merely want the RSP entry clarified that JC is unreliable (rather than no consensus) for topics related to the British Left, Muslims, Islam, and Palestine/Palestinians and that seems clearly to be the case and I still have that view. Selfstudier (talk) 15:55, 12 September 2024 (UTC)

Probably best to wait and see how they handle the situation. This is obviously bad, but what comes of their internal investigation will be a better indicator. -- LCU ActivelyDisinterested «@» °∆t° 17:44, 12 September 2024 (UTC)

Mounting an "investigation" after being exposed does nothing towards establishing reliability. It was forced upon them. The conclusion "While we understand he did serve in the Israel Defense Forces, we were not satisfied with some of his claims." is about as weak as it gets. Zero^talk 04:16, 14 September 2024 (UTC)

This is the new statement marking the conclusion of the investigation, in full:

The Jewish Chronicle has concluded a thorough investigation into freelance journalist Elon Perry, which commenced after allegations were made about aspects of his record. While we understand he did serve in the Israel Defense Forces, we were not satisfied with some of his claims. We have therefore removed his stories from our website and ended any association with Mr Perry.

The Jewish Chronicle maintains the highest journalistic standards in a highly contested information landscape and we deeply regret the chain of events that led to this point. We apologise to our loyal readers and have reviewed our internal processes so that this will not be repeated.

https://www.thejc.com/news/uk/conclusion-of-jewish-chronicle-investigation-into-elon-perry-daaqr8b9

I agree this is not good enough. "Has served in the IDF" – with no further details, such as rank, years of service etc. – is risible. (Military service is compulsory in Israel for everyone unless exempt for religious reasons.)

We need to deprecate this source for anything related to the Israel–Palestine conflict (and possibly anything related to the Israeli government). Andreas JN466 06:27, 14 September 2024 (UTC)

More coverage:

• Jewish Chronicle investigating journalist accused of publishing disinformation about Gaza war, The Times of Israel, 12 Sep 2024
• Has the UK’s oldest Jewish newspaper become Benjamin Netanyahu’s propaganda tool?, Middle East Monitor, 13 Sep 2024
• UK’s Jewish Chronicle removes stories by writer accused of fabrications about Gaza war, The Times of Israel, 14 Sep 2024
• Jewish Chronicle fires freelance journalist Elon Perry after false reporting on Gaza war, The Jerusalem Post, 14 Sep 2024
• Jewish Chronicle retracts allegedly fabricated articles on Gaza, Middle East Eye, 14 Sep 2024
• Crisis at Jewish Chronicle as stories based on ‘wild fabrications’ are withdrawn, The Guardian, 14 Sep 2024

Quotes from The Guardian:

• Founded in 1841, the JC – as it is familiarly known – has long been a respected institution in British Jewish life, attracting prominent Jewish journalists and writers to contribute. But the recent events have caused consternation about the direction of the paper as it has drifted further right under its editor, Jake Wallis Simons, and amid questions over who owns it.
• In recent months, there have been suggestions in the Israeli media that stories have been placed in European newspapers, including one in the German tabloid Bild, that are based on fake or misrepresented intelligence, planted as part of an effort to support prime minister Benjamin’s Netanyahu’s negotiating position over Gaza.
• The removal of the articles, after an investigation formally announced by the paper only the day before, raises serious questions for JC editor Wallis Simons, a former novelist who has written for the Mail, the Telegraph and Spectator. Despite being provided with a series of questions, Wallis Simons and the JC have so far declined to describe how Perry – an individual with no discernible journalistic track record, let alone as an investigative reporter – came to be writing for the paper or what due diligence had been exercised over an increasingly fantastic series of claims.

--Andreas JN466 16:05, 14 September 2024 (UTC)

It's worth noting that at the minute no consensus exists that the JC is reliable on the British left and Muslims, after an extraordinary series of false stories in a short period of time, which coincided with Jeremy Corbyn's leadership of the Labour Party. I think we need to stop using the JC, as it is in effect run for propaganda purposes and frequently publishes falsehoods. This is obviously going to happen again.Boynamedsue (talk) 16:33, 14 September 2024 (UTC)

It should already be listed with yellow, given the summary of before 2010 and the prior no consensus, so at the least, edit the listing to conform to additional considerations (and put the ongoing discussion tag up). -- Alanscottwalker (talk) 17:39, 14 September 2024 (UTC)

• Just to note, prior to this episode, the JC has been reported TWICE in four years (2019, 2021) to press regulator IPSO's standards department due to unacceptable conduct. No other paper has been referred to the standards department, not even the ones we deprecate.Boynamedsue (talk) 18:06, 14 September 2024 (UTC)

There should be a guideline on investigative journalism, but it is mostly covered by extraordinary claims: "Any exceptional claim requires multiple high-quality sources." As a rule, I would not use original investigative articles, but look at other publications that have picked up on them. That will establish weight and some opinion on the degree of credibility. In this case, the story was picked up, so could have been used, even if we did not use the Jewish Chronicle as a source.

The source Boynamedsue provides (Byline Times) to discredit the Jewish Chronicle has a whole series of articles where it accuses mainstream media of bias and inaccuracy called "The Crisis in British Journalism." Mainstream coverage of both the Israel-Palestine conflict and Corbyn's ties to alleged anti-Semitism have been seriously questioned in reliable sources. We cannot ban all of them. TFD (talk) 19:38, 14 September 2024 (UTC)

The British media has a strong anti-Palestine bias, this does not make it unreliable. The JC has a record of massive factual inaccuracy unparalleled in British journalism. Although the media was horrendously biased during the Corbyn years, only the JC breached IPSO's code 15 times in two years. That is one breach every 7 issues. The Mail and even The Sun are far more credible in terms of factual reliability.Boynamedsue (talk) 20:11, 14 September 2024 (UTC)

Here's the list of those 15 alleged breaches: [30] Note that only four of the alleged breaches were upheld and they took place over a period of three years. The Times had 16 complaints upheld during the same period. TFD (talk) 23:10, 15 September 2024 (UTC)

The list you give actually states 13 separate breaches are upheld, but is incomplete. The press gazette wrote in 2023 that 15 people "have won IPSO complaints or libel settlements against the Jewish Chronicle since 2018", in reality that related to people who sent a letter in 2021, so it covers 3 years not 5. The JC has along track record of extreme unreliability.--Boynamedsue (talk) 06:32, 16 September 2024 (UTC)

BTW the JC is a weekly tabloid format that is less than half the length of the times. In the time one edition of the JC comes out, the Times has published at least 12 times the number of words. The fact it is producing as many rulings as the Times is astounding.--Boynamedsue (talk) 06:42, 16 September 2024 (UTC)

There were four complaints, including 15 breaches against the paper and I could only find four breaches upheld. All of them were for inaccuracy.

20214-23 Lunn v The Jewish Chronicle: s. 36. complaint partially upheld.

11788-22 Gregson and Weiss v The Jewish Chronicle: s.24. complaint upheld.

12610-22 Bunglawala v The Jewish Chronicle: s. 13. complaint upheld.

01447-22 Rahman v The Jewish Chronicle s. 26 complaint partially upheld.

What other breaches were upheld? TFD (talk) 03:36, 17 September 2024 (UTC)

Are you only counting from 2022? If not, the results page only shows 4 cases at a time.Boynamedsue (talk) 05:41, 17 September 2024 (UTC)

I am only counting from 2022 because you wrote, "only the JC breached IPSO's code 15 times in two years." [31] [20:11, 14 September 2024] The last two years were from Sept. 2022 to Sept. 2024, during which there were four complaints with four (not 16) breaches upheld. There were also nine complaints over the previous eight years the IPSO was in operation.

I am just replying to what you wrote. TFD (talk) 19:47, 17 September 2024 (UTC)

I did not say the 15 breaches were over the last two years, they were between 2018-2019, part of the JC's long history of unreliability. I am quoting Brian Cathcart, founder of Hacked Off, former advisor to the government on press standards and Professor of journalism at Kingston university, who gives the following timeline: 2018-2019 IPSO finds that the Jewish Chronicle has breached its code 15 times.End of 2019: IPSO’s complaints panel reports the publication to IPSO’s standards department.2020-mid-2021: IPSO finds 18 more breaches.Mid-2021: The first letter is sent demanding a formal standards investigation. This is rejected (after a five months’ delay). 2021- 2023: The Jewish Chronicle is found by IPSO to have committed eight more breaches. April 2023: The IPSO complaints panel again refers it to the standards department for unacceptable conduct.Boynamedsue (talk) 20:38, 17 September 2024 (UTC)

I am unable to see 16 upheld complaints against The Times on the website you linked to. This is what I found: 4 upheld complaints against The Times in the past two years, the same number as for The Jewish Chronicle. Could you say how you arrived at your number?

A thing to bear in mind when comparing publications is publication frequency and volume. The Times is a fat daily, the JC is a weekly, publishing a rather smaller number of stories per year. Andreas JN466 06:55, 16 September 2024 (UTC)

The IPSO issues have been discussed exhaustively on the JC's talk page, and my strong view is that this is not a reason for deprecation or gunrel status. Cathcart in Byline Times is attacking JC as a way of attacking IPSO, which is indeed flawed but if we accept this as a reason to downgrade JC we'd have to downgrade all UK mainstream media and only use unregulated media in the UK.

In short, this is a red herring, whereas the new revelations raise serious concerns we need to address. BobFromBrockley (talk) 11:51, 16 September 2024 (UTC)

It's not a red herring. It points to a recent habit of editorial sloppiness and abuse, which, alongside the now lack of transparency regarding the ownership of the publication, forms a pattern of concerning information. Iskandar323 (talk) 05:07, 17 September 2024 (UTC)

Sorry, I forgot to use quotation marks and got an inflated number. TFD (talk) 03:45, 17 September 2024 (UTC)

Andreas I think you're not scrolling through the pages. There's 4 to a page. Times has 30 upheld breaches going back to 2015, JC has 13 in the same period, of which I think 4 (those you list above - the first page, of chronologically newest hits) are from the period of current ownership; I believe 9 relate to the period of 2017-20. Some of these upheld breaches are only partially upheld. They range, for both papers, from very small to more significant. 12 relate to accuracy. All 12 of those relate to the two topics of a huge proportion of JC news coverage in the period: the British left (almost all of them) and/or British Muslims.

Crucially, wherever the breach has been upheld a sanction has been volunteered or applied, meaning in the case of the JC that the inaccuracies have been corrected and the articles as they appear now are accurate.

Yes, the output of the Times is far greater than the output of the JC, so with half the breaches JC has proportionately more in relation to its content.

The discrepancy between people (a higher number, as noted by Boynamedsue) and breaches is that some breaches relate to more than one person. BobFromBrockley (talk) 15:01, 17 September 2024 (UTC)

@Bobfrombrockley I was looking at the last two years only (16 Sep 2022 to now), because TFD was referring to the JC's four most recent breaches.

• The Jewish Chronicle had four breaches since 16 September 2022.
• Over the same period The Times also had four.

TFD explained above that he forgot to put quotation marks around his search term and thus got an inflated number for The Times for this period.

If you look further back:

• The Jewish Chronicle had 9 breaches since 2020
• The Times had 11 breaches since 2020

Basically, the Jewish Chronicle seems to have an order of magnitude more breaches per article than The Times, bearing in mind it is a weekly with a far smaller annual output than The Times produces as a bulky daily. I'd say that is not good enough for top-drawer treatment at RSP, even before the current scandal.

The Telegraph now has a good summary of the scandal as well:

• The ‘fabrications’ and resignations that plunged The Jewish Chronicle into crisis: The newspaper has lost credibility – and writers including David Baddiel – after a contributor was accused of making up Gaza war reports, The Telegraph, 16 September 2024

Andreas JN466 15:22, 17 September 2024 (UTC)

@Bobfrombrockley Actually, things are even worse at The JC, because there are five additional cases since 2020 that are listed not under "The Jewish Chronicle", but under "thejc.com": [32] These are all different cases from the ones listed under "The Jewish Chronicle". The ones listed under thejc.com are:

• 14697-23 Friel v thejc.com (published July 2023)
• 09574-21 Gauterin v thejc.com (published July 2022)
• 06399-21 Brace v thejc.com (published January 2022)
• 29092-20 Holborow v thejc.com (published September 2021)
• 28831-20 Ross v thejc.com (published June 2021)

The ones listed under "Jewish Chronicle" are:

• 20214-23 Lunn v The Jewish Chronicle (published January 2024)
• 11788-22 Gregson and Weiss v The Jewish Chronicle (published May 2023)
• 12610-22 Bunglawala v The Jewish Chronicle (published April 2023)
• 01447-22 Rahman v The Jewish Chronicle (published September 2022)
• 29107-20 Bird v The Jewish Chronicle (published July 2021)
• 01735-20 Downing v The Jewish Chronicle (published December 2020)
• 00074-20 Ali v The Jewish Chronicle (published October 2020)
• 03690-19 Davies v The Jewish Chronicle (published April 2020)
• 05411-19 Lennox v The Jewish Chronicle (published January 2020)

I also checked for "thetimes" domains and found three additional breaches since 2020 listed under "thetimes.co.uk" (none under thetimes.com). This means JC and Times actually had 14 breaches each since 2020 – with The Times publishing an order of magnitude more articles.

Also worth mentioning: When I did the same search for "The Guardian" and "theguardian", I did not find any breaches at all that concerned The Guardian. Andreas JN466 16:11, 17 September 2024 (UTC)

Thanks that's really helpful. Good spot on the different domains. So, the questions are: 1/ are the breaches relating to articles published under the new ownership (i.e. since April 2020) serious enough for us to downgrade reliability in this period? (my take: possibly, but the real clinchers are the resignations and ownership issue rather than these breaches) and 2/ are the pre-2020 breaches serious enough for us to downgrade reliability for a longer period, and if so from when? (my take: probably not serious enough).

Re The Guardian: it's not regulated by IPSO, but has its own arrangements. BobFromBrockley (talk) 16:55, 17 September 2024 (UTC)

Thanks, that explains the Guardian's clean sheet. For another comparison, "Mail Online" had 28 IPSO rulings identifying breaches since 2020, "Daily Mail" had 14, for a total of 42. Again, I suspect that is considerably less per article than The Jewish Chronicle. I think we need to come up with some RfC options ... Any ideas how we can keep it as simple as possible? Andreas JN466 17:11, 17 September 2024 (UTC)

Do you think we should have a policy whereby if a publications exceeds a set number of breaches it should be deprecated? What would the threshold be? TFD (talk) 19:52, 17 September 2024 (UTC)

• If I understand the nature of the complaint, the paper had a reporter filing false stories. The paper has publicly retracted the stories and fired the reporter. Isn't that what we want out of a RS? If not then shouldn't the NYT be downgraded? Springee (talk) 00:32, 15 September 2024 (UTC)

  Quoted in The Guardian: “It seems that by firing Elon Perry @JewishChron is hoping to put this whole affair to bed, as if decisions weren’t made at the very top to employ a fake journalist, publish nine fake articles without verifying sources, and use the paper [as] an active agent in a pro-Bibi influence op.” Andreas JN466 00:44, 15 September 2024 (UTC)

  That appears to be an opinion article. Certainly that quote is the opinion of the author. Springee (talk) 04:21, 15 September 2024 (UTC)

  The paper didn't do its job in the first place i.e. they didn't vet the freelance journalist properly. Cortador (talk) 05:45, 15 September 2024 (UTC)

I know nothing about this source, but through reading about the Elon Perry situation I learned that no one seems to know exactly who owns the newspaper. This made me wonder whether this incomplete-information situation is a factor in assessing reliability in Wikipedia. Clearly there is some dependency on knowledge of ownership (e.g. state owned, run by the CCP etc.) that might have an impact on a case-by-case basis, but I'm curious how not knowing who owns a source is handled. Sean.hoyland (talk) 04:53, 15 September 2024 (UTC)

When a news source refuses to divulge who owns it, I think we are entitled to assume the worst. Zero^talk 06:40, 15 September 2024 (UTC)

For the ownership question see:

• Alan Rusbridger: Who really funds the Jewish Chronicle? Why it’s troubling that we don’t know…, Prospect Magazine, 26 April 2024
  • Quote: Well, we don’t know. But imagine a mystery foreign backer with a plausible British frontman buying the Telegraph, on condition that his identity be kept schtum. There would, rightly, be a parliamentary hue and cry about their background and motives. One of those involved in the Gibb-led consortium told me he now regretted ever being involved because of its “incredibly opaque” nature. He said he and another consortium member had asked directly who the other backers were and found it was “an absolutely closed door”.

Also, The Times has weighed in:

• Jewish Chronicle sacks writer over story that caused furore in Israel, The Times, 15 Sep 2024 --Andreas JN466 08:16, 15 September 2024 (UTC)

• The "reporter" also made false claims about his background that the paper never bothered to verify. It's not a Claas Relotius situation where someone who is a legitimate journalist gets caught making stuff up. (t · c) buidhe 06:23, 15 September 2024 (UTC)

• This happens sometimes even with the best sources, the NYT Caliphate debacle immediately comes to my mind [33]. What counts is the quality of the investigation and subsequent actions, so I think we should wait a bit. Alaexis_¿question? 11:55, 15 September 2024 (UTC)

  Wait a bit for what? They claim to have finished their investigation. Zero^talk 12:09, 15 September 2024 (UTC)

  Lost two of their top columnists as a result ""Of course, all newspapers make mistakes and run articles that writers on the paper dislike," Freedland wrote. "The problem in this case is that there can be no real accountability because the JC is owned by a person or people who refuse to reveal themselves. As you know, I and others have long urged transparency, making that case to you privately – but nothing has happened." Selfstudier (talk) 13:26, 15 September 2024 (UTC)

  Freedland's departure is particularly devastating. As he noted in his letter, between himself and his father, a Freedland had written for the JC for 75 years – he is only departing, with regret, due to extreme mistrust in the depths to which the editorial standards have sunk, and the risk of association. Iskandar323 (talk) 05:13, 17 September 2024 (UTC)

  Ah, I didn't know that. They have therefore removed his stories from [the] website and ended any association with Mr Perry. What else should they have done? Alaexis_¿question? 20:28, 15 September 2024 (UTC)

  The Jewish News of Northern California e.g. notes: "The Chronicle has not explained how Perry came to author stories that it published nor offered details about how it plans to change its editorial practices."

  Doing those two things would be a good start. Along with being transparent about who finances their operation. Andreas JN466 18:02, 16 September 2024 (UTC)

  I've seen dozens if not hundreds of discussions on this noticeboard and invariably retractions are seen as a good sign. Alaexis_¿question? 20:45, 16 September 2024 (UTC)

  Retractions are important. Stealth edits and stealth non-retractions (such as Al Jazeera's recent ones) are a sign of unreliability. Andre🚐 20:56, 16 September 2024 (UTC)

  Except that it is not retractions being criticized, it's everything else. Selfstudier (talk) 20:58, 16 September 2024 (UTC)

  Speaking of Qatar-funded Al Jazeera, it's a little-known but markworthy fact that Qatar is ranked about 20 places above Israel in the Press Freedom Index ranking. Overall Qatar is now ranked freest in the Middle East region.

  Israeli government censorship is intense. Haaretz once published an article with all the censored text blacked out, just to illustrate the issue: [34] Israel should be doing better.

  Stealth edits are not great, but common across the industry. Take for example the Jewish News article linked below: its headline now reads "Five Jewish Chronicle writers quit, accusing it of prioritising politics over journalism" (the fifth is Colin Shindler, who has written for the JC for over fifty years), but there is no note marking the updates, nor a new publication time/date. You can find stealth updates even in a newspaper of record like Haaretz: compare [35] vs. [36]. Andreas JN466 22:39, 16 September 2024 (UTC)

Resignations:

• Three star Jewish Chronicle writers quit, accusing it of prioritising politics over journalism, Jewish News, 15 September 2024
• Columnists Quit Jewish Chronicle as Troubled Paper Severs Ties With 'Journalist' Over Debunked Hamas Story, Haaretz, 15 September 2024
• Jewish Chronicle writers attack publication after 'fabrication' row, Israel Hayom, 15 September 2024
  • Quote: The latest scandal brings great disgrace on the paper – publishing fabricated stories and showing only the thinnest form of contrition – but it is only the latest. Too often, the JC reads like a partisan, ideological instrument, its judgments political rather than journalistic.—Jonathan Freedland

--Andreas JN466 14:43, 15 September 2024 (UTC)

Guardian as well Selfstudier (talk) 16:11, 15 September 2024 (UTC)

• I'd say not reliable. There are too many serious problems. Most recently, and discussed here, is a whole range of fabricated stories. That is already concerning, so much so that many high-profile contributors have resigned. Perhaps even more concerning is that nobody knows who owns the JC. In my view, transparency about ownership is important for the integrity of any newspaper or media outlet. The combination of planted false stories and no insights on who finances the JC makes me doubt it could be used as a source while the ownership is not known. Jeppiz (talk) 16:45, 15 September 2024 (UTC)
• This is likely to require a RfC, but for the time being, TJC should be considered at least unreliable regarding Israel/Palestine and related topics due to a scandal resulting in four high-profile resignations, unclear ownership structre, plus questionable reporting as noted above. Cortador (talk) 16:59, 15 September 2024 (UTC)

  The fact that a massive scandal is causing a massive shakeup is, again, exactly what one would expect out of a generally reliable source. (No source should be used without a minimum of critical judgement, mind you, and is subject to cross-verification.) I suppose in this overall time period of the scandal and shakeup -- plus+minus one year from all the reporter's articles (they span June--September 2024) say -- it's appropriate to say the source is yellow, but it's hardly become now-and-retroactively unreliable.

  Contrast to some of our unreliable outlets where an article or reporter or topic caught red-handed on serial inaccuracy/exaggeration/slop is simply tolerated and dismissed as just a normal part of their political bias or low expectations of rigor. SamuelRiv (talk) 17:24, 15 September 2024 (UTC)

  Ordinarily I would agree but with the history here plus the lack of transparency, I think there's a problem beyond the usual. Selfstudier (talk) 17:39, 15 September 2024 (UTC)

  I think we need to start a RfC here, I can't seem to find the RfC which justified the reliable rating Andromedean (talk) 17:51, 15 September 2024 (UTC)

  This is not just recent:

  • From the Jewish News article: Freedland, a columnist at the JC since 1998, began his resignation letter by stating his deep family connection to the newspaper. “My attachment to the JC runs very deep,” he wrote. “I have been a columnist since 1998. My late father started writing for the JC in 1951. That bond explains why I have stuck with it even as it departed from the traditions that built its reputation as the world’s oldest Jewish newspaper. “The latest scandal brings great disgrace on the paper – publishing fabricated stories and showing only the thinnest form of contrition – but this is only the latest. Too often, the JC reads like a partisan ideological instrument, its judgements political rather than journalistic.”
  • From The Guardian: “The coarseness and aggression of the JC’s current leadership is such a pity and does such a disservice to our community,” wrote Pogrund. “It also once again poses the question: who owns it!? How is it that British Jews don’t know who owns ‘their’ paper. Moreover, how can a paper not disclose its ownership? It’s an oxymoron. I hate having to pose the question publicly but I asked privately more than a year ago to no avail.”

  The problems seem to date back to the 2020 change in ownership. Would this make an appropriate cut-off point? Andreas JN466 18:21, 15 September 2024 (UTC)

  I agree with SamuelRiv. Andre🚐 21:03, 15 September 2024 (UTC)

  The problems predate the change of ownership in April 2020. On the 4 August 2021, barely a year later Brian Cathcart wrote

  "A slim, weekly publication, the Jewish Chronicle has been found by IPSO to have breached the Editors Code of Conduct 33 times in three years. In the same period it has admitted libel on four occasions, paying damages and publishing apologies. This is a failure of standards on a scale not witnessed by IPSO before." Andromedean (talk) 07:17, 16 September 2024 (UTC)

  I guess I should amend my comment, as it presumes the current (or recent) rating of JC is reasonably accurate. Looking through the IPSO issues a bit more I'd agree the baseline "green" rating should be reassessed by RfC, going back as far as Feb-Mar 2019 (from when the first major IPSO complaint/breach was dated, see citation (21)), but 2020 is close enough too. I hold from my comment that this current scandal is not extremely detrimental from the baseline rating since 2020, wherever that should be. SamuelRiv (talk) 16:14, 16 September 2024 (UTC)

  The 2021 Cathcart piece in RS Byline Times that you link Andromedean says 28 breaches in 3 years. The quote you give comes from the blog of campaigning organisation Hacked Off in 2022. There's an issue of the lag between the date of publication and the date of reporting the outcome, but Cathcart's arithmetic is kind of hard to fathom and is at odds with the figures on the IPSO site or given in other secondary sources such as Press Gazette or The Telegraph: The [2021] letter claimed there had been 28 breaches of the Editors’ Code in three years, and that there would be “more victims” if nothing was done. In fact, IPSO says there were eight complaints upheld in the past three years, with two not upheld and two resolved through mediation. The Telegraph piece is important to read on the agenda of the letter-writers and of Cathcart. BobFromBrockley (talk) 15:19, 17 September 2024 (UTC)

  I think we have to distinguish between IPSO cases or rulings and breaches of the Editor's Code. Each ruling can identify multiple breaches of the code, see e.g. [37]. Also note – The Committee expressed significant concerns about the newspaper’s handling of this complaint. The newspaper had failed, on a number of occasions, to answer questions put to it by IPSO and it was regrettable the newspaper’s responses had been delayed. The Committee considered that the publication’s conduct during IPSO’s investigation was unacceptable. The Committee’s concerns have been drawn to the attention of IPSO’s Standards department. Andreas JN466 16:49, 17 September 2024 (UTC)

  2019 was the Audrey White complaint, which was a whopper that caused IPSO to alert the broader issue internally (this was linked previously in this thread, which I can't find, by someone with the relevant quote; the complaint was Feb--Mar, and ruling Nov 2019; an overview from HackedOff). Either of those could be a cutoff date, or the 2020 ownership change, or the 2021 IPSO internal alert again. But a precise cutoff has not been necessary for RSP -- just saying on RSP "2020, around the time ownership change with major issues appearing the year beforehand", is plenty enough guidance for editors. Or whatever year you want, it doesn't matter -- absent a complete staff and editorial overhaul in a single day, there's never such a precise transition of reliability. SamuelRiv (talk) 19:47, 17 September 2024 (UTC)

• A single instance of flawed reporting doesn't impugn the source's reliability unless it can be shown to be systemic. See the New York Times, which also has controversial views of their ownership (see Biden vs Trump) and it also is relevant how the outlet deals with the coverage. In this case, the outlet seems to be taking the appropriate steps but we should keep an eye on it. There are other outlets who have had similar controversies and ownership (cough Al Jazeera cough) but are considered to be generally reliable if biased on certain topics. Without a more comprehensive evaluation of any failed fact checks, this one issue isn't any more damning of the entire paper than similar issues in the New York Times. Andre🚐 21:02, 15 September 2024 (UTC)

  Systemic issues – this is a common refrain in the criticism: that the material published is not political and journalistic, but political rather than journalistic – in other words, the politicisation comes at the expense of journalistic standards. This criticism is not restricted to the now-removed set of articles, and it is something that we should take note of.

  As for the paper's owners, it is normal for newspaper owners to have views. The owners of the New York Times and their place on the political spectrum are known. What people are saying with respect to The Jewish Chronicle is that the owners are unknown – because the publication refuses to say who they are. That is unusual to say the least.

  More reporting now:

  • The National,
  • BBC,
  • Times of Israel.

  The Times of Israel also reports on an Israeli press interview with the (pseudonymous) writer of the now-removed stories. Andreas JN466 22:22, 15 September 2024 (UTC)

  Andrevan's comment makes a false comparison with the NYT. The New York Times has almost 6,000 employees and a print circulation of 300,000, and 9 million online subscribers.

  The Jewish Chronicle has just 30 employees, a total of 3,000 digital subscribers and 3,200 paid for print circulation. There are MANY blogs out there with more employees and more readers. Onceinawhile (talk) 22:49, 15 September 2024 (UTC)

  Jayen did not. Andre made the comparison. Alanscottwalker (talk) 22:51, 15 September 2024 (UTC)

  Jewish Chronicle is an old and storied institution. Reliability is not determined by the number of employees or subscribers, or circulation. Andre🚐 22:52, 15 September 2024 (UTC)

  It went into liquidation in 2020. This is a new organization with an old brand. Onceinawhile (talk) 22:55, 15 September 2024 (UTC)

  It announced in March that it would be owned by a charitable trust. I would like to point out that a lot of horrible people have owned news media in the UK over the years.

  Also, DYK that Murdoch owns both the Times and the Sun? It does not matter who owns a newspaper but where it follows journalistic standards. And I don't get btw why the BBC should be considered less reliable than the Sun, because the Sun is owned by an individual person while the BBC is owned by the state. TFD (talk) 23:27, 15 September 2024 (UTC)

  Nor is it determined by age or whatever storiedness might be. It is determined by factual accuracy, which the JC has been proven repeatedly to lack. I would repeat, no other British newspaper has such a shocking record for slandering people and publishing false stories, not even the ones that we deprecate.Boynamedsue (talk) 22:59, 15 September 2024 (UTC)

  See TFD's comment above. It is not determined by age, true, but it IS determined by reputation. Andre🚐 23:15, 15 September 2024 (UTC)

See my answer above. TFD's comments are a good faith error on the number of breaches, and a failure to consider libel rulings and the difference in number of issues between weekly and daily titles.Boynamedsue (talk) 06:56, 16 September 2024 (UTC)

These issues should be considered separately than the new issues. In the 2015-20 period, the instances of sloppiness and zealotry led to extreme scrutiny, the led to IPSO complaints (mostly not upheld) and to corrections. Any problematic material from this period has been corrected, and we can therefore be pretty confident of reliability. There is a case for attribution of contentious claims in that period; there is no case for designation as unreliable. BobFromBrockley (talk) 12:15, 16 September 2024 (UTC)

Well its reputation is now in the gutter, so ... Iskandar323 (talk) 05:23, 17 September 2024 (UTC)

• It has been asked above about what papers do in this situation, and it seems usual that they do extensive reporting on what went wrong, what was false or can't be confirmed, and who was involved. The reporting is in depth investigation and done by journalists (usually senior journalists) and editors not involved, but perhaps, this paper is too small or too intent on not being open about it, for whatever reason. Alanscottwalker (talk) 00:11, 16 September 2024 (UTC)

  Given the entire affair is less than 2 weeks old, correct? Maybe they will. Andre🚐 00:52, 16 September 2024 (UTC)

  JC has declared that they have "concluded" their "thorough investigation". Now they might yet again be lying, but I suggest that we believe them. TrangaBellam (talk) 07:55, 16 September 2024 (UTC)

• Ought be treated as unreliable for anything remotely connected with Is-Pa and British Politics. TrangaBellam (talk) 07:50, 16 September 2024 (UTC)

  Why British Politics specifically? The problem articles related to Israel-Palestine. BobFromBrockley (talk) 11:57, 16 September 2024 (UTC)

• This is quite an grotesquely major scandal for a prominent newspaper; unknown owners who are likely right-wing ideologues, publication of a fabricated story by a freelance journalist under a pseudonym who after their firing made death threats to an Israeli reporter due to the revealing of their identity, and now the resignation of the newspaper's most prominent columnists. The Jewish Chronicle should be immediately deprecated generally and on matters related to antisemitism and the Israeli-Palestinian conflict specifically. Makeandtoss (talk) 09:10, 16 September 2024 (UTC)

  So not only his credentials were fake, but also his name ... while his subsequent actions speak for themselves. The Times of Israel has also ripped down blogs by the same author, presumably fearful of possible contagion. Iskandar323 (talk) 05:31, 17 September 2024 (UTC)

• Inclined to agree that the opaque ownership is an even bigger problem than the specific instance of false reporting. Most publications have bias, and many have disreputable owners, but at least when the owners are known we can understand and weigh that bias, and still manage to extract signal from the noise. An anonymous owner is no better than an anonymous editorial board, which would usually be a red flag. It’s a broken chain of accountability. JC articles from after April 2020 (apparently the date of the takeover) should be treated with utmost caution. No opinion on articles from before that date. Barnards.tar.gz (talk) 09:19, 16 September 2024 (UTC)
• The response from JC has been swift and they've removed the offending articles. But it's left serious questions about their editorial controls, and several high profile columnist have severed their ties with the paper. The issues appear to stem from the takeover by an anonymous owner, and the editorialship of Jake Wallis Simons that began in December 2021. Their articles after April 2020 (per Barnards.tar.gz above) should be handled with scepticism, especially in the IP conflict area. Ownership isn't the issue, but the issues seem to stem from the change in ownership. Just to note from a technical perspective deprecation of any article ever written by the source from ever being used for anything is not a good response to this situation, the issues being raised are ones that are due to recent changes (deprecation is just unreliable with an edit filter plus bells and whistles, it doesn't work with any kind of restrictions on topic area or time). I would suggest any issues prior to these dates be handled separately, as the arguements are quite different and often backed up by other sources. -- LCU ActivelyDisinterested «@» °∆t° 12:07, 16 September 2024 (UTC)
• The dust has not yet settled so we might still wait before an RfC, but this is definitely a major concern. Anything published under the current owners (April 2020) and especially under current editor (December 2021) should be treated with extreme caution. Anything by Elon Perry (pseudonym of Eli Yifrah) in this publication or other publications should be considered completely unreliable. In general, even without these issues, the UK-based Jewish Chronicle is unlikely to be a good source on the Middle East unless the article is provided by someone with specific expertise (e.g. by Colin Shindler, one of the writers who resigned this week). The issues are: total opacity about ownership since 2020; an editor with no prior experience of news media since 2021; extent of bias under current editor spinning into unreliability (in particular on the issues of Israel/Palestine and Muslims/Islam). I would oppose designating it unreliable for the pre-2020 period, as these issues were not present (the non-upheld IPSO complaints mentioned above are not a reason for that). I would also be wary about declaring it, even in its current incarnation, generally unreliable, because that will mean its routine coverage of UK Jewish community matters or political issues in the UK of Jewish interest will be lost, including important material relating to antisemitism which is less well reported elsewhere. BobFromBrockley (talk) 12:09, 16 September 2024 (UTC)

  As I stated previously, the record of the JC was extremely poor prior to April 2020. In the two years previous to this the IPSO upheld and sanctioned the following cases

  03690-19 Davies v The Jewish Chronicle 2 April 2020 Outcome Breach sanction: action as offered by publication

  05411-19 Lennox v The Jewish Chronicle 16 January 2020 Outcome Breach sanction: action as offered by publication

  01740-19 White v The Jewish Chronicle 29 November 2019 Outcome Breach - sanction sanction: action as offered by publication

  03222-18 Suárez v The Jewish Chronicle Published date 12 April 2019 Outcome Breach - sanction: action as offered by publication

  02822-18 Sivier v The Jewish Chronicle Complaint Summary 9 August 2018 Outcome Breach - sanction: action as offered by publication

  Even in cases where a resolution was agreed such as this, the word 'abused' a Jewish MP was changed to 'challenged', quite a change

  01612-18 Wadsworth v The Jewish Chronicle Complaint Summary May 2018 Outcome Resolved - IPSO mediation

  This seems to be a systematic failure of factual reporting irrespective of the ownership. Andromedean (talk) 13:07, 16 September 2024 (UTC)

  I had a look at the first example 03690-19 Davies v The Jewish Chronicle 2 April 2020, which relates to this 2019 article. There was no inaccuracy in the article, just a lack of context for a quote from a third party about the complainant. Nonetheless, the paper offered an apology and correction, which duly appears. This is totally normal newspaper practice.

  Here is 05411-19 Lennox v The Jewish Chronicle 16 January 2020, a partially upheld complaint where the upheld part was was promptly remedied by the paper. Slightly more serious than Davies, but nowhere near grounds for designation of unreliability.

  Unless the other examples are considerably more significant, this list adds nothing. Focusing on this trivia is a distraction from the serious issues that have emerged more recently. BobFromBrockley (talk) 14:21, 16 September 2024 (UTC)

Trivia? IPSO noted 33 individual breaches of its code over 3 years between 2018-2021. It was referred to the IPSO standards committee over its libelling of Audrey White, with IPSO stating The Committee expressed significant concerns about the newspaper’s handling of this complaint. The newspaper had failed, on a number of occasions, to answer questions put to it by IPSO and it was regrettable the newspaper’s responses had been delayed. The Committee considered that the publication’s conduct during IPSO’s investigation was unacceptable. It is worth noting that this "trivia" had already resulted in this board deciding that there is no consensus on JC's reliability on precisely the topic of its latest falsehoods.Boynamedsue (talk) 16:17, 16 September 2024 (UTC)

It should also be noted how ineffective the IPSO complaint system is. Chances are we are only seeing the tip of the iceberg because 94% of complaints are rejected, 0.3% are upheld and 5.3% are abandoned or never investigated. This isn't surprising because The Press Recognition Panel (the body which audits press regulators for independence and effectiveness) has referred to IPSO as a ‘trade complaint handling body with no independent oversight Andromedean (talk) 16:47, 16 September 2024 (UTC)

Exclusive: UK press regulator IPSO "carefully reviewing developments at the Jewish Chronicle" We'll see. Selfstudier (talk) 18:37, 16 September 2024 (UTC)

OK, "trivial" perhaps too strong a word, but I urge people here to read the rulings and see if these inaccuracies would be cause for a general unreliability ruling for another publication.

this "trivia" had already resulted in this board deciding that there is no consensus on JC's reliability on precisely the topic of its latest falsehoods. Not exactly. The IPSO rulings all relate to the British left and a couple to British Muslims, whereas the latest falsehoods relate to Israel/Palestine. I would not oppose us considering it generally unreliable on Israel/Palestine, although I would argue for exceptions in the case of expert contributors such as Colin Shindler. BobFromBrockley (talk) 15:26, 17 September 2024 (UTC)

The only reason that so many cases are being dragged before IPSO is presumably because they are not responding adequately to direct complaints. Being dragged before a trade tribunal, and then making amends only after you lose isn't contrition or commitment to editorial standards; it's simply the legal obligation at the end of a long road of stubborn editorial recalcitrance. Iskandar323 (talk) 05:40, 17 September 2024 (UTC)

Again, read the rulings; in almost all cases the correction had already been made before IPSO ruled. The most serious cases (e.g. the one relating to Rabbi Weiss) relate to a failure to make a correction, but there are only one or two such cases. BobFromBrockley (talk) 15:28, 17 September 2024 (UTC)

My concern is that we could use evidence of misconduct that is no different from any other publication to ban some publications, but not others. For example, the Jewish Chronicle has had four breaches upheld against it by the IPSO in the last two years, which is the same number as the Times, although a higher rate because it is a weekly. While no one claims that the Jewish Chronicle is in the same league as the Times, that doesn't mean it should be deprecated.

In the past, we deprecated a source because it published a false news story that had appeared in most mainstream media sources.

There should be objective and persuasive arguments before sources are rated generally unreliable or deprecated/banned. It seems that a lot of these efforts are motivated by objection to the editorial policies of the publications. And if they are downgraded, it sends a message outside Wikipedia.

There has to be a better way to evaluate sources than this process. Editors are asked to base their decisions on the comments of other editors, which may or may not be accurate, have walls of text they cannot read and have no standard with which to compare criticisms with other publications. TFD (talk) 04:03, 17 September 2024 (UTC)

It seems strange to only count the last two years. In 2021 we discussed the JC based on its record of publishing misleading content on the British left, Muslims and Palestine/Israel. We could not reach a conclusion that it was reliable, and that is the current default. Low and behold, a few years down the line the paper becomes embroiled in a scandal due to publishing false information on precisely the topics we judged it unreliable on. Why exactly are we bothering with this source?Boynamedsue (talk) 05:54, 17 September 2024 (UTC)

I would certainly agree to a more objective process. For example a table of breaches, court judgements etc so they can be examined more clearly. However, we must also allow for more subjective criteria such as transparency, ownership and journalistic reputation of staff. Substantial weight should also be given to the opinions of journalistic professionals in academia. I'm unsure if Wikipedia rules already specify this, but should an editor arriving at an opinion based on a professional or reliable source, be given more weight in an RfC than one just saying 'I agree with X' or 'I think it's unreliable or reliable'? Andromedean (talk) 07:34, 17 September 2024 (UTC)

I tried to get "in other RS" added to the policy a while ago. Also did you know according to our current policy consensus, I could cite a gravestone or a historical marker because that is technically published? I think some rigor around publication could help. Barring that, feel free to propose something at probably WT:RS or WT:V Andre🚐 07:37, 17 September 2024 (UTC)

One problem with tables of breaches is that it actually stacks our process against publications, such as the Jewish Chronicle, that are regulated (where there's an authority which records complaints, in this case IPSO). BobFromBrockley (talk) 15:31, 17 September 2024 (UTC)

• I am not an expert at all in this subject, but I would note that the presence of a statement by the source stating that an investigation is ongoing plus resignations of staff evidences that it is an RS since they care to be neutral and take concrete steps to do so. That is all we really can ask at wikipedia. Our OR and POV on the rest of if we like a source or not is pretty hard to sort though. Again, I know nearly nothing about Israeli politics, so please take my statement with a grain of salt and due weight. Thanks! Jtbobwaysf (talk) 03:50, 17 September 2024 (UTC)

The problem comes in the fact its corrections and investigations are all forced. The British press regulator IPSO noted its refusal to engage in correction except when ultimately forced to do. This case shows effective fact-checking does not exist, as until the IDF complained, the paper was publishing random crap without asking itself any questions. So, we ask how much else has been getting through that hasn't been noticed? We can't know. In effect, we do and have deprecated for much less.Boynamedsue (talk) 06:04, 17 September 2024 (UTC)

The resignations aren't positive actions by the publication; they are actions by former staff in despair at the publication's lack of positive action. Iskandar323 (talk) 06:58, 17 September 2024 (UTC)

Idk, the part I am most bothered by is AI/IP and I think that should be gunrel, if we can agree that in this discussion then maybe we can do without an RFC? Selfstudier (talk) 16:23, 17 September 2024 (UTC)

As I said before, I think we should Deprecate The Jewish Chronicle for anything related to Israel/Palestine. I would also support deprecation for "UK politics biographies of living persons" (if other publications discuss BLP claims made in The Jewish Chronicle, they can be cited instead, with a JC ref given as a courtesy link). How does that sound? Andreas JN466 17:21, 17 September 2024 (UTC)

I have said before I'm not wild about deprecation without going through gunrel first. One would need quite a bit of "fabrication" evidence for deprecation (and it would have to be an RFC). Selfstudier (talk) 17:41, 17 September 2024 (UTC)

Sorry, my mix-up. I didn't actually mean to contradict you, Selfstudier; I'd conflated the two levels in my mind. So WP:GUNREL for anything related to Israel/Palestine, and I'd be happy to extend that to "UK politics biographies of living persons". --Andreas JN466 18:35, 17 September 2024 (UTC)

Mainstream media have run many obviously false stories in support of wars. For example, the Nayirah testimony that Iraqi soldiers removed babies from incubators, NYT journalist Judith Miller's false stories about WMDs in Iraq, and unsubstantiated stories about babies being beheaded by Hamas. For twenty years mainstream media told us we were winning in Afghanistan until one day the U.S. soldiers left and its govenment fled.

If we banned all these source there would be none left and therefore we could not cover current events at all. However using in-text attribution where appropriate and not including material that lacks weight for inclusion, these articles can be as accurate as mainstream media without a culling of news media source. TFD (talk) 20:21, 17 September 2024 (UTC)

More press coverage today from The Jerusalem Post, The Forward, Press Gazette, The Independent and The Times of Israel
The following discussion has been closed. Please do not modify it.
Further commentary in The Jerusalem Post from Hadley Freeman, Jay Rayner and others: Speaking on the BBC Radio 4 "Today" program on Monday morning, [Freeman] said that, like every journalist, she does not agree with everything in her publication, but that this was a tipping point. While she acknowledged the deletion of the articles by Elon Perry - which she called "wild" - she said that for a "bunch of us, this was too little too late." "We felt that there had not been editorial standards applied to this journalist because that journalist was adhering to an ideology that perhaps was similar to that of the editorial board." Freeman said she chose to join the JC to represent the "liberal modern voice" of British Jews, who she claimed largely support a Jewish state but want a two-state solution. However, she said, "it felt increasingly that the JC represented a more ideological rather than a strictly journalistic point of view, and was becoming far more right-wing and far more in step with Netanyahu, which most British Jews are not." She also reiterated the concerns of other journalists regarding the identity of the JC's owner. Jewish writer and food critic Jay Rayner reposted Freedland's resignation, saying that he had watched "with dismay the collapse in integrity and standards of the Jewish Chronicle." "It’s been a disaster for the Jewish community," he added, applauding Freedland for his decision to leave. The Forward now has an article up as well: Several prominent columnists have resigned from the world’s oldest Jewish newspaper amid allegations that the paper ran fabricated news stories that advanced the Israeli government’s narratives about the war in Gaza. The newspaper confirmed that Perry did serve in the IDF but said it was unable to prove claims that had appeared on his website that he was a professsor at Tel Aviv University for 15 years and that he had served as a commando soldier during Operation Entebbe in 1976. His two books are both self-published. Four columnists quit Jewish Chronicle over standards, secrecy and ‘bias’: Writers condemn lapse in standards, secrecy and drift to right of specialist title, Press Gazette, 16 September 2024 Who really funds the Jewish Chronicle? Why it’s troubling that we don’t know…, The Independent, 16 September 2024 (appears to be a republication of Rusbridger's previous Prospect piece) Jewish Chronicle stalwarts bail over UK paper’s ties to alleged Gaza war fabulist, The Times of Israel, 16 September 2024 Quote: Perry has also faced questions about his biography, including his claims to have served as a commando soldier during Operation Entebbe and that he was a professor at Tel Aviv University for 15 years. An investigation by Channel 13’s Hatzinor news magazine found that both claims were false. After peddling lies, Jewish Chronical [sic] in upheaval, Ynetnews, 16 September 2024 --Andreas JN466 14:32, 16 September 2024 (UTC)

www.phoronix.com

I would like to suggest the addition of www.phoronix.com as an unreliable source

Wikipedia:Reliable sources/Noticeboard/Archive 281#Phoronix

Wikipedia:Reliable sources/Noticeboard/Archive 440#cppreference.com Wiktorpyk (talk) 11:24, 13 September 2024 (UTC)

Is there a particular reason or dispute? -- LCU ActivelyDisinterested «@» °∆t° 20:35, 13 September 2024 (UTC)

Mainly just got pissed when I saw wrong info on an article that was quoting an article on that website that was wronng to be honest and I also got comfirmation from a GNOME developer that the source is not reliable. I have provided two disputes confirming that too. Wiktorpyk (talk) 21:19, 13 September 2024 (UTC)

Can you provide the specific article (the WP article and the citation in question)? Phoronix newsblog posts are not generally a RS per existing guidelines, but I don't think anyone has posted an example of it being factually incorrect yet.

The guidelines are clear enough to disqualify it as an RS at a glance, and I don't think anyone would argue otherwise. I dunno if AWB scripts can just put bsn tags on it if bot editors won't otherwise bother to check for the original source material of the blog, though, given that's what it's being generally cited for. SamuelRiv (talk) 04:01, 14 September 2024 (UTC)

https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Adwaita_%28design_language%29&diff=1245507291&oldid=1232781085 Wiktorpyk (talk) 10:46, 14 September 2024 (UTC)

I'll add that Libadwaita was meant to be released in 41 but it was delayed to 42. Wiktorpyk (talk) 10:49, 14 September 2024 (UTC)

For this particular claim, the easiest policy-compliant solution is to use "Heaps of tweaks and improvements incoming with GNOME 42" by The Register (RSP entry), which I have just added to the article in Special:Diff/1245895832. — Newslinger talk 19:19, 15 September 2024 (UTC)

I believe that recognized subject matter experts can be counted as reliable sources, and that includes blogs that are widely used as reliable in reliable sources. It is wide ranging but not always accurate but I think acceptable for what it does. Any expert will find holes in practically every article anywhere on what they're an expert on! NadVolum (talk) 23:03, 14 September 2024 (UTC)

• Is Phoronix any more reliable than any other blog? No, not really. It's a blog, just a technical blog, essentially WP:SELFPUB. It doesn't have any kind public editorial standards or fact-checking board. The reason why WP:NEWSORGs are presumed reliable is that they have some kind of oversight. That being said, is anyone actually citing Phoronix and what articles? I mean, they are, because I just checked and people are citing it a lot for open source press releases, of exactly the kind that this user is bringing up. However, I think we need more than one example of a problem before we can downgrade the source, and it needs to be documented in writing in some amount of rigor. Andre🚐 09:58, 15 September 2024 (UTC)
• Self-published. Phoronix is a blog solely authored by Michael Larabel, the lead developer of the Phoronix Test Suite. While I have a favorable impression of Phoronix's content quality and consider Larabel a Linux expert, he does not meet the subject-matter expert criterion in WP:SPS: "Self-published expert sources may be considered reliable when produced by an established subject-matter expert, whose work in the relevant field has previously been published by reliable, independent publications." A web search shows that Larabel only publishes articles on Phoronix, which makes Phoronix generally unreliable as a self-published blog that does not qualify for the subject-matter expert exception. — Newslinger talk 18:51, 15 September 2024 (UTC)

  Agreed. Andre🚐 21:05, 15 September 2024 (UTC)

  Yep a self published source without the requirements in WP:SPS. If it's being used for press releases they can be found elsewhere. -- LCU ActivelyDisinterested «@» °∆t° 12:13, 16 September 2024 (UTC)

• I've removed "RFC on" from the section title, as this request is not a formal request for comment. — Newslinger talk 18:51, 15 September 2024 (UTC)

  Thanks -- LCU ActivelyDisinterested «@» °∆t° 12:09, 16 September 2024 (UTC)

• It is just a blog, we shouldn't consider it reliable. But that doesn't mean it is unreliable. I suppose it depends the claim and article it is used on. I know nothing about SW, so take my comments with a grain of salt please. Jtbobwaysf (talk) 04:03, 17 September 2024 (UTC)

thisisgame

Is this a reliable source? I brought up ThisIsGame at Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Video games/Sources/Archive 32#ThisIsGame but didn't get any answer, so I'm checking this again over here. To recap what was said:

• ThisIsGame has an official partnership with Game Developer (formerly Gamasutra), a reliable source on WP:VG/S, since the 2010s. Both websites have had referred to and translated materials from each other, like this ThisIsGame article from 2019 and this Game Developer article from 2011.
• The founder and owner Simon Lim (AKA Im Sanghun) was formerly a journalist at Ilgan Sports and The Hankyoreh, both reputable and reliable sources.
• Another executive Hyeon Namil is an alumni of PC Powerzine, a reputable print video game magazine from 1995 to 2005.
• It has had invited external authors from other media to write for its website, like this piece from Nexon Computer Museum.

Unfortunately their About Us is lackluster (a common issue in Korean sources) so it's hard to guarantee credentials for everyone working there, but the website does a lot of interviews and field reports themselves, and the company and their writers have had interaction with a lot of other organizations, including English sources like Gamasutra and The Game Award. I think it's generally reliable for video game topic unless they make an exceptional claim. Emiya Mulzomdao (talk) 13:34, 13 September 2024 (UTC)

Reliability of Source

Hi I made an edit recently using this source and just wanted to check whether The Indo Canadian Voicehttps://www.artsrn.ualberta.ca/MinorityMedia/items/show/1037 can be considered as a reliable source under Wikipedia rules. Thank you ! - Also just to note they also have a weekly physical print that goes out to the local south asian community in Vancouver,

"In September 2024, Satish Kumar, President of the Vedic Hindu Cultural Society in Surrey, British Columbia apologized to the Sikh community after a letter he wrote to the Conservative Party Leader Pierre Poilievre objecting to the visit of Canadian Sikh MP's to the temple. " Jattlife121 (talk) 02:09, 14 September 2024 (UTC)

References

It doesn't have a fact-checking or editorial policy; circulates for free in random stores; calls itself "award-winning" in its logo but doesn't say what award it won anywhere on its website (and I couldn't find anything via Google); and publishes stories about people getting internships. I would say this is probably not reliable. voorts (talk/contributions) 03:48, 14 September 2024 (UTC)

Is the story about getting an internship misleading or factually incorrect? Is a free-circulation newspaper suddenly a marker of unreliability (even though it's a sustainable business model for metro newspapers across the world, including very reliable and prestigious ones)? What is a "random store"? These are sloppy judgements.

Now, there are plenty of reasons for why it is not to be considered a quality print publication -- even with print circulation and a named staff, it does not have named writers or bylines, and it has sloppy photo citations. There is an advertising policy but not an editorial policy in its print edition. I'm generally flexible on shoddy subpar publications when it comes to hyperlocal news, but this is Vancouver -- there should be no shortage of better material to cite -- you should even be able to local newsblogs with explicit bylines and editorial policy.

Of course, in this case, OP is not using this for hyperlocal news, but provincial news plus an MP, so there's really no reason to use a subpar hyperlocal source on here period when you should find ample coverage elsewhere. SamuelRiv (talk) 04:19, 14 September 2024 (UTC)

Thank you, Yes the story is quite new and developing. I am sure in the coming days, further reliable sources will be reporting on the events. Jattlife121 (talk) 13:29, 14 September 2024 (UTC)

https://www.sikhpa.com/canadian-hindu-org-call-sikh-mps-ideological-opposed-persons-in-leaked-letter/ @SamuelRiv Would this also be considered as such ? Jattlife121 (talk) 15:39, 14 September 2024 (UTC)

Yes we definitely need a RFC, but what happened to the last RFC, and how did it get a reliable rating? I vaguely recall an inconsistency between the balance of views and final decision, yet I can no longer find it. Andromedean (talk) 17:38, 15 September 2024 (UTC)

This doesn't need an RFC and doesn't appear to have had one before. In general reliability is handled by policies and guidelines, so most sources have never been discussed let alone had RFCs. -- LCU ActivelyDisinterested «@» °∆t° 12:20, 16 September 2024 (UTC)

Fadeaway World

Is Fadeaway World a reliable source for basketball content (particularly NBA stats)? Myself and one other user seem to be butting heads about this matter at a couple of ongoing AfDs. I maintain that the site's corrections policy, fact-checking policy, editorial guidelines, and ethics policy prove its reliability, and I believe this is the main argument presented by the other user that questions the site. I'd appreciate wider community input to develop consensus on the matter. Left guide (talk) 11:21, 15 September 2024 (UTC)

Thanks for initiating this. For convenience, I'll post my prior points here. WP:USEBYOTHERS is one guideline:

How accepted and high-quality reliable sources use a given source provides evidence, positive or negative, for its reliability and reputation.

As a background, the trend in newer sports sites is to hire inexperienced writers: Like at SB Nation and similar blog networks, the Maven site operators are independent contractors. They start with low base pay and no benefits, though company officials say they can make more if they drive traffic and ad sales. (The Washington Post) In that Post article, it covered Sports Illustrated and how Maven, which is now the Arena Group—which also owns Fadeaway World—was even hiring high schoolers to write.—Bagumba (talk) 12:07, 15 September 2024 (UTC)

@Bagumba: WP:USEBYOTHERS can sometimes help absent other evidence, but it's not a prerequisite for reliability, and in this topic area, sources seem to gravitate towards primary sources like nba.com and basketball-reference.com (rather than fellow secondary sources) for stats out of simplicity and convenience. As to your second point, I don't see anything on the WP:RS guideline page or elsewhere around the project that automatically deems a source unreliable due to a purported lack of experience in its writers. Meanwhile, there are several policy and guideline clauses that affirm Fadeaway World's reliability from the aforementioned site links (my emphasis):

WP:BESTSOURCES clause of WP:NPOV and WP:REPUTABLE clause of WP:RS:

All articles should be based on reliable, independent, published sources with a reputation for fact-checking and accuracy.

WP:SOURCE clause of WP:V:

Base articles on reliable, independent, published sources with a reputation for fact-checking and accuracy.

Do you have evidence of other reliable sources directly proving that Fadeaway World has made uncorrected false or inaccurate statements about NBA stats? Left guide (talk) 02:37, 16 September 2024 (UTC)

In general, the original primary source is most suitable for straightforward descriptive statements of fact. Is there any reason why you're looking for secondary sources if stats are the only thing being supported? Alpha3031 (t • c) 03:54, 16 September 2024 (UTC)

@Alpha3031: Yes, because it's a source that's being discussed for notability purposes at AfDs, and primary sources don't count towards notability. It's helpful to know whether this source can be used to shore up notability in future article creations to defend against deletion. Left guide (talk) 03:58, 16 September 2024 (UTC)

USEBYOTHERS was an example under the WP:REPUTABLE guideline, which says

The following examples cover only some of the possible types of reliable sources and source reliability issues, and are not intended to be exhaustive.

The NBA is so widely covered, so I don't think we need to be lax on a source's reputation. I'll see what others' perspective is. Thanks.—Bagumba (talk) 04:14, 16 September 2024 (UTC)

This is less use by others, and more commentary by others. Reliable third parties saying the source is unreliable points to the source not having a reputation for fact-checking and accuracy. Also if they operate in the same way as SB Nation then they are not reliable. SB Nation also has nice pages about editorial controls but if you look into the facts each content moderator has to oversee multiple different amateur blogs. This isn't want is meant by editorial control and oversight. -- LCU ActivelyDisinterested «@» °∆t° 12:39, 16 September 2024 (UTC)

• I agree with above statements that NBA is subject of widespread coverage in some serious RS, think SI.com, etc. I dont think we should consider a lesser source like to be eligible to go toe-to-toe with a real RS. Lets call this more of blog type UGC site, that has some policies (no idea of true). But it should not be used against a better source, used for notability, puffery, etc. Jtbobwaysf (talk) 04:07, 17 September 2024 (UTC)

  As an aside, SI has gone downhill after its move to freelancers.—Bagumba (talk) 04:21, 17 September 2024 (UTC)

Listicle as a RS?

In Template:Did you know nominations/Poll (parrot) Di (they-them) and Launchballer are claiming that https://www.naplesnews.com/story/news/local/communities/marco-eagle/2016/08/03/strange-but-true-andrew-jackson-and-cursing-parrot/87926936/ is a reliable source. Additional opinions would be appreciated. RoySmith (talk) 15:00, 15 September 2024 (UTC)

It's sourced to the Marco Eagle which is "Part of the USA TODAY Network" (bottom of page). When you click on "Careers" it goes to here which says Gannett, a mass-media holding company, owns over 200 local media plus USA Today and other things. Overall I see no general reason it would not be reliable, but have not read the article itself to judge. -- GreenC 17:48, 15 September 2024 (UTC)

Please read the article. My question is about the specific article, not the publication in general. RoySmith (talk) 17:53, 15 September 2024 (UTC)

Now that I have looked into this, the source is not reliable. Indeed many of the sources are not reliable because they are merely parroting an old legend, but they are still good for establishing notability of the parrot. I'll work on this article hopefully if I have time. -- GreenC 05:04, 16 September 2024 (UTC)

Snopes says this is unverified [38] which already throws doubt on an "article" that is just a colleciton of trivia. Would not consider a usable fact on WP. --Masem (t) 17:57, 15 September 2024 (UTC)

The claim in question is apparently the main thing the article subject is known for and its basis for notability. I see several other sources on the page that appear to make the same claim based on their titles. Is there a reason why we can't simply use one or two of the article's best sources for the DYK nom? Or are we saying that this is the article's best source? I don't see the point of expending community time litigating something if it can be resolved through simpler means. Left guide (talk) 21:36, 15 September 2024 (UTC)

Reading this and the DYK I'll just say if Snopes have an article on the factoid then it should be considered at least slightly controversial. -- LCU ActivelyDisinterested «@» °∆t° 12:55, 16 September 2024 (UTC)

Daily Mail comparison

Several places have framed the deprecation of the Daily Mail as political, comparing it to Fox News or the Telegram.[39][40][41][42] I want to offer an analysis of an apolitical article for future editors to reference. The chart below compares a 2019 Daily Mail article to the WP:RS cited in the Wikipedia article on Rodney, Mississippi, a rural ghost town.

WP:RS	The Daily Mail
The town is in the Mississippi Delta region of northwest Mississippi.	The town is in the "Mississippi River Delta" (which is in another state and 200 miles away).
Economically dependent on river traffic, Rodney, Mississippi, gradually declined when the Mississippi River shifted several miles away from the town.	The town was "ruined by the American Civil War", framing it as the singular result of Union cannon fire.
The river began to change course when a sandbar formed around the time of the American Civil War.	The river changed course after the Civil War "because of the huge reconstruction" of damaged buildings and the construction of a bridge "crossing the Mississippi River".
The town's decline was exacerbated when the railroad bypassed it to run through Fayette, Mississippi.	After the Civil War, the town underwent "a rebuild and it was decided that a railroad would be constructed" across the river.
Construction begun on Rodney Presbyterian Church in 1829 and Mt. Zion Baptist Church in 1851.	The Presbyterian Church and Mt. Zion were built "after 1763 when the town was inhabited by the French" (about one hundred years too early).
The Presbyterian Church was began by the residents who also initiated the founding of Oakland College.	The church was "constructed by the Native Americans before" the French arrived.
Alston is a former grocery store.	Alston Grocery (shown in a photograph) is described as "a rusted lonely red cabin that survived" bombardment during the Civil War.

There are smaller errors, but those are the major ones. Thanks, Rjjⁱⁱⁱ (talk) 03:52, 16 September 2024 (UTC)

I don't really see why we would even bother giving these random opinion pieces the time of day to be honest. If they don't consider fabricating their own front pages (among other things) a dealbreaker that really says more about them than it does about us. Alpha3031 (t • c) 04:55, 16 September 2024 (UTC)

I will admo

Are you really expecting encyclopaedia type information about a deserted town in America from a popular British newspaper? Something of very marginal interest but fills a few column inches to keep its readers occupied for a couple of minutes? How many readers in America know or care where whole countries like Austria are? It is not where somebody writing about the town would expect to get reliable information from any more than they'd expect to get something reliable about Tyneham in the Los Angeles Times. NadVolum (talk) 08:16, 16 September 2024 (UTC)

These seem to be omissions, not errors, your point is? Slatersteven (talk) 12:24, 16 September 2024 (UTC)

But (and lol) how is saying that the town is in a location ("in another State") not incorrect? Slatersteven (talk) 12:27, 16 September 2024 (UTC)

I had a much longer reply, but I scrapped it. Going over all the issues raised in prior discussions isn't really going to be helpful. The depreciation of the source isn't political but these are poor examples of the reasons why. The issue isn't their bias or minor mistakes, they are not trusted as a publisher. -- LCU ActivelyDisinterested «@» °∆t° 12:51, 16 September 2024 (UTC)

I will admit maybe I was confused, is this arguing that they are generally reliable or generally unreliable? Slatersteven (talk) 13:07, 16 September 2024 (UTC)

@Slatersteven: Generally unreliable. No change from the current situation, Rjjⁱⁱⁱ (talk) 13:36, 16 September 2024 (UTC)

Then what is the point of this? Slatersteven (talk) 13:37, 16 September 2024 (UTC)

"an analysis of an apolitical article for future editors to reference" Rjjⁱⁱⁱ (talk) 13:49, 16 September 2024 (UTC)

Good work... but it might serve us better in the long term as an essay easily pointed to than somethingin the archives of this page. -- Nat Gertler (talk) 04:15, 17 September 2024 (UTC)

I doesn't seem a very convincing case to me. How does this show it is unreliable for the sorts of things one might hope it would be reliable for? NadVolum (talk) 08:25, 17 September 2024 (UTC)

Every major detail in the article is wrong and often in implausible ways. Some errors may be mistakes, but many seem like outright fabrication. This red-brick, protestant church in no way resembles Native American religious sites in the area (like Poverty Point). The railroad crossing is fictitious, and not chronologically plausible. Rjjiii (ii) (talk) 13:43, 17 September 2024 (UTC)

So what? Nobody in their right mind would expect a non-american newspaper to give authorative information about that. NadVolum (talk) 14:42, 17 September 2024 (UTC)

hill-bagging.co.uk

A new user is using hill-bagging.co.uk to change the heights and relative heights of hills and mountains in Wales by asserting that the information used in this web-site is more accurate than Ordnance survey and is acknowledged as being more accurate than Ordnance Survey. I can find no evidence of that assertion in any reliable source. (see here, here and here and many many more.) Even if it were the case, it is my understanding that the Ordnance Survey data is accepted as the best generally available data for geographic information in the UK and that the data collected by enthusiasts with modern GPS equipment doesn't trump that for Wikipedia as is is not peer reviewed or accepted by any reputable body. My view is that this source is intriniscally unreliable and is not an acceptable source for Wikipedia articles.  Velella  ^{Velella Talk}   22:38, 16 September 2024 (UTC)

It seems there may be something to the idea that OS isn’t infallible: [43], [44]. Unfortunately these seem to be WP:SPSes published by enthusiasts. I don’t necessarily disbelieve them; rather it may be a case of WP:VNT. In [45] we read: … a team of independent surveyors who have been responsible for the revision of several summit heights on OS maps, which makes it sound like the enthusiasts may have a means of requesting that OS data be updated. In my view, we should let the OS do the job of evaluating the claims of the enthusiasts. Once OS see fit to update their data, we can update our articles. Barnards.tar.gz (talk) 13:19, 17 September 2024 (UTC)

Southern Illinois Now & Channel New Asia

In the Wikipedia article, 2024 Kolkata rape and murder incident, the name of the victim is being cited to Southern Illinois Now and Channel New Asia.

Most major news sources do not mention the name, see

• User:Fowler&fowler/Sources_that_do_not_mention_the_victim's_name_in_the_Kolkata_rape_and_murder_August_2024

Are the two sources reliable and can they be used to determine due weight in the literature on an equal footing with the vast majority of sources that do not mention the name. See also Talk:2024_Kolkata_rape_and_murder_incident#RfC:_Name_of_victim Fowler&fowler«Talk» 17:18, 17 September 2024 (UTC)

Police Website Media Release as a Source

Hi, I've had an individual remove a paragraph from a Wikipedia page suggesting that https://www.peterboroughpolice.com/en/news/media-release-for-thursday-july-25-2024.aspx per the paragraph is not allowed as a reliable source. I believe this source I have used reliable as it's literally the law enforcement of Peterborough, Ontario putting this out.

"Assault Suspects Sought

Peterborough Police are investigating after an incident early Thursday morning.

At approximately 12:16am on July 25, 2024, officers were called to the Hunter Street East and Mark Street area about a disturbance.  Upon arrival, officers learned that a man had been walking home when he passed a group of four young people.  As he passed them, one spat at him and then when he confronted them another knocked his turban off his head and stepped on it.  Another male tried to intervene and both men were struck in the head with pop cans.  The initial victim was treated at the scene by EMS.

It’s also believed the group of young people is connected to the theft of soft drinks reported at a nearby convenience store (Hunter Street East and Burnham Street) about 11:50pm on Wednesday, July 24, 2024.

The suspects are described as four males wearing dark clothing.

This incident is being classified as a hate crime.

Anyone with information is asked to call Peterborough Police at 705-876-1122 x555 or Crime Stoppers at 1-800-222-8477 or online at www.stopcrimehere.ca"

Jattlife121 (talk) 19:37, 17 September 2024 (UTC)

https://www.thepeterboroughexaminer.com/news/crime/police-investigating-alleged-hate-crime-in-east-city/article_a16db3cf-13cc-5862-b347-5a1327c388c3.html - There is also this noting the stress on "hate crime" Jattlife121 (talk) 20:55, 17 September 2024 (UTC)

RFCBEFORE about revising RSPCRITERIA

Input welcome at WT:RSP § It's RFC time, an WP:RFCBEFORE about revising WP:RSPCRITERIA. Thanks, Levivich (talk) 21:10, 17 September 2024 (UTC)

Clinical perspective on stress, cortisol and adrenal fatigue

Before anyone tells me to just post this to WP:MED, I already did and didn't get much feedback.

For some background I'm looking to improve the page Adrenal fatigue. Adrenal fatigue is a pseudoscientific diagnosis which already makes this a tricky topic. In case you're unfamilliar Adrenal fatigue is the proposed concept that after periods of chronic stress the adrenal glands get tired and don't produce cortisol (super important hormone) correctly. There is many high qaulity studies debunking it. The current article doesn't talk about the symptoms associated with Adrenal fatigue. I don't feel like the approach of "Adrenal fatigue isn't real so it has no symptoms" is very helpful. Ideally I would like to write about the symptoms that have been associated with adrenal fatigue but of course continue to maintain that it has no scientific basis.

The issue that I've come to is that the high qaulity studies debunking Adrenal fatigue don't go into much detail about this sort of thing. They mention vague symptoms but not in detail. I have found a source that does go into details but the issue with this source is that it's written by a chiropracter, James Wilson, and written from the perspective of adrenal fatigue being real. This makes the article unreliable in a lot of ways.

My question is, can I use this as a source in the article with the context that there is no proof the disorder is real? I'm unsure of exactly how I would word this but I was thinking of something along the lines of "Symptoms that have been assocaited with adrenal fatigue include xyz".

Wikipedia article in question: Adrenal fatigue

My sandbox for the article: User:IntentionallyDense/Adrenal fatigue

Research article: Wilson, James L. (2014). "Clinical perspective on stress, cortisol and adrenal fatigue". Advances in Integrative Medicine. 1 (2): 93–96. doi:10.1016/j.aimed.2014.05.002.

Any input is appreciated. IntentionallyDense (talk) 21:37, 17 September 2024 (UTC)