Wikipedia talk:Reliable sources/Archive 41

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Request to scrutinize sources

There is a request to scrutinize sources on Transcendental Meditation by neutral parties. Thanks. (olive (talk) 02:42, 28 April 2013 (UTC))

Again? Blueboar (talk) 19:15, 28 April 2013 (UTC)

source for Slender Man

Found a source (originally here) that is academically vetted; however it is a graduate student's paper, so I'm not sure if it qualifies. Serendi^podous 04:07, 30 April 2013 (UTC)

It can be reliable, it can be accurate, it can even be really, really good. But college papers generally are only published in an online format on the whim of the author, which means WP:USERG sets in and we can't use it. I'm not exactly sure about the links above, though... Konjakupoet (talk) 11:32, 30 April 2013 (UTC)

So it is still possible that this source might be useable? Serendi^podous 22:58, 30 April 2013 (UTC)

Context (of which I know nothing) and what kind of statement needs a source are what really matters, I would think. Konjakupoet (talk) 14:13, 1 May 2013 (UTC)

The paper was given at the college's Graduate Research Colloquium. There may or may not have been some sort of review, but this does not have even the reliable of a Master's thesis, which we use cautiously--but which we know for certain has been approved by a faculty member. As far as I can tell from a quick reading, the paper is based on the same sources used in the WP article, and serves to summarize and extend the material. I would suggest using it as an external link. DGG ( talk ) 20:14, 19 May 2013 (UTC)

Self-referencing

I've never run into this before so I'm not sure how to proceed. Eva Carrillo de Garcia is referenced almost entirely to other Wikipedia articles. I'm pretty sure I've read somewhere that this is unacceptable, but how do I proceed? Do I simply remove the offending references? --TKK ^{bark !} 10:23, 8 May 2013 (UTC)

I didn't delve deeply into that article, but it seems you might have to go to the target pages and copy the references from there. But first you might want to go to the original editor's talk page and inform him or her of the problems with the article, asking that person to copy those original citations for the benefit of all concerned. GeorgeLouis (talk) 16:13, 8 May 2013 (UTC)

I have removed the inappropriate "references" to other Wikipedia articles. It looks like the author simply "referenced" every blue link that appears in the text. These "citations" did not actually support any statements of fact. Going to the "referenced" articles would be pointless... there are no sources at the target articles that are relevant to the article under discussion). Blueboar (talk) 11:57, 18 May 2013 (UTC)

RfC on new library search tool for Wikipedia

We have a new tool, Forward to Libraries, which helps readers find books at their local library related to the articles they are reading. The tool can also be used by editors to find reliable sources. There is an RfC at Wikipedia:Village pump (proposals)#Linking subjects to books at your local library (Forward to Libraries) to determine how this tool should be used on Wikipedia. Interested users may wish to comment there. 64.40.54.57 (talk) 01:14, 20 May 2013 (UTC)

censored media, and the problem of the totalitarian press

At some point, we will need to cross-x against Press Freedom charts with regard to the 'totalitarian regime' problem. WP guidelines already state that blogs are at times acceptable news sources, particularly in case of totalitarian, repressive regimes. I'm thinking mostly poignantly of Western academic research which has indicated that rape rates in the People's Republic of China are roughly on par with that of the U.S., but the Chinese government consistently releases statistics claiming that only 1/10th of Chinese women are raped as American women. The resulting problem? Here on WP we have articles parroting those 'official, reliable' government statistics, painting a portrait of a China free of rape. But of course, outside this area of scholarly specialization, there are situations such as the Burma/Myanmar Aung Lee situation, and other such dissidents operating in marginal environments. -Samsara9 (talk) 02:41, 20 May 2013 (UTC)

At the RS noticeboard, the additional criteria of expertise and objectivity with respect to the item which cited it are taken into consideration, and the question answered is "strong enough for the material which cited it?" rather than a ham handed binary of whether the source is inherently a "wp:rs" We need to add those to the guideline /bring the guideline in line with that. That would significantly help take care of things like this. North8000 (talk) 11:34, 20 May 2013 (UTC)

WP:NPOV factors into this as well... the claims made by a state-controlled press are a significant viewpoint that we should not ignore. Nor should we ignore the counter-claims presented in other sources. We should present both viewpoints, and present them with attribution so the reader knows who is claiming what. Blueboar (talk) 13:02, 20 May 2013 (UTC)

It's not just about state control directly. It's also the fact that, in Canada at least, government advertising is one of the biggest sectors of any media outlet's income, particularly the print media, and particularly in smaller papers. It takes many forms, from the substitution of the brand name of the Board of the Greater Vancouver Regional District for both the region and the RD i.e. Metro Vancouver, as the new term for that region/regional district; it's not the actual name, it's still the GVRD. But it also weighs in on partisan editorials and advertorial content and in the tone and language of news coverage and "spin" - and the avoidance of many topics and more. The same is truef the other main advertisers, banks and other corporations, whose views are not just reflected and repeated in the business sections but endemic in the politicization of content and the omission or spin put on public affairs and culture. Many so-called "reliable sources" are not reliable at all, nor are they non-partisan. Dismissing research blogs as "only opinion and not valid cites" is, believe, "planted" within Wikipedia by the media establishment.....or those who are blind to the reality. Anyone who believes that mainstream media and corporate chains of smalltown papers controlled by same are neutral, impartial sources is sadly misled....Skookum1 (talk) 03:21, 9 June 2013 (UTC)

Nope. Press "freedom" claims are themselves highly politicised. The current reliability system is blind to politicisation: it deals with unreliability as unreliability. For example: the BBC is a highly politicised state controlled news outlet. It is almost always above repute in relation to factual news. Fifelfoo (talk) 08:37, 9 June 2013 (UTC)

Splendidly complicated flow-chart for assessing sources for academic work

A guide to using reliable sources in academic or other scholarly work

I came across this flow-chart at this blog post by an attendee at the recent GLAM-WIKI 2013 conference. Designed for undergraduate students in the first instance, but of wider application. Might be worth a link in the policy - thoughts? Johnbod (talk) 14:41, 23 May 2013 (UTC)

I like it! If the source in question is Wikipedia, you get to "May be a useful overview or starting point but read with caution, corroborating all evidence and interpretations with additional scholarly literature and do not cite." I think that summarises how to use Wikipedia!

I agree that linking to it would be useful. Another option is to upload it to commons and actually use the image. It does say its released under a CC licences... but obviously that is adding significant guidance to a guideline in one go so I'd seek a certain amount of consensus first.

John, are you in contact with the author of the image? It would be courteous to ask him if we could upload it. He may even like to upload it himself!

Yaris678 (talk) 16:29, 23 May 2013 (UTC)

Surely 3 negatives gets you to the big yellow box at top right? Johnbod (talk) 15:36, 28 May 2013 (UTC)

Big yellow box requires a not sure. The third negative takes you to top left. Yaris678 (talk) 13:54, 7 June 2013 (UTC)

Happy to upload. Use, ignore or link as consensus dictates. --Mhbeals (talk) 17:15, 23 May 2013 (UTC)

Brilliant. Thanks.

I don't have a firm opinion on whether linking or showing the image is more appropriate. If we do show it, I think the caption should be something like "This flowchart is a guide to using sources in academic or other scholarly work. It was not developed specifically for Wikipedia but does give a good idea of the issues to consider with sources."

Yaris678 (talk) 18:09, 23 May 2013 (UTC)

There are some non-trivial differences between our practice and academic practice. For example, given two equally reliable review articles making the same claim, WP:MEDRS prefers the more recent one, and it wants it (ideally) to be less than five years old, not less than 30. WhatamIdoing (talk) 20:37, 23 May 2013 (UTC)

That sort of thing depends a lot on the subject area in academia, the the humanities in general being more tolerant. In parts of my area of art history sources some 19th-century works are regularly cited by academics, though like Wikimedia they may need to be used with some caution. Johnbod (talk) 15:30, 28 May 2013 (UTC)

Absolutely. In historical studies (for which this was made) you generally use work up to about 20-30 years old, owing to shifts in scholarship and methodologies in the 70s-90s. You also usually give preference to the older work for the SAME information or evidence, because, essentially, the newer book is just rehashing the same material and its better to give credit to the original. This, of course, is completely inappropriate for other fields where shifts in knowledge are much more rapid and old information sources can be much more harmful. Mhbeals (talk) 08:28, 30 May 2013 (UTC)

I would like to propose we do two things:

1. Change the description at File:Is This Source Okay?.png to say "A guide to using sources in the academic discipline of history"
2. Add the file to the see also section with the caption "The academic discipline of history, has its own norms for evaluating sources, illustrated by this flow chart."

Yaris678 (talk) 18:16, 4 June 2013 (UTC)

And significantly problematic for history sources. This chart would rule out NLR, it certainly would rule out "Time, work discipline and industrial capitalism." A number of the assumptions such as "citations" being relevant are entirely out of line with practice for evaluating historical papers. It is also way off base for the evaluation of monographic works. I commend the author though. The flow-chart's organisation needs some work. Could be useful for the author to cross reference against WP:HISTRS and some of the other stuff out there that's history specific. Also, as someone partly responsible for other work in this area, I commend the author and have to question why historically interested and trained editors are so interested in source quality compared to editors with other interests? I'm worried about this, it needs improvement, the instincts and some of the insights are fundamentally worthwhile. Fifelfoo (talk) 08:44, 9 June 2013 (UTC)

Does "NLR" mean New Left Review? It doesn't exactly sound like a journal directly concerned with history.

HISTRS is a mess (at the moment, it doesn't even provide a sensible definition of what counts as a "history article"), and it's possible that HISTRS needs to be updated to match this analysis at least as much as the other way around. WhatamIdoing (talk) 22:19, 9 June 2013 (UTC)

I'm seriously having trouble believing your first sentence; at a culture shock level, so I don't feel fit to respond. Regarding the second sentence I don't recall HISTRS having a sensible definition of a historical article on wikipedia, I wasn't able to resolve that, some other editor might be able to. The flow chart looks, frankly, like instrumentalist social science bullshit and is susceptible to Thompsons' Poverty of Theory: a major "old" New Left criticism of vulgar theorisation. Past discussion on HISTRS has identified the active time frame on some historical topics being 90 years +. The laughable concept of political engagement in the flow chart is the kind of epistemic break with disciplinarity that only conceited middle aged Hegelians undergo during a crisis. The flow chart, in its current form, is a perfect way to reduce our history articles to lists of "facts." Fifelfoo (talk) 06:27, 10 June 2013 (UTC)

Author here. I am not quite sure I understand your criticisms (so please do clarify in more specific detail). The guide was developed to aid my undergraduate history students evaluate possible sources for their essays and was widely acknowledged by colleagues to be an accurate representation of the vetting process. It isn't meant to be dogmatic but to promote critical appraisals, something we should all do before believing anything we read. It certainly would not exclude Thompson, as his books and articles are usually important staples of undergraduate bibliographies, as noted in the chart, and I am not sure why it is inappropriate for monographs; could you point to where it fails to account for them? As for citations, surely any historiographical work that lacks citations is suspect; we do not let undergraduates omit them let alone published academics--they are an absolutely crucial part of our evaluation of historical papers. And surely an encyclopaedia should have its basis in facts, no? Mhbeals (talk) 18:22, 10 June 2013 (UTC)

The encyclopaedia ought (in history) to have its basis in historian's interpretation. Interpreting "facts" is a secondary exercise that requires disciplinary expertise. Wikipedia can't rely on expertise, our job isn't to interpret but to represent past interpretations. The critical appraisal process needs to be somewhat different to the critical appraisal process of undergraduates. In detail: The centrepiece of each AHR fails as "May be useful as a starting point." For wikipedia, Review Articles ought to be the starting point, weighting, and structuration of articles. "Was it written in the last 30 years?" Good gracious. We can't produce original knowledge on wikipedia: if the last scholarly work on the Returned Services League (Australia) is 60 years old, that's the last scholarly work. "Make sure you critically assess its citations" sounds more like "make sure you assess its impact via a citation count," instead of "determine via its bibliography and what it cites if it is scholarly." RS has tried to impose h-index counts before being beaten back by the role of reviews and review articles in the humanities instead of cross-citation counts. The problem of "what is a scholarly publisher?," in the context of Australia the "routledge" problem is dangerous here. A significant volume of monographs are published through commercial publishers rather than scholarly publishers. Apart from the recentism in relation to scholarship, I think this is a great flow process for undergraduates who can exercise disciplinary skill to produce original insights. Wiki's job is much more strongly to reflect the consensus of the higher quality sources, scholarship and quality commercial. We've almost never had success through a bibliography analysis of a text at RS/N: it requires the exercise to too great a disciplinary skill to vest in editors. (I'm not trying to be grumpy, sorry if I appear that way). Fifelfoo (talk) 12:15, 12 June 2013 (UTC)

Hi Fifelfoo, My suggestion was that the image should be in the "See also" section as an illustration of how sources are evaluated in the academic discipline of history. I don't think anyone is suggesting that the flow chart illustrates what we do on Wikipedia. Yaris678 (talk) 14:26, 16 June 2013 (UTC)

Questionable deletion from the main page re IMDB

Re this removal from the guideline, I dispute this, as I've had to deal with imdb.com for my own listing there (I'm a minor actor) in order to get my presence on various shows approved, which didn't just involve paid staff checking, but also getting input from production companies I've worked on to approve my information. Same with listings for e.g. Chief Dan George. Like Wikipedia, they require citations, and IMO they are no less reliable than much of what is on Wikipedia, and are not subject to the vagaries of the many conflicting guidelines and "editor attitudes" here, nor of sweeping judgments such as what is now how that paragraph leads. Which is subjective and not based in facts about how imdb.com operates; what was deleted is correct, that paid staff do check submitted information and go to the source (production companies and official citations). Yes, their comments section is user-generated like any bulletin board, but filmographies, cast, location and more are all verified information. Not from out-of-date and POV sources, as is often the case here at Wikipedia.Skookum1 (talk) 00:26, 10 June 2013 (UTC)

Further comment, if being owned by AOL is a problem for a citation, then the Huffington Post is also not a reliable site by the same reasoning; and the corporate ties of other mainstream media are in the same league. Well, the bias and agenda in mainstream media is often in-your-face and twisted, as I know personally all too well, yet mainstream media are defended by WP:RS and on-article citation issues all the time. Many blogs and certain UGC sites are reviewed and checked; whereas "peer reviewed" by a politically-appointed news editor is not really "peer" review, it is agenda-driven.Skookum1 (talk) 00:30, 10 June 2013 (UTC)

I am the editor who performed the revert in the link at the top of this article. I did it for a number of reasons, which I perhaps should have explained here:

• The edit summary accompanying the edit seemed to suggest that Amazon's acquisition of IMDB was recent rather than in 1998.
• For example, for weeks preceding the debut of Zero Hour, Anthony Edwards, the male lead, was listed under the full cast and crew section of the page instead of the top, as reflected on the CBS page.
• The contentions in the edit summary, imo, were not supported by the Internet Movie Database article.
• IMDB has been listed as being unreliable for years.
• The edit left the information about IMDB in the "unreliable" section of the page.
• If there has been some sea change in IMDB's status/reliability, we should discuss it first and start with its page.

Thanks,

Jim in Georgia Contribs Talk 01:24, 10 June 2013 (UTC)

IMDb is an Entertainment industry standard source of work information by a for profit company, Amazon. The paid staff checked information affects the lives and careers of thousands of actors and actresses as well as crew and other support staff. Why anyone would believe that Amazon would knowingly allow false information to be posted seems naive at best.

Was it always a fact checked site, obviously not, but it is currently and has been for over a decade. The ignorance to the site's use of paid staff to fact check information before its posted needs to be stemmed. Skookum has encountered their veracity in fact checking first hand, as have I. I too have an entry for my production work. The edit I made was factual and provided clarity on the topic. --Scalhotrod - Just your average banjo playing, drag racing, cowboy... (talk) 05:39, 10 June 2013 (UTC)

This is consistent with Wikipedia:External links/Perennial websites#IMDb. In addition to Scalhotrod's question about whether their process has changed, there's also the question of whether this claim of editorial oversight is true for absolutely every single bit of information on the website. WhatamIdoing (talk) 17:30, 10 June 2013 (UTC)

The essay Wikipedia:External links/Perennial websites#IMDb is another example of how IMDb has been unfairly demeaned. There is debate on that essay's Talk page regarding this very same issue. Is there a WP policy regarding IMDb in its current state that is not based on opinion or conjecture? --Scalhotrod - Just your average banjo playing, drag racing, cowboy... (talk) 21:20, 12 June 2013 (UTC)

Tag needed

The article Alpha course has plenty of references, but they are mostly to its subject's own web site. What would be the best way to deal with this? (I guess I'd like to place a tag on the article to say so – but I have failed to find such a tag.) Maproom (talk) 07:17, 11 June 2013 (UTC)

You probably want {{third-party sources}}, if you believe that it's received enough attention from WP:Independent sources that it is WP:Notable as an WP:ORGanization and therefore not in need of WP:MERGEing or WP:DELETEing. WhatamIdoing (talk) 17:48, 11 June 2013 (UTC)

I don't think it has received enough attention from WP:Independent sources. And I can't judge whether it is notable. It appeared to have two references to sources which are independent, reliable, and accessible by me. I found that one was not to the source it purported to be, but to the subject's own web site, so I deleted it. I now find that the other, though kind of relevant, and to a good source (The Telegraph) does not mention the subject of the article. So I am hoping that someone with more experience than me can look at it. Maproom (talk) 18:53, 11 June 2013 (UTC)

If, to the best of your ability to tell, you don't think it has received enough attention from independent sources to be notable (that is, to qualify for a separate article on the English Wikipedia), then you should send it to WP:AFD to let the community figure out whether it does. WhatamIdoing (talk) 01:05, 12 June 2013 (UTC)

My view is that the subject probably is notable. But when I see 40 references, almost all to the organisation's own web sites, I feel that something is wrong. I'm out of my depth here, and will now drop the subject. Maproom (talk) 07:58, 12 June 2013 (UTC)

Rant

Not sure where to vent, but this forum seems like a convenient place. So I have been doing a lot of WP:NPP lately and I think AT LEAST one in every ten new article have either zero sources at all or none that pass WP:RS. And in most cases all I can do is tag them and hope someone will eventually come along and fix the articles unless I know enough about the subject to try and fix it myself. This is insanely frustrating and I think the tolerance for non or poorly sourced articles is a real problem that is hurting Wikipedia. We have editors churning out articles with no regard for sourcing knowing that the subject is one that will make it hard or impossible to delete it. IMHO no articles should be allowed without WP:RS sources cited no matter how notable the topic might be. They should be dealt with the same way BLPs are. No WP:RS = 10 day fix it or it goes away tag. OK, rant concluded and we now return you to your regularly scheduled discussions. -Ad Orientem (talk) 04:33, 13 June 2013 (UTC)

This is unfortunately something that the community has never been able to agree on. I remember the drama surrounding the creation of BLPprod - just getting agreement on that much was a nightmare. Someguy1221 (talk) 04:50, 13 June 2013 (UTC)

Well that sucks. I just read your linked proposal and counterargument. I can see the counter argument. They have a point in that we don't want to drive off newbies. But on the other hand you can't seriously call yourself an encyclopedia if you have no sourcing standards. And with all due respect, if the guidelines (which we do have) are not enforced then they are merely guidelines and not standards. Maybe an acceptable medium would be to go with a 30 day grace period for new articles (BLPs exceped). I love Wikipedia but this situation where we tolerate God knows how many unsourced articles, some of which have been around for years(!), really hurts our credibility. -Ad Orientem (talk) 05:10, 13 June 2013 (UTC)

Here is a view from an inexperienced editor who only read this because he accidentally left this page on his watchlist (see previous question). We shouldn't mind driving off those newbies who only came here to write an article about their business/favourite band/grandmother. Newbies who come here with the intention of becoming useful editors don't generally start by creating articles. Maproom (talk) 05:43, 13 June 2013 (UTC)

My first thought was, only one in ten? If we are getting 90% of articles sourced, we have cause to rejoice.

I'd like to recommend Ad Orientem's recent work with the new page patrolling/page curation to anyone looking for a model. He's not slapping a dozen tags on pages that are just minutes old; he's thoughtfully picking out the one or two biggest problems, and not tagging new pages at all if there is no serious flaw. And he's doing this in the face of frustration from wanting things to be much better than they are. We need more people like him. WhatamIdoing (talk) 02:21, 18 June 2013 (UTC)

WP:RS#Biased or opinionated_sources

Ugh. I wrote out a longer explanation for this change only to accidently go back in my browser. I don't feel like typing it all over from scratch but suffice it to say that I moved WP:RS#Biased or opinionated_sources out of Self-published and questionable sources since this applies to all sources, not just SPSs and questionable ones.[1] I'm not 100% sure where the best place for it to go is but due to its placement, editors reading this might mistakenly that this only applies to SPSs and questionable ones. Thanks, heading to bed now. A Quest For Knowledge (talk) 03:41, 11 July 2013 (UTC)

Help

As a newbie on Wikipedia, I have read through a lot of policy and guidelines regarding WP:RS but I can't find help on advice/policy which clearly tackles the following issue. Apologies if this is not written up in the right place. If so please advise where it is appropriate to raise this issue.

WP:PUS cautions against accepting specific examples of biased media at face value (e.g. state propaganda organisations, tabloid newspapers). But I can find no equivalent cautions against well-funded propaganda campaigns in the so-called "free" media, where news articles advancing a particular point of view are widely distributed in supposedly "reliable" media, at the behest of paid media consultants. The material in question lies somewhere in the 'grey area' between paid advertising and clearly sincere journalism. There would seem to be a conflict of interest situation, in that large sums of money have changed hands to ensure publication of a particular viewpoint. However, I can find no clear Wikipedia guideline covering such material.

To illustrate, one particular problem can be generically described as follows:

1. There has been substantial media coverage of an event which appears to establish facts detrimental to an identified person.
2. That person has engaged a high-priced 'media consultant' to manage media coverage.
3. There is circumstantial evidence that a particular journalist 'A', has close links to the 'media consultant'.
4. There is a forensic report by a government-paid scientist which has not been released to the public, but the content of the report has been reported by journalists who attended a court hearing where the report was tendered in evidence.
5. A usually 'reliable' media source has published a video which disputes the conclusions of the forensic report. The video claims authority in possessing a copy of the forensic report, but in support of its view cites only the opinions of unidentified 'experts' and does not state their qualifications.
6. Journalist 'A' is listed as one of the two 'advisers' to that media release.

It seems to me that being able to link journalist 'A' to a paid media campaign should lead an editor to question the reliability of reports the journalist has worked on, and seek corroborating evidence from an independent source. In the above example, the citation of unidentifiable experts should lead to further alarm bells regarding the reliability of the report. To my surprise, I encountered vehement resistance from an editor who regarded the reputation of the publisher as outweighing any other concerns about the source of the report.

I argue that linkage to such paid media campaigns should be explicitly mentioned in Wikipedia guidelines as a factor to be weighed in assessing due weight. Lack of such mention is an identifiable hole in this area of Wikipedia policy and advice for contributors, which leads to a systemic bias in favour of those who can afford to buy favourable coverage of issues.afd (talk) 04:32, 1 August 2013 (UTC)

I think that it's not easy, and therefore we don't issue oversimplified advice.

It's too easy for any POV pusher (or conspiracy theorist) to claim that normally reliable sources have a "conflict of interest" and therefore can't be used. Naturally, only sources that disagree with my personal opinion have been bought, but as a general rule of thumb, you could dispute anything published by scientists who are employed at any for-profit business (obviously they all have high-priced marketing people) or most government research labs (more marketing people, though not so well paid), and probably all university researchers (more paid professional publicity departments), especially if you can prove that the author has written about this subject more than once.

The bottom line is this: it is the job of journalists and their editors to resist media campaigns. It is not our job to decide which individual articles have been been published by someone shirking his duty to maintain editorial independence.

If you have concerns about specific instances, you should try WP:RSN, with the name of the exact sources you're discussing and a direct quotation of the sentences in the article that the source would support. Also, you might keep in mind that it's highly likely that all of the sources you're looking at are WP:PRIMARYNEWS (e.g., eyewitness reports of what the unpublished scientific paper says) and therefore of only limited use in any article. WhatamIdoing (talk) 05:31, 1 August 2013 (UTC)

I too would be very skeptical about using such circumstancial evidence to disregard or de-emphasize otherwise reliable sources. To me that seems a recipe to get rid of sources we don't like by accusing them of such a conflict of interest. Huon (talk) 06:00, 1 August 2013 (UTC)

Discussion at village pump about online references clarification in WP:RS

Link Wikipedia:Village pump (policy)#Are online references mandatory for new articles?

I have put a suggested modification to WP:RS up at the village pump after experiencing a problem with an editor requiring online references. NealeFamily (talk) 06:54, 11 July 2013 (UTC)

Beacon Press block

The following link without the spaces has triggered a protection filter: http://www. beacon. org

I ask that the entire website at beacon.org be unblocked as it is a scholarly publishing site operated by Unitarian Universalist Church. I know of no reason why it should be blocked. The link works and the particular link is useful for historical purposes in explaining the facts of the Pentagon Papers case. The particular link without the spaces is http : // www. beacon. org/ client / pentagonpapers. cfm

Thanks for help in unblocking. Skywriter (talk) 09:59, 28 July 2013 (UTC)

Proposal for new policy

(This proposal was originally posted at Wikipedia talk:Policies and guidelines#Limitations of RS+NOR, with a solution, but I was asked to post it here and at WT:NOR.)

Limitations of RS+NOR, with a solution:

The motivation for this discussion is my frequent annoyance over the years with articles that don't explain things well, or don't give enough information, because experts can't simply write what they know, due to NOR and the need for RS.

An example is Sailing faster than the wind, where section "BOLD EDIT NOTICE" of its Talk page presents an excellent explanation (the analogy of a geared transmission) that couldn't be included in the article due to NOR and lack of RS. Note that I don't care if this explanation is correct or not: that is immaterial to the problem I wish to discuss here. I'm giving this as a motivational example, but I am discussing WP policies and guidelines here, not details of the example.

Now to get to it: reliance on the availability of good RSs leads to a good encyclopedia, but this technique has limitations. Once in a while a Talk page provides some NOR explanation that is clearer that the one given in the article. This example, I believe, is such a case. While this isn't the purpose of a Talk page, it is a very valuable service for WP readers who read the Talk pages as well the articles, as I do.

It also shows an inherent limitation of the RS+NOR policies, as applied to articles. An improved WP policy, and the solution I'm offering for discussion here, would be to allow NOR explanations or knowledge in articles and Talk pages, without a reference, until someone provides a good NOR reason to object to them, or an RS is found that supports a good replacement.

This would be an additional policy, modifying the RS and NOR policies, or would be a modification of the RS and NOR policies themselves (I'm not proposing which). David Spector (talk) 18:52, 13 August 2013 (UTC)

I support the above comments and proposal.Gautier lebon (talk) 13:42, 14 August 2013 (UTC)

What do you mean by a 'NOR explanation'? NOR stands for 'no original research' - but you seem to be arguing for allowing 'OR'/'original research' in articles. AndyTheGrump (talk) 13:51, 14 August 2013 (UTC)

No, unless another problem is solved: I don't see how such a policy would be designed except by recognzing expertise of editors authorized to add such unsourceabe-but-correct explanations to articles, and we generally don't check editors' expertise. If we did, what should we do with, for example, a law professor who wrote a book largely on linguistics, which he misunderstood, if he chose to offer unsourceable content on linguistics (other than what's in the book) into Wikipedia? Professors of physics disagree on several issues; whose explanation should we accept without sourcing? If the problem is simply one of clarity, then sourceability can remain as a criterion, so the above proposal is presumably not about clarity. The proposer said that "I don't care if this explanation is correct or not: that is immaterial to the problem I wish to discuss here"; that may have been meant only for the proposer's view of the sailing subject, but if it was meant more generally, then we should add a concern on how to check accuracy if sourceability is to be no longer necessary. (The proposal is for a change in policies, so I'm responding on that level.) Nick Levinson (talk) 15:33, 14 August 2013 (UTC)

I think that the problem is an over-strict interpretation. Correctly explaining the material is what good writers and good editors do. Analogies, examples, comparisons, and other similar types of explanations, iff agreed by everyone that they are correct, are acceptable. For example, if the source says something about moments of inertia, it's okay to translate that into an everyday example: it's harder to push a door open if you push next to the hinge than if you push at the far edge, and it's easier to push the door open if you push straight onto it, rather than at an awkward angle. If the source says something about mechanical advantage, it's okay to give a familiar example of mechanical advantage of "like gears" or "like using a lever". Passing explanatory examples don't have to be straight out of the source. WhatamIdoing (talk) 21:56, 14 August 2013 (UTC)

I don't understand what is being proposed: "...allow NOR explanations or knowledge in articles and Talk pages, without a reference, until someone provides a good NOR reason to object to them..." Are you proposing that original research should be permitted until someone points out that it's original research? Or are you saying that WP:NOR isn't a good NOR reason on its own? If so, what would be a good NOR reason? Pburka (talk) 23:32, 14 August 2013 (UTC)

I agree with what Nick Levinsons says, but I also like the proposal from WhatamIdoing. Maybe this could be explored further?Gautier lebon (talk) 14:03, 16 August 2013 (UTC)

This being a proposal to change policy wholesale rather than to tweak it for a minor adjustment, expect huge resistance across Wikipedia. And it's hard to think of unsourceable content that would generally be agreed on as true except in subjects with few followers and therefore few sources that meet our criteria (or any sources). Among major subjects, agreed-on content can probably be sourced. For example, to say that a square is a two-dimensional figure with four sides of equal length and four corners of equal numbers of degrees may be hard to source to a peer-reviewed math journal but it will be covered in school textboks and dictionaries of ordinary English. So this is about subjects that have few or no sources and therefore no source for a point to be reported, which intensifies the question of how to determine who's an expert whose contributions to Wikipedia we would accept without sourcing and on which subjects. Nick Levinson (talk) 15:38, 16 August 2013 (UTC)

Moreover, it is difficult to accept or imagine that a usable explanation of something that needs explaining has not been published somewhere, else. Wikipedia does not publish anything of substance first. It takes some effort, true, but find a usable source and then put it in the article: Eg,, "It has been described 'like falling off a log.' [Cite: Popular Log Rolling Magazine]" -- "It is like a gear." [Cite: Fred Seafarer, Sailing for the Mechanics Minded], -- etc. etc. Alanscottwalker (talk) 22:03, 16 August 2013 (UTC)

And then you'll get hit with complaints from some overly strict users about alleged SYNTH violations, on the grounds that source #1 says that digons are two-dimensional shapes, and source #2 says that triangles are two-dimensional shapes, and you have written, "Like a triangle, which can be a three-sided, two-dimensional shape, a digon can also be a two-dimensional shape", even though you have not cited a source that happens to directly compare digons and triangles.

Editors need to be free to make simple comparisons and to WP:Build the web. This is fundamentally explaining things in your own words so that readers understand them, and it's our primary purpose. WhatamIdoing (talk) 00:14, 17 August 2013 (UTC)

Well, there are worse things Wikipedians discuss besides the proper representation of sources. Which is pretty much the purpose of article talk pages. Wikpedians need to be free to discuss, review, and revise because what they need is freedom to properly represent reliable sources in making articles, which is what this corner of building the web is about. Alanscottwalker (talk) 13:24, 17 August 2013 (UTC)

Thank you. I did not see any insurmountable objections to my proposal. Here are my responses to all previous responses. Interspersing them would interfere with their flow, so I've grouped them all here. Please feel free to continue the discussion. David Spector (talk) 12:18, 18 August 2013 (UTC)

• Gautier lebon, thanks.
• AndyTheGrump, "some NOR explanation" means simply "an explanation that currently would be excluded by NOR". I'm indeed arguing for a highly limited way for such explanations or information to be included in articles. The modification of NOR+RS lies in the ability of any editor to replace the NOR explanation with a better one, and to support it from further changes by supplying RSs.
• Nick Levinson, yes, under current policy we would need to add evaluations of experts' credentials, and that would be difficult to the point of impossibility. My proposal is to allow anyone (not even an expert) to make an uncontroversial edit without needing RS. Subsequently, anyone else could contest the edit, so the information should improve over time. Finally, anyone offering RS would produce a stable edit that could not easily be contested. No check for accuracy is needed, because we trust editors to try their best to offer good edits. Again, this applies to uncontroversial edits only.
• WhatamIdoing, I agree with your points, but they do not address my proposal directly.
• Pburka, "Are you proposing that original research should be permitted until someone points out that it's original research?" No. "Or are you saying that WP:NOR isn't a good NOR reason on its own?" No. I'm saying that we should relate NOR and RS: in the absence of RS, NOR is permitted. And perhaps we need a template to mark such information, so readers will take it as a provisory due to no RS having been found.
• Gautier lebon, I don't see what you are seeing. Can you be more explicit, please?
• Nick Levinson, "This being a proposal to change policy wholesale rather than to tweak it for a minor adjustment, expect huge resistance across Wikipedia." I do. But something needs to be done to improve the many articles and parts of articles that are valuable but have no RS. "And it's hard to think of..." But I gave a good example of just such a case: an explanation that really helps understand the subject, yet probably has no RS. "Among major subjects, agreed-on content can probably be sourced." I disagree. And among minor subjects, unsourced content is already in the majority of all articles, especially older articles. "So this is about subjects that have few or no sources" Actually, almost all subjects have specific areas that have no sources. Experts know these areas and can improve the articles a lot if we know how to relax NOR and RS to allow it. "which intensifies the question of how to determine who's an expert" not really: if everyone agrees with the content, it's okay. If they have significant disagreement, this proves the information is controversial. Controversial information requires RS, NPOV, etc. as at present.
• Alanscottwalker, "it is difficult to accept or imagine that a usable explanation of something that needs explaining has not been published somewhere, else." It is not difficult at all--I provided exactly such an example. "Wikipedia does not publish anything of substance first." Yes, there is a difference between significant OR and the kind of OR involved in explaining how something works, or some uncontroversial fact of a famous dead person. WP must continue not to be a forum for original new ideas. But old ideas, known to experts, should also be permitted within the restrictions provided by this proposal. "It takes some effort, true, but find a usable source..." I agree--I'm not at all arguing against RS. But frequently, there is no RS that supports what an expert wants to add. Theoretical examples are easy to think up.
• WhatamIdoing, I agree that SYNTH requires care.
• Alanscottwalker, I agree that the free use of Talk pages is important.

David Spector (talk) 12:18, 18 August 2013 (UTC)

Side point: Where you wrote "in the absence of RS, NOR ... [would be] permitted", I think you meant "in the absence of RS, OR ... [would be] permitted". If you didn't, it's confusing, since NOR is permitted now with or without RS. (If you meant "NOR" as a shortcut to a policy, "OR" also works.)

More generally: I think you're proposing that OR not be deleted without a good reason beyond simply being OR. For example, I think the modern mathematician who solved Fermat's Last Theorem basically just thought and wrote for seven years (if using a calculator or computer merely saved time), the mathematician using agreed-upon premises and Fermat's conclusion to produce what mathematicians had been seeking for over three centuries. Suppose the modern mathematician had first published his results in Wikipedia. Since it would have consisted simply of calculable inferences from agreed-on starting points, and presumably with his road map anyone with basic math skills would have been able to do the same calculations and get to the same proof he had developed, if deleting it from Wikipedia as OR would have needed a good reason, what would that reason have been? In his case, it turns out that when he presented his proof someone found an error and he spent another year fixing it, a year in which other mathematicians could not be certain that a proof would not have to be re-researched from scratch. Prior to the discovery of the error, had the proof as it stood then been added into Wikipedia as its first appearance, one could argue that the high complexity would be a good reason for deletion as OR, but where should the threshold of complexity be placed? Similar problems apply to health remedies which are efficacious but for which the mechanism is uknown; an unsourced explanation of the likely mechanism even by a physician would almost certainly be either vague or controversial.

You may be arguing for controversialness as a low threshold. Edits that are not likely to be challenged can be added now without citing a source, although a source has to exist (I think that encompasses, or at least is not far from, what you mean by uncontroversial). If, hypothetically, the article on Euclid of ancient Greece had omitted that he had been born, adding that would likely not be challenged (although in such a case a date of birth might be); the fact of birth would not need the citing of a source. What's not challengeable in the view of an editor adding it might be challenged anyway by another (there probably couldn't be immunity), and the response then is for someone to source it or delete it (preferrably in that order except for contentious content in biographies of living persons). It may be that the system you propose is already essentially in effect (several templates seem to be close to what you propose, such as {{citation needed}}, but, if not, perhaps you should propose what the template should display in an article). If our system is already essentially what you propose, you may already have the permissions you need to edit as you have proposed. If another editor disagrees with one of your edits, they can edit and both of you can resolve the matter. I'll take your word on the probable unsourceability of the sailing point (I'll assume, for example, that no sailing magazine or newspaper story discussed it) but in general I find it hard to think of major subjects for which sourcing is unavailable, although you and I may disagree on whether a given sbject is major or minor, so maybe that dichotomy is unclear and instead I should refer to subjects with adequate or inadequate sourcing in existence.

Insofar as some OR is already in some articles and has not been challenged, perhaps there's already some tolerance. But I might prefer that OR, such as on the sailing point, be added to a website on sailing, more specifically a website that has editors who vet contributions on sailing. A bunch of such websites probably exist. Then, someone lnowledgeable would likely have decided that the explanation was likely true. Then, perhaps it could be cited in Wikipedia (not by the same author, if that raises a conflict of interest), the content having been approved for probable accuracy.

Nick Levinson (talk) 17:40, 18 August 2013 (UTC)

The saling faster than the wind story actually worked out as outlined above by Nick Levinson. Indeed the matter was documented in reliable specialized sailing blogs, so it can be included in Wikipedia under the current policy. But, because the specialists understand the basis of how it works, they didn't post a simple explanation. So, under current policies, a simple explanation cannot be posted becuase it would be SYNTH or OR. It's like trying to document that the sun rises in the east because the earth rotates in a particular direction. Since everybody knows the basics, you don't find them easily. What you do find is detailed scientific stuff, but referring to that tends to be OR (because a massive simplification is OR) or SYNTH. Regarding a specific proposal, how about allowing talk pages to have a section called "views from specialists". It would be up to the contributor to provide a convincing explanation of why he or she should be believed.Gautier lebon (talk) 10:14, 19 August 2013 (UTC)

The sun-rotation example actually serves the point that policies do not need changing. It took me only a moment just minutes ago to find a reliable source on that exact issue from NASA (by Googling "Earth (rotate OR rotation) sun (rise OR rising)" (without quotation marks) (I think it was the first result returned)). Probably, a better example for what you're saying does exist, but I think it's going to be for subjects with few sources, such as a field of study that only a relatively few people pursue.

As to talk pages, you can do that now. If you meant on articles, I don't think expertise (sourced or not) should be isolated from the rest of an article; rather, it should be integrated throughout. And we don't want editors adding their qualifications into articles, since that would essentially require signing editorial contributions right in the articles and that in turn would require freezing editorial contributions against most edits by other editors, so that suggestion needs a rationale strong enough to overcome what will likely be widespread objections.

Nick Levinson (talk) 16:05, 19 August 2013 (UTC) (Added on Google: 16:11, 19 August 2013 (UTC))

Can you or someone supply several examples of such SYNTH disputes? What we do is (not too close) paraphrase sources, so wouldn't the response be 'no, its just a proper paraphrase of the source.' Alanscottwalker (talk) 16:23, 19 August 2013 (UTC)

because the specialists understand the basis of how it works, they didn't post a simple explanation. So, under current policies, a simple explanation cannot be posted

This is not true. You are supposed to post simple explanations. You are supposed to WP:Make technical articles understandable. You are supposed to write in plain English, even if the source uses complicated jargon. You are supposed to write easily understood summaries, even if the source went into enormous detail. This is the fundamental job of an encyclopedia editor. If you are seriously encountering problems with people telling you that material supported by complicated or hyper-detailed specialist sources must be presented in equally complicated ways here at the English Wikipedia, then you need to go get support from people who understand the actual rules, either over at a WikiProject or at WP:NORN. WhatamIdoing (talk) 03:07, 20 August 2013 (UTC)

Outdent. Referring to my experiences, I do see the point of what Nick says. Indeed, the issue arose with respect to a topic that very few people care about and know about. The point made by WhatamIdoing is important. Apparently some editors don't understand that and think that a simple explanation is SYNTH. Finally, Nick says "As to talk pages, you can do that now". Apparently some editors don't know that (or agree), because that is precisely what happened to me. I posted an unsourced (but easy-to-understand) explanation on the talk pages, but it was removed on the grounds that OR is not allowed even on talk pages. So maybe the solution is just to clarify the policy to make it crystal clear that the points made above by Nick and WhatamIdoing are correct and are part of the policy.--Gautier lebon (talk) 10:46, 22 August 2013 (UTC)

(To outdent, surround the word with double braces and no period (it's a template name).)

Without looking at the place where your talk post was reverted, I recommend that in future cases of proposing something that would look like OR you propose the content and solicit sources, in case a reader of the talk page knows of one (preferrably after you already searched and didn't find one). I've done something like that without being reverted, even though I should have Googled first.

Simplification would not be unauthorized synthesis provided it is accurate. But, while Einstein could write a book on relativity for high school students and did, I wouldn't try writing one myself, because I'd likely get a critical part of the simplification wrong, and then it wouldn't be just simplification anymore. Possibly, editors who object to a simplification as synthesis are disputing its accuracy as simplification, either because they have found an error or because they don't understand it and don't trust its presence in Wikipedia.

If a policy or guideline should be clarified, draft the exact wording (rewrite the existing language of a specific policy or guideline and its specific section).

Nick Levinson (talk) 16:17, 22 August 2013 (UTC)

Thank you, all. Again, I did not see any insurmountable objections to my proposal. Here are my responses to these new responses. Interspersing them would interfere with their flow, so I've grouped them all here. Please feel free to continue the discussion. David Spector (talk) 15:52, 23 August 2013 (UTC)

• Nick Levinson, I agree with OR instead of NOR. Rev. 1 (WT:Verifiability#Proposal_for_new_policy) already had this change. "I think you're proposing that OR not be deleted without a good reason beyond simply being OR." Yes. "Suppose the modern mathematician had first published his results in Wikipedia." This is a laborious example. First, you probably know well that WP is not for publishing results. The Sailing example is a new and clearer explanation, not a new research result. My proposal modifies only certain parts of NOR/RS/VERIFY. The other parts, and other policies, remain unchanged. I will admit that there will always be gray areas when applying WP policies. We do the best we can. I'm just trying to shift a gray boundary a little bit in the direction of being reasonable. It is reasonable to allow uncontroversial OR information to be added to WP, if there is ever a chance for RS support. Even if a breakthrough is first announced in a WP article, and it proves to be erroneous after a year, so what? That is worth it so that in other articles better information can be included, although having no RS. And note that WP is already saturated with lots of OR with no RS, particularly in older articles. If one objects to my proposal, why not be consistent and delete 25% of WP for this violation? I'm basically giving a somewhat clearer guideline for retaining this 25% until better information, or RS, comes along. "where should the threshold of complexity be placed?" Let it be placed, like so many other judgments, in the hands and hearts of WP editors. My proposal does not eliminate the many WP mechanisms for editing, including discussions on Talk pages. "Similar problems apply to health remedies which are efficacious but for which the mechanism is uknown; an unsourced explanation of the likely mechanism even by a physician would almost certainly be either vague or controversial." This example is already forbidden by WP:MEDRS. My proposal does not modify this policy. "Edits that are not likely to be challenged can be added now without citing a source, although a source has to exist (I think that encompasses, or at least is not far from, what you mean by uncontroversial)." I think you are incorrect--there is no way to know whether a source exists for sure. That is why editors must always play an active role in searching for sources. Also, this is not what I mean by uncontroversial. I mean that editors discuss and agree that there is a controversy. Or at least one editor gives a persuasive reason for removal. Controversial OR-RS material is not merely marked as such, but removed. Until there is a controversy or a correction, the material stays. "It may be that the system you propose is already essentially in effect..." No, it is not actually in effect. If it were, I would not need to propose it. The difference is simple: currently, anyone can delete any OR-RS material in any article at any time. If editors actually did this, about 25% of WP would be gone, and WP the poorer for the loss. citation needed is not my proposal; it simply calls attention to the need for RSs. "perhaps you should propose what the template should display in an article..." I am not proposing the addition of any template--it is not needed. We already have enough templates. But, if someone wanted to add a new template to mark OR-RS material, I wouldn't object. "If our system is already essentially what you propose, you may already have the permissions you need to edit as you have proposed." No, I do not have permission to force-revert a deletion of OR-RS information. Nor would I seek such a permission, because it would violate current policy. "If another editor disagrees with one of your edits, they can edit and both of you can resolve the matter." Yes, that is how WP works. But all editors must obey the policies. Since the existing policies are too severe, I've proposed a refinement that should improve WP. "I find it hard to think of major subjects for which sourcing is unavailable." I agree that major subject sourcing usually exists: my proposal would not apply to 75% of WP article content. But RSs frequently don't exist for true information in minor subjects, and even in major subjects when we are lucky enough to have contributions from an expert editor. Consider Jack Butler Yeats, a minor subject but one that is notable. Suppose an expert decides to add that J.B. Yeats enjoyed drawing fanciful and comic cartoons as a child. Months later, another editor searches the Web and cannot find a RS. Under current policy, the editor must delete the addition. Even if the expert knew this from several specialized books that she had studied, the addition was disallowed. Under my proposed policy, the addition would be allowed, giving readers additional insight into the artist. Now, you might object that in reality the new material might in reality be false. That appears to be a valid objection. But WP undoubtedly already contains many "facts" that have many RSs, but that are nevertheless false. The reality is that no univerally-edited encyclopedia can claim to have only correct content. Encyclopedias that solicit input only from acknowledged experts are more likely to have correct content, but that is neither the goal nor the strategy of WP. "Insofar as some OR is already in some articles and has not been challenged, perhaps there's already some tolerance." Yes, there is tolerance for old articles. But, old or new, the material can be deleted at any time. My proposal protects material from deletion, and so protects WP from loss of information. My proposal does not allow incorrect material to survive when intelligently challenged. If my proposal were adopted, and Sailing faster than the wind were edited to include the better explanation, the article would improve. If, subsequently, someone else found a RS either for or against the explanation, the article would improve. Finally, if someone else argued that the explanation was wrong, the explanation would be returned to the Talk page and the article would be improved. My proposal is likely to improve articles far more often than not, justifying the temporary inclusion of information pending future corroboration. Current policy without my proposal is too severe, especially in regards to old articles, which frequently have no RS at all. "I might prefer that OR, such as on the sailing point, be added to a website on sailing, more specifically a website that has editors who vet contributions on sailing." Yes, that would be a consistent, weaker version of my proposal. But I oppose it because it is not general, because evaluating this situation is usually not obvious, and because there will be many gray cases where it is not clear whether the current editors are experts. I still like my proposal as written.
• Gautier lebon, I agree with your comments, and they show another weaker form of my proposal.
• Nick Levinson, "The sun-rotation example actually serves the point that policies do not need changing" Successfully looking up one RS (which editors do all the time) does not lend any weight to the view that WP policies are good enough. It doesn't address the fact that 25% (or whatever) of the information in WP actually produces no hits when one looks for RSs. It's just a logical fallacy that one example proves a wide-sweeping statement (as compared with one counterexample, which can indeed disprove such a statement). "Probably, a better example for what you're saying does exist, but I think it's going to be for subjects with few sources, such as a field of study that only a relatively few people pursue." I don't know about that, but WP is filled with facts that are true but for which no RS is available. RSs don't always describe information which is known by experts on subjects of all kinds.
• WhatamIdoing, You seem to have misunderstood me. I did not argue against simple explanations. I agree with your defense of simplicity.

David Spector (talk) 15:52, 23 August 2013 (UTC)

Asides first: It may not be helpful to answer each sentence separately, because doing so risks trapping you. You answered one of my sentences in a way that I think you wouldn't have if you had taken my next sentence into consideration at the same time. In this case, I think I understand what you meant in response to what I wrote and am responding accordingly.

I read WhatamIdoing's last post, when WhatamIdoing was referring to simplicity of explanations, as responding to Gautier lebon's last post, not to your last prior post.

On to the main response: I can see that my Fermat example was not ideal in that a proof was unknown for three centuries and therefore that the proof ultimately found is not analogous to the kind of clearer explanation you're referring to. I assume that with your Yeats example the problem would be that the titles and authors of the "several specialized books" were forgotten, only the content being remembered, in which case your example is valid (otherwise the books could be cited).

But I think a couple of general problems remain. If the clearer explanation is only clearer in the mind of an expert then most of the rest of us will likely trust it indiscriminately, be fooled by it if it's wrong, or trust it only if the expert's identity is attached to the explanation (e.g., whatever gravity is exactly, I'd be a lot more comfortable with the explanation if someone who definitely knows physics well endorsed the explanation, so, if no good source can be found that we can quote or paraphrase, then we can't use that explanation without a policy change such as you're proposing (there'll be such a source for gravity but less often for more obscure sub-subjects)). But even among experts there are serious disagreements. For a while (and perhaps still), the scientific consensus was that lead in house paint damaged young children with the damage persisting into adolescence and maybe adulthood but at least one public health doctor believed that it was such a minor concern that public health resources should not be drained by it and testified in various trials that lead had little or no effect on children's health (this was covered by NPR (National Public Radio) ca. 2001); in effect, the testifying doctor disagreed with the scientific consensus. What would stop that doctor, who was appropriately credentialled, from contributing his expertise into WP, provided he has no conflict of interest? Probably most physicists agree on string theory but some don't; one dissenter argued that the Nobel prize for physics is not awarded without empirical proof and that string theorists had not yet produced any. If archaeologists and Egyptologists disagree on a point, is Egyptology a distinct discipline such that its view is not a dissent from archaeology (or vice versa) but a separate body of expertise? Political scientists and sociologists (I think sociologists) may analyze the same mass movement with the political scientists typically emphasizing the roles of leaders and the sociologists typically emphasizing the roles of masses of people; which discipline is right? Nonscientific fields of scholarship present other challenges; who was the first to discover America? Perhaps they were Siberians or Polynesians and possibly some native tribes still say they were always here and if they're right then maybe Columbus or Chinese sailors were the first to come from elsewhere; each has separate experts arguing for them. And theological debates will certainly have adherents who share remarkable commitment; perhaps only one will contribute to a particular article, so that no debate will be revealed; an example might be whether people should vote in secular elections like for U.S. President; one religious adherent said we should not because God makes the decision and we mere mortals cannot influence God; it wouldn't be hard to rewrite that as an expert statement in theology, notwithstanding that many ministers probably vote often and likely would have conflicting theological expertise to offer. I suspect many computer, game, and movie articles could have such explanations from respective experts, such as how to use Microsoft Excel as a flight simulator (it was offered without Microsoft's management's knowledge so it wasn't sourceable for a while) or how a special effect was achieved in a certain movie (the movie maker might not say). Should this policy change apply only to certain areas of expertise (an opt-in model)? Should it apply to all areas except certain areas (an opt-out model)? Who would do the opting?

Where you wrote that "there is no way to know whether a source exists for sure", so that editors must continue searching, I think you meant that "there is no way to know whether a source is lacking for sure", in which case I agree. The sunrise research was not disproof of your entire proposal; the sunrise case was introduced by another editor as one lacking a source, I showed that a source is available, and I suggested that the case of valid content lacking a source could still be made, so I did not create a logical fallacy.

I sometimes edit some controversial articles wherein I'd like to add my unsourced expertise. Instead, I don't say certain things, since they'd be unsourced, although I may hope that a source will eventuate so that I can quote that, and sometimes that has happened. I agree that much in WP by many editors is already unsourced, has long been, is untagged, is challengeable, and may even be unsourceable. There is no movement afoot to do mass deletions; we've done that for copyright violations but I don't think we'd do that for unsourced content. So, at the moment, lots of unsourced content is staying stable until someone improves it, but mainly for articles that fewer readers search for; and your proposal I think is meant to reach articles that many readers read.

Waiting until a controversy arises from at least one editor with a cogent reason or until a consensus is that a controversy exists, in leading to more retention of unsourced content, would, I think, lower the quality of WP because of the above problems of determining whose expertise counts and for what. And who would be entitled to raise the challenge? If a point was added by a well-credentialled expert, a professor who does refereed research on the topic, could the challenge be raised only by a like-credentialled expert? If a couple of high school dropouts don't understand the content, would that be ground enough for the challenge to be sustained? How about one high school dropout?

I agree that some sourced content is false. For that reason, I'm of the persuasion that WP is a good starting point but not a good finishing point for research. When I wanted to know how the speed of light was measured on Earth (if we surrounded the equator with mirrors a photon of light would need under a seventh of a second to go around the planet and yet the speed was measured inside a lab long before we could measure the tiny units of time we measure now), I used WP to find a citation to the original research paper and then I read the paper or an English translation of it in a credible publication; I did not rely on WP for the description of the experiment. I did not use WP to choose which distribution of Linux to use on my Internet laptop. I write for WP to a higher standard than I expect to find in WP. I wish the standard were higher from some other editors but, for that, other websites and media will have to do.

You wrote regarding my preference that OR be added to websites (or other media) that have experts on board who vet contributions there, "that would be a consistent, weaker version of my proposal. But I oppose it because it is not general, because evaluating this situation is usually not obvious, and because there will be many gray cases where it is not clear whether the current editors are experts." I'm not clear how it's "not general" (if it seemed meant only for sailing, I indicated it was for any subject). Insofar as "evaluating this situation is usually not obvious", if regarding whether to offer to other media first, I guess you're concerned that the other media might misunderstand the contribution; but yet more media can be considered and still if no experts can be found to approve it even off-WP then it's even less likely to be true and then I'd be even more dubious about adding such content to WP. It's true that many other media have bad editors, but if they approve the OR I'm not sure that would be worse than WP disseminating the OR content (bad editors can make for unreliable sources and unreliable sources can be treated like nonexistent sources) and if the non-WP medium disapproves the OR content then someone can submit it to another non-WP medium, perhaps after improving the submission.

Gray areas in policies can't and needn't be eliminated, but we should offer boundary definitions that keep the gray manageable. If you can write that language, that might help. I think templates could complement your policy proposal; a dated inline tag might say "point controversial and under discussion" and link to the talk page discussion; a per-section or per-article message box could be similar and say more. I think also that a dispute resolution mechanism, such as a noticeboard, would have to be added, one to settle what expertise would say: ArbCom refuses to arbitrate the truth of content; probably such a mechanism could be fairly easily drafted and peopled but I doubt the range of expertise needed would usually be found among the people deciding disputes, since topical WikiProjects often seem to be short of experts themselves, WikiProjects' experts often lacking the needed time. We'd need a mechanism that goes beyond an article's talk page because there will be quite a few cases of the insistent challenger and the expert arguing that the challenge is insufficient for unsourced-content deletion, a dispute probably beyond the remit of any existing noticeboard, and then there will be cases of such disputes having been resolved and then editors saying new information is available requiring changes in prior resolutions, sometimes including old information.

Nick Levinson (talk) 15:52, 24 August 2013 (UTC) (Clarified & added links, corrected a misspelling, & lessened the indents: 16:08, 24 August 2013 (UTC))

Thank you, Nick. Again, I did not see any insurmountable objections to my proposal. Here are my responses to these new responses. Interspersing them would interfere with their flow, so I've grouped them all here. Please feel free to continue the discussion, especially at WT:Verifiability#Proposal_for_new_policy David Spector (talk)

• Nick Levinson, "even among experts there are serious disagreements" It is important to note that agreements are more common than disagreements among experts on most fields. As objective knowledge develops at its edges, its core changes less and less. So, experts disagree most about the leaves of the knowledge tree, and almost not at all about the trunk and major branches. Clearly, my proposal will help most around the trunk, but just as clearly, it will help at the leaves as well, to the extent that controversy can settle down. Since my proposal gracefully degrades to the current policies, those areas of controversy are not affected. In other words, my proposal is most useful for older, more settled areas of knowledge. Your example of the early days of concern over how lead in house paint damaged young children is an example of this. My proposal would rapidly have had no effect in this example, since experts differed. WP has no way to prevent erroneous information from being added, but its virtue is that such errors are rapidly eliminated, as soon as someone with better knowledge comes along. This is how WP works, and my proposal results in more early posting of errors, and more early posting of correct information. The net effect balances: increased error and increased valid material. But, in less controversial material, the net effect is to allow generally agreed information to be added even when RSs are difficult or impossible to come by. You then continue to add example upon example, but I question the usefulness of a mountain of examples when no point is made about them. Please make your points, so I can respond to them. Examples whose points are only clear in your mind are not helpful here. "There is no movement afoot to do mass deletions; we've done that for copyright violations but I don't think we'd do that for unsourced content." I'm glad that there is no such movement, as much of WP could be deleted overnight in accordance with existing policy. However, don't make assumptions; it could happen, and indeed has happened in many individual cases. My point is that my proposal is just a wording of what has more or less happened anyway, as several responders have noted. I'm putting it into words so WP policy, as written, can be improved. "your proposal I think is meant to reach articles that many readers read." My proposal has no hidden agenda. It is meant to help improve all articles, regardless of how popular they may be. "Waiting until a controversy arises from at least one editor with a cogent reason or until a consensus is that a controversy exists, in leading to more retention of unsourced content, would, I think, lower the quality of WP because of the above problems of determining whose expertise counts and for what." Not so. As I just wrote, there is a priori equal probability that new unsourced information would be correct as incorrect. This means that the quality of WP would not be lowered. In fact, another benefit of the proposed policy is that editors would be more encouraged to contribute what they know. Anyone, even without any credentials as an expert, may know something that could improve an article. Encouraging all to contribute improves the basis of WP, which is mass participation. "who would be entitled to raise the challenge?" The answer is anyone--this is the philosophy, in contrast to the Encyclopedia Brittanica, whose philosophy is to collate the contributions of recognized experts. Your associated points are moot, since this isn't how WP works, and my proposal is orthogonal to the issue of "evaluating experts". "I agree that some sourced content is false." That is so, but again is orthogonal to my proposal. "WP is a good starting point but not a good finishing point for research." That point is frequently made in the real world, but is again orthogonal. "I'm not clear how it's 'not general'" It's not general because not all articles have "experts on board who vet contributions there". "if no experts can be found to approve it even off-WP then it's even less likely to be true and then I'd be even more dubious about adding such content to WP" Again, issues of experts or "other media" are independent of my proposed change in policy. You're making it way too complicated. Just look at how the proposal changes how WP editors will work. "Gray areas in policies can't and needn't be eliminated, but we should offer boundary definitions that keep the gray manageable. If you can write that language, that might help." It thought that was obvious, but if you want that added to the proposal, that's fine with me. "I think templates could complement your policy..." That idea came up before, and it's fine with me. I want to see the proposal adopted, and I'm willing to add anything that can help implementing it. This may be a bit early to add implementation details such as new arbitration facilities; perhaps you can make notes for yourself, then add them after approval of the base policy or policy changes. I'll just say that as soon as conflict arises, such as would lead to arbitration, the proposed policy would drop out. Editors involved in the conflict would have to find RS or remove the OR.

David Spector (talk) 18:54, 28 August 2013 (UTC)

Done here; answered there. Nick Levinson (talk) 17:21, 30 August 2013 (UTC)

I realize at this point, with mostly Oppose votes, that my continued defense is not worthwhile. If I'm seeing value in the proposal, but no one else is, the probability is that I'm wrong and everyone else is right. I therefore yield to the vast majority and sincerely thank everyone for considering my ideas. I know that present policies are not quite good enough to encourage some with good personal knowledge to offer it, so maybe I'll be back here again someday with a better and less objectionable proposal. David Spector (talk) 21:56, 9 September 2013 (UTC)

Skyscrapercity.com online forum

The following discussion is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.

---

The Skyscrapercity.com online forums are widely used as references or external links in articles relating to architecture or construction projects. As an online forum, consusting of user generated content, its use may be seen by some as inconsistent with good sourcing practices. Others have suggested that it may be used to support statements of fact, as when other resources may be paywalled or otherwise unavailable online.

There are additional conversations about the topic here and somewhat less relatedly, here.

As a standard of practice, can direct links to Skyscrapercity.com's online forums be used as references to support statements of fact about buildings or construction projects, when no other references are available or linkable? -- [ UseTheCommandLine ~/talk ]# ▄ 22:23, 14 August 2013 (UTC)

Your concern about sources being linkable indicates you have not read WP:V. Jc3s5h (talk) 22:21, 14 August 2013 (UTC)

can you elaborate on that? and perhaps offer a yes-or-no vote on whether the source is acceptable? -- [ UseTheCommandLine ~/talk ]# ▄ 22:26, 14 August 2013 (UTC)

Your argument is invalid because paper sources, or online sources that require payment to access, are perfectly acceptable sources for Wikipedia articles. Thus there is no justification to resort to forums. Jc3s5h (talk) 22:29, 14 August 2013 (UTC)

I take that to mean that you oppose the use of this source. Please correct me if I am wrong. -- [ UseTheCommandLine ~/talk ]# ▄ 22:33, 14 August 2013 (UTC)

Since you don't seem to be interested in reading WP:V I'm done with you. Jc3s5h (talk) 22:45, 14 August 2013 (UTC)

Off-line sources or paywalled sources are perfectly acceptable. I don't see any good argument in favour of making a WP:RS exception for this forum. Discussion forums should not be used as references. Pburka (talk) 23:26, 14 August 2013 (UTC)

I can imagine a circumstance in which an individual posting on the site might be a reliable source - for example, if a particular specialist in the field of skyscrapers, operating under their own name, posted information etc. But in general, discussion forums don't make good sources. Hchc2009 (talk) 12:20, 16 August 2013 (UTC)

Hchc2009 is right: any online forum is a self-published source and should be evaluated on the same grounds as a person's blog or letter to the editor. Generally speaking, that means that if the person previously published materials in the field (e.g., a professor who publishes academic journal articles on the subject, a journalist who writes about this area, an author who has a non-self-published book on the subject, whatever), then it's okay—and otherwise, it's not. WhatamIdoing (talk) 14:15, 16 August 2013 (UTC)

It's also important to note that sourcing is not black and white. A forum post might be acceptable, especially if the alternative was no citation, but it would rarely stand up to contradictory information elsewhere that was more reliable. Gigs (talk) 14:31, 16 August 2013 (UTC)

I've seen this "sourcing is not black or white" construction brought up a few times now, and I don't quite understand it. The issue is not whether skyscrapercity cannot be used for some statements of fact in some articles. I'm sure it is a reliable (though primary) source about its own traffic, founder's motivations, etc. This is why the formulations were "for statements of fact, when other sources are unavailable or unlinkable." If you're saying that yes, it can sometimes be used for statements of fact when other sources are unavailable, then I would appreciate some delineation of the situations in which you think this is appropriate. -- [ UseTheCommandLine ~/talk ]# ▄ 00:06, 17 August 2013 (UTC)

That suggests an additional question: How does one verify that someone posting on a blog who may be able to be cited is in fact that person? If this is allowable, what standards do we have for verification, if any? Because anyone can go register for a forum account with pretty much any name, in the overwhelming majority of cases. -- [ UseTheCommandLine ~/talk ]# ▄ 00:06, 17 August 2013 (UTC)

We've never had any standards for verification. A citation to a weak source such as a forum post from a credible user at that forum could indicate some level of verifiability, depending on the poster and the claims involved. If, for example, Bruce Schneier posts on Bugtraq about some obscure flaw in a cryptographic algorithm (not important enough to warrant an article from him on more traditional channels), and there's no news about a Schneier imposter on Bugtraq, then that's clearly fine to cite, within reason. I could see the same sort of situation arising in many niche fields. Gigs (talk) 19:18, 19 August 2013 (UTC)

There is no reason to make any exception here. Sources behind paywalls can be accessed - editors who lack access may request assistance from those who do. Information that has not been published cannot be considered to have any significance, and therefore should be excluded anyway. People who want to know about subjects that no reliable sources have covered are able to go to blogs and make their own judgments on what is written there. TFD (talk) 00:54, 17 August 2013 (UTC)

I agree entirely. We allow the use of academic articles that are behind paywalls. I can't agree with Gigs, forums simply should not be used as sources. Maybe there are some exceptions in an article about the forum, but that's not the sort of use that is being discussed here. Dougweller (talk) 12:40, 22 August 2013 (UTC)

I doubt anyone would wish to argue that a forum should be used in preference to a more reliable alternative source for factual information. There is no question either that a forum can sometimes be a useful resource for a wikipedia editor to find out more about a topic, by providing background information and links, reproducing material from other sources, and providing photographs. A blanket ban on the use of any forum as a reference would deny any discretion to an individual editor to make available to readers a resource he or she has found to be useful. Another editor, who has no understanding of why a reference to a forum has been made, might simply invoke the 'rules' to remove it. Paravane (talk) 14:30, 22 August 2013 (UTC)

It seems the subtext of the discussion here is that some editors perceive the role of a citation as a marker that states "the preceding statement is true". That's not really the case. It's better that someone adds the citation to the forum rather than just inserting the claim they read on the forum without any citation. The citation allows the reader to evaluate the credibility of the original source of the claim.

I get the feeling the fear is that if we allow or encourage such citations, it would make those claims unable to be challenged under WP:V. In my mind, that's clearly not the case. Material cited to a weak source such as a forum could be challenged or removed as appropriate for the particular situation. Gigs (talk) 18:52, 23 August 2013 (UTC)

Forums, with the most trivial of exceptions, simply are not reliable sources. No amount of shilly-shallying about paywalls and ease of access and pleas of "it's useful" can change that fact. Reliable sourcing is not optional; and forums such as this don't qualify. --Orange Mike | Talk 19:19, 23 August 2013 (UTC)

(in response to Gigs, above)For myself, I have no such fear. I do wonder about how the sort of sourcing practices you are suggesting as acceptable would play out, when taken to their logical conclusion. Allowing an online forum of any kind to be used as to support a statement in what is ostensibly an encyclopedia would seem to me to turn the notion of an encyclopedia on its head.

What I know of WP usage patterns too (which is limited, but I have participated in education projects) suggests that overwhelmingly, people might be suspicious of WP, but they also tend not to go through and look at the sourcing of the individual statements. We attempt to acknowledge when there is controversy by attributing statements as a way of more clearly delineating what a potentially suspect or unreliable source says, but this also has the potential to devolve to absurdity if we allowed forum postings ("Bieberfans.com poster XxxXBelieberXxxX stated that Bieber's haircut on July 12, 2012 was "sooper dooper cyoot!1!1!"). And it's not just that the reader would have to sort through all that nonsense, other editors would be forced to do so as well in order to improve an article. I have to deal with a similar sort of thing all the time at medical articles, where people have inserted popular press stories to support medical claims, or are using sketchy primary sources from an animal study to support statements about action or efficacy in humans. it not just misleads the reader, but it creates more cleanup work for other editors. -- [ UseTheCommandLine ~/talk ]# ▄ 19:30, 23 August 2013 (UTC)

Break/recap

So far, my tally of positions is:

source is clearly non-RS:

• myself
• Jc3s5h (presumably, perhaps subject to interpretation)
• Hchc2009
• WhatamIdoing
• The Four Deuces
• Dougweller
• Orangemike

source is possibly or sometimes RS:

• Paravane
• Gigs

Although I'm perhaps biased or involved, that seems fairly clear to me that, while not unanimous, the overwhelming feeling is that this source is non-RS, fullstop -- at least for statements about buildings, construction projects etc. If there are additional objections or discussion I'm perfectly happy to continue though. -- [ UseTheCommandLine ~/talk ]# ▄ 19:30, 23 August 2013 (UTC)

This is simply not an acceptable source. It is a forum with user generated content. I am a member of Skyscaper City and see no encyclopedic value as a source. Anything I have put there...I have placed here on Wikipedia with proper sources. It is a great starting point sometimes because the amount of information is vast but just not sourced.--Mark 16:33, 24 August 2013 (UTC)

To clarify my position - the source is typically going to be non-RS. I can just about see how a particular posting might be a RS, depending on the poster; e.g if Carol Willis (the Director of the Skyscraper Museum in NY, and something of a skyscraper guru!) posted something, then it would carry some weight - although self-publishing guidance would also apply. Hchc2009 (talk) 16:40, 24 August 2013 (UTC)

I believe the main issue for me is that, while the member of that forum community may be notable, they would have to be a part of the site staff of that website if it were a reliably published site. The site itself is just a simple build your own forum and uses a very typical pre-made, almost default format. Its free. Anyone can start one. I have two from the same company. How would someone determine the validity of the claim to be someone on this type of site? Do we just take it at face value? Speaking of face...what about Facebook community discussions? I suppose an OTRS ticket would do the trick but then what are the ground rules? Would it have to be limited to posts that they initiate to cover a subject or could it be any random fact the person has posted in there entire history on the site? While I believe some may see this as self published, it really isn't if its on a forum someone else is publishing, even if its through a free, build your own forum site. I just don't see it myself.--Mark 09:03, 26 August 2013 (UTC)

Per Mark, as a member of that forum, while I appreciate the often highly informative and professional standards of posters, it should be nothing more than a starting point for more reliable information (albeit a very good one). MasterOfHisOwnDomain (talk) 14:07, 26 August 2013 (UTC)

That partly appears to be the sticking point in this. If the article says that the building is 100 m. tall and cites this forum, that does seem "better" (more useful/informative/likely to lead to improvement) then if the article says the building is 100 m. tall and cites nothing. Alanscottwalker (talk) 16:35, 26 August 2013 (UTC)

"more likely to lead to improvement" seems at least vaguely testable. My contention is that citing such a poor source, for such a relatively trivial detail (though recognizing it matters to some people) is no more informative than leaving a {{cn}} tag, and more importantly normalizes poor sourcing practices. It's an unnecessary band-aid to begin with, but one that invites the additional uses of such band-aids when they are very much poisonous and harmful to the long term health of the project. My personal feelings, anyway. -- [ UseTheCommandLine ~/talk ]# ▄ 18:34, 26 August 2013 (UTC)

This entire discussion is predicated on a narrow understanding of a source/reference, thereby bolstering the arguments against the use of forums - and, indeed, a narrow understanding of forums. That citing SkyscraperCity as a reference poisons wikipedia is absurd - my personal feelings, anyway. The height of a building is no trivial detail if it determines whether the building should or should not be included in a list of buildings over, say, 100m. The case of the height of The Pride, wrongly given by CTBUH and Emporis and correctly given by SC, illustrates that 'RS' is a relative term. In this instance, the only truly reliable source may be the planning application, but there may be over 100 documents associated with a given application and it may be time-consuming to track down any information of interest - such as height, or images. Images are often reproduced on SC, giving the reader quick and easy access to them, where the only alternative may be to hunt through the planning documents. Consider also the case of a building described as under construction. If no press announcement that construction has started can be found, but there are photographs on SC of the construction site, showing a pile-driver and hoardings with the name of the building, should a reference to SC be banned in this case, on the grounds that it would poison wikipedia? Paravane (talk) 19:45, 26 August 2013 (UTC)

I know it's been somewhat maligned, but the WP:VNT essay seems applicable to your concerns. That the "correct" information (and how do you determine it's correct if it comes from an unreliable source?) came from SC, and that the alternative is sifting through planning documents is of absolutely no concern of mine. An editor's convenience does not trump the mission of WP. -- [ UseTheCommandLine ~/talk ]# ▄ 19:54, 26 August 2013 (UTC)

"Poison" is a rather odd term to apply to truthful, relevant information -- under Wikipedia's verifiability policy, and common sense, anyway. Alanscottwalker (talk) 20:10, 26 August 2013 (UTC)

If it comes from an unreliable source, you know it's truthful... how, exactly? -- [ UseTheCommandLine ~/talk ]# ▄ 20:15, 26 August 2013 (UTC)

I know the building (assuming there is a building) has a height, since it occupies physical space. I am told the source is "highly knowledgeable, and professional" and I have no reason to doubt that. QED: it seems like the matter is usefully, if not perfectly, noted. Alanscottwalker (talk) 20:44, 26 August 2013 (UTC)

Would you like to buy a bridge? I am highly knowledgable and professional, especially in regards to bridge sales. -- [ UseTheCommandLine ~/talk ]# ▄ 20:49, 26 August 2013 (UTC)

No. You don't appear to be highly knowledgeable. Alanscottwalker (talk) 20:51, 26 August 2013 (UTC)

If you went to the building itself and measured its height (perhaps with your barometer), you would be confident that the height you measured was the true height. Including that information on Wikipedia would be a clear case of WP:original research. Including information based on a forum member's own original research is no different. Feel free to ask the forum member where he or she found the height and use that source. But a forum, even one frequented by experts, is not a reliable source. Pburka (talk) 23:53, 26 August 2013 (UTC)

No. No one here would not be measuring height with a barometer or anything else. That would be silly. But so is the vapors about this piece of information. If the article says 100 with no cite, then all one would think 'what makes them say that?' And probably either ignore it, remove it, or put a cn tag (that will be there for the next 3 years). If it says 100 with that cite, one would look at the cite, and then say 'oh, that's where they got that', now what is there that can lead us to a better cite. Alanscottwalker (talk) 01:28, 27 August 2013 (UTC)

But why couldn't I measure the height with a barometer, report my findings on skyscrapers.net, and then cite that post in the article? Pburka (talk) 02:03, 27 August 2013 (UTC)

More silliness. Why would you? Alanscottwalker (talk) 02:15, 27 August 2013 (UTC)

This is precisely why self-published sources are never permitted. It's too easy to manipulate them. Anyone who wants to claim that One World Trade Center is 1775 feet high would simply be able to publish that information on a forum and then cite it. Of course for a famous building it would be quickly removed, but it's very easy to add misinformation and hoaxes about lesser known topics. Without our WP:RS policy, we would have no basis for removing these! Pburka (talk) 02:41, 27 August 2013 (UTC)

Gah! Self published sources are permitted, they must be used appropriately but when some editor is adding information to articles, the first thing one doesn't jump to is: "Hoxer, you must be a hoaxer for citing THAT!" Assuming bad faith, is one thing -- standing on your head and jumping up and down to assume utter corruption is rather bizarre. Alanscottwalker (talk) 02:51, 27 August 2013 (UTC)

Yes, but how do you define "self published" here and does it fit all the criteria for use as an RS for sourcing facts?--Mark Miller (talk) 04:01, 27 August 2013 (UTC)

This is self published, which wonder of wonders is used in a Featured Article about that building for such facts. If the website we are discussing leads readers (and editors) to that, it is better from an information perspective then leading them to nothing, which the alternative -- no cite -- we are discussing does. That's the point of the relative value of some information, over no information. The reader/editor should always be able to answer the question 'where do they get that from.' -- Alanscottwalker (talk) 13:06, 27 August 2013 (UTC)

As a FA, clearly it has other sources? I brought this RfA specifically because I was finding many articles about buildings or construction projects that relied primarily or solely on SC forums for their sourcing. A self-published source, added to a much longer list of reliable sources and used to fill in the expected level of comprehensive detail for a FA, is at least somewhat reasonable. (More acceptable, even, than forum postings, imho.) -- [ UseTheCommandLine ~/talk ]# ▄ 21:13, 27 August 2013 (UTC)

Like it or not (and I don't particularly like it, although I recognize it goes along with the building and collaboration ethos on Wiki) articles on Wikipedia do not have to have any citations in them at all. But that does not mean no source in the article is better than one. Alanscottwalker (talk) 13:26, 28 August 2013 (UTC)

Per WP:NRVE, the lack of citations does not mean a lack of reliable sources. But articles must still have coverage in reliable sources in order to be notable. skyscrapercity, skyscraper page, et al, are not such reliable sources, and when i have checked the articles that cite them, for the most part I have not found outside links that would be usable as refs. So in my view, even accepting that citations are not absolutely necessary for the notability of a subject, a SC posting, not being RS in and of itself, can still not be used to justify something as notable, or its retention in WP. -- [ UseTheCommandLine ~/talk ]# ▄ 13:50, 28 August 2013 (UTC)

• Non-reliable source - I am firmly of the opinion forums are not reliable sources and shouldn't be used. Keep in mind, on the internet, it's easy for someone to pretend to be an expert in something, and they might be good enough at it that the fiction isn't immediately obvious. Some guy (talk) 18:22, 27 August 2013 (UTC)

No-one has responded to the question I posed above, repeated here. Consider the case of a building described in a wikipedia article as 'under construction'. If no press announcement that construction has started can be found, but there are photographs on SC of the construction site, showing a pile-driver and hoardings with the name of the building, should a reference to SC be banned in this case, on the grounds that it is an unreliable source? Paravane (talk) 19:34, 27 August 2013 (UTC)

I would say that yes, an SC reference should be banned in that case, for exactly the reasons you indicate. I would further argue that if no press announcement can be found, that it should not have an article at all, because at that point it is non-notable. -- [ UseTheCommandLine ~/talk ]# ▄ 20:42, 27 August 2013 (UTC)

Agreed. Basing a factual statement on an interpretation of a self-published photograph is a WP:NOR violation. If the fact being reported is so trivial that no reliable source has reported on it, then it does not belong in Wikipedia. Pburka (talk) 20:55, 27 August 2013 (UTC)

A device employed by the responses here is to make unwarranted assumptions, which then support a counter argument. The building in question does not have an article on Wikipedia, it has a mention in a list of buildings under construction. It is plain that there is no possibility of reasoned debate on this issue, because there is an underlying mission in play to sweep aside all arguments against a blanket ban by whatever means spring to mind, however inventive, in order to uphold the 'rules': it is axiomatic that no valid argument against a blanket ban will ever be recognised, because a blanket ban is required by the 'rules'. Perhaps what is needed is a new toplevel rule which states unequivocally that all other 'rules' are to be regarded only as guidelines. The value of such a new rule would be that it could be invoked to protect Wikipedia against the kind of unshakeable conviction which cannot be reasoned with. Paravane (talk) 23:12, 27 August 2013 (UTC)

Which assumptions are those? and that is awful close to a personal attack, IMO. -- [ UseTheCommandLine ~/talk ]# ▄ 23:37, 27 August 2013 (UTC)

Paravane, the rule you describe already exists. It can be seen at WP:IAR. WhatamIdoing (talk) 21:28, 28 August 2013 (UTC)

Excellent, thank you! Paravane (talk) 22:38, 29 August 2013 (UTC)

Wow, there's some serious abuse/misunderstanding of the concept of original research here. A sign with the name of the building would be a "source", taking a photograph of it would just be documenting the source for convenience purposes. That's not original research. There's no combination of information to come to a new conclusion. It's primary sourcing, which has to be done carefully and without synthesis, but it's not original research. As editors, we are allowed to go collect primary sourced information. We do it every time we get an original picture of a celebrity (something nearly required by our fair use guidelines). We do it every time a piece of media is used as a source for its own article. There are no notability requirements for facts. There never have been. Notability only applies to the existence of a standalone article on a particular topic. Gigs (talk) 18:59, 28 August 2013 (UTC)

From WP:NOR: The phrase "original research" (OR)…includes any analysis or synthesis of published material that serves to advance a position not advanced by the sources. Using a photo, especially an unverifiable self-published one, to interpret the status of a building site is analysis. Unless your photo is of a sign which reports that the building is under construction, I believe it should be excluded under WP:NOR. This isn't just a hypothetical problem: I've participated in a discussion where an editor was adding claims based on a photograph which turned out to have been staged. We were only able to determine that because the photographer discussed how he set up the shot on the hobbyist site where it was taken from. Taking a photo to illustrate a topic is fine; analysing the photo is not. While we don't have notability requirements for facts, we do have verifiability requirements. If they can't be verified without resorting to WP:OR, they should be removed. Pburka (talk) 00:08, 29 August 2013 (UTC)

A link showing its use here:[2] Dougweller (talk) 08:50, 29 August 2013 (UTC)%2F*.skyscrapercity.com]

FWIW, i found a whole lot more uses of it using the search function. -- [ UseTheCommandLine ~/talk ]# ▄ 08:56, 29 August 2013 (UTC)

a better link -- [ UseTheCommandLine ~/talk ]# ▄ 09:04, 29 August 2013 (UTC)

Looks like there may be a linkspam issue. No need to invoke source reliability questions to cull excessive link spam. Pburka: Regarding the photo discussion, the photo is not the source, the sign is. Verifiability means that other editors can go look at the sign. A photo would be considered something like a convenience copy, and should be treated carefully since such copies of sources are subject to potential manipulation. Obviously as you say, this has to be limited to very simple claims as it is a primary source in any case. Extrapolating new conclusions that are not obvious from the source would be synthesis. Gigs (talk) 17:37, 29 August 2013 (UTC)

In the absence of any evidence of any photograph displayed on SC ever having been doctored with the intent or the effect of causing deception, considering the case that Building X qualifies for a Wikipedia article listing buildings under construction, and that the only known source providing evidence that Building X is under construction is a photograph posted on SC showing a recognisable construction site, then by WP:IAR I cite the SC article as a reference, on the grounds that the list would be incomplete without Building X; it being the case that, in my judgement as an editor familiar with the subject, excluding either Building X or the reference to SC with the photograph, would be detrimental to Wikipedia. Quoting from WP:IAR: Use your common sense over anything else. Paravane (talk) 22:42, 29 August 2013 (UTC)

I'll reiterate what I said before. If the sign says that building X is under construction, it's an acceptable source. If the sign simply has the building's name, and appears next to a pile driver (the scenario you described), it's original analysis to say that the building is under construction. Pburka (talk) 01:23, 30 August 2013 (UTC)

That's a valid point. One would have to be careful not to extrapolate too much. Gigs (talk) 17:04, 30 August 2013 (UTC)

The discussion above is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.

June Chadwick actress aged 61.

I know another June Chadwick who was from Holt, North Wales. She married Ron Lewis from Kingslee, Crewe-by-Farndon. No-one likes all these 'coincidences' on so small a sample group of people. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 87.254.95.215 (talk) 12:34, 5 September 2013 (UTC)

The article does not appear to be a hoax if that is what you are implying. Gigs (talk) 19:58, 5 September 2013 (UTC)

How do you handle hate sources?

How do you handle sources which are considered reliable sources, but which are grossly hateful and/or misrepresentational towards the topic or towards related topics? For an extreme example, if someone were to cite Der Sturmer about Judaism? Hate doesn't exclude something from the reliable sources standard, but it does make it unreliable in practice. Is there another page covering this? Is it appropriate to include a disclaimer if a hate source is listed in the sources? Ananiujitha (talk) 03:28, 15 September 2013 (UTC)

If the usage is correct, the nature of the source will be clear from context. You do not need nor is it appropriate to insert a disclaimer. --erachima talk 03:36, 15 September 2013 (UTC)

the context is a list of sources. Ananiujitha (talk) 03:40, 15 September 2013 (UTC)

I can't really imagine Der Stürmer or a present day equivalent would ever be considered a reliable source. It would be useful if you specified the actual source/s you have in mind, and then we can take it from there. Regards, Iselilja (talk) 17:13, 15 September 2013 (UTC)

It would be a reliable source on the opinions of its authors. That's about it. --erachima talk 17:27, 15 September 2013 (UTC)

It isn't as bad as Der Stürmer, but the Washington Times is anti-trans, and has used anti-trans slurs in its editorials. At this point, the Talk:Bradley_Manning/October_2013_move_request involves collecting media sources to track media usage. A few editors, including myself, wanted to discuss issues with certain media sources, including the Washington Times, before the move discussion. In editorial they describe trans women as "she-males" and "unnatural" which isn't quite as bad as calling people subhuman, but is pretty damned dehumanizing. I believe the AMA and APAs have repudiated the "mental disorder" bit, but the resolutions post-date the editorial. Ananiujitha (talk) 18:04, 15 September 2013 (UTC)

I'm unsure why you'd be citing that editorial in Bradley Manning, considering it doesn't mention the case. But, no, if you found a relevant place to cite that page, you wouldn't put a disclaimer on it. --erachima talk 18:12, 15 September 2013 (UTC)

At this point, the Talk:Bradley_Manning/October_2013_move_request involves collecting media sources to track media usage. A few editors, including myself, wanted to discuss issues with certain media sources, including the Washington Times, before the move discussion. Okay? The past record of the Washington Times isn't relevant to Chelsea Manning's article, but it is what proves that the Washington Times hates trans people, and that is why it is beyond problematic to include the Washington Times in the discussion while barring any discussion of its record of hate and hateful slurs. Ananiujitha (talk) 19:28, 15 September 2013 (UTC)

Why do you say discussion on Washington Times will be barred? Wouldn't that exactly be the point of the RfC to comment on and evaluate the different sources? I agree that the points you have brought up belongs in the discussion, but I don't quite understand why you think you will be hindered? Regards, Iselilja (talk) 19:34, 15 September 2013 (UTC)

Because one such discussion was already shut down: Talk:Bradley_Manning/October_2013_move_request#Washington_Times_as_a_source Ananiujitha (talk) 19:53, 15 September 2013 (UTC)

I am uncomfortable with the idea that we would ignore the usage of the Washington Times because they "hate trans people". When editors start ignoring sources that do not share their political POVs on an issue (calling them "biased"), that is a sure sign that the editors are not being neutral in how we deal with the issue. If anything we need to pay more attention to sources that we expect take an opposing viewpoint (after all, if even the Washington Times is referring to a trans person by a new name, that use would and should weigh heavily in any COMMONNAME determination.) Blueboar (talk) 21:08, 15 September 2013 (UTC)

I just think it's fair to show their history of using dehumanizing language towards trans people. Ananiujitha (talk) 21:27, 15 September 2013 (UTC)

It is appropriate and standard practice to consider a source's history and potential bias when weighing whether to trust them as verification for an extraordinary claim. It is not appropriate to insert disclaimers into articles because a source might potentially offend a reader. --erachima talk 22:03, 15 September 2013 (UTC)