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The Epistemic Issue With "Reliable Sources"

The article on “Appeal to Authority” highlights a major epistemic issue which itself reflects poorly on wikipedia’s knowledge base.

There are two claims outlined in the article — one, that “appeals to authority” are fallacious, and two, that they are not.

The first claim is not only sourced, but various arguments are presented from those sources in support of the claim. “Appeals to authority are fallacious because experts are not always correct, the human psyche has a cognitive bias in favor of authority, and not all authorities have the right knowledge on the matter.”

The second claim is only supported by the sourcing itself. “Appeals to authority are not fallacious because various authorities have claimed that they are not.” The issue with this claim should be apparent. And if you read these sources, they do have sentences like “the appeal to authority is not always fallacious,” but within context they are all outlining situations where epistemic certainty is not guaranteed.

I think I can see why this happened — editors are asked not to provide the justification that the authors give for their claim, but only the claim itself. Let’s say the claim is that person X was at street Y at Z time. In order for wikipedia to reliably publish this claim, the editor should be forced to also source the justification for it, i.e. “there is video evidence” or “multiple first hand accounts place them there.”

Obviously this article is pertinent to the situation at hand, as wikipedia’s entire knowledge base is essentially an appeal to authority. I get why this is, but as appeals to authorities do not and cannot guarantee epistemic certainty, far greater care must be taken than is currently being taken. I would suggest forcing editors to quote the justification for the knowledge claim being given, and if there is no justification other than “this source is subjectively reliable,” they should not be able to publish the claim. 2600:4040:A23F:B200:14DF:3CE1:5244:E5F0 (talk) 15:37, 6 September 2022 (UTC)

Appeal to authority means you can't pull rank to win arguments - it does NOT mean that experts aren't experts or that Wikipedia shouldn't report what reliable sources say. Andre🚐 15:45, 6 September 2022 (UTC)

I never claimed that “experts aren’t experts” nor that “Wikipedia shouldn’t report what reliable sources say.” I’m not entirely sure how you derived that from the text provided. "Appeal to authority" means that just because a reliable source claims something, that doens't make that thing true.

I am suggesting that Wikipedia’s articles should quote the justification that the source gives for the claim, rather than just the source’s claim. The form should be “claim X, because Y,” rather than just “claim X.” If there is no “because Y,” the source should be deemed unreliable. 2600:4040:A23F:B200:74B7:1F05:89FF:8344 (talk) 18:15, 6 September 2022 (UTC)

I disagree. Verifiability, not truth, is the test. If sources all say something and they are reliable according to our policy and consensus, we do not need to cite their proof and reasoning. Andre🚐 18:25, 6 September 2022 (UTC)

If no justification is provided for the source, first, how can the information possibly be verifiable, and second, how is the source qualified as "reliable" aside from the subjective judgement of the editors?

Wouldn't this be the precise opposite of "verifiability, not truth," where the verifiability of the information is eschewed in favor of a person merely believing the claim is true?

I was hoping this issue wouldn't be one fundamental to wikipedia's practice and that it was just an oversight. Is the general opinion of other editors also that appeal to some authority ultimately justifies wikipedia's claims, rather than another form of justification? 2600:4040:A23F:B200:8451:2E22:12D1:FEDF (talk) 19:19, 6 September 2022 (UTC)

Since we have no process available to determine what the truth is (neither on Wikipedia or in the world for many topics), verifiability is the best we can do. MrOllie (talk) 19:22, 6 September 2022 (UTC)

Ignoring the (very postmodern) tautological contradiction in your claim -- how is verifiability possible if the source's justification for the claim is not given?

"Verifiability, not truth" means that the verification should be achievable and mere belief that a thing is true isn't enough to make a claim. Not that a source merely believing a thing is true is enough for wikipedia to state it as such without giving verifiability. That would be the exact opposite of what that means. 2600:4040:A23F:B200:8451:2E22:12D1:FEDF (talk) 20:17, 6 September 2022 (UTC)

We don't care what the source's justification is. We don't require sources to show how they got to their conclusions. MrOllie (talk) 20:22, 6 September 2022 (UTC)

Again, how is a source then verified as reliable?

It's not "truth, not verifiability." But that seems to be what is happening if you don't require the sources to verify their claims. 2600:4040:A23F:B200:C0F9:54E5:12FD:43A (talk) 20:49, 6 September 2022 (UTC)

Wikipedia is a encyclopedia. That means it's a tertiary summary source. We aren't arbiters of the truth of facts. We are simply assembling a summary of the treatment in reliable sources. Verification that the fact is sourced reliably, is what is required, not verification that the fact is true. It's not tautological - even if we read a claim in a source that we couldn't personally verify as true, and we thought it was false and wanted to verify its truth, verification might not be feasible. For example, claims made by the consensus of scientists based on experiments. We might not have the right equipment or skills or ingredients or permission, like centrifuges or medicines or whatever, to personally verify physics or biology results. We don't just blindly trust everything, but we are going to take the word of reliable sources, or balance them if there is a weight of disagreement on something, or attribute in cases where necessary. Andre🚐 20:23, 6 September 2022 (UTC)

An encyclopedia is a collection of knowledge, and knowledge is justified true belief. If wikipedia provides no justification for the knowledge it presents other than a bare appeal to authority, it is a very poor encyclopedia.

And again, how is a source deemed reliable? Is reliability is decided ultimately on an appeal to authority or is it decided on non-fallacious grounds, i.e. by providing the justification for the source's claims? I am not entirely sure how to make this more clear.

Science is a good example as it always provides justifications for its claims, or ways to verify its claims, other than an authority, as is noted in the article I am referencing. If "verification" is as you describe and is ignorant of the source's own verification, then shouldn't the rule be called "journalistic quotation with no verification, not truth?" 2600:4040:A23F:B200:C0F9:54E5:12FD:43A (talk) 21:08, 6 September 2022 (UTC)

I genuinely applaud the OP, but regarding the specific question in the OP, what you ask for is not feasible, and I think that Mr. Ollie summarized it well. But regarding other items which underlie this thread or what it touched on... "Verifiability not truth" is gone, and we got rid of it for good reasons. One is that one of the TWO common meanings for "truth" is accuracy, and "verifiability, not accuracy" is certainly not our objective. Regarding areas where objective accuracy exists, we strive for it, and verifiability is a means to that end. Also, it would be good to embed reviewing the expertise and objectivity of sources more deeply in policy. RSN actually does this, but outside of RSN too often sources get considered "reliable" not "not reliable" simply by whether or not they have certain wikipedia-defined trappings. North8000 (talk) 21:20, 6 September 2022 (UTC)

I'm not sure why it would not be feasible. Perhaps you could explain?

In order for the source to be qualified as reliable in the first place, it surely must have a justification for the knowledge other than "I'm an authority" if that knowledge is not to be fallaciously derived. That justification should be the thing that wikipedia sources, not just the bare claim. Otherwise a "reliable source" could make a false claim with no justification and wikipedia would have no safeguards other than mainstream opinion.

How does wikipedia verify its claims aside from subjective appeal to whoever the editors happen to find reliable? I'm not sure what the "verifiability, not truth" rule was replaced with (it says on the page that the core of the rule remains the same), but doesn't this process eschew actual verification in favor of whichever popular authorities merely claim certain things are true? 2600:4040:A23F:B200:C0F9:54E5:12FD:43A (talk) 21:54, 6 September 2022 (UTC)

Yes, "I'm an authority" is what we require, and is pretty much all we require. We follow whatever is written in (for example) peer-reviewed scientific journals from publishers with good reputations. If a reliable source makes a false claim Wikipedia will repeat it until a better source comes along to correct the issue. A hypothetical version of Wikipedia from 1800 would have stated that diseases are caused by Galen's miasmas, because that was the belief of doctors of the day, even though it turned out to be wrong (and some people were saying it was wrong even then). That is how the Wikipedia project is designed, because the capability to reproduce every observation and experiment from first principles is not within our means. MrOllie (talk) 22:05, 6 September 2022 (UTC)

Forgive me for any frustration but it's very hard to get you guys to respond to the the things that I am saying. I am not suggesting that wikipedia reproduce every observation and experiment from first principles. I have no idea how you derived that from the text provided. I am merely suggesting that editors quote the justification that the source itself gives. In this way, only sources that themselves provide justification will be trusted.

This cuts to the heart of the question I've been asking -- how is "authority" defined, and "reliable sources" decided upon? Why have the doublespeak of "verification" if all that is meant is "appeal to whoever the editors subjectively deem an authority without any need for verification?" 2600:4040:A23F:B200:3D20:D009:EEF:1C62 (talk) 14:06, 7 September 2022 (UTC)

Well, that's just not how it works, here, and I haven't heard a good reason why it should be. Reliable sources are defined by WP:RS and there is some explanatory info on WP:RSP that explains the consensus from past decisions on why some sources are considered WP:GENREL. Andre🚐 14:08, 7 September 2022 (UTC)

I can see that they are vaguely defined, but it ultimately seems to appeal to group opinion and does not explain how this appeal works.

Is "verification" just a subjective vote with no appeal to actual verification done by the source? As in, if a source says "it's raining cats and dogs," that source needs to provide absolutely no verification for that information in order to be included on wikipedia?

Why exactly would necessitating the source provide justification be a bad idea? 2600:4040:A23F:B200:3D20:D009:EEF:1C62 (talk) 14:20, 7 September 2022 (UTC)

As in, if a source says "it's raining cats and dogs," that source needs to provide absolutely no verification for that information in order to be included on wikipedia? Yes, that is correct. Why exactly would necessitating the source provide justification be a bad idea? Why would it be a good idea? At some level we just have to trust that the author of the citation did the work. MrOllie (talk) 14:30, 7 September 2022 (UTC)

I'm a bit flabbergasted. You are honestly asking why it would be a good idea to prevent false unjustified claims from appearing on wikipedia? If you aren't being purposefully obtuse, one good reason is that the literal only thing preventing wikipedia from publishing any kind of misinformation is whether or not the editors happen to subjectively distrust the source. So the only thing preventing wikipedia from publishing right wing misinformation is that the editors happen to subjectively not trust right wing news sources, rather than that those sources do not provide justification for their claims. I am surprised that suggesting a fix to this problem is met with this response.

And no, "we" do not just need at some level to trust that the author of the citation did the work. "We" can very, very, incredibly easily show that they did the work. Otherwise "we" will easily fall prey to whichever misinformation happens to be popular. 2600:4040:A23F:B200:3D20:D009:EEF:1C62 (talk) 15:00, 7 September 2022 (UTC)

No, that's not what I said. I don't believe requiring some poorly defined 'justification' will actually keep false claims from appearing on Wikipedia. Anyone untrustworthy enough to publish a false statement will probably publish a false justification as well. Despite your claims, many statements in reliable sources are based on detailed statistical analysis, large data sets, and the like. There is no 'incredibly easy' way to double check the work, that is why we rely on editors or peer-reviewers (another 'authority') to do it. MrOllie (talk) 15:20, 7 September 2022 (UTC)

“That’s not what I said, but yes I will reiterate that Wikipedia shouldn’t prevent unjustified claims because that is exactly what I said.”

And again, I'm not sure why you aren't grasping this point, but I am not suggesting that editors necessarily double check the information themselves, merely that if a source is reliable, then it necessarily will have some justification for a claim other than that it is an authority, and that justification should be cited by the editor.

-"Anyone untrustworthy enough to publish a false statement will probably publish a false justification as well."

And anyone that publishes no justification is by definition untrustworthy. Requiring no justification just makes it that much easier for anyone happening to propagate misinformation. This is incredibly easy.

I also don't understand why you're dodging the question of how exactly "reliable sources" are decided upon. If the base for the claim is not the thing being debated by the editors, then what exactly are the editors verifying if not baseless claims? 2600:4040:A23F:B200:389A:C155:155D:F9AD (talk) 16:27, 7 September 2022 (UTC)

I think I'm done responding here, have fun arguing with that straw man. - MrOllie (talk) 16:34, 7 September 2022 (UTC)

You asked why it would be a good idea to cite the source's justification and suggested that appeals to authority were the only possible base of all knowledge claims. In what way is my wording a straw man? 2600:4040:A23F:B200:EC55:CED4:84D8:6E8E (talk) 18:04, 7 September 2022 (UTC)

Reliable sources, for news for example, are decided based on how a WP:NEWSORG meets our standards for accuracy, fact checking, and the other hallmarks of a reliable news source. For academic sources and books, we look at the reputation and credentials of the institutions and publishers etc., whether it is a predatory journal or self-published or a pre-print, or affiliated with the standard academic consensus process for research on the other hand. For different kinds of statements in articles, and for subject areas, WP:CONTEXTMATTERS on what is reliable. I'll give a few examples. For WP:MEDRS and science there is a higher standard. For WP:CVG, there are a lot of sites used for video game articles, used that are probably not going to pass muster for something like politics and general news, where the sources on WP:RSN that are labelled as such, may have caveats for controversial or contentious information.

Anyway, the point is that what is reliable depends on a bunch of factors, but in the end, if it's reliable for general facts, we are going to accept those facts at face value when not contradicted by other sources. The logical justification does not enter into it. Sure, if you had something that seemed obviously wrong and obviously illogical, you could start a discussion and obtain a WP:CONSENSUS to leave out an otherwise apparently reliable source, or to consider an otherwise borderline/questionable source reliable when attributed appropriately, etc. Andre🚐 16:43, 7 September 2022 (UTC)

Let's say one editor finds a source reliable and another finds it unreliable. In what way is it decided that the source is reliable? Is it a bare appeal to authority, where the only thing looked at is credentials and reputation? Is it just a subjective vote by editors?

Do the standards of accuracy and fact checking include a process whereby the accuracy of the authority's claim is actually checked, or is this process also deferred to an appeal to authority? 2600:4040:A23F:B200:EC55:CED4:84D8:6E8E (talk) 18:12, 7 September 2022 (UTC)

It's based on a consensus of editors and valid arguments considering the source's track record and reputation in light of policy. Editors may offer evidence such as failed fact checks or reliable studies of the accuracy. See WP:RSP WP:RSN. Examples of sources making statements that turn out to be false may be used in that context. Andre🚐 18:15, 7 September 2022 (UTC)

So "reliability" has nothing whatsoever to do with whether or not the source actually justifies their argument validly, from the perspective of the editors vetting those sources? If you would give a straight answer you hopefully might begin to see the problem. 2600:4040:A23F:B200:EC55:CED4:84D8:6E8E (talk) 18:42, 7 September 2022 (UTC)

I believe I have answered that yes, reliability is not based on a singular individual perspective of an editor determining whether individual sources make valid arguments, though it is possible for a consensus of editors on an article or in a subject area to determine that a certain source isn't reliable in context, perhaps based on other RS, or they may as a whole determine that certain sources are or are not generally reliable across the board - which doesn't preclude exceptions if they are merited. I don't see it as a problem. We have a core idea of No original research that addresses this. Maybe if you have a more specific, concrete example of where you've seen a problem, we can dig in that way. Andre🚐 18:57, 7 September 2022 (UTC)

And the thing the editors are debating has nothing whatsoever to do with if or how a source justifies their argument? How do you not see a problem?

I already showed a specific, concrete example as my first comment. Maybe if you finally address that we can dig in that way.

And I think for the third time, I am not in anyway suggesting that editors produce original research. I am merely suggesting that the sources cited provide justification other than an appeal to authority, otherwise they should not be considered a reliable source, and that that justification should always be cited along with the knowledge claim.

The editors should at the very least be able to cite "X because Y." 2600:4040:A23F:B200:EDA6:D850:D04F:2FA5 (talk) 19:40, 7 September 2022 (UTC)

Not every statement needs a "because." Sources aren't making arguments, they're reporting facts, and we just reflect statements that are encyclopedic and neutral according to their weight. When it's a contentious argument it may need to be treated carefully. Then we offer a reference so users can see where they came from. I don't see the specific concrete example. By specific and concrete I mean you should give me a real article, a real reference, and the source, and why you think the source needed additional justification in the way that it's being used in the article. Andre🚐 19:46, 7 September 2022 (UTC)

When a source is claiming a fact, if they are reliable, they will provide their justification for reporting it as a fact. I am really having difficultly understanding why this is hard to grasp.

And I've sourced the article. It's real, the things I referenced are real, and I've explained why the additional justification was needed. Maybe if you can address what I said in my first comment we can move this conversation forward? 2600:4040:A23F:B200:B984:7852:F72:8224 (talk) 20:43, 7 September 2022 (UTC)

So in the "appeal to authority" article, what is the text you are saying is problematic, and what source specifically are you saying is problematic? Because I am not seeing what you wrote in the article. Maybe the article text has changed. I do see this text, "Some consider that it is used in a cogent form if all sides of a discussion agree on the reliability of the authority in the given context." Which is fine for me - is that the issue? Andre🚐 21:09, 7 September 2022 (UTC)

Reading the article, do you get the impression that some sources argued that appeals to authority might not be fallacious within logical arguments? 2600:4040:A23F:B200:9C91:98D0:ECB7:E2DF (talk) 23:04, 7 September 2022 (UTC)

Are you referring to the reference to "VI. Appeal to Authority This is the argumentum ad verecundiam. Such an appeal is not necessarily fallacious." from "Logic and the Common Law Trial"? Andre🚐 23:11, 7 September 2022 (UTC)

That's a good example. Can you see in the source how it justifies that claim? Can you tell what type of argument the source is talking about in what circumstances? 2600:4040:A23F:B200:F483:370D:2B54:A744 (talk) 00:09, 8 September 2022 (UTC)

It mentions witness testimony. It talks about "legitimate expert witnesses," who presumably aren't being used fallaciously. It goes on to talk about "the scientist, like the movie star, regularly lends his or her name to a claim or cause without regard to the relevance of his or her special knowledge-argumentum ad verecundiam-allin the service of the "agenda." So what else is new? "Each of them believed himself to be extremely wise in matters of great importance, because he was skillful in his own art: and this mistake of theirs threw their real wisdom into the shade." All of this convinces me that arguments from authority are reasonable in some contexts. Andre🚐 00:23, 8 September 2022 (UTC)

Those were justifications for why arguments from authority are fallacies from weak induction but can be persuasive. That text was after "When listed as a fallacy, the appeal to authority is said to be one of weak induction-the premises may lend some support to the conclusion. The question is, how much?"

The only justification is the source quoting the claim, which is an appeal to authority. I don't have access to the text it is quoting so I have no idea what justification that source gives for the claim, if they are talking about logical arguments or legal arguments or rhetorical arguments or dialectic arguments. But this cuts to the heart of the issue -- this could be amended by requiring sources to provide their justification in their claim, so that editors at the very least have to argue about whether the justification supports the claim rather than whether the claim was spoken by an authority.

Elsewhere in the text there is this quote:

"In the case of a strong inductive argument, if the premises are true then the conclusion is only probably (not necessarily) true. In the standard treatments, the fallacies of weak induction include appeal to authority, appeal to ignorance, false cause, slippery slope, and weak analogy."

Which quote should be believed? That appeals to authority are standardly fallacies, or that they are equally historically nonfallacious? Can wikipedia at least require the editors to check if the text itself is at the very least logically sound and consistent? 2600:4040:A23F:B200:F483:370D:2B54:A744 (talk) 00:49, 8 September 2022 (UTC)

It's clearly talking about different contexts. Appeal to authority is not always a fallacy. For example when you're qualifying an expert witness. Anyway, from a practical standpoint, nobody else is going to endorse your suggestion to require justification, so may as well drop it. The text IMO is perfectly logically sound. It describes things in different scenarios and contexts, which is OK. A foolish consistency is the hobgoblin of little minds, adored by little statesmen and philosophers and divines.-Emerson Andre🚐 00:53, 8 September 2022 (UTC)

"But, gentlemen of the jury, the good craftsmen seemed to me to have the same fault as the poets: each of them, because of his success at his craft, thought himself very wise in other most important pursuits, and this error of theirs overshadowed the wisdom they had" -- Plato, The Apology, part of the thing you quoted as convincing you that appeals to authority are justified 2600:4040:A23F:B200:F483:370D:2B54:A744 (talk) 01:36, 8 September 2022 (UTC)

Open-source intelligence (OSINT) adds transparency to journalism, and Wikipedia articles do cite sources that make use of that technique, such as Bellingcat (RSP entry). However, since the vast majority of reliable sources do not make use of OSINT, it is simply not feasible for Wikipedia to make the use of OSINT a requirement for a source to be considered reliable. If you would like to start a wiki that exclusively cites OSINT-based sources, you are free to do so. MediaWiki, the software that Wikipedia runs on, is a free and open-source solution that anyone can use.

Also, Wikipedia has an entire article on epistemic certainty. It states, "The philosophical question of whether one can ever be truly certain about anything has been widely debated for centuries. Many proponents of philosophical skepticism deny that certainty is possible, or claim that it is only possible in a priori domains such as logic or mathematics. [...] It is generally accepted today that most of our beliefs are compatible with their falsity and are therefore fallible, although the status of being certain is still often ascribed to a limited range of beliefs (such as "I exist"). The apparent fallibility of our beliefs has led many contemporary philosophers to deny that knowledge requires certainty." Wikipedia relies on verifiability, not truth, and the threshold for verifiability is not set at epistemic certainty. — Newslinger talk 23:37, 7 September 2022 (UTC)

It is unclear to me why the common response has been that quoting a source's justification is "unfeasible." Why is that so? 2600:4040:A23F:B200:F483:370D:2B54:A744 (talk) 00:24, 8 September 2022 (UTC)

Most reliable sources are not based on raw data that is made publicly available. If Wikipedia articles were only allowed to cite sources with accompanying raw data, almost all content on Wikipedia would be eliminated. The resulting drop in topic coverage would make Wikipedia significantly less useful for our readers, which is why the suggestion is not feasible. Wikipedia welcomes reliable sources that use open-source intelligence when these sources are available, with the understanding that these sources only cover a fraction of the topics that Wikipedia covers. — Newslinger talk 01:15, 8 September 2022 (UTC)

I'm not entirely sure that OSINT is exactly what I'm talking about, but I think I see what you mean. However just because certain sources might not themselves have openly available sources doesn't mean that all sources should be treated as such. For articles like the one I referenced, about logical fallacies, it should theoretically be more than possible to cite the justification that an authority provides for their claims.

Is there any rule anywhere in wikipedia that addresses something of what I am talking about, where certain sources about certain topics that are able to are required to provide the verification for their claims? Or is the reliability of every source ultimately if the claim is spoken by a perceived authority? 2600:4040:A23F:B200:F483:370D:2B54:A744 (talk) 02:09, 8 September 2022 (UTC)

Neither the verifiability policy nor the reliable sources guideline requires that. If a secondary source provides the primary sources that were used in its reporting, that adds to its credibility but is not a necessary condition for it to be considered reliable on Wikipedia. The following measures act as safeguards against including inaccurate information:

• The reliable sources guideline ensures that only sources with a "reputation for fact-checking and accuracy" are cited.
• The notability guideline requires each article to cite multiple reliable sources that are independent of each other, which helps mitigate the inaccuracy risk associated with any single source.
• In-text attribution is used in some cases, such as when the available sourcing is inadequate to repeat a claim in Wikipedia's voice. The use of phrases such as "according to", paired with the corresponding citations, increases the certainty of the claim.

These measures do not achieve epistemic certainty on Wikipedia, but epistemic certainty was never a goal of Wikipedia in the first place. Wikipedia is an encyclopedia, a tertiary source based on information from other sources, mainly reliable secondary sources.

When a reliable source does provide primary sources, the primary sources can be cited alongside the secondary source. The use of primary sources on Wikipedia is governed by the WP:PRIMARY policy. — Newslinger talk 02:47, 8 September 2022 (UTC)

Gotcha. So there is literally no policy in place that requires any editors at any time to ever check if any source has actually verified or supported any claim outside an appeal to authority, even in cases where that verification is readily available within the text provided, and even in the policy known as the "verifiability policy."

And I'm not saying that epistemic certainty will be guaranteed with my suggestion, merely that wikipedia does not theoretically need to limit itself to solely justifying things by an appeal to authority, and that some policy change should be entirely feasible and probably epistemically beneficial. 2600:4040:A23F:B200:F483:370D:2B54:A744 (talk) 03:31, 8 September 2022 (UTC)

Let's look at a recent featured article: Benedict Joseph Fenwick. For the sources cited in this article, how exactly would you "check if any source has actually verified or supported any claim outside an appeal to authority" to achieve your goal? — Newslinger talk 03:44, 8 September 2022 (UTC)

Take the claim "Born in Maryland." How does the specific source cited justify that claim? If it is from a diary written by a family member during the time Benedict was alive, that would make it a primary source, and the justification would be that the person was there. If it is an author writing a biography and looking at historical documents, the justification would be secondary. If the source itself merely quotes another source that the editor has not cited, the justification would be an appeal to authority. Right now the editor is not required to cite which of these it is, so I won't know unless I have access to the book. If you get to articles on non-empirical information providing justification becomes a bit different but easier, and many articles do provide the literal logical or mathematical justifications for their claims. This is more the situation I was talking about, where on the page for "Arguments from Authority" claims like "appeals to authority are not necessarily fallacious" should at least be justified outside an appeal to authority, but it can definitely apply to the situation you outlined too. 2600:4040:A23F:B200:FCB3:BBE4:78D2:9AC7 (talk) 04:45, 8 September 2022 (UTC)

The text "Born in Maryland" is in the lead section of the Benedict Joseph Fenwick article. Although lead sections do not require citations in many cases, the featured article criteria require the corresponding content in the article body to be supported by inline citations where appropriate. For this article, the corresponding text in the article body is "Benedict Joseph Fenwick was born on September 3, 1782, at Beaverdam Manor in Leonardtown, Maryland", which cites "The Organizer of the Church in New England: Bishop Benedict Joseph Fenwick (1782–1846)", a July 1936 publication from the The Catholic Historical Review. This is a secondary source that does not list primary sources to back up most of its claims.

Thanks to The Wikipedia Library, I have access to this source through JSTOR, and I am able to reproduce the part of the source that covers the claim and check that the article text satisfies Wikipedia's verifiability policy:

Benedict Joseph Fenwick was born September 3, 1782, at his father's plantation on Beaver Dam Manor, near Leonardtown, St. Mary's County, Maryland. His father, George Fenwick, a planter and surveyor, who took a notable part in laying out the District of Columbia and the City of Washington, remains a somewhat dim figure. All the clearer is the strong and perhaps decisive influence upon the boy of his mother, Margaret Medley Fenwick.

Lord, Robert H. (July 1936). "The Organizer of the Church in New England: Bishop Benedict Joseph Fenwick (1782–1846)". The Catholic Historical Review. 22 (2). The Catholic University of America Press: 173. JSTOR 25013478.

Although this is enough to establish that the claim "Born in Maryland" is verifiable by Wikipedia's standards, we have yet to "check if any source has actually verified or supported any claim outside an appeal to authority". With this information, how would you verify the source text even further? — Newslinger talk 05:13, 8 September 2022 (UTC)

Do you honestly not know how to check to what extent a source is primary or secondary? 2600:4040:A23F:B200:BD2B:13A:31F2:5529 (talk) 13:29, 8 September 2022 (UTC)

I've already established verifiability per Wikipedia's standards, so my job is done. That question is for you to answer. — Newslinger talk 13:32, 8 September 2022 (UTC)

Okay, look in the book. Does the book say where it got its information from? Cite that. Does it not say where it got its information from? Do not cite it. 2600:4040:A23F:B200:BD2B:13A:31F2:5529 (talk) 13:43, 8 September 2022 (UTC)

The journal article does not, so according to your suggestion, the Benedict Joseph Fenwick article would not include the location Fenwick was born. If we applied your suggestion to the entire Benedict Joseph Fenwick article, it would be reduced to a fraction of its length, and may not even exist at all. If we applied your suggestion to every Wikipedia article, most of the content on Wikipedia would be removed, and for what benefit? When a corresponding primary source is named, how would you know that the citation is genuine, and how would you verify the primary source's authenticity? Your suggestion doesn't improve epistemic certainty much if all you are demanding is for a primary source to be named.

Your suggestion is not appropriate for an encyclopedia that strives to cover enough topics in sufficient depth to be suitable for general use. Wikipedia aims to maximize benefit for our readers, and drastically reducing Wikipedia's topic coverage in exchange for a marginal increase in epistemic certainty is not a trade-off that would benefit many readers. Wikipedia's purpose is "to benefit readers by acting as a widely accessible and free encyclopedia; a comprehensive written compendium that contains information on all branches of knowledge" (emphasis added). Our readers are our first priority, and our policies and guidelines – including the verifiability policy and the reliable sources guideline – are written to make our content most useful to them. — Newslinger talk 14:09, 8 September 2022 (UTC)

Or, at the very least, one could presumptively identify the source as "appeal to authority" until its status as a secondary source is confirmed. In this manner no articles need necessarily be shortened, but every reader will have available to them the justification that the citation gives for the claim.

It would also be helpful if you didn't take my argument in the worst light it could be taken and argue only against that. I outlined how this would be much easier with articles regarding logic, but for a reason I cannot understand you have conflated those two situations and are declaring based on that conflation that no justification could ever be useful anywhere in wikipedia.

Otherwise we should rename the "verifiability policy" the "appeal to authority policy," as no actual appeal to verifiability is taking place. 2600:4040:A23F:B200:499B:E1B5:77CA:A4D6 (talk) 14:48, 8 September 2022 (UTC)

Demonstrating what would happen to an article if we applied your suggestion to a claim that you selected is hardly putting your argument "in the worst light". We are on the talk page of the reliable sources guideline, a guideline that applies to all articles on Wikipedia, not just articles that exclusively contain non-empirical claims. Additionally, your very first comment clearly stated that your suggestion was also to be considered for empirical claims: "Let’s say the claim is that person X was at street Y at Z time. In order for wikipedia to reliably publish this claim, the editor should be forced to also source the justification for it, i.e. 'there is video evidence' or 'multiple first hand accounts place them there.'" Strong proposals for policy and guideline changes consider the impact that the changes would have on the entire encyclopedia, and also consider whether our readers would benefit from those changes. — Newslinger talk 02:47, 9 September 2022 (UTC)

Editors following this thread may find this article interesting: Is the Sky Blue? How Wikipedia Is Fighting for Facts by Redefining the Truth. End of message, carry on. Gråbergs Gråa Sång (talk) 06:41, 8 September 2022 (UTC)

Thank you for the link to that article. What I find intersting is the way people use 'appeal to authority' as a way to reject the work of scientists and follow instead what some politician or journalist has written a book about or some presenter on television trying to raise their ratings. The scientists have peer review and the TV presenters are the 'authorities'. When Trump says to inject yourself with bleach to cure Covid and people believe him that is appeal to authority. If Wikipedia tried to verify claims in reliable sources we'd be a worse filter than the sources as we are simply not experts. NadVolum (talk) 10:45, 8 September 2022 (UTC)

An "appeal to authority" is when someone says "X is true because some authority says it is true." Scientists never use appeals to authority in their work because they are logically fallacious. They can be used in other situations to varying degrees of success, but "authority says X" never guarantees the truth of "X."

Otherwise if every wikipedia editor subjectively found right wing misinformation trustworthy, wikipedia has no actual safeguards protecting against this case. What I'm suggesting is that if one wants to claim "Injecting bleach cures covid," not only would they have to find a reliable source merely claiming that, but that source would themselves have to have presented some form of justification for that claim, probably in the form of evidence.

Look I get that this idea is upsetting to a lot of you so I'll stop responding soon. I was hoping this wouldn't be something fundamental to wikipedia, but my god. These roots go deep. 2600:4040:A23F:B200:BD2B:13A:31F2:5529 (talk) 13:41, 8 September 2022 (UTC)

I am sorry that I sent you here from the article Talk page, since this turned out to be a sort of universal time-waster.

It's pretty simple. Taken to the extreme, your demands lead to a sort of infinite regress. For every source, you can ask "how does the source know that", then ask the same for the source of the source and so on. You will end up asking if you are a brain in a vat. You have to stop somewhere, and the place where the Wikipedia rules tell you to stop is a reasonable place. If we demanded that everybody who adds a piece of information had to check the source of the source of the source, we would not get anything done, and Wikipedia would consist of a tiny amount of the articles it has now.

You say Scientists never use appeals to authority in their work, but actually, they do trust each other to a certain degree. When a scientist reads a paper by another scientist and finds reasonable content there, they just accept it as true. But they will not trust, say, a creationist, to get it right, because those are known to tell almost nothing but false rumours. Also, if the content is fishy and does not fit other data, people will check it.

Your idealism probably feels good to someone sitting in an ivory tower, but in practice, it cannot be done as extensively as one would do it in an ideal world. You have to balance the accuracy with the effort required to achieve it.

An expert is a person who has found out by his own painful experience all the mistakes that one can make in a very narrow field. [1] Experts know, roughly, what has to be checked and what can be trusted, who knows about what and who does not. They know where the tricky parts are. The "argumentum ad verecundiam" is about unsophisticated, blind acceptance, not about reasonable differentiation between knowledgeable and ignorant/mendacious sources. And a simple rule "do this, and you will end up with the truth" is impossible anyway. You'll always have to think. --Hob Gadling (talk) 14:30, 8 September 2022 (UTC)

That can be true for some forms of empirical information, but it is not the case for all forms of knowledge. It might be helpful not to argue against the straw man case and instead argue against the situation I presented. Either way, in that straw man case, it can still be good practice to leave at one source if it is an appeal to authority, a secondary, or a primary source. At least the reader will know which information on wikipedia comes from one of those "infinite regress" situations you describe.

And on the page for "Appeal to Authority" it notes how the appeal is never used in science. It's the difference between "E=mc^2 because Einstein said so" and "E=mc^2 because general relativity has been proven through empirical observation." Scientists will never use the first form, as that form is logically fallacious. 2600:4040:A23F:B200:499B:E1B5:77CA:A4D6 (talk) 15:00, 8 September 2022 (UTC)

the appeal is never used in science Wikipedia never uses it either. I challenge you find an article which says "X is true because authority Y said so." If you find one, that sentence will be removed because that is not how Wikipedia works.

You are the one erecting strawmen here. Wikipedia is never about what is true. People have told you that, again and again, but you do not seem to believe it and instead regard it as a sort of cop-out. "Verifiability" only means that when a Wikipedia article says "Source Y says X", you can verify it by checking the source Y and finding out if it really says X. If the article said "X is true" without any source, and X is not WP:SKYBLUE, then it should be deleted.

This is about the syllogism

1. "Y says that X is true."
2. "Y is an expert."
3. "Therefore X is true."

Wikipedia says 1, and only 1. If 2 is true, Wikipedia is more likely to say 1, so it is also part of the system. But 3 is not. 3 is your invention, your strawman. If there is an argument from authority, it is there because you made it and put it in Wikipedia's mouth.

If there is a consensus among experts that X is true, Wikipedia should not say "Y says that X is true", because that would be misleading. It simply says X is true, but not because of an argument from authority. There is a solid reason for such a consensus, and we have competent users who know that reason. WP:CIR is an important page. I may be wrong, but my impression is that you start from a blank slate and basic axioms and to demand that anybody can derive the desired article content from that and from the world out there, just using logic and a recipe. That is not how it works.

When people here say that yes, we do use appeals to authority, they do not mean 3 above. Using one single authority to determine whether we say X is true or not, should not happen, and those users will not allow that. They mean that we use the consensus. --Hob Gadling (talk) 16:32, 8 September 2022 (UTC)

Another thing. If the way articles are written did involve checking the logic of the sources, and whether what they say really follows from their sources, by Wikipedia editors, that would be asking too much of many of them. I have met legions of users, new ones and old ones, and there are quite a few who are absolutely hopeless when it comes to logic, especially among the new ones. All of them, including me of course, are hopeless when it comes to most subjects. I can check if a philosopher wrote what we ascribe to him, but I cannot determine whether what he writes follows from his own sources because I lack the expertise. That is the case with most other fields. And that is true for everybody. With your method, we would have to depend on those editors who are experts themselves. Leading to - appeal to authority! But how would we even know whether an editor is really an expert? With your method, the appeal to authority would have to get much worse than it is now. We do need knowledgeable users to check that we do not write complete bollocks, but if somebody had to check the internal logic of the sources, we would need loads of real experts investing loads of time. It's not only not feasible, it would also stop being "wiki", which means "quick". It's just a naive, unrealistic idea born from a huge distance between the thinking and the actual doing. --Hob Gadling (talk) 17:46, 8 September 2022 (UTC)

In the article on Arguments from Authority, the quote "Historically, opinion on the appeal to authority has been divided: it is listed as a non-fallacious argument as often as a fallacious argument in various sources," is cited by a source which itself is citing another source merely making that claim. There is currently no other justification for this claim appearing on wikipedia.

What is the justification for claiming that "Historically, opinion on the appeal to authority has been divided?" It is merely an author saying that an authority said that. Nowhere in the text does the author ever justify that claim outside that single appeal to authority.

Within that same source there is a quote indicating that appeals to authority are standardly treated as fallacies. Which position should be able to be quoted by wikipedia editors in what way given that the source outlines contrary positions? This seems like a case where editors being able to comprehend logical concepts such as arguments or claims being contradictory might be useful. If editors themselves are not capable of this action, then I still do not see why merely asking them to quote the justification would involve doing any sort of logic as you claim. They are doing the literal exact same thing as before, they are just citing one more point of reference.

Again, I am in no way claiming that editors need to be experts themselves or even need to evaluate the justification themselves. I am making the suggestion that editors cite the justification. In this way, verifiability would be placed at the forefront of wikipedia's values rather than appeal to authority/consensus. 2600:4040:A23F:B200:870:20BC:5611:CDE4 (talk) 19:56, 8 September 2022 (UTC)

What is the justification for claiming that "Historically, opinion on the appeal to authority has been divided? Now that is something that belongs on the Talk page of that article, not here.

I am making the suggestion that editors cite the justification. Still requires expertise. Justifications can take several pages or whole books. One would need to summarize it. Yes, it is nice when someone does that, but this is about the guideline. If the guideline said one always has to add the justification, everything would become less feasible. Lots of sources would not be useable anymore because the justification cites another, more difficult-to-obtain source. All articles would become longer and more boring. Wikipedia articles are for giving a short summary. Those who are interested can go the sources and look up the justification. --Hob Gadling (talk) 06:48, 9 September 2022 (UTC)

Well I'm not upset at all. And appeal to authority is in effect how most science manages to proceed. Scientists in general don't pore over what others do to check everything is okay - they depend on publications in reliable sources. The sources are counted reliable becuse they've gained that reputation ensuring work they publish is peer reviewed. That is what Wikipedia is doing but rather less rigorously - we count newspapers reporting on the sayings of politicians for instance without requiring a reputation for peer review! The standard depends on the topic. Do you really think you are qualified to do what you seem to expect others here to do? We are not expected to have any special qualification except a fairly basic competence. NadVolum (talk) 14:31, 8 September 2022 (UTC)

"And appeal to authority is in effect how most science manages to proceed."

I continue to be flabbergasted at the positions outlined by not only one, but seemingly most wikipedia editors. But it does explain why the issue is an issue in the first place. No, appeals to authority should never be used in hard science.

And surely editors have the capacity to read citations? Again, I am NOT suggesting that editors do original research. Merely that they quote the source's justification for the knowledge. 2600:4040:A23F:B200:499B:E1B5:77CA:A4D6 (talk) 15:07, 8 September 2022 (UTC)

(Edit conflict; I was writing almost the same thing about infinite regress.) None of this means that we don't apply a critical eye to sources. In my book, a good editor is one who is always looking for the best source for each substantial item, and this investigation can include checking how well the sources justify their claims and what the expertise of their authors is. A historian who wrote a whole article on a historical event is preferred over one who just mentions it in passing, and so on. But once the decision has been made, we give the information and cite the source. It isn't practical to ask for more. The article talk page is there if detailed discussion is needed. Zero^talk 14:49, 8 September 2022 (UTC)

On a side issue, "Appeal to authority" is a term which has different meanings in different contexts. It's main meaning is from the context of talking about arguments, and in that context it's considered a bad thing/ defective as an argument. Also, in the above threads, it's discussed in the context of being a potential substitute for the scientific method in areas where the scientific method is used, where it is of course also a bad thing. But if you misplace the term into other realms, it can applied to considering something coming from a trusted, proven, careful source that is expert in that area to be accepted as fact based on who it came from. And that is how much of the world successfully operates, and there's nothing wrong with it.

2600 you may be arguing against the other extreme which is blindly accepting something simply because it meets Wikipedia's definition of a "Reliable source" despite the fact that those rules often don't select for actual reliability. Wikipedia could use some evolution there. But you trying to help in that area by promoting requiring the procedure that you specify is not an effective way to start. And to try to do it in just a talk page conversation without learning even the basics of how the alternate universe of Wikipedia operates (which I don't think that you have) is only going to be frustrating for you and the others involved in the conversation. If my/that guess is right, may I suggest doing a thorough read of WP:V and also WP:NOR, in the context that they are on even the shortest list of Wikipedia's most influential policies. Also look at a sampling RFC's most of which including sourcing questions. Your proposed procedure is really only applicable to areas of objective fact and I think that would see that only a tiny fraction of sourcing questions involve that. Sincerely, North8000 (talk) 20:08, 8 September 2022 (UTC)

"because it meets Wikipedia's definition of a 'Reliable source' despite the fact that those rules often don't select for actual reliability. Wikipedia could use some evolution there."

Thank you for letting me have some input. All the best. 2600:4040:A23F:B200:F4A0:E9EB:101F:12F3 (talk) 21:10, 8 September 2022 (UTC)

Emails as references

Is it possible for an email by a reliable scholar to be used as a reference in an article; particularly for resolving ambiguity about an earlier, already published work of his/her? I am almost certain that i have come across a couple of such references in the past, but unfortunately i cannot recall exactly in which articles i saw them. I initially asked RoySmith via email about this, and he forwarded me here. I thought there was no guideline or policy that explicitly touches upon this subject; however, having been forwarded here, i noticed that there is some relevant information in the FAQ template, at the top of this page. Specifically we read:

• Is personal communication from an expert a reliable source?

No. It is not good enough for you to talk to an expert in person or by telephone, or to have a written letter, e-mail message, or text message from a source. Reliable sources must be published.

Furthermore, the information page WP:PUBLISH – that is wikilinked above – includes the following:

• All reliable sources must be both published and accessible to at least some people[; ... however, the definitions of these terms] are separate from the idea of "reliable". [...] All reliable sources are published, but not all published sources are reliable for encyclopedic purposes. [...] It is necessary for the information to be made available to the public in general, not just to individuals or selected groups of people. [... An example would be a] broadcast email, including email-lists if they are archived and public—but not email messages or other forms of personal communication sent only to you or a small number of people[.]

The idea of reliability is not really an issue here, as self-published sources by an established expert on a subject matter, whose work in the relevant field has been previously published by reliable, independent publications can be considered reliable; per WP:RSSELF. The necessity of publication and accessibility could also be addressed if the email was to be published in the talk page of the corresponding article, that is accessible to everyone. The only real issue that i see, is how to provide confirmation for the authenticity of the email, in order to show that it indeed originates from the established expert in question? A possible solution to this could be a direct communication of the expert with the Wikipedia:Volunteer Response Team, explaining his/her view about a topic or reporting content that is erroneously attributed to him/her (already covered by the team's activities via reports of article errors); then the confirmation of his/her identity by an agent (assuming this is even possible), and the publication of the email and the respective VRT ticket number in the talk page of an article. As for the article itself, a properly written explanatory footnote meant to clarify an ambiguity of a published work that is referenced, would be sufficient in my opinion. Demetrios1993 (talk) 23:03, 9 September 2022 (UTC)

There's a related conversation about being published above - in my opinion, no, it would not be published if it was a private email. However, perhaps the policy should be clarified because, if published just means "made available to any subset of the public," I guess an email would qualify. In my opinion though, a test of being published is whether it was made available to the general public at large, either through a posted website, publication of a book or journal or article or periodical etc, or arguably, a public sign or public archive, but I do not think a private email should be included. Andre🚐 23:19, 9 September 2022 (UTC)

Preventing Ad Hominem

Sock drawer. Generalrelative (talk) 21:47, 10 September 2022 (UTC)
The following discussion has been closed. Please do not modify it.
I was reading the definition of a source section and read that "any of the three can affect reliability" (The three being, author, publisher, piece of work itself). Might I suggest adding that the extent to which any of these three affects reliability is context dependent. For example, for a peer-reviewed scientific paper, the publisher is a lot more important than the author. That is what the peer-review process is about, being able to be confident that at least when it comes to factual matters, even though the author of a paper may be biased, said factual matters have been checked and double checked by disinterested reviewers. Ohcanada123 (talk) 07:44, 26 August 2022 (UTC) "Bias" doesn't necessarily prevent a source being reliable. But subject to that, isn't the guideline already saying this eg WP:CONTEXTMATTERS? DeCausa (talk) 12:35, 26 August 2022 (UTC) It's a fair point to suggest "context matters" isn't prominent enough. Why are we giving WP's definition of "published" right after the list of RS criteria, since it is used as a qualifying criteria of a source, not a qualifying criteria of reliability. Thus it should go in a separate section, or simply be limited to WP:V and WP:PUBLISHED. (Also this propagation of tangential policy cross-refs can be problematic, as I recently edited to show.) So I propose a cursory, if any mention of what disqualifies a source from being usable -- just wl to WP:V#Reliable sources == WP:SOURCE and separate the disqualifications there, as the point here is to talk about evaluating reliability. Then remove the "published" section (wl PUBLISHED and/or V), and presto, ContextMatters is now right after the list of three major things affecting reliability. SamuelRiv (talk) 16:16, 26 August 2022 (UTC) Genuine CE here, but not on my post, to make this point: I made the mistake that WP:PUBLISHED above should actually be WP:PUBLISH, because the former redirects to the RS section, while the latter is its own information page, to which I suggest we wl instead. Is that potentially confusing? Needless duplication of identical material? Nah, that's just crazy-talk. SamuelRiv (talk) 16:20, 26 August 2022 (UTC) I agree it's confusing. I feel like both should lead to Wikipedia:Reliable_sources#Definition_of_published, which provides a link to Wikipedia:Published where people can drill down. Valereee (talk) 18:05, 26 August 2022 (UTC) Ok, I suggest we change the following: "In general, the more people engaged in checking facts, analyzing legal issues, and scrutinizing the writing, the more reliable the publication. The relative importance of author, publisher and publication also depends on context. For example, a non-peer-reviewed scholarly book might be unreliable if the author is known to be biased. However, if a publication is peer reviewed in a reputable journal, or if the underlying data is verifiable in public data bases, then the author can be irrelevant." Ohcanada123 (talk) 22:09, 28 August 2022 (UTC) This extrapolation is simply incorrect in general -- I don't know what to tell you. What's wrong with just noting the three criteria affecting reliability to consider, and context matters? Stuff about peer review, bias, etc. all belongs in subsections explanatory essays and policies specific to news and academic fields. Not sure what public databases have to do with anything -- they range in reliability from useless to gold-standard (depending on what you use them for and how). As a running theme on RSN, bias in general does not affect reliability. SamuelRiv (talk) 22:18, 28 August 2022 (UTC) Scholarly books are never peer reviewed. All the good scholarly books are "biased" in some way (e.g., toward my idea of why they ousted the old ruler and away from your ideas about the same event). I wonder if we still aren't internalizing the idea that biased sources are okay. Wikipedia articles should not be biased, but reliable sources can be biased. WhatamIdoing (talk) 23:12, 29 August 2022 (UTC) It's not correct to simply say that "scholarly books are never peer reviewed." Academic presses do employ peer reviews of their books, sometimes of portions of the books and sometimes of entire books. That is the primary thing that makes them academic presses (aside from their specialized topical foci, of course). ElKevbo (talk) 23:19, 29 August 2022 (UTC) ElKevbo Interesting, I was not aware of that. In that case I cannot think of a situation (at least when it comes to scholarly topics) when the author of a paper or a book is really relevant to the reliability of the source, if their work is checked and approved by independent scholars in the field who work with reputable publishers. Does anyone know of an example when the author of a a piece of scholarly work that is published by a reputable academic publisher or journal can affect reliability?Ohcanada123 (talk) 03:29, 30 August 2022 (UTC) Crude “reliability” isn’t usually the differentiator between academic authors if they’re published by reputable publishers. It’s usually about weight (WP:DUE etc). A world expert’s work is goingto carry more weight than a monograph based on a recent PhD thesis. But I come back to my point earlier in thus thread: context matters is already appropriately covered: nothing needs fixing, particularly asis demonstrated by this thread trying to “fix it” digs a hole full of cans of worms…DeCausa (talk) 03:47, 30 August 2022 (UTC) I know crude reliability is not usually the differentiator between academic authors, but I was wondering about situations where it was. If these situations are exceedingly rare, may I suggest simply saying that the more the author's work or claim has been vetted by peer-review and other scholars in the field, the less relevant the author becomes in terms of reliability, but there still may be concerns about due weight. Ohcanada123 (talk) 05:37, 30 August 2022 (UTC) Within academic sources, author identity usually matters at the extremes: the widely recognized world experts on the one end, and the crackpots and disgraced fraudsters on the other. WhatamIdoing (talk) 01:07, 31 August 2022 (UTC) That is what I thought, but think of the following situation. Suppose Deepak Chopra ran a large scale double-blind, placebo-controlled, randomized controlled trial and found that homeopathy actually works. Suppose after intense peer-review and scrutiny The New England Journal of Medicine found that this study was of sufficient methodological quality to allow publication. Is it really relevant that the author is a crackpot or a disgraced fraudster? It seems to me the definition of ad hominem. Indeed, if a crackpot like him was able to jump through all the necessary hoops to get their methodology checked and their results published by a respected publisher, then in my opinion that is worth at least a mention. Ohcanada123 (talk) 03:30, 31 August 2022 (UTC) For myself, I'd probably believe that NEJM is trying to get some publicity. They're known for running controversial articles; getting people to cite an article for the purpose of disagreeing with it or using it to claim uncertainty in the field can do very good things for a journal's magic numbers. Also, you wouldn't be able to use it in any medical-related content on wiki, because it's a primary source instead of a review article. With the usual systems, there's a 5% chance of an erroneous outcome in a randomized trial. But: If we leave aside all the details, and instead say that it's a famous woo-woo person, whom we'll call Cheeky Doppa, in a strictly non-medical hypothetical field of alternative babblology, who got an article published in one of the leading journals for the field, then I think the article would be considered reliable at least for some limited claims ("Cheeky Doppa claimed that..."), and the next step would be to figure out whether mentioning that was WP:DUE. Also, I'd suggest as much patience as you can manage, since complaints about bad work tend to surface fairly quickly, especially if it's made a big splash in the media. (Of course, that same level of media attention increases the demand for Wikipedia articles to say something, even if all they say amounts to "Yes, we know that he published a paper, okay?") WhatamIdoing (talk) 01:02, 1 September 2022 (UTC)

Daily Mail and sports

It seems absurd that I can't add a section to an article about a current event that dozens of association football sources are talking about [2][3][4][5][6][7][8] because they are all citing the Daily Mail, and Daily Mail is considered unreliable by WP. Clearly the rest of the published world does not agree with WP in that regard, at least not on the topic of sports. - Keith D. Tyler ¶ 05:03, 13 September 2022 (UTC)

This is the talkpage for discussing changes to a specific WP-guideline. At Wikipedia:Reliable sources/Noticeboard you'll find the page for "posting questions regarding whether particular sources are reliable in context." Gråbergs Gråa Sång (talk) 09:12, 13 September 2022 (UTC)

This process is extremely obfuscated, as if to dissuade such discussion. There should be a discussion page for every source, not just an endless unorganized list of archived talk pages for all sources. I can't find the link where it is considered "correct" to discuss a given source. Keith D. Tyler ¶ 17:52, 13 September 2022 (UTC)

WP:RSN is usually the place, but sometimes the talkpage of the article where you want to use it can be a good place. You can find links to old discussions about DM at WP:DAILYMAIL (More than 50, from 2007 and onwards). That link goes to a page which is a list of sources that has been discussed multiple times, usually at RSN. Gråbergs Gråa Sång (talk) 18:21, 13 September 2022 (UTC)

Its been brought up dozens of times at the RSN. Ultimately the Daily Mail is incredibly libellous and allowing it even for something seemingly trivial/non-controversial such as football would open the floodgates. DM is just not a good source period. It's not even worth the risk of some of the legal issues wiki could get embroiled with because of DM's dangerous reporting. >> Lil-unique1 (talk) — 19:20, 13 September 2022 (UTC)

WP:HEADLINES

While the premise of this guideline is clear, I think it should be expanded to make explicit that the rule of thump here applies to all kinds of titles, not just in the news. The way it is currently outlined, the emphasis is on news headlines, but books titles are just as subject to sensationalization by publishers as news headlines are by editors. Similarly with academic writing, titles often oversimplify and eschew the most precise terminology. I think book and academic titles should be explicitly incorporated into the text, if not already understood, to make it clear that all headlines and titles are fundamentally flawed as an informational resource. There is of course a due weight argument underpinning all of this in that a title appears just once, while a work's subject will be mentioned again and again within the body of the work, thereby making the mentions in the body automatically more relevant than any singular titular mention. However, I was recently engaged in a discussion where an editor did not appreciate this implicitly. Hence my sense that this to be made explicit. Iskandar323 (talk) 15:27, 19 September 2022 (UTC)

Correct spelling of name

How can I or somebody correct the spelling of a name on a Wikipedia page? Page: the lovin' spoonful Under past members: David Jayco should be David Jayko Thank you, Roxane Rclbuss (talk) 19:31, 19 September 2022 (UTC)

That would be every mention of him in the article, they're all Jayco. You can, see WP:TUTORIAL, but I'm not sure you should. Afaict, everyone Google has heard of spells it like WP does.[9]. Could be citogenesis, of course, but I'd like to see a WP:RS that supports the spelling. Gråbergs Gråa Sång (talk) 20:15, 19 September 2022 (UTC)

Preferable to remove non-rs but leave unsourced material?

Hi there,

I opened a line of discussion with @Nikkimaria: concerning the removal of non-reliable sources, but then leaving the material unsourced (see Special:Diff/1116144179/1116101302). The user maintains there is "no difference between material with an unreliable source and material that is unsourced". While in essence I agree, I think it practically makes more sense to either delete the unreliable source and material cited, or leave the material and source and tag it as unreliable (as suggested by @Aymatth2: at User_talk:Nikkimaria#Non-reliable_sources). Personally, I think it is important to leave the information and the sourcing together - either both stay in the article together or get deleted from the article together. I was just wondering what the community thinks about circumstances such as this. Mbdfar (talk) 17:26, 15 October 2022 (UTC)

I have no objection if you choose to either remove or cn-tag the material in question. Nikkimaria (talk) 17:28, 15 October 2022 (UTC)

I don't see any point in knowingly leaving in a non-RS source and tagging it. If it's unreliable it doesn't exist for our purposes. Take out the source and either cn tag it or take out the information (but only if someone doubts it's veracity. It always irritates me when people take out text merely for being unsourced but which they don't actually think is incorrect.) DeCausa (talk) 17:35, 15 October 2022 (UTC)

If we are going to include information we should always say where we got it from, so readers can check the source and judge whether to accept it. We should only include information that we are reasonably confident is correct, and should only include controversial or potentially damaging information if we are very sure it is correct. But even the most convincing sources may contain errors.

For example, if a page called "Our History" on a corporate website says "the company was founded in 1923 by Frederick K. Brown" that is plausible and seems uncontroversial. I would use it, citing the source. Perhaps a respectable academic source says it was founded by Prederick K. Brown. We can assume (perhaps wrongly) that is a typo. There are sources like Find a Grave that hold unverified user-submitted information, so may be unreliable, but often there is every reason to believe what they say. A Find a Grave entry may hold a picture of the gravestone of Frederick K. Brown, giving dates and places of birth and death. It seems reasonable to give this information and say where it comes from.

It is more useful (and honest) to cite the source, perhaps with a tag like {{Self-published source}} or {{Unreliable source?}}, than to give the information but hide the source, with a {{cn}} tag. Aymatth2 (talk) 14:26, 16 October 2022 (UTC)

A gravestone itself may potentially be citable as a primary source for certain claims, and a non-independent source like a company's own website can indeed be used for uncontroversial details. However, there is no reason to believe unverified user-submitted information (at least from a non-expert) is correct - whether that content originates at some other site or here. Nikkimaria (talk) 02:39, 17 October 2022 (UTC)

The cited source that triggered this discussion is at Find a Grave. The gravestone spells the subject's name incorrectly, as the Find a Grave user points out, but the user notes that a plaque on the back of the stone gives the right spelling, Aymatth2 (talk) 14:46, 17 October 2022 (UTC)

The content at an unreliable source may still provide the right direction to find the same content at a reliable source (eg commonly, the unreliable source is just writing around what an RS has said). So if the content is going to remain it is better to tag the source (like as mentioned "Unreliable source?" or "Better source" templates). Masem (t) 14:29, 16 October 2022 (UTC)

• This varies depending on context. If you think it is likely that a source exists, the statement is unexceptional, no is directly challenging it, and it is not WP:BLP sensitive, then it makes sense to leave it in and put a citation-needed tag on it. If any of those things are false then it should be removed (though it is sometimes worth checking the rest of the article; sometimes a citation exists for it elsewhere that got separated as the article was edited.) Also, if it reaches the point of there being a dispute between two editors over whether to include it, then it ought to be removed, per the WP:RS requirement that all challenged material needs a source. --Aquillion (talk) 15:06, 16 October 2022 (UTC)
• To get back to the original question, assume we have some uncontroversial information that is most likely correct, with a citation to a self-published or otherwise unreliable source, and no other source can be found. The options are:
  1. Remove the information and citation.
  2. Leave the information, but remove the citation and tag the information as {{Citation needed}}
  3. Leave the information and citation, but tag the citation as e.g. {{Self-published source}} or {{Unreliable source?}}

I vote for option 3. Aymatth2 (talk) 14:46, 17 October 2022 (UTC)

Agreed. #3 is certainly the best option in cases where the basic facts are unlikely to be wrong nor make a claim that would be seen as UNDUE even if published in a RS. Springee (talk) 20:04, 17 October 2022 (UTC)

If a claim is not made in any reliable source, we have no idea whether it is right or wrong - and if it's a claim that requires citation, the fact that a reliable source is hard to find does not make an unreliable one okay to use. Nikkimaria (talk) 01:16, 18 October 2022 (UTC)

I think we should be careful with such an assumption. Consider an example like "Swift racecars won 6 of the first 7 SCCA FF class national championship races in which they were entered [site a FF racing blog]. A blog doesn't fit out definition of RS and it may be hard to find a web source that supports this claim. I can try to support it via some low level OR by looking up winners per year and knowing the first year a Swift car was entered. If the blog says which years then it's presumably rather easy to verify those facts. This is one of those cases where we can agree that an enthusiast blog very well may have the right information but we can't meet the letter of WP:V because we need something that counts as a RS and a blog doesn't. I believe this stat is actually in a out of print book but that makes it harder for people to just do a websearch and punch in a quick citation. Still, as the win record for an article about a racecar or it's manufacture is a notable detail, this seems like the sort of case where it would be better to use a [better source needed] tag instead of removal. Springee (talk) 02:21, 18 October 2022 (UTC)

Agreed. Whether the source is technically reliable or unreliable, we should surely use our judgement on whether it is likely to be in error. Newspapers, magazines, books and academic papers are often inaccurate. An article in a small-town newspaper may just be an essay derived from a Wikipedia article. This book states that in 1932 Standard Oil of New Jersey acquired Pan American Petroleum. In fact, only the foreign assets were acquired. The book is wrong. But an entry in a genealogy website, derived from offline parish records, may well be correct. That said, I agree that material should be removed when it is not backed up by a "reliable source" and is challenged. Aymatth2 (talk) 15:53, 19 October 2022 (UTC)

I agree with Aymatth2, in thinking that option #3 is best.

In addition to the reasons given above, it is also desirable for editors to WP:SAYWHEREYOUGOTIT for the purpose of checking for copyright violations. WhatamIdoing (talk) 00:57, 4 November 2022 (UTC)

Semi-protected edit request on 26 September 2022

Dear Wikipedia, I am Fiery Cushman's mother and I am asking that the Entry for Fiery Cushman be changed from "his mother taught psychology at American University." to "his mother was a clinical child psychologist practicing in Washington, DC and Maryland." While I did teach child psychology for a semester at American University that was not my primary occupation, and I was not on the faculty there. Sincerely, Lynnwood Andrews 2601:18C:4280:7130:1C2E:6936:44B6:5B44 (talk) 23:00, 26 September 2022 (UTC)

 Not done: this is the talk page for discussing improvements to the page Wikipedia:Reliable sources. Please make your request at the talk page for the article concerned. MadGuy7023 (talk) 23:04, 26 September 2022 (UTC)

Emufarmers or Matthewrb, could you ask a VRT person to look into this? WhatamIdoing (talk) 00:17, 4 November 2022 (UTC)

@WhatamIdoing: There's no ticket, so I don't think there's anything a VRT volunteer could do here that anybody else couldn't. —Emufarmers^(T/C) 01:18, 4 November 2022 (UTC)

@WhatamIdoing I took a look in VRTS, however; I was handicapped by T319483 and upstream timeouts. If you have some more information, I'd be glad to take another look. ~ Matthewrb ^{Talk to me · Changes I've made} 16:50, 4 November 2022 (UTC)

"Wikipedia articles should be based on the best reliable, published sources,..."

• Problem: in many articles where highly reliable bibliography is available, some users keep adding borderline sources. This causes various problems, edit wars and Undue weight.
• Solution: How about adding the phrase "the best" at our intro.

What do you think friends? Cinadon36 09:12, 26 October 2022 (UTC)

And then you get into edit wars about which is the best source. Adding 'the best' is not what will make people stop adding propaganda, fake news, quacks, fringe science and other unreliable/borderline sources.

However, if you are interested in fighting those, WP:UPSD and WP:CITEWATCH are good places to start. Headbomb {t · c · p · b} 13:08, 26 October 2022 (UTC)

Thanks @Headbomb for the reply. I feel that the edit wars will not end but my suggestion will make it harder for someone to add staff based on an article from the GoFigureTimes. Further, an argument I didn't make earlier but is important, we should only use academic sources in articles where there are plenty of academic literature. That will improve our overall general level. Cinadon36 07:28, 27 October 2022 (UTC)

Imagine that I write "Joe Biden is the 46th president of the US" in an article, and I have these sources readily at hand:

• a scholarly book that very few people have access to,
• a reputable political magazine that endorsed this politician during the campaign,
• a website for schoolchildren that contains a numbered list of all the US presidents, and
• a web page published by the politician's campaign organization.

Does it actually matter which source(s) I cite in this case? It's not like if I cite one source he's going to be the 46th president, but if I cite another one, he's going to suddenly become the 47th president. WhatamIdoing (talk) 01:04, 4 November 2022 (UTC)

Reliable sources must be strong enough to support the claim. A lightweight source may sometimes be acceptable for a lightweight claim, but never for an extraordinary claim.

I think that our WP:V/RS advice is actually trying to address two separate points, and that can be a source of problems. The two points are:

1. what you should look for, if you want to write a great article
2. what's acceptable for a single statement

In the first situation, I agree with Cinadon36's first thought: Get the best sources you can find. If the subject is at all scholarly, get good scholarly sources.

But for the second scenario (e.g., if you are answering a request for a source, if you are patrolling RecentChanges, if you are checking your watchlist), the initial goal is just to have a passable source. When the goal is to prove that you didn't make up the sentence, or to WP:SAYWHEREYOUGOTIT, it's enough to cite a source that is just barely good enough for the claim in question.

The image here used to be in the guideline (it was boldly removed because an editor thought it was "confusing"), which highlighted the point that the strength/quality of the source needs to match the use that we're putting it to. We don't need all of our sources to be the strongest and best. Difficult material requires strong sources, but simple material (like "Biden is the 46th president") does not. WhatamIdoing (talk) 22:48, 4 November 2022 (UTC)

Proposal for a new policy

I would like to propose that the policy regarding the reference to sources be changed.

I would like to suggest that every source should be classified into a reliability category and that every Wikipedia article should make it easy for the reader to see, while reading, how reliable the information stated and the source of that information are (colorizing?).

I am thinking of 3 reliability categories: - Peer-reviewed scholarly source - Bellingcat-reviewed news source - Non-reviewed source written by a reputed scholarly expert on the subject (you should of course define "reputed" and "scholarly expert")

All other sources should be denied since they are insufficiently reliable for any encyclopedia !!!

Your average newspaper article, even from reputed newspapers, just is not scholarly reliable or unbiased enough to use as a source for an encyclopedia without proper review.

Newspapers are news papers. And Wikipedia is not, and should not want to grow into, a newspaper !!!!

Also Wikipedia is supposed to be free and open. Every source it refers to should also be openly and freely available in the public domain! You should not have to buy the source in an attempt to verify the information!

We already fund our scientists with our tax money and more. And we pay them well. We should not have to pay twice for that information anyway. Furthermore an encyclopedia should publish facts that have lost their news value, and information that has lost is news value should always be free. So scholarly and news sources referred to in an encyclopedia should never be behind any kind of paywall.

As soon as a free and open encyclopedia starts using sources that are not freely available in the public domain, it becomes an extension of commerce and all kinds of interest, and thus loses its freedom and independence... 77.60.121.89 (talk) 08:23, 15 November 2022 (UTC)

There's some interesting ideas there but I do have to point out a few things

- it seems a little contradictory that you put Peer-reviewed scholarly source as the top reliability, and then state that Wikipedia should not be using paid sources. Many (most?) scholarly articles are only available to the public through some form of payment. Wikipedia has no control over this.

- I think that most editors do try to provide sources that are freely available. Sometimes this just isn't possible.

- there are a number of fact checking sites similar to Bellingcat. One issue that has been raised in the discussions here is the reliability of those fact-checking organisations. Someone has to determine the reliability of sources, and it's Wikipedia's policy to leave final say up to the Wikipedia editors.

- My most recent edit was to describe a service provided by an organisation and the websites involved. I had no choice but to use the websites and organisation involved as a citation. This does not seem to be accounted by your suggestion

- scholarly does not equate to reliability necessarily, particularly a non-reviewed source.

- editors still need to interpret sources when writing articles. That's an element of reliability that it probably the most important. An editor can give all sorts of authoritative and reliable citations, and still write nonsense.

- readers can check the sources themselves, or at least the likely reliability.

- Are there any specific examples of problems you would like to refer to and how your suggestion would alleviate that problem? Jameel the Saluki (talk) 08:40, 15 November 2022 (UTC)

Encyclopedia of World History

I don't have an independent opinion about this, but in this edit, Joshua Jonathan wrote, "Joshua J. Mark and his Encyclopedia of World History are perennial untrustworthy" and I'd like to invite them to elaborate on that here, if they are willing. Mathglot (talk) 21:36, 11 November 2022 (UTC)

There's not much ro elaborate, except that I've encountered the WEH a few times, and on all those occasions Mark's writings contained painfull errors. Such as writing that the Buddha was a Hindu prince, and calling Vedic religion "Hinduism."

From Hinduism:

• "Hinduism is the oldest religion in the world, originating in Central Asia and the Indus Valley". The Australian aboriginals have a religion which is arguably thousands of years older; and IVC-related religious beliefs may have survived in some form in Hinduism, but that does not mean that "Hinduism" originated in the IVC.
• "... the 3rd millennium BCE when a nomadic coalition of tribes who referred to themselves as Aryan came to the region from Central Asia. Some of these people, now referred to as Indo-Iranians, settled in the region of modern-day Iran (some of whom came to be known in the West as Persians) while others, now known as Indo-Aryans, made their home in the Indus Valley." - the Indo-Aryans arrived in the eary second millennium BCE, and they did not settle in the Indus Valley, but in the Punjab. Incredible stupidity...

Joshua Jonathan -Let's talk! 22:05, 11 November 2022 (UTC)

Note: Discussion moved here from Wikipedia talk:Reliable sources/Perennial sources, where I mistakenly started it. Mathglot (talk) 22:30, 11 November 2022 (UTC)

• the author states that "legend" describes Buddha as being a prince - which is true
• what the oldest religion in the world is cannot be determined objectively. Hinduism is considered by most sources to be the oldest
• Australian Aborigines do not have anything like a uniform culture, tradition or religion. None of the belief practices in any of the tribes could be described as religion in the traditional sense of the word. There is zero evidence that these cultures or beliefs are older than the age of European settlement. I cannot find any sources that describe Aborigines as having the oldest religion in the world
• The Punjab is in the Indus Valley

Jameel the Saluki (talk) 22:41, 11 November 2022 (UTC)

The Indo-Aryans moved from Northeastern Afghanistan, across what is now northern Pakistan, and into northewestern India. See Sanskrit. No one would call it settling in the Indus valley which extends down to the mouth of the Indus in the Arabian Sea. The, Rg Veda, mentions the Sapta Sindhu, or seven rivers, two of which are the

• Sarasvati which is commonly identified with the Ghaggar-Hakra, a perennial monsoon-fed river during the first half of the second millennium BCE, and now a seasonal river, its course parallel to the Indus, ending in the desert sands.

Some, geologists consider the Ghaggar-Hakra to have been the older bed of the Yamuna before an earthquake shifted it across the South Asian continental divide into the Ganges Basin, but, regardless, it was not in the Indus basin. It flowed into the Arabian sea parallel to the Indus.

• Finally the Ganges which is not in the Indus Valley

That Hinduism is the oldest extant religion in the world is not supported in the sources. The Hindu synthesis dates to 500 BCE max. The Zoroastrian texts are older; the Old Testament is older.

In 600CE there were rudimentary caste-based chieftaincies in the Terai region of upper India and Nepal. These were not monarchies, only oligarchies, and barely those. Siddhartha Gautama's father was the chieftain of one. Siddhartha belonged to a well-heeled family, but he was not a prince, nor was his father a king.

This encyclopedia's descriptions in the three examples do not appear to be thoroughly reliable. Fowler&fowler«Talk» 13:01, 12 November 2022 (UTC)

With the age of various religions what you are describing are arguments that would be made to support the age of one religion over another. I will repeat, there is no objective method to compare the age of religions. Also I will repeat, from what I can find, Hinduism is generally considered to be the oldest religion in the world. This doesn't mean that there is a consensus, or that it is undisputed.

With regards Buddha, again I'll repeat - the legends state Buddha as being a prince. That doesn't mean he was, in fact the evidence is that these particular legends are fictional. In the same way legends claim King Arthur had a round table. It's fiction, but that is what the legends claim.

Further the term "prince" is only a translation, and there isn't a better term to be used. Having said that I don't know how you can claim caste-based chieftaincies are not kingdoms, where the equivalent Europe before around CE700 would be considered kingdoms. Many kingdoms in Europe at the time were based on a class system, were only partially inherited, and leadership could be won through vote, trial by battle or puree politics. Jameel the Saluki (talk) 10:54, 13 November 2022 (UTC)

The prognostications of Hinduism's age on the web is the work of Hindu nationalist POV warriors who have created hundreds of sites proclaiming the first dibs. Most of them literally believe that the religion is anadi anant, without beginning and without end. There is no nod in India to evolution, and to Homo sapiens origins in Africa. Such is the level of literacy and the spread of modernity there.

There was rapid transformation of polities from 700 BCE to 300 BCE, from caste-based chieftaincies, which had barely shed their roots in Indo-Aryan nomadism, to South Asia's first loose-knit empire, the Mauryan Empire. In the fifth-century BCE, the middle Ganges Basin had been only rudimentarily deforested. The chieftaincies were a little more large villages, resolutely fenced in.

The Buddha is South Asia's first historical figure. Recorded South Asian history begins with the chronicles of his life. Not everything is legendary. See Talk:The_Buddha#F&f's_widely_used_scholarly_text-books_for_the_lead.

There are many alternatives to "prince." E.g. the Buddha was born to nobility in the Shakya clan; came from a high-born family in the Shakyas city-states of Nepal's lower terai region; ... Fowler&fowler«Talk» 12:16, 13 November 2022 (UTC)

I think that you are missing the point. You are still trying to establish the veracity of your well thought out opinions rather than providing evidence that the points raised in encyclopedia as reliable.

- the concept of Hinduism being the oldest religion well predates the 20thC. It is probably an outdated concept, but given that it is opinion only, and a prevalent one I don't see how it can be considered an example of unreliability. You are presenting facts to justify your opinion, but it's still just an opinion. The only possible argument to suggest the unreliability of the encyclopedia on this point is to gather the opinions of authorities on the subject and present that.

- Buddha is an historical figure (probably), but the quote in the encyclopedia wasn't about Buddha, it was about the legends of Buddha.

- with regards the use of the word prince, it's actually a relatively moot point because we are discussing what the legends say, not what the most accurate description of Buddha is. In any case your alternates are less precise. Nobility could be quite a distance from any leadership position (particularly the case in Arabic and German bloodlines). The question is what is an alternative word for someone who is the son of an authoritative chieftain of a largely non-elective nature, with a large likelihood of achieving leadership through inheritance. In modern English I can't find a single word that matches it appropriately, because the language now lacks these concepts. Jameel the Saluki (talk) 07:25, 15 November 2022 (UTC)

Please read the textbook used by millions of high school kids in India, written by some major Indian historians for the India's National Council for Educational Research and Training. See Themes in Indian History-1, Theme 4, accessible around the world. There is a Background section, pages 84 to 87 and a more focused section on the "Buddha pages 89 to 94, on the Buddhist legacy in art, architecture, and so forth for quite a few pages thereafter. This encyclopedia, sadly, does not rise to that level of sophistication. Fowler&fowler«Talk» 10:58, 15 November 2022 (UTC)

Proposal for a new policy - Undue weight given to academic sources

In adding to Wikipedia, mainstream media RS are often dismissed by other Wikipedians as not RS, with a repeated push for only academic sources for broad topics. Repeated dismissals of facts taken from mainstream media sources (excluding editorials) should be called out as against Wikipedia policy.

As an academic, our research papers rarely refer to outside of academic sources. Bringing that only academic sources are proper mindset to Wikipedia discourages new Wikipedians and promotes tyranny of the zealots.

Why should I, seeking to contribute RS facts to a topic, have to fight the "A plethora of mainstream academic sources don't say that, and your addition is excluded" mindset from those editors sitting on one or more pet topics? Sealioning is to be avoided, correct? 2600:1700:D591:5F10:218A:28F2:CE58:32E3 (talk) 02:32, 28 November 2022 (UTC)

Multiple PAGs, including WP:RS and WP:NPOV, emphasize that Wikipedia use scholarly sources more than non scholarly sources. See also WP:BESTSOURCES. This is partially because Wikipedia follows and does not lead. It’s also because news sources are less accurate given they are written mostly by non experts. It’s also due to RECENTISM issues, given that ongoing events often change news source accuracy over time, whereas scholarly publications are usually delayed. Peer review also is a major asset. Changing this would be a major shift in Wikipedia policy that would need extremely good justification. I’m failing to see how this is justified by the OP, except for what I read as essentially “consensus didn’t go my way in some disputes, so Wikipedia’s policies must be wrong.”

Anon, which specific situations are you referring to? And why would news sources be more accurate (not just closer to your POV)? — Shibbolethink ^{(♔ ♕)} 00:28, 29 November 2022 (UTC)

"Generally acceptable" USERG

A concern was brought up at WT:ALBUMS regarding a difference in language around WP:USERG between here and the project page. Over here it says USERG are "generally unacceptable", whereas over there we have it as "should never be used". A counterpoint was made in that discussion that "generally unacceptable" may be too soft and could lead to arguments about how any given source should be a specifically acceptable exception. I happen to agree with that point and think changing the phrasing here could be helpful in avoiding that. Thoughts? QuietHere (talk) 15:20, 30 September 2022 (UTC)

I was the other one thinking it sounded kind of soft. In what scenario do we actually cite USERG content? I know it's acceptable when a reliable source reports on USERG content (for example, the New York Times does a story on users "review bombing" music/film/games on Metacritic's user reviews. But in scenarios like that, you'd be citing NYT, not MC. Sergecross73 msg me 15:27, 30 September 2022 (UTC)

The wording in question at the discussion in WT:ALBUMS - user-generated content should never be used (emphasis added) - appears to be addressed already in the FAQ at the top of this talk page:

Are there sources that are "always reliable" or sources that are "always unreliable"?

No. The reliability of a source is entirely dependent on the context of the situation, and the statement it is being used to support. Some sources are generally better than others, but reliability is always contextual. (emphasis added)

Is there another proposed re-phrasing we should consider? --N8_wilson 🔔 15:43, 30 September 2022 (UTC)

The problem I see with Wikipedia:WikiProject_Albums/Sources#Unreliable_sources is that the way it summarizes WP:USERG fails to make it clear that Wikipedia:Reliable sources, which contains WP:USERG, says that if a claim on a site with mostly user-generated content can be verified as belonging to a particular human author (not just a screen name) then it can be treated as a self-published source. Self-published sources can be used if the restrictions are satisfied. The Albums project subpage appears to say user generated sites can never be used, even if the author can be verified and the author satisfies the criteria for using a self-published source, which is not true. Jc3s5h (talk) 16:28, 30 September 2022 (UTC)

Honest question - I know SPS sources can be used in some instances. But what is the instance where we allow USERG sources? I'm drawing a blank outside of the scenario I mentioned above. Sergecross73 msg me 16:38, 30 September 2022 (UTC)

The summary at WP:RSPTWITTER mentions a couple narrow cases for appropriate use. --N8_wilson 🔔 17:18, 30 September 2022 (UTC)

That's really more about SPS and PRIMARY than it is USERG. Sergecross73 msg me 21:04, 30 September 2022 (UTC)

It's not as if USERG and SPS are guidelines at odds with one another here. Both agree that such content is in general not acceptable and yet both also refrain from firmly excluding all such content on the basis of it's qualification as user-generated or self-published. The fact that Twitter is mentioned by name at WP:USERG and still permitted in narrow circumstances by WP:SPS (which specifically mentions "tweets") is indicative of how frequently these two types of content may apply to the same source. --N8_wilson 🔔 21:48, 30 September 2022 (UTC)

They're not at odds, but they're also fundamentally not the same. You can split hairs all you want, I'm still not understanding a scenario where we use a USERG violating source. A general allusion to citing Twitter isn't it. Sergecross73 msg me 22:49, 30 September 2022 (UTC)

Maybe I'm missing something but it looks like those two guidelines are fundamentally the same. From WP:USERG: generally unacceptable, and from WP:SPS: largely not acceptable. Neither one totally precludes the use of such content except in certain BLP cases.

One scenario where we use a USERG source is just what Jc3s5h described above: when a resource qualifies as both USERG and SPS and also meets the standard for use outlined in SPS. This RfC for example established that Fantano's Needle Drop does qualify as self-published despite being distributed on a user-generated content platform.

Perhaps there is some alternative wording that could work in the case of WP:ALBUMS but none has been proposed here or there. The problem with "never" is that it can get in the way of developing an encyclopedia by shutting down discussion where there are perfectly valid reasons to have one. IMO the bigger problem though is that WP:ALBUMS improperly attributes the "never use" guidance to WP:USERG. That is simply wrong. USERG does not say that. --N8_wilson 🔔 20:00, 1 October 2022 (UTC)

Yes, we've already established that USERG doesn't say never. No one is contesting that. No need to keep pointing that out. We're trying to get to to bottom of why it doesn't. To clarify for you, SPS is more like someone uploading content straight to their Wordpress blog or social media, where USERG is a more collective thing, like citing other wikis/wikias, using the Metacritic aggregate user score, etc. Sergecross73 msg me 18:07, 2 October 2022 (UTC)

If we have reached agreement regarding the incongruence of USERG and what WP:ALBUMS/Sources attributes to that guideline I would respectfully request that you undo this edit or allow me to. The discussion here after all, was started as a result of a previous discussion over that edit and I think formally resolving the first discussion would help narrow the focus here to why USERG says what it does. --N8_wilson 🔔 19:59, 2 October 2022 (UTC)

...But that's what we're here to discuss, whether or not the USERG should be worded like that. And that will likely dictate what we do with Wikiproject's wording. You've made your stance clear. Really looking for some more outside opinions here. Sergecross73 msg me 22:00, 2 October 2022 (UTC)

@Sergecross73, I think the answer on when user-generated sources are accepted by the community can be found in Wikipedia#References. We tend to accept USERGEN sources for WP:ABOUTSELF statements. There's no source more reliable for a statement like "Jimmy Wales posted this on wiki" than a diff of him posting it, after all. WhatamIdoing (talk) 00:53, 4 November 2022 (UTC)

List of most-liked YouTube videos and List of most-disliked YouTube videos are two prime examples of user-generated content that are considered acceptable. Strictly speaking, the "like" and "dislike" numbers are user-generated in the sense that anyone signed in with a YouTube account can change one of the two quantities by one simply by clicking "like" or "dislike." However, these are covered extensively by reliable sources, hence the unanimous 16/0 support for keep at Wikipedia:Articles_for_deletion/List_of_most-disliked_YouTube_videos. Seckends (talk) 07:20, 8 December 2022 (UTC)

Resolving conflicts between WP:BLPPRIMARY & WP:BLPEDIT/

Discussion on using primary sources in BLP:s, for the interested. Gråbergs Gråa Sång (talk) 13:04, 21 December 2022 (UTC)